WPI Condemns the Banning of Comm

WPI Condemns the Banning of Communist Symbols in Poland

Workers' Party of Ireland (WPI)

June 10, 2010

www.workerspartyireland.net/, wpi@indigo.ie


Statement by the Workers’ Party of Ireland on the Banning of Communist Symbols in Poland

The Workers’ Party of Ireland condemns the actions of the Polish government in creating a new reactionary law to ban the display of communist symbols in Poland. This attack on the democratic rights of Polish communists and the Communist Party of Poland to raise their principles and symbols is a continuation of the unprecedented acts of historical vandalism being committed throughout Europe and in Poland itself on the monuments and images which symbolise the struggle against fascism in Europe, including the attempt to remove the statue of General Karol Swierczewski, a hero and veteran of the International Brigades who fought for the Spanish Republic.

These attacks, bolstered by the reactionary anti-communist rhetoric of forces within the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, are an attempt at a time of capitalist crisis, when capitalism has again clearly failed the working class,  to prevent workers seeing the achievements of socialism and that another world is possible.

This hostility has been recently manifested in the vicious anti-communist campaign being waged across Europe. There is a concerted and relentless campaign to distort and falsify history by vilifying those who fought for the destruction of Nazism and fascism and to absolve fascism and its collaborators from the terror and destruction they visited upon the world.

The Soviet Union played a decisive role in the defeat of fascism, Nazism and Japanese imperialism. In 1945 fascism was defeated in Europe. The Soviet Union, the Red Army and the communist partisans and resistance fighters of Europe were instrumental in securing that defeat. The Red Army, under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was instrumental in that achievement.

We must not permit these achievements to be forgotten. It is not simply a matter of history. It is a question of ideology and class struggle. The capitalist class, in the throes of a crisis, wishes to attack and attempts to tarnish those forces which are best placed to lead the ideological offensive against it. It is the Communist and Workers’ Parties of Europe which will provide the leadership in the anti-capitalist struggle. Marxism-Leninism is a class based analysis of the global capitalist system. It provides a vision of solidarity, peace, justice, freedom and equality at a time of misery, inequality, injustice, class exploitation, poverty and war which are the inevitable consequences of capitalism and imperialism.

The anti-democratic operation to suppress the Czech Communist Youth Union (KSM); the attacks on the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia; the current attacks on Polish communists and their symbols, and the attempts across Europe to ban communist and workers’ parties together with their monuments and symbols of struggle - represent a concerted effort to persecute those who dare to make a stand against imperialism and capitalism.    

The peoples of Europe should cherish the heritage of anti-fascism. The Workers’ Party of Ireland condemns this vicious anti-communist law, demands its immediate abolition and offers its solidarity with the Communist Party of Poland and Polish communists at this time.

Central Executive Committee

Workers’ Party of Ireland

8th June 2010

The Workers’ Party of Ireland

Head Office, 48 North Great George's Street, Dublin 1, Ireland

www.workerspartyireland.net

Tel: (00 353 1) - 856 1879 Â