Contribution of the Communist Party of Greece

Link for the video of the intervention - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q159r-xjaM

 

Dear comrades,

First of all, we would like to thank the New Communist Party of the Netherlands for organizing this important and timely seminar of the European Communist Action, which gives our parties the opportunity to exchange views. Our efforts contribute to the development of the struggle and its coordination at the European and international level.   

We live in an era that confirms in the harshest way that capitalism, globally, cannot serve the contemporary needs of the people and has exceeded its historical limits. The exploitative system constantly generates poverty, unemployment, crises, and refugees, and is identified with competition and imperialist wars for the pursuit of monopoly profits. This is the big picture: human life, work, peace, and security are subordinated to the profitability and confrontation of the ruling classes over markets, transport routes, sources of wealth, and energy reserves.

And at the same time, while the possibilities of our era are enormous, while science and technology could reduce compulsory working hours and pave the way for a creative, truly free life, this is not happening. On the contrary, all new technologies, and especially Artificial Intelligence, are being used as a means of increasing exploitation and as a means of controlling, manipulating, and repressing the people. This is the heart of the contradiction: socially produced wealth and progress, which are the result of collective human knowledge, are turned into weapons in the hands of capital.

Today, in fact, the contradictions of the system are becoming more acute. The international slowdown highlights the burden of over-accumulated capital, which cannot be invested at a satisfactory rate of return. This is why we see the shift towards a war economy and preparation, not as a parenthesis, but as a strategic choice of capitalist states: to postpone crises, create new markets, devalue capital through imperialist wars, and at the same time pass the bill on to the people through increased exploitation and cuts in social rights.

Within this international situation, we are seeing significant changes in international alliances and relationships. The evidence shows that a key factor fueling competition is the decline of US economic power relative to the strengthening of China, along with the intensification of contradictions within NATO and the EU. Opposing the Euro-Atlantic alliance is the emerging Eurasian alliance, headed by China and Russia, while states such as India and Turkey are moving between these centers, seeking to serve their particular geopolitical interests and strengthen their bourgeoisie.

Comrades,

Alliances may change and be rearranged, but what determines their character is their economic basis: the dominance of monopolies and their interests. That is why the KKE has responsibly warned the people: the dilemma of "Euro-Atlantic or Eurasian camp" is "false", it is directed against the interests of the working class and the peoples, and it undermines their independent struggle to overthrow capitalism. There is no such thing as "pro-people" imperialism. There are competing centers that divide the world based on profit.

That is why the intensification of competition leads to increasingly dangerous developments. In the documents of our Party's recent 22nd Congress, we assess that the current situation is similar to the interwar period, i.e., between World War I and World War II. We note that "for the first time since the Second Imperialist World War, we are so close to a Third Imperialist World War." This assessment is based on the "intensive preparation" of the competing poles, while the confrontation is evident everywhere: from military equipment and political alliances to rare earths, technological superiority, and artificial intelligence.

This conclusion is drawn from the recent reprehensible US military intervention in Venezuela, which caused over 80 deaths and ended with the arrest and transfer of Maduro to the US.Beyond the pretexts used, the real goal of this intervention was for the US to seize the country's energy wealth and align the region with its economic and geopolitical interests, in a world boiling and burning with imperialist rivalries, war economies and preparations, and war plans against the peoples in the context of fierce competition for primacy in the International Imperialist System between the US and China. We express our solidarity with the Communist Party of Venezuela and the people of the country, who are the only ones competent to determine developments in their country, without foreign interference.

We express our heartfelt condolences for the 32 Cuban fighters who were killed by the US military machine during the attack on Venezuela.

North American imperialism, emboldened after its intervention in Venezuela, is openly threatening Cuba, which for over 65 years has been experiencing the criminal consequences of a blockade that deprives its people of basic goods and services, considering various scenarios, even a complete naval blockade of the Island of Revolution. And we, the communist parties, are working within the working class and the peoples to strengthen internationalist solidarity, alongside the Communist Party of Cuba and the Cuban people, who have a revolutionary heritage, can defend the achievements of the socialist revolution, fight against all kinds of subversive actions and the difficulties created by the escalation of imperialist aggression in Latin America and the Caribbean, proclaiming steadfastly: Hands off Cuba and its people!

The imperialist war in Ukraine, following the unacceptable invasion by capitalist Russia, has been going on for four years, with hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian children dead, and despite the ongoing negotiations with the intervention of the US,  the war is escalating. NATO is preparing for a generalised war, strengthening bases, modernising conventional and nuclear arsenals, and supplying the Zelensky regime with modern weapons. The EU is "strengthening its war economy" and preparations, allocating "more than €800 billion for the 'rearmament of Europe'," is financing Ukraine with another €90 billion, as recently voted in the European Parliament by all wings of bourgeois democracy – from the far right to the so-called "left," while at the same time escalating the attack on workers' and people's rights. In the Middle East, the Palestinian people continue to pay the price for competitive plans for energy and commodity transport routes, with their genocide by the murderous state of Israel, with the support of the US, NATO, and the EU, promoting the criminal plan to turn the Gaza Strip into a protectorate, and new annexations of Palestinian territories in the West Bank, as decided by the Israeli Cabinet, while the US and Israel, with the support of their allies, are once again preparing to"fan the flames" in the region with a new imperialist intervention in Iran.

Dear comrades,

The Greek government, with the support of the other bourgeois parties, is deepening Greece's involvement in imperialist plans and wars for the interests of the bourgeoisie and the upgrading of its position. The country has been turned into a NATO military base, with American bases, arms shipments, and strategic relations with the state of Israel, putting our country and our people in the crosshairs of retaliation.

And here the crucial question arises: what should the people do in this complex situation? First, they should not choose an imperialist camp, nor follow the pretexts of the imperialists on one side or the other. They should organize and strengthen their own independent struggle against imperialist wars and the country's involvement in them. They should develop specific demands, such as those that were at the center of the major strike by dockworkers, seafarers, and strategically important businesses in the Attica region last week, against imperialist war and the transport of military equipment, in the context of coordinating the struggle in 6 countries and 20 ports. Strengthening the struggle to dismantle US-NATO bases, demanding the closure of the bases of war. So that the children of the people are not sent to the slaughterhouses of war.

Secondly, to strengthen organization and struggle in the workplace, in unions, in associations, among young people. To focus on the contemporary needs of workers and the people, to match them with today's enormous productive potential. To change the balance of power and strengthen class-oriented forces.  To deepen the confrontation with the system, to link daily struggles with the goal of building a new socialist society. We communists have a responsibility to instill within the working-class movement the necessity "every individual daily struggle to be part of the greater goal,"the concentration of forces for the overthrow, providing a definitive solution to the hardships that plague our class.

Third, the people must not be trapped in false dilemmas and the reforms of the bourgeois political system. In our country, but also in many capitalist states, there are attempts to "patch things up" with old and new materials, in order to channel the indignation expressed into solutions that are harmless to the system. And especially in times of war preparation, the suppression of the "internal class enemy" is an important element. In such periods, far-right or fascist forces become "useful tools,"which is why such forces are "embraced" by bourgeois democracy, incorporated into the framework of "parliamentary democracy"as "just another party,"essentially whitewashing the crimes of Nazism-fascism, and in the name of their ahistorical equation with socialism-communism. The bourgeois leadership believes that in today's uncertain conditions, a basic condition for stabilizing the system is to prevent popular anger and indignation from meeting with revolutionary subversive ideology.

Comrades,

All our daily actions, in the ideological and political ferment within the working class movement and its allies, must lead to the substantive, concrete solution proposed by the communists. In the documents of our conference, we emphasize that "the greatest task for every communist is the revolutionary overthrow of the barbarism of capitalist power, of the exploitation of man by man."

Especially in conditions such as those we face today, with more than 50 imperialist conflicts worldwide and the possibility of imperialist wars spreading in Ukraine and the Middle East, we must courageously answer the question "What are the tasks of communists in the event of imperialist military involvement?"

In the Party's program, we note that in the event of "Greece's involvement in either a defensive or offensive war, the Party must lead the independent organization of the workers' and people's struggle in all its forms, aiming to the complete defeat of the bourgeoisie, both domestic and foreign as invaders, and to actively connect this with the conquest of power. With the initiative and guidance of the Party, a workers' and popular front must be formed with all forms of action, with the slogan: The people will bring freedom and a way out of the capitalist system which, as long as it prevails, brings war and "peace" with the gun to the head.

Let us become more capable of persuading, in these circumstances, of the prospect that is being put forward, the goal of our struggle, for socialism-communism, a society where work ceases to be wage slavery, where working hours are reduced, unemployment becomes a thing of the past, health and safety in the workplace become a reality, and human abilities develop in all areas, without the "mediating role of capital and exploitation." A society that can be summed up in the phrase: "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs."

This is what we propose as the way forward for the people: to join forces with the KKE, to strengthen the organized struggle, to make the popular challenge a comprehensive challenge to the politics and power of capital. No more time should be wasted on changes in management, but another path should be opened, in favor of the interests of the working class and the people, to stop the barbarism that breeds crises and wars and to allow people to live according to the real possibilities of the 21st century.