(New) Communist Party of Canada
Dearest comrades,
To the conveners, the NDFP, we offer a big proletarian internationalist salute for organizing this theoretical conference on imperialism and war.
Comrades, the objectives conditions are ripening for the international proletarian revolution in ways that perhaps few of us here have seen in our lifetimes. The next great wave of proletarian revolution may sweep the earth once again this century. However, the subjective forces of the revolution are lagging far behind what is necessary for this potential to be realized. Unprecedented, world-gripping crises are already here and we are not ready. There is a supreme urgency to act. But how do we bridge the enormous chasm between the objective and subjective conditions in the world today?
No one here will disagree with the urgent need for mobilization, organization, and coordination against imperialism, both at the international level and within our respective countries. However, we believe these to be insufficient unto themselves.
The twentieth century repeatedly demonstrated that it’s only through the construction of communist parties that have been up to the task of revolution—which were preparing, and were sufficiently prepared, for the seizure of power—that imperialism could be vanquished from vast swathes of the earth. Were it not for the Russian Revolution, the re-division of the world by the imperialist powers in the First World War would have carried on, and who knows how much longer the oppressed countries would have remained subjected to the unvanquished rule of imperialism. Without the Chinese Revolution of 1949 liberating another significant chunk of humanity from imperialism, which served as an enormous inspiration and base of support for armed national liberation movements in the coming decades, many of them led by communist parties, the landscape of the twentieth century would have remained dominated by imperialism. Comrades, the lesson we take from this is that we must affirm the leading role of the communist party if we are serious about overthrowing imperialism. And if we are serious about bringing an end of the epoch of capitalism-imperialism, we must commit wholeheartedly to the constitution of a new wave of revolutionary communist parties in those countries where they do not yet exist, and the strengthening and advance of those in countries where they do.
As Mao Zedong famously said: “Without a revolutionary party, without a party built on the Marxist- Leninist revolutionary theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style, it is impossible to lead the working class and the broad masses of the people in defeating imperialism and its running dogs.”
The problem we face today, however, is the critical absence of the communist vanguard party in most countries, especially in the imperialist countries.
The guiding principle we raise as communists against the imperialist world system is proletarian internationalism, a principle which, to quote Mao, “teaches that the world revolution can only succeed if the proletariat of the capitalist countries supports the struggle for liberation of the colonial and semi- colonial people and if the proletariat of the colonies and semi-colonies supports that of the proletariat of the capitalist countries.” The problem we face today, however, is that international solidarity often goes in one direction only, with many anti-imperialists of the imperialist countries all too ready to hoist the flag of people’s wars and liberation movements of the oppressed countries, yet cringe at the necessity of building the communist vanguard party in their own countries, adopting rather the “Third Worldist” deviation that sees revolution in the oppressed countries mechanically, as the principal, or even only, aspect of the world proletarian revolution today—a position that conveniently alleviates many of these anti-imperialists of truly joining revolutionaries of the oppressed countries in walking the hard road of proletarian revolution. To this, we must say comrades, that being half-way proletarian internationalists simply doesn’t count. Imperialism will be vanquished if and only if the proletariat of the imperialist countries is organized to lead popular wars for socialist revolution. Internal conditions, not external conditions, are and will be principal to every revolution to come. Therefore, comrades, we must become all-the-way proletarian internationalists if it is the defeat of imperialism that we seek, and to do this we must urgently seek to reverse the dismal state of the subjective conditions in the world today, especially in the imperialist countries, where the subjective conditions of the revolution are weakest, despite the objective conditions for revolutionary struggle improving dramatically. This, we believe, can only be done by undertaking the painstaking and protracted work of reconstructing communist vanguard parties.
To this end, comrades, we bring significant news from Canada. Over the past three years, communist revolutionaries in our country have managed to completely turn around the state of disarray that existed among Maoists until just a few years ago. Whereas in late 2019 / early 2020, the two main MLM formations in Canada—the Revolutionary Communist Party of Canada and Revolutionary Initiative— had either scattered into insignificance or else collapsed, through an ambitious unity-struggle process that commenced in 2020 and lasting approximately a year, all remaining communist revolutionaries were rallied to contend with their past party-building experiences and to struggle for the constitution of a new revolutionary party and a new revolutionary program. Out of this effort, the (New) Communist Party of Canada was constituted in clandestinity in 2021, which was followed by two years of work in summing up the previous era of party-building, laying down the infrastructure for the new party, and developing the bases for a revolutionary strategy and program. We are pleased to report, comrades, that in the coming weeks the new program of the (N)CPC will be released in the wake of the (N)CPC’s Founding Congress. We encourage comrades to visit the website of kites, where it will first appear.
The point in sharing these recent developments with you comrades is to emphasize the point that the work of reconstructing the communist vanguard party in our country did not come by way of some spontaneous convergence. Nor did this development come by way of merely opposing imperialism in words and maybe in some protest actions. The formation of the (N)CPC came by way of repeated, painstaking, and protracted ideological struggle in the subjective and objective conditions of our crisis- ridden imperialist society.
At present, the social and political tensions amassing in the western imperialist countries are being spun up to levels not seen since perhaps the 1930s. Other delegations here this weekend have given sobering accounts of the crises underlying these contradictions. In Canada, the combination of Covid-19 and
pandemic lockdowns, which discriminated heavily against the popular classes while benefiting monopoly-finance capital enormously, have had a major affect on the livelihoods and well-being of the people. The inflationary and housing crises are making life impossible for proletarians, throwing tens of thousands of people out of their homes and into the streets and tent encampments. Even the lower petty-bourgeoisie finds itself scrambling to afford life, with an increasing proportion of the popular classes subjected to permanent indebtedness. While the masses suffer the deepening crisis, Canada, along with its western imperialist allies, continues to fund the endless carnage of the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine, while a former Ukrainian Nazi was inadvertently saluted in Canada’s parliament just a couple weeks ago. All the while, the big monopoly capitalists in Canada, from the grocery giants and the oil companies to the big banks, have been posting record profits.
On the international scene (what our Party refers to as) the US-led Anglo-American Imperialist Alliance (AAIA) is losing steam in the world. The inter-imperialist rivalry between the rising imperialists Russia and China on the one hand, and the old imperialist powers of the AAIA and the European Union on the other, is paving the way for a third world war. A new expression of revisionism is now taking hold that is celebrating this multi-polar world as some kind of great opportunity for the oppressed countries. But we know, comrades, that whatever space multi-polarity may create for some countries to play the imperialists off one another, we are on the precipice of another world war and we must not settle for revisionist compromises.
The worsening conditions have been met with massive popular resistance in recent years in the western imperialist countries, as we have seen in the insurrectionary protests against police brutality in 2020 across the US, and the massive popular mobilizations and strike waves in France, Britain, Canada and the US over the past year. In France, last year’s protests against pension cuts created a proto- insurrectionary situation. And to this we can also add the massive uprising against police brutality by youth. These examples, as well as those detailed by delegations at this conference from the other imperialist countries (US, Italy, Germany, etc.), reveal that there is indeed “great disorder under heaven” in the western imperialist countries. The only question that remains: Will communist revolutionaries in those countries rise to the challenge that history has placed in front of us?
Without the leading role of the proletariat and its vanguard party, however, we have also seen how the reactionary mobilization of the masses can get the best of popular discontent and proceed rapidly, as was the case with the 2021 “Freedom Convoy” in Canada. While this movement had the appearance of being initiated by truckers, with this pseudo-working class movement teasing the overthrow of the Federal government and gaining the sympathy of about 40% of the country in the process, in actuality it was initiated and led by professional reactionaries tied to Alberta’s oil oligarchs who succeeded in guiding the ire of popular discontent in a rightist and libertarian direction, and which will benefit the Conservative Party of Canada in the next Federal elections more than any other political force in the country.1 The rise of this reactionary wave has been cultivated in the previous years first by Islamophobic hysteria, then by anti-vax and anti-lockdown movements, and now, by an anti-trans and anti-LGBT hysteria that is waging a war on sexual education curricula in schools across the country. Comrades, without the initiative of the communist vanguard party, there’s no telling what depths of reaction and self-destruction the people will be pulled into in the coming years.
Notwithstanding these observations and remarks, comrades, we remain wholly optimistic. The epoch of imperialism is the epoch of proletarian revolution. But we are not mechanical materialists comrades; we know that the subjective factor is entirely ours to develop, or else lose to the forces of reaction and imperialist barbarism.
Just three years ago, the subjective situation in our country was dire, but we have made breakthroughs since then that are unmatched in our country since the 1970s. Though it took close to 20 years, through twists and turns, to constitute a new communist vanguard party in Canada, we are certain that all the errors that our predecessors made do not have to be made again. Not if we study the experience of the international communist movement and learn from it. This is why we have worked to thoroughly sum- up the experience of the party-building movement of the last twenty years in our country, which comrades will be able to find in the forthcoming issue of kites, #9.
Finally, we thank the NDFP for leading the way and calling us together to discuss, and learn from, the great strides being made by genuine proletarian, anti-imperialist movements worldwide. The next great wave of proletarian revolution awaits us, if only we are bold enough to blaze that trail once again. The present may be somber, comrades, but the future is bright.
With the beating heart of proletarian internationalists, salute!
International Department of the (New) Communist Party of Canada
