On September 20, the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), organised an international seminar as part of the 50th Ogiditis festival in Athens with contributions from over two dozen of our sister communist youth organisations as well as the International Department of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).
The contribution of the YCL-LJC, below, was delivered by our General Secretary, comrade Ivan Byard.
Dear comrades,
Today we address this international seminar of the 50th Ogiditis Festival under the theme “Communist Youth Organizations at the forefront of the struggle against the imperialist war and the anti-people attack of capital.”
We believe that this slogan is relevant to youth, who have nothing to gain from capitalism. Their interests lay in building a new society based on the collective ownership of the means of production and a planned economy, that is, socialism. In October of last year, the YCL-LJC held our Convention. The delegates adopted a new program that affirms the Marxist-Leninst characteristics of our organization. We collectively reached an understanding of the world imperialist system and the place of Canada in the imperialist pyramid. Having ideological clarity and unity has helped our work, in our campaigns and our work in the democratic organizations.
Comrades,
This year marked the 50th anniversary of the April Revolution in Portugal, of the foundation of the Sahrawi anti-imperialist youth organization UJISARIO, and the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of the Military Junta in Greece.
This year also marks 80 years since the siege of Leningrad was raised.
While the survivors of the anti-fascist struggle said “never again,” the Liberal government in Canada attempted to falsify history by bringing a member of a Nazi SS battalion into Parliament to receive a standing ovation.
The Second World War took place in the context of the global structural crisis of capitalism. Capital, seeking new markets, cheap labour forces and control over strategic routes had no choice but to launch a war. As Lenin said one hundred years ago, globalized capitalism is war.
At a meeting of military chiefs this January, the military leader of NATO said “we need a warfighting transformation of NATO.” The juncture we face now is critical, the possibility of global war has to be seriously considered.
The ongoing genocidal attack against Gaza, which is particularly targeting the youth, is just one example of why we need to rid the world of imperialism. We are in solidarity with the youth of Palestine because we have a common enemy, and perhaps more importantly, share a collective goal. We know we have more in common with young people in Palestine than we do with the ruling class of Canada.
The conflict in Sudan is causing incomprehensible cost in human lives. The monopolies will be the beneficiaries of the war in Sudan by opening up the mineral wealth, fertile land, and oil refineries, while the people of Sudan suffer.
The continued economic warfare against the youth and people of Socialist Cuba continues because Cuba is the bulwark of anti-imperialism in our hemisphere.
We should also mention the conflict in Ukraine. Imperialist war is now a reality with the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation. The heightening of this conflict has devastating effects for working people not only in Ukraine and the Russian Federation but around the world as the region is a major exporter of essentials like wheat, fertilizer, and natural gas.
The Canadian state has played the role of warmonger. The federal government has been ratcheting up the military budget for years as part of NATO’s arms race. The Canadian state has spent billions arming and training forces since the conflict started. The class that the state represents benefits from these policies. Canadian bourgeois monopolies benefit from increased demand for wheat, pork, potash, and natural gas.
We are here to say that the only way to put an end to all this is by strengthening the fightback in our own country. Fighting the system that requires war is the best way to put an end to these wars.
We have come here to assure you that the Young Communist League – Ligue de la jeunesse communiste will, with unity and militancy, build the class consciousness of young workers and students and bring them into the cause of the working class.
We are in a context where the action of a strong communist movement is more necessary than ever in order to direct the struggle. Capitalism has shown it cannot provide anything other than war, unemployment, precariousness, environmental destruction, and endless crises.
Last October, our 29th Central Convention brought delegates from everywhere across the country to discuss how, “as the YCL-LJC, to give the youth struggle a sense of direction and perspective.” This Convention was held in a difficult moment for the youth in Canada, who are suffering from inflation and stagnant wages, attacks on organized labour, on democratic rights such as the right to unionize and strike, record breaking youth underemployment, as well as ever-higher tuition fees are all challenges that we are facing right now. It has been said that for the first time in our modern history, our generation will live in worse conditions than our parents.
But yet, this doesn’t stop the YCL-LJC from growing and from taking an active part in the struggle. Our organization keeps growing quantitatively and qualitatively. We should also say that despite the worsening attacks of capital on the youth, important struggles are taking place across Canada which receive full support and participation from the YCL-LJC.
From the annual day of action for free education every November to the campus encampments in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation, youth have been participating in major labour mobilization across the country, along with union drives at three Amazon warehouses.
The Common Front in Quebec featured half a million workers on strike across many different sectors. We see from this that workers are prepared to fight. It is among them, the working-class youth, that we have to promote our political program, for a better world without exploitation, crises, wars and unemployment. And this world cannot be achieved in any other way than through building socialism.
Comrades,
To quote from Tim Buck, the historic leader of the Communist party of Canada: Lenin freed us from the then popular Kautskyite conception that the decisive characteristic of imperialism was “striving for annexations”; that what constituted imperialism was solely possession of colonies and the oppression of their peoples. For the first time we recognized clearly the significance of Lenin’s repeated emphasis upon the fact that imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism.
Finally, we would like to thank you for letting us bring these perspectives to the international seminar. Thank you to our hosts KNE and congratulations on 50 years of the Ogiditis festival.
With the working-class youth and popular masses, we will strengthen and reinforce the YCL-LJC. For a life with a future, for socialism in our lifetime!