The following is an edited excerpt from Part 3 of “Sorting Through the Undead: An overview of the (self-proclaimed) communist formations in Canada” by Rob LR, Orca Press, 2025. Cover photo by Viktor Deni, 1930.
Some Lessons
from Canada’s third party-building movement (1990s to 2025)
by Rob LR.
The experiences and summations of our third party-building movement (1990s–2025) reveal a number of lessons to us.
I. Watch out, “Leftism” alert!
Middle-class Leftism is not even close to being revolutionary; it’s actually reactionary. Postmodernism, radical-liberalism, identity politics, internet-based “activism”, decolonial discourse and the like are tools of the bourgeoisie. They’re loved by the powers that be as radical-sounding but ultimately system-compatible modes of thought. These forms of thinking and doing do not fundamentally threaten capitalism. Instead, they serve to safely redirect the people’s just rage and rising class consciousness away from socialist revolution. The historical facts, coupled with our movement’s experience, proves how Leftism works to completely dilute and falsify the real achievements and strategies of the international working class. All while rendering near-meaningless the labels of Marxist, socialist, communist and even Marxist-Leninist-Maoist!
Leftism is propagated through the books, movies, music and shows of giant media corporations (especially the “cool” or “alternative” ones); through the psychology, sociology and political economy departments of the university-corporations; through social media psyops; through the NGO-complex; and through the electoral campaigns of “progressive” and reformist politicians. It’s pushed by the imperialists and their henchmen in order to sidetrack the people, water down scientific socialism, and incite trouble within revolutionary organizations. They use it to effectively misdirect, disorganize, discredit and destroy us.
In general, in the long run, modern “Leftists” are our ideological and political opponents, not allies (and surely not comrades!). In cases where Leftism positions itself as wholly-reactionary and anticommunist, it functions as an enemy, straight-up. As a popular saying goes:
COINTELPRO1 never ended.
II. The (relatively) comfortable middle classes can’t and won’t lead our revolution
Given the corrupting nature of imperialist Canada, our revolutionary Party has to be built up from, and consolidated within, the hard-pressed (lower) proletariat and those falling down into the hard-pressed proletariat. It has to be firmly rooted in the dispossessed working masses; in the bottom third or so of Canadian society. Not in the upper echelons of academia, not in the middle-class “activist” scene or non-profit-complex, not in the union bureaucracy, nor in Canada’s glorified, well-paid working class!*
* “that section of the population who work in (more or less) manual labor occupations [construction, manufacturing, trades etc.], who earn substantially above minimum wage, usually in unionized positions with formal contracts, guaranteed salaries, [benefits, and] access to home ownership[. The] exploitation of the labor and resources of oppressed countries fund[s] the well-paid working class’s paychecks and overall conditions of life. In a similar class position to the well-paid working class in the private sector are many public-sector employees, working in working-class and lower-petty-bourgeois occupations. Public-sector employees include more people of oppressed nationalities and women than the private-sector well-paid working class, which is majority white and male but by no means exclusively so.”
— GATT editorial, November 2024. [goingagainstthetide.org].
Of course, the above-listed sections of the upper proletariat are exploited by the capitalist system. But it has been set up so that their interests and political proclivities tend to waver; sometimes conforming with those of lower proletariat, and other times with the Canadian ruling classes and their State. Thus, in the long run it’ll be necessary to win many over, but they cannot comprise the bulk of our revolutionary Party.
III. FIRST build the revolutionary proletarian Party, THEN the United Front . . .
A United Front with revolutionary members of the middle classes (the well-off proletariat and petty-bourgeoisie) has to be built under the leadership of the hard-pressed proletariat. We first have to work on uniting with and animating dispossessed working people, making them/us into an organized and powerful political force, and consolidating the best and most proven people into a disciplined and dedicated working-class vanguard. Then, and only then, should a United Front be formed. This is so United Front activities, and the interests of middle-class allies, are subordinated to the strategy and interests of the hard-pressed proletariat, and not the other way around.
Our revolutionary working-class Party must stand strong on its own before it can properly lead a broader, multi-class United Front. Otherwise, it will be swamped by less-than-revolutionary elements.
IV. . . . and don’t forget the armed wing!
Ultimately, the imperialist State and its stubborn defenders of exploitation and oppression will have to be fought. This is an uncomfortable fact for some, but a fact, nonetheless. As people looking to progress humanity beyond this dystopic capitalist world, we gotta be sure to think-out the entire process of making revolution from an all-sided and far-sighted perspective, being sure not skim over or brush aside certain aspects that may make liberals squeamish.
At the moment, our struggle in Canada is primarily a legal struggle. The armed (i.e. physical) aspect of our struggle is overall secondary (but not non-existent!; land defense, occupations, blockades, sabotage, etc.). During the revolutionary overthrow of the status quo and seizure of power, the armed component will necessarily be primary. In between now and then, the armed component will periodically (tactically) assume more or less importance depending on the situation and circumstances (the needs of the movement; capabilities of our organized forces; division, instability and/or unpreparedness of the enemy, etc.).
So obviously we shouldn’t attempt some kind of allout war immediately. Yet our revolutionary Party (or Party-in-the-making) still has to build up the proletariat’s fighting capacity early on. From the start, it’s tasked with: educating, training and coordinating cadre; conducting investigations and experiments; developing a Canada-specific revolutionary strategy; sorting out logistical networks and connections, etc. Most pressing is our need to re-discover and normalize secure ways of organizing that limit our use of electronics (spyware), especially for internal affairs. Basically, in regard to the physical component of class struggle, we can’t be naïve and adventurist, but we also can’t be completely ill-prepared and inexperienced.
We gotta struggle for a bolder, truly revolutionary movement in Canada. And right now, that means struggling for a new, bolder, truly revolutionary Communist Party!
- The FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program that they used to attack, discredit, defang and create internal problems within revolutionary organizations in the US during the Sixties. ↩︎