500 Delegates in CPC Shenzhen Meeting with World Parties

Workshop Commemorating the 200th Birthday of Karl Marx 

(100 years of communist party and 200 of Marx) 

As an exceptional birthday action 5.5. to commemorate Karl Marx, in the Finnish city of Pori, works of Marx were read aloud at the local market square, in the heart of the city. 

We were local party cadres and I at the market square. We told the shoppers that neoliberal economic policies have decisively contributed to the "resurrection" of Marx as a popular phenomenon. The bourgeoisie with its anti-human and anti-worker policy make current situation unbearable for the working class. We the working class, have to wake up, see our situation and Yes, like Marx said, we have to unite us! 

Few weeks ago, I participated in Russia in a Marx-seminar. The chairperson of the Communist Party of Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov said it clearly in Moscow that Marx is the ideological hammer of the workers. We political leaders and political secretaries, we who organize our members and cadres must inspire our comrades to be the hammers and help the hammers to recruit others unsatisfied with current situation to construct structurally new society. 

*** 

There is huge blind spot in Finnish political landscape. Current political elite and all parliamentarian parties have accepted the logics of the neoliberal. The left in the parliament as well the right use working class rhetoric's but join in same governments creating together anti-worker and anti-human austerity policy.   

From working class point of view there is need for an honest proletarian party that does not sell its ideology to the bourgeois aims. There is need for a Marxist and Leninist party. That is why we have the Communist Party of Finland.  

Our goal is a new civilization and a new society where the following features prevail: 

- Class oriented feminism and humanism in which the human being is the aim of social progress and architect of his/her own history and emancipation. 

- The right of workers' and working communities to decide about the results of their work and distribute them equitably, which requires forms of public ownership of banks and of the major means of production; 

- Rule of people and broad self-government based on democratic rights, such as the freedom of speech and expression, free elections, right to strike and rights of political parties and civic movements; 

- Implementing basic rights of every individual, full employment and equality of all genders and sexual orientation; 

- Right to national self-determination, international cooperation on equal basis and worldwide solidarity; 

- Ecologically sustainable development; 

- Just and lasting peace; 

- Technological, scientific and cultural development for the benefit of the human being and as common wealth of humankind as a whole. 

To put it in short form. From the Communist Party of Finland point of view there is need for Marxism, theory, debate and practical work. A lot depends on the consciousness of the worker and the working class.   
 
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The Communist Party of Finland recently published a new edition of the Karl Marx Capital. Before that students and Marx-hungry had to search Capital in flea markets and antique stores. "Students told us that the books were in libraries but sold out in stores for decades. Now you find it in the web store of the party and in 14 party circles around the country.  

During this Year 2018 - 200 years of Marx, the CPF and party newspaper Tiedonantaja have organized theoretical and intellectual debates and seminars on occasion of Marx 200 with organizations like the Finnish Karl Marx Society, The Democratic Civic Association (DCA), Transform, European Left and Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.   
 

Practically all seats of all events have been occupied. Marx interests people.  

We in the party, need to organize us in learning processes of many levels. We have some workshops where we study Marx. We struggle to get better in organizing more sturdy groups around the country.  

In the trade unions and in the workplaces surely are workers that are honestly interested in basic questions of labor, politics and economy. Today the unions provide more activities to relax from the hard work than to understand why the working class is working hard.   

*** 

I am Chairperson of the Communist Party of Finland since 2013. Besides being a political leader, I am also conceptual artist graduated with Master’s degree from the Fine Arts Academy of Finland with grant studies background in the New York State University at Albany and public art studies in the Escuela Esmeralda of Mexico.  

I can share here a Finnish, a communist and a Performance Artist´s perspective on Marxism of the 21 Century and the Future for World Socialism. Two communists Riitta Häkälä and I JP (Juha-Pekka) Väisänen, two Finnish artists and comrades - we started to use art and Marx Capital as tool of political awakening. We are touring our country Finland doing these public readings of Marx.  We have a mission. Bring politics, Marx and class consciousness where the people are. We have a dream to read Marx on the Moscow Read Square and on the Great Wall of China – our mission is not a national one. We like all communist and the mission of communists is international from its character. 

What do we actually do?  We go outside in the city. We put a long table, two chairs in the street, park or any kind of public space. On top of the table we always have a red cloth. We sit down and start to read Capital. Soon we are discussing a Marxist topic together. Soon someone comes and asks what we are doing. And that´s when we ask the person interested in our action exactly the same Marxist topic we were just discussing together. We invite the people into a Marxist street debate.   

We consider our doing is political art. Our statement is clear. Marx belongs to everybody. Marx is not only relevant for the economists, but for everyone at a time "when the robots may snatch your job", and "the robots do not need social security" Our artist collective welcomes president Xi initiative of Marx reading become a habit, most welcome.  

To end my intervention, I´d like to show three pictures of Marx-performances. Please take a look. 

(Presentation of 3 Marx-performance pictures )