The Montreal Marxist Winter School 2024 represents a historic event. Much more than a school, it is the opening of a new chapter for the forces of communism: we announced the founding of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Canada!
[Originally published at marxist.ca]
In an atmosphere that was nothing short of electric, over 600 communists came together to launch this bold initiative. It was by far the largest communist gathering in Canada in generations. The mood was so electric that nearly 30 new members joined the new party on the spot, which catapulted us beyond the 700-member mark!
Although the school gets better every year, there’s no doubt that this year’s edition was a qualitatively different event, incomparably better than any previous edition. From start to finish, participants were buzzing with an energy that everyone could feel.
This did not stop at the exciting sessions on all the main aspects of Lenin’s life and work: the national question, the state and revolution, the defense of dialectical materialism, the Russian revolution, imperialism or the fight against Stalin. At every break, the enthusiastic discussions continued unceasingly. Everyone could be found discussing how to build the Party in their city.
Participants also swarmed our literature booth, where we sold over $29,500 worth of books! The school kicked off with the North American launch of our new book In Defence of Lenin, with author Rob Sewell going through the life and ideas of the Russian revolutionary. We sold 83 copies of the book throughout the weekend. The ideas in this book are the ones that will change the world.
The school kicked off with the North American launch of our new book In Defence of Lenin, with author Rob Sewell / Image: Communist Revolution
The Marxist School has become an authentic international gathering, and we saw it this year more than ever before. Our American comrades had mobilized a record delegation of 80 comrades, and we had 14 other international guests from Switzerland, France, Sweden, Mexico and Great Britain!
This already memorable event culminated with the historic announcement of the founding of the Revolutionary Communist Party. As our comrade Joel Bergman explained, every single communist needs to internalize the fact that we are entering a revolutionary epoch. With capitalism dragging us down, it is creating a brand new generation of class fighters that have been deceived and betrayed by every political party and tendency. We give ourselves the aim to organize this layer of fighters into a party that will accomplish the communist revolution in our lifetime. There has never been a more pressing time to build such a party.
This is a process that has been well grasped by our American, British, Swedish and Swiss comrades, helping them grow by leaps and bounds. Our guests from these sections explained how they are transforming their own organizations from top to bottom, into a party worthy of this new generation of communists. As Antonio Balmer of the U.S. said, “We don’t want to recruit this ‘golden layer’ of communists, we need to merge with them.”
The key lesson, as explained by Dersu Heri from Switzerland, is the need to be extremely bold and stand out. The advanced layers of the working class are looking for a combat organization, a party that will fight resolutely to overthrow capitalism. As our Swiss comrades have been doing, communists need to be standing on street corners, on cafeteria tables, in trains, everywhere shouting against this rotten system.
All comrades came away buzzing with their own ideas of how to build the Revolutionary Communist Party in their own area and flood our ranks with the thousands of communists out there. The following three months will see a sustained campaign to gather all communists in Canada and Québec to build this party which will hold its founding congress in May. If you’re a communist, you need to join us in founding the RCP.
This school represents a turning point for communism here. The pre-history of our organization as Fightback/La Riposte socialiste is buried forever. This Marxist Winter School is the beginning of our real history. Let’s build the Revolutionary Communist Party, and fight for a communist revolution in our lifetime!