International Communist and workers' parties rally against rightist persecution in Poland and Europe

Screenshot from rally in the Netherlands

Communist and workers' parties held rallies and issued statements internationally this week in support of their comrades in the Polish Communist Party. The increasingly reactionary Polish PiS government is attempting to criminalize communist and anti-capitalist speech and thought in conjunction with pushing a revisionist historical view of the Holocaust.

As part of a broader offensive by governments across Europe -- but most especially in Eastern Europe -- the Polish government has adopted an ultra-nationalist line that tries to minimize and deny any Polish collaboration with the Holocaust and that, by equating Nazism and communism, seeks to erase the central role played by the USSR and the Red Army in the liberation of Poland and other countries.

This is tied to a dangerous resurgence of racism, antisemitism and ultra-nationalism with WWII Nazi collaborators being celebrated as national heroes in countries like Latvia and Ukraine.

Along with Ukraine and others, the Polish government is trying to ban communist symbols and parties. Now the Polish government is attempting to retry communist journalists for the party newspaper Brzask on what amount to sedition charges despite these journalists having been acquitted in their first trial.

With the trial of the journalists having started again on March 3, Monday, March 2 saw solidarity actions in their defense and support.

The Netherlands:

Members of the New Communist Party of the Netherlands and the Communist Youth Movement of the Netherlands rallied at the Polish embassy in The Hague.

A statement they released noted the role the European Union had played in facilitating far right narratives with its passage of a disgraceful "anti-totalitarian" resolution in 2019 that framed Communism and Nazism as somehow flip sides of the same coin.

...the EU whitewashes far-right and fascist forces with this policy. In this resolution we find a whole lot of antifascist and antiracist rhetoric, racism and xenophobia are supposedly condemned. But that is pure rhetoric and hypocrisy, as amongst the supporters and even initiators of this resolution we find many extreme right-wing parties who glorify Nazi collaborators. Think for example of the ruling parties in many eastern European countries, including Poland, where the persecution of communists is paired with the glorification of Nazi collaborators. The Resolution is also supported by just about every far-right party in the EU, that spread racism and more or less openly take fascist positions. For example the resolution was supported by the Dutch Forum voor Democratie, but also the French ‘Rassemblement National’, the Italian ‘Lega Nord’, the ‘Freedomsparty of Austria’, the ‘Danish People’s party’, ‘Freedom and Direct Democracy’ (Czech), ‘Greek Solution’ and a number of other reactionary parties. For those far-right parties it is not a problem to sign a resolution in which Nazism is condemned, as they now spread their racist and other far-right views under other symbols than the swastika. Fascism is only condemned formally and not substantively, in the appearance it had in the time around the second world war. Current appearances of fascism are given free rein.
For us it is not odd that the EU acts in this way. It is after all an imperialist alliance of capitalist countries, which means that it serves the interests of the monopolies. The EU-legislation advances the destruction of all social achievements, demolition and privatisation of the social security system, healthcare; the promotion of flex work; education is hollowed out with EU-guidelines and made more and more expensive. People have to work more and harder for less, whilst big business makes massive profits over the backs of the working class. The underlying goal, in Poland and the entire EU, is the stopping of a real resistance, to stop the people from fighting for a true alternative. That’s why they try to hinder every attempt to rebuild the workers movement and try to ban communist parties. 

Belgium:

At a rally in front of the Polish embassy Julien Hannotte Morais, political secretary of the Communist Party of Belgium said:

This new trial in Poland aims to rewrite and erase from collective consciousness the history of popular Poland. By attacking the editors of Brzask in this way, the prosecutor attacks not only the Polish comrades but the entire world's workers and the communist movement.

Serbia:

After a rally in Belgrade the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia released a statement that noted of the anti-communist laws in Poland:

Similar anti-communist persecution, convictions and bans against CPs have also been imposed in other EU member states, with the open support of the EU which has elevated anticommunism into being its official ideology, something that goes hand in hand with the intensification of the anti-people onslaught. Now there is enough evidence so that everyone can understand what the EU's declarations about the "values of freedom and democracy" really mean.

Austria:

In a speech in front of the Polish embassy Tibor Zenker, Chairman of the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA) said:

The defamation of socialism, the communist movement and the Soviet Union are the real goal of the rulers, no matter which bourgeois party is the government. The despicable totalitarianism doctrine, which wants to equate fascism and socialism, has taken a crude form: the liberation of Poland by the Red Army of the USSR was a continuation of foreign rule and the creation of the People's Republic of Poland was a crime against the Polish people. According to the Polish government, anyone who claims otherwise belongs before the courts and in prison. Of course, this primarily affects the Polish Communist Party (KPP)  and its activities, which is why some of its newspaper editors are now to be tried again. But more: it is now about the criminalizing of socialist ideas, the Marxist worldview and the revolutionary labor movement. Capitalism, chauvinistic nationalism and radical Catholicism, which form a holy trinity in Poland, are to be perpetuated, making any progressive, emancipatory, or even anti-capitalist movement impossible. That is why the KPP must disappear from the scene before it can achieve decisive educational success among the population. It is being prosecuted by criminal means that show the hypocrisy of bourgeois rule of law, freedom of the press and freedom of expression, and last year’s anti-communist law amendment serves simply to ban the KPP as an organization, the Marxist worldview and the revolutionary labor movement.
But the truth cannot be forbidden. The struggle for peace, international friendship, women's rights and social progress cannot be forbidden. Scientific socialism cannot be forbidden. To be sure, the Communist movement can be forced into illegality - it would not be the first time in history - and that is why we extend unreservedly our internationalist solidarity to our Polish comrades. But we have no doubt that the truth, the revolutionary working class and socialism will win in Poland too.

Spain:

In a statement after their solidarity rally in Madrid the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain noted:

The ideology that seeks the liberation of the working class cannot be equated to the ideology which clearly defends the system of capitalist exploitation the most. 

Philippines:

In a letter addressed to the Polish government the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930, the Philippine Communist Party) wrote:

Communist leadership in the anti-fascist national liberation struggles is also true in your country and region, but unfortunately, blind anti-communism in some politically-backward parts of Europe leads to senseless attempts at the revision of history. Revanchist attempts at destroying history by removing monuments, street names and symbols associated with communism and the labor movement –- and replacing them with those of the fascist period –- will have no lasting effect. Your government cannot overturn history : it was the fascists, and not the communists, who created hell in Oswiecim (Auschwitz), Brzezinka (Birkenau), Chelmno, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sorbibor and many other death camps in your country where millions of Polish, Soviet and other peoples were systematically and mercilessly exterminated.
Warsaw became the most devastated city in Europe during WW-II –- and Manila became known as the “Warsaw of the East” –- due to fascist and militarist attacks, and not because of the communists. Even a review of the western film, “Schindler's List”, would confirm that the tormentors at Krakow-Plaszow and other concentration camps in your country were nazis, and not communists. And lest we forget, it was the Soviet Red Army which liberated Poland and many other countries (including the northern parts of China and Korea) from the fascist and militarist jackboots.

United Kingdom:

The Young Communist League protested at the Polish embassy in London. Their London chair Amy Field said:

This dangerous trend in Poland and other European countries is on the rise, including in Britain where the Communist Party of Britain was labelled an extremist organisation, this is a slippery slope to criminalising legitimate opposition to a capitalist system that is taking away our livelihoods and now our hard-won democratic rights.

Chile:

The Communist Party of Chile released a statement reading in part:

An ideological element led by sectors of the Polish and European right is to try to link the ideology and actions of Nazism with communism, trying to adapt history to the interests of Polish and international capital.
However, history is stubborn. It is impossible to hide that Poland was liberated by the Soviet Army and that thousands of Soviet and Polish communists gave their lives in this fight. It was the Red Army who liberated the Auschwitz death camp 75 years ago and several others built in the territory of Poland.
The Nazi beast today is resurrected in Europe, including Poland, with the anti-communist and anti-Semitic flag on top. They would like a new Holocaust.