Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Provision for terminations in Ireland



Press Statement for publication 18/12/2012

Provision for terminations in Ireland

The announcement by the Irish Government today that it is to introduce legislation and regulations to allow a woman to choose a termination where her life is threatened was welcomed by some Irish political parties as a “victory for women”. However the Communist Party of Ireland believes this is the very least that can be offered to women in any civilised society. In a statement today, Lynda Walker, chairwoman of the Communist party of Ireland said that this was one small step on the road to providing women with the reproductive health care services that they require. The provision of legislation and regulation in response to the X Case is to be welcomed, but the enactment of the legislation remains to be seen. 

The Communist Party of Ireland said that the Expert Report gives a number of options and advice to the Irish Government regarding the question of termination of pregnancy for women in Ireland. The CPI agrees that this is a complex issue and one that needs to be clarified in the interest of women’s lives and also in the interest of the medical and legal profession.  The CPI also believes that the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 should be repealed and replaced. 

The introduction of a strategy to address crisis and unwanted pregnancies should include enhanced provision of education, advice and contraceptive services, and other such counselling and medical services. 

Furthermore the CPI believes that there should be a public investigation into the numbers of deaths and complications that have occurred in the Republic of Ireland over the past 30 years due to circumstances relating to the law regarding terminations.

The Communist Party of Ireland reiterates its commitment to support a “Woman’s Right to Choose” but initially we support the immediate introduction of guidelines and changes in the law that will prevent further deaths like that of Savita Halappanavar.

For that reason we also call for guidelines to be issued in the North. Whilst welcoming the opening of the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast, we also call for provision of this service to be extended to the National Health Service.

ENDS

For further details contact: Lynda Walker 07751951785 or Eugene McCartan

Friday, December 14, 2012

Introduction to Marxism

 
Not to be forgotten!! Marxist education classes kick off in the new year.

New issue of shopfloor out

New issue of Mandate trade unions Shopfloor out

http://issuu.com/mandate/docs/shopfloordecember2012web/1

well worth a read

Monday, December 10, 2012

International Peace Conference


Declaration of International Peace Conference
Antioch, Turkey
23-24 November 2012
 
The International Peace Conference held in the city of Antioch of Turkey by the initiative of the Peace Association of Turkey under the auspices of the World Peace Council reaffirms that the recent events that occurred in the Middle East is a threat to the region and to the world peace, and calls upon all the peace loving people to stand side by side for peace and to act with solidarity against imperialism which is the main source of war threat. The policies against Syria is a crime. The name of this crime is nothing else but international terrorism under imperialist guidance. Our Conference held to a few kilometers away from the Syrian border underlines that it is the sole right of the Syrian people to determine their future and leadership and denounces any foreign military and political interference in this country. Foreign military interference aims to intimidate the public masses by means of terrorist actions targeting fellow citizens. USA, EU,NATO, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are the blameworthy powers backing these policies causing increasing brutality everyday. Our conference convened in Turkey demands from the AKP government to stop interfering in the domestic affairs of Syria immediately. We express our solidarity with Syrian people who do not surrender before imperialism and reaction under the intense terrorist attacks. We demand that Syria-Turkey border to be controlled for terrorist infiltration, that the armed crossing to be blocked, and that the government to stop the policies of supporting, financing, arming and sheltering the terrorists. The majority of Syrian people  taking refuge in Turkey are civilians escaping the destruction and threats of war and even many of them are the relatives of citizens of Turkey. It is an urgent necessity to put an end to exploiting these people as instruments in tensions, to carry away the refugee camps away from the border regions in accordance with the international law  and to humanize their living conditions. On the other hand, the violent actions of the armed mercenaries counted in several thousands must be prohibited and they must be prosecuted. There has been no clear evidence of Syrian government’s role in the mortar bombs that hit Hatay and Şanlıurfa provinces of Turkey which killed and injured citizens living there. Considering this, the bombardment of Syrian territories by Turkish Armed Forces is unacceptable. It is obvious that in practice these bombardments mean an explicit and direct support for the mercenaries of Free Syrian Army fighting against Syrian government forces. The aggression of Turkish Army which supports a wide margin of movement for these terrorists  must be ceased immediately. Turkey must withdraw from this undeclared war she is currently in. Imperialism is trying to keep its hands clean by avoiding direct invasion once again and rathers prefers to make use of “subcontractors”. This fire also threatens the countries which are used for these policies.  All the peoples of the region react against the aggressive foreign policy of AKP government against Syria. The strategy for building a new Middle East based on religious axis is inciting the tensions between groups from different religious, ethical origin. The ongoing capitalist restructuring in the region aims the dissolution of secular states and building Islamic states in accordance with imperialism. Our conference calls upon the peoples of this region to end this game. Our International Peace Conference in Antioch states that the increasing armament in the region motivated by threat of war is a trap and that this armament will only increase the potential of war threat. The initiative for deployment of Patriot missiles requested by Turkish government and discussed in the context of a new NATO base in Diyarbakir must be cancelled. The missile shield established in Kurecik, district of Malatya which makes Turkey a key target must be deactivated. The NATO military base located in Incirlik - Adana which has been used in several occasions against Middle East must be closed.The other burning point in the region is Palestine. The apartheid and fundamentalist state of Israel has been occupying the Palestine territories for decades and is the main responsible for the shedding blood in Gaza. Our conference reaffirms support and solidarity with the Palestinian people, for immediate ending of Israeli attacks and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian State within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.  Furthermore, we demand the right to return for Palestinian refugees, based on UNGA Resolution 194, and the release of all Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.The public opinion in Turkey is filled with great anger against the recent Israeli attacks. We, in the name of peace loving people of the world condemn the recent and ongoing military policies and attacks of Israel  and express our solidarity with the struggle of Palestinian people. The peace organizations and peace lovers gathered in Antioch observe that people of Turkey in general and specifically people living in Antioch do adamantly oppose the militaristic policies. Our conference clearly states that  people in the  region who have suffered heavy losses from the winds of war by means of economic collapse, unemployment, risk of migration, deaths and injuries  are not alone in their determinate attitude for peace. Long live peace, long live the fraternity of the peoplesDown with war, down with imperialism and reactionism World Peace Council (WPC)International Action for Liberation (INTAL), BelgiumCyprus Peace Council (CPC)Greek Committee for International Detente and Peace (EEDYE)All India Peace and Solidarity Organization (AIPSO)Palestinian Committee for Peace and Solidarity (PCPS)Turkey, Peace Association

POLITICAL STATEMENT OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND



POLITICAL STATEMENT OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND


 Issued 9th December.

At its December meeting the National Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland discussed the political and economic situation in the country, north and south. The party’s evaluation is that at both the national and the international level the system is experiencing new and deeper difficulties.

Growth is very small or non-existent, and we may well be in for a long period of stagnation among the major capitalist economies. What is also clear is that the leaders of the European Union are having increasing difficulties in coming forward with a lasting solution to the crisis of state monopoly capitalism and the euro, with each solution causing difficulties in other areas.

The party believes that state monopoly capitalism may have reached a point where measures meant to fix one aspect of the crisis are aggravating other areas, leading to a deepening of the crisis generally. If that is the case, capitalism is in deep trouble, because it has used the state as a crucial means for adapting and manoeuvring and for stabilising itself during most of the twentieth century.

The push by the EU for greater fiscal and monetary control should be viewed and understood in this context. Increasingly, democracy is an obstacle and is too slow a method for responding to the constant crises.

The Irish and British governments continue to respond to the crisis in a similar way, with similar policies: attacks on workers’ terms and conditions, and cuts in wages, pensions, and other benefits. They are stealing the people’s wealth to hand it over to the finance house in the hope of sustaining finance capital and the system as a whole.

The recent Loyalist flag riots did nothing for the protestant working class, though they reflect the sense of isolation and abandonment felt by a section .   The involvement of criminal and fascist elements is significant and very dangerous.   The rioting is also a a distraction from the very real crisis facing all working people of the north.  Unionism is in crisis as it struggles to find what its role is in relation to global monopoly interests. 

The rioting is more a reflection of powerlessness than strength.  What we need now is to build unity among our people north and south, catholic and protestant, to meet the onslaught now underway from the British  government and the EU and their gatekeepers in the Northern Executive and the Irish government.

The recent budget in the South marked a new and intensified attack on working people, with a range of new taxes, cuts in the health and education budgets, and attacks on the elderly and those who look after them as well as those suffering various disabilities. The party pointed out that these attacks will continue, and people’s living standards will be driven down as far as the establishment feel they can get away with. They wish to create a subsistence economy for the majority of working people.

The party welcomes the growing awareness among the people of the massive debt burden placed on our people by the EU and the Irish establishment. The recent demonstrations in Belfast and Dublin led by the trade union movement were a welcome sign that some elements of the movement see the importance of mobilising and of open, active campaigning in the interests not only of their members but also of the wider community.

The party called for maximum support for the proposed ICTU day of action on 9 February in opposition to the repayment of €3.1 billion to bond-holders on 31 March. This proposed action is a small but important step forward, but it is not sufficient, and the trade union movement needs to go much further, to build towards a national industrial stoppage in the near future, not only against the payment of the promissory notes but to demand the repudiation of the debt. There is no “good debt” and “bad debt.” We need to make a clear link between austerity and the paying of the odious debt.  

The CPI also calls for the broadest mobilisation of the people in opposition to the G8 gathering - the international executive committee of imperialism - planned to take place in Co Fermanagh in 2013.  We need the maximum unity of trade unions, community, peace,  human rights, youth and environmentalist groups and campaigns to demonstrate opposition to this institution of global imperialist domination.

Not alone is the Irish establishment incapable of developing policies for creating jobs and public services but they are incapable of creating a decent society based on equality and justice. The appalling death of Savita Halappanavar in Galway University Hospital because she was denied the right to a termination to save her own life, when there was clearly no possibility of any other outcome, exposes the real and continuing danger to women’s lives in a health system dominated by an ethos that has long been shown to be out of date, to be anti-women and anti-democratic. We once again call for the full legal right for women to secure safe abortions, north and south.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

CPC and CPV Theoretical workshop

Communist Parties of Vietnam and Cuba share national development experiences in the new period

 
A Communist Party of Cuba (CPC) delegation led by Jose Ramon Balague Cabrera, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Head of its International Relations Department, paid a visit to Vietnam from November 5th to 6th 2012. With a Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) delegation led by Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly, they conducted the first Vietnam-Cuba joint theoretical workshop. The workshop was themed “The Communist Party leads the renewal process in Vietnam and updates of the socio-economic development model in Cuba: theoretical and practical issues”. The two delegations shared the view that renewal in Vietnam and updates of the socio-economic development model in Cuba are not temporary solutions but long-term strategic policies appropriate to each country’s specific conditions and aimed at liberating the forces of production, developing the socio-economy, and boosting socialist values in the new period. These momentous and complicated tasks require the resolution of numerous theoretical and practical issues in which the Communist Party’s correct leadership is a prerequisite and decisive factor for success. Workshop attendees focused on analyzing the role, content, and method of Party leadership in Vietnam’s renewal process and the updating of Cuba’s socio-economic development model, including Party leadership of the State, Party leadership in mass work, strengthening democracy within the Party, and building a stronger, more transparent Party. The two sides analyzed each other’s situation, emphasizing their experiences in renovating thought and practical policies and measures, and clarifying the difficulties and challenges on each country’s national development path. Delegates agreed on the principle-based requirements of unwavering protection and creative application and development of Marxist-Leninist theory in accordance with each country’s specific conditions, and that efforts should be made to renew and enhance each Party’s leadership strength, consolidate its revolutionary nature, advance the close relationship between the Party and the People, and boost solidarity, cooperation, and experience sharing between the two Parties to benefit the people and build socialism in Vietnam and Cuba. Vietnam’s renewal process and updates of the socio-economic development model in Cuba are major innovations by the Communist Party to find a new path of the transitional period of building socialism. The new situation requires the resolution of theoretical and practical problems which are unprecedented, especially in the current global context. The Parties leading Vietnam and Cuba, who share the goal of building socialism, consider the sharing of ideas and experience vital to helping each other succeed in this transition. Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Jose Ramon Balague Cabrera praised this first joint theoretical workshop, insisting that it is not just useful but essential for theorists and realists from both Parties to share the theoretical issues of socialism building and discuss specific problems arising from the situation in each country. Sustaining the outcomes of this workshop will contribute to the continued improvement of socialism in both countries and deepen the fine relationship between the two countries and their Parties.

Socialist Voice December



December issue of Socialist Voice out:

http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie/sv/index.html

Check it out and show your friends

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

CPI at the national demo against austerity

 
 

A class approach to the defence of national democracy and sovereignty


A class approach to the defence of national democracy and sovereignty

14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties

Eugene McCarten, General Secretary

Comrades,

      Firstly, on behalf of the Communist party of Ireland I would like to thank the Lebanese Communist Party for hosting this, the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Worker’s Parties. We salute your party’s contribution to the national life of your country and people in its struggle for independence, in defence of the sovereignty of your nation, and opposition to invasion and aggression.

      To all communist and anti-imperialist forces in this region that struggle against imperialism and its allies we express our solidarity. In particular, we express our solidarity with all those Palestinians resisting occupation and repression and struggling for a Palestinian homeland.
Finally, we salute our comrades in the Communist Party of Israel, who continue to struggle in very difficult conditions and in the face of deeply reactionary forces in the belly of the Zionist beast.

Comrades,

      The crisis of the system continues to deepen and is increasingly showing the features of stagnation, permanent mass unemployment, growing permanent mass poverty, a future in which the working class will have very few rights and many restrictions on its ability to fight back.
Most ominously, the crisis has heightened the aggressiveness of imperialism and its agents. We are gathering in Lebanon at a time when the forces of imperialism and reaction are working hand in glove to thwart the aspirations of the peoples of this region for peace, freedom, justice, and democracy.

      We are meeting at a time of aggressive imperialist interventions in a region long seen by them as an important strategic arena. They are especially determined to block the development of any form of popular democracy not under their control and any area of the globe not fully under their market mechanisms. They are prepared to align themselves with the most backward forms of mediaeval obscurantism in order to achieve their goals.

      They are using well-tested methods of fomenting “civil war” now in Syria, as they did in Yugoslavia. They have no qualms about allowing Israel a free hand in its brutal and premeditated attack on the people of Gaza that is now going on.

      The United States and the European Union should not be allowed to escape responsibility for these crimes, for which they are primarily responsible. Throughout the entire world the imperialist powers are pushing ahead with their strategy of military build-up and confrontation with progressive forces and the overthrowing of governments—not only progressive governments: witness the crescendo of military threats and economic sanctions against Iran.

      War and preparation for war is both a military and an economic strategy. Vast profits can be made in the manufacturing of weapons; it is the dominant manufacturing industry in the United States, and its development is actually written into the EU treaties. There is also the aim of bringing oil and other natural resources back under their control.

      Within the European Union the crisis of the euro and the debt is apparently insoluble. The drama has been going on for several years now, with the “patching up” of the euro-zone crisis every couple of months and a new “solution” proclaimed at a summit meeting, to great fanfare, which twenty minutes later proves not to be a solution at all.

      State monopoly capitalism may have reached a point where measures meant to repair one aspect of the crisis simply aggravate others, worsening the whole mess. If this is so, then capitalism is in very deep trouble, because it has used the state as a means of adapting and manoeuvring and of stabilising itself since the early twentieth century.

      This is a crisis of the system, of its ability to reproduce itself. Profit-creation is suffering, despite decades of intensification of exploitation. There are very few areas left for capital to infest, but they will try. Fictitious capital appears in more and more financial products, yet still the system is in repeated crisis.

      While trying to solve the crisis at the expense of working people in the interests of the capitalist class, they are also using the crisis as an opportunity for multiple attacks on the working class. In Ireland, “austerity” is working, with a massive transfer of wealth from the people to the monopoly finance houses of Europe. This year alone the Irish people will pay €7 billion in interest on the debt, together with nearly €5 billion to bond-holders.

      At the same time the state is inflicting massive hardship on the people through cuts in public spending and employment, new taxes and levies, and cuts in wages, pensions, and social welfare. Unemployment in the Republic now stands at 445,000, or 15 per cent, with youth unemployment at 30 per cent. The crisis has also produced a massive increase in emigration, now running at over a thousand a week in the Republic alone.

      There is increasing popular support for the repudiation of this debt, which is an odious debt, generated by the banking houses of Europe and the Irish banks.

      The gross debt is fast approaching €200 billion, while the gross national product was only €129 billion in 2011 and is decreasing. This odious debt is simply unpayable by 4½ million people, and the inability of the native capitalist class to find solutions to this crisis exposes them for what they are, simply the gatekeepers for foreign monopoly capitalism, and is a strategic weakness and contradiction in capitalist rule in Ireland.

      The Irish people’s wealth is being vacuumed up into the finance houses, to prop up German and EU finance houses and the euro itself, with state companies now being prepared for privatisation under the supervision of the EU and IMF in conjunction with the Irish state.
Added to this is the fact that the British state still controls the North of Ireland, and with the North of Ireland outside the euro and within the sterling area. Nevertheless the same “austerity” policies are applied north and south: cuts in wages and cuts in public services, resulting in rising unemployment and growing poverty.

      The drive to concentrate power in Brussels is a long-standing strategy of the European Union. Fiscal union and budgetary controls are now advanced as a solution to the crisis. It is even claimed by some Irish politicians that such measures would make possible some slight amelioration of the burden of debt. Indeed, some such deal may be offered as a bribe.

      The ruling forces at the heart of the European Union are using the crisis to complete the construction of the European imperialist centre, not only economically but politically and militarily. This programme will further strip away any real substance in national political and economic sovereignty and democracy and further remove crucial areas from pressure and influence from class struggle at the national level. It is fundamentally anti-democratic in purpose, in spite of their rhetoric. Democracy is increasingly becoming an obstacle to modern monopoly capitalism.

      We Irish communists take a class approach to the defence of national democracy and sovereignty. The consolidation of the European Union is designed both to obstruct the self-defence of the working class and to close the door to any advance towards socialism. Fear is used to terrorise the people and to manufacture their consent. We do not believe that the European Union can be transformed into anything other than an instrument of class domination and neo-colonial oppression.

       The great challenge facing our movement is to bring together all those who are suffering the effects of the crisis of the system and imperialist aggression in a mighty popular resistance, uniting all anti-imperialist forces. Such an awakening would inevitably open up the road for an advance towards socialism, which is ultimately the only solution to the massive human crisis and environmental crisis that capitalism has created.

Decleration from communist parties

Beirut Declaration

The Fourteenth meeting of the International Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) was held in Beirut, Lebanon’s Capital, between the 22nd and the 25th of November 2012, under the banner:

“Strengthen the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness, for satisfying peoples’ socio-economic-democratic rights and aspirations, for socialism”.
The meeting was attended by 84 delegates, representing 60 parties, from 44 countries from the five continents of the world – while letters of apology were sent by those parties unable to attend due to circumstances beyond their control.
The meeting, follows the extraordinary meeting which was held in the Arab region, in Syria 2009, about Palestine within a three year period, and constitutes a new opportunity for the Communist and Workers' Parties to express their continued solidarity and support for the struggle of the working class and the popular struggles and uprisings in the Arab countries against imperialist aggressions and big capital and for democratic change. The discussions, which took place during the meeting, contributed to the exchange of views regarding unfolding developments worldwide and to agreement on the development of common and convergent actions aiming to effect a revolutionary struggle for socialism.

xxxx
The 14th meeting of the International Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) re-asserted its earlier statements issued during previous meetings between 2008 and 2011 regarding the capitalist crisis of capital overproduction and over accumulation, the root of which lies in the sharpening of the main contradictions between capital and labour, which continued to deepen and intensify. The different bourgeois versions for the management of the crisis have failed to bring it under control; all of them have the same barbaric effects for the people's rights. The imperialist reaction to the crisis is being marked by a multifaceted offensive of imperialism against the social, economic, democratic and national rights of the peoples, an offensive that aims to destroy the achievements won by the workers' and people's struggles during the XX century and to intensive the level of exploitation and oppression.

This fact, in combination with the increased aggression of imperialism and the expansion of the imperialist wars, the realignments in the international correlation of forces where the relative weakening of the position of the USA co- exist with the growing economic and political power of several countries raises a group of issues which indicate that the world is, once again, at a critical and dangerous junction where the contradictions and the competitions are intensifying, and where great dangers coexist with real opportunities for the development of the workers and peoples' struggle.

In this regard, it is useful to pose the question: how does the universal, increased, imperialist aggression manifest itself, militarily, politically, economically and socially and what forms does it take?

Firstly, imperialism is pursuing an offensive that aims at large-scale destruction of economic, social, political, cultural and national rights, and a regression in the correlation of forces even more in favor of capital and against labour. Massive operations are under way to further concentrate and centralize capital. At the same time far reaching attacks are launched against social and labour rights, with massive cuts in salaries, massive unemployment, privatization and destruction of social functions of States, the privatization of nearly all the sectors of the economy and areas of social life. This anti-social offensive is accompanied by an unprecedented offensive against the democratic, national and ecological rights of the peoples.

In particular, the attack against the labour, economic and social rights of women has sharpened, provoking a brutal worsening in the conditions of life both in public and private fields. Addressing and defeating this aggression is crucial, because the struggle for the real equality of women is a vital part in the struggle against capitalism.

Secondly, it should be stressed that the reassertion of Barack Obama in the UN, where he stated that his country will not “withdraw” from the world, agrees with the program approved by NATO at its latest Chicago summit effectively implying an increased military imperialist intervention throughout the world under the slogan of “clever defense”. This includes launching the first phase of “rocket shield” or “star wars” in Europe and the global anti-missile shield program, direct military intervention in Libya, intermittent threats against Iran and DPR of Korea, increased military activity, aggressions and provocations in the Middle East, the Asia Pacific zone and throughout the African continent, intensified imperialistic militarism in Latin America and the Caribbean. The intensification of hostility and the blockade against Cuba continues, as well as the plots against Venezuela.

Thirdly, this campaign of military aggression is accompanied by insolent and public political interventions in the affairs of most countries worldwide. These interventions are manifested by the use of capital and influence in order to distort and falsify the will of the people, in order to manipulate, intimidate and prevent the representatives chosen by the people from reaching power. Imperialist forces do not hesitate from employing the worst tools in order to reach their goals, including organizing terrorist attacks, military coups, allying themselves with neo-fascist powers, promoting political - religious powers, and the various counter-revolutionary forces of different ideological backgrounds - all for the sake of exerting imperialist control throughout the planet, by redrawing borders and rearranging sectoral markets, especially the energy market with its oil and gas resources and transportation routes.

Fourthly, this military aggression campaign is also accompanied by the intensification of the aggressiveness, such as employing the full resources of various international agencies and organizations, and in particular the IMF, World Bank, and the European Union with a view to safeguard the power of Big Capital. In order to guarantee its interests and objectives, in addition to further developing its aggression and insolent interventions in the countries of the world, the global capitalist regime is adamant on waging war on the international working class and their representatives, through a variety of measures including:
  • A denial of the basic human right to work, and the associated gains achieved by the working class.
  • A global ideological and media offensive aiming to restrain the workers and people struggles and persecute all the social and political forces that struggle against imperialism, specially the Communist and Workers’ Parties.
  • Concerted efforts and actions in violation of all that is included in the UN charter and in the “Universal declaration of human rights”, which have been formed in conditions of a different correlation of forces thanks to the presence of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.
Fifthly, in the context of this over reaching, global imperialistic aggression, attention must be paid to the manner in which it is manifesting itself in the Middle East through the project of “the New Middle East” which aims at re-dividing the region and its people into ethnic and religious groups, constantly fighting each other. This in turn allows the appropriation of the natural resources found in this region and particularly the oil and gas resources. The military wars and occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and of the Israeli aggressions on Lebanon and against the people of Palestine are an inseparable part of the imperialistic "Big Middle East' project. In addition, it is within the context of this project that recent developments should be analyzed including 1.The escalation in the rate of the USA and European Union imperialist threats of military intervention in Iran, and against Syria, taking advantage of both violence acts being perpetuated against civilians and relying on the forces which are supported by the imperialists, 2. the continued efforts to control the path of the uprisings which have occurred over the past two years in several of the Arab countries and, in particular, Egypt and Tunisia, through the use of sectarianism, racism and prejudice as well as the forever-obliging petro-dollars of all Arabian Gulf regimes.

These developments, and their potential consequences, exert pressure on the working class and communist and Workers’ parties to carry out their historic responsibilities of confronting the capitalist system and imperialist aggression. This confrontation, which must take place in different countries separately, and on the international level, is necessary in order to conquer anti-monopolist and anti-imperialist ruptures and achievements and, succeed in building socialism, as specified by the thirteenth International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, held in December 2011 in Athens.

The confrontation with imperialism dictates the strengthening of the cooperation and solidarity of our Parties and the definition of our common goals and guidelines of struggle on the one hand, and the convergent action with the various anti-imperialist forces and mass movements, including Unions, Women, Youth and Intellectual organizations, on the other hand.
In Latin America, the anti-imperialist forces, the trade union and other social movements continue their struggles for people’s rights and against imperialism. These struggles, that are the target of a counter-offensive of imperialism, led, in some cases, to the emergence of governments that declare themselves programmatically in defense of national sovereignty and of social rights, for the development and protection of their natural resources and biodiversity, considering that they give new impetus to anti imperialistic struggle.

This universal confrontation also dictates the organization of the working people in the workplace and the trade unions, the strengthening of the class oriented movement the promotion of the alliance of the working class with the oppressed popular strata, the intensification of the struggle of the international working class and the peoples of the world. In order to impede the anti- people measures and promote goals of struggle that meet the contemporary people's needs, demands a counter attack for anti- monopoly and anti- imperialist ruptures for the overthrow of capitalism.

The ideological struggle of the communist movement is of vital importance in order to defend and develop scientific socialism, to repulse contemporary anti- communism, to confront bourgeois ideology, and all alien tendencies, anti- scientific theories and opportunist currents which reject the class struggle; and combat the role of social democratic forces that defend and implement anti- people and pro- imperialist policies by supporting the strategy of capital and imperialism. The understanding of the unified character of the duties of the struggle for social, national and class emancipation, for the distinct promotion of the socialist alternative requires the ideological counteroffensive of the communist movement.

Considering the capitalist crisis and its consequences the international experiences from the socialist construction prove the superiority of socialism. We underline our solidarity with the peoples who struggle for socialism and are involved in the construction of socialism.

Based on all the above, we stress the need to focus on the following joint actions:
  1. Struggling to confront the new plans of imperialism on the military, political, economic and social levels in order to prevent it from controlling the world and destroying it.
  2. Rallying for the removal of NATO military bases and the right of withdrawal from the imperialist alliances.
  3. Expressing class solidarity with and providing support to strengthen the working class and popular struggles in the capitalist countries against the policies that put further burdens on people and for winning benefits for improving the livelihoods of the workers and peoples effecting revolutionary change.
  4. Reasserting international solidarity with democratic popular movements and uprisings in the face of occupation and oppressive regimes; and the adamant rejection of imperialist intervention in these countries.
  5. Confronting anti-communist laws, measures and persecution; waging an ideological struggle against the revision of history, for reasserting the contribution of the communist and labour movement in human history.
  6. Condemning the US blockade of Cuba and supporting Cuba’s struggle for its immediate lifting. Strengthening the campaigns for the release and return of the five Cuban patriots to Cuba.
  7. Condemning the ongoing atrocities perpetuated by the Israeli occupying forces against the Palestinian people, supporting their right in resisting occupation, and building their independent state, East Jerusalem as a capital, and strengthening the campaign for the immediate lifting of the blockade against Gaza and for the Right of Return.
  8. Promoting the international front against imperialism and the support for the international anti-imperialist mass organizations, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Peace Council (WPC), the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), and the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), in the specific framework of every country.
Beirut, 25th of November 2012