Ukraine: Ceasefire… or capitulation?

Last August, I published a critique of left responses in Canada to Russia’s assault on Ukraine: Canadian Left Responses to War in Ukraine – a Provisional Balance Sheet. I noted that progressive opinion in support of Ukraine’s defense of its territorial sovereignty and national self-determination tended to be stronger in Quebec than in English Canada. However, a notable exception was a broad pacifist collective, Échec à la Guerre. It “claims to oppose all imperialisms,” I wrote, “but has not rallied to defend Ukraine.”

Since then, Échec à la Guerre has, if anything, stepped up its campaign against solidarity with Ukraine. Articles by its leading spokespersons have been published in daily newspapers and often replicated on social media, including on-line solidarity websites. A recent “open letter” it published, to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, was also published on websites that have sought to rally support for Ukraine, among them the international solidarity site Alternatives, and the site Presse-toi à gauche (PTàG), which is sympathetic to Québec solidaire.

However, PTàG also published in the same issue a critical and much-needed response to the article, by Camille Popinot, addressed to many key issues that have been raised among the Western left as a result of the war. Notable is its appeal to the left-wing affiliates of Échec à la Guerre to disavow its position. Here is my translation of the article. – Richard Fidler.

Ceasefire or capitulation -

Views of the Ukrainian and Russian lefts

By CAMILLE POPINOT

The Quebec “center-left and pro-independence” newspaper Le Devoir has just published an open letter signed by five pacifists, who call for a “ceasefire and immediate negotiations” in Ukraine.

The letter itself would not be worth our attention had the authors not said they were signing “on behalf of” the Échec à la Guerre Collective.

In fact, the Collective brings together left-wing political parties (Québec Solidaire, Communist Party), numerous unions (CSN, FTQ, nurses, teachers, etc.), community groups and civil-rights defenders (FRAPRU, League of Rights and Freedoms, AQOCI, MEPACQ etc.) and religious organizations.[1] In short, it includes a good number of activists in Quebec who define themselves as left-wing, trade unionists, socialists, feminists, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, post-colonialists, alter-globalists and even internationalists – and who see themselves associated, at least indirectly, with the content of this pacifist appeal.

Ceasefire or capitulation?

The letter in question is a poor caricature of the propaganda conveyed by Vladimir Putin: the war was provoked by the United States, the West, NATO, which “are conducting a real proxy war in Ukraine.” Russia, for its part, did everything it could to negotiate and avoid conflict but it had to defend its “great power” interests. And finally -- as “the war in Ukraine did not go according to the West’s plans,” as the economic sanctions have failed, as the “situation is developing to Russia’s advantage,” -- we must avoid its spiraling into a nuclear war. It is in the interest of the Ukrainians and of humanity to impose a “ceasefire” as quickly as possible. Of course the text does not tell us how, or what the implications might be, but it must be done and be “mutually acceptable” to the security interests of Ukraine and Russia. And there you have it, you just had to think about it and write it down.

Beyond a narrative worthy of George Orwell’s Newspeak -- where those who were thought to be the attacked become the aggressors, the victims the culprits, the victories the defeats, the imperialists the colonized etc. -- the primary goal of the letter is to end Canadian military support for Ukraine. It is indeed certain that if Ukraine no longer receives any support, then it will have no choice but to negotiate a ceasefire. And the sooner we stop supporting it, the sooner the ceasefire desired by the authors of the letter will be imposed. But will it be “mutually acceptable?”

And in fact, the only problem with the execution of this master plan is that the Ukrainians – and fortunately many other people – now think it is no longer a question of a ceasefire but of an all-out capitulation. And, regardless, notwithstanding the incantations of Quebec pacifists, the Ukrainians refuse to capitulate.

Should we listen to the Ukrainians or ignore them and defend the pacifism of Échec à la Guerre?

But the authors of the letter couldn’t care less about what Ukrainians think and want. It is indeed astonishing to see with what ease, shamefully, five pacifists (who certainly claim to be post-colonialists), well sheltered from the bombs, can claim to express themselves for and in the interest of the Ukrainians, without even taking the trouble to cite just one.

As if the Ukrainians could not speak, as if their demands were unknown, as if their opinion was in any case irrelevant in view of the global concerns of the five Quebec pacifists. Ukrainians are de facto infantilized, treated like children who have reacted impulsively, who must be calmed down and to whom it is necessary to explain, and if needed impose, what is good for them.

It’s true that they don’t listen much, not even to the learned advice of our five pacifists or Western and Russian capitalists. Instead of fleeing by taxi and calmly allowing themselves to be colonized, as Vladimir Putin but also all NATO members expected, they chose to resist and continue to resist despite everything, seeming to forget that confronting them is a nuclear power.

In short, if for the authors of the letter the opinion of the Ukrainians does not count, the Ukrainians on the other hand would do well to listen to them. This is an already well-documented concept and practice of “international solidarity.”

But why does the Ukrainian left refuse to capitulate?

But let’s imagine that, unlike the five pacifist missionaries, the associative members of the Collective consider it important to listen and take into account what the Ukrainians are demanding, like any internationalist worthy of the name. They can then easily obtain information in French thanks to the valuable work carried out by a group of several left-wing publishing houses (including Quebec ones) and the work of the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine (ENSU/RESU).

Left-wing political parties, unions and Quebec community groups can then see in these thousands of documents that in many aspects, Ukrainian society is not very different from Quebec society; and that, like Quebec, it is a deeply divided society. There are fascists, racists, war profiteering capitalists, villainous and concealed multimillionaires, corrupt politicians, homophobic religious people, antisemites, Islamophobes, etc. And, as in Quebec, in the absence of a truly internationalist left, it is this trend that is on the rise.

But there are also many left-wing activists, anti-capitalists, feminists and anarchists who, in all conscience, have chosen to defend the right to independence, not only with weapons in their hands but also under the command of a bourgeois and patriarchal government, the only militarily viable solution according to them to avoid being colonized and disappearing. There are trade unionists who campaign against the scandalous reform of the Labor Code while providing continued support to the soldiers in the trenches. There are internationalist activists who, despite the state of emergency, take the time to send messages of solidarity to the Palestinians, to the French or British strikers. There are anti-capitalists who campaign against the neo-liberal reforms of Zelensky, the IMF and the World Bank, for the nationalization of the arms industry, the expropriation of the oligarchs. And there are activists who, at the risk of their lives, document the reality in the occupied territories, the theft of children, the pillaging of Mariupol and its region, rapid Russification, etc.

Still, in these precious documents, the members of the Collective will also be able to see that Ukrainians are also fighting for peace, a ceasefire and disarmament. The difference, however, is that they do not accept the conditions proposed by our five pacifists or Vladimir Putin. They keep repeating it: if Russia withdraws, there will be no more war. On the other hand, if Ukraine gives in, there is no more Ukraine.

Who will disarm and who will be disarmed?

In fact, when we confronted by the army of a leader who repeats to anyone who will listen that you do not exist and who has already shown the Chechens, the Syrians or the Georgians very clearly the conditions of lasting peace and disarmament according to him, we surely recall more clearly certain lessons from history: “the whole question is to know who will disarm and who will be disarmed.”

Consequently, today, what the members of the Collective will not find in these multiple documents from trade unionists, socialists, feminists, anti-capitalists, Ukrainian internationalists are calls to put an end to military support for the Ukrainian army, to oppose Ukraine’s entry into NATO or the European Union. These activists of the Ukrainian left say over and over: it is not with a light heart that they make these political choices; it’s a question of priorities, of survival.

What if the Russian left also wanted Putin’s military defeat?

Our five pacifists could also, still with a perspective of international solidarity, turn to Russian internationalist activists. It is true that it is much more difficult to get in touch with them but, thanks to the work of ENSU activists, we have in particular the declarations of the Russian Socialist Movement. And here is an extract from a recent press release, in the hope that the members of the Échec à la Guerre Collective will be encouraged to read it in its entirety:

Putin’s regime can no longer exit the state of war, as the only way to maintain its system is to escalate the international situation and intensify political repression within Russia.

That is why any negotiations with Putin now would bring, at best, a brief respite, not a genuine peace.

A victory for Russia would be evidence of the West’s weakness and openness to redrawing its spheres of influence, above all in the post-Soviet space. Moldova and the Baltic States could be the next victims of aggression. A defeat for the regime, on the other hand, would be tantamount to its collapse.

Only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide when and under what conditions to make peace. As long as Ukrainians show a will to resist and the Putin regime remains unchanged in its expansionist goals, any coercion of Ukraine into negotiations is a step towards an imperialist “deal” at the expense of Ukrainian independence.

That imperialist “peace deal” would mean a return to the practice of the “great powers” partitioning the rest of the world, that is, to the conditions that gave birth to the First and Second World Wars.

The main obstacle to peace is certainly not Zelensky’s “unwillingness to compromise,” nor is it Biden’s or Scholz’s “hawkishness”: it is Putin’s unwillingness to even discuss deoccupying the Ukrainian territories seized after February 24, 2022. And it is the aggressor, not the victim, who must be forced to negotiate.

It is obvious that this position, like that of the Ukrainian left summarized here, reflects only part and probably only a very small part of the opinions of the Russian or Ukrainian left. But these are the positions that we relay, that we have chosen to support, by citing our sources. Let the five Quebec pacifists do the same and tell us in whose name they speak and call for an “immediate ceasefire” in Ukraine.

While waiting for their sources, we share the opinion of the Russian Socialist Movement that, in the current context, what ultimately counts is the choice of the Ukrainian people and that “it is the aggressor, not the victim, who must be forced to negotiate.” The complete opposite of what the five Quebec pacifists have chosen to defend “on behalf of” a significant collective of Quebec workers.

We then hope that the associative members of the Échec à la Guerre Collective will make it known that they firmly condemn this despicable position which goes against the right to self-determination and all the basic principles of international working-class and feminist solidarity, of internationalism.

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[1] The members of the collective are listed here: https://echecalaguerre.org/le-collectif/membres/. – RF

Mounting solidarity with the people of Palestine in face of Israel’s assault

As I write, Israel has resumed its genocidal military assault on Gaza following a brief pause in the fighting. The scope of the Zionist state’s devastating onslaught on the Palestinian people is described by Gilbert Achcar in this post: https://gilbert-achcar.net/zionist-genocidal-war.

Tens of thousands demonstrated in support of Palestine before Canada’s parliament in Ottawa on November 25.

Another demonstration will be held December 2 in Ottawa, called by the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Among the participants in the November 25 protest were two busloads of delegates attending a weekend congress of Québec solidaire in nearby Gatineau. The next day, the congress of the left party voted to adopt an emergency resolution proposed by the party’s parliamentary wing and its Global justice and international solidarity commission. Here is the text, in translation:

That the 16th convention of Québec solidaire:

1. is outraged by the Israeli intervention in the Gaza Strip and the violence against the Palestinian population in the West Bank, and denounces the State of Israel's disregard for international law in its military intervention, including the bombing of civilians and its blockade of the Gaza Strip;

2. condemns the Hamas attacks on civilians launched on 7 October;

3. calls for an end to the Israeli occupation and apartheid regime, the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, respect for international law and the right of the Israeli and Palestinian people to live in peace and security;

4. calls on the Canadian Government to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza;

5. reiterates its support for the non-violent actions of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and calls on the Government of Quebec to cancel the opening of its trade office in Tel Aviv;

6. Finally, denounces the rise in hateful acts targeting Quebec's Jewish and Muslim communities and commits to actively working to bring these communities closer together.

Québec solidaire delegates at the November 25 demonstration on Parliament Hill, Ottawa

Further reading: A statement by Solidarity, the U.S. revolutionary socialist organization, on how anti-imperialist politics are inseparable from solidarity with all struggles for self-determination of oppressed and occupied nations, including today in Palestine and Ukraine: https://againstthecurrent.org/atc227/consistent-anti-imperialism/.

The Left, Ukraine and Russia

The current issue of the Quebec online weekly Presse-toi à gauche publishes this article by Marxist ecosocialist Daniel Tanuro and others, published first in the Belgian publication Le Vif.  My translation. -- Richard Fidler

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What the war has revealed about the nature of Ukrainian and Russian societies

Looking back on the year that has passed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we would like to take a break from the military and/or geopolitical considerations, the usual analyses devoted to this war, and focus on what it has revealed about the nature of the societies involved.

Over the past year, we have been involved, through the European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine, in numerous solidarity or information actions which have enabled us to get to know Ukrainian realities better. The numerous contacts that we gained have confirmed the existence of a plural and diverse civil society. All of its branches, in all their diversity, are fully enrolled in the resistance to Russian aggression, a resistance that they conceive not as a strictly national cause but as a fight of society itself for the preservation of its way of life, its values, etc. A year ago, if Putin’s Blitzkrieg failed, it was above all due to the resistance of the population, the countless initiatives by ordinary citizens to repel the invader. The state in Ukraine is weak, inefficient and deeply infected with corruption, as Zelensky’s recent sweeps also illustrate. Without the miracles performed by networks of popular self-organization of all kinds, the very survival of the country would have been more than improbable.

Ukrainian society is pluralistic and the “Maidan Revolution” in 2014 gave rise to a quite remarkable flourishing of cultural and artistic production, particularly in the field of cinema. The Russian invasion, however, created a paradoxical situation. The first victims of the abuses of the occupiers are Russian-speaking Ukrainians and the resistance in the occupied zones in the East and South is mainly due to them. But as a result of the aggression, nationalist feelings have developed which reject all that is Russian, sometimes attacking Russian culture and language as a whole in an indiscriminate and irrational way. It is likely that only a common victory over the aggressors will establish a more balanced situation.

Russian society, on the other hand, is characterized above all by two things: fear and enfeeblement. Putin’s regime has moved from illiberal authoritarianism to open dictatorship, and repression continues unabated. While his war arouses little more than a contrived enthusiasm, public demonstrations of opposition require great courage and remain sporadic. A majority of Russians prefer to look elsewhere and avoid talking about the war.

André Markowicz, a poet and writer who is the most eminent and passionate renovator of the French translation of great Russian literature has published a brief essay “Et si l’Ukraine librait la Russie?” [What if Ukraine were to liberate Russia?]. This goes to the heart of the matter. Ukraine is fighting first for its freedom, but it is also necessary that “Ukraine win the war so that the Putin regime collapses and there is in the ruins of this regime a democratic possibility.” As indeed shown by the precedents of the Crimean War (1853-1856), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the Great War (1914-1917) and the Afghan War (1979-1989). There is a recurring history in Russia of military defeats becoming the opening for revolutions or reforming upheavals. The beautiful motto of the Polish insurgents of 1830, “For your freedom and for ours,” remains current.

Putin’s regime is national-conservative and neo-imperialist, with special reference to the legacy of Nicholas I, the most reactionary of all 19th century czars. His alleged populism boils down to the accents used to castigate liberal opponents or disgraced public servants. But in his international policy as in the exercise of Russian soft power, Putin combines with gusto the simultaneous support and use of the most diverse currents and personalities, from the extreme right to the extreme left, to weaken other powers and disseminate his propaganda.

This is one of the reasons[1] behind the major split that the war in Ukraine has created in the ranks of the left, especially the radical left. While anti-fascism and anti-colonialism are supposed to be part of its DNA, we have seen a part of it, the importance of which varies depending on the country, take up all or part of Putin’s arguments, most often in the name of extremely sketchy geopolitical considerations (Russia is said to be surrounded!!). Seasoned militants or intellectuals who have spent their lives promoting “armed struggles for national liberation” in the four corners of the globe, now refuse, in the name of a “peace” imperative, to distinguish between the aggressor and the attacked and to support the latter.

Our action, in contrast, foregrounds the right of peoples to self-determination and therefore respect for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. But we also want to help strengthen the entire democratic and emancipatory potential that we see expressed in multiple forms within Ukrainian social life. This support we bring above all to the resistance pitted against the imperial will to annihilate it, but we address it as well to the progressive social forces which in Ukraine itself seek, for example, to thwart the ultra-liberal socio-economic policies of the government or the seizure of precious natural resources by certain highly-favoured oligarchs.

[The authors close with a call to readers to participate in a demonstration convened by groups promoting solidarity with Ukraine’s resistance, which was to be held in Brussels February 25.]

France Blanmailland (lawyer)

Daniel Tanuro (ecosocialist writer)

Jean Vogel (ULB professor)

Laurent Vogel (European Trade Union Institute researcher)

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[1] The other reason being the obsession with “American imperialism” alone, as a result of which any bloodthirsty dictator becomes a champion of the people the moment he finds himself in conflict with the United States government.

Pierre Beaudet’s literary legacy

Pierre Beaudet, who died a week ago, left a rich legacy of published works, both books and articles, that will remain a valuable resource for present and future generations of socialists in Quebec, Canada and internationally. I cannot inventory all of them, but I do wish to draw attention to some materials of particular importance to today’s activists.

Unfortunately, few of Pierre’s writings are available in English. However, I will start with those that are readily available online. Most are translations from Pierre’s original texts in French, although he drafted a few in English, which he spoke fluently. An example: “In Search of the ‘Modern Prince’: The New Québec Rebellion,” in Socialist Register, 2017.[1]

His articles on issues of the day appeared extensively in a number of English Canadian online publications. Some examples:

Socialist Project: https://socialistproject.ca/author/pierre-beaudet/

Canadian Dimension: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/author/pierre-beaudet

Life on the Left: https://lifeonleft.blogspot.com/search?q=Pierre+Beaudet

He published prolifically in French. The online Quebec journal Presse-toi à gauche reports that Pierre, who in recent years provided a weekly column, authored 579 of its articles.

One of Pierre’s major projects was Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme (NCS). Some years ago I translated (but apparently never published) an excerpt from an essay by Pierre Beaudet and others explaining its origins and how they saw the role of NCS. It is appended below. Pierre was without question the guiding spirit and foremost editor of NCS, although he relied on an editorial board representative of Quebec’s varied left tendencies and trajectories.

Pierre Beaudet wrote and edited many books, some of them voluminous collections of texts related to his academic disciplines, progressive economic and social development studies. He authored two books of an autobiographical nature: On a raison de se révolter: Chronique des années 70 (écosociété, 2008); and Un Jour à Luanda: Une histoire de mouvements de liberation et de solidarités internationales (Varia, 2018). He introduced and edited a collection of documents and articles by leading protagonists analyzing the rise and decline of the Quebec left in the 1970s and 1980s: Quel Socialisme? Quelle Démocratie? La gauche Québécoise au tournant des années 1970-1980 (Varia, 2016). And he co-edited a volume on the international workers’ and national liberation movements of the 19^th and 20^th centuries which, strangely, largely omits the experience of the Communist International: L’Internationale sera le genre humain! De l’Association internationale des travailleurs à aujourd’hui (M Éditeur, 2015).

Three texts authored or edited by Pierre are devoted to the national question and its importance in Quebec left politics. All three are available online:

Les socialistes et la question nationale: Pourquoi le détour irlandais? Kindle Edition https://www.amazon.ca/socialistes-question-nationale-Pourquoi-irlandais-ebook/dp/B01MCT5VJA

La question nationale Québécoise à l’ombre du capitalisme: Textes choisis des Cahiers du socialisme (1978-1982), Introduction et édition Pierre Beaudet. Full text online: http://media.wix.com/ugd/a54ab7_7f75347c75cc4435a04a21cde4bcd11f.pdf

Le Parti socialiste du Québec et la question nationale (1963-1967). Pierre’s introductory essay is online here: https://www.cahiersdusocialisme.org/le-parti-socialiste-du-quebec-et-la-question-nationale/

* * *

The Collectif d’analyse politique and Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme: an initial balance-sheet (2009)

by Pierre Beaudet, Philippe Boudreau and Richard Poulin[2]

In 2007, the Collectif d’analyse politique (CAP) launched simultaneously a number of projects (workshops, documents, activities). We had an ambitious program that sought to “develop original research on the structural dimension of contemporary capitalism, work out some concrete and practical anti- and post-capitalist perspectives, and participate in the development of new alternatives to help energize the social movements and the political left.”

We also noted the paucity of left-wing journals in Quebec. The publications that were common in previous decades—Parti pris, Socialisme québécois, Cahiers du socialisme, Interventions économiques, Critiques socialistes, etc.—had, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. In fact, there were no longer any intellectual left journals in Quebec although there are a magazine, À bâbord !, and a web site, Presse-toi a gauche, which play an important and complementary role. One of our explanatory hypotheses was that the “scientistic” turn taken by the university-based social sciences periodicals, itself linked to changes in the conditions of production of “knowledge”, had worked to the detriment of their mission of stimulating intellectual thinking around the dynamics of social transformation. Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme (NCS) specifically responds to this need: to partially overcome the vacuum engendered by the disappearance of a certain tradition of progressive thinking in Quebec, that of the left-wing journals.

Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme

In January 2009, therefore, the CAP launched the first issue of NCS, on the topic of social classes. Four issues later, NCS seems to be off to a good start, with a readership of around one thousand per issue and an increasingly solid reputation among intellectuals and activists in the social movements. Each issue is prepared by a working group that includes some members of the CAP along with researchers and activists concerned by the featured topic. In addition to this bi-annual publication, there is a website updated daily with other articles and documents. In the coming months, NCS plans to deepen its thinking about ecosocialism, the work environment, health, education, the social movements and collective action, the unions and community movements, Marxism, the left in Quebec and North America, and many other topics.

Popular education

We initially explained that our perspective was a long-term one, and that we wanted to reconcile the need to participate in existing struggles with the necessity for critical thinking through some rigorous intellectual and political work. This is what we tried to do through some interventions, notably during the Quebec Social Forum where, in both 2007 and 2009, we hosted many workshops. The participation in these activities was excellent, validating our intuition about the need for deeper involvement within the social movements. This work was continued in the summer Université populaire, which we organized in August 2010: three days of intense discussions, hosted by more than 20 resource people, in which 150 people participated. In the fall of 2010, we also organized other events: a symposium on “40 years after October 1970” and a roundtable on “les rapports sociaux de sexe” [gender-based social relations].

A duty of diligence

From the outset we chose to identify ourselves with socialism, a banner (it must be said) that by the early years of this millennium was not unsullied. Beyond this proclamation, it seemed important to us to indicate that we were not reinventing the wheel, that we were part of a tradition of struggles and intellectual and theoretical work that had taken on many meanings and gone in many directions but that belonged to a “family of thought” inaugurated by Karl Marx and the communards, and which was developed subsequently by the great social movements of the 20th century. For historical reasons (to be explored and analyzed), a large part of this “family of thought” was subjected to a series of dogmas that later led many of the movements—identified with a certain “socialism”—to their downfall through some “adventures” and disastrous practical and intellectual authoritarianisms. There remain today innumerable lessons, insights, perspectives, that ought to be developed and modified, while creating some new ones. Nevertheless, these new perspectives require some intense work based on detailed empirical and theoretical studies, enquiries and explorations. In initiating the vast project of analyzing capitalism and post-capitalism, our “ancestors” gave us but few clues. Our program of work starts with these, but in the process it will open new trails not previously imagined.

At present the CAP has 30 members who come from the social movements, unions and the college and university teaching milieu. Not only is it inter-generational (which must still be improved) but it is also more multi-ethnic (to be improved) and it is trying to achieve parity between women and men. Above all, it is pluralist, bringing together individuals from the political and social left with a very great variety of nuances and currents, whether organized or not.

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[1] Full text: https://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/27136/20141.

[2] “Le Collectif d’analyse politique et les Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme : premier bilan,” Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme, no. 1, Printemps 2009, pp. 11-13.

Pierre Beaudet, Presente!

Pierre Beaudet, a Quebec leader in international solidarity and progressive scholarship, died in Montréal on the night of March 7-8. Pierre was for decades a central organizer, author and editor in a range of grassroots movements and left publications. His presence and inspiration will be sorely missed by many, both young and old, as Judy Rebick indicates in this tribute she published in rabble.ca, an online magazine she cofounded two decades ago.

I follow it with an article by Pierre, written less than a week before he died, that addresses the very issue Judy cited as one that she would look to him to explain. Bear in mind that this was written very early in the war before many implications were clear. Pierre wrote it in his capacity as director of Alternatives, the international solidarity organization he founded and to which he had recently returned. My translation. And I conclude by briefly recalling some of my own memories of Pierre as a friend and comrade. – Richard Fidler

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Friends and colleagues remember Pierre Beaudet

by Judy Rebick, March 11, 2022

“Pierre was a great leader, an extraordinary thinker and had a big heart. The world will miss Pierre greatly.”

Just when we needed him most to explain how the global political reality will change with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pierre Beaudet, one of Canada’s most brilliant progressive thinkers and activists has died.

I met Pierre about twenty years ago when he invited me to sit on the board of Alternatives, a progressive international development NGO that Pierre helped found in Montréal in 1995. He introduced me to international solidarity work through Alternatives and the World Social Forum. In fact, he was part of the group that helped establish and grow the WSF, an extraordinary effort to build an alternative to corporate globalization.

He encouraged me to write about the struggle in Latin America and to go on a mission to Palestine. Pierre was a great leader, an extraordinary thinker and had a big heart. The world will miss Pierre greatly.

I went to several World Social Forums with Pierre in Brazil, Venezuela, and Kenya. Pierre was also central in bringing the WSF to Montréal and organizing a Quebec/Canada/Indigenous social forum in Ottawa. I’ll let him explain the importance of the World Social Forum, writing in Canadian Dimension:

“The WSF process was original because it was an open space where participants themselves were to define the agenda through self-organized political and cultural activities. Much of the work involved drafting an alternative economic program… At the same time, there was much discussion of how to ‘democratize democracy,’ for meaningful citizen participation within the framework of liberal democracy. These immense brainstorming sessions were carried out by many social movements that also took advantage of the WSF to create new international and action-oriented networks, such as Via Campesina and the World March of Women. The WSF methodology was also adopted by hundreds of national and municipal forums in which citizens had a chance to act, play, speak out and express their hopes. It thus helped to bring movements together, create new dynamics and give rise to new projects. One such successful forum was organized in Ottawa in 2012. The Peoples’ Social Forum brought together a critical mass of movements from Canada, Quebec and Indigenous communities for the first time in Canadian history.”

To pay tribute to someone I consider to be one of the most important thinkers and organizers of my generation, I spent the last couple of days interviewing a few of his closest comrades.

Monique Simard, a well-known Quebec feminist who went to university with Pierre and has been friends with him ever since told me, “His vision of international solidarity was unparalleled. He had a global vision of politics. Pierre knew everything about everywhere not only about the big picture, but he could tell you about the details in each country. The spectrum of his knowledge was so wide. It was amazing.”

Pierre’s international solidarity work started in South Africa where he got so involved in the anti-apartheid struggle, he moved there but had to return to Montreal because of his mother’s ill health. He put his expertise on Africa together with comrades who were involved with struggles in South Asia and the Arab world to found Alternatives in 1995, just as the anti-globalization movement was beginning. Not unlike the period we are in today, this was a moment where the global social and economic order was changing from the Cold War to neo-liberalism.

Robert David, who helped to found Alternatives and remained there in leadership positions until 2007, told me, “Every time you had a meal with Pierre, you’d get a lesson. He had a remarkable combination of political and strategic analysis and the ability to organize people around it and do it. A very rare quality.” Robert explained how Alternatives had a different approach to international work than most NGOs, with Pierre leading.

“He would tell the groups we worked with to write the proposal that would be accepted and then do what you really needed to do with it and explain later.” Rather than act as an enforcer of government funding rules, Alternatives would be a co-conspirator with local groups: solidarity not charity.

“The peak of our work at Alternatives,” said Robert, “was perhaps in 2001 in Quebec City where we organized, on behalf of a coalition of groups, the People’s Summit of the Americas, in protest of the government-held Summit of the Americas. It was an international gathering of some 5,000 activists and politicians to discuss our response to neo-liberalism in the Americas.” Hugo Chávez, then President of Venezuela, attended the People’s Summit and later, along with a three-day demonstration of thousands, helped to stop the Summit of the America’s plan to create a free-trade zone across all of the Americas.

Pierre was also one of the people in Quebec who worked hard to build solidarity between Quebec and English Canada. André Frappier, a long-time trade union activist and leader of Québec Solidaire, a left-wing political party in Quebec, worked with Pierre on many projects and wrote me about his fondest memories.

“Pierre was a theoretician who contributed greatly to political discussion and debate, but above all he was an organizer, a builder of networks and places of activism. A committed activist against the power of the oligarchy, he kept an indelible memory of a 1968 demonstration in support of taxi drivers striking against the airport monopoly of taxis and buses by the Murray-Hill company. He was proud of the embedded projectiles from riot police fire on his lower back that remained there all his life.”

André also noted that Pierre, while a supporter of the national liberation struggle in Québec, was no less an internationalist. Initiator of the Alternatives summer university, he participated in creating spaces for discussion about international politics and the links between the left in Canada and Quebec.

Pierre’s writing was featured in rabble.ca and Canadian Dimension over the years. In 2017, Pierre wrote in The Bullet a response to the Leap Manifesto. While supportive of the general idea, he pointed to a major weakness:

“However, there is a blind spot. Much like in the tradition of the Canadian left, the Leapists have ignored the fact that the Canadian state, from its creation till now, is not and cannot be the terrain of emancipation. This state is illegitimate. Its foundations are rotten, since it was erected on class and national oppression, whereas the First Nations on the one side, and the Québécois on the other side, have been dispossessed. To put it bluntly, this state has to be broken and eventually reinvented. Speaking about reforming Canada on the left does not make sense [unless], from the onset, there is clear and explicit commitment to work with the First Nations and the Québécois by recognizing their right to self-determination and their nationhood.”

Talking to Pierre’s old friends and comrades, one of my favourite stories came from André Frappier: “Pierre was a passionate being and a walking, talking political school. Two years ago, I worked for two weeks building a new fence in his back yard. Carpentry was not his strength, but while he held the boards I needed, he told me about his understanding of Lenin’s writings and the history of communism, as if he had a book in his hand.

“Pierre was a unique being, a builder, a weaver of networks, a hard worker who understood the importance of passing the torch. He continued the work of organizing World Social Forums in recent years with activists from the younger generation.”

And he also reached younger generations through his teaching at University of Ottawa and Université du Québec en Outaouais, his mentoring and his extensive writings.

Even though he received a PhD in 1990, he refused the comfort of an academic job until he decided to leave Alternatives in 2005. On Facebook, many of his students both in formal and informal settings talked about how much they learned from him.

Pierre is survived by his two sons Victor and Alexandre. His former partner, Anne Latendresse, wrote on Facebook:

“Pierre, the father of my son, my accomplice of more than 30 years, left us on the night of March 7-8. Death came to get him at home, without even waving at us. We weren’t prepared…

“His heart was so big, that he carried the whole planet and hugged these suffering men and women and fought to transform the world. With clarity, he was desperate for our inability to get there. But from Gramsci, he had learned to practice ‘the pessimism of the intelligence and the optimism of the will’.”

Thank you, Anne, and know that we share your mourning for this wonderful man.

The war in Ukraine

By Pierre Beaudet, March 2, 2022

This text is intended to introduce a debate within Alternatives. It argues that this conflict will change everything, including in our area of solidarity and international cooperation. As in any important debate, there are theories, strategic issues, choices to make in our practice. This text does not answer everything. It expresses a view that is not the only approach now being expressed. It will therefore be necessary to have a lengthy and in-depth discussion in the coming period, and this contribution will have achieved its objectives if it can simply break the ice. – PB

Ukraine, with a population of 43 million, is foundering in the war unleashed by Russia’s invasion. There are thousands of victims. A large part of the country’s infrastructure, including energy and communications facilities, has been destroyed. In the streets of Kyiv and the other major cities, the Ukrainian people are engaged in street battles with the powerful Russian army. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have fled into exile.

Meanwhile, the United States and its allies are imposing severe sanctions against Russia while organizing major military assistance but without willing to become involved on the terrain. There does not appear to be any possibility of negotiation, at least in the short term. The conflicts will likely increase, with further destruction.

The aggression

Russia prepared its attack over a long period. It was launched last week with the hawkish speech by President Vladimir Putin, who denied the very reality of Ukraine as the sovereign state and territory of a people with the right of self-determination. In the initial days, the Russian army destroyed with its short and long range missiles a major part of the military infrastructure as well as crucial energy and communications systems. Russia claimed it would spare civilians, which would exclude massive indiscriminate bombing. The Russian advances have continued, encountering as they reached the cities a strong Ukrainian resistance. In military terms, this resistance relies on small decentralized contingents with very effective weapons such as mobile anti-air and anti-tank missiles. It is also getting unlimited support in weapons and money from the United States and its allies.

If the war becomes bogged down in the cities, it will result in destructive combat in the midst of highly-populated regions. The collateral costs will be huge, and this may lead the United States and NATO to become more involved. That is what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is hoping, and in this he no doubt reflects the majority opinion that resistance to the aggression is the only outcome on offer. Russia, however, cannot easily back down, as this would be a terrible defeat for Vladimir Putin. So there is a great risk that the war will go on.

How did we get to this point?

The implosion of the Soviet Union in 1989 profoundly destabilized what was then the second biggest power in the world. The vast majority of the republics that were part of the USSR broke free, including Ukraine which became independent in 1991.

Coming into office in the early 2000s, Vladimir Putin promised to be the “strong man” who would re-establish that power. First he focused on annihilating the Chechen rebellion. He turned then to what he defined as the “near exterior” including Georgia, Belarus and some republics in central Asia, combining threats and interventions with cooptation of local elites. This was relatively effective, and gave Putin the idea that he could expand his interventions, for example by supporting the regime of Bashar El-Assad in Syria, where he gambled on the weakening and failure of the US strategy. The “strong man” then followed this up with various measures to paralyze the opposition in Russia. Putin’s approach borrowed from the tradition of the USSR under Stalin in imposing a centralizing and repressive state along with attempts to carve out a place in the global arena.

Role of the United States

Since the demise of the Soviet Union thirty years ago, Russia has continued to be confronted by Washington, beginning with the latter’s reneging on the promise made to Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, that it would not incorporate the former components and allies of the USSR into NATO. Instead, the US has built a veritable iron circle with several of these territories, threatening Russia indirectly. There were some limits to this strategy, so the United States launched the terrible “endless war” in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as its incursion in the Balkans. But its failure after some years resulted in opening up areas of conflict in which Moscow was able to insert itself, in Syria, as mentioned, and with Iran and other countries anxious to avoid the destruction experienced by Iraq. Little by little, Russia could see its horizon broaden by looking to China and other “emerging” countries aspiring to greater autonomy within the global system. The Russia-China convergence is of course a product of the explicit US strategy that seeks to prevent China from moving into the lead in capitalist globalization.

A fight to the finish

This gave Putin the impression that he could strike a major blow in Ukraine. When a staunchly anti-Russia government was imposed in 2014, Russia reacted by annexing the Sebastopol region and supporting the pro-Russia territories in eastern Ukraine. A “mini war” (with 14,000 victims, nonetheless) prepared the way for the present conflict. Demanding that the United States exclude any possibility of Ukraine membership in NATO, Putin was well aware that this issue was non-negotiable. Some European states (including Germany and France) had a more accommodating position, but lacked the ability to say explicitly what could have been an alternative project: acceptance of a sovereign Ukraine with neutral status (as were Finland and Austria in the past), establishing of a new European agreement involving disarmament of borders, Russia’s integration in the agreements, intra-European economies, etc. In the end, as Putin had expected, the US view prevailed.

Leap into the unknown

Now that Russia has attacked, there is no turning back. Either Putin wins his bet by the subjugation of Ukraine, which would allow him to “entrust” to a new government the job of “re-establishing order.” Or the situation will drag on into an endless conflict – unless Russia decides to wage war in the cities even if it means destroying them, with their people, as was done in Syria. In either case, the conditions will have been created to revive a new kind of cold war, fueled by fierce attacks on the Russian economy, increasing militarization of central Europe, the Baltic states and Poland, support to the Ukrainian resistance, etc.

This new Cold War 2.0 will represent an immense realignment of priorities and strategies. NATO, its relevance diminished in recent years, will return in force. The member states will be required to increase substantially their military spending and become directly involved in the strategy of counter-attacking and weakening Russia: harsh economic sanctions, military and political support of states and movements confronting Russia, a major “battle of ideas” to reinvent the monster that had created such fear in Western opinion for more than 30 years. And so on.

Consequences for Canada

No doubt the Canadian government will follow the US line, as it has done since the beginning of the conflict. With the immense polar frontier between Canada and Russia, this could have major consequences. Canadians’ reluctance to invest the billions needed for purchasing weapons of mass destruction will be seriously weakened, with a resulting surge in the military budget financed by severe cutbacks in other budget allocations. And Canada, eager to increase its oil and gas exports via huge pipeline projects to the Pacific and Atlantic, will be able to relaunch these projects on the pretext that they are part of the “war effort” against Russia. We will have to pay close attention to what is going to happen with the proposed LNG project designed to bring Alberta’s gas through Quebec.

This Canadian shift will of course be strongly encouraged by pursuit of the war, which, we repeat, was initiated by Russia. Public opinion in Canada, and not only among Canadians of Ukrainian descent (1.8 million persons) has understandably mobilized against Russia.

On solidarity and international cooperation

The area in which we are involved will be strongly affected. It is certain that humanitarian aid is going to be oriented towards the millions of Ukrainians who are in or on the way to exile. That is necessary, from a humanitarian standpoint. What is not is its discriminatory nature. There are at this point at least 10 million Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans (to mention only those) languishing in detention camps administered by states in the pay of NATO member countries. The great majority of these wretched of the earth know already that they will never be accepted as refugees. Meanwhile, some disregarded conflicts are breaking out in the Horn of Africa while the international (dis)order prevents the UN from seriously intervening.

No one should be surprised, therefore, if the humanitarian aid (administered by Foreign Affairs Canada) is not sharply reorganized to assist Ukraine – which is not dishonorable but will become so if the already very modest resources offered to other countries and peoples in crisis are reduced.

In the coming period, the new board of directors of Alternatives, with other NGOs and international solidarity movements, will have to look at how we can promote our views and act responsibly in the eyes of a population that is currently distressed by the conflict and its possible consequences.

Among the options now being discussed in our circles, we will have to develop ourselves our basis of action taking into account past experience and the uncertainties in the present context.

· Peace must be re-established as soon as possible, if only in the form of a ceasefire that gives those responsible some time in which to extricate themselves from the present impasse.

· This peace process should include the United Nations. While the European Union and NATO are major protagonists, they cannot be left to tackle this.

· We act in solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance that aims to re-establish an inclusive and peaceful sovereignty without abuses of national minorities. Our solidarity can be exercised in the area of humanitarian assistance wherever in the country people are suffering the impact of the war.

· Humanitarian aid, and development assistance to poor countries (especially in Africa) must not be reduced to meet Ukraine’s needs.

· Canada must not align its policies with those of the United States, via NATO or otherwise. It should promote disarmament and the peaceful resolution of conflicts while defending human rights without discrimination.

Russia invaded Ukraine four days ago in blatant violation of the UN Charter and international law. The United States and their NATO allies, including Canada, have plunged us as well increasingly into this war by a flurry of sanctions and outrageous statements.

[The text ends by announcing a demonstration in Montréal on March 6 in solidarity with an international day of action to protest both Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the expansion of NATO.]

* * *

A true friend and comrade…

Although I was long acquainted with his work I did not meet Pierre Beaudet until the World Social Forum in Caracas in 2006. We soon became good friends. Soon afterwards, Pierre found employment at the University of Ottawa, where he was instrumental in establishing the School of International Development and Global Studies. He invited me to participate in his efforts to establish an Ottawa section of the Collectif d’analyse politique (CAP), publishers of the Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme, a semiannual review Pierre had cofounded in 2009. On three occasions he included me as a guest lecturer in his course on Latin American social movements and politics.

When teaching at UOttawa, and later the Université du Québec campus across the river in Gatineau, Pierre, who commuted from his home in Montréal, usually stayed overnight for a day or two per week at my home. He always brought with him books and magazines – Le Monde Diplomatique and the New York Review of Books were among his favourites – to leave with me and we often exchanged Marxist books we both found useful. Conversations with Pierre were a delight; he was knowledgeable and insightful on a vast range of subjects, and I enjoyed his ironic sense of humour.

My niece Nancy Burrows, who has known Pierre longer than I through her active leadership in the Quebec women’s movement (she coauthored a chapter in one of his books on L’Altermondialisme), mentioned to Pierre in an email exchange that she had heard he knew her uncle. His response captured our friendship rather nicely, I think:

“I spend two nights a week with your uncle, with whom I very much enjoy discussing late into the night why the Indonesian Communist party screwed up in 1966, or if Lenin had listened to the mutineers at Kronstadt, and other similar stories that have remained in the head of the unrepentant Marxist oldtimers like us. It has helped me endure Ottawa more easily…. We also discuss intersectionality in the Dogon country in Mali, the place of LGBTQs in the present Chilean movement, peaceful insurrections that get things moving more than petitions. What would have happened if Rosa Luxemburg had not been assassinated, etc., etc., it never ends between us.”[1]

- Richard Fidler

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[1] “Je passe deux soirées par semaine avec ton oncle avec qui j’ai bien du plaisir à discuter tard dans la nuit sur pourquoi le Parti communiste indonésien s’est planté en 1966, ou encore si Lénine avait écouté les mutins de Kronstad, et d’autres histoires du genre qui sont restés dans la tête des pépés marxistes non repentis dans notre genre. Cela me fait endurer plus facilement Ottawa… Nous discutons aussi de l’intersectionnalité dans le pays dogon du Mali, de la place des LBGTQ dans le mouvement chilien actuel, des insurrections pacifiques qui font bouger les choses plus que les pétitions. Sur ce qui serait arrivé si Rosa Luxemburg n’avait pas été assassinée, etc. etc. ça n’arrête jamais entre nous…”.

In the wake of the pandemic, the rebirth of climate mobilizations

One hundred thousand students strike, 15 to 20 thousand demonstrate in Quebec

Guest column by Marc Bonhomme*

More than 110,000 students in Quebec went on strike September 24, according to the Coalition étudiante pour un virage environnemental et social (CEVES – Student coalition for environmental and social transition), the Quebec organizer of the demonstrations together with the Innu collective Mashk Assi, Solidarité sans frontières and Pour le futur Montréal. They marched in about a dozen cities, including Montréal, Québec, Sherbrooke, Gatineau (Ottawa), Alma, Rimouski, Granby, La Pocatière and Joliette – 10 to 15 thousand in Montréal, 2-3 thousand in Québec and hundreds elsewhere. As might be expected, some politicians attended, their presence and mollifying comments featured in the mass media. But a relatively large contingent from Québec solidaire contrasted with the trade-union and popular presence, reduced to a few banners.

Priority in the messaging was given to signs (see my photo album) ranging from the predominant eco-anxiety (“Un futur, quel futur?) to calls for action (“Planète qui crève. Élèves en grève” – Planet is dying, students are striking) and denunciations of the system (“Le climat change, pourquoi pas le système”), invoking a “climate revolution” in the form of some concrete and mobilizing demands: “Justin pipeline Trudeau, François ‘third link’ Legault,[1] how dare you?,” or “Leave it in the ground.” The general theme of the Montréal demonstration – “Justice sociale, Climate justice, même combat” on the huge banner opening the march – summed it up well.

Both the opening speeches and the end point of the Montréal march revealed the coalition’s judicious choices in terms of strategy and alliances. First to address the crowd, its banner preceding the general one for the demonstration, was the Innu collective Mashk Assi. The demonstration wound up in front the RCMP offices “as a sign of support to the protesters in Fairy Creek, in British Columbia, who are calling for a moratorium on the cutting down of old-growth forests. As of yesterday, 1,089 people have been arrested by the RCMP in Fairy Creek, making it the biggest movement of civil disobedience in Canada’s history.” (La Presse)

Also speaking was a Montréal citizens’ association fighting the extension of the Port of Montréal in the L’Assomption wetland to speed the circulation of commodities through extended highways and construction of a truck-rail shipping complex. […] This was followed by a presentation of the movement Solidarité sans frontières, which calls for massively opening the borders to persons fleeing wars and poverty in the dependent countries, victims of imperialism and its local lackeys, their condition worsened by climate catastrophes and unbearably prolonged heat waves. In conclusion, the demonstration heard from a woman doctor representing the Quebec association of doctors for the environment and a health worker who eloquently demonstrated how the obvious consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic are a foretaste of what is coming from climate warming, and why our healthcare system is unprepared to cope with it.

Regrettably absent from the speakers’ tribune was the FRAPRU (Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbaine – Urban redevelopment popular action front), one of the few popular organizations present at the demonstration with its banner, which calls for annual construction of 10,000 eco-energetic social housing units, to help reduce GHGs and poverty while creating good jobs.

This demonstration was also preparatory for the Quebec component of the global mobilization planned to coincide with the COP-26 climate conference in early November. The COP-26 Coalition has chosen Friday, November 6 as the day of mass demonstration in Glasgow and elsewhere in the world.

September 25, 2021

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[1] Quebec premier François Legault, in the face of major public protests, is promoting construction of a car and truck tunnel between Québec City and its suburban communities on the south shore of the St. Lawrence river, to supplement the two existing bridges.

Addendum by Marc Bonhomme

Several hundred child-care workers in the Centres de petite enfance (CPE), affiliated to the CSN, demonstrated in the morning rain on September 24, while more than 10,000 of their co-workers struck for the day, protesting their abysmal wages. They are asking for parity with education workers, according to the president of the union in the Quebec City region.

We too often forget that these jobs are by definition ecological, for they require almost no mechanical, let alone fossil, energy, but a lot of human energy. Their purpose is to create rich social relations, the fabric of society, an antidote to the mass consumption materially based on alienated labour for profit, whether on the production line, under electronic surveillance, or isolated in front of one’s computer in a cubicle or at home. Their human labour with other humans is an integral part of the alternative society of care of people and the earth. The presence of this union at the climate mobilizations was needed to signify the advent of the trade-unions that can transform the climate-biodiversity movement into this realism that demands the impossible.

* My translation from the original French. – Richard Fidler

Against the tide: André Frappier’s journey as a class-struggle militant

Introduction

I first met André Frappier in the late 1970s, when we were members of the Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue ouvrière révolutionnaire, a pan-Canadian Marxist cadre organization. When the league decided to hoist its banner in the 1980 federal election campaign, André — already well-known as a union militant — was chosen as our candidate in a downtown Montréal riding. (No, he was not elected!)

Along with many others, André and I parted company with the RWL/LOR soon afterward. For André, this was by no means the end of his political activism, quite the contrary, as this recent interview by Pierre Beaudet shows. It is published in the current issue of Nouveaux Cahiers du socialisme, no. 25, winter 2021, under the title “À contre-courant : André Frappier, toujours présent,” also published as a separate text on the NCS webpage.

My translation, along with a few supplementary notes and this introduction.

– Richard Fidler

* * *

André Frappier became an activist in the 1970s, in the student movements. He was then hired at Canada Post, where for several decades he became one of the pillars of the combative Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). Later, André became an active member of Québec solidaire (QS) which he sees as a potential tool for our emancipation.

From the CEGEP, where you had your first activist experience, you went on to the Post Office...

I spent a good part of my time as a CEGEP student[1] in activism, especially in solidarity with Chile, then at the heart of the political debates. It was fascinating to watch an attempt to transition to socialism without revolution, which contradicted what we were learning from Marxism. Finally, the coup d’état in 1973 put an end to the experiment, reminding us that the capitalist class does not allow itself to be controlled so easily [1]. On May 1, 1974, several of us in the Québec-Chile student solidarity committee occupied the Chilean consulate. We were all arrested, and I spent a night in a cell. My political vision was to deepen after that, as internationalism is decisive in the fight for an egalitarian society.

I had not completed my college diploma when I was called to the Post Office for an interview in August 1975. Among the 1000 hired (out of 10,000 applicants), I was ranked 740th! As soon as I got to work, I took part in my first major strike, which lasted six weeks.

In the union, there was a great leader...

For two decades, the Syndicat des postiers du Canada (SPC) [2] in Montreal was Marcel Perreault. He had been president of the largest section in Quebec since 1968 (over 4,000 members) and the second largest in Canada after Toronto. He was a fiery leader who knew how to command respect among his members as well as in other unions. He was vice-president of the FTQ (Quebec Federation of Labour) and president of the Montreal Labour Council (CTM) for several years. In 1977, I attended my first “national” convention in Halifax, when Joe Davidson was president [3]. It was at this congress that an extraordinary trade unionist, Jean-Claude Parrot, became national president [4]. In 1978, a strike that was initially legal was declared illegal with Bill C-8. Parrot found himself on the front lines and was sentenced to three months in prison, after being cravenly abandoned by the president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), Dennis McDermott.[2]

You had to follow the “line”...

In congresses, Perreault required the Quebec delegation to vote with one voice. However, at the 1980 convention, I dared to vote with two other comrades in favour of a resolution aimed at adjusting the union dues of part-time employees according to the hours worked. Perreault was opposed to it, but the proposal had the support of the rest of Canada. During the adjournment, National Director Clément Morel ordered our expulsion from the Quebec caucus. At that time, I had just been fired by management and was awaiting arbitration of my grievance. I was somewhat distraught. My friend Paul Heffernan from the Toronto local advised me to report this event to the convention. The next day, I went to the microphone and asked the national director of Quebec to explain why he had expelled three members of his delegation. I got a standing ovation from delegations from the rest of Canada who took a dim view of the rigid discipline to which we were subjected in the union.

In the end, I was able to gain some respect. A few years later, to my surprise, Clément Morel confided in me that he did not fully share Perreault’s feelings! In the meantime, my friend Paul Heffernan had become president of his local. In my opinion, one of the best Toronto has seen.

Perreault was opposed to everything that was progressive...

Despicably, he had fought the establishment of a women’s committee on which several women had worked for months [5]. Perreault had also opposed the proposals from the Western region concerning sexual harassment at the 1983 convention as well as the plans for day care and child care costs. The majority of delegates from Quebec, overwhelmingly made up of men, registered their dissent when these policies were adopted at the 1986 convention. That same year, when the votes were counted for the local union elections, the children of parents who supported my candidacy were expelled by the union marshals, made up exclusively of Perreault supporters.

He was even against the unification of unions at the Post Office...

He fiercely opposed the merger with the Union of Postal and Communications Employees (UPCE), which took place anyway, and helped sabotage the merger with the Letter Carriers Union of Canada (LCUC). It was not until the vote ordered by the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) in February 1989, following the plan to overhaul the certification units by Canada Post, that this unification could take place. The 23,000-member CUPW won over the 21,000-member LCUC with a majority of just 901 votes.

The new union, which was not based on mutual agreement, gave rise to an open war in which Perreault took delight in provoking the former members of the LCUC. He rebuked them for their interventions and set up a union marshalling squad made up of about fifteen men dressed in black who stood at the front of the room. At one meeting he even called in the police. It took a long time to pick up the pieces, even after his election defeat in 1991. In fact, it required a new generation to take over on both the former CUPW and LCUC sides.

During all these battles, did you have a hard time?

At each union meeting, he was waiting for me around the corner. Perreault’s discourse was based on a narrow nationalism which hardened the Quebec members against the positions of the members in the rest of Canada. He used my support for Parrot and my links with several union activists in the rest of Canada to present me as a spy for the Canadians and a traitor in Quebec!

In March 1987, I attended an important meeting on a draft collective agreement. In the room, the seats around me were empty, no one dared be seen beside me. Perreault spoke of the “four-page rag”, referring to a tract published in my recent union election campaign. He tried to entertain the room with a dubious play on words: “Je ne vous demande quand même pas que vous le Frappier” [“I’m not even asking you to hit him!” Frappier is close to frapper, to hit.]

It got pretty wild?

During all these years, I helped to put together teams in local elections with a democratization program and I ran against him for the presidency. I wanted us to deepen our ties with the FTQ, to participate in political battles. We had to put forward the demands of women who had been sidelined for so long. To my surprise, in my first election in 1983, despite all the pressure and the smear campaign against me, I got almost a third of the votes. It encouraged me a lot. I naively believed that since I had made a show of strength Perreault would calm down a bit and that we could finally hope for a more serene climate in the union. The opposite happened, he took it as a danger to his survival. After this election, a few comrades and I were put on a blacklist, distributed by members of the executive during the assemblies to elect delegates to union bodies and to congresses. It was ten years before we could participate again.

Your resistance ended up getting some results...

Perreault continued to protect his power by taking advantage of a conservative ideology. He was a brake on trade-union unity, so necessary in this context of a government offensive. In 1981, more than 100,000 workers, including several thousand SPC members, protested in front of parliament against the economic policies of the federal government. The following year, when the Parti québécois (PQ) government wanted to cut Quebec civil service salaries by 20%, Jean-Claude Parrot offered financial assistance of five dollars per union member both in Canada and Quebec to organize the resistance. But Perreault was opposed, on the pretext that we were not allowed to play with the union dues. However, it was clear that the governments were organizing an offensive against the public services and that union unity was more urgent than ever.

Things came to a head in 1987...

During negotiations, the national leadership of the union understood that the government was going to pass a special law. The National Executive Council wanted to keep up the pressure while preventing the government from legislating. Rotating strikes were the appropriate way to achieve this. Perreault opposed this, adopting the false image of a radical trade unionist. He hoped anti-union legislation would allow him to blame the government and the national leadership while relieving himself of all responsibility. When the time came to vote he made a fiery speech against rotating strikes. No debate was allowed, and Perreault was going to proceed to a strike vote by show of hands, contrary to the rules of procedure. I walked to the front of the room and demanded microphones. The union marshals expelled me manu militari. I had, however, opened a crack; several members who ordinarily would not have dared to speak congratulated me. The media were present and reported the event. During this period, I thought about resigning my duties as a union delegate and quitting my activism, but I was too proud to do so!

But in the end, the tide turned...

It was at this point that Perreault lost his bid for re-election to Richard Forget. The arrival of the LCUC members in 1989 was the factor that hastened his downfall. His strategies were aimed not at strengthening the trade union movement, but dodging to make others bear the burden of possible compromises. The iron fist imposed on militants was now arousing growing discontent. His defeat made it possible to move on. It was high time!

Did Perreault’s departure open the door?

Faced with the growing rebellion against Perreault, the vice-president of the Montreal local, Richard Forget, won the union elections of 1991 by promising some democratization. I had worked hard and was disappointed that he did not call on me. He had actually backed the cheap blows against me, but we were in new times, hope was finally allowed, so I supported him without hesitation. In the first general meetings, Perreault and his supporters persisted in their attacks on the new executive and the president. I came to his defence, giving Perreault a good lesson in democracy. He was now unable to come to terms with the decision of the members, which he regarded as the basis of the union when he was in power. I was warmly applauded, it was a first for me, I almost felt like crying.

In the end, you manage to break down the wall...

In the subsequent election of the Montreal section in 1993, I was elected to the Forget team, in charge of union education. Gradually, our union began to function normally, apart from the opaque games of the former president. Yet I thought we were marking time, especially since Canada Post, managed by the Liberal party, wanted to “restructure” the postal service, which meant cutting jobs, reducing wages and increasing productivity. The threat of privatization loomed on the horizon.

Finally, you become president of the Montreal local of CUPW...

Richard Forget wasn’t a bad guy, but he had retained his old reflexes. Information circulated in dribbles to the executive except among those close to him. This had repercussions among the members and discontent grew in the general assemblies, especially on the side of the letter carriers who were still smarting and remained suspicious. Finally, the majority of the executive committee wanted to put together a new team. I was elected president in 1996 with the majority of our team. In anticipation of the 1997 negotiations, we felt that our 6,000 members really had to regain control of their union. Trade union unity and participatory democracy were at the heart of our platform. The Montreal section thus threw itself into mobilization. In the spring of 1998, more than 1,000 members from Montreal demonstrated at the Parliament in Ottawa. In the fall, 300 militants occupied the Canada Post headquarters in downtown Montréal. The following week, we occupied Place des Arts on the evening when the Post Office had invited its executives and contractors to a concert at its expense.

A few years later, you change course...

The six years in the presidency had worn me out. There had been some real political battles, but also factional battles, the two sometimes intertwined. I therefore decided to leave the presidency and to run for the post of national director in 2002. This post would offer a more political role, in particular through developing union strategies during negotiations. I was happy to take charge of organizing campaigns including that of the rural route mail couriers, which was a big step forward. This made it possible to get better terms for people who had been classed as independent contractors without the right to unionize. To get around this legal obstacle, we negotiated an agreement with Minister André Ouellet in the 2004 collective agreement. It was not a smooth process for our troops. Without saying so directly, some of our members resented our spending a lot of money from the available funds at our disposal on achieving the first collective agreement of the Organization of Rural Route Mail Couriers (ORRMC). I argued that this cheap labour in rural areas allowed Canada Post management to exert downward pressure on working conditions, which affected everyone. In the end, we managed to organize 6,000 new members, bolstering the union with new militant strength. This is how Nancy Beauchamp, who was one of these precariously employed people, was the first woman to be elected to the position of national director for the Montréal region. She is now an executive member of the FTQ.

Throughout, you got involved with activists from the “Rest of Canada”...

I had developed links for a long time with militants outside Quebec. My tenure as National Director now allowed me to work more closely with them. National Executive Council (NEC) meetings lasted a week and took place once every two months in Ottawa, but during negotiations it was often monthly. I really enjoyed this experience and learned a lot from it. Despite our differences, I learned to better understand the reality of activism outside Quebec. I also appreciated the fact that the Quebec reality was respected. I had the good fortune to work under the presidency of Deborah Bourque, a visionary woman very concerned about democracy. Her defeat at the hands of Denis Lemelin in 2008 was certainly the event that most disappointed and saddened me in this union.

At the CLC convention in Vancouver in 1999, I took the floor and made my speech entirely in French, which nobody had dared to do. There was an interpretation service, but the majority of delegates from the rest of Canada did not use it, with the exception of the CUPW delegation! At the end of my speech, I asked those who understood what I had said to raise their hands. That was revealing, and everyone got the point. But it will take a long time to change entrenched attitudes.

Anti-Quebec prejudices remained strong...

The CLC reflected the incomprehension that the Canadian labour movement had in relation to Quebec. It must be said that the major Canadian media practice Quebec bashing regularly and to their heart’s content, as in the Maclean’s magazine article that charged Quebec with being the most corrupt province in Canada. With the exception of CUPW, very few pan-Canadian unions, including the CLC itself, have taken a position that unambiguously expresses Quebec’s right to self-determination.

A few years later, in 2002, on the occasion of Jean-Claude Parrot’s departure from the CLC, I had the honour to present on the rostrum a tribute to his work on behalf of the Quebec delegation; this time everyone used the interpretation devices…

In 2004, you got involved in an election with the New Democratic Party (NDP)...

I thought there was some momentum with a leader who had also been present in Quebec. Jack Layton wanted to change things and to include Quebec while respecting its autonomy. He even told me that he didn’t mind having a pro-sovereignty candidate. So I took the plunge in Papineau riding, which had long been held by the Liberal party. My friend Pierre Laliberté did the same thing and ran in Gatineau. I had the support of my local, and also of Michel Taylor, president of the Montréal Regional FTQ Council, as well as of CUPW national president Deborah Bourque. At the nomination meeting several other trade union members were present, including my friends from the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN).

Navigating in a federalist party was not easy...

The NDP communications officer was always by my side, making sure that I avoided answering directly to the “question” of my pro-independence beliefs. This did not, however, prevent Stéphane Dion, in a letter published in The Globe and Mail, from criticizing Jack Layton for having accepted the candidacy of an evil “séparatisse” in Papineau. After the election (I received 8% of the vote), the NDP concluded that its pro-Quebec discourse had not produced the hoped-for results and that instead this position had caused it to suffer losses in Western Canada. With Pierre Laliberté, we agreed that this desired alliance with the NDP did not have much of a future.

In 2005, your re-election as National Director of CUPW did not go very well...

When I ran for the position of National Director, I knew I was putting myself in a risky position. At the local level, thousands of members vote by mail for those running for the executive, but a national director is to be elected at convention by the 70 delegates from Montreal. My opponents knew it and worked more effectively than I. It must be said that I had often put my head on the chopping block, defending what I thought was important for the union, such as the collective agreement which made it possible to integrate the rural route mail couriers. I lost narrowly, by three votes.

For you, CUPW has been and remains a progressive union...

CUPW is one of the few unions that has played an important role on the Canadian political scene. It has led battles and strike actions from one end to another of Canada “and Quebec” which have been at the centre of media news. This union was a forerunner in obtaining the right to strike at the federal level, in the fight for a reduction in working time without loss of pay, and in obtaining parental leave. The mobilizations and political credit that it was able to build on a pan-Canadian scale have made it an imposing union force, but also a political force in opposing the Canadian government and the private companies that have always sought to gain entry to this sector for their profit. The fact that the Canadian postal sector has not yet been totally privatized, as it has been in many countries, is an achievement on the part of the union. No wonder it has been in the cross-hairs of governments.

Did you come back to basics then?

At the time, my defeat really disheartened me. But I went back to being a letter carrier, a job that I really liked. At the same time, I worked with the Montreal section of CUPW, which put me in charge of a special project at the Youville branch where I worked. The idea was to test an improvement in the flyer delivery process for the next collective agreement.

I also got involved again with the Regional Council of the Montréal FTQ and I was elected for a second time to the executive. With Michel Ducharme, we wanted to bring unions closer to popular groups mobilized in the Coalition Main rouge [Red hand coalition], formed in the fall of 2009 following the announcement by the then Liberal government that it would make greater use of user fees on public services and implement budgetary austerity [6].

You came up against the so-called concertation approach that prevailed at the FTQ...

The then president of the FTQ, Michel Arsenault, was not sympathetic to the Coalition Main Rouge. Like many union leaders, he feared this kind of coalition where unions are on an equal footing with many smaller groups. But ultimately, I think these positions were motivated more by the FTQ’s preference for tripartite consultation and partnership. In fact, it is only some local unions and regional labour bodies like the Montréal Central Council of the CSN and the Montréal Regional Council of the FTQ that have joined.

The concertation orientation has limited struggles and even resulted in defeats. In 2012, during the historic social mobilization in response to the student upsurge, the unions simply gave it lip service and prevented this movement from moving to a higher level. During the negotiations with the government, the leaderships of the centrals at no time threatened the government with a mobilization of their forces in aid of the student movement. In fact, these leaderships exerted more pressure on the student spokespersons than they did on the government [7]. In the years that followed, the various governments have continued their policies of social disengagement in education and health, the tragic consequences of which can be seen today.

Life then took you elsewhere...

I retired in the late summer of 2010, but soon after was hired by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) to work on union organizing with a bunch of young and dynamic activists who were at ASSÉ (Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante), including a certain Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois. In the meantime, my involvement with Québec solidaire grew. I was part of the QS National Coordinating Committee for six years from 2012 to 2018. We had many debates, particularly with regard to electoral alliances with the Parti québécois, which raised several questions concerning our democratic functioning. The members had spoken out against these alliances twice, at the congresses preceding the elections of 2012 and 2014. But the day after the elections, it was as if we were faced with a blank page. This long road ended at the 2017 congress where the idea of ​​an alliance with the PQ was defeated after a wide-ranging debate that lasted several months. Fortunately, everyone agrees now. The results of 2018 [when QS elected 10 members to the National Assembly] would not have been the same if we had fallen into the trap of Jean-François Lisée, head of the PQ.[3] Since then, we have not made much progress in terms of our way of implementing this independence project and our strategy with regard to the Canadian state.

This question has led you to new initiatives...

The clarification of QS’s positions on these issues has been at the heart of my engagement within this party. Along with others, including mainly my comrade and friend Andrea Levy, we have established a pan-Canadian progressive network that met virtually almost monthly for several years. The emergence of Québec solidaire as an independentist left party raised many questions among the Canadian left, to which answers and perspectives had to be provided. The Canadian people have no interest in defending their own establishment against the people of Quebec fighting for their emancipation. Conversely, the support of the Canadian working class is essential to the survival of this project. For lack of support, we saw the failures of the Greek and Catalan progressive parties in 2015 and 2017.

Did this liaison work continue later?

I took part in several conferences in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary and I reported to the leadership bodies of Québec solidaire. I also worked closely with Naomi Klein’s team for the creation of the Leap Manifesto, along with Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Roger Rashi, by trying among other things to adapt the text of the declaration to the reality of Quebec. For several years now, I have been writing a column in the journal Canadian Dimension which focuses mainly on politics in Quebec. At the same time, as QS’s (interim) co-spokesperson, I became more familiar with the struggles of the Indigenous nations. In the winter of 2013, I was in Ottawa during the Indigenous protests in support of the hunger strike of Theresa Spence, Chief of the Attawapiskat Nation, at the start of the Idle No More mobilizations. In the spring of that year, I met with the Algonquin population of Lac-Barrière accompanied by Geneviève Beaudet and André Richer, also of QS.[8]. In a delegation of 14 people, we heard the message of the Indigenous people and their very different vision of the territory. Michel Thusky, an elder in the community, explained to us that “the land does not belong to anyone, everyone can occupy it by respecting it and ensuring the sustainability of its resources. White governments see this same territory not as a precious ecosystem to be respected, but as an asset to be squandered.”

True to your convictions since the beginning of your activist life, international solidarity is always present...

In October 2014, I participated in Toronto, on behalf of QS, in an international meeting on public transport organized by Die Linke, the German left party. This gave me the opportunity to lay the groundwork that led to the invitation of Andreas Gunther, a representative of this party, to our congress in May 2015. In the meantime, Benoit Renaud worked to invite Cat Boyd of the Radical Independence Campaign in Scotland. This was the beginning of our openness to international guests at congresses. In October 2017, I represented QS within a delegation of the international left in Barcelona at the initiative of the independentist left party CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy). In return, we invited to the QS congress in December 2017 two elected CUP members, Anna Gabriel and Eulalia Reguant.

In November 2018, thanks to you, my friend Pierre Beaudet, I had the opportunity to participate in the thematic Social forum on the mining and extractivist economy in Johannesburg, where I represented Québec solidaire. Then, in the summer of 2019, I attended the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) convention in Atlanta on behalf of QS, because although I have not been a member of the National Coordinating Committee since the National Council in December 2018, I am part of the party’s commission on global justice issues. As a socialist, internationalism is not an “extra” activity or a luxury, but a necessity. It is not always easy, but we must continue.

We have no choice, we have to look to the future...

COVID-19 has intensified the challenges of securing basic living needs on a level not seen since the recession of 1929. The crisis is global, global warming has caused devastating fires in Australia and California while the last plateau of unspoiled Canadian Arctic ice has just collapsed. The future of society depends on us. Neoliberal political parties cannot represent a way out, they are at the origin of the crisis.

The challenges are high. The unions have had some victories, but they have not been able to address the source of the problems, constantly restarting the cycle of gains and setbacks, which eventually deepen. The broad left has succeeded in building a political party since 2006 with Québec solidaire, but the junction with social movements and unions has not really materialized.

If there are common traits in the various struggles of my militant life, I would say that democracy would be at the top of the list. This fight is taking on decisive importance today. We have seen how easy it can be for a government like that of François Legault of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) to lead by decree if we lack vigilance.

Horizontal democracy must become a fundamental value within Québec solidaire because it is, even more in this time of confinement, the essential basis for the mobilization and life of the party.

The lessons of the coup d’état in Chile have also guided my activist journey throughout my life. If neoliberal governments can be ousted, the capitalist institutions that support them will still be present. Another eloquent illustration was the economic crushing of the Syriza government by the troika [9] in Greece in 2015.

We cannot conceive of our struggles without the development of an internationalist strategy. The future of the planet in environmental, social and health terms depends on it. The Quebec for which we are campaigning and whose population will regain control of its destiny, will constitute a step forward and generate a new social dynamic which, we hope, will transcend our borders. But the Canadian establishment will not stand idly by. Building solidarity with the working class in the rest of Canada, in alliance with the Indigenous nations, remains an unavoidable challenge. This has been and still continues to be at the centre of my militant journey.

NOTES

[1] Popular Unity was an alliance that brought together a broad spectrum ranging from Communists to the Christian left and had the support of the unions. Elected in 1970, it proposed a program to fight inflation, revive the agrarian economy, nationalize the banks and the copper industry in which the United States and Canada had interests. Pinochet’s coup d’état was made possible by operations undertaken by the CIA in 1970. See: “Un dictateur mis en place par les États-Unis,” Le Devoir, December 11, 2006.

[2] The Syndicat des postiers du Canada changed its name after merging with the Letter Carriers Union of Canada (LCUC) to become the Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses des postes (STTP). The name in English has remained unchanged: Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).

[3] See his autobiography: Joe Davidson and John Deverell, Joe Davidson (Toronto, James Lorimer & Company Publishers, 1978).

[4] See his autobiography, Jean-Claude Parrot, Ma vie de syndicaliste (Montréal, Boréal 2005). [In English, My Union, My Life (Fernwood, 2005).] Note, the terms national president or national leadership are used by the union.

[5] This is recounted in Julie White’s book, Mail and Female. Women and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (Toronto, Thompson Educational Publishing, 1990).

[6] See the Declaration of the Red Hand Coalition: <https://www.nonauxhausses.org/declaration/>.

[7] See on this subject the collective work, Le printemps des carrés rouges, by André Frappier, Richard Poulin and Bernard Rioux (Saint-Joseph-du-lac, M éditeur, 2012).

[8] At the time, QS did not have any activist representing the indigenous nations. [At the QS congress in November 2019, the delegates voted unanimously to establish a National Indigenous Commission (CAN in its French acronym) to give voice to the party’s First Nations and Inuit members. https://lifeonleft.blogspot.com/2019/11/with-little-debate-but-few-skirmishes.html]

[9] The troika appoints the experts representing the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

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[1] The CEGEP (Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel, or general and vocational college) is a public post-secondary, pre-university college peculiar to the Quebec education system.

[2] See Jean-Claude Parrot, My Union, My Life (see text note 4), chapters six and seven.

[3] See “Québec solidaire: No to an electoral pact with the PQ, Yes to a united front against austerity, for energy transition and for independence,” https://lifeonleft.blogspot.com/2017/05/quebec-solidaire-no-to-electoral-pact.html