Article from La Voce n .20, July 2005, pp. 43/48
by Rosa L.
This year is the 60th anniversary of the victory of the Partisans’ War against Nazi-Fascism. However, in our and other European countries the imperialist bourgeoisie has given greater prominence to the 60th anniversary of the end of the World War II. It tried to pass off as secondary or even to pass over the Resistance in silence, the war carried out by the Partisans. The imperialist bourgeoisie rightly attaches great importance to the ideological element for the reactionary mobilization of the popular masses. Its clear effort to undervalue the Resistance clearly shows it. This effort also shows its worry and care to control, watch over and fight the rebirth of the communist movement. We must constantly show this worry and care of the imperialist bourgeoisie and of the classes tied to it (first of all the clergy) to all those comrades and vanguard workers who doubt that the rebirth of the communist movement is possible. We must show it to all those who are more or less discouraged by the apparent omnipotence of our enemy and by the real scarcity of our organized forces. The imperialist bourgeoisie sits on a land subject to landslides. Its social order is precarious.
With the celebrations of this year, the imperialist bourgeoisie tries to diminish and, if it cannot do it, denigrate the Resistance in the conscience of the popular masses. The Resistance was a great ideological, organizational and political experience. For the first time it involved great part of our country workers, mainly in the North and in the Centre. The lack of this experience in the South weighed on the political and moral life of our country over all the following time.
Young people look for a way for building a different world. With the devaluation and the denigration of the Resistance, the imperialist bourgeoisie tries to distract the young people from drawing that experience lived by great masses. It tries to induce them to look for their way in different experiences, in which they cannot find what they are looking for.
With the celebrations of this year, the imperialist bourgeoisie tries to prevent the Communists from understanding and even more valorizing the effects of that experience. Those effects persist in our country’s current reality. They persist in the degree of ideological and political conscience and in the organization of the popular masses, particularly in that of the working class. Those degrees are incomparably higher than a century ago. They impress a partly new feature to the communist movement. They make realistic our slogan: “let us make Italy a socialist country”. We can do it, on the only condition that we Communists commit successfully ourselves in the construction of a communist party with the seven characteristics indicate by the comrade Nicola P. in his article “The New Communist Party”, published in the number 19 of La Voce.
Here I do not dwell on the historical meaning and the main teachings of the Resistance. I indicate to every reader the pamphlet The Higher Point till now reached by the Working Class in Our Country in its Struggle for the Power . The CARC published it in 1995 and it is still today available at the Social Relation Edition of Milan. On the contrary, it is worth dwelling upon another aspect of the celebrations of this year. It is an aspect rich of teachings for our struggle.
In their celebrations, the US imperialist groups and their servants (as the Berlusconi’s gang) tried to spread more as possible the message that the Anglo-American troops would have liberated Europe from Nazi-Fascism barbariti, as today they should be rescuing the Arabian countries from Islamic fundamentalists’ barbarism.. This message implies that the imperialist bourgeoisie, and particularly the US imperialist bourgeoisie, had nothing to do with that barbarity.
French and German imperialist groups are trying to set themselves free from the US imperialist groups, to aggregate under their direction the other European imperialist groups and struggle for the primacy in the plunder of the world over the US imperialist groups. With the celebrations of this year, the US imperialist groups carried out an ideological campaign against the French and German imperialist groups.
In their propaganda, the US imperialist groups well combined two aspects: the devaluation and denigration of the communist movement’s role, and the exaggeration of the Anglo-American troops’ role and the falsification of its nature. Obviously, French and German imperialist groups had and have difficulties in combining the devaluation and denigration of the communist movement’s role with the exaggeration and falsification of the autonomous role of the European imperialist bourgeoisie in the elimination of the Nazi-Fascist barbarism. In fact, the USSR and the communist movement gave the 95 % of the European contribution to the struggle and the victory against the Nazi-Fascism. Therefore, the balance of the World War II became a part of the intestine struggle among the imperialist groups for the domination of the world. At the same time, it became a part of the communist movement’s struggle in order to be the third pole, autonomous from the US and European imperialist groups, in the fight towards which the second general crisis of capitalism drives the world (on the matter see the Preparatory Commission’s Salute to the Assembly for the 10th Anniversary of the Foundation of the CARC, published in the number 14 of La Voce ).
Therefore, it is useful that we communists own and defend a right balance of the experience of the World War II. In addition, here I show those that I believe are the main points of our balance, as theses, then without the annexed demonstration. Regarding the concrete political fight that led to war, I refer back to the article of Marco Martinengo, The Political Movement of the Thirties in Europe, published in the number 21 of Rapporti Sociali.
1 The First World War (1914-1918) was the fight between two world coalitions of imperialist groups and States. Every one of them was trying to conquer a part of the world greater than it already was exploiting and oppressing. During the war, the communist movement succeeded in setting itself up as a world power. It constituted the first base liberated from capitalism (the Soviet Union) and its first armed forces. Stalin completely showed it in Leninism Principles (1924).
2 The peace of Versailles (1919) was a truce among the imperialist groups and States in order to carry out an united struggle for suffocating the communist movement and wiping out the USSR, the red base conquered by Communists. The first general crisis for absolute overproduction of capital created many conflicts among the imperialist groups, and between them and the popular masses. No one of those conflicts was got over. The English and French imperialist groups maintained and increased their colonial plunder. The US imperialist groups conquered some preeminence over the world. The German imperialist groups became weak. Nevertheless, all the imperialist groups were a prey to the general crisis and the peace among them was precarious. Since then, the imperialist groups of every country had to fight among them and against the communist movement, articulated in an internal front (the working class and the popular masses of their own country) and an external front (the USSR and the Communist International).
3 Only in this context, we can rightly understand the internal and international problems faced up by Authorities of each imperialist country, by communist parties of each country, by national liberation movement of each colony and oppressed country. We can rightly realize the solutions that the protagonists found or tried to find. On this thesis, we recommend the study of the quoted article of Marco Martinengo.
4 Imperialist groups of each country had to face this situation and to preserve the substance of the capitalist order. They had to recourse to the reactionary mobilization of the popular masses on an unprecedented scale, banning the activity and eliminating on a great scale the promoters of the communist movement. The imperialist groups did it in every country. Nazism and Fascism were the most advanced forms of reactionary mobilization of the popular masses. The reactionary mobilization of the popular masses implies the transformation of the conflict between the imperialist bourgeoisie and the popular masses in conflicts among parts of the popular masses, among nations, religions, peoples, communities and social groups. It implies the valorization of the most backward and brutal trends, parties, and ideas inherited by millenniums of class oppression and barbarism. The imperialist groups valorize this as an instrument of power in order to preserve the capitalist social order. That is why all the imperialist groups of the world admired and imitated the Fascist and Nazis regimes. The imperialist groups of the countries which continued to call themselves democratic (Great Britain, USA, France, etc.) also did it. That is why the Nazis and Fascist imperialist groups had systematically recourse to the criminal bestialities comparable to those of the most barbarian ancient times (the systematic and mass execution of the promoters of the communist movement, genocides and terrorization of entire populations). They adopted again a barbarism that was believed forever overcome or confined to the repression and the exploitation of the colonies and the semi-colonies. This barbarism was an instrument of government even in the most civilian countries, with a power centuplicated by modern productive forces.
5 In the Second World War, two conflicts combined. One was the conflict between two world coalitions of imperialist groups, the Anglo-American, on one side, and the Berlin-Tokyo-Rome Nazi-Fascist axis on the other. The other was the conflict between all the imperialist groups of the world, on one side, and the international communist movement, which from the beginning had its liberated bases in USSR and China, on the other side.
6 The imperialist groups, which wanted to increase their part of the world plunder, Germany, Japan and Italy, had the strategic line to be in the vanguard of the struggle of all the imperialist groups for crushing the communist movement in every country and destroying the Soviet Union and the Chinese red bases. They intend to cut out for themselves an adequate part in the plunder of the world by their leadering role in this common struggle. This was the only solution conceivable by them for the general crisis of capitalism. The imperialist groups which defended their world domain and tried to increase it (France, Great Britain, USA) had the strategic line to launch Germany and Japan against USSR and China for destroying the red bases and the armed forces of the communist movement. They would call German, Japanese and Italian imperialist groups to account afterwards. They would do it also among themselves, because there were many contrasts among US and French and British imperialist groups. The communist movement and the USSR had the strategic line to contrast the limitation of the democratic rights of the popular masses and their reactionary mobilization in every country. It was the line to gain time in order to consent the strengthening of the national liberation movement of the colonies and the semi-colonies. At the same time, it was necessary to prevent the coalition of all the imperialist groups against the communist movement. It was necessary to prevent the coming war would begin with the aggression of Germany against USSR. All the other imperialist groups would join their forces with that aggression. It was clearly shown by the events of the Spanish civil war and of the Japanese aggression against China.
7 We can rightly evaluate the single tactical moves of the various protagonists only in the light of these strategies. We can see then the demagogy of the enemies of communism, who isolate the single events, pointed at the particular line that the USSR and the communist movement had to follow to all those who suffered for it. They daily ride roughshod over the freedom of people and nations, the popular masses’ democratic rights, individual rights and freedoms, and they denigrate the communist movement because, as they say, it did not respect all that they call universal values and aims. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of the summer 1939, is the most known and abused case. With this Pact, USSR made sure that the Second World War in Europe did not begin with the Nazis Germany’s aggression against USSR, and that British and French government had to declare war on Germany. The Nazis did the worst wicked deeds, including the systematic extermination of millions of Jews. They did it before and after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The demagogues and the false “pure souls” throw the Nazis’ wicked deeds in the face of the USSR and the communist movement, because the USSR made a pact with the Nazis. They hide the strategies above drawn. They omit to present the URSS’ weakness in comparison with the other powers of the world. They overlook that the communist movement did all what it was able to do to contrast the coming to power in Germany of Hitler and his followers and the strengthening of their power. They overlook that the Communists were the first victims of the Nazi-Fascism and that nevertheless they carried on the Resistance. They overlook that a great part of the imperialist groups, included the Hebrew and particularly the Zionist bourgeois groups, boycotted the struggle against the coming to power of the Nazism.
8 On the outbreak of the Second World War, the great majority of the French imperialist groups took side with the Nazis in the name of the struggle against communism. The other part of the French imperialist groups took side against the Nazi-Fascism in the name of the safeguard of their colonial spoils and of their role in the plunder of the world and in the oppression of the colonies. The Anglo-American imperialist groups were divided, too. Part of them were for the alliance with the Nazi-Fascists and favorable to accept the Hitler’s offers of peace. However, the other part of these imperialist groups prevailed. That part wanted to gain time until the Nazis will assail the USSR. Then, they at first would support the USSR against Germany, but laying always the greatest weigh of the war on the USSR. They also made always weigh on the USSR the menace of an overturning of the front (even if this menace was probably a bluff, because the imperialist groups hardly could impose such an overturning to the popular masses of their countries). At the beginning of the war Truman, that would become US president at the end of the war, openly said: “If Germany advances, we support Russia; if Russia advances, we support Germany. At the end, both of them will be worn out and we shall lay down the law.” In the enemy countries and in the countries occupied by the enemies the Anglo-Americans carried out a war so they terrorized the popular masses, prevented the development and struggle of the anti-fascist popular forces and substituted the German or Japanese domination with their own domination. They used indiscriminate carpet-bombing, slaughtering the civil population. They scrimped on the aids to the partisan formations, tried to divide the partisan movement and to create accommodation partisan formation.
9 In every country the communist movement, the USSR and the liberated zones of China staked everything on the revolutionary mobilization of the popular masses against Nazi-Fascism and against occupation, sacrifices and restrictions imposed on them by the Authorities because of the war. They tried to mobilize and strengthen what most advanced existed in every country, and to make the parties and social groups that personified it assume the leading role. They managed, as well as they knew, the objective contradictions between the ruling class and the Authorities of the imperialist countries fighting against Nazi-Fascists, and the popular masses of those countries and the oppressed people of the colonies and semi colonies, including India, Arabian and Latin American countries. Afterward today, we can understand that the greatest limit in the action and conception of the communist movement of those years was in the foundations until then set for the struggle that would begin after the end of the war and the Nazi-fascism defeat.
10 The great successes of the communist movement during and after the Second World War show that the communist movement followed a substantially right line. At the beginning of the Fifties, “the wind of the East prevailed on the wind of the West”. On a world level the relation of the forces was upset: the communist movement and the national liberation movement of the colonies and the semi colonies had become stronger than the world imperialist system, by the time subdued to the direction of the US imperialist groups. The enemies of communism often use the Yalta Agreements for denigrating the communist movement. The socialism cannot be established in a historically autonomous country by an invasion from abroad or on commission. Who does not think so is wrong, and only he can believe that the American, British and Soviet governments determined the next course of events. Actually, the Yalta Agreements registered the relation of the forces already established between the communist movement and the imperialist bourgeoisie, according to the valuation of the protagonists of the agreement. With different relation of forces, there would be no Yalta Agreements able to block the situation. Particularly, the communist movement in France and in Italy was not able to conquer the power because of its own limits. We communist must pay attention to these limits for understanding the events following the Second World War and overcome the persistent limits of the Italian communist movement. On the contrary, our enemies try to concentrate our attention to a suppository wrong valuation by Stalin and the Soviet directing group.
I think that the study of these ten theses and a wide debate upon them, by the light of the communist movement’s experience, will strengthen the communist conception of the world in our party comrades and in all the vanguard workers that will share in it. I think that they will give matter for the communist propaganda among the popular masses and will help to forge a common thinking and acting method.
Note.
On this subject, see also La Voce n. 24, Un libro ed alcune lezioni (on In Our Time. The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion by C. Leibovitz and A. Finkel, Montreal 1997).