Successful Anti-War Day in Germany. For the first time as part of the international day of struggle of ICOR against fascism and war

Due to the experience with Hitler-fascism, the anti-fascist and anti-militarist consciousness is deeply ingrained in the German population. Public appearances of fascists are immediately countered by mass protests. Two thirds of all Germans reject the foreign deployment of the Federal Armed Forces in Afghanistan. There is huge solidarity with the democratic movement of uprisings in the Arab countries and the rebellions, particularly of the youth, in Europe. The struggle for world peace and against militarism was a central concern of MLPD and REBELL on the International day of struggle against fascism and war on September 1^st 2011. This time, it was closely linked with the start of the international campaign to anchor ICOR conducted by 40 member organizations of ICOR among the masses all over the world. With this campaign we aim to introduce ICOR- parties and organizations, their countries and their struggles in Germany. For the entire year-long campaign, MLPD set itself a goal of 400,000 €. 90% are for the internationalist work of the MLPD, 10% to strengthen ICOR. This aims at increasing the working capacity of ICOR and securing its financial independence. Also, the likewise one-year campaign of ICOR together with the International League of People's Struggles (ILPS) for the immediate shutdown of all nuclear power plants of the world was triggered.

Special initiatives were developed for this ICOR day of struggle in all 7 regional party organizations of MLPD to build broad united actions and to cooperate with other member organizations of ICOR, or their respective migrant organizations. That worked well in bigger cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Gelsenkirchen, Essen, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Munich... In several other cities, militant activities on the streets were developed for the first time again for Anti-War Day. In 22 cities alone, we counted roughly 3,000 participants, an estimated 5 – 6,000 passers-by listened to the rallies temporarily. Often, many more participants showed up than in 2010. The call of ICOR published up-to-date for September 1^st was broadly distributed in many cities and numerous talks were lead. We know first results of fund-raising in 13 cities, in which a total of about 630 € were collected. However, in several places it was not energetically tackled- there is surely more potential.

A broad spectrum of anti-fascist and anti-militarist, bourgeois-democratic and internationalist-revolutionary forces participated in the united actions, among them peace networks, peace forums and peace plenums, pastors, forces of MLKP, TKIP, TIKB, Ranjabaran, MLGS Switzerland, Group „Trotz alledem“, Bir-Kar, AGIF, ATIF, the Palestinian community, several Kurdish organizations (like the Kurdish cultural club, the Mesopotamian Association, Kurdish Women's Office for Peace – Cenî, the Kurdish students organization YXK, forces of the Left Party, DKP, German Peace Association/ Unified Opponents of War, VVN (association of persons persecuted by the Nazi regime), Marxist Action, local Monday-demonstration alliances, Solidarity International, the women's league Courage, Communal Election Coalitions, Campaign „Stumbling blocks“, Citizens' Movement for Cryogenic Recycling, Closed-loop Economy and Climate Protection. Many places report of progress in overcoming anti-communist exclusion. The slogan which has proved important for the international cooperation, „cooperate where we are unified instead of focusing what divides us“, proved its worth here, too!

We appreciate that the DGB (German Trade Union Federation) published a call for Anti-War Day and took a position against the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan and the transformation of the Federal Armed Forces to an all-volunteer- and intervention force. This lead to common activities in some cities. In several cities of the Ruhr area, the DGB also called to participate in the anti-fascist rally in Dortmund „Dortmund resists“ on 3 September. MLPD mobilized actively in NRW for this as well and participated in the protests together with more than 10,000 people.

Short speeches were held at the Anti-War Day rallies, songs and poems were presented, music played and slogans shouted, open microphones conducted. Members of the Youth League of the MLPD, Rebell campaigned for joining the rebellious resistance groups, others conducted a survey on the NATO-aggression against Libya, and our youngest, the Red Foxes, also participated actively. These rallies had a lot of attraction, many passers-by stopped to listen and some discussed at the open microphone. The speeches were not restricted to the struggle for peace and to Anti-War Day, but tackled the entire scope of the problems of the masses; the struggle against the exploitation offensive in companies, the struggle of the Monday-demonstration movement against the Hartz-laws, against the militarization of society, e.g. with the demand „Federal Armed Forces out of the schools“, against the export of arms by German monopolies, just to mention a few. Environmental activists rallied for the shutdown of all nuclear power plants worldwide and the participation on the Environmental Counsel. The defense of the revolutionary liberation struggles like those of the Kurdish and Palestinian peoples played an outstanding role , as well as the protest against its suppression. At the demonstration in Gelsenkirchen Stefan Engel emphasized that fascist forces are being employed against revolutionaries and the workers' movement worldwide and that they often misuse religions in their demagogy. As an example, he mentioned the pillage of fascist Hindu-fundamentalists in India with 5,000 victims. In its contributions the MLPD linked Anti-War Day and the founding of ICOR as an important achievement in the coordination and revolutionization of struggles and the preparation of the international revolution. Imperialism only exists in a crisis-ridden state anymore! Environmental crises, world economic and financial crisis, stock market crisis, 1 billion people starving in the world – this system must be overcome in a revolutionary way through the united socialist states of the world, in which the most progressive ideas and achievements are utilized for the benefit of all of humankind.

The day trip of the „Friends of Hugo Hauer“, an association of militant miners, their friends and families, to which of MLPD comrades also belong, was impressive. They combined a visit to the Meyer-shipyard in Papenburg with a visit of the Concentration Camp memorial site Boergermoor in Emsland. After the power went into the hands of Hitler-fascism, mainly communists were incarcerated in this regions' concentration camps – among them Willi Dickhut – Marxist-Leninist guiding force and co-founder of MLPD. His life story made visible that the international solidarity and cooperation of anti-fascists and revolutionaries gave them the strength and endurance for their struggle and eventually broke fascism's neck.

The pride grew to conduct such a campaign as a member of a revolutionary world organization together with revolutionaries around the globe for the first time.

Furthermore, we plan to do the following within the next months:

In the first four months of the ICOR-campaign, MLPD emphasizes politically on saving the natural environment from the profit-economy. MLPD is participating in the preparation of a self-organized ueberparteilich (non-party affiliated) Environmental Counsel with international participation on 8/9 October 2011 in Gelsenkirchen, in which the entire scope of topics in the struggle to save the environment is to be deliberated and the cooperation among the most diverse environmental organizations, initiatives, activists and parties is to be strengthened. We combine this with convincing people that if you want to restore the unity of humankind and nature you must struggle for socialism.

As a next climax within the framework of the joint campaign of ICOR and ILPS, we are preparing the international day of struggle to save the natural environment on 3 December 2011.

However, this campaign does not only consist of climaxes and days of action! The main method of our campaign is systematical rank-and-file work: systematic visits in homes, but also activities in front of the factories, universities and schools, in which we win people to donate, to cooperate in an organized way and to buy our new book. And our definitely most important contribution for the preparation of the international revolution is to strengthen our party, the MLPD, the revolutionary youth league Rebell and the ueberparteilich self-run organizations of the masses.

MLPD conducts this campaign as a tactical offensive for genuine socialism and against modern anti-communism, with the strategy debate and the broad distribution of the book „Dawn of the International Socialist Revolution“ in the center. With that the MLPD has elaborated its strategy and tactics of the international revolution, which it also puts to discussion internationally. People are open for the perspective of the international revolution and cope increasingly well with the influence of modern anti-communism. However, there is a subtle effect of a petty-bourgeois-anti-communist mode of thinking, which keeps them from organizing themselves in the MLPD because modern anti-communism nourishes a feeling „to better be careful, because there must be something true in the anti-communist allegations“. We do intensive convincing to help the masses to cope with the corrosive effects of this petty-bourgeois-anti-communist mode of thinking. That has an impact – as a report from Stuttgart from 25 August shows.: „Overall, there was a great readiness to discuss about the international socialist revolution. (…) Especially the young people we met where easy to approach. Several young people agreed immediately, said they were left. Many agreed to the necessity of a revolution and that it has to be led internationally. They were mainly concerned if people can be won over for it. (…) The founding of ICOR met with great interest and the necessity of international cooperation was agreed to.“ To win more and more people to participate in the preparation of the international revolution in an organized form, the events we are going to conduct with our new book in the counties and local branches are also of importance. As in Freiburg, where every household in the targeted area was visited with systematic rank-and-file work, the neighborhood work shall be developed everywhere. They were able to sell two books „Dawn...“ and a lot of interesting talks were led. We particularly focus on strengthening the international relief organization „Solidarity International“. MLPD has obliged itself to win 1,000 new members for SI until the end of the campaign. We recruit for membership especially in connection with a regular donation for ICOR. Therefore, people need to learn more about the international class struggles – in the bourgeois media you don't hear about most of what is going on! For that purpose, we will prepare small events about the current developments in class struggle on short notice with lectures, pictures and films, so they can be prepared and conducted by the party groups without big efforts for preparation. Additionally, there will be internationalist cultural events, we are looking forward to proposals for these.

Good luck with the further ICOR-campaign!