Speeches and statements from the quadripartite meeting of Communist parties in Greece.
The headquarters of the KKE in Athens
On 8 July 2022, a quadripartite meeting between the Communist parties of Greece (KKE), Mexico and Turkey and the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain, was held in Athens at the headquarters of the Central Committee of the KKE.
All of the parties then participated in the 31st Anti-Imperialist Camp of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) on July 9.
Both on July 8 and 9 Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE gave speeches reflecting the content of the discussions and ideological orientation of the parties. The four parties also issued a joint statement.
The speeches and joint statement touch on the state of modern imperialism and capitalism, the war in Ukraine, the defeat of socialism in the USSR, the opportunism within the communist movement internationally as well as of the social democratic parties and a number of other critical subjects.
Here we publish in full both the speeches and the joint statement.
Excerpt:
"The new phase in which we are struggling is very demanding. These conditions require the escalation of the ideological–political struggle with all sorts of bourgeois parties.
Positions focusing only or mainly on the struggle against neo-liberalism lead to the acquittal of social democracy and the other bourgeois forces advocating the “market regulation” by the state. Both liberal and social democratic parties manage capitalist exploitation and are responsible for the sufferings of the peoples, perhaps in different ways but always shifting the burdens of the system to the workers.
Today, the communists’ tasks regarding the struggle against opportunism, which expresses the influence of the bourgeois ideology and policy on the labour movement, are increasing. Its action undermines the class struggle, which is the driving force of social development, and leads to the disarmament of the working class and its co-optation in the capitalist system.
Capitalism has decayed; it gives rise to poverty, unemployment, wars, and refugees! Exploitation is intensifying, the gap between, on the one hand, the scientific and technological achievements and the potential of our era and, on the other hand, the life of the working class and the popular strata, is constantly widening. The necessity and timeliness of socialism, workers’ power, the socialization of the means of production, and central planning are confirmed. The importance of the social alliance and the anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist direction of the struggle is highlighted on a daily basis."
Dear comrades,
We are always happy to welcome the delegates of fraternal Communist Parties at the headquarters of the CC of the KKE. All the more so today, after the pandemic, which had limited our in-person multilateral contact.
Thus, we are very glad that you are here with us today for this important quadripartite meeting of our Parties and that you are going to participate in this year’s anti-imperialist events of KNE.
Our Parties have truly achieved a high level of cooperation. We jointly participate in the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP), in the International Communist Review (ICR), and —the three European Parties— in the European Communist Initiative (ECI). We jointly struggle on many fronts. We focus on the problems faced by the working class and the other popular strata and the strengthening of proletarian internationalism.
Our Parties have actively expressed solidarity with the workers’ struggles and the popular uprising in Kazakhstan that took place early this year. Moreover, a few months ago, we took the important initiative to issue a Joint Statement of the CPs on the imperialist war in Ukraine, which was supported by a significant number of Communist Parties and Communist Youth Organizations.
This activity prepared the ground for today’s meeting in Athens to discuss the developments concerning the war in Ukraine and the important international developments overall, to exchange experience from the struggle of our Parties, to contribute to the development of the joint activity of the CPs and the effort to strengthen the unity and regroupment of the international communist movement on a revolutionary basis, and to arrive at our joint activities for the following period.
In this regard, we believe that we can provide impetus by all means to strengthen the class struggle, to concentrate and prepare workers’–people’s forces in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalist barbarism. Besides, the necessity of socialism emerges from the developments, the suffering, and the acute problems faced by the working class, the popular strata, the youth, and women of a working-class origin in our own and other capitalist countries.
Our Parties have condemned the imperialist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Mali in Africa, and many other parts of the world, which, from time to time, have been in the eye of the storm of imperialist plans.
We have fought against imperialist aggression and the dangerous role of the USA, NATO, and the EU and we decisively continue on this path. At the same time, we highlight and steadily raise the issue of the risk posed by imperialist competition that gives rise to wars. We expose the conflict between monopolies, bourgeois states, and their alliances over raw materials, mineral wealth, commodity transport routes, geopolitical pillars, and market shares.
Today’s developments are marked by the imperialist war in Ukraine, which has been waging for almost five months now between the USA–NATO–the EU and Russia.
Its causes lie in imperialist competition and the confrontation between bourgeois classes. The powder keg that led to this war started storing after the counter-revolution, the capitalist restoration, and the dissolution of the USSR, when all the hard-won achievements of the Soviet people became a commodity once again; when the factories and land, all the means of production were turned from social ownership to private capitalist ownership again and ended up in the hands of domestic and foreign exploiters.
The conflict in Ukraine emerged through this process aiming to include the country in various plans of capitalist unification as well as to install a reactionary government with the support of the USA–the EU–NATO, which even utilized fascist forces in those plans, that is, reactionary forces that in the previous period emerged and were reinforced, among other things, with the financial support and the political cover of Russia as well.
That is why we underscore that the claims about denazification invoked by the Russian leadership together with the bile spewed about Soviet power, Lenin, and the Bolsheviks are rather pretextual. However, we know that the struggle against fascism cannot be waged with consistency by those who conceal the fact that fascism is a product of capitalism and at the same time promise to implement a ‘proper denazification’ in their country! Furthermore, the reasons why the USA, NATO, and the EU are promoting their criminal plans in Ukraine to allegedly safeguard the free world, ‘democracy’, the struggle against ‘revisionism’, etc. are equally pretextual. Behind all these, they hide their true pursuits and their strategic plans for the promotion of their interests in Eurasia before the major conflict with China over supremacy in the imperialist system.
The plans against the peoples and their deeper exploitation are prevailing on both sides.
The highlighting of the imperialist character of the conflict on both sides is a very important issue for the orientation of the peoples’ struggle and consists of one of the contentious issues of the debate and struggle within the ranks of the communist movement.
Historical experience has shown that when the CPs are put to the test in conditions of imperialist war, pressures are exerted, and a solid theoretical and political basis is needed for the independent activity of the CPs, in order to separate their position from bourgeois classes and imperialist alliances.
In these conditions, of great significance is the position that we do not align with one or the other capitalist camp in the war, that we clash with bourgeois classes and we are on the side of our peoples’ struggle for the disengagement of our countries from the war and the strengthening of the struggle to eradicate the causes of war, overall for the overthrow of capitalism that gives rise to it.
That, therefore, is the right side of history!
Parties violating this principle or still fantasizing a ‘peaceful cooperation’ in the framework of the international capitalist competition through a utopian ‘non-aggressive’ imperialism or an imperialism whose aggression would supposedly be tamed through various ‘security architectures’ in today’s so-called multipolar world, are in practice dragged behind the pretexts used by one or another ruling bourgeois class and eventually only support its pursuits. In this way, they are ideologically–politically and organizationally disarmed and, thus, cannot respond to the tasks of the struggle against the massacre of the peoples.
We believe that in the current era and phase, those issues must be clarified by the greatest number of parties possible since the risk of a generalization of the imperialist war is real.
This is suggested by the mobilization of large military forces of NATO countries in Europe, the threats of nuclear weapons, the new imperialist unions in the region of Asia, the plans drawn up during the recent NATO Summit in Madrid, etc.
The peoples are already paying the price for the war, either with their blood or the unbearable economic burden, the so-called green transition, the competition over the division of the pie of the energy resources, the situation formed by the course of Europe to wind down dependence on Russian natural gas and oil, the sanctions, and the rampant food crisis.
There is need to systematically monitor the bigger picture, the entirety of competition permeating capitalism all over the world, the developments in the Asia – Pacific region and, in general, wherever the competition between the USA with China —the greatest economic power of the contemporary capitalist world that is increasing its military power— is strongly manifested.
Greece, Spain, and Turkey are NATO member states. They maintain strategic relations with the USA, as does Mexico.
Moreover, Greece and Spain are EU member states and Turkey is a strategic partner of the EU. Our countries have been involved in the imperialist war in Ukraine, for example, through the US bases. More and more workers realize the necessity to struggle for disengagement and participate in popular demonstrations for the closure of US–NATO bases, which far from guarantee peace and security for the peoples.
We must say that the bourgeois classes of Greece and Turkey, two NATO member states, are intensifying their competition and pose serious risks for our peoples. In these conditions, the KKE and TKP have taken a stand on the developments in our region, have opposed any attempt to change the borders and the treaties that define them, struggle against nationalism, and promote friendship between our peoples. We will do our best to deepen and increase the relations between the communists of Greece and Turkey and for these relations to provide a positive imprint on the relations between the two peoples.
At the same time, we cannot be abstracted from the overall situation of the international communist movement, which we have assessed that is facing a chronic ideological, political, and organizational crisis. The powerful opportunist current, which has abandoned scientific communism and the scientific laws of socialist revolution and construction, recycles serious ideological issues that hinder the struggle and the joint action of the CPs, and the ideological identity and unity of the ICM.
Such problematic approaches are, for example, the ones that:
- Promote the vain attempt to supposedly ‘humanize capitalism’ and ‘democratize imperialist unions’.
- Develop erroneous, unfounded, and outdated views about:
A ‘governmental cooperation with social democracy’;
‘New anti-fascist fronts’ as a basic element of the popular movement, detached from their strategic link with the essence of capitalist barbarism;
‘The unity of the left’ with coalitions of heterogeneous forces, the eradication of the independence of the communist movement, the effort to co-opt radical forces into bourgeois management, etc.
Furthermore, views that:
Approach the international alliances of the bourgeois classes (the EU, NATO, BRICS, etc.) in a non-class manner.
Do not take a clear stance as regards nationalism and racist perceptions developed against refugees and immigrants, as well as other minorities.
Promote notions about a ‘multipolar world’, the ‘laws and rules of international law’ and understand those laws and rules as a supra-class product of peaceful settlements rather than as a reflection of a specific correlation of forces, etc.
We would like to elaborate on some of the above approaches.
We believe that many of these problems are due to the fact that, unfortunately, several Parties could not adjust their strategy to our era —the era of imperialism, that is, the domination of the monopolies— and the direction of the struggle for the passage from capitalism to socialism, for the resolution of the basic contradiction between capital and labour corroborating the character of the revolution as socialist. Their programmes still include some old and outdated positions, as proven by historical experience itself. These positions concern vague, intermediate stages between capitalism and socialism which would supposedly facilitate the transition to socialism, entirely ignoring the historical experience which teaches us that this strategic approach only led the reactionary, capitalist forces to win time to regroup and attack the progressive, revolutionary forces and also to corrode the labour and communist movements. Thus, it ultimately led to the loss of time for the revolutionary process itself that those Parties supposedly served.
Some Parties have not clarified their stance towards bourgeois governments, rejecting to support or participate in them in the framework of capitalism. Unfortunately, they continue to collaborate with the sinful social democracy, when in practice it has repeatedly confirmed its role as a political force representing the interest of the capital, as a manager of capitalism that is used to gain control of the workers’-peoples’ consciousness, impose anti-labour and anti-popular measures, and perpetuate the exploitative system. We also witness cases of support for, collaboration with or tolerance towards bourgeois and even nationalist and chauvinist forces hiding behind the cloak of patriotism.
We believe that many Communist Parties in the International Communist Movement have not yet managed to collectively study:
- The history of the International Communist Movement and their own historical experience;
- The causes of the overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries;
- They could not draw conclusions about the corrosive work of opportunism;
- The heavy consequences of the violation of the principles of socialist revolution and construction.
It is also evident to all of us that a considerable debate is being held within the communist movement, a struggle is being waged over what imperialism is. The prevailing analysis is the one that only or mostly limits imperialism to its reactionary–aggressive foreign policy, resulting in its identification principally with the USA and the most powerful EU member states.
Some Parties still consider China as a state building socialism, against the scientific laws of socialist construction and reality itself, which shows that capitalist relations of production now prevail entirely in China. Other Parties, while accepting that Russia is not the Soviet Union, are entrapped in positions disputing the imperialist character of Russia, which is supported by powerful monopolies and is the second capitalist military power in the world following the USA.
The stance of our Parties regarding the above and other issues is valuable. Our Parties can help, particularly in the framework of the ICR and the ECI.
Of course, an important qualitative element is that those two forms of multilateral cooperation of CPs (the ICR and ECI) proclaim that they are based on the world view of scientific communism; however, there can be several different ideological–political approaches, even confusion, which is a characteristic example that declarations or intentions alone are not enough. A more substantial discussion is therefore needed to overcome problems, lay a more solid foundation, and enrich our framework of struggle and activity in the coming period.
Comrades,
The KKE is currently waging tough battles. Mass demonstrations are taking place in our country against imperialist war and Greece’s involvement. The demands for all soldiers and military officers to return home from missions outside our borders and for the closure of the US–NATO military bases are growing stronger.
This struggle is combined with the struggle so that the people do not pay the consequences of the war and the so-called green transition; the struggle against high prices and energy poverty; the struggle for the survival of the popular family, the abolition of heavy taxes, the strengthening of the income of popular families, the contemporary social needs and rights of the working class and the popular strata overall.
These are struggles that are inextricably linked with the course of forging the social alliance between the working class and small-medium urban and rural strata, with the cause of workers’-people’s power.
We receive messages of hope from sectors where the workers, through crucial and tough struggles, managed to sign Collective Labour Agreements, such as the workers of the COSCO monopoly in the Port of Piraeus and the Federation of Construction Workers.
There are also encouraging signals in workplaces where the workers are regrouping their trade unions and strengthening the militant forces as distinctly happened in the case of the health sector, where, during the previous period, the workers waged a heroic struggle to tackle the pandemic, in unacceptable conditions, due to the policy of commercialization and shrinking of Public Health pursued by all governments.
There is also a dynamic in the recent university students’ elections, where the list of ‘Panspoudastiki’ supported by the KKE and KNE took first place for the first time after 1986, as well as in the recent National Congress of the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME), in which more than 500 trade unions, federations, and Labour Centres across the country took part, aiming to strengthen the organization of the struggle of the working class in our country.
We see that your struggle is strengthening in your countries as well and we believe that the joint struggle of our Parties can develop on many fronts. It is necessary to exchange experience from the political activity of the Parties and the struggle in the workers’–people’s movement and the youth.
We can reinforce our cooperation to step up the effort for the revolutionary regroupment of the international communist movement, utilizing the steps taken in the ICR, the ECI, and the IMCWPs.
We take this opportunity to wish every success to the CP of Cuba, which has undertaken to host the 22nd IMCWP in late October.
There are a lot of issues on which our Parties can expand their cooperation.
The initiative taken by our Parties —the CP of Greece, the CP of Mexico, the CP of the Workers of Spain, and the CP of Turkey— to issue a Joint Statement signed by 42 Communist and Workers Parties and 30 Communist Youth Organizations, to express our opposition to imperialist war and raise matters of principle, is of particular importance.
However, this is not enough. New initiatives and forms of activity are needed in this direction to continue our work against imperialist war, imperialist plans, wars and interventions overall; against NATO and the EU; against all kinds of imperialist alliances and with a line of disengagement from them, with the people in power; for the closure of military bases in our countries and the cancelling of all agreements entangling them in imperialist plans.
Furthermore, we can further deepen our study on issues of socialism built in the 20th century, the causes of its overthrow, and the history of the international communist movement.
At the same time, we need to strengthen our joint action in the international labour movement and the mass international anti-imperialist organizations.
We also need to strengthen internationalist solidarity, as regards both the struggle against persecutions of communists and communist parties and the activity on the side of peoples facing imperialist aggression, on the side of refugees and immigrants.
We need to strengthen the struggle for labour and social security rights, for the workers’ needs, against state oppression and intimidation by the employers.
Comrades,
The new phase in which we are struggling is very demanding. These conditions require the escalation of the ideological–political struggle with all sorts of bourgeois parties.
Positions focusing only or mainly on the struggle against neo-liberalism lead to the acquittal of social democracy and the other bourgeois forces advocating the “market regulation” by the state. Both liberal and social democratic parties manage capitalist exploitation and are responsible for the sufferings of the peoples, perhaps in different ways but always shifting the burdens of the system to the workers.
Today, the communists’ tasks regarding the struggle against opportunism, which expresses the influence of the bourgeois ideology and policy on the labour movement, are increasing. Its action undermines the class struggle, which is the driving force of social development, and leads to the disarmament of the working class and its co-optation in the capitalist system.
Capitalism has decayed; it gives rise to poverty, unemployment, wars, and refugees! Exploitation is intensifying, the gap between, on the one hand, the scientific and technological achievements and the potential of our era and, on the other hand, the life of the working class and the popular strata, is constantly widening. The necessity and timeliness of socialism, workers’ power, the socialization of the means of production, and central planning are confirmed. The importance of the social alliance and the anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist direction of the struggle is highlighted on a daily basis.
Our discussion will not end here. Today we are laying the foundation for closer and more substantial cooperation, a study of the developments, and an exchange of opinions for the development of the joint struggle and the contribution to the regroupment of the communist movement.
With these thoughts, I would like to thank you for your participation and contribution to today’s meeting of our four Parties and to comradely and fraternally wish you strength and health!”
Dear comrades,
Good evening!
From here, the working-class city of Volos, the city where the “Communist Manifesto” was printed for the first time in Greek in 1908 in the newspaper “Ergatis” (Worker), the city of the three popular uprisings of the Volos proletariat in 1909, February 1921 and June 1936, but also of other great struggles of our people that followed, we are sending a strong message across Greece!
A message of struggle, counter-attack, and at the same time a message of peace and internationalist solidarity with the struggling peoples.
We are sending this message together with our comrades from the Communist Parties from Turkey, Spain, and Mexico, who are here with us today.
We welcome them to this red sea of young people who have flooded the beach of Volos.
Dear friends and comrades,
The recent decisions of the NATO Summit in Madrid, to which the government of New Democracy (ND) has put its signature, backed by the opposition of SYRIZA - PASOK, further add fuel to the fire of the imperialist war in Ukraine.
They are opening a “Pandora’s box” for new imperialist interventions and wars against other peoples in many regions of the world.
For example, in the Pacific region, where a major confrontation is taking place between the Euro-Atlantic forces and the rising power of capitalism, China.
The peoples are already paying dearly for their policies. Sometimes with their blood and sometimes with the unbearable high prices. They are paying for their new wars over raw materials, energy, mineral wealth, commodity transport routes, market shares, and the redivision of the world.
The fierce competition between the world’s greatest powers, the economic giants, the bourgeois classes and the imperialist powers is still going on. Every day that passes, it gives rise to war and bloodshed, unemployment, high prices, and the impoverishment of the people.
And tonight from here, Volos, we demand an end to be put to the transformation of our country into a hornet’s nest of the US-NATO criminal plans!
We demand that the US bases located in Thessaly, in nearby Stefanovikio in Volos, in Larissa but also in other regions of our country such as Alexandroupolis, Crete, Araxos, and elsewhere should immediately be closed down.
At a time when the nuclear briefcases fill the TV screens, when both NATO and the rival capitalist powers, such as Russia, are flaunting their nuclear arsenal again.
We must not allow Greece or any other country to become a shooting range.
We will not allow a holocaust of entire cities and peoples for the capitalists to measure their power, as in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Now is the time for every patriot, every internationalist, every conscious worker, and every young person dreaming of their future to take action.
Now is the time that we all demand the disengagement of our country from the imperialist war!
That the bases of death be closed down!
That the Greek military forces outside the borders, such as the ones in Saudi Arabia, the Balkan countries, and elsewhere return home.
No to the excessive military spending for NATO’s needs.
Comrades,
The peoples have the power!
The youth can and must be at the forefront to overturn the negative correlation of forces.
The wheel of history turns with the class struggle!
This is demonstrated today by the courier workers, the construction workers, the dockers, the doctors and nurses in the hospitals, and the delegates of hundreds of trade unions who participated in the Congress of PAME (All-Workers Militant Front) and discussed and organized their new struggles.
It is also demonstrated by the recent, great victory of “Panspoudastiki”, of KNE, in the university students’ elections, which took first place for the first time after 36 years!
Through the struggle, the youth and the people can change the negative correlation of forces, prevent worse measures to come, and find some relief.
But also to shape the preconditions to send this unjust, decayed, and barbaric system of wars and exploitation to its rightful place once and for all: to the dustbin of history!
We must turn our backs not only on ND but also on those, such as SYRIZA and PASOK, who claim that our lives will be improved with an anti-people’s government of a different hue.
They deceive the people when they say or imply that they will supposedly reduce poverty, unemployment, and high prices; that these supposedly are policies only of the neoliberal model of ND and not of their own social democratic management.
They want to make the people forget what they did when in government as they proved to be more neoliberal than the neoliberals themselves!
If they really wanted to relieve the people from poverty, they would have all supported the proposals of the KKE:
- For substantial relief measures and price reductions;
- For the immediate and full reopening of lignite plants;
- For the abolition of energy and pollution exchanges;
- For the lift of sanctions against Russia;
And so much more, such as proposals for laws and amendments that we have submitted to the Parliament.
However, they are not concerned about providing true relief to the people but about getting their vote once again in the elections that are coming up soon, as everything suggests that they will take place in September.
They are concerned about the continuation of the same anti-labour course, with the close collaboration of right-wing, left-wing, and centre-left mouthpieces, with whatever scenario emerges from what they cook up.
They must understand once and for all that the KKE will not show indulgence in the old and new crimes planned against the people!
We will continue our struggle for the information and organization of the people, who are the only ones who can corner them today and open the way to chart another course for the country, with the people at the forefront of the developments.
Every time that the communists put forward their political proposal, when they warn the people and call a spade a spade, the various bourgeois staffs play the intimidation card such as the Turkish danger.
However, reality shows that now that power is in their hands, in the hands of the robbers - capitalists, the danger of war is growing stronger and stronger for the peoples.
The NATO Summit in Madrid and its decisions have exacerbated these dangers with the clash between the two international camps that are being formed: the Euro-Atlantic camp led by the USA–the EU and the Euro-Asian camp led by Russia–China.
Trillions of dollars in military armaments, interventions across the globe, 300,000 NATO battle-ready troops for missions abroad, and so much more are already on the agenda.
Dear friends and comrades,
Greece and Turkey have been NATO members since 1952 but this provides no security.
Year after year, the threats to the peoples of both countries grow stronger and stronger.
Threats that also arise from NATO, which does not recognize borders in the Aegean.
Threats that manifest themselves through the competition of the bourgeois classes over geopolitical pillars, market shares, and energy wealth.
Today that we are EU and NATO members and within the framework of capitalism, the peoples and the youth are being turned into cannon fodders; the workers in the two neighbouring countries, Greece and Turkey, are being put in danger, both by the sharpening of military conflicts and military adventurism and by the looting of natural resources and the destruction of the environment caused by the monopolies due to the notorious “co-exploitation” of the Aegean. This situation is not a one-way street for the peoples!
The peoples of Greece and Turkey can shape a peaceful future of cooperation and friendship, of equal and mutually beneficial relations; without foreign “protectors” and “arbitrators”; without NATO, the EU, or any imperialist alliance; with respect for the borders and the international treaties that define them; without heated incidents and military confrontations!
We are walking together on this path of peace and joint struggle of the peoples against NATO, capitalism, and all those that undermine the future of the youth and the peoples!
We, the communists of Greece, together with the communists of Turkey, Spain, and Mexico; together with the communists and the peoples across Europe, on all continents, throughout the world.
That is the path of proletarian internationalism, social overthrow, and the true emancipation of the peoples!
It is the path of the new society, socialism–communism!
We wish strength to all of you!”
During our meeting on 8/7/22 in Athens, we had the opportunity to exchange opinions on the developments at international and national level, the situation formed due to the imperialist war in Ukraine, and the multifaceted anti-popular and anti-labour attack under the conditions of the so-called Green transition, of the energy crisis and a possible food crisis, essentially of the impending economic recession and crisis.
The conditions require the Communist and Workers’ Parties around the world to intensify their efforts for an organizational and ideological–political strengthening, in order to develop their joint struggle on the principles of scientific communism, that is, Marxism–Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and to advance the revolutionary regroupment of the international communist movement. We seek that first and foremost our Parties, but also the other CPs, forge strong ties with the working class and the popular strata, make steps forward and have a leading role in the class struggle, and at the same time lay the foundation for a unified revolutionary strategy of the international communist movement in a line of rupture with the capitalist system and its managers of all sorts in the prospect of their overthrow. Our era is the era of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism.
In this regard, we reject the support for or participation in bourgeois governments, struggling against both the liberal and social democratic parties, against any kind of bourgeois governments serving the interests of the monopolies.
Our Parties believe that imperialism is not simply an aggressive policy but monopoly capitalism, capitalism in its most reactionary era, that is, at its highest stage. It is essentially intrinsic to stagnation, the huge gap between the productive potential and the meeting of the contemporary needs of the workers due to class exploitation, and the contradictions among monopolies and bourgeois states leading to imperialist wars.
Such is the case with the war that is being waged in Ukraine, where the interests of capitalist Russia clash with the interests and plans of the USA, NATO, and the EU for the control of markets, raw materials, and transport networks of the country.
There is a high risk of a generalization of the war or new imperialist conflicts in countries that emerged from the dissolution of the USSR and also in other parts of the world, especially in the south-eastern Asia region, where the confrontation between the USA and China over supremacy in the world capitalist system is manifested more clearly.
We deal with any process of secession or unification of capitalist states from a class point of view and we struggle against NATO, the EU, and all kinds of imperialist alliances. We oppose the participation of our countries in such anti-popular unions and intensify the effort so that the workers are not trapped under a ‘false flag’ but defend their own interests in conflict with the exploiters and their transnational unions.
We believe that the ideological–political and organizational regroupment of the international communist movement cannot take place without the unwavering struggle against any kind of bourgeois management of the exploitative system, either liberal or social democratic; against opportunism within the communist movement itself. We oppose both the nationalism and cosmopolitanism of capital, racism and fascism. At the same time, we reject the false ‘anti-fascism’ and various ‘anti-fascist fronts’ used by bourgeois and opportunist political forces to entrap the workers and the people in bourgeois management, detaching fascism from the capitalist system that gives rise to and utilizes it when needed.
We struggle with all our might for the meeting of the contemporary workers’–people’s needs through the regroupment of the labour and trade union movement, of the other popular movements, struggling against monopolies and capitalism.
Our Parties highlight the timeliness and necessity of socialism–communism as the only alternative for the peoples and defend the contribution of the October Socialist Revolution and the first socialist state, the USSR, while studying the causes of its overthrow as regards the issues of economy, the political superstructure, and the strategy of the International Communist Movement. We believe that socialism is governed by principles and scientific laws, i.e. the workers’ power, the socialization of the means of production, and the central scientific planning. We reject notions about market socialism claiming that socialism can be built by preserving capitalist enterprises and mechanisms, by allowing waged labour by owners of means of production and land.
Based on the above, our 4 Parties have agreed the following:
- To continue our initiatives against imperialist war, which formally started with the unacceptable Russian invasion of Ukraine. We oppose imperialist powers, the plans of the USA, NATO, the EU, and any other imperialist alliance.
- To demand the disentanglement of our countries from imperialist plans and unions, highlighting the imperialist character of the war in Ukraine. The solution in favour of the peoples cannot be found in the illusions fostered by bourgeois forces claiming that there can be a ‘better security architecture’, NATO ‘without military plans and offensive weapon systems in its territory’, a ‘pro-peace EU’, or a ‘peaceful multipolar world’. The solution lies in the strengthening of the class struggle for the disengagement from imperialist unions, against imperialist war and the womb that gives birth to it, that is, the capitalist system.
- To continue our efforts to exchange experience regarding the activity of our Parties in the labour and trade union movement, the other popular movements, the movement for the equality and emancipation of women, aiming to make struggles more efficient and forge the ties between our Parties and the workers’–people’s forces.
- To intensify our efforts in the framework of the International Communist Review (ICR) and the European Communist Initiative (ECI) aiming to strengthen their activity, overcome weaknesses, lay a more solid foundation, and enrich their content and activity in the coming period.
- To continue expressing our solidarity with the communists in Ukraine and other countries facing anti-communist persecution and bans as well as with all the militants facing persecution due to their trade union and political action in Russia, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere.
- To continue our struggle against the tarnishing of the socialist achievements in the Soviet Union, which was a multinational union of equal Socialist Republics, and at the same time to focus on the study of the causes of its dissolution, utilizing the 100th anniversary of its foundation.
- To strengthen our solidarity with the people and the CP of Cuba against the blockade and US–EU imperialist plans. To contribute to the success of the 22nd IMCWP, which will take place in October in Cuba, through our active participation.”
Dimitris Koutsoumbas, GS of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE)
Pável Blanco Cabrera, First Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM)
Ástor García, GS of the CC of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE)
Kemal Okuyan, GS of the CC of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP)