The questions under discussion at this conference – the role and tasks of our parties in the new, complex conditions arising in the world today – are of pivotal concern not only to the development of each of our respective organizations, but also to the overall advance of our international movement as a whole, and to the future of socialism itself. We take this opportunity to congratulate the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) for undertaking this timely initiative.

Unfortunately, owing to a last-minute decision of our Party to attend this important gathering, we have not had sufficient time to complete our written submission. We will however circulate our final contribution to all participating parties immediately following the conference.

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Permit me, to advance just a few remarks on the questions under discussion from our Party’s perspective. First, some very general – indeed, extremely general – observations about the current stage in capitalist development and the class struggle:

1.The main features and law-driven dynamics of capitalism, as discovered by Marx and Engels 150 years ago, continue to operate, albeit on a much more internationalized platform and upon a much higher material and technical base. Capitalism remains a system racked by fundamental contradictions growing instability, uneven development and on-going deeper crisis that cannot be resolved by reforms.

2. Therefore the main direction of this historical period continues to be that of the transition from capitalism to socialism. The experience of socialism and of the working-class movement in this century has been one of phenomenal achievements and social advances for working people and against colonialism, national oppression, racism, sexism, and war. However, in recent years the international working class and socialist forces have suffered major setbacks, most evident with the overthrow of the Soviet Union. These reversals were caused by difficult material circumstances and unrelenting imperialist pressure, and by serious theoretical and political errors on the part of the ruling communist parties.

3. The dramatic shift in the global balance of class forces following the recent reversals has allowed imperialism to radically transform economic and political relations and structures both at the national and especially the international level in the interests of capital, and to greatly intensify its all-sided class offensive – economic, political and ideological – against the working class and other oppressed strata of working people in the advanced capitalist and underdeveloped countries alike. Transnational corporations, an extreme form of concentration and centralization of capital, have become the primary conduits of capitalist exploitation and imperialism.

4. Capitalist re-structuring and its attendant crises, combined with the political offensive of capitalist governments, have seriously eroded the social and economic conditions of the working class, undermined labor and democratic rights, and forced the working class into retreat in most countries.

5. Despite these worsening conditions, working class and democratic resistance to capitalist restructuring and the neo-liberal policies of governments is on the increase in Canada and elsewhere throughout the world, creating more favorable circumstances for rebuilding the communist parties and further extending their influence.

6. And due to the increasing global inter-penetration of capital and its impact on all national economies, the prospects for successful resistance and social advance in any given country increasingly depend on cooperation and joint action by the working class and anti-imperialist forces at the regional and international levels as well.

Some of the conclusions, which flow from this assessment in terms of our Party’s political orientation and practical work in Canada, include the following:

That the CPC must continue to develop as an independent revolutionary party of the working class, basing its overall outlook on Marxism-Leninism and working class internationalism.

That our Party must rectify and remove all remnants of dogmatic and sectarian attitudes and style in our mass and united front activities, and work consistently to build broader unity with other left and democratic forces to fight back against the capitalist offensive.

That while striving for unity in action, we must also sharpen the ideological struggle against reformism and class collaboration within the broad working class movement, ideas and approaches which fundamentally weaken labor and democratic resistance, sap its militancy, and seek to divert it into harmless channels.

That democracy – even in its narrow bourgeois form – is a fetter on transnational finance capital in its drive to maximize profit, and is, as a result coming under increased attack. Therefore, it is incumbent that Communists be in the front ranks in defending democratic rights, and that we must strive to «link up» the struggle to preserve and extend democracy with the struggle for social advance and for socialism.

That while presenting a short-term program to address the immediate interests and concerns of the working class and its allies, we must more fully and creatively elaborate our conception of the socialist alternative for Canada, a socialism which would be based on conscious, concerted working class power, the social emancipation of labor through the end of exploitation and through collective social ownership and control of the economy, and the broadest democratic participation of the people in shaping state policy and administration, and in social and cultural development.

And finally

That while struggles at the level of the nation-state continue to be the main arena of resistance to the offensive of transnational monopoly capital, the global character of this offensive requires that national forms of struggle be combined to an ever greater extent with coordinated regional and global forms of democratic and anti-imperialist struggle, leading to the eventual building of a broadly-based democratic and anti-imperialist front on a global scale. The international communist movement has a decisive role to play in constructing such a broad global front, and our Party will continue to work to promote greater cohesion and unity of action within the communist movement as a central priority of our international work. One way of promoting such a goal is through encouraging the convening of different levels and forms of meetings among workers’ and Communist Parties – such as this conference – leading towards wider and more comprehensive international coordination within the communist movement as a whole. In principle, our party supports calls to develop political and organizational linkages among sister parties.

In conclusion, I want to take this opportunity to invite fraternal parties to join in a small but meaningful step in building such international communist coordination. In March of this year, our Party wrote to sister parties proposing that we jointly issue a public statement opposing the efforts of imperialism to foist the Multilateral Agreement on Investment – the MAI – on the peoples and nations of the world. We received dozens of positive replies, and so we established a small drafting committee, composed of the Communist Party USA, the Communist Party of Australia and ourselves, to prepare a joint statement. That statement is being circulated for the first time at this conference, and is simultaneously being faxed and sent by electronic mail to communist and workers parties around the world.

Even though the negotiating process in the OECD has been hoisted for a six month period due to growing international opposition and differences between some of the governments themselves over the final text, we feel that the main capitalist states – especially the U.S. – intend to resurrect the MAI, perhaps in a modified form, or with a new one, once they have overcome some of the outstanding internal differences. The recent announcement of a dirty agreement between the EU and the U.S. softening the terms of the Helms-Burton Act while maintaining its main features aimed at choking the Cuban Revolution, is a case in point.

In short, we believe that the MAI is not «dead» – quite the contrary. Therefore the fight against it must continue to build, and broaden to involve the left, anti-imperialist and national democratic forces in all countries. Of course, this joint statement is but a small beginning, and must be followed with more joint actions at the international level to defeat this monstrous treaty and the whole transnational capitalist agenda of which it is but one part. But it will be a good beginning to have this statement co-signed by as many parties as possible, and published everywhere, in every language around the world. We hope you will urge your respective parties to act in this matter, and to help build the campaign to «Stop the MAI».