Intervention of the Communist Party of Belarus by Victor Tsikin

Esteemed comrades,

It is a particular pleasure for me to convey warm greetings and congratulations to the communists of Greece on behalf of the comrades of Belarus on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the foundation of the CPG.

During the past 80 years, the CPG has written a brilliant, heroic page in the history of the international communist movement. It went through many severe ordeals, which it always handled honourably.

And since we are now on the soil of Ancient Greece, I would like to risk comparing what the CPG has gone through with a heroic modern Iliad and Odyssey worthy of being written by a contemporary Homer.

We are grateful to Greek communists both for their contribution to consolidating the world communist and workers' movement and, by hosting this conference, for providing this opportunity for us to meet with our comrades in struggle.

The defeat of socialism in the USSR posed new problems to Soviet communists which, in the past when it was the governing party, it did not have to solve. For this reason we are particularly interested in the experience of the CPG and the other parties which are active under conditions of capitalism.

To talk about the defeat of existing socialism at a conference celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto is not, of course, very pleasant. But we all understand that we are not talking about the defeat of the brilliant ideas of Marx and Engels, that were further developed by Lenin, but about the defeat of a party - the CPSU - which was unable to put these ideas into practice in ordinary life.

We believe that there are as many external as internal reasons for the disaster that befell us. The cold war and the arms race constituted an insupportable burden on the economy of the USSR, and prevented it from realising fully the advantages of the socialist system.

The most significant internal causes, in our view, had to do with the ideological field. On the one hand, it was the dogmatisation of certain positions of Marxist-Leninist theory and, on the other, it was the very serious revision of its foundations, especially at the stage of the so-called "perestroika", and the lack of attention to developing the theory of socialism particularly in the economic domain. This was the reason for the failure to develop ideological work to meet the demands of a situation that was changing rapidly. If there was stagnation in the USSR, then it was in this field particularly.

In the political domain: it was the concentration of all power in the hands of the party bureaucratic higher leadership, and the real displacement of ordinary communists and workers from the management of party and state affairs.

In the economic sector: it was the replacement of scientific planning with the excessive concentration of the management of the economy, the alienation of direct producers of material products from the results of their labour, and the inadequate adherence to the principle "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his labour".

All this prevented the USSR from taking advantage of the fruits of the scientific and technological revolution, and weakened the workers' incentives to contribute highly productive and creative labour. And finally it caused parasitism and recurrences of the petty bourgeois psychology, and laid the foundation for the return of capitalism.

Mistakes were made in the building of socialism. Efforts to correct them using capitalistic methods, and betrayal by the supreme party leadership led us to the need in 1991 to launch the struggle for socialism, practically from the very beginning.

A few words about our party. We have set as our strategic objective the building of communism, the classless society, and social justice. The immediate goals of the party are: restoration of the USSR and the reorientation of the society toward a socialist road of development.

I have to say that we are acting under conditions that are substantially different from those created in the other republics of the USSR which are today independent states.

In Belarus not even one collective farm was dismantled, which means that the socialist nature of the agrarian sector of the economy was preserved. Privatisation affected only the fields of medical care and services. The main means of production remained state-owned. The increase in industrial production in 1997 was about 20%. The buying and selling of land was prohibited. Contrary to Russia, wages, pensions, and scholarships are paid on time. The state has imposed strict controls on the banking system. It was able successfully to avoid the stranglehold of the International Monetary Fund and the other Western "benefactors". For example, the foundation of the well known Mr George Soros was expelled from the country. Belarus pursues an independent foreign policy, which the US and other Western countries are not at all happy with. The priorities of our foreign policy today are: opposition to the enlargement eastwards of the aggressive NATO, and unification with the republics of the USSR and above all with Russia. The first step was taken, as you know, when the "Union of the two" was created, the union of Russia and Belarus, for the time being de jure and not unfortunately de facto.

The fact that Belarus retained many of the gains of socialism and sank less than some of the other former Soviet republics into the capitalist swamp, is largely due to the contribution of the President of the Republic, Alexander Lucashenko, certainly a man of left convictions. At this stage, our party actively supports the political line pursued by the President; it co-operates with the government in an effort to exert influence in the correct direction. The party has a fairly large group in the country's Parliament, communists occupy significant posts in the structure of executive power, and are mayors of major cities.

This does not mean that we don't have problems. Unfortunately we have a great many. First, people in the President's circle are afraid of co-operating with the Communist Party and make special efforts to push the president to the right.

Second, the situation in Belarus has caused a corresponding reaction in the West and in some countries in the East, specifically in Russia. Today an all-out psychological war has been launched against us, mainly through the use of Russian electronic media. Here the spectre of imaginary violations of human rights, the lack of freedom of speech, and such standardised accusations are used actively. We would ask the parties whose delegations are in the European Parliament, to keep this in mind and support us.

Third, the West is almost openly financing the nationalist-extremist and liberal-bourgeois parties that are trying to de-stabilise the situation in our country. The other communist party that operates in Belarus has become involved with the right. All this creates additional difficulties for us.

I would like to emphasise that we support all the proposals of the CPG about which cde Aleka Paparigha briefed us. Regarding a separate anti-NATO meeting which she mentioned in her speech, we propose that it be held in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. The point is that NATO touches the borders of our republic, which then becomes a frontline state, and we believe that holding this meeting in Belarus will have a fairly strong symbolic impact.

I support the proposal submitted yesterday that a declaration be adopted about the situation in Russia, in support of Russian workers. If the international communist and workers' movement supports Russian workers this would also be good.

In conclusion I would like to thank the CPG for the marvellous organisation of the conference. We wish Greek communists success in their new historical phase.

Thank you for your attention.