1. We live in a world where colonialism, national oppression, the domination of the great powers, rivalries, war and the threat of war characterize the relations between countries, peoples, and nations. Hunger, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, racial and sexual discrimination, and many forms of repression, including the most barbaric, such as torture and genocide, are the lot of the majority of the earth’s inhabitants.
2. The majority of men and women are living under the yoke of imperialism, the final stage of capitalism. Essentially, capitalism is the result of the exploitation of the labour power of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, sole owner of the means of production. The ever-increasing accumulation of capital in the hands of a continually reduced number of capitalists leads to the creation of monopolies, the economic basis of imperialism, as well as to the progressive proletarianization of the majority of social classes and strata dis-posessed in the process. These imperialist countries – including the USSR since its return to capitalism – that dominate the capitalist world can no longer develop their power except by increasing the exploitation of the proletariat and the peoples of the world. This exploitation is particularly brutal in the less economically developed countries where imperialism has gained the collaboration of the reactionary classes. Searching to dominate the world in order to guarantee new sources of profits, the imperialists come into contradiction with each other, and inevitably end up resorting to war where the peoples bear the burden.
3. The era of imperialism is also the era of the proletarian revolution. Even while it permits the bourgeoisie to grow rich and to establish monopolies, capitalism produces the conditions for its own overthrow. With the generalization of capitalist exploitation, the size, the cohesion, and the revolt of the proletariat – itself a product of capitalism and the main agent in the production of the goods necessary to society – increases and the struggle of the working class against the capitalist class develops. The glorious October Revolution, and later the Chinese and Albanian revolutions, have clearly shown that capitalism, undermined by its own contradictions, is condemned to be overthrown by the organized revolutionary proletariat – just as the other modes of production based on the exploitation of one class by another, such as slavery and feudalism, were overthrown in previous periods by the oppressed classes of the time.
4. In the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, the world is essentially divided into two camps with completely opposed interests: the camp of imperialism and reaction, on the one hand, and the camp of the revolution and progress on the other, where we find the proletariat – the thoroughly revolutionary class – the socialist countries, and the oppressed peoples and nations struggling for their liberation. In this context, four main contradictions govern the relations between the countries, the peoples and nations, and the classes in the world. These are the contradictions between:
a) the proletariat and the bourgeoisie;
b) the socialist countries and the capitalist and imperialist countries;
c) the oppressed peoples and nations and imperialism;
d) the different imperialist countries themselves.
5. During the 19th century the Canadian bourgeoisie took advantage of the struggles and popular uprisings of the masses against British colonial power and formed itself as the ruling class over the vast territory of Canada which had been the land of the native peoples up until the armed occupation of the first French and British colonialists in the 16th century. At first exploited for the profit of the merchants of the metropolis, Canada soon witnessed the development of a bourgeoisie whose interests lay mainly in the production of commodities within the country, as a source of accumulation of capital. This parasitic class did not shrink from using any means to achieve its hegemony in the country: the massacre of the native peoples and Metis, the massive importation of super-exploited immigrant manpower, the progressive dispossession of the small independent producers, such as the farmers, fishermen, and small craftsmen, the negation of the national rights of the francophones, and the progressive elimination of the economic control and political domination of the British metropolis. The process of the bourgeois democratic revolution was practically finished in Canada with the establishment of the parliamentary political system and the acquisition of political independence at the turn of the century when the hegemony of capital had been achieved over the entire Canadian territory with the Canadian State as the instrument of its dictatorship.
6. Since that time Canada has developed as an imperialist power where the outrageous wealth and scandalous waste of the minority exist side by side with the poverty, unemployment, misery, unhealthy working and living conditions, and starvation wages of the majority. A handful of big Canadian financiers, allied first to British imperialism and then later to US imperialism, dominate the economic and social life of the country and use the State to promote their class interests at home and to take part in inter-imperialist struggles for the re-division of the world. This is shown by their activities during the world wars and by their other military interventions used to block the emancipation of the peoples in different countries. Confronted with the necessity to develop its monopoly capital in the context of the fierce competition between the different imperialist vultures and in the face of the growing resistance of the peoples to imperialism, including Canadian imperialism, the Canadian bourgeoisie is led inevitably to seek greater productivity by speed-ups and by compulsory overtime, and to increase its attacks on the democratic rights of the working masses and on their organizations, especially on the unions, on the native peoples and the francophone minorities, on the Quebec nation, on women and on the immigrant workers. In order to deal more effectively with the obstacles it faces both at home and abroad, the Canadian bourgeoisie is continually perfecting its means of repression, especially its army, which remains its ultimate weapon in protecting its dictatorship over the people and defending its interests around the world.
7. The Canadian working class now has a rich experience behind it from its many battles fought against the bourgeoisie for more than a century: battles both on the economic and the political fronts, battles for the democratic rights of the working people, battles of women and other oppressed strata, battles in support of the proletariat and peoples and nations of other countries, it has thus proven that it is the leading force of the socialist revolution. In 1921 the vanguard of the proletariat, learning from the experience of its past struggles, and basing itself on the teachings of the October Revolution (in Russia in 1917), took up the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint, broke with, social-democratic revisionism, and founded the Communist Party of Canada. For more than two decades this party led the struggles of the working class and of the working masses. This party then fell under the leadership of elements of the petty-bourgeoisie and of the labour aristocracy won to the ideology of the bourgeoisie. This party slid into reformism in the 1940’s and finally, as did many formerly communist parties around the world, it joined with the traitors of the modern revisionist split of the late 1950’s. It was the upsurge of the movement of the working masses in the 1960’s and 70’s which led to the rebirth of a genuine Marxist-Leninist movement in Canada, a movement which once again holds high the torch of proletarian revolution.
8. The goal of the proletarian class struggle is to lead the world to communism. The historic mission of the working class is thus not only to replace the rule of one class with that of another, as has happened already in the feudal and bourgeois revolutions, but also to liberate all of humanity from the chains of exploitation and oppression by the abolition of classes themselves. In this way the divisions between the city and countryside, and between mental and manual labour will also be abolished, and a society without a State will be created, since the State is nothing other than the instrument of the dictatorship of one class over the others.
9. The emancipation of the workers will be accomplished by the workers themselves. They will achieve it through socialist revolution, which will suppress the private ownership of the means of production in order to establish socialist and collective property, and replace capitalist commodity production by the socialist organization of production based on the labour of all the members of society and designed to ensure the complete well-being and full development of each person.
10. To accomplish its historic mission, the proletariat must place itself at the head of the oppressed and exploited masses, seize State power, destroy the apparatus of the bourgeoisie’s dictatorship, and install its own dictatorship over the exploiters. This is the fundamental condition which will guarantee the construction of socialism up to the stage of communism and which will prevent any new exploiting class from establishing itself on the economic and ideological ruins of bourgeois society by bringing back the expropriation of the fruits of the labour of the majority by a minority – from returning to the capitalist road in a new form.
11. Once in power, the proletariat under the leadership of its party will use its control of the State and rely on the people in arms to destroy the ideological and material basis of the old bourgeois society and to build that of a socialist society. The contradictions with the enemies of the revolution will be resolved by force whereas contradictions among the people will be solved through persuasion. With this goal:
a) It will proceed with the expropriation of the domestic and foreign bourgeoisie, beginning with the large capitalist enterprises in the fields of resource extraction, agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, transport, banking, and capitalist real estate. It will install a socialist regime where there are two forms of ownership: socialist property which is the property of the working people under the control of the State, particularly in the case of the banks and the large industrial monopolies; and collective property, which is the property of those who work in the enterprise concerned, particularly in the countryside;
b) It will guarantee the transition from capitalist relations of exploitation to social relations without the exploitation of man by man and with collective co-operation in the production of necessary goods and services through the greatest possible participation of the masses in the leadership of all political, economic, social, educational and cultural activities and in the struggle against bourgeois ideology;
c) It will adopt a constitution and a system of law which will ensure the dictatorship over the bourgeoisie and democracy for the people, the elimination of inequalities between men and women and different sectors of the people, the complete equality of nations, of national minorities, and national languages, including the right to self-determination and secession for the Quebec nation and the right to certain forms of autonomy for the national minorities, according to the democratic choice of the people concerned.
12. The proletariat has the same fundamental interests everywhere in the world. The Canadian proletariat in power will support and actively aid the construction of socialism in other countries and the struggle of the proletariat and oppressed peoples and nations against imperialism. It will fiercely defend the independence of the country while abstaining from any military presence in foreign countries and remaining free of any sort of hegemonistic ambitions. While dealing with each and every country on the basis of equality, it will also maintain its duties of proletarian internationalism, because the goal of communism, the ultimate aim of the revolution, is only possible in a world where imperialist domination, capitalist exploitation and bourgeois ideology are completely eliminated.
13. In its struggle for proletarian revolution the Canadian working class principally confronts the Canadian bourgeoisie, the class controlling State power that must be conquered. The Canadian working class must also be prepared to confront the combined forces of world imperialism and reaction, especially the allies of the Canadian bourgeoisie, and also the big hegemonistic powers which are always the sworn enemies of socialism around the world. To lead this protracted struggle to victory, the proletariat will apply a central principle in all revolutionary strategy and tactics which consists of building and constantly reinforcing the camp of the revolution while continually weakening the reactionary camp on the ideological, organizational, political and military level. In this way, with the support of the revolutionary masses, it will be ready to move on to the final assault on bourgeois power as soon as conditions are ripe.
14. It is the task of the entire Canadian proletariat, of all nations and national minorities, of men and women, and of different sectors, to lead the struggle for socialist revolution. The working class is the main force in this struggle. It will seek support from its potential allies: the semi-proletariat, the lower strata of the petty-bourgeoisie, the small farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen, and the popular forces involved in the struggles against national oppression, the struggles of women and progressive youth, and the democratic struggles in general. At the same time it will work to neutralize the intermediate strata and resolutely fight against all the bourgeois agents infiltrated into the working class movement and against all forms of revisionism. It will link its struggle to the struggles of the international proletariat, to the defence of the socialist countries, to the support of the oppressed peoples and nations, especially in the situations involving the activities of Canadian imperialism. It will struggle against imperialist wars and work to transform them into revolutionary civil wars.
15. The victory of the proletarian revolution depends on the accomplishment of three main tasks:
a) Building the revolutionary party of the proletariat, the general staff of the revolution, its one supreme and sole leadership at all times and in every way, bringing together above all the best fighters of the working class, basing itself firmly on Marxism-Leninism, strictly applying democratic centralism, and basing its organizations in the factories and extending them to the urban neighborhoods and the rural regions;
b) Uniting the proletariat of the different nations and national minorities, uniting the different popular strata in the struggle against exploitation and oppression on the line defined by the party and winning the mass organizations to its leadership, especially the unions. The masses make the revolution, the party makes them conscious.
c) Arming the masses to face reactionary violence and to guarantee the victory of the revolution in any insurrectional situation.
16. In its struggle to capture political power, the proletariat must conduct a relentless battle using every possible method of struggle. It must lead struggles and put forward demands which are designed to weaken its enemies, to strengthen its fighting capacity, and to win the vast majority of the working masses of the city and the countryside to the leadership of its party. The party must link the immediate demands of the proletariat and of the masses to their essential demands that can only be fully satisfied through the socialist revolution. It is with this perspective that the party now fights for the following demands:
a) the complete freedom of expression, of association and of economic and political organization for the proletariat and the popular strata and the complete independence of these organizations, including the unions, from the bourgeois State;
b) the recognition in practice of the national rights of the Quebec nation, including the right to secession, and of the national rights of the Inuit, Amerindian, and francophone minorities; the abolition of all forms of discrimination against the minorities and the immigrants;
c) the complete equality of men and women, in law and in practice, at work and in other areas of political, social, and economic life;
d) the end to all limitations on the right to strike and all restrictions on the right to negotiate for all Canadian workers;
e) equal wages and salaries for all Canadian workers performing equal work, without discrimination as to age, sex, race, or nationality;
f) the indexation of salaries and wages and all other forms of revenue for the workers, including unemployment insurance, pensions, family allowances, and social welfare; the establishment of a guaranteed minimum wage for all, indexed to the cost of living; the complete protection of health at the workplace;
g) the withdrawal of Canada from all military alliances and the end to all Canadian interference abroad; the recognition of all the socialist countries and the end to all restrictions on trade and communications with these countries;
h) the right of political asylum for all those who are struggling for liberty, for democracy, and for socialism anywhere in the world.