The dramatic nuclear catastrophe in Japan calls the imperialist world system into question

Red Flag: On 11 March 2011, one of the severest earthquakes in the history of Japan occurred, combined with a tsunami, probably claiming more than 27,000 lives up to now, making 400,000 people homeless and causing immediate material damages of approximately 220 billion euros. This set off a dramatic nuclear environmental catastrophe. How do you evaluate the situation ?

Stefan Engel: In a message to the demonstration in Tokyo on 20 March, the MLPD declared its deep sympathy and unrestricted solidarity with the struggle against the nuclear power industry and against the imperialist government of Japan. With a worldwide campaign of disinformation the ruling powers are systematically covering up the real problem of the catastrophe: the threatening ultimate super-worst-case scenario in the nuclear power plant of Fukushima. Four of six reactors, as well as at least one spent fuel storage bay with radioactive fuel rods, are still out of control and severely damaged. More and more experts assume that in at least one reactor the meltdown has begun and can barely be controlled. Large quantities of radioactive substances are being released from two reactors. Radiation in the immediate surroundings of the nuclear power plant has reached one thousand times the level of the officially tolerable annual dose, has polluted air and soil, foodstuffs, the seawater with its fish population, as well as meanwhile the drinking water in Tokyo 250 kilometers away. Even the criminal company operating the plant, TEPCO, which ranks 126th among the 500 biggest international supermonopolies, has given up the nuclear power plant in the meantime. It is planning to bury it in a gigantic sarcophagus for centuries after the model of Chernobyl. The consequences for millions of people in Japan, for the future of the country and the possible worldwide repercussions for the air, sea and food chain will first become visible in the next weeks and months.

Red Flag: Until a few days ago, the energy monopolies praised nuclear energy as being the cleanest and most economical energy.

Stefan Engel: In view of Harrisburg 1979, Chernobyl 1986 and Fukushima 2011, this is sheer hypocrisy. This catastrophe proves definitely: The use of nuclear energy is not controllable according to present knowledge; it inhumanely speculates on the deadly risks for millions of people and is one of the biggest threats to the environment of our time. Whoever still spreads the fundamental lie of the "calculable residual risk" is either naive, stupid or criminal. The immediate cause of the catastrophe of Fukushima was the power failure as a result of the tsunami, with the result that the necessary cooling system of the reactor failed. There are many conceivable possibilities that such a catastrophic power failure can occur. The German media often withhold that three German nuclear power plants are also located in quake prone zones without corresponding protection. What security is there against airplane crashes, floods or terrorist attacks? The biggest danger comes from the wear and tear of the material, corrosion of pipes, filters, welded joints etc. due to the increased operating lifetime combined with a lowering of safety standards in Germany, as well as in Japan. In addition, nowhere in the world has the question of the permanent nuclear waste disposal been solved until now. One of the additional problems in Fukushima is the fact that on the site of the plant 11,125 fuel elements altogether with a weight of about 1,900 tons are stored permanently or temporarily. This highly radioactive waste material also heated up. Especially from reactor no. 3 the emission of plutonium is threatening. Plutonium is not only highly carcinogenic in smallest amounts, but with a half-life of 24,900 years, it could continue to contaminate the earth for thousands of years in case of its release. In the worst case the catastrophe could make Japan entirely uninhabitable.

The claim that nuclear energy is cheap is, of course, not being proved by the usual basic arithmetical operations. Completely withheld from the public in Germany is the fact that 204 billion euros in state subsidies have already been invested in nuclear energy from 1950 to 2010. Also the whole question of the permanent disposal of nuclear waste and its transportation costs the state budgets vast sums. Nuclear energy is cheap only with regard to the enormous potential for maximum profits of the companies running the nuclear power plants, which naturally are the greater the longer such a nuclear plant is producing electricity. The risk of liability for the companies amounts to a ridiculous coverage of 0.005 percent of the subsequent costs of a maximum credible accident, and society has to make up for the rest. Therefore, nuclear energy is actually not only destructive to life, but also tremendously expensive.

Red Flag: Do people believe the whitewashing of the state and energy monopolies?

Stefan Engel: In Germany, there is no other issue in which the monopolies are so isolated from the masses as in the issue of nuclear energy after this catastrophe. Already last year 400,000 people participated in protest actions against the decision at the behest of the monopolies to increase the operating lifetime of nuclear power plants. The catastrophe in Japan is rapidly accelerating this process. Directly afterwards from 12 to 14 March, anti-nuclear plant protests were staged in 450 cities and attended by a total of 180,000 people. One week later the protest movement spread to 742 cities with more than 250,000 participants! On 26 March four regional demonstrations took place with 250 000 participants. The government has been forced totally into the defensive and tries to save what cannot be saved through a three month moratorium. However, 68 percent of those asked regard the temporary switching off of the old nuclear power plants as a pure election campaign maneuver. This thesis has been confirmed explicitly by Minister Brüderle at a BDI meeting (Federal Association of German Industry)! Nevertheless, many people are posing the question whether the immediate opting out of nuclear energy is possible and what alternatives there are. The German electrical power industry has built up an overcapacity of 40 percent and surplus exports of electricity of nearly 5 percent. With a share of 22.6 percent of electricity generated by nuclear power, only half of which is usually used, it would be possible in Germany to do without nuclear power at once without even one machine or lamp going out or without being forced to construct new ecologically harmful coal-fired and gas-fired power plants. In the climate protection program of the MLPD that already appeared in 2008, it was proved that by 2020 in the field of electrical power supply, 100 percent renewable energies are within reach – if it is only desired! A study of the Stanford University has meanwhile scientifically substantiated the “plan for an emission-free world by 2030”. (Source: Spektrum der Wissenschaft, December 2009)

However, even the best arguments alone will not solve the problems. These have in essence already been known to the responsible persons in economy and politics for decades. The only reason why they stick to nuclear policy anyway are the profit interests of the international monopolies and the power politics of the imperialists. Without the active resistance of the broad masses, which has to be organized internationally today, neither the existing nuclear power plants will be shut down nor will it be prevented that in the next years 400 projected new nuclear power plants will be built worldwide. For this reason the MLPD has changed its main tactical task for the next three months to the development of the active resistance:

• Immediate shutdown of all nuclear power plants at the expense of the operators!

• Immediate, unrestricted course towards 100 percent environmentally-friendly renewable energies!

• Construction of an international front of resistance against the global environmental catastrophe!

Red Flag: The USA, England and France and further allies started to bomb Libya on 19 March. They claim to be trying to protect the population which has risen up against Qaddafi, against his bloody state terror.

Stefan Engel: Superficially this sounds very progressive, but this should be examined critically by every independently thinking person. The imperialists have been paying court to the reactionary rulers in North Africa and in the Arabic countries of the Middle East for decades and, with their support and the oppression of their own people, have been shamelessly plundering these countries and their oil deposits. The revolutionary ferment has been spreading in nearly all North African and Arabic countries like a wildfire. Not a single reactionary regime in North Africa or in the Middle East can still feel secure. The Mediterranean area and the Middle East have become the central focus of the contradictions in the imperialist world system. The fermentation process, which is still on the level of the struggle for democratic rights and liberties and to overthrow the governments, does not yet have a system-changing character. The inner dynamics, however, are pushing more and more toward real social changes. That shows the objective tendency to a revolutionary world crisis just as we predicted at the beginning of the world economic and financial crisis. As long as these democratic uprising movements still have relatively little societal perspective beyond capitalism, they are not yet a fundamental problem for the imperialists and relatively easy to control.

In Libya it is somewhat different. Without any doubt, the Qaddafi regime also belongs to the neo-colonial governors of imperialism, after having turned away from his earlier anti-imperialist positions. His betrayal even went so far as to extradite Palestinian freedom fighters. Completely incomprehensible in this connection are the statements from the revisionist spectrum attributing an anti-imperialist attitude to Qaddafi even today. The protests of the rebelling masses in Libya against the regime, which have developed into an armed uprising, are justified and our entire solidarity belongs to them!

Germany also equipped this regime with industrial plants and weapons and trained the torturers. Now ”humanitarian reasons” are supposed to justify the attacks which are increasing the suffering of the people? The western imperialists are not concerned about the ”protection” of the rebels, but about maintaining the reactionary power and exploitation structure under the dictatorship of imperialism, putting Libya under the direct control of the NATO imperialists and so also driving out the other great powers like China and Russia. In reality they want to degrade the struggling masses in Libya to a maneuvering mass of imperialist striving for power. There can be no liberation from exploitation and oppression under the control of imperialism! This is why the MLPD demands:

• Immediate stop for all military and imperialist actions by the so-called ”coalition of the willing” in NATO!

• Organize practical solidarity with the liberation struggle of the Libyan people against the reactionary ruler Qaddafi!

• Against every imperialist interference in the internal affairs of Libya!

At the same time we must not ignore the danger that the contradictions to Russia, China and the Arabic countries are intensifying in connection with the military attack. This development means a growing threat of war! This is also the background for the crisis of NATO which has broken out and let it first act in total disagreement. The greed for supremacy over Libya made French imperialism rush ahead. The Merkel/Westerwelle government already abstained during the voting on UN resolution 1.973 in the Security Council due to the economic interests of Germany. It did not participate in the military attacks directly and openly. This also goes for Turkey which basically did not want to turn against Arabic countries militarily and thus endanger its growing economic and political influence in this region. However, under the pressure of NATO, it had to give up this position. The struggle for world peace, the solidarity with the movements of democratic uprisings in the Arabic countries and the struggle to protect the natural environment are in the focus of the struggle against the imperialist world system.

Red Flag: At the moment you can get the impression that the ruling powers are losing their grip on relatively many things.

Stefan Engel: Indeed – crises over crises! With the reorganization of international production since the 1990s, the general proneness to crisis has become a general feature of the imperialist mode of existence . The continuing world economic and financial crisis, the meanwhile broken off and failed international G20 crisis management, the deepening Euro crisis, but also the nuclear catastrophe in Japan which was not concretely foreseeable, drastically intensified this general proneness to crisis and made it visible for everyone. With the reactor catastrophe in Fukushima a crisis of the criminal nuclear policy with a worldwide character has developed. The accelerated transition of the environmental crisis to an environmental catastrophe continues without any slowing down. The world economic and financial crisis has caused the Euro crisis and has increased the tendency to state bankruptcy, especially in financially weak and deeply indebted countries . The debt crisis has an international character and does not only affect the neo-colonial dependent countries, but restricts the maneuvering ability of most of the imperialist countries. The revival of the world economy in some countries is accompanied by an international structural crisis in which the decline of the traditional national industries, especially in the investment centers of the neo-colonial dependent countries, is connected with the construction of new international integrated production systems and economic zones dictated by the international supermonopolies. The movement of democratic uprisings in North Africa is openly questioning the power structure in North Africa and the Middle East. This intensifies the struggle for the redivision of the world among the imperialists, especially between the power blocs of NATO and of the Shanghai Alliance. Changes of government like in Portugal or crises of government and state like in Belgium are increasing. The latent political crisis is intensifying in Germany. The imperialist world system is meanwhile experiencing an ideological and identity crisis. The growing dissatisfaction is a worldwide phenomenon, the binding force of the imperialist world system is weakening.

In this situation it is not only important to struggle for the shutdown of all nuclear power plants and to demand the stop of all military attacks against Libya. We have to connect our concrete demands with an all-round educational work about the incapacity of the imperialist world system and the necessity of a socialist alternative. Social crisis are questioning the ruling system in the end and not only single sectors of policy and society.

Red Flag: The Land elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate and the municipal elections in Hesse took place in the light of the nuclear catastrophe in Japan. Is the impression misleading that this has brought movement into the political scene?

Stefan Engel: All in all, the classic social mainstays of the dictatorship of the monopolies – CDU, SPD and FDP have lost a considerable number of votes. In Baden-Wuerttemberg the CDU was ousted from the government for the first time in 58 years. The decline of the FDP has rushed it into an open crisis of the party. The Greens could profit considerably from their aura of being an „anti-nuclear power plant party“and doubled (Rhineland-Palatinate) and trippled (Baden Wuerttemberg) their votes compared to the last Land elections. In Hesse they got their best results ever in an entire Land.

For the first time in the Land elections, the nuclear and environmental policy was the decisive criterion for the decision at the polls and this let voter participation rise. This demonstrates the considerably increased environmental consciousness which has led to an increased political interest of the masses. The trend to the left has developed further and has shifted more to the issues of ecology, accompanied by some petty-bourgeois- parliamentary illusions. The parliamentary expansion to the West of the Left Party has come to a halt in this course. It returned to the results of the WASG in 2006 in the Land elections and got only about one third of the votes it attained in the last national elections.

At the same time, the practical activity of the masses has increased considerably. Alone in the past week, about 500 000 people participated in the various activities for the shutdown of all nuclear power plants. This brings the mode of thinking of the masses in movement, loosens old binds, makes people more open for new political answers, especially among the youth, the women and trade unionists.

Red Flag: You are addressing many general political subjects – what do these have to do with the urgent struggle in factories and trade unions against increasing exploitation and planned job cuts?

Stefan Engel: The industrial workers have to become the backbone of active resistance against nuclear death and against the NATO war in Libya. This is closely linked to the social, economic and political issues and demands of the workers and their families. The extreme increase in the level of exploitation of the workers in the factories has its basis in the same driving forces that underlie the advancing destruction of the environment and the war for the regions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya which are rich in oil and other raw materials. And that is the battle for domination of the world market to realize maximum profits at any cost and on the backs of the working people and the natural environment.

The announcement of the destruction of 1200 jobs and open mass layoffs at Opel (GM) in Bochum/Germany until May 1st is an unbelievable provocation of the Opel workers, who had gained a job guarantee until 2016 in struggle. Obviously the international monopolies now think that the time has come to intensify the shifting of the burdens of the crisis onto the backs of the workers after they could somewhat dampen the contradictions during the world economic crisis.

The general change of mood in the workers’ movement in Germany and in Europe has not yet been developing that strongly. A number of protest and strike actions in factories against the unbearable increase of speedup, however, have been developing in the recent months. It is very important that the workers’ movement protests against the struggle for jobs being played off against environmental protection.

Red Flag: The first World Women’s Conference of rank-and-file women took place from 4 to 8 March. How does the MLPD evaluate this event?

Stefan Engel: In 1911 the first International Women's Day, which had been proposed by the International Conference of Socialist Women, set a signal for a worldwide coordinated movement for women's rights and for the liberation of women. Exactly one hundred years later, with the World Women's Conference of rank-and-file women in Caracas and its decisions, the course was set for an international joint awakening for the liberation of women in the 21^st century. This is a significant step ahead for the militant women’s movement of the world. After all, the joining together of the international women’s movement has been dominated for decades either by the UN , petty-bourgeois feminist forces or the revisionist umbrella organization IDFF. The completely independently organized and financed participation of representatives of important women’s movements from more than 40 countries is a tremendous result and marks an outstanding potential. By putting both pillars which had been agreed upon into practice– the general assembly and the mass program – the specific profile has also been implemented in principle: broadest exchange of opinions and experiences above party lines, culture and education together with binding decisions for a future cooperation on a democratic basis. Many international meetings – e.g. the World Social Forums – are more characterized by long-winded as well as non-binding debates. Compared with that, the conference in Caracas decided unanimously on the further cooperation with future World Women’s Conferences every five years, on building up a democratic coordinating group and on anti-imperialist cooperation in the entire range of women's political issues.

Nonetheless, the success of the conference also had its limits. For various reasons it did not have the broad scope that was aimed at.

There were, in part, organizationally chaotic conditions according to some participants and at times it was necessary to struggle hard for keeping to the principles of a democratic culture of debate. The background for these problems were party-political controversies in Venezuela which were unfortunately carried out on the backs of the World Women's Conference. It cannot be accepted that the women's department in Venezuela canceled the obligations they made because of party-political contradictions to single participating organizations from Latin America and, according to reliable reports,even put pressure on women's organizations in Venezuela that wanted to take part in the WWC. Completely unacceptable is the conduct of the Venezuelan State Department which did not allow 525 women from Colombia and delegates from six further countries to enter the country. This was in strong contrast to the repeated promises of Chavez and the former women’s secretary Maria Leon to support the conference! While the media and also representatives of the PSUV got a picture of the World Women’s Conference themselves, changed their attitude in its course and in the end spread a very positive image in the media – an official apology and clarification of these problems are still lacking. A massive smear campaign against activists from Germany and the conference as a whole was transported to Venezuela from leading figures of the DKP from Germany. This slanders were also reflected in smear-articles of MLPD-hater Scheer in some German newspapers. This is the desperate attempt to keep up the revisionist claims to be the sole legitimate representative of the international women’s movement. This splits the women’s movement and is unacceptable. At the same time the women’s organizations of the IDFF camp were always invited to make their equal contribution to this world conference of rank-and-file women without regard for affiliations The worldwide women's movement can not allow itself to be held up by these problems. An international militant women's movement must be organized which gives mutual support, coordinates its work and learns from each other. That is the signal of the World Women's Conference 2011 – that these problems could not keep the conference from aiming at this significant perspective. This is what made this conference a success.

Red Flag: How should the work of the MLPD be assessed?

Stefan Engel: The success of the World Women’s Conference is the success of equal cooperation of women from all over the world with different directions of world outlooks. They made their contribution by contributing their best experiences and forces for the success. The MLPD gave impulses with more than 100 activists in Caracas and surely contributed its know-how and its trademark of a proletarian culture of debate. That includes the preparation and holding of the conference, as well as the international announcement especially among the ICOR parties. A special success was the profiled work of the youth league Rebell. Because the world women’s movement has its decisive basis in the militant women’s movements of the single countries, we focused mainly on holding the 8 March in Germany. This 100th anniversary characterized a new quality of alliance ability of the militant women’s movement. For the first time, more than 5,000 active women from more than 60 organizations and alliances were active in Germany. There are reports about actions from more than 50 countries worldwide. We actively cooperated in various alliances and contributed to the strategic view of this international women’s day with our own contributions. International relations and contributions, study groups about “New Perspectives for the Liberation of Woman”, educational events about 100 years of international women’s day and well-visited women’s political Ash Wednesday events are a part of that. The decisive criterion, however, is the sustainable strengthening of the militant women’s movement about which the work of the next weeks and months will decide.

Red Flag: On 6 October 2010, the ICOR was founded. How has the ICOR developed since then and what are its perspectives?

Stefan Engel: On the one hand, the ICOR had to prove itself in practice on the background of the dramatic developments of the last months, but on the other hand it is not yet fully able to work. The founding process certainly has begun successfully with the founding of the ICOR, the passing of the founding documents, the membership of 41 founding members, the election of an ICC, its secretariat and the main coordinator, the installation of a homepage and a central office, as well as the first coordinated activities. At the moment the building of a necessary multilateral apparatus, the financial basis and continental and regional structures are at the center. The America conference has already taken place successfully. There the ICOR America was founded, two new member organizations from Colombia and Venezuela were taken up and a Continental Coordinating Committee was elected. In the next weeks the continental conferences in Asia, Europe and Africa will take place. Besides concluding the founding and the constitution of the ICOR, the current questions in party building and class struggle in the single countries will be dealt with. The conducting of the continental conferences is an important precondition for the further growth of the ICOR, so that it is really represented in most of the relevant countries, but also to establish an operative ability to act internationally.

Red Flag: On 18 March, at the end of the election campaign, the first public event about the new book “Dawn of the International Socialist Revolution” took place in Halle.

Stefan Engel: This wonderful event was very well attended with 185 visitors , mainly from the Land Elbe-Saale. A colorful, but also very competent audience of industrial workers, militant women and pensioners and even young persons that were just won in the election campaign - had been awaiting the book with excitement. The point of time shortly before the end of our tactical offensive in the Land election, as well as the place, the historical Fritz-Weineck-Hall in Halle, were chosen appropriately. From my lecture it became clear to many listeners, how up-to-date the question of the international socialist revolution is for all participants. A convincing representation of the socialist alternative must assimilate all historical experiences in a creative manner and take the current developments of the imperialist world system and the internationalization of the class struggle into consideration. The discussion creatively combined the basic ideas of my statements with the intensive experiences from the election campaign, in which our comrades had to give many fundamental answers. After four and a half hours the event had to be ended, although the audience still had not run out of material for discussion.

Red Flag: What is the importance of this book for party work?

Stefan Engel: In 2003 we published a comprehensive analysis of the reorganization of international production that started in the 1990s with "Twilight of the Gods - Götterdämmerung over the 'New World Order'". It proves that a new historical phase of transformation from capitalism to socialism was initiated. Now we are drawing comprehensive and scientific conclusions for the strategy and tactics. The internationalization of class struggle demands the preparation and realization of the international socialist revolution as the decisive conclusion. It fits exactly that the book was published at a moment when the general crisis proneness of the imperialist world system is manifested in an all-round way.

The book has three parts. In the first one, we prove that the strategy of the international socialist revolution is part of Marxism-Leninism since Marx and Engels. Compared to Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tsetung, Marx and Engels had only developed a different strategy and tactics for the realization of this basic position. While Marx and Engels still assumed a unified international socialist revolution , Lenin developed the strategy and tactics of the beginning of the revolution from the weakest link of the imperialist world system, which should be followed step by step by the other countries . Sadly these strategy and tactics in Germany were brought down by the counterrevolution, so that the Soviet Union had to build up socialism on its own for a long time . The Trotzkyites fought against this construction of socialism in one single country and demagogically opposed this with the strategy of the international revolution. But in reality they had taken on a counterrevolutionary position, which had nothing to do with the strategy of the international revolution. Lenin had given a self-critical statement that his strategy and tactics could not be realized and saw the reason for this in the insufficiently developed productive forces of that time. The MLPD has not done anything else than to put the strategy and tactics of the international revolution back onto the agenda after analyzing the reorganization of international production and to develop concrete strategy and tactics for its preparation and realization. In the second part, the changed strategy and tactics of the rule of international financial capital is analyzed. There, special weight is placed on the fundamental weakness that underlies this seemingly invincible force. In the third part, the strategy and tactics of the MLPD are further developed in accordance with the new circumstances. It is established that the strategy and tactics of the MLPD in the last 40 years have proven their worth, but that they have to be accommodated to the new international circumstances. Therefore it is necessary to realize a new level of proletarian internationalism in party work and in the youth league.

The book is – as already stated in the introduction – no general line for the international Marxist-Leninist, revolutionary and working class movement. But it is the contribution of the MLPD for the discussion needed for that. At the same time, it is the line of the MLPD, how we will make our contribution for the preparation and realization of the international revolution in the future . The questions to which it gives answers with its strategy and tactics of the international socialist revolution are raised in this situation in large numbers: How can a revolution under the conditions of the solely ruling international finance capital be realized successfully? What is the perspective of the democratic movements of uprisings in the Mediterranean area? What alternatives are there for humankind to capitalist barbarism which shows its face in Japan? With this we also open up and enrich a societal strategical debate to win over the masses for the revolutionary alternative, instead of letting us become impressed by the flood of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologies of justification.

Red Flag: What kind of work will you do with the book in the near future?

Stefan Engel: Naturally, first of all, it must be introduced to the broad public and spread as much as possible amongst the workers, the women and the youth. Intensive work is also underway to translate it into English, Spanish, Turkish and French.

In April we want to begin with a study movement which at the same time is aimed at preparing ourselves for our 9th Party Congress. Based on the theoretical foundations of the MLPD, the book has assimilated innumerable experiences, reports and publications from the whole world, about 3000 books, articles and research papers and especially the manifold experiences in party building and class struggle in Germany, as well as internationally. It has also reached a whole row of new conclusions.

In order to arrive at a new quality of proletarian internationalism in the party and youth league, you first have to work out the theoretical foundations. Otherwise you only think that we just have to do a larger quantity of internationalist work. Therefore we will give guidance with six-day study seminars on how to work with the book. This will be augmented with local study groups and training evenings, in which more detailed questions can be discussed in connection with conclusions for changing one's own practical work. We will offer it to our contacts, in bookshops, at events a.s.f. . We assume that this book taps the pulse of the times and will arouse the interest of many people who are searching for a societal alternative and asking themselves how a socialist society can be fought for successfully. We want to invite these people to study and discuss the book with us.

Red Flag: What does the MLPD plan to do in the coming months?

Stefan Engel: We will make an active contribution for the development of a worldwide front of active resistance for the shutdown of all nuclear power plants. We will combine this with agitation and propaganda for the revolutionary alternative to the all-sided crisis proneness of imperialism. The decisive and practical standard of success is the enduring strengthening of MLPD and the self-run organizations of the masses.

For that we promote 'überparteilich' action coalitions against the nuclear and climate catastrophe on the basis of struggle, take an active part in regional and local demonstrations and manifestations and take part in their preparation. We will promote our literature there, offer study groups and events a.s.f, . In the factories we will take up the burning day to day questions and support union and independent actions of protest against nuclear death and destruction of the environment. We promote that the struggle for the shutdown of all nuclear systems and against the destruction of the environment is treated at factory and union meetings and that resolutions and decisions are passed . We advocate a full legal right to strike in all matters and free political and union activity in the factories. We connect this with the struggle against the intensified shifting of the burdens of the crisis onto the back of the workers and against the increased exploitation in the factories and mass dismissals. The work for May 1st will be done in the light of the promotion of the workers' offensive and as an ICOR day of militant action as a part of the international coordination and revolutionization of class struggle.

In our positive union work we support the further spreading of the 'Dortmund Declaration' for strengthening militant unions. The criticism of the politics of class collaboration and the anti-communist division of the unions by parts of the right-wing metal union leadership is gaining an important role in the preparation of the union conventions of Verdi and the metal workers union(IGM), which will take place in autumn.

We will place special emphasis on youth work. We want to win over the masses of the youth as the practical vanguard of the worldwide front of active resistance and build up numerous rebellious resistance groups . We assume that the current development will lead to a political mobilization especially amongst the youth. Armed with the results of the criticism-self-criticism campaign on youth work, it is time to win over a larger number of young people and children for Rebell and the 'Red Foxes' and to promote a new generation of Marxist-Leninists. The successful delegates' congress of the Rebell has created good foundations for that and we whole-heartedly congratulate them!

In this situation the 15^th International Whitsun Youth Meeting must become an important platform on which all practical and theoretical activities of the party and the youth league come together. Especially the international character of the Whitsun Youth Meeting will be organized. The strengthening of the MLPD and the self-run organizations of the masses, especially of the Marxist-Leninist youth league Rebell and its 'Red Foxes' – is the decisive criterium whether we tackle the tasks of the next months correctly. The change of the tactical main task has to be understood in this sense.

Red Flag: Thank you very much for the interview.