Excellent conditions for revolutionary upsurge in the face of the worsening global capitalist crisis

Communist Party of the Philippines
October 15, 2008

The world capitalist system is undergoing a deepening recession that can only result in the massive destruction of productive forces and further concentration of capital in the hands of a few. This global economic malaise is now causing production slowdowns, massive job losses, worsening impoverishment and intensified exploitation and oppression of the proletariat and ordinary people in the capitalist centers, with even worse consequences for peoples in the Third World.

The bursting of the biggest financial bubble in history and the severest financial crisis since the Great Depression have already caused the collapse and subsumption of many of the largest banks and financial institutions, the sweeping credit crunch, the continuing meltdown of stock markets and near paralyzation of other financial markets.

The financial crisis has become so acute that, aside from several hundred billions already thrown in, the US government has allocated $700 billion and is planning to pour in more funds in a vain attempt to salvage the "toxic assets" of finance giants and buttress the battered capitalist financial system in the US and abroad. More than a trillion dollars is being poured in by the US and other imperialist governments and big finance capitalists to salvage more collapsing banks and financial markets in other capitalist countries.

These measures have, however, only been met with doubt and skepticism over their effectivity in stemming the financial crisis. After a few gasps of apparent resuscitation, financial markets have only continued to plunge. All these massive diversions of taxes and funds to rescue losing finance giants from their own greed have only angered the impoverished masses much divested of social assistance and made more miserable in the face of deprivation and worsening economic hardships.

The current crisis besetting the global capitalist system reaffirms the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist critique of the moribund capitalist system and the need to overthrow it through revolutionary struggle and supplant it with a socialist order.

The rotten capitalist system has become even more absurd and unproductive as the imperialists are engaged in ever greater financial speculation and accumulation of surplus finance capital than in production. Meanwhile, accelerating overproduction of surplus capital leads to cyclical overproduction in the real economy with piles of unsold inventories of houses, cars, computers, food items and other commodities, followed by production slowdowns, underconsumption and stagnation. The result is massive destruction of productive forces and billions of people around the world condemned to unemployment, poverty, hunger and utter desperation.

At the root of the current financial crisis is the concentration and accumulation of capital which has resulted in the ballooning of finance capital detached from production in the real economy. The amount of surplus capital employed in financial speculation has grown several times bigger than productive capital. The current financial crisis, in particular, was triggered by the accumulation by big finance capitalists of trillions of dollars of overblown assets and superprofits from the housing and subprime derivatives bubble.

As a result of the unproductive accumulation of finance capital, industrial production has turned recessive and presently continues to contract. Joblessness in the US is at a five-year high, with the number of unemployed expected to swell by another million by year's end. This is on top of the 9.5 million already unemployed in the US. Underemployment is soaring to even higher record levels. The consumption crisis, following the burst of the housing bubble, has become protracted and has made a turn for the worse. Previous irrational capitalist overproduction has turned to disastrous stagnation and underconsumption.

In the face of the worsening crisis of the capitalist system, it is the miserably pauperized working class and ordinary people who suffer the most. More than a trillion dollars have been used to salvage losing finance capitalists in the imperialist countries and provide their losing executives with tens of billions in "golden parachutes." On the other hand, the mass of their working class and ordinary people whose tax payments provided these funds, are left with practically nothing.

The imperialists have been forcing trade and investment liberalization and denationalization policies on their semicolonies as a means of further exporting their surplus capital, dumping their surplus products, plundering natural resources and taking advantage of the cheap labor and raw materials in their semicolonies. This has resulted in the large-scale destruction of productive forces, and mass unemployment, poverty and hunger in these countries. The spread of the global crisis of capitalism and the intensification of the exploitation and oppression of the working class and oppressed people are worsening even further the chronic crisis in the semicolonies and impoverished nations.

As its "solution" to the threat of the worsening global capitalist crisis on the flimsy semicolonial and semifeudal economy, the puppet Arroyo regime is further opening up the national economy to foreign investments, plunder of the natural resources, lopsided neocolonial trade, increased deficit government spending, more public and foreign borrowings, and even more intensified taxation of the people. The US and its puppet regime are pushing more policies and measures geared towards the removal of whatever remaining protection there is for the national patrimony and the interests of the toiling masses and the people. The policies include the long-standing scheme to change the constitution of the reactionary government to prolong the reign of the ruling regime.

These policies and measures aim to further open up the economy and resources of the country to the ravages of the imperialists and their big comprador and big bureaucrat accomplices. Instead of alleviating the crisis, the resulting production downfalls, increased unemployment, intensified inflation, reduced consumption and heightened poverty and hunger will only worsen the economic crisis and heighten the people's sufferings.

The current crisis of the global capitalist system provides excellent conditions for revolutionary upsurge as the working class and other oppressed and exploited people all over the world who have been pushed to the wall have no other recourse but to further intensify their revolutionary struggles and advance their interests.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the entire international proletarian revolutionary movement anticipate the reinvigoration and resurgence of the Marxist-Leninist- Maoist movement and the heightening of working class and people's revolutionary struggles the world over.

The worsening socio-economic crisis in the Philippines is pushing millions of workers, peasants and other democratic sectors to wage people's struggles and advance and support people's war. The CPP calls on all revolutionary mass forces to take advantage of the current situation to step up recruitment, consolidate their ranks and intensify their struggles.

In the midst of the worsening crisis of the present system, the New People's Army (NPA) will further intensify revolutionary armed struggle, launch more tactical offensives against the fascist armed forces, deal heavy blows on the US-Arroyo regime for its pro-imperialist, anti-democratic and antipeople policies and punish it for inflicting great harm and misery upon the people.