Open letter from the Press Bureau of the Communist Party of Greece
15 April 2010
To the thirteen MEPs of the so-called “Group for the Reconciliation of European Histories”
Sirs,
We condemn your action in proceeding with the formation of a “Group for the Reconciliation of European Histories”—
• because we regard your “initiative” as an effort to falsify European history and rewrite history by means of reversing it;
• because we consider that your “initiative” is part of the general anti-communist attack launched by the European Parliament and the other mechanisms of the imperialist European Union;
• because it is capitalism and its representatives who must apologise to the peoples for the tremendous crimes that all your governments have committed throughout the years and still doing so;
• because you dare to insult the sacrifice and the memory of the 20 million dead of the Soviet Union, which was the key factor for the defeat of Nazism, as well as the memory of hundreds of thousands of communists and fighters from other countries;
• because you spread obscurantism and penalise Marxist-Leninist theory, ideology, and policy.
1. Fascism and Nazism are products of capitalism. They were supported by the whole bourgeois political spectrum in order to come to power. First of all they were supported by the big business groups of Germany, France, the United States, Great Britain, Italy and other capitalist states whose interests are nowadays served by the European Union. As regards the role of the bourgeois forces, we would like to mention the following:
• the open military, economic and political support to Franco in Spain by Great Britain and France as well as indirect support by the United States;
• the Agreement of Munich (1938), where the prime ministers of Great Britain and France, Chamberlain and Daladier, respectively, handed over the “Sudetenland” of Czechoslovakia to Hitler;
• the war against Germany that France and Great Britain declared but without waging it, after the invasion by Germany of Poland in 1939, despite the relevant agreement that they had signed with Poland;
• the open collaboration of the social-democratic government of Sweden with Hitler until 1943; • the collaboration of the Vatican with Hitler and Mussolini, as well as the fact that the Pope helped thousands of Nazi war criminals to escape.
2. As you are so interested in European history, let us remind you—even if you are bound to forget all about it—of a series of crimes against the European peoples that your states committed:
• the First World War, which was a result of the conflict among the plunderers for the redistribution of markets;
• the Second World War, which had the same cause and led to the death of 50 million people—that is, 35 million more than the First World War;
• the bombing of Dresden by British aeroplanes that levelled it in 1945 and was not dictated by any need of the war;
• the crime against humanity, namely the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs, which was also not dictated by any need of the war;
• the invasion by your troops of Russia in order to suppress the Great October Revolution;
• the slaughtering of the Paris Commune by the French government, which did not hesitate to murder even unarmed women and small children;
• the slaughter of thousands of workers during the German Revolution in 1918;
• the execution of thousands of communists and other members of the National Liberation Front in Greece by the collaborators with the Germans and those who were absent from the national liberation struggle during the German occupation, and later on the executions of the men and women fighters of the Democratic Army of Greece;
• the employment of thousands of Nazi war criminals by NATO who were utilised in crucial positions;
• the slaughter of the people of Yugoslavia and its dissolution by Germany, France, Italy, and the United States.
3. It is the European Union and its bodies that have encouraged and applauded the demolition of statues and monuments against fascism and the erection of monuments that honour fascism. It is you who persecute communists and their organisations.
Sirs,
Your anti-communist campaign and the rewriting of history are useful for the general attack that the EU and its governments have launched against the rights of the people in order to serve the profit-making of the monopolies. You want the people to be submissive and disoriented in order to protect your power from the coming popular reactions. You will not succeed.
History can have two versions: the one written by the peoples and the other which is written by their exploiters. You will not manage to reconcile them, no matter how hard you try.
Athens, 15 April 2010
