Speech of Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL, at the event to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the Anti-fascist Victory
9th May 2015, Nicosia
Shortly after the neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” party entered the Greek parliament, a text was being circulated from hand to hand on the Athens public transport. The text was written by the son of a Resistance fighter who said things in a very simple manner and therefore very real.
“My own father, too many fathers and mothers of that era, fought against the monster, in difficult times. They didn’t care that the enemy was much stronger than them. Besides, “Kougi” and “The Castle of Ymittos” never measured their strength with practicalities, which is why they became shining beacons for many generations … And it’s as if everyone says: “yes, they did resist because this is what they had to do” and not because they reckoned that the shining victory would be certain. These visions, choices and actions of people gave us an impetus to cross the threshold of the century. They taught us history, despite and against all those ruling forces seeking to rewrite it to their own interests. We experienced our first youth with ideas, rights, assets which they “lent” us.” This simple and absolute truth is the meaning of the Anti-Fascist Victory; a Victory written with the sacrifice of millions of people who consciously chose not to be indifferent, not to compromise with all that is most hateful and shameful ∙ who chose to resist and struggle so that humanity would have a democratic and humane future.
Seventy years later, we continue to pay homage to all those who gave their lives in the titanic battle against the despicable and inhuman ideology of fascism; all those who fought to repulse the imperialist plans of the Nazis and the fascists that drowned Europe and the entire world in blood. The great counterattack began in Stalingrad where the Hitler army suffered a humiliating defeat by the Red Army and the Soviet people in February 1943. The countdown for the end of Hitler fascism had already begun.
On 30th April 1945 Berlin was under the complete control of the Red Army and on 9th May Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally. On the same day the last European capital, Prague, was liberated. In the Second World War, the biggest war ever experienced by humanity, a broad coalition of states and political forces united fought against fascism, Nazism and militarism until they crushed them. We acknowledge the contribution of all forces in the great victory of humanity. However the undisputable truth is that the Soviet people bore the brunt and paid the heaviest price in sacrifices with over 20 million dead.
Cyprus although suffering under the yoke of British colonial rule, made its own important contribution to the anti-Hitler war with approximately 20,000 volunteers, both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Our Party, AKEL, also made its own contribution to the international struggle to crush Hitler fascism. The culmination of this contribution was the Party’s decision of 16th June 1943. With this decision, the Central Committee called on all the members of AKEL to enlist as volunteers in the army and fight fascism. It was the only organized, fully conscious and clearly antifascist and mass campaign to enlist Cypriots to fight Nazism and fascism. The decision addressed a call “to all members of the Party to enlist voluntarily in the armed forces to strengthen the struggle for the liberation of Greece from the Hitler tyranny, the liberation of the enslaved countries and to secure the national, political and social future of the Island.” The response was massive and enthusiastic. Eleven of the seventeen members of the Central Committee of AKEL and about 800 party members joined the army. Their example was subsequently followed by many others.
At this point allow me to reply to a lie that is spread almost every year when we commemorate the day of the Anti-Fascist Victory. Namely, that AKEL supposedly turned against Hitler fascism only when Hitler Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Anti-communism and anti-AKEL campaigns always assume two features: pettiness and cheap arguments, and both of these apply in this case too. The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began at dawn on 16th June 1941, that is to say two entire months after the founding assembly of the Party in the village of Skarinou where AKEL characterized itself as “anti-Hitler and anti-fascist.” It is evident that AKEL did not wait for the invasion in the Soviet Union to side with the anti-Hitler camp.
The magnificent struggle by all means against Hitler fascism and the Anti-Fascist Victory represent for today’s generation a reference point and a great school for drawing lessons. It illustrates that the international communist movement managed to inspire and organize on a mass basis the peoples in the resistance in conditions that were not only difficult or adverse, but fiery. The brutal violence and ferocious anti-communism immediately arrested and sent to the firing squad for execution anyone who dared stand up and resist. This is the reason why the memory of the dead and of the living that survived the ordeal of the Second World War deserves every honour and respect.
For some time now an ideological crusade is underway by the ruling class to equate communism with fascism/Nazism. The millions of dead Soviet army soldiers who sacrificed their lives to stop Hitler are the most irrefutable evidence to the contrary. It is the full of blood mark of the abyss that separates our socialist ideology from the inhuman ideologies.
That is why you cannot equate everything: the collaborators, the fifth-columnists and nationalists with the fighters and militants against fascism. Neither were the hands raising Nazi salutes the same or resembled those hands covered with red paint from the slogans written on walls and the red blood of sacrifice. Whoever does make this equation hence sets people once again before the execution squad and again kills millions of communists and anti-fascist fighters who fell fighting the atrocity – unless ultimately that is the purpose, namely for the ruling class to whitewash its own shame by shifting it on others.
The equation of communism with fascism cannot withstand the objective and dialectic scrutiny of events. First and foremost because the philosophy, content and values of socialism, mobilized the whole Soviet people to give their lives to defeat Nazism. The minimum respect for the millions who fought and died so that the most sickening ideology that humanity has ever known, would not prevail should have put any equating of communism with fascism out of the question.
Things are simple and self-explanatory. Fascism and Nazism bequeathed to humanity the hell of Auschwitz. Hate, death, fascism. Socialism with all its mistakes, distortions and weaknesses bequeathed social, scientific and cultural progress. It bequeathed principles, values and ideals that are focused on people themselves. It bequeathed the valuable experience of a qualitively more advanced society from which the modern communist movement draws valuable lessons for the future. No logical person – even if they disagree with socialism – can agree with the equation of communism with Nazism and fascism. The only reason why this ideological sacrilege is being attempted is because the ruling class wants to win on the ideological field, so that it can wipe out once and for all the forces which are questioning and challenging its dominance.
However, History and the truth are stubborn in the face of such approaches; they resist. They completely expose and refute all the lies the system constructs with its myths. Events speak for themselves. Fascism and Nazism were imposed as a result of the cooperation between the monopoly ruling class, the militarists and the most conservative and reactionary circles. The construction of socialism, in contrast, was the result of the struggle of the vast majority of the peoples. Socialist ideology is born out of the need to break the chains that oppress people and the world. The history of humanity is full of bloody uprisings and revolutions. However, when the issue of power was raised the day after, the people were excluded. The change never brought the elimination of exploitation, except in the case of the Socialist Revolution. This is the essential difference. Whatever form power took in the Soviet Union it was working class power. The content of this power had nothing to do with Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy because fascism and Nazism sprang from the womb of the system itself. It is no coincidence that the leading companies of German heavy industry were praising Hitler. The words of the owner of the “Krupp” company are characteristic when he spoke on behalf of 400 capitalists, praising Hitler: “National Socialism liberated the German worker from the vise of a doctrine that was basically hostile to both the employer and the worker. Adolf Hitler brought back the worker to his/her nation. He turned the worker into a disciplined soldier of work and therefore our companion!” Hitler fascism was imposed due to the cooperation of the monopoly bourgeoisie, the militarists and the most conservative and reactionary circles.
As for all the talk about the “freedom of the individual,” the theoreticians of socialism themselves reply, through the Communist Manifesto which was written 160 years ago. “In place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class struggle, we will have a union in which the freedom of the individual will be the precondition for the freedom of all.” This is socialism: the liberation of people from the chains of wage slavery; the human liberation from the oppression of the need; the freedom to live, think and develop one’s personality, to create. Socialism is the liberation of humanity from poverty, deprivation, injustice, obscurantism, fanaticism, racism, inequality and wars. If socialism’s opponents want to offer any service to humanity then they should not be fighting so passionately to condemn an ideology that serves the finest ideals, but to reflect a little about all that shames the world today.
I began my speech with a reminder that neo-Nazism has again raised his head and today we can see it sitting on parliamentary benches. We see it finding fertile ground in European societies. The conditions created by the capitalist economic crisis give the pretext to fascist elements to become bold and commence their rhetoric. As Dimitrov aptly observed: “fascism approaches the masses with a refined ant capitalist demagoguery, against the banks, the trusts, and tycoons of wealth and launches slogans which at a given moment are the most tempting.” In another of his references, Dimitrov states the following: “Fascism acts in the interests of the imperialists…but before the masses it appears with the mask of the defender of a nation humiliated and invokes affected national feelings.” Today, the flogging of the peoples through the implementation of savage austerity policies and the transfer of sovereignty of entire countries to the lenders is gradually leading to social disintegration and chaos, situations neo-fascism exploits to flourish.
In addition, we can observe the tolerance shown by the forces of the Right and extreme-right which pretend not see the rise of neo-fascism and allow it to spread. They do so because they believe that it represents their reserve force in the anticommunist struggle, but also because they have the illusion that they are not threatened by it. However, historical experience teaches us otherwise: after the communists and the Jews then comes the turn of the social democrats too, as well as of conservatives to suffer persecution.
Consequently, we must not forget our own duty to isolate neo-fascism politically and reveal its real face, we here in Cyprus even more so since we have suffered, and are still suffering, from the results of the crime fascists have committed.
We hope that in this effort, we shall find other allies. I say this because it is at least ironic to observe leading members of the ruling DISY Rally party bombarding us with statements about a “historical responsibility” with regards the Cyprus problem and at the same time they are desecrating historical memory by attending en masse and through their presence and memorial sermons for people such as Grivas and Samson. The solution of the Cyprus problem presupposes unity on the domestic front that will not come out of the blue, but that is built through political deeds and actions.
It is true that Mr. Akinci’s assumption of the leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community has triggered optimism among Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots that this time we will manage to arrive at a solution of the Cyprus problem. That’s our wish. Hopefully, Mr. Akinci will support with consistency his long-standing positions at the negotiating table. Hopefully, he will go down in History as that Turkish Cypriot who will stand up to Turkey and make it clear to Turkey that we, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, can solve the Cyprus problem and live in friendship and harmony in the land of our birth, without armies and guardians, independent and sovereign.
In view of the resumption of the negotiations, we wish them to finally be substantive, that the two leaders will not confine themselves in academic analyzes that do not offer anything, nor should they let time prolong the perspective. I am certainly not implying that what we’re supporting a solution through an “express process”. What I am saying is that we need to demonstrate today, after two barren years, consistency, adherence to principles, determination and collective handling and to work for the achievement of an agreement.
Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Anti-Fascist Victory we do not only honour the bloody battles and pay homage to the immense sacrifices of those who fought Hitler fascism. We reaffirm our vow to give all our strength to the task of struggling for peace. The struggle for peace means a consistent anti-imperialist struggle. It is imperialism that generates wars, oppression and poverty. The struggle for peace means fighting against neo-fascism. Do not ever believe, even for a single moment, all the talk about hearing “the other point of view that democracy allows.” This is not just another point of view, but fascism is the ideology that drowned the whole of humanity in blood and sent millions of people to the hell of the concentration camps and execution squads, while today it is sowing and spreading hatred and fascism.
This is the least we can fulfil as our duty towards the millions who died offering freedom to humanity. Seventy years after the anti-fascist victory, the monster has died. However as Bertolt Brecht pointed out, the womb that gave birth to fascism is still fertile.
Let us all be the chain of resistance that will stand before fascism.
Long live the 70th anniversary of the Antifascist Victory!
