HOLLYWOOD IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

vol. 4, no. 4, September 1st, 2011

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

Don’t miss the latest show! Let’s have first a look at the scenario: the story of a US President in quest for an agreement that will allow his administration to spend more money; well, to increase the debt ceiling. According to the mass media, he needs the support of members of both factions of the Congress, Republicans and Democrats. At first glance, it could give the impression that they are enemies, are they?

“One of America’s strengths immediately following the war (WW2, Ed.) was a degree of domestic consensus surrounding foreign policy. There might have been fierce differences between Republicans and Democrats, but politics usually ended at the water’s edge; professionals, whether in the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, or the CIA, were expected to make decisions based on facts and sound judgment, not ideology or electioneering.” (Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, 2008, p. 338).
(Photo Internet: President Barack Obama at the US Congress, 2010)

Would the plot of this play have been different nowadays? Mr. Obama delivered a statement on July 29, 2011 and said: “What’s clear now is that any solution to avoid default must be bipartisan. […] And today I urge Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to find common ground on a plan that can get support –that can get support from both parties in the House – a plan that I can sign by Tuesday (August 2nd, 2011, Ed.). Now, keep in mind, this is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart.” (BREAKING: President Obama’s Statement on Debt Negotiations, The White House, Washington, 2011).

He added for US citizens’ purpose: “… let your members of Congress know. Make a phone call. Send an email. Tweet.” (Idem). (The White House can be reached at: info@messages.whitehouse.gov)

What was the answer of the organized labor movement? At the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), a 9 million strong trade-union, the leadership, without questioning the US government spending – for instance the military budget- walked in the President’s footsteps and invited its members and asked them: “Can you write polite but firm messages on some or all of these Facebook pages (for example Sen. Scott Brown, Ed.), asking for key Republican senators to pass a clean increase in the debt ceiling so America doesn’t default on its debts?” (ref.; http://www.aflcio.org/)

The U.S. CEOs and representatives of Big Capital can just applaud to this initiative. Let’s recall that war on Afghanistan costs $ 450 billion so far and the recent war on Libya swallows $ 1 billion, even though that the so-called “rebels” were practically in total rout, if it wouldnot have been the support of NATO.

One can understand that US workers need a new type of trade-union movement: a movement for peace, a movement for real jobs'creation. That’s what the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) is all about. Born after WW2 in Paris (France), this 80 million members union is now based in Athens (Greece). They just hold their last Congress in April 2011. They want to deepen their relations with workers of USA and Canada; it won’t replace the AFL-CIO, but give a new impetus to US working people in their struggles on one hand and also reinforce the movement abroad in the fight against US monopolies and multinationals; in a nutshell, the battle against US imperialism. (Photo Internet: Spanish-speaking trade-unionists with George Mavrikos, second from the right, General Secretary of the World Federation of Trade-Unions, WFTU)

A lack of leadership in the labor movement

The Communist Party USA made a fair appreciation of some aspects of the arrangement, “the budget cuts reportedly included in the deal appear to be, thankfully, heavily weighted towards cuts in the military as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq ‘draw down’. This is a sign that the economic crisis has finally helped force a long overdue retrenchment in the U.S. global military profile”. However, their People’s World electronic newsletter wrongly concludes: “It is no doubt true that a Democratic president and Senate prevented a much worse outcome than the current deal. Many have criticized the president for being too soft and weak in negotiations with the Republicans. I (John Case, Ed.), had nearly 20 years’ experience in the labor movement which proved me it’s hard to judge from the outside what is really possible, and what is not, in such bargaining. The balance of forces is hard to evaluate if you are not at the table. Maybe the president gave too much; maybe this is the best outcome possible to avert disaster for now.” (http://peoplesworld.org/debt-ceiling-disaster-postponed-but-not-for-long/ )

The cherry over this opportunist “coating” is the political stand of the General Secretary of the CP USA, Sam Webb: “The president boxed himself into a corner, not because he is a bad negotiator, but because he and his aides made the calculus on the heels of the 2010 elections that his appeal to independent voters, and thus his reelection, depend on his credentials as a ‘responsible fiscal manager’. […] Paul Krugman reminds us that President Roosevelt pursued this course of action in 1937 to disastrous results. Let’s hope that president Obama fares better.” (http://www.peoplesworld.org/debt-deal-is-bad-for-america/) .

Now, what does that mean?! It is in fact the rubber stamp of the US “communists” on capitalist policies. And there is no question of struggling for socialism in USA, of ending ruinous and unfair wars abroad. The Webb and Co.’s so-called communists are not ready to give people- in USA and abroad-, a “break”. Of course, opposition is growing among the rank-and-file members and they are better and better organized; in New York City, they publish a paper bulletin, Ideological Fightback, which talks to the workers and calls for a new leadership in the US communist movement.

On the other hand, AFL-CIO’s general board and executive council members met with President Obama urging him to focus on jobs for the remainder of this first term. “The president, on national television, shifted discussions away from the debt ceiling deal and declared that the priorities for Congress are passage of measures that will stimulate the sputtering economy, including extending the payroll tax suspensions for workers, beefing up benefits for the unemployed and investing in infrastructure projects. […] The recession, which began during presidency of George Bush, saw the economy shrink at an annual rate of 8 percent in the last three months of 2008, just before Obama was sworn in. It shrunk by another 7 percent during his first three months in office.” (http://www.peoplesworld.org/labor-leaders-at-white-house-press-obama-on-jobs/).

At Jobs with Justice’s national conference that took place Aug. 5-7 in Washington, D.C. “workers, students, religious leaders, community activists and many others planned strategies to build a powerful movement of working people to defeat the corporate agenda.” (http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/08/01/join-jobs-with-justices-national-conference-and-fight-back-against-corporate-agenda/).

"When Republican House leaders forced a shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration -FAA, last week (2011-08-05, Ed.), they not only forced the layoff of 4,000 FAA workers, they also put at risk nearly 90,000 construction jobs at airports around the country. […] Republicans blocked temporary funding in an effort to overturn a new rule making union elections among rail and airline workers more democratic.” (http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/07/25/republican-faa-shutdown-costs-4000-jobs-threatens-90000).

Meanwhile, “the unemployment rate for young workers between ages 16 to 24 has skyrocketed as millions of young people have lost jobs and school enrollment has steadily increased over the past decade. The jobless rate nearly doubled among young workers to a peak of 19 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 and has remained high, averaging 17.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared with 6.7 percent for older workers and 9.1 percent for all workers.” (http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/08/01/jobs-crisis-hits-young-workers-hard/print/).

The New York City daily Metro newspaper reported on August 3rd, 2011, a story about veterans going from deployed to unemployed. “Abbas Malik guarded the Green Zone in Iraq, but he can’t get hired as a mall security guard in Staten Island (New York City, Ed.). […] Like Malik, 13 percent of the 17,000 New York City war veterans are now unemployed. That’s higher than the national unemployment rate of 9 percent. […] Malik is considering returning to war just to pay the bills.”

Communists must address the issue and raise the level of political consciousness. Founders of modern communism once said: “We must not make too many concessions to gain popularity; we shall not underestimate the intellect and level of culture of our workers. […] If the working class is not organized well enough to wage a campaign against the collective power, e.g. the ruling classes’ political power, we must, anyway, lead it through continuous agitation against the political attitude of the ruling classes, an attitude hostile to us.” (Marx-Engels, Critique des programmes de Gotha et d’Erfurt, Éditions sociales, Paris, 1966, pp. 92-93, 119).

“American efficiency, on the other hand, is an antidote to ‘revolutionary’ Manilovism and fantastic scheme concocting (we searched the meaning in several textbooks, but we could not find the exact definition; obviously, ”manilovism” is not a compliment, Ed.). American efficiency is that indomitable force which neither knows nor recognizes obstacles, which with its business-like perseverance brushes aside all obstacles; which continues at a task once started until it is finished, even if it is a minor task; and without which serious constructive work is inconceivable. But American efficiency has every chance of degenerating into narrow and unprincipled practicalism if it is not combined with Russian revolutionary sweep.” (Joseph Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975, pp. 111-112). (Photo Internet: The Yalta Conference during WW2, when Soviet Union, USA, Great Britain and France were Allied against Nazi Germany)

Anyhow, the American workers will never remain isolated from the rest of the world. Already, we spoke about the orientation of the WFTU. But we cannot cast away the efforts of many communists around the world (France, Greece, Canada, and USA…) who are on the road to rebuild the Communist International (Comintern), which is the association of communist parties worldwide, to support the struggle of the working class movement to replace capitalism with socialism. Probably several US workers will nod and say: “I’ll drink to that!” Yes, it deserves an honest beer…

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

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

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WORKERS AND YOUTH EVENTS

vol. 4, no. 3, February 15-28, 2011

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

Many thousand young people took part in the political events in Tunisia and Egypt. They said loudly, some died even chanting it: no more! They cannot live like that anymore. Ever more. all around the world youth is restless. They protest in their own way against social injustice, poverty and lack of opportunities; while workers create wealth every minute. Wherever they live, the young people –it seems- want to rediscover the foundations of their national culture and identity, true human feelings, trampled down by the US so-called main stream culture. They enjoy real love stories…

On December 20, 1901, Lenin underscored that “a fortnight ago we observed the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first social-revolutionary demonstration in Russia. [The communists proposed that the] slogan must be: political freedom; and the demand to be put forward by the entire people to be the convocation of the people’s representatives. […] Public unrest is growing everywhere, and more and more imperative becomes the necessity to unify it into one single current directed against the autocracy, which everywhere sows tyranny, oppression, and violence.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1961, volume 5, pages 322-325).

“Why does our society (especially the middle classes, Ed.) not support the students at least in the way the workers have already supported them? After all, the higher educational institutions are attended not by the proletarians’ sons and brothers, and yet the workers in Kiev, Kharkov, and Ekaterinoslav have already openly declared their sympathy with the protesters, despite [the] threats to use armed force against demonstrators.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, volume 6, pages 79-85).

The famous German playwrigth, Bertolt Brecht, enunciated many years later some evidences in one of his plays about modernity and progress: “… the old days are over and this is a new time. For the last hundred years mankind has seemed to be expecting something. Our cities are cramped, and so are men’s minds. Superstition and the plague. But now the word is ‘that’s how things are, but they won’t stay like that’. Because everything is in motion, my friend. […] Each day something fresh is discovered. Men of a hundred, even, are getting the young people to bawl the latest example into their ear. There have been a lot of discoveries, but there is still plenty to be found out. So future generations should have enough to do.” (Bertolt Brecht, Life of Galileo, Methuen Drama, London, 1994, pp. 6-7).
(Photo Internet: German writer and dramatist, Bertolt Brecht)

Québec young generations make great strides in the realm of politics, including teen-agers, who pondered on the above-mentioned events, especially about the uprising in Egypt. Why did it happen? Is it true that they were governed by a dictator? Some television reports from this country let understood that “protesters” were using horses and camels to make their way through along side with the people; who were supposedly acting against Western countries journalists. It was not true, accordingly to Associated Press: those “horsemen» were Mubarak’s regime paid agents to intimidate the masses and the news reporters. (Mubarak has been in power in Egypt since over 30 years, “appointed” by the US authorities, Ed.).

About television

The well-known Italian movie-maker, Roberto Rossellini, talking about television, said that “...we must recall that for great modern currents of thought, expressed, each in its own language, from Christianity to Islam, from Socrates to Karl Marx, the objective, -and the only one- is to help mature human thought. All those trends of thought have a common source. They trust mankind (p. 199). […] Television can bring the ‘direct vision’ of things, men and history to millions and millions of human beings. History teaches us that social changes –that we are condemned to, doomed to live better while evolving towards a richer world-, superseding new ways of thinking. However, these ways of thinking evolve only when one may recapitulate what he knows. To reach this goal, knowledge must be accessible to everybody; everything must be ready to all, and up-graded on a regular basis.
(Photo: the vocational and general college Vieux-Montréal).

In a nutshell, we must make knowledge an even more democratic reality.” (Roberto Rossellini, Un esprit libre ne doit rien apprendre en esclave, Fayard, Paris, 1977, pp. 199-200).

danieleugpaquet@yahoo.ca

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

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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

-30-

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

-30-

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).

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