Athens Meeting 19-20 June 2003, Contribution by Algerian
Party for Democracy and Socialism
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From: SolidNet
http://www.ifrance.com/pads , mailto:michellien@wanadoo.fr

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THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST FRONT A STEP TO THE SOCIALIST
REVOLUTION

The war led by the American imperialism and its allies
against Iraq showed at the same time the rise of the
inter-imperialist contradictions aroused by the
contradictions of capitalist system, and the existing of a
potentially worldwide in the world, including in the
strongholds of the imperialist great powers, of anti
imperialist mass mobilization.

These manifestations have given a strong denial to all
those who have spread the ideology of
defeatism, resignation, and capitulation since the collapse
of the socialist countries.

Millions of young people, that bourgeois propaganda
machinery is trying to keep away from the revolutionary
socialism ideas, have joined their elders in their
long-term fight against oppression and class domination, in
spite of defeats and of reactionary counteroffensive.

An undeniable blow has been given at the work of
discouragement and division by the reformist and all those
who have abjured the struggle for overthrowing the
capitalism, trying to substantiate that the end of
socialist camp has opened the way to a world without war.

As communists, we must analyse all the aspects of the
antiwar manifestations and the signs of the capitalist
system crisis, so that peoples and their working class can
learn thoroughly through this experience.

The manifestations against the war in Iraq should be
connected with the numerous actions which have marked,
these last years, the revival of the anti capitalist fight
during the annual meetings of the G7, the fight against the
imperialist domination, and against the social inequalities
both on national and international level.

The efforts of bourgeoisie to criminalize communism and to
reduce its influence to the world, either by repression, or
by supporting the reformist streams to sterilize the mass
movements, have not succeeded to prevent the political
awakening and the orientation of millions of young people
into the political battle field from a mass collective
perspective.

The inter imperialist rivalries, the emerging crisis
between old allies of anti-Soviet fighters, the rejection
by the French and German bourgeoisie to submit to the will
for power of their American rivals, all these facts have
encouraged, to a certain point, the mobilization against
the latters.

It is obvious that the causes of these rivalries are bound
with the struggle for world's sharing, and with European
capitalists' fear of subjugating themselves to American
Imperialism. By launching wars to seize the main oil fields
in the world, the American capitalists are looking for a
solution to the crisis wining their system for years. At
the same time, they attempt to reduce their competitors to
the state of vassal powers, and not only to weaken them.

The contradictions which brings into a conflict the
American and European imperialists, even if the latters are
now obliged to take into account the situation created by
the occupation of Iraq, to bargain for their participation
to the pillaging of the resources of this country, have
been so intense that the stake of these rivalries is put
into evidence in a cynic way by the propaganda machinery of
the bourgeoisie. This machinery has taken by itself the
task to divulgate towards billions of people the aims of
this war, likewise the opposition of some European
countries in front of American �unilateralism� are not
based either on human rights or on the right of people to
self determination, but that they are based on the most
vulgar cornering of the riches of the countries which are
not in the position to defend themselves against aggression
of bigger countries.

Tens of millions of young people who do not wish their
planet's fate and human being's destiny taken over by a
fistful omnipotent oligarchy, possessing a nuclear,
chemical, and bacteriological arsenal, most dangerous for
the future of humanity - have quickly assimilated this
fundamental Marxist idea that the political conflicts, and
the military actions following are determined by class
interests, those of the owners class.

The communists have a primordial task: to explain that war
is an instrinsic quality of capitalism and the only relief
against its danger and repercussions is humanity overthrown
of the existing class system of exploitation (which makes
wars unavoidable) by abolishing capitalist propriety of
means of production, transmitting them to the whole
society.

While participating to all these mass movements, they must
fight the pacifist illusions which do not point out the
socio-economic causes of these wars, and, meanwhile, the
discouragement fed by the idea that there is nothing can be
done until capitalism is overthrown. Communists from
economically dominant countries have to undertake a twofold
strategy, denouncing imperialism both on an international
and on a national level. This attitude distinguishes them
from the reformists who objectively stand aside their
bourgeoisie when they limit themselves to condemn only the
American imperialism. Such a political and ideological work
will peoples victimisation by the bourgeoisie propaganda,
which tries to lure the exploited masse in their war of
rapine, taking them to a cause which is not theirs. This
effort constitutes the base for the rapprochement among
peoples, the true expression of the proletarian
internationalism.

In the countries dominated by imperialism, the efficiency
of anti imperialist resistance is conditioned by the nature
of the actual power, by the alliances on which this power
is based.

The easiness with which the American imperialists have
overthrown the Saddam Hussein regime, manifested Iraqi
people's resentment to it. It only represented the bloody
power of a minority coalition which accumulated profit from
oil money; This coalition has been able to hold this
country only by exploiting the balance of power and the
contradictions on an international scale, only by serving
occasionally the imperialist interests in the region;

Such a regime was everything but anti-imperialist. The
anti-imperialist nature of a state is not judged only on
the hostility of one or another imperialist power. It is
judged on the standpoint of social alliances on which it is
based, of the part of the workers representatives in this
alliance, of the political rights which is recognized to
them, of the economical, social and cultural benefits which
they get by resisting to the pressures of imperialist
powers, and in the aim of the fight animated by the workers
class for the socialist society. On this standpoint, the
anti-imperialist fight is inseparable from the struggles
for the achievement of democratic liberties by the workers
class and its allies.

In Algeria, it is not by coincidence that the
anti-imperialist positions are seriously weakened. The
present power has completed its transformation towards the
power of a compradore bourgeoisie, living from the wasting
of the oil resources, getting its income from the profit
induced by import of goods competing with national
production. This fraction of the bourgeoisie has linked
interests with the multinational interests. It slavishly
applies the orders it receives, in all the fields of the
economical and social life, from the leaders of IMF and WB.
This is a paradoxical situation for a country which
disposes of important financial reserves, belonging to 95%
to the state, and which is able, economically, to escape
from the these institutions diktats. But the leading
classes are frightened by the nuisance capacity of
imperialist countries which have manipulated the
islamofascist forces to dictate their wills to Algeria, to
social layers which refuse to fall in the hell of an
fundamentalist power. These leading classes have betrayed
the national interests of Algeria.

They cannot stand up against the projects of the
imperialist powers in the region or in the world. On the
contrary, they look for their support to pursue the policy
of enrichment of a minority, which is in return the cause
of the dismantling of the industrial issue of the country
and the impoverishment of the largest masses. They have
gone so far on the way of dismantling the public economical
structure that the state has been put in a situation of
incapacity to face with efficiency to the consequences of
the earthquake which has affected the surroundings of the
capital on the last 21st of May.

Hiding themselves behind a pretence democracy, the leading
social layers prevent any actual antiimperialist
manifestation under the pretext of avoiding islamist
provocations. They forbid them with such a severity, that
US embassy in Algeria had, during the bombing, ensured the
American citizens that they ran no risk in Algeria!

The anti-imperialist activity has been quelled, and the big
mass of Algerian citizens has felt a complete solidarity
with the Iraqi people, and has been outraged by such an
impunity. In its major part, the fundamentalist movement,
accustomed with launching, in some regions, violent attacks
against women and bars, has not tried to organize
manifestations against the US war. It serves the interests
of this power and needs its support in its aiming for
power. The fundamentalist movement leads astray the
potential of mobilization of the masses against the
imperialism, trying to turn it in a religious
confrontation. It plays this role for the benefit of the
capitalists which need to use the spectre of fundamentalism
to frighten the workers of non Islamic countries. But the
manifestations of solidarity with the Palestinian and Iraqi
peoples, by young people from Europe, Asia, and America
give an answer which is a stinging slap to the
fundamentalists, divider and disarraymakers.

The arrogance with which the American imperialism has
occupied Iraq has conducted many citizens to the statement
that if USSR and the socialist camp were still existing,
the imperialism would not have felt possible to throw
itself in such a war. The communists achieve more easily to
explain to the workers and the patriotic middle-class that
defending the sovereignty of the country, defending the
interests of the workers class are powerfully linked to the
international solidarity and to the achievement of
convergent struggles between the workers and democratic
movement in imperialist countries, and the people
threatened by a new colonization.

Through the long work of conquest of the influence within
the masses to prepare the political
conditions of the socialist revolution, the initatives to
realize in the daily fights, an anti-imperialist front,
constitute an important stage, which should not be
underestimated.