This article is the editorial for issue #6 of Communist Revolution. Now in newsprint, the new Communist Revolution has more room for news, analysis, theory and contributions from our readers! Subscribe here!
On the weekend of May 18-20, the founding congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party was held. Nearly 400 communists gathered in Montreal to begin the work of preparing the communist revolution in Canada and Quebec.
Driven by the same sense of urgency, we founded the RCP because this work cannot wait. Every day, the crisis of capitalism brings more and more people to the realization that the system must be overthrown. There is a ferment in the consciousness of millions, as the impasse of capitalism becomes ever more keenly felt.
Revolution is looming on the horizon, and communists must be ready.
We must be armed with a mass party capable of leading the coming revolution to victory.
A society in decay
Capitalism is a system in complete decay. Public services are collapsing. Tent cities are springing up. Workers are crushed by skyrocketing grocery costs and are unable to find a place to live. Human misery, destitution, and drug addiction are on display for all to see in the downtown areas of major cities, right alongside luxury stores and cars.
It has become normal that every summer, entire towns and villages are evacuated due to forest fires caused by climate change – climate change itself caused by the greed of the oil barons who rule us.
Behind this situation lies an economy on its last legs. Canada’s GDP per capita is about to hit its lowest level in 40 years.
Capitalists have closed factory after factory and stopped investing in the development of production. Their absurd system leads them instead to put their money into the casino economy and to hoard housing in order to speculate on the real estate market. The manufacturing economy now only develops to the extent that the state offers billion-dollar gifts to open factories that will create a handful of jobs.
No wonder no one trusts the politicians who presided over this mess. Indeed, if Poilièvre and his Conservative Party are leading in the polls, it’s mainly because the outgoing Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is even more hated.
Yet the traditional leaders of the working class, in the NDP and at the head of the unions, remain totally apathetic in the face of this catastrophe. They’ve abandoned any idea of challenging the power of the ultra-rich, and prefer to get a few crumbs from the bourgeois table, in the form of MP seats or well-paid jobs as union bureaucrats. But they can’t keep misleading workers for much longer. Sooner or later, workers’ anger will surge. The leadership of the labour movement will have to ride the wave, or be swept away by it.
The struggle is international
The picture painted here is repeated all over the world, with only minor variations. But in some countries, we’re already seeing pure horror.
At the time of writing, social networks are full of blood-curdling images of Israeli bombardments of displaced persons’ camps in Rafah, Gaza. Several dozen people have been burned alive in totally gratuitous attacks on defenseless civilians. Absolutely unbearable is the footage showing beheaded children.
The nightmare has been going on in Gaza for over seven months, with the support of our ruling class. In the last words of Aaron Bushnell, who set himself on fire to denounce this genocide, this is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.
And this horror is far from being confined to Gaza alone. In fact, more than 30 countries are affected by war and civil war.
The backdrop is the decline of the American Empire, and the emergence of rival powers such as China and Russia. Emerging powers are becoming more aggressive in conquering spheres of influence, natural resources, and new markets. In return, American imperialists and their allies such as Canada cling fiercely to their past conquests.
We are thus entering an era of increasing conflict, as in the China Sea, of proxy wars, as in Ukraine and Africa, and of trade wars.
For workers here, this will mean more inflation and instability. Already, the American ruling class has chosen the path of protectionism against China, which will further increase the cost of living for workers here.
The imperialists who rule us have nothing to offer but war, misery, and instability. There is no escape for any worker. Capitalism is a global system.
It’s dragging us down to the abyss. It must be fought and overthrown on a global scale. That’s why the Revolutionary Communist Party is joining in the founding of a new international, the Revolutionary Communist International. Workers everywhere must unite to overthrow their exploiters everywhere.
We have begun the fight for communism
The enormous anger against the status quo that’s been simmering could explode at any moment. The spark could come from anywhere. But Communists can’t simply wait for that moment. On the contrary, the relative calm that prevails is in fact a blessing in disguise. It gives us time to prepare.
There’s no time to waste. Preparations for the coming revolution are happening now.
The RCP has doubled its strength since last year, from around 400 to over 800 members. But this is still far too little to hope to play a significant role in Canadian and Quebec politics. We’re still only at the stage of creating the skeleton of a real mass communist party. We’re recruiting the first thousands of communists. These thousands will become the cadres who will recruit the hundreds of thousands who will form this party.
This means that our two main tasks are to win more people over to communism and organize them in the party, and then to educate them in the ideas of Marxism so that they themselves are capable of convincing other layers of workers to join the struggle. Our personal education in Marxist theory and the history of the workers’ movement is particularly crucial at this stage.
The struggle for communist revolution has already begun. All communists reading this article must understand that they have a duty to take part immediately in these efforts by joining and building the RCP.
