Contribution to the 13th International Communist Seminar
Brussels, 2-4 May 2004
www.icsbrussels.org , ics[at]icsbrussels.org
Ludo Martens,
Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Belgium
On behalf of the central Committee of the WPB, I extend my warmest greetings to all those taking part in this International Communist Seminar and in particular those from parties present here for the first time. They are too many for me to name them all, so I shall only mention the presence of representatives of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, represented for the first time by its chairman, Comrade Chenin, the Democratic People’s Party of Afghanistan, the Communist Party of Lebanon, the Democratic Progressive Tribune from Bahrein, the Communist Party of Denmark, the Communist Party of Turkey, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, the Communist Party of Slovakia, the Communist Party of Venezuela, three Communist Parties from Nepal and the Communist League of Indonesia.
70 parties and organisations have registered as participants and 12 as observers. All of which goes to show the growing international interest for this Seminar initiated in 1992 and organised each year since then in Brussels. Your presence is a proof that all of us who defend Marxism-Leninism and the Communist heritage feel the imperious necessity of concerting with one another and acting together.
We are all aware of the old divisions in the Communist movement. Since the end of the sixties, some parties gathered round the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, others were close to the ideas defended by China, yet others shared the views of the Party of Labour of Albania, several Latin American parties were above all inspired by the Cuban Revolution, while still others adopted an independent position..
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism demonstrated the complete bankruptcy of revisionism. The proof was there that revisionism, initiated by Tito and Khrushchev, was nothing but bourgeois ideology, infiltrating the Communist movement.
Since 1992, this Seminar brings together parties, organisations and groups who declare their desire to defend Marxism-Leninism and Proletarian Internationalism and who oppose revisionism as well as dogmatism and sectarianism.
For four years, from 1992 to 1995, all the discussions in the International Communist Seminar aimed at identifying the main causes of the restoration in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and drawing the lessons from it. The book The Collapse of the Soviet Union : Causes and Lessons gives a good idea of these reflections and discussions.
The 1995 Seminar adopted the text "Proposals for the unification of the International Communist Movement ".
This was a minimum framework enabling Communist parties and organisations belonging to different historical tendencies to meet, exchange political and theoretical analyses as well as reports on practical experiences, to discuss ideological differences, to debate among Communists on crucial current problems, to adopt certain resolutions and to co-ordinate certain activities and actions on a voluntary basis.
Since the counter-revolution of 1989-90, the world has greatly changed. The counter-revolution in most socialist countries has enabled the imperialist powers and in particular US imperialism to set off a wave of violent reaction throughout the world : the first Iraq war, the war against Somalia, the various reactionary wars in the countries of the former Soviet Union, the division of Yugoslavia by violence and the wars among the resulting states, the war against Afghanistan and the military occupation of that country and the second terrorist war against Iraq.
All the fundamental contradictions marking our age have taken a serious turn for the worse. Think of, in the first place, the contradictions between the neo-colonial countries and the imperialist powers as well as between imperialism and those countries of Asia and Latin America which have acquired a measure of independence.
Then you have the contradictions between imperialism and the countries declaring they maintain the socialist path - China, Cuba, the DPR of Korea, Vietnam and Laos.
Thirdly, the contradictions among the imperialist powers themselves and particularly between the United States and the European Union and Russia have increased.
And finally, the fundamental contradiction between the international working class and world capitalism.
1.
If the counter-revolution has become arrogant and ferocious, anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces are currently on the rise.
On May 1st 2003, Bush celebrated his complete victory over what he called «the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein». On May 1st 2004, Bush is faced with a genuine people’s war of the heroic Iraqi masses who, after undergoing 12 years of an embargo which caused more than a million and a half deaths, are shedding their blood for independence and democracy.
In Afghanistan, Nato controls a few cities, but is encountering generalised resistance against the occupation. The anti-war movement is not weakening in the US, Spain, Italy or South Korea. Cuba and the DPR of Korea are holding on to socialism and resisting all attempts at intimidation and provocation. Chavez is proving that independence is the main demand of all Latin American peoples against Yankee domination.
Solidarity with the people’s war of the heroic Iraqi people can be the first axis of co-operation and exchange of projects and experiences among our parties.
This unity of action can meet the often expressed wish of different delegations to give more emphasis to activities and actions to be carried out in common, since internationalism should be expressed above all in common struggle against a common enemy.
2.
US imperialism is today inventing new geographical notions to serve its policy of domination and war at world level. The new idea of a Greater Middle East is used in the first place to bind European imperialism to US hegemony and to maintain the American hold on Europe. The United States is conscious of its strategic weakness and needs European political and military support to maintain its world hegemony.
The idea of a Greater Middle East is also used to justify the setting up of military bases with a view to future attacks on China and Russia.
The main enemy of the popular masses in Europe is European monopoly capitalism. Only socialist revolution can achieve the liberation of labour, people’s democracy, equality and justice, the free and harmonious development of all. In our complex and constantly changing world, the preparation for socialist revolution will take place along different axes.
Today, US imperialism is the main enemy of the peoples of the world. In Europe, we have the duty to constitute a broad front of popular forces to fight American imperialism and all its preparations for war on a world scale.
To facilitate the constitution of this front, Communists and other progressive people can also exploit the contradictions existing between certain fractions of European imperialism and US hegemony in order to isolate the latter. The essential point is to ensure the development of anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist consciousness, as well as the strengthening of the organisation of revolutionary forces.
The slogan «Abolition of Nato» aims at weakening US imperialism and hindering its preparations for a general war. On June 28 there will be an important mobilisation against Nato in Turkey.
We appeal for a maximum of organisations from the European continent and Asia to join this mobilisation so as to create a broad movement against Nato and the warlike policy of the United States in the years to come. This could be a second line of co-operation.
3.
Solidarity with Cuba, the DPR of Korea, China, Vietnam and Laos, the countries which declare they maintain the socialist system, could also be co-ordinated or carried out in common.
4.
A fourth proposal has been formulated, to co-ordinate at international level Communist contributions to the Porto Alegre Social Forum in January 2005. We are hoping for other proposals from you for today or tomorrow.
As you know, as far as the co-ordination of theoretical work and the organisation of common political campaigns go, we have to admit that the practice of proletarian internationalism has seriously retreated since the years 1920-1953.
In 1919, at the instigation of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, the Communists of the whole world came together in the Communist International. Its rules stipulated: «Art. 1. The International Workers’ Association is the organisation of the Communist parties of the different countries in a single world Communist party. It fights for the winning over of the majority of the working class… for the aims of communism,. establishing the world dictatorship of the proletariat and setting up a World Federation of Soviet Socialist Republics which will enable the complete abolition of classes and the achievement of socialism. »
At the time, the workers in developed capitalist countries, while they had common objective interests, had few real ties and their consciousness of common revolutionary interests was very weak. It was through an extraordinary ideological, political and organisational effort that the Communists gave the world working class a tool for achieving liberation on an international level. With the Third International, the world working class possessed a more highly developed and united international fighting organisation than the political arms belonging to the bourgeoisie of the different imperialist countries.
More than 80 years later, this relation of forces was completely overthrown to the detriment of revolutionary forces. Among Communists there still reigns an almost total lack of co-ordination and organisational unity, while the different trends of the big bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie have created strong supra-national political organisations.
In the new European state which is coming into being, the monopoly bourgeoisie has set up several European parties which serve the interests of European imperialism and is trying to imprison the parties which still refer to Communism in a straight-jacket of law and order and to marginalise and eliminate genuine Communist parties.
On this topic, we would like to make a suggestion for the subject of the 2005 Seminar, a suggestion which has its origin in several contributions made in the last years by parties from former socialist countries.
The suggestion is to take as subject for the 2005 Seminar the question of the Leninist Party and the experience of the Third International and its significance for our present struggle. It is a proposal, you will make others and we’ll decide at Tuesday’s session.
Our party, the Workers’ Party of Belgium, has drawn certain lessons from the ideological and political struggles which traversed the International Communist Movement in the years 1964 to 1990.
Differences, and even serious differences can emerge among Communist parties. The essential point is that each party express its opinion frankly and assess the opinions of others objectively and that the friendship among Communists be preserved. Even when we have serious differences with another party, we should go on learning from its achievements and successes.
Our party was educated in the school of the Great Debate which opposed the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1963-66. It was the Communist Party of China which taught us to defend Leninism and the achievements of comrade Stalin and to criticise revisionism.
We made the mistake of taking the Chinese experience as our main, even our only source of reference. For instance, we followed the CPC when it developed its theory of social-imperialism, with the Soviet Union as the most dangerous super-power.
In 1968, we condemned the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia.
Twenty years later, we discovered the analysis of this question made by Fidel Castro in 1968 and we concluded that it corresponded exactly to the complex situation in Czechoslovakia at the time.
In the eighties, we adopted the analysis made by the Chinese comrades of the intervention by Cuban soldiers in Angola in support of the MPLA and we spoke about an «intervention of mercenaries of social imperialism». Today, we know, from the CIA dispatches of the time, that the Cuban action in defence of the Angolan revolution was carried out in the teeth of opposition by Brezhnev and Kosyguin...
In 1996, we published a report on the mistakes we had made in adopting certain theses of the CPC. However, the main responsibility for our mistakes is our own. We have never blamed the CPC and we have never forgotten what Mao Zedong taught us. In addition, we have strengthened our ties with the CPC over the years.
Today we also have very good relations of friendship and co-operation with the Communist Party of Cuba.
Whether it is question of the Chinese, Cuban, Soviet or Czech experience, we quote the following extremely profound words of Lenin:
Lenin declared: «…this new society… can come into being only by passing through a series of varied, imperfect and concrete attempts to create this or that socialist state.»1 «…only by a series of attempts – each of which, taken by itself, will be one-sided and will suffer from certain inconsistencies – will complete socialism be created by the revolutionary co-operation of the proletarians of all countries.» 2
It is with this lesson in dialectics by Lenin that I wish to end this introduction to the 13th International Communist Seminar.
1 Lenin, The Tax in Kind, Complete Works, Progress, Moscow, vol 32, p.
2 Lenin, The Tax in Kind, ibid., p.