Editorial
The
Need for a New Centre of Revolution in Canada
By definition, revolution refers to a profound or fundamental change in the way things are. Within the context of modern capitalist societies such as Canada, it refers to the radical reorganization of the political, economic and social orders – the elimination of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. Evolution is popularly understood as the gradual, almost imperceptible, transformation of one thing into another. Since the emergence of the modern Canadian working class during the last decades of the nineteenth century, two tendencies have existed within the working class movement - a revolutionary tendency and an evolutionary tendency.
For the first half of the twentieth century, this division also existed within the trade union movement. On the one hand the Gomper-style craft unions stood for the gradual reform of capitalism, while, on the other hand, a section of the Knights of Labour, the socialist-led unions, the Industrial Workers of the World and, later, the communist-led unions stood for the radical, revolutionary transformation of society from capitalism to socialism. While certainly not the dominant section of the trade union movement, the latter unions and their socialist/communist leaders had a major influence within the broader working class movement, especially in Western Canada.
A radical change occurred in the Canadian working class movement during the Second World War. The Communist Party of Canada, which by then had become the undisputed leader of the revolutionary trade union movement, was declared illegal by the Mackenzie-King government and its main leadership was incarcerated. A mass mobilization led to the eventual release of Tim Buck and other communist leaders, but the party itself remained illegal. However, Mackenzie-King offered Buck a way out of illegality. The party could regain its legal status if it dropped the word “communist” from its name and eliminated revolutionary change from its programme. Despite broad internal opposition, Buck was able to push this deal through and the party re-emerged under a new name – the Labour Progressive Party.
A key element in Buck’s victory over the more revolutionary sections of his party was the theoretical work of Earl Browder, the leader of the Communist Party of the USA. Browder, inspired by the alliance between the Anglo-American imperialists and the socialist Soviet Union, came up with a new version of the evolutionary path advocated by earlier socialists like Bernstein and Kautsky. According to Browder, the U.S. and Canada were exceptional cases. In those countries the capitalist class was young and democratic – at least those sections represented by the FDR Democrats in the U.S. and the Mackenzie-King Liberals in Canada. The Republicans and Conservatives were identified with the fascists and Browder advocated that the communists should ally themselves with the “democratic” section of the capitalist class against the reactionary, fascist section in the struggle for socialism. Browderism became the theoretical underpinning for Buck’s Liberal-Labour alliance in Canada and a similar alliance between the communists and the Democrats in the U.S.
The impact of this Liberal-Labour alliance on the Canadian working class movement cannot be underestimated. For the first time in the twentieth century there was no centre of revolutionary politics in Canada. The communist movement and all of the trade unions it led officially adopted a social-democratic stance - the “Peaceful and Parliamentary Road to Socialism”, and began justifying this position within the working class. The Canadian Exceptionalism of the CPC reinforced the anti-revolutionary prejudices of the Gomper-style unions, and the CCF and the Canadian working class became convinced that revolution was neither possible nor necessary in “democratic” Canada.
The informal truce and alliance between Mackenzie-King and the CPC was just the first step. King then proceeded to offer a similar deal to the trade unions, offering to provide them with legitimacy and state recognition in exchange for a pledge of class peace. This deal was formalized during the late 1940s and early 1950s with the adoption of the Rand Formula and the legal incorporation of the trade unions into the Canadian state with the passage of new labour laws. A crucial requirement for any trade union seeking legal status with the Canadian state was the adoption of a constitution pledging that the union would pursue harmonious relations between employers and employees. On the basis of this definition various unions were declared illegal and hundreds of revolutionaries were removed from leading positions in the unions.
There was only room for one social-democratic party in Canada and the CPC was quickly replaced by the CCF/NDP as the “labour” component of the Liberal-Labour alliance. By 1956 the Canadian trade union movement was united in the new Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) on the basis of opposition to revolution, opposition to class struggle and opposition to communism. The Cold Warriors of the CLC collaborated with the state to purge the communists and other revolutionaries from the trade unions and to crush the remaining communist-led unions. With a few notable exceptions, during the 1960s and 1970s the trade union movement in Canada became a bastion of reactionary opposition to anything healthy and progressive.
The abandonment of revolution by the communist parties in Canada, the U.S. and Western Europe, coupled with the increasing anti-revolutionary rhetoric coming from the leaders of the Socialist Bloc, contributed to the emergence of a new revolutionary movement, primarily amongst youth and students, during the 1960s and 1970s. This new revolutionary movement was necessarily fragmented ideologically, politically and organizationally. The polemics between the Soviet Union and China were reflected in this movement, as was every other tendency that had existed in the working class movement since the time of Marx and Engels. Furthermore, the stranglehold of the Cold Warriors over the trade union movement made it extremely difficult for the new revolutionary movement to establish itself in the working class. For a variety of reasons, both internal and external, the revolutionary movement that emerged during the 1960s and 1970s and the various groups it gave rise to were unable meet the challenges of the 1980s and 1990s and only fragments now remain. At the same time, a new generation is being increasingly attracted to revolution and socialism and conditions are emerging for this new revolutionary movement to take an organized form.
The problems facing the anti-capitalist left today are quite different from those that confronted us in the 1960s. The prejudices of Canadian Exceptionalism have been further bolstered by the collapse of the socialist experiments of the twentieth century. The state has become more sophisticated in its presentation of non-revolutionary alternatives to young people seeking change. At the same time, the situation has become somewhat clearer. All of the things that the socialists/communists/revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s warned about are now becoming a reality. The post-war social compact between the capitalists and the trade unions is being dismantled and the Cold War trade unions are in crisis. The working class is demanding new forms of organization that can assist them to wage the class struggle more effectively.
Many things have also become clearer within that fragment of the revolutionary left that remains committed to the project of socialist revolution. The arrogance of putting ideological purity above organizational unity is a luxury we can no longer afford. Most of us have come to realize that ideological unity is a relative thing, usually not a possibility and often not desirable beyond a few crucial precepts. To the extent that it is achievable and desirable, it is the product of years of common struggle and discussion.
In the conditions that we face today, it is our belief that the re-establishment of a centre of revolutionary thought and action is the most urgent task facing the Canadian working class. Within this context, we think that the only principle requiring ideological unity for such an organization is the principle of revolution itself. All those who are opposed to capitalism and who support the transformation of Canadian society from capitalism to socialism should unite to build a new centre of revolution in this country. Differences over strategy and tactics, over forms of struggle and over the precise shape that socialism in Canada will take should be left to the future to sort out. No matter how much we convince ourselves that we have the “most correct” answers to the myriad of problems facing the working class, we are nowhere if we do not have an organization.