http://www.cpb.org.bd/ , mailto:cpbdhaka@aitlbd.net

13^th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties

Athens, December 9-11, 2011

SOCIALISM IS THE FUTURE!

The international situation and the experience of the communists 20 years after the counterrevolution in the USSR. The tasks for the development of the class struggle in conditions of capitalist crisis, imperialist wars, of the current popular struggles and uprisings, for working class-popular rights, the strengthening of proletarian internationalism and the anti-imperialist front, for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism.

Contribution of the Communist Party of Bangladesh.CPB

Speech made by Comrade Ruhin Hossain Prince

Member Central Committee.

Members of the Presidium, delegates and dear comrades,

It is a great pleasure and privilege for me to attend this international conference of the Communist Parties of the world. I, on behalf of the Communist Party of Bangladesh convey our revolutionary greetings to you all. Our party fully agrees with the slogan raised by the conference that socialism is the future. Almost twenty years back, some of the degenerated and frustrated Communists including a liquidationists section of our party felt helpless and hopeless before the most aggressive onslaught by the imperialist and they declared that socialism has failed and it is no longer an alternative to the present global system. But we always believed and said ‘‘There is an alternative and that is socialism’’.

Communist Party of Bangladesh firmly believes that, despite the setback suffered by socialism in the last decade of the last century, the world is again advancing towards socialism. Though there was restoration of capitalism in the some of the former socialist countries, still let us not forget the brilliant successes of socialism, the great achievements unprecedented in human history. After thousands of years of societies based on class exploitation, mankind for the first time experienced a new civilization without exploitation of man by man. It may be remembered that during the period of great world capitalist crisis of 1929-1933, when production fell and economic activities stopped throughout the capitalist world, unemployment rose to the sky, thousands of people died of starvation (in New York alone two thousands people died), Soviet Union, the then only socialist state demonstrated very high rate (nearly 12 percent) of economic growth which proves the superiority of socialism over capitalism. It was also proved that under socialism, it is possible to achieve two goals at the same time, elimination of exploitation,building a humane society and also achieve high rate of economic development. Let us also not forget that it was socialist Soviet Union and her red army that defeated the fascist Germany under Hitler, and thus saved the mankind. Other achievements were also no less significant. There was very high level of cultural and scientific development. Socialism also fought for world peace, for disarmament and also contributed to independence of colonies Soviet Union and later other socialist countries including China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba had build a most human society. There was no racial, colour or gender discrimination. Capitalism based on exploitation and inequality, where profit is the sole driving force, can never ensure racial or gender equality. Because very word ‘equality’ is alien to the capitalism and absent in the capitalist culture.

However it is also true that at a certain stage, the system that was developed in some of the former socialist countries including Soviet Union, degenerated and there was restoration of capitalism. Capitalism came back with its ugly face and with all its vices. What is the reason? We must find out correct answer to this question. We are to study the causes, scientifically analyze the defects of the practice if there be any and also the mistakes of the leadership or their opportunism, if there be any Without such scientific study and correct findings it would not be possible to rebuild the socialist movement and revolution, although the objective condition for socialism i.e. material prerequisite for socialism is more matured than ever before.I shall try to briefly explain this point.

Dear Comrades, the propaganda of the end of socialism, yes even ‘the end of history’, the triumphant cheering of the temporarily victorious imperialist power can no longer be heard. Rather you can hear the shrill screaming voice of the scared bourgeoisie and their pen pushers and the media. Now there is talk of ‘end of capitalism’. There is real apprehension of the collapse of the world capitalist imperialist system. What was once pretentiously heralded as a ‘New World Order’ by the US president senior Bush, immediately after the collapse of Soviet Union and restoration of capitalism, had later turned out to be a new international disorder. In the absence of its powerful opponent, there being temporarily no fear of resistance by the mighty political and military power on the side of the people of the world, imperialism, headed by US imperialism wanted to recognize the entire world subjecting it still more thoroughly to the dictates of the international finance capital. It occupied Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, defying world public opinion and international democratic norms. In case of Iraq US imperialism even ignored United Nation and violated UN decision.

However, alas! UNO even failed to pass a resolution against U.S.A and Britain for such violation. Because, in absence of socialist camp, UNO has become a weapon in the hands of imperialism.

Imperialism forcibly imposed upon the third world countries its own economic conditions so as to ruthlessly plunder the natural resources and to exploit the working people of those countries. However, this act of aggression, both military and economic aggression, was never and is not an easy thing for the imperialists. There is peoples armed and unarmed but very powerful militant resistance.

The main point that needs to be emphasized is that in spite of military aggression imperialism failed to achieve its goal to the fullest extent. Because there is growing resistance all over the world. People’s anger is being raised. Military action, genocide committed by the imperialism, ruthless exploitation, economic disparity, extreme poverty all such crimes committed by the imperialism increase the anger of the people. On the other hand severe economic crisis and the inability to solve a single problem of the present world simply aggravate the crisis and accelerate the downfall of the world imperialist system. The oppressed and the exploited people all over the world, in a state of growing discontent, are increasingly looking for an alternative to capitalist system. This can be nothing but socialism. Socialism is our future.

Dear Comrades, socialism is not an utopian dream of a philosopher or of a political party. It is the logical culmination of a historic process. As Karl Marx put it, “At a certain stage of their development, material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relation of production----.From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetors. Then begins an epoch of social revolution”(Preface to A Contribution to the critique of Political Economy). Such period of socialist revolution began in the early 20 ^th century. Lenin explained imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism of monopoly capitalism and as the era of finance capital which according to his brilliant analysis was also the era of proletarian revolution. Actually socialist revolution took place in his country and under his leadership. There after series of revolution took place. However the material prerequisites of socialism are now more matured than Lenin’s time. Scientific analysis of the present stage of capitalism and imperialism indicates the existence of the precondition for the downfall of capitalism and the emergence of socialism on a more matured basis with the positive and negative experience of the 20 ^th century.

Socialism is inevitable because looking from the economic side of the capitalist system, it is evident that capitalism now comes up against a relative historic limit which it can not overcome. According to the law governed process of the development of the society, this is the stage of social revolution.

The chronic over accumulation of capital had a number of significant consequences which will put their stamp on the entire future capitalist mode of production. The predominance of the speculative capital and the gigantically overblown speculation, alienation of capital from real production are the cause for the system to collapse. The international monopolies increasingly seek to speculate with their huge surplus capital on the international financial markets to obtain maximum profit. In 2007, that is, just one year before the great crisis broke out the world wide; financing volume i.e. the totality of all credits, financial products, and foreign exchange market amounted to a volume which was 65 times larger than the real social product. That is why some experts define this feature as the financialization of the economy. Another example. In 2004, 40% of the profit of all the corporations together came from the financial sectors, where as in 1960s it was less than 4 percent. This is a dangerous situation for the capitalism itself.

But capitalism can not get rid of it. Reformists and revisionists suggest rectifying the system. They suggest to introduce Keynesians method and to check excessive speculation or to regulate the uncontrolled market. They overlook the fact that capitalism is bound to reach such a stage because of the very nature of the capitalism itself. Meanwhile speculation has penetrated into all social sectors of production, trade and life. And the speculative profit is the purely predatory profit which is merely distributed among the holders of the capital interests through various forms of stock market speculation. And also the capitalist world economy’s general susceptibility to crisis is growing.

So capitalism has no future. But it will not be eliminated because of its crisis alone. Economic crisis weakens its structure. But the historic experience of capitalism shows that it has to be overthrown. Objectively it is the time to develop more seriously the decisive struggles against capitalism. Ultimately capitalism is to be overthrown by the people’s revolution led by the working class.

Our party does not suffer from any illusion that world capitalist system can be reformed. Nor do we think that without a revolution our country can be rescued from the grip of the ruling comprador capitalist class, the ruling parties being the political representatives of such class. We have adopted the strategy of revolutionary democratic change with socialist perspective. We also do not think that the objective conditions being matured and revolutionary anti-capitalist struggle being developed at a very fast pace, revolutionary changes on a world scale should not be very for away.

In conclusion, I would like to mention one more important point. At the present stage there is tendency for the internationally coordinated crisis management by the imperialists temporarily putting aside inter imperialist contradiction. So we have also no other alternative but to coordinate our struggles on an international level. So there is urgency for the unity and the united actions by the proletarian and their revolutionary parties. It is not simply solidarity, but joint and coordinated actions too. In every country there are varieties of communists. Bangladesh is also no exception. There is also need for the communist unity within each country and on world scale, without of course, not giving concession to the right reformists, revisionists and ultra lefts. In Bangladesh two, we are struggling for principled unity of the communists. We are also for a broad based unity of all communists,left,progressive and anti Imperialist patriotic forces, despite differences. We should be clear about the differences, while learning to fight together despite differences. Imperialism is pushing this earth of ours ,all its living forms and nature to the abyss of disaster. This grave danger requires broadest possible unity and global action to face the global onslaught of capital.

In the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles there are huge number of people of different shades and ideas. We should also unite with them, with all the struggling peoples. Let the slogan, spontaneously raised by the struggling people ‘99 % against 1%’ be put into reality.

In Bangladesh our Party is trying to build up a broad unity of Communist, Left, Progressive, Democratic and patriotic forces against Imperialism, religious communal and plundering bourgeoisie for a Revolutionary Democratic Change. The ruling bourgeoisie in collaboration with US imperialism and its allies are ruthlessly exploiting our toiling masses, suppressing people’s movements, and trade union struggle. They plunder our natural resources including gas, oil and coal. Government is handing over gas and oil fields in land and the sea to multi- national companies and we have to bye our own gas from the MNC’s at 30 times the normal price. Uncontrollable price hike, artificially created crisis of gas, electricity and water, unemployment to the tune of more than 30 million, poverty and pauperization due to the capitalist path dictated by World Bank, IMF,WTO and the so called donors is creating grave unrest amongst people. Black money accounts for 80% of our GDP. Speculation runs high causing continuing collapse in the share market. Bangladesh is one of the worse sufferers due to climate change. Degradation of the environment is a matter of serious concern for a densely populated country like Bangladesh. About 54 rivers originate from neighbouring India and flow through Bangladesh into the Bay of Bengal. These are our life line. Unfortunately India continue to build dams, hydroelectric projects and constructions on their side of the rivers, obstructing and diverting natural water flow, which is causing serious hazard for Bangladesh. This is also causing severe d ecological disaster.

The natural resource and strategic situation in Bangladesh is the cause of increased interest of US and other imperialists. United States is fast increasing

its military and naval power in the region. The nuclear deal and strategic alliance of USA and India pose a grave danger to the security of countries of the region. Imperialism instigates disputes, clashes and war between countries of the region leading to arms race, purchase of arms from the US and its allies. The huge funds diverted to military brings these countries to their knees which opens up possibilities for further tightening of imperialist clutches on the region. For countries and people of the region it is highly important to resolve their disputes, stop fighting, build up cooperation and unite against imperialism and its outfits.

In Bangladesh our Party is trying to build up a broad unity of Communist, Left , Progressive, Democratic and Patriotic forces against Imperialism, religious communal fundamentalists and plundering bourgeoisie for a Revolutionary Democratic Change. We firmly believe that if we unite and fight we can build up an alternative capable of bringing about a fundamental and revolutionary change nationally and globally.

Workers and oppressed people of the world unite.

Long live proletarian internationalism.

Socialism is invincible

Socialism is the future.