Announcement by the CC of KKE about the anti-communist motion to PACE

The anti-communist motion entitled “Need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes”, despite the persistent efforts of its instigators, failed to gather the majority required in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to ensure that the implementation of the terrorist measures accompanying it would become obligatory in its member-states.

The magnitude of the broad popular protest movement that arose in Greece and in other countries of Europe was the main factor in this first success.

The CC of the KKE salutes all those who raised their voice alongside the voice of Communists and flatly condemned the anti-communist motion. Their contribution alarmed those who instigated this monstrosity.

A contribution was also made by the parties and political leaders who disagreed with and voted against the motion, distinguishing unbridled anti-communism from their political and ideological differences with the KKE.

But there should be no complacency, especially since efforts are being made to bring back the motion with “milder” wording, but with the same substance. The movement to condemn the motion in any form must continue and become stronger in Greece and in Europe. More consciences must be awakened.

The “motion” marks the beginning of a new anti-communist hysteria, a qualitatively new forum for it. Proclaiming the communist ideology and the class struggle crimes is not aimed solely at communists, but also at all peoples and their movements.

The goals of the anti-communist motion constitute a choice bred as part of the more general imperialist strategy. This shift to crude and undisguised anti-communism is the forerunner of a new cycle of reactionary measures against the social and democratic rights of the peoples, in preparation for launching a new round of wars. With the use of anti-communist hysteria, lies and persecutions, an attempt is being made to strike at the forces of resistance and the people’s counter-attack.

The immediate aim of the “motion” was to exert ideological pressure on the Communist Parties that insist on supporting the principles of the class struggle and on fighting capitalism, guided by the scientific theory of socialism-communism.

Through the “anti-communist motion”, the imperialists are admitting that new repressive measures are required, for they have ascertained that almost 15 years after the overthrow of the socialist system in Europe, despite the tons of mud they have thrown, they have not succeeded in disparaging the contribution of socialism to the peoples. They realise that their efforts have had “meagre results” and that the communist ideology and socialism continue to move and inspire millions of working people.

They slander the socialism of the 20th century and the revolutionary movement; they announce the retroactive prosecution of the communists who fought for a new world, while vindicating the collaborators and supporters of Nazism.

They distort history provocatively by equating criminals with heroes.

Their main goal is to strike the Communist Parties and the communists, men and women, who are living and fighting under harsh conditions in the former socialist countries. In these countries, they want to uproot the collective memory of millions of working people who can compare the present with the past more objectively today.

In the Baltic member states of the EU, Communist Parties are banned and dozens of their cadres are being persecuted in various ways, while those who collaborated with the Germans are being honoured and rewarded, and governments are erecting monuments paying homage to Fascism.

The “motion” exudes hatred and reveals the imperialists’ schemes at the expense of countries in which Communist Parties are in power, in Cuba, China, Vietnam, and the DPR of Korea. They want to stop the positive political processes and the rising hopes of the peoples in a number of countries in Latin America, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, etc.

From the first moment, the KKE responded unequivocally that it would never sign any “declaration of repentance” for imperialism. On the contrary, it will continue to fight ever more resolutely against it.

We are proud of the history of the KKE, its contribution to the people, to their movement. We are proud of our Party’s proletarian internationalism. Any critical assessment of our action and the course of building socialism we will make solely and exclusively for the working class, for the people.

The crude anti-communist propaganda against the so-called “Stalinist period”, a period in which the foundations were laid for the building of socialism under conditions of encirclement, internal subversion and sabotage, aims to diminish and preempt the struggle to establish the workers’ power. It legalises the counter-revolution and slanders the revolution. What imperialism is trying to do is to make the peoples consign revolutionary violence to the “fires of hell”, so that it can impose the violence of capital unhindered. Using the same criteria and reasoning, they will soon be condemning the great French bourgeois revolution.

It is not accidental that the ideological and political representatives of imperialism are boldly propagandising and applauding the deviations of Communist Parties in the building of socialism and the views of “socialism with freedom and democracy”, where bourgeois democracy means the dictatorship of capital.

The peoples defended the great bourgeois revolutions that carried humanity forward. They also defended the proletarian-socialist revolutions (the Paris Commune, the October Revolution, etc.). History has shown that the intensity and forms of revolutionary force are above all dependent on the degree and forms of resistance put up by the classes that are overthrown.

The peoples also shed their blood during World War II, countering the violence of the unjust with the violence of the just. They punished those who collaborated with the invaders, as they deserved. Today, too, resistance and struggle are growing against so-called “legality”, i.e. the laws and institutions that safeguard injustice for the working class and the popular strata.

Under all circumstances, the KKE will fight against imperialist policies that are against the interests of the people. It is fighting for socialism!

The CC of the KKE calls upon the working people and the youth to oppose every attempt to slander socialism. The peoples have every right to judge socialism, but not the imperialists that fought it using every available means. The imperialists are not interested in learning from the mistakes, omissions and failures that occurred on the uphill road of justice, which was also unprecedented for humanity.

It is in the imperialists’ interests for the people not to be taught, for young women and men not to learn. They want to prevent the coming of socialism, because they know that it is the only timely and necessary response to capitalist barbarity.

In the anti-communist motion, the imperialists admit that they are not annoyed so much by our anti-capitalist criticism, as by our position on the historic limits of capitalism and mainly by the position regarding the class struggle as the force that moves social evolution and progress. The capitalist system can stand criticism and polemics; what it cannot stand is our position on the ceaseless class struggle, irrespective of the correlation of forces and the forms that it can take. It cannot stand the ferment, and even less for the issue of workers’ and people’s political power to be raised as a practical task of struggle. It knows that the working class can abolish bourgeois power, if they act in a conscientious way.

The KKE’s criticism of a number of parties has been confirmed. These parties include the Synaspismos party and others that define themselves as parties of “renewal”, but when the anti-communist motion was in the voting process, they chose to precede their the arguments “condemning” the motion with references to Stalin, and to negate the socialism we knew. In this way, they accepted at least the argumentation cited by the motion itself in support of the terrorist measures it was proposing.

They also argued that ideas are persecuted by the “resolution”, whereas apart from ideas, what is persecuted first and foremost is the communist and workers’ class struggle. Ideas and action constitute an integral whole.

This confirms that the struggle against imperialism can be consistent and have results only to the degree that it is combined with the struggle against opportunism.

The refutation of anti-communism and of imperialist aggressiveness as a whole requires the all-round strengthening of the KKE, the more decisive promotion of its strategy among the working class, young people, women, and the petty bourgeois strata of the people. For the formation of the Anti-imperialist Anti-monopoly Democratic Front of Struggle. For the people’s counter-attack and power to the people.

It requires that the international communist movement regroups. The KKE will continue and step up its efforts to contribute as much as it can to revitalising the international communist movement and to coordinating common action by the anti-imperialist forces on the basis of specific goals.

Life has shown that the communist party - which has elaborated policies and strategies based on its world theory, its scientific analysis of capitalism, and its experience of the counter-revolution in the former socialist countries - constitutes a force for awareness and organisation, a force capable of inspiring the people and youth in large numbers and of instilling the willingness to make self-sacrifices. The KKE is on this road and will continue to follow the same road.