Release PCP International Department

«The world situation and the struggle of the Workers and the Peoples»

The Portuguese Communist Party presented at the 15. º International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, held in Lisbon between the 8th and 10th of November, a Motion that we publish. Until now, 55 communist and workers parties have signed the text submitted by the PCP.

The world situation and the struggle of the Workers and the Peoples

The profound crisis of the capitalist system, and its terrible consequences for the workers and peoples, continue to dominate the international situation.

The crisis, which is the product of the system's contradictions and has confirmed fundamental laws of marxist-leninist political economy, has made clearer the true nature of capitalism: a profoundly exploitative, oppressive and aggressive system. The crisis has confirmed capitalism's historic limits and underlines the urgency of profound anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist changes, as well as the relevance of Socialism as the true alternative to capitalism.

Big finance capital and the governments at their service seek to emerge from the crisis which their own system has created through a brutal offensive to intensify the workers' exploitation and the plunder of other classes and strata, to submit peoples and countries, to loot the planet's wealth.

The masses of the people are suffering brutal falls in their living standards and rights. Poverty, and even hunger, are becoming more widespread and are increasingly affecting the very centers of the capitalist system. There is an ongoing regression of civilizational proportions. In the meantime, the centralization and concentration of capital is reaching unprecedented levels and States are used to hand out subsidies and shoulder the debts of big finance capital, which continues to accumulate profits even in the most acute moments of the crisis. The transformation of private debt into public debt then serves as a pretext to launch further and more brutal attacks against wages and jobs and against the major social achievements in the fields of workers' rights, healthcare, social security and education, that had been won through decades of struggle and with the decisive contribution of the major revolutions of the 20th century.

The crisis is intensifying the struggle for markets, sources of raw materials and spheres of influence and, within a context of class cooperation against the workers and the peoples, is heightening inter-imperialist rivalries and contradictions, stepping up the militarism and wars, aggressions and interventions which have always characterized capitalism's imperialist stage, and which have their most terrorist expression in the policies of the USA.

All these events converge to create an international situation that is fraught with dangers and which, in the context of the predominance of the capitalist system, may lead to new conflicts of major proportions. This is why it is necessary to strengthen the front of anti-imperialist forces. The peoples must never forget that, in the 20th century, capitalism gave rise to two major and tragic world wars.

The global offensive of big finance capital is inevitably accompanied by the strengthening of the system's authoritarian and repressive component. The attack against democratic rights, the strengthening of repressive mechanisms, the proliferation of extra-judicial murders (namely with drones), kidnappings and detentions, the generalization of a universal surveillance, torture, the promotion of fascist and racist movements, as well as of religious fundamentalism and the fiercest anti-Communism, are all expressions of a capitalism in profound crisis, which seeks to respond to its own crisis through brute force and violence.

But if imperialism's offensive is a reality, so too is the struggle and resistance of the workers and the peoples. The Communist and Workers' Parties, gathered in their 15th International Meeting:

Express their solidarity:
with the struggle of the working class and the working people of all continents, in defense of their living standards, against capitalist exploitation, for their social and labour rights;
with the struggle of other social classes and strata that are also the victims of the policies of concentrating wealth in the hands of big capital, namely through supranational structures such as the European Union;
with the struggle of the peoples that are the victims of imperialist wars and aggressions, who fight against NATO and other militarist structures of imperialism, in defense of national independence and sovereignty and for the right to choose their own course of development, free from imperialist interferences.

Pledge to multiply their efforts and struggle to:

- strengthen the working-class movement, the class trade union movement and the mass struggle;

- build broad social alliances that may contribute to the struggle against big capital, against imperialist wars and aggressions, for peace, for the peoples' social and national rights, against capitalism, for Socialism;

- ensure fundamental democratic rights and freedoms, fight against fascism, racism and religious fundamentalism, anticomunism;

- strengthen their own cooperation and joint or convergent action which, together with their rooting in their own countries' reality, are the most solid guarantee for achieving our revolutionary goals.

The Parties:

1. Communist Party of Argentina
2. Communist Party of Australia
3. Communist Party of Belarus
4. Workers Party of Belgium
5. Communist Party of Brazil
6. Brazilian Communist Party
7. Communist Party of Britain
8. Communist Party of Bulgaria
9. Communist Party of Canada
10. Communist Party of Chile
11. Colombian Communist Party
12. Communist Party of Cuba
13. AKEL – Cyprus
14. Communist Party in Denmark
15. Communist Party of Denmark
16. Communist Party of Ecuador
17. Communist Party of Finland
18. French Communist Party
19. German Communist Party
20. Peoples Progressive Party of Guyana
21. Guadalupean Communist Party
22. Hungarian Workers Party
23. Communist Party of India
24. Communist Party of India (Marxist)
25. Tudeh Party of Iran
26. Iraqi Communist Party
27. Communist Party of Ireland
28. Workers Party of Ireland
29. Communist Party of Israel
30. Party of the Italian Communists
31. Lebanese Communist Party
32. Communist Party of Luxembourg
33. Communist Party of Malta
34. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
35. Communist Party of Norway
36. Palestinian Peoples Party
37. Party of the People, Panamá
38. Communist Party of Pakistan
39. Peruan Communist Party
40. Portuguese Communist Party
41. Party of Socialist Alliance, Romenia
42. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
43. Communist Party of the Russian Federation
44. Union of the Communist Parties – CPSU
45. South African Communist Party
46. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
47. Communist Party of Spain
48. Party of the Communists of Cataluna
49. Communist Party of Sri Lanka
50. Sudanese Communist Party
51. Communist Party of Turkey
52. Labour Party (EMEP) Turkey
53. Communist Party of Uruguay
54. Communist Party of Ukraine
55. Communist Party of USA

  • Central
  • International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties
  • Chile
  • Cuba
  • European Union
  • Nato
  • Ukraine
  • War
  • Yugoslavia