Dear comrades!
The Communist Party of Ireland expresses its solidarity with the German Communist Party as its very existence is now being questioned by the German state.
The Federal Election Commissioner has refused to admit the DKP to stand in the Bundestag elections in September, and so it will be deprived of its status as a political party.
This attack on the DKP is nothing new. The Communist Party was banned in 1933 by the fascist state, with tens of thousands of members arrested and thousands murdered. Throughout the capitalist world we are witnessing growing attacks on the working class, working-class organisations and political parties. This has been the experience of our class: when the system is under pressure from its own crises and contradictions it opens up new fronts of attack on workers and their organisations.
German monopoly capitalism is facing growing challenges, and so it feels the need to ban communists and prevent the working class organising and fighting back. This strategy is not confined to Germany but is being co-ordinated by the European Union, in parallel with national anti-communist strategies. This is part of the growing global counter-offensive by imperialism, a new cold war against the working class. The ruling class seeks to demonise the left while criminalising working-class forces and resistance. They are using the experience gained during the COVID-19 pandemic to institutionalise further controls and restrictions, to engage in renewed attacks on workers’ rights and conditions and the social advances that we have made over the decades. Their system is in crisis, and they want our class to pay the price.
All democratic and progressive forces in Ireland and throughout Europe in particular must mobilise in solidarity and in action with German communists. As history has shown, after they come for the communists, they will come for all of us.
