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An Interview with Mr. Stefan Engel Chairman of MLPD (Germany)

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Interview of Shakir Ali, Syed, Frankfurt with Stefan Engel, Chairman of the MLPD on March 2nd 2007

Question: First of all, we would like you to present a short overview on the history of the communist movement in Germany?

Answer Stefan Engel:
Since the times of Marx and Engels, the German working class had communist parties.
In 1868 the SPD (Social-Democratic Party) emerged from this process. For decades it was a big mass party, which was banned for 7 years (in the 1880s) under chancellor Bismarck (social security systems were established in order to deceive the masses), and it was represented in the German parliament. Its most famous leaders were August Bebel, Wilhelm and Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky. The SPD betrayed the line of proletarian Internationalism and took sides with the aggressive German imperialism when approving the war loans for World War I. Karl Kautsky and others became leaders of revisionism. In 1918/1919 in the context of the November Revolution, the SPD-Leadership played a decisive role in preventing a revolution and smashing the revolutionary movement. The SPD became a monopoly party and a ruling party, and until the present day embodies an aggressive anticommunism. The most famous leaders were Friedrich Ebert (President in the twenties), Kurt Schumacher (chairman after World War II), Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schr?der (each chancellor of Germany after 1969)
As a consequence of this betrayal by the SPD the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) was founded on 31.12.1917/1.1.1918 ? under the leadership of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (they did not agree to the betrayal in 1914 either). Shortly after that both were murdered. The KPD became a mass party in Germany until 1933 and was the second biggest revolutionary party (right after the CPSU). Its most famous leaders were Cara Zetkin, Ernst Th?lmann.... Crushing the KPD and thus preventing a revolutionary development was the essential aim of the fascist Hitler-dictatorship 1933 on the instructions of the German monopolies. After 12 years of illegal work the KPD was legally refounded after 1945.
In Eastern Germany the KPD and the SPD merged to form the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) in 1947. In the aftermath of the Twentieth Party Congress of the CPSU the SED degenerated into a party of modern revisionism.
In Western Germany the KPD was banned by the Adenauer government in 1956. Illegal work continued until 1968. Due to the dependency on the SED the KPD degenerated into a revisionist party. This development was nurtured by a long-lasting phase of reforms ?from above? through the monopolies in combination with a long-time economic upswing and the development of petty-bourgeois living conditions even among the working class in the 50ies and 60ies. This was the breeding ground for reformism with its ideology of class collaboration and class conciliation corroding the class consciousness of the German working class.
In 1968, the DKP (German Communist Party) emerged from the KPD-West. From the very start this was a revisionist party dependent on the SED. With the collapse of the GDR and the dissolution of the SED, the DKP broke down as well. Since then it plays hardly any role in Germany.
In 1990 the SED dissolved and transformed itself into the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism). This left-reformist party is mainly active in eastern Germany, also being part of regional governments in eastern Germany and Berlin where it supports monopoly policies. Thus, it has become a state-supporting monopoly party. It is the main carrier for modern revisionism in Germany. In 2006/2007 it merged with a small left-reformist Western German group to form ?Die Linke? (the left). Even the formal claim to socialism was deleted from the name and the program.
As a reaction to the dissolution of the KPD and the foundation of the revisionist DKP several smaller Marxist-Leninist organizations arose after 1968. Almost all of them fell apart soon after, because the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking was predominant in their mostly petty-bourgeois leadership. Only the MLPD (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany) developed into a nationwide and internationally important revolutionary party of a new type on the basis of the proletarian mode of thinking. It was founded in 1982. Its most important representatives are Willi Dickhut (1904 to 1992) and Stefan Engel (born 1954).

Question: What is the main reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Answer Stefan Engel:
A petty-bourgeois bureaucracy with the party membership book of the CPSU under the leadership of Khrushchev took power in the Soviet Union with the 20th Party Congress in 1956. As a new bourgeoisie it oppressed and exploited the people. Step by step it revised Marxism-Leninism and established a bureaucratic capitalism ? a state-monopoly capitalism of a new kind. Under Brezhnev it developed into social imperialism (Angola, Ethiopia, aggression against Afghanistan?).

The main reason was the advance and final domination of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking among the leading officials in the party, state and economy: Striving for privileges, nepotism, careerism, abuse of power, enrichment, abuse of authority?

Bureaucratic state-monopoly capitalism destroyed the giant economic, technical and social achievements of the socialist development and undermined the class consciousness. The greed for bonuses and foreign currency lead to a blind mentality of ?making tons? (only mass production counts, no new technological developments), to rigid bureaucratic-capitalist production relations, that were visibly not equal to imperialist competition. Especially in the development of micro-electronics and automation the Soviet Union fell far behind the rapid development in the West. In comparison to the USA, the average productivity sank to 40 - in agriculture even to 20-25. The megalomaniacal armament for the benefit of an imperialist role used up enormous amounts of economic potential (13-15 of the gross national product ? in the USA it was ?only? 5) and accelerated the economic and social decay. The economic and political collapse was only a matter of time. It was bureaucratic capitalism that collapsed, not socialism.

Question: What is the present situation in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reorganization of international production (?globalization?)?

Answer Stefan Engel:
The economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was accompanied by a massive anti-communist campaign under the slogan: ?Socialism/Communism has been destroyed definitely ? capitalism is the end of history.? This gave modern anti-communism fresh impetus.

At the same time, when the end of reforms from above in Western Germany had become obvious, the transition to the workers offensive began in the eighties with several major actions of the workers. This development continued in the nineties under the growing influence of the MLPD.

With the breakdown of the Soviet-led economic block CMEA in 1991, a new and unified world market emerged as the foundation for an economic and political reorganization of the world. Its economic essence was the reorganisation of international production. This led to a gigantic leap in the development of the productive forces worldwide. The media calls this ?globalization?, as if it were a harmless process in the worldwide interpenetration of production, distribution and labor market.
The actual background is the rapid development of worldwide finance capital with 500 worldwide operating international supermonopolies, which have divided up the world market among each other more and more. The greater part of the production of the leading German monopolies is being transferred to those foreign regions where state subsidies (for example, Eastern Europe through the EU), cheap and nearby raw materials, nearby markets, cheap labor, low social and environmental standards and, therefore, maximum profits can be expected. This has led to the enormous intensification of the worldwide competitive struggle. Capital is now flowing at a rapid pace only to those places where maximum returns of 15 and more can be expected.
This has grave consequences:
1.   Worldwide production comes into conflict with the national-state organization of capitalism. National protective measures and entire economies and markets were destroyed. That leads to the tendency of the national states losing economic importance, although their political power is being built up further. The state budgets are being mercilessly plundered as the service providers of the international monopolies. The world is crying out for a new international political order; however, this is not possible under the dictate of worldwide finance capital.
2.   Because of international competition, the living and working conditions of the masses of people, their wages, social systems, further state structures are being dismantled and destroyed to an unprecedented extent, and this often takes on the same forms an international scale. The working class is subject to an enormous international competition.
3.   All problems have intensified universally on a worldwide level: worldwide economic structural crisis, which paves the way to new crises of overproduction, the threat of war, the impending global environmental catastrophe, a dramatic increase in mass misery, the chronic crisis of the bourgeois family system, latent political crises?in short, a new international disorder has set in.
4.   The all-round intensification of the fundamental contradictions on a worldwide scale has ushered in a new 5th phase of the general crisis of capitalism since the beginning of the 1990?s.

At the same time the material conditions for a worldwide solution have emerged and have been accelerated.
o The modern productive forces have developed enormously and are spread over the entire world.
o That led to the emergence of an international industrial proletariat which alone is capable of controlling these productive forces and successfully opposing and smashing these international monopolies.
o Only an international revolution can bring about a solution for the present problems, in the united socialist states of the world.
The international working-class movement has experienced enormous changes in its living and fighting conditions. They can and must lead the struggle
-     against the massively increased exploitation in the factories,
-     against the massive destruction of jobs and plant closures,
-     against a new tendency toward the relative and absolute impoverishment of growing sectors of the working-class, even in the highly developed countries and among those who are still at work.
-     against the destruction of social and societal achievements along with the broad masses of people against their governments.

This requires a higher degree of class consciousness, international organization and fighting power. The international solidarity of the working class and the workforce of the individual enterprises against the international competitive struggle of the monopolies is the order of the day. The struggles must be led worldwide for unified demands and standards; the MLPD upholds the demand for the 30-hour workweek with full wage compensation, for equal social standards, etc.
Today such a struggle is only possible if the masses learn to cope with the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking. That is because the ruling powers have developed an entire system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking in order to undermine class consciousness and tie the masses to capitalism.

It is of utmost importance that the spontaneously developing worldwide protest against the results of the reorganization of international production be led, organized and coordinated independently and be consciously developed to a higher level. This is exactly what the NGO?s are supposed to undermine and prevent with their policy of acting on the masses? behalf. Since the beginning of the 1990?s, the imperialists have used them directly for this purpose. The reformists in all countries as well try to weaken resistance and channel it
-           through nationalist thinking in terms of one?s own location and in the interest of ?one?s own? national monopolies,
-           through a negative policy of class collaboration in order to make it appealing to the masses to accept worsening conditions without putting up resistance.

In Germany - but also in all other western European countries - a massive loss of confidence developed not only in the bourgeois parties, but also in the entire bourgeois system in the last years. The federal elections in 2005 were an expression of that: the turnout of voters reached a low. None of the two bourgeois blocks could achieve a majority. The PDS considerably gained votes and reached its level of former elections. The MLPD increased its votes tenfold on still a low level. That is expression of a clear left trend in the population which lasts until today. Due to the parliamentary election system (five-percent rule...), existing illusions about the possibilities of bourgeois parliamentarism as well as media enhancing the status of the PDS on a grand scale, especially the PDS/LINKSPARTEI benefited from this process as regards seats in parliament. However, it had lost votes in those places where the masses had already gained experiences with its monopoly policies as a member of the state governments. Parlamentarism is still a secondary scene of the class struggle for MLPD.

Overcoming reformist and revisionist illusions in close connection with the fight against modern anticommunism is the precondition for a revolutionary change.

Unlike the importance of the Soviet Union until 1956 and the Peoples Republic of China under Mao Tsetung until 1976 the international Marxist-Leninist movement today does not have a revolutionary center and bulwark any more. That can and must be replaced by the consciously organized cohesion and the organization of the international revolutionary movement with the international industrial proletariat as leading force of national and social liberation.

US-imperialism is suffering its second historical defeat (after Vietnam) in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will weaken it worldwide. That proves:
-     Even under todays conditions without a socialist center, imperialism is not superior and unassailable, but an unsoundly based colossus which has to admit defeat.
-     Even in relatively underdeveloped countries with different peoples and cultures and without a Marxist-Leninist mass party they are able to repel imperialism with its full military arsenal - even though not defeat it and establish a liberated society.
-     The way of the liberation of humanity from exploitation and imperialist oppression is stronger than imperialism!

Question: Which role does the EU play in international politics, and which do the communist and left parties in the EU play?

The EU has expanded and become stronger - economically, politically as well as militarily - in order to win a worldwide leading role for the European monopolies in the reorganization of international production. This was first in competition with the US monopolies; in the meantime, however, they compete more and more with the aggressive Chinese and Indian monopolies.
With the new EU constitution, which has been rejected by the masses up to now, the framework for a unified foreign and military policy shall be created, which aims at playing a greater political and military role in the world.

A ?European Left? as a unified force does not exist:
-     In all of Europe, the social-democratic forces play a leading role in implementing the imperialist EU policies, as for example, the German industrial commissioner G. Verheugen (SPD). Their adherents in the trade union and works councils? leaderships of the big monopolies support the same policies of ?securing location sites?, and oppose the European-wide and international struggle of the workers.
-     Left-reformist and revisionist forces like the PDS and parts of the European trade unions, some of whom are also allying themselves with others in European-wide networks, are taking a critical stand against imperialist foreign policy, the lowering of social standards and against the worsening of the living conditions of the masses. They participated in successful protests: the electoral victories against the EU constitution in France and the Netherlands, the partial success against the Bolkestein directive, the successful struggle of the European dockers against plans for new EU guidelines... However, at the same time, they promote the illusionary hope for a social Europe with ?social standards?, etc.
-     After the breakdown of Eastern Europe the revisionist Western European parties, which had been strong for a long time and had also participated in governments (for example, in Italy or France), have become extremely weak. Almost all of them have been transformed step by step into left-wing social-democratic parties. They now play a subordinated role, often as a left fig-leaf of monopoly governments.
-     The same process took place in the former states of the Eastern Block. The former revisionist governing parties in the Eastern European countries, which had for decades exploited and oppressed the peoples under the hypocritical label of ?real socialism?, have long been transformed into social-democratic parties, representing the policies of western monopoly capital. They were integrated into the western ruling system and are in opposition to the broad masses of people.
-     Presently, new revolutionary organizations and parties are emerging in Eastern Europe on a Marxist-Leninist foundation. They are a thorn in the flesh of the new ruling powers; as in the Slovak or the Czech Republic, they are being banned or suppressed with threats of being banned. This demands European-wide solidarity.
-     In the working-class of the international monopolies, consciousness and organized fighting spirit are growing. It realizes that it must lead the struggle against the international enterprises on the level of the entire enterprise and beyond national borders. This is the only way that the struggle can become more effective and gain momentum. This was expressed in the international days of struggle of the European-wide workforce of GM (General Motors ? in Germany ?Opel?), the European-wide solidarity demonstrations with the strike of the VW workers in Brussels at the beginning of December 2006 and especially in the successful European-wide strike of the dockers in 2006. These struggles were undermined for the most part by the reformists, whereas they were considerably and increasingly initiated, supported and led by the Marxist-Leninists, as for example with the workforce at Opel. These struggles are a pre-stage and a school for an international revolution.
-     Only the Marxist-Leninist organizations and parties in Europe, like the MLPD, fundamentally reject the imperialist EU-policies. The mutual exchange of experience and the organization of practical solidarity have been taking place for a long time, mainly on a bilateral level. However, the objective development necessitates a close unity. This is currently being worked on.

On the question: What is your view on the expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe and the consequences for the masses and the left-wing parties?

The expansion of the EU serves the expansion of power of the leading international monopolies of Western Europe over the economies of the Eastern European countries. With a population of 481 million, and also in terms of capital volume, the largest internal market by far in the entire world has thus been created. The goal is to take the place of the USA as the greatest imperialist power, as well as to curb the influence of Russia.

That means that the EU expansion will lead to intensified exploitation and oppression of the working-class and the masses of people in the countries of Eastern Europe. It will lead to the plundering of the state budgets for the benefit of the international competitiveness of the monopolies, to the destruction of an independent industry, agriculture and trade, as well as of the petty-bourgeois strata. The building up of an infrastructure will be oriented strictly to the interests of the international monopolies. The enrichment of a few will take place at the expense of the impoverishment of the broad masses of people.

At the same time, the expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe will mean an enormous intensification of competition for the working people in Western Europe. workers in the enterprises in Western Europe will be subject to massive pressure due to the much lower wages in Eastern Europe. Companies will be relocated and shut down, then rebuilt in Eastern Europe with EU funds and with a far lower percentage of wages.

At the same time, because of the gradual alignment of the production, living and fighting conditions in the European countries, this process also means that the working class of these countries will develop as a part of the international working class and that further strata of the population will become polarized. The compulsory competition between the Western- and Eastern European workers requires international solidarity in order to counter this downward spiral.

Question: What kind of ?advice? does the MLPD have for the Pakistani communist and labor movement?

Answer Stefan Engel:
It cannot be our task to give other parties and organizations ?advice? or ?messages?. Every country has its particular experiences and conditions and has to find its own way to liberation from exploitation and oppression. But there are universal discoveries:
-     The working class with the industrial labor force as core is the decisive force for liberation from imperialism and neocolonialism.
-     It needs a Marxist-Leninist party as its leadership which has reviewed the experiences of the revisionist betrayal, has a clear ideological-political line and has grown roots among the masses.
-     The working class has to prepare the alliance with the petty-bourgeois intellectual stratum above all, because it cannot gain victory on its own. The significance of the petty-bourgeois peasantry as an ally is declining at least in Europe.
-     The revolutionary party can only become a mass party in close interaction with the promotion of ueberparteilich (above party lines) self-organizations of the masses.
-     The struggle for national and social liberation must be closely linked to the struggle for the issues of everyday life and needs of the masses. It must be waged as part of the international revolution.

Question: What is your view about the role of China, its relationship to India and the USA?

Answer Stefan Engel:
After the death of Mao Tsetung China has betrayed socialism under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and was transformed from a bulwark of socialism into a social-imperialist power (social in words, imperialist in action) at a terrific speed. It is pushing into the world market and has already produced internationally leading monopolies in some sectors. The membership in the WTO since 2001 has been indispensable for its opening to the world market. But this also visibly involves the risk for the Chinese market of being captured by Western monopoly capital: meanwhile more than 400 out of the 500 internationally biggest monopolies are active in the Chinese market - partly dominating the market. This imperialist competitive rivalry is being fought out on the back of the Chinese working people! In the sectors of oil, automotive industry, personal computers and also banks open acquisition battles between US monopolies and Chinese state corporations are taking place meanwhile. There is also a massive competition between India and China - India is threatening China to take the lead in foreign investments.
China?s expanding armament to become a leading military power in Pacific Asia is aggravating the danger of war against all imperialist rivals - as the frontier war against India already showed. This can lead to a situation in which China will become a serious rival of the USA on a worldwide level as an imperialist superpower.

Question: What about the policy of the MLPD concerning the Asian and African countries?

Answer Stefan Engel:
The basic line of our policy concerning the countries of Asia and Africa is proletarian internationalism, i.e. to support the working class and the peoples against exploitation and oppression by the international monopolies, the local bourgeoisie and the respective state apparatus as instrument of power of capital. ?Workers of all countries, unite!?

In neocolonial oppressed countries we also support the peoples? struggle for national liberation from international monopoly capital. At the same time we support the peoples in their struggle to maintain and extend bourgeois-democratic rights and liberties against all forms of fascist or military dictatorship with open martial law. As democratic rights and liberties are the indispensable precondition for the liberation from exploitation and oppression and the construction of genuine socialism.

However, we do not stop at these achievements. As history shows: With the liberation from colonialism and neocolonialism a capitalist system further exists that is exploiting and oppressing the masses. This is the reason why the struggle for national liberation must be continued by the struggle for social liberation.

In this point there is an essential difference between us and the reformist and revisionist parties like e.g. DIE LINKE (The Left) which have renounced socialist revolution and are only striving for a form of capitalism and imperialism with a ?democratic and social face?. This is the reason why they replace the struggle to crush imperialism by the ?struggle against neo-liberalism? which means an imperialism without the negative appearance of neo-liberalism. But this is an illusion.

Question: What is in your view the challenge for the future, what are the hopes for the 21st century - and what is the role of ?terrorism??

Answer Stefan Engel:
With the reorganization of international production huge forces have matured which today make possible a life in wealth, health, security and peace for humanity as a whole. Thus, today - according to the UN - 12 billion people could be fed. Nevertheless 30,000 children are dying of malnutrition every day. That shows: Under the conditions of the worldwide dictatorship of world finance capital only a few superrich people and a small part of the intermediate stratum benefit from these forces which mean misery for the broad masses:
-     A dramatic impoverishment of the broad masses has developed in the less developed countries of Asia and above all in Africa.
-     Exploitation and mass impoverishment is also increasing in the highly developed countries.
-     Imperialist competition will lead to more imperialist wars like in Iraq, Afghanistan etc.
-     The greed for profit is threatening to plunge the earth into a global environmental catastrophe.

These are the worldwide challenges for the future!

Only when imperialism is defeated and the United Socialist States of the World are formed the development of the productive forces for the benefit of the masses within the framework of a socialist world production will be possible.

Against their will the imperialists have improved the conditions for this revolutionary liberation:
-     An international industrial proletariat has developed which is the only class being able to coordinate the struggles against the international capital on a worldwide level and to organize the struggle for its overthrow.
-     The unleashing of the productive forces on one the hand and the shameless enrichment of only a small group of parasites on the other hand have given new impetus to the revolutionary striving of humanity for a society without exploitation, oppression, misery, destruction of the environment and war. The masses do not want to sink into capitalist barbarism. Signs for this are:
o the awakening of class consciousness on a broad scale in the imperialist countries,
o the upswing in the liberation struggles, mass rebellions, strikes around the globe,
o the revolutionary fermentation in the whole of Latin America,
o a worldwide peace movement against Bush?s ?new war?,
o the defeat of US imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The specter of ?terrorism? is being evoked to undermine this desire for freedom, to terrify the masses of the liberation struggle and to have an excuse for the enormous expanding of armaments in the interior and for wars against other countries. Of course, real terrorism also exists - as expression of fanatic, often despairing petty-bourgeois forces which we reject as being hostile to the masses and reactionary. However, those in power take advantage of this kind of terrorism and often stage-manage it by themselves as pretext for the further oppression of the masses. Regarding its effect it doesn?t matter whether 11 September was stage-managed by US imperialism itself or whether it was actually the independent work of Islamist terrorists. In any case it was the desirable pretext for a new worldwide war of US imperialism against the peoples fighting for national and social liberation.

A real liberation of humanity from imperialism needs strategy and tactics of the international revolution under the current conditions. This can only be worked out on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and will not be possible without or against the masses of the people. This is why terrorism is hopeless and reactionary regardless of its shade.
The MLPD wants to make a contribution to this question with its present work on the book ?Strategy and Tactics of the International Revolution?.

Building Marxist-Leninist parties worldwide, overcoming of fragmentation, their strengthening to become mass parties and their international and revolutionary cooperation are the essential ideological, political and organizational prerequisites for the liberation of humanity.

We are looking confidently towards the 21st century. ?The twilight of the gods, the G?tterd?mmerung of international finance capital has broken. It is the eve of a genuinely new world order - of the united socialist states of the world!? (from Stefan Engel, ?Twilight of the Gods -G?tterd?mmerung over the ?New World Order??, page 549)

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