arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

One Solution: Revolution!

Red flags, revolutionary songs, Che Guevara T-shirts: this, too, is Prague 2000. It is too often neglected - in the media and also by other activists - that communists are also mobilizing against the IMF and the World Bank. They may bring the movement a sharper analysis, they stress the role of the working class and of the Third World peoples - both grossly underrepresented in Prague - and they put forward the perspective for a new, socialist society.
Saturday S23, Prague saw a red rally, organized by the Czech coalition STOP IMF!, an initiative of the Czech Communist Youth Union and about five other Leftist groups and trade unions. While some 300 masked anarchists were getting all the media attention, a 3000 strong Leftist rally got into the streets.
At the head of the militant group: several Czech communist Congressmen and young communist leaders. Behind them a lively group calling themselves simply "Revo". The carry tens of deep red flags with "Revolution!" and through the sound system they popularize the slogan "One Solution: Revolution!".
Thereafter, the international delegations: Italians (Rifundazione), Greeks (Greek Communist Party KKE, youth KNE, trade union ANEM), Germans (DKP), Belgians (Workers' Party of Belgium), British and even a lonely trade unionist from Seattle. Che Guevara is popular, on flags, T-shirts and badges. And there is singing, too: Bandiera Rossa.
The rally ends on Namesti Miru, the Peace Square, with a few speeches and solidarity messages, and a call for the next days' actions.

S24. I attend a conference of STOP IMF! with as theme "The IMF and the World Bank in the 21st century". Nowhere to be found on the programs of Prague 2000, and yet very worthwhile. Some 15 communist and revolutionary organisations from all over Europe are taking part, alongside the Czech ones. Zdenek Stefek of the Communist Youth Union graphically explained why IMF and World Bank should be dismantled, not reformed: "A wolve can never become a vegetarian". Bill of the International Action Center (US) called for solidarity with Yugoslavia and Irak - not suffering under the IMF and the World Bank, but under Nato bombs and embargoes - and with Mumia Abu-Jamal, the African-American revolutionary journalist on death row.
Babis Angourakis of the Greek Communist Party (KKE): "Today's mobilization in Prague is very relevant: it no longer concerns explaining and exposing the IMF/WB policies, but organizing against them and fighting them. Prague is alos significant because this mobiliztion is taking place 10 years after the counterrevolution in Eastern Europe. We say, loud and clear, that we do have an alternative project for society: socialisme. We are not going to wait until McDonald's or IBM are going to have socially sound policies or until the IMF and the World Bank become more human."
Somebody brings the news of the hundreds of Italians blocked at the border. The Czech communist parliamentarian Ransdorf remarks wryly: "Suppose that something similar would have happened in the Czechoslovakia of the 70s or 80s, imagine what criticisms the socialist regime would have had to endure."
Thomas Gounet of the Workers' Party of Belgium warned us not to take too seriously the Mentzel Report of the US Congres about the supposed 'new' role for the IMF/WB. That report is critical of the IMF, mainly because, since the Asian crisis, some 240 billion US dollar has been pumped into the crisis economies, thus constituting a huge investment. But the report that will really decide on the future role of the IMF is the one by the Council on Foreign Policy: it wants to reinforce the role of the IMF, but attaching to it even stricter and more severe conditions, thus meaning a yet higher degree of recolonization of the Third World and the former Soviet bloc.
Furthermore, people from Cyprus, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Portugal, Norway, Sweden and Israel took the floor. All in all, a successfull internationalist meeting!