Stefan Petrov | September 23 Movement (Bulgaria)
Unfortunately we are not able to be physically with you at this important event. However, we would like to take this opportunity to convey our warmest greetings from Bulgaria.
In the present age in which we live, the main contradiction in the world is that between the imperialist camp, led by the United States, and the peoples of the world who are fighting for the right to their dignified and independent existence. This took shape after the end of the Second World War, when the other capitalist contender for world hegemony, Nazi Germany, was defeated, mainly thanks to the efforts of the Soviet Union and the anti-fascist movements in the various countries, in which the Communist Parties usually played a leading role. Then came the period of the so-called Cold War, when a whole bloc of socialist countries existed in the world, which appeared as a serious obstacle to the imperialist plans for new plunders in the world. The capitalist countries were forced to carry out a number of social reforms in favour of the working class, fearing (not without reason) the outbreak of a socialist revolution in these countries. The socialist states that existed in this period provided a revealing lesson of the achievements that could be made in a society in which power belonged to the workers. In these countries there was an unprecedented leap forward scientifically, technologically, educationally and socially. The most striking example of this is our homeland, Bulgaria. In 45 years of socialist development, it has transformed itself from a backward agrarian country with a predominantly poor and illiterate population into a modern developed country with production in almost all spheres of the economy, with nuclear energy and with an educated and settled population that even has the ability to send people into space.
This period ended in 1989-1991 with the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. For a period of about 20 years, the world saw the almost unbridled domination of aggressive US imperialism. A number of countries defending even the smallest remnants of their independence, such as Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc., became the object of military aggressions. The imperialists began to actively use their newest weapon – the so-called “color revolutions” – revolutions only in form, but in content representing coups d’état, granting power to the most reactionary forces convenient to the United States. The former socialist countries of Eastern Europe have also become the object of expansion. Their resources were drained, and the most valuable scientific and technical cadres (trained and prepared with the resources of the socialist governments) were brought in huge numbers to the countries of the capitalist centre. Even Russia in this period seemed to be on the edge of collapse, led there by the new pro-Western anti-communist regime.
The bourgeois ideologists were quick to speak of the coming of the “American century”, of the “end of history” and of the, almost, eternal domination in the future of US imperialism. Communism was actively “buried”, alternatives to capitalism were easily ridiculed and ignored.
It was in this atmosphere that the destruction of our state, almost ironically called the process of “transition to democracy,” took place. Key parts of the economy were privatised or destroyed. The most extreme neoliberal reforms were introduced into the economy. Socialist and anti-fascist monuments were demonstratively demolished and vandalised. Textbooks for schoolchildren were rewritten in an anti-communist spirit. The country was completely stripped of its independence, with NATO membership in 2004, EU membership in 2007 and the deployment of US bases on our territory in 2006. Despite public scepticism about these changes, this was accomplished relatively easily because of the general global period of imperialist expansion and the lack of alternative in the eyes of many.
However, this was not the case globally after the onset of the global economic crisis in 2008. It then became obvious to everyone that the temporary victory of capitalism did not represent the ‘end of history’, but only a temporary step backwards in it.
Imperialist plans for aggression and ‘regime change’ also began to fail. Russia has made visible attempts for emancipation and a break with the disastrous course started for the country by the administration of President Boris Yeltsin. Until a few decades ago, the People’s Republic of China, led by the Communist Party of China, was considered a field for the expansion of Western corporations. Today, however, the PRC is the world’s economic and technological leader and, in many indicators, stands even higher than the US. The people of Syria have heroically managed to fight off the reactionary hordes sent, armed and trained by the Western imperialists who wanted to impose their will on that country and lay their hands on its vast natural resources. This, of course, came at a particularly high cost to the Syrian people. A high price was also paid by the people of Venezuela, who were forced to confront more than one attempt to restore the imperialist regime there. And what can we say about the people of Cuba, who have been struggling for their survival for decades, experiencing one of the cruellest forms of imperialist aggression – that of the blockade and economic sanctions. Attempts to carry out a ‘colour revolution’ in Cuba have also failed.
The most sharp point of world confrontation today is in Ukraine. Several coups have taken place in that country, despite the will of the majority of the Ukrainian people. The last of these led to the establishment of a cruel fascist regime that does not recognise the rights of its people in the Eastern part of the country. They wanted the right to determine their own destiny, to which the fascist Kiev authorities responded with a so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ – essentially a military intervention by the central government against its own rebellious population. In 2022. The Russian Federation started a Special Military Operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. To this day, this country is the point of most serious military confrontation in the world.
The most tragic today, without doubt, is the fate of the Palestinian people. After decades of systematic extermination, several uprisings and brutal repression, the Palestinians threw themselves into a desperate attempt to defend their existence on 7 October 2023. The Israeli occupation authorities have responded with unprecedented cruelty, threatening to physically liquidate the entire population of the Gaza Strip, led by its most militant representatives. Demonstrations in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people have taken place in almost every country in the world. In some of them, even in the centre of the imperialist system, huge numbers of people have taken part, in some places millions of participants.
All these events prove that the world is in a period of change. It is the duty of all communists around the world to oppose imperialist aggression everywhere, and to stand in solidarity with anti-imperialist movements, whether they are a matter of state policy or popular movements from below. This necessarily goes hand in hand with the ideological struggle against those political groups belonging nominally and only in word to the communist tradition, but in practice advocating submission to or passivity with imperialism. All the ideological trends that speak of a “struggle between imperialisms” condemn to a passivity the working class of the world, which faces a number of important tasks connected with its liberation. These interpretations must be denounced and rejected.
The charm of the world is in its diversity, its richness is in the cultures of different peoples. What unites them, however, is more than what divides them. And today, the conditions are in place for the unification of humanity against its greatest enemy, world imperialism, led by the United States.
