This article is featured in the newest issue of Rebel Youth – Jeunesse Militante, celebrating 100 years of the Communist movement in Canada. Subscribe here to receive your copy and to read more like this.
By Ivan Byard, General Secretary of the YCL-LJC
This May marks the Centenary of the Communist Party of Canada – Parti communiste du Canada (CPC-PCC). Born in a barn under conditions of illegality, the CPC-PCC brought together communists into one united party in accordance with the mandates of the Third International. The needless bloodshed of the imperialist war machine and the inability of capitalism to manage the influenza pandemic shook the working class of the world. In Canada, the working class was inspired by the Great October Socialist Revolution, and their convictions were forged by events like the Seattle and Vancouver general strikes and organized opposition to conscription in Quebec.
The Canadian intervention into Siberia in 1918 to recover British war loans to the Tsar sparked a debate within the working class movement that helped converge forces leading to the formation of the CPC-PCC. The cost of living in Canada increased by 48% between 1916 and 1918, and then again to 128% by 1920. In 1918 the Privy Council, in response to resolutions calling for peace and demobilisation by unions and labour councils, passed Resolution 2384, outlawing fourteen political organizations and all meetings (with the exception of religious services) in the Russian, Ukrainian, and Finnish languages; pamphlets by Lenin and other Marxists were banned. The proscribed organizations included the Social Democratic Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and immigrant labour unions including the Russian Workers Union — many of their members went on to build the CPC-PCC. That same year, Quebecois conscripts muntineed in Victoria and were loaded onto boats to Siberia at bayonet point. December 1918 saw the first common-front public sector strike in Montreal win important concessions despite harsh repression and violence. Throughout 1918, Western Canada saw solidarity strikes and a growing industrial union movement.
In March of 1919, the revolutionary wing of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada broke off to form the One Big Union; they called for the immediate withdrawal of the military in all interventions, a six-hour work day and four-day work week, the release of political prisoners, and workers’ control over industry through a dictatorship of the proletariat. There was an attempt in the spring of 1919 to form a revolutionary party of the working class that would serve a separate role from the labour unions in the struggle for socialism. Police raids prevented the party from establishing, with many organizers arrested and deported. May of 1919 saw the Winnipeg General Strike inspire a wave of strikes coast-to-coast in as many as 30 cities. This historic movement marked a new stage in political consciousness and showed the necessity of a party to continue the struggle. This wave of strikes also broke down national, racial, and linguistic barriers, as well as patriarchal ones, with many women leading the organizing. Workers came together along class lines and prevented scab tactics, with immense contributions from Squamish longshoremen in Vancouver, Japanese workers in Calgary, Chinese workers in Edmonton, and Yiddish speakers and Francophones in Montreal.
In December of 1921 the newly-formed CPC-PCC was admitted to the Communist International. The social-chauvinism of yellow unions and “independent” socialists rejecting racial and national emancipation, and furthermore supporting continued colonial projects and imperialist wars, demonstrated the necessity for a distinct Communist Party. Despite clandestine conditions looming over them, the builders of the Party worked hard to establish the Party press, our organization (the Young Communist League – Ligue de la jeunesse communiste), and mass movements like the Labour Party. Then as now, the Party understood the importance of an autonomous youth organization for communists: though conditions have changed, our goal remains the same.
The Dirty Thirties saw YCLers organize the unorganized in work camps, fight for important reforms like unemployment insurance and universal healthcare, and volunteer to fight fascism in Spain. In the 1940s, due to a combination of the success of the Popular Front tactic establishing the Canadian Youth Congress as well as the return of illegality through the War Measures Act, the YCL-LJC became a non-Marxist mass organization, the National Federation of Labour Youth. The NFLY was a founding member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth and went on to organize a coast-to-coast youth strike against the removal of price controls, known as the Candy Bar Strike. The ‘60s saw workers holding state power for the first time in the Western hemisphere, students organizing across the country, mass action against the American war on Vietnam, and the strengthening of Indigenous and Québécois sovereignty movements. The YCL-LJC was reformed at this time as a communist youth organization grounded in Marxism-Leninism. During the ‘70s the YCL-LJC organized against the coups in Chile and Argentina, campaigned for Black political prisoners like Angela Davis, and participated in a country-wide strike against wage controls. The end of the ‘80s were tumultuous times for the League, leading to its liquidation in 1991, but nevertheless throughout the decade young communists were active in mass campaigns for peace and solidarity: campaigns against nuclear weapon proliferation, the BDS and anti-aparthied movement, and solidarity campaigns with Grenada and Nicaragua. Members and veterans of the YCL-LJC also helped in the struggle against liquidation of the CPC-PCC. They kept the movement alive, continuing to build international ties and engaging in the working class struggle.
When the YCL-LJC was finally refounded in 2007, its objective was not to dogmatically follow the formula left by Lenin, but rather to recognize the mass mobilizations of young people in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. Free trade and globalization, the invasion of Iraq, environmental devastation, and a growing student movement had all brought youth to the streets and into the Party.
Throughout the history of the CPC-PCC, young communists have been dedicated fighters in the struggle for fundamental social change. This commitment has required great sacrifice, and as a part of the celebrations we must recognize the work undertaken to have an independent communist youth organization within the “small intestine” of the beast. Going forward, we should take the hard work of those who have come before us as an example as we build the League and the struggle.
The current double-edged worldwide health and economic crisis has had the most devastating effects in the Global South, where the majority of humanity lives: many in deep poverty and with limited or no access to healthcare. In every capitalist country, the pandemic has hit hardest the poor, the homeless, the elderly, Indigenous peoples, frontline workers in healthcare, and workers in essential services such as food production and distribution, grocery stores, transportation, childcare, education, sanitation, and construction, many of whom are women and low-paid and precarious workers.
Here in Canada, the capitalist class is placing a large burden of the economic fallout on young workers. Since March of last year, employment rates for young people have reached lows not seen since the Great Depression. The rate of youth unemployment in Canada is almost double that in the US. Recently, provincial premiers like BCNDP leader John Horgan and Ontario PC leader Doug Ford have lambasted young people for spreading the virus. Horgan asked young people “not to blow it for us” and Ford had “a message to the young folks: guys, this party’s not over”. In BC, where more than half of workers do not get paid sick days from their employer, Horgan has said that he does not want to make employers pay for sick days as they are “struggling”. When asked about legislating paid sick days, Ford said “[the] argument just doesn’t fly. I’m sorry, it’s not cutting the mustard. Simple as that”.
Amidst the worst pandemic in 100 years, young workers and students have seen the wealthiest people in the country hoarding billions of dollars, while jobs have disappeared and debt interest has accumulated. It is clear what the state can and cannot afford. The Federal Government has handed out over $74 billion in wage subsidies to corporations through the CEWS program. The oil and gas industry saw almost $20 billion from the Feds in handouts in 2020. The military budget for 2020 ballooned to almost $22 billion. The imperialist system demands the drive for profits continues with total disregard for human life, steamrolling anything in its path.
The worsening of conditions means our movement is on the march. In the YCL-LJC, we are experiencing a flood of applications. People used to ask if socialism was really possible, but now more and more are asking, “how much longer can capitalism go on?” Anyone that joins our League going forward will have been born after the Soviet Union ceased to exist, a first for our organization which was forged in the wave of optimism following 1917. The disappearance of the Soviet Union — the bulwark in the international struggle for socialism — was a serious blow to the working class of the world, however it was not “the end of history” that some had hoped for. 150 years ago this May, the first dictatorship of the proletariat ended with red flowing down the streets of Paris rather than billowing above in the sky. The bloody week that brought the Commune to an end with executions and exiles did not mark an end to the working class movement, rather it became an inspiration for the next 50 years of struggle leading to the formation of the Third International. In the same way, the disappearance of the Soviet Union only proves that for 75 years, workers charted their own course, despite the efforts of the international capitalist class to overturn their revolution. We learn from those experiences, avoiding the practice of idolatry and mythmaking, while still recognising and defending the accomplishments that the struggle for socialism has brought to humanity.
As young communists, the best gift we can give the Party on its centenary is our commitment to building the movement for socialism. The tasks ahead of us will require discipline and fortitude, but also opportunities to learn and grow collectively, to forge new and lasting bonds as comrades, and to do more than just interpret the crisis around us. The ruling class has plenty of distractions for young people and it is our role to raise class consciousness and bring our generation to the fight. The challenges we need to impose on ourselves in order to build the League are certainly daunting, but every new recruit means that the load is lightened. We stand on the shoulders of our forebears as we continue their work in this second century that will build socialism in Canada. We have a long and proud history of struggle for the emancipation of working people, both in Canada and around the world — and as young communists it is our job to continue the history of struggle and keep the red flag flying!