ECUADOR
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE)
Comrades and friends,
With great proletarian revolutionary enthusiasm and interest, we have reached August 1 on which we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the PCMLE with our red flags flying.
This is an event of great importance for the proletarian revolutionaries, for the men and women of the left, for the democrats and patriots. It is also a great event for the workers, youth and women of Ecuador; for the teachers, indigenous people and peasants, for the neighborhood residents and small business owners, for the exploited and oppressed, for the poor of the country.
We have existed for 50 years and this occasion allows us the chance to sum up what has been a path of unremitting struggle, of persistent political action, for the organization of the revolution, with our eyes on the goal of the seizure of popular power and socialism.
Since we were born into the political life of the country, since the distant days of 1964, we have kept in mind the goal of the revolution and socialism, but at the same time we understood an undeniable truth, that “the revolution is made by organizing it and placing ourselves at the forefront of the fight to lead it.”
We had before us the challenge of deepening our knowledge and assimilation of the fundamental principles of the emancipatory doctrine of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism. We understood from what the founders stated that “it is not a dogma, but a guide to action,” that “Marxism is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions” and that it was essential to assimilate it in depth “in order to understand reality, but above all to transform it.”
Since our founding, we understood that we had to rescue the essence and validity of the proletarian revolutionary principles that the revisionists and other opportunists, on a national and international scale, had falsified and distorted; but this work of assimilation and affirmation could not be understood as a task enclosed within walls of a closet, but that the knowledge and purification of Marxist-Leninist principles had to be done through study and collective discussion, but in the roar of the storm and the fire of class struggle, closely linked to social and revolutionary practice.
We had before us also the challenge of understanding Ecuadorian reality; the main elements of its economic structure, its traditions of struggle, its real history; not the one that the intellectuals of the ruling classes had put in their texts. We had to delve into the history of the peoples and their struggle, in their brave fights for freedom, for independence, in search of a new life. This tradition of struggle we have to understand in intimate relation to their conditions of life, their aspirations and needs.
Through establishing strong political and organic links with the working masses, we have better understood our own people, and this relationship has helped us to really organize them; through this, we have come to understand their interests, aspirations and needs. Thus the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party with its ideological and political contribution, with the live and direct participation of its members, contributes to their unity, organization and struggle. Thus through the mobilization of the workers, youth, women, teachers, peasants and indigenous people, they have understood the need to confront their enemies, the enemies of the people, and the need to seize power, the only alternative to see from there their true aspirations for change.
A significant achievement of our Party has been to chart the strategy, develop the changing tactics – some of which are transitory – that the process of emancipation demands, the revolutionary march towards popular power.
In March of 1970, at our First National Conference, we adopted the General Line of the Ecuadorian revolution, the Party Program and Statutes was approved. Afterwards, at various congresses, with the functioning of the Central Committee, its leading bodies at various levels, with the action of the leadership and membership, we have worked within the permanent and many-sided process of political reality; what is happening with the capitalist system, gripped by a crisis of a general nature; of the contradictions that move the world today and how these phenomena are expressed in Ecuadorian reality.
We have studied with keen interest the initiatives and contributions of
our fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties of the International Conference,
because those actions serve us as valuable example and reference in
many circumstances of the class struggle in our country; just as the
experiences of the forces of the left, especially of our continent,
have been useful to us.
Of the ideological assimilation achieved we are active practitioners of proletarian internationalism; we have contributed in some initiatives to achieving the unity of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries and of other organizations of the left in the anti-imperialist fight and for national liberation; we constitute an iron detachment of combat in the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations, ICMLPO, whose 20th anniversary we are now celebrating this August. This luckily coincides with the unitary formation and organization of the Marxist-Leninists internationally that took place in Quito, in the Middle of the World, in 1994. We politely request this whole massive turnout at this Internationalist Meeting to stand up, to greet it with thunderous applause and wave our banners to salute with enthusiasm this great revolutionary event!
We firmly believe that a significant achievement of the Party in the past fifty years has been to promote and maintain the relationship with the different sectors of the people, in the first place with the workers. Consistent with Marxist-Leninist principles we have understood the historic role that the working class must play. Under the conditions of a backward and dependent capitalist country, in which the number of workers is not large in relation to the rest of the population, we have linked ourselves to the masses of the working class, we have taken root in it. We have contributed to the formation of the Revolutionary Federation, the General Union of Workers of Ecuador, UGTE, to overcome the repressive and divisive action of the employers and the governments of the bourgeoisie, the harmful and treacherous work of revisionism, opportunism and the trade union bureaucracy.
We Communists of Ecuador have worked to provide the trade union movement with an important instrument in the struggle for defense of its interests and rights, to contribute to its unity, organization and consistent struggle, and to clarify the perspective of its own emancipation.
The organization of the youth, for their rebellious, irreverent role, has been our concern, because the characteristics of young people, when they are channeled and led by an advance force, converts them into revolutionaries, into a dynamic force for social transformation.
Some years ago we organized the Revolutionary Youth of Ecuador, JRE, that calls itself “the young guard of the PCMLE,” which has allowed us to provide a leftist, emancipatory course to the Ecuadorian youths. The “J” has along its path brave, anti-imperialist struggles, combats and action against the sell-out and anti-popular policy of the bourgeois governments, heading towards social change, which the young people themselves have also demanded as the work of the Party.
We have made efforts to strengthen our links with the student youth in the universities. The universities have developed brave, mass struggles in defense of a democratic, scientific and quality education; in this area, the Communist Party has been present in the street fights and in the university, together with the student youth of the country.
Starting from the Marxist conception of the emancipation of women, our Party has taken care to assimilate ever more this concept to achieve the social and political rights of working women in this capitalist society; to denounce the inequities that they suffer under this system of exploitation, to confront the traditionalist and male chauvinist positions, pointing out that the emancipation of the workers is indivisible from the political participation of women. The PCMLE formed the Ecuadorian Confederation of Women for Change, CONFEMEC, to promote the consciousness, denunciation and struggle, the unity and organization to bring working women into the struggle for change.
Comrades and friends: We highlight here the efforts made since our first years to expand the Party’s influence on the peasantry, who have carried out brave struggles for land, for water, for a just price for their products and for essential public works in the countryside. We Marxist-Leninists have been together with the peasants in many of their fights and have put forward the perspective of strengthening ourselves in order to form the alliance of the workers and peasants, which is indispensable for the revolutionary process and the seizure of power.
With the banners of the revolution we are expanding our influence on the various fronts and sectors where the working masses are; the youth, women, teachers, poor neighborhoods and small business owners who have actually felt the combative and clarifying influence of the Party.
As for the indigenous movement, we are making efforts to better understand the Marxist question of multi-culturalism and multi-nationality in this multi-ethnic country. We are with the indigenous movement and the struggle for its political rights as ethnic groups and peoples. We make their aspirations our own and we work to achieve unity with the ancestral peoples in their emancipatory, revolutionary goals.
As we strive towards the revolutionary objectives, from the beginning we have confronted the sell-out and anti-popular policies of the various governments of the ruling classes: military and civilian dictatorships; constitutional governments, openly reactionary and anti-communist ones; others that follow a policy of capitalist development and are reformist, repressive and authoritarian such as the present regime of Correa, which is clearly at the service of capitalist modernization, closely linked to the interests of imperialism, but which utilizes a supposedly revolutionary language in its work of confusion towards the working masses.
We have achieved successes, we have suffered defeats, we experienced difficulties, but what is always in our thought and action is the conviction and decisiveness about our role and our objective.
We have led a conscious and persistent work to build, maintain, and strengthen the communist party: in ideology, to affirm our revolutionary conceptions; in practice to carry out actions to develop the process of accumulation of forces and the battles that bring closer the task of liberation; in political action and organizational development, winning to the ranks of the party those social fighters who embrace the cause of revolution and freedom. To make the party so that it is structured and functions loyal to the Leninist principles of organization; so that it rises up in the factories, in the capitalist plantations, in the peasant communes, in the educational centers and the popular neighborhoods.
All this work is based on the understanding and decisiveness that we have about the full validity and viability of the social revolution of the proletariat and peoples.
With this conviction we have fought revisionism in all its forms and all its currents, knowing that eliminating it from the popular movement is a necessity for the latter to progress better in its confrontation with imperialism and the bourgeoisie and towards achieving its revolutionary role.
We have struggled consistently against factionalism within the party itself to maintain the consistency of its principles and its internal unity. At times in the life of the party there were anti-Marxist and counter-revolutionary outbreaks, which could not thrive much less damage the party, because with the unity and firmness of the rank-and-file and its consistent leadership, they failed in their attempts to undermine the ideological, political and organizational unity of the PCMLE.
In
these 50 years of life it is absolutely correct to honor the heroes of
the party and the people. We acknowledge that their lives constitute a
unique example; they are unforgettable and remain because they have
been precious lives of men and women dedicated to the noble and sublime
task of the freedom of the people. From this tribune we present a
combative and sincere homage to those fallen comrades of the
Marxist-Leninist communist parties and of all revolutionary and leftist
organizations in the world. A fitting tribute to their status as
popular heroes!
Comrades and friends: We Marxist-Leninists are men and women of a special mettle; we are soldiers of the world proletarian revolutionary cause. Therefore, on behalf of our National Leadership, of the Central Committee, we greet the communist militants of our ranks, the candidate members of the party, our collaborators and sympathizers, those simple and modest, courageous and consistent people who have made the revolution their life’s work for all these 50 years. We greet all our friends, the families of our members who understand this commitment, their loved ones and close supporters...
Our solidarity as militant communists with all those detained, prosecuted and politically persecuted of our Party, of the MPD, of the leftist and popular organizations, both nationally and internationally.
We also present a revolutionary greeting to the people of Palestine, shackled with the cowardly attacks of Israeli Zionism, instrument of U.S. imperialism, which is now preying on them with their bombardments of defenseless populations, destroying schools, hospitals and highways, killing children, women, the elderly and civilians. We denounce these crimes and at the same time raise our voices to demand respect for their right to self-determination and territorial integrity that this people demands.
We would like to especially use this opportunity to state that the leaders and rank- and-file of the MPD have the firm and unconditional support of the communists of Ecuador in their struggle against the evil maneuvers of the Correa regime, which is trying through the deceitful maneuver to suspend its electoral registration, to eliminate the revolutionary action of this political formation. This is a vain attempt of the enemies of the people and of the left. The MPD was born in the struggle for a new Ecuador. Our Party has had many political agreements with this political organization and we have fought together in countless struggles for freedom, for real democracy and social change; we have been united in elections and other actions of economic and political combat. The enemies will not get away with this, this is a rebellious and revolutionary people for a long time, this is an MPD that with its struggle challenges the time and the evil maneuvers of the enemies of the people!
We Marxist-Leninists have enthusiastically seen various processes of unity of the leftist and popular forces; consistent with our unitary concept and our principles, we have supported, worked for and participated to bring about the unity of the political sectors of the anti-imperialist and democratic left. We will continue with the view and willingness to achieve the broadest and greatest unity of these sectors for the revolutionary and liberating purposes.
Our commitment continues and we will not let down our fists or lay down our banners until we fulfill our noble and historic mission, the seizure of power through revolution and the establishment of popular power and socialism!
Long live the 50th Anniversary of the PCMLE!August 1, 2014
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