Article of the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE on the Alter Summit in Athens and its dangerous aims
A new renovated version of the social forum, entitled the “Alter Summit”, is being prepared in this period. It is scheduled to be held in Athens on the 7-9 of June. The choice of Athens is not accidental. SYRIZA will host it. SYRIZA is the opportunist party in Greece that is rapidly being transformed into a modern social-democratic party. In light of this event, The KKE would like to underline certain conclusions that it has drawn from its experience in relation to the trajectory of the forums over all these years, this new version of them and to pose some criteria as to what the stance should be towards them.
The creation and the aims of the “social forums”
The European and other “social forums” emerged in the decade after the counterrevolution. They were promoted as a trend by the bourgeois staffs especially by forces that broke away from Marxism-Leninism, the communist movement and applauded the overthrow of socialism. The participation of communist parties in these forums was promoted and propagandized with a particular aim. The outbreak of mass mobilizations, in which one could encounter even some anti-capitalist slogans, constituted the pretext for the development of these forums. But the forums attempted to blunt and manipulate whatever radical slogans and to trap forces which had been rallied into a line to “correct” capitalism. They promoted capitalist exploitation as a given and consequently that there is only room to carry out certain reforms. A better social-democratic redistribution was considered to be the way out, spearheaded by the well-known Tobin Tax which indeed today has been adopted by at least 11 EU governments.
In their era the “social forums” attempted to succeed in their mission on behalf of social-democracy. They sought to muddy the waters by giving it a militant visage when the social-democrats internationally were taking savage anti-worker measures in conditions of the dynamic development of capitalist profits.
Their aims against the communist movement
The KKE, taking into account all the parameters carefully examined its participation in the Forum. It participated in a discrete way in the major mobilizations such as in Genoa 2001, but without legitimising through its presence processes and gatherings which social-democracy and opportunism presented as allegedly “the movement of movements”. At the same time it exposed in a substantiated way the ideological issues and the management slogans that accompanied the formation of the “social forums”, based on the criteria which the communists must have for their stance towards them.
The way the “social forums” were formed confirmed the permanent aim of the bourgeois class and those that serve it, which is nothing other than to strike against the communist movement and weaken the class-oriented labour movement. In order to realise their aims, the bourgeois and their stooges have never stinted when it came to attempts, methods and money in order to present the communist movement as being out-dated and the labour movement and organized activity of the workers as devalued and obsolete.
We can also remind ourselves of their false claims that the movement in each country “is finished”, and that the view that the working class can take power in one country is a nationalist one. The response of the KKE to all this was of course that the only revolutionary subject which can overthrow the capitalist barbarity is the working class precisely because of its position in the process of production, because it produces all the wealth. The only revolutionary party is the communist party, the vanguard of the working class which struggles in every country in an alliance in order to overthrow the power of the bourgeois class.
The downward trajectory which the “forums” have followed exposes all those who attempted to negate the leading role of the communist party and scorn the organized labour movement.
Their downward trajectory
The trajectory of the forum followed the ideological-political bankruptcy of their slogans. Thus it soon ended up in a succession of events which were fiascos. These were downgraded gatherings without mass participation which included NGOs, governmental figures and multinational sponsors. It is indicative that the self-proclaimed subversive forum which took place recently in Croatia had such a … subversive content that… monopoly groups like Peugeot and DHL funded it generously. The “rich programme of European and global days for mobilizations” which from time to time were drawn up by the “forums” most of the time ended up not being implemented, while a great deal of complaining by the participants over its course of dissolution and degeneration has prevailed at the recent events.
The Party of the European Left seeks to rescue forums in order to rescue capitalism
The “Alter Summit” was created upon a proposal of the PEL in order to halt this decline.
It is a contemporary trap which aims to go beyond the “counter-summits” and the “forums” and transform them into a movement that will propagate a government of bourgeois management. They clearly propose the governmental bourgeois management as an alleged way out, with the monopolies remaining intact, and present themselves as responsible managers of the capitalist system. They invoke the decline of the traditional social democracy which is currently trying to find new formations for its international representation and present themselves as the alternative solution, serving up another version for the consolidation of the bourgeois political system which allegedly is opposed to the strengthening of the fascist forces like the Golden Dawn, assessing that it is neo-liberalism that fosters the fascist forces. But how is it possible to declare oneself to be an opponent of fascism without opposing the very capitalist system that breeds fascism but merely some versions of its management?
In contrast with the stance of the forums that “the integration of political actors – independent of the role they inhabit within social struggles – was more or less explicitly rejected”1, the Alter Summit defines itself as the following: “….but we also accept the political forces which support our demands. Personalities who support our appeal are welcome”2. So, it seems that they forgot all this hot air about the “autonomy and independence of the movements”. They do not have the luxury of leaving outside the panels of the forums those people that capital promotes for a governmental solution in favour of plutocracy
Useful and welcome for capital
The forums have always served as an “exhibition centre” for international social democracy but the “Alter Summit” is the “rehearsal” for those who seek to become social democracy in place of social democracy. It is characteristic that SYRIZA is promoted as the model for the PEL’s and the other organizers of the Alter Summit’s alleged political way out. Tsipras, the head of SYRIZA, when he spoke at the General Meeting of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEB) was praised by the President of SEB who was able with ease to state that the “radicalism of SYRIZA is useful and welcome”. So this is the kind of radicalism that the Alter Summit is trying to serve up: ‘useful and welcome” for big capital, capable of delaying the development of a strong class oriented labour movement and that will be prepared to prevent any mobilization that calls into question the power of the bourgeois class itself.
Proposals for a way out in favour of capital with a “humanized” capitalism
The appeal of the Alter Summit embraces all the proposals for the management of the system that foster the illusion that capital can be controlled, that the monopolies can be reined in without overthrowing their power. At the same time, it clearly states that the Summit seeks “to improve the European social model”3 while at the same time it can host various versions that serve the interests of various sections of the bourgeois class in each country… from the hymns to the EU to the euro-skeptic voices and even to those who support the exit from the euro. Historically the forums have never stopped disorienting the people regarding the EU as an alleged “counterweight” to NATO.
The KKE follows a different path…
The consistent stance of the KKE towards these kinds of “movements” that seek to restrict the organization of the class struggle in each country, to divert it to the government’s negotiating tables in order to accept the massacre of the people’s rights is of equal significance with the refusal of the KKE to participate in any kind of management government, a position that constitutes a legacy for the people’s movement.
The consistent ideological-political front of the KKE against the PEL as a mechanism for the mutation of the CPs, as a center of European opportunism is being confirmed by the role that the PEL plays in the effort to raise such institutions for the manipulation of the working people from the dead. The development of the class struggle requires that such attempts fail, and that these events and their objectives are rejected by the working class and the poor oppressed popular strata.
The only way out, the real alternative solution is the regroupment of the class-oriented labour movement, the organization of the people’s alliance that will bring to the forefront working class power, where the people will be the masters and not the monopolies. This is the path that the KKE is following.
1
http://transform-network.net/
3 From the “Call for an alternative summit”
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr