Which contradictions are shaking the planet and producing wars? What is the direction for the reconstruction of the revolutionary communist movement and the struggle of the peoples?
Dear comrades,
Firstly, we would like to congratulate this conference with internationalist energy and affirm that we believe the topics presented in this panel are key, burning questions to the international Communist Movement today, which need to be addressed diligently and with significant research. We will present this writing to you comrades with the intention of reinforcing our ideological strength and encouraging struggle and discussion in the international arena.
Around the world, there is a growing trend of war and militarisation amongst the imperialist powers. The divide between rich and poor is growing even wider, with crisis having already closed in substantially on many oppressed countries. Every continent is burning with its own imperialist wars of aggression and tensions. The struggle between a relatively weak Russian imperialism and a fast-decaying Yankee imperialism is sharpening deeper and deeper, and new players are emerging in the arena, such as China. The recent warmongering mess that has exposed itself in Syria has provided us a very clear illustration of the current inter-imperialist conflicts happening today. Let us take a deeper understanding from the situation in Syria. The so-called ‘rebels’ that the bourgeois press talks about, what is referred to as the HTS, will be given a proper name. From here on we will refer to the HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) and other jihadist gangsters, for what they truly are, fascist mercenaries. Firstly, the Syrian state, previously ruled by the Baathist regime, a former key ally of Russian imperialism was also a proxy for several armed movements, also heavily influenced by Russian imperialism. Secondly, Syria was a shelter haven for armed groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas, both agents of Iran, who were both shaped by the economic dominance Iran has had over these organisations. This, amongst others, and the desire of Yankee imperialism to maintain influence in the Middle East, was the primary motivator behind the Israeli-Iranian tensions and airstrike operations that shed the blood of masses and sowed terror in the Middle East.
The clear defeat of Russian imperialism and the victory of Turkish expansionism in the region is a clear indication of the decisive, sharpening contradictions between the decaying Yankee imperialism and the seriously weakened Russian imperialism destroying itself in militarism and war. The economic makeup of the Levant region is mainly composed of comprador governments. Russia's involvement in Syria was largely in the form of arms sales, military assistance, and strategic support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Russian companies, particularly in the energy sector, had contracts to explore and develop Syria's oil and gas resources, but these investments were generally under Syrian state control and in joint ventures with Russia. In this sense, Syria was a comprador government, and now remains so, simply under the “new management”. The resources are being divided by thirsty Turkish expansionists headed by the cowardly butcher Recep Tayip Erdogan. This defeat of Russian imperialism in the region has also impacted the military capabilities and refuge garrisons of organisations involved in the war of national liberation in Palestine, leading to a handicapped Hamas leadership, and the closing in of Israeli-Yankee forces in regions in Lebanon which have been under the control of Hezbollah. This has also led, in a way, to a reversion in strategy, towards a defensive approach for the first time ever since the October 7th Al-Aqsa flood offensive, forging the Doha ‘ceasefire’ deal. Not a single day after a ceasefire deal was announced on January 16th of this year, 71 Palestinian masses had already lost their lives to airstrikes and intimidation attacks in the hands of the Israeli apartheid genocidal regime.
This is not to say that Russian imperialism nor the Ba’athist regime had any positive effect before. To the contrary, it shows how imperialism, regardless of its shape or form, hijacks national liberation movements in ways that prove harmful to such movements while also being substantially deadly. The Syrian state apparatus remained intact after the HTS takeover, and several sections of the army, even those loyal to Asaad, have handed over power to the jihadists and did so willingly, with little resistance. In this sense, Asaad was a traitor to his people, handing them over to the enemy while his best friends, Russia and Iran, almost entirely abandoned him during combat. The Syrian masses are now still stuck in a defensive war against a reactionary offensive of the Turkish-backed jihadist regime in Syria, a war which particularly includes the Christian minority community and the oppressed nationalities such as those of Kurdistan in Rojava.
The situation in Rojava Kurdistan also shows how the inter-imperialist contradictions in imperialist war of aggression negatively impacts revolutionary movements. The Kurdish held Euphrates region has become dependent on American military presence. Now, with the defeat of the Bat’thist regime, and the clear disadvantage of having American units stationed in a Turkish controlled government, a NATO ally, are seemingly planning to retreat the military units in order to allow for the incoming massacre of Turkish fascists and their jihadi friends to wage an onslaught on Kobane. The PYD, is forced onto the negotiation table with the jihadists, to discuss “peaceful solutions”, while the current regime in Syria also condemns the Kurdish people. Once again, they are denied the right to exist, both in practice and in words.
In Ukraine, the onslaught continues to grow with no end in sight. Fascism and militarism are rampant both in Ukraine and Russia, and masses are drafted into an imperialist war; brother against brother, and democracy has, in practice, ceased to exist in these police states. There is also, in a way, a qualitative change inside the imperialist powers. Aside from the obvious presence of the militarised and high-surveillance societies as demonstrated in Russia and China, one can also see a reflection of the American war machinery, with the rise of Trump reflecting a struggle in the imperialist bourgeoisie to centralise the oligarchy. This president has now centralized the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches in his hands, giving more power to the oligarchy, facilitating the further enhancement of the reactionary element in an already reactionary Yankee imperialism.
What is the direction of reconstruction of the revolutionary communist movement and the struggle of the peoples?
Historically, the International Communist Movement (ICM) has been heavily impacted by the Soviet Union’s policies. In 1956, with the offical renouncement of Marxist-Leninist ideology and the deconstruction of Socialism in what was considered the helm of the world proleteriat revolution drove the ICM to division and fragmentation of forces, opportunism and liquidationism. In more recent times, the temporary military deafets of several guerilla movements, at the forefront of the world proletarian revolution has lead to dissaray and further fragmentation in the ICM. Such examples include the 1999 implosion of the Communist Party of Peru’s central commitee and the betreyal of Prachanda in Nepal, and the subsequent military repression on the Turkish communist Kaypakkaya movement. We say that such organisations were at the ‘forefront’ of the world proleteriat revolution for a very good reason. On the one hand, the respective maoist parties broke away with parliamentary cretnism and reformism, and on the other hand, broke away with armed revisionist renegades and unified the Communist leadership and showed capability to launch a war for the conquest of power and for the aim to establish socialism through the will of the masses, integrating the movement and the party. The sharp line struggle in the ICM remains unresolved, and therefore, our reasons for looking into a recent history is a neccessity to understand the present day.
Moreover, aside from the setbacks in the advanced movement, in the proletariat movement in other parts of Europe; especially the oppressed nations, has been plagued by parliamentary centrism and social democracy. In this sense, Europe still has a problem with Social-Democracy, but to consider class consciousness and a proletariat movement’s influence as the same in each country of one continent is a mistake. In the International Communist and Labour movements there is a severe imbalance forged through history, material conditions, and the objective conditions – i.e. , the existence of a proletarian party and the reinforcement of its ideology in a revolutionary manner, one that is forged in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; but most importantly, a revolutionary party that serves the people and follows the dialectical science of Marxism in practice and words.
Obviously, such an objective condition that we previously mentioned is clearly absent in Europe. Many communist parties are still reconstituting or are being constituted in this respect, while some organisations still have to build significant mass bases. Anyhow, the communist movement is in a defensive state and is in no position to assume leadership of spontaneous struggles but needs to grasp the difficulties that capitalism itself creates and use it to their advantage in educating the people, while forging them with communist fervour and character, realising socialist revolution as the way out of the crisis.
The unequal imbalance in the ICM has led to the historical hegemony of Khruschevite revisionism in our islands. The national liberation struggle lead by the Malta Labour Party (MLP) had an eclectic sense of "Socialism". On one hand, the party declared a 'peaceful' means to Socialism, different to the Chinese or the Russian revolution in the sense that socialism will be acquired "step by step, one reform after another, educating the people in the process"... This position was taken up in the post-war period, after the 1958 armed uprising and had been put onto practice only 4 years after the expulsion of NATO, and a 2nd elected consecutive Labour government was announced, pushing the Nationalist gangster alliance into temporary defeat. At the same time, serious contradiction was arising between the incompetent leadership of the Social-democrats and the militant working class. On the one hand, Workers' commitees, democratic organs of political power have been established in the proletarian bases, i.e the dockyards and factories. On the other hand, whenever the MLP took electoral power, the leadership of the Committees suspended the proletariat's struggle for power and constrained them into the beurocratic capitalist system. In their own words,
"For reasons everyone knows, the committees of labour is loosing touch with the militant dockyard workers. in a time when the docks were under capitalist leadership, the workers have demonstrated a very determined militancy. Now it is in the hands of the workers. There is serious apathy amongst the workers. There is a serious danger that the process would have just started and die in the docks".
—L-Għaqda, 28 ta' April, 1978. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the 1958 Uprising.
With the legacy of our revolutionary leader Manwel Dimech, leader of the Malta Socialist Union, Henry Ahrar, and many others who were immortalised as a war cry in the 1919 revolution and the exemplary etiquette of the fighters of 1958: we still have a legacy to look back to in fighting against the historical revisionism and renegades which have plunged the democratic and revolutionary movement into an abyss of revisionism and betrayal. The struggle in Malta today must be aimed to rebuild communist cells in the heart of the working class, but must ultimately lie in the hands of the students to first raise the banner and acknowledgement of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. We have no competition, because all the others have fell to the ideological decay, so much so that both the student movement and leftist grouplets renounced the mentioning of Communism and Marxism entirely.
In a way, however, as Mao Zedong states, to look at reality only in one singular way is to be one-sided, to be unscientific, to be “half-baked”. In this sense, we must also appreciate the positive developments we are seeing today.
‘... the proletariat of the capitalist countries is steadily freeing itself from the social-imperialist influence of the social-democratic parties and has proclaimed its support for the liberation movement in the colonies and semi-colonies.’
—Note in Peking Review, #36, Sept. 6, 1968, p. 12.
There is a growing tendency for the working class in Europe to reject the social-democratic farce, and is growing more and more disillusioned with it, which is a very positive development. On top of that, we must also note that there is a growing solidarity student movement. We believe that presently, the construction of a communist movement has to stem from the student movement in places where no such Communist party exists. To strengthen and develop the Palestinian solidarity movement in Europe and the world is to strengthen anti-imperialist struggle, to gather the peoples towards revolutionary consciousness. This is in a way a similarity to the Vietnam war, and the conditions for organising is favourable.
There are also strong sharpening contradictions between oppressor and oppressed nations. In Europe, the existence of such contradictions makes the situation very ripe for organising. In the Mediterranean, the oppressed nations of Corsica, Sardinia, Catalonia, and Cyprus are key burning situations that can be of good use for the organisation of a revolutionary movement.
We are seeing a growing revolutionary movement in the oppressed nations, particularly with the Indian people’s war; the strengthening of the student movement and Palestine marches, the land struggle of the League of Poor Peasants in Brazil, and Europe, and the creation of the Anti-Imperialist League, which has created a platform for all genuine progressives and revolutionaries to exchange ideas. The Anti-Imperialist league, a product of such struggle, also acknowledge the importance of the student movement and has developed clauses for student organisations. In this respect we salute the Anti-Imperialist League for giving leadership and direction to the anti-imperialist sentiments of the peoples and unifying it under a correct ideological direction – away from the fragmentation of revisionist ideologies.
To understand that Socialism is birthed by capitalism itself and that the system creates the revolution with its own contradictions also clears the air on expecting singular heroic peoples to take the lead and change the situation. Revolution can only be made by the people, and the system itself tells us when the revolution begins. The task of Communists is to unify under Maoism and under the correct direction, that can only be found in practice and spontaneity of the class struggle. This would then allow for the ability for them to take leadership when the time calls for it, while simultaneously strengthening itself in practice.
Communist Leader Ibrahim Kaypakkaya states:
"Replacing "revolutionary situation" with "revolutionary movement" in my opinion leads us into a serious error in present conditions. What is the "revolutionary situation"? 1) the ruling classes becoming unable to govern as in the past; 2) the popular masses no longer being able to live as they had in the past and seeing change as imperative; 3) A massive upsurge in independent actions of the masses.
- Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, Selected works, page 58.
Therefore, we cannot declare a revolutionary movement if the situation is not revolutionary, however, we can clarify the revolutionary character of the party if the party acts in accordance with serving the people despite everything. If the party follows Maoism, the mass line, and leads the people towards Socialism, then it is a revolutionary party. If we understand the situation, we can understand our priorities. Most importantly, Communists must be an example. Even if the situation is not revolutionary, a communist must be firm and shaped by revolutionary ideology and be the spark that lights a wildfire. In truth, we have no excuse. We are condemned to win.
We wish to end this conference letter with a big thank you to all of the comrades present, and to the hosts and organisers of this conference, without whom this would not be possible, and a salutations to the Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) / KKE-ML for developing such an event, and of course to our Turkish comrades PARTIZAN for developing our conviction towards serving the people and opposing injustice, wherever it may be.
We, students from Malta, look forward to seeing a stronger Anti-War movement in the Mediterranean and the whole of the world.
Long live the Anti-Imperialist League!
Long live the struggle of the Greek people against imperialism.
Spread forward the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in the Mediterranean!
Long live international solidarity!
