"Today capitalism itself is bankrupt"

Excerpt from the statement "The end of myths and illusions" by the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Dimitris Koutsoumbas, March 31, 2020.

Translated from the original Greek by the KKE.

WE BREAK THE SILENCE that the government and the big employers want to impose in the name of the slogan "let's overcome this crisis together", which is a reflection of hypocritical bourgeois ethics. Quite simply, because we cannot "all together" recruit healthcare professionals, [requisition] the private sector, take preventive and protective measures providing all the necessary tools and means to protect workers. In the framework of this system, all the above must be done by the state and the government that leads it, along with the class that has the real power and ownership. Of course until the working class and the popular strata, "all together" and united  sideline them permanently and irrevocably and construct a society where social goods will be given priority, as opposed to the capitalist profit that leads to the death of our fellow humans...

...Above all, however, the pandemic highlights, more so with every day that passes, the limits of the capitalist system.

It turns out that contemporary needs and social goods, such as health, cannot be left to the mercy of markets and profit.

This decay cannot be concealed by the adjectives that some people use to describe capitalism, such as "neoliberal capitalism", "extreme capitalism" and so on, ultimately only to conceal that they fully support the capitalist system itself.

Because, now it can no longer be said that "it may be a wrong approach", a "simple political strategy mistake" that may perhaps be "corrected by individual improvements" or by "changing some managers of the bourgeois power by alternating from liberals to social democrats" and vice versa ...

It is the same old story.

But the people in this case are permanently intubated, trapped in conditions of a coronavirus pandemic...

...These outrageous situations, with doctors being forced to choose who will live and who will die, exist both in countries with "neoliberal" governments, such as Italy, but also in countries where fake "progressive alliances" govern, such as Spain.

Today capitalism itself is bankrupt, the market economy itself in all its versions is bankrupt, which nullifies every opportunity for the working class and the people to enjoy high-quality health services in line with the evolution of science and technology, precisely because its main criterion is capitalist profit.

Even in pandemic conditions, everything is subject to the profitability of capital. This is why workers in the industries of Northern Italy have been working despite the prohibitions*, without protective measures, with the known tragic results.

This is why the competition between transnational monopolies over who will patent the new vaccine is sharpening, at a time when there should be cooperation and joint efforts by the world's best scientists and research centers.

This is why even now the big employers trample over any remaining labor rights, try new forms of exploitation, such as teleworking, and proceed to mass layoffs.

Against the decay of bankrupt capitalism, we can clearly see the superiority of socialism that ensured health and healthcare for all...

...The figures in Soviet Russia 30 years ago, which cannot even be compared to the situation prevailing in our country and EU countries, are: over 1.1 million doctors, free healthcare for the entire population, 1,387 hospital beds per 10,000 inhabitants.

Even today, the mission of the Cuban doctors to Italy, the health infrastructure in countries such as Germany, existing thanks to the socialist system of half of Germany back then, the German Democratic Republic, and even the management of the pandemic in capitalist China, which reveals its socialist residues, show that socialism has left its powerful social imprint even three decades after its overthrow.

So in these unprecedented conditions, we stay strong, we struggle for protection measures of workers' lives and rights, we put forward the only perspective for the working class, the majority of our people, which is the new society, i.e. socialism.

The tangible superiority of socialism, social ownership, and central scientific planning is the great  legacy for the next day.

* Editor: The same is happening with man camps in British Colombia where pipelines continue to be built with a reckless disregard for the health and safety of workers, local communities and Indigenous people.

For the full statement see: https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-end-of-myths-and-illusionspTo-face-the-present-and-prepare-tomorrow/