Dear comrades,
On behalf of the CC of the KKE, I warmly welcome you to the European Communist Meeting, organized by our MEPs here in Brussels, in the European Parliament building, as part of the many activities carried out by the KKE in honor of the great revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the October socialist revolution, in 2024, the year that marks the 100th anniversary of his death.
Our event here is at the same time a peremptory response to the "wave" of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism, systematically promoted by the media and bourgeois governments, the EU itself, which has made the unacceptable equation of fascism and communism its dogma, but also the historically unfounded identification of today's capitalist Russia with the Soviet Union. The EU also encourages anti-communist persecutions on the Old Continent, the falsification and distortion of history, as well as the destruction of anti-fascist monuments.
The KKE condemned this attitude and expressed its solidarity with the communists who in several European countries are subjected to persecution, bans and restrictions on their activities. At the same time, we will continue to fight against the disinformation of the people, against the distortion of history, without idealizing it, studying not only the achievements of socialism, but also the weaknesses, deviations and mistakes made, thus drawing valuable lessons for the future.
Such useful conclusions can also be drawn from Lenin's work "On the Slogan of the United States of Europe", which is still relevant today, in the context of the intensification of class exploitation and imperialist wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, with the involvement of the imperialist EU.
Lenin's remarks at the beginning of the 20th century remain relevant in the 21st century. We believe that this work should be studied by communists, revolutionaries and people of good will, not only on our continent, Europe, but throughout the world, given that today various transnational capitalist unions of states, such as BRICS and others, are being formed in other "corners" of the planet.
Studying Lenin, in a creative way, in the light of the changes that have taken place in the world, we can examine interstate agreements, old and new capitalist alliances, which seek to "bring order" to "international security", to international trade, to the export of capital, without, of course, denying capitalist laws.
For whatever changes have occurred since the publication of this work, they have not altered the essence, the fundamental laws of the capitalist economy, production motivated by surplus value, profit, competition and inequality, anarchy in production, injustice in distribution.
Lenin wrote: "Under capitalism, the equal development of different economies and states is impossible. The only possible means of restoring the compromised equilibrium from time to time are crises in industry and wars in politics under capitalism."
Who could refute this Leninist assessment today, when uneven capitalist growth is giving rise to new capitalist powers, sharpening the confrontation for supremacy in the world imperialist system between the United States and China, and intensifying the conflict between the Euro-Atlantic axis and the emerging Eurasian axis?
Who does not see the "time bomb" on which the international capitalist economy is based, namely the overaccumulation of capital that cannot be invested with a satisfactory profit? They have tried the "green and digital transition", as well as the "old recipe" of war, which Lenin speaks of, but the dead ends of the system persist.
The capitalist crisis as well as war are in the DNA of capitalism. A number of indicators of the international economy demonstrate that the crisis is the result of the normal functioning of the capitalist system.
The European Union economy is already in recession, the explosion of US debt has already exceeded the institutional debt ceiling and continues while the real estate crisis is roiling capitalist China, etc.
Imperialist interventions and wars provide a profitable outlet for over-accumulated capital. The profits of the US war industry and other major arms manufacturers since the beginning of the war in Ukraine and the Middle East are evidence of this.
The fact that the so-called "war economy" and the escalation of war are now the top priority of NATO, the EU and other imperialist centers is no accident.
The EU in particular, based on the Draghi report, plans to spend 500 billion euros on the war industry, while the Niinistö report also allocates 20% of the EU budget to the war economy, establishing a dangerous connection between its war plans and civil protection, as well as the "psychological preparation" of peoples "to live in conditions of danger and instability", ensuring food reserves for three days.
In addition, the immense destruction caused by the imperialist war creates new profitable investments in the devastated regions. The United States, the European Union and Russia are already implementing special investment “programs” for the “reconstruction” of Ukraine.
Comrades,
D. Trump's victory in the US elections was accompanied by the narrative that "peace would prevail", at least on the Ukrainian front. Lenin noted that "Certainly, provisional agreements are possible between capitalists and between powers", but he stressed at the same time that these in no way abolished the struggle for the "division of colonies", writing this at a time when three-quarters of the world were colonies.
Today, this position remains valid, because the confrontation over the "division of colonies" has been replaced by the confrontation over the division of raw materials, energy, transport routes for goods, geopolitical footholds and market shares. And as he pointed out: "Now, under capitalism, division can have no other basis, no other principle than force. [...] To preach the "fair" division of income on this basis is... petty bourgeois and philistine philistineism. One can only divide "according to force". But force changes with economic progress. [...] To verify the real strength of the capitalist state, there is and can be no other means than war. War is not in contradiction with the principles of private property; it is its direct and inevitable development."
Today, it is necessary for the communist movement in Europe and the world not to forget Lenin's words, to use them in the context of current international events and to reject the opportunist ideas that prevailed after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and in the ranks of the international communist movement, promoting erroneous approaches. This is the case of those that divide the imperialists into "hawks" and "doves", into "warmongers" and "pacifists", implying that there could be a "peaceful imperialism", that the imperialists could renounce violent and warlike means, which, as Lenin pointed out, are "the continuation of the policy" followed in the previous period.
Unfortunately, even in the ranks of the international communist movement, especially after the Second World War, such false concepts dominated, on the basis of which the communist parties believed that the warmongering plans of the capitalists could be "tamed" by the so-called "European security system"!
Today, some powers present similar views on the formation of a "new security architecture" or a NATO "without war plans or offensive weapons systems on its territories", or a "peaceful EU", or a "peaceful multipolar world", as a solution to the military conflict in Europe.
All these theories have nothing to do with reality and disorient the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggle by seeking to cultivate a perception that imperialism could supposedly refrain from using means of war. It is as if we were asking a predatory carnivorous animal of the jungle to transform itself into a herbivore and even a domestic animal.
But the truth is that NATO and the EU, like any transnational capitalist union, have a deeply reactionary character, cannot become pro-people and will continue to go against the rights of workers and peoples.
Lenin was right when he wrote that "the United States of Europe is, under capitalism, either impossible or reactionary." The current EU is a transnational imperialist economic, political and military union of monopolies, which opposes the interests of the working class and other popular strata.
The EU cannot be improved by a few repairs! Just as capitalism cannot be humanized! Because the EU was not created by the people and does not serve their interests. Quite the contrary!
The EU is not and cannot become pro-people. Its goals are the concentration and centralization of capital, imperialist wars and interventions, the promotion of the strategy of maximizing the degree of exploitation of the working class, which leads to poverty, misery, high prices, energy poverty, uprooting, brutal repression, profiling and anti-communism. The corruption scandals of the lobbies in the European Parliament confirm its reactionary character as a union of capital at the expense of the people.
The war ultimatum resolutions, the anti-people regulations and the anti-worker directives are aimed at serving the profitability of the monopolies and crushing the lives and rights of the workers.
Today, the EU seeks to play a leading role in promoting anti-popular policies and in wars, regardless of the outcome of the antagonisms within the EU, between the bourgeoisies of its countries for more military autonomy of the EU or for greater attachment to NATO, antagonisms that have been revived after the election of Trump.
In order to serve the dominant interests of the European bourgeoisie, the EU, together with the United States, was also involved in the war in Ukraine, alongside the faction of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie which, using fascist forces, carried out a political overthrow in 2014 in violation of the constitution.
For similar interests, the EU supports the occupying state of Israel, which is massacring the heroic people of Palestine. From the European Parliament, we express our full solidarity with the Palestinian people and join our voices in the massive and impressive demonstrations of workers and peoples around the world in defense of the just struggle of the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation.
Comrades,
After the attack on Ukraine with long-range weapons of the United States and Britain on the territory of the Russian Federation, and the subsequent update by Russia of its Nuclear Doctrine and Putin's statements, it is more than obvious that the risk of generalization of imperialist war increases, even with the use of nuclear weapons.
Even if a temporary compromise were found, no one could avoid inter-imperialist rivalries, ranging from trade and technology to military armaments, from the Arctic to Africa and the Indo-Pacific Ocean, including space.
The imperialist wars and interventions of the EU and the allied imperialist bourgeois governments, besides the massacre of peoples, the dismemberment of countries, the economic burden that overwhelms the peoples, the uprooted people, cause an even greater destruction of the environment, which they claim to care about in their so-called "green" declarations.
The KKE, like the other communist and workers' parties of Europe, rejecting all the pretexts used by both sides, reveals to the peoples the real causes of the imperialist wars.
We are strengthening our fight against the involvement of our countries in these wars.
We are fighting for the closure of US-NATO bases in Greece and elsewhere, for the abolition of nuclear weapons in Europe.
We express our solidarity with the peoples of Ukraine and Russia, who lived in peace and prospered together during the years of socialism and who are now shedding their blood for big capitalist interests.
We oppose the increasing militarisation of the EU through the promotion of so-called "strategic autonomy", which poses great risks for the people, the creation of military formations, such as PESCO, and the European army, missions such as "Aspides" in the Red Sea.
We oppose fascism and all forms of racism, discrimination on the basis of religion, color, sex or sexual orientation, and we reject the false "anti-fascism" and the various "anti-fascist fronts" used by bourgeois and opportunist political forces to trap the popular forces of the working class in bourgeois management, dissociating fascism from the capitalist system that generates it and uses it when it needs it.
Comrades,
The unleashing of exploitation of workers, the intensification of flexible and exhausting work with inhuman hours, leading to employer crimes, to work without rights and without collective agreements, the escalation of employer intimidation, low wages combined with rising prices, heavy taxation of the popular classes and wars, have led the peoples of Europe into the streets of struggle.
Ten days ago, on November 20, the streets and squares of all Greece were invaded by striking workers, causing a real earthquake with the slogan "Give money for wages, health and education, get Greece out of the slaughterhouses of war!"
Thanks to the militant action of workers' unions such as the Piraeus dockers' union, a shipment of munitions destined for Israel did not reach its destination. In other regions, the transport of NATO weapons and munitions destined for the war in Ukraine was prevented.
We continue the struggle against the anti-people policies of the New Democracy government and other parties of the system, against NATO and the EU of capital, class exploitation, monopolies and war!
For the disengagement of Greece from the imperialist slaughterhouse, from imperialist planning and alliances, with the people as masters in our house.
For a Europe of prosperity for peoples, peace, social justice, socialism!
We march on our common path of revolutionary class struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism-communism!
Because this path, opened in October 1917 by the communists led by Lenin, "breaking the ice", remains the only real way out for the peoples of our countries.