International response to imperialist war

The 6th International Seminar, dedicated to the analysis of: ‘The imperialist war, terrorism and the struggle of the workers and the peoples,’ has successfully concluded after a frank and fraternal debate with the active participation of more than 500 delegates from the entire country. The resolution, which we publish in full below, confirms that the danger of war and new confrontations is the result of the existence of imperialism, the common enemy of the peoples of the world. The significant advance in the struggles of the masses has also been evaluated in detail.

The following parties and organizations participated in the 6th Seminar:

Revolutionary Communist Party, Argentina
Workers’ Party of Belgium
Revolutionary Communist Party, Brazil
Communist Party of Colombia – Marxist-Leninist
Communist Youth – JUCO – of Colombia
Communist Party of Labour, Dominican Republic
Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany
DOCOM Organization of Holland
Communist Party of Peru – Red Fatherland
Ray O. Light Organisation of the United States
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Democratic Popular Movement Revolutionary Youth of Ecuador

International greetings (as of July 16):

Communist Refoundation, Argentina
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – FARC-EP
People’s Liberation Army – EPL – of Colombia
Communist Party of the Workers of France – PCOF
'Revolutionary Democracy’, India
Organisation for the Communist Party of the Proletariat of Italy
Lenin Circle, Italy
Rasegna Scintilla, Italy
Communist Political Journal, Italy
Leninist Current, Italy-Austria
People’s Power Movement, Mexico
Revolutionary Democratic Popular Party-Peoples Revolutionary Army of Mexico
Union Zashchita (Defence) of Russia
Communist Party Marxist-Leninist (Revolutionary) of Sweden
Party of Labour – EMEP – Turkey

Imperialism has unleashed a new political-military offensive against the peoples of the globe, in their eagerness to take maximum advantage of the wealth created by the peoples and to consolidate their world domination; however, the workers and peoples are struggling in all regions to confront the effects of the crisis, to break the chains of domination and win their independence and freedom. This is the way we see the world today, the political organisations and parties taking part in the Sixth International Seminar Problems of the Revolution in Latin America, held in Quito, Ecuador, July 15-19, 2002.

The events of September 11 last year, which showed the vulnerability of U.S. imperialism in its own territory, allowed it, backed by the rest of the capitalist powers and the ruling classes of the various countries, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, to declare war on all those who oppose its designs, confirming its aggressive nature and the fact that it is a source of reactionary violence and war. This behaviour reveals its decadence and not its vitality, the many economic difficulties which it engenders and carries within it, confirming the Leninist thesis that this is the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution.

The deep political and economic crisis that affects the capitalist-imperialist system causes imperialism to wage war as an escape valve and solution to its difficulties. But this, today, is a war against the peoples and is taking place in specific areas of the planet. Of course, the eventuality of a new general conflagration exists, although not immediately.

The regions of the Middle East and Central Asia on the one hand, and Latin America on the other, constitute two main arenas of imperialist intervention. The barbaric invasion of Afghanistan, planned before September 11, 2001, forms part of its strategy to control the oil and gas wealth of the Middle East and the Caspian Sea, to strengthen its influence in this strategic area and to advance in the formation of a military presence that dominates the region and puts pressure on China, Russia and India. Iraq would be the next objective, followed by the other countries of what Bush has called the axis of evil: Iran and north Korea. Therefore it continues to concentrate troops in the bases that it has in the region and it has installed new ones in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirgizistan. The war-like escalation of the United States is also aimed at the Philippines, with the return of thousands of Yankee soldiers and the threats of invasion. The U.S. military presence in the world has increased 20% since the attacks of September 11. About 300 thousand soldiers, dispersed over more than 140 countries, guard the interests of Yankee imperialism.

The war of the Zionist State of Israel against the Palestinian people is creating new victims, the majority of whom are children and young people. The United States is financing this genocide, providing $1.8 billion in military aid each year. Nevertheless, the Palestinian people are continuing their heroic war of national liberation and are winning the sympathy and support of the peoples of the world. The decision of the Bush administration to recognize the government of the Palestine National Authority does not imply a change of attitude in regard to this conflict; it is trying to reduce the tensions in the Arab countries in order to proceed with the invasion of Iraq.

In Latin America, the imperialist intervention combines its wish to control the energy resources and the biodiversity of the Amazon region, on the one hand, and to stop the advance of the struggle of the peoples on the other. The Plan Colombia has taken on a greater significance with the Andean Regional Initiative, whose aim is not to combat drug trafficking, but to put end to the Colombian insurgency and the struggle of masses that is developing, with certain speed, in various countries. To this must be added the wish to establish new Military Bases in various parts of the continent. It is preparing dictatorial solutions such as the reactionary coup that it tried and is trying to impose on Venezuela. To secure its domination, regional and sub-regional agreements are under way such as the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas and the Plan Puebla – Panama.

All this shows us the aggressiveness of imperialism and the violence that it unleashes. This is terrorism, as are the economic adjustment policies that are forced on the dependent countries and that have brought misery to millions of workers; its permanent and sophisticated forms of aggression, utilizing all kinds of weapons, to force the peoples into subjection – these are terrorism. Terrorism is the inhuman blockade imposed for years on Cuba, Iraq, Libya and north Korea, an act that we condemn.

We are experiencing a new stage in the struggle and dispute among the imperialist powers which are trying to gain new zones of influence and control, a new division of markets and the world. Although U.S. imperialism commands the politics of domination and subjection, there is a group of imperialist powers which are also contesting its influence and are forming alliances and blocs for this purpose, since they are not prepared to ‘yield’ what they consider their sphere. U.S. imperialism, depending on its military power, seeks to affirm its hegemony and in fact today constitutes the strongest power, but not the only one.

Though the events of September 11 mark a new point in international politics, the essence of the world phenomena remain. The imperialist powers oppress the semi-colonial, neo-colonial, and dependent countries and together with the local ruling classes exploit and oppress the peoples; they persist in inter-monopoly and inter-imperialist fights; the working class and the peoples are organising and struggling against intervention and the politics of war, and for independence, democracy and social revolution.

The fight of the workers and the peoples has not weakened; on the contrary, it has recovered and developed. Actions are more frequent and have grown in breadth and depth. The awakening of the peoples is evident on all continents and in their struggles the working class is gaining ground and also uniting new social sectors around it. The winds of revolution are blowing throughout the world, and it is not a dream, but a certain reality!

The uprising in Argentina of last December, which raised the struggle of the masses to a higher level, creating a new situation that put on the agenda the question of popular power, was a clarion call to the peoples; in Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador there have been large and victorious mobilisations against privatisation and the neo-liberal model in general; in Colombia the people and the insurgency are resisting a greater process of militarization, fascisation and affirmation of State terrorism; the Venezuelan people are confronting the U.S. intervention and are raising the banners of sovereignty and democracy; Europe has felt the struggle of the working class in several partial and general strikes. In short, the planet is stirring and the dawn of freedom of the peoples is approaching.

In Latin America there are favourable conditions for the revolutionary struggle, for the action of those of us who want to bring radical socio-economic transformations to victory. The effects generated by the crisis of capitalism are creating better conditions than before for the struggle, for the organization and consciousness of the working class and the peoples in their aim to win independence, popular power and socialism. With that objective, let us raise the struggle for the material and spiritual demands of the masses, for their political and democratic rights. This is a task for the present generations.

We workers and peoples want peace, but we understand that to win it we must defeat those who live on war. In our struggle to win national and social liberation, today we are faced with the danger of a new imperialist war. We will not lay down our banners nor will we shut ourselves behind walls of a reactionary nationalism. If the imperialists bring the world to a new world conflagration, the peoples should respond with revolutionary war, with the struggle of the masses to put an end to this system, to win a new world, one of the workers, socialism and communism, as the only form of winning true peace.

Historic experience has shown us that for the triumph of the revolution it is necessary to count on a strong mass movement, a powerful proletarian vanguard and an adequate instrument which guarantees the exercise of the revolutionary violence of the masses in response to the violence unleashed by the ruling classes. Without these one cannot succeed in the strategic objectives that inspire us. We revolutionaries work in the present phase by accumulating forces for the revolution.

The social revolution is the work of the masses, and in such movement the working class plays the vanguard role. But it must bring in other popular classes and sectors, putting forth a correct policy of unity, which guarantees its political and ideological leadership. In the fight against imperialism it seeks to form a broad anti-imperialist front, which will develop in action, in the struggles in each of our trenches and in the coordinated activities that the peoples are unfolding on a regional and international level.

The revolutionary organizations should take particular interest in the youth, in order to integrate them into the anti-imperialist, democratic and revolutionary struggle and incorporate more of them into our ranks.

We, the below-named organizations, reiterate our internationalist conviction, our commitment to the working class of our countries and to the international proletariat.

We have come to agreement on these positions in the framework of the 6th International Seminar Problems of the Revolution in Latin America, the scene of frank and open discussion with mutual respect. This will take place again next year.

Quito, July 19, 2002

Revolutionary Communist Party, Argentina
Workers Party of Belgium
Revolutionary Communist Party, Brazil
Communist Party of Colombia – Marxist-Leninist
Communist Party of Labour, Dominican Republic
Marxist Leninist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Peru – Red Fatherland
Ray O. Light Organisation of the United States
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador
Democratic Popular Movement Revolutionary Youth of Ecuador

We, the parties and organisations who took part in the 6th International Seminar, reiterate our militant solidarity with the peoples of Palestine and Iraq in their struggles against imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism and the terrorist State of Israel. We consider the cowardly aggression of the Zionist army, under the leadership of the racist Ariel Sharon, against the Palestinian people, who are bravely resisting, and we commit ourselves to expand the support for the struggle for the creation of an independent Palestinian State, with its capital in Jerusalem.

In the same way we express our repudiation of the trade embargo and the constant attacks carried out by the U.S. imperialist government against Iraq, with the lackey support of the government of Tony Blair, which is depriving the Iraqi people of the necessary technical and material resources to improve the living conditions of the population, which is struggling to reconstruct its country from the bombardments of the capitalist-imperialist armies.

We therefore demand the immediate lifting of this absurd embargo, which is a crime against humanity.

We also consider that both the popular uprisings in the occupied territories of Palestine, which is unfolding in the context of the second Intifada, as well as the heroic resistance of the Iraqi people, who have not bowed to the imperialist demands, are examples that reaffirm that the only way to confront the designs of imperialism in the Middle East and in Latin America is the revolutionary struggle.

Therefore, we include among our tasks the causes of the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples, and we will work for those demands by all means.

CONSIDERING

1. That the Plan Colombia has entered its second phase, called the Andean Regional Initiative, with new economic resources derived from the U.S. budget destined for the defence of its national security, as well as the provision of war material and resources, and also the sending of military advisors to Colombia, the stationing of U.S. troops at the base in Manta (Ecuador) and the intervention of the private security contractors (DYNCORP), without any control by those States.

2. That an international agreement is being considered in the National Congress of Brazil to convert the military base of Alcántara in the State of Maranhao, in the northeast of the country, into a centre of U.S. military operations, as part of the development of the Plan Colombia and Star Wars.

3. That Yankee imperialism is imposing on the governments of Panama, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru the transfer of part of their armies to the borders with Colombia, involving them in its war plans, increasing its interference in their internal affairs, violating their sovereignty and trampling on the right to self-determination of their peoples.

4. That the U.S., in order to secure its military hegemony in the region, is seeking to impose by force the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), that is to say, to add the violation of the economic sovereignty expressed among others means by dollarisation.

5. The danger of open military intervention in Colombia is increasing due to the increased military and popular confrontation and the rise to power of the militarist and fascist regime of Uribe Vélez. The number of people displaced by state terror (now 2,500,000) has increased.

RESOLVES

To denounce, condemn and reject the Yankee strategy of recolonisation of Latin America, the increased economic, political and military interference in the internal affairs of each country, the violation of their national sovereignty.

The war unleashed against the peoples of the world, especially in Latin America, constitute acts of state terrorism, to which we should respond with popular struggles in each country and on the continent, expressed in different forms.

We reject the Yankee attempts to impose by fire and sword the Free Trade Agreement FTAA, which will further ruin the spiritual and material conditions of life of our peoples, plunging them further into misery, hunger and oppression.

The 6th Seminar Problems of the Revolution in Latin America, aware of the renewed aggressions of U.S. imperialism against the Cuban revolution and people, who now, in the atmosphere of warlike escalation being carried out everywhere, which besides the old aggressive practices against that revolution and people is giving a greater incentive to subversive groups within the country, with the clear aim of creating chaos and besides of developing direct actions, REITERATES its firmest support for the right of the Cuban people to decide for themselves the social and political system that they prefer, and at the same time CALLS on the peoples to reinforce their actions of solidarity with Cuba.

In particular, the 6th Seminar DEMANDS the immediate freedom and return to their country of the five Cubans patriots imprisoned in Miami, accused of carrying out espionage for the government of Cuba, when in reality what they have done was to carry out work directed at detecting and preventing that part of U.S. territory from being used to perpetrate provocative and terrorist incursions against the Cuban revolution and people.

In this sense, the 6th Seminar commits itself to carrying out a worldwide campaign for the freedom of those patriots on July 26 of this year, in whatever form is possible in each country.

The response of imperialism and its bourgeoisie lackeys to the demands and popular struggles, is to increase the violence, repression and state terror without limit.

The dirty war, the criminalisation of protests, the growing militarisation of the life of the peoples, the selective and mass assassinations, the forced exile, the displacements, the disappearances, the reforms to the penal regulations, etc, are manifestations of the barbarism and warlike character of imperialism.

The peoples are not frightened, nor do they cringe before repression, on the contrary the popular struggles in the world are growing and each day more men and women, more peoples are rising up in struggle for national liberation and socialism.

The 6th Seminar pays homage and gives support to the political prisoners of the world, deprived of their freedom for struggling in defence of national sovereignty and the interests of the peoples. It gives special support to the political prisoners in Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Palestine, Burkina Faso, Turkey and the Philippines.

We declare that political prisoners are not terrorists, that they are popular fighters, therefore we demand their immediate freedom.

The Imperialist War, Terrorism and the Response of the Workers and Peoples

Comrades,

The Revolutionary Communist Party, PCR, of Brazil, salutes all the revolutionary parties and organizations attending this 6th Seminar and particularly the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador, PCMLE, for the firm action of its members in the struggle for popular power and socialism in Ecuador and the world.

The real aims of imperialist wars ‘There are wars and wars. Revolutionary wars are also possible. Therefore it is necessary to make it clear that in this case we are dealing precisely with an imperialist war. This is obvious, but to avoid false interpretations, so that one is not misunderstood, one must say it openly and clearly’. (Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 34).

The imperialist countries make war in order to control the oil, gold, copper, water, in short, the natural and mineral wealth of the peoples, the raw materials, and in order to dominate the markets. Let us examine the reasons for the imperialist wars of recent years.

Asia’s oil is the main objective of the imperialist war against Afghanistan

To get hold of the uranium, gas and oil of Afghanistan is one of the objectives that U.S. and English imperialism is carrying out with the war against Afghanistan. Therefore, one of the objectives of that war of aggression is to seize the wealth of that country. In fact, the world’s biggest oil companies, U.S. and English (Shell, Exxon-Mobil, Texaco, etc.), who own almost all the oil in the world, have always wanted to control Asia’s oil. Even though it is a poor country, Afghanistan possesses various kinds of mineral wealth, immense fields of natural gas, uranium and even oil, which have not yet been exploited. Besides, Afghanistan is in a strategic region of Central Asia. The countries there have huge quantities of oil underground. There are five countries in the Caspian Sea basin (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia and Turkmenistan). To get an idea of the wealth of those countries, one should note that the Caspian Sea basin has reserves calculated at 200 billion barrels of oil and that Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan alone have more oil and gas than all the countries of the Persian Gulf. Some of the U.S. companies have multimillion-dollar agreements with those countries to exploit their reserves.

Furthermore: war is the quickest way for the capitalists to shore up the seriously shaken world economy, particularly the U.S. economy. In the era of imperialism, war is the most efficient way of getting the capitalist economies out of crisis. That is why there are so many wars in the world, with bourgeois governments always finding pretexts to declare new ones.

In the war against Yugoslavia alone, the U.S. government has spent more than US $12 billion; those who profited were the military-industrial complexes of the big powers. That is, the magnates of the arms industry gained billions of dollars from the devastation of Yugoslavia.

As soon as the war against Afghanistan began, the value of the shares of various U.S. arms manufacturers (such as Lockheed, Northrop, General Dynamics, etc.) rose quickly in the stock market. Thus, 29 days after the bombardment of the people of Afghanistan began, the value of the stocks of those companies rose an average of 41.69% in the New York Stock Exchange. The demand for durable goods rose 12.8% in October of 2001, driven by the purchase of products related to the arms industry. This was its greatest increase since 1992.

The big U.S. companies that benefited from the imperialist wars include Raytheon, manufacturer of the Tomahawk missile; Lockheed Martin, which developed the Patriot missile system; Boeing North American, which specializes in target detection; Northrop Grumman, airplane manufacturer; Atlantic Research, which manufactures rocket motors; Honeywell, installer of tracking systems; Motorola, which manufactures resistors; and UDS, which fits out and reequips military vessels.

Besides that, the U.S. military budget, before the war began, was US $291.2 billion. After the attacks on the WTC it jumped to US $329 billion and, in April of 2002, it exceeded US $379 billion. Thus, in a few months, the military budget had grown by US $90 billion, all for a war against a country in which half the population goes hungry. In conclusion: the monopolies of the U.S. war industry were the greatest beneficiaries of the attacks of September 2001 in the U.S.

Why is there an imperialist war against the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples?

In the struggles for control of the sources of the raw material, the most important is the struggle for oil. The Persian Gulf region contains nearly half of the world’s oil reserves; Iraq alone possesses about 10% of these. Of the total oil consumed in the U.S., nearly 10% comes from the Persian Gulf region. To subjugate Iraq is to control reserves estimated at 200 billion barrels of oil. Therefore, the reason that the U.S. is undertaking the war against Iraq is simply to seize the oil reserves of that country, to satisfy the interests of its monopolies. This is happening in the Middle East and Central Asia, where the world’s greatest deposits of oil are found and the U.S. wants to maintain control of the flow of oil coming from that region.

The main reason for the war against the Palestinian people is that Israel is located in the most important geo-strategic area of the world for the interests of U.S. capitalism. Besides, the State of Israel has been continually entrusted by the USA to teach the most advanced torture techniques and train the death squads of various repressive governments, as it did in Latin America in the ’70s and ’80s, and – as everything indicates – it is doing it again.

In fact, Israel would never have been able to colonize and subjugate Palestine if it did not have the unconditional support of the biggest military power on the planet, the U.S., and of the other imperialist countries. In fact, Israel receives more financial and military aid from the U.S. than any other country, getting three billion dollars a year. But it is not only that: Germany and France are, after the U.S., the two countries that export the most war material to Israel.

Imperialist terrorism against the peoples of Latin America

For a long time, the U.S. has been planning, financing and carrying out interventions and coups in the Americas. Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico and Brazil are, without a doubt, the victims that suffered most from the open intervention of the U.S. in recent years.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) stated that the U.S. presence in Colombia is currently larger than what it had been in El Salvador in 1980. The Colombian army, for example, received US $70 million from the U.S. in 2000, and in 2001 that figure jumped to US $519.2 million. Three large transnationals, BP, OXY and Total, have invested huge amounts of dollars in Colombia. BP hired 500 soldiers and 50 officers of the Colombian army to protect its oil installations (Resumen, March/April 2001). In this way, Plan Colombia was initiated by a lobby of U.S. businessmen interested in the Colombian oil reserves.

Between 1984 and 1992, 512 soldiers were sent from Mexico to the U.S. for training. Since 1996 the U.S. has already held classes for 4,000 Mexicans soldiers. It is important to remember that the School of the Americas, formed to train officers of the Latin American armies to fight against the revolution, was reopened and renamed the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation. All this is taking place at the same time as they are building military bases in our continent, such as in Manta, Ecuador, and in Alcântara, in northeast Brazil, and they are organizing military coups in Venezuela and Argentina. The military presence and military expenses of the U.S. in Latin America have grown in the last years, in the provision of weapons, equipment, technical assistance in the field of intelligence and training in all our countries. Officially 5,400 troops were trained in 1988 in various countries (the U.S. has military bases in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Europe; in south Korea and Japan alone there are nearly 100 thousand U.S. soldiers).

The truth is that, whether due to the sharpening of the anti-imperialist contradictions, or due to its fantastic natural and mineral wealth and its huge market, Latin America today is one of the main regions that the imperialist countries desire to control.

Thus, the monstrous Plan Colombia is far more than just about U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of Colombia. It is a matter of a strategy set in motion to establish the total and complete domination of Latin America by the U.S. monopoly capitalists. And part of that strategy is the creation of new military bases to guarantee the viability of the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) as well as the attempt to annihilate the advance and growth of the revolutionary struggle of the Colombian people.

The pro-imperialist coup d’etat in Venezuela last April, financed and directed by the U.S., has made clear the policy of U.S. imperialism to guarantee and deepen its domination in Latin America. This is being done by the installation, once again, of open military dictatorships to guarantee its interests in the region. To reinforce the policy of installation of military dictatorships, in June of 1999, the World Bank, after carrying out a 'survey' in 80 countries, divulged a report in which one of the conclusions was that 'there is no evidence that democracy helps the poor more.'

Not just that. The report also shows that the real role of the communications media in our countries is to serve as propaganda for the international bourgeoisie and the big national bourgeoisie against the people and the national interests. Therefore, only the popular and workers’ struggles in the streets can really defeat the bourgeoisie and win socialism.

The imperialist war against Yugoslavia. The U.S., Germany, France, England, Italy and 14 other countries, led by U.S. imperialism, bombed the people of Yugoslavia for more than two months, under the pretext of defending the rights of the Albanian people of Kosovo. The real interests that they defended in that war were, in the first place, the interests of the war industry monopolies of the imperialist countries, and in second place, the economic and political interests of the imperialist countries, in particular the U.S. and Germany, to extend their control over the Balkans. Previously, that region was made up of socialist countries that formed the Warsaw Pact, which was opposed to the capitalist countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The real interest of imperialism, therefore, was not to defend the population of Kosovo, but to seize the wealth that exists there. The Balkans are rich in oil and have large deposits of chromium, nickel, copper, gold and platinum. What the U.S., Germany and other imperialist countries want is to seize that wealth and exploit it in accord with their interests. To carry out this objective, they need to install a puppet government in Yugoslavia, one submissive to the monopolies and the international banks. In other words, the imperialist governments and countries of England, France, Germany, Italy and the U.S. carried out the war against the Yugoslav people to satisfy their interests of pillage.

Another objective of the imperialist war against Yugoslavia was to extend the limits of NATO to the borders of Russia in order to later subjugate her totally. It is no longer news that the U.S. wants to exercise still greater control over the whole European continent. Thus what is behind that geo-politics of imperialism is the hegemonic control of the Mediterranean Sea, of the straits region (the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles Straits) and of the Black Sea, within the perspective of a Third World War.

Apparently Germany and the U.S. have made a pact to delineate their respective spheres of influence in a civilized manner and decide who colonizes what in the Balkan region. But those who think that such a pact will last forever and that the U.S. and Germany will respect it ‘until death, are mistaken. The intense participation of Germany in that region since the Bosnian war makes clear what the interests of German imperialism are in the Balkans.

In fact imperialism, in its highest and final stage, is characterized, as Lenin said, by reaction all along the line. In that sense, violence and war are inseparable from capitalism in this epoch. Furthermore: under the conditions of the general crisis of capitalism, the imperialist circles are trying to resolve the fall in the rate of profit, the reduction of markets and the shortage of raw materials by increasing the slavery of the dependent peoples and the ferocious exploitation of the workers. Therefore, they constantly need to further militarize their States, that is, they need fascism. In fact, as Dimitrov defined it very well, ‘fascism is the most open, most imperialist, terrorist dictatorship of finance capital’ (Dimitrov, Workers Unity Against Fascism). Therefore we are witnessing, in a series of countries (France, Italy, Germany, the U.S., Holland, Austria, among many other), the appearance of increasingly fascistic governments. It is important to emphasize, however, the role of shock troops of world fascism that the U.S. dictator, George W. Bush, is playing. In fact, by enormously increasing military expenses, financing and carrying out military coups, intervening in various countries and unleashing imperialist wars all over the planet, the United States dictator is at the head of the greatest reaction in capitalism, in world terrorism.

Modern imperialist war is for the control of oil and the sources of strategic raw materials

It is not for no reason that U.S. imperialism has such an interest in oil, the main raw material for the operation of the world economy. The U.S., Europe and Japan consume 52% of the oil extracted on the planet, although they make up barely 13% of the world’s population. The United States alone consumes 25.5% of the world’s oil production. Moreover: the U.S. has reserves sufficient for only another ten years, and its production has fallen since 1999 (Review of World Energy).

However, what is even more serious is that if the present rate of consumption of oil is maintained, it is predicted that, in 2020, two-thirds of the reserves of the world’s fossil fuels will be exhausted. In an economy where various sectors – airline companies, automobile industries and fertilizers – depend on generators of electric energy (in the U.S. the main source of energy is fossil fuels) – it is imperative to lower the price of oil in order to get the country out of recession.

Also, it is important to remember that Venezuela is the world’s fourth largest producer of oil and that 75% of the refining and trade in this product is in the hands of three monopoly enterprises, Exxon-Mobil (U.S.), BP Amoco (English-U.S.) and Shell (English-Dutch).

There, then, is the real reason for the voracity of the large oil companies and the imperialist countries: the domination of countries to take possession of the sources of that raw material which is of strategic importance for the world economy.

Capitalism increases the number of wars in the world. With the capitalist economy becoming continually more dependent and subordinated to the arms industry, wars have been growing in number and intensity all over the planet. In the last decade of the 20th century alone two million children died in armed conflicts, five million became invalids and another 12 million lost their homes. Every month, more than two thousand people die or become invalids due to mine explosions.

The wars are presented as ‘humanitarian’ wars when in reality they are wars for economic and strategic interests, they are imperialist wars. Surprisingly, even the World Bank, after analyzing 47 wars that have taken place in the world since 1965, came to the conclusion that when one of the main sources of wealth of a country is the export of a raw material, the risk of conflict is the greatest (El País, June 16, 2000).

These, then, are the real reasons for the imperialist wars that are taking place in the world today. These are the reasons that the powerful and lying bourgeois media try to conceal in their disinformation news. The more wars that break out, the more bombardments that occur, the greater will be the profits of the monopolies. It does not matter, as it has never mattered to the capitalists and their governments, if children die, if schools are bombed, if a whole people is destroyed. The capitalist owners of the arms industries, just like vampires, are cruel, bloodthirsty, cold and calculating murderers; they are the real terrorists with suits and ties.

Capitalist imperialism and socialist revolution ‘The furious struggle among capitalist groups is the cause of imperialist wars, that is to say, of wars for conquest of foreign territories, and this leads to their mutual weakening’ (Stalin, Foundations of Leninism).

As the history of the humanity over last five centuries has shown, the capitalists have always violently defended their ‘right’ to continue exploiting the people. Imperialism is waging a permanent war against the peoples who rise up against that domination, to prevent them from freeing themselves. To pretend, therefore, that the bourgeoisie will peacefully give up power and the means of production under its control is a vain illusion. Surely there is no other road to put an end to exploitation and to defend the interests of the workers against the exploiters, than to carry out a revolution.

Therefore, every day it becomes more evident to the workers that is impossible to free themselves from their ferocious and brutal exploitation without a determined struggle and without carrying out a revolution against the base which has generated and given birth to the world system of financial slavery, capitalism. Therefore Lenin, summing up in one sentence his whole analysis of the epoch of imperialism, declared: ‘Imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat. In fact, the contradictions of capitalism, and particularly the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, make socialism the only alternative to solve the crisis and save humanity.

Therefore, it is also necessary to build a vanguard detachment of the working class, a party that marches forward, that is steeled in the fire of the class struggle and that revives the true revolutionary doctrine of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. A party that conducts its work so that the working class and the popular masses become conscious of the need for the revolution and the seizure of power.

Comrades,

As continuers and heirs of the Paris Commune of 1871, of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, which established the first victorious State of workers and peasants in the world, of the heroic Cuban Revolution of 1959 and of the Popular Uprising of 1935 in Brazil, we are called upon to employ our force to the maximum in carrying forward the struggles for the liberation of the Brazilian people and for the establishment of true democracy in our country, socialism. Surely, it is this role that each of the members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, the party founded by the hero of the workers, Manoel Lisboa de Moura, will fulfil.

Communism lives!
Long live communism!

Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party
(PCR) of Brazil
Quito, July 15-19, 2002

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