Category: RI Articles & Statements

RI Articles & Statements

G20 and the Crisis of Imperialism

Leaders from the G20 have descended upon Toronto, turning much of the downtown core into a high-security police state, in an effort to manage an unprecedented crisis that has shaken the very foundations of the global capitalist system. Composed of the major imperialist powers (US, EU and Japan), second tier imperialists such as Canada, Australia and Russia, and various “middle power” countries that while still oppressed and exploited by imperialism have developed into regional powers with large economies (Brazil, India, China, Turkey, etc), the G20 was formed in an effort to stabilize the global economy in the interests of monopoly capitalism.

G20: Symptom of a System in Crisis

Monopoly capitalism has gone through multiple phases of expansion, each inevitably followed by stagnation and crisis. After the Great Depression, capitalism was able to save itself through massive military buildup and the expansion of industrial production during the Second World War. The military confrontation devastated much of Europe and Japan, creating areas for profitable investment through the rebuilding of Europe during the 1950s and 60s. However, by the 1970s, capitalism was again in crisis, this time because of “stagflation”. The reintegration of the former socialist countries into the imperialist world system and the neo-colonization of Third World bought a little more time, as new markets were created for the dumping of surplus production and the super-exploitation of Third World labour. However, once this process reached its point of saturation, monopoly capitalism again ran out of new areas for expansion in the real economy.

Continue reading “G20 and the Crisis of Imperialism”

RI Articles & Statements

First Statement from the Central Committee of Revolutionary Initiative

In dedication to the revolutionary class struggle of proletarians everywhere Revolutionary Initiative (RI) announces the formation of its Central Committee to lead our pre-Party formation in its great historical task of reconstituting a genuine Communist Party in Canada. It is a small step forward in our effort to create a Party to lead the revolutionary upsurge of the multinational proletariat in Canada, but an important one given the proletariat has been without a revolutionary vanguard since the triumph of revisionism in the Communist Party of Canada in the late 1930s. The establishment of our Central Committee is grounded in years of ideological, political, and organizational work, guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as applied to the conditions of proletarian class struggle in Canada and utilizing the principles of democratic centralism, criticism and self-criticism, and the mass line.

Over the course of the next five years, Revolutionary Initiative will lay out the ideological, political, and organizational bases for the refoundation of a proletarian revolutionary movement and vanguard in Canada. Continue reading “First Statement from the Central Committee of Revolutionary Initiative”

RI Articles & Statements

Thoughts on the RCP Program

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative

Introduction

This document is a summation of our current assessment of the program of the Revolutionary Communist Party. It arises out of a series of discussions carried out within Revolutionary Initiative and with comrades from the RCP.

Our assessment must begin with the recognition that the purpose of Revolutionary Initiative is the formation of a single genuine Communist Party in Canada and that the RCP is currently the most advanced Party-building project in this country. It is guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, is sincerely committed to the revolutionary transformation of Canadian society and has overall made a positive contribution to the movement for revolution in Canada. As Maoists, we must analyse their program carefully, clearly assess it’s perceived strengths and weaknesses, and identify where our understanding of Canadian society and the path to revolution differs. Only in this way may we develop a better understanding of our own line, potential barriers to unity that must be overcome, and areas of study that require greater investigation. We must do this in the spirit of comradeship and revolutionary humility, with the understanding that in the end it will be the masses who decide which line is correct.

This assessment will take the form of a section by section analysis of the RCP program.

Continue reading “Thoughts on the RCP Program”

RI Articles & Statements

On The Preconditions For The Founding of a Genuine Communist Party in Canada

Let's start putting the pieces together!

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative

History is littered with pre-Party formations that “jumped the gun” and attempted to launch themselves as a Parties prematurely and turned out to be “Parties” in name only.  Some of these premature “Parties” still managed to lead important struggles and are historically significant.  Others remained marginal sects and never gained traction in the working class.   What both have in common is their eventual destruction – either through splits, liquidationism, being smashed by the state, or some combination thereof.

Therefore, it is vital to ask the question: At what point can a pre-Party formation say that it has reached a higher stage of development and has achieved the ideological, political, and organizational preconditions necessary  to transform itself into a genuine Communist Party?

This article will attempt to list what Revolutionary Initiative believes to be the preconditions for the founding of a genuine Communist Party in Canada.  The preconditions are not listed in terms of priority or chronological stages and not all the preconditions can be expected to develop uniformly.  However, all of these preconditions are connected dialectically.  Should even a single precondition be absent it will retard, distort, or even totally prevent the development of all the other preconditions for the founding of a genuine Communist Party in Canada.

Continue reading “On The Preconditions For The Founding of a Genuine Communist Party in Canada”

RI Articles & Statements

Proletarian Internationalism: A Duty For All Revolutionaries

Fighters of the Mackenzie-Papineau brigades, organized by the Communist Party of Canada to train their members in armed struggle and contribute in the international effort to defeat the fascists in Spain.
Fighters of the Mackenzie-Papineau brigades, organized by the Communist Party of Canada to train their members in armed struggle and contribute in the international effort to defeat the fascists in Spain.

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative

Since the earliest days, proletarian internationalism has been a central pillar of the international communist movement.  Communists carry a line among the people that workers have no homeland, that national borders do not determine a community of interest.  The common interests of all workers is based on our class and all workers, regardless of their nation, have a common interest in the  struggle against capitalism and for a socialist future.

However, various counter-revolutionary ideologies, such as revisionism, petty bourgeois nationalism and cultural nationalism have attempted to obscure this basic truth.  They have in various ways hindered the development of internationalism amongst the working class and worked to prop up the imperialist ruling class.  As a collective operating in an imperialist country founded on settler colonialism, it is essential that Revolutionary Initiative understand its role in the international movement and work effectively to propagate internationalism amongst the working class and its allies.

This document will attempt to increase our understanding on this central element of revolutionary struggle by analysing how proletarian internationalism has been practised throughout the history of the International Communist Movement, the special duties for revolutionaries operating in imperialist countries, and the principles and priorities for the Canadian movement in particular.
Continue reading “Proletarian Internationalism: A Duty For All Revolutionaries”

RI Articles & Statements

On The United Front in Canada

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative

Introduction

If we are to create a new society, we must ask a fundamental question: who are our friends and who are our enemies?.  We must understand which class forces can lead the revolution and which will play a supporting or vacillating role.  We must also identify the class forces that are irredeemably opposed to revolution and will fight tooth and nail to defend the current system of exploitation and domination.  The former must be rallied into a powerful United Front to struggle against the latter and it is critical that we draw the correct the line between the two camps.  Too far to one side would water down the revolutionary movement and create a false unity with forces that are actually opposed to revolution.  Too far to the other would alienate class forces that would have otherwise supported the revolution, strengthening the enemy and weakening the forces for revolution.

What is Canadian Society?

Canadian society has reached the highest stage of development under capitalism, the stage of imperialism.  Capital has been concentrated in the hands of gigantic monopolies that control nearly the entire economy and dominate the political and cultural superstructure of society.  Finance capital is also highly centralized and forms the dominant faction of the monopoly capitalist class and is tightly connected with every other section of the economy.  On the world stage, Canadian imperialism uses the export of capital and political and military intervention to exploit and dominate the semi-colonial Third World nations. Continue reading “On The United Front in Canada”

RI Articles & Statements

As Crisis Advances, So Will Movement for Revolution

Statement of Revolutionary Initiative.

Global capitalism has entered a crisis of historical levels, the worst seen since the financial collapse that lead to the Great Depression. This crisis has already resulted in widespread production slowdowns, a freeze in capital investment, job losses, and an increase in the oppression and exploitation of the proletariat world-wide. What sets this recession apart from the usual cyclical crises produced by capitalism is not only its severity, but it’s origins. Unlike previous bubble collapses such as the dot-com crash of the 1990s this crisis is occurring in the very heart of the imperialist system, within monopoly finance capital. It has begun to spread outward to infect other areas of the economy and will result in widespread destruction of the means of production as plants in various industries scale back production or close shop entirely, as well as an acceleration of the process of capital concentration in the hands of the surviving monopolies.

These developments have proven the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist understanding of the moribund nature of the capitalist system. Finance capital, the dominant faction of the imperialist ruling class, has used its monopoly position to heavily distort the overall economy, greatly increasing the anarchy of production in the system as a whole. They were able to heavily concentrate capital in their hands, using it to create a speculative bubble detached from the real economy or any legitimate measure of value and drawing capital away from productive sectors of the economy. This reliance on speculative bubbles arises out of the stagnancy of the imperialist system, with rates of profit from productive investment on a continuous decline.

Continue reading “As Crisis Advances, So Will Movement for Revolution”