“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism.” The opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1848. Governing bodies of the European Union are on a crusade to stamp out the historic achievements of communism and communist parties. They want to criminalize the ideas and the people who espouse them. They hope to discredit communism once and for all.
On Dec. 14, 2005, the Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted draft resolution 1481, entitled “Need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes.” It was introduced by center-right forces in the European Parliament.
Despite vigorous opposition from communist and workers’ parties and progressives around the world, PACE passed the resolution just one month later with 99 votes in favor, 42 against and 12 abstentions. However, recommendations accompanying the resolution—requesting European governments to take repressive follow-up measures—didn’t get the two-thirds majority necessary for implementation.
Although European countries have not taken individual action on the resolution, the odious document is now on the books and, thus, is now part of “official” European history. But all workers should know that the resolution only serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class throughout Europe and their U.S. imperialist allies.
The big lie: Equating communists with fascists
 A Greek resistance fighter during the fascist occupation in World War II. |
The history of the communist movement in Europe is deeply intertwined with the recent history of the continent itself.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels drafted the Communist Manifesto in Belgium in 1847 and presented it in London in 1848. Communists played key roles in the great revolutions that swept Europe in 1848. The International Workingmen’s Association—the First International—was founded in England in 1864.
The great Russian Revolution of 1917 proved that socialist revolution was indeed possible. For the first time in history, the toiling classes vanquished their oppressors and seized and retained state power.
Communist parties in nearly every European country led the resistance against fascist aggression and occupation during World War II. Many countries in Eastern Europe were headed by communist parties for almost 60 years.
That’s a short recounting of communism’s influence in Europe over the past 160 years.
Of course, since the Communist Manifesto was written in 1848, the influence of communism has spread far beyond the European continent. Revolutionaries in oppressed nations across the globe—in Asia, Africa and the Americas—have found in communism vital theory, strategy and tactics to fight capitalism and imperialist exploitation.
The recent PACE resolution flies in the face of this proud history of workers’ struggle. But it isn’t the first attempt by European capitalist politicians to criminalize communism.
In May 2005, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Europe from fascism, the European Parliament approved an anti-communist resolution condemning “Communist dictatorships” and “Soviet domination” 463 to 49 with 33 abstentions. The great irony of this resolution is that the communists, led by the Soviet Union’s Red Army, liberated the bulk of Europe from fascist occupation.
This resolution also equates communism with fascism by saying that “arbitrary and criminal” communism needs to be condemned in the same way as fascism. But the two ideologies are opposites. Fascist governments, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy, occupied most of Europe and murdered millions during World War II. Their sole purpose was to stabilize capitalist rule against growing communist and workers’ movements. An organic outgrowth of capitalism itself, fascism was embraced by nearly every capitalist ruling class in Europe by 1940, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Poland and others.
The Soviet Union—led by the Communist Party—sacrificed 27 million people to defeat the Nazi menace and proceeded to liberate Europe from the fascist genocide. Around 9 million Soviet soldiers died in the fight against fascism, almost 10 times the number of British, French and U.S. forces combined. Millions of communists in countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, France and Italy also sacrificed their lives to defeat the Nazis.
The PACE resolution does not mention any of this.
Criminalizing the workers’ movement
 Defenders of communism protest the EU legislation in Strasbourg, France. Photo: Workers Party of Belgium |
But the PACE resolution does more than rewrite history. It seeks to stigmatize the communist movement and ideology as a whole. The resolution states that communism, “wherever and whenever implemented, be it in Europe or elsewhere, has always resulted in massive terror, crimes and large scale violation of human rights.”
The anti-communist resolution thus represents a step toward criminalizing countries currently led by communist parties, just as it targets communists in all countries. The resolution reads “national interest perceptions should not prevent countries from adequate criticism of present totalitarian communist regimes … in certain countries … where crimes continue to be committed.” This language gives the pretext of “criminal communism” for imperialist aggression of all kinds, including military invasion, against countries like Cuba, North Korea and China.
The resolution also attacks communist parties in EU countries. “Communist parties are legal and active in some countries, even if in some cases they have not distanced themselves from the crimes committed by totalitarian communist regimes in the past.” These underhanded attacks are really aimed at the existing workers’ movements. The resolution pushes forward the idea of outlawing legal communist and workers’ parties throughout Europe.
In several new EU member countries, promoting communist ideals and symbols of the international workers’ movement is already illegal. Herwig Lerouge of the Workers Party of Belgium noted in an Oct. 28, 2005, article about the resolution that, “In countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Rumania and Turkey, communist parties are forbidden by law or face insurmountable obstacles to the legality of their action. In Hungary and the Czech Republic, the use of socialist symbols is forbidden and punishable by law.”
Yet in most of those countries, fascist movements are permitted to operate openly. For the past five years, the Nazi Waffen-SS have demonstrated in Riga, Latvia. And in Lithuania and Estonia, ex-members of the SS have the same privileges as veteran anti-fascist soldiers who fought the Nazi’s in World War II.
An attempt to wipe out past and future
In general, capitalist-sponsored anti-communism is on the rise in Europe and around the world. The PACE resolution illustrates this trend. Why is this happening?
The European bourgeoisie, along with capitalists in other countries, want to prevent communist parties from taking power in the name of workers ever again. They fear a rise in the working-class movement for change because of deteriorating social and economic conditions.
In a contribution to a Jan. 21, 2006, meeting convened in Brussels by the Workers Party of Belgium, the Communist Party of Cuba offered this explanation: “The aim of this new provocation is by no means a historical analysis of the communist experience during the past century. It is directed, however, towards destroying all forms of resistance to the neoliberal hegemony which has been espoused by both the right wing and the social democrats in the Old World and is being exported to the countries of Eastern Europe.”
In the former socialist Eastern European countries, life has changed dramatically since the overthrow of the communist-led governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The resurgence of capitalism has caused industry and agriculture to wither, mass unemployment, emigration, corruption and mafia influence, prostitution and a precipitous general decline in living standards.
This was even acknowledged in the 1999 United Nations Development Program “Report on the evolution of humanity for Central and Eastern Europe and the CEI. “Before the 1990s, the social infrastructure [of the former European socialist countries] was remarkably good. There was a high level of basic social security. Full-time jobs were guaranteed for life … access to education and health care was for free. … Today, the right to education, a healthy life and sufficient nutrition are not assured.”
The contradictions of capitalism are also ravaging Western Europe. Neoliberalism and privatization, the dismantling of social security and widespread job replacement are increasingly causing large sectors of the working class to rebel. The militant actions of trade unions, the broad mobilizations to defeat the anti-worker European Constitution and the participation of anti-imperialist communist parties in fighting against the war in Iraq are examples.
Because of the successes and potential growth of working-class movements, led in part by communists, the European rulers hope to halt these struggles by dividing the workers on the basis of anti-communism.
The capitalist politicians behind this most recent resolution, and others like them, have made clear that they can’t allow history to repeat itself—“illusionary nostalgia in the minds of the younger generations that see [in communism] a substitute for liberal democracy” must be eradicated. (PACE News, Dec. 14, 2004)
Communists fight back
Communist and workers parties fought the passage of this resolution with meetings, broad campaigns and demonstrations. The Communist Party of Greece mobilized thousands of people who joined a rally against the PACE resolution, where the document was decried as a “declaration of war against the working class.”
The Workers Party of Belgium organized a meeting of 15 communist and workers’ parties on Jan. 21 to organize opposition to the resolution. Twenty-five more communist parties sent solidarity messages and greetings to the meeting. A petition has also been drafted against the resolution.
Hundreds of communists gathered on Jan. 24 in Strasbourg, France—the home of PACE—to protest the resolution. A delegation of demonstrators handed the president of PACE, René van der Linden, the petition against the resolution with 3,901 signatures on it. Delegations from several other European countries also submitted declarations, resolutions and motions containing thousands of signatures.
The petition campaign is still surging. Around 6,000 people have signed on. The petition’s main demand is the immediate withdrawal of the resolution—to remove it from the EU’s official record altogether. Communists and progressives from Europe to the Philippines to the United States, Russia and Vietnam oppose the anti-communist resolution.
Famous Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, who wrote the soundtrack to “Zorba the Greek”, issued a strong statement condemning the PACE resolution. Theodorakis participated in the Greek communist-led resistance that fought the German, Bulgarian and Italian fascist occupiers during World War II.
In his statement, Theodorakis linked the fate of the European anti-communist crusaders to that of U.S. imperialism: “Those gentlemen of the Council of Europe, in their wish to resurrect methods condemned in the consciousness of history and the peoples … have already been overrun by their great brother, the USA, that exterminates entire peoples using Hitler-like methods, as in the case of Iraq.”
“Such citizens cannot be prosecutors,” he continued. “At the Court of history that one day will pass sentence on the countless crimes committed by their big brother, from Vietnam to Chile and from South America to Iraq, they will be on trial on the count of toleration, if not collaboration with those crimes.”
Revolutionaries in the United States and elsewhere can show solidarity with their comrades in Europe and uphold the Marxist ideas that are now under attack in the EU government and around the world. History has recognized that communists have taken the lead in liberating hundreds of millions of laborers from oppression and capitalist exploitation.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation stands with other communists and revolutionary socialists in condemning PACE’s issuance of resolution 1481. It is an offense to history, to the struggles of the present, and to the tens of millions of working-class people who sacrificed their lives for a better world.
Visit www.no2anticommunism.org to sign the petition against PACE resolution 1481. For more background information visit the website of the Workers Party of Belgium: www.wpb.be.
Articles may be reprinted with credit to Socialism and Liberation magazine.
