June 15, 2001: The best Regards of the MLPD to the Demonstrations against the EC Summit in Gothenburg June 16,17 2001

Dear colleagues, dear friends and comrades,

On behalf of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany and its youth league REBELL, we would like to convey our warmest greetings of solidarity! The struggle that is being led here in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and in other countries against the European Union is an attack against imperialism and serves to weaken it. We think that this is a very important signal! The class consciousness of the workers in various European countries has awakened on a broad scale. The policies of the monopolies and their governments, which coordinate their crisis programs by means of the EU and shift the burdens of the crisis on the backs of the masses of people, is more and more subject to mass protests and demonstrations. This EU-summit meeting, too, aims at reaching decisions on coordinating its attacks upon social benefits, for example upon pensions. In Germany and in France, there is great dissatisfaction about the new pension schemes. In April, the social-democratic government in Greece was forced to take back its anti-people pension schemes for the time being by means of a general strike.

In the past year, the international militant women’s movement also took great steps ahead. In October, the World March of Women demonstrated in Brussels under the motto "2000 good reasons to march against poverty and violence against women". 50,000 people – ten times more than expected – came from all parts of Europe! The opponents of nuclear power plants and environmentalists are also increasingly coordinating their resistance across borders.

In Germany, millions of people, especially the youth, unite in the antifascist movement. Antifascist consciousness has deep roots in the population. But the EU-Commission congratulated the billionaire Berlusconi to his new governing office together with neofascists and ultra-reactionaries in Italy! No inch of ground for the fascists! Let us struggle in each and every country and together for the ban of all fascist organizations and their propaganda! Against racism and the division of nations – down with the Schengen Treaty!

The intensified competitive struggle of the monopolies for the biggest portions of worldwide production and the world market intensifies the threat of imperialist war. Here in Europe, the NATO-war against Yugoslavia was just the beginning. Whether the ministers came from the Greens, the Social Democrats or the Christian Democrats, they all used viscous lies to justify the bombing of the Yugoslavian people back into the middle ages. For the immediate dissolution of the WEU and NATO! All foreign troops - out of the Balkans!

At the beginning of this year, the workers at General Motors set a new example: when the plant in Luton, England was supposed to be shut down and the workforce to be laid off, international solidarity developed. On 25 January, 40,000 GM-workers conducted a European-wide day of strikes and actions for the first time in all GM/Opel-plants in Germany, in Belgium, Spain and England. GM, the world’s largest enterprise, got weak in the knees and had to take back its decision on the shut-down. In order to fight against unemployment at the expense of monopoly profits, we propose an international initiative for the 6-hour workday with full wage compensation.

The militant forces in Europe face the task of coordinating and revolutionizing the struggles. That is being actively supported and advanced by the MLPD and fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations in Europe. Whether within or outside of the EU, the perspective lies in genuine socialism. The material preconditions for satisfying the all-round needs of people are already existent. Through the mass media, modern anticommunism maintains that socialism has failed. It takes advantage of the fact that capitalism was restored in the former socialist countries as a result of the betrayal through the revisionist parties in rule. But socialism is not at an end. On the contrary, it is the next step forward in society and it can and must be fought for.

 Workers of all countries, unite!

Long live international solidarity!