CP of Slovakia, Contribution to the Athens Meeting 21J2002
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From: Communist Party of Slovakia,
http://www.kss.sk , mailto:sekr@kss.sk
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by Karol Ondrias

The new situation in the World after September 11

Dear Comrades,

On behalf of the Communist Party of Slovakia, I thank the
Communist Party of Greece for invitation and for taking the
initiative to once again convene a meeting of Communist and
Workers' parties. I am greeting the participants of this
conference and wish you success and fruitful work.

A. Shortly about our Communist Party of Slovakia:

As a result of the collapse of the political system of
socialism in Eastern Europe, a strong stroke was inflicted
to all real forces in our country. In 1991, the former
Communist Party of Slovakia was transformed into Party of
Democratic Left with program, which was a mixture of
social-democratic principles. The Party of Democratic Left
abandoned Marxism-Leninism and it is now performing
opportunist policy.

A new communist formation in Slovakia began to appear
spontaneously in 1991. In 1992 two communist formations
joined together and they have formed the new Communist
Party of Slovakia. Recently we have had about 3-5%
population support.

B. A few words about comparison of socialism and capitalism
in Slovakia:

Since we have experience of 40 years of socialism and 12
years of capitalism, I will compare and describe shortly an
impact of imperialism and globalization in Slovakia. You
can see results of real socialism in practice for 40 years
and compare it with real capitalism in practice for the
last 12 years.

During socialism in Slovakia, the information from Western
Europe was telling us that we were living in totalitarian
system with no freedom. We were advised that if we wanted
live a better life, we needed to get rid of socialism, get
rid of centrally planned economy. They advised us to
privatize banks, industry, agriculture and open our market
to the world free market.

Since 1990, we have followed this advice, and we are now in
a worse condition than 12 years ago. I will illustrate it
at the following examples:

1. Industrial production in Slovakia was very low in 1948
when communists started building up socialism, but it
increased to 2300% in 1989. The industrial production in
Slovakia decreased after capitalists had taken power in
1990 and now it is on the level of 1980's.

2. Agricultural production in Slovakia increased after 1948
when communists started to introduce reforms. Production
increased to 220%. On the other hand, it rapidly decreased
after capitalists had taken power in 1990, and now it is on
the level of 1950's.

3. Real wage index in Slovakia increased from 100% (in
1960) to 132% (in 1989) and after 1989 it decreased. The
real wage index in Slovakia in 2000 was similar to the
level, which had been in 1975.

4. Number of completed dwelling per year in Slovakia
increased from 15000 in 1950 to 34000 in 1989, and after
capitalists had taken power in 1989, it dramatically
decreased. The number of completed dwelling per year in
Slovakia in 1999 was lower than it had been in 1950's.

5. Consumption of milk and dairy products in Slovakia per
capita/year. It increased from 124 litres in 1960 to 246
litres in 1989 and after 1989 it decreased. The consumption
in 1998 was similar to the level which had been in 1966
(159 litres).

6. Number of employees in research and development in
Slovakia increased from 6000 in 1950 to 65000 in 1989 and
after 1989 it decreased. The number of the employees in
1998 was similar to that in 1967 (25000).

7. Foreign debt in Slovakia was less than 3 mld USD before
1989, and after that it was increasing and reached 11.3 mld
USD in 2001.

8. Number of unemployed in Slovakia was about zero from
1950 till 1989, and after 1990 it increased and reached 19%
in 2000.

10. Crimes of violence in Slovakia per year were about 7000
during socialism from 1985 till 1989, and after 1990 the
number of them increased, and reached 13400 in 1999.

11. Homicides per year in Slovakia were low during
socialism. It was 69 homicides per year during 1985-1989.
The number of them increased dramatically after 1990, when
capitalists had taken power, to 140 per year.

In conclusion to the presented results, it is evident that
socialism in practice has confirmed that it is more
beneficial for people than capitalism. However, propaganda
is showing socialism as an inhuman totalitarian system.

C. Globalization and terrorism

As an introduction to the problem, I will say a few words
about the connection of technical development and
globalization.
In 1820, due to low technical development of exploitation,
the five richest countries had their gross domestic
products (GDP) per capita only three times higher than the
five poorest countries. With technical development of
exploitation the GDP per capita between the richest and the
poorest increased (see figure). Income gap between the 20%
richest in the world and the 20% of the poorest in the
world reached the ratio of 74 to 1 in 1999, while in 1960
the ratio was 30 to 1.

Recently, due to the developed system of exploitation, poor
countries, that are 80% of the world population, pay to
rich countries. I will show you some data from the web side
of the World Bank
(http://www.worldbank.org/data/countrydata/glossary.html).
The World Bank records total debt services the sum of
principal repayments and interest actually paid to the IMF.
I will present examples for some countries:

Total debt service 1996 1999
(in mld current US$)

Slovakia 1.3 1.7
Czech Republic 2.6 3.6
Poland 2.7 8.4
Hungary 8.4 7.5
Russia 7.3 11.5
Brazil 24.3 67.5
Columbia 5.4 6.6
China 15.8 20.7
Mexico 41 40
Pakistan 3.3 2.8

Result of the exploitation is shown in next figure. As
reported in Human development report 2000, 59 countries
with the highest Human development index, (with the highest
living standard) has 20% of the world population. Their
gross national product (GNP) per capita is 15 times higher
than the average GNP of the remaining world population
which is 4.3 mld people. It means that 4.3 mld people need
to increase their GND 15 times in order to reach the level
of 20% of the richest countries. This may be not easy,
since our planet has limited resources and an increase of
production 15 times may destroy our ecosystem.
Rich countries use most of the planet resources. For
example: In USA 2790 calories of energy are now being used
to produce and deliver one can of corn containing 270
calories. 22000 calories of energy are now being used to
produce and deliver 100 grams of beef containing the same
270 calories. If the rest of the world were suddenly to
adopt the energy ratios characteristic of USA agriculture,
all known reserves of petroleum would be exhausted in
eleven years.
Therefore capitalists using technical development,
neoliberalism and globalization try to keep this present
arrangement. To keep this system working, they started to
use recently "war on terrorism".

"War on terrorism"

After the Second World War the most imperialist
interventions were explained and �justified� as necessary
actions against the "Soviet Threat" and against communism,
but it was in fact against the poor and against anybody who
resisted globalization of power and capital. With the
�Soviet Threat� gone, for a while there was a problem
finding something that will rationalize and �justify� the
escalation of globalization and exploitation. Now we have
the "war on terrorism" which will do it.
Imperialism is using September 11 and the "war on
terrorism" to carry out its new agenda: accelerating
militarization, supports for authoritarian regimes, attacks
on Left progressive forces and thus it supports
globalization that is leading to increasing violence,
income polarization, and exploitation of the poor.
Imperialists in the name of "war on terrorism" can attack
anybody who "harbors terrorists" or aims to build "weapons
of mass destruction" without approval. Imperialists will
decide who are terrorists, who harbors them, and who can
build weapons. It is easily predictable that anybody who
resists the corporate globalization process and tries to
pursue an independent development path, will be found
violating human rights, harboring terrorists, or otherwise
threatening "national security," with dire consequences.
As the ongoing globalization process is increasing
inequality and poverty, protests of different kinds will
continue to arise. The "war on terrorism" will be used to
suppress opposition in any part of the world or at home and
there will be simultaneous push for "free trade" and
cutbacks in spending for the civil society. Thus "war on
the poor" will merge easily into the "war on terrorism," as
the poor will be driven to resist and resistance will be
interpreted as terrorism (some ideas and conclusions above
are from Edward Herman's article �Axis Of Evil--in
Washington, D.C.�, ZNet Commentary, March 15, 2002).

The process of imperialist globalization is largely under
the control of the transnational corporations of the
leading capitalist countries and the international
organizations -IMF, WTO, OECD, World Bank and other
agencies. Their objective is to get maximum profit by
controlling all areas of human life including properties,
labor force, economy and culture. Due to technical
development, globalization in media and control of
information, they can do it very effectively.

What can we do?

How can we effectively respond to such massive power of
imperial globalization?
- A: We need aim that will be known to most people of the
world. Our aim must be to change the imperial system, so
that the new system would serve to the interests of the
working people of the world. Aim to solve the problem of
world instability as a result of exploitation, non-equal
regional development, huge military build up and so on. Aim
to establish new philosophy for new civilization.
- B: We must educate and inform people about the present
system which is working for the benefit of a tiny
capitalist minority. We need educate and inform people
about socialism, about benefits of socialism in former
socialist countries. Therefore we need access to media and
have our own international media in order to present our
ideas.
- C: We need to develop strategy, which would unite broad
spectrum of people under the common aim, to develop
strategy for sequential particular victory. For this, we
need regular exchange of views through bilateral and
multilateral exchanges. We need to co-ordinate our strategy
and programs.

Therefore we welcome and support the initiative of the
Greek Communist Party, whose international conference
brought together a large number of communist and workers'
parties in a fruitful discussion. We believe that the
exchange of views and experience will move forward to
realize our aim.

Future belongs to Socialism!

Thank you for your attention.