Monday, April 23, 2018

European communists meet in Brussels

Andy Brooks addressing the meeting
By New Worker correspondent
European communist and workers’ parties met in Brussels last week to discuss communist campaigning within the labour movement across the continent. Organised by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the European Communist Meeting 2018 was held on the 11th April, in the European Parliament, under the banner of: “Work in the working class and its labour movement, as a necessary prerequisite for a clash with the EU, the overthrow of capitalist barbarism and the construction of socialism.”
NCP leader Andy Brooks and Peter Hendy from the Central Committee took part in the session and the extended plenum of the anti-European Union Communist Initiative that was held the following day in another part of the Belgian capital.
The meeting was opened by KKE leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas. Koutsoumbas stressed the crucial role of the struggle for the re-groupement of the international communist movement, to overthrow capitalist barbarism and to build a communist society, defining it as a fundamental element of the class struggle and also fundamental for the capability of the communist parties to strengthen themselves as a whole.
Representatives from around 30 communist and workers’ parties mentioned that today the living and working conditions of the European working class is even more challenging, and that the majority of the trade unions are dominated by reformist and opportunist policies.
The representatives of the communist and workers’ parties commemorated the 200th birthday of Marx, emphasising that his revolutionary doctrine has become even more important.
Following US war-lord Donald Trump’s threats to rocket Syria in retaliation for an alleged poison gas attack that many suspect was a false flag operation to provide the imperialists with a pretext for direct intervention in the conflict in Syria, the parties also issued a common statement regarding the escalating imperialist aggression against Syria:
“The communist and workers’ parties that met on April 11th, in Brussels, condemn the escalation of the imperialist aggression and the sharpening of the situation in Syria and the broader region…”
The communist and workers’ parties expressed their internationalist solidarity to the people of Syria and the other peoples of the region and called upon the working class and the people’s forces to reinforce the struggle against imperialist interventions and wars, and against the NATO, the USA and the EU.
“People must not shed their blood for the interests of the monopolies, the conflict for the control of energy resources, the routes of transportation, the control of the markets and the distributions of spheres of influence.
“People have the right to live peacefully and they have the power to demand a society free from wars, crises poverty, and exploitation,” the communists declared.

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