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March 31, 2012 - No. 13 42nd Anniversary of CPC(M-L) Let Us Together Continue to Break New Ground in the Struggle for a New Direction for the Country and Emancipation of the Working Class!• Let
Us Together Continue to Break New Ground in the Struggle for a New
Direction for the Country and Emancipation of the Working Class!
- Central Committee, 42nd Anniversary of CPC(M-L) Let Us Together Continue to Break New Ground in the Struggle for a New Direction for the Country and Emancipation of the Working Class!
CPC(M-L) also conveys its warmest regards to all workers who are resisting the attacks on their rights and organizing themselves into contingents of the Workers' Opposition to build the new, and to the peoples all over the world who are defending themselves from imperialist war and exploitation and asserting their sovereign right to chart their own course of development. CPC(M-L) calls on the entire working class including professionals and other Canadians engaged in small and family businesses to mobilize themselves more effectively to break new ground in the struggle to defend the rights of all against monopoly right. Our collective social responsibility is to bring into being a new direction in the country's political and economic affairs that properly reflects the socialized interconnected nature of the economy and the modern way we live. A new direction means that the people must have control over their political and economic affairs and the right to make decisions that affect their workplaces, economic sectors, social institutions, neighbourhoods and society. This means that social product produced by the working class must be reinvested in social programs, public services and the productive economy, especially manufacturing, so that all can prosper from industrial mass production and not just a privileged few. The people wherever they work and live must become the decision-makers. The owners of monopoly capital who possess enormous wealth and influence, their ruling oligarchy and monopolies, and other private and public institutions they may control must be deprived of the power to deprive the people of their rights and the wealth of their socialized economy and its proper functioning. Ninth Party CongressThis anniversary year is an important juncture in the life of the Party when we begin engaging activists and advanced forces to sum up their work since the Eighth Congress and outline our plan of action for the next five years. Also, next March 13, we will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Internationalists, which gives all communists a moment to reflect on the contribution of Hardial Bains and to size up our work on the path that he opened up for the world. Comrade Bains fought his entire life to reassert the authority of communism and bring that authority into harmony with the modern conditions. Modern communism and the Party of today reflect Hardial's passion for the new and his determination to fight constantly for renewal, the enrichment of theory, strengthening of the Party's organizations and the creation of new organizational forms of the working class for its defence, politics and democracy. Through actions with analysis, the building of groups of writers and disseminators, leading the class struggle on all fronts within the constantly changing conditions, Party comrades through their own efforts are deepening and broadening revolutionary theory and contributing to Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought. By tackling the world as it presents itself and analyzing the concrete conditions where Party members and supporters are involved in revolutionary work, the Party and all its organisms can respond effectively to the call of history and move the world forward to a break with the obsolete authority that is in contradiction with the conditions both in their own particular work and in society generally. The Party upholds Lenin's thesis that without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement which always emphasizes that without revolutionary practice revolutionary theory withers and dies as dogma. For communists, theory is the Goddess of Light that illuminates the path forward but first we must be on the revolutionary path and fighting to advance the class struggle. As we fight and advance our revolutionary practice, theory must advance as well to deal effectively with the conditions that constantly change objectively and subjectively through our own efforts in organizing and waging the class struggle. Change, Development and MotionThe world never slows down in its constant change, development and motion and neither should our brains in dealing with the call of history. Who would have thought even a decade ago that Harper, Obama, Cameron and other capitalist leaders would dare to smash the social contract with labour to the extent they are doing today? All the post-war arrangements with labour are being overturned leaving the working class exposed to the most diabolical assaults by the state and monopolies such as Rio Tinto, Air Canada, U.S. Steel, the auto and forest monopolies, Vale and others. Not a day goes by without another infamy against the working class including attacks even on the dignity of teachers, scientists, other professionals and public service workers, wrecking of manufacturing and austerity budgets that deprive the people of the social programs and public services they need to live in dignity and health. However, this is not an occasion to mourn the present situation and express frustration and desperation. It is an occasion to test our mettle as communists and workers. The contradictions within state monopoly capitalism are so intense the ruling oligarchy to save itself, its crisis-ridden system and its life of wealth and class privilege is attacking everyone except a small minority that holds economic and political power and influence. Using the power of the state and the immense wealth at their disposal, monopolies and their private interests are assaulting the vast majority of the people and their basic interests. They are politicizing their private interests and depoliticizing public interests creating a state of anarchy and violence worldwide. This exposes the weakness of state monopoly capitalism and those who hold great wealth and class privilege and their paid flunkies; they have no objective allies in any other sector of the population making them and their state extremely isolated and vulnerable in the face of a people determined to defend their rights and the general interests of society. On the international front, who would have thought only a short time ago that U.S. imperialism would dare to smash all the arrangements that emerged from the Second World War? But that is what the U.S. Empire has done, challenging all countries large and small to a fight to the finish for world domination. It has manoeuvred the ruling oligarchies of Canada, Mexico, Britain and others into an axis of constant aggression against all those who would challenge the reactionary authority of U.S. imperialism. The Canadian and Mexican states have become junior partners in U.S. Homeland Security and its striving to crush the rights of all and for world domination. U.S. imperialism has become the most aggressive big power since Hitler Germany, waging war after war while constantly planning and preparing for more and bigger wars. But the communists and working class have not fallen into politics of desperation or liquidation. On the contrary, the revolutionary forces are organizing their resistance calmly, firmly and confidently. This is so because we have our Marxist-Leninist Party and we have confidence in the character and quality of our working class. The dialectics of nature reveals to us that a break with the old can be discovered through revolutionary work and can be brought into being. The break with the old comes with breaking new ground in the class struggle. That is the dialectic and the communists are in the forefront of breaking new ground. The Call of History to Break New GroundToday is a time for the working class and its communist leadership to rise to the call of history and finally set the modern proletariat in the countries of state monopoly capitalism on the path to lasting victory. It is now that the working class can show its expertise not only in modern production but also in modern communism and break new ground in the class struggle in the heartland of imperialism without falling into the pit of opportunism and betrayal of the aim of the class for its own emancipation and the elimination of classes and class society. On this 42nd anniversary of our great Party, let us vow to continue to break new ground and through our actions and brains enhance our Marxist-Leninist theory and character. Canadian communists have shown in practice over the last forty-two years and more that they are capable of dealing with the ever-changing conditions, and developing and asserting their communist authority. Let us continue on the path opened up by Hardial Bains and pursued by the Party and Central Committee since his untimely passing. Victory to the Workers' Opposition in its struggle to defend the rights of all and to organize for a new direction for the country to make it fit for human beings without war and exploitation! Long Live the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)! Modern CommunismAs is the case with all vital things, so too with Communism: there are as many interpretations about it as there are people on this earth. More importantly, in spite of those who have already put communism into a category of things which belonged to the past, a lot more people want to know what communism really is. CPC(M-L) does not argue that it espouses the best definition of communism but it does argue that it knows what must be done to get the society out of the crisis and open its door to progress. CPC(M-L) corroborates, through its own study of the present contemporary conditions and their historical development, the definition of Karl Marx who said that communism is the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class. Modern capitalism, in contrast, is the condition for the complete enslavement of the society to the aims of the financial oligarchy for the making of the maximum capitalist profit, its division between exploiters and exploited and between rich and poor. It is also the condition for the monopoly capitalists to fight for control of the "global market," an intense inter-imperialist contradiction and the domination by the most powerful over the weak and the sway of imperialism over the peoples on the world scale. The world having gone through two colossal periods, primaeval classless society and class society, is now ready for its next stage, a classless society on the most advanced and developed basis. The laws governing this development, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production are calling for the overthrow of the modern capitalist society as the pre-condition for the creation of a classless society. The world bourgeoisie and reaction have declared an all-out war against further social development. The continuing clashes within their ranks, the extreme competition which are inherent to the "free market economy" and the political fights in which each section is represented by its own political party in the form of "ideological and political pluralism" and the defence of bourgeois right and civil liberties and the "global market," have created a society which bears no responsibility towards any of its members except for the most powerful. All of this is presented as the greatest and final achievements of modern capitalism. A most vicious war has been declared to preserve these "values" and to ensnare communism. The result of this onslaught for the preservation of the status quo is turmoil in the sphere of the economy with its attendant evils of unemployment and job insecurity. Other features include state and individual acts of terrorism and violence of all kinds, as well as the marginalization of the people from the political process and a "rule of law" which has become a euphemism for rule by decree and use of arbitrariness and law enforcement agencies to settle differences in public opinion. Society is being compelled to look into all manner of things except the path to its further development. All things which are vital to human development have long since been reduced to mere policy objectives. Militarization is a feature the economies in the "west" have in common. Armament production and sales are skyrocketing and the lands, seas and skies are being filled with arms and weapons of mass destruction. At the centre of prevailing ideas is the message that everything else can be put on the agenda except eliminating the obstruction to the society's progress. The very raison d'etre of governments is to ensure that the path to the progress of the society remains closed. This block is squeezing the very life out of the people, forcing them to live in a society in which they are compelled by force of arms to subordinate themselves to things and live at the mercy of phenomena over which they exercise no control. There is a savage onslaught against the people exercising control over their lives, against the human factor social consciousness playing the role history has entrusted it with as the key element in social development. Modern Communism remains surrounded by enemies and so-called friends alike who at best present it as a mere policy alternative, a mere idea in the style of a dogma which has no basis in real life. A sharp and stern ideological struggle has broken out against all the illusions fostered by Liberalism and Social Democracy according to which a change in policy is enough to change the situation. Modern Communism contrary to all claims, is the most objective thing there is, a condition which can be seen resulting from the resolution of objective contradictions inherent at the base of the society, a condition which appears after modern society rises on the socialist foundations with the elimination of all exploitation of persons by persons. As is the case of the study of any other objective condition, Modern Communism, its theory and practice must be taken up as a science. How does the society develop to the stage of Modern Communism? The social character of the process of production which has already appeared and the relations of production which must be socialized in order to resolve this contradiction are questions which require scientific treatment. Equally important, there is an immediate need to scientifically establish that the most modern techniques, the scientific and technical revolution cannot, in themselves, play their role of eliminating the ills of the society unless the mode of ownership of the means of production is changed from private and individual to the collective and social. The vital question of forms of government must also be taken up scientifically to show how the form of bourgeois dictatorship marginalizes the vast majority of the people and reduces the vital questions of democracy which relate to people's sovereignty and their right to exercise control over their lives to the holding of what are called "free and fair elections," "transparency" and "accountability" without ever touching on the essential in a scientific way. They are an obstruction to a form of democracy in which the working class places itself in the commanding position and the people govern and exercise control over their lives. It can be determined with the precision of science as CPC(M-L) is doing that the present objective and subjective developments are either leading towards the creation of the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class, the condition of Modern Communism or to the mutual destruction of all classes in combat. Capitalist exploiters strive to prolong their rule and their activities lead to the mutual destruction of all classes in combat. CPC(M-L) is organized to avert this catastrophe and lead the working class to the creation of a modern communist, classless society in which all of humanity will be emancipated. Modern capitalism, by its very mechanism of production, is not only producing poverty and unemployment but also words minus their generally accepted meaning, words which are brought forth to confuse, to mystify, to make people incapable of looking at and grappling with the reality they themselves live in. Economists, political scientists and philosophers, social workers and lawyers, politicians and others involved in the affairs of the society, deliberately mislead the people by using words which are devoid of any meaning. They tell people to engage in everything else so long as they do not involve themselves in eliminating the obstruction to society's advance. The word "totalitarianism" is used to equate Modern Communism with fascism. It is to slander Modern Communism and confuse people about the present-day fascist activities in which the slanderers are engaged. Such activities are passed off as the highest expression of "democracy." Loaded words are used to suggest that Marxist-Leninists are a dogmatic kind of sect, those who just do whatever a "powerful leader" tells them. In actual fact, it is the bourgeoisie which exercises a form of cabinet rule in which the word of the Prime Minister or the President must be followed, while Modern Communism practices the method of Collective Work and Individual Responsibility as the only way of doing things. Under socialism, the individual is subordinate to the collective and the collective is subordinate to the general interests of the society. The executive power is also subordinate to the legislative and the legislative power is subordinate to the electorate. Bourgeois society is organized on the entirely opposite basis as the most effective means to keep the people out of power. Under Modern Communism, even the state whithers away with the community of goods in the service of the community of most advanced humanity. In spite of this, words are used devoid of their real meaning so as to place Modern Communism in the company of Nazism and Fascism which are political forms of bourgeois rule under conditions when liberal democracy fails to keep the revolt of the working class and the broad masses of the people in check. Depriving words of their real meaning while justifying the most brutal attacks in the name of some higher principle, like that of servicing the debt, places the bourgeoisie in the company of all that is most cruel, which the society can do without. It shows that the bourgeoisie is superfluous as a class. CPC(M-L) fights to get the working class to take up its duty to be the leader of the society so that the condition is created for its own complete emancipation. This is, in turn, the condition for the emancipation of all humanity. Modern Communism is, in the final analysis, the condition for the complete emancipation of the entire humanity. Real AlternativeThe main thing which can be said in a nutshell about CPC(M-L) is not just that it has a real alternative to what is happening at this time within the conditions of modern capitalism. All political parties lay such a claim in one way or another. What differentiates CPC(M-L) from all these other political parties is that its ultimate aim is the creation of the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class, the condition for the complete emancipation of entire humanity. It is for this reason it can be said that CPC(M-L) is actually a movement to turn the words of this real alternative, the essence of the pro-social program, into deeds as a step towards the creation of the condition of Modern Communism, the condition for the complete emancipation of the working class and of all humanity. All those who wish to join CPC(M-L) will join this movement to turn the words, the true meaning of the real alternative, the pro-social agenda, into deeds as a first step towards the creation of the condition of Modern Communism. They will join so that they themselves can become fighters for the real alternative. When CPC(M-L) speaks about the real alternative, it has in mind the alternative to what is really going on in Canada and internationally at this time; the alternative to the capitalist offensive against the people; the real alternative to the retrogression of society. At the same time it is fully aware that Modern Communism is the next stage in the development of the human society, not an accommodation with what is going on under modern capitalism. Modern Communism is a new foundation for a modern society to be erected on it. The real alternative is the program to defend the interests of the working class and the most vulnerable sections of the people under the present conditions. It is the pro-social agenda whose implementation will be truly subversive to the modern capitalist system, in accordance with the order of day. It is this subversion which will contribute to eliminating obstruction to society's forward march. [...]
Opposition to All DogmasCPC(M-L) works tirelessly to eliminate the illusion from the midst of the people that a short-term and long-term perspective of social development can exist without having a profound view of Modern Communism. The bourgeoisie's account of communism has no resemblance to what it really is, and is in fact an anti-communist dogma designed to make people dismiss it out of hand. CPC(M-L) is acutely conscious that the people cannot save themselves by dogmas which the bourgeoisie spreads in their midst. They have to have a profound grasp of the reality they are in and take the step which would get them out of the capitalist status quo. Since the Second World War the official dogma was based on the alleged superiority of the Social Welfare State. Once the bankruptcy of the Social Welfare State was revealed, the bourgeoisie took up blaming the Social Welfare State for all the ills of society as its official dogma and all measures have been taken to dismantle it. Nonetheless, there are still others who continue to believe in the dogma that the Social Welfare State was just fine and represented "gains" which must be preserved. There was also the dogma as preached by the former Soviet Union and others according to whom their brand of "Developed Socialism" was the panacea. Once it also revealed its bankruptcy it too became the scapegoat of many who abandoned ship while others, even today, in spite of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, still believe that the dogma of Developed Socialism is fine. They are hankering for the past as if what existed was all fine. Today the prevalent official dogma is the one which believes in the "hidden hand" of the "free market economy" which allegedly regulates the production and consumption in the society. Even though a "free market economy" is what existed in the first half of the nineteenth century and it was long ago transformed into monopoly capitalism, for well over a century now this dogma about the "free market" and "free trade" is preached from the highest to the lowest pulpits. CPC(M-L) militantly opposes all dogmas. Modern Communism is not based on eternal principles but assumes its profound forms and content according to the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. CPC(M-L) draws its theories guided by the principle of concrete analysis of concrete conditions, ensuring that the cutting edge of the ideology and political line as it exists within the present conditions of retreat of revolution is not missed. CPC(M-L) begins from the present, by analyzing the contemporary conditions of the collapse of the bipolar division of the world. It has reached the conclusion that the struggle between the forces of progress and retrogression has become even sharper. This is a diametrically opposite conclusion to the one drawn by the bourgeoisie for whom the collapse of the former Soviet Union represents the victory of the forces of progress over the forces of reaction. Far from it, it is the retrogressive forces which currently have the upper hand and the key thing within the situation is the criticism of all prevailing ideas which are in the service of retrogression and are blocking the progress of the society. The elaboration of the pro-social agenda within the framework of thinking guided by Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought and providing the profound perspective of Modern Communism are essential at this time. The movement at the base of the society is towards the resolution of the contradictions inherent to it, the contradiction between the social character of production and the private character of appropriation, which is becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The conscious side is calling for the critical treatment of everything past within the framework of the program for the present. [...] The Modern Vision of SocietyThe birth of the new society is reflected in the striving of the working class for its own emancipation and in the struggle of the people to seek a real alternative. People in the world want change but who will bring this change about and how? This is the central issue facing the entire world, not just Canada. CPC(M-L) firmly believes that only Modern Communism can provide the full vision of who will bring this change about and how. The working class as a class can lead the people to bring this change about but not without the vision provided by Modern Communism, not without appreciating on the basis of science that the complete emancipation of the working class is necessary condition for the emancipation of the entire humanity. Or conversely, that without the working class fighting for the emancipation of the entire humanity, the working class itself cannot be emancipated. The task of CPC(M-L) is to make the working class conscious of its historic mission and provide it with an organization that can bring it about. There Is an AlternativeThe first step in this regard is for the working class to convince the women, youth and students and all exploited that There is an Alternative. This alternative is a pro-social program and it has assumed it specific form and content according to the present concrete conditions. In place of the present anti-social agenda, the offensive of cutbacks and a society which takes no responsibility towards its members, there is the alternative of a pro-social agenda with its guiding principle that people have claims on society by virtue of their being human beings who are born to society. As citizens and residents of a definite society, they depend on it for their living. Such an alternative is a preview of what socialist society will look like as a transit stage for building a modern communist society. Democratic RenewalIn place of the marginalization of the people as a result of the existing unrepresentative democracy there is the alternative democratic renewal. The present political system and process are in contempt of the people's right to exercise their sovereignty by participating in governance, submitting them instead to a form of Party rule whose main feature is arbitrariness and the turning of all social, political and economic demands of the people into law and order problems whenever the people disagree.
Humanizing the EnvironmentBy taking into consideration that the society emerged out of the struggle for the humanization of the environment during a period of some over forty thousand years, Modern Communism presents the prospect of when the humanization of the environment will once again be affirmed once all things and phenomena are put in the service of humanity. Already at the present time under class society, the human factor/social consciousness is righting to assume a dominant position. The socialization of the process of production has invoked the scientific technical revolution, putting the question of making the relations in the course of production consistent. Such a thing has taken place on the basis of bringing forth what was best within the prevailing system, the scientific and technical revolution, but this is also what bring forth the worst in the capitalist system -- the jobless recovery, the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer and the bourgeoisie declaring that the people have no claims on society by virtue of their being human. However, the socialization of the relations of production, ending the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of persons by persons, does bring forth what is best in human beings, the highest ideals of humanity directed majestically against all notions which glorify the exploitation of persons by persons and which profane humanity. The human factor social consciousness is one integral whole in terms of the human personality in which all that humanity can bring forth is personified in a concentrated form. It is the affirmation of the modern personality capable of handling the most modern developments that the scientific technical revolution can bring forth in the interest of affirming that human personality and subordinating everything under it. Under the present conditions, the human factor is extremely limited and stymied without social consciousness. Without the human factor, social consciousness is merely a dream of a better world. It has no base in real life. It is the broad horizon of Modern Communism which provides the human factor/social consciousness its perspective as the acumen of the modern proletarian revolution. Modern Communism places the development of this factor in the first place. The more the working class takes up the pro-social agenda and fights for it, the more the human factor/social consciousness will develop as the human beings, not private property, are placed at the centre stage of all development. The recognition of Human Rights will replace the recognition of Bourgeois Right. If Modern Communism is presented merely as a vision without placing human beings at the centre stage of development and without giving the rights of all people recognition by virtue of their being human, it will merely be a phrase, a policy objective promising this or that for humanity while actually doing the opposite in real life. [...]
First Step and the Ultimate AimIn sum, Modern
Communism, the theory and practice of CPC(M-L), appears in the
immediate sense and in the form of the first step as the struggle for
the victory of the real alternative, the victory of the pro-social
agenda. As an ultimate form, it is the condition for
the complete emancipation of the working class, the condition in which
all that needs to be humanized will be humanized and the human society
itself will itself spontaneously, as a matter of course, produce what
is most human. The greatest act of human beings in that condition will
be what they do best: the
humanization of both the natural and the social environment. In this
manner, they will provide all that is needed, as the condition for the
affirmation of their own humanity. It is precisely this act of
humanizing both the natural and the social environment which has
created human civilization since the primaeval
period. But henceforth human beings will affirm themselves at the most
advanced stage, creating a human culture and society never even dreamt
of this far. [...]
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