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Written Contribution of the CP of Greece (KKE) at the 3rd International Ideological Seminar of the CP of Venezuela

100th anniversary of the foundation of the USSR: The conclusions drawn from the socialist revolution, the socialist construction, and their overthrow in the USSR are of great importance for the Communist and Workers’ Parties in the contemporary class struggle and in conditions of imperialist war

          Dear comrades,

          Thank you for the invitation to your seminar. On the occasion of our presence here, we would like to once again express the firm solidarity of the KKE with the communists, the Communist Party, and the people of Venezuela.

          Today, communists throughout the world are faced with new issues, new conditions of class struggle, and new tasks that we will not be able to successfully accomplish for the cause of workers’ power and socialism unless we draw important lessons from history. The 100th anniversary of the establishment of the first workers’ state, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), lends itself to the discussion of the conclusions drawn from the study of the socialist revolution and construction in the USSR and in general.

          Nowadays some people, among other things, invoke a quotation from a speech by Fidel Castro to convince us that socialism has no laws and no principles. Fidel said that “among all the errors we may have committed, the greatest of them all was that we believed that someone really knew something about socialism, or that someone actually knew how to build socialism. It seemed to be a sure fact, as well-known as the electrical system conceived by those who thought they were experts in electrical systems. Whenever they said: ‘That’s the formula’, we thought they knew.” [1]

          For our part, we must note that when we refer to quotations, we must examine when, where, and for what reason they were stated in order to understand their meaning. This does not mean that we have to agree with everything a revolutionary figure has written or said; thus, for example, our Party has a different view of the concept of “empire”, which is used to define the position of the USA in the world. As we will show below, this does not reflect an accurate depiction of the contemporary world, where monopoly capitalism, i.e. imperialism, dominates, and it can lead to illusions. To return, however, to this particular quotation by Fidel Castro, we must say that it is taken from a speech to students at the University of Havana in 2005. The main subjects of that speech were the problems of low social responsibility and consciousness, economic mismanagement, erroneous government decisions, individual and abusive appropriation of social wealth, corruption, etc. Fidel highlighted the above issues in his speech to young people, to students, starting from the need for Cuba to avoid repeating the developments in the USSR. Thus, in our opinion, he was talking about the problems that the attempt at socialist construction in Cuba was facing in new, uncharted waters, which were also due to the imperialist blockade of Cuba by the United States and not to the laws of socialist construction. Besides, in a passage in the same speech, Fidel criticizes that “some thought that socialism could be constructed with capitalist methods” stressing that “that is one of the great historical errors.

          As the developments in the USSR have shown, the unprecedented problems which arise in the course of socialist construction must be resolved in a forward-looking way by the Party of the working class. This certainly in no way means that there are no principles based on which solutions to the new problems must be sought. I believe it is commonplace for communists to say that: “Revolution is like riding a bicycle. If we stop pedalling, we will fall”; and “pedalling” for us is no different than the principles of socialist revolution and construction. Any unconditional retreat from these principles, as well as their revision and negation, hurts our cause, and becomes —as the course of the USSR proved— a vehicle of counter-revolution. It is no accident that the bourgeois state leaders and opportunists of all kinds gave Gorbachev an honourable farewell a few months ago.

          In its long study of the socialist revolution, construction, and overthrow, the KKE focuses on three key aspects: the economy, the political superstructure, and the strategy of the CPSU and the International Communist Movement (ICM).

          We always seek to draw necessary conclusions that strengthen the ICM and our Party as an integral part of it. The process of drawing conclusions is particularly crucial in the present conditions of retreat of the communist movement and an international unfavourable correlation of forces for the labour movement.

          Comrades,

          Those who abuse the word socialism and attach various qualifiers, such as “democratic socialism” or “socialism of the 21st century”, in order to turn black into white and promote the social-democratic management of capitalism as socialism or even as a stage towards it, seek to mislead the popular masses.

          However, socialism, as the October Revolution showed, means social revolution, a change of the class in power and not one or more electoral victories, a referendum to make constitutional changes, or the formation of a left government in the framework of capitalism. It means smashing the bourgeois state apparatus, which must inevitably be accompanied by the socialization of the means of production, new institutions of workers’ power, and the central scientific planning of the economy.

          The October Revolution and the socialist construction highlighted the role of the working class, the only revolutionary class, which, although being a small minority in Russia at that time, charted a line of social alliance with the poor and medium-sized farmers and, within a few decades, developed the productive forces and boosted the social, cultural, and political achievements of the entire people to an impressive degree. It thus gave a real answer to opportunist conceptions that backward Russia was not yet ready for socialist construction and that more “stages” were required before it to achieve a higher level of development of the productive forces.

          The revolution brought to the fore new forms of workers’ power. For the first time in history, institutions were created that ensured the effective participation of workers in the management of aspects of their society, bringing the masses in from the margins of political and social life. The soviets embodied the dictatorship of the proletariat. The retreat from the latter led to the conception of an “All-people’s party” and “All-people’s state” that prevailed in the CPSU in the 1960s and 1970s, which, together with the change in the mode of election of the Soviets in 1936, from elections held at workers’ collectives to elections held at territorial basis, were important factors in the weakening and eventually the degeneration of the revolutionary character of workers’ power. The 20th Congress of the CPSU was a “turning point” congress.

          The building of socialism in the USSR showed the enormous potential of the people’s economy, whose cornerstones are the socialization of the means of production, the central planning of the economy, and workers’ participation. Mistakes made during socialist construction, such as the dismantling of the machine-tractor stations in 1958, the Kosygin reforms (1965), the weakening of the central planning, for instance, by abolishing the sectoral ministries (1957), the adoption of profit as a motive for production, and the strengthening of commodity relations in general had tragic consequences for socialism. The attempt to “cure” certain existing problems, which appeared during socialist construction, using the market as a “remedy” led to the emergence of the black market, corruption, the extraction and appropriation of part of the social product, and eventually to social forces within the society and the CP that sought to overthrow socialism; something that they achieved through the vehicle of “perestroika”.

 

THE OVERTHROW OF SOCIALISM IN THE USSR AND THE CONTEMPORARY REVOLUTIONARY SUBJECT

 

          Comrades,

          After the overthrow of socialism in the USSR and the prevalence of capitalist relations in China, we can say that the capitalist mode of production has once again dominated the world, leading to an aggravation of all the social impasses that this system entails for the peoples: poverty, unemployment, social destitution, the commodification of social needs, imperialist wars, etc.

          Despite this social retreat brought about by the counter-revolutionary overthrows, the KKE believes that our era remains an era of transition from capitalism to socialism since the basic contradiction between capital and labour continues to deepen, stemming from the maturation of the social character of labour and the sharpening of its contradiction with capitalist property. This contradiction has brought the capitalist mode of production into sharp contrast with contemporary social needs. This contradiction can only be resolved by the revolutionary struggle of the working class, which today is more numerous and clearly better educated than in 1917 and remains the only revolutionary class.

          There are, of course, forces that speak in the name of the revolution and dream of other revolutionary subjects. However, the Marxist, dialectical, and materialist analysis of the history of social evolution each time identifies the revolutionary subject as the social class which objectively can lead the shaping and development of the new socio-economic formation. In Greece during the capitalist crises, a slogan was coined amid the struggles and strikes, which reflects this truth. That slogan reads: “Worker, without you no cog can turn, you can do without the bosses!”. It aptly guides the direction of our struggle to resolve the basic social contradiction, which can only be achieved through the abolition of the class of exploiters, i.e. the capitalists, by the working class.

          The retreat and disorganization of the labour–trade union movement, under the coordinated blows of the bourgeois state and reformism, as well as the difficult situation in which the parties of the working class all over the world find themselves, must not lead to an ideological demobilization and the quest for supposedly “new” revolutionary subjects. What is required is methodical and patient work for the regroupment of the movement and the assimilation of the lessons drawn by the class struggle waged in the past century as well as adherence to the fundamental principles of the Marxist–Leninist world view. The KKE in Greece has undertaken important initiatives for the regroupment of the labour–trade union movement. Those initiatives have borne fruit, through the formation of the All-workers’ Militant Front (PAME), the struggle for the revitalization of trade unions, the extension of their content of work and forms of struggle aiming at strengthening the class struggle.

 

ON THE CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTION AND THE POLICY OF ALLIANCES

 

          Of course, our Party, which considers itself “a conscious, organized, vanguard section of the working class”, not only has been behind every small or great struggle and achievement of the working class in the past 104 years but also “has as its strategic goal the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism–communism[2]”. Our Party, studying its history and that of the USSR as well as the strategy that dominated the ICM, has abandoned erroneous —in our opinion— approaches about intermediate stages towards socialism or a “peaceful passage” to socialism, as well as the false division of social democracy into “right” and “left” and the equally false division of the bourgeoisie into “comprador” and “patriotic”. These approaches not only were not confirmed but for a long period deprived the CPs of revolutionary strategy. They led to unacceptable retreats from the principles of Marxism–Leninism, burdened CPs with responsibilities of bourgeois management within bourgeois governments of the “left” or “centre-left” that eventually adopted harsh anti-popular measures, participated in imperialist interventions and wars, and perpetuated capitalist barbarism.

          The KKE has concluded that the character of the revolution in Greece will be socialist and we are working in the direction of preparing the subjective factor for the prospect of a socialist revolution. Of course, the period of its manifestation is determined by objective conditions, that is, the revolutionary situation.

          Today, along with the regroupment of the labour movement, the formation of the social alliance between the working class, the poor farmers, and the urban popular strata is required. An alliance not of “political leaders” or political forces of all hues with opportunist and social-democratic forces, which nullify the role of the CP, but of social forces. A social alliance that will struggle for people’s problems and in conditions of revolutionary situation will be transformed into a Revolutionary–People’s Front, which will overthrow capitalist barbarism, disengage the country from the imperialist unions of NATO and the EU, and build the new workers’ revolutionary institutions of power.

 

THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT AND THE IMPERIALIST WAR

 

          Dear comrades,

          I have referred to some basic conclusions from the study of the socialist revolution and construction in the USSR, through the prism of the elaborations of the KKE. These elaborations were carried out by our Party in the past decades, after 1989–1991, when the attempt of opportunism to liquidate our Party from within failed once again, and the Party went through a process of deep organizational and ideological–political regroupment to restore its revolutionary character. Important milestones in this effort were the 18th Congress of the KKE, where the relevant Resolution of the Congress[3] was discussed and approved, as well as the 19th Congress of our Party, which approved the new Programme of the Party.

          The subsequent 20th and 21st Congresses studied the contemporary developments in Greece and internationally on this solid basis. This effort was a valuable asset and we believe that today we are in a position to take a stand on the issues that come before us, such as, among other things, the imperialist war that is being waged in Ukraine.

          War, in which dozens of countries are involved in one way or another, is a crucial issue for the ICM. In this case, the war has highlighted important weaknesses in the theoretical basis of the positions of several CPs, even some which claim to be based on Marxism–Leninism.

          Some parties were confined to statements about the need to respect international law, the inviolability of borders, the peaceful resolution of problems, etc. These statements, which avoid focusing on the causes of war, often promote a pacifist conception, proceed to a verbal condemnation of war, and highlight the possibility of a “multipolar world” that could supposedly replace the “unipolar world” of US “hegemony” in the imperialist system. They, thus, make untenable claims that there can be various “security systems”, “international agreements” and “round tables” in the framework of capitalism that will free the world from wars without changing the socio-economic and political nature of present-day societies, provided that there is not only one powerful imperialist power but plenty of them. This approach, which has its roots both in Kautsky’s theory of ultra-imperialism and in the opportunist notions of the CPSU of “peaceful coexistence and competition” between the two systems, dreams of peaceful imperialism. The truth is that the capitalist mode of production, whether having one or many “poles”, is inherent in war; it is interwoven with it, as with capitalist economic crises.

          In our opinion, positions supporting the emergence of a “multipolar world”, supposedly as a counterweight to the “empire” of the United States by “purging” international organizations, are completely erroneous. These are dangerous illusions that have nothing to do with reality.

 

THE REALIGNMENT OF THE IMPERIALIST SYSTEM

 

          Lenin noted that “uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism” and from this law follows both that “the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone[4]” and that there are constant realignments concerning the power of the bourgeois classes. The strength of each country, based also on the unequal development of capitalism, determines the degree to which its bourgeoisie participates in the sharing of the spoils, through a web of unequal interdependence, which characterizes the imperialist “pyramid”. Throughout time we see that due to the uneven capitalist development, the bourgeois classes of some countries that were previously leading, such as Britain, have today retreated, while their former colonies, such as India and Australia, have emerged as powerful powers in the modern capitalist world. It is characteristic that today the pole of the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, which began to form around China in 2001 and 2009 respectively, can be compared with the G7, the strongest imperialist alliance in terms of economic and military power that started to form around the USA in 1975.

          At the same time, however, working people around the world are seeing these powers, which can destroy humanity with their nuclear strength, for the first time exchange accusations and readjusting their nuclear doctrines, renouncing their commitment to No First Use policy. We see that the emerging new “multipolar world” is a world of even more acute contradictions, leading to new wars and dangers for the peoples.

          Recently, in the face of developments and especially the imperialist war in Ukraine, other CPs have focused only on the obvious responsibilities of the US, the EU, and NATO, which has been advancing and encircling Russia for years. In fact, this was combined with the approach that Russia is a capitalist but not an imperialist power. This approach is detached from the fact that imperialism is not just an aggressive policy but capitalism in its modern stage, the monopoly stage. Today, large monopolies prevail in the entire world and Russia. The plans of NATO, the US, and the EU in the past 30 years have clearly been a powder keg for this conflict, but when did this powder keg begin storing up? Did it not begin with the overthrow of socialism, the dissolution of the USSR —in fact through a coup d’état— against the will of the majority of its peoples? Wasn’t it then when factories, mines, oil, natural gas, precious metals, and labour power became a commodity once again? Wasn’t it then when, after 7 decades of socialist construction, all of the above became once again a bone of contention for the capitalists, for the big monopoly enterprises? Didn’t all those who now hold economic and political power in Russia contribute to this development? What did Putin and all Russian capitalists, the so-called “oligarchs”, whom he represents, stand for? Were they in favour of the socio-political current that sought to save socialism and the USSR or in favour of those who wanted to overthrow it? They clearly were in favour of the latter, despite the fact that today they shed crocodile tears for the dissolution of the USSR and even seek to take advantage of Stalin, “sanitizing” him and his work from its revolutionary nature. Is the Russian bourgeoisie today the “lamb” in a world of imperialist “wolves”, as some say describing the situation? No bourgeoisie is innocent. Each one manifests its aggression first of all against the workers and the popular strata of its country, whom it exploits, and then, based on its political–economic and military strength, it promotes the exploitation of other peoples. We have seen, for example, that “the aspirations of the Russian bourgeoisie were clearly demonstrated last January during the intervention of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Kazakhstan to shield the power of the bourgeoisie against the popular uprising in this Central Asian country”[5]. Forces that have not clarified the role of Russia and China as well as the class character of the transnational unions they form, have tried to ascribe the popular demonstrations to “Western” imperialist intervention. Of course, “inter-imperialist and inter-bourgeois competition is a fact, but this cannot overshadow the importance of the popular demonstrations and the class struggle or downplay its significance. On the contrary, this fact further highlights the importance of the struggles that have developed under these difficult conditions (...) Communists have the obligation to distinguish what are the new elements each time and to take a stand based on class criteria, to express their support for the workers’–people’s struggle... ” [6]

          The analysis, therefore, that limits imperialism exclusively to the USA or includes only some powerful EU countries has nothing to do with Marxism–Leninism.

 

THE SEPARATION AND CHOICE BETWEEN ONE IMPERIALIST OR ANOTHER

          Some parties consider that the Russian regime, although it may be bourgeois, is promoting an “anti-fascist” policy, is confronting the “Ukrainian fascists” and is trying to “save” the people of Donbas from them. Some people remembered the policy of “anti-fascist fronts” of the Communist International (CI) and are trying to revive it in the present day. They overlook the fact that the line of anti-fascist fronts prevailed when the USSR existed, while today a strong capitalist power has taken its place. Moreover, this position lacks any critical approach to the historical course of the ICM. Through the study of history, the KKE and other CPs have come to the conclusion that the line of anti-fascist fronts has proved detrimental to the ICM. Today we assess that the so-called strategy of stages towards the conquest of revolutionary workers’ power dominated the line of the CI. Thus, a bourgeois governmental stepping stone was set as a primary goal, which sometimes had the characteristics of a national liberation–independence and sometimes of an anti-fascist and bourgeois-democratic stage in the framework of capitalism. This direction was set out at the 7th Congress of the CI, which adopted the strategy of the Anti-Fascist People’s Fronts, orienting the CPs to cooperate with social-democratic and “bourgeois democratic” political forces in general. In practice, they detached fascism from the system that gives rise to it and the bourgeoisie that chooses this form of dictatorship of capital. Let me open a parenthesis to say that in the aforementioned speech by Fidel Castro in 2005, Fidel criticizes the CI and personally Stalin for the direction given to the CP of Cuba in 1934, leading it to enter into an “anti-fascist alliance” with Batista, who, among other things, at that time suppressed a mass workers’ demonstration. For the KKE, as for other Western European Parties that played an important role in the resistance against the foreign fascist occupation, the main issue is that due to this direction “they were unable to link the armed anti-fascist liberation struggle with the struggle for the conquest of workers’ power, nor did the self-dissolution of the CI contribute to this direction”.[7]

          Confusion also arose from “The approach of making a political separation of the imperialist alliances into aggressive ones, which included the fascist forces, and defensive ones, which included the bourgeois-democratic forces (…) Similarly, the separation of the imperialist centres into pro-peace and pro-war ones concealed the real cause of imperialist wars and the rise of fascism, i.e. monopoly capitalism.[8]

          Today, bourgeois and damaging views are developing, such as that of “exported fascism”, which attributes the characterization “fascist” to some of the most powerful imperialist powers (the USA and the EU), causing further confusion about both the cause of the emergence and strengthening of the fascist current, which lies in monopoly capitalism within each country, and the causes of imperialist war. Calls to form “anti-fascist fronts” in a non-class direction, i.e. alliances without social-class criteria, and to align with the so-called anti-fascist states, seek to lead communists to support the imperialist war, side with one of the “thieves”, and struggle under a false flag; they must, therefore, be rejected!

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION FOR THE STANCE TOWARDS CHINA

          Some other parties rightly believe that the military conflict in Ukraine is part of a more general conflict between the Euro-Atlantic forces and China. This assessment is correct, except that some, having not drawn any conclusions from the overthrow of socialism in the USSR, still consider China a “socialist country” or “a country building socialism with Chinese characteristics”. Based on this, they reproduce conditions of the past, such as the so-called cold war or the confrontation between two socio-political formations, capitalism and socialism. Nonetheless, these parties miss the fact that the socio-economic and political system of a country does not depend on the name of the ruling party and its declarations but on its class nature. The violation of the principles of socialist construction in the USSR and its ending should have been a lesson to all the CPs. Today capitalist relations of production prevail in China, labour power is a commodity, and social needs have been commodified, as in the rest of the capitalist world. Millions of people are condemned to poverty while China ranks first in the world in number of billionaires. Starting in 2012 and to date, consistently over 60% of China’s GDP has been generated by the private sector[9]. The Chinese state has created a comprehensive “arsenal” to support Chinese capitalists, including measures similar to those in place in the rest of the capitalist world. It is, therefore, no coincidence that in 2020, in conditions of the ongoing capitalist crisis for which the pandemic has acted as a catalyst, the number of Chinese billionaires reached 799, topping for the first time the USA, which had 626. The most powerful Chinese capitalists have at their disposal colossal e-commerce business groups, banks, factories, hotels, shopping malls, movie theaters, social media, mobile phone companies, etc[10]. At the same time, tens of millions of itinerant internal migrants (estimated at 290 million), who are engaged in temporary jobs and may remain unemployed, are not counted in official statistics and may account for up to 30% of the country’s labour force[11]. Tens of millions of people are excluded from modern social services such as technical and higher education and health services due to their commodification and low incomes[12].

          It is characteristic that we have recently witnessed the demolition of entire newly built apartment buildings in China (over 3 billion square metres, which could house 75 million people), as the monopolies of this particular sector attempt to limit the effects of the so-called real estate bubble[13]. This happens at a time when approximately 200 million poor people are homeless due to the wave of urbanization.

          Since some people are comparing the current situation in China to the New Economic Policy (NEP), we must stress that there is no comparison between the two, as regards for example NEP’s duration or that it had a character of “retreat”, as Lenin[14] often emphasized. Furthermore, the NEP was not ideologized as an element of socialist construction, as is the case of the prevalence of capitalist relations in China and the ideological construct of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. Moreover, in the NEP period businessmen not only were not allowed to be members of the Bolshevik Party but based on both Soviet Constitutions (1918 and 1925) adopted in that period they were deprived of their political rights; unlike China today, where dozens of businessmen occupy positions in parliament and the CP.

          Today the power in China is in the hands of capital and expresses its interests. The international conflict, therefore, is not being waged between the forces of capitalism and socialism, but between forces of the modern capitalist world, competing with each other for supremacy in the world imperialist system. This, unfortunately, cannot be easily realized unless we draw conclusions from socialist construction and the overthrow of socialism in the USSR, and we stop clinging to views that the market can be combined with socialism. Many parties still maintain the erroneous theoretical approach that the law of value is a law of motion of the communist mode of production in its first (socialist) stage, an approach which prevailed from the mid-1950s in the USSR and the majority of the CPs. This position was strengthened due to the maintenance of commodity relations during the planned transition from individual to cooperative production. In this framework, theoretical shortcomings and political weaknesses were weighing heavily on the formulation and implementation of the central plan each time. Of course, as we have already noted, the opportunist policy that was pursued in the last decades of the USSR’s existence further weakened the central planning, corroded social property, and strengthened the forces of counter-revolution.

          In the ideological confrontation that took place within the CPSU, the correct positions and directions of Stalin and the “anti-market” economists and cadres of the CP were not able to lead to the formation of a comprehensive theoretical elaboration and a corresponding political line, capable of tackling the pro-market theoretical positions and political choices that were being reinforced and eventually prevailed.

          The theories of “socialist commodity production” or “market socialism” and the acceptance of the law of value as a law of the socialist (immature communist) mode of production, which could also be applied in the phase of socialist development, dominated at the theoretical level. These theories formed the basis for the formulation of the economic policy that led to the counter-revolutionary overthrow.

          However, the counter-revolution and the overthrow of socialism in the USSR do not prove the superiority of the market over central planning. On the contrary! They came as a consequence of the violation of the laws of socialist construction. They were the result of a retreat from the effort to further extend and deepen the socialist —immature communist— relations of production, to reach their full prevalence. Approaches seeking to prove the superiority of the market over central planning through the example of China’s rapid economic growth during the past 3 decades are completely unfounded; that is because the scientific central planning of the economy has never been applied in China, where the current rapid reinforcement of its capitalist characteristics has burdened the people with exploitation and all the social impasses faced by the rest of capitalist societies. In the words of Che, “there is no other definition of socialism valid for us than the abolition of the exploitation of man by man[15].

          Comrades,

          In Greece, the KKE is leading the struggle against the anti-popular unions, NATO and the EU; against the strategic alliance of the bourgeoisie and its parties with the USA; against the US–NATO bases; against the anti-popular policies of the governments, either neoliberal or social-democratic, that have successively ruled in recent years. We seek that the people’s struggle takes an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist direction, rallies new forces to overturn the negative correlation of forces, and paves the way for socialism.

          At the same time, we believe that ICM also needs to draw conclusions from the temporary defeat of socialism in the USSR in order to find its revolutionary “pace” and to be able to cope with the contemporary tasks that lie ahead of it. For this reason, the KKE took the initiative for the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties (IMCWP), which is held annually, and other forms of multilateral cooperation of CPs, such as the International Communist Review (ICR), in which we participate together with the CP of Venezuela, and the European Communist Initiative (ECI). We believe that today the necessary discussion can be opened up, which will promote the aim of forming a unified revolutionary strategy that will contribute to the revolutionary regroupment of the ICM.



[1]          Speech delivered by Fidel Castro Ruz at the University of Havana on 17/11/2005, http://www.fidelcastro.cu/en/discursos/speech-delivered-commemoration-60th-anniversary-his-admission-university-havana-aula-magna

[2]    Programme of the KKE, 2013.

[3]    Resolution of the 18th Congress of the KKE, “Assessments and conclusions on socialist construction in the 20th century, focusing on the USSR. The KKE’s perception on socialism", Athens, 18–22 February 2009.

[4]          V. I. Lenin, “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe”, Collective Works, Vol. 26, pp. 362–363, Synchroni Epochi.

[5]    Giorgos Marinos, “The imperialists redivide the world, they redraw the borders with the peoples’ blood”, published in Rizospastis on 5–6/3/2022.

[6]    Giorgos Marinos, “The class struggle cannot be denigrated - it is and will remain the driving force of social development”, published in Rizospastis on 22–23/1/2022.

 

[7]    Eleni Bellou, “Conclusions on the socialist revolution–construction in the 20th century”, Communist Review Issue 2, 2019.

[8]    Declaration of the Central Committee of the KKE on the 100th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, 8/5/2017.

[9]    People’s Daily, http://russian.people.com.cn/n3/2019/0306/c31518-9553049.html, 6/3/2019.

[12]  There is, for example, a huge increase in private medical businesses, which exploit the need of workers for modern health care. From 2005 to 2016, the number of beds in private clinics increased from 6% to 22%. Source: https://carnegie.ru/commentary/81082

[13]  “New buildings in ghost towns are being demolished in China because no one will buy them. The housing crisis in China has entered an acute phase”. Source: https://www.kp.ru/daily/27437/4639434/ 

[14]  V. I. Lenin, “Ninth All-Russia Congress of Soviets”, Collective Works, Vol. 44, p.310, Synchroni Epochi.

[15]  Ernesto Che Guevara, Speech at the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria, 24/2/1965.