Dear Comrades and Friends

Canadians for Peace and Socialism (CPS) thank Chairman Michael Lucas and the Executive Committee of CFSP for the invitation to send delegates and participate in the Third World Congress of CFSP.  CPS is pleased to accept the invitation and will attend as observer/delegates.

In lieu of a greeting CPS offers the following statement intended to present only a fragment of what we believe is required to be said about the impact of the Russian Revolution on the struggle for peace and socialism today, focusing on some matters of principle CPS considers fundamental to the discussion. 

Introduction

International solidarity with Soviet people through all of their struggles from 1917 to the present is a duty of all anti-imperialist revolutionary fighters for peace and socialism.  Detachment from that duty, posing as objectivity, is an accommodation to anti-communism and weakens the resistance of the laboring masses to the stratagems of state monopoly capitalism.   

Partisanship for the historical achievements of the USSR is the severest test of genuine internationalism.  Anti-Sovietism in all of its forms and guises was and remains anti-communism.  Anti-communism is the ideology of imperialism, state monopoly capitalism.  Anti-Soviet socialism is impossible just as anti-communist socialism is impossible.

Because of that truth CPS expresses its solidarity with CFSP in defending and promoting the historical significance of the Soviet Union in the anti-imperialist struggles of today.

Soviet Socialism – A Victory for Human Progress

The Russian Revolution of 1917 introduced a new progressive content to world development that lives and invigorates the 21^st century anti-imperialist struggles for peace and socialism.  The Russian Revolution altered historical development positively because it was the achievement of the most advanced class in society, the organized working class led by a mature Communist Party the Bolshevik Party - at its head Vladimir Ilych Lenin the continuer in the era of imperialism of the work of Marx and Engels.

The Russian Revolution proved in practice the historic, law governed, conscious role of the working class in overthrowing capitalism leading the way to the next higher stage of development of society - socialism.   All capitalist propaganda from the moment of victory of the Great October Bolshevik Revolution to this day is designed to obscure that truth.  Imperialists and the elite circles of wealth and privilege that cravenly support them fear Soviet socialism because it demonstrated that capitalism has outlived its time, is incapable of further progressive historical development and out of necessity must and can be replaced.

The Historic Role of the Working Class

The example of the working class for the first time in its revolutionary history carrying out a revolution for itself inspires workers and the downtrodden everywhere on the planet to do likewise.  The Russian working class and its allies demonstrated that it was possible to break the imperialist system at its weakest link in one country.  The Bolshevik Revolution proved that only the working class led by its own party, could rally all non-capitalist forces and halt the crimes of imperialism, the ultimate crime being world war.

The Russian Revolution proved the historically outmoded privately owned anarchic capitalist economy can be replaced by a superior socially owned centralized planned economy guaranteeing that everything created by the combined labour of the urban and rural producers, the intelligentsia, the scientists, technologists, the artists and artisans can be for the needs of the people and not primarily for small elites of wealth and privilege.      

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the State

The Russian Revolution demonstrated in practice that to build socialism it would be necessary to smash the old capitalist-feudal state, an instrument of force in the hands of the exploiters to suppress and enslave the proletariat while according complete freedom to capital.  Lenin in his master-work State and Revolution proved the necessity of creating a new state, a dictatorship of the proletariat to suppress the exploiters and accord freedom to the producers. 

A state of the dictatorship of the proletariat was necessary to suppress the attempts of the counter revolution, the combined forces of the defeated capitalist feudal classes of Russia and their international supporters, to re-establish the dominance of international finance capital.  A centralized state of the dictatorship of the proletariat was necessary to unite all of the revolutionary forces to defeat imperialist interventionist armies, win the civil war and build up the defensive military forces of socialism that protected the people as they embarked on the building of a new society.

The Bolshevik Revolution proved that a worker’s state supported by the poor peasantry even at the earliest stages of its power could place restraints on the aggressiveness of imperialism, compel it to compromise and retreat, and provide space and time for the new Soviet power to re-organize society to provide bread to the hungry, work to the unemployed, land to the peasants.

Dialectical and Historical Materialism Is a Science

Soviet power confirmed in practice the existence of objective laws of the development of capitalism revealed by Marx and Engels in their time and by Lenin in the imperialist era of capitalism that create the prerequisites for and necessity of socialism.  Until 1917 what had been a brilliant dialectical and historical materialist scientific theory became a living reality.

The establishment of Soviet power demonstrated in practice precisely what Marx and Engels had proven in theory, that capitalism had outlived its historical relevance, can be overthrown, ending forever the private ownership of the means of production thus enabling the productive forces to develop in harmony with new relations of production.  The working class taking possession of the instruments and means of production resolves the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society - social production and private appropriation - sweeping it aside clearing the way for the centralized planned construction of socialism.

Peace, Happiness and Well Being – Everything Truly Human for the Labouring Masses of All Countries

The first worker and peasant state emblazoned on its banners, as its highest priority, the peace, happiness and well being not only for the laboring masses  of Russia but of all countries, thus fulfilling the international credo of the Communist Manifesto, “Worker’s of All Countries Unite”.

Vladimir Ilych Lenin the theoretician, organizer, and quintessential political leader, of the Bolshevik revolution and the international proletariat said of the Manifesto written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels:

“With the clarity and brilliance of genius, this work outlines the new world outlook, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life, dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development, the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat – the creator of a new, communist society.”

The Russian Revolution lives today because it verified the “new world outlook” and in building socialism tested in practice its tenets and proved them correct.  More than that, the richness of the experience of the Soviet people in building a modern socialist economy through successive five year plans resulting in rising living standards for the people revealed new objective laws that are relevant for current struggles to replace outmoded state monopoly capitalism.  

Internationalism

The first worker’s state from the outset, accepted the responsibility to become the centre and bastion of the international proletariat and all of the anti-imperialist movements of the people, including the national revolutionary democratic struggles of the peoples living under colonial subjugation.  All of the heroic struggles of the people’s oppressed by imperialism were undertaken with the active solidarity and support of the Soviet people under the leadership of the CPSU.  The support of the USSR enabled many successful revolutionary advances of the oppressed people’s of all continents including those socialist states that arose during the Soviet era and continue into the 21^st century.

The highest expression of internationalist responsibility was the decisive role played by the USSR and the CPSU in supporting the organization of the Communist International (Comintern).  The Comintern was organized under the leadership of Lenin.  The Comintern was instrumental in providing the theoretical guidelines and assisting in organizing and educating the young communist parties of the world to develop into parties of a new type.  These parties were at the forefront of all the struggles of the working class, for peace and socialism, women’s equality, a future for the youth, and anti-fascism through the decades of anti-imperialist struggle to this day.

The pinnacle of the achievement of the Comintern was the creative application of Lenin’s teachings on the united front.  It was further developed under the leadership of Georgi Dimitrov in close collaboration with Joseph Stalin and the most experienced leaders of all of the communist parties. It solved all of the theoretical, strategic and tactical problems that enabled the international communist movement to organize the anti-fascist popular front and counter the mortal enemy of socialism, fascism, the open violent dictatorial rule of finance capital. 

The ultimate fulfillment of the international duty of the Soviet Union was the enormous sacrifices of the Soviet people and the Red Army, led by the CPSU under the leadership of Joseph Stalin in the defeat of Nazi Germany.  As General Zhukov, leader of the Soviet Armed Forces said of Stalin, “Without his stern exactingness we could not have won.”

The anti-fascist alliance of states, led by the Soviet Union stands as the penultimate achievement of the USSR supported by the international communist movement foreshadowing the future, an imperishable contribution to human progress never to be extinguished. 

The IMCWP

The rich legacy of Soviet internationalist fidelity to the cause of the international proletariat and its allies lives today in the meetings, international campaigns and statements of the International Movement of Communist and Worker’s Parties (IMCWP) published and disseminated internationally by Solidnet (www.solidnet.org).

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Peace Council (WPC), the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) and the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) are the continuers in our time of the working class anti-imperialist mass movements of the laboring masses first inspired organized and led by the Comintern that evolved and grew to maturity during the building of socialism and re-emerged at a higher level after WW2 and continue today as anti-imperialist movements for mass mobilization of the militant forces of labour, peace, women and youth.

Canadians for Peace and Socialism proposes that the call of the 13^th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) be a document for discussion and consideration by the delegates of the 3^rd Congress of CFSP.  The 13^th meeting of the IMCWP will take place in Athens Greece, December 9-11, 2011.

Under the slogan, “Socialism is the Future” the theme of the IMCWP meeting will be:

“The international situation and the experience of the communists 20 years after the counter revolution in the USSR. The tasks for the development of the class struggle in conditions of capitalist crisis, imperialist wars, of the current popular struggles and uprisings, for working class-popular rights, the strengthening of proletarian internationalism and the anti-imperialist front, for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism.”

The above themes we are confident, will also be very much present in our discussion in September.

The Experience of the Communists 20 Years after the Counterrevolution in the USSR

CPS greets the decision of the IMCWP to discuss the international situation in the context of the 20 year experience of our movement since the counter revolutionary events of 1989-90.

CPS shares the standpoint of all those today who assert that the counter revolutionary defeat of Soviet socialism was due to the lack of vigilance and underestimation of the stratagems, both external and internal, of imperialism and its agents and apologists that actively promoted the rise of a market economy in the USSR and with it a corrupt class of appropriators capitalist oligarchs.  State monopoly capitalism, imperialism, was restored in Russia using the same means by which it is maintained in all state monopoly capitalist countries, reactionary violence, corruption, deception and demagogy.

The phenomenon of counterrevolution needs deeper study since it is an inevitable consequence of revolution.  Such a study cannot be limited to denunciations of what is now manifestly obvious.  

The counter-revolutionary overthrow of Soviet power in 1989-90 was a combination of factors at the centre of which were the hostile, violent, organized and unrelenting overt and covert attacks of imperialism on emerging socialism.  Imperialism unleashed a counter-revolutionary offensive against the new socialist power from its inception, employing economic blockades, wars of intervention, mobilizing hostile diplomatic offensives, organizing military blocs of imperialist joint action, and resorting to fascism and war to attempt to destroy Soviet power.  Imperialism continues those same methods against the remaining socialist states and all those countries that aspire to sovereignty, independence and socialism.

Imperialism only succeeded in overturning Soviet power when it found within the Soviet economy and state and leadership of the CPSU the remnants of the old defeated classes, the lingering spores of market capitalism, the rank and rotten individualism of petty ambition and self interest of those that resented and rejected the discipline and self sacrifice, morals and ethical precepts of revolutionary socialism.  Such interests were attracted to the invitation of imperialism to live parasitically on the labour of others.  Such interests were attracted to the glitter and sophistry of capitalism.  Such forces consciously separated themselves from the masses and abused positions of political trust and power that engender the contempt of workers in both capitalist and socialist societies.   

Once identified, imperialism supported and encouraged the internal counter revolution by all means, including internal foreign intelligence and subversion while simultaneously supporting pseudo socialist ideological and theoretical deception, masquerading as a “reformed” socialism called “opening” and “restructuring”.

However, none of these factors could have led to the counter revolutionary overthrow of Soviet socialism without the undermining of the leading role of the CPSU.  Revisionist theory and practice led to the gradual separation and disruption of the revolutionary dynamic between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the working class.  The necessity of a ruling Communist Party to constantly critically verify the effectiveness of its leadership by merging as it were, with the living experience of the workers, became formal.  (Incidentally that is also a law of development of communist parties not in power).

The prestige and authority of the CPSU, as the leading political power in the state was undermined by the toleration at the highest levels of its leadership, of effects of revisionist theses emerging from the 20^th Congress of the CPSU giving rise to above class theories leading to an accommodation, appeasement, and collaboration with imperialism.

Second Wave 21^st Century Socialism- Centrist Reaction

Today revisionism has a new cloak of deception masquerading as reformed socialism, now defined as “second wave” 21^st century socialism cleansed as it were and quietly divorced from the Soviet era.

We will not dwell at length on the anti-dialectical schematic approach of such a concept except to note that whether one approaches what happened in the Soviet Union from a philosophical or economic political standpoint, Marxism-Leninism acknowledges temporary retrogression in development while rejecting as un-dialectical the suggestion that it is absolute or disconnected from further progressive and upward development.

There is no doubt that socialism will be re-established in the former Soviet Union at some time. It would be un-dialectical to suggest that it will be an exact replica of what it was. The Soviet Union will be restored by the working class of Russia at a higher level of economic and political development utilizing everything progressive that was created in the building of socialism. What will be negated in the next stage of socialism in Russia is the retrogression caused by capitalism, artificially re-imposed by counter revolution. 

Defining the struggle for socialism today as a second wave 21^st century socialism is a petty bourgeois centrist concession to imperialist anti-Soviet calumnies designed to establish a politically sanitized barrier between the victories won by Soviet socialism and current working class and anti-imperialist struggles, thus limiting discussion of Soviet achievements and their relevance to futile and barren polemics with imperialist historical revisionism. That is exactly what imperialist ideologists want us to do.

Second wave 21^st century socialism is an invitation to repudiate Lenin’s teachings that imperialism is a system, an entire era, the era of state monopoly capitalism, the final rung of capitalism, beyond which there is only socialism.  State monopoly capitalism is an entire epoch of the life and death struggle of the international working class and its anti-imperialist allies confronting unstable, moribund, reactionary and aggressive imperialism. 

In the meetings of the IMCWP, the programs, strategies and tactics of the communist parties are being critically evaluated and gradually being brought into closer conformance with the reality of the state monopoly capitalist era in which the struggle for socialism takes place.

Social Democracy and Real Socialism

The source of the catch phrase second wave 21^st century socialism is the divisive alien presence inside the communist movement of social reformism, the advocacy of limiting the struggles of organized labour and its natural allies to a restructuring of state monopoly capitalism instead of engaging in its revolutionary overthrow and replacement by socialism. 

That is why the theme of the 13^th IMCWP Meeting, “ The tasks for the development of the class struggle in conditions of capitalist crisis, imperialist wars, of the current popular struggles and uprisings, for working class-popular rights, the strengthening of proletarian internationalism and the anti-imperialist front, for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism”  is of such importance.

Our meeting takes place in the midst of the most severe global crisis of the capitalist system since the Great Depression of the decade of the 1930’s. During that world-wide collapse of capitalism, the Soviet people were fully employed in the construction of socialism, creating social funds by their labour that accorded free health care, education, low cost housing, affordable transportation and a rich cultural life of arts, sport and recreation for all.

In the capitalist states hundreds of millions were hungry and out of work compelled to engage in mass struggles to survive alienated from the abundance created by their labour.  In the course of those struggles led by the communist parties, many countries including Canada began to discuss and consider the path to socialism.

The current 21^st century depression is another classic cyclical event of capitalism in the imperialist stage of its development where the productive forces have created abundance wherever one looks, while the relations of production block its rational and planned development and distribution for the needs of the people, billions of whom live in abject poverty.  Purchasing power in the form of wages and farm income in the hands of the working people is not enough absorb this enormous production.  Mass unemployment in the developed capitalist states is now chronic.

The leading imperialist state the USA is exhibiting signs of internal economic and political instability foreshadowing a second deeper global economic crisis of the G7 states all of which are burdened with massive debt from predation by international finance capital on state treasuries compounded by massive arms spending.  

Contrary to the assurances of the right wing neo-conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Canada remains dangerously exposed and vulnerable to a deepening of the crisis.  

State monopoly capital is well aware of the consequences of continued crisis and has taken measures to defend its system. The financial oligarchy in Canada as in other G7 states has chosen a form of right wing conservatism masquerading as democracy to replace the traditional form of monopoly rule - liberal bourgeois democracy.  The financial oligarchy has chosen the route of subverting by stealth all legal, constitutional and parliamentary restraints imposed by the struggles of the democratic popular masses to its quest for maximum profit.  Right wing conservatism hints at fascism and is taking measures to impose a more open dictatorial rule by a financial oligarchy.

At another time in Canadian history, 1937, in the midst of the Great Depression, just prior to the outbreak of WW2 the Communist Party of Canada made a presentation to the Royal Commission on Dominion Provincial Relations. It was at the time the most comprehensive statement of demands of the working class on state monopoly capitalism. The Communists said to the capitalist commissioners:

“Economic despotism seeks political despotism.  Moreover the economic despots already wield real power.  Social and economic reform and free labor unionism would give a greater part of the national income to the people, cutting into their profits.  Economic despotism therefore sets itself against democracy and progress.  With its tremendous real power and with its representatives occupying the majority of seats of government, it sets itself above and against the nation.  Reaction tending to fascism is its very soul.

“Reaction is proceeding in the work of destroying Canadian democracy by undercutting with one hand the foundations of democracy and by giving encouragement to fascism with the other hand.”

What needs to be kept in mind today when reading this statement, written 74 years ago, is that similar statements of its kind were being made by communist parties in all capitalist countries.  The statement was the adaptation to Canadian reality of the united world wide struggle led by the Comintern against the rise of fascism.

Right wing social democracy rebuffed all of the attempts of the communists to forge unity in action against “reaction tending to fascism” and it still does. 

Labour and Social Democracy

The World Federation of Trade Unions, (WFTU) and the Athens Pact adopted at the 16^th World Trade Union Congress Athens, 6-10 April 2011 has provided the international working class with a class struggle program that refutes the class collaborationist program of the reformist led International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).  The WFTU and its affiliates have set an international class struggle path forward for the international trade union movement that requires the closest study and application by all labour militants.  The Athens Pact should be a document available to our meeting in September.

In the section dealing with the current economic crisis the WFTU condemns the leaderships of the ITUC for cooperation with the policies of state monopoly capital that relegates the role of organized labour to seeking less onerous terms from implementing the austerity demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  

The WFTU  states categorically:

“It is once again proved, looking at the position of various forces concerning the capitalist financial crisis, that the working class of any country cannot prosper, cannot shape it own independent/self-sufficient course towards the satisfaction of its needs, without a decisive conflict and a break with the forces of compromise and defeatism within  the trade union movement.  We must not deceive ourselves that the leaderships of the yellow trade union movement can change route, neither can they be pushed by the working masses towards a positive direction, nor can they lead the class struggle.  It is necessary that all honest workers who still follow them are to be convinced by the above, in order to make a step forward and join us, to unite inside and by the side of the class trade unions within a unified front of the working class, to join the World Federation of Trade Unions that has opened its arms and doors to everyone who wants to struggle. To unite with us in action, in our aims and principles.”

Our meeting needs to consider what support can be given to establishing the presence and promoting the work of the WFTU among trade unionists.

The Anti-Imperialist Struggle for Peace and Solidarity

It is beyond the scope of this statement to review everything that is unfolding in anti-imperialist struggles around the world.  We will listen with great interest and seek to learn everything we can at our meeting in September from those from other countries engaged in such struggles.

We would like to touch on one issue that we consider to be paramount for Canadians, the anti-imperialist struggle for peace, nuclear disarmament, the campaign against foreign military bases, and for the withdrawal of Canada from NATO and NORAD.

CPS has been actively involved in the re-establishment of the Canadian Peace Congress (CPCon) the Canadian member organization of the World Peace Council (WPC).  If there is time we can report on that work.

It is our view that WPC is gradually and with great energy and sacrifice reestablishing its presence on all continents and is having success in leading the anti-imperialist struggle for peace. We should consider discussing the significance of that fact.

Soviet Peace organizations were founding and active members of WPC.  WPC enjoyed the generous support and solidarity of the Soviet people.  Leading Soviet personalities in the arts, sciences, government and veterans of WW2 gave their energies to the work of the WPC.  Soviet people today continue that work.  No people on the planet know better than the Soviet people, the true meaning of world peace.

The forerunner of CFSP, the Canada-USSR Society worked closely on many peace campaigns with the Canadian Peace Congress and the WPC.  We need to re-visit that experience and consider what can be done to re-invigorate those connections.

Part of that discussion must involve a review of the growing aggressiveness of Canadian imperialism.

CPS has for some time drawn attention to the fact that Canadian finance capital seeks a greater presence at the roundtables of imperialism, in particular at NATO headquarters in Brussels.  Canadian governments, both Liberal and Conservative increase arms spending, militarize the economy and promote the integration and interoperability and active engagement of Canadian armed forces in US-NATO-EU instigated wars.  The right wing conservative government of Prime Minister Harper and Defense Minister Peter McKay are directly engaged in implementing in Parliament the aggressive international policies of NATO.  

The NDP which for many years called for Canadian withdrawal from NATO has now muted and dropped that demand from its program, and in so doing now supports NATO wars of regime change, the most recent being the US-EU-NATO aggression against Libya.

The need for a new Canadian foreign and defense policy of peace and disarmament, disengagement from imperialist military alliances and aggression has public support in our country.  More Canadians see the connection between arms spending and the decline in funding to public health care, education and pensions.

The struggle for peace is indivisible from the struggle of the working class for socialism.

Conclusion

All gatherings such as the 3^rd Congress of CFSP are opportunities to assess the level of struggles in our respective countries.  Canadians for Peace and Socialism looks forward to that discussion.  All such discussion must take into account the historic role of the Soviet Union.  The Soviet Union was a state of a new type. It was not the first to emerge from revolution, but it was the first to emerge from a revolution in the era of state monopoly capitalism, imperialism, and in the midst of an imperialist war.  The Bolshevik revolution demonstrated that the working class and its allies, in one country, could break through the global system of imperialism and establish political power and begin the work of building a socialist economy.  This fact alone is of enormous significance for evaluating all revolutionary events that followed that initial triumph. Because it was the first revolutionary storming of capitalist power in the era of imperialism the Russian revolution established in practice what was universal in its experience, and that is applicable to all socialist revolutions in the present era.

Soviet power continues to influence modern human development because it imbedded in human consciousness the imperishable idea that it is possible, given political power, for workers, peasants, the poor and illiterate to create a state of and for the oppressed and to build an entirely new social system in the course of which all of the people would not only be liberated but transformed from their status as servants and dependents of private finance capital into truly free masters of society.

That new quality is inextinguishable, now merged with the struggles of all of the modern progressive forces that today comprise the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, pro-socialist working class movements of the masses.

The attempt of imperialism to eradicate the achievements of real socialism from the consciousness of humanity by declaring that it belongs to another era, a relic of history, is a failure.  Every day humanity is reminded by the crimes of imperialism that there is a historic precedent for throwing overboard the system of human exploitation, degradation, war and environmental disaster and that historic precedent is the socialist system of states as they emerged in Europe, Asia, North America and South America and within which the Soviet Union is its most advanced expression.