Today is Victory Day. A date that commemorates the capitulation of the Third Reich. After three long years of campaigning, the Red Army had marched from Moscow and Stalingrad to Berlin. Liberating towns, cities and death camps. And while this day is one of the most important dates of Russia and other nations born of the dissolution of the Soviet Union since the ancestors of all its citizens participated in this war, it was a victory not only of the USSR, but of all the left that united against fascism.
The pre-war stage
During the thirties, the USSR viewed with fear the rise of fascism in Europe. While many in the West financed the German war machine, as was the case with Henry Ford, Morgan, Dupont, Rockefeller or the British Crown, the USSR never underestimated the destructive capacity of this ideology. On the contrary, I knew perfectly well about the actions of these fanatics who persecuted all the leftist figures of the country, whether communists, anarchists, trade unionists or socialists.
There were many calls by the USSR to form a common front together with Western countries to stop the advance of fascism. But the West did not want it. The West saw Hitler and Mussolini as tools. The force of shock against Bolshevism. Having failed in the Russian Civil War (where Western countries actively participated), the West tried to use the Third Reich against the USSR to, once and for all get rid of the nation of the proletariat and thus bury the ideas of liberation of the oppressor classes who were fed by the hope awakened from the Union.
As the years passed, fascism advanced by leaps and bounds. Many of the Eastern European nations came to have fascist or quasi-fascist governments. These governments slowly began to approach Germany with the hope of stopping the workers movements in their respective countries. One such approach was the Polish-Germanic non-aggression pact of January 26, 1934.
The USSR actively contributed to the Second Spanish Republic, which went through the sad events of the Civil War, sending planes and pilots, volunteers, commissaries and officers of the Red Army, weapons and ammunition. This brought many diplomatic problems with the West, who maintained a neutral position in the face of the war and wanted Stalin to do the same. To make matters worse, on September 29, 1938 France and Great Britain allowed Germany to annex Czechoslovakia. The Second Republic was declared dead at the international level that same day, demonstrating that the West would definitely not intervene in the war. This treaty came after the U.S., Great Britain and France on March 12, 1938, tolerated the annexation of Austria by Germany.
Seeing such betrayal by the bourgeois governments, the USSR decides to be the last country to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Since then this pact is mentioned by the bourgeoisie as a demonstration of the "good relations" that Stalin had with Hitler, omitting all the previous events, mainly the Munich Agreement. After the signing of the pact, the USSR and Germany invade Poland on two fronts. This, although it was an action that could be criticized, allowed the USSR to place its border farthest from Moscow. Stalin knew that the German blitzkrieg would soon take over Poland, placing the Wehrmacht on the frontier. On June 22, 1941 the Wehrmacht attacked the Fortress of Brest, beginning Operation Barbarossa.
I recommend this KKE documentary which shows some of the events that led to the Second World War.
The partisans
Throughout the war, different groups were formed in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany. During the war, many of the European Communist Parties formed resistance groups, including the Italian National Liberation Committee (CLN), the People's National Liberation Army (ELAS) and the People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia. The work of these groups was of vital importance, both strategically and morally. In many cases they were the main liberating force in the region, as was the case of the Yugoslav and Greek partisans.
The Soviet partisans, coordinating their operations with the Red Army allowed the liberation of the Soviet territories from the German troops. Thus, they acted like a second army, attacking behind the enemy lines.
The partisans are a demonstration of the success of the organized left and its indomitability and fierceness. And together with the International Brigades should be an example to follow for all. It is difficult to imagine a victory in which the armed resistance would not have had the role they really played. Without these groups, the march of the troops to Berlin and the general weakening of the Reich in Europe would have taken more time, resulting in the loss of more lives: more soldiers, more civilians, more victims of the Holocaust.
That is why it is so important to remember the role of the partisans in the war. May their memory always be a reminder of what the lower classes can achieve if they unite with a common mission.
The Red Army
In a conference earlier this year called "Imperialism on Trial" journalist John Wight said he would never accept Russia as his enemy after the sacrifice that the Red Army and the Soviet people made for humanity. Ex-Minister of Parliament George Galloway also echoed the words of John Wight. Allow me also to be part of that cry of resistance: I will never accept Russia as an enemy. I will never believe Western media and officials who lie to us day by day, calling the President of Russia a fascist. It is an insult for the Russian people to believe that after their suffering and sacrifice to stop fascism in Europe they would be so blind as not to see a fascist in front of them. But, unfortunately, insults from the West are not foreign to them. Their role in World War II is increasingly eclipsed by an educational system that omits the 27 million dead and the atrocities of the SS in Eastern Europe. It's not convenient. Russia for them will always be the enemy. They will always be the bad guys in their movies. They will continue to represent this people descended from these great heroes as a nation of Ivan Dragos. But his xenophobic propaganda will never work with me, nor with anyone who knows the true history of World War II.
The Red Army was the one who liberated Stalingrad, Leningrad, Minsk, Odessa, Kiev, Auschwitz, Warsaw, Prague, Berlin. They left behind 27 million brothers and sisters. Comrades. Countless wounded and a nation with an infrastructure in ruins. But they got up. They rebuilt their country and to this day they are still the stone in the shoe of the West.
That is a message that the people of Syria must remember. The years of destruction that jihadism caused in the nation will be left behind. Behind a nation that will resurface stronger than ever. And the sacrifice of their compatriots to stop Islamic extremism and thus bring order to the region after years of Western interventionism will never be forgotten as today is remembered the comrades of the Red Army who defeated the Third Reich, I will also remember that Syria provided a hard hit against the eagle and sent it flying back to Washington. That Syria, Hezbollah, Russia and Iran gave the US Empire a large crack in its armor. Che Guevara would probably say that there was another Vietnam in the Middle East.
Fascism today
Europe was liberated from the clutches of fascism, but these claws always try to return. The Putsch in Ukraine, financed and supported by Europe and the United States is a demonstration of this. We must always be attentive to the resurgence of neo-Nazi movements. But we must also be astute. The actions of groups such as Antifa only harm the Left and victimize the Right. If fascism is to be defeated and definitively eradicated from the earth, intelligence is needed, not brute force. The public must be educated, social parties and movements must provide support to those whom capitalism turns its back. The helpless are the easiest prey of fascism. It nourishes them, gives them a way to vent their anger. It gives them an enemy approved by the sociopathic elites, be they Jews, Mexicans or Muslims. A smoke screen so that the people do not turn their anger against those who really betrayed them. The same elites. Who closed their workplaces, who evicted them, who took their economies to ruin to generate a profit regardless of who was left behind.
The anti-fascist struggle in the 21st century can not be carried out in the same way as that of the 20th century. Times and societies are others. Peaceful, democratic and intelligent means are needed.
The victory of the left
Thanks to the action of all those who fought against fascism, including the soldiers of the allies, workers who crossed the Atlantic and the English Channel to free Paris and find the Soviets in the Elbe River, Humanity was saved from fall through an abyss.
Had Germany won the Second World War, unions and parties around the world would have been dismantled and outlawed, the workers would have been brought back to a state of submission product of indoctrination and repression. The dream of Marx and Lenin would have died forever, their names disappearing from books and societies.
But, thanks to all the men and women who fought, many to death, this did not happen. The dream is still alive. The people protest for a living wage, for social rights, for a future for their children. But for that dream to become a reality, we must remember something fundamental: the achievements of the resistance groups and the Soviet Union were based not on individual actions, but on unity.
On this day two things must be commemorated: the sacrifice of the individual for the common good and the need for unity among the peoples and workers to overcome and prevail.
ETERNAL GLORY TO THOSE WHO CHOSE TO FIGHT INSTEAD OF FLIGHT BEFORE THE HORDES OF FASCISM. THEIR DEED WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.
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