Speech by Andy Brooks, general-secretary of the New Communist Party of
Britain, to the recent world meeting of Communist and workers parties in
Athens.
Comrades,
We are meeting at a time of developing economic crisis accompanied by
political instability, social insecurity, deteriorating living and social
standards, and extreme poverty for millions upon millions of working people.
It's a world in conflict. The counter-revolutionary wave of 1990 led to
the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The imperialists
claimed this would usher in a "new world order" and a new era of global
peace under their control.
The UN Security Council, was, until recently, manipulated as a rubber
stamp for acts of aggression against Iraq, Somalia and the former
Yugoslavia. The wishes of the majority of the UN membership, as expressed
in the votes of the General Assemblies, are routinely ignored by the United
States and Britain. UN machinery is ignored by American imperialism in the
pursuit of its blockade against Cuba.
But wherever there is oppression, there is resistance. The imperialists
failed to spread the counter-revolutionary process to China or Cuba despite
the best efforts of their agents.
Today communists are leading the fight-back in the former Soviet Union and
above all in Albania, where the masses took up the gun and drove out the
Berisha clan last year.
international communist co-operation
The counter-revolutionary setback of 1990 was followed by a worldwide
rallying of communist and workers' parties. And in fact immense progress
has been made in the past eight years.
Initially many of us believed that our first task was working towards
establishing a new international communist information service. In essence
that has now been achieved through the rapid development of information
technology. Now virtually every Party, workers' journal or national
liberation movement is accessible through the Internet.
The second idea which emerged soon after 1990 was the argument that
communists should strive for complete ideological unity as the basis for
international organisational unity.
While this would be an ideal situation we do not believe that it is a
practical proposition. Now it is certainly possible for parties to develop
a common understanding and opposition to modern revisionism and
social-democracy. The lessons of the downfall of the USSR and the socialist
countries of Eastern Europe together with the analysis of the genuine
communist resistance in the former Soviet Union has led to considerable
re-assessments by many communist parties in Europe and beyond.
It is clear that the basis of post-war revisionism was laid down at the
20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The vicious
personal attack on Stalin by Nikita Krushchov had two main effects within
the world communist movement. In Western Europe it opened the door to
Trotskyite ideas, which until then, were confined to small groups drawn
from the middle strata. In the socialist camp it encouraged the retreat
from the socialist standards laid down by Lenin and Stalin. It reflected a
lack of confidence in the masses and it rejected in practice, the leading
role of the working class. It created a climate of compromise and defeat
and led to the conditions which counter-revolutionary traitors successfully
exploited in the end.
In the socialist camp it encouraged a retreat from Leninist standards,
which led to the downplaying of the role of the working class in society.
In the international communist movement, especially in Western Europe, it
re-inforced the tendency towards accepting social-democratic strategies and
attitudes. It was gaining more and more support at that time, by virtue of
the illusions that existed in the working class -- reflected within by many
communist parties in the West -- that capitalism was, after-all, now a
better society.
This was the false creed of Gorbachov and his followers East and West. The
counter-revolutions in the former Soviet Union and the socialist countries
in Eastern Europe were in some cases directed initially by the communist
leaderships in those countries. In others, like Romania, Czechoslovakia and
the German Democratic Republic, attempts to stop the counter-revolutionary
drive were thwarted through the direct or indirect intervention of the
revisionist and treacherous leadership of the Gorbachov clique.
Today former ruling parties with memberships once millions-strong, have
vanished or totally embraced social-democracy and bourgeois democracy --
collaborating with local exploiters to plunder their country's resources
and people while at the same time acting as the willing tools of American
and European imperialism.
Social-Democracy has never led to socialism, and revisionism has led to
the destruction of communist parties and, indeed, socialist states.
Our opposition to social-democracy and revisionism is not a dogmatic
creed. It is a practical application of of Marxism-Leninism. We must
continue to combat these ideas, just as we continue to combat the
pie-in-the-sky ideas of the utopian socialists or the anti-communist
theories of the Trotskyite groups.
But in combating ideas we believe are fundamentally wrong, we must uphold
the communist alternative and seek to win people away from these erroneous
and ultimately futile theories.
new world order
Anglo-American imperialism worked for decades to destroy the Soviet Union
and its allies. Their victory was followed by the "New World Order" which
intended to set the seal on a globe dominated by the entire capitalist
world under American leadership. The fact that it has failed -- in Serbia,
Iraq, Somalia and the Congo -- reflects the determination of people in
struggle and the other fact -- that over a quarter of the world remains
socialist and outside the direct control of the imperialist camp.
ruling parties should be allies -- all communist parties should be friends
We believe that the ruling communist parties in Asia and Cuba should be
allies and that all communist parties should be friends. Though it seems a
straight-forward position it hasn't been achieved yet -- though
considerable progress has been made since 1990.
We welcome the growing ties between the socialist countries of Asia and
Cuba. We also welcome and support the initiatives taken by other parties to
bring the movement together and focus it on the problems of the day.
proletarian internationalism
Over 240 parties and progressive movements have signed the 1992 Pyongyang
Declaration including the New Communist Party.
Many communist parties have taken part in forums held in various parts of
the world since 1990 including the 1993 Calcutta Conference in West Bengal
hosted by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Damascus
Conference organised by the Syrian Communist Party in 1994. The Brussels
May Day festival and seminar programme organised by the Belgian Workers
Party has become a regular focus for the exchange of views throughout the
communist movement since they were launched on an annual basis in 1992.
We have supported many of these events. World-wide contacts between
communist parties have grown and exchanges of views and experience can only
strengthen the world movement.
But other moves, aimed at building a new communist international, have
foundered because they have been launched by small sectarian groups and
because the move is premature.
A new international can only succeed, firstly if it includes and has the
agreement of the ruling parties of People's China, Cuba, Democratic Korea,
Laos and Vietnam. It should be based on Marxism-Leninism and the principle
of equality between big parties and small parties. It must recognise the
principle of a collective secretariat which reflects the views of the
co-operating parties and not that of one big party. And it must recognise
that in countries where there is more than one communist party -- the case
in most countries these days -- the differences between them are a matter
for those parties alone to resolve.
immediate tasks
What we need to do can already be accomplished with the resources to hand
if the political will to do it exists.
The communist movement must maintain and expand its international
exchanges. The movement must build solidarity with Cuba and the socialist
countries of Asia immediately focusing on:
* the campaign to raise relief funds for the distressed areas in
Democratic Korea
* the demand to end the US-imposed blockade of Cuba
and the longer-term objectives for the peaceful re-unification of Korea on
a confederal basis and the re-unification of China based in the "One
country -- Two Systems" principle.
The international communist movement has already in the main rallied around
the demand for an end to the brutal imperialist blockade of Iraq and for
the restoration of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian Arabs including
their right to statehood and their right to return. But more needs to be
done to forge firm links with national liberation movements in the Middle
East and wherever people are struggling against imperialism and oppression.
the world crisis
As the century ends capitalism is in deep crisis. But it will not collapse
of its own accord. It must be overthrown. The objective conditions for
building socialism have existed in Britain, for example, for over a
century. But the strength of the ruling class and its ability to split and
divide the working class movement by buying off some sections in the past
with the crumbs from imperialist plunder has thwarted all past moves for
change.
The British ruling class has nurtured the class-collaborationist theories
of social-democracy and revisionism, which still retain a strong grip on
the labour movement. The European ruling class as a whole fosters the bogus
theory of "globalisation" to encourage defeatism and fatalism within the
working class movement.
But the way forward is clear. Working people need a strong communist
movement based on Marxism-Leninism. And we must build the communist
movement around the tried and tested principles of democratic centralism,
iron discipline, regular self-sacrificing work in a Party organisation and
an unyielding hatred of the capitalist system.
Every comrade must work to build the Party and take part in the day-to-day
struggles in the trade union movement, the community and the struggle for
peace. We want militant trade unionism with genuine militant working class
leadership to take on the bosses and fight for the communist alternative.
We must continue to build solidarity with the struggling peoples of the
world fighting against neo-colonialism and imperialist aggression. We must
continue to forge strong links within the international communist movement.
Throughout the world the communist movement has been built on sacrifice
and hardship. Our Party is no exception. We have survived for two decades
thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of our members. Future generations
will thank them for laying the foundations of the mighty movement which
will bring the whole rotten edifice of capitalism to an end in Britain once
and for all.
A Better Tomorrow
Workers will not unite and fight for things they believe to be impossible.
They will fight for what they consider just, fair and reasonable, and in
doing so they will win victories in their day-to-day struggles and pave the
way for the socialist revolution.
What does socialism mean? Firstly, it means that the ownership of the
means of production -- the factories, mines, transport, land and the
machinery to till it -- is taken from the hands of the capitalists into
state and collective ownership on behalf of the working class.
The people will own the banks, insurance companies and finance houses.
They will be the masters of their own destiny and the age of classes and
exploitation will be over. The greed, speculation and corruption of the
bourgeoisie will end and a new era, a better tommorrow will dawn.
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