Political Report to the Regional Conference

of the Manitoba Branch of CPC(M-L)

December 11, 1999 to January 15, 2000

I. Introduction

This Regional Conference of the Manitoba Branch of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is being held within very specific, objective conditions provincially, nationally and internationally.

Overall, the situation is characterized by the ongoing retreat of revolution. This period of retreat of revolution was ushered in by the 1985 strategic alliance between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. This strategic alliance, which is still very much in effect, had the aim of opening up all of the world's markets to penetration by international finance capital, which its architects hoped would save both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. from impending economic collapse. This inter-imperialist alliance, which eventually led to the downfall of all of the pseudo-socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, marked the end of the general crisis of monopoly capitalism which was created by the Great October Revolution and the removal of one-sixth of humanity from the capitalist market.

Declaring the dream of socialism to be dead, the finance capitalists boasted that capitalist economic crises were a thing of the past and that the world would now witness a century of peace, prosperity and uninterrupted economic growth. The recession of 1990 to1992, which saw the collapse of the Japanese economic miracle and the emergence of the so-called jobless recovery did little to take the wind out of their sails and was quickly forgotten in the unprecedented stock mania of the last half of this decade. However, as the decade draws to a close there are increasing signs of an impending economic crisis, possibly one of the same dimensions as the Great Depression of the 1930s. Half the economies of the world, especially those in Asia and Eastern Europe, have already sunk into deep crisis, and political turmoil is the order of the day in Southeast Asia.

Revolution has been one of the historical constants ever since the emergence of class society. It has always been characterized by ebbs and flows. But since it is an objective necessity arising out of the conditions of class society itself, it can never be eradicated. This period of ebb of revolution we are living through today will also pass and give place to revolutionary flow. We can neither predict nor control when that may happen; all we can do is prepare ourselves to meet the challenges that those new conditions will impose on us.