The question of the tasks of communists at the present stage is a question of tactics. It is the question of how to act in the current situation, taking into account the level of development of communist forces, to help advance the application of the Marxist-Leninist line, strategy and program. This apparently very abstract question becomes very concrete and immediate if one takes the time to sum up and systematize what has been said in the preceding pages.
For instance, we have seen that in the name of the struggle for socialism, many erroneous ideas circulate in the Marxist-Leninist movement, including some which openly oppose Marxism-Leninism and others which are disguised as Marxist-Leninist. But regardless of the label used, these erroneous ideas are all opportunist ideas that lead the working class away from the revolutionary struggle. They are all forms of revisionism. For example, to subordinate or even abandon the question of the communist program is to deprive oneself of the main criterion for demarcating Marxism-Leninism from all the various forms of revisionism. To reduce the merger of Marxism-Leninism and the working-class movement to a question of “union programs” or the transformation of unions is to start down the road to economism. To see the question of tactics as merely a question of forms of agitation-propaganda or organization is to sabotage the rallying of workers to the communist viewpoint...
For finally, it is not primarily because communists prove to be combative in unions, nor because they give financial support to strikes, nor because Marxism-Leninism is seen as a self-evident and incontestable theory, that the working class and the labouring masses will adopt Marxism-Leninism and rally to, or at least support, its organization or its party. On the contrary, the working class will adopt the communist point of view if in the practice of class struggle the communists are able to offer correct leadership.
Beginning with this correct viewpoint, many supposed communists then go completely astray and inevitably fall into opportunism. In effect, they see the leadership that the working class must be given as a series of recipes for various particular problems, and they throw themselves headlong into the conquest of all sorts of “leadership”, which means the conquest of “leadership posts” in unions, community groups or workers’ newspapers. They think that they must be able to lead this or that struggle to win this or that strike, grievance or union position...
This is a bad misunderstanding of what communist leadership of the working class means. For communist leadership consists primarily in showing the proletariat what path it must take in each particular situation if it is to progress in its struggle against the bourgeoisie and increasingly transform the balance of force in favour of the proletariat and its struggle to take power. That is what tactics are: determining the road to be taken to reach the objective.
This, it should be clear, is an essentially political question which can only be correctly resolved through the analysis of the conjuncture in the light of the Marxist-Leninist line. And the resolution of this question is the key to the resolution of all the others. In effect, once the political orientation to be adopted at a given moment in the class struggle has been determined, it is this orientation that must be presented to the working class and defended in unions and community groups, among women, immigrants and students.
Why? Because the adoption of this orientation by the masses will mean a victory for them over the bourgeoisie.
Thus, rallying workers to communism is not a matter of handy tricks, manipulation or infiltrating. It is instead the concrete demonstration, on the basis of past results, of the correctness of the communist line. Thus, the communist program affirms the necessity of a communist party to lead the struggle for socialism.
Some deny this point of view: they talk of workers’ parties, or even of support for the NDP or the PQ. It is relatively easy to unmask these imposters within the working-class movement. But there are others who, while affirming the necessity of a communist party, adopt tactics consisting of various orientations all characterized by the fact that they ignore the question of the party and deal instead with “Canadianized”, democratized or “class struggle” unions, or with the united front against the superpowers. This is one way in which the tactic does not serve the revolution. It is a tactic that reveals an opportunist line in practice, regardless of the language in which it is presented.
Regarding another aspect, the communist program states that the principal enemy of the Canadian proletariat in the struggle for socialism is the Canadian bourgeoisie. But several supposed fighters for socialism, including some who claim to be communist, adopt a tactic which leads to fighting primarily against the big, and especially the US, monopolies, or against the two superpowers, or against US unions, or against various businesses, or against this or that government. This is another way in which the opportunist line develops within the working-class movement, regardless of what those who put it forward call themselves.
A third and final example. The communist program affirms that in the situation here in Canada the struggle for socialism does not involve any preliminary stages, such as national liberation in a colony, for instance. Rather, this struggle demands the overthrowing of bourgeois State power and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In spite of that, many so-called communists, and all the reformists, put forward a tactic focused primarily on the strengthening of unions, or on the struggle against the superpowers and the danger of war, on the pretext of defending national independence, a tactic of support for the Canadian bourgeoisie when it acts in such a way as to supposedly help strengthen the united front of the “second and third worlds”.
All this illustrates one thing: only a truly communist program can enable us to provide correct leadership in the class struggle of the proletariat. Only the consistent and unflinching application of this program can enable us to distinguish authentic Marxist-Leninists from all the opportunists. Only the consistent application of this program can enable us to prove the correctness of Marxism-Leninism.
In other words, there is finally little to choose between those who openly reject Marxism-Leninism and those who verbally adhere to it but do not apply it in practice. In the long run, these two categories of “partisans of socialism” will end up sharing nearly identical positions, if the supposed communists persist in not applying Marxism-Leninism in the practice of the class struggle.
Thus it is to verbally adhere to Marxism-Leninism but not to apply it in practice when one puts on a primary level the struggle for “class struggle” unions, the struggle for the “world united front against the superpowers”, the struggle to defend national independence. For this leads to putting in second place, or even abandoning, the struggle for the Party that consists presently in defending the communist program, in uniting Marxist-Leninists around this program and finally rallying the most advanced workers.
Marxism-Leninism has already won important victories in our country. It is by placing the struggle for the Party and especially for the program of the Party at the centre of their work that Canadian communists will serve the working class and will win even greater victories.