3rd European Meeting on Education, Statement of Solidarity with KSM

Statement of the participants of the 3rd European Meeting in Brussels

On Thursday, April 24th, 2008 the Communist Youth Union (KSM) received a decision of the Municipal Court of Prague which rejected the administrative protest delivered by the KSM against the decision of the Ministry of Interior of Czech Republic on the dissolution of the Communist Youth Union (KSM). The ban of the KSM by Ministry of Interior was declared as lawful.

As an official reason of the banning of the KSM was declared a programmatic goal of the KSM to replace private ownership of means of production with a collective ownership of means of production. Also the reason for the dissolution of KSM was the convincement of the young people about the necessity to struggle for another society not based on the capitalist principles. The attack against the KSM is also an unacceptable kind of the political and ideological manipulation that targets the whole communist movement. There are constantly repeated initiatives to criminalize the communist ideology and every public activity that calls for the realisation of the interests of the exploited and oppressed people.

This step of the Ministry of Interior caused a fundamental disagreement of the majority of the Czech people.

This attack against the KSM is a culmination of a long lasting anti-Communist campaign. This campaign has been represented e.g. with a petition called „Let's ban the communists", the tendency to push through the law that should criminalize the ideas of communism, the movement and the word communist as such, and equating communism with fascism and fascist crimes. The tendencies to ban the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) have become more intensive, accordingly to the attacks against other progressive and democratic force in the Czech Republic. There is in progress an endeavour to realize historic revisionism that should attack the communists, progressive, democratic and anti-fascist tradition and experiences. The anti-communist campaigns use a state system of the public education as well as the mass media.

We have to underline that the banning of the KSM is the attack against the whole communist movement, also against the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia which the state power has not dared to attack directly so far, therefore it does so indirectly through the attack against the KSM.

We, participants of the 3rd Meeting in Brussels strongly rejected the anti-democratic steps of the state bodies of the Czech Republic and call out for the immediate stop of the repressive policy and abolishment of the ban of the KSM.

No to the ban of the Communist Youth Union! No to anti-communism!

The participants of the 3rd European Meeting in Brussels

• Workers' Party of Belgium
• Socialist Workers Party of Croatia
• Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
• Communist Youth Union of Czech Republic (KSM)
• Communist Party in Denmark
• Communist Party of Finland
• Communist Party of Greece
• Communist Youth of Greece (KNE)
• Hungarian Workers' Communist Party
• Party of the Italian Communists
• Socialist Party of Latvia
• Socialist Party of Lithuania
• New Communist Party of the Netherlands
• Communist Party of Poland
• Portuguese Communist Party
• Socialist Alliance Party, Romania
• Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
• Communist Party of Sweden
• Communist Party of Turkey

Guest Pole of Communist Rebirth