Communist Party honours Soviet and EAM role in defeat of Nazism, warns imperialist rivalries risk new world war

‘On May Day 1945, the Red Flag with the hammer and sickle was triumphantly raised over the Reichstag by the Red Army, which had crushed the bulk of the Nazi troops. At dawn on 9 May 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally. This day will forever be engraved in the memory of the peoples as the day of their great Anti-Fascist Victory,’ the party said.

The KKE said it honours and defends ‘against the current of distortion and falsification of history’ the enormous contribution of the Soviet Union, which, it noted, bore the brunt of the war against fascism and Nazism, with more than 25 million dead and over 10 million disabled and wounded.

It also underlined the role of popular national liberation movements across occupied Europe, which, under communist leadership, it said, opened a second front against Nazi Germany and its allies ‘in the heart of occupied Europe’.

The party paid tribute to those who fought with weapons or through underground organising, those who resisted in prisons, concentration camps and before execution squads, and especially the 200 communists executed by the German occupying forces in Kaisariani on May Day 1944.

The KKE said their raised fists, captured in recently surfaced photographs, showed ‘the border between two worlds’: on one side, the world of Nazi criminals, their local collaborators and the Greek bourgeois state that imprisoned, exiled and eventually handed over the 200 communists to the occupiers; on the other, ‘the world of pride, honesty and supreme selflessness in the struggle to bring about better days for the people, without conquerors, exploiters and oppressors’.

The party said it is proud to have been ‘the inspirer, organiser and main blood donor’ of the EAM Resistance, one of the largest resistance movements in occupied Europe. It said EAM organisations embraced the vast majority of the Greek people, gave voice to their needs and dreams and organised their struggle.

Although, it added, weaknesses in the strategy of the KKE and the international communist movement at the time prevented that struggle from reaching the point of overthrowing capitalist power, the Anti-Fascist Victory of the Peoples proved that ‘no power is invulnerable to massively organised and armed workers’ and popular forces’.

The KKE accused the capitalist classes, governments, parties and international alliances of fearing this conclusion to this day, claiming that this is why they promote ‘distortion and anti-communism’ and equate fascism with communism.

It also attacked the EU, saying it has designated 9 May as ‘Europe Day’ in order to bury the day’s real meaning, while justifying fascist collaborators in the Baltic countries and Ukraine by presenting them as ‘patriots’ and ‘fighters for democracy’ because they fought the Red Army and the Soviet regime.

The party also criticised Germany for banning communist and Soviet symbols on the anniversary of the Red Army’s victory in Berlin, and condemned the EU for saying that German war reparations owed to Greece for Nazi crimes do not fall within its competence, while at the same time setting up a mechanism for war reparations in Ukraine in which Germany will participate.

According to the KKE, the causes that led to the Second World War lie in the rivalries among capitalist states over markets, spheres of influence, trade routes and energy routes. It argued that the same interests continue to sacrifice human lives today on the war fronts in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere.

The party warned that imperialist rivalries now make the prospect of a third world war more likely than ever, with incalculable consequences for the peoples.

It accused the New Democracy government of taking on historical responsibility by involving Greece ever more deeply in wars, granting bases, playing a leading role in energy conflicts, sending troops abroad and now spearheading the dispatch of naval forces to the Persian Gulf. It added that the government has the substantial consent of ‘all parties of the system’, against what it described as the will of the majority of the Greek people.

The KKE also warned that, alongside integration into war planning, capitalist states prepare by repressing the ‘internal class enemy’, making far-right and fascist forces increasingly useful to the system. It argued that such forces will be defeated not by the bourgeois state, which it said has historically bred and exploited them, but by the organised people themselves, with communists at the forefront.

The party further criticised what it called the opportunistic invocation of ‘anti-fascism’ by rival warring camps to justify wars, interventions and the EU arms race. Anti-fascism, it said, can become ‘a flag of convenience’ when not linked to the struggle to overthrow capitalist power.

‘The KKE marches into tomorrow’s confrontations more experienced, having in its quiver the valuable lessons of history. The negative correlation of forces does not discourage us, because we know that it will be overthrown. The myth of the “omnipotence” of the imperialists, of the “eternity” of their alliances, collapses daily before the eyes of the people,’ the party said.

It concluded that it is marching with one purpose: ‘To meet the demands of the times, to build the great anti-capitalist alliance that will fight the anti-worker, anti-people policy and put an end to the barbarity of capitalism. To vindicate the sacrifices of older generations, to fulfil the dreams and modern needs of the people and the youth, with the workers’ and people’s victory, socialism and communism.’

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