CANADA
New openings for left THE stunning victory of the New Democratic Party in the September 6, 1990 elections in Ontario heightens the crisis of Canadian imperialism. Ontario is the largest and richest province in the Canadian state with over 40% of the population and the bulk of its industry.
By a quirk of the first-past-the-post electoral system, the labour-based NDP was able to capture a majority of the seats (74) with less than 38% of the vote. The former ruling Liberals got 32.4% (36 seats) and the tenured and powerful mandarins, bureaucrats, jurists and police chiefs will apply the brakes and pull every lever to stymie and smother every attempt at minor reform.
How did the NDP victory come about, and what does it mean for labour, the social movements and left in Ontario? The NDP victory was not the result of a mass radicalization. But it does reflect the deep dissatisfaction of the working class with governments that have increased taxes, diminished social services and undermined job security. Many people have noticed that "free" enterprise doesn't distribute opportunity, much less wealth - it merely concentrates both.
Then there's the resentment of arrogance and manipulation, triggered by the premature election call. It turned what was to be a droll summer exercise into a rather prickly political experience.
Moreover, the rejection of the Liberals, who were elected in victory for socialist activists in
Canada?
BARRY WEISLEDER
HE closest the NDP, or its social democratic forerunner, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, ever came to forming a government in Ontario, was in 1943 when loathe.
1985 as a minority government, and in 1987 with a majority -both times on the promise of sweeping reform - indicates a basic change in the political atmosphere. Today many workers are prepared to test political alternatives hitherto considered too "risky" because they are very annoyed at, and distrustful of, the Red-baiting flops the CCF came within four seats of overtaking the Tories who then held onto power for the next 42 years.
However, the election of the first ever provincial government in Ontario represents more than just some parliamentary history in the making. It opens a little wider the road to political action for hundreds of thousands of working people, women, natives, youth, visible minorities and other oppressed layers of the population.
But there can be no reliance on this government, formed by an arch reformist party. Already NDP Premier-elect Bob Rae has gone out of his way to issue abundant assurances to big business that they have nothing to fear from the new provincial administration. Most business leaders understand this quite well, without being told; nonetheless, business will fight tooth and nail against every mild, reformist initiative of the new government. They will seek to vilify and isolate the NDP, and hasten the return of their more reliable political representatives, their big business partners of first choice, the Liberals 20 and the Conservatives.
And within the state apparatus, long-
More than that, the old reliable, rigidly ordered world is gone. Stalinism being in an advanced stage of decomposition, the imperialist bourgeoisie has been deprived of a useful political bogey-man to instill and/or invoke the fear of "socialism". Former Liberal Premier David Peterson now knows first hand that such red-baiting and fear-mongering has lost much of its political punch.
And then there's the crisis of the federal state. When the Meech Lake Accord died, something snapped in the ideology of the ruling class. Since then the psychological shackles have been slipping badly across the country. This is especially apparent in the rise of Quebecois and aboriginal peoples struggles (see IV 191). Images of armed native blockades and Quebecois nationalist sentiment at its peak, ensure that the summer of 1990 will not soon be forgotten.
It is also a question of growing social and political polarization. The recession is upon us. Thousands of jobs have been lost in industry. Capital is relatively mobile. Yet the majority of the population wants social justice and an interventionist gov-
International Viewpoint #192 • October 15, 1990 emment to bring it about.
On the far right, too, forces are gathering for the struggle ahead. In fact the NDP was only able to capture many constituencies because parties like the anti-French Confederation of Regions Party, the anti-abortion Family Coalition Party and the fanatically free enterprise Libertarian party took tens of thousands of votes away from the Conservatives. The Green Party took far fewer votes away from the NDP, and generally trailed the far right parties. But the total vote of the minor parties surpassed 7% — triple their 1987 figure.
So what should the NDP do? Clearly, it should move to bolster its narrow base -and expand it — by taking bold and decisive actions in the interests of the working class and oppressed. The NDP should seek to mobilize those who stand to gain by the reforms it has promised: increasing the minimum wage, improving welfare benefits, strengthening the rights of workers and their unions (especially in terms of work place safety, injury compensation, and the scourge of strike-breaking), and putting a halt to land speculation and rentgouging.
Make the rich pay
The NDP could rally hundreds of thousands to a campaign to make the corporate rich pay for major improvements in childcare, public housing, social services, education and environmental protection. The party would inspire and involve even more people by democratizing the electoral and policy-making process, by leading a mass campaign of protest and non-compliance with the [indirect] federal Goods and Services Tax, and by refusing to enforce any new federal anti-choice abortion law. But the NDP cannot succeed by being content to "rule from above" much less by abandoning its commitment to implement progressive and significant social change.
Yet, with the benefit of historical hindsight, socialists have reason to suspect that the NDP, like its predecessors across Canada and around the world, will precisely seek to "rule from above" and put the needs of capital ahead of any commitments to labour and the oppressed.
Already the evidence is mounting. The day after his election Bob Rae reneged on his opposition to Toronto's bid to host the 1996 Olympics — which would have meant underwriting outgoing Premier Peterson's commitment to cover deficits in the billion dollar range, devouring funds projected for the expansion of social programs.
The same day, Rae seemed to put in doubt the NDP's pledge to phase out the expansion of nuclear power. He also played down the bite that promised new corporate tax would put on business. This is a prescription for alienating the social and labour movement activists who helped the NDP catapult to victory on Sep-
Conservatives, 23.5% (20 seats).
What are the implications of this familiar politicians they have come to
tember 6.
Later the world learned that instead of a much publicized $23m surplus, the Liberals bequeathed to the NDP a $700m defi- als beaueathed to the NDP a $700m defi_ cit. This sets the stage, in the context of the hard economic times ahead for a confrontation between workers and the government.
The trade union leaders are already trying to head off any such confrontation by issuing "their" party a blank cheque for its first term in office.
Nonetheless, struggles will occur — outside the NDP, in the streets, on the campuses, in the plants and communities. It's already evident. The industrial scene vividly demonstrates the restiveness of workers. More than 36,000 are now on strike at companies in the auto, steel, transportation and forest product sectors.
There will also probably be struggles in the NDP itself. The party will attract many new members over the next couple of years. Some will join in order to feed at the governmental trough. Some will want to ride the popular bandwagon. Yet many will be inspired by visions of a socialist Ontario.
### Activists elected
Even among the large new flock of NDP MPs, some 25 — one third of the total -have been active in the labour movement, and there are several left wing local movement activists who accepted nomination never expecting to be elected.
We may include in this latter groups several of the 19 NDP women MPs - a record high for female representation by any party in the Ontario legislature. The NDP left will soon have a wider audience. Not just inside, but outside the party as well.
The commercial media will be only too happy to amplify internal as well as external criticism of the NDP government — so it is important that left critics couch their criticism of the NDP leadership in the framework of criticism of the capitalist system and the forces of big business and the growing right wing.
Nonetheless socialists must maintain a critical and independent stance while agitating for socialist policies and extra-parliamentary mass action inside the NDP.
In the period ahead there will be much better opportunities to build a class struggle current inside the NDP and the unions. Such a current, also drawing on leading activists from the other social movements, will furnish a broader basis for the revolutionary alternative to social democracy.
But those forces on the left which, on the one hand, abstain from the struggle to forge this alternative inside the NDP, or on the other other hand, dissolve into the NDP without maintaining an independent socialist structure and programme, will both miss and weaken the greater possibilities that the new situation presents. *
Black Sea
CANADA / TURKEY
SOVIET
UNION
TURKEY
Caspian:
Sea
•Ruwandiz
• Tehran
SYRIA
Kirkuke
•Sanandaj
Baghdad
IRAN
IRAQ
Euphrates R
SAUDI
ARABIA
KUWAIT
Persian
Gulf
Area where
Kurds live
Miles
300
JF
NCE Turkey had been from producing regions after World War 1, imperialist domination of the Middle
East did not meet any major problems until the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948.
The awakening of Arab nationalism over the Palestinian question, the eviction of the traditional Arab leadership by a nationalist petty bourgeoisie, the entry onto the scene of the Soviet Union as an ally of such regimes, and the replacement of Britain by the United States as the main imperialist great power changed the rules. The issue of control of the oil supply became the occasion for a series of crises and complex struggles, which demanded of imperialism a series of new and changing strategies and alliances.
Neutral during the Second World War,
Turkey was drawn into the Western fold during the Cold War. Under the "Truman doctrine", Turkey became a beneficiary of US aid from 1947 onwards, benefiting from the Marshall Plan and seeking to join NATO (founded in April 1948).
Greeted cautiously at first, Turkey's candidacy was looked on with more favour after the Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh nationalized the oil in 1951. Turkey finally became a member of NATO at the start of 1952, after sending 4,500 troops to Korea as its entrance fee.
The supposed function of Turkey in
NATO was to combat the "Soviet menace." In reality, it found itself more and more required to defend Western interests in the Middle East, undertaking in particular to defend British interests. Indeed, before Turkey joined, the British had vainly supported the creation of an armed intervention force for the region.
A first step in this direction was taken by the Baghdad Pact, which brought