At a May 30 dinner in Toronto hosted by far right political activists, Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched a vicious Cold War style attack against communism. The Communist Party of Canada condemns Mr. Harper’s lies and baseless accusations. His slanderous speech aimed to build support for the growing NATO military build-up against Russia, and to create the political conditions for accelerating the wide ranging Conservative attack on the trade union movement and democratic rights and freedoms in Canada. We call upon all Canadians to reject the Prime Minister’s anti-communist rhetoric, and to rally in defence of peace, democracy, labour rights and civil liberties.
Mr. Harper spoke at a fundraising event held by the so called “Tribute to Liberty” organization. The Conservative party’s support for this group goes back years, to the start of their campaign to erect a “monument to the victims of communism” in the National Capital Commission area of Ottawa. Unable to raise sufficient funds privately, the group will be given millions of taxpayer dollars by the Conservative government for their highly political project, in violation of the principles of the NCC.
The Communist Party of Canada has spoken out against this reactionary initiative on several occasions. As we stated recently, “the monument project is a throwback to the sordid era of the Cold War, which resulted in a wave of anti-communist frenzy, RCMP spying, witch hunts, blacklisting, social ostracism, imprisonment and deportations against many progressive-minded Canadians. Such policies had a terrible chilling effect on public discourse and sharply curtailed the freedom of expression and associated democratic and trade union rights of all Canadians. The sponsors of this monument are now attempting to revive this tragic McCarthyist era of red-baiting, which had been tossed into the dustbin of history.”
The “Tribute to Liberty” organizers spread many outrageous falsehoods, most notably by including the 25 million Soviet citizens who died in the Second World War in their bizarre count of the supposed “victims of communism.” By repeating these lies, the Prime Minister aligns himself with those who still believe that it would have been better for the world if Hitler Germany had defeated the Soviet Union on the eastern front. This view is a shocking attack on the families of the 47,000 Canadian soldiers who died fighting as allies of the Soviet people in the war against Hitlerism. Harper’s statements are a brutal boot in the face for all who suffered under fascism, including the millions of Jews, Roma, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Communists, anti-fascists and others murdered in the Nazi death camps. By falsely equating communism with fascism in his May 30 speech, the Prime Minister callously slandered all those who gave their lives to liberate Europe and the entire world from the menace of fascism.
We therefore call upon the Prime Minister to issue an immediate full apology to the people of Canada for his historical lies and his support for the pro fascist forces in the “Tribute to Liberty” group.
But his May 30 speech has further frightening implications.
By using this occasion to repeat his support for the coup regime which overthrew the elected government of Ukraine several months ago, the Prime Minister signaled again that he backs the spread of ultra-right movements in Europe. The shock troops of the NATO backed February coup in Kiev were violent activists of neo-fascist parties, which were immediately rewarded with cabinet posts and other official positions. The US. Canada, and other NATO powers are whipping up today’s crisis in Ukraine, with the strategic aim of isolating Russia and crushing any geopolitical alternative to the military economic domination of the NATO EU imperialist countries. This is an important factor behind Mr. Harper’s ludicrous accusation that Prime Minister Putin – a strong backer of the new capitalist class in Russia – is supposedly a Communist. Ever since the October Revolution of 1917, such accusations by leaders of the imperialist powers have been used to prepare public opinion for military interventions, blockades, trade embargoes and other forms of “big stick” intervention against countries which refuse to follow the agenda of transnational capital. We condemn the Prime Minister’s dangerous Cold War militarist blustering, which raises international tensions and increases the threat of a catastrophic war in Europe. We also condemn the opposition NDP and Liberal parties in Parliament, which have eagerly joined Harper’s Russia bashing in their opportunist grovelling for voter support.
The other element behind Mr. Harper’s May 30 speech is the Conservative party’s relentless propaganda campaign against working people, in particular the organized sections of the working class in Canada, which has the organizational strength to be at the centre of a broad-based people’s resistance movement against the Tory corporate agenda.
It is no accident that the Prime Minister vented his rage against communists – those who led many historic struggles to build the trade union movement in Canada, and who played key roles in the fights to win unemployment insurance, universal public medicare, old age pensions, pay equity, and other key elements of the social safety net. Several times in Canadian history, the ruling class banned the Communist Party, jailed its leaders and seized its assets, trying repeatedly to crush a party which spoke out fearlessly for democratic rights and civil liberties under the most difficult circumstances. Mr. Harper’s speech was a transparent attempt to divide and weaken the opposition against his reactionary agenda, just as Cold War red-baiting and blacklisting was a key tactic in the ruling class drive to smash the most militant trade unions and to weaken public resistance to the imperialist assault of the post WWII years.
In today’s conditions, Mr. Harper’s Conservatives at both the federal and provincial levels are moving to smash the trade union movement, impose “right to work for less” laws, destroy the remaining elements of the social safety net, and to privatize all public assets such as the Post Office and the CBC. For Stephen Harper to accuse the Communists of being “undemocratic” is the height of hypocrisy, since he and his government are the real threat to democracy, human rights and the living standards of working people in Canada. It was Mr. Harper, not the Communist Party, who attempted to remove voting rights for hundreds of thousands of Canadians, in a brazen attempt to steal the next federal election before the campaign even begins. The Tory party, not the Communists, are conducting massive surveillance operations against those who dissent against their agenda.
Much more needs to be said about the Prime Minister’s cowardly, bullying speech at the May 30 dinner. We join with many others in pointing out, for example, that Canada does need a monument – to the victims of capitalism. The history of capitalism in Canada and the western hemisphere is a story of mass murder by the colonial powers, a genocide which cost some 90 million lives of indigenous peoples. The slave trade and the imperialist occupation of colonies in Africa and Asia resulted in similar slaughters. During the 20th century, tens of millions of people died in wars launched by capitalist powers in their relentless imperialist re-division of the planet. Every year, some two million workers die as a direct result of job “accidents” and diseases related to the work environment. Most recently, hundreds of coal miners in Turkey were killed in a massive explosion caused by the profiteering of capitalist owners. In Canada, the annual death toll of workplace accidents is nearly one thousand. Relentless capitalist expansion in pursuit of higher corporate profits threatens the entire global environment, endangering billions of human beings.
Why is there no talk by Mr. Harper’s government about a monument to these victims of an economic, social and political system based on exploitation for the sake of private profits?
To ask the question is to know the answer. Mr. Harper is the representative of big capital, of the big banks and resource corporations which rake in enormous profits at the expense of the working class of Canada and other countries. His anti-communism is nothing but a tactic to confuse the public and to smash popular resistance against the neoliberal corporate assault. Our answer will be to expose Harper’s lies, and to redouble our efforts to help build a powerful People’s Coalition against the right-wing agenda. Our goal remains a socialist Canada, based on the collective interests of working people and the environment, rather than the murderous pursuit of private profit.
Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada
June 9, 2014