(Montréal, March 11, 2017) It seems that a communiqué will soon be published to announce the so-called “expulsion” of four members of our Party in the Montréal area under the pretext of an incident that took place on March 4th at a book launch at the Maison Norman Bethune, where three hostile elements, who had separated themselves from the Party and had carried out for several months a fractional activity while spreading rumours and lies, were invited to leave the bookstore.

The Québec District of the Revolutionary Communist Party condemns and rejects with the utmost firmness this illegitimate decision, originating from a clique whose mission is to put an end to the so-called “old ideas”: the conceptions, programme and practice forged through 30 years of struggle to establish a genuine and fully Maoist proletarian center in Canada.

This decision is all the more illegitimate because it comes in a context where the Party has been engaged in an important two-line struggle for several months now—a struggle that became obvious at its most recent congress. This struggle is related to a variety of issues, including the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist understanding of mass work, the mass line and proletarian feminism, which ultimately boils down to the strategic orientations of the PCR-RCP about the centrality of the working class in the revolutionary process, revolutionary action in an imperialist country like Canada, and the strategy of protracted people’s war.

The “rupture” openly desired by the anti-party clique and its supporters is precisely a break with these conceptions and a return to a pragmatist line, which abandons all political initiative to the enemy and to the vagaries of the spontaneous movement, and opens the door to all revisionist and bourgeois democratic points of view. The “expulsion” of four comrades known for their eloquent defense of the Party’s programme as well as their militant dedication, at a moment where the debate was open and expected to continue over the next few months, testifies to the total lack of principles from the supporters of this clique.

Aware of its historical responsibility and determined to defend the integrity of the Party and its programme, the Québec District of the PCR-RCP has reinstated the four comrades in their full rights and made all necessary arrangements to ensure the continuity of its work according to the plans adopted by its congresses, and to put an end to the fractional activities and provocations aimed at weakening the Party’s programme, undermining its cohesion and dismissing the comrades who were and are at the heart of its construction and its ideological, political and organizational development.

In the coming days and weeks, a series of texts and contributions will be made public on the pcr-rcp.ca website and other platforms, which will enable comrades across the country, activists dedicated to the cause of Communism and fraternal Maoist parties and organizations to take stock of the debate and the issues at stake, in order to join the struggle to uphold and materialize Maoism and the strategic concepts that comprise it.

The Québec District of the PCR-RCP calls on all Party comrades to unite around its programme, its strategic orientations, its plans and the decisions taken by its congresses since the founding of the Party 10 years ago. While the bourgeoisie has already begun to “celebrate” the 100th anniversary of the glorious October Revolution by attacking communism and the very idea of the conquest of power by the proletarian masses, let us take up the challenge with all the audacity and determination that characterizes revolutionary proletarians! Let us spread the Party’s propaganda and actions everywhere and in all sections of the people! Let us mobilize to make a success of Revolutionary May 1st—glorious May Day, which is nothing but a day of struggle and solidarity of our class, united against the bourgeoisie! To the front, comrades!