LPP pre-convention discussion

Emphasis on role of party

By ALF DEW HURST

ANADA is in danger.

“ca

‘And, they must become the point of departure of the thinking and activity of the majority of the Canadian people.

ka

The threat of horrible atomic war hangs over our country.”
correctly placed in my opinion, must serve as the point of departure of all our Party's thinking and activity this historical moment.

—NANAIMC, B.C.

These opening words of the Draft Resolution

We must understand

‘the full portent of those fourteen words in order that we can appreciate, in all its aspects, the grave danger ‘confronting the working class and

its allies, the poorer and progress-}
ive sections of the urban and rural
middle classes.

We have understood nothing,
unless we understand that the pre-
sent drive of Canadian reaction to
destroy our Party; capture the
trade union movement; gag the or-
ganizations of the people; and to
establish thought control through
redbaiting, is part and parcel of
the inevitable drive of monopoly
capitalism® towards ‘war and fas-
cism. And, that the particular drive
of Canadian monopoly and _ the
_ trusts, is in turn part and parcel
of the inevitable world-wide drive
of imperialism, headed by Yankee
imperialism, towards reaction and
war. Only, if this is grasped, with
a clear understanding of the re-
sulting consequences to the people
if reaction should succeed, can we
elaborate correct tactics for the
line of struggle: and successfully
orientate the Party, the working
class and the people to that line
of struggle.

The draft Resolution analyzes, in
all its inter-connections and inter-
relations, the drive of Canadian
monopoly towards war and fas-
cism. The Resolution clearly points
up how the men of Bay and St.
James streets, acting as the agents
of the American imperialists, are
waging an all-out offensive against
the living standards and democratic
liberties of the people in the inter-
est-of their swollen profits, and for
the protection of the system that
makes those profits possible.

And, precisely because the of-
fensive of reaction is aimed at the
vast majority of the people, the
Resolution points out that this
majority can be won for struggle
against the program of monopol-
ists. The vast majority can be won
to active participation in the fight
for peace, because it is the sons
and daughters of the working peo-
ple who are the cannon fodder in
imperialist wars; it is the working
people who will die and suffer if
atom bombs should fall; and it is
the living standards of the working
people that are sacrificed on the
altar of war.

The vast majority of the people
can be won as active participants
in the camp of democracy, because
it is their liberties that the police
‘state would curtail; it is their
thoughts that the monopolists would
control; and it their leaders and
their organizations that fascism
would persecute and destroy. The
people cherish their democratic lib-
erties. And they will fight for those
liberties, once they realize those
liberties are threatened. As witness

EAST END.

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the splendid response from oat cpportunist elements, on all levels,

sections of the people to,the barr-
ing from the legal profession by
the Tory Benchers in B.C. of the}
young veteran, Gordon Martin.

The ~- resolu-
tion projects
the line of strug-
gle of the Can-

adian majority
against the min-
ority of war-

makers and pro-
fiteers. It shows
that this strug-
gle is part and
parcel of the
great world-
wide democratic
‘movement surging irresistibly for-
ward to peace, democracy and so-
cialism. That line of struggle is
based on the united struggle of the
peace-loving majority, led by the
organized working class, against
the program of reaction.

The keystone of united struggle
in Canada is LPP - CFF unity,
which can only be won through
unity in action on the part of the
LPP with the masses of CCF sup-
porters and members on the picket
lines; in the fight to roll-back
prices; on the fight for civil liber-
ties; for trade union principles and
rights; on community issues; in the
fight for peace; and growing out
of these struggics, and as-part of
them, electoral unity to defeat che
candidates of reaction and to elect
genuine representatives of the
pecple to the legislatures and Par-
liament. :

{Im the couise of such struggles
the working peoples will iearn
through their cwn experiences that
the Communists stand at the head
of the anti-monopolist anti-war
front. They will also learn through
their experiences who are their en-
emies. Through the course of strug-
gle, and by their own actions, the
right-wing social democratic CCF
and trade union leaders and other

will be exposed, and must be ex-

pesed, to the masses of their pres-
ent followers as agents of mo:nop-
|} oly capitalism in the labor move-
ment. And, as the counter-offensive
of the working peoples to turn back
the offensive of the monopolists de-
velops and sharpens, so will the
process of differentiation between
the right and left wings within the
CC sharpen; and labor political
and trade union unity grow and
blessom.
e

The electoral tactic of condition-
al support to CCF candidates in
the coming elections, proposed in
the Draft Resolution, will hasten
to a considerable degree this pro-
cess of differentiation within the
CCF; because it leaves the way
clear for the running of LPP, labor
and farmer candidates in those con-
stituencies where one of such can-
didates would be the most likely
one to defeat the candidates of re-
action, be they Tory, Liberal, So-
cial] Credit, right wing Marshall
Plan CCF’er or Trotskyite.

Our experience with the slogan
‘Elect a CCF government’ showed
that in practice it tended to lower
our class vigilance and opened the
door to rotten right opportunism,
particularly in the trade union
and electoral fields; even to the
extent where the proyincial exec-
utive of the Party in B.C. adopted
a “neutral” position in respect to
the candidacy of the trotskyite,
Rod Young, in the Vancouver Cen-
tre by-election. The old -slogan
slowed down the process of differ-
entiation within, the CCF, and con-
sequently slowed down the devel-
opment towards working class and
peoples’ unity.

The slogan ‘Elect a CCF Govern-
ment’ served to act as a brake on
the bringing forward of the full
independent position of the Party
in a public way. Although it must

be said that during the period of

the slogan, the Party in B.C. mark-

ed a considerable improvement in
the extent and quality of its in-
dependent ‘public mass work. Never-
theless, I think it is true that the
slogan, though not it alone, did
tend to limit the development of
our independent work in relation
to the possibilities existing in our
province.

e

The importance of bringing for-
ward, in a public way, the Party’s

| independent position on all those

issues that affect the country, the
province, the community, the trade
union, the mass organization, and
the people, cannot be over-empha-
sized, And, in my opinion the Draft
Resolution does not deal adéquate-
ly enough with the importance ,of
bringing forward the face of the
Party, of turning the Party out-
ward towards the people. This is a
political problem of first-rate im-
portance which must be tackled
everywhere as quickly as possible. |
The bringing forward of the Party!
in a public way must be concrete
and not abstract; yet this fact and
the relationship of the independent
public mass work of our Party to
the whole program of struggle pro-
jected in the Draft Resolution are
not very well understood by the
bulk of our Party members and
organizations.

That is why I would like to sug-
gest the addition of another line
or two to sub-section 1, of section
17 of the Draft Resolution, explain-
ing why we must strengthen the
Party's independent  public-mass
work. For, it is here, in my opin-
ion, where we will find the key
to building the Party; extending
the circulation of the Party press
and literature; throwing the lie
back into the teeth of the anti-
Soviteers and _ red-baiters; and
rallying the people to militant
struggle for Canada, Peace and
Democracy against Wall Street
war and fascism! But the time—is
short!

On recruiting of new members
and strengthening organization

By ANNIE S. BULLER

HEN we come in contact with day-to-day problems that face workers and farmers from. coast to |
coast, we realize all the more how urgent it 13 to build the Party.
Our Party withstood attack after attack in the course of its existence because it is a party with

a working class philosophy, a party of scientific socialism, a Marxist party.

change. We study the situation as
it is in each given stage of social
development, and on that basis we
make decisions.

Only because it is that kind of
a party, was it able to fight and
survive Section 96 and illegality.
It is meeting the present attack,

| which is part of the war- prepara-

tions of monopoly capitalism.

In. the section of the Draft Re-
solution—The Fight For The Party
(Section 6)—it is stated: “We must
popularize the proud record of our
Party, its tremendous contribution
to the building of the trade union
movement, to the development of

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MEETINGS

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We see the world in constant

working class political conscious-
ness, the building of the progressive
farm movement, the struggle to
keep Canada independent. Can-
ada’s workers and farmers and
progressive middle class people
need a bigger, stronger, fighting
Party of Communists. Our job is to
build the Party in factory, mill and
mine, railway, ship and farm, in
every plant and neighbor hood, fr om
sea to sea; to build it in the course
of struggle.”

How true these words are! It
was our Party that fought for in-
‘dustrial unionism, for the organiz-
ation of the unorganized in the
basic industries. It took the lead in
organizing steel, auto, mining, lum-
ber, textile, etc., all big monopoly
industries. Our Party fought for
non-contributory unemployment in-|
surance. These are reasons: why
close to 500,000 people signed a pe-
tition for the repeal of Section 98
and the release of Tim Buck and
his comrades from Kingston peni-
tentiary.

On foreign policy our Party made
a worthy contribution in the strug-
gle against fascism and war in

Spain, China, Ethiopia and against
the Munich betrayal. History has

proven us to be correct. We can
look with pride at our record in
the people’s war against fascism. .

While the good record of our
Party is known to our members,
we have yet to make it known to
those breaking away from the old-
line parties. These people are “fed”
by capitalist propaganda and the
Big Lie is repeated so often that
many potential Party members fall
victim to the “red scare.”

The question we must try to

answer is: why is it there is a
big gap between our political in-
fluence and our _ organizational
strength?

We hammer out a correct politic-
al line and too cften we feel the
job is done. We do not fight
to gear the Party organization to
carry out the correct political line.
Very often our failure to carry
through our political line can be
traced to lack of good organization.

The work of Party building is
left to spontaneity. We often hear
very good comrades say, “we will
make plans for Party building aft-
er we organize the plant, after the
strike is over, after the elections.”
The resolution correctly points out
that we must build the Party in
the course of struggle.

Such a bad style of work de-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE —

prives us of new members who
have a contribution to make to our
Party and the working class. There
‘is no magic formula for recruit-
}ing, no blueprint. Recruiting has
to be planned. Meetings alone, as
a medium for recruiting, are not
sufficient. We must “feed” the
prospective member with literature
and our press. Close personal con-
tact is very essential.

The Party must concentrate on
the industrial workers. To reach
the workers in industry we will
have to study the specific prob-
lems the workers ‘face in each
given industry. The Party will not
be built unless we fight to build
it. A correct political line alone
will not build the Party. We must
bring the Party to the people and
Wwe must speak the language of the
people. Often we underestimate
the people’s understanding and
their readiness to join the Party.
At times we are told: “My wife is a
good woman. but she is not yet
ready for the Party.” And yet,
these are the women who work in
elections, fight against high prices,
are on the picket lines (recent ex-
ample the Estevan miners’ wives)
and generally give a good account
of themselves.

Dozens of women in the mining
camps can be brought into the.
Party, and the good husband can.
help. It is obviously incorrect, to
hear as we often do that the wife,
or anyone else, can do better work
by staying out.of the Party. Some
men also fee} that the two of them
cannot be active, so he had best
give all his time to the Party and
let the wife keep the home fires
burning. That has proven to be
wrong not only because the hus-
band hasn’t got “brains for the
two of them,” but because it is
anti-social, showing that we have
very little regard for equality of
se sexes. On this question Lenin
sai

“Our Communist work among
women, our political work, em-
braces a great deal of educational
work among men. We must root
out the old ‘master’ idea to its last
and smallest root, in the Party,
and among the masses. That is one
of our political tasks, just as is
the urgently necessary task of
forming’a staff of men and women
comrades, well trained in theory
and practice, to carry, on Party ac-
tivity among working women.

To some degree we still rely on
spontaneity in training and pro-
moting cadres. We all agree that
“people, cadres decide everything.”
and yet, we do not give sufficient
attention to the development and —
promotion -of young comrades. The
art of leadership is not to make
ourselves indispensible, but con-
stantly to help develop, promote
and extend leadership.

We will avoid many errors in
the election and promotion of com-
rades if we apply the Marxist
yardstick, as pointed out by com-
rade Dimitroff some years ago:

“First — knowing one’s People;
second—proper promotion of cad-
res; third—ability to use people to
best advantage; fourth—proper dis-
tribution of cadres; fifth—system-
atic assistance to cadres; sixth —
proper care for the preservation of
cadres.”

Our Party and our country are
challenged by the reactionary, pro-
fascist, pro-war monopolists. Our
ability and stamina to” build the
Party and strengthen Party lead-
ership in defense of the needs and
aspirations of the working class
and its democratic allies, will de-
pend on how quickly and fully we
apply a Marxist policy on Party
building, on promotion, deveélop-
ment and preservation of Party
leaders.

It is therefore necessary, in the
preparations for the Party con-
vention, to give adequate treatment
to problems of Party building and
Party organization, following the
correct lead given in the Draft Re-
solution on, this question.

February 4-8 date set
for LPP convention

The national office of the
Labor - Progressive Party an-
nounced this week that the date
of tke national convention of
the LPP has been finally set for
February 4-8, and not as  pre-
viously announced.

JANUARY 7, 1949 — PAGE 7