No. 10

October 2024

About CPC(M-L)

The Kind of Party Required to Bring in
Necessary Changes

Introduction

The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) was declared founded at a Patriot's Conference held in Montreal on March 31, 1970. It was founded following six years of political, ideological and organizational work in the universities, at places of work and in communities country-wide, especially since May 1968. With a bold headline, the newspaper Mass Line announced, "There Is Such a Party!"

Prior to the Party's founding, three months of organizing work and discussion took place across the country on a document circulated to all those who had come forward to join the Canadian Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist). Similar work and the same document were also used to develop discussion among the delegates who attended the Vancouver Conference held December 26-31, 1969.

This work brought into being a new type of political party based on Marxism-Leninism and the experience of revolution and socialism throughout the world. Today this experience is summed up as Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought, which the Party continuously enriches as a guide to thinking and action in the course of revolutionary activities.

At the time CPC(M-L) was founded, history and life itself demanded that scores be settled with attempts to revise revolutionary definitions of the role of a communist party and the tasks of the Communist and Workers' Movement. CPC(M-L) opposed the modern revisionist trend which had emerged when various communist parties capitulated to the dictates of the rulers to abandon their independent work and organization. During the Cold War, this trend negated the achievements of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the valiant worldwide anti-fascist struggle.

CPC(M-L) considered the Canadian working class to be a contingent of the international proletariat and the inheritor of the Communist Manifesto and the accomplishments of the Great October Socialist Revolution and anti-fascist and anti-imperialist battles and has defended that treasured legacy ever since.

In the 1960s and early '70s during the Party's foundational period, it organized to unite all Marxist-Leninists into one party. Those thinking workers, women and youth consciously organized and participated in individual acts of finding out how to engage in changing the world under the prevailing conditions. Determined to make their contribution to the struggles within the country and those of the peoples of the world to overthrow imperialism and the yoke of colonial and neo-colonial rule, they took up communism and building the communist party so as to advance humanity's striving towards the complete emancipation of the working class and all humanity with the elimination of social classes and class society itself.

It has been a feature of CPC(M-L) from the beginning to uphold proletarian internationalism not just with words but with deeds. The Party recognized that this meant first of all advancing the cause of revolution in Canada, rejecting the notion at that time that revolution was not necessary in countries like the U.S. and Canada. It also stood firm in defence of the struggles of the world's peoples against imperialism and for progress and revolution, including organizing many demonstrations, meetings and issuing publications all of which took a firm stand  in support of national liberation struggles and against aggressive wars, such as in Vietnam. All those imbued with this key spirit of concretely assisting while opposing interference in the internal affairs of each country contributed to strengthening the International Communist and Workers' Movement.

The founding of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) signaled the rebirth in Canada of the kind of party required to bring about the necessary changes. Basing itself on the theory of Marxism-Leninism and the practice of revolution, CPC(M-L) differentiated itself from all old political and ideological trends right from the day of its birth. It became the genuine heir to the heroic revolutionary traditions which the original Communist Party of Canada (CPC) was founded in May 1921 to uphold.

A new Party was necessary in the conditions of the 1960s because the old CPC had degenerated into a caricature of communism which failed to provide the leadership the working class and people and especially the youth at that time required to fulfill their aspirations to change the world. The original CPC had changed course by holus-bolus conciliating with bourgeois democracy and its bureaucratic state machinery and institutions. Far from waging a vigorous polemic against the anti-communist caricature of communism and Cold War disinformation on the tasks of the International Communist and Workers' Movement, the CPC became apologetic. It abandoned the cause of the Communist and Workers' Movement in this country and internationally. Among other things, it took up the politics of calling on the workers to participate in electoral politics on a factional basis by promoting a liberal-labour alliance. It also stood for relying on one superpower to fight the other while the workers were to have no independent program of their own. When the post-war tasks of fighting for peace by insisting on the denazification and demilitarization of Germany got diverted into the sole movement to "ban the bomb," CPC(M-L) persisted in upholding the program set at the end of World War II to fight for peace, freedom and democracy.

In adopting the path of conciliation and capitulation, the CPC followed the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), which had adopted Browderism and conciliated with theories of American exceptionalism. According to the leader of the CPUSA Earl Browder, U.S. capitalism and democracy were young and vibrant. The U.S. Constitution and people like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were promoted and defended. This capitulation included putting President Roosevelt forward as the leader of the working class in 1942 and then in 1944 liquidating the CPUSA as a revolutionary communist party. The CPUSA continued on this path in the years after WWII, as did the CPC in Canada. They became incapable of fighting McCarthyism and instead became apologetic, liquidating their independent work, including mass organizations. Imbued with Cold War ideology they abandoned those who fought and instead defended the careers of individuals by disassociating with communism. The CPUSA used "Americanization," including having members "Americanize" their last names and eliminating mass publications published in languages other than English.

In Canada, with the onset of the Cold War, the CPC began to base its actions on the claim that the working class can only achieve results through Parliament. By reducing its role to one of acting as a pressure group in the service of this or that elected party or through the unions or social democratic formations, the party of the working class became one more extra-parliamentary pressure group. Rule by the bourgeoisie was to remain intact. On this basis, the CPC deprived the working class of its independent leading role by abandoning the fundamental Marxist tenet that the working class cannot appropriate the ready-made bourgeois state apparatus but must create new forms, must constitute the nation itself in its image by vesting decision-making power in the people and leading all to join this effort.

The CPC operated under the name Labour-Progressive Party of Canada from 1943 to 1959. In March 1954, its National Committee produced a document titled Canadian Independence and a People's Parliament: Canada's Path to Socialism which called for defence of "the historically-evolved popular institutions of Canadian democracy."

At its 1957 National Convention, the Labour-Progressive Party declared: "The changes which mean that it is possible to avoid an atomic war, also create the possibility for the working class in the capitalist countries to unite the great majority of people under its leadership. At the present time, a stable parliamentary majority elected by a revolutionary mass movement of working people can prepare the conditions for the transformation of parliament into a true instrument of popular will, and undertake fundamental political and economic changes." 

It spoke of fundamental changes in the old relations of production coming into being by "constitutional processes" and prattled on about the "transformation of Parliament."

Internationally this became known as the "peaceful parliamentary road to socialism" by which the working class using means of universal suffrage would obtain a majority in the parliament and in this way gain control of the state power. It played into the disinformation of the bourgeoisie that the choice is between a peaceful way for change versus a violent way when the real issue highlighted by Lenin was to build a revolutionary party as the instrument of working class power.

The CPC's capitulation to the anti-communist pressure deprived the people of the outlook, reference points and nation-building project they require to bring into being a modern constitution and political process based on modern definitions and providing practical solutions to the problems the people and society face.

CPC(M-L) considered that the positions and methods of the CPC personified the caricature of communism the ruling class presented and in this way served to line the working class and people up behind the imperialists' united front against communism.

CPC(M-L) acted on the basis of the Leninist principle that only by developing their own independent politics, can the working class and broad masses of the people establish forms of decision-making that enable them to exercise control over their lives.

The CPC also considered war to be a "policy," which the imperialists may or may not implement, as opposed to an inevitable outcome of the rivalry and striving for domination among the big imperialist powers which reveals the need for the working class to constitute the nation and establish an anti-war government, vesting sovereignty in the people.

After World War II, the peoples' striving for peace, insisting on denazification and the implementation of the agreements reached by the Allied Powers during the war, was sabotaged. The U.S. imperialists themselves when considering using atomic bombs against China during the Korean War started implementing what came to be known as the "nuclear taboo." According to them, the peoples could be kept in check by using the nuclear threat but not the atomic bombs themselves because the consequences were "unthinkable."

This nuclear threat was widely disseminated to disinform the peoples' striving for liberation and for the creation of societies which recognized their rights. The aim was to transform the anti-fascist united front which had achieved such great feats during the anti-fascist war into an anti-communist front. The U.S. joined by Britain, Canada and other countries under their sway, refused to denazify Germany and implement the agreements reached between the allied powers during the war. They instead permitted Nazis to escape justice by emigrating to the U.S. and Canada, restituted the scions of German industry and divided Germany. They created the U.S.-led aggressive NATO alliance as an agency against communism, and covert intelligence agencies with Nazi agents to carry out sabotage and psy-ops and blame the communists. This was accompanied by many crimes such as the occupation of Greece, which saw the execution of communists and anti-fascist fighters and keeping anti-fascist fighters in concentration camps for forty years. Thousands of communists were slaughtered in Indonesia, India was partitioned, aggression was launched against Korea  then Vietnam and Indo-China and untold crimes committed against the peoples of those countries. Coups d'état in Iran and Guatemala accompanied their escalating wars of aggression and counterrevolution all over the world. The Bretton Woods financial institutions -- the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- were also created as instruments to enslave the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and indebt the peoples of the advanced capitalist countries as well.

The Cold War was launched by making the Soviet Union the target of attack and repeating the claim originally given by the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels that "an iron curtain had descended upon Europe." The McCarthyism of the U.S. not only served to repress resistance, but importantly to divert attention from the actions of the Anglo-American imperialists and the tasks facing the peoples to consolidate democracy, provide rights with a guarantee and defend the right of all nations big or small to national sovereignty and non-interference in their internal affairs, as well as guarantee the peace. The U.S. demanded loyalty oaths of federal workers, and spread fear by targeting and persecuting communists, trade unionists, academics, actors, and all others who continued to stand against fascism.

The call for peace was reduced to the call to "ban the bomb," based on an outlook suited to Anglo-American imperialist purposes of exercising a monopoly on the use of force. Many became cowed by the massive weaponry deployed by the imperialists against the anti-colonial independence fighters and became prone to blaming the anti-colonial national liberation struggles for provoking a war response from the imperialists. Despite this, the heroic fighters for national liberation proved that weapons, no matter how lethal, are not decisive in war; people are when they fight as an organized force for peace, freedom and democracy.

Within Canada, by the 1960s, the CPC had compromised itself. It promoted the British colonial outlook that Canada was comprised of "two founding nations" imposed by Lord Durham following the suppression of the nascent Quebec Republic and Two Star Republic in Upper Canada. It presented a so-called people's history version of "English and French Canada" which replaced the stories of kings and queens with stories about strike struggles and events deprived of their significance within society's inherent development, motion and change.

In sharp contrast, right from its foundational period in the 1960s, CPC(M-L) repudiated Pierre Trudeau's bilingualism and biculturalism and later multiculturalism as serving to define rights on a racist basis and enforce a system that does not recognize equality conferred by membership in the body politic. Such a view perpetuates the colonial attitude towards the Indigenous nations and denies recognition of Quebec's nationhood. So too, when the Green Paper on Immigration was introduced in 1975 and the state organized racist attacks and nazi-fascist groups to attack the people. CPC(M-L) blamed the state for these racist attacks, not the people which was and continues to be the habit of the state. The Party defended the unity of the people and upheld the dignity of the working class and peoples, rejecting the use of racist identity politics to divide the polity.

CPC(M-L) specifically opposed as harmful the introduction of bourgeois factional politics into the International Communist and Workers' Movement. This was done by the erstwhile leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. Instead of emphasizing the need to build a revolutionary party of the working class based on democratic centralism and uniting the people in action by placing the decision-making power in their hands, Khrushchev introduced the bourgeois method of spreading gossips about individuals and events. This replaced the aim of providing the movement with the coherence it required by recognizing that everyone is its integral part, contributing to it in one way or another and together problems should be identified and provided with solutions. 

Politics and political culture were reduced to slanders, scandals and trivia. Following the cue of the Anglo-American imperialists, anti-communism and character assassination of the figure of J.V. Stalin replaced the critical tasks of sorting out the problems all societies faced in the post-war period, including denazification and putting decision-making in the hands of the people.

Besides succumbing to the nuclear blackmail of the U.S. imperialists at the end of World War II and during the Korean War, no recognition was accorded to the need for theoretical elaboration of a path forward under socialism. The Soviet Union under the authority of modern revisionism degenerated into Soviet social-imperialism in competition with U.S. imperialism for world hegemony, holding the world hostage to nuclear blackmail. 

The main feature of this revisionism was to block the Proletarian Front from solving the problems of the times, while developing spurious theories about developed socialism, limited sovereignty and the like to justify what the Soviet superpower was doing in its rivalry with the U.S. superpower to control spheres of influence, zones for the export of capital as well as markets, sources of cheap labour and raw materials.  

The banner CPC(M-L) took up was to respond to the historical necessity, and the objective need of the movement itself and to provide what was required to move the situation forward. CPC(M-L) recognized the revolutionary kernel of Marxism-Leninism that the working class is the grave-digger of the bourgeoisie and based on this recognition took up the defence of the Communist and Workers' Movement. 

When Hardial Bains led the formation of The Internationalists at the University of British Columbia (UBC), in 1963, the work began to create an academic atmosphere on the campus and deal with the concrete reality the students were facing. In 1967, the Necessity for Change Study Program was held which gave rise to the Necessity for Change analysis adopted at a Conference of the same name held in London, England in August 1967. Once the analysis was adopted, The Internationalists were re-organized in Montreal in 1968 as a Marxist-Leninist Youth and Students' Movement based on democratic centralism. This organization created the conditions in Quebec and Canada-wide to found CPC(M-L). This is the Party which, today, is providing modern definitions for the political, economic, cultural and social affairs of this particular historical turning point in which nobody can act in the old way and the call of history is to settle scores with the old conscience of society by building the New.

The preface written by Hardial Bains for the 1998 edition of the Necessity for Change pamphlet states:

"[The pamphlet by The Internationalists] puts forward the analysis that lays down ideological remoulding as the key to the uninterrupted advance and victory of revolution. Basing themselves on the concrete contemporary situation and the problems of the working class movement, The Internationalists took up the questions of organization and the role of the individual in the revolutionary transformation within the context of the work of the collective. To achieve this, The Internationalists launched their most resolute offensive against the prevailing culture in ideological and social forms, so as to prepare the subjective forces for revolution in the course of waging the revolutionary class battles.

"The creation of a new class, such as the working class, has brought forth its own ideology and social form with its own coherence. The ascendancy of the working class has left its imprint to the extent it is fighting for its own interests and its own new coherence. The most distinguishing feature of the working class, making it so distinct and radically different from all other classes, is that it cannot emancipate itself without emancipating the entire humanity. Thus, its new coherence has to be consistent with its aim of emancipating the whole of humanity.

"The capitalist class, the old class, as it passes away has introduced its own notions of emancipation, its own corruption into the working class movement. It calls upon the workers to fight for 'a bigger slice of the pie,' for redistribution of wealth, while keeping the old society intact. It has created an untenable situation whereby the working class finances its own leaders to fight against its own interests.

"By 1967, these bourgeois tendencies had also entrenched themselves in the communist movement and brought it to the point of liquidation, against which a huge movement developed. A number of tendencies were taking shape in this struggle, from purely intellectualising about what the 'most correct' position should be, to merely linking with some centre whether in Moscow, Belgrade, Beijing, Europe or any other.

"The Internationalists linked the ideological struggle and the struggle against bourgeois culture with the concrete work to build and strengthen an organisation. The Necessity for Change (NFC) analysis was directed towards making people conscious about this approach. With its broad sweep, the analysis presented a vision that aroused everyone to undertake ideological work and take up the social forms consistent with their tasks. It was a clarion call for the activists, communists and those aspiring to be communists to break with the old conscience, the anti-consciousness, the 'particular prejudices of society, transmitted through parents and social institutions.' This call was linked directly with 'seeking the truth to serve the people.' The NFC analysis forcefully provided a world outlook based on Marx's dialectical and historical materialism as a guide to action and provided a solution to tackle the problems of ideological struggle and social forms. [...]

"The NFC analysis begins with what is given. It analyses the given to overcome it and to establish what really is within those conditions. It establishes a valuable approach and provides a concrete way to tackle reality. It begins by taking up the important question of history. Under the section History-As-Such, the NFC puts forward the profound role of history, as opposed to what merely exists at the present time.

"History, according to our historicism, begins from the present. It reveals in precise terms the problem which has been brought forth for solution. It is the solution of this specific problem, which creates history. If the problem, as a historical problem, or, if the contradictions which are historical are not resolved, there will be no forward march, and thus no history. [...]

"The NFC actually made history. It revealed how revolutionary forces could march from point A to point B, ensuring that each step becomes a cornerstone in the development of history. [...]

"The prevailing factor, which is everything that the capitalist class hopes would safeguard its future, can be summed up in its anti-human factor/anti-consciousness. [...] According to the capitalist class, neither human beings nor their social consciousness play any role in solving problems. It places in the first place private property and the institutions created to defend it, along with the ideology of irrationalism. The bourgeoisie subordinates human beings and the human factor/social consciousness to them. The capitalist class uses the anti-human factor/anti-consciousness as a weapon against all social forces for change, development and motion. [...]

"In all its work, CPC(M-L) pays first-rate attention to the human factor/social consciousness. No work can be realised without bringing it into play. CPC(M-L) must be seen as the political party which has as its main interest to raise the ideological, theoretical and political level of the working class and people so that they themselves can work out and build that system which will enable them to exercise control over their lives. Whether it is consolidating an aspect of the work of CPC(M-L), fighting the anti-social offensive or winning the battle for a pro-social agenda, the first problem which arises is of the human factor/social consciousness. What is the state of the human factor/social consciousness? What is needed to bring it on par with what is required to make the work successful? Raising these questions and finding the ways and means of doing what is necessary is the beginning of the development of the human factor/social consciousness. The NFC analysis provides this problem with a solution."

CPC(M-L) distinguishes itself from every other Canadian party by the fact that it vests the decision-making power in its members, not in a leader at any level or behind-the-scenes committees. The sovereignty of the members finds its expression in two fundamental party organizations -- the basic organization to which every party member must belong in order to have voting rights and the National Congress.

Through the National Congress, the members have the final decision-making power. The Central Committee leads the Party in between Congresses. No organization in the Party, including the Central Committee, and no individual can change the general line and decisions taken by the Congress. Should a decision be taken by the Central Committee between Congresses or by a duly convoked National Consultative Conference which changes the general line set for the period, a National Congress must be convoked and it has final say in approving such changes. Only the Congress itself can approve decisions which set the Party's direction and general line.

Through the basic organizations, the members are empowered to act upon these decisions. The basic organizations are organized where the work of the Party is, and their members are the instruments for turning the decisions of the Congress into life. Without the possibility of turning their decisions into life through the basic organizations, the decision-making power of the members is meaningless.

Each Party Congress celebrates the achievement of the tasks set at the previous Congress. Based on an analysis of what the concrete conditions require, the Congress sets the tasks to be achieved in the coming period. The organizational principle of democratic centralism and the political, ideological and theoretical conceptions consistent with the needs of the times are strengthened from Congress to Congress based on the theoretical, political and organizational work each Congress assigns. In between Congresses, the Central Committee leads the work and democratic centralism involves decision-making by the basic organizations and a single centre, so everyone can participate in arriving at decisions and implementing them. It ensures the unity of thinking and action of the Party, enables it to act as a unified and disciplined force and to put its full weight behind achieving success.

First Congress of CPC(M-L)

The Party held its First Congress in Guelph, Ontario from May 8 to 22, 1971. It was in Guelph, in a barn under clandestine conditions, that the original communist party which subsequently conciliated with bourgeois democracy was founded 50 years before.

The First Congress adopted the Party's Constitution and elected its first Central Committee, comprised of 13 people. Following the founding of the Party, the First Congress signalled the victory over all those who did not believe that, to be effective, the conscious factor had to be provided with an organizational form. Those elements fought CPC(M-L) in order to smash the form and destroy the conscious factor, but they were not successful. To this day this remains the main way attempts are made to undermine CPC(M-L), leading our Party to pay first-rate attention to developing the Party's inner-party life. In doing so the Party is guided by its organizational principle of democratic centralism as the condition for the success of all its endeavours. The constant attention the Party pays to its organizational principle is reflected in all its work and documents, its deeds and words.

Second Congress

By its Second Congress held in March 1973, the Party celebrated the victory of the work to unite the Marxist-Leninists into one party. All serious groups and individuals joined CPC(M-L) during the period leading up to its Second Congress, marking the further consolidation and strengthening of the Communist and Workers' Movement in Canada.

Throughout this period, the mettle of CPC(M-L) was further tempered by carrying out its plan to unite all Marxist-Leninists in one party in the course of waging a life and death struggle against the state-organized attacks aimed at eliminating CPC(M-L). These included many arrests, jail time and attacks on Party bookstores and its leadership in concert with claims that CPC(M-L)'s defence of the right to speak, organize and distribute literature were the cause of the attacks and that CPC(M-L) provoked the violence which, as time proved, was instigated by the state and its agents.

Our being here today is testimony that after decades of trying, the bourgeoisie and all its agencies have not succeeded in depriving the working class of its political leadership because of the resolve of the Canadian communists and of the working class and people to provide themselves with the human factor/social consciousness they require to achieve success.

Third Congress

The Party's Third Congress in 1977, marked the victory over all the anti-Marxist trends that tried to disrupt the Party. It celebrated the victory of the work to unite the Marxist-Leninists into one party and the impetus this gave to the Marxist-Leninist Communist Movement in Canada.

Special Congress

In 1978 the Party convoked a Special Congress as called for by the Third Congress to deal with the negative influence of Mao Zedong Thought on the organization.

CPC(M-L) recognizes the fact that in 1970 it was founded on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought. The founding of CPC(M-L) was inspired in part by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution personally led by Mao Zedong. As young revolutionaries of Canada, the majority of whom were in the youth and student movement in the 1960s, the Party considered that Mao Zedong Thought provided timely guidance and leadership within the conditions of the split within the International Communist and Workers' Movement.

The influence of Maoism was brought into the Party as part of the legacy of its precursor organization, The Internationalists. The influence Maoism had on The Internationalists first occurred during the 1966-67 period, especially at the time of the Necessity For Change Conference, held in London, England in August 1967 when it was snuck in due to the fidelity of The Internationalists to the cause of revolution internationally. Before that period, The Internationalists had been very keen on setting their ideological and political basis within the conditions of the Anglo-American world generally, and of North America and Canada in particular. Right from the beginning, enthusiasm for the developments taking place in China under the leadership of Mao Zedong got all mixed up with the Cultural Revolution and Maoism and no reckoning was taking place.

When Maoism was snuck into The Internationalists, the organization was fully engaged in dealing with the conditions of their own country, especially the problems related to strengthening The Internationalists and creating the conditions to found the Party. Besides other things, The Internationalists were involved in extensive work in the sphere of culture, and most importantly, culture in ideological form. The membership was being educated through this great work, which was bringing forth the entire flow of historical development and the nature and basis of the problems facing the people, their society and the world. In this regard, The Internationalists were using Marxism-Leninism as a guide to dealing with all the problems confronting revolution, defending Mao Zedong Thought as Marxism-Leninism.

Because The Internationalists fought tenaciously to ensure that the organization was not diverted from the tasks it set for itself, Maoism did not replace its ideology based on Marxism-Leninism and the Necessity for Change analysis it adopted in 1967. Despite this, as Maoism snuck its way into the organization, so too were subjectivism and one-sidedness introduced which had negative consequences on the work. Instead of dealing with the concrete problems of revolution, the repetition of phrases became a way of diverting the organization from dealing with the tasks confronting the movement nationally and internationally.

In the course of waging the resistance movement to state organized racist and fascist violence in the 1970s, while simultaneously addressing crucial questions of how the problems of the character of the state and economic dependence pose themselves in Canada, CPC(M-L) drew the warranted conclusion that the main problem with Maoism was not whether this or that phrase or view was correct or incorrect. The main problem was that philosophically it is unsound and the use to which it was put did not help the organization.

The Party always defended Mao Zedong Thought as Marxism-Leninism. When it discovered through its own experience that Mao Zedong Thought was not consistent with the conclusions of Marxism-Leninism, it convoked a Special Congress to change its position on this matter. It worked out a program to eliminate the adverse consequences of Mao Zedong Thought on the Party.

The Party analyzed at the time that regarding certain important questions within China it repeated the Maoist line of "two-line struggle against capitalist roaders," which was also given by the publications coming out of China. The Party never applied this line in Canada.

The Party also opposed the position that "China's Chairman is Our Chairman" which was prevalent in various circles and countries. While encouraging vigorous working relations between fraternal communist parties, CPC(M-L) declared that every Party must stand on its own two feet and use its own head, giving rise to the slogan, We Are Our Own Models. As a reflection of its internationalism, the Party encouraged all to gain their recognition and standing from their own working class, not from a foreign country or party.

The NFC analysis promotes the role of the individual to engage in conscious acts of finding out and taking up individual responsibility for the work of the collective. This does not mean that "the collective" decides and the "individual" implements. It means that the responsibility of the individual is to participate in setting the agenda of work of the collective on the basis of maximum ideological and political mobilization and then making sure the decisions are implemented, summed up and on the basis of the results, the work is further developed.

Based on the experience of the NFC analysis, the Party opposed the Maoist line that individuals should "combat self to defeat revisionism." While opposing the ego-centric "I" and liberal conciliation with bourgeois individualism and self-centredness, Hardial Bains asked, "If you combat self, what is left?" 

At the Special Congress, CPC(M-L) also opposed the "three worlds theory," which distorted the role of the imperialist state and sought to keep the peoples tied to the imperialist system of states. It also strengthened the calibre of its membership by opposing theories of "special discipline" for people of national minority origin or anyone else. It not only consolidated Marxism-Leninism as the guide to the Party's thinking and action but made important headway in opposing notions of exceptionalism in matters which pertain to equality of membership. 

Through its own efforts and constant revolutionary work, CPC(M-L) was able to surmount the negative consequences of Maoism on the organization. The Special Congress took concrete measures to overcome its negative influence, making sure that the rejection of Maoism was not a matter of paying lip-service to opposing it while permitting its influence to continue to erode the integrity of the work.

In spite of its repudiation of Mao Zedong Thought, the Party continues to have great admiration for the achievements of Mao Zedong in leading the Chinese people's inspiring struggle to liberate themselves from colonial and imperialist rule and found the People's Republic of China. The Party considers Mao Zedong to be one of the great revolutionaries of the 20th century.

Fourth Congress

By the time the Party held its Fourth Congress in 1982, it was ready to put forward the development of its leading role as the main task facing the Communist and Workers' Movement in Canada. It identified the main obstacle to the development of the Party's leading role as dogmatic posturing, which reduces everything to the level of propaganda, to the work of a sect that seeks to compete with other sects on the basis of proving that its line is "correct." Based on the bourgeois world outlook, this is the way to engage in bourgeois politics making social change a matter of understanding and "good" policy objectives in the hands of the whims of chance individuals. This amounts to depoliticizing the working class by focusing on discrediting enemies, real or perceived, and thus depriving workers of the ability to set their own agenda and exercise control over their lives.

Guided by the principle of democratic centralism, the Party establishes unity of thinking and action based on those who, through the organizations of the party where the work is set, participate in elaborating the Party's line of march for any given period or work. Without this, the line of "many centres" prevails depriving the working class of its vanguard without which it loses its bearings. The organizational principle of democratic centralism serves as a guide so that under all conditions and circumstances the Party's unity in thinking and action is realized.

Party leader Hardial Bains, in the report on the work of the Central Committee to the Party's Fourth Congress, pointed out:

"[...] Our Party has also set for itself the continuous task of defending the organizational principle of democratic centralism. Democratic centralism can be defended only by defending the purity of Marxism-Leninism. It is the continuous strengthening of the Party organization on the basis of Marxism-Leninism in the course of revolutionary practice. It is the education and tempering of the comrades as revolutionary Marxist-Leninist fighters. The Party has taken concrete measures to strengthen the application of the Leninist principle of democratic centralism; the ability of the Party to act as a unified and organized force, a force which is not divorced from the class but lives and works in the very being of the class as its conscious and most organized vanguard and its general staff."

Throughout its history the Party has rejected all self-serving arguments, of which many are made in the name of democratic centralism. They seek to justify depriving the Party of its unity for purposes of establishing competing centres. At the Fourth Congress, Comrade Bains addressed this issue saying:

"The attack on democratic centralism also takes the form of bureaucratism, turning the norms based on democratic centralism into a mere phrase, which in fact is aimed at destroying the Leninist norms as effective revolutionary principles that provide the Party with iron discipline and safeguard it from all alien class elements and trends. It also takes the form of liberalism and neglect of the revolutionary interest.

"The strengthening of democratic centralism is the strengthening of the Party's ideological, political and organizational base, the resolute application of the democratic centralist principle in all the work of the Party and in the mass organizations, in both theory and practice, and the thorough understanding of all its profound implications for the diverse fronts on which the Party acts in the proletariat and other strata as well.

"All this is absolutely necessary for the consolidation of the Party as the party of the class with its revolutionary style. Modern revisionists of all hues and the opportunists of various shades kowtow to the idea of democratic centralism and use it pragmatically according to what suits them for the moment. At one time, they reduce the question of democratic centralism to mere formality in implementing rules without regard to the revolutionary interest. At other times, they demand 'freedom of criticism' and call for the violation of all norms in order to cause chaos and confusion, aiming to change the Marxist-Leninist ideology and political line of the Party.

"The pragmatic manoeuvres of the modern revisionists and opportunists and the outright attacks of the anarchists on democratic centralism aim to deprive the Party of its stability and fighting capacity, its revolutionary Marxist-Leninist ideological basis and consistent political strategy and tactics. Thus, in the final analysis, they aim to deprive the proletariat of its militant and unwavering general staff, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, an indispensable weapon and the main weapon in the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie."

The work of the Fourth Congress analyzed the changes taking place as a result of the crisis the capitalist system was experiencing by the end of the 1970s, beginning of the 1980s and the demands of the working class and others that the crisis be resolved in their favour. On the basis of the analysis put forward by the Fourth Congress, by 1985 the Party set the work to build the mass party and mass non-party press as a nation-building project because no force could continue to act in the old way.

At the meeting held on August 26, 1985 commemorating the party press, Hardial Bains explained: "The present situation has not come about on the basis of wishes. We have not ordered it to come into being. We Marxist-Leninists through the Marxist-Leninist eye observe various phenomena. We underline their cause and features. Today, no force can act in the old way. All the forces in combat are showing their real colours."

Fifth Congress

The results of the program of work emerging from the Fourth Congress were approved by the Party's Fifth Congress held in Vancouver in 1987. The Fifth Congress emphasized that CPC(M-L) must persist on the course charted during the turning point of 1984-85. It elaborated the role of theory and put emphasis on the need to engage in theoretical work. Its program of work fully prepared the Party and all progressive forces to face the consequences of that turning point as they manifested themselves in the 1989-91 period when the former Soviet Union and regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed at a rapid speed. This ended the bipolar division of the world and ushered in the current period marked by the retreat of revolution, broad retrogression and the working class losing the initiative and faced with the necessity to seize it back.

Speaking about the significance of the decision the Party took on September 1, 1985 to build the mass party and mass non-party press and its analysis that a turning point in history has been ushered in, Comrade Bains pointed out in 1991: "What should the party do in response to its own analysis so that it acts in the new way? The Party dedicated its forces and carried out the hard work required by this decision to build the mass party press, a movement for enlightenment, an action to throw away all encumbrances, all formalities, all things which are antiquated, archaic and a burden."

This work required building the technical base needed, not only the basic organizations but also the technology and publications on a par with the needs of the mass party and mass non-party press and enlightenment movement. This involved advancing the Party's independent printing capacities and various publications broadly distributed like New Magazine, Today/Tomorrow, Youth Today and many others.

Comrade Bains called this a matter of throwing away the psychology of fear that the party cannot do big things, only small things. He said, "For 15 years we had done many small things, but to continue to do small things would be idiocy. There comes a time even in the life of a child that after crawling around, the child starts walking and then very soon the child also goes to school and so on.

"The party is not a child. It is a very complex institution that cannot be described simply as the most organized and most advanced detachment of the working class and that is that. In 1985 we undertook to throw away all these phrases, but the party was not yet prepared to completely eliminate them, so we started with what was possible to be done, namely the non-party press, that is, to talk about things without just repeating labels but elaborate their meaning, provide arguments in the form of proofs."

Besides the Fifth Congress setting the program to consolidate the mass party and mass non-party press, the program of work set by the Fifth Congress led to the analysis that in the struggle against the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers, the broad front of democratic struggle wherein the class leads all the exploited to challenge the very right of the bourgeoisie to rule the society had become the cutting edge of the work the working class must lead. 

Speaking to this at the historic meeting the Party held in Chertsey, Quebec in 1989, Hardial Bains declared, "We say very openly that we want the rule of the working class and no one else [...] because it is the working class which is the producing class and is the most thoroughgoing revolutionary class whose aims cannot be achieved without overthrowing capitalism through revolution. [...] Today it does not matter which question is taken up [...] the bourgeoisie cannot find a solution. Only the working class can find a solution. It is the working class which is at the centre, and our views are the views of the working class."

In his speech Comrade Bains emphasized that the most important problem in terms of specific work is to win the mass of workers over to the side of history: "One should go with a passion, like one goes towards a loved one because this beloved of ours, the working class, is the only social force which can save the world, save humankind."

Comrade Bains continued, "This is not the era of knights and individual heroes. It is an era of the collective work of the working class and its allies. It is the era of the Party, the era of imperialism and the social revolution of the proletariat, as Comrade Lenin said. So in this meeting we celebrate the developments, the progressive movement, the strengthening, stabilizing and consolidation of a political movement. And we have that political movement here, our Party, its allies, its mass organizations, especially the mass party press of which we are very proud."

Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought is a single sheet of steel stretching from the present back to the Communist Manifesto and to all that humanity has produced in its struggle to be, Comrade Bains stressed. The working class is one class with one program around which it mobilizes the people to defend the rights of all and prepare itself, ideologically, politically and organizationally. As an organized, determined and united force it seeks to deprive the ruling monopoly capitalist class of its political, economic and ideological power to deprive the working class of its right to assume its modern role to constitute the nation, vest sovereignty in the people and permit the human factor/social consciousness to flourish.

In his book Modern Communism, Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), published in 1996, Comrade Bains wrote: "The capitalist class is past master in stirring up dust and turning all matters that pertain to the field of conscious conduct into a series of dogmas and catechisms, so as to divert attention from the main issue facing society. This forces people to take up secondary questions which do not make a fundamental difference to their lives."

Describing the method of the bourgeoisie to depoliticize the polity, Comrade Bains pointed out how all important matters are marginalized and passions are incited to divide the people and divert them into doing whatever is harmful. During the current period of retreat of revolution when retrogression is pushed with a vengeance, this method has become the hallmark of political life, characterized by disinformation and wrecking on every front. It has its reflection in all spheres of organized life such as in the trade union movement, amongst the women and youth, within the social movements and in the Communist and Workers' Movement as well. 

The Party deals with this by waging the ideological and polemical struggle not against individuals but to advance the cause of political renewal, raise the profile of the Party and the level of politics. Its theoretical work and polemical struggle are also focused on giving rise to modern definitions and the forms of organization the polity requires. On this basis, it strives to eliminate the influence of all forms of bourgeois ideology and disinformation on the Communist and Workers' Movement itself.

Sixth Congress

With the collapse of the former Soviet Union and end of the bi-polar division of the world, the international financial oligarchy was doing everything to impose its brutal anti-social offensive and retrogressive measures through its ideo-political and legislative dictate against the very concept of a society. In response, the Sixth Congress of CPC(M-L) held in Toronto in 1993 boldly declared, There Is an Alternative! 

The Party took up  providing this alternative by elaborating the work for democratic renewal and a modern constitution to contest all attempts of the bourgeoisie to further concentrate the political power in its own hands and impose values unacceptable to the working people of Canada and the world.

Besides waging a determined ideological struggle against the bourgeoisie's self-serving renderings that no alternative to paying the rich exists, the Party set as its priority the work to establish the basic organizations of CPC(M-L) wherever it was engaged in activity to implement its program, namely at places of work, in the educational institutions, neighbourhoods and all other places where people such as seniors gather in significant numbers. The aim was to put the solution of the main problem facing the society at the centre of the preoccupations and work of the Party. This is the problem of how decision-making takes place in society. The Party embarked on a new phase of its work to engage the bourgeoisie in a political contest to end the situation where members of the polity cannot exercise control over their lives.

By building the basic organizations where the work is, the Party reaffirmed the fundamental democratic principle that everyone must be able to participate in arriving at decisions and implementing them. This begins with setting the agenda for their own work to address the concrete reality, to identify its needs, elaborate the Party's program of work and overcome all obstacles.

In the course of its work, the Party gave rise to its current orientation to turn liabilities into assets and oppose the depoliticization of the polity. It identified the main liability as everything that tends towards activating the anti-human factor/anti-social consciousness and the main asset as the activation of the human factor/social consciousness. Through theoretical, ideological and organizational work to implement its decisions, CPC(M-L) was able to present to the working class its vision and plan of action in the form of its Historic Initiative launched on behalf of the Party by Comrade Bains on January 1, 1995.

The aim of the Historic Initiative is to transform CPC(M-L) into a mass communist party, lead the working class to constitute the nation and vest sovereignty in the people so as to open society's path to progress. During this period, CPC(M-L) put forward its political program for political renewal and a modern constitution: Stop Paying the Rich; Increase Funding for Social Programs!

Seventh Congress

Held in Ottawa in March 1998, the Seventh Congress of CPC(M-L) was convoked under the difficult conditions of the Party having lost its founder and leader Hardial Bains who passed away August 24, 1997. The leadership and members rallied to ensure the success of the Congress and the Party's revolutionary progress and activities in the years since its Sixth Congress. Taking up the theme put forward in the political report on the work of the Central Committee since the Sixth Congress to create the thinking Canadian, the Seventh Congress endorsed the vision and program of the Historic Initiative and took up the task of transforming the success of the conscious factor into victory to bring about the deep-going transformations that are long overdue. It established the need to develop the human factor/social consciousness as a priority, as the condition for transforming the Party and creating a new society in which the humanization of the social and natural environment become the very aim and condition of life, the aim and condition necessary for the humanization of people themselves.

The Seventh Congress also created a National Commission comprised of all delegates to the Congress to discuss the kind of party CPC(M-L) is. They based their discussions on all party documents, especially on two presentations made by Comrade Bains the year before he passed away: The Challenge CPC(M-L) Accepts and Historic Initiative: Modern Communism. The National Commission held two sittings a year for the next ten years in which all aspects of the Party's work, including its strategy and tactics suitable for the period of retreat of revolution, its methods of work, organizational principles and the necessity for modern definitions were discussed and reaffirmed. 

The Party youth were included in these discussions and became educated in the significance of the Party within the polity. The Party also organized youth camps, bringing together workers, youth and their families for political discussions, music and sports. The camps provided training and experience for the youth in the Party's methods of work and in standing on their own feet. This included organizing on the basis of the principles Learning Together, Working As a Collective and Taking Up Social Responsibility.

Eighth Congress

The Eighth Congress of CPC(M-L) was held in Ottawa in 2008, after a ten-year period of discussion and mass ideological and political mobilization based on the Party's Historic Initiative and organizational principles and practice required to organize in a practical political way. The Congress became a dynamic expression of the confidence of the workers and youth in the Party and of the Party itself in the working class and the youth. It reaffirmed the decisive role the human factor/social consciousness plays in changing the world and put the consolidation of the Party's leading organs and basic organizations at the centre of its concerns.

The Report to the Congress emphasized: "Winning over class-conscious workers to take up the immediate organizational tasks of CPC(M-L) is crucial at this time. The most pressing tasks are to continue consolidating the Mass Party Press, to pay first-rate attention to organizing the workers into Groups of Writers and Disseminators and to mobilize the workers, women, youth, students and minorities to take up the work of renewal of the democratic process. The entire CPC(M-L) is organized to win over class conscious workers and their allies especially women, youth, students and minorities to take up the work of the Party as their own."

Preparing for the Ninth Congress

CPC(M-L) is now preparing its Ninth Congress. Members are called on to participate in summing up the nearly 40 years of work since the turning point of history showed that no force can act in the old way. They are also analyzing the measures taken to lay the foundations for a mass communist party during the nearly 30 years of the Party's Historic Initiative.

The preparations are also engaging the membership in elaborating and assessing the work the Party has carried out on the theoretical front to give rise to modern definitions, based on the Necessity for Change analysis and the need to have fidelity to the ensemble of human relations between humans and humans and humans and nature and to what they reveal.

The Party's constitution is being brought on par with the needs of party-building today based on affirming the principle of democratic centralism which guarantees the equality of all Party members and their participation in decision-making at all levels in a living way.

The Party adheres to the principle that its deed is its word. As a party of revolutionary action, the Congress will take further measures to make it possible for the workers to bring into being the new mass democratic forms and processes society requires to empower the people.

The Party's bold leadership since its founding is testimony to the indispensable need of the working class for its own Party which can find its way in tumultuous times. Such a Party is necessary to deal with the reckless course that the Canadian ruling circles have set for the country by integrating Canada into the U.S. war economy, government of police powers and war machine. It is also required to help people find their bearings at a time civil society arrangements have been wrecked and the privatization of the state itself has handed over decision-making to supranational narrow private interests.

Since the period of retrogression and retreat of revolution came into being, what takes centre stage is the need to replace old forms of civil society rule which no longer function with new mass democratic forms which empower the people to humanize the social and natural environments directly themselves. In Canada, the only vestiges of civil society arrangements that remain are its police powers represented by the Executive, Judiciary, intelligence agencies, police and armed forces, which march in lockstep with the U.S. imperialist Department of State, Pentagon, Homeland Security and war machine.

Internationally, Canada appeases the U.S. imperialists in their striving for world domination which pits China and Russia as enemies along with all those who refuse to submit to their dictate who it calls anti-Semites, terrorists, agents of foreign powers and the like. Meanwhile, Canada conciliates with U.S./Zionist genocide  and participates in the collusion and contention of the big powers of Old Europe and the U.S. 

Canada continues to play a role second to none in destroying the arrangements, institutions and international rule of law that were created following the Second World War.

The inter-imperialist battle over the control of Europe so as to dominate Asia, which broke out with the NATO bombing and destruction of the former Yugoslavia, continues to wreak havoc not only in Europe but in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as in the imperialist heartlands. Supranational narrow private interests in the form of oligopolies, their cartels and coalitions, are running rampant as they fight over the political power that is no longer contained by the old arrangements. The human productive power unleashed by the technical scientific revolution is without limits, begging for this human power to be channelled in a manner that can direct it to favour the interests of the peoples of the world.

The ensemble of human relations of humans and humans and humans and nature reveal that inherent to the current developments lies the striving to prevail of the working class and peoples of the world for their own empowerment. This striving is an integral part of the clash between the Old and the New.

The technical scientific revolution is bringing into being prospects for humankind beyond the scope of the imagination limited by the arrangements and suffering of the past. The striving of the New to break out is blocked by the old relations of production and power causing havoc and untold sufferings on a world scale as human beings pay the price for the wanton destruction the forces of the Old are presiding over.

The striving for world domination by the Anglo-American imperialist powers and their allies at this time has unleashed neo-Nazi forces, unprecedented anarchy and extreme violence. It has revealed the impossibility of restoring or creating a new equilibrium among themselves on the old basis. 

The peoples of the world and the countries that maintained or are seeking independent development are fighting the retrogressive pressure, waging a valiant resistance struggle against the anti-social offensive and imperialist dictate as well as the brutal wars of aggression and coups d'état for regime change and genocide.

Since its founding, a defining quality of the Party is to put the problems facing the society on the agenda in a practical way and involve the working class and people in providing them with solutions. The Party has faced the period of retrogression by summing up the Necessity for Change analysis anew so as to provide the Party work with a new impetus. It has strengthened its internationalism by continuing to advance the cause of revolution inside Canada while ensuring the just struggles of the peoples internationally against imperialism and for revolution are concretely supported.

The quality of putting its political work on par with the demands of the Workers' and Communist Movement makes the Party the vanguard of the class. The Party has created a human force that puts itself at the disposal of what the society needs, not what any individuals want. With this quality, the Party in 1984-85 was able to sum up the objective conditions pointing out that the world had reached a turning point in which no force could continue to act in the old way. It provided itself with its most important project of work up to that time, the consolidation of the work of the basic organizations to carry out the work of democratic renewal and build the technical base for the mass party and mass non-party press. This is the necessary condition for strengthening the links of the Party with the class and for the development of the enlightenment movement. In this way, the Party provided the theory and orientation the society requires to find its bearings and not fall victim to retrogression and destruction.

The Party's project to build the technical base for the mass party and mass non-party press remains an essential element to develop the Party's leading role as does its practical mass work for democratic renewal. In 1995, the Party added the Modern Communism Information Project to this work to ensure that modern communism provides the people with the most advanced vision for the creation of a modern society in which nothing is left to chance.

The Party analyzed that without developing the movement for enlightenment to settle scores with the old conscience of society, it is not possible to organize the working class and strengthen the conscious factor. This is achieved by imbuing the movement with the revolutionary theory that comes from modern communism, and strengthening the forms through which decision-making power is firmly grasped by the people. Successes can be achieved and historic success can be turned into historic victory by putting at the centre of the work the development of the mass party press and mass non-party press, the movement for enlightenment, the elaboration of modern definitions and the defence of the edifice of communism.

The movement for enlightenment and the Party's Modern Communism Information Project present communism to the people of Canada with vigour, elaborating with clarity what the ensemble of human relations reveal. They show that this stage in history has brought to the fore the task of opening society's door to progress by solving the problem of people's empowerment on a modern mass democratic basis.

By making the claims they must, the striving of the people for empowerment finds the ways to open a path for the progress of humankind. This striving will achieve the historic task of emancipating the working class and, on this basis, the working class will lead the people to humanize the natural and social environment.

CPC(M-L) is convinced it will happen because the peoples are decisive in the making of history. They will make it happen as they are already doing by waging steadfast resistance to genocide, impunity and the use of force to settle conflicts at home and abroad. The Party is dedicated to achieving this aim.

The World As Is Has No Takers!
The World As It Should Be Has Billions of Makers!

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