Constitution of the Labor-Progressive Party, 1951

Vintage Leftist Leaflet Project

See the end of this post for details on the project.

Leaflet: Constitution of the Labor-Progressive Party, 1951

A few days ago we looked at the Constitution of the Communist Party of the United States of America, 1983. Today we are looking at the 1951 constitution of the Labor-Progressive Party (LPP) as the Communist Party of Canada was known at the time. 

Again of interest as an historical/organizational document the LPP constitution reflects many of the priorities of the party at the time, just when the Cold War and McCarthyism were dawning. 

Notable parts, especially for the era, include:

The Labor-Progressive Party conducts a consistent and many sided struggle for full national equality for French Canada -- a struggle to eliminate the economic and social inequalities from which the people of French Canada suffer. The Labor-Progressive Party upholds fully the democratic right of French Canada to national self-determination. 

and:

It shall be the obligation of all Party members to struggle against all forms of national oppression and discrimination, and against all ideological influences and practices of racial intolerance and discrimination.

Later in the document it states that members will be expelled for "The practice or advocacy of any form of racial, national or religious discrimination."

(Click on scans to enlarge)

When The Left Chapter began part of what I wanted to do on the blog was to show and highlight vintage public leftist election/political leaflets and booklets. While many of these have been offered with commentary to date, a very large collection of hundreds of them from several different sources remains and to preserve these often quite rare documents we will be posting them on a regular (almost daily) basis now often without or with minimal commentary so that people may have access to them as quickly as possible as an historical resource. 

While these will all be leaflets from a variety of different leftist viewpoints and countries, they are being posted as an historical/study resource and the views or opinions expressed in them do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or blogger.

All of these posts (as well as posts made to date) will be listed on the page: Vintage Communist/Socialist Leaflets (which is still being updated with past posts).

If you have any public, vintage leaflets or booklets you would like to contribute to this project please contact us via theleftchapter@outlook.com