Erich Trevett,
General Secretary
p We are indebted andappreciatedeeply this initiativeofCPI(M) in convening this seminar. We are sure it will help carry forward the process of rallying the revolutionary forces and help strengthen the struggle to defeat Imperialism and Capitalism.
p Last year the Pyongyang Declaration was signed by most parties represented here and to date over 180 organisations have signed that Declaration. That too was a milestone in the struggle to rally the revolutionary forces against Imperialism.
p This seminar is an important seminar. It is not an end in itself, but a vital part of a living process.
p The counter-revolution orchestrated by the Gorbachev administration in alliance with Imperialism aimed for the comprehensive destruction of all the Socialist countries, the weakening of the non-aligned movement and through so-called ’new thinking’ sought to negate the ideological philosophy of Marxism-Leninism withthe consequent marginalisarionofCommunistparties throughout the world.
p The ‘New World Order’ that has resulted from the betrayal is one where the class struggle has intensified. The strategy of Imperialism, spearheaded by US Imperialism includes the aim of destroying all the-remaining countries of Socialism or Socialist orientation, and imposing even harsher conditions on the developing countries. In its quest for maximum profits a major offensive has also been launched against the working class in the Capitalist and Imperialist countries themselves.
146p With the Soviet Union destroyed a major factor holding the inter-Imperialist rivalries in check has been eliminated. The world is a far more unstable and violent place.
p In all the Imperialist countries unemployment, poverty and crime are on the increase as the Capitalist crisis deepens. New technology under Capitalism has led to the consequent elimination of thousands of jobs. The middle strata, as well as the industrial working class, are being affected. A political polarisation is taking place as the ruling class acts more coercively.
p The mass of the people are becoming more alienated though they are not yet becoming more revolutionary in Capitalist society. This partly relates to the weakness of the Communists, especially in countries where the revisionist trend in the Communist movement is still strong enough to prevent a regrouping of the Communists into a single party based upon revolutionary Marxist/ Leninist ideological and organisational principles.
p The struggle between the Imperialist powers themselves is sharpening. The profound Capitalist crisis has led to intensified competition for contracting markets. At the same time the different Imperialist powers have conflicting interests as they strive to redivide the world among themselves following the counter- revolution in what was the Soviet Union and East European countries.
p In this regard Germany, which virtually annexed the GDR, has benefited from the break-up of Czechoslovakia and encouraged the disintegratory process in Yugoslavia. It has emerged as the dominant power in Europe.
p The United States, which no other Imperialist power is strong enough to openly confront, is imposing its will on Europe by insisting on terms of trade which are increasingly favourable to United States interests.
p The United States is seeking to strengthen its global role. The United Nations, reflecting the changed balance of global forces, has become more ready to accede to the pressures and interests of US Imperialism. At the same time, and as they themselves seek a global role, Japan and Germany are laying claim to permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
p British Imperialism has a weak domestic economic base. It feels constrained to back US Imperialism’s lead even though to do so is often to the detriment of its own interests. In the Middle East, 147 United States Imperialism has strengthened its political and economic position partly at the expense of British Imperialism.
p British Imperialism’s reliance on developing its nuclear weaponry is dearly to counter the growing political and economic strength of German Imperialism. German Imperialism is once again the major rival of the British ruling class in the European arena. In fact, the influence of British Imperialism is weakening as it is being marginalised, especially by US and German Imperialism.
p This in turn present deepening problems for the British ruling class which continues to put its major emphasis on the export of capital rather than commodities in an effort to defend its eroding international position as well as getting the biggest possible profit from its investment.
p To further sustain the position of British Imperialism the ruling class has launched a comprehensive economic and political attack on the working and living conditions of the people of Britain. The social wage is under attack, the public sector of the economy has been privatised and the trade unions continue to be subjected to an on-going process of crippling legislation.
p US Imperialism has strengthened its position in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. It has been more ready to take the military option where it calculates large-scale casualties to US personnel can be avoided. Hence, punitive actions or Imperialist wars have been unleashed on Libya, Panama and Iraq. US Imperialism is intensifying its lobby for military action in Yugoslavia. Somalia has been occupied by United States forces.
p In the Asian arena, Japan is beginning to flex its military muscle, but again will not take on the United States directly.
p Pressure on Peoples China is being intensified by the continuing military build-up on Taiwan. The US-backed British intransigence over Hong Kong is also part of that pressure.
p US hostility towards democratic Korea is particularly marked at present, and the threat of military strikes against that country being called for in authoritative sections of the British bourgeois press is also part of the strategy that seeks to eliminate Socialism.
p If all this were to be the whole picture the world would indeed be a miserable place facing total barbarism. Fortunately, there is another side to the story.
148p Imperialism has failed to achieve its goal. The remaining countries of Socialism and Socialist orientation have survived the counter-revolution, and throughout the world Communists have emerged from their new baptism of fire bloody but unbowed.
p Work is going on to regroup Communist forces nationally and internationally. Progress is being made to rally the working class, peasantry and progressive intellectuals in the anti-imperialist and anti-Capitalist struggle. The narrow nationalism fostered by Imperialism is beginning to countered by Proleterian Internationalism. Even the harsh experience and consequent suffering of the mass of the peoples in the former Soviet Union and Socialist countries of Eastern Europe serve to drive home the lesson.
p There is no solution, no road of prosperity, no way of avoiding poverty and war, to be found by turning to or tolerating Capitalism. The Pyongyang Declaration built on the modest levels of the fight-back since the counter-revolution. The bilateral and regional conferences and meetings were taken forward by the signing of the Declaration by delegates from revolutionary parties from all over the world.
p This seminar convened by CPI(M) takes the process a step further. The question is how can that process be further consolidated.
p In the world we live in, the ideological struggle, the battle of ideas, is of the greatest significance. For the working class to wage it successfully it must have information. It must have news reflecting working class struggle and projecting its point of view.
p The bourgeois media has developed great skill in its endeavours to manipulate public opinion. The influence of the bourgeois media is colossal and a major reason why the deepening Capitalist crisis has not led to any substantial anti-Capitalist consciousness among the working class in the Imperialist and other Capitalist countries. Psychological warfare is now waged continuously against the general public on a national and international basis by the Imperialist powers mass media.
p Since the counter-revolution and the ending of the service of the TASS news agency, we have all become even more dependent for our news on the bourgeois media. There are obvious great dangers in this but it is a problem we can do something about.
149p Our party urges the seminar to issue a call for the convening of an international delegate meeting to discuss and put in motion the setting up of a Communist news agency. Such a meeting could define the terms of reference for such a news agency as well as tackling the technical and financial factors relating to its establishment.
p Let boldness and revolutionary optimism continue to be our friend. Let us continue to take initiatives to strengthen the links between us and serve the interests of the working class and allies we are responsible to.
p I would like to make a brief reference to the struggle for Communist unity that is going on in the different countries where the Communist movement has over years been subject to a prevailing wave of revisionism. That rightist deviation strengthened the Social Democracy ideologically and organisationally at the expense of Marxist/Leninist forces.
p This has led, certainly in Britain, to a position where the original parent party, having effectively abandoned Marxism/Leninism, has now liquidated itself.
p In that Parly, and indeed in others in Western Europe which succumbed to revisionism, the fight against Marxism/Leninism was spearheaded not by the rank-and-file membership, but by revisionist elements in the leadership who increasingly gained the ascendancy for policies of betrayal. It has to be said that in the struggle against Euro-Communism, the international Communist movement held itself aloof.
p The lack of a consistent fight against Euro-Communism at an international level was excused by the lame plea, elevated into a principle - we cannot interfere in the internal affairs of brother parties. In other words -the international character of revisionism was ignored, and it was left to anti-revisionist elements to fight in isolation and on a national basis.
p The failure to tackle revisionism internationally reflected more than a retreat from internationalism. It reflected the acceptance of the penetration of class collaborationist ideas in the international Communist movement and particularly in the top echelons of many Communist party leaderships. That retreat from ideological combat helped pave the way for counter revolution in the Soviet Union and East European countries.
150p The link between revisionism, liquidation of the party, and counter revolution, is not coincidental. If not challenged and defeated, it is a logical and conscious progression to the implementation of a counter-revolutionary strategy as occurred in the Soviet Union in the post 1985 period.
p It is that link between revisionism and counter-revolution that enables us to understand how so many of today’s counter revolutionaries - such as, Gorbachev Yeltsin and Schevernadze were on the CPSU’s Politbureau prior to 1985.
p Generally speaking, in the current struggle for Communist unity, it has been the Marxist/Leninist parties that have been striving hardest to promote unity.
p Communist Unity is not the same as Left Unity, though there is often a willful effort to confuse those two concepts.
p Communist Unity must be built upon the firm foundation of Marxist/Leninist ideology and the organisational principles of democratic centralism.
p It is necessary to stress the Leninism since at the present time, it is Leninism .that is under the most ferocious attack.
p Leninism took forward the Marxist analysis into the Imperialist stage of Capitalism and into the era of global transition from Capitalism to Socialism. Leninism lays down the organisational principles of Communist parties. To drop Leninism is to retreat from ideological and organisational principles and strategies including the political organisational principle of democratic centralism.
p The achievement of Communist Unity is of crucial importance in every country but it cannot cannot be rushed or served by abandoning vital ideological and organisational principles.
p The process of achieving Communist Unity has to facilitate discussion on a comradely basis so that ideological, strategic and tactical differences can be resolved and thus further the aim of eventually achieving a single party based on Marxism/Leninism.
p In our Party’s effort to promote Communist Unity in Britain, we have put forward the proposal that a national Communist Committee for consultation and co-operation is set up to help facilitate joint action on agreed objectives and providing a forum for comradely discussion on issues where there are disagreements.
151p At the same time, we have reiterated our belief that the ideological basis for Communist Unity could centre on the following agreement:-
p (1) That the Marxist critique of Capitalism and the theory of the general crisis of Capitalism is still valid; that the class struggle is a reality and cannot be resolved without the triumph of Socialism and the development to a Communist society; Socialism cannot replace Capitalism without a revolution. The work of building Socialism cannot begin until the Working Class has achieved state power.
p (2) The working class has to be equipped with a vanguard party, a Marxist/Leninist Party, in order to play its leading role and that the Marxist/Leninist Party has to be based on the political and organisational principles of democratic centralism.
p (3) The question of Communist Unity has an international as well as a national dimension. Provision must be made for regular international conferences to help make and carry forward the collective analysis of regional and global developments. A priority in our work must be to step up solidarity towards the remaining countries of Socialism like Cuba, China, Vietnam and North Korea which will all be under intensified ideological and physical pressure from Imperialism
p (4) The struggle for peace has to be given conscious priority in our work and campaigning with the anti-Imperialist nature of that struggle and the growing dangers of war arising from the sharpening inter-Imperialist rivalries being recognised.
The way forward in the national and international struggle for Communist Unity is to uphold the red banner of Marxism/ Leninism.
Notes