First Published: Lines of Demarcation No 1., July-August 1976
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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As a case study in Economism, we have chosen to analyze in depth the trade union practice which Workers’ Unity represents as Marxist-Leninist work. Says Workers’ Unity in their article in CR 1:3, as a position on how Communists should function in trade unions:
Labour bureaucrats and the NDP can and must be exposed as serving the interests of the bourgeoisie and not the proletariat. Workers will be won to accept this, but not unless the Communists fight openly for the acceptance of their ideas in the course of the workers’ struggles. As Marx and Engels said in the Communist Manifesto, “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions . . . ” Unless Communists adopt open and principled methods of work, they cannot expect to win workers to more than “radical trade-unionism“. These attempts to make communism more “palatable” (by not mentioning it) will certainly not develop the “class consciousness and fighting capacity of the proletariat”, or build support for a new Communist Party. . . . There are other people who are elevating their political errors into an explicitly economist political line – and defending that line. They will go to great lengths to preserve their own newly-gained “trade-unionist status”, including attacking and attempting to isolate those communists who are beginning to unite and organize on the basis of principled politics. They have come to be motivated more by self-seeking careerism and opportunism than by any revolutionary desire to serve the working class. Their “communism” is confined to a back room, while their opportunism is openly paraded. This trend of so-called communists, masquerading as social-democrats, must be vigourously opposed.
This article will be an examination of how “principledly” Workers’ Unity lives up to its theories about Marxist-Leninist work in trade unions. We have a broader purpose, however, than the simple exposure of one concrete example of open opportunism and hypocrisy. This concrete example is not a blunder on the part of one small collective, but the reality of the political line which they have put forward, a political line which is carried by many others in Canada (including CCL(ML)), that line being that Marxist-Leninists should, at this stage, seek office in unions and specifically attempt to seek leadership in the trade union struggle in the absence of the necessary conditions for extensive leadership of mass struggles: a communist programme and a Communist Party.[1] This reality is proved by the fact that CCL(ML) has featured Workers’ Unity’s trade union practice as a prize example of Communist work in unions (The Forge, February 26, 1976, p. 4).
Workers’ Unity worked for a long time in a workers’ organization called “Right to Strike”. This group was an “intermediate” workers’ organization similar in function to the C.S.L.O., which has been well criticized by In Struggle! in Against Economism. Workers’ Unity has refused to discuss with us their activities in “Right to Strike” and we have never seen a self-criticism in this regard.
One member of Workers’ Unity, Judy Darcy [2]has been a president of her union local for several years, before which she was chief steward. In November of 1975, AFTER Workers’ Unity’s position was published in Canadian Revolution, the local went out on strike. Members of our group investigated this strike and Darcy’s role in it. They went to hear Darcy speak at several engagements and did not hear one word from her above the level of trade union politics. This included agitation on the picket line and, as well, a social event sponsored by the striking workers at which a number of advanced elements were present from the community and politics could easily have been raised. Nor did any of the agitational literature for the strike contain anything but bourgeois politics.
During this strike, members of our group attempted to sell the issue of Canadian Revolution (1:3) in which Workers’ Unity’s position on party-building was published. They were informed by union militants that the union had a ruling that no “outside” literature could be sold in the area of the picket line. The reason given was that the union felt this would “confuse” the workers. One of our members who attempted to sell this issue of CR was driven far away from the picket line and down the stairs so as to insure that s/he had no contact with the workers in this regard. (Could this be an example of “attacking and isolating those communists who are beginning to unite and organize on the basis of principled politics”?) At another picket line our member was given permission to sell the Journal, but with the proviso: “Don’t let any of the union leadership catch you”!
However, after the strike was safely behind, Workers’ Unity mended its ways. Darcy ran for re-election as president, this time on an “open and principled” basis. Her election platform is appended. Did she realize how opportunist, how dangerous her past practice had been? Did she realize how thoroughly infested with bourgeois ideology and anti-communism was her practice in the strike? To answer that question, let us look at her “self-criticism” which she advances to the workers, she advances to the workers.
In the past year, precisely out of fears of causing “disunity” in the local, and because of my official position as President, I have sometimes not argued for positions that I do believe in. I have been especially worried about deepening rifts with fellow union members who come from supposedly communist countries of Russian and Eastern Europe.
Her “SENTIMENTS” were in the right place; she was just a little shy! This is Workers’ Unity’s self-criticism to the workers for being a part of the main danger to the workers’ movement over the past several years. And what does Darcy intend to do about it?
However, in retrospect, it is clear that sharp differences have existed and continue to exist. Those differences will fundamentally affect the union activity of the coming year. We can not and must not avoid them; we must discuss them openly and then make decisions democratically according to the majority opinion.
Message here: I believe in FREE SPEECH; but don’t worry workers, especially those of you afraid of Communism! After we have all aired our differences of opinion, I will pledge to bow to your backwardness!
Next we see how well Darcy applies her own citations from Marx and Engels to the effect that “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” Unfortunately, there does not happen to be any mention of “forcible overthrow” in Darcy’s platform. (The word “overthrow” is used only once, in the context of far-away China and Albania.) Nor is the word “revolution” used. Nor is the word “proletariat”, nor the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” – which Lenin recognized as the sine qua non of Communist propaganda and agitation. Instead, we find that Darcy “believes” (as if in the spirit of religious blind faith) in “building a socialist society in Canada, ruled by the working class.” The Communist Party of Canada and the NDP could not have said it better. They, too, “believe” in “building a socialist society”, “ruled by the working class.”
Darcy’s discussion of the two superpowers is equally evasive. The word “superpowers” itself is avoided, as are the words “imperialism” and “social-imperialism”. Instead, we are told that the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries are ruled by “a new privileged bureaucrat-capitalist class”. Perhaps she doesn’t want to appear to dogmatic to the trotskyites who may be in her local! Socialism in China and Albania are dealt with only descriptively, and one would never know from the descriptions that these countries have achieved such miracles by being guided by the science of Marxism-Leninism and by a Marxist-Leninist political party. All we are told is that “the capitalists have been overthrown”.
Now, how does Darcy’s, role as union president fit into all of this? “I believe in socialism and am thoroughly opposed to the capitalist system. These are communist ideas and they necessarily affect my leadership role in the union.” (Never actually admitting to being a Communist herself; just to having some “communist ideas”. Don’t we all!) And, what are these “communist ideas?” To “believe in socialism” and to be “thoroughly opposed” to capitalism. Many in the CPC and the NDP would not flinch at such liberalism.
And, how do these “communist ideas” affect Darcy’s role in the local? One implication is given.
Take the question of wage controls and how to fight them as an example: the strategies would of course substantially differ between those who believe in and defend the capitalist system and those people, who, like myself, do not.
Fascinating. Now we learn that what primarily makes her activities, as a communist, different is that she will confront the wage control struggle differently than a non-communist would. There are two implications here. The first is that only communists can provide militant trade union leadership – the line peddled in the CR position. The second is the converse – that is, that the best thing that a communist can add to your union is a stronger holdout against wage controls. Both communicate Lenin’s message that the Economists conceived of “an organization of revolutionaries as being more or less identical with an organization of workers” (WHAT IS TO BE DONE, Peking, p. 137) and saw “the economic struggle against the employers and the government” as the vital activity of revolutionaries. Nothing would indicate that “the principal task in mass work at this stage is to win advanced workers to communism {CR 1:3, p. 50). All we are told is that the union should have “political discussions”. Perhaps Darcy seeks to “make communism more palatable by not mentioning it”.
But although Marxism-Leninism is not mentioned, “politics” is talked about quite a bit. Says Darcy, “In the final analysis, our most important gains in the strike were political gains, measured by what we learned and how prepared we are for future struggles.” We can assume that this strike was a good example of Workers’ Unity’s conception of “successful class struggle”. This is precisely what Lenin meant when he criticized the Economists for saying: “Political agitation must be the superstructure to the agitation carried on in favour of the economic struggle; it must arise on the basis of this struggle and follow in its wake.” (WHAT IS TO BE DONE, p. 54) Again, “politics” to backward workers such as Darcy is the wage controls, as she clarifies in the next paragraph. As Lenin says, “There are politics and politics.” (WHAT IS TO BE DONE, Peking, p. 52)
Lenin called this kind of thinking “lending the economic struggle itself a political character”: the “political character”, of course, being the character of bourgeois, or militant trade union, politics. The message communicated here is that it is WITHIN the arena of the trade union struggle that workers learn their politics. This contrasts with Lenin’s view that Communist politics are brought from without the economic struggle and that the politics that arise spontaneously within the context of the economic struggle are bourgeois politics.
Following is a long discussion of the inflation and crisis inherent in the capitalist system, in liberal language which would make William Kashtan proud. This leads into the pablum discussion of socialism in China and Albania and “bureaucrat-capitalism” in the Soviet Union. But, whereas wage controls are throughout defined as “politics”, it is left quite unclear where the more general discussion fits in, or what the workers are supposed to do with it. Because, after this discussion is completed, Darcy returns to the union issues in the following fashion.
While talking a lot of militant rhetoric, and claiming to fight in their members’ interests, most union leaders serve to prolong the existing system.
In what way? At length: they sell the workers out in union negotiations, and then we are given one brief mention: “they oppose political discussion.” Finally,
The three major political parties ... all claim that there is no basic conflict between the interests of the workers and capitalists – including the NDP – which claims to be a workers’ party.
And, how do these three major parties demonstrate that they do not recognize any such basic antagonism between the classes? Back to the wage controls!
Look at its stand on the wage controls for instance. The NDP gives token opposition in words, but when it comes right down to fighting it, Stephen Lewis says, “Well, the law is the law and we have to obey it.”
Darcy is saying that a political party acts in the fundamental interests of the workers, and recognizes the irreconcilable antagonism between classes, by its willingness to engage in militant trade unionism (i.e., bourgeois politics). What is said in a roundabout way in the CR article is said more shamelessly in Darcy’s platform. There is no concrete attempt to link the discussion of far-away socialism with the tasks of workers in Canada beyond this level. The message communicated here is that a militant stand on the wage controls – indeed, defying the law itself! – is a fundamental challenge to the system which will, in some unexplained way, give rise to socialism in Canada.
Now, what would a militant trade union platform like Darcy’s be without a little bit of anti-communism to give it some character? The next sentence follows:
There is presently no party in Canada that does represent the interests of the working class in this country, and that includes the myriad of so-called socialist and communist groups who claim to be our vanguard.
Message: the NDP does not represent our interests because it sells us out on wage controls and “left” sects do not represent our interests because they are “vanguardists”. There is no mention that Marxism-Leninism is a vanguard ideology; that is, there is no attempt to counterpose the formation of a genuine vanguard of the proletariat to false “vanguardism”. There is no mention of why the various “left” sects existing (even represented within her local to some extent) do not represent the interests of the workers, except the implication that they are not sufficiently saturated with militant trade union work. There is no mention of the counter-revolutionary impact of trotskyism, neo-trotskyism, revisionism, or neo-revisionism, and why these political lines are not in the interests of the working class. Just the bogey of “vanguardism”, which makes the workers suspicious of “all who bring them political knowledge and revolutionary experience from outside.” (Lenin, WHAT IS TO BE DONE, Peking, p. 151)
Now, what is Darcy doing about this situation, in which there is no party to represent the interests of the working class?
I firmly believe that such a party does need to be built in order to give leadership to a struggle for socialism. For that reason, I am now working with a small Toronto collective called Workers’ Unity...
Would that her “firm”ness of “belief” were accompanied by a “firmly” advanced political line, which here is about as “firm” as her opposition to capitalism is “thorough”. And, in the spirit of “these are communist ideas”, she tells the workers that she is “working with” Workers’ Unity (lest they should suspect she is a member of it!)
But the high point of Darcy’s platform is about to come.
We think that the workers need their own new party, one firmly based on the socialist theories of Marxism and Leninism, because no other party can give the needed leadership to the struggle for socialism.
So here we have it. “Marxism and Leninism.” We wouldn’t want workers to think they are the same thing, or that a belief in one implies a belief in the other one, or that “Leninism is Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution” (Stalin, FOUNDATIONS OF LENINISM)! Better to drive a wedge between the two, so as not to upset the “libertarian” Marxists who may be in her local![3] Or perhaps the correct scientific term “Marxism-Leninism” is too long for the poor workers in her local!
Darcy’s “ ’communism’ is confined to a back room while (her) opportunism is openly (and, we add, disgracefully) paraded.”
Now, we do remember that “Communists’ leadership must always combine the ’general with the particular’, the issue of general calls with thorough-going particular leadership”. (Workers’ Unity, p. 50) And so, having dipped her big toe into the general waters of “Marxism and Leninism”, Darcy hurries back to the “particular”: what this all means for her leadership in the union. Here are the “concrete implications for the union policies” which come from her political “views” (the word “line” is also carefully avoided, although it is worshipped in the CR article): union democracy, fighting the wage controls, and unionizing other workers; and, the only demand which smacks of politics, “an education program that opens up discussion about the social, economic and political problems we face as working people.” Group therapy, perhaps?
The impression given here is that, whereas militant trade unionism “promises palpable results”, the “education program” and “discussion” have a more idle and academic purpose. There is no concrete goal attached to these “education programs” – for example, the winning of advanced workers into the struggle to build the Marxist-Leninist political party. The message of Darcy’s platform is that it is her job to work to build this communist party which is supposed to be the party which will genuinely fight for the true, i.e. militant trade union, interests of the workers, and it is the workers’ job to keep her in office so she can keep on building this party. There is no mention that her goal is the overthrow of the Canadian state. There is no mention that there are differences within the Marxist-Leninist movement on how to build that party, on the principal contradiction (the what what? The printing press would have broken on vocabulary of that size), on the tasks of Communists, or on ideological struggle within the Marxist-Leninist movement. Moreover, there is no mention of what constitutes the main danger in the struggle to build this party, or how the workers can learn to recognize this danger or struggle to combat it. There is no mention of the oppressed nation of Quebec (much less Native Canada). Militant trade union demands such as the defeat of the wage controls are put forward as the essential political tasks of communists. The workers are assumed to be incapable of distinguishing between the various groups such as the CPC(M-L), the RMG, CPL, and the CPC and understanding their counter-revolutionary character, and so they are all simply characterized as “vanguardists”, which is counterposed to “Marxism and Leninism”, which of course is not “vanguardist”, because what it really battles for is an end to the wage controls!
Moreover, Darcy won her re-election on a “progressive” slate of militant trade unionism. This platform reads in part:
All of our ideas about the role of trade unions spring directly from our political orientation and our belief that unions must act politically in order to truly represent their members’ interests.... The question is not whether or not to be political but, rather, which politics we will follow: traditional “business union” politics or progressive militant politics.
Fascinating! Now we learn that the choice is not between bourgeois ideology and Marxism-Leninism, but between “business union” politics and “progressive militant” politics! And we learn that the true representation of workers’ interests is contained in these progressive militant politics! Not only that, but the platform goes on to say that “the present power structure” must be “radically altered” in order for the interests of the working people to be advanced, and that “progressive militant” politics are the path by which this alteration will take place. The concrete proposals put forward by this slate for the coming year are the same pablum as found in Darcy’s platform itself.
“Unless communists adopt open and principled methods of work, they cannot expect to win workers to more than ’radical trade unionism. . . . This trend of so-called communists, masquerading as social-democrats, must be vigorously opposed.” How we agree, Workers’ Unity! And that is why we have engaged in this exposure!
It must be disappointing to many that Canada’s “Marxist-Leninist” trade union president has been exposed to be the opportunist that she is. No doubt many will oppose our exposure of her work, claiming perhaps that some Marxism-Leninism (or, perhaps, Marxism and Leninism) is better than none at all. Nothing could be more wrong, or more dangerous. Right-opportunism is the main danger in our movement. Communists must treat it that way. The opportunist practice of collectives such as Workers’ Unity wins the ear of the masses and deceives them into thinking that they are struggling for their own fundamental interests by following that kind of leadership. Such misrepresentation of what Marxism-Leninism is can only confuse the working class, mislead advanced elements who are searching for Marxist-Leninist solutions to their oppression and divert them into the path of reformism and class collaboration. Workers who have already learned to reject the Communist Party of Canada, trotskyism and the CPC(M-L), and who are therefore most ripe for correct communist ideology, are especially susceptible to such confusion.
From this study of Workers’ Unity’s trade-union practice, it will perhaps become clearer why Communists at this stage should not be seeking to provide “actual leadership in mass struggles”. Until Communist ideology has a base in the working class, and Communists are elected into leadership positions for a truly Communist program, Marxist-Leninist leadership in such situations will inevitably descend into opportunism.
Until that time, the task of Communists is to bring the ideological struggle to advanced workers, in a strictly uncompromising fashion. This may mean sacrifices in immediate popularity, because so few workers at this stage will vote for a truly revolutionary programme.
But it is only to denigrate the intelligence of advanced workers to assume that they cannot grasp the ideology of Communism unless its success is proved to them before their very eyes by the degree to which university implantees are proving their dedication to the struggle for reforms. The success of the science of Marxism-Leninism has been proved, and is continuing to be proved, on a world-historic scale. It is the fusion of this knowledge, scientific socialism, with the working class movement which is the first task of Communists.
As to the task of Communists vis-a-vis false Marxist-Leninist leadership in the trade union struggle, leadership such as that of Workers’ Unity, there are only two choices: to bow to it (through praise or neglect), or to expose it. It is through exposures such as this one that the advanced workers will learn to recognize sham Marxist-Leninist leadership and, by that, grasp the ideology of their fundamental interests. For Workers’ Unity has only described themselves when they say: “Despite their progressive-sounding rhetoric, these people actually prolong the present system of bourgeois rule.” Lenin says:
Trade unionist politics of the working class are precisely bourgeois politics of the working class and the “vanguard’s” formulation of its tasks is the formula for trade-unionist politics. Let them even call themselves Social-Democrats to their heart’s content, I am not a child to get excited over a label. (WHAT IS TO BE DONE, Peking, p. 104)
* * *
After much consideration. I have decided to stand again for the office of President. The question for me has been a political one, involving the contradiction between, on the one hand, the supposed responsibility of the President to “represent” and “unify” the entire union, and my own political views, on the other.
Some union members argue that politics have no place in the union, and that it doesn’t matter what I, or anyone else in union leadership, stand for politically. They think that we can deal with strictly “union matters and leave aside the reality of the world outside. This is just not possible. Can there be any doubt about the role of politics in union life after the struggle we were just involved in? Are not the role of the university, the provincial education cutbacks, and the wage controls political questions that affect us all? Our differences about how to wage our fight at U. of T. are part and parcel of our views about the society we live in and what’s right and wrong with it. This reality can not be ignored.*
In the past three years, together with many other.... workers, I have fought hard as part of this union, and have also been active in many broader workers’ struggles. My political views are not incidental in all of this; they have everything to do with how and why I fight. I fight for certain things precisely because I believe in socialism and am thoroughly opposed to the capitalist system. These are communist ideas and they necessarily affect my leadership role in the union. Take the question of wage controls and how to fight them as an example: the strategies would of course substantially differ between those who believe in and defend the capitalist system and those people, who like myself, do not.
There are other union members who agree that the politics of union leadership affect the union as a whole. But some have said that politics should not be explicitly discussed because it will “scare off a lot of people”. They say, “act your politics, but don’t talk about them.” I think it is necessary to do both. In the past year, precisely out of fears of causing “disunity” in the local, and because of my official position as president, I have sometimes not argued for positions that I do believe in. I have been especially worried about deepening rifts with fellow union members who come from supposedly communist countries of Russia and Eastern Europe. However, in retrospect, it is clear that sharp differences have existed and continue to exist. Those differences will fundamentally affect the union activity of the coming year. We cannot and must not avoid them; we must discuss them openly and then make decisions democratically according to the majority opinion.
A union is, by its nature, made up of workers with widely differing backgrounds and views. It is clearly not a political party. There are activities that the entire union can and must engage in as a whole, and we should always strive to build the greatest possible unity within our ranks. I do not mean to downgrade in any way the essential role that the union must play in defending the economic interests of its members. What I do want to do is explain my political views, and show their connection to the policies that I advocate for. Vague “leftist” or “militant” labels are not very useful in describing political views. In our union itself, there are a few dozen people who fall under those labels, yet who advocate radically differing policies and views.
I think it is absolutely essential that union elections be decided on the basis of policies and politics, not on personality and popularity. Because it is politics and policy that are decisive in determining the success or failure of any struggle – including our union struggles of the coming year. By circulating this statement, which explains my viewpoint on several major political questions, I hope to provide union members with a clearer basis on which to decide what policies and consequently what people they want to lead the union in the coming year.
I’ll start by looking at our recent strike, and several political questions that it raises.
When we started our last negotiations, all of us were quite aware that we were up against a tough university administration. As we went out on strike, it was becoming apparent that we were up against much more: an employer that would break our union if it could; provincial education cutbacks; and federal wage control legislation. And through the experience of the strike itself, many political realities of the society we live in came into very sharp focus – especially in analyzing the “Anti-Inflation” program and its effects. Finally, when we returned to work having lost on the major strike issues, it was precisely because a majority of the workers could see no point in continuing the fight: our enemies seemed too formidable, our timing was off, and victory seemed impossible. In the final analysis, our most important gains in the strike were political gains, measured by what we learned and how prepared we are for future struggles.
It is especially important that we understand what the wage controls are really all about, and why they came about. We library workers, and all Canadian workers, have only just had our first taste of Trudeau’s “anti-inflation” medicine. To fight it, we must understand it.
Bill C73 is touted as a cure for inflation and the present economic crisis. It is supposed to mean “belt-tightening” for all sectors of society. But has Bill C73 touched prices or profits at all so far? No, of course not. It was never intended to. Bill C73 is quite simply an attempt to make Canadian workers pay, through our wage cuts, for a crisis that we did not cause.
But, economic crisis won’t disappear just because workers’ wages are cut, because the causes of economic crisis lie not in our wages but in the capitalist system itself. Crises similar to the present one happened at periodic intervals since capitalism began, and they will continue as long as it exists. There is a basic contradiction, inherent to capitalism, that cannot be resolved despite miles of legislation. On the one hand, all the wealth of the society is produced through the work of the majority of the population – the working class – and yet the fruits of that labour are appropriated by a rich and powerful minority in the form of enormous profits.
The capitalist system, based on the private ownership of the means of producing things, is geared to make profits for the rich few; it is not organized to meet human and social needs. Capitalists go into business for the purpose of making profits – that’s what “free enterprise” is all about: the “freedom” to exploit and to be exploited! Supposedly the health of our whole economy rests on the realization of profits, and the resulting growth of industry. In fact, that’s the opposite of how it really works. It is the profit system itself that brings on economic crisis.
In the race for profits, the capitalists continually expand their production in order to throw the greatest possible amount of goods onto the market. But their production and expansion is anarchistic, that is, it is not organized according to a rational social plan based on the real needs of the majority of the population. In order to increase their profits, they force workers to speed up, they reduce the number of jobs thus increasing unemployment, they push up prices and force the population to pay more and more money for the same goods. This process inevitably leads to a point where many goods find no market, that is, no one can afford to buy them, and the whole system starts backing up. Warehouses are full of finished products that have no buyers; factories cut down production and lay-off more workers; small businesses go under while monopolies grow; and unemployment increases, thus cutting down even further on peoples’ ability to buy up what’s already been produced.
It is just such an economic crisis that presently exists in Canada. Unemployment is at its highest in 15 years. Prices have climbed at a rate of 10% to 15% a year for the last few years. Workers’ real wages are not keeping up with inflation. Will Trudeau’s law solve these problems? Certainly not. The experience of “price and income controls” in the U.S. workers, and higher tuition for students making it impossible for our children to attend the universities we work in. In health care, it means increased premiums and worsening care for patients, and lay-offs and speed-up for hospital staff. Unemployment benefits are becoming harder and harder to obtain, even though lay-offs, staff cuts, forced early retirements, and young people coming of work age, leaves more and more people unemployed.
But* does the state attack the profit margins of corporations, or cut its own high-priced bureaucrats, as part of this “austerity program”? Of course not. Tax concessions to private industry continue to flow, and multiply daily. The Government is not neutral in the least. It is nothing but an arm of the class in power in this country. There is no way that it is a government “mediating in the interests of all the people” as it claims to be. The interests of the workers and the capitalists are diametrically opposed; the state could not possibly serve the interests of both.
The university, as we have seen, is also not a neutral institution. It is not isolated from the politics and economics of capitalism. It recently shows that: wages were allowed to rise by 5.5% a year, prices at 10%, and profits were soaring at a rate of 30% a year. And unemployment is still at its highest in the U.S. in decades.
In this country, 113 corporations, through their complicated interconnections and associations, control the vast majority of the country’s wealth. The entire economy is subordinated to the interests of this tiny minority of monopoly capitalists. Their only concern is to be able to continue to exploit labour, and thus ensure their profits and their domination of Canadian society. In short, it is because of this class and their power, that economic crises continually occur.
When this sort of crisis develops, as it has recently in all capitalist countries, the state intervenes. But, despite all the hue and cry about “government attacks on the free enterprise system”, the state is intervening to protect the powerful capitalist class, and “get it back on its feet”, not to challenge its basic power. The “anti-inflation program” shows this clearly. The government has no intention of attacking prices and profits. Why, after four months has the Board not yet even printed up the forms on which to review business price increases, and yet union contracts are rolled back daily?
There’s also a lot of talk about cutting government spending these days. But let’s look at the form those cutbacks take. In education, as we well know, it means job cuts and speed-up and low wages for the works very closely with business and government in order to ensure that it meets the needs of ’society as a whole’. In fact, it serves to defend the existing system: by training students in the prevailing ideology of our society; by keeping out all but a select minority of the population’s children; by ordering itself along the same class lines as the society as a whole.
The newspapers are full these days of the problems and crises I have described. But, the media, itself owned by the colossal business empires, does not give us a true picture of why the problems exist, and what we can do to solve them. They speak of inflation and economic crises as “inescapable”, “universal”, or “world-wide” phenomena, beyond any hope of solution.
But, unemployment and inflation don’t exist in socialist countries like China or Albania. In such countries, where the capitalists have been overthrown, there is a planned economy, organized in the interests of the vast majority of the population. Prices are stable – and they even tend to go down! Rent takes up only 3 to 5% of wages, compared to the 25-35% that Canadians generally pay. Unemployment does not exist, nor do lay-offs. Exploitation of one class by another has been eliminated. Production develops not for profit but according to the needs of the people. It is the working class that controls the state and the economy, not a tiny handful of exploiters.
I have heard many people say – including workers – that socialism can work in a poor country like China, but it couldn’t possibly in Canada because Canadians are greedy and are used to having things good, and so on. That’s wrong on several accounts. First of all, we learn our values according to the environment we grow up in – we aren’t born with them. Secondly, the majority of Canadians are working people who have always had to work hard for a living – and still do. We live in a country where, despite the richness in natural resources and productive capacities, workers’ standard of living is declining and the gap between the rich and poor is steadily widening not narrowing. In a socialist country, whether it is rich or poor, production and technology would be used to benefit the majority of the people. The standard of living would steadily rise as the wealth of the country increased. Inequalities between people and wages would steadily narrow rather than widen.
It is for these reasons that I believe that it is only through building a socialist society in Canada, ruled by the working class, that we can solve the basic problems that we face.
Many people in our union, in response to these views, will say that they have lived in Russia or Eastern Europe and that they want no part of it. They will say that all young communists are naive and idealistic and don’t know what they’re talking about. But, in fact, many countries and parties that call themselves socialist and communist have nothing in common with those things. That doesn’t mean that we should reject the goals because of the mistakes, or, as the saying goes, “throw the baby out with the bath water”.
Let’s look at the Soviet Union – an example of what socialism is not. To-day the Russian economy and state, once socialist, are ruled by a new exploiting class. The separate enterprises and the entire economy are increasingly dominated by the profit motive. Managers now have the power to speed-up, lay off and fire workers. Managers’ salaries depend on the productivity of their particular enterprises. Unions must negotiate with management for contracts much as we do. Black markets flourish.
“Democracy” exists only for the new ruling class, not for the majority of the Russian working people. On a world scale, the U.S.S.R. competes with the U.S. to divide the world’s people under their respective spheres of influence. Its forms of aid to countries and movements around the world deliberately build dependency on the Soviet Union, not self-reliance. When members of its “family” step out of line as Czechoslovakia did in 1968, the Soviet rulers use their full political, economic and military strength to repress them.
None of the above are features of a socialist society. They describe a country ruled by a new privileged bureaucrat-capitalist class, where the working population is once again exploited and oppressed. Anyone who defends this kind of country as socialist or communist only serves to confuse people as to what socialism is really all about, and what communists actually stand for.
It is very important for working people in Canada to discuss these kinds of political questions seriously. They are directly connected with the problems we experience every day of our lives. But most of these questions find no place in the unions of to-day. “Politics” is commonly understood to mean voting every five years for one of a choice of three major political parties – for most unions, the N.D.P. In between elections, politics is left to the politicians, and the unions are left to look after their own contracts – and nothing else.
While talking a lot of militant rhetoric, and claiming to fight in their members’ interests, most union leaders only serve to prolong the existing system. They say they oppose wage controls – then they give in to them without a fight. They conduct negotiations in back rooms, far away from the control of the workers involved, claiming that it is their “smooth-talking” that will win a good contract. They oppose political discussion because it represents a threat to their positions of power. They regard their union members with contempt, as “apathetic workers who deserve what they get.” These union leaders gain a stake in preserving the system we live under, and completely forget the workers they are supposed to represent. (It is from “business-unionism” like this that the John Parkers and John Munros of the world arise!)
But politics can not be left for union back-rooms, or trusted to these political parties. None of the three major political parties, including the NDP, fundamentally challenges the basis of the society we live in. They all claim that there is no basic conflict between the interests of the workers and capitalists – including the NDP – which claims to be a workers’ party. Look at its stand on the wage controls for instance. The NDP gives token opposition in words, but when it comes right down to fighting it, Stephen Lewis says, “Well, the law is the law and we have to obey it.”
There is presently no party in Canada that does represent the interests of the working class in this country, and that includes the myriad of so-called socialist and communist groups who claim to be our vanguard. I firmly believe that such a party does need to be built in order to give leadership to a struggle for socialism. For that reason, I am now working with a small Toronto collective called Workers’ Unity, which is part of a young but developing communist movement in several cities in Canada that is taking steps to build such a party. We think that workers need their own new party, one firmly based on the socialist theories of Marxism and Leninism, because no other party can give the needed leadership to the struggle for socialism.
Now, what does all this mean about union politics and union activities for the coming year? First of all, I think these kinds of questions must be discussed increasingly among workers, because they are of vital importance to all of us. Also, as I said at the beginning, only a clearly stated political position gives union members the basis to decide who they want in union office and for what reason.
My political views clearly have concrete implications for the union policies that I support for the coming year:
– union democracy and participation must be further strengthened; we must oppose business unionism in all its forms.
– we must develop an education program that opens up discussion about the social, economic and political problems we face as working people.
– we must join together with other workers as a class to take political action on the questions that face us, like defeating the wage controls.
If elected again to the office of President of this Union, I will continue to work hard and fight hard to further the interests of the members of I have not in the past, nor will I in the future opportunistically claim that our entire union agrees with the political views that I have stated. But, neither will I hesitate to argue those views in the union, and attempt to convince my fellow workers of their correctness.
[1]We make a distinction here between Marxist-Leninists making the attempt to actually lead mass struggles a major facet of their strategy at this time on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the leadership that might fall on the shoulders of Marxist-Leninists specifically as a result of their activities in distributing Communist propaganda and doing Communist (not reformist) agitation that rally the workers to the Marxist-Leninists. This latter is the opposite of implantation.
[2]The Bolshevik Union avoids the use of personal names, but in this case it seems advisable since Darcy has assumed a public presence under that name and under the politics she advances, and she has also publicly associated herself with Workers’ Unity.
[3]This local, situated in a university as it is, has members who have been subject to a variety of left and “new left” politics. By “libertarian” we refer to the potpourri of anarcho-syndicalists, economists and academic “Marxologists” who are anti-Leninist but who consider themselves “Marxists”.