To the Presidium and the delegates of the 2nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE)
Dear comrades,
The Central Committee and the Political Bureau of the CC of the Communist Front (Italy), on behalf of our whole Party, send a fraternal and revolutionary greeting to the delegates and all the militants of the PCTE on the occasion of your “Centennial Congress”.
On the same day you are celebrating your Congress, 100 years ago, with the fundamental contribution of the Communist International, the Communist Party of Spain (section of the Communist International) was founded. Its foundation has been an essential step forward to endow the Spanish proletariat with a Bolshevik-type political vanguard able to guide him in the heroic struggles of the national-democratic war and against Franco’s fascist regime. The Communists of Spain and Italy have always been united by strong ties of proletarian internationalism which had their peak in the immortal experience of the International Brigades and were also precious for the Resistance in Italy. Notwithstanding errors, the most heroic and valiant pages of the class struggle in our countries are inseparably linked to each other and to the coordinating action of the Communist International.
The critical study of the history of the International Communist Movement, of its successes and setbacks, of the mutations of the Communist Party of Spain and the Italian Communist Party, as well as the study of the construction of socialism in the 20th century and of the counter-revolution, allows us to draw important lessons and conclusions for today. These experiences provide us with a valid theoretical basis for elaborating a revolutionary strategy corresponding to the tasks of our era, which is the era of the overthrow of capitalism in its final imperialist stage and of the revolutionary transition to socialism.
One hundred years ago, in Spain as in Italy and in many other countries, the communists understood that it was essential to definitely break with reformism and opportunism in order to be able to play their role as revolutionary vanguards on the path of the Great October Socialist Revolution, and adopted the 21 points of the Communist International. Today, as at that time, the objective conditions for the socialist revolution are ripening, but the subjective conditions have yet to be developed. For this reason, it is still necessary to build and everywhere strengthen vanguard communist parties which, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, are able, in any conditions, to guide, organize and lead the working class to the completion of its historical mission to bury forever the system of capitalist exploitation.
To carry out this task, the Communist Parties must develop strong ties with the working class and the people’s strata, in order to link the struggles for immediate demands, against imperialist wars and alliances, such as the EU and NATO, to the goal of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the bourgeois state, without intermediate stages of transition. The Communists must wage an uncompromising struggle against revisionism, reformism, and all old and new forms of opportunism, such as Trotskyism, eclecticism, social patriotism and social pacifism. We must fight those concepts which, abandoning the Leninist analysis of imperialism, separate politics from the economy and confuse, in an anachronistic way, unequal development and interdependence between countries with colonial relations. By spreading the mystifying legend of an alleged “submission to foreign interests”, they close their eyes on the role of their own bourgeoisie in these processes and call for the defense of “national sovereignty”, pushing the proletariat to take sides under the banner of national capital in its competition with the capital of other countries and spreading the illusion that, in conditions of capitalism, improvements are possible in favor of workers.
We too are engaged in the construction of a Bolshevik-type party, ideologically independent and impervious to concepts foreign to Marxism, a party which wants to exercise its role as the organized vanguard of the Italian working class and to be recognized as such, in close coordination with the most coherently revolutionary part of the International Communist Movement, to strengthen its unity on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. We act in the workers’ movement to guide the struggles in an anti-capitalist direction, to accumulate revolutionary forces and strengthen ties with the working class, promoting their reorganization and their awareness of the need for revolutionary change by spreading scientific socialism within it.
We appreciate and support the exemplary struggle you are waging against the social-democratic government, headed by P. Sánchez, of the PSOE and Unidos Podemos. By withstanding multiple pressures and the illusions sown by opportunists about the “lesser evil”, you help unmask the nefarious and deceptive role of social-democracy. This is even more important at a time when a new capitalist crisis of overproduction and over-accumulation is underway, accelerated by the pandemic which has worsened its outcome for the working class and has clearly showed the historical limits of capitalism and its incompatibility with the very survival of mankind.
Regardless of their suit, the common intent of all bourgeois governments is to dump once again the weight of the crisis onto the working class, by intensifying their exploitation through anti-popular and anti-worker policies and by increasingly using authoritarianism, anti-communism and police and legal repression, in order to serve capitalist restructuring plans to restore the rate of profit for the benefit of the respective bourgeoisie and monopolies. At the same time, the aggressiveness of the US, NATO and the EU intensifies everywhere in the context of an ever increasing competition in the world imperialist system, which arises even within the imperialist alliances themselves and involves all capitalist states, regardless of their position in the imperialist pyramid. The developments and changes in the structure of imperialist alliances, the strengthening of EU militarism, imperialist wars and interventions in various strategic areas, the trade conflict and disputes between the US and China for world hegemony in the imperialist system, testify that the threat of a new generalized imperialist war for a new division of the world and its resources hangs over mankind.
All these developments place great responsibilities on the communists in every country and on the International Communist Movement as a whole, emphasizing ever more urgently the need for its reactivation on a revolutionary basis, in such a way as to insure the necessary coordination of the struggle of the Communist and Workers’ Parties for the overthrow of capitalism and bourgeois power, starting from their own country.
We recognize in the PCTE the continuity of the century-old struggle of the Spanish communists in defense of the revolutionary character of the Party and for the Spanish working class to seize power. We are confident that this Congress will further strengthen your Party and, at the same time, contribute to strengthening the authentically revolutionary positions in the International Communist Movement.
Our struggles are the same and serve the same international cause of the proletariat and its goals. With the hope of consolidating the ties between our Parties, in the spirit of authentic proletarian internationalism, we wish you a fruitful congress and successes in our common struggle for Socialism-Communism.
PROLETARIANS ALL OVER THE WORLD, UNITE!
Rome, November 8, 2021
COMMUNIST FRONT (ITALY)
The Political Bureau of the Central Committee