NCP
leader Andy Brooks took part in an international seminar titled “Marxism in the
21st Century and the Future of Socialism in the World” that was held in People’s
China last week. Over 100 leaders and representatives of 75 communist parties
from 50 countries from around the world met in China’s innovative hub of
Shenzhen to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx.
Forty years ago Shenzhen was just a small
fishing village on the border with the then British colony of Hong Kong. Now it
is a hi-tech megacity with over 12 million citizens which some believe will
eventually merge with Hong Kong to form the biggest city in the world.
Over 60 Chinese communist activists and
scholars also took part in the conference which opened with the Internationale on Monday 28th
May. This was followed by a congratulatory message from Chinese President Xi
Jinping, the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC), in which he said
that the CPC was willing to have more dialogues, deepen exchanges and cooperate
with various political parties and organisations in the world, including
communist parties, to promote the construction of a community with a shared
future for humanity and a better world.
In terms of the nature of science and
truth, influence and spreading scope, there is no thought or theory that can
attain the height of Marxism, nor is there a theory that has had such a
tremendous impact on the world in the human history of thought, Xi said.
“Chinese communists have been persistently
adapting Marxism to the times and advancing its sinicisation and popularisation,
scoring a series of achievements in theoretical innovation, promoting socialism
with Chinese characteristics to enter a new era, and displaying the vigour and
vitality of scientific socialism in the 21st century,” Xi said.
Song Tao, head of the International
Department of the Communist Party of China who opened the conference said that
as China develops in the new era, it continues in the spirit of Marxism. He
also said that the CPC will work and update the application of Marxism in
building a shared community.
“Our ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’
is people centred. It is a theory and a practice for the people's
self-emancipation,” Song said. “It is the people who will judge whether the CPC
is doing a good job, unleashing their creativity and making them the masters of
the nation”.
Senior communist representatives from
Cuba, the Czech Republic, Russia, South Africa and Vietnam also spoke during
the opening session.
In his speech, Andy Brooks said: “In
the opening words of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 Marx and Engels said ‘A
spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism’. That spectre is still
there, despite all the twists and turns of the past 150 years. Now it haunts
the entire globe because socialism is still charting the future in Asia, in
Democratic Korea, People’s China, Vietnam and Laos and the Caribbean island of
Cuba.
“While millions of people scrabble to earn
a living just to keep a roof over their heads a tiny elite live lives beyond
the reach and often beyond the imagination of most workers. Only socialism can
end this. Only through socialism can the will of the masses, the overwhelming
majority of the people, be carried out. Only socialism and mass democracy - not
the sham democracy of the bourgeoisie or the myths of the social democrats, can
end the class system and free working people from their slavery”.
