Arbeiterbund für den Wiederaufbau der KPD, Germany
Contribution to the International Communist Seminar
"The World Socialist Revolution in the Conditions of Imperialist Globalization"
Brussels, 2-4 May 2001
First of all some remarks about the term of "globalisation". We do not use this term. "Globalisation" is a term invented and used by the bourgeois class. This term is to imply that capitalism faces another spring. This term is to tell the workers and the peoples of the world that they are facing an irresistible fate that can not be defeated. That any opposition is meaningless. We should use the scientific terms for things. The scientific term is: imperialism. It means: Capitalism is a rotten, a dying system that can be defeated and will be defeated. And imperialism means: war. It means world war. Let me tell you what German imperialism means when it speaks about "globalisation": German imperialism at the moment and once again is the aggressor number one in Europe. We remember the speech a member of our Central Committee delivered here in Brussels in December 1993, at the counter summit against the treaty of Maastricht. He said: Maastricht won’t stop German imperialism. Maastricht was the price it had to pay for the agreement with the other imperialist powers so that the Federal Republic could annex German Democratic Republic. Now the other imperialists are betrayed betrayers. And for German imperialism the treaty of Maastricht does not have any meaning any longer. It is just a sheet of paper, as the German Supreme Court declared in 1993. Life has confirmed this. German imperialism marches on and on since then. Be honest, comrades! If anybody would have told you let us say 15 years before: Take away the Soviet Union and imagine the following scenario: German monopolies are dominating all the central industrial sectors in Eastern Europe. The German Mark is the most important and dominant currency on the Balkans. Yugoslavia has been smashed to pieces. On the Balkans a fight for domination takes place between the German army and the German secret service on the one side and the US-Army and the CIA on the other side. German troops (German ones, not French, British of US ones) have been stationed all over Eastern Europe, from Gdansk to Georgia. German border guards are on their way to the Eastern border of Poland. German imperialism set up bridgeheads all along its Eastern borders to destabilize central state power in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states. German money buys the Russian territory of Kaliningrad and German officials are issuing visa for that region. A new annexation of Austria has almost been finished in an economic sense – and it was the influence of German politicians that made possible the installation of a fascist movement within the Austrian government. German imperialism is converting its army into an intervention army (this has been finished within the last months) and is building 60.000 beds in military hospitals all over the country. The German chancellor is negotiating with the Russian president so that Russia should hand over the best parts of her industry to German capitalists. The German foreign minister is interviewed by an important weekly in Germany and tells that Germany will have to dominate Europe, and that Germany needs to have access to nuclear weapons. He tells the readers of the weekly that this would be the only way Germany would be able to challenge the United States of America. To achieve this German imperialism sends help by weapons, by money, by institutions, by mass media and by mere subversion to all secessionist movements in Europe, not only in Eastern Europe, but also in France, in Italy, in Belgium and so on. If anybody would have said that 15 years before – everybody would have thought: this means war between the imperialists. And everybody would have known who is the aggressor. It means war, comrades. For German imperialism, having come to late at the capitalist stage, having been defeated twice in the last century in the struggle for the domination of the world, always disturbing the fragile balance of power between the imperialist forces – this German imperialism is at least since 1990 back on stage again. And he has achieved quite a lot. These are the facts. We may not deny them. Of course nobody knows who will strike the first blow in an new world war. Will that be when imperialists fight for the loots in Eastern Europe? Will it be in the fight for the Russian wealth? Or will it be when an old Prussian dream may be fulfilled: the dream of a war alliance with Russia? We don’t know. But we would know then who would be the aggressor. Above all revolutionaries under these circumstances have to analyse – and they have to draw lessons from their analysis, lessons for to act: How is war being prepared? In which way? Who, which bourgeoisie is in the role of the aggressor? Who, which bourgeoisie is in the role just to react? What are the tasks of international workers’ movement against imperialism? Which tactics do we have to develop against imperialism and the danger of war. Which tactics may enable us not only to prevent a next war but also to make an approach to revolution, to the dictatorship of the working class, which is the prerequisite to ban war for ever from the life of the peoples of the world? Nobody can rely on the imperialist bourgeoisies of Europe. We said in 1993, here in Brussels: They will make one deal after the other, one Munich Agreement after the other with German imperialism – till is will be too late. And they really did so within the last years. On the Balkans, in Eastern Europe, within the negotiations about the enlargement of EU and Nato. What is so badly needed is an alliance of the peoples against the aggressor, against German imperialism. Only the working class can be the leader of such an alliance. Or should we really wait till the working classes of Europe by a German attack will be fused with their bourgeois classes again? If the working classes should forget their very aim in such an alliance, that is: to overthrow their bourgeois classes – then they are not very different to other parts of the people. But if they do not judge their bourgeois classes by the degree in which these classes are able to resist German imperialism, they would not be better than the lower parts of the bourgeois classes. Working classes must not shrink back from their responsibility. With the communists they must have a leadership in all this. A leadership that should be able to fight for an alliance of the peoples against Germany already before it is actually required by war itself. Our comrade said in 1993, here in Brussels: I do not stand to say that last World War will be simply repeated. I am not a fatalist, and I am not a prophet. What I may say because everyone can see that is: The mistakes made before the last World War are recurring. To say that doesn’t mean to be a fatalist. It means to stress what really takes place. To speak about the things that can be made different and better. There have been many discussions since then and a lot of international conferences of revolutionaries and communists. To be honest with you: The only one to have advances on its way to war seems to be imperialism. The time of general analysis and conferences is over (if there ever has been a time for that). The truth is concrete, and so is the danger of war. We ask you, comrades, to discuss this situation and this point of view within your parties and organisations. Do you agree with us or do you not agree? What we have to discuss after that is: How can we build such an alliance of the peoples against German imperialism? How can we use that tactics to free the workers in our countries from the influence of the bourgeois classes and to come closer to proletarian revolution.
Contribution to the International Communist Seminar
"The World Socialist Revolution in the Conditions of Imperialist Globalization"
Brussels, 2-4 May 2001