52nd CP Congress - EC Resolutions

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1920-2012 Executive Committee Resolutions

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Executive Committee Domestic Resolution Build the labour movement for the mass alternative to austerity, privatisation and the European Union 1. Nothing stands still, nor can there be any return to an earlier situation. The current economic and financial crisis will result either in significant advances by the working class, the labour movement and the left, or in very serious setbacks in which the ruling class will reverse many of the gains won in the past 70 years. Rosa Luxemburg's revolutionary challenge in 1918, 'Socialism or Barbarism!', remains the challenge for workers and peoples across the world today, including in Britain.

2. Since the Communist Party's 51st congress in 2010, the economic and financial crisis has deepened, while the ruling class offensive against workers, their families and the people in general has intensified across most of Europe.

3. As our programme, Britain's Road to Socialism (2011), points out: 'the insoluble contradictions of capitalist production have become combined with, and aggravated by, the deep contradictions of capitalist exchange on a global scale. Together, they constitute the permanent structural crisis in the economic base of society'.

4. Today's capitalist crisis is one of the over-accumulation of capital, made deeper by the enormous expansion of credit and speculation. Despite the resulting recession in the most developed capitalist countries, commodity production is set to increase on a world scale very significantly with the rapid industrial development of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). This will lay the basis for another international crisis of over-accumulation with its corresponding over-production of commodities. At the same time, nothing has been done to prevent the recurrence of further financial crises arising from a huge expansion of 'fictitious' capital far removed from the creation of real value in the productive economy. The key link between retail and speculative banking has remained. No significant restrictions have been placed on the freedom of the banks and other financial institutions to continue engaging in massive speculation in commodities, currencies and financial instruments of every kind.

5. This contradiction between the production of real value and the circulation of fictitious value is the cause of a permanent structural crisis in the economic base of our society, revealing itself more starkly in Britain than almost anywhere else in the developed capitalist world.

The contradictions of British state-monopoly capitalism 6. British state-monopoly capitalism represents a highly parasitic form of rule by finance capital, where access to super-profits depends very largely on the manipulation of banking capital and leveraged speculation. Finance capital exercises predominant control over Britain’s productive economy through its investment banks and does so in an increasingly short-term and piratical way. Its principal source of super-profit derives from the international operations of the City of London – operations that are, in turn, largely dependent on the major US investment banks which control up to two-thirds of the capital deployed and which utilise London as a base for the control of financial services in Europe.

7. The parasitic character of British state-monopoly capitalism has led to a long-term decline in the productive economy on which the great majority of people depend: i.

Capital has been diverted into the areas of financialised super-profit; investment in production and infrastructure has fallen to internationally minimal levels.

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ii. iii.

The role of sterling as an international banking currency has been put before industrial competitiveness.

Access to European Union (EU) financial services through the EU Single Market has been conditional on the loss of democratic rights to exercise public ownership and public investment in the productive economy.

8. During the period of capitalist boom, these contradictions were largely concealed. The post-2007 financial crisis has both exposed them and made them far more acute. One consequence has been the loss of a further 600,000 manufacturing jobs in Britain, on top of the six million lost over the past 40 years.

9. The financial assets of British-registered banks amount to well over four times Britain’s gross domestic product (GDP) – far higher than in any other major economy. The resulting level of risk has led the Con-Dem coalition to introduce cuts in public expenditure of unprecedented severity, reflecting the determination of the ruling class to roll back most if not all of the social gains made by the labour movement since 1945. These cuts, in turn, have caused Britain’s economy to contract far more than that of any other G7 economy.

10. The concurrent crisis of the Euro-zone has also produced a fundamental political challenge to British state-monopoly capitalism. The dominant EU powers are being forced to move towards a banking union with common regulation and taxation. One consequence will be a drive to recapture control of EU financial services from Anglo-US dominance – in turn threatening the utility of the City of London to the US investment banks and hence the City’s wider international viability.

11. The contradiction between the interests of finance capital and the productive economy, while not new, now has the potential to assume a central role in unmasking the conflict of class interests at the heart of the British political system.

12. The grass roots base of the Conservative Party lies among small and medium businesses that are severely hit by government policies. That of the Liberal Democrats lies among managerial and professional strata who are equally damaged. The political rhetoric of the Conservative Party is traditionally chauvinist. However, its ability to manipulate anti-EU feeling is limited by its need to strike a deal with the Euro-zone countries that will inevitably entrench the EU regulations that have already been so harmful to the productive economy. The political rhetoric of the Liberal Democrats is pro-EU and based on the bogus internationalism of free trade and ultimately the same City of London interests.

Yet the costs of subordination to the interests of finance capital are becoming more and more obvious – while the long-term viability of the City of London is fast diminishing.

13. These conflicts of class and sectional interest are now assuming an acute character. They provide the material basis for an anti-monopoly alliance, popular and democratic in character, which is based on the organised strength of the working class movement. Small businesses, professions, managerial strata all have a common interest with the trade union movement in rescuing the productive economy, reasserting public control over the banking sector, regaining the democratic powers needed for public ownership and public investment and ending subordination to the EU Single Market.

The EU and popular sovereignty 14. As capitalism's crisis continues and even deepens, the myth of the 'Social Chapter' and a 'Social Europe' – the reason why so many trades unionists decided to back the EU – is well and truly shattered.

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15. Britain’s withdrawal from the EU is a prerequisite to recovering democratic control over the economy, saving manufacturing, restoring employment rights and rescuing our welfare state. It is impossible to separate the austerity programme from the unelected institutions that crafted it or the policies created solely to sustain those same institutions. 'Rejecting austerity' means little without a rejection of such institutions as the EU Commission and European Central Bank and of the EU treaties, which legislate for permanent austerity. These institutions and treaties cannot be significantly reformed.

16. The anti-democratic and pro-big business character of the EU is now fully exposed as it imposes unelected 'technocratic' governments and as the European Central Bank – with its partners in crime the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – imposes drastically deflationary policies on one country after another. 'Austerity Europe' offers nothing to workers. The 'free' movement of labour has become the new regulator of labour relations, as transnational corporations undermine pay, worsen conditions and weaken collective agreements with the ultimate aim of smashing trade union organisation.

17. A commitment by left and progressive forces in Britain to demand withdrawal from the EU will strengthen the position of all those in Europe fighting to preserve and defend their democracies.

Attacking the monopoly capitalist character of the EU from a left perspective and standing in solidarity with the communist and workers' parties and working class movements elsewhere in Europe is a profoundly internationalist position. Britain's communists reject the ultra-leftist view that seeking withdrawal from the EU is a capitulation to reactionary British nationalism.

18. The EU has nothing to do with working class internationalism. It is the creation of western Europe's big capitalist monopolies and has been designed to serve their interests. The notion that it can be transformed into the basis for a 'united socialist states of Europe' is an illusion fostered in the labour movement by ultra-leftist elements who refuse to make a concrete analysis of the EU as it has developed to the present.

19. Exposing the true character of the EU must be central to the battle of ideas within the trade unions and the wider labour movement. While the Communist Party welcomes the prospect of a referendum on British membership of the EU, it is essential that the terms of the campaign be determined more by anti-EU arguments from the labour movements and the left than from the Tory right. The successful motion at the 2011 TUC conference opposing EU use of World Trade Organisation 'Mode 4' trade provisions (which would erode trade union rights even further by reintroducing indentured labour) provides a good basis from which to proceed.

Building a class-based popular movement 20. The first steps to building a popular, democratic anti-monopoly alliance lie in the campaign against the Con-Dem regime's austerity and privatisation programme. Here the top and immediate priority is to build, broaden and politicise a mass movement of working class and popular resistance. This movement, however, will only develop the necessary strength and direction if it is based on an understanding of the programme's real objectives and the interests it serves.

21. A growing number of workers reject the fiction that the real purpose of the austerity and privatisation programme, introduced by New Labour and intensified by the Tories and LibDems, is to reduce the public sector financial deficit. They see it more as part of the neoliberal ideological attack on the working class, on wages, pensions and public services. Nevertheless, even this is by no means the whole picture.

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22. The unelected Con-Dem regime, cobbled together at the behest of City financiers, is seeking to fulfil three key objectives on behalf of the ruling class: i. to increase the state's capacity to make yet more funds available to the banks and financial markets in future bailouts ii. to reduce still further the burden and pressure of taxation on monopoly capital and the rich. iii. to put an end to the public provision of services and welfare, handing ownership or control of the potentially profitable parts to private providers and the others to the voluntary sector as part of the individualised 'Big Society'.

23. The hidden agenda of this third objective has been the least widely understood in the labour movement, although the Communist Party and the Morning Star have played a significant role in raising people's awareness of it.

24. This objective explains why the Con-Dem regime is introducing policies intended to remove the 'disincentives' to greater private profit making in public services, namely decent pensions, job security, health and safety standards and national pay agreements. In all of these areas, workers are generally better placed in the public than the private sector, reflecting higher levels of trade union organisation – and, therefore, prompting another line of attack from the Con-Dem regime.

25. The government believes it can defeat public sector trade unions by encouraging them to respond to a strategic political attack with a narrow industrial response. The latter can then be contained by 'divide and rule' tactics (between private and public sector workers, the low paid and better paid, central and local government, industry and services etc.), the threat and use of existing anti-trade union legislation and the warning that more could follow.

26. The ruling class and its politicians also rely on those trade union leaders who still cannot or will not see the paralysing effects of 'economism' – the view that trade unions should restrict themselves to the industrial struggle, leaving 'politics' to the Labour Party. Some such 'leaders' are primarily self-serving – hoping for Labour Party favours in future – while others lack confidence in the potential of their own members. Some are so completely wedded to the ideology of social democracy, with its subservience to a capitalist system that they believe cannot be replaced, that they put this outlook before the defence of their members.

27. The trade unions represent by far the most powerful force, potentially, with the capacity to help build and lead a mass, broad-based movement against the Con-Dem austerity and privatisation programme. The enormous TUC demonstration of March 26, 2011, provided a glimpse of what is possible. However, making this a reality will require a greater sense of the unity demanded by the common interests of all their members (for decent wages, pensions and benefits; for high-quality public services; for trade union and other democratic rights). It will also require a deeper political understanding of the ruling class offensive and the need for the labour movement to work out its own political, strategic and militant response.

28. This response will need to include more coordinated and generalised industrial action, but it must also embrace other campaigning activities, not least in thousands of local communities. Otherwise, any new momentum generated by the October 20 TUC demonstration for 'A Future that Works' will be dissipated as before. Yet the potential still exists for the unions to help found and support genuinely broad-based bodies to oppose cuts and defend local jobs and services.

29. After all, only a small proportion of the intended cuts have taken place so far: £21 billion in 201112, with an extra £40 billion planned for 2012-13 and at least an additional £142 billion by the end of the 2015-16 financial year. (It should not be forgotten that the previous Labour government planned Executive Committee Resolutions

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ÂŁ130 billion of these ÂŁ213 billion cuts).

30. Facing such enormous cuts in social benefits and local services, therefore, trades union councils have a vital role to play in building local trade union-led alliances in our towns and cities. Trade union sectionalism must be overcome at every level, with many more local branches affiliating to their trades council and making community trade unionism an important dimension of their work. Vibrant trades councils will not only strengthen local anti-cuts campaigning; they can also contribute to the struggle needed to reclaim the Labour Party as the labour movement's democratic mass party. For instance, they can put pressure on local Labour Party organisations, not least in taking the anti-cuts agenda into the party's political structures.

31. The trade union movement must also recognise and combat the new offensive now underway by the EU Court of Justice and the Con-Dem government against trade union and employment rights.

Resistance should be based on a clear demand for the repeal of Britain's anti-trade union laws and commitment by the Labour Party to introduce a Trade Union Freedom Bill when next in office.

The People’s Charter 32. A mass campaigning alliance against the Con-Dems, one based on the organised working class, will be all the more solid, coherent and effective if it can project a clear alternative to the policies of austerity, privatisation, social inequality, ecological catastrophe, militarism and war.

33. The People's Charter as an alternative programme has already been endorsed by the Trades Union Congress, in 2009, and reaffirmed by the Scottish TUC, Wales TUC and the TUC women's and trades union councils conferences in 2012. Sixteen national trade unions are directly affiliated to the People's Charter. No other anti-austerity initiative has such a level of support among the trade unions and in the labour movement as a whole.

34. Its policies for a fairer, more productive economy, more and better jobs, equal pay, enhanced public services, social justice, decent homes for all, environmental security and peace are practical, affordable and realistic. They are also mutually reinforcing as, for example, a public sector house building drive financed from progressive taxations and a programme to convert armaments production to socially useful products would sustain many thousands of new and skilled jobs.

35. Of course, the Charter's proposals for 'an irreversible shift in wealth and power in favour of working people' are rejected by the ruling class and its government. Because the Charter breaks with the neoliberal consensus among the parliamentary parties, including the Labour Party leadership, and defies the prescriptions demanded by the EU Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, powerful reactionary forces are determined to suppress it, including inside Britain's labour movement.

36. The challenge now, therefore, is to make the People's Charter a central feature in the resistance to Con-Dem policies and, in effect, the alternative programme of the labour and mass movement. All left and progressive forces in the labour movement and beyond should work to transform it from a document and a resolution into the campaigning centre for an alternative economic strategy, linking the trade unions and trades councils with local communities and anti-cuts campaigns. Strengthening the central organisation of the People's Charter and coordinating activities in its support within the nations, regions and localities of Britain must now become a top priority for the labour movement, including the Communist Party.

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37. Successful advances in promoting the People's Charter will very quickly raise more profound political questions in the labour movement, not least about the kind of strategy that could ensure the implementation of its policies. The Communist Party's programme, Britain's Road to Socialism, outlines the Left Wing Programme of measures and the alternative economic and political strategy required to fulfil the aims of the People's Charter.

38. For communists, the struggle for socialism and working class state power are not 'add-ons' to mass political work. The Communist Party has set itself the task, working in the labour movement and with other socialists, of nothing less than assisting the working class to develop revolutionary political consciousness. It is only through such a development that socialist revolution is possible. We also understand that fundamental change takes place in stages, quantitative changes leading finally to qualitative leaps forward – thus the significance of broad, class-based mass struggle, the People’s Charter, the Left Wing Programme and Britain’s Road to Socialism.

Promoting equality for all working people 39. Discrimination against any section of the working class or population creates opportunities to worsen opportunities, conditions and rights for all, as employers and the state seek to 'equalise' standards downwards for all. Thus trade unions needs to have in place a framework to support equality campaigning, because it is in the interests of every section of the labour movement to fight unstintingly for trade unionisation, equal status, equal rights and equal treatment for all workers.

40. Women suffer disproportionately from the austerity and privatisation agenda of the Con-Dem government. They are paying the price for at least 70% of the cuts in public spending.

41. Women comprise by far the greater part of the public sector workforce and hundreds of thousands of women’s jobs are being lost in that sector alone. Female unemployment is at its highest for a quarter of a century. The benefits women depend on are being slashed and the services on which they rely are being removed. In consequence, women are disproportionately in poverty, isolated and vulnerable and their dependents suffering intolerable hardship.

42. Exacerbated by the economic crisis, women are also disproportionately subject to abuse. The trafficking of women and girls is on the increase. At the same time, women are coming into the trade unions and the labour movement in growing numbers, drawing attention to their exploitation and oppression and demanding change.

43. As an urgent priority, the labour movement must campaign against all measures that impoverish and weaken the position of women. It should also champion the demands of women for fairness and justice, vigorously promoting the Charter for Women now endorsed by at least 14 national trade unions. Its campaigning programme for equality in society, at work and in the labour movement (including through the operation of equalities structures) provides the basis for united advance for the working class as a whole.

44. Young people have also been hit particularly hard by the crisis, with more than one million (22%) aged 16-24 now officially classified as unemployed. These figures do not include 16-18 year olds forced into part-time, short-term and precarious jobs.

45. The labour movement needs to find ways of organising young people, involving them in mass campaigning for decent, well-paid work instead of precarious 'here today, gone tomorrow' jobs, deadend apprenticeships, slave labour 'welfare to work' schemes and free-labour 'internships'.

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46. Many young people were involved in the August 2011 riots. Except at the outset in Tottenham, when police contemptuously dismissed a peaceful march against the shooting of Mark Duggan, the August 1911 riots in England did not have the political content of the 1980s uprisings in Brixton, Toxteth or Handsworth. They offer no way forward for young people, while providing the pretext for the introduction of yet more repressive use of the police, courts and modern technology.

47. Some of the 2011 disturbances were bouts of opportunistic destruction and looting, fuelled by the despair of unemployment and the lack of alternative activities because of cuts in youth and leisure services. Others were gang-related as in the shooting at the police in Birmingham. But the excessive and incommensurate sentences being imposed by the courts will create more bitterness, while doing nothing to improve the social conditions that generate alienation, anger and anti-social crime and behaviour.

48. The Con-Dem austerity programme has included an unprecedented attack on the benefit entitlements and social facilities for disabled people. The campaign of disabled workers, many of them highly skilled, to resist government plans to close 36 Remploy centres across Britain deserves the solidarity of the whole trade union movement and an unqualified commitment from the Labour Party leadership to reopen them when in office. It should be noted that the closures are intended to save £25 million in public expenditure, after £1,400,000 million has been pledged or made available to bail out Britain's banks and financial markets (including £375 billion in 'quantitative easing').

49. But the greatest physical dangers posed by the economic and social crisis are to our black and ethnic minority citizens. At times like this, unscrupulous politicians, the big business media and racist and fascist organisations invariably step up their propaganda and activities, in order to divert people's attention from the real causes of the crisis and the real purpose of right-wing remedies, or to otherwise promote their own anti-working class agenda.

50. Yet the reality is that black youth have suffered most in the post-2007 recession. While unemployment rose by at least a half among all sections of young people (aged 16-24) between 2006 and 2011, the biggest increase has been among young black men, from 33% to 56%.

51. All attempts by the racists and fascists to take their message onto the streets, including the turn to violent attacks on left and progressive organisations by 'English Defence League' supporters, must be resisted by mass mobilisations wherever possible.

52. Nonetheless, the labour movement must also fulfil its responsibilities to campaign for policies that will erode the economic and social basis for racism, by providing decent education, jobs, social facilities, public services and democratic rights for all, taking positive action to eliminate the deep-rooted inequalities in our society.

53. At the same time, the left and the labour movement (including the Communist Party) have a duty to campaign against the racist provisions in Britain's immigration, asylum and nationality laws.

The national question and working class solidarity 53. Decision-making should be made as responsive and accountable to the working class and the people as is possible in a capitalist society.

54. Thus the Communist Party has long supported substantial devolution of power from the highly centralised British state to the nations of Britain – including substantial economic and financial powers Page 8

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– as well as to the regions and localities. We also advocate a parliamentary chamber for England and an all-Britain assembly as part of a federal republic. It is essential that such an all-Britain federal assembly and government would use its powers to stimulate regional economies and redistribute wealth through a progressive taxation system.

55. To maximise the power that can be devolved now also requires the repatriation of powers from the European Union to Britain and its constituent parts.

56. However, in the current conditions, the Communist Party opposes the separation of Scotland or Wales from the rest of Britain, while upholding absolutely the right of nations to independence should their peoples so choose. In our estimation at present, any benefits from Scottish or Welsh independence would not outweigh the disadvantages likely to arise from economic dislocation, the upsurge in competing nationalisms and, most critically, the rupture in the working class and progressive unity built by the peoples of Scotland, England and Wales through two centuries of struggle and solidarity. The resulting divisions between workers would be used to ensure that any economic benefits from separation would accrue to monopoly capital in each nation.

57. Britain's Road to Socialism argues that 'a united challenge to British state-monopoly capitalism will require a high level of working class and progressive coordination and unity, maximising the democratic potential of national rights in Scotland and Wales and minimising the scope for division'. The unity of British monopoly capital would survive national separation largely intact, while the division of Britain's labour and progressive movements would immediately weaken their capacity to challenge and overthrow state-monopoly capitalism.

58. That is why our opposition to such a trajectory is revolutionary and strategic, and not based on British unionism or nationalism. Independence on the terms set by the SNP would simply divide parliamentary institutions without breaking the power of British state-monopoly capitalism. Scotland would remain part of the sterling area, within the EU and also within NATO. Meanwhile, in the short to medium term at least England would be a particularly aggressive, nuclear-armed force in international affairs allied to the USA. The key economic levers of government policy would continue to be controlled by British finance capital – which would also remain the predominant owner of Scotland’s productive resources.

The labour movement and the Labour Party 59. The fight against British and EU austerity and privatisation policies, the work to build a broad movement in which the People's Charter comes to the fore, will throw into sharper focus the labour movement's crisis of political representation.

60. Despite the intensification of the class struggle over the recent period, the Labour Party leadership under Ed Miliband has not given support to workers in struggle or broken decisively from New Labour policies, despite gestures in that direction in an attempt to keep the organised working class movement on board.

61. As the Communist Party's 'Open Letter to Workers, Socialists and the Labour Movement' (2011) put it: 'The refusal of the Labour Party leadership to fight for policies that would defend public services, jobs, wages and pensions and so revive economic growth highlights the extent to which the interests of the labour movement ... go largely unrepresented in the House of Commons'.

62. The Open Letter raised the question of how the labour movement can best ensure that its Executive Committee Resolutions

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collective voice and interests are represented in the Westminster parliament, putting forward proposals for unions to make financial donations to the Labour Party conditional on solidarity from the Labour leadership with workers in struggle, and for affiliated and non-affiliated unions and the TUC to convene conferences to consider the crisis of political representation in the labour movement.

63. Although some trade union leaders have made some of these points in similar terms, our proposals have yet to be taken up widely in the labour movement. Yet the movement's continuing failure to do so could have dire consequences for the working class and peoples of Britain.

64. Clearly, it is essential that the Con-Dem regime be removed from office at the earliest opportunity.

It is an unelected, illegitimate government even in terms of bourgeois democracy. If the labour movement fails to bring down the Con-Dems before their term of office expires in 2015, they must be dealt a crushing defeat at the General Election. This can only mean their replacement by a Labour government. No other left-wing coalition or range of left candidates could conceivably win a parliamentary majority, although the fact that some credible candidates are likely to emerge from some trade union or campaigning groups will demonstrate continuing anger and despair with the Labour leadership.

65. However, an unchanged Labour Party, controlled by a clique at the top rather than by the labour movement, will not even try to implement policies that challenge finance capital, the City of London and the EU. Sooner rather than later, disillusionment will set in and the conditions created for the return of an even more reactionary government, one likely to be committed to destroying whatever might be left of the public sector (other than the agencies of rule and repression) and removing much of whatever remains in terms of trade union and employment rights.

66. Far from solving the crisis of political representation for workers and the labour movement, that crisis would most likely be worsened as the Labour leadership would undoubtedly claim the party's votes as an endorsement of their pro-monopoly capitalist, pro-EU, pro-NATO policies.

67. Therefore, a strategy must be developed to ensure that the labour movement once more has its own mass party, one which is capable of winning elections, forming a government and enacting policies in the interests of the working class and the people generally. Simply repeating calls for the labour movement to reclaim the Labour Party are not sufficient.

68. In the Communist Party's view, the first steps should include stepping up the pressure to win the trade unions and the TUC to the kind of initiatives in the 'Open Letter', set out above.

69. However, the driving force in any successful strategy will be mass extra-parliamentary action and the building of a mass movement in favour of the kind of policies in the People's Charter, the Charter for Women and the Left Wing Programme.

70. Any Labour or social-democratic government committed to reforming but maintaining the capitalist system would immediately come under enormous pressure from monopoly finance capital to conform to its agenda. Every attempt would be made to use the intensity of the capitalist crisis to compel a Labour government in or before 2015 to maintain anti-working class policies. From now until the election, therefore, the labour movement and the left need to argue the urgency and practicality of the policies needed to rescue the productivity economy and to explain that, historically, the ruling class has been compelled to retreat when faced with sufficient pressure from below. In particular the trade unions, the TUC and the left should make every effort to win the Labour Party to the type of policies set out in the People's Charter and the Charter for Women.

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71. Building the mass movement that would help bring down the Con-Dems, elect a Labour government and exert the maximum possible pressure upon it is the pre-requisite for solving the problem of labour movement representation.

72. Perspectives for the labour movement reclaiming the Labour Party should include some indicators of progress and appropriate responses at particular times. For example, if the kind of proposals contained in the 'Open Letter' are not taken up and the Labour-affiliated unions do not campaign in a more determined, planned and co-ordinated way to change the policies and if necessary the leadership of the Labour Party, then this will represent an abdication of their responsibilities – and will indicate that the Communist Party and its allies have not succeeded in mobilising a sufficiently coherent mass movement.

73. The depth of the current crisis, the extreme options facing British finance capital and the consequences for both the productive economy and the political base of the current government combine to create a new political situation. In these circumstances there exists an unprecedented opportunity to mobilise an anti-monopoly alliance, with the trade union movement at its heart, that has the potential to change the orientation of the Labour Party.

74. If successful, The struggle to achieve such an alliance will create new political forces with the political clarity and numbers needed to transform the trade union movement. It will be through the democracy of this movement that decisions will need to be taken on the future character of its political representation.

75. If, on the other hand, despite being in Opposition throughout the deepest capitalist crisis and the most ferocious ruling class offensive for 80 years, the Labour Party goes into the next General Election with its current anti-working class policies largely intact, this will indicate that the struggle to reclaim the Labour Party has thus far been unsuccessful. In those circumstances, the Communist Party will have to intensify its efforts within the labour movement to raise the need for the movement to re-establish its mass party of labour. The process of re-establishment would have to involve substantial sections of the trade union movement, for which a number of smaller unions and left-wing groups would not be a substitute.

76. Should the TUC not convene a special conference to discuss working class political representation, some of the major trade unions would have to be won to the position of bringing together the broadest possible range of labour movement organisations to discuss how to resolve the question of parliamentary representation.

The Morning Star 77. The Morning Star has an irreplaceable role to play in all the major battles now facing the labour, progressive and left-wing movements as an agitator, educator and organiser. In particular, its editorial line based on the approach set out in Britain's Road to Socialism, helps to promote political clarity in the labour and progressive movements.

78. Evidence to the Leveson Inquiry has patently demonstrated the corrupt relationships between media owners, the capitalist monopolies, politicians, the government and the state. In this light, the labour movement should celebrate the Morning Star's unique qualities as the only truly independent, co -operatively owned daily title in Britain and the only daily English-language socialist paper in the world.

79. Today, the paper has a much stronger base of support in the labour movement, with eight national Executive Committee Resolutions

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trade unions representing over half of the total TUC membership now represented on the paper’s management committee. Supportive unions have sponsored free distribution of tens of thousands of free copies at conferences and major events, such as the March 26 TUC in 2011 demonstration and the annual Durham Miners' Gala.

80. Full advantage now needs to be taken of this new level of trade union support and of the dedication of Morning Star staff who have negotiated potentially beneficial new printing and distribution arrangements. These will further enhance the value of the paper by substantially advancing its news deadline. Therefore, the challenge for the left, progressive and labour movements – including the Communist Party – is to translate this potential into more daily readers, which is the key to the paper's survival and future prosperity.

The Communist Party 81. The task of the Communist Party is to play a leading role in turning the deepening economic and financial crisis of world capitalism into a political crisis for the ruling class. This is best achieved by focusing on the contradictions within capitalist Britain and within the position of British imperialism at the international level, analysing the principal contradictions and organising within the labour and progressive movements to expose these clearly.

82. The Communist Party's electoral work reflects our more general strategy of building a popular, democratic anti-monopoly alliance based on the labour movement. In local elections, we need to maximise the number of Party candidates standing on the basis of building popular resistance to austerity and privatisation and mobilising on local issues.

83. For the 2014 EU elections, discussions should begin urgently to investigate how to maximise the demand for a progressive alternative to the EU and ensure the fullest involvement of the trade union movement.

84. In the next General Election, the Communist Party will call for a Labour victory as the only realistic way of defeating the Tories and replacing the Con-Dem coalition. The Party will also aim to stand a significant number of candidates either in the name of the Communist Party, or as part of a 'Unity for Peace and Socialism' alliance in which the Communist Party plays a major and public role; an alliance which recognises the need for a Labour victory and whose policies reflect those of the People's Charter.

85. Our intention on every front must be to help strengthen working class and popular organisations through mass and militant activity, so that they contribute to the development of a broad, popular, democratic anti-monopoly alliance. Our policies, strategy and tactics – and the work of Party organisations and individual members – must be determined in the light of these objectives.  NO TO AUSTERITY, PRIVATISATION AND THE EUROPEAN UNION!  FOR THE PEOPLE'S CHARTER AND A PEOPLE'S BRITAIN!  BUILD THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY!

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Executive Committee International Resolution Together for our future! A world to win!

The capitalist crisis and the balance of world forces 1. The world economic crisis continues, the most severe since the 1930s. Compared to that of the 1930s, however, the global impact of the current crisis has so far been more uneven. Major economies in the developing world, particularly those with strong state intervention such as China and Brazil, have continued to grow fast and in doing so have maintained world demand for primary products. This in turn has sustained the pace of growth in large parts of Africa and Latin America. The resulting shift in the focus of economic growth away from the major imperialist powers has continued for half a decade and is beginning to consolidate new economic and political alignments.

2. At the same time, the weight of economic and military power continues to be overwhelmingly with the US and other imperialist centres and their political and economic response to the crisis remains the determining factor. The G7 leading imperialist nations are determined to impose their monopoly dominance over world markets, to open up new reserves of exploitable labour and, as far as possible, shift the burden of crisis on to working people – with women particularly exposed.

3. Currently the economic crisis appears to be entering a new and more dangerous phase. In the US and Japan economic growth is only sustained by currency depreciation and a further inflationary expansion of credit. In the European Union (EU) the systemic crisis of uneven development threatens a new destabilisation of the international banking system.

4. These developments explain the increasingly aggressive economic and political moves by the imperialist powers, particularly the US, to assert their interests. military technology, food production and luxury services—notably in the Middle East and Africa.

US strategy 5. Under Obama the US set itself three main international policy objectives: i. To reinforce its politico-economic dominance over the Pacific region, including China, as the new primary area for intervention. ii. To 'normalise' relations with the ‘Muslim world’ as the basis for retaining control over the energy resources of the greater Middle East. iii. To 're-set' its relations with Russia and to involve European members of NATO more systematically in securing US global hegemony.

6. The US has succeeded in consolidating alliances in the Pacific, especially with South Korea and Japan, and increased its dominance in subsidiary economies such as the Philippines and Indonesia. It has failed in its objective to further strengthen its hegemony over the Middle East, notably in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the other hand, the US views the regime change in Libya as representing a significant extension of its influence in both North and Central Africa and as a model for future intervention – particularly in Syria. Replacing the existing government in Syria is seen as key to redressing reduced US influence in Iraq, reversing the balance of power in Lebanon and isolating Iran – as a necessary preliminary to any intervention. Overall, the US determination to maintain control of energy resources across the Middle East, from South Sudan to the Persian Gulf, represents the biggest immediate threat to world peace.

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7. The US sees the EU, and the dominant powers within it, as central to the development of NATO as a vehicle of US influence and intervention across Eastern Europe, Africa and the Near East. It also sees the EU as a key economic vehicle for enabling US banks, based in the City of London, to dominate European financial markets. On the other hand, Germany is the US’s biggest industrial challenger and Franco-German responses to the systemic crisis of the Eurozone are likely to pose further political challenges to both the US and its ally Britain.

The systemic crisis of the EU 8. Uneven economic development across the Eurozone, and particularly the monopolisation of industrial production in the core states of the north, has resulted in unsustainable economic contradictions within the single currency area and within the EU’s banking institutions. The unfolding of these contradictions, and the associated assault on both living standards and on the collective bargaining rights of organised labour, underlines the correctness of our party’s argument that such a union was both unsustainable and deeply reactionary. The effective determination of EU policy by the heads of state of the two dominant powers, the replacement of elected governments by EU nominees and the disregard of the expressed will of electors all illustrate the fundamentally anti-democratic character of the EU and of its founding principle that gives a central place to the politically unlimited freedom of capital.

9. Our party calls for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU and supports the freedom of all countries to do the same – with a view to reconstructing economic relations on a basis that respects the democratic sovereignty of parliaments and their freedom to adopt policies that reflect the needs of working people. We express our solidarity with those on the front line of resistance in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. We also applaud the growing electoral rejection of neo-liberal policies by the peoples of Europe from France to Slovakia. At the same time our party condemns the increasing freedom given to fascist and racist groupings across the EU and the moves at governmental and EU level to outlaw Communist parties and Communist ideology.

10. The 2012 Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance, and the accompanying Fiscal Treaty, represent a further step in the subordination of the democracy of member states and the imposition of austerity rules that are designed to enforce grave hardship on working people and deprive them of the collective means to resist. They mark a key stage in the drive towards fiscal and political union and the concentration of effective power with the EU Council and a more dominant role for the European Central Bank (ECB) as borrower and lender. The outcome can only be to intensify pressure to give free rein to monopoly power across the EU and a further depression of living standards.

11. It is also likely to trigger conflicts with Britain and the US over the control of European financial markets. Britain and the US will wish to defend the autonomy of the City of London and its freedom from regulation and EU taxes – but at the same time retain influence within the EU Council. It will therefore be vital for the trade union movement and the Left to oppose the City of London agenda and demand a complete break with the neo-liberal principles of the EU and to pose alternative, progressive and democratic forms of economic cooperation both with countries in Europe and internationally.

War, disarmament and the peace movement 12. US imperialism and its allies are putting together long term plans for maintaining their position in the face of challenge from both emerging capitalist economies, which will inevitably, if unchecked, rival their domination, and the growing ideological influence and global share of societies that are moving towards socialist economic and political organisation. Central to these plans is the role of NATO in Page 14

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securing the world for continuation of the ‘old’ order. This is being achieved through threats, interventions and wars that wreak havoc, destruction, suffering and death on an unprecedented scale, while the peoples of NATO states pay dearly through ever-deepening cuts to jobs, services and living standards. At the same time, new ‘defence’ strategies and an extended network of NATO partnerships and projects are drawing more and more countries in both the developed and developing world into a ‘shared security agenda’ and an arena from which they cannot easily extricate themselves.

This serves the functions of enriching the military-industrial complexes of the developed world, mitigating to some extent new and emerging inter-capitalist rivalries, deeply embedding reactionary ideology and erecting almost insuperable barriers to progressive movements in their quest for democracy, peace and justice in any of the countries concerned.

13. More than 20 years on from the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of eastern Europe, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the much vaunted vision of a peaceful, ordered capitalist world, as promised by the mass media of imperialism, can never come about.

14. It is an imperative for our Party to raise awareness in the labour movement, peace movement and with the public that the struggle for peace, defence of national sovereignty and democracy is inherently linked with the struggle for jobs and civil rights in Britain and around the world. We must expose the true nature of NATO and its link to the further militarisation of the EU under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty.

15. In the Far East we oppose the long-standing attempt to isolate the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and to create around it an alliance of reactionary forces led by the US. The unjustified blockade of the DPRK poses dangers of still wider conflict.

16. In South America we condemn Britain’s continuing imposition of colonial rule over the Malvinas Islands with the objective of securing control over the region’s oil resources and maintaining a strategic base in the South Atlantic. We call for the return of these islands to Argentina and the resettlement of any residents wishing to return to Britain.

17. The Communist Party will campaign for: i.

The immediate withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan and support the work of Stop the War Coalition to halt further interventions in Syria or Iran. ii.

An end to plans for the renewal of the Trident nuclear missile system and support the work of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for comprehensive nuclear disarmament and cessation of the production, deployment and threat of use of all weapons of mass destruction. iii. Britain’s withdrawal from NATO and support the World Peace Council in its demand for the dissolution of NATO under the slogan ‘Peace Yes, NATO No!’ 18. We will give support to the National Assembly of Women (NAW), and the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in their promotion of the fundamental tenet that peace is a prerequisite for justice and freedom from oppression and exploitation for women and their families everywhere.

The Middle East 19. US imperialism, its NATO allies and the state of Israel, remain determined to control the geographically contiguous area from North Africa to Pakistan and from the Sahara, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean to the borders of Europe, Russia and China. This vast region – with its wealth of energy and mineral resources, its ‘life-line’ supply routes by land and sea (including the Mediterranean, Suez Executive Committee Resolutions

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Canal and the Red Sea) and its strategic proximity to major developing economies that rival US interests (Russia, China and India) and other markets in central Africa and Asia – is vital to imperialism’s future and will be held by any and every means.

20. Not only are the peoples of the Middle East prey to the designs and machinations of imperialist powers, they are also subjected to the oppression of right-wing, authoritarian regimes and exploited by the wealthy oligarchies in whose interests they act. These regimes are in many cases inextricably tied in with and aligned to the US and its NATO allies – notably Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Bahrain.

Other regimes, such as Iran, while overtly pursuing interests more independent of imperialism, are anti -people, anti-humanitarian and cruelly repressive.

21. After withdrawing its combat troops from Iraq, imperialism continues to do everything possible to prevent the genuine self determination of the Iraqi people and, to that end, to sew the seeds of sectarian discord and hatred. A similar scenario awaits Afghanistan, where every effort is being made to provoke division on religious, tribal and ethnic grounds, suppress progressive movements and render the country ungovernable without imperialism’s ‘support’.

22. In Iran, following mass popular opposition to the ‘stolen’ election in June 2009, in which Ahmadinejad gained a second presidential term against the wishes of the electorate, the regime, despite its absolute control, seems more fractured and unstable. The ongoing demand of all left and progressive forces in Iran for human rights, justice and a peaceful and democratic future have provided continuing and effective opposition to the theocratic regime and inspiration to other movements in the region and beyond.

23. Widespread struggles and uprisings across the region in 2011 against anti-popular, oppressive and autocratic rule, collectively referred to as the ‘Arab Spring’, were sparked by acute impoverishment intensified by the global economic crisis. As a result, genuinely popular movements have emerged in countries previously ruled by dictatorships that were, in many cases, allied to the US, Britain, France and others. These are expressing both economic and political aspirations - for freedom from poverty, deep-rooted reforms and democratic change.

24. Recognising that all processes can be appropriated by nationalist, religious or populist forces and reversed, the forces of imperialism and their regional allies are manoeuvring to ensure that these movements remain within their control. In this context, the significance of the current rise in Islamic fundamentalism and political Islam can best be understood. Hand in hand with attacks on movements and the promotion of societal divisions, the forces of reaction have responded to popular struggle with intensifying attacks, using brute force to secure their strategic interests and introducing in Libya a portable model of regime change with which to threaten and coerce the governments of the region. All this has been done with absolute contempt for the peoples of the countries concerned.

25. We recognise that the aspiration of the peoples of the Middle East is to reside in free, democratic and prosperous countries, in which corruption, poverty and sectarian strife are forever eliminated and that international solidarity has a vital role to play in realising this. The Communist Party will therefore oppose and campaign against: i.

Dictatorial and repressive regimes in the Middle East, whether or not they are overtly aligned with the US and its allies. ii.

All external attempts to use reactionary or sectarian forces in any struggle or conflict in the region or to ‘turn’ progressive movements by subterfuge, deception and propaganda. iii. Wars, acts of aggression, external intervention or threats of such in any country of the region on any pretext whatsoever, especially those that involve the government, armed forces and industries of Britain.

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26. We will support: i.

Progressive movements and organisations campaigning for peace, justice, democracy and human rights in the Middle East, including CODIR (Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights). ii.

Progressive and democratic women’s organisations in the Middle East in their struggle against oppression and for fairness and justice.

Palestine 27. The aggressiveness of Israel towards the Palestinian people is unabated. It continues to occupy and extend occupation, repress, arrest, torture and kill relentlessly.

28. The key priority of our international agenda must be the implementation of UN Resolution 194 calling for the creation of a sovereign, viable and independent Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel with the borders of 4 June 1967, Jerusalem as its capital and the right of return of refugees. In furtherance of this goal and to highlight the injustices perpetuated by the state of Israel, we will campaign for its universal boycott, including all things academic, cultural, economic, military and political.

29. We support the demands of the Palestinian people and their organisations for the restoration of all that has been taken from them, for rights and freedoms, the cessation of abuse and the release of all political detainees, including child prisoners. Our party supports the demand for UN recognition of Palestinian statehood and sees it as its particular duty to campaign for the release of the Palestine Legislative Council member and PLO leader, Marwan Barghouti. Our party also notes the continuing opposition within Israel to the creation of a sectarian Jewish state, the mass movement developing in the face of deteriorating economic conditions and the role of the Communist Party of Israel.

Progressive change in Africa and the Americas 30. For more than fifty years, since the beginning of the decolonisation of Africa, the former colonial powers have used every means possible to subject the continent to their continuing hegemony in order to plunder its vast natural resources, exploit its labour and control its markets. Today Africa remains crucial to the designs of imperialism. Imperialist states and their armed forces, the transnational corporations whose interests they represent and local agents of foreign capital (comprador bourgeoisie who perpetuate neo-colonial interests on behalf of their foreign masters) are securing Africa’s resources for themselves.

31. All this is being done with absolute disregard for the people of Africa, who face underdevelopment and misery. Every opportunity is being taken to create and intensify ethnic and regional tensions. The establishment of imperialist military bases is extending and support is being given to local autocratic and military regimes.

32. At the same time there is an ongoing struggle to liberate the whole of Africa from imperialism and neo-colonialism and to safeguard and strengthen independence. Everywhere the struggle for the legitimate democratic, social and economic rights and aspirations of the peoples continues.

33. In southern Africa, left and progressive forces led by communists including the South African Communist Party (SACP) are resolved to deepen the African Revolution beyond decolonisation and to build international solidarity between progressive left forces. In some countries, such as Sudan and Swaziland, people have heroically protested against autocracy and poverty and drawn the attention of Executive Committee Resolutions

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the world to the abuses perpetuated by their leaders.

34. Recognition of the crucial role of solidarity and internationalism has been epitomised by the formation of the Africa Left Network Forum (ALNEF), which forges links between left and progressive forces not only in Africa but also in Latin America, Asia and everywhere else in the world.

35. In Central and South America the past fifteen years have seen important moves to reject capitalist exploitation and deprivation in a number of countries including Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay. Across the region military dictatorships and neoliberal governments have been replaced by anti-imperialist governments and regimes committed to achieving national sovereignty, greater democracy and extended rights and participation. While the pathways to and processes for achievement of these goals differ from country to country, they are nonetheless all focussed on similar goals and agreed on the importance of developing mutual cooperation and solidarity. A major milestone and one with great potential has been the creation of the Community of Latin American States (CELAC) in late 2011.

36. Imperialism has responded to developments in Latin America with threats and offensives against the peoples’ movements, trade unions and progressive forces. The coup in Paraguay follows on the earlier coup in Honduras and the failed coup in Ecuador. Such counterattacks will continue as left-led gains take root and democratic processes deepen. Colombia has already been turned into a large military encampment of the US and the notorious Guantanamo base continues. At the same time, Colombia is infamous as the most unsafe place on earth in which to be a trade-unionist.

37. The Communist Party will support campaigns to remove US military bases from Latin America. It will also campaign for the US 4th Fleet to cease to operate in Latin American ports and waters. It will campaign for the right of trade unions to assemble, operate openly and democratically and represent their members’ interests with impunity and in particular will support the 'Justice for Colombia' campaign. At the same time the Party will support the solidarity campaigns of progressive Latin American countries and do everything possible to ensure that their gains on behalf of their peoples are protected and consolidated. Particular vigilance will be needed to protect the gains of the Venezuela people over the coming year in the face of internal and external subversion.

International co-operation and solidarity 38. Our party welcomes the steps towards the democratisation of the United Nations and the widening of membership of the Security Council. However, we note the continuing predominance of the major imperialist powers, above all the United States, and their ability to exercise controlling influence both directly and indirectly through pressure on other states. In these circumstances the continued existence of veto powers by China and its potential allies in the Security Council remains an important protection from the use of the UN as a front for imperialist aggression.

39. Internationally, the trade union movement represents a significant force for solidarity. The Communist Party understands the need, in terms of the affiliations of British trade unions, to work within the International Trade Union Congress (ITUC) to defend and extend trade union and workers rights, to combat the legacy of Cold War ideology and seek broader unity for the struggle ahead.

Equally, we recognise the continuing role of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in defending workers’ freedoms and its mass base of support in parts of Asia, Africa and Europe.

40. However, the most crucial area of activity is to win our own trade unions to formulate progressive international policies and to bring pressure to bear on both the current government and, most of all, Page 18

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on the Labour Party. It remains our party’s understanding that the power of finance capital is exercised and enforced through specific imperialist states: its dependence on state power at this level has been clearly demonstrated during the course of the current financial crisis. For this reason our prime duty must be to mobilise pressure against the imperialist policies of our own ruling class.

41. In doing so, a focus on concrete issues is essential. One instance is the EU-India Free Trade Agreement. This seeks to open India’s retail and banking sectors to direct competition by EU and particularly British companies, to dismantle India’s state enterprises and to enable British companies to exploit the labour of India’s highly-educated scientists and technicians through unequal and punitive Mode 4 labour contacts in Britain. It therefore has the potential to unite trade unionists in both India and Britain as well as mobilising in Britain the influence of the Indian Workers Association.

International action on climate change 42. The Durban Summit of 2011saw some progress towards a universal recognition of the need for binding limits on carbon emissions including such countries as the United States which had previously refused to ratify the original Kyoto Agreement. It also recognised the need for assistance for poorer countries through the setting up of the Green Fund. However, the deadlines for the agreement of specific targets (2015) and for their implementation (2020) remain too distant to reduce significantly the pace of global warming and to bring it below the critical 2 degree centigrade level of increase. The consequences, particularly in terms of extreme weather events, desertification and flooding of low lying, densely-populated areas, will disproportionately effect populations living in the poorest regions of the world.

43. Our party needs to highlight the link between imperialism and climate change – in terms of the resource costs of war and war production, the impact of mineral extraction on the ecology and food production of developing nations and the resulting uneven division of global income that sees one billion of the world’s poorest people consuming less than 3% of its energy. Comprehensive disarmament and an end to the exploitative pillaging of resources must be linked to the demand for binding targets on carbon emissions and the dissemination of green technologies outside the control of the great capitalist monopolies.

Ireland and Britain’s colonial legacy 44. We remain committed to ending both the legacy of Britain’s long colonial occupation of Ireland.

Every attempt is being made to normalise the inclusion of the northern six counties as part of the territory of the United Kingdom and to establish the belief in Britain that the Good Friday Agreement was an agreement to continued partition. British finance capital, together with that of the United States, still exercises disproportionate economic control over Ireland north and south and continues to exploit the resulting political influence for their own purposes within the institutions of the EU – with disastrous consequences for Ireland’s working people. The territorial division of Ireland continues to powerfully inhibit the development of a united working class movement that can challenge this exploitation and assert popular sovereignty 45. The Communist Party will seek to: i.

Work jointly with comrades in the Irish trade union and progressive movements to challenge the anti-people policies being imposed by the EU in the interests of external finance capital and notably the City of London. ii.

Win an understanding in the trade union movement of the need to ensure that Britain becomes an active persuader for unity and to see this work as part and parcel of combating the continuing Executive Committee Resolutions

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legacy of British imperialism.

Countries on the socialist road 46. The transformation of Cuba that began in 1959 has never ceased and its people continue to actively build socialism, defend their revolutionary gains and inspire and support progressive change in the countries of Latin America. They have made it plain that their national security, independence and identity are rooted in the transformation of Cuba to a socialist society based on the belief that human beings have an unlimited capacity to transform history. Their current struggle to transform the economy and tackle economic inefficiency takes place in a hostile environment, in the face of every attempt by imperialism to isolate and crush the Cuban Revolution and an economic blockade that has now continued for over half a century.

47. The people of Cuba have said that they can remain committed and united because of the support of others. Our Party is committed to the Cuban Revolution and will continue to show solidarity with the Cuban people, support in every way the work of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and support all actions to end the blockade of Cuba by the US. It will also continue to demand the release of the Cuban Five, four of whom remain in prison and one under house arrest in Miami.

48. China’s increasing economic and political influence has been a major factor in the avoidance of global conflict and in the provision of support to countries seeking to undertake their own independent economic development. China’s declared commitment to maintain progress towards a socialist society, its achievement in lifting over 600 million people out of absolute poverty and its ability to use state power to direct economic development provide a key object lesson that it is possible for working people to secure economic progress without subordination to the power of big business. Other countries on the socialist road, including Vietnam and Laos, have continued to achieve significant economic and social advances.

49. At the same time, we need to be aware that these countries’ openness to the global capitalist market and their widening income differentials could create circumstances of political vulnerability. Our party therefore needs to remain vigilant and resist all attempts by the imperialist powers to create opportunities for intervention and destabilisation.

50. Countries taking a socialist road have adopted a range of economic and political models that have emerged from the particular circumstances of their struggle for liberation – in all cases circumstances of extreme difficulty. Today, however, in the midst of a capitalist crisis that is destroying the hopes of whole peoples, their existence demonstrates that it is possible for working people and their allies to create societies that are not subordinated to the barbarism of capital.

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