Objectivity, Truth, Party Spirit

Danny Goldstick

Figures don't lie. But liars figure. I first heard these words as an impressionable fifteen‑year‑old, but they ring true still.

Spark readers don't need to be told that distortion of reality can be at its most pronounced precisely when the biggest show of "objectivity" is being put on. There are plenty of outright lies, of course, but very often the slant consists in omitting or just de‑emphasizing key points that would be apt to undermine the interpretation of reality on offer. In fact there is sufficient undisputed information available to rationally answer, at least in large measure, most of the hotly contested questions around these days. But available doesn't mean readily available, especially for working people. Despite the tons of pure garbage out there, the internet has really helped to make facts and ideas more accessible today to honest inquirers; but tracking down the truth can take quite hard work.

Most often, however, you do not actually have to be an expert to arrive at a rational conclusion about things. As a member of the jury, so to speak, you can hear what the rival experts and advocates have to say, and make your own decision concerning them. The question is not, whom can you trust? Trust right from the start isn't necessary. After initially sizing things up, you may learn to trust some voices more than others. But no voice, obviously, deserves absolute trust.

And of course it is a mistake to try to short‑circuit the process of sorting out claims, counterclaims and reasons by blindly "finding" the truth half‑way between the opposed positions. Even when there only are two opposed positions. Did the truth lie half‑way between the position of Darwin and that of his opponents? Did it lie half‑way between Adolf Hitler and those, on the other hand, who criticized his ideas?

Back to the subject of slanting. Certainly sometimes it is deliberate. The media pay people to present things in a definite way. But dominant viewpoints do not have to rely on deliberate distortion. They can see to it that contrary conceptions and those holding them are "filtered out", with the result that most of the voices which do get a hearing will have been so selected, in effect, that even without any conscious dishonesty they will be most liable to leave conventional conceptions more or less undisturbed. Is bias, though, in the end unavoidable? Nobody can give an account of anything, after all, without being selective: inevitably some things will be emphasized in any account, some things just mentioned, and some things will be left out altogether. And, whoever you are (insofar as you are being honest about it), your account of things will exercise this inevitable selectivity according to what you consider to be important and unimportant; and that, of course, will depend on what view of things you take.

Nikita Khrushchev once said, "There are neutral countries, but no neutral persons." There can be countries, that is to say, that avoid permanently taking sides on divisive international issues; but no individual with half a brain can be at all involved in any issue without having opinions about it.

So where does this leave truth, and objectivity? Obviously, if there is no such thing as either of these, or if they are not humanly attainable ‑‑ at least in part, at least tentatively ‑‑ then sifting arguments and evidence will be quite pointless. Those fashionable philosophies which simply rule truth and objectivity out are in fact serving, whether consciously or not, to shield the most bare‑faced dogmatism. Objectivity can indeed be difficult, but in speaking of Marxism as scientific, just that is what is being demanded.

By "objectivity" I don't mean neutrality, I mean a receptiveness to reality such that what conceptions get held will correspond predominantly to how things actually are. At that rate, objectivity is something which can be present to a lesser or to a greater degree ‑‑ surely never perfectly in any inquiry conducted by living, breathing human beings. In scientific inquiry, however, objectivity is always a goal. Nobody, indeed, comes to a research project with a really empty head. The mix of information and misinformation inquirers start off with can contribute effectively to the objectivity of their inquiry, or else stand in the way of it. The important thing, for a scientist, is to remain open to facts and arguments which may necessitate a change in how things are to be seen.

It must be admitted, though, that political people on our side too have sometimes outrageously prided themselves on their lack of objectivity ‑‑ most often not too publicly, for obvious reasons. But the results have frequently been disastrous ‑‑ and that includes the loss of public credibility which contributed to the largely unresisted collapse of so many pro‑socialist states fifteen years ago. Here at home, the dominant side ideologically has all the advantages its controlling position offers it, and our side of the debate has only the advantage of truth, to the extent we do have that, and do not let ourselves throw it away.

This is the place to quote Frederick Engels. In the year following Marx's death, his French son-in-law Paul Lafargue had written asking for Engels' comments on an article Lafargue was preparing for the Journal des économistes. In his response, Engels wrote,

"Marx would protest against `the political and social ideal' attributed to him by you. When one is an economist, `a man of science', one does not have an ideal, one elaborates scientific results, and when one is, to boot, a party man, one fights to put them into practice. But when one has an ideal, one cannot be a man of science, having, as one then does, preconceived ideas."¹

At least three issues call for our attention here. In the first place, Engels is not going to deny that Marx had a political and social objective, but he is sure Marx would protest against being said to have a political and social ideal. What's the difference? Secondly, Engels would not suggest that anyone really can or should start a scientific investigation empty‑headed, but he does object to starting with "preconceived ideas". Again, what's the difference? It appears that starting off with preconceived ideas has something to do with having an ideal, as Engels sees it. Then, thirdly, Engels speaks here of a party man like Marx fighting to put scientific results into practice. Just what does he mean by that?

Let's take the third problem first. According to a certain school of thought, scientific results are not the sort of things that ever could be put into practice, because scientific results can only reveal what a situation is, not what it ought to be, nor what to do about it. According to this school of thought, it is impossible to "derive 'ought' from 'is'" scientifically: so if, when you speak, you want your words not merely to say what is but to say what to do, you will have to depart from science and phrase your order, recommendation or entreaty in the imperative grammatically, or use some such word as the English word "ought". All that is what that school of thought says.

And just this much of that is indeed true. It is only "ought"‑statements or imperatives that it makes sense to talk of "fighting to put into practice".² But must we agree with the denial that "deriving an `ought' from an `is'" can ever be rational and scientific? Is it so surprising that Frederick Engels, for one, should have thought the need to replace capitalism with socialism was scientifically established by capitalism's demonstrable responsibility for the persistence of war, poverty, ignorance and other forms of human indignity and suffering, and the fact that socialism, on the other hand, would make it possible to end national and gender inequality, progressively develop human potential in both labour and culture to unprecedented levels, enable people generally to become for the first time masters of their own lives, individually and collectively, and thereby open the door to the further development of human emancipation in what Marx had referred to as a "higher phase of communist society"?³ Bourgeois social‑scientific orthodoxy, it is true, strenuously denies that even the full scientific admission of these or any other sociological facts would rationally compel a scientist to acknowledge the ethical superiority of socialism to capitalism. Is there any reason, though, why we should take seriously such narrow conceptions of rationality and of science as these clearly are? Most certainly for their part, Marx and Engels had no use for such conceptions.

Contrary to the dictates of today's dominant social‑scientific methodology, Marx and Engels' descriptions of conditions do contain plenty of unconcealed "value-judgments" against what is inhuman, atrocious and disgraceful, for example. What you do not find in their writings is explanations of developments by reference to their value or disvalue. The facts about conditions and developments that make them have value or disvalue from an ethical point of view are what do the causing of that which takes place ‑‑ including, of course, by making people react at different times with favorable or unfavorable value‑judgements. Unanticipated misery in certain circumstances can give rise to resistance, for instance; but it isn't necessary, in order to complete the explanation of the effect produced, to add that human misery really is a bad thing. And it surely is pretty obvious that justice and injustice themselves (as opposed to people's judgements about what is just and unjust) explain nothing at all of what takes place in the course of events. As a causative element in events justice is a purely imaginary factor. Marx and Engels are both quite insistent on the need to keep the concept of justice out of economic explanations. Especially "eternal justice".

Here is Marx (writing in his second footnote in chapter 2 of Capital, Volume I):

"What opinion should we have of a chemist, who, instead of studying the actual laws of the molecular changes in the composition and decomposition of matter, and on that foundation solving definite problems, claimed to regulate the composition and decomposition of matter by means of the `eternal ideas', of `naturalité' and `affinité'?"⁴

Or, again, Engels (writing in The Housing Question (1873)):

"While in everyday life, in view of the simplicity of the relations discussed, expressions like right, wrong, justice, and sense of right are accepted without misunderstanding even with reference to social matters, they create ... the same hopeless confusion in any scientific investigation of economic relations as would be created, for instance, in modern chemistry if the terminology of the phlogiston theory were to be retained. The confusion becomes worse if one, like Proudhon, believes in this social phlogiston, `justice' ...."⁵

("Phlogiston" was an imaginary substance which eighteenth‑century chemistry held was released by burning matter.)

On the other hand, we find Marx in Capital, Volume I, forecasting a day "when the practical relations of every‑day life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to Nature".⁶ If people's relations with one another can indeed be reasonable or rational, or else be otherwise, then human rationality need not be necessarily at a loss, after all, when it comes to passing judgement on social relations.

And Engels (in Anti-Dühring, Part I, chapter 9), after emphasizing strongly the tentative and conditional character of scientific laws in physics and chemistry, let alone in biology, let alone in the "historical sciences", and stressing too the inevitable variation in moral standards over the course of history as human social conditions change, and after emphatically rejecting on account of that "any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law"⁷ ‑‑ after all this, Engels immediately adds, though, that "there has on the whole been progress in morality, as in all other branches of human knowledge".⁸ Morality thus counts as a branch of human knowledge in Engels' view, like chemistry: its propositions imperfect, conditional and never final, just like chemistry's propositions, but capable of amounting to knowledge nonetheless.

If that is really the case, what is unscientific then, from Marx and Engels' standpoint, about having an "ideal" or having "preconceived ideas". (Engels' phrase could also be translated, having a bias in advance.) In their first joint work, The German Ideology (1846), Marx and Engels wrote,

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things."⁹

Thirty-eight years later, two months after the letter he wrote to Paul Lafargue, Engels contributed a Preface to the first German edition of Marx's (1847) Poverty of Philosophy. In it Engels sharply criticized the economist Johann Karl Rodbertus, critic of capitalism though he was, for moving

"in the direction of utopia. Thereby he surrendered the first condition of all criticism ‑- freedom from bias. He worked on towards a goal fixed in advance, he became a Tendenzökonom."¹⁰

(The editors of the English Collected Works have chosen to leave the word "Tendenzökonom" untranslated. Could we say, perhaps, that what this means here is, an economist attached to some (ideological) tendency -- and so unable to follow freely wherever the evidence points?)

The 1848 Communist Manifesto criticized the utopian socialists in these terms:

"Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action, historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and the gradual, spontaneous class organisation of the proletariat to an organisation of society specially contrived by these inventors."¹¹

So what Marx and Engels considered unscientific and politically diversionary about uptopianism was the way it started with a preconceived ideal to which "reality would have to adjust itself" instead of scientifically basing itself upon "historically created conditions". The actual revolutionary process based upon historically created conditions involves mass movements of real human individuals as they actually are in whatever countries a revolution is occurring in. The gap between utopian fantasy and the inevitably messy, imperfect and sometimes tragic history of real revolutionary movements of the oppressed can readily lead to two opposite unscientific reactions on the part of nonparticipants. In the light of their preconceived ideal, utopian‑minded observers in another country may idolize the revolution and more‑or‑less wilfully blind their eyes to actual realities ‑‑ which might not, however, be so easy to discern in fact amid the barrage of lying propaganda that naturally gets hurled at the revolution by reactionary interests. Amid the mass of lies denying the revolution's genuine achievements, it may take some digging to see that not all criticisms of events in the ongoing revolution are pure lies. This kind of utopian error results from uncritical enthusiasm. But it can lead later, as we know, to a massive emotional let‑down and loss of political bearings.

Can there be anything worse politically than uncritical revolutionary enthusiasm? There certainly can be. What about the stand‑offish utopian purism which individuals proud of their "independent‑mindedness" can use to explain to themselves remaining high "above the struggle" either inside the country in revolutionary turmoil or else comfortably outside it? Flawed as a real revolution may be, the result cannot compare, the record shows, to the real human disaster of counterrevolution.

Referring to the crimes of European colonialism, which nonetheless amid its atrocities was creating a modern working class overseas, Marx wrote in the New-York Daily Tribune for August 8, 1853:

"When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, ... then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain."¹²

______________

Endnotes:

1. Engels' actual words in French were:

"Marx protesterait contre <<l'idéal politique et social>> économique que vous lui attribuez. Quand on est <<homme de science>>, l'on n'a pas d'idéal, on élabore des résultats scientifiques, et quand on est homme de parti en outre, on combat pour les mettre en pratique. Mais quand on a un idéal, on ne peut être homme de science, car on a un parti pris d'avance."

A slightly different English translation from the one given here is in Karl Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works, Volume 47, page 183.

2. I originally wrote this sentence for an article, "Objectivity and Moral Commitment in the World‑View of Marx and Engels", in the Spring 1983 issue of the Marxist journal Science and Society (Volume 47, No.1, pages 84-91); but the doubtless well‑intentioned editor(s) mutilated what I wrote into "It is only "ought" - statements or imperatives that give meaning to talk of 'fighting to put into practice'" (page 85). Any readers of both articles that there may chance to be will be able to see what else this article owes to that one.

3. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme. Collected Works, Volume 24, page 87.

4. Collected Works, Volume 35, page 95-96.

5. Collected Works, Volume 23, page 381-382.

6. Collected Works, Volume 35, page 90. "Perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations" -- "durchsichtig vernünftige Beziehungen" in Marx's German -- literally: "transparent, rational relations".

7. Collected Works, Volume 25, page 87.

8. Ibid., page 88.

9. Collected Works, Volume 5, page 49.

10. Collected Works, Volume 26, page 290.

11. Collected Works, Volume 6, page 515.

12. Marx's article, "The Future Results of British Rule in India", Collected Works, Volume 12, page 222. Note the absence of quotation marks around the word "progress".

Spark #19, Summer 2007

Editorial Comment

Danny Goldstick

It ought to have been mentioned here before this, but the year 2004 marked a milestone for Marx-Engels studies in the English-speaking world with the publication of the 658-page fiftieth and last volume in the English-language Karl Marx Frederick Engels Collected Works, begun over thirty years earlier as a Moscow-London-New York collaborative project. Over those years this international co-operative effort was not without its strains, but it soldiered on throughout, in spite of unexpected developments like the banning of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the management buy-out of the London publisher Lawrence and Wishart.

Some of the material published was in fact written by Marx and Engels in the English language originally. A further sizable fraction had previously been translated. But over half was being put into English for the first time. And even the existing translations could not be just reissued unrevised. As anybody who has ever had anything to do with it knows, translation is one of the black arts. Experts will not ever stop debating what is the best way to render a given phrase.

It isn't that issues of translation here give rise to disagreements over what Marx and Engels' basic ideas were, for the most part. But differences in translation can make a difference still.

A widely used English version of the 1848 Communist Manifesto, for example, says that "the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to establish democracy" – meaning, rule by the toiling majority of the people. Instead of the phrase "to establish democracy", Volume 6 of the Collected Works has "to win the battle of democracy" (page 504). The explanation is that in the original German Marx used a word derived from the verb "erkämpfen", to gain by fighting.

All of the Collected Works volumes contain quite a few pages of explanatory footnotes. Volumes 28 through 37 are devoted just to Capital and related economic writings by Marx, of which only the first volume of Capital (Volume 35 of the Collected Works) saw its way into print during Marx's own lifetime. Volumes 1 through 27 are filled with other writings by Marx and Engels, and Volumes 38 through 50 are reserved for the very interesting letters which they wrote, especially to each other. Economics, philosophy, politics and personalities – all get discussed in those letters. The two friends are not afraid to express disagreements with each other – as scientists do – with the object of strengthening through discussion their joint grasp of reality.

The last four volumes, dating from the period between Marx's death in 1883 and Engels' passing in 1895, are for letters written just by Engels, of course. Not everybody knows that during a visit to the United States Engels took a quick trip through Canada in September 1888, crossing over at Niagara Falls and proceeding through Toronto, Kingston and Montreal before returning to New York. By this country as it was in 1888 Engels was not at all impressed, it is fair to say:

"The transition from the States to Canada is a curious one. First of all you imagine yourself back in Europe and then you feel you're in a land that is positively retrogressing and going to rack and ruin. Here you can see how essential the Americans' feverish spirit of speculation is to the rapid development of a new country (given capitalist production as its basis). In ten years this sleepy Canada will be ripe for annexation – by which time the farmers in Manitoba, etc., will be demanding it themselves." (Volume 48, page 213)

Most of us reading these words, written from Montreal on September 10, 1888, will be glad Engels turned out to be wrong about that. But how do any of us feel about our casual comments getting scrutinized a century or so from now? People's letters have long been an invaluable resource for historians; however, since the advent of the telephone and now the Internet, many have worried that little of this kind of material will be available in the future. The problem, as far as it exists, is less, of course, for those on the receiving end of either "electronic surveillance" or more old-fashioned intelligence gathering, at the taxpayers' expense.

One eye-opening afternoon early in 1962 I had an interesting look at the contents of the Communist Party of Canada's Toronto filing cabinets, which had been seized just as they were in connection with the 1931 prosecution of "Tim Buck et al" under section 98 of the criminal code (subsequently repealed under popular pressure). The entire files, still tied up with red tape, had later been moved from the office of the Ontario Attorney General to the Provincial Archives. As a fellow student doing a history M.A. commented to me at the time, these papers did show that the CPC was certainly the most internally democratic of all the Canadian political parties at the beginning of the thirties.

In the ensuing criminal trial of 1931, which led to the conviction and Penitentiary imprisonment of Tim Buck and seven others, the presiding judge formally addressed the jury and said: "Here the evidence would appear to indicate, if you accept it, that this Communist party divides the people of Canada into two classes. … In a democratic country … is it a just, proper and lawful thing to set one of these classes against the other?"

This certainly reminds us of the effort being made in Europe today to vilify and criminalize the very idea of communism for "inciting class hatred". And parallel charges are often made against Islam. The contemporary accusers, of course, are all other-cheek-turning Christians!

To criticize the domination of Canada by a class of people really doesn't necessarily mean that the members of that class are all hateful individuals personally – though a number of individual capitalists certainly are, and the capitalist system certainly is. To contest and ultimately break the power of the capitalist class in Canada, that is our sworn objective. Without their power, the capitalists will cease by degrees to form a class at all. Only when all danger of capitalist restoration has permanently passed will the workers' militant class consciousness cease to be essential for real democracy. If democracy means the rule of the majority over the minority, our society will from then on be a post-democratic one.

Canada’s Place in the Imperialist System, and the Struggle for Sovereignty and an Independent Foreign Policy of Peace and Disarmament

Presented by Kimball Cariou, editor of People's Voice and member of the Central Executive Committee CPC, at the seminar on "Anti-Imperialism and Peace," June 25, 2006, Vancouver, British Columbia.

My presentation today is largely based on some earlier work by comrade Miguel Figueroa, leader of the Communist Party of Canada. Together with Miguel, I have added some comments in regard to issues being debated within the anti-war movement in the new context of the Harper Conservative minority government.

The CPC has a long history of involvement in the anti-war struggles. Our party was formed in 1921 by representatives of the socialist movements in North America which were most strongly opposed to participation in the First World War, which saw millions of European workers slaughter each other for the sake of the competing colonial ambitions of their masters. Ever since that time, the Communist Party has played an important role in the movements against war and for peace and disarmament. During the most difficult years of the Cold War, the Communists, along with some left-oriented social democrats, were virtually the only political force campaigning against the imperialist domination of the US and the European colonial powers.

Even at the present, when our Party is quite small, we place a high priority on building a broad and powerful struggle against imperialist war, from local grassroots coalitions to alliances on a country-wide and international scale.

To give just a couple of local examples, the Communist Party was one of the very first organizations to affiliate to the StopWar coalition here in Vancouver. We were deeply involved in the Coalition of Progressive Electors, whose elected officials took the initiative to launch the World Peace Forum. On a country-wide scale, we were among the groups which built the Canadian Peace Congress, and which helped to launch the Canadian Peace Alliance during the 1980s. We have been among those political forces which aim to build up mass opposition to the occupation of Iraq and Palestine, and to resist Canada's shameful role in the occupation of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Haiti.

I want to speak about some of this context first, and then deal briefly with the theoretical issues faced by the peace movement.

Two months ago, on the third anniversary of the U.S.‑led invasion of Iraq, protests were organized around the world, including in over thirty cities and towns across Canada. With the dangers to peace multiplying, Canada's peace movement is faced with the necessity to redouble our efforts to block this country's tilt towards support for U.S. imperialism.

The election of the minority Conservative government is a dangerous development, directly counter to the interests of the majority of people in Canada.

In recent years, Canada has participated in a number of imperialist aggressions, violating the fundamental, democratic principles of international law: Iraq (enforcing sanctions, 1990 to 2003), Somalia (1992), Bosnia (1993 to present), Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2001 to present) and Haiti (2004 to present).

Prior to this period, Canada projected an image as a "neutral" party in world affairs. Canada was clearly on the same side as the United States, but we were usually seen as "peacekeepers" rather than participants in military actions. Under enormous pressure from the peace movement, particularly in Quebec, the Chrétien government declined to take part in the invasion of Iraq, a move which temporarily restored this tarnished image.

Overall, however, this more aggressive recent trend emerged following the serious setbacks to socialism in the Soviet Union and its allies, which acted as a counterweight to imperialism's constant and inherent drive for world domination.

Canada's new imperialist record has shocked many people, but it should be no surprise. Acting on behalf of Canadian banks and transnationals, and backed by the corporate media, successive federal governments have increasingly aligned Canada's foreign policy and military doctrine with that of the U.S. One important exception has been Ottawa's disagreement with the illegal U.S. economic blockade of Cuba.

Now, on a whole range of foreign policy issues, the Harper government threatens to involve Canada in ever more dangerous aggressions and war preparations.

In defiance of public opinion, the Harper government wants to reverse the 2004 decision against official participation in U.S. plans to deploy weapons in space (missile defence). With the aim of taking part in more foreign aggressions, the Harper government will increase military spending to nearly $25 billion over the next five years, up from today's $11.6 billion.

Canada's leading role in the occupation of Afghanistan is the greatest and most immediate problem confronting the peace movement. Last year the Martin Liberals – with the full support of the Harper Tories – escalated Canada's troop deployment to Afghanistan into the largest foreign operation in fifty years. Last month, on just 36 hours notice, the Conservatives pushed through a Parliamentary vote to extend the Afghan mission for two more years. But the vote was just 149-145, thanks largely to a last minute campaign by anti-war groups to flood MPs with e-mail messages.

This struggle will continue despite the Parliamentary vote, and it will almost certainly escalate as two things happen: more Canadian troops will suffer casualties in the Kandahar area, and more Afghans will be killed by the occupation forces. The battle to win "hearts and minds" over this issue is being fought here in Canada by such means as the arrests of 17 young men in Toronto, who are now facing terrorism charges. According to Harper and "Public Safety" Minister Stockwell Day, these men are already presumed guilty. We can be certain that the timing of these arrests had more to do with winning support for the Afghan mission than with any real immediate danger of a terrorist action.

This deployment has nothing to do with improving the lives of people in Afghanistan or fighting terrorism. The real purpose is to allow the U.S. to keep more of its soldiers in Iraq, and to safeguard U.S. investments, like Unocal corporation's proposed oil pipeline through Afghanistan from Central Asia. But the presence of Canadian troops in the region will make Canada an even more important target and enemy of the peoples struggling to end unjust occupations.

The seriousness of tensions in the region cannot be underestimated. The use of nuclear weapons or devastating attacks by the U.S. or another imperialist power may well provoke a far greater and widespread war with millions of casualties over many years.

Unfortunately, the Afghanistan deployment vote revealed the lack of a powerful Parliamentary opposition to the Tories' foreign and military strategy. There was plenty of talk of "supporting our troops" and "getting back to building infrastructure," but even the NDP members of parliament accepted the underlying assumption that Canada has a "responsibility to protect" the weak and powerless through the projection of our military strength. In effect, the NDP, as well as Liberal and Bloc Quebecois opponents of the war, are reluctant to challenge the imperialist nature of this occupation. This means that the peace movement must redouble our efforts to demand that Canada immediately withdraw our military forces from Afghanistan and speak out in support of sovereignty of the peoples in the Middle East. There will be stronger campaigns along these lines by many anti-war groups across Canada in the coming months, including a cross-country day of action on October 28.

There are other crucial issues faced by the peace movement today. The U.S. continues to develop and lower thresholds for the use of its massive nuclear weapons arsenal. A new round of nuclear testing is in preparation.

The Bush administration is ominously charging that Iran is building nuclear weapons, laying the groundwork for some type of military assault upon that country.

Imperialist countries are using the Hamas victory in the Palestinian Authority elections to punish the Palestinian people with starvation and sanctions, while ignoring the murderous campaigns against the Palestinians by the Israeli state.

The war on terrorism is being used by imperialism to curb civil rights, carry out racist attacks, and criminalize resistance to its domination.

All these problems are added to old global injustices, such as the impoverishment and starvation of millions of people as a result of the unjust world order of corporate globalization.

In response, the Communist Party calls for an independent foreign policy of peace and disarmament for Canada, and urges peace‑supporting left, democratic, labour and other peoples' movements to mobilize and unite in support of such policies.

In all these broad struggles, our Party has also put forward our own perspective. Some of my comments on this topic were presented at a seminar in Toronto two years ago, where comrade Figueroa engaged in debate with other left groups, such as the International Socialists, who are prominent in the Canadian Peace Alliance and in some local coalitions and campaigns. I will also deal with some controversies here in Vancouver, where the Mobilization Against War and Occupation attempts to impose narrow, divisive positions on the wider anti-war movement. The point of these debates is not to engage in sectarian attacks against other forces on the Left, but to attempt to clarify the strategies and tactics necessary to strengthen the peace movement as a whole.

First, some comments on the nature of the Canadian state. In our Party's view, Canada is an imperialist state. Chapter II of our program states explicitly:

"Canada is an imperialist country – a highly developed monopoly capitalist state. Canada has the highest level of foreign ownership amongst the imperialist countries, but it is neither a colony nor a semi‑colony. Canadian‑based transnationals participate in the exploitation of working people in other countries, and Canada is subject to the intrinsic contradictions of global capitalism."

In fact, recent statistics indicate that while foreign ownership of the Canadian economy is on the rise once again, at the same time Canadian monopoly interests are increasing their export of capital. By 1996, outward Direct Foreign Investment (DFI) from Canada to the U.S., Europe, and Asia had actually surpassed new inward foreign investment in the country. Last weekend here at the Dogwood Centre, a speaker from Montreal pointed out that even the smaller nation of Quebec has developed its own transnational capitalists, such as the giant Bombardier Corporation.

Our program goes on to state: "Canadian monopoly is more than a junior partner of U.S. imperialism; it is an integral part of the world imperialist system. Canadian monopoly interests are interwoven with those of U.S. capital and increasingly with capital from the EU and Japan."

And on the related question of who actually controls the Canadian state, our program is also explicit: "The central fact of political life in Canada is that state power is in the hands of Canadian finance capital."

In short, our Party rejects the idea that Canada is some sort of vassal state, or semi‑colony controlled by a comprador bourgeoisie – a view advanced by some others on the Left during the 1960s and '70s.

This is not to deny the colonial, dependent roots and history of the development of capitalism in Canada, and of the ruling capitalist class in this country. From early in the twentieth century onward, trade and debt dependence on Britain was gradually replaced with an even closer dependence on U.S. capital and technology. U.S.‑based capital increasingly gained control of key sectors of the Canadian economy, particularly manufacturing and natural resources. This process resulted in Canada becoming more integrated into and more dependent on the U.S. economy than any other developed capitalist country.

This relatively unique pattern of capitalist development helps to explain the contradictory relations between Canadian and U.S. capital. In earlier decades we characterized this relationship as an "antagonistic partnership." The Canadian ruling class collaborated with foreign, mainly U.S. capital, including tolerating an unusually high level of foreign ownership in an advanced capitalist state, while at the same time maintaining its control over the Canadian state apparatus and over significant parts of the domestic market - banking and finance, communications, and certain manufacturing and service industries, in particular.

This "antagonistic partnership" took shape prior to WWII, and held sway for at least the next three decades or more. It began to give way by the late 70s and early 80s with the gradual abandonment of Keynesianism in favour of monetarist and neoliberal policies by the ruling class.

As late as the 1984 general election, Brian Mulroney campaigned on a promise never to enter into a free‑trade arrangement with the U.S. After that election, following a "briefing" from the Business Council on National Issues (BCNI, now the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, CCCE), he and his Tory Government flipped 180 degrees and began to promote free trade.

Our party sums up this new orientation in this way: "Canadian monopoly has its own independent interests to protect and advance. However the dominant trend within Canadian monopoly circles today is toward economic integration and political collaboration with U.S. imperialism, and with international finance capital in general. In pursuit of maximizing profit, Canadian monopoly is prepared to sacrifice the country's economic and political sovereignty, so long as it can maintain a reasonable share of the plunder of Canada's natural resources and domestic market, while expanding access to larger U.S., hemispheric and global markets."

Simplistic theoretical constructs would suggest that a state like Canada is either an independent, imperialist body in its own right, or else that it is in a dependent, subordinate position to its much more powerful imperialist neighbour. Life is far more complex than this. Certainly, in the case of Canada, both are true.

With that, let us turn to the issue of sovereignty.

Our Party rejects the argument that somehow the fight to defend Canadian sovereignty is at best an unnecessary distraction from the class struggle against capitalism, and at worst, an unprincipled embrace of bourgeois nationalism, a rejection of working class internationalism. On the contrary, we contend that the struggle for Canadian sovereignty and independence is an essential condition and step for the advance to socialism.

Two main considerations inform our approach on this issue. The first relates to our understanding of sovereignty as a fundamentally democratic demand, and second, the importance of the struggle to defend sovereignty as part of the larger struggle against U.S. imperialism.

There is sometimes an assumption that when Communists speak of sovereignty, we are primarily referring to state sovereignty. As Communists we are not in favour of strengthening the Canadian bourgeois state. We envisage that revolutionary moment when the people begin to dismantle that oppressive capitalist state and replace it with a democratic, revolutionary state led by the working class and committed to the building of socialism.

When we speak of Canadian sovereignty, we mean the sovereignty of the Canadian people – the vast majority of whom are workers and their closest allies – and the basic democratic right of the Canadian people to determine their own future, their own destiny.

It is precisely the democratic content of national sovereignty which is under attack by finance capital – both international and domestic. This takes place under the cover of various trade and investment regimes – the so‑called "global architecture" that is being imposed on the peoples everywhere under the aegis of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the various imperialist‑controlled institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Under the terms of these pacts and agreements, the democratic rights of the people to determine their own social policies, labour and employment policies, environmental standards, etc., are being systematically stripped away. These "treaties" protect the interests of monopoly, guarantee the free mobility of capital, and virtually outlaw any possibility of public nationalizations and seizure of private assets. This is being done with the collusion of our own Canadian ruling class, and not by accident!

And yet there are still forces within the left which view the struggle against "free trade" and U.S. domination as a diversion, as a form of "tailing behind the national bourgeoisie." Such forces sharply criticize groups such as the Council of Canadians, which are considered simply "nationalist." Of course, this misses the point that it was precisely the national bourgeoisie which promoted "free trade" in the first place. Failure to condemn free trade, along with the rest of the project to integrate Canada more fully into the U.S. empire, plays into the hands of the Canadian ruling elite who want to enlist the support of the Canadian people for this sell‑out, or at least neutralize us and silence our protests.

There have been other forms of objection from the left against the struggle for sovereignty. Comrade Figueroa has related, for example, his experience at a seminar during the 1980s held by the Institute of Canada‑USA Studies in Moscow. The Soviet comrades argued that our party's position was reactionary, because economic integration is an inevitable, objective process under capitalism and that therefore we should accept and even embrace it.

Our response was that while economic integration is objectively-driven, under the prevailing monopoly capitalist conditions it exacts a heavy price primarily from working people, and that in struggling against this agenda, Canadian workers become more aware of their class interests.

Sovereignty is directly connected to the rights of nations and peoples to self‑determination. This is not a selective right reserved only for oppressed nations, or those which have already embarked on a revolutionary path. Such is the view of Movement Against War and Occupation (MAWO) here in Vancouver, for example, which has bitterly resisted any attempts to link the struggles by the people of both Cuba and Canada for sovereignty against U.S. domination.

In reality, sovereignty is a fundamental right of all nations and peoples. Of course, no nation or people can be truly free if they oppress another nation or people. Our program is very explicit on this point, with respect to the right to self-determination of the oppressed nations in Canada – the Aboriginal nations, the Acadians and Quebec. But recognition of these national rights does not detract from or negate the sovereign rights of the peoples of Canada as a whole to resist the onslaught by U.S. imperialism and international finance capital.

Yet another argument is sometimes raised: that the struggle for sovereignty is part of a bygone era, the stage of early development of the bourgeois-democratic state in Canada. Again, this view misses the point. The left supports and fights for a whole number of democratic demands of the people – the right to the full equality of women, the struggles of the LGBT community, the campaign against environmental degradation, the defence of civil liberties – none of which are not directly or inherently socialist demands. The role of the left is to link these democratic struggles to the overall struggle for social emancipation against capitalism.

Finally, on the importance of the struggle to defend sovereignty as part of the larger struggle against imperialism.

Since the point is not just "to interpret the world, but to change it," our starting point must be the elaboration of a clear line of march, a set of revolutionary strategy and tactics to achieve our goal.

There is a saying that "class consciousness is knowing which side of the barricades you are on – class analysis is knowing who is beside you." We could add that strategy and tactics is knowing which direction to point your gun.

We often speak of "imperialism" or "global capitalism" as short‑hand to refer to prevailing political economic order in the world today. But in doing so, we should not fall into acceptance of the concept that there exists one all‑embracing, interconnected imperialist goliath – a kind of "ultra‑imperialism" of which Karl Kautsky wrote, or its modern variant, the core‑periphery model of world systems theory or similar 'dependency' theories.

In fact, world imperialism is composed of several different rival imperialist powers and centres. For a number of decades, during the imperialist Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union, these rivalries and contradictions were submerged in the common cause, to defeat world socialism. But these contradictions did not disappear, and since the early 90s, they have re‑emerged into the light of day.

To quote again from our program: "While the imperialist powers have a common interest in imposing a single global market which they can dominate and control, the three main imperialist centres – the U.S., the European Union (EU), and the emerging Asian bloc led by Japan – are engaged in a bitter struggle over the division of the spoils of global domination. As the world capitalist economy becomes ever more volatile, each imperialist centre seeks to protect its privileged position within those markets it already dominates (its so‑called 'sphere of influence') while simultaneously attempting to penetrate and supplant its rivals in other national and regional markets."

The most powerful, predatory and expansionist of these three centres is U.S. imperialism. It follows therefore, that the main enemy of humanity today - and the main target against which we must direct our political fire – is U.S. imperialism.

As we know, the Canadian ruling class has for the most part decided to throw in its lot with Fortress America. Since the 1980s this walk to economic and political integration with the U.S. has turned into a jog, and then since Sept. 11, 2001, into a full‑fledged sprint.

But for the working class and popular forces in Canada, as around the world, anything that can weaken and block the drive of U.S. imperialism for world domination and hegemony should be done.

And in so doing, it is necessary for us to seek out and utilize every possible contradiction, every chink in the armour, to weaken U.S. domination. Should we not seek out every grievance and perceived wrong to hurl at the Bush regime? Should we not enlist every possible ally in this mammoth battle?

To ask the question is to answer it.

Take the debate over Canada's participation in Missile Defence as an example. During the course of that political debate, former Liberal Foreign Minister Bill Graham made an incredibly honest statement – that Canada's involvement was "necessary" to head off severe repercussions from the White House. That remark reminded us once again of the arrogance and condescension towards Canada coming from our imperial masters to the South. In the ensuing political struggle, the Liberal government was compelled by public opinion to reject "official" participation, although in reality, most of what the U.S. wanted from Canada was being carried out through our participation in the NORAD treaty. Now, the Harper Tories are pushing once again for participation, not because this would mean Canada doing anything significantly different, but to support the public relations campaign of the Bush regime.

In such circumstances, we reject the argument – raised by MAWO for example – that Missile Defence is "just another weapons system." (The same general argument is used to resist efforts to build campaigns against nuclear weapons.) In our view, the development of Missile Defence, new tactical nuclear bombs, and other upgraded weapons systems are an integral part of the drive by U.S. imperialism to achieve global military domination. For this reason, all Canadians who are concerned about preserving our country's sovereignty must be mobilized into the broadest possible campaign to block Missile Defence and to pull out of U.S.-dominated military agreements. Failure to do so, on some specious grounds of refusing to pander to nationalist sentiments, would be the height of political immaturity and irresponsibility.

Communists are not afraid of seek unity with others. On the contrary, we understand that it is only through the forging of unity – both within our class and with other allies – will the class struggle against capitalism proceed toward victory.

I will let Lenin have the last word. He wrote in Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder: "To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, prolonged and complicated than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to refuse beforehand to manoeuvre - to refuse to temporize and compromise with possible (even though transitory, unstable, vacillating and conditional) allies – is this not ridiculous in the extreme?"

At the same time, however, let us remember that the working class and revolutionary forces must be expanded considerably to allow us to take part in the anti-war movement from a position of strength. Our perspective must be to build the broadest possible alliance of forces aimed at defeating imperialist war and aggression, at the same time as we build our own movement so that we can do more to provide principled and consistent leadership.

Some thoughts on the debate over the transition to Socialism

On the topic Scientific Socialism: experiences and contributions for its construction in the Twenty-first Century

Submitted by Miguel Figueroa, Leader, Communist Party of Canada to the International Ideological Seminar hosted by the Communist Party of Venezuela, Caracas, July 2006

Let me begin by expressing our Party's appreciation to our host, the Communist Party of Venezuela for convening this Seminar. We sincerely believe that the results of this forum, and of the Twelfth Congress itself will make a meaningful contribution to the work of all Communist and revolutionary parties and movements around the world. The theme "Socialism in the Twenty-first Century" is especially appropriate given that it is precisely here in Venezuela where the working class and popular forces are setting out to build a new socialist society, the first such socialist project of the new century. I'm sure that I speak for all the fraternal delegates and parties in saying that 'we are with you 100%, and confident that the Bolivarian Revolution and socialism will triumph!'

Without doubt, the "second wave" of socialism – the socialism of the Twenty-first century – will distinguish itself from the "first wave" of socialist construction during the last century insofar as the revolutionary forces today have the benefit of analysing and learning from those previous experiences – both their achievements and their failures and distortions – and in this sense we can confidently predict that the 'new socialism' will be better, stronger, and more enduring than the previous wave of socialist construction.

But we also know that in some quarters, the expression 'new socialism' is advanced to differentiate it in an opportunist way from the 'old socialism', to negate not just the errors and failings, but indeed to negate all that was attempted and achieved in the past, and to present in its place a denuded, vulgarized and impoverished conception of socialism, stripped of much of its essential content. We must categorically reject such an approach.

Like many other Communist Parties, our Party went through a protracted period of reflection following the catastrophic overturning of socialism in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, culminating in the adoption of our new party program in 2001. On the basis of that analysis and discussion, we placed special emphasis on our evolving conception of socialism, particularly with respect to the democratic content of socialist construction and development. But we also reaffirmed what we believe to be the essential aspects or features of the socialist alternative, namely:

(1) that although socialism can and must involve all social forces that can be united in its construction, the process must be led by the working class and its political representatives;

(2) that the socialist alternative must be deeply imbued with the principles of equality, social justice and internationalism;

(3) that the working class and its allies have the democratic right and also the responsibility to defend socialism in the face of resistance from its class enemies – domestic and external; and

(4) that the economic foundation of socialism must be based on the systematic transformation by degrees of ownership relations from private to social.

It is on this final point – ownership relations – that I would like to focus the balance of my remarks. It is universally understood that the transformation of the economic base of society from predominantly private monopoly control over the means of production to social forms of ownership – including state, municipal, cooperative and other forms – cannot be accomplished overnight. In fact, the term "by degrees" comes directly from the Communist Manifesto itself. But by how many degrees, and of what duration between each step or phase of transformation? Many left social democrats also claim to support social ownership but insist that changes in ownership relations must be extremely gradual and incremental in character.

Certainly every revolutionary process is distinct, and the line of advance cannot be charted without a sober assessment of its unique features and unpredictable circumstances. That said, a muddled or vacillating understanding of the transition process can quickly blur the line of demarcation between a revolutionary and a reformist approach.

One of the favoured topics of the advocates of "new thinking" in the (former) Communist Party of the Soviet Union dealt with the problems associated with socialist construction in today's worlds. It was argued that changes in the modern global economy, combined with empirical evidence pointing to the "failure" of state planning in the USSR and other socialist countries, suggested that the capacity of working-class-led revolutionary and "socialist-oriented" governments to actually transform socio-economic relations along socialist lines has become more complicated and that henceforth, the "transition phase" to socialism would be much more protracted and gradual in character. Although such views were often presented in a qualified way, they invariably cast doubt on the very possibility of building the economic base of socialism – at least in the short and medium term.

The essentially reformist, counter-revolutionary ideas of the proponents of "new thinking" created a great deal of uncertainty and ideological confusion within the international communist movement at the time; not because such ideas were particularly new – they had surfaced in various forms many times over the past century or more – but because they emanated from theoreticians who ostensibly arrived at their conclusions using the tools of Marxist-Leninist analysis.

The crisis and subsequent overturning of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe and the accelerated drive by finance capital and the imperialist countries to impose a new "economic architecture" regionally and globally have sharpened the ideological debate over transition and even the possibility of socialist transformation under the new prevailing conditions.

In recent years, a loosely-defined "school" of left social-democrats, post-modernists, development theorists and disheartened "post-communists" – some of whom still claim to operate from a Marxist perspective – have picked up and advanced the thesis that the construction of socialism, although the preferred alternative to rampant capitalism, is simply not an attainable goal today and for the foreseeable future. The corollary thesis (not always openly stated) is that therefore the working class and the progressive forces must "focus" their efforts on winning limited social and economic reforms in order to mitigate the worst effects of the dominant neoliberal agenda of capitalist "globalization".

In order to shore up their pessimistic and cynical conclusions, this reformist "school" point to the following phenomena:

• the largest transnational corporations and financial institutions have substantially increased in both the size and the reach of their activity around the world, greatly increasing their economic power and hence their political influence within individual states, and in the relations between states;

• the growing penetration of international finance capital into domestic markets has led to the emergence of a new international division of labour which has increased the relative importance of external trade in relation to domestic production and consumption;

• the increased mobility of capital – both domestically-based and foreign-controlled – and the impact of financial and currency speculation have rendered national economies and governments much more vulnerable to external economic, technological and political intimidation and blackmail; and

• the absence of a large bloc of socialist countries (such as the COMECON) has removed any viable economic alternative for fledgling progressive and revolutionary states to rely upon (or a global force to help protect such states militarily from imperialist aggression).

These points are usually combined with a ruthless critique of the known economic and structural problems associated with the construction of socialism in the USSR and the other countries of "real, existing socialism": rigidities and breakdowns in the system of central planning; wage-levelling and other distortions in the determination of value under socialism; serious lags in technological innovation (despite remarkable scientific breakthroughs); imbalances in the development of various economic sectors (particularly in the production of consumer goods and the provision of services); and so on.

The inevitable conclusion reached by this reformist analysis: the ability of the working class and its revolutionary vanguard to undertake fundamental transformative measures of a socialist character will be severely limited, given the prevailing economic and political "realities". A gloomy picture indeed!

Clearly, many of the above observations and critiques cannot be easily dismissed. Lenin counselled that we must always look reality squarely in the eye, and never replace objective truth with our subjective wishes. As Communists, we must carefully evaluate the new features of the current "phase" of the development of imperialism in charting the advance toward, and the building of socialism. This implies, among other things, the need to take stock of the changed international economic, political and military environment in which revolutionary change proceeds in any given country, even after state power is secured.

However it would be a fatal error for the Communists to concede any ideological ground to the pessimistic arguments and defeatist conclusions of this reformist "school" of analysis – arguments and conclusions rooted in an exaggerated assessment of the power of finance capital, and a gross underestimation of, and disdain for the capacity of the working class and revolutionary forces to advance, even in the face of an admittedly hostile and complicated international environment.

It is of course one thing to reject out of hand this "analysis" which reflects both the timidity and fear of a coward, and the hopelessness and despair of a petit-bourgeois; it is quite another thing to substantiate that rejection on the basis of rigorous scientific facts and analysis. This is an essential front in the "battle of ideas" today, because such pessimistic reformist views have a certain resonance with sections of the working class and oppressed masses of the people, who after all are bombarded daily with bourgeois propaganda – an ideological "shock and awe" barrage designed to convince the people of the omnipotence of capital, to which there is no alternative. And this ideological offensive is reinforced constantly in the minds of workers when they see their factories closed and their livelihoods "outsourced" to distant lands; when peasants and agrarian workers see the prices of their commodities cut, and the costs of their production soar, due to the vagaries of "global market forces", etc.

It is precisely because of the need to counter this demobilizing effect of bourgeois and reformist ideology about the pre-eminence of finance capital and of the powerlessness of the masses to defeat that power and forge a fundamentally different, socialist society, that it is vital for our movement to undertake more extensive research and analysis on this set of questions. As a point of departure, we might consider the following points for further research:

1. On the mobility of Capital – there is no question that capital is more mobile today than previously; however the true extent of that mobility is greatly exaggerated. There is an increasing wealth of experience of governments and people successfully restricting that mobility, and of taking practical steps (such as the ALBA) to limit the vulnerability of states to economic blackmail by transnational monopoly capital. And there are certain sectors of the domestic economy which, by their very nature, are less susceptible to "capital strikes", such as the resource sector and much of the service sector.

2. On the issue of Plannification – the claim that collective forms of economic planning – central, regional and local – are inherently inferior and doomed to failure as compared to the capacity of the "free market" to allocate resources and determine "value" is a cornerstone of the continuing ideological offensive against socialism. And yet even the most centralized forms of state planning in the former Soviet Union achieved many great successes, as well as failures and disproportions. The historical record of the experiences of the USSR and other socialist countries – both past and present – needs to be set straight on the basis of sound, objective research. What's more, the technological basis of previous planning efforts needs to be placed in its proper context. Today, the large monopolies effectively use "just in time" production technologies and techniques to instantaneously adjust production targets and product lines in keeping with consumer preferences. Naturally, these methods are used to maximize profit, and take place within the context of the overall anarchy of production under capitalism, but how could such techniques be implemented today and in the future to strengthen the efficiency of socialist forms of planning?

3. On the growth of the Working Class : Socialism in the twenty-first century will be built by a working class which is larger, stronger, and more experienced than ever before. It is true that there are ongoing changes – sometimes quite dramatic – in the composition of the working class from country to country, but overall the working class is growing in both size and maturity in every country in the world. It is more educated, and more politically and socially aware. Of course, there are subjective factors relating to the level of class consciousness which continue to hold back its advance in many countries, but when aroused and mobilized to the point of capturing state power, that working class will invariably be a much stronger material force in undertaking and leading the fundamental transformation to socialism.

4. On the military aggressiveness of Imperialism: Every revolutionary process today, and in the foreseeable future, will have to contend with the threat of aggression form the imperialist powers, especially U.S. imperialism, no longer inhibited by the counter-weight of the USSR and the socialist community of states. And yet despite this circumstance, the power of imperialism to militarily impose its dictat is not limitless; indeed, its vulnerabilities are becoming more and more apparent. Here too, greater analysis of the role of the world peace and anti-imperialist movement, together with practical efforts to strengthen these forces, is vital to help make these movements more of a material force in curbing and preventing imperialist aggression.

Finally, of course, is the power of real-life examples to prove that fundamental transformation along socialist lines is possible even under the current adverse international conditions: the continuing success of Socialist Cuba to defend and advance its Revolution in the face of immense and unrelenting imperialist efforts to destroy it; the heroic success of the Bolivarian Revolution to thwart continuing counter-revolutionary intrigues and bring about meaningful transformative changes in the interests of the working class and the people, on the road to socialism; and the exciting changes underway today in Bolivia to curb the power of foreign capital, to strengthen national sovereignty, and introduce fundamental reforms that serve the masses of the people.

A combination of theoretical work and practical deeds can show and are showing that in today's world, not only is socialism possible, but also that socialism will triumph!