1. The international situacion

1.0. Introduction

1.0.1. The 17th PCP Congress is held at a time of fierce all-out imperialist offensive. At the same time, major struggles and realignments of forces are underway. Instability and uncertainty dominate international relations. We are living through a time of great retreats and danger of historic regression, but also of strong resistance and revolutionary potential.

1.0.2. The past four years have borne out the basic analysis and predictions of the 16th PCP Congress. Capitalist globalisation's tragic consequences are there for all to see. The world has become more unfair, less democratic, more dangerous and unsafe. There is heightened exploitation, militarism and wars, an all-out attack against basic rights, freedoms and safeguards, an attempt to criminalize resistance to aggression. Meanwhile, the struggle and resistance of progressive forces, workers and peoples is asserting itself and becoming more diverse. The class struggle of the working class and working people is intensifying. Peoples are confronting imperialist aggression with greater determination. In spite of its socially and politically heterogeneous nature, the "anti-globalisation movement" against neo-liberalism and war is objectively anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist.

1.0.3. The times in which we are living and fighting are difficult times, times of resistance and of gathering strength. But also times when - and experience is proving it - heroic stands of resistance and sovereignty are also possible, as are unexpected surges of social progress. Imperialism - and in particular the USA, its hegemonic power - does not have its hands completely free to implement its policies.

1.0.4. It is possible to resist, to counter, and ultimately to defeat imperialism's intention of establishing a planet-wide big-business dictatorship, a new totalitarian world order geared against workers and peoples.

1.0.5. By strengthening communist and revolutionary parties in each country and strengthening their internationalist co-operation, by assembling an increasingly broad front of anti-imperialist struggle, by coordinating actions among democratic, progressive and national-liberation forces, it is possible to defeat the dominant ideology, to restore the masses' confidence in their struggle and in the possibility of victory, to achieve deep progressive and revolutionary change and - taking the lessons of experience into account - to bring about a resurgence of socialism as a feasible and necessary alternative to capitalism.

1.1. Capitalism and its crisis

1.1.1. Imperialism's fierce offensive of exploitation and aggression has been the international situation's most prominent and persistent feature in recent years. This offensive - which has undergone new and dangerous developments since September 11th - has its roots in the capitalist system's very nature and contradictions. It is big business's most reactionary circles' response to the crisis that the capitalist system is undergoing.

1.1.2. Events have essentially borne out the correctness of the 16th Congress's analyses and conclusions with respect to the major features, tendencies and contradictions of the current stage in capitalism's economic development. They have also confirmed that the USA are the main risk factor for the world economy. Against a backdrop of great uncertainty they have - to different extents - dragged down with them the other pillars of the "triad" (USA, European Union, Japan) as well as the rest of the world economy.

1.1.3. Capitalism continues to have huge resources at its disposal, as well as sophisticated means of world-wide and regional crisis-management coordination and market expansion. But the world economy's situation is increasingly unstable, and capitalism's imbalances and contradictions continue to grow.

1.1.4. The most developed capitalist economies' tertiarization and gradual de-industrialization has intensified. Labour-intensive activities are increasingly de-localized to the capitalist periphery. Income differentials and poverty are on the rise. Millions of human beings are kept far from satisfying their basic needs, and pushed into emigration under inhumane conditions.

1.1.5. The 2001-2003 economic crisis was one more episode in capitalism's latent crisis of overproduction and in its deeper structural crisis. Contrary to its apologists' expectations, the "new economy" was not a turning point into a new growth cycle. It is a significant fact that the bursting of the financial bubble was most severe in companies involved with new information and communications technologies. But it did confirm that the growth rates in world production have slowed down - even more visibly so if viewed in terms of GDP per capita - mainly in the most developed capitalist countries. In 2001, the world economy's growth rate dropped by one half, and world trade shrank for the first time.

1.1.6. In the economic and social spheres, the imperialist offensive is marked by capitalism's stepped-up neo-liberal response to the crisis, based on the goals set out in the "Washington consensus" and the "Lisbon strategy": further liberalizing capital circulation, and transferring surplus-value to the financial and speculative sphere; stepping up the intensification and exploitation of labour; applying pressure to reduce labour remuneration and to guarantee higher productivity for big capital. It is an offensive characterized by: attacks against the public sector and social security systems, for the benefit of big private interests; reaping benefits from the expansion into new markets, as exemplified by the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and Eastern European countries, and by the enlargement of the EU; liberalizing trade and investment world-wide, launching the new World Trade Organization (WTO) trade negotiation round in Doha, in spite of inter-imperialist rivalries and of capitalism's centre-periphery contradictions. It is an offensive that has intensified the process of mercantilization in all aspects of social life: from the product of labour, to the worker, to knowledge, to life itself.

1.1.7. There is a widening contradiction between the developed capitalist countries - where the consumption of goods, raw materials and energy is increasingly concentrated (particularly in the USA, who consume 30% of the planet's energy) - and other countries facing energy needs for their development, in particular China, the newly-industrialized Southeast Asian countries, and the countries of Eastern Europe. The USA stand out particularly prominently in this contradiction, accounting for 40% of world pollution, and championing a predatory and environment-wrecking production model.

1.1.8. There has been an even greater degree of financialization of capital, and a bloating of the financial sphere with respect to the productive sphere. The most developed countries' financial assets stand at about 300% of each country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Stock market capitalization exceeds the GDP in countries such as the USA and Great Britain. The difficulty in obtaining satisfactory rates of profit from the productive sphere - thus confirming the law of tendential decline in profit rates - contributes to finance capital's domination and expansion, with a direct negative impact on economic development and employment. The high volume of financial flows - particularly short-term ones - plays a crucial role in the international financial markets' growing volatility and instability. While inter-capital competition is becoming more acute - to the big powers' benefit - high levels of financialization in the economy and of global interdependence with the so-called "globalization" have heightened the system's instability and facilitated the emergence of financial crises, which have accounted for an overall loss of 15% of world product since 1975.

1.1.9. The number of fraudulent mega-bankruptcies is growing. Major world-ranking financial scandals (Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat, among many others) have had deep social and economic repercussions (unemployment, social security, etc) in the countries affected, thus highlighting the risk of worsening two of contemporary capitalism's features: the dominance of capital financialization and speculation, and the growing share of criminal processes in economic activity. Arms-, drugs- and people-trafficking are on the rise, as is the ensuing laundering of capital. The mafia-type practices and the corruption that plague capitalist power structures have become "normal", part and parcel of the system's operation. The parallel economy is constantly growing.

1.1.10. The process of concentration and centralization of capital continues to intensify, as does its increasingly "regional" and "transcontinental" character. Insofar as inter-capitalist competition grows, it strengthens the tendency toward the formation of monopolies and oligopolies in practically all areas of economic activity. Mergers and acquisitions today account for over 12% of world GDP.

1.1.11. In another development, national ("flag-bearing") capital is becoming more strongly centralized, particularly in the USA, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Netherlands. National capital's role in weaker economies is becoming more subordinate, and it tends toward gradual elimination. In this context, the TNCs' [TNCs=Transnational Corporations] share is also growing. They control 2/3 of world trade and currently have more economic clout than some states.

1.1.12. The main mission of capitalism's States and international organizations is to favour big economic groups - dismantling borders, instituting free flow of capital, liquidating or subjugating national production, forcing markets to open up to their plunder - by war if necessary.

1.1.13. The processes of regional political and economic cooperation and growing integration - arising from the productive forces' development and from the international division of labour - are also a consequence of growing economic war between the blocs. These processes play contradictory roles. They may hinder the advent of big powers' world hegemony - such as the South American Common Market (Mercosur) with respect to the USA - or facilitate it - as in the case of the European Union, which stands out as the most advanced example in the establishment of an imperialist economic, political and military bloc. There is also a proliferation of world-level capitalist coordination and regulation bodies, based on organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as "informal" fora such as the "G-8" or the Davos Forum.

1.1.14. Uncertainty continues to haunt world economic prospects. The promised recovery failed to materialize in 2002. Economic predictions indicate that a recovery may have begun in the 2nd half of 2003 and be currently underway, particularly in the USA and the emerging Asian countries. But these predictions continue to be prudent, and highlight instability factors arising mostly from the US economy's major structural imbalances - due to its large public and balance of payments deficits, which already stand at over 5% of GDP. The dollar's devaluation, while strengthening the Euro's position, also strongly conditions several EU countries' economic recovery.

1.1.15. The US debt, amounting to one quarter of its GDP, raises the issue of the sustainability of its deficits and its private consumption levels, and threatens to cause a sudden world-scale readjustment of financial flows. The effects of its expansionist monetary policies based on military spending and on low interest rates will begin to dissipate. So too in Japan, where deflationary effects still persist following a decade of deep recession. High levels of unemployment and poverty persist, limiting private consumption.

1.1.16. Within a context of oscillations, the steep rise in oil prices - due to speculative activities, the Iraq war and the rising world demand - has contributed to ease deflationary pressures, but has also conditioned the economic recovery and constitutes an added risk factor. This rise is a structural one. It stems from the growth in world demand. But it is also due to the fact that production of this finite resource is about to peak out (or has already done so). In this context, the management of control over oil and natural gas resources is a serious issue, that calls into question the capitalist economies' energy "model", and tends to increasingly become a central issue of dispute between imperialist powers. This came to the fore in the aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan, in the military interference in the Middle East and the Caucasus, with a view to enforcing control over natural gas, oil and the main oil pipeline routes. But the difficulties the US is encountering in imposing control over Iraq, together with the instability and unpredictability that have been generated throughout the region, have become yet another weighty factor driving up oil prices and financial market volatility.

1.1.17. The overall picture of capitalist restoration in Eastern European and former USSR countries - characterized by diverse situations and paces - is one of subordination to big business interests and strategies, and to increasing capitalist exploitation. It is inseparable from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) expansion movement and from EU enlargement. These processes on the one hand express the USA's and the big powers' growing hegemonic ambitions, but they also reflect inter-imperialist competition. Of particular significance in this context is the fact that NATO's military machine has been pushed to Russia's borders (both European and Asian) thus objectively stepping up the pressures and threats against the Russian Federation, and converting the military alliance's new members into "front-lines" in the continent's new geo-political map.

1.1.18. In the economic and social spheres - following the great recession caused by the dismantlement of socialism and the ensuing destruction of national productive structures - the unequal economic indicator growth of recent years in virtually all those countries bears witness to the extremely high costs and dire consequences of the so-called "capitalist transition". Prominent among these are an explosion of poverty and inequality, destroyed social security systems, the emergence of mass unemployment and emigration, the enactment of new and more backward labour laws, the criminalization of the economy - including large-scale trafficking of human beings. These have all become structural elements in the new economic model, based on privatisations and on submission to foreign capital.

1.1.19. In the political sphere - within a very fluid context in terms of line-up of political forces - there are proliferating signs of security-obsessive and repressive tendencies, of curbs on freedoms and safeguards. There are also emerging expressions of nationalism, xenophobia, social apartheid - such as the extreme discrimination against Slavic communities, who are denied civic rights in Latvia and Estonia. In some countries there are constitutional anti-communist curbs, and even laws banning communist parties (as in the Baltic states), while representatives of 2nd World War nazi-fascist collaborationism are publicly rehabilitated.

1.1.20. Capitalism's parasitic and inhumane nature shows through, not only in its inability to solve Humankind's problems, but also in the obvious tendency to exacerbate them.

1.1.21. In terms of wealth distribution, there is a widening gap between a huge mass of human beings and a multi-millionaire elite. While: 1,100 million people live on less than one dollar a day, the number of those living below the poverty line has grown in most developing countries, millions of workers are plunged into unemployment (in the OECD alone, real figures are in excess of 50 million); at the same time: the combined wealth of the world's 50 biggest millionaires is equivalent to the combined GDP of all sub-Saharan African countries, where 688 million people eke out a living.

1.1.22. In a spectrum of very diverse social spheres, the consequences of wealth polarization are extremely dramatic. There are cases of obvious civilizational retrogression. As concerns food, the United Nations Organization (UN) itself now admits that world hunger-reduction policies are at a standstill, following a turn-around in the 1990s. Current UN figures put the number of hunger deaths at 36 million per year, meaning that almost 70 people are killed by hunger every minute.

1.1.23. In the health sphere - while veritable crimes have surfaced involving the pharmaceutical business and patents - diseases that had been nearly eradicated in the recent past (such as tuberculosis) have re-emerged. Over 30 thousand children die every day from avoidable causes, mostly in developing countries.

1.1.24. In various parts of the globe, life expectancy has dropped - most prominently so in sub-Saharan Africa and in the territories of the former Soviet Union. The AIDS virus is proliferating and has infected over 60 million people world-wide, 95% of them in developing countries.

1.1.25. Corruption and organized crime - part and parcel of the capitalist system - constitute additional factors of exclusion and human debasement. Particularly shocking realities are the use of children in the criminal businesses of sexual exploitation and child labour. Over 10% of all the world's children between the ages of 10 and 14 are exploited as child labour and some 2 million children are exploited and raped every year by the "sex industry".

1.1.26. Environmental issues have become very acute. Phenomena such as ozone layer depletion and climate change, loss of bio-diversity and extinction of species, tropical deforestation and destruction of wetlands, soil erosion and desertification, sea and estuary pollution - all add up to a serious deterioration of ecological conditions for human existence and of living conditions on Earth.

1.1.27. All of the above are consequences of growth strategies dictated by TNCs - operating in the quick-and-easy-profit mode that characterizes them - and by mercantile motives and the consumerist culture that nourishes them.

1.1.28. A particularly serious issue is the mercantilization of - and growing attempts to impose private ownership over - things that are basic and essential for human existence, such as water, food production, patenting of genetic and computer codes (software), large-scale or insufficiently-risk-assessed production of genetically-modified (GM) organisms - not forgetting the crimes involving the pharmaceutical business, an issue that is acquiring a very serious international dimension.

1.1.29. The class appropriation and utilization of scientific and technological achievements - not as a factor of liberation, but as a tool for exploitation, oppression and war - not only generates unbearable injustice and inequalities, it also implies a wastage-driven and destruction-driven mode of operation that threatens human life itself.

1.1.30. The rising role of speculative finance capital (vis-à-vis productive capital) and of the "criminal economy" associated with it - as well as the role of the military-industrial complex in the operation of capitalism and in the arms race, the permanent war and the nuclear blackmail it entails - all show well how irrational and dangerous the system actually is.

1.1.31. All of the above highlight capitalism's fundamental contradiction between the social nature of production and the private appropriation of produce. It is historically necessary to match the productive forces' impetuous development with new - socialist - relations of production, capable of releasing all the liberating potential of human labour and of human thought's extraordinary achievements, gearing them to serve Humankind and eradicate the spectres of poverty, war and threats of planetary destruction once and for all.

1.1.32. A Marxist-Leninist approach to the issue of political power is crucially important in analysing contemporary capitalism. The State's essentially coercive nature and class character, its multi-national and trans-national extensions, the subordination (and increasingly, the merger) of political powers to economic powers, the growing role of capitalism's State and supra-national economic structures in the capital reproduction system and in the process of capital and wealth centralization and concentration - are all issues requiring careful study, since seizing power and changing the power structures' class character continue to be core issues for the liberation struggle.

1.1.33. Contrary to what neo-liberalism's ideologues preach, power is not being shared out, rather it is being concentrated. The State is not being diluted into so-called "civil society", rather it is reinforcing its imperialist class dimension; "areas" of freedom and participation are not widening, rather they are narrowing, under ever stronger blows from "security" measures and mounting attacks on fundamental freedoms, rights and safeguards. National sovereignty is retreating in the face of TNCs' demands for power. Peripheral countries' governments are being turned into mere tools of imperialist "good governance".

1.1.34. There are growing attacks against democracy, even in its formal political dimension. There is an obvious crisis in the liberal-bourgeois representation system, subjugated as it is by economic powers, and discredited by the system of right-wing/social-democracy alternation.

1.1.35. Historic rights and gains are being systematically called into question. Historical revisionism, egged on by the defeats in socialist construction, is busily whitewashing capitalism's most monstrous crimes, and insists on attempting to criminalize communism and communists. The mass media and other ideological manipulation tools controlled by the big bourgeoisie are fostering the most reactionary values and converting violence and capitalism's most perverse facets into commonplace things: from extreme poverty to the use of nuclear weapons, from violation of peoples' sovereignty to torture, from arbitrary and illegal detention to the permanent use of war, from the "clash of civilizations" to the CIA's subversion and interference activities - a veritable retrogression in the cultural sphere, fostering obscurantism, ignorance, anti-science and mysticism, greed, racial and cultural intolerance, the debasement of values and of human beings. There is a growing threat from populism, racism and the extreme right.

1.1.36. Authoritarian, repressive and fascist-leaning trends are undergoing swift growth processes, clearly apparent in the behaviour of governments such as those of the USA and Israel and in the mountain of illegal, criminal and terrorist practices against peoples such as the Palestinians and the Iraqis. The attempt to set up a new US-hegemonized totalitarian order geared against workers and peoples, bears within it the greatest dangers for all Humankind.

1.2. Imperialism's offensive

1.2.1. The global offensive by imperialism - particularly US imperialism - for world hegemony was repeatedly predicted, with appropriate justifications, by the PCP at all its post-1991 Party Congresses. This offensive's immediate cause lies in the radically changed balance of forces that came about as a result of the USSR's dismemberment, socialism's defeats in Eastern Europe, and the worldwide weakening of the forces of social-progress.

1.2.2. On a deeper level, imperialism's global offensive is the result of how the capitalist system operates internally. Its exploitative and aggressive nature is unchanged in its fundamental traits. The offensive is determined by capital's reproduction requirements and by the quest for maximum profits; by the need to intensify the exploitation of workers - both in peripheral countries and in imperialist power centres - so as to satisfy the requirements of capital accumulation and counter the tendential drop in profit rates, reducing the cost of labour-force and weakening working people's bargaining ability; by the need to extend its dominance to new markets, abolishing restrictions on the circulation of finance capital and on TNC plunder; by the need to control new sources of cheap raw materials - particularly energy-producing ones, control over which is decisive [if capital is] to impose its hegemony; by the desire to crush autonomous forms of production and consumption - those not encompassed within the circuits controlled by the imperialist centre's big companies - be they family-owned, public, or even capitalist.

1.2.3. It is against this backdrop that we are witnessing fierce offensives to destroy workers' historic gains and rights, to impose social regressions and increased injustice and inequalities; to privatise social services and public sector companies - placing under private capitalist domination whole sectors and functions which are crucial for more justice in social development: health, education, social security, transport and communications, housing, water and electricity.

1.2.4. Divesting the State of its social functions - achieved by workers' movement struggles, particularly in the favourable post-World-War-II balance of forces - is a major feature of the current international situation. Capitalism feels freer to operate without any hindrances or concessions, and to bring to the fore the State's traditional repressive functions as a tool of class domination.

1.2.5. Particularly serious expressions of this imperialist offensive are: militarism, warmongering and systematically flouting international law; the alarming generalisation of attacks against freedoms, rights and safeguards, criminalizing resistance against oppression and even attempting to equate it with terrorism; tightening - in almost all countries - repressive laws and mechanisms (Patriot Act in the USA), with arbitrary detentions without any respect for international conventions, as well as the systematic use of torture; the relentless use of supra-national structures such as the IMF, WB, WTO, OECD, to impose pro-big-business policies; the return to classical forms of colonial domination, such as "protectorates" (Bosnia, Kosovo), or direct military occupation (Afghanistan, Iraq); the attempt to subvert and destroy the UN and its system of international agencies, whose original role as guarantors of peace and promoters of development they hope to replace with the role of "legitimators" and "buffers" for imperialist aggression; reinforcing NATO and other imperialist alliances (such as the US-Japan Treaty) adopting new and openly offensive and "preventive" strategic concepts, while at the same time developing re-militarization processes in Germany and Japan and the militarization of the EU, as well as making wider use of military intervention to control and influence sovereign nations (DR Congo, Ivory Coast, Sudan, etc).

1.2.6. What is underway is a forceful imperialist response to the contemporary world's dramatic and explosive contradictions. And with it, is an attempt to dismantle the (essentially peaceful and democratic) legal and institutional order that emerged with the defeat of Nazi-fascism, replacing it a new totalitarian world order geared against workers and peoples, under US hegemony, serving big business and imperialism. This attempt has exacerbated and aggravated all contradictions, injustices and inequalities, even within the imperialist camp itself.

1.2.7. Inter-imperialist coordination and rivalry are two inseparable facets of the capitalist system, which must be carefully monitored, assessing them at each moment to determine which is prevalent, and what specific line-up of forces exists. There are many acute conflicts of interest, from oil to communications systems, from arms production and trade to the Echelon espionage system. The dispute continues, for economic, political and military control over vast areas such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and many others.

1.2.8. The current short-term situation is tending toward compromise in the name of big capital's overriding class interests, and toward a systematic retreat by the "triad's" other big powers when confronted with the USA's hegemonic intentions. This is what has been happening - particularly within the NATO framework - with the EU's shameful stances on Cuba or Palestine, and also with the alarming content of UN Security Council resolution 1546 on Iraq. However - as the way the USA started war on Iraq and the process of EU militarization reveal - these compromises coexist with a struggle for spheres of influence and domination, which tends to be exacerbated by US imperialism's arrogance.

1.2.9. The four years that have elapsed since the 16th Congress have been marked by mounting rivalries between imperialism's various pillars. These rivalries have objective foundations, involving different levels of economic, political, and military power among the various pillars and their uneven rates of development. Developments that broke pre-existing balances and generated new balances of forces have in the past been, more than once, resolved through major military confrontations.

1.2.10. US big business - confronting a gradual weakening of its relative economic power in the course of recent decades, and the European and Asian pillars' growth - took advantage of the changed balance of forces to go on the offensive world-wide and seek to strengthen its hegemony within world capitalism using the means where it still enjoys clear qualitative superiority: its control over financial markets, the role of its currency, its mass media and ideological production, but above all, its military might.

1.2.11. Following ruling-class interests, and exhibiting a line of clear continuity with the Clinton administration, this strategy has undergone a qualitative leap with the arrival of US big business's most reactionary circles to power. They are especially close to the military and oil industries, to which the Bush administration is particularly attached.

1.2.12. With the excuse of the September 11th terrorist attacks (the circumstances of which have yet to be made fully clear) US imperialism has been waging an offensive whose most prominent features are: two large-scale wars of aggression (Afghanistan and Iraq), as well as lesser military interventions (Haiti); a qualitative leap in the process of subverting the international order, the UN Charter and International Law, with the formal repeal of existing Treaties and Agreements (ABM Treaty), a refusal to sign agreements such as the one on biological weapons or the Kyoto Protocol on the environment; considering the use of nuclear weapons as possible and financing programs for their development; militarising outer space with the "Star Wars" program; establishing of new US and NATO military bases, particularly on formerly socialist countries' territory (especially prominent is the ongoing so-called encirclement of Russia and China, viewed as potential rivals); a significant rise in military spending in the US budget, currently hovering at about 450,000,000,000 dollars (the USA currently accounts for about half of all military spending in the world); insisting on creating new aggression mechanisms, such as Plan Colombia or the military rapid deployment force proposed at the recent G-8 summit; resorting to the fiercest forms of State terrorism, such as the Israeli government's horrible crimes, the bombing of civilian populations and facilities, often using unconventional weapons; systematically flouting agreements and safeguards in place for the protection of citizens, such as the habeas corpus principle or the Geneva Convention relating to the Treatment of War Prisoners; systematically resorting to the most blatant lies and forgeries in attempting to legitimate policies of aggression and crimes perpetrated; using aggression and war as a means of short-term generation of vast profits for big business, whether by taking over companies in countries subjected to aggression, through orders for military equipment and weapons, and through the business of "reconstructing" the devastation caused by those wars.

1.2.13. Three years after September 11th, it has become obvious that the so-called war on terrorism is essentially just a political and ideological disguise for imperialism's strategic goal of world domination. The problem of terrorism - historically contrary to workers' and peoples' interests - is a real one, and needs to be consistently fought. But the "war on terrorism" waged by the US and its allies - using methods of veritable State terrorism - only nourishes and extends it, rather than reducing and isolating it. Terrorism can be fought essentially by attacking its social-economic and ideological roots - exploitation, poverty, growing social inequalities and injustice, national oppression and plunder, cultural and religious persecution - not by flouting International Law, systematically attacking rights, freedoms and safeguards, and with that excuse fostering racism and war.

1.2.14. US imperialism's offensive entered a stage of great difficulty during the first half of 2004, due above all to the Iraqi people's resistance against the invasion of their country by the US and its allies. Direct military occupation resulted in political failure.

1.2.15. The awareness, within the imperialist camp, of the dangers - for their planetary domination strategy - of a clear defeat for the US's Iraqi adventure, is leading to realignments of forces within the imperialist camp and to a search for retreat strategies capable of preserving the basics of the imperialist domination system, both in Iraq and on a more general scale.

1.2.16. It is an on-going process and there may be surprises and shifts, considering the importance of the issues at stake and the objective nature of the contradictions: in the balance of forces between imperialism's various centres and their respective currencies, in seeking control over the planet's limited energy resources, in dividing up the concessions needed to overcome the crisis and solve the huge economic problems of US and world capitalism, in the carve-up of resources and markets.

1.2.17. The progressive and revolutionary forces' task is to fight to prevent the global imperialist offensive's difficulties from leading to agreements and solutions that save the core of imperialism's policies of domination, exploitation and war. On the contrary, it is necessary to step up workers' and peoples' wide-ranging resistance against those policies that have plunged the world into a major crisis - thus creating the conditions needed for revolutionary change that can do away with that crisis's root cause: capitalism.

1.2.18. In this respect - and regardless of the contradictions there may be with the "triad's" other pillars - we should counter any illusions that a European Union run by big business can somehow be an alternative to US imperialism. So too, we must fight the current trend toward greater militarization and federalism in the European Union.

1.2.19. Imperialism's defeat will come about through the struggle of workers and peoples, and through the new world balance of forces brought about by that struggle.

1.3. Workers' and peoples' resistance and struggle

1.3.1. Imperialism's offensive is world-wide and particularly fierce. It seeks to snatch back achievements gained through many decades of hard struggle. It seeks to demolish socialism's achievements down to their very foundations, and to distort their memory, sowing defeatism, conformism and despair among the masses. All this raises serious problems and difficulties for the work of communists and other progressive and revolutionary forces.

1.3.2. But peoples are not surrendering. Imperialism is encountering growing resistance. Workers' and peoples' liberation struggles are in progress everywhere.

1.3.3. The Iraqi people's resistance to the war of occupation of Iraq is of great political importance and significance. It shows that even in the absence of a national unifying force and a clear revolutionary prospect (which accounted for the resistance's strength in Vietnam, for example), it is possible to confront the most powerful of armies. It confirms that the defence of national sovereignty and independence is still a factor of paramount importance in the struggle for social progress.

1.3.4. The fight against imperialism - above all against US imperialism and its warmongering and aggressive policies - is of crucial importance. It is necessary to concentrate even more on it, and to intensify in all possible ways the anti-imperialist solidarity with peoples suffering interference and aggression from the US and other big powers. Front-line battles are being waged in Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, the Balkans, Afghanistan, D.P.R. Korea, Cyprus and other countries. Their outcome will have major repercussions and consequences for Humankind's future. The worldwide mobilizations for peace and against the war on Iraq are therefore exceptionally important. It is necessary to promote their continuity, organisation and anti-imperialist character.

1.3.5. Also highly relevant is the meaning of the rising resistance against the IMF, WB and WTO's disastrous policies and against the TNCs' overwhelming domination. Peoples' struggles against privatisations of public companies and services, particularly in Europe and Latin America (in Bolivia, the struggle took on insurrectional features); the struggle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA or ALCA), which is the USA's re-colonisation project for Latin America; the Cancun victory, with the emergence of the "group of 20" important countries that are resisting imperialism's economic dictates - all are relevant events, whose importance must be stressed.

1.3.6. The antagonistic contradiction between capital and labour continues to be at the core of the class struggle to overcome capitalism through revolution. Important working-class and wage-earners' struggles took place both in the centre and the periphery of the capitalist world. The trade-union movement - where the struggle for its class character continues - has confirmed its status as the most stable, massive and influential of all social movements.

1.3.7. Though uneven, the rise of the mass struggle was the most significant feature of the workers' struggle since our last Party Congress. Strike movements - including politically high-impact general and nation-wide strikes - have been strongly prominent in numerous countries on all continents, involving workers from major public and private companies and from very diverse industries and sectors. Major days of action, demonstrations - mobilizing hundreds of thousands, or even millions, in various countries of Latin America, Europe and Asia - have often combined economic grievances with overtly political demands (democratic and progressive in nature). The resistance against capital's exploitation offensive to destroy workers' historic gains and rights, contributed to refrain capital from achieving those goals. Examples of this resistance are: the struggles against privatisations, to defend jobs, against unemployment, to defend public services, for the right to education and social security and pensions, for shorter working hours and higher wages, against casualization and deregulation of labour relations, for the rights of women, of young workers, of students, against the exploitation of child labour, to defend the environment.

1.3.8. In many countries, including Portugal, immigration has become an unavoidable issue, not just a social end economic issue, but also a class and internationalism issue. Building international workers' unity, and an alliance between the developed capitalist countries' working class and the oppressed peoples of "third world" countries, also involves this issue.

1.3.9. It is of prime importance - in order to advance the resistance and struggle against big business' and imperialism's offensive - to defend the trade union movement from capital's fierce offensive, to increase unionisation rates, to free unions from the reformist and class-collaborationist influence that dominates them in many countries, particularly in Europe.

1.3.10. The centralisation and concentration of capital and the domination of international economic relations by a handful of TNCs have gone hand in hand with a fast proletarianization of intermediate social classes and a widening of the anti-monopoly forces' camp.

1.3.11. The struggles of masses of farmers, agricultural proletariat and independent producers - for land, for the right to produce, against dictates from the WTO and the agri-food industry and commerce TNCs, for fair prices - have involved hundreds of millions of people all over the world. In many cases, such as in India and Brazil, they are strongly organized into experienced class movements. These struggles against demagoguery about welfare, have everywhere raised the demand for land reform, for thorough-going changes in land ownership and property structures and in agri-food trade rules, as well as for indigenous communities' rights and to defend the environment from brutal TNC aggressions.

1.3.12. The peasant masses' struggles have continued to stand at the forefront in many countries, in spite of their near-invisibility in the mass media - except in those cases, like Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where they burst into politically very meaningful and powerful insurrection-type mass movements, or as in Mumbai, where peasant organizations and unions contributed decisively to the 3rd World Social Forum's popular character and fighting spirit.

1.3.13. Also worthy of mention are: the struggles of broad urban petty-bourgeois strata, in particular of micro-, small-, and medium-scale businesspersons; the struggles of intellectual and technical workers, who are an increasingly numerous and proletarianized stratum; the struggles of women, whose movements to advance rights and for effective economic, political, social and cultural equality are gaining increasing importance in society; the struggles of young people and students - whose role in society has grown, having even become a majority in many countries - with major struggles for jobs, for public schooling and the democratisation of education, for a better future - and in this regard it is fair to point out the work of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and the movement of World Festivals of Youth and Students, with their mass character and anti-imperialist content.

1.3.14. With US imperialism's sudden escalation of aggressive policies, the peace movement has developed greatly, bringing together - in world-scale mass actions - a broad range of unity organisations, social movements and political forces. Faced with the announcement of war on Iraq, tens of millions took to the streets to attempt to ward off the aggression and to protest against its implementation, singling out the US government as the main enemy of peace. The powerful mobilisations on February 15th and March 20th 2003 against the Iraq war – which took place simultaneously in many nations - constituted a new and highly significant factor in workers' and peoples' struggle against imperialism and war.

1.3.15. In the resistance against the new imperialist order - albeit to varying degrees and in different aspects - recognition should be extended to the valuable role of those countries that define building a socialist society as their guiding principle and goal: Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, D.P.R. Korea. Regardless of the great differences between them, they constitute an important factor of international life. It is necessary to monitor and learn about their experiences - regardless of their differences with the notion of the socialist society to which we aspire for Portugal, and of concerns and disagreements that some of their views and solutions to important problems may raise in us.

1.3.16. It is no accident that imperialism consistently targets these countries in its campaigns of destabilization and aggression, combining political, economic and military pressures against them, ranging from economic blockades to threats of armed aggression. It does this both to attempt to destroy the strength of a revolutionary and patriotic example - as in the case of Cuba and its socialist revolution - and to refrain and if possible subvert the powerful geo-strategic reality that is China. It is in the best interests of the forces of social progress and peace that these imperialist objectives should fail, and that those countries' peoples may - as all other peoples of the world - decide on their own path of development, free from external pressures or interferences.

1.3.17. The social front struggling against capital has broadened. The problems of the masses of the people have become more acute. This has led in recent times to an outburst of specific causes and demands and to movements of very diverse types. While recognizing the value of the positive aspects of this reality - desire for civil involvement and democratic participation - it is necessary to avoid fragmentation and dispersion in the social movement, and to contain the pressures to de-politicise it and drag it into reformism.

1.3.18. The struggle for the convergence of all anti-monopoly classes and strata into a vast front fighting against capitalism (be it the neo-liberal version or otherwise) and against imperialism, is a prime task at this time.

1.3.19. The explosive emergence of the so-called "anti-globalization movement" (with its diverse expressions, from mass actions against the policies of imperialism's international organisations, to World and Regional Social Fora) constitutes a new important aspect of international life. It means that social strata, whose interests and aspirations have been severely struck by the neo-liberal steamroller, have now joined the struggle. It means that that a deep crack has now appeared in the "single thought" theory, which preaches conformism and powerlessness. It shows that the social support base for capitalism in its current form has dwindled. It is objectively anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist in nature.

1.3.20. An intense political and ideological struggle is underway concerning the "anti-globalisation movement's" content and meaning. It is between those who consider it part of the real class struggle and anti-imperialist confrontation, and those who view it as an abstraction, in accordance with their speculative theorizing. Between those who seek to safeguard and enhance its anti-capitalist character, and those who - wishing merely to "humanize" capitalist globalization - are bent on promoting its institutionalization and reformist take-over. Between those who say that a revolutionary party and class trade-unionism are needed, and those who deny and counter this need, reducing the movement's change-seeking action to an inconsequential anarchist-leaning amalgam. Between those who consider that the nation is an unavoidable and crucial arena of struggle - albeit necessarily in coordination with internationalist solidarity -, and those who consider the national arena "outdated" and support a "new internationalism", devoid of all class roots and of anti-capitalist content. Between those who view the World and European Social Fora as meeting points to coordinate the actions of diverse organisations, parties and movements, and those who seek to create supra-national structures and networks and impose on them "from outside and from above" political agendas that not only do not match the real development of the class struggle in each country, but even tend to alienate the people's struggles.

1.3.21. The PCP has actively participated - and will continue to do so - in the anti-globalisation movement's major actions: recognizing the movement's value as an expression of growing resistance against imperialism; asserting the PCP's own stand and identity; coordinating its participation with other communist and revolutionary parties so as to achieve both the widest possible unity against neo-liberalism and war, and an outward projection of communist values and goals. This is necessary, so as to avoid what has happened in other historical occasions, when discontentment, protests and radicalisation - mainly among the youth - were frustrated. It is necessary to strengthen the consistently anti-capitalist and revolutionary forces.

1.3.22. The anti-imperialist front is very broad and diverse. Its goals and modes of participation are highly dispersed, and it is important to overcome this dispersion. It is necessary to agree on major avenues of joint or convergent action, so as to help unify the struggle and make it more effective. As a contribution toward this goal, the PCP stresses in particular: struggling against militarism and war, and the use of force in international relations; demanding the dissolution of NATO and other aggressive military alliances, and opposing the European Union's militarization; working for disarmament, to abolish all weapons of mass destruction and for a ban on nuclear weapons and nuclear blackmail; demanding respect for the United Nations Charter and for International Law, democratising the UN and strengthening its - and its specialized agencies' - role in fostering peace and development; working for more equitable and just international relations, against the policies of the IMF, WB, WTO and other international organisations that serve finance capital and TNCs; working to annul the foreign debt of so-called 3rd-world countries; fighting against neo-liberal policies that dismantle workers' gains and rights, supporting public services and the public sector against the mercantilization of all spheres of social life, fighting for full employment and stable labour relations; standing in solidarity with all peoples that are suffering imperialism's interference and fighting for their sovereignty, prominent among them the peoples of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Western Sahara.

1.3.23. Resistance against imperialism's fierce offensive is something that surfaces under very diverse forms. It is not always easy to identify, characterise and classify its various social and political components from a class point of view. It can however be said that the great progressive forces of social transformation are: communist and revolutionary parties, the class-based workers' and trade-union movement, socialism-oriented and anti-imperialist States, peoples fighting for their national liberation and independent development, the movement against imperialist wars and for peace. Their alliance is needed to contain and defeat imperialism.

1.3.24. The PCP keeps the above in mind in its international relations policy. We work to strengthen these forces' cooperation and friendship, and counter the attempts - by both imperialism and opportunist circles - to sow division and mistrust within the camp of pro-peace and social progress forces.

1.3.25. The international situation's development is very obviously highlighting the need to strengthen communist parties, to enhance their internationalist cooperation and solidarity, to convincingly and confidently assert the goal of building a socialist society, the need to counter old and new lines of attack against revolutionary parties' ideological and organizational foundations. Overcoming the major weaknesses that currently exist and building up strong communist parties is essential for the struggle's success.

1.3.26. There are very diverse problems and obstacles on the road to a resurgence of the international communist and revolutionary movement. Overcoming them requires steadfastness of principles, creative responses to new realities, revolutionary tenacity. Among these difficulties and obstacles are: imperialism's global offensive, with its fierce attacks on democratic rights, freedoms and safeguards, and its criminalization of all forces that resist it; the de-structuring and instability of social relations, with their profound effects on class forces' line-up and composition and on the formation of class consciousness; and also the objective and subjective repercussions of the USSR's dismemberment and of socialism's defeats in Europe.

1.3.27. The weakening of communist parties left the road open to a resurgence of beliefs and practices with petty-bourgeois, radical-reformist, anarchist-leaning and anti-communist roots. Major parties continue to suffer from the emergence of strong trends that want communist parties to give up their identity and abandon their constituent elements (revolutionary theory, class nature, organizational form, socialism as the goal) and want to dilute the parties into ambiguous "left-wing" projects.

1.3.28. The complex struggle to strengthen communist parties and assert them as an irreplaceable tool of resistance and alternative, implies an ability to bond with the working class, the working people, the people as a whole, to spearhead their struggles, to formulate a clear prospect of change and revolution. At the same time, it implies systematic criticism of opportunist and capitulationist views, and particularly of utopian pre-Marxist and neo-Bernsteinian theories that ignore, negate or counter the class struggle and the historic achievements of Marxist-Leninist thought and practice. And it implies also criticism of sectarian and dogmatic stances. For a party to be communist, it is not enough to just call itself communist.

1.3.29. The aggressiveness of big capital and imperialism - together with their narrowing social support base - makes it particularly necessary to extend cooperation and solidarity among communist parties and all other revolutionary and left-wing anti-capitalist forces. It is very urgent to overcome existing shortcomings in this respect. Otherwise, widespread discontentment and protests against neo-liberal and warmongering policies may well be frustrated or be ensnared by some variant of reformism with structural ties to the capitalist exploitation system's reproduction - such as for example, social-democracy.

1.3.30. But to move ahead effectively and securely, it is necessary to set ideological prejudice aside, valuing all that unites and respecting the deep existing differences (in terms of situation, political-ideological profile, goals, influence) between the forces that wish to cooperate, stressing unity in action and for action, addressing the masses' most heartfelt problems and aspirations. It is absolutely necessary to be in tune with workers' interests and to clearly demarcate ourselves from social-democracy. It is necessary to respect established principles of equality of rights, sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs.

1.3.31. Starting out from these basic criteria, the PCP has contributed and will continue to contribute toward stronger cooperation and solidarity among left-wing forces all over the world, and particularly in Europe. We do this through active and dedicated participation, both in joint actions on common issues, and in various types of meetings, conferences, seminars and other fora.

1.3.32. While giving priority to joint or convergent action for specific goals, and to organizing international initiatives against neo-liberalism and war, the PCP - disagreeing with the establishment of supra-national parties - has long stood for the need to move toward more stable forms of coordination among communist parties and with other revolutionary parties.

1.3.33. But we cannot overcome the delays in this sphere - specifically in Europe - by hastily concocting federalist-type parties as solutions, with "majorities" and "minorities", ignoring the great variety of existing situations. Unity solutions are needed, respecting the sovereignty and identity of all, solutions that unite and are not liable to create additional difficulties and splits.

1.3.34. Such is the case with the "European Left Party" which - in the mode of its inception, in its federalist bend, in its relationship with EU institutions, in the political and ideological label glued onto it by some of its major protagonists - stands in contradiction to the concepts of cooperation, autonomy and sovereignty that we have been supporting. Furthermore, there is the fact that this "ELP" was designed by some to run counter to what the PCP considers to be the basic criteria that best serve to bring together progressive forces, and the basic criteria for a revolutionary party.

1.3.35. In the current circumstances - tempestuous change, realignment of forces, thinking about positive and negative experiences - the communist and revolutionary movement is not completely detachable from a wider framework of cooperation among progressive, revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces. But this must not mean loss of identity or dilution. Relations of friendship, cooperation and solidarity among communist parties - as forces with similarities in their history, ideology and goals - are essential in asserting and fostering a resurgence of the values and goals of socialism and communism.

1.4. The alternative. Another world is possible, a socialist world.

1.4.1. Confronting the inhumane reality of capitalism, socialism is more and more clearly the choice that today stands before Humankind.

1.4.2. Capitalism is not merely exhibiting an inability to solve workers' and peoples' problems, it is exacerbating these problems to unprecedented levels. And the exacerbation of its contradictions and the systemic crisis it is undergoing carry with them a global crisis, on a planetary scale and with a civilizational dimension.

1.4.3. There is a mounting contradiction between the huge advances of science and technology, and the rising social scourges and environmental problems. Property and wealth concentration have reached unprecedented levels, while the gaps between capital and labour, between rich and poor, between "North" and "South", continue to grow unstoppably.

1.4.4. The capitalist production system's anarchic and predatory nature, and the TNCs' greed are depleting natural resources, sterilizing vast surfaces suitable for agriculture and livestock breeding, and jeopardizing vital ecological and environmental balances.

1.4.5. Subversion of International Law, destabilization of international relations, violence and war as permanent tools of imperialist domination, threats of resorting to nuclear weapons - all this is a terrible threat to freedom, democracy, peoples' sovereignty, and to human existence itself.

1.4.6. The struggle to contain and reverse such a dangerous course requires that all social classes and strata affected converge, and that very diverse - trade-union, democratic, human-rights, ecological, youth, women's, peace - organizations and movements join forces and unite in the struggle against neo-liberalism, imperialism and war. At the same time, it requires a clear anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist perspective, that only strong communist parties and a fighting, class-based, trade-union and workers' movement can ensure.

1.4.7. It would be wrong to deny the relevance of struggles for specific and immediate goals, of partial and even temporary victories, and of democratic reforms even when they do not strike at the core of the capitalist exploitation system. The type of power and the nature of the political regime are never irrelevant. But social-democracy's alliance with the right to ensure capitalism's survival - the support of virtually all socialist and social-democratic parties' leaderships (particularly European ones) for militarism, for "Atlanticism" and for war, even when that countered the wishes of the majority of their support base - shows well where the limits and dangers of reformism lie.

1.4.8. To stop the race to the abyss, to end wars of aggression and systematic interference in peoples' internal affairs, to solve the major international conflicts and problems, to overcome the most striking social injustices and inequalities - it is essential to effect thorough-going progressive and revolutionary changes directed against big business's power and property system, and at challenging its exploitation and reproduction mechanisms.

1.4.9. Such changes - which address the need to resolve capitalism's central contradiction, between the social nature of production and the private appropriation of its produce - have long since been inherent in the system's contradictions and limitations, and intrinsic to the new historical epoch heralded in by the October Revolution. The big problem is that the maturing of objective material conditions currently underway is not matched by the subjective conditions.

1.4.10. Socialism's defeats broke the balance of forces in imperialism's favour, gave capitalism a new lease on life, had repercussions in weakening communist parties and other revolutionary forces, have negatively influenced the masses' confidence and fighting spirit. With the immense economic, military, and ideological power it still wields, imperialism has temporarily regained the initiative and is on the offensive, in spite of the crisis that is rotting it inside.

1.4.11. The time is still one of resistance and gathering strength. But it is also a time of real revolutionary potential. Policies of exploitation, oppression and war are encountering growing resistance and struggle everywhere. Battles are underway whose outcome will greatly influence the worldwide balance and line-up of forces. As in other periods of historical transition, great difficulties and dangers coexist with great potential for advancing the struggle and expanding the revolutionary forces.

1.4.12. It is just as necessary to reject illusions that all is easy and to be ready for very hard struggles with a possibility of retreats and setbacks, as it is to be prepared for surprising positive developments that only forces and visions deeply rooted in society and in the masses will be able to keep up with and lead.

1.4.13. In the current circumstances of great instability, only one thing is truly certain about the future: the progressive and revolutionary changes that the current state of things necessitates will not arise out of pre-conceived schemes or models into which reality will have to fit; on the contrary, these changes will necessarily arise out of the dialectic of revolutionary struggle - at the national, regional and world scale; they will pierce through wherever the contradictions are most dense and the revolutionary forces strongest, in an uneven and eventful process, where reactionary and imperialist resistance will have to be confronted with the might of more and more internationalism and internationalist solidarity.

1.4.14. Nothing can replace the struggle in each country. Those theses that consider that the national-level struggle for change and revolution is "exhausted", are as wrong and damaging as those that underestimate the need for internationalist solidarity and international-level struggle. Defence of national sovereignty - and each people's assertion of their right to determine their own future - continues to be an essential factor of resistance against imperialist globalisation and against the USA's attempts to impose its "new world order". Having roots among the working class, the working people, and the masses of one's own country is the prime and unavoidable task for communists and all revolutionaries. It is a necessary precondition to be able to internationally confront the concerted offensive of big business and the big powers.

1.4.15. The fact that we identify the current international situation's dramatic retrogressions and dangers - brought about as a result of the policies of imperialism and its most reactionary and terrorist circles - does not mean we are being pessimistic. For the liberation struggle to be effective it is essential to confront the facts as they really are. The internationalism that the PCP stands for and practices, is inseparable from patriotism, and has its roots in the proletariat's universal interests.

1.4.16. There are strong reasons to be confident in the struggle's outcome. The working-class and communist movement's history proves it (it is more and more necessary to know and value this history, and not to forget and reject it, as though it were a burden). But above all, this confidence arises from the great working class and working people's struggles, from the peace movement, from the movement against capitalist globalization, from several countries' persistence on the road to socialism as a goal, from the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples' heroic resistance, from the significant successes of several influential communist parties, Colombia's revolutionary struggle and Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution, from the left-wing forces' victories in Brazil, South Africa and other countries, from the powerful outbursts of popular discontentment and protest (even when they are later defeated or subverted by populist demagoguery), as well as from many other examples.

1.4.17. It is supremely important to have confidence in the workers and the masses of the people, to have confidence in their organization and struggle. Elitism, the cult of spontaneity and of sterile "movementism" with its petty-bourgeois roots (its impatience, the search for quick success, and speculative theorizing not based on real life) must all be rejected and countered, as they tend to frustrate major struggles and make reformist and capitalist takeovers of susceptible movements easier.

1.4.18. Being steadfast in our principles and convictions, and consciously incorporating the struggle for immediate goals into the wider goal of thorough-going anti-capitalist change - which implies a constant and strong rejection of unprincipled pragmatism and of opportunist adaptation to the system's logic - these are of the utmost importance to fully materialize the revolutionary potential that the current dangerous situation bears within it, and to bring about socialism's resurgence as the alternative to capitalism. Yes, another world is possible - and necessary. A socialist world!