Renewal or Retrogression and Disintegration?

News Year's Message of the Manitoba Regional Committee of CPC(M-L)

- January 1, 2000 -

The entire world is going through a historic shift, a period in which objective conditions are crying out for renewal but retrogression is the order of the day. Such periods hold both great promise and great dangers for the peoples of the world.

These days there is no shortage of individuals, organizations and states that are attempting to sell retrogression and decay as renewal. Rather than looking to the present and future for inspiration, these forces look to the past, to forms and content which have long since been proven bankrupt and obsolete. Russia is a case in point. Its inexorable decline into anarchy and gangsterism is actually presented as progress and renewal, as a guarantee of "democracy", no less.

In this period dominated by American pragmatism, truth and principles have been discarded in favour of narrow self-interest and self-preservation. Journalism has sunk to the level of repeating lies, and politics has become shameless self-promotion. Media events and "spin doctoring" have replaced honest discussion and rendering of account. Form has become everything, while content has been reduced to nothing.

As we enter the last year of the 20th century, there are those who are gloating that it was the century of the final defeat of communism and the victory of capitalism. They are presenting the thesis that capitalism is immortal, infallible and invincible. There are even many individuals who ascribe these properties to themselves. However, such claims are not the mark of health and vitality; they are merely symptoms of degeneration and decay - the arrogance of a dying force.

Communism as an ideology and social experiment dominated the 20th century in a way which no force has ever done before. It left its mark on every event of any significance throughout the century. The 21st century will be dominated by that force which is capable of renewing both itself and the entire society. Objective conditions today prove that capitalism is not and cannot be such a force.

The Manitoba Regional Committee of CPC(M-L) is quite confident that the early decades of the next century will be a pivotal period in the history of humankind. Content will reassert itself over form and renewal will replace disintegration and decay. Communism, a modern and renewed communism, will once again emerge at the head of the movement for enlightenment, democracy and social progress.