Hardial Bains was born in the Punjab at Mahilpur in the Hoshiarpur district of India where his father was a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). As a boy he became active in the communist movement of the late 1940s. He was involved in the successful election campaign of the Communist Party of India (CPI) in Kerala State in 1957 but soon grew disillusioned by what he perceived as the CPI's capitulation to India's central government. In 1959, at age 19, he arrived in Vancouver where he became convinced he must generate a revolutionary communist movement in Canada. He became the national leader of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L) and also founded the Hindustani Ghadar Party (HGP) in the late Sixties and the HGP (OIMLA) in the Seventies. He was also the founder of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (M-L), Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago, Communist Party of Ireland (M-L) and the Communist Ghadar Party of India. Intensely supportive of Mao until 1978, and a strong critic of Fidel Castro, he became an advocate for Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor of Albania (PLA) and of Enver Hoxha. He died on August 24, 1997 in Hull/Ottawa. His widow Sandra L. Smith took over as leader of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada and led the party during the 2000 general election with candidates in 84 ridings, up from 65 in 1997.

BOOKS:

Le code du travail de la Colombie Britannique, le bill 11 (Toronto: Institute Norman Bethune, 1974).

Combat This Growing Fascism (Toronto: Institute Norman Bethune, 1976).

The Proletariat Is at the Centre in the Struggle against Racist Attacks: Speeches, Statements, and Articles from the Struggle against State-Organized Racist Attacks (Toronto: Institute Norman Bethune, 1978).

Blame the Rich and Not the People in Racist Attacks! (Toronto: Institute Norman Bethune, 1978).

The Necessity for Revolution (Toronto: Marx, Engels, Lenin Institute, 1982).

Communism 1989-1991 (Toronto: Ideological Studies Centre, 1991).

ALSO:

What is the Issue?

The Ideas of Karl Marx are Immortal

[BCBW 2005] "Politics" "Labour"