CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE

By Daniel Paquet                                                 dpaquet1871@gmail.com

MONTRÉAL - Canadian communists, be they French or English, love their motherland.  They are proud to defend workers’ values.  The young generation ignores generally the feat of the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion that fought for democratic Spain before WWII against fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and totalitarian Franco hordes.  Many Canadian fighters later on enrolled in the Canadian Forces to battle against Hitler onslaught on peaceful peoples in other countries of Europe.

Founded in 1921, the Communist Party was still in the 1940s a young political party:  the achievement of young revolutionaries who met in Guelph (Ontario) -nearby the industrial Toronto -, to unite their forces and to battle for a real alternative to capitalism. Concretely:  democracy, jobs and social programs against unemployment, illness and other evils of capitalism…  

At the outcome of the Second World War, the party benefited from the great victory of the Red Army over Hitler Wehrmacht.  At that time, Montréal workers elected Fred Rose, the first communist Member of the Parliament.  The Communist party of Canada was very popular. 

But, the big Capital soon initiated the Cold War to repress those feelings and trampled down the sympathy towards Soviet Union.  Stalin was portrayed at length as a monster, a red tyrant to scare the workers, to get rid of their aspirations for socialism and for a better world.

 (Photo Internet:  Tim Buck, general secretary of the Communist Party of Canada /1929-1962)

As states the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union/Bolsheviks: “during the years of reaction, the work in the Party organizations was far more difficult than during the preceding period of development of the revolution.  The Party membership had sharply declined. Many of the petty-bourgeois fellow-travelers of the Party, especially the intellectuals, deserted its ranks from fear of persecution”.  Even if it is related to Soviet history it applies, one could say, almost fully to the situation in Canada. 

In Québec, it is only in 1965, that courageous leaders such as Sam Walsh started to reorganized the party, that took the name of Parti communiste du Québec, to assess the national character of the struggles of the French-Canadian working class, whose national consciousness rose up. The Federal Government attempted to break this new feeling in 1970, using the pretext of an “insurrection” in Québec, rather a very localized terrorist maneuver of a small group (called the Front de libération du Québec) who had, somehow the moral sympathy of the Québec people for a short period, but who condemned aftermath the actions of those young leftists, kidnapping a Minister (Pierre Laporte) and a British Trade Representative (James Richard Cross).

Canadian Army was patrolling the streets, especially in Montréal.  Québec was under the state of siege; The Prime Minister of Canada (Pierre-Elliot Trudeau), its Cabinet, the big business community did a big mistake.  Even today, over 40 years later, the population remembers with a strange emotion to be belittled.

(Photo Internet:  Fred Rose, first ever elected deputy of the Communist Party of Canada / 1943-1947)

The so-called “Federalists” never quench this thirst for “independence” of the Québec people, which do not and will never mean the desire to live in a separate country. The Parti communiste du Québec (part of the CPC), has difficulties to find its place in this political restlessness.  Some older comrades, who would give their last shirt for the unity of the Canadian working class, feared that the national movement would take the road to fascism.  However, the real influence of the Communist Party cannot be seen yet in its public meetings.  It has influence even more within people’s movements. Young people are attracted by the history of the Communist Party.  They discover it now.  The Cuban Revolution is very special to them.  They care for other nation’s struggles, especially in South America, for Venezuela’s realizations, for instance.

Maybe, naturally maybe, the most important move forward, is this new interest for would-be, have-been or being communists towards unity. In 2010, Canadians for peace and socialism, Northstar Compass, The Regina Peace Council met in Toronto.  The Communist Party of Canada can attract all of these people; it is worthy to mention that, at least in Québec, several trade unionists reassess the role of the party in the working class struggles for peace, progress and democracy.

This dedication at home must never divert us from solidarity with peoples abroad.

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