Today marks one of the most important events of the 20th Century, the defeat of Nazi Fascism in World War II.
The great international anti-fascist struggle was only won at great cost. The experience of this struggle and its legacy are part of the patrimony of all humankind. It is one of the proudest chapters in the living history of the international working class communist movement. It was the peoples of the Soviet Union who paid the highest price in this struggle. Four-fifths of the German army was defeated on the Eastern Front. The Soviet Union lost over 28 million citizens in this struggle, including the millions killed in fascist atrocities.
Across occupied Europe the struggle of partisans, led by communists and underground parties, meant that the fascist occupation was never secure. Despite the overwhelming odds and crimes perpetrated against civilians and resistance fighters, the peoples of Europe were never truly defeated and always resisted.
On this 77th VE Day we must be alive to new threats to the legacy of the anti-fascist struggle and contribution of our class and the international working class movement. We must resist anti-communism in all its forms. The heroic and decisive role of the Soviet Union in ending World War II and the Holocaust, should serve as a clear lesson to those, especially the European Union, who have the audacity to equate Nazi Fascism and Soviet Socialism. We must oppose gross historical revisionism which is an insult to the memory of millions of Soviet war dead. The European Union and NATO have over seen a resurgence of fascist ideologies across Eastern Europe and in Ukraine, especially, have given political and material support to neo-Nazis.
