Joint Statement KKE- PCPE

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Communist Party of the People’s of Spain (PCPE) have taken the initiative to make a joint statement in the face of the complex developments of the capitalist crisis and the savage offensive of capital against the working class and the poor popular strata both in Greece and Spain as well as in Europe as a whole.

Capitalism cannot solve the problems of the people

The causes of the crisis which is a crisis of the capitalist mode of production itself, a crisis of capital over-accumulation, highlight the boundaries of the capitalist system and the need for its overthrow as well as the timeliness of socialism.

The bourgeois and opportunist forces are being exposed on a daily basis, particularly the “European Left Party”, which have for some time been making assessments: regarding casino-capitalism, a crisis caused by neo-liberalism, a crisis of the financial system as well as a debt crisis. Theses forces have been exposed by the development of the crisis itself. The proposals of the ELP concerning “a pro-people capitalist development” and concerning multi-facetted borrowing via the ECB, which the working class and poor popular strata will be called on to pay for, are tailored for big capital and its interests.

Those forces, bourgeois and opportunist, which saluted and supported the EU, voting for the Maastricht Treaty and the EMU, have also been exposed by the developments themselves. Today those forces which fostered and systematically continue to foster illusions about a “pro-people architecture” of the EU, about its alleged re-establishment, have been refuted. The anti-worker barbarity, which is being promoted by the EU and the bourgeois governments –liberal or social democratic or centre-right or centre-left– serves capital by creating incredible profits and by bankrupting the workers. They promote this permanent state of barbarity through savage cuts in salaries, pensions, dismissals, with unpaid workers and the plundering of the social security funds, through harsh taxation and privatizations. The massive expansion of poverty and the dramatic increase in unemployment reveal the aggressiveness of capital and its aim to devalue the price of labour power, to destroy productive forces in a mass way in order to salvage its profitability in the conditions of the crisis.

In the face of this goal the inter-imperialist competition is sharpening and deepening, demonstrating that the EU is not a union of the peoples but was and is a union of the imperialists which cannot become pro-people. The anxiety which the ELP and other opportunist forces are exhibiting regarding the salvation of the EU, their propaganda to prettify it highlight that they faithfully serve the perpetuation of capitalism and class exploitation.

The EU serves the strategy of capital for cheaper labour power in the competition with the other imperialist states and unions. This strategy explains why there is a general tendency, not only in Greece and Spain but in the whole of Europe, for savage measures to be taken which attack the people and increase the profits of the monopolies. The ELP submits to this strategy with its Statutes and the acceptance of “the EU’s principles” which are in the service of capital. The EU is not a counterweight to the USA nor should the peoples choose imperialist, as the opportunists and the ELP do. Objectively the capitalist crisis, the realignment of the imperialist powers and their intensified competition stoke new flashpoints of war and the massacre of the peoples. The peoples must decisively refuse to shed their blood for the interests of the bourgeois class.

The overthrow of capitalism is the way out and not its management

The developments underline that there can be no return to the past. No expanded state ownership on the terrain of the dominance of the monopolies can have a positive outcome for the peoples in the conditions of the liberalized capitalist market. No “pole of state banks” or an allegedly pro-people transformation of the ECB, no allegedly pro-people “social fund” can constitute a way out for the working class and the poor popular strata.

Sovereignty and democracy, without the disengagement of every country from the EU together with the overthrow of capital’s power, cannot exist. The need today is for class-oriented rallying, the regroupment of the labour movement, the popular alliance of the workers and the poor popular strata to fight for working class power. The formation of a class pole in the labour movement is a pre-condition for the correct orientation of the struggles.

Hope lies in the class struggle

We salute the great struggles of the workers in Greece, Spain and many other countries with the communists and class-oriented forces in the front line. Such struggles will multiply. We particularly salute the magnificent strike of the steelworkers in Greece. This struggle, like the general strikes, demonstrates in practice that the crucial battle will not be waged in the squares with the “indignant citizens”, or at the social dialogues of the compromised representatives of the ITUC/ETUC. The anger and indignation in order to have a prospect must be expressed in the workplaces, where the class struggle is judged, in opposition to the so-called “social cohesion” and the social dialogues which are promoted and supported by the social-democrats, the ELP and the compromised confederations of trade unions, the ITUC and ETUC.

In our countries the existence and activity of a discrete class-oriented pole is a resource and legacy for the struggle of the working class and popular strata. The All-workers Militant Front (PAME) in Greece, as well as the incipient Committees of Workers Unity (CUO) in Spain, constitute a valuable support because they promote the class struggle and expose the undermining role of the compromised leaderships of the trade union movement, and organize the struggle of the working class against capital.

The KKE and the PCPE will strengthen their joint initiatives both in their countries and in the International Communist Movement in order to invigorate the perspective in the working class and the popular strata which is forged by the revolutionary strategy for an implacable class struggle for working class power. The International Communist Review plays a particular role and has a special contribution to this cause. This is an initiative of the theoretical journals of communist parties which aims at reinforcing the Marxist-Leninist direction in the international communist movement as a pre-condition for its necessary regroupment.

Socialism is necessary, timely and the only way out

The bourgeois and opportunists who saluted the overthrow of socialism, who spoke of the “period of freedom, prosperity and peace”, have been completely refuted. Today the ELP bears a particular responsibility for the anti-communist hysteria because it accepted the core of the offensive of the bourgeois class by denying and slandering the socialism we knew, promoting the “21st century socialism” which is nothing other than capitalism with a “human face”, something that cannot exist. The nostalgia for socialism in the countries where it had been constructed is increasing today. The peoples who experienced socialism do not forget it. The CPs can today draw conclusions regarding the laws of socialist construction which were violated and the mistakes which were made. The new socialist revolutions will have a legacy before them, the socialism we knew, the superiority of the socialised and centrally planned economy, without capitalists and exploitation, without crises and unemployment, with disengagement from NATO and the EU, without insecurity about the future, where the working class will be in charge and in control, the class which will take the reins of power into its hands.

March 16, 2012