Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (in Manitoba)
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The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is a political party that espouses revolutionary communism. Its orientation is Anti-Revisionist (or Stalinist). Between 1970 and 1997, the party was led by Hardial Bains; since his death, it has been led by Sandra L. Smith.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC-ML) participated in Manitoba's 1973 provincial election, running candidates in three ridings. Glen Brown received 33 votes for the party in the riding of Burrows, Aili Waldman received 12 votes in Inkster and Diane Waldman received 24 votes in St. Johns. All of these ridings were in north-end Winnipeg, and all were also contested by the Communist Party of Canada-Manitoba (CPC-M), a branch of the Communist Party of Canada and a non-Stalinist rival to the CPC-ML.
The party also participated in a 1979 by-election in the north Winnipeg riding of Rossmere, following the resignation of Edward Schreyer.
The party encouraged voters to boycott Manitoba's 1981 election, claiming that none of the other parties (including the CPC-M) were worth supporting. It did not run any of its own candidates, and does not appear to have participated in any subsequent Manitoba elections.
The CPC-ML continues to operate a "Manitoba Regional Committee", however, which publishes a weekly newsletter entitled Modern Communism.
It is not clear if the party has ever had an official leader at the provincial level. Its primary spokespersons in 1981 were Manuel Gitterman and Ken Kalturnyk. Kalturnyk has been the editor for Modern Communism in recent years.
In December 2003, Kalturnyk published an extremely controversial work in Modern Communism entitled "The Famine that Never Was", denying that a famine occurred in the Ukraine in 1933 and 1934.
