Socialism and the C.C.F.

In a pro-Communist Party polemic written two years after the formation of the social-democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), today the New Democratic Party (NDP), G. Pierce exposes the pseudo-leftist policy of this party, formed to take away support from the then-revolutionary Communist Party of Canada. The CCF peddled theories of adjusting the distribution of production and not relations (i.e. a bigger "slice of the pie" for the workers), advocated for liberal-bourgeois theories of inflation, reformist illusions of election through parliament, religious and idealist anti-Marxist doctrines, denial of the class struggle, etc. while cloaking it with "socialist" phraseology. In reality, the bourgeoisie needed the CCF (today they need the NDP) to make a big noise about the anti-worker policies of the Liberals and Conservatives. This way, the working people can be kept under the thumb of parliamentary opposition and refuse revolution. One peculiarity today, however, is not accounted for — incredibly low voter turnout, by which the workers make it known that none of the parties, including the NDP, support their interests. One question this book gets incorrect — and this is natural for the period it was written in — is the theory of social-fascism. Such a theory, stemming from the "third period" and the 6th Congress of the Comintern, was not useful in winning over the vacillating workers who were inclined to support the social-democrats. Indeed, it alienated them and this mistake was corrected by Comrade Georgi Dimitrov's report at the 7th Congress of the Comintern. NEPH has decided to leave these chapters on social-fascism in, however, as they still contain useful information.