CPC (M-L)

[Weltmann]

Could someone here shed some light on the nature of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)?

I understand that It was a pro-china (and afterwards pro-albania) group that split from the CPC, and was led by Hardial Bains (who also founded similar Hoxhaist parties in Ireland, India, USA and Great Britain).

What strikes me as odd, is when looking at the results of the Canadian federal elections, the CPC (M-L) actually got more votes than the CPC! In 1974, in the first elections contested by the CPC (M-L), it got 16,261 compared with CPC's 12,100, and in 2004 the CPC(M-L) got 9,065 votes compared with CPC's 4,568 (almost twice as much!).

How's that? Usually when Maoist splintered away from pro-USSR parties, they quickly became obscure and insignificant (as well as undergoing numerous splits), and here we have such a party that actually wields more electoral power than the pro-USSR party it originated from...

Any thougts?

[JC1]

1. The CPC ML is not a splitt from the CPC. The ML originate's in the october.

2. The strength of ML rest's on the fact that's a completly electoral origination. O ther then filing canadate's, there is no central political activity.

[Scars]

3 things:

1) The CPC(ML) is not Hoxhaist anymore. They're soft anti-revisionist, that is, they uphold Stalin and the like, but don't like to publicly state this and their agenda is predominantly revsionist.

2) Maoist splinters did not always fade into oblivion, sometimes they would overtake the pro-USSR parties.

3) If I was to make a guess, I'd say that the reason the CPC(ML) has done better is because it's policy, pamphlets etc are a lot clearer and well thought out and thus they can get their message across more effectively than the CPC. Plus the CPC(ML) may have more and better quality members.

[Weltmann]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 02:11 AM
The strength of ML rest's on the fact that's a completly electoral origination. Other then filing canadate's, there is no central political activity.
That still doesn't explain its electoral success. A party can be completely election-oriented but if it doesn't have a good platform, candidates and an appeal to the voters, it won't necessarilly recieve many votes.

Sometimes, it might even work the other way around: one can argue that because the party is election-oriented, i.e: it's not involved in the women's and LGBT movement, organising workers, leading student struggles, etc. , therefore one would expect it to have a much smaller following, and be less successful in the elections...

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The CPC(M-L) has a strong position within the rather large Postal Workers Union. Outside of the CAW in Quebec (and, due to the split, even this is no longer the case), the CPC's influence in any union is, to the best of my knowledge, er . . . limited.