The Editor,
In a few weeks there will be provincial elections in Quebec. These elections are extremely important firstly because they affect about one third of the entire Canadian working class (the workers of Quebec), and secondly because the Communist Party of Quebec (Marxist-Leninist) is participating for the first time in Quebec provincial elections. Thus, given the importance of these elections, we have decided as former members of the FLQ, to take a public stand on the question.
If you examine the present situation, that is, the different parties running for office, the political programmes of these parties and the class origin of the different candidates, all evidence points to the fact that of the five parties taking part, four of them are bourgeois parties. They are parties which are in favour of capitalist exploitation, for the cheap sellout to foreign imperialism of the natural resources and labour power of the Quebec workers. Then why four parties? Evidently, to keep up the illusion of a real and democratic choice, but above all, because each one of these parties defends the interests of a different section of the petty or big bourgeoisie, sections which are in the service of either U.S. imperialism or British imperialism, or European, etc. The case of the Parti Quebecois is a good example. This party is anti-working class and publicly defends the capitalist syslem. It is the party of the section of the French-Canadian bourgeoisie which would like to negotiate directly with Washington the price of the sellout of Quebec, without the intermediary of Ottawa – thus putting itself in a privileged position to grow immensely wealthy. The Parti Quebecois promises us that we will be even more exploited, but exploited in French. What luck! We don’t want any of its pseudo-“peaceful independence”. We want the national liberation of Quebec and the liberation of the workers of Quebec from every form of capitalist exploitation.
There remains the CPQ(M-L).
CPQ(M-L) is participating in the elections not because it believes in the “peaceful road” to socialism, but because it sees in the elections an ideal chance to combat the fascist ideology of the bourgeois parties and, above all, to embed even more deeply communist ideas in the minds of the working class, to prepare public opinion for the seizure of state power by the workers.
CPQ(M-L) has always vigorously denounced terrorism as practiced and promoted by the FLQ. It said that terrorism was in reality a reformist line rather than a revolutionary line and an erroneous path leading to a dead-end. Today, we are in agreement with this position.lt is true that the FLQ always threatened governments in order to get some reforms out of them. It is true that the FLQ never even tried to take up the task of organising the working class to seize state power. However, as CPQ(M-L) points out so correctly, the FLQ was the reflection of the revolutionary sentiment of the people of Quebec for the cause of national liberation.
Today, we are happy to be able to respond to the call already made by CPQ(M-L) to sincere revolutionaries in the FLQ but unfortunately manipulated by the agents of the bourgeoisie within the revolutionary movement (such as Pierre Vallieres).
With great joy we are witness to the fact that CPQ(M-L) is a truly revolutionary working class party totally devoted to the interests of the working class, and that it is the only genuinely proletarian Party to run in the forthcoming elections in Quebec.
The Quebec people are known for their glorious traditions of struggle against their oppressors and against fascism, and we sincerely believe that CPQ(M-L) is the worthy heir to this tradition. That is why we have decided to give our complete and total support to CPQ(M-L) and to encourage all sincere revolutionaries who have the cause of national liberation at heart to vote and work for this Party.
LONG LIVE THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLE OF QUEBEC! LONG LIVE CPQ(M-L)!
(This article first appeared in People’s Canada Daily News, Vol 3 No. 291, October 10, 1973.)