INTRODUCTION
Revolutionary Greetings and salutes!
We sincerely thank the organizers of this historic conference. The only way that we can pay you back is by taking the resolutions and putting them into practice among our People at all levels, but especially at the Base where our People live and struggle in the villages, cities and communities.
RISING TIDE OF WORLD WAR
There is a rising tide of world war that must be confronted by tidal waves of Anti-imperialists that swallow up the tides of imperialists. This must be done by organizing at all levels from the Base to the intermediate, central and international levels, but with emphasis on the Bases!
PAIGC REVOLUTIONARY PAN-AFRICANIST MASS PARTY GUIDED BY AMÍLCAR CABRAL THOUGHT IS A SOCIALIST PARTY
The African Party of Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), the revolutionary Pan-Africanist Mass Party guided by Amílcar Cabral Thought is a socialist Party that is honored to be together with other socialist and communist Parties to learn from each other and intensify coordination against the rising tide of world war. Together revolutionary forces will out power imperialist waves with revolutionary socialist tsunamis.
We are more conscious than ever that mere shouting will not create the necessary tidal wave against imperialism. As our People say in their proverbs; “…Thunder is not afraid of wind.”
SHOUTING INSULTS AGAINST IMPERIALISM WILL NOT DEFEAT IT
At the first Tricontinental Conference held in Cuba in January 1966—that brought together more than 260 Delegates from more than 70 revolutionary organizations of Africa, Asia and Latin America—our Immortal Brother and Comrade Amílcar Cabral, Secretary General of the PAIGC and speaking on behalf of CONCP (Conference of National Organizations in the Portuguese Colonies) said that; “the objective of national liberation, is to reclaim the right, usurped by imperialist domination, namely: the liberation of the process of development of national productive forces…”
“…We are not going to use this platform to rail against imperialism. An African saying very common in our country says: ‘When your house is burning, it’s no use beating the tom-toms.’ On a Tricontinental level, this means that we are not going to eliminate imperialism by shouting insults against it. For us, the best or worst shout against imperialism, whatever its form, is to take up arms and fight. This is what we are doing, and this is what we will go on doing until all foreign domination of our African homelands has been totally eliminated…”
IDEALS AND CORRECT LINES
As the theme of this important conference reconfirms, we Anti-imperialists have historic tasks, and these tasks must be guided by theory: ideals and correct lines to reinforce the communist camp, and larger revolutionary front against imperialism; theory put into practice.
Amílcar Cabral reminds us that “…every practice produces a theory, and that if it is true that a revolution can fail even though it be based on perfectly conceived theories, nobody has yet made a successful revolution without a revolutionary theory…”
Those who absorb revolutionary theories and put them into honest practice among our People are transformed into self-conscious revolutionaries. Logically self-conscious revolutionaries become attracted to each other by magnetic energy, as we are today in this conference.
HISTORY IS A GUIDE
History is a guide. Properly analyzed from a historical materialist perspective allows us to not repeat the same mistakes that have already happened. For example, after the physical disappearance of the great eternal revolutionary Karl Marx, his close comrade Friedrich Engels wrote a letter on 21 September 1891 to a young student named J.Bloch:
“…According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase….”
CONSCIOUSNESS leads practice. Revolutionary theory leads revolution and serves as a strong determining element in production and reproduction of real life.
Just like you emphasize the priority of ideals and correct lines to reinforce the communist camp, and larger revolutionary front against imperialism, so does Amílcar Cabral and the PAIGC.
“…we must recognize that we ourselves and the other liberation movements in general (referring here above all to the African experience) have not managed to pay sufficient attention to this important problem of our common struggle.
The ideological deficiency, not to say the total lack of ideology, within the national liberation movements—which is basically due to ignorance of the historical reality which these movements claim to transform—constitutes one of the greatest weaknesses of our struggle against imperialism, if not the greatest weakness of all. We believe, however, that a sufficient number of different experiences have already been accumulated to enable us to define a general line of thought and action with the aim of eliminating this deficiency. A full discussion of this subject could be useful, and would enable this conference to make a valuable contribution towards strengthening the present and future actions of the national liberation movements. This would be a concrete way of helping these movements, and in our opinion no less important than political support or financial assistance for arms and suchlike…”
OUR REVOLUTIONARY PARTY IS THE POLITICAL MANIFESTATION OF OUR PEOPLE’S CULTURE
The conference organizers give us a general summary of the reflections that were deepened by international conferences and seminars over the last year and the three main objectives of the Anti-imperialist platform. There are a number of other analyses that can also be added to it, but the conclusions are still the same.
Thus it’s not necessary to repeat the analysis on the intense changes in the struggle against imperialism in all its forms of neo-colonialism, zionism, neo-liberalism.
As our Eternal leader Amílcar Cabral reminds us, “…our challenge is to not merely shout against imperialism, but rather to struggle to defeat it…” Many of our organizations have taken up arms. In our case, it was a People’s War with armed militants led by a revolutionary Pan-Africanist Party that used the Liberated Zones as a nucleus of the new State; ideologically and politically training socialist new wo/men, while building socialism, giving concrete support to Angola, Palestine, Mozambique, Timor-Leste, et al.
In short, our revolutionary party is the political manifestation of our People’s culture.
We have been part of political coordination, sometimes more intensely and other times less. Our challenge is to transform the less to more and intensify our political coordination. Amílcar Cabral instructs us to “…struggle against our own weaknesses… Tell no lies, claim no easy victories, hide nothing from the People…”
TRAITORS
We suffered from imperialists attacks that used their strongest weapon: traitors.
Consequences of betrayal manifested in the weakening on all fronts. Yet despite the infiltration of neo-liberal policies; dismembering of the PAIGC Party-State, taking many of the PAIGC patrimony and gave to the State which some used against the PAIGC. Despite this, our culture continued to grow and revolutionaries reproduced themselves at the Base; in the Villages and Urban Neighborhoods.
NOT ENOUGH POLITICAL COORDINATION
While there is some political coordination, it is not enough. This conference provides a platform to increase it. As Cabral said at the 1st Tricontinental, “more than asking for weapons or materials, we should take advantage of our accumulated experiences to trace general lines of thought and action.”
We must intensify our outreach to other anti-imperialist organizations.
COORDINATE AND SHARE THE ANTI-IMPERIALISTS NEWS SOURCES
One of the main weaknesses is the source of (mis)information on the part of millions by the imperialist zionist disinformation service. We must coordinate and share the anti-imperialists news sources, such as TeleSur TV, Cuba TV, and reproduce and increase them and make them become the primary source of information for the Masses throughout the world.
COORDINATE OUR IDEOLOGICAL TRAINING PROCESSES
We must coordinate our ideological training processes without dogma, and have systematic political ideological exchanges.
Amílcar Cabral reminds us that; “…People are sacrificing for better schools, access to health care, better lives and not of ideas in other people’s heads…” This doesn’t mean that we minimize ideological struggle. Practice has shown us that like Karl Marx said; “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it…”
SERVE AS EXAMPLES OF COMPLETE HUMAN BEINGS
We must serve as examples of complete human beings, in the way that Amílcar Cabral described Vladimir Lenin;
“…a complete human being, he knew how to love and hate. Love the cause of man’s liberation from any kind of oppression, the wonderful adventure that is human life, everything that is beautiful and constructive on the planet. Hating the enemies of man’s progress and happiness, the class enemy, the opportunists, cowardice, lies, all the factors that debase man’s social and moral conscience…”, “… an example of fidelity to principles. He knew how to make concessions on the form of demands, of axés, but never on principles…”, “…Lenin always demonstrated unlimited confidence in the abilities of the masses…any liberation movement needs a strategy…”
“…When developing this strategy it is necessary to be able to distinguish the essential from the secondary, the permanent from the temporary. Without ever confusing strategy and tactics, action must be based on a scientific conception of reality, regardless of the influence of subjective factors that must be faced…”
“…Also on this level Lenin gave a very useful lesson to the liberation movements, to the freedom fighters. He was clearly aware of the value of unity as a necessary means of struggle, but not as an end in itself…”
“…On the other hand, Lenin was deeply aware of the need to know as best as possible, in the fight, the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy, as well as our own strengths and weaknesses. The Leninist conception of strategy implies that we must act to increase the enemy’s weaknesses and transform his strengths into weaknesses and, simultaneously, preserve and reinforce our strengths and eliminate our weaknesses or transform them into strengths. This is possible through the permanent and dynamic alliance between theory and practice…”
“…Still at this point, Lenin’s lesson is pertinent: he hated both blind empiricism and dogmas. Critical assimilation (of the knowledge or experiences of others) is as valid for life as it is for fighting. The thinking of others, philosophical or scientific —however lucid it may be—is just a basis that allows us to think and act, therefore, to create. To create the fight it is necessary to lead it, make every effort and accept the necessary sacrifices. The fight is not made of words but of daily, organized and disciplined action, of all valid elements…”
“…Demonstrating that, in a struggle, subjective difficulties are the most difficult to overcome, Lenin was aware of this reality: the struggle is made up of successes and failures, of victories and defeats, but it always advances and its phases, even the most identical, are never repeated, because the fight is a process and not an accident, a long-distance race and not a speed race: occasional defeats cannot justify either demoralization or giving up, because even failures can be a starting point for new successes…”
Comrades, let us go forward onward to victory as complete human beings!
Everywhere there is an agent of imperialism, zionism or neo-colonialism, let us go forward with tidal waves to crush them!
A luta continua!
Victoria é Certa
Onward to Final Victory!
READY FOR THE REVOLUTION!
