http://www.kp-l.org , mailto:kpl@zlv.lu

Speech by Ali Ruckert, President of the Communist Party of Luxembourg, at the Conference of Communist and Workers’ Parties, 21 – 23 November in Brazil

»Aren’t you happy about the crisis? Aren’t you satisfied that finally you are right?« Such are the questions the communists are confronted with again and again since the beginning of the latest financial crisis that is shattering the world.

Sure, we are happy about the fact that everybody can see that those propagandists of casino capitalism have failed, those who told us during the latest 20 years that the market will be regulated by itself, and therefore every kind of state regulation or control would be redundant and unnecessary.

But the fairy tale about prospering capitalism without any crisis was already told us by the ideologists of the capital in 1945, for keeping the working class out of the struggle between social systems, out of the class struggle aiming at social changes. The so-called Neo-Liberals began to tell the same fairy tale again in 1989. But less than 20 years later the most beautiful of all capitalist worlds is in ruins. It does not help them, when die governments of the economically strongest countries are partially nationalising some of the banks, socialising their losses and deciding about programmes for the bail-out of banks as well as the automobile, steel and other industrial trusts.

Of course we are not happy at all about the results of nowadays crisis, since we are aware of the fact that the capital will always do everything to solve the crisis on the backs of the working people. And we know as well, that in the course of such crisis the danger of reactionary developments is growing.

It is interesting to see that even in bourgeois circles they are again speaking about Karl Marx. But in this case they are always trying to prevent the people from understanding the Marxist thoughts, so that nobody should have the idea of the revolutionary break with the capitalist system of exploitation and of changing the existing ownership relations. But exactly this is imperative, as we communists know.

So what shall we do at this moment to explicate this social alternative?

We have seen that since the very beginning of the capitalist financial crisis the communist parties have reacted in different ways, some of us even with great delay. Some parties proposed a programme of demands, that mostly was coinciding with the demands of other parties.

The New Communist Party of the Netherlands, the Workers’ Party of Belgium and the Communist Party of Luxembourg – parties who are in close co-operation since several years – came together and discussed a series of common demands. At a press conference on October 3rd in Luxembourg, these demands were introduced to the public and almost all media of our country reflected about this presentation.

We do not know, how many other parties have initiated – perhaps together with other – similar steps. But we know that neither in Europe nor in other parts of the world a common communist analysis has been worked out, that there were no common programmes of demands or even common actions organised by our parties. And this at a time when the developments show that we are right, at a time when many working people are beginning to have doubts about the capitalist system and searching for alternatives.

What we are missing in front of all these challenges is a structured co-operation between communist and workers’ parties. This would be an objective need of the class struggle, it can never be replaced by conferences like this or by similar events.

The defeat of the socialist system and the reconstruction of capitalist circumstances in all countries of Eastern Europe after 1990 have lead to an enormous setback of the social development and disrupted the communist movement. As a result, the communist parties in many countries were weakened in such a way, that they had to and have to struggle for their capacity to act, in many cases even for their existence.

Several parties have renounced the Marxist-Leninist theory – that means they are also abstaining from the preconditions of a correct evaluation of the present day stage of capitalist development, as well as from developing of appropriate strategies for leading the working class from the defensive situation and to put the necessary questions on the agenda.

Instead of questioning the capitalist state system, created and functioning in the interest of the industrial and financial capital, they are limiting their own actions on »improving« the existing structures.

In a number of countries there are political forces, who began their activities inside the communist parties as so-called »renovators«. After they had failed to deprive the communist parties from their revolutionary approach, they founded so-called »left movements« as direct political competitors with the aim to raise reformist illusions and to hold the people off the only existing alternative to the system, the Communist Party.

Inside many of the old and new parties big uncertainties and confusions have arisen. The alleged victory of capitalism and the sheer almighty propaganda machinery are contributing every day to increase those confusions.

As a result of this, the revolutionary processes and the class struggle in many parties have suffered a strong setback and in many cases are not any more on the agenda.

These are the most important reasons why we think it is necessary that all communist and workers parties who are regarding as their political and ideological basis the thoughts of Marx, Engels and Lenin as well as the Socialism as social alternative to the capitalist system of exploitation, should close their ranks and form a framework of co-operation.

The Communist Party of Luxembourg does not aim to interfere in the affairs of other parties, nor we are of the opinion of possessing the one and only truth. But the Central Committee of our party has worked out a position paper, which was translated into English and Spanish. The intention of this paper is to give suggestions about how such a structured international co-operation may look like. We’d like to propose to enter a deep-going discussion with all parties interested in a closer co-operation

Thank you very much for your attention.