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Socialist Action Canada

Socialist Action Canada | Ligue pour L'Action Socialiste

Category: Analysis

On Monuments

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Statues are not history. They are communications devices for ideologies. True for this animal-who is one of the most common in the states of the old Confederacy-not despite the fact he started the KKK, but because of it.  

Turmoil in the Green Party

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This is an important discussion on the state of the Left in Canada, and on the movement for Eco-socialism.  In terms of strategy, it has implications for the very future of humanity and nature.

First of all, I want to congratulate Dimitri Lascaris.  He waged an amazing campaign that rallied thousands of people to Eco-socialist ideas.  That is a testament to Dimitri’s consummate skills as a superb organizer and an articulate proponent of radical socio-economic change.

In the end, the Green Party selected the most conservative, pro-capitalist candidate who ran to be its Leader.  In interviews with the mass media, Annamie Paul emphasized her identity, instead of highlighting her policy ideas.  Like her predecessor and major backer, Elizabeth May, Paul’s ideas conform to the tired old Green Party outlook on private ownership of the economy, not to mention its general support for Ottawa’s pro-imperialist foreign policy.

Do Canadian Workers have Revolutionary Potential? — A Defence of the Working Class

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My purpose is to take on the doubters and the cynics, the middle-class thinkers, the academics, the petit bourgeois currents among students, young radicals, labour bureaucrats, and the NDP brass. None of them believe the Canadian working class can make a revolution and overthrow capitalism in Canada.

Our lives and our work in Socialist Action are based on the proposition that they are wrong. That is what I aim to show.

The Leninist Party and the Left

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V.I. Lenin, and his famous book “What is to Be Done?”, are hated by the entire political establishment.  Even scholars who consider themselves Marxists are uncomfortable with Lenin.  Why?  Because Lenin built a party that led a socialist revolution.  He proved that workers could overthrow capitalism.

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Communist movement in Canada

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It is important to emphasize the context in which the Canadian communist movement arose.  The launch occurred at a tiny convention held in secret on a farm near Guelph, Ontario on May 23, 1921.  The new party was inspired by the Russian Revolution, and its militants did many great things in the early years.  But the young Soviet Union was besieged by hostile imperialist armies.  Russia suffered enormously from its isolation and economic backwardness.  A bureaucratic party elite, represented by Joseph Stalin, seized control.  It curtailed workers’ democracy, crushed socialist opposition and adopted a new programme that over-adapted to capitalist rule outside the USSR.  The perspective of world revolution was replaced with the false utopia of ‘socialism in one country’.  Permanent revolution (that is, the need for a workers’-led revolution to lead the social transformation, especially in the poor countries) was supplanted by the old, discredited Menshevik notion of revolution by stages.  The ‘stages theory’ relies on an alliance with the liberal or nationalist bourgeoisie.  Under Stalin, socialist democracy was replaced by bureaucratic tyranny, accompanied by elite privilege, false propaganda, show trials, torture and the assassination of political opponents.

Palestine-Israel: The Missing Link… The Solution to the Nakba (Catastrophe)

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In great detail the unfolding Palestinian freedom struggle against the racist, Zionist, colonial, apartheid settler capitalist state of Israel has captured headlines worldwide and won the solidarity of humanity’s finest democratic and human rights fighters. That apartheid Israel receives $3.8 billion annually in U.S. military aid – exceeding all other countries – has been roundly condemned as has Israel’s role as the U.S. gendarme/imperial enforcer in the Middle East. I use the five adjectives – racist, Zionist, colonial, apartheid and settler – capitalist state advisedly, that is, to accurately describe the reality of Israel, yesterday and today. The horror of that reality, coupled with the heroic resistance to it by the beleaguered Palestinian people, has inspired tens and hundreds of thousands to mobilize in solidarity demonstrations around the world today. Several major U.S. cities have witnessed mobilizations of 10,000 or more, including New York and Los Angeles, with similar numbers in the streets in San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere. 10,000 mobilized in Toronto; 20,000 in Montreal and thousands more across Canada. The mass protests in solidarity with the Palestinian people are not dissimilar to last summer’s anti-racist, anti-police brutality Black Lives Matter mobilizations. They have been markedly multi-racial and youthful. 100,000 took to the streets in London.

The Making of the Covid-19 Cataclysm in India

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi loves to use new, self-proclaimed labels on India, like Atmanirbhar (self-dependent), Vishwaguru (world’s teacher), etc. These labels are as meaningless as they are fictitious. Although for a while, during the pandemic, it did seem that India had managed to fight off the worst of it and was ready to do the same at the service of the whole world, now India’s condition has grown much grimmer.

WEBCAST: James P. Cannon and the Foundations of Trotskyism

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Thursday, April 22  4 p.m. PT, 7 p.m. EST, “James P. Cannon and the Foundations of Trotskyism” featuring Bryan Palmer, Emeritus Professor of History at Trent University, Ontario, and author of “James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left 1890-1928”. Host: Elizabeth Byce. Discussants: Jeff Mackler, national secretary, Socialist Action – USA.

WEBCAST: The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth

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Thursday, March 18   4 p.m. PT, 7 p.m. EST, “The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada's Public Wealth” (published 2019) with author Linda McQuaig.  Host: Elizabeth Byce.   Discussants:  John Orrett in Thornhill and Emily Steers…

Read More WEBCAST: The Sport and Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth