Class Struggle and the International Situation 

The mode of production is in rebellion against the mode of exchange, the productive forces are in rebellion against the mode of production which they have outgrown

Fredreich Engels, Anti-Duhring 

Since our last Central Convention the crisis of Capitalism we observed has deepened. Although we can see clear symptoms of the moribund nature of the rotten system, overall the balance of forces internationally has not improved in favour of the exploited. The phenomena of over accumulation of capital we noted at our last Convention continues. 

As we said in our July 2024 Political Report:

The crisis of globalised capitalism is deepening; financial speculation, transfer of wealth through the instrument of the state, towering debt, and investments into big tech as well as militarisation have been used to attempt to conceal the slowdown of the post-Covid global economy. But we can clearly see the large over-accumulation of capital that cannot be recapitalised and invested therefore the large monopolies are encountered with an unacceptable rate of profit. 
Imperialism, as moribund capitalism, is increasingly parasitic.

It is clear that this trend of over accumulated capital that cannot be satisfactorily reinvested into production, i.e. constant capital, has continued globally. The crisis of capital is evident in the mass layoffs, speculative investment into tech stocks, unwarranted destruction of nature, the growing indebtedness and impoverishment of workers, the weakening social wage, the significant trend towards monopolisation, sustained inflation on basic necessities, and most notable the growing war economy. 

We understand that the current global economic slowdown is not a random occurrence but simply part of the cyclical nature of capitalism. The crisis of capitalism exists at the heart of the system, the fundamental contradiction between capital and labour, specifically the contradiction between the growing socialisation of production with the increasingly private accumulation of capital. Therefore, it is clear that there is not a bourgeois response that can break through the nature of the system.

As we said in our March 2025 Political Report: 

We are not cheerleaders for one fraction of the bourgeois over another. When we observe the history of bourgeois rule since its upheaval of the domination of the aristocracy and feudalism, we can see that it has had different ideologies and approaches to statecraft. These different ideologies are a reflection of the economic base and reaction by the ruling class to the crisis of capitalism as well as the balance of forces, the level of organisation and consciousness of the working class. 

So then we can see the way out of the crisis is not a matter of what policy is deployed by state monopoly capitalism. As an example we cannot choose between protectionism or free trade. For us as revolutionary young workers we must choose class struggle. 

We must understand that the current crisis like others is built on the last significant global crisis. 

The crisis of 2007-09 was not resolved. The use of quantitative easing in monetary policy alongside the introduction of near zero interest rates allowed monopolies to take on massive debt. Around the world the state subsidized monopolies with tax breaks and bailouts while simultaneously slashing the social wage through austerity programs. These austerity programs coincided with massive transfers of wealth from workers to the ruling class by means of privatisation, user fees, and taxes. The monopolies that received bailouts also laid off tens of millions of workers, stole pension plans, and froze or cut wages. Any recovery that may have happened after the global recession was a blood transfer from the workers to the vampires. 

The majority of investments made after 2009 went into financial instruments leading to a bloated stock market and bulging coffers of the ruling class. The significant investments into constant capital have been into technology that is not for the benefit of society such as the expansion of the ‘platform’ economy and the arms race. This trend has continued since our last Central Convention but we must note that the rate is increasing exponentially. 

As an example of where the capitalists are investing we can look at ‘artificial intelligence’.

The catalyst growth in the stock markets since our last Convention has almost all been in ‘artificial intelligence’. There has been an estimated 750 billion US dollars invested into AI as an industry however it is estimated the entire industry only sold 45 billion USD in products last year. 

We see around the world AI and other digital innovations are not being used to benefit society, rather AI is used by the ruling class to increase profitability and the concentration of capital, to increase the degree of exploitation and to suppress and manipulate the working class and the people in general. 

We can look at ammunition production as a demonstration of the militarisation of the economy. The largest European producer of 155mm artillery rounds has increased their annual production by more than ten times since our last Convention. The increase in production by Europe’s largest shell producer is largely spurred by the Ukraine-Russian Federation war but also thanks to the trend towards monopolisation by their acquisition of other large firms. The EU and their member states (plus Norway) have provided massive public funds for building new munitions factories whose firms only sell to states, thus demonstrating the role of the bourgeois state in the era of imperialism to transfer capital to the monopolies. 

The inflation we observed at our 2023 Central Convention has continued globally. Inflation is benefiting the monopolies. As prices rose in correspondence with real logistical log jams and labour shortages during the pandemic, monopolies used this as a carte blanche to ‘catch up’. Prices continue to be raised above their corresponding cost increases in order to expand profit margins for the monopolies. Inflation has lowered the value of the massive corporate debt that was taken on during the years after the last global recession. Inflation has not been caused by an increased demand for wages; conversely, it has been a form of wage cutting. The workers are receiving a smaller share of the economy while the capitalists receive a larger share, and so the over-accumulation of capital process continues. 

The global turn to the war economy has exploded since our 29th Central Convention. Millitarisation of the economy is a built in feature of state monopoly Capitalism. But the growing militarism is notable as the turn towards a war economy shows the desperation of the monopolies in the face of the crisis in the context of the sharpening inter-imperialist contradictions. 

As the Communist Party of Canada stated last year:

The war economy is instrumental in the economic plan of the ruling class. This is the last resort of state monopoly capitalism, as big business no longer knows where to invest its money at a satisfactory return on investment. To ensure their survival, they must resort to war and imperialism, to the division of the world and the plundering of human and natural resources in order to maintain their return on investment.

The war economy can for a short term increase the demand for equipment and consumer goods. But it cannot, in the long term, ensure a steady growth of production. Globally, arms manufacturing monopolies and their investors sell their products to the state at their own fixed prices which ensure the monopolies profits in addition to the rate of profit that is considered acceptable in the ruling circles. Around the world, states have been obtaining the funds for their militaries raising taxes on workers and/or increasing the amount of money in circulation. 

We can clearly see governments of all stripes transferring value from the civilian consumption sector to the war economy sector. This obviously has not increased consumer demand. And we are seeing the militarization of the global economy lower the demand for civilian production which greatly contributes to the declining rate of growth. 

As we know, armaments and war materials are products not designed for consumption but rather destruction as we continue to see most notably in Ukraine, Sudan, and Palestine. This destruction we witness is the monopolies attempting to manage the devaluation and destruction of capital they feel is necessary given that the staggering over accumulation of capital can harm the rate of profit, the modus operandi of monopolies.

Overall, the international situation has continued to deteriorate since our last convention. The various twists and turns in global affairs and the periodic eruption of economic and political crises are not simply episodic or coincidental in nature. At root, they are closely connected with one another, and are all symptomatic of sharpening contradictions within the belly of the global capitalist order itself. Since our last Convention we continue to observe the failure to address the climate crisis and environmental collapse. We must also note the growth of various reactionary movements in every continent. 

As Lenin stated in the context of the crisis of capitalism and the growth of inter-imperialist rivalry, alliances between the capitalist states during the final stage of capitalism are inherently unstable; they are constantly breaking down and rebuilding.

The US and its allies simply steal the financial assets of a country like Venezuela or the Russian Federation with impunity. Turkey can attack Russian planes over Syria and sell drones to use against Ukraine. Saudi Arabia can buy weapons from the United States and join BRICS. Russia can sell weapons to both Peoples’ China and India, as tensions rise between the two. The US can destroy pipelines that offer cheap Russian energy to Germany with impunity, while the UAE sells sanctioned Russian oil back to Germany. The United States and Russia can support Armenia while Turkey and Israel can support Azerbaijan. 

The shift to a war economy around the world is not just a policy to promote the rate of profit amidst an over accumulation of capital. Since our last convention the wars in the middle-east, Sudan, and Ukraine have escalated. Each of these conflicts have had varying degrees of intervention from the imperialist powers. We do not choose between one capitalist country and another in their struggles for supremacy within the imperialist pyramid, for imperialism is not a policy of this or that capitalist country, nor a phenomenon exclusive to a handful of states but a world system that all capitalist countries participate in Imperialism can thus only be opposed by socialism-communism.

There have also been dangerous flashpoints since 2023 most notably in the conflict between India and Pakistan and the U.S. strikes against Venezuela. 

Clearly, the shift towards the war economy is a clear indication of the bourgeois willingness for a major conflict. We are witnessing the attempts by the monopolies and imperialist powers to redivide the world into spheres of influence. This is most strikingly evident in the White House’s December memorandum on their “National Security Strategy”. 

The yankee “National Security Strategy” lays out the plans of the U.S. ruling class to maintain their position in the imperialist pyramid. The strategy states: 

[W]e will reform our own system to expedite approvals and licensing—again, to make ourselves the partner of first choice. The choice all countries should face is whether they want to live in an American-led world of sovereign countries and free economies or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by [other] countries…[e]very U.S. Government official that interacts with… countries should understand that part of their job is to help American companies compete and succeed…[t]he United States must also resist and reverse measures such as targeted taxation, unfair regulation, and expropriation that disadvantage U.S. businesses.

The U.S. National Security Strategy is the ‘Donroe’ Doctrine’. As the Monroe doctrine defined United States foreign policy during the era when Capitalism was emerging and becoming the mode of production. The ‘Donroe Doctrine’ seeks to amend the ‘New World Order’ that George H.W. Bush decreed on September 11th 1990. The yankee bourgeois are cognisant they remain on the summit of the imperialist pyramid, but that the balance of power is shifting. The ‘Donroe Doctrine’ seeks to address this realization; however, this also represents considerable continuity with the foreign policy of earlier administrations.

The clear indication of intent from the ruling class south of the border reminds of us of our duty as young Communists to build the anti-imperialist peace movement, continue to campaign for Canada out of NATO and all imperialist alliances, and bring the campaigns of the World Federation of Democratic Youth to the young workers, students, and youth of the popular strata from coast to coast. 

In this international context, the 30th Central Convention has made solidarity with the Cuban Revolution our primary internationalist task and our focal contribution to building proletarian internationalism amongst the young workers and students in our country. Above all else, solidarity with Cuba is our immediate priority. This does not negate important contributions we need to make around solidarity with the cause of Palestinian liberation, peace in Sudan, and bringing the campaigns of the World Federation of Democratic Youth to Canada. However, we need to ensure that it is clear going forward that the heightened aggressiveness of the United States government towards the Cuban people and their revolution requires utmost urgency from our collective effort. 

For more than six decades, the Cuban Revolution – the first free territory of the Americas – has been in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism. The blockade imposed by Washington on Cuba and its people, combined with the impact of the Covid pandemic and resulting decline in foreign tourism, has exacerbated chronic shortages of energy, medical supplies and even food, seriously eroding the socio-economic conditions of the people. Cuba and the gains of its Revolution continue to be a beacon of hope not only for the people of Cuba themselves, but for all progressive and anti-imperialist forces in Latin America and around the world. That is why we must redouble our efforts to defend Cuban sovereignty and end the vicious U.S. blockade. Cuba has many friends and supporters across our country. We have a specific duty to bring young workers and students into the Cuba solidarity and friendship movement. 

Although we are now in a position where all our members were born in a world after socialism was overturned in the Soviet Union and the People’s Democracies, we remain confident in the ultimate victory of the working class and its historic mission to end exploitation, war and oppression and build a communist future for the peoples of Canada and for all humanity.

For a Life With a Future! 

For Socialism in our Lifetime!

Situation in Canada 

To the Marxist the problem is simply to avoid either of two extremes: on the one hand, not to fall into the error of those who say that, from the standpoint of the proletariat, we are in no way concerned with any immediate and temporary non-proletarian tasks, and on the other, not to allow the proletariat’s co-operation in the attainment of the immediate, democratic tasks to dim its class-consciousness and its class distinctiveness.

Lenin, Reply to Criticism of our draft Programme

Since the 29th Central Convention the federal government has changed but the class in power remains the same. It is true that the Liberal party is still in a minority government after the 2025 election however after their internal struggle they have a new leader and a new mandate. Gone is capitalism with liberal libertarian socks, it has been replaced with the human spreadsheet. The election of the former governor of the Banks of Canada and England as leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister is evidence of the direction of the intra bourgeois struggle that manifested inside the ruling party. 

In his first budget Mark Carney gave us the priorities of the monopolies in Canada: a sharp shift towards austerity resulting in mass public sector layoffs with more to come; the abandonment of public services such as healthcare; heavy subsidies and infrastructure projects for the primary industries; and a massive drive to the war economy. This first Carney budget was a project of a ‘national unity’ government on behalf of a Canadian bourgeois that has coalesced around a response to yankee tariffs. We saw the Conservatives and Greens line up behind the budget, albeit with silly theatrics typical of the Centre Block. 

With the election of Trump taking place after our last Convention we have seen the devastating effects on young workers stemming from the tariffs and acquiescence to further integration into the yankee machine. Manufacturing in Ontario has been hit the hardest, particularly in steel and auto with their mass layoffs. Liberals have doubled down on the strategy of federal governments since the days of the Abbott Plan, to “fast track” the extraction and export of hydrocarbons, minerals and other resources crucial for the US war machine, in return for guaranteed market access.

Job losses and market uncertainties in Canadian export and manufacturing sectors have deepened as a result of a decades-long process of deregulation (such as the dissolving of the Canadian Wheat Board in 2008), monopoly takeover of key industries (such as GM and Stellantis), volatile trading partnerships and reciprocal tariffs. Export trade of raw materials impacts the Canadian markets especially hard due to Canada’s sole reliance on access to foreign markets. In the west agricultural workers and in the east the fishing industry workers have been hurt from tariffs from the People’s Republic of China. Tariffs from the Canadian state on the PRC resulted in a bus factory closing, laying off autoworkers and workers in the meat packing industry. With no windfall of a public monopoly over Canadian industries, real wages and jobs are on line to be cut with the increasingly precarious global economic situation.

As we know, young workers are so often last hired and first fired. Youth unemployment across the country remains well above pre-pandemic levels, with teenagers, those with no post-secondary education, and recent post-secondary graduates hit the hardest. Summer job prospects for youth continue to worsen year after year, with  last summer nearing 2009 recession levels. Meanwhile, corporate profits continue to rise.  In this context we reiterate our demand for the right of all workers to a decent job.

It is clear that young workers are being forced to pay for the crisis of capitalism. The cost of living continues to rise, with inflation hitting basic necessities like food and rent. People aged 15 to 24 are currently facing the highest unemployment rate outside of the pandemic since the mid-1990s. Those with no post-secondary education have the highest rate of unemployment in the country, and yet those with some post-secondary education are increasingly working in jobs they are overqualified for or are unable to find work at all; the first quarter of 2025 saw the highest jobless rate for recent graduates in at least two decades, excluding the pandemic period. As well, there is the problem of skills mismatch, where in certain industries there is a lack of skilled workers available, while in other industries, there is a glut of workers with qualifications, but very little job openings. In this context, we reiterate our demand for the right of all workers to a decent job. 

Around our last Convention, the ruling class and their spokespersons in parliament and the bourgeois press were lamenting about a labour shortage. We were told that young people were entitled and lazy, they were just unwilling to work. The last two summers have seen countless stories of young people handing out hundreds of job applications in person and waiting in line for hours at job fairs only to never receive an interview or callback. And the statistics reflect these anecdotes. 

On the excuse of “strengthening Canada”, Indigenous sovereignty rights are being weakened by federal and provincial legislation. Despite the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the limited progress towards such forms of reconciliation has been stalled or reversed. Indigenous youth still have the highest rates of homelessness, unemployment, poverty, incarceration, etc.

As far as ‘western separatism’ is concerned, our position is clear. As we have always stated, provinces are not nations, and have no legal rights to self-determination. Quebec, of course, is a nation with a distinct language, territory, history, culture, etc., and therefore has its own national rights to self-determination. The reactionary separatist movements based in Alberta and Saskatchewan fundamentally reflect the narrow class interests of transnational energy and resource monopolies, not the interests of the working class.

In Quebec, Francois Legault resigned. The Parti Quebecois seems preordained to take the reins with the Liberal Party in chaos. Legault’s government was a pure product of state monopoly capitalism and a lackey of the big corporations. The CAQ ran on a platform that satisfied both the more nationalist wing of the Liberal Party and the identity-based neoliberals of the Parti Québécois. The main objective of this commando operation was to weaken the trade union, democratic and popular movements, notably through Bill 89, the abolition of school boards and the overhaul of the occupational health and safety regime.

Since our last Convention we witnessed the massive mobilisation behind the Common Front of the public sector across Quebec. There has also been significant mobilisations and trade union unity against the attacks on the rights of unions in Quebec.

Bill 89 in Quebec is inspired by section 107 of the federal Labour Code, this law is designed to facilitate a return to forced labour by decree. Bill 3 in Quebec proposes to divide union dues into mandatory and optional, the proposed law also would allow the government to dictate what union dues can be spent on. The proposals in Bill 3 are a rupture of the Rand Formula and are a step towards ‘right to work’ laws in this country. These laws are part of the significant attack not just on young workers in Quebec but for all young people coast to coast. This attack on organised workers in Quebec shows the confidence of the ruling class in the current balance of forces, the bourgeois is willing to shatter the post war social contract. 

Across the country we have seen significant mobilisations of youth since we last held our Central Convention. 

Most significant has been the energy around Palestinian solidarity. Many demonstrations and campaigns were led and filled with young people across the country. Some concessions have been won through organised struggle on campuses around the BDS campaigns. 

There have been many labour struggles that included young workers since our last Central Convention. This includes union organising drives where young workers have stepped up to the plate. 

Most notable has been the protracted struggle between CUPW and Canada Post. This struggle is important for us because CUPW is perhaps the only union in the country with members that can be found practically everywhere in Canada, as well as the fact that Canada Post is a public utility. The attack on the postal workers is an attack on all workers and the attack on Canada Post is an attack on all young people of the working class and popular masses as it attempts to take away a public service. We continue to oppose sections 107 and 108 of the Labour Code that can be used to order workers to undemocratically end their strikes. We continue to express our solidarity with CUPW and call for Canada Post to have a monopoly on parcel delivery. Ultimately we need to step up our efforts in demanding a Labour Bill of Rights that would include the right to strike. 

Twice since our last Convention we issued statements on the deepening crisis in post-secondary education.

NDPers, Liberals and Conservatives all support some form of privatisation of education, particularly through student loans, which treat students as if they are installment plan customers. Banks and private corporations benefit from this further privatization of education, making money off of the student loans that students take. 

The effects of the crisis in post secondary are not just felt by students. There have been tens of thousands of workers in this sector laid off since our last Convention. Privatisation of education is no longer on the horizon, it has arrived in various forms. The student movement remains divided and weak. Our strategy remains building student worker unity and fighting for unity in action. We put forward our demand for a universal public monopoly on post secondary education with funding that meets the level of quality and accessibility the working class needs. Demands for public monopolies have a unifying factor as they increase the quality and accessibility as well as the decent jobs that go with providing social services.

Tied to the drive to the war economy has been the push for military recruitment amongst youth.  The 2025 Federal Budget committed $20.4 billion over five years to recruit and retain Armed forces members. The economic reality of poor job prospects for young people has made the job security of the armed forces more appealing for youth of the working class and popular masses. As young Communists we call for the elimination of the professional standing army as part of the broader demands for withdrawal from NATO and all imperialist alliances and an independent foreign policy based on peace and mutual respect.  

As Lenin said “the only choice is either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course”. We must remain vigilant in fostering clarity in the political, ideological, and economic spheres. We know that opportunism and adventurism are constant dangers lurking for any communist youth organisation. 

As we said in our July 2024 Central Committee report: 

What may be more difficult for some young communists is dealing with bourgeois propaganda that may initially appear to some as ‘left’. Radical identity politics and post-modernism have done a great deal of damage to the militancy of the student unions. 

These bourgeois ideas penetrate the working class youth and can obscure or conceal the real enemy. Ultimately, these are individualist ideologies and they work against universalism and collective styles of work. 

The ruling class and big business want to assimilate young people into their ideology. The political expressions of the bourgeois and the mainstream media corrupt the youth with idealist and metaphysical individualism, like postmodernism with a hyper focus on individual diversity.  

By postmodernism we refer to features of bourgeois ideology that can be distrustful of comprehensive theory and skeptical of science. In postmodernism’s moderate form, it can fail to see the forest for the trees, and in its extreme form, it fails to see the objective reality of the trees at all in its relativism.

Ideas are promoted that scientific or technological advances could make a ‘technocracy’ and we could have a ‘woke’ capitalism. The youth can be wrongly taught about ‘victims of communism’ and the Orwellian socialist state. The bourgeois will try to contrast their falsification of history with a future capitalism that resolves the superstructural problems without altering the economic base. 

This is all to say the bourgeois want the workers to do their work for them and demand for corporate rule in the name of individual freedoms. The radical petty-bourgeois, professionals and intellectuals love to get lost in such a pursuit, ‘struggling’ for their ideology of desire, demanding a new capitalism of seduction. 

It is our role as young communists to ruthlessly combat the ideology of the ruling class wherever and whenever it appears. We know that reaction can come from the ‘left’ just as well as the right. But we need to avoid isolating ourselves. We need to have a constructive style of work that looks to build the broadest movement united in action against the large monopolies and imperialism.

Therefore, we as young communists, as part of our agitation-propaganda, need to put forward the call for positive reforms, not only critiques of the system, while never shying away from advocating for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the creation of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Although we know that adventurism and sectarian leftist tendencies can be more prominent amongst youth and especially students, for us in an advanced capitalist country opportunism presents the more immediate and greater danger. Nonetheless we recognize the interconnectedness of both the infantile disorder and the reformists and movementists. 

Radical petty bourgeois idealism is of a particular danger in the face of the economic crisis. Elements of the petty bourgeois and intermediate strata become cognisant of their fading positions and the overall process of proletarianisation.

The best elements of the middle strata youth will become progressive and join our ranks, some may be allies in anti monopoly and anti imperialist struggles. But other tendencies will become radicalised and try to organise for reaction. This reactionary and counter revolutionary element can easily obscure itself as ‘leftist’ ; they may even call themselves revolutionaries or even communists or even both! But we must shine a light on them to illuminate their true objectives regardless of the purity of their intentions. 

Even more dangerous is those that openly line up as shock troops for big business. Those that blatantly stand for reaction must be ruthlessly exposed just as the bolsheviks did with the black hundreds. We have seen a growing rightist movement amongst youth behind Pierre Poilievre but also further than that. There is a growing movement of young people organising around jingoism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. These elements pose the greatest danger to youth and we must challenge their false ideas. 

We need to focus on our recruitment and education in order to increase the quantity and quality of our interventions into the democratic campaigns of youth and students. Our generation needs our class perspective in order to deliver real blows to our enemy. Our generation needs our anti-imperialist perspective to recognize the main enemy is at home. 

A stronger YCL-LJC means a stronger class struggle!

Bringing Class Perspectives to the Democratic Struggles of Youth 

“If reforms are necessary and sensible but cannot be the aim of the party, then what exactly are they in regard to the party’s aim of destroying the exploiting class and initiating a classless society? In short, they are “quantities” in the struggle to bring about a qualitative change, a negation, a leap, revolution. As such, they must not be viewed only as building blocks of developing contradiction, but as part of the dynamic that can, depending on the historical and social environment, plod along or explode.” 

Sam Hammond, Reform and Class Struggle

As young Communists there is no struggle too big or too small for us to intervene. We need to bring our collectively agreed upon proposals to the democratic movements where we can find young people. We must not ignore the fights that our generation takes up no matter how immediate or inconsequential the demands may be. Our role is to bring class perspectives to these people’s movements, our role is to build the broadest unity around action directed at the monopolies, our role is to bring a militant style of work to these fights

In democratic struggles young workers and students can learn, become hardened, and develop their class consciousness. Even when struggles around immediate demands are not won there are lessons and skills that can be used for future fights. 

In the various democratic movements where young people can be found it is our role as young Communists to converge these struggles around a class perspective. We know that democratic struggles in our country can have a cross class composition which is why we must not be sectarian and simply dismiss this terrain to the collaborationists and radicals. We work to win support for our positions and expose the real common enemy of the various democratic movements, the monopolies. 

To win support of young workers in the democratic movements takes patience and care. To gain the confidence of young people in the movements we have to understand that this is a process that can take years of dialogue. It is important to remember that it is always easier to lose the confidence of young workers than it is to gain.  Although mistakes will be made, we need to always maintain our collective approach in order to correct errors and learn from our experiences.

We cannot allow ourselves to be on the outskirts of the key democratic movements that are mobilising young workers. We are confident in our collectively decided strategy and positions and must not be afraid to debate the validity of our ideas and approaches. We cannot win over supporters and friends without putting forward our ideas. 

We know that the class question is the root of social movements. At all times we must be on the lookout for traps set for the youth. We need to be vigilant in combating elements that will try to use young people as a breeding ground for their bourgeois ideology to penetrate their poison into the labour movement. Reaction from both the ‘left’ and ‘right’ is always offering ‘easy’ and ‘quick’ solutions for young people frustrated with the state of society. 

Ultra-leftist approaches attack the student and labour movement’s lack of revolutionary fervour without doing the work to build the balance of forces, while right-opportunist approaches funnel young workers into “progressive” elements of bourgeois society, rather than preparing and equipping the working class to take power. Ultimately, these are two sides of the same coin. 

In short, we need to isolate the elements that are more interested in co-opting the different struggles for their own interests and oppose them with perspectives that are likely to bring struggles to a higher level of mobilisation, to a stronger level of unity in action between the different movements. We need to be firm but at all times constructive in our interventions into the democratic struggles. 

Regardless of the given balance of forces or level of class consciousness at all times we put forward the necessity of Socialism. 

We do not reduce the concept of socialism to an empty slogan. For us, socialism is at the same time the struggle for collective ownership of the means of production and exchange, the exercise of political power by the working class and its allies, the progressive satisfaction of material and intellectual needs, creating the conditions for the development of each personality. 

We know that social-democrats and reformists believe that both the subjective and objective conditions for Socialism are not present. We know ultra-leftists believe that both the subjective and objective conditions for Socialism have been met, all that is needed is an organisation, an event, or an individual to mechanistically and spontaneously spark an uprising. 

We understand reality, Socialism is not an unattainable goal or some kind of trump card to hold close to our chest. In an economically developed country like Canada, the objective conditions (i.e. the productive forces required to build a planned economy) are all met to ensure the transition to socialism, but not the subjective conditions (i.e. class consciousness for class struggle). Thus we march forward on the path we have chosen collectively while avoiding the swamp that Lenin pointed out. 

As the slogan of our organisation says “the youth are the future and the future is Socialism!”

Long Live Marxism-Leninism!

Long Live Proleterian Internationalism! 

Long Live the YCL-LJC! 

Learn to Struggle! Struggle to Learn!