Declaration of the regional meeting of the European members of ICMLPOLet us develop resistance against the offensive of capital, reaction and war!
Within a short period the situation in Europe has aggravated to an extreme degree. Though there are good conditions for capitalist economic development such as cheap credits, the low exchange-rate of the Euro, low oil prices, billions of Euros spent by the ECB, the economy is stagnating and a new crisis is approaching because of the insoluble contradictions of capitalism. The wealth of a very small group of rich people is expanding by this development while the poor are getting poorer. There is plenty of money for weapons and war, while there is less and less money for social needs.
In this situation the ruling class and their parties, such as the conservatives, social-democrats and their governments, are attacking the achievements of the working class such as collective bargaining contracts on a national level, while they want to make it easier to dismiss workers. This is accompanied by wage cuts, social service cuts, efforts to reduce pensions and to increase the age of retirement. This leads to an increasing distrust of the state, its institutions and the different bourgeois parties, whether they are from the old right, conservatives, social-democrats or liberals.
In this context states are being transformed step-by-step into police states with authoritarian governments, accompanied by the rise of right-wing, nationalist, racist and to some extent fascist movements and parties, who present themselves demagogically as “social” and support this development into police states. Under the pretext of the “fight against terrorism,” democratic rights are eliminated.
At the same time the policy of war is being increasingly expanded. Under the leadership and in the framework of NATO, the EU and its members, especially Britain, France and Germany, are intervening militarily in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Mali etc. This is the main cause of the great number of refugees who want to come to Europe. The imperialist powers use the result of their own aggressive, imperialist politics as a pretext to intervene more and to strengthen fortress Europe, to prevent the victims of their policy from finding a safe place where they can survive and live. In this context the agreement between EU and Turkey was made. It is an agreement against humanity. It is an agreement with a regime that disregards fundamental democratic rights and liberties, tramples and crushes every democratic opposition by its roots and tries to smash the national liberation struggle of the Kurdish people by military means.
But the question of refugees has also shown and deepened the contradictions within the EU and the different aims of the ruling classes. It deepened the political crisis of the EU and its institutions.
They also use the refugees to intensify and extend the police state, always under the pretext of the “struggle against terrorism”. It opens the way for right-wing and even fascist movements, with some support from the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois state and the media. All these right-wing movements assist the bourgeoisie in splitting the workers and the peoples movement to fight one another instead of fighting together against the ruling class and their governments.
But all these measures of the bourgeoisie do not solve the problems but on the contrary increase them.
The resistance of the working class and of the workers against the attacks of the bosses and the governments of all hues (right, social democrats, alone or in alliance…) is increasing in all the countries.
The actual attacks are concentrated on the labor laws, as we can see today in France. A huge movement is mobilizing tens of hundreds of thousands of workers, the trade unions, the youth… who are struggling for the withdrawal of this project through demonstrations, strikes… on a local and national level. It is a counter-reform that comes after several others, which have fulfilled the main demands of the bosses: to make it easier to fire workers, to impose more flexibility, lower wages and increased exploitation.
The same attacks are waged in other countries, such as in Italy, Germany, Norway and Spain, where workers rights and collective bargaining are being undermined or suppressed. Thus they try to limit the ability of the workers to act in a united manner.
Resistance is also developing against the criminalization of strikes, especially by the combative trade unionists when they oppose the violence of the working class to the violence of capital and its State. The number of jailed trade unionists is increasing. Some movements of solidarity have developed internationally, especially when it concerns monopolies with enterprises in different countries. This kind of solidarity is still limited, and must be developed.
Imperialism and monopoly capital are attacking and disregarding national sovereignty and elected institutions. This is not only the case in the less developed countries, but even in the advanced imperialist countries.
The resistance and struggle against the EU and its neoliberal policy, its reactionary and inhuman policy against refuges and migrants, its policy of war, of increasing tension with Russia, in close relationship with NATO, are also increasing in all the countries. The dictate of the Euro and its consequences have been exposed, especially in Greece, but also in other countries.
The opposition to the EU is increasing in Denmark and Holland, where referendums have been organized on the question of EU. In each case, the rejection of EU is getting stronger and becoming a majority among the peoples, especially among the workers and popular masses.
The next occasion will be the referendum in Britain: the prospect of a “brexit” [British withdrawal] is concrete and infuriates the financial oligarchy, the leaders of the right-wing and social-democrat parties, the big bosses, the pro-EU leaders of the other countries and even Obama who has interfered in favor of Britain staying in the EU.
We support without restrain the democratic and progressive forces which are campaigning in favor of the “Brexit”. If it occurs, it will create a new political situation, deepening the political crisis of the EU and stimulate the opposition to the EU in other countries. We strongly support the right of the people to withdraw from the EU. We support the people who demand a referendum, to withdraw from the EU.
Several international treaties are being discussed and negotiated in secret between the representatives of the EU and the US: the TAFTA/TTIP is one of these treaties whose consequences are tremendous and very dangerous. It will increase the power of the monopolies, both of the US and the European ones, against all the workers and peoples. There are other treaties like TISA, which is an anti-democratic project aimed at making privatization of public services and resources permanent, in discussion on specific areas, which have the same objective: open markets for the monopolies and increased competition among the workers to the benefit of capital, to impose the diktat of the monopolies, using the States as the best defenders of their private interests.
Huge demonstrations are developing during the final round of these negotiations. Nothing is settled: a victory for the popular movement is at hand. We must reinforce the mobilization to stop the negotiations, to make them fail.
The aggressive policy of NATO is meeting an increasing resistance movement that says “no to war, no to NATO”, which proclaims the necessity of its dissolution and which says “out of NATO” in the countries that are members of this political and military alliance, under the leadership of US imperialism. This movement is also denouncing the links between the EU and NATO.
Another aspect of the policy of NATO is the pressure exerted on the governments to increase their war budgets, to buy more and more weapons produced by the US and European monopolies, which are competing for this market.
We join our voices in the denunciation of the increasing militarization of the States, of the whole society, of the increasing political and economic power of the monopolies of the military industrial complex.
We join our voices to the movement that says “money for education and health, not for weapons or war”.
We work for developing a huge international anti-war movement.
A movement that struggles to end the wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan
A movement that says “no to an aggression against Libya”
A movement that denounces the “war against terrorism in Africa” waged by the imperialist powers, especially France and Germany, in close relationship with US imperialism. We join our voices with the people and organizations of these countries, who are struggling for the withdrawal of foreign troops, for their sovereignty, especially in Mali. In particular we support the revolutionary struggle of the people of Burkina Faso and other neocolonial countries, which are confronting French, US and other imperialist countries.
The system of capitalism and imperialism only brings misery, poverty, repression and war to the vast majority of workers and people. This system cannot be reformed in the interest of the workers and people and brings no future to the people and youth. We affirm our conviction that a revolutionary change and socialism is necessary. This will be the message that we as Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations will spread among the workers and peoples worldwide on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution.
Socialism is the future!
Declaration of the regional meeting of the European members of ICMLPO.
Stuttgart, Germany, May 2016
Communist Workers Party of Denmark (APK)
Communist Workers Party of France (PCOF)
Organization for the Construction of a Communist Workers Party of Germany (Work Future)
Organization for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE 1918-1955)
Communist Platform – for a Communist Workers Party of Italy
Marxist-Leninist Group Revolution, Norway
Communist Party of Spain Marxist-Leninist (PCE-ML)
Labor Party of Turkey (EMEP)