Issued: June 4, 1979
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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Joe Clark is being installed as the Prime Minister of the government of the rich replacing Pierre Trudeau. This change of the individual in the driver’s seat changes nothing. Joe Clark and his Progressive Conservatives are a party, of the rich and they will govern in the interests of the rich. One set of exploiters has replaced the other. The working class and the broad masses of the people will receive more “of the same – more exploitation and repression. The all-sided crisis of capitalism will continue with increasing unemployment, inflation, etc., and the government of Joe Clark will continue to shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working people, to fascize the state and carry on preparations for war on the side of the camp of imperialists and reactionaries led by U.S. imperialism which is in contention for world hegemony with the imperialist camp led by Soviet social-imperialism. While the rich will further enrich themselves, it is the working class and the broad masses of the people who will be forced to foot the bill and their lives and liberties as well as their struggles for emancipation and progress will be threatened.
The rich minority of the country organized this elections fraud in order to fool the people, sort out contradictions amongst themselves and carry out the most confusing propaganda about the nature of the crisis in Canada and how to solve it. The elections were a fraud even in the most formal sense. The rich simply rigged the elections, with the entire machinery of the state in their hands as well as all the main means of production including the news media. According to the logic of the rich every one is “equal” before their law. It is extremely convenient for them to enforce this by force of arms on the working class and the broad masses of the people because it is they who have concocted these laws in the most anti-democratic manner and these laws serve them well. The British North America Act was simply declared without any regard to the people of Quebec or of New Brunswick (where Confederation was actually defeated) or the Acadians or the Native people or the settlers. The same anti-democratic method has been used by the rich since 1867. Any law which no longer suits them is simply changed by them to suit their purposes, to the extent that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other elements of their “security apparatus” are given unlimited and unbridled right to violate even the laws of the rich themselves and organize terrorism, arson, kidnappings, harassment, torture and bribery in any way they please, where they please, at what time they please and against whom they please. Trudeau openly and arrogantly stated that he defends this right of the RCMP to commit crimes against the people, as does Clark.
How can there be equality between rich and poor, between exploiters and exploited, between those who control the state and all the main means of production including the news media and those who have nothing but their labour power to sell to make their living? There cannot be equality between the exploiters and exploited and this is the case in Canada and in all capitalist and revisionist countries. There is equality in Canada among the exploiters, and the exploited have no real rights. In socialist Albania, where the exploiting classes have been expropriated as a result of the socialist revolution and socialist construction, the working people of both city and countryside and the people’s intelligentsia have all the rights and there are laws against exploitation. The rich want to fool the people by endlessly repeating that their dictatorship is actually democracy above classes and that everyone has “freedom”, etc. This is not true. There is freedom for the rich to exploit and further enrich themselves while the only freedom for the poor is “freedom” to be exploited and thank their lucky stars that the rich are so generous as to provide them such wonderful rights to be exploited and be always at their mercy. There is only class democracy during the entire period in which antagonistic classes exist on the world scale. There are two types of democracies, in the main, on the world scale at this time. There is proletarian democracy, the real democracy for the vast majority of the people and this democracy has its foundation in socialist property and the general guideline All for One and One for All where all the affairs of the country – be they economic, social and cultural or political, military and foreign – are organized to improve the well-being of the people and to promote progress and all-sided scientific and technical development and to support the genuine liberation and emancipation of people of all lands. This real democracy exists only in the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. In the PSRA the lives and liberties of the people are defended and elections are held on the basis of universal suffrage for the people to elect genuine representatives of the people who work tirelessly in the interests of the people. Or there is bourgeois democracy, the sham democracy, democracy in words only, and this democracy has its foundation in private property and the general guideline Each to Himself, and all the affairs of the country – be they economic, social and cultural or political, military and foreign – are organized to enrich a tiny minority of bloodsuckers, millionaires and billionaires and their pets, pimps and prostitutes, and against the general Well-being of the people and to promote backwardness and ignorance and to oppose the genuine liberation and emancipation of people of all lands and in which scientific and technical advancement is merely to enrich the rich and to further exploit the working class and the broad masses of the people and to sophisticate the instruments of mass murder and of persecution. Canada has such a democracy, a bourgeois democracy, as is the democracy in all the capitalist and revisionist countries. There are two forms of this democracy which the rich use – when there is relative prosperity and the system is not in acute crisis, then the rich present“ themselves as liberals and democrats but when the system goes into severe crisis, then they go for war and fascism, as is being done in most of the capitalist and revisionist countries today.
The elections further revealed the hollowness of this bourgeois democracy. The rich had all the means at their disposal – the state, the government, the news media, the police, the main means of production – and they deployed all these on their behalf. The workers had nothing. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) which participated in the elections as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada was the Party of the proletariat and it was attacked from all sides during the elections. All the money spent during the elections by our Party was collected from the members, supporters and sympathizers of the Party who are all ordinary workers, youth and students, intellectuals, cultural workers, small farmers, fishermen, etc., while the three leading capitalist parties – the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP – and also the Social Credit, not only received contributions from the rich, they also expropriated millions of dollars of tax-payers’ money and took it upon themselves to tell lies to the people. The czars of the news media who are themselves part of the rich, used every manner of means to confuse the issues and to turn truth on its head. Because they are part of the rich, the czars of the news media knew full well that they can only serve themselves, if they consciously take the road of obscurantism and mysticism. During the elections, they carried out brazen propaganda against the Marxist-Leninists and did their utmost to ensure that the propaganda of the Marxist-Leninists is not discussed in the masses. The reactionary police also carried out activities against the Marxist-Leninists and arrested more than 14 candidates or supporters of the Marxist-Leninist Party and harassed an even larger number. The frenzy of the rich is such that even in counting the votes, the votes of the Marxist-Leninists were not counted properly, in order to create reactionary public opinion that the Marxist-Leninists have no support amongst the masses of the people.
Under the hoax that there are “major” and “minor” parties and by using their law against the Marxist-Leninists – that they can carry out their propaganda and agitation neither on private property nor on public property – coupled with the fact that of course the czars of the news media would never permit the discussion of the Party programme through the news media, the rich showed in concrete terms that they have no interest in supporting real democracy and democratic elections and that they will never permit the clarification of the real issues facing the people during, before or after the elections. Take for example, the hysteria generated against the posters of the Party in Winnipeg and other cities and towns across Canada. The reactionaries in Winnipeg, some of whom are even on the City Council, considered the resolute activity of the Party of taking its programme to the masses as an infringement of the law. Thus, according to one law of the rich, all parties are permitted to propagate their views during the elections and no one is to interfere with this right, but, according to another law of the rich, which is passed by the rich in Winnipeg as well as in other cities like Montreal, Saskatoon and many others, the Party cannot carry its propaganda, and agitation through resolute postering, one of the means which is available to the rich, because their advertisements on bill-boards and in newspapers and on radio and TV, etc., are not considered littering the city but postering by the Marxist-Leninists is. What kind of democracy it is that the people cannot fully participate in discussion to deal with the grave problems facing them both nationally and internationally, and elect those who will deal with these problems!
The elections fraud completely exposed the sham nature of the democracy in our country. There is democracy in Canada, but for the rich only. The rich boast about their democracy and they present the electoral process as the central thing in the democracy. The elections are organized as a blitzkrieg against the masses of the people. While the rich actually sort out the contradictions among themselves through elections, they create the impression that the elections are to deal with the problems facing the masses. But even the extremely marginal and inconsequential reforms which the rich may promise to implement when elected remain mere words, and after the elections, the rich carry on according to what serves their interests. Furthermore, outlandish statements are made during the elections like “Get Canada Moving Again”, the slogan of Joe Clark during the elections, which are part of the big-lie technique of the Hitler-type. Far from Canada moving again, it will sink further and further into crisis and neither did Joe Clark ever have an interest to get Canada moving again, nor could he, even if he so desired, turn this rotting corpse of capitalism into a young and fresh superman. There is no provision for recall of the elected representatives and the entire weight of the state is used to make the people submit to the interests of the rich. Even the Parliament is a rubber-stamp which is illustrated by the fact that Joe Clark will go on ruling after his installation today without even convening the Parliament which won’t meet until September or October. The rich made a lot of noise about Parliament being supreme, but this supreme body will meet only after Joe Clark has already implemented his plans for the next period. This and many other facts prove that it is neither the elections nor the elected Parliament which is the real power behind the government. It is the rich who are the real power and policy-makers and it is their interests which dictate the running of the government.
The electorate is supposed to be the one which gives the mandate, but the government did not even give this formal right to thousands upon thousands of Canadians who were simply not enumerated, while the procedure of voting and enumeration was such that literally anyone could have been registered as a voter and could vote during the elections without having to provide any proof of eligibility. Thus, the capitalist parties with their hired servants could mobilize anyone to register and vote. The electorate is showered with all sorts of propaganda during the elections, and then after the elections the battle between different sections of the rich goes to Parliament as to how to divide the cake amongst themselves and to create drama to fool the people; the Parliament is merely a rubber-stamp because all the deals are struck behind the scenes.
The rich use obscurantism during the elections and after. They are not clarifiers. For example, they could not and did not want to explain that unemployment, inflation, increasing cost of living, monetary and financial crisis and the cultural and spiritual devastation of the people are because of the capitalist system. This system must go if the crisis is to be ended. And if the Liberals, Conservatives and the NDP were to recognize that the crisis is the crisis of the capitalist system, then they also would have to recognize that the solution is that the system must go. But this would mean their own demise. This is why, when the Marxist-Leninists carry out vigorous propaganda and agitation that the capitalist system must go, the rich begin their frenzied chorus that the overthrow of capitalism will be the end of the society. The overthrow of capitalism will not be the end of the society. It will be the end of the capitalist society and the end of the crisis which is the fellow-traveller of this system at its highest stage, that is its moribund, parasitic and decadent stage; the stage when no progress can be made without overthrowing the capitalist system. Thus, the frenzied noise of the rich against the Marxist-Leninists is to hide and obscure the cause of the crisis and how to end it.
The rich and the czars of the news media, as well as the sycophants of the rich, make a lot of noise about the all-sided crisis. They issue figures as to the rate of unemployment and inflation as well as report every day as to how their dollar is doing in the monetary market. They also print gory details about social crime as well as stories of widespread corruption and influence-peddling in the various levels of the state and the government and they report about wars as well as about the existence of poverty and misery, disease and barbarism, etc., etc. But they never tell the broad masses of the people what is the cause of these problems and how these problems can be sorted out. This is the central issue and it is on this issue and turn truth on its head. They make use of obscurantism. They claim that this crisis exists all over the globe, which is supposed to legitimize its existence in Canada, and they deliberately tell the lie that it is not possible to have a country where it does not exist. But the hard facts of life are a sharp slap in their faces. The People’s Socialist Republic of Albania has no inflation, no unemployment, no taxes, while its currency is strong and becoming stronger and the people are provided with free education and health as well as extremely cheap housing and full pensions at retirement, etc., and there is no social crime to speak about in any serious form. But the rich simply dismiss the existence of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania with the hoax that “it cannot be true”. But why do they say this – “It cannot be true”? Here is the catch. They say this because the PSRA is the only genuinely socialist country in the world and proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that only the proletariat can eliminate the crisis by carrying out the socialist transformation of the society which means the expropriation of the rich and elimination of exploitation. The rich, of course, cannot accept this hard fact of life. Thus they tell blatant lies about the cause and the cure of the crisis. Thus, they sometimes blame human nature – that is, their own beastly nature – and other times they blame the genes, etc., but they never want the people to know that it is their system which is rotten and that the problems facing the people can only be sorted out if their system is overthrown and the working class and the oppressed masses take the socialist road.
The czars of the news media created the fraud during the elections that there are “major” and “minor” parties. What happened to their “democracy” and “equality” on this question? They threw it out of the window. By creating the fraud of “major” and “minor” parties, the czars of the news media gave themselves the right to cause maximum ideological and political confusion amongst the people. They turned things upside down. In fact, it is the capitalist parties (and there were eight of them during the elections) which are really the minor parties because they have no solution to the problems facing Canada. Only our Party provided a comprehensive solution and it is only this militant road of Make the Rich Pay! which will get Canada out of the crisis. What criteria did the czars of the news media use to define what is “major” and what is “minor”? The sole criterion they used was the volume of wealth a party represents and the service it renders to the capitalist system. This is why they slandered our Party, arrested our comrades and maligned our Programme while they always found a lot of good in the eight capitalist parties. They were even quite pleased with the loyal “communists” who swore in front of the rich they are for “democratic principles” and the “parliamentary road” and that they will always protect and serve the democracy of the rich. The division between “major” and “minor” parties reflects the most reactionary and moribund outlook of the rich – according to them what is irrelevant and insignificant and retrogressive is major, while what is relevant, significant and progressive is minor. Thus, to build a new world without exploitation and wars is a minor issue for the rich, and to get Canada out of the crisis and stop the war preparations and fascization of the state is equally minor. While the major thing for them is their greed, their lust for maximum profits, their sacred oath to continue the capitalist system of exploitation, wage-slavery, wars, misery, disease and poverty.
The czars of the news media also created the fraud that the “choice” is only between one set of exploiters, led by Trudeau and supported by the NDP and a whole cabal of revisionists and opportunists, and the other set of exploiters, led by Clark and supported by the Social Credit, the Libertarians, etc. The czars of the news media created the most reactionary propaganda about their political programme and tried to convince the people that these exploiters will get Canada out of the crisis. Clark’s promise of deducting mortgage payments from income tax is a great ploy to further enrich the real estate speculators, while for the working people, the banks and mortgage companies have already raised their interest rates. Furthermore, the fraud of the news media is crystal clear. Now that the elections are over, they have expressed the hope that all the capitalist parties in the Parliament should work together to continue the exploitation and persecution of the working class and the broad masses of the people.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) participated in the elections for the purpose of presenting the real alternative to the capitalist system of exploitation and wage-slavery, fascism and war. Our Party participated as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. The czars of the news media are such fraudulent liars that they purposely did not explain to the working class and the broad masses of the people that first of all it is the state of the rich which refused to register our Party under its real name – the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). They registered a phony “Communist” Party which is, in fact, the agency of Soviet social-imperialism in Canada, as the “Communist Party of Canada”. It was also convenient for the rich to have this phony party because then they could connect the name of communism with Soviet social-imperialism and slander the real communists. Our Party was left with no choice but to register as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. All the workers and broad masses of the people must be clear that the only genuinely Communist Party in Canada is the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and it steadfastly believes that only violent revolution can end the capitalist system and the crisis, and that it participated in the elections as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada for the simple reason of presenting the genuine Marxist-Leninist communist political programme to the working class and broad masses of the people in order to show that there is a way out of the crisis which is to Make the Rich Pay!
The czars of the news media make a lot of noise that our Party did not receive very many votes. First of all, we did not participate in the elections for the purpose of receiving many votes. We participated in the elections to take our programme to the working class and the broad masses of the people and to oppose the programme of the rich to make the people pay for the crisis. Thus the question of votes is not the pertinent question. The central question is: Did we succeed in carrying out propaganda and agitation for our programme? The answer is yes. We relied on our own strength in carrying out the propaganda and agitation. We distributed over one-and-a-half million copies of our programme and talked to thousands of people. The czars of the news media did everything to suppress, distort and malign our programme. But we do not depend on these czars for our propaganda and agitation. Their behaviour merely shows that there is no real democracy in Canada nor is there freedom of the press. The millionaires and billionaires control all the news media and print only what is suitable to them. Elections for us is just one of the forms of struggle and neither does this struggle begin with the elections nor does it end with the elections. The programme is now presented to the working class and the broad masses of the people and it is a great victory for our work. Struggle now takes other forms and one of the forms is.to carry propaganda and agitation on a daily basis to further prove the correctness of our analysis and the necessity of implementing this programme as the only way out of the crisis. And, again, we will not depend on the czars of the news media to carry this struggle through to the end.
With the existence of our Party, the proletariat plays its leading role at the head of the exploited. Now the voice of the proletariat, the voice of the working and oppressed people, the voice of the exploited against the rule and system of the rich, exists. It took us more than 16 years to build it to its present level. Over 2000 arrests of our comrades have taken place from the time the Party was founded in 1970. Twenty-five comrades were deported, Hundreds of comrades have been jailed. Many others, including Comrade Hardial Bains, Chairman of the Central Committee of our Party, have been deprived of citizenship. Many more have lost their jobs. The rich had thought that all this persecution would eliminate the Party. Besides this persecution, the rich also float their phony “communists”, “socialists” and “Marxists” as well, to cause confusion. It is very interesting, indeed, that the Toronto Star, a notorious anti-communist and anti-worker newspaper, was on the same side – that is, in support of the NDP – as some “socialists” and “Marxists”. The rich also try to eliminate the Party through slander campaigns. But the Party has stood firm as well as has grown in strength. Just think about all the anti-communist hysteria which is blurted out from the schools and universities and the pulpit, as well as by the news media, and still there is the real Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), which participated in the elections as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, and this Party is growing in strength. Only our Party speaks the truth and does so courageously and without any fear. Only our Party represents the true interests of the working class and it is marching ahead in the stormy battles against the rich.
The working people should not be confused by the empty bravado of the rich. Their so-called victory in the elections is actually their utter defeat. Not only will they not be able to end the crisis and working people will know the shamness and falsity of their promises, as millions do already, but their so-called democracy has already been exposed as sham. It is democracy only for the rich. The victory of the rich in the elections was pre-ordained because they have the state power, but this rigged victory is a big nail in their coffin. More and more working people have come to understand the utterly anti-democratic nature of the rich and they have awakened to the fact that the capitalist system is their enemy. More will follow suit, We say to the rich: don’t be so hasty in your celebration! because the time is coming when you will be called upon to answer for your activities. Elections or no elections, the working class and the broad masses of the people an becoming increasingly fed up with your deeds, and it h these deeds of preparing for war and fascism, shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the people and persecuting the progressive people and perpetuating vicious exploitation for which you will be made to pay.
The Parliament elected on May 22,1979 is a parliament in the service of the rich, just as all the parliaments of the past have been the parliaments of the rich. The Progressive Conservatives, Liberals, NDP’ers and Social Crediters are parties of the rich and constitute the Parliament. There are no representatives of the working class and broad masses of the people in the Parliament. The division between the exploiters and the exploited is crystal clear. The exploiters are led by the bourgeoisie and they control the government as well as the Parliament and the entire state and all other organs of the state, as well as all the main means of production, including the news media and all the cultural and social institutions. The exploited are led by the proletariat who have nothing but their labour power. They are dispossessed, not only economically and on the cultural and social fronts but they are-also disenfranchised politically. The elections fraud has once again clearly proven that the working class and the broad masses of the people have no power whatsoever. The main power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny financial oligarchy comprised of about 45 families who have monopoly on all fronts and it is their arrogant dictatorship which is imposed on the working class and the broad masses of the people on all fronts. As was the case with the elections, the new Parliament will carry ’ empty debates and make believe that it is the Parliament which makes the decisions on the basis of their “debates’. It will not be the Parliament but the behind-the-scenes boardroom agreements which will decide every policy of the government as has been the case in the past. Furthermore, the Parliament under the dictate of the financial oligarchs will pass legislation to break up the strike struggles of the workers, impose the will of the rich onto the working class and the broad masses of the people, persecute progressive people, shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the people, fascize the state, prepare for war and, guard the interests of the rich and their system. The state will be further bankrupted and millions and millions of dollars extorted from the people through taxes will be made available to the bourgeoisie. The rule of the rich and the system of the rich will carry on.
But along with it and under it, the revolt and discontent of the working class and the broad masses of the people will also grow. The exploited, led by the proletariat under the leadership of the Party, will battle the bourgeoisie on all fronts especially on the front of resisting and opposing the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto its back, the fascist attacks and the preparations for war. The class struggle will intensify, deepen and broaden. It does not matter what demagogy the rich and their government use to present their government as being above classes and the rich as being mere bystanders while the people are the cause of all the problems, the class struggle will follow its course because it is based on the objective laws inherent in the capitalist system. The NDP and the CLC as well as the revisionists and opportunists of all hues will continue their treacherous road of class-collaboration and act as the priests and the firefighters of the revolt of the masses but they will not succeed. They will receive increasing opposition from the working class and the broad masses of the people. Class struggle or class collaboration, class peace in the interests of the rich so that they keep on shifting the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the people, and they fascize their state and prepare fof war, or class war against the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the people, against fascization of the state and against war preparations and to Make the Rich Pay! This is the fundamental, all-embracing and objective division in Canada and no amount of mystification and obscurantism on the part of the czars of the news media and the hangmen and the priests of the rich will change this division. Every aspect of life is divided on this basis and this division will continue until the rich are overthrown and imperialism and social-imperialism are overthrown and disarmed on the world scale.
The czars of the news media have started the diversionary propaganda that the government of Joe Clark will have no representation from Quebec. What does this propaganda mean? There are 75 members of Parliament from Quebec and still the czars of the news media are pushing the balderdash that the government of Joe Clark will have no representation from Quebec. It is very significant, indeed, that the czars of the news media do not talk about the fact that neither the government of Joe Clark nor the Parliament will have any representation from the workers who make up the vast majority of the population of our country. The Quebec National Assembly and the government of Quebec do not have any representation from the workers either and all the reactionary propaganda that if one or several representatives of millionaires from Quebec are in the government this means that Quebec will be “represented” is false. There was a whole pack of individuals from Quebec in the Trudeau government and was there any representation for Quebec then? No! There was no representation. Neither did the Trudeau government nor does the Levesque government represent the true interests of the people of Quebec or the people of Canada as a whole. This propaganda about no representation from Quebec is propaganda for reactionary civil war based on dividing the working class and the broad masses of the people on linguistic and cultural lines and lining up the working class and the broad masses of the people behind one set of exploiters or the other. It is a sinister move to divert the working class and the broad masses of the people from the real class struggle against the rich and instigate a reactionary civil war in which the workers slaughter one another in the interests of the rich.
The czars of the news media, who are the rich themselves and monopolize the news media, carry on filthy and lying propaganda that the federal government s “English-Canadian” and the Quebec government is ’French-Canadian“ and we have “two warring nations” ) of “English- and French-Canadians” within this Confederation, in order to whip up reactionary national and social-chauvinism and put the people at loggerheads. The truth of the matter is that the state established under the British North America Act in 1867 was the Anglo-Canadian colonial state and it did not constitute the English-Canadian nation but was the oppressor of the people of Quebec as well as the Native people, the Metis and the settlers, and today this state is under the domination of U.S. imperialism. There is no “English-Canadian nation” and if we say that a nation is determined by the mother-tongue of its people, then we can easily say that there are scores and scores of nations in Canada – as many as there are people – speaking many different languages as their mother tongue. The source of oppression and exploitation of the people of Canada, including Quebec, is this reactionary state which is under the domination of U.S. imperialism. Some reactionary chauvinists cannot grasp the fact that this concoction of the British colonialists called the Confederation was not the fulfillment of the “national” aspirations of some fictitious ’English-Canadian nation“ but the establishment of an people of Quebec as well as the Native people, the Metis and the settlers, and today this state is under the domination of U.S. imperialism. There is no “English-Canadian nation” and if we say that a nation is determined by the mother-tongue of its people, then we can easily say that there are scores and scores of nations in Canada - as many as there are people - speaking many different languages as their mother tongue. The source of oppression and exploitation of the people of Canada, including Quebec, is this reactionary state which is under the domination of U.S. imperialism. Some reactionary chauvinists cannot grasp the fact that this concoction of the British colonialists called the Confederation was not the fulfillment of the “national” aspirations of some fictitious “English-Canadian nation” but the establishment of an Anglo-Canadian colonial state, a special body of the exploiters and their servants set up to serve the interests of the British colonial expansion. This British colonial expansion was carried out by subjugating the nation of Quebec, suppressing the Native people, blowing to the winds the nation of the Metis, dispossessing the Acadians and dispossessing and exploiting the settlers. Thus, the enemy of the people of Quebecis the same as the enemy of the rest of the people of Canada – the Anglo-Canadian state which is today under the domination of U.S. imperialism. It is this state of the rich which is the enemy of the working class and broad masses of the people all across Canada. It is this state which must be opposed not on the basis of French-Canadian or English-Canadian chauvinism, but on the basis of expropriating the rich and establishing a new state, a people’s republic which will genuinely express the sovereignty of the people and provide genuine liberties to the people. To line up behind one set of exploiters against the other means disaster for the people of Canada.
What was the propaganda of the czars of the news media during the elections? They trumpeted that the only choice was between Clark and Trudeau – that is, between one set of exploiters or the other. So on the question of Quebec, they are presenting a similar choice: Either reactionary civil war under the hoax of the “independence” fraud of Levesque, or reactionary civil war under the hoax of the “unity” fraud of Trudeau. These are not choices. The czars of the news media offer one set of exploiters or another and reactionary civil war under one pretext or the other as choices. The working class and the broad masses of the people must resolutely oppose all exploiters and their schemes for reactionary civil war. They must fight to make the rich pay for the crisis and fight for a genuine people’s republic which will provide the right to self-determination to the nation of Quebec including secession if the people of Quebec so desire and the restoration of the hereditary rights of the Native people and elimination of regional and other disparities.
Under capitalism, the official languages policy is used as the means to culturally devastate the people and promote national- and social-chauvinism. The thesis of the rich of two official languages serves this precise end. The reactionary national- and social-chauvinists in Quebec use the question of the French language as a Damocles sword over the heads of the working class and broad masses of the people and threaten reactionary civil war and persecution if anyone disagrees with them. At the same time, the reactionary national- and social-chauvinists floated by the rich under the signboard of being protagonists of the English language have also put the people at loggerheads. Then there are others who, under the hoax of the “equality of all languages and nations”, are also fomenting national- and social-chauvinism just as a few years ago, in attacking the just aspirations of the people of Quebec for national liberation, John Diefenbaker said that if there was to be equality between English and French, then there should be equality for all other languages as well. Thus, under the fraud of official languages, the rich in our country are lining the working class and broad masses of the people up behind their own interests. As far as the question of genuine liberation and emancipation of the people of Quebec is concerned, it is not confined to the question of language or culture. It is a question of providing the democratic right to the nation of Quebec to determine its own relationship to Canada. And this question cannot be reduced to the question of equality of nations and languages. It is a question of mutual support and solidarity against the common oppressors. The working class cannot line up behind its own oppressors and bring disaster to the people. This is the central issue. Since its Second Congress in 1973, our Party has firmly opposed the two-nations theory and has always subordinated the question of the democratic right of the nation of Quebec for self-determination and secession to the question of the liberation and emancipation of the working class and people of all Canada. Our Party will support neither the reactionary civil war organized under the “independence” fraud of Levesque, nor the reactionary civil war organized under the “unity” fraud of Trudeau, Clark, et al.
On the international front, the czars of the news media provide a similar choice between the imperialist camp led by U.S. imperialism and the imperialist camp led by Soviet social-imperialism. They call the Soviet Union “communist” in order to cause maximum confusion and to discredit communism in the eyes of the working class and broad masses of the people. Furthermore, some of the exploiters who were overthrown in the Soviet Union as a result of the Great October Revolution and the socialist construction immigrated to Canada and, along with other exploiters and reactionaries from other lands who found refuge here as well as the reactionaries born in Canada, they carry anti-communist propaganda and tell horror stories about the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin. On the one hand, the czars of the news media and these anti-communists keep calling today’s social-imperialist Soviet Union “communist”; on the other hand, the agents of the new exploiters in the Soviet Union, those who have restored capitalism and have emerged as a social-imperialist power, call those who expose the Soviet Union as social-imperialist, as “anti-communists”. Thus the czars of the news media present another “choice” – between the overthrown exploiters who are anti-communist, and the new exploiters who they call “communists”. This is no choice either. They are both anti-communists. The Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin was the defender of the lives and liberties of the people and the emancipator of nations. It was the standard-bearer of peace and progress and the great fighter against fascism and reaction. But today’s Soviet Union is social-imperialist. It is socialist in words while imperialist in deeds. Together with U.S. imperialism, it is the greatest threat to the lives and liberties of the people and to the progress and sovereignty of the nations. Our Party resolutely opposes both the U.S. imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists.
Right at the time the two superpowers and all imperialists and reactionaries, including the Chinese social-imperialists, are preparing for war, the czars of the news media are also carrying the propaganda that the Western imperialist powers fought against fascism during the Second World War. They carry this propaganda in order to divert the people from the real danger of fascism which these imperialist powers and the social-imperialist powers are preparing to unleash on the world. The Western imperialist powers fought fascism for the purposes of establishing their hegemony over the world. This was an inter-imperialist contradiction for the division of markets. They fought in the war for this purpose, and since the Second World War, these same powers, led by U.S, imperialism, have-carried out exactly the same anti-communist crusades and aggressions against the people and nations as did the Hitlers, Mussolinis and Tojos during the Second World War and before. There is not an iota of democracy, progress and humanity left in these imperialist powers. The Soviet Union of Stalin fought the fascist invader for the purpose of liberating and defending the Soviet Union and liberating the oppressed peoples. Stalin stood firm to his dying day in support of the genuine liberation of nations and for the emancipation of the proletarians of all lands. But after the death of Stalin, Khrushchov and Brezhnev who came into power opposed Stalin and converted the Soviet Union into the oppressor of nations and the opponent of the proletarian movement for emancipation. Soviet social-imperialism, along with U.S. imperialism, took up the reactionary aims of the Hitlers, Mussolinis and Tojos of establishing their hegemony over the world and opposing the forces of revolution and socialism. Thus the aims of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are opposite to the aims of the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin, and our Party firmly supports Lenin and Stalin while we are firmly opposed to both U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and ail other imperialists and reactionaries, including the Chinese social-imperialists.
Our Party has declared 1979 to be the Year of Stalin in honour of the centenary of the birth of Stalin which falls on December 21, 1979. The working class and broad masses of the people should learn from the great struggle which was waged against fascism and war under the leadership of J.V. Stalin and smash the anti-communist and reactionary propaganda of the czars of the news media. The czars of the news media peddle the Anglo-American chauvinist fallacy that the working class and the broad masses of1 the people should wage struggle against “totalitarian” regimes and they equate communism with fascism and peddle the nonsense that their “democracy” is the only democratic system. This is the big lie of Hitler and the propaganda mechanism used by Goebbels who said that if you repeat a lie often enough the people will start believing it. Fascism is a form of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the real ugly face of the most reactionary and chauvinist section of the financial oligarchs. As the capitalist system goes deeper and deeper into crisis, the rich carry more and more chauvinist and reactionary propaganda in order to deceive the people as to the cause and cure of the crisis – exactly as was done by the czars of the news media during the elections. The blamed the workers and small farmers for inflation und they blamed the people for unemployment, social crime, spiritual devastation, etc., etc. They carried the most chauvinist propaganda about making “Canadian goods competitive” on the world market in order to line up the working class and the broad masses of the people behind the aims of the rich. This chauvinist propaganda is carried out alongside increasing the attacks on the workers and broad masses of the people, persecuting the Marxist-Leninists and fascizing the state, carrying out military exercises and generally preparing for the suppression of the struggles of the working class and the broad masses of the people at home and for launching wars abroad. This propaganda of the czars of the news media is to make the working class and broad masses of the people accept open fascism. Thus, fascism is the open dictatorship, open terror, of the exploiters against the exploited, whose democracy of the rich is the concealed terror of the rich – that is, concealed under the pretensions of being democratic, etc. Thus, the real choice is not between fascism and bourgeois democracy but the only way forward is communism, the lower stage of which is socialism and Canada is ripe for socialism. The stage of revolutionary struggle is to Make the Rich Pay! with the clear-cut objective of taking the socialist road which the czars of the news media and all the rich are mortally afraid of. Thus, they create their big lie and confuse the working class and broad masses of the people about socialism and communism.
Only socialist democracy is real democracy and is in the interests of the workers and other labouring masses. Because socialist democracy entails the elimination of exploitation and the exploiting classes, the rich hate this real democracy and throw mud at it. But they cannot deceive the working class and the broad masses of the people with their lies and mystifications. The rich flaunt their democracy saying people have “freedom of speech” and that there is “freedom of the press”, etc. This is hardly true. Freedom of speech and press for whom and for what? Freedom of speech insofar as there is no danger to the profits of the rich and once their profits are endangered, then the real beast, the true nature of this democracy, is exposed as the most brutal dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat and other labouring masses. And the question of freedom of the press is a real joke. The rich monopolize the entire news media and only print the material which serves their interests but still they call it “freedom of the press”. Any honest journalist knows and will admit openly that all the content of the news media is censored according to the interests of the rich. There is freedom of the press for the rich as there is democracy for the rich.
Which way forward for Canada? The way of continuing the crisis and perpetuating the man-eating system of wage-slavery and exploitation and repression or the way of ending the crisis and ending the man-eating system of wage-slavery and exploitation and repression? The way of continuing the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the people or turning it around and making the rich pay and ending the crisis? The way of reactionary civil war or the way of making the rich pay? The way of a third imperialist war and plunging the entire world into war and fascism or the way of opposing the two imperialist superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, and all imperialists and reactionaries, including the Chinese social-imperialists, and overthrowing them through the common struggle of all working and oppressed people of the world?
The government of Joe Clark will continue the path of Trudeau and will keep on shifting the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers, will keep on fomenting reactionary civil war, will keep on fascizing the state and will carry on reactionary attacks on the struggles of the working class and broad masses of the people and will prepare for war.
The Trudeaus, Broadbents and Roys will support Joe Clark in these endeavours even though they have contradictions amongst themselves. These contradictions which exist amongst themselves are the contradictions in the camp of the vampires. The working class and the broad masses of the people must oppose all of them and must not line up behind one set of exploiters to oppose the other. You cannot oppose and eliminate exploitation by lining up behind one camp of exploiters against the other. On the contrary, it is the trick of the rich to always create a climate to deceive the people, and the czars of the news media play the most reactionary role by creating the illusion that one set of exploiters is better than the others - thus the slogan that Trudeau should be defeated no matter what and that the only alternative to him is Joe Clark. How convenient for the rich! When one team of their hangmen is exposed and discredited, they bring a new team of hangmen onto the scene, and so on ad infinitum. This trick of the rich is to perpetuate exploitation and not eliminate it, and the working class and the broad masses of the people must see through this trick of the rich and oppose all the exploiters and without exception.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) which is the only genuinely communist and Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada calls upon all working people, small farmers and fishermen, youth and students, genuinely progressive intellectuals and cultural workers, and genuinely progressive and patriotic people to remain vigilant against the plans of the rich to impose war and fascism on the people. Their anti-communist hysteria is a device to divert the people from the real issues - as are their hysteria about Quebec and their hysteria against the workers and the immigrants. Their main method is to blame the people for all the ills of their system and to reorganize and restructure their state for the purposes of unleashing fascism and war. Our. Party boldly states: Blame the Rich and Not the People for the Crisis! The rich also carry their lying propaganda that it is the Marxist-Leninists and the workers and other fighting people who are “violent”. Nothing could be further from the truth. When the police shot down a young man who was carrying a toy gun, as was the case in Toronto on May 8 and when similar cases occurred in which six people were shot down in cold blood last year in Toronto, then it shows the real violent nature of the rich and their state. It is not an issue of the individual policemen, but is the expression of the general contempt and utter hatred the rich have for the lives and liberties of the people. It is the rich and their state which are armed to the teeth and it is they who use the tax-payers’ money to establish their tactical squads, militia, etc., to smash the struggle of the working class and the broad masses of the people to make the rich pay. The rich also have their private armies. Why do the rich carry this lying propaganda that it is the Marxist-Leninists and the workers and other fighting people who are “violent”? The first reason is to divert from the real issue of who should pay for the crisis – the rich or the people – and the second reason is to prepare reactionary public opinion to justify their suppression of the strike and other struggles of the people, and of the progressive people. Take for example their hysteria about shooting the assassins and murderers of the people in Iran who committed untold crimes against the people during the regime of the fascist Shah. Hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in cold blood by the Shah and his henchmen. The country was bled white and thousands upon thousands of people were tortured and millions faced the worst economic and social deprivation. Did the rich complain then? No! They called those people who were being butchered “terrorists” and presented this as a good enough reason for the Shah to butcher them. And now, when only a small number of those who committed crimes against the people are being brought to justice, the rich are raising a big hue and cry. Similarly, when the Zionist thugs launch one murderous attack after another against the Palestinian and other Arab people, not only there is no condemnation of this fascism, the rich justify it under the signboard of the fight against terrorism“, etc. Thus it is convenient for the rich to blame the Marxist-Leninists for being “yiolent” because then they can commit any crime against the people and not have to deal with the real political, economic, social and cultural programme which the working class and the broad masses of the people are fighting to implement. Our Party stands against the violence of the rich against the people and stands for disarming them and expropriating them as the only way to bring real peace and order.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) – the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada – calls upon all working people, small farmers and fishermen, youth and students, progressive intellectuals and cultural workers, and genuinely progressive and patriotic people to resolutely take up the great task of building a new Canada, a Canada without crisis and without fascism and war. Only our Party fights for true democracy and the spiritual and cultural uplifting of the people. The stage of social development in Canada is such that no problems of the people can be sorted out without everyone waging the struggle to Make the Rich Pay!, Throw the U.S. Imperialists Out of Canada and End Any Foreign Domination, End War Preparations and Oppose Canada’s Participation in Any Unjust, Imperialist and Aggressive War and to implement the following economic, political and cultural programme which will end the crisis forever. This is the central issue and the only way forward.
Statement Released by the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) – Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. Ottawa, June 4, 1979 on Parliament Hill at 2:00 p.m.
The main political tasks of the proletariat to end the crisis are:
1. To end the political and constitutional authority of the British North America Act. To eliminate all the vestiges of the British monarchy.
2. To abolish the federal and provincial governments, the parliaments, legislatures; and assemblies and all the other, institutions established under the BNA Act or by the monopoly capitalist parliament. The so-called constitutional monarchy and the monopoly capitalist parliament and its government of a tiny handful of financial oligarchs cannot express the sovereignty of the people of Canada.
3. To end all imperialist preparations for war. No foreign military, economic and cultural institutions are to be allowed in Canada. To disband the reactionary police and armed forces and replace them with a people’s police and armed forces.
4. To provide full democratic rights, full freedom, liberty and franchise to the people, including freedom of speech, assembly, organization and freedom of the press and the right to political opinion, scientific and cultural pursuits and religious beliefs and full protection of private life, and the right to self-determination for the nation of Quebec, the restoration of the hereditary rights of the Native people (treaty and non-treaty Indians, Inuit people and the Metis), to end all racial, economic and political discrimination against the immigrants and all inequality and social discrimination against women and to make full provision for the advancement and safeguarding of the languages and culture of the Native people and of the people of different national origins.
5. To institute a progressive independent and sovereign foreign policy:
a) Scrap all military alliances with any foreign power. Pull Canada out of NATO and NORAD and all interventionist forces.
b) Scrap all other economic and political alliances, treaties, agreements, preferential tariffs and concessions with any foreign power.
c) Develop mutually beneficial trade and cultural and scientific exchanges with all countries (except the imperialist superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, and the states with fascist regimes) on the basis of equality and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.
d) Support me struggles of all peoples fighting for independence, freedom, democracy, progress and emancipation from imperialism and reaction.
e) Oppose all unjust, predatory and imperialist wars of aggression and intervention.
6. To establish a People’s Republic and a Workers’ and Small Farmers’ Government. Only a People’s Republic will concentrate the people’s power and sovereignty in a centralist government, a Workers’ and Small Farmers’ Government, a popular government where those who are the producers of the wealth will be the masters of the wealth, where those who legislate also lead in executing and administering, whose members are elected by the people by secret ballot, are subject to recall by the people at any time by the demand of the majority of the electors, and who are paid workman’s wages.
7. To reorganize the judicial system where those who are the judges and officials of the judicial system are elected by secret ballot and are subject to recall by the people at any time by the demand of the majority of the electors, and are paid workman’s wages.
8. To punish all traitors to the country and those who have committed crimes against the people and provide them with no rights whatsoever. To redress all the wrongs committed against those who have been unjustly persecuted by the reactionary governments and who have suffered at the hands of the rich.
The main economic tasks of the proletariat to end the crisis are:
1. To expropriate monopoly capital and imperialist property without any compensation and to end the domination of Canada by U.S. imperialism or by any other foreign power;
2. To declare all foreign debts, mortgages, bonds, etc., null and void, whether contracted by the state, its agencies or expropriated monopoly enterprises. To declare all stocks, bonds, debts, mortgages, etc., held by the Canadian financial oligarchy in foreign countries null and void, and declare all income from such sources illegal. To declare all consumer debts incurred by the workers and broad masses of the people to financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, mortgage companies, etc.) null and void. All mortgages on real property shall be turned over to the state and a policy of rent shall be established by the government. To prohibit the importation of foreign capital through investments, credits, “aid”, loans, joint ventures or in any other form.
3. To declare all concessions, royalties, extra-territorial rights enjoyed by foreign and native monopolies, multinationals and foreign states null and void and revert all land, mines and forests, oil and natural gas, waters, and other resources presently held by the crown, the monopolies or finance capital to the state as common property of the nation inalienable and sovereign. Land and other property of the farmers and petty producers shall be protected, but no land shall be subject to sale or be the object of speculation. Land for personal use shall remain in the family and can only be sold to the state at prices determined by the government. All monopoly-held lands shall be expropriated whether in country or city. To nationalize all banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions, trade and commerce, transportation and communication, electric power, health, welfare and education.
4. To provide full employment and job security, forty-hour week and proper working conditions and a guaranteed income after retirement.
5. To ensure equal pay for equal work according to the principle of: From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.
6. To ensure the planned, all-sided development of the economy for the benefit of the people, on the basis of self-reliance.
7. To introduce a graduated system of taxation whereby the people are taxed according to their means.
The main social and cultural tasks of the proletariat to end the crisis are:
1. To provide proper living conditions.
2. To provide full social insurance and care for the people and for all forms of disablement, including the disablement caused by sickness, injury, infirmity, old age, occupational disease and industrial accidents, and childbirth.
3. To eliminate all discrimination against women, provide facilities for the care and upbringing of children, and create conditions for the all-sided and full development and participation of women in all aspects of the life of the society.
4. To provide full facilities for the cultural, physical and spiritual development of the youth.
5. To provide universal and free secular education which is closely integrated with socially productive work.
6. To develop the new culture based on progress and science which upholds the lofty ideals of genuine independence, democracy and progress against imperialism, fascism and reaction.