“National Independence” is a slogan the Chinese revisionists have tried to deceive the Canadian proletariat into adopting. The Chinese revisionists first supported the revisionist program of the “Communist Party of Canada” and its call to abandon proletarian revolution and ally with the bourgeoisie in the struggle for “national independence.” In 1964 they called on the Canadian people to carry on “the anti-American patriotic struggle.” The proletariat was supposed to abandon socialist revolution to make common cause with Canadian imperialism.
This was not a break with revisionism. It was just its continuation for the bourgeois nationalist interests of the Chinese leadership instead of those of the Soviet leadership. The Chinese revisionists peddled the same revisionist line about Canada that was repudiated by the Communist International in 1929. This line reached its most disgusting dimensions with the theory of “three worlds,” where Canada as a so-called “second world” country was supposedly part of a world anti-imperialist front. It became “progressive” for Canadian imperialism to export capital, build its imperialist army, unite with other imperialists, etc. The Canadian imperialist bourgeoisie was supposedly part of the forces of the people and the proletariat was supposed to unite with it and promote it.
The purpose of this reactionary theory becomes crystal clear when we see the leading finance capitalists of Canada go to China to negotiate a deal to export millions in capital to China and to conclude plans for more than $10 billion in trade by 1985. The open agents of Chinese revisionism in Canada loyally follow the dictates of the Chinese revisionists and the Canadian imperialist bourgeoisie. When the head of the delegation to China tells us that Canada has a chance to take much of the China market away from US imperialism, the League tells us:
At the same time as it is vital for China to develop her foreign trade, for Canada too it is important to expand trade with socialist China to reduce our dependence on US imperialism. (The Forge, October 20. 1978.p. 12)
The League takes up the same line as the bourgeoisie: “The Canadian people must fight the superpowers’ threats to its independence.” (Ibid., p. 14) As the Chinese revisionists said at the UN, the “second world’ countries are having “to pay even greater attention to the defense of their national independence.” (Peking Review, no. 40, October 6, 1978, p. 14) And these revisionist traitors tell us that “the West European countries and some other second world countries have further built up their national defenses, harmonized their mutual relations and strengthened their economic, political and military alliance. This not only conforms to the interests of these countries in safeguarding their independence and security, but is also in the interests of the people of all countries.” (Ibid.)
It is not in the interests of the Canadian proletariat or the proletariat and the oppressed nations and peoples throughout the world for Canadian or any kind of imperialism to strengthen its butcher armies, increase its exploitation of the world’s peoples or to lessen interimperialist contradictions in order to allow more attacks on revolution. It is only in the interest of imperialists, like the Canadian and Chinese imperialists, to see this come about.
It is not surprising that the lackeys of Chinese revisionism, the League and Jurquet’s “Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of France,” have declared in a joint declaration that “the fight to defend national independence is an integral part of the struggle for proletarian revolution in the two countries (Canada and France).” (The Forge, October 20, 1978, p. 14)
This is, of course, the same line as was peddled in the program of the revisionist “CP” of Canada that the Chinese revisionists approved of. “The Communist Party stands for unity of the working class of both nations in the struggle against the common enemy, Canadian monopoly and US imperialism, both to assert Canadian independence and in struggle for a socialist Canada.” (“CPC” Programme, p. 21)
It must, however, be a source of joy to Canadian imperialism and Chinese revisionism that the supposedly “great” opponent of the theory of “three worlds,” the so-called “Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist),” led by Hardial Bains, has the same revisionist line. “Both socialism and independence are immediate issues in Canada, which is a monopoly capitalist country, which at the same time is dominated by US imperialism. The proletariat of Canada faces double exploitation by firmly raising the two banners of socialism and independence as the banners of proletarian revolution.” (PCDN, February 13, 1978,p. 1)
All the revisionists, of the Soviet, the Chinese, and the Bainsite stripe, try to make the proletariat serve the imperialist ambitions of the bourgeoisie by trying to deceive them into thinking that they can achieve proletarian revolution and socialism by helping the imperialist bourgeoisie attain “national independence.”
The Bolshevik Union is the only revolutionary group in Canada that is totally opposed to linking the Canadian proletariat to the Canadian bourgeoisie’s “national independence” bandwagon, that fights to expose and overthrow Canadian imperialism. The call for the “national independence” of Canada is a call made by Canadian imperialism and modern revisionism. Those who answer this call, like Bains, are lackeys of imperialism whether or not they claim to oppose Chinese revisionism and the theory of “three worlds.”
The Chinese revisionists claimed to oppose modern revisionism, but they only put it forward under a new mask. This is what Bains and his so-called “CPC(ML)” are doing. We are confident, however, that it will not take as long to expose Bains as it did to expose his Chinese revisionist masters.