General Declaration of the 7th ILPS International Assembly

Build a Peoples’ United Front to Fight Against Imperialist Plunder, War and Fascism. Draw in More Organizations and Movements to the ILPS  in the Struggle to Win a Socialist Future for Humanity and the Planet!

The worsening and compounding crises of the global monopoly capitalist system are reaching their extreme limits. The protracted stagnation of the world economy since 2008 was replaced with a sharp downturn in the last four years without any sign of recovery up to the present. Increasingly overt and confrontational rivalry among imperialist powers, rapidly expanding wars of aggression and proxy wars, and extreme austerity have become the norm as the US continues to assert its global hegemony while containing the expansion of its emergent rivals.

The global monopoly capitalist system is falling deeper into a spiral descent of generalized and protracted stagnation as the oppressed peoples and nations wallow in debt and economic distress. The working peoples of the world suffer from hunger, poverty, intolerable working conditions, unlivable wages, and the erosion of hard-won democratic rights – at levels and extent not seen since World War 2. To suppress the inevitable resistance, imperialists have stepped up support to the most brutal and fascist regimes and solidified their grip abroad. 

This, in turn, is generating a huge torrent of people’s resistance – more widespread and militant by the day – against imperialist plunder and war, fascism, and all reaction. 

Today, the valiant Palestinian people continue to stand their ground against the brutal US-backed Zionist genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the whole of occupied Palestine. Movements for national liberation, freedom, and democracy continue to advance in strides across the world, including in Burma, India, West Papua, the Philippines, Turkey, and Kurdistan. Moreover, a new wave of anti-imperialist struggles is sweeping across advanced capitalist countries.

The theme of the 7th International Assembly, “Build a Peoples’ United Front to Fight Against Imperialist Plunder, War and Fascism. Draw in More Organizations and Movements to the ILPS in the Struggle to Win a Socialist Future for Humanity and the Planet!” calls on the oppressed peoples of the world to unite and fight against the worst forms of imperialist oppression and exploitation, and reaction. It is a call-to-arms for the broadest of anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and democratic movements to collectively advance to the resurgence of struggles for national and social liberation, and the defeat of the global monopoly capitalist system. Furthermore, it is in recognition that the increasingly irreversible devastation of the planet cannot be meaningfully addressed without the defeat of imperialism. 

US imperialism and its cabal remain the most vicious barriers to prosperity, justice, peace, and democracy in the world.

The rapidly deteriorating living conditions of working peoples grow increasingly unbearable as imperialists scramble to extract superprofits from struggling nations to prop up their own economies. Mass unemployment, skyrocketing prices of food, housing, fuel, and other basic commodities, and massive cuts in social spending are plaguing working peoples in every corner of the world.

Decades of US-imposed neoliberal policies through institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank have already bottomed out wages, shaped economies of poor nations for cheap labor and export of natural resources; caused widespread economic dispossession, dislocation and forced migration globally, and overshot planetary boundaries to a point of no return. 

Having exhausted all remaining backstops to avert the worsening general economic crisis, US imperialism is increasingly turning to more wars as its solution. 

US-led imperialist powers have unleashed and continue to escalate relentless wars of aggression in West Asia and North Africa, and Eastern Europe. They use their allies and client-states for maintaining proxy wars and counter-revolutionary wars while competing against their rival imperialists in controlling bigger markets; finding more sources of raw materials, and cheap labor; and increasing their respective economic and political spheres of influence on a global scale. In East Asia, the US is engaged in war-provocations and increased military intervention as part of its rivalry with China, with the Philippines, and Taiwan, as flashpoints in a looming proxy war.

They are directly supporting the most brutal of fascists and bankrolling state terrorism in Turkey, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, and elsewhere to suppress the growing tide of revolution for national liberation and democracy. While fortifying their positions in garrison states like the Zionist “Israeli” regime, Taiwan, and South Korea, they are also rapidly proliferating military alliances in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.  

They continue to tighten the noose of strategic embargoes, isolation, and sanctions on countries asserting independence such as Venezuela, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, and Nicaragua.

We have witnessed the rise of anti-imperialist mass protests and mobilizations all over the world against the worst forms of exploitation and oppression they’ve suffered under the global capitalist system. From Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the US, Australia, and Africa, the peoples of the world are fighting back and are more resolute to contribute to the resurgence of struggles against imperialism and all reaction to achieve democracy and realize their socialist future.

As we face the onslaught of the crisis, and confront the possibility of an escalation of imperialist wars of aggression in different parts of the world, the oppressed peoples and nations need to build a people’s united front to expose, oppose, and demand an end to imperialist plunder, war, and fascism.

The ILPS is resolute to advance the anti-imperialist and democratic struggles of the people by relentlessly fighting all imperialist actions by painstakingly arousing, organizing, and mobilizing them around these concerns: 

1. The cause of national liberation, democracy and social liberation against imperialism and all reaction: We call on all progressive and revolutionary forces to deepen their solidarity with the struggles of people fighting for national liberation, democracy, and social liberation across the world, and call on these movements to strengthen their solidarity with one another in the struggle against their common enemies: imperialism and local reaction.
2. Socio-economic development for oppressed and exploited countries and nations and social equity for all working people: We resolve to fight all forms of imperialist exploitation and plunder, especially of the Global South, including through resource extraction, foreign debt and investments, and neoliberal dictates. We resolve to build solidarity among  movements of workers across the world  towards social justice and development.
3. Human rights in the civil, political, economic, social and cultural fields against state violence, national oppression, class exploitation and oppression, gender oppression, fascism, casteism, racism and religious bigotry;  and justice and indemnification for the victims of illegal arrest and detention (especially political prisoners), violations of due process, torture, extra-judicial executions, disappearances, mass displacement, and other blatant forms of human rights violations: We commit in helping build a broad people’s united front against the systemic and viscous human rights violation perpetrated by imperialist powers and their client-states. We condemn the genocide in occupied Palestine.We condemn the state-sponsored terrorism in various parts of the world that aim to silence dissent and quell the resistance of the people against imperialist plunder, war and fascism. We continue to actively expose and oppose the intensifying fascist attacks against the oppressed people of the world. We fight to free all political prisoners; stop the killing of activists, revolutionaries, and oppressed peoples of the world; and to surface all victims of enforced disappearances, and hold all perpetrators accountable. We commit to support the struggle of the Kurdish people for the immediate release of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan and a political solution to the Kurdish question.
4. The cause of just peace and struggles against wars of counterrevolution and aggression and against nuclear, biological, chemical, missile and other weapons of mass destruction: We commit to oppose the imperialist wars of aggression, rising fascism and militarism, and the consolidation of imperialist military alliances. We stand to oppose US-led sanctions, counterinsurgency campaigns, biological and chemical warfare, and nuclear arms race; the US military-industrial complex and arms industries.
5. Promotion of trade union and other democratic rights of the working class, improvement of wage and living conditions against all forms of intensifying exploitation of labor and the destruction of working class organizations in their pursuit of the historic mission of fighting for social liberation: We resolve to unite the working class against monopoly capital, all forms of labor exploitation and imperialist plunder, neoliberal labor flexibilization and austerity; to arouse, organize, and mobilize workers and working peoples to improve wages and working conditions for all, resist trade union repression, and rebuild genuine, strong, and militant trade union movements worldwide.
6. Agrarian reform and rights of peasants, farm workers and fisherfolk against feudal, semifeudal and capitalist exploitation and oppression: We resolve to resist imperialist plunder and exploitation, wars and aggression; Defend peasant rights to life, land, and food sovereignty; Fight against suppression, repression, and starvation, including in occupied Palestine; Intensify the peoples’ struggle for genuine agrarian reform and confront imperialist agenda in free trade agreements or economic cooperation; Expose and oppose the role of imperialist plunder in causing the climate crisis and advance the campaigns for food, land, and climate justice; Launch active campaigns on resisting TNCs, landlords, and big business plantations and rejecting hazardous chemical-based agriculture; We will to launch and conduct study conferences on the crisis of imperialism, fascism, plunder and exploitation, imperialist wars and oppression, and curtailment of democratic rights and fundamental freedoms and their impacts on peasants and other toiling masses.
7. The cause of women’s liberation and rights against all forms of sexual discrimination, exploitation and violence: We resolve to build and strengthen the anti-imperialist struggle around the globe through arousing, organizing, and mobilizing women across the globe. We give particular attention to conducting political education among grassroots women, and conducting continuous social investigation on the situation of women. 
8. Rights of the youth to education and employment:  We resolve to uphold the rights of youth to education and academic freedom, human rights, livelihood, and civil liberties; fight against the neoliberal offensive on culture; wage political campaigns, and to study imperialism, fascism, and wars including the writings of Ka Jose Maria Sison. We shall vehemently oppose every policy aimed to make the youth fodder for imperialist wars. We will launch more joint campaigns to free youth political prisoners across the world.
9. Children’s rights against child labor, sexual abuse and other forms of exploitation: We resolve to conduct education campaign among children to raise their awareness about social issues including the attacks of imperialism; organize children into groups and; mobilize them in national and international campaigns on children’s concerns; that include exploitative child labor, and sexual abuse and exploitation. We shall encourage children to engage and exercise their political right to participate in issues fundamental to people; and coordinate national, regional, and global campaigns asserting the rights of children against imperialist plunder and destruction, militarism, and fascism.
10. Rights of Indigenous Peoples, national minorities, and nationalities for self-determination and decolonization against discrimination, racism, and national oppression by imperialism and local reaction: We must fully grasp the identity, struggles, and victories of national minorities and Indigenous Peoples and their role in national liberation. We must understand the distinct additional problems of discrimination, inequality, and national oppression against Indigenous Peoples and national minorities. We must forge unity with movements against imperialism, forward an alternative to the capitalist system, and enrich this struggle with Indigenous communal values systems and the stewardship of community and environment.
11. The struggle of teachers, and other education workers against imperialism and for an alternative future: We resolve to stand against neoliberal and fascist attacks on education, school unions and unionists, teachers and education workers; and fight for the right to access to free and quality education for all peoples. We commit to uphold and proliferate anti-imperialist, pro-people, and scientific models and pedagogies of education including Lumad and indigenous peoples schools.
12. The right of the people to health and the rights of health workers: We resolve to expose and oppose all forms of neoliberal policies that impact on health such as privatization, commercialization, and universal health coverage which is instituting private insurance schemes which deprive the people of the health services they badly need and we demand from government responsibility and accountability. Resist and defeat imperialism, imperialist greed and control over people’s health and fight onerous trade agreements that impact on health. Demand that governments address  the social, political, economic, and commercial determinants of health. Demand that governments develop comprehensive, quality,  State-funded public health systems and  health care. Stop the neoliberal attacks on the rights of health workers. Fight imperialist offensives, build peoples’ solidarity, struggle to end imperialist plunder, war, and fascism. Unite and converge with other social movements against imperialism.
13. Science and technology for peoples’ development: We resolve to strengthen our anti-imperialist analysis of science and technology for the benefit of the peoples and the struggles for national and social liberation; conduct research on issues relevant to the Commission, and publish and promote our positions in different media and across different audiences, while at the same time advance socialism as the only viable solution to the co-optation of science and tech by imperialism and its use against the people; strive to organize scientists, technologist and engineers who will use their talents to design and develop science and tech for people’s movements, and work with different sectors to resist imperialism; and strive to expand the ranks of Commission members by engaging and forming alliances with progressive and anti-imperialist scientists, engineers, and S&T advocates.
14. Arts and culture and free flow of information in the service of the people and the rights of artists, creative writers, cultural workers, journalists and media workers against imperialist and reactionary propaganda and oppression: We resolve to build a broad united front of arts, culture, and media workers to collectively advance the people’s culture and amplify the global struggle against imperialism. We resolve to undertake sustained education, study, immersion, production, and solidarity building which harnesses the progressive and revolutionary potential of indigenous and traditional knowledge, popular culture, and diverse artistic and creative practices by the peoples of the world. We resolve to help popularize art and stories emanating from a rich and revolutionary history of people’s struggle against imperialism, so that we remember, learn, and bravely resist together. 
15. The rights and welfare of the diaspora, refugees and migrant workers displaced by imperialism and local reactionaries: We shall strengthen the migrant movement against imperialism and advance the active role of migrant workers, refugees, seafarers and the diaspora in the struggle for national and social liberation.
16. Rights of elderly and other differently-abled people to a life of dignity and secure existence.
17. Rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people against discrimination, intolerance, homophobia, and transphobia: We resolve to develop stronger and deeper analysis on how fascism is utilizing anti-trans and anti-queer sentiment to attack and divide the masses, especially black trans women and femmes, LGBTQ+ in the Global South and LGBTQ activists. We resolve to study the success of LGBTQ+ movements in highly repressive and fascist countries to garner lessons for other LGBTQ+ people. We resolve to provide political education & particularize it amongst all the commissions to close the gap between those who may still not know or understand the struggles of the LGBTQ+ and its roots in imperialism.
18. The rights of homeless, urban poor and internally displaced people against gentrification, forced evictions, containment, criminalization and exploitation: We resolve to confront the struggle of the homeless, urban poor, and displaced peoples regarding forced evictions, gentrification, climate displacement and criminalization. The commission brings forth the fight for the right to decent work, living wage and social services. We shall continue to study the issues concerning displacement and other structures that advance displacement. Identify and expose the linkages between corporate entities from imperialist countries that perpetuates the occupation, eviction, and displacements, in third world countries. Build connections and solidarity with urban poor, homeless, and internally displaced across the globe. Unify and raise our fight to an anti-imperialist struggle.
19. Defense of the environment against imperialist plunder and overproduction as the main causes of ecological degradation, resource depletion, and climate crisis: The global struggle for climate justice is interconnected with the global struggle for social justice. We resolve to act on all fronts through mass campaigns and mobilization to defend specific rights and win specific reforms, and through national mass movements that can install new governments and build alternative systems. We shall continue to work on expanding our ranks through outreach and joint activities with progressive anti-imperialist environmental organizations, climate justice movements, people’s movements and advocates, militant trade unions, and bring them together to fight to end climate imperialism, while recognizing and supporting struggles for self-determination and liberation. 
20. The struggle of faith-based associations against fascism and imperialism and for the attainment of just peace: We recognize and acknowledge the progressive and liberating theologies that have developed over the years by oppressed peoples in different parts of the world as concrete expressions of their anti-imperialist struggles and aspirations for a just, peaceful, and free world. We will continue to study and develop faith resources which can be used to empower communities as well as faith-based organizations in effectively fighting imperialism, war and fascism. We shall address religion based discrimination; victimization of indigenous peoples women, children, migrants, LBGTIQ+ communities and other marginalized sectors of society.  We recognize the need to synergize various advocacies, ministries, efforts, to advance the people’s agenda and to translate our acts of mercy into acts of justice towards liberation and the aspirations of the people for peace.  

We give our highest tribute to the ILPS founding chairperson and Chairman Emeritus Jose Maria Sison, who dedicated his life to the people’s patriotic and democratic cause. We extoll all heroes and martyrs who have shown indomitable strength and resolve to struggle with the toiling masses against imperialism, and to those who continue to persevere amidst all hardships and sacrifices in the face of the crises made worse by war and fascism. 

We must rouse the peoples in every corner of the globe to build the broadest people’s united front against imperialism and fascism. We must boldly step up collective action and resistance to thwart US-led wars of aggression, end imperialist plunder, advance the cause for national liberation and democracy, and build the foundations of a socialist future.

Down with imperialism and all reaction!

Advance the people’s democratic aspirations and win a socialist future!

Long live international solidarity!

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