1971

B; WILLIAM KASHTAN
(General Secretary, Communist Party of Canada)

1970 was a year of sharpening tensions on a
whole number ‘of fronts.

Nowhere was it more evident than in the
sphere of economic and social policy, in the
invocation of the War Measures Act which has
since been replaced by the Public Order (Tem-
porary Measures) Act, and in the upsurge of
what has been called Canadian nationalism.

Prime Minister Trudeau’s economic and so-
cial policies resulted in a stagnation of the econ-
omy, a drop in industrial production and in-
vestments, a slowdown in housing, a further
aggravation of poverty and regional inequality.
It helped bring on a recession and widespread
unemployment.

This brutal attack on jobs went together with
efforts.to impose wage guidelines and restrict
trade union rights.

By their militancy and solidarity the workers
were able to smash the wage guidelines. How-
ever, monopoly and its governments have not
given up their aims of placing the burden of
the recession on the backs of working people
through rising prices, rents and taxes and by
selective wage controls, the creation of a per-
manent army of unemployed, the replacement
of universality in social security by a means
test, a Benson mini-budget which is directed not
to expand the economy but to assure maximum
profits for monopoly.

e@ 1970 was also marked by a brutal attack
on the national, social and economic aspirations
of the French-Canadian people and on the move-
ments for radical and social change in Quebec
and throughout the country. This was the pur-
pose of the Wer Measures Act. This is the pur-
pose of the Public Order (Temporary Measures)
Act. :

e Not least, 1970 brought to light the wide-
spread upsurge of Canadian nationalism in re-

sponse to the growing pressures of U.S. im-

perialism on Canada. This U.S. pressure was
particularly, although not only directed to force
through an agreement on the “sharing” of Can-:
ada’s vast energy resources, of which the sale
of gas to the USA was but the first installment.
This upsurge found its reflection too in pres-
sures on the Trudeau Government to adopt a
policy with respect to growing U.S. ownership
and control in Canada. :

It is this which compelled Forbes, a U.S. busi-
ness magazine to state that “the economic con-
sequences of Canadian nationalism .would one
day be more serious than the confiscation of the
copper companies in Chile. They could ‘rank in
the U.S. businessman’s! chamber of horrors
along with the possible future loss of Middle
East oil”. :

In light of the fact that there is over $35 bil-
lion U.S. investment in Canada and that $2 bil-
lion in profits and payments goes annually to
U.S. monopoly, one can well understand the
reason for U.S. monopoly’s “chamber of hor-
rors.”

@

Around these three questions 1970 gave us
storm signals of coming events. It showed that
the front of struggle is widening against mono-
poly rule and the policies of the Trudeau Gov-
ernment as it is widening against U.S. imperial-
ism. Most importantly, it showed that the work-
ing class, far from being a “spent force”, a
“conservative force”, is being compelled by
events. to move more and more to the centre
of the stage to strive for larger objectives and
become the rallying point for an all-sided strug-
gle against monopoly. Without wishing to take
away the heroism of students. and a growing
body of intellectuals, one has only to consider
the action of the railway workers in the USA,
the electrical workers in Great Britain, and the
strike movement in Canada, to see that the place
of the working class in production, makes it the

sare

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1970—PAGE 8

Ve. ee ee

yea

ei ST . es ¥ ee ee

key factor in the struggle for meaningful sucial
change.

®

We enter 1971 with all the main problems of
1970 unsolved. These- problems remain as do
the tensions arising from them, except that these
tensions may become much more acute.

e As against monopoly’s efforts to place all
the burdens of the recession on the backs of
working people, the struggle against these poli-
cies, against unemployment and for job security
and an expansion of the economy, will mount.
So will the struggle against the means test and
in support of the right of all Canadians to a
job, to education, health and housing. These will
merge with the battle in defense of equal op-
portunities for women.

e As against Trudeau’s repressive measures,
the movement for a Bill of Rights for the Cana-
dian people and for labor, for the restoration and
extension of democratic rights and the repeal
of repressive legislation will grow and merge
more and more with support for the national,
social and economic equality of the French
Canadian people, for a new Canadian Constitu-
tion based on the voluntary equal partnership
of the two nations.

e As against the growing pressures of U.S.
imperialism and the capitulation of the Trudeau
Government to these pressures, the battle to
regain Canadian independence and Canadian
control through control through naticnalization,
starting with energy resources, will take on
ever wider dimensions, and increasingly merge
with the struggle for a truly independent Cana-

dian foreign policy and for extending trade with”

the socialist countries on a mutually. satisfactory
basis.
0 ® 7

1971 will also see a. quickening of the pre-
parations for the next federal elections which
may take place in 1972. One can already see this
in the House of Commons debates and the dema-
gogic efforts of the Conservatives to establish
themselves as the viable alternative to the Tru-
deau Government. One can: also see it in the
various government White papers which made
their appearances on the eve of 1971, all direct-

ed to create the impression of change while.

changing nothing for the Canadian people.
The preliminary skirmishes for the federal
election may also find expression in the 1971
provincial elections in Ontario, Saskatchewan
and Alberta. The Conservatives in Ontario are
being compelled to put on a new face to meet
the challenge for change growing up in Ontario.
In Saskatchewan, Thatcher is trying to make

labor the scapegoat for his discredited policies -

and the growing difficulties of the farmers and
urban population. In Alberta, Strom hopes gas
and oil sales will keep him and Social Credit
from defeat,

In all these elections a systematic effort will
be made by monopoly and its parties to shift
politics to the right while pretending to stand
for change. ,

e

And yet as the events of 1970 have demon-
strated, the movement for meaningful change,
for new policies and new governments to fight
for them, is growing ever stronger, and will not
and cannot be stilled.

The impetus for this rises not only in response
to monopoly’s anti-national, anti-peoples and
anti-labor policies, it is a response likewise to
the growing difficulties of imperialism in general
and of U.S. imperialism in particular. The con-
tradictions in the imperialist camp are mount-
ing wth every passing day. -U.S. imperialism’s
efforts at turning back the clock of history are
not succeeding, be it in Vietnam, the Middle
East, Latin America, Africa or Asia.

These advances,against imperialism take place
simultaneously with a stepped-up drive by U.S.
imperialism to retrieve lost positions, and to

in the struggle

find new ways to check and stop the forward
march of the peoples. It is likely to engage in
new and more desperate adventures in 1971 so
as to wpset and change the balance of forces on
a world scale. While it cannot succeed it can
‘nevertheless well continue its. policy of con-
frontation, aggression and cold war in. Indo-
china, the Middle East and with respect to a
European Security Conference. -

What all this emphasizes is that everything
depends on the struggles of the peoples on a
world scale. The fight for peace as for life still
retains all its validity and places on the Cana-
dian people as for all others, the necessity of
forging a world-wide anti-imperialist front
strong enough to take out the fangs of U.S.
imperialism, and keep the door open to social
progress. and the advance to socialism.

e

To strengthen anti-imperialism unity means
above all to strengthen unity of action of Com-
munist and Workers’ parties on a world wide

Y

scale. Imperialism hoped the temporary divi- |

sions among some parties would become perma-

nent and irreconcilable. This is not what is hap-

_pening. 1970 marked a significant advance in the
process of unity amongst Communist and Work-
ers’ parties, and 1971 will continue that process.

The selfless, consistent and principled inter-
nationalist position of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union and the parties of other social-
_ ist countries allied with it played a key role

here. No less is it true to say that their princ-
ipled struggle for peace and against imperialism
is responsible for the fact that imperialism has
been unable to unleash world war and is con-
tinually being put on the defensive.

Those who thought Marxism-Leninism and the
Communist movement to be in crisis and irrele-
vant to contemporary life have again been
shown to be utterly wrong. In reality what life
is showing with every passing day is the irrele-
vance of capitalism, its inability to prevent
crises which are built into the very structure
of monopoly. capitalism, and which, no matter
what it does, it cannot overcome. except at the
expense of the people and by wars of aggression.

It is this which is helping to stir up and widen
opposition to capitalism and monopoly rule and
raise in the minds of people the alternative of
socialism as the path to real and permanent pro-
gress, peace and independence. Therefore 1971
should see a further growth of class and social-

ist consciousness, and of the Communist Party. :

°

1971 is of especial signficance for the Com-
munist Party of Canada for it will mark 50 years
of its existence. It-has a proud record. There is
no question of importance to the working class
and the Canadian people to which the Party has
not made a vital contribution in one form or the
other. Various movements have sprung up in
the course of the Party’s existence but ibecause
they had no real roots in reality they were but
passing phenomena, a temporary fad or fancy
which quickly disappeared. The Communist
Party standing firm on the bedrock of Marxism-
Leninism, of patriotism and internationalism,
has through these years, and under all condi-
tions stood true to the working class and the
cause of socialism. The Communist Party will
continue on that road, holding high the banner
of Canadian independence, peace, democracy
and socialism.

As part of that aim, indeed because of it,
Communists will work to unite all left and
democratic forces in the struggle for new poli-
cies and the forging of a democratic coalition
which can open the door to fundamental change
in Canada.

The struggles of 1971 will be part of that
process. We enter the New Year conscious of
our responsibilities, of the difficulties to be
overcome and above all, of the new opportuni-
ties.

y

1971

7