On the 80th Anniversary of the Heroic Battle of Stalingrad
Statement of the ECI Secretariat
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the great Battle of Stalingrad, which was of decisive importance and contribution to the Antifascist Victory of the Peoples, and to the class struggle overall.
The cause of the Second World War, as is true of wars in the era of imperialism, was the capitalist competition for the division of markets and spheres of influence. The existence of the first socialist state, the USSR, made the confrontation between socialism and capitalism most evident. The war itself also raised the hopes of the counter-revolutionary forces, both outside and inside the USSR, for its overthrow. Defending their class interest, they also allied themselves with the Nazi occupiers or followed a “policy of appeasement”, paving the way for the march of Nazi Germany against the USSR.
In June 1941, Nazi Germany launched an attack on the Soviet Union, reaching as far as outside of Moscow. With the heroic resistance of the Red Army in December 1941, the Soviet forces counter-attacked, while in the summer of 1942 the troops of the fascist coalition launched their attack on Stalingrad. At the same time, the USA and Great Britain decided not to open a second front, based on their opposition to socialism. However, the Red Army overcame all obstacles and managed to annihilate the Nazi Wehrmacht. The Red Army’s proud and heroic victory, despite the negative balance of power, inspired Ernest Hemingway to write: “Every human being who loves freedom owes to the Red Army more than he will be able to pay in a lifetime”. It gave impetus to national liberation movements in the occupied countries and raised the prestige of the USSR, leading many states to establish diplomatic relations with it.
The socialist relations of production, the corresponding state organization, the values of socialism and the Bolshevik Communist Party were fundamental to this staggering victory.
Stalingrad is a milestone in history; it imprints the depth and extent of the opposition between socialism and fascism, which capitalism gives rise to.
The bourgeoisie and its political representatives as well as the EU systematically rewrite history with anti-communist resolutions, persecute communists even for expressing dissent on these issues, engage in anti-communism, slander the Battle of Stalingrad, the October Revolution and the USSR, provocatively equate socialism with the monster of fascism-Nazism. The EU, NATO, the capitalist states in the former socialist countries restore Nazi collaborators, ban Communist Parties, demolish anti-fascist monuments, build a “wall of grief for the victims of Stalinism” in Russia and finance numerous anti-communist publications. It is no coincidence that the EU is at the forefront of all this, attempting to establish 9 May as “Europe Day” and day of the European elections instead of the Victory Day of the Peoples, and 23 August as the so called“ Europe-Wide Day of Remembrance for the Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes – Nazism, Fascism and communism”.
Today, Stalingrad conveys a special message to the peoples to struggle against the imperialist war in Ukraine being waged between the US-NATO EU and Russia; against their capitalist competition that the peoples pay dearly for; for the defence of their own interests and not those of the bourgeois classes and their imperialist unions; for the struggle for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man and the overthrow of this decayed exploitative system, capitalism, to gain ground.
The ECI Secretariat
26/2/23
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