Contribution to the 15^th International Communist Seminar
"Present and past experiences in the international communist movement".

Brussels, 5- 7 May 2006

The construction of the Communist Party in the struggle against the anti-communist and totalitarian offensive

Communist Party of Denmark ML

By Sven Tarp

International Secretary

The construction of the Communist Party is a multi-faceted task that includes the construction in the political, ideological and organizational spheres. The struggle in these three spheres is interwoven, and although the Communist Party, at a given moment, is not necessarily developing at the same rhythm in each of them, in the long run it is not possible to build the Party that the working class needs without attending all of these three spheres simultaneously. That is, at least, the way Party building is understood by the Communist Party of Denmark ML.

Today we are working under the conditions of a prolonged neo-conservative offensive that started more than two decays ago in the times of Reagan and Thatcher. This reactionary offensive initiated by world imperialism in an abortive attempt to surmount its structural crisis is still continuing today and determines in many ways the struggle to construct the Communist Party, although there are several signs of an incipient contra-offensive from the revolutionary, anti-imperialist and progressive forces, especially in the Middle East and in Latin America, but also to a lesser degree in various European countries such as France and Greece, just to mention a few.

In Denmark, the working class and the progressive forces have been forced into a prolonged defensive since 1985-86 and although their class struggle against the policy of the ruling circles has had its ups and downs, the general tendency for several years has been a kind of ebb in this struggle. During all these years, the Danish bourgeoisie has used the relative weakness of the proletarian and peoples’ movement to impose neo-liberal policies, dismantle the so-called welfare state, reduce democratic rights, integrate Denmark into the structures of the imperialistic European Union and change the foreign policy to one of the most reactionary and pro-US imperialist in Europe.

We think that the main task of the Communist Party under these adverse conditions is to find ways to accumulate forces in order to prepare, little by little, the future strategic contra-offensive of the revolutionary forces that is both necessary and inevitable. How this is to be done is a complex question. First of all, it must be stated that although the Danish communists live and act under the conditions of a general offensive from the most reactionary circles of the Danish and international bourgeoisie, this does not mean that the communists should take a defensive stand towards the serious situation that has been created. Quite the opposite, we think that a defensive or even passive stand would be extremely harmful to our cause and that it is both necessary and possible to take the offensive, even when it is only at a limited scale.

Recent experiences of our Party confirm this idea. During a period of two years, the Party concentrated a lot of its activities in the intensive unification process that was taking place among Danish communists. Some of our main cadres dedicated almost all their time to this important task and a lot of meetings in the Party organisations and even one Congress and a special Conference were used to involve all the Party members in the process which was never regarded as a prerogative of the leadership alone. Although it is was both necessary and correct to pay so much attention to the unification process, the undesirable effect of this intensive process as it was handled by the Party was that other spheres of the Party life and building were given too little attention. This created little by little a negative situation with a certain weakening of the internal organizational work, a growing passiveness towards the most urgent tasks in daily class struggle and an underestimation of the ideological and political formation of the new Party members, especially the young comrades. The situation was far from critical but it became increasingly clear that something had to be done in order to bring the Party back on the trail before the negative tendencies grew worse. At the same time, it became clear that the intensive unity process with one of the other communist parties would not lead to an immediate unification of the two organizations and that the continuation of the process with the intensity that had characterised it until then could lead to a worsening of the internal situation.

After a profound analysis of the situation that had been created, in September last year the Party decided to re-saddle in the unification process and initiate a Party campaign where the Party took the offensive in various directions.

First it prepared a lot of propaganda and agitation material and launched all its forces into a public campaign against the so-called anti-terrorist legislation. The different Party organisations arranged public meetings, activities in the streets and a number of selected work sites and an intensive press work that, in the beginning, was almost completely silenced by the big media. But as a result of these first offensive activities, the general mood changed and an atmosphere of optimism started to pave the way after only a few weeks of campaign. At the same time, the Party received the first calls from people who wanted to know more about the Party and even to become members.

In the first week of December last year, the Party’s premises in Aarhus, the second biggest town of Denmark, were attacked twice in a week by right extremist and neo-Nazi gangs, one time when a number of anti-fascists were united and the other time when the Red Youth had an activity there. The Party immediately took the contra-offensive. Together with other leftist and democratic forces it organised a mass demonstration of 800 anti-fascists that went from the town hall to the party premises. At the same time, the Party started an offensive towards the national and local press that was slandering the anti-fascists and claiming that they themselves had provoked the attack of the right extremist elements. This time it succeeded to break the traditional silence and present its points of views to hundred of thousands of peoples all over the country. Simultaneously, the Party activists contacted all the residents in the neighbourhood who, of course, were very concerned because of the increasing violence and the comrades succeeded not only to allay their fear but also to get the support from many of them.

The Party also convoked a meeting with the trade union movement and all the political parties of the Town Council (where the Party is still not present). A number of trade unions and all the political parties except the Liberal and the Conservative Parties participated in the meeting and decided, after some debate and amendments, to sign a statement prepared by our Party against the right extremists and political violence. Although the statement was later diluted by the Social Democratic Party – without consulting our Party – in order to get the support from the remaining two parties, this statement was finally adapted by the Town Council. This fact together with the public opinion that had developed against right extremist violence contributed to force the neo-Nazi gangs into the defensive. It was a partial victory for the democratic forces.

Some weeks later, in the middle of the so-called cartoon crisis which was provoked by the most reactionary circles of the Danish bourgeoisie and where our Party took an internationalist position in support of the Muslim peoples against the arrogant behaviour of the Danish government and the newspaper that published the cartoons, the Danish police forced the internet distributor of our daily newspaper Arbejderen to remove a document from its website. This police action was a direct violation of both the Danish Constitution which explicitly prohibits any kind of censorship and of the Media Responsibility Act according to which the editor-in-chief – and not the internet distributor – is the sole responsible for the material published in the newspaper and which also stipulates that no material can be removed or censored by the police without a warrant.

The document removed was a call from the Danish association Rebellion to democratic organizations in Europe to support the struggle against the so-called anti-terrorist legislation and defend the right to express solidarity with revolutionary and national liberation movements such as the Colombian FARC and the Palestinian PFLP which have arbitrarily been put on the European Union’s terror list. The police had already removed the call from Rebellion’s website and started a criminal investigation against this democratic association. In solidarity with Rebellion, our newspaper put the call on its website, and the same did a number of leftist and democratic organizations. Last December the editor-in-chief received a letter from the police who asked us to remove the document, but instead of doing so our Party took the offensive and placed the call on more than 20 different websites all over Europe.

When the police finally forced our internet distributor to remove the document in a complete disregard of present Danish legislation, our editor-in-chief wrote a letter to the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen who is also the Minister of the Press and who recently had come out in the defence of a so-called freedom of speech during the cartoon crisis, but after two months the Prime Minister has still not answered our letter. Our newspaper has complained to the Public Prosecutor and the question has also, through contacts in the Danish Parliament, been raised in the Parliament’s Legal Commission, and if this does not lead to anything, we will sue the police for its violation of Danish law. We have also taken contact with a number of journalists who have expressed their solidarity with us and succeeded to publish the story in their newspapers. Even the Association of Danish Daily Newspapers, of which our newspaper is a member, came out in our defence and this first week of May this association which apart from our newspaper consists of centrist and rightist newspapers published a whole-page declaration in all the Danish newspapers where it warned against the negative effects that the new anti-terror packet could have for freedom of speech. The offensive line of our Party and its newspaper has contributed to this development that makes it more complicated for the government to carry through its anti-communist and totalitarian policy.

One final example to mention here is the campaign that our Party has started against the Danish transnational company Vestas that is the world’s biggest manufacturer of wind turbines. Last year we discovered that this company which has its main offices in Randers, the fifth biggest town of Denmark, had sold a number of wind turbines to the American torture centre and concentration camp at the Guantanamo Base. In the beginning of this year we started a campaign where we contacted the national and local press, organized a public meeting and distributed leaflets in Vestas’ factory in Randers. In this way, we succeeded to raise the debate, especially in the local press. On the 25^th of April, a member of our national leadership who had bought a share in the company participated in the annual general meeting of shareholders where she – as a so-called «critical shareholder» – proposed that the company committed itself not to sell more wind turbines to the Guantanamo Base or any other places where torture is practiced and that it, at the same time, should establish a fund to support the victims of torture. The proposals raised a debate in the meeting and the press, and although they – as it could be expected – were not adopted by the meeting they created a very inconvenient situation for the company and contributed to raise a democratic opinion in the Danish population against torture in general and especially against the Guantanamo Base. And the campaign continues.

The four initiatives mentioned in this paper have all been initiatives that our Party has taken against the anti-communist and totalitarian offensive which is part of the general offensive of imperialism. Other initiatives where the Party during the last seven months has taken the offensive on a limited scale could also be mentioned. These initiatives have contributed to overcome the difficulties that had been created in our Party and restore its characteristics as a genuine Leninist Party. They have created a new atmosphere of optimism among its militants. During the last six months the Party has had more access to the big mass media than during the previous five or ten years together. The Party has received a lot of letters and approaches from people who want contact with the Party and information about its political programme and activities. A number of new militants, especially young people, have entered the Party.

All this shows that it is possible – and necessary – for the communists to combine various forms of struggle and take the offensive in various directions even under the adverse conditions of the present imperialist offensive. In this way it is possible little by little to accumulate the forces that are needed for a future offensive of the revolutionary forces. In these weeks we see a rising tide of class struggle from the workers and other sectors of the Danish population, with strikes, mass demonstrations, meetings and other activities against the neo-liberal policy of the rightist government. The Party is well prepared and takes an active part in this new flood of class struggle which opens new perspectives for its development.

At the same time, our Party continues the unification process with other Danish communisst. A Congress of unification of our Party and the organization Communist Unity that was created last year is scheduled to take place in the beginning of November this year. Although it is still our strategic goal to achieve the unification of all Danish communists, this is the point to which the process has matured until now. The two organizations have already published a proposal for Party Programme and a proposal for Party Statutes. The proposal for the new Party Programme that was published about six weeks ago has been distributed among the militants of the two organizations. It has also been published and distributed in several thousands copies in our daily newspaper. And during the first four weeks it was downloaded more than 1.350 times from the websites of the two organizations as an indication of the big interest that this process and the many activities of the communists is arousing among many leftist and progressive people.