______________________ May 2nd, 2019 ___
On May Day 2019, International Workers’ Day, revolutionaries took action in the streets of downtown Montreal to commemorate the centenary of the Winnipeg General Strike.
From the very first moments of the rally at Phillips Square, Montreal police seized all the red flags that were lying on the ground, even before they were distributed to the demonstrators. In doing so, the police have resumed an anti-communist practice that was commonplace in Montreal until the 1950s. For the bourgeoisie and its repressive apparatus, the red flag is the symbol of revolt, revolution and the people’s struggle for power. They consider its spread in the streets of the metropolis to be an intolerable threat and affront.
The red contingent still deployed on the street. In front of it stood a dreadful cordon of riot police from the Sûreté du Québec to block its way north, not to mention the general encirclement to which it was subjected. It was a police deployment almost never observed before in similar circumstances. Despite this intimidation effort, after a powerful speech by a comrade, a few dozen demonstrators marched southwards singing La Varsovienne.
The police continued to block the way of the contingent at the slightest opportunity. Despite its repressive efforts and against all expectations, a large barricade, consisting of orange cones and signalling equipment, was erected and set on fire in the heart of a construction site on Sainte-Catherine Street. A large-scale fire developed on this commercial artery, attracting the attention of several passers-by who were listening to a speech addressed to the crowd at the same time. Red smoke grenades were activated in all directions, disrupting the police, allowing action to take place and demonstrators to flee.
This year, it was imperative for activists of the Canadian revolutionary movement to take strong fighting action to bring the legacy of the Winnipeg General Strike to the streets, before everyone’s eyes. In May 1919, an embryonic form of workers’ power emerged in the country: for six weeks, workers controlled their city. Unfortunately, they were defeated. The bourgeoisie won the confrontation and this significant experience of our movement came to an end.
Despite everything, today, vanguard activists are taking up a proposal that Winnipeg workers courageously submitted to the entire Canadian proletariat a hundred years ago: to try to rise to power!
Yes, let us remember that these workers asked an essential question to their class brothers and sisters, a question that we know the answer to today, but that we still have to reveal to all workers:
What stands between us and Power?
What separates us from socialism?
The reaction! The bourgeois state!
Today, few of us are taking up the revolutionary torch. But let us not forget that the country is composed of a vast majority of proletarians. So when thousands of us take over this proposal for a rise to power, it will finally be possible for us to crush what is hindering the working class’ control of production.
To all the enemies of the people: the future belongs to the millions of exploited from coast to coast to coast! The revolutionaries are neither at their first combative action nor at their last!
Long live the communist revolution!
Long live the RCP!
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