By New Worker correspondent
DELEGATIONS from European
communist and workers’ parties met in Brussels
at the beginning of October to discuss the building of common communist stance
towards the bourgeois offensive during the current slump and to develop
struggle for the overthrow of capitalism. Representatives of 36 parties,
including the New Communist Party of Britain,
took part in the conference held in the European Parliament in the Belgian
capital on 1st and 2nd of October.
The conference
was opened by Aleka Papariga, the general secretary of the Communist
Party of Greece (KKE), who said that
communists had to struggle to halt the attacks on the living standards of
working people and chart the way forward for socialist advance. She warned of
the danger of imperialist war pointing out that history had proved that when
the capitalist states cannot manage the crisis and, above all the consequences,
they resort to the use of arms. This was not, as the peaceniks and pacifists
claim, to sell weapons but specifically because force is more effective for the
redistribution of the markets in times of economic crisis.
NCP general
secretary Andy Brooks represented the NCP at the conference and in his
intervention he stressed the party’s support to all those struggling against
imperialism and against the European Union.
The NCP leader called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of
all British troops from Afghanistan
and an end to the occupation of all countries by the imperialist powers.
He also called
for support for Iran’s
legitimate atomic energy research programme and called for solidarity with the
Syrian government and the Syrian communist movements that are working for
genuine reform that preserves Syria’s
independence and social system.
The
contributions and discussion largely revolved around the fight against the
austerity programmes that have impoverished millions throughout Europe,
the need to withdraw from the European Union and the struggle for peace. The
common ground of all the parties was reflected by the unanimous adoption of
four resolutions at the end of the final session. Two condemned the
anti-communist campaign raging through parts of the European Union and imperialist
attempts to legalise the secession of Kosovo. Another was “for the
strengthening of the class struggle in Europe” while the
fourth – “No to the imperialist war!” – denounced the intervention of the
imperialists in the internal affairs of Syria
and stressed that the solution to Syria’s
problems was a matter entirely for its own people.
