Dear Comrades,

As First Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Armenia, I have been entrusted by the communists of our country to convey warm congratulations to the communists of Greece and to the entire heroic Communist Party of Greece on the occasion of your brave, militant party’s glorious 80th anniversary. At the same time, in the name of the communists of Armenia, I would like to congratulate all of you on the 150 years since the publication of the Communist Manifesto.

We are grateful to the CPG for its enormous contribution to the regeneration of internationalist brotherhood and constructive collaboration between communist parties all over the world, which constitutes the necessary condition for the rebirth of a strong communist movement world-wide.

We agree with practically all the positions put forward by the General Secretary of the CC of the CPG, cde Aleka Paparigha, in her keynote speech, especially as regards the role that should be played in the modern world by the global communist movement, as it did in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

As a man educated in mathematics and physics, which is why I use scientific terminology for greater representationality, I would say that, as matter cannot exist without motion, so the world communist movement cannot exist without the unification of all efforts, without the co-ordination of our action, without the intense exchange of information, of our experience of the struggle, and without true internationalist solidarity, an example of which for us is the action of the fraternal CPG.

This is the main lesson the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto offers us today.

Dear comrades!

We, the Soviet communists here who represent various states of the former federated republics of the USSR, i.e. Armenia, Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaidjan, are solving our main problem, and have a common purpose, the rebirth of our common homeland on a new base, with new principles.

By the same token, we are also solving the special problems that exist in each one of our countries. Those who destroyed our country, the Soviet Union, say that we are now going through a transitional period, that is, that we are now supposedly passing from socialism to capitalism. In reality we, the people and the communists who have known real socialism, believe that the present period, which is evolving in such a dramatic way, must be seen as a passage from one socialism, a socialism with mistakes and illusions which we have all analysed in depth (this analysis is still going on, it has not yet been exhausted), to revitalised socialism, to socialism generally similar to what we had – since we do not intend to repudiate the basic approaches and viewpoints which were tested over time – but which will be revitalised socialism where we must abandon our former illusions, and take into account our mistakes, omissions and failures.

The problem is that nobody knows how long this transitional state will last. For this reason, the pseudo-democrats who today hold power in our countries are trying to impose barbarous capitalism on our peoples. In practice we have the primary accumulation of capital, with all the prospects for its development which are described in the Communist Manifesto by our great leaders K. Marx and F. Engels. For this reason, when we say that the return to socialism is inevitable and that the socialist regeneration of our peoples is certain, we must remember that we very much need your experience, the experience of all communist parties which, for many decades now, have been working under the conditions of the capitalist society.

For us an essential problem is the erosion of the social base which has occurred in our countries. We must define this social base: whose interests do we represent? The period when we used to say we were the party of the whole people unfortunately belongs to the past. On the other hand, we constitute by definition the party of the working class, the party of the proletariat, but the working class in our countries is at this moment split and fragmented; under conditions of the total collapse of the economy, the abolition of labour collectives, and nation-wide disasters, it is losing – or never acquired – the revolutionary character which will make possible its victory, and the regaining of power.

We have to deal with another significant problem, which is how to assess the role of the rural workers. Farmers, who previously participated in co-operative efforts, who were co-operative workers, have today found themselves in the worst social-economic and legal position. On the one hand the farmers are among the main supporters of our party’s struggle, and on the other, they never ceased to be petty bourgeois in character.

The problem of the intelligentsia, the problem of the youth movement, the problem of creating a left trade union movement which, in our countries and particularly in Armenia are not at all at the required level, are constantly at the focus of our attention, but we are having a hard time finding the solutions required.

This is why, dear comrades, a new Party theory is needed which will take the new conditions into consideration, a Communist Party theory is needed on the threshold of the 21st century, a theory of new methods in the struggle to further the rights of the working people.

A fundamental problem lies in correlating parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of action. It is possible here either to be drawn to the side of complete levelling of the revolutionary nature of the communist movement, to the side of opportunism and of the excessive dedication to parliamentary methods. On the other side, there is the danger of being carried away by a pseudo-revolutionary current. These problems need to be seriously analysed and worked out.

Another great problem is the balance between socialism and patriotism. We are certain that the danger of sliding into nationalist and chauvinist positions must be averted, but at the same time we believe that we can return to power in our countries (and we shall return) if we can find the right balance, a combination of socialism and the pure idea of patriotism, patriotism in the name of the regeneration of our peoples, of our states, on the way toward a new Union, a new integration, on the way to a socialist rebirth, on the way to real power for the people. There is no place here for cosmopolitanism, for the levelling of ethnic features.

Dear comrades!

In our country there are many problems. Here we don’t need exorcisms, empty slogans, or meaningless discussions about who is more communist, which unfortunately take place frequently among us. I believe that the enemies of our parties, of our movement, and of our ideology stir up these disagreements, artificially and skilfully taking advantage of our naivete and sincerity. We do however need to work seriously together on our theory, to be worthy of our great teachers, Marx, Engels and Lenin. Indeed the approach must be specifically Marxist, creative without any wavering, without elements of dogmatism, without efforts to turn back the clock, categorically without unacceptable opportunistic efforts to revise the foundations of our great theory.

The C.P. of Armenia is a relatively young participant in the international communist movement. Our party and the communists of Armenia took part in the international communist movement through the CPSU. Here present is the Honorary Chairman of the CPG cde Florakis, and other comrades of the older generation, who remember very well the problems of Comintern, the problems of unification of the international communist movement. We believe that we must overcome certain stereotypes which become quite obvious at such meetings. Representatives of certain fraternal parties tell us that in our movement there should be no discussion about any united centre, nobody must lead anybody. We agree with this. Today there is not, unfortunately, a powerful party such as the CPSU used to be, which could advise and help. But there is also a positive aspect: we are all equal, each one has their own problems and pain, and the pain of our peoples. This is why, despite everything, when the social democrats are united, when the Christian democrats are united, we communists who were born in unity, were born as an all powerful internationalist force, must go forward in this way, as was proposed, for example by cde Aleka Paparhiga in her speech. We must think about the intense constant exchange of information, we must think about a theoretical publication, and about other, more far-reaching decisions, because we are absolutely certain that the future, and indeed very soon, will once again be in favour of socialism, of revitalised socialism, the socialism which for the most part (perhaps someone will mention this critically) will use and will repeat the experiment of existing socialism which was built in the USSR and in the countries of Eastern Europe.

This optimism on our part stems from the obvious successes of our comrades in the Russian Federation, in Belarus, Ukraine and Moldavia in the recent elections at various levels.

Presidential elections were held recently in Armenia. I was a candidate for President of Armenia and I must say that, owing to a new betrayal on the part of the former party nomenclature, which has already betrayed the party and our ideas once during the Gorbachev years, we were unable for the moment to achieve a significant political success, a change of luck for our people. Nevertheless we can confirm, and we report this proudly, that we have made people more aware that the future is in favour of socialism. This we must report, dear comrades, steadfastly and certainly.

What are the communists of Armenia engaged in today? What problems are we facing? Of course we are concerned about the return to power. Today we rely mainly on the use of parliamentary methods, but not at all by limiting or reducing our non-parliamentary struggle. In January, February and March of this year we had a strong wave of demonstrations throughout Armenia, many acts of social protest organised in particular by the C.P. Armenia and we are proud of this. Last year, on the initiative of our party, within a very short period of time, a million signatures were collected in favour of Armenia joining the Union of Russia and Belarus. I would like to express my thanks to the newspaper Rizospastis, organ of the CC of the CPG, which in 1994 interviewed me and printed the article under the title: "Peace will be restored to the land of the USSR only when the communists return to power in all the former republics in the union."

This is how we see the subject today. We believe that peace will be established throughout the world only when our Union is recreated in a new way. Only within the framework of this Union will it be possible to solve the critical problems of Abkhaziya, Crimea, and Nagorno Karabakh. Since this is precisely how our people perceive these problems, we will fight persistently for Armenia to become the third member of the Russia-Belarus Union, because only in this way will we be able to ensure the regeneration of Armenia on the path toward socialism, national security, and the solution of our most difficult problem which is that of Nagorno Karabakh.

Today we are engaged in the rebirth of the soviets, as a form of direct popular power. Under the conditions of capitalism, which has caused the total collapse of the economy, and under which 90% of the powerful industrial potential of Armenia has been destroyed, we often say that if, during the years of the USSR, we cited Armenia as an example of what socialism can give a people, when an ancient people, an ancient state, reached the heights of culture thanks to socialism, then today we should cite Armenia as an example of what happens to a people, into what profound crisis they can fall when they become distanced from socialism. In such a state, under the conditions of growing disaster and the collapse of the state organisation, we are striving to resurrect the soviets as a form of parallel power, as the existing power of the working people.

Dear comrades,

There is much we could say about our duties and problems, about our new experience, but time is limited, and I don’t want to abuse your attention. I would like to add just one thought. We Armenians have many things in common with the countries of the Balkan Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean in the realm of history, geopolitics, in the field of the problems of peace in our great and most uneasy region. Here we should remind you that communists always provided the example of the persistent goal of the dedicated fight for peace, against imperialist threats, against raids, against war. We spoke about this at the 33rd Congress of the C.P.A., held at the end of November last year, at which there was a representative from the CPG. With this in mind, we support the unification of our efforts in the struggle for peace, progress, socialism and the co-ordination of our actions, so we can be worthy of the memory of our great teachers, Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Under the conditions of globalisation and the new offensive by neo-imperialism, under the efforts to create a monopoly world, we communists must revitalise the great traditions of the true revolutionary spirit, of internationalism, of solidarity and the creative approach to the problems that arise, with which the 150-year history of our great communist movement is already so rich.

Thank you for your attention.