ECM 2012, Contribution of the New Communist Party of Britain [En.]

We meet again at a time of sharpening contradictions and the primary contradiction in the world today is between United States imperialism and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate. As the political and economic crisis deepens around the world the struggle for markets and spheres of influence becomes acute, so much so that the aggressor countries, in their need to win the battle for markets and minerals turn to war and crude methods to replace diplomacy and negotiations. The United States is the major imperialist power and is keeping to its aims of provoking war and building up its military machine.

The American people and the world peace movement are largely ignored – as was former President Eisenhower when he warned of the danger of the military industrial complex. It is precisely that section of the ruling class that has gained the upper hand and is responsible for the foreign policy of the US.

The US is also demonstrating its power to restrict the right of their people to know what is going on. War correspondents are no longer allowed to go into the field of battle and have to rely on reports from US military experts who have the intention of sanitising war and its horrors inflicted on subject peoples by US troops and their puppets.

The US has military bases in some 97 countries. These all contain weapons of mass destruction, which are pointed at Russia and China.

The US instigated the wars in the Middle East that have ravaged their historic and cultural institutes. And although there is a ban on the use of phosphorus the US rained down such bombs on Baghdad and Fallujah. The US is the master behind the puppet terrorist organisations, which have been provided with modern technological equipment. They also have personnel in the field, both training and participating in the wars of oppression.

Britain too has a record of servility towards US imperialism. Blatant lies by Blair and his cohorts got us embroiled in the diabolical war strategy of the US.

Cameron has been acting as an agent of the British military establishment as he tries to promote powerful military equipment to all and sundry.

The labour and peace movement needs to reassert itself, pending possible attacks by the US on Iran and Syria, and stop the escalation to war that threatens to envelop Iran and Turkey. There has been a failure of CND and Stop the War to mobilise support for demonstrations in the localities as well as nationally.

The Achilles Heel of the US and British imperialism lies in the working class of those countries, who are suffering unemployment and economic stagnation. They demand major cuts in military expenditure and the withdrawal of troops from the Middle East, which has been subjected to outrageous wars. The resources should be switched from the wars in the Middle East to use for peaceful and civil purposes and creating jobs, which will be more fruitful for the British people.

Struggle for peace

British and United States imperialism poses the greatest danger to world peace. The National Missile Defence (NMD) system has triggered another global arms race. The tearing up of the Anti-Ballistic Missile [ABM] treaty has undermined every other international agreement on nuclear weapons.

Even so the imperialists are trying to use part of the non-proliferation agreement as an instrument to bully and threaten any country attempting to develop an independent nuclear industry. But given the fact that the non-proliferation treaty has still to be implemented by the imperialist camp, every sovereign state has the legitimate right to develop its nuclear industry.

This imperialist hostility is currently focused on Iran and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK].

The DPRK has had no choice but to develop its nuclear energy programme and its own independent nuclear deterrent. The DPRK threatens no one. It’s enemies are close by. United States nuclear-armed warships are stationed off the Korean coast and thousands of US troops are in the south of Korea as well as in Japan.

The US wants to perpetuate the division of Korea and ultimately to extinguish socialism in the Korean peninsula. Our Party stands by the DPRK and condemns the imperialist aims and threats. Like wise we defend Iran’s right to develop its peaceful atomic research without hindrance.

The Big Five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council all possess nuclear weapons, along with India and Pakistan. The US has an immense arsenal, as does Britain. France also possesses substantial stocks of nuclear weapons and so does Russia, which inherited the systems of the former Soviet Union.

Britain is a major arms supplier and its troops are deployed in a growing number of war zones and areas made unstable as a result of imperialist intervention and aggression.

People’s China is the fifth permanent member of the Security Council, and the only socialist state with nuclear weapons and is the only one actively supporting proposals for multilateral nuclear disarmament.

China stands for the complete prohibition and total destruction of all nuclear weapons. China, backed by many other countries, has challenged the West to implement the entire non-proliferation treaty, which was signed in 1968 to halt nuclear proliferation but also committed the signatories to work towards universal nuclear disarmament. In the meantime China calls on all the major nuclear-weapon states to abandon their policy of nuclear deterrence.

In Britain the NCP supports the efforts of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other peace movements for unilateral British nuclear disarmament. We must campaign against any British participation in NMD and for Britain’s adherence to the non-proliferation treaty.

One immediate focus must be the demand to scrap the present Trident nuclear missile programme and to fight against the Conservative, Liberal-Democratic coalition government’s plan to spend further billions on upgrading and replacing the Trident system.

Trident is not an independent British nuclear-weapon-system, but a component of the United States’ global nuclear strategy. Its power is awesome, with the capability of bringing total destruction to humanity anywhere and everywhere in the world.

This relic of imperialism’s Cold War strategy has to go and the money spent on socially useful projects such as health care, education, affordable housing and decent state retirement pensions.

Struggle against imperialism

The British Government has for long willingly complied with the wishes of the United States in strategic military planning. Throughout the Cold War years the British ruling class embraced US-led Nato and remains willing to waste British lives and money in support of US political, economic and military agendas.

This was clearly the case when Britain joined in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, even though it meant the Blair leadership having to lie about the true purposes of the war — which were to control the flow and price of oil in the interests of Anglo-American imperialism.

British lives and money are also being squandered in the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. And of course in both cases millions of people, mostly civilians, have been killed and injured, including those who suffered the effects of economic sanctions, in the countries under attack.

We call for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all British troops from Afghanistan and an end to the occupation of all countries by the imperialist powers.

In the recent past the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have been bombed and shelled by Israeli armed forces. The slaughter brought condemnation of Israel from around the world.

Successive US administrations, with which other western governments have complied, have postured as peace-brokers in the region. Yet it is the US which props up the state of Israel and is itself the major obstacle to peace.

We call for peace and for the acceptance of Palestinian rights, for justice and an end to the oppression of the Palestinian people by the US-backed Zionist leadership of Israel — a cats-paw of the US in the Middle East.

After the Counter Revolution in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. Nato, which always pretended to be a defensive organisation, continued.

It not only remained but it expanded. In 1999 Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic became full members of Nato. In 2004 the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania together with Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania joined the alliance too. In addition there are now US and Nato bases in the Balkans, the Middle East and central Asia.

This has brought Nato to the borders of Russia and that country is becoming encircled. The US regards Russia as a large, nuclear power that it cannot rely upon to dance to America’s tune, and which has a socialist past many regret losing.

Nato no longer pretends to be a “defensive organisation”. It intervened to bring down the Libyan government and it is openly supporting the reactionary forces in Syria trying to bring down the Assad government. Its mission statement openly speaks of out-of-area activities across the whole of Europe and it has a nuclear first-strike policy.

We support the efforts of the Stop the War movement and the other peace and anti-imperialist movements working in the broad movement and call for solidarity with the Syrian government and the Syrian communist movements that are working for genuine reform that preserves Syria’s independence and social system.

European Union

In Europe the ruling class is determined to put the entire burden of the slump on the backs of working people. They’re going to slash state welfare, pensions and social provision. They want to drive down wages through social dumping by closing down their operations in high-wage areas and setting them up in other parts of the European Union where labour is cheap or recruiting cheap labour from poorer regions of Europe to undercut existing rates for the job.

The development of the Common Market, and the EU that followed, was the choice of European imperialism and western European monopoly capital.

It promotes neo-liberal measures favouring the monopolies and the concentration and accumulation of capital. It cannot represent a genuine counterweight to the United States in favour of the people. With the Lisbon Treaty, new steps are being taken towards the configuration of the EU as an imperialist, economic, political and military bloc, contrary to the interests of the workers and the people.

The sovereignty and independence of peoples and countries are being further undermined. The attack on labour and trade union rights throughout the EU is escalating in the name of “modernisation”, “competitiveness” and “flexicurity” — and in order to ensure the profits of capital.

In Britain Labour and the majority of the leaders of our unions. have for many years, elevated the EU as an instrument for social progress and economic advance. They say that the EU is becoming more representative through the authority of the European Parliament and establishment of regional autonomy. The social-democrats claim that the anti-working class “directives” and “rulings” can be reversed. The revisionist and left social-democratic circles that still pose as communists in some parts of Europe argue that the EU can be reformed to serve the interests of working people.

But the EU with its toothless parliament, ruritanian regional governments and farcical referendums that only count when the vote agrees with what has already been decided by the powers that be, hasn’t been reformed. Nor can it ever be under the Treaty of Rome.

Now people see the European Union for what it is — an institution designed solely for the benefit of the oppressors and exploiters — and millions upon millions are seeing through the lies of the bourgeoisie. What few benefits the EU has brought, such as increased trade and open borders, could all have been achieved through separate agreements and treaties. The cost of the introduction of the Euro would be entirely borne by the working class and it must be opposed.

In fact the European Union is neither genuinely federal nor democratic and every stage of European integration has been financed by working people through higher indirect taxes, lost jobs and lost benefits. The European Union cannot be reformed. It must be dissolved and the Treaty of Rome, which established the Common Market in the first place, and all addenda repealed.

The NCP opposes British entry to the eurozone and calls for unconditional withdrawal from the European Union (EU). The European ruling class hoped that British entry to the eurozone would have strengthened European monopoly capitalism and invoked an era of sophisticated class war on the working class.

That ruling class intent was that their rule would be strengthened by cutting wages, social welfare, trade union rights, increasing working hours and reducing job security. That by doing so the European ruling class would build a zone that would allow European imperialism to dominate the world. This must not be allowed to happen. Throughout the European Union mass resistance is growing against austerity and the ruling class offensive. Communists must be in the forefront the of every−day struggle, fighting for the maximum unity amongst the class to achieve winnable economic gains and political objectives. We must always present the case for revolutionary change and communism to end the whole system of exploitation.

Communists must confront the ruling class face on and help strengthen the labour movement so that the cuts to the social wage are reversed. This can be done by the Communists, left social-democrats, trade unions and other people’s movements working together. Though the immediate demand must be to reverse the cuts and to extend the social wage there must be a political campaign led by the communists that demonstrates that the social wage can only become a permanent feature by workers taking state power.

In this struggle we must expose bourgeois democracy for what it is – democracy for the exploiters and dictatorship for the exploited. Bourgeois elections, when they are held, are used so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes. Parliaments no more makes the real decisions for the country than do the councils in the localities.

Socialism is the only way to eliminate exploitation, unemployment, poverty, economic crisis and war. That will only come through revolutionary change. And only a revolutionary party can make a revolution. Without a revolutionary party there can be no revolutionary movement. Only a revolutionary party can lead the class to overthrow the bourgeoisie. It cannot be done through elections or syndicalism alone.

We must work to restore the momentum for revolutionary change; strengthen co−operation and united action with communist and workers parties throughout Europe and around the world; build solidarity with the global anti-war movement and the forces for liberation in the Third World to unite the class and march towards a new tomorrow — the world Marx and Engels predicted, the world that was heralded by the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and Stalin, and a world that will surely come to pass.