A regional European Assembly of Resistance (AoR) was held in Budapest (Hungary) on March 2-4, 2018, a delegation of the All-Ukrainian Independent Trade Union “Zahist pratzi” (“Labour defense”) consisting of the coordinator of the all-Ukrainian independent trade union “Zahist pratzi” Andrii Ishchenko and a member of the feminine department of the all-Ukrainian independent trade union “Zahist pratzi” Inna Valeshkovskaya took part in its work from Ukraine. Among the participants there were representatives of the left and social organizations of Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Germany, Russia, Croatia, Serbia, France, Sweden.
As it was expected, the most heated discussion was on the “Ukrainian issue”. The representative of the pro-Russian party “The Union of Left Forces” (Sergei Markin), living outside Ukraine and claiming that the fascist regime is already established in Ukraine and their party is being persecuted and works underground, tried to add to the text of the final resolution paragraphs which would shift the emphases of the final resolutions from social-class priorities to civilizational ones. On the contrary, the representative of the All-Ukrainian Independent Trade Union “Zahist pratzi” (Andrii Ishchenko), who came to Budapest from Ukraine, focused on the fact that the right regime in Ukraine, although slipping increasingly into authoritarianism and carrying out ultra-capitalist reforms, tries to preserve democratic decorations and at this time isn’t distinguished by its nature from right-wing authoritarian regimes in the surrounding Ukraine Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and there are no sufficient grounds to believe that the regime in Ukraine has already turned into the regime of an open terrorist dictatorship since left and trade union activists operate in Ukraine by legal methods of work; they consider suicidal to drive themselves into the underground and will make maximum use of the remaining opportunities for legal struggle for the rights of Ukrainian workers in spite of the growing pressure of an authoritarian anti-democratic regime and persecution of trade union activists in different parts of Ukraine. As a result of an acute open controversy and a lengthy discussion of practically all participants of the meeting the final text of the General Resolution of the Assembly of Resistance retained its class-social orientations and accents of genuine proletarian internationalism and was not led into seeking of “progressive” imperialism and the struggle of civilizations.
Based on the results of the three-days work, the text of the Final Declaration of the General Meeting of the Assembly of Resistance was adopted, in which the participants stated the crisis of the political and parliamentary left wing practically in all countries of the world, the ubiquitous reduction of the social state (even in Sweden) and the need for joint international actions in which the “overthrow” of authoritarian systems can begin socially only with a broad, mass movement of public self-defense.
Participants in a representative regional international meeting in Budapest adopted four main directions of joint actions:
1) In the economy – the fight against the oligarchic economy and its replacement by a mixed multi-sector economy, creating of a pluralistic ownership structure for broader groups of society, in other words the necessity of freedom in organizing cooperatives in all spheres of economy;
2) In social policy – the struggle to improve the living conditions of the social groups which are below. Instead of various forms of bourgeois nationalism, racism, ethnic folly, the persecution of Roma and migrants, the most important public task of the left wing – regardless of politics – is to ensure the cultural growth of the population, the establishment of civilian “people’s” educational structures and self-education groups;
3) In the political field – the concept of political democracy needs to be supplemented with concepts of economic and cultural democracy, so that everyone could be involved in “democracy”, and not just “elected” ones. Authoritarian regimes and their excluding constitutions must be rejected. Social rights should be fixed in the constitutions and they must be implemented;
4) In the field of social base – the main reliance of the anticapitalist left wing are trade unions and public organizations. If the left forces do not act as a spokesman of the interests of people living on wages or labor incomes, workers and unemployed, thereby they destroy themselves.