Jose A. Cruz represented the Network of Communist Clubs at the recent Congress of the CP Mexico, and filed this report.
The Communist Party of Mexico (CPM) held its Fifth Congress in the city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name, on September 13 through 16 this year. The CPM was organized twenty years ago as the Party of Mexican Communists after the decline of the original Mexican Communist Party which merged with three others to form the multi-tendency United Socialist Party of Mexico, mostly following a revisionist, so-called Eurocommunist approach.
The congress started with a panel discussion on the role of communists in today’s world featuring representatives of communists from Mexico, United States, Brazil, Greece, Sudan, Spain and El Salvador.
The approximately 120 delegates debated, amended and approved the program, by-laws, main resolution as well as resolutions on the question of women, youth and art and culture. With non-voting guests and delegates the congress had about 180 participants.
The CPM considers, as stated in its program, that Mexico is a “fully developed capitalist country” that has “reached its historic limits… and [occupies] an intermediate position in the imperialist pyramid…” but is a “weak link in the imperialist chain.” The Mexican communists expressed the position that to defend the Mexican bourgeoisie against that of another country is to defend one sector of imperialism against another in inter-imperialist rivalries. The program states, “The so-called ideology of the Mexican Revolution is the cover for bourgeois ideology which was able to paralyze revolutionary action of the working class for over half a century.”
The congress was organized under the slogan, “The immediate task of the Mexican Working Class – Socialist Revolution.” Pavel Blanco, First Secretary of the Central Committee, said that that slogan “doesn’t mean the revolution starts tomorrow,” but that they need to prepare for revolution and the first task along those lines is building the CPM. In the report from the outgoing central committee, Blanco reported the growth of the party in recent years.
In the discussion, Blanco noted that “we are not now in a position to win parliamentary seats” but rejected any notion of an outright rejection of running for elections. While he was “convinced that a peaceful road to power is not possible,” he cautioned that “we should not be abstentionist. That would put us in the camp of anarchism. We cannot tell ahead of time what tactics we’ll need to use.”
One delegate argued for whether to participate or boycott an election should be specific noting that “we have a comrade elected here” in Oaxaca. “Comrades who can participate in elections,” he concluded, “should be able to do so, in order to move our positions forward.”
The CPM expressed concerns about the Communist Party, USA and other parties that have backed away from a revolutionary position. Its main political thesis stated, ”There is a very grave situation in the Communist Party, USA, with a neo-Browderite and openly liquidationist leadership, which gives itself the task of being the helpmate of the Democratic Party, renounces Marxism-Leninism, etc.”
“The tensions in the midst of the international Communist movement have already been expressed in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties, because parties that express an opportunist tendency have wanted to impose [language] unacceptable on others, bringing the IMCWP to the edge of breaking up.”
Within the world communist movement, the PCM declared, “We consider it fundamental to continue the work around the International Communist Review for the regrouping of communists with a Marxist-Leninist base. That is our priority… We assume the task of strengthening the re-building of communist parties in our region.”
The Mexican communists also said, “We will work to strengthen class struggle and anti-imperialist organizations like the World Federation of Trade Unions, World Federation of Democratic Youth, Women’s International Democratic Federation and the World Peace Council.”
Besides the greetings of international fraternal delegates from the United States (Network of Communist Clubs and the Party of Communists, USA), Greece, Brazil, Spain, Sudan, and El Salvador, the CPM Fifth Congress received messages from 40 other communist and workers parties, as well as other revolutionary and anti-imperialist movements.
