N° 22 INFORMATION BULLETIN (2013)

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14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties

“Strengthen the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness, for satisfying peoples’ socioeconomic-democratic rights and aspirations, for socialism”.

Beirut, Lebanon, 22 to 25 November 2012

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In this issue contributions by Opening Speech by Lebanese Communist Party Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Australia Workers' Party of Belgium Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Brazil Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party of Cuba Communist Party in Denmark Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party of Finland German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece Hungarian Workers’ Party Communist Party of India (Marxist) Tudeh Party of Iran Communist Party of Ireland Workers' Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communists Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico Communist Party of Nepal [UML] New Communist Party of the Netherlands Communist Party of Norway Communist Party of Pakistan Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930) Portuguese Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Party of the Soviet Union Communist Workers’ Party of Russia New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Party of the Communists of Catalonia Communist Party of Sri Lanka Syrian Communist Party Communist Party of Sweden Communist Party of Turkey Labour Party, EMEP, Turkey Communist Party, USA Documents Beirut Declaration

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Solidarity statements Motion of solidarity with the Latin America and Caribbean peoples’ n

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Solidarity with Lebanon Solidarity with the KKE and the class struggles in Greece n United against the imperialistic tool- International criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia n Resolution on the Cyprus problem n The clouds of imperialist war are gathering n Declaration on the peace in Colombia n Statement about the threats against the people of Iran n In solidarity with the Egyptian people and its progressive movements, for the toppling of the latest reversal procedures n Solidarity with Syria and its people

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Parties that participated

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Redlinks

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Lebanese Communist Party OPENING SPEECH

BY DR. MARIE NASSIF-DEBS

DEAR COMRADES, we welcome you in this 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) which takes place in Beirut - capital of the "Patriotic Resistance Front" and Capital of the Arab capitals- which the Communists had the honor of liberating, just after few days of it being disgraced by the Israeli occupying army. The occupiers were then forced to leave, frightened and screaming "O people of Beirut, do not shoot at us, we are retreating".

BEIRUT is also the city of the poor people, where the Lebanese working class had, since the thirties of the last century, faced its class enemy in the form of the French colonizer and the subordinate Lebanese bourgeoisie back then. The working class had won over its class enemy by enforcing its project for the Labour law and the right for syndicate organization.

And until today, this class is still facing this common enemy who is trying, by the civil wars which it detonates every now and then, and by the battle over living conditions, salaries and social benefits. It is a project through which this class is trying to perpetuate its control over our country and to tie the fate of our people with that of the ever-renewed old imperialist projects, beginning with what is known as "the project for a new middle east" which aims at subdividing our region and country into sectarian-based entities which will allow it to colonize us again and exploit our natural resources.

Comrades, it was convenient step for our meeting to have chosen Lebanon, and Beirut specifically, as a place for our conference which carries the slogan: "Strengthen the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness, for satisfying peoples’ socio-economic-democratic rights and aspirations, for socialism" THE NEW ISRAELI AGGRESSION against the Palestinian people in Gaza and, before this,

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the interference of imperialism, especially after the two revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, to prevent our people to realize their needs and aspirations are very significant. They clearly express that our region still the priority in the imperialist policies which were defined not only by the ex new president of the USA in his speech in Cairo University, but also by NATO Lisbon Summit.

Comrades, we have a lot to discuss in the coming days. Our peoples are looking forward to what we will decide, especially in the field of writing down a common program for struggle and in putting down common plans to apply it.

It is no longer possible to treat the hostility of capitalism by pain killers, this should happen through setting wide alliances between the world working class and its representatives, for independence, autonomy and human dignity.

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Algerian party for democracy and socialism, PADS BESSA IBNOU - ZAHIR

THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM continues to deepen. It sharpens the contradictions of class. The working class, the workers and youth, resist more and more, in a growing number of countries, in front of the financial oligarchy offensive, supported by social democracy, against the social conquests of the labor movement. Interimperialist rivalries for the extension of spheres of influence and control of the sources and routes of transportation of oil, gas and uranium, are increasing. At the same time the Western imperialist powers coordinate their operations to try to break by all means the economically weak countries that refuse to comply fully with their diktat, including states led by the bourgeoisie.

THE EXTENSION OF WAR OUTBREAKS in the Middle East is part of the imperialist strategy.

Syria is victim of coordinated attack by unprecedented forces of imperialism, Zionism and reaction-monarchist medieval theocracies. This is the region in which the U.S. imperialists, English and French concentrate their efforts not only to break a country that refuses to obey their orders but also to surround by a belt of hostile states the Russian and Chinese new imperialist powers.

Imperialist states encourage new Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza. They exploit the results of work undertaken by the monarch of Qatar towards Gaza to break up the Palestinian people unity. They encourage Israel's war preparations against Iran and seek to take advantage of the internal contradictions of this country. The Iranian working class fights bravely to rescue the democratic freedoms and oppose anti-labor offensive of the bourgeoisie in power under the guise of Islam. Imperialism is also trying to take advantage of the contradictions that have arisen in recent years between bourgeois tendencies in power and those in opposition. Libya reactionary forces installed in

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power by NATO faces an increasing resistance of the people that they fiercely repress. The vast majority of the Libyan people refused to endorse the election farce organized by NATO and its puppets. In this country, the main fact is the struggle to oust the imperialist interventionists and their local auxiliaries.

THE SITUATION IS ALARMING also in the Sahel and in Mali. Imperialist interference became evident supposedly on behalf of the fight against Islamist terrorism and Tuareg separatism. Their goal is clear: to create chaos to justify the intervention of French and American imperialists to control the basement of this vast region, to break the anti-imperialist popular movements. Their long-term goal is to pursue their plan of encirclement of Algeria to recover the oil and gas Algerian zones. With their continuous pressure imperialist states are trying to get now the denationalization of hydrocarbons and permission to establish military bases in the Sahara. Libyan and Moroccan regimes play an important role in this strategy. The Moroccan monarchy applies faithfully imperialist plans per contra of U.S. and France's support for its occupation of Western Sahara. Qatar provides financial assistance to armed Islamist movements in southern Algeria. Qatar interventions in this region are part of a distribution of tasks decided by the U.S. and French imperialists.

Revolts and political and social events that agitate many Arab countries since the beginning of last year are basically the expression of deep internal and external contradictions .

These revolts were triggered by the impact of the crisis in the world capitalist system as a whole and its harsh impact on living conditions of the majority of workers and peasants, who were already very poor, especially in

countries that have no oil revenues. These revolts express at the same time large and ideological confusion, the refusal of Arab popular masses to pay the consequences of this crisis, their yearning for democratic freedoms of organization and expression, election and democratic control of governments. The development of capitalist relations in these countries, imperialist domination and economic dependence, massive looting of their resources, widening inequalities of class, the abject poverty of large sections of the people, the struggle of the proletariat and the peasantry against capitalist exploitation and precapitalist remains, contradictions of interests and struggles for hegemony within the power between various factions of the bourgeoisie, all these factors have matured demands for radical changes, including in countries where the petty bourgeoisie has exerted during long periods an hegemonic power, often with real social progress, as was the case for El Gaddafi in Libya.

The central issue is not the abstract question "democracy or despotism" but "anti-popular and bourgeois democratic states enfeoffed to imperialism or anti-imperialist popular democracy creating the conditions for transition to the socialist road"? The global characteristics of the present period, that of the struggle for the transition to socialism do not allow to tackle in another way the democratic issues in this part of the world.

ARAB PEOPLE REFUSE to continue to live as before. But the situation is different from one country to another.

Some Arab regimes are ÂŤ formally Âťrepublics but democratic freedoms must be won through struggle. Others are monarchies ruled by castes originally mostly installed by

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the imperialist states. They use religion to justify oppression and absolute arbitrary. Petromonarchies oligarchies have interests closely tied to imperialist regimes. The money stolen from their people is located in the banks of the imperialist countries and is used for the the reproduction of the imperialist system in the world, which does not exclude contradictions between the imperialist powers and rulers. All of them try to find the political forms of government appropriate to the perpetuation of imperialist domination. They will not hesitate to throw in the dustbin of history their current lackeys if their interests are threatened by such alliances.

The intensity of the explosive nature of the situation differs from one country to another depending on the nature of relationships that link these regimes to the imperialist powers.

Regimes that manifest their rejection of the imperialist powers dictates are the target of coordinated attacks by the USA, the European Union, NATO, Israel, Gulf monarchies and theocracies, international plutocracy media.

This is true even if these regimes are in their socio-economic basis capitalist regimes. Imperialism does not simply impose to economically weak countries ultra-liberal receipts. It tends to demand total submission of bourgeois regimes in its geo-strategic objectives.

He does not hesitate to enforce above all the interests of its oligarchies, to push ruling classes to political suicide by throwing them into irreconcilable conflict with their people. It creates explosive situations that lead to the breakup of the young nations born from the liberation movement and whose economic fundamentals are still weak.

In contrast, the most reactionary regimes, lackeys of the imperialist powers can kill massively, trample basic rights of the population,

deny any right to foreign labor, reduce into slaves or stone under any pretext women from Asia or Africa, they will continue to enjoy the protection of their masters. The ferocity with which millions of workers from Asia are being exploited by multinationals is only possible thanks to the support of the most reactionary regimes in the world.

The imperialist states regimes priority is to defeat the regimes or the political forces which try to stand up, and strengthen the position of Israel as military outpost whose mission is to prevent the emancipation of Arab and Muslim peoples located on the oil routes.

THE CONTRADICTIONS of the Arab countries are often made confusing by the struggles that oppose different fractions of their bourgeoisies concerning the best ways to strengthen or maintain their domination over the masses as well as on the balance between these positions of power in the exercise hegemonic power at the expense of each other. Everywhere whole fractions of the bourgeoisie allied with feudal potentates use blatantly Islam. Large inexperienced politically and ideologically fractions of the working class and peasantry make their first steps in modern social struggles, seeking in religion a support to their aspirations for social justice. The most reactionary bourgeois currents try to channel popular discontent to prevent it from becoming a revolutionary torrent likely to raise forcefully the question of ownership of the means of production, distribution of wealth, corporate control and the social nature of power. Religion is used as a front for the establishment of an opened dictatorship of money forces in order to prevent the junction of the communist parties with the spontaneous movement of the masses and the

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working class. It is used to prevent the transmission of ideological awareness to workers, transforming the working class in class-conscious vanguard, organized and leader in the struggle for progress and socialism. To detach workers from reactionary influence of the forces that use Islam, to isolate these forces, the Communists must reject attempts of "secularist" petty-bourgeois circles to move the gravity center of the political, ideological, economic and social struggle, from clarifying the content of the economic positions of different political forces adverse to abstract questions of "modernity" or religion. We advocate the separation of religion and state but this can not be the center of our daily agitation work. As shown by the October Revolution this issue is solved in the very determined struggles for the establishment of the state of workers and peasants.

IN ALGERIA the sham democracy introduced in 1989 after the popular uprising of October 1988 has in reality only benefited to the money powers. These powers are divided between those who present themselves as supporters of secularism, those who disguise themselves under the veil of Islam and those who seek a "centrist" way. These bourgeois currents agree to stifle independent labor movement thanks to paralyzing labor and social laws or laws on parties and associations which put them under the control of the Interior Ministry.

Imperialist interference in Algeria have become more open. Intensive work is being carried out by the embassies and the European Union to enlist youth NGOs supposedly responsible for defending human rights.

The consequences of the bloody confrontation that pitted from 1992 reactionary forces

hidden under the veil of Islam to all democratic forces in society and the current regime are exploited by imperialist circles to get more concessions. Senior officers of the army who had fought armed Islamist groups are threatened with prosecution before the International Criminal Court. The bourgeois regime in Algeria is more afraid by the masses than by imperialism. By its class nature it is unable to seek the support of the masses by satisfying their social and political demands. He seeks "understanding" of imperialism by changing the rules of the oil tax, dismantling tariffs. It offers unimaginable financial gifts to multinationals. He invited them to invest in Algeria but it is the Algerian state that provides all capital using public banks loans with very low rates.

They are tax-exempt sometimes for ten years.

The State pays also the salaries of a large number of young workers under the pretext of the fight against unemployment. Companies from Qatar and other from the Gulf who have no technological expertise control strategic sectors such as steel, mechanical branches of arms, ports, without paying any dollar! The government has also lend $ 5 billion to the IMF! REGARDING SYRIA, our party believes that it is "obvious already from last year that the armed uprising in Syria (...) has nothing to do with any struggle for democratic freedoms and social progress . The armed insurgency groups is the fact of groups which hide less an less their willingness to establish a sectarian state, undermining the freedom of conscience and religious freedoms, which have hitherto been the particularity of Syria compared to Arab and Muslim countries, and using Islam to make the workers and peasants accept the most ferocious exploitation. "

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Political , social and economic système introduced by the Syrian Baath and which has in recent years negatively changed with antipopular measures for liberalization does not embody our communist ideal.

But it is impossible to place it on the same plane as Islamist terrorists and imperialist powers. The armed uprising in Syria has a distinctly reactionary, obscurantist characteristic because of the objectives and social and economic vision of its ultra-liberal leaders, because of its dependence on political, financial and military standpoint to imperialist countries and theocratic monarchies of the Gulf, because of its role of armed force for this foreign forces coalition. We believe that the primary responsibility for the misfortunes that have befallen on the Syrian people is the responsibility of officers and bourgeois or social democrats from imperialist countries. " ALGERIAN COMMUNIST are inspired by the rich experience accumulated by the international communist movement in the fight against fascism. This struggle had led to the conclusion of conditional temporary unions with other social strata to address at some point an enemy that challenges with an extreme violence the democratic , social and national achievements of working class and peoples .

We believe that no revolution can simply abstractly assert democratic freedoms, say nothing about the imperialist interference, or condemn violence without examining its contents, class objectives and international circumstances. No revolutionary can place on the same plane revolutionary violence against the armed groups backed by imperialism and the Gulf monarchies and the legitimate repression of the activity of these groups. Effec-

tive struggle for democratic freedoms in the wider benefit of the working class and toiling layers is closely linked to resistance to imperialist aggression and its allies inside. It is linked to the struggle to liquidate the forces of reaction by military and political means, by a social policy for the masses. In a situation like that of Syria, democratic struggles can not be dissociated from the fights to inflict a stinging defeat to imperialism and its internal allies, to defeat its claim to decide for the people . No revolutionary party can win a leading role, independent of the bourgeoisie, if it is not involved with weapons in hand in imperialist resistance, if it does not make every effort to lead the masses in this resistance. It is by completing these tasks that it can give to this anti-imperialist resistance a most advanced content of economic and social class in favor of the working class, of the working popular strata , even if it is temporarily allied with other ruling forces that imperialism wants to forcibly remove and replace by submissive servants .

These struggles create the best conditions for the revolutionary party of the working class to conquer a leadership role.

WE WELCOME OUR SYRIANS COMRADES in this difficult historic battle which has an enormous importance for all peoples. We sincerely hope they will succeed in the heat of the struggle to train workers to the victory against the forces of imperialism and internal reaction in the conquest of democratic freedoms and social progress.

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Communist Party of Australia

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF AUSTRALIA extends its thanks to the Lebanese Communist Party for the invitation to participate in the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. We very much regret that financial constraints make it impossible for us to attend this year.

In Australia today, the struggle against imperialist aggression, to satisfy people’ social, economic and democratic rights, and for socialism requires above all the building of a new national peace alliance to fight the recent decision by US imperialism to escalate its military activities in the Asian and IndoPacific regions and the development of alliances and solidarity among the peoples of this region..

In November 2011 US President Barak Obama and Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced an expansion of joint US and Australian military activities in Australia and the region, effectively turning our whole country into a US military base and a launching pad for US wars of aggression in the region.

AFTER WORLD WAR II, British colonialism was replaced by US imperialism in Australia as the dominant economic, political and military power over the people. Since then Australia’s military forces and government foreign and defence policies have been subservient to US imperialism.

Australia is a middle sized imperialist power that is active economically, militarily, diplomatically and politically in the support of its own Imperialist ambitions. Australia is a strong supporter and loyal promoter of the interests of US imperialism. Successive Australian governments acting in the interests of the capitalist class have made Australia a regional tool of their global interests.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard also announced that 2,500 US Marines will be stationed at an Australian base in Darwin in the Northern Territory. The new deal also includes

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an increased number of visits by US ships and aircraft, greater US access to Australian military bases, more joint military exercises, and the storage of greater amounts of US military material and equipment in Australia.

This has serious implications for Australia’s sovereignty and independence and for peace and welfare of all peoples in the region.

It builds on the high level of strategic and operational integration between the Australian and US military forces already, and drags Australia further along the road of passive accomplice to whatever adventures the US wants to undertake.

TARGET CHINA. The movement of the majority of US military assets to the region, plus military facilities and deployment of US troops, ships and planes in Australia and many other countries in Asia and the Indo-Pacific region, gives the US the ability to shut down China’s imports of energy and raw materials and to cripple its economy.

Behind the US military escalation in the region is America’s own economic decline, the global economic crisis and a deep fear of the economic growth of China that is beginning to challenge US economic and political hegemony and dominance throughout the region, including Australia.

US monopoly capital has immense economic investments, control of markets and political power in the region that it uses to exploit and oppress the people.

The US views China’s economic development and growing investments as a major threat to its own massive investments, domination of resources, markets and political subservience to US interests.

Despite the fact that China’s military budget is less than one tenth that of the US, China is

providing the "enemy" the US military-industrial complex requires.

The escalation of US imperialism’s military focus on Asia and the Indo-Pacific region must be seen against the background of the extraordinary growth in US-Australian military and intelligence co-operation over the last decade.

US-AUSTRALIAN MILITARY EXPANSION. Australia signed on for three new "training bases" with the US military at the annual AustralianUS Ministerial Consultations in Washington in July 2004. The three facilities will be linked with US bases and the Pacific War Fighting Centre in Hawai’i.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Australia refers to the need for planes, ships and submarines based in Guam, or rotated to Guam from Hawai’i or the US continent, to have access to training facilities which only Australia can provide.

The commitment to enhanced joint exercises takes Australia further down the path of "interoperability" -- the process of the gradual fusion of the Australian Defence Force into a de-facto arm of the United States military.

Pine Gap in central Australia is one of the largest and most important US war fighting and intelligence bases in the world. It is used to control satellites gathering information from the Middle East oil fields to China. It spies on international and domestic radar, satellite and microwave transmissions. It monitors missile launches and provides targets. It is an important part of the ‘drone wars’ in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Space-tracking facilities in Australia are being networked into a regional missile defence system with the Jindalee Operational Radar Network to become an increasingly important

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component of the system. The US "missile defence" project is the armed wing of globalization. The US is planning to militarise, commercially exploit and to control space, to become the master of space and take corporate globalisation to a new and more terrifying level.

Darwin is a port city on the northern coast. It is ideally placed to control of the strategic Timor Gap naval passage and for US imperialism’s plans for containment of China. It is also no accident that Halliburton, US Vice President Dick Cheney’s corporation, has recently built what is a strategic railway from Alice Springs (near Pine Gap) to Darwin.

The Australian Government recently signed an agreement to allow US forces to return to North West Cape in West Australia). This is a Very Low Frequency communications base for submerged submarines. As Australia has hardly any that are operational, its main role is to support US (nuclear-armed) submarines active in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, as well as the contested South China Sea. A new function will be US space surveillance and detection activities to track the communication satellites of other countries for possible destruction in the event of hostilities. Camouflaging this role is the secondary function of tracking space junk and protecting global communications satellites.

In addition, the Australian Government is already giving much greater attention and money to cyber warfare and is also buying its own drones.

US strategy was spelt out in the Pentagon's 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). This said the United States will not allow the rise of a competing superpower. "Of the major and emerging powers China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technolo-

gies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages," the Review states.

IMPERIALISM IN THE ASIA AND INDO-PACIFIC REGION. US imperialism is driving to strengthen its grip on the economies of the countries of the region while also escalating its military presence in the area to defend and extend its economic and political hegemony.

The US military arms and trains the local puppet governments’ armed forces to suppress resistance by the people of Asia and the IndoPacific region to imperialist domination.

Territorial disputes are being provoked between China, the Philippines and Vietnam over the vast unexplored undersea gas and oil fields in the South China Sea. US imperialism is manipulating the Philippines puppet government to increase the tensions in the region and at the same time has unleashed war on the people of the Philippines.

Similarly, the US is directing Australia’s acquiescent governments to stoke the fires of imperialist wars in the region.

Australia is involved in a tripartite arrangement with the US and Japan which makes Australia the southern arm of US strategy against China and Japan the northern arm.

Australia is assisting US imperialism’s efforts to pull India away from its growing ties with Russia and China and to make it part of imperialism’s anti-Chinese alliances in the region.

Australia is pushing for India’s inclusion in APEC, and the government sees great opportunities in India for the export of uranium, minerals and other raw resources.

Australia is engaged in a sustained drive for increased trade deregulation, structural adjustment, public sector privatisation, deregulation of foreign investment and capital flows,

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and the replacement of communal land ownership by private holdings. Increasingly aid is being made conditional on such policies, which are pushed regardless of cultural, social, environmental and economic consequences to local communities.

The drive for economic integration is at the expense of the vast majority of the peoples of this region and has imposed exploitation, unemployment, poverty, environmental destruction and loss of democratic and civil rights. The land and resources of food, water and fisheries and forests are being depleted by the transnational corporations that follow these inter-governmental agreements.

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is about facilitating the penetration of US corporations into markets across the region. The TPP, which covers Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, New Zealand, Chile, Canada, Mexico, Peru, and the USA, is intended to remove local laws and protections, claiming that these are a restriction on "free trade" and should not apply to their investments and activities.

TRAMPLING THE RIGHTS OF THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE. The social and economic cost of subservience to US imperialism is enormous. Australia's military spending is twelfth in the world on a per capita basis.

Meanwhile public schools, hospitals and transport are starved of funds.

The US-Australia military alliance distorts our society. Instead of a focus on sustainable development, socially useful production and the needs of the community, priority is given to supporting US foreign policy, military spending and increasingly repressive social control.

The beneficiaries are not our people but the US and Australian militaries together with

huge US corporations and some Australian companies.

Australia’s current military spending of over Aus$70 million a day steals the resources which should be funding human and social needs. Much of this spending is dictated by the equipment needed to fight in coalition with US imperialism, not by Australia’s genuine defence needs.

Military spending creates far fewer jobs than spending the same dollars on civilian projects.

Resources committed to the military mean less money for developing strong social cohesion and stability within the nation through employment programs and the health, education and housing needs of Australians and our neighbours.

Preparing for war with China provides additional super profits for the US armaments corporations. It will be the primary justification for the acquisition of costly new weapons systems.

The US military is one of the world’s worst polluters, and yet the Australian Government has invited them into environmentally significant areas of Australia. Considerable environmental problems have developed during the Talisman Sabre joint military exercises, and an increase in war games on Australian soil is on the agenda.

The majority of the over 30 US bases in Australia are located on Aboriginal land and deny the indigenous people of this country their land rights.

Overseas US bases have become the centre of major social problems. They are linked to increases in violence, prostitution, drugs, alcoholism, rape, sexually transmitted diseases, and abuse of women and children. The Australian experience is similar.

The 1963 Status of Forces Agreement be-

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tween Australia and the US holds that in circumstances where an alleged offence is committed by an officer in the course of his or her official duties, Australia has an international obligation to give the US primary jurisdiction to deal with the officer.

The proposal to base nuclear-powered ships and aircraft in Perth would be out of step with the nuclear weapons-free zone to which Australia has been a signatory since 1985. The role of North West Cape in supporting the US nuclear-armed submarine fleet is in conflict with Australia’s commitments to nuclear disarmament.

An atmosphere of fear and insecurity is being fanned to assist a massive attack on civil liberties. Federal and State legislation, being used first against the Muslim community, is intended to destroy democratic rights and stifle all dissent.

NEW NETWORKS OF PEACE GROUPS have been established in each state in the Australian commonwealth. They recently united into a national network – the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN), with the aim of raising public awareness and building opposition to Australia’s support for US imperialism’s militarization of our country and the region.

Australia needs an independent, non-aligned foreign policy, based on the principles of peaceful co-existence, self-determination and anti-imperialist solidarity. Reduced military spending and respect for the sovereign rights of nations to their independence, sovereignty, equality and self determination would best serve the interests of Australian people and our regional neighbours.

GROWING RESISTANCE. Many Australians are disgusted and angry at the lack of any notion of independence in Australia’s foreign policies.

70 per cent of Australians want less money spent on defence and 82 per cent oppose tax increases to pay for more defence spending.

Over 70 per cent opposed Australian involvement in the Iraq war. A majority want Australia out of Afghanistan immediately. None of these views have influenced the policies of Labor or Liberal governments.

Even sections of the ruling class are concerned about US imperialism’s aggression damaging relations with China which is Australia’s largest trading partner.

The threat of devastating war on our doorstep has provoked a response in the Australian peace movement which has been small and relatively inactive for several years.

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Workers' Party of Belgium (PTB) BERT DE BELDER

The workers' struggle at Ford Genk and the Europe-wide general strikes and actions: the way forward against the aggressiveness of capitalism in crisis, for satisfying the people's demands and for propagating socialism ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, more than 20,000 people took to the streets of the small Belgian city of Genk to protest against the closure of the Ford automotive plant there. The case of Ford Genk illustrates very well both the necessity and the opportunity to strengthen the workers' struggles against the aggressiveness of capitalism, today more than ever.

ON OCTOBER 24, the European management of Ford Motor Company announced the closure of its plant in Genk, where currently 4300 workers are employed. Almost ten years ago, in 2003, already 3000 jobs were lost in Ford Genk. And two years ago, the Ford workers were already forced to accept a 12% decrease in their salary in exchange for... long-term job security. If you take into account that in the province of Limburg, at least another 6000 jobs will be lost in related industries, you can understand the despair and the rage of the victimized workers, their families and their communities.

But the closure of Ford was no exception: over the past couple of months, a total of 20,000 job cuts were announced in Belgium, in different branches of the economy. This goes to show the depth and the width of the continuing and structural capitalist crisis of overproduction, with sluggish sales, a diminishing purchasing power and more and more companies that shut down plants and eliminate jobs with just one stroke. Elsewhere in Europe, the same phenomenon wreaks havoc on the jobs, the income and the very lives of the workers; Peugeot in Aulnay, France; Opel in Bochum, Germany; Arcelor-Mittal in Liège, Belgium and Florange, France; Ford in the UK;... This is of

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course nothing but the wreckless destruction of means of production in an attempt to solve the crisis of overproduction and overaccumulation and restart the capitalist cycle.

THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOUR also expresses itself in a more indirect way: that of the bourgeois governments imposing harsh austerity measures on the workers and the people, prodded by the transnational corporations, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, etc.: all have already gotten their part of this comprehensive bourgeois attack on the working class and the people, in consecutive waves of 'memorandums', 'packages' or 'plans' that contain measures to cut wages, salaries, unemployment benefits and pensions; to increase the retirement age; to slash funding for social services; to privatize public services and so on. It hardly matters which colours of bourgeois parties are in power. In many of the countries mentioned, including Belgium, it are actually the socialdemocratic parties that are eagerly implementing the anti-worker policies, in coalition with rightist parties.

Just a few recent examples from Belgium. In government and employers' circles there is much talk about 'reforming' the system of automatic adjustment of salaries and social allowances to the cost of living (the 'index'). An increase of the VAT on consumer goods is also an option under consideration. And in the upcoming wage negotiations between employers and trade unions, the former want to impose a stop on wage increases. An austerity measure already implemented starting this month is the cut in employment benefits:

130,000 unemployed will see their monthly allowance decreased by 12 to 42%. All these measures negatively affect the workers' purchasing power, thus rendering the crisis of overproduction even deeper.

In our agitation and propaganda against the closure of Ford Genk our party tries to render the political message as clearly anti-capitalist as possible, starting from the actual level of consciousness of the workers and their families, by advancing the following ideas, demands and slogans: n "We don't take this any longer! This system is inhuman." n "What has happened to democracy, if one family – the Fords - can singlehandedly decide about the fate of thousands of families?" n "Ford belongs to us. We want Ford Genk to remain open." n "For the maintenance of all Ford plants, with a spread of production over the different plants." n "Seizure of the Ford Genk plant and other Ford assets in Belgium by the authorities.

Reimbursement of all State subsidies received by Ford Genk." n "Stop the attack on wages. No downward wage spiral. Don't touch the 'index'." n "The crisis has been created by big bankers, shareholders and millionnaires. Let us make them pay for it." n "Politicians are not powerless, they are accountable. By giving subsidies to the industry without any guarantee. By attacking the people's purchasing power. By providing banks with billions of euros. By acting as the political representatives of big capital."

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IN THIS STRUGGLE we support all actions of the trade unions, as the main fighting organization of the working class. At Ford Genk, we are with the trade union militants and secretaries at the picket lines and meetings, at the demonstrations and actions. This does, of course, not mean that we accept hook, line and sinker anything the trade unions say and do, at Ford no less than for the Belgian working class as a whole. Reformism – and sometimes outright resignation in the face of employers' and governement attacks - remains the dominant trend in both major trade union federations in Belgium, a trend we try to confront with that of militant trade unionism. At Ford, the first fight to wage in the trade unions is the one that opposes the political line of accepting a social plan and higher dismissal payments for the workers, to that of "Ford belongs to us, don't touch our jobs".

It is in this spirit that on November 7, 200 trade unionists from Ford Genk went to protest at Ford's European works council meeting in Köln. They were faced with 350 policemen. The most militant trade union delegate, who is a member of our party, was arrested and held in prison for 24 hours. German police treated him as a terrorist – while back at the Ford Genk factory gate, he received a hero's welcome. This is yet another political lesson from the fight at Ford, about the class character of the police and justice system.

There is more international solidarity involved in the struggle at Ford. With our German comrades of the DKP (German Communist Party), we produced a common leaflet to distribute at the Ford factory gates in Genk and Köln. Ford workers and trade unionists from Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain participated in the November 11 rally in Genk. Which brings us to the issue of Europe-wide workers action

and resistance, as exemplified by the European day of action and solidarity of last November 14, with successful general strikes in a number of countries (Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Malta) and partial strikes, work stoppages and mass actions in many other countries.

At a time when the bourgeosie is largely united in its attacks on the working class and on the peoples and nations of the South, it is urgent and crucial for the latter to unite as well on an international level. Just imagine what the European Ford management would have been faced with if there hadn't been action just at the Ford plant in Genk, but a simultaneous strike and joint occupations of Ford plants throughout Europe, and beyond. And imagine what the impact of the European day of action could have been if communists and militant trade unionists from all over Europe could have given it a more revolutionary orientation.

We propose to reflect together on the possibilities of putting forward common demands at the European level, such as a 'millionnaires' tax' (an extra tax on huge fortunes), the generalization of the linkage of salaries to the price of consumer goods, a decent minimum wage or a law to prohibit lay-offs in companies that make profit.

ANY EFFICIENT FIGHT against capitalism implies a political struggle against the bourgeosie and its political parties. Of course, the main form of struggle for communist and workers' parties remains the class struggle in streets and factories, in offices and schools.

Today's conditions of capitalist crisis are favourable for the development of the people's struggle for their social, economic and democratic rights and aspirations. These can be further advanced and reinforced by elec-

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toral and parliamentary struggle, in a twoway approach of what we call "street-councilstreet": from the streets to the (municipal, provincial or national) council or parliament, and back to the streets.

At the October 14 municipal and provincial elections in Belgium, the Workers' Party of Belgium (PTB) made significant progress. We more than tripled the number of our elected councilors from 15 in 8 city districts and municipalities, to 52 in 20 city districts and municipalities. In a few worker municipalities we have become the second party, while we got our first councilor in major cities as Antwerp, Liège and Brussels (municipalities of Molenbeek and Schaerbeek). It is notable that we won 5 seats in Seraing, where the steel plant of Arcelor-Mittal is located, and 3 in Genk, where the Ford plant is located. A good number of our 52 councilors are workers and trade unionists.

Part of the reason for these favourable results is to be found in the preparatory work our party did, questioning thousands of people about their concrete needs and demands as the basis for our party's local election programme. Housing, mobility, health care, education, local taxes, jobs and pollution were the most popular issues. These are the issues that our elected representatives, together with the Party units in each locality, will take up in the coming months and years. For it is through their role in the daily struggles of the people that communists win their confidence, by proving that they are the best defenders of the people's rights and aspirations. These small but concrete struggles also form the basis for the build-up of a more favourable correlation of forces in preparation for bigger victories to come and for the ultimate fight against the monopolies and the bourgeoisie.

NEITHER OUR MASS-BASED APPROACH of the election campaign nor the greater openness toward our party in the mass media during and after elections would have been possible without the renewal put in motion by our 8th Party Congress, held in 2008. There we adopted the orientation to become a genuine workers' party and reach out to a much broader audience by applying flexible tactics, while maintaining our basic Marxist-Leninist principles.

Actually, we are now preparing our 9th Party Congress that will tackle the issue of socialism. In the current context of electoral progress of our party and of intensifying class struggle against factory closures and austerity measures, we have a golden opportunity to put forward our vision of what a society would look like that puts people first, not profit.

Today, more and more people recognize the 'system error' of capitalism and look for a structural alternative, that only socialism can offer. For if private corporate owners can singlehandedly decide to close shop, is it not time to think about bringing the major means of production under collective ownership?

And if bourgeois governments and parliaments can decide to bleed the large majority of the population while a tiny minority keeps getting richer, is it not time to think about a society where not the bourgeoisie but the working class and the people hold the reins of power?

BUT AS THE CLASS STRUGGLE, the rejection of capitalism and the influence of our party are mounting, so is the ideological offensive of the Right. In the Northern part of Belgium (Flanders), the Rigthist nationalist party N-VA has won the elections. Their agenda is to split the country in order to better serve the inter-

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ests of the Flemish bourgeoisie, patterned after the German model. This Rightist current viciously attacks the workers in the South of the country (Wallonia), the migrant workers, the trade unions and, of course, our Party.

Lately we have been accused of advocating and using violence and of constituting a danger for democracy. We have been labelled extremists, supporters of North Korea and Bashir Al Assad, anti-Semites. We have also been accused of... participating in international gatherings of communist parties. Interestingly, we get the same accusations from the right wing of the social-democratic party (PS).

This reminds us of the fact that the bourgeoisie still has the option of an even more reactionary alternative to the policies they are implementing right now: narrow nationalism, separatism and even fascism, in a strategy to divide and rule, to split and submit the working class. It is of the utmost importance that communist and workers' parties and organizations counter all tendencies towards nationalism and communalism, and consciously build the unity of the workers and the people on a class basis and on an internationalist basis.

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Brazilian Communist Party IVAN MARTINS PINHEIRO

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the Brazilian Communist Party – PCB – salute the present communist parties and pays homage to our host, the Lebanese Communist Party, a reference to every revolutionary and workers for its example of constant struggle against the capital.

THE DEEPENING OF THE SYSTEMIC CRISIS OF CAPITALISM places for the international communist movement a set of complex challenges.

We are facing a permanent state of war against the workers, a sort of "world war" in which the big capital tries to solve the crisis placing its burden on the shoulders of workers. This is another sort of war, different of the previous centred in inter-imperialist disputes.

In spite of the continuity of these inter-bourgeois contradictions in the present conjuncture the big powers (mainly the USA and hegemonic countries of EU) promote a plunder war against all peripheral countries, specially those having un-renewable natural resources, and against all workers in the world.

War is the main resource of capitalism for trying to get out of the crisis. It activates the military industrial complex, allows the pillage of national wealth and the burn of capitals. Capitalist also gain with the reconstruction of the countries they destroyed.

The methods are always the same: demonization, manipulation, incentive to sectarianism and divisions between nationalities, co-optation, creation or supersizing in the media of demonstrations and rebeldom, false flag criminal assaults.

We may be surprised by the invasion of a country that nowadays would seem improbable.

IN THIS PERMANENT WAR, at least at this phase, the emerging countries, minority partners of imperialism are spared, since they le-

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gitimate, as subordinates, the so called Group of the 20. Their heads of state appear in the photo representing a consensus but the big decisions are taken in separate unnoticed forums.

The emerging countries, so called BRICS, have been beneficed by the crisis since they help in its overcoming. But they may be the next victims of crisis and military interventions.

In our country the bankers, undertakers, agribusiness and monopolies never had so much profit. The economic policy and the external policy of the Brazilian State are intended to make Brazil a large capitalist power, in the frame of imperialism. Multinational corporations of Brazilian origin, with leverage of public finance, already control markets in other countries, mainly in Latin America.

THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT, today, is the organizer of the transference of a larger part of income and wealth produced in the country to the dominant classes, using the primary superavit, the high interest policy and the highly regressive tax system. Around 50% of the budget is designated to the payment of interests and amortization of the debt (internal and external), for the satisfaction of international and national bankers as well as of our rentiers (less than 1% of the population).

In order to obey to the interests of big business, undertakers and agribusiness the government promotes the destruction of natural environment from the Amazon forest to the destruction of the environmental laws. The new Brazilian Forest Code is a complete disrespect to the eco-environment. It was supported by governmental parties that boast a leftist image but are characterized by a total ideological emptiness, adhesion to neoliberal and imperialist policies. In electoral periods

they hide the symbols that vaguely relate them to socialism.

In the midst of this serious crisis and still without the consolidation of an important proletarian resistance pole, the capital performs a violent offensive in order to take from the workers the few remaining rights. With this purpose they try more and more to make fascist the societies, criminalize the social and political movements antagonist to the order.

The correlation of forces is still unfavourable to us. We still suffer the impact of counterrevolution in USSR and the degeneration of many apparently leftist parties and sectors of labour movements.

We are very worried about the military siege that imperialism applies to Latin America. The reactivation of the 4thfleet of USA with a power larger than that of all the armed forces of Latin American countries brings threats to the sovereignty and to peace in the region.

The settlement of 49 military bases in South America disturb the Latin-Americans. We have to consider also the construction of a large military air base in the city of Mariscal Estigarribia, in Paraguay, allowing the control of the triple frontier region (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia), where is found the larger pure water subterranean deposit in the world, the Guarany Source.

But it is not only the Central-North American imperialism that threatens our countries.

NATO built in 1986, in one of the Malvinas Islands, the big military base of Mount Pleasant, with an Air Base and a deep water Naval Harbour able to receive atomic submarines, with silos for nuclear weapons and barracks for thousands troops. This fortress at Malvinas is clearly contrary to the 41 Resolution of UN that considers the South Atlantic a zone of peace and co-operation, free of nuclear arms.

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Also to be considered is the Ascension Base, in an isle midway between Brazil and Africa.

NATO also created a fishing exclusion area around the Georgias and South Sandwich Islands, reserving this area for military forces only.

The military occupation of South Atlantic allows the control of the maritime routes uniting South America to Africa, and the connection to Antarctica and the countries of the Pacific, across the Magellan’s Straights. Besides that, allows the control of the natural resources of the rich continental platform.

So Latin America is surrounded by sea and land by the imperialist military forces, with the omission of local governments.

Analyzing this scenario, PCB has developed some reflections: n In the framework of the bourgeois order, future is somber. More than ever, the regime of capital will be accompanied of growing economic instability, absolute irrationality in production, use and distribution of wealth, rampant social inequality, escalation of the imperialist power, inexorably endangering the conquests of peoples and workers. n We consider that there is no space anymore for reformist illusions. Reformists are, more than ever, enemies of the socialist revolution, since they cheat workers and demobilize them making easier the domination of capital. In each country, dominant classes try to forge a bipartite system – actually a single party with two heads – in which divergences are minor, restricted to the administration of capital.

National development projects loose sense, not only for being impossible to release the local capitalist economies from the sphere of imperialism but also be-

cause of the loss of contradictions between imperialism and the hegemonic nucleus of the so called national bourgeoisies. n It is also more and more senseless the "choice" of allies in the imperialist field, and also among their emerging co-operators, as if there were an imperialism of "good" and another of "evil". The difference is only in form, not in content. However, this doesn’t mean that we may underestimate the contradictions internal to imperialisms. n We must not conciliate with illusions of transition to socialism by fundamentally institutional ways, through the parliament and the occupation of governmental and state spaces. The bourgeois democracy is a gamble with marked playing cards. The struggle of masses in all its forms, adapted to local conditions, is and will continue to be the only arm of the proletariat.

We have considered also that the present model of meetings of workers and communist parties have been succeeding in an important role of resistance, but it must to adapt to the complex necessities of the present world conjuncture, with its sombre perspectives in short term and its possibilities of fostering the class struggles with an emergence of workers actions.

We think that it is necessary to break with the "meeting ism" in which at the end of the events we decide the next one and say good by, see you next year, even parties of the same region. In order to develop the potential of the parties and of the proletariat worldwide it is necessary a political co-ordination which, not performing as a new International, have the task of organizing world or regional campaigns of solidarity, improve the debate of

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ideas, distribute information on the struggles of the peoples.

BESIDES THE NECESSARY ARTICULATION OF THE COMMUNISTS, it is important to form a broader world front, with an anti-imperialist character, gathering political forces and progressive individuals identified with the struggles for self determination of peoples, peace, preservation of the eco-environment, of the national wealth, of labour, social and political rights, against the imperialist wars and against the growth of fascism in our societies.

In short, the defence of humanity.

We make clear that our party estimates all forms of action. We can not fall in the opportunism of disregarding the rights of peoples to rebellion and armed resistance. In many cases this is the only way to confront violence of capital and succeed. The peoples count only with their own forces.

In this context, we conclude our speech saluting the peoples that today face the hardest battles. We salute the Greek, Portuguese and Spanish workers for their national strikes and big demonstrations, as well as other workers of Europe facing the terrible plans of capital to solve the crisis, today concentrated in Europe but with a potential to spread to other regions.

We salute the Palestinian people in its enduring and painful saga of fighting zionism, which oppresses the people, occupies their territory, throw their houses to the ground, seize their best sons and hinder their right to a sovereign state.

We appreciate the cease-fire celebrated yesterday in Egipt as a victory of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. Zionism was willing again to invade the region with a large deployment of troops and tanks but was surprised by the

present capacity of Palestine military reaction in the Gaza strip, according to their necessity.

But we must not underestimate the aggressiveness of imperialism and zionism. They will not give up their intent of occupying all the Palestinian territory and expel its people, in the expansionist plan they call "New Middle East".

We ask for a declaration of this encounter in solidarity to the Free Palestine World Social Forum, to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which has been harassed by the Zionist community and Israeli diplomats in Brazil, even in disrespect to the Brazilian sovereignty.

We also salute the suffering peoples of Iraq, of Afghanistan, of Libya. We salute the peoples of Egypt, of Yemen and other Arab countries in their fight against tyrants and oppression.

THE PCB EXPRESSES UNCONDITIONAL SOLIDARITY to the to the vast majority of the Syrian people and to its right of self-determination. As in the case of Libya, Syria faces an imperialist plan to foster civil and sectarian wars using mercenaries and foreign military equipment in order to divide and occupy the coutry.

In the case of Syria there is also the imperialist plan to create conditions for a further aggression to Iran.

We express solidarity with the communists, workers and anti-imperialist forces in Lebanon, regarding the movements of the national bourgeoisie at disposal of imperialism, looking to promote a new civil war in the context of the division of Middle East countries by sectary fields, in order to facilitate the re-colonization of the region.

IN OUR LATIN AMERICA, we salute our dear Socialist Cuba for its struggle against the cruel Yankee blockade. We salute our Five Heroes.

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We salute the processes of concrete changes in South America – Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador – in this decisive moment, a crossroad between the advance and defeat.

We salute our Colombian brothers who, in cities and mountains, with various forms of action, resist to the terrorist state of their country, a vast North American military base in Latin America, one of the most sanguinary regimes in the world. We greet the communist revolutionary in Colombia in the expression of their communist parties and guerrillas.

There is no military solution for the conflict in Colombia. So we salute the dialogue intended to search for a political solution. This dialogue was made possible only through the Marcha Patri_tica, a broad and combative movement of masses, and by the conclusion of the impossibility of a military victory of the state against the guerrilla.

However, this dialogue will not be simple, since the Colombian dominant classes want the peace of the cemeteries. So, we propose that these encounters lead to the organization of a worldwide campaign of solidarity to the Colombian people in his fight for a true democratic peace with social and economic justice.

FINALLY WE REITERATE our proposal of creation of regional and international co-ordination of the Communist Parties having as a fundamental principle the proletarian internationalism.

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Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) RICARDO ALEM_O ABREU

On behalf of the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), we greet the Lebanese Communist Party, organizer of this 14th Meeting. PCdoB expresses its solidarity with the Lebanese people, the Syrian people and the Palestinian people, who have given a true example of resistance and dignity in the struggle against the imperialism and terrorism of the Zionist State.

THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM leads to an increase in imperialist aggressiveness against peoples. Each year, it becomes clearer that the systemic and structural crises of capitalism will find no progressive way out within the framework of capitalism per se. The solution to the crisis foreseen by the imperialist powers is more war, with increasing oppression and exploitation of peoples.

The current capitalist crisis does not express itself homogeneously among different countries and regions in the world. In imperialist countries and most developed economies, where the crisis is deeper and more serious, over-accumulation of capital occurs, as well as a huge hypertrophy of the fictitious financial capital, enormous debts and public deficit, recession or stagnation, the enhancing of protectionism and of economic and commercial disputes, implementation of neoliberal policies, growing unemployment and exploitation of workers through "austerity" packages.

In the so-called developing economies, the crisis leads to a trend that slows down the economic growth and compromises the sovereignty of the weakest nations. However, many countries like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), most South American countries and many others from Central America and the Caribbean, in addition to the countries in transition towards socialism, are neither in recession nor stagnated.

In these so-called developing countries, due to the unequal development of capitalism and

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to the different policies to reinforce sovereignty and national protection, stimulating the domestic market with different forms of state planning, social property, and State capitalism, it was possible to offer greater resistance to the crisis. The situations vary from a modest economic growth to cases where high growth rates are maintained, with high levels of economic and social development.

RECENT OECD PROJECTIONS confirm that we are undergoing a transitional phase in the correlation of forces at the international level. Such transition includes the decline of countries like the USA and other imperialist countries from the European Union, and the swift economic and political ascension of the so-called peripheral countries, mostly China.

The current crisis of capitalism, instead of bringing peace and a new equilibrium of forces, clearly tends to conduct the world towards greater tensions and imperialist wars.

As the imperialist countries decline, they become even more aggressive and will try to deter the tendency towards multi-polarity in the international situation.

DEPRESSION AND WAR have been historically necessary in order to destroy the productive forces and to allow a new expansion of the accumulation of capital. That is what happened in the first great crisis of capitalism, in the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, which started in the 1870’s and went on for more than 25 years, giving birth to monopolist capitalism and promoting alterations in the correlation of forces among the world imperialist powers, which culminated in the First World War of 1914 to 1918. The same happened in

the second great crisis of capitalism, between 1929 and 1933, known as the Great Depression, which led to the II World War. The third great crisis of capitalism started in 2007 and is already seen as the Great Recession.

The targets of the coming attacks of imperialist wars are peoples and nations that have clear contradictions with the imperialist countries, rich in natural resources (minerals, energy sources, water, biodiversity and fertile land) or yet countries and peoples located in geostrategic zones.

In this context, the role of NATO and of the USA are redefined, by launching a new strategic guideline based upon a contention doctrine, focused on Asia and having China as its main target. Aggressive actions and threats hit the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Eastern Sahara, DPR of Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and Colombia, among others.

STOP THE IMPERIALIST WARS, let_s struggle for peace and for the sovereignty of nations. The anti-imperialist struggle nowadays is developed on the basis of the struggles of the workers and peoples, and also through the counter-hegemonic struggle of peripheral countries, for peace, national independence and social-economic development. The current anti-imperialist struggle creates better conditions for the advancement of the struggle for socialism in the national, regional, and worldwide scales.

Two significant examples: The first one is the international activities of member-countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, specially Russia and China, when they stopped the "approval" of direct attack against Syria, in the UN Security Council.

The second example is the process of solidarity integration among Latin American and

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Caribbean countries, that was recently boosted by the entrance of Venezuela in the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) and also the creation of the Community of LatinAmerican and Caribbean Countries (CELAC), to be presided by the Republic of Cuba, as of January 2013.

It is necessary to mobilize the workers and the peoples, and promote broad anti-imperialist alliances, in order to stop the war and make peace prevail together with the sovereignty of nations all over the world.

INTENSIFY THE SOLIDARITY with the struggles of the Arab and Middle East peoples.

The USA and the imperialist countries in Europe, with the support of Israel, carry on their plans for a "new Middle East". In the case of the attack against Libya, they resuscitated the concept of responsibility to protect – previously used by NATO in the Balkans -, by means of the UN. For the past 20 months, and supported by the Turkish government and the reactionary monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, those imperialist countries have been promoting an attack against the sovereignty of Syria and against its people, infiltrating arms and mercenary fighters into its territory.

Threats of even more violent direct attacks against Syria are constantly happening, as well as against Iran, to which they want to deny the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Because of its geographical location and historical resistance of its people, Lebanon has also been included in the plans of the aggressors.

Recently, a few days before the PLO will present a request for the recognition of the Palestinian State to the UN, the terrorist gov-

ernment of Israel dropped bombs against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

In the region where we are holding our 14th Meeting, an anti-imperialist battle of great dimension and historical meaning is waged. In all countries and continents, solidarity with the struggle of Arab peoples and of the Middle East needs to be enhanced.

THE POPULAR AND ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE advances in Latin America. In Latin America and in the Caribbean, revolutionary, leftist, progressive, and anti-imperialist forces continue to advance.

In a recent Meeting of Communist and Worker’s Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by the Communist Party of Ecuador, with the important support of the Communist Party of Cuba, the Guayaquil Declaration was approved.

The Declaration states that many countries in our region "experience unprecedented democratic and revolutionary processes" and mentions countries and governments of socialist Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, El Salvador, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Uruguay.

"In our countries", the Guayaquil Declaration says, "a growing economic, ideological, and political struggles is taking place, underlying an important change in the correlation of forces in favor of the peoples. The revolutionary forces gain ground in parliaments and the other basic organisms of power."

ABOUT SOLIDARITY INTEGRATION OF LATIN AMERICA and the Caribbean, the Guayaquil Declaration sustains that "integrating processes are undeniably connected with the increasing anti-imperialist and democratic positions of our peoples and of a lot of their governments. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peo-

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ples of Our America (ALBA), the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), the Common Market of the South (Mercosul), and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) set a new course for the future of Our America, a path to socialism, with the idiosyncrasies and characteristics of each country."

The Declaration was approved by the Latin American Communist and Worker_s Parties attending the event in Guayaquil. It points further to the need for alliances between the communists and "other democratic, revolutionary, and anti-imperialist forces of Our America."

The Communist Party of Brazil considers that this policy of popular unity has been a important cause for the success of revolutionary forces along the history of popular struggles in our continent.

On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party of Brazil, an International Seminar was held in March this year in Rio de Janeiro, around the theme "The national issue and the struggle for socialism today".

IN A PUBLIC ADDRESS DURING THE SEMINAR, the National President of the PCdoB, comrade Renato Rabelo, stated that "based on the political and ideological diversity of leftist and progressive forces in Latin America, and the different national realities, we have achieved unprecedented unity in the Latin American political process, of which the 21year-old Foro de S_o Paulo is a important expression."

Comrades, this is today’s experience of Latin American and Caribbean communists. The participation of communists in anti-imperialist, democratic, and progressive fronts, whether these fronts are ahead of their coun-

try governments, or whether they are in the opposition, has enabled communist parties to advance in the revolutionary accumulation of forces.

These political and social anti-imperialist fronts are part of a tactical process whose strategic objective is to achieve a revolutionary, worker’s and popular power, and from then on, a transition to socialism in each one of our countries.

In the above mentioned conference, Comrade Renato Rabelo stated that, "the revolutionary strategy of the proletariat contains common and universal elements grounded on MarxistLeninist principles and basic generalizations; however, it must be a national strategy, hence the tactics, developed in accordance with the reality in each country and the experience of each people."

Addressing the struggle for socialism today, the National President of the PCdoB underlines that, "we need to recognize and value experiences developed in China, in Vietnam, in Cuba, in DPR of Korea, and in Laos in their transition to socialism, and to perceive new potentials that are arising, particularly in Latin America."

PATRIOTIC, DEMOCRATIC, AND POPULAR CHANGES going on in Brazil. By virtue of stronger of the worker’s and popular movements, as well as more advanced political forces, and due to the economic, social, and political crisis aggravated during the 1990’s by neo-liberal governments, we have started a new political cycle in Brazil since 2002, as Lula was elected President of the Republic.

In both Lula’s governments, from 2003 to 2010, and in the first two years of Dilma Rousseff’s government, Brazil has contributed to the promotion of solidarity and anti-im-

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perialist integration of South America and Latin America.

Brazil has also reinforced national sovereignty, achieved greater democratization and greater social and economic development.

The Brazilian government is tackling the growing international economic crisis with progressive measures.

Interest and unemployment rates have never been so low. There is an ongoing policy of valuing the workforce - particularly the minimum wage, a important achievement of the trade union movement - and many social policies that uphold workers’ rights and aspirations.

Despite these and many other achievements, greater efforts are needed to defend the national economy and promote technologically more advanced industries, and to enhance the struggle against social and regional inequalities in Brazil.

Brazil needs popular and democratic reforms, such as a political reform, the democratization of the means of communication, tax reform, and to reduce working hours with more worker’s rights. These are some of the struggles Brazilian communists are currently engaged in.

The first and second rounds of Brazilian local elections took place respectively on October 7 and 28 this year, as new mayors and city counselors (local parliamentarians) were selected in every municipality of the country.

In these 2012 municipal elections, leftist and progressive forces conquered new positions and secured an important political victory.

Even as the judiciary power and the monopolistic media openly supported the righ-wing and pro-imperialist forces, these forces were defeated in the ballots.

The results of this year’s elections strength-

ened the coalition led by President Dilma Rousseff and created good conditions for the advancement of patriotic, democratic, and popular changes underway in Brazil, and paved the way for a new political victory in the 2014 presidential and congress elections.

PCDOB COMMEMORATES ITS 90TH ANNIVERSARY in a phase of great growth and will host its 13th Congress in November 2013.

PCdoB is now 90-year-old and is currently experiencing one of the best periods of its existence. In the recent municipal elections, it launched more than 12.000 candidates and achieved important political and ballot victories. With somewhere around 3 million votes, approximately 3% of the total votes, the Party brought 56 mayors, 85 deputy-mayors, and 976 city counselors (local representatives).

In Brazil’s 85 municipalities with more than 200.000 voters, where most of the working class is concentrated, the Party experienced the largest growth, proportionally to other parties, with three times more votes, electing 4 mayors and ranking 6th amongst all the 29 parties in the country.

The Communist Party of Brazil was founded on March 25, 1922, and commemorated its anniversary with activities involving reflection, militants’ education, partying, and struggling.

The Central Committee approved and published a resolution in book format, which includes an analysis of the historical trajectory of the Party, its legacy, and the lessons learned all along.

The PCdoB is continuously increasing its political influence and membership. It is also thriving and expanding in all fields, among worker’s and popular movements, in seats and positions in national and local parliaments and governments, and in the battle of ideas. The

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Party is nationally organized and now boasts 370.000 affiliates.

Comrades, the Communist Party of Brazil will host its 13th Congress in November 15-18 next year, preceded by an International Seminar in the working class city of S_o Paulo, where PCdoB has recently elected the deputymayor. We invite all communist and worker’s parties to attend and share, with the Brazilian communists, this important moment of the life of our Party.

Long live the internationalism of communists, workers, and peoples!

Long live the unity between communists and revolutionary, progressive, and anti-imperialist forces!

Let us fight for peace, against the imperialist wars!

Let us fight for socialism!

Venceremos!

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Communist Party of Britain LIZ PAYNE

DEAR COMRADES - Let me begin by conveying the greetings of the Communist Party of Britain to the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties and our sincere thanks to the Lebanese Communist Party for facilitating and hosting our deliberations here in Beirut. The Communist Party of Britain is sure that the discussions at this meeting will add greatly to our collective understanding of developments throughout the world and provide new insights and inspiration to strengthen our solidarity and our struggle against imperialist aggression and for a democratic, just and socialist future.

Since we met in Athens a year ago, capitalism has continued to wreak havoc and devastation across the world and, although we may be relieved that the president of the world’s leading imperialist power is the Democrat, Obama and not Republican, Romney, we know that the United States and leading imperialist nations remain, as ever, dangerously determined to enforce their global hegemony, extend their monopoly dominance over the world’s supplies of oil and gas and over markets old and new, exploit new reserves of labour and shift the burden of the continuing systemic economic crisis of capitalism, the worse for 80 years, onto working people everywhere.

In line with strategic decisions made at its summit in Chicago in spring 2012, NATO’s new ‘defence strategies’ and an extended network of partnerships and projects are drawing more and more countries, both in the developing and developed world, into a shared security agenda. This is serving to enrich the military industrial complexes of the developed world, mitigate emerging inter-capitalist rivalries, deeply embed reactionary ideologies and erect barriers to progressive movements in their quest for democracy, peace and justice in all the countries concerned.

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AT OUR 13TH INTERNATIONAL MEETING we noted the intensification of imperialist aggression, the reinforcement of militarisation and the spread of violence and war. During the time since then, we have seen a further dangerous escalation, war in Syria, the provocation of Iran’s reactionary regime and imposition of human suffering on an unprecedented scale. Having manipulated genuine and popular democratic demands raised in Syria, the US and its allies are stoking up sectarian violence to divide the country. The aim – a civil war to render Syria neutral in any conflict with Iran, a Lebanon-style civil war with a Lebanon-style solution! In its quest to secure military, economic and political hegemony in the region, imperialism is now focusing on Iran. This is masked by spurious ‘concern’ and scaremongering about Iran’s nuclear potential but, try as imperialism may it has been unable to demonstrate that Iran has violated any international treaty or obligation. Iran has neither nuclear weapons nor the means to deliver them. The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) has found no evidence that it is developing them. Inspections continue with Iranian consent and firm ground has been identified on which to reach a peaceful and negotiated settlement. The Communist Party of Britain condemns imperialism’s drive to towards the brink of a catastrophic conflict in the region, one with the potential for global destabilisation and war.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN has a crucial role to play in exposing and challenging its ruling class. The British ruling class has a long and notorious history in the Middle East - targeting, dividing, exploiting and plundering the countries of the region. Today – No different! The British government as a major ally of

the United States and NATO power is using every tactic of oppression, spreading sectarianism and strife, imposing sanctions, legitimising and strengthening reactionary regimes and using wars and threats of wars to enrich its military-industrial complexes. In a visit to the region earlier this month, the British prime minister set out the true interests of British state-monopoly capitalism – the unashamed pursuit of massive military contracts, the attraction of multi-billion investments for the City of London, further provocation of Iran and endorsement of the belligerent policies of the Israeli government.

The Communist Party of Britain condemns the British government for its role in strengthening the most reactionary forces currently governing Israel - supporting their continuing inhuman, racist and terroristic assaults on the Palestinian people, for supplying military and security technologies and for endorsing and promoting Israel’s position as the region’s only nuclear power. Imperialism’s failure to support United Nations’ resolutions and confront Israel over Palestinian statehood has exposed absolutely its reliance on Israel, with its arsenal of nuclear weapons, as its long-term regional base. The most recent assault on the people of Gaza has again exposed the inhumanity of those ruling Israel and once again exposed their true designs.

WIDESPREAD STRUGGLES AND UPRISINGS across the Middle East in 2011 against antipopular, oppressive and anti-democratic rule – in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Libya and Syria - were sparked by acute impoverishment, itself intensified by the global economic crisis. In Tunisia and Egypt these movements were able to topple corrupt, pro-imperialist and dictatorial

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regimes and opened the possibility of a process of radical and progressive change for all these countries. This struggle continues and must have our support.

From the outset, the US, NATO and their regional allies have stopped short of nothing in their attempt to control these movements and manipulate and derail them in the interests of imperialism and against the deeprooted aspirations of the peoples of the Middle East to live in free, democratic and prosperous countries in which corruption, poverty and sectarian strife are forever eliminated.

Authoritarian regimes – notably those of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Bahrain continue to play a central role providing military bases, spending on armaments, servicing military operations and silencing the voices of their peoples for democracy and justice. Also crucial to the negation of the struggles of popular and progressive movements, are the forces of reactionary sectarianism, especially those rooted in Islamic fundamentalism and political Islam. As with Iran, the US and its allies will play them to the full.

The laying waste of Libya and imposition of regime change there was never for democracy. It was for oil. It was for influence in the Mediterranean and north and central Africa. It was an intervention proto-type for Syria. The destabilisation of Syria, the immediate target of imperialist aggression, is vital for imperialist plans to isolate Iran, the goal of goals. In pursuit of Syria and next Iran, the US, NATO and their regional allies will stop at nothing.

The Communist Party of Britain condemns every threat of intervention, every whisper of aggression and every act of war throughout the Middle East. We assert that it is the peoples of the region, and only they, who have the right to determine the future of their coun-

tries. In solidarity with the peoples of the region, we will build the broadest possible support for progressive movements and organisations campaigning for peace, justice, democracy and human rights in the Middle East, including progressive and democratic women’s organisations.

IN DEALING WITH THE CONTINUING DEEP, systemic economic crisis, imperialism is imposing austerity on its peoples, making them continue to pay for what they had no part in creating through ever-deepening cuts to jobs, wages, benefits, services and living standards. But while the people are burdened with poverty, massive acquisition of wealth is taking place - through the privatisation of public services and their placement in the hands of ever-growing monopoly cartels and multi-nationals, through the decimation of jobs and through the freezing and slashing of wages.

This is throwing millions upon millions into poverty.

Throughout the world, women are bearing the heaviest burden of the economic crisis. Their lot is super-exploitation on a massive scale – drudgery, impoverishment, exclusion, isolation, violence and misery. In Britain too women are disproportionately affected. They are the primary victims of privatisation and the cuts. More than 70% of cuts in public spending will come from women’s pockets, this through job loss - 473,000 women’s jobs in the public sector alone - wage cuts, the slashing of benefits and the decimation of the caring services on which they so heavily depend. Female unemployment is at a quartercentury high, women are more likely to be poor than men and are twice as likely as men to depend on benefits. Communists in Britain are doing everything they can to raise aware-

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ness in the labour movement of the class nature of women’s exploitation and the imperative of drawing women into struggle for a just and fairer future. In doing so, Communists support the National Assembly of Women and, through it, the Women’s International Democratic Federation in promotion of the tenet that peace is a pre-requisite of justice and freedom from oppression and exploitation for women everywhere.

In the European Union we see unresolved crisis and the face of monopoly capitalism unmasked. Unemployment has reached 18 million and is growing. Dearly won collective bargaining rights are denied. Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain are facing economic contraction on a scale never seen before in peace time. This is not from mismanagement of the system, which adjustments and fine-tuning can put right. The causes are rather endemic, integral to the EU, inherent in its very being.

They lie in the concentration of monopoly ownership and the EU’s denial of democracy economic democracy - the right of working people to use their national democratic institutions to counteract and challenge the economic power of monopoly, to own and control themselves. This is why Communists in Britain do not believe that the EU as currently constituted can be reformed. Communists, trade unionists and progressive people must oppose both chauvinism and the fraudulent internationalism of ‘economic imperialism’.

New forms of cooperation are needed and Communists must show the way.

IN BRITAIN COMMUNISTS must continue to struggle against the EU policies of their government. These do not articulate the demands of British people but rather those of the City of London’s banks - most of them US

ones. They have one aim - to defend control of EU financial markets by British and American interests and this in the face of French and German finance capital’s drive to impose fiscal and banking union, impose their own authority and control. Comrades, inter-imperialist rivalries remain – exactly as Lenin forecast. They are opening up and growing. We must understand them and exploit them to the full.

In Britain the ruling class is amongst the wealthiest in the world. The richest 1000 of our 62 million people own £414 billion between them. Monopoly finance capital is stashed away in secret bank accounts and offshore havens by the trillion. More than £100 billion of tax is uncollected every year.

The wealthiest 10% of households own 44% of the wealth, while the poorest 10% own just 1%. The poor are getting poorer. Average household income fell by 5.7% last year, the biggest annual drop ever to be recorded. But there is an alternative – economic, political, social, cultural – and we must put it forward.

Communists in Britain will seek to champion economic democracy, popular sovereignty expressing the needs of working people through the democratic institutions we fought to establish and defend over the past century.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES. Imperialist aggression is intensifying but, as it does so, it is more and more exposed for what it is. People in every country dominated by dictatorship, threatened by sanctions and war, crushed by austerity are extending and deepening the struggle, drawing in new forces and challenging their ruling classes. We express our solidarity with them. We know that our struggles are for one end – a just and peaceful future, In Britain, trade unionists, women, youth and

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students, intellectuals, peace activists and community campaigners are taking up the fight. There is much potential for the trade unions, labour and progressive movement to broaden and deepen their challenge of the British ruling class, to move from economic to political challenge, to work for the broadening of democracy, the basis of a winnable, just and socialist alternative.

Down with imperialist aggression and devastation!

Long live international solidarity!

Long live peace and socialism!

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Communist Party of Canada KIMBALL CARIOU

LET ME BEGIN by expressing thanks to our hosts. This gathering is eloquent proof that the Lebanese Communist Party plays an important role in today’s working class struggles against global capital, for defence of the peoples against imperialism and Zionism, and for advances towards socialism.

The theme of our meeting reflects the urgent necessity to lift the struggles for peace and social progress to a higher level. The systemic crisis of capitalism continues to unfold, despite the efforts of ruling circles to reverse its downward spiral.

IN CANADA TODAY over 1.4 million workers are officially unemployed, and nearly a million rely on food banks to survive. The Aboriginal peoples and the Quebec nation within the Canadian state are still denied national equality. Immigrant workers are brutally exploited and denied many labour and democratic rights, while the Conservative government fans racism to divide the working class.

Women’s equality rights are under severe pressure. Gains achieved by working people through decades of bitter struggles being rolled back by domestic and foreign capital, and by right-wing and even social democratic governments which accept the dogmas of neoliberalism.

Under the Conservatives, Canada is a fierce opponent of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. PM Harper is a determined advocate of the free movement of capital and "investor rights", such as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada (CETA), which poses new and serious threats to the working class and people’s sovereignty.

But our party does not take a narrow nationalist position, in contrast to some who wrongly portray the Canada-China foreign investment agreement (FIPA) as the most dangerous economic deal in our history. In reality, Canada has long been dominated economically and

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culturally by U.S. imperialism – the most reactionary enemy of the peoples of the world. We believe the struggle for sovereignty must be grounded in demands for public ownership, and in policies which unite working people against big capital, rather than pitting workers of different countries against each other.

Canada has become a key partner in U.S. imperialism’s global military operations, joining aggressions from the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 to last year’s overthrow of the government of Libya. Canada was a key player in the NATO occupation of Afghanistan, and is establishing new military bases abroad, to allow more rapid deployments in further imperialist aggressions. The longstanding policy of friendly relations with socialist Cuba is in danger of being replaced by hostility and cooperation with the illegal US blockade.

THE INTEGRATION OF CANADA into the global imperialist drive for redivision of markets, resources, and labour power has been accelerated. The Canadian ruling class benefits enormously from this process, for example through the dramatic increase in overseas operations and investments by Canadian-based mining companies.

As our most recent Central Committee meeting stated, Canada’s domestic economy has remained (so far) relatively buoyant, due primarily to high world commodity prices for oil, gold and minerals. Corporate profits are higher than before the 2008 crisis, sovereign debt levels are manageable, and unemployment is below the U.S. and most European countries.

Yet the capitalist offensive is almost as intense as in other imperialist states. The ruling class aims to cripple the trade unions, which still represent about 30% of the total workforce; and also to further shift government

spending, away from "redistributive" functions such as social assistance, universal health care and education, towards the repressive features of the capitalist state – the military, the police, and the prison system.

WHAT EXPLAINS THE INTENSITY OF THIS ATTACK? Our CC pointed to two main factors: the extreme-right agenda of the federal Conservatives and many provincial governments; and the failure of the trade union leadership, especially at the level of the Canadian Labour Congress, to mobilize around a concerted fightback strategy.

Despite occasional anti-capitalist rhetoric, the labour movement’s top leadership remains firmly tied to class collaborationist concepts. Their aim is to convince the neoliberal governments to adopt a more Keynesian policy, such as improved universal pensions.

This strategy is based partly on an assumption that the right-wing social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) may be elected in 2015, and therefore workers should simply try to hold the line for a few years rather than organize a mass, broad, united militant fightback.

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA, which was the main force involved in building the militant sections of the trade union movement starting in the 1920s, is not yet in a position to change this trajectory. But we continue to strengthen our positions in the working class movement, building alliances and links with trade union activists and others who are committed to a more powerful fightback strategy.

Numerous popular struggles have already taken place. Most notable was the mass strike of the Quebec students against higher tuition

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fees, which began last February and lasted for several months, involving hundreds of thousands of students. This struggle also condemned other neoliberal policies, bringing huge numbers of working people into the streets in solidarity. In response, the Quebec Liberal government brought in draconian anti-democratic legislation, even attempting to ban mass demonstrations. This episode came to a temporary end with the electoral victory of the reformist, petty-bourgeois nationalist Parti Quebecois, which has only a minority in the National Assembly. The PQ has retreated from its pro-people election promises, and another provincial election lies ahead.

There are growing pressures in Quebec for labour and its social allies to lead a general strike against neoliberal policies, although it remains to be seen whether the trade union leadership will move in such a militant direction.

In Canada’s largest province, Ontario, the government/corporate attack against free collective bargaining, public education, and other social programs, and democratic rights and freedoms, has become particularly sharp. The left-leaning leadership of the Ontario Federation of Labour has taken the initiative to form a Common Front against the employers and governments. As in Quebec, there is increasing support for a more militant fightback strategy, and a critical election is widely expected next spring. An election will also take place next May in the third largest province, British Columbia, which has seen many resistance struggles against a right-wing government.

A POWERFUL MOVEMENT has emerged to reverse the corporate drive to increase dependence on resource exports, in particular un-

processed bitumen from the Alberta tar sands. Sparked by the destructive environmental impact of tar sands extraction, this movement is challenging the anti-sovereignty policies of the Canadian ruling class. Our party calls for public ownership of energy and other resources, as the material basis for an economy based on prioritizing the needs of working people and the environment over the greed of the transnational corporations. As the looming environmental crisis and the global economic difficulties of capitalism become more apparent, our proposals for a "People’s Alternative" are gaining new interest. Recent months have seen an upward trend in people seeking information and joining our Party.

The mood of working people is increasingly one of anger and rejection of the neoliberal economic model. As in other countries, millions of Canadians are searching for alternatives to the bleak future of unchecked global capitalism and the threat of fascist corporate domination.

AND AS ELSEWHERE, some have turned to reformist options which make apparent criticisms of big capital. In reality, as seen by their record in Parliament and in power in several provinces, the NDP rejects any discussion of public ownership, or shifting the tax burden onto the corporations, or cutting military spending, let alone fundamental anti-capitalist strategies. The NDP refuses to criticize the Conservative policy of support for Israel’s apartheid-style occupation of Palestine, and backs warmongering calls for western intervention against Syria and Iran.

In this situation, there are new opportunities to win more Canadians to our goal of a socialist Canada, based on genuine people’s demo-

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cratic participation, full social and human equality, a foreign policy of peace and universal disarmament, and an end to capitalist exploitation.

There will be many complex challenges as we build a much larger and more influential Communist Party and Young Communist League, and as we help create a genuine People’s Coalition, bringing together the movements of the working class, Aboriginal peoples, farmers, women, seniors, youth, racialized and immigrant communities, environmentalists, the LGBT movements, social justice coalitions, and others. Such a Coalition would elevate the fightback from a defensive posture into a powerful campaign for a fundamentally new Canada.

Our Party remains based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism, the ideology which guides the working class struggles for a socialist future. Our efforts to build wider unity in the daily battles around immediate demands are combined with a sharp critique of the deadend trap of reformism and opportunism presented by social democracy, and of the phony rhetoric coming from forces which criticize capitalism but reject the historical role of the working class in the revolutionary transformation of society.

As we have from the beginning of these annual meetings, the Communist Party of Canada urges steps to increase the theoretical unity and practical cooperation of our parties, to make the communist movement a force capable of rolling back the imperialist agenda on a global scale. In our view, such cooperation should include a concrete and unified response to condemn the threats of imperialist aggression against Syria and Iran.

We salute the fraternal parties taking part in the 14th International Meeting being held in

Beirut, and we look forward to productive and useful discussions and decisions during our time here together.

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Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia ANDREA DEGOBBIS

LET ME EXPRESS MY PARTY'S HONOR AND GRATITUDE to be granted once again the opportunity to be present at this notable venue. I wish to thank the Lebanese comrades for their efforts in preparing such a big arrangement, despite the winds of war that are blowing over this beautiful and proud country as well.

WE ARE LIVING in a very dangerous phase: the inter-imperialist competition is sharpening; the aggressiveness of the NATO-Israel bloc is clashing with Russian and Chinese interests and manifesting itself through military confrontations between NATO and the SCO - most notably in Syria - with unpredictable consequences.

THE PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN unleashed by the imperial powers in our European continent and in the US is turning realities upside down the news are being fabricated, the facts are being distorted, fake enemies have been invented - thus obscuring the real causes of USNATO wars, which are ultimately - as usual huge economic interests and the perpetuation of capitalist accumulation.

WE MUST ADMIT that otherwise little attractive governments like China, Russia, and Iran are currently playing a progressive role in actively opposing US-NATO, Israel's and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries' aggressiveness, particularly by militarily supporting the Syrian patriots, but also through diplomatic channels - most notably opposing war-mongering resolutions at the UNSC. This "progressiveness", although motivated by Russia's, China's, and Iran's corporate interests, is currently preventing a bigger bloodshed and a complete submission of Syria to the neoliberal doctrine and its regression into a client regime; Russia's, China's, and Iran's stance on Syria is also preventing a further attack against the non-aligned coun-

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tries in the region, namely Lebanon, Iran, and Palestine.

A halt in Syria would mean, for the imperialists, a reformulation of their policies, which would grant more respite for other (socialist or nationalist) countries that are also under huge pressure and threat by US-NATO, including Cuba, DPR Korea, Belarus, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and others.

THERE IS LITTLE HOPE OF MASS REVOLTS against the war in the imperialist countries: mass revolts normally happen for direct material reasons, namely worsening economic and social conditions. The ongoing anti-capitalist protests in the West are due to economic and social reasons, and don't have a strong anti-war connotation.

The hope for a NATO retreat from the Middle East is therefore to be found mainly in the local resistance. For such a resistance to succeed, advanced weapons and a strong and motivated army is a necessary precondition.

These advanced anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapons are being supplied to Syria by Russia, and it's precisely this that - possibly - has prevented a carpet-bombing of Damascus like the one suffered by Tripoli - not the failed UNSC resolutions. These have and will be ignored by NATO powers today, or by China and Russia tomorrow.

Another thing to mobilize for, is to uncover and politically annihilate all those forces and activists that are supported by the imperialists. These include the most dangerous - because extremely fanatic and thus easily manipulated - Islamic, usually Sunni, "Jihadists", which have always been and still are the most efficient CIA, MI6, Mossad and Pakistani ISI assets. We in former Yugoslavia know well the deeds of extremist Muslims backed by the US

and their allies, as they control now Kosovo and parts of Bosnia, on behalf of course of the CIA and the Pentagon.

WE CROATIAN COMMUNISTS must reveal the lies of our rulers about the war and the economic crisis.

Our task must to be aimed at building a consensus against Croatia being part of NATO - as well as of the EU - a membership that was disgracefully accepted by our client regime without any kind of popular consultation, demonstrating that when big material interests for our capitalist elites are at stake, bourgeois democracy is simply abandoned.

RESPECTED COMRADES, I wish to call upon every organization represented here, and especially upon the strongest ones, to support each other in the spirit of revolutionary comradeship. Many of the smaller Marxist-Leninist organizations in the world - including our own - struggle to survive as they are attacked by capitalist violence, and therefore our duty is - where possible - to establish mutual ties and collaboration.

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Communist Party of Cuba OMAR GARCIA LAZO

IT IS AMIDST FAR-REACHING EVENTS that are taking place in the world and in the face of huge challenges being faced by the human race that we, the Communist and Workers Parties, are meeting again to discuss, learn from all experiences of struggle and agree on our strategies in the battle against imperialism and in favor of socialism and peace.

It is our hope that a world Communist Movement with more unity, influence, greater mobilization capacity and more prepared to take advantage of the discredit of the forces that support the neoliberal capitalism will emerge from this meeting. Therefore, it is our wish that at this meeting there will be a fruitful discussion about our main objectives: to face the socio-economic, political and ideological challenges imposed on us by the struggle against the crisis and the imperialist disgraceful behavior, and to lead our peoples through the road of justice and socialism.

THIS MEETING HAS A SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE because it is being held in a region affected by the war and violence caused by the imperialist voracity and encouraged by the fratricidal actions of forces allied to the United States, Europe and Israel. In the face of this situation, we appreciate and acknowledge the efforts made by the Lebanese Communist Party to organize this important meeting amidst such difficult conditions.

One year after our meeting in Greece, the international political situation is more complex. The structural crisis of capitalism is deepening and even the champions of that system can not foresee a clear and fast solution to this situation.

The recessive wave that began in the United States in 2007 has reached Europe, with its own financial and structural problems, and even Asia. The emerging economies have also started to show negative indicators that stresses the need of deep solutions and not mere cosmetic measures.

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The preceding crisis in different sectors (finance, energy, food, climate, as well as ideas) is worsening and its economic, social and political impact is being discharged on the masses of workers, the youth, the retired people and the poorest sectors that are beginning to express their anger.

Obamas_ reelection confirmed the polarization of the U.S. society and the increase of the contradictions among the internal groups of power, something which endangers world stability and peace.

The foreign policy of the present U.S. President confirms that the empire will not cease from its attempts to reinforce its global hegemony already weakened by the rise of other emerging powers and the increase of the inter-imperialist contradictions as a result of market disputes and the natural resources.

The war is and will continue to be the main Instrument of the United States and its allies to secure their economic and political interests.

Washington and NATO have deployed 680 military bases in more than 100 countries and make an excessive military expenditure in a world where 1.3 billion people live in poverty.

At the same time, Washington and its allies exacerbate despair and cultural and ethnical differences and bring destruction and death to third world countries where internal and regional conflicts are increasing.

IN THE CAPITALIST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, the productive economy is giving ground to financial speculation. The private debts are paid by the States thanks to the politicians appointed by the big capital. Budget adjustments, that undermine sovereignty and suffocate the people, are being imposed on the less developed countries while billions of dollars are allocated to save the banks that brought about the crisis.

Just as it happened in Latin America in the 1990s, neoliberal capitalism in Europe and the United States is showing once again its unfeasibility and failure. However, its champions continue implementing the policies of full openness of the markets to the big transnational capital.

This situation has led to an aberrant concentration of wealth, growing inequality and an increase of the exclusion. The unemployment figures in Europe are increasing, while the famous "Welfare State" is breaking into pieces in the face of the neoliberal measures. Social expenditure is being reduced to the minimum and the credibility of national and supranational institutions is increasingly weak.

THE MIDDLE EAST REGION AND NORTHERN AFRICA have become the scene of a geostrategic conflict in which the United States and its allies are testing different instruments to widen their control on the oilfields and the routes of distribution. Therefore, it is cynical to argue that they are acting out of a sincere "responsibility to protect" human lives.

IN THE UNITED STATES the economy continues to show signs of recession. Unemployment continues to be high in spite of the questionable official figures; the threat of a fiscal crisis is on the horizon; and despair is on the rise. The election campaign and Barack

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA will always share the concern as a result of the death of innocent human beings in any part of the world, but it will never support the attempts to undermine fundamental principles such as the respect for the sovereignty and integrity

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of the States and the peoples_ right to decide their own destiny.

Under these principles, our Party condemns NATO_s cruel and brutal invasion against the Libyan people, supported by the United States and its allies, and rejects the intervention and the military, political, logistic and financial support that these same governments are giving to the mercenary and terrorist groups that operate in Syrian territory, thus increasing violence and moving further away the possibility of peace in that country and region.

We reject the destabilizing and subversive plans, as well as the threats of United States and its allies against Iran, aimed at seeking a readjustment of the balance of power to their favor in the Middle East and Central Asia in order to secure the sources of energy resources located in that area. The Communist Party of Cuba warns that these imperialist geostrategic plans pose a serious threat to world peace and stability and put the world on the brink of a war of unforeseen consequences that could lead to a nuclear catastrophe.

We reiterate our support to the just cause of the Palestinian people and hope that, sooner than later, its children will be able to establish an independent State as it is provided in UN Resolution 181. We also reiterate our full support and solidarity towards the Democratic Arab Saharawi Republic and the struggle waged by its heroic people for independence.

In other parts of the world there are also growing levels ungovernability and social demonstrations against the prevailing system and the forces supporting capitalism are being weakened, something which is expressed by the increase of social resistance and the awareness of the need of deep changes.

TODAY LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN are an example of what the peoples are able to do when they decide to face the imperial hegemony. Amidst concrete historical determining factors and after dozens of years of subordination to Washington as a result of a network of mechanisms of economic, political, cultural and military subordination, the peoples in the region decided to cast off the shackles imposed by the neoliberal system.

Through different ways, the revolutionary, progressive and democratic processes are making their way in the struggle for the final independence and sovereignty of their countries, for social justice, for the economic development and for the elimination of the exploitation, plundering and exclusion of millions of men and women.

Amidst diversity and gathered in different organizations, workers, peasants, intellectuals, young people and indigenous communities strive to deepen the political, economic and social changes required in each country of the continent. And it is this markedly revolutionary trend what has allowed the strengthening if the integrationist ideal.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMUNITY of Latino-American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the consolidation of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) are clear expressions of the changes in the regional balance of power and are integrationist mechanisms established under the principles of equality, solidarity, consensus, respect for nature and economic complementation; all this aimed at meeting the social and development needs of each country.

These processes are a clear obstacle to the

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geopolitical aspirations of U.S. imperialism, which does not accept the new times that Latin America and the Caribbean are living.

The failed coup d_ĂŠtats in Venezuela in 2002, Bolivia in 2008 and Ecuador in 2010, together with the coups in Honduras in 2009 and in Paraguay this year, as well as the support to the Venezuelan oligarchy during the recent presidential elections in that country, show the harassment of Washington to all these revolutionary, democratic and nationalist processes.

The forces in favor of transformations in our region, especially the communist, socialist, revolutionary and progressive forces, are aware of the need of unity of action and consensus amidst the diversity of criteria and ideological positions on given issues, without renouncing to the principles. The Sao Paulo Forum, at its 18th meeting held in Venezuela, reiterated the need of unity as the only guarantee to keep and strengthen the victories obtained by the continent.

The parties and organizations that met there agreed that the Bolivarian Revolution led by comrade Hugo Ch_vez Fr_as is a process of strategic nature in the struggle against U.S. imperialism that requires all the solidarity of the world progressive force and also of the Parties that are meeting here.

To support the revolutionary and progressive processes in Latin America and the Caribbean is an unavoidable task for the communist and progressive forces in the world, since this region is an important anti-imperialist trench hat has weakened U.S. hegemony.

COMRADES ALL, THE CUBAN PEOPLE, led by the Communist Party of Cuba, continues to advance through the road towards the construction of socialism, being aware that it is

only way to keep our independence, sovereignty and the social justice attained.

We are doing so in a context characterized by the continuity of the U.S. hostile policy towards the Revolution, which is expressed by the tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade, the increase of the subversive plans and the funding of counterrevolutionary and mercenary groups in our country.

The blockade continues causing severe damages to the economy. Just in 2011, Cuba failed to receive more that 3.5 billion dollars, and during the last five decades the figure amounts to one million of a million dollars.

To this fact we have to add also the impact of the world economic crisis, and the damages caused by the recent meteorological phenomenon "Sandy" in the eastern provinces of the country.

Under such circumstances, we are implementing the updating of our economic and social model, on the basis of the Guidelines discussed by all our people and approved at the 6th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba held on April 2011.

The changes that we are implementing are aimed at defending, preserving and improving socialism. We will continue to keep the socialist ownership on the main means of production and the centralized planning of the economy above the market rules. We will never renounce to our social gains and we ratify the principle that in the Cuban socialist society nobody will be left unprotected.

In this endeavor we are encouraged by the call made by our historical leader, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, to "change everything that should be changed" without renouncing to our principles.

If today our revolutionary process is still in

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place, it has been because of the commitment of renewal, the determination of the Cubans to fight and resist, the unity around our Party and the permanent solidarity of the peoples and parties all over the world, something we highly appreciate. The Cuban Revolution has done at each time what has be necessary to do to attain victory and keep high the banners of independence, social justice and socialism.

Our people continues to struggle for the freedom and immediate return to their homeland of the Five courageous antiterrorist fighters who have resisted the most terrible pressures just for being true representatives of a genuine Revolution.

vanguard role, strengthen the unity of action and widen the ideological work in the face of cultural domination imposed on us and that tries to discredit us before the masses.

Nothing will be easy, and the victory will demand from us sacrifice and spirit of unity. That has been our greatest strength during more than 50 years of Revolution, and it is what has allowed us to succeed.

Long Live Socialism!

Long Live Peace!

Thank you.

ON BEHALF OF THE CUBAN PEOPLE and the relatives of the Five Heroes, The Communist Party of Cuba expresses its gratitude for the solidarity and support that we have received from our brothers and friends all over the world in the battle for their freedom and return to Cuba. We call upon you to increase the demands of justice for this Five champions of decorum and dignity who have never bowed before the imperialist arrogance.

COMRADES ALL, MANKIND is facing huge challenges. Peace is hanging by a thread and the irrationality of the capitalist system does not offer any hope of survival for the human race.

The shift towards a more just society and towards socialism will only be possible as an expression of the struggle and the widest political alliance of the communist, progressive, revolutionary and democratic parties and organizations, together with the peoples of the world.

In that battle, the Communist and Workers Parties that are meeting here should play a

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Communist Party in Denmark BO MOELLER

SINCE THE CRISIS broke out with the 2008 collapse of finance capital, we have used our yearly meetings to analyse the economic and political situation as well as the strategy and policy which the capitalist system was expected to employ to maintain its power. Our analyses have been accurate, and developments have confirmed them.

Even if those in power can no longer justify calling the crisis a "financial crisis" which is how it was initially described, that exact term is still widely used in politics and by the media.

States have spread a hideously costly safety net under finance capital, and big banks are buying up lesser and smaller banks. The words "crisis" and "finance crisis" are currently being used deliberately by capital, its politicians and its media as a tool in the class struggle, partly with the intention of propagating the illusion that the crisis is a temporary one that will pass, whereupon all will be well again, at least in the developed part of the world.

THE FORCES OF CAPITALISM try to delude people that to "pass through and emerge from" the crisis it is necessary to temporarily cut back the whole public sector, to bolster up the economy of the banks, and to strengthen the competitiveness of business enterprises through lowering wages and production costs. In Denmark, we have traditionally levied relatively high and direct tax on wage earnings – approximately 50 per cent, rising progressively with wage income, but recently both a tax freeze and large income tax reductions have been implemented. In this way the workers are bluffed into refraining from demanding wage rises because they get more money to spend in the short term.

This of course has raised profits, but at the same time real wages have declined because of big price rises particularly on foodstuffs, bank fees and public services. That tax reductions instead of wage rises will give people

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more cash in hand is an illusion. The particular so-called "Nordic society model" entails that all public expenditure is financed through taxation: income tax and a consumption tax (VAT) on all goods and services. When this taxation is lowered there is less money to spend on the tasks of society; the situation is further aggravated by increasing expenditure on subvention of banks and employers, rising contributions to the EU, NATO and war costs, while consumption declines as a consequence of the constantly rising unemployment and falling real wages.

PEOPLE ARE LED TO BELIEVE that the rise in unemployment is of a temporary nature, an effect of the crisis, and will be overcome. Thus our Social Democrat-led government tells us that "we must invest to get past the crisis" by launching large-scale public construction projects or subsidizing business, while the bourgeois opposition calls for a further "lightening of the burdens and taxes on business".

Just as little as new jobs will be created through the improved "competitiveness" which capital in all countries demands and is being given, just as few jobs will come into being for unemployed Danes by State investments in public construction projects and business subsidies, due to the EU rules. EU judgments ensure that capital may bring its own labour force, on its own conditions, and at a wage level that is no match for the price level and cost of living in Denmark.

The problematic dumping with regard to wages and working conditions pitches workers against each other. The Danish tradeunion movement is working hard to prevent that the fight for work doesn’t become a fight of workers against workers. Both on the European and the international level a heavy re-

sponsibility rests upon us communists for securing solidarity between all workers and for demanding equal and decent wage and working conditions.

THE CRISIS HAS DEEPENED THE CLASS STRUGGLE very considerably. Capital and employers exploit the situation maximally to their own advantage, and unemployment is crassly used as a tool to put the working class on the defensive. With those who have a job, fear of unemployment is latently ever-present, and with good reason. But frightened workers are not the most able fighters, and this fact is being exploited. Unlike the political parties, capital and employers use quite plain language when carrying out mass firings. "We don’t make enough money, so we must sack employees". When large banks or corporations carry out mass firings, share prices go up. It has never been more clear-cut than now.

THE DANISH GOVERNMENT has just completed the 2013 State budget talks. The framework and political tendency in the budget was dictated and approved in advance by the EU, in compliance with the fiscal pact which Denmark voluntarily joined. The finance bill includes an enormous contribution to the EU and lots of money for NATO, the army and imperialist warfare. The bill includes tax relief for the richest, a tax raise for the poorest, and a continued billion-sized economic guarantee to finance capital. The United Left, support party for the government, has reached a compromise with the government and votes in favour of the bill. The "premium" for doing so is a small compensation in 6 month more to the thousands who stand to lose their unemployment benefit after January 1st, as a conse-

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quence of cutbacks in this safety net. But there is none help for the new thousands who will find themselves in the same situation from February and for many years onward who will be left with no income whatsoever; this is a tragedy for the affected families, and there will be severe social and economic consequences for society, not least with respect to the housing market when so many will go bankrupt and have to leave their homes. This whole human and economic catastrophe has the attention of all Denmark and all media, and it is the view of our party that it should be used to mobilize, to put forward strong demands, and to bring into focus the inhuman system which is the cause of the catastrophe.

OUR PARTY CAMPAIGNS for the demand that companies who dismiss employees, be it because they can’t generate enough profit for the shareholders, because they move their production to a cheaper country, or because they want to employ workers from other countries at lower wages, – these companies must themselves pay the bill they present to society in the form of unemployment. The rising unemployment must be met with demands for shorter working hours; the opposite is the case now, because employers abuse people’s fear of losing their job. In our fight we must be on the offensive. Experience tells us that when we take our demands out on the streets, people support them and tell us that they hadn’t even thought of putting forward demands. They have been manipulated to think defensively.

After ten years under a bourgeois government we have for the last year had a three-party government led by the Social Democrats and supported by the United Left. The Danish working class is bitterly disappointed and dis-

illusioned. None of the government or support parties call the capitalist system to account for its atrocities, and neither do they point to alternatives. They submit to monopoly capital’s EU and its dictates. In his statements, our Minister for Foreign Affairs (who belongs to the leftist Socialist People’s Party) can hardly wait for the EU and NATO to go to war in Syria on the insurgents’ side, and by the same token all the parties mentioned, including the United Left, voted in favour of the war against Libya.

For these reasons we need to pass on our analyses of imperialism, and our members and followers need to study and understand the nature of imperialism. For these reasons our communist parties need to gather broadly around socialism as the alternative.

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Communist Party of Denmark (DKP) HENRIK STAMER HEDIN

IMPERIALISM'S RESPONSE to the challenge of the October Revolution was a strictly defensive one, based on the assumption of universal concord on the branding of socialism and Soviet rule as a crime against well-established and legitimate privileges and freedoms, against the very fabric of society. The imperialist aggression against Soviet Russia in the so-called war of interventions was openly directed against the new phenomenon of workers' and peasants' power and aimed at a restoration of the old regime and private property.

THE ADVANCE OF SOCIALISM IN EUROPE and elsewhere following the Second World War swept away this self-justification of imperialism and deprived it of any moral claim. Workers and peasants all over the world embraced socialism as the rightful social formation of our time, and the assertion that socialism was a crime against society could no longer be taken seriously. The liberation of the former colonies worked in the same direction.

It is a symptom of the degree to which imperialism has been losing ground during the 50'es, 60'es and even into the 70'es that now it can no longer stand up openly and with any kind of moral force for possession and privilege. Its reactionary aggressiveness, of course, remains, but it has to be disguised as a revolutionary struggle for freedom and democracy.

Reality has been turned upside down: Imperialism feigns to be defending the aims and values that it is really attacking.

Of course, imperialism has always been hiding itself behind a veil of humanism and idealistic concerns – be it Christian charity, human rights, or whatever. But that today it is hiding behind pretended "revolutionary" popular masses is a relatively recent phenomenon.

The first full-fledged example of this new strategy was the US instigated mujahedin counter-revolutionary war against the Afghan revolution – or the "Soviet occupation", as it

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was labelled. In this murderous war, the CIA trained terrorists to inflict on the Soviet Union what was openly described as a "Soviet Vietnam" – a revenge for the defeat suffered by the US a few years earlier. These terrorists were not generally Afghans, but recruited from the extreme right wing of the Arab Islamist movement; they were easier to manipulate, because they were guided not by a legitimate national interest in the country whose liberty they professed to defend, but by misty religious ideas. As we all know, this strategy was highly efficient in that the Afghan revolution was crushed; but as we also know, it backfired on US imperialism by creating forces like al Qaeda and the Talebans, who did not hesitate to turn their weapons against the US itself.

Perhaps this outcome was not undesired by US rulers, as it gave them a pretext for unleashing the "War on terror" and continuing the war in Afghanistan to this day, again under the guise of a struggle for freedom and democracy and against the very same religious extremism and terrorism that had originated as a tool of imperialism. Keine Hexerei, nur Behändigkeit, as the Germans say.

BE THAT AS IT MAY, the same strategy was subsequently followed in other countries where imperialism, above all US imperialism, wanted to alter realities in its own interest: In Yugoslavia, in Ukraine and Georgia, where it was refined to the point that imperialism did not even have to engage military forces in order to topple a government not to its liking; it was further pursued in Iraq, in Libya and now in Syria.

I want to mention a point, upon which I am not going to elaborate, although I think it is important. There is universal agreement that US im-

perialism is the main culprit of imperialist aggression and has been so for at least half a century. But since Iraq the US has been reluctant to engage directly in military conflicts; instead, it has been pushing other powers in front of it in a kind of two-tier proxy warfare: The so-called opposition in Syria, for instance, is not as in Afghanistan openly supported by the US except morally, but is armed and funded by regional powers like Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. These powers are controlled, more or less, by the US, but they are not just puppets; they have their own agendas and are pursuing interests which do not necessarily coincide with those of the US. Turkey, for instance, is quite obviously striving to restore, if not the Ottoman Empire, then at least part of its earlier dominant position in the Arab Middle East, especially Syria. Apparently, this is not quite to the liking of its US ally, which is probably why Turkey has not succeeded in getting NATO to back it in an outright aggression against Syria. These differing and partly conflicting interests mean that the situation in Syria is much more serious than that in Libya or even the Iraq war and possesses the potential of a world war.

I am not going to elaborate on this, neither am I going to talk about the resistance of those nations actually affected by these disguised acts of aggression. What, in concluding, I am going to say a little about, is the possibility and problems of fighting these imperialist acts of aggression from within the imperialist metropolis itself.

I characterized the disguise strategy of imperialist proxy aggression as basically a sign of weakness, and indeed it is, but it is also highly efficient, making it very difficult to mount a significant protest movement on the imperialist home front. It is not like the Vietnam War:

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Back then, it was – or very quickly became – obvious to everybody that a poor and comparatively small third world country was being attacked by a super power. And though the strategy of proxy warfare actually originated in Vietnam, with the "vietnamization" of the war, the proxy that the aggressor had at its disposal, the Saigon government, was in no way convincing, neither militarily, nor politically, nor morally. By contrast, the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh was widely respected and the Vietnamese freedom struggle against French colonial rule a few years earlier looked upon with sympathy. For these reasons, a massive popular movement of solidarity and protest arose almost spontaneously inside the US as well as in most allied nations, contributing decisively to the US defeat in the war.

This is not so in the case of Syria, to take the example closest at hand, and it was not so in the case of Libya. In my own country, which took part in the war against Libya and is a member of the so-called Friends of Syria, a vast majority of the population and even of the Left still believe in the myth of a unanimous people standing up against a dictator, and many believe that the war against Libya was not an imperialist aggression, but a just and strictly limited police operation against one person with perhaps a few followers.

Many think that a similar course should be taken by the "international society" against Syria – or Assad.

in the streets in support of "the Syrian population", i.e. the terrorists. The official attitude among politicians and in the mainstream media is on the same lines. What we have to do as Communists, as anti-imperialists, is to unmask the lies about the unanimous people and the isolated dictator. This we have started to do. Together with the colony of Syrians in Denmark, who know very well what is going on, the Communist Party of Denmark has taken the initiative to organize a series of information meetings all over the country about the real situation in Syria.

This began just three weeks ago, and it is a very modest beginning. But the task should not be underestimated. It is an uphill struggle.

The reaction of broad sections of the Left to our initiative was, "Why do you side with Assad?" We do not side with Assad. We side with the peoples of the world, with freedom and national independence and progress and peace, against imperialism and imperialist aggressiveness.

IN THIS SITUATION, it is not possible to mount a broad campaign of protest against the imperialist schemes on Syria. On the contrary, the first task is to prevent the upcoming of a "solidarity" movement with what we are told is a popular uprising. Already, militant islamists in Copenhagen are collecting money

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Communist Party of Finland JP VAISANEN

ISRAEL IS HITTING GAZA, ARCTIC see is melting and EU is strengthening austerity politics.

These three examples are concrete cases showing how capitalism and imperialism is working. Wars, mass unemployment and ecocides are results of cruel, greedy business politics.

We are gathered in a situation where another vision is urgently needed. International meeting of communist and workers parties can and should be the place to start a worldwide change against neoliberal and imperialist hegemony. International solidarity and collective class oriented actions are strongly needed.

Communist Party of Finland wishes to express its gratitude to the Lebanese communist party and other organizers of this meeting.

CPF wants to share with you some points of interest that we from our Nordic point of view find important. You can find more detailed information about the situation in Finland available in written form.

FIRSTLY A STRONG STRATEGY AGAINST NEOLIBERAL AND AUSTERITY POLITICS HAS TO BE BUILT. Finnish Social Democratic Party and Left Alliance – main left forces in parliament have adapted capitalistic logics when joining the government led by the Conservative party.

The government has accepted unanimously the Fiscal Pact and austerity policies of the European Union. Alongside the Merkel government they demand more and more cutting of salaries, jobs, pensions and public services, privatizing and anti-democratic decisions in Greece, Spain, Portugal and other countries.

These EU austerity politics deepen current capitalist crises and only benefits bankers and big business. CPF works against neoliberal politics to enlarge democratic, left and redgreen opposition and alternatives. We call to oppose the Fiscal Pact that confiscates national sovereign powers to the EU Commission to impose the policy of austerity in all Euro-

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pean countries. The rich must pay the crises and the people must have the power!

SECONDLY WORLDWIDE WORK FOR PEACE NEEDS MORE SUPPORT. We condemn Israel’ s imperialist aggressions against Palestine. We urge the Finnish government to support the recognition of the Palestinian state by the UN and to demand an end to Israeli occupation.

Finnish armed forces have lately bought new Israeli drowns with some 17 million euros summing late weapon deals with Israel to a total amount of 190 million euros. Also Finnish Hi-Tec-weapon technology has been found in the Israeli missiles hitting Palestinian people.

Militarization and concrete bilateral business actions in-between the EU member states and Israel shows that EU Israeli politics stands on occupiers side.

Finnish troops participate the NATO-led Afghanistan war. And now the government is preparing the Finnish Air Force's participation in NATO led air control operation in Iceland.

The CPF works together with other peace forces in Finland against NATO and for peaceful policy of neutrality. These were the main issues discussed in the meeting of the communist parties in Nordic countries and Russia, organized in Finland last summer.

THIRDLY THE EXPLOITATION OF NATURE HAS TO BE STOPPED. Governments led by neo liberal business politicians create situations where for instance international mining companies interests play more important role than nature values or rights of the indigenous people.

Perhaps the greatest environmental disaster in Finland's history has taken place in the Talvivaara mine. The mining company has given a

damn to the environment and other sources of livelihood. The government and other state authorities have not stopped this disaster.

The everyday battles are more and more connected to struggle to break the power of financial capital. There is a need to open up horizons showing the way out of capitalism, towards modern socialism. - Socialism is the future! *** SOME INFORMATION ABOUT SITUATION FINLAND European Action Day 14/11. Demonstrations against the austerity policies were organized in Finland in Helsinki, Tampere and Jyväskylä cities following an initiative of the Critical Trade Union Network, with the participation of a number of local trade union branch organizations. As far as national Trade Union Federations are concerned, only the Federation of Service Workers called for action following the initiative of Communists. The Trade Unions Central Organizations limited themselves to issuing a statement. The CPF supported the activities, other political parties remained silent.

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS OF 28TH OCTOBER. The majority of voters did not support the government project aiming to create big municipalities. The ruling parties suffered losses.

The right-wing populist Party True Finns doubled its support and scored 12.3% (19% at the parliamentary elections of 2011).

The Communist Party maintained its nine municipal councilors (including in Helsinki and some other big cities), and obtained 4 additional municipal council members who were

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elected on some local coalitions.

INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT ON EU FISCAL COMPACT. The Agreement which governments concluded in March on a closer economic union within the EU is only now being submitted to the Parliament of Finland. The government proposes unanimously to approve it. Parliamentary opposition is mainly opposing it.

NATO AIR SURVEILLANCE IN ICELAND. The government is preparing the Finnish Air Force's participation in NATO led air control operation in Iceland. Although the contribution would be small, basically it is a new step in connecting Finland more closely with NATO. In Parliament, the opposition and the Left Alliance group are opposed to this measure.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER IN THE TALVIVAARA MINE. Perhaps the greatest environmental disaster in Finland's history has created a broad citizen movement to resist the Talvivaara mining company's operations, which have given a damn to the environment and other sources of livelihood, and which the government and other state authorities have not stopped.

UPSTREAM FESTIVAL. The Communist Party organized in cooperation with other left-wing organizations the "Upstream Festival" in the centre of Helsinki in September.

CPF CONGRESS IN 2013. The Communist Party of Finland will hold its Congress 8.-9.

June 2013

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German Communist Party - DKP ROSEMARIE FEGER

WE LIVE IN TIMES OF MASSIVE CHANGES which show first signs of developing. Especially the massive production increases with the resulting severe over-accumulation have dramatically grown in den past 5 years, and we think that the present crisis is a transitional crisis or Great Crisis.

The changes mentioned refer to the forms of production, of exercising power, the relationship between capital and labour, the international balance of powers.

IN THE PAST 5 YEARS, the "crisis management" of great capital and its political representatives has led to a deepening of the financial, economic, social and ecological crises and to a further dismantling of democracy.

In the main countries of capital, as well, working and living conditions have decisively changed in the past few years. The contradictions emerging from this process cannot be solved within the framework of the capitalist system.

In the EU countries, reactionary neoliberal politics of deregulation, privatisation and cutbacks of basic rights has been accelerated and finally cemented. At the same time, EU borders are massively barred against refugees. Furthermore, there is an increasingly aggressive war policy not only to the outside but also to the interior. The example of Greece makes especially clear how national parliaments are basically stripped of their power and how national sovereignty is being restricted.

I would shortly like to describe the situation in Germany. Imperialist Germany is the leading economic power within the EU. This was achieved, amongst others, by lowering real pay and "wage costs" (already under the social-democrat government of Gerhard SchrĂśder), by huge tax presents to the German industry, by massive austerity measures in social matters, education and health, by privatisation and so on. In Germany, the ef-

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fects of the crisis are by far not as clear yet as in other countries, but in our rich country, poverty is growing in extended circles of the population, most of all, old age poverty will become a massive problem for large parts of the population in the near future.

THE GERMAN ECONOMY LIVES on their export surpluses, and this is an essential factor which has led to the indebtedness of our neighbouring countries. Imperialist Germany is the pioneer of the reactionary, neoliberal, capitalist politics in Europe, which is being imposed by all means and which has already driven several states to economic ruin. The bailout "umbrellas" protect capital on the backs of the working class, our own, who have to pay the taxes to finance them, and the working class in our neighbouring countries, whose fundamental bases of live are being destroyed.

At the same time, our media unanimously declare the "lazy" Greeks, Italians, Spaniards etc. to be responsible for the crisis. This supports the ultra-reactionary and fascist parties, which appear in public ever stronger.

Broad antifascist movements are massively hindererd by the state and criminalised by bans, surveillance, detentions and also by using violence. For one year an important issue has been the tight links between secret services and neo-Nazi organisations. Pretending to investigate into matters they have been financing Nazis acting as spies, many of them in leading positions, on the other hand they have been beating and murdering for years without the state interfering. More than 120 dead people result from this.

Another issue which the German public is hardly aware of is the growing militarisation of German foreign and domestic politics. The

German government participates – completely against our constitution – in many wars in the world , hardly directly, as in Afghanistan, mostly indirectly , as in Iraq and lately against Syria. Furthermore, Germany is the third largest weapon exporter in the world, and they are expanding the system. Export regulations for weapons are being cut back , the slogan of the Peace Movement :"German weapons, German money kill all over the world" is more topical today than ever before.

This very much suits the fact that first steps are now taken to make army activities to the interior lawful. According to experience from German history this has always been anathema and it reflects how deliberate and aggressive German politics have become.

In nearly the whole of Europe, protests and resistance are growing, people walk out onto the streets against class politics of the rulers.

In these fights, the working class objectively is the decisive force. Positions criticising capitalism and anticapitalist attitudes are increasing.

IN GERMANY, as well, everywhere protests, associations, actions have been developing in the past few years, people are becoming more sensitive, they march out onto the streets for their rights because they have come to recognize that they cannot trust "their" governments anymore. Many people were surprised by the fact how relentlessly the state is reacting. When policemen beat down "normal" citizens in a protest against the extention of Stuttgart Main Station, many people first realized that there really were opposing camps facing each other.

Resistance in our country still is not organized strongly enough, and in this situation we being Communists must help creating broad

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alliances whose actions can lead to change, to social and democratic progress.

Here, the class questions has always been at the centre of our considerations but this idea is hard to convey, in general, most Germans still hope for a positive change within the framework of capitalism.

Trade unions in Germany still are no fighting class organisations.

Dear Comrades, First in our own country, but beyond this, Communists must strengthen their international cooperation. This is, in fact, the reason why we have come together here.

THE GERMAN COMMUNIST PARTY DKP supports all steps towards the gathering of social,

trade union and political forces on a national and international level in order to be able to strongly and credibly challenge capitalism with a socialist alternative. We are realistic enough to orientate ourselves in the real conditions, the factual state of awareness and the life interests of the people and not in our own wishful thinking. We are only at the beginning of a long way, but we will go it together , this will not work without fierce discussions , but we hope we will always go for our common goal in solidarity.

We know: the best international solidarity consists in developing fights in our own countries as a contribution to international change of society towards Socialism.

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Communist Party of Greece ALEKA PAPARIGA

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU for hosting the meeting in a country, in a region which has been suffering for years and, in recent days as well, as the imperialist intervention and invasion is almost a permanent feature which marks all the levels of barbarity, authoritarianism. Greece is also part of the wider region and for that reason we always feel that it is our duty not only to express our internationalist solidarity but also to take seriously into account the developments which have an impact also on our country, as a capitalist country which is completely assimilated into the strategic objectives of the EU, the NATO and the USA with the voluntary agreement of the large majority of the political forces. We have condemned the strategic agreement that Greece has signed with Israel, as it definitely has nothing to do with the common interests of the peoples but is related to the anti-people strategic objectives of the bourgeoisie in our country and Israel too. It is a strategic cooperation, both military and economic, which aims at the participation in the unconditional and relentless struggle for the energy resources and the resources of the region in general. Greece is willing to contribute to the military interventions of Israel especially if Israel decides to attack Iran. Indeed it carries out joint military exercises with Israel which include exercises identical to military operations either against Syria or against Iran.

It is not at all accidental that the Greek government has not expressed sympathy with the tormented Palestinian people who are once again being bombed, not even at a formal level, while the other parties of the opposition are basically silent.

Although the wider region has been suffering for many years from the multifaceted imperialist intervention to the benefit of reactionary governments and regimes, however, the situation we have experienced over recent years and today is directly related to the develop-

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ment of the deep and prolonged economic capitalist crisis in the Eurozone which has a direct impact globally and indeed on the wellknown as well as on the emerging imperialist centers and powers.

The crisis we are experiencing, which had the USA as its starting point, is the continuation of the crisis which broke out at the end of the 1990s in the so called Asian tigers, in Russia as well in countries of Latin America. The recovery which occurred had not reached the previous rates. We do not at all exclude an anemic recovery which will be followed by a deeper synchronized crisis in the EU, the USA and Japan.

THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM CANNOT MANAGE THE CRISIS as easily as it could before. It cannot manage the consequences of poverty and the destitution as it did previously. Of course this does not mean that the system will collapse on its own, due to its contradictions, unless a powerful labour movement is formed in each country capable of launching a general assault and being prepared when the revolutionary situation breaks out, or when it seems to be impending. The revolutionary movement will not emerge suddenly, it is being prepared, it is being educated, it acquires experience in the daily struggles.

The outbreak of the generalized and synchronized economic capitalist crisis brought to the forefront the historically outdated and inhuman character of the contemporary capitalist system, the timeliness and necessity of socialism, the need for the international communist movement to regroup.

The question is which labour movement, which people’s movement can go through the rough path which is full of turns, ascents and descents, without trapping itself , without de-

generating since the previous and recent experience has provided a great deal of evidence regarding such a danger. Which labour and people’s movement will rise up against the imperialist aggressiveness, will open a front against imperialist war, imperialist peace so that the peoples will not shed their blood for the interests of the imperialists.

THE LINE FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT, its alliance with the popular strata, can be tested, be prepared, and wage the every day struggles only on one path: the path of the emancipated struggle for anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist goals at a national level and in terms of internationalist cooperation and joint action.

Today, contemporary patriotism is expressed with the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, for socialism. No capitalist country, regardless of how advanced the parliamentary democracy is, can guarantee national independence for its people, the respect of sovereign rights except in a merely formal sense and without a substantial content.

We closely follow the reflections, the discussions which take place in the communist movement concerning imperialism, the strategy of the movement, the accusations launched against the liberal policy of managing the capitalist system. In our opinion, today it is worth taking steps forward and making leaps in practical activity and in the effort to rally broader workers’ and people’s masses and it is equally important to clarify serious ideological and theoretical issues which are related to the strategy and the tactics of the movement against imperialism.

The political line which today prevails at a global level is not merely a recipe of liberal management, as it is usually claimed. Irre-

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spective of the partial differences between liberal and social democratic recipes, they constitute the contemporary pro-monopoly strategy which was elaborated after the crisis in 1971-1973 as a response to the problem of the tendency of the average rate of profit to fall in conditions of inter-imperialist rivalry and while uneven development is sharpening, as it is in the DNA of the international capitalist system.

The components of the contemporary promonopoly political line are the cheaper labour power, the reactionary restructurings, the "liberalization", the privatizations, the imperialist intervention and the war for the redistribution of the markets.

This pro-monopoly policy was followed and is currently being followed by liberal and social democratic bourgeois governmental forces and even by centre-left governments over the last thirty years. It started from the USA and Britain and extended to the EU. In the 20th century neither the liberal nor the Keynesian management were able to cancel either the economic crisis or the imperialist war and nor can they now.

A CENTRAL ISSUE is to convince the broadest possible section of the working class, of the working people about the real character of the crisis, as a crisis of over-accumulation on the basis of capitalist ownership and class exploitation; to confront using arguments the systematic effort to misinform and obscure in order to conceal the true causes and the factors of the crisis; the theories concerning "casino capitalism", concerning a crisis which is merely due to the financial system, due to the "overconsumption" or the opposite due to "underconsumption".

The labour movement and its allies must not

be trapped into the various formulas for the management of the crisis which appear today in the EU but also internationally because there is no formula for a way-out of the crisis in favour of the people. Besides, all formulas which have been clearly expressed are based on the cheap labour power, they negatively affect a big part of the small and medium sized strata, they support the capitalist restructurings.

Today there is an intense discussion, there are serious disagreements among EU memberstates, among the sections of the bourgeoisie in each country, among bourgeois political parties over whether a controlled bankruptcy constitutes a solution, over whether the Eurozone must remain intact, over whether the EU must be transformed into a federation that will very likely lead to the expulsion of some states etc.

The theory that the exit from the Eurozone and even from the EU would help a bourgeois government to be freed from the commitments of a single currency, to print its own money, to attract investors who bet on a cheap national currency etc. is being fostered by officials from bourgeois political and business circles.

This position has a class character to the extent that it is promoted by sections of the bourgeois class and speculators and has no relation at all with the class position of the KKE for working class people’s power, disengagement from the EU, unilateral cancellation of the debt and socialization of the monopolies, for productive people’s cooperatives in agriculture which are integrated to an extent in the central planning.

THE OPPORTUNIST FORCES that take a position against the German recipe support a re-

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laxation of fiscal policy and a controlled bankruptcy, and indeed they are promoting the view that there is a transitional political programme for struggle and power through which the interests of the monopolies and the working people can be balanced. Such a governmental programme which has favourable results both for the monopolies and for the peoples has never existed anywhere and does not exist today, that is to say this has never been borne out at a national level or in a group of countries. It is no accident that no country is invoked by them as an example of the implementation of such a choice.

We are in a period when the inter-imperialist contradictions in conditions of a deep crisis are pushing sections of the bourgeois class, the entire bourgeois class of the one or the other country to choose whether they will stay in an imperialist camp or whether they will move into another one, to decide which imperialist power it is in their interests to side with. Realignments are taking place in the imperialist alliances, there is a fluidity regarding this issue, something which in our opinion is also related to the wider region of the Eastern Mediterranean and even North Africa.

The alignment of the labour movement and its allies with one or the other management formula, with one or the other imperialist power means submission and enlisting under a false flag. Look at the situation inside the Eurozone.

The German and French bourgeois classes are faced with serious dilemmas related to the future of the Eurozone. Despite their contradictions, they came to a temporary fragile compromise, as they have in the past, which does not alleviate the barbarity of the anti-worker measures and the reactionary reforms, and it also does not negate the causes of the sharp-

ening of the inter-imperialist contradictions.

The dominant trend in the German bourgeois class sets the buttressing of the Euro, the stability of the currency as a priority, and refuses to shoulder the costs of the depreciation of capital in the indebted countries. A second trend which is being strengthened in the EU is the one which wants to keep the Eurozone intact so that the European market does not shrink in the face of the tough international competition. A third trend calls into question the current form of the Eurozone in its entirety and prioritizes the approach to the ChinaRussia axis.

THE BOURGEOIS GOVERNMENTS, the liberal, social-democratic and so-called left renewal parties line up behind the forces that express the contradictions and seek to assimilate the labour movement and its allies into one or the other version of management which are schematically characterized as the restrictive one and the expansive one.

We are certain of one thing, without underestimating the difficulties placed in the way of the strengthening of the movement by the illusions and utopian views, that objectively larger sections of the working class will come to oppose the bourgeois management solutions which are trying to control the extent of capital depreciation and the distribution of the damage amongst its various sections.

THE COMMUNIST PARTIES, the radical vanguard must not lose their independence in thinking and action in the face of the various blocs which are siding with the one or the other imperialist power, with a section of the bourgeois class against another section, in favour of the upper middle strata.

The anti-monopoly anti-capitalist character

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of the struggle must be strengthened, and the commitments and dependency which countries and peoples are suffering from, countries assimilated into the imperialist unions like NATO and the EU must be dealt with from this standpoint.

The character of contemporary patriotism is identified with the overthrow of bourgeois power and the capitalist ownership of the means of production, withdrawal from every capitalist inter-state coalition and imperialist alliance.

Consequently, the so-called anti-German front, or the anti-American front i.e. against the USA, on its own cannot express or cope with the struggle against imperialism, against the consequences of the crisis. We also must not ignore the fact that monopoly capitalism i.e. imperialism determines the fate and course of states which do not belong organically to imperialist unions. There is no country today which is not connected in some way to the global and regional system of imperialism, that is to say to the global capitalist market, and to its regional markets. The capitalist development path is the path which leads to the looser or tighter assimilation into the imperialist system and for this reason the anti-imperialist struggle is anti-capitalist as we are dealing with the imperialist stage of capitalism.

The peoples do not become militant when they are influenced by views which detach the imperialist political line from monopoly capitalism, that identify imperialism only with unequal international relations, imperialist intervention and war. That is to say when internal contradictions are detached from the inter-imperialist ones.

The Communist Party must lead the independent organization of the workers’-people’s re-

sistance in all its forms, so that the resistance is connected to the struggle for the complete defeat of the bourgeois class, domestic and foreign as an invader, so that the antiwar struggle is connected to the conquest of power in a practical way. A workers’ –people’s front must be formed at the initiative and with the leadership of the party in all forms of activity, with the slogan: The people will provide the freedom and the way out of the capitalist system which as long as it prevails brings war and peace with a gun to the people’s head.

TODAY IN GREECE we support the People’s Alliance which expresses the interests of the working class, the semi-proletarians, the poor self-employed and poor farmers, also the self-employed scientists who, even if they still have greater freedom than the salaried ones, will increasingly be transformed into salaried employees in large capitalist businesses with a low income or into unemployed or semi-employed. From this standpoint, we reject any support for political forces which back the one or the other management formula.

There are processes taking place in Greece today for the reformation of the political system, as the system of two-party alternation between the liberal ND and the social-democratic PASOK cannot function anymore, particularly due to the disintegration of PASOK. A large section of the cadre apparatus of PASOK, sections of the labour aristocracy and government-led trade unionism, sections of the intermediate strata which operated as satellites of the monopolies, managing a section of the EU subsidies, have changed party, they jumped over to SYRIZA. SYRIZA is being transformed from an opportunist party into the successor of social-democracy maintaining

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certain slogans in order to keep its profile of left communist renewal.

THE KKE RESISTED the major pressure which was exerted on it so that it would state that it would participate in a government with SYRIZA at its core, i.e. in a government which would have programmatic positions with a clear direction of supporting capitalist development in a contradictory way something which determines in advance its full assimilation when it becomes a governmental majority. This position had an electoral cost, but it did not deprive the party of the ability after the elections to mobilize and organize the popular masses. It is a legacy for the future for a movement which will avoid dangerous traps and blunders which will harm the people’s interests and which in the end will break it for a long and crucial period of time.

The KKE made its position clear from the very first moment of the mobilizations in the countries of North Africa and the beginning of the armed conflict in Syria. Whatever popular participation was noted, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, certainly expressed people’s problems domestically, the rights of the workers, the desire for a change of the political line. But we cannot close our eyes to the fact that they were either provoked or utilised by strong imperialist powers headed by the USA and its competitors over the control of the natural resources, in order to change the government with forces they could better control. We said clearly that it is a part of the plan which Bush had proclaimed as a plan for the "democratization" of the Arab countries, the Arab world.

The events in Syria are rooted in the economic, social and political problems which the working class and other popular strata are experiencing. But we are against any attempt at

an imperialist intervention by the USA, the EU, NATO, Israel, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia. We revealed to the Greek people that the USA, the EU and Israel are interested in destabilizing and weakening the balance of forces inside the Syrian bourgeois regime, because its leadership is an ally of Palestine and Lebanon, is opposed to the imperialist positions and plans of the USA, NATO and Israel which today is mercilessly bombing Gaza and is occupying Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian territories.

The weakening, the overthrow of the Syrian regime whets the appetites of the imperialists to attack Iran, to proceed to new dismemberments of states in the region, i.e. a domino effect of destabilization and bloodshed, something that will bring new imperialist wars and interventions.

We are of the assessment that we must all work for the common anti-imperialist antimonopoly struggle, for the disengagement from the imperialist organizations, the removal of the foreign military bases and nuclear weapons, the return home of military forces from the imperialist missions, and the integration of this struggle into the struggle for power.

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Hungarian Workers’ Party GYULA THURMER

ON BEHALF OF THE HUNGARIAN COMMUNIST WORKERS’ PARTY I would like to express our solidarity with the Lebanese Communist Party. It was not an easy decision to come to Beirut but we did come to tell all of you: we are on the side of the Arab people. We condemn the US supported Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. Their cause is right and they should win!

We support Syria. Solidarity with Syria means not only to have meetings. It means a difficult fight at home. It means that we should fight against our own governments because they are those who plan the NATO- and EU-aggression against Syria. If Syria loses, all of us lose.

If Syria wins, we will be stronger.

IN HUNGARY THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM has serious consequences. From 10 million Hungarians only 1 million can say that they live well. The other 9 million people live worse.

Among them there are 1 million unemployed, 3-4 million living under the level of poverty.

High inflation, high unemployment, the bank credits which people cannot pay are overhanging working masses like the sword of Damocles.

THE CRISIS HAS BEEN CHANGING THE BEHAVIOR OF THE WORKING CLASSES and their attitude towards our party. Communist alternative is becoming for many of them a possible alternative.

Our moral authority, the public respect to us, communists is rising. There is not an earthquake movement towards us yet but if things are going to be worse and they are going to be, our influence can rise rapidly.

It is no wonder that our enemies use all possible methods to undermine the strengthening of communist forces. In Hungary a lot of organizations come to life with pompous names, like "Solidarity", "Fatherland and Progress", "Together-2014" etc. They call "revolution" the simple replacing of one bourgeois govern-

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ment with another bourgeois government and they turn away the attention of the people from class struggle.

If we want to push forward the cause of socialist revolution, we should unveil the lies of opportunists. We should smash them politically and ideologically. If we cannot do it, they will disarm the working masses and we should postpone revolution again and again.

That’s why fighting against modern revisionism and opportunism is task Number One. Capitalist forces use against us rightwing-extremist forces. A lot of people support them because they say what people want to hear: the Jews and Gypsies are responsible for our troubles. We should explain to the people that the extreme right is very radical on the surface but they do not want to change capitalism and they cannot solve the problems of the people.

THE ONLY SOLUTION IS WHAT WE PROPOSE: SOCIALISM. Nowadays our actual aim is to limit the political and economic power of capital. It is not socialism yet, but it is a necessary stage for the working people to get concrete experiences in class struggle.

We cannot limit the power of the capital alone.

We should and we can do it with other forces hurt by capitalism. That’s why we declared our intention to build up an Alliance of Workers’ and other working people suffering from capitalism. We are far from being satisfied but we have started it.

Now we see in practice how we can influence the mass movements and civil organisations.

Our comrades are disciplined. If they say we will come to a meeting, they will come. We have experience in organising political events.

And first of all: we know clearly what we want.

We are absolutely convinced that the idea of

the Alliance of Workers’ and other working people will success only if we have a strong communist party with clear Marxist-Leninist ideology, organisation and discipline. The party should be preparing for both work in mass movements and for combat on the streets.

SOMETHING IS CHANGING IN EUROPE. Communist parties in Russia, Ukraine, and in the Czech Republic improved their positions in the national parliaments. Belgian communists achieved great successes on the local elections. Greek communist along with Portugal comrades demonstrate good examples of class struggle.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA, the political line adopted on the 18th congress of the Communist Party of China, independently from what really goes on in China, and independently from their desire, will raise the interest of people to socialism.

CAPITALIST FORCES ARE SERIOUSLY CONCERNED about the strengthening of communist forces. They understand that only we, only the communists can show the real way out from crisis. They can speak with us, they can even cooperate with us. But we must not forget: we are for them the Enemy Number One. We are concerned that the new administration of the United States will try to regain its lost positions. They will continue the so-called democratic transition in Eastern Europe, in Belarus, Ukraine, and Serbia.

The European capital cannot solve its crisis.

The EU seems to be arrived at the end of its political possibilities. A war in Europe would be a disaster but capitalism will risk it if it does

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not see other chances.

It will raise the tension in the world and bring the world into new wars. We should explain it to our people and be in the first rows of forces fighting against the US, NATO and against war.

darity with each other. Our movement should not be divided into big parties and small parties, parliamentary parties and non-parliamentary parties. If we go this way, we can lose everything.

WE SHOULD STRENGTHEN THE PROCESS of International Meetings of Communist and Workers' parties. It is not perfect yet but it gives much to all of us.

We should demonstrate internationalist soli-

WE ARE COMMUNISTS. We want to overthrow capitalism. This is the only thing which can give us hope now. This is the only thing which can lead us to victory tomorrow.

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Communist Party of India (Marxist) SITARAM YECHURY

AT THE VERY OUTSET allow me to thank the Lebanese Communist Party for not only hosting the 14th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties, but also making such splendid arrangements. The importance of this meeting, held here in Lebanon, cannot be lost for any discerned observer.

We are meeting here in West Asia (or MiddleEast as is commonly referred to by Western observers), at a time when the region is extremely volatile. In fact, there is no better place in the world than this that stands testimony to the imperialist aggression. As we are meeting and discussing the dangers and threats of imperialism, Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing it. Reports are coming out on an hourly basis about the many innocent lives lost in the aerial attacks. Even the injured are fighting for lives due to the non-availability of medicines – thanks to the Israeli blockade.

Four years ago, coinciding with the elections in the US, Israel had attacked Gaza, which had resulted in more than thousand dead and many more injured. Barack Obama, the President-elect then, condemned the attack.

Today, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama, who won the right to be the President of the US for another four years, is staunchly defending Israel and its 'right to self-defence'. This illustrates how US and Israel are arrogantly appropriating the right to execute anyone they want, anywhere in the world, without any limitations, regardless of how many innocent civilians they kill in the process.

It is not just Palestine. Just bordering Lebanon, Syria is another example of imperialist aggression. Now it has been clearly established that imperialist countries are openly arming and helping the rebels to destabilise the Syrian administration. As the people are dying in thousands, imperialist countries are openly planning the distribution of Syrian resources, once the current regime is over-

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thrown and the rebels capture power. This was how they had operated in yet another country in the neighbourhood – Libya. All these go on to show once again that imperialism is the aggressor numero uno. And all these are happening even before the blood stains have dried in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran is the declared target, on whom the Damocles sword is hanging.

THE REASONS FOR THIS NAKED AGGRESSIVENESS OF IMPERIALISM cannot be understood unless we consider the political and economic conditions of the contemporary world. Imperialism is using all the means at its disposal – military, economic and political – to come out of the current global economic crisis and ensure that it retains its hegemony over the world.

STARTING FROM THE 10TH IMCWP in Brazil, 2008, we had underlined in all our annual meetings that the world is reeling under the severest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The global economic crisis is not a 'one-off' crisis, but a systemic crisis that is deeply rooted in the intrinsic functioning of the capitalist system. Fours years had passed and despite the brave claims made by the leaders of developed countries, the world is yet to come out of this systemic crisis. What we are now witnessing today is in fact, the fifth phase of the present crisis.

The raison d etre of capitalism is profit maximisation. In its quest for maximising the profits and come out of the crisis it had found itself in the decade of the 70s, capitalism had initiated neo-liberal economic policies. As a result, the maxim for the State became, 'it is no business for the government to be in business'. With the setback to socialism in Soviet

Union and East European countries, the apologists for capitalism propagated that capitalism is here to stay and that there is no alternative (TINA). End of history was proclaimed and neo-liberalism as a philosophy was trumpeted. Market dominance, led by the private corporates was unleashed on the people. This period witnessed intensified exploitation and increasing inequalities within the countries and across the countries. As a result real incomes saw a fall plunging the purchasing power of people into a steep pit. This in fact is the genesis of the present crisis and can be termed as its first phase.

Capitalism unable to sell what it had produced, once again found itself in a crisis. To wiggle out of this situation it had designed ingenious methods like providing people with what are called as sub-prime loans. To cover the risks arising from the non-payment of these loans, new forms of financial instruments were evolved. Many financial institutions that were viewed as 'too big to fail', found their books full of these volatile financial instruments. They in fact sat on a volcano that was soon to erupt and erupt it did swallowing all those 'big' financial institutions.

This corporate insolvency is the second phase of the crisis.

Now, when the financial corporates collapse, taking down the stock market – regarded as a thermometer for market sentiment – it is bound to adversely affect the interests of capitalism. We find a situation where private capitalists who were till then shouting against government interference, at once demanding the government to bail them out. The capitalist State, true to its class character, came out in defence of these big financial corporates and bailed them out with huge packages.

States that did not have any monies for enact-

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ing pro-people policies suddenly found trillions of dollars to rescue the financial institutions. While these financial institutions collapsed sinking the dreams of millions of tax payers who had invested their pensions and hard earned savings in them, the very money of these people – taxes paid to the government – is used to bail out these financial giants and ensure that they do not lose. This is the third phase in the current global crisis that rapidly led to the fourth phase.

By undertaking huge and unprecedented bailout packages for those very corporates who, in the first place, caused the financial meltdown, developed countries incurred huge amounts of debts surpassing their GDPs. Thus, global capitalism sought to overcome the crisis by converting corporate insolvencies into sovereign insolvencies. This, in turn, has intensified the crisis today plunging the world economy into a state of uncertainty.

Now we are in the fifth phase of the crisis, where the governments to wiggle out of the morass they find themselves in, impose what they term as 'austerity measures'.

These are in fact nothing but a naked attack on the hard won rights of the working people.

Retirement ages are raised, pensions and wages froze, widespread retrenchment became the norm, accentuating the already severe unemployment prevalent in many countries. This attack on the economic rights won by the working class is complemented by an attack on their social and political rights. The right to organise, strike and oppose the policies of the government are curtailed. Trade unions are repressed and political parties are painted black. The formation of 'technocrat' government in Italy, exemplifies this philosophy.

CAPITALISM TO DEFEND ITS ACTIONS launches an intense ideological campaign. Attempts to rewrite history, malign communism as a theory by equating it with fascism, trying to negate the achievements of socialism are all part of such ploys. They thus intend to rob the working class of its historical legacy and deny it the ideological weapon to fight capitalist system. But as history had repeatedly shown and recent events once again testify, working class will not be fooled forever by such trickery. The 'austerity measures' introduced in many of the countries are indeed an attempt by the ruling classes to transfer the burden of the crisis on to the shoulders of the working class and common people. As the burden of sovereign debt in the name of 'austerity' is passed on to the common people, their purchasing power correspondingly declines.

Combined with the growth of unemployment, this leads to a sharp contraction in domestic demand. Further, this global crisis has drastically reduced global trade. With the contraction of domestic demand in all the major economic powers, the contraction of GDP is inevitable. This, in turn, will lead to a contraction in governmental revenues, imposing further debt. The servicing of this would lead to imposing further burdens on the people.

This vicious cycle has been set in motion.

Reports are already emanating that Europe is now in double dip recession. It was officially accepted by European Union officials when they announced that the Euro zone was officially back in recession after a 0.1% fall in output in the third quarter. This follows a 0.2% drop in gross domestic product in the second quarter. For the first time, the reports also point out that this phenomenon was not confined to the 'southern' countries and 'peripheral' economies. Germany's growth rate has

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slowed since the start of 2012. France's economy is stuttering, earning it the sobriquet that it is 'the time-bomb ticking among the European economies' from The Economist. But the most important and serious observation that the recent data provides is that the 'triple A' rated Netherlands too saw a sharp 1.1% quarterly fall in GDP, which was more than five times the expected drop. Austria too is following a similar path. All these, apart from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus which saw their economies contract in the third quarter, shows that the contagion is spreading from the periphery to the core.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC too the situation is not rosy. The USA and, indeed, the global economy are bracing itself to face the consequences of what is called the US "fiscal cliff". If both the Republican and Democrat lawmakers do not arrive at any agreement, as it appears to be, the newly re-elected President Obama would be helpless. The levy of new taxes and automatic spending cuts are set to take effect from the beginning of 2013.

This will lead to a severe contraction of the US economy. The impact would be devastating leading, according to some analysts, to as much as 4 to 6 per cent decline in the US GDP. Such a falling of the 'cliff' would push not only the USA into prolonged recession but lead to a global economic devastation. The Fitch, a rating agency, says that this would push the global economy into recession and "halve the rate of global growth in 2013".

On the top of these two catastrophes awaiting to happen – the double dip recession of the EU and the US fiscal cliff – in 2014 Greece, Portugal and Spain have to re-service their debts.

This, they cannot. In order to adhere to their promises made to the international funding

agencies like the IMF and ECB, they will be forced to accept further more conditions and increase the burdens imposed on their people. This will adversely affect the livelihoods of the people by further impoverishing them.

Convergence of all these three elements is what is making this global economic crisis more acute and whatever efforts capitalism is making to come out of the current crisis are bound to fail. It is in this background that imperialism is becoming more and more aggressive – to bring under its control all the major pockets of natural resources, trading routes and world market. The military aggression in Middle-East, attempts to scuttle the popular uprisings, increase its military presence in Asia-Pacific, establish military bases across the world, particularly in Latin America are all part of this game-plan.

But as the global developments point out people are not taking the attacks on their livelihoods and aspirations lying down. They are coming out in big numbers and forcing changes worldwide. The popular protests that we had witnessed in West Asia/North Africa; the strike actions, protests, demonstrations in Europe and other parts of the world; and the recent re-election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, all point to the mood of resistance amongst the people. It is this urge to resist and change the world for better that needs to be harnessed by us, Communists.

AS MARX HAD TAUGHT US AND LENIN had subsequently proved in practice, capitalism will not collapse on its own. It has to be overthrown. This requires the united action of all the exploited forces, led by the working class.

It is only through adherence to MarxismLeninism – the only theoretical weapon that guides the working class in the struggle for

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systemic change – and 'concrete analysis of the concrete conditions', as Lenin had taught us, can we strengthen the subjective factor for the overthrow of capitalism. There is no better time than now to change the world.

Socialism is the future, let us bring it now!

Long Live Marxism-Leninism.

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Tudeh Party of Iran WRITTEN CONTRIBUTION

It is with great pleasure that the Tudeh Party of Iran accepts the invitation to address the 14th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties taking place in Beirut, Lebanon. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all fraternal parties for extending internationalist solidarity with the people of Iran in their complex struggle for peace, democracy and social justice.

As ever we meet at a time when our key concerns are defined by the prospects for war and peace in our region and the world. The reality is of course that the Middle East remains the most likely flashpoint for a wider international conflict.

THE SO-CALLED ARAB SPRING has seen the balance of power shift in Egypt and Tunisia while imperialist manoeuvring continues to inform events in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

The current outbreak of hostilities in Gaza only serves to underline once again that a solution to the problems of the region cannot be contemplated without justice for the Palestinian people and recognition of UN resolutions by the state of Israel.

As we well know, even these steps will only be the first on the road to a truly lasting solution for the peoples of the region, which lies not in any imperialist determined intervention or any form of religious fundamentalism but in the securing of a socialist road which will ensure that the rich resources at our disposal are utilised for the benefit of all.

The question of war and peace is however inevitably linked to the international situation of capitalism itself. In this context the current financial crisis of capitalism remains a key driver in the push to control energy resources, especially in the Middle East. The speculative nature of investment by the financial institutions and banks, of the major European finance centres and those of the United States has seen the capitalist bubble burst since 2008.

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On this occasion even the capitalists cannot deny that capitalism is in crisis, though they may not agree with us that this crisis is endemic to the system, rather than something which can be resolved by adjusting public spending, increasing money supply or revising taxation.

The reality is that the path taken, especially within the European Union, to pass the gambling debts of the bankers onto the workers of those countries through austerity measures, is actually deepening the crisis. Demonstrations across Europe on the 14th November brought tens of thousands of trades unionists and activists out onto the streets of Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece to protest against the pain of further austerity. These protests were just the latest in a long line of actions which have been occurring across Europe since 2008 as the reality of capitalist economic adjustment has hit home.

PERHAPS OF MORE SIGNIFICANCE is the situation in the United States, the world’s superpower and most powerful economy.

The outcome of the presidential election on the 6th November was clearly greeted with great relief in many parts of the world. Not because Barack Obama is a progressive leader, or indeed, a socialist as many of his detractors suggest. Chance would be a fine thing!

The election did however represent a defeat for the most reactionary elements of the Republican Party in US politics and provides the possibility that a re-examination of the reasons for that defeat may temper some of the more extreme positions of that tendency.

The United States continues to adopt a bellicose position towards Iran and maintains its aggressive alliance with the Zionist forces in Israel. Only this week Barack Obama was sup-

porting the deadly policies of the Israeli criminal government in attacking Gaza and the right of Israel to bring terror and havoc to Gaza on the pretext of supposedly "defending itself and its territory against aggression." The world’s fourth biggest army, with weapons bought and paid for by the US, taking on people crammed onto a small strip of land and armed with rockets which could hardly be described as precision weapons. Over the past week 140 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded by the Israeli forces.

The rights to self determination and self defence are ones we should applaud. We should remind the US and its imperialist allies that these are rights that the Palestinians have been denied for the past forty five years due to the illegal occupation of their land by the state of Israel.

THE IRAN SITUATION. As we have indicated this gathering is taking place at a crucial moment in the contemporary history of the Middle East. The dangers of war, unrivalled imperialist hegemony over the region, Islamic fundamentalism, challenges to the sovereignty of nations and the erosion of the human and democratic rights of the people are ever present. Since the end of the First World War the region has never faced such an acute challenge.

ONE KEY ELEMENT OF THE ATTEMPT by imperialism to maintain its control in the region is the New Middle East Plan, designed to ensure that no significant challenge can be made to US hegemony in the region. The US considers the control of the energy resources of the region and routes for transportation of these resources towards Europe and East Asia as crucial if it is to maintain this hegemony. It

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is in this light that we should see the significant role that a number of US allies in the region, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have played during the last decade. The destructive roles played by these countries in the past two years, in particular their role in the events in Bahrain and Libya, and currently in Syria and Iran is an important consideration.

It is particularly important to note the plans of the Persian Gulf States to lend support to any action against Iran and the recent strategic integration of the "Persian Gulf States" defence forces, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia.

On March 6th 2012, the "Gulf Cooperation Council" (GCC) announced that it would be evolving from a regional bloc into a confederation. In May 2011 the GCC introduced the idea of bringing Jordan and Morocco into the organisation. The Saudi leadership has signalled its resolve to develop the GCC into a "single entity" named "The Arab Gulf Union Council."

These developments are of particular concern given the total subservience of the existing Persian Gulf States to any US plans in the Middle East and their support for imperialist intervention against Iran. While we have no sympathy for the present reactionary and despotic regime in Tehran, we naturally fear for the fate of the Iranian people should military intervention be pursued.

In the past two years, and in particular since the military aggression against Libya, the Israeli extreme right-wing government has threatened to wage military action against strategic targets in Iran. We believe that such military adventurism would have grave consequences for the peoples of the region, including both Iran and Israel.

THE LEADERS OF ISRAEL and their backers in the US- EU right wing circles have constructed their aggressive policies based on the notion of Iran secretly constructing a nuclear weapon. However, neither the IAEA nor the US administration has been able to demonstrate up to now any substantiated evidence of the militarisation of the Iranian nuclear programme. However, this has not stopped hawkish forces in the US and EU sabotaging the "5 + 1" negotiations earlier this year in Istanbul, Baghdad and Moscow. At present, the US is showing no willingness to accept any solution for ending the dispute over the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy. Instead the US and its allies continue to pile paralysing sanctions on Iran which impact significantly upon the lives of the people.

With regard to the current crisis, our party believes that the aggressive and interventionist policy of US imperialism and its allies to Iran, has nothing to do with the nuclear policies of Iran, or with the concerns of the West about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in our region. If the US was worried about such vital issues, it would have objected to the covert expansion of the nuclear capacity of Israel. The main issue behind the current conflict is in fact about the strategic plans of imperialism to gain long term control over the Persian Gulf and its rich oil and gas resources.

The extensive presence of the military forces of the US in the Persian Gulf region (including the presence of the headquarters of the US fifth Fleet in Bahrain), is a clear indication of the long term plans of the US. It is clear that the claims of the US regarding the threat of nuclear weapons in the region, is nothing but a smoke screen to hide their true intentions. It should be remembered that US imperialism and its allies, are responsible for

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the current arms race in the Middle East region, and the fact that countries such as Israel and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Our party, along with all the progressive forces of the region, fights for a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East.

AS OUR PARTY HAS FREQUENTLY STATED in the past two years, the peaceful use of nuclear energy by Iran, or any other country in the region or world for that matter, is the legitimate right of that country and does not require the consent or concord of the US or any other government.

The people of Iran strongly oppose any military attack against our country. Our people still bear the deep scars and pain of eight years of war in the 1980’s, waged on behalf of and encouraged by US imperialism, to crush the young revolutionary movement in our country. The Iran – Iraq war cost both countries millions of dead and injured, especially from the youth, and also the loss of billions of dollars.

The Tudeh Party of Iran has analyzed the threat of military attack on Iran as part of the imperialist policy of advancing the plan for the creation of a "New Middle East". We have repeatedly condemned any foreign intervention in Iran under any pretext as it will bring death, terror and devastation.

Iran is currently going through a very sensitive period, in which the people's movement for peace, democracy and social justice has reached a critical stage.

The theocratic regime in Iran has proven itself incapable of offering any viable solution for the country’s economic, social and political problems. The neo-liberal economic policies of the regime are in line with the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank. The removal of

subsidies from basic goods and services, including energy carriers, has condemned ordinary people, especially those living in urban centres, to economic hardship. Privatisation has been steadily spreading to every aspect of the economy and now even parts of the oil industry are privatised.

A YEAR AFTER THE OFFICIAL IMPOSITION of the widening economic sanctions by the US and its EU allies the impact on the economy is devastating. The Central Bank of Iran on 6th August released the new figure for inflation which stands at 23% but all impartial analysts believe that true figures are much higher. According to the Central Bank’s reports in April this year the prices of daily necessities and staples have rocketed. The shortage and scarcity of raw materials for manufacturing units, due to sanctions, has irreparably damaged the livelihoods of people. Economic instability, the shutting down of manufacturing plants and the growth of unemployment has caused devaluation of the national currency. The Iranian currency is now worth 40% of its value against the dollar in November 2011. The main burden of the sanctions has been borne by the ordinary Iranian and has condemned them to economic hardship. Unemployment and poverty resulting from the sanctions is spreading..

Officially the unemployment rate is almost 15%, while the number of those officially living under the poverty line is more than 20% of the total population. The true figures are much higher. A new super rich minority, that has its roots in the Islamic clergy and has been involved in the highest echelons of the military and state apparatus, controls state power. The regime’s political, economic and

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social outlook is frighteningly backward and reactionary.

Despite having brutally repressed all progressive and democratic forces and seriously marginalised the pro reform forces within the structures of the regime, the ruling dictatorship is still grappling with a serious political crisis. As the term of the presidency of Ahmadinejad - whose government came to power following the electoral coup d’Êtat of 2009 and the brutal suppression of the votes of millions of Iranians - draws to a close, the different groups within the ruling circles intensify their manoeuvres aimed at taking over the presidency.

The internal power struggle of these ruling factions is not over a change in the direction of the highly reactionary and anti-people policy, but on how to prolong the life of the reactionary regime, resulting in more poverty and destitution for the people, denying them their human and civil rights. Our Party believes along with an important part of the progressive and freedom-loving people of Iran – that the rule of the people cannot be achieved within the context of a profoundly despotic and medieval theocratic regime.

The Tudeh Party of Iran is committed to the struggle for peace and progress and supports the struggle of the Iranian people for peace, democracy and social justice.

Confronting the current dangerous situation in the region and in particular in relation to Iran and working to win the widest possible international solidarity with the Iranian people comprises our strategic fight in this principled struggle. We are confident that we have the confidence of the forces for peace and democracy the forces resisting the tyranny of fundamentalism, terror and backwardness, the forces for socialism in our just struggle.

CAPITALISM IN CRISIS. As we have previously indicated, these developments must be seen in the context of the international crisis of capitalism, the ongoing avarice of the transnational corporations and the inability of the political classes to come up with lasting solutions. Even bourgeois democracy is under threat. In Italy an unelected government has been imposed by the EU to manage the crisis.

Greece may yet go the same way.

We have mentioned the widespread response of workers across Europe to the plans to drive down their living standards while those who own and control the means of production, distribution and exchange seek to maintain their positions. Tax evasion and avoidance by the rich is rife in the major capitalist economies yet the collusion to turn a blind eye to this continues at the expense of ordinary people.

WHAT IS CHARACTERISED as a crisis of the euro in the EU is a classic capitalist crisis fuelled by unplanned overproduction and unsustainable financial lending. Ironically, the tendency for the major capitalist powers to intervene militarily in various conflicts further drains their economies as resources are diverted from socially useful production to support military adventures and sustain the war economy.

The resistance to the crisis in Europe takes many forms. Trades union protests remain essential. New forms of protest such as the Occupy movement, UK Uncut tackling tax evasion and the indignados in Spain are developing. Activism at a community level is beginning to grow as the austerity measures bite into social programmes for the underprivileged.

This growing activism needs to be linked internationally, both across Europe and in rela-

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tion to the struggles of the peoples of the Middle East for peace, democracy and social justice.

There are many other signs of hope across the world. In South America, Africa and the Middle East progressive forces are gaining influence and in many countries are directly influencing state power against the interests of imperialism. Strong and healthy alternatives to imperialist led crisis and war are showing new ways forward for peace and democratic change CONCLUSION. The international communist and workers movement has a tremendous potential to articulate, shape and mobilise the struggle for an alternative that puts people before profit and centred around peace.

Based on its scientific analysis of world events it is helping to shape the mass movements for social justice, peace and change.

Our rich history, our Marxist-Leninist outlook and roots in the working class and people’s struggle can empower the forces of progress War and crisis are not inevitable they arise from the contradictions within capitalism and are determined by the realities of world politics. The course of history can be fundamentally changed.

tion of trade unions, progressive youth and women’s organisations in Iran is instrumental to the building of such a powerful peace movement, capable of resisting adventurism and warmongering from all quarters.

THE TUDEH PARTY OF IRAN is committed to the struggle for peace and progress and supports the struggle of the Iranian people for human and democratic rights, democracy and social justice.

The Tudeh Party of Iran will continue to play its part in both providing analysis and leading action which can result in a better world for all of our peoples.

AS KARL MARX FAMOUSLY STATED, "Philosophers to date have only interpreted the world.

The point however, is to change it."

Our organisation and analysis gives us the potential to translate interpretation into action and to play a full and leading part in supporting the international struggle against imperialism.

As far as the situation in Iran is concerned, we believe that the struggles for democracy, democratic rights, social justice and peace are intrinsically connected. The free opera-

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Communist Party of Ireland EUGENE MC CARTAN

THE CRISIS OF THE SYSTEM CONTINUES to deepen and is increasingly showing the features of stagnation, permanent mass unemployment, growing mass permanent poverty, a future in which the working class will have very few rights and many restrictions on its ability to fight back.

Most ominously, the crisis has heightened the aggressiveness of imperialism and its agents.

We are gathering in Lebanon at a time when the forces of imperialism and reaction are working hand in glove to thwart the aspirations of the peoples of this region for peace, freedom, justice, and democracy.

We are meeting at a time of aggressive imperialist interventions in a region long seen by them as an important strategic arena. They are especially determined to block the development of any form of popular democracy not under their control and any area of the globe not fully under their market mechanisms.

They are prepared to align themselves with the most backward forms of mediaeval obscurantism in order to achieve their goals.

They are using well-tested methods of formenting "civil war" now in Syria, as they did in Yugoslavia. They have no qualms about allowing Israel a free hand in its brutal and premeditated attack on the people of Gaza that is now going on.

THE UNITED STATES AND THE EUROPEAN UNION should not be allowed to escape responsibility for these crimes, for which they are primarily responsible.

Throughout the entire world the imperialist powers are pushing ahead with their strategy of military build-up and confrontation with progressive forces and the overthrowing of governments. Not only progressive governments – witness the crescendo of military threats and economic sanctions against Iran.

War and preparation for war is both a military and an economic strategy. Vast profits can be made in the manufacturing of weapons; it is

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the dominant manufacturing industry in the USA, and its development is actually written into the EU treaties. There is also the aim of bringing oil and other natural resources back under their control.

Within the European Union the crisis of the euro and the debt is apparently insoluble. The drama has been going on for several years now, with the "patching up" of the euro-zone crisis every couple of months and a new "solution" proclaimed at a summit meeting, to great fanfare, which twenty minutes later proves not to be a solution at all.

STATE MONOPOLY CAPITALISM may have reached a point where measures meant to repair one aspect of the crisis simply aggravate others, worsening the whole mess. This is a crisis of the system, of its ability to reproduce itself. Profit creation is suffering despite decades of intensification of exploitation.

There are very few areas left for capital to infest but they will try. Fictitious capital appears in more and more financial products yet still the system is in repeated crisis.

If this is so, then capitalism is in very deep trouble, because it has used the state as a means of adapting and manoeuvring and of stabilising itself since the early twentieth century.

While trying to solve the crisis at the expense of working people in the interests of the capitalist class, they are also using the crisis as an opportunity for multiple attacks on the working class. In Ireland, "austerity" is working, with a massive transfer of wealth from the people to the monopoly finance houses of Europe.

This year alone the Irish people will pay €7 billion in interest on the debt, together with nearly €5 billion to bond-holders. At the

same time the state is inflicting massive hardship on the people through cuts in public spending and employment, new taxes and levies, and cuts in wages, pensions, and social welfare. Unemployment in the Republic now stands at 445,000 of 14.8% with youth unemployment at 30%. The crisis has also produced a massive increase in emigration, now running at over a thousand a week in the Republic alone.

There is increasing popular support for the repudiation of this debt, which is an odious debt, generated by the banking houses of Europe and the Irish banks.

The gross debt is fast approaching €200 billion, while the gross national product was only €129 billion in 2011 and is decreasing. This debt is simply unpayable and the inability of the native capitalist class to find solutions to this crisis exposes them for what they are, simply the gatekeepers for foreign monopoly capitalism, and represents a strategic weakness and contradiction in capitalist rule in Ireland.

THE IRISH PEOPLE’S WEALTH is being vacuumed up into the finance houses, to prop up German and EU finance houses and the euro itself, with state companies now being prepared for privatisation under the supervision of the EU and IMF in conjunction with the Irish state.

Added to this is the fact of the British state still controls the North of Ireland; and with the North of Ireland outside the euro, and within the sterling area. Nevertheless the same "austerity" policies are applied north and south: cuts in wages and cuts in public services, resulting in rising unemployment and growing poverty.

The drive to concentrate power in Brussels is a

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long-standing strategy of the European Union. Fiscal union and budgetary controls are now advanced as a solution to the crisis. It is even claimed by some Irish politicians that such measures would make possible some slight amelioration of the burden of debt. Indeed, some such deal may be offered as a bribe.

The ruling forces at the heart of the European Union are using the crisis to complete the construction of the European imperialist centre, not only economically but politically and militarily. This programme will further strip away any real substance to national political and economic sovereignty and democracy and further remove crucial areas from pressure and influence from class struggle at a national level. It is fundamentally anti-democratic in purpose, in spite of their rhetoric.

Democracy is increasenly becoming an obstacle to modern capitalism.

We Irish communists take a class approach to the defence of national democracy and sovereignty. The consolidation of the European Union is designed both to obstruct the self-defence of the working class and to close the door to any advance towards socialism.

Fear is used to terrorise the people to manufacture their concent. We do not believe that the European Union can be transformed into anything other than an instrument of class domination and neo-colonial oppression..

which is ultimately the only solution to the massive human crisis and environmental crisis that capitalism has created.

THE GREAT CHALLENGE FACING OUR MOVEMENT is to bring together all those who are suffering the effects of the crisis of the system and imperialist aggression in a mighty popular resistance, uniting all anti-imperialist forces.

Such an awakening would inevitably open up the road for an advance towards socialism,

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Workers’ Party of Ireland G. GRAINGER

ON BEHALF OF THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE of the Workers’ Party of Ireland I would like to thank the Lebanese Communist Party for hosting this Meeting and providing the facilities to enable us to hold our discussions. It is particularly important that we meet in this region at this time where we can observe the true face of imperialist aggression, most acutely in Syria and in Gaza.

OVER THE PAST WEEK THE ISRAELI STATE has used fighter jets, drones, precision-guided missiles, tanks, heavy artillery and naval vessels to pound and bombard a small impoverished enclave, raining injury, death and destruction, targeting residential apartment blocks and journalists and killing and maiming innocent men, women and children. Let us be clear who the aggressor is here.

In Gaza the Palestinian people are again faced with bloody Israeli aggression, aided and abetted by US imperialism. Having attempted to suffocate Gaza, Israel is bombarding it from air and sea. This attack on Gaza comes four years after the devastating ‘Operation Cast Lead’, in which Israel massacred over 1,400 Palestinians. These actions are a violation of the principles of international humanitarian law and are crimes against humanity for which Israel must be held accountable.

The Occupied Territories have been under a permanent state of siege. The violation of the territorial integrity of the Occupied Territories, the denial of self-governance, the breach of fundamental principles of national sovereignty, including sovereignty over natural resources, the maintenance and expansion of illegal settlements, the construction of the apartheid wall, the restrictions on the transport of goods and the movement of people, the subjection of the entire population to power cuts as a form of collective punishment, the systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure, the impoverishment of a

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people and the suppression of Palestinian cultural identity and rights and the abuse of Palestinian prisoners are just some of the manifestations of Israeli aggression.

There can be no solution without the recognition of the legitimate and inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, the implementation of international law and respect for all relevant United Nations’ resolutions. The apartheid wall must be removed; all settlements dismantled; the refugee issue resolved based on the legitimate and inalienable right of the Palestinian people to return to their homes and property in accordance with U.N. Resolution 194; and Palestinian political prisoners released. Fundamentally, there can be no solution without the creation and recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

The US has long used its relationship with Israel to consolidate its imperialist interests and designs in the region. It is important, however, not to overlook the imperialist role of the European Union which has also engaged in close collaboration with the Israeli state, which has accommodated the occupation of Palestinian territories and sought to exonerate Israel from its oppression of Palestinians, its campaign of repression and assassination, its human rights abuses and its strangulation and invasion of Gaza.

THE SYRIAN CRISIS IS DEEPENING and becoming ever more dangerous by the day. The internal frictions in Syrian society manipulated by the imperialist powers intent upon foreign intervention have created a situation which poses a major threat to Syria, the region and the world. The arming of terrorist groups determined to undermine the state by

those same powers which are calling for sanctions against the government has brought "civil war" to Syria. In a situation reminiscent of Yugoslavia and the conflict in KosovoMetojia the US and the other imperialist powers demand that the Syrian armed forces stop fighting while the armed groups opposing the government are given the green light to launch acts of sabotage, subversion, terrorism and murderous sectarian attacks.

The Workers’ Party acknowledges the rights of the Syrian people to genuine, peaceful, social protests and just demands for economic, social and political and democratic rights but those are matters for the Syrian people. We unequivocally reject foreign political or military intervention in Syria, which is being currently planned by the USA, the EU, Israel and NATO in active collaboration with Turkey and a number of reactionary, anti-democratic monarchies in the Gulf region. The world need only look to Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and the fragmentation of those countries to understand the reality of imperialism and the myth of so-called humanitarian intervention. The Syrian people alone have the right to decide the future of Syria.

However, imperialist forces, liberals and ultraleft groups have united in a global media offensive against Syria. This has nothing to do with the rights of the Syrian people. This campaign is designed to conceal the nature and programme of a coalition of ultra-reactionary and obscurantist religious forces; anti-democratic, authoritarian states in the region; Israel and the imperialist powers and to prepare the way for intervention and occupation with a view to destabilising and neutralising Syria and its strategic importance in the region, altering the balance of power in the area and creating a region of weak but compliant, loyal

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client states. This would serve the aggressive and expansionist designs of Israel which continues to occupy the Golan Heights and the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon, and guarantee unlimited access by the monopolies to the valuable natural resources of those states.

THE US THREATS OF MILITARY ACTION AGAINST IRAN, the Turkish provocations against Syria, the increased military aid by the Obama administration to Israel, the escalating external pressure on Syria and the growing attacks by criminal terrorist elements demonstrate the dangerous role of the imperialist powers and the attempt by the monopolies to seize control of the energy resources of the region.

The intervention in Libya and the efforts to fragment that country, the co-operation between NATO and the countries of the Gulf Council, the continuing divisions in Iraq, the attempts to exploit the situation in Lebanon, the continued occupation of northern Cyprus, the increased presence of the US in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Oman are clear indications of the on-going and heightening interest of the imperialist powers in the region.

IN AFRICA, THE MONOPOLIES, supported by the US and EU, and through the role of AFRICOM, seek to exploit the wealth and resources of African nations while millions live in abject poverty and die of hunger, lack of medicine, and contaminated water.

While the peoples of the Asia Pacific region continue to suffer from the effects of previous US wars of aggression, the US continues to intensify its activities in the region. The DPRK continues to face imperialist aggression through the presence of US military bases on the peninsula and repeated provocative joint

military exercises and hostility by the US, Japan and south Korea.

The Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean and Latin America, are all targeted by imperialism with a view to exploiting their abundant natural resources and/or strategic importance.

The sustained development of militarism and increased military capabilities, the maintenance of massive armed forces and powerful armament industries, the creation of military academies training the elite of client states, the establishment and expansion of permanent military bases across the world, are all features of imperialist aggression.

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF CAPITALISM are aggravated to an extreme at the highest stage of its development. The capitalist crisis has deepened and expanded. The response of the bourgeoisie, compelled to take measures to reinforce its threatened positions, has been to impose savage austerity measures, attack labour and social rights, undermine the living standards of working people, subvert democratic freedoms, dismantle and privatise public services, increasing exploitation and deepening inequality.

Simultaneously there is a growing ideological attack encompassing a vicious anti-communist campaign designed to rewrite history and obliterate the achievements of the socialist project.

In the US the monopolies will be content with the Obama victory. It is business as usual. The field is open for the exploitation of workers by capital, socialist Cuba still bears the burden of an unjust and vindictive embargo, the Cuban patriots still remain in US prisons, and US aggression and war continues unabated.

The ideological struggle has sharpened and

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current developments bring yet new conditions for building class consciousness and preparing workers for struggle. In these circumstances it is the task of the Communist and Workers’ parties to strengthen the struggles against imperialism, the workers’ and peoples’ struggles for social, economic rights and the struggle for socialism.

Across the world governments have adopted and implemented stringent austerity measures. These policies which impact on virtually every area of life - employment; social protection; health; education; and the provision of public services have dealt a vicious blow to working people. But the world has witnessed mobilisation and resistance in the form of strikes, occupations, mass rallies and protests, often in the face of state violence and repression. The heroic resistance of workers in Greece, the struggles in Spain, Portugal, Italy and France and the mobilisation of workers in Britain and Ireland demonstrate that resistance and a fight-back is possible.

real experiences of building socialism, sharing experiences and co-ordinating activities between our parties, actively participating in the people’s struggles and turning the principle of socialist internationalism into concrete acts of solidarity and articulating the case for socialism and workers’ power as the only rational and humane alternative to the barbaric system of capitalism.

INTERNATIONALLY, THE PEACE MOVEMENTS, with the assistance of the World Peace Council, continue to make the case against imperialist war and intervention and have developed a strong anti-imperialist content. The struggle against the development and use of weapons of mass destruction remains a vital demand in the struggle for world peace.

STRENGTHENING THESE STRUGGLES means building and strengthening the militant revolutionary party, ensuring it is equipped with a strong and coherent ideology enabling it to define the concrete tasks and methods of struggle in accordance with the objective conditions in each country, raising class consciousness among workers, defending the

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Party of the Italian Communists (PdCI) FAUSTO SORINI

THE CRISIS OF CAPITALISM continues to FIRST OF ALL, we would like to thank, with a real spirit of solidarity and gratitude, the Lebanese Communist Party, that in this critical phase of aggravation of the imperialistic offensive in the Middle East area, assumes the cost of hosting this international meeting.

We welcome the title and the setting of this meeting, whose central point regards the What Is To Be Done?, that is the way in which each one of us, in his own national context and in a coordinated manner on regional and national level, can contribute to address a real escalation of the imperialist interventionism, as it has developed over the last year. And can contribute to support workers’ and peoples’ s rights.

We all know and feel the same way about the basic reasons of this escalation: _ The depth of the economic system’s crisis that has structural basis and that questions the actual order of the capitalistic domination in the World, centred on the three major imperialistic powers (USA-EU - Japan); _ Mutation of the power balances in world-wide and geo-strategic level from which issue new state powers not subordinated (with different intensity and determination) to the rule of the imperialistic triad (BRICS and their related, nonaligned countries, and Russian-Chinese cooperation, that plays a central role as a counterweight to imperialism): this trend points to a decline of the actual imperialistic leadership, starting from United States, that are trying to stop their decline relying on military superiority still overpowering on the rest of the world, working – through the NATO instruments – with the major European imperialistic powers.

DO NOT WE HOPED FOR ROMNEY’S VICTORY at the USA’s presidency or the French reelection of Sarkozy, and neither we want to

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give up with a differentiated analysis of the different trends that work, so even contradictorily, in the capitalistic world. But we do not think, differently from the hopes and the illusions that a part of the world and European Left had cultivated or cultivate still today, that the Obama’s re-election or the Holland French election could be able or could propose to reverse in progressive and peaceful sense the events’ course and the growing neo-imperialist aggressiveness of the Euro-Atlantic axis.

The Obama’s re-election at the USA’s presidency doesn’t imply any positive correction of the international framework; as a matter of fact Romney has immediately ensured his honest and constructive cooperation in the national interest (in fact Republicans in the House hold a solid majority, that can heavily influence President’s decisions). And this fact is expected to shift further to the right the policy of the second Obama’s term over the first.

The first 4 years of the Obama presidency, even though it had been favourably welcomed by large sectors of the American and international progressive world as bearer of a new progressive change, had destroyed hopes and illusions. They’ve been dramatically dashed – some examples – with the aggression’s war against Libya, with the incipient military encirclement of China, with the military interferences in Syria (an undeclared war), with the threats of war on Iran, with the huge increasing in military spending (that grew by 13% only in the last 6 months and that have contribute to the GDP’s growth by 50%...), or with the incompetence (or impossibility, or nonwill) to set real limits to the financial capital’s dominance in the national and international Affairs, that is confirmed as one of the deepest causes of the world crisis.

In a situation exacerbated by a world economic crisis of the capitalistic system that has its structural bases, Obama will have to deal with the internal critical situation, with a very high internal public debt, and with a foreign debt which is the highest in the world; and he will have to deal with a stagnant economy which is at recession’s risk.

Continues to loom the risk that the economic and politic decline of the principal imperialist power could induce its most reactionary components to resolve the contradiction by using the overwhelming military superiority that USA retain over the rest of the world; and to try to get out of their own economic crisis "manu militari", and to regain their own world leadership, even at the cost of a world conflict.

As the title of our meeting correctly stresses, the fight against the imperialistic aggressiveness escalation confirms itself as one of the priorities of Communists in this phase.

To confirm this fact, we can look at the new dramatic and brutal assault of the last days against Palestinian people by Israel, in the complete absence of reactions by USA or EU (and rather these countries and the NATO system confirm their military cooperation with Israel). At the same time the undeclared war against Syria goes on, as well as the threats of aggression against Iran and Lebanon, or as the military interferences in the Sudan now split into two; and these interferences are likely to cause an enormous conflict in all over the region, with serious dangers of expansions outreach. In the meantime, Obama’s presidency confirms the decision to move 60% of American naval-air potential and over half a million soldiers in the Asiatic-Pacific area, with the logic of China’s encirclement; and NATO confirms the decision of the so-

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called "missile shield" in anti-Russian function.

We would like to be proven wrong, but concerning the struggle for an alternative foreign policy, against the aggressive NATO and imperialistic plans, against the presence and the utilization of the NATO basis on the national territory, against aggressions (yesterday Libya, today Syria), the peace’s movement of the European countries is today in a deep crisis – certainly in Italy.

There are many objective and subjective reasons: _ European workers and peoples are focused on the defense of themselves from the social massacre promoted by the EU and by national governments; _ A media disinformation’s level that has no historical precedents; _ A weak guidance of many PPCC and syndicates (that have described Milosevic, Saddam, Gheddafi and, today, Assad, as bloodthirsty monsters dedicated to genocide…).

We believe that the movement against war and imperialistic interventionism can revive in the European countries only if we create, first of all, a cooperation, also in the union mobilizations, between the fight against war and the struggles on the most important social matters for the masses, for example by introducing the military spending reduction theme in unions platforms.

As is known, Italy and its American and NATO military bases, play a very important logistic role in the aggressiveness system against the peoples of the euro-Mediterranean area: _ In the past in the war against Yugoslavia, Iran and Libya; _ Today in its support to the American

AfriCom system (that plans the USA’s military intervention on the African continent), in the military cooperation with Israel, in the politic and military interferences against Syria, frustrating in this way the Italian traditional policy of friendship with Palestinian people and other Arab peoples. And in the meantime the war effort in Afghanistan goes on.

From the point of view of the foreign policy too, the actual "technical" Italian government appears to be the worst and the most Atlanticist government of the Republican Italy. The selection of Monti as premier , Di Paola as Minister of Defense, Terzi as Foreign Minister, has been supported by Washington thanks to the close relations that exist between the Quirinale and the White House, consolidated during the Libyan conflict.

We do not conceal from ourselves and from you the serious weakness in which lies today in our country the array of the Communist, anti-capitalistic and anti-imperialistic powers and their dramatic fragmentation. Despite the hard work of these last years and despite the process for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party, begun in Italy with our last Congress, we have to face very hard social difficulty. In Italy, unlike in other European countries, the worker’s and the class’s struggle is very weak. This fact leads us to have firm loyalty to principles, but also big tactical flexibility, and a minimum of correspondence between saying and doing, if we want to be credible in the eyes of the peoples.

EU: this is not the Europe we want Almost all of European peoples are victims of the harsh offensive that aims to increase the exploitation, to destroy the socio-economic

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and democratic rights of workers and peoples, that conquered them through years of struggles, and to impose a greater degree of wealth’s concentration and centralization, specially through the supranational imposition of economic and political domain’s relations in the service of capital power and contraries to the sovereign right of the peoples that can decide independently their economic and social development’s ways.

We reject the thesis of many of the European center’s leaders, who think that we can get out from the crisis by reinforcing the EU political and economic union on federalist basis, delegating even more spaces of sovereign right to some supranational super-powers, even if – as some motivate – this fact would be accompanied by a reinforcement of the European Parliament’s powers.

In the context of the actual power’s and class’s balances in this area of the world, in the context of this EU, dominated by the multinational capital and by financial oligarchies, subordinated to NATO and to the hegemony of the most influential imperialistic cores – when in consultation, when in competition with American imperialism, but in the same reactionary logic – reinforce the political and economic union of this EU means to reinforce our opponent of class and the main responsible of the war and social massacre policy that our people and our country are enduring.

We instead have to reinforce, also in Italy, the state elements of the defense of the sovereign right and of the Parliament from the reactionary attack: defense of the sovereignty of a non-liberal Italy, that can play again the important role of the State in the economic, the important role of democratic and progressive directing of the production, according to

the spirit and to the words of our Constitution.

And we have to reinforce a foreign policy that can avoid any kind of neo-imperialistic military interventionism abroad, in accordance with Article 11 of our Constitution.

We do not oppose in principles to the strengthening of regional integration’s processes, if they intend to defend (as happens in Latin America, or in the Euro-Asian area) the people’s interests and contribute to build alternatives to hegemonic domination of imperialism. But this is not the case of EU. We are not thinking to any self-sufficient retreat (that would be out of the historical processes, in the globalization age), but to a logic of consultation and economic, political and currency cooperation with BRICS area and with non-aligned countries, and with all that powers that in the pan-European region (inside and outside the EU) are working for a continental and global cooperation, alternative to the imperialistic and neo-liberal one.

In the European Union we work – with all available and converging powers – to counteract the actual hypothesis of revision of the Treaties that, leaving every element of social cohesion and solidarity between strong and weak areas, accentuate social inequalities and macroeconomic asymmetries, frustrate every democratic people’s participation to the European construction, further reduce the sovereignty of the weakest states, and pretend to introduce by law – with punitive measures for offenders – coercive and unpopular measures of reduction of the state deficit (as the fiscal compact), that would have, as consequence, the destruction of what is still social State.

European peoples are reacting, in different forms and measures from country to country, to the EU policy of social massacre. The devel-

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opment of the struggle’s movements (in which there is been the general strike of November 14, a very important moment of coordination of the national struggles on regional level, specially in Portugal, Greece, Spain and to a lesser extent in Italy), and also the total advanced of the communist and Left powers in many elections (Spain, France, Greece, Belgium, Czech Republic, Holland…) even in their differences, overall express popular desire for a progressive changing, even if they produce very different political and institutional results.

We hope that, even in the diversity of the respective strategic approaches and of the ideological profiles, Communists and all progressive and Left powers can elaborate a unique and converging response, with a tactic base of action’s unity, on even partial targets. A context of division and contraposition between the progressive, anti-liberal and peace powers doesn’t profit to popular interests. It weakens our fight.

Avoid EU system diversifying economic, political and international financial relations We consider as a good example the experience of Cyprus. The Cypriot government, led by the comrades of Akel, faced with the need of a loan amounting to approximately 4 milliard euro, as well as to address its request to the financial European institutes, has also ask to other extra-EU countries as Russia and China for bilateral agreements that have not halter conditions in terms of interests, bonds and claims of interference in the internal politics of the involved countries, with methods others than those used in EU and in ECB, as we have seen in the Greek extreme case, but also in the Italian Monti’s government.

This logic affects the sovereignty of the indi-

vidual countries; sovereignty that in the name of the "political Europe more integrate and federal", the strong powers of this neo-imperialistic and euro-Atlantic EU, with the consent of the respective national middle classes, would like to make even more subordinated to the interests of the dominant centers of the European capitalism (other than "Peoples’ Europe!").

No one has to be misled by a certain "Europeanist" rhetoric that sometimes influence also the Left without any critical sense: this EU "more political and integrated" that various Merkel, Holland, Monti, Cameron discussed in Brussels, with the blessing of President Obama, it’s an Union in which, as clearly writes the principal newspaper of the Italian middle class, the Corriere della Sera, "Brussels can rewrite the budgets of the individual States"; that’s why "the Financial of a State that has disordered accounts will be examined in Europe even before landing in Parliament". And this "would be de facto rewrite in Brussels if not convincing, and with the worth of hefty fines if it doesn’t fit".

What Cyprus’s experience teaches, independently from NATO and from the heavier conditionings of this EU to which it also belongs, is the need of a diversifications of our economic, political and financial relations inside and outside the EU, without losing sight of the fact that the BRICS and other big emergent powers, like Russia and China, unlike the strong European powers, grant loans without pretending to interfere in the domestic economic policy of the debtor countries: rather establishing cooperation’s relations mutually beneficial, in the complete respect of the respective sovereignties, as well as should be in a new world democratic order of cooperation and peace. And this is for sure not the one that

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is prefigured by the so-called "Euro-Atlantic community" of which Italy and its government are submissive.

THE ITALIAN SITUATION. The hyper-liberal and anti-social requests of the EU and of the European Central Bank (ECB) produce everywhere – and specially in countries in crisis like Italy – a "exception’s state" tending to suspend democracies, to invalidate Constitutions, to deprive of authority Parliaments and States, to cancel their autonomy and their sovereignty.

Peoples are suddenly governed by new and external powers, and the EU presents itself increasingly, in this phase, as a sort of absolute monarchy that extends its domain on the whole European people. The "exception’s state" dramatically impregnate our country and Monti’s government represents the coherent development and achievement of this process.

The end of the Berlusconi’s government and the composition of the new Monti’s government has not happened on the base of a normal parliamentary dialectic, as should constitutionally be. But has happened because of the decision of the Republic’s President that, became interpreter of the strategic interests of the big Italian and European middle class, in full and agreed tune with the national and supranational strong powers (UE, NATO, USA presidency, Vaticano, Confindustria…), has de facto deprived Parliament of its authority, the outgoing government and the political parties, all without exclusion – considering them inappropriate to represent in this phase of deep crisis the polished and coherent business committee of the middle class – and he entrusted the task to an ex European commissioner, Monti, asking him to create a gov-

ernment of technocrats in the service of the policy dominated by the dominion groups of the EU and in full tune with NATO, and imposing de facto to all the parties to support it.

The last year of the Italian policy has been so determined by a regime of austerity and reduction of the public debt, and hard marked by anti-social and unfair tracts, that has unloaded the weight of the crisis principally on the medium-low social classes, that has produced recession and unemployment’s increase, that has heavily hit the social State and the pension system, and that has produced a rigid alignment of the foreign Italian policy to the Euro-Atlantic instructions (as we can see, for example, in the open support to the undeclared war against Syria).

This situation has been made possible also by the subordination (partly desired, partly suffered) of the Democratic Party (PD) to the government’s policy (not without contrasts and internal contradictions), that in turn has influenced the behavior of the CGIL (the principal Italian syndicate), whose opposition to the most unfair measures of the government is been weak and oscillating, and has not emanated all the struggle’s potential of the labor Italian movement, as instead has happened in the occasion of the many general strikes and of the great mobilizations that have characterized in this year, until the "European" strike of the November 14, countries as Portugal or Greece, where certainly the social conditions are tougher, but where also stronger and more determinate are the CCPP and the class’s unionism.

It is no coincidence that the struggle’s day of November 14, when CGIL had proclaimed the general strike of 4 hours, has produced in Italy a serious mobilization specially by students, that has been repressed. And the mobilization

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of a grassroots unions, combative even if still widely minority.

Emerges, therefore, the priority role, in this phase, that the union class’s movement can and has to play in the clarification, organization and mobilization of the worker masses in strong struggle’s actions, strikes and manifestations in defense of the wage, of the work’s rights and against the unemployment.

And an increasing coordination of these struggles at a regional level, helps also to determinate a sort of virtuous contagion of the more advanced situations on the more underdeveloped ones.

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE ITALIAN PD, and the ones that are connected to CGIL, have produced tensions and political struggle also inside these organizations that in the Italian context play a very important role in the directing of the masses, from which would be wrong been auto-excluded: also because, due to the weaknesses and to the divisions of Communists and of Italian class’s Left, today they are heavily weakened in its influence on the masses. And this is exacerbated by the fact that, for the first time in the Italian history after the fall of fascism, the Italian Left has been excluded – in the last 5 years – from every kind of parliamentary representation and from the access to the media system, at risk of not surviving as power able to play a role not purely testimonial.

In three months in Italy there will be the national political elections. And on the basis of what is been said, it is not a coincidence that most of the political debate in Italy in this phase of election eve is characterized by the confrontation between two prevailing positions (that characterize also the center-left powers, specially PD): between the ones who

present a solution of continuity (Monti-bis) and the ones who, instead, propone a correction on the left that, even if doesn’t question the Italian capitalistic system’s basis and its international alliances, hopes for a regime of stronger social equity, and a foreign policy more independent from Atlantic extremism (this is the case of some sectors of the Italian social democracy, inside and outside PD and CGIL). That is: a dialectic between who wants the return to a political life based on the centrality of Parliament and of the popular sovereignty, and who, instead, (Monti-bis) prefigured the continuity of a technocratic management chosen directly by the strong powers of the Italian and Euro-Atlantic capitalism, that in reality deprive of authority and climb over the popular sovereignty (the socalled "government of the bankers").

We believe that, also concerning the electoral tactics, Communists and progressive powers in Italy do not have to alienate themselves from this dialectic of positions, and – while maintaining their full strategic and ideological autonomy from all the social democratic positions in their different variants – they have to search all possible tactical convergences to isolate and destroy the most extreme and Right’s positions.

And to have the possibility of affecting the internal dialectic of PD, whose electorate and base of militants (most of them deriving from PCI) still consider itself, and it is open to positions and values of the class’s Left.

We have to work in this way to obtain some partial programmatic results that can be able to affect the life’s conditions of our people; and – last but not least – to return to Parliament a communist and anti capitalistic presence, that is often essential also for resuming a political initiative appropriated and not wit-

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ness in the country and in the struggles. Our Party works to stop this situation for the next 5 years.

National diversities in the structure, in the balances of power between social classes and political forces, in the institutional superstructures or in conditionings determined by particular election laws and laws of public funding of parties – very different from country to country – can imply for Communists tactical decisions very differentiated and changeable, for which they account, sovereignly, to their peoples, without any kind of external interferences. And that will be valued on the base of the facts and of the results.

UNION IN THE DIVERSITY. We are sincerely worried about the divisions that still today characterize in Europe, differently from other areas of the world, the relations between Communist Parties and class Left’s forces.

The discussion honest and conduced with fraternal spirit is always useful, and even better necessary. But if we want to stimulate and develop the national struggles against EU’s social massacre and against NATO’s policy, ideological and strategic and tactical diversities must not be an obstacle to common struggles on partial and shared objectives, widely felt by our peoples; we have to develop the union in the acting of a large front, able to affect situation. As well as has happened in the joint initiatives of November 14th. Especially if we want that European Communist Parties are able, in this phase, inside and outside EU, to be the continental heart of an unitary initiative that advances in a credible and not merely propagandistic way to European peoples the matter of Socialism, the matter of the Socialism’s prospective in this century. In this historical phase in which great dangers for

workers and peoples and for humanity itself coexist with factual progressive and also revolutionary possibilities of development.

It seems that, in this phase, the European regional context is not the epicenter of the global revolutionary process, and that the struggles of Communists and progressive powers, especially in European countries, play a role essentially defensive and of forces’ accumulation. In other countries and areas of the world there are different realities, and others that can become different in a short-term.

The unequal development of capitalism implies also the unequal development of revolutionary processes.

We believe that a socialistic turn is not on the agenda of the areal context in which we work, as a short-term prospective. We work for intermediate and partial purposes that move in that direction, not losing sight of a global context that could have unforeseen developments, and with an incessant work of growth of the socialist and communist conscience in the struggles’ and peoples’ avant-gardes.

If we will be able, together, to obtain results in that direction, it means we have made a contribution to concretize at least in part the watchword that is the title of this our 14Æ international meeting: «Strengthen the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness, for satisfying peoples’ socio-economic-democratic rights and aspirations, for socialism».

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Lebanese Communist Party DR. KHALED HADADAH

THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE, the heroes of Gaza and its children, were not satisfied with the surprises of the enemy. The enemy which thought that the resistance in Gaza was normalized with the visits of the princes... Gaza was not satisfied with surprising them too but also it made their speeches scum. Today we have to confess that Gaza put its friends, and supporters, in a position where they have to ask themselves about the value of their support to it till now... today we have to confess that Gaza put us in front of great responsibilities. These responsibilities may not amend the minutes of this Meeting, the 14th Meeting of the IMCWP, but for sure Gaza has put us in front of the necessarily to develop our view to the international current situation and specially the Arab one. It puts us in front of responsibilities toward Palestine, the people of Palestine and the issue of Palestine.

The issue of Palestine, to us, is not just the issue of one people even though this people is paying the price and holding the main responsibilities to protect it. From the outside shape it is the issue which has been preparing for it from the period between the two world wars from Balfour's declaration which was the crown of W.W I and announcing the emergence of Israel, the occupier in the end of 40's in the last century. The issue also expressed two stages from the development stages of the international capitalism, from arriving its highest imperialistic stages, during W.W. I, to treating it crisis and moving from Europe to U.S.A during the W.W. II. Also our international current, from the beginning of this issue was with the issue regardless of the results of this support... with October Revolution, and from the documents of Cesar's rule, Lenin uncovered the imperialistic conspiracy toward our region. He uncovered Sykes – Picot agreement, Balfour declaration... and W.W. II put the world in cold war situation, which is the continuity of the international struggle in a new form. And again

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peace, socialism, and the communist movement were with the Arab issues and mainly with the issue of Palestine...

What I have mentioned was not to confirm historical events... but the goals, in specific, was to confirm that today Palestine and its issue, in the present international capitalist crisis, will be, our region is included too, one of the main battle fields for the struggle of international capital powers and monopolies with the imperialist powers this is level of the conspiracy on the interests of the people and world peace...

On the other side it is the challenge that we face to regain the light and affectivity of our solidarity with this issue and with the people of Palestine as being part of this international struggle. Even I am on the edge of saying the Palestinian issue must be the issue of every country in the world.

Yes as an internal issue of every country because it is linked to what U.S.A is planning for under the slogan of "the New Middle East" and we named it the U.S.A copy of the second Sykes – Picot agreement, the first consumed its missions. The first one stole the wealth of the Arab world, created the Zionist state, today with the capitalism crises with its advanced stage, stealing on wide and brutal rage and again the issue of Palestine and protecting of the Zionist state are in the heart of the new imperialist plan...

The plan to be successful it must hit all forms of resistance, Lebanon in 2006, Gaza in 2008, Gaza in 2012... all are one case... also the success of the plan requires renovation to U.S.A allies. That was the heart of Obama's speech in Cairo, when he specified the coalitions under the leadership of U.S.A and its followers from Europe, up to Turkey and family – states which are ruling in the Gulf. This coalition con-

tains what is called "Moderate Islam".

THE MAIN CONDITION FOR THIS IMPERIALISTIC PLAN to be successful is eliminating the issue of Palestine and destroying the rights of the Palestinians to build their own independent state and its capital Jerusalem related to the right of every Palestinian to return to his land.

To achieve this goal, the success of the plan, the follower states have mission of creating alternative struggles which have sectarian characters and this way the perpendicular division will be the dominating one on the sectarian or ethnic bases as alternative to class divisions and struggles on national, regional and international ones.

IN THE LAST TWO YEARS, the official Arab political systems arrived to the peak of being followers to the international neo – liberalism.

The effects of the capitalism crisis is clear on these countries the level of corruption increased, internal robbery, attacking the social and political rights of the Arab citizens, high levels of oppression, ignoring the human right, increasing the gaps on social levels, increasing the number of the people who are below poverty line, accumulation of public debts, increasing the taxes on the middle classes and below. Adding to that the biggest part of this political system arrived to national betrayal through enrolling in the imperialistic plan, whether on having neutral relations with the enemy or having diplomatic relations with it, or conspiring, on individual level or conspiring institutions, like the Arab League... to eliminate the issue of Palestine or creating new alternative struggles to achieve more divisions based on sectarian bases.

In brief the Arab political systems are systems

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of corruption, poverty and national betrayal.

These are the internal factors and elements for the popular uprisings in the Arab world, in the previous years. They are the movements of the Arab people to face the targets of the imperialist project in the region. At the same time to face the official Arab political systems.

This is the general character of the Arab's uprising, which took many forms in the field.

Because the main character finds its roots in the class struggle, as left movement and mainly as communists, we have to be with these uprisings which started from real revolutionary case, regardless of its direct results.

This movement cut the path of forming the U.S.A plan and that pushed U.S.A to move quickly in forming its coalition which is hostile to the Arab people and to interfere directly with the follower countries, specifically in the Gulf, Turkey, and the political Islam which are also linked to it. The goal of this interference is to absorb these movements which arrived to non return stage as in Egypt and Tunisia, also interfered directly to suppress the movements as in Bahrain and Libya and to divert the path of these movements. Adding to that creating conditions for creating civil war through mobilizing their internal allies, which are named political Islam forces, whether neutral or fundamental, supporting the oppositions with weapons, and trying to marginalizing the national and democratic resistance which refuses to militarize the opposition and foreign interference. This is what happened in Yemen and now happening in Syria.

THE LEFT AND COMMUNISTS POSITION was not the same toward what happened. Some of them see that the internal factors of the struggle and the situation of the Arab people (not the political systems) are serving the

goals of the U.S.A project. They insist on explaining what is going on in one term "the conspiracy" without seeing poverty, oppression...

Some in their analysis forgot the U.S.A project and they were satisfied with the internal factors and sometimes described them as standards to explain what is going on...

IT IS THE TIME, and this is the mission of our meeting to have unified reading, or at least homogeneous one, to what is going on....

Based on the integration of facing, class reading, to face the integrated imperialist project and its allies. That would make us able to form confronting plan in this critical transitional stage which could be described as long confrontation between the rights of the Arab people their interests and the imperialist project which is trying to divert what is going in our region to be in its benefit and saving plan to face its constructive capitalistic crisis on the international level.

From characters of facing which we see as necessity: n Considering the uprisings as facing the Arab political systems which are linked to the U.S.A project. The slogans "freedom", "justice" and "national dignity" are clear expressions which show the class character of these uprisings. n Arrival of political Islam, which are ally to Gulf states and in the framework of the U.S.A project, to power must not push us to take cautious position toward the uprisings but it must form a motive for the left and communist forces to establish their class and popular coalitions to continue the second stage from these uprisings to face the impotence of these formed systems. n In respect to Syria, and due to the specific

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nature of its crisis, it is good to consider that the national negotiation is the correct way to face the conspiracy. That needs to consider that the military solution is not only impotence but also serves the imperialistic project whether this military solution came from the political system side or from the opposition. From this point came the initiative of the Arab left to form a lobby, made out of left and democratic forces in the opposition and in the government, which work for the sake of civil democratic Syria where social justice domains and to keep the position of Syria in facing the U.S.A project.

Considering the issue of Palestine as the base of any facing position to the U.S.A project. Also using all forms of movements, demonstrations, besiege the Zionist embassies in the world, supporting the Palestinian resistance and the people of Palestine to face the new U.S.A –Zionist aggressions on Gaza and to face the betrayal positions of the Arab league and the political systems which controlling it.

Reviewing the present framework of the IMCWP. Making membership to our meeting an act and voluntary decision to the Marxist parties which find themselves in the same political – class position with us.

We are not a "company" but we are a voluntary union for the workers' and communist forces to face the international capitalism. The voluntary union does not need conditions to weaken its front and its coalition framework.

IN THIS INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL SITUATIONS Lebanon is living conditions of change to be the lab of imperialistic attacks... the Zionist attacks continue on land and air

and threats started to arrive to the wealth that exists on the Lebanese coast... in a parallel way the bourgeoisie class still holding the sectarian system which based on the early division in the 20's of the last century. The situation, due to the efforts of this political system, has arrived to continuous civil war where the bourgeoisie class divides the country and its wealth among itself. Due to this division Lebanon became more follower to the regional and international forces on political and economic levels.

The most dangerous thing this system created is the system of asking foreign powers to solve internal issue and that justifies the national betrayal. This made the position toward the resistance as part of the political struggle... on economic level the crisis reached its peak, where public debts are about 60 billion dollars while the population is not more 4 millions... the crisis arrived to the bases of it economy and started to depend basically on bank sector, real estate sector... and this economy is mostly affected by the international capitalistic crisis...

In front of what our country is suffering from, threaten its existence destroying its economy, more suffer to the working class, more losing to its social security and permanent threat from the Zionist state our party is having various struggles to represent all the dimensions of the working class.

THE POSITION OF THE PARTY from these issues is the connection among the levels of the national struggle, political and social ones, and mainly the concomitance of its continuous struggle, even though with varied capacities, to practice its role in adopting the methodology of resistance against the enemy and also it struggle for the democratic change

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which became a necessity to save the unification of the country and save its resistance and its achievements and mainly to defend the interests of the working class and its achievements... if the bourgeoisie class has chosen the form of the sectarian system the need to change this system toward secular democratic one is for the sake of the working class in Lebanon... in this framework, last year and still going on, was the year of popular movements the "syndicate coordination committee" which enlarged its horizon to enroll in addition to education sector the public sector employees and also working on establishing an independent democratic syndicate movement as an alternative to the official trade union which supports the government in facing the working class...

Parallel to that the party is working with democratic forces and independent persons to form mass movement to face the present civil war, which hidden sometime and other times exploded. This movement will start soon.

At the end Dear Comrades hope we are on level of securing the political and logistic atmosphere to make the meeting a successful one and wish you happy and comfortable stay in our country.

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Communist Party of Mexico Diego alberto Torres

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the Communist Party of Mexico expresses its recognition to the Communist Party of Lebanon for the organizational effort for the 14 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties.

For assuming the preparation of the International Meeting in the region where imperialism most dangerously shows its tendency towards war, where the inter-imperialist conflict has developed the most. At the same time we recognize its long history of resistance.

In previous years, as reflected in the final declarations and numerous interventions, the international communist movement anticipated the inevitability of crisis, clarified the nature of the crisis, its nature as a crisis of overproduction and over accumulation. Now the MCI is witness to the general offensive of capital against labor in several countries, as a tendency of imperialism that seeks to stabilize itself.

At the same time we have the collective experience of militant and mass struggles of the working class, as well as direct involvement in multiple fronts of peoples' resistance to interventions and aggressions. All this should help in the search for a way out of the crisis favorable to the peoples, a way out towards overthrow of capitalism, of market, of imperialism.

This forms part of the legacy of the international communist movement. Communists have always gone to the roots of problems and have never been content only reporting symptoms of contradictions, in this we differ from other movements. We are the heirs of Marx, Engels, Lenin, we carry the tools of scientific socialism, and we are responsible for bringing this to our class facing the march of imperialism towards barbarity.

IN THE WHOLE WORLD IMPERIALISM, monopoly power, seeks that the working class pays for the crisis devaluing labor, looking on this basis to increase the extraction of surplus value. Through the extension of the working

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day, the looting of pension and retirement funds, cuts in social expenditures, cancellation or labor rights and conquests, the liquidation of collective bargaining and unions, the extreme limitation of popular consumption, etc. All these sacrifices make clear that we live in the historical limits of imperialism, which is showing signs of rapid decay.

Facing this we have seen full of pride and joy how the working class rises up, places itself back in the center of the class struggle and destroys by practice the theories that talked about the end of the working class and its vanguard parties. Examples are the more than 30 general strikes in Greece since the crisis erupted, the powerful general strike in Portugal, the militant and mass struggles in Spain, Europe joint mobilizations, strikes in Nigeria, Sudan, etc. The planet is shaken under the steps of our class to retake the place that is rightfully theirs.

IN MEXICO THE EXPRESSIONS OF OPPOSITION to these attacks that cross the Mexican working class are nullified due to the lack of class independence of the overwhelming majority of unions. The very low rate of unionization is another major factor that lays in front of us our main task.

This weakness of the response class has its limits. Now with the recent labor reform, which is the most devastating blow against the value of labor in almost a century, the discontent has reached a point barely containable. Practically the rights which were won with the struggles of the early twentieth century until the early 1930's have been lost. This decade -1930’s- being the last one in which a general strike would explode. That was certainly a turning point, because the working class lost its independence and the historic

Communist Party of Mexico was handcuffed when we started speaking of a supposed "progressive character" of the government of C_rdenas, of the front with the national bourgeoisie, etc. The communists in Mexico have paid a high and cruel price for those mistakes; we have had to suffer for just over 80 years the state control of the major unions. Rest assured that we have taken steps to challenge that control and insert ourselves at work centers. We do not want to repeat mistakes and it would be very regrettable if a brother party had to go through a similar scenario.

The rights that have been canceled are those obtained with hard struggles, and this cancellation throws us back to that scenario. Already, protests against this reform have sparked and the struggle is organized workplace by workplace. But now it is possible to avoid making the same mistakes, to rebuild the labor movement with its own class character and to link immediate struggles with the question of power. We have done absolutely everything that was in our power to confront this aggression. Tens of thousands of workers have known our callings and were able to trigger actions in various regions of our country.

WITHOUT RENOUNCING TO POLITICAL WORK among the service employees and other sectors of workers, for us the most important political front is that of the industrial workers.

We have obtained partial successes this year.

New detachments were integrated to the struggle with militant actions. New mass fronts join the Party. We have begun building unions where there were no unions and party organizations by workplace. Over this same period of success we have been subjected to attacks and to farces. Already for a long time

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we have had to take appropriate methods for our work among the factories to face the existing harsh repression. But novel mechanisms are being exploited by our enemies. A number of virtual farces have been set up through the web seeking to sow confusion on the Communist Party at both national and international scale. The party newspaper "El Comunista" which is the continuation of the previous organ "Nuestro Tiempo", and which has just organized the celebration of the 18 foundational anniversary of the Communist Party of Mexico, also has faced the emergence of another newspaper that tries to hijack its name and identity. Our party will never subjugate itself, will never submit, will never give up the struggle to take its policy to the working class, we are confident that we have the support of our brothers parties of this International Meeting to reject these mechanisms of confusion which do not help in the class struggle.

LINKING CLASS STRUGGLES FOR DEFENSE OF LABOR and union rights is now dialectically inseparable from the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism in its imperialist stage and to the building of socialism-communism. We take steps to ensure that the Communist Party's relationship with the unions is strengthened nationally, with visible work, and to strengthen in that direction the WFTU. We think it is a necessity for the communist parties to specialize cadre in the working class and trade union movement especially in the crisis period.

So, we think and we insist that in front of the crisis and the measures taken a change of management in the frameworks of capitalism itself should not be placed as a way out. One thing is to fight for the people's demands,

fight for the cancellation of the sacrifices, to stop barbarity, to defend the value of labor, to reduce working hours, etc., and another thing is to sow among the working class confidence that their interests are safeguarded by another faction of the bourgeoisie, for co-management of capitalism. To place the alternative to capitalism is socialism. Incidentally, in itself a transitional phase where from the first moment labor struggles to abolish market relations, labor takes a directly social character, where concentrated and centralized means of production are socialized, etc..

In brief: The workers can live without capitalist, we can meet our needs without them, factories belong to us!

ON LATIN AMERICA we would like to point out briefly that we also yearn for the dream of fraternal union and friendly cooperation of our peoples, that we are in solidarity with the Bolivarian process, in recent years we have been the political organization that has had the biggest mobilization in solidarity with Cuba as the friends of the Cuban revolution in our country can witness. But that, however, the nature of what union of our peoples we build, the results it sheds will be determined by the nature of the social relations of production within each country that joins. We warn that imperialism is a category that refers not to a country but to a degree of development of capitalism characterized by the existence of monopolies, the predominance of the export of capital, the merger of bank and industrial capital, the distribution of territories and markets, as well as the forming of imperialist agreements.

It is an anti-dialectical approach to assume that capital is developed unilaterally. The bourgeoisie actually existing in our countries,

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the bourgeoisie that accumulates in their hands most of the social wealth of most Latin American countries, the bourgeoisie that is the direct enemy and oppressor of millions of American workers, regardless of color or nationality, is a fully imperialist bourgeoisie.

We know that maintaining capitalist relations is maintaining capitalist accumulation, which supposes keeping the extraction of surplus value. We know of the existence of powerful monopolies based in our region, we speak of TELMEX, EMBRAER, CEMEX, the VALE DO RIO, BIMBO, etc., The American oligarchs that have not undergone the socialization of the means of production and exchange that they concentrate and centralize. So we will not know the role these monopolies will play amid regional alliances?

Today everyone understands the failure of the project of a social Europe. That social democrat promise became today the barbarous nightmare that grinds the working class and unleashes an assault against the rights of all peoples. Lenin long ago, at about the slogan of the United States of Europe, had warned the character either utopian or reactionary in such slogan.

We fully understand the need of the revolutionary processes that are open in Latin America to crack the positions of the monopolies based in the United States. In Mexico, the Communists can’t assume the position of seeking to convince our big bourgeoisie of better market conditions. What we assume is to seek friendly cooperation with other peoples having as base the overthrow of monopolies, the destruction of their economic and political power. We fight for socialism because only the economic laws of the socialist mode of production serve the modern needs of the people, strengthen the rights and socio-eco-

nomic aspirations of the peoples.

One last issue that we would like to address is something that had already been established in the past final statement: "The ruling classes develop a multi faceted attempt to trap the people’s discontent through changes in the political systems, through the utilization of a series of pro-imperialist NGOs and other organizations, through attempts to channel the people’s discontent into movements with allegedly non-political or even with reactionary characteristics."

These movements respond to a generality at an international scale, the unfolding crisis hits not only the positions of the working class and promotes the aggressiveness of capital, but also makes the middle strata to rise, to mobilize as they see their lives ruined, even many of their sections are dragged to a hasty proletarianization and impoverishment.

BEING THE MIDDLE STRATA which gives it its nature, the role this phenomenon plays in each country is determined by other factors and not by what it declares of itself. It strictly depends on the conditions of the general class struggle in the country, firstly the level of escalation of the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the struggle between these two polar classes is what places the middle strata in one or another place. Other factors include the level of organization of labor, the more or less backward ways by which the bourgeoisie exercises its domination (ie less or more democratic), the depth of the crisis that has been reached, the functionality of the spaces of social mediation, etc.

This occurs, for example, in a country with maximum delay in the forms of domination (military and autarchic regimes) and media-

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tion, with relative dispersion of class organizations where the phenomenon gained the support of many oppressed layers of society, triggered rebellions and played a progressive role.

However, immediately the international imperialist organizations, especially NATO, have applied their military and political experience (the velvet revolutions) to exploit the presence of all these movements to get rid of regimes that favor rival imperialist centers.

In advanced countries, where the crisis has reached great depths, where it has cut the maneuverability and hence the weight of traditional social democratic parties decreases, where the bourgeoisie finds itself facing a combative working class, where there are strong or fast-rising communist parties, these movements have not triggered rebellions whatsoever, the frightened petty bourgeoisie has retreated to reactionary positions, to anticommunist positions. It has taken refuge in utopian thesis that talk about democratizing the social life that is dominated by large monopolies in the very frameworks of capitalism.

This is the case of the movement of the squares in Greece, the indignados, etc.

So we have decided not to waste time or great efforts with temporal work among the middle strata that emerge in cyclical protest, but to dive into the working class. The so called 15M Revolution, the movement #132, Ocupy Wall Street, etc., express socially the middle strata affected by the crisis, but the only alternative to the crisis will come from the workplaces, affecting the generation of surplus value, confronting the interests of monopolies, with sector and general strikes. The duty of communist parties is to organize the working class, the proletariat. Prepare them for overthrow, for the seizure of power, to work daily

towards this objective.

A RECURRING DETAIL is that being unable to nucleate through large workplaces the middle strata relies heavily for their summoning on opinion groups convened in the space of socalled "social networks". Communist must not be guided by, or absolutize electronic media, the so called Revolution 2.0 is a perverse myth, it's actually implemented by the mechanisms of imperialism. For the communist parties it is a need to have their printed publications, with the newspaper as an agitator and central organizer, as a link to the work among the masses. Of course they can use electronic media as a means of propaganda, but it must be considered that what is important is the content and the organic nature of those behind the messages, and that printed material is irreplaceable as an organizer, that nothing replaces direct agitation among the class.

Specifically, under the slogan that has called us we propose: To form concrete platforms that raise labor and trade union movement, indicating that the solution is a rupture and overthrow of capitalism and the building of workers' and peoples’ power.

We believe that the WFTU, WFDY, WIDM should be further strengthened, and steps be taken to rebuild the International Union of Students, and other instances of international action.

We support the peace process in Colombia; from the international communist movement we should openly support the initiative of the FARC-EP. We express our full solidarity with Palestine. In Mexico the Communists have been the first who organized the first protest against the savage aggressions of the Israeli state, and

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we have joined other callings of solidarity.

We propose to promote an international day of struggle on May Day, for the rights of workers and the people against exploitation and monopoly power, for socialism. To articulate this through Solidnet and the Working Group of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties.

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Communist Party of Nepal (UML) MADHAV KUMAR NEPAL

LET ME FIRST TO EXTEND WARMEST GREETINGS to all of you in this august gathering of leaders of communist and workers' parties around the world. I, on behalf of my party – the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) – and my own, would like to extend many thanks and appreciation to the Lebanese Communist Party for organizing this important meeting of communist and workers' parties of the world under the theme of "Strengthen the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness for satisfying people’s socio-economicdemocratic rights and aspirations for socialism". I think this is a timely taken initiative on the very relevant theme in a beautiful city of Beirut, which is famous for this region’s cultural life, renowned press and theatres. And also according to the Lonely Planet categorization in 2010, the city is also one of the ten lovely cities in the world. I am really happy to have an opportunity to visit such a beautiful city of this region.

THIS KIND OF ANNUAL MEETING is very important to the communist and workers' parties of the world which not only provides a common platform to the communists and just-loving people of the world but also provide an opportunity to forge alliances and solidarity for world peace and empowerment of working class. It consolidates solidarity against the imperialist aggression and exploitation. In this forum we have also an opportunity for mutual exchange of our views, experiences on ideological and other political matters and to develop and strengthen networks among ourselves in regional and global levels.

Distinguished Participants! As we all know that people of the world, specially the weaker countries, are facing new challenges posed by some of the hegemonic behavior of powerful countries. Such countries and their peoples have been the victims of growing gap between the rich and poor - the countries and

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between the countries, degradation of environment and climate change and its increasing negative impacts, international migration, increasing crimes and terrorist activities. To tackle these growing challenges, we need to develop common understanding, strengthen mutual cooperation and develop regional and global initiatives and network among the communist and left parties, progressive organizations and working class people around the globe.

The peoples of the developing and least developed countries are facing serious problems relating to the basic needs such as food, education, health and shelter. Their living is further compounded by scarce of drinking water, electricity, sanitation, and degraded environment. On the other hand, the world military spending has been increasing year after year. According to an estimate, world military expenditure in 2010 is reached $ 1.63 trillion that is 50 per cent increase since 2001. There are mainly 15 countries with the highest spending account of 81 per cent of the total. Among them, the USA is the main country which leads the current trend with the 41 per cent of total expenditure. The US has spent $ 1 trillion dollars in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. It is reported that if the countries are ready to spend little under $ 200 billion dollars to permanently end the world hunger.

Therefore, there is a need to launch a campaign at the international level to create awareness and public opinion against increasing military expenditure and for the world peace and development. It is necessary to ensure social justice, democracy and equitable development. These endeavours could help achieve the aspirations of working class peoples around the world. Thus establish-

ment of a solidarity network by this meeting would be very relevant.

THE OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE IN THE CONFLICT of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and death of thousands of innocent people is an example that has shown the forms of intervention and aggression. I believe that such intervention cannot contribute to peaceful resolution of conflicts rather further intensify the problems and deteriorate the political and social environment. International bodies, specially the UN, in my opinion, should play a role to minimize conflicts and any sorts of outside intervention against sovereign independent countries.

TODAY, THE GLOBAL CAPITALIST FINANCIAL SYSTEM is facing a serious crisis. The ongoing economic crisis in the West European countries and stagnation of American economy are the manifestation of this crisis. The deepening crisis in the capitalist system has proven that the world capitalism cannot be expanded and even would not be long lasted as of its current structures and form. It is poised to be revised and changed and that change should be led by the working class people in each and every country in the world.

I WOULD LIKE TO BRIEFLY STATE about the ongoing political situation of my country Nepal. Since last six years, after the people's movements of 2006, we are passing through a political and social transition. It is a transition from a unitary state to a federal state, from a monarchy to a republican system and from Maoists launched 10 years long violent conflict to a peace process. Within this period, we supposed to draft a new constitution through a newly elected Constituent Assem-

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bly and hold parliamentary election. However, the Constituent Assembly failed to deliver the new constitution despite its 4 times extension and it was dissolved by the ruling parties led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) without promulgating the constitution. Election of the Constituent Assembly was held in April 2008 which had probably been one of the most inclusive democratically elected bodies in the region where one third of the 601 members were women and also the representation of minority groups and Dalits.

It was the very CA which had decided to abolish the 240 years old monarchy and declared Nepal as a Federal Democratic Republic.

Currently, we have almost completed the task of integration and rehabilitation of the Maoist Combatants and managed the weapons stored at the containers. It is according to the Comprehensive Peace Accord signed between the Nepal Government and UCPN (Maoist) in November 2006. Now about 1400 Moist Combatants are in the process of integration in the Nepal Army.

As being one the least developed countries in South Asia, it was widely expected that with the completion of political transition after the drafting a new constitution, the country would enter into a new era of peace and development. The much needed economic development and social transformation processes are to be carried out. It was the aspiration of the Nepali people.

that unless we genuinely address and resolve the national problems, it would be impossible to institutionalize democracy and make it sustainable. My party is in the view of that the new constitution must ensure the political, social and economic rights of the people in general and rights and aspirations of marginalized communities in particular. At the same time we are for a stable, united and prosperous Nepal based on the unity and harmony of the Nepali people. Now we are for a fresh election and government of national unity to resolve the ongoing political crisis of the country.

COMRADE CHAIRPERSON! Lastly, but not the least, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and gratitude to the organizers of this meeting for extending warm hospitality to us making excellent arrangements.

I thank you all for your time and attention.

MY PARTY- THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEPAL (UML), have been trying its best to forge ahead according to the aspiration s of the Nepali people. However, due to the irresponsible policies and activities of the UCPN (Maoist) and their allies, the people's aspirations are left unfulfilled. My party believes

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New Communist Party Netherlands ALEJANDRO DE MELLO

On behalf of the NCPN, New Communist Party of The Netherlands, I would like thank the Communist Party of Lebanon for this important initiative and the organization of this meeting.

"HANDS OFF OUR INCOME, our benefits and pensions, our jobs, our social services". "We do not pay for your crisis", "For social progress and socialism" these are the slogans of our party at this moment. Only in a socialist society real changes are possible and not temporarily is what we are writing in our party newspaper Manifest, and on our website and in many declarations and discussions.

TILL NOW THE RULING CLASS in the Netherlands hesitated to solve their crisis by taking measures in a Greek, Portuguese or Irish way.

But in the Netherlands now we have a new government after the elections of last September. Liberals and social democrats did win the elections, very much influenced by the mass media and mass institutions of the ruling class. These parties are the leading political forces and they established a new government. Both parties will continue to support the European integration and neo-liberal politics. That means more poverty, more unemployment and more grave social and financial problems for the working class.

The extreme right-wing party PVV, the so called anti-Islamic party, of Mr Wilders did get less votes than before but is still the third party. Promising the people solutions for the crisis that electoral party without members still have lots of support from a big part of the working class. Wilders is waiting for the growing socio-economical problems in the country.

Now his attacks on Muslims and his xenophobia has been changed in attacks against the EU. Saying his party is fighting the elite, being an anti-system-party. But be sure these are words only. He knows the new attacks on the living standard will come from the EU. So for

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him the EU is the new main enemy to collect as many votes as possible. Parties as the Dutch PVV of Wilders and others right-wing parties in Europe are doing the same: using the capitalist crisis for their own interests and confusing the working class. We all know however what fascism means and where it always leads to.

Many people that voted two years ago for the Dutch social democratic party - the so called tomato party SP - went back to the other social democratic party PvdA (Party of Labour).

The leadership of the SP took a moderate political position to try to be part of the government. At the end a large part of their newly won electorate did not trust the modernists.

They went back to their former party, now that young leaders came into power using leftwing talk and spreading new illusions. Another disappointment for this part of the working class will follow soon.

The working class in our country in general is still waiting for what is going to happen. The living conditions are, for a large part of the population, still high enough to wait and see.

Poverty, unemployment and attacks on social security are though growing. The majority of the people however is still hopeful and has many illusions that the crisis will finish and will not knock at their own door.

THE GAP BETWEEN what our party says and what the majority of the people thinks is wide!

It's not only a question of better and more activities of a communist party also the masses should be prepared better to understand what the communists say, like we have seen in other countries.

Don't forget that it's only since a few years that Capitalism in our part of the world, the former colonialist states, is showing the peo-

ple it’s real face. Only a couple of years ago the majority of the working class in the Netherlands - in one way or another - trusted the capitalist way. Socialism was not an option.

THE NCPN TAKES PART in the four-party talks of DKP, KPL, NCPN and PTB. These parties met recently for the seventh year. There are many similarities between Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. But there are also substantial differences between the four countries and political differences between the four parties, despite the fact that the countries are very similar and all are part of the northern Europeans countries. This makes comparisons complicated and even more between the struggle in the Mediterranean countries and the northern EU states, as well in the American, Asian, and African continents. Although the commitment of the different communist parties all over the world in the struggle for peace, justice and socialism reminds inspiring us to continue, also in The Netherlands.

So it is still complicated to make joint analyses and organize joint actions, however the need is growing. The importance of conferences like this is only underlined by this fact.

Step by step we need to work on 'unity in diversity' to defeat the common enemy. That process will last for a very long time. Rapid changes do not seem to arrive yet. It seems, moreover, that European capital, step by step will be successful in resolving its contradictions and postpone the consequences of the systemic crisis for the system itself with the help of social democracy. At least temporarily.

THE CONFUSION AMONG THE POPULATION in the Netherlands is increasing. The belief in the possibility of capitalism is slowly eroded, but

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without broad-based alternatives are available. Socialism as a future model is hardly an option in our country. On the contrary: The term socialism is so discredited that it is not easy to use for mobilization. Not yet anyway.

Everything now is done by the ruling class to continue and strengthen this discrimination process. A large scale of falsification of history in the Netherlands is taking place. Fascism and communism are putted as similar in their propaganda. The struggles and successes of the former Communist Party of the Netherlands against German fascism are played down, the successes and achievements of the Soviet Union and other countries of the real existing socialism are being embezzled or made negative. The mistakes magnified.

In the Netherlands these processes are being exacerbated because the former CPN-leadership, followed by a large proportion of the members decided in the early eighties to liquidate the party because they thought in the Netherlands a communist party would no longer be needed. The living standard was high enough. The gap thus created was politically filled by the SP, that grew rapidly after it changed its political and ideological position from a Maoist party to a social democratic party and also by a number of Trotskyist parties and groups. It took a long time to rebuild a new communist party. Only since about five years there is stability in the party and growth with serious young cadres. Although the ideology of a great part of the youth in our country is characterized by a high degree of individualism, the need for collective stands is growing day by day. Capitalism however tries till now successful - to put a crowbar between the interests of young and old workers.

THE NCPN FOCUSES ON the trade union

struggle and the struggle in neighbourhoods and factories and workplaces. Previously, we also took part in the national debate about war and peace, but since no one in the peace movement in our country except us wants to put the role of the NATO in the middle of the discussion and we are currently unable to lead or organize such debate, the party now is forced to focus only on the socio-economic struggle. The developments in this field are very progressing.

The struggle against and within de Dutch trade union movement about their role in the Dutch society today is one of the main questions in the Netherlands. Now capitalism is in deep crisis in Europe and the USA, the position and power of the trade unions and the communist parties is extremely important. After 30 years of Dutch social partnership, class peace and social democratic leadership in the trade unions many members are asking for a change in behaviour of the reformist leadership. No more deals but struggle is the new wave, now the crisis is deepening and the people have to pay the bill. It seems the tendency within the labour movement aimed at a militant trade union movement instead of class peace is on the winning hand. Also this process, however, is not going to be ended in the short term.

For the party now remains first to produce many explanations and ideological struggle with Trotskyites and reformists. The main task for the party consists of the daily struggle of the party to maintain and strengthen the Marxist-Leninist education of its own members and internal and external ideological struggle. The NCPN concentrates on the struggle in the factories and the organized vanguard of the working class within the unions. The political and ideological attempts

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to connect with a growing number of young people without a future within the capitalist society is in the middle of the struggle.

More than ever we have to recognize: workers of the world unite!

THE NCPN RECOGNIZES the need for international cooperation of communist parties. We are strong supporters of common meetings like this one and we will continue - as far as possible - participation in international meetings of communist and workers' parties. It's of absolute importance to be united. It's not enough to be strong in your own country, we have to find more and more effective forms of cooperation. Of course the class struggle in our own countries indeed is the basic task, but real concrete and continuous cooperation is becoming more and more important. Exchange of opinions is very important but not enough. We have to produce common analyses and find ways for common actions. We suggest to organize also on specific issues.

Very important for us now is for instance the question how to organize in neighbourhoods and workplaces. Which concrete experiences can we share? How to overcome difficulties in these activities? How can we work as communists in an anticommunist environment but with people that have growing problems with their work and living conditions?

Our class enemies already have strong tables to coordinate their power and interests. In the EU strong tendencies are developing to strengthen the capitalist integration. Step by step the United States of Europe is growing, although there are huge differences in the way specific capitalist groups try to reach this goal, based on differences between capitalist groups and different states in Europe en the world. Anyhow we have to exchange views, make common analyses about weaknesses and strength of world capitalism today.

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Communist Party of Norway SVEND HAAKON JACOBSEN

MANY THANKS TO THE LEBANESE COMMUNIST PARTY for hosting this 14th international meeting of Communist and Workers parties in Beirut, the first meeting on Arab soil, in the midst of imperialist bloody assault on the Syrian and the Palestinian peoples. The developments in the region express the intensity of the imperialist aggressiveness and the sharpening of the inter-imperialist competition for the acquisition of new markets and the exploitation of the natural resources in the region.

USA, EU NATO AND THEIR ALLIES will do as in Libya; bring down the Assad government with the aim to weaken Iran as well. They work in close cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who have been pouring money, arms and even importing international jihadists into Syria. Turkey hosts Sunny-Islamist militias working openly within the refugee camps, recruiting warriors, in violation with international regulations. CIA and MOSSAD and Turkish intelligence are training militias for the "Free Syrian Army" in military camps in Turkey. Furthermore as stated in the joint "Statement on the conflict in Syria", imperialists and their corporate media label the pro-imperialist forces as "revolutionary", and thereby try to justify the imperialist interventions in the Middle East in the eyes of the people. We the communist and workers parties condemn this, and call on all real revolutionary and peace-loving forces and the peoples of the region to raise the struggle against the imperialist aggression in Syria and the threats against Iran.

Communist Party of Norway and other peaceloving forces demonstrated against the Israeli terror in Gaza on the 17thof November in front of the Israeli Embassy in Oslo Norway, and released following statement: "STOP THE ZIONIST ISRAELI OCCUPATIONAND GENOCIDE IN GAZA, AND THE US, EU,

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ISRAELI AND NATO WAR-PREPARATIONS IN THE MIDDLE-EAST! COMMUNIST PARTY OF NORWAY condemns the Israeli military bombardments of the Palestinian peoples in Gaza, the murder of Palestinian leaders, the bombing of civil Palestinian governmental buildings, and the bombing and killing of civilians and children‌.. The US president and the Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide supported the Israeli right to attack Gaza. The so-called "red-green" Social Democratic government and the bourgeois parties aggressive political positions in this case is supported fully by the USA/Israeli imperialist orchestrated "news" in the corporate, and state television medias.

The Norwegian peoples are taught anti-Syrian, anti-Iranian and anti-"Hamas terrorist" propaganda. This is part of the psychological warfare, to make the Norwegian people accept the USA, EU and NATO planned war against Syria and Iran.

In Norway only the Communist Party, and the peace organization Norway for Peace are antiimperialist and anti-NATO. Our Communist Party and Communist Youth have a large and important task to educate progressive people learn to understand the intrinsic crises of the Capitalist system, how imperialism works, and NATO as the military tool of USA, EU and western imperialism is combatting the upcoming new Economic powers. Without basic understanding of capitalism of today; imperialism and the intrinsic crises of capitalism, it is very difficult to understand what is going on in the world, and that another world both is possible and necessary, that capitalism is the problem, and socialism is the solution.

Norway is one of the richest countries in the

world. The state has no debt. In a small nation of 5 million inhabitants the state owns a huge investment fund of 500 milliard Euros, and the fund is increasing due to high oil production and prices. At the same time more and more people are getting poor, and the gap between rich and poor has risen considerably. Because of social dumping, part time work, and work through private companies renting out deputies has become more regular, working conditions and incomes are deteriorating.

Harder working conditions, pressure on efficiency has thrown many workers out of their work position, many around the age of 50, and many younger people with only minor disabilities. The official statistical unemployment rate in Norway is 3 %, but in reality when you include laid off workers living on only small state allowances, it is much higher. Workers, who are laid off, receive after 52 weeks of sick leave, allowances from the state much lower than their salaries. The expressed "morale" is that people out of work shall not receive reasonable allowances from the state to exist, because "then they will not work". "People must learn to get up in the morning," and so on.

Norway is not a member of the EU, but is associated through the EEA agreement. Despite our sound economic position, both bourgeois and Social democratic governments acknowledge and incorporate all EU directives into Norwegian laws, and thereby attacking the national trade union tariffs and the democratic rights of the workers and the people. The goal of the monopolists and finance oligarchs are the same; to reduce the price of labor power, to improve monopoly capital profits.

The "more radical" trade unions fight hard against social dumping in Norway.

The only way out of the capitalist crises for the

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working class and the people of Norway is the same as in any other capitalist nation, by rupture and not by assimilation. We struggle against the monopolies and their power. The opposition must be organized on the grassroots level of the trade union movement, building and developing the people`s alliance between the working class and the social forces with objective interest in fighting the monopolies and capital, with stronger participation of women and young people. The direction must be towards the overthrow of the power of the monopolies.

ALSO IN NORWAY we experience the challenge of a large xenophobic political party, who is efficiently serving as a splitting and dividing force in the working class, and give strong support to monopoly capital. Norwegian Intelligence were preoccupied with Islamists and Communists in their "fight against terror", when the Neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik bombed the Norwegian Governmental buildings and murdered 77 people mostly youth, in cold blood 22nd of July 2011. Even after this terrible attack, Norwegian intelligence is even more occupied by Islamists, and less by the violent Neo-Nazi radical right wing.

Norwegian Intelligence obviously is working as an integral part of imperialist NATO policies, and not for the security of Norwegian citizens.

75-80 % of the Norwegian people are opposed to the EU and only 15 % support it.

Thorbjørn Jagland General Secretary of the European Council is at the same time President of the Nobel Peace-price Committee, situated in Oslo, Norway. The former Social Democratic Prime Minister managed together with the right wing bourgeois members of the committee to award the Peace-price to the EU, to try to raise the prestige of the imperial-

ist organization in the eyes of the Norwegian and the European people.CPN will take part in a broad demonstration in Oslo 9th of December 2012 against this monstrous award of the Nobel Peace-price to EU. The most important fight for the working class and the people of Norway, is to win the fight for dissociation of Norway from the EEA association to EU. Radical trade unions, and the grassroots of LO (Trade Union Central) are working hard to win a majority for the stand, for Norway to renegotiate the EEA agreement, on the LO Congress in May 2013. The dissociation of Norway from the EEA will be a decisive step for the working class and the people, on the road to overthrow the power of the monopolies in Norway.CPN strength in the labor movement of Norway is far behind. Active participation in this fight is strengthening the position of the Communist Party of Norway, who in 2013 will celebrate her 90 year Anniversary fighting for the interest of the working class and the people.

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Communist Party of Pakistan DR, SHAFIQ AHMAD

IMPERIALISM, after the success of counter revolution in USSR, has been persistently escalating its aggressive policies. Finance capital has acquired a more decisive role as compared to other forms of capital and is not ready to respect the geographical boundaries.

Capitalist globalization is the order of the day.

Under developed and developing states have been losing their economic and political sovereignty due to escalating onslaught of imperialism. Four main tactics, conditional financial assistance, economic and political sanctions, imposition of dictatorships, and military adventurism are being used to reshape the world according to imperialist designs. The paradox of this globalization is that, the economic gap among individuals, countries and nations is on the rise. The wealth of under developed and developing countries is being ferociously stashed out to developed countries, in the form of payment of interest on loans, the profit earned by multinational companies, deposit of financial assets of privileged classes of these countries in banks of developed countries and through investment in stock exchanges. The Recent past has witnessed direct and indirect military intervention by imperialism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Middle-East. The hand behind the so-called Middle East spring is not at all hidden, but imperialism turned naked first in Libya and now in Syria. The same religious fundamentalist and obscurantist forces that are declared enemy no. 1 in the war against terrorism are being used to destabilize the Syrian government. It is the duty of communists and workers parties to help the Syrian people in their struggle for remaining safe from the monster of fascist forces. A unified voice should be raised from this platform in support of Syrian people.

THE RISING AGGRESSIVENESS OF IMPERIALISM, on one hand has, as much adversely affected the economy of under developed and

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developing countries, that much, on the other hand has plunged the capitalist world in most serious systemic economic crisis. The efforts by capitalist countries to wriggle out of the crisis have grossly, being failed, so far. These unsuccessful attempts, however, have multiplied the suffering of major parts of world population. The worst affected are the working masses. Their economic and democratic rights have been targeted in almost entire capitalist world in the name of austerity measures by slashing their rights and social privileges covered under social security regulations. Cuts in salaries and allowances, layoffs and retrenchment on large scales have made the life of working class miserable even in developed countries, what to speak of under developed countries.

THE WORLD ENERGY RESERVOIRS and its transportation routes remain the central point of imperialist policies. USA and NATO have announced their withdrawal from Afghanistan, till December, 2014. A greater number of American troops will, however, remain stationed there until, 2024. USA also intends to keep five permanent military bases in Afghanistan to safeguard its economic and strategic interests in the area. The entire region will, therefore, remain a friction point between USA and other powers of the area, especially Iran, China and Russia.

the people against the imperialist onslaught.

A wonderful resistance has been offered by the people of Palestine and Lebanon against the imperialist base in the area i.e. Israel. People of Iraq and Afghanistan have forced the imperialism to retreat from their lands. The success of leftist parties in Latin America is a symbol of resistance against imperialism. The independent policies of Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador have provided a moral strength to the people, struggling against imperialism and their local lackeys.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF PAKISTAN is part of this international struggle of world communist and worker parties for satisfying the people’s social economic, democratic rights and aspirations for Socialism, We have been working in extremely adverse conditions to mobilize the unprivileged sections of the society, students, women, minorities, peasantry and working class. Communist Party of Pakistan is thankful for the continued moral support being extended to it by all its fraternal parties.

Long Live Communist Fraternity Long Live Marxism Leninism Down with Imperialism

COMMUNIST AND WORKERS PARTIES have put up a remarkable resistance against imperialism both at peoples and intellectuals levels. Marxist Leninists parties have been continuously analyzing the capitalist evolution and have been driving correct conclusions to counter the imperialist strategies. No doubt a glorious history of struggle is being written by

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Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930) SALVACION M. CORPUZ

THE PARTIDO KOMUNISTA NG PILIPINAS (PKP-1930, the Philippine Communist Party) salutes the Lebanese Communist Party for hosting the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, while mounting their valiant struggles against the continued Israel threats of aggression, as part of the US-NATO-Zionist plan for a "greater Middle East".

We regret the inability of our Party to participate to this very important and historic event, but we send our warmest fraternal greetings to all participants of this International Meeting.

This international meeting is being held at a time when capitalism finds itself in the highest imperialist stage of its development, manifested in the deepening systemic crisis of capitalism. Faced with such chaotic economic crisis, European and other capitalist governments which are unable to bail out their own banks and investment firms are forced to accept IMF/EU control of their economies, thereby suffering from large amount of debt and resorted to cut employment levels and benefits, and other social services: in education, health, retirement and other social security outlays in exchange for bail out loans, greatly affecting the ordinary working people.

A MAJOR DISGUSTING ASPECT of the IMF "facilities" for the crisis-wracked European capitalist system is the use of the scarce resources of developing countries to reinforce the "casino" capital of big western banks which are prodding the troubled capitalist governments in Europe.

In 2010 (with the earlier worsening of the capitalist crisis in Europe), the Philippines silently participated as a creditor to the IMF’s Financial Transactions Plan and Use of Borrowed Resources (FTP-UBR) Facility, by contributing $330-Million. And early this year, the present Aquino government is even hyping up the latest Philippine contribution

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amounting to $500-Million to these IMF special facilities, trumpeting that our country now has sufficient reserves, allowing it to loan out supplementary funds to the IMF. However, the claim that the Philippines had become a creditor nation is just a big farce, because a country with an outstanding national debt equivalent to $120-Billion can hardly claim to be a real creditor country.

It is nonsensical and callously insensitive for a developing country to loan out to European capitalist bosses, through exploitative IMF "facilities", its scarce financial resources --even while it cannot provide sufficient classrooms or even school chairs for its elementary grade students, even while it cannot provide sufficient care for calamity victims, and even while it cannot provide basic medicines at government hospitals.

The prevalence of poverty and destitution in our neo-colonial country cannot be denied.

Given this situation, the offering by our government of our scarce financial resources --as loans to the greedy capitalist bosses of distressed industrial powerhouses in Europe --can only be considered as criminal braggadocio.

But imperialism is not interested in alleviating the lives of even their own people, and instead it is focused on their greed for huge profit which lead them to escalate their global aggression. The PKP-1930 is in conformity with the view that imperialism will continue in trying to impose its domination in each country and over the globe seeking to impose direct control over the world's natural and energy resources, to annihilate the peoples’ sovereign rights, and to submit the entire planet to the exploitation and interests of big capital.

On the Escalation of Imperialist Aggressions. The escalation of imperialist aggressions could clearly be seen in the militarist and war-mongering offensives of US and NATO against the Arab peoples--- the deposing of old puppets to give way to new ones in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen ; the savage war to re-colonize Libya and to re-privatize her oil resources ; the propping-up of the archaic monarchies in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar and Oman ; the intensification of divisions and battles within Sudan; the recently launched Israeli threats of aggression against Lebanon and its people; and the whipping up of a war against Syria and Iran in an attempt to finally realize the US-Israeli plan for a "New Middle-East" that aims to perpetuate the humiliation of the Palestinian and other neighboring Arab peoples.

IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN, US imperialist aggression could clearly be seen in its continued destabilization plots against Cuba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and the other countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA); in the UShatched coup d’etat against the democratically-elected president of Honduras (Jose Manuel Zelaya, in 2010), and the democratically-elected president of Paraguay (Fernando Lugo, on June 22, 2012); in the building up of new US military bases in Colombia; in the continued US control over Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal and Guantanamo Bay; in the continued British control over the Malvinas Islands; and in the continued US blockade against Cuba, and the continued incarceration and holding in the USA of the 5 Cuban anti-terrorist heroes (the "Cuban-5").

Near our ASEAN region, US imperialist plans include the strengthening of its military pres-

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ence in South Korea (including the building of a new base which would despoil the natural beauty of Jeju Island), the halting of previous plans to reduce US forces in Okinawa and other parts of Japan, and the building up of more US military facilities in Guam as well as in Australia.

An Asian version of NATO is in fact being developed, with Japan, South Korea and Australia serving as the regional acolytes for aggressive US plans to "contain" the PRoC. The military "encirclement" of the PRoC is the objective of the new "pivot", or increased redeployment of US military forces, towards the Asia-Pacific region. For this purpose, new arrangements are being pursued for the constant visit (or increased stationing) of US forces in Pakistan and India, the build-up of US facilities in Diego Garcia, and even the introduction of US forces into Mongolia.

ON THE ISSUE OF THE SOUTH CHINA SEA. Contending territorial claims over different parts of the South China Sea have now figured in the USA’s present anti-PRoC campaign. The Philippines, the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, Malaysia and Brunei are among the ASEAN countries which now feel threatened by the growing presence of PRoC patrol vessels in the vast swath of ocean territory that the PRoC claims to be within the "9-dashed line" drawn up by its Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD).

Even while all claimants to the islands and waters of the South China Sea are signatories to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), not all would want the dispute to be heard by the UN’s International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. The moves of the present Aquino administration in the Philippines to involve the USA in the dispute will not be a solution to this dispute, but

will only be a bigger problem for all the claimants.

Of course we know that US forces will always act in the interest of US monopoly capital, and particularly of US oil and other exploration and exploitation companies. US imperialism would want to have a foothold on the resources of the South China Sea, with or without the territorial dispute between the PRoC and concerned ASEAN member countries.

We hope that all parties to the various territorial claims over parts of the South China Sea will refrain from any action that could lead to the escalation of tensions, and to imperialist intervention.

CALL FOR STRENGTHENING THE PEOPLES’ STRUGGLES Against International Capitalist System and Imperialist Aggressions, For Socialism.

Many millions of people throughout the world are now dying with the growing famines, poverty, unjust wars instigated by the imperialist countries. Thus, we see the heightened militancy of the working masses not only in the poverty-stricken Third World countries, but especially in the highly developed capitalist countries.

In particular, the PKP-1930 salutes the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in their consistent struggle against the EU and NATO, and their militant action aimed at making the capitalists, and not the working people, pay for the crisis, play a key role in the process of raising the consciousness of the peoples of Europe and also worldwide.

Further, the PKP-1930 notes the growing prestige and clout of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) which together account for half of the world’s population, investments and productive ca-

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pacity. The cooperation and integration of their economies, and their growing detachment from ties with the USA and other imperialist countries, is leading to the creation of a new (although still capitalist) counterpoise to imperialism. The BRICS countries can, together, compete formidably with the USA and other imperialist countries in the economic arena, although this can lead to imperialism’s greater recourse to militarism and war as the economic crises in their home countries will thereby become even more insurmountable.

Of great significance in the struggle for socialism is exemplified by Cuba. Cuba remains a prime example of successfully maintaining socialism despite economic sabotage, sanctions, assassinations plots and invasion threats by US imperialism. Cuba has become the beacon of anti-imperialist struggle, not only in the Caribbean and Latin America, but throughout the world. With Cuba’s example, a new integration of economies along socialist lines is being forged in Latin America.

Lastly, the crisis of capitalism demonstrates the historical limits of this system. The working class, which does not have the means of production at its disposal, has the power to reverse today’s situation as the "grave-digger" of the capitalist mode of production. This historic revolutionary role of the working class has, as its precondition, that it should be organised as a class for itself. The strengthening of its revolutionary party is necessary for the working class to become conscious of its mission, to shape a revolutionary strategic lead for the implacable class struggle against capital.

tance in our present struggles against capitalist exploitation and imperialist aggressions towards building socialist society.

Down with imperialist aggressions!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

THE CONTINUOUS ADHERENCE to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, to the principle of proletarian internationalism is of great impor-

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Portuguese Communist Party ANGELO ALVES

WE CONVEY FRATERNAL GREETINGS from the Portuguese Communist Party to all Parties present as well as to those who, not being able to attend, have sent greetings and contributions to our Meeting.

Greetings that we extend in a special way to the Lebanese Communist Party, the host of our 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, appreciating its effort and persistence in ensuring the success of this Meeting and also expressing our solidarity with its difficult struggle, waged in difficult and complex conditions, for peace, against sectarianism, for social progress and socialism..

We bring greetings from the Portuguese Communist Party, a Party that battles against the violent offensive by big capital and the European Union. An offensive which having in the implementation of the "memorandum" by the Troika – or as we call it, a pact of aggression against the Portuguese people – its current instrument, is already reflected in the highest unemployment rate in the democratic history of our country (23.5% in real terms); in a poverty rate that already exceeds 20% of the population; in the country's debt spiral, the destruction of our economy and the handing over to foreign capital of almost all strategic sectors, as well as in a brutal exploitation through cuts in wages and pensions that could reach around 30% next year. An offensive which is the most violent anti-social, anti-democratic offensive after the 1974 April Revolution.

But we also bring greetings from a Party that is connected to its people, does not yield, does not give up the struggle. The Portuguese workers and people, together with our Party and the class-oriented trade union movement, are waging important actions of struggle which will consolidate the social front of anti-monopoly forces that is necessary to achieve a rupture with decades of right-wing policies and to build the alternative. The Gen-

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eral Strike of November 14th, one of the greatest general strikes ever held in our country, convened by the class-oriented trade union central of the Portuguese workers, CGTP/IN, is the most recent example of this.

A STRUGGLE TO WHICH OUR PARTY has devoted all its forces. Dynamizing, mobilizing, intervening, explaining and trying to build the greatest possible unity of our people in defence of their rights and aspirations, in defence of the achievements of the April 1974 Revolution, in defence of the independence and sovereignty of our country, free from the pressures and interferences of the European Union and big capital. We do so by stressing every achievement of the workers and every retreat by the government or capital that is imposed by the struggle, while at the same time taking part in the battle of ideas: showing that "to resist is already a victory", that every small victory is a step on the road towards an alternative, that there are no inevitabilities and it is possible, by asserting a patriotic and left-wing policy with an opposite class nature to that of the right-wing policy, to materialize an Advanced Democracy, the present stage of the revolution in Portugal and an integral and indissociable part of the struggle for socialism in our country.

At the same time, and believing that to achieve an alternative policy for Portugal it is first of all necessary to strengthen the PCP at various levels, we are also fully engaged in the final preparations of the 19th Party Congress, which will be held during the coming weekend. A Congress which has already the confirmed presence of numerous delegations of Communist Parties, progressive and left-wing forces from all over the world, many of whom are here today – and to whom we wish to

thank for such an expressive demonstration of solidarity with our struggle. Our Party is also and already engaged in the commemorations of the centenary of the birth of Alvaro Cunhal.

WE ARE HOLDING OUR MEETING in a region and at a time that reveals one of the most dangerous, inhumane and criminal faces of the imperialist offensive. Israel, with the unconditional support of the Obama Administration and the connivance of the European Union powers and the Gulf dictatorships, has carried out a real massacre against the heroic and martyr Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. Cease fire was achieved, and this means a victory for the Palestinian people. But because the criminal policy of Israel continues, we wish to express our heartfelt and deepest solidarity with the Palestinian people and to reiterate our continued support for their struggle for their inalienable national rights, the right to the independent and sovereign State of Palestine in the pre-1967 borders, with its capital in Jerusalem.

We also wish to express our solidarity with the other peoples in the Middle East. Peoples which, confronted with major and new challenges in the struggle for their social, national and class emancipation, facing several manoeuvres of instrumentalization of their genuine yearnings for change, continue their struggle, despite a brutal repression, as in Bahrain and Yemen. Peoples that, despite the manoeuvres to divide their societies in a sectarian and religious way, resist imperialist aggressions, interferences and destabilizing manoeuvres and continue their struggle for social, labour, democratic and national rights.

THE CRIMES THAT THE ZIONIST ENEMY commits in Gaza, the on-going destabilization and

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aggression against Syria, the provocations against Lebanon and the threats against Iran, are part of the same strategy of war, aggression and world-wide re-colonization by imperialism which tries at all costs, in the context of capitalism’s crisis, to maintain and increase its power and control over the natural and energy resources, over markets and geo-strategic positions in this and other regions. This dangerous escalation can result in a military conflict of unpredictable scale and consequences.

This danger is all the greater given the current international context where international contradictions and tensions grow, in a complex framework and non-stabilised process of recomposition and realignment of forces, marked, among various other factors, by the economic decline of the major imperialist powers, like the USA and the European Union; by the intensification of inter-imperialist contradictions, by the growing weight, mainly economic, of countries like the so-called BRICs and by the assertion of progressive processes, such as in Latin America.

As we have alerted in several previous Meetings, the rapid deepening of the structural crisis of imperialism – of which the present cyclical crisis of overproduction and over-accumulation of capital is a main expression and element – has meant a violent sharpening of the imperialist offensive against labour and social rights, against democracy and the sovereignty of the peoples.

The system reacts to the crisis by strengthening its exploitative, oppressive, predatory and aggressive nature. There is an ongoing attempt to impose upon the world a real civilizational regression based on four key goals: 1 – A violent destruction of the productive forces and the devaluation of capital to allow a new

cycle of capitalist reproduction; 2 – The transfer of the brutal effects of the destruction of productive forces and devaluation of capital to the workers, the peoples and the countries on the periphery of the system, thus sharpening exploitation and relations of dependence of a colonial type; 3 – A balance of forces between capital and labour - and the corresponding framework of social and labour rights - typical of the late 19th century; 4 – A new level of oppression of peoples, through attacks on democracy and international law, through an ever-deeper repressive component of States, through the ongoing world crusade against the sovereignty of peoples and States and through militarism and war.

The situation in the European continent is a very concrete and meaningful expression of this strategy and also of how destructive the evolution of the system, in the context of its own crisis, can be. We call the crisis that we are living in the European continent a crisis in, and of, the European Union. Because, on the one hand, it is the expression in Europe of capitalism’s crisis in all its aspects, including with special visibility, the deepening inter-imperialist contradictions. On the other, it is also the crisis of the pillars of the process of capitalist integration in Europe. A crisis of the whole superstructure that big capital and the major powers had managed to build as an instrument of their domination in the European continent.

The European Union's evolution in the context of the crisis is now marked by several attempts at leaps forward in its neoliberal, militarist and federalist course. Leaps that will only enhance its unresolvable contradictions - be they of class, or among States, or even of the structure of the European Union, like the Economic and Monetary Union. That is why we

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say that the reaction of the European Union to the crisis shows above all its objective limits and an already unsurmountable reality: the process of capitalist integration in Europe is doomed to fail! And this is all the more true when the struggle of the workers and peoples in Europe has seen very important developments and as the peoples, like the Portuguese people, became aware of the real exploitative and oppressive nature of the European Union.

This reality leads us to another conclusion; the European Union cannot be reformed. The other Europe that will spring from the struggle will be built, as reality is already showing, upon the ruins of the European Union.

IMPERIALISM’S MULTIFACETED OFFENSIVE leads the world into a situation of severely sharper class struggle and at the same time, as we have said in other Meetings, to even more intense contradictions of the system. In this framework, the possibility of violent outcomes and the danger of generalized international military conflicts of unforeseen scale and consequences, is a fact. However this does not necessarily mean that History will repeat itself – since we live in different historical conditions, on an objective and especially a subjective level.

At the same time, and recognising the existence of this danger, we believe that it should not be isolated from all the other factors, dangers, but also the existing potential, that make the current situation particularly demanding and complex.

The result of the above described processes capitalism’s crisis, imperialism’s offensive and a realignment of forces, will depend on various factors. Firstly the development of the class struggle, the social struggle and the struggle of the mass of the workers and peo-

ples, with the balance of forces that it creates – and this should be our top priority. But also, for example, the role of several countries in the international arena and their articulations and relations of resistance against imperialism. Be they countries that have defined the construction of socialism as a guideline and goal; or capitalist countries, enmeshed in increasing contradictions and where the mass struggle gains crucial importance in changing the balance of forces in the "core" of the system; or countries that develop progressive alternatives of sovereign assertion – as in Latin America – and who today represent the main fulcrums of anti-imperialist resistance, with socialist Cuba and Bolivarian Venezuela in the front line.

Uncertainty is one of the features of our time.

Great dangers coexist with real potential for progressive and revolutionary change. Capitalism’s contradictions lie exposed and this enhances the need and urgency of socialism and the relevance of the communist ideal. But the situation is very diverse in different countries and regions of the world and there are no immediate, or magical solutions. It is the development of the peoples’ struggle that will determine the future.

What is the role of our parties? In our view to strengthen this struggle, giving it a transforming and revolutionary direction, and to be able in this struggle to strengthen the social, political and mass influence of our parties and of the communist and revolutionary movement in general. It will be this combination of factors that will ultimately determine the pace of progress of social emancipation and of the so necessary and urgent - revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

The objective conditions for important leaps in History grow with every step of the deepen-

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ing of crisis of capitalism, but at the same time the relative backwardness of the subjective factor raises the need to look closely at the dialectical relation between the struggle of resistance and for very concrete goals, the struggle for achievements of an anti-monopolist and anti-imperialist nature and the struggle for a socialist society.

This is in our opinion the great challenge that we face: to resist, advance, wage the battle of ideas and assert Socialism, not only as the direction but as the necessary, possible and increasingly urgent goal. Socialism, which in our opinion will correspond to the path that each people will follow in this struggle and to the development of the historical process, as is stated in one of the lessons drawn by our Party from the analysis of the historical experiences of construction of socialism in the 20th century: that there are not, nor can there be, models of revolution or socialism and what is crucial to successfully building a new society is the active and creative participation of the masses.

to the abrupt twists and turns of History, are now agan of crucial importance, so that our Parties, our movement can continue to fulfil their historic mission: to interpret the world and to change it. Towards Socialism, towards Communism, always with the masses and the peoples.

LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY, long live proletarian internationalism!

THE DEMANDS OF THE TIMES in which we live in are enormous. The conditions of struggle of our parties are not easy. We are the bearers of a real alternative, but at the same time we know that it will not materialize with a magic wand, just because it is tremendously necessary. The coming confrontation is a violent one. It is a situation that demands from all of us, and I stress, from all of us, a great sense of responsibility, great courage, great solidarity and unity in action. A situation in which the principles of inter-Party relations – such as equal rights, mutual solidarity and non-interference in the internal affairs of other parties – principles that have guided those of us who have arrived this far and who did not fall prey

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Communist Party of the Russian Federation ANDREY FILIPPOV

FIRST OF ALL, ON BEHALF OF THE CPRF I would like to convey sincere greetings to the Communist Party of Lebanon and the people of Lebanon. Please accept, dear friends, our greetings on the occasion of the 88th anniversary of your party which you marked recently.

We greet the delegates to this 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties.

NOVEMBER 7 this year saw the 95th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

The ideas of the October Revolution continue to inspire us, Russian Communists, in the fight for the rights of the working people, for socialism.

It has been and remains the main event in recent world history. The global significance of the October Revolution lies in the fact that it ushered in an era of socialism delivering real and indisputable results for the working people who took state power in their hands in the form of the Soviets of Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The dictatorship of capital was replaced with genuine rule of the people on the basis of social ownership of the main means of production.

The Great October revolutionized the international workers’ movement. Many Communist Parties were created under its direct influence. The gains made by the Soviet people forced the capitalist world to make social concessions to the workers outside the USSR because for many decades the land of the October Revolution was setting the highest world standards in the development of the economy and the social sphere, science and education.

The Soviet Union was the main force that crushed Fascism during the Second World War. The heroism of the Soviet people inspired hundreds of thousands of Resistance fighters, with communists in their front ranks. The ideas of the October Revolution shaped the world socialist system. The national liberation movement of the peoples oppressed by impe-

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rialism and the collapse of the colonial system would have been impossible without the October Revolution.

In spite of the temporary retreat of Socialism, we are still loyal to the ideals of social justice and internationalism and are confident of the future victories of the "comradely mode of production." The Great October Socialist Revolution remains for all the Communists on the planet an unforgettable lesson of the class struggle of the working people for their basic interests. It sets an immortal example for the world proletariat. It will continue to be our reliable beacon in the future.

IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA, the Great October Socialist Revolution and its historic significance are the subject of heated ideological and class struggle. Liberals of every stripe, and the scientists who are in their service, the media seek to represent the Great October Revolution as a misfortune for our country.

The CPRF uses every form of struggle to oppose those who denigrate the world-important event that was the October Revolution.

I would like to tell you, dear comrades, that this date was marked on a wide scale in Russia. Demonstrations, rallies and pickets organized by the CPRF took place all over the country. I declare with all responsibility that there was not a single city in our country where the CPRF and its supporters did not take to the streets and did not declare their adherence to the ideas of the October Revolution and their readiness to fight for socialism.

You can see the scale of actions in connection with the 95th anniversary of the October Revolution if you imagine the map of Russia: they were organized on the whole space from Yakutsk to Kaliningrad. In Leningrad, the city of three revolutions, a restored monument to

Lenin by the well-known Soviet sculptor Tomsky was unveiled. The authorities had dismantled it and removed from the place where it had been installed during the Soviet period.

However, under the pressure of the CPRF and its Leningrad city organization they had to defer to the Communists’ demand.

We are grateful to the parties which have signed a joint Statement in connection with the 95th anniversary of the Great October Revolution proposed by the CPRF. We hope that those who have not yet signed it will be able to do so today, and this would be an act of solidarity with the struggles of the CPRF. We need your solidarity. We need solidarity with the CPRF members who are being persecuted, against whom criminal cases are opened only because they take part in protest actions. Let me stress that we are talking about CPRF members, and even secretaries of some regional organizations.

IN RECENT YEARS, at 13 previous meetings we have constantly turned to the topic of the struggle against imperialism, for the rights of working people and for socialism. Joint documents adopted by previous meetings provide an analysis of the causes of the world economic crisis. In their speeches the participants spoke about the forms of struggle in their countries, which is undoubtedly extremely important for all of us.

We witness the heroic struggle of the communists of Greece, Portugal, Spain and other countries against the attempts of the ruling classes to shift the brunt of the crisis on the popular masses, above all the working class.

Unprecedented actions by the working people met with resistance of the right-wing forces which, in spite of the contradictions among them, have untied to uphold their interests.

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We must analyze why powerful anti-capitalist actions have not yielded the results that could have been expected.

IN RUSSIA, THE FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC CRISIS has its national features. The liberal economic policy of the 1990s was destructive for Russia, as a result of which the country’s economy is sustained exclusively by the export of hydrocarbons and to a lesser extent of timber and metals. In the last fifteen years the world prices of hydrocarbons have hovered at a very high level. They are on average 15 times higher than in the mid1990s. That is why the decline of production does not affect the state budget so much.

However, addiction to oil and gas has done a disservice to the Russian people. Because of the forced shift to a one-sided economy the level of national security has gone down dramatically.

During the twenty years of the rule of the international oligarchy that resulted in intensive penetration of international capital into Russia, cardinal changes have taken place in the social and economic spheres. It can be said that deindustrialization has practically been completed in Russia. Industrial giants of car-making and machine-building that underpin the economy of any industrialized state have been destroyed. Aviation building, agricultural machine-building, the food, textile and light industries are in decline. The integrated power grid and collective agriculture have been destroyed.

All these structural changes were bound to affect the conditions of the work of our party.

With the destruction of major production facilities, the workers’ movement is becoming disunited. In the period since 1995 the number of workers in our ranks dropped dramati-

cally. Many have mingled with the declassee mass of working people who are fighting single-handed for survival making do with odd jobs in unskilled workplaces. Along with the destruction of major work collectives, trade unions have lost much of their significance having for the most part become an appendage of an unjustifiably bloated bureaucratic apparatus.

The onset of a systemic world crisis of capitalism deepened the atmosphere of discontent in all the social strata, causing a dramatic increase of mistrust in the declared course of state reform and in turn forced the government to take some unpopular measures. Realizing that it is impossible for an economy to exist on oil revenues alone for a long time, the ruling oligarchy in recent years launched a massive offensive against the rights that Russians have come to take for granted.

Thus, the constitutional right to free education and medical service has been practically dropped. The number of educational establishments of all levels has dropped sharply, and schools and polyclinics are being forced to practically shift for themselves. The communists in the State Duma have introduced an alternative draft for reforming the education system. Its key difference from the United Russia plan is guaranteed level of state financing of the general education schools to the full extent.

I would like to note that in the face of the onset of a systemic crisis of capitalism, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is very active in exposing the essence of that phenomenon, explaining why the country’s leadership, in the context of market relations, is unable to resolve the main contradictions between the interests of hired workers and the greed of capitalists whose only passion

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has for centuries been to gain super-profits by oppressing the working people.

Socialism is undoubtedly the only system that is capable of resolving the contradictions because it can ensure effective state regulation of the socio-economic processes, restore the devastated economy and protect the interests of hired workers.

AT ALL THE PREVIOUS MEETINGS we have invariably reaffirmed our solidarity with the struggling peoples, against the numerous manifestations of anti-Communism on the part of world capital, against attacks on the Communist and Workers’ Parties.

Today we must reaffirm our solidarity with the Palestinian people who are fighting for their independence; with Syria, which is repelling an aggressive imperialist conspiracy.

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‘ ОТ ИМЕНИ Коммунистической партии Совет-

Communist Party of the Soviet Union Сергея АлекСАндровА..

ского Союза приветствую всех участников встречи и благодарю Ливанскую коммунистическую партию за организацию данного семинара. Наша встреча проходит на Ближнем Востоке, который является сердцем мира. Это симптоматично, потому что Ближний Восток является узлом всех мировых противоречий, своеобразной моделью в миниатюре всего современного миропорядка. Народы мира видят, что именно империализм и сионизм повинны в бедствиях палестинского и, в целом, арабского народа. Уничтожение Советского Союза нанесло удар по международному коммунистическому движению, значительно ослабило позиции прогрессивных режимов социалистической ориентации на Ближнем Востоке – после чего последовал всплеска исламизма. Без Советского Союза прогрессивные арабские режимы сдают свои позиции, на авансцену вышел радикальный политический ислам, который набирает мощь, число его последователей растёт. Появилось новое препятствие для социалистических преобразований. И этот исламский фактор используется империализмом. ПОСЛЕ ТОГО КАК БЫЛ РАЗРУШЕН СССР, ситуация на Ближнем и Среднем Востоке и во всем мире обострилась, империализм обнаглел, а его действия и методы порой имеют черты фашизма. Поэтому коммунистические и рабочие партии должны возглавить антифашистскую борьбу, которая является частью общей антиимпериалистической борьбы. В целях своего господства и управления империализм провоцирует межнациональные и межконфессиональные конфликты, играет на религиозных противоречиях, спекулирует правами человека. Поэтому одним из

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направлений нашей борьбы является борьба за светский характер государства и свободу совести, свободу мировоззрения. Мы не должны борьбу за права человека отдавать буржуазным либералам, которые превращают борьбу за естественные гражданские и личные и неотделимые права людей в инструмент и предлог своей экспансионистской политики для развязывания новых войн. Сегодня кризис обостряется и затрагивает практически все страны. Этот кризис мы характеризуем как общий, системный кризис капитализма, кризис перепроизводства и перенакопления капитала. Империализму уже не удается поставить его под контроль и управление. Только социалистическим странам удается его избежать или минимизировать его разрушительные последствия. Одновременно с усилением кризиса усиливаются агрессивные происки империализма, посягательство на социально-экономические, демократические и национальные права народов. Его варварские последствия очевидны. Мы это наблюдаем на событиях, которые происходят на Ближнем и Среднем Востоке, в Африке и других регионах мира. Империализм ведет войну против Сирии, совершает провокации против КНДР, продолжается оккупация Палестины. КПСС солидарна с Сирией, отстаивающей свою независимость, с народом Палестины, КНДР и другими народами, ведущими антиимпериалистическую борьбу. Мы за создание Палестинского государства со столицей в Иерусалиме. ОБОСТРЯЕТСЯ ТАКЖЕ СИТУАЦИЯ В РОССИИ и на всем пространстве СССР. Многие страны, образовавшиеся на территории

СССР (за исключением Беларуси), следуют в русле политики, проводимой глобальным капиталом. Глобальный управляющий класс капиталистов ведёт наши республики на убой: сокращаются предприятия, рабочие лишаются работы и своей рабочей организации, наблюдается колоссальная имущественная дифференциация населения, некогда трудящиеся люмпенизируются, увеличиваются и вводятся новые налоги, в частности на содержание жилищно-коммунального хозяйства. А людям платить нечем. У нефтяного государства, которое хранит деньги в американских ценных бумагах в банках США, несмотря на высокие цены на нефть, большие проблемы с бюджетом. Власть в России и многих других республиках на территории СССР находится в руках олигархии, коррупционеров и полицейщины. Она угнетает народы, недовольство которых возрастает. При этом антинародная власть усиленными темпами создает репрессивный аппарат подавления. Милиция переименована в полицию, войска министерства внутренних дел оснащаются современным вооружением (включая тяжелое вооружение, бронетехнику и авиацию), создаются полицейские части в структуре Министерства обороны РФ. Россия стоит на грани пропасти. Если произойдет народное восстание, то власть бросит свои карательные части на его силовое подавление. Российская клептократия к этому готовится и готовит банды фашиствующих молодчиков, натравливает их на коммунистов. В России проводятся антикоммунистические «Русские марши» с лозунгами «Россия для русских!» против трудовых мигрантов (против граждан из республик бывшего СССР) и с требованием

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выноса тела Ленина из Мавзолея. Эти реакционные силы неонацистов управляются буржуазным олигархическим режимом. В России мы наблюдаем признаки фашизации власти. Наша партия стремится противостоять этому информационно. Также мы работаем с трудовыми мигрантами из республик СССР (Таджикистана, Азербайджана, Молдовы и других). КПСС ЖИВА И ДЕЙСТВУЕТ в большинстве республик бывшего СССР, имеет свои хорошо организованные структуры – республиканские партии в России, Таджикистане, Азербайджане, Беларусии, а также небольшие партии на Украине, Молодове, Приднестровье, Киргизии и республиках Прибалтики. В Прибалтике мы вынуждены действовать на нелегальном положении, поэтому принимаем участие в совместных акциях с Социалистическими партиями, которые в отличие от европейских социалистов, являются марксистко-ленинскими. После запрета в 1991 году, наша партия долгое время была вынуждена действовать в форме Союза коммунистических партий КПСС (СКП-КПСС) и только в 2003 году мы опять возродили КПСС, объединив марксистко-ленинские партии республик бывшего СССР. Процесс объединения подлинных коммунистов продолжается, успешно произошло объединение двух компартий в Азербайджане в составе КПСС, структур трех компартий в Беларуси и структур КПСС и Российской коммунистической рабочей партии в России. Мы открыты для объединения и работаем над этой задачей на территории СССР. Путь в союзную компартию закрыт оппортунистическим и соглашательским партиям, которые отрицают диктатуру

пролетариата и заявляют, что лимит на революцию исчерпан. Не случайно, за последние 20 лет они проявили себя в частности российском и украинском парламенте, как соглашательские. Народы СССР помнят о достижениях социализма в СССР об отношении к людям, где человек труда был главным, а труд был почетным и хотели бы возрождения единого социалистического государства. Эти чаяния народа отражает Коммунистическая партия Советского Союза, которая координирует и руководит коммунистическим и рабочим движением на территории СССР. Это не ностальгия по СССР, а стремление, задача создать новый СССР. Это не только необходимо, но и возможно. Однако для осуществления этой мечты должна победить социалистическая революция в России. Вот почему мы уделяем особое внимание вопросам партийного строительства и идеологической работе и борьбе в России. Недавно у нас успешно завершилось объединение структур КПСС и Российской коммунистической рабочей партии в России. Но власть тоже не стоит на месте. Она меняет тактику. Если раньше она не регистрировала коммунистические партии и не позволяла им участвовать в выборах (так была лишена регистрации РКРП, 7 раз отказано в регистрации Российскому объединенному трудовому фронту (РОТ-ФРОНТ), то теперь власть создает множество партий с названием коммунистических, чтобы дезориентировать избирателя. И ХОТЯ МЫ НЕ ОТРИЦАЕМ ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ парламентских форм борьбы, сейчас в России при нынешней системе это невозможно, так как в России нет даже буржуазной де-

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мократии. Политический (не только экономический) кризис будет углубляться и обвал нынешней политической системы неминуем. Революционная ситуация может созреть быстро. И коммунисты должны быть всегда готовы возглавить борьбу народных масс. В заключение должен сказать, что у КПСС большой опыт социалистического строительства. Наша партия осуществила Великую Октябрьскую социалистическую революцию, подняла страну и построила Советский Союз, победила фашизм. Спасибо за внимание!

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Communist Workers’ Party of Russia VIKTOR TYULKIN

Let me greet all the participants of the meeting on behalf of Russian Communist Workers’ Party. This is the 14th meeting now - we’ve come to know each other since long ago.

That’s why we presume that we don’t need to allocate so much time to exposing the vices of Capitalism and to urge each other to fight it, and that we should discuss more the vital issues pertaining to the workers’ and communist movement and to elaborate a joint stand.

We understand the scope of attention paid to Russia by the Communists across the World.

Of course the defeat (temporary) of Socialism in the USSR makes it necessary for all of us to put forward corresponding joint conclusions.

We, orthodox Communists of Russia did our best to make these conclusions deep and precise, not because we experienced those events ourselves, not because we were direct witnesses of those events and took part in them, but also because we managed to stay in the Socialist system longer than other countries, and I dare say we managed to get further in the development of the Socialist social relations. Based on this starting point I’d like to present to our audience the following two topics. THE FIRST TOPIC deals with the internal problems of the Communist movement. IN THE SECOND TOPIC I give the assessment of the current international situation based on the theory created by the III Communist International.

LET’S START WITH THE FIRST ISSUE – i.e. internal problems of the Communist movement. According to our point of view the main reason for the downfall of Socialism in the USSR was not the intrigues by an external enemy or an internal conspiracy connected with those intrigues, but can be rather associated with the ideological and political Treason by the upper layers of the CPSU infected with Revisionism and Opportunism as well as with the burden of our own mistakes. Lenin used to

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warn us that "Nobody can destroy us except our own mistakes(Collected Works, vol. 42, p.

249).

In the Soviet times when L.I. Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the CPSU CC there was created the following popular anecdote: the Politbureau gathered to discuss the reasons for the slowing down of the construction of Socialism. They spent a lot of time to decide what should be done, and as they couldn’t find the way out themselves, they decided to ask Medical Science specialists to revive Lenin.

The scientists succeeded. To understand the essence of the issue Lenin requested a lot of different literature and other information, locked himself up in the library and asked not to disturb him for 3 days. In 3 days they came into the library but couldn’t find Lenin there, only a note was found on the table whereas the text of the note was absolutely incomprehensible. They ask the assistance from KGB – they tried but with no result. KGB could neither decipher the text, or find Lenin. OK then, they decided to revive the Head of Cheka (the first special service of Bolsheviks) - comrade Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. They succeeded again. Dzerzhinsky looked through the Lenin’s note and managed to decipher it as the old code was familiar to him. The note read as follows: "Dear Felix Edmundovich, I’m in Switzerland, the addresses of the safe houses are the same. They have messed the things up so much that we’ll have to start everything all over again…".

In exactly this way, on a hunch the people had expressed their opinion on the issue that our Party later described as the main reason for the downfall of CPSU – i.e. that the party ceased to be a Communist party as well as the party of the Working Class and gave up the main concept of Marxism – the concept

of Proletarian Dictatorship.

That’s why we have to start many things anew indeed, based on the assumption that a Communist party is the party of the Working Class by definition. Such party is the Vanguard of the Working Class, the Organizer of the Class’ struggle. Nowadays Imperialists have largely succeeded in "castrating Communism" if we use the words by Georgy Dimitrov, succeeded in transforming Communism into Social Democracy, in separating Communism from the Working Class and from the real struggle.

Simultaneously there is created the appearance of the flurry of activity dealing first of all with Parliamentarism.

The President of Bourgeois Russia Putin expressed his opinion regarding this issue in one of his interviews as follows: "I see that there is two ways in relationship with Communists.

They have all chances to become a modern parliamentary party in the European sense of the word… Communists shall either change their program guidelines and turn into a large left party, I say it once again, of the European type, or they fail to do this and shall lose their social base due to its natural decrease and shall gradually leave the political scene.

In answer to the interviewer’s remark: "However they are not likely to think so", he answered: -The leaders understand this OK, even when it seems unexpected. I believe that they have been getting ready to transform their parties They cannot do it now nevertheless, as they are afraid that their electorate can percept such a transformation as treason, though it’s important not to lose the moment when and to what degree they should change themselves" We should recognize that the Bourgeois Authorities have successfully used this method,

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the fact that is confirmed by the European experience. There were famous and strong parties in France and Italy that used to collect up to 20-30% of votes at the elections (similar to the 20% in modern Russia). Where are they now?

There were even Communists acting as Presidents – earlier in Moldavia and now in Cyprus.

What are the outcomes? Did they succeed to go further in the construction of Socialism?

Have they managed to get a better foothold for Socialism? Of course not. When the struggle is carried out only within the limits of parliamentary activities under the conditions of Capitalist social order this leads to the mutation and the degeneration of the Communist movement. To ensure this Bourgeoisie spends the Budget means, uses Propaganda tools, changes the Law and the rules of the game, in particular the so called European Left are being given assistance etc.

Of course nobody calls to abandon the parliamentary forms of the struggle; nevertheless we are in favour of this type of work’s basic revision in line with the Lenin’s theory: TO START WITH this type of struggle has a subordinate nature if compared with the main extra-parliamentary class struggle of the Working People. SECOND: Lenin said that Communists go to Parliament in order to finally disperse it to Hell and replace it with the Soviets elected not in the territorial election districts but in plants and factories, these Soviets to represent the organizational form of the Proletarian Dictatorship; THIRD: the wide masses of Working People should take part in this struggle, and not only theprofessional left politicians – defenders of the working people, that turne their sitting in parliaments into the way of their political existence.

To implement this strategy RCWP (as advised

by Lenin) starts from the very beginning, from the workers movement’s organization. We’ve been working at organizing a wide class block of workers’ organizations – ROT FRONT, this work carried out with the use of the Greek comrades’ experience with PAME, parliamentary methods included.

II ASSESSMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION. In our work, first of all the theoretical work, we should draw on the experience and the attainments of our predecessors. On the eve of the II World War the Comintern on having analyzed the situation, came to a conclusion that Fascism is a special form of the Bourgeoisie’s Dictatorship whose aim is to save Capitalism in the periods of crises. The definition of Fascism itself was formulated based on the expression of Georgy Dimitrov: "Fascism is an overt terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic, the most imperialistic elements of the Financial Capital, a special form of the class domination of the Bourgeoisie. (Look in the materials of the XIII Plenum of the Comintern Executive Committee. Verbatim record.

Moscow, 1934, p. 589). Let’s evaluate the current situation based on the above definition.

After the downfall of the USSR international Imperialism led by the USA as if to say let himself go, and very much increased its aggressiveness. The core of the Capital’s power is represented by exactly Financial Capital. In the internal politics of the USA and of the countries belonging to NATO there are remained the elements of Bourgeois Democracy (the President of France has been recently elected as well as the President of the USA, whereas in both cases the Left supported the winners). At the same time they trample on all the democratic rules in their international

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politics, spit on the international Law and on the public opinion. As V.I. Lenin used to describe it: "…we have a totally naked Imperialism in front of us that doesn’t consider it necessary to even try and put something on, assuming that it looks splendid as it is". In its international politics Imperialism resorts to the measures of open violence, of bloody terror.

We all remember these events: Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya and now goes Syria.

We assess the current growth of tension in the Middle East as the sprawling of Neofascism – Fascism for export, the overt terroristic imperialistic politics of violence and the bloody ways of problem solution ignoring all the international laws and norms, and ensuring the interests of international Imperialism in the core of which stands the Financial Capital.

We suggest that during our meeting this general definition for the politics of the USA and NATO as "Fascism for export" should be given and a special resolution regarding this issue should be adopted (the draft of the resolution is ready).

Thank you for your attention.

GOOD LUCK IN OUR COMMON STRUGGLE! LET’S NOT FALTER ON THE CHOSEN WAY!

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New Communist Party of Yugoslavia ALEKSANDAR BANJANAC

I AM WARMLY GREETING YOU all on behalf of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NCPY) and I wish to express a special gratitude to the Lebanese Communist Party for hosting the 14. International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. Aware of the great importance of the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties, especially in the period of intensification of imperialistic aggressiveness as a logical consequence of systemic crisis of capitalism, our Party has regularly participated in all previous meetings. Guided by the principles of the proletarian internationalism , our Party has put a special accent to the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties and has been represented at the highest level, mainly by participation of General secretary of our Party, which up to this year was comrade Branko Kitanovic, who unfortunately is no longer with us. Comrade Branko passed away soon after the previous 13. International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Athens where he was a delegation leader of our Party. I will use this occasion to once again heartily thank on behalf of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia to all our fraternal parties who condoled over a loss of distinguished revolutionary and fighter of our movement, comrade Branko Kitanovic.

OUR PARTY see the framework of this year’s meeting as a completely proper, considering the accentuation of "struggle against the escalation of imperialistic aggressiveness" which is much more than apparent in the region of the Middle East in these recent events.

That is why the holding of this year’s meeting right in the region of the Middle East is the best possible way of sending a message of solidarity of progressive international communist movement with the peoples who suffer from the cruelest way of exploitation by the bloodthirsty imperialism, and with whom our Party along with the people of our country

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commiserate, and emphasize the fully and unreservedly support and solidarity. The oldnew president of the USA with the old unchanged hegemonic and criminal foreign policy of the USA, which essentially represents the best example of imperialism, was bestowed by the Israel with the bomb shelling of the region of Gaza with the new streams of blood from innocent victims who suffer from the cruelest brutalism. This was the move of the Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu who needs help from the greatest friend in order to get another mandate in the approaching elections. If Netanyahu fights this battle successfully, his new Prime Minister position will be bonded. The US State Secretary Hillary Clinton approved it with her recent meeting with Netanyahu where she said that she "will keep consulting closely with Israel, almost on a daily basis between two governments, in order to find a best way toward peace and stability of Israel, USA and the rest of the world" while the bombs are being thrown on the innocent children in the region of Gaza. This hypocrisy is supported with a disapproval of Israel attacks by few European representatives, representatives of the imperialistic EU, Arab League where there are some eminent allies or direct performers of imperialistic politics, and representatives of the government of Turkey as well, who all together, which is commonly known, participated in the imperialistic intervention in Syria. The recent attacks in the Gaza region, despite the temporary and ephemeral political developing processes related to the elections in Israel, are nothing else but the action which has generalization of imperialistic aggressiveness toward Syria and Iran as its ultimate goal. NCPY categorically condemns attacks in Gaza region and calls for the urgent and objective in-

vestigation for these war crimes caused to innocent people of Palestine, whose sovereign state with the Capital in East Jerusalem and full membership in UN we advocate.

IN THE CASE OF SYRIA, we repeat our opinion that only people of Syria have rights to direct their destiny, and that the situation in Syria has to be solved without external interference, without NATO, USA, EU, Saudi Arabian and Turkish interventions. NCPY condemns the newest crimes in Syria, and we use this occasion to once again express our full solidarity with the people of Syria and its communists, and express concern about difficult situation in Syria and annunciations about opening the new fronts of imperialistic aggressiveness.

Out party believes that the recent events in the region resulted from the systematic crisis of capitalism which tries, in the most barbarian manner, to postpone its final collapse spilling blood of innocent people only because of its need for absolute economic, military and political dominance in this important geostrategic region. Current crisis is only one in a row crisis of a system which clearly shows that there is no progress, or better days in the places where barbarian capitalism rules, there is no clear solution and idea that are going to bring better life conditions in the setting of capitalistic system and all its varieties.

The basis of all crises lies in the system of capitalistic economy. Imminently, crisis is characteristic of capitalism, capitalism cannot develop without crisis. To destroy crisis, capitalism needs to be destroyed in the first place, or in other words imperialism as its ultimate stage.

UNFORTUNATELY, the imperialistic aggres-

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siveness is not unknown to the people of our homeland. We repeat that the destructive character of imperialism is not more obvious anywhere in Europe like it in the region of Balkans, especially among territories of exYugoslavia. The process of destroying of Yugoslavia is not a past event or out-of-date topic in any way. The confirmations for that are the recent events that are related to the tool of imperialism, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, allegedly made as an international tribunal which should objectively examine the criminal acts committed during the wars on the territory of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore, but the reason for its disappearance we cannot explain objectively if we use term "dissolution" for its disappearing. Yugoslavia didn’t dissolute, it was enforcedly and bloody dismantled, and the greatest responsibility for it, for all the dreadful crimes and enormous material damage made during the fratricidal wars is in the bloody hands of NATO, EU, and American imperialists and their levers used in dismantling the country that represented the geostrategic key for control and dominance over the region of Balkans. Program orientation of our Party is the restoration of Yugoslavia based on the equal rights for all the peoples who live on its territory, which is impossible without authentic principles of scientific socialism, Marxism-Leninism. To cover up their guilt the imperialists used the presence of the war to create the Hague Tribunal, which had and still has only one purpose: to politically blackmail for purposes of imperialists and to turn almost all the blame on the Serbian side. By creating historical convictions, the tendency was to hide the facts that lead to the headquarters for destroying the country, which bloody imperialistic trace goes to the

recent war operations in Gaza, Syria, across the Middle East, to the Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan‌ The same imperialistic goals just like in the case of ex-Yugoslavia are the most responsible factors for instability and war on the global level. The precedent of wars for oil in the region of Middle East had to be the action of submission of Balkan nations as a logistic, geostrategic and every other buttress for war actions in the nearby region.

TO ACHIEVE THEIR FILTHY GOALS, imperialists liberally used domestic fifth column and secessionist and chauvinistic forces on the ground of Yugoslavia itself, who saw their own economic and political profit in destroying and process of privatization that later came. Croatian generals Gotovina and Markac, who were shamefully released last week by the Hague Tribunal are among them. Almost 2000 of innocent civil victims of Croatian military operation _Storm", more than 250. 000 of displaced people from which most of them will never return to their homes, they are all left without any justice and consolation for all dreadful things that happened to them caused by the dismantling of Yugoslavia. This imperialistic strategy has only one goal. To continue the total dominance in the region, divide the peoples and nations of the territory of Yugoslavia, continue the chauvinism, hatred and nationalism which has always been an ally of imperialism, to place all the blame on Serbs and in that way to close one complete historical conviction in which is impossible to find even the thinnest trace of responsibility of imperialistic factors for which direct involvement in war events exist the thousands irrefutable evidences. The continuation of this scenario can be expected in the cases of accusations of Albanian war criminals from Kosovo whose

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amnesty and release from any blame by the imperialists from Brussels, London, Paris and Washington would be in a manner of justifying the creation of NATO country in the middle of region, in other words in a manner of continuous modification of the borders by the wish of imperialists.

We cannot not to mention that the part of Serbia, Kosovo and Metohija, is still under the NATO occupation, and that action represents the continuation of process of dismantling our country Yugoslavia, and that all the people of Kosovo and Metohija, especially the Serbs, live under the constant pressure, fear and terror which all together administer the NATO occupators and their followers the puppet regime in Prishtina. The problem of occupation of Kosovo and Metohija is inexplicable without considering a role played by the government in Belgrade, also the puppet regime, that changes on the elections but constantly represent the political sub branch of EU imperialists. They accept all the conditions given by the Brussels under the platform of ’’the path of no return for Serbia toward joining EU’’. EU imperialists use it ably, and every time they impose more gluttonous requests. The German chancellor Angela Merkel openly sent a message that Serbia cannot be accepted into EU without approving the independence of Kosovo.

THE PROBLEM OF KOSOVO is the problem of great importance for the political actions of our party. That problem determines the total political and economic situation as well as other social aspects of life in our country which is characterised by the imperialistic occupation. That is why it is not astonishing that this crisis of capitalism in Serbia is very strkinig for the most people, standard of living

and the unemployment rate which objectively has crossed 30%. The attitude toward independence of Kosovo is not only theoretical, but truly practical problem of attitude toward imperialism. Undoubtedly, the ’’independence’’ of Kosovo is a result of imperialistic interests of USA and EU contrariwise the permanent interests of all the people who live on these territories, on the territory of Ex-Yugoslavia as well. We see only one solution for it, the united and anti-imperialistic struggle of Balkan nations, fight for freedom, peace, independence and complete equality.

IN THESE CONDITIONS, OUR PARTY, the only one in Serbia, fights the consistent struggle based on the principles of scientific socialism, despite the irrefutable fact that in the conditions of crisis coherent and consistent political demands give place to the open populism, opportunism and inconsequential promises to the popular strata. The series of perfidious methods which bourgeois government uses in its anticommunist struggle must be added to this list. Illegally, with the use of variety of tricks, and law machinactions, the offices of the headquarter of our Central Committee were taken from our Party last year. Today, there are government offices for integration of Serbia to EU. Bourgeois government also managed to remove our Party from the list of registered political parties in Serbia, which brings us many administrative problems in our work, especially in appearing on the elections. That is why we were unable to participate in this year’s elections, parliamentary and presidential where the change of government only ostensibly happened. Pro-imperialistic orientation of new government doesn’t differ in any way from the orientation of the old government, orientation toward Euro-At-

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lantic integrations, continuation of privatization, dependence of IMF, as well as rehabilitation of anticommunist war criminals from the WWII, are a mission which completely extend the newly established government in Belgrade.

The main stronghold of our political struggle is still the implementation of our program among the working collectives, student organizations, at working class demonstrations and protests, trade union protests, student protests, support to workers in strikes against the privatization, high-principled defense of heritage of all the authentic socialistic aspects of construction in our country, as well as the defense of antifascist heritage and its affirmation among young generations.

Our party struggles and survive in the extremely hard conditions for communist movement in Serbia and on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia, but we are aware that easy and good times for our struggle have never existed, and not only in Yugoslavia. We are aware that this fight is difficult, but rightful, we are aware that it is hard to achieve it without internationalism as an approach, in its literal everyday use.

That is why I want to conclude with LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM, LET’S STRUGGLE ALL TOGETHER AS UNIFIED FRONT AGAINST IMPERIALISM FOR THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM!

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South African Communist Party CHRISTOPHER CT MATLHAKO

THE SACP EXPRESSES its profound gratitude to the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), its leadership and militants for creating such excellent conditions and convening the 14th Meeting of ICWP here in Beirut, Lebanon.

We also want to appreciate the vote confidence displayed by the sizable number of parties that have taken efforts (under extreme and difficult conditions of crisis and the instability in the region) to come to Beirut - and therefore express their solidarity with the host-nation Lebanon, and by taking part in this process - thereby also expressing their solidarity with the people of the entire Middle East region, who face deep and profound consequences of the systemic crisis of capitalism and naked imperialist militarism on a unprecedented level. The role of imperialism together with the undemocratic Gulf monarchies and others in the Syria and with their sights set on Iran, poses a huge crisis not only for the region but the entire world.

FROM THE ONSET, we want to express our profound solidarity with the parties of the region, their people's and the struggles waged against the daily machinations of imperialism, as it tries to impose itself and seek to redraw the geo-political character of the region according to its own designs. We are confident that the people's of this region will triumph and overcome the current situations they find themselves in today.

We particularly, we wish to register our deepest anger at apartheid Israel's continued illegal war against Palestinian peoples and Gaza in particular. Once again, Israeli jets and missiles have been pounding Gaza. In 2008, ‘Operation Cast Lead’ led to almost 1,500 deaths - the majority of them civilians, despite all the claims made about ‘surgical strikes’ against terrorist targets. The Gaza Strip is one of the most impoverished and densely populated areas in the world and it is absolutely impossible to separate ‘terrorist facilities’ from the

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residential areas that surround them. With all the sophisticated weapons at the Israelis’ disposal, the majority of causalities in the current campaign are also women, children, and the old. Not that this concerns the militarists at the head of the Israel state. Gaza is once again being collectively punished, as it has been not only through the previous onslaught but through the blockade which has crippled its economy, hampered efforts to rebuild following the devastation of 2008, and kept the population at near starvation levels.

Also, over the years, we have come to note and understand that at every opportunity to reinforce a rightwing majority and rule in Knesset, Zionist forces in Israel start a war on the eve of elections as a campaign to whip up emotions and stir up Zionist sentiments in Israel. With the elections set for January 2013, Netanyahu and his rightwing forces found it within their wisdom to wage an illegal war, as they have done in the past, against the Palestinians and therefore cause irreparable and untold damage on Palestinian territories, further terrorize the population, seize Palestinian lands for establishment and encroachment of Israeli-settlements.

THIS 14TH ICWP MEETING must emerge from here with much more than a strong statement denouncing the apartheid Israel's war against Palestinian people's, but should elaborate a sustain international programme throughout next year (2013), which should target Zionist Israel, its interests across the world through supporting efforts such as Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS), consider mounting mobilization and actions for the expulsion of and/or cessation of diplomatic ties with Israel and other measures were applicable, which must bring pressure to bear on apartheid Is-

rael through an a coordinated international campaign. Our parties, together with allies and progressive anti-imperialist forces must take these measures to a higher level in the coming period.

The SACP shares much of the views of many parties expressed here regarding imperialist offensive against the people and their organizations. The offensive and attacks have manifested in various ways and taken an even more vicious character. In the context of South Africa, the 100-year old African National Congress (ANC), which will convene for its 53rd Conference in December 2013, has come under vicious attacks from imperialism and its proxies both in South Africa and abroad. The Tripartite Alliance which consists of the ANC, the South African Communist Party and COSATU - the progressive trade union federation, has since the 2007 52nd ANC Conference, which ushered in comrade Jacob Zuma as president, and subsequently reorientated policy towards addressing the interests of the majority, after almost 8 years of neoliberal experimentation, confronted (... and continues to confront) a series of provocations, undermining and downright counter-revolutionary agitation. This offensive against the national liberation movement broadly, is meant to create a situation of chaos, violence and confusion, that would allow a favourable climate to launch and open offensive against the South African NDR and thereby reverse the gains of democracy in South Africa and rollback, if not nub efforts towards radical socio-economic transformation coming period.

It is our view that, imperialism has come to the conclusion that the ANC must be destroyed and therefore, the trajectory of change underway in South Africa must

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thwarted and hollowed out. This emerges from among others, the growing role of influence and significance of democratic South Africa on the continent and as part of an emerging potential international counterweight to imperialism. This role and stature, of South Africa in the region and beyond poses a particular threat to imperialism, if it continues with a trajectory which gradually claws back ground and reasserts the goals of national liberation movements in the region.

We have confirmed at our recently held 13th Congress, that the Party will continue to support the ANC led Alliance as the most potent force in the hands of our people to transform their quality of life and transform the social-economic relations in favour of the majority. This, we appreciate will also be a protracted process, uneven and indeed contested by various forces, including those who seek to orientate the ANC differently as an instrument for personal accumulation, through a compradorial, rent-seeking and politically connected networks. These perspectives are captured in our Political Programme - the South African Road to Socialism (SARS) and are a further elaboration of the long held positions of our Party developed over many years of struggle.

It is for this reason and others, we argue, we should understand the provocative actions of international monopoly capital and imperialism which takes on various forms across the landscape of the political-economic, cultural and related terrains. After almost centuries of colonialism- apartheid and recent neoliberal experimentation, democratic and progressive South African trajectory, was always going to be contested. The antithesis to this, the SACP characterizes as a struggle to undo the legacy of colonialism of special type

(CST- trajectory) while simultaneously creating conditions to advance, deepen and consolidate the national democratic revolution - which we consider as the most direct route to socialism in our conditions.

THE 13TH CONGRESS OF THE SACP correctly outlined these in the Political Programme, the South African Road to Socialism (SARS), when it articulate; "The struggle for socialism against imperialist barbarism is an international struggle. But, there is no single road to socialism. The working class and progressive forces in each country must develop their own strategic approach, their own national road to socialism" (pg. 5) We also want to crystalize the ongoing crises that are unfolding on the continent which will require our continued analysis, study and further development. During the past few weeks, the imperialist inspired and directed crisis unfolded in the eastern of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and has all the hallmarks of past meddling and dabbling of imperialism and its proxies. The role of Rwandan is not innocent in this debacle and as such confirms our long held views of the it being a stooge of imperialism and extension of the designs of imperialism in the Great Lakes region. The Sudanese Communist Party can also attest to the dangerous situation developing in the Abyei region which will devastating consequences for the people's of both Sudan and South Sudan.

SIMILARLY, THE ATTEMPTS by imperialism to seek to reinsert itself in west Africa via the peacekeeping initiative led by ECOWAS of in Mali (which the majority of Malians have rejected), is but a pretext to regain ground after grounded was lost in other parts of the region.

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The continuing constitutional debacle in Tunisia, is also hampering progressive and left forces there to reassert democratic rights and other, which under threat from the religious fundamentalists. These comrades are but part of overall strategy of imperialism in crisis and thus very dangerous. This requires as we correctly observed in the title and slogan of the 14th ICWP meeting, the strengthening of the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness, for satisfying peoples’ socioeconomic-democratic rights and aspirations, for socialism!

Socialism is the future!

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Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain CARMELO SU´AREZ

WE WOULD LIKE TO SALUTE THE CELEBRATION of this of this 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, most particularly thanking the Lebanese Communist Party for its organization. At the same time, we would like to convey a struggling greeting to all peoples struggling against the imperialist aggressions unleashed in this region, especially to Palestinian and Syrian brothers.

The PCPE participates in this International Meeting with the firm will to deepen the multilateral relations between the communist and workers' parties. All the capabilities of the PCPE will be devoted to the goal that the debates in these days result in concrete measures for the communist international coordination which will allow the strengthening of the struggles in all parts of the world against imperialist plans.

In the case of Spain, since the outbreak of the capitalist crisis we are witnessing a wild wave of attacks against the rights of the working class and popular sectors: to the various labour reforms aimed at lowering the price of the workforce we have to add the delay on the retirement age, the open privatization of public services as health and education and a colossal destruction of productive forces that has led to a situation in which the number of unemployed people in Spain is around 6 million (25.02%).

Today in Spain there are almost two million households with all members unemployed and a part of them subsist thanks to a social assistance which is also threatened by the plans of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, in coordination with the government. Hundreds of thousands of families in unemployment already lack any kind subsidy.

The measures to be taken at the time that the

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government of Mariano Rajoy asks for bailout to those institutions will be much more brutal and aggressive and will place the working class of our country in a position of great weakness. That's why struggles have increased in intensity and strength in the last period. Strikes, protests, demonstrations, multiply and, at the same time, the bourgeois state repression against the most struggling political or union organizations increases. The use of provocative elements in the demonstrations, arrests and brutal police charges are repeated more insistently and try to criminalize social protest and out to the masses of the mobilization. As Lenin said, imperialism tends to the reaction in all fields, and now we are seeing how this is embodied in new legal measures directed specifically against the workers' parties and organizations who stand against the measures of the governments of the oligarchy.

Capitalist barbarism is becoming increasingly more visible and evident for large sections of the working people who see their neighbours lose their housing, the social benefits and their own life as the government responds with brutality against those who mobilize and fight. The PCPE openly states that this structural crisis is proving what the communists have always defended, which is nothing else but the fact that the only viable alternative for the social majority is the overthrow of bourgeois power, the seizure of power by the working class and the construction of socialism and communism.

In this sense, the objective conditions for the construction of socialism are ready in our country. The sharpening of the contradictions between the development of productive

forces and production relations is extreme.

But still the subjective conditions are not mature, the working class still needs to develop its consciousness, the Communist Party is still weak and bourgeois and petty bourgeois ideological principles still prevail in our class, advocated by reformist organizations that do not aspire to socialist construction, but to the mere management of capitalism in a more "human" or "social" way, as if that were possible.

Capitalism is showing its limits with this crisis and capitalists are not willing to make concessions to the working class. The alternative is therefore situated between them and us, between capitalists and workers, and there is no room anymore for middle positions of managing the capitalist system, nor for deceiving the working class in the name of supposed "progressive" governments which continue applying measures that favour large monopolies and condemn to misery the working people. Now is the time to strengthen the revolutionary struggle of our class, to openly say that the only solution involves building a socialist society, with a planned economy, with workers' control of production and the means of production, and only that way the needs of all members of society, and not just a few, can be satisfied. Capitalism, as long as it survives, will only offer more exploitation and misery to the working class.

Our struggle should focus on raising the level of consciousness of the working masses, on strengthening class organization, its autonomy from the class enemy, and this requires us to speak to the class directly, without subterfuges or hiding our strategic goal. We should be tactical enough in the field of al-

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liances to know at all times to the position that further strengthens the working class and situates it closer to the strategic objective, but without falling into a tacticism that confuses the masses, that places them closer to embrace the positions of class conciliation, of the social pact, and not socialism.

From our perspective, there are several lines which are essential for the strengthening of the struggles.

First, it is essential to strengthen the Communist Party as the political and ideological vanguard of the working class. The Communist Parties, guided by Marxism-Leninism and not subordinated to the positions of other social classes, ensure the victory of the working class.

Second, the dispute over the ideological hegemony within the labour movement against the conciliatory positions that alienate the class from the revolutionary struggle and pretend to convince the class that reforms can be taken from capitalists.

Third, it is necessary to quickly develop the highest degree of workers' unity starting from the work place, regaining as the center stage of mobilization and organization the place where the principal contradiction that exists under capitalism, the contradiction between capital and labour, manifests directly .

Fourth, it is necessary to seek the necessary alliances with other social sectors who are objectively interested in putting an end to the power of monopolies, such as smallholders facing the proletarianization or the peasants.

Fifth, we must redouble our struggle against all the structures created by imperialism to chain and oppress the people, as the European Union itself or NATO, from which we have to promote the unilateral disengagement of each of our countries, without naively waiting for them to decide their dissolution or to adopt and impossible social orientation.

Finally, we must find a way to ensure serious and stable coordination spaces between Communist and Workers' Parties. Only a closer union between the communist and workers parties will respond effectively to the attacks of the oligarchy, coordinated internationally, but for this it is absolutely necessary to abandon once and for all the rhetoric and reluctance, to proceed to the international communist movement's ideological unification under Marxism-Leninism and banish from our midst all those positions that deny the socialist construction and only wish to get a share of power in the management of the interests of the oligarchy.

Comrades, we are well aware that these tasks are difficult and it is not enough just to express them, so we clearly state our absolute willingness to work on them from this moment with all those parties willing. We cannot wait or delay further the development of our international coordination while the working class is the victim of the most brutal attacks in the last 30 years and capitalism is entering a new phase of more authoritarian and criminal violence.

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Thank you very much.

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Party of the Communists of Catalonia ÁNGEL CRESPO..

olucionario en nombre de la dirección del Partit dels i les comunistes de Catalunya y agradecer especialmente al Partido Comunista del Líbano la organización de este encuentro y la acogida y soporte que nos presta a los asistentes al mismo. El PCL ha puesto los elementos básicos y las condiciones materiales para asegurar el éxito del Encuentro, ahora depende de nosotros, de la capacidad y voluntad de los representantes de Partidos aquí presentes, que los resultados sean fructíferos y nos ayuden confrontar el capitalismo y al imperialismo en el centro de una crisis de gran profundidad y amplitud, y que estas jornadas nos sean útiles para intercambiar experiencias, establecer relaciones bilaterales, desarrollar nuestros vínculos de solidaridad y alternativas.

Tenemos ante nosotros grandes retos, en un momento de hegemonía neoliberal y de creciente agresividad del imperialismo para desarrollar una fuerte lucha ideológica, el trabajo de masas y la construcción de alternativas en la defensa de los derechos laborales, sociales y democráticos que nos intentan arrebatar y al mismo tiempo orientar la perspectiva de una sociedad socialista.

Desarrollamos este encuentro a escasos Kilómetros de una nueva agresión del estado de Israel contra el pueblo palestino, y seguro que todos estaremos de acuerdo en expresar la más enérgica condena al brutal ataque israelí que está dejando una secuela de víctimas inocentes y daños materiales en la franja de Gaza, que agravan la ya difícil situación de la población, y expresar nuestra solidaridad con su causa y su derecho a tener un estado propio con capital en Jerusalén Este. Pero además de expresarlo aquí hemos de comprometernos también en la extensión de esa solidaridad en cada uno de nuestros países. Esta nueva agresión se enmarca en la escalada militarista del imperialismo en la zona y en este contexto los

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comunistas hemos de reiterar nuestra oposición y condena a cualquier tipo de intervención militar.

ESTA ES UNA CRISIS ECONÓMICA, financiera, social, alimentaria, energética, ambiental, cultural, institucional, una crisis estructural del capitalismo que afecta muy directamente a las condiciones de vida de los pueblos, y están aprovechando la misma para inocular miedo, resignación, y fatalismo entre la clase obrera y el pueblo, y así tener el camino preparado para arrasar con los derechos laborales, sociales y democráticos acumulados a través de años de lucha obrera y popular.

Una crisis que aún no golpeando a todos los países de la misma forma, está teniendo repercusiones mundiales, por su origen especulativo y financiero y donde EEUU, busca enfrentar la crisis internacional y el deterioro de su hegemonía ideológica y política, mediante su hegemonía monetaria y militar. .

Una crisis que se produce en un contexto de hegemonía de las ideas neoliberales, que vienen de los 70 en la era Reagan y Tatcher, una hegemonía que ha crecido en la combinación del dominio del desarrollo tecnológico y comunicativo, los cambios en la organización del trabajo y la producción, el impacto del consumo generalizado en la alienación de las masas y la debilidad de las organizaciones de izquierda.

Ese avance neoliberal se muestra con crudeza con el desclasamiento de amplios sectores de trabajadores, que han creído que por su capacidad de consumo (aunque fuera a crédito) dejaban de ser clase trabajadora y se convertían en una nueva y hegemónica clase, “la clase media”. La pérdida de la conciencia de

clase, está en la base de las dificultades para hacer frente a la ofensiva liberal.

HOY LA CRISIS ESTÁ GOLPEANDO a la clase trabajadora en su conjunto, incluidos aquellos con mayor capacidad adquisitiva, y otros sectores de la población como los pequeños agricultores, trabajadores autónomos, pequeños empresarios, comerciantes y estudiantes. Las recetas neoliberales que se están aplicando van en la dirección de derruir el conjunto de derechos conquistados y si no lo evitamos convertirse en un retroceso civilizatorio de grandes dimensiones.

Al mismo tiempo se desarrollan movimientos de resistencia y respuesta, importantes movilizaciones y luchas que empiezan a confrontar estas políticas y que son factores imprescindibles para el cambio de la correlación de fuerzas.

A nivel internacional se va rompiendo el unilateralismo y construyendo espacios y alianzas que van en una dirección diferente, el papel económico de países como los llamados BRICS (Brasil, Rusia, India, China y Sudáfrica), los acuerdos en América latina como el ALBA y los acuerdos regionales y continentales como la CELAC. Representa una esperanza y un dato positivo la situación en América Latina donde se da un cierto equilibrio de fuerzas entre los diversos sectores populares y capas sociales que durante los últimos años han apuntalado los cambios sociales en Brasil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay y otros países y una oligarquía que no renuncia a la recuperación del poder y combina diferentes formas de presión: militar norteamericana (bases, IV Flota); económica, especialmente a través de acuerdos bilaterales; golpismo

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(como en Honduras y Paraguay); mediática y político-electoral, con el apoyo a un nuevo centro-derecha regional. Creemos necesario destacar, el papel jugado por Cuba, su Partido y su revolución en el desarrollo de esta nueva situación.

Las recetas y el discurso ideológico son los mismos en todo el mundo, por tanto se requiere cada vez más coordinación del campo popular, para establecer resistencias y empezar a construir alternativas, que no es posible imaginar dentro del propio sistema capitalista, ya que incluso el llamado hecho diferencial europeo en relación a otras economías capitalistas, el Estado del Bienestar, está en demolición.

EN EL ÁMBITO EUROPEO, no podemos olvidar que el desarrollo del Estado Social de Derecho fue fruto de las luchas de los trabajadores y el contexto post-bélico, con la consolidación de la URSS y el campo socialista, el importante papel jugado por la izquierda y los comunistas especialmente, en la resistencia al nazi-fascismo y la necesidad del capital de afrontar la reconstrucción del tejido económico y social, y garantizar un período de acumulación capitalista sin conflictos, requería un período de paz social, que obligo a reconocer derechos políticos, sociales y sindicales.

Un Estado social que de todas formas hay que señalar nunca fue homogéneo, dado que se construye en el marco de los Estados Nación y en función de las características, tradiciones, y las correlaciones de fuerzas en cada país y con formas de provisión diferentes. Sin olvidar, que en Portugal, España i Grecia hubo férreas dictaduras militares hasta entrados los 70.

Con la crisis se ha constatado la debilidad y el fracaso de un proceso de construcción Europea asentado en la libre circulación de mercancías y en la ausencia de derechos sociales y democráticos reales. Una Unión Europea hecha a la medida de los poderosos y en función de los intereses de los mismos y sometidos a la OTAN, lejos de las proclamas de paz que escondían otros intereses más espurios (como la supresión de los derechos de ciudadanía reconocidos en los viejos estados), y que hacen inexplicable la reciente concesión del Premio Nobel de Paz. Especialmente, cuando ha sido incapaz de evitar la guerra de los Balcanes en su propio territorio y ha participado decididamente en las acciones de la OTAN en Afganistán y en la intervención en Libia, convirtiéndose en un fiel aliado, desde la subalternidad, al guerrerismo Atlantista bajo hegemonía de EEUU. Así las cosas y en este complejo contexto internacional, donde se agudiza la crisis en todas sus dimensiones y se extienden los conflictos bélicos, es necesario intervenir y formar parte de los procesos de movilización social que ponen en tela de juicio la lógica imperante y van construyendo resistencias y respuestas en el ámbito local e internacional.

EL CAPITALISMO GLOBAL requiere respuestas globales, basadas en la democracia en todas sus dimensiones y en alternativas superadoras del capitalismo, movilización y organización de la sociedad.

La lucha contra la guerra y por la paz es un elemento estratégico, la lucha por un nuevo orden económico internacional, por la defensa del medio ambiente, la seguridad y soberanía alimentaria y el desarrollo humano siguen ha-

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ciendo vigente el dilema “socialismo o barbarie”.

EN EL ESTADO ESPAÑOL, la lucha de clases se caracteriza por la confrontación entre la oligarquía financiera subvencionada y parasitaria, que busca alianzas con las burguesías de las diferentes regiones y nacionalidades, y la mayoría del pueblo.

Las contradicciones entre capital y trabajo, tienen una de sus dimensiones en el modelo de Estado, por lo que reivindicamos avanzar en una segunda transición que realice una reforma democrática del Estado que tenga un carácter republicano, social y federal y que depure los aparatos del mismo que perviven desde la dictadura. .

EN CATALUNYA, con 7 millones de habitantes, país de tradición industrial y comercial, con una economía relativamente diversificada, aunque con un creciente peso de los servicios, especialmente los relacionados con el turismo, una lengua y una cultura propias y que se organiza política y administrativamente como una comunidad autónoma en el marco del estado español , que tiene por capital Barcelona.

En estos momentos gobernada por un partido nacionalista burgués, CiU, que se ha caracterizado por imponer políticas de austeridad y de recortes de derechos sociales, con una altísima tasa de paro (22%), 14 puntos más que en 2008 y de eventualidad.

PARA LOS COMUNISTAS, una de las manifestaciones de la crisis más dura es el paro y la precarización del trabajo, el aumento de la pobreza, el deterioro de los servicios públicos y los retrocesos democráticos.

En Catalunya se han producido en el último período cuatros grandes procesos de movilización social, de matriz diferente y que tienen que ver con: ■ La defensa de los derechos laborales, protagonizados por los Sindicatos, que entre el 2010 y 2012 ha convocado 3 huelgas generales y grandes manifestaciones.

Tiene su punto débil en la diagnosis de la situación, la inercia institucional y las limitaciones de la estrategia sindical al seguir planteando la concertación como objetivo central.

■ La defensa de los servicios públicos, especialmente educación y salud, que se han configurado como procesos propios y confluyentes de carácter capilar, muy vinculados al territorio y coordinado en una plataforma amplia de organizaciones vecinales, sociales y sindicatos que ha convocado multitud de acciones descentralizadas y algunas importantes manifestaciones.

■ La regeneración democrática, contra la corrupción, los poderes financieros y también con contenidos anti-políticos, reúnen movimientos alternativos y los llamados indignados o 15M, utilizan intensivamente las redes sociales y son referencia para algunos movimientos como él referido a los desalojos de vivienda. Han convocado ocupaciones de las plazas y exitosas manifestaciones. Incorporan muchos jóvenes.

■ Un movimiento de reivindicación nacional, que se unifica en el derecho del pueblo de Catalunya a decidir su vinculación al resto del Estado Español, o como lo expresamos y defendemos nosotros, a favor del derecho a la autodeterminación. Una parte importante de este movimiento se define a

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favor de la independencia (ya sea por motivos económicos y de agravio comparativo o por razones identitarias) y otra, entre los que estamos los comunistas, por un estado federal.

LA ACCIÓN DE LOS COMUNISTAS, en todos estos movimientos donde de una u otra forma participamos planteando nuestras propuestas entorno a: ■ Desarrollo de la lucha ideológica, recuperación del lenguaje y politización de la sociedad.

■ Defensa del papel del trabajo en la sociedad y del derecho al trabajo, con calidad, derechos y salarios justos.

■ Fiscalidad progresiva y servicios públicos de calidad, incluido el derecho a la vivienda digna y el conjunto de derechos sociales...

■ Reforma federal, republicana i democrática del Estado.

■ Política de paz, sostenibilidad, y solidaridad con todos los pueblos del mundo.

Con el objetivo de canalizar la indignación hacia la organización y la confluencia de las diferentes luchas. Globalizando y relacionando las luchas parciales contra las políticas neoliberales.

LA PROPUESTA ESTRATÉGICA es el Front d’Esquerres (Frente de izquierdas), como movimiento político y espacio de confluencia del conjunto de la izquierda política y social anti-liberal, y para avanzar en la unidad de la izquierda consideramos al mismo tiempo necesario avanzar en la unidad de los trabajadores entorno a posiciones clasistas y en la unidad de los comunistas.

Pero también los efectos de los cambios del capitalismo global nos obligan a profundizar

en nuestra teoría, actualizar nuestras propuestas, organización y practica, para poner en cuestión el sistema dominante y avanzar en la lucha por la mejora de las condiciones materiales y culturales, en la perspectiva de una sociedad de mujeres y hombre libres e iguales, en una sociedad superior, democrática y solidaria, que supere el capitalismo en la dirección del socialismo y del comunismo.

Y para ello es fundamental la lucha ideológica y de masas en cada país, pero también la cooperación entre partidos comunistas y revolucionarios para cambiar la correlación de fuerzas en el mundo. *El Partit dels i les comunistes de Catalunya, un Partido heredero de la tradición del PSUC, Partido surgido de la unión de 4 partidos comunistas y obreros el 19 de Julio de 1936, que fue una excepción al ser aceptado como miembro de la IIIª internacional, siendo el Partido de un país sin estado.

Partido forjado en la defensa de la republica española y en la lucha clandestina contra el fascismo. En 1982 se produjo una ruptura entre las posiciones marxistas leninistas que fundaron el PCC y eurocomunistas, que entre otras cuestiones supuso la ruptura con el Partido Comunista de España.

Hoy forma parte de EUiA, organización hermana de IU, y que en Catalunya coordina el Secretario General del PCC. Tiene una presencia electoral entorno al 8-10% en una coalición con ICV que procede de los sectores eurocomunistas del PSUC y que hoy pertenece al Partido Verde Europeo. Tiene diputados en el Parlamento de Catalunya y en el Parlamento Español y presencia en los diferentes frentes de masas, con especial incidencia en el sindical.

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Communist Party of Sri Lanka RAJA COLLURE

LET ME AT THE OUTSET THANK OUR HOSTS, the Lebanese Communist Party for the excellent facilities provided for the holding of this important Meeting and for the warm and generous hospitality extended to the participants. The Communist Party of Sri Lanka is pleased to convey its warm fraternal greetings to all the participants of the 14th IMCWP. This Meeting takes place in the background of the intensification of the struggles against imperialism by the peoples all over the world.

The latest is the victorious resistance of the Palestinian people against Israeli aggression which was justified by imperialism.

These struggles relate to peoples' aspirations on several fronts. On the one hand they fight to defend the independence and sovereignty of their nations. Another focus of their struggles is in defence of a nation's right to govern itself without external interference and to defeat imperialist plans at "regime change" in countries not to their liking. Also the fight is on to resist economic pressures exerted by imperialism to dissuade countries from pursuing policies detrimental to its interests and pressing them to fall in line with neo-liberalism.

These are only some.

THE EVENTS IN NORTH AFRICA during the last two years show how imperialism worked to subvert the people's struggles to prevent them developing in an anti- imperialist direction. Its nakedly covert aggression in resources rich Libya was primarily to change the regime in its favour and to ensure access to exploit its natural resources. In Syria it is seeking primarily to change a regime which it considers an obstacle to the implementation of its strategy in the Middle-East, not so much to end violence or establish democracy in that country. Its role over the events in Bahrain confirm that the struggle for genuine democracy in the Middle-East is at the same time is a struggle against imperialism. This applies to the struggles for democracy elsewhere as

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well. There are indications that imperialism is working towards changing the regime in Sri Lanka which has earned its wrath for failing to accede fully to its diktat.

Escalation of imperialist aggressiveness may be attributed to several factors. Primarily it is a response to the expansion of peoples' struggles against imperialism the world over for in defence of national sovereignty and for democracy, social justice and social progress.

In the background of the decline in its position of hegemony and its inability to carry the United Nations with it on certain international issues imperialism has sought to violate terms of UN resolutions and to launch aggressive actions to attain its objectives . The perceived threat that supply of energy and natural resources may be interrupted or denied to imperialist countries has also contributed to the intensification of the aggressiveness of imperialism. It is also a response to the growing weight of such countries as China and Russia in international affairs which clash with imperialism in furtherance of their national interests.

The response to the increasing aggressiveness of imperialism should be to expand further the peoples struggles against and for democratic rights and processes and for social justice . Establishing broad coalitions to fight on specific issues is bound to broaden mass participation and strengthen the effectiveness of the struggles.

SRI LANKA has made many strides in respect of economic development. It maintains an average growth rate of around 7%. The rates of both inflation and unemployment has dropped to 5 % each. (And those below the poverty line has dropped to 8.9%). Despite some short comings expenditure on free edu-

cation and free health care (in which fields Sri Lanka is way ahead of many developing countries) has been increased. Investment in the development of infra-structure has never been so high as at present. With the end of the civil war tourist arrivals has increased by nearly 100% boosting the economy.

The CPSL is in government. However, it has reservations on certain aspects of governance and policy. One of the issues on which it has launched an agitation together its left allies is the matter of broadening democratic rights and processes. This is primarily connected with the need to abolish the executive presidential system which has become increasingly authoritarian. Almost all organs of the state including the parliament are controlled and dictated to by the presidency. The CPSL together with its left allies and a wide coalition of forces are demanding a new constitution and the return to the parliamentary system. De-politicization of the public administration and the police service, ensuring the independence of the judiciary and the electoral establishment and the reform of the electoral system are other issues of agitation.

The other issue pertains to the urgency of bringing a political solution to the national problem. Although three years have passed since the end of the civil war there has not been much headway made in this respect. We support the proposal to reach an agreement on this question through a Select Committee of Parliament. The CPSL demands that the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission in regard to violations of human rights and the humanitarian law during the civil war, which has been appreciated by even the international community, be speedily implemented. To the credit of the government nearly all internal refugees

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have been resettled and combatants of the LTTE who have not committed criminal offences have been rehabilitated.

SOCIALISM is not in our present agenda. It is needless to say that peoples struggles for democracy and social justice will create favourable conditions to proceed to the fight for socialism. This also requires the further expansion of and coordination of the struggles against imperialism at the international level. In this respect we submit that the communist and workers parties have a significant role to play in the process.

Long Live socialism !

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Syrian communist party AMMAR BAGDACHE

SYRIA WILL NOT KNEEL FIRSTLY, I would like to thank the Lebanese communist party for hosting the 14th international meeting of the communist and workers parties.

Our meeting held in an atmosphere of intense conflict between the international imperialism and the international revolutionary movement on all fronts. The development of events once again confirm the correctness of the Leninist conclusion about the organic correlation between national liberation matters and social liberation tasks, in other word about the necessity of strengthen the ally links between the communist and workers parties and the factions of national liberation movement, these two main components of the international revolutionary process in the age of imperialism.

At the present, the Syrian communist party deems that the development of events in the world including the most important development features in our region (middle east region) are determined by the escalation of the intense structural crisis which the contemporary capitalism especially the main imperialist centers are witnessing. This structural crisis which deepened and intensified as a result of the severely impact periodic crisis that the world witnessed in (2008-2009). This multifaces structural crisis shaking the capitalist economic pillars, increases worse the contradictions of the contemporary capitalism, the most important of them are the contradiction between the imperialist monopolies and the interests of toilers, the contradictions between the centers and imperialist states, and the contradictions between the imperialist centers and state parties and their people.

THE ANTI-CAPITALISM MASS MOVEMENT all over the world are escalating, as a reaction of the toilers against the integrated policy followed by the capitalist monopolies and the

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governments which represent them, regardless its sorts from conservative to intermediate to social democratic, this policy transfer all the consequences of the crisis on the masses of people. A process of continuous reduction is carrying out for the gains achieved by toilers over decades of their struggle.

Our party greets fraternal communist parties which marched in the vanguard of the masses uprising movement, following hard class stand, based on the sincerity of the LeninistMarxist thought, as the case with the valiant Greek communist party. How was it useful for our common case, if the struggle position in other countries similar to that.

It is clear that the financial oligarchy in the European union countries are trying in many times to curb the masses uprising movement using social democracy, weather traditional, which is closer liberalism or the new which coming from the ranks of communist movement with full return from principals and ideals. The absence of the convincingrevolutionary alternative sometimes leads to the emergence of spontaneous uprising movements without clear future visions or to the increasing appearance of movements have left character or extremist right wing. The situation that the masses movement is witnessing in many countries of the world confirms the correctness of the Leninist argument that the effective struggle against imperialism collaborate with the constant struggle against revisionism and opportunism.

THE CURRENT REALITY OF THE CAPITALIST CRISIS produces two contradictive factors, on the one hand increase aggressiveness of the imperialist centers, at the same time the material base to launch big aggressive wars is currently shaky and shrinking. Besides to fac-

tors consequences costs to overcome the economic crisis, there are moral and physical impacts of the imperialist defeat in Iraq and repeated failures in Afghanistan. However many conflicts, either take the form of armed confrontation or it will convert to become so.

But in general the imperialist centers at present prefer to fight by the hands of others, by its hireling regimes and forces.

THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN THE IMPERIALIST CENTERS and the major powers including what so-called emerging countries are escalating in order to control the vital regions in the world. This is very clear in Africa through the division of Sudan , the conflict on the African horn and the events that took place in many countries in west Africa: Mali, Nigeria, Guinea and others.

The open conflict is taking place in order to control the region stretching from the east of Mediterranean to the vicinity of the Caspian sea, this area is called as the imperialist dictionary as the Near and Middle east. In this region the European and American imperialist interests face with the Russian and Chinese interests. The international Zionism plays a vital role to increase the tension in the region.

The aggressive tone of Zionist Israel is continuously escalating towards Iran and its antiimperialism regime. Currently we are witnessing new stage of escalation of Israeli aggressiveness against the Palestinian people.

Many of Arab countries are witnessing a struggle and intensive confrontation about the direction of the path of these countries, which witnessed a massive popular revolutions against hireling dictator regimes, such as Egypt and Tunisia. It is noticeable that the imperialist powers, especially the U.S with cooperation with Arab reactionary regimes,

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heavily depend on the disguised religion forces in order to curb the revolutionary movement of masses and divert the country path according to the American imperialist interests, and do not worry Zionist Israel. it is more and more clear from development of events that the main task of the disguised religion reactionary forces lies in passing the supporting policies of imperialism and mobilize the masses grassroots of these forces around this policy.

The increasing madness of Arab reactionary regimes shows in fighting any anti-imperialism national movement. One of the reasons of this scramble is the deep fear of the possibility of expansion of the revolutionary tide to sweep the bastions of imperialism in Gulf and Arabian peninsula in general.

The dirty role of Arab reactionary regimes clearly shows in its support to all terrorist and sabotage actions in Syria, and in its continuous seeking to hit the sites of Lebanese national resistance and its striking power Hezbollah, and in its multifaces seeking in order to curb and tame the Palestinian resistance with its main components. It be noted that Turkey, this striking Atlantic force in the region has a long tradition in all these dirty operations against the liberation movements and Syrian national regime.

THE CONSPIRACY ON SYRIA targeting to overthrow its anti Zionist imperialist domination projects, the imperialist powers and its loyal reactionary regimes use all methods in order to achieve this strategic and vital goal, without achieving this goal it impossible to achieve the project «new great middle east» which means the project «great Zionism» to enslavement all people in the region through total control of Zionism and imperialism on all

countries in the eastern Mediterranean down to Caspian sea.

The imperialist intelligence circles and Arab reactionary, especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia fund the sabotage and terrorist actions carried out by armed groups all over Syria. In addition to Arab reactionary countries , Turkey, which is the main base of NATO in the region support the reactionary factions especially those disguised religion, in all its actions against Syria. The intelligence circles with participation of Zionism also carry out a fierce propaganda campaign against Syria. Also practiced various diplomatic pressure, with participation of many parties against Syria.

During the past period the violent confrontations between rebel armed forces and authority devices have increased and expanded geographically in several Syrian provinces, including the outskirts of the capital Damascus and the neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syrian_s second city and the largest economic center in the country. The anti-regime forces widely use terror tactics of collective killing to individual assassinations coupled with economic sabotage actions. Many of the Syrian cities witnessed terrible brutal actions such as indiscriminate bombing affected hundreds of citizens. The individual assassinations actions also continued and expanded. The armed groups adopt methods, it is difficult to distinguish them from non-political crime through kidnapping the citizens and asking ransom for their release and similar methods of bandits.

It is clear with the development of the Syrian crisis what the communist party referred to at the beginning of this crisis, the fact the striking force of the anti-regime forces is made up of the disguised and reactionary groups and organizations which seeking to inflame sectarian strife in various ways including collec-

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tive violence acts and selective assassinations. Those looking to the homeland through their class interests, and they see in the international imperialism and Arab reactionary regimes as supporter to them against the national regime and the progressive forces. They are ready for everything even «cooperation with the devil» in order to achieve their obscurantist goals.

THE STAND OF THE SYRIAN COMMUNIST PARTY is clear and lies in the defense of the homeland and face the imperialist projects.

Our party supported the reforms which have the democratic nature, the most important, according to our party are: lifting the state of martial law, the amendment press and publications law, where it is became more convenient to the exercise of opinion and expression freedom, as well as return the Syrian nationality to those Kurdish citizens who have been denied as a result of oppressive measures by the reactionary authorities in 1962.

Also it is noted here that the majority of Kurds in Syria were having the rights of citizenship.

The Kurdish masses in Syria generally take a clear stand against the reactionary forces associated with imperialism which ravage in Syria sabotage and killing.

It is noted that many measures towards the expansion of democratic freedoms have taken are close to the programmed orientations of our party in this field and who block the full implementation of them is the reactionary forces actions, which are strange of the democratic concept and have strong link with the dictatorship regimes not only in the content but in the form such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Our party steadily struggle for a complete break with economic liberal approach that

had prevailed in the country over recent years. We emphasize on the necessity to review all laws which have economic liberal approach taken in that period and led to increase the polarization in the society and to impoverishment of the masses of people and to marginalization a large number of producers and to destabilize the productive pillars of the national economy, which led to form the appropriate soil for conspiracy and sabotage of extremist reactionary forces. One of the main manifestation of the current crisis in Syria is the contradiction between the antiZionism national approach which resistant to imperialist projects and the economic liberal policy which is in combat contradiction with this approach and undermine its social and economic pillars and foundations.

The Syrian communists deems that their support to the Syrian national steadfastness is international, national and class duty. The Syrian steadfastness and its beating on the fierce imperialist attack will strengthen the positions of the international revolutionary movement. The Syrian communist party confirms that the steadfastness not only duty but possible.

FROM THIS HIGH ROSTRUM I would like to thank the fraternal communist parties for their solidarity with the fair struggle of my homeland Syria.

The slogan of the Syrian communist party has been: «Syria will not kneel».

Thank you for your listening

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Communist Party of Sweden KJELL BYGDEN

ON BEHALF OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SWEDEN I want to express our gratitude to the Lebanese Communist Party for arranging this meeting in such an excellent manner under difficult circumstances.

THE ADVANCES MADE BY THE SOVIET PEOPLE profound in the Great Socialist October Revolution 95 years ago forced the capitalist world of social concessions to the workers and people outside the Soviet Union. The Swedish capital that during the two world wars made huge profits also had margins to compromise, something that became even more urgent 1945, after the victory of the SU over the fascism. Through the cooperation between capital and social democrates- SAP the concessions were reduced, also a process towards a socialist society could be avoided.

Hereby the so-called "Peoples home" was created, with a Swedish model for the labor market, which was characterized by its relative independence from governmental influence.

Sweden remained a kingdom and a part of the world capitalist system- all itself a paradox.

With a look backwards in time, we can conclude that the concessions of the capital to the welfare state was extensive and despite overproduction with a growing crisis from 1970-90's the Swedish working class was relatively well-being.

From 1991, and in the absence of the world socialist system the Swedish working class also suffered from very serious setbacks. Now there was no longer any need for the partners social democracy leaders and capitalists to continue to uphold the "Welfare State". Sweden: the country of the former West that since the demise of the Soviet Union more than other countries has privatized the jointlyowned and slimmed down the public sector in line with IMF and ECB requirements. Severe deterioration in the trade union and labor law has gradually been implemented. The financial crisis in 1990-94, and before EU referen-

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dum -94 the swedish people was told to have been living beyond their means, then its alleged debts were enumerated while society's gains and assets were suppressed. According to capitalism strategists Swedish economy from now on only stood to be rescued by an entry in the EU, with a sale out of the welfare state.

A milestone of anti-working class policies were implemented in 2006, when the SAP in agreement with the Left Party stole the unemployment fund of the union and converted it to a government authority. Later, the same year, it was just for the new right-wing government to shock increase the charge and reduce the allowance, whereupon 500 000 workers walked out of their unions. Now, an unemployed without unemployment insurance could be forced to work for a slave_s pay.

SAP approved the Lisbon Agreement 2009.

Now the labor right issues no longer was a national question but one thing for the jurisdiction of the EU in accordance with the promised land of the capitalists.

SWEDEN, with its 9.2% has an higher unemployment degree than the EU average (according to Eurostat) and in spite of all joy calculations from the right alliance about 25% young people aged between 16 and 25 are without work. Approximately 425 000 are registered as unemployed. A third of them do not have an unemployment insurance. More than 50 000 workers have this year been foretoken (dismissed) (6/11 among other - 1550 workers in the Swedish Ericsson also those working with research & development, and 1000 working at Scandinavian Airlines System 11/11). Manufacturing industries are reducing their staff bodies for a relocating abroad, although Sweden is said to have the third best

business climate next to Singapore and Finland. It should be noted that over 1.6 million people currently are employed by Swedish corporate groups abroad, mainly in manufacturing production.

Propaganda lies from SAP leaders did guarantee an EU-membership with statements that Sweden could retain their distinctive social system and be exempted from privatization of pharmacies, health care, etc. But first of all EU was described as a peace project. From there it was a short step to the alleged lie that Sweden would retain its "non-alignment and neutrality."

The changed security doctrine of Sweden to abandon the "neutrality principle" after the Cold War is contrary to the majority view of the Swedish people. The popular commitment to neutrality and non-alignment in the war was strengthened after the attack on Libya and Sweden's parliament decision (240 for 18 against) to participate in reconnaissance. Despite this, we had no popular protests.

TODAY THE POLITICALLY BLIND are sitting in clothes with the Stars and stripes length- and crosswise while the war criminals of the US are invited to the Cabinet Office "Rosenbad" in Stockholm: This year came Hillary Clinton after meeting Syrian allies in Geneva, then the supervisor of world dictatorship, Zbigniew Brzezinski lectured at Institute of International Affairs. After him Christopher Stevens, the U.S. coordinator for Libya intervention one week before he died in an attack from the Libyan Green Resistance. Stevens left no official traces behind him other than on the blog of his friend, the Chairman of the Left Party, Jonas Sjรถstedt which describes Stevens as a "warm and humble man, connoisseur of the Arab world and very progressive," reviews that

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of course will help Sweden to be tied up to U.S. war machine, like the shameful participation in the war against Libya.

IN THE PAST we could to some extent assume that the struggle for the preservation of peace was the lowest common denominator for the entire Left movement. But after the demise of the socialist system, the parliamentary opportunists of the "workers' parties" makes common cause with the chief of defence, the political right and their propaganda. And the right wing openly express solidarity - with NATO. n During the 1990s, Sweden participated in the NATO-led military operations in the Balkans and interact with a number of countries in the NATO "Partnership for Peace". Sweden was on place in the NATO headquarters in Brussels. n 1999 the SAP government expressed its tacit support for NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia and Belgrade n Sweden participates since 2001 in the war under NATO command in Afghanistan. n Sweden has abolished compulsory military service, rebuilt and adjusted his defense to NATO n Sweden sells weapons to the warring countries, primarily the United States. n Sweden sells weapons to and builds weapons and fuel depots for the Saudi dictatorship.

ON WEDNESDAY, THE 21, this week it was revealed that the Swedish government knew that the Institute for Defence- FOA Research allowed the dummy company Swedish Security Technology & Innovations- SSTI to handle the weapons cooperations with Saudi Arabia.

The government darkened by removing sensi-

tive documents from the record, something that is prohibited according to the Swedish constitution.

This week it was also revealed that Sweden and Israel have a very intimate and close weapons cooperation in which they perceive themselves to be on the same side. Videlycet: Sweden together with the occupant. n Sweden built shelters for Iraq to then provide design drawings of them to the United States during the war against Iraq. n Embassy in Minsk, Belarus, fomented turmoil and attempts to storm Parliament. n Sweden pays today 1.2% of its GDP to NATO n Sweden invites U.S. / NATO / EU / USrael to practice war against Russia and other countries on Swedish territory NEAT (North European Aerospace Test Range) And so forth ....

AT HOME, THE CP OF SWEDEN- SKP participated together with the CP of the Russian Federation, Finland and Norway in the Nordkalott meeting, a regional conference in Finnish Tornio in June. For peace and security in the Arctic and development without environmental disruption and with ultimate responsibility for the sensitive environment for a future exploitation.

SKP participates in and is co-organizer of the anti-imperialist manifestations, including to the memory of Pinochet- coup 1973. And most recently, through a solidarity campaign for Syria, where the people's protests have been hijacked by extreme Islamic groups financed by U.S. imperialism with minions to attack Syria. As a communist party, we condemn all forms of imperialist intervention and believes that Syrian people will solve their own conflict and determine their own future. We

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demand an immediate end to all sanctions and aggression against both Syria and Iran.

We stand with both DPR Korea as the Socialist Cuba, as well as the anti-imperialist and popular development taking place in many countries Latin America as Venezuela Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua. We sympathize and stand in solidarity with the working class in Europe, which through struggle, strikes and demonstrations say no to pay the crisis of the capital.

Against the system's anti-communism and the falsification of history, it_s not easy to come out with our policy.

But we frequently use our party organ Riktpunkt and make statements via homesite, website. blog and also regional websites. We do targeted actions in the form of flyers when needed or allowed financially and we have a very close and good cooperation with our friends in fraternal parties in Sweden from the Chilean CP, Greek KKE, Bolivia, Peru, El Salvador, the Iranian Tudehparti and the "Network for solidarity with Latin America".

TOGETHER WE CELEBRATE SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL HOLIDAYS. An important source of propaganda is the spreading of information around actions and statements from the militant trade union movement PAME and the KKE's struggle in Greece, as well as the similar situation in Spain, Portugal and Ireland. These and other examples of socialism and organized working-class struggle may serve as sources for knowledge to those who are deceived and passivated from opportunism. n The influence of SKP in the Building workers union of 100 000 members is very good and the Left Party as well as KP (KPMLr) influence is eradicated. Construction Communist as an organizer for con-

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struction workers have a good spread and make a strong impression for the contract negotiations, which most recently has yelded very good results for Construction Workers.

SKP has in Stockholm for "reasons of space" been excluded from "Socialist Forum" on 1 December 2012. SKP is since the beginning a member in the "Workers' Educational Association, ABF, the organizer of the forum. The reformists, particularly the Socialist democrates deny interested to take part of the lecture:" Can capitalism be reformed so that the welfare state may be saved. "In G채vle ( a town in the middle of the country) however, SKP is within the planning group.

Minor improvements and permanent reforms are only pushed up by keeping the strategy of throwing the whole system overboard. With this in mind: SKP is participating in a cross-political and trade union networks at the left edge to go against taxpayer-funded health care companies, primarily in care. The network "Welfare without profit" was formed after various healthcare scandals, also fatal. In this important subject SAP is speaking about a transparent capital that can be controlled, why private companies in the public sector not ought to be banned. SAP is as usual trying to deceive the working class while unfair profits can be magicked away by a conformed book-keeping.

The party has during the year participated in sympathy actions together with the union, against cuts and dismissals, including the Post, where the constant reorganizations have advanced so far that the item no longer appears.

The ongoing insurgency of retired to safe-

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guard pensions. Pensioners who today is a large group of 2 million and taxed harder than workers. They are comparing their situation with the politicians and their fantasy salaries. n Politicians who lost the touch with those they represent. Pension capital is since the 90's on the stock exchange. n It should be mentioned about a remarkable campaign for Swedish conditions measured, in which the population of Dorotea (A small town in the north) forced a referendum in a regional parliament to preserve their emergency station and infirmary.

Former members are coming back or would otherwise renew the touch with the party.

They have increasingly recognized that reform policy did`t constitute resistance to the system doctrines.

Significant is also that young people are turning to us to acquaint themselves with the social situation, vulnerability, crisis, basic life issues and especially communism.

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Communist Party of Turkey CANGUL ORNEK KONU

WE THANK THE LEBANESE COMMUNIST PARTY for convening the 14th Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. Lebanese comrades have been making a great effort to put this event together.

I would like to start by condemning the recent brutality of Israeli state in Gazza in the fiercest way possible and express our solidarity and feelings of fraternity with the Palestinian people, who are resisting for their lives and lands.

I would like to devote my speech to the changing strategies of imperialist interventions in the world, with a particular focus on the so-called Arab Spring that has altered the power balance in the Middle East. The developments in this region exemplify the new imperialist strategy adopted to carry out changes in political structures of countries.

This strategy is new and old at the same time.

It is new in the sense that it does not rest on direct military invasion contrary what we saw in Afghanistan and Iraq. As the US army stuck in these two countries and the US budget allocated huge amounts to sustain the invasions, the US policy makers came to realize the need for a different strategy that entailed less US soldiers and less US money. In addition, the US prefers to stay aloof of the political and social chaos created during imperialist intervention and post-intervention instability. This method of indirect intervention, we think, marked the last wave of political turmoil in the Middle East, the so-called "Arab Spring."

THE PRECURSORS OF THE SO-CALLED "REVOLUTIONS" observed in the Arab world had been staged in ex-socialist countries, where they were named as "color revolutions." In countries, which had been exposed to color revolutions the political structure had been transformed in a way compatible with the interests of the imperialist powers, without the latter’s direct military intervention. Usually, small groups, financed and trained by the

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NGO’s of imperialism had started an uprising, or a sort of disobedience movement, against power holders. The imperialists, aside from their covert support to those groups, had simultaneously imposed pressure from outside and forced the governments to give up.

Unlike the ex-socialist countries where tiny youth groups of a few hundred people had been recruited as agencies of imperialist plans, such a strategy of confining the movement to a small group could not be applied in the Middle East. There are various reasons that can be given for the uniqueness of the Middle Eastern societies. The cruel rule of the dictators and the anger of people rooted in decades of oppression could be emphasized as among the features that led to unleashed mass protests in this geography particularly in Tunisia and Egypt. But we must see that on the other side of the coin lays the fact that it would not possible to overthrow dictators, in Egypt for instance, without a great and reckless uprising. And the imperialists were very much aware of that fact.

The initial stage of the mass demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt, in this sense, can be considered as manifestation of people’s anger against the oppressive regimes. But strikingly, from the very beginning the movement refrained from targeting at the imperialist support that had been so fundamental for the dictators to preserve their rule against all threats they had faced. In the end it was beyond doubt that although the dictators were displaced, it was the imperialist forces that designed the new power structure.

THE PICTURE GOT CLEARER IN LIBYA AND SYRIA, where imperialists, taking advantage of the tribal or multi-ethnic and multi-religious structure of two societies, backed some

groups and encouraged them to involve into a military struggle against the governments.

Those groups were publicized as the real opposition of people. At this point we cannot repudiate the contribution of some so-called leftist circles and intellectuals to this imperialist propaganda campaign through constantly creating confusion about the real nature of the conflicts in these countries.

It should be noted that this strategy is not a totally new invention. The US position regarding the so-called "Arab Spring" and particularly the policies in Libya and Syria remind the post-Vietnam US strategy based on indirect intervention into the Third World. Shaken by the war in Vietnam, the US moved the option of military intervention to the shelf and kept it there until the end of the Cold War. Since the 1970s was the era of working class movements and revolutionary uprisings in the Third World, the US government was aware that they could not halt all forms of imperialist intervention. Thus, they started to finance and arm some local groups or collaborated with the military officers of countries to crash the revolutionary movements. At that time it was the revolutionary movements or governments that the US endeavored to overthrow. A careful and detailed analysis would illuminate how the US imperialism adapted its strategy of using domestic actors and groups to realize its own plans to different eras and geographies.

We would like to point out that the Justice and Development Party government in Turkey has undertaken a critical role for implementing the above-mentioned strategy. As we have tried to explain in different occasions, this government, without considering its structural constraints, is dreaming of a new Ottoman Empire in the region. However, theirs

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would be an empire serving the US interests in exchange for the recognition of its regional leadership. For this purpose, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo_an is constantly exploiting the anger of the people of in the region against Israel. Through harsh criticism, which has almost no material repercussions, he endeavors to gain the moral leadership of the Middle East. However, his performance in Syria shows that his government has already deserved being acknowledged as the leader of warmongers. While he is criticizing Israel, without taking any concrete step against this country, he sees no harm in calling the US to intervene directly in Syria. Contrary to the propaganda of this government, people in Turkey are against war on Syria. They have already demonstrated their desire for peace and brotherhood by organizing various meetings and protests and they will continue to do that.

OUR PARTY IS ONE OF THE LEADING FORCES of anti-war protests in Turkey. The struggle against the provocations of Turkish government, its support for the rebel group, the socalled "Free Syrian Army" is at the top of our political agenda. Starting from October we released a daily newspaper which covers the incidents in Syria and discloses the details of Turkey’s provocations. Our daily newspaper is one of the rare sources for the Turkish people to learn the realities about the plot prepared against the Syrian people.

As the Communist Party of Turkey, we think it is our primary obligation to use every opportunity and instrument to stop the war against Syria and put an end to the notorious mission of Turkish government.

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Labour Party, (EMEP) MEHMET OZER

WE HAVE WITNESSED MASS UPRISINGS in the Arab world over the last 2 years. The people have stood firmly against the autocratic apparatus of royal, czar and even republic dictators in many countries of North Africa and Middle East, where one country has on the one hand affected its neighbours while at the same being affected by them.

Inequality in its law and lack of democracy and freedom is the general character of autocratic regimes, which plays a vital role as one of the reasons for the uprisings. The impoverished people have filled the streets with slogans of freedom and justice.

While each uprising undoubtedly comprises authentic and different developments from one another against the autocracy, a special feature that is common to all is the 2008 crisis which has been deepened by monopolised capitalism with its neoliberal attacks, leaving an unbearable consequences that eventually burst out. Another slogan of the uprising then, became employment and livelihood.

While the revolt against autocracy and capitalism started in Tunisia and eventually spread to Egypt, without exception, each of the countries that underwent such experience had a special characteristic, which earned its place in history as victorious revolutions. The anger of the people was not sacred or as some people put it "a game of America"; it was real. Although millions of working people, the oppressed, took practical responsibility of the revolution to express their yearning, they were unable to act as the vanguard of their class due to class consciousness and low level of organisational skills. Therefore the people were unable to give the revolutions, which was a product of their labour, a distinguishing feature; making the revolutions to the advantage of their class interest. They were unable to prevent the bourgeoisie (those who were previously pushed to the opposition) and their conservative religious ideological flows and political

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organisations from taking the revolution out of their hands.

Without a doubt, revolutions in the Arab world are still far from reaching an end. And again without a doubt, the fruits of the revolution are being enjoyed by exploited masses who are the real forces behind it, not by the change of regime between the bourgeois classes who exclude the masses from participation but as a result of a series of advantages gained by the revolution; it cannot be doubted during the fall of the autocrats that the democratic rights earned are not result of the revolutions.

Perhaps the establishment of non-cooperative trade unions, the road towards free-elections and freedom of press is a manner of motion experiences of independent class actions and this is a representation of the achievements. The millions who came on the stage of history gained self-consciousness with joyful initiative and tested their ability and strength of the struggle with (almost) newly formed organisations. The exploited masses continued to protect the advantages which they gained from various attacks of the bourgeoisie, and for this reason the people have not abandoned the struggle; revolution has not ended.

THE IMPERIALISTS AND THEIR AGENTS learned from the lessons when they were caught off-guard in Tunisia and throughout the period of the uprisings intervention of these powers grew larger and successfully shifted the product of the revolutions to their advantage.

It was irrefutable that the defeated autocratic dictatorships relied externally on Western imperialists and internally on a minority of monopoly owning bourgeoisie who marginalised political Islamists with their so-

called modernist political agenda. Contrary to what they would have us believe, there was no "democratic", "reformist" reasons behind the imperialist support for overthrowing these dictatorships, furthermore the imperialists had no such concerns, and neither will they ever have.

The autocratic dictatorships were relied upon by the imperialists for tens of years for the purposes of pillaging, looting and furthering their hegemonic aims. However when these dictatorships became unable to control and suppress the popular uprisings, they lost their meaning and importance for the western imperialists. The western imperialists, like the popular Turkish proverb, ‘discarded them after squeezing them like lemons’. They had never stopped interfering in the world and the Middle East. It was not because the western imperialists had moved away from supporting backward ideas, it was precisely for this reason that they continued doing exactly as they had done in the past and this time in an environment of uprisings they saw this as an opportunity and tried to use it as a lever and were successful because of the lack of consciousness and organisation amongst the population. They did not side with the ‘spring’, neither did they organise the ‘spring’ as a ‘colourful revolution’ or social engineering; but they did seek to strengthen their dominance in the region by paving the way for political Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood to benefit from the uprisings by participating or appearing to participate in the rebellion in order to further their own interests. Secular autocratic regimes had finally become unable to control the public and a need had arisen to broaden the remit of the restrictive foundations of the dominant regressive politics. And the Muslim Brother-

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hood, even the Salafis, were ready for this because for the last few decades they had worked to align themselves with neoliberal politics, had grown economically, and had been seeking to improve its relationships with the West. Thereafter the exploited masses, would become participants, and duped into being controlled using force and repression.

For example, in Egypt, since the withdrawal of the generals, the Muslim Brotherhood and their partners are benefiting from the gains of the revolution in order to challenge those supporting the generals. In Tunisia, the progressive’s democrats and the revolutionaries are challenged first and foremost by En Nahda.

Imperialist interventions following the popular uprisings have mainly been achieved by using political Islam to further imperialist aims and has been following different unique methods in each country. Whilst in Tunisia and Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood have been complicit in quelling the uprisings, in Libya the imperialists have claimed to support the uprising and have forced those rebels stuck in cross-fire to invite them in for support with direct military intervention. In Syria, the imperialists have not been able to do this but such attempts are being made via alternative means. This is because the Assad regime is strong enough to stand up to the imperialists and because the Syrian public are against foreign interventions. The formula found against this, is to support and organise political Islam, arm them so that they can begin to dismantle the regime and reduce its stronghold. In order to achieve this the Saudi and Qatar reactionary regimes have been key supporters and Turkish reactionism has been assigned as the officer, and the Turkey-Syria border has become a pro-Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi, AlQaeda source of safe passage for these anti-

establishment terrorist groups. For some time, the terrorist organisation, Free Syrian Army (FSA) headquarter was in Hatay in the Apaydin Camp and this opposition was supported politically by the Syrian National Council in Istanbul. Unlike the other Arab countries, in the case of Syria there was an attempt to weaken the Syrian regime by using sectarian tactics.

WE, THE COMMUNISTS FROM TURKEY, first and foremost declare that no country has a right to intervene in the internal affairs of another country and condemn the Turkish reactionary attack and promotion of the violence against Syria and confirm that we do not approve of such action. Firstly we respect the sovereignty of our neighbours and stress that it is an essential principle for neighbours to be able to live in peace together. There is no need to support the regime of other countries in order to respect a country’s right to sovereignty. Changing of a regime in any country is a right and decision solely for the people of that country and no ‘higher moral purpose’ can give any external forces the right to deprive the people of this right. Claims about ‘Assad oppressing the public’, and for freedom and democracy cannot justify the intervention by one country into another country’s internal affairs.

ON THE OTHER HAND, it is the sacred right of the people to oppose the bourgeoisie powers that rule them. The power lies in the people against imperialist intervention and destruction, and the first lesson to be learnt from the Arab popular uprisings is that internal and external reactionism, imperialists and their collaborators must be fought by a united struggle for independence and democracy. Howev-

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er, another valuable lesson is that for national and social emancipation, the battle against imperialists and their collaborators must be fought together with the anti-capitalist struggle and jointly with people’s independence movements. For the exploited masses the fundamental lesson must be this: It is not sufficient to fight just for freedom and democracy. To prevent being deceived by the bourgeoisie movements the exploited masses must have their own programme and organisation with represents and defends their own interests. It is only in these circumstances that the blood they have shed for the revolution will reach a successful outcome and their emancipation can be used to establish their own government and set up a government of the people.

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Communist Party, USA ERWIN MARQUIT

WE EXPRESS OUR GRATITUDE to the Lebanese Communist Party for hosting this important meeting under the present difficult conditions.

19 THE COMMUNIST PARTY USA not only welcomes the reelection of President Barack Obama, but actively engaged in the electoral campaign for his reelection and for the election of many Democratic Party congressional candidates. We regarded the 2012 election as the most important in the United States since 1932, an election held in the midst of the Great Depression.

The election of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 led to the legalization of the right of workers to organize labor unions and to bargain collectively with employers. It led to the establishment of a compulsory employerworker funded pension system for retired workers. It also introduced measures that enabled unemployed families to survive the Great Depression, among which were employment in the public sector for the unemployed, work camps for youth, and food provisions for the poverty stricken. Except for the youth camps, which ended with the onset of World War II, all of these are measures that the 2012 Republican Party agenda would have eliminated or greatly weakened. We believed that if the Republican candidate for President were elected and if both houses of the Congress fell under the control of the far right, racist sector (calling itself the "Tea Party") that now dominates the Republican Party, the nation’s return to pre-1932 conditions would be a real danger.

Because of this danger, we viewed our participation in mainstream electoral activity as obligatory, even though both major parties in the United States are dominated by capital, with no effective competition from a massscale social-democratic party, We are aware that some on the Left in the United States thought that the correct approach to the elec-

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tions was either to boycott them, or as a protest, to run or support small-scale leftwing candidacies with no possible chance of winning. We Communists rejected this strategy because too much was at stake.

WHY DID THE COMMUNIST PARTY not run a candidate in the 2012 presidential elections?

In the 1930s, the CPUSA played an outstanding role in the establishment of industrial unionism and the winning of sweeping social welfare measures. In the course of those struggles the Communist Party grew rapidly, achieving a membership of close to 100,000.

At that time, we always pointed out clearly that the lasting solution to the crises produced by the capitalist system was the replacement of the capitalist system itself. In our election pamphlets for the 2012 elections, we continued to emphasize the longterm goal of a socialist transformation of the economy.

With the beginning of the Cold War in 1946, the U.S. government introduced a wide range of repressive measures against the Communist Party, which included the imprisonment of its leaders and those that replaced them, and the blacklisting of its members to deny them employment. Eight camps for internment of Communists in case of a national emergency were constructed; Communist-led labor unions were denied collective-bargaining rights; eleven unions that refused to purge Communists from their leadership ranks were expelled from the CIO labor federation, and all but two of these were subsequently destroyed. Under these oppressive measures, the size of the Party was vastly reduced. The internal crises within the socialist countries and the subsequent collapse of socialist sys-

tems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe took a further toll. Anti-Communist sentiment among sectors of the U.S. population was stimulated by the demonizing of Communistled countries for half a century. The U.S. government and media continually portrayed the socialist countries of Europe and Asia as the gravest enemy of the United States with nuclear missiles pointed toward the United States As a result, in 1984, Gus Hall, the Communist candidate for president in 1984_the last Communist candidate in a presidential election_received only 0.03% of the vote. In small measure, this was partly due to the fact that the United States had, and still has, the most undemocratic electoral system among all bourgeois democracies, with no proportional representation except in a handful of local city elections. In our electoral system, when there are more than two candidates, the candidate with largest number of votes wins without the possibility, in most cases, of a supplementary vote for the two leading candidates. Most voters regard a vote for a minority party as a wasted vote, since it cannot elect any candidates except under unusual local conditions.

In the past four years, the Republican Party has succeeded in many states in amending state constitutions to reduce the potential vote for the Democratic Party by placing obstacles in the path of low-income people and the elderly to vote by requiring documentation they often do not possess. Such restrictions are aimed particularly at reducing votes of African Americans and Latinos and povertystricken segments of the population. The Republican Party is notorious for its use of illegal means to restrict selectively votes in areas likely to support its candidates. In such areas

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in Florida, for example, voters had to wait five hours to cast their ballots because the Republicans in office deliberately underfunded voting facilities.

The events since the last decades of the twentieth century made clear the urgency of a different electoral strategy. The decrease in industrial employment in the basic industries and the loss of jobs in other industries as a result of computerization produced a precipitous decline in mass-employment industrial enterprises, and led to a decline in laborunion membership, abetted by an increasing assault by big capital on the right of workers to seek union recognition for collective bargaining. The possible attractiveness of a socialist alternative provided by the full employment, universal health care, free higher education, and other social welfare measures in the socialist countries had previously restrained the capitalists from an all-out assault on labor unions. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the European socialist countries removed that restraint.

As a result, labor-union membership in the private sector in the United States, which had already begun to decline from its peak of 39% in 1958, declined precipitously to under 7% today. Until last year, the federal, state, and local governments did not show the same aggressiveness against labor unions, so public sector labor-union membership has held steady at about 36% since the 1980s. Two years ago, the far-right elements that now dominate the Republican Party began a campaign to deprive public-sector workers of the right to collective bargaining. The virtual destruction of the labor movement in the US, which the Republicans clearly intend, would be a terrible defeat for the Left and the entire working class.

This assault on trade unions is happening just as the major unions in the United States have been breaking with their anti-Communist past and have been moving into positions of authentic solidarity with workers’ struggles in other countries. An example is the support U.S. unions are giving workers in Colombia and Mexico.

A KEY STRATEGY FOR REVERSING the decline in labor-union membership is the enactment of a federal law proposed by the labor unions that Obama and the Democrats in Congress were unable to enact over the opposition of the Republicans. This law would require employers to recognize and bargain collectively with a labor union when a majority of their employees have signed statements requesting such recognition, repairing the defect in the present Fair Employment Practices Act that allows employers to delay and block recognition by a combination of legal and illegal maneuvers for which there is no effective redress.

The far rightward shift in the Republican Party was narrowing the breathing space for resistance to corporate power by the working class and allied elements of other classes. An important consideration in the 2012 elections was that a Republican victory in the presidential and congressional elections could lead an absolute majority of far-right justices in the current ideologically divided Supreme Court by presidential lifetime appointment of farright justices to fill an anticipated two or more vacancies due to retirement or death. This raised the threat that the Supreme Court would produce rulings that further restrict the rights of labor unions to organize and bargain collectively; reverse the gains in women’s rights by ruling against legislation that grant-

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ed women the right to equal pay for equal work, contraception, and abortion; rule against laws outlawing racial segregation, discrimination against women, and laws that protect African Americans and Latinos from discrimination in employment and housing, and that give gays and lesbians equal rights in employment and marriage. A Supreme Court dominated by right-wing justices could even abolish the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The far-right Republican Party agenda includes all these issues. Even with the present Supreme Court, we have been witnessing the erosion of democratic rights. Apart from the drive by the far-right to restrict voting rights, the Supreme Court has upheld the right of corporations to devote unlimited funds to elect candidates that will serve their interests, declaring that corporations are "persons" under law and therefore have the right of freedom of speech!

The most import success of the Obama Administration since its election in 2008 was the introduction of a major expansion of the people’s access to financing of their health care.

As a result of this legislation, 25 million people now have access to health care who previously did not have it. The repeal of this health care law was one of the main points in the programs of the Republican Party presidential and Congressional candidates in the 2012 election. Even without a repeal, there is still the danger that it will be ruled unconstitutional by the present Supreme Court even though the lower courts have upheld it. Whatever the present Supreme Court might not rule, a Supreme Court loaded with right-wing justices appointed by a Republican president would still be able to do so.

Obama has opposed Republican attempts to introduce austerity programs similar to those

in the European Union. The Republicans have opposed his efforts to use government funds as economic stimuli to reduce unemployment, as well as his attempts to remove the special provisions of the income tax code that have allowed the rich to be taxed at a lower percentage of income than the average working person, and to eliminate of tax benefits that the corporations get when exporting of jobs abroad. The Occupy movement, with its slogan, "We are the 99 %," that swept through the country in 2011, sharply drew attention to the power of the top 1%" of the population and stimulated support for Obama’s efforts to require higher taxes for the wealthy. The Republicans have blocked all proposals to reduce global warming, environment destruction, industrial pollution, and other actions arising from corporate greed that that threaten to destroy the biophysical basis of human existence. Republicans even want to privatize the FEMA, the federal agency for disaster mitigation.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT ISSUE is that of justice for immigrant workers and their families.

There are between 10 and 11 million irregular immigrants in the United States, mostly from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Our Party supports the regularization of their status, with full rights in the workplace and in the community, and access to U.S. citizenship.

The Obama administration has moved too slowly on this issue (and the CPUSA has been sharply critical of this), but it is now taking some modest but real steps. The Republicans, on the other hand, have whipped up a racist frenzy against immigrants that has led to vigilante action and in some cases the murder of immigrant workers. Romney had promised to make life so hard for undocumented immi-

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grants that they would all "self" deport.

Faced with a choice between the victory of either the Democratic Party or Republican Party, the Communist Party viewed a victory of the far-right Republican Party as an extreme disaster. In this situation, we saw the necessity of a policy of center-left alliances in order not to separate ourselves from the people’s struggles for dealing with the far right onslaught, The basis of such an alliance now includes the labor movement, organizations of African Americans and Latinos, the women’s movement, gay and lesbian civil rights groups, and organizations of the elderly and retirees.

On some issues, these groups are joined by a few far-sighted elements of capital.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY "FAR-SIGHTED" ELEMENTS OF CAPITAL? As in all capitalist countries, big capital is not a monolith of common interest. Not only are elements of capital in competition with one another, but differences in their investment policies give rise to conflicting political interests. Corporations with investments in the oil, coal, and natural gas industries tend to have the most right-wing orientations. Corporations with heavy investments in China are somewhat wary of China bashing by the Republicans and even by Obama. Some corporations derive their superprofits by operations that do severe environmental damage and contribute heavily to global warming, while others depend on a relatively healthy environment for their maximum profits. That is why some elements of big capital support the Republican Party, while others support the Democratic Party because they can see a limited common interest some issues with the working-class base of support for the Democratic Party. Our present strategy is build alliances both inside and outside the

Democratic Party to curtail the dominance of big capital over the lives of our people.

We are well aware that mass political activity on issues of social justice domestically and anti-imperialist solidarity internationally will not spring from within the Democratic Party.

The Communist Party must continue to work with other components of this alliance to generate mass activity independently of the two parties to pressure the president and the Congress to act on its demands.

In our electoral policy, we seek to cooperate and strengthen our relationship with the more progressive elements in Democratic Party, such as the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. Congress, a group of seventy-six members of the Congress co-chaired by Ra_l Grijalva, a Latino from Arizona, and Keith Ellison, an African American Muslim from Minnesota. We also will strengthen our relationship to the Congressional Black Caucus (formed by African Americans in the Congress), which has been the point of origin of innovative policies including an end to the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba, and with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In its domestic policy, for example, the Progressive Caucus has put forth a program for using the public sector to deal with unemployment. It has opposed the use of the so called "war on terror" to incarcerate U.S. citizens indefinitely without criminal charges. In its foreign policy, the Progressive Caucus and the Black Caucus are outspoken in their opposition to U.S. imperialist policies abroad. The Progressive Caucus, now that Obama has been reelected, will be playing an important role in contributing to the mobilization of mass activity on critical issues to bring pressure on the Congress and administration to act on them.

In this year’s elections, the labor unions made

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vigorous efforts to involve their members and their retirees in phoning and door-to-door visits to campaign for Obama and the Democratic Party candidates for the Congress and state legislatures. In my state, our Party members preferentially participated in the election campaign through these labor-union channels.

IN MY STATE, MINNESOTA, and the states of Maine, Maryland, and Washington, voters were asked to approve or accept ballot initiatives (that is, plebiscites or referenda) to permit or ban same-sex marriage. Because the Republican Party relies not only on financial support from major sections of big capital, but needs the votes of its right-wing Christian evangelical mass base, it has made its support of the ban on same sex marriage a major campaign issue. Our Party, as does the labor movement, and also Obama and the Democratic Party, considers the right of same-sex couples to marry as a civil-rights issue. By campaigning to bring out people to vote against such a ban, they were also bringing out people who would most likely vote for against the bigoted far-right candidates of the Republic Party. In three states, the voters approved the right to same-sex marriage. In the fourth state, Minnesota, the attempt to insert a ban of such marriage in the state constitution was rejected. In selectively cooperating with the progressive elements of the Democratic Party, we generally openly maintain our identity as Communists and seek to build our party through its visible activities.

In our foreign policy, U.S. Communists consistently oppose all U.S. imperialist activities abroad. We participate in the Cuban solidarity movement and demand the end of the U.S. economic blockade against Cuba and the

freeing of the Cuban Five. We opposed the NATO intervention in Libya and oppose U.S. intervention in Syria. We support immediate withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan and oppose the use of drones for assassination and bombing. We call for the end of sanctions against Iran. We oppose the intrusion of the United States militarily and politically in the affairs of Southeast Asia. We oppose the China-bashing policies of the U.S. government. We welcome the election of several progressive, anti-imperialist governments in Latin America and oppose U.S. attempts to undermine them. This leftward shift in Latin American, opening a path to possible socialist development, is of tremendous importance in the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle.

We call for the replacement of U.S. support of the apartheid regime in Israel by support for a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with the right of return of Palestinians to their native cities and villages. The day before the elections, the New York Times, in discussing the prospects of a Palestinian/Israel agreement, wrote: "Whatever chance exists of a new American peace initiative after the election is likely to vanish if Mitt Romney wins; at private fund-raising event, he said that the Arab-Israeli conflict was ‘going to remain an unsolved problem’ and seemed unconcerned about it."

With the elections now over, there is a prospect that growing support in the United States for a just Middle East solution can induce President Obama once again to put pressure on the Israeli government to end the settlement expansion and resume negotiations leading to such a solution. An indication of such growing support is the letter on 19 October 2012 signed by fifteen leaders of the principal U.S. Christian churches calling upon the

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Congress to reconsider giving aid to Israel because of human rights violations. Reverend Gradye Parsons, the top official of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) said, "We asked Congress to treat Israel like it would any other country, to make sure our military aid is going to a country espousing the values we would as Americans_that it is not being used to continually violate the human rights of other people." The letter said that Israel had continued expanding settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem despite American calls to stop claiming territory that under international law and United States policy should belong to a future Palestinian state. This is a sharp contrast to the evangelical Christian churches, which have been part of the core of the far right support of the Republican candidates for president and the Congress. A Jewish-American organization called "J Street," first organized six years ago as a "pro-Israel pro-peace" organization, has been gaining growing support among Jewish Americans for its advocacy of an end to the settlement expansion and a two- state solution based on the 1967 borders. In the 2012 elections, it contributed 1.8 million dollars to support the election of 72 candidates for the U.S. Congress, of which 71 were elected, The Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, had direct links to some of the most reactionary elements in U.S. politics and with right wing extremist groups in other countries who brought us not only the Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, but also the contra wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. He sought support from the extreme right wing Cuban exile mafia in South Florida.

The election of Romney would have greatly increased the probability of direct U.S. military intervention in Latin America in the coming

period. The Republicans in the Congress prevented Obama from shutting down the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the U.S. naval base in Cuban territory that has been occupied illegally since 1903.

A KEY ELEMENT OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY’S STRATEGY of alliances is to imbue the struggles of these alliances with enhancement of the democratic rights, and to promote the increasing use of the public sector to extend the acceptance of a socialist consciousness. Obviously the Communist Party needs far more growth than it has been able to achieve. We are, however, effectively using our participation in people’s struggles and the Internet to recruit new members. We have an online daily news publication, People’s World, www.peoplesworld.org, a monthly online theoretical journal Political Affairs, www.politicalaffairs.net, as well as national and district Websites. As a result of our online activities, we have been forming Party clubs in states in which we previously had very few or even no members. This influx of new members led us to have a national Party school earlier this year to acquaint new members with the Marxist-Leninist orientation of the Party.

The reelection of Obama places before us the high-priority task of reversing the decline in labor-union membership by securing the enactment of the law requiring the recognition of labor unions when supported by the majority of workers of an enterprise and securing passage of other legislation that benefits the working people. The fact that the composition of the new Congress did not change ideologically enough to facilitate passage of this law still presents us with a difficult struggle. The fact that Republican Party still controls the lower house of the Congress and has enough

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votes in the upper house to block legislative changes of a highly progressive nature presents an obstacle that we will have to combat until it can be changed in the 2014 elections.

We still have the task of strengthening the center-left alliance and enriching its anti-imperialist character.

While the victory of Obama is a welcome aid for us in our domestic struggles, we still face the challenge of mobilizing mass pressure on his administration to reverse the imperialist character of U.S. foreign policy. The CPUSA will pursue this formidable task vigorously in alliance with domestic progressive forces and with our comrades in the Communist and Workers’ Parties and their allies throughout the world.

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Documents FINAL STATEMENT FOR THE 14TH MEETING OF IMCWP

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Beirut Declaration

THE FOURTEENTH MEETING of the International Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) was held in Beirut, Lebanon’s Capital, between the 22nd and the 25th of November 2012, under the banner: "Strengthen the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness, for satisfying peoples’ socio-economicdemocratic rights and aspirations, for socialism".

The meeting was attended by 84 delegates, representing 60 parties, from 44 countries from the five continents of the world – while letters of apology were sent by those parties unable to attend due to circumstances beyond their control.

The meeting, follows the extraordinary meeting which was held in the Arab region, in Syria 2009, about Palestine within a three year period, and constitutes a new opportunity for the Communist and Workers' Parties to express their continued solidarity and support for the struggle of the working class and the popular struggles and uprisings in the Arab countries against imperialist aggressions and big capital and for democratic change. The discussions, which took place during the meeting, contributed to the exchange of views regarding unfolding developments worldwide and to agreement on the development of common and convergent actions aiming to effect a revolutionary struggle for socialism.

THE 14TH MEETING of the International Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) re-

asserted its earlier statements issued during previous meetings between 2008 and 2011 regarding the capitalist crisis of capital overproduction and over accumulation, the root of which lies in the sharpening of the main contradictions between capital and labour, which continued to deepen and intensify. The different bourgeois versions for the management of the crisis have failed to bring it under control; all of them have the same barbaric effects for the people's rights. The imperialist reaction to the crisis is being marked by a multifaceted offensive of imperialism against the social, economic, democratic and national rights of the peoples, an offensive that aims to destroy the achievements won by the workers' and people's struggles during the XX century and to intensive the level of exploitation and oppression.

This fact, in combination with the increased aggression of imperialism and the expansion of the imperialist wars, the realignments in the international correlation of forces where the relative weakening of the position of the USA co- exist with the growing economic and political power of several countries raises a group of issues which indicate that the world is, once again, at a critical and dangerous junction where the contradictions and the competitions are intensifying, and where great dangers coexist with real opportunities for the development of the workers and peoples' struggle.

In this regard, it is useful to pose the question: how does the universal, increased, imperialist aggression manifest itself, militarily, politically, economically and socially and what forms does it take?

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FIRSTLY, imperialism is pursuing an offensive that aims at large-scale destruction of economic, social, political, cultural and national rights, and a regression in the correlation of forces even more in favor of capital and against labour. Massive operations are under way to further concentrate and centralize capital. At the same time far reaching attacks are launched against social and labour rights, with massive cuts in salaries, massive unemployment, privatization and destruction of social functions of States, the privatization of nearly all the sectors of the economy and areas of social life. This anti-social offensive is accompanied by an unprecedented offensive against the democratic, national and ecological rights of the peoples.

In particular, the attack against the labour, economic and social rights of women has sharpened, provoking a brutal worsening in the conditions of life both in public and private fields. Addressing and defeating this aggression is crucial, because the struggle for the real equality of women is a vital part in the struggle against capitalism.

SECONDLY, it should be stressed that the reassertion of Barack Obama in the UN, where he stated that his country will not "withdraw" from the world, agrees with the program approved by NATO at its latest Chicago summit effectively implying an increased military imperialist intervention throughout the world under the slogan of "clever defense". This includes launching the first phase of "rocket shield" or "star wars" in Europe and the global anti-missile shield program, direct military intervention in Libya, intermittent threats against Iran and DPR of Korea, increased military activity, aggressions and provocations in the Middle East, the Asia Pacific zone and

throughout the African continent, intensified imperialistic militarism in Latin America and the Caribbean. The intensification of hostility and the blockade against Cuba continues, as well as the plots against Venezuela.

THIRDLY, this campaign of military aggression is accompanied by insolent and public political interventions in the affairs of most countries worldwide. These interventions are manifested by the use of capital and influence in order to distort and falsify the will of the people, in order to manipulate, intimidate and prevent the representatives chosen by the people from reaching power. Imperialist forces do not hesitate from employing the worst tools in order to reach their goals, including organizing terrorist attacks, military coups, allying themselves with neo-fascist powers, promoting political - religious powers, and the various counter-revolutionary forces of different ideological backgrounds all for the sake of exerting imperialist control throughout the planet, by redrawing borders and rearranging sectoral markets, especially the energy market with its oil and gas resources and transportation routes.

FOURTHLY, this military aggression campaign is also accompanied by the intensification of the aggressiveness, such as employing the full resources of various international agencies and organizations, and in particular the IMF, World Bank, and the European Union with a view to safeguard the power of Big Capital. In order to guarantee its interests and objectives, in addition to further developing its aggression and insolent interventions in the countries of the world, the global capitalist regime is adamant on waging war on the international working class and their repre-

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sentatives, through a variety of measures including: ß A denial of the basic human right to work, and the associated gains achieved by the working class. ß A global ideological and media offensive aiming to restrain the workers and people struggles and persecute all the social and political forces that struggle against imperialism, specially the Communist and Workers’ Parties. ß Concerted efforts and actions in violation of all that is included in the UN charter and in the "Universal declaration of human rights", which have been formed in conditions of a different correlation of forces thanks to the presence of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.

FIFTHLY, in the context of this over reaching, global imperialistic aggression, attention must be paid to the manner in which it is manifesting itself in the Middle East through the project of "the New Middle East" which aims at re-dividing the region and its people into ethnic and religious groups, constantly fighting each other. This in turn allows the appropriation of the natural resources found in this region and particularly the oil and gas resources. The military wars and occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and of the Israeli aggressions on Lebanon and against the people of Palestine are an inseparable part of the imperialistic "Big Middle East' project. In addition, it is within the context of this project that recent developments should be analyzed including 1.The escalation in the rate of the USA and European Union imperialist threats of military intervention in Iran, and against Syria, taking advantage of both violence acts being perpetuated against civilians and relying on

the forces which are supported by the imperialists, 2. the continued efforts to control the path of the uprisings which have occurred over the past two years in several of the Arab countries and, in particular, Egypt and Tunisia, through the use of sectarianism, racism and prejudice as well as the forever-obliging petro-dollars of all Arabian Gulf regimes.

These developments, and their potential consequences, exert pressure on the working class and communist and Workers’ parties to carry out their historic responsibilities of confronting the capitalist system and imperialist aggression. This confrontation, which must take place in different countries separately, and on the international level, is necessary in order to conquer anti-monopolist and antiimperialist ruptures and achievements and, succeed in building socialism, as specified by the thirteenth International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, held in December 2011 in Athens.

THE CONFRONTATION WITH IMPERIALISM DICTATES the strengthening of the cooperation and solidarity of our Parties and the definition of our common goals and guidelines of struggle on the one hand, and the convergent action with the various anti-imperialist forces and mass movements, including Unions, Women, Youth and Intellectual organizations, on the other hand.

In Latin America, the anti-imperialist forces, the trade union and other social movements continue their struggles for people’s rights and against imperialism. These struggles, that are the target of a counter-offensive of imperialism, led, in some cases, to the emergence of governments that declare themselves programmatically in defense of national sovereignty and of social rights, for

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the development and protection of their natural resources and biodiversity, considering that they give new impetus to anti imperialistic struggle.

This universal confrontation also dictates the organization of the working people in the workplace and the trade unions, the strengthening of the class oriented movement the promotion of the alliance of the working class with the oppressed popular strata, the intensification of the struggle of the international working class and the peoples of the world. In order to impede the anti- people measures and promote goals of struggle that meet the contemporary people's needs, demands a counter attack for anti- monopoly and antiimperialist ruptures for the overthrow of capitalism.

THE IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE of the communist movement is of vital importance in order to defend and develop scientific socialism, to repulse contemporary anti- communism, to confront bourgeois ideology, and all alien tendencies, anti- scientific theories and opportunist currents which reject the class struggle; and combat the role of social democratic forces that defend and implement antipeople and pro- imperialist policies by supporting the strategy of capital and imperialism. The understanding of the unified character of the duties of the struggle for social, national and class emancipation, for the distinct promotion of the socialist alternative requires the ideological counteroffensive of the communist movement.

Considering the capitalist crisis and its consequences the international experiences from the socialist construction prove the superiority of socialism. We underline our soli-

darity with the peoples who struggle for socialism and are involved in the construction of socialism.

BASED ON ALL THE ABOVE, we stress the need to focus on the following joint actions: ß Struggling to confront the new plans of imperialism on the military, political, economic and social levels in order to prevent it from controlling the world and destroying it. ß Rallying for the removal of NATO military bases and the right of withdrawal from the imperialist alliances. ß Expressing class solidarity with and providing support to strengthen the working class and popular struggles in the capitalist countries against the policies that put further burdens on people and for winning benefits for improving the livelihoods of the workers and peoples effecting revolutionary change. ß Reasserting international solidarity with democratic popular movements and uprisings in the face of occupation and oppressive regimes; and the adamant rejection of imperialist intervention in these countries. ß Confronting anti-communist laws, measures and persecution; waging an ideological struggle against the revision of history, for reasserting the contribution of the communist and labour movement in human history. ß Condemning the US blockade of Cuba and supporting Cuba’s struggle for its immediate lifting. Strengthening the campaigns for the release and return of the five Cuban patriots to Cuba. ß Condemning the ongoing atrocities perpetuated by the Israeli occupying forces

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against the Palestinian people, supporting their right in resisting occupation, and building their independent state, East Jerusalem as a capital, and strengthening the campaign for the immediate lifting of the blockade against Gaza and for the Right of Return. Ă&#x; Promoting the international front against imperialism and the support for the international anti-imperialist mass organizations, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the World Peace Council (WPC), the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), and the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), in the specific framework of every country.

Beirut, 25th of November 2012

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Solidarity statements MOTION OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN PEOPLES’ In Latin American and Caribbean countries, popular struggles at the moment are going through unprecedented democratic and revolutionary period, and anti-imperialist processes with profound democratic content. Anti-imperialist and democratic positions of the peoples of the region are growing, much of the governments of our region are progressive governments today, and there is an important change in the correlation of forces in favor of peoples’.

Latin America and Caribbean today represent one of the mains fulcrums of anti-imperialist resistance. Socialist Cuba and the Bolivarian Venezuela are in the front line of these processes, and are at the same time the main tar-

gets of imperialism’s counter-offensive.

The Communist and Workers’ Parties, present in the 14th Meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, reiterates their solidarity with the Latin American and Caribbean people’s and the struggles of Communist and Workers’ Parties and the revolutionaries and anti-imperialists forces of the region. We also recognize the importance of the Declaration of Guayaquil, which was adopted by the parties that were present in a meeting of the Communist and Worker’s Parties of Latin America and Caribbean, on November 15, 2012, hosted by the Communist Party of Ecuador, with the important collaboration of the Communist Party of Cuba.

The Parties

n

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n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaïdjan Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain Workers’ Party of Bangladesh Communist Party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Belgium Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Communist Party of China Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party of Cuba Progressive Party of the Working People, Cyprus (AKEL) Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Communist Party in Denmark (KPiD) Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party of Egypt

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Communist Party of Finland French Communist Party German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of India [Marxist] Iraqi Communist Party Communist Party of Kurdistan – Iraq Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communists Communist Refoundation Party Jordanian Communist Party Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Nepal [UML] New Communist Party of the Netherland Palestinian People’s Party Communist Party of Norway Palestinian Communist Party Portuguese Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Workers’ Party of Russia (RKRP)

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n n n n n n n

Communist Party of Soviet Union New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party Communist Party of Spain Party of the Communists of Cataluna Communist Party of Sri Lanka Sudanese Communist Party

n n n n n n n

Syrian Communist Party Syrian Communist Party [Unified] Communist Party of Tajikistan Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party, USA Communist Party of Vietnam

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SOLIDARITY WITH LEBANON The representatives of the 14th IMCWP, who are meeting Beirut, capital of Lebanon, confirm the position of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) which calls for the necessity to face the aggressiveness of imperialism toward Lebanon and the region, this imperialism which is working on dividing the region into conflicted sectarian parts. So they confirm: n Supporting the LCP, the people of Lebanon and its national resistance against the aggressiveness of Israel and the imperialist – backward conspiracies against national

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The Parties

n

n

n

n n

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaijan Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain Workers’ Party of Bangladesh Communist party of Bangladesh Communist Party of Belarus Workers’ Party of Belgium Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Communist Party of China Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party of Cuba Progressive Party of the Working People, Cyprus (AKEL) Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Communist Party in Denmark Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party of Egypt Communist Party of Finland

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

unity of Lebanon.

Condemning the Israeli occupation to Shebaa Farms and Kfarshouba Hills (Telal Kfarshouba) and capturing the bodies of the martyrs of national resistance.

Supporting the ambitions of the people of Lebanon in democratic change for the sake of building resisting democratic country.

Supporting the struggle of the democratic and progressive workers' syndicates for the sake of achieving all their socio – economic rights.

French Communist Party German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party Communist Party of India [Marxist] Iraqi Communist Party Communist Party of Kurdistan – Iraq Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communists Communist Refoundation Party, Italy Jordanian Communist Party Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico Communist Party of Nepal New Communist Party of Netherland Palestinian People’s Party Communist Party of Norway Palestinian Communist Party Portuguese Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Workers’ Party of Russia Communist Party of Soviet Union New Communist Party of Yugoslavia

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n n n n n n n n

South African Communist Party Communist Party of Spain Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Party of the Communists of Cataluna Communist Party of Sri Lanka Sudanese Communist Party Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) Syrian Communist Party

n n n n n n n

Syrian Communist Party [Unified] Communist Party of Tajikistan Labour Party, Turkey (EMEP) Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Communist Party of Ukraine Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party of Vietnam

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SOLIDARITY WITH THE KKE AND THE CLASS STRUGGLES IN GREECE We, the communist and workers’ parties, which participated in the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties held in Beirut on 23-25 of November 2012 and sign this statement, express our class solidarity with the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), with the members, cadres and friends of the KKE and the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), who are playing a leading role in the major struggles of the recent years so that the workers do not shoulder the burdens of the capitalist crisis and to pave the way for a development path in favour of the people’s interests. A path which requires the conflict and rupture with the imperialist unions, with the dominance of the monopo-

lies, for the overthrow of the exploitative system and the construction of socialism.

The major class struggles which took place and are still taking place in Greece lend strength to the global class-oriented labour movement, give hope and courage and have the support of millions of workers all over the world.

The parties

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Comrades!

Continue on the path of class struggle in a dynamic and consistent way!

Long live Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism!

Long live the 94th year anniversary of the foundation of the KKE!

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaijan Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain Communist Party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Belgium Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party of Cuba Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Progressive Party of the Working People, Cyprus (AKEL) Communist Party in Denmark Egyptian Communist Party Communist Party of Finland

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party Communist Party of India [Marxist] Iraqi Communist Party Communist Party of Kurdistan - Iraq Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communists Communist Party of Mexico Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Norway Portuguese Communist Party Communist Workers’ Party of Russia Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Party of Soviet Union New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party Communist Party of the Peoples’ of Spain Communist Party of Sri-Lanka

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216

n n n n n

Sudanese Communist Party Communist Party of Sweden Syrian Communist Party Syrian Communist Party [Unified] Communist Party of Tajikistan

n n n n

Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Communist Party of Ukraine Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party of Vietnam

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UNITED AGAINST THE IMPERIALISTIC TOOL- INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

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TThe Hague Tribunal represents the political lever of imperialism, which is the instrument of permanent blackmailing of people of ex-Yugoslavia. The Hague Tribunal was formed to hide the facts that lead to the key instructing party for bloody dispersal of Yugoslavia, which bloody imperialistic trace goes to the recent war operations in Gaza, Syria, across the Middle East, to the Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan... The existence of the Hague Tribunal enables the accomplishment of imperialistic goals of total dominance over the region, dividing the peoples and nations of the teritory of Yugoslavia, continue the chauvinism, hatred and nationalism which has always been an ally of imperialism, to place all

the blame on Serbs and in that way to close one complete historical convinction in which is impossible to find even the thinnest trace of responsibility of imperialistic factors for which direct involvment in war events exist the thousands irrefutable evidences.

Verdicts of the Hague Tribunal don’t express any historical objectivity, don’t contribute to the conciliation of people of Yugoslavia, and that is why we reject all the verdict brought by this institution.

Down the court of injustice, down the tool of imperialism, for the lasting peace, for progress and solidarity among peoples of exYugoslavia and Balkans which are all impossible without socialism!

The Parties

n n

n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism, PADS Communist Party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Belgium Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of China Socialist Workers Party of Croatia German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico Palestinian Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Party of Soviet Union Communist Workers’ Party of Russia New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party Communist Party of the People of Spain Communist Party of Sweden Syrian Communist Party Communist Party of Tajikistan Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party, USA Communist Party of Vietnam

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RESOLUTION ON THE CYPRUS PROBLEM The participants of the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, which was held in November 2012 in Beirut, express their support for the ongoing struggle of the Cypriot people to find a just, under the circumstances, viable and functional solution to the Cyprus problem and declare the following: 1. They express their disappointment at the current stalemate at the direct negotiations’ process, condemn the negative, non-constructive stance of Ankara and of the Turkish Cypriot leadership. At the same time, they underline the constant efforts by President Christofias at the negotiations table and his commitment in finding a solution to the Cyprus problem.

2. They condemn the invasion and the continuing occupation of 37% of the territories of the Republic of Cyprus for 38 years

by Turkey; they consider the current division of Cyprus as illegal, unacceptable and detrimental to the people of Cyprus as a whole.

3. They declare that the Cyprus problem remains an international problem of illegal military intervention by Turkey and foreign interferences by imperialist forces such as NATO, of violation of core principles of international law, of the UN Charter, of basic principles of European law and of the human rights and civil liberties of its people.

4. They strongly condemn the continuing efforts of Turkey to alter the demographic character of the island, through the influx of settlers from mainland Turkey, and the usurpation of land and properties in the

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areas which are not under the control of the Republic since the 1974 invasion, in violation of international humanitarian law.

5. They reaffirm their support for the finding of a mutually acceptable, comprehensive solution based on the agreed framework of bicommunal, bizonal federation with a political equality as prescribed by the relevant UN Resolutions. A solution providing for the transformation of Cyprus into a federal state with a single sovereignty, single international personality and single citizenship; safeguarding the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all citizens, including the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties and the right of the families of all missing persons to be informed of the fate of their loved ones.

6. They underline, that the solution must adhere to the relevant UN Resolutions, the High- Level Agreements between the leaders of the two communities of 1977 and 1979, the joint statements of the leaders of the two communities in Cyprus of 2008, and to the principles of International and European law.

7. They emphasize the significance of working at the grassroots of society and of adopting even more initiatives that will enhance the rapprochement of the two communities, as well as the demilitarization of the island.

8. They call upon Turkey to stop threatening the Republic of Cyprus, diffuse the tension it has caused in the region resulting from the exercise by the Republic of Cyprus of

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its sovereign right of investigations for natural resources within its Exclusive Economic Zone and adhere to the provisions and principles of international law and UNCLOS; it must also stop exploiting the occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus in the northern part of the island which it retains illegally.

9. They condemn Turkey’s approach towards the Presidency of the EU Council, during the presidency of the Republic of Cyprus, and urge it to amend its stance; they emphasize that respect towards all the member- states of the EU is a condition sine qua non for a country candidate for EU membership.

10. They condemn the colonial role of Turkey and its oppressive attitude towards the Turkish Cypriot community; as well as its unacceptable, aggressive policies targeting in particular the progressive parts of the Turkish Cypriot community.

11. They call on the international community as a whole, to exercise their influence on Turkey in order to abandon its current unacceptable policies towards Cyprus; It is urgent that Turkey proceeds immediately in taking concrete and real steps in order to reach a comprehensive solution as soon as possible; the perpetuation of the status quo is against the prospects of a solution.

12. They express their conviction that in the absence of foreign interference the two communities can live together as they have done in the past and build a peaceful, common future in a united, bicommunal, bizonal and demilitarized federal Cyprus.

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THE CLOUDS OF IMPERIALIST WAR ARE GATHERING The capitalist crisis, the difficulties in its management in the European Union, especially in the Eurozone, but also in the USA, its consequences even in capitalist economies which for the time being continue to have a high growth rate, are strengthening the competition, the contradictions and the imperialist aggressiveness in South-East Asia, in the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, Africa, in Latin America.

In this framework, the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are extremely dangerous. The basic goal of the imperialists in this region is the control and exploitation of the natural resources, oil, natural gas, water, energy pipelines and transport networks, so that the monopolies obtain more profits by acquiring larger shares of the markets.

These plans manifest themselves in the implementation of the plans for an imperialist intervention in Syria, Iran, where various pretexts are being used.

The parties which sign this statement: n Condemn the imperialist intervention in Syria, which is being implemented by the USA, the EU, NATO, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. We express our solidarity with the working class and popular strata of the Syrian people, and we stress that only the Syrian people can determine the future of their country, without foreign protectors. n Demand the stop of the bombing of Gaza by Israel. The withdrawal of the Israeli army from all the occupied territories of 1967, Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian, the

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complete dissolution of the settlements and the tearing down of the partition wall.

The establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, next to Israel. The solution of the issue of the refugees and the return of the Palestinian refugees on the basis of the 194 resolution of the UN General Assembly and other UN Security Council resolutions. n Demand the immediate release of all Palestinians, Lebanese and other Arab political prisoners by Israel. n Demand the cessation of all the threats of a military assault and the cessation of the implementation of economic sanctions against Iran and we express solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people for democratic rights and social justice. n Demand the immediate withdrawal of the imperialist occupation troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and that their peoples are enabled to decide on their future. n Demand that all foreign military bases from the countries of the region withdraw and that no others will be installed.

We call on the peoples of the region to resist the involvement of their countries in the imperialist wars. They must strengthen their struggle against every imperialist power, against imperialist war. They must decisively develop the class struggle, confident of their strength, as well as the coordinated anti-imperialist struggle and they must fight for a society free from the exploitation of man by man.

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The parties:

n n

n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaijan Workers’ Party of Belgium Communist Party of Canada Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party in Denmark Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party of Finland Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE)

n n n n n n n n n n n

Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico New Communist Party of Netherlands Communist Party of Norway Communist Workers Party of Russia South African Communist Party Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) Syrian Communist Party Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Communist Party, USA

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DECLARATION ON THE PEACE IN COLOMBIA The Communist and workers’ Parties that subscribe, in the framework of the XIV International Meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties that gathers in Beirut, Lebanon, express the following with regard to the situation in Colombia: n Dialogues are only possible if both parts facilitate them with a cease fire that allows the broad participation of the people. We salute the unilateral decision of the FARCEP in this sense. n We demand full guarantees so that politi-

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The Parties:

n

n n

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaijan Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain Communist Party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Belgium Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Communist Party of China Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party in Denmark Communist Party of Egypt Communist Party of Finland French Communist Party German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Communist Party of India [Marxist]

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

cal, trade union, peasant, student organizations and all social forces can express themselves in such dialogues for peace.

We condemn the intimidation and repression campaign against the Patriotic Rally, the Colombian Communist Party and the weekly newspaper Voz. We demand that FARC-EP be retired from the criminalizing list of the US and the EU. At the same time that the status of belligerent force be recognized to FARC-EP.

Iraqi Communist Party Communist Party of Kurdistan - Iraq Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communist Communist Refoundation Party, Italy Jordanian Communist Party Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico New Communist Party of Netherlands Communist Party of Norway Palestinian Communist Party Portuguese Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Workers Party of Russia Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Communist Party of Spain Communist Party of Catalu_a Communist Party of Sri Lanka Sudanese Communist Party

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n n n n

Communist Party of Sudan Communist Party of Sweden Syrian Communist Party Communist Party of Tajikistan

n n n

Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party, USA

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STATEMENT ABOUT THE THREATS AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF IRAN

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The participants at the 14th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties taking place on November 23rd – 25th in Beirut, Lebanon express their unwavering solidarity with the working people of Iran in their multi-faceted and complicated struggle for peace, sovereignty, democracy and social justice.

Amid the great crises in the global capitalist states, and the escalated risk of wars as means of crisis resolution, we are gravely concerned about the maneuvers of the NATO powers to instigate military interventions around the world. Following their intervention in Libya and Syria, their plans of regime change across the entire Middle East and violation of sovereignty of countries in the region is of serious concern. The risks and dangers of sanctions and interventions, militaristically or otherwise, heightened imperialist attempts for political and economical hegemony over this strategic region, promotion of Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism, threats to the sovereignty of nations, and the erosion of the human and democratic rights of the people are all present more than ever.

The recent escalation of tensions in relation with Iran following Israel’s threats, including Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assem-

bly, and Iran’s reckless gestures, the negative reports of International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s nuclear program, the new series of extended punitive economic and financial sanctions imposed by the US and EU, and ceasing of diplomatic relations by Canada and the UK with Iran raise serious concerns about the future developments in relation with Iran.

Therefore, we, the undersigned communist and workers’ parties, once again reiterate our opposition to and condemnation of all foreign interventions and sanctions against Iran from which, first and foremost, the working people have been suffering and will suffer. We believe that it is the sole right of the Iranian people themselves to freely determine the direction of future developments in their country for peace, democracy, social justice and decent life. Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions, and threats of external imperialist intervention reinforce the position of the reactionary forces in Iran’s ruling class against the national interests and basic rights of the people of Iran.

Once again we express our solidarity with and support for the struggle of the working people and working class of Iran, and its political party Tudeh Party of Iran for peace and democracy and social justice.

The Parties

n n

n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain Communist Party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Bangladesh

n n n n n

Workers’ Party of Belgium Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Communist Party of China Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia

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n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Progressive Party of the Working People, Cyprus (AKEL) Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Communist Party in Denmark Communist Party of Denmark Egyptian Communist Party Communist Party of Finland French Communist Party German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Hungarian Communist Workers Party Communist Party of India (Marxist) Tudeh Party of Iran Communist Party of Iraq Communist Party of Kurdistan - Iraq Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Communist Refoundation Party, Italy Jordanian Communist Party Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico Communist Party of Nepal (UML)

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

New Communist Party of Netherland Communist Party of Norway Palestinian People’s Party Palestinian Communist Party Portuguese Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Party of Soviet Union Communist Workers’ Party of Russia New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party Communist Party of Spain Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Communist Party of Sri Lanka Communist Party of Sudan Communist Party of Sweden Communist Party of Syria [Unified] Syrian Communist Party Communist Party of Turkey Communist Party of Ukraine Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party, USA Communist Party of Vietnam

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IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE AND ITS PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENTS, FOR THE TOPPLING OF THE LATEST REVERSAL PROCEDURES

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The Parties gathered for the 14th IMCWP, taking place in Beirut (23-25 November 2012), announce their full solidarity with the struggle of the Egyptian people and that of the Egyptian Communist party and the democratic and national movements for the toppling of the dangerous reversal procedures announced by the president of the Republic on the 22nd of November 2012. These procedures aim at legalizing a new dictatorship and lay the ground for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamite movement to issue a new

Constitution which establishes the foundation for a fascist religious state and for the control of capitalism in its most parasitic, despotic and backward forms.

The above mentioned parties also announce their support of the Egyptian people in its Intifada in Tahrir square as well as the rebellious districts which oppose these serious procedures, for te realization of the democratic, social and economic demands which were sought after by millions in the Egyptian Revolution.

The Parties:

n n

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaijan Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain Communist party of Bangladesh Workers’ Party of Belgium Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party of Cuba Progressive Party of the Working People, Cyprus (AKEL) Communist Party in Denmark (KPiD) Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party of Egypt Communist Party of Finland French Communist Party German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE)

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party Communist Party of India [Marxist] Iraqi Communist Party Communist Party of Kurdistan – Iraq Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communists Communist Refoundation Party, Italy Jordanian Communist Party Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico Communist Party of Nepal [UML] New Communist Party of Netherland Palestinian People’s Party Communist Party of Norway Palestinian Communist Party Portuguese Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Party of Soviet Union Communist Workers’ Party of Russia New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party Communist Party of Spain

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n n n n n n

Party of the Communists of Cataluna Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Sudanese Communist Party Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) Syrian Communist Party Syrian Communist party [Unified]

n n n n n

Communist Party of Tajikistan Labour Party, Turkey (EMEP) Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party, USA (CPUSA)

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SOLIDARITY WITH SYRIA AND ITS PEOPLE

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The Communist and Workers Parties that participate in the 14th international meeting which convened in Beirut (22nd – 25th November 2012) declare its solidarity with Syria and its people The Communist and Workers Parties that participate in the 14th international meeting which convened in Beirut (22nd – 25th November 2012) declare its solidarity with Syria and its people against the imperialist conspiracies that aim to overthrow Syria resistance way against the hegemony plans of Imperialism and Zionism. The imperialist forces and its allied reactionary regimes use all means to achieve this vital goal. Furthermore, the imperialist intelligence and Arab reactionary circles, especially the Qatari and

Saudi ones, funding the armed groups who carry out horrible operations, like random explosions that killed hundreds of innocent citizens and personal assassination with economic sabotage actions. As well as, Turkey, the essential base of NATO in the region, patronize the reactionary groups, especially that who cover itself with religion, in its all operations against Syria. In addition to the intensive propaganda campaign against Syria which is leaded by imperialist circles with Zionist participation.

We opposite and condemn strongly any direct or indirect intervention or aggression threat by Imperialism against Syria. We also condemn the imperialist support to the criminal and terrorist actions.

The Parties:

n n

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaijan Communist Party of Bangladesh Workers' Party of Bangladesh Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Brazil Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia Communist Party of Cuba Progressive Party of the Working People, Cyprus (AKEL) Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Communist Party in Denmark Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party of Finland

n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n

German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Hungarian Communist Workers' Party Communist Party of India (Marxist) Communist Party of Ireland The Workers' Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communists Jordanian Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico Communist Party of Nepal [UML] New Communist Party of the Netherlands Communist Party of Norway Palestinian Communist Party Palestinian People's Party Communist Party of the Russian Federation Communist Party of Soviet Union Communist Workers’ Party of Russia New Communist Party of Yugoslavia South African Communist Party

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n n n n n n

Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Party of the Communists of Cataluna Communist Party of Sri-Lanka Syrian Communist Party Syrian Communist Party [Unified] Communist Party of Sweden

n n n n n n

Communist Party of Tajikistan Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Communist Party of Ukraine Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party, USA Communist Party of Vietnam

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Parties that participated ‘ l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l

Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism (PADS) Communist Party of Azerbaijan Democratic Progressive Tribune, Bahrain Workers’ Party of Bangladesh Communist Party of Bangladesh Communist Party of Belarus Workers’ Party of Belgium Brazilian Communist Party Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Communist Party of Britain Communist Party of Canada Communist Party of China Socialist Workers’ Party of Croatia Communist Party of Cuba Progressive Party of the Working People, Cyprus (AKEL) Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Communist Party in Denmark Communist Party of Denmark Communist Party of Egypt Communist Party of Finland French Communist Party German Communist Party (DKP) Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Hungarian Communist Workers’ Party Communist Party of India [Marxist] Iraqi Communist Party Communist Party of Kurdistan – Iraq Communist Party of Ireland Workers’ Party of Ireland Party of the Italian Communists Party of the Refoundation Communist Jordanian Communist Party

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2

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Lebanese Communist Party Communist Party of Mexico Communist Party of Nepal [UML] Communist Party of Netherland Palestinian People’s Party (PPP) Communist Party of Norway Palestinian Communist Party Portuguese Communist Party Communist Party of the Russian federation Communist Workers’ Party of Russia Communist Party of Soviet Union South African Communist Party Communist Party of Spain Party of the Communists of Cataluna Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain Communist Party of Sri Lanka Sudanese Communist Party Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) Syrian Communist Party Syrian Communist party [Unified] Communist Party of Tajikistan Labour Party, Turkey (EMEP) Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Communist Party of Ukraine Union of the Communists of Ukraine Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) Communist Party of Vietnam New Communist Party of Yugoslavia

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ALBANIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF ALBANIA E-Mail:gjonbruci5@yahoo.com code:(+355) phone:382274111 fax:4251271 ALGERIA, ALGERIAN PARTY FOR DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM http://www.lien-pads.fr E-Mail: pads.dz@laposte.net code:(+331) phone:46637607, 46772082, 42537882 fax:42537882, 46637607 n

Redlinks ‘

ARGENTINA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF ARGENTINA http://www.pca.org.ar E-Mail: relacionesinternacionales@pca.org.ar code:(+5411) phone:43040066/0068 fax:43040068 n

ARMENIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF ARMENIA code:(+37410) phone:567933 fax:541917 n

AUSTRALIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF AUSTRALIA http://www.cpa.org.au E-Mail: international@cpa.org.au E-Mail: cpa@cpa.org.au code:(+612) phone:9699 8844 fax:9699 9833 n

AUSTRIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF AUSTRIA http://www.kpoe.at E-Mail: international@kpoe.at code:(+431) phone:5036580 fax:5036580-499 n

AZERBAIDJAN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF AZERBAIDJAN E- Mail: nurullayev@mail.ru , kommunist-az@mail.ru , n

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hasanov_1951@mail.ru code:(+99450)3253256, (+99455)6138749, (+99450)3165853

E-Mail: kommunistische-partij@skynet.be code:(+322) phone:512 23 84 fax:512 23 84

n COMMUNIST PARTY OF AZERBAIDJAN E- Mail: r.kobalt@mail.ru code:(+99412) phone:4417533 fax:948937

n WORKERS' PARTY OF BELGIUM http://www.wpb.be http://www.ptb.be E-Mail:international@ptb.be E-Mail: ptb@ptb.be code:(+32) phone:25040139 fax:25040141

BAHRAIN, DEMOCRATIC PROGRESSIVE TRIBUNE http://www.altaqadomi.com/ E-Mail: fa.almenbar@gmail.com code:(+973 17) phone:780007 fax:780006 n

BANGLADESH, COMMUNIST PARTY OF BANGLADESH http://www.cpb.org.bd E-Mail:cpbinter@gmail.com E-Mail: info@cpb.org.bd code:(+8802) phone:9558612, 7172845 fax:9552333 n

BOLIVIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF BOLIVIA http://www.pcbolivia.net/ E-Mail: marxmil@hotmail.com E-Mail: pcb.rrii@gmail.com code:(+591) phone: 2423252 fax:22770535 n

n WORKERS' PARTY OF BANGLADESH E-Mail: wpartybd@bangla.net code:(+8802) phone:9567975 fax:9558545

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, WORKERS' COMMUNIST PARTY OF BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA http://www.rkp-bih.org http://www.rkp-bih.cjb.net E-Mail: kontakt@rkp-bih.cjb.net E-Mail: goran.rkpbih@gmail.com code:(+387) phone/fax: 55 240 973

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BELARUS, COMMUNIST PARTY OF BELARUS http://comparty.by E-Mail: karpenko@house.gov.by code:(+37517) phone:222 62 11 fax:222 43 79 (222 64 61)

n BRAZIL, BRAZILIAN COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.pcb.org.br E-Mail: pcb.partidocomunistabrasileiro@gmail.com E-Mail: pcb@pcb.org.br code:(+5521) phone/fax:22620855

BELGIUM, COMMUNIST PARTY OF BELGIUM http://www.kp-online.be http://www.particommuniste.be/ E-Mail: parti.communiste@skynet.be

n COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRAZIL http://www.pcdob.org.br http://www.vermelho.org.br E-Mail: internacional@pcdob.org.br code:(+5511) phone:3054-1800,

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30541822, 30541821 fax:3054 1848 BRITAIN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN http://www.communist-party.org.uk E-Mail: international@communist-party.org.uk E-Mail: office@communist-party.org.uk code:(+442) phone:(0)86861659 n

n NEW COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN http://www.newworker.org E-Mail: party@ncp.clara.net code:(+44) phone:207 2234052

BULGARIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF BULGARIA http://comparty-bg.com E-Mail: comparty@abv.bg code:(+3592) phone/fax:9816093 n

PARTY OF THE BULGARIAN COMMUNISTS E-Mail: bcp.gd@mail.bg code:(+359) phone:8961133, 898 322 455 fax: 24702573 n

CANADA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA http://www.communist-party.ca E-Mail: inter@cpc-pcc.ca code:(+1416) phone:4692446

n CHINA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA http://www.idcpc.org.cn http://www.china.org.cn/english/index.htm http://english.cpc.people.com.cn/ E-Mail: info@idcpc.org.cn code:(+8610) phone:83907267 fax:83907268

COLOMBIA, COLOMBIAN COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.pacocol.org E-Mail: pacocol@etb.net.co E-Mail: notipaco@pacocol.org code:(+571) phone:3203204, 2854188 fax:3384742 n

FARC-EP http://www.farcejercitodelpueblo.org/ E- Mail: news@farcep.org n

COSTA RICA, PEOPLE'S VANGUARD PARTY E-Mail: vanguardiapopularinternacional@gmail.com E-Mail: pvp.costarica.internacional@gmail.com code:(+506) phone: 2225 8300 fax: 2281 0484 n

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CHILE, COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHILE http://www.pcchile.cl/ E-Mail: internacional@pcchile.cl code:(+562) phone:729 5700 fax:729 5714 n

CROATIA, SOCIALIST WORKERS' PARTY OF CROATIA http://www.srp.hr E-Mail: srp@srp.hr E-Mail: vladimir.kapuralin@pu.t-com.hr code: (+ 385) phone:1 4835340, 91 2219036 fax:1 4835340 n

n CUBA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA http://www.pcc.cu/ E-Mail: coordeor@cc.cu

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E-Mail: despacho@cc.cu code:(+537) phone:8605678 fax:8556836 CYPRUS, THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY OF THE WORKING PEOPLE - AKEL http://www.akel.org.cy E-Mail: InterBureau@akel.org.cy Phone: (+357) 22761121 Fax:22761574, 22764725 n

CZECH REPUBLIC, COMMUNIST PARTY OF BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA http://www.kscm.cz http://www.kscm.cz/english E-Mail: info@kscm.cz code:(+4202) phone:22897111 fax:22897207 n

DENMARK,COMMUNIST PARTY IN DENMARK http://www.kommunisterne.dk E-Mail: KPID@kommunisterne.dk code:(+45) phone:38882833 fax:38882433 n

n COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK http://www.dkp.dk E-Mail: dkp@dkp.dk code:(+45) phone: 33916644

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, FORCE OF THE REVOLUTION http://fuerzadelarevolucion.org E-Mail: fuerzadelarevolucion@latinmail.com E-Mail: frevolucion@latinmail.com code: (+809) phone:685-9362 fax:687-3423 n

n EGYPT, COMMUNIST PARTY OF EGYPT http://www.cp-egypt.com E-Mail: cpegypt@gmail.com code:(+20) phone:101 078617 fax: 223 921315

EQUADOR, COMMUNIST PARTY OF EQUADOR http://pcecuador.org/ E-Mail: ccentral@pcecuador.org E-Mail: pce_ecu@hotmail.com E-Mail: mariomendoza2004@yahoo.es code:(+593-2) phone:2671108 fax:2909454 (+593-4) phone:2401462 fax:2248643 n

ESTONIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF ESTONIA E-Mail: narvaSRG@rambler.ru code:(+37) phone /fax: 23591174 n

FINLAND, COMMUNIST PARTY OF FINLAND http://www.skp.fi E-Mail: skp@skp.fi code:(+3589) phone:77438150 fax:77438160 n

n FRANCE, FRENCH COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.pcf.fr E-Mail: international@pcf.fr code:(+331) phone:40401293, 40401286 fax:42404027

FYROM, COMMUNIST PARTY OF MACEDONIA E-Mail:cpmmkd@gmail.com code:(+389) phone:23177248 fax:23177248 n

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GEORGIA, UNIFIED COMMUNIST PARTY OF GEORGIA E-Mail: cpgeo@narod.ru E-Mail: tpipia@rambler.ru code:(+995) phone:93 761363, 32 546587 fax:32 546587

n HUNGARY, HUNGARIAN WORKERS' PARTY http://www.munkaspart.hu E-Mail: mp200@t-online.hu code:(+361) phone:3342721 fax:3135423

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GERMANY, GERMAN COMMUNIST PARTY (DKP) http://www.dkp.de E-Mail Central Committee: dkp.pv@t-online.de E-Mail International Relationships: inter@dkp.de code:(+49201) phone:1778890 fax:17788929

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GREECE, COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE http://inter.kke.gr E-Mail: cpg.kke@gmail.com E-Mail: cpg@int.kke.gr code:(+30) phone:210 2592111 fax:210 2592298

INDIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST) http://www.cpim.org E-Mail: cc@cpim.org E-Mail: intl@cpim.org E-Mail: cpim@vsnl.com code:(+9111) phone: 23344918, 23747435, 23747436 23363692 fax:23747483

INDIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA http://www.communistparty.in/ E-Mail: internationaldept@communistparty.in E-Mail: cpiofindia@gmail.com code:(+9111) phone:23235546, 23235099, 23235058 fax:23235543

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GUADELUPE, GUADELOUPEAN COMMUNIST PARTY E-Mail: DC500009@exchange.FRANCE.NCR.COM code:(+590) phone:821945 fax:836990 n

GUYANA, PEOPLE'S PROGRESSIVE PARTY http://www.ppp-civic.org E-Mail: ppp@guyana.net.gy E-Mail: pr@ppp-civic.org code: (+592) phone: 2272095, 2274301 fax: 2272096

n IRAN,TUDEH PARTY OF IRAN http://www.tudehpartyiran.org E-Mail: mardom@tudehpartyiran.org E-Mail: navid.shomali@btinternet.com code:(+44) phone:7790277770 code:(+49) fax:303241627

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n IRAQ, IRAQI COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.iraqicp.com Mail: salamsaadi@hotmail.co.uk Mail: icpinter@yahoo.co.uk Mail: info@iraqicp.com code:(+44208) phone: 6422981

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IRAQ, COMMUNIST PARTY OF KURDISTAN-IRAQ http://www.regaykurdistan.com Mail: maib55@hotmail.com Mail: kcp_ibrahim@kurdistancp.org Mail: kcp_kurdistan@hotmail.com code:(+4131) phone:3719612 fax:3719628 n

IRELAND, COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND http://www.communistpartyofireland.ie E-Mail: cpoi@eircom.net code:(+3531) phone:6708707

code:(+3906) phone:441821 fax:44182207 JAPAN, JAPANESE COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.jcp.or.jp http://www.japan-press.co.jp/ E-Mail: intl@jcp.jp code:(+813) phone:54748421 fax:37460767 n

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IRELAND, THE WORKERS' PARTY OF IRELAND http://www.workerspartyireland.net/ E-Mail: wpi@indigo.ie code:(+3531) phone: 8733 916 fax: 874 8702 n

n ISRAEL, COMMUNIST PARTY OF ISRAEL http://www.maki.org.il E-Mail: info@maki.org.il code:(+9723) phone:6293944 fax:6297263

ITALY, PARTY OF THE ITALIAN COMMUNISTS http://www.www.comunisti-italiani.it http://www.oltre-confine.it E-Mail: esteri.pdci@gmail.com E-Mail: esteri@comunisti-italiani.org code:(+3906) phone:6862721 fax:68627230

JORDAN, JORDANIAN COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.jocp.org E-Mail: jcp@nets.com.jo code:(+9626) phone:4624939 fax:4624939 n

KAZAKHSTAN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF KAZAKHSTAN http://komparty.kz/ E-Mail: komparty@list.ru code:(+772) phone:72911400 n

KIRGIZIA, PARTY OF THE COMMUNISTS OF KYRGYZSTAN E-Mail: mars40@list.ru code:(+996) phone:312 624999 fax:312 660401 n

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ITALY, COMMUNIST REFOUNDATION PARTY http://www.rifondazione.it/ E-Mail: esteri.prc@rifondazione.it n

DPR of KOREA, WORKERS PARTY OF KOREA http://www.kimsoft.com/dprk.htm E-Mail: wpkint@start-co.net.kp E-Mail: ekodpr@alice.it code:(+850) phone: 2-381-5855 fax: 2-381-4657 code:(+3906) phone:54220749 fax:54210090 n

LAOS, PEOPLES' REVOLUTIONARY PARTY E-Mail: party.relationsdep.la@gmail.com n

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code:(+85621) phone:414042 fax:414043

202226828 MEXICO, COMMUNIST PARTY OF MEXICO http://www.comunistas-mexicanos.org E-Mail: comunista@prodigy.net.mx code:(+52 734) phone/fax:3425838 n

LATVIA, SOCIALIST PARTY OF LATVIA http://www.latsocpartija.lv E-Mail: latsocpartija@inbox.lv code: (+371) phone/fax:67555535 n

LEBANON, LEBANESE COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.lcparty.org E-Mail: lcparty@lcparty.org E-Mail: mariedebs@dm.net.lb code:(+9611) phone/fax:739615/6/7 n

n LITHUANIA,SOCIALIST PEOPLE'S FRONT http://www.slfrontas.lt E-Mail: slflit@yandex.ru code:(+370) phone:52431070 fax:(+370)52606130

LUXEMBOURG, COMMUNIST PARTY OF LUXEMBOURG http://www.kp-l.org E-Mail: kpl@zlv.lu E-Mail: aruckert@zlv.lu code:(+352) phone:446066 21 fax:44606666 n

MALTA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF MALTA http://blogspot.communistpartymalta.com E-Mail: pkmalti@hotmail.co.uk E-Mail: communistpartymalta@yahoo.com code:(+356) phone/fax:21223537 n

MADAGASCAR, PARTY OF THE CONGRESS FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF MADAGASCAR (AKFM) E-Mail: akfm@netclub.mg code:(+261) phone/fax: 202227065, n

MEXICO, POPULAR SOCIALIST PARTY, MEXICO http://www.pps.org.mx E-Mail: ppsprens@prodigy.net.mx E-Mail:ppsdn2003@yahoo.com.mx code:(+5255) phone:330816-18 fax:330816-18, 257131 n

MEXICO, POPULAR SOCIALIST PARTY OF MEXICO http://www.ppsm.org.mx E-Mail: ppsmexico@gmail.com E-Mail: amezcua910@yahoo.com.mx code:(+525) phone: 5672-2057 fax:5609-1896 n

MOLDOVA, PARTY OF COMMUNISTS OF REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA http://www.pcrm.md/ E-Mail: info@pcrm.md code:(+3732) phone:2249441 fax:2233673

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NEPAL, COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEPAL (UML) http://www.cpnuml.org E-Mail: umlcpn@gmail.com E-Mail: uml@ntc.net.np code:(+977) phone: 14278081-82 fax:14278084 n

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NETHERLANDS, NEW COMMUNIST

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PARTY OF THE NETHERLANDS http://www.ncpn.nl E-Mail: manifest@ziggo.nl E-Mail: ncpn@ncpn.nl code:(+31) phone:70 3603676, 20 6825019 fax:20 6828276

PARTY http://www.pcparaguay.org/ E-Mail: inter@pcparaguay.org code:(+595) phone:21 225116, 972 624390 phone/fax:21 621836

NORWAY, COMMUNIST PARTY OF NORWAY http://www.nkp.no E-Mail: nkp@nkp.no code:(+4722) phone:716044

PERU, COMMUNIST PARTY OF PERU (PATRIA ROJA) http://www.patriaroja.org.pe/ E-Mail: pcdelp@patriaroja.org.pe E-Mail: partidosec@yahoo.com E-Mail: amorenor@speedy.com.pe code:(+511) phone: 4262366/993869280

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PAKISTAN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF PAKISTAN http://www.cppak.org E-Mail: cppak2003@yahoo.com code:(+92) phone/fax: 222654531

n PERU, PERUAN COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.pcperuano.com E-Mail: pcperuano.rrii@gmail.com code:(+511) phone 4331634 fax:4715399

PALESTINE, PALESTINIAN COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.pallcp.ps E-Mail:palestinian_cp_alqam@hotmail.com code:(+97) tel:9 2515830, 2 2267055 phone/fax:2 22267644, 9 2515075

The PHILIPPINES, PHILIPPINE COMMUNIST PARTY [PKP-1930] http://www.pkp1930.com E-Mail: parisantonio2001@yahoo.com E-Mail: philcompar@yahoo.com code:(+632) phone:3590201 fax:9395791

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PALESTINE, PALESTINIAN PEOPLE'S PARTY http://www.ppp.ps E-Mail: info@ppp.ps code:(+97) phone:22963593 fax:22963592 n

n PANAMA, PARTY OF THE PEOPLE http://www.elpartidodelpueblo.org E-Mail: partidodelpueblopa@yahoo.com E-Mail: elpartido@elpartidodelpueblo.org code: (+507) phone:2259025/2272194 n

PARAGUAY, PARAGUAYAN COMMUNIST

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POLAND, COMMUNIST PARTY OF POLAND http://www.kompol.org E-Mail: int@kompol.org code:(+48) phone:228334288 fax:228334288 n

PORTUGAL, PORTUGUESE COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.international.pcp.pt http://www.pcp.pt E-Mail: internacional@pcp.pt n

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code:(+35121) phone:7813800 fax:7969824 ROMANIA, ROMANIAN COMMUNIST PARTY E-Mail: infopcr@yahoo.com code:(+4021) phone:6423615 fax: 642 3615 n

n ROMANIA, SOCIALIST ALLIANCE PARTY http://www.pasro.ro E-Mail: contact@pasro.ro code:(+40) phone:212522887, 314057078, 314057077, phone/fax:214133354

RUSSIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION (KPRF) http://www.kprf.ru E-Mail:inter@kprf.ru E-Mail: zabirov@duma.gov.ru code:(+7495) phone:6927646 fax:6927646, 6925685 n

RUSSIA, COMMUNIST WORKERS PARTY OF RUSSIA (RKRP) http://www.rkrp-rpk.ru/ E-Mail: rkrp-ck@yandex.ru code:(+7812) phone:2742772, 2748073 fax:2742818

OF SOVIET UNION http://www.cpsu.by E-Mail:cpsu.msk@gmail.com code:(+7495) phone:6844175 phone/fax:9747342 SERBIA, NEW COMMUNIST PARTY OF YUGOSLAVIA http://www.nkpj.org.rs E-Mail: int_nkpj@yahoo.com code:(+38111) phone/fax: 2425689 ; code:(+38111) phone/fax: 2400628 n

SERBIA, PARTY OF COMMUNISTS OF SERBIA http://komunistisrbije.110mb.com E-Mail: komsrb@open.telekom.rs code:(+38111) phone/fax:3514-478 n

SLOVAKIA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF SLOVAKIA http://www.kss.sk E-Mail: sekr@kss.sk code:(+4212) phone:44644101 fax:44362540 n

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RUSSIA, UNION OF COMMUNIST PARTIES-CPSU http://www.kprf.ru E-Mail:inter@kprf.ru E-Mail: zabirov@duma.gov.ru code:(+7495) phone:2927646, 2928736 fax:2925685 n

n

RUSSIA, COMMUNIST PARTY

SOUTH AFRICA, SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.sacp.org.za E-Mail: international@sacp.org.za E-Mail: lucian@sacp.org.za code:(+2711) phone:3393621/2 fax:3394244 n

SPAIN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF SPAIN http://www.pce.es E-Mail: internacional@pce.es E-Mail: comitefederal@pce.es code:(+3491) phone:3004969 n

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fax:3004744

code:(+468) phone:7358640

SPAIN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE PEOPLE OF SPAIN http://www.pcpe.es Mail: internacional@pcpe.es code: (+34) phone: 915329187 fax: 915329187

n SYRIA, SYRIAN COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.syriancp.org E-Mail: syriancommunistparty@gmail.com code:(+96311) phone:4455048 fax:4422716

n

SYRIA, SYRIAN COMMUNIST PARTY [Unified] http://www.syrcomparty.org/ E-Mail: scp@scs-net.org E-Mail: scp@syrcomparty.org code:(+96311) phone:4410264 fax:4422383 n

SPAIN, PARTY OF COMMUNISTS OF CATALUNA http://www.pcc.cat E-Mail: pcc@pcc.cat E-Mail: internacional@pcc.cat code:(+34 933) phone:184 282 fax: 180 011 n

TADJIKISTAN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF TADJIKISTAN http://www.kpt.freenet.tj E-Mail: communist_party@mail.ru E-Mail: t.karimova@mail.ru code:(+992372) phone:232953, 231853 fax:351482, 232292 n

SPAIN, UNITED LEFT SPAIN http://www.izquierda-unida.es/ E-Mail: iu.internacional@izquierdaunida.es code:(+3491) phone:7227500 fax:3880405 n

SRI-LANKA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF SRI-LANKA E-Mail: compartysl@gmail.com code:(+9411) phone:2695328 fax:2691610 n

SUDAN, SUDANESE COMMUNIST PARTY http://www.midan.net E-Mail:cpsudan@gmail.com E-Mail:imanhamad@yahoo.com code:(+4202) phone:33555668 fax:33555668 n

SWEDEN, COMMUNIST PARTY OF SWEDEN http://www.skp.se E-Mail: skp@skp.se n

TURKEY, COMMUNIST PARTY OF TURKEY (TKP) http://www.tkp.org.tr http://int.tkp.org.tr/ E-Mail: int@tkp.org.tr code:(+90216) phone: 4185351 4146504 fax:3461137 n

n TURKEY, LABOUR PARTY (EMEP) http://www.emep.org(Turkish) http://en.emep.org (English) http://es.emep.org (Spanish) E-mail: international@emep.org code:(+90) phone:539 328 1323 fax:212 587 56 86 n

UKRAINE, COMMUNIST PARTY

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OF UKRAINE http://www.kpu.net.ua/ E-Mail: Lorinser@ukr.net code:(+380) phone: 44-4253137, 425-54-87, fax:463-57-02 phone/fax: 463-57-03 [International Department ]

OF VIETNAM http://www.cpv.org.vn E-Mail: perc@fpt.vn E-Mail: cpvic@cpvic.org.vn code:(+844) phone:8436278, 8436274 fax:38234514, 8045657

UKRAINE, UNION OF COMMUNISTS OF UKRAINE http://un-comm-ukr.ucoz.ru/ E-Mail: marx-journal@mail.ru code:(+38044) phone:2906225 fax:2906225, 2906228 n

URUGUAY, COMMUNIST PARTY OF URUGUAY http://www.pcu.org.uy/ E-Mail: pcuinternacional@montevideo.com.uy E-Mail: partidocomunista@adinet.com.uy code:(+5982) phone: 9242697 9247056 fax: 9242697 9247056 n

n USA, COMMUNIST PARTY USA http://www.cpusa.org E-Mail: international@cpusa.org code:(+1) phone: 2129894994 fax:(+1) 212 229 1713

VENEZUELA, COMMUNIST PARTY OF VENEZUELA http://www.pcv-venezuela.org http://prensa-pcv.blogspot.com/ E-Mail: pcv_internacional@yahoo.com code:(+58) phone:2122566386 fax:2122566386 n

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