Contribution of Communist Front (Italy)

WE FIGHT AGAINST THE EUROPEAN UNION OF IMPERIALIST WARS AND CAPITALIST

EXPLOITATION, FOR A EUROPE OF PEACE, PEOPLES' PROSPERITY AND SOCIALISM

Athens, April 4, 2024

Dear comrades,

let me bring you the greetings from the CC and the militants of the Communist Front of Italy and thank the comrades of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) for hosting this meeting of ours.

The subject of this meeting is very important not only because the European elections are approaching, but also because for us communists clarity on the fight against the European Union is absolutely necessary for the definition of a common revolutionary strategy. We support the proposed joint statement and underline the importance of reporting to the people of our countries the reasons for the communist stance against the European Union, deeply different from that of the right and left "sovereignists" because it is sustained and motivated by a solid class concept.

The political program of the Communist Front of Italy defines the European Union as the imperialist and reactionary alliance of European capital, through which the monopolies of the member countries pursue their common interests and, at the same time, negotiate the conditions of competition between themselves.

In Italy, the revolutionary rupture of the EU is at the same time a strategic objective of the communists and a topic of their political confrontation with opportunist forces. For more than 15 years, in fact, the efforts for the reconstruction of a communist party in Italy have been intertwined with the political-ideological struggle against the opportunist tendencies that deny the reactionary character of the EU and assert the reformability of the EU in favor of the peoples and the working class.

In Italy, but not only, social democracy and opportunism have always had a function of support for the European imperialist construction, as it is well confirmed by three matters of fact:

1) Italy was brought into the euro system by the social democratic government formed by the same Eurocommunist leading group that had liquidated the Italian Communist Party;

2) The Party of the European Left, which today is the main coordination center of opportunism in Europe, was founded in Rome in May 2004 on the initiative of the then secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party, Fausto Bertinotti, who was elected the first president of the Left European;

3) For more than a decade, after the political and consensus crisis of the Party of Communist Refoundation, in Italy unsuccessful attempts have gone on to set up an opportunist party linked to the European Left through eclectic generically left electoral coalitions, more or less "radical". In 2014, while Greek workers were suffering from the memoranda of the Troika (ECB, European Commission and IMF), in Italy the opportunist "left" adopted as its own symbol the main person responsible for the implementation of those anti-popular diktats and formed an electoral roll named " the Other Europe with Tsipras”.

Our opposition to the EU is based on the analysis of concrete reality. In the context of growing imperialist competition in Europe and around the world, the EU bears serious responsibility for the events that led to the escalation of the war between Ukraine, USA-EU-NATO, on the one hand, and capitalist Russia, on the other hand. The projects to strengthen existing community military devices (such as PESCO, CSDP, etc.) and create a European Army are expressions of the aggressiveness of European capital and involve an enormous diversion of funds from the satisfaction of the basic needs of the popular masses, to whom further, unsustainable sacrifices are imposed for the profits of the capitalists in the armaments sector.

Almost all the main anti-worker and anti-popular policies implemented in Italy in recent  decades are compliant with the provisions of European directives. Job insecurity, the progressive reduction of actual wages and cuts in social spending have been promoted in Italy in the name of the EU, the common market and the principles of liberalization. In particular, in the years when Italy was one of the countries called by the acronym "PIGS", the constraints of the Stability Pact were used to unleash a generalized attack on the proletariat which swept away rights and protections acquired over decades of struggles, effectively fulfilling a massive transfer of resources from wage labor and welfare to private capital. In the name of budgetary rigor and the reduction of public spending, healthcare has been enormously damaged, with the tragic results that were clear for all to see during the pandemic emergency. Again in accordance with EU directives, several reforms of public education have been implemented with the aim of conforming it to the needs of capitalist businesses according to merciless criteria of class discrimination. The Next Generation EU plan in recent years is a perfect example of how the EU defends the interests and profits of monopolies, while millions of people live in poverty and have their rights denied. The policies on the "green" transition and on digital innovation, as well as the common agricultural policy are drawn up to favor the interests and profit ambitions of the monopolies of production, large-scale distribution and energy, while workers and small producers are crushed by them. Today, European capitalism, through the EU's community policies, slows down and subordinates to its logic of profit the potential given by technical and scientific progress but, by doing so, it hinders the development of productive forces, worsening the contradiction between them and the capitalist relations of production.

Throughout the EU, which has made anti-communism its official ideology, an authoritarian and reactionary involution is underway, aimed at the expulsion of class struggle and workers' parties from the political arena through antidemocratic electoral laws that prevent the exercise of the right of political representation and through union-busting laws that limit the right to strike with the intention of definitively canceling it. Not to mention the bans on communist and workers' parties implemented in some EU countries, the persecutions against their leaders and their militants, the growing police repression and judicial prosecutions of the most conscious and forward elements of the workers' and students' struggles, the increasing spying control by the bourgeois state over the private lives of citizens.

Therefore, Lenin's assessment that "a United States of Europe, under capitalism, would be impossible or reactionary" is today confirmed by facts. We are, however, highly critical of the hypothesis of a rupture with the EU promoted and carried out by sectors of the national bourgeoisie.

To date, the European common market is the main glue that holds the EU together on the basis of the common interests of the monopolies of the member countries which, however, remain in mutual competition. Nevertheless, a few years ago, Brexit showed that capitalists in a given country and in a given historical moment may find it in their interests to act otherwise. The United Kingdom's exit from the EU confirmed that this prospect is entirely possible and realistic, but it also demonstrated that, without a revolutionary change of the class in power, an exit of that kind does not favor the working class, but is a simple repositioning of the national bourgeoisie within the existing systems of imperialist alliances. In the case of Brexit, leaving Brussels for moving closer to Washington certainly neither was a revolutionary act, nor improved the condition of the British working class!

In the current conditions of imperialist competition and polarization into blocs and alliances between capitalist powers, the emergence of new and broader contradictions also within the EU cannot be ruled out. Because of this reason, it is very important for the communists to clarify that, while remaining within capitalism, there is no way of rupture with the EU which is favorable to the working class and the peoples. Therefore, our struggle against the EU is inseparable from the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, the seizure of power by the working class and the construction of socialism.

Comrades,

It is very clear to us that Italy, despite some structural weaknesses of its economy, is one of the most important countries in the European Union. In particular, the goal of the Italian bourgeoisie consists precisely in establishing itself as one of the political and economic leading pivots of the EU. The nationalist and "sovereignist" ideology that the government of our country expresses today goes exactly in this direction. As an example, the Italian bourgeoisie criticizes France and French "neocolonialism" because French capitalism, both within the EU and in Africa and Middle East, is one of the main competitors of Italy's capitalism. In the EU, Italian "sovereignism" consists in pursuing more forcefully the interests of Italian monopolies in the decision-making on EU policies. Outside Europe, its meaning has been made very clear in the slogans launched by the Meloni government, according to which "more Italy's presence in the Balkans", or "an Italian plan for Africa" are needed. At the same time, Italy is in operational command of the "Eunavfor Aspides" mission in the Red Sea, keeps command of the NATO missions in Iraq and Kosovo and deploys its fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to defend the interests of such monopolies as ENI [National Hydrocarbons Board], which few months ago got an illegitimate concession from the Israeli government for the exploitation of gas fields in the waters of the Gaza Strip.

While our government shamelessly proclaims the imperialist ambitions of the Italian bourgeoisie, we know well that our fight against the EU does not concern the question of the "sovereignty" of the bourgeois state, but the structural character of the EU as the interstate alliance of European capital. In Europe, some opportunists who define themselves, or in the past defined themselves, as "communists", depict Italy as an "oppressed nation", a "colony", and the struggle for exit from the EU as a struggle for “regaining sovereignty”. The Communist  Front has always denounced these opportunist theories which, under the false flag of an alleged "national liberation struggle", hide the abandonment of the revolutionary struggle for socialism communism, effectively ending up supporting the imperialist ambitions of the national bourgeoisie. After all, the topic of "oppressed Italy" has always been used in the 20th century to justify the imperialist plans of Italian capitalism.

Comrades,

In a few months elections to the European Parliament will be held. In Italy, bourgeois political forces have recently made changes to the electoral law for these elections. These changes make it even more difficult to be running in elections to parties that are not already in the national or European parliaments. For this reason alone and not for reasons of principled abstentionism, the Communist Front will not be in a position to participate in these elections.

However, we want to send our best wishes and reiterate all our support to the sister parties that in the coming months will engage in the electoral battle for the European elections. We are sure that your efforts, demonstrating the existence of a communist project in Europe, will strengthen the construction of the communist party and the cause of the proletarian revolution in Italy too.

The fight for socialism-communism is the fight of our era!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Long live the European Communist Action!