We can note that these contradictions in certain circumstances are already taking on the aspect of struggle for national independence and for liberation from the U.S. yoke.
So long as this opposition to U.S. imperialism is led by strata of finance capital, we can see that the results might be as follows:
– capitulation to the demands of the United States, or the arrangement of new compromises more or less favourable to these finance capital strata (in this connection, the development of class struggle on the domestic and international scales may act as one of the factors deciding them on such a stand);
– the outbreak of a conflict or war of an imperialist nature;
– the carrying out of a so-called neutral policy, with or without the formation of new political-military blocs;
– an eventual alliance with the socialist countries.
We are assuredly heading towards complex situations which may present abrupt turns and changes, in the course of which the Communist Parties will be required to display a high degree of political capability in order to be able to direct their actions correctly.
But in these circumstances, the working class of the capitalist countries can and must play a still more active role.
We consider that our course of action should be one of struggle for national independence, in the course of which the working class should endeavour to ensure its hegemony and leadership by forming the broadest possible alliances, including even alliance with certain capitalist strata whose interests are opposed to those of U.S. imperialism.
The working class should take back into its own hands the banner of national independence.
This national-independence struggle cannot imply any weakening of the class struggle within the country between labour and capital.
The Communist Parties uphold their independence on the ideological, political and organizational planes; they will continue to promote the struggle of the working class more extensively on all fronts.
Thus in Belgium we have raised the slogan of struggle for national independence and for the liberation of our country from the yoke of the United States; at the present stage, we have especially put this objective into the concrete demand of the slogan: “Quit NATO!”