WORKERS NEED REVOLUTIONARY METHODS

vol. 4, no. 2, February 1-14, 2011

Si vous désirez lire en français: http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/

On January 25th 2011, US President Barack Obama “… called for unity with Republicans, while delivering his speech on the State of the Union […] setting the foundations for the second part of his mandate and the race for his re-election in 2012”. He stressed the need for enterprises tax cutbacks, a lesser role for the government and the need for collaboration of both Republican and Democratic parties in Congress, accordingly to Montréal Métro newspaper, on January 26th.

In Montréal, the message is clear and generally well accepted especially by colored people who still savour the presidential election of an Afro-American citizen to this responsibility; paving the way for Hispanic people, women and non-White people in general.
(Illustration Internet: workers' revolt at Haymarket, USA).

The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), through the voice of its President, Richard Trumka, said in relation with Obama’s proposal for collaboration between Republicans and Democrats, “… we will join the President as partners to help build bipartisan support for a sustained and strategic investment in America’s future”.

He added: “We believe the President is heading in the right direction – but as he outlined tonight, the yardstick must be the health of the middle class and the American economy”. (NOW BLOG, 2011-01-27). Let’s recall that unemployment is currently in the two digits in USA. However, US workers are not urged to action by their union leaders.

“… Where and by whom has it ever been proved that the parliamentary form of struggle is the principle form of struggle of the proletariat (working class, Ed.)? Does not the history of the revolutionary movement show that the parliamentary struggle is only a school for, and an auxiliary in, organizing the extra-parliamentary struggle of the proletariat, that under capitalism the fundamental problems of the working-class movement are solved by force, by the direct struggle of the proletarian masses, their general strike, their uprising? […] Who suggested that the method of the political general strike be substituted for the parliamentary struggle? Where and when have the supporters of the political general strike sought to substitute extra-parliamentary forms of struggle for parliamentary forms?” (Joseph Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975, p. 15).

These matters are going to be discussed at the 16th Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), 80 million members. In fact, US workers should remember their own traditions and history; those years, the years of the Congress of Industrial Organizations were moments of great struggles for a better living, peace and progress in general. Let’s recall the struggles for civil liberties. The US working class can find, within its own history "handbook", what revolutionary methods mean.

As for the International Trade Union Congress, it will take place in Athens (Greece), April 6th-10th, 2011. There will be a delegation from USA and Canada. They will dwell upon common fields of interests with hundreds of more than 120 countries; for instance exchange of information and the need for international solidarity, especially between US and Canadian workers.

Should we not recall that at the beginning of the communist movement, North-American revolutionaries were members of the same American communist parties; then the Communist party of Canada was created in 1921?

As the leader of the first socialist Revolution -that took place in Russia-, Vladimir Lenin, pointed out: “The American people have a revolutionary tradition which has been adopted by the best representatives of the American proletariat, who have repeatedly expressed their complete solidarity with us Bolsheviks. That tradition is the war of liberation against the British (the real Tea Party, Ed.) in the eighteenth century and the Civil War in the nineteenth century."
(Photo: Winnipeg General Strike in Canada, in 1919).

"In some respects, if we only take into consideration the ‘destruction’ of some branches of industry and of the national economy, America in 1870 was behind 1860. But what a pedant, what an idiot would anyone be to deny on these grounds the immense, world-historic, progressive and revolutionary significance of the American Civil War of 1863-65!” (V.I. Lenin, Letter to American Workers, Progress Publisher, Moscow, vol. 28, 1965, pp. 62-75).

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

L'Humanité in English: http://www.humaniteinenglish.com

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QUÉBEC SOLIDAIRE WILL MEET SOON

vol. 4, no. 1, January 2011

Si vous désirez lire en français: http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/

The 6th Congress of Québec solidaire will take place in Montréal, March 25-26-27, 2011. Up to now, discussions will center on Economy, Environment and Labour; delegates will deal as well with tactical agreements foreseeing the coming Québec Elections.

Obviously, there is no room for debates on the place of Québec in the Canadian confederation; the party being –mistakenly- “sovereignist”, e.g. separatist. Most of the voters, choosing this solution to the national problem, will probably prefer the most experienced party on this issue: the Parti Québécois (PQ). While, the overwhelming majority of French Canadians workers are standing for: defense of French language and Québec culture with the control over economy.

As for tactical agreements, it would certainly be erroneous to get along with Parti québécois. It seems that for the Left, the enemy would be the Jean Charest Liberal Party (PLQ). The trade union movement, to mention the Confederation of National Trade Union (CNTU) and the Centre of Québec Trade Unions (CSQ) have decided to attack the government labeled as the Right. Nothing is less sure in the eyes of millions of French-Canadians keen to maintain economical stability; that is in practice the purchasing power, to counter-balance soaring prices: energy, transport, food…
(Photo Michel Faust: MNA Amir Khadir - Québec solidaire and La Vie Réelle Editor Daniel Paquet)

The Economy

The Guardian, published by the Communist Party of Australia (October 13, 2010), explained that “US military spending, direct and indirect, consumes anything from 38 to 50 percent of tax revenues. It has been growing at a rate of around nine percent per annum annually since 2000.”
Already some trade-unionists proposed a return to social-democracy for the Province of Québec, not to underscore the wish of the CNTU.

To the Communist Party of Greece (KKE): “The bourgeois forces which defend capitalism claim that the crisis was caused by “management” policies, the lack of control over the financial system, the overspending of the bourgeois state, the lack of transparency in the exercise of economic policies. The forces of social democracy (our italics, Ed.) and opportunism operate within this ‘administrative’ logic and limit their criticism to neo-liberalism, seeking the solution through the development of the system itself, the regulation of the market. They foster illusions concerning capitalism ‘with a human face’ in order to deceive the workers.”

The sad evidence is the statement of the US trade-union movement after the November 2010 elections in USA, while they back completely, without any criticisms, the Barack Obama Democratic Party: “The two biggest spending groups behind the barrage of attack ads and mailings against Democrats were both founded by Rove and former George W. Bush White House insider Ed Gillespie –American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Combined reports NBC, they spent $38 million.” (AFL-CIO NOW BLOG, 2011-01-09).

Tactical Agreements

It is worthy to remind what Karl Marx wrote about similar accords (between petty-bourgeois party – Parti québécois, and worker’s party, Québec solidaire): “The relation of the revolutionary workers’ party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it marches together with them against the faction which it aims at overthrowing, it opposes them in everything by which they seek to consolidate their position in their own interests. […] Far from desiring to transform the whole of society for the revolutionary proletarians, the democratic petty bourgeoisie strive for a change in social conditions by means of which the existing society will be made as tolerable and comfortable as possible for them.” (Marx-Engels, Collected Works, vol.10, International Publishers, New York, p. 280).

As for the ‘national question’, e.g. the relations between the French Canadians and the English-speaking Canadians, everything is possible, including a new and lasting unity on the basis of political equality and an independent voice for the working people of Québec on issues such as the economic development, energy, immigration… The workers are surely ready for this. Canadians are facing a strong enemy: US imperialism, considering Canada as a source of natural resources (forest, mines, water, oil sands, electricity…) for their industries.

The author of these lines have an experience of over 35 years in the Canadian communist movement and can confirm that amongst workers and progressive youth, this matter of unity, solidarity and respect has always be defended by English-speaking members; it is not a surprise that today some comrades, in British Columbia for instance, send their children to total immersion schooling in French language. The Young Communist League of Canada also attaches a very large importance to the bi-national character of our so vast and beautiful country; the record of the Communists is clear and honest and they should raise it at the coming Québec solidaire Congress.
(Photo Internet: Tim Buck, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Canada, 1929-1962, a staunch fighter for French-Canadians rights).

Naturally, Canadian political parties shall build relations with this young but promising party, Québec solidaire, -of the working people- on an equal footing, a nation to nation relationship. By the way, such an effort has been made in the 1970s between the Québec National Association of Students (ANEQ) and the National Union of Students (NUS)-English-speaking Canada and… it just worked out.

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

Pour la KOMINTERN now!: http://pourlakominternnow.blogspot.com/

L'Humanité in English: http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/

Marxism-Leninism Today (USA): http://mltoday.com/

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BEST WISHES FOR THE YEAR 2011

La Vie Réelle in English, already three years old, extends its best greetings to its 250 readers from Europe, Australia, People’s Republic of China, English-speaking Canada, Cuba, Québec and United States.

It salutes the 10th anniversary of the French La Vie Réelle and the new Pour la KOMINTERN now!

We want to welcome our new friends: Marxism-Leninism Today (USA), U.S. Friends of the Soviet People (New York), The Regina Peace Council, Canadians for Peace and Socialism, the Union des étudiants communistes de France, the Pôle de Renaissance Communiste en France, Northstar Compass, l’Humanité in English (Paris), the Québec solidaire party and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU).

La Vie Réelle in English congratulates the Communist Party of Canada for its 90th Founding Anniversary (1921-2011) which will be a landmark for workers in English-speaking Canada and Québec. The bulletin will support the CPC in the coming federal elections.

La Vie Réelle in English will attend the April 6th-9th 2011's 16th Congress of the WORLD FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS in Athens (Greece), which will orient the work of the federation representing 80 million workers in over 130 countries.
(Photo: Christmas Tree at the Centre l’Échelon in Montréal, the work of the union steward Lise Brochu)

To all of you, La Vie Réelle in English wishes: Peace, Progress and Socialism!

comment: danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

ONE MORE STEP TO THE LEFT

The Canadian youth will benefit from it

vol. 3, no. 12, December 2010

Si vous voulez lire en français: http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/

You will find at the end the link to L'Humanité in English, a selection of articles published in the communist daily newspaper L'Humanité, in Paris (France).

There would not be something more stupid than this writer not recognizing that he makes a real mistake. There is a petition circulating in Québec demanding the step-down of Liberal Premier Jean Charest for not considering the need of a public inquiry into financial contributions to political parties and contracts given to private corporations for governments’ public services in return.

The Québec Federation of Labour (500 000 members) presses also the government to do so. It is also an about-face for the current Editor. The critics against this people’s demand were first published in Pour la KOMMITERN now!

The communists must not allow themselves to stay behind the mood of the population. In English-speaking Canada, the newspaper of the Communist party, People’s Voice report: the Calgary citizens are facing the rampage of neo-Nazis; in Vancouver, people are opposed to closing schools and defend altogether the public education in British Columbia. Still in Western Canada, the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour will be mobilizing to defeat the reactionary policies of the provincial government. In Manitoba, the Communist Party has a candidate in the Winnipeg North federal by-election, an important riding in the history of the Communist party since the 1919 General Strike.

(Photo Internet: Winnipeg- Western Canada, General Strike in 1919).

In Ontario, US Steel locked out the 900 workers and 9000 retirees (in Hamilton), but the working people remember the historic 1946 strike which helped bring the Rand Formula and the closed shop to Canada.

In Québec, the workers are feeling for a change. They tried the Parti québécois for a very long period. They did the same thing with the Liberal Party. They gave its chance to the Action démocratique du Québec that was propelled to the rank of official opposition. Now they have David facing Goliath. David is Amir Khadir, the sole representative of the party Québec solidaire, one out of 125 deputies in the National Assembly. But the overall impression: he is de facto the main workers' opposition to the government. He is really full of energy and it is encouraging for the working people.

Most likely, there will be inroads in the island of Montréal in the coming elections. The communists take part to the development of Québec solidaire as individual members. La Vie Réelle will contribute through its friends, who speak several languages, to outreach the immigrants living in the Québec metropolis. While there are 7, 8 million inhabitants in Québec, half of them live in this city.

The French-Canadian working class is well-educated, disciplined, experienced and self-confident. The workers are no more afraid of scams and bogies.

The proof: Amir Khadir as a Left-oriented Québec solidaire deputy seating with the communist La Vie Réelle Editor during a meeting with journalists.

(Photo: From left to right, Cécile Deschamps, guest; Québec solidaire deputy, Amir Khadir and Daniel Paquet, La Vie Réelle in English Editor).

In Québec, almost everybody is looking towards the future, which is no more dreadful and worrying.

Canada today, United States will follow on…

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

Pour la KOMINTERN now!, http://pourlakominternnow.blogspot.com

L'Humanité in English: http://www.humaniteinenglish.com

Marxism-Leninism Today (USA): http://MLToday.com

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ALEA JACTA EST

THE WORKING CLASS IS CONDEMNED TO LIBERTY, SAYS HISTORY


vol. 3, no. 11, November 16-30, 2010

Si vous voulez lire en français: http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/

You will find at the end the link to L'Humanité in English, a selection of articles from the daily communist newspaper published in Paris (France).

« For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night… (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Penguin Books, Toronto, 1969, p. 37).

Workers in general are seduced by Nature, People and Beauty. They stand for world peace and progress. It’s probably why Québec Colleges students are so fond of the french poet, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), a prolific one in its early youth. He lived through the Commune de Paris, in 1871. He had opinions : here is Le dormeur du val, The Valley Sleeper,

« Un soldat jeune, bouche ouverte, tête nue,
Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,
Dort ; il est étendu dans l’herbe, sous la nue,
Pâle dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.
[…]
Les parfums ne font pas frissonner sa narine ;
Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine,
Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit. »

A young soldier, mouth opened, head naked,
Nape bathing in the fresh blue watercress,
Sleeps ; he is lying in the grass, under the skies,
Pale in this green bed where Light rains.
[…]
Perfumes do not move his nostril ;
He sleeps within the sun, the hand over his chest, Quiet. He has two red holes on his right side.
(Image Internet: La Commune de Paris, le premier état des ouvriers au monde, en 1871).

Wars are a source of « big money » for multinationals, such as former US vice-president Dick Cheneys’ Haliburton Corp. Those international mnopolies are always looking for new sources of profits. Now, they channel their efforts through « friendly » governments against the working people « in order to make those attacks on workers’rights in public administration (Education, Social Security and Health, Ed.). European governments are trying to convince the public that civil servants are a privileged stratum and the main culprit for the state’s deficit.

[…] So, they increase job insecurity, they increase the minimum age for retirement, they devaluate pensions, they reduce the purchasing power of workers, they lower or freeze salaries ; they destroy career oppportunities, they cut paid holiday and Christmas bonuses… » (Reflects, World Federation of Trade Unions, Athens, October 2010, #2, p. 7).
(World Federation of Trade Unions Logo. The 16th Congress will take place in Athens, April 6-9, 2011).

But, as states character Galileo in one of Brecht’s play : « As a young man in Siena I watched a group of building workers argue for five minutes, then abandon a thousand-year old method of shifting granite blocks in favour of a new and more efficient arrangement of ropes. [Further, he affirms that] everyone declares : right, that’s what it says in the books, but let’s have a look for ourselves. That most solemn truths are being familiarly nudged ; what was never doubted before is doubted now. » (idem, p. 7), Bertolt Brecht, Life of Galileo, Methuen Student Edition, Toronto, 1988, p. 7).

« A human race which shambles around in a pearly haze of superstition and old saws, too ignorant to develop its own powers, will never be able to develop these powers of nature which you people are revealing to it. To what end are you working ? Presumably for the principle that sciences sole aim must be to lighten te burden of human existence… » (p. 108).

Petty bourgeoisie and society


But we cannot take the human race as one entity set in the stone. We live in a class-divided society. In Québec, the most important class in number and influence is the petty bourgeoisie. Here is what Marx’s comrade, Engels, wrote in 1849 : « It is not unlikely that the petty bourgeoisie, if left to its own devices, would have gone outside the legal framework of lawful, peaceful and virtuous struggle and taken up the musket and the paving-stone in place of the so-called weapons of the spirit. The history of all political movements since 1830 in Germany, as in France and England, shows that this class is invariably full of bluster and loud protestations, at times even extreme as far as talking goes, as long as it perceives no danger ; faint-hearted, continues and calculating as soon as the slightest danger approaches ; aghast, alarmed and wavering as soon as the movement it provoked is seized upon and taken up seriously by other classes, treacherous to the whole movement for the sake of its petty bourgeois existence as soon as there is any questions of a struggle with weapons in hand – and in the end, as a result of its indecisiveness, more often than not cheated and ill-treated as soon as the reactionary side has achieved victory. » (Marx-Engels, Collected Works, Volume 10. International Publishers, New York, 1978, p. 150).

When they wrote The Communist Manifesto the year before (1848), they included a chapter on the Petty Bourgeois socialism : « In countries where modern civilization has become fully developed, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie and even renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. » (Marx-Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Washington Square Press, New York, 1977, pp. 99-100).
(Photo Internet: Karl Marx)

Consequently, they developed their own school of socialism. « This school of socialism dissected with great acuteness the contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labor, the concentration of capital and land in a few hands, over-production and crisis, it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty-bourgeois and farmer, the misery of proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities.

In its positive aims however, this form of socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations and the old society or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both reactionay and Utopian. » (ibidem, pp. 100-101).

The October Revolution and the petty bourgeoisie

(Photo Internet: Lénine haranguant les révolutionnaires en Russie).
Once the Communists took the power in Russia, during the 1917 October Revolution, they had, in the words of Lenin, to face the sitution where : « It was not the State Capitalism which was opposed to socialism but petty bourgeoisie and private capitalism that were struggling, side by side, against State Capitalism and socialism. Petty bourgeoisie opposed itself to State intervention, inventory and control, either from State capitalism or State socialism . » (Lénine, Œuvres, tome 27, Éditions sociales, Paris, 1980. P. 351).

Soviet leaders soon concluded that this experience had to be shared with comrades and friends abroad. The US marxist, James Connolly, underlined in one of his essay, Stalin on Socialist Construction : « Internationalist responsibility also included educating comrades abroad in the basics of Marxism-Leninism and elevating their level of understanding : Stalin remarks on the inadequate level of Marxist development of the majority of the Communist parties abroad’. Compared with the ‘inadequate’ level of Marxist development during Stalin’s time, the level of development at the present time, when revisionism predominates in many Communist parties, appears positively abysmal, » (pp. 8-9).

But, as said the famous french communist poet, Paul Éluard (1895-1952), in support of the Stalin government and the Resistance against Hitler and Nazi Germany :
« Et par le pouvoir d’un mot
Je recommence ma vie
Je suis né pour te connaître
Pour te nommer

Liberté. »

« And with the power of one word
I start my life all over again
I was born to know you
To name you

Liberty. »

(Photo Internet: la Résistance française, des femmes et des hommes).

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

Pour la KOMINTERN now!, http://pourlakominternnow.blogspot.com/

L'Humanité in English: http://www.humaniteinenglish.com

THERE IS HOPE FOR A FUTURE

vol. 3. no. 10, November 1-15, 2010

Si vous désirez lire en français: http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/

You will find below the link to l'Humanité in English, a selection of articles from the daily communist newspaper published in Paris (France).

Guess what, we will start with bad news and end up with optimism and hope for a future!

“A paternalistic concern for ‘what’s going to happen to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq’ without the U.S. occupying their countries shows how far imperialist assumptions have infected sections of the US peace movement. [...] On the other hand, the U.S. Peace Council, affiliated with the World Peace Council -the largest peace movement on earth-, distributed at a peace meeting in Washington (October 3rd , 2010) a statement that says grosso modo: ‘We must foreground the demand for an immediate unconditional end to the U.S. occupation wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. The trillions of dollars devoted to war industry profits feed more than 1,000 extraterritorial U.S. military bases around the world as well as U.S. and U.S.-backed occupation and wars against Palestine, Colombia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Somalia and Yemen, threats to Iran and Democratic Korea, and the deployment of Special Operations forces in a total of about 75 countries...”

The US Marxist writer, James Connolly, wrote that “Stalin, interestingly, [believed] that ‘it is possible that in a definite conjuncture of circumstances,’ the fight for peace’ will develop here or there’ into a fight for socialism. [...] ‘a movement for the overthrow of capitalism.’ In any case, the peace movement’s anti-militarism opposes the war industry, ‘the “business” best adapted to the extraction of the maximum profit’. The peace movement therefore, even without Marxist-Leninist leadership, objectively tends to undermine modern monopoly capitalism – as long as the peace movement [...] consistently and vigorously objects to imperialist aggression.” (J.V. Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (1952).
(Photo Internet: Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union).

The CPUSA’s electronic bulletin People’s World reported (October 27th, 2010), in relation to the so-called US hawks, pervading the USA in the 1980s, “right-wing extremists and the most reactionary sections of monopoly and financial capital ganged up against the working class, racially oppressed, women, youth, seniors, and other social groups”, the core of the peace movement then and now.

Those were the years of Ronald Reagan era; People’s World goes on: “The wealth of the top income tiers ballooned, while income for the lower tiers either stagnated or plummeted”.

In 2008, President Obama was elected; democratic-minded people and movements backed him. It was the victory of a “loose coalition of diverse forces”. Speaking of two visions about the power at White House, the journal says: “which vision will come out on top and when that will happen is not clear”.

One thing is sure: the CPUSA’s leadership does not intend to fight on its own to advance new policies for the working class.

USA is a typical capitalist country

As stated in the New York City Metro, “since resigning as speaker of the House 11 years ago, Newt Gingrich, the most powerful Republican, has officially been a private citizen...” Speaking about US history, he hammers out: “Following World War II, the left in America romanticized about many ideas put forth by Moscow, and turned a blind eye to the fact that Stalin has already slaughtered millions of his own people and was now subjugating much of Eastern Europe. Just four years later, the Soviets detonated a nuclear weapon...”

Of course, he is lying and exaggerating. Everybody knows that USA was the first power to use the atomic bomb, against Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the WWII, while Japan was already on the verge to capitulate without it. In describing Stalin, Gingrich uses the old Nazi clichés.
(Photo Internet: Newt Gingrich is using the classical clichés of the Nazi regime about Soviet Union; here is "maybe" his favourite mentor on the far right, Adolf Hitler, accompanied by Joseph Goebbels on the left).

In fact, he is more concerned with the well-being of the U.S. well-to-do. He pursues: “Republican candidates must continue to explain their plans for [cutting taxes] and reforming government”.

In February or March 2011, we will know if he runs for President in 2012.

The electronic journal Change.org informed us that a rally was organized in Washington, DC at the end of October whose “aim is to show the country that when it comes to politics and civic discourse, the majority of Americans are interested in sane, calm discussion rather than shrill, angry shouting.”

On the other hand, the Fed declared the same day that the authorities will inquiry in the manner that mortgage societies expelled from their homes, people unable to face financial obligations. This is no joke; so many people just don’t find a job. “The national unemployment rate remained unchanged for September, at 9.6%, according to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on October 8, 2010. Approximately 14.8 million workers are without jobs as the economy continues slow growth.”

In terms of money, those are the charts (in June 30, 2009) in thousands of dollars for total deposits: a) Bank of America, 817,989,321; b) JP Morgan Chase Bank, 618,124,000; c) Wachovia Bank, 394, 189,004; d) Wells Fargo Bank, 325,417,000; e) Citibank, 265,947,879. And the list is long and impressive.

Now, we could overview the situation of General Motors. The New York Times (October 26th, 2010) recalls that: “For most of the 20th century [it] was the biggest company in the most important industry in the world.” During the bankruptcy process, “the [US] federal government holds nearly 61 percent of the new company, with the Canadian government, a health care trust for the United Auto Workers union and bondholders owning the balance. [...] In April 2010, G.M. repaid its government loan, as sign things could be turning around. Soon afterward, it said it earned $865 million in the first quarter, its first profit since 2007, with revenue up 40 percent, to $31.5 billion, and a positive cash flow of $1 billion. In June, GM increased output at most of its American operations. Sustaining this progress, G.M. said in August that it earned $1.3 billion in the second quarter, its strongest financial performance since 2004.”

For the CPUSA’s current leaders, the workers may reckon on the Obama Democratic Party. But the New York City Metro reported, always at the end of October, that “Democratic Senate candidate and current West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin has said he didn’t fully understand the bill (on Health Care, Ed.) at time of passing. Stammering out a hasty retreat, Manchin explained his concerns: ‘Knowing the existence as far as how reaching it had been, as far as – and onerous- I would have [voted against it], he said’”.

The last word belongs to People’s World: “French workers angry about pensions and more”. The author notes that labour and left activists’ protest in France goes beyond the issue of pension reform. In fact, “polls show that if the election were held today the left would win”.

There are two conclusions here: first, the CPUSA should not be afraid to stress that the labour and left activist are united in the“Intersyndicale”

(All-Unions Movement) that gathers major unions, including the communist-led General Confederation of Labour (CGT). The unions are supported by political parties and movements such as the French Communist Party and the Pôle de Renaissance communiste en France (Communist Renewal in France).
(Photo PCF: October 2010 Demonstration in Paris, France).

The other lesson: the CPUSA must come back on the forefront of the US workers’ battles for jobs, decent housing and racial equality between Black and White workers; and this is the basic starting point for the working class movement in USA; a country as capitalist as anywhere else in the world.

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

L'Humanité in English

Pour la KOMINTERN now!: http://pourlakominternnow.blogspot.com

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SOVIET UNION WAS BORN IN OCTOBER 1917

vol. 3, no. 9, October 16-31, 2010

Si vous voulez lire en français: http://www.laviereelle.blogspot.com/

You will find below the link to l'Humanité in English, a selection of articles from the daily communist paper published in Paris (France).

In 1850, Frederick Engels, the close friend to Karl Marx wrote: “Modern large-scale industry can only exist provided it expands incessantly, continually conquers new markets”. (K. Marx/F. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 10, International Publishers, New York, 1978, p. 295). In our today's world, we face financial corporations, such as the Canadian banks (BMO, TD, etc.) who cannot satisfy their quench for profits. In their case, sky is the limit. Any people opposed to their ever-lasting domination of new territories and populations become an enemy;
recently mass media criticized the Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez for that purpose. Of course, Cuba remains a target. To avoid opponents at home, they urge Stephen Harper to repel democratic rights, especially those claimed by the young generation; we saw it in Toronto at the G-20 meeting, last summer, when the police brutalized and arrested over 900 youngsters. For some, it was their first contact with political "freedoms" in Canada.

At the outcome of these demonstrations, taking into account the agenda of the Conservative party of Canada, La Vie Réelle in English called upon the democrats, especially the working people to support a centrist government to promote what we already knew about Canada at a better time, when the working class was stronger, better organized, led by progressive and communists. We don’t live anymore in this “lost” paradise. The dire reality is that Stephen Harper wants to transform the “cool guy attitude” of Canada into a reactionary one, maybe with the fist of a police state; basically, the dream of a state where tycoons of all sorts, -big industrialists and large corporations- would be free to do what they want into a Canada, further divided by the national question.
(Photo PCF/Bagneux: Demonstration in Paris, against the reforms of the French government against the pension plan. The police did not intervene against the young protesters, Fall 2010).

This is nowadays easier for the Right to aggress the youth since the Communist party of Canada is still recovering from inner disputes, factions’ fights and reformism. At an earlier period, the Party could have reckon on international solidarity; what the communists call “proletarian internationalism”, especially based on the support of socialists countries. The biggest rampart was then the Soviet Union, cherished by most of the conscious workers the world over.

Soviet Union

In 2007, on behalf of the Communist party of Ireland, Herman Glaser-Baur, told that after the October Revolution in Russia, in 1917, “this new situation led to conditions under which the working class in the capitalist countries was able to successfully fight for rights previously unknown. All aspects of the ‘social system’ of today such as a national health system, public education, a fixed retirement age, culture for the working class, etc. were first realised in the socialist state and the capitalists and their governments had to make concessions to the struggle of the working class.”

He made the point that “many Communist parties were founded and the 3rd International established (1919). “The Communist party of Canada was founded in 1921 in Guelph, in the vicinity of Toronto (Ontario).

Let's recall also that during WW2, the Red Army defeated the Werhmacht at Stalingrad. As said the German communist leader, Ernst Thälmann: “Stalin is going to break Hitler’s neck”.

To be honest, La Vie Réelle in English does not pretend to defend political crimes, but on the other hand, it is correct and needed that History assesses some facts, concrete facts, like the contribution of Joseph Stalin in the victory over Nazism in 1945 and the rapid economical development of Soviet Union, the growth of the purchasing power of the citizens and the real amelioration of their well-being.
(Photo Internet: Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin)

Who could say, everywhere in the world, that under powerful pressures such as the ones imposed upon the Soviet government, practically always in a state of exception and emergency, - since its inception-, no errors and unfortunately... crimes would not be made. Actually, the data of the Western scientists on this period are wrong according to the National Archives of Soviet Union opened now for all to see. In spite the continuous flow of propaganda against Stalin since the 1930s, practically only bourgeois and petty-bourgeois are scared by his leadership and determination. On the other hand, it was reported in 2008, that 300 000 homeless people were “living” in Poland, while the Czechs had to struggle against US military bases to be installed on their territory. This year the International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People marked the 93rd Anniversary of Great October Revolution. At that time, 177 million people were living in Soviet Union and this number reached 360 millions in the 1980s; the official and open counter-revolution occurred by those years.

Today, new organizations are born to promote understanding between peoples, notably between Canada, USA and USSR, gathered in a Friendship Society. The Chairman, Michael Lucas explained: “We function as an united front organization to help unify, consolidate and coordinate the anti-imperialist forces of the world with the ongoing world movement to restore the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Our aim is international cooperation in building socialism and solidarity with all anti-imperialist forces struggling against imperialism, headed by U.S. imperialism.”

In Fall 2011, an international conference will take place in Beograd (Serbia) to reassess the situation in the former Soviet Union by participants from all around the world, including Canada. As the French say goes: "tant qu'il y a de la vie, il y a de l'espoir..."

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

L'Humanité in English

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