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March 12, 2010 - No. 53 47th Anniversary of the Founding of the Internationalists The Legacy of the Internationalists and
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Saturday, March 13 marks the 47th Anniversary of the Founding of the Internationalists at the University of British Columbia.
March 13, 1963 is an important date which the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) celebrates because the legacy of the Internationalists has been inherited by CPC(M-L), a legacy that continues to inspire and guide the work of the Party in decisive ways.
The founding the Internationalists amongst the students at UBC in 1963 had a profound impact on the life of the university.
At that time the students and many faculty were confronted with a major all-sided onslaught to mislead the people about the nature of imperialism, neo-colonialism and the betrayal of socialism within the Soviet Union and the post-world war two peoples' democracies in Europe.
It was also a time of major U.S. imperialist annexation of Canadian resources and manufacturing, and steadily increasing dictation over the domestic and foreign policy of the Canadian state.
This process of annexation, called "continentalism" at the time, was linked to ferocious aggression of U.S. imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.
U.S. imperialism had also waged by stealth, ideological-cultural subversion and criminal means the undermining of the Soviet and other former socialist states successfully taking them over through their agents and various sell-outs.
This was the period of the Cold War, and anti-communism was the hysterical framework within which a serious subversion of the post-war youth was being organized and carried out. Moreover, the bourgeoisie had ideologically-politically subverted, as far back as the second world war, the Canadian communist movement, which was reduced to an agency of the Soviet Union, and the career ambitions of a few marginalized trade union officials, with absolutely no relevance to the young generation.
The assault against the youth was especially acute within the educational, particularly, university system, which had been opened up consistent with the needs of U.S. imperialist expansion, and had opened its doors to large numbers of the post-war youth, even those from working class families.
The form through which this cultural-ideological aggression was waged against the youth was through the routine of sterile, idealist-metaphysical lectures, rote learning, exams all performed to get a degree and launch a career in the service of imperialism.
Amongst the masses of youth there was great disquiet with this state of affairs.
An event that sparked the student youth at UBC into action occurred in October 1962, when U.S. imperialism headed by John F. Kennedy, surrounded revolutionary Cuba with warships, threatening to engage in war with the Soviet Union if it didn't withdraw its missiles from Cuba.
Thousands of UBC students met in a mass rally to condemn the blockade.
Hardial Bains, a leading activist in that movement, analyzed that what was required to develop the movement was a form to generate maximum political discussion amongst the youth and faculty as to what was unfolding in the real world.
Moreover, in his own mind, he had come to the profound conclusion, that given the absence of a revolutionary communist party in Canada, the creation of a communist party was an historical necessity.
Reflecting on the irrelevance, i.e. practical absence of a communist party, at UBC in this period, Hardial Bains wrote:
"One of the attributes acquired in the course of political work is a kind of instinct or edict that we must not separate our struggle from the rest of society. Nay more, we must be responsible to the society and be in its vanguard.
"This instinct or edict not to stand aloof from the people may also result from a natural gravitation created by the objective conditions." (Thinking about the Sixties, Hardial Bains, p. 49)
The absence of addressing the needs of the society, most particularly, the needs of the UBC community, led Hardial Bains to mobilize activist youth to found the Internationalists.
"Our tactic at that time was to appeal to the better judgment of the youth; to raise just causes; to organize and wage struggles, and through all of this to educate them in an ideology which could present an overall perspective, illuminate practice and provide a guide to action. The aim was to appeal to the people in such a manner they would take up our views as their own." (Ibid, p. 59)
The Internationalists did address the needs of the society, fundamentally by taking a resolute stand against imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, its aggressions and wars.
The Internationalists considered from its founding that the stand towards imperialism was the touchstone differentiating the revolutionary and progressive forces from the forces of exploitation, enslavement, war and reaction.
The Internationalists undertook the work to create conditions for the creation of a political party of the new type under the conditions of aggression of U.S. imperialism, its decadent educational system, its assault on all the historical victories of the 20th century, including against materialist thinking and revolutionary action as the motivating force in meeting the needs of society and propelling it forward.
The Internationalists upheld the view that society, like nature, is governed by objective laws.
To change the world it is necessary to act in conformity with these laws, i.e. to analyze consciously what those historically necessary tasks are to advance the society, and carry them out based on the most productive and revolutionary social force in modern society, the working class.
By isolating the key task of the period, the building of the political party of the working class, consistent with a scientific and revolutionary outlook, the Internationalists created the legacy that continues to inspire that same necessity today, the building of a mass communist party the working class requires to constitute itself the nation and vest sovereignty in the people.
A crucial step in that project is the need to create a working class opposition to the neo-liberal agenda of the cartel political party system which has given rise to a political regime supervising the full U.S. imperialist annexation of the country and wrecking of both its manufacturing base and social programs.
The Internationalists upheld the necessity for elaborating the independent leading role of the working class, its Party, Marxist-Leninist ideology without which revolutionary words and gestures were mere empty phrases, as life in the 1960s and '70s proved.
The Internationalists put the internal life of the organization on a conscious level understanding that without paying attention to its methods of work, relations between members and leaders, submission of the part to the whole, a party of a new type could not be built.
By dealing with these problems of organization, and creating it guided by theory, and constantly developing that theory in the course of class struggle, the Internationalists laid the foundation of a sound organization based on the Leninist principle of democratic centralism.
Organization was not sclerotic but, constantly raised to the level required by the political tasks, it reflected the level of the actual class struggle of the time.
Organization was based on the needs of society, to open its path to progress. In particular the organization was created to meet the need for the working class to have the kind of party needed to develop its leading role.
This is a profound legacy the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) inherited from the Internationalists. To this day, the Party directs all its work toward the fulfilment of the historical task.
Central to the Internationalists was its fight against indifference to organizational problems and against simply making sideline comments about events instead of organizing the people.
Had the Internationalists not fought resolutely on these questions, they could not have founded the CPC(M-L) on March 31, 1970.
Only by carrying on that legacy under the leadership of Hardial Bains until his untimely death in August 1997, and from that time until the present under the leadership of Sandra L. Smith, could this legacy be seen manifested in the work of CPC(M-L) as it works to fulfil its goal of becoming a mass communist party of the Canadian working class.
The most lasting legacy of the Internationalists is that of turning words into deeds through heroic and self-sacrificing actions always geared to realizing the decisive task of the period.
Today too this legacy of turning words into deeds is manifested by all genuine Marxist-Leninist communists.
As at the time of the founding of the Internationalists, inspired by its history and the work of the Party, all its members and cadre are dedicated to solving the real problems of life so as to open a path to society's progress and defeat the plans of the anti-social and anti-national government and the non-existent "opposition" which are leading to national disaster, nihilism and war.
Imbued with the achievements of the Internationalists, the Party has maintained its revolutionary vanguard character at each historical turn.
Today, CPC(M-L) continues to be a vanguard party of the Canadian working class because it has inherited from the Internationalists the insistence on remaining in step with the movement at the base of society and diverting it towards the aim of creating a new society.
This is a permanent feature of CPC(M-L)'s work which guides itself by paying attention to the solution of problems which block the advance of society.
Today, 47 years after the founding of the Internationalists, the class struggle to provide society the focus on what is key to opening its path to progress remains the most crucial task.
This revolutionary edge of its work and its relevance to the pressing needs of the time is what attracted the youth of the '60s with their passion and love of justice, and what attracts the workers, youth and women engaged in the struggle to open a path for society today.
Long Live the Work of the
Internationalists Whose Legacy Lives on in the Work of CPC(M-L)!
Workers of all
Countries, Unite!
Thinking About the Sixties (1960-1967)
Chapter
Two: 1963 (Extract)
It was early February 1963. In the Auditorium
cafeteria
at the University of British Columbia an excited discussion was taking
place. A whole pack of us, young men and women, all connected with the
university in one way or another, were pouring out our feelings. One
subject dominated the conversation --
how we all hated what was taking place in the university. One young man
spoke eloquently of his disgust for the university. A nineteen-year-old
girl interjected: "We don't hate the university, we just don't like
what's going on here." Others gave their opinions, speaking quickly and
in a most animated way. A feature
of those days stood out in sharp relief -- time passed extremely
quickly. A contest, a race erupted between the time that passed and the
time it took to accomplish the things we wanted to do. We were more
anxious than the speed of time. We wanted things done, now.
As we emerged from the Auditorium, we were dazzled by the brilliance of the February sun. People from outside Vancouver are fond of saying that the weather in Vancouver is predictable; it rains all the time. True, it rains, but not all the time, and the weather is not that predictable. Sunny days in Vancouver, especially at the beautiful UBC campus, are resplendent in their brilliance and natural grandeur. Gazing out at the Georgia Strait from the Rose Garden, across the sparkling water to the snow-capped mountains with the inlets and distant Horseshoe Bay in the background was an experience one might never forget -- especially when it was the experience of a youthful mind. So many such minds during those days of early February 1963 did not want to miss anything at all. They were convinced that they were the ones who would set things right.
I was a young man of few words at the time. The magnetism of deep concern, a concern which one could see fixed on the young faces, a concern about literally everything, attracted me towards action, towards what we used to call in an excited fashion: Action to Change the World! Yes, we the young people in our millions were going to Change the World! It was no joke, especially when one remembers the April 1961 and October 1962 events in response to Kennedy's attacks on the Cuban revolution. It seemed the whole student population of 11,000, if I remember correctly, was in action opposing Kennedy's blockade of Cuba. With such tumultuous demonstrations, revolution looked to be just around the corner.
Walking from the Auditorium towards the Library, an idea came to mind. Why not go right in front of the Library and talk to the students there and tell them all about what has been simmering for the last few months? The mind and heart of a young person, besides being pure, is extremely volcanic. Some caution is needed to tap this volcanic energy and channel it for the well-being of society. Channelling youthful energy toward the well-being of society, encouraging youth, showing understanding and confidence in youth are what is required. But of course, we were youth ourselves! Even though a post-graduate student and not much older than anyone else, I seemed to have a feeling that the youth needed leadership. So we the youth had to learn how to channel that energy ourselves. It appeared no one else around would do it for us.
Several well-meaning faculty members at the university and even some administrators assisted us but in the main we faced a hostile attitude both from the Student Council and the administration. The Faculty Council remained friendly for some years until it was taken over by elements centred on purely business interests.
So we had to be very skilful in what to say and how to act. After all, this was the period when the walls were painted with the slogan "Better Dead than Red," and members of the Communist Club stood aside from the people, both from fear of persecution and their sense of superiority. A very peculiar behaviour I thought for those who considered themselves to be the most just, most correct and most persecuted. Being quite literally more dead than red, they contributed to an atmosphere of fear and anti-communism. This was, of course, not a real Communist Club. They were boys and girls of communist families who felt their family loyalty more than their interest in communism. Family loyalty or careerist spirit compelled them to be communists.
Soon after immigrating to Canada in 1959 I remember approaching a functionary of the Communist Party on Vancouver Island about joining the party. The person told me that the best thing I could do was join the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which is now the New Democratic Party. I could not believe my ears. This man had no confidence whatsoever that the working class would take up communism. He was convinced that the workers would always support capitalism. Perhaps all these years later if he were still alive, he would say with satisfaction that he was right -- the workers have not taken up communism. Nay more, they overthrew communism. But I, after all these years, am still not in the least pessimistic about communism and the prospect that workers will eventually embrace communist ideology and practice.
The notion that communists have to apologize for being communist was very widespread in 1963. It was not just the general fear that as a communist you may face persecution, which was a real possibility; it was the festering anti-communist propaganda that had entered their psyche and slowly but steadily was eating into their convictions, making them believe the anti-Stalin tirades. Of course, they did not like Stalin.
One day while travelling by ferry to a weekend program,
a mutual acquaintance introduced me to one of the leading lights of the
Communist Club. I remember him standing there on the deck of the boat
with a long scarf around his neck telling me I was an "anti-Soviet."
The "anti-Soviet" accusation
was the flip-side of the epithet, "Better Dead than Red." I told this
man that it was Khrushchev and his followers who were anti-Soviet. The
question of the Soviet Union was not a formality. It was a serious
question of what the Soviet Union stood for. The Soviet Union of Stalin
stood for a very definite Soviet Union
that instilled fear in all the obsolescent forces of the world, while
the Soviet Union of Khrushchev was a great hope for imperialism and
world reaction. This leading light of the Communist Club was preaching
anti-communism. I contemptuously rejected his anti-Soviet charge and
cautioned him to be careful about
this traitor Khrushchev.
I remember one evening in the fall of 1962. I was standing in a queue in front of the Fort Camp residence dining room. A young man hardly twenty years old was distributing leaflets. Excitement was in the air for it was a novel situation -- a communist distributing leaflets. I shared the emotion but was more eager to find out what was written. I went straight up to the person, gave him a generous smile, and even shook his hand for after all I was a communist too. I took the leaflet and rushed to my room to read it. This was not the time when you read communist leaflets in front of others. Many students were even terrified to touch such a leaflet. This was the democracy Khrushchev was hankering for.
 Hardial Bains in front of International House at the University of British Columbia, 1962. |
Reading through the leaflet I did not understand a single thing, nor did I give the matter another thought. Being new in Canada I surmised that I didn't know very much about the working class movement. That was how I rationalized why the leaflet was utterly meaningless to me. A few weeks later I received another and the same thing happened. The second time I gave it more thought and found that the fault did not lie with me but with the authors of the leaflets. After already close to three years in Canada and having participated in actions and also knowing many of the individuals active in politics, I understood various things. Besides I had been politically active since 1946-47. It could not be said that I was clear and conscious about all political affairs but the Communist Party had taught me some things, or to be more precise, I had picked up a few things in the course of political work over the years.
One of the attributes acquired in the course of political work is a kind of instinct or edict that we must not separate our struggle from the rest of society. Nay more, we must be responsible to the society and be in its vanguard. This instinct or edict not to stand aloof from the people may also result from a natural gravitation created by the objective conditions. The fact that I could not make heads or tails of those leaflets was because they did not address the problems of society. They did not have the intensity of the this-sidedness of life; they did not have the vigour of analysis that comes when one is fully involved with it. Life itself is the highest school of learning. This is not a cliché; it represents the truth of the matter in concentrated form.
It was quite clear the authors of the leaflet were divorced from life and were not in the vanguard of society. Otherwise they would have written something one could understand. Here, of course, political prejudice and political interest also play a role but that was not the issue with me.
Mass Democracy Meetings
Walking toward the Library a large group of us sensed that something very significant was to happen that day. I don't remember who said what or how the decision was made but I found myself standing on a box shouting, "There's no academic atmosphere on the campus." A crowd gathered and soon it swelled to three hundred or so. I can still feel the excitement. From serious discussion to expressions of disbelief, young men and women, some faculty members and administrators and many from the Library participated in what came to be known later as mass democracy meetings. For the general public it was merely soapboxing and they loved it.
Over the course of several years at UBC and elsewhere, the popularity of such meetings increased to such an extent it was expected of us to appear in public and explain ourselves. Our detractors hated it. Everyone remembers how various universities tried to ban such meetings. It even led to the arrest of various individuals and deportations in some cases. The administrators always tried to find this or that rule or excuse to suppress those meetings.
The analysis, "There is no academic atmosphere on campus" became extremely popular. In retrospect, it could be seen that the students had a profound insight because when we said, "There is no academic atmosphere," we objected to the restriction that science students should have nothing to do with politics, and Arts and Humanities students should pursue fields divorced from real life. Such views and restrictions were rammed down the throats of students and the analysis calling for an academic atmosphere became the clarion call to oppose those views and restrictions. A large number of us were from the Sciences and we rejected those demands in practice, and those from the Arts and Humanities did the same thing. We based our views on scientific inquiry. Mass democracy meetings and discussions broke out on campus on all the important questions concerning Canada and the world.
On that day in February, the students were very excited to hear our views. We talked about what should be done, what programs should be organized and what measures had to be taken. In the midst of all this, a man, his head shaking like a maniac and his hands flailing in the air, yelled from the fringes: "Do you know who the speaker is?"
For a split second there was pin-drop silence broken only by someone asking: "Who?"
The agitated man shouted loudly: "He's a Communist!"
I immediately shot back: "And proud of it!"
The excitement of what happened in front of the Library ran through us all as we marched from the Library to Brock Hall where the Student Council was located. But Brock Hall was much more than that. It was an institution with its own class divisions, where the students were segregated between North and South Brock. North Brock was the meeting point for those who were, in a general sense, left-wing; and, South Brock was the territory of those young men and women from the fraternities and sororities, those for whom appearance, social status and the size of their parents' pocketbooks were the most important things. The division, it turned out, was no small matter for some; it was crucial in terms of their political or business careers. This was the place to meet the right people and learn the ropes of a political or business career to serve one's personal interests, the interests of relatives and friends, or the interests of those to whom favours were owed.
Those two places -- North and South Brock -- had their own cafeterias in which the students and some faculty members gathered. Had you sat through a lunch in the North Brock cafeteria you would know that everything in the world was discussed. Not a problem or sphere of human endeavour was not debated. The students would walk from North Brock to the Auditorium, where there was another cafeteria, to International House, to the bus stop and sometimes to the Graduate Student Centre as well, talking endlessly. Not only was everything discussed in an excited manner but also at the centre of it all were not a few proposals on how to change the world.
Those days of February 1963 had a particular air about them. It felt as if something was developing at a very rapid clip. Each event took on a special quality and everything came in brilliant colours. This was especially true for those of us who spent our time going to meetings, attending symposia and participating in elections and demonstrations. I can still feel the pull, the attraction that got us to deal with things. Of course, after more than a quarter of a century the details are vague but not the feeling, the certainty that during those days humankind's whole future was being conceptualized. "This world is not going to remain the same" -- something was telling us again and again. We could not give up that feeling. It was like a voice coming from the heart of humanity: This World is Not Going to Remain the Same. We were all so anxious to see it change and to become its willing instruments. [...]
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