We are not only fighting a pandemic – but for a new and better future
Statement of the European Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations of the ICMLPO
Open for signature by communist, revolutionary and anti-imperialist, anti-fascist European forces
We are in the middle of a serious health, political, social and economic crisis. The Covid 19 pandemic has exposed a capitalist society that has not been able to provide even the most basic medicine, healthcare equipment and staff for the workers and especially the poor people. It has demonstrated a public health system on its knees from years of cutbacks and heavy privatization in favor of the big monopolies and the rich. A system on the verge of the breakdown of capacity. The consequences of the neoliberal and capitalist austerity policy, which has made the public health care system into a commodity of profit, are fatal.
This crisis shows also the tremendous capability of the people to develop their concrete solidarity: the bourgeoisie calls for “isolation”, the people respond with spontaneous expression of solidarity and support to health care workers and demands for concrete measures of protection.
The public health care systems must immediately receive get the necessary economic and human resources to secure public health. Free healthcare and protective devices for all. Private health resources must be requisitioned.
On the order hand, capital, the big monopolies with immediate greed have demanded full access to public funds on a scale never before seen to secure their profit. The bourgeoisie, their governments and state call for national unity and public spirit. But in fact they have been using fear and shock therapy to start a massive offensive against the working class and popular masses in order to secure themselves through the rapidly growing underlying economic crises, that the Covid 19 has accelerated. The bosses are given almost free hands to deepen exploitation and make further cutbacks to the working and living conditions of the working class. And the top leaders of the reformist trade unions facilitate this in the name of unity with the insatiable capitalists.
Make the exploiters and the rich use their profits and stolen wealth to pay for this crisis and the pandemic – not the workers and popular masses.
Capital and their governments are not at war against an invisible enemy. They have intensified their class war, demanding that the workers, students and the people abandon all class struggle and the struggle for their just needs, at a time when unemployment, lack of income and social need are growing fast. Instead it is time to stand up for our rights and demands and continue the fight for social justice.
Adequate health and safety measures guaranteed for all workers. Stop all dismissals. Full pay, social benefits and guaranteed income for all. The governments must use the public funds for the social, health and economic needs of all the people.
In many countries the governments have declared a state of emergency, in which democratic rights are set aside, the police and military are given unlimited power to secure the safety of the imperialist states and the profits of the ruling class, not the safety of the population. The bourgeoisie uses the pandemic to limit the freedom of the workers and silence critical voices, to spread chauvinism and fascism.
Taking advantage of this situation, the European Union, its Central Bank and the EU Commission are centralizing their power. Their only answer is to pay huge sums of billions of euros in order to defend the profits and maintain and strengthen the position of the European monopolies and the EU in the global economic crisis, and to close the borders between the countries and between the EU and the rest of the world.
But we have not forgotten the last crises, in which the banks and corporations were gold plated at the expense of the people, and how their profit were subsequently protected at the expense of the public health systems.
Hands off the rights and freedoms of the workers! It is time instead to raise the demand: stop the free movement of capital out of the public coffers and the exploitation of the working class for the already full pockets of the stockholders and tax havens.
It is time to demand the repeal of the state of emergency laws. To demand not only the soldiers out of the streets, but all soldiers engaged in imperialist wars to be brought home and given useful civilian work to stop the pandemic.
The epidemic is a tremendous threat to the people worldwide, especially where the health care system is weak, because of the plundering of wealth by the imperialist states and monopolies, supported by anti-people and corrupt governments. The imperialist cannot wash this responsibility from their hands. It is time for comprehensive sanitation.
The working class and the popular masses are facing a complex and dangerous period with the deepening of the general crisis of the imperialist capitalist society and the sharpening of all the main contradictions: the working class against the bourgeoisie, imperialism against the oppressed people and nations, the contradictions among the imperialist powers and monopolies themselves for world domination and hegemony.
The moribund system of capitalism cannot offer anything but more exploitation and social injustice, more pillaging of the peoples and devastation of the planet. Even when million people are suffering the consequences of the pandemic, the criminal financial oligarchy never ceases to speculate on the emergency. Hence, there is a need for revolutionary struggle for a new, socialist society, which can guarantee the complete well-being of all its members and develop true international solidarity.
We, the independent and revolutionary parties and organizations of the proletariat, call upon the workers, trade union militants, the youth, women and all popular strata to organize themselves independently and be part of and build a united workers front and a popular front on its basis. Let us strengthen unity, solidarity and struggle to stand up and not accept the scenario of the bourgeoisie of attacks on our working and living condition, but to resolutely defend our demands, our health, our interests! We are not just fighting a pandemic; we are fighting for a new and better future.
March 21, 2020
Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist), PCE(m-l)
Communist Platform. Italy
Party of Labor (EMEP), Turkey
Communist Platform (Marxist-Leninist) KPml, Norway
Movement for the Reorganization of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-1955 (Anasintaxi)
Organization for the Construction of the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany, Arbeit Zukunft (Labor Future)
Workers’ Communist Party, APK – Denmark
Communist Party of the Workers of France, PCOF
Marxism-Leninism Currents Today (informative and written by a medical professional):
ml-today.com/2020/03/17/how-should-marxists-view-the-covid-19-pandemic-of-2019-2020/
Left side of the road (UK):
michaelharrison.org.uk/2020/03/turning-a-problem-into-a-crisis-tory-inactivity-and-hypocrisy-in-the-face-of-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Green Party US March 16th statement:
www.gp.org/far_too_little_but_not_too_late
The Party for Socialism and Liberation and the La Riva / Peltier presidential campaign (Liberation):
www.liberationnews.org/a-peoples-program-to-fight-the-virus/
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (Revolution):
www.revcom.us/a/639/coronavirus-what-we-know-what-we-dont-know-en.html
American Party of Labor (The Red Phoenix):
theredphoenixapl.org/2020/03/20/5600-americans-were-infected-today-self-protecting-capitalists-are-responsible/
Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Fight Back! News):
www.fightbacknews.org/2020/3/17/report-china-covid-19-tale-two-systems
Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (The Communists), one of a few articles:
thecommunists.org/2020/03/20/news/covid-19-treatment-handbook-published-compiling-frontline-experience/
Workers World Party:
www.workers.org/2020/03/46959/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=socialist-demands-for-the-covid-19-crisis
Communist Party USA:
cpusa.org/party_voices/an-open-letter-on-the-coronavirus-crisis/
United National Antiwar Coalition:
unac.notowar.net/2020/03/22/coronavirus-and-the-antiwar-movement/
Socialist Action:
socialistaction.org/2020/03/20/statement-of-socialist-action-national-committee-coronavirus-threatens-the-lives-of-billions/
Venezuela Analysis - IMF Rejects Venezuela Emergency Fund Appeal:
venezuelanalysis.com/news/14817
There are many articles from various left perspectives at www.counterpunch.org , monthlyreview.org/ , www.defenddemocracy.press/ , popularresistance.org/ , iacenter.org , fair.org , www.commondreams.org , etc.
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