Declaration
of August (2017) of the participants in the International Theoretical
Conference of Communist and Workers parties; “100 years after the Great October
Socialist Revolution”
Our future is not capitalism, but the new world of the
Socialist Revolution and the construction of socialism-communism.
We, the participants in the international conference,
which met in Leningrad during the celebrations of the 6th Congress of the RSDLP
(B), which adopted a line of immediately preparing the armed struggle for the
socialist revolution, present this declaration as the joint position of the
parties, which base themselves on Marxism-Leninism-the teachings on the
socialist revolution, as an objective scientific law that is determined by the
unresolved contradictions of global capitalism.
Great October of 2017 confirmed the correctness of the
Marxist-Leninist theory regarding the inevitability of the socialist revolution
as a crucially necessary element for the victory of the proletariat in the
class struggle against the bourgeois class and the successful construction of
socialism and full communism, a society for the free development of all its
members. All the efforts to escape from a world dominated by capital through
gradual social reforms lead in various ways only to the perpetuation of social
inequality and the perfection of the forms of exploitation.
October 1917 confirmed that correctness of Lenin’s
analysis about the victory of the socialist revolution in the conditions of
imperialism “first in several or even in one capitalist country alone.” In
contrast to all the previous revolutions that led to a change from one
exploitative formation to another, the socialist revolution is not completed,
but begins with the conquest of political power-the establishment of the
dictatorship of the proletariat as a necessary condition for the victory of the
proletariat in the continuing struggle for the construction of socialism and
full communism, for the repression of the resistance of the exploiting classes,
which have been overthrown, of the counterrevolutionary elements and the
protection from the threat of foreign
imperialist aggression.
The path taken for the first time by the Paris Commune
is the path of the vanguard. Communism, from the spectre described by Marx and
Engels in the 19th century, began its real journey with the Great October
Socialist Revolution in Russia. Socialism in one country was expanded in the
2nd half of the 20th century into a global system and the Soviet Union became
the world’s second super power. In constant struggle against external and
internal enemies, in the deadly struggle against fascism, against the world of
oppression and obscurantism, it created a new world without exploitation and
parasitism, a society of freedom and justice. During the 70 years of its
existence, the Soviet Union was a beacon, shedding light on the path of the
oppressed peoples; it was a call for the proletariat to rise up in the struggle
for their emancipation.
The Great October Socialist Revolution started the crisis
of the capitalist colonial system that further developed after the Soviet
Union’s victory in the II World War and finally led to the destruction of this
whole system.
We are resolute to maintain our stand for the
solidarity with peoples that have been struggling to defend their countries’
independence and sovereignty against aggressive imperialistic politics because
communists always link this struggle to the struggle of working class against
the power of capital both in their countries and world wide.
The theory of scientific socialism and the practice of
building socialism in the 20th and 21st centuries has convincingly demonstrated
that the power established as a result of the victory of the socialist
revolution, in its essence, can only be the dictatorship of the proletariat,
i.e. the power of the working class which it does not share with any other
class and at the same time it expresses the interests of all the workers and
for this reason is actively supported by them.
The Great October Socialist Revolution established Soviet Power as a form of
workers’ power in the country. Even the day after the revolution on November 7
1917 and the overthrow of the Provisional Government of the Bourgeoisie, at the
Second Congress of the Soviets of Workers, Peasant and Military Delegates,
Soviet Power was proclaimed, the essence of which is the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The Soviets emerged as organs of the workers’ struggle in Tsarist
Russia. Initially as organs of an economic and then a political struggle for
the establishment of worker’s power. After the revolution, the Soviets were a
ready organizational form for the implementation of the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
The 3rd Russian, October Revolution of 1917, was a
socialist revolution in terms of its content (social, economic and political)
and resolved, first of all, a number of democratic issues, which Soviet Power
had inherited from the reactionary absolutist tsarist state. However, from the
outset, the October Revolution engaged with resolving fundamental issues, which
neither absolutism nor bourgeois democracy could or wanted to resolve. The
first decrees of the Soviet government were decrees for peace, land, the
formation of the workers’-peasants’ government, for full power to the Soviets.
It also issued decrees for the abolition of casts and titles, for the nationalization
of the banks, the railways, communications, and a number of big businesses, as
well as for workers’ control and others.
The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia
was approved on the 15th of November 1917, which proclaimed:
-Equality and sovereignty of peoples of Russia.
-Right of peoples of Russia of a free
self-determination, including secession and formation of a separate state.
-Abolition of all national and religious privileges
and restrictions.
-Free development of national minorities and ethnic
groups populating the territory of Russia.
Thus, Soviet Power from its first steps implemented
the socialist content of the slogans, which the Bolsheviks used to stir up the
people for the revolution: ”Power to the Soviets!”, “Land to the peasants”,
“The factories to the workers”, ‘Peace for the peoples!” “Eight hours working
day for working people!”. Therefore, in the political sense, as regards the
conquest of power and its consolidation through the immediate measures of the
October Socialist Revolution, this can and should be characterized as being
Soviet.
The global historical importance, which the Russian
working class discovered and is related to the organizational form of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, is to be found in the fact that the Council
(Soviet) bases its formation and functioning on objective reality, on the
organization of the workers in the process of social production, and
consequently safeguards the essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The
Soviets are elected by the workers’ collectives, permeate society as a unified
network, safeguarded the proletarian character of power, the control and
regulation of power by the workers’ masses.
The basic content of the Soviets everywhere and always
is accompanied by practical measures, which the Paris Commune had already made
some first attempts at, in its efforts to make the workers the real masters of
society. The experience of the Paris Commune demonstrated, as well as the
entire experience of the Soviet Union, the irreplaceable role of the
revolutionary party of the working class as the vanguard of the class, which
leads the construction of a new society. It fully maintains the importance of
the Leninist theory on the party, that “there can be no revolutionary movement
without a revolutionary party”. This party was the party of the Bolsheviks, the
party of Lenin-Stalin. Under its leadership, many fundamental and exceptionally
important issues were solved in the Soviet Union. Issues that have never
essentially been solved and cannot be solved by any capitalist country. This is
also borne out by the experience of the fraternal parties of the other
socialist countries. Specifically, the issue of full employment was solved,
free education, medical care, the use of the achievements of science and
culture were ensured. In the USSR, accommodation, public utilities, transport,
etc. were in practice almost free. In no capitalist country was human safety at
such a high level as it was in the Soviet Union. The USSR had the lowest
retirement age in the world.
The experience of the USSR has already convincingly
demonstrated the correctness of the programmatic directions of the
Marxist-Leninist party, which were formulated by Marx and Engels in the
“Communist Manifesto” for the socialist socialization of the basic means of
production, as one of the most important general laws of the socialist
revolution. While the experience of the Great October Socialist Revolution
demonstrated in practice that after the conquest of state power by the working
class what follows is the task of expropriating the expropriators and the
ownership of all the economic sectors in the country, something which is
necessary for the eradication of the economic dominance of the bourgeoisie, and
so that the economic base can be placed under the dictatorship of the
proletariat-the social ownership of the means of production, without which the
working class cannot maintain political power and carry out the socialist
transformation. The economic base of the implementation, reinforcement and
development of Soviet power as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat is
the social ownership of the means of production, the production of use values,
with the aim of safeguarding the full social welfare and free all-sided
development of all the members of society.
Not the self-expansion of value, not surplus value,
but the safeguarding of the complete prosperity and free all-sided development
of all the members of society is the goal of socialist production. The
rejection of this goal, the turn to the market leads to the destruction of
socialism, as the commodity economy of the market cannot be the economic basis
of workers’ power. The full commodity economy is capitalism, the basis for the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Marxist-Leninist theory does not put forward detailed
formulas and ideal models for the future society. Marx and Engels wrote that
communism is not a situation which will be established, is not an ideal to
which reality must conform, but a real dynamic which destroys the current state
of affairs, which is unjust and slows down the development of society.
The need of the proletariat for its own state is
determined by the task of repressing acts that are in opposition to the
interests of the working class, interests which express in essence the
interests of all the sections of the working people. As long as classes exist,
the state is an organ, a tool for the dictatorship of the ruling class. As
such, the need for a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat withers away
only through the achievement of the final goal of the communists: the complete
eradication of classes, i.e., the differences between the city and village,
between manual and intellectual labour, the complete construction of full
communism, the disappearance of the threat of the capitalist offensive, not
only from inside but from outside as well.
The ideological and political degeneration of the
highest levels of the state apparatus, the revision of Marxism-Leninism, which
initially happened at the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the CPSU, culminating in
Gorbachev’s Perestroika, the rejection of the fundamental principles of
communist construction in theory and in practice, the increase of careerism and
bureaucracy, led to the counterrevolution and the restoration of capitalism, which
was completed in the USSR during the 1990s.The destruction of socialism in the
USSR and the creation of a group of smaller bourgeois states in its place was
carried out with the support of international imperialism. In many countries, a
large dark wave of anticommunism and anti-sovietism, of persecution was
unleashed against the CPs and communists, which continues up until today, with
the USA and EU playing a leading role, with the participation in essence of all
the bourgeois governments as well.
In these conditions, the communists openly state:
Anti-communism and Anti-sovietism will not succeed! The counterrevolutions of the
last 30 years do not alter the character of our era, which remains the era of
the passage from capitalism to socialism. The revolution cannot be stopped! The
counterrevolution is inevitably followed by revolution! The communists are
always revolutionaries!
In recent years, the trend for important changes in
the correlation of forces between the capitalist states became more apparent,
under the impact of the law of uneven capitalist development. The USA remains
the first economic and military power, but with a significant reduction of its
share in the Gross World Product, while the EU
plays an important role in the global developments, as well as other
powers where capitalist relations of production prevail, such as the BRICS
countries, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The inter-imperialist
contradictions, which led in past to dozens of local, regional and to two world
wars, continue to lead to harsh conflicts, economic, political and military,
over raw materials, energy, transport routes, market shares. In this struggle,
a leading role is usually played by the war machines of the USA and NATO, as
well as other capitalist powers, like Israel in the region of the Middle East.
In addition, the savage offensive against the labour
and social rights of the workers all over the world continues. Their
ideological weapons are the neo-liberal and social-democratic theories about
social and class collaboration, social peace, and the exhaustion of the
possibility for revolutions. This arsenal is added to by revisionism and
opportunism, which have become weapons guided by imperialism.
At the same time, humanity cannot develop to the
benefit of the working class and popular strata on the basis of production,
which is supported on private ownership.
Life and human development cannot be restricted by the
size of ownership or by the desire of some individuals to be masters, while
others serve them. The international communist movement has the task of
strengthening the efforts to develop the class struggle for the interests of
the working class. The communists state to the entire world in relation to the
bourgeois slogans about a “globalized world”, and in relation to the slogans of
state nationalism: only the struggle against imperialism with the prospect of
constructing socialism and full communism, only the course began by the Great
October Socialist Revolution is the path of humanity to real freedom and
equality, in the sense of the elimination of any possibility of any form of
exploitation, the eradication of classes, the fraternity and happiness of all
the peoples, as well as the preservation of life on earth itself.
The realignment of the international communist
movement, the way out from today’s crisis and retreats, the formation of a
unified strategy on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian
internationalism, the recognition of the role and contribution of the USSR, the
recognition of the necessity for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and
the construction of the new socialist-communist society. This is an urgent task
, the implementation of which is required by the current conditions of the
struggle against the intensifying offensive of the monopolies and bourgeois
governments against labour rights, the further reactionary turn of capitalism,
including the revival of fascism, and the constant danger of the emergence of
flash-points of imperialist war. The international struggle against the
imperialist wars is important today for the communist movement. One of our most
important tasks is the unwavering struggle against revisionism and opportunism
in all its forms, as the main danger inside the communist movement. The
revolutions do not have boundaries; they do not happen according to the will of
leaders and parties, but express the objective interests and irrepressible
desire of the vanguard class, the oppressed and exploited peoples to take
ownership of the results of their own labour in relation to the development of
the forces of production in society, the creation of material and intellectual
benefits for all.
Let the ideas and achievements of Great October live
for centuries! Workers and the exploited, oppressed peoples must rise up in the
struggle to eradicate the rotten exploitative capitalist system, to construct
socialism and then full communism. This is the only alternative solution for
the inevitable and brighter future for all humanity.
Long live the Soviet Socialist Revolution! For
communism all over the world!
“Proletarians of all countries, unite!”.
1. Party of Labour of Austria
2. Communist Party of Azerbadjan
3. Belarusian Communist Party of
Workers-Section of the CPSU
4. Communist Party of Bulgaria
5. Party of Bulgarian Communists
6. Workers’ Front of Donbass
7. Communist Party of Estonia
8. Communist Workers` Party for Peace and
Socialism (Finland)
9. Communist Revolutionary Party of France
10. Communist Party of Germany
11. Communist Party of Greece
12. Hungarian Workers’ Party
13. Communist Party (Italy)
14. Communist Party of Kazakhstan-section of
CPSU
15. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
16. Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan
17. Socialist Party of Latvia
18. Union of Communists of Latvia
19. Socialist People’s Front (Lithuania)
20. Communist Workers’ Organization of People’s
Republic of Lugansk
21. Communist Party of Mexico
22. Moldova, Communist Party of Moldova-section
of CPSU
23. People’s Resistance of Moldova
24. Communist Party of Norway
25. Communist Party of Poland
26. Russian Communist Workers’ Party
27. The Workers’ Party of Russia
28. Communist Party of Soviet Union
29. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
30. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
31. The People’s Liberation Front of Sri-Lanka
32. Communist Party of Sweden
33. Syrian Communist Party
34. Communist Party of Tajikistan
35. Communist Party of Transnistrian Moldavian
Republic
36. Communist Party of Turkey
37. Union of Communists in Ukraine
38. Party of Communists USA
39. New Communist Party of Britain
40. Algerian Party for Democracy and Socialism
