p Comrades,

p On behalf of the Communist Party of Colombia and all Colombian Communists—those fighting in the Andes and those fighting for working-class unity in proletarian centres—we convey fraternal greetings to all representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties assembled here. We convey fraternal greetings to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Party of Lenin, whose hospitality is a fresh demonstration of its dedicated internationalism, and to the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, which from the very start made such a valuable contribution to the preparation for this Meeting, and to the fraternal Parties which, due to special circumstances, are not represented here—above all to the heroic Working People’s Party of Vietnam.

p Our Party shared in all the preparatory sessions. It believes that the preparation and conduct of this Meeting represent a big step forward in applying the communist methods of collective leadership, and mark an important stage in the effort for international communist unity, which this Meeting will elevate to a new and higher plane.

p After careful study, our Party approved the draft of the Main Document and the statements on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lenin, the struggle for world peace, and solidarity with embattled Vietnam. In our view, the Main Document gives a Marxist-Leninist generalisation of the chief aspects of the present world situation and its development trends. We would have preferred a document of more profound ideological content, notably on issues relating to imperialism’s designs against the socialist countries and international reactionary manoeuvres against the movement for national liberation. The accent in such a document should be on the need for ideological struggle within our movement, conducted in a comradely atmosphere and pursuing constructive aims. But we have taken into account existing difficulties and consider that the documents before us are effective instruments in advancing our joint struggle.

p It is nearly ten years since the 1960 Meeting. The lessons of this crowded decade fully confirm our 1960 prognostication of the nature of our epoch and its leading force, the socialist system. However, it is evident that imperialism and its leading force, US monopoly capital, is working out a global policy spearheaded against the socialist countries and the world revolutionary 133 movement. It is the duty of this Meeting to develop and more deeply analyse the experience of the past ten years, prognosticate the battles that lie ahead and inspire the masses for struggle.

p In this respect, the draft of the Main Document renders a valuable service by its terse analysis of the revolutionary process in Latin America. It rightly shows that this has been a period of consolidation for the glorious revolution in Cuba, the first country on our continent to be laying the foundations of socialism. On the other hand, it has been a period marked by the failure of the vaunted reform plan envisaged by the Alliance for Progress. We can now see a new wave of anti-imperialist struggle rising throughout the continent. One of its more recent expressions is the adamant popular opposition to the US government’s rapacious policies. The stormy protests that brought on the ignominious failure of the Rockefeller mission are symptomatic of the revolutionary processes now emerging and spreading throughout the continent. This new stage of Latin America’s anti-imperialist struggle has found forceful expression in Peru, where we have a very peculiar phenomenon that highlights its scope and implications. For what we have is a military government standing up for the national interest against the North American monopolies. We proclaim the Colombian people’s resolute and mounting solidarity with the people of Peru and their Communist Party!

p This International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties will stimulate the movement in our countries, which lie in the immediate hinterland of US imperialism and, with the unfolding of major class battles, are now becoming a scene of anti-imperialist struggle. At this Meeting the great internationalist aims of the communist movement are merging with the urgent task of extending the struggle for national liberation in each country. And our Meeting is living evidence that internationalism is not separated by a Chinese Wall from the patriotic interests of each people.

p Imperialism and the reactionary forces in our countries are taking advantage of the differences that have arisen in the international communist movement to step up their offensive. It is being conducted on a wide front, using all available methods, from outright military aggression to ceaseless ideological attacks. It adroitly combines repression with social demagogy and bourgeois reformism. It follows a dual pattern: instilling the idea that revolution in our countries is impossible, and conducting systematic propaganda with the avowed purpose of splitting the revolutionary movement, and in this it is being helped by diverse divisive elements. One aspect of this imperialist policy is the exploitation of certain anarchist and ultra-Left tendencies that have cropped up in the revolutionary camp and rely heavily on anti-Soviet calumny.

p Anti-Sovietism remains a big-calibre weapon of imperialist propaganda. The imperialists are certainly aware that the Land of Lenin and the Leninist Party play the decisive role in the struggle between socialism and monopoly capitalism. They have no illusions on that score and are running a sustained propaganda campaign against the Soviet Union. This fact, openly admitted even by enemy propaganda, is ignored in certain theses we are asked to discuss. There have been statements to the effect that as the socialist camp develops solidarity with the Soviet Union ceases to be an essential factor in defending socialism. 134 There is full clarity in our Party that the Soviet Union is the chief force in the great confrontation of our time. The boundary between socialism and imperialism runs through the great front on which the socialist camp, led by the Soviet Union, continues its offensive.

p Of course, there cannot be a single centre, or leading and led Parties. At the present time there cannot be a centralised world leadership of the communist movement. But neither can the Communist and Workers’ Parties be parts of a polycentric mechanism. For regional centres, covering continents or specific areas of the world, would come up against the same obstacles that ruled out the possibility of a single centre. But this certainly does not mean that the international communist movement is doomed to division. There is no single leading centre, but bilateral and multilateral meetings of our Parties, complemented by co-ordination of solidarity campaigns and concerted action, provide a general orientation helping all Communists analyse major issues, the systematic study of which each Party must continue.

p The dialogue during the preparations for this Meeting showed that a normal exchange of views was possible on problems on which Communist Parties hold differing opinions. We favour such a fraternal dialogue based on mutual respect, the fundamental pre-condition for achieving positive results.

p We highly appreciate the arguments the Main Document adduces in support of fraternal unity of the three anti-imperialist streams: the socialist camp, the national liberation movement, and the struggle of the working class in developed capitalist countries. We also appreciate the effort to analyse the new level of the modern liberation movement in colonial, semi-colonial and dependent countries and bring out its distinctive features in Asian, African and Latin American countries. For, obviously, the struggle now unfolding in Latin America has not only many similarities, but also essential differences compared with the struggle of the fraternal Afro-Asian peoples.

p The draft of the Main Document rejects the erroneous thesis, now enjoying some currency, which in different ways seeks to counterpose the underdeveloped to the so-called developed world. Moreover, the latter is denned as composed of the super-exploiter imperialist powers and the developed socialist countries. This schematic and false theory disregards the class character of the two mutually-opposed systems and the generous assistance the Soviet Union and other socialist countries are rendering peoples fighting to break out of imperialist oppression.

p We appreciate the good intentions of the comrades who object to “ namecalling” and “labels” with regard to one or another Party. But this general recommendation can also be interpreted as interference in the independent policy of any Communist or Workers’ Party which, to its great regret, sometimes finds itself compelled to counter encroachments on its unity. A concrete example: are we not justified in defending ourselves when the present leadership of the Chinese Communist Party publicly maligns our Party, and have we no right to call these attacks slanderous? The capitalist press in Colombia widely publicised the charges levelled against the CPSU at the recent 9th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Are we expected to remain silent in the face of charges, such as that contained in the main report to the Chinese 135 Congress, that the CPSU has converted the world’s first socialist state founded by Lenin into a " dismal fascist state of bourgeois dictatorship" ? Some possibly will choose to ignore such outrageous assertions. But in keeping with our political line, we usually openly criticise such anti-Soviet slander and expose its true aims. To sanction a ban on what has been described as “labels” and “name-calling” could mean vetoing necessary principled struggle.

p There have been appeals here for unity with a Party not represented at our Meeting. In common with other Parties we Latin American Communists have done everything possible to bring about unity. The response to our efforts was aggressive intensification of splitting activities, absolutely unfounded attacks on the Communist Parties and specifically this Meeting. We therefore believe it would be more correct to address these appeals to Peking.

p Comrades, as a component of the revolutionary process that is shaking the world, the Colombian people continue to hew their way to freedom, employing their tried tactics of combining various forms of struggle. This tactics is the very essence of our Party’s policy of using all methods at our disposal to meet concrete situations. Our Party’s 10th Congress declared that the Colombian revolution will not be a peaceful one. But our Party also believes that its most important task in the present situation is to achieve unity of the working class, and the January strikes showed that we are making headway.

p The guerrilla struggle in Colombia continues. It is the answer to the preventive war against the peasant movement, a war planned by the US military mission. But there are also strikes and a spreading movement in support of the economic demands of blue-collar and white-collar workers, peasants, students and teachers. To carry the fight into the legislative machinery of the ruling classes, we take part in elections, though they are held on the basis of the anti-democratic two-party parity system. In this way we are building the forces needed to win national liberation, for, with the present structural crisis, we can foresee early political bankruptcy of the present system.

The Party instructed our delegation to facilitate unity of the international communist movement. The long struggle, armed and peaceful, in industrial centres and rural areas, universities and prisons, makes it incumbent on us to unite all efforts in the battle against imperialism. United action will help us resolve all differences and creatively analyse the situation on the basis of our militant ideology, Marxism-Leninism. With this deep conviction, the Communist Party of Colombia, which approves the documents of this Meeting, will popularise among our people the tasks formulated here as the basis of our struggle for national liberation, socialism and the final defeat of imperialism.