Democracy and Class Struggle supports the call in this statement for an International Conference of Maoist Organisations and Parties similar to the call of our Italian Comrades in their May Day Statement - We do not want two separate Conferences but one Conference that deals with differences and even contradictions in a constructive comradely way - it is our duty to overcome our internal contradictions to better Serve the People - Given that the French Maoist Party has signed both statements the ideological differences in both statements are not so wide apart that they cannot be bridged.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Dare to struggle, dare to win!
On this First of May the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties and Organizations from allover the world salute our class, the international proletariat and the oppressed Peoples and Nations, who in the midst of growing poverty, hunger, imperialist terror and aggression, struggle against imperialism, world reaction and revisionism. We once more reaffirm our pledge to never rest as long as exploitation exists on earth and to raise to ever higher peaks our red banners with the hammer and sickle until humankind has entered Communism.
Today, on the day of the proletarian struggle in all over the planet, we take to the streets and march filled with joy and pride as militants, carrying the bright future in our hands, it is a day when we muster our forces and evaluate the stand of the struggle between revolution and counterrevolution in the world.
The general crisis of imperialism deepens
The world is in crisis. The general and final crisis of imperialism is sharpening in uneven development. It has become more monopolistic, more parasitic or in decomposition and moribund. All contradictions are aggravated. Imperialism is cancer. As a deadly wounded beast it wages wars of aggression against the nations of the Third World and these rise in a powerful movement of national liberation with armed struggles and People's War. The proletariat spurred by the greater exploitation and oppression in the respective imperialist countries is awakening from its long lethargy by undertaking important revendicative struggles that arise to political struggle. The imperialists are debating in acute collusion and fighting that shows that among them there are no friends but only rivals.
Before having solved the problems of the world crisis of 2008, the imperialist institutes themselves announced, that the world economy is entering new problems. They say the economy “has lost momentum”, that the “political uncertainties” and “economic uncertainties” about the Brexit will make the pace of economic growth “decelerate noteably this year compared to the previous two years.” The relative grwoth of the gross domenstic product of Unted States Imperialism has been achieved only at the cost of a strong fiscal impulse that contributes to deepening the trade balance deficit. The OECD announces that “growth weakens much more than it was predicted in Europe.” and warns that “a more pronounced slowdown in any of the principal regions could wreck the activity all over the world”.
The reports indicate that Germany and Japan are loosing track. China advances in its decomposition and will end up in bankruptcy without having reached the revisionist dream of being a global power. Before this new cyclical crisis within the general crisis that will come no matter what, the imperialist economies will not be able to use the monetary of fiscal recipe, will not be able to impulse their economy through more indebtedness, because in all of them, the indebtedness has already reached records numbers.
This leads the imperialist nations, in collusion and struggle with one another, to offload more and more the weight of the crisis on the backs of the workers of their own countries and especially on the economies of the oppressed nations, through their semi-colonial and semi-feudal character on which a bureaucratic capitalism develops, - further aggravating the exploitation and dispossession of the immense mass of the peasantry, the working class, the petty bourgeoisie and including the national bourgeoisie in our countries.
With this, all the principal contradictions of the current world are sharpened: the first contradiction, between oppressed nations and imperialism; the second contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the imperialist countries; and the third contradiction between superpowers and imperialist powers.
Every crisis that arises in the countries of bureaucratic capitalism from Latin America to Africa to Asia ends up with in the same false propaganda of the famous successes of the “fight against poverty” within the "Millennium Objectives", because with the diminution of the crumbs obtained by the landowner-bureaucratic States from the exploitation of the labor force and the natural riches of these countries, the money destined to the so-called "social programs" goes down and the poverty figures again skyrocket; This shows, that the exploitation grows, but that there is not economical development, because imperialism, semi-feudality and bureaucratic capitalism hold back the productive forces of these countries and only produce more misery.
In the imperialist nations the exploitation of the proletariat also increases. In the US, the growth of inequality and the increase of the power raises the exploitation rate of the capitalists over the proletariat, which is more pronounced than in Europe. In the 30 years prior to the 2008 crisis, wages in the US stagnated, inequality grew. Among the 1% of the richest people, one obtains more in a week, then does any among the poorest 20% in a year. Among the 0,1% of the richest people, one obtains more in a day and a half, then does any among the poorest 90% in a year. And, taken together, the richest 20% earned more then the bottom 80%. The time in which the labor force is used to extract surplus value from the worker over the necessary labor time is increasing.
In addition, the violent repression by the repressive forces of the Yankee State increases, with brutal repression, persecutions, massive imprisonment, even with systematic murder, and continuous against the poorest masses. This is part of the war against the proletariat and the North American people, particularly against the black population and immigrants from the Third World. In the face of oppression, the masses rise up in rebellion, in growing and combative protests of the most exploited and oppressed masses.
Inequality not only has to do with income but is also reflected in the standard of living, in the problem of the security of work places and in the field of health. This is much worse for "socially weak households". An erosion is found in the "middle sectors".
On this global economic base the fundamental contradictions are aggravated, further promoting the uneven development of the objective situation, of the revolutionary situation in uneven development in the world.
The Yankee Imperialism is the sole hegemonic superpower and principal enemy of the peoples of the world
To ensure its status as such, Yankee imperialism assumes the role of world counterrevolutionary gendarme, applies "divide et impera" [Eng.: "divide and rule"] towards its competitors and, considering that Russia is weak and on the verge of continuing its breaking apart, aims to end its condition as an atomic superpower, considering that the application of a reduction of the tension would naive, because this would delay the collapse of Russia. The annulment of the SALT II agreement is a very clear example of this policy. Trump is not an "idiot". He is the head of Yankee imperialism and does not pursue different strategic objectives than his predecessors. Obama-Clinton pursued to increase tension and provoke Russia, treating it as a regional power. Which explains the Russian meddling in the last presidential election in favor of Trump against Clinton.
The United States, seeking to impose its will on the entire Orb, has been building its "New Defense Structure", for which it has divided the world into six sub-commands of its Armed Forces. Under whose staff of command it seeks to incorporate the armies principally from the semi-colonial countries of Europe, Asia, America, Africa, etc. In Eurasia, this structure is superimposed on the structure of the NATO. All of this, in intense collusion and struggle with their imperialist competitors.
The debate about the NATO between the US and its "allies" as well as the one about the joint defense force of the EU are taking place in this framework. In this, the Brexit is a hard blow for the claims of France and Germany. The demand of Obama and then of Trump that its "partners" increase defense spending is aiming towards giving an impulse to the Yankee economy through the military purchases of its "partners".
Acting with arrogance and imperial attitude the Yankee imperialists, with their policy of "America First", have unleashed the so-called "trade war" through which they - under the threat of the "increase of tariffs" for imports - seek to impose more favorable regulations to the Yankee financial capital in Europe, Japan, etc. and seek, in the case of China, to open up its economies step by step to the deepest and most extensive domination of the country's economy. All under the banner of the "liberalization" of China's economy, in order to follow the Western shape of capitalism, which is driven by its tendency for demo-bourgeois forms and the displacement of the fascist bureaucratic faction.
The economic sanctions that are applied against Iran, Russia, North Korea and Venezuela not only further ruin the economy of these countries, but affect the trade, industry and finances of their imperialist competitors. Against which all of them can not do anything, because of the hegemony of Yankee financial capital, which is expressed in the predominance of the financial system of the United States, where New York is the main banking and financial center of the world, followed by London, which is expressed in the domination of the dollar as the world currency. The economic sanctions imposed by the Yankee imperialists express the hegemony of the Yankee financial capital above the rest, sustained by its enormous diplomatic and military apparatus of global reach.
The Chinese social imperialists who developed the restoration associated with Yankee imperialism, now pay the price and are the principle compradors of Treasury dept and, subjected to a humiliating submission of the Yankee Imperialists, have been forced to pass a new law for foreign investment to allow greater intrusion and field of action of it. The US works hard to split the EU and impose it dictates on the FRG regarding - among other issues - whether or not the principle imperialist of Western Europe may or may not buy gas from the Russian imperialists.
The Yankee imperialists intensify their attempts to snap the spine of Russian imperialism by disputing their domains, provoking civil wars as they have done in Ukraine and Syria. And it seeks to destabilize the former Asian republics of the former USSR.
Yankee imperialism in its capacity as the sole hegemonic superpower and world gendarme unleashes, in collusion and conflict with the other imperialist powers, its war of aggression and plunder against the oppressed nations, sharpening the principal contradiction and sharpening the principal contradiction and spurring the revolution in the Third World nations, that rise up in fiery armed struggles and People's Wars.
The current aggression against Venezuela seeks to impose a puppet government in replacement of the current government of Maduro, which would be changing the semi-colonial status of the country to a colonial one, to exercise an exclusive economic monopoly over the country's economy. It does so, shamelessly raising its "Monroe Doctrine." In this is expressed, in the first place, the principal historical tendency, that is to say, the contradiction between the oppressed nations on one hand and the superpowers and imperialist powers on the other. This contributes to impulse the anti-imperialist struggle on the continent against the Yankees.
In Venezuela, the contradiction between the oppressed nation and imperialism has become the principle one. The domination of Latin America is the strategic basis of its world hegemony. The imperialist aggression occurs in the midst of collusion and struggle with its imperialist competitors (third contradiction, secondary in the current situation in the country). The imperialist competitors are shifting and placing themselves in defense of their already established interests and their future expectations. Russia seeks to guarantee the investment and capitalize on the situation to appear as an advocate of the Maduro regime and be considered as intermediaries for a possible negotiated "solution", that will have to be in exchange for a loosening of the Yankee sanctions or for moving its chips in Ukraine, etc. China, without diplomatic support, maintains its expectations. Germany, Spain and other EU imperialist countries that reluctantly joined the "recognition" of the puppet Guaidó, are distancing themselves from a military invasion.
For the people of the Venezuelan nation it corresponds, to resist and reject the capitulation under the pretext of a "negotiated agreement". We can understand the class limitations that are objectively present in the struggle against imperialist aggression, but we must fight capitulation and betrayal.
The oppressed nations are the base of the world revolution
The deepest and broadest masses fight every day, because that is their only way out of this hell, which is at the same time paradise on earth for the bourgeoisie and its big bourgeois and landlord lackeys of the oppressed nations.
We see this all over the world, both in the oppressed nations and in the imperialist countries. But the oppressed nations are the basis of the world revolution because of the weight of the masses and because in them the greatest revolutionary storms appear, because their living conditions do no correspond to the current state of the development of civilization and the productive forces of the social labor.
It is necessary to better understand the role they play and the problem is, that it does not say, that there are democratic revolutions, as if they were backward revolutions, and that the most advanced would be the socialist revolutions. The reality is that in the oppressed nations democratic revolutions of a new type take shape. These are revolutions led by the proletariat through its Communist Parties with People's War, same as the socialist and cultural revolutions that we have to do until we all enter into communism.
Take into account that the Third World is made up of the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa, Latin America and even Europe itself. In all these countries, the struggle of the peasantry for land and against the dispossession that they have been subjected to in order to develop large mining or agro-extractive projects, in order to reimpulse bureaucratic capitalism in the countryside, has been reactivated, constituting the necessary base that the Maoists must elevate towards the political struggle for the Power, incorporating them to the task of the struggle for the constitution or reconstitution of the Communist Parties that lead the construction of the army of a new type and the front of all revolutionary classes to initiate People’s Wars and to further develop the ongoing People's Wars.
In the Balkans, mass mobilizations are increasing. In the Middle East Yankee imperialism tried to balkanize the whole area - as it did in Iraq before - from Syria, but suffered a setback to Russian imperialism. From Turkey to Afghanistan, the masses fight at different levels of armed struggle. There we have the People's War in Turkey and the wars of national liberation in Iraq or Afghanistan against the imperialists and their lackeys, who wage their wars of aggression against these oppressed nations, where the peasantry constitute the principle masses in these struggles.
The rebellion against the genocidal Zionist Chain dog of the Yankees in Palestine is igniting. In Yemen, the Yankee puppet al Saud thought he would win an easy game, but now there is only one giant death camp where the masses die for the interests imperialists.
In Algeria and throughout North Africa, the people struggle, but the lack of proletarian leadership is noticeable, hence this struggle serves the factions of big bourgeois and landlords to settle their disputes. In Libya the people have to cope with the consequences of the NATO war.
Blow by blow against the occupying military, the people of Mali oppose to the foreign aggressors. The French, German, etc. imperialists also act in collusion and struggle to assert their interests while continuing the genocide of the masses of migrants across the Mediterranean. The civil war continues in Somalia, the Congo and many other countries. The Yankees, with their African-Command, were never establish their "order" there and the collusion and struggle with French imperialism continues.
Throughout the continent, the masses are waging an armed struggle, albeit under reactionary banners. The Communist Party is needed to give a new direction to the struggle, hence the importance of the new international organization of the Maoists.
In Ukraine, a war is waged in which Yankee imperialism interferes in a zone considered to be strategical for Russian Imperialism, closing the siege against them. The masses in this country are massacred by a war between these imperialists. The masses in the so-called People's Republics in eastern Ukraine also show their hatred against the bankruptcy of revisionism in the Soviet Union, and raise the Banner and Images of the great Lenin and Comrade Stalin.
In social-imperialist China, the struggle of the proletariat and the peasant masses is reactivated in defense of the few rights that remain of the period of socialism. They show signs of retaking Chairman Mao and reconstituting his party in order to do counter-restauration through People's War.
Revolution and counterrevolution in the western imperialist countries
In all Western imperialist countries, following the process of reactionization of the bourgeois state, parliamentary democracy is in crisis, as was shown, electoral participation sank to a critical level. The "answer" is the emergence of the so-called "populist parties".
The so-called "populist parties" are being presented as an alternative, as something new, but they can not but be at the service of the bourgeois dictatorship, waiting for the development of the revolutionary situation in the country, to resolve their ambivalent situation and with the support of the most conspicuous representatives of the financial oligarchy and the armed forces and other repressive apparatuses of the State, to apply open fascism.
Through these "populist parties" the fact is expressed, that the oppressors can not continue to govern as before, because the political base of the State is broken. For now, what they do is prevent parliamentary institutions from functioning as they used to. This is visible in various countries, such as Sweden and Germany, where for a long time after the election the parties were not able to form a government, or as the United Kingdom, where the so-called Brexit is bringing the parliament out of control.
The masses are not dumb, they realize this and will not be fooled again and again. Even in Canada, Pinup-boy Trudeau, "liberal, modern and progressive," has unmasked himself as being corrupt.
Do not forget, that in the process the bourgeois state, it is facing the danger of confronting revolution, forcing it to take up more measures to restrict and suffocate the struggles. It is not that the demo-liberals make a leap towards fascism but that restrictive laws prepare the way.
The New Great Wave of the Proletarian World Revolution gains more strength day by day
In France, the yellow vests are in the streets by the thousands, struggling for several months, every week, fighting against French imperialism. Across the country, from Paris to Marseille and dozens of smaller or larger cities, the masses rise not only to struggle against some increased measures of exploitation, but against the system itself.
They do so despite all efforts of the French state, be it carrots as in Macron's offers or the stick through unleashed police violence. And in the midst of this fierce struggle the red banner with the sickle and hammer flies. This demonstrates the necessity to develop the revindicative struggle in terms of power. That is a political principle of mass work of great importance for the reconstitution of the Communist Party and the preparation of the initiation of the People's War.
The revindicative struggle is necessary, but we have to apply it in a communist manner - with polics contrary and opposed to the opportunist or revisionist one, applying a class line and elevating it through actions. Develop the revindicative struggle in service of the power!
The Irish national liberation movement deals new blows against the English imperialists, reviving the armed struggle of the Irish people that never disappeared. In the Spanish State, in the different places the struggle for self-determination is gaining strength, such as in the Basque country or Catalonia.
The People’s Wars in the world are a bright torch that illuminates the armed struggles that will free the masses
Returning to the Third World, we see the People's Wars in the world, in India, Peru, the Philippines and in Turkey as a bright torch that illuminates the armed struggles that the masses are already waging in various places against imperialism. In these People’s Wars, under the leadership of the proletariat and its party, the peasantry is the principal force. To end the three mountains that oppress the people and the nations (imperialism, bureaucratic capitalism and semi-feudality) and make the democratic revolution, through the People’s War, it is necessary to elevate the peasants in armed rebellion to conquer the new Power, following the path of encircling the cities from the countryside, applying unified People's War, with the countryside being the principal stage and the cities as the necessary complement. With the People's Wars that are already underway and to which will be joined those that are to come, we will move on to the World People's War, with which we will sweep away imperialism and the global reaction from the face of the Earth.
The heroic example of the communists, combatants and masses who give their lives in these People's War confronting the genocidal counterrevolutionary war are a beacon for all the communists. It is clamoring to support them in any way possible, what corresponds is to start the People's War in their own country. It is imperative to support them in any way possible, to which corresponds to initiate the People's War in ones country.
In short: all the fundamental contradictions in the world sharpen, the revolution is the main tendency - historically and politically - and the masses are demanding to organize their rebellion. The new great wave of the proletarian world revolution, which is developing in the stage of the strategic offensive, is gaining more strength every day.
The oppressed nations demonstrate, that they are the basis of the world revolution and the center of the revolutionary storm, because of the weight of the masses where the principal force is constituted by the peasentry with its seculdar revindication: "The land to the tiller"
The peasant struggle is sharpening in Peru, the Philippines, in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Asian countries and in Africa.
The contradiction between oppressed nations, on the one hand, and imperialism, on the other, is the principal one. It is, on the one hand, aggravated by the wars of aggression that are amplifying and, on the other, by the armed national resistance of the masses, particularly by the People’s War in Peru, India, the Philippines and Turkey.
The objective conditions for a bold advance, a great leap, are at hand. What is required, is that the Communists fulfill the pending strategic task of the reconstitution of the Communist Party and take a step forward in the reunification of the Communists on world level.
Celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Communist International means fighting without reservations for a Unified International Maoist Conference of the Maoists of the world and a New International Organization of the proletariat
In the year 1919, during the civil war, Lenin, at the front of the communists of the world, founded the III. Communist International.
Marx and Engels founded the International Workers' Association. The II., is the International directed by Engels in the final days of this life. The III. International, founded by Lenin, has in fact been the only Communist International. The others basically reflected Europe.
The Communist International had a complex and difficult life, suffering the loss of its creator and the loss of leaders with a grandeur having great repercussions, leaders of a type that do not simply occur at all times.
Lenin, considered the International a war machine for the world revolution, a World Communist Party with its sections, constituted by the Communist Parties of each of the countries, a necessary tool for the struggle for the emancipation of the international proletariat and the liberation of oppressed peoples and nations.
Under the direction of comrade Stalin, the Communist International had to develop in circumstances that Socialism was developed in a single country, surrounded by imperialism, in a tough internal struggle that lasted until 1937. In addition there was the emergence of fascism and the sinister work of Social Democracy, of that rotten Socialist International with weak and inexperienced Communist Parties, which were not able to dare to take up arms, parties with opportunist leaders (Togliati, Thorez, etc.). The nefarious action of the Trotskyists, of this cheap phonies, men of empty words, that had the nerve to create this artifice, their Fourth International.
Under the direction of comrade Stalin, the Communist International has reached a great development. The International helped to spread communism in the world, to forge Parties of New Type, but they were not able to assimilate experience of the Bolshevik Party, since the problem was how to specify the revolution in each country. Hence the greatness of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung against the revisionist criteria of Togliatti and Thorez on the front, which sought to maintain order and not topple it and focus only on the struggle against fascism.
It is up to us to make an evaluation of the Communist International, especially its VII. Congress, linked to the world war and the role of comrade Stalin. In 1943 the International was dissolved and an Information Committee was left.
Other initiatives, and in particular the experience of the RIM, have contributed positively to the struggle for the reunification of the International Communist Movement, but none has been able to play a role similar to that of the Communist International of Lenin and Stalin. The communists of the world struggle to overcome this situation.
There are Communist Parties that lead the Popular Wars, but it is necessary for the communists in the rest of the world to constitute or reconstitute their Communist Parties and initiate People's War as soon as possible. We see advances towards fulfilling this task principally in Latin America, in Europe and there are also positive developments in North America and Asia.
The universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, must be applied to the concrete conditions of each country in a creative way, generating a guiding thought of the revolution, establishing the specific laws that govern the revolution in the country in question. In the current period of the process to reconstitute the parties, some rant accusingly about "dogmatism" and "copying", but they are "forgetting" that, as a communist, you must begin by applying Marxism and not revisionism, and in the process of practice you learn the specific laws of the revolution in the country where you operate.
We need Communist Parties that are war machines, militarized Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Parties, that in the midst of actions of a belligerent and mass character, go through all the transformations and changes that allow them to lead the People's War in their specific country. Only those Parties, which are the complete negation of the legalist and economist Parties if the revisionist, are an expression of the full unity of Maoist theory and practice. Only those Parties are capable of mobilizing, politicizing, organizing and arming the masses, which are already developing their spontaneous and unorganized struggle of resistance everywhere against the imperialist.
Those who do not see this are blind to the struggle of the masses. Hence, the task of the communists is to give this struggle an organized form and a conscious character by taking the initiative by developing the offensive struggle for power in a planned manner that allows the revolutionary forces to resist the enemy's counter-offensive. Therefore the communists must call the masses to: Combat and resist!
The communists must go ahead in this, being a role model for the masses. Dare to struggle and dare to win! That is the spirit every communist must embody, to storm heaven.
The development of the objective situation, the struggles of the masses, the armed struggles and the advances in the constitution / reconstitution of the Communist Party in the world and in fighting dispersion in the ICM, in the unification of the Maoists based on the principles, the two line struggle and in the class struggle as well as in the campaigns and international events shows a palpable advance in uniting under Maoism. So we are in a position to take a further step forward in reunifying the ICM into a new international organization, on the path towards a new Communist International.
The call for a Unified International Maoist Conference is a daring battle-cry to overcome the dispersion of the International Communist Movement and unify it on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, the struggle against revisionism and serving the proletarian revolution world. Of course, this task is not easy and revisionism and opportunism are doing everything possible to cause problems, to obstruct and sabotage everything they can; But the communists are there to solve the problems, to tear down the walls, move the mountains and crush revisionism and opportunism.
Unite under Maoism!
Advance towards the Unified International Maoist Conference!
Long live the invincibility of People's War!
Mayday 2019
Signatories:
Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun
Peru People’s Movement (Reorganisation Committee)
Communist Party of Brazil (Red Faction)
Red Faction of the Communist Party of Chile
Maoist Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Columbia
Revolutionary Nucleus for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Mexico
Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist*
Committee Red Flag, FRG
Maoist Communist Party, French State
Red Flag Collective, Finland
Committees for the Foundation of the (Maoist) Communist Party of Austria
Tjen Folket - Communist League, Norway
Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA
* The TKP/ML considers the term Third World to be an incorrect political phrase that should be used with quotation marks only.
