338

p Comrades, at its 23rd Congress and then in a number of its documents our Party has already given a comprehensive assessment of modern imperialism. A Marxist-Leninist analysis of its present-day features is contained in the material of the 1969 International Communist Meeting. Allow me, therefore, in the light of the experience of the last few years to deal only with some of the basic points which we must take account of in our policy.

p The features of contemporary capitalism largely spring from the fact that it is trying to adapt itself to the new situation in the world. In the conditions of the confrontation with socialism, the ruling circles of the capitalist countries are afraid more than they have ever been of the class struggle developing into a massive revolutionary movement. Hence, the bourgeoisie’s striving to use more camouflaged forms of exploitation and oppression of the working people, and its readiness now and again to agree to partial reforms in order to keep the masses under its ideological and 339 political control as far as possible. The monopolies have been making extensive use of scientific and technical achievements to fortify their positions, to enhance the efficiency and accelerate the pace of production, and to intensify the exploitation and oppression of the working people.

p However, adaptation to the new conditions does not mean that capitalism has been stabilised as a system. The general crisis of capitalism has continued to deepen.

p Even the most developed capitalist states are not free from grave economic upheavals. The USA, for instance, has been floundering in one of its economic crises for almost two years now. The last few years have also been marked by a grave crisis in the capitalist monetary and financial system. The simultaneous growth of inflation and unemployment has become a permanent feature. There are now almost eight million unemployed in the developed capitalist countries.

p The contradictions between the imperialist states have not been eliminated either by the processes of integration or the imperialists’ class concern for pooling their efforts in fighting against the socialist world. By the early 1970s, the main centres of imperialist rivalry have become clearly visible: these are the USA—Western Europe (above all, the six Common Market countries)—Japan. The economic and political competitive struggle between them has been growing ever more acute. The import bans imposed by official US agencies on an ever growing number of products from Europe and Japan, and the European countries’ efforts to limit their exploitation by US capital are only some of the signs of this struggle.

p In the past five-year period, imperialist foreign policy has provided fresh evidence that imperialism has not ceased to be reactionary and aggressive.

p In this context, one must deal above all with US imperialism, which in the last few years has reasserted its urge to act as a kind of guarantor and protector of the international system of exploitation and oppression. It seeks to dominate everywhere, interferes in the affairs of other peoples, high-handedly tramples on their legitimate rights and sovereignty, and seeks by force, bribery and economic penetration to impose its will on states and whole areas of the world.

p Needless to say, the forces of war and aggression also 340 exist in the other imperialist countries. In West Germany, these are the revanchists, who have been increasingly ganging up with the neo-nazis; in Britain, these are the executioners of Northern Ireland, the suppliers of arms to the South African racists, and the advocates of the aggressive US policy; in Japan, these are the militarists who, in defiance of the constitution, which prohibits war "for all time”, seek once again to push the country onto the path of expansion and aggression.

p Another fact, comrades, that should also be borne in mind is that since the war militarism in the capitalist world has been growing on an unprecedented scale. This tendency has been intensified in the recent period. In 1970 alone, the NATO countries invested 103 thousand million dollars in war preparations. Militarisation has acquired the most dangerous nature in the USA. In the last five years, that country has spent almost 400 thousand million dollars for military purposes.

p The imperialists have been systematically plundering the peoples of dozens of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Every year, they funnel thousands of millions of dollars out of the Third World. Meanwhile, according to a 1970 UN report on the world food situation, 375 million people on these continents live on the brink of death from starvation.

p The imperialists are prepared to commit any crime in their efforts to preserve or restore their domination of the peoples in their former colonies or in other countries which are escaping from the grip of capitalist exploitation. The last five-year period has provided much fresh evidence of this. The aggression against the Arab states, the colonialist attempts to invade Guinea, and the subversive activity against the progressive regimes in Latin America—all this is a constant reminder that the imperialist war against the freedom-loving peoples has not ceased.

p And the continuing US aggression against the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is the main atrocity committed by the modern colonialists; it is the stamp of ignominy on the United States.

p In the last few years, facts about the war crimes of US imperialism have come to light that have literally rocked world public opinion. Tragic notoriety fell to the lot of the Vietnamese village of Song My, whose unarmed civilian 341 population, including old men, women and children, was sadistically wiped out by the US executioners.

p It is hard to keep a calm tone when speaking about the atrocities committed by the interventionists, who are armed to the teeth. Hundreds of thousands of tons of napalm have literally scorched into wasteland whole areas of South Vietnam. Almost 1.5 million Vietnamese have been poisoned, and many have died as a result of the use of chemical weapons. No honest man, least of all a Communist, can ever reconcile his conscience with what is being done by the US interventionists and their henchmen, who claim to represent "Western civilisation" and the so-called "free world”. It is a disgrace!

p Comrades, we have no doubt at all that the attempts of imperialism to turn the tide of history, to make it flow in its favour, are bound to fail. However, we Communists are well aware that there is no room for passivity or self- complacency. The fighters against capitalist oppression are confronted by the last but the most powerful of the exploiting systems that have ever existed. That is why a long and hard struggle still lies ahead.

p But however hard this struggle, it continues to mount and its front is being steadily widened. In the last few years, the fighters against imperialism have written new and glorious pages into the annals of the class battles.

p The international working-class movement continues to play, as it has played in the past, the role of time-tested and militant vanguard of the revolutionary forces. The events of the past five-year period in the capitalist world have fully borne out the importance of the working class as the chief and strongest opponent of the rule of the monopolies, and as a centre rallying all the anti-monopoly forces. (Applause.)

p In countries like France and Italy, where the traditions of the class struggle are more developed, and where strong Communist Parties are active, the working people, headed by the working class, have attacked not only individual groups of capitalists, but the whole system of state- monopoly domination. In Britain, the class struggle has reached a high state of tension, and the current strikes are comparable in scale and in the numbers involved only with the general strike of 1926. In the USA, working-class action against the monopolies has assumed great scope, and the 342 struggle of the Negro people for equality, and of youth against the war in Vietnam is spreading with unprecedented acerbity. The mass working-class movement in the FRG is gathering momentum. For the first time in many decades, large-scale class clashes have taken place in the Scandinavian countries and in Holland. The socio-political crisis in Spain continues to sharpen. In all the class battles of the recent period, the working people’s trade unions, especially those brought together within the World Federation of Trade Unions, have played a considerable and increasingly important role.

p The Meeting of the fraternal Parties, it will be recalled, drew the conclusion that the current large-scale battles of the working class are a harbinger of fresh class battles which could lead to fundamental social change, to the establishment of the power of the working class in alliance with other sections of the working people. (Applause.}

p At the same time, comrades, imperialism is being subjected to ever greater pressure by the forces which have sprung from the national liberation struggle, above all by the young independent and anti-imperialist-minded states of Asia and Africa.

p The main thing is that the struggle for national liberation in many countries has in practical terms begun to grow into a struggle against exploitative relations, both feudal and capitalist.

p Today, there are already quite a few countries in Asia and Africa which have taken the non-capitalist way of development, that is, the path of building a socialist society in the long term. Many states have now taken this path. Deep-going social changes, which are in the interests of the masses of people, and which lead to a strengthening of national independence, are being implemented in these countries, and the number of these changes has been growing as time goes on.

p The offensive by the forces of national and social liberation against domination by imperialism is expressed in various forms. Thus, in the countries oriented towards socialism the property of the imperialist monopolies is being nationalised. This makes it possible to strengthen and develop the state sector, which is essentially an economic basis for a revolutionary-democratic policy. In a country like the United Arab Republic, the state sector now accounts for 343 85 per cent of total industrial production, and in Burma, the state sector controls over 80 per cent of the extractive and almost 60 per cent of the manufacturing industry. New serious steps in nationalising imperialist property have been taken in Algeria. Many foreign enterprises, banks and trading companies have been handed over to the state in Guinea, the Sudan, Somalia and Tanzania.

p Serious steps have also been taken to solve the land problem, which is complicated and has a bearing on the lot of many millions of peasants. Taking the past five-year period alone, important agrarian transformations have been carried out in the UAR and Syria, and have been started in the Sudan and Somalia. An agrarian reform has been announced for this year in Algeria. In the People’s Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), all the land and its minerals have been handed over into the ownership of the state.

p Needless to say, it is no easy thing to bring about a radical restructuring of backward social relations on non- capitalist principles, and in an atmosphere of unceasing attacks by the neocolonialists and domestic reactionaries. This makes it all the more important that despite all these difficulties the states taking the socialist orientation have been further advancing along their chosen path. (Applause.)

p Progressive social change has not advanced to that point in all the former colonies and dependent countries. But the struggle against the forces of reaction and against the henchmen of imperialism is being carried on everywhere, and in some countries the progressive forces have already scored serious gains. One need merely recall, for instance, events like the recent nationalisation of the big banks in India, and the impressive victory scored over the Rightwing forces at the last elections to the House of the People of the Indian Parliament. This is evidence that the masses of people in that country resolutely oppose the reactionary pro-imperialist forces, and stand for the implementation of a land reform and other socio-economic transformations, and for a policy of peace and friendship in international affairs. (Applause.) Considerable social shifts have taken place in Ceylon and Nigeria.

p Despite all the difficulties and even occasional defeats, a diversified process of social change is going on in vast areas of the world. The working people have been scoring important victories in the fight for their rights, for real 344 freedom and for human dignity. The patriots of countries still burdened by the colonial yoke are continuing their courageous fight for liberation.

p As to our country, it fully supports this just struggle. The USSR’s political and economic co-operation with the liberated countries has been further developed in the last few years. Our trade with them is growing. Dozens of industrial and agricultural enterprises have been built in many countries of Asia and Africa with our participation. We have also been making a contribution to the training of personnel for these countries. All this is being done in the mutual interest.

p Great changes have been taking place in a number of Latin American countries. The victory of the Popular Unity Forces in Chile was a most important event. There, for the first time in the history of the continent, the people have secured, by constitutional means, the installation of a government they want and trust. (Prolonged applause.) This has incensed domestic reaction and Yankee imperialism, which seek to deprive the Chilean people of their gains. However the people of Chile are fully determined to advance along their chosen path. The working people of other Latin American countries have come out in support of Chile’s progressive line. The governments of Peru and Bolivia are fighting against enslavement by the US monopolies.

p The great Lenin’s prediction that the peoples of the colonies and dependent countries, starting with a struggle for national liberation, would go on to a fight against the very foundations of the exploitative system is coming true. And this means, of course, a most heavy blow at the positions of capitalism as a whole, as a world social system.

p Comrades, success in the struggle against imperialism largely depends on the cohesion of the anti-imperialist forces, above all of the world communist movement, their vanguard. In the last five years, our Party together with the other fraternal Parties, has done much to strengthen this cohesion and the unity of the communist ranks.

p It was a complex task. It was precisely in the period under review that the attempts on various sides to attack Marxism-Leninism as the ideological-theoretical basis for the activity of the communist movement have been most acute. The Chinese leadership went over to the establishment 345 in a number of countries of splinter groupings under the signboard of the so-called "Marxist-Leninist parties”, and has clearly tried to unite them in some way as a counterweight to the international communist movement. The Trotskyites have now and again formed blocs with these groupings. Here and there tendencies towards nationalistic self-isolation have been stepped up, and both “Left” and Right-wing opportunism have been revived. The main aim has been to secure a turn towards the cohesion of the communist movement and a consolidation of its ideological basis. An important stage in the efforts to attain it was the 1967 conference of European Communist Parties at Karlovy Vary and also a number of other international meetings of Communists.

p As a result the question of calling an International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties was placed on the order of the day. It was preceded by much preparatory work. You are aware, comrades, that a considerable contribution to the elaboration of the idea of the Meeting and to its preparation was made by our Party, by the CC CPSU.

p The Meeting was a major step forward in strengthening the international unity of the Communists and in consolidating all the anti-imperialist forces. It has done a great deal for developing a number of propositions of MarxistLeninist theory as applied to the present-day situation. It has been confirmed that this broadest and most representative form of intercourse between the fraternal Parties meets the needs of the communist movement as an international force. Our Party is in complete agreement with the conclusion drawn by the participants in the Meeting about the advisability of holding such international forums of fraternal Parties as the need arises. It would be useful for them to become an established practice of the world communist movement. (Prolonged applause.)

p The celebrations of the Lenin centenary, which became truly worldwide, were also of tremendous importance for the cohesion of the communist movement. The Meeting of Communist Parties and the Lenin centenary once again showed the viability of the Marxist-Leninist teaching and brought about an upswing in the fraternal Parties’ activity in the fight for the interests of the working class and all working people, and against imperialism, and its minions in the working-class movement. (Applause.)

346

p On the whole there is ground to say that cohesion in the international communist movement is being increasingly strengthened, and that fruitful bilateral and multilateral inter-Party, ties are becoming ever more active. Our Party welcomes this. It will work further to make sure that such development will continue precisely in this direction. (Applause.)

p However, comrades, another fact we cannot afford to lose sight of is that negative phenomena have not yet been overcome everywhere. The fight against Right and “Left”- wing revisionism, against nationalism, continues to be urgent. It is precisely the nationalistic tendencies, especially those which assume the form of anti-Sovietism, that bourgeois ideologists and bourgeois propaganda have most willingly relied upon in their fight against socialism and the communist movement. They have been trying to induce the opportunist elements in the Communist Parties to make something of an ideological deal. They appear to be telling them: just give us proof that you are anti-Sovieteers, and then we shall be prepared to proclaim that you are the true “Marxists”, and that you are taking completely " independent attitudes”. The course of events has shown, incidentally, that such men also take the way of struggle against the Communist Parties in their own countries. Examples of this are renegades of the type of Garaudy in France, Fischer in Austria, Petkov in Venezuela, and the “Manifesto” group leaders in Italy. The fraternal Parties regard the fight against such elements as an important condition for strengthening their ranks. Consequently, even these examples—and their number could be easily multiplied—testify that the struggle against revisionism and nationalism continues to be an important task of the Communist Parties. (Applause.)

p Comrades, in the struggle against imperialism an ever greater role is being played by the revolutionary-democratic parties, many of which have proclaimed socialism as their programme goal. The CPSU has been actively developing its ties with them. We are sure that co-operation between such parties and the Communist Parties, including those in their own countries, fully meets the interests of the anti- imperialist movement, the strengthening of national independence and the cause of social progress.

p We maintain and have been developing relations with 347 the Left Socialist parties in some countries of the West, East and Latin America. Fairly active work has been carried on on this plane in the last few years.

p In accordance with the line laid down by the 1969 International Meeting, the CPSU is prepared to develop cooperation with the Social-Democrats both in the struggle for peace and democracy, and in the struggle for socialism, without, of course, making any concessions in ideology and revolutionary principles. However, this line of the Communists has been meeting with stubborn resistance from the Right-wing leaders of the Social-Democrats. Our Party has carried on and will continue to carry on an implacable struggle against any attitudes which tend to subordinate the working-class movement to the interests of monopoly capital, and to undermine the cause of the working people’s struggle for peace, democracy and socialism. (Applause.)

p Comrades, to the lot of the Communists have fallen the hardest trials of any that have ever fallen to the lot of fighters for the people’s cause. We remember these words of Lenin’s: "Selfless devotion to the revolution and revolutionary propaganda among the people are not wasted even if long decades divide the sowing from the harvest."  [347•1  The ideas of the Communists have sprouted remarkable shoots in the practice of real socialism, and in the thoughts and deeds of millions upon millions of men.

p The Communists of the Soviet Union put a high value on the tremendous work which is being done in their countries by the fraternal Communist and Workers’ Parties. We are well aware how hard this work is, how much selfless dedication and boundless loyalty to our common great ideals it requires. Today we should like once again to assure our comrades-in-arms—the Communists of the whole world: our Party, dear friends, will always march in closely serried, fighting ranks together with you! (Stormy, prolonged applause.)

p We shall never forget the great sacrifices that have been made in the struggle. The names of the heroes of the communist movement, and the feats of courage and loyalty to the working-class cause will always remain sacred for all true revolutionaries. They will always remain sacred for Lenin’s Party, for the Soviet people, which first raised the banner of victorious socialist revolution. (Applause.)

348

p Conscious of its internationalist duty, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union will continue to pursue a line in international affairs which helps further to invigorate the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle, and to strengthen the fighting unity of all its participants.

The full triumph of the socialist cause all over the world is inevitable. (Stormy, prolonged applause.} And we shall not spare ourselves in the fight for this triumph, for the happiness of the working people! (Stormy, prolonged applause.}