Dehli Decleration - Communist and Workers Parties

Delhi Declaration

11th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties
New Delhi
20-22 November 2009

“The international capitalist crisis, the workers’ and peoples’ struggle, the alternatives and the role of the communist and working class movement”

This meeting:

* reiterates that the current global recession is a systemiccrisis of capitalism demonstrating its historic limits and theneed for its revolutionary overthrow. It demonstrates thesharpening of the main contradiction of capitalism between itssocial nature of production and individual capitalistappropriation. The political representatives of Capital try toconceal this unresolvable contradiction between capital and labourthat lies at the heart of the crisis. This crisis intensifiesrivalries between imperialist powers who along with theinternational institutions-the IMF World Bank WTO and others- areimplementing their 'solutions' which essentially aim to intensifycapitalist exploitation. Military and political 'solutions' areaggressively pursued globally by imperialism. The NATO ispromoting a new aggressive strategy. The political systems arebecoming more reactionary curtailing democratic and civilliberties, trade union rights etc. This crisis is furtherdeepening the structural corruption under capitalism which isbeing institutionalised.

* reaffirms that the current crisis, probably the most acute andall encompassing since the Great Depression of 1929, has left nofield untouched. Hundreds of thousands of factories are closed.Agrarian and rural economies are under distress intensifyingmisery and poverty of millions of cultivators and farm workersglobally. Millions of people are left jobless and homeless.Unemployment is growing to unprecedented levels (estimated at 190million in 2008) and under the current recession it is officiallyexpected to breach the 50 million mark. Inequalities areincreasing across the globe – the rich are getting richer and thepoor, poorer. More than one billion people, that is one-sixth ofhumanity go hungry. Youth, women and immigrants are the first victims. True to their class nature, the response of the respective capitalist governments to overcome this crisis fails to address these basic concerns. All the neo-liberal votaries and social democratic managers of capitalism, who had so far decried the State are now utilising the state for rescuing them, thus underlining a basic fact that the capitalist state has always defended and enlarged avenues for super profits. While the costs of the rescue packages and bailouts are at public expense, the benefits accrue to few. The bailout packages announced, are addressed first to rescue and then enlarge profit making avenues. Banks and financial corporates are now back in business and making profits. Growing unemployment and the depression of real wages is the burden for the working people as against the gift of huge bailout packages for the corporations.

* realises that this crisis is no aberration based on the greed ofa few or lack of effective regulatory mechanisms. Profitmaximisation, the raison d' etre of capitalism, has sharplywidened economic inequalities both between countries and withincountries in these decades of 'globalisation'. The naturalconsequence was a decline in the purchasing power of the vastmajority of world population. The present crisis is thus asystemic crisis. This once again vindicates the Marxist analysisthat the capitalist system is inherently crisis ridden. Capital,in its quest for profits, traverses boundaries and tramples uponanything and everything. In the process it intensifiesexploitation of the working class and other strata of workingpeople, imposing greater hardships. Capitalism in fact requires tomaintain a reserve army of labour. The liberation from suchcapitalist barbarity can come only with the establishment of thereal alternative, socialism. This requires the strengthening ofanti-imperialist and anti-monopoly struggles. Our struggle for analternative is thus a struggle against the capitalist system. Ourstruggle for an alternative is for a system where there is noexploitation of people by people and nation by nation. It is astruggle for another world, a just world, a socialist world.

* conscious of the fact that the dominant imperialist powers wouldseek their way out of the crisis by putting greater burdens on theworking people, by seeking to penetrate and dominate the marketsof countries with medium and lower level of capitalistdevelopment, commonly called developing countries. This they aretrying to achieve firstly, through the WTO Doha round of tradetalks, which reflect the unequal economic agreements at theexpense of the peoples of these countries particularly withreference to agricultural standards and Non Agricultural MarketAccess (NAMA). Secondly, capitalism, which in the first place is responsible for the destruction of the environment, is trying to transfer the entire burden of safeguarding the planet from climate change, which in the first place they had caused, onto the shoulders of the working class and working people. Capitalism's proposal for restructuring in the name of climate change has little relation to the protection of the environment. Corporate inspired 'Green development' and 'green economy' are sought to be used to impose new state monopoly regulations which support profit maximisation and impose new hardships on the people. Profit maximisation under capitalism is thus not compatible with environmental protection and peoples' rights.

* notes that the only way out of this capitalist crisis for theworking class and the common people is to intensify strugglesagainst the rule of capital. It is the experience of the workingclass that when it mobilises its strength and resists theseattempts it can be successful in protecting its rights. Industrysit-ins, factory occupations and such militant working classactions have forced the ruling classes to consider the demands ofthe workers. Latin America, the current theatre of popularmobilisations and working class actions, has shown how rights canbe protected and won through struggle. In these times of crisis,once again the working class is seething with discontent. Manycountries have witnessed and are witnessing huge working classactions, demanding amelioration. These working class actions needto be further strengthened by mobilising the vast mass ofsuffering people, not just for immediate alleviation but for along-term solution to their plight. Imperialism, buoyed by the demise of the Soviet Union and the periods of boom preceding this crisis had carried out unprecedented attacks on the rights of the working class and the people. This has been accompanied by frenzied anti-communist propaganda not only in individual countries but at global and inter-state forums (EU, OSCE, Council of Europe). However much they may try, the achievements and contributions of socialism in defining the contours of modern civilisation remain inerasable. Faced with these relentless attacks, our struggles thus far had been mainly, defensive struggles, struggles to protect the rights that we had won earlier. Today's conjuncture warrants the launch of an offensive, not just to protect our rights but win new rights. Not for winning few rights but for dismantling the entire capitalist edifice – for an onslaught on the rule of capital, for a political alternative – socialism.

* resolves that under these conditions, the communist and workersparties shall actively work to rally and mobilise the widestpossible sections of the popular forces in the struggle for fulltime stable employment, exclusively public and free for allhealth, education and social welfare, against gender inequalityand racism, and for the protection of the rights of all sectionsof the working people including the youth, women, migrant workersand those from ethnic and national minorities.

* calls upon the communist and workers parties to undertake thistask in their respective countries and launch broad struggles forthe rights of the people and against the capitalist system. Thoughthe capitalist system is inherently crisis ridden, it does notcollapse automatically. The absence of a communist-ledcounterattack, engenders the danger of rise of reactionary forces.The ruling classes launch an all out attack to prevent the growthof the communists and the workers' parties to protect their statusquo. Social democracy continues to spread illusions about the realcharacter of capitalism, advancing slogans such as 'humanisationof capitalism', 'regulation', 'global governance' etc. These infact support the strategy of capital by denying class struggle andbuttressing the pursuit of anti-popular policies. No amount ofreform can eliminate exploitation under capitalism. Capitalism hasto be overthrown. This requires the intensification of ideologicaland political working class led popular struggles. All sorts oftheories like 'there is no alternative' to imperialistglobalisation are propagated. Countering them, our response is'socialism is the alternative'.

We, the communist and workers' parties coming from all parts of the globe and representing the interests of the working class and all other toiling sections of society (the vast majority of global population) underlining the irreplaceable role of the communist parties call upon the people to join us in strengthening the struggles to declare that socialism is the only real alternative for the future of humankind and that the future is ours.