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p The Communist Party of Great Britain, which was one of the 18 Communist and Workers’ Parties which issued the call for this conference in November 1967, regards the presence here of delegates from 75 Parties as an important success for the international communist movement and the struggle against imperialism.

p Listening to the speeches of the delegates it is clear that there is no significant difference between us as to our main tasks in the anti-imperialist struggle. This is good. The international communist movement is the most powerful political movement existing today. The more it is united in its common tasks the more it will be able to unite the three great revolutionary forces of our time— the socialist countries, the international working class, and the national liberation movement—into one common stream that can defeat and end imperialism.

p To us who have always worked at the centre of a great imperialist power, internationalism has always been a cornerstone of our Communist position.

p Our labour movement is increasingly taking a progressive stand on the main international issues such as Vietnam, Nato, Greece, Southern Africa, and in this process we, of course, have played our part. As you know a considerable movement on Vietnam has taken place in Britain.

p It is the recognition of our responsibility and the connection of the struggle on international issues with the advance to socialism in Britain which underlies all our work.

p These are conscious independent decisions, arising out of our convictions.

p The more we become a real Party of the British people the more effectively we can fulfil our international responsibilities.

p As Lenin put it: "There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is—working wholeheartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this line, in every country without exception" (Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 75).

p We have consistently worked in the spirit of these two principles. Our Party was born out of the struggles of the British working class, and was established 486 in the midst of struggle against British intervention against the young Soviet republic.

p Throughout the nearly fifty years of our existence we have maintained our internationalist traditions in deeds. Communism without internationalism is unthinkable to our Party. There are many Parties in this hall who can testify that we always did what we could when solidarity was required. We are proud that among the three courageous British seamen who were arrested in Greece last week for distributing anti-fascist leaflets, two were members of our Party. Our internationalist practice has not fallen short, either, when our help has been required to assist guerrilla forces overseas.

p The struggle to prevent world war, end the nuclear menace and achieve peaceful coexistence of states irrespective of their social systems is vital for humanity and a necessity for any strategy of social revolution.

p Only a fool would underestimate the danger of world war arising out of the aggressive policies of imperialism. But it is precisely the estimate struck in this Meeting regarding the balance of world forces in favour of peace, the strength of the socialist system, the mass efforts of the international working-class movement, and the powerful national liberation movement that convinces us that we are not in a period of an automatic relapse to the worst days of the cold war.

p Development of peaceful ’coexistence is impossible or precarious as long as the war in Vietnam continues.

p The fight to compel the US to end its aggression, withdraw its forces, and leave the Vietnamese people to settle their own affairs, is at the centre of our common struggle for peace. The heroic struggle of the Vietnamese people, led by the Vietnam Workers’ Party and the South Vietnam National Front of Liberation, with the assistance of the socialist countries, and supported by the world-wide movement of protest against the US aggression, has forced US imperialism to sit down at the conference table with the representatives of the Vietnamese people. But US imperialism still refuses to abandon its war and withdraw its forces. It refuses to accept the 10-point proposals of the South Vietnam National Front of Liberation, which together with the proposals of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam provide a just basis frr bringing the war to an end and safeguarding the independence of Vietnam. What is needed now is a further extension of the campaign against the US war on an international scale, and for that reason we give our full backing to the draft Appeal on Vietnam. There is a danger in the present situation the movement might relax. On the contrary, it must be stepped up in every way.

p In Europe, the British Government is playing a shameful role in helping to strengthen Nato, and encourage West German militarism. Long before the Czechoslovak events, Foreign Minister Stewart and Defence Minister Healy acted as pacemakers to strengthen Nato and stir up tension in Europe. The Healy-Schroeder nuclear tactical plan, the talk of using nuclear weapons first in the event of war in Europe, and the plans for a European wing of Nato, equipped with nuclear weapons, are signs as to how far the dliance between London and Bonn has gone. Strauss’s recent visit to London was a further step in this process. In his speech to the British Parliament he brazenly outlined 487 his plans for a separate nuclear force. Clearly, once this force is established, West Germany would not be long in establishing its claim to place its hands on the nuclear trigger.

p Two alternatives face Britain. Either to continue down the dangerous road it is treading, in alliance with Strauss and West German reaction and neonazism—-or to take up a policy of peaceful coexistence, and to work for the ending of military blocks in Europe and their replacement by a system of European collective security including recognition of the German Democratic Republic, and of the post-war frontiers. The first alternative is the road of nuclear menace and disaster. The second is the road of peace and security. We welcome the peace policy of the socialist countries. Their initiative in Europe through the Budapest Appeal is finding an echo. There is a growing identity of views on European security between the people of Western Europe and the socialist countries. Very much more remains to be done to win this aim. One of the important results of this Meeting will be that alt the European Parties will redouble their joint efforts in rallying the peoples for peace and security in Europe.

p In the Middle East the most urgent task is to undo the results of the June 1967 war and establish conditions of peace and security so that the peoples can be free to promote their social and economic progress and bring about the necessary democratic and political changes in their countries. This requires the withdrawal of Israeli troops from all occupied territories and recognition of the right to existence to all states in the region. We fully support the struggle of all the Arab peoples for their just aims and against imperialism.

p The armed struggles now taking place in the Portuguese colonies and in Southern Africa demand our response. This region is the principal area of the world still remaining under direct colonial or minority European rule. These are regimes of fascism, racialism and apartheid. The imperialists have been compelled to despatch large forces there to keep the people down. Portugal has sent 140,000 troops; and South Africa and the Smith regime are employing increasing forces against the mounting struggle in Southern Africa. It seems to us that the response of the international movement to this important front of struggle against imperialism needs to be still greater. We, for our part, are doing what we can, and will consider how to develop solidarity with the peoples of Africa still further.

p Imperialism is monopoly capitalism. This Meeting should note some important new features in the development of monopoly capitalism which we think are insufficiently treated in the Main Document.

p Here we would like to stress four points for consideration.

p First. The sheer size and speed of mergers is producing monopoly concentration on an unprecedented scale, and presents new problems for our movement. By this process, aided by big state subsidies, super-trusts are being created. They dispose of immense capital resources, employ huge armies of workers, and wield tremendous economic, social and political power enabling them to take the main decisions which decide the future of the country.

p One authority has calculated that in the near future 230 such trusts will dominate the economies of the entire crpitailst world.

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p The struggle against these super-trusts can no longer be confined to economic demands. What is now sharply posed is the social and democratic demand to take over the monopolies. For the future of society such concentrations of power can no longer be left in private hands.

p Second, The new scientific and technological revolution in the major capitalist countries takes place within this process of mergers and monopoly superconcentration. As a result it is distorted and used to extract superprofit. In the name of scientific efficiency and rationalisation production is streamlined and automated, so-called uneconomic plants closed and unemployment created.

p The number of scientific and white-collar sections grows, and along with this there is an increase in the trade union and political activity of these sections—a valuable addition to the anti-monopoly movement.

p Third, The super-trusts are international in scope operating on a world scale. They jump tariff walls and national boundaries and move their capital across frontiers. The huge overseas investments of the big British monopolies are a major factor in Britain’s continuing balance of payments problem. In the same manner the super-trusts of other countries, especially the US, operate in Britain.

p These trusts are the major force of neo-colonialism. The bases overseas are to protect their interests. They are the main force of imperialist expansionism. They are the force which drives for war.

p All this emphasises the need for international trade union co-operation. The struggle against these international combines in all their branches at home and abroad requires the joint efforts of all national trade union centres.

p Fourth. The concentration of economic power is paralleled by a drive to concentrate political power in the same few hands of the super-firms. Monopoly is profoundly anti-democratic. Over fifty years ago Lenin, whose centenary we will be celebrating in the coming months, pointed out that "the political superstructure of this new economy, of monopoly capitalism" (imperialism is monopoly capitalism) "is the change from democracy to political reaction" (Vol. 23, p. 43).

p Representatives of the big monopolies, who already occupy key positions on various state boards which support the interests of the monopolies, are attacking the parliamentary system, and calling for a coalition government, and even for a government of “businessmen”.

p But this very process of the concentration of economic and political power is giving rise to a widening battle for democracy against the monopolies, which are increasingly being identified as the enemy not only of the workers but of the widest strata of the people. Never before have Lenin’s words on the need to wage a many-sided, consistent struggle for democracy as an essential part of the struggle for socialism been more apt.

p At the centre of the political struggle in Britain is the fight to defeat the penal legislation against the trade unions which the Wilson Government threatens to introduce. It has already led to a mass revolt in the trade unions, to demonstrations and one-day stoppages in areas. A special Trades Union Congress, the first in fifty years, has totally rejected the government’s proposed penal legislation. The demand for a 24-hour national strike against the legislation 489 is growing. The left, progressive forces, by their mass actions, have made important inroads into the Government’s incomes policy.

p The Communist Party has continually warned that the Government was heading towards a collision course with the trade unions-and the labour movement. The biggest crisis in the labour movement for half a century is the result. A significant shift to the left has been the dominant feature in the trade unions. It is a factor of the greatest importance for the future of British politics.

p As a result of all this there is an increasing realisation of the need for a complete change in the policy of the Government.

p An alternative economic strategy to the present right wing economics means in effect the advance of the working class against the rich. The change in the approach to the solution of the balance of payments which we advocate means a challenge to the role and power of the bankers and the trusts. Slashing military expenditure, and a new foreign policy of peace hinders imperialism and militarism. Taking over the super-trusts means ending the economic and social power of the monopolies and a big step to making democracy more real.

p In winning such advances—and they can only be won by struggle—an important change in the relationship of class forces in the country could take place, with the strengthening of the working-class and middle sections Compared with the capitalist sections, of the socialist and democratic forces compared with Toryism and reaction.

p It is in this sense we see the connection between the immediate struggle and the strategy for a socialist revolution outlined in our programme, The British Road to Socialism, which is the application of our Marxist-Leninist principles to British conditions. The struggle for the alternative policy helps to create the political preconditions for an advance to socialism. Our road to socialism, and the forms which the British people will use to build their socialist system, are based on the traditions, history, culture, institutions and circumstances of our country. The socialism we work to achieve will establish the political power of the working class and its allies, the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, the creation of a system of planned production to meet the people’s needs, and the setting up of a state and institutions which will safeguard the socialist system and allow the fullest democratic participation by the working people in building their own socialist future. This requires a great political and democratic struggle. We are only too conscious of the shams and deceptions of the present democratic system in Britain. We are continually exposing it, and the bourgeois ideology and social democratic ideology that supports it. We exist, live and work in the midst of this political fight.

p But we also see real and valuable democratic rights. Some argue that the British ruling class “gave” the working class these democratic rights, that they only allow pluralism of parties to the extent that this does not endanger the capitalist system.

p We find this argument strange, to say the least. The ruling class in Britain “gave” the working class nothing, not even the vote. What democratic rights we have we had to fight for and win, and we will fight to keep them. They are the product of struggle. Today one of the most important of these rights, the 490 right to strike, is under attack. The British working class will never give up this right, legislation or no legislation.

p To every effort to restrict and destroy democratic rights in Britain we reply with the fight to defend and extend them, and show that the full flowering of democracy is bound up with the triumph of socialism and the ending of class society. In defeating all attacks on our democratic rights we make possible the mass democratic advance to socialism.

p Socialism will never come in Britain as a result of the action of some minority, but only with the consent and mass participation of the majority of the people and their democratic organisations.

p Vital here is the ending of the right-wing grip on the labour movement, decisively changing the balance of power in the movement, and taking it to the left with socialist and communist unity. Without working-class unity in Britain we will never win even important partial demands, much less win socialism.

p It has also been argued that some Western Communist Parties only see this issue in parliamentary terms and votes. This is a caricature of our position. It is above all an issue of mass struggle, of strikes where necessary, of mass movements which can compel radical changes and weaken the grip of capitalism, by bringing into action the full and formidable organised strength of the working class.

p But in the final analysis that movement must aim to express itself in the struggle for a parliamentary majority pledged to socialism. To deny this in British conditions is to shirk the necessity to convince and win the majority of the working class for our socialist aims. And if we can’t do that, how are we going to carry through a socialist revolution? In some undisclosed way, in defiance of the will of the mass of the people? This is how the ultra-lefts argue, and we combat their ideology, too.

p It is then argued that if this movement really threatened capitalism the monopolists would abolish working-class parties or “pluralism”, as it is put, and abolish democracy. To say that this movement will inevitably be subverted is tantamount to denying the possibility of the advance to socialism in countries like ours without armed struggle, and the denial of the very things we have written into our Main Document concerning the possibility of the peaceful or non-peaceful way of transition to socialism.

p A mass movement capable of winning a parliamentary majority and a government pledged to socialism would also have the power to defend that majority against subversion from any quarter whatever, using whatever means are necessary for its defence.

p Our proposals regarding Parliament and the rights of opposition parties is connected with the way we see the struggle for socialism in British conditions. The working class will defeat these parties politically.

p As regards the Main Document, delegates are no doubt aware that our Executive Committee will take the final decision on our attitude after we return.

p In submitting our amendments to Sections 2 and 4 of the Main Document, we wish to explain our reasons for doing so. The agenda for this conference is that which was agreed on at the February 1968 Consultative Meeting in Budapest, namely one main item: "Tasks at the present stage of the struggle 491 against imperialism, and united action of Communist and Workers’ Parties and of all anti-imperialist forces.”

p In our view, therefore, the question of relations between socialist countries, and between Communist Parties, is not really appropriate for a document based on this item.

p Of course, the differences between some socialist states hinder their cohesion and therefore do damage to our common cause of the struggle against imperialism. But the Main Document does not deal with the differences, only with the principles of relations.

p The great positive advances in the socialist countries have been dealt with in this conference. No one could fail to be moved by the impressive figures illustrating this progress in the report of Comrade Brezhnev. No one can speak to a national liberation leader without being told of the tremendous political and material aid of the Soviet Union and other socialist states. The key position of the Soviet Union in the struggle for peace and socialism is a fact.

p If the principles of relations between socialist states were being fully implemented there would be no problem of relations between them. A repetition of the principles, valuable and correct in themselves, does not get us too far. What is needed is to discuss what has gone wrong, and where and in what circumstances these principles have not been fully applied.

p Is it logical to argue that the Document must contain paragraphs dealing with relations between socialist states, but that delegates should not discuss the concrete application of these principles to events which have been discussed in every Communist Party? If this conference considers we should not discuss such things, then it certainly should not keep in the Document paragraphs on relations between socialist states. If, on the other hand, delegates wish to retain these paragraphs, then surely we must discuss them— and this means not just the principles but as they have manifested themselves in actual life.

p It is on this basis presumably that many delegates have discussed China. Some delegates from socialist countries have also referred to the political positions of some Parties in Western Europe. We have no wish to interfere in anyone’s internal affairs. But of course the momentous decision of the five socialist states to intervene militarily in Czechoslovakia profoundly affected every Communist Party. We said it was wrong.

p We are concerned here not only with the principle of relations laid down in our Document.

p We are convinced that the problems which arose were closely connected with the further development of socialist democracy frustrated by the deformations under Novotny.

p The January 1968 Plenum took decisions to overcome this, which we all welcomed. A complex situation then arose in which anti-socialist and antiSoviet elements were active. But these were essentially political problems requiring political solutions. These political solutions had to be taken by the Party concerned.

p We express confidence that the difficulties will be overcome by the Czechoslovak Party and People.

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p Working in the conditions that prevail in Britain, these issues are publicly discussed. This applies as well to the position of the Communist Party of China on which we have publicly explained our views, and will continue to do so. The 9th Congress of the Communist Party of China abandoned the correct course adopted at the 8th Congress in 1956. The Communist Party of China is departing from Marxist-Leninist positions. However, we will not develop our position on this great issue here.

p There is a further consideration. Five socialist countries are not represented at our conference. We do not believe that the working out of principles governing relations between socialist states can be complete or indeed fully valid if several of the countries concerned are not present to inform us whether they subscribe to these principles or not.

p Broadly speaking, our remarks also cover Section 4 of the Main Document, most of which we have proposed should be deleted. The question of relations between Communist Parties, and the principles governing their role and activity, is not, in our view, relevant to the agenda of this conference. Each Party is sovereign. It alone, through its highest authority, its national congress, can.decide its policy, its activities and its role. There is not and cannot be any collective body or directing centre which can usurp the sovereign rights of Parties and decide such matters for them.

p Of course, all Parties can leam from one another. All Parties can exchange views and experiences. We maintain the closest relations with other Parties, especially those with whom we are more directly linked in common anti- imperialist struggles. With some of these Parties we have differences on some questions, but this in no way hinders us from acting in solidarity with them in our common struggle.

p In view of the complex and different conditions and national circumstances in which Parties work, differences of estimation, views and emphasis are only to be expected. This is a normal fact of life.

p It is valuable that we have been able to discuss some of them, even if only partially. This is a strength, not a weakness of this Meeting.

p So we have unity on the immediate tasks in the struggle against imperialism, and differences on other issues. This measure of dialogue is a sign of the maturity of our movement.

p As we are sovereign Parties, the way in which these meetings are conducted has been important. We have sought to reach agreement by consensus and not by vote.

p If there were a majority on an issue, the minority could not expect the majority to give up its position. Similarly, the majority cannot expect the minority to give up theirs. So consensus, not votes, is the method we have worked out.

p Since we have our differences, we need a sober scientific examination as to their roots and substance, in order to work to overcome them. This requires patience and understanding. It is certainly not helped by the indiscriminate use of labels about each other. We are all Marxist-Leninist Parties. All Communist Parties are using Marxism-Leninism in a search for solutions to the problems of our time. There is a complex of reasons for our differences. We need 493 to examine them without presumption or pre-judgement, or insistence on the correctness only of one’s own position.

p As long as differences exist, and while we strive to narrow the area of our disagreement, the international communist movement must act on the basis that what unites us all is what we can agree on, namely our common fight against imperialism and our communist aims. What is not common ground at present cannot be made the subject of imposition of one Party’s views on another.

p Differences that are not easily reconciled must not be allowed to cause new and deeper differences, to harden positions and make solution more difficult.

p The 75 Parties present here are solidly ranged against imperialism. This is the big news to tell the world. This is the outcome of our Meeting which will inspire the millions who are exploited and oppressed by imperialism. Yes, the capitalist press will try to utilise our differences. But we are mature Parties. And the people are adult enough to understand.

Let the message go out from this Meeting. We 75 Communist and Workers’ Parties are united in the struggle against imperialism and war, in the fight for democracy, peace, national independence and socialism.