Socialist agenda

Published : Dec 18, 2009 00:00 IST

SITARAM YECHURY, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, A.B. Bardhan, CPI general secretary, and Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, with foreign delegates at the public session of the meeting.-SANDEEP SAXENA

SITARAM YECHURY, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, A.B. Bardhan, CPI general secretary, and Prakash Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, with foreign delegates at the public session of the meeting.-SANDEEP SAXENA

OVER the last few years one has heard this constant prattle that socialism is dead and that Communist parties have lost their relevance. We have gathered here today to disprove that propaganda and state firmly that the idea of socialism and the political-organisational role of the Communist and workers parties would continue to be relevant as long as human beings struggle for justice and a better life, free from hunger and other material deficiencies. These were the words of A.B. Bardhan, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), at the concluding session of the three-day 11th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties held in New Delhi between November 20 and 22. The final session, which was open to the public, attracted a significant gathering of Left supporters, and the crowd greeted the veteran Indian Communist leaders pronouncement enthusiastically. Bardhan said that the discussions over the past three days among the 89 representatives of 57 Communist and workers parties from 48 countries was aimed not at etching out visions of immediate victories but at essentially reiterating a commitment to socialist values and workers and peoples struggles.

Reiteration of this commitment was the essence of the speeches made by Communist leaders from Cuba, the United States, Palestine and Israel at the last session. Oscar Israel Martinez Cordoves of the Communist Party of Cuba spoke and concluded his speech by saying that the Cuban people were friends of the people of the U.S. and were enemies only of U.S. imperialism, which has been trying to overthrow the socialist government of Cuba ever since its inception. Scott Marshall, of the Communist Party of USA (CPUSA), who spoke immediately after Cordoves, started his speech by repeating the words used by the Cuban leader.

He said: Speaking for the Communist Party of USA, I also say that we are very good friends of the people of USA but enemies of U.S. imperialism and its expansionist designs. Faten Kamal Ghattas of the Communist Party of Israel and Fawaz of the Palestine Communist Party jointly announced the resolve of the two parties to strive for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. The significance of the Cuban and U.S. leaders on one side and the Palestinian and Israeli leaders on the other expressing a similar political commitment was not lost on anyone.

Along with these expressions of socialist solidarity, the meeting also adopted the Delhi Declaration, which delineated the participants common understanding of the current global situation. A six-point concrete action plan that would be coordinated globally was also adopted after the three-day deliberations. The declaration and the action plan were presented by Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which was one of the co-hosts of the meeting along with the CPI.

The concrete action plan included decisions to struggle against the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and its global expansion, the renewed military aggressiveness of imperialists and its foreign military bases. It also gave a call to observe November 29 as a day of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in 2010 and to intensify international solidarity for the release of the Cuban Five jailed in the U.S. The plan also contained decisions to strengthen popular mobilisations in defence of workers rights in coordination with trade unions, strengthen popular movements and demand the right to work in coordination with youth organisations.

Speaking on the occasion, Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M), pointed out that the Delhi conference marked the continuation of a fraternity and an organisational cooperation mechanism that Communist and workers parties had built up over the past decade and a half. The context for building up this mechanism was the tumultuous developments in the last years of the 20th century, which included the dismantling of socialism in the Soviet Union, the disintegration of that country, the collapse of the Communist-led regimes in eastern Europe and the process of restoration of capitalism in these countries.

In this situation, a backgrounder released by the organisers of the meeting pointed out many Communist parties had wilted under the pressure of the ideological offensive and abandoned the revolutionary essence of Marxism-Leninism and embraced social democracy. However, there were some Communist and workers parties that believed these shortcomings and failures were not due to the inadequacies of Marxism-Leninism or the lack of scientific method in its content but to the inadequacies and lack of scientific rigour on the part of those who were apparently practising the philosophy. It was with this premise that efforts were made to regroup the international communist movement and bring together those Communist and workers parties that believed in the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism.

The CPI(M) initiated one such attempt in 1993 by organising an international seminar on the Contemporary World Situation and the Validity of Marxism. Its success imparted a new confidence to the participants, and five years later, in 1998, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) took up the task of organising international meetings to exchange opinions on important contemporary developments. The KKE went on to organise seven more meetings in the following years, and with each meeting, there was a steady increase in the number of participants. Consequently, this led to the formation of a working group of international Communist and workers parties, which decided on the theme of each meeting, its venue and the parties that would be attending. Seven meetings were held in Greece.

In following years, meetings were held in Lisbon, Minsk, Moscow and Sao Paulo. The next meeting is scheduled to be held in South Africa.

The theme of the Delhi conference was The international capitalist crisis, the workers and peoples struggle, the alternatives and the role of the communist and working class movement. The delegates deliberated on the different dimensions of the subject over three days, both in continent-specific groups and collectively, leading to the formulation of the Delhi Declaration. The sharing of experiences and perspectives unravelled the varied and nuanced approaches adopted by the parties in their respective countries even as all of them sought to pursue the ideals of class struggle and socialism.

An important point of discussion was the regime change in the U.S. with the election of President Barack Obama. All the speakers from Latin American countries underlined that for the progressive forces and processes in their region, Obamas coming to power did not indicate any favourable change. They pointed out that it only represented a new and more intelligent tactic of Empire to stall the march of progressive forces in the region. They underlined the various steps taken by the U.S. under Obama to strengthen forces of reaction in the region. The coup detat in Honduras was repeatedly mentioned in this context. Oscar Cordoves specifically debunked the media-created impression that the Obama administration had begun dismantling the half-century-old criminal blockade against Cuba. He underlined that Obama had the power but not the political will to change the U.S. imperial methods. The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) supplemented the argument by pointing out how U.S. imperialism had encouraged and supported fundamentalist and reactionary forces in its country, including the two-year-long military-supported dictatorial rule.

Scott Marshall pointed out that Obamas victory in the election was an outcome of the struggle to defeat the reactionary right regime of Bush. He said that there were mixed feelings about Obamas role. Let me be clear, he is not a communist, he is not a socialist and on some issues, he is quite a moderate liberal. Marshall pointed out that the percentage of long-term unemployed workers in the U.S. had reached levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In the beginning of the crisis, we were losing 700,000 jobs or more a month. Today, when some mainstream economists are declaring the recession over, when obscene banking profits are on the rise again, when the stock market is rising again, when finance capital is returning to its unregulated, predatory ways with a vengeance, we are still losing around 200,000 jobs a month. Among young people in the U.S., the figures of the unemployed are staggering. In the age group of 16 to 24, only about 45 per cent have jobs. And that number is much worse for African-American, Latino and other racially oppressed youth. Marshall underlined the fact that in the current context it was significant that the largest trade union organisation in the U.S., the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO), had been impelled to rediscover its working-class roots, as witnessed in its 2009 convention.

Baudouin Deckers of the Workers Party of Belgium said: Some parties in Europe, claiming to be communist or having recently abandoned communism, persist in defending a Left reformist position, an updated version of social democracy. The European Left is not worried about seeking paths towards socialism because this is not its goal. Obtaining partial improvements within the current system is already sufficiently ambitious. We will never collaborate with these attempts to bind workers to capitalism and imperialism. We are currently engaged in a major campaign for a tax on millionaires, a tax that would hit the 72,000 euro-millionaire families in Belgium. Compared to the population, it is the largest number in the European Union.

The point of view expressed by Ai Ping of the Communist Party of China (CPC) also evoked considerable interest. He stated categorically that China had not deviated from the socialist path. He said: Some parties, due to lack of knowledge about the national conditions of China, think that China has given up Marxism and has deviated from the socialist path, and some even call Chinas system authoritarian capitalism. China is, and will be for a long time to come, at the primary stage of socialism. There are no references in the classics on how to carry forward Marxism and develop socialism with our special national conditions. The CPC has always upheld Marxism as our fundamental guiding ideology. In order to deal with the crisis and maintain steady and rapid economic growth, the CPC and the Chinese government timely adjusted the macroeconomic policies by adopting a proactive fiscal policy and moderately relaxed monetary policy. The global financial crisis has not bottomed yet and there are many potential risks in the world economy. Such crises cannot be eradicated and will recur periodically as long as the private ownership of capitalism and the inherent contradiction remain unchanged.

The Delhi Declaration, which drew from the points raised during the deliberations and formulated the common perspective of the conference, pointed out that the current capitalist crisis had left no field untouched and had led to the closing of hundreds of thousands of factories; caused tremendous stress on agrarian and rural economies, intensifying the misery and poverty of millions of cultivators and farm workers globally; and left millions of people jobless and homeless. The declaration pointed out that unemployment was growing to unprecedented levels and was officially expected to breach the 50-million mark. Inequalities were increasing across the globe, the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer.

The declaration stressed that the response of respective capitalist governments to overcome this crisis had failed to address the basic causes of the crisis. It also pointed out that all the neoliberal votaries and social democratic managers of capitalism, who had decried the state, were now utilising the state to rescue them, thus underlining a basic fact that the capitalist state had always defended and enlarged avenues for super profits.

While the costs of the rescue packages and bailouts are at public expense, the benefits accrue to a few. The bailout packages announced are aimed first at rescuing and then enlarging profit-making avenues. Banks and financial corporates are now back in business and making profits. Growing unemployment and the depression of real wages are the burdens of the working people even as the corporations are given gifts in the form of bailout packages.

Secondly, capitalism, which in the first place is responsible for the destruction of the environment, is trying to transfer the entire burden of safeguarding the planet from climate change onto the shoulders of the working class and working people. Capitalisms proposal for restructuring in the name of climate change has little relation to the goal of protecting the environment. Corporate-inspired Green development and green economy are sought to be used to impose new state monopoly regulations, which support profit maximisation and impose new hardships on people. Profit maximisation under capitalism is thus not compatible with environmental protection and peoples rights. The declaration noted that the only way out of this capitalist crisis for the working class and the common people was to intensify struggles against the rule of capital. All sorts of theories like there is no alternative to imperialist globalisation are propagated. Countering them, our response is socialism is the alternative.

The declaration further pointed out that it was the experience of the working class that when it mobilised its strength it could be successful in protecting its rights. Latin America, the current theatre of popular mobilisation and working-class actions, has shown how rights can be protected and won through struggle. The declaration also pointed out that though the capitalist system was inherently crisis ridden, it did not collapse automatically. It also stressed that social democracy continued to spread illusions about the real character of capitalism, advancing slogans such as humanisation of capitalism, regulation and global governance.

These in fact support the strategy of capital by denying class struggle and buttressing the pursuit of anti-popular policies. No amount of reform can eliminate exploitation under capitalism. Capitalism has to be overthrown. This requires the intensification of ideological and political working-class-led popular struggles.

A number of delegates to the conference were of the view that the Delhi meeting and the declaration would give a fillip to Communist parties and their movements in different countries and strengthen the struggle against capitalist and imperialist forces. According to Jose Reinaldo Carvalho of the Brazilian Communist Party, the message of the Delhi Declaration was a reaffirmation of what many countries in Latin America had been stating politically over the past decade. And that message, in Carvalhos words: The struggle for socialism, under the terms of our time, taking into account the lessons learnt from the previous historical period, is coming back to the agenda not as a vague ideal but as a concrete possibility.

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