International Communist Seminar meets in Brussels

Representatives of 60 revolutionary and progressive parties and organizations from five continents attended the 15th International Communist Seminar hosted by the Workers Party of Belgium in Brussels May 5-7. Sixty-three others submitted papers or sent solidarity messages. The themes of this year’s seminar were the influence of the Communist International on the class struggle around the world, and organizing inside the working class today.

Forces in Latin America that directly confront imperialism stirred the meeting. A speaker from the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia brought the audience to its feet when he described the new Morales government’s nationalization of his country’s gas and oil resources. He called it an answer to 500 years of plunder and genocide of the Native people of the Andes, first by Spanish conquistadores, then by U.S. and other imperialist corporations.

Before he spoke he displayed both the Bolivian flag and the multicolored Huipala flag, representing the Native majority of his country. He issued a ringing call for the people of the world, especially in imperialist countries, to stand in solidarity with the people of Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and all Latin America against the war plans and conspiracies of the Pentagon and the CIA.

Women from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC -EP) and the National Front of Struggle for Socialism in Mexico also gave powerful talks. The Colombian speaker called for the freedom of FARC leader Simon Trinidad, who the Bush regime is holding incommunicado in Washington. “The Boli varian struggle for second independence is inseparable from the struggle for socialism,” she said.

Juan Piedra of the Communist Party of Venezuela described the impressive achieve ments of the Hugo Chávez government in bringing health care and housing to the poor, with the help of socialist Cuba. He announced that on May 25-27 a congress would be held to found a new National Union of Workers to support the revolutionary process.

A young representative of the Communist Party of Cuba filled the seminar with optimism when he gave a PowerPoint presentation on the achievements of Cuban youth in science, industry, art and sports despite the U.S.-imposed blockade. He said young people now make up 40 percent of the Cuban parliament and 60 percent of Communist Party cadres.

Speakers from the Communist Party of Ecuador-Marxist-Leninist, the Argentine Party of Liberation and the Revolutionary Communist Party of Argentina also gave important and informative presentations. The second day of the seminar ended with a night of solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia.

A representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine spoke of the need to defend the elected government of Palestine against the genocidal blockade imposed by the United States and Israel with Western European complicity. He warned of U.S.-Israeli war plans against Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Representatives of the Palestinian and Syrian Communist Parties and of the Communist Party of Turkey also addressed the seminar.

Augusta Epanya of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon told of her party’s roots in the armed struggle against German and later French colonialism. And she reported the devastating social and environmental effects of neocolonialism on West Africa today. She called on revolutionaries in imperialist countries to show greater solidarity with the struggle in Africa, as did Workers Party of Belgium President Ludo Martens.

Representatives from Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine and the former Yugoslavia spoke of the devastating effects of capitalist restoration on the working class in East Europe and the former Soviet Union. Leonid Shkolnikov of the Belarus branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union described U.S. and Western European attempts to intervene in the Belarus elections. He called for critical defense of the Lukashenko government against Western imperialism.

A speaker from the Communist Party of the Philippines spoke of the working class’s leading role in the struggle for national liberation. Mobinul Chowdhury of the Socialist Party of Bangladesh described the raging class struggle against transnational corporations in his country.

Representatives of the WPB presented a fascinating history of the Communist movement in Belgium, as well as an account of lessons gleaned from their participation in the Belgian workers’ general strike last October. The WPB is also involved in the struggle of mostly African undocumented workers for the right to live and work without fear.

Bill Doares of Workers World Party brought news of the return of May Day to the United States in the mass demonstrations and general strike of immigrant workers. He also spoke of the strike of New York City transit workers and the fight of the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to return to their homes as signs of a reviving class struggle. Doares described the racist dispossession of the people of the Gulf and the destruction of Iraq as twin symbols of the decay of U.S. capitalism.

Mick Kelly of the U.S.-based Freedom Road Socialist Organization gave a talk on the Communist International and the African-American struggle for self-determination.

The final resolution of the seminar called on Communists to work for an international united front against the U.S.-led imperialist war drive. It expressed solidarity with the struggles of oppressed people all over the world, including Black, Latin@, Native and other oppressed nation alities inside the United States. Many of the talks and the full text of the resolution can be found at www.wpb.be/icm.htm.