Thank You for the Revolution – New Steps for International Class Struggle

November 7, 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the world’s first socialist state. I wish to commemorate this occasion with my text. World´s communist movement, Soviet Union and the revolution’s legacy – we communists from all over the world owe our Red-DNA to the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Thank You for the Revolution

I wish to thank the organizers for such an important event. Comrades, we are constructing something highly important - an international forum of left forces.

The CPF was born of the lessons drawn from the old workers' party and the 1918 revolution of the Finnish working people. Although it had to operate underground and its members were persecuted, the Party defended the cause of peace, the people of Finland, democracy, socialism and humanity. Following its legalization after the wars, the CPF and the people's democratic movement started paving the way to a new political direction. The policy of the CPF has been at the origin of numerous democratic and social reforms. Next Year we can celebrate 100 years of the Communist Party of Finland.

Ugly Face

Capitalism has many true faces. The EU with its capitalist structure is a clear example of an antihuman, antiproletarian and antipeace functionary figure. From a proletarian perspective the EU is a big fat business man dressed in a suite of false liberties. The EU is a unpleasant surprise of harsh militarism covered with white promises of peace.  The EU is a sweet cake of democracy baked with bitter elements of “business first” -recipes.

The Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia was the first in history to open the road for building a socialist society free of exploitation. The Soviet Union and the other countries that had been building socialism have been pioneers of job security and achievement of many other basic rights. They proved that running the economy does not necessitate capitalist supremacy.

The collapse of the Soviet Union did not mean the death of the developed communist movement inspired by the ideals of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. It has not made void the achievements of the struggle carried on by communists and other leftists in different countries, often in very difficult circumstances. There still exist countries the aim of which is building socialism. Movements rejecting capitalism and aiming at socialism are rising again!

Facing the Future

New future for the international proletariat is urgently needed. Today too, distribution of the value and surplus created by workers, is decided in the class struggle where labor and capital, exploited and exploiters, subjugated and subjugators are confronted. Bread, houses and work is urgently needed. Work and basic security is urgently needed.

Mass unemployment and precarious jobs, the lack of housing at affordable prices, the depopulation of the countryside and widespread poverty show how the market controlled by big business and neoliberal politics deprive many people of the possibility to have a decent life, how they break human relations and shatter people's hopes. This means wasting resources, on the reverse side of which one finds casino economy, export of capital and bragging consumption. Human needs are inferiorated to the market.

Theories, talks and forums like this Moscow-Forum, with proletarian visions and Marxism, demand us to come out with concrete ideas of collaboration. Proletarian unity is urgently needed.

Power in Finland, Europe and globally, is concentrated in the hands of a small elite formed by the major owners and directors of banks and corporations, the Confederation of the Finnish Industry and Employers, the central ministries, the President of the Republic as well as the top officials of the European Union and the State. This elite also accepts the support of trade union leaders who adapt themselves to the market ideology.

The serious problems regarding the development in Finland and the world cannot be solved if politics are allowed to be taken over by the market and if they are reduced to the power game of politicians. We need policies where human beings are not tools, but are the policy-maker and its raison-d’être. We do not imagine that we could offer ready-made recipes and plan everything in advance. We want to seek and implement alternatives together with other people, trade unions and civic movements and political parties who desire change.

The CPF wishes to develop common action against neoliberalism and big capital in order to change the political line, to expand the rights of working people and the poor, to restrict the power of big capital, in favor of sustainable development and peace and to pave the way towards socialism.

Proletariat will rise again

Right wing, bourgeois hegemony and market dictatorship is the worst enemy of the proletariat, our political machine and our fight for a better world.

We, the working class have only one direction and that is forward!  Successful step forward have to be based on the challenging idea of a real collaboration with the progressive parties, communist and worker’s parties, the left and ecologically progressive parties and with the political parties and the civil societies functionaries, NGO´s, mass movements, peace-movements, syndicates, LGTBI-sexual minorities networks, workers unions, artists, intellectuals and all the variety of the ones and many unsatisfied with political elite, shovist politics, the patriarcat, market dictatorship and capitalism.

Today´s steps in breakthrough towards socialism

We communists trust in the human being. We trust in people's ability to solve problems, to work together, to love and to create something new. The knowledge and awareness of people regarding many issues have grown. We understand that good will alone is not enough to build a better world. In order to eliminate problems, we need structural social changes, planned action and - as experience has shown - also a resolute struggle against the power of big business, capitalism and against the political Right.

From a Finnish class oriented and communist perspective the rise of the proletariat and new international forum of left forces can make a breakthrough towards socialism. 

The power of big capitalist enterprises and financial institutions forms an obstacle to the reasonable, equitable and ecologically sustainable development of our countries. Also, the biggest dangers and risks that humankind is faced with are related to the capitalist method of production and to the logic of capital, by which this production is determined. Capitalism is a barrier to human freedom, to people's well-being and a threat to the future of humankind.

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

- Humanism in which the human being is the aim of social progress and architect of his/her own history and emansiptaion.

- 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.

Long live the Great October Revolution!

Long live International Class Struggle

Long live Peace, Friendship and Solidarity!