Protest at the Embassy of Slovakia by the KKE and KNE against the anticommunist measures in Slovakia

On September 1st a delegation of KKE and KNE carried out a protest at the Embassy of Slovakia against the escalating anticommunist offensive in this country, 20 years after the overthrow of socialism.

The delegation that met the consul of the Embassy was comprised of Kostas Papadakis, member of the Secretariat of the CC of KKE and member of the International Section of the CC, Babis Agourakis member of the CC of KKE and MEP and Antonis Antanassiotis on behalf of the “Democratic Rally for the People’s Freedoms and Solidarity”.

The KKE denounced the efforts of the EU and the governments of capital in Slovakia and other former socialist countries aimed at the establishment of the anti-historical and provocative equation of fascism with communism.

According to the new provisions of the criminal code that entered into force on September 1^st “anyone who denies, supports or tries to justify the crimes of the regime that are based on the communist ideology” will be prosecuted with prison sentences ranging from six months to three years.

The cadre of the party underlined that there will be no tolerance for the escalation of the anticommunist measures and that the information and resistance campaign against these measures will continue. Furthermore, they stressed that previous experience shows that international solidarity led to the revoking of these measures or placed obstacles in the way of anticommunism, as in the case of the lifting of the ban on the activity of the Czech Communist Youth Union.

The resolution of KKE that was delivered to the embassy notes:

“The repeated instances of anticommunism, in more and more countries in the EU, the attempts to declare the 23rd of August as a day equating communism with fascism, are proof that the slanderous anti-communist hysteria is decided on and organized by the EU and the bourgeois class in every country.

The intensity of the anti-communism constitutes a necessary supplement to the anti-worker measures which are taken by capital in conditions of the sharpening contradictions and the deepening capitalist crisis. It is a concern for the capitalists that the broadest popular forces in the former socialist countries are nostalgic for socialism which they knew, in the face of the impasses of capitalism, unemployment, poverty, destitution, the abolition of labour-popular rights and gains. Nevertheless the capitalists are doubly concerned, because the communists, despite the difficulties, are playing a leading role in the organization of the popular struggles, highlighting the need for the overthrow of capitalist barbarity and the construction of socialism-communism.

The KKE expresses its solidarity with the CP Slovakia and will give all its efforts in increasing the pressure so that the anti-communist measures are revoked and the persecutions in Slovakia and the rest of Europe cease as well as in strengthening the struggle for socialism-communism.”

As regards the criminalisation of political activity through the new measures the officials of the Embassy responded that it is a “decision of a sovereign state” and used the well known provocative arguments regarding the alleged “40-year dictatorship and totalitarian regimes” while they tried to downplay the anticommunist measures that enter into force arguing that they have a “symbolic character”.