Dear comrades!
If we want to succeed in fighting the class enemy and protect the world from the threat of establishment of Pax Americana, we should unite and strike with a tight fist rather than spaced fingers.
We, members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, consider the solidarity of left-wing forces to be vitally important. I would like to say it in advance that the talk is not about the reinstatement of Komintern with its strong discipline and an obligation to work under the supervision of one powerful party. There are no parties claiming this role any more.
But all of us are like-minders. The slogan “Proletarians of all countries unite” proclaimed in the Communist Manifesto means, above all, an obligation of left-wing parties to help each other in the solution of common tasks. When I speak about solidarity, I don’t mean a mere exchange of views on the situation in home countries and in the world but practical actions – decisive and well-coordinated.
Our adversaries have made significant progress in this respect. They openly raise questions, including at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), about reprisals against communist parties and their allies. And it was not to no purpose that we then warned our comrades that it was not an episode but a line to which we should be ready to give a coordinated and resolute rebuff. The authorities in the Czech Republic have recently outlawed the Youth Communist League in the country. And how many European countries have banned Communist symbols and are forbidding Communists to hold state posts! Our reaction to such fascist actions has been weak and inadequate. It should be different. We should act according to the principle: “All for one and one for all”.
This international solidarity can be quite effective. I will use this occasion to thank the fraternal parties which actively supported us in our campaign to defend Lenin’s Tomb on Red Square in Moscow. Your contribution to the preservation of a great monument to the great man is invaluable!
Why have imperialist circles turned up against us so much? The capitalist system represented by the most developed states like the United States, Japan and Germany, is on the verge of a systemic crisis. This system, in its present forms, is quickly and inevitably leading the planet towards depletion of its natural resources and a global ecological disaster. For the sake of prolonging their own prosperity, “the golden billion” has unleashed a series of wars to seize the resources owned by other nations.
The degradation of western society is progressing in full pelt. It manifests itself in the decay of family, the renunciation of any morale and moral values, a rise in violence, the cult of all possible vices and perversions. Capitalism in its present global hypostasis is quickly moving towards self-depletion. It has nothing more to offer to mankind. It’s not accidental that capitalism has declared itself to be the last stage in human history.
But human history won’t end on the history of the United States and Western Europe. The world is already rising in revolt against the fate which the challengers to world supremacy are preparing for it. We have witnessed the outbreak of wars between a gang of robbers led by the Untied States and the rest of the world, which doesn’t like the prospect of being kept in thrall by a handful of so-called “civilized” nations. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan are the first splashes of this resistance. And they affect all. We are glad that in all “seats of tension” imperialism is suffering one defeat after another.
The world is splitting deeper and deeper. The hopes that the end of “cold war” and ideological confrontation will open a new “golden age” have been dispelled. The talk about anti-terrorism struggle cannot conceal this fundamental fact. The struggle will widen and will become more fierce. Our place in this struggle is defined by the fundamental principles of the left-wing forces. Human history has always been the history of struggle between the rich and the poor, the oppressors and the oppressed. And our place in it has been pre-determined. We should counter the global imperialist policy to the global policy of left-wing forces, the broad front of the masses, of communist and national-patriotic forces.
The hard defeat of the left-wing forces in the Soviet Union in 1991 was nothing more but a stage in the world struggle of good against evil. This struggle has always been acclaimed by eternal laws of history, and we simply must win in this struggle. The success of red China where the Communist Party effectively guides the country’s development combining various forms of property makes globalists and neo-liberals tremble.
Venezuela and Bolivia have put up tough resistance to the U.S. dictate, they’ve taken the path of nationalization of natural resources and protection of the rights of their people. Cuba and Vietnam have been successfully building socialism. The world is waiting for Russia’s revival cherishing hopes that will put an end to occupational wars and attempts to restore colonial empires, to economic and political blackmail. The world is awaiting healthy improvements in this country that would restore the distorted balance of forces in the world.
We, Russian communists, fully realize our responsibility for making these changes come true. We are struggling not only against our own comprador authorities. The world backstage forces understand perfectly well what consequences the radical change of Russia’s course will have for their plans and calculations.
The Russian authorities are pursuing a course towards isolation, discrediting and weakening of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and liquidation of democratic rights and freedoms. The freedom of demonstrations has been radically restricted, referendums have practically been banned. The electoral system is being altered with an aim to limit people’s right to vote to the maximum. Television channels and most newspapers have been turned into the mouthpieces of government propaganda. Elections are rigged in favor of the Kremlin-controlled parties. Russian courts are becoming instruments of executive power.
A broad offensive has been launched on social rights. Almost every law means new exactions from the population and its deprivation of constitutional rights, such as the right to free medical care and education. Arbitrary police rule, corruption and organized crime penetrate into every pore of the state mechanism.
However, the Russian and world capitalists have suffered a total defeat in imposing alien market and in essence bandit relations on Russia. Russia’s comprador bourgeoisie has thrown the country into a deep crisis. They have ruined industry and agriculture, left more than 30% of the population behind the poverty line, have stolen hundreds of billions of dollars and taken them out of the country. They have destroyed the army, science and education. They understand that they’ve brought Russia to a deadlock and have growing fears of a social explosion. Therefore, new attempts are being made to deceive ordinary people by offering window-dressing “national projects” and showing some kind of patriotism at international gatherings.
Despite hard pressure and manipulations, our party’s performance in last month local elections was good. With all the excessive rigging, we gained 12%-15% of the votes on average practically everywhere. A Communist Party candidate won additional elections to the State Duma in the oil and gas rich Sakhalin Island with 41% of the votes.
The fate of the regime which the West has brought to power in Russia and which existed on money paid from abroad under Yeltsin’s rule has become a source of serious concern for western masters. They are afraid of losing control over Russia, which is a powerful player in the international arena and an inexhaustible storeroom of natural resources. This is the reason behind constant frictions with President Putin, threats to interfere in Russia’s internal affairs and a desire to surround Russia by a sanitary cordon of Western-controlled former Soviet republics.
The Kremlin is nervous. It is rather sensitive to foreign criticism. The growing discontent at home coupled with a threat that Russia’s top officials will lost their international authority can prove to be an explosive mixture. Therefore, the Kremlin is exerting every effort to weaken external criticism. In our view, we should use this circumstance in the strategic interests of the left-wing movement.
Russia is entering a crucial stage. Elections to the Russian State Duma will be held late in 2007. They will be followed by presidential polls. We are calling for solidarity with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation because events in Russia affect, directly or indirectly, the interests of left-wing forces around the globe. We would welcome an increase of press and public attention to events in Russia, tough assessments of the arbitrary rule of the Russian authorities, their manipulations at elections, infringements on the rights of workers and the establishment of total control over the media, etc.
We would be ready to provide relevant information and render assistance in organizing visits by your representatives to collect this information. It is vitally important that you send your deputies and prominent representatives of public organizations to Russia to monitor State Duma elections and presidential polls. We will mark the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution next year. Should I say how radically that event changed the fate of the world? We are planning to meet this anniversary with busy preparation for the elections. Your participation in the celebration of this great date will be a contribution to our struggle.
Russia’s contacts with countries where communist parties and revolutionary democratic forces are in power are a separate subject. The United States and its allies don’t hesitate to back up their supporters abroad, including through diplomatic and other means. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would not miss an opportunity to meet their dissident supporters and raise the question of protecting their rights and interests at a state level, while we keep sticking to an established viewpoint that interference in the affairs of others is wrong.
Imperialists have kept interfering in the internal affairs of China, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia while we are demonstrating unnecessary nobleness to our own detriment. Since the West has proclaimed human rights to be an absolute priority in international law, we should also stop being shy and return to the good traditions of the 1920s-1930s when bourgeoisie begged the Communists not to interfere in its internal affairs.
The solidarity of left-wing forces should become an urgent and effective weapon. It’s time we start using this weapon more energetically. For its part, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is ready to make a contribution to our common cause.
G. A. ZYUGANOV,
The Сhairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation