Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Stop the falsification of history and persecution in Poland!

Speech by Tibor Zenker, Chairman of the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA), at the rally “Solidarity with the Polish Communist Party!”, Vienna, March 2, 2020

For five years, the PiS Party in Poland, purporting to advocate for "law and justice", has had an absolute majority in the Sejm. It is well known that it stands for a right-wing reactionary policy and for an authoritarian course. This is reflected in the attacks on the Constitutional Court, on the judicial system, on public broadcasting, and in an attempt to further limit abortion rights. The Warsaw government is also looking for a conflict with Russia and is using NATO, the EU and support from the United States for this, because this is in the "national interest" in Poland today.

In addition, history is actively falsified, for example in relation to the Second World War and the Holocaust. Of course, immense numbers of victims suffered under the rule of German fascism in Poland, for whom no one else bears historical responsibility than fascist Germany. But the Polish government (and also large parts of the opposition) is concerned with something else: the mythical canonization of Poland, while concealing Polish collaboration and anti-Semitic acts of violence by locals in occupied Poland from 1939-1945. And it fits that the anti-fascist resistance of Polish Communists should also be denied.

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.

No more falsification of history and political persecution in Poland!

Solidarity with the Polish Communist Party!

For peace, international friendship and socialism!

Translated from the German. For the original see: Schluss mit Geschichtsfälschung und Verfolgung in Polen!

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