By SAM WALSH
ABOR DAY was cunningly
introduced into the labor
movement in North Amer-
Ica by trade union reform-
ists, at the request of the
bourgeoisie, as a substi-
a tute for May Day, the
Olutionary day of internation-
Be watity, which was itself

i In North America.
197 Quebec, this Labor Day of
that: one cannot help noting
ne the rapid rise of the class
"4 peacess of the workers
tions pyeeat about lively reac-
Union Tom some reformist trade
tore leaders, who more and
dla Seek to take the working
S off course, to cause it to

Nationalism

dazzled by European influence,
from depreciating national liber-
ation struggles.”

Mr. Gerin-Lajoie does not spe-
cify who is “the clearest of the
Marxist theoreticians,’ but no
doubt he is referring to Lenin,
even if he doesn’t dare name
him.

Evidently the class struggle
leads inevitably to the defeat of
the exploiting classes who con-
trol the state and to a revolu-
tionary change of the social sys-
tem, which is not at all to Mr.
Gerin-Lajoie’s liking. Whereas
the national struggle does not
necessarily change the social
system, doesn’t oust the exploit-
ing classes and their control of

screens
reformism

bit

try oe uely behind the ban-
bourgeoisie nationalist petty
Agra eekly Quebec-Presse of
Othe 20, 1972, reprints part
°d by an report to be deliver-
tector Gerin-Lajoie, Quebec
Workers of the United Steel-
Convention ; America, at their
ctober a In Sherbrooke next
think wy Me it appears naive to
anyone at the workers — or
the Pol — Will seriously discuss
Ying of the state without
ing What State we are talk-
die, aut, Says Mr. Gerin-La-
adq: 4° One expects him to
Working Socialist state of the
8 a class, or the capitalist
he the bourgeoisie. But no,

treoue

Q oo the sentence with:
€or Ottawa?”.

: Cont :

tiga] Bees: “Not only poli-

tical ison out all serious poli-
hg yy Bi ssion demands specify-
Poway Will have real political

Nore Batis emphasis). Once
the rie pects the question:
the 8 class and its allies

Heeases co.
We re. “apitalist class; but what

Ottawa» 1S again: “Quebec or

‘Be
UnionignS®. | believe that trade
Tus und IS undertaking and
rake political action,
18ed, in all honesty, to
Ret» ay pinion on this sub-
‘ Nt hold your breath,
Bas. °F a logical declaration
ass oS Choose a federated
Slows. Of labor.” For what
Quebec's fact, is: “I choose

“Nd th:
ion ag from the leader of a
8cisiy poused of workers in
Lat Ic industry!
Ricoss ih bh; ee
raYg: te his main report he
my, the retecarest of the Marx-
te im ‘Clans accords much
"Uppy pytance to the class
Mar® e. ae to the national
"ism M no country has
Myeduced a revolution
Same patrial proletariat. At
Siderapye< Marxism has had
liberat Influence in natio-
nt pr ‘10n ‘Struggles.. This
Eta, veh many Marxists,

2 . MTT My ig

hal
oes

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the state in the present period.
This is true in the advanced ca-
pitalist countries unless we have
to do with a genuine struggle
for national liberation in which
the working class pursues its
own independent class policy,
does not permit itself to be
taken in tow by the nationalist
bourgeoisie or petty bourgeoisie,
and continues the struggle
through to social liberation —
which cannot be achieved with-
out ‘the working class and its
allies winning control of the
state.

Mr. Gerin-Lajoie says: “Yet in
no country has Marxism produc-
ed a revolution of any industrial
proletariat’(!). Evidently this
“thinker,” as Quebec-Press calls
him, has never thought about
Russia, for example, and of the
Great October Socialist Revolu-
tion.

In the time of the tsars the
Great Russian rulers oppressed
over a hundred nationalities,
and the Russian proletariat, led
by Lenin and the Bolsheviks
(Communists) supported their
struggle for national liberation
as an integral part of the strug-
gle for democracy and for social-
ism in a multi-national country.
The peasantry was also mer-
cilessly exploited by the land-
lords and the bourgeois peasants
(the kulaks) and the proletariat
succeeded in winning the colla-
boration of the majority of the
peasants in the struggle against
tsarism and of the majority of
the poor peasants in the strug-
gle against the bourgeols-re-
formist provisional government.

But there can be no doubt that
the industrial proletariat, a min-
ority of the Russian population
at that time, but concentrated in
big industries (yes, Brother
Gerin-Lajoie, including the steel-
workers of the Putilov plant, for
example), revolutionary, well or-
ganized, disciplined and guided
by the social science of Marx-
ism-Leninism, succeeded in mo-
bilizing all the oppressed for the
conquest of state power, tearing
it from the hands of the exploit-

el ayat Viererr-. YA ae
ni Petinny ved Huns! 2oQwoerre

ing classes, and then commenced
to build the first socialist state
in the world.

Mr. Gerin-Lajoie says: “At the
same time, Marxism has had
considerable influence in nation-
al liberation struggles.” True,
this time, very true. The great
October Socialist Revolution,
guided ‘by Marxism-Leninism,
showed the path to national liber-
ation to all the oppressed peo-
ple, by eliminating all privileges
and all discrimination with re-
spect to every nation, nationality,

__ Russian
q

people and national group in the
Soviet Union.

This year all the formerly op-
pressed nations are celebrating
the 50th anniversary of the for-
mation .of the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (N.B. the
plural), which grouped the na-
tions voluntarily on the basis of
equality, each enjoying the sov-
ereign right to self-determina-
tion up to and including seces-
sion, this right being inscribed in
the Constitution. National libera-
tion, achieved with the aid of the
proletariat, together
with the enormous progress of
all these peoples in the ‘fields of
the economy, of culture and-the
flourishing of their language in-
spired all the colonial and op-
pressed peoples everywhere. The
victorious war against Nazi Ger-
many showed the power of the
voluntary union of all the Soviet
peoples, and the formation of
the Socialist camp laid the basis
for the victorious struggles of
nations oppressed by imperial-
ism, basing themselves, with
good reason, on the solidarity
and help of this great camp.

Well then, what should be
said about the following sen-
tence of Gerin-Lajoie’s? ‘This
doesn’t prevent many Marxists,
dazzled by European influence,
from deprecating national libera-
tion struggles.’ Whether he
knows it or not, Mr. Gerin-La-
joie is not talking about Marx-
ists, for this declaration would

-be slander fabricated out of the

whole cloth.

We begin to arrive at the ker-
nel of his thought when he says:
“. , those who despise com-
promise in the national struggle
and prefer the purity of class
struggle after independence (evi-
dently he is not speaking here of
Communists, who have no inten-
tion of ‘postponing” the class
struggle until after the hoped-
for victory of the nationalist
petty bourgeoisie); those who
speak freely about a Socialist
Quebec but very little about an
independent Quebec; thesé peo-

ee oe SHES ES

pee ee TEC SSS Kee Ve ee eRe eee

ple see themselves as gadflies,
whereas in reality they play the
role of Pontius Pilate.”

And his reformism, which is
at the bottom of his whole pol-
icy, is revealed in the following:
“I do not believe that our poli-
tical action should aim at a final
confrontation with capitalism,
and the elected state (sic) would
founder suddenly to be replaced
by the power‘ of the working
people. On the contrary, I be-
lieve that the state can and
should check capitalist domina-
tion of the working people and
that trade unionism should be
on the scene and acting in this
struggle towards democracy and
liberation . . . The state is not
necessarily, fatalistically and
only at the service of the dom-
inant class and of capitalism.”

This declaration, combined
with his admiration of the pro-
gress the Parti Quebecois has
made among the workers (‘“‘with-
out a single trade union slogan,”
he notes) constitute a conscious
effort to sidetrack the Quebec
working class from the path
they have already embarked
upon—the struggle against the
capitalist system and its state
be it at Ottawa or Quebec.

It should not be forgotten that
this same Jean Gerin-Lajoie led

‘the fight at the last convention

of the Quebec Federation of La-
bor against the resolution grant-
ing the General Council of the
QFL the right to call a general
strike when a serious situation
merits it, and after full consulta-
tion with the rank-and-file of all
affiliated unions. His argument?
It would be illegal to go on
strike before all the provisions
of the Labor Code are adhered
to.

What reformist cretinism!

The convention delegates re-
jected Gerin-Lajoie’s arguments
to their credit. Let us hope the
delegates to the Steelworkers’
convention in October do as
much. This is the expression of
our best wishes to them on the
occasion of Labor Day.

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1972—-PAGE'5

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