Point-by-Point on Malicious Editing of
Hardial Bains Wikipedia Page

Twenty edits were made by a user named JB1917 over the course of four days in 2015 to the Hardial Bains Wikipedia page. These edits are part of a pattern of hundreds of malicious edits made to the pages for Hardial Bains and the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) between October and December 2015 which can be demonstrated to have wantonly introduced dubious, unsourced, malicious and misleading assertions.

The user evidently scoured Google for any links to use as "sources" which would accomplish this, virtually all of which constitute nothing more than points of view, not adequate sources for the biography of an individual or factual information about a political party. Dozens more claims inserted in these hundreds of edits remain without any source whatsoever. The original article was also not without problems, but those problems do not appear to have been the result of a political agenda being advanced.

There are many indications of the poor spirit in which the edits were made. The entire introduction to the article is tendentious and contains not one citation. The introduction itself, in a few sentences, is replete with weasel words and phrases seemingly intended to discredit.

To begin, the article as rewritten by JB1917 states that Hardial Bains [emphasis added in bold throughout by TML]:

was a microbiology student and teacher, primarily known as the founder of a series of left-wing movements and parties...

Generally a biography of a deceased personality does not begin by identifying them with a profession they practised in their twenties for which they were not primarily known, nor refer to them as a student. This is part of a litany of uses of weasel words to convey a certain impression. Although it is not sourced, it makes no sense to speak of how Hardial Bains is "primarily known" without acknowledging that he was the founder of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and its leader until his death on August 24, 1997.

Hardial Bains was a personality in Canadian politics. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) or CPC(M-L) [the article also consistently uses incorrect acronyms and nomenclature that do not accord with what the party calls itself -- TML Ed. Note] is to this day an active and registered political party in Canada and hence there is no reason to introduce Hardial Bains as anything other than its founder and leader.

Similar problems can be found in most sentences that follow. For instance, the second sentence begins stating,

Presenting himself as staunchly anti-revisionist and pro-Stalinist.

Another use of weasel words that gives the impression that this was merely presentation. It is well known and can be verified in many places that Hardial Bains was part of the anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist movement that upheld a positive appraisal of Stalin. The use of the term "Stalinism" was already discussed in the Talk section of this article as far back as 2005 and discredited.

The introduction also does its best to give the impression that the main aspect of Hardial Bains' life was that he "swung from" supporting various countries as if he was not a personality in Canadian politics. The attempt to impose a certain political viewpoint rather than uphold any encyclopedic standard is clear at the end of the introduction where we are told:

[Hardial Bains] remains a controversial figure.

There is no source for this, and the only additional information in the entry claiming any "controversy" is a link to a personal website from 1998 where a non-notable individual gives a personal point of view, without sources or evidence. This is hardly the basis for including in the biography of a political personality the claim that he was controversial, much less "remains" controversial. We note that this tendentious remark was deleted by another Wikipedia user on February 18, 2016.

Full introduction:

Hardial Bains (15 August 1939 -- 24 August 1997) was a microbiology student and teacher, primarily known as the founder of a series of left-wing movements and parties foremost of which was the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC (ML)). Presenting himself as staunchly anti-revisionist and pro-Stalinist, until his death, Bains acted as the spokesperson and ideological leader of the CPC (ML) -- known in elections as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. During span of his life, Bains' outlook swung from supporting the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, to Mao Zedong's China, then later to Enver Hoxha's Albania. Shortly before he died, and abandoning his previous sharp criticisms of the country, Bains turned to Fidel Castro's Cuba for inspiration. Spending most of his life in Canada, Bains was also politically active in England, Ireland and India. He remains a controversial figure.

From the section Life

In addition to founding the CPC (ML), Bains is regarded as a major influence on the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago, the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist), and the Communist Ghadar Party of India.[6] Bains was also responsible for the founding of the Hindustani Ghadar Party (Organisation of Indian Marxist-Leninists Abroad). He held a leading influence in the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA in the 1970s, although it later split from the CPC (ML) and dissolved in 1993. Left publications such as Modern Communism have written articles on his legacy.[7]

The only source for these claims is the same personal point of view written in 1998 used to claim "controversy." This seems to be a very laborious effort to create controversy. The four parties listed above all have or had fraternal relations with the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) of which Hardial Bains was leader. Unsourced claims about Hardial Bains' personal influence seek to personalize and depoliticize the serious matter of relations between political parties and are thus tendentious. So too are incoherent renderings of the developments of concern to the International Communist and Workers' Movement, especially after the retreat of revolution set in with the collapse of the former Soviet Union and people's democracies in Eastern Europe.

Virtually every assertion made in the Political affiliations section is unsourced:

As a young man, Bains was a member of the Communist Party of India, but after the party accepted Nikita Khrushchev's speech, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", he apparently quit adopting a pro-Stalinist viewpoint.

Later, following the Sino-Soviet split, Bains' groups and parties held a strident pro-China position from the 1960s and into the 1970s. Bains himself openly identified as Maoist. The CPC (ML) was the first significant Maoist formation in Canada, although it was joined by two other Maoist groups in the mid-1970s and Bains engaged in polemics against these groups as well.

With Mao Zedong's death in 1976 and the subsequent Sino-Albanian split, Bains renounced Maoism. Following the leadership of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA), he became a prominent spokesperson of the PLA's line internationally. Bains' opposition to what he characterized as "social imperialism" (such as Leonid Brezhnev's USSR, Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia, Kim Il-sung's North Korea and Fidel Castro's Cuba), Chinese revisionism, and Eurocommunism.

After the overturn of socialism in Albania, Bain's again re-appraised his ideological outlook. He visited Cuba and announced he had changed his outlook towards the country and now viewed it as a successful example of socialism. The CPC (ML) also re-appraised its view of North Korea into a positive light. By the end of his life, Bains' writings made fewer and fewer references to anti-revisionism and socialist revolution, and developed the theme of democratic renewal and the self-empowerment of the people.

From section Death and controversy:

After his death, a memorial was erected in the honour of Bains and other CPC (ML) "fallen comrades" in Ottawa's Beechwood Cemetery which is also the national cemetery of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

CPC(M-L) has already discussed elsewhere this irrelevant hodge-podge and silly obsession with CPC(M-L)'s Memorial Site in Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa and Beechwood being the cemetery of the RCMP (see An Ill-Advised Pursuit in the Service of a Rotten Cause). In brief, Beechwood Cemetery is the resting place and memorial site of many notable figures and Canadians from all walks of life since 1873. CPC(M-L)'s Party Memorial was dedicated on August 15, 1999. Beechwood became the home of the RCMP National Memorial Cemetery in 2006, based on an agreement between the RCMP Commissioner, the President of the Beechwood Association and the President of the Ottawa Division of the RCMP Veterans' Association signed on January 11, 2006. Any attempt to associate the two memorials is suspect and ill-intentioned, to say the least.

The section also claims

Bains' legacy is debated today, and he has been criticized posthumously by a number of writers.

Yet again, the only "writer" cited is the same non-notable individual who posted unsubstantiated claims and personal views on his personal website in 1998.  This is certainly not a credible source for an encyclopedic entry on an individual living or deceased.

From the section NFC thought:

Only the beginning of the section has anything to do with what the editor, User JB1917, termed "NFC thought."  The dubious character of the section is clear in the first paragraph. It states

Hardial Bains identified his main line of thinking as "Necessity for Change" or NFC thought.

Here User JB1917 reveals the bankruptcy of his own thought material and lack of understanding about philosophical matters related to the relations people enter into, the role of ideology in social form and world outlook based on Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought. The purpose of this unsourced assertion is to claim that the Necessity for Change analysis on the basis of which CPC(M-L) was founded and has been guided ever since is, as he says, "a variety of Marxist phraseology...and existentialist ideas." JB1917 writes:

During his time as leader, the CPC (ML) swung from actively supporting Maoist China, to denouncing Maoism and embracing Enver Hoxha's Albania and later, after the over-turn of socialism in that country, a more muted support of North Korea and Cuba.

While, at best, this is nothing more than the expression of a personal opinion, it certainly reveals that the author JB1917 does not know what they don't know. Not only does this person lack any knowledge of the Necessity for Change analysis, but they are clearly too arrogant and ignorant to bother to find out before speaking.

The two final paragraphs in the section appear to have nothing to do with what is termed "NFC thought" and are repetitions of unsourced assertions made earlier in the article about how CPC(M-L) "swung" (a subjective term itself) between support for this or that country.

The last point made by JB1917 in this entry is a final attempt to insert a subjective perspective to discredit Hardial Bains and CPC(M-L). It reads:

Bains remained true, however, to his pro-Stalinist orientation.

It is irrelevant to the section. 

Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca