Reprinted from PCDN, Volume 6, Number 36, March 25, 1976
At the end of this article we are reproducing quotes from leaflets and newspapers distributed by various revisionist, trotskyist and “genuine Marxist-Leninist” sects. Our readers should note that the CLC, the revsisionist, trotskyist and “genuine Marxist-Leninist” sects all recognise that the government is attacking the Canadian workers. The CLC memorandum states:
“Your government has done what no other government of this country has been willing to do. It has legislated a programme which pits one group against another. It divides the Canadian community along class lines with the employers and government ranged against the workers and their organisations.”
After recognizing that the government is attacking the Canadian workers, the CLC and all other sects and groups present an appeal to the government: Stop Attacking the Workers, under various slogans of course, ranging from: Abolish Bill C-73 to For an NDP Government in Ottawa to Let’s Struggle Against Trudeau Law/Strengthen the Fight Back Movement by Preparing the General Strike including such colourful slogans as Fight Fire with Fire or Let’s Mobilise the Masses of the Canadian People Around the Working Class or You Can’t Stop a Freight Train by Standing on the Tracks etc. But all these panaceas amount to an absolute zero without any programme what-so-ever to organise revolutionary proletarian struggle except: Stop Beating or Else. In this or Else theme is the:
– CLC which threatens to withdraw from government bodies
– revisionists who threaten to seize control of the parliament
– trotskyists who threaten with 1) building the NDP 2) general strike in Quebec 3) solidarity in English Canada and, of course, the “genuine Marxist-Leninists”, the anarcho-fascists who threaten to
– strengthen the fight back movement by preparing the general strike.
In a nutshell, they will all create some disturbance, make noise, gesticulate and wait until the next time: in other words, paralyse and liquidate the revolutionary proletarian struggle. Revisionism, reformism and terrorism go side by side. In the sixties we saw, and the revolutionary masses had to learn very important lessons through much sacrifice, that continuous betrayals by the revisionists led to the rise of terrorism, that is , isolated acts of terror by isolated individuals. We vigorously opposed both revisionism and reformism as well as terrorism and called for building of the political party of the proletariat on the theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
Now, the continuous frustration which workers feel on account of the betrayal and treachery of the labour aristocrats and revisionists finds expression in empty sloganeering: General Strike, Down With Capitalism, etc. Opposing the betrayal and treachery by the labour aristocrats and the revisionists, CPC(M-L) has advanced the slogan: Make the Rich Pay! It is a slogan of resistance and revolution, the only revolutionary path!
When the U.S. imperialist dominated state is shifting the burden of the economic crisis of capitalism and imperialism, what should the workers do? Gesticulate, prostrate and beg, threaten and emit shrills as certain opportunists are so good at. No, the workers should do no such thing.
We say: Make the Rich Pay! That is, begin preparation for revolutionary proletarian struggle by actually launching an offensive against the rich. That is, when the state attacks the workers by increasing taxes or cutting social services or forcing workers to accept lower wages, the workers should refuse to pay taxes altogether, refuse to run social services for the bourgeoisie and devise way and means to extract every kind of benefit which can be derived through revolutionary struggle. Making the rich pay is not a matter of making a few individual rich pay. It is a matter of rebellion and revolution by the workers against the state of the rich.
The workers in Quebec and in other places are locked in a vicious defence battle with the state. This battle is being vigorously waged by public and para-public workers in Quebec. The workers are demanding better wages and working conditions. We call it a defensive battle because if it is successful, it will merely decrease to a very small extent the amount of exploitation but by no means will it force the rich to pay.
Revisionists are fond of giving calls: decrease profits and increase wages. We ask: Who are these revisionists calling upon? Those who want to procure maximum profits and give minimum wages? Further,what is “reasonable” profit and “reasonable” wages and who is going to adjudicate this? Finally, who is going to produce ”reasonable” profit? Is it going to fall from the skies or is it innate in the mind? When answers are given to these questions we find that the issue is not one of decreasing the volume or rate of profit because this tendency actually exists in capitalism and it is because of this tendency that the capitalist must shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers. Decreasing amount and rate of profit necessarily means increasing exploitation of the workers. Capitalists will never pay for their own crisis unless the workers force them to do so. The capitalists will always use their state to shift the burden of their crisis onto the backs of the workers.
The workers must make the rich pay through revolutionary struggle, through launching offensives not through parliament but by struggles and class war.
Workers on their own are capable only of trade union consciousness. And this current state of affairs shows that while the majority of workers in the public and para-public sector in Quebec are participating in one resistance struggle after another, the labour aristocrats have not opened any path forward for the struggle. They have bound the struggle hand and foot to narrow aims of the trade unions.
Workers believe that they are resisting and fighting. But resisting who and fighting for what? Resisting the shifting of the burden of economic crisis onto their backs! Fine but we have said earlier that even if this struggle has marginal success it will still not make the rich pay. As long as the resistance movement of the working class is confined to narrow aims of trade union politics, the workers will suffer one defeat after another. Even their resistance struggle will not amount to much.
Workers must take up the Politics of Make the Rich Pay! This slogan has been raised by CPC (M-L) since October 13, 1975, the day Trudeau declared war on the working people of this country. Make the Rich Pay is the declaration of war against the rich, their state and their foreign masters, the U.S. imperialists. It is a short-range slogan, an immediate demand which the workers must fulfill through revolutionary struggle. Because the slogan has been advanced since October 13th, 1975, it is also a slogan of combat against all the onslaughts of the Trudeau government. It is a slogan which combines all forms of proletarian struggle, the economic, political and theoretical against the rich.
PCDN firmly believes that neither CLC nor various revisionist, trotskyist and “genuine Marxist-Leninist” sects can fool the workers with their empty rhetoric for too long. Thousands of workers on Parliament Hill on March 22nd actually saw through the conspiracy by the CLC to bring the workers to Parliament Hill and then tell them to go home as a device to sow pessimism and dampen militancy. Those workers who saw through the CLC are also seeing through the sham of various sects and are coming around to the fighting slogan: Make the Rich Pay!
PREPARE FOR STRUGGLE!
MAKE THE RICH PAY!
* * *
I. Analysis of the so-called “Communist” Party: See the statement “Abolish Bill C-73” – message of the Central Executive printed in Canadian Tribune, No. 1990, March 22, 1976. Two points:
1. “When the Trudeau government adopted wage and price controls last October the Communist Party of Canada warned it was part of a monopoly-inspired drive to place the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working people. Events have borne this out.”
– “labour was being made the scape-goat”
– “wage and price restraint program would not touch prices but mainly wages”
– the so-called attack on inflation would lead to additional unemployment”
– “that it would result in dismantling of social legislation won by working people after years of struggle”
– ”it is difficult, if not impossible, to regulate the economy without control of the multinational corporations in Canada”
2. “There will be no relief for the working people until the present disastrous so-called anti-inflation policies of the government are changed and replaced by new policies, radical anti-monopoly policies which are geared to effectively combatting inflation, ensuring high employment and rising living standards in a world of peace.”
“There will be no serious advances for the working class and trade union movement until right wing policies of class collaboration are replaced by left wing policies of class struggle.”
“The working class must strengthen its unity, its class consciousness, its determination to defeat the monopoly offensive. It has the-strength to do so providing it correctly combines its economic and political struggle, and works to build up an alliance of all anti-monopoly forces in Canada.”
II. Position of League for Socialist Action: leaflet announcing a public meeting on April 9, 1976. Essentially the same analysis as revisionists:
1. “Prices and profits of the large corporations continue to climb. The bosses and their governments are trying to make workers and the oppressed layers of the population pay for the crisis of the capitalist system.”
2. “It is not possible to win by means of parliamentary commissions, mediators, conciliators, etc. Workers must rely on their own strength.”
“It’s on the level of government that the problem is posed today. To win, workers must kick out big business governments and replace them with their own governments committed to satisfying all their demands.” The leaflet gives the call: For an NDP government in Ottawa! For a Labour Party in Quebec based on the unions!
III. The position of another trotskyist group centred around a newspaper called FORWARD: Their issue number 4, Volume 2, dated March 1976 carries an article “Program for Labour Action Against Freeze”. It has seven points. This newspaper also has an article entitled: “Labor Defies Wage Freeze”. The same article is continued on page 2 under the title: “Build NDP Left”.
IV. Another trotskyist group around the newspaper WORKERS’ ACTION: It carries an article entitled “Demonstrate Against Wage Controls” in their issue number 12, dated March 1, 1976.
1. “All the gains the labour movement has made over the past twenty-five years – improved living standards, greater job security and the right of free collective bargaining – are under attack by the Anti-Inflation Board. Either the labour movement is going to sit back and take this beating, or it must organise a serious fight back.”
2. “Outraged by the AIB roll-back, labour leaders threatened political strikes against the government over the issue of wage controls” ... “But the final tactic, the mass demonstration, has the potential to be a tremendous weapon in the fight against the government. It all depends on whether there is a full-scale mobilization of the rank and file.”
V. Another trotskyist sect – RMG: RMG has the same analysis but adds the national question: “Today workers from both nations stand united in a direct bi-national confrontation against the federal state.” Leaflet distributed at the demonstration on March 22, 1976 by RMG. RMG slogans included: An Action Program to Defeat the Wage Controls; You Can’t Stop a Freight Train by Standing on the Tracks; The Common Front in Quebec: Organise the General Strike!; Solidarity in English Canada: Prepare the General Strike; Fight Fire with Fire; and many more. “For this, we will have to rely on our own forces and our own struggles, fighting for a socialist revolution which will bring about national liberation through the creation of Workers’ Republic of Quebec.”
VI. Line of anarcho-fascism: given in a leaflet issued by “Regroupment on a Marxist-Leninist basis of the following Marxist-Leninist, political and popular groups.” The leaflet distributed at the demonstration is entitled: “Struggle Against the Trudeau Law!”
Besides breast-beating in the air, the line of anarcho-fascism – “genuine Marxism-Leninism” – first divides the working class: “To develop the struggle against the ruling class the Canadian proletariat must be united. This unity must be built on the recognition of the existence of two nations.”
But, overwhelmed by their own self-exposure, they attempt to make a hasty retreat from this reactionary chauvinist position: “The Quebec nation is oppressed and has therefore the inviolable right to separate. But since all the workers in Canada have the same fundamental interest: end the capitalist system, we must build our unity and denounce those that seek to divide us by developing great nation chauvinism or narrow nationalism.” Besides denouncing CPC(M-L) as “a counter-revolutionary gang that walks hand in hand with the bourgeoisie”, this anarcho-fascism exposes its further difficulties by this manner:
“We don’t want all these fake solutions from the union bosses and traitors to the workig class. The Canadian proletariat is now facing the worst economic crisis since the second World War. The superpowers (USSR and USA) are increasing their exploitation of the world’s people there by worsening their crisis. A third world war caused by their rivalry for world domination is inevitable. What we want is to finish once and for all with capitalism, the cause of crisis and war. And the only way to achieve that is to build a true Marxist-Leninist communist party to lead the working people in their struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie, establish the dictatorship and build socialism.”
Their slogans include:“Let’s Struggle Against Trudeau Law!” “Reject false Reformist Solutions!”; “Let’s Mobilize the Masses of the Canadian People Around the Working-class!”; “Strengthen the Fight Back Movement by Preparing the General Strike!”