Greetings to SLP Congress from KPML(r) Sweden
On behalf of the CC of the Communist Party [ KPML(r)] in Sweden, we send your Congress our comradely greetings.
It is with great interest and expectations that we have followed the birth and development of the SLP in Britain. A genuinely proletarian party to organise the working class is more needed now than ever, in your country as well as in all other capitalist countries.
The history of the class struggle of the British working class is both long and filled with numerous courageous and proud moments. From the General Strike of 1926 to the Miners’ year-long fight in 1984-85 and the Liverpool dockers in the 90s, to mention only a few, but vastly important examples.
These struggles, as well as many others, also underlined the necessary lessons of unity among workers in their fight. But also that the class enemy, capitalism and imperialism, behaves in similar ways in every country. To build international solidarity and support among workers is therefore an important task.
Also in Sweden the bourgeois parties and the monopoly capitalists often refer to Britain these days. They talk about Thatcher-ism and Blairism as ideals, when they attack the welfare state, the trade unions and workers’ rights; when they advocate privatisations, cutting back public services, etc.etc.
They say that they learn a lot from their heroes – Mrs Thatcher and Mr.Blair. Our capitalists point to Britain, and say: That’s a country that really understands what is meant by the “freedom of market forces”. As a matter of fact the Swedish social democrats hired New Labour’s strategists to lead their own campaign in our last general election in 1998. They wanted to find out how New Labour could so successfully betray the workers’ interests – and get away with it, at least for the moment.
Comrades, your proletarian and class struggle party is sorely needed, as a prerequisite for changing the conditions of the British working class. We all know that only by acting collectively, organised and with a clear socialist strategy, can we move forward and fight neo-liberalism, the European Union’s ‘freedom of capital’. Our class enemy prefers to talk about globalisation, but in reality it is the same old imperialist exploitation and oppression.
We wish you all success in your Congress, your debates and decisions.
In the name of proletarian internationalism, from Teddy-John Frank, KPML(r) International Secretary.