I would like first of all to convey greetings from the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Belgium to cde Aleka Paparigha, to the comrades in the Communist Party of Greece and to all the comrades here present.

Lenin defined our age as being an age of imperialism and proletarian revolution, and stated that imperialism constitutes the eve of the socialist revolution.

According to Lenin, the contemporary bourgeois state is becoming increasingly involved with the monopolies, and the terrible oppression of the working masses is being constantly intensified. Imperialism means the denial of democracy, it means reaction in every sense of the word. Fascistisation and fascism constitute expressions of the inevitable degeneration of bourgeois democracy during the imperialistic age. In foreign policy, imperialism leads to wars of conquest against the less developed countries and to world wars between imperialist forces.

While emphasising all the contradictions of capitalism, imperialism makes clear the necessity for socialist revolution. Under imperialism, the gigantic forces of production can only remain entrapped in the out-dated framework of private ownership through the use of oppression, terrorism and war. Only the socialist revolution permits the working people to escape from the barbarousness of imperialistic wars.

Khrushchev and Brezhnev rejected these Leninist positions. And to this end they used the following argument (I quote Ponomarev in 1967): "Capitalism can no longer recover from the blow it suffered in 1917. We are now in the historical period of the dissolution, decline, and collapse of capitalism. Capitalism is not destined to survive the profound crisis the bourgeois society is going through." On the basis of these thoughts, Ponomarev concludes: "Determining the age of imperialism and of proletarian revolutions reflects the particularities of an outdated period. The social revolutions to come will differ in many ways from the October Revolution." It follows that the socialist revolution no longer constitutes a historical necessity, since the peaceful passage to socialism would have been possible owing to the weakness of capitalism and the strength of socialism. Since then, the revisionist positions of Khrushchev have undermined and destroyed socialism in the Soviet Union, which ended up, under Brezhnev and Gorbachev, with capitalism being restored in its most brutal forms.

After the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, imperialism proved that it is today one hundred times more barbarous and cruel than it was at the beginning of the century: it caused untold destruction and the death of millions of people in the former Soviet Union; it launched the criminal war and embargo against Iraq, which have already cost the lives of more than 800,000 people; it brought about the genocide in Rwanda, where more than a million people were slaughtered. Imperialism has nothing to offer humanity other than exploitation, oppression, fascism and war.

In Belgium, the regime has become increasingly fascist in nature. The fascist parties represent about 15% of the population. The bourgeois parties, including the Socialist Party (PS), espouse their issues and mainly their racist and nationalistic positions and their policy on questions of repression. The PS which is now in government, promotes the creation of a unified central police; it has generalised the policing of the population and passed a law relative to the so-called "criminal organisations" among which it targets the PTB and other anti-capitalist organisations.

The bourgeois State shows itself more and more openly as a mechanism for organised violence against the popular masses, and Parliament has become a tool in the hands of the bourgeois party, manipulating public opinion. All this confirms the main issue set out by cde Lenin: "Without violent revolution, it is impossible for the proletarian State to replace the bourgeois State."

Imperialism means reaction and fascistisation, but imperialism also means war. Khrushchev used to say: "The progressive forces will from now on be in a position to curb imperialist attacks and oblige imperialism to submit to the will of the peoples." But after the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union, imperialism prepared itself for wars over the entire planet. One part of the Balkans is now occupied by the U.S. and German armies and their allies with a view to future offensives. In his most recent book, Brezinsky predicts other wars in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. NATO is now seen as a guarantor of the so-called "independence" of the Ukraine. In June, NATO will conduct large-scale military manoeuvres in Kenya. Furthermore, the United States continues its policy of "containment" of Russia and China and is examining the possibility of a clash with these two countries. At the same time, the rivalry between the three imperialist centres – Japan, Europe under German leadership, and the US – is become more and more acute. Imperialism launched both world wars. In 1916, Lenin said: "The myth of this being the war to end all wars is a petty bourgeois fairy tale. Other [world] wars will follow this one, unless a series of victorious revolutions take place." Cde Stalin stated in 1952 that Germany and imperialist Japan would recover and that the danger of an intra-imperialist war remained. The struggle against imperialist war constitutes a basic aspect of preparing for the socialist revolution in European countries.

The European Union, i.e. the union of big European capital, means not only super-exploitation and repression, but also war. Thanks to the European Union, Germany has won the dominant position in Europe, for which it launched two world wars. Germany wants to sweep all of Europe into wars of sovereignty in the Balkans, in the Caucasus and in the Ukraine, traditional spheres of its expansionism. The capitalist policy of exploitation and war has become globalised; the revolutionary struggle of the working class must also become globalised. Out of our common revolutionary struggles against the common enemy, capitalism and imperialism, new victorious socialist revolutions will arise.

Capitalism, while pushing for globalisation, is at the same time systematically organising the splitting and fragmentation of the working class.

In Belgium, the bourgeois class propagates nationalism in its most extreme forms among Flemings and Walloons, in order to cover up its class domination and its submission to the NATO General Staff, and in order completely to weaken the working class. All over the world, nationalist, ethnic and religious division has become a murderous weapon that keeps the peoples under imperialist domination.

The working class in every country should apply proletarian internationalism, because this constitutes the absolute prerequisite for the progress of the world socialist revolution, and for victory in each of our countries.

Imperialism, which has become even more barbarous, cruel and inhuman, will precipitate new anti-imperialist revolutions in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The national and democratic revolution remains the principal ally of the socialist revolution.

Allow me now to draw your attention to the events in the Congo, a former Belgian colony. I returned yesterday from Kinshasa where I have many friends in all fields. After 37 years under the terrorist dictatorship of Mobutu, the Congo collapsed and has been completely devastated, while at the same time groaning under the weight of 15 billion dollars in foreign debt. In large areas of the country, there are almost no roads, hospitals, medicines nor factories.

Imperialism aims to take advantage of this situation and to privatise, virtually giving away the mythical deposits of copper, cobalt and diamonds. But President Cabila, one of those who survived the great revolution began by Pierre Mulele in the 1960s, follows a firm policy of independence and national sovereignty.

Imperialism has conducted various ideological campaigns to isolate the Congo. It is now regrouping the followers of Mobutu and is helping them to organise an armed counter-revolution in the eastern Congo. Many followers of Mobutu who still hold high offices are linked with the counter-revolution. Faced with these threats, Cabila has adopted an increasingly clear anti-imperialist line and is fully aware that only mobilisation of the population can give the Congo the power to resist. An independent Congo will change the entire situation in Africa. The counter-revolution in the Congo could cost hundreds of thousands of lives and destabilise all of Central Africa. Laurent Cabila, who welcomed Che Guevara to his partisan hideout in1965, received political and military training in the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Communist Party’s experience of a people’s war and the conversion of a democratic revolution into a socialist one is of enormous importance for the struggle being waged today by the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The unity of the international communist movement constitutes a prerequisite for the prospects of the world socialist revolution.

Every May Day since 1991, the Workers’ Party of Belgium has organised an international communist seminar in which this year 70 parties and organisations took part.

Our primary effort is focused on unification of the parties that belong to the various historical tendencies, and to the unification of those which followed the policy of the Soviet Union or Cuba, the line of cde Mao Tse-Tung or that of cde Enver Hodja. It is necessary and feasible for these divisions to be overcome and for all parties that are loyal to the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, that combat revisionism and maintain the position of proletarian internationalism to be united.

If communists organise the popular masses with a view to the bloody battles that await the peoples, if they show resoluteness, a spirit of self-sacrifice and heroism, they will make the 21st century a century of national and social liberation, the century of triumphant socialism.

Communism is the future of the world!

Victory is certain!