European Communist Meeting: The speech of the member of the PB of the CC of the KKE, Giorgios Marinos, at the end of the proceedings of the Meeting

The struggle for socialism must become a powerful weapon in the hands of the working class

We heartily thank the CPs which responded to the invitation of the KKE to today’s necessary meeting and we call on the comrades to study and utilise the experiences, both positive and negative, which were presented here so that we can take a step forward: we must strengthen the effort , so that our strategy and tactics correspond to the requirements of the class struggle, we must confront the difficulties and deploy all our forces in order to organise the struggle of the working class against the exploitative capitalist system, in order to overturn the barbarity which the peoples are experiencing.

We have historic responsibilities and there is no room for compromise with the crisis which the communist movement is facing.

We can deal with the crisis of the communist movement, if we rely on our own tools, Marxist-Leninist theory, if we elaborate a revolutionary strategy and open a strong ideological front against opportunism and social-democracy, which impact on the communist movement and hinder its activity for the concentration of working class-popular forces, the development of class struggle and the struggle for socialism.

It is obvious that we are not summing up the debate, we cannot sum up the debate at a meeting where there were different analyses on serious matters. What we are doing is posing certain thoughts for further discussion in the following period.

Capitalism is becoming continually more dangerous.

It is necessary for us to understand the situation as it is and to persistently examine our disagreements, on the basis of our own theory, Marxism-Leninism, which remains contemporary and timely, because it studies the laws of society in depth and provides answers from the standpoint of what is in the working class’s interests .Decades of experience lead us to one indisputable conclusion which is objective and does not depend on what the various political parties say.

Capitalism in its final imperialist stage becomes continually more dangerous, intensifies exploitation, and gives birth to crises and unjust imperialist wars. This is what we are experiencing today. All the forms of management of the system have been tested. Liberal, neo-liberal, social-democratic. The centre-left and centre-right mixtures of economic policies have been tested, but exploitation is intensifying, unemployment is increasing, and the contemporary needs of the people are not being met.

Crises and wars are breaking out. To persistently hold a position that only liberal or neo-liberal policies are responsible for the problems of the people and the crisis is to distort reality, to whitewash social-democracy and the capitalist system. The crisis is shaking capitalism. If the problems were due to management, mistaken policies, incompetence, the capitalists and their representatives would have found many solutions.

The problem is deeper. The crisis is a result of the sharpening of the central contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between the social character of production and labour and the capitalist appropriation of the results of this process. Because the means of production are in the hands of the capitalists, because the system is developing on the basis of profit and anarchy holds sway in production.

Surplus value, the accumulation and over-accumulation of capital are created in production. The cancer appears in this central system and forms metastases in the sphere of circulation and in other parts of the body.

Certain comrades say: “we want unemployment to be eradicated, we want work for everybody, truly free education, health, decent wages and pensions.” They are expressing a desire. But how will all these things come to pass? Allow us to state that even if the rate of capitalist development increases, the wealth which is produced by the workers will again be transformed into profits for the capitalists, as was always the case. The Greek economy, the economy of dozens of capitalist states had a high rate of development in the previous period. The economies of Turkey, India, China, and Brazil have been developing very rapidly. But exploitation, unemployment and poverty remain. The winners are the monopoly groups.

The struggle for socialism is a duty.

How will we get out of this vicious circle? How will this situation be overcome? There is only one way, as difficult as it is. The overthrow of capitalism, the acquisition of power by the working class, the socialisation of the concentrated means of production, central planning, that is to say the formation of socialist production relations, which will lend impetus to the productive forces and will put an end to exploitation.

The right of everyone to work can only be safeguarded and the contemporary needs of the people can only be met on this basis. Socialist construction in the Soviet Union and in the other socialist countries demonstrated this. This historic contribution cannot be negated just because socialism was overthrown by the counterrevolution. We realise that we do not have a revolutionary situation. This, however, does not mean that we are not preparing ourselves with all our forces.

We intervene in every front and through firm ideological, political and mass action so that the struggle for power and the struggle for socialism become a powerful weapon in the hands the working class, the popular strata and the youth. This is our duty at this moment. This is the path which the KKE is following. Its struggle, despite the difficulties, embraces and mobilises thousands of workers, builds organizations in the factories, in the workplaces, expands the activity of the Communist Youth, and strengthens, the class-oriented movement. The foundations have been established for the social alliance between the working class, the small-medium sized farmers, the urban self-employed, the militant movements of the youth and women.

If we treat socialism as a medium-term or long-term goal, we are leaving the field open to the forces of capital to manipulate working class and popular forces with its own strategy, the strategy for the perpetuation of the exploitative system.

The preparation of the subjective factor, the realisation of the necessity of resolving the contradiction between capital and labour are urgent tasks for the communists. This goal will strengthen the struggle for salaries, pensions, health, welfare, education, democratic freedoms, sovereignty, the conflict with NATO and the EU, issues that cannot be detached from the struggle for socialism.

This goal determines the content of the demands, of the goals of struggle, the policy of alliances in order to concentrate and prepare working-class and popular forces in the struggle for power, for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man which is the raison d'être of the communist parties.

Marxist-Leninist theory is an indispensable tool

There are different approaches on certain serious questions:

Firstly: the deficit and the debt are the results of the political line of the bourgeois governments that grant tax exemptions and incentives to big capital, finance it or spend large sums on NATO armaments and their participation in the imperialist plans. The peoples are not at all responsible, they should not accept that they must pay, they should not be trapped into the dilemma “renegotiation of the debt or not” or to accept that they must pay in more or less instalments. On the contrary, based on the experience of the debt and the deficit that expand in the conditions of the crisis we must highlight the crucial issue of the struggle for radical changes.

Secondly: can the character of the banks, the character of the European Central Bank change? It’s like talking about the change of the exploitative nature of capital, of capitalism itself. It is utopian and has nothing to with the interests of the people.

Thirdly: can we talk today about colonialism? Objectively there is no basis. Of course there is an uneven development, of course there are unequal relations between the states but the bourgeois states are well established and the bourgeois classes exercise their power. Imperialism is a system where each capitalist state occupies its position according to the economic, political and military power in a relentless struggle for the promotion of the monopoly interests which is expressed through the inter-imperialist contradictions.

Fourthly: we have our own tools for the analysis of the developments, we have Marxist-Leninist theory and we cannot borrow social democratic tools such as the theories about the “North-South” division or the “golden billion” that conceal the true class contradiction between capital and labour. After all the concessions that capital made in the developed capitalist countries do not negate the reality of the high level of the exploitation of the working class.

Fifthly: there is a big discussion about the left. Allow us to say that this concept does not mean anything isolated from practice, from the stance of each party towards imperialism and the monopolies. Because a political force that supports the imperialist EU, the imperialist wars (e.g. today in Libya, previously in Yugoslavia) cannot serve the people’s interests. The people’s interests cannot be served by a political force that conceals the contradiction between capital and labour, that supports capitalist ownership of the means of production that deceives the workers about the causes of the capitalist crisis and fosters the illusion that capitalism is the only way. These remarks concern the party of the European Left, the social-democratic and opportunist parties against which we must strengthen the ideological-political struggle.

We have a lot of work in front of us

We have a lot of work to do:

• We must strengthen the struggle against the unjust, imperialist war in Libya.
• We must strengthen the effort of the communists to intervene in the trade unions and organise the workers’ struggle, we must organise a broad political intervention for the First of May. We must support the WFTU that successfully held its 16^th congress in Athens.
• We should strengthen the front against the EU and the “Pact for the Euro”.
• The KKE will continue working with all its forces for the strengthening of the communist movement on a revolutionary basis, it will continue to decisively support the International Communist Review and it will prepare as well as possible the International Meeting of Communist Parties that will be held in Athens at the end of the year.