Dear Comrades,

First of all I wish to express our Party's positive appreciation of this initiative of the Communist Party of Greece.

It comes at a critical moment when working people are under sustained and violent attack, and living and working conditions, and rights won after many decades of struggle, are being eroded.

But there is a gathering counter-offensive. The recent struggle on the Australian waterfront is one example of working-class resistance to ruling class attacks.

With the Cold War defeat of most of the socialist countries, world capitalism was freed of many constraints. On the surface at least, and for a brief period, the socialist alternative seemed to some to recede, and every opportunity was taken by the ideologists of imperialism to discredit it.

Capitalist triumphalism and the notion that capitalism was the best of all possible systems was energetically propagated.

The world seemed to lie at capitalism's feet, and capitalist expansion on a global scale, argued its theorists, will bring unparalleled growth and prosperity.

The ruling class have not limited themselves to propaganda. They have formed economic, political and military associations to bolster capitalism's supremacy.

The IMF, the WTO and the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) all have the aim of cementing the dictatorship of the TNCs.

The MAI aims :

1. To remove all restrictions to capital flow around the world.

2. To impose obligations on governments to protect national and foreign capital.

3. To enforce the privileges of TNCs and financial institutions.

None of these developments, however, change the nature of capitalism nor eliminate its contradictions.

As ever the rich become richer and the poor poorer. The gap between them has become a chasm. The decimation of public services-health, education, transport-impoverishes the masses. There is a growth of cynic, the spread of violence, a breakdown of social values. Unemployment, particularly long-term youth unemployment spreads like a plague, uncontrollably.

Unrestrained looting of public funds and the privatization of public enterprises transfers vast resources of capital to private hands. Imperialism is expanding into the vast new markets opening in the former socialist countries.

From all this we can conclude that:

1. The basic exploitative character of capitalism-shown in the Communist Manifesto 150 years ago- remains unchanged under imperialism.

2. Imperialist rivalries exist and intensify.

3. Liberal Keynesianism has been replaced by Friedmanism.

4. In spite of the factors favoring it, capitalism's contradictions intensify.

5. In consequence, capitalism is still producing its own gravediggers.

The globalisation of capital, dominated by the TNC's leads to, and demands, the "globalisation" of labor.

This is strikingly evident from Australia's recent experience of one of the most tense and important class conflicts in its history. A conspiratorial alliance between Australia's extreme right-wing government and the country's second-largest stevedoring company aims at the destruction of the waterfront union-the Maritime Union of Australia. This, they believe, can open the way to the weakening of the whole trade union movement.

This struggle is not, of course, unique. Both the attacks of the corporations and the counter-attacks of the working class and its organizations are seen world-wide.

Long and detailed planning preceded the waterfront attack. An intense propaganda campaign against unions, particularly the MUA, was launched. Anti-trade-union laws were enacted that impose huge fines on trade unions, leaders and individual workers for their infringement. Under new rules of "free competition", "increased productivity" and "de-regulation of the labor market", workers and their organizations are forbidden to "interfere with the commercial interests of an employer".

There is a pretense that the new laws are "fair" and directed equally at employers and employees, but a so-called "level playing field" is not possible when the might of the corporations is pitted against individual workers on individual work contracts, without trade unions to defend workers' economic, social and political interests.

This wide-ranging attack on workers and their unions poses the communist movement with new tasks. It calls for the use of new and different tactics in the course of every struggle. In the waterfront struggle in Australia many new features are to be seen.

A major feature has been the organization of vast strike pickets. Tens of thousands of people joined in pickets at the dock gates. Most had never taken such action before. Members of other unions stopped work to attend picket lines. Many community organizations and individuals also gave support. The movement of cargo was effectively stopped for the duration of the dispute. Nothing like this had ever been seen before.

The International Transport workers' Federation gave full support and alerted its affiliated organizations world-wide with appeals for action against ships loaded in Australia by scab labor. Solidarity actions have been mobilized in the US, and trade unions everywhere have signaled their support.

These are important developments. The 150-years-old call of workers of the world to unite is now visibly being fulfilled, as rarely before. The working people of all countries can now see that they are facing the same enemy, the same ruthless policies and the same drastic consequences. Workers in many different countries now recognize their common interests.

One must also note the role played by the information networks in general, and the Internet in particular, in disseminating news and details of the waterfront struggle and calling for world-wide solidarity. The communist movement, so far, has been slow to make use of this medium.

In the battle to capture public opinion, the role of private TV channels must be noted. These, in their drive to sell "instant, on-the-spot" news, even TV teams serving the most reactionary channels, rushing to the scene of waterfront confrontations, reported the size of the pickets, the conduct and words of trade union leaders, and the solidarity of other organizations, and this information was flashed into homes throughout the country.

At the present moment the Maritime Union has won the re-instatement of all dismissed workers. But it is also clear that the employer-government plans to tame and cow the working class and trade-union movement have not been abandoned, even if it means (as it has done already) breaking the laws of the country.

For a long time many, including some on the left, have asserted that the class division of society is a thing of the past, and that the class struggle has been replaced by consensus between capital and labor. Some others have even reached the conclusion that communist parties, too, are a thing of the past, and no longer needed.

These assertions are now seen to be erroneous. The increasingly political character of the struggle on the waterfront shows such assertions to be false.

Communist Parties and Marxist analysis have an indispensable role to play. Socialism has only been won and built where communist parties have worked among and led revolutionary masses.

The strengthening of communist parties is therefore a matter of great urgency, as is the raising of ideological levels of both party members and all class-conscious workers. Building the party, making better use of propaganda, establishing a sound base among the masses, are immediate tasks that face us.

International cohesion, common, joint, action by communist parties is more urgent now than ever before clearly, common interests of the workers of all countries creates a greater necessity, but also a greater possibility of common international action, reinforcing solidarity between the world's communist parties, first, and then between trade union federations and internationals and will become an increasingly important factor in the forthcoming struggles of working people in many countries.

One must not underestimate the role played by other progressive social and political forces. Real possibilities of broad alliances do exist.

The offensive of world capital, its assault on long-held and hard-won rights, imperialist attempts to over-rule and over-throw the sovereignty and independence of nations, to the point of replacing even bourgeois democratic institutions by outright and undisguised dictatorship by corporations, will inevitably create new centers of tension and revolutionary ferment in the immediate future.

In our view, the next century will bring new revolutionary storms, and socialism will resume its historic march.

In the meantime, the struggles which confront us demand better leadership, able to examine its own weaknesses as well as those of others, better organization able to respond to the growing thirst of the masses for competent leadership, and more consistent and militant action able to achieve the socialist goal.

The struggle between capital and labor remains the dominant reality in the world today, and is moving towards a climax.

There is a clear link between the economic attacks mounted by contemporary imperialism and the attempts to undermine and abolish democratic rights won by centuries of struggle.

This is made evident from a recent statement by a former deputy chief of staff at the White House who has spoken of the need for "new forms of global government, such as the IMF, the WTO and the MAI".

The same, speaking of the Australian waterfront struggle, said that "one possible solution....might be an IMF program...to break the cartel (of the unions) that has been created. It sounds ambitious, but the reality is that the IMF is now doing that in Korea, Thailand and elsewhere".

Here is a glimpse of the New World Order imperialism seeks to impose.

Here is our common enemy.