Dear comrades,

On behalf of the Communist Party of Sweden I wish to thank the Communist Party of Turkey for arranging this 23rd International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, and for the hospitality which our Turkish comrades have shown us. 

On this occasion we reiterate our condemnation of the inhumane US blockade of Cuba and our demand for its immediate end. We affirm our solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against Israeli colonization and repression, and call for an end to the violence and humiliation they are subjected to. We also call for all parties present to stand in solidarity with the Communist Party of Venezuela, and to condemn all attacks launched against it by the Venezuelan government. 

On all fronts the contradictions grow within imperialism and inter-imperialist competition sharpens. With regards to Sweden the most blatant symptom of this is the imminent ascension to NATO. This is the final step away from the facade of Swedish neutrality, the final step in a long process pushed on by the Swedish bourgeoisie. The shock following the Russian invasion of Ukraine quickly negated popular opposition against a Swedish NATO membership. For the parliamentary parties nominally opposed to NATO membership the question quickly became a non-issue, a talking point at best and not a point of struggle. The entire right wing had already embraced the idea of Swedish NATO membership, and as soon as the opportunity presented itself the Social Democratic Party reversed their position and their government submitted the application for membership. 

As the contradictions within imperialism come to a head, a membership in the most powerful imperialistic fighting alliance, NATO, is a prerequisite for the Swedish bourgeoisie to secure its interests abroad. Both the previous Social Democratic government, and the current right wing government, have dutifully done their part to secure a Swedish NATO membership to ensure the competitiveness of Swedish monopoly capital. 

On the international front the war in Ukraine is a signifier of the ever-sharpening contradictions within imperialism. The imperialist system is such that any peace is a temporary peace and war merely a tool for securing the interests of capital against its capitalist competitors, when other means, such as diplomatic pressure, is deemed unsuitable or insufficient. As such it was only a matter of time before the imperialist blocks would find themselves involved in a new war. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 followed a long struggle during which the US-EU-NATO block and Russia grappled to gain advantage over one another, and secure the interests of their respective monopolies in Ukraine. Make no mistake that the war in Ukraine is an imperialistic war, being fought by capitalist states for the interests of their respective bourgeoisies. 

As weapons, and other military aid, are poured into the conflict, the peoples of Ukraine and Russia pay with their blood for the monopolies' strive to secure their positions and profits. More tanks and artillery pieces do not bring peace any closer, but only serve to keep up, and even increase, the rate of slaughter and devastation. Furthermore the risk of escalation, of the war expanding, is very real. The revelation that the Zelenskyy government has requested long range missiles from its allies, to attack drone factories in Iran and Syria, shows that the potential for escalation and expansion is not to be ignored. The Communist Party of Sweden condemns the delivery of weapons, munitions and other military aid to Ukraine by the Swedish government and demands that these are brought to a stop. 

The Communist Party of Sweden shall not make the error of supporting one bourgeoisie over another in the war in Ukraine, nor in any other imperialist war. We will always take the side of the proletariat, the working peoples who suffer the consequences of the imperialist wars, and are sacrificed on the altar of monopoly capital's profits. 

The war in Ukraine has laid bare and brought to a head a divide within the communist movement. This divide cannot be papered over, nor does it have any middle ground. We cannot focus on what unifies us when our goals fundamentally diverge. To flock to the side of one imperialist block over another represents nothing less than class collaboration, and signals a desertion from the revolutionary struggle. This was true at the time of the Second International and it remains true today. 

In this context so-called “multipolarism” needs to be addressed, as it irrefutably involves supporting one imperialist block over another, usually under the pretense of anti-imperialism. Here anti-imperialism is divorced from anti-capitalism in a manner alien to scientific socialism, and thus rendered not only harmless to capital, but also meaningless, as multipolarism aims to strengthen the capital of some nations against that of other nations. Instead of seeking to break the chain of imperialism, the proponents of multipolarity seek to strengthen it in the very places where it is weakest, and therefore the most vulnerable to a socialist revolution. 

It is our conviction that the communists must forge their own path of class struggle, constantly working towards their revolutionary goal of socialism, or the working people will falter in their historic mission. There must be no doubt that the deliverance of the working people from exploitation and war cannot lie within the framework of capitalism, but can only be achieved through the establishment of socialism. Abandoning the revolutionary path means abandoning the people.