Syrian Communist Party
by Anas Kassam

Need for coordination of the Parties

Dear comrades, delegates from Communist and Workers'
Parties,

On behalf of the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist
Party and of our General Secretary personally, I would like
to address warm greetings to all of you and in particular
to thank our comrades in the leadership of the Communist
Party of Greece for the efforts they made in organising and
hosting this meeting, which gives us an opportunity to
exchange useful viewpoints on all the issues of interest to
our parties in the present-day international conjuncture.

We, the Syrian Communist Party, re-affirm our positive
stance toward these meetings and our delight at taking part
in them and in the open dialogue that is part of them. Our
meeting today, which is being held under the title
"Experiences of alliances by the Communist Parties" is a
title that concentrates the essence of previous meetings we
have attended in Athens. It is quite natural today for us
to be discussing what our tasks are in the future.

All peoples in the world are paying the price, each to a
different degree of course, of the savage offensive
launched by the United States through its expansionist
attack and the people are paying the price of the invisible
conflict between the economic centres internationally.

Many weapons are being used in this conflict - armaments
and the mass media which aim to deceive public opinion -
through which savage seiges and isolation have been imposed
on countries such as Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia, Iran and
others.

We, as Communist Parties, guided by Marxism, Leninism and
by historic materialism and dialectical thought, and each
one of us in the field in which we work, are all fighting
against globalisation, against brutal capitalism, against
US domination and against the new NATO strategy. We are
fighting for a new international order which will be based
on justice. We all agree that there is a need for the
struggles of the peoples to be stepped up, in order to
solve their national problems.

You, dear comrades, support the struggles of the Arab
peoples to find a just solution to the Middle East Issue,
based on the resolutions of international legality and on
the principle of the exchange of land with peace. All these
common denominators which unite us constitute firm grounds
for a starting point to continue mobilising our forces
against the common enemy. We, on our part, believe that our
slogans during the current period should stress
internationalist solidarity and we reconfirm that to
achieve our goal it is not enough for communists alone to
be in this international front, but that
all progressive and left forces should be there too.

We should not focus our attention on what divides us from
our allies, but on what unites us. The international
changes that have taken place in recent years have altered
the relations between the left and progressive forces and
the degree of radicalism in each party and each front.
Ideological revisions were caused.

We note that the communist parties wage a daily struggle,
participate in various coalitions and alliances, and even
take part in governments with perhaps different programmes,
but that they agree on the main issues, on combatting the
savage capitalist offensive.

We believe that this direction is in principle correct,
with the dedication of each one of us to the principles of
his or her party and the independence of each Party. We in
the Syrian Communist Party believe and work for a common
struggle, with participants including communists,
socialist, patriots, all left parties, and even progressive
religious forces.

As you know, we play a clearly-defined role in the existing
coalition of power in Syria, in which, together with the
Ba'ath Party, there are communist, progressive and
nationalist parties. It is a unique experience which does
not exist anywhere else in the world.

With the other participants in the coalition, we are
striving for this alliance to evolve into a front that will
constitute a major force for confronting the imperialist
and zionist plans, not only to protect Syria, but to
protect all the just demands of the Arab world.

Our party participates in all mobilisations in the
framework of the Arab national liberation movement. We are
working to create the conditions that will permit the
revival of an Arab movement of all peoples, to resist
capitalist and imperialist plans.

Dear comrades, we in the Arab world have some good,
significant experience with respect to the cooperation
between communist parties and other parties. Particularly
in the recent period there were constant meetings that
produced joint communiques. Of course these meetings need
to be upgraded. But we note that some parties are adopting
isolationist positions, on the pretext of revolutionary
purity and of combatting opportunitsm, which they use to
intervene in the internal affairs of other parties.

The Arab world is today facing a critical period,
especially with regard to the plans by the US and Israel to
impose their full domination in the region, transforming
the Middle East into a safe route to the oil in the Caspian
Sea.

Our position toward the normalisation and peace process is
well known: we are against exploitation in our region. We
communists believe that we should have a vision and a
responsible stance, and that we should provide an example
to other progressive forces. We should take into
consideration the savage attack by capitalism which
originates from international capitalist organisations. It
is an unacceptable situation.

Moreover, it has not yet been possible to coordinate our
actions sufficiently. We observe that there continue to be
reservations on the part of some comrades and parties and
this can be seen on an international, regional and even
national level. This gives a special meaning to our meeting
here, to re-establish relations between our parties. Very
good preparation is required for such meetings, which are
certainly steps in the right direction.

We believe that for these efforts to succeed, we should
start out from the following principles: independence,
equality, mutual respect and non-intervention in the
internal affairs of other parties, respect for a different
viewpoint , and striving to find common denominators.

It is time, dear comrades, for us to work together for a
different globalisation, to work for internationalism, for
a new revolutionary internationalism that will be humane
and democratic and that will learn the necessary lessons
from the past in order to build the future. Thank you very
much.