L'Humanite changes name to Fightback!

www.marxist.ca

New website, new paper, reflects new situation in Canada

By Fightback editorial board
The current world situation is one of instability and volatility at all levels-economic, social, and political. Canada is no exception. The relative equilibrium and stability enjoyed during the capitalist upswing following the end of the Second World War is no longer possible. Instead of boom, full employment and prosperity, there is growing unemployment and cuts to living standards, even in the rich world. The gap between rich and poor is constantly increasing and economic power is concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. The economy is stagnating on a world scale. The bourgeois economists speak of recovery, but their fingers are crossed behind their backs. Growth rates are low all around the world. While Japan once enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 14.6%, and Canada 6.9% (average growth of GDP between 1963 and 1973), current growth rates for Japan are actually negative (taking falling prices into account) and Canada's GDP grew by just 2.9% between April 2003 and April 2004.
Capitalism depends not just on profit, but on ever-increasing profit. Unfortunately, the world and its markets are finite. When profits are low, the bosses must cut costs to stay afloat, and it is always the working class that bears the brunt of these cuts, in the form of lay-offs, plant closings, and the clawing back of wages and benefits that already did not keep up with inflation. The bourgeoisie puts pressure on their governments to facilitate these attacks, by cutting social spending in favour of tax cuts for the rich, and by easing already minimal labour and employment standards. The fight to break the backs of labour is well underway. In British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario, so called neo-liberal governments have caught the near-sighted leadership of the labour movement by surprise. "We are shocked", say the old reformist leaders of the NDP.

We see these attacks across the country. The BC Liberals have ripped up and legislated contracts, and legislated striking workers back to work, consciously and meticulously nullifying basic "rights" that workers fought and died for and that the labour leaders take for granted. The already pitiful minimum wage has been undermined by a $2 lower training wage. Children can work at 12 years old and the 8-hour day can be signed away in a "mutual agreement between equal parties", i.e. worker and boss. Gordon Campbell's good friend Jean Charest was eager to follow suit in Québec, with a program of "cost reductions, savings and budgetary constraints", and amending the labour code to allow contracting out. Dalton McGuinty, Ontario Liberal premier since October 2003, brought down a budget including regressive taxes in the form of medical premiums, increased user fees, and surprise, surprise, cuts to social spending. Prime Minister Paul Martin may have swept the Liberal leadership on his neo-liberal conservative agenda, but he certainly did not fair so well in the Federal general election. He is now the leader of an unstable minority government and is likely kicking himself for ever saying "Gordon Campbell is my kind of Liberal".

In the tradition of the 1980s' BC Socreds under William Bennett and British Tories under Margaret Thatcher, these grade-A villains hit hard and fast, in hopes of overwhelming, disorientating, and destroying the labour movement.

Fortunately, Canadian workers have made it known that they will not stand idly by while their living standards are eroded to ease the burden of a stagnant economy on their capitalist oppressors. In Newfoundland, the Tory government's demand for concessions on issues of job cuts and privatization brought 20,000 public sector workers out on April 1st, in the largest strike in the province's history. 48 hours before the strike began, the Tories tabled a budget calling for the elimination of 4,000 public sector jobs over four years. It was clear from the start that, like his cohorts in BC, Quebec and Ontario, Premier Danny Williams, one of Newfoundland's wealthiest businessmen, had no intention of respecting the right to strike. Even the Globe and Mail recognized Williams' back-to-work legislation as "historically harsh" (Richer. Globeandmail.com, 28 April 2004). Just one day later, the BC Hospital Employees' Union defied a similar order, and their illegal strike began (see BC General Strike betrayed by union bosses, http://www.marxist.com/canada/canada_gs_betrayed.html).

It is not because of some predetermined Canadian moral integrity that we have had the right to strike, a minimum wage, anti child labour laws, etc. It is because working people lifted their heads, recognized their collective power, formed unions, and made political demands from which they did not back down. The bourgeois attacks will continue, and struggles that have been fought and won will have to be re-fought. The ruling class will show no respect for the laws and "rights" that have become a thorn in their side. And while the academic left, who cannot think outside the box of bourgeois legality, will be sending letters to the government attempting to draw their attention to laws that have clearly been "overlooked", the working class will be doing instinctively what only we can do-going on strike, halting production, and protesting en masse in the streets. This is not some far fetched fairytale. Strike waves and mass movements are not foreign to Canadians. Marxists are often referred to as the memory of the working class. Let us remember the Winnipeg general strike and the Vancouver general strike (both 1919), the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s, the Waffle movement of the early 1970s, and BC's last general strike movement-Operation Solidarity of 1983.

Workers will be protesting and picketing, and they will be chanting "Fight back" - "They say cutback; we say Fightback!" The struggles for day-to-day bread and butter demands will be linked instinctively to the struggle for a better system. And it is up to the Marxists to explain that this is a struggle against capitalism, and for socialism. Trotsky explains in the Transitional Program that "it is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist program of the revolution"-to fight tooth and nail for every demand, but to continually explain that true freedom from exploitation cannot be obtained within the confines of capitalism.

There is a new mood in the Canadian working class and that mood is reflected in the launch of a new revolutionary organ. Marxist.ca and Fightback aim to bring together those who genuinely wish to build a Bolshevik organization to fight for socialism. We are 100% in solidarity with the ideas of the International Marxist Tendency, www.marxist.com, and our sister papers around the globe. Frederick Engels commented that in some periods 20 years might pass as a single day, but also that the events of one day may express the history of 20 years. We are entering such a turbulent period, where the only barrier to overthrowing capitalism is the ability of Marxists to forge an organization capable of doing the job. We need both financial and human support. We call on all revolutionaries in Canada to support us, subscribe to Fightback, and join our fight to transform society.

For more information contact: Figh...@marxist.ca
Fightback #540 - 1917 W. 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC. V6J 1M7

September, 2004