When Victory Day was first celebrated in Moscow in 1945, Soviet servicemen made a heap of hundreds of Nazi banners, objects of hatred, on the street to be trampled upon.
On the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism, we must again raise the struggle against barbarism ascendant!
May 9th is celebrated in many parts of the world as Victory Day for the defeat of Nazi barbarism in the Second World War and the victory over fascism. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the great victory over fascism. Yet, the world is facing the danger of the rise of barbarism and fascism again. Fascism is emerging as a result of an economic crisis and depression that are unresolvable within the capitalist system, just as it did about 100 years ago. The imperialist powers are threatening all of humanity by making moves that could once again start a world war.
Fascism as an instrument of aggression against the working class
It was the glorious October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the revolutions that followed around the world that ended the First World War, in which millions of working people died for the interests of the imperialists. But revolutions other than the October Revolution, especially the German Revolution, failed to triumph. The isolation of the Soviet Union, the newly established workers' state after World War II, and the coming to power of fascism in Italy before the Great Depression of 1929, and in Germany, with the deepening of the capitalist crisis after 1929, paved the way for the second imperialist war. Fascism unleashes all the barbarity of humanity at the age of imperialism’s decline; it used all the superstitions and reactionary dreams that were thought to be a thing of the past to save capitalism from the great crisis it had entered. Fascism, by nurturing racism, led to genocides that killed millions of people; it created the darkest period in human history.
Fascism, in the age of imperialist barbarism, has not only directed its hatred and anger against different nations and countries, but has actually been most hostile to the working class living in its own country. The biggest task of fascism is to break the power of the working class and increase its exploitation. For this purpose, fascism’s biggest goal was to destroy all kinds of organizations, unions, and parties of the working class, thus preventing the working class from participating in politics as an independent power. But at the same time, the biggest nightmare of fascism, which sends millions of laborers to war in order to get out of the capitalist crisis, is the prospect of the working class taking the center stage and ruining its plans.
The working class and its revolutions erased fascism from the world! Once again, the power that will defeat fascism is the working class!
That nightmare of the fascists and imperialists has come true. The most critical turning point of the Second World War was the sweep of the Nazis by the Soviet army at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-43. It was this battle, fought with all the strength of the Soviet people, that enabled the Soviet Union to advance on Berlin and, in 1945, to raise the workers' red flag over the Nazi parliament.
Not only the military victories of the Soviet Union, but also the many resistance organizations established in occupied Europe, were instrumental in the defeat of fascism. In France and Italy, anti-fascist resistance forces drove the fascists out of their countries, and in countries like Albania and Yugoslavia, resistance organizations not only drove out the fascists but also carried out the socialist revolution. In Greece, although the guerrilla movement called “Kapetanios” dominated 90% of the country except for the big cities, the country returned to the power of the bourgeoisie backed by Britain after Stalin ceded the country to Britain in the Yalta partition. In Asia, the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese revolutions resulted in the creation of new workers' states. The organized struggle and revolutions of the working class destroyed the darkest period in human history, ended a world war that killed millions of people and declared victory by wiping Nazism off the world map.
Today, as fascism has begun to take power in Europe and the USA, the core of imperialism, the working class must prepare for the great battles of the future and defend its positions against the attacks of the capitalists. The workers' revolutions that brought down fascism 80 years ago are the only way to overthrow the coming barbarism today. The way to succeed in these revolutions and establish workers' governments is to build the vanguard revolutionary parties of the working class worldwide. While capitalist barbarism is dragging us towards world war, we have no time to lose, we must roll up our sleeves to raise the struggle of the working class against fascism.
Revolutionary Workers' Party (DIP)