These remarks were delivered by CPUSA Co-Chair Rossana Cambron at the opening of the CPUSA International Conference 2022: Dismantling Imperialism in the 21st Century, September 11–12.

Good morning, Comrades,

Lenin once said, “Capital is an international force. To vanquish it, an international workers’ alliance, an international workers brotherhood, is needed.” As Marx and Engels said in the Communist Manifesto: Workers of the World Unite!

Our ideology represents the concept that none of us, no section of the international workers’ and people’s movement stands alone in the struggle against the forces of international capital, repression, and reaction.

We have witnessed expressions of this concept in the selfless worldwide support for the Vietnamese people’s struggle for independence against imperialist aggression, the heroic Cuban material support for the embattled people of Angola, and in recent support by Cuba to Venezuela, training doctors and providing eye care for its citizens. Plus, the support provided by the former Soviet Union to Cuba when they were confronted with U.S. imperialist aggression.

The massive worldwide campaign that helped free Comrade Angela Davis from racist imprisonment here also defines this important principle. There are a great many other examples of our comrades and friends reaching across borders to stand with our comrades against imperialist aggression.

We have more than enough food to feed the world, but for the sake of profit, millions are left starving. Across the capitalist world, working-class wages have stagnated, yet costs for the basic necessities for daily life, such as food and fuel, continue to rise. Scientists warn us that we are quickly killing our environment, yet no significant progress is made because environmental regulations mean loss in profits.

Billions go without and live in danger so that the few at the top can continue to make record profits year after year.

The U.S. uses its economic and military might to increase profits for international capital. The U.S. empire, with its nearly 1,000 military bases worldwide, is on the march on all fronts.

In Europe, the continued expansion of NATO continues to threaten world peace. In Africa, the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) kills untold numbers of civilians every year. In the Americas, the U.S. continues to invoke the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, treating all countries as if they are U.S. colonies, not to mention the nearly 60-year-old criminal blockade of Cuba. Economic warfare has been declared on Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other countries. In the Middle East, the U.S. continues its destabilizing intervention in Syria, continues to supply and support the oppression of the Palestinian and Yemeni people, and continues to enforce illegal sanctions on the people of Iran. In the Asia-Pacific, the U.S. pushes for conflict with China, risking a disastrous world war.

The only way to confront this all-out assault by U.S. imperialism is with working-class internationalism! For us, here in the United States, embracing the broadest tactics and building the broadest movement is necessary to wage an effective fightback against these injustices. The only way to defeat capitalism is with socialism!

The Communist Party USA is an internationalist Party. Through international forums such as the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Party, and with our positive fraternal relationships with other Communist and workers parties around the world, we remain firmly committed to the international struggle, as we oppose imperialism wherever it raises its head.

The Communist Party USA recognizes that our struggles at home are comprehensively connected to the struggle abroad. By working to defeat capitalism here in the United States, we can help bring an end to the horror of U.S. imperialism abroad.

To that end, our Party recognizes the importance of building a strong, broad, working-class-led, peace movement here in the United States — a peace movement that at its core is driven by anti-imperialist principles. But to be truly successful, this peace movement must be part of a larger, international peace front.

The peace front consists of overwhelming world public opinion in all countries against war and for peaceful solutions, along with organized peace and social movements working directly to accomplish these aims. It also consists of the existing socialist countries and developing countries that maintain some degree of independent policies.

The Communist Party has a special responsibility here in the heart of world capital, imperialism, and reaction.

We hope that this conference will help be a catalyst for a strengthening of the peace and solidarity work of our Party, not just for the members of our Party, but for all peace-loving peoples at home and overseas.

A question we should ask ourselves as we listen to greetings and remarks and participate in the discussions at this conference is, What can my club do, in our community to help grow the peace movement, and gain support for the international community? Most immediate before us is doing all we can, to ensure that no more pro-fascists are elected to any public office.

The forces of imperialism and capitalism are strong. But, when the international working class stand together, we are stronger, and we will win!

Image: Lauren Finkel (CC BY NC-ND 2.0); U.S.-supported Contras in Nicaragua, photo by Tiomono, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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