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Communist Party of Norway
Intervention by Svend Haakon Jacobsen International Secretary PB of CC
95Dear Comrades, CP of Norway thanks the IMCWP Working Group to give us this opportunity to present our experiences and views in the digital edition of a special issue of the International Bulletin, due to the postponement of the 22nd IMCWP.
As you know Norway has through referendums in 1972 and 1994 voted no to membership in the EU, but we are associated through the EEA agreement.
Both Social-democrat and rightwing party Governments have reduced vital healthcare capacities in public hospitals and also in nursing homes. This did not occur accidentally, they are the result of the anti-people policy pursued by governments in support of profitability of monopoly capitalist groups.
Therefore when the Covid 19 pandemic broke loose, the capacity in our hospitals was way below necessary. Hospitals were asked to postpone planned operations that could wait “without risking lives”. They reallocated departments to take on patients with Covid 19 virus and also the specialists for the intensive care.
People with relevant education and background were asked to do voluntary work both in health and other vital staffs in police, fire brigades etc. They are not building up necessary capacities in our society, just temporary “voluntary” work.
March 12th 2020 the government decided to close down society to try to manage the spread of virus. Teachers and people with desk jobs could teach and do their jobs from home though their computers on the net. All the others were dismissed or given notice. Trade Unions and Trade Union Central (LO) started negotiations with the government, to try to give better support, and for a longer period for their members.
Unemployment rose dramatic, till the highest in Norway since the US stock exchange crackdown in 1929. More than 430000 workers were unemployed, a very high percentage, and now a long time later still is around 8%. The Government said they were asking their office to use more efficient procedures to pay the unemployed their benefits. But it took too long time, and many people risked to lose their homes, car etc. This happened in one of the richest countries in the world. The Norwegian state Pension Fund is worth more than one thousand billion dollars. The Fund has invested surplus from the oil and gas production in shares, bonds etc. and it has been growing every year, even if it has a halt in this deep economic crisis, both due to the pandemic and the capitalist crisis.
96 The Government has given many private companies, both big end smaller large allowances, direct liquidity support, helping them through the crisis, without any claims concerning the rights of their workers. Big transnationals merged with strong financial corporations owning large parts of companies in Norway of course will use this situation to reorganize their operations to “legally” make the most out of the allowances. And then they will reemploy the best and strongest workers, and let the rest be taken care of by the Norwegian social care. The Social-democrat influenced leadership of LO does not have this perspective, our Marxist-Leninist perspective, and is therefore easily manipulated. Advanced medical staffs in the large public hospitals in Norway are cooperating through the WHO and directly with advanced medical scientific centers in Europe, working together trying to rapid develop a functioning vaccine. And Norwegian medical expertize have developed a much more efficient and quicker test procedure. In this situation the Norwegian Parliament accepted a new EU ordinance no. 745/2017, where Norway due to the EEA agreement is committed to buy standardized medical tests from commercial companies, where Norwegian public healthcare expertize could deliver tests much quicker and more efficient, three to ten times cheaper. Cuba, China and Russia contributed with protective materials and health professionals in solidarity with the countries most affected by the COVID 19 pandemic, in contrast to the western imperialist centers EU and the US. CP of Norway supports the campaign to nominate the Cuban “Henry Reeve International Medical
Brigade Specialized inDisaster Situations and Serious Epidemics” for the Nobel Peace Prize.More than 1500 Cuban healthspecialists were asked for, and have been working in 23 countries in Europe, Africa,
United Arab Emirates, Latin-America and in the Carribian. CP of Norway does not have a seat in Parliament, but we are active in the left wing of LO (Trade Union
Central) and the national “No to EU” organization. We are taking part in the Parliamentary elections in 2021. We will take active part in the campaign for strengthening the capacity of the public hospitals and the right to free healthcare for all in need for help. Through the pandemic crisis, young people, grownups and elderly people have all experienced what has happened. It will be easier in the elections campaign to reach people in the political discussions on healthcare, education, labor rights and the right of the majority of the people to own and rule the means of production.
We will have an important fight with the opportunists in the Social-democratic party, who only want to win the majority in Parliament, to govern capitalism in Norway.
Polls taken on the streets has shown that many former Social-democratic voters openly expressed the party had moved to far to the right, away from socialism.
The General Secretary of NATO is the former Social-democrat Prime minister of Norway Stoltenberg. Social-democratic party supported and took part in the wars on Yugoslavia, Libya and Syria.
Norway is an imperialist nation and our capitalist system is undemocratic.
US, Great Britain and France are big in the profitable weapon-industry. The Military Industrial Complex is big business profiting from wars, killings and pollution.
Norway and Sweden are among the largest weapon producers in the world, in relation to inhabitants. We are all contributing to imperialist wars, and profit from it.
US and EU are illegally blockading and sanctioning Cuba, Venezuela and DPR Korea among others. In this pandemic situation this is even more unjust and criminal, making the life of the peoples even more difficult.
We say no to imperialist interventions and military exercises, such as those of NATO.
Public resources should be redirected to support the needs of the peoples, financing public health and social security systems.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is under siege. US imperialism and its European allies have not ceased their political, economic and military pressure to bring about a change of government in Venezuela. The illegal appropriation of Venezuelan assets abroad, unilateral coercive sanctions aimed at blocking Venezuela’s trade operations and sources of financing, and mobilizations of military forces to build a land and maritime fence around Venezuela have increased so far this year.
In this complex scenario of imperialist siege that jeopardizes the sovereignty and self-determination
of the country, PCV stresses the need to build the broadest alliance of democratic, popular, patriotic, progressive, anti-imperialist and revolutionary forces that takes shape in a collective direction and a common agenda to defeat imperialist aggression through the revolutionary transformation of Venezuelan society.
For the PCV, the consequential struggle against imperialist siege and in defense of sovereignty is inseparable from the struggle for a revolutionary way out of the capitalist crisis. PCV is convinced that imperialism cannot be overcome through concessions and subordination to the interests of capitalists.
PCV and the Popular Revolutionary Alternative (APR) is a unitary effort aimed at building an organic reference point of revolutionary currents in the labor, peasant, communard and popular fields, within the framework of the development of a policy of “confronting, distancing, regrouping and accumulating forces to move forward and succeed in in the face of imperialism and privatizing reformism”.
APR will participate in the elections, which will be an important scenario of class struggle where APR through its own labor and popular candidates and programmatic proposals for the revolutionary way out of the capitalist crisis will continue to take steps in the regrouping of forces around this unitary effort and promoting the deep political debate among the working masses.
In Norway we also have Socialist-Left party and Red party, they are social democrats. They are against EU, as is the majority of the Norwegian population. They have problems with parts of the NATO policies, but they do not speak out loud, or vote to leave NATO. But we have common positions on EU social dumping and trade union policies.
CP of Norway is working to establish a united class oriented non-party trade-union platform on the ground floor to develop the subjective factor in the anti-imperialist fight against the EU capitalist policies that Norway have to adopt without debate through the EEA agreement.
