While the leaders of the embryonic Parti Socialiste du Quebec do their best to keep the party "on ice", in fear of its would-be militants adopting a clearly independentist position on the crucial national question, other tendencies of the already churning Quebec“left are far from inactive. In face of the PSQ's inertia, it is becoming increasingly obvious that, unless the patty activists establish themselves on e firm footing in the near future, the rising wave of labour unrest and farmers! agitation, as manife= sted in the current series of strikes, will channel itself into alternative formations, openly socialist or not, The most likely contender far hegemony of the left in Quebec at present would appear to be the mass separist party, Le Rassemblement pour .'11'In@pendance Nationale. In what may well prove to mark a turning point in its less-than-four year history, the 400 delegates attending the RIN's annual congress in Quebec City at the end of May, elected to their presidency a 31-year-old socialist orientated journalist, Pierre Bourgault; in doing so, they decided in favour of running candidates in all 95 constituencies in the next Quebec election (expected in 1966), end firmly decided to convert their "movement" into a disciplined political party with its sole immediate aim that of taking power in Quebec.
Nor are such objectives to be taken lightly; with an official membership of over 7,000, and a periphery at least as large again, the RIN holds the field among the separatist groups, and indeed among’ the entire spectrum of the Quebec "left". Bougault's election brought to a close a bitter internal struggle in which his supporters - the left wing of the Party - had fought for the institution of tighter discipline within the party ranks an the socialisation of the RIN's programme, The opposing tendency aro ‘the conservative outgoing president, tuy Pouliot, one-time Belgian consul in Quebec City. This was not primarily a programmatic congress: the RIN plans to hold one next Februxry’ in preparation for the forthcoming elections. However, the present programme of the movement, as adopted in October, 1962, bears a remarkable similarity to that of the Federal New Democratic Party - with many of its faults as well as good.points. For example, while there there is the same eclecticism about "planning in the interest of the whole population", through a "council of economic orientation" which will include "representatives of commerce and industry" as well as farm, labour, and consumers' spokesmen, many standard NDP reformist planks such as opposition nuclear arms, encouragement of union organisation, support of the right to strike among civil servants (and a significant clause against company unions), meilicare, equal rights for women, free university education, nationalisation of public services, and encourszcment of consumers! cooperatives all figure prominently in the party's parogramme, :
While its "raison d'etre" is, of course, the national struggle of French Caria, the RIN's leaders recognise their kinship with similar strugeles thoughout the worlds The same issue of L'Independance (the RIN's official organ) which contains their political programme also features an article on the colonial struggle of the Puertc Ricans and solidarises the RIN with that country's Pro-Independence Movement, Pierre Bourgault has announced publicly that the party is inviting organisers from the American Negro Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to come to Quebee to teach their demonstration tactics to RIN militants, ED. NOTE: we will publish further background material on this very important question in subsequent issues.