Dear Comrades,
First of all I bring you greetings from the Communist Refoundation Party of Italy. In a phase like that which Europe is now going through, of great political and social transformation-a phase which cannot be described as one of routine administration for any social forces, not least for communists and anticapitalists - meetings like this one provide a valuable experience which can be of great mutual benefit.
I hope that my intervention will contribute to the work to which we are all committed, that is, the attempt to build a valid alternative to the politics of neo-liberalism and market economy which today constitute a threat to European civilization itself.
The great paradox of the end of this century is demonstrated by a flagrant contradiction. On the one hand, we have the crisis of the antagonist subjectivity and of the worker’s organizations, in the wake of the catastrophe not of communism but of the eastern European States model of socialism. On the other hand, we have the crisis of the capitalistic mode of production, which is now coming up against its fundamental contradictions and it’s no longer capable of interlacing growth - often itself in difficulty - with the civil and social progress of the peoples.
Within this double crisis, the so-called "economic Globalization" is concentrated on an attack on labor, on waged labor, without historical precedent. Throughout the world, including the most developed North, the conditions of waged workers are steadily and sometimes dramatically worsening, both from the point of view of income and from that of dignity and rights. At the same time, old and new forms of poverty and exclusion processes, marginalisation and insecurity are increasing.
In a rich country like Italy, recent data shows that not only is unemployment anchored around the 12% mark, by now evidently a structural and mass phenomenon, but also that a significant section of the work-force, about 15% of the so-called protected workers, live today in conditions of real poverty. A situation in which even the more worried liberals, like Ralph Dahrendorf, say that the "social cohesion", which is necessary to the survival of any society, is today threatened; and, in particular for the younger generations, the very idea of being able to program a future worthy of the name is undermined. In this sense, the old prophecy in Marx’s Communist Manifesto on the danger of "the reciprocal ruin of the opposing classes" seems particularly relevant today.
It is in the context of this structural, social and cultural crisis that the project of Communist Refoundation Party, begun in the early 90’s and formulated during the 3rd National Congress of December, 1996 finds its logic and expression. An organic reformist strategy, a new version of that defined as socialdemocratic and "keynesian compromise", is no longer viable. Neo-liberal capitalism - that Ignacio Ramonet called on the French monthly Le Monde diplomatique the capitalism of pensee unique - cannot be emended, neither can it be corrected or mitigated. Its logic is ferocious because total economic competition on a world scale is ferocious. Its tendency is regressive because, in order to expand, it needs to break through all barriers, to destroy all obstacles in its path, including those of half a century of worker’s hard-won contractual and social rights.
The alternative, therefore, must again become radical: the defeat of capitalism, of this modernization without modernity again becomes the only chance that the peoples of this world, the oppressed classes, the excluded, have at their disposal.
Furthering this social and political transformation, that of defeat of capitalism, is the objective of the Communist Refoundation Party and the basis of its program and its political work. Our communist identity is not founded primarily on an inheritance of ideals, but on a radical choice which is capable of relating to the contradictions and needs of the present, and of building an alternative project on this basis, elaborating new political and social structures. This objective, in the political and institutional context in Italy, has led the CRP to back the center-left Government over the last two years, and often to succeed in conditioning its activity. In the early phase, the defense of the Welfare State, pensions and Health Service, and subsequently the introduction of the 35 hour week to the political agenda, are two important results achieved so far.
An integral part of this communist identity is the idea of a new Internationalism: an active relationship between the communists, anticapitalistic and anti-imperialist forces throughout the world, based on the search for an analysis and for common objectives rather than on an ideological affinity or on traditional diplomatic ritual.
The fall of the Berlin wall has certainly not opened a new democratic peaceful phase in the history of humanity: on the contrary, the world’s balance has definitely moved in favor of the rich countries and of the greatest imperial power of all time, the USA. But it is forces like the G8, the FMI, the World Bank, NATO who have assumed the role of the new imperialist power in the world: they impose their order on an Earth evermore prey to disorder and fragmentation. Compared to the traditional ways in which dominion was exercised, the objective today is neither to have consensus nor active participation, but rather the passivity of the masses, the resignation and lack of trust that call into question the very sense of politics. All this is reflected in the present dramatic ethnic, microregional and corporative fragmentation. At the same time, there is no longer a "socialist camp" to refer to in the sense of established State power, and the worrying fundamentalist reaction is getting ever stronger.
In this context the process of European unification is characterized by deep contradictions: on the one hand, the Europe of Maastricht and of the Euro, of financial capital and of monetarism, the progressive assimilation of Europe to the North-American, model and the unique global axis; and on the other hand, there is the Europe of the peoples, of resistance movements, of alternative left-wing groups, of the opening to the option of a Mediterranean civilization.
Between these two Europes, an uneven game is being played, but one whose result cannot as yet be foreseen. Just as it cannot be predicted whether the France of Jospin who, in the midst of many contradictions, is experimenting very forward-looking social and cultural political choices, will prevail, or, the New Labor of Tony Blair, who has moved the Left decidedly into a more moderate channel.
In the forthcoming months, despite national and regional differences, communist parties and alternatives left-wing forces, will find themselves faced with a relatively compact homogenous panorama, and with choices about where they stand which are, in substance, very similar. The European theatre is now the stage of real political and social struggle. No political force, no party, can presume to solve its problems in a separate national context. It’s also because of this that the CRP feels it is essential to built a common political subject in Europe, pluralist in its political cultures and its territorial affiliations: not a re-proposal of old organizational forms and, much less, a new International. Instead, a real process of initiative and common reflection which is capable of producing experiences of movement and struggle and that can offer a significant point of reference for an alternative to neo-liberalism.
We have worked tenaciously with the meetings of Paris, Lisbon, Madrid, with the Amsterdam march for Work, the initiatives proposed by the GUE (European United Left) and the European Parliament, as well as those in favor of Cuba and the zapatist movement, in order to achieve these objectives.
Without this extra-ordinary commitment to a new internationalism and to a new internationalist political practice, this very project of our party, the CRP’s, would lose one of its basic and substantial reasons.
In this spirit I would like to renew our best wishes for a positive outcome to the work of this meeting.