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The Communist Party of Canada, founded in 1921 and based in Toronto, is the country’s historic far-left party.

The second party, the Montreal-based Marxist-Leninists, cropped up in the 1960s. While the Communist Party was loyal to the former Soviet Union, the Marxist-Leninists sided with China and rebelled against the “revisionism” of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Officially, the party’s title is “Communist Party of Canada, Marxist-Leninist,” but Elections Canada made it pick the current name to avoid ballot confusion.

Both parties insist there is no “rift” between them, and the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union seems to have done much to bring them together.

“At this time we emphasize the ways in which we co-operate to democratize the political process,” wrote Marxist-Leninist Leader Anna Di Carlo in an email.

With the occasional exception, parties generally try to avoid running against each other in the same riding. And, lately, they’ve even taken to issuing joint press releases.

Still, there appears to be no talk of a Unite the Far Left Campaign. In Rankin’s words, vote-getting simple isn’t a priority. “We’re not primarily an electoral party,” she said.

‘We haven’t given up the fact that humanity must advance out of capitalism, but in this particular moment, the most decisive thing is to renew democracy and empower the people’

It’s safe to say that Canada’s two communist options are selling a far less threatening version of Marxism than the bomb-throwing, world-revolution communism so popular in the 1920s.

The end goal is still a utopian post-capitalist society, but Canada’s card-carrying communists have largely abandoned talk of revolution and proletarian dictatorships.