Chairman,
Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin
p Dear Comrades,
p On behalf of the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin, I should like to thank the Preparatory Committee for its constructive and successful work, and to express our joy over the fact that this momentous world Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties is again taking place in Moscow, the centre of the international revolutionary working-class movement.
p With close attention, our delegation heard the speech of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CC CPSU. In our view, its fundamental and determinative propositions will be of extremely great help to the struggle of our Party and West Berlin’s other democratic and socialist forces.
p Also, we are in complete accord with that part of Comrade Brezhnev’s speech in which he levels principled criticism at the adventurist and divisive position of the Chinese Communist Party leadership.
p The 9th CPC Congress substituted “Maoism” for Marxism-Leninism, and declared that it would fight against the CPSU and other Marxist-Leninist Parties. That naturally requires each Marxist-Leninist Party to defend the world outlook of the proletariat, the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin, against this so-called Maoism.
p The provocations staged by the Chinese leadership on the Sino-Soviet border encourage the enemies of socialism and the West German revengeseekers, who also lay territorial claims against other states and peoples.
p Like the members and friends of our Party, all progressively-minded industrial workers and intellectuals opposing the system of late capitalism expect substantial headway from this Meeting in cementing the unity and cohesion of the world communist movement on the basis of the principles of MarxismLeninism, proletarian internationalism and, consequently, fresh and powerful stimuli for the joint anti-imperialist struggle.
p Our Party has at all stages followed the preparations for this Meeting, which it actively supported, with deep interest.
p A few days ago the second West German TV channel presented a commentary on the differences in the world communist movement, naturally one written from the bourgeois standpoint. The commentator said the differences were for the West an inspiring hope.
210p However, the preparations and progress of the present Meeting and the dominant tendency in the world communist movement, centred on restoring unity of action in the fight against imperialism, for peace, democracy and socialism, are a guarantee that the hopes of the foes of socialism will not come true.
p The Board of the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin has in principle approved the draft of the Main Document. Our delegation also states its agreement with the other documents drafted by the Preparatory Committee.
p What, then, are the general and specific tasks and problems of the antiimperialist struggle facing us in West Berlin ?
p The rulers of West Germany and West Berlin have prescribed to the latter the function of a front-line city in the cold war, making it a spearhead against the German Democratic Republic, the cause of peace and social progress.
p The "Grand Coalition" government in Bonn and West Berlin’s SocialDemocratic Senate pay lip-service to a peaceful order in Europe, discoursing about detente and relations based on humanism. But when words have to be backeS. up by deeds they revert to the old-time vocabulary of German imperialism, great-power chauvinism and revenge.
p This held true when they faced the alternative of translating words into deeds and signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and when dealing with the proposal of the Warsaw Treaty member-countries for a European security conference, against which the Bonn government is piling up new reservations. This held true, too, when the West German rulers gave to understand by their hostile reaction to the diplomatic recognition of the GDR by Iraq, Cambodia and Sudan that they persist in their unlawful claim to sole representation of all Germans, which is directed against the GDR.
p This also held true when the West German government organised the provocative election of the Federal President outside the Federal Republic and unlawfully used the territory of West Berlin for this purpose, in which, moreover, the neo-fascist National Democratic Party officially took part.
p In its, drive for conquest and supremacy, German imperialism has never been able to produce a realistic appraisal of the international situation. Now, too, it responds with redoubled aggressiveness to the restriction of its sphere of dominance and the change in the relation offerees in favour of socialism.
p The old imperialist aims are still alive, and with them the greedy wish to lay hold of atomic weapons, the claim to sole representation of the German people, the craving to absorb West Berlin, the non-recognition of the Oder and Neisse borders, and the refusal to acknowledge without qualification that the Munich agreement has been invalid from the beginning. As before, Bonn is counter-acting the effort to assure peace and security in Europe.
p We are striving to mobilise ever more workers and other working people, more members of different strata of our population, for actions against Bonn’s unlawful interference in the affairs of our city, against the use of West Berlin territory for provocations against the socialist countries, for a normalisation of East-West relations and, particularly, relations with the German Democratic Republic. That we consider to be our contribution to securing European peace.
211p Comrades, we hold that the principles of the struggle for the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, as set out in the draft of the Main Document, are of the utmost topical importance. The peaceful coexistence policy is encountering bitter resistance on the part of imperialism, whose substance boils down to expansion and aggression in all forms.
p At present, the foes of the latter-day capitalist society are asking us how we conceive aligning our policy of peaceful coexistence with the requirements of the class struggle.
p To this we reply: to be an anti-imperialist means, first and foremost, to block for imperialism all routes to "a way out", that is, to frustrate its policy of violence and war, which is its very essence.
p The capitalist makers of arms, the owners of concerns, must not be given an opportunity to drive the peoples of Europe back on to the battlefield. We must not allow matters to come to a point where the vile banner of the anticommunist crusade is unfurled again over our continent as a banner of war.
p What revolutionary strategy amounts to is to draw broad sections of the population of the highly developed industrial countries of Central and Western Europe into the anti-imperialist struggle and to secure the best possible prospects for solidarity with all dependent and oppressed peoples fighting for selfdetermination and national and social emancipation.
p As evidenced by the Americans’ own term, "global strategy", imperialism is planning actions engulfing the whole world. That plan, its aims and methods, are designed to buttress and extend the imperialists’ power, to soften up and destroy socialism and paralyse the struggle of the peoples for national independence and social progress. In so doing, the imperialists have no intention of limiting themselves in the choice of means.
p Escalation begins with psychological warfare. According to the phased scheme worked out by US expert Kahn and propagated by Helmut Schmidt, defence expert of the SDPG, this warfare can in each particular case become a limited war, a war with conventional weaponsvthen a total atomic war of annihilation— and always with an eye on the maximum advantage for war-industrial capital and imperialism.
p This alone reveals that the global strategists conceive of no "zone of calm" anywhere. They have not reconciled themselves to the existing balance of forces and the territorial set-up either in Europe or Southeast Asia, or the Middle East.
p The greater the economic and military weight of West German imperialism becomes, the more sharply we see it as a dangerous and independent firebrand and, in the final analysis, the main offender against peace and order in Europe.
p It is the same bitter enemy of the peoples who twice plunged our continent into world wars. Backed by its revived aggressive military potential, it is creating a growing threat to Europe as it captures more and more key positions in NATO.
p In sum, German imperialism is doing its utmost to prevent the principle of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems from being put into effect in Europe.
p We reply to the critics of the peaceful coexistence policy: wherever 212 imperialism effects provocations and schemes war, it must be repulsed in time by the joint efforts of workers, the youth and all champions of peace in one’s country, and that with the backing of the might of the’ socialist community. Wherever it wages war, it must be smashed and compelled to withdraw, and this by means of a world-wide solidarity movement.
p There is no other way but class struggle to secure the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems.
p Comrades, a movement for peace, democracy and social progress is spreading in West Berlin. It has drawn into its orbit industrial workers and intellectuals, Communists and Social Democrats, Christians of both denominations, trade union members, students and, teachers, and secondary and vocational school pupils. This movement materialises in demonstrations:
p against the US aggression in Vietnam;
p against the fascist terror in Spain, Portugal and Greece;
p against the emergency legislation policy and the practical enforcement of the emergency laws;
p for the recognition of the German Democratic Republic, against Bonn’s claims to sole representation of the German people;
p for greater democracy at factory level, in the economy and in politics;
p for democratic reforms in education and the higher school, guaranteeing all, regardless of social standing and origin, every opportunity to get an education, and for the participation of pupils and students in running their schools and colleges.
p The situation in West Berlin is highlighted by the fact that a large number of new people, above all young workers and students, are joining in this movement.
p Despite manipulation with public opinion, the basic contradiction between the social nature of production and the private appropriation of the results of labour by the big proprietors, and the contradiction between the mass craving for peace and social progress and the reactionary home and foreign policy of the rulers, are becoming increasingly obvious. As a result, the younger generation most of all is coming into collision with the system of latter-day capitalism, which can offer it no guaranteed peaceful, creative perspective.
p The movement came as a surprise for the rulers. They thought that their anti-communist and anti-Soviet doctrine was everlasting. They held the schools, colleges and secondary educational establishments, universities and technical schools to be a dependable support for their system as seats of ideological indoctrination implanting anti-socialist views.
p What comes as the biggest surprise for the bourgeoisie, however, is that the movement has not ceased despite the favourable economic situation and the relatively full employment. The best people of the younger generation are not content with the prospect of a job, a TV set, an •< u omatic washing machine, or even an automobile.
p Young and elderly workers are equally and increasingly conscious of their class position and of the irreconcilable contradiction between the interests of the people and the monopolies. The bourgeois trick of "social partnership", according to which the interests of labour and capital are identical, is pulling less and less weight.
213p This development is reflected in the demand for greater democracy in production, in the economy and politics, the demand to restrict monopoly power.
p All this was reaffirmed on May 1, 1969. Workers and young employees, members of factory production councils and Left-wing Social Democrats, students and intellectuals, responded to our Party’s call and held a May Day demonstration in the working-class districts of West Berlin. This time, the workers and other working people refused to come to the traditional cold war meeting organised by Senate politicians in Republic Square. That was a doubleedged blow: firstly, at those who pervert the sense of the May Day holiday and, secondly, at the ultra-Left forces bent on subverting the unity of the democratic and socialist forces.
p The new developments in West Berlin place a heavy responsibility on our Party, whose influence is growing.
p Allow me now to refer briefly to the student actions in our city. An increasing number of students refuses to serve the system of latter-day capitalism as hoodwinked “hollow-minded” specialists. The rising generation of researchers and technicians is ever more conscious of the fact that the old system is based on spurious ideas. That is why the students of today, that is, the scientists, technicians and engineers of tomorrow, oppose the power of capital, oppose the anti-human system hostile to reason.
p This process is doubly significant at this time when science, even in the capitalist environment, is "increasingly becoming the decisive productive force. The scientific and technical intelligentsia is therefore becoming a special stratum of the working class, and its strength and social weight are rapidly gaining. It stands at the main levers of production, the mass media and the mechanics of public administration.
p Should the intelligentsia fail to grasp this and isolate itself as an “elite”, it will fall victim to the prevailing system, will be subordinated by it, standardised and integrated. We must prevent this from happening, showing more understanding for the complicated ways in which the rebellious youth develops, helping it, showing more faith in its enthusiasm and ability to learn through struggle, as well as to teach us from time to time.
p While working for unity, we oppose the ultra-Left views, the “elite” idea, in principle. We oppose those who underrate the daily struggle for social and political reforms and counterpose it to the ultimate goal of socialism, denying the role of the working class, of its Marxist-Leninist Party, running down the GDR and the Soviet Union and chiming in with the bourgeoisie. At the same time, we conduct our ideological work with an eye on the fact that the student movement in West Berlin is essentially progressive, mirroring the deep contradiction between the interests of the monopolies and the masses. That is the reason why the students of the higher technical schools have gone on strike now under the slogans, "Equal Educational Opportunities for All" and "Workers and Engineers Need No Shareholders”.
p The bourgeoisie is determined to prevent the growth of worker-student solidarity; it portrays the student movement as criminal and endeavours to suppress it by terror, not short of outright murder.
214p We see our task in reinforcing the alliance with the intelligentsia in the interest of democratisation and radical changes in social relationships.
p The men who ran West Germany pursue their reactionary home policy and their aggressive revenge-seeking foreign policy by new methods, though retaining the old chauvinist, great-power claims.
p Their allies are those who look back, rather than ahead. They support the US imperialists in the war against the heroic Vietnamese people, and the fascist regimes in Spain, Portugal and Greece, and encourage and legalise neo-nazism, paving the way to the Bundestag for the fascist NDP.
p A few days ago, a judgement of the supreme West Berlin judiciary in effect guaranteed impunity to nazi criminals. The impatience of the younger generation, eager to end the system of latter-day capitalism as quickly as possible, is, therefore, anything but surprising.
p Our Party conducts extensive propaganda, publicising the basic works of V. I. Lenin—Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Materialism and Empiriocriticism, What Is to Be Done ?, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, The State and Revolution, and ‘Left-Wing’ Communism—an Infantile Disorder.
p As we see it, propaganda of Lenin’s ideas and study of his works in close relation to practice, is the best way we can pay tribute to the great leader of the international revolutionary proletariat on the centenary of his birth.
p We shall multiply our efforts, so that more workers, students, democrats and Socialists should realise the identity of their interests as opposed to the interests of the monopolies and that they should realise the need for joint action.
p To be sure, this does not mean that we have abandoned the fight against ideological and political viewpoints harming the revolutionary working-class movement and the anti-imperialist front. In West Berlin, “Maoism” is quite directly a bourgeois weapon. It works against the unity of all foes of latter-day capitalism, imposing an ultra-Left adventurist line on the democratic and socialist movement and misleading the young people joining in that movement.
p At a time when our Party has worked out a revolutionary strategy and tactics suited for the present situation, the present conditions of the struggle and the level of political consciousness among the workers and masses, West Berlin is being flooded with material of Chinese origin, which is delivered free and unimpeded to people’s doorsteps.
p This material contains the ultra-Left phrasemongering of the Chinese Communist Party leadership, crude attacks and slander against the CPSU and other Marxist-Leninist Parties.
p We should like to draw the attention of the representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties to the fact that the anti-socialist and anti-Marxist posture of the CPC leadership does exercise a certain eifect, especially on those in West Berlin who, though opposed to the system of latter-day capitalism, are of petty-bourgeois origin, are inexperienced in the class struggle and therefore easily fall prey to the ultra-Left phrasemongering.
p The split and anti-communist prejudices are barriers which our movement is in the act of hurdling or still has to hurdle. Undisguised, bellicose and primitive anti-communism has been discredited, and now, quite frequently, 215 assumes new, camouflaged, more refined forms. For this purpose, monopoly capital enlists the aid primarily of specialists from among the Social- Democratic leadership.
p Rightist trade-union elements, for example, “advise” us to criticise not only West German and West Berlin living conditions, not only the system of latterday capitalism, but also, wherever possible and to the same extent, the socialist countries.
p On examining this proposition, we discover a strange identity in the attitudes of the “Left” and Right opportunists. Both occasionally admit the economic, scientific, technical and cultural achievements of the German Democratic Republic, the Soviet Union, and other socialist countries, as well as their achievements in the sphere of education. However, they deny the leading role of the working class and its Marxist-Leninist Party and oppose the existence of firm socialist state power. They refuse to understand that their “advice” is aimed at discrediting the very basis of all the achievements of the socialist countries in all spheres of public life.
p Our response to this is the following:
p At present the Right and ultra-Left in West Berlin peddle numerous " models of socialism". All of them endeavour to propagate new, formerly unknown forms of socialism. However, we are advocates of the model that has triumphed in the socialist countries.
p Our Party is always striving to improve its strategy and tactics, as well as its slogans, in order to facilitate joint working-class action and the co-operation of all the opponents of the system of latter-day capitalism.
p We have no intention of sitting on the fence and, ultimately, sliding to the positions of the dominant capitalist system.
p Close bonds with the CPSU, with Lenin’s country, with the Socialist Unity Party of Germany that is building socialism in the homeland of Marx and Engels, close bonds with all Communist and Workers’ Parties in the common anti-imperialist struggle, are for us the guarantee of further progress in our world-wide movement for peace, democracy and socialism.
To the full extent of its ability, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin will promote this aim at the present Meeting. It will also serve this aim by fulfilling its internationalist duty and carrying on the struggle in West Berlin.
Notes