This year marks 80 years since the great anti-fascist victory of the peoples during the Second World War. The peoples of Europe, led by the communists in every country, achieved a historic feat in 1945. They succeeded in crushing Hitler’s fascism and Nazism and in consigning to the dustbins of history the blackest thing that human history has ever produced. The peoples succeeded in stopping the imperialist plans of the Nazis and the Fascists that were bloodying Europe and the entire world, and thus gave birth to the hope for a better future and for the reconstruction of a ruined Europe.
World War II officially began on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. It lasted 5 years, 8 months and 4 days, a period in which peoples tasted the bitter cup of fascism. But this war brought the humiliation of human dignity, torture, starvation, death and ruin. Holocaust, concentration camps, mass executions of LGBT+ people, Roma, people with disabilities and every ‘undesirable’ element for Nazi ‘purity’, atrocities and experiments on people, death marches are just some of the crimes committed by the Nazis .On May 1, 1945 the Red Flag was raised in the German Reichstag. On the night of May 8-9, Germany unconditionally capitulated. Four months later (2 September 1945) Japan capitulated after the victory of Soviet troops over its army in Manchuria.
The rise of fascism should in no way be considered accidental. It was a tool of the most aggressive sections of capital to suppress the popular movements, crush workers’ rights and impose absolute power. It was capital’s outlet at a time when capitalism was going through one of its greatest modern crises, when fascism and Nazism were the system’s greatest crutch. The president of the Association of German Industrialists, G. Krupp says: ‘National Socialism freed the German worker from the vise of a doctrine (i.e. Communism) which was fundamentally hostile to both employer and worker. Adolf Hitler returned the worker to his nation. He turned him into a disciplined soldier of labour and therefore our (the industrialists’!) comrade.”
In this great victory the contribution of the Soviet Union was decisive. The great counter-offensive began in Stalingrad where Hitler’s armies were humiliatingly defeated by the Red Army and the Soviet people in February 1943. It was there that the countdown to Hitler’s fascism began. On 30 April 1945 Berlin passed completely into the control of the Red Army and on 8 May Nazi Germany signed an unconditional capitulation. On 9 May, the last European capital, Prague, was liberated.
In the Second World War, the greatest ever experienced by mankind, the Soviet people bore the brunt and paid the highest price in sacrifices with 20 million dead, equivalent to 13% of its then population. Similarly, the death toll in Britain reached 375 thousand and in the USA 405 thousand. It is also significant that in the summer of 1944, when in Western Europe the American-British forces were facing 75 German divisions, the Red Army had pinned down 200 on the Eastern Front.
In the USSR there is no family that has not tasted the pain of losing relatives and friends. Twenty-five million people were left homeless, the country lost 30% of its national wealth to the war. Its 1,710 cities and towns and over 70 thousand villages were destroyed, 32 thousand of its industrial enterprises and over 100 thousand large rural households were destroyed or looted, over 65 thousand kilometres of railway lines were blown up. The contribution of the Soviet people, the Soviet state and their Red Armed Forces was definitively and irrevocably recorded as an immortal epoch.
History written in blood cannot be erased with ink
Some try to diminish the contribution of the Soviet Union and the Communists, others attempt to equate Communism with Nazism, but all, serving the very system that gave birth to and supports fascism, attempt to rewrite history. But the history written with the blood of peoples for a better world cannot be erased – no matter how much ink they buy.
They try to portray the US and Great Britain as the main victors of World War II in Europe, presenting the Normandy landings as decisive for the outcome of the war. They artfully misrepresent history and gloss over what the facts speak for themselves. The USSR and the Red Army bore the brunt of the conflict, facing 607 of the 725 German divisions, while at the Battle of Stalingrad, with over 2 million dead, the Nazis suffered their first decisive defeat. It is also a fact that until the invasion of 1944, the USSR fought almost alone on land.
The national liberation and anti-fascist movements of the capitalist countries made their own significant contribution to the Six Years’ War (1939-1945), despite the merely symbolic character that the Westerners want to give it. In these too, the Communist Parties were the soul, organiser and main blood donor. The Communist Parties followed the line of the formation of “anti-fascist fronts”, which was elaborated and put forward unitedly by the “Communist (or Third) International” at its 7th Congress (25 July to 21 August 1935). The Resistance engaged thousands of occupation troops around the world and delayed operations, struck at the infrastructure of the occupiers and supported the resistance of struggling peoples in every region. A shining example is Yugoslavia, where the Partisans under the Communist Party liberated the country without outside intervention, with over 800,000 guerrillas. The communists, pioneers in the anti-fascist movements, did not only fight for national liberation. They fought for freedom and social justice.
At the same time, in an attempt by some to denigrate the contribution of the Soviet Union to the antifascist victory of the peoples, they equate the leader of the USSR with Hitler. Thus their anti-communism is dressed up as “criticism of Stalin” to make it seem more acceptable. Whatever one may accuse Stalin of, history records him as the leader of the people who crushed fascism, who made the greatest sacrifices to free Europe from the barbarism and hatred of the Nazis. The Stalin-Hitler equation, the identification of communism and Nazism, the theory of “two extremes”, are not innocent “opinions”, they are political tools of anti-communism, whose sole aim is to weaken the only political force that can demonstrably crush fascism. The contribution of the USSR to victory is outlined in Stalin’s epic speech “The sacrifices we have offered have not been wasted. In the future the flag of freedom and peace of the peoples will fly over Europe… Three years ago, Hitler said he would annihilate Russia, break away the Ukraine, the Caucasus, Belarus, the Baltic countries and other regions… But these insane ideas did not come true… the period of war in Europe is over. The period of peaceful development is beginning.” And no matter how much they try to rewrite history, the flag with the hammer and sickle nailed to the Reichstag does not fade away.
Cyprus’ participation, a badge of honour
The Cypriot people did not remain uninvolved in the great struggle of the peoples of Europe against Fascism. Hundreds of our compatriots, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots volunteered for the British army and fought on the various fronts of World War II. After Nazi Germany’s attack on England, the British decided to use personnel from the colonies to cope militarily with the Axis war machine. Thus they set up voluntary conscription corps in all the colonies, such as in the case of Cyprus the Cyprus Regiment (for operations abroad) and the Cyprus Volunteer Force (for the security of the island). This is why in Cyprus they relaxed the repressive measures imposed on the people during the period of the Palmerocracy after the October uprising, where they outlawed the Communist Party of Cyprus along with other political groups.
Under these circumstances and with the relaxation of the harsh measures of the Palmerocracy, the Workers’ Party of the Working People was founded in April 1941 by nuclei of the CPC and other progressive forces in Cypriot society. AKEL is described by its founding assembly as ‘Democratic, Anti-Fascist and Anti-Hitler’. Although a new party and within the framework of colonialism, AKEL was trying to enlighten the world and its members about the nature of the war, the heinous nature of fascism and the need to crush it. Thus, the enlightenment campaign of the working class party and the Italian invasion of Greece mobilised the Cypriot people, while many Cypriots began to join the Allied army and fight to crush Hitler’s fascism.
But the decision that marked the history of the party and remains a milestone to this day was that of 16 June 1943. A decision in which AKEL called on its members to participate voluntarily in the anti-fascist struggle for “the liberation of Greece from Hitler’s tyranny, the liberation of the enslaved countries and the securing of the national political and social future of the island”. It was one that stemmed from the very principles of the party against fascism and imperialism and that educated our people in the ideal of internationalist solidarity. “All the members of the C.E. without exception – 17 in number – have prayed and insisted that they be allowed to take their place in the honorary ranks of the armed forces of the Allies.”
In the end, 11 of the 17 members of the C.C. and hundreds of party members volunteered to join the British army. On June 27, a Pancyprian Conference was held which in a jubilant, anti-fascist atmosphere approved the approximately one thousand KKK-AKEL volunteers. On the same day all of them, led by the 11 members of the C.E. marched to the Polemidia camp, where they were finally accepted to enlist, about 800 Communists.
The AKEList fighters served in various corps, such as the Royal Engineers, the Royal Air Force and the Corps of the Eminences, while they fought on the fronts of France, Greece, North Africa and Italy. The character of the AKELists was evident both in the battles where many were decorated and in everyday military life.There and where they had the opportunity, the AKELists proceeded to provide political enlightenment to their fellow soldiers and took the lead in promoting the demands of the soldiers, despite the possible personal cost. The main demands of the Cypriots were financial support for their families and to put a stop to the arbitrary actions of their superiors. The AKELists succeeded in linking the anti-fascist struggle with the struggle for the liberation of Cyprus from the British yoke.
On 16 June 1943, AKEL on June 16th proved its class-anti-fascist character and its readiness to sacrifice itself for the common good. Since then, it has never stopped doing so. AKELists declared their patriotic “presence” and put their own stone and sacrificed their lives for the crushing of Hitler’s fascism. However much official historiography chooses to gloss over the contribution of the AKELists in WWII, the Workers’ Party wrote a glorious page for Cyprus and its people with blood and struggle.
Fascism today – The threat with a new face
Today, fascism reappears. With a new mask, but the same essence. With racist discourse, xenophobia, anti-communism, attempts to falsify history. Fascist groups strike with the acquiescence – and often with the support – of the state apparatus. Far-right parties in Europe and the world are again gaining strength, becoming electorally stronger and participating in bourgeois governments. They work with bourgeois parties of the right and form coalition governments, participate in bourgeois parliaments, and again become part of the system that creates them and strengthens them through long-standing bourgeois policies.
The far-right and neo-Nazi parties may wear the mask of anti-systemicism and boast that they are something new, but in reality they are the most aggressive part of the system, the crutch of the bourgeoisie in times of crisis.
A typical example is ELAM, the branch of the criminal Golden Dawn in Cyprus. In every crucial vote in the parliament it is ready to support the interests of big capital. It expresses fascist far-right political discourse, which, with the tolerance of the state, the institutions and the rest of the bourgeois parties, has been fully normalised, while we see the President of the Republic of Cyprus joining them and seeking their support, making them his collaborators. At the same time, they try to sell the image of the incorruptible, the anti-systemic and the new.
The struggle continues – from the past to the present and the future
At the forefront of the resistance is once again the Left – as it was then and is now. Just as then the communists were in the front line of the anti-fascist struggle, where they gave all their strength and sacrificed everything for the crushing of Hitler’s fascism, so today, when fascism and the far right are rearing their heads again, normalizing and strengthening, the left and the communists are in the front line to stop them.
So too in Cyprus, the only hope for stopping fascism lies in the left, in the party of the working class, AKEL and its youth, EDON. AKEL and EDON are fighting in every way to put an end to the rise of the far right and are giving all their strength to the current anti-fascist struggle that our class, the working class, has to face.
AKEL and EDON are organising anti-fascist events, marches, information campaigns and oppose any attempt to legitimise fascist groups inside and outside parliament.Memorial marches for Pavlos Fissas, anti-fascist marches in honour of Kavazoglou Misiaouli who died at the hands of a fascist, mobilisations and interventions against fascist groups operating in schools and neighbourhoods are being organised.
AKEL remains the only political party in Cyprus that stands firmly against fascism. Not only now that fascism is rearing its head, but since forever. AKEL has been and will remain anti-fascist by nature and by definition. From the day it was founded as an “anti-hitler, anti-fascist” party until today, when it fights for the crushing of neo-fascism and neo-Nazism.
For the communists may have killed the monster in 1945, but the womb that gave birth to it, the barbaric capitalist system, is alive and well, and the hope for crushing the monster again lies in the left and in the communists. For history shows us that when peoples fight consciously and in an organised way, they can win. And fascism can only be defeated by mass, organised popular struggle.
We have won-We will win again