Beruflich Dokumente
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CPS Open Letter to the Communist Party of
Canada Central Executive Committee and
Central Committee
The time is now upon us all for the unity of purpose of all
Communists and their supporters
By: Don Currie
Chair Canadians for Peace and Socialism
Editor Focus on Socialism
September 12, 2010
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca
Canadians for Peace & Socialism
Box 168 Slocan BC
V0G 2C0
1 250 355 2669
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca
editor@FocusOnSocialism.ca
September 12, 2010
To: The Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada
Central Committee, Communist Party of Canada
Copy: Members, Canadians for Peace and Socialism
Dear Comrades
How to speak in a constructive way with the leadership of the Communist Party of Canada
(CPC) has become a problem. There is apparently no means that we can discover that is
acceptable or that actually elicits a response. As former members and present day
supporters of the Communist Party, we believe it is important for the leadership of the Party
to address this problem.
Following a period of frank exchange of correspondence between CPS and the CEC and
direct discussions between myself and Miguel Figueroa as well as discussions between the
late Bill Stewart and myself during the time when Bill and Dora and Sylvia and I all worked
together in the peace movement in South Central BC, CPS believed we had made a turn to a
more collaborative relationships with the CPC. During that time, statements of CPS were
published in People’s Voice. May Day Greetings from CPS were accepted by People’s Voice.
In the lead up to the 35th Convention, CPS participated in the CPC pre‐convention discussion
and attended as observers. During the Convention we participated, along with CPC
delegates from across Canada in the Convention sub‐committee on Peace work, under the
chair of Darrel Rankin. Out of that experience members of CPS and CPC worked together to
re‐establish the Canadian Peace Congress.
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In the lead up to the 36th Convention our contributions to pre‐convention discussion were
suppressed without explanation. Faced with that fact we saw no useful purpose to request
to attend as observers.
CPS has its own history. That history is well known to some members of the CPC and not
known at all by others. Some members of the Communist Party of Canada are hostile to CPS
as I pointed out in a recent communication to the CEC and CC of the CPC. I have supplied to
General Secretary Miguel Figueroa all of the relevant information I have on that incident. The
incident in my opinion is symptomatic of an infantilism that is harmful to the CPC.
As it is now, CPS members are on the one hand engaged in frank discussions and work
together with members of the CPC in the Canadian Peace Congress while other members of
the Party viciously attack us and disparage our efforts.
We are firmly of the belief that this on again off again relationship is not helpful to the cause
of peace and socialism. There is, in our opinion, the need for normalization of relationships
between the Party and not only CPS, but with all of the Party’s peripheral support. That
problem needs to be addressed and solved so that we may all agree on the basis for joint
work. Such an improved situation requires an initiative by the Party leadership. It is not
something CPS can do.
If the CPC sees no benefit of joint work then it should say so frankly and publically so that
CPC supporters such as CPS can determine how to proceed.
We take the view that the time is now upon us all for the unity of purpose of all Communists
and their supporters to be expressed and concretely. We all feel the sense of urgency to
strengthen our ranks.
Canada and its people are confronted with an all‐sided assault by extreme right wing
reaction that threatens the unity of the country making it more vulnerable to the plans of
foreign and domestic capital and that will drag the country and our youth further into
militarism and war.
The Communists must confront that assault in a more effective way and champion the
peaceful economic development of our country. Canadians, by and large, are ready for and
support such a vision of Canada.
Let us consider Canadian capitalist class politics as it is at the moment and as it will likely
unfold in the foreseeable future.
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The 66th Session of Parliament will take place on September 20th 2010. The extreme‐right
wing minority Harper Conservative Government will compete with the Liberal, NDP and Bloc
opposition as to which party of the profit system can best manage a crisis ridden capitalist
economy in the interests of a dwindling but powerful minority of wealth and privilege, which
we Communists define as finance‐capital and its beneficiaries.
Each of the leaders of the Parliamentary parties will stand in their places in the House on the
20th and appeal to their core supporters to mobilize at the constituency level around
programs that claim to be in the interests of all but are essentially in the interests of finance
capital.
Not a single parliamentary opposition party, including the NDP, will say the obvious, that an
anti‐monopoly people’s program is required. Only the Communists can say forthrightly that
there are no classless economic solutions for the people of Canada. A Communist program is
required that places proposals before the labouring masses of Canada, that if implemented,
can lead to changing the system in favour of the vital economic and political interests of the
people. We say forthrightly that such a program can only be at the expense of finance
capital and its beneficiaries.
Regardless of when the next federal election occurs, it will take place in the midst of an all‐
sided political and economic crisis of the capitalist system, both internally and globally that
shows no signs of abating. The people’s resistance to that crisis will grow. The people’s
resistance will grow because the crisis factors fall most heavily on the working class and
rural poor. The crisis lowers the standards of living and disrupts the peace and well being of
the majority of Canadian people.
Workers, who must sell their labour‐power to live, people who labour in agriculture and
must have markets to survive can’t escape the effects of:
• chronic mass unemployment;
• disintegration of state programs benefiting the people;
• falling purchasing power;
• anarchistic regional expansion and contraction in the economy;
• foreign takeovers of vital Canadian industries and resources;
• monstrous parasitism and excess profiteering by privileged class interests;
• finance capitalist plunder of the state budget;
• extra‐parliamentary rule by corporate elites;
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• expansion of militarism and war by US‐NATO planners.
The purpose of all of the political parties in the House of Commons including the NDP is to
offer to the Canadian people a variant of proposals to manage the crisis of capitalist
economic development, not resolve it. The Communists understand this and are called upon
to place that reality more sharply before the Canadian people.
There is only one political party in Canada that can speak clearly and fearlessly about
resolving the crisis and its impact on the working people of Canada and that party is the
Communist Party of Canada. The Communist Party of Canada is able to do that for one
fundamental reason ‐ the CPC is the expression of the world outlook of the working class
and is guided by the science of Marxism‐Leninism. How well it fulfills that role is not the
exclusive preserve of any leadership of the Communist Party. It can only be done with the
active engagement and support of the Canadian working class.
The Communist Party of Canada is the creation of the Canadian working class. Leaders come
and go, but the Party if it is to live and grow in influence among Canadians at large, must
always turn to its class for verification of the correctness of its program, line, and actions.
The Party must reach out to its supporters and combat any and all expressions of leadership
infallibility which we believe continues to plague the Party and its work.
To fulfill its role, the Communist Party of Canada must at each stage of its development
measure up to the historic responsibilities imposed upon it. There is only one way to do
that; to test its policies and program in practice. To accomplish that task the Party must
become engaged in national politics at a much higher level than it is at present.
Moving national politics to the centre of attention of all of the Party leadership and
members at every level of its organization and inviting its supporters to participate in that
discussion is essential for the CPC to make its program known and a topic of discussion
amongst the Canadian people. That is what most of the Communist Parties in our
international movement are presently doing and so must we.
The Communist Party is called upon to go beyond the comfort of denouncing the parties of
capitalism, for the benefit of its own members, who already know that truth, and for its
leaders to become actually engaged in the public struggle to defeat those parties.
To fulfill that task the Communists must have a plan to do that:
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1. The Communist Party must organize its own mass organizations of labour, peace,
women and youth that are rooted in the struggles of the working class of Canada.
Such organizations must have their own public leaders and programs, and derive
inspiration and strength by acting in solidarity with the internationalist campaigns,
congresses and discourse of the organizations of the International Communist
movement. Specifically such organizations must act in concert with the International
Communist and Workers Parties (ICWP) represented at international congresses and
as reported on Solident, the World Peace Council (WPC) the World Federation of
Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), and the
Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF). If such organizations were
present it would correctly situate the members of the Communist Party of Canada in
the organized labour, peace and democratic and mass movements of the people of
Canada and enable them to participate in the most effective way. Without this vital
prerequisite, the Communists are dissolved in the mass movements and confined to
carrying water for these movements which presently are led by a variety of social
reformist leaders and programs.
2. The Communist Party of Canada, in line with its decision at its 36th Convention to
urgently accelerate the work of deepening the theoretical and ideological strength of
the Party, if it is serious, must settle on the single task that enables it to do that
concretely. The obvious and necessary way to do that is to organize a public,
discussion of the Communist Party of Canada Program which in many respects has
been overtaken by historical developments since 2000 and is in urgent need of
critical review and updating. Such a project, involving the membership and
supporters in the lead up to the 90th Anniversary in 2011 of the founding of the Party
and in preparation for its 37th Convention would bring about the real necessary
improvements in the theoretical and ideological work of the Party so urgently
required. Such a discussion, well planned, organized and publicized would overcome
the current state of political voluntarism, where the Party and its most active
members function more like a collection of collectives than a united Leninist party of
a new type. In the absence of public discussion organized by the Party such
discussion is being taken out of the hands of the Party and unfolds in a variety of non‐
Party venues. CPS has appealed on several occasions for the creation of a Marxist‐
Leninist theoretical pole, a clearly identified centre for organized Communist
discussion, where party and non‐member supporters can engage in political
discussions that have no other purpose than to strengthen the Communist Party and
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its work. We believe that is best done around a Program Discussion. We have
appealed publicly for such a step to be taken and repeat our appeal now and re‐state
our interest in working with the Party on such a project.
3. The Communist Party of Canada, by undertaking a deliberate struggle to strengthen
the theoretical and programmatic content of its work, will create the necessary
conditions among its members and supporters for an all‐round improvement in its
overall political activity. Uplifting the public work of the Communist Party is the only
way it can fulfill its historic responsibilities to the working class at this time and into
the future.
4. The public work of the Communist Party of Canada is currently centred on
participation in federal and provincial and municipal elections. That is in accord with
Canadian political tradition and will remain so into the foreseeable future so long as
the bourgeois democratic freedoms continue to exist. There is no guarantee that will
always be the case. For the present, elections are one of the most important ways of
gauging class strength, and speaking to the Canadian working people. The tactics of
electoral politics requires the Communists to clearly define their position in relation
to all other parties. Electoral tactics requires that the Party act on every opportunity
that arises to defeat the main enemy of the people, which the Party correctly
identifies at this stage to be the extreme right wing as represented by the minority
Harper Conservatives. The theory that Communists enter electoral politics to show
the flag is wrong. It is much more than that. Electoral politics is an important arena
of class struggle that requires us to be there at all times. We have addressed this
matter with our proposals to the Party leadership on many occasions such as the
possibilities that arose for a Parliamentary defeat of Harper and now with our
proposals as to how we believe we should act as a Party to expose and prevent an
Israeli‐US‐NATO attack on Iran.
5. The Party has much to do to improve its tactical responses to the complexities of
capitalist politics. The means by which the Party can develop correct tactics is to
consistently deepen the working class content of its political program. There has
been much improvement on that task since the 34th Convention and much more can
be done. A Communist program of political action must start with those issues the
working class itself is posing. The working class because of the class collaborationist
role of the reformist leadership of organized labour is hobbled and discouraged from
advancing its demands through independent rank and file political action. Labour
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leaders are being forced into action by the struggles of workers engaged in strikes,
confronting mass unemployment, loss of pensions and benefits, plant closures, anti‐
union attacks and anti‐labour legislation. Pressure on leaders accustomed to business
unionism is not the answer to transform organized labour into a powerful force for
political change. As the Party’s analysis of the Vale Inco strike correctly points out,
the level of solidarity must be raised to new heights. A new militant leadership is
required. That requires a political change inside organized labour. What must the
Party do to help bring that change about? What the Party needs to consider is how
to speak to that rank and file activist core that is the future of organized labour, and
as it did in the past, create the organizational, propaganda and agitational means to
get there. We are convinced that the first step in that process is for the Communists
to assign an active trade unionist, not a Party functionary, but an employed worker,
to that task and provide the necessary support with the express purpose of creating,
however modest, an organized voice for militant rank and file action, clearly
identified as having the full support of the Communist Party and openly identified
with the WFTU.
6. The possibilities that exist for the work of the Canadian Peace Congress and the
promotion in Canada of the work of the WPC are not being fully realized. That
problem needs to be addressed.
7. The Young Communist League is making advances of the type that need to be
duplicated in many of the areas of Party work in particular its upcoming convention
and the promotion in Canada among working class and student youth of the work of
the WFDY.
8. A women’s organization of the type of the Canadian Congress of Women (CCW) and
adapted to the current stage of women’s struggles is a necessity.
CPS has much it would like to speak about with the leadership of the CPC on these and
other matters relating to how the Communists can strengthen the struggle for peace
and socialism in our time. We appeal once again for the CEC to consider what can be
done to broaden and deepen the discussion with its support base.
We are convinced that the answer to these questions lies in bringing together
Communists and their supporters through organized discussions in our respective
publications and websites, and or creating the venues that can do that. Above all, we
favour all‐in participation at Communist sponsored and organized meetings,
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conferences, seminars around key problems of the class struggle. God knows, there are
enough of these types of events organized by the radicalized left that exclude
Communists, or occasionally where Communists seem to appear in a cameo role.
We in CPS are convinced that for the Canadian Communist movement to move forward
we must begin to call upon our own history, that, with respect to the new forces that
now lead the Party, did not start in 1990. Our history is 90 years, not as some mistakenly
believe, twenty years.
We need to reach into the fullness of the experience of the Communist Party of Canada
over the decades, for inspiration as to how to prepare ourselves for a deeper
engagement of our Party in the class politics of the 21st century.
We all have a responsibility to address that problem and to take personal responsibility
for finding the solutions.
It is in that spirit and with that task in mind that we are sending this letter to the CEC.
Comradely,
Don Currie, Chair Canadians for Peace and Socialism
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