Statement
of the ICMLPO Plenary
20
Years on the Road of Struggle and Unity for the Revolution and
Socialism
I
The Plenary Session of the International Conference of
Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO), on the
occasion of its 20th anniversary, has met in Turkey to discuss
important issues of the international situation, political work,
the questions of the Popular Front, and orientations for activity
with women workers and communists in their respective countries.
The meeting underlined the commitment to continue the struggle
against capitalism, imperialism and the international bourgeoisie,
and took decisions on the present moment of the class struggle in
the world and the tasks of the working class
The plenary of the ICMLPO denounces all forms of injustice, the
reduction and freezing of wages, the policies of the imperialist
monopolies and their governments, the accumulation of capital on
the basis of imposing more taxes and increasing the prices of
goods and services, policies that provoke rebellion and struggles
of the working class and the peoples.
II
The defenders of the capitalist-imperialist system launched the
idea that a democratic, prosperous world without crises and wars
was possible. They claimed that capitalism was the only way to
achieve the goals and desires of the peoples. However,
indisputable facts prove, once again, that capitalism cannot give
any better future to the working class, the workers and the
peoples.
The productive forces, industrial production, and services are
incessantly developing. The development of these productive forces
no longer fits within the framework of capitalist relations of
production. At present, the level of contradiction between the
socialization of production and the capitalist appropriation of
the means of production surpasses all previous moments in history.
Finance capital, which imposes parasitism and corruption – which
causes super-profits in the capitalist metropolises – has
developed and spread to the most remote corners of the world.
Subcontracting and fragmentation in time and place of work
processes, flexible working hours have become widespread. However,
disorganization, low wages, primitive working conditions,
unemployment, and increasing layoffs have taken hold; Capitalist
exploitation is increasing. The intensification of the
exploitation and profit of monopoly capital, the worsening of
working and subsistence conditions, are the main factor in the
contradiction between labor and capital.
The development of capitalism means poverty within wealth and
increased inequality in distribution. Impoverishment and misery
are spreading. Even in the developed capitalist countries of
Europe, the number of homeless families is increasing, begging is
spreading, and the search for food waste in landfills is
increasing as a matter of course. Famine has spread elsewhere,
beyond Africa's endemic regions of drought and famine.
As a consequence of capitalism, the deterioration and exploitation
of the environment increases to the point of being a problem of
such gravity that it cannot be left unaddressed: the erosion of
the land, the pollution of water and air, the destruction of
nature by the unbridled pursuit of profit, has reached high
levels. It has generated major climate changes that threaten
the future of human beings and other living species.
Inter-imperialist contradictions and competition lead to a renewal
of economic and commercial alliances that constitute a new
offensive against the living standards of the workers and peoples.
Agreements such as the Asia-Pacific bloc; the BRICS, under the
leadership of China and Russia; The Free Trade Agreement between
the United States of America and the European Union are part of
the effort of the imperialists and bourgeois governments to seek
new areas of influence for their capitals and to further exploit
the working class, and increase the oppression against the
peoples.
The capitalist crisis that erupted in 2008, based in the US,
affected all countries. It destroyed productive forces. The
imperialist and capitalist countries initiated through their
governments a policy of rescuing companies using billions of
dollars and euros for this purpose. These funds were withdrawn
from the public treasury, from the workers and peoples through
taxes, caused the reduction of wages, unemployment and cuts to
social security, among other measures; Thus the bourgeoisie has
once again shown its hostile attitude and contempt for the working
classes. In several countries, more than 10 million workers were
put on strike, wages were cut by up to a third; the retirement age
was raised; Retirement pensions were drastically reduced.
All of the above shows that capitalism lacks human consciousness.
As the centralization of capital increases, the full weight of the
crisis falls on the workers and oppressed peoples, with more
serious results, particularly in unemployment, among women and
youth.
III
The economies of the United States and some European countries,
which began a process of relative recovery and revival in 2009,
have not been able to maintain it; Now there are signs of a new
crisis. The debts contracted by the states to carry out the rescue
of companies in 2008 are a heavy burden for the economies of the
capitalist countries. Except for China, all countries are in debt.
Currently, there is a decline in growth rates and also recession
rates. In addition, negative growth is evident in the economies of
several countries.
The unemployment and poverty figures are alarming. According to
data from the International Labour Organization, there are 202
million unemployed people in the world. Poverty rates for 2013
show that there are 1 billion people whose daily income is below
$1 while 2.8 billion people have daily incomes of less than $2.
448 million children are undernourished; Every year, 30,000
children die from lack of treatment for curable diseases.
Emigration has reached an unprecedented level. In the hope of
reaching the developed countries, of achieving a better life, a
job to earn a living, millions of people emigrate from dependent
countries, where there is poverty caused by imperialist plunder,
where regional wars persist.
A large number of these people (women and children among them) die
before they reach where they wanted to go. Those who manage to get
there become victims of discrimination, racist and xenophobic
assaults, more precarious working conditions with lower wages.
IV
The contradictions between the imperialists are sharpening and the
inter-imperialist dispute is growing.
The assertions of those who advocate "globalization", on the basis
of manipulating the development of the trend towards integration
of the world economy, say that "the old imperialism no longer
exists", that "the analysis of imperialism is obsolete, outdated".
All this is nothing more than propaganda by the imperialists
themselves.
The hegemony of finance capital whose networks continue to expand
throughout the world, the financial speculations for the purpose
of monopoly plunder that include the maximum use of state
resources are real and their existence needs no proof.
On the one hand, the number of millionaires is increasing every
day, and so are the profits of investment monopolies and banks. On
the other hand, the working masses are growing incessantly, but
their working conditions are worsening and their misery is
deepening. These are also real facts that do not require proof.
Regional wars and imperialist interventions continue; The
contradictions and the struggle for hegemony between the
imperialist states are sharpening. It cannot be said that the
reactionary and imperialist bourgeois states act only outside
their country, only in expansionism, without caring about the
consolidation of "the home front"; The expansion of imperialism is
also achieved by the exploitation of the working class in their
own countries.
After the defeat of the workers' movement and the disappearance of
socialism, the world has become a space of bourgeois political
relations, a completely reactionary world.
The regulations of the so-called "social state" were considered
unnecessary and "neoliberal" political measures were rapidly being
applied. The bourgeoisie, with its triumph over the workers'
movement and its disorganization, is carrying out an increasingly
reactionary offensive in all countries.
Bourgeois democracy, whose duplicity and formalism is indisputable
on the subject of equality and freedom, is even more retrograde
with the "neoliberal process."
Reaction attacks all ideological, political, cultural, moral and
judicial spaces. The growth of conservatism, together with
medieval "values," is the defining feature of the present
development. Organizations such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State,
empowered in these circumstances, have become useful instruments
of the international bourgeoisie and imperialism.
Imperialism and finance capital support reaction, particularly
medieval reaction, and make it the fundamental basis of their
hegemony. Even capitalist countries where bourgeois democracy is
relatively advanced, fascist tendencies and the police state stand
out. In recent times, the events in Ukraine have been instructive,
revealing the limits of bourgeois democracy.
In Ukraine, the center of conflicts between the imperialist
powers, the developed capitalist countries that consider
themselves the "cradle of advanced democracy" have no qualms about
openly supporting neo-Nazi and fascist forces.
V
The struggle of the workers and peoples is the other side of the
coin.
The anger and discontent, accumulated because of the cruelty of
the socio-economic offensive of monopoly reactionary, has provoked
popular uprisings and mass struggles. The last few years are full
of examples of popular movements that have arisen in response to
the offensive of reaction, the international bourgeoisie and
imperialism.
These popular mobilizations, strikes and large protests, uprisings
and rebellions, although they have not yet succeeded in
undermining the reaction of the bourgeoisie, are a prospect for
its development in the near future.
In the Middle East, divided into artificial borders by imperialism
and its allies, who do not recognize the right of
self-determination of peoples, the "status" formulated a hundred
years ago is disintegrating.
Syria, the country that has lost its territorial integrity, is
looking for its future with the end of the civil war. It is clear
that Iraq, the country that has never been firmly organized,
integrated, influenced by the Syrian civil war, cannot continue as
it has been. The future of this country will be determined by the
struggle of Iraqi peoples of all faiths and nationalities, who
have been dragged into conflicts and sectoral and ethnic
divisions.
The future of Egypt is linked to the outcome of the struggle
between the people and national and international reaction.
The Kurdish people have taken important steps to determine their
own future, establishing democratic mandates in three cantons;
uniting with the nations of Rojava (Western Kurdistan).
In the face of the Israeli Zionist offensive, the struggle of the
Palestinian people for self-determination and to organize
themselves as a state continues.
Strikes and protests in Spain, South Africa, Portugal, Belgium,
Italy and France have emerged as new and dynamic subjects of
struggle.
In Tunisia, the struggle for rights and freedoms is growing and
the Popular Front is getting stronger.
The people of Burkina Faso are waging a revolutionary struggle to
take their future into their own hands, defeating one dictatorship
after another.
In the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa, the
peoples are fighting against religious reactionarism and
governments allied with imperialism.
In Turkey, the Gezi resistance in June in Taksım; in Brazil,
protests against fare increases; In Chile, student demonstrations
have increased the self-confidence of young people demanding
democracy and freedom.
The struggles that have emerged in Latin America, particularly in
Mexico, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic, are strengthening.
In the popular resistances and mobilizations that take place in
these countries, the massive participation and resistant attitude
of women workers stands out. This situation also concretely points
to the decisive role of women in the advancement of the struggle
of the working class and the peoples.
VI
It is evident that these mobilizations, resistances and strikes
are a source of hope in the struggle of the working class and the
peoples. However, the massive mobilizations of workers and peoples
also have the weakness of the lack of organization and
consciousness, and at the level of the vanguard and the
participation of the working class as an independent class.
The popular mobilizations of recent years show that we have not
yet overcome the disorganization caused by the defeat suffered by
the working class.
Our immediate and concrete task is to change this situation.
Disorganized mobilizations, which do not have a revolutionary
program, with independent demands, will not be able to have a
definitive success, although they can achieve some advances over
bourgeois reaction.
In this matter, the responsibility lies with our parties and our
organizations. To multiply in workers' circles; Recognizing the
immediate democratic and economic demands and linking the struggle
to the victory of the revolution and socialism is the only way.
The objective conditions for socialism are riper than ever, yet
they unquestionably compel the unity and organization of the
working class and the workers.
VII
Today, as in the past, revolution requires strategic alliances.
Class alliances built in action, responding to the practical
political needs of the struggle, in diverse forms. The working
class, the workers and the oppressed peoples, advance in their
struggles to repel the attacks by building partial and temporary
alliances. The fundamental thing is to create these alliances
around programs of struggle that include concrete and immediate
demands of the working class and oppressed peoples. The current
task of achieving unity, alliances, of building Popular Fronts, is
ineluctable, as were the united fronts against fascism in the
past.
This is especially important, in order to increase the political
and ideological power of the working class and our parties, and to
create and develop the popular organizations that will advance the
chariot of history.
VIII
There are countries where the ideologues and spokesmen of the
opportunist and revisionist parties and organizations invent every
day "new" ideas and proclamations and try to distort the class
struggle.
In Brazil, the government of social democracy, in Spain Podemos,
in Greece the "leftism" of SYRIZA etc. are current examples. On
the other hand, "progressive" governments are exhausted, losing
ground and prestige in Latin America.
Once again events show that reformism and liberalism have nothing
to give to the working class and the peoples.
Another mystification is the supposed progressivism of Russian and
Chinese imperialism in the face of US imperialism and its Western
partners; This falls by its own weight, since its confrontations
respond to the preservation and expansion of its interests. This
is nothing but the embellishment of bourgeois reaction and
imperialist capitalism.
IX
Current events confirm that the class struggle is the engine of
history, that the working class is the fundamental and vanguard
force of revolution and socialism.
With this certainty we call on the workers and peoples of all
countries, the youth, the scientists and the progressive
intellectuals of the world to unite and raise the struggle against
the international bourgeoisie, reaction and imperialism.
In this process, the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist
Parties and Organizations will assume all responsibilities and
fulfill the necessary tasks.
ICMLPO, Turkey, November, 2014.
Communist Party of Benin
Revolutionary Communist Party – Brazil
Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party (Burkina Faso)
Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist)
Communist Workers' Party of Denmark
Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Communist Party of the Workers of France
Organization for the Construction of the Communist Workers' Party
of Germany
Movement for the Reorganization of the KKE (1918-1955) Greece.
Revolutionary Democracy Organization of India
Iran's Workers' Party (Toufan)
Communist Platform of Italy
Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist)
Democratic Way of Morocco
Pakistan Workers' Front
Peruvian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)
Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist)
Tunisian Workers' Party
Workers' Party of Turkey
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Venezuela
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