Saturday, November 30, 2013

Latest writings from James Petras



There are claims of a unipolar, a multi-polar and even a non-polar configuration of world power. Where, when, to what extent and under what contingencies do these claims have validity?
Bubbles and busts come and go - but let us talk of ‘beneficiaries’: Those who cause crashes, reap the greatest rewards while their victims have no say. The swindle economy and the criminal state prosper by promoting the perversion of culture and literacy. ‘Investigatory journalism’, or peephole reportage, is all the rage. The world of power spins out of control: As they decline, the leading powers declare “it’s our rule or everyone’s ruin!”

Global Configurations of Power

Power is a relationship between classes, states and military and ideological institutions. Any configuration of power is contingent on past and present struggles reflecting shifting correlations of forces. Structures and physical resources, concentrations of wealth, arms and the media matter greatly; they set the framework in which the principle power wielders are embedded. But strategies for retaining or gaining power depend on securing alliances, engaging in wars and negotiating peace. Above all, world power depends on the strength of domestic foundations. This requires a dynamic productive economy, an independent state free from prejudicial foreign entanglements and a leading class capable of harnessing global resources to ‘buy off’ domestic consent of the majority.

To examine the position of the United States in the global configuration of power it is necessary to analyze its changing economic and political relations on two levels: by region and by sphere of power. History does not move in a linear pattern or according to recurring cycles: military and political defeats in some regions may be accompanied by significant victories in others. Economic decline in some spheres and regions may be compensated by sharp advances in other economic sectors and regions.

In the final analysis, the question is not ‘keeping a scorecard’ or adding wins and subtracting losses, but translating regional and sectorial outcomes into an understanding of the direction and emerging structures of the global power configuration. We start by examining the legacy of recent wars on the global economic, military and political power of the United States.

Sustaining the US Empire: Defeats, Retreat, Advances and Victories

The dominant view of most critical analysts is that over the past decade US empire-building has suffered a series of military defeats, experienced economic decline, and now faces severe competition and the prospect of further military losses. The evidence cited is impressive: The US was forced to withdraw troops from Iraq, after an extremely costly decade-long military occupation, leaving in place a regime more closely allied to Iran, the US’ regional adversary. The Iraq war depleted the economy, deprived American corporations of oil wealth, greatly enlarged Washington’s budget and trade deficits and reduced the living standards of US citizens. The Afghanistan war had a similar outcome, with high external costs, military retreat, fragile clients, domestic disaffection and no short or medium term transfers of wealth (imperial pillage) to the US Treasury or private corporations. The Libyan war led to the total destruction of a modern, oil-rich economy in North Africa, the total dissolution of state and civil society and the emergence of armed tribal, fundamentalist militias opposed to US and EU client regimes in North and sub-Sahara Africa and beyond. Instead of continuing to profit from lucrative oil and gas agreements with the conciliatory Gadhafi regime, Washington decided on ‘regime change’, engaging in a war which ruined Libya and destroyed any viable central state. The current Syrian “proxy war” has strengthened radical Islamist warlords, destroyed Damascus’ economy and added massive refugee pressure to the already uprooted millions from wars in Iraq and Libya. US imperial wars have resulted in economic losses, regional political instability and military gains for Islamist adversaries.

Latin America has overwhelmingly rejected US efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government. The entire world– minus Israel and Washington- - rejects the blockade of Cuba. Regional integration organizations, which exclude the US, have proliferated. US trade shares have declined, as Asia is replacing the US in the Latin American market.

In Asia, China deepens and extends its economic links with all the key countries, while the US ‘pivot’ is mostly an effort at military base encirclement involving Japan, Australia and the Philippines. In other words, China is more important than the US for Asian economic expansion, while Chinese financing of US trade imbalances props up the US economy.
In Africa, US military command operations mainly promote armed conflicts and lead to greater instability. Meanwhile Asian capitalists, deeply invested in strategic African countries, are reaping the benefits of its commodity boom, expanding markets and the outflow of profits.

The exposure of the US National Security Agency’s global spy network has seriously undermined global intelligence and clandestine operations. While it may have helped privileged private corporations, the massive US investment in cyber-imperialism appears to have generated negative diplomatic and operational returns for the imperial state.
In sum, the current global overview paints a picture of severe military and diplomatic setbacks in imperial policies, substantial losses to the US Treasury and the erosion of public support. Nevertheless this perspective has serious flaws, especially with regard to other regions, relations and spheres of economic activity. The fundamental structures of empire remain intact.

NATO, the major military alliance headed by the US Pentagon, is expanding its membership and escalating its field of operations. The Baltic States, especially Estonia, are the site of huge military exercises held just minutes from the principle Russian cities. Central and Eastern Europe provide missile sites all aimed at Russia. Until very recently, the Ukraine had been moving toward membership in the European Union and a step toward NATO membership.

The US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership has expanded membership among the Andean countries, Chile, Peru and Colombia. It serves as a springboard to weaken regional trading blocs like MERCOSUR and ALBA, which exclude Washington. Meanwhile, the CIA, the State Department and their NGO conduits are engaged in an all-out economic sabotage and political destabilization campaign to weaken Venezuela’s nationalist government. US-backed bankers and capitalists have worked to sabotage the economy, provoking inflation (50%), shortages of essential items of consumption and rolling power blackouts. Their control over most of Venezuela’s mass media has allowed them to exploit popular discontent by blaming the economic dislocation on ‘government inefficiency’.

Overall, the US offensive in Latin America has focused on a military co
up in Honduras, ongoing economic sabotage in Venezuela, electoral and media campaigns in Argentina, and cyber warfare in Brazil, while developing closer ties with recently elected compliant neo-liberal regimes in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Panama, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. While Washington lost influence in Latin America during the first decade of the 21st century, it has since partially recovered its clients and partners. The relative recovery of US influence illustrates the fact that ‘regime changes’ and a decline in market shares, have not lessened the financial and corporate ties linking even the progressive countries to powerful US interests. The continued presence of powerful political allies –even those ‘out of government’ – provides a trampoline for regaining US influence. Nationalist policies and emerging regional integration projects remain vulnerable to US counter-attacks.

While the US has lost influence among some oil producing countries, it lessened its dependence on oil and gas imports as a result of a vast increase in domestic energy production via ‘fracking’ and other intense extractive technologies. Greater local self-sufficiency means lower energy costs for domestic producers and increases their competitiveness in world markets, raising the possibility that the US could regain market shares for its exports.

The seeming decline of US imperial influence in the Arab world following the popular ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings has halted and even been reversed. The military coup in Egypt and the installation and consolidation of the military dictatorship in Cairo suppressed the mass national-popular mobilizations. Egypt is back in the US-Israel orbit. In Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia the old and new rulers are clamping down on any anti-imperial protests. In Libya, the US-NATO air force destroyed the nationalist-populist Gadhafi regime, eliminating an alternative welfare model to neo-colonial pillage – but has so far failed to consolidate a neo-liberal client regime in Tripoli. Instead rival armed Islamist gangs, monarchists and ethnic thugs pillage and ravage the country. Destroying an anti-imperialist regime has not produced a pro-imperialist client.

In the Middle East, Israel continues to dispossess the Palestinians of their land and water. The US continues to escalate military maneuvers and impose more economic sanctions against Iran – weakening Teheran but also decreasing US wealth and influence due to the loss of the lucrative Iranian market. Likewise in Syria, the US and its NATO allies have destroyed Syria’s economy and shredded its complex society, but they will not be the main beneficiaries. Islamist mercenaries have gained bases of operations while Hezbollah has consolidated its position as a significant regional actor. Current negotiations with Iran open possibilities for the US to cut its losses and reduce the regional threat of a costly new war but these talks are being blocked by an ‘alliance’ of Zionist-militarist Israel, monarchist Saudi Arabia and ‘Socialist’ France.

Washington has lost economic influence in Asia to China but it is mounting a regional counter-offensive, based on its network of military bases in Japan, the Philippines and Australia. It is promoting a new Pan Pacific economic agreement that excludes China. This demonstrates the US capacity to intervene and project imperial interests. However announcing new policies and organizations is not the same as implementing and providing them with dynamic content. Washington’s military encirclement of China is off-set by the US Treasury’s multi-trillion dollar debt to Beijing. An aggressive US military encirclement of China could result in a massive Chinese sell-off of US Treasury notes and five hundred leading US multi-nationals finding their investments in jeopardy!

Power-sharing between an emerging and established global power, such as China and the US, cannot be ‘negotiated’ via US military superiority. Threats, bluster and diplomatic chicanery score mere propaganda victories but only long-term economic advances can create the domestic Trojan Horses need to erode China’s dynamic growth. Even today, the Chinese elite spend hefty sums to educate their children in “prestigious” US and British universities where free market economic doctrines and imperial-centered narratives are taught. For the past decade, leading Chinese politicians and the corporate rich have sent tens of billions of dollars in licit and illicit funds to overseas bank accounts, investing in high end real estate in North America and Europe and dispatching billions to money laundering havens. Today, there is a powerful faction of economists and elite financial advisers in China pushing for greater ‘financial liberalization’, i.e. penetration by the leading Wall Street and City of London speculative houses. While Chinese industries may be winning the competition for overseas markets, the US has gained and is gaining powerful levers over China’s financial structure.

The US share of Latin American trade may be declining, but the absolute dollar worth of trade has increased several-fold over the past decade.

The US may have lost right-wing regime clients in Latin America, but the new center-left regimes are actively collaborating with most of the major US and Canadian mining and agro-business corporations and commodity trading houses. The Pentagon has not been able to engineer military coups, with the pathetic exception of Honduras, but it still retains its close working relations with the Latin American military in the form of (1) its regional policing of ‘terrorism’, ‘narcotics’ and ‘migration’, (2) providing technical training and political indoctrination via overseas military ‘educational’ programs and (3) engaging in joint military exercises.

In sum, the structures of the US empire, corporate, financial, military and political-cultural, all remain in place and ready to regain dominance if and when political opportunities arise. For example, a sharp decline in commodity prices would likely provoke a deep crisis and intensify class conflicts among center-left regimes, which are dependent on agro-mining exports to fund their social programs. In any ensuing confrontation, the US would work with and through its agents among the economic and military elite to oust the incumbent regime and re-impose pliant neo-liberal clients. The current phase of post-neo-liberal policies and power configurations are vulnerable. The relative ‘decline of US influence and power’ can be reversed even if it is not returned to its former configuration. The theoretical point is that while imperialist structures remain in place and while their collaborator counterparts abroad retain strategic positions, the US can re-establish its primacy in the global configuration of power.

Imperial ‘roll-back’ does not require the ‘same old faces’. New political figures, especially with progressive credentials and faint overtones of a ‘social inclusionary’ ideology are already playing a major role in the new imperial-centered trade networks. In Chile, newly elected “Socialist” President Michelle Bachelet and the Peruvian ex-nationalist, President Ollanta Humala, are major proponents of Washington’s Tran-Pacific Partnership, a trading bloc which competes with the nationalist MERCOSUR and ALBA, and excludes China. In Mexico, US client President Enrique Peña Nieto is privatizing the ‘jewel’ of the Mexican economy, PEMEX, the giant public oil company – strengthening the Washington’s hold over regional energy resources and increasing US independence from Mid-East oil. Colombian President Santos, the ‘peace president’, is actively negotiating an end to guerrilla warfare in order to expand multinational exploitation of mineral and energy resources located in guerrilla-contested regions, a prospect which will primarily benefit US oil companies. In Argentina, the state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF) has signed a joint venture agreement with the oil giant, Chevron, to exploit an enormous gas and oil field, known as Vaca Muerte (Dead Cow). This will expand the US presence in Argentina in energy production alongside the major inroads made by Monsanto in the powerful agro-business sector.

No doubt Latin America has diversified its trade and the US share has relatively declined. Latin American rulers no longer eagerly seek ‘certification’ from the US Ambassador before announcing their political candidacy. The US is totally alone in its boycott of Cuba. The Organization of American States is no longer a US haven. But there are counter-tendencies, reflected in new pacts like the TPP. New sites of economic exploitation, which are not exclusively US controlled, now serve as springboards to greater imperial power.

Conclusion

The US economy is stagnant and has failed to re-gain momentum because of its pursuit of ‘serial’ imperial wars. But in the Middle East, the US decline, relative to its past, has not been accompanied by the ascent of its old rivals. Europe is in deeper crisis, with a vast army of unemployed, chronic negative growth and few signs of recovery for the visible future. Even China, the new emerging global power, is slowing down with its growth falling from over 11% to 7% in the current decade. Beijing faces growing domestic discontent. India, as well as China, are liberalizing their financial systems, opening them up to penetration and influence by US finance capital.

The main anti-imperialist forces in Asia and Africa are not composed of progressive, secular, democratic and socialist movements. Instead, the empire is confronted by religious, ethnic, misogynist and authoritarian movements with irredentist tendencies. The old secular, socialist voices have lost their bearings, and provide perverse ‘justifications’ for the imperialist wars of aggression in Libya, Mali and Syria. The French Socialists, who had opposed the Iraq war in 2003, now find their President Francoise Hollande parroting the brutal militarism of the Israeli warlord, Netanyahu.

The point is that the thesis of the ‘decline of the US empire’ and its corollary, the ‘crises of the US’ are overstated, time bound and lack specificity. In reality, there is no alternative imperial or modern anti-imperial tendency on the immediate horizon. While it is true that Western capitalism is in crisis, the recently ascending Asian capitalism of China and India face a different crisis resulting from their savage class exploitation and murderous caste relations. If objective conditions are ‘ripe for socialism’, the socialists - at least those retaining any political presence- are comfortably embedded with their respective imperial regimes. The Marxists and Socialists in Egypt joined with the military to overthrow an elected conservative Islamist regime, leading to the restoration of imperialist clientelism in Cairo. The French and English ‘Marxists’ have supported NATO’s destruction of Libya and Syria. Numerous progressives and socialists, in Europe and North America, support Israel’s warlords and/or remain silent in the face of domestic Zionist power in the executive branches and legislatures.

If imperialism is declining, so is anti-imperialism. If capitalism is in crisis, the existing anti-capitalists are in retreat. If capitalists look for new faces and ideologues to revive their fortunes, isn’t it time the anti-imperialists and anti-capitalists did likewise?

More US aggression against Cuba


The U.S. Justice Department announced November 26 that it had reached an agreement with the Swiss Weatherford International Ltd. oil services company, on a $252 million fine for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions imposed on countries such as Cuba, Iran and Sudan.
The measure falls within the framework of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), unilaterally imposed by the U.S. government.
 
This new aggression on the part of U.S. authorities confirms the evidence presented in Cuba’s latest report to the United Nations “On the need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States,” a demand recently supported by 188 UN member countries.
 
“The Cuban oil and gas industry is the target of measures designed by the U.S. government to hinder its development, access to advanced technologies, to oil products and the necessary financing for its growth. It is an attempt to paralyze the sector and obstruct modernization, technological updates, access to spare parts and participation in the process of innovation,” the report’s text states.
 
The Cuban report presented to the United Nations notes that the blockade of the country undermines the sovereignty of third countries and the rights of individual citizens and enterprises not subject to U.S. legislation.

Cuban interest section in US suspends some services

ON July 12, 2013, M&T Bank informed the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., about its decision to no longer provide banking services to foreign missions and a limited period of time was given to the Cuban Interests Section and the Cuban Permanent Mission to the United Nations to close all accounts and find a new bank to do business with.

Due to the restrictions still in force, derived from the U.S. policy of economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, and despite the numerous efforts made with the Department of State and several banks, it has been impossible for the Cuban Interests Section to find a U.S. or international bank with branches in the U.S. to operate the bank accounts of the Cuban diplomatic missions.
                            
This situation will seriously affect the normal performance of the functions of the Cuban Interests Section and the Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
 
Due to this circumstance of force majeure, the Cuban Interests Section is forced to interrupt consular services, starting from November 26, 2013, until further notice. Consular services will only be provided for humanitarian cases and other of specific nature.
 
The Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., has reiterated to the U.S. Department of State the legal duty of the U.S. Government to meet the commitments undertaken under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961, and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of April 24, 1963, which stipulate that the receiving State shall accord full facilities for the performance of the functions of the diplomatic missions and consular offices. Likewise, the U.S. government is legally bound to comply with the agreement signed on May 30, 1977, which established the interests sections in both countries, as part as the reaffirmation of the commitment with the letter of International Treaties governing the diplomatic and consular relations. 
                           
The Cuban Interests Section particularly regrets the effects this may have on Cuban and U.S. citizens, due to our Consular Section’s impossibility to continue offering the services related to passport and visa issuance, authentication of documents and other services, with the negative impact on family visits, academic, cultural, educational, scientific, sports and other kind of exchange between Cuba and the United States.
 
Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C.
November 26, 2013

New Allende Mural in Belfast

This is the great new mural in Belfast being launched today in tribute to Allende

Thursday, November 14, 2013

The emperor has no clothes

Communist Party of Ireland Statement
The Communist Party of Ireland today warned Irish workers not to fall for the latest ruse by the bankrupt political establishment with its announcement that this failed state will leave the “bail-out programme”—which is in fact a restructuring programme—by 15 December with or without a “precautionary credit line.”
 
This will not mean an end to any of the current or planned cuts in health, education, or social welfare, nor end the drive for privatisation. Nor will it prevent the need for continuous cuts in the future. The servicing of the debt is costing the Irish people nearly €9 billion per year—similar to the annual education budget. Austerity will be a permanent feature of the lives of working families far into the future.
 
Debt has become the principal political means for strengthening external mechanisms of control by the EU Commission – dominated by Germany - not just of this state but all member states and in particular over the other heavily indebted peripheral states. The capacity of the peoples across the European Union to democratically affect political and economic changes is being rapidly diminished. Democracy is being hollowed out.
 
It is simply not in the interests of the Irish political and economic establishment to assert independent actions, their interest lies in ensuring that the current process continues and deepens.
 
Ireland continues to be at the mercy of "the markets" - those who control the markets are those who control the troika.
 
Debt is also being used to push through the long-term strategic imperative of economic restructuring that is intended to restore lost inequalities and to impose new ones, not only in Ireland.
 
The announcement today has more to do with appearances than with reality. Just as we were the poster boy for economic development during the “Celtic Tiger” period, we are now being touted as the poster boy of good behaviour for accepting austerity without a whimper.
 
The European Union has to show to the people of Greece, Spain, Portugal and other EU member-states that if they take the austerity medicine without resistance, it works. 
 
The system itself is in a deep and deepening structural crisis with debt and stagnation just the latest manifestations.
 
The emperor has no clothes. 

Press Release from PCP


15th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties - PCP Press Release and Common Action 



The 15th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties was held in Lisbon, on November 8-10, under the motto “The deepening of the crisis of capitalism, the role of the working class and the communists’ tasks in the struggle for the workers and peoples’ rights. Imperialism’s offensive, the realignment of forces at the international level, the national question, class emancipation and the struggle for socialism”.

In the Meeting, 77 parties, from 61 countries participated and greetings were received from an additional 14 parties which, for various reasons, were not able to participate. The Meeting analysed, among other main aspects, the development of the international situation in the context of the deepening of the structural crisis of capitalism and of a complex process of realignment of forces at the international level, alerting to the great dangers deriving from imperialism’s offensive.

At the same time, the participants saluted and valued the resistance and struggle of the workers and peoples, reaffirming the real potential that the current situation holds for the development of the liberating struggle, for profound changes in the anti-monopolist and anti-imperialist direction, for Socialism.

The Meeting noted the deepening of the crisis that exploded in 2008 with the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. A crisis that is far from over, belying the ruling class discourse on an alleged “recovery” and confirming the analyses of the communists about its nature and evolution which, among other aspects, confirms it as a crisis of over-production and over-accumulation of capital. A crisis that expresses the sharpening of capitalism’s contradictions – in particular its fundamental contradiction between the social character of production and its private appropriation – highlighting the historical limits of the system and the timeliness of the struggle for the fundamental alternative to capitalism – Socialism.

It denounced the aim of big capital, of the major imperialist powers and their international and supranational structures of imperialist concertation – such as the European Union – to impose on the workers and peoples a social regression of a civilizational dimension assaulting economic, labour and social rights, violently attacking the living conditions of the working and popular masses and declaring war on the sovereignty and independence of States.

It referenced in particular the harsh reality of the peoples and the impact of the crisis and of the capitalist offensive on developing countries, where the peoples find their right to economic and social development even more curtailed. In this framework, attention was drawn to the impact of capitalism’s crisis on agriculture and food, jeopardising still more the food sovereignty of numerous countries and dooming great masses of the world population to starvation and malnutrition.

It highlighted the dangers that arise from the intensification of the militarist, warmongering and interference policy of the major imperialist powers and NATO. It stressed that the wars of aggression, the processes of interference and instigation of internal conflicts, the strengthening of repressive, authoritarian, control and espionage measures are part of the force-based response by big capital to capitalism’s crisis, having as its central aims to maintain the control of the resources and sources of energy and contain the revolt, the struggle of the peoples and the inevitable social and revolutionary explosions that the current situation entails.

Participants expressed their solidarity with the ongoing struggles in all continents against the aggressive imperialist offensive, for social progress, independence and sovereignty, peace, the right to social and economic development, for the construction of alternatives of sovereignty and progress to imperialism’s hegemonic domination, the real fundamental alternative to capitalist barbarity - socialism. It reaffirmed the central role of the working class and its alliance with other anti-monopolist strata in defence of their rights, namely the right to employment, for labour and social rights, in defence of the social functions of States.

Participants valued and expressed their solidarity with all the peoples who resist imperialism’s policies of interference and aggression – especially to the peoples of the Middle East, saluting the ongoing struggles in that region against all forms of aggression and oppression, for sovereignty, democracy, social justice and national unity, as in Egypt and Tunisia. It reaffirmed its solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for national rights, as well as with other peoples in the region who are victims of aggressions and interferences, such as the Syrian people.

In a framework of continuing resistance and gathering of forces, but where the potential for the development of a revolutionary struggle grows, important factors emerge in various regions of the world to contain imperialism’s hegemonic domination. Participants saluted and valued the struggle of the peoples, of the communists and other progressive forces in Latin America, considering that the processes of struggle, progressive and of sovereign affirmation in this region, as well as the cooperation based on solidarity that is emerging in the region, constitute an important factor and stimulus for the development and strengthening of the anti-imperialist struggle. The participants reasserted their solidarity with Cuba and its socialist revolution, as well as with the Venezuelan people and their Bolivarian revolution, among others.

It stressed the importance of the struggle in defence of democratic freedoms, against the advance of the far right, against xenophobia and racism, against religious fanaticism and obscurantism, against anti-communism. It reaffirmed solidarity with other communist parties and all revolutionary forces that are the target of political persecution and anti-communist campaigns – namely in the European continent, which is carried out by several governments as well as by institutions like the European Union.

Concrete experiences of struggle in different countries and regions were present in most interventions, confirming that the workers and peoples do not conform and that, even in the current difficult conditions, liberating advances and achievements of an anti-monopolist and anti-capitalist nature are possible.

It was affirmed that socialism increasingly emerges as the real fundamental alternative to capitalism and its crisis. Drawing lessons from the delays, mistakes and distortions that countered basic principles of socialism, but valuing as highly positive the experiences of building socialism and what they meant and mean for Humanity, highlighting the achievements of the new social system, recognising that there are no models of revolution, the participants stressed the determining role of the masses in the construction and management of socialist societies.

It was stressed that the current international situation makes it particularly necessary to strengthen the cooperation among all progressive and anti-imperialist forces and, firstly, among communist and workers’ parties from all over the world, one of the most solid guarantees for the strengthening of the peoples’ struggle and the construction of the alternative of socialism. In this sense, the rich experience and advances made with the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties was highlighted, as a space for exchange of information, experiences and opinions, of possible convergence of positions and decisions on common and converging initiatives, reaffirming the importance of ensuring their continuity.

The Meeting adopted various lines and initiatives of common or converging action by Communist and Workers’ Parties to be materialised until the 16th IMCWP (which can be found at the end of this press release), having mandated the Working Group to stimulate and monitor their implementation and materialisation.

The International Meeting welcomed the existence of three proposals for the venue of the 16th Meeting. Its date, place and motto will be decided during the meeting of the Working Group of the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties to be held in due time.

Lisbon, November 10, 2013

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15th international Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties Lisbon, 8-10 November 2013 Guidelines for common or convergent action

The participant parties of the 15th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties define the following guidelines for their common and convergent action and mandate the Working Group to try to implement these guidelines in coordination with other Parties of the Solidnet List.

1 – Commemorate, during the year 2014, the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, and the 75th anniversary of the beginning of World War II through a joint campaign alerting to the dangers of new international military clashes, alerting to the need to enhance the struggle for peace and against imperialist aggressiveness and wars and highlighting that the struggle for peace is intimately linked with the struggle for socialism. (In this sense the German CP, the New CP of Netherlands, the Workers' Party of Belgium and the CP of Luxembourg informed about the preparation of an action in the German boarder town Aechen, on 15th February).

2 – Mark the 15 Years from the beginning of criminal imperialistic NATO aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a new phase in the development of military imperialistic strategy and the beginning of the occupation of Kosovo and Metohija, southern serbian province.

3 – To stimulate, in coordination with the parties from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribe, the organization of an international seminar on the capitalist crisis's impact in the developing countries, focusing especially on issues such as the right to economic and social development and protection of natural resources, as well on issues of agriculture, land tenure, and food security. Highlight the role of monopolies in the destruction of the global environment, asserting an anti-monopolist and anti-capitalist viewpoint on the growing environmental crisis.

4 – Organize an international campaign in solidarity with the ongoing processes and struggles in Latin America and Caribe, and in particular with Socialist Cuba - against the USA blockade, the common EU position, and for the return of the four Cuban patriots still held in US prisons - with Bolivarian Venezuela and with the Colombian people's struggle for peace with social justice.

5 – Examine the possibility of - taking advantage of international events where a large number of Parties are present – organizing a working meeting to debate the ideological offensive and the mass media's role, as well as to exchange experiences on mass communication work.

6 – To celebrate the International Woman’s Day (8 March 2014) highlighting the effect of the crisis and of the imperialist multifaceted offensive on working women and national oppressed women, expressing solidarity with their struggle and their anti-imperialist movement.

7 – Honor 1 May (May Day) with participation in the struggles in each country for the defence of workers and peoples economic and social rights, for the right to work and for labour rights, highlighting the importance of the class struggle, for the abolition of exploitation of man by man. Consider the possibility of announcing on this date a day of action, with initiatives in each country, against unemployment and its real roots, giving particular importance to the mass unemployment among youth. Defend the trade union rights, denounce the political persecution and demand the liberation of the detained trade unionists.

8 – Examine the possibility of convergent actions on the combat against racism, xenophobia, against fascism, stressing the importance of the ideological struggle against anti-communism and the rewriting of History, denouncing the EU in what concerns its institutional campaigns and measures aiming to equate communism with fascism.

9 – To determine a day of action, with expressions in each country, against the persecution of the communist parties and the ban of communist symbols, affirming solidarity with the communist parties banned in their countries.

10 – Commemorate the 95th Anniversary of the Creation of the Communist International (March 1919) underlining, on the occasion of 90 years of Lenin's death, his central contribution to the international communist movement.

11 – To stimulate, in coordination with the Parties from the Arab countries and Middle East, the organization of an international seminar about the social and national emancipation struggles of the peoples of Arab countries and the Middle East, expressing the solidarity with all the peoples of the region that are victims of the imperialist and Zionist crimes and aggressions, among others the Palestinian and Syrian people, and also with the people's that rise up against repressive, dictatorial and reactionary regimes, in defense of their social, political and democratic rights.

12 – To continue to denounce the imperialist intervention against Syria and Iran, and to continue the struggle for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

13 – To promote 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.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Speech by the KKE in Lisbon



Dear comrades,

We thank the Portuguese Communist Party for the hospitality and we salute the representatives of the CPs, which participate in the 15th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties.

The KKE honours the communist Alvaro Cunhal, General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party, an illustrious figure of the communist movement, on the occasion of the 100 year anniversary of his birth this year.

Alvaro Cunhal devoted his life to the struggle for the interests of the working class, for the cause of socialism, was a strong supporter of the principle of proletarian internationalism.

The struggles of this generation of communists inspire us to continue our struggle more decisively in order to implement the tasks that we have ahead of us, to overthrow the outdated capitalist system.

Dear comrades,

The developments we are witnessing confirm the assessment that capitalism is becoming continually more reactionary and dangerous, it gives rise to crises and wars. It condemns millions of workers to unemployment, poverty, it can not satisfy the expanded needs of the people.

This situation manifests itself all over the globe and the communist movement is obliged to make the greatest possible effort for its own independent ideological, political and mass struggle, to acquire a unified revolutionary strategy.

 

We assess that it is precisely this issue that must take its due position in all the discussions of the CPs in combination with the coordinated activity on the people’s problems in conflict with capital’s forces.

 

The communist movement must answer this crucial question, with what strategy will it be able to stand on solid ground and express as effectively as possible the interests of the working class, the popular strata in a line of conflict with capitalist barbarity. Treating socialism not as a goal for the distant future, but as an issue of the daily activity as its timeliness is highlighted by the torments of the peoples.

From this standpoint, we would like to focus our attention on issues where different opinions, disagreements are expressed in the communist movement, taking into account that the position which argues that we can proceed “on the basis of what we agree on” leads to complacency, does not allow a deeper examination of the weaknesses and the taking of measures in order to deal with matters of strategic importance, which are necessary for the regroupment of the communist parties, so that they can fulfill their role as the vanguard of the working class.

First, the problem of the crisis also concerned us in previous international meetings, but unfortunately we observe that there remain approaches that talk of a “crisis of neo-liberalism”, a “financial crisis”. These approaches are limited to incriminating a form of capitalism’s management, exonerating the social-democratic, neo-Keynesian management, the capitalist system itself. These positions absolutize the role of banking capital, underestimating the role of other sections of capital, bypassing the reality of the merging of industrial and banking capital, the role of finance capital that is a characteristic trait of capitalism in its highest imperialist stage today.

The problem is deeper and is related to the laws of the system’s operation. The crisis manifests itself periodically in the capitalist states, irrespective of the form of bourgeois management.

 

The peoples are facing a capitalist crisis of over-production and capital over-accumulation, the preconditions of which were created in the conditions of the growth of the capitalist economy.

 

The capitalist crisis which stops the expanded reproduction of social capital has its basis in the basic contradiction of the system, in the social character of production and in the capitalist appropriation of its results due to the capitalist ownership of the means of production. It is precisely this that is the source of surplus value and exploitation, the source of the anarchic and uneven development that characterizes the system.

The strengthening of the monopolies, the internationalization of the capitalist economy sharpen the anarchic development, sharpen the contradictions with greater intensity and lead to deeper crises, to a tougher competition amongst the major business groups and the capitalist states, and bring imperialist wars closer.

Problems emerged during the crisis which are related to the struggle of the CPs and the labour and people’s movement and allow us to provide some examples.

The bourgeois governments, liberal, social-democratic, and with the participation of the governmental left, imposed harsh anti-people measures in Greece. Memoranda and loan agreements with the EU, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund were signed, but the attack on the working class and people’s rights is not exclusively related to the memoranda, as the European Left Party and other opportunist forces claim in order to support the “anti-memorandum line” and to exonerate the more general strategy of capital.

The truth is that the measures that were imposed are included in the strategy of the European Union, in the strategy of the monopolies, using the capitalist restructurings since the beginning of the 1990s. This strategy seeks the reduction of the price of labour power, the strengthening of the competitiveness of the European monopolies against their competitors, especially against the major business groups of the emerging capitalist powers of China, India, Brazil where the levels of the price of labour power are very low .

In this framework, the anti-people measures are not only implemented in states that have signed a memorandum but also in many other capitalist states in Europe and all over the world.

The confrontation over the forms of management of the capitalist economy is intensifying during the crisis.

Two blocs of economic and political forces have been formed in Greece. The one with as its core the ND-PASOK government together with the EU which is in favour of the harsh fiscal policy and the other with SYRIZA, the International Monetary Fund and the USA, which support a more relaxed fiscal policy with the aim of strengthening the state-funding of the monopolies. These management proposals respond to the needs of specific sections of capital and are a part of the more general inter-imperialist competition.

In conclusion, we can say that each form of bourgeois management serves the profitability of the monopolies through the imposition of the anti-people measures, the intensification of the exploitation of the working class, the deterioration of the situation for the popular strata.

 

On the basis of the different forms of bourgeois management of the system, (liberal or Keynesian), the reformation of the political scene is being promoted in Greece so that the bourgeois class can control the developments, impede the class struggle, insert every kind of barrier in the face of the struggle of the KKE and the class-oriented movement. The reformation is expressed through the creation of a centre-right pole with the liberal ND party as its axis and the centre-left pole with SYRIZA as its axis.

Our party wants to inform the CPs that the ELP and other opportunist forces are attempting in a planned way to distort the reality and present SYRIZA as a pro-people force, which is fighting for the interests of the workers against capital. The truth is that SYRIZA as an opportunist formation which developed into a pillar of social-democratic management is supported by sections of the bourgeois class, it is a defender of capitalism and the European Union. It is a party that extolled the political line of Obama as progressive and fostered the myth that a new wind would blow for the workers in Europe with the election of Hollande.

A feature of the reformation of the bourgeois political system in Greece is also the criminal fascist organization of Golden Dawn.

Golden Dawn is the creation of capitalism, it is supported by the bourgeois state and its mechanisms. It developed with the toleration of the bourgeois parties in order to operate as capital’s force of repression to strike against the labour and people’s movement, against the communists.

Our party argues that the isolation and crushing of Golden Dawn is a matter for the organized struggle of the working class, the people’s alliance. This struggle can not be carried out through the so-called anti-fascist fronts which bourgeois and opportunist forces propose, but through the struggle that has as its goals the abolition of the causes which give rise to fascism, the overthrow of capitalist exploitation, the conflict with the EU which has anti-communism as its official ideology and promotes the anti-historical equation of fascism with communism.

Second, reality demonstrates that in conditions of capitalist crisis the inter-imperialist contradictions are sharpening, as well as the competition for the acquisition of new areas to invest accumulated capital, for the control of natural resources. On this terrain, the causes of military conflicts and multifaceted interventions are being formed. This is something that we are experiencing in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea, in many regions of the globe.

The KKE is opposed to the imperialist wars, is fighting against Greece’s involvement and has clarified that in any case, whatever form Greece’s participation in an imperialist war takes, the KKE must be ready to lead the independent organization of the workers’-people’s resistance, so that this struggle is linked to the struggle for the defeat of the bourgeois class, both of the domestic bourgeois class and the foreign one as an invader.

The KKE must take the initiative, in line with the specific conditions, for the formation of the workers’ and people’s front with as its slogan: “the people will bring the liberation and the way-out from the capitalist system, which as long as it prevails brings war and “peace” with the gun to the people’s head.”

This position is of particular importance for the international communist movement and protects the peoples from being entrapped by the one or the other section of the bourgeois class, by the one or the other imperialist alliance. This is even more important as in recent years there is an attempt for the view about a so-called “multi-polar world” to be adopted and for false dilemmas to be posed which aim at manipulating the peoples and entangling them in the inter-imperialist competition.

Third, the stance of the communists and the peoples against the imperialist system and the imperialist union is of great importance.

When he spoke about imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, Lenin was speaking first of all about the economic basis of the system, the dominance of the monopolies. In his work “Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism”, he mentioned that:

“Unless the economic roots of this phenomenon are understood and its political and social significance is appreciated, not a step can be taken toward the solution of the practical problem of the communist movement”

This position is of great importance for our analysis.

The European Union is not dangerous only due to its course of “unification” (integration) but also due to the fact that it is an inter-state, imperialist union of the monopolies. Both the European Union, as well as the other unions that emerged in Asia or in Latin America and also the BRICS have a specific economic base, they are supported on the cooperation and merging of the strength of the major business monopoly groups and despite the contradictions that manifest themselves in their ranks their basic criterion is their own interests, the control of the markets and consequently they are against the peoples and their rights.

Imperialism is not merely an aggressive foreign policy, it is capitalism in its final, highest stage, it is a system in which the capitalist states are assimilated and they take their position in line with their economic, military and political strength.

In these conditions it is very important to deal with the issues of “dependency” and “sovereignty” on a class basis. The issue must begin to be discussed, we must concern ourselves because it has very serious political consequences, the mistaken treatment of this leads to the support for management solutions and to an alliance policy with sections of the bourgeois class, with political forces that are defenders of the exploitative system.

The 19th congress of the KKE assessed that in the framework of uneven development “Capitalism in Greece is in the imperialist stage of its development, in an intermediate position in the international imperialist system, with strong uneven dependencies on the USA and the EU.”

That is to say, the basic issue is the uneven development of capitalism which forms relations of uneven dependency and interdependency and for this reason positions that present Greece as well as other states with a lower position in the imperialist pyramid as being occupied, as being colonies have no basis.

Of course, as long as the bourgeois class has the reins of power it builds international relations according to its class interest and on this basis it cedes sovereign rights. The concepts of “independence”, “sovereignty” are concepts with a class content and they must be dealt with in a direction which stresses that the working class with its own power can become the master in its own country, choose the path of development that corresponds to its own interests and build the respective international relations with disengagement from the EU, NATO and the other imperialist unions.

In addition we want to note that the colonies as an element of the historical course of capitalism have disappeared. This is the undeniable reality. Colonialism was overthrown through the struggle of the peoples and the major contribution of socialism. This page has been turned and unfortunately today positions are reviving which present the uneven relations of capitalist states inside the imperialist system as a phenomenon of neocolonialism. Countries with developed monopoly capitalism, with a strong bourgeois class and bourgeois state are characterized as new colonies, an intermediate stage is being adopted as a form of bourgeois management for the resolution of these problems.

Fourth, the character of our era is a fundamental issue for the elaboration of the revolutionary strategy. The objective facts prove that, irrespective of the counterrevolutionary overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, our era continues to be an era of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Why? Because capitalism has decayed; because it is plagued by insurmountable contradictions; because it has exhausted its historical limits. The emergence and the development of monopolies, of the big joint-stock companies, the emergence and development of the working class, the entrance of capitalism into its higher imperialist stage underline that the material preconditions have matured which allow for the construction of the new socialist-communist society. This is a defining element of the Marxist-Leninist analysis of the developments as it shows the direction of the struggle of the communist parties that have the obligation to prepare themselves in a multifaceted way so as to meet the needs of the struggle for socialism-communism; so as to contribute to the maturation of the subjective factor, to the preparation of the working class as the vanguard class in the capitalist society, in order for it to play the leading role in the alliance with the popular strata and to struggle for the power.

The formation of the political class consciousness cannot be carried out with the old tools for managing the system. Political positions that trap the working class into the bourgeois management with the form of intermediate stages between capitalism and socialism, political positions that support the participation in the one or the other government of bourgeois management which is labeled either as “left” or “progressive” have no place in the era of transition from capitalism to socialism.

The power will be either in the hands of the bourgeois class i.e. the capitalists or in the hands of the working class. The means of production will be either under capitalist or social ownership. Regardless of their intentions, the solutions within the framework of the system not only do not constitute a form of approaching the socialist solution but on the contrary they favour the perpetuation of capitalism, they buy time for it, they foster illusions among the working people.

Our party does not at all diminish the importance of historical experience; it takes seriously into consideration the complex character of the political and social processes.

It studies the developments in Chile but also in Portugal in the 1970s, it studies the recent experience in Cyprus and the developments in Latin America.

On the basis of this study we can make the case and on the basis of the results that no management solution has been confirmed as a way for the transition to socialism and it could not have been otherwise. Because this path perpetuates the contradiction between capital and labour, can not prevent the capitalist crises, unemployment, exploitation because it maintains the causes that breed them, because capitalist profit continues to be the criterion of development.

The choice of the intermediate stages violates a commonly accepted position, the position that between capitalism and socialism-communism there is no intermediate socio-economic system, no intermediate political power.

Of course the communists struggle inside the bourgeois parliaments for the promotion and the defense of the people’s rights combining and giving priority to the extra-parliamentary activity but this has no relation with the adoption of parliamentary views that sow confusion that a pro-people solution can emerge through the bourgeois institutions.

The parliamentary path which historically has been extolled by the opportunist forces is one of the most significant factors that lead to the assimilation of strong Communist Parties, to the reduction of the demands of the working people.

History teaches.

The rationale of reforms and the rejection of the revolutionary path, the rejection of the socialist revolution, constitute a painful retreat and negation of the most basic element that characterizes a Communist Party.

The class struggle has its own laws which are founded on the contradiction between capital and labour which has a universal character and concerns the capitalist states as a whole. The class struggle is not restricted to the development of struggles in order to determine the conditions for the sale of labour power. But it is determined by the issue of the abolition of the capitalist exploitation, of the struggle for the conquest of power.

The Communist Party in each country has the obligation to study the specific situation, the development of capitalism, the course of the sectors and the branches of economy, the changes in the superstructure, the class and social structure in order to chart a revolutionary strategy. However, this is totally different from the positions which in the name of national particularities negate the revolutionary strategy and replace the struggle for socialism by governmental solutions and a policy for alliances which correspond to the bourgeois management.

The treatment of socialism merely as a declaration is causing great damage. It downgrades the strategic goal itself, the goal that determines the tactics, the stance of the Communist Parties as a whole, their work in the labour and people’s movement, their policy for alliances.

In their programmatic declarations “Eurocommunism” and the other opportunist currents referred to socialism but their political line negated the revolutionary path. In the name of national peculiarities they fought against the laws of the socialist revolution and construction. In the works of Carrillo and Berlinguer the term socialism appears deprived of its essence: without the working class power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, without the socialization of the means of production and central planning. They were talking about transformation, the democratization of the bourgeois state, of the dictatorship of the monopolies, they were fostering illusions about pro-people solutions through the parliamentary path, through the bourgeois government, the alliance with social democracy.

Today, opportunist platforms have emerged which are equally dangerous as “Eurocommunism”, such as “market socialism”, “socialism of the 21st century”, which oppose scientific socialism. There is talk of a “social economy”, the utopia of a humanized capitalism is sought. In several cases there is an attempt to reduce, to negate the crucial importance of the class struggle at a national level in the name of “globalization”.

In any case, the front against opportunism is an element of the confrontation with the capitalism system, with imperialism and any tolerance or retreat has a corrosive effect at the expense of the communist movement and its prospect.

The so called European Left Party which is forming networks all over the world with the funds of the EU is causing great damage to the communist movement; it is a vehicle that promotes the strategy of the EU in the labour movement, it is inextricably linked with social democracy and it must be dealt with in a strict ideological-political way.

Its core consists of forces which celebrated the overthrow of socialism, forces which in the framework of anticommunism identify themselves with various bourgeois and other reactionary forces in the name of “anti-Stalinism”.

As a conclusion we can say that the class content and consequently the contemporary content of the ideological-political and mass struggle today is determined by the rupture, the conflict against the monopolies and the capitalist system, against the imperialist organizations. It is determined by the organization of the working class in the workplaces, by the formation of the alliance with the popular strata, the multi-faceted preparation for the overthrow of capitalism, for the socialist-communist society, for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.

Our duty is to reflect on the fact that Marx and Engels in their era, which was an era of bourgeois revolutions, spoke about the independent ideological-political struggle of the working class. Our duty is to take into account how deeply they studied the experience of the Paris Commune in 1871 and that they spoke of the necessity of the working class power, of the smashing of the bourgeois state.

We have the duty to reflect on the experience of the great October Revolution in 1917 and to contribute to the adjustment of the programmatic directions of the Communist Parties, of their strategy to the requirements of our era.

“Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat” stressed Lenin.

A revolutionary situation was formed after the First World War in Germany, in Hungary, in Slovakia, in Italy. A revolutionary situation was formed in Greece in 1944 but the possibility was not transformed into a reality.

The crucial factor in order to wage decisively the battle is the prompt preparation of the communist parties and the working class for tough class confrontations that correspond to the needs of our era.

The bourgeois democratic character of the revolution corresponded to the period of the overthrow of feudalism, when the bourgeois class was a revolutionary class. Now capitalism has replaced feudalism, the basic contradiction between capital and labour is sharpening.

The programme of the KKE, which was approved unanimously by the recent 19th Congress, makes the following reference: “The Greek people will be liberated from the bonds of capitalist exploitation and the imperialist unions when the working class together with its allies carries out the socialist revolution and moves forwards to construct socialism-communism. The KKE's strategic goal is the conquest of revolutionary working-class power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the socialist construction as the immature phase of the communist society.

The revolutionary change in Greece will be socialist.”

The motor forces of the socialist revolution will be the working class as the leading force, the semi-proletarians, the oppressed popular strata of the urban self-employed, the poor farmers, who are negatively affected by the monopolies.

The programme of the KKE analyses the issue of the objective factors that may lead to a revolutionary situation (those below who no longer wish to live as they used to and those above who cannot govern as they used to). It gives a particular emphasis to the deepening of the capitalist crisis and the involvement of Greece in an imperialist war, it paves the way for the preparation of the party, and the labour and people’s movement.

The KKE and PAME play a leading role in the class struggle and have a significant contribution to the development of dozens of strike mobilisations and other multifaceted struggles. Nevertheless, we note that the labour and people’s movement was not well prepared and organised so as to deal with the aggressiveness of capital in the conditions of the capitalist crisis. The negative correlation of forces, the impact of the employer and government-led trade unionism, the role of opportunism, social democracy, the labour aristocracy, which support the strategy of capital, are crucial factors.

Today in conditions of non-revolutionary situation our party gives priority to:

The regroupment of the labour movement so that it becomes capable of meeting the needs of the class struggle, so that the working class fulfils its role as the vanguard class in society, as a vehicle of the revolutionary change.

The regroupment of the labour movement means strong, mass trade unions that will struggle in a class direction, based on the workers, on the young working people, the women, the immigrants, through collective procedures that safeguard the participation in decision-making and the implementation of the decisions. Strengthening of PAME, of the class-oriented rally in the labour movement, the change of the correlation of forces at the expense of the forces of reformism, opportunism, employer and government-led trade unionism, the vehicles of social partnership.

Strong party organizations in the factories, in enterprises of strategic importance.

The labour movement is struggling in a militant and organized way concerning all the problems of the working class based on the criterion of the contemporary needs, achieving the orientation of confrontation against the forces of capital for the overthrow of the capitalist exploitation as well as a high level of class unity.

The working class with its vanguard stance must play the leading role in the construction of the people’s alliance that provides an answer to the question regarding the organization of the struggle to repel the barbaric anti-labour- anti-people measures, to organize the people’s counterattack.

The People’s Alliance expresses the interests of the working class, the semi-proletarians, the self employed and the poor farmers, the young people and the women of the poor popular strata in the struggle against the monopolies and capitalist ownership, against the assimilation of the country into the imperialist unions. The People’s Alliance is a social alliance and struggles in terms of the movement, following a line of rupture and overthrow.

Today it is being formed on the basis of the common struggle of PAME, the class-oriented rally in the labour movement, of PASY among the poor farmers, PASEVE among the self-employed, MAS among students, OGE among women.

It struggles for salaries, pensions, for an exclusively public and free system for healthcare, welfare, education, for all the problems of the workers and the people.

It supports the view that the struggle for a pro-people way out from the crisis is inextricably linked with the struggle for the disengagement from the EU, the unilateral cancellation of the public debt.

The struggle for the disengagement from the EU is linked with the struggle against the power of the monopolies and the struggle of the working class and its allies, for working class- people’s power.

The People’s Alliance adopts the socialization of the concentrated means of production, the central planning, the workers’-social control.

The rallying of the majority of the working class with the KKE and the winning over of vanguard sections of the popular strata will go through various phases. The labour movement, the movement of the self-employed in the cities and the farmers and the form of their alliance, the people’s alliance, with the anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist goals, with the vanguard activity of the KKE’s forces in non-revolutionary conditions, constitute the first form for the creation of the revolutionary workers’ and people’s front in revolutionary conditions.

In the conditions of the revolutionary situation, the revolutionary workers’ and people’s front, using all forms of activity, can become the centre of the people’s uprising for the overthrow of the dictatorship of the bourgeois class, for the prevalence of revolutionary institutions that undertake the new organization of society, the establishment of revolutionary working class power which will be based on the productive unit, the social services, the administrative units, the producer cooperatives.

Under the responsibility of the workers’ power:

The means of production will be socialized: in industry, energy-water supply, telecommunications, construction, repair, public transport, wholesale and retail trade, import-export trade, the concentrated tourist – restaurant infrastructures.

Land will be socialized as well as the capitalist agricultural cultivations.

Private ownership and economic activity in education, health-welfare, culture, sports and mass media will be abolished. They will be organized exclusively as social services.

State productive units will be created for the production and the processing of agricultural products.

Agricultural producer cooperatives will be promoted.

Central Planning integrates the labour force, means of production, raw materials and other industrial materials and resources, which will be used in the organization of production, social and administrative services. This is a communist relation of production and distribution that links the working people with the means of the production, the socialist organizations.

The overthrow of socialism is a heavy blow for the communist movement and the causes of the overthrow teach the essential compliance with the laws of the socialist construction, the observance of the revolutionary principles for the construction and the functioning of the Communist Parties, the ideological-political alertness for the prevention of opportunist mistakes and deviations. This is a duty of high importance. Nevertheless, the counterrevolution cannot overshadow the irreplaceable historical contribution of socialism which was constructed in the 20th century to social progress. The stance of each communist party is judged in relation to the defense of socialism against the slanderous attacks of bourgeois and opportunist forces.

Dear comrades,

The KKE, which undertook the responsibility for the organization of the International Meetings after the counterrevolution, will continue the effort for the joint action and the formation of a unified revolutionary strategy of the communist movement, despite the difficulties.

It will continue to contribute to the International Meetings of the Communist Parties insisting on the preservation of their communist character confronting views or plans that support the transformation of the meetings into a space of the “left”.

Our party is decisively opposed to the transformation of the Working Group into a “guiding center”, directly or indirectly, and rejects the adoption of positions that violate tested communist principles, introducing positions that lead to the support of the bourgeois management.

The KKE devotes its forces, as it has always done, for the coordination of the struggle of the Communist Parties in Europe and considers that the INITIATIVE of communist and workers’ parties to research and study European issues is a great achievement for the strengthening of the struggle against the imperialist EU.

In the conditions of the crisis of the communist movement our party supports the idea of the creation of a discrete Marxist-Leninist pole and supports the effort of the “International Communist Review” in which 11 theoretical journals of communist parties take part.

8-9 November 2013