New Left Current for Communist Liberation 5^th CONGRESS

The new communist possibility and perspective

1. Μillions of people around the world are realizing that capitalism is not a “the only alternative”- it cannot be the "end of history". They seek a comprehensive perspective against and beyond capitalism, and they envision a communist society, an emancipated society of free producers without exploitation and classes, without oppression and wars, without alienation and discrimination of any kind. We are part of this search. We want to contribute to this historic task with all our forces and with the step of forming a modern communist program and party.

We are striving for a communism that comes mainly from the future, which is the answer to capitalist barbarism but also to the contemporary needs of the people, which is an expression of the contemporary possibilities offered by the productive forces, the level of education, the technological and scientific discoveries, that are nevertheless distorted in the context of capitalism. This new communist option is being established:

• In the need to interpret more deeply the new facts of society and the class struggle, the situation of contemporary capitalism and the working class and the revolutionary possibilities that derive from them.
• In the critical, materialistic, dialectical approach to history, so that the historical experience of the revolutionary efforts may become a guide for the new communist attempts, and more specifically, the revolutionary evaluation of the double experience of the victory and defeat of the great October Revolution of 1917.
• In the creative development of revolutionary Marxism.
• In the need to overcome the crisis and bankruptcy of the subjugated-defeated communist movement and to form a modern communist party
• In the treatment of communist liberation as a collective creation of the masses and not as a construct of the test-tube or bureaucratic mechanisms.

The modern working class - The class that can change the world

2. We see the working class not just as the class that suffers but as the class that can change things, that can make capitalism a thing of the past and communism a thing of the present and a thing of the future. This aspect was also clearly shown in the period of the pandemic, when the working class internationally "held" society upright and proved who really produces social wealth and holds the driving belts of the world.

The modern working class is more numerous and better educated than ever before. It can guarantee the production of useful goods "without bosses" and the functioning of society and the economy without exploitation, oppression, discrimination and competition. Its position at the "heart" of the exploitative relations of capitalism makes it the "locomotive" of the struggle to overthrow and overcome it, but also of the struggle to overcome every other form of oppression, discrimination or exploitation that is linked to these exploitative relations, coming from the past or present of capitalism.

At the same time, it is more fragmented, with different forms and speeds in the field of wages, in the current model of industrial relations and in the emergence of different employer-employees even within the same company. This is why its unification is a crucial factor in order for the tendency towards emancipation to prevail over the tendency towards subordination and for the working class to become conscious of its unified interests and to emerge as a "class for itself" as the social subject of the revolutionary process. Its multi-ethnicity (even within a country) can be a force for creation, internationalism and cooperation, against racism and xenophobia, nationalism and the extreme right. Its diversity can forge a superior unity between underpaid workers and those who work in the technological showcase of capitalism, between older and younger generations. These elements constitute the ground for it to emerge as a pole for building a broader social and political alliance, a new historical emancipation bloc with a communist slant.

The revolutionary potential of the era

3. Based on the characteristics of capitalism and the working class of our time, we trace the material-objective conditions and revolutionary possibilities that arise in contemporary capitalism. The system exploits a world of generalized dystopia to convince workers that there is no alternative way out and no other strategy for humanity beyond that of the forces of capital. But from the depths and darkest aspects of contemporary barbarism, the evidence that capitalism is an anachronistic obstacle to humanity is mounting.

The conditions for increasing the wealth produced with a simultaneous reduction of working time and increase of leisure time are being mutilated by private-individual property and the expansion of capital's domination, which merges and unifies in a reactionary direction working, education, leisure time, in the context of a 24-hour super-exploitation.

The possibility of overcoming the distinction between intellectual and manual labour, the class division of labour, but also the possibility of horizontal, multifaceted, multi-technical and humanistic education for all are distorted towards the devaluation of manual labour more than ever, while the partiality, specialization, training and class barriers and class restructuring in education are deepened.

The exploitation of the achievements of science against the workers and the transformation of science into a hostile force against labour, a force that dominates it without precedent, complete the picture. Science is necessary for man to delve into the essence of things, but within the capitalist system of production it constitutes a force alienated from the needs of society, subordinated to the selfish interests of profit, human oppression and manipulation. Thus, the development of fields of science useful for social needs but not profitable for capital is put on the brakes, its applications (and in some fields its direction) are too often directed against people and nature, and often the results of science, instead of being put at the service of social needs, are turned into private patents.

4. At the same time, however, the potentialities that exist but are suppressed and distorted and develop in capitalism, which highlight the communist perspective as the only universal response to the reactionary attack of the system and the question of social liberation and another life not as a utopia but as a possibility, are also emerging.

We seek to "translate" these possibilities into positions and characteristics that will enrich a modern communist program:

• The possibility of a modern proletariat, more educated, creative, numerous, internationalized, capable of 'running' its life without employers and the state, of becoming the master of production and public affairs, of liberating with itself the whole of society.
• The need to assert the domination of producers over additional working time in order to abolish it, to increase leisure time as a measure of social wealth, to unify human time, creative work with a revolutionary transformation of the relations of production as the complete emancipation of the social individual from the fetters of the subservient relations of production.
• The possibility of increasing the degree of creativity of labour, of reconnecting man with his vital essence and his social self -which is suppressed and distorted by the power of capital-, of radically transforming the content and form of the means and methods of production, the productive forces as a whole and their orientation towards the service of real social needs.
• The enhanced possibilities of the unity of production with education, the formation of the collective, multidisciplinary, scientific worker who will be able to function in a wider national and transnational context thanks to his ability to traverse all the sectors-cycles of production and knowledge throughout his life, at the same time as the possibilities of cultivating and enjoying art and science.
• The abolition of the class division of labour in production, knowledge and public affairs. Workers tend to or can have a comprehensive view of production, of the trade in goods, of cultural human wealth. The overcoming of the manager-manager opposition is put forward as a tangible possibility.
• The ability to produce products with use-value instead of commodities with exchange-value.
• The social tendency for the abolition of borders, the socialization of production and wealth, the necessity and the possibility of global equal cooperation of peoples and countries.
• The overcoming of the society-nature contrast in balance, so that a relationship of harmonious interaction with nature in general develops, with the basic condition that the branches of production and public affairs are managed in accordance with social interests and with the participation of all members of society.
• The liberation of science from the shackles of profit and oppression, with people actively involved in scientific research, creating, not just using, knowledge, but designing universally for human, social needs.
• The activation of creativity, imagination, ethics, intuition, sensuality, senses and aesthetics, i.e. the development of personalities capable of thinking about the human condition, of designing alternative paths with a view to the needs and evolution of humanity, as a necessary condition for education and the production of knowledge with a social perspective.
• The multinationality of the modern working class as a force for creation, internationalism and cooperation.
• The ability to overcome any form of oppression or discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation.
• The strengthening of man's ability to decide freely, to choose and determine his actions, to cease to be at the mercy of blind forces that dominate him, through the understanding of the necessity of the laws of nature and those that regulate his physical and spiritual existence.
• The development of truly human work, work in its socially mature form, which is an activity aimed at the externalisation and cultivation of the richness of personality. Emancipated labour as a free creative activity will be able to approach art and acquire characteristics of artistic creation, while people will create with the laws of beauty.

The historical experience of the revolutions as a guide for new communist attempts

5. The forces of communist re-establishment and reconstitution of workers' politics in the new era of capitalism can only attempt to take stock of the experience of social struggles, of workers' and socialist revolutions. The critical treatment of our history aims to understand both the objective and subjective causes that transformed communism from an inspiring vision and source of inspiration into a “fear” for millions of people. We are convinced that, by carefully studying the process of defeat, we become stronger rather than weaker, armed with new arguments instead of becoming disillusioned.

We draw arguments both from the achievements of the revolutions where they won and from the results of the prevalence of capitalism where the revolutions were defeated. We oppose the bourgeoisie's attempt to justify itself historically by proclaiming that "socialism was attempted but failed", which through bourgeois ideology develops a multifaceted superstitious discrediting of the socialist and communist perspective as an alternative to the existing barbarism of capitalism.

Beyond the degree of integration of these achievements of the revolutions, what we basically hold today is the possibilities that emerged for a radically different life and organization of society. The positive changes that humanity experienced in the 20th century were by no means a given, but were the results of the victory of the workers' and peasants' revolutions of a socialist direction.

The October Revolution opened up for the first time in history the possibility of a transition to communism and brought out in the very material basis of society the communist tendencies of overthrowing capitalist relations. However, this society never became socialist. The revolutionary process, with the negative break that took place in the 1930s, lost its revolutionary propulsive force in the hard class struggle that raged for the domination of non-exploitative and revolutionary relations over the maintained exploitative-non-revolutionary relations.

Red October was defeated because socialization was mutilated into nationalization, soviets were deprived of their power, workers' control was banished and turned into a one-man management, the factory and production were treated as a "technical space" and not as a political space where, above all, workers' power and democracy should be established and exercised, internationalism became a caricature of the defense of the "socialist homeland", the party was transformed into the main ideological, political and repressive legitimating body of state power and its characteristics, and the attempt at proletarian democracy was left incomplete. A regressive course was followed and eventually Soviet society was transformed into a society with peculiar capitalist relations. This outcome severely wounded communism itself.

That is why we seek constant deepening, we do not close our eyes to the contradictions, the perverse paths and practices and the "black pages" that were inherent in the societies of "existing socialism". Our aim is to identify the mistakes of the past that led to the transformation of the revolutionary parties that enlightened, inspired and organized the masses into bureaucratic ones, authoritarian mechanisms that stifled criticism and companionable democratic debate, ending up preventing the emancipation of the masses to trace the path of transition from the revolution to the construction of another society, approaching it through contemporary reality, identifying and explaining every error and shortcoming that revolutionary attempts have presented. Through this process the experience of each revolutionary attempt that failed will illuminate the path of the communist attempt that will win.

The absence of a coherent intervention of pioneering communist forces

6. The absence today of a coherent intervention of pioneering communist forces capable of playing a role in the processes is proving decisive for social and political developments. This lag is due on the one hand to the crisis of the dominant communist currents against the background of developments in contemporary capitalism and on the other hand to the still weak emergence of new forces of communist reference.

The dominant communist currents that were protagonists in the class struggles of the 20th century are nowadays in crisis. From the Eurocommunist space and the "orthodox" parties to the Maoist, Trotskyist and libertarian/anarcho-communist spaces, the various communist currents and their international groupings are in retreat. Sources of the present inadequacy of the majority of the communist currents, apart from the general retreat of the workers' movement, are the inability to provide a Marxist analysis of modern capitalism and the modern working class, the inadequate interpretation of the defeat and reversal of the "existing socialism" of the 20th century, as well as the - often unacknowledged - acceptance of the capitalist one-way street. Usually the historical currents remain in bondage to the characteristics they developed through the internal contradictions in the communist movement of the previous century, unable as a whole to confront bourgeois power and hegemony in the present era.

Our era needs neither "communism in words" in complete contradiction with everyday practice, nor the new faces of governmentalism and parliamentary "third ways", nor nostalgia for the "good old days of existing socialism", nor the search for alliances with supposedly "progressive" or "patriotic" sections of the national bourgeoisie and the downgrading of the independent struggle against the local bourgeoisie and its plans, but neither a complacent revolutionary verbalism of closed circles.

A positive element is the fact that in recent years, at the international level, there has been a slow emergence of new, but programmatically and quantitatively weak, forces of communist reference. This proves that there is a minority, but existing trend towards a socialist/communist alternative for contemporary societies, and that it is expressed through the debate within traditional communist currents, but above all through the emergence of new, independent organizations and collectives of communist reference.

The Greek communist left

7. The above considerations are also reflected, in their basic lines, in the Greek communist left.

The most coherent force of communist reference in Greece is the KKE, which - by the standards of the time and especially in relation to other CPs in Europe and worldwide - is a mass party of communist reference. However, it is unable to contribute to the necessary communist re-foundation that will inspire the new struggles for workers' emancipation and full liberation.

Organizations and parties that are part of the traditional communist currents are unable - within the framework of these currents - to contribute to steps of communist revitalization.

A side of the trend of communist search can be seen in recent years in the formation of organizations that choose to refer to communism. This is certainly a positive element, indicating deeper tendencies, but both in their programmatic positions and in their political practice, characterized by a detachment of tactics from strategy and a very vague description of how they define socialism/communism, they are unable to contribute comprehensively to a process of communist re-establishment. Other collectives that had been formed in a narrow, single-thematic framework of political intervention, while taking the positive step of transforming themselves as comprehensive political organizations with a communist reference, approach communism by idealizing a 'heroic' communist past and failing to produce a contemporary Marxist approach.

The need for a modern Program and Party of Communist Liberation has as its starting point on the one hand, an appreciation of the limits of the existing forces of communist reference and search and the challenges, demands and possibilities of the period on the other.