RCP(OC)'S FIRST CONGRESS

Building the Party, fighting bourgeois ideas, preparing for revolution !

Revolution ! The Only Solution ! Members, supporters and friends attending the First Congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party (Organizing Committees) held in Montréal, Québec last summer (2003) ended their works with this unifying slogan, along with singing the revolutionary anthem The Internationale. The attendees carried the very first Programme of the RCP(OC) and a detailed implementation plan to develop the Party and the conditions for revolution in Canada. By doing so, they made that slogan more than a will. It became a precise goal, a unified commitment and a concrete action plan.

The carrying of that Programme was following discussions and improvements around a draft that had circulated since a first Revolutionary Conference held two years ago. At that time, the conference had also created the Revolutionary Communist Party (Organizing Committees) as a first step before the official foundation of the RCP still to come. The participants had acknowledged the need to build such a Party, and to rely on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in order to unify those who were the most determined and conscious among the working class-that is to say, the vanguard. Fighting the capitalist bourgeoisie requires such Party and ideology in order to give power to the workers, employees, Native people, the youth, all those men, women and migrants exploited by the capitalists and who are the vast majority of people in Canada that we name the proletarians.

Our Programme: a guide for revolutionary action

• A new section defining the meaning and origin of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the ideology on which the RCP(OC) relies.
• A new section describing what measures and tasks should the proletariat put in place and realize once it will conquer political power. Far from being some bourgeois "electoral type" promises, it describes the concrete measures that will allow the true elimination and transformation of the capitalist production mode, in order to prepare the transition to communism, as well as to revolutionize the social relations between classes, men and women, the city and the countryside, and also between countries.
• A new chapter on the immediate demands of the proletariat for which we must fight today. Those demands are the ones which contribute to workers' unity around the interests of the most exploited people, and unmask and isolate the bourgeois State and clearly distinguish proletariat and bourgeoisie's sides.

On top of that, there will be an additional chapter with some facts and figures exposing the damage done by the capitalists and their system, to not only the billions of human beings around the globe but also to their environment and to natural resources.

The attendees also strongly reaffirmed their support of the Communist programme on the matters of nations in Canada, by upholding the general objective we must have to detach ourselves from the "national" programme of the bourgeoisie (whether in Canada or in Québec) and to put forward a programme to fight against national divisions and for workers' unity across the country. The comrades strongly reaffirmed their position that nothing in the project of Québec independence can represent any hope for workers' emancipation. The only way to liberate ourselves and solute the bourgeoisie dead-end on this issue is by struggling without compromising against all forms of national oppression, for the right to self-determination for the Natives and for absolute equality between nations and languages.

In the fight against women's oppression, the participants had an in-depth discussion around a new chapter upholding the need to build a movement of proletarian women. This perspective rallied the attendees to a large extent, particularly on the following aspects:

• to develop the Communist program for women's liberation, by fighting for all immediate demands with respect to women's rights, and against all forms of sexism and chauvinism, including within the proletariat itself;
• to foster by specific means the participation of proletarian women in the Party and their leadership capacities by education and propaganda so they can join the side of socialist revolution.

Although the Congress chosen to publish the new Programme with the chapter as proposed, members will continue the discussion in order to clarify and unify the different points of view as discussed, particularly with regards to patriarchy. A new version of the chapter should be carried within the next year (2004).

We join the fight for a new International !

• A strong support and enthusiastic greetings to the comrades of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), who are waging people's war against the reactionary monarchy and building a red fortress in South Asia.
• Our solidarity with other Maoist parties around the world, notably in Peru, in the Philippines, in India, in Bangladesh, in Bhutan, in Turkey, in Iran and in Afghanistan.
• Greetings to Maoist organizations that lead the struggle in the belly of the beast, in imperialist countries like in Italy, Spain and United States.
• Support to efforts made by the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) in upholding Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, building new Maoist parties, supporting, developing protracted people's war and world revolution as well as to build a new Communist International.
• A commitment to work for ideological and political unity among Maoist forces by going forward in the way of the People's War. In order to do so, the Central Committee of the RCP(OC) will take the necessary steps to eventually join the ranks of the RIM.

To gain victory over bourgeois propaganda

In order to do so, revolutionaries must among other things gain victory over bourgeois propaganda, that is to say, over those ideas imposed to us by the bourgeoisie in the newspapers, on TV or radio and where the capitalists try, per se: to convince us that elections are the most achieved form of democracy, while we know it is a phony play where all the actors are trying to put all of those who resist and oppose back into the legal and parliamentary frames; to convince us that we must call for social peace rather than call for a real participation of the masses through firm struggles; or still, to convince us that the current State is a neutral referee put there to govern for the best interests of both the rich and the poor. To say it clear, we must fight continually against those ideas, which restrict our freedom of thinking and are leading us to feel powerless and fatalistic. We must fight by propagating and agitating proletarian and revolutionary ideas. We must convince but above all, spread and distribute widely revolutionary ideas and anti-capitalist spirit and show that revolution is much more powerful than resistance !

The RCP(OC) will support any initiative that aims to bring revolutionary propaganda among the masses. It will also launch three new written tools dedicated to communist propaganda and agitation, including a new theoretical and political quarterly magazine in French, entitled Arsenal. In this magazine, the RCP(OC) will expose its views but will also look for a better analysis and understanding of the conditions we need in order to prepare the revolutionary struggle in Canada, as well as to educate to MLM. Arsenal will also help to wage the ideological struggle against anti-Marxist trends, and to spread discussions and analysis made by the International Communist Movement. Finally, it will raise awareness around the advances of the revolutionary struggle all around the world.

In the same spirit, an agitprop newsletter called Unite and Fight! will be actively and widely distributed in plants, working places, schools, neighborhoods and any place where we can reach proletarian people. Some more local versions of that paper will be available as well. This bilingual agitprop paper will be used to build unity around mass political campaigns in a clear, direct and lively style.

Finally, the RCP(OC) is reaffirming its will to rally the revolutionary vanguard in the rest of Canada as well, thanks to a new publication called People's War Digest available in English. This newsletter is meant for organizational development and to raise awareness around revolutionary and communist ideas in all parts of the country, with a special focus for radical and revolutionary circles among Native nations in Canada.

During the Congress, the delegates also developed action plans on issues such as political education for the members, preparation for two major theoretical discussions (the socialist experience in the USSR and women's matters), the revolutionary struggle, local development, international relations, etc.

In conclusion, the delegates also carried the first Statutes of the RCP(OC), which define the principles that rule its organizational life, the terms of membership and its democratic functioning.

The delegates achieved the works of this First Congress with enthusiasm. Those who attended felt that they participated in an important event for the future of revolution in Canada. For the first time in nearly 20 years, a significant number of revolutionary communists did unify around a clear and serious political project, at the opposite of the old bourgeois plans. Moreover, they laid the foundations for a Party dedicated to the making of revolution in Canada. This is far from being nothing. And we are convinced that the months and years to come are full of promises for the RCP(OC) and for the advance of struggles and of revolution in the country.

We invite all of those who recognize themselves in this will to fight, to contact us in order to obtain a copy of the Programme, to read the RCP(OC)'s publications and above all, to get organized with it, in order to join with other comrades who share the same vision for the future: a vision where capitalism will no more exist; where men and women will live in a society not based on profit or wealth accumulation, but rather on the harmonious development of individuals in the respect of their environment, on satisfying the needs of everybody, as well as on the end of exploitation and all forms of oppression.

Long live the RCP(OC)'s First Congress !
Let's rally revolutionary forces all across the country !
Together, we'll shake the capitalist society !

(paru dans the People's War Digest magazine n° 1)