The NDP is facing some major political challenges. Over the last two years, signs of polarization have been growing between left oriented party activists, and the so-called "pragmatist" party establishment. An unprecedented bitterness has been characterizing the NDP's leadership conventions. Resentment of the policies pursued by party leaderships on all levels has also been growing among traditional party supporters and sympathizers. Those divisions are indicative of the larger deepening social crisis of capitalism in Canada resulting from the vicious implementation of the right-wing corporate agenda. This agenda has been devastating the living conditions of the working class, the unemployed, youth, women, senior citizens, and ethnic minorities--almost everybody except the corporate and capitalist elite and its lackeys.

This contribution analyses the nature of the crisis within the NDP and the political forces affecting its unfolding. Based on this analysis, the argument to be advanced here is that, while temporarily affecting negatively the creation of a united political alternative to the right-wing agenda, the NDP's crisis also opens new possibilities for a rejuvenated intervention by the forces of the left, which--given today's sharpening class divisions--might alter the balance of forces both inside and outside labour in favour of a "peoples' alternative."

1) Crisis Manifestation: Marginalizing Inner Party Discontent

The immediate cause of this crisis in the NDP is linked to the consistent marginalization--under different forms and pretexts--of party activists to the left of the establishment's political orientation. The deeper cause of this crisis, however, lies in the adaptation of the NDP to capitalist policies, and the inevitable emergence of a left wing in opposition to these policies of class collaboration. The marginalization of the left within the Party is seriously weakening the NDP and helping the parties of monopoly take advantage of the situation to their own benefit.

The defeat of Peter Kormos in the Ontario leadership race, and Svend Robinson's withdrawal from the final ballot in the Party's federal convention demonstrated the continued marginalization of the forces opposing the class-collaborationist orientation of the leadership. On the other hand, Howard Hampton's upset victory over party establishment candidate Frances Lankin sent a clear signal that Ontario members are not happy with the direction assumed by the NDP under Bob Rae's previous Ontario government. Throughout his campaign, Hampton tried very hard to distance himself from Rae's right-wing policies. Frances Lankin, on the other hand, was seen by many as too closely tied to Rae's "inner circle."

Hampton's victory was also indicative of the differences within the party establishment, showing its inability to control and unitedly lead the party in selecting a new leader. This, however, did not reflect a reversal in the general shift to the right which has been plaguing the policies of the NDP. Hampton's talk about his interest in moving back the Party to its social democratic roots remains just that: talk. In his pre-election campaign platform titled: "Jobs & Security: The Challenge For Social Democrats," Hampton suggested that while he does not have immediate answers to the economic and social misery suffered by Ontario's workers and the poor, he conceives of possible alternatives: community investment, worker ownerships (buyouts from bankrupt industries), and reducing overtime work!! Not much of an alternative in these drastic times of over 10% unemployment and the social agony resulting from governments' assault on all social services.

2) The Crisis of the NDP's Left

Peter Kormos' campaign on the other hand won the support of activists who made a clear break with the policies of the Party. His supporters called for a 'leftward' shift in the formulation of these policies. Kormos criticized Bob Rae's previous Ontario government condemning it for its refusal to act upon the recommendations of the report put forward by the Crown Commission appointed during the early days of the Rae government calling for the introduction of a fair taxation system. He also sharply criticized Rae's introduction of the Social Contract, and his retreat from the election promise to provide a publicly controlled auto insurance system. To everybody's surprise, 438 delegates (almost one quarter of the convention) supported him in the first ballot. This was a significant vote considering the clarity of Kormos' declared willingness to translate his proposals into concrete mass action against the Harris government including utilizing extra-parliamentary methods irrespective of the outcome of the leadership elections.

Later, Kormos made a principled refusal to move his supporters to either of the remaining third ballot candidates calling upon them instead to assess the programs of the candidates before making their decisions. More than 80 delegates opted for spoiling their ballots instead of supporting Lankin or Hampton. Many more left the convention altogether expressing their deep disillusionment and frustration. The enthusiasm and the level of support shown within the party towards the campaigns of Kormos in Ontario and Robinson during the party's last federal convention was significant and unprecedented under such polarized conditions. It showed that many genuine social democrats and socialist oriented activists continue to look towards the NDP as a viable political force capable of achieving some electoral gains based on a 'left' oriented agenda.

On the other hand, the leadership of the Steel Workers (i.e. Harry Hynd and Michael Lewis), supported Lankin from the beginning. Her support was also solid in the riding associations as well as within the Provincial Council. Among the 'left' oriented labour leaders (particularly Buzz Hargrove, Sid Ryan, Judy D'Arcy and others), their position to support Lankin in the third round was not favourably received by the delegates of their unions in the convention. Buzz Hargrove had major problems in his attempt to bring the CAW to her after the second ballot. Their position demonstrated another crisis within the NDP: that of the left orientation itself. The lack of agreement on strategy during the convention and the shortage of emphasis on alternative policy formulation, contributed to a sense of demoralization which left many grass-roots activists bitter and disappointed by the end of the convention.

3) 'Rae Days' in B.C.!?

In B.C. the election of Glen Clark as Party leader on a generally 'left of Harcourt direction' once again demonstrated the inability of the party's establishment to ignore the grass root opposition to the party's general shift to the right. Later, Clark's campaign during B.C.'s May general elections pledged job creation, investment in infrastructure programs, and tuition freezes. His approach represented a political shift to the left of Mike Harcourt's centre of the B.C. political spectrum. As B.C.'s Communist leadership reported in June, the NDP's rebound in the polls was largely linked to this shift in the party's policy. The Communist leadership cautioned however, that the pressures on Glen Clark's government from big business will increase to move it back to the fiscal centre/right.

Less than a few weeks after its election, Clark's government seems to have already started to succumb to corporate pressures. In its first budget on June 15 the government declared a freeze in spending on capital projects such as schools, hospitals, and highways, placing its emphasis again on appealing to the demands of big business (i.e., deficit control). As B.C. finance minister Andrew Petter was preparing to meet with representatives of bond-rating agencies to assure them of the government's "commitment to the promise of a balanced budget," the government was running newspaper advertisements promoting the tax cuts already promised in the government's first budget. "Tax Cuts and a Balanced Budget. You Spoke--We Listened," the ads proclaimed.

The same as in Ontario during the 'Rae Days', B.C.'s NDP is playing its game on the turf of the big business agenda, allowing the corporate elite to set the economic priorities of the government. "The cutbacks promised earlier last year were not sufficient to balance the books," Clark declared. And the bottom line was clear: "What this means is we're going to have to work harder on the spending side," Clark asserted (The Globe and Mail, July 3, 1996).

4) Unsettling Signals From Labour Leadership

On the labour front, The CLC's Review Report on the relationship with the NDP (adopted in the CLC's Vancouver convention in May), "reconfirmed its support" to the "founding partnership" between the CLC and the New Democratic Party. The report was largely limited to proposing new mechanisms for the relationship (i.e. more meetings, liaisons, higher representation on local and national levels, encouraging more local affiliations with the party, etc.). Those were considered to be the bases for a "renewed relationship" between the CLC and the NDP. Other than the general rhetoric around "articulating shared values" of "equality, democracy, sustainable community, and cooperation," the report failed miserably in laying out any concrete policy alternatives or proposals reflecting the interests of the working class. The CLC in fact left the entire job of debating the issues of globalization, the economy, and social policies to the NDP's Federal Council, which eventually moves its proposals to the NDP's convention for ratification. Yet another manifestation of how social democracy in Canada has traditionally argued that labour should act only in the economic arena, leaving politics to its 'political arm' (i.e. the NDP).

In Ontario, there are indications that labour leadership (including some key figures traditionally associated with the 'left' within the NDP), are succumbing to the party's general political orientation and limiting their anti-Harris action to gathering support for an NDP victory in the next provincial election. This was clearly expressed in the speeches by the OFL president Gord Wilson and CAW president Buzz Hargrove during the Peterborough Day of Action last June. They stressed what amounts to an unequivocal support for closing labour's ranks behind the NDP in the next elections. No programmatic bases for this alliance (beyond condemning the social devastation resulting from the implementation of the corporate agenda) was proposed or even discussed. Many fear that such rhetoric by some labour leaders is setting the tone for viewing the upcoming 'October Toronto Days of Protest and Action' as the finale to the independent labour political action in Ontario, and that the next step would be to wait and prepare for an electoral comeback for the NDP. This will be a major setback for the fight against the corporate agenda and will set the pace for a more vicious right-wing onslaught against the majority of Canadians. What does all this mean, and is the NDP now simply a political trend which has abandoned its role as part of the working class? What role will the NDP play in the upcoming struggles of the working class and the democratic forces against the implementation of the corporate agenda?

5) New Situation... Old Crisis

First it is important to remind ourselves that the parameters of the crisis within the NDP are not something new, neither are the different forms of marginalization which periodically face left-wing elements within the party. In alliance with the right wing in the trade unions affiliated to the NDP, the right-wing expulsion of the Ontario Waffle in the early seventies helped shift the NDP further to the right, blurring whatever areas of distinctiveness the NDP had within its political orientations. As usual, that of course was part of the electoral strategy of the right wing leadership of the party at the time, to give it an aura of 'respectability' with which to appeal to the petty bourgeoisie and the middle class. In the 1930's the right wing in the CCF undertook a similar operation against the left wing under the slogan of cleaning out the Communists. It attacked and expelled all those who advocated unity for democratic progress: all those who favoured cooperation with the left, the independent democratic grass-roots movements, and the Communist Party, instead of co-operation with capitalism. The end result of that struggle was to strengthen capitalist ideas within the CCF.

The NDP was and remains a social-democratic party operating within the framework of capitalism. As such, the party remains vulnerable to pressure from capitalist forces. But with its roots and support coming from the within working class organizations as well as grass roots activists in the democratic movements, the party is also susceptible to pressure from these segments of society. The aim of the party is not fundamental socialist reorganization of society, but reforms within capitalism. The NDP today is generally in line with the shifts which transferred the meaning of social democracy since 1945 even further away from its original socialist roots and goals in the late 19th century. Over the last five decades almost all social-democratic parties began to explicitly transform themselves from working class parties into 'people's parties'--notably the German party (SPD) at its Bad Godesberg conference in 1959--while adopting policies which essentially try to achieve no more than a 'reformed capitalism' and a 'mixed economy'. In Canada, this process has been entrenched progressively within the NDP, particularly in conjunction with its abandoning of its original CCF name. In the last fifteen years, as the Liberal Party moved further to the right, the NDP (citing new possibilities and potential in occupying more centrist positions) in turn moved further away from its 'socialist' roots. In spite of occasional 'left' rhetoric by some of its leaders, the consistent trend within the NDP today--as we have demonstrated earlier--remains centred on having to occupy even more centrist position within the Canadian political spectrum.

6) Two Opposing Tendencies

Two contesting tendencies are shaping the crisis within the NDP today. The first partly stems from the relative success of the party in electing governments in three provinces. Here it is important to caution against underestimating the continuing relevance of the NDP as a major force in Canadian politics. While it is important to account for the significant fact that, as a result of the last elections, the federal party has lost for the first time in decades many of its privileges as an opposition party in the House of Commons, this, however, should not be confused with the 'demise' of the NDP. On one hand, such conclusions are no less misleading than the century old assertions of right wing ideologues about the 'death' of Marxism. Social democracy is a trend within the labour movement which has its material bases in complex ideological influences, and in the social realities and the conditions of the working class under capitalist hegemony.

On the other hand, fluctuations up and down in the level of social-democratic influence within the labour movement should not be confused with signs of its demise nor indications of its immunity to crises. In the case of the NDP, its success in the last ten years in electing governments in the two most populated provinces in Canada outside Quebec: once in Ontario and twice in a row in British Colombia, in addition to the continuing presence of an NDP government in Saskatchewan, testify to the party's continuing grass-roots support.

This is also significant considering the implications of this success in moulding the ambitions of leading elements of the party, as well as within the labour bureaucracy associated with the NDP. The new possibilities associated with such accomplishments (notwithstanding the defeat of the NDP in Ontario's last provincial elections), added to the intrinsic political characteristics of social democracy itself (mainly its tendency to accommodate capitalist demands), represent powerful elements which can contribute to strengthening a right-wing tendency which continues to push the party towards the political centre of Canadian politics.

The NDP continues to represent a substantial political trend within the working class movement. The impact of this cannot be all one-way politically and ideologically. On the one hand there are some right wing elements who do not hide their class-collaborationist tendencies (particular-ly in Steel and in other unions). A second tendency, however, will continue to attempt to push the NDP in an opposite direction. Some influential leading labour elements associated with the NDP continue to advocate (but with varying levels of commitment and clarity) policies that essentially express working class interests: the leaderships in CUPE, CAW, CUPW are important examples. In addition, there are important elements associated with grass-roots activists within the democratic movements (i.e. women, gays and lesbians, environmentalists, social work activists, church people, etc.) who have been vocal in opposition to the party's shift to the right. Those groups represent the essence of the left-oriented tendency within the NDP.

7) New Dangers and New Openings

The right wing in the NDP who, in alliance with the right wing in the trade unions affiliated to the NDP, have precipitated a crisis within the party with major implications for politics outside the party. In this situation of profound historic challenges to labour, the unemployed, and to the vast majority of Canadians, the ramifications resulting from the right wing tendency within the NDP have dangerous potentials. The crisis is jeopardizing the prospects of building towards united and comprehensive programmatic alternatives. It is also hindering the efforts to utilize different forms of extra-parliamentary struggle in the fightback against the aggressive implementation of the corporate agenda across the country. Furthermore, while the right-wing policy shifts are responsible for the crisis within the NDP, the position often taken by the party's 'left' has made the struggle against the right wing even more difficult. It too is in a state of crisis reflecting the lack of clarity in formulating comprehensive policy alternatives.

Tensions between the NDP on one hand, and several unions and large segments of activists, social and anti-poverty groups on the other hand, are more frequent than ever before. At times those tensions become more fundamental and involve wider segments of the NDP's traditional constituency. The NDP's hegemony over the working class movement (i.e. its ability to portray its own political interests as the interests of the working class and other oppressed segments of society) has been greatly reduced and is being challenged vigorously both from within and from without the party. Resistance to the imple-mentation of the Social Contract in Ontario in 1993 and the imposition of the discriminating cuts to Social Assistance in B.C. under the Harcourt government are cases in point.

However, the way in which the labour leadership is dominated by the NDP (of both its right and left orientations) and its ability to influence and shape the general direction of labour politics remain strong and significant within the labour movement. On one hand, this could have negative consequences for the building of a mass anti-corporate struggle. On the other hand it could have a positive side to it. After all, the Ontario NDP remains the party which less than two years ago did pass Bill 40, employment equity, an environ-mental bill of rights, and many other positive contributions to the welfare of working men and women. It continues to be the political home for many genuine socialist and progressive-minded Canadians who continue to contribute to the fight against the corporate agenda, and to the struggle for a just social and economic system. Furthermore, the NDP's presence and influence within labour remains vulnerable to the competing trends within the organized structures of this class including those of the left. On an objective level and under the intensified conditions of class tensions in society, new opportunities are opened for the left in general--and the Communist Party in particular--to make political interventions that could make a difference.

Furthermore, as the class struggle intensifies, and as the working class is faced with the need to present viable political alternatives to defend its interests against the attacks by capital, the polarization between the contesting elements of the right and the left within the social democratic movement is bound to become more acute. As the Communist Party's 1971 Program points out (p.45): The sharpening of the class struggle leads inevitably to a process of differentiation in the New Democratic Party, and the emergence of a left wing in that party. This differentiation creates more favourable conditions for cooperation in the building of the united front against monopoly and for socialist policies.

Such conditions do exist today. But it is important to take into account that the presence of these conditions means that the conditions are OBJECTIVELY favourable to the goal of shifting the balance of forces within labour in a way that could strengthen the propagation of a programmatic alternative based on the interests of the working class and its social allies. This, however, does not mean that the existence of the favourable conditions will auto-matically result in the emergence of an effective progressive political front capable of countering the wide-ranging monopoly attacks against labour and the economically disadvantaged in this country. In fact, the political gap on the left--partly resulting from the crisis that has radically affected the presence of the Communist Party both inside and outside labour--has weakened significantly the possibilities for such a political alternative. What could enhance the building of unity around a progressive alternative will largely depend on the SUBJECTIVE factor of the political intervention of the left in general, and the Communist party in particular. This is certainly a gargantuan task falling on our shoulders as communists who have just began to overcome a major political crisis which has almost cost us our party. In the context of today's political reality, however, this aspect of the struggle becomes imperative and essentially unavoidable. In the words of the CPC Program:

The more effectively the Communist Party works for the united front and strengthens its independent political activity, propagating its Marxist-Leninist program and policies, the more it will encourage and strengthen the left wing in the New Democratic Party and the struggle for genuine socialist policies.

8) The Struggle for Programmatic Unity

The crisis in Canadian social democracy does not merely reflect upon the political fortunes of the NDP. On the political level, the unprecedented viciousness of the attacks on the standard of living of the overwhelming majority of Canadians by monopoly capitalism means that no fightback will be won without the participation of the widest possible segments of progressives political forces including those within the NDP. Just as important, however, is to point out as clearly and strongly as possible that this struggle will not be won without unity around a political platform and strategy that presents a viable alternative to the corporate agenda.

The political stagnation and crisis social democracy is undergoing in Canada presents the entire left with harsh and crucial tasks. The leadership of the NDP and the majority within the leadership of the trade union movement continue to suffer from paralysis when it comes to presenting concrete alternatives to the corporate right-wing agenda. While it is crucial not to write off the NDP as a political force, it is equally important not to give preferential treatment to the party in or outside office. Today, there exists a minimum criterion which no political force claiming adherence to the interests of Canadian working men and women can ignore. As the president of the Oakville and District Labour Council Willie Lambert wrote in July's People's Voice summing up those demands: In the short term, such a platform should include: a shorter work week with no loss in pay or benefits; making the rich and the corporations pay higher taxes and interest on their deferred taxes; liveable social assistance rates; elimination of post secondary tuition fees; free universal child care; defence of universal health care.

In its 1995 convention the Communist Party stated: "unity of the left should be around a program, as well as building of a united mass independent labour action to implement that program." The inability of the NDP to forge such programmatic unity testifies to the crucial importance of advocating the concept of INDEPENDENT LABOUR ACTION. Such political independence is critical not only for the long term development of class consciousness, but also for the strengthening of the basis for success in the struggle against the vicious attacks by monopoly capital.

This will not occur as a result of spontaneous development of class consciousness among working people, the unemployed, and the majority of Canadians affected by the corporate onslaught. By maximizing the utilization of our small and limited resources, the Communist Party, in cooperation with the widest left-oriented forces inside and outside the NDP, can strengthen the progressive political intervention within labour and other mass movements in a way that can make a difference. Let's not forget that the OFL's original adoption of the Days of Action strategy occurred mainly under pressure from rank and file trade unionists as well as grass-roots activists in the mass democratic movements. More recently the Metro Toronto Labour Council foiled the attempt by the right wing to turn the Toronto Days of Action into a 'partisan' event (i.e., an occasion to call for unequivocal electoral support of the NDP).

Building on this momentum by the organized forces of the left can push the struggle even further. Today, this means establishing the Toronto Days of Action as a dress rehearsal for Ontario-wide action and protest. For Communists, the more we sharpen our struggle and agitation within the mass movement, and make public and accessible our program of "People's Alternative," the more we can help enhance and unite all the democratic forces in the battle against corporate attacks...

There is no alternative to this struggle...