| This eBook, along with Canadian Corporatism and other materials to come, marks the 74th Anniversary of the release of Adrien Arcand on July 3rd 1945 from the “longest internment of its kind in the whole British Empire”. The elements of the celebration are going up one at a time. Please come back on July 3rd to enjoy them all, and make sure you get your free downloads. |
The Inevitability of a Social Reconstruction by Adrien Arcand was drafted at least as early as 1950, and marked for publication in 1967. Download the new free eBook: Flash flipbook, PDF and ePub, all in one zip file.
| The Inevitability of a Social Reconstruction by Adrien Arcand was drafted at least as early as 1950, and marked for publication in 1967. Download the new free eBook: a Flash flipbook, PDF and ePub, all in one zip file. |
The Inevitability of a Social Reconstruction (1950-1967) and Canadian Corporatism (1938), Adrien Arcand
These Two Must be Read Together!
| In finalizing an ebook text for The Inevitability of a Social Reconstruction, 1967, my research has allowed me to date the original text to at least 1950, the year when Arcand wrote The Universal Republic. My research also brought to light a Papal Encyclical of Leo XIII from 1891 which appears to be a foundation for Arcand’s notion of Canadian Corporatism. All has been explained in my Foreword to the new free eBook, which must be read together with Canadian Corporatism to understand what Arcand was doing, and why he was doing it. In other words, he wasn’t copying Hitler; he was trying to fulfill the social recommendations of the Catholic Church, in the fight against Communism.
In summary, Arcand seems to have been trying to reestablish the old “abolished” trade guilds on a new footing within a new “protective” structure, his Christian corporate state. You will see in the eBook that my Foreword and footnotes underscore Arcand’s resort to Catholic doctrine. I already gave you the French and new English text of “Inevitability” on December 16th, 2018. I will give you the new Foreword, below. And you will have to read the eBook to get the footnotes. TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD FROMTHE INEVITABILITY OF A SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTIONBY ADRIEN ARCAND 1950, 1967EXCLUSIVE ENGLISH REPUBLISHED AS AN EBOOK ON 28 JUNE 2019ORIGIN AND DATE OF “INEVITABILITY”L’inévitabilité d’une Reconstruction Sociale by Adrien Arcand was translated by turns in January, September and December of 2018 using a non-official transcript offered in a zip folder online at Balder Ex Libris.1 The transcript looks like an “Aaargh” document, captured and reproduced by somebody else. The document is dated and signed at the end of the publication: “février 1967 Adrien ARCAND”. A catalogue entry at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec for a published version of “L’inévitabilité”—described as a 7-page printed book (call number 302.3 A668i 1970, “for consultation only”)—attributes the publication to Adrien Arcand’s Parti de l’Unité nationale du Canada, Service de Librairie. Date of publication is guessed at in the catalogue entry as somewhere in the 1970s.  Inévitabilité, brouillon (draft) 1950. Special Collections, Adrien Arcand Collection, Vanier Campus, Concordia University, Montreal. However, a typed draft of “L’inévitabilité” on long paper with a handwritten date of “—1950—” (in dashes) on the first page above the title, was found among Arcand’s papers in Special Collections at Concordia University. A copy was purchased on June 4th, 2019. The fifth and last page of the typed draft bears Arcand’s handwritten initials, “A.A.” at the bottom. The first writing of “L’inévitabilité” may thus have been closer to the known date of The Universal Republic, also from 1950. The English translation of “L’inévitabilité” was first published online in blog-post format on 16 December 2018 by Adrien Arcand Books using the Balder transcript. Dated February 1967, “L’inévitabilité” seems to cap Arcand’s two short essays published in 1966, Communism Installed Here and The Revolt of Materialism. Extremely important, “Inevitability” makes plain and comprehensible the Catholic nature of Adrien Arcand’s political program for Canada, his Canadian Corporatism. The two should be read together. The present English eBook has been re-paragraphed to match the 1950 typed draft. Slight differences between Arcand’s typed version and the Balder version are accounted for in the footnotes to the present English edition, online as a Flash flipbook, PDF, and ePub. A change made to the English text since December 2018 has been footnoted. A major difference between the 1950 typed draft and the Balder document dated February 1967 is the addition in the latter of two extracts attributed to Pope Leo XIII. On Saturday, 22 June 2019 at 10:59 a.m., a reference librarian at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec advised by email that the 7-page printed book in their collection indeed begins with the two-part quote of Pope Leo XIII. The source of the papal quote is not given, but it can be traced to an Encyclical at the Vatican web site. The precise identification of the quote is important to understanding Arcand, as I realized on tracking down the Encyclical. Arcand had a prodigious memory and apparently typed non-stop for hours without consulting documents. Elsewhere, he quotes a long extract from an article by Churchill, almost verbatim, with small changes that indicate he was quoting from memory. In like style, as we will see, he quoted Leo XIII from memory, with a few substitutions of words, while maintaining the meaning of the original statement from which the quote derives. ARCAND’S USE OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINE:
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Arcand, February 1967 |
Vatican, 2019 |
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“La question qui s’agite, est |
“La question qui s’agite est |
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Arcand, February 1967 |
Vatican, 2019 |
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“Assurément, une cause de |
“Assurément, une question de |
| For the second part of the quote, Arcand is obviously writing from memory. He says “cause” instead of “question,” he says “gouvernants” instead of “chefs d’État” and “maîtres” instead of “patrons”. He frequently uses “gouvernants” in his work, and I usually translate that as “rulers”. But the fact he recalls a good approximation of the original Encyclical is significant. It proves he knows at least parts of them, if not whole Encyclicals, by heart. Which would be no surprise for a priestly Catholic who had managed to convert a Protestant minister while interned in a concentration camp in WWII. (For the anecdote, see page 14, A Short Study of the Life of Adrien Arcand, free ebook.)
We now turn to the topic of the Encyclical from which Arcand is quoting, “Capital and Labor”. In the English version of the Encyclical, subtitled “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor,” we have the purpose of the Church: “to speak on the condition of the working classes” “to define the relative rights and mutual duties of the rich and of the poor, of capital and of labor” because (and I’m piecing this together from different parts of the opening paragraphs) “the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world,” has “passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics”. How does Arcand begin his Canadian Corporatism? He calls it “A formula for economic and social reorganization”. In Inevitability, he critiques “political liberalism” as the cause of “economic liberalism”. And, he says, “Economic liberalism causes social harm through its contempt for the human being…”. (Italics added.) Then, says the Pope, “the responsibility of the apostolic office urges us to treat the question of set purpose and in detail, in order that no misapprehension may exist as to the principles which truth and justice dictate for its settlement.” The question being treated is what are the “rights and duties of capital and labor”. The Pope says: “Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion.” (A possible reference to the French Revolution.) The Pope continues: “Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition.” (Italics added.) Says Arcand in Canadian Corporatism: “Under financial democracy a very large number of our workers after thirty or forty years of honest labour find themselves to-day less advanced than they were when they began their career, having been constantly exploited as employees and as consumers, left without defence at the mercy of middlemen or cunning swindlers; their lives have been ruined.” Arcand’s “left without defence” echoes the Pope stating “isolated and helpless”. And, Arcand says: “No longer will the great international monopolies fix the prices. It is the national corporation itself, under the supervision of the government which must prevent all and any abuse.” And again: “The producer can live, can devote himself to his specialty without fear of ruin. He can count on the stability of business and the consumer is protected against any exploitation.” I’m not going to go into a full analysis here of the relevance of Rerum Novarum to Arcand’s views, and to his design of Corporatism for Canada. But note that in Canadian Corporatism Arcand refers to the “guilds”, and in the Encyclical (Rerum Novarum) the Pope says: “some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen’s guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place.” (Italics added.) This is the kind of sentence I would want to use as a point of departure in analyzing Adrien Arcand’s motives for advancing Canadian Corporatism, in which he says: “Corporatism also is totalitarian, exacting discipline, rules, structures, in everything and everywhere. It is not the State which fixes these rules and these structures, it is the guilds of National activities which give them to themselves, the State approves.” (See page 12 in the free eBook.) (Italics added.) Is Arcand not re-establishing the abolished “guilds” within a new “protective organization” (the State) whose job is to protect, to prevent abuse? In his Canadian Corporatism, does he not include everyone, all the social classes, to achieve that “settlement,” the “remedy” the Pope said necessary for the new industrial society, to protect and render justice to every social class, most of whom would be liquidated in an orgy of bloodshed by the Communists, on the rise at the time of Leo XIII, and costing millions of lives in Arcand’s time. Israeli commentator, Sever Plocker, in his article “Stalin’s Jews,” remarks: “We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags.” And further on, “Whole population strata were eliminated: Independent farmers, ethnic minorities, members of the bourgeoisie, senior officers, intellectuals, artists, labor movement activists, ‘opposition members’ who were defined completely randomly, and countless members of the Communist party itself.” “And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name “Genrikh Yagoda,” the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU’s deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin’s collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the “bloodthirsty dwarf.” “Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In his Book “Stalin: Court of the Red Star”, Jewish historian Sebag Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young Jewish women.”2 Oddly, Arcand’s critics are all opposed not to the communist butchers and the Jewish killing machine, but to Adrien Arcand, who feared that what happened there would happen here. To-day, as then, pink and red pick-aparts call Arcand “far right,” “anti-Semitic,” “intolerant,” and an anticommunist “bigot”. But where are the epithets for Stalin’s Jews? And all the others? As to Arcand’s unitary corporate State, I leave it to you, the researcher, to deepen the questions. To do so, you will have to be or become familiar with Papal Encyclicals, Catholic doctrine, Thomas Aquinas, historical context. All these play into Arcand’s motives. I think it obvious that Arcand was a devout Catholic trying to restructure society in light of statements by the Popes, to save us from Communism. As will be seen in the footnotes to Inevitability, Arcand cites Aquinas to support his own reestablishment of a unitary parliament for Canada, free of political parties, free of partisan politics through undivided leadership. The researcher will have to distinguish Arcand’s abolition of political parties from that of Hitler. And also ask why an RCMP report on Arcand’s National Social Christian Party stated that it was “undoubtedly organized along the lines of Hitlerism”. (See the first paragraph of the section “L’avant-guerre” in David Rajotte, “L’État canadien contre le Parti de l’unité nationale et Adrien Arcand”. Bulletin d’histoire politique, 26(3), 189–211. doi:10.7202/1046920ar.) Arcand’s inspiration for his military-style organization might be Catholic, it might be from Hitler, who was widely admired prior to WWII. Whatever Arcand’s military-type of organization, it ought to be distinguished from the apparently Catholic-inspired reorganization of society and of the State proposed by Arcand in Canadian Corporatism. Self-labeling for “success” by copying a patriotic brand that was popular elsewhere at the time should be placed in perspective, in context on a timeline, beside Arcand’s obviously Church-inspired Corporatism. Arcand’s early borrowing of symbols (swastika) and titles (Führer) may have misled non-Catholics not steeped in Biblical roots, Encyclicals, or Thomas Aquinas into believing that everything about Arcand was merely a matter of duplicating the German package, or whatever simplistic views were thought to be the package. This is tricky work, but intellectual integrity and dignity, for Arcand, for the men and women of his Legions, for his disciples and followers, and for the researcher, require that it be done. Said Arcand, in his Inevitability: “[L]ife is vibrant reality, influencing and influenced”. For the sake of History, the researcher must clarify Arcand’s own “vibrant reality” rather than impose upon him, after-the-fact, a backhanded and subjective one, whether individual or collective. In addition to Encyclicals and Aquinas, I recommend the annotated, beautifully embellished, multi-volume Latin and French-language King James version of the Catholic Bible, the “Crampon” Bible, scans of which are online at French Catholic web sites. Arcand quotes from the Crampon from time to time. 1. I am using the Balder version and Arcand’s own draft from Special Collections at Concordia for this eBook because a price of $35 per page was quoted to me by email by the BAnQ to scan the 7-page published booklet, plus covers. That is several times what it cost me in June 2019 to get a couple of hundred pages out of Arcand’s papers at Concordia University. It just isn’t within my budget, so I am using whatever is reasonable that I can get my hands on. 2. “Stalin’s Jews / We mustn’t forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish,” By Sever Plocker |Published: 12.21.06, 23:35 |
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FOOTNOTES FROM THE NEW eBOOK(Above, front cover, back cover.) These are important footnotes. I’m giving them here so they will be picked up by the search engines, for researchers. Footnote 1: The mission of the translator, as I conceive it, is to put into English what Adrien Arcand wrote. He quotes Pope Leo XIII, obviously from memory, as will be shown below. I will therefore translate Arcand (above), and also give you the official French and English of the Vatican. First quotation, official Vatican French: “La question qui s’agite est d’une nature telle, qu’à moins de faire appel à la religion et à l’Eglise, il est impossible de lui trouver jamais une solution.” — Rerum Novarum (15 mai 1891). Official Vatican English: “… for no practical solution of this question will be found apart from the intervention of religion and of the Church.” Second quotation, official Vatican French: “Assurément, une question de cette gravité demande encore à d’autres agents leur part d’activité et d’efforts. Nous voulons parler des chefs d’État, des patrons et des riches, des ouvriers eux-mêmes dont le sort est ici en jeu.”; and official Vatican English: “Doubtless, this most serious question demands the attention and the efforts of others besides ourselves – to wit, of the rulers of States, of employers of labor, of the wealthy, aye, of the working classes themselves, for whom We are pleading.” — Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891) Footnote 2: Arcand spelled the word “ex-équer” in French, with a deliberate hyphen. Footnote 3: In paragraph 2 of a one-page letter dated 13 June 1963 to Hon. Daniel Johnson, Q.C., Leader of the Opposition, Arcand said (translation): “What caused the rapid and sad destruction of Social Credit recently was the simultaneous existence of two heads, a titular head and an assistant head, one saying white, the other saying black. Double “leadership” can be the most toxic and deadly imaginable in any organization. Do we see an assistant Pope in the Church, an assistant Colonel in a regiment, an assistant Commander aboard a ship, etc.? Authority, in principle, must be (according to Saint Thomas Aquinas) personal, single, continual and not divided.” French original: “Ce qui a fait la rapide et triste destruction du Crédit Social dernièrement, c’est l’existence de deux têtes simultanées, un chef en titre et un chef adjoint, l’un disant blanc quand l’autre disait noir. Le double “chefferie” est ce qu’il peut y avoir de plus nocif et funeste en toute organisation imaginable. Voyons-nous un pape adjoint dans l’Église, un colonel adjoint dans un régiment, un commandant adjoint à bord d’un navire, etc.? L’autorité, en principe, doit être (suivant s. Thomas d’Aquin) personnelle, une, constante et sans partage.” Source: Arcand, Adrien. Letter from Lanoraie, P.Q., [13 June 1963], (C004). Box number 002, Item number 1123. Adrien Arcand Collection. Concordia University Library, Special Collections, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Arcand’s idea of a unitary, “undivided” Parliament, and his basic notion of authority appear to come from the Italian Catholic theologian and Doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas, and not from Hitler. Pierre Trépanier was evidently right in 1991 when he said (translation): “One of these possibilities would be that the single-party regime—corporatism and anti-Semitism in the actualization that Arcand would have given them—would have been subordinated to divine law, the control of the Hierarchy, and to the teachings of the social doctrine of the Church. The French-Canadian version of fascism would have been much closer to a sort of authoritarian and modern Christendom than to the Third Reich.” Source: “La religion dans la pensée d’Adrien Arcand,” Les Cahiers dex dix (46), 207–247. (https://doi.org/ 10.7202/1015587ar) (Religion in the thought of Adrien Arcand) A tiny French booklet that I happen to have, Saint Thomas et Nous, by the Fondation St. Thomas d’Aquin du Canada in Montreal (1966), at page 10 informs us (translation:) “In any case, the facts are there: the Encyclical Aeterni Patris, dated 4 August 1879, ordered all Christian schools to restore the wisdom of Saint Thomas and to propagate it as widely as possible. On 4 August 1880, while establishing Saint Thomas as the patron of studies, the same Pope recalled his Encyclical of 1879: Sur la restauration dans les écoles catholiques de la philosophie chrétienne selon l’esprit du Docteur Angélique, saint Thomas d’Aquin. [Vatican’s English: “Aeterni Patris, Encyclical Of Pope Leo XIII, On The Restoration Of Christian Philosophy”] Says the booklet: “No doubt is thus possible, Thomism is absolutely the ‘official’ philosophy of the Church. We add that no Pope has revoked this decree of Leo XIII.” It also would be hard to doubt that Adrien Arcand’s Corporatism for Canada is a Christian system. Footnote 4: In the Balder document, the phrase “qu’il y a l’anti-christianisme messianique,” replaces the phrase “qu’il y a la Juiverie mondiale” in the typed manuscript hand-dated “1950“. In other words, the phrase “that there is messianic anti-Christianity” in the known public version replaced the phrase “that there is world Jewry” in the 1950 typed draft. The change clarifies what Arcand means when he says “world Jewry”, while maintaining and accentuating the contrasting of opposites, i.e., “universal Freemasonry or the Counter-Church” contrasted, by implication, with the universal Catholic church. Footnote 5: In the typed draft dated 1950, the phrase given was: “Nos sociologues catholiques attaquent avec beaucoup de vigueur” (our Catholic sociologists vigourously attack”. Footnote 6: It is obvious that Adrien Arcand’s Corporatism is Christian in character. Reading his manuscript, Canadian Corporatism, we can see what he is aiming at in the last days of his life while publishing “Inevitability”. The “great Chris-tian,” Arcand, “desires its triumph”. Footnote 7: The phrase “de leurs successeurs socialistes, communistes et marxistes” in the Balder version replaces the phrase “de leurs successeurs socialistes et communistes” in the 1950 typed draft. Footnote 8: In the 1950 manuscript, Arcand says: “En attendant, ce sont encore les poisons des Encyclopédistes, de leurs successeurs socialistes et communistes, qui se partagent la direction politique du monde, sauf dans quelques rares pays comme le Portugal et l’Espagne, et justement bafoués par les deux côtés du “rideau de fer” parce qu’ils sont chrétiens.” Translating the italics: “except in those few rare countries like Portugal and Spain, precisely treated with con-tempt by both sides of the ‘iron curtain’ because they are Christian.” The Balder version, apparently based on the published version, says: “En attendant, ce sont encore les poisons des Encyclopédistes, de leurs successeurs socialistes, communistes et marxistes, qui se partagent la direction politique du monde tant en Occident que dans les pays situés derrière les ‘rideau de fer’ et de ‘bambou’.” In italics: “as much in the West as in countries behind the “Iron” and “Bamboo” Curtains”. In the Balder version, Arcand clarifies the two main communist areas, but omits any mention of Portugal and Spain. Footnote 9: This is an echo of Arcand’s 1954 talk, Le Christianisme a-t-il fait faillite? (Is Christianity Bankrupt?). Footnote 10: Pay close attention: Arcand’s Corporatism is a Christian system. In proposing it—obviously—he is countering “anti-Christian messianism”. Footnote 11: A change has been made to the English translation since it first went online in December 2018. The phrase “who will not blush to glory in” replaces the phrase “who do not blush to exalt themselves in”. Citation, Chicago style, for the 5-page draft text that I used to slightly revise and then to footnote my English translation of “Inevitability”: |
Down With Hate! 