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p Comrades,

p First of all the French Communist Party expresses its profound satisfaction at the convocation of this International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties.

p The need for this Meeting has been on the order of the day in our movement for some time. Since the last Meeting in 1960, important changes have taken place in the world, and new problems have arisen before the Communist Parties, the vanguard in the people’s struggle for peace, national independence and socialism. It was necessary to make a collective analysis of these changes and these problems in order to determine together the main aims of the peoples’ struggle against imperialism. It was also necessary to make a joint study of the means of consolidating the unity of our movement in the anti-imperialist struggle. The tasks and conditions of our epoch make this imperative.

p Consequently, a great responsibility falls on our Meeting.

We are sure that the spirit of co-operation on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and the methods of collective work, which have already made it possible to prepare the Meeting in the best conditions, should enable us to make the Meeting a success and then go on with our work of consolidating the unity of the world communist movement.

p Comrades,

p The delegation of the French Communist Party approves of the draft documents worked out by the Preparatory Committee, including the improvements made by the Committee at its last session.

p It believes, in particular, that the draft Main Document on the tasks of the struggle against imperialism at the present stage and on unity of action of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, of all the anti-imperialist forces, is an important document capable of commanding the support of Communists throughout the world, enhancing the effectiveness of their struggle and closing the ranks of the communist movement.

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p We should like to dwell on some of the main aspects of this draft, with which we are in full agreement.

p It is quite true that the platform of our common struggle against imperialism which we are to adopt rests, on the one hand, on an analysis of imperialism at its present stage, of its policy and strategy, and on the other, on an analysis of the forces which are opposing it and which constitute the great world-wide revolutionary movement of our epoch.

p Indeed, it is a characteristic of Marxist-Leninist Parties that they never invent their fighting slogans, nor do they work them out in a subjective and arbitrary manner. They put them forward on the basis of existing reality, taking account of the specific features of the existing situation, with the possibilities it opens up, with the balance of forces it reflects.

p It is this scientific analysis that makes the work of the Communist Parties eifective, enabling them to define goals which really meet the people’s interests and the exigencies and possibilities of our time.

p This analysis is necessary because that is the basis on which our Parties lead the masses to the conviction that they need to take action themselves in order to exert an influence on the balance of class forces. It is the basis on which our Parties show where and how this action by the peoples should take place.

p In this respect, our Party shares the assessments formulated in the draft Main Document.

p Imperialism as a world system has definitely weakened in the past ten years as compared with the socialist system, as compared with the forces of peace, independence and progress. This relative weakening is tangible both in the economic and the military spheres.

p The continuing disintegration of the colonial system and the growing activity of the peoples fighting for genuine political and economic independence have dealt a heavy blow at one of the main pillars of imperialism.

p The weakening of imperialism is also seen in the growth of inter-imperialist contradictions. Thus, for instance, the French monopolies and their state power have not hesitated in the recent period to come out against other imperialist countries in order to secure fulfilment of their special ambitions within the framework of an alliance which remains unchanged in terms of basic goals.

p These contradicitons, whose development our 1960 Meeting foresaw, should not be underestimated. They can and must be used by the socialist states, by the Communist Parties in their struggle for the national independence of peoples and against the attempts at expansion and the establishment of domination by US imperialism, for a relaxation of international tensions and for co-operation between countries with different economic and social systems.

p That is precisely why we took a positive view of France’s withdrawal from the NATO military organisation and haVe supported the steps taken by our country’s government towards co-operation with the socialist countries in various fields.

p The struggle our Communist Party constantly waged for the achievement of these aims, even in the most trying periods of the cold war, has played its part in the adoption of these initial measures by ensuring them popular support.

p But it is also characteristic of the monopoly government that it has kept 109 France in the Atlantic Alliance, that it continues the nuclear arms race, regards the Federal Republic of Germany as its “preferred” ally, and displays hostility .for any negotiations on disarmament or collective security in Europe.

p It would indeed be wrong to assume that inter-imperialist rivalries have already become such that imperialism is no longer an aggressive world system, that it is no longer capable of confronting the world revolutionary movement with a common strategy, and that it is no longer a grave threat to peace, the independence of peoples and socialism. No matter how inter-imperialist contradictions are aggravated, the contradiction between the imperialist system and the socialist system is and will remain the main contradiction of our day.

p It is, of course, true that imperialism, US imperialism in particular, now has to reckon with the risk latent for it in any aggression against the socialist countries, especially against the Soviet Union, the decisive force of the world socialist system.

p But it is wrong to infer from this that imperialism has given up the idea. This is evidenced by its wild arms race, which puts an intolerable burden on the working people, and also by its stubborn rejection of any measures capable of promoting the establishment of art effective collective security system.

p In an effort to ensure, more favourable conditions for the attainment of these aims and to recapture lost positions, imperialism starts local conflicts, each of which is fraught with a threat to world peace. It redoubles its efforts—not without result—to keep the countries newly liberated from colonial oppression downtrodden by political and economic neo-colonialism. It organises reactionary coups d’etat in countries righting for independent development in order to keep them within its strategic orbit and under its economic domination. Taking advantage of the mistakes of this or that contingent of the anti-imperialist movement, taking advantage of its insufficient unity, in particular the insufficient unity of the Communist Parties, imperialism has managed in the recent period to inflict a number of temporary reverses on the anti-imperialist forces on various continents. We believe, as the draft Main Document says, that we cannot afford to close our eyes to these facts or fail to draw the necessary conclusions.

p Nevertheless, and this the draft Main Document also emphasises with especial force, imperialism is suffering an historic defeat in the war against the heroic Vietnamese people, whom our Party here again assures of its full solidarity and active support. Thanks to the correct policy of the Working People’s Party of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, thanks to the exceptional courage of the Vietnamese people, thanks to the great assistance of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, thanks, lastly, to the political and practical solidarity of the revolutionary working-class movement and the progressive forces of the world, the Vietnamese people are administering a victorious rebuff to the aggression mounted by the most powerful imperialism, US imperialism.

p There is no doubt at all that US imperialisrh will be forced to give up its aggression, that it will be forced to allow the Vietnamese people to decide freely on its own destiny. The Vietnamese people will be victorious! Our Meeting will declare that our Communist Parties will spare no effort to help them in this.

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p The success of the Vietnamese people’s struggle is evidence of the fact that the balance offerees on a world scale has been and will be in favour of socialism, national independence and peace, provided the anti-imperialist forces, the Communist Parties above all, display vigilance and determination, provided they unite in struggle, in order to resist imperialism and paralyse its aggressive designs.

p Just as it would be wrong and harmful to picture contemporary imperialism as omnipotent and capable of deciding the issues of peace and the freedom of nations at its own discretion, so it would be wrong and dangerous to hold that the balance of forces has finally and irreversibly become such that imperialism no longer represents a constant threat to all mankind.

p Both these erroneous standpoints have an equally demobilising effect. Our Party rejects the one and the other, both in its day-to-day struggle and in the decisions of its congresses.

p It simultaneously notes that imperialism encounters greater difficulties and that it tries to resolve them through brutal moves, including dangerous military ventures, and also by stepping up its reactionary, anti-democratic and anti-labour policy.

p That is why we hold that the draft Main Document rightly stresses the need to step up our common struggle against the aggressive actions of imperialism, for peace and national independence, for the freedom and security of nations.

p In this respect, alongside our active solidarity with the Vietnamese people, prime significance attaches -to the struggle for European security.

p Indeed, US imperialism assigns Western Europe the principal place in its strategy of expansion and domination. It is not only trying to secure control over a considerable part of its economic potential but is also converting Western Europe into a bridgehead of its aggressive policy against the socialist countries. The Atlantic Pact with its military organisation is an embodiment of this strategy. The danger it presents is increased by the fact that the US leaders are turning the militarist and revanchist forces of West Germany into the mainstay of their struggle against the European socialist countries.

p Today the expansionist aspirations of the Bonn leaders are the main source of tension in Europe. Their policy is a barrier to genuine security for all the European peoples.

p One cannot help feeling deeply disturbed by the fact that these leaders, acting hand in glove with American and British ruling circles and with the connivance of our country’s leaders, escalate the arms race, give a free hand to the neo-nazis and try to dictate to NATO a strategy which implies almost immediate use of nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict.

p Our Party has waged, and will continue to wage, a determined struggle against this bellicose policy of the US and West German imperialists, against the Atlantic Alliance, which is an instrument of this policy and which holds out the danger of plunging the peoples of Western Europe into a tragic conflict over alien interests.

p We have launched and will further extend our activity to draw the whole people into the struggle for a European collective security system in place of the antagonistic military blocs.

p A natural requisite for such a system is recognition of, and respect for, the 111 existing frontiers in Europe, international recognition of the rights of the German Democratic Republic, closure for West Germany of any possible access to nuclear weapons in any form whatsoever, and renunciation by the Bonn leaders of all claims to represent the whole of Germany.

p We are resolved actively to support the relevant measures envisaged in the draft Main Document and specifically the socialist countries’ initiative calling for a conference of all European states on our continent’s security.

p We realise that to overcome the resistance of reactionary Western leaders and to get these measures through, the masses must be prompted to give fuller voice to their will for peace both on a national and international scale.

p At the same time, we hold that until a collective security system is set up in Europe the socialist states have the right and the duty to strengthen their defences and intensify their co-operation in the struggle against imperialism.

p The struggle against the imperialist forces in Europe is not only a requisite for the maintenance of peace in this part of the globe, but also a very important contribution to the struggle of all the peoples against the positions-of-strength policy pursued by imperialism, against the system of aggressive military pacts, with which it has girded our planet, against its policy of war and oppression.

Taking a broader view, only by constantly enhancing the fighting efficiency of each of the streams making up the world revolutionary process and by indefatigably working to unite in a broad front all the anti-imperialist forces, that is, the socialist countries, the national liberation movement, the working-class movement of the capitalist countries, all forces favouring social progress, democracy and peace, is it possible to drive imperialism into new retreats and secure fresh successes for all the streams of the world revolutionary movement.

p Comrades,

p Development of the struggle of the working class and other sections of the working people in the capitalist countries is an important factor for the relative weakening of the imperialist system. The powerful working-class and democratic movement which spread in France in May and June 1968 revealed the new scope and significance of this struggle.

p It was the first big clash in our country between the mass of working people and state-monopoly capitalism.

p Its root cause was the deepening of the antagonism between the monopolies and their power, on the one hand, and the working class and the overwhelming majority of the people, on the other.

p Events since 1960 have confirmed the correctness of our Parties’ assessment of state-monopoly capitalism: in recent years the policy pursued by the monopolies and their state has been growing ever more reactionary and anti-social. In the last ten years, production and labour productivity in France have increased very substantially, while by May 1968 the purchasing power of wages was on the whole the same. Four million working people were absolutely unable to make both ends meet. The average working week has been and remains the longest in Europe. The workers’ gains, such as social security, are threat’ ened and curtailed.

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p Politically, the monopolies increasingly seek to abolish democracy, to exclude any form of mass participation in and control of state affairs, to restrict trade union rights, substitute for the traditional representative institutions structures and agencies suitable to big capital and ensuring the prevalence of its private interests over those of the working masses and the nation as a whole. The regime of personal power is a concentrated expression of this policy.

p What was characteristic of the movement in May and June 1968, with its nine million strikers, was that in addition to advancing its immediate economic demands, it directed a blow against the domination of national life by the monopolies and their state power. It sought deep-going democratic change in the social, economic and political spheres. It showed that the ideas of socialism have been accepted by broad sections of the working people.

p The May-June 1968 movement also showed that it is possible to draw into the struggle against the monopolies and their power, on the side of the working class, fresh social strata, specifically workers by brain, whose numbers are steadily growing.

p The scientific and technological revolution has led to an increase in the number of workers by brain, specifically teachers, research workers, engineers arid technicians. In our country their number has increased by almost half in 10 years. At the same time, there has been a rapid growth of the student body. Since science is increasingly becoming a direct productive force, ever grester numbers of workers by brain are directly drawn into industry. The overwhelming majority of them are now exploited wage workers. Their creative aspirations run up against the avaricious policy of the monopolies.

p Although they do not arrive spontaneously at a clear understanding of the aims and methods of the revolutionary movement, so that the Communists have, in consequence, to carry on extensive educational and organising work among them, the main thing is that there is an objective basis for solidarity and united action by these working people and the working class, including struggle for economic and social change leading to socialism. That is why more and more of them side with the working class in the economic and political struggle.

p In this struggle, young workers and a section of the students have displayed great militancy. Young workers, who are hardest hit by unemployment, low wages and inadequate vocational training, are in the frontline of the battles for economic demands, for social progress, against capitalism and imperialism, for socialism.

p For their part, the students have ceased to belong to the jeunesse doree. Most of them come from the petty and middle bourgeoisie and suffer from the economic difficulties of these strata caused by monopoly oppression. They also come up against the obsolete system of education and methods of instruction. This brings them into the revolutionary struggle of the working people.

p The majority of young French people have tremendous revolutionary potentialities. Our Party shows understanding of the young people and trusts them. It attaches special importance to extending its activity among various youth sections, including students.

p Since the protest against the retrograde nature of the structure and system of 113 university education was chronologically the initial point of the May-June movement, some have drawn the hasty conclusion that the revolutionary role of the working class has weakened.

p Actually, the powerful May-June movement in France had been prepared by the ceaseless 10-year struggle of the working class, the incessant battle which our Party has waged since the first day against the Gaullist power serving the monopolies and against its policy. Moreover, it was precisely when the working people had joined in the struggle in a massive and organised way that the movement against the regime of personal power and for a new democracy attained its full strength.

p The force and scale of the working-class actions in the spring of 1968, and the proletariat’s ability to rally the other social strata suffering from monopoly oppression showed that it is indeed the principal revolutionary force of our time.

p The unity and strength of the working-class movement, in which our Party and the General Confederation of Labour played the decisive part, compelled the big employers and the government to satisfy important demands of millions of working people, ranging from wage rises to recognition of trade union rights at enterprises. But it was impossible to put an end to monopoly rule and substitute for it an advanced democratic system representing the interests of the working people and other non-monopoly strata.

p Contrary to the assertions of the proponents of Leftist tendencies, the balance of class forces made it impossible to put on the order of the day the instant establishment of socialist power. On the other hand, it was possible to oust the Gaullist power and set up a regime of advanced democracy opening the path to socialism. What was lacking for putting this very real possibility into practice was unity of the workers and the democratic forces.

p Our Communist Party spared no effort to achieve firm agreement of the Left Parties and major trade unions on the basis of a common programme of democratic change making possible a genuine alliance of the working class and other anti-monopoly social groups in town and country in the struggle for a democratic alternative opening the path to socialism.

p .The socialist leaders obstinately rejected this. In secret, they even agreed to adventurist combinations inspired by anti-communism.

p This situation was exploited by the Gaullist power. Cashing in on irresponsible acts of violence by Leftist groupings, it worked out a plan designed to involve the labour movement, notably the Communist Party, in a sanguinary clash with the police and the army. The required forces were put on combat alert.

p Because of the absence of a strong alliance of workers and democratic forces, the big reactionary bourgeoisie could have put down the working-class struggle for a long time and established a military dictatorship.

p Fully aware of its responsibility to the working class, our Party upset the calculations of its class adversary.

p It succeeded in securing for the working people a sizable complex of economic and social benefits, retaining and consolidating the conditions for continuing the political battle for democracy and socialism.

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p Our Party’s authority has increased. Many working people, both workers by hand and by brain, most of them young people, have joined its ranks. Hundreds of new local Party branches have been set up. For its part, the General Confederation of Labour has increased its membership by 400,000.

p The policy the Party pursued in 1968 proved to be correct. Less than a year later, the working class and democratic forces inflicted a heavy defeat on the Gaullist power: the “non” won in the referendum-plebiscite on April 27 of this year through which de Gaulle wanted to make the people ratify his policy and support his regime.

p The victory of the “non”, and de Gaulle’s resignation have revealed the magnitude of the urge for change among the working people. They provided fresh evidence of the rapid growth of conditions for the common struggle of all the social sections whom the monopolies are harming or threatening.

p That is why our Party, loyal to the policy defined by its congresses and the Central Committee Manifesto, set out to unite all workers and democratic groups on the basis of a new political programme worked out jointly and providing for profound political, economic and social transformations aimed at substituting for the reactionary rule of the monopolies a democratic coalition government with communist participation.

p The opportunist policy of the Socialist Party leaders made impossible an alliance of Left-wing forces in the current presidential campaign.

p That is why our Party put forward its own candidate, Jacques Duclos, and turned this campaign into a stage of its struggle for an alliance of workers and democratic forces. Our Party scored an important success by winning almost 5 million votes, i.e., over 21 per cent. It showed itself to be a major force in the democratic renovation of our country, a spokesman articulating the urge of the working class and democrats for unity, a great Party of socialism. This success will have a highly positive effect on the continuation of our struggle.

p In the conditions prevailing in our country and the world today, following the spurt forward made by the struggle of the working classes in May and June 1968, the task before us is to mobilise the masses of people in a struggle of unprecedented magnitude against the policy of the monopolies and their rule.

p In view of the depth and acuteness of capitalist contradictions, the development of such battles can lead to the isolation of the big reactionary bourgeoisie and, impose radical democratic change, confronting the masses, before long, with the issue of transition to socialism.

p As for the French Communist Party, it is fully prepared to avail itself of these possibilities. Therein lies the significance of the Manifesto for advanced democracy, and for a socialist France, which it issued last December.

p At the same time, our Pa’rty is working for a French policy orientation that would be consistent with national interests and the interests of peace, which presupposes France’s withdrawal from the Atlantic Alliance, mutually advantageous co-operation with all countries, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries in particular, action to establish a European collective security system, and support of the just struggle of the national liberation movement.

p We do not separate the national and the international aspects of the class struggle, nor our Party’s national responsibility and its international duty.

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p We have carried on a just and irreconcilable class struggle against the Gaullist rule of the monopolies and we shall continue to fight against attempts at a reactionary replacement of Gaullist policy. At the same time we have stood and will stand for an independent French policy, against our country’s participation in the Atlantic Alliance under US leadership, against her integration in a Little Europe of trusts, that is, the EEC, against the alliance with the West German militarists, and against the colonial status imposed on the overseas “ departments” and territories.

Our Party is the most consistent spokesman in France for this policy of independence and. peace. On it are pinned the hopes of those who in our country and throughout the world want to see an active French contribution to peaceful coexistence, European security, co-operation with the socialist countries and the struggle of the peoples against imperialism.

p Comrades,

p In this past period our Party has fought at home and in the international arena, displaying a maximum of vigilance in face of two trends bent on distorting our teaching and our struggle: these are, on the one hand, Right-wing opportunism, and on the other^ “Left”-wing opportunism.

p The Right-wing opportunists deny the need for effective struggle for socialism. They virtually confine themselves to some changes in the policy of the bourgeoisie and in the make-up of the government, being reluctant to fight against big capital and for strengthening the positions of the working people. Like the British Labour leaders, they are always prepared to conduct a policy suiting the big bourgeoisie on all essential issues and to compromise with it at the expense of the working class. At every decisive juncture there is evidence of the fact that their main line is one of class collaboration with the big bourgeoisie, with imperialism, US imperialism in particular.

p In the recent period, the stand of the Social-Democratic leaders in France has fully borne out the accuracy of the assessment which is given in the draft Main Document. Scorning the unity of workers and democratic forces, they prevented the large-scale movement in May and June 1968 from replacing the Gaullist regime by a democratic regime paving the way to socialism. During the presidential election on June 1 the reactionary candidates could have been defeated by a common Left-wing candidate nominated on the basis of a democratic government programme worked out together with our Party, but the Socialist Party leaders rejected our proposals for united action and nominated a separatist candidate suitable for the reactionaries. Their call to vote for the reactionary candidate Poher, who enjoys Kiesinger’s support, was a logical result of this disastrous policy. These leaders, who systematically refuse to fight together with the Communists for the interests of the working class and its allies, in fact stubbornly strive for an alliance with that section of the reactionaries who are designated as “centrists” and try to edge their way into the administration of state affairs to promote the interests of big capital. They bear the full burden of responsibility for the split of the democratic and workers’ forces.

p Ever greater numbers of working people and democrats in our country reject 116 this policy. The Social Democrats in France are in the throes of a grave crisis. Evidence of this is the June 1 defeat of the Socialist Party, which won only 5 per cent of the votes. This proves that a considerable section of the Socialist working people disapprove of the splitting policies of their leaders.

p In these conditions our Party emphasises with greater firmness than ever before that the purpose of a united front, the purpose of an alliance of workers and democratic forces, is not to have the working class taken in tow by the bourgeoisie, for the sake of an unprincipled alliance, but to draw ever greater masses of people into action against the monopolies and their regime, into the fight for a new democracy and for socialism.

p Despite the new difficulties that have arisen on the way to unity, our Party, which has grown stronger as a result of its June 1 success, will intensify its efforts to win Socialist working people for unity, because militant unity of the working class is essential for the victory of socialism.

p With equal energy and a desire to direct the working people’s struggle along the correct path, our Party carries on the struggle against Left-wing opportunism.

p The facts show the correctness of the definition of “Left”-wing opportunism by Lenin, who described it as "petty-bourgeois revolutionism, which smacks of anarchism, or borrows something from the latter and, in all essential matters, does not measure up to the conditions and requirements of a consistently proletarian class struggle" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 32).

p “Left"-wing opportunism, naturally, finds a favourable soil whenever the class struggle grows acute and whenever the protest against the crimes of capitalism spreads to ever wider sections of society lacking experience in struggle.

p The Left-wing deviation, which is characteristic of the groupings belonging to Maoism and Trotskyism, is wishful thinking which turns impatience into a strategy. It denies the connection between economic and political struggle, between the struggle for democracy and for socialism. It opposes the alliance between the working class and other social groups suffering from big capital. It makes up to young people in an effort to convince them, as Trotsky tried to do, that young people are the salt of the earth, and tries to substitute a so-called conflict of generations for the struggle of classes. The Left deviation does not aim its main blows at the .bourgeoisie but at the proletarian party, the Communist Party, setting petty-bourgeois anarchism against the Party’s organisation based on democratic centralism. Likewise, while issuing loud proclamations against imperialism, it is distinguished mainly by its unbridled anti-Sovietism. In short, while playing with ultra-revolutionary catchwords, “Left”-wing opportunism plays into the hands of reaction and imperialism by conducting a provocative policy and never ceasing in its efforts to split the working-class and revolutionary movement, and the anti-imperialist forces.

p It is indicative that the French bourgeoisie and its propaganda loudly advertise the various Leftist groupings, especially those who call themselves Trotskyite and Maoist. The reactionaries, the imperialist circles apparently assume that the Maoist line of struggle against scientific socialism, against 117 Communist Parties and against the Soviet Union, is a valuable aid in their own struggle against the world revolutionary movement.

p In this connection our Party cannot close its eyes to the decisions of the recent congress of the Communist Party of China, notably its new Constitution. It sees them as a marked intensification of the anti-Leninist, anti-Soviet and splitting policy of the Chinese leaders. This policy, which they are trying to foist on us by every means, is causing enormous harm to the common struggle against imperialism.

p Our Party, a great, truly revolutionary Marxist-Leninst Party, will continue its resolute struggle against “Left”-wing opportunism and adventurism, which could have only tragic results. *

p At the same time, we shall make a most thorough distinction at home between the impatience of many young people, which is most frequently commensurate with their desire to fight against the capitalist system—impatience which sometimes assumes forms we are obliged to criticise—on the one hand, and on the other, the disastrous activity of Maoist or Trotskyite groupings, which make provocative use of the spontaneous militancy and revolutionary zeal of young people.

p Experience has shown that through persistent explanatory work based at once on a deep understanding of the needs of young people, and resolute exposure of the erroneous concepts of the Leftist groups the militancy of young workers and students can be directed along a correct path, drawing them into the real revolutionary struggle alongside the working class and its Communist vanguard.

p The draft Main Document notes correctly that both “Left”-wing and Rightwing opportunism underestimate the existing possibilities for involving the broadest masses in the struggle against imperialism, and for social progress, democracy and socialism. Their other common feature is that they cast doubt on the leading role of the Communist Party.

p Needless to say, Communists lay no claim to monopolising revolutionary aspirations or the anti-imperialist struggle. It is a sign of the times that broad masses of people who are not Communists strive, as we do, for a radical transformation of society, and join in the struggle against imperialism.

p Communists make maximum efforts to unite the struggle of all democratic, progressive and peace-loving forces for. the achievement of aims promoting the struggle for the peoples’ liberation.

p Thanks to their doctrine, their methods of struggle and their organisation, the Communist Parties are great revolutionary parties of our epoch, the most advanced, most powerful and most consistent anti-imperialist force.

p That.is why we oppose any attempts to belittle the leading role of the Communist Party.

p As for us, we cannot obscure our Party’s true face before the working people. On the contrary, we have been doing everything to give them a clear view of the distinctive features of the Communist Party, of its principled attitude, its policy fully serving the working class, the whole nation, friendship between nations.

p Nor can we regard our Communist Parties as anti-imperialist forces which are "like any others". As the draft Main Document puts it very well, we offer 118 our hand to all those who have a real desire to fight against imperialism, and for independence and peace. We are prepared to co-operate with these forces on equal terms, in a truly democratic spirit. But that does not at all relieve the Communist Parties of their special responsibility, because they are parties of the working class, i. e., a class which is the decisive social force of our age, the most consistent revolutionary class, which has built the socialist system, a system playing the decisive role in the common struggle against imperialism. Our Parties’ scientifically based doctrine and Leninist organisation enable them to act as the main force in the peoples’ liberation struggle.

p That is why the task of consolidating the unity of the international communist movement, far from hampering unity among the broadest anti-imperialist forces, is, on the contrary, a necessary basis for a broad united anti-imperialist front which has to be set up.

p In accordance with the draft Main Document our Party believes, therefore, that it is the internationalist duty of the Communist Parties to bend, every effort for the unity of our movement.

p There undoubtedly exists an objective basis for such unity: the working-class movement is in essence internationalist, the Communist Parties have common aims, and our epoch is marked by the internationalisation of revolutionary processes.

p In addition, the Communists of the world evince a deep desire for unity.

p However, this unity will not come of itself. It demands constant and resolute struggle, and persistent efforts to overcome the differences which may arise on any particular issue.

p We believe that the draft Main Document substantially enriches our movement’s views on this question.

p The draft correctly emphasises that the unity of our movement and its enhancement are guaranteed by the application of the principles which, in their aggregate, govern the relations between our Communist and Workers’ Parties.

p Our Party stands squarely in favour of the principle of each Communist Party’s sovereignty as well as the principle of proletarian internationalism.

p The Communist Parties are independent and have equal rights. As has been repeatedly said, there can be no “dominant” or “subordinate” Parties, and there are none; there can be no “centre” or “centres” directing the activity of the Communist Parties, and there are none.

p Every Party determines and must determine its policy and forms of activity in complete independence, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and with due regard for national conditions.

p At the same time, proletarian internationalism is a component of the doctrine and struggle of every Communist Party. There is no doubt that our Party’s main international task is to secure the success of the working people’s struggle in France. But this does not mean that we refuse to take account of the common interests of the whole international revolutionary working-class movement. Our Party, which has always displayed the most active solidarity with the peoples building socialism, with the Soviet Union, the world’s first socialist state, which plays the decisive role in the struggle for peace and socialism, solidarity 119 with the peoples fighting against the colonial yoke, solidarity with the Parties and fighters who are victims of reactionary, imperialist repression—our Party firmly adheres to proletarian internationalism. It will continue to develop and consolidate its ties of friendship and fraternal co-operation with the brother Parties on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, equality and independence, on the basis of proletarian internationalism.

p There is no doubt at all that our Communist Parties have to operate in various conditions of struggle and tackle the most diverse problems. But this diversity should not mean division, just as the requisite independence of each Party should not lead to isolation or nationalism.

p Differences on this or that issue should under no circumstances gain the upper hand over what unites all our Parties, These differences should in no case hamper the joint struggle for our common aims. Differences can and must be overcome through an exchange of experience and a comparison of ideas, through bilateral or multilateral meetings, through international conferences and, above all, through co-operation in the common struggle against imperialism.

p In this context, the application of the principles set forth in the draft Main Document and the very fact that our Meeting is being held should enable us to go a long way towards greater unity in our movement.

p The preparation of the Meeting, the collective methods of preparing and holding the Meeting, have created good conditions for greater unity,, they have promoted mutual understanding and have given each Party an opportunity of using the invaluable contribution made by the joint discussion of problems and the common struggle of the international communist movement as a whole,

p Comrades,

p Adoption of the Meeting documents will help us make further advances towards cohesion and raise our unity to a higher level in the spirit indicated in the draft Main Document.

p That is exactly what is expected of our Meeting by the Communists of the world, because they see it as an earnest of their greater fighting efficiency, an earnest of success in the people’s struggle against imperialism, for peace, national independence and democracy, for socialism, for communism.

Long live the unity of the international working-class and communist movement!