Athens Meeting 19-20 June 2003, Contribution by CP of
Peoples of Spain
-------------------------------------
From: SolidNet
mailto:qboix@sct.ictnet.es
=================================================
by Diana Bazo

BARBARISM OR SOCIALISM, THE DILEMMA IS STILL ALIVE

First of all, I would like to thank the Communist Party of
Greece for the opportunity they bring one more year to the
communist and workers' parties of the world to be here in
Athens. This allows encounters and exchanges of ideas among
all our organisations, which is always so necessary. I
would also like to greet all the fraternal organisations
present on behalf of the PCPE Central Committee.

I am sure that the last few months have been a period of
intense activity for all the organisations represented in
this room today. The imperialist aggression against the
Iraqi people has forced our Parties to make an important
effort in order to turn into antiwar platforms all the
social movements in which we take part, especially the
antiglobalisation movement. Or in any case, to propose and
urge the creation of antiwar platforms. At least, this has
been the intense activity of the PCPE in this period. Along
with it, we have assumed the task of making our discourse
about the war advance, always placing the analyses and
statements that showed the imperialist character of the
aggression in the forefront. We understood and still assume
that it was necessary to mobilise and force our peoples to
take the streets with a strong "NO TO WAR". But it was also
necessary to make the antiwar and antiglobalisation
movement progress that more and more voices cried "NO TO
THE IMPERIALIST WAR". Proving that the cause of the
situation was imperialism itself, and not only the North
American Government's last strategy toward a specific gain
allows us to create, in relation to the statement "ANOTHER
WORLD IS POSSIBLE", another one that states "WITHOUT
CAPITALISM, ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE".

Our analyses of the stage of capitalism we are now living
allows us to affirm that permanent war is the natural state
of imperialism in this last historical phase.

The policies of the big multinational businesses spread
their rivers of poverty, pain, famine, illness, illiteracy
and destruction all over the world. Globalisation is a form
of annihilation and destruction of hope. The hope of men
and women, the hope of the peoples.

The risk of ecological "heart attack" is experienced as a
real threat nowadays. The destruction of species that have
supported complete peoples, the pollution of wide areas,
the destruction of the forests that produce water and
oxygen, the hole in the ozone layer, etc. are the most
visible consequences of these policies.

In a general way, the cuts in the salaries and the decay in
the work conditions are part of the struggle of capitalism
to survive. A parasite and decomposing capitalism, as Lenin
defined imperialism. The use of immigrant workforce with
slavery-like wages, without any sort of guarantee, is
generalized in the world, both in the central and in the
margins; capitalism. But the workforce of the central
capitalism is also subject to a constant reduction of their
salaries and the increasing cuts in their work rights. The
working day is prolonged and the conditions of the
contracts get more and more precarious every day, reaching
unimaginable levels. In this context, the unions that used
to represent classes live hand in hand with the system and
have become an essential part of it today. They play the
role of legitimating agents and the sustain the "social
peace" that allows everything to stay just the same. A new
kind of workers' movement, with men and women working
outside the big union's structures is starting t grow in
most countries, but it is still in its beginnings.

Capitalism has no other way but to stay in its path. Its
usual ways out of crises do not work any more. The whole
world is already under the yoke of globalisation. There are
no more markets to exploit, no more spaces to conquer. A
new scientific-technological revolution does not seem a
short term option. Only looting and rape now in Iraq, in
whatever country they wish in the future will serve to
temporarily relieve this stage of self-destruction.

In this context, it is necessary for the general unitary to
elaborate a new discourse that helps legitimate atrocity.
Security is their answer. The dichotomy freedom-security
legitimates all sorts of aggressions to the people's
rights, while the discourse of consumption legitimates a
socio-political model based on inequality.

Security is the alibi for the outbreak of any armed
aggression anywhere in the world. It is not even a problem
to maintain more than thirty conflicts going on in
different places. That is why our "NO TO THE WAR IN IRAQ"
is not only a positioning of moral rejection against one of
the cruellest expressions of human barbarism, but a
statement against a system of domination that exploits and
subjects the whole globe. It is a system that does not even
hesitate to hurt itself in order to justify ulterior
aggressions (World War, Vietnam ) .

The huge media campaign of the last few months shows how
the alignment of the masses is one of the factors that
makes the survival of this web possible.

From all this we can deduce the importance of the struggle
of ideas in the present times. The duration of this phase
of permanent war imperialism depends on the action of the
peoples and the revolutionary organisations committed to
the construction of an alternative role and renouncing any
possible of destroying the system.

Ideological struggle and resistance against alignment
become our main tools. Believing that an alternative is not
just possible but the only solution for our world becomes a
necessity. This is where the idea, often present in
history, that when people conquer their own freedom and
build their own future, they are capable of incredible
feats must serve us as support. In this sense, the example
of the Cuban revolution must be referred to. Lately,
imperialism has been charging against this little island
which has been suffering a savage blockade for a long time
and which sees our some of its brothers in arms suffer in
the hands of imperialism on US territory. The five Cuban
patriots imprisoned in the United States need out
solidarity now and forever. The whole of Cuba needs it. The
best support we can give them is, no doubt, the
strengthening of the revolutionary forces all around the
world, creating the conditions for a real change in the
correlation of forces in the class struggle on a global
level.

The ideological struggle must also move into the
antiglobalisation and antiwar movements. Our present goal
must be to maintain the abundance of mobilisation and the
patrimony of fight accumulated in the last months and years
in order to turn them into anti-imperialist movements with
a political platform that may allow them to advance in the
struggle against the system. It is not only a case of
keeping the "anti"side, they must also discuss and reflect
on that other "possible world".

This fight is indispensable within our peoples and
countries, but even more at the level of international
struggle. It has become a necessity that cannot wait any
longer for the articulation of a global revolutionary
movement as the only movement that can start to coordinate
its actions against the capitalist barbarism. The statement
"socialism or barbarism" recovers all its activity today
and can become the axis of this whole-world movement.

This global coordination will require the proposal of a
hole-world program to defend democratic guarantees and
people's sovereignty. In our opinion, it should, at least,
incorporate among its claims the end of inequal exchanges,
as well as the end of guan commerce. Environmental
sustainment and the struggle against the plundering of
natural resources should be the bases of the defence of our
planet. The acknowledgement of the right to culture, food
and health as fundamental human rights should be first line
considerations which could be completed with the proposal
of programs for literacy and against serious illness and
famine.

The organised people must appropriated these vindications.
The antiglobalisation and antiwar movements are privileged
spaces for the presentation and discussion of these
proposals. The workers' movement, too, which we should
aspire to coordinate with the antiglobalisation movement
for them to give feedback to each other. They are two
indispensable tools in our struggle against the system, The
capitalist globalisation can only fought till death with
international class solidarity.

The challenge for the revolutionary organisations is set
today on assuming this task on all levels, including the
whole-world level struggle. Let us hope that this meeting,
just as other forums of debate will help us advance. Maybe,
just as an experience and to start walking together along
this pat, we can try to propose some initiatives to
strengthen our union in action. A simple experience that
would undoubtedly allow us to make our links stronger would
be to appear publicly in front of the peoples of the world
to position ourselves before important events or meaningful
dates (the defense of a socialist Cuba or Labor Day, for
example).

The path is there for us to walk. It is our responsibility
to keep on taking steps that will help us open it up.