The main enemy is within: PdA contribution to the 24th IMCWP

Party of Labour of Austria (PdA) Contribution to the 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Havana, August 7-9, 2026

Dear comrades,

We would like to thank the Communist Party of Cuba for organising the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties during this challenging and difficult time for the Cuban people.The Party of Labour of Austria stands in solidarity with the Cuban people in their struggle against the threats and attacks of monopoly capital and its governments, against the genocidal blockade imposed by US imperialism, and against the direct and indirect support for the blockade provided by all capitalist states. We defend the achievements of the Cuban Revolution and the building of a socialist society in Cuba against any attack by bourgeois propaganda in Austria.

One of Cuba’s greatest sons was born a hundred years ago; a hundred years ago, Fidel Castro Ruz came into the world. Fidel Castro recognised the signs of the time and knew how to identify and take advantage of the moment for a decisive struggle for Cuba’s independence and self-determination. By the time of the victory over the Batista regime on 1 January 1959 at the latest, Fidel Castro and the revolutionaries gathered around him correctly recognised that the sovereignty of the Cuban people over imperialism can only be permanently safeguarded if the path towards the elimination of the exploitation of man by man is taken, if the path towards building a socialist and communist society is taken. With this decision, Fidel Castro bound his own fate to that of the Cuban people and placed his life in their hands.Throughout their lives, they have jointly defended the decision to build socialism against radical left-wing tendencies, such as Maoism and Trotskyism, as well as against the revisionist and opportunist ideas of perestroika and the socialist market economy.

Across the world, we are currently witnessing a massive increase in armed conflicts, wars and economic wars. These are the result of the deep crisis of the imperialist world system, which has led to intensified competition amongst the monopolies for control of resources, trade and transport routes, spheres of influence, geopolitical strongholds, investment opportunities, market shares and cheap labour. Ultimately, what is at stake is nothing less than the redivision of the world amongst the monopoly groups and the alliances and blocs they form, which take shape depending on the prospects of success or failure. The monopoly bourgeoisie always orientates itself in the direction in which it hopes to make the greatest profits; this also applies to the Austrian monopoly bourgeoisie.

In the early 2000s, Tibor Zenker characterised Austrian imperialism and the Austrian monopoly bourgeoisie as follows: ‘Austria belongs to the group of approximately 25–30 imperialist states that rely heavily on the exploitation of underdeveloped countries and regions.’ Since then, the Austrian monopoly bourgeoisie has tended to further expand and consolidate its influence.The three key sectors are: firstly, transport and logistics; secondly, finance and energy; and thirdly, the petrochemical and steel industries – all three of which play a significant role internationally. Austria is currently represented by nine corporations on the Forbes list of the world’s 2,000 largest companies. Three of these are in the top third and five are in the top half.

In the transport and logistics sector, Austrian Federal Railways is one of the largest railway groups in Europe. In terms of goods transport and logistics, only Deutsche Bahn is stronger than Austrian Federal Railways in Europe. With a presence in 18 countries and a goods transport route stretching from Europe to Shanghai – where it established its own branch in January 2023 – it plays a significant role beyond Europe. Although the Austrian Federal Railways have been converted into a public limited company, 100 per cent of the shares are owned by the Austrian state.

In the energy sector, two Austrian monopolies are right at the forefront. Leading the way is OMV, which also emerged from a former state-owned enterprise and in which the Austrian state remains the majority shareholder to this day. The second-largest shareholder is the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, which provided the capital for OMV’s investments. OMV’s core business is oil and gas, with its own production facilities, refineries and petrol stations in Romania, Austria and other countries. By acquiring a stake in Borealis – the EU’s second-largest producer of polyolefins and one of the world leaders in petrochemicals – OMV has significantly expanded its presence in yet another sector. The second relatively large monopoly in the energy sector is Verbund. Verbund is also partly state-owned. The group is 51 per cent indirectly or directly owned by the Austrian state; it operates in 12 European countries, with its main area of business being South-Eastern Europe.

In the financial sector, the two largest Austrian banks are Erste Group and Raiffeisenbank Austria. For both, the Central, East and South-Eastern Europe region is of great importance. Erste Group is the strongest Austrian conglomerate on the Forbes list. Raiffeisenbank was recently in the business news because it won the bidding war for the takeover of Addiko Bank against Nova Ljubljanskabanka (NLB), despite NLB’s significantly higher bid. Raiffeisenbank is thus acquiring 56.16 per cent of the shares in Addiko Bank. Addiko Bank specialises in business in Central and South-Eastern Europe and has a presence in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro. Prior to the outbreak of the imperialist war in Ukraine, Raiffeisenbank was the largest foreign bank in Russia and remains present there to this day. For many years, its Russian operations were Raiffeisenbank’s cash cow.

Two factors are essential for consolidating the position of the Austrian monopolies in Europe, and particularly in the CESEE region:

The first is the skilful exploitation of Austria’s ‘neutrality’ by the Austrian monopoly bourgeoisie, which enabled it to establish itself, in the period following the end of the Second Imperialist World War and the confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Europe, as a transhipment hub for trade between the capitalist and socialist states of Europe.The first pipeline to transport Russian gas from the Soviet Union to Western Europe at that time was an Austrian-Soviet project, involving OMV, which at that time was still a completely state-owned company. Following the counter-revolution, the Austrian monopoly bourgeoisie enjoyed excellent personal and business relations with the newly emerging bourgeoisie in the formerly socialist states.

The second factor was integration into the European Union and the so-called NATO Partnership for Peace. The EU enabled Austrian monopoly groups – particularly through the so-called EU enlargement to the East – to improve and secure their starting positions for investment in a large number of European countries, and especially in the CESEE region. The NATO Partnership for Peace enabled the Austrian monopolies to exert direct influence over the military dismantling of Yugoslavia, as had been demanded by Austrian governments years before the start of the NATO war against Yugoslavia. At the same time, they were subsequently able to participate in the NATO occupation force and thus also exert influence over the economic and political reorganisation of the Balkans.

Raiffeisenbank’s business dealings with Russia, the imperialist war in Ukraine and the European Union’s economic war against Russia also highlight the limits of the Austrian monopolies’ influence, despite their regional and, in some cases, supra-regional significance.Due to the European Union’s sanctions against Russia, Raiffeisenbank is unable to transfer its profits from its Russian business to Austria. The US has also repeatedly attempted to exert pressure on Raiffeisenbank to abandon its Russian business, though so far without success. Instead, Raiffeisenbank and the Austrian construction group STRABAG have attempted to broker a deal.

STRABAG also had a strong presence in the Russian market and was involved in numerous infrastructure and property projects. Whilst STRABAG does not face the problem of its capital being tied up in Russia due to the sanctions, one of its shareholders is a Russian investor who has been sanctioned by the EU. STRABAG has frozen this shareholder’s voting rights and shares as a result of the EU’s economic and sanctions war against Russia. Raiffeisenbank and STRABAG therefore attempted to strike a deal with a Russian investment group, which would have involved the group purchasing the shares in STRABAG from the sanctioned Russian investor and reselling them to Raiffeisenbank; Raiffeisenbank would then have been able to repatriate part of its profits from its Russian operations in the form of STRABAG shares. However, the deal fell through because of the European Union, where the Austrian government, acting as negotiator for Raiffeisen and STRABAG, was unable to push its case through.

As the German revolutionary and founder of the Communist Party of Germany, Karl Liebknecht, quite rightly put it on the eve of the First World War: ‘The main enemy is within our own country!’ Accordingly, the Party of Labour of Austria regards further deepening the analysis of the Austrian monopoly bourgeoisie and its interests as a decisive factor in developing a viable strategy and tactics for the struggle for socialism. Only in this way is it possible to organise the struggle against the dictatorship of monopoly capital and to guarantee the independence of the working class in the struggle for its emancipation from this or that faction of the ruling class. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, this provides one of the fundamentals for the struggle to eliminate the exploitation of man by man, and the path towards building a socialist and communist society.