We meet again at a time of sharpening contradictions and the primary
contradiction in the world today is between United States imperialism
and the rest of the world it seeks to dominate. The Bush administration
represents the most reactionary and aggressive sections of the American
ruling class bent on world domination. Supported by the most venal and
craven sections of the British ruling class they have invaded and
occupied part of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq and their guns
threaten Democratic Korea, Cuba, Syria, Iran, Venezuela and anyone else
who dares to stand in their way.

Bush and the most aggressive circles within the American ruling class
want to carve-up the Middle East as part of their plan to rule the
world. The invasion of Iraq was just the first step in a plan to hand
over all its oil to the big oil corporations and all its territory to
the American military for use as a strategic base to threaten the other
countries in the
region that stand in imperialism’s way.

They call it “globalisation” or the “New World order”. They call their
colonial wars “the fight against terrorism”. They say they want peace.
But Ireland, Korea, Cyprus and Kashmir remain partitioned. The
Palestinian Arabs remain under Zionist occupation and imperialist
forces straddle the world with their arsenals and fleets.
 
Globalization, the internationalism of the division of labour, has
continued apace since the turn of the millennia, it is a product of
science, technology and the development of the productive forces and
should be at the service of humanity with the right of every human
being to develop and practice their talent, skills and knowledge.
However globalisation is currently used at the behest of the
capitalists so much so that the global capitalist system presides over
a festering morass of exploitation of workers and the environment,
racial and communal strife, and rapid growth in crime, drug
trafficking, violence and conflict from local to international levels
as well as dread diseases like HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.

 The potential for major military conflicts is now greater than at any time since the 1930s.
Anglo-American imperialism is resorting to war and the threat of war,
in its quest to dominate the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Americas,
Africa and Asia. But wherever
there is oppression there is always  resistance.

The Iraqi people have defied the might of imperialism for over a decade
and the heroic Iraqi resistance has moved from defence to attack
effectively destroying Anglo-American imperialism’s dream of colonising
Iraq and establishing an imperialist “Greater Middle East”. The
Palestinians continue to defy the Zionist state and its imperialist
masters. Throughout Latin America democratic forces have come to power
with mass support. The Nepalese people have ended the autocracy of a
hated monarch and the Lebanese resistance inflicted a heavy political
and military defeat on the Israelis last summer.

Since the crises of 1997 in south east Asia and Russia, the capitalist
world has suffered many “after shocks” which continue to plague the
most vulnerable capitalist countries. The most powerful economies have
managed to weather the storm by using their huge reserves, both in
terms of organisation, administration and capital. Back in 1999 it was
evident that the only way the bourgeois world was to avoid a global
capitalist recession was to sustain economic growth at its then current
average rate. Until late 2001 that average economic growth was
sustained, but now growth has plummeted for the most vulnerable to
little above zero. Turkey is in severe crisis and many countries like
France,
Germany and Italy are extremely vulnerable to the worsening conditions
and are hamstrung by their membership of the European Union. All
through this period the larger capitalist economies have placed
excessive reliance on the United States as their main growth engine. If
that growth engine unravels through high oil prices or the collapse of
the dollar brought about by the withdrawal of foreign monies invested
in the US the future for the US, Britain, the Euro-zone and Japan will
be difficult.

One of the most notable signs of the potential for chaos and disorder
can be seen in the challenge that exists to capitalist state power by
the monopoly capitalists themselves. This is another example of the
contradictions in monopoly capitalism; the state and the big economic
monopolies are essential to each other yet they also challenge each
other. The harnessing of these monopolies to a new system of discipline
is a chief pre-occupation of capitalist states whilst the monopolies
seek to limit the powers of the state.
The most powerful monopoly capitalists, represented by the leaders of
the developed countries, have striven through the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) to tighten their grip on the economies of all
countries, in particular those of the developing world.

The view of the developed nations is that the raison d'être of the WTO
is to remove any restrictions imposed by host countries, to ensure that
member countries deregulate their markets in trade and services, drop
any restrictions on incoming international capital and remove export
subsidies and import tariffs that protect home grown industries and
agriculture, in other words give maximum freedom to the monopoly
capitalists.

The EU proposed in December 2005, at the Doha trade talks, that
developing countries should agree to open their manufacturing and
service sectors if the EU reduces its agricultural tariffs. The EU
strategy is about domination of the developing world. Most of the
developing countries would be in no position to bargain or compete with
the imperialists. The strategy is based on the assumption that poor
countries should satisfy themselves with being agricultural suppliers
to rich nations and should forgo attempts to promote their own
manufacturing and service sector industries. In the Doha trade talks
the WTO is becoming the focus of the struggle, by the developing
against the developed nations, for more equitable rules and practices
in world trade that are seen as being weighted very heavily in favour
of the monopoly capitalists.

We should support the G4 bloc, consisting of China, India, Brazil, and
South Africa, within the World Trade Organization who are opposing the
monopoly capitalist agenda. We should also support the efforts of the
regional and world Social Forums, while
far from taking a communist perspective, have done much good work in organising opposition to monopoly capitalism.

Peace remains the central issue. In Britain the labour and peace
movement must maintain the fight to bring about the immediate and
unconditional withdrawal of all British troops from Iraq. At the same
time it must mobilise to stop Blair or whoever takes his place from
spending more billions on the needless and useless replacement of the
Trident nuclear weapons system.

Since 2003 an anti-war movement of unprecedented scale has swept the
world, not least in the United States and Britain. Mass demonstrations
reflect the mass opposition to the imperialists, war inside the labour
movement and amongst the people as a whole challenging the
neo-colonialist conspiracies of the ruling circles in Britain and the
United States. The NCP fully supports the Stop the War Campaign and all
the other campaigns fighting for the immediate and unconditional
withdrawal of British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anglo-American imperialism poses the greatest danger to world peace.
The National Missile Defence (NMD) system has triggered off another
global arms race. The tearing up of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty
has undermined every other international agreement on nuclear weapons.
Even so, the imperialists are trying to use part of the
non-proliferation agreement as an instrument to bully and threaten any
country attempting to develop an independent nuclear industry. But
given the fact that the non-proliferation treaty has still to be
implemented by the imperialist camp, every sovereign state has the
legitimate right to develop its nuclear industry like the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Five permanent members of the UN Security Council all possess
nuclear weapons along with India and Pakistan. The United States has an
immense arsenal, as does Britain. France also possesses substantial
nuclear weapons and so does Russia, which inherited the systems of the
former Soviet Union.

The fifth permanent member of the Security Council, and the only
socialist state with a major nuclear arsenal, People’s China, has long
supported proposals for multilateral and universal nuclear disarmament
and this call has now been taken up by the Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea, the latest country to join the nuclear club.

Communists must defend the right of socialist countries to retain their
nuclear arsenals as long as the imperialists retain theirs while
calling for the complete prohibition and total destruction of all
nuclear weapons. These long-standing demands for multi-lateral 
nuclear disarmament must be projected by the world communist movement
throughout the world.

 The entire Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, must be
implemented  and not just the parts that suit the imperialist
interest.  It was signed in 1968 to halt nuclear
proliferation  but it also committed the signatories to work
towards universal nuclear disarmament.

At present the United States is in violation of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty by its commitment to its Star Wars strategy and its efforts to
develop tactical battlefield nuclear
weapons.

We support the demand for all nuclear powers to pledge not to be the
first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstance and
to commit themselves unconditionally not to use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states or nuclear weapons
free zones, and to conclude, at an early date, international legal
agreements to such effect.

All states with nuclear weapons deployed outside their frontiers must
withdraw these weapons to their home territory. All nuclear powers
should pledge their support for the establishment of
nuclear-weapon-free zones, respect their status as such and undertake
corresponding obligations. The development and deployment of space
weapons systems or missile defence systems should be outlawed  and
there should be  an international convention on the complete
prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons, concluded
through negotiations with the participation of all countries.

People’s China has long supported these demands and it is significant
to note that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the second
socialist country to possess nuclear weapons, has accepted all these
points.

Anglo-American imperialism stands totally isolated in the world even
amongst the international institutions it once relied on to do its
bidding and give them some international authority for their actions.
The United Nations has been marginalised. US imperialism only pays lip
service to UN institutions when it suits its purposes.
 
When the Americans can use it to rubber-stamp their plans, the world
organisation is supported. When it is no longer of any further use to
them, like now, it is ignored and discarded.

In the past British and American imperialism upheld the principle of
the veto on the UN Security Council – a right the United States has
exercised 73 times, mainly to protect Israel. But it was ignored when
it appeared that France, Russia or People’s China were prepared to use
the veto to block the invasion of Iraq in 2003. We therefore 
support the call for democratic reform of the UN Security Council to
ensure that it is representative of the vast majority of member states
of the world forum. At the same time communists across the globe must
mobilise to build a world anti-imperialist front in solidarity with all
those fighting for freedom and defending their independence against
imperialism.

The communist movement is based upon the revolutionary principles of
Marxism- Leninism. Its purpose is to equip the working class so that it
can establish working class state power and then build a socialist
society. Bourgeois democracy is a fraud. It is democracy for the
exploiters and dictatorship in all but a formal sense for the
exploited. Bourgeois elections, when they are held, are used so that
the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of
votes. 

Socialism is essential to eliminate exploitation, unemployment, poverty, economic crisis
and war. Socialism is the only solution to climate change, pollution
and global warming. Let us work together to build the movement that
will ensure that this century becomes the era of socialism.

Andy Brooks
General Secretary