BY JOHN STEELE AND JASON PHELPS
TORONTO - "The opportunities to win a new generation of
workers and youth to the communist movement and the line of
march of the working class and its allies toward taking
state power in Canada and throughout the world are greater
than they have been in decades," Communist League leader
Michel Prairie told the delegates in his political report to
the second session of the Fifth Constitutional Convention of
the Communist League in Canada.
The convention, which was held in conjunction with an international socialist conference, took place April 10-12 in Toronto. Some 240 people attended from across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Sweden. The majority were members of industrial unions in the auto, meatpacking, garment, steel, aerospace, transportation and other industries. Members of the Young Socialists and other youth, including high school and university students, also participated.
Banners hung on the walls of the hotel ballroom written in English, French, and Spanish read: "For Quebec independence - justice and equality. On the front lines in the fight against Canadian imperialism"; "Self-determination for the Albanians in Kosovo"; "Canada, U.S. hands off Iraq and Yugoslavia"; "Rebuild an anti-imperialist youth movement - join the Young Socialists"; and "1998: Year of the 100th anniversary of anti-imperialist struggle in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines." Simultaneous translation into French, Spanish, and English was available to all participants.
The featured speakers at the conference were Militant staff writer Argiris Malapanis, who gave an eyewitness report on the recent upsurge of struggles of working people in Kosova and Albania, and Jack Willey, a leader of the Young Socialists in the United States. Willey, who also took part in the reporting trip in the Balkans and a meeting of the World Federation of Democratic Youth in Cairo, Egypt, in March, spoke on "Rebuilding an anti-imperialist youth movement worldwide."
As an example of this process, Malapanis and Willey described how during the reporting team in Kosova, they participated in a discussion with student activists at the Pristina office of the Independent Student Union. Among the students was a young woman who a year earlier had purchased a copy of the Pathfinder book The Truth About Yugoslavia at a Militant Labor Forum in Washington D.C.
"This fighter, who was attracted to the working-class perspective explained in the book, was one of a small number of Serbian youth who came to Kosova to participate in the demonstrations against the repression of Albanians by the Belgrade government," said Willey.
He pointed to the recent conference of the Federation of Pro-Independence University Students in Puerto Rico and the development of the Sinn Fein Youth organization as further examples of the openings as the counterrevolutionary obstacle of Stalinism disappears around the world.
Political polarization in Canada
In his report, Prairie described the fragmentation,
drift to the right, and sharpening anti-Quebecois chauvinism
of bourgeois politics in Canada. The drop in the value of
the Canadian dollar, the impact of the instability in Asian
markets, the falling prices in raw materials on the world
market, and the greater productivity of Ottawa's main
competitors in the United States show the deepening crisis
of Canadian capitalism. Under these conditions, the ruling
class in Canada intensifies its attacks on the social wage
and democratic rights.
"However, the employing class is running up against increased resistance by working people, and the determination of the oppressed Quebecois nationality to continue its historic fight for equality, justice, and self- determination," said Prairie.
"The increase over the last two years in the federal government's nationalist flag-waving is aimed at isolating the Quebecois and deepening divisions in the working class along national lines," he said. "These divisions can only be overcome in the struggle against our common class enemy headquartered in Ottawa and with active support for the Quebec independence struggle by working people across the country.
"When I moved to Toronto, I thought I would have a problem with language at work," said steelworker Guy Tremblay, who as a Quebecois speaks French as his first language. "But English is the second language of most of my co-workers. Ottawa's chauvinist campaign against Quebec does have some impact -one co-worker suggested I stay in Quebec when I told him I was going for the weekend. But many workers, because of their own experiences in countries like India or who are from Latin America, are open to supporting the Quebecois fight for independence. Nobody knows the facts behind this fight, so I explain the real history."
Prairie reported that Communist League branches in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal had strengthened the units of the party in the industrial unions; reestablished regular weekly sales of the Militant and Pathfinder books to workers at plant gates; modestly advanced the effort to get Pathfinder books into commercial book chains; begun the process of politically rearming its members to defend the struggle for Quebec independence; and attracted a new layer of youth to the Young Socialists.
Garment worker Sébastien Desautels from Montreal reported on the recruitment to the Young Socialists that has taken place in Quebec City, Drummondville, and Montreal "The new YS member in Drummondville is discussing with other possible recruits who go to his community college the French- language edition of Pathfinder book The Changing Face of U.S. Politics - Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions," he explained.
Since the convention three Drummondville students have joined the YS, and the group of four has asked the national YS leadership in Montreal to recognize them as a YS chapter.
Turning toward labor resistance
"Coming out of the January convention the League met the
test of the war drive against Iraq led by Washington and its
imperialist allies such as Ottawa," said Prairie. "Branches
helped to initiate street demonstrations at U.S. consulates
and federal government offices against the war buildup in
the Arab-Persian Gulf. Over this period socialist workers
and youth in Canada sold 957 single copies of the Militant
and 42 of the Marxist magazine New International, a
significant number of these to co-workers on the job and at
plant gates.
"While the immediate war drive against Iraq has ended, the march of imperialism towards fascism and more wars continues," said Prairie. "The expansion of NATO toward the borders of the Russian workers' state and the presence of U.S. troops in the former Yugoslavia and other Eastern European workers' states points to the explosive contradictions building in Europe as Washington tries to position itself to eventually take military action to restore capitalism in this part of the world, beating out its imperialist competitors in Bonn and Paris," he noted. "Our response to these developments has been to make a greater effort to link up with workers who are fighting back and bring to them through Pathfinder books and the communist press the lessons of past struggles by working people and a scientific understanding of the line of march of the working class toward its emancipation," said Prairie.
"These recent sales of communist literature, especially to workers on strike, are the biggest in Canada since the mid-80s," noted Vancouver delegate Steve Penner, a member of the Canadian Auto Workers. "The regular sales at work, at plant gates, and in working-class communities gives more results today than anytime in recent years."
"Communist League members helped to build the picket lines of meatpackers who waged a four-month strike against Maple Leaf Foods in Burlington, Ontario, as part of a strike/lockout battle of across the country," reported Prairie. "Although, in the end the strikers were forced to take serious concessions, many have begun to discuss and think through the reasons behind the strike and where it fits into what is happening in the world. This process is reflected in the 55 Militants bought by strikers, along with three subscriptions and a number of Pathfinder books."
Susan Berman, a Steelworker and a delegate from Toronto, reported that a number of the Maple Leaf strikers she met on the picket line were from Eastern Europe. "One expressed the view that workers in Poland would not put up with the conditions being imposed on them by the Maple Leaf bosses.
Toronto steelworker Katy LeRougetel also explained how she was able to help organize co-workers from her plant to join the Maple Leaf picket line. "This took some patient work, but those who participated got a better view of what other workers are up against. This helped open doors to the sale of communist literature to coworkers."
In his report, Prairie also explained that communists in Vancouver had made over a dozen trips to Vancouver Island to report on the lengthy strike of Fletcher Challenge pulp and paper workers. (By the time the strike ended April 18, six strikers had bought subscriptions to the Militant.)
Several participants who spoke during the conference related experiences that proved the possibility to sell more Militants and other socialist literature to workers. A socialist worker from Cleveland said that at recent strike support rallies in Marietta, Ohio, and Spencer, West Virginia, a layer of veterans of previous labor battles were throwing themselves into the fights going on today. And a participant from New Zealand spoke about the battle against union busting that had just broken out on the wharves in Australia.
Since the convention, Communist League members have given special attention to brewing confrontations in the pulp and paper industry, one of the most important in Canada's economy. Since the strike against Fletcher Challenge, the pulp and paper bosses in British Columbia have tried to generalize the concessions they were able to get to thousands of other workers. Communist workers and youth in Vancouver have organized to go back to Vancouver Island. In two sales at a Fletcher Challenge plant, they sold out the 24 copies of the Militant they had with them, and sold a subscription to a former striker. Another team went to Squamish, a town one hour north of Vancouver with two pulp and paper plants, where they sold four subscriptions going door to door, including one to a paperworker.
Communist League and Young Socialist members in Montreal and Drummondville organized a joint sale at an Abitibi- Consolidated pulp and paper plant that employs more than 700 workers in Trois-Rivieres, east of Montreal on the St- Laurence River. Abitibi-Consolidated has rejected company- wide negotiations with close to 14,000 members of the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers union in eastern Canada this year, and instead demands plant-by-plant negotiations. These workers will be taking strike votes until May 20, with a possible June 15 strike deadline. The result of their negotiation will affect up to 25,000 workers in the industry.
Hundreds of thousands of other workers, such as garment and public sector workers in Quebec, will also be negotiating new contracts later this year.
Increasing leverage of Pathfinder
One of the main decisions of the convention was to adopt
a special report presented by Socialist Workers Party leader
Mary-Alice Waters. She took up the growing need and
possibility to draw more on the skills and energies of
friends and supporters of the communist movement to help in
many ways, from staffing Pathfinder bookstores to helping
translate and produce leaflets to raising funds. This can
free up members of the SWP and Communist League to spend
more time getting out to picket lines, selling the socialist
press at factory gates, and responding to other political
openings.
One essential component of this is the effort by supporters of the communist movement to transform Pathfinder's 350 titles into electronic format, so that they can be used to produce books through computer-to-plate equipment.
Because of the sharpening of the class struggle throughout the world, along with the irreversible shattering of the counterrevolutionary Stalinist murder machine, Pathfinder has real objective weight in the world today. Waters explained that this is because these books are the only source in written form for fighters, wherever they are, of the lessons and continuity of the 150-year struggle of the modern working class.
The delegates also decided to step up efforts to help make the international subscription campaign for the Militant a success and to organize to work with the Young Socialists and other forces to build an October tour of two youth leaders from Cuba.
In response to a special appeal given by Young Socialist leader Maria Isabel Le Blanc, who was part of recent Militant reporting teams to Havana and Cairo, conference and convention participants pledged or paid US$4,000 to the international US$110,000 fund campaign for the Militant.
Greetings were read to the convention from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
The delegates decided that a third session would be needed in the coming months to elect a new Central Committee. The three branches of the Communist League held conferences soon after the second session to further discuss the specific challenges that each unit faces in transforming itself into the kind of proletarian organization capable of implementing the decisions of the first and second convention sessions.
Jason Phelps is a member of United Steelworkers of America in Montreal. John Steele is a member of the International Association of Machinists in Toronto.