1. The need for fundamental change
We stand on the threshold of the 21st century and a new millennium. The struggle for a dignified life for humanity continues, albeit in new circumstances and in new conditions.
Ten years have passed since the return of our society to capitalism. The result today is profound crisis in the economy and in politics, morality and ecology. Privatisation, whose pitfalls the KSCM warned against from the very beginning, has degenerated into a mere transfer of property. A key part of the nation’s wealth is now in the hands of a small class of the main private owners. Foreign capital has resolutely joined in the scramble for property. The Czech Republic has been dragged into military-political structures dominated by the world’s power elite, headed by the USA. NATO makes use of the territory of our republic and other material and human resources. The economy has still not reached the level of 1989. This has been accompanied by a reduction in living standards, an existential threat to large sections of the population, the loss of many social certainties, an increase in unemployment and crime and the jeopardising of national interests. As a result of the experiences of the country’s citizens during these past ten years, right-wing policy has gradually lost much of the appeal it tried to attract after 1989, with the help of mass propaganda and crude distortion of the facts.
Introduction
The Czech Republic is in crisis. The policy of relying on the free play of market forces, accompanied by a loss of all sense of legality and morality, has failed. A formal and half-hearted solution, subordinated to narrow party interests, will not bring positive results. The need for systemic change has become increasingly more urgent. After ten years of all-round devastation, of course, the situation cannot be changed from day to day. It is necessary to change course without delay. The KSÈM has prepared a detailed Programme of Renewal, and submits it the citizens of the Czech Republic for their verdict. The programme’s realistic approach consists of a complex of inter-related steps, which in their final effect should lead to the recovery of the whole economic and social system, respecting and emphasising national interests and the principle of solidarity in distribution. It is based on knowledge, inspiration and the application of tried and tested experience, both here and abroad. We see the main resources for implementing the Programme of Renewal as coming in the main from economic recovery, halting the outflow of national wealth abroad, directing foreign and domestic investment to the promotion of real growth, clamping down on economic crime, taxing unproductive assets and making economies in government expenditure, especially spending on the civil service and NATO.
The CPBM regards capitalism as the basic cause of the world’s and our society’s escalating problems. Despite the fact that it has not exhausted all of its possibilities, it is ever more urgent that this system be replaced by a new, more progressive social and economic formation. The contradictions in society are intensifying. In spite of the enormous scientific and technological progress which has allowed an unprecedented increase in labour productivity, restrictions have been imposed in the most advanced countries on the so-called ”social state” and society’s wealth has been concentrated in the hands of an increasingly smaller elite. After the restoration of capitalism in the Czech Republic, the economic and social situation of a large part of the population has also deteriorated. More than half a million of its citizens, especially young people, invalids and over-50s, are looking for work. The very functioning of the school and health care system is under threat and insecurity hangs over the present system of social security. The state budget deficit has risen dramatically. The economy is yielding smaller tax revenues and the role of unproductive labour is growing. The Czech Republic’s political and economic dependence, accompanied by the exodus of profits abroad, is more extensive than at any time in the past. The hopes which many citizens placed in a government led by the Social Democratic Party have again been disappointed.