The Marxist Quarterly Autumn 1965

QUEBEC STATES HER CASE ed. by Frank Scott and Michael Oliver, Macmillan of Canada, Toronto 1964, 165 pp. $5.00.

UNE POLITIQUE SOCIALE AU LIEU DUNE POLITIQUE BOURGEOISIE Le Parti Communiste Canadien, Comite du Quebec. Progress Books, Toronto, October 1964, $0.25.

THE DIFFICULTY with books about Canada is that they are out of date as soon as they are published. This is the first problem that confronts one in leafing through the pages of Quebec States Her Case. The second is that this particular book, subtitled "Speeches and articles from Quebec in the years of unrest," necessarily reflects the bias of its editors in the selection of items.

In the choice of material there is a predilection for André Laurendeau, editor of Le Devoir and co-chairman of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. He is the only contributor who merits five items in the small volume. Most of the others get a single appearance.

However, the book marks an advance compared with some others published recently on the same subject. Thus we have the article by André Major which appeared in the March-April 1963 issue of Liberté. Major is now associated with a number of others publishing the magazine Parti Pris which enjoys great influence among young French Canadians who seek a thorough-going revolution in the national and social life of Quebec.

Major's article firmly declares that "Marxism gave us a method of understanding human reality, and a more precise and accurate insight into the world... No longer will we go along with concessions to Capital, with expedient alliances that put us on the side of the oppressors, with mere exchange of views, or with any form of conciliation. We have made our choice of sides."

Parti Pris (literally "position taken") was thus a natural title for their journal. In its September 1964 edition, incidentally there is a further development of the major theses in "Manifesto 1964-65," the full text of which appears in English translation in Viewpoint Vol. 2. No. 1, January 1965, the information and discussion bulletin of the Communist Party.

Since the appearance of the uncompromisingly socialist Parti Pris, Révolution Québécoise has come forward. They are a breakaway from the liberal-democratic Cité Libre magazine, and declare themselves to be Marxist and Leninist in outlook. Another important new journal is Socialisme 65. The Scott-Oliver book did not and perhaps could not keep pace with all these expressions of the New Left in Quebec. They do carry an article on the PSQ position. Of historic interest is the flaming manifesto of the terrorist Front de Libération Québécois (FLQ).

There are contributions by Jean Lesage, Marcel Chaput, Gérard Pelletier (also a contributor favored by the editors, no doubt for his moderate views), René Lévesque, Jean Marchand (former head of the Confederation of National Trade Unions) and others.
Despite the Communist Party's long history of outstanding contributions to the struggle for French-Canadian equality and liberation (one has only to mention Stanley Ryerson's pioneer historical work on French Canada) the editors have seen fit to exclude even the barest mention of the party's existence.

To correct this evident bias it should be noted that in addition to many public statements, articles in the newspaper Combat, Canadian Tribune, The Marxist Quarterly and public appearances before various commissions, the views of the Communist Party are ably outlined in a modest new pamphlet Une Politique Sociale au lieu d'une Politique Bourgeoise.

A subtitle explains that the pamphlet seeks "a minimum common program for a front of all movements of the left in Quebec."

A welcome analysis of the various class forces at work in Quebec and forming the background of the erupting separatist and socialist movements, the policies of the Lesage government, and those of the Union Nationale and the Créditistes are contained in the pamphlet.

It declares that in order to carry through the task of uniting the left on a minimum program, it is necessary to recognize that

The industrial working class in French Canada is not only the most numerous class today, but constitutes an absolute majority of the adult population. If the workers decide to unite their forces to present a political alternative to the bourgeois parties, they would receive great electoral support from the farmers, students, women, teachers, and many small business men, as well as many nationalists who are seeking social justice.

Only the working class can become the solid, necessary core in a coalition of the popular, democratic and national forces. An end to raiding inside the labor movement is a critical condition for the unity of the working class, if there is to be unity in political action in the wider arena. Jean Gregoire

BOOKS IN REVIEW 95

In addressing those who seek socialism, the pamphlet declares: "We Communists believe that the final solution to all the problems of exploitation of the workers and farmers by monopoly; of one nation by another; of women by men; for the conquest of unemployment, war and sickness, is socialism -- the common ownership of the means of production.

"But we do not believe that we must confine ourselves simply to ultimate aims... we believe that in the course of a determined struggle and greater unity to obtain (such) great reforms the people will themselves come to the conclusion that it is necessary not simply to take political power out of the hands of the monopolies, but to change the system as well."

The call for a great national and democratic coalition around a minimum program would include the two central trade union bodies, the Union of Catholic Farmers, the students and teachers organizations, the democratic nationalists who seek social justice. In the first place it would include the socialist groups, like the NDP, the PSQ, those who follow the separatist-socialist school around Partis Pris, the followers of Révolution Québécoise and those of Socialisme 65 -- not excluding the Communist Party.

The Communist Party advances three central points as a basis for discussion of such a minimum program:

1. An end to national inequality as expressed in the BNA Art. The right to self-determination for French and English Canada. The guaranteeing of the democratic right to language and culture for all ethnic groups.

2. Breaking the control of monopoly in industry and agriculture. Public democratic control of automation and export of power. Nationalization of key industries controlled by the U.S., like pulp and paper, the mining industry and nationalization of the Bell Telephone. Trade with all socialist and newly-independent countries and Latin America. An overall new economic policy.

3. Make French Canada a powerful voice for world peace and universal disarmament by demanding the dismantlement of all nuclear bases in Quebec and converting Canada into a denuclearized zone. An independent foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence with socialist countries.

Jean Martin

 

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-- This OCR was prepared by Kathleen Moore in August 2014 for the legal research purposes of Habeas Corpus Canada. --