Discuss, Discover & Invent

Young Communist League of Canada Contribution to the CPC 36th Central Convention

On behalf of the Young Communist League’s Central Executive Committee and all our members, we extend warm, militant greetings to the Communist Party of Canada as your 36th Central Convention discussions unfold.  The economic crisis is of cardinal importance today in the militant kinetics of people’s politics.  It menaces the future of the youth.  We would like to respectfully elaborate on the meaning for youth and students’ of your five “general features and conclusions” on the crisis.

1. Growing impoverishment.  Close to half a million young workers are unemployed.  Youth unemployment remains over 15% after September’s 20.9% record.  British Columbian youth unemployment grew 56% since last year.  No other age group has been hit as hard, in Canada and internationally.  One in five youth are unemployed in the United Kingdom.  The United States AFL-CIO labour union central calls this the “lost decade” for young workers.  Among the third-world and global South’s unemployed, youth are a majority.

Other dangerous developments include reduced accessibility and privatization of education, transit, housing, dental care, and childcare; lower rates of youth unionization, ageist two-tier collective agreements, and poorer wages (about half of all young workers earn less than poverty-line wage); and even more debt (Canadian student debt is over $13.5 billion) with the rise of “pay day loan’s” extortionate fees and interest.  Aboriginal youth, youth from racialized communities, and young women are hit hardest.  The future of millions of youth is basically being thrown in the trash.  Our League is active to connect justified anger of youth with mass campaigns for better work and better wages.

2. The intense ideological offensive designed (a) to divide the working class, including scapegoating, racism, anti-communism, etc, and (b) convince people that a recovery is in full-swing.  There’s a sophisticated effort to convince the youth through the corporate media and culture (i.e. Macleans OnCampus blog or Virgin Mobile’s Screw your recession.ca announcing the crisis’ end).  The ultra-accessibility of credit to youth fosters a “false consciousness” of economic security and separation from older worker’s grievances.  The new anti-consumer critique (“la décroissance”) that ignorant hordes with their 1.5 kids, dogs, SUVs, etc. and polluting jobs caused a now inevitable post-Kyoto climate chaos, also mistakenly blames workers dividing us.  Attacks on the vital solidarity between young workers and industrial and public sector workers also dangerously ‘races to the bottom.’

3 & 4  Aggravation of inter-imperialist contradictions, a precursor to war; exposure of US economic might’s relative decline.  Imperialism’s rivalries also play-out in response to climate change and emphasis the mass support of youth for peace and anti-imperialist forces both in oppressed and imperialist countries.  In Canada, anti-war sentiment is particularly strong among young Québécois.  As the World Federation of Democratic Youth and Students’ November Paris seminar concluded, “The capitalist crisis is a proof of the system’s weakness.  Young people should take advantage and courage at this weakness by strengthening their anti-imperialist struggle” – especially against military bases and occupation armies.  Student activists are making a very positive contribution in the Troops Out of Afghanistan campaign and resistance to military recruitment, which the YCL also champions.  More effort is vital.

5. The labour and people’s fight back against the crisis has been slow and sporadic due to a general sense of weakness and caution by working people, state restriction and even repression, ideological disorientation, and the betray of opportunist leaders.

The question of cautiousness among the youth deserves further reflection.  Generally, young people are discounting electoral struggle – both voting and political parties.  Youth extra-parliamentary struggle shows some polarization.  More young people are choosing more radical progressive positions.  Yet the Conservative party is ramping-up campus activity.  A tiny, violent number youth are joining neo-nazi organizations.  Fascism’s claws operate among members of the corporate elite, who are among the ultra-rightists erecting the “Victim’s of Totalitarian Communism Memorial” in Ottawa (condemned by the YCL).

Among progressive youth there is a sharpened critique of reformist solutions.  Young union activists, the future of militant class-struggle trade unionism, generally reject business unionism.  Millions of youth are scandalized by the Harper Tories – like at Copenhagen and their prorogue of parliament.  As your convention meets, young militants are calling out for “no Olympics on stolen native land.”  Anti-capitalist perspectives do not spontaneously lead to socialist consciousness.  But it does lead to a renewed search for a deeper analysis of the crisis of capitalism, for profound social and political change, and that leads young people to look at the Communist movement.

Key is militant leadership, building the progressive, united critical mass for an anti-imperialist, anti-corporate, pro-people agenda and coalition.  After all, right-wing social democratic forces within labour are also trying to capture the aspirations of young activists through training retreats (emphasizing political struggle mainly through the NDP), lures of promotion, rewards, money and – when that fails – simple pressure tactics.

Student politics, while divided along national lines between Quebec and English-speaking Canada, is the youth movement’s most organized component.  On campuses the students are fighting a sharp struggle against Conservative Party-orchestrated attacks on Palestinian solidarity, and now a developing struggle against 13 de-federation campaigns from Canadian Federation of Students.  The YCL is supporting the broad and powerful unity against the right-wing attack.

In the youth movement, especially on campuses, we encounter many left formations.  Only the Communist Party of Canada, however, presents an assessment with such scope and vigor.  The YCL’s relationship with the Party is political and ideological unity combined with organizational autonomy.  This is a creative relationship.

We must discuss, discover, and invent.  Struggle for ideological clearness is essential to chart a way forward, especially among youth and the YCL which warmly welcomes all young socialists.  The documents are important because they are a starting point for deeper discussions.  They bring under the revolutionary Marxist microscope the basic and decisive questions for all youth and student activists: what’s new? What are the main dangers? What are the prospects for change? What do we do?

For these reasons we look forward to your 36th Central Convention’s outcome for guidance.  We fully agree with the urgency – and the need to overthrow this system based on exploitation and oppression, replacing it with something guarantying peace, jobs, environmental sustainability, and real democracy.  Here is a mission worthy of a new generation.  Socialism!