Revolutionary times call for revolutionary solutions. Capitalism is driving society off a cliff. With mass poverty, environmental destruction, war, and genocide—this system has to go. That is why the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency is founding the Revolutionary Communist Party!
[Originally published at marxist.ca]
The party’s founding congress will take place on May 18-19-20. This is a call to all isolated communists, all those who are fed up with the rotten status quo and want to overthrow the system that is dragging the planet into the abyss. If this speaks to you, this is YOUR party! Help us found the RCP today.
Why we need the RCP
The need for the Revolutionary Communist Party stems from the whole situation created by the capitalist system itself. Faced with the immense crisis of the system, growing layers of the population can’t take it anymore. Young people have no future. Hundreds of thousands are looking not to tweak this miserably rotting system, but are looking for a wholesale transformation. They are looking for communism.
Wherever you look, the world is on fire. Whether it’s the housing crisis, mass impoverishment, climate catastrophe, or the ongoing genocide in Gaza supported by our own government—capitalist barbarism is present in every aspect of life. And all while a tiny minority of obscenely rich billionaires are constantly getting richer and live in lavish luxury.
Millions are fed up. Millions are at a breaking point and will no longer tolerate this situation. The future opening up before us is a revolutionary epoch. This is the epoch that we are preparing for.
With the founding of the RCP we state loud and clear: “If you cannot take this system any more, this is your party.” This is our commitment to do everything we can to build an organization worthy of the hundreds of thousands of communists in society—a party any communist can join and build as a way out of this hell which capitalism has brought upon us.
A party like no other
The determining factor of the present era is that, although the capitalist system has entered the worst crisis in its history, never before have workers’ organizations, workers’ parties and “left-wing” parties been in such a sorry state.
The NDP has betrayed the Palestinians and is propping up the hated capitalist government of Justin Trudeau for peanuts in return.
Québec solidaire, which began as an anti-capitalist party, has clearly abandoned this road. More and more, this party appears and acts like a run-of-the-mill parliamentary social democratic party like the NDP—more concerned with appearing “reasonable” to the capitalist establishment than providing an outlet for the mass anger in society.
Many people have an unfavourable prejudice against the word “party”. This is because today’s parties are a nest of careerism, backroom deals, electoralism, and cynicism. They only involve their members once every four years during an election, for which people mobilize to get hand-picked candidates in suits elected. The members have no say in the party program or the ideas the “leaders” defend. The ideas are decided behind the scenes by groups of unelected bureaucrats. Anyone who stands out is repressed or expelled.
Unlike these hated parliamentary machines, the RCP aims to be a party like no other. We are not a parliamentary outfit who conducts deals with the bourgeoisie, but a party of the streets and the picket lines who unites the oppressed to fight against the system. We are not a loose group of people who are called into action once every four years, but agents of the proletarian revolution, active day-in, day-out, to defend communist solutions.
Because we are not aiming to reform capitalism, the essence of our party is fundamentally different from all other parties. Our strength lies not in seats in parliament but in an active and engaged membership. To be a member of the RCP is to take possession of this party and wield it as a tool to change society.
We want to be the banner around which all communists will coordinate their actions. We want the creativity of the working class and youth to express itself, and we want to direct it towards the propagation of communist ideas by all means at our disposal. The RCP will be a party of active members. It will be the party of all its members.
But we will not be chickens with our heads cut off. Communists must have clear ideas. As the Third Congress of the Communist International explained in 1921, “the Communist Party must be a labour school of revolutionary Marxism“.
Our Party will pay close attention to the colossal heritage of the Communist tradition represented by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, enriched by the contributions of Ted Grant and the International Marxist Tendency. All our members must conquer Marxist theory, so as to be equipped to win the working class over to the communist program. More than any other organization, for us, Marxist theory will be the guide to revolutionary action.
Becoming a member of the RCP
Being a Communist is not a simple identity, lifestyle, or label. A communist is a person who feels in their heart a burning desire to overthrow this rotten capitalist society. It is a person who actively commits to ending the appalling oppression we see under capitalism. It is a person who understands that to achieve communism, we must urgently build a communist party.
As Trotsky once wrote in a letter to a comrade: “You can have revolutionaries both wise and ignorant, intelligent or mediocre. But you can’t have revolutionaries who lack the willingness to smash obstacles, who lack devotion and the spirit of sacrifice.”
These words sum up what attitude we must have today. A member of the RCP will let nothing stand in the way of the propagation of the communist program. Nothing in history has been built without dedication and an iron will to overcome obstacles.
The strongest pressures under capitalist society don’t come from the brute force of the state, its police, and its army. Above all, the first obstacle we must overcome is within ourselves. It is the force of routine and tradition, which stems from the ideological pressure to fall in line and keep quiet. Bourgeois public opinion mercilessly attacks anyone who rises up against the capitalist status quo. Communists do not accept this.
The RCP breaks with bourgeois public opinion and proclaims its program loud and clear, everywhere. As the Communist Manifesto explains: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”
This is the spirit that must permeate all our actions. A member of the RCP is someone who will use every opportunity to speak out and spread Communist ideas: in the metro, at the bus stop, on busy streets, in neighbourhoods, in classrooms, with our work colleagues, organizing public rallies—in short, by every means at our disposal!
Join YOUR party!
For an entire historical period, communists were swimming against the stream. For the past 25 years, IMT comrades in Quebec and Canada, organized under the banner of Fightback, have worked hard to form the first core of Marxists and lay the foundations of a revolutionary party. The launch of the RCP is the result of these years of patient work.
Now, we are swimming with the stream, and a revolutionary epoch has opened. It is high time to unfurl the banner of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Our goal is modest: nothing less than the complete overthrow of the capitalist system. But it won’t happen by itself. If you’re a communist, we need you. And if you’re a Communist, you need an organization—you need us!
The RCP is your party. It will be nothing without the participation of thousands of youth and workers awakening to communism.
Over the next three months, we’ll be mobilizing a campaign leading to the party’s founding congress in May. Join us now and help us build the RCP! We need you to raise the flag of the RCP everywhere. We need you to take Communist Revolution to every corner of the country. We must do this with enthusiasm, energy and confidence!
Karl Marx described the heroic episode of the Paris Commune of 1871 as the time when Parisian workers “stormed heaven”. This is our perspective. Great revolutionary events are coming. If we successfully build a revolutionary mass communist party, the working class will win. There is no cause more important than this!
If you want to become a founding member of the RCP, don’t wait. You can immediately help spread the word and build momentum for the founding convention. Here’s what you can do today:
- Join us officially! Someone in your area will contact you as soon as possible.
- Go out and put up posters all over town, and paint the town red! We’ve got RCP posters and stickers for everyone to use.
- Show everywhere that you’re a communist! Between now and the congress, our mindset should be to make sure that absolutely everyone knows that the RCP is coming. Our paper Communist Revolution is an ideal tool for achieving this. Familiarize yourself with its content, the lessons it provides, and use it to the full to recruit other communists!
- Build a communist cell! The potential for forming communist cells exists everywhere. Your neighborhood, workplace or school is the ideal place to start. If a cell already exists in your area, join it, and discuss how to go from one to two cells!
- Come to the founding convention! It’s taking place in Toronto on May 18-19-20.