Party of the Italian Communists Foreign Affairs Department

21st International Communist Seminar "The relation between the immediate tasks of communists and their struggle for socialism"
Brussels, 18-20 May 2012

Speech of Francesco Maringi on behalf of the Party of the Italian Communists

Dear comrades, I would like to thank you for the invitation and hospitality of the Workers Party of Belgium. We were given the opportunity to highlight the root causes of the capitalist crisis and the relation between the immediate tasks of communists and their struggle for socialism. For these reasons, on behalf of the Party of the Italian Communists (PdCI), I salute the realization of this new edition of the International Communist Seminar. It is a personal honor for me to take part in this event and have the opportunity on these days to share with comrades from many parts of the world and from other communist and fraternal parties. 1. The world has quickly changed since 1989 after of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet defeat. Now the current international scenery is very multifaceted and marked by self-contradictory elements. On one hand we assist to the growth of significant anti-imperialist and anti-liberal fights in many very important areas of the world. On the other hand we witness the social and political recession of the main countries with a developed capitalism, in particular in the imperialist triad (USA, EU, Japan). Also in Europe we can assist to the resumption of the anti-communist persecutions in many countries. In Europe as well, we can observe contradictory elements. The attack from monopolies and capitals to worker's rights, the so-called austerity policies driven by the EU throughout the European Central Bank and the bourgeoisies of each country making people poorer day by day. There is also a big attack of Troika to the national sovereignty of some countries. Nonetheless, in the same context we can observe the increase of class struggle and the relevance of the communists parties that are leading these struggles. We, the communists, are working on this contradictory context, full of dangerous perils, but also with big potentiality. In Italy we are working in very difficult context because it is one of the most backlog situations: from the beginning of the crisis, differently from what has happened in Greece or Portugal or Spain, for example, no general strike has been organized yet.

National Headquarters Corso dItalia 19 00198 Roma, Italy

esteri@comunisti-italiani.org Tel. +39.06.686271 Fax +39.06.68627230

Party of the Italian Communists Foreign Affairs Department

2. The time we are living, characterized by the global capitalist crisis is full of dangers but also full of potentiality. The perils come from the imperialism that is living a deep crisis and therefore could use more criminal aggressions, as already happened with the attack to Libya and the continuous threats against Syria, Iran and other countries. However, this crisis shows very well the real core of this system based on exploitation and oppression. Capitalism shows its real face and day by day millions of workers and all peoples in the world can start to see clearly that capitalism doesn't solve the big problems of the humanity but it is the root of this situation. The task of the communists is to encourage popular consciousness and work to translate it into an organized workers and people's struggle, with defined targets of social, democrat and antimonopolist transformation, to root up the capitalist system based in man by man exploitation, and to establish socialism. It is vitally for communists to work to increase the level of class struggle. There are two different levels of the work of communists nowadays according to our specific context: a high level capitalist country, member of EU and NATO and in a deep economic crisis. The first level is working for every day and demand to respect the needs of workers (employment, social rights, healthcare system, education, ...). In this framework, in our country, we are focusing and encouraging trade unions (which are under the influence of the Democratic Party) to organize the struggle and to mobilize the peoples in defense of their own rights, peace and social transformation. We are working in the mass organizations and supporting trade unions that are playing a vanguard and key role. We propose to contact the masses and mobilize them through this work in the mass organizations. The second level, that is very important, is to promote the growth of consciousness of masses converting it into an organized power that urges the overthrow of capitalism and to build a society free from exploitation and alienation. The communist party has direct responsibility and it plays a decisive role. Only with the party's work it is possible the passage from the partial and unionist struggle to a highly and general perspective; from a struggle demanding the increase of income to a struggle demanding worker's and people's power. As I've tried to explain, in Italy our work is addressed on two levels: - the direct action of the party (that concerns the ideological struggle in society) - the work through mass organizations (that is based on reclaims and demands). This behavior is valid from a social as well as a political point of view. 3. As we are working to build a social front, we are also working to build a political front. In fact we are, together with Rifondazione and other small organizations, the founding members of the Federation of the Left, which is engaged in collecting all anti-capitalist forces that are against EU policies and the neoliberal hegemony in our country. National Headquarters Corso dItalia 19 00198 Roma, Italy esteri@comunisti-italiani.org Tel. +39.06.686271 Fax +39.06.68627230

Party of the Italian Communists Foreign Affairs Department

Saturday May 12th, one week ago, we promoted a demonstration, a big rally against the Italian government and austerity policies. More than 40.000 people were in Rome. It was the first demonstration against the government policies organized by a political party and for the Italian difficult context it was a very big success. We are also working a lot to strengthen the party. From years ago, we are working under the slogans: "unify the communists" and "rebuild the Communist Party" with the goal to unify (in a political process based on an ideological organizational and program discussion) the Italian communists into a stronger and single party. Our congress, that was held last October symbolized the first step towards this unification and process that will continue in the future moving forward step by step. In this stage our forces are addressed to the reconstruction of a strategic group that promotes the reconstruction of the Communist Party and the formation of general and revolutionary consciousness in the society, starting from the pragmatic analysis of the pragmatic situation because, as Lenin said: "there isn't a revolutionary movement without a revolutionary theory". We recall ourselves to Lenin's analysis and the influence of Gramsci thought about the characteristics of the revolution in the Western countries; Gramsci's analysis completes Lenin's thought without removing its fundamental characteristics. Even though in the past Italy had the biggest communist party of the Western countries, we think that now we don't have the conditions to rebuild such a communist party, with direct presence in every aspect of society, but we are working for the reconstruction of a unite party of cadres and militants, working to have a mass influence in the society, trade unions, mass organizations. And we believe that we need a party in which militants and cadres increase their consciousness because nowadays society and political struggle is different and stiffer than in the past. In this link between the strategic group and mass activities and the connection with the significant changes in the world, with the advancing of anti-imperialist and revolutionary movements, we put the root of the process that we have called "rebuild the communist party". This is our modest contribution to the crisis of communist movement in our country. Dear comrades, thanks again to Workers Party of Belgium for hosting us and for the organization of this important occasion of discussion and sharing of ideas among communists. Thank you for your attention. [Francesco Maringi is Responsible for the International Relations and member of the Political Bureau]

National Headquarters Corso dItalia 19 00198 Roma, Italy

esteri@comunisti-italiani.org Tel. +39.06.686271 Fax +39.06.68627230