Want to change the world? Join Socialist Action today!

Socialist Action Canada

Socialist Action Canada | Ligue pour L'Action Socialiste

Category: Canada

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Communist movement in Canada

by

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.

Report, photos and videos from the Palestine solidarity rally in Toronto on Saturday, May 15

by

On Saturday, May 15, the Greater Toronto BDS Coalition hosted a cross-country online Day of Action for Palestine rally.  It was initiated by Socialist Action, in partnership with many allies.  So far, over 435 people have watched the online rally, either live, or subsequently on the SA YouTube channel. Saturday evening, against a backdrop of protests around the world against the Zionist campaign of terror and murder, close to 10,000 people rallied at Toronto City Hall Square to demand Freedom for Palestine.

Green Economy, Green Capitalism?: The Case Against The Case for Climate Capitalism

by

Even now, with a ten-year time-frame left for action, it’s rare for the climate crisis to be treated as the emergency it is. So, credit where due to Tom Rand. In his The Case for Climate Capitalism: Economic Solutions for a Planet in Crisis (Toronto: ECW Press, 2020), Rand calls for a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables; he blames the political and business elite for the mess and says they will have to pay the price as markets turn against oil and assets are stranded; he even advocates for expansion of public transit. Where the book gets less refreshing is Rand’s tone toward the people who have been saying these things all along: his secondary enemy, leftists fusing demands for climate action with calls for economic justice.