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Very few people could have predicted
with any assurances what has shaped
up this first year of the 70’s.

Internationally, it has been marked

by an historic peace offensive on the

part of the Soviet Union, an offensive
which found its expression in the trea-
ties between West Germany and the
Soviet Union, West Germany and Po-
land, the four-power agreement on
West Berlin. the Indian-Soviet Treaty
and the Egyptian-Soviet Treaty.

This peace. offensive has gone to-
gether, indeed has merged, with an up-

4° surge of the national and social libera-

tion struggles of the peoples on all the
continents of the globe. Latin America
is on the march. The currents of change
are continuing in Africa. The powerful
and heroic actions of the peoples of
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, backed
by the socialist community of states and
the peoples of the world, have stayed
the hand of U.S. imperialism and in-
flicted serious military defeats on it.

And‘ as 1971 ends a new and vital
force has been added to the growing
camp of social and national liberation
—the people of Bangla Desh.

* * *

These events illustrate the fact that
the balance of forces is shifting more
and more in favor of the forces of
peace, democracy, independence and
socialism.

They also point to the breakdown of

Not least the first year of the 70’s
has been marked by a further upsurge
of the struggles of the working class.
The argument that the working class
has become bourgeoisified, middle class,
lost its revolutionary perspective, is be-
ing disproved daily. Unevenly from
country to country, but expressed in
all the advanced capitalist countries, is
the fact that the working class is mov-
ing increasingly to the centre of the
stage and is attracting to itself all
those forces affected by monopoly pol-
icy.

One can therefore say that thisDecade
of the 70’s, which the mass media tried
to depict as a decade of great promise
and promises, has opened as the Decade
of Great Change.

* * *

What is evidenced here is the process
of international detente which goes
side by side with the continued effort of
imperialism to maintain international
tension, keep the cold war going, try
to change the direction of world his-
tory and the balance of world forces.

This is particularly evident in the
shifting tactics of the Nixon Adminis-
tration. Compelled to face up to the
reality of the changing relationship of
forces, it speaks of negotiations replac-
ing confrontation, but instead pursues
both at the same time. It speaks of
normalization of relations and in that
“spirit” has opened negotiations with

participation in the struggle for peace.
This was made particularly evident in
the mass upsurge against the U.S. nuc-
lear tests in Amchitka which merged
with growing opposition to continued
U.S. aggression in Indochina. It was
made no less evident in the dramatic
struggles which have unfolded in Que-
bec, evidence of the fact that the
French-Canadian working class is in-
creasingly moving to the forefront of
the struggle. From both ends, so to
speak, the working class of English and
French Canada is sharpening the strug-
gle against monopoly and its policies.
What is particularly evident in this
opening year of the Decade of the 70’s
is the powerful upsurge of opposition
to U.S. domination and support for
Canadian indpendence. From a minor-
ity movement initiated and led by the
Communist Party it has virtually be-
come a majority movement. The ques-
tion now has become not so much
whether there shall be an active effort
to achieve Canadian independence, but
what policies to pursue to achieve it. The
catalyst for this change in public atti-
tudes arises from growing realization
of the ugly role of U.S. imperialism in
Vietnam and now the breakdown of the
“special relationship” which U.S. and
Canadian monopoly had _ established
over the years, evidenced particularly
in the dollar crisis and the efforts of
U.S. imperialism to solve it at the ex-

the cold war edifice U.S. imperialism the People’s Republic of China, not to pense of its allies and the working peo-
has built up in the post war, an edifice normalize relations but to seek for ple of the USA and the whole capitalist
backed by its economic and ey Soy Oe ean 0 | Ss ee, ays world.
| might and by NATO, all directed to ‘ ’ Se This change in public attitude :
“contain,” “roll back” and defeat the communist movement and the anti-im- fapethier oe - : aninned edort By
4 forces striving to put an end to war perialist forces throughout the world. monopoly groups and their political
H and the system which breeds it. While It speaks of withdrawal from Vietnam spokesmen to veer towards an ever
¥ the cold war edifice has not been com- _— While spreading aggression to all of = fn. integration of the Canadian eco-
| pletely dismantled, it can be said that Indochina and escalating the air war in nomy with U.S. imperialism and to
ij the peoples of the world have compelled Victnant, : make Canada increasingly a “hewer of
¢@ the cold warriors to retreat. The issue of peace or war is far trom wood and drawer of water, gas and oil.”

Not least, it can be said that the main
backbone of the cold war, U.S. im-
perialism, has suffered a series of seri-
ous defeats.

The Decade of the 70’s, and 1971 in
particular, may go down in history as
marking the end of an era, the end of
the dominance of the U.S. dollar and of
U.S. imperialist domination. The cur-
rency crisis and the devaluation of

the U.S. dollar mirrored this process, -

which in fact had been developing over
a period of time, and drew attention to
the fact that the post-war capitalist
world, built in the image of U.S. im-
perialism and under its domination, has
begun to crumble, that the stability it
thought it had achieved was cf short
duration, that inter-imperialist agree-
ments had turned into sharpened con-
tradictions and rivalry. :
*

The instability of the capitalist world,
demonstrated in the sick U.S. dollar
and the currency crisis, is further em-
phasized in the marked inability of
state monopoly capitalism to prevent
economic crises, unemployment, stag-
nation and inflation. These have now

_ become more clearly evident in all capi-

talist countries. Indeed, what is of sig-
nificance is not that they are expressed
in all the advanced capitalist states, but
that they erupt in all of them almost
simultaneously.

settled. It remains the central problem
in the struggle between imperialism
and socialism and the forces of peace,
democracy and independence on a
world-wide scale.

* & *

The rapidity of change internation-
ally, which has been characteristic of
developments of the first year of the
70’s, is matched to-some degree by the
changes taking place in our own coun-

try, highlighted by the visits exchanged

by Canadian and Soviet leaders and the
agreements they signed.

One has only to recall how quickly
Trudeaumania has diminished in size,
the growing criticism of the govern-
ment by those forces which helped give
it the majority in the last federal elec-
tions. :

One has only to recall what appeared
to be massive support for the govern-
ment’s action in imposing the War
Measures Act and the Public Order
(Temporary Measures) Act, with the
growing opposition evident, particular-
ly in the organized labor movement, to
these draconic and virtually dictatorial
measures, all of which compelled the
government to withdraw these meas-
ures.

The first year of the 70’s points up
the growing militancy of the working
class, its greater political awareness,
and class consciousness, its increasing

* * *

What is basically involved is the di-
rection Canada should take. The strug-
gles around this issue, around the issues
of the economic and social policy, of the
foreign and trade policies, of jobs or
guaranteed income as a right with the
people enjoying the fruits of techno-
logical change, are related to what kind
of future there is to be for the people
of our country and for the young gen-
eration. This will occupy the coming
decade and will be fought out on every
issue, no matter how big, no matter
how small. It will be a decisive part of
the coming federal elections in 1972, of
the political realignments which are
now developing between those forces
which wish to push politics further to
the right and those, based on the work-
ing class and democratic forces, which
strive to push politics to the left—in
the direction of those new policies Can-
ada and the working people need to
achieve for a great democratic advance
and to bring about a democratic coali-
tion as the pathway to the advance to
socialism.

. It goes without saying that the Com-
munist Party, which just celebrated its
50th anniversary and held its 21st (50th
Anniversary) Convention, will make an
increasingly vital contribution in 1972
to this Decade of Great Change.

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, PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY,, DECEMBER 31, 197,1-PAGE5

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