First Published: Canadian Revolution No. 3, October-November 1975
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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All (or almost all) Marxist-Leninists in Canada agree that the principal task during the present period is to bring about the conditions for the creation of an authentic communist party, a Marxist-Leninist type party, in our country. In Quebec, the only place where our group has worked, the Marxist-Leninist movement has just begun for the past few months, to put forward clearly the call for the creation of a Marxist-Leninist organization of struggle for the party.
This call is a great step forward. In reality, the organization we wish to create soon will be the principal instrument aiding the Marxist-Leninist movement in uniting and in accomplishing the indispensable tasks in the creation of a genuine communist party in our country.
What are these tasks and how must we work until we accomplish them? This is the central question at this time. The Marxist-Leninist movement in Quebec must develop correct methods of party-building. But how will we discover such methods? By studying the laws of development of communist parties as elaborated by the international Marxist-Leninist movement since the turn of the century, and by applying these laws to the concrete situation of our country. The glorious history of the Marxist-Leninist movement in Russia, in China, in Albania, in Korea, in Vietnam and in many other countries where the revolution marches forward to certain victory, shows clearly that our path is the only correct one.
Analyzing from a Marxist-Leninist perspective the history of the Communist Party in Russia, Stalin outlined three main phases or stages in the development of the party:
a) The period of the formation of the vanguard (the Party) of the proletariat, the period of uniting the cadres of the Party (during this period, the Party is weak; there is a programme, and general tactical principles, but as a party of mass action, it is weak);
Objective: to win the vanguard of the proletariat to communism
(in other words, to recruit cadres, create a Communist Party, elaborate a
programme and tactical principles).
Education is the principal form of
activity.
b) The period of mass revolutionary struggle under the direction of the communist party. In this period, the party is transformed from an organization doing mass agitation to an organization leading mass action, the preparatory period gives way to the period of revolutionary action.
Objective: To win to the vanguard cause the broad masses of workers and working people in general (to lead he masses in actual battle). The principal form of activity: practical mass action as the prelude to the decisive battles.
c) The period following the seizure of power, after the transformation of the communist party into a governing party.
(Stalin, The Strategy and Tactics of the Russian Communists, vol. 5, p. 74-77 Quoted by the Communist Union (M-L) of Belgium in The tasks of the First Stage, pp. 9, 10,22).
In Canada and Quebec, the Marxist-Leninist movement hasn’t yet passed through the first stage, that of formation of the vanguard (party) of the proletariat, the uniting of Party cadres, the elaboration of program and general tactical principles corresponding to the actual conditions in our country.
The central task of the Marxist-Leninist movement during this stage is therefore; a) to build a revolutionary vanguard composed of the advanced, class-conscious and militant elements of the proletariat and to unify these cadres into a fighting organization, and b) to elaborate the strategic program for the revolution in our country as well as the tactical principles that guide the practical, concrete, daily action of the cadres in the class struggle.
By what means, with what method and plan are we going to achieve such a goal? Here is the key question facing our movement at the present time, the question which reveals the major differences in our ranks. But before answering this question, let us deal with a last general aspect of the definition of the first stage of the formation and development of the communist party.
Stalin states clearly that during the first stage the party is not, strictly speaking, a “party of mass action”, or, if you wish, this is not its principal characteristic. In other words, the party, at this stage, does not practically, effectively, lead mass action in the class struggle, but it is making preparation to take this leadership. A preparatory period is one where cadres form, organize and arm themselves with a clear program and firm tactics. No genuine Marxist-Leninist proletarian leadership can exist if these conditions are not met. The attempts of those who improvise as revolutionary leaders of the proletariat without meeting these conditions invariably lead to opportunism. Their leadership, when they succeed in putting themselves at the head of certain mass organizations – if these organizations are not merely paper organizations created to give the impression that they lead something – their leadership can only be either bourgeois reformism or petit-bourgeois leftism often verging on terrorism. In every case, having failed to properly accomplish the tasks of the first period, the self-proclaimed vanguards can never give genuine proletarian revolutionary leadership.
“Marxism,” writes Mao Tsetung, “develps in the struggle against what is anti-Marxist”. In a country such as Canada, in which the working class and the labouring masses are dominated by all sorts of bourgeois streams of thought: on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the Marxist-Leninist movement is still strongly subject to opportunist deviations linked to its youth and to its petit-bourgeois class composition, the struggle to demarcate bourgeois positions takes on leading importance. One of the tasks of the present stage is therefore the struggle to draw lines of demarcation from bourgeois ideology in the midst of the working class movement: social democracy, nationalism and revisionism, and the struggle against opportunism within the Marxist-Leninist movement. This struggle must be led openly amongst the labouring masses and particularly among the workers. It is necessary to combat energetically the followers and the opportunists of all sorts who claim for themselves the demagogic privilege of selecting what the masses should or should not read or hear. This contempt for the masses, more than being a hateful and counterrevolutionary censorship, is the surest means of alienating the advanced elements of the proletariat from the Marxist-Leninist movement.
This demarcation – and that is a second task – cannot be carried out without assiduous work in the study of Marxist-Leninist theory and its application to the analysis of the history and of the current situation of our country. It is through this work, notably, that the strategic line of the revolution will be elaborated, that is to say, the program which will define the route to follow, the enemies to combat and the friends to rally to overthrow the capitalist order and begin the construction of socialism.
It is in leading this struggle, in spreading these analyses and in propagating these objectives in a widespread and systematic way that we will be able to recruit revolutionary cadre who will found the party. Moreover, it is in arming these cadres with a clear strategic line and firm tactics that they will be able to rally the advanced elements of the proletariat to communism. Which constitutes a third task of the period of preparation to organize the largest possible political propaganda and agitation to rally to communism an increasing number of consious and militant workers.
The fourth great task of the period of preparation, or the first stage, is the regroupment of cadres in a Communist Party of the Marxist-Leninist type. To carry out this fourth task well, the Marxist-Leninist movement must work out the forms of organization responding to the principles of organization of the party and, within these forms, form cadres of the Party “as a basis of the future party” on the scale of the whole country. It is to reply to the demands of this preparatory stage to the formation of a Communist Party that the Marxist-Leninist movement in Quebec must unite in a Marxist-Leninist organization of struggle for the party.
Throughout the whole first stage, “the principal form of activity” of communists is “education” (Stalin). This is why propaganda, a general form of education in mass work is the principal form of mass work of communists in the course of the period of preparation. “As long as (and to the extent that) rallying the advanced elements of the proletariat to communism is the issue, propaganda is in the foreground.” (Lenin)
A period of the elaboration of revolutionary theory, a period of formation of socialist consciousness and the penetration of this consciousness into the masses, such is the general characteristic of the first stage of the formation and of the development of the Communist Party. To desire to skip this stage to try to lead the economic struggles of the working class, under the pretext that those are the only current mass struggles of the proletariat, is a voluntarist and dangerous attitude which can only result in weakening the Marxist-Leninist movement and its penetration into the masses.
At all stages of its development, the Marxist-Leninist movement must work to link itself with the masses, that is to say, work amidst the masses to make communist ideas prevail among them. But the nature and the forms of this work are not the same at all the stages of its development. The work amidst the masses will not be realized in the same way nor in the same forms according to whether the party has yet been created or not. In other words, the work of communists amidst the masses, that is to say in unions, popular associations, amidst women of the people, students, the unemployed, welfare recipients, etc. must correspond to the central task of the epoch in which we are living.
We have seen just now that the practical objective of Marxist-Leninists in the course of the period which precedes the creation of the party is to rally the vanguard of the proletariat to communism.
As a result, propaganda and political agitation must be oriented toward the realization of this objective. Their content must correspond to the most advanced level of consciousness and not lower itself to the level of the more backward elements. For in a preliminary period, in the course of the first stage, communists cannot direct effectively large working masses in the revolutionary struggle.
The propaganda of communists should be to the vanguard of the masses, it should correspond to the needs and the aspirations of the most conscious and militant elements. Otherwise, it cannot serve as a guide for action. And if this propaganda is correct and scientific, it will serve the conscious workers, it will reply to their needs to understand the reality of the capitalist regime; in their hands it will be transformed into a material force.
It is well evident that on this question of the content of our propaganda, most of the Marxist-Leninist groups, including EN LUTTE!, have committed the error of lowering the content of propaganda to the level of the less advanced and the less conscious elements. And this to a point such that, sometimes, this propaganda was communist only in vague references to the bourgeoisie, the bosses and their State.
We must all make a serious effort of rectification if we want to apply ourselves to the task of the hour and rally the vanguard workers to communism. For that, it is necessary to begin by replying (in quantity and quality) to the questions which vanguard workers are posing and these questions, whatever demagogues disguised as Marxist-Leninists may say, overflow considerably the restricted frame of “the shop” to touch on all the political, economic and ideological national and international problems which stir all the classes of the society. Our propaganda must deal with these questions, as Lenin indicates:
We wish particularly to emphasize our opposition to the view that a workers’ newspaper should devote its pages exclusively to matters that immediately and directly concern the spontaneous working-class movement, and leave everything pertaining to the theory of socialism, science, politics, questions of Party organization, etc., to a periodical for the intelligentsia. On the contrary, it is necessary to combine all the concrete facts and manifestations of the working-class movement with the indicated questions; the light of theory must be east upon every separate fact; propaganda on questions of politics and Party organization must be carried on among the broad masses of the working class; and these questions must be dealt with in the work of agitation. (Lenin, vol. 4, p. 326, Draft Declaration of Iskra and Zarya)
Certain people have said, and certain people always say, that to rally the workers to communism, it is first necessary to make demonstrations of the correctness of communist ideas in the economic struggle. According to the holders of this pseudo-revolutionary theory, communist propaganda, political propaganda of communists is understood, should follow propaganda in the economic sphere. In other words; it would be necessary to be a good trade unionist before becoming a good communist.
The comrades who put such “theories” forward considerably deform Marxism-Leninism.
Applying mechanically, that is to say in an opportunist fashion, the Marxist-Leninist idea, according to which the masses must make “their own experience”, certain comrades reproduce the errors of those whom Lenin so criticized and denounced in his book What Is To Be Done? The opportunists of then said, as well, “the immediate political demands become accessible to the masses after one or, at the worst, after several strikes”,“ as soon as the government brings in the police and the army” (cited in What Is To Be Done?, Lenin, vol. 5, p. xxx). In other words, only the bludgeon politicizes the workers. . . . Lenin then qualified this point of view as the “opportunist theory of stages”. And he added: “there is no need to consider the economic struggle the most widely applicable means to involve the masses in the active political struggle” (same work, p. xxx).
The rectification of which we have spoken presently in reference to the content of propaganda is just as necessary among certain comrades who, not having ever undertaken serious and systematic propaganda in the workers movement, are today permitting themselves to caricaturize and deform the propaganda of Marxist-Leninists to the point of reducing it to a banal and simplistic activity of “distribution of material of propaganda to factory doors”. To better circulate their erroneous ideas, these comrades; new apologists for the opportunist theory of stages, willingly confuse the tasks of the stage of preparation with those of the period of mass action directed by the Communist Party. In doing so, these comrades greatly restrain the actions of communists in bringing it back to an activity of “self-education” of petit-bourgeois Marxist-Leninists in the factories. This narrow conception of the “proletarianization” of Marxist-Leninist intellectuals, that these comrades name “implantation” has never had and never will have the function of a general tactical line of the whole Marxist-Leninist movement. This can only be at the most and in the best of cases a limited activity; it can prove to be useful in certain cases, but it cannot be raised to a tactical line, as some want to make us believe at this time.
Like many others before them, these comrades have not understood the nature of propaganda and agitational political work of communists* especially in the course of the period of preparation, when the party does not yet exist.
It is important to repeat here what Lenin explained clearly, that the content of propaganda is not different than that of agitation. In other words, there is no qualitative difference between agitation and propaganda; there is only a difference in method.
Not to understand this leads certain comrades to say: since propaganda is too ’elevated’ for the workers, let us go into the economic sphere to do concrete work, simple agitation accessible to large masses.
Besides expressing certain contempt for the masses, this position throws overboard the fundamental lessons of Marxism-Leninism on the question of the building of the Communist Party. It says that there is a qualitative difference between propaganda and agitation, that, in other terms, propaganda is more “political” and more elevated whereas agitation is above all economic and more accessible etc. That is a serious deviation, for all agitation is political; the question is to know if it is political from the point of view of the revolutionary proletariat, that is to say of Marxism-Leninism or of that of the bourgeoisie, that is to say of opportunism and reformism.
This position says besides that, only economic agitation, or agitation in the economic sphere, is accessible to the working masses. Let us cite in response to that this sentence from Lenin: “To this objection, which we hear so frequently. . . our answer is that, firstly, Social-Democracy has everywhere and always been, and cannot but be the representative of the class-conscious, and not of the non-class-conscious, workers and that there cannot be anything more dangerous and more criminal than the demagogic speculation on the underdevelopment of the workers.” (Lenin, A Propos of the Profession de Foi, vol 4, p. 291)
From the point of view of organization, Stalin distinguishes four (4) phases of development of the Party in Russia in the course of the period of preparation:
a) Constitution of the principal nucleus, above all of the geroup of ’Iskra’... Struggle against economism.
b) Formation of the cadres of the Party, as a foundation of the future workers party on the scale of the whole of Russia (1895-1903)
c) Deployment of the cadres in a workers party and reinforcement of the latter by the afflux of new militants, mobilized in the course of the proletarian movement (1903-1904)
d) (struggle for the ideological and organizational consolidation of the Party against those who preach the relaxation of proletarian criteria in the organization and the discipline of the proletarian Party). (Stalin, op. cit., p. 66, U.C. (M.-L.)B., p. 24 – French reference)
The Marxist-Leninist movement in Quebec is now in phases “a” and “b”. The creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization will be the decisive step forward which will permit reinforcement, making the struggle against opportunism amidst the Marxist-Leninist movement more consequential. It will also permit the formation of cadres of the party in offering vanguard workers an organization where they find the theoretical and practical means of their communist formation.
From what has just been said on the organizational work of Marxist-Leninists at the present time, two leading ideas proceed:
1) that the work of organization must be oriented with a high priority toward the advanced workers; it cannot apply to the organization of large masses of workers;
2) that the regrouping of vanguard workers must have as an immediate goal the formation of working-class communist cadres and the creation of communist cells.
Like propaganda and agitational work, organizational work of Marxist-Leninists must, as well, contribute to the realization of the principal tasks of the stage of preparation, or the first stage. It absolutely must not sink into the secondary activities of vague rank and file committees of “workers committees” or “labour committees”. The activity of organization of Marxist-Leninists must have as its goal the creation of the bases of a communist pary. These bases cannot be other than cells rooted in industry, the only organizational bases proven in the Marxist - Leninist movement.
In number 38 of EN LUTTE we presented what we consider to be a Marxist-Leninist viewpoint on the general method and the stages of the formation and development of the communist Party. There we insisted on the definition of tasks to be performed during the period of preparation or first stage of building the Party as formulated by Stalin: “the period of formation of the vanguard (of the Party) of the proletariat, the period of grouping the cadre of the Party.” We also insisted on the fact that propaganda constitutes the principal aspect of the mass work of communists during this period and that this propaganda has for its goal, in Lenin’s words, to “rally the vanguard of the proletariat to communism”, to develop communist worker cadre “as the foundation of the future Party” (Stalin).
This crucial task of rallying the proletarian vanguard to communism will not happen of its own accord. For it to happen we must develop a plan which corresponds to the particular conditions of our country while remaining strictly faithful to the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism.
In this area, the problem of the organization of Marxist-Leninists, the principal question which is facing our movement at this time is as follows: what must be the next step to take in the march of the Marxist-Leninist movement toward the party? In other words, how to develop to a superior stage of unity and organization of genuine Marxist-Leninists such that the work of rallying the vanguard of the proletariat to communism takes place consistently and methodically?
EN LUTTE! has answered this question in its Supplement to issue no. 29 (Dec. 12, 1974) in the following manner: “in the present conditions, what will permit a genuine step forward for the revolutionary movement, is not the consolidation of the groups as they exist at this time. Rather it is common efforts directed towards the founding of a Marxist-Leninist organization of struggle for the Party” (page 18).
The creation of a Marxist-Leninist organization whose task is to win the conscious and militant workers to communism with the goal of creating a genuine communist Party, is therefore the key link which we must grasp at this time, on the organizational level, in order to correctly accomplish the tasks of the first stage of the building of the Communist Party.
For those Marxist-Leninists who are politically active at this time in limited local groups or in groups specializing in a particular form of intervention, it is becoming more and more obvious that the organizational state of the communists is holding back considerably the potential of communist propaganda, agitation and organization. Although the crisis of capitalism and the spontaneous conflicts between capital and labour are developing with a continually growing strength and regularity, thus creating more large-scale and favourable conditions for the penetration of Marxism-Leninism in the working class and other sectors of working people, the communists are stagnating or in other words trapped in backward forms of propaganda, agitation and organization.
This split between the objective conditions of the class struggle and the subjective conditions, that is to say the level of consciousness and organization of the Marxism-Leninists and the vanguard workers linked to them, can only lead to the regression of the Marxist-Leninist mvoement toward reformist, economist and social democratic forms or propaganda, agitation and organization.
This regression is not something abstract or hypothetical. Already we can identify the concrete signs which show how those who refuse to take the lead in the field of communist organization adopt forms of organization and put forward tactics which are “economist” and which, if they become widespread, threaten to lead us backward, to the period of Cap St. Jacques-Maisonneuve, a period where the tendencies of localism and economism were largely dominant in the infant Marxist-Leninist movement. In fact, to not realize that the period of economist waverings, of tailism and of unprincipled (opportunist) links with the workers which characterized the fledgling Marxist-Leninist movement in Quebec is outdated; to not understand that we must take the lead in the tasks of propaganda, agitation and organization which are genuinely communist, this shows a total incomprehension of the tasks of the Marxist-Leninist movement; this is the definite sign that this erroneous and backward attitude will result in all sorts of deviations which will greatly harm our cause.
Those who at this time advocate the fragmentation and autonomy of small groups are adopting in relation to organizational matters a position which is anti-Marxist-Leninist. They are condemning themselves to “stewing in their own juice” and to maintaining communist activity in an infantile state. No serious scientific activity can come from such groups and no tactics can be elaborated in their present state. They are doomed to turn around in circles, always repeating the same errors and contenting themselves with the limited activism which has no effect other than the self-satisfaction of amateurish militants.
How can we overcome this resistance to the positive development of the Marxist-Leninist movement? How can we force the backward elements to march forward? By struggling resolutely for the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization of struggle for the Party; by creating a centralized communist organization (M-L), applying democratic centralism in a consistant way, capable of progressively implementing the most strict division of labour, capable also of leading a methodical and merciless struggle against the opportunism manifested either in the workers movement or in the Marxist-Leninist movement itself. This in our opinion is the only way to break once and for all with the primitive period of tiny autonomous groups, to break with the “primitive democracy” of small isolated groups where “everyone concerns themselves with every issue and amuses themselves with referendums” (Lenin), where the urgent tasks of the period are neglected, if not in certain cases totally abandoned.
Do we want a confused regrouping of the small autonomous groups or do we really want a centralized organization? Do we want an anarchistic federation of “cells” or do we really want an organization of the Marxist-Leninist type? Do we want an anti-party organization, a “super-group”, or do we really want a revolutionary organization which will be the predecessor of the party?
If we don’t want to wait for ’the week of three Thursdays’ in order to create the Party, the organization which we are going to build must be, in its essential characteristics, that is to say in the areas of strategy, tactics and organization, a predecessor of the Party, in sum, an embryo of the Party. In this sense, this revolutionary organization must be an organization of combat, centralized, disciplined, composed of cadre completely devoted to the revolutionary cause, knowing how to apply democratic centralism, firm in its principles and capable of transforming itself and correcting its errors by criticism and self-criticism.
Do the conditions exist in the Marxist-Leninist movement in order to advance to this qualitatively higher state of organization? Many groups have for a certain time tried to develop themselves according to the Marxist-Leninist principles of organization. This is clear to anyone who sees a little of what is taking place in our movement. It is not up to us, in EN LUTTEI, nor to any particular group, to make a definitive value judgement on the quality of this transformation in each of the Marxist-Leninist groups. No group can take upon itself the right to make such a general evaluation. Certain pretentious elements have in the past indeed tried, from the pinnacle of their self-affirmed revolutionary authority, which only they and their mirror could see and appreciate, to categorize Marxist-Leninist groups and to divide them according to who could and could not apply democratic centralism etc. . . .
We for our part think that the division between those elements capable of making a step toward the organization and those who will not make such a step or will make it only after a certain time, after having learned from their own experience; we think that this evaluation must be submitted to the test of debate and of practice. Other than the determinant criteria of practice, the most certain method of concentrating the energy of the Marxist-Leninist movement toward the short term goal (the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization of struggle for the Party) is the ideological struggle and open polemics on the question of the central task at this time in the field of communist organization. On the other hand, we are convinced that the unification of Marxist-Leninists in one organization will not come about unless there develops in our movement a principal trend, a leading centre capable of rallying to itself the active forces of our movement.
The class struggle deepens. The crisis of capitalism keeps growing, making the conditions of the life of the working people always more difficult. The opportunist and reformist leadership which at the present time dominate the working class and the large working masses of people are exposed and discredited more and more. In all the capitalist and imperialist countries, the working masses, and particularly the proletariat, direct struggles and “illegal” actions against the capitalists.
At the same time, the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, resorts more and more frequently to “legal” and physical violence against the working class. On the other hand, looking for a political solution to its crisis, the bourgeoisie sees in social democracy and revisionism, workable solutions and real allies.
On the international level, the contradictions between the imperialist powers and particularly between the two superpowers, USSR-USA, create the conditions of a new world war.
This general situation of rising class struggle creates favorable conditions for the development of revolutionary consciousness among the people. But this situation is also characterized by a considerable backwardness of the M-L movement in our country. What is the situation in Quebec?
It is floundering in infantile forms of propaganda, of agitation and of organization. Divided into a large number of groups and “cells” it gropes along, incapable of offering to the advanced workers conditions of communist formation and organization. These conditions mean that it cannot correctly fulfill the tasks of the first stage of the building of the Communist Party. It does not lead a consistent struggle against opportunist deviations which are obvious in its ranks. The conditions also include stagnation and a considerable backwardness on the theoretical level, and consequently on that of political line (strategy and tactics). In the final analysis, this situation favours the neo-revisionist degeneration already present in many places.
In such conditions, any change, any modification, any attempt toward the adaptation of the Marxist-Leninist movement to conditions of the class struggle leads, instead of the consolidation of forces, to ever more numerous deviations. How to improve on this situation? By working for the unification of Marxist-Leninists by the creation of the Marxist-Leninist organization of struggle for the Party.
Many Marxist-Leninists have an idealist conception of the way in which our movement will realize a higher unity on the organizaitonal level and on the level of ideological and political line. They forget that the method to apply to correctly resolve the problems linked to the creation of a M-L organization, as in everything else, is that of dialectical and historical materialism, that is to say, the science of Marxist-Leninism.
For many Marxist-Leninists, in fact, the organizational unity of Marxist-Leninists will not be possible until the day when every collective or every small group will by itself undertake on its own basis the general tasks of the movement. This egalitarian and ultra-democratic conception of the method of unification and creation of the organization leads to the establishment of sectarian relations between the groups and leads, paradoxically, to sapping the very conditions of unity, and in the end, to putting the creation of the organization off until a cold day in hell.
Remember the plan of the famous Autonomous Political Organization of Workers (OPAT), so many times defined and as many times postponed by the opportunists of the Secteur Travail de l’ex-cap Saint Jacques Maisonneuve, ferocious defenders of the “autonomous cells” and of “progressive” groups. There is where opportunism, localism and autonomism of “cells” in the matter of organization in variably leads: to balloons which deflate at the whim of fractions of opportunist groups. Today, the Regroupement de Comites de Travailleurs (RCT), revisionist residue of the ex-Secteur Travail, continues to drag along the OPAT fetus thus proving that the opportunists, be they of the right or of the left, will never build a true communist organization, and that they have never, do not have and will not have the desire or the capacity to build a true Marxist-Leninist Party.
If every group could through its own efforts, forge party discipline, elaborate the program of the Party, found the tactics of the Party, consistently apply democratic centralism, lead communist agitation and propaganda and develop the structures of the organization, the organization would not be necessary. Pushed further, this conception leads to the negation of the Party itself; it is fundamentally anti-party.
Two conceptions, two opposite attitudes collide here: “the circle spirit” and “the Party spirit”. “The circle spirit” is an infantile and retrograde attitude belonging to small groups or isolated collectives which cling tenaciously to remaining isolated, surrounded with THEIR “masses” and with THEIR “workers”. For these M-Ls, every step forward in the M-L movement toward a higher unity is seen as a crisis. They feel threatened because they resist the evolution of the M-L movement toward the party, because they are afraid to lose their local “hegemony”, because they prefer the narrow structure of the friendly circle to the greater and more difficult demands of the larger organization and to open and often bitter struggle of political confrontation.
Every time the M-L movement must take a step forward and transform itself, there appear tendencies and deviations which try to halt the step forward. We are now at a time when an important struggle is developing for the creation of the M-L organization. It is therefore normal that at the moment of an important and decisive qualitative leap for the development of the class struggle, the two-line struggle sharpens amidst the M-L movement. “If you look at past history, you can see that every social transformation, however minor, has never failed to be followed by a stubborn struggle centred on this question: should this transformation be accepted or rejected?” (Peking Review, No.. 30, 1974, p. 8).
Presently in Quebec, the backward elements, localists and tailists reply to this question by saying that it is not necessary to create a centralized organization, but that it is necessary to elevate to a system the multiplication of what they call “revolutionary organizations” of the “pre-party type”, and which “today take the form of militant cells, of revolutionary groups”. That is what Mobilization recommends (V. 4, No. 6), in “The Organization of Women and the Building of the Communist Party of a New Type”, pp. 7-11. Here is a good example of a narrow analysis of the situation in the feeble and pale light of its own little “group” development.
The economists at the time of
It is not surprising that those who extol a small-group and autonomous conception of the development of the M-L movement are also, in most cases, those who advocate either the absence of polemics and open debate and who refuse to engage in ideological struggle, or the establishment of links of exchange and discussion which are characterized above all by the style of diplomatic negotiations more than that of a two-line struggle over frank and open polemics among Marxist-Leninists. On their part, this seems very “normal” since, rejecting the principals of dialectical materialism on this question, that is of uneven development of the struggle of opposites and the qualitative leap, these comrades think that a political line (strategy and tactics) and an ideological line (class position, M-L style, discipline, basis of M-L principles, etc.) are elaborated in the harmonious body of each group or “communist” cell, and then, once attaining full development, go out and compare itself with other “lines”, etc.
For En Lutte! the M-L organization of struggle for the Party will never see the day unless from the two-line struggle which is presently being carried out, and which absolutely must be intensified, an orientation and a leading centre emerges, in other words unless democratic centralism is applied as the M-L method to arrive at unity. In the course of this struggle, all groups must participate. Is this to say that we must wait until each group has produced its line before the correct line is rallied to? To reply in the affirmative to this question verges on seeing the creation of the organization as a kind of consultative commission where “memoirs” are handed out and where a choice is made to determine what is right and what is wrong in each of the texts . . . we hold that this is an idealist conception and we are opposed to it.
Neither the M-L organization of struggle for the party, nor the party will be built from the bottom. Those who put “united action” to the forefront, the common practice of M-L groups, as a method of unification, perpetuate the illusion that the organization or the Party can be the result of a kind of mixture of groups and political points of view. “Common practice”, when elevated to a universal principle for unity, is an anti-Leninist method. It is this position that Lenin was calling opportunist when he wrote: “The latter tends to develop from the base to the summit, and that is why it defends everywhere possible, and as far as possible, autonomism, “democratism” which (among those who carry it to excess) leads to anarchism. The other position, however, tends to come from the summit, recognizing the extension of rights and full powers of the central organism. In the period of confusion and small groups, this summit, which revolutionary social-democracy strives to make its point of departure on the organizational level was necessarily one of the small groups, the most influential by its activity and its revolutionary firmness (in this case, the organization of Iskra)”. (Lenin, Un Pas En Avant, Deux Pas en Arriere, Vol. 7, p. 415) The M-L organization will not be a synthesis of points of view or of groups. It will be the result of the rallying of M-Ls to the most just line which will emerge in the ideological struggle amidst the M-L movement. To build the organization from the top implies a merciless struggle against the autonomism of “cells” and against localism; that implies as well the annihilation of the point of view that it is not only necessary to consecrate the “autonomy” of the current “cells” but more than that to elevate that autonomism to a “system” of organization, as for example Mobilisation-Librairie Progressiste would want.
These tasks are four in number:
1. Demarcate Ourselves in Order That We May Unite That is to say, develop the polemic and the ideological struggle in the ranks of the M-L movement and in front of the conscious workers so that the creation of the organization can be a truly qualitative leap of the whole M-L movement on the level of ideological, political and organizaitonal unity. This task can also be defined in the following way: struggle for the development of the political line, for the correct applciation of the principles of Marxism-Leninist to the concrete conditions of our country; this struggle cannot go on without a vigorous and permanent criticism against opportunist deviations of the left and of the right which are present in our movement.
In practice, that comes down to saying that the creation of the organization should be politically justified, as the grouping of those who share a clearly formulated line which is publically known and which distinguishes itself from those of the other groups and organizations also calling for the unity of communists. Otherwise, we would have confusion: there are several M-L groups, and joining one or the other would finally become, in this situaiton, a purely subjective choice.
This demarcation is the only way to correctly lead the ideological struggle amidst the M-L movement and. among the advanced elements of the proletariat. It is in and through this struggle , as well, that the correct line will be consolidated in the M-L movement, a line which will inevitably rally the active forces of our movement.
2. Struggle for a Correct Application of Democratic Centralism The struggle for a correct application of the principles of Marxism-Leninism must include the struggle for the application of democratic centralism, the fundamental organizational principle of a revolutionary M-L organizaiton.
It would be an illusion to think of creating a revolutionary organization of the Marxist-Leninist type if from the beginning this organization did not possess a solid core of disciplined cadre, capable of applying the political line in all areas, capable of assuring the practical and ideological direction of the organization. Such cadres are communists who dare to lead and who know how to submit to leadership, who dare to criticize and who know how to receive criticism and transform themselves through criticism. It is necessary to form these cadres and given their development a particular importance at this stage with a view to the creation of the organization.
3. Develop the Structures of a M-L Organization
This means to put into place the structures permitting the development of the
militant base in the sense of a greater proletarianisation, having as an
objective the work-place cells, the concrete foundation of the future party.
These work-place cells, of course, can only be developed by the organization at
first, and more widely, by the party. But we must at this point insure that the
structures of the organizaton will already incorporate the essential conditions
to be developed in order to achieve the creation of communist work-place cells.
In practical terms, we can see this evolution in two steps:
a. in the short
term: to transform our organizational bases into true communist cells to which
communist workers circles must be attached;
b. to the extent that the work of
formation of communist workers progresses, create true communist work-place
cells as a fundamental basis of the organization and the future party.
The M-L organization of struggle for the party will be occupied above all with the first step. The wide development of communist work-place cells will be the task of the party.
4. Build a Newspaper of Communist Propaganda, Agitation and Organizaiton of the Marxist-Leninist Type
The experience accumulated for three years in the domain of propaganda, as well as attentive study of the history of the international communist movement, shows without a shadow of a doubt that the communist newspaper is an indispensable means to propagate Marxism-Leninism, to lead constant and wide-scale political agitation and to build ideological, political and organizational unity of communists.
To realize these four tasks successfully will lead to producing the necessary conditions to create the Marxist-Leninist organization to struggle for the party.
We must remember that the central task of the Marxist-Leninist organization of struggle for the party is to rally the advanced elements of the proletariat to communism and to develop them as communist cadres, the foundation of the future party. In other words, the tasks of this organization are those of the first stage of the building of the party.
This party will not be founded out of nothing. It is necessary to guarantee in the period of preparation that the basis, that the foundations of the party be put in place, in such a way that the whole structure can therefore be built upon that base.
What constitutes the basis of the party?
1. A solid contingent of proletarian revolutionaries, of professional revolutionaries, armed with Marxism-Leninism, capable of rallying the advanced workers, disciplined, applying democratic centralism and the mass line in its work among the working class and the working people in general. One of the objectives of the M-L organization is therefore to form this solid contingent of revolutionaries.”. . . Our very first and most pressing duty is to help to train working-class revolutionaries from amongst the intellectuals. . . . Attention, therefore, must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not at all our task to descend to the level of the “working masses”. (Lenin, What Is to Be Done, V. 5: 470)
2. The party must also possess a general program and the essential elements of the tactics for its own country. The M-L organization must bring together the materials necessary for the elaboration of this program and tactics.
Such are the two fundamental objectives of the M-L organization of struggle for the party.
This part will be followed by a third and final part, in the next issue of EN LUTTE!
This article is the fourth in a series dealing with the tasks of marxist-leninists at the stage of the building of the proletarian party or communist party (marxist-leninist), and it is the third part of a text concerning the creation of the marxist-leninist organization of struggle for the party.
Since we are convinced of the absolute necessity to openly pose and debate all of the theoretical, strategic, tactical and organizational questions which confront the marxist-leninist movement in our country, EN LUTTE: has undertaken to rectify the spontaneist and tailist error of leaving things to develop on their own accord, rather than firmly grasping the task of developing a plan and a method to accomplish the present tasks. Such in fact is the only way to build the basis of genuine and lasting unity of the Marxist-Leninist movement and, therefore, to establish the foundation of the Marxist-Leninist organization to struggle for the party.
This work will not cease with the last issue of Volume 2 of the newspaper. On the contrary, it will be pursued in a continuing fashion with the reappearance of the EN LUTTE! publication in August.
The creation of the marxist-leninist organization of struggle for the party will be the decisive step forward permitting systematic leadership in the tasks leading to the creation of a genuine communist party in our country. What are these tasks? They can be divided in to two main categories.
1) To develop the links of the marxist-leninist movement with the
proletariat. That is to say:
a) To win to communism the advanced workers, to
re-group them into communist circles and to create, from these circles of
communist education and formation, communist cells and then communist work-place
cells, the iron basis of the future party;
b) To develop in this way
working-class communist cadre and revolutionary proletarian leaders;
c) To
assure in this way the proletarianization of the organization – in other words,
to create a true proletarian vanguard contingent.
2)To develop the political line. That is to say:
a) To
assimilate and propagate marxist-leninist theory by struggling against
opportunist and anti-marxist-leninist trends in the worker’s movement:
social-democracy, national chauvinism, modern revisionism, reformism, and their
proponents in the marxist-leninist movement: neo-revisionism and the various
ieft’ and ’right’ opportunist deviations;
b) to deepen the scientific
analysis of Canadian society in order to elaborate a strategy for socialist
revolution in Canada; to develop in this way the elements of the program of the
future party;
c) to gather the information in order to develop a firm
tactical line, corresponding to the particular conditions of our country.
If one simply considers a general plan on paper, it would certainly be easy to rally a large number of marxist-leninists. However it is not on paper, but in practice that the differences manifest themselves, in other words in how these tasks are implemented. And these differences are often much more profound than a simple difference in method.
For example, certain comrades say: propaganda is a good thing, and so is agitation. But when they are confronted with communist propaganda in a certain factory, or among the workers of acertain region, these same comrades respond: “No, this shouldn’t be done. The workers are not ready, they are only at the stage of democratizing their union and as for us, we are organizing the struggle for the democratization of the union. ...”
We ask these comrades: What are you doing with these workers? What propaganda and what agitation are you doing if you refuse to make communist propaganda? Don’t you find that it is really demagogic “to speculate in such a demagogic way on the consciousness and maturity of the workers”? Is there another outlook, is there an intermediate or third world-view between the bourgeois (reformist, trade-unionist, economist) and the proletarian (marxist-leninist)?
It may be surprising to some that we are posing such elementary questions, if it wasn’t already evident to all that this demagogic and economist tendency has already wreaked havoc in many places, going as far as selecting for the workers what they can and cannot read and listen to, going as far as blocking Marxist-Leninist propagandists from reaching certain groups of workers. This practice of censuring the workers who, according to the tailists and demagogues, “are not ready for communist political propaganda” (this is from people who claim to be marxist-leninists, let us not forget this brings to mind the activities of the anti-communist union bosses, who are in the pay of the bourgeoisie.
On the pretence of responding to the ’needs of the masses’, these groups who boast of going ’to organize the masses’ and who define the task of marxist-leninists at the present stage as being to ’lead the mass struggles’, are really doing nothing more than propagating an economist and tailist conception of the work of agitation, propaganda, and organization for communists.
Far from rallying the vanguard workers to communism, they are estranging them with a demagogic attitude which consists in dragging themselves behind the lead of certain more ’radical’ spontaneous currents in the union movement. For this kind of ’radicalism’ is completely compatible with trade-unionism. It is not uncommon – it is inevitable, in the absence of a vanguard party of the proletariat – to see this form of radicalization, this ’virulente’ form to use the catch-word of Michel Chartrand, one of the main leaders of this tendency and of trade-unionism himself.
To mobilize all the energies of the marxist-leninist movement in order to consolidate and give substance to these trends, to limit the organizational work of marxist-leninists to the organization of the most radical forms of trade unionism is a tactic which can only lead to the spreading of ’anti-party’ ideas among the masses and to the belittling of marxist-leninist propaganda and agitation. This radical trade-unionism is also manifested by the struggle for the democratization of the unions, for militant unionism, etc. even if the forms of struggle temporarily do challenge genuinely anti-democratic and collaborationist aspects of unionism.
To determine what are the tasks of the marxist-leninist organization in struggling for the party, is, in one sense, to resolve the problem of the relation between strategy and tactics for the stage that we are presently at.
The vanguard party of the proletariat is the necessary means to realize the strategic objective: socialist revolution. To say this in words and to deny this in deeds is the typical attitude of an opportunist. It means the sacrifice of the future of the movement for easy successes and immediate gains. In other words, this attitude suits those who, rather than subordinating tactics to strategy, do the opposite, and in so doing abandon a fundamental principle of marxism-leninism.
The organization that we are working to create will not be a party. It will therefore not be able to take on the tasks of the party. In such conditions, as Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung have explained, we cannot consider organizing and directing the broad working masses to directly storm the bourgeois fortress. Only a vanguard party which has succeeded in the task of rallying the vanguard of the proletariat to communism, on the one hand, and which, on the other hand, has successfully completed the task of the second stage of the revolution, which is to rally the broad masses of proletarian and nonproletarian working people; only such a party is in the position to give a revolutionary direction to the spontaneous mass movmeent and to organize the vast revolutionary mass movement which will overthrow the bourgeoisie.
In the absence of such a party, to act as if we were at the stage of rallying the broad masses of proletarian and non-proletarian working people to the revolution can only have disastrous consequences for the tactics of the marxist-leninists.
Those who deduce from this that EN LUTTE! is suggesting to marxist-leninists to not participate in mass struggles are either blind or are really spreading vulgar slander. What is really in question here is not the fact of participation in mass struggles, but rather the political line which guides this participation, that is the form, the methods and the goals of the participation in particular battles and in work in mass struggles or mass organizations. What we are saying is that in the present conditions our agitation can not have a mass character in the sense that the broad masses give sustained support to the vanguard and, conversely, in the sense that the vanguard gives revolutionary direction to the mass struggles and organizaions. This is a question of reality which we should not forget for a single moment; the vanguard of the proletariat has not been formed into a party.
EN LUTTE! opposes and will continue to oppose those groups who, on the pretext of going ’to organize and lead the masses’, put forward a propaganda and agitation which ends up having nothing in common with marxism-leninism. By taking the easy way out, these groups sacrifice the future of the movement to petty gains and easy successes. Thus, because they succeed at times in grouping a few hundred people on the basis of economist slogans, they show a ridiculous complacency. They do not think about the fact that the ’bingos’ and the ’bean dinners’ of the social animators achieve the same results – and often superior results – as these slightly ’progressive’ slogans do.
The immediate goal of the marxist-leninist movement is the creation of the marxist-leninist organization to struggle for the Party. This goal can not be attained unless a higher political unity is forged in the marxist-leninist movement. It is therefore in concentrating our efforts in order to realize this unity that we will be fulfilling our revolutionary duty.
But marxist-leninists are not prophets. Although the immediate objective is the unification of the marxist-leninists in a single organization, it is not impossible that two or three organizations will appear. This development will be inevitable if the circle spirit is not combatted, if each group falls back onto itself or with others, if the struggle over line is not led in a consistent and open way and based on clear principles.
One thing is certain however: if several political organizations are created, only one among them will have the political line and the kind of practice to really lead the tasks of the first stage of building the Party.
Is this to say that the marxist-leninist movement will be reduced to a single organization and that all the others (if such is the situation?) will be excluded from the movement by decree? Once again, it is not a question of making prophecies. To deny that before the formation of the Party various groups and organizations can take part in the marxist-leninist movement, even if they convey errors of theory and of practice, indicates a sectarian conception. On the other hand, to not struggle firmly to draw a clear line of demarcation between the bourgeois and proletarian line within the marxist-leninist movement is a liberal and opportunist tendency which will maintain the movement in its primitive state.
But, it must be repeated, this struggle does not take place through issuing decrees. Within certain limits, only the test of practice will enable us to distinguish between who is correct and who is wrong in our movement. At a certain stage, when all of the important questions in the field of theory, of strategy, of tactics and of organization have been put forward, discussed and debated, the test of practice will become the only criteria of the correctness or incorrectness of the positions that confront us.
During the present period, the search for unity should be raised to and maintained at the level of principle. But never should this search for unity mask differences. On the contrary, the clear statement of positions, the demarcation between positions, the public airing of differences is a corollary principle to that of the search for unity between marxist-leninists.
Moreover, the organizational unification of marxist-leninists cannot end or make superfluous the struggle between two lines within the same organization. We are not idealists. The unity we are seeking is a principled unity on the fundamental questions in relation to strategy: the principal contradiction, tactics: general principals, the central task of the present period (e.g. rallying the vanguard of the proletariat to communism) and the leninist principles of organization.
We have not, before now, clearly posed this question. However it is a fundamental question which determines a number of the present tasks for Canadian marxist-leninists.
To respond to this question, it is necessary first of all to respond to the strategic line. EN LUTTE! has clearly expounded its point of view on the strategy of the Canadian revolution in its supplement: Creons l’organization marxiste-leniniste de lutte pour le parti. In summary, this position is as follows: The socialist revolution must be made across Canada, it involves all the Canadian proletariat, including the section in Quebec; our objective in the organizational field is therefore a single party for all of Canada.
Having stated this, how should we see the building of the marxist-leninist organization of struggle for the party? Will it be a provincial organization to begin with? Do we have to wait for the conditions to be ready across Canada? Must we wait for the creation of the provincial organization in Quebec before undertaking the struggle to unify marxist-leninists across Canada?
We are not pretending to clarify all of the questions linked to this problem in the context of a simple newspaper article. We are limiting ourselves at the moment to putting forward our general line on this matter and at the same time inviting all marxist-leninists to put forward their position on this important question.
The creation of a provincial marxist-leninist organization in Quebec is not in itself contradictory to the principle of a single party across Canada.
The question of principle here is that of a single party across Canada and not whether there are strong provincial organizations in each province before the establishment of an organization or of a Party across Canada. We are not posing the creation of a provincial organization in each province as an assumed principle for the organizational unification of Canadian marxist-leninists.
On the contrary, from a historical point of view and not abstract principle, taking account of the development of the marxist-leninist movement in Quebec, and the evolution of its internal conditions, we think that the situation is ripe for the union of Quebec marxist-leninists in a centralized organization. We are convinced that such an organization would have positive and encouraging effects on the rest of Canada. Of course, it would be necessary in this situaiton that this organization establish objectives and precise tasks in relation to all of Canada, the objective being the unification of Canadian marxist-leninists and the means for attaining this objective being the building of a Canadian marxist-leninist center. In this perspective, the creation of a centralized organization in Quebec can be seen as a lever which will aid the conditions creating the development of a Canadian organization.
On the question as to whether it is necessary to lead the struggle over line across all of Canada at this time, our opinion is, yes, to the extent that we can. Marxist-leninists groups exist in many large Canadian cities. Already the line-struggles and polemics are opening up amongst different tendencies. It would be a retreat from our tasks and our duties if we claimed the necessity (wrong in principle) to consolidate ourselves in Quebec first before undertaking the struggle for the unification of Canadian marxist-leninists.
In spite of the numerous errors committed by the marxist-leninist movement in Quebec, despite the gropings and the hesitations, it can be seen that significant progress has been made over these last few years. The honest marxist-leninists work relentlessly in the interests of the proletariat and the entire people.
In the present period where discussion is being amplified, where the debates are very lively and at times very strong, it is important to never lose sight of our objective, which is to unite marxist-leninists and to build a solid revolutionary organization in the higher interests of the proletariat and the socialist revolution.
For fear of petty quarrels, certain comrades do not dare to openly lead the struggle over line, do not dare to openly criticize and are insulted when they are criticized. This is an incorrect attitude which reveals a childish attitude and not a revolutionary outlook.
To build the organization, it is necessary that ideas be clarified, and to be precise in understanding how the objective will be realized. Now then, to clarify the ideas, you cannot contemplate in isolation; it is from their submission to debate and criticism for confrontation between correct and incorrect ideas that the correct line is developed.
En Lutte! has no goal other than this latter in the ideological struggle which is being conducted at this time among the marxist-leninist movement in Quebec and across Canada.