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armed agg

Valieres rejects

Introduction by n auf de maur last post news

MONTREAL — Pierre Vallieres, Quebec’s leading ideologue of revolutionary violence, has made a dramatic decision to abandon the FLQ and “armed agitation".

The move has been generallly well received

by Quebec's opposition forces, and reflects the growing desire for unity of the left. His an- nouncement, ‘delivered in a long analysis published by the Montreal daily Le Devoir, comes at a time when progressive groups — labour unions, citizens’ committees, students, and umemployed — are beginning to band together, pledged to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. ' ' Vallieres‘ designation of the Parti Quebecois as the “party of the masses" and the only alternative to the present system, raised some eyebrows in the radical left. But others, notable tade unionists, say Vallieres is merely hastening-the creation of a veritable coalition “front populaire" needed to liberate Quebec. The PQ, they say, seems the only viable institution to contain that coalition.

The analysis actually one chapter of a soon to be published essary entitled “The urgency to choose" states Vallieres’ belief that FLQ

violence can now only serve to bring on .

repression against other groups and organizations which are the actual oppositiOn forces. . “In Quebec”, he says, “there can be no doubt that armed agitation has nothing to do

with armed struggle, which is mass struggle." ' , The FLQ, a splinter group lacking

cohesiveness, means of control and, worse, 'mass support (as opposed to popular sym- pathy) has no junction, Vallieres says, since Quebec is not in a revolutionary situation. This situation doesn't exist since all the other means liberation, particularly the elec-

toral struggle of the PQ, have yet to

exhausted.

Since October 1970, the ‘FLQ menace' has become a political argument which more and more easily justifies clubbings, search warrants, bugging, promulgation of anti- demonstration by laws, exceptional laws, grand army manoeuvres throughout Quebec, rumours of plots, conspiracies, imaginary selective assassinations, frame up political trials, etc." ‘

The authorities, he says, use this repressive process not so much against the FLQ but "against those it knows to.be the real threat: the PQ,- the unions and citizens’ groups, The War Measures Act of last year was directed against these organizations.

Within hours of Le Devoir‘s appearance on the street, all copies had been snapped up and the great debate on the merits or demerits of Vallieres‘ arguments had begun. It should be remembered that ‘Vallieres was an in- telleCtual and a‘political force in Quebec even before he embarked on a FLQ course in 1966. In the late fifties and early sixties he had been anassociatc of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Gerard

Pelletier, Michel Chartrand and others

arguing the future of Canada.

When his analysis appeared-on December 13, many on the radical left were deeply in- credulous, and they still are. Some people refuse to believe the document is authentic.

Vallieres, who has spent four of the past five years behind bars. failed to show up for trail last September, and announced through an FLQ communique soon after that he had gone underground. At the time. there was speculation among radicals that he had been kidnapped by a police group, similar to the Brazilian police’s "death squad.“ ,

Some disillusioned radicals, mostly far out CEGEP students, believe that the document is forgery or that Vallieres was somehow for- cedto write it. But those who know Vallieres dismiss such theories.

Charles Gagnon, Vallieres’ long time revolutionary associate and prison partner, agreed with the argument against “armed agitation" but denounced the’callto rally behind the PartiQuebecois.

“Pierre Vallieres,'."he said, “doesn’t know

‘ anything about the class strugeg . . . his

position is objectively reactionary."

Far from rallying behind a “bourgeois party”, claimedGagnon, the working clas must build a new, revolutionary, but lega party.' * .

Vallieres‘ argument in favour of the PQ is intended to prevent the opposition forces ir. the province from dividing themselves along “national and social" fronts.

Any such separation, he says, “constitute: in reality a division within the same mass struggle, and would compromise its chances for success and reinforce the present regime.“

The desire for unity, something Quebec's opposition forces 'have always lacked, is so

'strong'that it appearsmost revolutionaries

will come to accept Vallieres' new position while the rest of the lest welcomes it. -

Within days of the staement, the Louis Riel cell of the FLQ issued a communique renouncing its own use of violence and hailing Vallieres as “the thinker of the Quebec recolution.“ _ '

Reaction from the Parti Quebecois, naturally, was more restrained.

PQ leader Rene Levesque praised Vallieres for his “courageous gesture" and “lucid reflection“, addding that he hoped it would help to bring about a more peaceful climate, amenable to democratic change.

Le Devoir publisher Claude Ryan, who printed the document on almost three full pages, said Vallieres‘ self-criticism also contains certain lesssons for the authorities.

"If the call of Vallieres is heard, “he wrote, “the established power will no longer be able to fall back ona phantom to justify its own abuses and impotence. It will finally have to face up to its real adversaries, in democratic debate.“

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THE STRATEGY OF THE REGIME

One of the political implications of popular agitation today is an enor- mous potential for rupture. That is not enough, however, ‘to set off a real revolution but leads to confrontations which those at all levels of power will oppose with increasingly tough re- pression. If the Parti Quebecois did not exist and if it did not make the effort to channel this growing dis- content toward a precise objective (in- dependence and in-depth transfor- mation of economic and social struc- turesl capable of mobilizing the im- mense majority of Quebecois, the _ counter-offensive would already have had tragic and harmful consequences for the development of the liberation struggle (which is a revolutionary struggle) and thus for all Quebec workers. The risks of general de- mobilization and of a return to the Great Darkness tthe Duplessis era-tr.) would then be considerable. This could be a decisive victory for Cana- dian colonialism and American im- perialism.

That is why those in power are more and more openly seeking a confrontation which, they hope, will furnish the occasion to cmsh the Que- bec people-by force by destroying the organizations they have created to lib- erate themselves: the PQ, the trade unions, citizens’ committees, etc. The October 1970 crisis gave those in power a ‘general repetition” of this classical scenario, at a moment when the organization which had through its action set off the crisis had no . means of sustaining a long offensive against the power-holders nor to offer the Quebec people the strategy and the areas which would have helped it resist oppression, and still less the method of revolutionary action which would have helped it reach its goals: the conquest of power and the con- struction of a new society.

Had it not been for the joint action of the Parti 4 Quebecois, ihe trade unions and all of Quebec's progressive forces, the ‘permanent danger of re- action and back-tracking which is always floating over a society in transition’ (Rene Levesque, Le Devoit, 29-11-71 ) would have become concrete and the FLQ Would have had to assume before history the odious responsibility of having offered the exploiters of the Quebec people the dreamed-of opportunity to strike it a blow which might be fatal.

The irreparable has fortunately not taken place, because those in power were taken by surprise, took too much time to react, and did not really succeed in resolving the contradictions which exist between the different levels of decision-making and within each of these levels. But the crisis will nonetheless have furnished them the chance not only to ‘frighten ,people’ but also and above all to resolve some of its own contradictions by achieving, around the central State, the sacred union of exploiters against the Quebec population. ,

If ever "the FLQ were to offer the power-holders a new chance to pro- mulgate the War Measures Act against Quebec, all levels of power would this time be prepared, while the FLQ for its part could once again have no control over the'process it would have set off. It would, as in October 1970, have to rely upon the PQ and thl‘ trade unions to resist the repres- sion exercised against everyone. ‘In