Contribution of the Swiss Communist Party

Contribution of the Swiss Communist Party to the teleconference of the European Communist Action on the theme ‘The experience of communists in the struggle to protect people's lives and infrastructures against natural and technological disasters’

Dear Comrades,

Capitalism, through its quest for maximum profit, places human life in the background of the interests of the bourgeoisie. It was only when the Soviet Union remained that the capitalist countries had to recognise achievements for the workers, also under pressure from the workers-popular movements in each country.

After more than thirty years of capitalist exploitation, on a global scale and in its harshest form, the balance of power has been cruelly reversed to the detriment of the interests of the people and the development of knowledge.

It is in this context that the protection of the population in general must take centre position in communist policy, particularly in the face of economic war, multiple military interventions, population displacements, imperialist divisions of entire countries and crises of all kinds concerning such essential subsistence needs as food and energy.

By ‘protection of the population in general’ we mean the satisfaction of needs in terms of the protection of life and physical integrity, in terms of public health concerning known problems such as cancer, mental health, chronic pathologies or accidents, in a professional context or not, but also in terms of public education or cultural and pedagogical production in the face of contemporary dangers.

All these ordinary needs are not met by the capitalist system, nor by the public policies of bourgeois governments, nor by the directives of the European Union. Worse still, in the name of capitalist efficiency, the organisation of public services is being dismantled through
lack of resources or privatisation. The rights of the working class and the popular strata are also being removed.

The increase in military budgets and the corresponding social cuts, promoted by the European Union of capital, exploitation and war, will have dramatic social consequences. Of course, the protection of the population and infrastructure under capitalism has become
extremely vulnerable to health, natural and technological disasters.

This was the case during the Covid-19 pandemic, when there was a lack of all the necessary prevention and care equipment and a sufficient number of hospital beds to properly deal with the situation. The pursuit of capitalist austerity and the state of economic war would undoubtedly increase the human toll in the event of a new pandemic.

In the administration of states of disaster, the ideological and media apparatuses of the capitalist system have acquired a leading role, whether it be to maintain control of the populations, sometimes with a catastrophic message, sometimes with a message of stigmatisation. They have also acted to orient public policies and promote the interests of industry, particularly the food, energy and pharmaceutical industries.

The role of science in solving society's problems and raising general awareness, particularly with regard to the protection of the population, is also subject to the interests of the bourgeoisie, whether it be to explain the causes of dangers or implement solutions.
Science alone cannot solve the problems of human societies, at the risk of subjecting the population to technocratic policies. Public policies, based on a scientific approach, must necessarily adopt a point of view, either that of the capitalist monopolies or that of the
workers-popular movement.

Health, natural and technological disasters have a degree of unpredictability, on the one hand because of their accidental nature but on the other hand, and mainly today, because of insufficient allocation of resources for knowledge of the problems, maintenance of infrastructure or organisation of protection of the population.

These disasters can be general, sectoral or limited. They can be caused by natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, extreme winds. They can be caused by technological events such as mega power cuts, transport accidents, accidents in infrastructures such as nuclear power plants or industrial sites generating pollution, for example. States of disaster can also involve political causes, such as the collapse of states, or social consequences, such as situations of panic, riots or inter-community conflicts.
States of disaster in the capitalist-imperialist society in crisis will have an increasingly multidimensional character and will be the ground for increasingly complex class struggles, mixing a whole series of underlying problems and a context of inter-imperialist contradictions.

Clearly, the populations concerned are not prepared to face these situations, neither through public education nor through cultural production. Indeed, this last produces films and series for the general public based on disaster scenarios, above all with a sensationalist aim, promoting fatalism and individual survival.

However, the social organisation of the people, which does not depend on the bourgeois state or large financial resources, is very often a de facto solution in the absence of public authorities, public services and protection of the population. Social organisations, if they act
in the interests of the people and in a mood  of mutual aid, are directly aware of the needs and can act effectively.

In this respect, we can highlight the experience of Cuba which, within the framework of its socialist system, very effectively protects its population from hurricanes, thanks to locally-based popular organisation and the use of technical and scientific knowledge for the
benefit of the people, despite the commercial, economic and financial blockade imposed by the United States.

It is therefore through human intervention in nature, and even more so through the organised intervention of the workers-popular movement, that we can protect the population from contemporary dangers.

The Communist and Workers' Parties must fight for a collective awareness of the problems concerning the protection of the population in the face of crises and disasters, but also in everyday life. We must expose the capitalist interests that obstruct the proper functioning of public services and the satisfaction of workers' needs.

Communists must also fight for a general system of protection for the population in the event of disasters, with mechanisms for prevention, detection, security control, alerting the population and organising rescue, with sufficient technical and scientific means.
Ultimately, the struggle to protect people's lives and infrastructure against natural and technological disasters is closely linked to the struggle to overthrow capitalism. Only socialism and communism can build a society that truly protects the population from the
dangers of nature and also develops human civilisation to its highest level.