Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction: One War, Multiple Fronts
• Lines of Demarcation
– The Attack on the PCUSA
• Conclusion: Lessons for the Future
Distinguished Comrades and Friends,
On behalf of the Party of Communists USA, I bring the warmest greetings, solidarity, and best wishes for the success of this conference of the World Anti-imperialist Platform in Athens, Greece. We salute you!
Dedication
It is not only very fitting for us to meet in Athens, Greece for the Fifth Meeting of the World Anti-imperialist Platform meeting, but for me, our meeting is also very personal. It was here in Athens in December 1944, months before the victory banner flew atop the Reichstag in Berlin, where the first major imperialist intervention of what would eventually be called “the Cold War” took place. British troops, and their monarcho-fascist proxies, opened fire on peaceful demonstrators of the National Liberation Front (EAM) and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). The massacre prompted EAM to issue a general call to arms under the slogan “everyone to arms, everyone to the barricades”. The ensuing brutal combat turned these narrow streets around us into a battlefield replete with barricades and cobbled together fortifications. The heroic resistance was unable to overcome the imperialist and fascist assault and by January had all but been defeated. A month later, the Treaty of Varkiza led to the demilitarization of much of EAM-ELAS, exposing resistance fighters to intimidation, harassment, arrest, torture, and murder.
It was at this time when my great-uncle Yiorgos Kasidakos, a communist partisan with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Regiment of ELAS in the Parnona mountains of Lakonia who had fought the fascists for years, was arrested for having been a part of ELAS. He was imprisoned in Gytheio with many other communists and former members of ELAS. On March 21, 1947, while the Greek Civil War was raging across the country, Yiorgos and approximately 31 other prisoners were brutally massacred in Gytheio and buried in an unknown mass grave. I honor his legacy. Let us take a moment to remember and honor all the people of Greece who struggled, and continue to struggle, against imperialism and fascism. We honor their memory as we collectively struggle to destroy imperialism once and for all.
Introduction: One War, Multiple Fronts
Under the banner of “one war, two fronts”, we met in South Korea in the midst of the brutal onslaught of the US-EU-NATO imperialist axis on the Russian Federation. We recognized that the imperialist war being fought by the United States, its Western allies, and regional lackeys, was taking place on two main fronts. The first front, the Eastern European front, is centered in Ukraine as the US-EU-NATO proxy against Russia. The second front, the Pacific/East Asian front, is centered on Taiwan and South Korea as the US proxies against China, Russia, and the DPRK. Recent developments require us to further expand our understanding of the fronts in this imperialist war.
I believe we can now identify five major fronts in the ongoing and expanding US-EU-NATO imperialist war. First, the Eastern European front centered in Ukraine remains the same. The Ukrainian offensive which was preemptively heralded as a victory in the Western mainstream media has produced no major results on the battlefield. In fact, multiple Russian counteroffensives are underway. Second, the Pacific/East Asian front centered on South Korea and Taiwan, are slowly heating up. The DPRK and Russia have grown closer in recent months, deepening their bilateral political, economic, and military relations. Third, the Middle East and North African front, centered on Palestine, Syria, and Iran, to Western Sahara, reveal the ongoing genocidal and settler-colonial policies of the Zionist entity, an outpost of US-EU-NATO imperialism and colonialism in the region, and its regional lackeys including Morocco. Fourth, the West African front, centered on anti-imperialist countries like Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, find themselves in the crosshairs of US-EU-NATO imperialism, notably AFRICOM, the U.S. military command that seeks to dominate the African continent. Fifth, the Latin American front centered on Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and other anti-imperialist countries like Bolivia. These countries find themselves directly confronting U.S. domination that justifies its ongoing destabilizing and interventionist role in Latin America via the Monroe Doctrine.
In all of these fronts the US-EU-NATO imperialist axis uses a wide variety of tools including covert operations, sanctions, color revolutions, funding pro-Western NGOs, dissident academics, pro-Western media, and funding and supporting anarchic, “anti-authoritarian”, and nihilistic art and cultural programs. The arsenal of the Euro-Atlantic imperialist axis uses liberalism, human rights, and democracy promotion as a guise for the ruthless and brutal regime change operations, the aim of which is the complete domination and exploitation of periphery countries. Sovereignty and independence are exchanged for a clientelist and rentier type state where control of their natural resources and economic development are in the hands of multinational corporations in the West. This only proves what V. I. Lenin rightly noted over a century ago, imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.
Lines of Demarcation
The international communist movement over the past decade has experienced extraordinary contradictions and, what I call, lines of demarcation. I have identified six major lines of demarcation that continue to divide the international communist movement today. For purposes of understanding and ease, I will attempt to address them in a somewhat chronological order.
The so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011 was an axial moment for the Middle East and North Africa. Uprisings throughout the region were in large part organized and orchestrated by the US-EU-NATO axis and their regional proxies. Popular discontent against the U.S. backed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was weaponized in other parts of the Arab world, notably in Syria where Western intelligence agencies and their Zionist and Arab proxies sought to destabilize the government of Bashar al-Assad. While the international communist movement was for the most part united in their condemnation of the US-EU-NATO led illegal war against Libya and the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi, the situation in Syria was far more complicated. Thus, the first line of demarcation is Syria where numerous communist parties have noted to varying degrees that the war in Syria is not necessarily a regime change operation or an all-out assault on an anti-imperialist country but rather an inter-imperialist conflict, where Russia, Iran, and to a lesser extent China are challenging the US-EU-NATO and their regional allies, including Israel and the Gulf states, for control of Syrian natural resources and access to the Syrian market. This position is absolutely absurd and should be outright condemned for its obfuscation of the far more nefarious reasons for US-EU-NATO intervention and occupation in Syria. Moreover, the Communist Party of Greece’s theory of the “imperialist pyramid”, which provides ideological cover to this perspective, must continually and unceasingly be subject to ruthless criticism.
The second line of demarcation is that of China. There remains pronounced disagreement amongst communist and workers’ parties around the world as to the nature of the Chinese economy and the role of China in international affairs. Parties like the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM) see China as a capitalist country, not a socialist one, and moreover, see it as an imperialist power. This perspective neither recognizes “socialism with Chinese characteristics” nor “market socialism” as distinct transformations in the capitalist mode of production but rather as mere cover for capitalist restoration in China. There are other parties, many of whom are represented here, which recognize “socialism with Chinese characteristics” as an aspect of socialist development and see China as a progressive force in the world, not as an imperialist power. We recognize that the Communist Party of China still controls most aspects of the Chinese economy, where state owned enterprises and banks are still under central state control. The CPC’s position at the commanding heights allows it to place the interests of the people and the nation above the interests of shareholders and business owners.
The third line of demarcation can be broadly described as the various social issues, notably LGBTQ+ rights. The international communist movement is split regarding LGBTQ+ rights. There are some parties that reject the need for LGBTQ+ rights citing Marxist theory, social order, cultural heritage, family values, and what has been described as homo- or queer-imperialism, that is, the imposition of LGBTQ+ rights and values by Western powers as part of the broader cultural imperialism imposed by the West on countries primarily in the Global South. Other parties see LGBTQ+ rights as essential to collective liberation and an ongoing struggle for rights that goes back to Lenin and the earliest days of the Soviet Union. I would argue that this issue has been artificially elevated by forces seeking disorder and chaos within the broader communist movement, seeking to turn the struggles against imperialism and fascism, into broader cultural struggles. Our primary task at this point in history, comrades, is the struggle against imperialism. This is an existential necessity in a nuclear age. These social questions are ultimately issues better left to the internal affairs of individual parties and nations to decide as needed in the course of their development.
The fourth line of demarcation is the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the virus emerged in Wuhan, China, the origin of which is still a mystery, nations around the world started to enact emergency legislation to strengthen state powers in various capitalist states. The capitalists never allow a crisis to go to waste. In the West, the pharmaco-medical industrial complex was provided with tremendous resources and financial backing. They were able to use military technology and resources to rapidly produce various vaccines with technologies that had not been properly vetted or tested on humans. Philosophers like Giorgio Agamben correctly pointed out the dangers to this new and enhanced “state of exception”. Mandates and lockdowns, especially in Western countries, became normal as people were forced to isolate in their homes that quickly turned into prison cells, especially in major cities. The failure of many communist parties to criticize the pharmaco-medical industrial complex, to challenge the rapid rollout of new technologies and vaccines, as well as to stand against mandates and lockdowns in the West is a failure on a historic level. At a time when many people needed the communists to speak for their rights, their dignity, and to protect them from gross violations by both the capitalist state and the medical monopolies, they were mostly let down in the West by many parties who simply parroted capitalist media and health department talking points. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the ongoing struggles between capitalist health systems, economies, and governments and socialist ones. It is safe to assume that if the capitalist state and the pharmaceutical monopolies are not to be trusted in other instances, than they should still be looked at with tremendous suspicion in the midst of a pandemic. This is not meant to deny vaccine technology or efficacy. Vaccines over history have been proven to work in many cases. Rather, it is to challenge the blind allegiance of many parties to the state, its apparatuses, and its health mandates, especially in capitalist countries where profits come before people. Only a socialist state that places people before profits, that allows vaccine technology to be open, transparent, and collective rather than personal intellectual property or a secret technology, and severely curtails abuses by various industries, can be trusted with the people’s general welfare.
The fifth line of demarcation is, of course, the special military operation in Ukraine. The situation in Eastern Europe has divided communist and workers’ parties around the world. On one side is the Communist Party of Greece and its allies who see the war as an inter-imperialist war, and loudly proclaim both no to Washington and Moscow. On the other side are the parties and our platform who see this war not as an inter-imperialist one but as an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist war. The war did not begin in 2022 but had been ongoing since the US-EU-NATO backed fascist coup in 2014. We see contemporary Ukraine not as an independent country but as a vassal state and proxy of the US-EU-NATO imperialist axis. In Ukraine, Banderism has emerged as the state ideology replete with anti-communism, anti-Sovietism, and Russophobia. Regrettably, during this period of the Russian anti-fascist struggle, the Communist Party of Greece has played a negative role internationally. The KKE unilaterally abolished the European Initiative of Communist and Workers’ Parties in September 2023 over disagreements related to Russia’s SMO.
– The Attack on the PCUSA
Moreover, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its regional ally, the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM), have attacked our party over our support for the Russian anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggle. In February 2022, I issued a statement on behalf of the international department outlining our support for Russia in its military confrontation of fascists and neo-Nazis including the Azov Battalion and Right Sector. The ongoing genocide of the Russian speaking population in the Donbass had gone on for eight years. The need to militarily defeat Banderism was an existential necessity. Concordantly, Russia has an existential duty to stop the expansion of NATO on its border. After my statement was released, a faction developed that supported the KKE’s line on the conflict. Eventually, the faction split from our party in the middle of the night, stealing our social media, email accounts, and some of our financial resources. This has led to a prolonged legal battle with these factionalists. What is even more interesting was the revelation that those that split from our party on two separate instances were all invited to the Communist Party of Mexico’s meeting in Mexico. The factions attended in full force, with three of them personally attending. The two new organizations are backed by the KKE and PCM, issuing statements against the World Anti-imperialist Platform, the PCUSA, and slandering me personally. They have also published these slanderous and vitriolic statements on In Defense of Communism. These so-called parties exist for no other reason than to be the US based face of the KKE and the PCM as they continue to slander our party and this platform. We will not be deterred by these attacks. Our work is essential. The growth of this platform indicates not only our correct line but our collective strength. We are truly on the right side of history.
The sixth and final line of demarcation is Palestine. The Palestinian people continue to face the brutal, inhumane, and barbaric occupation, and apartheid regime of the Zionist state. For over 70 years, Palestinians have faced massacres, ethnic cleansing, displacement, nightly raids, surveillance, imprisonment, torture, humiliations, terror, and unspeakable horrors. Millions of Palestinians in the West Bank are subjected to an illegal military occupation that has gone on for over 50 years. Millions of Palestinians in Gaza are caged on a small strip of land that has rightly been described as the largest open-air prison in the world. The Zionist regime weaponizes aid, medicine, and humanitarian relief while allowing its military and settlers to bulldoze homes, steal Palestinian property, kill livestock, destroy Olive groves, and steal natural resources, most importantly, water. While many communist and workers’ parties still advocate for a two-state solution, the Zionist regime itself does not want a two-state solution. For the Zionists, the only people allowed self-determination “from the river to the sea” are the Jewish people. The Soviet Union and the socialist and anti-imperialist states were correct when they drafted and passed the historic United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 that declared Zionism as a form of racism. It’s revocation in 1991 is part of the larger tragedy of the counter-revolution and liquidationist policies of the Soviet Union before it ceased to exist at the end of that year. Our task is to support the Palestinian resistance and to aid in the liberation of Palestine “from the river to the sea”. It is up to the Palestinian people to choose their future, be it a two-state, one-state, or con/federated state solution.
Conclusion: Lessons for the Future
Comrades and Friends,
Our historical duty is to unceasingly confront US-EU-NATO imperialism and all of its proxies around the world. This represents the greatest threat to humanity today. Given the terminal decline of the United States and the West, the possibility of war and nuclear confrontation grows day by day. Our collective existence under the sword of Damocles is unsustainable. At some point the thread will give and we will be faced with annihilation. Given the various fronts and lines of demarcation facing the international communist and workers’ movement today, we must sharpen our ideological positions and prepare for a prolonged ideological war with those who choose revisionism, opportunism, and factionalism. Our strategy is to be united in confronting imperialism under the banner of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform. We must continue to provide solidarity to the peoples of the Donbass, of Palestine, Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria, Western Sahara and all oppressed peoples and nations who struggle for their liberation from imperialism, fascism, and capitalism. We must heighten and deepen our struggle against the US-EU-NATO imperialist axis, the greatest threat to world peace. Only through the final confrontation with Euro-Atlantic imperialism can we open the possibility of constructing socialism-communism and building a lasting world peace for all.
DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM, COLONIALISM, AND ZIONISM!
DOWN WITH THE US-EU-NATO IMPERIALIST AXIS!
VICTORY TO THE PEOPLE OF PALESTINE AND THE HEROIC PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE!
GLORY AND HONOR TO THE PALESTINIAN MARTYRS!
LONG LIVE PALESTINE!
LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM!
VICTORY TO THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLES AROUND THE WORLD!
VENCEREMOS!
