CPB congress
----- Original Message -----
From: Communist Party
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2000 11:54 PM
Subject: CPB congress
Communist Party of Britain
Dear Comrades,
we are happy to send you the main address given to our party's 45th national congress
at Easter 2000 by our general secretary Robert Griffiths. The speech outlines some of
the central themes of the congress discussions and the general direction of our party.
We would like to thank all those many fraternal parties that sent messages of
greetings. The congress was also attended by 22 different fraternal parties,
international guests, diplomatic representatives and fraternal press correspondents.
One of the largest international contingents the British party has ever had at a
congress.
Our web site will be updated in the next few weeks with the amended main resolutions
and we will be sending out the full congress decisions by e-mail and by printed copy
fairly soon.
Yours in Comradeship,
Kenny Coyle
International Secretary
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Communist Party of Britain
45th Congress
Address by General Secretary ROBERT GRIFFITHS, April 22
Comrades and Friends,
When the Communist Party was established in Britain 80 years ago, the world had
entered what Lenin characterised as the era 0+ imperialist war, national liberation
struggles and socialist revolution.
Sure enough, the 20th century was a century of unprecedented social, national and
international conflict.
In the first Great War, the leading imperialist powers organised mass killing on an
industrial scale, in their rivalry to control the world's markets, cheap labour and
raw materials. It ended in 1918 only by sowing the seeds of fascism and a second world
war.
But the October Socialist Revolution in Russia lit a beacon for workers and oppressed
peoples across the world. And it was the Soviet Red Army which -. in the words of
Winston Churchill - 'tore the guts out of the Nazi war machine' and saved humanity
from unimaginable horror.
Subsequently British, French, Japanese and Portuguese colonial rule was overthrown in
scores of countries, and the peoples of China, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam joined eastern
Europe on the road to socialism.
The labour and progressive movements in the advanced capitalist countries fought for
full employment, nationalisation, social welfare and the redistribution of wealth.
Women achieved rights and opportunities as part of the democratic advance on many
fronts. In country after country, the capitalist class and its politicians were
compelled - by struggle - to make concessions.
But we did not win fundamental, revolutionary change. The working class and its
political parties did not take state power, take over the commanding heights of the
economy and build socialism. Big business remained in the saddle, economically and
politically.
New techniques of exploitation at home, and the maintenance and even extension of
economic power in the former colonies, preserved the profit base of the capitalist
monopolies.
The state power that served their interests launched the Cold War and an arms race
against the socialist countries. Ruthless methods were used by imperialism to
frustrate the victory of popular national liberation, socialist and communist
movements, from military dictatorship to carpet bombing, from Chile and Nicaragua to
Korea and Indonesia.
We in the Communist Party in Britain are proud of our solidarity with the Soviet Union
and the socialist countries, with the international Communist movement, with the
national liberation and peace movements against imperialism.
For all the mistakes that were made in the former socialist societies -and dismissing
the ludicrous exaggerations and distortions of capitalist propaganda - we were right
to support their enormous achievements. Many millions of workers, pensioners, women
and - a new category of people in those countries today - the unemployed are worse off
as a result of the collapse of their socialist system. So, too, are working people in
the developed and developing capitalist countries.
Since the collapse, the New World Order has been unleashed upon us all.
Economically, the TransNational Corporations strive to impose their monopoly across
much of the world - in the name of 'free trade' and globalisation - assisted by the
IMF and the World Bank.
These giant companies - most based in the major imperialist countries -now control
more than one-third of capitalist production and two-thirds of world trade. Two months
ago, one such company - Unilever - whose economic capacity is greater than that of
many member states of the United Nations, simply announced a global programme of
25,000 lob losses. A few of the top financial TNCs can destroy the national currency
of Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and even Italy overnight.
Politically, the United States acts as policeman, judge, jury and executioner on
behalf of 'the international community' (as it calls any alliance that can be cobbled
together when the United Nations fails to follow US foreign policy).
Militarily, countries that depart from the US line like Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Grenada,
Somalia and Afghanistan are invaded and bombed. NATO spearheads the drive eastwards to
the borders of Russia, enveloping new client states and setting up protectorates that
can be made safe for monopoly capitalism.
Yet socially, the results of the New World Order demonstrate that imperialism is the
highest but also the final stage of capitalism - it is parasitic and moribund.
Imperialism enslaves the Third World in a vicious cycle of debt, poverty, cash crops,
hunger, cheap labour and raw materials - and super profits for the TNCs. The same
capitalist monopolies also strive to intensify the exploitation of workers in the
advanced capitalist countries, where most of their capital is still invested. War is a
particularly profitable business.
Imperialism is moribund because it is capitalism that has outlived its usefulness. It
can no longer harness the massive productive forces it has created. As Marx and Engels
pointed out in The Manifesto of the Communist Party, the sorcerer can no longer
control the spirits he has conjured up; as a result we have periodic crises of what in
any other system would be a cause for celebration - a social surplus, the
over-production of coal, steel, motor cars... Factories have to close, machinery is
scrapped and workers are expelled into the ranks of the industrial reserve army.
Marxist political economy lays bare the realities of the big business profit system -
but the workers of Longbridge and Govan like workers from Germany to the Philippines
actually experience those realities, learning lessons the hard way.
Marxist analysis informed the shop stewards' plan for Rover cars in 1979, when Derek
Robinson and his comrades provided the medium-term alternative to take-over and mass
redundancy.
'Red Robbo' was right!
Comrades,
Imperialism is moribund because it cannot solve the most fundamental problems of
humanity. One billion of the world's 6 billion people are underfed or are literally
starving, while scores of millions are obese through over-consumption. Eight hundred
million people lack any health services; 840 million are illiterate, two-thirds of
them women.
These statistics would be far worse were it not for the achievements of socialist
China.
One-fifth of the world's population own four-fifths of the world's wealth; half the
population of the planet own lust 6% of it, those three billion people having to
subsist on less than two dollars a day. This grotesquely unequal distribution of
wealth is mirrored almost exactly within Britain.
One and a half billion people in the world have no safe water supply. Malaria is
making a comeback, the breeding of mosquito's stimulated by global warming. Five
hundred million people now contract the disease each year; two million die as a
result. But the pharmaceutical companies have withdrawn from development of the
necessary medicines. As Dr Robert Riddle of the World Health Organisation puts it:
We desperately need new sources of drugs, but the cost of a new malarial medicine is
about $300-$600 million. The market place cannot provide a return on that investment
because most malaria-infected countries are so poor.
The governments and armaments companies of Britain and the USA spend that kind of
money on military research and development in a matter of weeks.
Today's reality is that science and technology are developed and applied primarily in
the interests of monopoly capital, not to liberate humanity from disease, hunger, war
or so-called 'natural' disasters.
Britain is still spending a million pounds every week bombing Iraq back into the stone
age - but we cannot afford to bombard the Horn of Africa with food and with farming
and irrigation facilities.
NATO spent £30 billion destroying embassies, broadcasting centres, railway bridges,
passenger trains and tractor convoys in Serbia - but will only commit one billion
pounds to reconstruction.
Now the United States wants to build 'son of Star Wars' using bases in Britain - and a
Labour government packed full of ex-CND hypocrites wag their tails with delight. And
the chief tail-wagger is Tony Blair, who seems to fancy himself as Luke Skywalker -
but who also believes that Darth Vader should be supported with boyish enthusiasm.
Comrades,
We needed the peace movement in the Cold War. We need it more than ever now that
imperialism has renewed its drive for world domination.
We also need it because the economic rivalry between imperialist powers and their TNCs
is intensifying. The European Union is developing its own autonomous military force
within NATO, with Tony Blair - the circus trick rider this time - standing on both
horses at once.
Our party has consistently opposed the construction of a capitalist military United
States of Europe. We fight for a democratic Britain against all the moves to create a
big business Europe. That is why we will be redoubling our efforts to build a mass
democratic, anti-monopoly movement - based on the organised working class -against
British entry to the Single European Currency.
We have already had a taste of rule by unelected, unaccountable bankers and their
hired academics, since the new Labour government handed over control of interest rates
to the Bank of England's monetary policy Committee. A hundred thousand manufacturing
jobs have been sacrificed to the interests of the City of London and its financial
institutions. The policy of high interest rates and a high-value pound, to eliminate
inflation and attract international 'hot money' to London, is threatening to destroy
strategic British industries like coal, steel and textiles.
The developing countries will not always accept the new global division of labour
whereby they do the farming, the mining and the manufacturing - while we consume the
product, shuffle the paper profits around and engage in e.dot.commerce with ourselves.
The contradictions between global imperialism and the TNCs on one side, and the need
for balanced national economies on the other, can only be resolved temporarily - short
of socialist revolution - by the use of national state power to massively extend
public ownership and state planning.
Railtrack, RJB Mining, Ford and British Aerospace are queuing up for state subsidies
as privatisation and the 'free' monopoly market prove unable to finance investment. We
could call it 'aggressive begging'... The response of a Labour government should be:
if you want public money, we'll take public ownership.
Communists and socialists go further. We say:
Nationalise rail, coal, steel, electricity, water and gas in a new, democratic form of
public ownership.
+ Take over the banks, the pharmaceuticals and armaments companies for good
measure.
force capital to invest in Britain by stemming the flood of capital overseas.
+Limit imports to protect key industries. Carry out an extensive trade-and-aid policy
to assist the Third World and expand the market for our exports.
That is the Alternative Economic Strategy which would lay the basis for a modern
welfare state, guaranteeing dignity - and some luxury - to people in their retirement.
+Tax the rich and big business.
Why not limit company directors to an increase of 75p a week for the coming year or -
if that's tightening their belts too much - the extra 1 Op an hour the; will paying
their lowest-paid workers?
Which brings me to this Labour government.
Comrades,
We were right to call and campaign for a Tory defeat - which could only be brought
about by a Labour victory - at the 1997 general election. It did raise the morale,
expectations and demands of millions of people, opening up new opportunities for the
left. Much of the criticism of this government's shortcomings have come from the left
and not the right.
We have a Labour government with the biggest parliamentary majority in history, and
with billions of pounds at its disposal. It takes an arrogant and perverse genius to
raise the Tory Dracula from its coffin while at the same time alienating millions of
working class voters by pursuing right-wing policies.
Public opinion wants more spent on health, education and pensions. The majority view
is against privatisation, for public ownership of the railways and for writing off
Third World debt without strings. The peoples of Scotland and Wales want more powers
and resources for their devolved governments.
While public opinion opposes British entry into the Single European Currency, the
leaders of new Labour sit on the fence, posing for photographs with big business
supporters of the Euro. Hague and Portillo can then pose as the champions of
democratic self-government in Britain.
Most people in Britain and Ireland want a settlement in the north that paves the way
for eventual British withdrawal. The Labour government, however, has capitulated to
right-wing Orange Unionism and its Tory allies, so weakening the pro-Good Friday
Agreement forces for peace and reconciliation.
Labour's asylum and immigration policy - much of which they rejected as 'inhumane'
when in opposition - has stoked up racism. Jack Straw has joined the Sun and the Daily
Mall in the gutter, where only Tory and fascist vermin will thrive. Bill Morris and
John Monks should be congratulated for their criticism of the government's language
and policy - but where are the rest of the trade union leaders? Where are the mass of
Labour MPs - they can't all represent Stepford.
The forthcoming local elections should be the wake-up call for the labour movement.
Trade union leaders should lead a fight by their members to put this Labour government
on the right track. There has to be an upsurge in campaigning and struggle for an
alternative economic and political strategy, including the repeal of all the Tory
anti-trade union laws.
Blare and his Millbank clique should be removed before they do irreparable damage to
the Labour Party and its democracy.
For our part, the Communist Party is taking the case for progressive, anti-monopoly
policies to five million Londoners, urging them to vote Communist on May 4 - for a
people's capital, not a capital for the capitalists.
The Morning Star, as the daily paper of the left and the labour movement, has an
invaluable role to play as an educator and a mobiliser. The comrades at the paper have
shown recently that they can fight effectively for the principles that they preach.
Their sacrifices and the work of Star supporters have already resulted in a
significant increase in the daily sales of the paper - up by 500 over the past 12
months. They have given the whole movement a weapon. It is now up to us to treble and
quadruple that daily increase by the time of our next Congress.
The Communist Party will play its full part in this as in many other battles. Our 80
years of Marxist-Leninist analysis and militant struggle, rooted in the working class,
have made us the Marxist party of the British labour movement.
But the Communist Party needs to be stronger and more influential if the labour
movement is to turn decisively to the left, to challenge the misleaders at the head of
the Labour Party and to play the leading role in a popular alliance of forces against
state-monopoly capitalism. That is why we have emphasised party propaganda and
recruitment alongside our continuing work in the broader labour and progressive
movements, set out in the EC reports of work that I commend to you.
Comrades,
Despite the set-backs of recent decades, the Communist. Party in Britain is decisively
back in action. We enter the 21 st century as part of a world-wide movement, shoulder
to shoulder with hundreds of millions of people organised in trades unions and
co-operatives, in Communist and socialist parties, in the peace and environmental and
other progressive movements.
We have had the imperialist wars and the national liberation struggles. We've had the
first, early socialist revolutions. The conditions are becoming over-ripe for
socialist revolution that will put an end to the capitalist system of war, poverty,
insecurity and environmental degradation once and for all.
~ Long live the labour movement
~ Long live international working class solidarity
~ Long live the Communist Party of Britain and the international communist movement
Communist Party of Britain,
Unit F11, Cape House, 787 Commercial Road, London, E14 7HG.
Tel: (44) 207 517 9722 Fax: (44) 207 517 9733.
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage: www.communist-party.org.uk
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