The following is the editorial from Issue 30 of Communist Revolution. Get your copy here!
The eyes of many young people in Quebec and Canada are now fixed across the Atlantic. The “Gen Z revolutions,” which began in Asia last year, have now spread to Europe.
The importance of these mass movements, which are currently mobilizing young people and workers in France, Spain, Albania, Greece, Portugal, Italy and elsewhere, cannot be underestimated.
The same underlying conditions driving these movements are also present in Canada and Quebec.
The movement in France was sparked by high school protests denouncing the deep state of disrepair in schools. Here too, schools and universities have suffered from decades of underfunding. At the beginning of this school year, Quebec was short 3,000 teachers. In Ontario, the backlog of school repair and maintenance reached the absurd figure of $21 billion in 2024. In Alberta last year, the teachers’ strike enjoyed such widespread public sympathy that 51 per cent of Albertans supported the idea of a general strike in solidarity.
The housing crisis, which lies at the heart of the movement in Spain, is hitting just as hard here. Real housing prices in Canada have more than doubled over the past twenty years. For several years now, we have been witnessing the depressing spectacle of tent cities emerging in major cities, and even shantytowns—unmistakable signs of a society in decline.
A recent report by the television program Enquête, which went undercover in the world of real estate influencers, sparked a wave of outrage in Quebec. It exposed the same disgusting parasitism found in Spain, where real estate investors exploit the vulnerability of elderly and very poor people to massively increase their rents.
The same public finance crisis gripping Europe, particularly France, is also raging here. While France has run a budget deficit every year for the past 50 years, Canada’s last balanced budget dates back to 2014–15. Just as in France, our federal and provincial governments are desperately trying to cut public spending amid skyrocketing interest rates.
But since the government, which serves the bosses, will never make the rich foot the bill, it is inevitably workers and the poor who pay—through cuts to public services and layoffs in the public sector. In Quebec, the new Parti Québécois government has promised to significantly rein in spending—in other words, to make cuts. In British Columbia, the new government is promising cuts as well.
But the parallels between Europe and Canada go further. The crisis in Europe is the product of a crisis of European capitalism that has been brewing for a long time. European capitalists have been underinvesting in their industries for decades. Today, faced with the triple shock of Trump’s tariffs, competition from China’s highly developed industries, and skyrocketing energy prices, European capitalism is faltering, provoking a wave of factory closures and mass layoffs.
Canada is in a similar situation. Our parasitical ruling class has refused to develop the Canadian economy for decades, choosing instead to gamble on real estate while complacently enjoying unlimited access to the world’s largest economy, just across the border to the south. Now, although less affected than Europe by the energy crisis, Canada is being hit hard by the trade war with its main trading partner, while being rewarded for decades of real estate speculation with a housing crisis.
There is no doubt that the crisis of the system is deeper in Europe, and that the traditions of the labour movement are more firmly established there.
But make no mistake. The same causes produce the same effects. There is no point trying to predict when it will happen, or what issue will trigger it. Sooner or later, the crisis of the system will inevitably provoke a mass response from workers and young people.
In Canada, the current passivity of the masses conceals a process of transformation deeply buried in people’s consciousness—what Marx called the “old mole” of revolution, burrowing underground only to suddenly emerge at the surface.
As communists, we see the signs of this developing consciousness every day. At demonstrations, when we go out to meet young people on campuses, when we sell this newspaper in the streets—more than ever, we find people willing to listen to the ideas of communism.
And those who know how to recognize the signs can already see the first expressions of anger against the system and the problems it creates. We have already discussed the popularity of a general strike in Alberta last year. In Ontario, the movement towards a student strike is currently reaching historic proportions. Strikes across the country are becoming increasingly militant.
If we are to believe the eternal pessimists moping around at the head of the handful of other left-wing organizations still clinging to life in Quebec and Canada, we have entered an era of reaction, and fascism is knocking at our door.
These Cassandras, who have been crying wolf about fascism for more than ten years now, look with terror at the strength of Trump-style populist right-wing forces such as the National Rally and the AfD, as well as growing state surveillance and repression, and feel powerless. In Quebec and British Columbia, where the Conservative Party has made big gains, we are bombarded with apocalyptic speeches about the supposedly irresistible right-wing tide.
But Europe’s young people are proving this idea wrong. The right, supposedly so powerful, is incapable of mobilizing the masses on the scale of the current movements in Europe. This shows the real balance of forces in society. Far from being lost, the battle against the billionaires and their system is only just beginning.
In reality, two parallel and opposing processes are unfolding.
On the one hand, capitalism is sinking into an advanced state of decay, producing the worst horrors: climate disasters, wars, social misery, explosions of violence, the spread of hateful rhetoric, and so on. Like an old dish abandoned by history at the back of the fridge, the most repulsive spawns are mushrooming and multiplying within decaying capitalist society.
On the other hand, the crisis of the system is radicalizing an ever-growing layer of young people and workers, pushing them towards revolutionary conclusions. The polls show it: we are witnessing a rejection of the institutions of the status quo and growing popularity for socialist and communist ideas.
Capitalism, which produces extreme abundance at one pole of society and extreme poverty at the other, has given birth to a generation of young people searching for an alternative. As a popular French protest chant goes: those who sow misery reap anger.
The young people of Europe are showing us the way. The French ruling class is on the ropes. The far right, supposedly on the rise, is in a state of panic.
We must follow Europe’s example. The billionaires and their system are powerless against workers and young people when we mobilize en masse—in the streets, in schools and in workplaces.
But Europe also shows us the limits of mass action. The movement must also equip itself with a clear program: against the system of the billionaires, we must put forward a socialist program, the only program capable of addressing the urgent problems facing workers and young people, and wresting power from the ultra-rich. The capitalists must be expropriated and the economy democratically planned.
This requires a party built around such a program to organize the movement. That is what we are building in the RCP. We have no time to lose: we must build such a party before social explosions like those in Europe reach our shores. Join us and help build it.
