‘The CP and

hew questions, new. directions

Debate — genuine debate — of Left politics and perspectives is easier

to talk about than accomplish.

For decades the Left has been a collection of solitudes, each claiming
allegiance of working people and a monopoly on the truth; each fighting
not only a better-organized and more united class enemy, but the other

Left forces as well.

The main beneficiary of a fractured and divided Left isn’t hard to
identify: it's Canadian capitalism. It’s the employer, the cold war
supporter, it’s the right-winger and the free trader.

But life is forcing every Left-thinking person and every progressive
formation, grouping and party to re-examine political reality. The speed
and scope of change in Canada and abroad makes tough,
uncompromising re-assessment imperative.

Yesterday’s cliches and outdated suppositions just won’t work today. A
fractured, feuding Left won’t win many victories, let alone people’s power.

The Communist Party has begun a public re-examination in
preparation for its upcoming 28th convention in October — and on the
table are subjects it once guarded as internal and others previously
deemed non-debatable. The issues are nothing less than how Communists
see socialism and their own party, and how this relates to their place on

the Canadian Left.

The following paper, written by CP leader George Hewison, was
presented to a meeting of party leaders Jan. 12 and will be a topic for
discussion over the next several months, leading to the October
convention. Readers’ comments are invited.

By GEORGE HEWISON

The Communist Party faces a new decade with monumental questions
before it. We are called on to look at a completely new international
situation, a new Canadian situation, and a revised set of tasks for the
working class and peoples’ movements. But above all, we are compelled
to look at ourselves from a completely new perspective.

ast year saw a re-
write of Eastern
Europe. We
witnessed the
biggest thaw in the
cold war since
Churchill made his
1947 “Iron

Curtain” speech.

Soviet international initiatives have
pushed back the frontiers of a cold war
which dominated world politics for 40
years. Just consider: the 1987 CPC
convention was held under the slogan
“Survival and Sovereignty.” The Tory
White Paper on Defence had just been
released with its “Soviet threat” language,
and spy trials were underway in
Newfoundland.

Contrast this to today’s “‘open skies”
flights over Hungary and Canada, and the
promising moves in arms reduction, and
we see that new thinking is more than an
untested experiment or some tactical
consideration of Soviet foreign policy.
Rather, it is a fresh, new approach to
foreign relations — one geared to meet
the realities of the 1990s, identifying
fundamental issues around which all other
questions must be considered.

Already the military-industrial complex
has taken an ideological and economic
beating. But can we yet say that the cold
war is dead and buried?

New thinking has facilitated the
changes we’re seeing in the socialist. world.
Eastern Europe has not witnessed such
political upheavals since 1945, or since the
bourgeois revolutions of 1848, which
provided Marx and Engels such rich
material to work from.

Some communists argue these changes

6 Pacific Tribune, January 29, 1990

forecast the end of socialism. Others argue
it’s too soon to pass judgement. I believe
this upheaval signals a return to a
genuinely Marxist approach to socialism.

While socialism is paying a steep price
for fundamental errors and the path
ahead holds no guarantees for success,
socialism, in a global sense, will rest on a
firmer footing.

More than one profound question has
emerged from these epic changes, and
from new thinking specifically. And the
key for those struggling for socialism in
Canada involves several questions:

How does new thinking change the
framework for the class struggle and the
struggle for social liberation? Will internal
class contradictions sharpen or lessen

under its impact? Will conditions for class
and democratic struggle become more
favourable? Does new thinking change the
fundamental character of the class
struggle?
we hat is the
relationship
of “universal
human
interests” to
the “class
struggle’?
What is the
character and role of the working class in
the period ahead? What kind of a political
party is required in such circumstances?

In grappling with these questions we
need to rally all our intellectual capacity.
Theory should precede and guide practice,
and be constantly tested against it. ~
Without diminishing any debate, we
should ensure that references to new
thinking don’t become pat cliches or
sterile dogma.

For example, one new thinking theorist,
explaining why political parties in
industrial capitalist countries ‘“‘which
subscribe to proletarian ideology, lose
prestige in the working class environment
...,” argues that much “can be explained
away by perversions, distortions and
retreats from principles. But perhaps the
point lies elsewhere — in the principles
themselves? Perhaps it is worthwhile to
touch upon, at long last, the holy of holies
and talk about the role of the working
class in Marx’s theory of the class struggle,
in the development of our and Western
societies, and in the evolution of
civilization itself ....”

I’m not suggesting we withdraw into
political agnosticism until we investigate
this question fully and answer it
definitively. But we must acknowledge the
parameters of the debate are very broad.

Our party can only grow theoretically
by struggling within such a-process,
without de-limiting the debate, and while
forging ahead in unity on the pressing
tasks before us.

New thinking must take account of the
deepening crisis of capitalism, andthe
conditions we face in Canada.
Imperialism, remains hostile to socialism,
as it does to the working class. Of note
however, is an element of realism within
imperialist circles.

This realism acknowledges that
socialism, for all its problems, is a
powerful force. Imperialism rises above its
own propaganda about the death of
socialism to assess the damage done to its

system by neo-conservatism which has
aggravated the capitalist crises.

The question of a “soft” landing versus
a “hard” landing of the capitalist
economy is of no small consequence to
capitalism, or the working class.

A small recession, while unpredictable,
can have, in the short run, a “therapeutic”
effect for capitalism. It shakes out the

_ weak links among capitalists; it disciplines
the working class, and re-distributes
wealth, creating a lean and mean
economy in anticipation of the next cycle.

The problem for the capitalist class is
the unpredictability of crisis, particularly
given the globalization of the economy. A
hard landing could threaten the
underpinnings of the system.

While most capitalist economists are
predicting a temporary downturn for
1990, there is considerable evidence that a
major economic cataclysm is not far off.
The debate in ruling circles is sharpening
over the impact of military budgets on
capitalist economies. There is also
considerable debate over the continuing
effectiveness of right wing, as opposed to
more liberal, supply-side economics to
reduce deficits and indebtedness, given the
current track record.

For a Canada’s distorted imperialist
economy the prospects can be
considerably more acute than for other
imperialist states. It is in this context,
rather than imperialist benevolence and
the imminent collapse of socialism, that
we should primarily judge the foot race by
imperialist states to extend economic ties
between West and East.

The Mulroney-Gorbachev meeting
could represent a positive advance in
Canada-Soviet relations. A new
atmosphere of trust between the heads of
state of the two countries has been

. established, moving away from prior

relations which, from Canada’s
perspective were distinctly hawkish.

The first Canada-USSR summit in 18
years has opened certain new economic
options for Canada. And while the
struggle for a permanent shift to detente
has not been completely won, new
conditions now prevail.

Canada’s business community has a
new face: The Business Council of the
Soviet Union and Canada — headed by
Albert Reichman and involving 240
leading businessmen. They exert a
powerful influence on the Mulroney
government in its partial turn from a
foreign policy based on the ‘Soviet
threat” to proposals for “open skies.”

Media forecasts about the “demise of
socialism,” aimed at demobilizing popular
opposition in Canada, today face the
difficulty of sustaining the image of an
-imminent Soviet menace, upon which the
arms race rests.

Our strategy to safeguard world peace
must consider both the possibilities and
the dangers built into the new situation.
While public opinion favours greater steps
for peace, the shift to detente is not
irreversible, given the character of the
forces for reaction. This is seen in Canada
testing new weapons and militarizing the
economy.

At the same time, the political
declaration between Canada and the
USSR set a new tone and a legal
framework for dialogue and co-operation.
This framework involves the environment,
investment, the Arctic and other bilateral
issues. Fourteen protocols were signed,
and three more are being negotiated.
Fifteen joint ventures are in the works
valued at almost $1-billion. Consulates are

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