Only Revolutionary
Struggle Against Capitalism
and Imperialism Can Transform the Situation in Favour
of the People
-Statement of
the Manitoba Regional
Committee of the Communist Party of Canada
(Marxist-Leninist), January 1,
2005
During the past
year the concern of the Canadian working class and people about the direction
of the economy, human and democratic rights, the environmental and social
policy, the accountability and integrity of their elected representatives and
electoral system, the U.S. domination of Canada, Canada’s foreign policy, and
the state of international relations has not abated and for good reason. On the
one hand, the Canadian working class and people desire the all-sided
development of the economy based on self-reliance and trade with other
countries on the basis of equality, mutual assistance and respect among all
countries. They want a society where human rights and democratic rights are not
merely a phrase but a reality. They want a Canadian foreign policy which makes
a genuine contribution to peace, security and social progress in all countries
around the world.
On the other
hand, what has occurred in the past year has been opposite to their wishes. Canada’s
economy has been seriously damaged by its one-sided dependency on American markets.
But despite this fact Canadian business and political elites are pursuing even
further integration of Canada’s
economy into that of the United States.
The vast majority of Canadians have expressed their complete opposition to Canada’s
participation in U.S.
military adventures, but Paul Martin’s Liberal government is still seriously
considering signing on to the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense program.
Furthermore, Canada’s
continuing military operations in Afghanistan
and its active participation in the regime change and occupation in Haiti
have further exposed the Canadian “peacekeeping” program as thinly disguised
support for the agenda of U.S.
imperialism. In terms of human and democratic rights, in an effort to curry favour with the Bush administration in the U.S.,
the Canadian state has implemented many of the draconian “security” measures
adopted by the Americans in their Patriot Act. Individuals have been held for
years in Canadian prisons without being charged and the Arab and Muslim
communities have been targeted for surveillance and harassment. In addition Canada
has permitted and facilitated the kidnapping and torture of its citizens at the
hands of the Americans and others, as in the case of Maher Arar.
During 2004 several important struggles were waged by
Canadian workers. In Quebec, Newfoundland and British
Columbia, public
sector workers fought against cutbacks in social services, government-imposed
concessions and privatization. CN workers waged a strike struggle in defence of their wages and working conditions and in
opposition to the Americanization of their railway. The steel workers at Stelco in Hamilton have been fighting a protracted struggle in defence of their jobs, wages and pensions. While all of
these struggles were against great odds and had limited success, they
demonstrated that Canadian workers have had enough of neo-liberal policies and
are beginning to see the necessity for political as well as economic struggle.
In the past
year, the imperialists continued to use the issue of terrorism to justify
further attacks on the rights of the people, to threaten and attack countries that
pursue a sovereign and independent course, and to
increase their production and purchases of weapons and deployment of military
forces. The imperialists continued to use the issue of terrorism to try to
convince the working class and people that imperialism is “humanitarian”, “democratic”,
and “civilized” and that only imperialism can protect the people from the
danger of terrorism. On the one hand, the imperialist powers and their secret
services have trained and financed all of the terrorist organizations, such as
al Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic
Jihad and others. On the other hand, they are presenting themselves as
opponents of terrorism. The hypocritical, lying and self-serving propaganda of
the U.S.-led “war on terror” was further exposed last year. The photographs and
stories of the torture of Iraqi and other prisoners in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons,
the admissions about the falsification of information relating to weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq, the wholesale destruction of Fallujah
and video tapes of murder of the wounded in that city by U.S. soldiers, and the
disclosures of the war profiteering in Iraq, have all served to show that the imperialists
are the real terrorists. They possess every kind of weapon of mass destruction;
they manufacture and sell their armaments around the world for their own
self-serving interests; and they are directly involved in the bloody
suppression of the peoples of Iraq, Chechnya, Palestine, Haiti and other
countries.
More people are
coming to see that terrorism is a tool of imperialism to attack the working
class and people and to disrupt their struggle for emancipation from all forms
of exploitation and oppression. During this past year, Canadians have
demonstrated against the U.S.-British war against Iraq,
opposed the U.S.
missile defence program, supported the just struggle
of the Cuban people against the U.S.
blockade, and condemned the draconian anti-terrorist laws that the Canadian
government passed under pressure from the Bush regime following September 11, 2001.
With the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the leaders in the
“West” promised that the collapse of pseudo-socialism and the establishment of
“market economies” and “Western-style democracy” would bring about peace,
democracy and prosperity for the working class and people of the former Soviet
Union and the countries of the former Warsaw Pact. Fourteen years
later, anarchy, corruption, violence, and poverty are the order of the day in
these countries. Russia,
the United States
and the European Union pay lip service to the sovereignty and independence of
the former republics of the Soviet Union and members of
the Warsaw Pact, but all of them are brutally interfering in the internal
affairs of these countries. The struggle between “reformers” and “conservatives”
in these countries has become a permanent method to deceive the people and
block any renewal of these societies. Time and again the “reformers” of today
become the “conservatives” of tomorrow and vice versa. They do the bidding of
one or another set of financial oligarchs, one or another foreign power, while
the demands of the people for the economic, political or social renewal of their
countries are ignored. While the imperialists were ecstatic that the people
rose up against the pseudo-socialist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
they are concerned that the working class and people are persisting in their
struggle to achieve a genuine renewal of their countries. They only pretend to
support these struggles insofar as they advance their own interests.
Even though the
victory of capitalism over socialism was declared in 1991, and even though they
have the entire world in their grip, the spectre of
communism still haunts the imperialists and they do not miss a single
opportunity to attack socialism, the name of J.V. Stalin and Marxism-Leninism.
The war in the Russian republic of Chechnya, the “rose revolution” in Georgia,
and the “orange revolution” in Ukraine have all been occasions for the
imperialists and their news media to remind the working class and people that
socialism did not work and to convince them it cannot work. Yet imperialism,
with all the resources of the world at its disposal, has not been able to meet
the needs of the people or solve any of the problems facing humankind. J.V.
Stalin, most vilified by imperialism, said over fifty years ago that the basic
economic law of modern capitalism could be formulated roughly in this way: “the
securing of the maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and
impoverishment of the majority of the population of the given country, through
the enslavement and systematic robbery of the peoples of other countries,
especially backward countries, and, lastly, through wars and militarization of the national economy, which are utilized
for the obtaining of the highest profits.” These words could have been written
yesterday to describe neo-liberalism and capitalist globalization.
When the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S.
declared its intention to create a unipolar world under its dictate – the “New
World Order” of George Bush Sr. Developments of the past year confirmed that
this dream is in shambles. Taking advantage of the U.S.
predicament in Iraq,
the German and French imperialists have put aside two centuries of distrust and
antagonism to form a strategic partnership to challenge U.S.
imperialism. Following the re-election of George W. Bush as U.S.
president in November, French President Jacques Chirac called on Britain
to join this alliance, pointing out that British support for the Bush regime
has gained it nothing. Russian imperialism, seriously
weakened and witnessing its former zone of influence being carved up by the
European and American imperialists, is seeking allies in order to save itself.
It was recently reported that Russia
and China are
planning joint military maneuvers in 2005, the first time in almost half a
century. Meanwhile, China
and India are
also attempting to establish regional trading blocs and possible military
alliances to defend their interests against the U.S.
and European imperialists. Latin America is also
beginning to assert itself. Brazil,
in particular, is attempting to establish a Latin American pole in the emerging
multipolar world in the form of a strengthened Merursor
trading bloc. In this regard, it is supported by Venezuela
and Argentina
and the Caricom countries may also join such a bloc
as a counter-balance to the economic power of the U.S.
and its proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Thus, far from a
unipolar world dominated by U.S.
imperialism, a new, multi-polar world is emerging which increases both the
danger of inter-imperialist war, as well as the prospects
for anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist revolutions.
On this occasion
of the ushering in of the New Year, the Manitoba Regional Committee of CPC(M-L) re-affirms its commitment to the economic,
political and social renewal of Canada,
to the strategic aim of transforming Canada
from capitalism to socialism, and to the ultimate aim of a communist society.
We re-affirm our commitment to building the subjective conditions for these
revolutionary transformations in Canada by strengthening our basic
organization, by elaborating and popularizing the Marxist-Leninist positions on
all important questions, by defending and elaborating the fundamentals of
Marxism-Leninism as they pertain to the contemporary situation, by striving to
unite all the communist, revolutionary, progressive and democratic forces, by
building together with like-minded people anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist
institutions and journals, and by supporting the just struggles of the peoples
of other countries for national and social liberation.
On this occasion
we wish the Canadian working class and people, the workers and oppressed people
of all countries, and all those fighting against imperialism, capitalism and
injustice victory in their struggles in 2005.