The Central Committee of the PCTE, meeting on September 8th, 2023, assessed the situation of the International Communist Movement, the discussions taking place as a result of the imperialist war in Ukraine, and the attacks being made against brother communist and workers’ parties.
In view of the evolution of developments, we consider that it is necessary to remember our assessments and vision on the international situation and some essential features for the overcoming of the crisis the International Communist Movement is experiencing.
We consider that, without a correct characterization of the era we are living and struggling in, it is not possible to formulate an appropriate communist strategy. For the particularization of such strategy, it is necessary to approach the nature of revolution, the role of the Communist Party, the participation of communists in bourgeois governments, the policy of alliances, and the stance to be taken when the inter-imperialist clashes sharpen.
– We are living in the era marked by the transition from capitalism to socialism-communism, opened after the triumph of the Great Socialist October Revolution. The October Revolution confirmed the working class as the social force that can and must lead the revolutionary struggle for a society free from exploitation. It confirmed the irreplaceable role of the revolutionary political vanguard —the Communist Party— as the leading tool of the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of the new socialist-communist society.
The fact that no socioeconomic system has been immediately consolidated in the history of humankind is undeniable. The bourgeoisie themselves required approximately four centuries for the establishment of their power and the abolition of the prevalence of feudal relations. This was a contradictory process characterized by a succession of revolutions and counter-revolutions spanning a whole historic era that ended with the victory of the bourgeoisie.
The transition from a lower stage of development to a higher one is not an ascending direct process. Therefore, as it could be verified in the case of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the construction of socialism carries with it the possibility of a return to capitalism — of a counter-revolution. Nevertheless, the existence and achievements of the socialist society, establish by the October Revolution, evidenced the possibility of a society without employers, without capitalists who own the means of production. Such conclusion is not invalidated by the fact that capitalism could not be totally defeated in the 20th century.
– We are living in the era of imperialism. During the transition between the 19th and 20th centuries, capitalism entered its imperialist stage. As Lenin noted and can be checked every day, imperialism is capitalism in the stage of development when the domination of monopolies and finance capital has taken shape. Imperialism is the highest and latest stage of capitalism, when the inexorable process of capital concentration and centralization, of monopolization of the economy, of agony, parasitism, and decay operates. It enhances the exploitation of the working class and the plundering of peoples with the only goal of maximizing the profits of monopolies.
The replacement of free competition by monopolies is the main economic feature, the essence of capitalism in its imperialist stage. A handful of big companies divide the world production and trade, remarkably increasing their power in the last decades.
Imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism. The section of rentiers and speculators —the section of those who live by “clipping-coupons”— expands. The role of investment funds, of futures market funds, or venture capital funds is growing.
Imperialism tends to domination and political reaction in all the spheres. The arms race is speeding up and the role of the military industry —which is developing new and destructive arms— is growing. The investments related to the so-called war 4.0, cybersecurity, and cyberspace are increasing. The investments allocated to the preparation and use of mercenary armies —private military companies meant for their participation in the so-called “unconventional” wars— are also increasing.
As a result of all this, the parasitic nature of capitalism is increasing. An increasingly larger part of wealth is absorbed by military budgets and by the preparation of new interference plans. The militarization of the economy and the preparation of new imperialist wars is confirmed as one of the most relevant ways for the ensuring of the highest monopolistic profits.
The historical path has confirmed that imperialism is agonizing capitalism. It is the antechamber of the socialist revolution.
The primacy of monopolies has meant a socialization of labor unparalleled in history, employing the great majority of workforce available. With it, the main contradiction of capitalism, between the social nature of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation of what is produced, is sharpened. It is increasingly more evident that the social nature of production demands the social ownership of the highly concentrated means of production.
In our era, productive forces have reached such a high level of development that they cannot fit in the narrow margins of the capitalist relations of production. Imperialism carries the contradictions to their final limit, to their extreme level, thus sowing misery, destruction, and death; it even endangers the life in the planet.
– Class struggle is still the engine of history. After the temporary triumph of the counter-revolution in the Soviet Union and most of the socialist camp, the capitalist relations of production are totally dominant worldwide. In our era, two main social classes are clashing — on one hand the working class, which comprises and groups around it a large social majority; on the other hand, the bourgeoisie, an exploiting minority holding in exclusivity the political power. This is the struggle of one class against the other class.
The sharpening in the contradiction between labor and capital is manifested in the intensifying of the exploitation of the working class and other toiling strata, whose living and labor conditions are constantly worsened. Capitalism is unable to meet the most basic needs of the world working class from the city and the countryside, which comprises the huge majority of the population.
Together with the capital-labor contradiction, the contradiction between the capitalist powers for the sources of raw materials, for geostrategic control, is intensified. This turns the imperialist wars and militarism into an inevitable element.
The main world powers and, along with them, the other capitalist countries are experiencing a constant dispute. When the “Cold War” ended, monopoly capitalism had the opportunity to expand via a fabulous export of capitals to the Eastern European countries, which served for more than a decade as an escape route for the overaccumulation of capitals. Once this new division of the world was finished, things began to change. The new world order proclaimed over the ruins of the Soviet Union, commanded by the United States as the sole world super-power, bumped into the very essence of the imperialist stage of capitalism.
Based on an already divided world, only new divisions are possible. This, under the conditions of the late-19th century and the early-20th century, has brought about a new dispute for world hegemony “according to capital”, “according to the strength”. New trade wars, new disputes for natural resources, and for trade and transport routes. Also new armed conflicts (Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria…). All this situation leads to the mutual weakening of capitalists, breaks the positions of capitalism in general, brings the moment of the proletarian revolution closer, and turns this revolution into a practical need.
However, new theories concealing the essence of the imperialist system have arisen. To some extent, they also attempt to place the working class behind one or another section of the bourgeoisie or one or another imperialist power, always following the logic of the lesser evil, as it happened during World War I.
– The temporary triumph of the counter-revolution in the USSR and other countries drove the revolutionary working class to a long-standing and still-existing crisis. In many countries, including ours, such crisis was deepened by the dominance of the Eurocommunist trend and the social democratic mutation of the Communist and Workers’ Parties. Not only in Spain, but also in many other countries in the world, the working class has gone through decades of resistance without its own political program, independent of the interests of the other social classes. In the best of cases, there were several attempts to defend our best struggling traditions by looking at the past, by trying to recover the strategy prior to the crisis in our movement and by recovering inter-classist stances that generally end up solidifying within the working class the belief that capitalism can be reformed for the sake of the working-class majority. These attempts subordinate our class to the goals and interests of other social classes.
This is what happens with the theory of multipolarity, which in essence expresses a commitment to the powers seeking to surmount positions in the imperialist chain against those occupying a higher position. It turns the working class into a mere pawn in the game of contradictions between capitalist countries, it places the proletariat under an alien banner in a dispute in which the workers and the peoples have nothing to win.
These stances introduce important distorts in the understanding of the Leninist theory of imperialism. They are a dangerous step back for the international communist movement, as they reduce this stage of capitalism to simple relations of domination. When imperialism is no longer considered a world system and is confused with the foreign policy of some imperialist powers, when the domestic and foreign policies of each country are artificially and metaphysically separated, when an arbitrary policy of alliances is proposed based on an alleged world anti-imperialist front that includes capitalist powers and capitalist international unions that are just striving for a better position in the imperialist pyramid, what is being expressed is the ideological, political, and organizational weakness of the international communist movement.
– The nature of the revolution in the capitalist countries is objectively determined by the basic contradiction to be solved — the contradiction between capital and waged labor; as well as by the era we have to live and struggle in — imperialism, the antechamber of the socialist revolution.
This situation upholds the need of the party of a new type, which expresses the merge of the revolutionary theory with the labor movement, which bases its activity on the working class, the vanguard class and the subject of the revolution. The party of a new type expresses the interests of the proletariat and gives continuity to its struggle, it drafts its revolutionary program, its contemporary tactics and strategy based on the laws ruling the social development, critically assimilating the historic experience of those who preceded us in the struggle, defending the construction of socialism in the 20th century, and fighting the bourgeois slanders and the historic revisionism.
The revolutionary labor movement should not underestimate the inter-imperialist contradictions, nor should separate the domestic and foreign policies of each country. On the contrary, it should use their escalation for the weakening of the stances of world capitalism. In this reinforcement, the task of communists is to decisively and methodically fight for the seizure of the political power. In order to achieve it, it is essential for the working class to not align itself behind the bourgeoisie of their countries and not be trapped nor subordinated to the expansive plans of rival powers or imperialist alliances.
Keeping in mind that both the domestic and foreign policies of every country is determined by its position within the world imperialist system and consciously serve to the reproduction of capital and the strengthening of exploitative relations is indispensable. Imperialism is a historical stage in the development of capitalism. It characterizes the societies of all the capitalist countries, regardless of the level of development of productive forces in each country and the relations of unequal inter-dependence between them.
The stances that exclusively emphasize the relations of dependence, thus underestimating the deepening of the intertwine of links in the world economy and the inter-dependence between them, do not contribute to the maturing of the political conscience of the working class and its allies. Consequently, they blur the goals of class struggle and its necessary guidance towards the overthrow of capitalism, the seizure of power, and the construction of socialism-communism, regardless of the position of each country in the imperialist pyramid, which always has a relative and temporary nature.
The validity of the law on the unequal economical and political development between the different capitalist countries determines that the conditions for the revolutionary triumph mature differently in each country or group of determined countries. This means that the new socialist revolutions will initially triumph in a single country or group of countries, aided by the existence of an international communist force equipped with a unified revolutionary strategy that weakens the ability of international imperialism to react.
The escalation of contradictions characterizing imperialism as agonizing capitalism does not mean in any case that capitalism is going to disappear by itself. It just means that imperialism is the stage of capitalist development when the conditions for the direct assault of the capitalist fortress have matured, thus raising as an immediate task the multi-faceted preparation of the working class for the seizure of the political power, in order to conduct the economic and political measures that are the essence of the socialist revolution.
– Our tasks within the International Communist Movement
The International Communist Movement is still going through a serious crisis. Within it, antagonistic political-ideological stances are manifested. The PCTE will continue to actively participate in all the international structures it participates in, at the same time it reinforces the bilateral and multilateral relations with other brother parties, aiming at the advance of the International Communist Movement in the definition of a contemporary revolutionary strategy, based on the centrality of the world working class in the revolutionary process, in the learnings from the experiences of the construction of socialism in the 20th century, on the laws ruling the construction of socialism, and on its incompatibility with commercial relationships.
We restate that our tasks within the international sphere aim to contribute to the overcoming of this crisis. This is a slow process, full of all kinds of obstacles, but it inevitably demands the political-ideological strengthening of the communist and workers’ parties through the struggle for the defense of the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism against the infiltration of social democratic, reactionary, nationalist, chauvinist, and diversionist stances within it.
We defend an International Communist Movement based on Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, capable of higher levels of coordination and of advancing towards the regrouping and the formulation of a Marxist-Leninist strategy. This means a level of bilateral and multinational collaboration reinforced with all those parties that share with the PCTE the same political-ideological stance.
The PCTE addresses its international work to the strengthening of multilateral structures, but it gives a special relevance to the establishment and development of stable bilateral relations, prioritizing the Parties binded to us by narrow ideological, cultural or historic ties.
Specifically, the PCTE declares its will to narrow its ties with the European and Mediterranean Communist and Workers’ Parties, as well as the Parties from the brother countries of America and the countries where there is a larger presence of monopolies headquartered in Spain.