Do Canadian Workers have Revolutionary Potential? A Defence of the Working Class
By Gary Porter
Marxism : According to Karl Marx (1818-1883), human beings are naturally productive, sociable beings who find fulfillment and meaning in their lives through the free exercise of their natural powers. They fulfill themselves through their creations, so that what they make is an expression of who they are. This is why he described the seizure by capitalists of the products of our labour, which are an expression of who we are, as alienation. A dispiriting and dissipating separation of our creation from ourselves. This is the source of so much mental illness, anxiety, depression and ruined unfulfilled lives under capitalism and a form of mental, physical and spiritual violence that capitalist production imposes on all of us. Socialism will end all that and make all of us whole again.
My purpose here is to take on the doubters and the cynics, the middle-class layers, the academics, the petit bourgeois currents among students and young radicals, the labour bureaucrats and NDP brass. None of these believe the Canadian working class can make a revolution and overthrow capitalism in Canada.
Our lives and our work in Socialist Action are based in the proposition that they are all wrong. That is what I am talking about here.
Russia was 80% rural in 1917, mostly peasants. The army was huge because World War I was in progress, and overwhelmingly peasant based. In spite of this, the workers led the entire country not merely to an overthrow of the Tsar but to a workers’ government on the way to a workers’ state. The workers, constituting about 18% of the population, led the struggle, won over the peasants and even the peasant-based army, isolated the bourgeoisie and won. How could this happen?
The Russian workers could carry the entire nation because they were concentrated in the cities and in large factories close to the centres of political, economic and financial power, and because they were the only class that represented a way forward. No one else could offer a solution.
In February, 1917 with rampant inflation,12,000 workers at the Putilov ironworks were locked out by the bosses because they demanded a wage increase. Within 3 days, over 500,000 workers were on strike in solidarity. This is how to fight a lockout by the way. It shows that they could and did act collectively, that they understood the power of massive numbers and the power of solidarity in action. They were class conscious. And, of course, they had a tested Bolshevik leadership who understood the class struggle and the state
Moving to the present time in Canada…
2021. Population of Canada according to Statistics Canada, has recently exceeded 40 million people. The Canadian labour force 20.5 million. About 4 million are the middle-class layer which consists of professionals, technocrats, shop keepers, independent contractors (and here I exclude gig workers), cops, military, senior government bureaucrats, speculators, less than 200,000 farmers and lastly the tiny capitalist ruling class.
The working class is 55.5% of the entire population, more than 3 times the weight of the Russian working class in 1917. If we add workers’ children and retired workers, they constitute 85 % of the population.
There are many differences between Russia in 1917 and Canada today. But we still live in a capitalist world where the two great contending classes are the capitalist class and the working class.
The middle class or petit bourgeoisie are not a revolutionary class. In addition, this petit bourgeoisie has been shrinking in relation to the working class since World War Ii. In fact, the working class has never been such a massive proportion of the population. Whole layers of the middle class have been driven down into the proletariat.
In the academic world, for example many lower-level members have become workers, even organized unions, have low pay and lousy benefits. These are the teaching assistants, research assistants and contract lecturers.
Instead of small shop keepers, we more frequently have larger stores as part of massive retail empires, where most employees are simply workers, again, some in unions.
The proletarianization process has reached deep into the middle class. Even farming has largely switched from the private small farmers to the large, even global agribusiness with under paid farm laborers. No other class holds such immense weight in Canada. Ranged against us are the incredibly wealthy capitalist class which controls the state, with its courts, police and military, the media and a substantial portion of the academic elite.
But what will drive Canadian workers to rise up, to struggle, to become aware of their incredible power as a class and to become aware of the need to overthrow capitalism.
In Wage Labour and Capital, Marx explained that the capitalists compete for market share and profit. Competition tends to reduce the rate of profit. Thus capitalists are inexorably driven to lower the unit cost of production of goods and services,
They use technology to increase the workers output per day. This lowers the cost of production per unit enabling the capitalist to charge a lower unit price and earn a profit once again.
Labour power is different than labour. Labour power is the ability of the worker to perform labour, which is all the worker has to sell, and, on average she sells it at its cost of production which is the cost of maintaining the worker and her children
Labour power is a commodity, purchased and sold in the market place. But labour power is a very special commodity. When a worker applies labour power as labour on the job, she creates new value. No other commodity creates value. This is why capitalists buy labour power. All of this new value, under capitalist property and market laws is owned by the capitalist, not the workers who created it.
If capitalists lower prices by reducing unit cost, the only way to make the same total profit is to sell more. Capitalism must constantly open up new markets, must constantly expand or wither and die. This is the source of the insane drive for growth, the drive to use up limited resources faster and faster. It is one of the fatal contradictions of capitalism that might kill us all. All of this is explained by Marx in Wage Labour and Capital and every word of it still applies.
As part of the drive to reduce production costs, automation has reduced many jobs to robotic manipulation. We should celebrate this development. But instead of lowering the hours of work and improving the quality of life for all, the benefits of increased productivity flow to the billionaires. They maintain high hours and throw workers out of work and into poverty, preferring to increase the reserve army of the unemployed as a downward pressure on wages. Socialism will turn automation into a benefit for all, by reducing the hours of work.
So speed up, automation, export of jobs to pay less for labour and constant pressure to buy more crap at the expense of the workers well being and of global ecology are inevitable products of the contradictions of capitalism and the capitalists have no solutions for any of this.
The interests of the working class and the interests of the capitalist class are irreconcilably opposed. As capitalism's contradictions deepen and proliferate, the ruling class has no choice but to attempt to take the costs out of the workers hides and the workers will be forced to struggle.
The one missing ingredient which the Russian workers had in spades is class consciousness, recent class struggle experience and a tested vanguard party, in other words the subjective factor was much more mature in 1917 Russia
Canadian workers, in the main, are not currently in motion, let alone clear on the questions of class politics, class solidarity and the nature of the capitalist state. Many, for example, still vote for the capitalist parties of the ruling class, the Liberals and Conservatives. So how will they become class conscious, engaging in mass class struggle actions.
The most class-conscious members of the working class, to be found in the unions, are affiliated to the NDP. This is exactly why we orient to the unions and the NDP. It is the fundamental failing of every other left-wing group in Canada, that they do not, at least not in the way we do. Many will tip their hat and declare the working class is key, but they do little or no work in the unions or the NDP, except for a few, and only around conventions.
No revolutionary or militant group can lift the class into mass motion against the capitalist class. The most inspired socialist pamphlets, newspapers, webinars, podcasts, leaflets, slogans or speeches will not do it.
What they WILL do is to help find new militants who are a step or two ahead of the class as a whole and who can be trained as revolutionaries, a critical task. It is important for revolutionaries, especially newer revolutionaries, to understand this. Otherwise, it is too easy to become demoralized, burn out and drop out. We work hard, but with an understanding that the crises of capitalism and resulting class struggle play the key role for which we cannot substitute ourselves.
Some left wing academics argue that the North American working class is weaker than in the past. Many industrial jobs have been exported to cut labour costs and the economy here has switched from a concentration on manufacturing to a service-based economy. Workers are not concentrated in large factories as much, where large actions increase class consciousness. Does this weaken the economic power of the working class? Can Canadian workers bring the economy to a halt and then restart it under their control.
The academics have it completely wrong. Canada is still a manufacturer, steel, auto, electronics and much else. Manufacturing is the second highest sector for jobs in Canada after trade. As well, the public sector is massive including education, Medicare and social services, and very highly unionized. Massive employers such as the meat packing plants in Alberta, the merchandising warehouses and shipping operations indicate the academics are wrong
But it is true that Canadian workers must develop political class consciousness. Think of the much higher-class consciousness of workers in Canada after both world wars. The Winnipeg and other general strikes, the founding of the revolutionary Communist party and the CCF after World War one. The rise of the powerful industrial unions such as the steelworkers and auto workers unions and the founding of the NDP as a labour party after World War two
Unions have lost members in Canada and workers have lost a lot of economic ground during a 45 year neoliberal assault on wages, benefits and job conditions.
Union membership has dropped, under a lazy and comfortable labour bureaucracy, but at 31% of the labour force, unions, with a class struggle leadership could represent a formidable amount of power. And it is within their power to expand the unions into the unorganized areas. It would be a real dog fight to be sure, and expensive in both blood and treasure, but the result would be a more class conscious, militant and united working class, a true danger to the capitalists and a new hope for the oppressed everywhere. This is what we are pointing towards with our electoral campaigns contesting top posts in the CLC and the OFL. Political class consciousness arises in the struggle by the working class to assert their own interests against the opposing interests of the capitalist class
Already we have seen women, indigenous peoples, blacks, other racialized people, gender and sexual minorities and climate activists in motion. When conditions worsen and workers see no way out, they will begin to move, as workers, collectively, in their millions. When it happens, it can happen quickly. We saw how a single event can suddenly ignite a mass upsurge, when the police killing of George Floyd quickly brought over 20 million into the streets, mostly young workers. It shocked everyone. It was heat lightning giving us a flashing insight in the power that lies within our class. More recently we saw the attack by Hamas against the fascistic murderers in Zionist Israel, result in a massive genocidal reaction by the apartheid state and a startling unprecedented world wide mass movement in defence of Palestine arise almost over night, including increasing support from unions world wide
Key indicators of a developing class consciousness will be the emergence of young workers leading actions not approved by the union bureaucrats, solidarity walkouts in support of striking or locked out workers, workers willing to take on scabs and cops and willing to defy back to work legislation. Sit down strikes pose the question of ownership of the means of production and workers defence guards to defend picket lines and mass demonstrations begin to pose workers armed defence to capitalist armed repression.
Increased strike activity, union organization in new sectors and some shifts towards younger more militant leadership such as Teamsters and UAW are early signs of stirring in the unions
Labour has to find a way to coordinate union drives. You cannot win by striking one Amazon warehouse, although you can set a stirring example. The emergence of more industry wide strikes and general strikes is an important sign post. Such actions require coordination which could be through revived and renewed labour councils or another form of coordinating structure.
Our job now is to prepare for these events. Both the victories and defeats of our class make us certain in the knowledge that a Leninist party has to be prepared in advance or the working class when it rises will fail and with it, human civilization and possibly the human race itself.
Right now, building SA is the most urgent and important thing we can do. Other revolutionary currents will appear out of the struggle and join us along the way. Do not fear. The working class will not fail us. Let’s do everything to ensure that we are ready when they begin to rise up.
Our job, very simply, is to lead the workers to power and open the door to a socialist future.