Athens Meeting 18-20 November 2005, Contribution by CP of
Malta
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From: SolidNet, Thursday, December 22, 2005
mailto:vicdeg@maltanet.net
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International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties
"Current Trends In Capitalism: Economic, Social And
Political Impact. The Communists' Alternative"
Athens, 18-20 November, 2005

Communist Party of Malta.
V.Degiovanni.

Let me start by thanking the hosts the Communist Party of
Greece for inviting us here to participate in this meeting
under the theme "The Current Trends in Capitalism:
Economic, Social and Political Impact. The Communist
Alternative"

The current structure of Capitalist development had it
beginnings in the 1980's with Reagan and Thatcher
administrations in the United States and Britain. Who
ushered in the policies of Neo Liberalism. These new trends
have led to policies of globalisation, which will give US
imperialism control practically everywhere. Capitalism in
these new modes of production, has brought about, new
rounds of attacks on the working conditions, of the working
people everywhere. Not just enroachment on the workers
right is on the agenda.
The goals set by these neo liberal policies of a free
market economy with maximum profits at all cost is creating
mass unemployment all around the globe. Workers today are
struggling to keep their jobs, the fight to keep their hard
gained conditions, in many cases, has already been lost.
Trade Unions are finding it hard to overcome these
obstacles, as in many cases, like in Malta for example,
where workers are given the choice either to accept the new
conditions, or the factory or enterprise will go bankrupt,
which means they will be out of jobs. Thus. the unions
stand helpless and the capitalist takes this situation to
his advantage.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Socialist
community. The then socio-political balance was lost,
resulting in US imperialism finding a free hand to impose
these policies. Furthermore, since the events of 9/11/2001
we have witnessed new imperialist aggressions, under the
very convenient excuse of combating terrorism. The wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq are an example. Threats are being made
to Syria and Iran, indicate that the next stage of this
illegal war. These aggressions are naked attempts by
imperialism to steal and control the natural resources of
other countries. Snubbing all norms and ethics of
international legality. Nobody stands safe today from the
hawks in the Whitehouse and Whitehall. In these tragic
events hundreds of thousands, of innocent civilians,
perished under the firepower, of the strike forces of US
military, and its allies mainly Great Britain, Australia.
These illegal aggressions, have in turn helped to
aggravate, the real problem of terrorism, which is now
being aimed at the populations, and not the ruling classes,
these were mostly the cases in the incidents of Bali,
Madrid and London, where the victims in their vast majority
were workers.

Under these difficult conditions, we communists, have to
strive to find urgent solutions, to the many problems that
beset the working class today. Especially mass
unemployment. We must inspire the working classes
everywhere, to become militant again as they were in the
1940's and 1950's. Today capitalists in the US and the EU
aim to reduce the working conditions of the working
populations of the west, so they would be able, to compete
with Asian capitalists for world Market. In Asia in
countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and others.
The exploitation of the working classes is still rampant.
The working conditions in these countries are non-existent
leaving the workers in very poor subsistence. We must
support the parties from the Asian continent in their
struggle for worker rights and democracy, which is
certainly lacking in the majority of the countries in that
continent.
One can say that we will be helping the capitalists in the
west with this tactics, but also we as communists, be
defending from exploitation the working classes everywhere.

If we are to defeat imperialism, it is imperative that we
must continue to increase our efforts in the never-ending
struggle for world peace. As we always have done. We must
also keep up the support we give to Peace movements
everywhere. We must unite with other political forces that
support the peace struggle

Unity amongst political forces of the left is of paramount
importance. This is not an easy task. The political
opportunism of social democrats with their swing towards
the centre under the banner of New Labour are making this
task a more difficult one. One hopes that the left wing
within these parties will overcome this trend.
If one looks at the Right wing parties, they have their
differences, yet they manage to unite their forces,
whenever their interests stand threatened. I am not saying
that we should be like them, we do not base our political
arguments on personal interests, but on the collective
interests of the working class. We communists must look for
that, what unites us with the other left wing progressive
forces. We must leave our disagreements in the background
for now, and let us agree to disagree, on matters we don't
agree. We must unite to fight the trends towards
globalisation, neo liberalism and free market economy. This
struggle is a long one, and requires great perseverance,
but in the end we shall prevail.