International Communist Gathering to be Held in South Africa

Most of the world's leading communist parties will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa in December to discuss;

The deepening systemic crisis of capitalism. The task of Communists in defense of sovereignty, deepening social alliances, strengthening the anti-imperialist front in the struggle for peace, progress and Socialism.

From the website of the South African Communist Party website

The last decades of the 20th century saw tumultuous developments and cataclysmic changes. The dismantling of socialism in the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the USSR, the collapse of the communist-led regimes in East Europe and the process of restoration of capitalism in these countries-all constitute a big reversal for the world forces of socialism.

In this situation, many communist parties carried serious introspection on the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism. Wilting under the pressure of an intense ideological offensive, many Communist Parties abandoned the revolutionary essence of Marxism-Leninism and embraced social democracy. During this period when the international communist movement has been thrown into disarray, there were some communist and workers' parties that believed these shortcomings and failures in the process of constantly enriching this creative science in accordance with unfolding historical developments, is not due to its inadequacies or lack of scientific method of its content. It is due to the inadequacies and lack of scientific rigour on the part of those who have embraced this philosophy .

Efforts were undertaken to regroup the international communist movement and bring together all those communist and workers' parties that believed in the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) had initiated one such attempt in 1993 by organising an international seminar on the 'Contemporary World Situation and the validity of Marxism'. 30 parties were extended invitations to participate in the seminar. 21 parties including the CPI(M) and the CPI participated in the seminar, four parties unable to send their representatives, sent their contributions in the form of papers while five parties sent messages expressing their inability to participate owing to critical political conditions in their respective countries. The success of the seminar in attaining the objectives it had set before it, gave renewed confidence to the various participants, in their struggle to defend socialism and to continue to fight for the goal of socialism.

Five years hence, from 1998, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) took up this task of organising international meetings of the communist and workers parties to exchange opinions on some of the important contemporary developments in world and share experiences. From that year onwards seven consecutive meetings were hosted by the KKE in Greece. The number of parties taking part in these meetings saw a steady increase reflecting the growing relevance and validity of Marxism. To facilitate the smooth organisation of these meetings a working group of international communist and workers parties was formed. This group decides on the theme of the meeting, the venue and dates apart from the parties that would take part in the meeting.

As the experience of organising such meetings proved useful, there was a request to organise this meeting in different parts of the world. Accordingly the 8th meeting was organised in Lisbon, Portugal, the 9th in Minsk, Belarus and in Moscow to observe the 90th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, and the 10th in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The working group had decided in its meeting in February that the 11th meeting would be organised in India jointly by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India.

The 12th meeting will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, from the 2nd December 2010 to the 5th December 2010. This is the first ever meeting of this kind to take place in the African continent, thus covering all the continents on the globe.

With so called "capitalism" in decline over much of the globe, the communists are quietly preparing for their time in sun.