Anarchism versus Communism: Our points of connection and our differences

Pierre Bibeau
Translated from Le Point communiste, September 2001

The primacy given to the free enterprise market economy, the pompous speeches of the bourgeois class, the ever more invasive advertising, a dead-end future, a dying planet, increasing social inequalities -- here is a whole panoply of reasons which make more and more people want to change the system. Of these, the young are a live and increasingly radicalized force. Voices are being raised, demanding the destruction of this system of obsolete values. But the question is: What should replace it and how? Must we try to reform the system on social-­democratic lines (there exist several variants of the recipe)? Can we replace the system with egalitarian and libertarian self-management? What strategy should we adopt?

The left faces various choices, and around these there are, of course, different currents. These include anarchist currents besides us Communists. Some points unite us; at the same time, we also have our differences.

Solidarity and equality

Anti-capitalist anarchist movements of the left, as opposed to other libertarian currents usually associated with right-wing ideas, are obviously closer to us. At the heart of these left-wing anarchist movements solidarity and the principles of equality are predominant. Left-wing anarchists rebel against all forms of authority, advocate self-management and direct democracy, are against all forms of centralized power and defend egalitarian principles for all citizens.

To arrive at the principles of self-management, their paths may differ according to their views. To some, local initiatives of direct democracy represent small popular liberations; they see this as a catalyst to a hypothetical seizure of power by the citizens in a movement that would grow broader and broader. Hence the need to think globally, but act locally. Others don't really seek to enlarge the movement; they see themselves first and foremost as dissidents -- "Ni Dieu, ni Maître", so to speak. [A French saying: "No God, no master".]

Anarcho-syndicalism refers to anarchists who work in unions. In North America, because of the Rand formula, the principle of the "closed shop" and the influence of the big union centrals, anarcho-syndicalists are forced to work within a union structure they most often loathe. In general, they face serious difficulties promoting their ideals and mode of direct action within the unions. In Europe, where there exists free affiliation with a union central, they can more easily be a force there. In North America, the anarchists prefer to work in community movements, where more flexible structures probably correspond better to their values.

Anarcho-communists

Anarcho-communists, as their name indicates, are, by their nature, still closer to us. They want the realization of communism, agree that a revolutionary organization must be created to oust the ruling power, but will not base it on democratic centralism or on the notion of a vanguard party such as the Communists support.

Most of them are at the same time against the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We share the same revolutionary objective, but the anarcho-communists seem to skip the stage of socialism. Finally, anarcho-communists are generally unity-minded -- and so, like us, favour the union of forces on the left, what we Communists call the united front.

Communists

For its part, the Communist movement is not much more homogenous. Thus, between the extreme Maoist Shining Path in Peru and the rather moderate Communist Party in France there are many differences. In this context, we will limit ourselves to describing what we, the Communist Party of Quebec and of Canada, stand for. The final version of our political program, adopted following an all-Canadian congress last February, will soon be available. [It is now available in English and French.]

Like many others, we believe that the capitalist system is evil, destructive and obsolete. In such a context, it seems to us imperative to build a party that will unite conscious elements of the people for the purpose of co-ordinated struggle. We want to build this party according to the democratic centralist precepts elaborated by Lenin, which is to say according to the concept that directions are determined by the base but implemented starting from the top. This amounts to an "elevator" type of democracy, from bottom to top, and at the same time from top to bottom. There's nothing particularly mystifying in any of this. To some extent the workers' movement functions in that type of way. It's a method which already has in large measure proved to work, despite having often been perverted.

We Communists, seek to unite the working class in alliance with other strata of the people to combat the monopoly bourgeoisie. To do this, we are ready to initiate or join a united front of the left coalition.

Our differences

Anarchists tend to be more hesitant regarding the question of alliances, especially if these concern elections. They most often oppose all electoral participation, even for a tactical purpose; some, still more sectarian, envisage coalitions that work only to mount spectacular actions.

We share with many anarchists an anti-capitalist vision, and we are also in agreement with them on the necessity of abolishing social classes, as well as wages as the means of allocating goods and services. Some points of convergence also appear as regards the eventual demise of the State and its replacement by a direct citizens' democracy.

On the other hand, though, and in opposition to anarchists, we don't think that the elimination of the State will be possible immediately after taking power. Our viewpoint is that it will be necessary for some short or long period after taking power to maintain some form of government because the bourgeoisie will necessarily seek to regain power in order to stop the revolution. This new State, built on the remains and vestiges of the old State, must at the same time be radically different from the old one. It will need as well to find the means of preventing the bourgeoisie from taking back control of the situation.

The Communists speak of this period as being, of necessity, the "dictatorship of the proletariat", as opposed to the present dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The expression is not new, and it is often even now poorly understood. Contrary to what many people believe, the Communists are not so much in favour of more State, but aim instead to create, at the same time as the establishment of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", a citizens' takeover of power which, in its real operation will eventually facilitate the progressive elimination of the State. Obviously, various conditions will slow or speed this process, depending on the situation.

On the role of the workers' movement

We cannot agree either with the anarchists who in a leftist way flatly reject the role of the workers' movement in these struggles on the sole ground that the current upper levels of certain unions have taken the path of class collaboration.

Another difference: we value the work of education and large-scale mobilization far more than the spectacular actions which are in general the trademark of different anarchist tendencies. On this point, we are very clearly against terrorism, as much when it comes to the underlying ideology as the strategies associated with it.

Overall, despite our differences, we believe it is nonetheless important to maintain contact with the anarchists of the left. They should be recognized, respected and considered as allies in the struggle against capital. At the last congress of the PCQ we invited the anarchist group Émile Henry to speak to the delegates. It is not customary for the Communist movement to act in this way but we did it; this shows the route we want to take.

It is also good to get criticism (given in a respectful way, of course) and to exchange ideas. Take for example the place of the individual in society; anarchists assign a manifest primacy to the individual, while the Communists give collective needs priority over individual needs. In the past we had a tendency to greatly minimize the latter, saying that they would be met through the satisfaction of collective needs. Real life, in the countries of the East among others, shows us that this transfer from the collective to the individual is not carried out automatically or completely. Certain deficiencies have to be corrected.

In Defense of Dialectical Materialism

Roger Perkins

“People for the most part (99% of the bourgeoisie, 98% of the liquidators, about 60-70% of the Bolsheviks) don’t know how to think, they only learn words by heart.” – V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 35, p. 131.

Dialectical materialism is the scientific world outlook of Marxism-Leninism. Without a sound comprehension and application of this revolutionary philosophy, communist practice will not be successful.

The Constitution of the Communist Party of Canada (Article 3, section one) correctly states that “any resident of Canada regardless of religious belief shall be eligible for membership.” People who are not materialists, i.e., who hold various religious views, can, under certain circumstances, be members of the CPC. This should not, however, be interpreted as a strategic goal, but only as a tactical necessity – mostly in the period of transition from a smaller “cadre” party to a mass party during occasions of revolutionary upsurge. During our quick-changing times, workers can and do arrive at socialist views unevenly; some may retain religious vestiges while in most other respects, attaining a high level of class and socialist consciousness. It would then be the duty of the party to give these new comrades a materialist education, to change their world view. Any long-term “co-existence” between materialism and idealism inside the party would be revisionism.

Very few, if any party members guide their daily actions on the basis of horoscope predictions, tarot card readings or other widespread mysticisms typical of late-stage capitalism. While such practices can occasionally be found among members of the non-communist “ broad left”, it would be a strange anomaly for a Communist to believe in such nonsense. So, by and large, we are materialists. But are we dialectical materialists?

In answering the above question most communists reply with an automatic reflexive “yes”. But is our “ yes” qualitatively different from the “ yes” of the player we cleric who believes in “God or the successful entrepreneur who believes in “Free Enterprise”? Is not our “yes” actually a superficial “yes” and don’t many, if not most, of us understand dialectics little better than the viewers of Star Trek and “understand” warp drive”? If this is indeed the case, the Party must take immediate measures to ensure that the vast majority of Party members are able to think and act dialectically.

In solving any problem, Communists must ask: What is the class nature and what is the dialectical nature of the problem? If we don’t do this, if we don’t learn to think dialectically in our daily practice, very serious errors will be made. It is only through correctly analyzing the contradictions of present-day capitalist society that a strategic line of march can be formulated and stages correctly identified. It is only through a dialectical communist practice that the fight for specific quantitative changes can lead to a desired quantitative change. Because the ideology of any epoch is that of the ruling class, we cannot just pragmatically “go with the flow”; we must consciously counter the “formal logic” of the bourgeoisie with dialectical logic. If we confine ourselves to using the same “logic” as the enemy, do not negate it, go beyond it, we will not only be unable to transcend the bourgeois system, but our “socialism” will become the type of “socialism” compatible with capitalism – that is, we will inevitably turn into a social-democratic/ revisionist party!

The holding of study classes on dialectical materialism, while necessary, is not sufficient. Our classes must be qualitatively different from the type of educational experience encountered in the bourgeoisie school system both in content and pedagogical presentation. A dialectics class should not be viewed as just another class among many – Marxist economics, dialectics, the national question, etc. – but as the key class for understanding the others. (Marx’s Capital is the most dialectical of books). The knowledge obtained from a series of compartmentalized unconnected classes, as well as that learned by rote and regurgitated is of little lasting value. The listing and memorizing of the three main laws of dialectics in serial order while formally “correct” would also be incorrect because we would be learning dialectics formally and undialectically. Knowledge of dialectics is different from knowing the formula for raspberry vinegar. The formula for the latter, if followed correctly, can produce raspberry vinegar. Applying a formula to dialectics does not produce dialectic insight, but a truncated “knowledge” distorted by mysticism and/or vulgar materialism.

One can finish a labour history class and years later some of the facts may have been forgotten. A dialectics class, however, is never “finished”! Gorbachev once took a class in dialectics; Hewison* once taught such educationals in our own party. Unfortunately events proved that these two misleaders exhibited the most superficial and ephemeral of dialectical practices. They “forgot” and no longer had a feeling for what they had been trained to know. Some of us took trigonometry or Latin in school. How many of us still remember and can apply the various trigonomic functions? Can we speak Latin today? Most likely not, because these skills were not used in daily practice. They were superficially “learned” and soon forgotten.

The importance of a dialectics class is not in the fact that we have one, or “finish” one, or can still list the three main laws of dialectics years later. The importance of a dialectics class lies in the fact that those taking the class are qualitatively altered forever in the way they view the world, that is, they begin to think dialectically! This revolution in outlook should ignite a life-long process of application and relearning on a higher level. The learning of dialectics is an ongoing dialectical unity of theory and practice a scientific struggle against the class enemy. Dialectics must not only be cognized by the mind; it must also be absorbed by the “heart” becoming part of the revolutionary zeal necessary to change the world. Anything short of this will result in our new consciousness being sucked back into the bourgeois box – the newly learned dialectics disappearing like trigonometry and Latin.

Students experiencing a dialectics class should be absolutely amazed, imbued with awe, exclaiming: “wow! I never knew the world was like this!” This liberating, revolutionary leap from ignorance to knowledge should evoke and should continue to evoke passionate outbursts of discovery. The new student, upon “finishing” a dialectics class and beginning to think dialectically, might proclaim: “I never knew that...

– Motion and change are law governed!

– The ruling class not only tries to control what we know, but also tries to control the logical process of how we know!

– There exist two different logic systems, one static and one not fully reflecting material reality; the other dynamic and accurately reflecting the contradictory nature of the real world!

– The logic of matter in motion, dialectical materialism, corresponds to the views and needs of a particular class – the working class – while the static formal, non-contradictory system corresponds to that of the bourgeoisie! Wow! Two systems. Two classes. One revolutionary and scientific, the other not!

– All things and processes contain contradictions which exhibit the unity and struggle of inter-penetrating opposites!

– In order to know something one must also know its opposite! The only way to know socialism and the working class is to also know capitalism and the bourgeoisie!

The student may further assert that...

– The entire world about us is essentially bi-polar and the logical structure of the universe is and can only be “dialectics” and not “mono-lectics”, or “tri-lectics” or “quanta-lectics”.

– All “elementary” particles in physics have an opposite and equal particle; matter itself is found not only in the form that dominates our immediate world, but also in the form popularly known as “anti-matter”.

– A bar magnet, like a battery, has both a positive and negative pole, but cannot have only one pole or a third pole!

– There is no “third way” between the working class and the capitalist class, for either the one or the other must eventually rule. Nor can there be a stable “hybrid system” half-way between capitalism and socialism, for either the one or the other must prevail!

– Gorbachev’s abandonment of socialism in favour of Perestroika (a utopian, non-dialectical, social democratic scheme for introducing a hybrid “mixed” economy) could not lead to a “third way” but did lead to the restoration of capitalism and the demise of the USSR. There is no third way in nature when fundamental contradictions are involved!

The student might further extrapolate by asking “But what about Deng Xiaoping’s “market socialism” approach in China! Is this the creative application of the universal principles of Marxism to Chinese conditions – a stage of socialism with a Chinese face? Or is it “Marketism-Lemmingism” – the Chinese road to the restoration of capitalism?”

The above student, although perhaps over-simplifying and perhaps sometimes applying dialectics mechanically, is nevertheless light years ahead of those who know little about dialectics. Further analysis will show the importance of the simple/complex dialectic, the phenomena of stages and the role of catalysts in evolving processes, as well as the ascertainment of main and secondary contradictions, and the discrimination of antagonistic form non-antagonistic contradictions, Dialectics, in and of itself, does not supply answers; it is the method that shows the way. Answers come from concrete analyses of concrete situations combined with revolutionary practice.

Unfortunately there are those who pragmatically dispense with dialectics. They consciously or unconsciously believe that knowledge is not necessary in everyday political work. Do not “A=A” and “2+2=4” work very well in daily activities? Is not thinking dialectically all the time something like using Einstein’s Theory of Relativity when Newton’s Laws of Motion will do? After all, they claim, a radar cop does not need to understand Einstein to issue a speeding ticket. True, but the realms of applicability of dialectics and relativity are quite different. Relativity become necessary as the speed of light is approached. Dialectics is always necessary for revolutionaries in the normal day-to-day-world if we want to change that world. For those who do not want revolutionary change, formal logic works just fine! E=mc2 But “communist” practice minus dialectics = the status quo, an empirical, economistic, pragmatic, formal, day-to-day practice will never go beyond the bounds of capitalism.

For a log time the Party has not given sufficient emphasis to materialist dialectics. True, we paid lip service and performed the required perfunctory acknowledgments: “Yes, of course, dialectics is important, but...” The but was usually followed by various economistic and pragmatic arguments which revealed that dialectics although “important” was not of core importance, but only of “fringe” importance. The dialectics question was often accompanied by a certain uneasiness, a furrowing of the brow, a quick facial tic, a shuffling from foot to foot, a hesitancy not unlike that of a follower of social credit when asked to explain “funny money”.

Either we don’t understand the importance of dialectics, dialectics itself or unconsciously reject dialectics in favour of metaphysics – “If only Marx had tossed Hegel out instead of standing him upright!” If we don’t quite understand dialectics or the importance of dialectics, corrective measures must be found. If there are still members of the party (most have left) who view dialectics as the Communist equivalent of “funny money” please say so in order for debate to commence!

In conclusions: Dialectics must be reaffirmed as being of core importance.

* - George Hewison was CPC General Secretary from 1988-91, and one of a group of reformists who gained majority control of the Central Committee at the time and attempted to liquidate the Communist Party.

Spark! #11, pp. 38-42

Marxism and Anarchism in Canada Today

Darrell Rankin

The early 1990s marked a stagnation of working class struggles in Canada. The intensity of the corporate offensive was one of the main reasons contributing to the decline. A period of disunity and inactivity began from which we are only now emerging. This recent period has been marked by global setbacks to working people and socialism.

As a tendency in some circles, anarchism became stronger. During this time Marxism went through a difficult re-assessment which brought to the fore basic questions and the study of recent experiences.

In the mass democratic upsurge beginning in the 1970s, communist-led unions, expelled during the Cold War, were re-admitted to the Canadian Labour Congress. Social democratic reformists, who led the majority of the labour movement, and Marxists both became increasingly active. Communists led several large labour councils and the Alberta Federation of Labour, and they strongly challenged NDP backed trade union leaders in other provincial labour federations and in the CLC itself.

But the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and defeats in the fight against free trade and the fight to prevent the 1990 Gulf War demoralized a small but vital section of the Communist Party (mainly the leadership which emerged in the 1980s), part of which tried to liquidate the party. Meanwhile, the NDP weakened labour’s fightback more by breaking collective agreements with public sector workers in Ontario and supporting the corporate agenda in other ways.

During the crisis in the Communist Party and other left forces, anarchist ideas found reflection in different political movements (e.g., the Reform Party’s “distrust” of politicians) and gained popularity among people just entering political activity. Anarchism, however, has the harmful effect of subordinating the working class to bourgeois politics.

Anarchism

Not since the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike has anarchism been influential as an organized movement; it appeared then as anarcho-syndicalism in the trade union movement. But today it is part of the social psychology of many young people and of a part of the labour movement which rejects the opportunist errors of the NDP.

We should not be surprised in the growth of despair, anger and even anarchism among many people, it is nothing new. Lenin noted that certain people who were inattentive to the conditions for preparing and developing the mass struggle were “driven to despair and anarchism by the lengthy delays in the decisive struggle against capitalism in Europe.” (Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 584).

Indeed, feelings of despair and wretchedness often combine with anarchism. They combine with the nihilism commonly found among younger people today, but also among the oppressed and the betrayed in the labour movement, the “victims” of opportunism. (I use the word “nihilism” for a rejection of the dominant culture or morality here in a revolutionary, not an opportunist, sense.)

U.S. academic Noam Chomsky is one of the chief critics of this “wretched” world: “The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.” We read in a Food Not Bombs newsletter: “Sometimes I feel defeated because I realize they have the power on their side. But most of the time I just feel a bitter hatred towards those who have to use illegal and immoral measures to try and squelch our strength.”

I would use the term “anarcho-nihilism” to describe today’s anarchism, since its main trend is rejection, although some anarchists while disagreeing with the system act as stoics, without alternatives. It should be noted anarchist “alternatives” often concern a single issue or amount to simple “rejection” what is one colour should be another, etc.

Georgi Plekhanov, a 19th century Russian Marxist, made the apt observation that anarchists are the “children of the bourgeoisie.” They derive from bourgeois individualism an inability to work together to achieve real change, making different trends inevitable. In fact, capitalists promote the view that each individual is absolutely “independent” or “free” to defend the continued exploitation of labour.

The individualism of anarchism, its love of “freedom” and “independence,” ignores Frederick Engels’ correct view that freedom requires knowledge of necessity, or of objective laws of nature and society.

It is useful to compare today’s sense of wretchedness with the dominant sense of contentedness, the consumerism, hedonism, New Age mysticism, irrationalism and other dead end philosophies that objectively serve to prop up capitalism today.

Today’s anarcho-nihilist believes that the world is quite absurd. But those who are content with the world, and simply seek pleasure (one could call them anarcho-hedonists) feel the world is well ordered.

Both the nihilist and the hedonist believe the state-corporate system is profoundly effective and pervasive. This attitude, common to both, leads to renunciation of the struggle to overthrow capitalism.

Both rely on self-improvement (the hedonist through commodities, the other through either stoicism or hope-inspired individual moralistic actions). Take the act of providing free food as a “force of example”: it encourages passive waiting for the next act of generosity rather than rebellion, it mimics the behaviour of the big capitalist “philanthropists.”

This is why Marxists say reliance on the role of the individual rather than the masses is a common feature of anarchism. The individualism of today’s anarcho-hedonist is, in the end, found also in the nihilist.

Extreme nihilism has in the past led to violent rejection and terrorism; for example, the bombing of a cruise missile factory by the group Direct Action in the early 1980s, or Earth First!’s tree spiking, both affecting workers more than owners, both failing to mobilize the forces needed to achieve real change.

Conservative, neo-fascist political forces use such terrorism to inflame fear among backward, non-political sections of the population, preventing them from supporting ideas for real change.

Marxism

The 1996 Ontario days of action saw over one million people stop work in Toronto alone. Class conscious, organized mass struggle, the main form of struggle of Marxism in the labour movement, is reviving.

Marxists still believe the emancipation of workers from class divided society will not happen unless workers themselves become class conscious and organized, trained and educated in the class struggle. This involves adopting a scientific ideology, developing a definite program for state power (immediate and long term), a serious assessment of the class forces, and patient, organized political work among the masses, all of which requires confidence in the masses.

This approach differs fundamentally from reliance on spontaneous change found in anarchism and social democracy; in the case of the NDP this reliance is opportunist. (The NDP is social democratic since it does not officially aim to replace capitalism with socialism.)

Social democrats attribute to themselves great “political” abilities, relegating labour to limited “trade union” activities. Even Svend Robinson, M.P. “underestimated” the importance of conscious struggle by labour in the platform for his 1995 NDP leadership bid: “Labour must have a strong political voice and only the NDP can fulfil that role.”

Lenin rightly called anarchism “a kind of penalty for the opportunist sins the working class movement,” calling anarchism and opportunism complementary “monstrosities.” The Reform Party is taking advantage of the NDP’s opportunism, winning support among workers in cities such as Oshawa, former NDP leader Ed Broadbent’s old riding.

The decline of the petty bourgeoisie as a large class in Canada means that today’s anarchism is less likely to appear as an influential form of petty bourgeois revolutionism, especially in the working class. But among students and other multi-class movements, the situation is less favourable.

The big bourgeoisie, dominating the media and culture, are an increasingly important source of individualist ideas. They are elated when workers support Reform’s “anti-political” platform, which in reality is pro-capitalist and dangerously reactionary.

This brief examination of anarchism and Marxism should emphasize the importance of closely studying all the major political and ideological trends. Marxism attaches much importance to understanding the programs and class partisanship of different political movements, not least its own. This is what allows us to be consistent and organized in our struggle for definite democratic demands leading to socialism.

Spark! #11, pp. 34-37

The Communist Manifesto:

Back to the Future

By Marvin Glass

A century and a half after its publication, what is there to be said about the first joint political work of that dynamic duo of scientific socialism, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels? Well, it’s 150 years young! Reading it still stirs the non-existent souls of all communists – don’t you just love its magnificent revolutionary prose? Moreover, aside from the very first sentence, which is clearly false – whatever spectre is now haunting Europe, it’s regrettably not communism – much of the rest of the document is as relevant today, that is, very relevant, as it was in 1848. For example, the following truths could have been written today:

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter in the globe.

As expected, these and other timely lines have been noted by commentators on the left, and they have even elicited a few grudging concessions in the bourgeois press. But what all of the latter and many of the former will not concede is the primary political conclusion of The Communist Manifesto, namely, the call for international unity of workers in the revolutionary struggle to overthrow capitalism. That, we are told, is no longer relevant, if it ever was.

But Marxists claim the Manifesto is not only basically right in describing mid–nineteenth and late-twentieth century capitalism, where more and more of society is or soon will be drowned “in the icy waters of egoistic calculation,” with the immense global suffering and destruction this entails; we also argue that what it prescribes is the right thing. Indeed, the prescription is based on the description; they are inseparable. Thus, the historical imperative that derives from the Manifesto is first preceded in the text by a brilliant analysis of past and current capitalist societies. Second, there is a scathing review of alternative socialist and communist literature, particularly its tendency to replace “historically created conditions of emancipation,” namely, class struggle, with “personal inventive action.” And finally, the issue of Communist alliances with progressive movements throughout Europe is addressed. Only after doing all of this do Marx and Engels derive their Communist ‘ought’ from their historical materialist ‘is.’

There is much in The Communist Manifesto about classes and class struggle. But that is not what makes this piece of writing distinctively Marxist. Four years after the publication of the Manifesto, in a famous letter to his friend J. Weydemeyer, Marx denied being the first historian to discover either economic classes or the struggle among them. But he did take credit there for being the first to show that “ ... the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat ....” (original emphasis). So let us look at this manifesto, particularly for features which, according to his own words above, would mark it as quintessentially Marxist (or not) in its perspective.

Before unpacking some of the controversial notion of “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” we should notice that Marx thought that he had shown that such a dictatorship, whatever its composition and structure, was to be the necessary outcome of the modern class struggle. Other revolutionaries at that time had also called for pro-worker societies, but for these ‘critical utopian’ socialists and communists politics was based primarily on wishful thinking because the proletariat suffer most deeply and wrongly, they ought to and will get a better life. It was moral necessity which would drive their revolution. The Manifesto, on the other hand, complains about this brand of unscientific socialism: “Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class, does the proletariat exist for them,” a class “without ... any independent movement [or] historical initiative.” (Just a few years earlier, Marx himself was an adherent of this idealist view, seeing the proletariat as the ‘heart’ of German emancipation, as a “sphere which has a universal character by its universal suffering....”) But the new, Marxist approach to the proletariat identifies reasons, in addition to their suffering, which historically designate the working class as the necessary agent of revolutionary socialist change. We find that approach succinctly set out in the famous ‘gravediggers’ passage:

The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the workers, due to competition, with their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own gravediggers. It fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

So, in addition to their class oppression, it was their association at work, their collective labour, which would compel the proletariat to take control of and develop the forces of production created by modern capitalism. This idea first occurred to Marx in 1844: “Not in vain does it [the proletariat] go through the stern but steeling school of labour. The question is not what this or that proletarian, or even the whole of the proletariat at the moment considers its aim. The question is what the proletariat is, and what, consequent of that being, it will be compelled to do.” (original emphasis)

And, Marx might have added, how it will do it. Will a dictatorship of the proletariat be necessary? As many commentators have noticed, that actual phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” does not appear in the text – Marx used it for the first time only in 1850. But does the basic idea behind these words reside here? Most but not all of it does, I think.

The first step in the socialist revolution, we are told, is “to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.” Then it “will use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state.” And how will it do this, especially at the beginning? “This cannot be effected except by despotic inroads on the rights of property ....” Note that Marx and Engels are not talking about so-called ‘despotic inroads’ or the so-called ‘rights of property.’ In their opinion, these really are the bourgeoisie’s rights and they really are being despotically wrested away by the state. And so this rule, this exercise of political supremacy by the proletariat, does look like some kind of dictatorship.

But what is not in the Manifesto, either in letter or spirit, is a conclusion about the dictatorial manner of the rule of future proletarian states which Marx first came to only after analyzing events which took place in France starting in 1848. Thus, in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), referring particularly to the bureaucracy and standing army, he observes: “All revolutions perfected this [state] machine instead of smashing it.” This is a new idea and one that Lenin, in State and Revolution, calls “the chief and fundamental point in the Marxist theory of the state.” He contrasts it with the “extremely abstract manner” in which Marx (and Engels) treated the state in The Communist Manifesto.

Spark! #11, pp. 1-3

Roads to Socialism

by James West*

The qualities of resiliency and revolutionary patience are integral to communism and Communists. Recovery from setbacks and defeats, overcoming difficulties and obstacles and rising up stronger than ever are characteristic communist features. This is seen in the process underway in the world today, including in the Communist Party, USA.

It is to be seen in Russia and other Eastern European countries. It is clearly evident in the unique roads to building socialism opened up in Vietnam, China, Korea and Cuba.

It is in the course of coping with and solving urgent needs and concerns of the masses that viable ways to travel the roads to socialism are being worked out. In the process, the theory of Marxism-Leninism is further developed and refined.

The draft Political Report to the upcoming 8^th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, places key questions this way:

Vietnam is moving into a new period – that of pressing ahead with the industrialization and modernization of the country. The path to socialism in Vietnam has been ever more clearly defined.

To persist firmly in the goals of national independence and socialism throughout the process of renewal. To handle correctly the relationship between renewal of the political system and economic renewal, and to closely combine economic renewal and political renewal from the start. Economic renewal and the building of a multi-sector commodity economy operating along the market mechanism must be accompanied by the strengthening of the role of state management along the socialist line. Economic growth must go hand in hand with social progress and equity, the preservation and promotion of the national cultural identity and the protection of the environment and the ecological system.

To broaden the all-people great unity and promote the aggregate strength of the entire nation. To constantly expand international cooperation, to win the sympathy, support and assistance of the world people, and combine the strength of the nation with that of the time. To firmly maintain the leading role of the Party and to consider Party building a key task.” (Our emphasis, JW)

The People’s Republic of China has taken the road of intensive, all-round development through establishing what it calls a “socialist market economy,” based on a multi-sector economic policy. It is widely recognized that it has achieved one of the highest growth rates in the world.

Taking advantage of investment offers from a number of capitalist countries, Cuba has begun to move in a comparable direction because of the severe economic blockade by U.S. imperialism.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, faced with the devastation and growing poverty that capitalist inroads have made, has declared its readiness to use a mixed economy of private and state owned enterprises to pull Russia out of the “free market” morass.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) recently concluded an agreement for a joint venture on its territory with a major South Korean industry and is reported to be considering others.

Do these developments mean that Communists are departing from the principles of scientific socialism? That is what critics and enemies from the phony left, and even some on the extreme right, repeatedly charge.

These malicious attacks have their origin in distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies about socialism, fermenting in the minds of bourgeois pundits.

Socialism and Communism

High on the list of distortions is the confusion sown about the relationship between socialism and communism, a deliberate failure to distinguish between the two stages of one revolutionary process.

Communism is a classless society, one in which antagonistic or incompatible classes no longer exist. Socialism is a society which prepares all the conditions for the emergence of the classless, communist, society. In other words, socialism is a period of transition from capitalism to communism.

It is, in fact, impossible to step directly into communism from capitalism as though in a play when the curtain comes down on act one and, presto, rise! on act two.

To be sure, the capitalist media persistently uses the term “communist countries,” promoting the confusion, eagerly gobbled up by the simple-minded propagandists of both the right and the phony left. No country in the world has reached the plateau of communism.

To confuse socialism with communism serves to obscure the historic significance and special importance and necessity, as well as the inevitability, of socialism. It is a stage of human development without which it is impossible to arrive at the crowning achievement of humankind, communism.

The mission of a socialist society is the most important ever faced by any preceding society. It must consciously and systematically clear the road of all obstacles blocking the advance to communism and plant the seeds of the future communist society.

It must work to remove all sources of exploitation of human by human, oppression of nation by nation, race by race, and of gender, age and national origin discrimination.

It must uncover, destroy and replace the contaminated soil in which war, racism, narrow nationalism, crime, corruption and illiteracy thrive.

It must inculcate such humane qualities as cooperation, concern for the common good and health of all, of humanity as the guardian of the ecological system and nature’s bounty.

And, it must do all this while taking immediate measures to house the homeless, provide jobs for the jobless, food for the hungry and meet other urgent needs which cannot wait until communism. At the same time, it must take all measures essential to defend the new socialist system from the capitalist class and its agents who will do whatever they can to regain power.

As life has shown, the class struggle goes or under socialism with the defining difference that it takes place with the formerly-exploited classes – the workers and farmers – as well as the oppressed minorities, in power, in control of the government.

It should be apparent that none of the Herculean tasks facing socialism can be accomplished at one fell swoop anywhere, let alone evenly, at one time by all countries. In other words, it takes place unevenly on a world scale.

In some countries, as in Socialist China, poverty still remains a problem to this day, although a diminishing one as the government successfully struggles to make appreciable headway from year to year. In other countries, such as the U.S.A., socialism would take much less time to eliminate poverty and all its attendant ills due to our more advanced and widely developed productive capacities.

One must take into account the world context in which the socialist countries contend with the immense tasks before them. Imperialism, like a tiger on the prowl, keeps a sharp eye out for any and every opportunity to turn them away from socialism, into prey for voracious capitalism. Armed with the world’s largest arsenals of mass destruction weapons and armed forces stationed worldwide, U.S. imperialism uses intimidating powers to exploit openings for trade and investment in order to push and shove socialist countries onto the capitalist road.

It takes courage, deep understanding of the Marxist-Leninist laws of social development, boundless faith and reliance in the people and a strong, mass-based Communist Party to steer a course that advances socialism towards that communist goal. It is a road of struggle, of class struggle under new and different conditions. And it is not an easy road.

The socialist countries today need the understanding, the help and supportive solidarity of Communists and peace-minded, progressive people everywhere.

It is of no help to the struggles of the socialist countries for its friends to take a wait-and-see attitude to their efforts and problems. Because some socialist countries have a mixed economic situation, a multi-sector economy to cope with their problems, there are some who say, “It’s too soon to say it’s socialism. We first have to see which sector comes out on top.” A few even see it as out-and-out capitulation to capitalism.

Such “purists” have a flat, static, lifeless and non-struggle approach to socialism and social development. The element of struggle, of masses in motion, is absent in such thinking. It is simplistic to an extreme to reduce socialism to a one-dimensional state ownership of everything.

The draft report of the Communist Party of Vietnam is a fitting response to the fears and qualms of the poorly informed and those who underestimate the working class and overestimate capitalism. Reading it gives one the feeling that the theoretical and practical mistakes of Gorbachev are precisely the negative, destructive experiences against which the CPV is building safeguards.

Those who think that socialism means excluding forms other than state ownership of the entire economy should ponder the meaning not only of the well-known, short-lived New Economic Policy (NEP) introduced by Lenin, but also the policy of collective farms, as well as state farms, under Stalin. The long established existence of cooperative farming in Czechoslovakia incorporated into the socialist economy and the existence for many years of privately-owned stores and even enterprises of up to 300 workers in the German Democratic Republic are further examples.

What then would be the common essential for socialism in all countries?

The Essentials of Socialism

It is essential that the “commanding heights” of the economy – the basic means of production, communications and transportation, the armed forces and security – be in the hands of the workers’ and farmers’ socialist government and that there be a strong, mass Marxist-Leninist party with a scientifically sound cadre close to the people.

The socialist government must, by law, have its hands on all levers that control the overall direction of the economy and that safeguard the interests of all the producers in society.

This is in direct contrast to such capitalist levers of control as the Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S.A and the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other levers of manipulation on behalf of corporate wealth at the expense of the people. That, of course, is the difference between a socialist government of workers and farmers and a government of, by and for corporate monopoly.

Given the control of the basic sectors of the economy in the socialist government’s hands, along with the power of overall regulation, there is room for other forms of ownership in the economy. That Vietnam and China chose to allow some forms of private ownership, including foreign ownership along with state ownership, cooperative ownership and some joint ownership, does not mean they have given up the fight to regulate and use all levers available to keep their countries moving persistently and resolutely to more and more socialism, on the way to communism.

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* - James West is a member of the National Board of the Communist Party of the U.S.A. This article is taken from a longer article he wrote in the May 1996 issue of Political Affairs.

Spark! #8 – p. 28-32

The Industrial Core of The Working Class

Danny Goldstick

On the basis that the industrial working class is “the decisive core of the working class”, we often have theoretically worried whether its proportional share in the working class as a whole, if not its absolute number, has been shrinking. But that will have to depend, of course, on what we are going to mean by the phrase “industrial working class”.

Just who are the industrial workers? Without some idea of which workers count as industrial workers and which workers count as nonindustrial, any talk about their numbers or proportions is meaningless.

It is not as if we clearly know that we all mean exactly the same thing in speaking of the “industrial workers”. Are industrial workers:

(1) workers in “smokestack industries”?

(2) manual workers?

(3) workers whose mode of labour is highly organized and collective?

(4) workers whose labour creates surplus value?

(5) workers engaged in the “material production’ of goods rather than services?

(6) workers who could conceivably “shut the economy down” in a general strike?

Or what? These different answers certainly do not all come to the same thing. There are plenty of manual workers outside of the smokestack industries (and non-manual workers in them). Transport and communications workers mostly work in the service sector of “nonmaterial” production, but their participation would certainly be essential to “shutting the economy down”.

Who are the industrial workers? I think the right answer is number (3). Marxism holds that industrial capitalism is doomed because of the basic contradiction in it between, on the one hand, the social character of the industrial forces of production (workers and the means of production) and, on the other hand, the continued private appropriation of the product. Why should that doom capitalism? Because it unavoidably produces recurrent crises (depressions, wars, etc.) and at the same time, above all, produces what the Communist Manifesto calls capitalism’s “grave-diggers”, the Industrial Working Class. It is the first mass class of the oppressed in history imbued by its daily work experience at the point of production with a collectivity and discipline enabling its members to act together effectively on behalf of their common interests – when they see the need – up to the point, in a revolutionary crisis, of taking the country over, together with their class allies.

The industrial workers are the natural leaders (“vanguard”) of mass movements of the oppressed and exploited, up to and including revolutionary take-over, because of their superior capacity of collectivity and discipline in action. It is accordingly the industrial workers, in this sense, who are the easiest to organize, and potentially the most powerful in organized mass action. In Karl Marx’s words:

"Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital ... grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of production itself." (Capital, Vol. I, Chapter 32)

The two most serious alternatives to (3) here would no doubt be (6) and (4). As for (6), a general strike might play a key role in the process of socialist revolution in Canada, but it has not yet played a decisive role in any other country’s socialist revolution, and in only a few socialist revolutions has it played any major role at all. In fact, the general strike has never been the key point in Marxism’s theory of socialist revolution. In any case, service workers in communications or “non-productive” workers in banking might well be better placed to shut the capitalist economy down by strike action than, say, manufacturing workers in the automobile industry. What is key is differences in collectivity and discipline between different groups of workers.

However, the collectivity and discipline of the workers in the production process is a matter of degree, making any statistics difficult. And modern technological changes sometimes increase and sometimes decrease the collectivity and discipline of the work force. Typing pools with computerized word-processing are surely more industrial, in the sense of collectivity and discipline, than individual typists working under separate bosses. But “work-teams” are probably at least a little less industrial, in this sense, than are assembly lines. The general overall long-term tendency surely has in the main been to increase greatly the industrial character of wage-labour.

In Marx’s day, white-collar wage workers tended to be few in numbers, relatively privileged, and almost entirely individual, rather than collective, in the manner in which their work was organized. Today almost all of that has changed, but our thinking has only partly caught up with the changes.

There is, lastly, the sub-category of workers whose labour actually creates surplus value. The ruling class of the capitalist system is indeed based on the private profit-making sector of the economy, but it surely does not follow that it is just the workers there – the “productive workers”, in the parlance of classical political economy – who alone make up the “decisive core” of the working class. Marx ridiculed any idea of attaching deep class significance to the distinction between “productive” and “non-productive” workers as such, pointing out, for example, that teachers in a profit-making private school do create surplus value for their employer – while other teachers, of course, do not (Theories of Surplus Value, Part I, page 411).

Can anybody explain why CP Rail workers belong to the “decisive core” of the working class while CN workers do not? To be sure, as a matter of economic analysis, only the former create value in their work. To those who argued that even, say, government employees could be seen as contributing indirectly to the creation of value, Marx replied in effect that perhaps they could, but then so also, for example, could common criminals whose activities undoubtedly create opportunities for the publishers of law books and the manufacturers of padlocks, etc. (T.S.V., I, 387-8)!

All in all, there would appear to be good grounds for concluding that, when it comes to economic and political class action, the industrial workers are indeed the “decisive core” of the working class, but not at all for drawing the conclusion that the size of the industrial working class has fallen as a proportion of the working class as a whole.

Spark! #2 – pgs. 8-11

Positioning for Advance

By William Stewart

The obstacle is imperialism and neo-conservatism, the shape of capitalism. It cannot be modified, downsized, democratized, or civilized. It must be displaced.

1. This is the challenge facing the working class and its allies the world over. Until we are able to face this reality, the future holds only ceaseless struggles, poverty, insecurity and wars.

2. Communist parties evolve to assist the working class in understanding and addressing this unrelenting truth. They are joined in this undertaking by other socialist and left forces. Other political parties who do not understand or support the need for fundamental social change for socialism, seek to obscure this social reality.

The scientific elaboration of Marx and Engels that the working class is the grave-digger of capitalism remains at the heart of revolutionary strategy. This is the aspect of Marxist-Leninist science that has been the target of the main fire of capitalist ideologues since 1850.

It was most illustrative that the betrayers of socialist power in the Soviet Union grouped around Mikhail Gorbachov hastened to heap ridicule on the concept of working class power as they scrambled for the spoils of their counter-revolutionary efforts. Nor was it incidental that one of Yeltsin’s first acts was to illegalize Communist organization in factories and enterprises.

No other social group in capitalist society can or will lead the way to socialism. The working class will undertake this task as consciousness of its role and its unity around this consciousness develops. This is a process.

It is a process which is honed in the day-to-day struggle for its own ends. This is a spontaneous struggle which tends to ebb and flow with the ups and downs of the system. The rising militancy of the working class and people’s movement in Canada testifies to the law of class struggle. For example, the strike movement headed by the showdown between the Canadian Auto Workers Union and General Motors; the angry upsurge in the Maritimes; and the nurses’ victory in Alberta. And of course the historic Toronto Queen’s Park Rally culminating the Days of Action of October 1996.

However, spontaneous class struggle is one thing. Class consciousness is another. Class consciousness implies a coming together of struggle (practice) with theory; and understanding of the laws of social development; the methodology of social change; recognition of the need for a political party based on working class principles.

Continuation and building on the Days of Action is by no means certain. The entrenched forces of outright capitalist ideology and “modern” social reformism (the same thing without a top hat) are still considerably stronger than the left-centre forces (perhaps not numerically, but through position and power.)

What experience, here and abroad can we draw on to help change this situation? In the era of neo–liberalism, a major debate is engaged in, in Communist and Workers Parties, in left and progressive circles around the world, centering on the practice of social democracy. Can it be regarded as an integral part of the labour movement, that is, a party of social change or has it become a conduit for capitalist ideology and neoliberal policies? Communist parties in Greece, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Portugal and Germany, regard social democracy as the major obstacle to achieving a democratic alternative to neo-liberalism (the world term for neo-conservatism).

In France, Norway, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Spain, parties are not so categorical in their critique. The same is the case in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In the United States, the party takes a fully negative attitude to the social democrats.

Communist parties in Greece, Portugal, France, Spain and Italy are mass parties with major influence in the unions as well as deputies in parliament, senates and the European Parliament. They also hold mayoralties and other elective positions in many municipalities. They have all witnessed many years of social democratic governments.

Aside from such differences in time, shape and place, there is a common concern crossing all lines. That is whether the struggle against capitalist politics in the working class and people’s movements can be effectively countered without a sharp critique and exposure of social democracy.

Recent events in Canada have brought this into open debate: the debacle of the Rae government in Ontario, where a seeming significant victory was turned into a disaster; the behind-the-scenes and open friction over preparations for the Days of Action; and the somewhat similar developments in B.C. where the NDP won the election on a firm anti-neoconservative campaign and has since caved in on too many matters to right-wing pressures.

Neither has the record of the Romanow government in Saskatchewan departed from the main line of the neo-conservative push.

It is useful to recall that social democracy emerged from the womb of the world revolutionary movement. In reacting to the pressures of capitalist ideology, it broke with revolutionary tradition entirely and invented a philosophy in which revolutionary change was replaced with step-by-step reform of capitalism until socialism would emerge. Envisaged was a form of peaceful co-existence between workers and capital.

In this contest, according to their outlook, government serves as mediator between capital and labour. If a government favours capital, workers suffer, but if government honestly acts in the interests of both capital and labour, both sides win. Therefore the election of social democratic governments is the total (obvious) answer.

Like in Britain? Sweden? Germany? Finland? Australia? New Zealand? Like in Spain? Chile? Grenada?

A glaring reality is denied by social democracy. There is a world of difference between government and the state. If you have a capitalist system with all its economic and political levers of power, you either have a capitalist government to administer it, which social democracy has tried unsuccessfully to do since its birth, or a government which challenges the dictates of capital – witness Chile.

This requires dealing with an army sworn to defend the capitalist state, a police force likewise, a judiciary and a set of laws predicated on the defense of capitalist property (witness the Helms-Burton Bill) as well as a range of NGOs which are politically committed to capitalist rule, plus a powerful imperialist, military political force – primarily the USA.

Refusal to accept this reality consigns them to the role of being just another tweedledee-tweedledum in the process of capitalist politics.

Here another contradiction appears – not just between the NDP and the working class and people’s movement, but in its own ranks. The linkage to labour through its organizational connection with the CLC brings it into direct collision with the needs and wishes of the working class. Its constituency organizations, which have shed their original socialist character, more easily capitulate to the lure and glitter of capitalist politics and the personal rewards suggested. Add to this the contented labour lieutenants co-opted by right wing social democracy and other forms of capitalist ideology.

Nonetheless, the majority of working people inside the NDP net constitute an important component of the left and progressive forces, and a major component of the working class. As well, they are experienced in the art of political campaigning.

However it is to be done, it would seem that the most advisable course to follow inside and outside the NDP, would be a systematic, relentless exposure of right-wing social democracy with the aim of breaking its influence on the program and policies of the NDP and the trade union movement. If this proves ultimately unrealizable, this struggle will have created the best possible conditions for winning from its ranks the left and progressive forces.

The Communist Party has long called for an end to the organizational linkage between the trade union movement and the NDP, whereby the unions declare the NDP as their political arm. Unions should not delegate that responsibility to any party, while they may well favour the NDP in given elections, depending on a satisfactory program. After all, the immediate alternative is even bleaker.

Primarily however, the exposure and defeat of the right wing needs to centre on elaborating and fighting for an alternative program.

Such a program should resolve the following dilemma so as to be clearly understood by the working class and the people: How to break with the neo–conservative agenda, which is global in its scope, without breaking entirely with the capitalist system? Such a break appears beyond the bounds of realistic politics in today’s Canada.

The Communist Party of Canada calls for a democratic renovation: a new “democratic” government, pledged to reverse and replace the neo-conservative program. Such a government would need to be made up of the various strands of the labour and peoples’ movement, including but not dominated by the NDP, with full input into its program. Its candidates would be decided on a pro-rata and historical conditions basis. It would be drawn from and directly answerable to the people.

Its mandate should include:

· a program to establish full employment in Canada, including a massive social spending program;

· restoration of all social funding to its level prior to cuts;

· restoration of the public sector;

· restoring the level of currency production by the Bank of Canada to 20%;

· control over the export of capital;

· a new tax system making corporations pay their full share and all back taxes;

· reducing the work day and week; curtailing overtime;

· raising UIC benefit rates to 90% of previous earnings and reducing qualifying time;

· overhauling the Workmen’s Compensation Acts to protect injured workers and not corporations;

· making education a full and free right for all at all levels;

· eliminating all poverty quickly and child poverty immediately;

· implementing full gender equity and affirmative action to guarantee immigrant access to meaningful well paid jobs;

· making work ghettos illegal;

· amending the constitution to provide full national rights to our French Canadian fellow nation;

· protecting full aboriginal rights of native Canadians and according them full self government on their lands;

· expanding budgets significantly for culture and the arts, including the CBC, whose television should shed all private advertising. Giving significant grants to public radio and TV;

· financially encouraging the publication of community, labour and peoples’ print media to provide an antidote to the press of the Conrad Blacks et al; breaking up media monopolies;

· abolishing the senate and replacing it with an elected house of provinces, aboriginals and French Canada;

· abolishing all discrimination against gays and lesbians;

· tightening all laws to protect the environment and establishing a commission to determine the long term rational use of resources compatible with environmental needs;

· getting out of NAFTA, NATO, NORAD and all US imperialist and military alliances;

· declaring Canada a nuclear–free zone and establishing a neutral non–aligned foreign policy of peace.

This program, upgraded and amended by the members of such a political coalition, could form the basis of political campaigning for a new democratic government and alternative within the bounds of capitalism.

It would not win the majority of Canadians if placed before them today. It would first have to become the program of the left and peoples’ organizations.

It would have to be fought for day in and day out, until it captures the hearts and minds of the Canadian people. Social change cannot be achieved through elections until it has been won in the factories, streets, offices and communities.

If this process is not undertaken consciously, it will not just grow out of misery and suffering. What will arise out of misery and suffering, unaddressed by a conscious alternative, is more misery and suffering.

Victory for such a coalition would not bring an end to the struggle against capital. In the short term, it would likely intensify as capital, in the name of democracy and the sanctity of capital, would fight to protect and regain its lost positions of strength.

The only guarantee would be the eternal vigilance of the working class and peoples’ movements. So long as capital rules, there can be no end to the class struggle.

Only the socialist re-organization of society based on the peoples’ needs, not the profits of capital, can resolve this struggle. And as events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe demonstrated, even the winning of people’s power does not ensure the uninterrupted development of democracy and socialism in a hostile imperialist world.

Together, the working class, its political party, and the peoples’ organizations are the sole guarantee of extending and protecting democracy, winning and ensuring the firm establishment and continuity of socialism.

The labour and peoples’ movement in France, Germany and other European countries are blocking the worst excesses of the neo–conservative onslaught. Black and white American labour, women, youth and students, are mounting a spirited fight back. Cuba is standing firm as a socialist state, withstanding the despicable attempts of US imperialism to crush it. Mexico, Brazil, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Chile in fact most of Latin America, is struggling for freedom and sovereignty.

We can draw great confidence and strength from the knowledge that the working class and democratic forces around the world are fighting for similar policies. In different ways – perhaps not always understood or accepted by us.

Communist and workers’ parties are undertaking the construction of socialism and the building of democracy in China, Vietnam, North Korea and Laos. In India, the Communist Party is elected in areas representing more than 100 million people. The Communist Party of Japan scored a major success in recent elections. In the East European countries, communists and workers are drawing painful lessons from their downfall and are winning the growing support of their people.

In South Africa, the National African Congress, in close cooperation with the South African Communist Party is forging the core of a new liberated African continent. Socialism and the onwards march of the world’s peoples has not been halted, and history continues to unfold. The future belongs to the people, not capital.

Spark! #9 - pgs. 6-11