Dear comrades and friends,
First, I would like to thank the comrades of the Korean Association of Social Scientists for allowing me to address this meeting. I would also like to send a warm revolutionary greeting to all the brotherly Korean people who are struggling to build a powerful and prosperous socialist country on their land, together with my best wishes to you of success in all fields of activity.
The question of sovereignty has always been a central question in the international affairs of the modern world. But never as nowadays, solving this question has been so crucial and indispensable for the rebirth of the international communist movement and the progress of the cause of global independence.
The imperialist forces, the dominationists and their lackeys, are making a great fuss about “sovereignty”, arbitrarily linking this concept to fascism and burgeois nationalism. This serves to them as an excuse to preach an eternal submission of the people's masses to imperialism, namely, to US and EU imperialism, as well as to their reactionary and decadent culture. Their main aim is to corrupt youth by instilling them illusions about capitalism and burgeois lifestyle, by spreading misleading propaganda about “Erasmus Generation” when actually only 0.4% of university population can afford the costs of participation to this project. “Freedom of travelling” and “freedom of movement of people” are actually privileges reserved to who has money to do that: I do not know if I am the only one having noticed it, but in my town, since little more than a decade, a lot of people choose to remain at home and not to travel abroad, because the capitalist crisis is advancing and haunting them as members of the people's masses. The most zealous people in spreading this ideological poison are to be found among the burgeois “Left”, the left wing of the imperialist burgeoisie: they are the most fanatical supporters of “globalization”, “human rights”, market economy, cosmopolitism and liberalism both in economy and morality. They have since long given up the defense of the workers' rights to vow loyalty to great banks, monopoly capitalists and world imperialism.
On the other side, we have the reactionary Right wing, which let loose a lot of empty, demagogical words about “patriotism”, “defense of the nation” and “sovereignty”. I am from Italy and in my country these questions are on the order of the day, especially since the government of the 5 Star Movement and the League of Matteo Salvini was formed after the elections of March 4, 2018 and in these days, too, when this government is going to collapse. Salvini has especially been keen about “sovereignty”, but what he did was, essentially, submission to US imperialism and Israeli Zionism. His “struggle” against the European Union was merely aimed at currying favour with his American master. For example, one of his favourite slogans is “Italians first!”; notwithstanding this, tens of thousands of Italian workers have been deprived of their jobs because foreign capitalist bosses took over their factories, while others just shut them down in order to engage in financial speculation. So, what Italians should come “first” in Salvini's rhetoric? If there is a question to this answer (and I know there is!), then his slogan should be refurbished into: “Rich Italians first!”. The struggle of we communists in Italy consists in bringing the people's masses to understand by their social practice the fallacies of the new right-wing forces' propaganda, by rallying and mobilizing the masses, even pushing them to demand the government to respect its progressive promises it made one year ago to be elected. This will show them the impossibility to get a radical improving of their standard of living under the capitalist system. Having analyzed the composition and the characteristics of the masses' mobilization in Italy, we concluded that we must rely on the existing workers' and people's organizations, struggle to have new ones created and co-ordinate them to make them act as new public
authorities, working as a self-imposed “government from below”. This will create both the objective and subjective conditions to make socialist revolution advance, until the establishment of a socialist system in our country.
I often say, because it is the first thing I noticed when I began to study the DPRK and the Juche idea after my visit to the country in 2015, that the present situation in the communist movement is very similar to that of Korea in the 1930s. We are confronted with a lot of deviations, such as dogmatism, revisionism and flunkeyism. Many people look at the USA and the EU as bulwarks of “democracy”, while others, seeing the deception and the fallacy of this viewpoint, hope day and night that other superpowers like Russia or China will bring us freedom and independence from the imperialist yoke. Others just stick to the already existing prepositions and the preceding revolutionary theory of the working class, denying or pretending not to see what they do not find in Marx's, Lenin's or Mao Tse-tung's works. It is precisely for this reason that studying the brilliant theory of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is of particular importance for us: rebuking these wrong attitudes in the course of revolutionary practice, we clearly remember the accomplishments by President Kim Il Sung who refuted those who, after the Liberation of Korea, preached the creation of US-style “democracy” rather than a Soviet-type dictatorship of the proletariat. The struggle of the Korean people to defend and apply the Juche idea is an example for all of us, and it is certainly not a case that in these last years the dissemination and study of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is gaining momentum. We in the Italy-DPRK Association of Friendship and Solidarity are translating a lot of works by the great leaders of socialist Korea and disseminating them on our websites and social platforms with excellent outcomes and great sharing. Our goal is not only to spread the revolutionary ideas of President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il, but to provide an ideological base to overcome opportunism, revisionism, dogmatism and flunkeyism in our country, to make our people conscious that the future and destiny of Italy depend on them only. Only we, Italians, can shape the destiny of our country and choose our future, if we act as masters of them. Dependence and reliance on others, as our history shows, just brought and bring about the ruin of our nation, our culture, our country. Moreover, the present times pose a lot of questions which could not be dealt with or resolved by the preceding revolutionary theory of the working class; it is for this reason that Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, which dialectically evolved and developed it by making the communist thought reach a new, higher stage, is the most scientific, advanced and developed revolutionary theory of our era. It is for this reason that studying it is imperative for every communist which wants to be active protagonist and leader of the revolutionary struggle which is mounting throughout Europe.
President Kim Il Sung directed great attention, especially in the last years of his life, to the question of sovereignty and the struggle of the European peoples to achieve it. He said to the General Secretary of the Labour Party of Ireland visiting Pyongyang in 1988:
«You have just said that capitalist countries in Europe assert more strongly than before that they should pursue policies by their own decisions, so the Communist and Workers' Parties in capitalist countries must pursue their countries' independence as their immediate fighting tasks.
Any party must, first of all, free its country from any foreign domination, enabling it to exercise complete political sovereignty. It is very important to ensure the country's political independence. Therefore parties in capitalist countries must struggle to free their countries from the control of great powers and win complete political independence. In this struggle they must form a common front with all patriotic forces.
In order to establish a socialist system, you should begin with the struggle to free your
country from the control of great powers and make it independent. I think this is your first and foremost task.»
These precious indications, made just 31 years ago, reveal all their actuality, vitality and importance for our struggle for independence, sovereignty and socialism. We must not fear improper accusation of “nationalism”, since the communist theory, thanks to the tireless efforts of the genial thinker, Chairman Kim Jong Il, definitively clarified this question, too, in 2002. He said:
«No one will be happy with the sovereignty and honour of his or her nation being trampled upon and national character disregarded. It is the common ideological feeling and psychology of the members of a nation to love their nation, cherish its characteristics and interests, and yearn for its prosperity. Nationalism reflects this feeling and psychology. In other words, nationalism is an ideology that advocates love for the nation and defence of its interests. Since people carve out their destiny while living within the nation-state as a unit, genuine nationalism constitutes patriotism. The progressive nature of nationalism lies in the fact that it is a patriotic ideology which advocates the defence of national interests.
…
We should distinguish clearly between true nationalism that loves the nation and defends its interests and burgeois nationalism that advocates the interests only of the burgeois class. Burgeois nationalism reveals itself as national egoism, national exclusivism and big-power chauvinism in the relationship between countries and nations; it is reactionary in that it creates antagonism and disagreement between countries and nations, and checks the development of friendly relations between the various peoples of the world.»
Revolutionary theory is so developed, and revolutionary history so rich, that there is no more need of a Communist International directing world revolution: every party has now all the instruments to lead in full autonomy the revolution in its country. It is up to that party itself acquire them and enhancing the spiritual strength of the masses to lead the revolution to victory. Some dogmatists and revisionists are now trying to convince communists that a Communist International is essential: this is tantamount to wait for the revolution to be imported from outside. This means paralyzing the revolutionary forces of the country. It is a noxious wait-and-see tendency and we must resolutely smash it. «The masters of the revolution in a country is the people of that country»: this is a great Kimilsungist principle that the Workers' Party of Korea invariably held up throughout its history. It is what it allowed it to emerge victorious in the anti-revisionist struggle it fought in the 1960s against Krushchevite revisionism and in the inner struggle against the line pursued by the anti-Party factionalist counterrevolutionary elements in the 1950s and the 1960s.
What, then, does “struggle for sovereignty in Europe” means? Keeping in mind that the main EU countries are imperialist countries (that is to say, capitalist countries at the peak of their development), and that among imperialist countries themselves a strict hierarchical system exists, struggling for sovereignty means stamping out NATO military bases and smashing the Economic Monetary Union, defending the national productive apparatus from the shutting down and relocations of factories, nationalizing the main levers of it (starting from the big banks) and making them run in the interests and under the control of workers. It means rejecting all treaties and pacts detrimental to the interests of the people, it means defending the environment from the exploiting of multinational corporations. It means exploiting the contradictions between imperialist groups in the interests of our common cause,
creating tens of Brexits all around Europe, but without Theresa Mays, Boris Johnsons and other representants of capitalist exploiting class.
Why, eventually, should we uphold the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism? Because Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the highest stage communists science reached until today. In analyzing and evaluating Marxism-Leninism, Chairman Kim Jong Il always kept right and principled positions, without deviating either into nihilism or into dogmatism. Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the most perfect and dialectical evolution of Marxism-Leninism, just as Marxism was the scientific, superior evolution of Hegelism. I think the contributions of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism to the enrichment of communist science can be resumed as follows:
The main role of man in revolution and construction;
The definition of independence, creativity and consciousness as fundamental attributes of the social being who autonomously shape its destiny;
The role of the leader in the revolutionary process and socialist construction;
The new definition of the national question and the essence and meaning of nationalism;
The reconditioning on scientifical and concrete tracks of dialectical materialism and the principle of unity and struggle of opposites;
The new, creative definition on a practical base of the issue of the leading class of revolution and the criterion of class membership;
Independence as a staple of every action of the communist party, both on internal and external fronts;
The question of succession: the leader must not confine himself to inherit the ideological legacy of his predecessor, but also and primarily acquire his moral traits and virtues;
Communists lead the revolution basing themselves on their own forces and under their own responsibility and starting from the specifical traits of the context in which they work, not on order of someone else.
The great leaders always said that this is the era of independence: they did not flinch from this belief even when socialism collapsed in a number of countries. On the contrary, they provided the most scientifical analysis ever seen right in those years. Whether one has conscience of it or not, revolution today is waged according to the principles of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, and this proves more than any philosophical dissertation the scientific character of this theory!
Long live the glorious DPRK, led by the Workers' Party of Korea with comrade Kim Jong Un at the helm!
Long live the invincible friendship between the Korean and the Italian people, between Korea and Europe!
Long live the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism!
No comments:
Post a Comment