Lisbon Meeting 10-12 November 2006, Contribution of CP of
Canada
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From: Portuguese Communist Party, Monday, November 20, 2006
http://www.communist-party.ca , mailto:inter@cpc-pcc.ca
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Contribution of the Communist Party of Canada
Sexta, 10 Novembro 2006

Dear comrades,

We would like to begin by expressing our gratitude to our
hosts, the Portuguese Communist Party, for facilitating
this year's meeting. We are indebted to the KKE for its
generous and consistent internationalism in hosting such
annual gatherings over many consecutive years. At the same
time, we consider that the formation of the Working Group,
and the selection of new venues for our annual meetings are
encouraging signs of the advance and maturing of mutual
efforts to rebuild our international communist movement.

Comrades,
Unprecedented dangers confront humanity today, dangers
arising from the political, economic and social offensive
of imperialism to extend and tighten its global domination,
to trample on the sovereign rights of the peoples, and to
criminalize and punish all expressions of protest and
resistance. Militarism and war, economic plunder, vicious
attacks on democratic and social rights, and increasing
environmental destruction this is the heavy price being
exacted by this barbaric system as it strives to satisfy
its voracious appetite for profit, while simultaneously
attempting to overcome its inherent, systemic
contradictions at the expense of the great majority. This
situation makes the fight against war and reaction, to save
our environment, to defend democratic rights, and for
social advance the imperative task of our class and our
movement; a task inextricably linked to, and in many
respects the prerequisite for the struggle for the
revolutionary transformation from capitalism to socialism.

The widespread class, democratic and anti-imperialist
struggles which are emerging today, despite their still
largely defensive character, are drawing millions upon
millions into political organization and action. The task
of the left forces and particularly the Communists is to
help build these mass struggles, to unite them in common
action, and to infuse them with a revolutionary perspective
and content, opening the door to the socialist alternative.

The fightback against imperialist domination and aggression
finds clearest expression today in Latin America. Inspired
by the example of socialist Cuba, and driven to struggle by
the consequences of the imposed "Washington consensus",
popular resistance is mounting virtually everywhere across
that continent. The deepening of the Bolivarian Revolution
in Venezuela, the democratic and progressive initiatives of
the Morales government in Bolivia and the Frente Amplio in
Uruguay, the recent election victories in Brazil and
Nicaragua, the growing insurgency in Colombia led by the
FARC-EP, and the spread of mass labour, indigenous,
democratic and social struggles in Mexico and elsewhere
all these unmistakably point to a rising tide of
anti-imperialist resistance and change.

Anti-imperialist struggles are growing elsewhere as well,
reflected not least in the heroic resistance of the
Palestinian and Lebanese peoples against U.S. imperialism
and Zionist aggression and occupation. The Congressional
elections in the U.S. this week show that even in the belly
of imperialism, working people are increasingly rejecting
the reactionary policies of the Bush Administration.

* * * * * * *

Allow me here to say a few words about Canada's changing
role within the imperialist system in general, and in
particular about the accelerated drive for all-sided
subordination of and `deep integration' with U.S.
imperialism.

Since January 2006, the Canadian people have been saddled
with the most right-wing, militarist and pro-U.S.
imperialist government in our history, in the form of the
minority Conservative Party Government of PM Stephen
Harper.

In less than one year, the Harper government has doubled
the military budget, attacked equality rights, ripped up
agreements with Canada's Aboriginal peoples, and reneged on
our country's commitment to the Kyoto emission targets. At
the behest of the Bush Administration, Canadian military
involvement in the bloody, unjust occupation of Afghanistan
has been beefed up and given even more aggressive
front-line assignments in the Kandahar region, resulting in
heavy casualties. The Tories have also transformed Canada's
Middle East policy, shamelessly endorsing Israel's war
crimes against the peoples of Palestine and Lebanon.

All of these dangerous developments reflect an underlying
process which is relentlessly drawing Canada into lock-step
with the interests of U.S. imperialism and accelerating the
erosion of Canadian sovereignty in favour of all-sided
integration into `fortress America', despite broad
opposition and resistance from the Canadian people.

For much of the last century, the relations between
Canadian monopoly circles and U.S. capital were
characterized by what we termed an "antagonistic
partnership" wherein Canadian monopoly was prepared to cede
large sectors of the domestic economy, especially in
resource extraction and some areas of manufacturing, to
U.S. penetration, while maintaining Canadian monopoly
control over the financial sector, transportation,
utilities, services, and so on. But since the late 1980s,
when the Canada-US free trade and later NAFTA treaties were
imposed, the dominant sections of the Canadian ruling class
are now prepared to sell out what remains of the country's
economic and political sovereignty, so long as it is
permitted a reasonable share of the plunder of Canada's
natural resources and domestic market, while expanding
access to the U.S., hemispheric and global markets.

As a result, negotiations aimed at "harmonizing" and
integrating Canada's foreign, defence, immigration, energy
and social policies with that of the U.S. have been
intensified, while the penetration of U.S (and to a lesser
extent European and Japanese) capital into all sectors of
the national economy has increased exponentially, giving
Canada the dubious and unwanted distinction of having the
highest level of foreign ownership of any 'developed'
imperialist country in the world.

Consider energy. Canada is the tenth-largest producer of
conventional oil and third-largest producer of natural gas
in the world, more than 60% of which is exported, primarily
to the U.S. market. Canada is also a large exporter of
coal, and of huge amounts of hydroelectric power all of
which makes Canada by far the single largest source of U.S.
energy imports. Under the terms of NAFTA, our country is
locked in to maintaining these massive exports forever,
even when domestic supplies are exhausted. Now, the Bush
Administration, with the collusion of the Harper
government, is seeking to impose a new continental energy
`perimeter' which will further alienate control of our
energy an natural resources.

This is why our Party firmly believes that the struggle
against U.S. domination and for genuine Canadian
independence is both a fundamental democratic issue and a
necessary and integral component of the Canadian
revolutionary process, and contributes to the worldwide
struggle against capitalist globalization, imperialist
aggression and war.

* * * * * * *

Finally, comrades,
Concerning the prospects for socialism, we are confident
that the socialism of the 21st century will distinguish
itself from the "first wave" of socialist construction
insofar as the revolutionary forces are drawing the
appropriate lessons from both the achievements as well as
the failures and distortions of those previous experiences.
In this sense, the `new socialism' will be better,
stronger, and more enduring than the previous wave of
socialist construction.

But we also know that in some quarters, the expression `new
socialism' is advanced to differentiate it in an
opportunist way from the `old', to disassociate itself not
only from the errors and failings, but indeed to negate all
that was attempted and achieved in the past, and to present
in its place a denuded, vulgarized and impoverished
conception of socialism, stripped of its essential content.
We must categorically reject such an approach.

Our Party places special emphasis on our conception of
socialism, particularly with respect to the democratic
content of socialist construction and development. But we
are also convinced that the essential features of the
socialist alternative must be reaffirmed, namely: (1) that
although socialism can and must involve all social forces
that can be united in its construction, the process must be
led by the working class; (2) that the socialist
alternative must be deeply imbued with the principles of
equality, social justice and internationalism; (3) that the
working class and its state have the democratic right and
also the responsibility to defend socialism in the face of
resistance from its class enemies domestic and external;
and (4) that the economic foundation of socialism must be
based on the systematic transformation, by degrees, of
ownership relations from private to social.

The crisis and subsequent overturning of socialism in the
USSR and Eastern Europe and the accelerated drive by
international finance capital and the imperialist states to
impose a new `economic architecture' regionally and
globally have sharpened the ideological debate over
transition and even the possibility of socialist
transformation under the new prevailing conditions.

In recent years, a loosely-defined `school' of left
social-democrats, post-modernists, development theorists
and disheartened "post-communists" have advanced the thesis
that the construction of socialism, although the preferred
alternative, is simply not attainable today and therefore
that the working class and the progressive forces must
restrict their efforts to mitigating the worst affects of
the dominant neoliberal agenda of capitalist
"globalization".

This reformist `school' points to the ever-expanding power
and reach of the largest transnational corporations and
financial institutions, the increased mobility of capital,
the impact of financial and currency speculation, and the
absence of a large bloc of socialist countries (such as the
COMECON) to justify their conclusion that socialism has no
prospects at the national level, and that only when the
entire imperialism system collapses or is somehow
transcended will "another world be possible". Such an
analysis negates the struggle for political power at the
national level and disarms the working class.

Clearly, as Communists, we must take stock of the changed
international economic, political and military environment
in which revolutionary change proceeds in any given
country, but it would be a fatal error to concede any
ideological ground to such defeatist, reformist conclusions
which are rooted in an exaggerated assessment of the power
of finance capital, and a gross underestimation of, and
disdain for, the capacity of the working class and
revolutionary forces to advance.

This is an essential front in the "battle of ideas" a
critical theoretical and ideological challenge with
immediate practical consequences for the class struggle
today.

It is precisely because of the need to counter the
demobilizing effect of bourgeois and reformist ideology
about the pre-eminence of finance capital and of the
powerlessness of the masses to defeat that power and forge
a fundamentally different, socialist society, that it is
vital for the Communists to strengthen our movement
internationally, both in terms of our unity in action, and
in a qualitative sense, based on our Marxist revolutionary
convictions and analysis. That is why we welcome the recent
initiatives which we have collectively taken to strengthen
coordination and joint action among our Parties through
these forums, and are fully prepared to contribute to their
further development.

Miguel Figueroa, Leader