Author: Revolutionary Initiative

En Français, RI Articles & Statements

« Base d’unité » – Le précurseur de l’initiative révolutionnaire

Le précurseur de l’ « initiative révolutionnaire »

Ce document a été conçu dans les mi-2000 par un groupe qui a donné naissance à l’ « initiative révolutionnaire ». Bien que ce document est assez rudimentaire et n’est pas dans aucun sens un programme pour la révolution, son signifiance est issu du fait que, pour un moment, ses formulations ont donné une unité idéologique et politique significative parmi le noyau dur d’un petit groupe de prolétariens révolutionnaires afin de commencer le processus de la construction d’une partie prolétarien au Canada.

À travers l’étude, l’expérience dans la lutte des masses, et la critique et l’auto-critique, cette « Base d’unité » à été remplacée par nos « Thèses sur le mouvement de la construction d’une partie au Canada » et une série de documents idéologiques, politiques, organisationnels, et historiques, plus raffinés, qui nous guident dans le processus du mouvement de la construction d’une partie au Canada.

Cependant, ce court document idéologique-politique démontre qu’il est impossible de résoudre toutes les questions pertinentes avant qu’un groupe de révolutionnaires prolétariens ne commence le travail pratique de la reconstruction d’une vraie partie communiste.
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« Base d’unité »

Pour éventuellement créer une vraie partie communiste de Canada, les révolutionnaires prolétariens au Canada doivent s’unir autour des indices suivants:

Continue reading “« Base d’unité » – Le précurseur de l’initiative révolutionnaire”

En Français, RI Articles & Statements

En même temps que la crise avance, le mouvement pour la révolution avance aussi

This is a French translation of our document “As the crisis advances, so to will the movement for revolution” from November 2008.

Novembre 2008-IR Organe central

Le capitalisme global entre dans une phase de crise aux niveaux historique, le pire depuis l’effondrement qui a mené à la Grande Dépression. Cette crise a déjà mené aux ralentissements de la production, un arrêt dans l’investissement du capital, la perte des emplois, et un augmentation de l’oppression et de l’exploitation subi par les masses prolétariens autour du monde. Ce qui met cette récession à part des crises cycliques produites par le capitalisme, n’est pas seulement sa sévérité, mais ses origines également. Opposé aux effondrements passés comme l’effondrement « dot-com » des 90s, cette crises a lieu au sein même du système impérialiste, au coeur du capital financier monopole. Elle commence à se répandre dans d’autres domaines de l’économie et mènera à la destruction généralisée de la moyenne de la production quand les usines des industries diverses commencent à ralentir la production ou même ferment leurs portes, ainsi que l’accélération de la processus de la concentration du capital dans les mains des monopoles. Continue reading “En même temps que la crise avance, le mouvement pour la révolution avance aussi”

En Français, RI Articles & Statements

Thèses sur le mouvement de construction du Parti au Canada

This is a French translation of our document “Theses on the Party Building Movement in Canada” from the Spring of 2008.

Printemps 2008 – Organe dirigeant de Revolutionary Initiative

Introduction

Le prolétariat canadien a besoin d’un véritable Parti communiste. Depuis plus d’un demi-siècle, le prolétariat se retrouve sans véritable parti d’avant-garde. Il a été désarmé, pacifié, et induit en erreur par le révisionnisme, la social-démocratie, le trotskysme, l’anarchisme et autres tendances contre-révolutionnaires qui ont empêché le développement d’un véritable mouvement révolutionnaire pour renverser le capitalisme monopolistique. Afin de construire ce mouvement ainsi que la capacité de lutter du prolétariat, nous avons besoin d’un parti. Ce parti devra prendre racine dans la lutte et être guidé par la forme la plus avancée de l’idéologie prolétarienne, nommément : le marxisme-léninisme-maoïsme. Continue reading “Thèses sur le mouvement de construction du Parti au Canada”

The Imperialist Intrigues Against Libya
RI Articles & Statements

The Imperialist Intrigues Against Libya

Expose and oppose all designs against the Libyan People

Revolutionary Initiative (Canada)
Statement from the General Secretary
March 13, 2011

Gaddafi’s relationship to imperialism

In stark contrast to the manner in which the Western imperialists have responded to developments across North Africa and the Middle East over the last two months, for the armed opposition in Libya they have been only too ready to support the anti-Gaddafi movement. For all their clamoring about the necessity for “peaceful transitions” where the masses threatened their clients in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere, the imperialists have abandoned their pacifist demagogy when it has come to Libya. NATO is pushing for a military assault against Libya that could range in devastation anywhere from NATO’s operation against Kosovo in 1999 to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Continue reading “The Imperialist Intrigues Against Libya”

Reposted Content

The necessity to revise the experiences of the past and to work out the present experiences by the light of the theory of the long lasting popular revolutionary war

Article from La Voce del (nuovo) Partito comunista italiano, n. 18
mercoledì 19 luglio 2006.

R.I. Editorial Note:
Another article in our series on revolutionary military strategy in imperialist countries. This article from the (new) Communist Party of Italy reviews past experiences of armed struggle in the imperialist countries in light of their theory of Protracted Revolutionary People’s War for imperialist countries. The translation, like many from this organization, are not perfect, but the ideas are comprehensible. -R.I. -13 March 2011

Continue reading “The necessity to revise the experiences of the past and to work out the present experiences by the light of the theory of the long lasting popular revolutionary war”

RI Articles & Statements

North Africa and the Middle East: Support the revolts and prepare for revolution

A statement from the General Secretary of Revolutionary Initiative (Canada)
February 14, 2011.

When the young Tunisian produce merchat Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze after having his livelihood taken from him by Tunisian authorities, he sparked a rebellion amongst a stratum of youth, students, the urban unemployed, and petty-bourgeois, first in Tunisia and then all across the Arab world. But Bouazizi was himself merely a rallying point, the final trickle of indignation sufficient to allow the fears of Tunisians to be overcome by their yearning for liberation. The Tunisian revolt, followed by the flight of Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, emboldened the Arab masses to emulate Tunisia’s example, igniting all of North Africa and the Middle East in rebellion.

The domestic and international situations that have conditioned these revolts are the depressed economic conditions in most of the Arab world, subordinated as it is to the geopolitical interests and economic dictates of imperialist globalization, which includes the defense of Zionist aggression and expansionism. The protests and rebellions throughout the Middle East – from Tunisia, to Algeria, to Egypt, to Jordan, to Yemen, to Gaza, and beyond – have been triggered by decades of pro-imperialist, feudal, dictatorial, pro-Israel, and bankrupt antipeople policies. As the Arab revolts unfolded, the news outlet al-Jazeera began to release the leaked “Palestine Papers”, thousands of diplomatic documents from the past decade of the Israel-Palestine conflict. A brief glance at only a few of the thousands of documents reveal unequivocally how treachourous and pro-Israeli is the Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and the entire Palestinian Authority. These documents have offered the Arab masses and the whole world yet another opportunity to observe how U.S. imperialism, Israel, and comprador ruling classes like Mahmoud Abbas and Co., conspire against the interests of the masses in the geopolitical and economic interests of imperialism. Continue reading “North Africa and the Middle East: Support the revolts and prepare for revolution”

Reposted Content

On Elections: Social Revolution Party (Canada)

[More on our series on the various views in ICM on participating in bourgeois elections.  This post comes from the Social Revolution Party, a MLM group in Ontario.  Their original post can be found here.]

A Communist Position on Bourgeois-Democracy and the Parliamentary System

I. Introduction

In light of the recent debates within the International Communist Movement1 as to the value of working within the bourgeois parliamentary system, and because of questions posed to the Social Revolution Party as to its position on bourgeois elections, it seemed prudent to write an article on the bourgeois parliamentary system and the attitude that communists should be taking towards parliament. For whatever reasons, it seems that English speaking communists often romanticize the parliamentary experience; indeed, almost all of the “official” Communist Parties within the Anglosphere have been reduced to, in the words of Marx, “parliamentary cretinism”2.

In the interests of a detailed and thorough exposition of the problem at hand, this article will begin by looking at the original debates surrounding communist involvement in bourgeois parliaments dating back to the inception of the Third International. Careful attention will then be paid to Lenin’s critique of both British and German communist involvement in their respective parliaments, with an eye as to whether or not Lenin was being consistent in his critique. We will then step forward 80 years and examine the modern Canadian context and whether or not advocating parliamentary involvement in Canada in 2009 is a Leninist position. Lenin’s position itself will then be the focus of extreme critiques, examining the effects of parliamentary involvement on communist organisations. Finally, after careful investigation, a position for the Social Revolution Party will be put forward. Onwards!

Continue reading “On Elections: Social Revolution Party (Canada)”

Reposted Content

On Elections: An Excerpt from Lenin’s Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder

Should we Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?

It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:

“… All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected” [[__ Rjc: Could be incomplete here; check __]]

This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?

Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics. Continue reading “On Elections: An Excerpt from Lenin’s Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder”