C’EST NOTRE LUTTE ! Groupes populaires et ouvriers (1970-1975) – Partie I (Texte de AR)
We salute and greatly appreciate this text entirely crafted by the Archives Révolutionnaires (AR).
The exhibition "This is Our Struggle! Popular and Workers' Groups (1970-1975)" took place from March 24th to 27th, 2023, at Bâtiment 7 in Montréal. Five years of political fervor in Québec were showcased, highlighting the dynamics between popular committees, workers' committees, labor unions, and revolutionary groups. The exhibition featured various artifacts from the Robert-Demers documentary collection, produced by popular groups and political action committees, as well as numerous "factory newspapers" created by workers in struggle, sometimes even on the margins of the unions.
The present text is extracted from the brochure accompanying the exhibition. We would like to thank the estate of the late Robert Demers (1950-2020) for donating the Robert-Demers documentary collection, which enabled us to realize this exhibition and the accompanying research. We would also like to thank Marc Comby and Yves Rochon for their invaluable assistance and for providing us with documents, testimonies, and photographs. Their contribution to our research and the creation of this text is immense.
THIS IS OUR STRUGGLE! Popular and Workers' Groups (1970-1975)
Part I. Building Popular Power
Introduction: Exposing the Struggles of the Past
The 1960s: Québec in Transition
1969-1972: Political Action Committees (CAP) and the Political Action Front (FRAP)
1970: The October Crisis and the Transformation of the Far Left in Quebec
Part II. Exercising Worker Power
1972: The Common Front
1972-1975: Workers' Struggles and the Marxist-Leninist Horizon
Conclusion
From Left to Right: Faubourg à m’lasse in 1963, a working-class French-Canadian neighborhood in central-south Montréal, now demolished. The construction of the Château Champlain Hotel and Place Bonaventure in 1965. Victoriatown in 1963, a neighborhood in southwest Montréal housing Irish working-class families, demolished in 1964. Source: Archives de la Ville de Montréal
Introduction: Exposing Past Struggles
From 1970 to 1975, spanning from the October Crisis to the second intersyndical Common Front (1975-1976), Québec's leftist, popular, and workers' political groups experienced a reconfiguration and unprecedented activity, which this exhibition documents. It demonstrates the interconnection and dynamics between popular committees, workers' committees, trade unions, and revolutionary groups. During this time, activists navigated between organizations debating the best way to change the world. To showcase this vitality, the exhibition follows a chrono-conceptual plan, combining chronological presentation with thematic sets: citizen groups, the October Crisis, unionism, and Marxist-Leninist organizations.
After setting the context of the nationalist and progressive climate of the 1960s, we delve into the emergence of popular groups in Montréal that evolved into Political Action Committees (CAP) in the early 1970s. These groups, aiming to build popular power, organized themselves within the Political Action Front (FRAP), a municipal party that connected popular groups with the labor movement. The October Crisis marked a turning point for these groups, as they recognized their vulnerability in the face of state oppression. Popular and workers' groups had to rethink their tactics and develop a long-term strategy. Between 1970 and 1972, activists focused on political and theoretical consolidation by deepening their knowledge of Marxism inspired by Maoist China. This seemed to offer an anti-imperialist and anti-bureaucratic socialism that addressed the shortcomings of the Soviet model. Meanwhile, unions launched their first Common Front (April 1972), quickly surpassed by the actions of their working-class base (May 1972). In the same years, a myriad of socialist organizations emerged to support or participate in workers' struggles. More broadly, workers began to organize politically outside of unions. By the mid-1970s, a portion of the labor movement chose to organize into Marxist-Leninist (revolutionary) groups or the Parti Québécois (PQ, reformist), two opposing options.
This work aims to provide a panorama that does not claim to fully account for all groups and activities of the period. Its goal is to present a certain dynamic at play: that which animated popular and workers' groups.
