On November 3, 2021, at the initiative of the Coalition of the four parties (Unified Communist Party of Georgia, Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan, Socialist Party of Latvia, Communist Party of Pakistan), a conference was held on the topic: "The growing threat of the proliferation and use of biological weapons and the need to create an international movement in support of their ban". The KKE delegation participated in the teleconference, consisting of Elisaios Vagenas, member of the CC of the KKE and Head of the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE and Aris Evangelidis, member of the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE.

The contribution of the KKE is as follows:

             Dear comrades,

            We would like to thank you for your invitation to today’s teleconference on the struggle of the peoples against biological weapons.

            Biological weapons are naturallyincluded in the weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and nuclear weapons, the use of which can severely afflict civilian population. However, the criminal conception and manufacture of these weapons must not disorientate us from the main issue, which, in our opinion, is that in today’s era of imperialism, that is of monopoly capitalism, the use of violent, war means is the culmination of competition and conflict among the bourgeois classes and monopolies; it is the continuation of policy with other means. War is “flesh of the flesh” of this capitalist exploitative system.

            Thus, we see that the wars waged today are directly related to the distribution of market shares, raw materials, and routes of transport; they are imperialist wars. Such was the Second World War, which differs from the First World War due to the existence of the USSR.

            We see that imperialists, in order to achieve their goals, do not hesitate to manufacture and make use of weapons of mass destruction —nuclear, chemical, and biological ones. They did not hesitate nor will they hesitate to use them while realizing some of their most dangerous military pursuits, as demonstrated by the crime committed by the “democratic” USA in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the use of the chemical “agent orange” against the people of Vietnam, and the launching of biological weapon attacks against Cuba, as the latter denounced in the past.

            Life proved that the international communist movement was mistaken in the past when it separated imperialists into “hawks” and “doves”, when it separated the bourgeois political forces and assessed that social-democrats are more “peaceful” and “democratic” than the conservative and neoliberal ones. I would like to remind you that at the time when Yugoslavia was bombarded with weapons of depleted uranium, the “socialist” Javier Solana was the Secretary General of NATO, while during the term of office of the “democrat” B. Obama, who was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize, the peoples of Libya, Syria, and Ukraine were the victims of a bloodbath.

            Moreover, imperialists use the pretext of various weapons of mass destruction to promote their plans, for example the chemical weapons that Iraq or Syria possess and the struggle between the USA and China over the origin of COVID-19.

            Undoubtedly, the communists, through the anti-imperialist movement, must support demands for the signing and observance of relevant agreements concerning issues such as the control and the ban of the development and manufacture of any kind of weapons of mass destruction. However, we believe that we need to protect the workers from an erroneous perception that the issue of weapons of mass destruction can be detached from the criminal nature of the capitalist system, the imperialist competition, and wars and that it can be resolved in this framework. Unfortunately, such a perception that dominated the international communist movement after the 20^th Congress of the CPSU, with the so-called “peaceful competition” between the two systems, fostered bankrupt pacifist perceptions to a significant part of the peoples. Independently of their intentions, such perceptions whitewash the barbaric capitalist system. They recycle bankrupt illusions that through various international agreements and organizations there could be allegedly a peaceful, humanized capitalism without weapons of mass destruction or military conflicts. That is the pursuit of the powers detaching lethal weapons (e.g. any kind of mass destruction weapons) from the imperialist hands that possess them.

            Among other things, it is unacceptable that various social-democratic and opportunist forces —even some parties that are communist in name— accept the pretexts used by bourgeois political forces and vote for military expenditure of their countries as well as imperialist missions and interventions abroad, for instance in Afghanistan or the Central African Republic, while at the same time express their concern about biological weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. Such a choice is a fig leaf for the treacherous stance towards the interests of the peoples and the cause of the working class.

            Comrades,

            Today the confrontation between the USA and China for supremacy in the imperialist system is sharpening. It is a struggle between two powerful forces of contemporary capitalism, which also drag other forces, as demonstrated by the recently formed AUKUS alliance (Australia, UK, and US alliance). Nevertheless, this struggle has nothing to do with people's interests and is being waged for the interests of the monopolies.

            It is in this regard that the issue of the origin of COVID-19 is being utilized, since all powerful capitalist states, first and foremost the USA and China, possess biological research laboratories. Of course, we denounce the existence of such laboratories and all the more so their use for military purposes. However, at the same time, we highlight that the discussion around the natural or man-made origin of COVID-19 is disorientating, as it aims to obscure:

• the need to struggle against the huge deficiencies in the public health systems around the capitalist world;
• the competition among the big pharmaceutical companies over vaccines and medicines;
• the denial of bourgeois governments to proceed with the requisition of the private health sector;
• the COVID vaccine patent waiver so that billions of people that do not have access to vaccines can be immediately and quickly vaccinated.

            The communists in Greece, both independently as well as within the ranks of the anti-imperialist and anti-war movement, struggle against the participation of our country in imperialist plans and interventions; against military armaments for the needs of imperialist wars; against the foreign US and NATO bases; for the return of the Greek armed forces from military missions abroad; against the storage of the nuclear weapons, that is, weapons of mass destruction in our country. We support the just demand to abolish all laboratories manufacturing biological and other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.

            At the same time, we believe that the words of the leader of the October Revolution, V.I. Lenin, have not lost their timeliness. He highlighted that “But only if a revolutionary   struggle is called for does the demand for peace acquire proletarian meaning. Without a series of revolutions, so-called democratic peace is a philistine utopia[1]”.

            Thus, the consistent anti-war struggle must be linked with the struggle to seize power in each country, to the degree that “we understand the inevitable connection between wars and the class struggle within the country; we understand that war cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and Socialism is created[2]”. And that is why “Only after we have overthrown, finally vanquished and expropriated the bourgeoisie of the whole world, and not merely in one country, will wars become impossible[3]”.

            Dear comrades,

            Based on this political line, today we must highlight the causes of imperialist wars, which are to be found in the very exploitative capitalist system, as well as the need to link the struggle against any kind of weapons of mass destruction with the struggle to overthrow capitalism and construct the socialist–communist society.