0ur revolution in Canada is closely linked to the development of the international situation. The evolution of the different forces in action outside our boundaries have a direct impact on the action the Canadian working class must take.
Our party practices proletarian internationalism and fully supports the just struggles of the working class and oppressed people around the world. The working class and oppressed people have a common interest in supporting all struggles against imperialism, oppression and all forms of reaction.
Lenin summed this up in his famous slogan: “Workers of all countries, oppressed peoples and nations unite!”
We are living in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution. The world entered this era with the development of monopoly capitalism at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
Under imperialism the world is divided between a handful of imperialist powers who dominate the globe and the mass of oppressed peoples fighting for their liberation. It is an era of wars and revolutions, a period of decadent capitalism and nascent socialism.
As long as imperialism continues to exist, wars are inevitable. Already there have been two world wars in this century. The various imperialist powers develop unevenly: some are on the rise while others grow weaker and decline. Since the world has already been divided among great powers it is only through war that these vultures can redivide their spoils to match the change in their relative strengths.
There are four basic contradictions that characterize imperialism:
• between the oppressed nations on the one hand, and imperialism and social-imperialism, on the other;
• between the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist and revisionist countries;
• between the imperialist countries and social-imperialism and between the imperialist countries themselves;
• between the socialist countries, and imperialism and social-imperialism.
The development of these four contradictions lies at the basis of the events that are shaking the world today.
Imperialism means not just intensified exploitation of the proletariat in the developed countries, but also the enslavement of the masses in the countries that are oppressed, colonized and bullied by the imperialist powers. These oppressed peoples and nations rise up to throw off imperialism and liberate themselves from domination. They are a valuable ally for the proletariat.
This alliance between the international working class and the oppressed peoples and nations is a mighty weapon in the fight to overthrow this reactionary world system.
Today, the two superpowers, US imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, are locked in a fierce struggle to see who shall dominate the world. Their rivalry has extended to every corner of the globe. One day it will provoke a new world war.
Today, the most important class struggle on the international level is between the superpowers and the peoples of the world.
This present situation has come about through a long period of historical development. It is the result of important transformations in the world situation since the opening of the era of imperialism.
World War I and the triumph of the October Revolution in Russia led to the outbreak of the general crisis of imperialism. The imperialist system was severely weakened by the war and by the creation of the first socialist state, which became a beacon to the workers and oppressed peoples.
Since the outbreak of this general crisis, the peoples of the world have continued to win victories. By the end of the Second World War, China, as well as many countries in Eastern Europe, had all liberated themselves from the rule of capital. A powerful socialist camp emerged.
In the thirty years since the war, the vast majority of the countries of the third world, the former colonial and semi-colonial dependencies, have won their independence. More than 80 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have won their independence. Today these countries, which account for 70% of the world’s population, have emerged as a powerful force in world affairs.
US imperialism, the dominant imperialist power at the end of the Second World War, is now in decline. Rocked by the rising struggles of the working class and oppressed nationalities internally, and severely weakened by the successful national liberation struggles in the third world, US imperialism can no longer have everything its own way.
On the other hand, the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death, and Khrushchev’s seizure of power in 1956, was a grave setback for the world revolution. It led to the revisionist domination over Eastern Europe, the consolidation of a world-wide revisionist current, and the later emergence of the USSR as a social-imperialist power, and the disintegration of the socialist camp.
It was Chairman Mao Zedong who analyzed the profound changes that had taken place on the international scene since the Second World War and developed his theory of the division of the world into three. The three worlds theory is a major strategic concept to guide our fight. It provides a clear orientation for the revolutionary struggles of the world, identifying who are the main enemies on the world level, and how to go about defeating them.
The two superpowers, the USA and USSR, are the main enemies of the world’s peoples. And it is the peoples and countries of the third world who are the most determined opponents of the superpowers.
The developed capitalist countries of the second world are intermediate elements that can be won over to the fight against superpower hegemonism.
Chairman Mao showed that the upheavals in the world today are a positive thing and attest to the continuing progress of the people’s revolutionary struggles; but the danger of a new world war is increasing rapidly.
We call the USA and the USSR superpowers because they are so much more powerful than any of the other imperialist countries. Only they have extended their domination to nearly every corner of the globe, bullying and exploiting small and medium-sized countries. The two superpowers have enormous standing armies, with thousands of troops stationed on foreign soil and huge atomic arsenals. Today among the imperialist countries, only the two superpowers can dream of dominating the world. Only the two superpowers could unleash a new world war.
Of the two, it is Soviet social-imperialism that is the most dangerous, and the principal source of war.
The USSR first revealed itself to the eyes of the world as an imperialist power when it sent half a million Warsaw Pact troops to invade Czechoslovakia in 1968. Since then the Soviet Union has stepped up its penetration into every continent. It has fomented coups in various countries, like South Yemen and Afghanistan in 1978. It has sent its Cuban mercenaries to Angola, to Ethiopia and Eritrea, and has supported Vietnam’s invasion of Kampuchea. It has strengthened its hold on Eastern Europe through COMECON and the Warsaw Pact. More than 700,000 Soviet troops are stationed on foreign soil.
The USSR is the rising superpower, young and aggressive. The late-comer to the imperialist feast, the Soviet Union, is pushing for a new division of the world.
The USSR is a fascist dictatorship where the working people and the oppressed nationalities are denied even the most elementary democrats rights. The fascist dictatorship and the highly centralized system of state monopoly capitalism in the Soviet Union allows the new czars to speed up their war preparations. Over 20% of the USSR’s income goes to military expenditures – more than in Hitler’s Germany before World War II.
Soviet social-imperialism disguises itself under the mantle of socialism to fool the world’s peoples. It also uses its revisionist parties in different countries around the world as its agents.
The USA is on the strategic defensive. But it remains a vicious exploiter of the people.
US imperialism has enormous interests around the world. It is actively meddling in regions all over the globe. For a long time it has considered Latin America and Canada as its backyard. The 1973 coup that established the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile with the imprisonment and slaughter of thousands of Chilean patriots was a typical product of US imperialism.
Nevertheless, the USA has fallen a long way from the position of unrivalled dominance it held at the end of World War II. It has suffered serious military defeats as a result of the heroic struggles of the peoples of China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea. Its reactionary policies have clearly been exposed before the world’s peoples.
Economically, its situation has declined with the rise of the third-world peoples’ struggles and the growth of the West European capitalist powers. It produced 61% of the world’s steel in 1948, but only 32% in 1968. It held 73% of the world’s gold reserves in 1949, but 20 years later it had only 28%.
Faced with the rapid rise of Soviet social-imperialism, the USA has been hard pressed. Within the US monopoly bourgeoisie there has arisen an appeasement trend. Afraid of the growing military might of the USSR, this fraction of the US bourgeoisie wants to capitulate to Soviet ambitions, believing this will satisfy the USSR’s hegemonic designs and keep it quiet.
History has shown that appeasement simply encourages aggression. Seeing the hesitation of the US superpower, the Soviet Union is moving more boldly.
Today, both superpowers are getting ready for war. Despite all the talk of “detente,” both these monsters are frantically arming for war. Despite all the so-called “arms limitations agreements,” their arsenals have never ceased to expand. The USSR has surpassed the US in conventional weapons and is pulling ahead of the US in nuclear arms.
The strategic focus of their contention is Europe. It is here that the bulk of their armed forces are concentrated. The USSR has more than 2 million troops in Europe. The USA had 330,000 in 1978. Europe – with its developed productive forces (second only to those of the USA), its large population (671 million), and skilled work force – would be the key that would allow either superpower to pursue its ambition of world domination.
The superpowers’ contention in other regions, such as in the oil-rich Middle East, is above all oriented towards their rivalry in Europe.
The third world is made up of the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and other regions. In the past, these countries were seized by the European imperialist powers and reduced to colonies and semi-colonies. But after prolonged struggle the vast majority of the three billion people of the third world have overthrown their colonial masters and achieved independence.
Today, they continue a protracted struggle against persisting imperialist domination and interference.
The people and countries of the third world are the principal force that opposes imperialism, colonialism and especially the hegemonism of the two superpowers.
The third world was formed and has developed through the fusion of the two great revolutionary movements of our time; the struggle for socialist revolution, and the fight for national liberation. The socialist countries like China and Korea belong to the third world and are playing a leading role in the struggle against imperialism and hegemonism.
In many third-world countries like Thailand, Burma and the Philippines, the peoples are advancing under the leadership of Marxist-Leninist parties to make the new democratic revolution. Their aim is to overthrow the reactionary local cliques and imperialism in their countries, and open the road to socialism.
The national liberation struggles of the Palestinian people, as well as of the peoples of Zimbabwe, Azania and Namibia, strike fear into the hearts of the imperialists.
All third-world peoples and countries who continue to fight to consolidate their independence contribute to weakening imperialism.
In recent years, the third-world countries have set up several raw material producers’ associations, like OPEC, and trade groups to counter imperialist exploitation. The third world has stood for the liquidation of all remaining imperialist domination and for the establishment of a new world economic order based on equal exchange.
Increasingly the third-world countries are rising up in struggle against the two superpowers.
Third-world countries have fought for the 200-mile offshore limit, for nuclear weapon-free zones, and against superpower intervention in their affairs.
Different countries of the third world are more or less consistent in their opposition to the superpowers, depending on the relationship of class forces within the country and the nature of their government. However, as a whole, the third world is uniting ever more firmly to oppose superpower hegemonism.
Today, the peoples and countries of the third world are a powerful force that is moving forward the course of world history.
The developed capitalist countries like the European countries, Japan, Canada and so on make up the second world. The countries of the second world maintain exploitative relations with other countries, particularly the third world, but also are subject to the bullying of the two superpowers.
The secondary imperialist powers like Britain, Canada and Japan still have important imperialist interests around the world and exploit and oppress other peoples. Some still maintain colonies, like France and Great Britain in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean.
Within the second-world countries, the proletariat is fighting back as the capitalist crisis worsens. It is gathering its forces in its struggle for socialist revolution.
The lesser imperialist powers find themselves in a particular position. On the one hand, the successes of the revolutionary struggles of the peoples of the third world have eliminated the vast majority of their colonial possessions. The second-world powers are forced to deal increasingly with the developing countries on a basis of equality. On the other hand, they are subjected to increased bullying and intimidation on the part of the two superpowers.
Over the past period, second-world countries have been strengthening their unity. The European Economic Community (the Common Market) has served to combat superpower influence in Western Europe, while of course also being an instrument of West European monopoly capital to crush the European people.
The bourgeoisies of the second world are led to oppose the superpowers because they wish to defend their own interests. Nevertheless, the countries of the second world constitute a force that can be won over to the struggle against the superpowers.
To defeat the superpowers, we must form the broadest possible united front of the peoples and countries of the world, including the peoples of the USA and the USSR.
The peoples, and countries of the third world will play the principal role in this united front. It is the socialist countries and the international working class that will play the leading role. And the countries of the second world can be won to the fight against superpower hegemonism.
The international working-class movement has always had as its goal to strike the decisive blow against the leading imperialist powers and unite all the forces possible to achieve this.
Hitting the main imperialist giants serves to weaken the entire imperialist system. If you remove the strongest pillar, it cannot but help damage the whole structure. For instance, during the Second World War, the peoples of the world united against fascism and defeated this dreadful menace. Later, US imperialism was the target of the united front. Today it is against the two superpowers that we must concentrate our blows.
It is inevitable that one day a world war will break out because of the rivalry between the two superpowers. So the peoples of the world must get prepared.
We fight to preserve world peace. We must fight to block the superpowers’ war preparations and put off the outbreak of the conflict. Delaying the war can only be favourable to the world revolution and allow the peoples time to be more prepared.
By striking back against each instance of superpower aggression and bullying, by denying them strategic bases and war materials, by denouncing the folly of detente, and by mobilizing the world’s peoples, we can put off the outbreak of war. We must direct the main blow against the superpower that is the main source of war, the USSR.
But even when these imperialists launch the third world war – despite the suffering it will bring to the peoples – in the end, it will only hasten their own doom. After the First and Second World Wars, great revolutions swept the globe as the peoples rose up to eliminate their oppressors and exploiters, and more and more of humanity was liberated from imperialism.
In the final analysis, it is the peoples of the world and not one or two imperialist powers armed with big weapons that will decide the course of world history.
Already the superpowers are meeting with strong resistance. Forty years ago. Hitler embarked on his scheme of world conquest, but he was buried by the heroic struggles of the world’s peoples.
The same doom will undoubtedly await the two superpowers too.
Canadian imperialism, though not of the same stature as the superpowers, is nevertheless a savage oppressor of the peoples of the third world. The history of the Canadian bourgeoisie, like that of all other imperialist bourgeoisies, is intimately linked to the plunder of the third world.
At the turn of the century, following in the footsteps of British imperialism, companies such as Brascan, Sun Life and the Royal Bank made their fortunes in Latin America. In 1974, Canadian imperialism held $9.3 billion in direct investment abroad, 24% of this in the third world. Important interests are in the Caribbean, while it is also present in Azania, Zimbabwe, and Namibia, all countries dominated by racist regimes.
The Canadian bourgeoisie puts on airs about being “peace makers” and “neutral” but it gives its full support to fascist regimes.
It has participated in the oppression of the Palestinian people for a long time. Through its sales of nuclear technology it feeds the war machine of the Zionist Israeli state.
The Canadian companies Alcan and Massey-Ferguson reap fabulous profits in Azania because they pay starvation wages to the Blacks, who are denied the right to organize under the racist South African regime. Canadian banks loaned $20 million to Vorster’s fascist regime between 1970 and 1972.
Spurred by the possibility of profits, the Canadian bourgeoisie has gone along with American imperialism’s worst military adventures and genocide. During the Korean War it sent armed forces to fight by the side of the American troops trying to stamp out the Korean revolution. With the war in Vietnam raging on, the Pentagon poured over $35 million in grants into Canadian universities carrying out military contracts. When the people of Kampuchea, Laos and Vietnam were fighting American aggression, many Canadian companies (including CAE Industries and Marine Industries) were working for the Pentagon.
That is why Canadian workers have the fundamental and particularly important task of fighting Canadian imperialism, and of supporting the oppressed peoples fighting the Canadian monopoly bourgeoisie.
We support the militant solidarity of the workers and oppressed peoples all around the world. Our Party firmly upholds the principles of proletarian internationalism.
We support the socialist countries, the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations around the world and the struggles of the international proletariat.
The socialist countries like Chin; and Korea are shining examples for all peoples, and it is our duty to defend them against all reactionary attacks.
In recent years, during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, People’s China made great progress by crushing bourgeois elements like Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao and the gang of four, who were trying to restore capitalism. Today China is continuing the revolution and working towards modernization.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues to advance. Socialist construction is proceeding while the Korean people pursue the battle to reunify their fatherland.
Under socialism, Democratic Kampuchea made rapid progress, contrary to the reactionary slanders spread by the Canadian and other imperialist governments. Today, the people of Democratic Kampuchea are on the front lines of the struggle against Soviet-Vietnamese expansionism in Asia. We must build a powerful support movement for the Kampuchean people, led by their Communist Party in their struggle to kick out the Vietnamese invaders.
Our Party stands in solidarity with ail genuine Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations who are leading the revolutionary struggles in their countries and are fighting revisionism.
Our Party supports the struggle of the international proletariat against capitalism and for socialist revolution. Every victory of the international proletariat is a victory for the Canadian working class.
Our Party also supports the struggles for national liberation, new democracy, and socialism of the peoples of the third world. We back the armed revolutionary struggles of the peoples of the third world. Their battles against hegemonism, imperialism, colonialism and reactionary regimes weaken the world imperialist system.
Our Party struggles against Canadian imperialism and firmly supports the peoples of the third world who are fighting to throw Canadian imperialism out of their countries.
We support the struggle to build the international united front against the two superpowers. We defend the just struggle of the third-world countries to liquidate the heritage of imperialism, establish a new world economic order and oppose the hegemonism of the superpowers. We support the growing unity of the third world and the unity of second and third-world countries to combat the two imperialist giants.
We fight to preserve world peace. We harshly condemn the war preparations of the two superpowers and call on the peoples of the world to be prepared for a new world war.
Our Party will contribute to building the united front against the superpowers here in Canada.
We particularly oppose the activities of Soviet social-imperialism, the most dangerous and aggressive of the two superpowers and the main sour of world war.
And above all, we pledge to double our efforts to make the greatest contribution possible to the world revolution, by overthrowing the Canadian bourgeoisie, and putting the working-class in power in Canada.