The working class of Canada has a glorious tradition of struggling to build the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party. A chapter of the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International) was founded in London, Ontario, in the 1860’s during the important period when class conscious workers struggled to disseminate and apply the revolutionary ideas of Comrade Karl Marx. Under the impact of the Great October Bolshevik Revolution, class conscious.workers took up the struggle to disseminate the basic ideas of Comrade Lenin and they united to form the Communist Party of Canada in 1921. This created tremendous enthusiasm among the workers and the Party gained widespread sympathy and support throughout the whole country. During the first ten years of its existence, the political line of the Party was, in the main, correct. It was deeply aware of the need for revolutionary ideology and the necessity for the working class to rise up in social revolution, seize state power from the hands of the monopoly capitalist class and establish socialism under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
With the economic collapse of capitalism in 1929, and the rise of the revolutionary mass movement of the working class, the Party leadership capitulated to the bourgeoisie, refused to lead the actual struggles of the workers based on revolutionary politics. This resulted in the liquidation of the movement for active resistance and the consolidation of the reformist politics of “preventing suffering“ by “demanding” that the monopoly capitalist class alleviate the social conditions of the working class. These policies of class collaboration were further strengthened during World War II when the Party called for an anti-fascist United Front to be led by the bourgeoisie. In the immediate post-war era, the capitulationism of the leadership to the attacks of the state machine and its cold war propaganda was responsible for the consolidation of this propaganda throughout the country. By 1956, the Party was totally in the hands of the revisionists, some of whom were already on their way to becoming capitalists themselves.
During the early sixties, an anti-revisionist upsurge occurred all over the world, led by the Communist Party of China and the Albanian Party of Labour. In Canada, the anti- revisionists came forward to oppose the politics of class collaboration and they left the Party to form the first organised anti-revisionist centre, the Progressive Workers Movement (1964). Following “anti-revisionist theory” and revisionist methods of work, the PWM slowly degenerated into an out and out revisionist organisation and was liquidated by its leadership by 1970.
During the period of the 1960’s another organisation called the Internationalist also arose (founded in March 1963). This organisation took up the task of opposing modern revisionism and supported PWM for several years. The Internationalists, led by Comrade Hardial Bains, was the main organisation among the youth and student movement which took up the task of disseminating Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, opposing the bourgeois decadent educational system, organising Learn from the people campaigns in order to call upon the students to build the organs of working class propaganda, and to integrate with the worker’s movement. They were faithful to the historic lessons of the class struggle and camp forward to join the modern proletariat and participate in their struggles. The Internationalists carried this task through with revolutionary vigour, spread to every corner of the country and created the material conditions for the founding of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) in March 1970. The founding of the Party and the liquidation of PWM left the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) as the only Marxist-Leninist political centre in the country. CPC(M-L) was faced with the historical task of building the Party as the decisive instrument in developing the revolutionary mass movement to defeat U.S. imperialism, overthrow the monopoly capitalist class and usher in the new era of socialism under the dictatorship or proletariat.
The Internationalists were founded and built by those youth and students who, on the basis of their own experience in the revolutionary mass movement united around the basic task of 1. opposing revisionism, upholding Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and 2. building the Marxist-Leninist Party. Following this, the Internationalists developed in a step-wise manner from 1963-1973:
1. On March 13, 1963, the Internationalists were founded. The political task was the building of a discussion group on campus. This task was the decisive task and while the organisation participated in many other struggles, such as opposing the U.S. imperialist war of aggression in Viet Nam, in supporting workers’ struggles, etc., whether a person struggled to build the discussion group determined if he could be, in the final analysis, in the organisation.
The discussion group was of prime importance. Imperialism and revisionism had seen to it that all discussion of communist ideology and political line was suppressed and removed from the masses and there existed no organisation which was thoroughly revolutionary in form and content. The discussion group, based on the revolutionary mass democratic method of work in which dictatorship against pro-imperialist ideas was the starting point, became a forum through which progressive and democratic forces could present their views to the broad masses of the students and faculty and could smash the monopoly of bourgeois ideas, political line and theories right in front of the masses. This gave hundreds of students and faculty the opportunity to grasp the importance of ideological struggle, released a tremendous amount of revolutionary energy and assisted in developing the revolutionary mass movement against U.S. imperialism in Vancouver.
2. In 1964-67, the Internationalists struggled to build a disciplined attitude in their work and for these three years fought to have a disciplined group with a clear political direction as the basis for developing the youth and student movement. The more the work advanced on the question of building the disciplined group, the more the Internationalists participated in many, many other struggles, for instance: in reformist struggles, in opposing the U.S. aggression in Viet Nam, in supporting the strike struggles of the workers, and in opposing the decadent bourgeois educational system. From August 1967, the political line adopted was to strengthen discipline, disseminate revolutionary literature and begin the process of building the instruments of working class propaganda.
3. August 1967-March 1970. As of August 1967 to the reorganisation of the Internationalists in May, 1968, to the period of establishing the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), the political task was to establish the instruments of working class propaganda.
4. March 1970-March 1973. From the time of the founding of CPC(M-L) in March 1970, to the convening of the 22nd Congress of the Party, the political line was to advance the resistance movement and establish the centralised organs of the Party. Now the political line of the Party is to strengthen the centralised organs of the Party and lead the actual struggles of the masses.
Right from 1963 the Internationalists worked hard to build the unity of all the Marxist-Leninists in Canada. The Internationalists never announced that they were the only Marxist-Leninists around nor that they wanted to establish “hegemony”. They upheld the principle that Marxist-Leninists should unite into one Marxist-Leninist centre and the overall experience of ideological, political and organisational work should be examined in order to develop the work of building one centralised, national and united Communist Party. Thus, in 1964, the Internationalists supported PWM as an anti-revisionist centre and even concluded a written agreement on unity between the two organisations in 1969, This created great enthusiasm in the progressive circles across Canada but the revisionists in PWM unilaterally broke the agreement without discussion and made this unity impossible.
The Internationalists always upheld revolutionary principle and political line as the basis for unity, and they opposed the opportunists of every shade and colour. Since 1968, many groups came forward to support the Internationalists, their political line and method of work and they have either forged unity with the Internationalists, or stated that they recognise the Internationalists and its successor organisation, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) as the Marxist-Leninist centre in Canada. Simultaneously, the revisionist “Communist” Party of Canada has been heading for total collapse and revolutionary young people from their ranks have denounced their politics of class collaboration and betrayal and have joined the Party of the Canadian proletariat, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). Over the years, several veteran communists have joined and supported the CPC(M-L).
This situation has led to the rapid growth of the Party and to its consolidation as the revolutionary communist centre right in the heart of the mass movement in Canada.