Le Front de Libération du Québec
Source: FLQ: Un Projet Révolutionnaire, texts assembled by R. Comeau, D. Cooper, P. Vallières. VLB Éditeur, Montreal, 1990;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.
This article appeared in the FLQ organ, La Cognée, on January 15, 1965
In a thirty page manifesto published this fall, the Canadian Communist Party (CCP) violently attacks the “bourgeois government” of Jean Lesage, and calls for a grouping of the Quebecois left in order to work for the national and social emancipation of our people.
In the last few months the CCP seems to have “discovered” the existence of a Quebecois nation. In its monthly organ, “Combat,” it recently published an article on the political situation in our country, and it’s known that last spring they presented a report to the Parliamentary Committee on the constitutional problems of Quebec.
What does this sudden interest in Quebec mean, when we remember that the CCP has always avoided paying attention to our situation, has always ignored our problems, has never shed light on the colonizer-colonized relationship? It is significant that the CCP still refuses to create an autonomous Quebecois section, thus establishing in its midst the same relationship of dominators to dominated.
We consider this political opportunism and a demagogic tactic aiming to profit from the awakening of the Quebecois people. If some of their criticisms of federal structures and certain of their attacks on power turn out to be correct, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the CCP vigorously opposes independence for Quebec, and remains an electoral party that accepts playing the Anglo-Saxon game. It is only one step from this to the conclusion that, despite its bombastic phrases, the CCP doesn’t reflect the true interests of the Quebecois people.
During Algeria’s fight for independence the French Communist Party and the Algerian Communist Party opposed the FLN, denouncing the “narrow nationalism” of its leaders. It was only at the end of combat that the Communists rallied to that cause, once it became obvious that independence would take place.
Will we see the same phenomenon here? It’s possible.
But let us remember that the authentic patriots are those who have already fought for several years for our independence, making themselves the spokesmen for the population. As soon as they understood that the interests of the people resided in revolution and national liberation, they didn’t hesitate to take up arms to overthrow the structures of oppression and exploitation.
They are the representatives of the people, and not the workers of the last minute, who will attempt to pull the chestnuts from the fire.