CONTRIBUTION OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF GERMANY (MLPD)
Dear comrades, and friends
On behalf of the Central Committee of the MLPD I would like to express my sincere thanks to the PCMLE and the JRE Youth League for the invitation to the 27th Seminar "Problems of the Revolution in Latin America".
Due to the acute political development in Ecuador and the tasks arising from the dissolution of parliament and new elections, unfortunately it could not be held face to face. Based on the publications of "En Marcha", we have also reported on the profound events in Germany and will continue to do so.
Of great importance and even growing explosiveness is the theme of this year's seminar: "The struggles of the working class and peoples and the inter-imperialist conflicts".
My name is Anna Bartholomé and as head of the MLPD for South America, I am very happy to participate in this seminar – as I have done many times.
I greet you very cordially from the chair of the MLPD party, Gabi Fechtner, and from Stefan Engel, leader of our theoretical organ, the REVOLUTIONARY WAY. I also bring you greetings from the head of the international section of the MLPD, Monika Gärtner-Engel, who performs the task of main coordinator of the world revolutionary organization ICOR and who is currently co-chair of the international anti-fascist and anti-imperialist organization. Children's Red Fox.
I apologize that our contribution to the seminar could only come to you late, but you can imagine that our tasks in party building and the class struggle and internationalist responsibilities place very high demands on us.
Parallel to the international seminar in Quito, from August 31 to September 3, the III International Miners' Conference is taking place, in which I myself will participate. For international finance capital, the attempt to drain old and new mining projects is of paramount importance, above all for the conversion of capitalist production to digitalization and electric mobility. This goes hand in hand with immense environmental destruction, against which fierce resistance is being waged.
The international miners' conference took place for the first time in Arequipa, Peru in 2013 and for the second time in Ghodavarikani, India in 2017. The current conference is taking place in Germany and active miners from 18 countries, as well as many supporters of the miners' movement, are meeting, debating and making decisions on how they can work together even better at the international level and to coordinate struggles together for their interests.
To give you an idea, we want to show you a short video of the opening day:
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We are currently witnessing a far-reaching evolution of human history, without exaggeration, which challenges the clarity and determination of the revolutionaries of the world.
Humanity is in a latent existential crisis.
The war in Ukraine with the acute preparation of a world and nuclear war, like the global environmental catastrophe that has begun, has the potential to bring all of humanity to ruin. The world imperialist system and the single dominant international finance capital are responsible for this. The international socialist revolution has become an urgent necessity.
The global environmental catastrophe that has begun brings with it a "year of records": record heat in southern Europe, record forest fires with enormous damage, record floods in Pakistan, Slovenia, China, etc.
The global environmental catastrophe marks a development that is also bringing heavy mortgages for the building of a socialist society.
The processes of the complex biosphere system, which have developed over millions of years and have now been irreversibly disturbed or destroyed, cannot be reversed by individual technical measures! Self-reinforcing irreversible tipping points have been created or bypassed. The melting of the permafrost and of glaciers cannot be stopped. Just like one cannot stop the ecosystem of a rainforest that has evolved over millions of years.
For environmental awareness to develop and for people to fight for survival and take up the struggle for survival, we need clarity about the situation in which we find ourselves and a scientific approach.
The will among the masses is growing, despite all the agitation and criminalization of young environmental activists. This is also shown by recent surveys. However, to achieve a socially transformative struggle there is nothing more important in the struggle for the environment than to do this theoretical work to get ahead of development!
A supplement to REVOLUTIONARY WAY No. 35, "Catastrophe alarm, what can be done against the wanton destruction of the unity of humanity and nature?” under the direction of the party leadership and editorial director Stefan Engel together with a team of competent experts on the world environmental catastrophe, will appear in the coming weeks. And this book will certainly be translated as soon as possible.
As to the alternative already mentioned by Rosa Luxemburg – "fight for socialism or perish in capitalist barbarism" – it is perfectly clear that the masses of the whole world do not want to perish in the barbarism threatened by war, environmental catastrophe and massive impoverishment. They are taking up the fight for their future and that of the children and young people.
In Europe, we participated in a "militant spring" with general strikes and mass struggles in France, Greece, Portugal and Italy, which were not only directed against impoverishment by rapid inflation, anti-mass pension schemes as in France, but partly also against the warmongers, the gigantic rearmament for the war in Ukraine, etc. In Germany we are witnessing an awakening of class consciousness on a broad front with a tendency to further development. The social confusion spread by the rulers, their mass media and the so-called social media is beginning to dissolve into a struggle unfolded by the mentality.
Large sections of the population are disappointed and extremely dissatisfied with the government formed by Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats, the so-called "traffic-light" coalition.
Especially among young people and the very active environmental movement, an increasingly global critique of capitalism is developing under the slogan "system change, not climate coincidence". This includes the search for a fundamental social alternative without already having a clear "we" over the "how".
As a counter-movement, the rulers are pushing for a right-wing development, especially through a populist, racist, misogynist and divisive agitation against refugees – in particular to build an increasingly openly fascist party, AFD – the so-called Alternative for Germany.
In this polarized situation, the MLPD together with its youth federation REBELL has launched an offensive to help genuine socialism gain new prestige against all anti-communist reservations. It is a dialectical negation of the latent existential crisis of humanity, which also produces tendencies to the cult of spontaneity, but also to resignation and panic.
Without underestimating the real gravity of the situation, it is necessary to encourage the masses to fight for a better world with proletarian optimism.
The final declaration of the 26th International Seminar on Problems of the Revolution in Latin America was also signed by the MLPD by decision of the Central Committee. We completely agree with the evaluation:
"The invasion of Ukraine by Russian imperialism has turned this country into the scene of a war in which the economic, political and geostrategic interests of several capitalist-imperialist countries are at stake. This aggression and the immediate intervention of US imperialism and its allies in the European Union and NATO in the conflict are an expression of the intensification of the inter-imperialist contradictions to the point of being waged on military terrain, turning this conflict into a war of an inter-imperialist character."
The economic war against Russia, justified by the war, has far-reaching consequences for the masses all over the world with inflation, famine, increasing exploitation of man and nature.
The war in Ukraine is the open outbreak of the struggle between the old and the new imperialist countries in the multipolar world, which has been dormant for years.
In this phase, German imperialism has clearly reinforced its ambitions to become the leading military power. The world has never been so close to a third nuclear world war. Putin wants to increase his intervention army to 400,000 men. Calls are being made through mobile phones, which are monitored everywhere. Thousands of people are fleeing. In Ukraine, tens of thousands of people are trying to get out of military service, which is no problem for the rich, given the rampant corruption: small farmers, artisans and workers are sent to the front as cannon fodder.
The growing weariness of war in all countries directly or indirectly involved is a special obstacle for warmongers.
German imperialism is trying to become the first military power. During a visit, War Minister Boris Pistorius complained about the decline in numbers of recruitment of soldiers. He criticized the Bundeswehr's previous advertising campaigns with adventure films and stressed that recruits must be suitable for missions abroad. The core is the "will to defend the country and the alliance" and that soldiers must be willing "to risk their own health for the safety of others". And, of course, not only their health, but their lives, but more and more young people are not willing to do so. In the struggle for peace, questions of principle and ideology must also be clarified in the international revolutionary and workers' movement.
There are crude falsifications which are being spread in Germany especially by the old revisionist party, the DKP, and former employees of the secret service of the GDR, the Stasi.
They describe only the USA is imperialist. Even German imperialism, as a vassal of the US, is underestimated in its independent aspirations. The revisionists use this to justify their policy of supporting Chinese and Russian imperialism. Such revisionist argumentation leads today directly to social-chauvinism.
Of course, there are major and minor imperialist powers. But we are against every imperialist –we don't pit the biggest thief against the smallest one.
Starting with the superpowers USA and China, they are attempting to form blocs in their quest for world domination. The recent BRICS conference is a case in point.
The new focus of international tension in Niger, Africa, is an expression of this intensified international competition.
We must promote the growing critique of capitalism, the growing openness to a socialist alternative, especially among young people, with our efforts to help genuine socialism gain a new reputation.
This requires not only good arguments, but we want to achieve small-scale low-threshold work with mass effect with all the appearance and image of the party. At the same time, we must develop systematic educational and consciousness-raising work.
Thus, we take the upcoming 50th anniversary of Pinochet's fascist coup in Chile as an occasion to refute all the illusions of a "peaceful road to socialism" that the revisionists have pursued until today and to convince people of the need for revolutionary struggle.
Last year's final declaration states: "We call for strengthening the unity and organization of the workers and peoples to confront the owners of capital. This unity must be anti-imperialist and anti-fascist and express the internationalist character of the struggle. From this America, where the peoples are struggling for their emancipation, we express our solidarity with all the peoples of the world who are struggling for work, life, freedom. We are united by the same ideals, we know that we are right, and also that we have the strength."
Forging such an anti-imperialist and anti-fascist united front is more urgent today than ever.
Proletarian internationalism of transnational cooperation and coordination is an adequate response to right-wing development, fascism, war and the world environmental catastrophe. For all its military, political and economic power, imperialism is weak. It can no longer solve the problems of humanity. The workers and masses are mobilizing; the question is, where is their protest headed? We have to influence it, organize the workers and the masses, collect their protest, unite it, coordinate it, radicalize it and revolutionize it through the work of consciousness.
We would like to appeal to all organizations, parties and individuals gathered here to participate actively in this great work and become members of the Anti-Imperialist United Front.
Thank you very much for your attention and I wish for a continued exciting and successful seminar.
Long live international
solidarity!
Anna Bartholomé
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