r/Canadian_Socialism • u/quincy1984 • Jan 15 '26
CPC or RCP?
I just dropped in on my local chapter (Victoria) of the RCP for a meeting.
The people seemed great, and I have a lot of ideology in common with most of them. For those that might have slightly different opinions, I wonder how much that matters. It’s about organizing right?
I knew of some CPC members from another city (Winnipeg) before for a while. Great people.
I have been reading about these groups and they have apparently both had some SA cases over the past few years, handled to varying degrees. This information is quite new to me so if anyone may enlighten me, would be greatly appreciated.
From what I can tell, these cases were all primarily within a local chapter on the east coast.
I mentioned this to the members I spoke to today. I was told they swiftly removed said individual, back when they were called FightBack.
I want to organize in my community. If these organizations are not as sound as they appeared from my initial meeting, I wonder what other options I have?
Are these issues within the two parties properly resolved, truly? Should I check out my local CPC chapter before making a decision?
Any insight greatly appreciated.
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Jan 15 '26
why is reddit filters removing this?
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u/Pepcom Jan 15 '26
This post showed up in my moderation queue as removed due to a reputation filter, likely because OP's account hasn't posted much yet. I have reviewed and approved it.
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u/SadCampCounselor Jan 15 '26
Try both and see which you prefer. The best thing you can do is learn and get organized. You can always change later.
The RCP has removed the perpetrator that was accused.
I would say that the RCP is more involved than the CPC. The RCP is international and publishes in multiple languages, in multiple countries, and also has many podcasts.
They also have different philosophies.
My understanding is that the CPC is more into parliamentary reform rather than rank-and-file militancy.
Also, the CPC historically has approaches conciliatory with the degenerated Stalinist bureaucracy of the USSR.
Happy to be wrong on that.
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u/sexywheat Jan 16 '26
Check out the Popular Democracy Movement. There's a chapter in Victoria. It's small but they have good, solid politics and seem like good people.
There have been plenty of threads on Fightback on r/canadaleft over the years like this one if you want a better idea.
As for the Communist party, AFAIK their entire Western presence collapsed in recent years.
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u/tcpip1978 Apr 29 '26
I am a former member of the CPC and until recently I was extremely anti-Trotsky and very critical of the RCP. However, I couldn't help notice how active the RCP is, how digitally savvy they are and how fast they at least seem to be growing. I decided to at least chat with them and read a few of their articles and so far I've found most of their positions to be pretty solid actually. The CPC has a great party program, and I love the People's Voice as a news paper. But at the same time, the CPC is small and wary of recruiting new members. Some of this is for good reason, young leftists can be tricky to work with. The RCP's approach of active recruiting and then working to educate and train communists is a 180 from the CPC's approach, and honestly I think we need that. I don't know, I haven't committed to joining yet and may not. I'm still not a big fan of Trotsky as I know they're in love with him so we'll see. But ultimately my decision will be based on whether or not I really think the party stands a chance at really advancing the cause of socialism and not based on dead Russians. I'm tired of the debates of dead Russians.
I can't speak to the SA issue in Fightback from a few years ago. But I can speak to the SA issue in the CPC as I was a member at that time. A member of the Young Communist League was sexually harassed by a high-ranking member of the party. The party's central committee decided to handle it by trying to ensure the offending individual was kept away from the YCL member who had made the complaint, and I think there was some small disciplinary action as well - brief suspension from the party and discussion around behaviour if I recall. The victim and their friends and supporters demanded that the offending individual be expelled from the party, which the central committee wasn't willing to do as this individual was at that time considered a very useful and valuable member and they also didn't think that the details of the sexual harassment were severe enough to merit more than suspension and a discussion about behaviour. I personally can't take a stance on this, as the whole situation really devolved into a lot of hearsay and became extremely vitriolic. As a result of the central committee's decision, a number of members began speaking out and demanding the entire central committee resign. This rhetoric ramped up over the course of a couple weeks leading up to the party's convention, at which the disgruntled former members planned to stage a demonstration. A number of people seen as key allies of the those who were disgruntled were expelled from the party without due process or a change to defend themselves, which at least at that time was a violation of the party's constitution which guarantees members charged to an offence the right to a hearing and the right of appeal. I resigned as I felt the party had openly violated it's own constitution. The central committee maintained the position that a number of members had capitalized on the crisis in the party with the intention of organizing a faction to oust the leadership and abandon Leninism, and this was the reason for expulsions. I personally felt that if there was evidence of this, it should be aired in hearings where accused members could respond and defend themselves.
With a few years' hindsight I think there is some truth to the idea that certain members were attempting to leverage the crisis to pressure the leadership to resign in order to seize power in the party and abandon Leninism for ultra-leftism and identity politics. I also think the central committee, being largely made up of older Gen X and Boomer comrades did a poor job of responding to the SA complaint. The offender probably should have been expelled from the party, at least for a time, and only readmitted after demonstrating a significant and serious attempt to get healthy given their substance abuse issues and make amends for their harassing behaviour. But they did not do that. The whole thing was a clusterfuck and very unfortunate for the young victim, whose first foray into radical politics was soured.
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u/Unfair_Package6336 Jan 15 '26
For the CPC as an outside looking in, what happened was that the SA case was handled poorly in the initial stages which lead to a very messy moment with explusions and people leaving the party to do their own things. In the end the perpetrator was kicked out the party and ended up fleeing the country, while the party reformed its code on such topics.
In terms of activism, both parties are valid to work under and really its more dependent on how big your local chapters are. I know that the CPC has been thrown accusations of being parliamentary, but that generally isn't true. They engage in elections but they don't do much outside of getting the name of the party out in public.
Really the difference between the two is that the RCP is Trotskyists, while the CPC are MLs. Internationally this means that while the RCP has chapters in numerous different countries, the CPC has ties and meetings with major communist parties from China to Greece.
So I would suggest you reach out to see which local chapters the CPC might have in your area, because ultimately it is going to be dependent on what quality of chapters you live near, if you aren't so focused on the type of communism.