18th Congress, Resolution on Socialism

18-22 of February 2009

Assessments and conclusions on socialist construction during the 20th century, focusing on the USSR. KKE’s perception on socialism.

 
The 18th Congress of KKE, fulfilling the task set forward by the 17th Congress four years ago, dwelled deeper into the causes of the victory of the counterrevolution and of capitalist restoration. This has been an imperative and timely obligation for our Party, as it is for every Communist Party. It was thus that we faced this task during all the years that have elapsed since the 14th Congress and the National Conference of 1995. It is a task interlinked with the revival of consciousness and of faith in socialism.

For more than a century now, bourgeois polemics against the communist movement, often assuming the form of an intellectual elitism, concentrate their fire on the revolutionary core of the workers’ movement; they struggle, in general, against the necessity of revolution and its political offspring, the dictatorship of the proletariat that is the revolutionary working class power. In particular, they fight against the outcome of the first victorious revolution, of the October Revolution in Russia, fiercely opposing every phase where the Revolution exposed and repelled counterrevolutionary activities and opportunist barriers, which, in the final analysis, were weakening, directly or indirectly, the Revolution at a social and political level.

For more than a century now, every current negating, retreating or resigning from the necessity of revolutionary struggle is being promoted as “democratic socialism”, in opposition to the so-called “totalitarian”, “dictatorial”, “putchist” communism. We are well aware of these polemics and calumnies against scientific communism, against the class struggle. They pertain not only to the conditions under capitalism, but, under different forms and conditions, also to the process of formation of the new social relations, as well as their expansion and maturation into communist relations.

Today, international opportunism has regrouped itself through the “Party of the European Left”, which has stepped up the tone of the “democratic socialism” rhetoric, under the conditions of a synchronous manifestation of the capitalist economic crisis.

It is for this reason that in the discussion on “socialist democracy” different weights and measures are being used to judge events taking place during one or the other period, with the explicit aim of erasing the contribution of socialist construction. In some instances they negate the entire 70-year history of the USSR, in others they specifically aim at the period during which its socialist foundation was erected. Whatever the case, they always support those political practices that constituted deviations from the socialist course.

KKE remains steadfast in the defense of the contribution of socialist construction in the USSR, in general of socialist construction during the 20th century, to the struggle for social progress, for the abolition of exploitation of man by man.

Today our Party is ideologically more steeled and politically experienced to rebut the ideological interventions of the bourgeois centers propagated through their periodicals and books or via the educational process. We are dealing here with interventions that may exert a certain influence in the immediate vicinity of the Party or even within the Party itself.

We are studying the ruthless course of the class struggle during the transition to the new society, for its foundation and development, for the expansion and deepening of the new relations of production and distribution, of all social relations and for the molding of the new man. We bring forward the contradictions, the mistakes and deviations under the pressure of the international correlation of forces, without resorting to blanket nihilism.

We examine things in a critical and self-critical manner so as to make KKE, as part of the international communist movement, stronger in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, for the construction of socialism. We are studying and judging the course of socialist construction in a self-critical manner, that is with full consciousness that our weaknesses, theoretical shortcomings and mistaken evaluations also constituted part of the problem.

We are forging ahead to additional assessments and conclusions, to the enrichment of our programmatic conception of socialism armed with a collective spirit, with a self-consciousness regarding the difficulties and deficiencies and with revolutionary determination. We are well aware that future historical studies, carried out by our Party and by the communist movement internationally, will undoubtedly illuminate further the issues regarding the experience of the USSR and of the other socialist countries. It is beyond any doubt that new issues requiring an improvement and deepening of certain of our assessments will come to the fore. The development of the theory of socialism-communism is a necessity, a living process, a challenge for our Party and for the international communist movement, today and in the future.

KKE has the experience to guarantee the continuation, the enrichment of knowledge and of a unitary perception, as it has done since its 14th Congress.

The pre-congress procedures have revealed the responsibility and maturity of Party members and cadre, in their ability to voice their opinions in the direction, with the criteria and along the main axes of the Theses of the C.C, which have been overwhelmingly approved.

The new C.C is being assigned the task of organizing further research on the specific subjects being pinpointed, of seeking the cooperation of other communist forces, particularly from the countries that were engaging in socialist construction in the past, of choosing the ways of participation of Party members in the final formulation of the conclusions that will be the end result of these specialized studies.

With the present decision of the 18th Congress, KKE enriches its programmatic conception of socialism.

Our Party is emerging more powerful and united, capable of inspiring and uniting new working class and popular forces, particularly of a younger age, in the struggle for socialism.

The 18th Congress expresses its revolutionary optimism that in the course of the years to come a regroupment of the international communist movement (of which KKE is a part) will become apparent, a regroupment on the basis of the development of its communist ideological and strategic unity.