Joint statement by forty-three communist and workers’ parties
On 9 May we commemorate the sixty-fifth anniversary of the victory over Nazi fascism—the most violent and brutal expression of the monopoly domination in a capitalist system in deep crisis—which led humankind to one of the worst catastrophes in its history, with the barbarity of concentration camps and the Second World War’s procession of death and destruction for the peoples.
The communists were in the front line from the very first moment, mobilising and organising workers and peoples in the resistance. The anti-fascist struggle, to which millions gave their lives, was marked by the firm and determined action of communists.
The heroic contribution of the USSR, of its Red Army and of its people, which suffered around 27 million deaths, was decisive for the victory over the fascist hordes.
It was with the Victory in 1945 and the formation of the socialist camp that millions of men and women undertook their emancipation, freeing themselves from exploitation, oppression, and colonialism, with the working-class movement winning enormous social and political victories, on a progressive path never before attained in human history.
In the current situation, in a time of capitalism’s deep crisis, in which the offensive carried out by several imperialist organisations, like NATO and the EU, is hitting so seriously the toiling masses, humankind is again facing great danger resulting from imperialism’s deepening contradictions, from the arms race, from the reinforcement of aggressive military alliances, and from the attempt to forcefully impose the brutal increase of exploitation, precariousness in labour relations, dismissals and unemployment, poverty and the negation of the most basic necessities for millions of human beings.
We therefore appeal to the commemoration of the sixty-five years of the victory over Nazi fascism as an important action in the struggle for peace and against the monumental falsification of history and anti-communism—which, as history proves, is always anti-democratic—that, by trying to place fascism and communism on an equal footing and to erase the communists’ decisive role in the peoples’ liberation from the yoke of Nazi fascism, seeks to prosecute, to make illegal and to suppress not just the actions of the communists but of all democrats who oppose capitalist domination and exploitation, with the purpose of pursuing and repressing all of those who, in any way, resist and fight in an organised manner against monopoly and imperialism.
For us, communists, evoking the sixty-five years of the victory is to reaffirm our deep belief in the struggle for social emancipation, in the justice of our values and liberating ideals. It is a reaffirmation of our determination to fight the causes and the forces which were at the root of the fascist horror; we reaffirm our unshakeable confidence that the future does not belong to those who oppress and exploit but to the workers and peoples who resist and fight for humankind’s emancipation from the shackles of exploitation and for a society in which the workers fully enjoy the fruits of their labour and in which social progress, peace and welfare prevail. The future belongs not to capitalism but to socialism and communism.
