11 IMCWP, Intervention by CP of Brazil

From: Communist Party of Brazil,

January 14, 2010

http://www.pcdob.org.br, internacional@pcdob.org.br  

Intervention in the 11th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties

New Delhi, November 20-21, 2009

The delegation of the Communist Party of Brazil greets the host Parties – the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India and thank them by the magnificent conditions created by the organization of the meeting. We also greet all the fraternal delegations who are attending this meeting and express our conviction that this 11th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties is succeeded.

1- Nowadays the world is living the worsening of the class and national contradictions. The historical limits of capitalism are made evident and it is clearer now the abyss that separates capitalism and imperialism from the aspirations of humanity. Irreconcilable are the interests of the workers and those of the monopoly bourgeoisie, of the peoples and those of imperialism, making it indispensable and urgent the struggle for a new international order and a new economic and social system – socialism. The capitalist system and the neoliberal model existing over the last decades have come to an insurmountable stalemate, making a mockery of their advocates and followers.

2- The outbreak of the economic and financial crisis of capitalism confirmed the argument of the communist had already pointed out the fragility of the underpinnings of the cycle of capitalist expansion and the vanity of the illusions created and spread by the opportunists about the tendency of the system to regenerate itself and usher in a new era of progress.

3- The current crisis, the most serious since the Great Depression of 1929, has a systemic and structural nature, manifests itself in the financial and productive spheres, and is driven by determinations associated with the very nature of capitalism. It is false the opinion that this is a fleeting crisis, linked to conjunctural factors, poor financial management, or the lack of regulatory mechanisms.

4- Workers’ rights and the national interests of the peoples and nations that struggle for their independence and development have been hit hard. The so-called counter-cyclical policies further squander public finances, and are intended to save the system from bankruptcy. The current crisis is intertwined with the erosion of the United States economy and the deterioration of the dollar as the international monetary standard. It is also intertwined with the food, energy, and environmental crises. It reflects not only the demise of neoliberalism and the failure of governmental policies by governments at the service of the big monopoly groups and the financial capital, but is the sheer manifestation of the failure of capitalism, the most crystal-clear evidence of its contradictions.

5- The world became more dangerous, unsafe and unstable. The militarization of the planet developed, with the multiplication of military bases, the expansion of NATO to the East, with the reassertion of a new strategic concept that consists in institutionalizing the presence in conflicts outside the original area of influence of this aggressive pact, and with the creation of the 4th Fleet, which was clearly intended as a form of intimidation against the progressive and revolutionary governments of Latin America and the Caribbean. The 4th Fleet was also intended to ensure control over the region’s natural resources, it is directly related to the strategic objectives of the United States of perpetuating the primacy of its interests and imposing its hegemony.

6- The international situation is strongly marked by the implementation of the restructuring plan for the Great Middle East, through which the United States, under the pretext of democratizing the region, intends to shape docile and submissive regimes to facilitate the accomplishment of its strategic objectives of dominating this important region, rich in energy resources. A full-fledged offensive, it extends over Northern Africa and Central Asia, where Pakistan appears as an important source of conflicts and a vulnerable area for North-American interventionism. A much more serious fact was the criminal Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people living in the Gaza Strip, an aggression better described as genocide and a heinous crime against humanity, which was condemned by the peoples of the world, democratic nations and the UN itself. Despite the conciliatory words of the United States President Barak Obama, the Middle East is still living a tense and explosive situation, and no sign has been given that another policy will be applied in the region. Strictly, nothing has changed in Israel’s intent to shape docile and submissive regimes, under the pretext of democratizing the region, in order to facilitate the accomplishment of its domination-driven strategic objectives. The Israeli Zionist State, especially after the constitution of yet another rightwing government, increases its arrogance, intransigency and aggressiveness. It no longer disguises its expansionist purpose and the objective of transforming Israel into an ethnic, religious and Integralist state, which entails banning the Palestinian people from their own land. Israel denies, in principle, recognition of the free, sovereign and independent Palestinian State, with its capital in Jerusalem and its own army. It behaves intransigently with regard to the repatriation of the refugees, on which there is a United Nations resolution. Israel systematically disrespects and violates international law and the UN resolutions concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict, such as Resolution 242, which mandates a full retreat from all the Arab territories occupied in 1967. Israel’s aggressiveness targets other Arab countries as well. In 2006, its air force systematically bombed Lebanon, in another war in which Israel committed genocide. A most delicate problem in the Middle East crisis is the ongoing occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights territories.

7- Ever more evident are the signs of the gradual and progressive decline of the United States imperialism, The United States has lost relative weight with regard to its share of the world’s GDP, though still ranking first as the world’s richest country. The US hegemony is challenged too by the deterioration of the role of the US dollar, the reduction of the United States’ relative position in international trade, its dependence on foreign capitals, and for the country’s no longer being a net exporter of capitals, facts also pointed at the Party’s 11th Congress. Also indicative of such decline are the political and military defeats suffered by the United States in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and of its ally, Israel, in Lebanon and in Palestine; the political and diplomatic defeat in relation to Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Syria; and the colossal loss of space in a region that was once considered its backyard: Latin America. This decline, with its counterpart in China’s vertiginous rise, is part of a set of far-reaching, broad, and deep geopolitical, and in international relations, changes, ushering in a new period of uncertainties, transitions, and conflicts. The immediate post-Second World War institutional framework, which corresponded, too, to the Cold War period, does not suit the contemporary world.  . The decline of the North-American superpower, the emergence of new forces whose weight has to be reckoned with in the international arena, inter-imperialist contradictions, all give rise to a new and complex picture and mark the appearance of new tasks for the progressive and revolutionary forces, the workers and the peoples, whose struggle can benefit from the development of such economic and geopolitical contradictions.

8- On the whole, by means of various and complementary mechanisms, the continental integration advances, whose strategic driver is the shaping of a South- and Latin-American pole of sovereign countries with shared national projects. The Brazilian people take great interest in the furtherance of this process, for a united and integrated Latin America allows Brazil and its neighbors, jointly, to position themselves to face the contradictions stemming from a world in transition.

9- There are many factors acting counter to the exercise in world domination by the United States:  the emergence of China, Russia, Brazil, and India; the appearance of non-aligned, and even opposing, regional blocks with regard to the positions of the United States; and inter-imperialist contradictions within the European Union, namely Germany and France. A new framework is being shaped, the fruit of social and geopolitical contradictions. The situation’s objective unfolding, whose most dynamic factors are the class and anti-imperialist struggles waged by the workers, the peoples, and the nations that are fighting for their sovereignty and independence, brings about changes toward multipolarity, by promoting the rise of new countries to the condition of economic powers that can claim for autonomy and are willing to fight for a new international order. Such objective development further incites inter-imperialist disputes and rivalries. That does not mean, however, that a democratic transformation of international relations is under way. It is still hegemonic the brutal force of the United States and there are no signs that the superpower is willing to cede power either to the peoples and nations that are fighting for sovereignty and social progress or to the competing powers. It is an illusion to assume that the world is spontaneously transiting between unipolar power and multipolarity, and that simply because a presidential team has changed, it will shift from a bellicose, militarist, security-driven, and unilateral policy to a democratic and multilateral policy based on cooperation and peace. Imperialism’s concrete initiatives have moved in another direction, despite the change in rhetoric and tactic. The scenario that is evolving is one of great conflicts for the re-division of areas of influence and power across the world. Just as Lenin said, in politics imperialism tends toward reaction and war. Imperialism has no inclination for Peace. The communists fight for a profound overhauling of the correlation of forces, not by mere arrangements in the balance of power between the world powers. The world of democracy and peace, of international law, and of cooperation between nations will only be possible if the social correlation of forces is also altered in each country and region. Changes in the factors of cooperation and rivalry between the imperialist powers will have regressive effects should we fail to stop the process of liquidation of the workers’ accomplishments, of threats to national sovereignty, of the ideological offensive against the progressive, democratic, and socialist values, of the conservative, anti-revolutionary, and anti-communist drift, and of setbacks to the achievements of civilization.

10- Upon the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, the United States has announced the deployment of a new tactic in its international relations. The complexity of the contradictions and the potential for the outbreak of economic and social, class and national, political and diplomatic, and even military, conflicts signal to imperialism’s narrow margin for maneuver for an effective change of policy. The sector of the North-American establishment that was victorious with the election of the new president has announced the so-called “soft and smart” foreign policy, the proposed combination of the political and diplomatic components with the military component, supposedly with a priority for the two first components, a new formulation for the full exercise of the North-American dominance of the world, considering its allies, the incapacity to deal with several conflicts simultaneously and the necessity to, through some institutionality, reorder  the system, always under its leadership. In its essence, imperialism maintains its policy, despite making certain flections, employing a distinct rhetoric, making symbolic gestures that are amplified by the political publicity and adopting a different tactic with regard to the dialog with the United States’ allies and the agreement of positions relatively to the most conflicting issues of the international agenda. As for Latin America, the new president of the United States made some gestures of this kind in relation to the main leaders of the new progressive governments, an effort to ease the relationship with Venezuela and, without touching the essence of the blockade against Cuba, lifted the prohibition of visits and remittances of U.S. dollars by Cubans and Cuban relatives residing in the United States. As for the war against Iraq, it ratified the long-term pullout plan as drafted by the previous administration. It announced that it would keep as main tasks of the present administration “war on terror”, whose main arena is moving to Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the new president. New resources are being invested in the war of occupation of Afghanistan and more troops will be deployed in that Central-Asian country. The head of the White House has also announced an increased military budget and stated that he will not relinquish the United States supremacy in this regard. In yet another faltering gesture, he announced he was revoking the plan to set up an antimissile shield in the Czech Republic and in Poland, while proclaiming that the United States is still committed to a defense system with anti-ballistic missiles. There should be no illusions about announcements and gestures pointing to the regeneration of the United States imperialism’s aggressive nature or the relinquishment of its objectives of world domination. What must be understood is that the anti-imperialist struggle will take place under new political conditions.

11- The world is going through a significant transition, a restart, a retaking of the democratic, progressive, popular, national and class struggles in every latitude, under the most different forms and distinct levels of amplitude and radicalization, during which  new actors, and new revolutionary and leftist forces are appearing that grow in interaction and alliance with the communist parties, which are also starting to engage in a fertile ground for their development, growth, consolidation, and credibility before the masses.

12- The working classes, the popular masses, and the trade union movement are occupying the center stage of the class struggle. Such struggle is interwoven with the youth revolts, anti-racist rebellions, and for the rights of immigrants in the developed capitalist countries. The working class, its representatives, and organizations do not satisfy themselves with watching these events with indifference. They react with more or less vigor in the different countries in defense of their interests. Generally under the leadership of the leftist trade unions and parties, millions of workers are engaged in strikes, street demonstrations, and factory sit-ins, during which they demand and fight for justice to be made, for the burden of the crisis to be unloaded on the shoulders of the rich who, after all, are responsible for it, and for working families to be spared from new and greater hardship. Signs of escalation of social struggles are visible on every continent.

13- The development of the heroic Iraqi, Afghan, Lebanese, and Palestinian resistance movements, which, albeit not having attained the liberation of their countries yet, and in the case of Palestine, the creation of a free and independent national State, do not allow either their aggressors to reach their colonialist objectives.  In this sense, these are victorious peoples because resisting is a victory in itself. This is also a period in which sovereign and independent national States put up a tenacious opposition against attempts to isolate, destabilize, and strike them.

14- The struggle for peace appears as one of the most important anti-imperialist combat fronts. A struggle that acquired gigantic proportions at the time of the U.S. aggression against Iraq and that, albeit at a different level, has been constant and diversified, against nuclear weapons, against military bases, against wars of occupation, against the militarization of the European Union, against NATO and its new strategic concept and in solidarity with the liberating struggles of all peoples. All of which are reflected by the growth and strengthening of the World Peace Council.

15- The Communist Party of Brazil positively values the evolution of the political scene in Latin America and the Caribbean in the last decade, characterized by the rise of a, generally speaking, democratic and progressive tendency and, at the same time, by a sharp decline in neoliberalism’s influence and meddling by the United States imperialism – despite the permanence of the enormous economic and mostly ideological influence of the United States on the region. The new ongoing reality has transformed Latin America into a space of resistance and the search for alternatives, and is favorable to the revolutionary forces and to advanced ideas. The new Latin-American setting is objectively anti-imperialist, for it creates obstacles to imperialist domination in the region. The democratic breakthroughs in Latin America, the development of cooperation and in-solidarity integration require a political solution for the Colombian conflict, a fair and democratic peace, fighting against the local government’s and the United States imperialism’s militarist policies. Moreover, they call for a quick solution to the situation in Haiti, a country martyred by fratricide conflicts, cruel dictatorships and the imperialist meddling of the United States and France. It is necessary to create the conditions, in the context of international cooperation and national sovereignty, to reorganize the State with its specific attributions, including public safety, and to render dispensable as soon as possible the presence of UN troops under Brazilian command in that country.

16- In a more recent period, after leaving behind two reactionary and conservative cycles in Latin America – that of the military dictatorships and of neoliberalism –, emerges an unprecedented and singular progressive cycle, one of an anti-imperialist content governments ruled by forces that led independence processes in most Caribbean countries and the heroic and revolutionary socialist Cuba, ;These governments with different paces and emphases, seek to scrap anti-popular and neoliberal policies and promote changes intended to accomplish national development projects, in which, in the most advanced cases, revolutionary purposes are set with proclaimed socialist objectives.

17- Reality today comprises, as it objectively could not be different, a diversity of rhythms, emphases, and approaches. After all, these are countries with distinct social and economic formations; the forces at the head of each government have differentiated origins, principles, and strategic goals; and their rise to the national governments results from distinct levels of accumulation of forces by the grassroots sectors. Yet, on the whole, the current trend that is developing in Latin America and the Caribbean is driven by a common general rationale, one that points to more sovereignty for nations, the search for deepening democracy and mechanisms for the participation of the people, for more rights for the working masses and the majorities of the people, and an emphasis on continental integration.

18- To the revolutionary forces it is particularly important the vigorous experience of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, of a democratic, popular, and anti-imperialist character, that completes in this 2009 its first decade. Supported by the masses, guarantors of its continuity in more than a dozen consultations and plebiscites, proclaiming socialist objectives of traversing to what it calls “21st century socialism”, the government of President Hugo Chávez has carried out in its first decade a sweeping program of social transformations, which has brought about an important decline of poverty, plus gaining broad popular participation. Moreover, it promotes changes in the structure of the State and adopts an advanced National Constitution. We also observe with interest the initiatives of the Venezuelan foreign policy, such as the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas).

19- Indeed there is a strong and powerful reaction from the conservative forces, one of multiple dimensions, with different signals of a counteroffensive by the right that consists in the emergence of secessionist movements and threats in countries like Bolivia; in failed coups, as occurred with Chávez in 2002; in instrumentalizing Colombia as a pawn in aggressions as the one perpetrated against the Ecuadorian territory in 2008; or still in the re-creation of the United States 4th Naval Fleet. In 2009, the rightwing counteroffensive has escalated with the coup d’état in Honduras, overthrowing a president legitimately elected and who was taking resolute steps to implement political, economic and social changes and to join the in-solidarity integration as a member of ALBA. Also in 2009 the US imperialism’s military presence surged in South America, through the signing of the military agreement between the United States and Colombia, which includes the installation of seven military bases. Thus, despite the important advances made in Latin America over the last decade, the progressive forces should bear no illusions. The conservative forces in alliance with imperialism are still very strong in Latin America. Similarly, it is pointless to underestimate the present moment lived by Latin America, nor overestimate one’s own forces and underestimate the power of reaction of imperialism and the endogenous right.

20- The important political transformations that have characterized the international situation lately indicate that important breakthroughs are in progress in the correlation of forces across the world, which improve fighting conditions and intensify the revolutionary accumulation of forces. The anti-imperialist struggle appears as the mark and the spirit of the time, as the great question capable of winning hearts and minds, unleashing the people’s creative and revolutionary energies. The struggle for socialism, positioned with terms of the present time, taking into consideration the lessons extracted from the previous historical period, is once again the order of the day, not as a vague ideal, not as intention manifested through pamphlet rhetoric, but as a concrete issue requiring a concrete solution. The repositioning of the struggle for socialism shows that imperialism’s offensive is not the only driver of the international situation. New revolutionary forces awaken, new transformative potentialities are manifested, new roads are opened up. The roads to socialism will be neither easy nor rectilinear. In this struggle, the forces of the revolution and socialism are confronted in each battle, at every moment, by a colossal system of domination that will not relinquish positions easily. The workers and the peoples, in order to attain a new political, economic, and social system – socialism –, to enjoy rights, sovereignty, security, and peace, shall have to carry out the political class struggle, in which gain prominence too the patriotic anti-imperialist struggle, the democratic struggle, and the action of national States governed by revolutionary and progressive forces. This struggle will demand clarity of objectives, no illusions about the enemy, and tactical-strategic discernment.

21- In this context, the communist and workers’ parties may and should play a detached political and ideological role. Nowadays, it is necessary more than before to strength the unity of action and work together to others anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist forces. More than ever our Party really appreciates the international meetings of the communist and workers’ parties as an important political reference at international level.