The Haitian group EN AVANT! warmly salutes the holding of this Third Conference and hopes that it will be crowned with success and that it will serve to better arm the Canadian proletariat to take in hand its internationalist tasks. We fraternally salute the Conference’s organizers and participants, as well as the whole Canadian Marxist-Leninist Communist movement which is struggling for unity.
Comrades and friends,
Haiti occupies a remarkable place in Latin America. Twenty years of fascist dictatorship have placed our homeland among those countries which are on the path of underdevelopment. Next September 22, the dictatorship will celebrate its twentieth anniversary, which have been nothing more than twenty years of exploitation, of repression and of misery for all the masses, while profiting the comprador, industrial, and bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the great feudal lords and imperialism.
The Haitian people has never capitulated before its class enemies. In order to contain the inevitable social and political changes heralded by the workers’ and peasants’ revolts which have been so numerous these past few years, imperialism, and in particular the American superpower, economically, diplomatically, and militarily support this bloody dictatorship.
Among the imperialist vultures who oppress and exploit our working people, the Canadian imperialist bourgeoisie occupies a choice place. Not long ago, its economic “aid” reached more than $40,000,000! We can thus say that the Canadian and Haitian peoples confront the same imperialist enemy, and that any victory of one or the other people will be a great contribution to the combat which links us!
The current situation in Haiti demands of Haitian Marxist-Leninists that they clearly define their perspectives, with the aim of defeating the dictatorship and imperialism, and for the accomplishment of the tasks of the national-democratic, anti-imperialist revolution.
In the elaboration of the strategy and the tactic of the Haitian revolution, Haitian communists also have as their duty to determine who the friends and who the enemies of our people are. Taking the teachings of Marxism-Leninism as a starting point, and on the basis of the historic tasks of the Haitian revolution, we must analyze the international situation and answer these questions.
Marxist-Leninists base their analysis of the current epoch and determine the strategy and the tactic of the revolution on the just appreciation of the contradictions which govern our epoch.
The great educators of the proletariat (Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Enver Hoxha) brilliantly analyzed the four contradictions which characterize the epoch of imperialism and the proletarian revolution:
1– contradiction between two opposed systems: socialist and capitalist.
2– contradiction between labour and capital in the capitalist countries (and, today in the countries where the revisionists are in power).
3– contradiction between the oppressed peoples and nations and imperialism (today, especially imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism).
4– contradiction between the imperialist powers.
The contradictions are at the base of the great changes which we can observe in the world, especially since the historic October Revolution. We consider that these contradictions are in a dialectical process, and that all attempts to mask them, and to substitute the venom of “detente” and the “peaceful competition towards socialism” like the Soviet social-imperialists want to do, are destined to turn the struggles of the proletariat and the peoples from their revolutionary tasks.
After the Second World War, following the protracted struggles and different trials, the relation of forces on the world scale was greatly changed. Fascist Germany, Italy and Japan, lost their dominant role, to the profit of US imperialism. Rallied by the Western countries like Canada, the United States accentuated their imperialist aggression in many regions of the globe, with the declared goal of establishing their hegemony.
The victory of the anti-fascist forces, and the construction of socialism in Stalin’s homeland, consolidated the socialist camp, with the Soviet Union at its head. During this period, Marxist-Leninists firmly supported the revolutionaries of all the parties in the world, applying the principles of proletarian internationalism. The socialist camp ferociously resisted the criminal dealings of imperialism.
It’s precisely in this period that the peoples of the Third World began organizing to deal decisive blows against the tottering structure of colonialism. Movements for national independence broke out everywhere, thus causing class struggle to advance into a new period.
But, during the ’60’s, other changes took place in the world situation. In the Soviet Union, the taking of power by the revisionist clique headed by Khrushchev began the process of re-establishing capitalism, thus posing the objective basis for the social-imperialist degeneration. The consolidation of revisionism in power in Eastern Europe and the expansion of social-imperialism thus broke up the socialist camp.
It’s at this epoch that the glorious Communist Party of China and the Party of Labour of Albania began a death struggle against revisionism. Throughout the world, Marxist-Leninists grasped their just positions and fought against revisionism.
Since this time the United States and the Soviet Union have been contending for world hegemony. Thus, they enter into plots with other imperialist countries such as Canada, England and France, which also exercise their neo-colonial domination on numerous peoples.
Inter-imperialist contradictions exist among these countries, as they do between these countries and the two superpowers. However, these bourgeoisies don’t pass up the chance of building a front when it comes to defending the imperialist system against the swelling rise of revolutionary struggles. Thus, it would be completely erroneous to think that Canadian imperialism is preferable to US imperialism in Haiti on the pretext that the first is ”oppressed” by the second, and that we must rally the Canadian imperialist bourgeoisie in the struggle against the Duvalier dictatorship and US imperialism.
Marxist-Leninists are neither magicians nor acrobats. They must demarcate from all one-sided analyses of the international situation, which in one way or another mask the fundamental contradictions. The interests of the oppressed nations and peoples are clearly opposed to those of the imperialist bourgeoisies.
In the world today, the struggle of the dominated peoples, under the leadership of the proletarian Parties, and the struggles for national and social liberation, are an integral part of the proletarian revolution. The struggles for liberation and the combat of the international proletariat for the proletarian revolution constitute the fundamental aspect of the struggle against imperialism, neo-colonialism, and the hegemonism of the 2 superpowers. For us, the friendly forces are none other than the proletariat and the peoples struggling against their class enemies for the establishment of new democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
We reaffirm our indefectible support for the peoples and nations oppressed by imperialism and social-imperialism. We reaffirm our enthusiastic solidarity with the Communist Party of China, the Party of Labour of Albania, with all the Marxist-Leninist communist Parties and organizations, as well as with the real socialist countries and the countries of new democracy (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea).
These are the countries, the peoples and the Parties which are our friends in our struggle against the fascist dictatorship and imperialism.
The historic task which Haitian Marxist-Leninists have begun to tackle is to overthrow the fascist dictatorship of the Duvaliers and the imperialist domination of our country. This task implies that we untiringly work at unifying the people’s camp (workers and peasants), and building the unity of Haitian Marxist-Leninists around a single line and within a single national organization devoted to the creation of the Revolutionary Party of Haitian Workers.
The assessment of past struggles clearly shows us that as long as the Haitian proletariat is deprived of its authentic Communist Party, it cannot assume its historic mission of leading the democratic and national revolution. The creation of this Party thus represents our most important strategic task for overthrowing the dictatorship.
The struggle for the unity of Haitian Marxist-Leninists and the creation of the Revolutionary Party of Haitian Workers must be preceded by a resolute struggle against the PUCH (Parti Unifie des “Communistes” Ha’i’tiens – Unified Party of Haitian “Communists”) which is a servant of revisionism and Soviet social-imperialism. Since 1969, this organization had developed a putschist, adventurist, and militarist line which consists of wanting to “shake the masses out of their stupor”! This organization constitutes an obstacle to the advancement of the revolutionary Haitian movement because it continues to fool a certain number of patriots, it hatches unprincipled alliances with the pro-imperialist right in exile, and it has no hesitations about delivering our homeland to Soviet social-imperialism. It’s particularly important to denounce the tailism of these revisionists, who make the development of the Haitian revolution dependent upon “indispensable Soviet-Cuban aid”! (on the pretext that “Haiti is an isolated island...”). No! Haitian Marxist-Leninists must untiringly combat the “tioule” position, the position of submission towards which the Haitian revisionists want to draw our whole movement! It’s evident that the class enemies of our people are the comprador, industrial, and bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the great feudal lords, and imperialism. It’s against them that our people struggle and they will inevitably be vanquished!
However, it would be completely erroneous to underestimate the real danger which Soviet social-imperialism represents in the West Indies and Latin America. Through its so-called “aid” to progressives, through its joint companies, and its revisionist servants, it’s in the midst of consolidating its penetration into these regions little by little. That’s why we must denounce it and combat it. And even more so, since social-imperialism, that exploiter and oppressor, is the sworn enemy of all peoples of the world.
Outside of Haiti, the phoney Haitian Workers “Party” (PTH) also proposes to make our revolutionary movement go backwards. This self-proclaimed, neo-revisionist “Party” makes the outcome of our struggle dependent on a so-called “United Front” with the pro-imperialist Haitian reactionary right, in exile. Besides having ignored the Leninist path of the creation and building of the Party of the working class, this so-called “Party” has abandoned the independent policy of the proletariat and reproduced certain deviations of the PUCH on a smaller scale. That’s why we combat it as well.
Comrades and friends,
This Conference will undoubtedly permit us to deepen our understanding of the international situation, by taking Into account all of the tasks of the Haitian revolution.. The current debate on the international situation, and on the line of the international communist movement, demands profound reflection, without tailism of dogmatism, in an independent manner, with strict fidelity to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Tse Tung thought.
This is what we have undertaken to do. This is why we are defending positions which are relatively different from those which we expressed in the past. At the proper time we will do an evaluation.
We once again express our wish for the success of this Conference and invite you to demonstrate with us against the 20 years of Duvalierist dictatorship, September 23 and October 1. Our leaflets and newspaper contain more information on this subject.
LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF THE STRUGGLING PEOPLES! LONG LIVE THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION IN CANADA! LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF MARXIST-LENINISTS!
LONG LIVE THE STRUGGLE OF THE HAITIAN PEOPLE!