The European Communist Meeting was held on the 2nd of October in Brussels on the initiative of the KKE. Its theme was: “ Europe 100 years after the 1st World War. Capitalism, crisis, fascism, war. The struggle of the communist and workers’ parties for a Europe of socialism, peace, social justice.”
The following 32 communist and workers’ parties from various European countries took part in the meeting: Communist Party of Albania, Workers Party of Belgium, New Communist Party of Britain, Party of Bulgarian Communists, AKEL, Communist Party of Bohemia-Moravia, Communist Party in Denmark, Communist Party of Denmark, Union of Revolutionary Communists in France, Pole of Communist Revival of France, Unified Communist Party of Georgia, German Communist Party, Communist Party of Greece, Workers Party of Hungary, Workers Party of Ireland, Communist Party of Italy, Socialist Party of Latvia, Socialist People’s Front of Lithuania, Communist Party of Luxemburg, New Communist Party of the Netherlands, Communist Party of Norway, Communist Party of Poland, Portuguese Communist Party, Communist Party of Romania, Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Russian Communist Workers’ Party, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, New Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain, Communist Party of Sweden, Communist Party Turkey, Union of Communists of Ukraine.
Dimitris Koutsoumpas, GS of the CC of the KKE, made the introductory speech and there followed an exchange of views and experiences of the CPs about the developments and their activity.
Below you will find the introductory speech of D. Koutsoumpas, while shortly we will publish the translation of the closing remarks.
DIMITRIS KOUTSOUMPAS: the coordination of the activity of the communists is necessary, with a line of overthrow, against NATO and the EU.
The introductory speech of the GS of the CC of the KKE at the Meeting.
Dear comrades,
Once again we find ourselves in the EU parliament, at the European Communist Meeting. We welcome you all.
The participation of over 30 delegations of communist and workers’ parties from dozens of European countries demonstrates that this meeting, which is conducted on the initiative of the KKE, responds to the important need of the communists of Europe to meet, discuss and take positions on the current developments and , beyond that, to coordinate their activity against the imperialist organizations that create only suffering for the peoples of our countries, and more generally to coordinate their activity against capitalist barbarity.
The KKE will continue to utilize all means available to contribute to this effort. In any case, we are here today due to the fact that our party utilizes the opportunities available to its parliamentary group in the EU parliament.
In reality, this refutes all those who, both in Greece and in Europe, insinuated that the absolutely necessary withdrawal of the KKE from the GUE/NGL EU parliamentary group – after the negative developments and the escalating interventions of the European Left Party (ELP) – allegedly would lead to a reduction and even disappearance of the related possibilities our party would have.
We can assure you that after the experience of these few months precisely the opposite has occurred. Our independent intervention has been strengthened, as well as our presence and struggle in all the processes inside and outside the EU parliament.
Dear comrades,
The topic of our meeting today reflects above all what the peoples of Europe are experiencing in various ways: Economic capitalist crisis, the revival of the nationalist, racist, fascist tendencies, imperialist war and interventions.
One hundred years after the 1st World War and about 70 years after the end of the 2nd World War, Europe is experiencing the consequences of the insatiable thirst of the monopolies for profits, it is coming face to face with the laws of the capitalist path of development, such as the economic crisis and its tragic consequences for the workers and the other popular strata. Europe and its peoples are facing war.
Of course, the manifestations of the phenomena differ from country to country. So, if in our country extensive strata of workers experience unemployment and the significant deterioration of their living standards, in Ukraine the blood is already flowing. The different manifestations of the consequences of capitalism from country to country are related to uneven capitalist development, nevertheless it is a handful of capitalists that are benefiting in Europe as a whole, in all its four corners. The anti-worker agenda is being implemented, with or without a memorandum, the working class and social problems are sharpening. It is not simply a division between “wealthy” countries and “poor” countries of Europe (at the expense of the latter), but a division that is permeated by the deepest class division: And in the poorest European countries there is accumulated wealth in the hands of the few, who live indeed especially provocatively in comparison to the rest of the population. Just as in the richest countries there is enormous poverty. The workers, regardless of whether they live in “poor countries” or in “rich countries” have common interests in the overthrow of capital’s power, even more so when capitalism today is threatening the peoples with new bloodshed in Europe as well.
Studying the historical experience, we know that economic crises, like the 1929-33 crisis, lead to war. The aggressiveness of capital intensifies in each crisis, enormous productive forces are destroyed.
Indeed, our party assesses that even if the economy enters a phase of limited recovery, this situation can be disturbed by the impact of the developments in the region, the worsening of the economic trajectory of the Eurozone.
The German economy in this years’ 2nd quarter finds itself in recession and concerns are intensifying in Italy and France. The objective laws of capitalism are no laughing matter. The difficulties of the system have caused intense contradictions regarding the formula of economic management, have triggered the reformation of the political system so that the capitalists can ensure the most effective governmental solution for the reinforcement of the monopolies, for their profitability in the new conditions, for the continuation of the anti-people offensive.
The contradictions between the imperialist centres are sharpening. And this fact is connected to the developments in Ukraine, the economic sanctions’ war between the EU and Russia, as well as the developments in the Middle East and North Africa. The confrontation between the strong monopoly groups, capitalist states, bourgeois classes over the market shares, for the control of the natural resources, the oil and natural gas pipelines, as well as for the control of the passages for the transport of commodities as a whole. It is now a relentless inter-imperialist competition, which as time passes, is gaining in strength. It is a primary duty for our movement that it understands that, due to the now negative correlation of forces, the entire web of international relations, international law, as it was formed after the 2nd World War, has changed radically.
We all experienced the prelude to these things over the last 20 years, with a long series of wars and military interventions of NATO, USA, EU in Yugoslavia and Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, Syria and the Central African Republic, now in Ukraine. Everywhere, where the interests of the US and European monopolies are at stake, where they come into conflict with the competing interests of the Russian, Chinese business groups and those of other developing capitalist economies.
It is a confrontation that includes the use every means available, such as diplomatic, economic and military measures, even the prospect of using nuclear weapons. This is borne out by NATO’s decision to form rapid reaction forces, as well as by its aim to install in Europe the so-called ‘anti-missile shield” so that it can acquire the “nuclear lead”, concerning the “first strike” against Russia.
We would like to focus a little on developments in Ukraine. The KKE from the first moment highlighted that this bloody conflict manifested itself with such intensity after the intervention of the USA and EU in the developments in Ukraine, powers which are in a sharp competition with Russia over the control of the markets, raw materials and the country’s transport networks. Of course, the conflict has developed on the terrain of the capitalist development path, which this country is following after the dissolution of the USSR. In any case, the overthrow of the Yanukovych government did not constitute a “democratic development”, as reactionary, conservative and even fascist forces ascended to government. These forces are being used by the EU-USA in order to advance their geopolitical plans in the region of Eurasia.
The KKE assesses that a real solution for the Ukrainian people is neither the attachment of Ukraine to the tank of today’s imperialist European Union or to the tank of today’s capitalist Russia. The attempt to divide the people of Ukraine along ethnic, language lines and to drive them to an enormous slaughter with incalculably tragic consequences for the people and their country so that they choose the one or the other inter-state capitalist union, is entirely alien to the interests of the workers.
We express the view that the working people of Ukraine must organize their own independent struggle, with their interests as the criterion and not the criterion of which imperialist the one or the other section of the Ukrainian plutocracy chooses. They must chart a path of total rupture and overthrow, for socialism, which constitutes the only alternative solution to the impasses of the capitalist development path, crises and wars. Even more so as the people of Ukraine have experienced what socialism, internationalism, rights for the working class on the basis of their real needs mean. To a great extent they fondly recall the enormous social gains that socialism entailed for the working class and other popular strata.
The KKE, in this entire period followed the only political line which we consider corresponds to our character as a communist party. From the very first moment, our party demanded that Greece must have no participation, no involvement in the imperialist plans of NATO, the USA and the EU in Ukraine, however these plans are expressed, either with sanctions against Russia, or with military expeditions tomorrow. We did this through initiatives inside the labour and people’s movement, in the parliament and EU parliament, with meetings with the President of the Greek Republic. We did not stop underlining the fact that the capitalist crisis and imperialist wars go hand in hand and our people have no interests in Greece participating in these plans.
Dear comrades,
In these conditions of the economic crisis and the sharpening contradictions and war preparations, we see that capitalism is taking fascist forces out of the dustbin of history and reviving them in the political life of many countries. Of course, the terrain was prepared many years ago. And as we are talking about our continent, the EU itself did whatever it could to extinguish the flame of the true history which was written with the blood of the peoples. It is doing whatever it can in order to distort history, to justify, directly or indirectly, the fascist brutality. The EU has even transformed the 9th May from the Day of the Antifascist victory into the “day of Europe”, seeking to erase the antifascist-anti-imperialist character of this anniversary from the memory of the peoples. In this dirty and slanderous ideological-political operation, it does not hesitate to equate communism with fascism, with the EU directives and frameworks and the anti-historical theory of the “two extremes”.
At the same time, in order to promote their geopolitical interests in the region of Eurasia the EU and the US do not hesitate to rely on and support the darkest and most reactionary forces that ascended to the government, the state leadership of Ukraine via a coup as had previously happened in Baltic countries. Over the past 25 years, after the overthrow of socialism and the dissolution of the USSR, a systematic ideological anticommunist brainwashing has been taking place in these countries whereby the “SS legions” and the other pro-fascist armed groups are presented as if they “liberated” the country from Bolshevism.
However, let them breathe fire and brimstone, let them spill tons of ink, the objective reality can not be altered. Almost 70 years after the end of the World War II, millions of people all over the world appreciate the unprecedented sacrifices of the communist movement for the defeat of fascism. The communist parties, headed by the party of the Bolsheviks were the basic force, the soul and leader of this titanic struggle. Millions of communist men and women laid down their lives for a better world.
The capitalist system, the competition that inevitably takes place between imperialists and monopolies should be imprinted and stigmatized in the consciousness of the peoples as being responsible for the two world wars, for the millions of dead and disabled, the millions of people driven from their homes. There is no crime that they have ever hesitated to commit in order to serve their profits, their rule and the capitalist power. This holds true even more so today given the sharpening of the competition and their conflicts.
The fascist monster is a product of the capitalist system, both today and in the past; it emerges from the bowels of the system itself; it does not come from outside the system as they like to present it. Fascism is the extreme expression of capital which is utilized as the spearhead of the capitalist power against the labour movement.
It utilizes the conditions of the bourgeois parliamentary democracy so as to become stronger, with the support of capital, or sections of capital as well as of the state apparatus. Its aim is to exercise the power of monopolies in a harsher way as the National Socialist parties of Hitler and Mussolini did in the past in order to subjugate the labour and people’s movement. This has been its main characteristic feature; this is the source of the naked anticommunist hatred that historically characterizes all fascist forces.
The reinforcement of fascists in Ukraine, Greece, France and in other European countries is connected to the disappointment caused by the false expectations cultivated by social-democracy, as well as by the liberal bourgeois parties, all kinds of bourgeois governments that promised pro-people measures and in practice follow a harsh anti-people policy in favour of the monopolies. Then the disillusionment of the ruined popular strata, the self-employed, the farmers, the unemployed, the inexperienced sections of the working class is likely to take a more reactionary direction. This has been demonstrated both by history and also by current events. The slogans, the promises for pro-people changes that are refuted in practice by the various forms of management of the interests of capital, capitalist barbarity, the EU’s strategy are instrumental for the retreats at the level of the people’s consciousness. Fascism, as was true 80 years ago, can be the choice of the bourgeois classes, and not merely as a force to attack and intimidate the people’s movement, but also as a force to manage bourgeois power.
The communists struggle to root out the causes of crises, war, fascism and this is none other than the capitalist system itself. We consider that this direction, the struggle for revolutionary change, for socialism provides us with the strength for the daily conflict with capital, to struggle for goals and demands that correspond to the people’s needs, and it also orients our policy of alliances. The communists of Greece struggle in this direction, attempting to unite all those, the many, i.e. the working class, the urban and rural intermediate strata against the monopolies, against capitalism.
Dear comrades,
The stance of the communist and workers’ movement is of great importance. It must not fall into the “traps” set for it by , amongst others, “left”, i.e. opportunist-social-democratic forces, like SYRIZA in Greece and the ELP in Europe, that call on the working class and popular strata to fight under a “false flag”. Positions, such as e.g. the formation of a “front of the south” of Europe, or the alleged “democratization of the EU”, or the “change of the ECB’s role” etc. muddy the waters and are trying to sow illusions that a better, more rational management formula is possible that will correct the EU and will rid capitalism of its current barbarity.
We would also like to stress from this podium that: Just as capitalism, the international imperialist system can never be rid of its integral characteristics and be “humanized” with another allegedly “left” form of management, so its international capitalist alliances, the imperialist organizations like the EU, can not be “humanized”. Indeed in current conditions they will become worse, there is no way they will get better. The only path for the peoples is the struggle for their overthrow, for the construction of a new socialist society, with the working class, the people, in power.
The EU and NATO are “tools” of the EU and US monopolies. The EU is not under the “guardianship” of the USA and NATO. The EU is not being dragged behind the USA-NATO, as opportunist forces are claiming, but it cooperates together with them very closely and this is apparent everywhere. Of course, there are also separate interests that can come into conflict with the way various issues are jointly dealt with. Nevertheless the EU-NATO imperialist powers are on each occasion called on to bridge their separate interests and carry out the joint coordination of the EU-NATO-USA, the further strengthening of the NATO predatory alliance and its infrastructure in Europe, in tandem, seeking to gain the upper hand and to talk with today’s capitalist Russia from a position of strength. The plans to increase military spending, the so-called anti-missile shield, the increase of the “flexible military forces”, the greater attachment of Ukraine to NATO’s plans etc. as was decided at the recent NATO summit in Wales, are integrated in this framework and in the name of alleged “European security”.
The Europe of socialism, peace and social justice, for which we are struggling, objectively requires the strengthening of the workers’-people’s struggle at a national level. This is because the strengthening of the struggle at a national level is a precondition for the empowerment of the struggle at a regional and European level, for the change of the correlation of forces, in order to break “the link in the chain” of the power of the monopolies and the imperialist “shackles” of the EU and NATO, through disengagement from them, something which in today’s conditions can only be guaranteed by workers’ -people’s power.
This issue has come to the forefront in our country, as the official opposition, SYRIZA on the one hand swears oaths of allegiance to these unions and on the other promises as a government to repair the EU, or proclaims that withdrawal from NATO is not in its priorities, or gets some of its cadres to talk generally about the need for NATO to be “dissolved”. However the revolutionary line which corresponds to the interests of each people and all the peoples of the world is one: to consistently struggle in those countries that are members of NATO for withdrawal from it, and to organize their struggle in those countries where the bourgeois classes are preparing to enter the predatory alliance against their integration in it. There is no third way.
The tactics of the opportunist and social-democratic forces are well-known, like SYRIZA and others that are mainly rallied in the ELP and which for years have been adding grist to the mill of NATO, supporting the pretexts and the imperialist interventions e.g. in Yugoslavia, Libya, or in Syria and at the same time seek to trick the workers, talking in general terms and in a pacifist way in favour of the dissolution of NATO. It is hypocritical because such a demand is suitable for a movement or party to promote in a country that is not in NATO, or that has not yet thought about joining. However, when your country is inside this gang of murderers, you can not whistle casually and say vaguely “it should be dissolved”. You must first of all fight for the disentanglement of your country from the criminal plans and the criminal organization itself, which is the “long arm”, the “gun hand” of the EU-US monopolies.
Dear comrades,
100 years ago there were certain analysts of international developments who assessed that the contradictions, the conflict between the major powers of the era would be limited to certain flashpoints, local wars and skirmishes. And this was because, as they assessed, the interests and cooperation of the economic circles of the major countries were so important that they would function to prevent a global war.
As we are aware today, these assessments were refuted by life itself and indeed millions of people paid with their lives. Capitalism, the inter-imperialist contradictions have already provoked two world wars in Europe, resulting in enormous destruction. Today the “fuse” of war has been ignited. And again, there are quite a few people who assess that a more generalized conflict is “illogical”, as the profits of the cooperation between the great powers, such as e.g. between Germany and Russia, are enormous, and thus it is not logical for us to be led to a more general conflict. On our part, we do not agree with these soothing voices.
Of course, we study the developments, the differentiations, the separate interests and cooperation that the bourgeois classes develop, but we do not forget that the capitalist crisis “shuffles the card deck” inside the imperialist system, in which every capitalist country participates, on the basis of its economic-political and military strength. The inter-imperialist contradictions, which in the past led to dozens of local, regional wars and to two World Wars, continue to lead to tough economic, political and military confrontations, irrespective of the composition or recomposition, the changes in the structure and the framework of goals of the international imperialist unions, their so-called new "architecture".
In any case, "war is the continuation of politics by other violent means", especially in the conditions of a deep crisis of capital's over-accumulation and important changes in the correlation of forces of the international imperialist system, in which the re-division of the markets rarely occurs without bloodshed.
This ascertainment, that as long as capitalism exists the conditions that give rise to war will exist, places complex tasks for us. For this reason we address ourselves to the country’s working class, to the peoples of Europe and stress that their interests are identified with the anticapitalist-antimonopoly struggle for the disengagement from the imperialist organizations, the removal of foreign military bases and nuclear weapons, the return of military forces from the imperialist missions, the expression of solidarity with each people that struggles and seeks to chart its own path of development. So that our country is disentangled from the imperialist plans and wars. So that the following slogan can be realized: “No land, no water for the murderers of the people.” This is a daily struggle. A struggle with specific goals, which the communists in Greece are conducting in a unified way together with the struggle for people’s power, and not detached from it.
The utilization of the valuable historical experience of every movement, every party in its country and internationally is an important tool. However, at the same time it is not possible just to restrict ourselves to our old valuable experience. The desire of the bourgeois class of every country to take an active role in the distribution of the markets through war will be even further linked to the misleading nationalist campaign in each country, with various pretexts used by the bourgeois class in each country to try to convince the people that it has material interests in yet another expansionist war, to seek annexations or to accept new compromises and dependencies. In any case, whatever form the participation of each specific country takes in the imperialist war, in the imperialist intervention, our communist movement, the CP must lead the independent organization of the workers'-people's resistance in all its forms, so as to lead to the complete defeat of the bourgeois class, both the domestic one and the foreign invader. And this can be realized when the CP takes the initiative to form the Workers’-People’s Front with the slogan : the people will bring the liberation and the way-out from the capitalist system, which as long as it prevails brings war and "peace" with the gun to the people's head.
The contribution of socialism in Europe, despite the overthrow that took place 25 years ago, remains indisputable. Only socialism can create those economic and social bases, which can satisfy the contemporary needs of the workers, the other popular strata, and safeguard peace.
The communist and workers’ parties of Europe must intensify their endeavours, activity, their coordination and with a line for overthrowing the system in order to contribute to strengthening the European front against NATO and the EU. So that a hopeful tomorrow can dawn for the peoples and youth of our countries.