Dear Marat: “Weee Want a Revolution... Now!”

 “Let’s Rent a Train!” documentary by Douglas Williams, 2023

This is a story of a Canadian Marxist group, the League for Socialist Action (LSA) in the heady period of 1961-1977. The title comes from the plan they carried out to rent a train from Toronto to Ottawa, the Canadian capitol, for a demonstration against Canadian complicity in the American war in Vietnam.  It includes 60 interviews of LSA members, observers and historical footage.  The LSA was a militant, national and active organization that had an outsized effect on Canadian politics.  Remember, Canada is less populated than the U.S. so small radical groups in the right situation and area could have a bigger punch.

Ross Dowson, first leader of LSA

They took up struggles against war-making by the U.S. and Canada, for abortion rights, for indigenous, Quebecois, civil rights and against racism.  They worked inside unions and within the New Democratic Party (NDP), while also running independent candidates in various ‘ridings’ (electoral districts for you Yanks…).  Their entry into the NDP, which is a labor party based on the trade unions, allowed them to reach more working-class people.  They also worked directly in unions, including the Teachers where they formed a significant caucus.  Young LSA members were expelled and purged by the NDP in the 1970s in various red hunts.  The LSA promoted the 'new-left' in the NDP, the early 1970s oddly-named “Waffle,” which mounted a huge challenge to the NDP bureaucracy.  Waffle candidates almost won the election for president of the NDP in 1972.

The LSA were key activists in the abortion rights struggles in the early 1970s and defended Dr. Henry Morgentaler when he was arrested for defying Canada’s anti-abortion laws.  In the 1960s Canada would not allow unmarried women to have birth control pills or rent an apartment without a man signing for them.  They dissuaded women from getting a STEM education. There’s even a remembrance of a personal comment by the Frankfort ‘School’s’ Herbert Marcuse when he told a woman comrade that ‘girls’ should not be in academic life. (!)  There is another about how a man’s feminist books helped him ‘get laid.’  Women’s conscious raising sessions occurred in the organization, leading to forming a women’s caucus for a time.  This, again, was common in other Left groups. By the way, it took until 1988 for Federal Canada to make abortion fully legal. (!)

The Canadian economy is heavily dominated by U.S. corporations.  The LSA acted against U.S. nuclear tests that affected Canada. Their work in the NDP’s Waffle was partly oriented against U.S. corporate control of Canadian economic and political life. 

Of note is the fact that members who joined the LSA learned many skills useful in any setting –speaking, art, writing, organizing, negotiating, defense tactics, running meetings, printing, working with different types of people, studying various topics, reading, glad-handing, theory, practical maintenance, electoral work – you name it.  This is similar to other Marxist groupings by the way.  Some members discuss their radicalizing moments, others their political reminiscences, others their problems. 

The Waffle - Fighting the right trend in the NDP

LSA politics were in the tradition of Trotsky, Lenin, Marx and Engels and as a result they were in conflict with the reformist Canadian Communist Party, anarchists and various Maoist grouplets.  The organization’s history started in 1928 when Maurice Spector read the suppressed Platform of the Left Opposition at a Comintern meeting.  During the period of the documentary the LSA was first led by Ross Dowson and tied internationally to the U.S. SWP and the United Secretariat of the 4^th International. According to the interviewees, insulting hatred of the ‘Trots’ by mainstream and reformist types was frequent when they veered to the left from liberalism on various campaigns … abortion, labor struggle, Quebec independence, indigenous rights, socialism in the NDP, etc.

The documentary confusingly and partially describes a 1973 split within the LSA, which led to the formation of the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG).  The RMG was evidently based on a more student-oriented / youth-oriented and ‘ultra-left’ perspective according to some interviewees.  The RMG did not carry out real campaigns, yet at the same time labor activism was dropping within the LSA.  The interviews describe the factionalism of that time, reflective of an across-the-board Left downturn in the later 1970s- early 1980s due to the decline of the labor movement, the end of the Vietnam War and the growing strength of corporate neo-liberalism.  There are touches of romanticism and illusions about the closeness of a revolution - things shared across the Left.  I am not an expert on the Canadian political scene, so I can't opine on their errors or correctness.  They do not seem to be a mirror image of the U.S. SWP however.

The documentary is professionally done, the interviewees interesting and the topics still relevant.  Graphic visual art is provided by Mike Alewitz, who also did great work for the U.S.-based Labor Party in the late 1990s. For those who went through the school of organized Marxism of various types during this period, events and issues will seem very familiar. When the next period of upheaval happens, this documentary can give clues as to how to win against capital, especially starting in smaller contexts like Canada.

Link to the documentary, which is free:  https://www.letsrentatrain.ca/

Prior reviews on this issue, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: “On Canada! – Reflections on Canada,” “A Less Modest Proposal,” “Slaughter on Target Avenue,” “Northland,” “Tar Sands,” “Canada,” “Cornell West in Toronto, Canada,” “NAFTA 2: USMCA,” “Stop Tar Sands Oil Straw,” “USMCA Fraud.”

Der Kultur Kommissar

July 21, 2023