Newsletter from the Political Information Bureau (November 19, 2011)

SECOND CONGRESS OF THE PCR-RCP
A Party Dedicated to the Revolution

The Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR-RCP) of Canada hosted its second congress this summer in Montréal, gathering its delegates and members. With a spirit of camaraderie and unity, the participants soberly took stock of the work done by the party since January 2007. And it is with enthusiasm that they adopted ambitious and exciting proposals not only to develop the party but more importantly to develop the mass mobilization around a genuine revolutionary project in Canada.

This goal of the PCR-RCP congress is in stark contrast to those of the bourgeois parties —and surely more difficult to achieve! The intent is not to seek popularity for its own sake, nor try to seduce the Canadian masses by adopting a programme promising a few goodies in exchange for their votes... only to change nothing in the end. The objective is to develop practical ways of organizing the masses, who are too often misinformed, to participate with all their consciousness, their capabilities and forces for a radical and fundamental change: to destroy the sources of their exploitation, to collectively change history and the future of Canada and thus liberate it from exploitation, oppression of peoples and of all forms of injustice. This general objective, as reaffirmed by the second congress of the PCR-RCP "cannot be achieved without the organization and mobilization of the Canadian masses through the peoples' war."

The conference opened with the presentation of the Central Committee's political report and summary of the work accomplished since the founding of the party. As noted in the document, the big question was: "Did we move forward or backward from the perspective of the revolution in Canada?"

In response, the political report came back on the historical, political and ideological bases that led to the creation of the PCR-RCP, "Policy analysis developed by the RCP(OC) in 2006 has been precise and has permitted new activists to rally towards Maoism and thus gain a 'leap forward' in the rest of Canada." In this analysis entitled The Canadian Proletariat and the World Situation: How We Intend to Fight, the RCP(OC) found that the contradictions of capitalism are causing a deepening crisis: "This overflow (which, under capitalism, is primarily an overflow of various contradictions, restrictions and oppressions) will quickly take the form of shocks, explosions and upheavals. The decades to come will change the face of the world, creating huge problems and shattering the foundations of our society. But they will be, precisely for these reasons, dramatic and magnificent decades of both victory and failure; success and defeat. They will be decades of revolution!"

This analysis of what the future was to hold, put forward in 2006, has been proven correct and has been confirmed before our eyes in the past few years with a series of major political upheavals: the revolution in Nepal and the many challenges it faces; advances, but also the immense difficulties with which the peoples' war in India is currently faced; the spectacular riots last spring in the Arab countries, as well as the limitations and shortcomings encountered by the huge demonstrations and confrontations that brought together hundreds of thousands of people in Greece, Italy and Spain, which now extend to the United States and in some cities in Canada.

The political report continued: "Faced with these daunting challenges, we used to say that the Left, in Canada as elsewhere, could not provide the masses with comprehensive and serious answers. The time that has elapsed since the first CRC (Canadian Revolutionary Congress) has confirmed the problems with the above approach: there is a continuous splitting in struggles as movements depoliticize themselves in favour of immediate concerns."

The question of the future and "how to go further" then arises. We can say that the recent developments such as the movements of the "Indignants" and Occupy Wall Street allowed us to see, within the last few weeks, the huge potential for transformation and mobilization of the masses. But they also show the limits of spontaneity and the absence of (or inability to put forward) a real perspective on the revolutionary seizure of power by the masses. It may have no other objective in the end but to "preserve" what small spaces of freedom exist within capitalism, even though it will not change the foundations of the system they have rejected.

In these circumstances, the political report of PCR-RCP offers an example of revolutionary practice that puts forward the need to give the proletariat and the masses an essential tool not only to defend itself against the attacks to come, but to fight back and organize:

"In contrast we can say that, with the creation of the PCR-RCP, we took a totally different direction. We broke with the idea that we must defend or accommodate the bursting of the struggles, or that we should refuse to unify the political struggle against the bourgeoisie. Rather than withdrawing, we advocate for deployment of the fight —we want to generalize and unify the movement through a coherent strategy, a joint project embodied by one party. The call for the deployment has made us 'visible'. We distinguished ourselves by a more offensive propaganda and practice, by proposing that we raise our heads and strike back, rather than bending our knees 'and hoping it will pass'. We have shown our willingness to act and to organize a dynamic reply against the bourgeoisie during the demonstrations of May Day as well as during the G20, or during our boycott elections campaign —even some left-wing circles saw that as heresy! In acting this way, we distinguished ourselves from the reformist left and from a portion of the anti-capitalist left that refuses to consider a confrontation with the bourgeois state."

Since its first congress, the PCR-RCP developed —although in an insufficient way— its ability to introduce the notion of revolutionary struggle and Maoist perspectives in Canada. The report of the second congress stresses that one of the important and significant development in Ontario was the holding of the Second Canadian Revolutionary Congress (CRC) in Toronto where concrete perspectives for "A New Class Struggle in Canada" were proposed. "Relatively speaking, this is a significant development: it is the first time since 1983 (i.e. since nearly 30 years) that some genuine Marxist-Leninist activists have come together in the same organization beyond the 'border' that separates Quebec and Ontario." It was also the Toronto CRC that initiated the launch of a new bi-monthly and bilingual free newspaper, Partisan: more than 50,000 copies have been distributed since April.

After the discussion on the political report, the Congress passed several motions related to the development of a new international revolutionary movement. It reaffirmed our will "to contribute to such a regrouping of forces although we think it must be ruled by Maoist parties leading PW or seriously engaged in it. We think that such a movement must recognize: a) Peoples' War as being universal; b) MLM as the current stage in the science of revolution; c) The idea of the pursuing of class struggle under socialism and the fact that the bourgeoisie could use the party in order to reinstall capitalism; d) The need for the two-line struggle so the revolutionary proletariat can triumph."

The delegates then spent most of the discussions in the adoption of practical means that will organize and expand the mobilization around a genuine revolutionary strategy, gathering the most resolved among indigenous peoples, proletarians, youth, women and immigrants. With the Maoist conception that guides them —that it is the masses who make history— the delegates concluded the second congress of the PCR-RCP with eyes fixed determinedly on march forward and with the "renewal" of the class struggle in Canada, which will require the active participation of the Canadian masses towards revolutionary struggle and the real transformation of Canadian society that can only occur by the seizure of power by the people.