Comrades, it is a pleasure for us to participate in this
international meeting and we warmly thank the comrades of KKE-ML for
the invitation.
Today the world sees an extension of more and more wars and
conflicts in many countries. On two fronts, Ukraine and Palestine and
the so-called Middle East, imperialism's attention is particularly
concentrated because of the strategic implication that the outcome of
both conflicts will have.
In Ukraine there is an
inter-imperialist clash between Yankee imperialism and some European
countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland) on one side, and
Russian imperialism (economically supported by Chinese imperialism)
on the other. The Ukrainian state and the Zelensky regime acted as a
detonator for the outbreak of the conflict, therefore it is not an
“oppressed country” but an integral part of the Western pole,
consequently it does not represent the interests of the Ukrainian
proletariat.
The Middle East region and in particular Palestine,
Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Kurdistan and Iraq is currently “in the
center of the storm”, in which Yankee and Western imperialism
actively support the Nazi-Zionist state of Israel mainly against the
Palestinian people and against all the peoples of that geographical
area.
There are countless war scenarios that assume a “regional
dimension” but which in reality are fomented by imperialism, just
to name a few, the wars in Sudan, Congo, Mali, Chad, Somalia etc.
The
rise of Chinese imperialism in competition with the Yankee one,
potentially contains in itself the direct clash between the first and
second imperialist power in the world today and therefore the
outbreak of a devastating war in Taiwan that could lead to the Third
World War.
This brief exposition represents a simple photograph of the
current state of affairs. The central point, however, is now a full
understanding of the origin and nature of such wars and finally
understanding how communists place themselves in the face of such
concrete reality.
As we know, as long as capitalism/imperialism exists, war is
inevitable, it is an intrinsic and necessary product of the system of
production itself, as Lenin, after having developed Marx's analysis
of the capitalist system of production, explains well analysing the
imperialist system.
We must therefore start from this analytical basis.
We still live in the imperialist phase, even if we would be
obviously dogmatic if we thought that the imperialist system today is
the same to the one analyzed a century ago by Lenin or 60 years ago
by Mao. Marx himself teaches us that the capitalist system cannot
exist without continually revolutionizing itself, from which we
deduce that the tactics and strategy of the proletariat and the
peoples of the world must take this into account. As Mao said, it is
necessary to make a concrete analysis of the concrete
situation.
Reproposing the same formulas that allowed the
victory in Russia and China would be a pure dogmatism since the
context has changed, furthermore Lenin had already warned us about
this in the aftermath of October in "Leftwing" Communsm:
An Infantile Disorder.
About the contradictions
All revolutionary experiences must be analyzed with a balance in
which must be drawn conclusions from both the particular and general
aspects, the latter must be systematized in the revolutionary
ideology of the proletariat, Marxism, today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Marx defines capitalism as a contradiction in process, in continuous
change, today in the world there are three main contradictions: the
contradiction between capital and wage labor, the
inter-imperialist contradiction (that is, the interests of
different imperialist States and imperialist bourgeoisies that are
opposed to each other and fluctuate between phases of compromise and
open conflict), the contradiction between imperialism and
oppressed peoples in semi-colonial countries, that are
formally independent and in colonies such as Palestine,
Kurdistan, Kanaky, Greenland and others.
Until 1976 there was
also the contradiction between capitalist countries and socialist
countries that will re-emerge when we see the next victorious New
Democracy and Socialist revolutions.
These three contradictions
develop simultaneously in the world, one of them becoming the main
one in certain phases and the others secondary and vice versa.
Furthermore, each country has its own main contradiction that
determines the revolutionary strategy to develop.
So to stick to
the theme of our meeting we would say that all three contradictions
shake the world and produce war.
We think that today the main contradiction in the world is the
one between capital and labor. In fact, we are in the face of an
unprecedented concentration of capital and at the same time the
expansion of manufacturing production in more and more countries,
starting from the new imperialist country: China with 1 billion and
430 million people; but also in many oppressed countries such as
Bangladesh, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico
etc., the global capitalist-imperialist system in its general
organization of the international division of labor, comes to extract
unprecedented levels of surplus value in many countries of the world.
In the current phase, the imperialist system does not dominate the
semi-colonial countries simply by plundering them of raw materials or
importing cheap labor force to the former "mother countries",
but also exploits such labor force directly on site, by setting up
production plants in oppressed countries under the command of
companies from imperialist countries.
In the imperialist and
capitalist countries the main contradiction is that of wage labor and
capital, while in the semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries the
main contradiction is that of imperialism and oppressed peoples.
In many oppressed countries, bureaucratic and comprador capitalism
has become "industrialized", despite always remaining of
the same nature, given that it is a "dependent" industrial
sector, there is an increase in the working class and urban
proletarians in these countries, which on one hand contributes to the
increase of the working class worldwide and on the other, in these
countries, the first contradiction and the third contradiction are
becoming related each others.
On the specific question of war
Mao says, there are just wars and unjust wars: the first ones
are revolutionary while the second ones are reactionary. The first
ones are revolutions and national liberation struggles while the
second ones are those of aggression and robbery against the peoples
of the world and which make proletarians massacre each other against
other proletarians.
The communists can and must be an active
part within this contradiction.
As the glorious experience of
the October Revolution led by Lenin's party teaches us, the point is
not to be "against the war" but precisely how to act, how
to counter the plans of imperialism or if war breaks out, how to stay
within it, precisely how to stay within this contradiction to advance
the plan of the Revolution.
In the face of the outbreak of war
in Ukraine and after the start of the Al Aqsa Flood operation by the
Palestinian Resistance, the positioning and action of many so called
communist organizations and parties was, we would say, enlightening
and created a watershed.
In Italy, for example, the lack of
understanding of the inter-imperialist character of the Ukrainian war
has brought some groups and parties to the same ground as the one of
Italian imperialist bourgeoisie (which sent and continues to send
money and weapons to the Zelensky government) assuming the position
of "supporting Ukraine against Russian imperialist aggression".
Then there are the positions that openly support Russian imperialism
by identifying American imperialism and NATO not only as the “main
enemy” but as the only enemy. These so called communists are
actually at the service of another imperialisms, the Russian and
Chinese ones.
