Introductory speech at the regional conference of ICOR in Asia in November 2008

Dear comrades,

I would like to welcome you cordially to the first regional conference in Asia of the common initiative of revolutionary parties and organizations for the creation of an “international organizational form for coordinating the tasks in Marxist-Leninist party building and class struggle” (ICOR).

At a meeting in August 2007 I was instructed from the initiators of the first undersigning organizations to take the responsibility for a first constructive coordinating process.

I thank them for this confidence and would like to help with the following contribution to create a basis in contents for our process of discussion and unification.

I will begin with some thoughts about the development of the situation in the world, because the required new quality of our cooperation results not least from a new quality of the development of imperialism.

2.

Dear comrades,

the present international financial, stock market and bank crisis is a slap in the face of all apologists of imperialist globalization.

Instead of expected infinite speculation profits, the bourgeois financial world is faced with the ruins of its own propaganda and its wild imagination.

Capitalism has brought down to earth the economists, managers and speculators by virtue of the laws of crisis.

None of the bourgeois experts had expected what now has happened in the international financial world.

Initiated by the mortgage crisis in the USA due to soaring interest rates, the foreclosure sales assumed such proportions that the entire US real estate market broke down.

With the rapid loss of value of real property, millions of credits became worthless pieces of paper.

Masses of workers and low-level salaried employees who had been talked into credits were faced with ruin because of growing unemployment and poverty.

The extent of this destruction of capital up to now amounts to 1,600,000 million US dollars.

Since speculative capital turns every financial transaction today into a speculation object that attracts profit-greedy big and petty bourgeois from all over the world, the entire bourgeois financial world has been affected by this US crisis.

This brought about such losses for all big banks in the world due to necessary write-offs that the national mortgage crisis developed into an international banking crisis within a short period of time.

In just one week the five biggest investment banks of the USA disappeared from the scene!

And not only that.

Another consequence was the international stock market crisis which again aggravated the banking crisis.

The fact that international finance capital was faced with such enormous losses led to a general loss of confidence in the international banking and financial system.

Even though the up to now unimaginable amount of 5,200,000 million US dollars in state subsidies have been given to the banks, none of the bourgeois experts can foresee an end of the financial, stock market and banking crisis, and not even when it will bottom out.

These new phenomena in the current international financial crisis reflect essential changes in the imperialist world system caused by the reorganization of international production.

The stock markets have developed into the supreme administrators of the social wealth and the regulator of the international financial flows.

Thus, the present banking and stock market crisis was not set off by a world economic crisis, but by an international speculative crisis.

By the end of 2007 the nominal value of all derivatives of the world of almost 600 trillion US dollars had a market value of 15 trillion US dollars, that means just one fortieth!

The speculative capital has become the factor in the game of the international financial markets dominating everything.

The blowing up of such speculative bubbles is an expression of the fact that the capital since a long time has found fewer and fewer investment opportunities in material production that yield maximum profits.

This pushes the international finance capital into the sphere of speculation in a law-based development.

At the same time this development cannot continue infinitely, since the value of the shares always only can depart temporarily from the real development of profits in an unrestrained way.

The main problem of this financial crisis is its repercussions on the process of production and reproduction of the capitalist world production.

In the automobile industry the first stoppages of production lines have already taken place, because the markets have rapidly slumped.

Since today many people buy their cars by means of smallest credits which, however, can hardly be obtained presently, the US car market alone has slumped to 50%.

Therefore, US car production has been reduced by one third.

The new dimension of speculation and the crisis-prone bursting of its bubble is a consequence of the reorganization of the international production.

The international super monopolies with their speculative finance capital have taken control of the world economy, which carries to extremes the whole decadence of the imperialist world system.

The crisis-prone development of the imperialist world system becomes evident in such financial, banking and stock market crises so abruptly to everyone that capitalism is being called into question.

This is the reason why the imperialist states took such rapidly action.

Nobody, not even the ruling class, seriously believes that their state support programs can set something real against the crisis.

Mainly it is intended to restore confidence in the capitalist economy and to check the growing panic reactions.

This does not solve the problem, but it at least enables the dampening of the crisis-prone development, which of course is sharpened uncontrollably by panic.

The price for these attempts of to slowing down the crises is the intensified exploitation of the masses with a radical policy of redistribution from the bottom to the top, is in many countries the acute danger of a national bankruptcy and the provoking of sharper class struggles.

International finance capital no longer is able to control the ghosts it has summoned!

3.

Dear comrades,

There is not yet a world economic crisis in which industrial production is being cut back to the level of some years ago.

However, the signs for an impending world economic crisis are not denied even by bourgeois economists.

It will probably be much more deep and extensive than that of 1981, 1991 and 2001 due to the internationalization of production.

First: Due to the interpenetration of the Chinese economy with the world economy we have to reckon with the fact that also China will be hit by an overproduction crisis – also India, Russia, Brazil and Eastern Europe, which was not the case in 2001 to 2003.

By this fact the special factor, that at that time were a way out from the world economic crisis 2001 for the monopolies, will be removed.

Second: The impending world economic crisis will be more extensive than the crisis 2001/2002 due to the new stage of the integration and interaction of the capitalist world economy and the dimension of the structural crisis on the basis of the reorganization of the international capitalist production.

Third: The transition to a new economic world crisis and the interconnection with the speculation at the stock market aggravates the crisis of the reproduction process of capital and will cause or sharpen a series of speculative, monetary, financial, currency, stock market and banking crises.

Fourth: The possibilities of state monopolist measures of crisis regulation are getting more and more limited due to the new stage of the internationalization of production; they are even becoming ineffective regarding their traditional instruments.

The worldwide competition will push the imperialists towards a drastic intensification of the exploitation of the workers and the broad masses and towards and even more rigorous plundering of the neocolonial independent countries.

The results will be starvation, poverty and misery for the masses worldwide, also and increasingly in the imperialist countries.

The general destabilization will not only result in a disruption of the economic basis, but also of the superstructure and in fierce class struggles.

To assert their interests, the ruling forces now already are preparing themselves for imperialist wars to contain the influence of other imperialist blocks and to overpower by force of arms smaller capitalist countries.

Examples of this are the invasions of US imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are leading towards a resounding defeat for the USA in both countries.

Also examples of this are the military blackmail attempts by US imperialism on the anti-imperialist mass movements and governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, et cetera, with the help of reactionary governments like the Uribe regime in Colombia.

The ruling forces also are preparing themselves to suppress mass protests and revolutionary uprisings in their own countries by military means and are coordinating this internationally

All this makes the cross-border coordination and revolutionization of class struggle an immediate task.

4.

Dear comrades,

A new historical period of transformation from capitalism to socialism has been initiated by the reorganization of the international production.

However, it is in the first place objectively conditioned, while the subjective factor is still lagging behind.

We experience not yet a revolutionary fermentation among the broad masses of the world population in general, and the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations are still relatively weak as a rule.

The subjective factor has first to be brought into line with the new phenomena and essential changes in class struggle.

Those in power are already preparing themselves for this.

The danger of a collapse of the world financial system forced the most powerful imperialist states to a joint and concerted international crisis management that is unprecedented in this form up to now.

The leading imperialist countries are in this united in the wish to maintain at all costs their domination for the plundering and exploitation of the working class and the broad masses in the imperialist countries, including the system of neocolonialism for the plundering of the dependent and oppressed countries.

Under the pretext of the events of September 11, 2001, all imperialist countries for the first time reached agreement on a common ‘world domestic policy’ under the pretext of the fight against “terrorism”.

Actually it is a strategy carefully prepared since a long time for organizing the international counter-revolution against all aspirations for liberation from exploitation and oppression.

In Germany we experience a forced fascization of the state apparatus that is accompanied by a planned process of the obstruction and oppression of the international revolution.

To achieve this, the separation of the secret services and police – this by the way was an achievement of the smashing of fascism in Germany – has been cancelled.

To achieve this, an all-sided tapping of all telephones and online investigation of computers is being practiced.

There is no telephone call any more which is not recorded, and the data will be stored for half a year.

To achieve this, a new surveillance center will be set up.

The highways are under surveillance and every movement at railway stations is automatically recorded on video.

To achieve this, the deployment of the army against the masses is planned, which breaks the taboo of legislation in Germany which was achieved owing to the basic antifascist attitude of the masses.

Whether the expected deep economic and political crises will develop into a revolutionary world crisis essentially depends on the correspondence between the objective and subjective factor of class struggle.

The solution of this question has got a new international dimension in view of the development of the international class struggle.

Less than ever can it be answered solely from the national view of class struggle and party building in the individual countries.

In order to bring into line the subjective and objective factor of class struggle today it is necessary – apart from the creation of the necessary tasks in the struggle for power in the respective countries – that the class struggle in all countries increasingly sees its common reference point in the process of the international proletarian revolution.

This is more than the present self-evident duty of proletarian internationalism!

The interpenetration of the class struggle in the individual countries with the international class struggle and the world revolutionary process into an indissoluble unit is the order of the day.

The understanding of this is ripening, but in my opinion it is also necessary to enter into a thorough ideological-political debate about this question.

By disseminating the Götterdämmerung over the 'New World Order' internationally, the MLPD has already adequately stated its viewpoint on this matter.

A new quality of practical proletarian internationalism is required.

It must find expression today in particular in the taking on of responsibility by every revolutionary organization and party for this process of the proletarian world revolution and the coordination and revolutionization of class struggle beyond country borders.

5.

Dear comrades,

With the reorganization of the international production integrated production systems have emerged.

Today approximately 100 to 200 million industrial workers are working there.

The global coordination and operation of these international integrated production systems is being organized by a gigantic system of international logistics.

With the organization of industrial workers in a worldwide organized production system a new stratum within the working class has emerged, that we have described as international industrial proletariat.

This international industrial proletariat is internationally closely linked, a fact that, however, is also linked to a new stage of the international competition under capitalist conditions.

in order to establish a strategic superiority of the international industrial proletariat against the internationally operating dominating super monopolies the essential task is to overcome this split in the international industrial proletariat.

This calls for a higher degree of class consciousness, international organization and fighting power.

A struggle must be waged worldwide for uniform demands and standards.

To achieve this, the class struggle beyond country borders has to be coordinated and also revolutionized in this process.

With the international miners’ seminar, the international preparation of the world women’s conference of the rank and file women in Venezuela or the regularly held international automobile workers’ counsel, first steps of this international coordination and revolutionization were taken.

The problem of these individual initiatives is that up to now they are usually conducted by single organizations or few organizations, and other organizations are being invited to them.

So they are not initiated by a common effort of an international coordination of these tasks of the revolutionary parties and organizations that support these initiatives.

This results in the fact that the ideological-political discussions at these meetings between diverse representatives of mass organizations and the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries are taking place relatively spontaneously without reaching agreement between the revolutionary organizations and parties on contents and methods.

This gives unnecessary scope for opportunistic, but also sectarian elements at those meetings, spontaneous leads in part to ideological-political debates on basic issues which go beyond the scope of the actual occasion, and can seriously harm the process of unification of the international Marxist-Leninist and working class movement.

There are enough initiatives for an international union in practice.

The way, however, in which this has been prepared and conducted up to now, is strongly influenced by the worshipping of spontaneity, which is always a dangerous sphere of influence for opportunistic and sectarian modes of thinking and working.

By worship of spontaneity I mean that one reacts, certainly in many cases justifiably, to events and demands of the day and concentrates all forces on them.

Compared with that the strategic interests, ideological-political work, the strengthening of party building in general and the training of cadres in particular are neglected.

This has to be changed in future.

It is time for coordinating and revolutionizing the international class struggle as necessary completion of party building in the respective countries.

6.

Dear comrades,

what is the common starting point for this international task?

From the signing of the declaration of August 2007 follows an agreement on the necessity of the building of a common form of organization for the coordination and revolutionization of class struggle and party building.

This agreement follows essential common convictions:

1. The reorganization of the international production means such an essential change of the social conditions that conclusions have to be drawn from this for the strategy and tactics of the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries in the world.

Time is ripe for a systematic cooperation beyond country borders. This means: we need a common organizational form that enables such a systematic practical cooperation.

Today such a common organizational form can have only a coordinating character, because due to the fragmentation of the international Marxist-Leninist and working class movement there are great differences between the participating revolutionary organizations and parties in the ideological-political as well as organizational field.

The existing great unevenness between the participating organizations must be taken into account as an important starting point for common activities.

Apart from the different social conditions and the different traditions of class struggle in the individual countries and the individual organizations, this great unevenness has mainly resulted from the destructive work of the revisionist degeneration of the old communist movement.

In 1956 at the 20^th Party Congress of the CPSU, modern revisionism of Khrushchev usurped power, initiated a process of the restoration of capitalism and transformed a big part of the international communist and workers’ movement into a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois movement.

The China of Mao Zedong became the revolutionary center of the international Marxist-Leninist and working class movement.

Following the general line of the CP of China in 1963 and the proletarian cultural revolution in the People’s Republic of China in 1966 a multitude of new Marxist-Leninist parties on an anti-revisionist basis had emerged.

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 the international Marxist-Leninist and working class movement again divided into the supporters of the revisionist Deng Xiaoping and the defenders of Mao Zedong Thought.

The attacks of the Party of Labor of Albania on Mao Zedong Thought produced a further division of the international Marxist-Leninist and working class movement.

Among the defenders of Mao Zedong Thought there is a direction which wanted to turn the strategy and tactics of the protracted people’s war into the general line of the international Marxist-Leninist and working class movement without taking into consideration the concrete social conditions in the individual countries.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 several parties and party groups had critically and self-critically dealt with its own history, with modern revisionism and mainly rectified the unjust condemnation of Stalin by the modern revisionists but also Mao Zedong.

They objectively play a revolutionary role, even though there are still differing assessments of Mao Zedong’s criticism of modern revisionism or the role of Stalin.

If today we regard the attitude towards the proletarian revolution and the fundamental anti-revisionist view as basis of the union for coordinating and revolutionizing the tasks in party building and class struggle, we instantly know that there are significant ideological discrepancies between the participating organizations.

But the decisive thing is that there is a positive process of self-transformation of many organizations, a process which we must influence.

We can overcome these ideological differences in the process of practical cooperation and ideological-political discussion step by step, if we come closer on the basis of principled agreements for the common practice in party building and class struggle and at the same time seek to overcome step by step our contradictions.

Struggle and unity of opposites will shape the process of coordinating and revolutionizing class struggle and party building from the beginning.

Therefore, mastering the dialectical-materialistic method for solving the problems is of paramount significance.

However, in our intention of a common international organizational form, while opening it as far as necessary we also have to clearly dissociate ourselves from modern revisionism, Trotskyism and also modern anti-communism, which finds expression especially in slanders against so-called Stalinism and Maoism and against the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Settling the differences within the framework of the participants of ICOR can, of course, only take place on a nonantagonistic basis.

The process of building has to be organized with open doors for all revolutionary parties and organizations that keep to class struggle, to the line of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat and realize in practice the struggle among the masses for the preparation of the international revolution.

7.

In August 2007 21 parties and organizations signed the “declaration for the building of an international form of organization for coordinating the activities of autonomous revolutionary parties and organizations.”

Further organizations have signed this declaration or expressed their interest.

The setting up of this initiative was substantiated as follows:

• It is the beginning of a process of the development step by step of an international form of organization, in which there is not yet agreement on the conception. It is in the nature of things and a good starting point which harbors both dangers and opportunities.

The setting up of this initiative for the international coordination stems from the practical necessity and has to be in close interrelation to the tasks in class struggle and revolutionary party building.

The setting up of the initiative has to be based on the already existing forms of international coordination and it expressly does not understand itself as a rival organization to these organizations.

• We have to make efforts continuously to win further participants for this initiative.

The practical building of the initiative should develop gradually out of the regional peculiarities, where already different forms of an international coordination exist, e.g. in Latin America, and advance from regional to worldwide coordination because this is easier to accomplish in practice.

It is necessary that representatives of the regional coordination will be found for the various world regions.

Out of this group of regional responsible persons a common international preparatory group shall develop, that is composed of these persons.

In giving reasons for the launching of this initiative an important agreement also was the point that this process requires much patience, consensus by evaluating and applying all positive and also negative experiences of the past, equal rights, solidarity, initiative of one’s own and common responsibility on the basis of the revolutionary struggle.

8.

Dear comrades,

the initiative comprises general and concrete tasks.

For this I have considered of the following points on the basis of the received proposals:

General tasks:

• Creation step by step and jointly of the ideological-political and organizational prerequisites for the founding of ICOR.

Mutual support in Marxist-Leninist party building. Every organization should make a contribution to it in accordance with its possibilities,

development of common political initiatives, statements and international campaigns,

focusing of the forces and mutual support in special international tasks in class struggle, especially in the regional context,

exchange of information, analyses and opinions,

promotion of the ideological-political unification step by step by joint seminars, forums etc. ,

organization of the international solidarity,

establishing the interrelation with other international forms of organization and unions in class struggle and anti-imperialist liberation struggle,

mutual practical support of just struggles of the workers’ and people’s movements and cooperation with them, and international coordination with the focus on the cooperation in the international corporations,

promotion of the international solidarity of the self-organizations of the masses and movements,

promotion of the friendship among peoples wit international cultural and scientific initiatives and encounters, especially among the youth,

cooperation for the establishing proletarian internationalism among the masses,

cooperation for the realization of the independent financing of all common activities,

efforts for extending the coordination by winning further revolutionary forces.

Various proposals of concrete tasks have already been put forward for the development of organizational structures, possibilities of work and political initiatives, which we should discuss.

Here we have to take into consideration that we do not build castles in the air, but develop patiently, for the long term and step by step the international cooperation of autonomous parties and organizations, and that each task is consciously used as a school for that.

This process requires determination and the firm will to cooperate, but it cannot be pushed in an artificial way.

1. Organizational structures

The building first of regional structures is advisable, in order to build on the already existing forms of organization and connections, develop concrete tasks and form forces.

Regional coordinations could first be organized on the level of (sub)continents and later be differentiated.

The PCC-M Columbia suggests in this context for Latin America to combine respectively the countries of the Caribbean and Central America, of the Andean region and the countries of Mercosur.

In the regions some representatives should take on the coordination, as it already took place in the preparation of this conference.

However, a worldwide coordination is necessary from the beginning and must be built up step by step; until now the provisional office carries out this task.

The GML/Rode Morgen Netherlands suggests that every party sends representatives to an international team which elaborates proposals for common activities on request.

2. Methods of work and finances

The mutual communication and exchange of information are regarding as important tasks by many people.

For this e.g. the Dutch comrades have made the proposal to use an internet platform.

We have to be prepared that the connections will be observed and possibly be interrupted or manipulated and therefore we must set up confidential connections for which experienced forces have to elaborate proposals.

An unsolved problem is the financing of international activities, for which there are hardly any proposals and for which guidelines and ideas have to be elaborated and experiences evaluated.

The financial means should be administered on the regional as well as on the central level.

3. Political initiatives

Various organizations are developing concrete proposals for political initiatives.

The CARC and the nCPI from Italy suggest e.g. an initiative against oppression and a common participation or organization of conferences, e.g. in the trade union work.

Statements are being suggested on important international events (e.g. in 2009 European elections).

Up to now there is a concrete request for international solidarity from Bolivia.

The MLPD considers it important to focus on the establishment of the interrelation with other international forms of organization and especially proposes the World Women’s Conference 2011 in Venezuela, the international miners’ seminar, the international automobile counsel as well as the work on the building of a worldwide front of resistance for safeguarding the natural environment.

We have also to envisage peasants’ conferences and a coordination of the tasks of the airport and harbor workers.

However, we have to concentrate our forces, to avoid endangering the construction work by over-high expectations and thus inevitable disappointments.

Every organization and party can fix its contribution to the main focus in accordance with its possibilities, which will be realized obligatorily.

By doing this we can multiply the forces of the individual countries, make mutual use of our strong points and level out the weak points.

The mutual support in Marxist-Leninist party building is of paramount significance.

For this there are already initiatives and proposals for education measures and seminars on theoretical issues and on the presentation of experiences in party building and in certain areas of party work.

In this way we can recover a vast treasure of international experience.

Of course, every party has to decide it self, which aspects it wants to take up and how it will do it, and above all what cadre and financial resources it makes available.

9. Dear comrades,

The main problem in the process of the formation of an international form of organization for coordinating the tasks in Marxist-Leninist party building and class struggle seems to me the question how we can bring together the different views, conditions and methods of work of the individual participating organizations in a creative manner or to develop from the variety a rich unity.

For solving this question it is necessary that we adopt a proletarian culture of debate.

This is on the one hand based on the agreed common principles of cooperation, on the other hand on the ability to correctly qualify the ideological-political discussion at any time, deal with it creatively and solve it purposefully.

What are the common principles of cooperation?

There is no doubt that the effort for the revolutionary overthrow of the imperialist world system is the common strategic concern.

This excludes a policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, a social chauvinistic reconciliation with imperialism and a reformist or revisionist conception of a system-changing peaceful way to socialism.

Since there are on the common revolutionary basis also differences among the participating parties and organizations of world outlook as well as political differences it is necessary to respect these and deal with them in a comradely way or, in spite of them, to act together in common points and to be open for a mutual process of learning and clarification.

All participating people have to refrain from an anticommunist calling into question of Marxism-Leninism as well as of Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Mutual respect and rejection of any form of tutelage or phenomena of a petty-bourgeois claim to leadership are proven features of a cooperation of the participating organizations on the basis of equal rights.

This includes the obligation to refrain from public attacks on participating partner organizations, as far as these are active on the basis of practical cooperation within the framework of the coordination and revolutionization of the tasks in party building and class struggle.

Reliability is a very important element of the coordination!

Every individual party is autonomous and independent regarding its decision making and in the realization of the common projects; it is responsible for the respective tasks in class struggle and party building in its respective country, but has also unconditionally to keep its commitments regarding the intended work.

Every participating organization develops initiative on its own according to its possibilities for implementing the common decisions and goals of ICOR.

Of course, the solidarity among the participating organizations is expressed in the solidarity against every kind of repression and persecution by the class enemy as proletarian internationalist commitment.

The realization of the proletarian culture of debate means voluntariness in developing initiative and undertaking a work of convincing people for the unification of different views by means of open, comradely, frank criticism and self-criticism.

We have always be clear about the fact that we have not yet a unified ideological-political line, that we come from different traditions of class struggle in the individual countries, and that we are subject to different conditions and possibilities of party work.

For this reason any kind of egalitarianism, any kind of stereotyping in the cooperation has to be ruled out.

Naturally, the more developed parties with more means and greater experience must assume more responsibility from the very start, which, however, does not justify any claim to leadership.

10.

Once we decided to build international forms of organization for the coordination of the actions of revolutionary Parties and Organizations, then, no doubt, we are well advised to evaluate the previous experiences of the international Marxist-Leninist and workers movement.

Marx and Engels already acted on the assumption of interaction between national and international class struggle, in which the matter of class struggle was international right from the start, but its form was national at first.

That was in accordance with the form of the international Workingmen’s Association not as a uniform movement, but as a form of connection among incoherent movements in the respective countries.

Marx resolutely spoke against any petty-bourgeois claim for leadership and for a democratic organizational structure appropriate to the degree of unification.

Their historic achievement was the education of the workers in the spirit of proletarian internationalism.

The Second Communist International collapsed, because there was no success in drawing a sharp dividing line to Revisionism and opportunism, which ended up in defense of the fatherland.

The October revolution in Russia 1917 could have been the trigger of the world-revolutionary process, if strong communist parties had existed in the most important imperialist countries and if there had been an international form of organization to coordinate the revolutionary movements.

The Third International, founded under the leadership of Lenin in March 1919, was based on the resolute break with revisionism and opportunism.

It was based on the evaluation “that the international world revolution is beginning and growing in all countries” (Lenin).

In the face of the task as “International of the open mass action, the International of the revolutionary realization, the International of action” (Lenin), it was founded as a centralist world party in order to realize world revolution and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat on an international scale.

It attracted the class conscious workers and revolutionaries worldwide and directly supported the founding of communist parties in various countries.

It was absolutely right at that time!

It had great appeal to class-conscious workers and revolutionaries all over the world and directly helped in several countries to found and build strong communist parties.

It was the decisive condition for the strengthening of the communist world movement with up to 72 individual parties and millions of members.

These parties were national sections of the world party, for which the directives and decisions of the Communist International were binding.

Under the condition of a “fierce civil war”, all parties were obliged to create a parallel illegal apparatus.

In practice, they developed into a tool to eliminate the ideological-political and organizational independence of the communist parties.

The democratic centralism in the Comintern got bureaucratic-centralist characteristics.

A tendency of schematism in strategy and tactic, the low opinion of the concrete analysis and experiences in the respective countries and an inflexible application of the experiences in Russia to other countries had come up.

The centralist structure of the Comintern however was also objectively questioned as much as the revolutionary situation ebbed away and as class struggle in the respective countries developed more complicated and more differentiated.

This demanded first of all parties that were willing and able to concretize the theory of Marxism-Leninism by applying the dialectic method on the revolutionary practice in their countries, as from our point of view the CP China under the leadership of Mao Zedong exemplary succeeded in with the new-democratic revolution.

The appropriate consequence was to dissolve the Third International in 1943.

If Mao Zedong opposed a new international organization of Marxist-Leninists in the 1960ies, it was on the one hand intended as a protection against the revisionist influence in this concrete situation.

On the other hand he was a resolute critic, if parties schematically oriented themselves towards the Chinese model instead of using their own heads with regard to the concrete situation in their respective country.

This corresponded to the given conditions, which today have developed to a higher level again.

While on the one hand there is no world revolutionary center, at the same time a multiplicity of different parties and organisations evolved, that comprehend the necessity of international collaboration of the revolutionary parties and organisations.

Under these conditions, the objective and subjective prerequisites for a general line of the international communist movement are lacking at the moment.

On the other hand, the necessity of practical collaboration of revolutionary workers parties is unchallenged.

11.

Dear comrades,

as a forum for the gradual ideological and political unification the “International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations” came into being in 1988, defending Mao Zedong Thought and publishing the International Newsletter.

Many of the current 38 participants belong to the initiators of our initiative ICOR with the intention to develop the theoretical discussion in unity with a more binding organised practical collaboration.

Parties that used to orient themselves towards the Albanian Labor Party under Enver Hoxha, founded a conference with the same name in 1994, which publishes “Unity and Struggle”.

From their ranks the PCMLE Ecuador organizes the annual international seminar “Problems of the Revolution in Latin America” in Quito/Ecuador that gives room for discussion in solidarity.

In Latin America there are regular anti-imperialist meetings.

On the Balkan there are anti-imperialist conferences, in which numerous spin-offs of revisionist parties from Eastern Europe participate, part of them having a neo-revisionist orientation, but also a revolutionary claim.

Common declarations on the solidarity with the masses in Iraq, with the Palestinian people, the struggle against the missions in Afghanistan, against reactionary EU-guidelines and so on create an appeal for transnational struggles and movements.

Alliances like the ILPS comment on international events.

The resistance against the internationally coordinated counter-revolution is of growing significance in this.

As an example I would like to name the campaign against the arrest and criminalization of José Maria Sison and the CPP or against the reactionary rules of the EU regarding migrant policy.

An important meeting of the revolutionary and trade union movement is organised annually on May, 1^st by the Philippine umbrella union KMU in the Philippines.

Revolutionary youth organizations organise international youth meetings like the one in Greece this summer.

Revolutionary parties develop growing influence with regard to the coordination of anti-imperialist activities like the worldwide protest actions against the US-attack on Iraq 2003, against the G8 summit, in antifascist unity in action and militant environmental movements.

The coordination of transnational workers’ struggle is of particular importance, especially in the big companies and strategic branches and the initiatives for the development of a sustainable collaboration.

In spite of obstructions, also by reformists, in August this year the third international miners seminar, that took place with almost 1000 participants and 14 international delegations from mining centers, was a great success.

Accordingly, it was for example unanimously decided on the third international miners seminar to carry it out more binding character as an international miners conference with changing conference sites and a more binding character in order to unite the militant force of the international mining proletariat.

The preparation of the world womens conference 2011 in Venezuela was boosted by the 8^th womens political counsel in Germany in October 2008 with participation of womens delegations from 30 countries.

Initiators were militant womens organizations from Germany, Venezuela and Ecuador.

We shall not maintain the illusion that these initiatives, often created with huge sacrifices, will meet with fierce resistance of the ruling class the more they advance and adopt mass character.

They do not only have to cope with open reactionary smear campaigns and oppression, but also with the influence and claims of leadership of different petty-bourgeois reformist, revisionist, Trotskyite and other opportunist forces.

Without the practical assistance, help and leadership of Marxist-Leninists on the basis of their work of convincing people they will perish in the tentacles of any NGO or bourgeois state organizations and be lead into a dead end or defeat.

As revolutionaries we are obliged to give everything, in order to guarantee success and to promote the coordination of the international class struggle and the international mass movements and to revolutionize them.

That is why we have to develop an interrelation with these leagues.

This is unthinkable without our own coordinated, binding collaboration and an ongoing process of ideological-political evaluation and debates!

12.

Dear Comrades,

What is the general plan for the formation of an international form of organization to coordinate the tasks in party building and class struggle?

The formation of an international form of organization ICOR will have to take place in different periods.

The characterisation and task of each period is inseparably connected with the development of the world revolutionary process.

How each period is to be characterized and how they follow upon each other and what task they have will be a fundamental matter of our discussion process at first.

The begin of building, the participation and initiative in the first period does not require, to be unified on all following periods.

Without making the following thoughts a requirement for our collaboration, I would like to present and put to discussion my ideas on the objective dialectic of this development:

First period:

 Establishment of the common ideological, political and organisational prerequisites for the foundation.

 Ideological-political unification about the common foundations of ICOR in content and method.

 First experiences in the practical collaboration on the basis of joint international individual projects (Collaboration of revolutionary parties and organizations in the preparation of the women’s world conference in Venezuela on March 3^rd 2011, collaboration on projects of the international coordination of the workers movement, e.g. in the automotive industry, in mining or among dockers, joint international concerted campaigns or actions in the active resistance against the global environmental catastrophe, against an imperialist war or for international solidarity with the liberation struggle of the working class or the broad masses of worldwide significance, for example the defence of national sovereignty against imperialism).

 Gradual establishment of organisational facilities and a sufficient financial basis of ICOR.

 Coordination of collaboration on a regional and worldwide scale with different content, methods and participation.

How long this first period will take, depends in principle on the development of class struggle on the one hand and on the initiative of the participating organizations on the other hand.

Second period:

 Practical collaboration within the framework of organised coordination of tasks in party building and class struggle and gradual ideological-political unification on all fundamental questions in party-building and class struggle.

• Strengthened practical collaboration of ICOR with internationally active mass movements.

 Gradual addition of democratic-centralistic structures to the coordinating methods in the process of a world revolutionary crisis.

Third period:

• Establishment of a revolutionary world party for the operational leadership of the international revolution on the basis of democratic centralism and based on the autonomous international parties, which are certainly unified on all fundamental questions.

This will express itself in a general line.

 Also in this phase there won’t be no certain homogenous, one-sided centralistic strategy and tactics for the class struggle in all countries. But there will have to be a complex realization of the ideological-political fundament on the basis of the autonomous responsibility of the individual revolutionary workers’ parties and the concrete, differentiated circumstances.

In the current phase it is necessary that all participating organizations creatively unfold their own initiative and contribute to the overall process.In doing so it is important to keep in mind the concrete tasks in party building and class struggle.Regional coordination has to be understood as a school of collaboration, which has to be constantly evaluated and advanced.The better the regional coordination works, the more revolutionary organizations, parties and forces will join in, enrich and advance the process.

13.

Dear Comrades,

with the invitation for this first meeting in Asia, you got my proposal for today’s agenda. In the centre is of course the first joint discussion on the character of the plan, the methods and the content of the international coordination of tasks in party building and class struggle.Such a discussion must be carried out on all regional conferences in Europe, Latin America and also in Africa.It is an important prerequisite, in order to be able to qualify unity and struggle of contradictions in the beginning of our joint initiative and to exactly determine the tasks for solving the contradictions that came up.At the same time the process of international coordination of party building and class struggle has to happen as unity of theory and practice.That means that each regional conference shall unify also on particular joint projects.On the world scale there is the proposal that the revolutionary organisations and parties actively introduce themselves into the process of preparation and execution of the world women’s conference in Venezuela 2011.

Furthermore it is necessary to further develop the international miner’s conference, which was decided upon in August 2008, towards a league of class-militant miners around the world. Also the automotive workers counsel has to develop its coordinating role further towards an internationally coordinating form of organization.Unconditionally regional tasks shall be discussed and agreed upon, along which the process of the development of ICOR may unfold.Of course, each meeting has to discuss expansion with other initiators and unify upon joint basic rules.Last but not least we should agree upon a medium-term road map for the process of the formation of ICOR.First of all I propose to discuss the introductory speech as a basis for discussion.

On good collaboration!