From La Forge
Organ of the Communist Party of the Workers of France
December, 1997
The international Conference of Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations meeting... has placed at the center of its work the work of the communist parties in the working class.
The talks of the different fraternal parties present have given evidence of the rich experience that they have already acquired in this work, emphasizing severely the failings and deficiencies that exist. All are in agreement in recognizing the importance for our parties of advancing further on this front and learning the experience of each party is a help in this sense.
If the experience of the parties at the conference is very varied, in regard to the level of development of each party and the concrete situation in which they work, whether they are in imperialist countries or in dependent countries, the speeches made by each party have made evident numerous points in common. This permits us, in particular, to verify the identity of view and practice on the following points:
1) We are the parties of the working class, first by the ideology and the politics that we defend, but also because we are trying hard to dig deep roots within the class, regardless of the stage of the revolution in each country and the numerical importance of the working class.
2) The task of the parties of developing themselves within the working class is the responsibility of the whole party.
3) In the present phase of the crisis of the world system of imperialism, the attacks against the working class and the popular masses are becoming increasingly brutal. But the working class is fighting back and in several countries, it has passed to a higher stage in its struggle, with greater consciousness and taking the offensive. The general tendency that we see is the rise of the working class and popular offensive. Our parties are struggling within this movement to take the leadership and to orient it towards the revolutionary solution.
4) The crisis of imperialism is deepening the crisis of the revisionists and the reformists. It forces them to involve themselves more and more openly in the elaboration and application of anti-worker and anti-popular policies, the bourgeoisie causes the revisionists and the reformists to unmask themselves. One can therefore see a tendency within the workers' movement to break with the forces of collaboration. Our parties must take advantage of this situation to help the working class to deepen and widen these ruptures and to regain its independence as a class. This situation makes necessary and also possible a very significant development of our parties within the working class.
5) Our parties recognize the importance of trade union work and the place which it occupies in their work within the working class. This importance is linked to the very character of our parties who have the responsibility of defending the interests of the working masses. But also because trade union work is a means that cannot be ignored to root themselves within the working class, to learn to lead these struggles ever more widely and to rally to the party the most conscious elements.
6) Our parties emphasize the importance and correctness of developing within the workers' and trade union movement the line of class unionism, of revolutionary unionism, of which an essential component is internationalism. This line must be developed, both within the trade union organizations led by our parties, as well as within the union confederations led by the revisionists, the reformists or other political and ideological currents, within the few trade unions of a fascistic and reactionary character and in all the other forms of organization of the economic struggle which may exist in the different countries, according to their situations.
The work within the different organizations and within the class in general must be combined with the objective of developing on an ever larger scale the practice of class unionism, of revolutionary unionism.
7) The parties are aware of the importance of educational work waged within the working class to forge communist workers who become conscious members of our parties and to forge cadres of the workers' and union movement.
8) The globalization of the economy means that imperialism seeks to divide the contingents of the working class and set one against the other, both within each country and on an international level. No struggle of the working class today can make an abstraction of this reality. The sharpening of the crisis of imperialism makes it an urgent duty to develop international solidarity on as large a scale as possible. Our parties, conscious of this necessity, are already working concretely to give this a class content. This work must be continued and enlarged.
Workers of the world, unite!
Africa
For several years, Africa has been shaken by powerful popular movements having as their objective:
- the calling into question of imperialist domination,
- the stopping of the murderous measures imposed by the IMF, the World Bank and the large international monopolies.
At one time, the imperialist powers tried to take over or to lead astray these struggles by putting in place supposedly democratic governments following rigged elections. The failure of these attempts caused them to revert to the solution of strong governments capable of better keeping the peoples at bay.
Thus at the present time we are witnessing an increasing fascization of the African regimes, faced with the development of the struggles of the peoples.
From the same view, the imperialist forces do not hesitate to rid themselves by force the most stubborn lackeys as is the case in the Congo-Brazzaville.
But all these maneuvers of the imperialists have not stopped the struggle of the African peoples who have been won to a powerful anti-imperialist sentiment and an irrepressible desire to take charge.
Therefore, the Conference of Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations:
- supports the struggle of the African peoples against the intrigues of the imperialists and their institutions (IMF, World Bank, European Union),
-exhorts the Marxist-Leninist parties and the African revolutionaries to redouble their fervor in preparing the subjective conditions for the revolution in Africa. The conference commits itself to develop solidarity between the proletariat and peoples of the imperialist countries and the oppressed peoples of Africa.
Algeria
For more than five years, Algeria has been plunged into a tragic and cruel situation. Provoked by an acute social and political crisis, this situation has been aggravated by the military coup d'etat of January 1992 seeking to prevent the coming to power of the Islamic Front of Salvation, at that time the winner in the legislative elections.
Massacres of an unheard of barbarity have not ceased to be perpetrated, causing up to now more than one hundred thousand (100,000) victims, the majority of them civilians. Women, children, the elderly, working people, peasants, intellectuals including dozens of journalists, have been killed, their throats cut, amputated, burned alive, etc.
If these massacres are officially ascribed to armed Islamic groups, whose obscurantist and criminal character needs no further proof, the responsibility of the military apparatus of the state and of the militias subservient to it has not at all been excluded.
The tortures, kidnappings, disappearances, summary executions, the abandonment of the civilian population to its fate, besides the obstacles preventing freedom of expression and of the press are so much elements of a charge. The testimony of survivors and of former members of the forces of order published recently in the international press can not but confirm the suspicion concerning the direct implication of the military apparatus in the above massacres.
Considering all these facts, the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations signed below:
- denounce the barbarism exercised by the regime and the armed Islamic groups against the Algerian people, having as their only goal to eternalize their exploitation and oppression and the looting of their national resources (petroleum, gas, etc.).
- condemn vigorously the cynicism of the Western imperialists, and in particular of the French and U.S. imperialists, whose only preoccupation is to take advantage of the Algerian tragedy to reinforce their domination over the country and to impose their will,
- express their solidarity with the valiant Algerian people, its working class and democratic and progressive forces, the only ones capable, by their mobilization, unity and perseverance, of changing the course of events, of putting an end to the horror and of making Algeria a genuinely democratic and progressive state.
Middle-East
Presently the Middle-East is a point of convergence of imperialist conflicts and rivalries.
With the goal of preserving their interests, all the imperialist forces, with U.S. imperialism at their head, are relying on reactionary regimes and currents in the region to sew the seeds of national and religious hostility.
The recent military alliance between Israel and Turkey is a typical example of attacks that are aimed at the peoples of the region. This alliance signifies:
- a new attack against the Kurdish national movement,
- a threat against the Palestinian people,
- a threat against the peoples of Iraq, Iran and other peoples of the region.
Moreover the hostility between Turkey and Greece enflamed and maintained by the imperialists has as its objective to reinforce their domination over these two countries and a means to further sacrifice the island of Cyprus to their interests.
All this signifies the accentuation of the conflicts between the peoples and their submission to the vital interests of the imperialists.
The Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations signed below,
- condemn the aggressive actions of the imperialists against the peoples of the Middle-East,
- denounce the attempts by the imperialists to call into question the inalienable right of the Kurdish and Palestinian peoples to decide their own fates,
- condemn the occupation of the island of Cyprus, demand the withdrawal of foreign armies and support an independent and unified Cyprus,
- condemn the violations of the sovereignty of the Iraqi people subjected to a cynical and inhumane blockade,
- appeal to the peoples of the region for a fraternal solidarity against imperialist domination and against their reactionary governments,
- affirm their support and solidarity with the struggles of the peoples of the Near East against imperialist hegemony.
Latin America
In Latin America, the working class and the peoples are giving proof, by their actions of increasing and continuous struggle, of the reactivation and rise of popular and revolutionary combat.
The working people and the peoples are waging actions in opposition to the catastrophic consequences of the economic programs imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. They are passing rapidly to the stage of political demands and are struggling for change, placing at risk the stability of bourgeois democracy, an indispensable instrument for maintaining the imperialist domination and bourgeois power.
The development of the crisis in Latin America places at the center of the confrontation, in certain countries more than in others, the struggle for political power. The increasing struggle of the peoples opens the perspective of new political and social explosions and reinforces the certain perspective of revolutionary struggle in this region of the world.
The Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations who are signatories of this resolution, commit themselves to bring their internationalist support to the valiant struggles of the working people and peoples of Latin America.
We show our solidarity with the Marxist-Leninist parties, we encourage them to take the leadership of these struggles, and we bring our solidarity most particularly to the Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), the victim of the most merciless repression that is rampant on the American continent.
Lists of signatories of the communiqué of the international Conference in Germany and of all the resolutions taken: Communist Party of Benin, Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), Communist Party of Labor of the Dominican Republic, Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, Communist Party of the Workers of France, Communist Party of Germany, Organization for the United Communist Party of Greece, Party of Labor of Iran, Organization for the Communist Party of the Proletariat of Italy, Communist Organization Revolution of Norway, Communist Organization October of Spain, Communist Party of the Workers of Tunisia, Revolutionary Communist Party to Turkey, Red Flag Party of Venezuela, Revolutionary Communist Party of Volta.
The following are also members of the conference: Communist Party of Albania, Chilean Communist Party "Proletarian Action," Revolutionary Communist Party of the Ivory Coast, Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist).
Other parties and organizations are signatories of the "communist proclamation." Discussions are being held with several of them in order for them to participate in the Conferences.
Click here to return to International Index