We are commemorating the 65 years of the victory over Nazi-Fascism, a memorable event, which determined and continues to mark profoundly Humanity’s recent history. On May 9th. 1945 millions of men and women celebrated in Europe the end of the World War II, convinced and hopeful that, that after the most brutal and destructive imperialist war, a future of freedom and peace would lie ahead for the peoples of the planet.
The great significance of this Victory and what it represented should be alive in the memory of all those who aspire and fight for social emancipation, for freedom, for democracy, for peace, for sovereignty and national independence.
To mark the defeat of Nazi-Fascism is to remember the 50 million dead, the systematic extermination of human beings, the horror of the Nazi concentration camps, the cruel sufferings and hardships imposed on the peoples by the Nazi-Fascist barbarity; and to pay a grateful and heartfelt homage to those who fought courageously, giving their lives when necessary, to free the world from the Nazi bestiality.
65 years after the Victory ever the most violent and terrible form of class domination ever created by capitalism – Nazi-Fascism -, we can affirm that probably, like never before, it is necessary to point out the reasons and factors that led to the rise of Fascism, driving Humanity to one of history’s greatest catastrophes.
A task as pressing to the communists, as it is to all democrats and antifascists, when today the world is faced with dangerous and orchestrated manoeuvres which, while trying to mislead and conceal the past responsibility of those who instigated and promoted Fascism, today try to falsify history with the aim of disarming the struggle of the peoples against imperialism which is confronting the world with great dangers and threats.
The outrageous initiatives of distortion of the historic truth surrounding the events of World War II – which, it should be said, has anticommunism as its main target – are made possible due to the change of the correlation of forces at the world level, resulting from the defeats of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe, and a central factor in capitalism’s ideological offensive in the context of a worsening of its crisis, its contradictions, the problems it creates and is unable to solve.
As the PCP has firmly denounced, when they try to equal fascism to communism and erase the decisive role of the communists in the liberation of the peoples from the Nazi-Fascist yoke, the aim is to criminalize, illegalize, repress, not only the ideals and action of the communists, but of all democrats who oppose capitalist domination and exploitation; the aim is to whitewash Nazi-Fascism and hide that this was a form of state organization to which capitalism resorted (and will resort whenever it needs and can) to guarantee the domination and ensure the exploitation of the workers and the peoples. This why it is a duty and necessity to denounce the huge falsification of history and the anticommunism it tries to promote which, as history shows, is always anti-democratic. That is why the defence of the historic truth is an integrating part of the struggles that have to be waged.
And because they are fully aware of the importance of ideological debate on the meaning and historic opportunity that the victory over Nazi-Fascism represented for the emancipation of the workers and peoples of the world, the most reactionary and revanchist forces launch frantically in the distortion of this remarkable historic period. Attempts of distortion which, as in the past, rely on the connivance of silent accomplices.
Their aims could not be clearer, try to overlook the roots of Nazi-Fascism, its class nature, the causes of the war and imperialist ambitions and the annihilation of the revolutionary workers’ and popular movement that determine it; conceal the shameful connivance and complacency of the leading circles of capitalist powers with the terrible aims and ambitions of Nazism; but at the same time erase the role of the communists and the workers’ movement in the resistance against Fascism and in the struggle against the imperialist war; and dwarf the contribution or, if possible, even condemn the role of the Soviet Union in the defeat of Nazi-Fascism.
But whatever their effort in this falsifying flurry, nothing can erase the decisive contribution of the USSR and its heroic people who carried the main brunt of the war, suffering 27 million dead and colossal material losses. It was in the Eastern Front that the greatest and most decisive battles of World War II took place, where the bulk of the Nazi-Fascist hordes were defeated – the outcome of memorable battles such as those of Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk or Berlin, was lived and rejoiced by millions of men and women all around the world. Although the importance and contribution of the Coalition of Allied Countries was valuable, nothing can change the fact that it was the Soviet people and its Red Army who were the main builders of peace.
Likewise, nothing can erase the heroic struggle of the antifascist and patriotic resistance – as in France, in Italy, in Yugoslavia, in Greece or in China against Japanese militarism – and the valuable and determining contribution of the communists who, in one of the most exalting examples of dedication to the cause of the peoples and of freedom, from the very first moment and in the frontline, appealed and mobilized the masses for armed resistance against the Nazi yoke, and in which thousands and thousands of communists gave their lives.
Objectively, we can say that the greater the anticommunism of those who are devoted to the distortion of events concerning World War II, the greater their wish to try to conceal the shameful class connivance and capitulation of the dominating bourgeoisie and its governments regarding Nazi-Fascism. A bourgeoisie that promoted and supported the brutal repression against the communists and the workers’ movement; that promoted and supported the fascist rise to power and its militarism; bourgeoisie that closed its eyes to the aggressions against Ethiopia, Republican Spain, Austria or Czechoslovakia – with its policy of capitulation in Munich -, as well as Poland, which they left on its own, hoping that the course of war would turn towards the only and still young, but already tempered, socialist state in the world, the Soviet Union.
Today, like yesterday, it is necessary to stress that World War II was inseparable and a consequence of capitalism’s crisis and the rise of fascism was a class answer to this very crisis. Promoted and financed by monopolist capital, fascism was the answer of big capital’s leading circles to contain and crush the struggle of the communists and the workers’ movement and the great mass movements for deep social changes and for socialism. Behind the brutal Nazi regime lay the big German financial and industrial capital, which yearned for the annihilation of democratic freedoms and the struggle of the communists and the workers’ movement, for militarism and expansion of its domination. Although it is true that in the rise of fascism to power weighed feelings of despair and wish of retribution for World War I, it is also true that without the active support and complicity of big German capital, the Nazi barbarity would not have come to power. Support that big capital from the big capitalist powers also gave, namely by financing and aiding German economic expansion and militarism, contributing to the material conditions that led to the launching of war.
The Portuguese people crossed the whole period of World War II under the exploitation and oppression of the fascist dictatorship. The terrorist dictatorship of the monopolies (allied with imperialism) and of the big landowners in Portugal led to the curtailment of freedoms and the creation of a police state, censorship, prohibition of free Trade Unions, political police, massive repression, imprisonment and torture of communists, workers’ movement and antifascists – of which the Tarrafal Concentration Camp was a brutal example.
The Portuguese Communist Party which, since 1926 acted underground, never gave up its patriotic and internationalist struggle against the fascist regime. It was during the dark and hard years of Nazi-Fascism and World War II, in the struggle against Salazar’s fascism and his support of Hitler and Franco, that the Portuguese communists launched into a great process of reorganization that enabled the emergence of the PCP as a national party with deep roots in the working class, the workers and the popular masses. It was in this courageous and dedicated effort of organization reinforcement, of implantation and struggle that the PCP became a determining and irreplaceable force which contributed, in a decisive way, to strengthen the unity of the antifascist movement in Portugal. It was in the heroic struggle of antifascist resistance, unmasking Salazar’s false “neutrality”, and in the mobilization and organization of the workers and the masses for the struggle, that the Portuguese communists strengthened their standing among the workers, the intellectuals and the Portuguese people.
The victory over Nazi-Fascism had vast consequences in the international situation. It was a built opportunity that enabled the affirmation of the patriotic forces and of democracy, of socialism, of national liberation and of peace at the world level.
During World War II, all around the planet the peoples and the workers had taken up arms to resist. Millions of human beings, formerly excluded and deprived of any political and social intervention, woke up to the struggle, becoming actors and builders of their own future, daring not only to “touch” but to “gain the heaven”.
It was during the period opened by the new correlation of forces emerging from World War II, with the formation of the socialist camp, that millions of men and women began their emancipation, freeing from exploitation, from oppression and which led to the collapse of colonial empires. A period during which the workers’ movement also obtained great social and political gains, opening the way to progress never before achieved in the history of Humanity, which shaped and still remain in place in the lives of millions of workers.
In Portugal, under the fascist dictatorship, the Portuguese people celebrated the Victory with grand demonstrations of democratic and patriotic affirmation that shook the regime and led to momentary concessions, which would soon be questioned by the upsurge of anticommunist repression. Benefiting from the complicity and benevolence of the great imperialist powers and their class alliances, Fascism in Portugal survived the end of World War II, exploiting and oppressing for another 29 years, but toppled, as a result of the struggle of the Portuguese people and the sister peoples from the former colonies and the courageous action of the captains in the unforgettable dawn of freedom on 25th. April 1974.
In this beginning of the 21st. century, 65 years after the Victory, the world has reached a crossroads which, granting the natural differences resulting from new realities and changes meanwhile occurred, has, however, significant similarities with the international situation before World War II. Jumping on the momentary disappearance of socialism as a world system, imperialism tries to avail of the new correlation of forces to launch on the offensive and recover the ground lost with the vast processes of social and national emancipation and the profound changes and advances won by the workers and the peoples following World War II.
65 years later, political and military blocs, the arms race and militarism and war as instruments of imposition of domination intrinsic to capitalism and as desperate escape to the profound crisis it faces, strengthen.
65 years later, the most reactionary forces, big financial capital and the great imperialist powers which it embodies, agree and fight over the exploitation and appropriation of the peoples’ resources, for the domination of economic activity and the states, for the control of the planet – once again, with the same class complacency and solidarity in the interference and aggression against the sovereignty of the peoples.
Today, as 65 years ago, it is in our hands, in the hands of the forces of progress and peace, to put a stop to the militarist and war escalade. Despite the unfettered exploitation, together with the relations of oppression and subjugation they want to impose on us, we commemorate the Victory, confident in the capacity of resistance and struggle of the organized forces of the workers and the peoples. As the experience of struggle of our party collective shows, when in 1941 it appeared inevitable that the Nazi-Fascist barbarity would wipe out everything ahead, what courage, determination and confidence in the struggle was summoned so that, a few years later, Humanity could celebrate the defeat of Nazi-Fascism and open the way for social and national emancipation.
Imperialism flaunts itself as being all-powerful, but it is not. As reality proves, the great dangers resulting from imperialism’s answer of force to capitalism’s crisis faces the progressive and revolutionary struggle. In several areas of the world the peoples take into their hands the defence of their rights and sovereignty, resist in various ways and impose drawbacks and retreats to the strategy of imperialist domination.
Today, as 65 years ago, the PCP reaffirms its deep conviction in the struggle for social and national emancipation, in the justice of its values and liberating ideals. It is with the profound conscience that the struggle is the way, that the Portuguese communists reaffirm to the Portuguese people its determination in the combat against the causes and forces that were at the root of the fascist terror and PCP’s unwavering confidence that the future belongs not to those who oppress and exploit, but to the workers and the peoples who resist and fight for the emancipation of Humanity from the chains of exploitation of man by man. No to capitalism, but to socialism and communism.
