The Communist Party of Slovakia
by Dagmar Bollova

Esteemed comrades,

I thank the CP of Greece for the invitation giving us the
opportunity to take part in the work of the International
Meeting, and convey to all its participants greetings from
the CP of Slovakia, which is observing its 80th
anniversary.

During the 4th Congress of our Party held last year, a
Program was adopted by majority vote, setting out its tasks
from the point of view of the new political, economic and
cultural conditions prevailing in the country.

Historical data confirm that the first wave of change - the
agrarian - lasted for thousands of years, the second - the
industrial - for three hundred years and the third - that
of information technology - will last barely a few decades.
The clash of industrial civilization with that of
cybernetic and computer technology gives rise to
overproduction and uncontrolled unemployment. There ensue
upheavals, social explosions, increased violence and
political and national conflicts. This concept constitutes
the key to our work, because these changes are not passing
us by and the world, as it looks today, will not remain
unchanged

The industrial revolution abolished or pushed aside many
political structures, but the information revolution
presents our party and many others with new and urgent
duties, the fulfilling of which it would be inadmissible to
postpone.

This confirms to the need to establish a centre for
information and coordination. Communist and workers'
movements must become consolidated and comprehend its real
task, that of setting priorities and working out subtle
strategies for our activities in the process of change
taking place in contemporary society.

I would refer to the speech delivered by Alexander Paunov
from the CP of Bulgaria at the previous meeting held in
1999, which confirms the aforesaid. At the root of all
these issues lies a precise analysis of today's working
class. The improvements in technological foundations and
the structure of public production, the self-reform of
post-classic capitalism, contradictions in
internationalization have considerably changed the social
structure of global community today, including that of the
working class worldwide, might I add.

Despite the changes we have mentioned one of the
sociological axioms is still valid, that 65% of the members
of any society, with no difference in the political or
economic formation on the basis of which they are
organized, can establish values necessary and useful to
themselves and to the society in question only under
guidance and direction. Decisively establishing a share in
the material and intellectual wealth this 65% of workers
need protection from abuse of authority and capital and
demand the creation of jobs, guarantees for fair
remuneration for work, social security, the maintenance of
impartiality before the law and the right to a decent life.

One of the priority tasks of the centre could be the study
of information technologies along with associated new
social norms, related to work, ability to work, employment,
that is, the bases for action of the labour and trade union
movement. At the outset of the information era in which new
means for creative work and the utilization of knowledge
prevail - rather than mass production - the movement should
direct its demands to the government for the transformation
of production to advanced technology and the retraining of
workers from enterprises and branches in the economy that
have closed - to be paid for by the government, which is
obliged to give its citizens new opportunities for
employment in different fields.

Communists and trade unions must together limit the
creation of jobs that do not require high qualifications
and creative capacities for production operations but in
which only manual labour is used. In such a so-called
intelligent economy, capable and educated people cannot be
doomed to filling the role of unskilled workers thus
subjecting their intellectual potential to devaluation!

In 1990 Slovak trade unions comprised 2,5 million members
but in 2000 only 700,000. This drop in numbers does not
correspond to the number of jobless people, that is,
600,000 in the country. The loss of 1,2 million members
indicates the inability of the trade union leaders to
fulfil the duties set by the Statutes. Under the influence
of the trade union bureaucrats, all those who sell their
physical or intellectual labour lose the collective way of
thinking, with their protests divided amongst 42 trade
unions which have curtailed the struggle, as if they were
not facing a common threat.

Trade union leaders have grasped capitalist logic and its
laws, norms and ethics; as a result they have turned into
mere puppets. But their conduct does not place the
organization itself, its base and tasks in doubt, which in
this time of crisis, unemployment and inflation, when the
gap between capital and government on the one hand and the
working class on the other is becoming deeper, has a more
important role to play than it did under socialism.

Contradictions are becoming more serious. In conditions of
capitalist economic mechanisms the individual acquires a
growing feeling of powerlessness in society, which does not
take his opinion into consideration and ignores his rights
and needs. In its implacable logic of profit, today's
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie has even reached the point
of winding up its unsound enterprises, destroying fields,
smashing the eight-hour working day into smithereens,
throwing out the workers and leaving them to the mercy of
fate. The new owners of public assets are insidiously
bringing peoples that not long ago were friendly into
conflict and dividing workers within the same country.
Those who do not understand this and who believe that
everything is as it should be, turn against one another or
fight in amoral rivalry because the bourgeoisie has managed
to disorient them and compel to stick to its code of
ethics. This is not the widely advertised humanism but a
struggle for survival!

Today's discord, chaos and sham deadlock are not eternal.
Consciousness, suppressed by intensive propaganda, will
awaken the voice of the mind and find the only possible
conclusion: that socialism alone constitutes the
alternative.

Dear comrades!

Human happiness, of course, is not limited to collective
unity. But one must admit that active cooperation and
solidarity bring satisfaction and self-respect. That is why
I should like once more to stress the need for concerted
action by our communist and workers' parties. We can
advance only together on the same ship, for otherwise
future waves of change will turn us into the flotsam and
jetsam on the ocean of global history. Before history and
our people just like the hero of Greek mythology Prometheus
we are obliged to weather all storms, all the parallels and
meridians, withstanding all perils of our time and
illuminating the spirit and life on the human path of
progress.

Thank you for your attention.