Translated "Avante" article by Ângelo Alves, Member of the PCP Political Committee and of the International Department

The Soviet Socialist Republics’ army took over the Reichstag, on May 2nd, 1945. The red hammer and sickle banner, displayed by a Soviet soldier, flew in Berlin. A few days after, in May 8th, 1945, Nazi Germany signed its unconditional surrender. The Soviet people celebrated, in Moscow, the victory of the “Great Patriotic War” on May 9th, having made that very same day be part of history as “Victory Day”. World War II had come to an end within the European continent, followed by imperial Japan’s defeat, in the Asian continent. Humanity was to be confronted with overwhelming crimes, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s, perpetrated by the USA, when Japan was militarily defeated and prepared to sign its surrender.

In May, the most poignant tragedy humanity history ever lived, was put to an end, costing the life of more than 50 million human beings. Behind, were the years of whole countries’ destruction, having the Nazi “empire” and Fascist dictatorships occupied almost all the European continent. Whole cities were devastated, authentic genocides were committed (the USSR lost 15% of its population) under the hands of the Nazi-Fascists. Concentration camps, gas chambers, mass firing squad executions and hangings remained the symbols of the barbaria, one must not forget.

During World War II, about half of the number of victims were Soviets. There is not any historical revisionism that ought to remove this reality. There are not any history re-writing operations that ought to eliminate facts, as the Red Army having been fighting alone 98% of the Nazi-Fascist military force, in the Eastern Front, in 1942. No anti-communism allows to withdraw from historical reality the people’s and Soviet army’s heroic resistance, as during the 872 days siege, to Leningrad. No lies nor hindering that ought to erase from history the determining role of great battles, such as Stalingrad’s – which definitely marked the war’s turnover and the beginning of the Soviet impetuous counter-offensive – or in Kursk, “the greatest battle in history”, where 50 Nazi-Fascist divisions were eliminated. There is no historical misrepresentation that ought to forget the Normandy landing, carried out by the British and North-American forces, and took place when it was for granted the Soviet Union was in the condition of liberating , only but with its own forces, all Europe.

To celebrate V Day is honouring the historical truth and paying our homage to all those who, as the communists, gave all their strength to defeat Nazi-Fascism. But it means even more. As to remind that Fascism is not an accident in history, but a violent manner, dominant classes used to respond to deep emerging contradictions of capitalism’s economic crisis, which came from since 1929. And to remember the two World Wars, humanity suffered, were a result of capitalism’s evolution and its intrinsically and structural crisis and not a historical setback. History does not repeat itself, but currently, on looking round the world, at imperialist aggression wars, that mark reality within several continents, the deep system’s crisis, the growing attacks to democracy and sovereignty and the resurging of Fascist forces and crimes – many of them supported by the so-called “Western democracies”, as Ukraine – parallelism is inevitable.

Not a parallelism that ought to hinder or block the communists struggle, but instead, enlightens one’s minds on the decisive importance of our struggle against exploitation, oppression and war, and that underlines the importance of our historical mission, by the overcoming of capitalism and the building of socialism, giving a real and definite meaning to the following sentence: “Never again”.