The International Situation
Chapter 1 of the Political Resolution
XV PCP's CONGRESS
A stronger Party
A new course for Portugal
December 6, 7 and 8, 1996
In a world where economic and social relations,
and their contradictions, acquire new forms and dimensions, the
international situation is characterised by large-scale
instability and uncertainty. It is marked by the changed balance
of forces which arose from the disappearance of the USSR and of
socialism as a world system, and by imperialism’s
USA-spearheaded offensive to re-establish its domination over the
planet and impose a "new world order".
Human labour, scientific and technological
advances and the major social achievements won throughout the
twentieth century (to a decisive extent, as a result of the
struggle for social progress and of socialism’s
achievements) created the conditions for unprecedented economic
development and for the elevation of great masses to hitherto
unknown living standards. But capitalism’s development at
the end of this century is leading to blatant throwbacks in
social, democratic and cultural terms, thus confronting Humanity
with the threat of serious civilisational retrogressions.
Such a course, however, is not inevitable.
The workers’ and peoples’ resistance
and struggle, which is mounting amidst a fierce class struggle,
with very diverse forms and demands, is the essential element in
opening the road to the necessary progressive restructuring of
Human society.
The necessary alternative lies in the
revolutionary overhaul of capitalism. In this respect,
communists’ organised activity, with the participation of
the workers and the masses, continues to play an irreplaceable
role. Socialism – renewed and enriched in terms of its
project and solutions by the lessons drawn from the vast
experience accumulated so far – has become even more a
requirement and a prospect for our times.
1. Present-day Capitalism
Identifying the current features and
characteristics of capitalism’s world system is of the
utmost importance in establishing the tasks which today face
communists and other revolutionary and progressive forces.
Only a few years ago, with the pretence
"death of communism", imperialism’s ideologues
proclaimed capitalism’s ultimate and global triumph.
Certainly, with the disappearance of the USSR and of socialism in
the East of Europe, new domains were opened up for the expansion
of capitalism. But that fact did not solve, nor could it solve,
the contradictions that undermine it. Today – in spite of
the immense resources at its disposal and the capacity for
recovery that it has exhibited, the capitalist system’s
growing intrinsic contradictions are clearly revealing its
historical limitations.
Capitalism’s economic development and
transformations in the past two decades reveal some traits
and characteristics which should be highlighted.
The growing use of new technologies arising out
of advances in science and technique have allowed for the
development of productive forces (albeit unevenly,
non-comprehensively, and with contradictory results). However,
the ever-growing and enormous potential for developing productive
forces which was opened up by the scientific and technological
revolution is being distorted and limited by the logic of
capitalist production relations and their quest for maximum
profits. Vast strata of the main productive force – working
people – are being devalued, cast aside and even destroyed.
And instead of the possible and necessary accelerating growth of
production, rates of growth – particularly but not only in
the areas of developed capitalism – are stagnant or
decreasing. At the same time there is further polarisation
between rich and poor, as much on a world level as within each
capitalist country. And Nature continues to suffer very serious
blows, jeopardising this essential pre-condition for life and for
the future of Humanity.
Capitalist application of new technologies
makes huge capital accumulation possible. But it has also
resulted – especially in the last two decades – in a
rapid increase in constant capital’s share relative to
variable capital, the creator of surplus value. This has resulted
in a stronger tendency toward a lower rate of profit from
productive activity and in phenomena of over-accumulation of
capital. In search of higher rates of profit, capital has shifted
– especially in low-technology industries – to regions
and countries where labour is cheaper and more deprived of social
rights.
The demand for research, development and the
use of new technologies requires huge resources. With growing
competition, this has led to even greater capital concentration
and centralisation, bringing in its wake a growing wave of
corporate take-overs, mergers and mega-mergers. The process of
destroying rivals, swallowing up other companies or making them
dependent, and restructuring the major social and economic
domains, has created gigantic conglomerates that operate at a
world level. Whole branches of the planet’s economy are
dominated by a small number of giant corporations, oligopolies
that rule, carve up, and struggle among themselves for markets. A
few hundred of the largest transnational corporations (TNCs)
struggle to subordinate the power and policies of States to their
interests, both through regional supra-national structures to
which they belong and through international institutions (IMF,
World Bank, WTO, OECD and others).
The growing internationalisation of productive
processes and of economic activity as a whole is both a cause and
a consequence of these TNCs’ colossal size, of their
requirement to profit from the enormous volume of capital which
they have concentrated, and to take advantage (according to their
own needs and interests) of the new technologies’ potential.
Foreign investment, in its various forms (more than the growth in
international trade induced by it) is the essential driving force
behind the growing globalisation of economic life. This
globalisation has acquired a world dimension in the financial
sphere with the current, practically unhindered, circulation of
transnational capital (especially for speculation) in a process
helped on by developments in computer and telecommunications
technology. Capital’s growing globalisation and mobility
requires and induces increasingly precarious working conditions,
as much in developed capitalist countries as in dependent
countries.
Various types of alliances between the large
TNCs do not eliminate competition between them, rather they too
are an expression and instrument of a brutal economic war for
domination over natural resources, technologies and markets. The
processes of regional integration, with differing characteristics
and degrees, are dominated by the respective TNCs in the three
world imperialist centres (or Triad): North America, Western
Europe and East Asia, where the decisive roles are played,
respectively, by the USA, Germany and Japan. Apart from
competition within each area of integration, intense competition
is mounting between the Triad’s various poles. The
USA’s dominant world role continues to diminish in the
economic field. This has led the main imperialist power to resort
to its extra-economic might (diplomatic, military, ideological,
etc.) to attempt to maintain and impose its hegemony. The
struggle for "zones of influence" between the different
imperialist powers is mounting, as is the struggle to gain
positions inside rival imperialist countries.
The so-called Third World, with its
heterogeneity, on the whole continues to have a much lower level
of development of productive forces than the zones of so-called
developed capitalism, and remains subordinated by the web of
neo-colonial relations. With the exception of some areas and
countries, the gap between North and South is widening
intolerably. However, a growing differentiation can be found.
There are countries and zones with fast economic growth,
specifically the so-called "newly industrialised
countries" which find themselves practically integrated
– although still in a dependent condition – into the
capitalist mode of production, and where incipient regional
integration processes can be found. There are extensive and
highly populated zones and countries where the process of
extending the capitalist mode of production continues to coexist
alongside strong pre- or para-capitalist situations. Other
countries and even almost entire continents, such as sub-Saharan
Africa, are increasingly cast aside in terms of economic and
social development. The imposition of "structural
adjustment" programmes, the over-exploitation of labour, the
system of unequal trade, the continuing and heightened foreign
debt haemorrhage, the plunder of natural resources, all continue
to be the unbearable burden imposed upon these peoples by the
imperialist powers and their TNCs, with tragic social
consequences.
The predatory and Nature-polluting character of
capitalism’s current economic development, as well as the
consequences induced by it, seriously undermines environmental
balances, natural resources, Humankind and the Biosphere itself.
This kind of development is ecologically unsustainable.
Capitalism’s fierce competition in the quest for maximum
profits does not favour the use of scientific and technological
potential in choosing systems of production and consumption of
goods and services which respect the environment, makes
appropriate action in high-risk situations (nuclear and toxic
wastes) more difficult and does not reduce the possibility of
ecological catastrophes. A different logic of social organisation
and a different kind of development are today urgent if Nature is
to be preserved and Humanity’s present and future defended.
Given the difficulty of obtaining a
satisfactory rate of profit from the productive sector, enormous
sums of money are diverted to the non-productive sphere, to be
applied particularly in rentier and speculative
activities, the stock-exchange, the currency markets, real
estate, and illicit trafficking of various kinds such as drugs
and arms dealing. This growing "financialisation" of
capital – which is one of the most prominent features of
present-day capitalism – in turn continually drains the
surplus-value created in the productive sphere. The colossal mass
of money retained and moved around in speculative activities not
only stifles the necessary and possible development of the
productive sphere but also subordinates the latter to its own
parasitic profitability interests. Due to its huge volume, its
tendency to swell up, and the unpredictability of its haphazard
movement, this fictitious, speculative, finance capital casts the
shadow of monetary instability and the danger of devastating
stock-exchange collapses over the economy of countries and of the
world.
The wave of privatisation of large public
enterprises and services, which is sweeping through practically
all capitalist countries, both developed and dependent, is
brought about by large-scale finance capital in its search for
new sources of surplus-value, privately appropriating – with
the help of the State’s power and almost always at a
fraction of its real value – an enormous mass of wealth
accumulated by society over a number of generations, and which
had partially escaped the logic of capitalist profitability. The
social function of enterprises and public services, economic
regulation and the satisfaction of the community’s basic
needs are thus placed in jeopardy.
State intervention in the service of
large-scale capital has been reinforced, as much at the national
as at the supra-national level. Disguised under the fallacious
"Less Government" slogan, the wave of privatisation,
the cuts in the social-interest public sector, the imposition of
policies advocating "flexibility" in labour
legislation, trade "liberalisation", financial
"deregulation", actually represent a deployment of
State power to benefit the large monopoly groups to the detriment
of the broad masses of the population.
Profoundly unfair taxation policies reduce the
amount of tax paid by big business and the wealthiest, while
over-burdening the workers and the poor. Both State income and
expenditure are placed in the service of policies that enable
accumulation by big business – which on top of that carries
on massive tax evasion and tax fraud with the complacency of the
State, including the widespread use of the so-called tax havens.
Massive transfers of resources to big business have resulted from
multiple tax exemptions, reductions and amnesties, as well as
from generous subsidies, both direct and indirect (such as the
taking up by the State of enormous debts of bankrupted companies,
particularly in the financial sphere). This too, has reduced the
State’s capacity to fulfill its social and economic
regulation functions.
The enormous public debt which resulted from
such policies and practices has today become a crucial issue for
the sound development of economic life and the satisfaction of
social needs. It holds States, including the USA (the
world’s largest debtor) hostage to their creditors, the
great national and international financial magnates.
The bulging services sphere which – with
the exception of important sectors that are necessary or even
indispensable for production – ever less assists the
productive sphere and relevant social interests, has become an
excessive cost for capital which has here too introduced new
technologies to save on labour costs. For this reason the
services sphere can no longer function as a safety valve which
absorbs "surplus" workers from the productive sphere.
The contradiction between the possibilities
offered by scientific and technological development and the
current social retrogression, is growing. The capitalist
application of new technologies to increase productivity and
maximise profits has worsened the working masses’ living
conditions. During the last 20 years, it has on the one hand, led
to constantly rising unemployment – which has become
extensive, chronic and truly structural in the developed
capitalist countries – on the other hand, jobs have become
increasingly precarious, working conditions have deteriorated,
and the rate of exploitation has increased. Efforts to lower
labour costs, both directly and indirectly, have become
widespread as a way of making capital more profitable. However,
this reduction – apart from relatively poor results given
the growing weight of non-labour costs – has objective and
subjective limits, and counters the pressing need to increase
demand.
The extension of the capitalist mode of
production to the ex-socialist countries and the so-called Third
World has led to an increase in the mass of wage-earners
subjected to capital. But this is a small-scale extension with
objective limits, and cannot annul the serious problems which the
more developed capitalist countries face, given their decisive
weight in the world economy.
Unemployment in the developed capitalist world
has reached a level only comparable to that of the Great
Depression of the 1930s. Nevertheless, qualitatively it is much
more serious, for within the framework of present-day capitalism
there is no significant growth in investment on the horizon to
create employment. At the moment, the capitalist application of
new technologies is aimed fundamentally at abolishing jobs and
increasing exploitation, as opposed to reducing working hours
with equal or higher pay.
Extensive and growing unemployment and
under-employment, as well as the relative and absolute drop in
incomes for ever-wider sections of the population, coupled with
the brutal concentration of wealth in a small finance capital
oligarchy, are all determining factors in the rise of poverty and
social exclusion. These are growing also within the most
developed capitalist countries, while in the countries of the
so-called Third World, they plunge more than a fifth of the
planet’s population to levels where human subsistence cannot
be guaranteed.
These factors mean that in spite of the
enlargement of the arena for capitalist relations of production,
there is a relative contraction in the market for the realisation
of surplus value. Following a prolonged return to economic growth
in the first three post-war decades – in which the cyclical
over-production crises were considerably diminished through state
regulation – during the last 20 years there have been
greater and new difficulties in regulation with three serious
crises in 1974-76, 1980-82 and 1990-9 During the latter, the
depression phase was longer and the recovery weaker. Early signs
of a new cyclical crisis are accumulating.
The neo-liberal policies that have become
widespread during the last 20 years do not correspond to
inevitable requirements for economic and social development. They
are rather policies of big business, in particular finance
capital, that correspond to its own interests and to the
difficulties it faces in the present phase. They lead, not to
social progress, but to civilisational retrogression. The
anti-labour and anti-people nature of neo-liberal policies;
social retrogression; the debasement of democracy; the drift
toward cultural obscurantism; greater militarisation; imperialist
interference and aggressiveness arising from imperialism’s
attempt to impose a "New Order" at this end of the 20th
century; all of these realities cannot provide a solution to the
immense and serious problems that Humanity faces. They deepen the
contradictions of contemporary capitalism and encourage anew the
struggle of workers and peoples that is indispensable to open up
the road to a progressive alternative.
Capitalism’s current economic evolution,
the financial oligarchies and the governments that impose their
neo-liberal policies are to blame for the social retrogression
that in the last decades – notwithstanding the improvement
in some indicators – has characterised the life of a
sizeable part of Humanity. This has created an ever more inhumane
contrast between prosperity, opulence, lavish consumerism for a
privileged minority who set up a paradise on Earth for
themselves, and the debased condition of hundreds of millions for
whom the Earth has become a living hell.
This has brought about a clear and growing
polarisation between rich and poor.
In the last 30 years, the fifth of the
planet’s population who live in the poorest countries have
seen their share of world income fall from 3% to 4%, while the
fifth who live in the richest countries increased their share
from 70% to 85%. The gap between them, increased from 1/30 to 1/6
Today, the world’s 358 richest multi-millionaires possess a
fortune that matches the annual income of 45% of the world’s
population, that is, some 2,300,000,000 people.
It is because of this that, in the so-called
"developing" world, more than 1300 million human beings
live in poverty, 800 million go hungry, 500 million suffer from
chronic malnutrition, one third of all children struggle to
survive food deprivation, and infant mortality is still six times
higher than in the industrialised countries.
It is not only between the rich
"North" and the poor "South" that such
disparities and scourges are to be found. They also exist within
some of the "South’s" biggest countries such as
Brazil, among others, where privileged cliques join in the
unbridled exploitation of their own peoples. They can also be
seen in the most developed capitalist countries: in the rich OECD
countries over 100 million people live below the poverty line. In
the European Union today there are some 55 million poor. In Great
Britain, between 1979 and 1993, the real income of the poor fell
by nearly 20% while the richest reaped 61% more, thus trebling
the number of beggars during the Thatcher era. In the USA,
between 1975 and 1990 under the Reagan and Bush administrations,
the richest 1% increased their assets from 20 to 36 percent of
total national wealth.
It is the workers who, with their socially
productive work, create wealth. And it is upon them that
capitalist exploitation directly falls, insatiable in its private
appropriation of the new wealth created.
New forms of exploitation accompany the return
of old forms: widespread reversion to child labour, the spread of
work at home, piecework and seasonal work, speed-ups, longer
working hours, even the ignominious return to pockets of slave
labour.
Work and employment, inseparable from the right
to a humane and creative life, are intolerably placed in
jeopardy, thus endangering the very existence of workers and
their families: work without rights, work without job-security,
part-time or immeasurably long working hours, "flexible
working practices" for the convenience of capital,
disrespect for labour safety regulations, the gradual dismantling
of social security systems, all threaten the workers’
present and jeopardize their future. Illegal labour, unqualified
employment and menial occupations, are all proliferating.
According to the ILO, mass chronic unemployment
and under-employment affects more than 820 million workers (120
million registered unemployed, 700 million workers who do not
earn enough to guarantee a living). In the European Union, the
unemployed already total around 20 million. In the OECD
countries, officially registered unemployment is rising
ceaselessly, from around 10 million in 1970 to more than 35
million in 199
Workers’ rights are also the target of
constant attacks and restrictions. The right to strike is limited
or even denied. Trade Union organisation and activity is
persecuted, with leaders and activists subjected to
discrimination, repression, and even to assassination.
A prolonged and violent offensive against
workers and their most basic rights, the squeeze put on the
majority of workers’ real wage levels, the devaluation of
work – these are essential aspects of neo-liberalism’s
anti-social policies that have prevailed in the last decades.
Fundamental social rights – to health
care, housing, education, a just pension in old-age – are
curtailed and subjected to the greed of private profit through
the destruction of public services and systems. Women’s
living conditions deteriorate, the future of their children is
jeopardised. Young and old people, peasant farmers, masses of
outcasts are abandoned to their fate.
Sanitary conditions and health-care services
are deteriorating in many countries, with dramatic consequences.
More than one thousand million human beings have no access to
basic health-care and education; they do not even have clean
drinking water. Every year more than 17 million people, most of
them children, die from infectious diseases and parasites that
are easily curable today – while the pharmaceutical
industry, one of the most powerful and profitable, rakes in
fabulous profits.
While desertification affects 200 million
people, deforestation continues, particularly to extend
large-scale capitalist property into the countryside. Rural
migration to the cities anarchically creates gigantic mega-cities
lacking minimal living conditions, with the mushrooming of
shanty-towns and illegal suburbs: true ghettoes where the
system’s outcasts are piled up. The lack of minimally decent
housing affects over 1000 million people in the world –
while real-estate speculation prospers like a cancer.
Women, who through their struggle have won
important social gains, continue to suffer from sexist abuse and
to be massively discriminated against in all areas. It is they
who bear a disproportionate amount of domestic chores.
Prostitution continues to spread and running it generates huge
profits for powerful mafias.
Children, especially in the poorest families,
are the most exposed and defenceless victims of poverty, hunger,
illness, violence and hideous exploitation, both labour and
sexual.
More than 500 million disabled persons in the
world struggle to survive against obstacles placed in the way of
their recovery and the fulfilment of their capacities.
Drug-trafficking, one of the biggest businesses
in the world, continues to claim hundreds of millions of victims,
human beings whose physical and spiritual health is destroyed.
Spending on drugs is higher than the combined income (GDP) of 80
so-called "developing" countries.
Military spending equals the income of almost
half the world’s population.
Crime, between the mid-70s and mid-80s, rose in
the world at a rate of 5% a year, reaching the highest echelons
of society and undermining the social fabric, spreading
insecurity and fear in communities.
The situation of social retrogression that
today chastises a large part of Humanity is itself the most
tragic indictment against the barbaric logic that underlies the
functioning of contemporary capitalism.
The retrogression of democracy,
with the debasement of political democracy and attacks on
fundamental liberties, constitutes a disquieting expression of
big capital’s exploitation offensive.
The capitalist system from very early on
revealed its inability to respond to the aspirations of the
overwhelming majority of citizens, because it is founded on class
exploitation.
Thanks to the struggle of workers and peoples,
and the influence of socialism’s ideals and achievements, it
became possible, particularly after the defeat of nazi-fascism,
to gain important advances in the social and political spheres,
providing an important heritage of human rights. Today, with the
disappearance of socialism as a world system, the weakening of
progressive forces, and the monopolies’ growing power, the
forces of big business feel freer to carry out and step up a
powerful offensive to limit the participation of peoples and
citizens in political life.
In the developed capitalist countries, finance
capital’s economic power is becoming more and more
intertwined with the political power structure, intensifying the
anti-democratic character of State monopoly capitalism.
Limitations are placed on the representativeness of elected
bodies (violations of proportional representation, percentage
thresholds, fake voter registration, high levels of abstention,
etc.); anti-people policies; corruption and media virtualisation
of politics, replacing the debate of ideas with show-business;
all this distances citizens from civic participation turning them
into mere spectators. Huge percentages of voter non-registration
and of electoral abstention, as in the USA, reveal this
distancing of citizens from political life. The "multi-party
system" is reduced to a rotating system of perpetuating in
power parties that are only formally different, given that they
have essentially the same policies. There are contrivances
designed to obstruct the election of communists and other
progressives and to assist the election of those who serve, or at
least do not oppose, the aims of big capital. This tendency is
made worse by debased cultural standards and a decline in the
community’s critical capacity, by the militarisation of
States with liberty-curbing measures, by the manipulation of
every-day life and of voting processes. The ruling classes reply
to popular reaction against right-wing policies with greater
State centralisation and authoritarianism, countering the
democratically expressed will whenever it does not coincide with
their interests. Vital decisions about the future of each country
are transferred to supra-national, non-elected bodies that evade
popular control.
To the extent that democracy based on popular
vote and participation dwindles, other de facto powers
take hold, such as churches and religious sects, the Freemasons,
covertly funded foundations and institutions and other lobbies.
So too the organised mafias and drug cartels, which (with
their current importance in the economy and their links with the
financial institutions) already in some cases constitute
veritable parallel governments, often covert, but nevertheless
real and directly linked to the armed and paramilitary forces and
to governments that are formed from elections, but are
increasingly subservient and virtual.
In the capitalist world, its leaders’
calls for human rights increasingly turn out to be an exercise in
hypocritical demagoguery, particularly in the United States,
where there are serious violations of fundamental human rights.
The capitalist system has failed to address
social problems. The State’s coercive and repressive
component is strengthened. State and private police forces are
strengthened. Imperialist aggressions are carried out. Political
repression of progressive forces and trade unions is intensified.
Further restrictions are imposed on the free movement of people
and on asylum rights. Abuse of information systems, of electronic
surveillance and phone tapping systems and of data bases is
carried out to spy upon citizens’ private lives. There is
increased secret police control over the legitimate exercise of
citizenship, particularly participation in social and political
organisations.
The economic crisis; the expansion of the great
powers and the multinationals, together with economic
integration; the imposition of raw material prices and the
"structural adjustment" of economies; the debt burden
and supranationality; have all generated reactions of progressive
national assertion, but also of backward world views as is the
case with reactionary nationalism, racism and fundamentalism,
which is affecting all major religions. In several countries,
Islamic fundamentalism – nourished by imperialist oppression
and exploitation policies, promoted by the failure of the
neo-liberal policies implemented by the bourgeoisie which emerged
with the national liberation processes, and manipulated against
the progressive forces – has cleared the way for "holy
wars" and the establishment of theocratic states, which
trample on fundamental freedoms and human rights.
Neo-liberal policies, which intolerably
aggravate the social situation, have cleared the way for the rise
of fascist, racist and xenophobic forces. The ruling classes,
while silencing left-wing opposition activities, enhance the
political visibility of those forces, gambling on them to benefit
from the inevitable popular discontentment and as a tool to
contain the progressive forces.
Often supported by great powers, which exploit
negative feelings in order to broaden their influence, those
forces lie at the root of violence, of a growing number of crimes
against foreign workers and ethnic "cleansings" in some
regions.
The obvious cultural throwback we
witness today constitutes one of the particularly negative
aspects of present-day capitalism.
The dogmas of neo-liberalism,
"globalisation" and "market economy",
absolutise fragments of objective reality, in a process of
obscurantist manipulation and falsehood. They are an ideological
basis, a cultural expression and instrument of capitalism’s
socio-economic domination and of monopoly power’s
transnational expansion.
Markets are depicted as impersonal entities
which, by some "invisible hand", automatically assure
the balance of economic and social life. The much-heralded
stimulating virtues of social inequalities, and of the
concentration and centralisation of capital and wealth, are
propagandised. Competition is idolised, aggressiveness and
selfishness are promoted. Competitiveness is presented as the
main factor of economic and social development. All values and
forms of human activity are commercialised. Capitalist
exploitation is proclaimed a natural way of life. The existence
of social classes and class struggle, and their role in the
evolution of society, is denied and concealed.
Appearing as defenders of the individual’s
supremacy over society, the ideologues of capitalism try to
destroy the progress that has been attained – particularly
through the struggle for socialism – toward the creation of
superior forms of human socialisation and co-operation.
The State and its functions, on the national
and international level, are yet another target of this
offensive. The "failure of the Welfare State" is
proclaimed and a "Minimal State" is propagandised, with
the main aim of amputating the State of its social duties, which
resulted from the democratic gains of the past century. But its
repressive functions are strengthened, to confront the growing
conflicts caused by social polarisation, as is its economic
intervention to serve big business.
At the same time, the scope of political life
is reduced, with the argument that decisions on key subjects are
strictly technical. This would supposedly result in a natural
general political consensus. And since politics is also deprived
of its role of representing different social interests, this
favours a mere rotation of the implementors of the same dominant
policy. It restricts the field of possible options, and enhances
the loss of ethical values, whilst increasing corruption within
the institutions of power themselves.
At the same time, the theories of
supranationality seek to depict the existence of nations and the
functions of national sovereignty as a thing of the past, which
is now exhausted. Under the pretext of adapting to the
"globalisation" process they advocate the transfer of
sovereignty to supranational structures, thus helping to destroy
the national productive apparatus. As part of this process,
national cultures and identities are crushed and wiped out,
through cultural colonialism and by subordinating them to world
market laws.
Another front of big business’
obscurantist offensive consists in falsifying and rewriting
recent history.
This aims at misrepresenting the main events of
this century. At wiping out the role played by the socialist
revolutions, beginning with the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the
endeavour of building a new society free from capitalist
exploitation. At ignoring the role of the workers’ and
peoples’ struggles for their social and national
emancipation, for socialism, for democracy, and to broaden the
concept of human rights. At belittling the struggles against
colonialism, fascism and imperialism. At wiping out from the
peoples’ memory the facts, events, experiences, lessons and
victories which confirm the feasibility and prospect of their
struggle for a better and fairer society, free from capitalist
exploitation.
The creation and advertising of a "single
thought" – crowning vague and empty concepts, such as
"global village", "end of history" and
"end of ideologies" – seeks to impose neo-liberal
catechisms and formulas as absolute and universal truths. This is
an attempt to exclude, disqualify and deny alternative forms of
social development, presenting them as subversive threats or
irrational and invalid utopias.
In the all-out assault on democracy, human
rights and social and cultural development, an essential role is
played by the major mass media, which are increasingly
concentrated into the hands of big business, both nationally and
internationally.
Perversely using sophisticated technologies and
resources, unrelentingly silencing or distorting anything that
challenges capitalism’s political and economic structures,
they try to condition social behaviour and manipulate values,
depriving culture of its social function as an instrument of
progress. They attempt to impose an alienated and alienating
infra-culture, which promotes apathy, uproots the individual from
his/her social condition and acts as a factor of obscurantism
upon mentalities.
At the same time, we witness a methodical
sowing of lines of propaganda which spread confusion, anguish and
fear, which trivialise and glorify violence. Superstitions are
nourished and catastrophic visions of humanity’s future are
propagated, creating states of mind which are a brew for the
spread of integralism, racism, xenophobia, and fascistic forces,
and for the curtailment of democratic freedoms.
The development of militarism and the
intensification of imperialism’s interventions and
aggressions, seek to consolidate, strengthen and extend to
the whole world the domination of the capitalist system and, in
particular, of the main imperialist powers.
Militarism, the expansion of the military
industrial complex, of aggressive military blocs and alliances,
the arms race, the interventions and wars of aggression, were for
decades justified with the "Soviet threat". But the
USSR’s disappearance, the Warsaw Treaty’s dissolution,
the so-called "end of the cold war", have not led to a
more peaceful and safer world. The international situation’s
instability, the continuation and outbreak of new areas of
tension, the military aggressions and interferences, the
continuation of the arms race, with the production of
increasingly sophisticated weapons, all prove it. With the brutal
lop-sidedness of the international balance of forces,
imperialism’s aggressiveness and inherent militarist
tendencies are blatantly and dangerously displayed.
In this respect, the following may be singled
out:
- The USA’s arrogant claim to the role of
world policeman, with the ensuing initiatives in that direction;-
The strengthening of US-hegemonised NATO, reformulating its
strategies and doctrines and extending its sphere of political
influence, its area of military intervention and its efforts to
bring in new members;- The militarisation of the European Union,
with its transformation, in a process that is not devoid of
contradictions, into a political/military bloc, where the WEU,
co-ordinated or even integrated into the EU, would simultaneously
be transformed into the "armed wing" of the EU and the
"European pillar" of NATO;
- The creation in Europe of a system of
multinational forces through the integration of military units of
different countries (including Portugal) such as Euroforce,
Euromarforce and Amphibian Force;
- The profound changes in the Armed Forces,
particularly through the creation of offensive professional
armies and the abolition of compulsory military service;
- The militarisation of Germany and Japan and
the elimination of constitutional barriers to the intervention of
their armed forces outside their territories;
- The process of reintegrating France’s
armed forces into NATO’s military structure and the
extension of this country’s interventionist role
(particularly in Africa), as well as the process towards
Spain’s full membership in NATO;
- Disputing the traditional neutrality and
non-alignment of several countries, namely of Europe (Austria,
Sweden, Finland), pressured into joining the policy of blocs;
- The refusal by the USA and other capitalist
powers to destroy nuclear weapons, while working on their
improvement, the persistence of the "nuclear
deterrence" theory and the aim of ensuring a monopoly on
such weapons.
Militarism is thus confirmed as a trait and an
intrinsic characteristic of imperialism, harbouring great dangers
for peace, the independence and sovereignty of peoples and for
the very future of Humanity. It also means the dilapidation of
colossal material and human resources, which could, and should,
be set aside to improve living standards and for development
programmes, a decisive factor for international security.
In their aggressive policy, the USA and other
imperialist powers use the pretext of what they call "new
threats", they use the struggle against
"terrorism", drug trafficking and other forms of
organised crime (in which, incidentally, they also participate)
as a smokescreen: They cynically invoke the safeguard of
"human rights", the alleged "right of humanitarian
intervention" and "peace-making".
In truth, they try to secure economic and
strategic positions, to kill off any resistance to their imperial
policies, to block the road to any national liberation,
progressive and revolutionary processes, to impose puppet
regimes, to weaken the sovereignty of States, to pave the way for
unbridled exploitation by the transnational corporations.
In this path, they exacerbate ethnic, religious
and border conflicts, instigate wars of extermination, breed
extremely reactionary and obscurantist forces, support repressive
and bloody dictatorships, slaughter civilians and cause the mass
exodus of populations, taking entire peoples hostage by famine,
and in many cases carrying out a true policy of state terrorism.
The US invasion of Somalia and its intervention
in Haiti, the French intervention in Rwanda and other African
countries, the imperialist interference in the Balkans, with
direct NATO intervention and imposing the Dayton "pax
americana", the US blockade of Cuba, Israel’s crimes in
Palestine and Lebanon, the genocide of the Kurdish people, the
occupation of East Timor by Indonesia and Western Sahara by
Morocco, the carnage in Afghanistan, the blockade against the
Iraqi people and the US bombardments in Iraq, the provocations
against Libya, the drama of the people of Angola, the pressures
and threats against the DPR of Korea, the dangerous rekindling of
Taiwan’s ambitions, are all glaring examples of the
aggressive policy of imperialism and its tools and allies at a
regional level. Dangerous situations, as in Northern Ireland and
Cyprus continue unresolved.
The growing number of tension and war zones, as
well as the spreading of situations of economic, social,
demographic and environmental catastrophe are essentially an
outcome of the capitalist system of exploitation and oppression.
It is an untenable situation which will
inevitably lead to huge explosions of discontentment and popular
protest. Their character – anti-imperialist and democratic,
or reactionary and even fascistic – will depend on the
ability of communists and other patriotic and progressive forces
to lead the struggle.
In this perspective, imperialism basically acts
in two directions. On one side, intensifying persecution against
revolutionary and progressive forces and enabling the most
reactionary and obscurantist forces to capitalise on popular
discontentment. On the other, developing international and
supranational instruments of concertation and intervention –
economic, political, ideological, military – with an aim of
assuring undisputed planetary domination by big business and
imposing a totalitarian "new order" against workers and
peoples.
The mechanisms of the imperialist "New
Order" are being created at the level of States, areas
of integration and at a world level.
Through a dense network of political and
diplomatic relations, where the G-7 stands prominent, the great
powers try to harmonise their respective positions on major
issues of the international situation and define a common
planetary strategy. The formal and subordinate association of
Russia is part of an attempt to control any developments and
neutralise any resistance.
The OECD, the IMF and the World Bank, the World
Trade Organisation map out economic, financial and commercial
policies which suit the great powers and the multinationals. They
define the lines of combat against workers’ social gains and
rights, and administer their implementation.
NATO, imperialism’s main military
alliance, intervenes as the armed wing of the "new
order". Instead of deactivating its military structure and
dissolving itself, NATO is restructuring, strengthening itself,
enlarging its area of influence by associating new countries, and
extending its area of military intervention. It defines new
"enemies" and "threats" and endows itself
with new and overtly offensive strategic concepts. It creates
military mechanisms, operational forces, sophisticated arms with
a view to intervening wherever the USA and its allies consider
their interests to be threatened, particularly in "low
intensity" conflicts and in suppressing popular revolts and
revolutions.
NATO’s expansion to Eastern Europe and the
Mediterranean, as well as the activation of WEU, viewed as the
"European pillar" of NATO, and the creation of the
Joint Combined Forces, significantly enhance the role of this
aggressive military alliance. The US-led bombardments and
military intervention in Bosnia are a very serious precedent.
At the same time, the prospects opened up by
the Helsinki Agreement and the creation of the Organisation for
Security and Co-operation in Europe were blocked or distorted in
relation to their original goals of respecting the sovereignty of
States, mutually beneficial co-operation and collective security
on the Continent.
The UN, instead of promoting peaceful solutions
to conflicts, disarmament, development and international
co-operation, tends to become an instrument of the hegemonistic
policies of the US and its allies.
The IMF/WB, WTO, NATO, a UN manipulated by the
US and other great imperialist powers, constitute the main
pillars of the "new order", whose construction contains
many other aspects such as: revision of principles enshrined in
international law; resort to special politically-motivated
"Tribunals"; enhanced Secret Services and their close
co-operation, with the creation of supranational intelligence
services; control over information technologies and domination of
the media, massively used as an instrument of misinformation and
mass manipulation; creation of sophisticated instruments to
neutralise and take over social organisations and movements, or
integrate them into the system; creation of allegedly
"humanitarian" organisations to cushion the devastating
effects of neo-liberal policies and imperialist aggressions.
The necessary international co-operation
between peoples and States, sovereign and equal in rights, is
being quickly substituted by supranational guidance and
decisions, imposed by the great imperialist powers through the
formation of a complex – and increasingly co-ordinated and
centralised – system of organisations and institutions.
Although still evolving, this process is a reality in many
aspects. Its consolidation would create a qualitatively new
obstacle, in terms of power, to the workers’ and
peoples’ liberation process.
The strengthening of imperialism’s
national and supranational structures (formal and informal,
public and private) aims at harmonising a common planetary
strategy on the economic, political, military and ideological
levels and is driven by capitalism’s globalisation process
and its need for transnational monopolist regulation.
It is a process which highlights big
business’ class solidarity, but does not abolish or tame the
contradictions within the imperialist camp. On the contrary, the
rivalries, conflicts and contradictions among the great powers
and the great poles of imperialism have not abated. They even
exhibit a tendency to grow and become exacerbated.
This is due to: capitalism’s uneven
development, with brutal US pressures to impose its hegemony
world-wide and assure at all costs its supremacy within the
imperialist camp; the creation of great areas of economic
integration and free trade with an increasingly bitter struggle
for raw materials (particularly oil), markets, spheres of
influence, positions of geo-strategic importance; a new
imperialist carve-up of the world in a framework that they
themselves call "filling the strategic void" caused by
the disappearance of the USSR and socialism as a world system.
It is thus that in relation to Eastern Europe,
the Balkans, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and even Latin
America, there are multiple areas of considerable conflict among
the great powers, frequently involving – by
"proxy" or otherwise – other countries aspiring to
be regional powers.
The US aim of imposing its world hegemony
increasingly clashes with the expansionism of "greater
Germany" (particularly towards Eastern Europe and the
Balkans), with France (namely in Africa) and Japan (especially in
Asia). Influence in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region
is becoming an arena for serious dispute, specifically between
the US and the great powers of the European Union.
The economic war among the three great poles of
imperialism – the USA, European Union/Germany and Japan
– is marked by arrogant unilateral US impositions, and tends
to escalate. The danger that the economic war may make political
conflicts more acute and, in various ways, drift into a military
dispute cannot be ruled out.
As we said in our 14th Congress, with the
disappearance of the USSR and socialism as a world-wide system,
the world became more dangerously exposed to the dynamics of
inter-imperialist contradictions and to the expansionist thrusts
of imperialism’s exploitative, oppressive and aggressive
nature.
The process of subverting principles and basic
rules of relationship among peoples and sovereign States and the
reactionary restructuring of the international relations system,
is neither consolidated nor completed. The establishment of an
imperialist "new order" faces the peoples’
resistance and struggle as well as the rivalries within the
imperialist camp itself.
In spite of the powerful offensive by
"single thought" ideologues and propagandists and the
illusions of a world "government" and other forms of
supranational "global" regulation, there is growing
awareness as to the nefarious consequences of the policies
dictated by organisations dominated and manipulated by
imperialism, particularly US imperialism. Notwithstanding the
weaknesses that still exist, actions denouncing and protesting
against imperialism’s exploitative, oppressive and
aggressive policies have proliferated, gaining a growing mass
expression and international dimension.
Communists and other democratic and progressive
forces oppose the imperialist "new order" with the struggle
for a new international economic and political order based on
co-operation among sovereign peoples and countries, equal in
rights. and guided by the values of peace, democracy, social
progress and friendship among peoples. A new order committed to
abolishing nuclear arms and to comprehensive disarmament; to
combating racism and xenophobia, neo-fascist populism, aggressive
nationalism and religious fanaticism; to effectively helping
underdeveloped countries; to ending unemployment, poverty,
hunger, disease, drug-addiction, illiteracy and other scourges of
Humanity; to spreading culture and objective information; to
preserving natural resources and protecting the environment. A
new order which will respect and assure the right of every people
to freely choose their own path.
The forces that oppose, or are capable of
opposing, the policies and mechanisms of the imperialist
"new order" are very broad and diverse. It is in their
struggle that lies the possibility of progressive and
revolutionary changes which, by changing the present unfavourable
balance of forces, will make it possible to establish a new order
of peace, co-operation and friendship among peoples.
2. The worker's and peoples' resistance and struggle
Imperialism’s economic, political,
ideological and military offensive, together with – and
facilitated by – the defeats of socialism and the global
weakening of progressive forces, has led to severe drawbacks in
the process of social and national emancipation.
However, this offensive is not a fatality which
workers and peoples must accept. On the contrary. It develops in
the inevitable context of an intense class struggle which –
with very diverse forms and immediate demands – objectively
converges into a widespread and growing rejection and
condemnation of the imperialist "new order" and its
consequences: brutal worsening of exploitation, injustice and
social inequalities, national oppression, aggressions, conflicts
and wars. With it grows the demand for profound anti-imperialist
and anti-capitalist change.
In the developed capitalist countries
the neo-liberal offensive against the social and democratic gains
achieved through decades of hard struggles faces the
workers’ growing resistance and has led to great popular
struggles, particularly in Europe, but also in the USA and Japan.
In the latter, together with important social struggles, there
have been particularly significant mass protests against Japanese
militarism, for nuclear disarmament and for the closure of US
military bases.
In the forefront stand the struggles to defend
jobs and against casualised labour relations, for better pay,
against the dismantling of public services, the attacks on social
security and the privatisations. Even though big business has the
overt collaboration of reformist union bureaucracies and of most
socialist and social-democratic parties, important struggles have
been waged, including general strikes and days of action with
great mass protests. Among these, because of their particular
political significance, we can point out strikes and protests in
Italy in late 1994, the powerful November/December 1995 movement
in France, the great 1996 protests in Germany against Kohl's
"austerity plan". But also to be stressed are hundreds
upon hundreds of strikes, marches and protests by industrial
workers (against dismissals, for pay increases, reduction of
working hours, against privatisations), by service workers
(public administration, health professionals, teachers, etc.), by
farmers (particularly in Greece, against the serious consequences
of the CAP [European Union Common Agricultural Policy]), by small
and medium-scale shopkeepers and industrialists.
Beyond their immediate demands, these movements
objectively represent an unmistakable indictment of the
anti-people neo-liberal policies inherent in the Maastricht
Treaty. They give a new dimension to the growing opposition in
all European Community countries against the current
"European construction" process. This reality, which
was clearly visible in the referenda held in Denmark, France and
Norway in 1993 and 1994, is acquiring a new dimension with the
clear rise of workers’ struggles – and of people’s
struggles generally – in many countries, against the painful
social consequences of the austerity programmes which are imposed
by the forced march towards the single currency.
Equally significant are other very diverse
important popular movements which express deep democratic
feelings: of the youth in protest against the school system and
for jobs; for women’s rights; in defence of public
education; against racism, xenophobia and restrictions on asylum
rights; against nuclear arms and tests, imperialist aggression in
the Balkans; in defence of the environment and many others. Due
to its broad scope and important political significance, the
extraordinary movement of popular indignation and protest which
shook Belgium is particularly worthy of mention.
It is a fact that although the people’s
resistance and struggle has imposed important setbacks on big
business and its power structure, it has not lived up to the
seriousness of the offensive, particularly due to the lack of a
clear alternative policy, credible to the masses. But this
reality, curtained and silenced by the media, has to be stressed,
because the struggle of the popular masses is a determining
factor in achieving progressive political change.
The counter-revolutionary
capitalism-restoration process in the countries of the former
USSR and Eastern Europe, quickly generated a huge drop in
production and a degradation of the productive apparatus, and has
entailed a brutal deterioration in the living conditions of the
majority of its peoples, with an explosion of poverty,
unemployment, crime, violent ethnic conflicts, wars between
nations which belonged to multinational States, and other
scourges.
A voracious capitalist class in swift
formation, constituted and supported by a wide tier of corrupt
bureaucrats and various mafias, represented at the highest
echelons of the State, has joined hands with imperialism in order
to dismantle economic structures, social achievements and rights,
moral values, historical memory and everything positive created
by successive generations during socialism, in spite of the
severe perversions that took place.
This has been the fundamental strategic
objective of the major imperialist powers, in particular Germany
and the USA, both directly and through their economic, political
and military structures, which range from the IMF to NATO, and
include the European Union. Busily plundering the enormous wealth
that was accumulated throughout decades, the imperialist powers
seek, on the one hand, to conquer new territories for capitalist
exploitation (cheap and highly skilled labour force, natural
resources, markets), and on the other hand to steer the current
processes and ensure their irreversibility. Gross interference in
the internal affairs of these countries is accompanied by the
most cynical disrespect and subversion of the proclaimed values
of "democracy" and "human rights", as is
particularly blatant in the former USSR or in former Yugoslavia.
However, despite the traumatic events and the
ideological pounding to which they have been subjected, the
workers and peoples of the former USSR and of Eastern Europe are
rebelling through numerous struggles against the disastrous
consequences of capitalist restoration. They seek to defend
achievements of socialism and, in various forms and with varying
degrees of success in each country, to safeguard their
independence and chart out their own future. Several countries
are courageously fighting – in the adverse conditions of the
prevailing world context – to preserve their sovereignty and
ensure a development that is in accordance with the wishes of
their people. Communist parties and forces were reconstituted and
have achieved considerable influence in various countries. The
electoral results in Russia have shown, despite the particularly
adverse conditions under which they were achieved, that the
Communists are a great force which, in alliance with other
democratic and patriotic forces, has a real impact on the
political life of that immense country.
The overwhelming majority of our planet’s
population lives in the so-called Third World. But it is
in this vast area of the world that the greatest poverty is
concentrated. Many hundreds of millions live in sub-human
conditions. In the last ten years the gap which separates the
developed capitalist countries from the underdeveloped countries
has widened. Imperialism’s offensive towards the Third World
often represents a real attempt to re-colonise peoples and
countries which, through harsh struggles, had achieved their
independence, built sovereign states and in many cases undertaken
progressive paths of development.
A policy of threats, boycotts, embargoes and
enormous economic pressure has been undertaken against countries
which, regardless of their political regime, refuse to submit.
The Third World peoples’ struggle for
their national emancipation has suffered a severe setback, deeply
affected as it was by the crises and the defeat of socialism. The
Non-Aligned Movement, as well as the Organisation of African
Unity, the Arab League and other objectively anti-imperialist
organisations have become weaker and, although there are
indications of a certain recovery, their future is uncertain.
Merging the imposition of an artificial and
false "multi-party system" with pressures and
interferences of the most diverse nature (including military
pressure) progressive regimes have been overthrown; new
dictatorships and governments have been imposed, submissive to
the diktats of the IMF and World Bank’s disastrous
structural adjustment programmes; the foreign debt haemorrhage
has increased; the barriers against the "free
circulation" of capital and against the transnational
corporations’ plundering have been lifted; the destruction
of both the State’s economic sector and of pre-capitalist
subsistence structures has been speeded up, thus preventing the
foundations of independent development from taking roots. Bloody
ethnic and tribal conflicts and colossal displacements of
populations have been provoked. The social, cultural and health
situation of many Third World peoples has suffered a dramatic
retrogression, and this represents one of capitalism’s most
inhumane crimes of modern times.
In the meantime, the peoples of Africa, Asia
and Latin America continue the struggle for their vital
interests, against the impositions of imperialism and of
transnational capital, for freedom, democracy, for national
independence.
The apartheid regime’s defeat and
the ANC’s victory in South Africa; the progress achieved in
the political and electoral influence of Communists and other
left-wing forces in India and other countries; the survival, as
in Southern Africa, of countries led by the political forces that
achieved independence and which fight against foreign
impositions; the resistance by sovereign States against the
impositions of imperialism; the continued national liberation
struggle by the Palestinian, Saharaui, Maubere (East Timorese),
Kurdish and other peoples; the armed resistance movements as in
Guatemala, Colombia and the Sudan; the struggle by the indigenous
peoples of Latin America for their rights, as in Chiapas, Mexico;
the struggle against the big landed estates, as is the case of
the Landless Peasants’ Movement (Movimento dos Sem Terra) in
Brazil; the major mass actions for democracy and for the respect
of human rights, against dictatorships and corrupt governments in
countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Burma, Bangladesh, South Korea,
Turkey, Indonesia; the strikes and demonstrations against
neo-liberal policies and the activities of TNCs, against
privatisations and even against the GATT/WTO, as in India,
Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina and other countries – all of this
shows that the workers and peoples do not give up and that major
explosions of popular discontentment and struggle are inevitable.
Like many others, the continued and courageous
resistance by the people of East Timor against the Indonesian
occupiers, and their struggle for self-determination and
independence – which imposes a particular duty of solidarity
upon Portugal and the Portuguese people – confirms that not
even the most powerful oppressor can destroy a people’s
yearning for their liberation.
Imperialism’s pretensions to channelling
the masses’ discontentment and despair in a reactionary
direction are clear – particularly in its encouragement of
religious fundamentalism of a fascist nature. Equally clear is
its determination to crush through military force any actions
that endanger its domination. The "Rapid Deployment
Forces" are a tool for this. But everything will depend upon
the progressive and national liberation forces’ ability to
win over the masses’ support and to organise them for a
clear alternative of democratic and progressive development.
Countries which define the construction of
socialism as their policy and goal – China, Vietnam,
Cuba, North Korea, Laos – are a reality of great
significance for the development of the world situation. With
specific national traits, with very diverse experiences and
solutions, they represent an important factor of resistance and
containment against capitalism’s intentions of world
domination.
Important progress made in the field of
economic development and in enhancing the masses’ living
standards must be stressed in the cases of China and Vietnam,
countries where almost a quarter of the world’s population
lives and whose initial level of development was extremely low.
In relation to Cuba, which has been brutally
struck by US imperialism and has been forced to completely
reorganise its foreign economic relations, the survival of
fundamental social achievements and of the regime’s
socialist orientation is a heroic feat, only possible thanks to
the Cuban Communists’ profound identification with their
people, to the Cuban people’s high patriotic and
revolutionary awareness and to the broad international solidarity
movement, which must continue, particularly against the blockade
and the Helms-Burton act.
The PCP has its own view of socialism and its
own project for building a socialist society in Portugal, which
in various important aspects is different and distant from the
views, solutions, practice and experiences which exist today. And
it is seriously concerned with the existence of negative factors
in those countries, particularly considering the experience of
other undertakings in the construction of socialism. But this
does not prevent the PCP from valuing the existence of countries
which define building socialist societies as their goal. We
follow these experiences with great attention and stand in
solidarity with their struggle to defend the right to freely
choose their own course.
There are tremendous foreign constraints
imposed by big business’ hegemony over international
economic relations. Imperialism and international reaction make
no secret of their hope and intention of – by taking
advantage of problems, mistakes, difficulties and contradictions
and through interference, boycotts and threats of aggression
– dumping Communists from power and (or) provoking a
capitalist degeneration of the complex ongoing processes (which
they would call "peaceful evolution"). It is in the
interests of those peoples and of all peoples fighting for their
liberation that such intentions be foiled.
In assessing the prospects for the world
situation, it is particularly important to consider the major
social forces which are affected by the policies of big
business and imperialism. Great social and demographic changes
which have a strong impact on societies’ class structure,
composition and alignments, have taken place under the impact of
the growing globalisation of capitalist relations of production,
of the scientific and technological revolution, and of the
profound transformations in the production and exchange systems.
These are unstable times, in which many hundreds of millions of
human beings are being economically dispossessed, cast aside from
the productive processes, socially uprooted and outcast,
displaced by hunger or by war. They desperately seek a new place
in the system of social relations. It is a situation that makes
the progress of political awareness and of organised struggle
extremely difficult, and which favours the growth of reactionary,
obscurantist and fascistic forces.
In the meantime, one of the objective traits in
the current international situation is the shrinking social basis
of support for the capitalist exploitation and oppression system.
The working class and wage workers (whose ranks
are swelling in absolute and relative terms on a world scale,
representing the main social force even in underdeveloped
countries); the peasant masses (who are often landless and still
predominate in vast regions of the Third World); the
intellectuals and the forces of culture (whose creativity is
restricted); the small and medium-scale shopkeepers and
industrialists (who are overwhelmed by the monopolies’
power); the youth (which sees its horizons blocked by a
class-based education system, by unemployment and poverty); women
(who are the first victims of the system’s injustice and
inequalities) – these are the main social classes and strata
whose interests and yearnings are directly hit by the policies of
big capital and imperialism.
It is with this social base that lies the
possibility and the need for a vast anti-imperialist front, which
also includes those countries that define building a socialist
society as their goal, the national liberation movements, those
States that defend their sovereignty against foreign impositions.
The prospects for the world situation crucially
depend upon the ability of Communists and other democratic,
patriotic and progressive forces to give organised political
expression to the enormous existing potential for liberation
struggle.
Imperialism’s on-going brutal offensive
was made possible by the defeats of socialism, the general
weakening and dispersion of the Communist parties and of other
progressive and revolutionary forces, by the growth of reformist
political views and the weakening of class-based trade-unionism,
by social-democracy’s further shift to the right. But it
would be wrong not to value the existence and activity of a vast
set of broad unity organisations and movements such as:
trade unions; class organisations of small and medium-scale
farmers, shopkeepers and industrialists; youth movements;
women’s rights movements; environmental organisations and
movements; peace and solidarity movements; anti-racist movements;
organisations of intellectuals, scientists, artists; specific
movements to defend civil rights or to promote community
interests; numerous non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
This is a reality which, with its great
diversity, reflects a growing readiness for democratic
participation and activism. It represents a real obstacle to the
implementation of big business’ policy. But it is necessary
to preserve the democratic and broad nature of such organisations
and movements, without which their mass appeal will wither away,
they will jeopardize their popular nature, become politically
harmless and may even be integrated into the system’s logic
and operation, as tools to contain the struggle and for class
collaboration. Social-democracy continues to be particularly
engaged in this direction. The bureaucratic and collaborationist
degeneration of many trade union leaderships is the most negative
example of this evolution.
On a political level, a vast spectrum of democratic,
left-wing, progressive, revolutionary and national-liberating
forces continues to be active in all continents. The
situation in each country is very different. While in some there
are forces with a great mass backing and with the prospect of
leading political alternatives attuned to workers’
interests, in many other countries this is not so. But experience
shows that in the course of the struggle itself, whatever the
difficulties, the forces necessary to solve the problems posed by
social development are arising and being strengthened.
Particular reference must be made in Europe to
the significant number of left-wing parties and forces which,
while not defining themselves as Communists, do not recognise
themselves in social-democracy either. These are parties and
forces of different origins, programmes and social backing, with
fluid borders and which are in the process of defining their own
identity. They oscillate between reformism and alliances with
social-democracy, and relationships of co-operation with the
Communist parties. There are known attempts to create a "new
left", a sort of third force which is "neither
Communist nor social-democratic", but which is in practice
marked by prejudice against the Communists. But reality is
showing that it is necessary and possible to identify common
goals and, based on mutual respect and casting away any
hegemonistic pretensions, to develop the co-operation of
Communists and other left-wing forces in the struggle against the
disastrous consequences of neo-liberalism, in defence of
democracy, against militarism and, in particular, against the
Maastricht Treaty and for a Europe of peace, progress and
co-operation. This is the case with the co-operation within the
Confederal Group of the United European Left/Nordic Green Left in
the European Parliament. The rally "Against unemployment,
for a Europe of the peoples, of employment and social
progress" held on May 11 [1996] in Paris, was a new and
positive step.
The PCP will continue striving to realise the
potential for bilateral and multilateral co-operation, not just
on a European, but also on a world level. It is in this sense
that it takes an active part in the São Paulo Forum which
encompasses a broad spectrum of progressive parties and
organisations in Latin America.
The evolution of social-democracy, with its
adoption of neo-liberalism’s main concepts, its
identification with the right in many countries and its
implementation, when in power, of big business policies, has led
many socialist and social-democratic parties to discredit and to
a crisis, particularly in Europe. Within a context of
"bi-polarisation" and of "a system of
alternation" between the right and social-democracy,
social-democratic parties are being directly incorporated into
big business’ system of political domination. The
consequences of this development are contradictory. On the one
hand it opens up new possibilities for a greater influence of
Communists among these parties’ working-class and popular
electoral social base, which is increasingly disillusioned with
the social-democratic leaders’ political and ideological
capitulation. But on the other hand it may lead – and is
leading at the moment – to a strengthening of the right-wing
and even of populist and fascistic far-right forces.
Overall – even though they still have
left-wing sectors and trends in their midst –
social-democracy, the Socialist International, the "European
socialist party" are today tools in the big business and
imperialist offensive. But, in the concrete conditions that may
exist in this or that country, it can be correct to have a policy
which seeks the common action of Communists, Socialists and
Social-democrats, in order to confront and defeat right-wing
forces, particularly the more reactionary and aggressive ones.
Co-operation with the progressive forces affiliated to the
Socialist International must naturally continue.
Struck by one of the most serious crises in its
history, the Communist and revolutionary movement is
continuing to undergo great difficulties. But the much-heralded
"death of communism" and the communist parties'
"irreversible decline" has not been borne out in
practice. In all continents there are communists who – under
that name, or under other names – continue to fight for the
ideals of socialism and communism.
There are countries where communists continue
in power. In many others, even if weakened, communist parties are
major national forces playing a key role in working people's and
mass struggles, and with a significant presence in institutions,
including governmental institutions. In other countries,
communist parties with a limited influence continue the struggle
to extend it. In other countries still, courageously facing
repression and even underground, they carry forth the struggle
with determination. There are particularly significant cases of
communist parties rebuilt where they had been destroyed (such as
in Russia) or degenerated into social-democracy (such as in
Italy).
Undoubtedly, great problems and difficulties
remain. The pressure to isolate and divide communists is very
strong and sophisticated. In numerous cases, an intense
ideological and political struggle continues, around the
communist movement's history, the party's class nature, its
programme, its goal of building a socialist society, its
international relations policies. But in several communist
parties signs of recovery (and even strengthening) are already
visible, and there is growing awareness of the need for
internationalist co-operation.
The PCP's international relations policy is
constantly geared toward strengthening internationalist
solidarity ties among communists, progressive and democratic
forces, workers and peoples.
Within its wide range of bilateral and
multilateral relations with other democratic and left-wing
forces, the PCP attaches prime importance to relations with other
communist and revolutionary parties, in Europe and world-wide.
For the PCP, co-operation between communist and revolutionary
parties does not run counter to – in fact it is an essential
component of – a wider co-operation among democratic,
progressive and national liberation forces which oppose big
business' offensive and the imperialist "new order".
It is a fact that world developments currently
determine a wider scope for internationalism. It extends to all
forces fighting exploitation and oppression. It extends not just
to the working class and working people, but to all social and
political forces fighting for freedom, democracy, social
progress, national independence and socialism. Communists cannot
close themselves off or attempt to establish rigid boundaries in
their relations. But internationalism continues to have – as
its deepest and strongest root – its class nature and
ensuing anti-capitalist traits.
Since its foundation by Marx and Engels the
communist and workers' movement has undergone various stages. It
had periods of impetuous advance, of stagnation and retreat, it
achieved major victories in terms of unity and experienced
dramatic conflicts, splits and defeats. It set up highly diverse
structures and types of relations, in accordance with objective
and subjective conditions.
Currently – together with dispersion,
fragmentation and a continuation of a tendency to dilute
relations between communist parties into wider democratic
alliances – several parties are undergoing complex
identity-definition processes, making it even more difficult than
in the past to precisely establish components, define boundaries
and implement stable forms of multilateral and international
relations (which must necessarily be flexible) within the
communist and revolutionary movement.
The PCP will continue to work toward
recovering, renewing and strengthening the international
communist and revolutionary movement. It is convinced that
strengthening the ties of friendship, co-operation and solidarity
between communists and all revolutionaries is a need determined
by basically common interests and goals: liberating the working
class and all working people.
While respecting others' independence and
autonomy, it is of prime importance for the struggle of each and
of all, that information and experiences be exchanged, that
problems be collectively examined, common or convergent action
undertaken and mutual solidarity practised.
The processes of internationalisation and
globalisation of capital, the strengthening of supranational
power mechanisms, the close co-operation between bourgeois
monopoly forces, have all made co-operation among communists and
other revolutionaries necessary and urgent.
3. The Alternative
With the pretence ultimate triumph of
capitalism, realities and contradictions arise revealing its
historical limitations and the fact that it cannot provide
answers to Human beings’ yearnings and to the contemporary
world’s major problems. It is the very requirements of
social development and of safeguarding civilisational
achievements won through the labour and the struggles of many
generations that demand that profound anti-monopolist,
anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist transformations be placed on
the agenda.
New opportunities and possibilities are
emerging for the workers’ and peoples’ liberation
struggle and for the activity of communists and other progressive
and revolutionary forces. This activity is essential to develop
and bring together vast social and political forces for a
progressive alternative.
The dramatic problems affecting today's world
– with increased exploitation, heightened economic, social
and regional injustice and inequality, genocides, peoples
decimated by hunger, military interventions and wars, and the
threat of veritable civilisational retrogressions and of global
ecological catastrophes – constitute an indictment of
capitalism and its inhumane and oppressive nature.
Capitalism has long since become an obstacle
for Humanity's progress. The growing acuteness of its
contradictions and the liberation struggles of the working class,
of the workers and peoples, have long since opened up the
possibility of overcoming it through revolution.
It is a fact that during the 20th century
capitalism maintained its hegemonic power in the economic and
ideological spheres and displayed an unforeseen ability to
develop, adapt and recover. It is also true that in the USSR and
Eastern Europe, in spite of the great progress made, the
construction of a new socialist-based society suffered a dramatic
defeat, making it obvious how difficult and complex the
undertaking was. There was the failure of a "model"
that, in many respects, distanced itself from essential traits
always proclaimed for a socialist society.
But capitalism has not changed its essence:
exploitation, oppression and aggression. It has not done away
with its internal contradictions, which have become even more
acute. It has neither eliminated nor prevented the renewal and
strengthening of those social forces which oppose and fight
against the very essence of capitalism. It has neither
neutralised the deeply-rooted yearning for freedom, democracy and
social justice, nor paralysed the peoples’ resistance and
struggle.
It is a well-known fact that under capitalism
– through human intelligence and creativity and with the
peoples' struggles – major democratic gains and
civilisational advances have been possible, thus opening up new
prospects for Humanity’s struggle.
Events in 20th century history – in
particular nazi-fascism, two destructive world wars, and today's
neo-liberal offensive – have shown that those gains and
advances are constantly threatened by the continuation of big
business' economic and political power. Upholding and
consolidating these gains and advances can only be possible by
moving toward thorough anti-monopoly democratic changes, with a
view to breaking out of the capitalist exploitation system.
Social ownership over the means of production and the
establishment of effective people's power continue to be basic
elements in the communists' revolutionary programme, together
with the irreplaceable role of conscious and organised
participation by the masses of the people.
The immense possibilities of enhancing human
beings' material and spiritual well-being – opened up by the
great achievements in science and technology – stand in
stark contrast with the wholesale worsening of people's living
and working conditions and the plunging of hundreds of millions
into the most dire poverty. More than any other, it is this
outstanding contradiction in today's world that exposes
capitalism's irrational, predatory and inhumane nature. The
capitalist system has become not merely an obstacle to social
progress, but a threat to Humanity as a whole. It is urgent to
overcome it, and to reorganise society on new foundations, with
human requirements and aspirations and creative labour as both
component parts and goals. Socialism or capitalism, that is the
great alternative of our time.
The process of overcoming capitalism through
revolution on a world scale began with the October 1917 Russian
revolution, with other victorious revolutions, and with the first
thrust at building a new society. That was what marked an
historic step forward for the progress of liberation in the 20th
century and will extend into the 21st century.
This process turned out to be rougher, more
complex and lengthier than anticipated. It is impossible to
anticipate the mode and pace of its development. But historical
experience has shown that it is in the masses of the people, in
their organisation and in the strength of their liberation
struggle that lies the real possibility of having a world finally
freed from class exploitation, from social and national
oppression and from the scourges of war and ecological disaster.
The road to revolution is the road of the
masses and their mobilisation for the struggle.
The struggle – in each country – for
the masses’ basic interests, to protect and extend
democracy, for policies of economic development and social
progress, to build alliances that can isolate the most
reactionary and aggressive forces, defend national sovereignty
and fight the imperialist "new order". Each country
lives its own reality, faces its own contradictions and problems,
harbours its own potential for progressive development. There are
not, and there cannot be, universally applicable
"models" or universally valid "platforms".
However, the processes of internationalisation,
co-operation and integration, of international division of
labour, have led to a closer interdependence among peoples. The
dialectic between national and international factors has gained
in importance. External conditions weigh more and more on the
domestic order of States. In their struggle, working people
confront the national power structure and – at the same
time, and increasingly so – supra-national economic and
political power structures.
This reality does not "render
obsolete" the nation's importance as an unavoidable arena of
class struggle, and does not foreclose the possibility of winning
democratic gains and revolutionary changes at the level of each
country. Protection of national sovereignty, coupled with a
struggle for international relations freed from the big powers'
impositions, has even become more important. At the same time,
internationalist solidarity and co-operation, common or
convergent action by communists, progressives, workers and
peoples, have become essential for the struggle of each and every
one, for the world-wide liberation process to move ahead.
Big business' all-out offensive, and the
attempts to impose upon the world a totalitarian-type "new
order", require that communists and all progressive forces
make great efforts to merge the struggles of workers and peoples
into a broad anti-imperialist front.
Considering the diverse political, economic,
and social situations, and therefore the diverse tasks
confronting each people in its struggle against imperialism, at
this time the following are of special importance:
- struggle against monopolies and finance
capital: against liberalisation in the circulation of capital,
against speculation, for the channelling of resources into
productive investment, against privatisations and the imposition
of powerful countries' domination and exploitation over less
developed countries;
- struggle against exploitation, poverty and
underdevelopment, for jobs, for the value of labour and wages,
for labour and social rights, for less working hours with no loss
in pay or benefits, for the protection and enhancement of public
services;
- struggle for political, social, economic and
cultural democracy, against all manifestations of fascist,
racist, xenophobic or obscurantist forces, for the protection of
national sovereignty and independence against attacks from
transnational corporations and imperialism or their economic and
political institutions;
- struggle for peace, against militarism,
against imperialism's aggressive interventions, for the
dissolution of political-military blocs, for the banning of
nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and for
their total eradication, to defend the UN as an organisation
geared toward promoting peaceful co-operation between peoples;
- internationalist solidarity, particularly
with peoples fighting for freedom and self-determination or
suffering foreign aggression;
- struggle to conserve nature, for an
ecologically sustainable development, against environmental
pollution and desertification, for the preservation of natural
resources and ecological balances, for harmonious development of
towns and cities.
Of particular importance is the ideological
struggle. First of all against the "single thought"
ideology which, in preaching the "end of ideologies"
and the "end of history", is an expression of the
interests served by neo-liberal policies, with their reverence
for capital and markets, their fostering of individualism and
unbridled competition; appealing to irrationalism, to
obscurantism, to religious and ethnical fanaticism; inducing
feelings of fatalism, powerlessness and disbelief in the struggle
for progressive and revolutionary change in society.
Also in the democratic and progressive camp
itself, where idealist and reformist conceptions have gained new
breath, in particular: underestimating or even denying the
central role played, in the evolution of societies, by classes
and their struggle, by the ownership of the major means of
production, by the State, by social revolution; with
"democracy" seen as independent from historical
evolution and from society's class structure, with curbs and
economic, social and political discriminations objectively
allowing the forces of capital to remain in power; with a
"humanism" that isolates and uproots the individual
from his/her class condition and social status; with
"solidarity" seen as charity to attenuate the impact of
greater injustice and inequality; with a gradualistic and
evolutionistic strategy that tends to identify the democratic and
social gains possible under capitalism with the very notion of
overcoming capitalism (which in reality implies a revolutionary
break). These conceptions, under very diverse forms and
expressions, emerged within the framework of a search for answers
to problems of social change. They signify – in the same
line as the so-called "strong reformism" that preceded
the Italian Communist Party's degeneration – a rekindling of
reformist conceptions that determined the historic split between
communists and social-democrats in the working class movement.
Explicitly or implicitly, it is a constant goal
of capitalism's ideological offensive to present marxism-leninism
as an outdated, historically dead, world view. But
marxism-leninism has not just explained and inspired the march
toward struggles and gains by the world’s workers and
peoples throughout the 20th century. Enriched with the experience
available and with creative responses to new situations and
phenomena, it continues to be a guide for action and a central
value and element in the ideological battle.
The PCP, while monitoring the new realities of
a fast-changing world, and taking into account the lessons of
experience – both positive and negative, both its own and
others' – views its own renewal as a permanent requirement,
intrinsic to its vanguard role in the liberation struggle of
Portugal's working class and working people.
This implies preserving and critically and
creatively developing dialectical and historical materialism, the
fundamentals of political economy and the theory of scientific
socialism, as the theoretical foundations of its communist
identity. That grand achievement of human thought – with the
prominent historic contributions of Marx, Engels and Lenin –
is of prime importance to analyse and understand today's world
and the ways to change it. The relevance of Marx, which even
non-marxist democratic circles recognise (often seeking to hide
marxism's revolutionary essence and opposing Marx to Lenin)
signifies in effect marxism-leninism's relevance and modernness.
Marxism-leninism is by nature anti-dogmatic, creative and
revolutionary.
It is with this strong conviction – and
confident in the liberating force of working-class, workers’
and peoples’ struggles and internationalist solidarity
– that Portuguese communists pursue, in Portugal, the
struggle for the values and ideals of socialism and communism.
From its 75 years of existence and from the
working class and communist movement's history in this century
that is drawing to a close, the PCP draws confirmation of the
fact that what has been and still is a basic goal of its struggle
is correct and feasible: building a freer, fairer, more fraternal
and humane society in Portugal, a socialist society; building a
world finally freed from exploitation, alienation and imperialist
oppression, a world of peace, friendship and co-operation among
all peoples.