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Election showed party
organization lagging

By KATE FOUNTAIN

—EDMONTON

HE, Provincial election campaign in Alberta last August was the
most important and best opportunity we had this year to take

stock of the organized strength of our Party in this province.

“The

question we wanted to answer was not just, how many members and

supporters do we have in Alberta,
but rather, how strong are we?

We know already that less than.
1,000 members in a population of
820,000 is relatively small; so is the
national membership compared
with Canada’s total population.
Numbers alone do not always de-
termine strength and influence but

they do have an important rela- é

tion; however, and in Alberta we
are certainly concerned with the
décline in membership; it doesn't
correspond to:the need or the op-
portunities.

The provincial elections were a
particular sort of test of our or-
ganized strength; we had to adapt
ourselves to a very different situ-
ation from previous elections in
that this time we had only two
candidates in the field. This meant
that instead of there being one
central figure and standard bearer
for the Party (the candidate) in
each constituericy around whom all
activity could be centered (and on
whom ‘everybody leaned, it could
be said), the membership was
called upon to go into the cam-
paign individually and as a group
(the club) and become the public
spokesmen for the Party. It was
a situation that. called for initiative
and really “collective work in order
that the program and electoral
policy of the Party could reach the
voting mass.

’

It was there that we fell down
and: became painfully aware of
how incompletely organized we are
in many locailties, and how the
efforts of the provincial leadership
fell short in mobilizing the mem-
bership for. a coordinated campaign
to help bring about defeat of So-
cial Credit and the election of a
CCF-Farmer-Labor government in
Alberta. sp : Ze

It is true that plans were made
by the provincial leadership and
steps taken to carry them out.
Well ahead of time an election bul-
letin was issued to the entire mem-
bership, outlining the things that
could and should be done. No
doubt it was quite a fine directive;
little or nothing was left out of it.
But so far as its political applica-
tion to the province as a whole was

concerned, it remained too much
a thing of paper and ink. It did

not “come alive” sufficiently

‘through the actions of live people,

except in Calgary and the Crow’s
Nest Pass where we had LPP can-
didates, and in Drumheller where
we supported a labor candidate.

“In many places the efforts made
mostly went into the raising of
funds for the election campaign.
This is not to under-estimate such
efforts; we could not have done as
much as we did without them. But
in too many places that was the be-

ginning and end of Party election

work. The easy method of mailing’
election materials was used far
more than it should have been,
particularly in the cities where per-
sonal distribution is not the prob-
lem it is in the countryside.

e

It is clear to all of us that all
the things that would have made
for a2, better campaign in the elec-
tions, that would have brought our
Party much closer to the people
and attracted many more new
members, are the things that need
to be done now. If we take the
right steps to get them done, and
personally assist in the doing of
them, we will be in a far better
position to meet the challenge of
the federal elections that are ex-
pected next year.

‘Our organizational shortcomings
that were revealed in the provin-
cial elections cannot be laid en-
tirely at the door of a wrong or
poorly understood Party electoral
policy, because our failures arose
cut of weaknesses that have ex-
isted for a long time. At the same.

time it is true that our electoral

_ policy met only a lukewarm recep-
tion by the membership which re-

sulted only in lukewarm efforts.

|

i

From the viewpoint of leader-
ship, this has got to be given in a
person-to-person

much more live,

KATE FOUNTAIN

way. For instance, had the provin-
cial leadership gone out to at least
one or two rural constituencies and
personally directed the Party work
we might, though by no means
certainly, have influenced the vote
decisively in the direction we
wanted it to go. It is only fair to
add that limited leading forces was
one thing that prevented a ‘more
widely distributed personal lead-
ership.

At the same time a very import-
ant fact to be borne in mind by
every member is that there is more
than one level of leadership in our
Party. All the most detailed di-
rections in the world will not ac-

| complish a single thing until they

are picked up by the local leader-
ship, applied to fit local circum-
stances and added to by the initi-
ative of the membership. Develop-
ment of initiative and leadership
within the rank and file means,
among other things, learning to
apply Party policy in each parti-
cular place to its conditions, by
the members who live there.

While realizing that our election
campaign would have heen far
more effective with a higher de-
gree of organization from top to
bottom, we also-realize more keen-
ly than anything else that an insuf-
ficient understanding of the Marx-
ist principles that guide our Party
is at the bottom of most of our
problems.

This means that we all have to
learn to think more about our
Party and its principles, The food
that will stimulate our thinking
is to be found in the’ writings and
speeches of Marx and Engels, Len-
in and Stalin. It is also to be found
in every book and pamphlet writ-
ten by our own Canadian Marxists.
In these priceless materials we are
provided with a constant guide to
action, political and organizational.

‘er, 5

In addition we have The Cana-
dian Tribune. What working class
or party has a better paper than
we have today in the Tribune? Its
quality was never higher. Tt,’ too;
is a guide to action and should be
used.much more in that way, not
simply as a record of working class
events and struggles.

There. is. a clamor in the
Party today fof more organized
education that is very healthy. In
Alberta we are making a deter-
mined effort to provide it. But the
benefit of schools and classes wil!
he short-lived if ‘it is not accom-

nanied by personal individual ef. |

fort to add to the knowledge an¢
understanding gained in classes
Here also, personal initiative is es-
sential. All of us from top to bot-
tom’ have to make a much more
determined effort to become bet-
ter and deeper Marxist thinkers
and workers. {
Our responsibilities are as per-
sonal as they are. collective. The

warded off by the powerful forces
camp, and to the successful out-
come of the life and death struggle
now underway for the future of
Canada, is the winning of the
basie sections of ‘youth in the
country.

The monopolists are keenly
aware of the need to win over the
youth for their plans of imperial-
ist war. In the words of the reso-.
lution, “the sharpest struggle is
being waged by the warmongers
Sfor control of the thinking and ac-
tions of Canada’s youth.” For this
rich prize, so vitally essential to
their conspiracy for war, reaction
is waging a major battle con-
sciously and intensively.

But what is true of the situa-
tion, and what the resolution fails
to note critically, is the one-sided
nature of this battle; the fact that
the “policy of concentration of ef-
fort and forces, at the moment
and in the main, is largely on the
side of the imperialist camp.

One of the basic problems be-
-fore the workingclass, and of de-
cisive nature to the whole strug-
gle against war and fascism, is the
battle for the leadership of the
youth; but this the resolution in-
adequately stresses in the section
on Canada’s Youth. The question
of drawing the workingclass move-
ment and the peace camp as a
whole into a conscious battle for
the youth is not sharply noted
here.

There is no doubt about needing
te radically strengthen® our work
amongst youth, and to apply our-
selves to this task with a new
seriousness and energy. This has
been: indicated. for..some.time now.
But how can we make this decisive
turn to our responsibilities in the
youth field without a critical esti-
mation of some of the main weak-
nesses in this regard? This is im-
portant in view of the long term
neglect (which Norman Penner de-
Scribes as a “general separation of
youth work from Party work un-
precedented in the history of our
Party.”)

In bringing the youth problem
back to the Party, and in taking
the Party to the youth, we will
bave to make it a basic proposition
in all our Party work. We must
root out the mistaken idea that
the struggle to win the youth is a
fight to enlist only youth cadres in

improvement of every feature of
our organizational work depends
upon a much closer working rela-
tionship between the leaders at
every level—provincial, city, club
and the rank and file. One result
of this would be a broadening out
of ot activity into much bigger
public circles, a most essential need
today as the only effective counter-
attack to the lies and slanders
about Communists that are being
spread far and wide by the en-
emies of the working class.

How many times have many of
us repeated Stalin’s statement that
once we have decided on a course
of action, “organization decides
everything?” Our aim must be to
prove the truth of these words, not
by our failures and shortcomings,
but by successes. The successes
are assured once we apply Stalin's
advice, not simply repeat it.

By arrangement with the na-
tional office of the Labor-I?ro-
gressive Party, the Pacific Trib-
une is devoting its columns to
a discussion of the Draft Reso-
lution prepared by the naticnal
executive of the LPP for the
3rd Convention which takes place
February 4-8 in Toronto:

All LPP. clubs and members
are invited to send in their com-
ments, criticisms and _ proposals.
All such communications should
be addressed to William Kashtan
_LPP national office, 73 Adelaide
St. W., Toronto. 3

‘Battle for Youth’ not sharply
presented in draft resolution

By MITCH SAGO

.

—WINNIPEG

HE main theme of the NEC Draft Resolution sharply emphasizes the war danger in the country
and stresses the main tasks before the Party in the struggle against it.
urgency, it refutes the idea that war is inevitable. It correctly accents the fact that this danger can be

While striking a note of

that want and strive for peace. Of decisive importance to this peace

this work, only to help them in im-
proving the quality of their work.
Because this attitude has prevailed
for so many years now, and char-
acterized our approach to work
amongst the youth, it should be
dealt with more specifically. It is

MITCHELL J. SAGO

part’of the idea that this is just
another field of work (underesti-
mating, as a ‘result, the decisive
nature of this problem to the
Party). It also illustrates the point
at which the mechanical separa-
tion of our youth work from gen-
eral Party work and_ responsibil-
ity takes place. ;

Perhaps some suggestion of this
tendency to “compartmentalize”
the youth question is to be dis-
cerned in the draft resolution. It
is dealt with in section 14, and al-
most wholly accommodated here
as another field of work. I feel
that this is largely a reflection of
what has become a general prac-
tice in the Party as a whole.

While there is a need to study
and examine the youth problem in
a special and separate way, be-
eause of problems peculiar to this
field of work, it should not be com-
pletely “crated” in one section as
I believe the resolution does.

Basic to any drastic change in
the concept of our Party work
amongst the youth is that of build-
ing a non-Party Marxist organi-
zation of youth. Such an organiza-
tion, devoted to the education of
young workers and farmers in the
spirit of socialism, is indispensable
to the workingclass struggle.

It is in this regard that the re-
solution emphasizes the need to
build a mass NFLY as “a political
responsibility of first-rate  ur-
gency.’ But before we can apply
ourselves with the new seriousness
and energy which is demanded of
us, we must first become clear on

‘the role and character of such ah

organization.

This clarity is not ours today—
cr yet, as Norman Penner correct-
ly observed in his discussion ar-
ticle. Not only do we need this
clarity in the Party as a whole, but
also in the youth cadre directly in-
volved in building such an organi-

zation. It is a commentary on our

whole approach to work in this
field that, eight months after the
reconstruction of the NFLY on a
new basis, we are only beginning
to fight for a proper concept of
the character of ‘this organization,
and of its
Party.

Here in Winnipeg, as elsewhere

in the country, some comrades re-
gard the NFLY as a Party organ-
ization—a sort of junior LPP on
the youth sector of work. There.
are still others who take the ex-
treme opposite view, that it is a
non-Partisan youth organization
which approximates the character
of the organization prior to March
of this year. The concept in both
cases is wrong and. misleading,
and misses the basic change indi-

cated at the NFLY constituent
convention last March; the trans-
formation of the NFLY into a non-
Party youth organization for
Marxist study and .training, and
for the socialist education of the
workingclass youth in the process
of struggle.

Such an attitude not only vio-
lates the fundamental Marxist
principle for work amongst youth,
but denies the role of the Party
as the vanguard of the working-
class, and—in effect, leads to the
liquidation of the Party on the
youth sector of struggle. Just to
illustrate the last part of this
statement. Some Party. members,
who are also members of the
NFLY, have protested paying dues
in both organizations, and have
raised the question of confiining
their dues membership in the lat-
ter—as both are one and the
same thing! One leading comrade,
in pre-convention discussion of
this problem, Kikewise displayed
this tendency: why should they
pay dues to the Party and remain
members when they are members
of the NFLY?.

relationship. to the}:

I think that this same tendency’
is expressed in the state-
ments some comrades make about
the equality of recruiting into the
Party and the socialist youth or-
ganization. There can be no equal-
ity in recruiting values here, un-
less the comrade denies one of
the basic organizational principles
of a Party of Communists: that it
is ‘‘the highest of all forms of or-
ganiaztion” of the workingclass. *

Any such mistaken idea, that
recruiting into either the Party or
the NFLY is equal—the same
thing, is like saying that both are
the same, and that membership in
one or the other is essentially the
same. Certainly such an approach
can only hinder and relegate the
task of bringing “hundreds of
militant young Canadians into the
UPR

Finally, on the question of the
relationship of a Marxist youth or-
ganization to the Party: it is and ~
must continue to be an independ-
ent youth organization. This is
fundamental. Lenin, writing in
1916, stated the question as follows:

“Frequently, the middle-aged
and the aged do not know how to
approach the youth in a proper
way; for, necessarily, the youth
!must come to socialism in a dif-
ferent way, by other paths, in oth-
er forms, under other circum-
stances than their fathers, Inci-
dentally, this is why we must be
decidedly in favor of the organi-—
zational independence of the Youth
League, not only because the op-
portunists fear this independence,.
but because of the very nature of
the case: for unless they have
complete independence the youth
will be unable either to train good
Socialists from their midst, or pre-
pare themselves to lead socialism
forward.” » :

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 14, 1949 — PAGE 7

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