MONTREAL — “Washington’s Jan. 3 bombing of Caracas and capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, is another major step toward a third imperialist world war driven by the deepening crisis of the world capitalist system,” Joe Young told 30 people at a special Militant Labor Forum here Jan. 10. The meeting launched the Communist League campaign of Joe Young for Quebec National Assembly in the electoral district of St. Laurent here. The election will take place in October.
“The Communist League condemns this violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and Washington’s announced intention to tighten its control over the entire hemisphere,” he said
Young explained President Donald Trump’s administration is acting for the entire U.S. ruling capitalist class, especially for its oil bosses who have never forgiven Venezuela for nationalizing the oil industry. It is part of the rulers looking to defend their dominant position in the Western Hemisphere and throughout the world.
“Socialist Cuba is also a direct target of this attack,” he said. Thirty-two Cuban soldiers, on assignment in Venezuela, were killed in this assault. Young noted thousands of Cubans had mobilized in Havana Jan. 3 to protest the attack.
Washington aims to deepen its decadeslong economic and commercial war against Cuba by cutting off its supply of Venezuelan oil. Cuba badly needs oil to keep its electrical grid running, Young said. Cuba and Venezuela need the solidarity of all working people and our unions.
“The Canadian Labour Congress joins the international labour movement, including the International Trade Union Confederation and the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, in condemning the recent U.S. military aggression and violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty,” the CLC said in a Jan. 5 statement.
Ottawa’s complicity
Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke for the interests of Canada’s ruling capitalist families in declaring his support for Washington’s war moves in the Caribbean. He claimed the U.S. attack opened the “opportunity for freedom, democracy, peace and prosperity for the Venezuelan people.”
Ottawa has imposed economic sanctions against Venezuela, refused to recognize the Maduro government after he won the 2018 elections there, and closed its embassy the following year.
Canada’s capitalist rulers, who lost property and assets when Cuban workers and farmers nationalized their patrimony during the Cuban Revolution, have always opposed the revolutionary government, Young said.
“In 1978 Ottawa cut its aid programs to Cuba, part of its opposition to Cuba’s heroic internationalist political and military support for Angola’s struggle to defeat repeated invasions by apartheid South Africa.”
While Ottawa has almost always fallen in line behind Washington’s foreign policy, the sharpening economic competition between the two imperialist rivals is fanning the drive to war, Young said. He quoted from a Jan. 4 Globe and Mail editorial urging Ottawa to do more to reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the U.S. and spend billions to rebuild Canada’s military.
Working people and our unions should reject calls to rally around the flag as part of “Team Canada,” which backs Canada’s capitalist rulers against those of the U.S. Unfortunately, Young said, supporting “Team Canada” is also the stance of the union officialdom today.
Canada is an imperialist power like the U.S., although a much weaker one. The working class here has no interest in fighting for the victory of Canada’s billionaire ruling families in their sharpening conflicts with the ruling rich in the U.S. and elsewhere.
A working-class road forward
“Ottawa’s biggest confrontation is with us: the workers and farmers who generate the surplus value out of which Canada’s rulers draw their profits,” said Young. The capitalist rulers’ march to war abroad goes hand in hand with their escalating war against working people in Canada. This is what’s driving their deepening efforts to use their courts and cops to target fundamental rights we need, like the right to strike.
“They are the class enemy we face and must overthrow to build a society based on human solidarity, not capitalist exploitation,” he said. U.S. workers are our most important ally in that fight against our common enemy — the ruling rich of both countries.
Several speakers in the forum’s lively discussion said that their co-workers tended to view President Trump as the problem.
“It’s not the individual, it’s the capitalist system we must get rid of,” replied Young. “Right now Trump is acting for the whole U.S. ruling class in preparations for new wars to come.
“The two great socialist revolutions of the 20th century — the 1917 Russian Revolution and the 1959 Cuban Revolution, the first socialist revolution in the Americas — are examples for working people here and around the world,” he said. “With the proven Marxist leadership put together by V.I. Lenin in Russia and by Fidel Castro in Cuba, toilers in both countries showed their capacity to take and hold political power.
“They transformed their countries and themselves,” he said. “We can do the same thing here.
“My campaign will explain working people must break with the parties and governments of the ruling rich and build mass working-class parties, with the fighting capacity and experience necessary to organize millions to take political power into our own hands. This is the goal of the Communist League.
“I urge you to campaign with us and join the League.”