The RCWP, CPRF, and most of the parties of the former Soviet republics were unable to participate in person in the 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Cuba for objective reasons. However, we greet all comrades in the struggle and express our position in the Appeal "We Shall Not Drop the Banner of Struggle!"
Appeal of the Communist and Workers' Parties on the Continuing the Struggle for Communism in the Year of Comrade Fidel's Centenary
Our predecessors and teachers walked their paths with dignity and bequeathed to us the great teachings of communism, as well as a wealth of experience in revolutionary struggle under the most diverse and difficult conditions. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, and other champions of the people's cause were not saints, but they were selflessly devoted to the idea of liberating labor from the yoke of capital. Comrade Fidel, who passed away ten years ago and whose centenary we will celebrate on August 13th, asserted: "Life without ideas is worthless. There is no greater happiness than fighting for them." At the same time, our teachers treated Marxist teachings as a science, warning us against dogmatism, revisionism, and nationalism. They tested theory in practice and were not afraid to admit their mistakes. As a result of the mistakes made in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, socialism suffered a temporary defeat, but the idea of communism lives on, and the science of communism is in no way outdated. Comrade Fidel emphasized that "It can be confidently stated that there is only one revolutionary science, and that revolutionary science is Marxism-Leninism."
Today, after the collapse of the USSR, the world is experiencing a period of advancing reaction. The forces of global imperialism, led by the United States and NATO, are stoking tensions in many regions of the world in their struggle for global hegemony, not hesitating to unleash bloody outbreaks of military conflict.
We all understand that it is impossible to understand the issues of today's global cataclysms without relying on the economic analysis methodology of Lenin's theory of imperialism. Vladimir Ilyich himself, in the preface to the post-revolutionary edition of his work, wrote: "I would like to hope that my brochure will help us understand the fundamental economic question, without studying which we cannot understand anything about the assessment of modern war and modern politics—namely, the question of the economic essence of imperialism."
A correct understanding of Lenin's theory of imperialism lies not only in the fact that the entire capitalist world is moving along the path of imperialism, in the sense that today, everywhere, in all countries, the free market has long ceased to exist, but monopolies rule. Another point is no less important—that of V.I. Lenin traced the uneven development of capitalism and pointed to the growing economic differentiation associated with the formation of monopolies, finance capital, and international capitalist alliances. The economic foundation of imperialism is being created, as V.I. Lenin wrote: "As demonstrated in this book, capitalism has now singled out a handful (less than one-tenth of the world's population; at the most 'generous' and exaggerated estimate, less than one-fifth) of especially rich and powerful states, which are plundering—by simply 'clipping coupons'—the entire world."
It is precisely this position on the formation of a core of imperialism, a pack of the most powerful and developed predators, that provides an understanding of the essence of the ongoing processes and determines the true nature (according to Lenin) of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and other regions. These festering hotbeds and the potentially explosive situation around Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, and elsewhere are all links in a single process carried out by imperialism, led by the United States and NATO. Some parties are making a grave mistake in viewing imperialism's aggressive policies as separate, regionally and nationally. The same group of imperialists is inciting Kyiv's punitive forces against Russia and encouraging Israeli Zionists to commit genocide against the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, some comrades' simultaneous assertions that the Palestinian resistance is justified, while Russia and the Donbass war against the Nazis is an unjustified invasion by similar imperialists, are extremely illogical and contradictory to dialectics.
It is patently absurd that, while speaking out against NATO's aggressive policies, some comrades overlook and deflect condemnation of NATO and the EU's aggression against Russia. They even claim that these are identical imperialist forces. This leads to other erroneous conclusions about the choice of allies and the impossibility of forming broad anti-fascist fronts.
Comrade Stalin, speaking at his last 19th Congress of the CPSU (1952), called on the world's communist parties: "The banner of bourgeois democratic freedoms has been thrown overboard. I think that you, representatives of the communist and democratic parties, will have to pick up this banner and carry it forward if you want to rally the majority of the people around you. There is no one else to pick it up."
Today, when tensions in the world are growing and the threat of a new world war with the use of nuclear weapons is becoming a reality, when elements of anti-communism and the fascistization of politics are increasingly evident in the EU and other capitalist countries, when NATO's aggression against Russia increasingly reveals hints of revanchism for the defeat of the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1945, the task of communists is to follow, in the words of Comrade Fidel, the revolutionary science that is Marxism-Leninism.
Our task is to unite all forces into a broad anti-fascist front, enlisting all possible allies to repel the main threat to peace – the fascist imperialism of the United States and NATO.
To this end, we urge you to utilize the resources of the SolidNet community, the work of the Anti-Fascist Forums, and the World Anti-Imperialist Platform.
We call on all people of good will to strengthen the united front of progressive, leftist, communist, patriotic, anti-colonialist, and anti-fascist forces. We must join forces in our just struggle. Acting as a united front, we must expose anti-communism, anti-Sovietism, and Russophobia, defend workers' rights, and fight for a just and secure world.
At the same time, communists must never lose sight of the perspective of the struggle—only a world of equal peoples, socialism as a system of social justice and workers' brotherhood, will protect humanity from fascism, terrorism, and war.
The courage and fortitude of Cuba, the legacy of our teachers and Comrade Fidel, inspire us to continue the fight.
Let us not drop the banner of the struggle for the workers' cause!
No to "DEMOCRATIC" NEO-FASCISM, anti-communism, and terrorism!
We won't let them blow up the world! No pasarán! They won't pass!
Long live international workers' solidarity!
Solidnet parties
CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation)
CP of Azerbaijan (Nurullaev)
CP of Azerbaijan
CP of Armenia
CP of Belarus
CP of Ukraine
CP of Georgia
CP of Moldova
CP of Kazakhstan
CP of Tajikistan
CP of Kyrgyzstan
CPSU
SKP-CPSU
Workers' Party of Hungary
Other parties:
SKU (in Ukraine)
Socialists of Latvia
Socialists of Lithuania
CP of South Ossetia
BRO CPSU
CP of Abkhazia
