http://www.lcparty.org , mailto:mariedebs@dm.net.lb

The 12th Meeting of International Communist and Workers’ Parties

(Johannesburg December 3-5, 2010)

The Deepening of the Structural Crisis of the Capitalist System

The Communists’ Role in the Struggle against Imperialism

and in Building Fronts for Change

Dr. Marie Nassif – Al Debs

Deputy General Secretary of the Lebanese communist party

Head of Foreign Relations

Introduction:

The events which we have witnessed in the year 2010 confirm the soundness of the slogan first launched by Karl Marx more than 150 year ago, and later further refined by Lenin: “Workers of the World and Oppressed People of the World Unite!”

These events and developments have shown, without a doubt, that the current crisis in capitalism, which started to unfold in 2001 and eventually peaked in 2008, is a terminal crisis because it is directly related to the fundamental nature of capitalism itself. The international bourgeoisie class failed in finding any solutions to overcome the crisis, even temporarily ones. This failure came despite the significant efforts exerted by the bourgeoisie to overcome the crisis - efforts which manifested themselves through the spending of huge sums of money; through a higher level of aggression in defending capitalism; through the launching of various wars on a global stage; through its unrelenting efforts to suppress all democratic mass movements rallies and demonstrations; through its continual reliance on organizing coup-d’états and assassinations in order to put an end to the ever expanding circle of mass movements and rallies calling for change towards a more just and a more equal and humane world – in other words change towards a socialist society. A socialist society, to be developed based on Marxist scientific laws and analysis methodologies, which are proving day after day that these are the only viable alternative tools for developing a comprehensive framework of action and plans to allow us to rid ourselves of the crises that have been generated by capitalism in the past and the crises that are currently still being born as a result of the fundamental nature of the capitalist system.

Against this background, we find ourselves compelled to raise the issue of change within our own countries and also on the global scene as a fundamental issue affecting humanity and as a pressing and immediate need for our human-kind in the world we live in today. .

First: Unfolding of the Capitalist Crises within Capitalist Centers

and its Consequences on Subordinate and Poor countries

Jacques Attali raises a very important question in his book “All of us broke after ten years?” regarding the global recession the world is facing today and its direct relation to the issue of public debt, particularly in the large capitalist countries / centers. Attali, one of the previous heads of the European financial system, together with other European and USA analysts, raise an important alarm call to warn against the consequences of the high level of public debt which has reached levels similar to those recorded at the end of the Second World War. In their efforts to identify solutions to the crises, they look towards both the G20 countries and the “upper echelons” of the global capitalist class.

On the other hand, we as communists, as representatives of those being robbed by the capitalist system; that is as representatives of the forces of production and the proletariat, we must confront the fiscal and the economical solutions being put forward by the capitalist bourgeoisie thinkers. This is particularly true since these proposed solutions are being pushing forward along two separate but equally dangerous directions, both of which will have detrimental and catastrophic effects on humanity in general and on the poor, meek and oppressed within our societies in particular:

• The first trend is to seize the savings of the working class, a process which has already started over the last three years. This organized theft was justified at the time by claiming that the global capitalist system is implementing the teachings of Marx and Engels by exerting direct control and supervision on the economical and financial conditions. However, it should be clear to all, that neither Marx nor Engels ever suggested that the state should use tax payers’ money collected from the poor in order to stop the deterioration of the economical conditions of the rich!

• The second trend is to facilitate and allow the IMF to seize the wealth of the vast majority of the countries on earth after it has already seized control of the wealth and resources of the majority of poor and developing countries. For the IMF, which is subject to the hegemony of the USA, is today gaining more control and influence in dictating the destiny of the European Union. Its increasing influence on EU policies has come as a direct result of the policies promoted by both the right wing parties and the “socialist-democratic” parties in a number of European Union countries starting from Greece through to Irland, Italy and finally Germany. For example in Italy the public debt is expected to exceed 135% of GDP by the 2014; while in Germany the public debt has approximately reached 85% of its GDP. These numbers have to be seen against the background that the public debt in the USA has exceeded 12000 billion dollars while the EU countries are expected to borrow in excess of 1600 billion Euros to meet their budget deficit for the year 2011.

If we take a closer look at poor and developing countries, we can identify the issue of the public debt as a major issue afflicting all these countries and hindering their development- where in reality the public debt has become a time bomb that could be triggered at any moment by the IMF, subject to the whims and wishes of the USA, which continues to exert full control over all IMF decisions. The breakout of any public debt crisis in any of our poor and developing countries can easily lead to state bankruptcy; to hunger on a wide scale; to displacement and even to widespread strife and deaths. Even without the “official” breakout of any public debt crisis, the current situation is not much better in many of our countries, where the level of public debt is taking its toll on job prospects, unemployment and development efforts to reduce poverty.

In this regard it must be recognized that more than 1.9 billion people of our world’s inhabitants are enduring living conditions below the poverty level (while the world bank claims that this figure has dropped to 1.4 billion); meaning that they earn less than 1.25 US dollars per day; and 64% of those are residing in Asia. In addition 40% of the Arab people earn less than 1.5 US dollars a day. Furthermore, in Lebanon most statistics indicate that the poverty level of Lebanese citizens has reached 28%; while the situation of the Palestinian refugees living in camps in Lebanon is much more catastrophic. Against this background of dire misery and abject poverty, we witness the revenues from the oil and gas sector particularly in the Arab Gulf countries including Iraq exceeding hundreds of billions of dollars going to mainly to the coffers of the large multinational companies which are mainly American-based.

We are witnessing the intensification and deepening of the crisis in capitalism coupled with an increase in the levels of abject poverty throughout the world. Simultaneously, we are witnessing an increase in the aggressive nature of the capitalist attack on all fronts and particularly in the Arab world where American Imperialism has succeeded (together with the NATO Alliance) in dividing Iraq into sectarian states and in increasing the divide between sects within Lebanon. In addition, American Imperialism continues its atrocities against the people of Palestine by continuing to provide unconditional support to the perpetuation of Israeli atrocities against the people of Palestine, in support of the racist slogan “Israel the state of the Jews in the World”. Furthermore American Imperialism is now endeavoring to divide Sudan on confessional and ethnic grounds.

However, we as communists and internationalists differentiate ourselves from other resistance movements by identifying both internal and external causes (and underlying economic factors) to the crises our countries are passing through. Indeed, the “success” of American Imperialism in our countries has only become possible by taking full advantage of the inherent weakness within our political systems which foster sectarian politics to serve a dual and inter-related internal/external role: internally to facilitate the control of the masses thus distracting the people from the true causes of poverty; namely the type of rentier economy in the Arab States and the regimes that are put in place to protect the rentier classes and their imperialist overlords; and externally leaving our people and resources easy prey of foreign interference, manipulation and hegemony.

2nd: the Communists Role in Strengthening the Front Against Imperialism

and to Change Toward Socialism

Marx and Engels state in the introduction to the “Communist Manifesto” that the bourgeois seeks to emerge from its crisis by relying on two main methods: Firstly, by destroying part of the forces of production and secondly through forcefully opening new markets and increasing the level of consumption of old markets. This is exactly what the bourgeoisie is attempting to do in our times:

• Firstly it is increasing the percentage of unemployment, in addition to reorganizing the labor market in order to increase the modes of investment and to reduce wages and benefits, including retirement benefits. At the same time this same bourgeoisie is attempting to protect the profits of the banks and the large financial companies by creating a cap on taxation.

• Secondly, the bourgeoisie is expanding its sphere of direct aggressive operations in order to open new markets and to seize additional natural resources. In this sense, it can be said that we are living under World War III, albeit as a series of scattered wars around the globe. Indeed the military aggressive activities of the USA and its NATO allies and Israel (which was lately tasked with training fascist and terrorist gangs of thugs, not only in the Middle East but also in many African and Latin America countries) have now extended to reach every corner of the globe. Indeed to our west, we are witnessing the increase in military bases in Latin American countries and within our region we are being subjected to the menacing build up of military forces all across the Middle East, from the eastern part of the Mediterranean through to the Indian Ocean and up to Afghanistan. This military build-up must be understood within the context of the vast energy-related natural resources available in our area: namely oil and gas as well as many mineral resources. In addition, it is important to recognize the other main reason for this build up of forces; namely that this region remains an easy prey for imperialist invaders who can weave their evil schemes with relative ease because of the readiness of the region to succumb to Imperialist attempts to cause sectarian, religious and ethnic violence and even wars. Hence we see renewed attempts to resuscitate the plan for the “New Middle East” which was first developed by the USA in the seventies of the last century and which has been recently reformatted by the George Bush Administration.

Due attention should be given, in the context of the intensifying aggressiveness of the New World Order, to the 22nd Lisbon Summit of the NATO Alliance. The decisions arising from this summit can be seen as the beginning of a new stage much more dangerous than all preceding stages. This is particularly true since this summit seems to be heading towards a new breakout of hostilities in our region under the rediscovered slogan of “terrorism and nuclear arms”.

How did we, as communist and workers’ parties, confront these two trends?

This year has witnessed an important escalation in the struggle for social justice and equality, in more than one level and more than one country. This is particularly true in the E.U. countries where huge demonstrations took place in France, Greece, Spain and Portugal. To a certain extent, these demonstrations acted as a reminder to the ones which took place in the second half of the last century and which eventually succeeded in changing the face of Europe through the gains they managed to snatch from the claws of Capitalism for the benefit of the working class and the mass movements.

We add to these demonstrations and activities, the movements and the confrontations that took place in our region, the Arab region in Cairo, Lebanon, and mainly in Palestine against the embargo, the attempts of ethnic and religious cleansing in Jerusalem, and the ongoing “transfer” decisions. These movements, which we played a role in launching, have come in the wake of the exceptional meeting of Communist parties that took place in Syria, and have signaled the start of a new stage of coordination and cooperation among the communist and workers’ parties in the world. This coordination and cooperation is being based on some of the articles of the program that was developed during the 11th Meeting of Communist Parties in New Delhi. Indeed it is this Program that reconfirmed the need for lobbying support among the workers and the youth to rally for the struggle to improve living conditions; while placing a special emphasis on organizing a campaign for confronting the NATO summit in Lisbon.

We are not here to evaluate what has been achieved during the last year, despite its importance and its significance. Furthermore, and despite the combined activities which we have carried out and the spheres in which we have cooperated, it must be recognized that the slogan of our meeting today: Strengthening the Front against Imperialism requires from us a common understanding of the content and notion of this term: “the front against imperialism”. At the forefront of our tasks, we ought to discuss the manner in which we can refine our annual meeting in order to make it more effective. This should include reviewing the forms for organizing ourselves which we have developed over the last 10 years: starting from the movement for confronting global capitalism (which takes Porto Allegro as its starting point), through to the discussions which were launched more than a year ago regarding the Fifth Internationale movement which were first put forward by the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, up to the content of the title of our current meeting “front against imperialism”.

We firmly believe that the movement against globalization, despite its importance and its breadth, was unable to transform its quantitative successes into a qualitative change. We attribute this failure to two main reasons: firstly, due to the fact that this movement lacked an agenda for change; and secondly, due to the fact that it lacked the presence of a strong radical core- namely radical forces carrying the banner for radical change. In addition, the topic of current discussions on the importance of rallying under the banner of a Fifth Internationale movement remains a general and theoretical one, despite the fact that it relied on some ideas worthy of careful consideration and deliberations.

Of course all of us recognize that the emergence of such a Front against Imperialism relies mainly on the organization of the tools for change and its agents – first at the level of each country and then at the level of regions before we can consider the global level.

In this context, we would like to share with you the lessons learnt from an attempt, which we launched less than two months ago and which is still in its infancy stage, namely our attempt to organize Arab Forces of Change.

Not so long ago, and with prior coordination with several Arab communist and workers’ parties, we called for an Arab leftist meeting which took place on the 21st of October, 2010. The meeting was well attended by more than 21 parties representing leftist movements in ten different countries. The meeting discussions were divided along three main axes: 1. Critical issues related to resisting occupation and aggression; 2. The role of the working class and mass movements in development; and 3. Democracy, liberties and equality. The discussions of the meeting culminated in a common declaration which specified in its twelve articles the gradual missions facing us on all fronts. The transcript of the declaration, which was signed by nineteen parties out of the twenty one attending, was translated into French and disseminated in both the Arabic and French languages. The Meeting formed a follow-up committee with its main duty to develop the foundation for the process of rallying Arab leftist parties as a prelude for coordinating efforts with all patriotic, democratic Arab forces. The second task of the follow up committee is to strengthen the solidarity relationships between the Arab left and other parts of the international left. In this manner we will confirm and reassert that the struggle of the Arab left to achieve freedom, democracy and social justice forms an inseparable and integral part of the struggle of the oppressed and downtrodden people across our globe aiming to achieve national liberation and social emancipation.

We see in such regional meetings a prelude to empower and enable our communist and workers movement to strengthen the global front against imperialism. Indeed it is not possible to confront this aggressive stage of imperialism and successfully defeat it and prevent it from shifting the burden of its crises to the poor and the oppressed in our world, without first identifying who are the forces that represent the interests of the working class, the meek and the poor. In addition, we need to determine what we, as forces of change, are struggling to achieve and what is our plan to achieve our objectives.

Let us then first decide to develop and refine the global meeting of the communist and working class parties; taking advantage of what we have achieved to date. And let us secondly investigate the most suitable option for rallying all the forces against imperialism each within the own region as a prelude to expanding the Front Against Imperialism. And finally let us start a process of discussion regarding our relationship with some of the other resistance forces that have different ideological backgrounds.