No. 30
September 1, 2025
55th Anniversary of the Party Press and 40th Anniversary
of Our Historic Decision that No Force Could Continue
to Act in the Old Way
A Decision Whose Significance Lives as CPC(M-L) Tackles Today's Turning Point
Celebration of 54th
anniversary of the Party Press, Toronto, September 1, 2024
As the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) celebrates the
55th anniversary of its founding in Montreal, on March 31, 1970, it also
celebrates the 55th anniversary of the day, August 26, 1970, when it
took the most important initiative to start the Party Press. This press
has been published relentlessly since then, as a powerful weapon in the
hands of the working class to organize itself in defense of its own
interests and for its emancipation.
CPC(M-L) is also celebrating the 40th anniversary of the history-making
decision it took on September 1, 1985 when, given the historic turning
point the world was entering into, it declared that no force could
continue to act in the old way. It was not a matter of wishes; it was
because the material conditions no longer remained as they were in the
past, making it necessary to rise to the occasion and move on. Moving on
never meant giving up the achievements of the past. It meant to rise to
the occasion under the new circumstances to fulfill the mandate of the
Party in the conditions of the turning point. It meant recognizing the
need for fidelity to the ensemble of human relations and what it was
revealing -- the need for political empowerment of the people. On this
basis, the working class must constitute the nation and vest sovereignty
in the people. The cause of communism can be advanced in the new
situation.
CPC(M-L) takes this opportunity to congratulate all those who have
contributed to the strengthening and consolidation of the Party Press
and non-Party Press. Let us use these anniversaries to implement
measures which provide the press with support and expand it at a time
when it is crucial to further develop the independent politics of the
working class.
Let the working class use its voice and organizing power to mobilize the
youth and broad masses of the people to answer the call of history for
democratic renewal to empower the people to humanize the natural and
social environment in a manner that emancipates the working class and
humanity itself.
The Party Press
The work to strengthen the Party Press at this time engages people in
discussions on the significance of unfolding events and the importance
of having their own voice, based on the claims they lay on society, not
in response to the agenda set by the ruling class. It is a key component
of the work CPC(M-L) has undertaken during this period of retreat of
revolution in which the vicious neo-liberal anti-social nation-wrecking
offensive has introduced anarchy and violence everywhere. The need for
the working class and people to continually find their bearings is
evident as, steadily, contingents of workers and youth are finding their
own place by speaking out against what is unacceptable and laying the
claims which they must to open society's path to progress in a manner
that favours the people.
The ruling class is using its positions of power and privilege to
escalate its nation-wrecking anti-social offensive. These rulers and
their cartel parties are going to great lengths to present unacceptable
anti-people, anti-worker, anti-national positions and promote
war-mongering as crucial to defend their liberal democracy. This
includes attacks on workers who uphold the dignity of labour, blaming
them for wrecking supply chains and threatening national prosperity and
security; as well as support for Israeli genocide in Palestine and
neo-Nazi rule in Ukraine. Meanwhile, governments become increasingly
corrupt, paying the rich in the name of greening the economy and other
high ideals.
The broad opposition to such claims of the rich and the cartel parties
which serve them in the Parliament continues to gain momentum. People
are fed up with disinformation campaigns which lower the level of
political discourse to personal attacks, lies, slanders and defamation.
The only response of the ruling class is to try to silence the voice of
the people as their democracy sinks into ever greater disrepute,
disgrace and corruption, with civil war scenarios at home and
imperialist wars abroad.
This makes the independent working class press more important than ever.
The working class is positioning itself to engage the rulers in a trial
of strength by taking the path of empowering itself. It has the Party
and the Party Press at its disposal.
The
rulers control all forms of media at this time, both print and
audio-visual as well as artificial intelligence. Besides being highly
monopolized, this state of affairs is retrogressive, harmful to one and
all. The remedy is for the working people and youth to get together to
inform themselves in a manner that enables them to establish their own
vantage point, their own way of looking at the world that is to their
advantage. Doing so means they can orient themselves and keep their
bearings despite all the diversions and disinformation of the rulers and
provide themselves with solutions which serve their interests. As the
Party says, "The world as is has no takers. The world as it should be
has billions of makers." It is the people who make history by setting
their own aims and working out the tactics and forms of organization to
achieve them. The press is crucial for this and for unifying and
strengthening their ranks.
The Party Press shows that the working class has its own voice under
these conditions and this voice must be expanded in ever more creative
ways. The bourgeoisie does not want the working class to have its own
voice. It does not want its vanguard, CPC(M-L), to exist as the
organized expression of the working class aim to constitute the nation
and vest sovereignty in the people. In this respect, CPC(M-L) has
overcome many obstacles the bourgeoisie has put in its path in the past
and continues to do so today. It does not permit the voice of the
working class to be silenced. It does not permit its reality to be
distorted because the rulers only present the backward narrow aims of
private interests for whom the workers are disposable.
The single-minded pursuit of those whose life and careers are dedicated
to defending their positions of power and privilege is to make the
workers and youth incapable of organizing themselves to play a decisive
role in opening society's path to progress and building a bright future.
Significance of the Decision Taken on September 1, 1985
Celebration of 15th
anniversary of the founding of the Party Press, September 1, 1985
In 1985, CPC(M-L) revealed the new way in which it would act as
history entered a turning point by establishing the technical base for
the Mass Party Press and Mass Non-Party Press as well as building a
movement for enlightenment. It was a momentous decision which the Party
continues to implement to this day, making sure the organizations
involved in journalism and the technical base are proletarian in their
composition, outlook and approach. They are mandated to implement the
Party's Historic Initiative to always bring out the mass character and
quality of the Party.
To appreciate the significance of the decision taken on September 1, 40
years ago, extracts of the speech by Comrade Hardial Bains on the
significance of the decision are posted below. The speech was delivered
at the Party's 13th Consultative Conference held in Toronto on April
28-29, 1991, six years after the decision was taken, after much work had
been carried out and important successes had been achieved.
Comrade Bains pointed out:
What was the decision we took on September 1, 1985? The analysis was
that this is a turning point, and that no force can act in the old way.
What should we do under the present circumstances? What should the Party
do in response to its own analysis that it must act in a new way?
The Party gave the call to build the Mass Party Press. The decision to
build a movement for enlightenment was part of this work. We had to
throw away all encumbrances, all things which stopped us from realizing
this aim. One such thing was to throw away the psychology of fear that
the Party cannot do big things. For 15 years before the decision to
build the Mass Party Press was taken, we had done many small things, but
to continue in that way would have degenerated the Party. We had
accumulated strength during those 15 years, and now we were in a
position to utilize what had been achieved in order to go forward.
The Communist Party is a complex institution. It cannot be described in
simplistic terms. It develops its features of being an organized and
advanced contingent of the working class and its general staff in real
life. In 1985 we wanted to make sure that those features were further
developed and did not remain phrases, but the Party was not yet prepared
to completely overcome the pressures which distorted the development of
these features.
When our Party began its work to implement the decisions of September 1,
1985, its first act was to build the non-Party Press, which would show
how the Party leads on such a broad basis. Thus, when we say that we are
the most advanced and most organized, one of the proofs is the building
of the non-Party Press. The Fifth Congress in 1987 again affirmed our
Party's method that before names are given to things, they must first
have a quality. It does not make sense to call somebody a human being
before actually seeing the human qualities which identify the person as a
human being. The same holds true for a party. Its constituents, its
organizations, have to be advanced, organized and possess the qualities
of a vanguard, before you can call it a vanguard party.
Celebration of
commissioning of the new four-colour printing press, July 5, 1990.
In the 1960s when we were arousing the advanced elements to take up
the task of building such a party, it was necessary to repeat the
features the Party must have. A picture in the form of a broad outline
can be created even before it actually comes into being, but if we just
keep on speaking about this picture without actually creating it in
life, this would mean that we are asserting something which does not
exist in reality. Not only will such a thing not exist in reality, but
the assertions made about its features in ideal form would severely
distort reality. This would be tantamount to not paying attention to
ensuring that the Party actually is the most advanced and the vanguard
of the class. It would actually destroy such a party.
The repetition that our Party is the most advanced, the vanguard, does
not make it so in real life. With the work of the non-Party Press, at
least a few workers, a few intellectuals got to know that we have the
most advanced positions, that we are the vanguard, the most organized,
that we are not fanatical or dogmatic. The proof of the decision of
September 1, 1985, can be found not only in this work alone, but it can
be seen in all the other work of the Party as well.
We can give many examples, but we will begin with just one. As all of
you know, this year and last year, 1990 and 1991, have been very crucial
years for us, during which all of us have discussed various matters,
especially the question of the Party and the role of the member in the
Party. What role does the member play in the Party? What qualities
should a member have? Why is it necessary to work in a Party basic
organization? Why is it necessary to strengthen the regional committees?
What is the relationship between these organizations and the Central
Committee? We may think good work has been done, but will a worker in a
factory say it was good work? Will an intellectual respond and say yes,
you have done very good work? Or will they say they do not know?
We must work in such a way that they do know. If we don't make the
necessary turn, we will see what various other people who are lined up
behind us will do to us. Imagine yourself in a car at the turning lane
of an intersection and you refuse to turn; all the cars lined up behind
you will be honking their horns. Such voices are coming up. They are
demanding to know why we are not turning. The war in the Gulf region
tested quite a number of people. It is very interesting that they wanted
to turn, but backwards. That is not called turning. Turning back means
to turn away from dealing with the crucial problems at any stage in the
development of our movement. We are not talking about this kind of
turning point.
Our participation in the struggle against the use of force in the
Persian Gulf was honourable. It was a good, necessary intervention. The
Party won friends, and most importantly, people considered the Party's
positions to be just positions. But when the decision was made in 1985
to build the Mass Party Press, was the issue that we should get a
favourable response and a medal of praise from the people on this or
that matter? Unfortunately, comrades, some people were satisfied with
this sort of thing. Not only were they satisfied, they were even
theorizing and making speeches about it. They delivered lectures to us
when we saw them but they had forgotten the decision of September 1,
1985, reaffirmed by the Fifth Congress of the Party.
It is not possible to talk about participation in this or that front of
work without assessing the implementation of the key decision. What was
that decision of 1985, besides the analysis that this is a turning point
in which no force could act in the old way, and that it was necessary
to build the Mass Party Press? In essence, it can be described in one
sentence: that the Party should be in the van of society. Can we say
that this has been achieved? Can we say that everywhere our Party is in
the van? There are still comrades who would ask us to define what we
mean by van. For them, it ends with a clear definition of a thing,
because they still consider the Party an idea, a place for the
clarification of various opinions, an association in which individuals
get together to talk about things.
[...]
Thinking is a very good thing, but it is even better if the thinking is
done in the course of implementing a decision. [Communists] should at
least have that kind of consciousness. [...] We have to make use of all
our resources to analyze our situation, to draw warranted conclusions,
to establish objectively what our actions are doing to the class, to the
people, to the movement there. Then a summation can be made: What
results have been achieved by an action taken? What further actions
should be taken?
In 1968 our organization decided that the most important task within the
conditions of the times was to create the Party, and that the first
step towards establishing such a Party was, besides other things, the
creation of the instruments of working class propaganda. Creating the
instruments of working class propaganda did not mean that we did not
participate in economic struggle; it did not mean that we did not
participate in political struggle. It did not mean that we did not deal
with the questions of theory and wage stern ideological struggle against
revisionism and opportunism of all hues. What it meant was that this
point had become a crucial one upon which everything else hinged.
Our Party was founded in 1970 after successful work carried on this
front, whereby comrades came forward for the cause of the working class,
for the cause of communism. Right at that time we were faced with a
dual attack -- one by the state and the other by the revisionists and
opportunists. Of course, it is hard to convince anyone who was not in
this reality that in Canada hundreds of people were arrested for their
ideological and political convictions, that they were jailed, that the
revisionists and opportunists openly collaborated with the state to
ensure that this happened, that the leader of the Party and his family
faced all sorts of dastardly attacks. What should the Party have done
under those circumstances? Besides taking up the task of clearing the
way on organizational and ideological questions, especially the
political question of Quebec and other related questions, the Party
spearheaded a heroic campaign which was called the resistance movement,
in which nobody cowered in front of the attacks of the state. We were
all inexperienced at that time in this form of struggle.
I remember the first day when a comrade was arrested in Montreal. We did
not know what was going to happen to him. It was anybody's guess. Our
tally is that during the 1970-73 period, close to 3,000 different
arrests of comrades took place. All our main cadres and activists spent
an average of six to nine months in jail. The Party came out of this
struggle strengthened and more united. [...] We strengthened the Party
that we Canadians established for our own political aims, on the basis
of our own ideological convictions, on the basis of organizational forms
which we worked out ourselves at a time there was great pressure to
succumb to those who wanted to turn various parties into their agencies.
They created a situation in which either a party was recognized by them
as "genuine," which meant it was willing to be their agent, or it
should drop dead. That was the message.
In 1971, an effort had already been made to split and disintegrate our
Party. Far from splitting, we went through a vigorous development of
unity among the communists and progressive forces. Virtually everyone
who called themselves progressive and communist joined the Party. Many
of these faces are present today, just as we are. Those who wanted to
split and disintegrate our Party could not achieve what they wanted to
achieve, and the struggle began.
After it became clear that the Party could not be smashed through the
state attacks, or through the secret service and the opportunist
provocateurs, it was said that CPC(M-L) was not a serious party and that
it was necessary to build a new one. That struggle went on for 10 long
years. Every kind of thing was written against us, and many dastardly
actions were organized in order to destroy the Party. But in 1982 they
all declared that Marxism-Leninism does not work. In other words, they
wanted Marxism-Leninism to be wiped off the face of Canada. Finally they
admitted that much themselves.
During this period of attacks by the opportunists, we waged a struggle
for the Party on two fronts. First, we carried on our principled
position for the unity of the Party and still called on everyone to
unite in one party. If they could not do that, then they could unite by
building unity in action. We opened various paths so that a much broader
unity could be established.
Secondly, we took the measures to strengthen ourselves theoretically and
ideologically. We established our ideological institute, which carried
out this vigorous work. By 1977, we declared that we had won.
Of course, they all laughed. They claimed the Party was not so big, that
the Party was just "six or seven" people. But they were not even one.
Why? Because when they got together, a "whole lot" of them, they would
say, "We do not know what is going on." Nobody would even defend their
own organization. In other words, they had no members at all. The facts
are verifiable.
In March 1977, the Third Congress took place. While it will go down in
history as a great victory, on the one hand, it is also an example of
the infamy of the state, whereby they arrested 17 of us just prior to
the Congress and tried to frame us and in this manner sabotage our work.
At the same time, hundreds of people from Montreal came forward to
unite under the banner of the Party, giving rise to one of the largest
political rallies, held in Montreal at the end of the Congress.
The task of the Party changed to one of overcoming the detrimental
consequences of Maoism. This work, which started in 1976-77, was further
developed in our Special Congress held in April 1978, and went further.
It was our Party which had the honesty and sincerity to recognize that
some of the things which we had done were not correct and needed to be
corrected, which needed to be criticized and eliminated before our Party
could advance further. For example, the subjective attitude to
revolution that a few activities or a few militant actions will
spontaneously arouse the masses of the people was discarded. The
thinking that the people will liberate themselves and that there is no
need to go through a whole period of political process was given up, and
so on. In the sphere of inner-Party organization, there still persists a
lot of pressure that either there is no democratic centralism, or there
is all centralism. In other words, we have people who say, "We are not
going to do anything until the centre tells us." Or conversely, "Why is
the centre deciding this?" These positions come up when in the local
areas an apolitical atmosphere prevails and decisions are not taken. Our
Party has not agreed with either of these positions. It considers both
positions to be diversionary. Neither makes an attempt to go into the
heart of a decision-making process which puts people in a position of
defending the decisions they take.
In the Fourth Congress in 1982, when the recession was setting in, when
all the struggles waged had finally eliminated the Maoist groups, the
Party took up the question of further implementing the slogan which was
given by the Third Congress: namely, to bolshevize the Party, that is,
to increase the mass influence and the mass character of the Party and
to develop its leading role. It is within this framework of building the
mass character of the Party, as fully and legally sanctioned by the
Fourth Congress and re-sanctioned on September 1, 1985, that the
question of the Mass Party Press was taken up.
In a nutshell, we can see our conscious history. All party organizations
should be able to tell us their history, the tasks they took up, what
they achieved, the problems they faced and how they provided them with
solutions.
Our working class needs regional committees which should be almost like
parties, because Canada is a big country with conditions which are
different in some ways from one region to another. One cannot operate in
the same way in all conditions in all the parts of Canada. [...] An
organization must establish its aim, where everybody gives opinions
about what the aim of their organization should be. We have an aim. If
we are not clear about something today, we work hard and become clear
tomorrow. Clarity is a relative term. One day we are clear about the
problem we face today, and the next day when the situation changes, we
again have to become clear. It is as if we are dealing with this
starting point all over again.
Comrades, in 1985 the banner of enlightenment was put forward [...] When
we look back at the year 1985, then this question arises: what did this
decision mean? Was it some peculiar decision, relevant only for those
few days and only for the scheme of creating a magazine -- or did it
have a greater meaning? It had a greater meaning. It did not have that
limited meaning. If that decision did not have a greater meaning, why
would we have spent all this time carrying it out?
Comrades have come from all across the country to join the work of the
Mass Party Press, with their fists high. Comrades from all over Ontario
still come to volunteer to work in that place whenever they have free
time. Even from outside this area and from across the country, comrades
take holidays -- even long holidays -- to assist this work. They are not
fools to have done it if it has no greater meaning. That it is just to
establish a technical base, just to establish a press? Far from it. This
greater meaning has its immediate practical consequences, which we will
talk about as we go along. But the general greater meaning, the general
practical consequence is that we must appeal to the people and respond
to their demand to have a press which deals with their interests, which
concerns itself with their interests profoundly and not in a mechanical
way. All the organizations of the Party, all the comrades, must do their
own work with the same spirit. The tasks should be implemented
according to what people want, what they need, not just what we want.
If the decision of September 1, 1985, was based on merely what we
wanted, we would have said we are not going to worry, we already have a
press, why go to all this trouble? We can even dismiss this conference,
join with others who say Marxism was wrong on such and such questions.
We too could take a critical attitude, liquidate everything and go home.
We were never so inclined. This work, in terms of Party work, has a
profound meaning. This work for enlightenment, like any other work, does
not have the aim of just recruiting members. It is for the purpose of
arousing various people about their concerns, whether they join with us
or not. In other words, its aim is not limited. It has a very broad and
very profound aim.
In the same way, the basic organizations and the regional committees --
as we have discussed now and have been discussing over this period --
must work with confidence for the same politics -- that is, to respond
to the concerns of the people, to present the analysis of their
concerns, to assist the people in organizing themselves, and to be in
the forefront of this organization. The Party should be at the head. The
Party should be the leader, not in a banal or sentimental way, but by
showing that we carry out these proposals in Party organizations which
become one with the working class, one with the people, and not remain
separated. There is no activity which can be described as an activity
just of the Party. There is no such thing. All this work, all of our
activities, are activities for the class, for the people. What we do has
great significance for the fate of the class and people.
Our attitude is not mechanical. It is not that because we have
Contemporary Marxist-Leninist Thought we forget the concerns of the
people or forget about the tactics, the forms of organization, the
slogans necessary to get results. Such a thing we call dogmatism and
fanaticism. If someone goes on repeating that we stand for democracy,
that we want all these things, but develops no tactics and does nothing
to realize these aims, then it will not be truth, but a falsehood of the
calibre of the obsolescent forces in denial. [...] It is very easy to
have phrases, to have them writ large and to pontificate about them, but
what are the results? The results are nothing.
We don't agree with this kind of truth. The decisions of September 1,
1985, had a profound meaning for our work, not only the work of the Mass
Party Press, but the entire work. For example, we don't organize the
workers to follow our line as an aim divorced from the interests of the
workers. We organize the workers to defend their interests. We fight for
the unity of the workers in their own interests, so that as they defend
their interests and get experience in doing so, they also learn to
organize, to create bigger, more advanced organizations, and finally
rise up to end this system of wage slavery. That's what we want.
Everything has to be done to ensure that such a situation can be created
and develop. If this aim is given up, then the decision of September 1,
1985 has no meaning. When the entire Party is working, when the entire
Party is in step, we can get better results with a greater scope, and
achieve the victory which is desired in this period.
The attitude that somebody else knows, somebody else is going to give
the line, is inconsistent with the decision of 1985. We are not like
those who suggest that people can liberate themselves on their own in a
spontaneous manner. We have a Party that has its organs, in which these
organs function and make their decisions at their level, in terms of the
work they are assigned and agree to take up. When everyone discusses
and takes the decisions at their level they will all know what the
preoccupations of the Party are. They can only understand these
preoccupations when we are one and this oneness is established at the
point the decisions are taken.
If an individual member does not become part of the work of the Party,
then, given the situation, the person will cause trouble. There are
times when the leadership at that level does not pay first-rate
attention to the policy towards work and the training of new members. In
such a situation, a person could hang around for years, without ever
becoming a communist. If we carry out our work and are not prejudicial,
if we are enthusiastic and welcome everyone with the same spirit to
carry out the work, if we carry out criticism and self-criticism, then
if somebody doesn't want to carry out the work, they will not be able to
hang around. They have a whole world in which to do as they please but a
communist must show their colour through their deeds.
Comrades, let us not reduce matters related to building the Mass Party
Press to just ideological stances. Let us speak openly and carry
concrete summation in the course of further developing this work. On
this basis, let us respond to the situation which is a turning point. We
have already made the turn. We are not behind the times or the
situation. We are ahead of it. We already have implemented various
aspects of the decision taken on September 1, 1985. We already have done
a lot of other work, which we are summing up.
Let us march on. Time is working for us. We have initiative in our hands.
(Archives of the Hardial Bains Resource Centre)
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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca