March 31, 2011 - No. 51

41st Anniversary of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)

Take Up CPC(M-L)'s Work for Political Renewal
on a New Historical Basis

- Central Committee, CPC(M-L) -

Today marks the forty-first anniversary of the founding of the Party.
On this occasion, the Central Committee sends revolutionary greetings to all the Party members and friends and wishes them
continued success in their work.

The anniversary comes while the country is in the midst of a federal election and the government has unleashed the military in yet another war of aggression. Canada is now fighting wars in Afghanistan and Libya as an annexed accomplice of U.S. imperialism. In a show of confidence, the U.S. has now given Canada command of NATO forces attacking Libya.

In the context of these wars and the preparations for even larger more disastrous wars, the Party launches an appeal to all Canadians to join its work for political renewal on a new historical basis.

The Party press has carried scores of articles detailing the unilateral ending of the post-WWII social contract and the overthrow of international law that had emerged with the victory over fascism. With the approval by the UN Security Council of the war against Libya, the Security Council has now officially violated the UN Charter. The Charter permits neither attacks against sovereign nations that are not endangering any other country, nor intervention in a country's internal affairs, which includes a prohibition on taking sides in a civil war.

The U.S.-led war in Iraq, the NATO-bombing of the former Yugoslavia, the U.S.-led NATO war in Afghanistan and the escalating drone bombing of Pakistan signal in practice that all notions of sovereignty from the post-war period are finished. But only now with the aggression against Libya has this illegitimate and immoral negation of sovereignty been given legal sanction by the UN Security Council. Henceforth, the UN Security Council has declared, no country is safe from attack by imperialist predators.

U.S. President Barack Obama's March 28 speech explaining his rationale for the U.S. military attack on Libya also clearly demarcates the present from the post-war legal arrangements governing international affairs. Simply put, the U.S. President says the old debate on the sanctity of sovereign nations and the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries is dead. Force is the main instrument of settling differences in international affairs, he said, sometimes unilaterally, sometimes within a coalition and sometimes with the approval of the UN Security Council. He later said that the U.S. approval for the UN sanctioned attacks on Libya should not be considered the "Obama doctrine" because the fate of each country will be decided by the U.S. separately.

Canada has also joined this infamy. With their unanimous approval in Canada's Parliament for the attack on sovereign Libya and to participate directly in the aggression, the four parties in the House of Commons have given the endorsement of Canada to this departure from the post-war norms.

In this way, the U.S. and its yes-man Canada and other big powers are providing themselves with a new raison d'état that is unacceptable to humankind. In the name of the national interests of the most powerful countries, the militaries of those imperialist powers now have the legal right to maraud, invade and occupy at will to re-divide the world and seize natural resources, markets, workers and spheres of influence, pillage national assets, such as the billions they have stolen from the Libyans without so much as batting an eye, and block or control the access of other countries to their newly annexed territories. The rationale for doing so is hardly important as it can be easily concocted under the name of "responsibility to protect," "the war on terror or drugs," "combating piracy," or simply defending national interests.

Attempts to Escape the Call of History

The U.S. doctrine for imperialist war is to escape the call of history and its necessity for change. From Cairo to Libya and Latin America the Obama doctrine says, "Let bygones be bygones. Let's get on with the future without taking responsibility for past crimes, let alone resolving the past contradictions." It tells the Palestinians that the land question is yesterday's question, get over it! It tells the Koreans that ending U.S. occupation is old news, accept it! Do not even try to reunify the Korean nation. Obama refused to apologize to the Chileans for organizing the Pinochet dictatorship saying, "obviously the history of relations between the United States and Latin America have at times been extremely rocky and have at times been difficult. I think it's important, though, for us, even as we understand our history and gain clarity about our history, that we're not trapped by our history."

These attempts to escape the call of history are meant to block the peoples of the world from holding high the necessity for change.

Liberal Democracy -- A Thing of the Past

Just as the UN Security Council's decision to attack Libya spells the end of the post-war international rule of law, so too the historical arrangements within Canada are finished. This includes not only the social contract based on the liberal-labour alliance but also the post-war definition of rights with reasonable limits enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The defeat of the Charlottetown Accord in 1992 and the disequilibrium in the Parliament, which ended the arrangements whereby the Party in Opposition was an alternative to the Party in Power, gave rise to a cartel party system. This cartel party system has enabled the Harper autocracy to rule, even with a minority in Parliament, because parties that serve an agenda dictated by the monopolies stand for virtually the same anti-social and anti-national things.

The era of liberal democracy, inaugurated in Canada with the advent of the 20th century and the regime of Liberal Party leader Wilfred Laurier, has now come to a definite end.

The liberal democratic arrangements based on notions of reasonable accommodations gave rise to the theory of the two founding nations, which enabled Confederation and averted Canada's annexation into the U.S. at that time.

In the post-war period these accommodations gave rise to the notion of rights based first on bilingualism and biculturalism, then on multiculturalism with its racist recognition of "visible minorities" in lieu of citizenship rights for all, irrespective of race, gender, national origin or any other consideration, and in lieu of the recognition of the hereditary rights of all First Nations a conception of people of aboriginal origin.

History shows that liberalism is a pragmatic doctrine that always accommodates the demands of the ruling classes to divide the polity on any number of communal issues to protect the rule of the propertied interests. As pragmatists, liberals responded in the post-war period by taking up the creation of a social welfare state based on a liberal-labour alliance and social democratic conciliation with the rule of the propertied classes. Nineteenth century liberalism became 20th century social democracy, another form of bourgeois rule.

Today, the pragmatic liberal doctrine faces new demands of the ruling classes and U.S. imperialism. In its neoliberal incarnation, it takes on a fascist form of bourgeois democracy. Politically, this means the concentration of political power in fewer and fewer hands, which reflects the concentration of economic power in global monopolies. Political power and the exercise of that power are concentrated in the offices of the Prime Minister, Premiers and the Mayors of the large cities. Economic power and the exercise of that power are concentrated in the offices of the global monopolies. Public right is discarded in favour of "monopoly right."

Necessity to Work on a New Historical Basis

To stop Harper, CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians to join its work for political renewal on a new historical basis and form an anti-war government. This means that the working class must emerge as the leading class that dares to create a society in its own image at a time the pro-war Conservatives, Liberals and NDP stand for the old. But the old, the era of liberal democracy including its social democratic form has disintegrated and become neoliberal globalisation, a fascist anti-social form of bourgeois rule.

For this reason, the striving of the people for empowerment today necessarily requires modern definitions and a modern outlook. Only with modern definitions based on a modern outlook consistent within the new historical period can people capture the objective revolutionary factors that are coming into being and bring them into their consciousness.

On the occasion of its 41st anniversary, the Central Committee of CPC(M-L) calls on party members to reaffirm the importance of orienting their work on the new historical basis. Unless the workers also orient themselves towards what is required to create a bright future by blocking what is not acceptable, the required social transformation will not take place and the dangers facing humankind will increase. The Party considers that the basis for the victory of the working class is its organization as a class and revolutionary party, its consciousness as a class and its maximum ideological and political mobilization. This posits the general demand that the human factor/social consciousness must be at the centre of all activities.

This requires concerted work to defeat the attempts that the bourgeoisie makes to render the working class passive in the face of the situation. This can be done if the workers continue to step up the tempo of their organized resistance to the anti-worker, anti-social and anti-national offensive and to take vigorous measures to elaborate their own pro-social program.

In the first place, it is necessary to raise the level of politics in Canada, which have been brought down to the lowest level ever by the bourgeoisie and its political and social props. In the second place, it is necessary to sort out the problem of how the working class and people can govern their own lives, to effect on a new basis their living and working conditions and confidently march forward. In other words, raising the level of political discussion will itself create conditions to sort out the problem of the affirmation of the people's empowerment and sovereignty -- their ability to participate in making the decisions that affect their lives.

In this regard, CPC(M-L) pays first rate attention to the creation of those mechanisms that will empower the people themselves to develop and set political agendas and gain the strength required to realize those agendas.

The founder and leader of CPC(M-L) Comrade Hardial Bains pointed out one year before his death:

"The dogmatic rendering of life itself is the very condition which keeps the people marginalized, which makes it impossible for them to bring the human factor/social consciousness into play so that human beings and their creative energies can become the key ingredient, the very soul of life itself. Without putting themselves at the centre-stage of life itself by smashing the dogmatic rendering of that life in all its expressions and manifestations, the quality of being human will remain negated. This quality is to create an environment which is, at each historical stage, made fit for human beings, an environment, both natural and social which continuously affirms the human factor/social consciousness in the act of creation. Unless this is done the very core of life itself will continue to be frittered away at their own expense.

"What are these solutions which come out of the concrete conditions of Canada and the world at this time, which CPC(M-L) is calling on all Canadians to pay attention to, so that they can contribute to turning things around? One of the main elements of CPC(M-L)'s Historic Initiative is to make sure that these solutions are brought forward in a practical way. It is not a matter of putting forward ready-made conclusions and demanding that people take them up."

This is how CPC(M-L) takes up the work to empower Canadians with the working class at the head, to turn things around in Canada and internationally. The role of CPC(M-L) is to transform itself into the kind of political party that is capable of leading the working class and people of Canada to accomplish this historical feat.

The Working Class Must Constitute Itself the
Nation and Vest Sovereignty in the People

The necessity to stop Harper must be taken up on a new historical basis around a Workers' Opposition. The working class is the first truly international social class. As a profoundly internationalist class, it refuses to recognize the supremacy of any one country. The recognition of its duty at this stage in history to constitute itself the nation and vest sovereignty in the people compels it to take up the issue of political power within the nation but on a new historical basis. The political form this takes is found in the doing.

CPC(M-L) on this forty-first anniversary of its existence calls on all Canadians to take up the work for political renewal on a new historical basis. Join with us to Stop Harper and form an anti-war government!

Long Live Our Party!
Join Us to Take Up the Work of Political Renewal on a New Historical Basis!

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