16 IMCWP, Contribution of CP of Norway [En]

12/2/14 7:50 AM
  • Norway, Communist Party of Norway IMCWP En

Contribution of CP of Norway [En]

16th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties

In Guayaquil, Ecuador 13th-15th November 2014

Theme: “The role of Communist and Workers Parties in the struggle against imperialism and capitalist exploitation – which causes crises and wars and gives rise to fascist and reactionary forces. For workers´ and peoples´ rights and for national and social emancipation; for socialism!”

Intervention by Svend Haakon Jacobsen

General Secretary Communist Party of Norway.

Comrades,

Many thanks to Partido Communista del Ecuador for hosting this 16th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties here in beautiful Guayaquil Ecuador.

You are in the midst of a progressive development of many nations and the people on your continent, in Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, El Salvador etc. Revolutionary socialist Cuba is taking active part in the cooperation and the development, also very important to them due to the extreme extraterritorial 55 year blockade. Strong national capitalist groups still exist in your countries. Therefore you still have many difficult challenges to handle in the further fight for socialism in your countries. Marxist-leninist theory of the working class experiences still are basics for understanding and fight for socialism and working class and peoples power and control. We support your fight for national sovereignty, social justice and socialism,

against social democratic opportunism, imperialism, fascism and war!

In the time of international capitalist over accumulation crises the US Federal Reserve continuously expand huge loans to the “US companies too big to go broke”, printing dollars to finance it, and keeps the interest rate from zero to negative, to hinder the bond and share markets from collapsing. They can keep on doing this for some time, as long as the dollar is accepted as the international reserve and trading currency. The BRICS countries and even imperialist countries closer to the US like Australia and Japan are doing their bilateral trade in the currencies of the trading partners, and are not going via dollars. With this policy, the value of dollar will fall.

The over accumulation crises are deeply felt in EU, there are no signs of growth in production.

USA still has the strongest military capacity, and is the leading imperialist state in NATO, the strongest international military alliance in the world.

In the over accumulation crises imperialism is aggressive, waging wars to control energy resources and transport routes in The Middle East in cooperation with Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and supporting and using jihadists for their purpose.

Turkey has been supporting the Sunni ISIS, let them operate free in Turkey, and pass into Syria. US and NATO forces are armoring and training Kurdish forces, and bombing ISIS military positions in the Kurdish city of Kobane.

US and NATO forces are aiming at splitting and weakening the Iraqi Federation, and bring down the Assad government in Syria and Hezbollah and the progressive forces of Lebanon, and weakening Palestine.

US imperialism has been organizing and financing the fascist coup de tat in Ukraine,

with support from EU and NATO. The Kiev coup regime has illegalized Ukraine CP and held elections at the same time they are waging war on the Russian speaking population in the eastern part of the country. NATO is building a specially trained aggressive NATO Rapid reaction force in Latvia, searching to surround Russia with hostile western imperialist bases. In Asia the US is building up new marine and personnel bases on the northern coast of Australia, and a marine base on the island in South Korea with the false excuse of protecting South Korea from aggression from DPRK, who always have been working for a peaceful Federal reunion of Korea, against the US imperialist aggression plans in the region.

Norway is one of the world’s largest weapon producers, and is earning large profits from imperialism and war. It has more than tripled sales and profits since the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and USA is by far the most important buyer.

In Norway the Rightwing/Xenophobic Government in close cooperation with the new NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, former leader of Norwegian Social Democratic Party, and the Central Intelligence have created two serious “terror-threats” in the media from ISIS worriers. They are creating fear of terror in the Norwegian public, so that people will accept the use of the newly installed anti-terror laws against communists and other peace movement activists who actively will fight the NATO ideological and military war preparations against Russia in Norway.

Since the 1980´ies the economy stagnated, capacity was not used more than to 70-80 %. Accumulated capital was by far larger than profitable investment projects in physical production. Credit markets were growing with increase in the financial products. In late 1980´ies financial products amounted to 55% of the GNP in the OECD countries. In 2007 derivatives, instruments of debt etc. in the unregulated international finance markets amounted to 1500 billion US dollar, over 30 times more than all the GNPs of the whole world together, when the financial markets collapsed. The States poured inn enormous sums of the taxpayer money to save the banks. In Norway the “red-green” Government poured in 500 Milliard NOK to save the big banks that had lost big in the international speculative market.

Due to a relatively large state and community sector in the economy, and large industries serving the thriving oil-industry, the capitalist crises did not hit Norway so hard up till now. Today the international crises combined with increase in the US and Canadian oil sand production led to a fall in the oil prices. Today many thousand workers are laid off in the oil and oil-service industries in Norway.

The official unemployment rate is increasing from 3 to 4 %. But if you add up the unemployed workers that live on small state allowances, which are really poor, the real unemployment is closer to 15% in rich Norway, where the few rich are getting richer, and the numbers of the poor are increasing, and they are getting poorer.

Norway has had a growth in the labor market of 104000 since 2008, but more than these are foreign workers. There has been a decrease of about 23000 Norwegian workers in the same period. 127000 workers, mainly from former Eastern Europe have been employed in Norway since 2008. Total employment of Norwegian workers is 3 % lower than in 2008, as much as 150000 less workers employed. So there is a large hidden unemployment in one of the richest countries in the world.

Norway has had a relatively strong trade union movement, but only 5 % of the foreign workers are members of the trade unions. Many people are working on tariffs much lower than the agreed national tariffs. Social dumping is hard to control and hard to fight, due to the EU-neoliberal policy directives, which the former “red-green” Social democrat Government, and the present Government of the Rightwing and Xenophobic parties accept, which therefore automatically are turned into Norwegian laws under the EEA-agreement regime.

Comrades, We live in the imperialist epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism, and we should examine in a very concrete fashion which strategy corresponds to our era. The objective conditions require a strategy and tactics that aim at the solution of the main contradiction between capital and labor, at the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, at socialist construction. The EEA-agreement of Norway to EU is leading to social dumping, undermining the trade union national tariffs, and is weakening the trade union and working class power. Even if 70 % of the people are against the EU membership in Norway, many do not understand the dangerous consequences of the EEA-agreement. We are organized in the “No to EU” movement, which is working to achieve a referendum for the people to vote no to the EEA, claiming the Government to leave the EEA-agreement, exchanging it with a renegotiated free trade agreement.

Clever “radical” trade union activists have been working and arguing inside the trade union and political structures, but this is insufficient and has given meager results.

To be able to develop a movement strong enough to force a referendum for the people to vote on the EEA-agreement, it is necessary to create a united revolutionary class fight platform in the lower echelons of the trade unions, which can develop its strength independently from the central structures of the trade unions, and from the influence of the Social democratic opportunist parties.

Communist Party of Norway will propagate and work for this, which we find quite necessary if the working class is going to be the leading force in this fight.

All the other people movements of small fishermen, farmers etc. depends on the working class power in the fight for Norway disengagement from the EEA-agreement.

Communist Party of Norway sees the fight for Norway to leave the EEA-agreement as the most important political fight in Norway today, to develop the subjective factor, the class conscience of the workers. Developing revolutionary social alliances and class conscience is basic in the fight for socialism-communism in Norway.

Thank you for your patience comrades.