Athens Meeting 19-20 June 2003, Contribution by CP in
Denmark
-----------------------------------------------------------
From: Solid
==================================================
by Betty F. Carlsson

WORKING CLASS: THE VANGUARD OF POPULAR ALLIANCE AGAINST
MONOPOLY'S DEMOCRACY FOR SOCIALISM

The subject of this conference is current and of crucial
importance one. Our experiences from the anti-war and
anti-globalization movements underline the importance of
constant offensive position taken by communist parties,
especially in ideological battlefield.

Many of the current movements, we are experiencing, share
the common feature of ignoring the links among capitalism
perse, imperialism, globalisation and war.

Many of the militants and activists in those movements,
especially the younger ones, ignore or have little
knowledge of the Marxist theories.
Others either try to revise the marxism or even work
deliberately against it.

Limiting their movements' foundations who the boundaries of
petit-bourgeois theories, these active supporters can often
result in siding with either extremism or a de facto
neo-liberalism the latter is directly in favor of
imperialists forces.

I'd like to brief you about some of the characteristics of
the recent development in Denmark, of the discussions
taking place in the movements against globlisation and war
and of the experiences, we've made in this work.

The recent Danish Bourgois government as well as the
previous Social Democrat one bases its forreign and
security policy on the idea of "active internationalism".
This idea was also used to excuse or authorise an increased
Danish involvemnet in UN-actions in for instance
Ex-Yugoslavia.

But after the installation of the Bush-administration and
the terror-actions that took place on september 11 th.,
2001 not only the American but most certainly also the
Danish forreign policy has changed crucially.

Denmark participated in the war on Afghanistan, where
Danish fighting planes operated, commanded by US officers.

The Danish Bourgois government guaranteed the Danish people
that Danish armed forces would not participate in a war on
Iraq unless there was a UN Security Council resolution.

But after a telephone-conversation between the Danish Prime
Minister and the American president, the Danish government
altered its decision by siding with Denmark's active
participation in the American terror-war against Iraq.

Denmark used to be known as a country who had a rather
critical attitude towards NATO policy. During the 1980's
several NATO decisions were passed with a footnote, of
Denmark's disagreement. But since 1990 Denmark has been
turned into an obediant puppet controlled by the American
administration.

This also appears in the Danish PM's visions for the
development of the Danish forreign policy. In a book he
recently published he is indeed very close to the
Bush-administration. He clearly supports Rumsfelds
distinguishing between "The new Europe" and "The old
Europe".

The PM is in favour of Rumsfelds "New Europe", which means
the European countries who uncritically supported the
imperialist aggression on Iraq, carried out by the Bush
administration.

Neither the annul of USA's argument for a war against
Iraq's possession of mass-destruction weapons nor
Wolfowitz's new statement were considered strong enough to
alter his position. Neither has the new statements made by
the American vice-minister of defence, Wolfowitz changed
anything.

Mr. Wolfowitz has admitted that the accusations on Iraq for
possessing mass-destruction arms was nothing but an excuse
that should justify the US war and involve other countries
in it. According to Mr. Wolfowitz the real purpose was to
gain control on the oil resources in Iraq.

The very same principles are repeated in the Danish
governments visions for developing its foreign- and
security policy. They tell us that the disagreements in the
UN Security Council before the Iraq-war underline the
necessity of a revision of the council itself.

It is said that "The resolutions of the council should as
the main principle be accompanied by purposive sanctions.
Such sanctions can be relevant when demands formulated by
The International Society are not respected. If nescessary
those demands can be accompanied by a thrustworthy threath
of the use of armed force.

This is ominous when we know that Denmark with its armed
participation supported the American war on Iraq, which
consists in a clear offence agains international law.

It gets even more ominous when the government report
underlines that these principles are the fundament on which
Denmark is candidating for the UN Security Council for the
period 2005-2006. If elected, Denmark will be an obedient
watch-dog for the interests of the USA.

This government report furthermore underlines that the
Danish government is in favour of developing a missile
defence over USA as well as over Europe. It does not,
however, point out how to avoid that countries outside NATO
would arm themselves as a consequence of this.

Finally I must point out that the Danish government through
this policy recognize and authorize the American desire to
enlarge the American base in Thule in Greenland as a part
of the American missile defence. A desire that goes against
the interests of the Danish people as well as the interests
of the inuit population in Greenland.

The Danish Social Democrats has also revised their foreign
policy. They now claim that the Western, bourgeois values,
including the capitalist market economy, are universal and
must be introduced worldwide to secure democracy and
development. They especially point their fingers at the
Arab countries while speaking in such terms.

Also The Socialist Peoples Party, a Danish neo-reformist
party, is revising its fundamental values concerning
international politics. This party now speaks of the
perspectives of strengthening the EU to make it suitable as
a counterweight to US imperialism.

Even if this includes developing a common foreign- and
defence policy within the EU, carried out by establishing
an EU army, which can take action anywhere in the World.

We meet the very same point of view within the
anti-globalisation-movement. Some people within this
movement seem to think, that we should now strengthen the
EU as the necessary counterweight to the US, politically,
military an economically.

The consequences of such ideas are of acute importance. It
is an illusion to think that a more peaceful world can be
achieved by strengthening the imperialist union through the
formation of EU. On the contrary, the completion among
imperialist alliances will be sharpened leading to new wars
outburst, in case EU policy is strengthening.

Completion and disputes over influence, markets and profits
as seen before in history. Those in favour of such ideas
are suffering from a basic lack of understanding and
consciousness of imperialism's features.

In some component anti-globalisation movements, one can
listen to supporters proposing the strengthening of certain
international financial- and trade organisations. First and
foremost they mean the WTO, but also the IMF and The
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(IBRD) and regional trade-organisations like the EU and
NAFTA are mentioned as usefull tools.

What they suggest is that such organisations can set up a
global regime that can limit the power of the transnational
companies in the developed capitalist countries as well as
in the countries of The Third World.

What we are dealing with here is a lack of understanding of
the capitalist system itself. Those international
organisations may have been established by representatives
of sovereign nations but never the less they are
established on conditions set by the transnational
companies.

They have been established and developed, and are at this
very moment further developed in order to strengthen the
power and influence of the transnational companies, and
thereby to strengthen the imperialist process of
globalisation.

Just take a look at the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment and other plans launched by the WTO for a
further deregulation of modern society, a step towards more
privatisation, exploitation and cut-backs of public service
and welfare.

At the moment some of the discussions in the
anti-globalisation movement are based on the book "Empire"
that was published two years ago. The book was written by
Michael Hardt, an American professor and Antonio Negri, who
is imprisoned in Italy for participation in actions carried
out by the The Red Brigades (Brigada Rosso).

One of its main theories is that sovereign and independent
national states is an outdated stage in history, replaced
by the developing world market.

Imperialism, the book preaches, has been replaced by The
Empire, which is a rather confusing construction in which
transnational companies and international financial
organisations play a major role.

As a consequence of this, the book actually denies the very
existence of imperialist states and hereby also denies that
the USA is an imperialist state. By doing so the book
abolishes any understanding of the wars' reasoning and the
threat of their declaring humanity has been experiencing
the throughout the last decade.

The book has been called "The Communist Manisfesto" of our
time in the bourgeois and neo-reformist media and it
certainly plays a major role in the discussions that takes
place in huge parts of the anti globalisation movements.

Such discussions are a great challenge to the international
communist movement. They underline the necessity of our
ideological work and of our participation in the popular
movements against the globalization and against war.

The imperialist process of globalisation exploits and
suppresses the population in all countries. Therefore
different groups of people react according to their recent
conditions, their experiences and their immediate
possibilities.

This might narrow the struggle, limit it or even lead it
astray.
Dealing with such problems the working class is still in a
very central position. It plays a key-role as the major
force in the struggle for social and democratic changes and
as a consequence of that it also plays a key-role in the
struggle against globalisation and war.

Without the active participation of the working class the
popular movements against globalisation and war will not
have the necessary strength and perspective. The active
participation of the working class in those movements is a
necessity and must be carried out through its own
organisations. The trade-union movement as well as its
political parties.

The working class and its organisations, among them the
communist parties, must of course join in and cooperate
with the popular resistance movements, using unity in
action as its tool. That is what we have experienced in
Denmark. The successful popular resistance against the EU
would not have been the same without the active
participation of the working class.

We made the very same experience while building up a strong
peace-movement during the 1980's. And in the recent
movement against the imperialist aggression on Iraq we have
experienced the very same thing. That is why we have
re-established the national organisation Trade Unions for
Peace.

Movements like Attac and other anti-globalisation
movements, popular movements against EU, peace movements,
etcetera are all important and critical ones. But they can
never replace the communist parties. Only the communist
parties analyses the process of globalistion as an
imperialistic process.

Only the communist parties recognizes the wars and the
threats of such as a part of the imperialist process and
only the communist parties develops the strategy that will
lead to victory:

A broad popular alliance, based on the struggle for
antimonopolistic democracy, carried out by the working
class and with the achievement of socialism as its
perspective.