The current crisis is a general phenomenon which confuses the world economy and which is faced by the bourgeoisie as class and on an international scale with the intention to resolve it in its favour as it has happened in most of the cases.
During the last decades, the bourgeoisie has, in principle, been successful in resolving the crises in its favour. That situation resulted in very high social cost by shifting the burden of the crisis onto the workingmasses and on the peoples, first of all, of the dependent countries, but also on the working classes of the imperialist countries themselves.
The period of capitalist recovery after the Second World War ended in the sixties. In the current period -the period from the seventies to now - the international bourgeoisie, the wordwide reaction get involved in remedies and pharmacopoeias (pharmaceutical books) which pretend to resolve the crisis in their favour. They elaborated most diverse theories and proposals, they tested plans and programmes. But in fact, the crisis persists, tends to get worse and more generalized.
The mostly promoted theories are those which, in general, have been called neo-liberalism. They are of a monetarist type. They talk of a free play of market, free trade, full validity of supply and demand, abolition of the interventionist "patronizing state" regulating the economy, privatization of the state enterprises and services, the restriction of social security, public health and education and the elimination of non-productive investments.
The political connotations of the crisis reveal a world being hard convulsed. The social peace the bourgeois ideologs and politicians implore day in, day out is nothing but a fata morgana.
The bourgeoisie and its diverse types of government are in crisis and are marked by the general feature of instability. At every new rustling, governments fall down and are reorganized. The liberal governments are condemned because of corruption and replaced by conservative governments which are involved in the same or in a much worse corruption. Social democracy is fighting in rear-guard actions, changing its image, renouncing its demagogy, "modernizing", declaring itself liberal, making efforts in cutting social achievements.
Corruption, embezzlement and robbery of public goods have been institutionalised and have resulted in big scandals and political crises, even in the fall-down of governments, for instance in Japan, Brazil or Venezuela. In Great Britain and France, the ruling castes have shed their clothes. In Italy, the Democrazia Cristiana has been bumped off. The revisionist parties break up in circles, are wound up, alter their names. In the United States, the last twenty years' predominance of the Republicans has been terminated and the Clinton administration is whipped by corruption.
Though in force in the majority of countries, the representative democracy - which had been propagated as the best form of government, as superior expression of the nature of capitalism - has now lost its prestige, and has been declared null and void in certain countries by the same bourgeoisie which replaced it by authoritarian and frankly dictatorial regimes. Neo-Nazi and neo-fascist gangs, racism, extreme nationalism, xenophobia and jingoism (i.e. political chauvinism) get again cheeky.

The Crisis and the workers' Movement
Life has shown that the general crisis of capitalism is inalienable (an essential trait), that the recovery process which may occur is temporary and will not at all be controlled - as it has not been controlled in the past - in order to face and to resolve the necessities and problems of the employed masses, of the peoples and of the oppressed nations but in order to make the rich richer and to perpetuate the capitalist domination and exploitation. As in the past, the sole, real and definite answer to the crisis is social revolution of the proletariat.
In the era of imperialism, the working classes have to organize and to lead other revolutionary social classes and strata in the struggle for the emancipation of mankind. In the fight against imperialism and for independence, the international working classes, the oppressed peoples and nations flock together. And social revolution gets the nature of national, democratic and anti-imperialist and socialist liberation, according to the tasks which have to be fulfilled in the respective countries.
What is the situation of the workers' movement? What are its principal problems? How is its perspective? Where we should start from?
The workers' movement and the oppressed peoples' and nations' fight for national liberation suffered a hard setback with the events in the USSR and in Eastern Europe, with the collapse of socialism in Albania, with the defection and collapse of the Sandinists, with the betrayal by the command of the Farabundo Marti Front, with Arafat's positions in Palestine, with the furious and well organized anti-communist campaign.
A great confusion was produced among the employed and the peoples, within the lines of the revolutionaries and of the communists. An important ideological and political splintering process developed and, in several sectors, resulted in disheartenment and despondency, even in demoralization.
The broad masses of employed have been submitted to ideas which are strange to their classes. The bourgeois ideology, the social-democratic and revisionist doctrine of salvation, the practice of the yellow trade unions, of the gangsters and charros (= small landowners who use criminal methods), of the fascists, of the opportunists, of the social democracy and the revisionism have seriously penetrated the interior of the working classes and of the peoples' movement, generating a social immobility, an activity confined to trade-unionism, a reformistic fight. This situation comes from afar, got worse when the modern revisionism, which appeared in the fifties, was generalized in the current period. The weakness and deficient activity of the Marxist-Leninist parties contributed to it.
The revolutionary conception of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism, is unknown to the broad masses of the working classes, it is even distorted in many sectors of these classes. The revolutionary political proposals of the communists are not known to large sectors of the working classes. On organizational level, a big part of the working classes is splintered in reformist trade-union organizations which are manipulated by the employers via the AFO-CIOSL by the social democracy on the level of many European countries, even by the Christian Democracy. Revisionism has lost its force on international scale but continues to have an important influence in some countries and, currently, tries to reconstruct the World Federation of Trade-Unions.
In all countries, the working classes have suffered hard blows in their organizational activities and social situation. A plan of "modernization" has been legalized which is cutting the social achievements and the rights of trade-unions. Anti-labour reforms have been dictated, leading to mass redundancies (mass dismissals and oppressing the organizational activities and the right to strike.

The Limits of decline
After 1989, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and the peoples suffered a decline. The International bourgeoisie, world reactionary forces and revisionism dealt heavy blows on the revolutionary movement of the masses.
On the international scale, this decline is running aground. What we observe in some countries and regions now is a revival of the mass movement and organizational activities of the workers at trade-union level. Even important manifestations of the revolutionary armed struggle are developing.
It is an initial revival, a process which tends to express itself in a rise of the struggle of the broad masses but obviously is unsteady.
The situation of the working class and the deepening crisis are opening new perspectives. Despite ideological and political confusion and organisational disintegration, recently there are important manifestations of the struggle of the working class. Although this struggle is mainly focused on defending and improving their material situation, working conditions and social gains, it has an important connotation as it represents a revival of the fight of the working classes, as their target is capitalism and as they strike blows on the hegemony of the bourgeoisie.
The great mobilizations of the working classes in Germany, Great Britain, France, Japan, the general strikes in Belgium and Spain, the actions of the Polish and Italian working classes, the protests and demonstrations of the proletariat in Russia and in the other countries of Eastern Europe are the expressions of a workers' movement which revives and has a great potentiality.
In the immediate past, the working classes of the imperialist and developed capitalist countries were immobilized, "reaping the benefits of the capitalist accumulation", the mobilizations of our days are the prologue of a higher and generalized role of the proletariat, a role we must have in mind.
Historical experience has shown that the working classes continue to be at the centre of this epoch, that they are the fundamental classes in the production process, in the scientific research and development, that they accomplish and must, in the future, accomplish the principal role they have played in the social and political process - the role of leading the fight against capital and for the emancipation of mankind. The development of the productive forces, the great achievements of the technical-scientific revolution will - instead of spiriting the proletariat as a class away how the bourgeoisie and its ideologists pretend - qualify the proletariat and equip it with a better political and organizational capacity.
The great role of the working classes in the historical events of this century, their victories lasting for a long time - October of 1917, fall-down of Fascism, construction of the new society, the Socialist Camp, the collapse of the colonial world, the great mobilizations for democracy and freedom against the imperialist domination and ransacking etc. - witness their role as revolutionary classes.
The last events we have referred to confirm the Marxist thesis that the workers' liberation has to be the workers' task.
The anti-imperialist conscience of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, their mobilization and struggles have important expressions. It is shown all over the globe in the resistance and opposition of the proletariat and of the peoples against the "packages" imposed by the IMF and the World Bank, in the rejection of paying the foreign debt, in the defence of the natural resources, in the solidarity and mutual support between the peoples and nations, it is shown with the weapons in the hand in Somalia, in Chechenia, in Kurdistan, in Philippines, in South Africa, in Columbia, in Peru and in Mexico. In Latin America, it finds its expression in an important popular current and in vigorous mobilizations, especially in the frame of the Encuentros Antiimperialistas (i.e. Anti-Imperialist Meetings) which are animated by us, the Marxist-Leninist forces.
In the anti-imperialist struggle, the proletariat and its party have to organise and lead the peoples and nations in their fight for their liberation.
The fight for democracy and freedom, for human rights against authoritarianism and corruption is exceeding the parliamentary and electoral spheres, is shown in the streets, in the popular revolt and revolutionary insurgency, and requires an exact leading of the revolutionary proletarians.

The Subjects of History
The broad masses' discontent and non-conformity with respect to their situation, to the consequences of the crisis, to the mass unemployment and inflation, to the corrupt and decadent character of the bourgeois society is shown in the desire of change. This desire becomes more extensive, in the adoption of a stronger political conscience with respect to the reasons and responsibles of the crisis and to the role they must play in answer to it, in the revival of the social and political movement of the working classes, of the peasantry and of the youth, in the ethnicities' and nationalities' fight for the defence of their cultural and national identity, in the increase of the oppressed peoples' and nations' anti-imperialist conscience and fight. Obviously, this revival of the popular fight which will become very prompt to a rise of the masses' struggle and to a new revolutionary impetus is shown unequally in different countries.
These actors - the working classes and the other popular sectors which are protagonists of these events - are the social forces of democracy, freedom and revolution. They are the subjects of history, the real leftists (i.e. left wing of society).
From a political point of view, the top of left-wing forces is the political party of the working classes, our Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations which form our lines at the International Conference. We are the left wing because our doctrine and programme represent the most advanced and revolutionary interests of the era, the interests of the proletariat, because in these programmatic drafts the dependent peoples' and nations' most felt desires and aspirations are included, because mankind solely will become emancipated by the liberation of the working classes. Also, the left wing comprises the democratic, patriotic and revolutionary political organizations and public personalities which and who are in opposition to the imperialist domination and fight for social and national liberation.
In some countries of Europe - in Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania -, of Asia - as in some states of India, in Nepal -, of Latin America - as in Venezuela, Brazil and Uruguay -, the electoral processes show a tendency toward the left wing, at a time when the extreme right wing is resurgent and the bourgeoisie is assembling around neo-liberal positions. In almost all countries, the so-called centre redefines itself as being neo-liberal and openly takes the right-wing positions over.
In general, the population and the Labour movement are searching, reacting positively to democratic, progressive electoral positions which present themselves to them as carriers of change, social achievements and the left wing. They demonstrate a tendency of the broad masses towards progressive positions being in opposition to the right wing and to neo-liberalism. In most of the countries, these positions are led by reformist political forces, in the countries of Eastern Europe by the former revisionist parties, in other countries by neo-revisionist positions, recycled by the so-called new leftists.
"The new left wing" is nothing but the old reformist tactics, the well known political ideas which pretend to deviate the resurgence of the Labour movement's and popular masses' desire for change and to dump it into the frame of bourgeois legality, into the reformist fight and into the parameters of the system. It is a question of new figures of social democracy, revisionism and opportunism. In Poland and Bulgaria, it is the matter of the former revisionists who will lead the country to the full restoration of capitalism, equally in Lithuania and Mongolia. In Italy, it is the matter of the old and corrupt revisionist Occheto party. In Brazil, Lula's positions agree with the classical social-democratic plan which has a decisive influence on the perspective of assuming the government. It is the same thing with the Causa Radical (= Radical Matter) of Venezuela and the Encuentro Historico (= Historical Meeting) of Uruguay. It is a question -that is clear- of political forces and their class character: bourgeois and servants of capital. The elections, the working classes and the broad masses which follow them and even certain radicalized political positions and organizations of the petit bourgeoisie are the social forces of revolution which claim for a direction by which they will be led to power.

The Bloc Politics
The exacerbation of the crisis aggravates the inter-monopolist contradictions. The protection of markets and of resources of raw materials and of strategical natural resources, the search for new markets and influence zones, the collapse of the USSR and the dispute about investments, markets and manpower in the former satellites, the necessity to place the surplus of the industrial production, the vehement dispute about a new reorganization of the economic and political forces for a new redivision of the world have put the bloc politics into force.
It is the matter of commercial, monetary, political, military alliances of regional and interregional character. In such a way, different alliances of countries are constituted and reconstituted.
Some of such blocs are of a political and military character and of long duration and are projected more or less stable but nevertheless contain problems and disputes between their members. Other blocs seem to be of much minor stability. Nobody can confirm that the reorganization which is now being produced will be definite. The current development of the events towards these alliances makes these tendencies visible.
The so-called unipolar world, erected on the existence of one super-imperialism, the North American imperialism, does not exist. That is an anti-dialectic hypothesis, incompatible with the existence of imperialism. It is also a theory which pretends to intimidate the peoples and immerse them in powerlessness.
Certainly, with the disintegration of the USSR, the USA remained as the sole superpower in the economic, political and military fields. This situation is transitory, it can be seen emerging in great steps. Germany's and Japan's rhythms of increase and expansion surpass the North American's widely. The European Union seems to play a more preponderant role in tomorrow's world. Russia itself disposes of an important military power and an expansionist bourgeoisie and army. This situation represents a multipolar world, that means: a world in which different imperialist countries and alliances of countries compete in the fight for power and hegemony.
The inter-imperialist contradictions find their expression in all orders and in all continents. They are aggravating in conditions in which the world already has been distributed in influence spheres, restricted areas etc. They can develop much more and exceed the frame of local conflicts and wars and may provoke the explosion of a new world conflagration.
In the recent years, the inter-ethnical and national conflicts have extremely aggravated.
In the former Yugoslavia, the ethnical, religious and national antagonisms have been stoked up by different imperialist powers and have led to a real genocide of the Bosnian peoples. The Balkan Peninsula has been converted into an arena of the different imperialist powers.
A similar situation is shown in almost all former republics of the ex-USSR as well as in various regions and republics of the Russian Federation. For instance, in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Chechenia, the flame of war has caught fire.
In different countries of Africa, tribal differences are poked and real civil wars break out in which the imperialist countries turn out to be the winners by selling weapons, dissecting territories and imposing unconditional governments. Ruanda, Liberia, Angola are examples for that.
Complying with its role as international gendarme, the North American imperialism succeeded in incorporating, in principle, the UN but especially the imperialist countries into the most fatal and warlike actions of the recent years.
All imperialist countries pounced on Iraq in the Gulf War and realized a real genocide among the civilian population. In an equal manner and with the pretext of pacifying the country, they invaded Somalia. In order to "rescue democracy", they invaded Haiti. Yeltsin's Russia is invading Chechenia and imposing terror and genocide.
The map of the world as a whole is full of armed conflicts, the flames of civil war, of national and inter-statal wars reveal a hard convulsed world. The imperialist countries are in the background, manipulate the national interests, poke the territorial disputes, sell arms, demarcate positions between each other.
The generalized war is an alternative to the crisis for demarcating inter-imperialist positions, for letting the industrial overproduction out, for giving the poor exploitation of machinery a way out, for using and developing the armaments industry.

The Role of the vanguard and conscious
The world is experiencing a general crisis which has no answer within the frame of the capitalist system. The only way out of this crisis is the course of the social revolution of the proletariat. This crisis will lead to - and is giving examples of - a new and powerful rise of the broad masses' struggle. It will, during its development, present new revolutionary situations and even revolutionary crises in certain countries and regions. Social revolution is a necessity, is a perspective, a possibility, a probability. Revolution is the current generations' task.
Only too well, the outcomes of the recent years demonstrate a revival of the social movement of the workers and of the peoples but also show its limitations and weakness.
The role of the revolutionary consciousness and the political vanguards are weak and insufficient. The aim, the drafts and the determination of the fights are diffuse for being clarified for the broad masses of the workers. In fact, the social movement is further than the political movement.
The challenge for the revolutionary party of the proletariat is visible: to place itself at the top of the working classes' and the peoples' great movement which is visible all over the globe.
This situation requires a Marxist-Leninist alternative to the crisis.
We, the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations and the International Conference have to give an exact and strategic answer to this question.
This opinion has effect on the strengthening of our parties, on its militant incorporation in the torrent of the social fight, on the organizational activities and struggle of the working classes and the peoples, on their integration in the entire popular movement, not dependent on its provenience and organization, in order to give it a proletarian revolutionary direction and content. It requires a work of theoretical and political elaboration, an open discussion of the organizational problems and the fight of the Labour movement, the old and new phenomena of the imperialist bourgeois domination, the proposals and actions of the social democracy and revisionism. First of all, however, it requires revitalizing the politics and action of the Marxist-Leninist parties.
In this process, the revolutionary party of the proletariat must make efforts to be present in all social and political events on the national and international scale. It must be exact in the marking of the character, the reasons, the effects and the revolutionary direction of the facts. Guided by Marxism-Leninism, it must elaborate tactical proposals which consider the situation and, at the same time, the strategical drafts. In fact, the question is to use the crisis, the economic situation, in order to make progress in the process of accumulation of forces.
In the beginning of a new impetus of the revolutionary fight, our Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations must open and actively participate in the presented theoretical debate. Reactionary forces, the bourgeoisie, social democracy, revisionism, Trotskism and opportunism of all shades come out with their analyses and drafts, claiming for the open way for confusion and splitting.
The working classes, their party and Marxism-Leninism have full validity. Socialism has collapsed in its first great undertaking of transforming the world. However, this setback is temporary. The events and the immediate perspective show this clearly. Marxism-Leninism in its process of elaboration, of directive, of actions and facts has been shown as valid, revolutionary. Each action of the proletariat and the peoples, every new stage and space of development of the productive forces, every revolution have shown the validity of Marxism-Leninism but, at the same time, have enriched it.
Certainly, there exist new phenomena and realities which were unknown to the classical authors of the proletariat, which require new and exact answers. This is the task of the communists of today, of our parties, of the proletariat and the peoples and - that is sure - we shall find and give them.
The theoretical debate must develop among us, among the communists and our parties, but has to express itself also against the distortions produced by reaction and revisionism. It must be shown in the social and political movement of the proletariat and of the peoples.
It is indispensable to continue the fight for the defence of Marxism-Leninism and the exposure of and fight against revisionism and opportunism. It is sure that today's revisionism is that of a fallen-down layer but it is not at all annulled. It tries to regenerate, to be recycled in order to continue its work of ideological splitting of the working classes and peoples. Therefore, we must not give it a ceasefire.
It is necessary that the Marxist-Leninist party intensifies an ideological and political offensive to the ensemble of the workers' movement, that it unrolls propagandist initiatives which give it the possibility to incorporate the scientific socialism into the lives and action of the working classes and peoples.
Indispensable, too, is the construction of own forces of the Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations within the working classes and the popular movement. Those positions must keep the particular conditions of each separate country in mind, but must express themselves as revolutionary trade-union forces, obliged to the fight and unity of the Labour movement, may be currents, tendencies, trade-union centres etc. They must construct themselves on the level of each country and on the international scale, coordinate themselves in the search for organizing the workers.
We communists must work within the yellow trade-unions, in the trade-union centres which are directed by social democracy and revisionism, everywhere the broad masses of workers are, and we must fight to conquer the bases for the revolutionary positions.
The social revolution of the proletariat, first of all in the dependent countries, requires the construction of the alliance of workers and peasants which is based on the great unity of the revolutionary social classes and layers.
Every day in the course of organizing the revolution, the revolutionary workers' movement assumes the fight for the defence of democracy, public liberties and human rights.
The fight against imperialism for the national and social liberation of our peoples requires the international communist movement to organize and lead the fight for the national, ethnical and cultural rights of the oppressed peoples and nations. We have to work in order to prevent imperialism and the national bourgeoisies from distorting and deviating the national fight. Vis-a-vis bourgeois nationalism, we must oppose the fight for national liberation.
The unity of the political and social forces interested in the revolutionary process, in the fight against imperialism for the public liberties and democracy, for solidarity is another great task of the revolutionary workers' movement. We must turn ourselves round the axis of the unity of the patriots and democrats, of the leftists and revolutionaries.
The key for making progress and giving a direction to the revolutionary movement of the working classes and the peoples, for leading the class struggle toward the dictatorship of proletariat requires the strengthening of the own forces of revolution and, first of all, of the revolutionary party of proletariat, of the Communist Marxist-Leninist Party.
The construction of the Communist Party, its close and permanent links with the working classes and the broad masses of workers', its integration in the political life, its work of leading the revolutionary fight of the proletariat and the peoples, its work of forging the unity of the social and political forces interested in revolution, its active participation in organizing the revolutionary violence give it the possibility to comply with its historical role.
The challenge is visible. The crisis makes revolution necessary. We Marxists-Leninists assume this challenge, we have in mind to give the daily alternative of the theoretical and political fight and of the concrete action for organizing the revolution.