Report+of+Havana+Marxist+Conference,+Thando+Tshangela

=__Report of the Marxist Conference__=


 * Thando Tshangela, Communist University delegate to the Conference**

The Conference that on “The work of Karl Marx and the challenges of the 21st century” that was held in Havana, Cuba under the theme “The Road Leading to towards revolutionary power in the 21st century: classes, social movements and political parties” addressed, //inter alia//, the following issues:

The Communist Party is the organized vanguard of the working class, representing the interests of all working people. The members of the Communist Parties struggle for socialism. They are inspired by and defend their scientific theory of socialism.

The co-operative enterprises provide spaces of resistance against global imperialism and act as agents of socialist transformation in that they build socialism in practice by giving the people an opportunity to own the means of production.

On the Palestinian question the Marxist left should defend the rights of the Palestinian people and also advance a program for peace based on the just national rights of both the Palestinian and Israelis. Such a peace would be a blow to US control and would further narrow the scope for imperialist maneuvers and machinations. Such a strategy should take into consideration class interests, the existing global and regional power relations that influence the conflict and base itself on political realism.

There is a need for an internationalism that is meaningful to daily struggles through a different form of globalization; the globalization of resistance that works for a new form of solidarity. The World Social Forum, under the slogan “Another world is possible,” provides an alternative space the present neo-liberalism of the IMF, World Bank and the World Economic Forum. Furthermore, it provides space for solutions to world problems as the UN is seen not to be fulfilling its role.

Internationalism, which is embodied in the slogan “Workers and oppressed people of all countries unite,”must be resituated within the core of socialist theory. Internationalism is an imperative for a successful all sided socialist development.

Socialist movements are asserting subaltern social needs for social justice and human dignity in the South. “Social movement unionism” stresses the need for organised workers to extend their battles beyond bargaining in individual workplaces or sectors and to actively work with other progressive forces for a broader project of social and political transformation.

It was asserted that revolution is perceived in some quarters as a violent disturbance of the evolution of society braking with social order. Although conflict is dysfunctional, it can be useful and fundamental for the analysis of social change and necessary for sharpening the contradictions of capitalism. Revolutions are not always violent as evidenced by Latin America in the 20th century. But revolutions are in all respects necessary to speed up change socialism.

Concerns were raised by many countries regarding capitalism and its limits. That it is eroding basic human rights, markets are seen as perfect while humans are regarded as imperfect, there is continual destruction of natural resources, environmental degradation, millions spent daily in the production of weapons of war. Some nations are producers of knowledge while others are consumers and in the process knowledge is commercialized.

Furthermore, another feature of capitalism is its consumerist, imperialist and monopolistic character. Transnational companies of imperialist states wield massive political and economic power stronger than some 3rd world countries. The IMF and the World Bank are not impartial but rather serve the mandate of their masters, the West.

The Communist Party is the intellectual consciousness of the masses. And we need a revolutionary theory of education that focuses on revolutionary practice and changing the circumstances of the poor and self change. There is a need for critical pedagogy, learning how to learn and learning from participation to produce organic intellectuals. There is an active need to counter the self serving nature of capitalist education which trains workers to become producers and consumers.

The analysis of the democratic system is that this system has its defects. It reinforces social inequality and nations do not share with each other. For example, the US will remain being rich and keep its wealth to itself while people in Darfur and elsewhere in the world starve.

Two forms of struggle to obtain socialism were identified as parliamentary and non- parliamentary. Whereas capitalists believe in the elections process, the workers organize from the grassroots, at factories, workplaces, in communities and in their Party. Although some Latin American countries have achieved their socialism through parliamentary democracy, Cuba and the Zapatista in Mexico have ‘no-party’ systems of governance which are proving more successful in providing the potential to attain true social unity and to realize human liberty than the multiparty parliamentary democracy.

In Africa neo-liberalism is a reality, and Africa needs a Marxist rather than a capitalist analysis of its economic woes. The capitalist West is prescribing economic policies for Africa with aid and debt reduction offered as incentives. And those who fail to toe the line are punished via disinvestment, currency devaluation, and fermentation of political instability.

In conclusion, the Party of the workers was warned to desist from endorsing the agenda of the right and to engage in immediate tasks for the attainment of socialism to replace capitalism. Further, the workers Parties need to analyse the model of socialism that encourages state bureaucracy. And the unity of thought around socialism does not mean suppression of divergent views. Revolution is to be regarded as a new power and socialism as a new process to overthrow the imperialism headed by the US and its hegemony.

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