< http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1710891,00.html>
Communism may be dead, but clearly not dead enough
The battle over history reflects a determination to prove that no
political alternative can challenge the new global capitalism
Seumas Milne
Thursday February 16, 2006
The Guardian
Fifteen years after communism was officially pronounced dead, its
spectre seems once again to be haunting Europe. Last month, the
Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly voted to condemn the
"crimes of totalitarian communist regimes", linking them with Nazism
and complaining that communist parties are still "legal and active in
some countries".
This was a dog bites man story. Another comment:
EUROPE'S NEW ANTI-COMMUNIST OFFENSIVE
PV Commentary
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which recently passed a resolution condemning the Communist Parties, is a Cold War-era institution not connected with the European Union.
The inspiration for PACE came from British Conservative leader Winston Churchill. In March 1946 Churchill gave his infamous "iron curtain" address in Fulton, Missouri where he declared that "communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and threat to Christian civilisation." He called on the "free peoples" of Europe to form a "United States of Europe" in Zurich later in that year.
The "parliament" is essentially a debating society composed of parliamentarians drawn from its membership. Its major purpose has been to elevate "human rights" as a weapon in the struggle between imperialism and socialism.
In 1960 it condemned the collectivisation of land in the German Democratic Republic which it called the "Soviet zone of Germany" and in 1962, the year the Algerian people won their independence from France in a struggle that cost the lives of over a million people, PACE saw fit to pass a resolution condemning "communist colonialism in central and eastern Europe".
From its inception PACE was an instrument of Cold War politics. Membership was restricted to European countries that conformed to the bourgeois definitions of "freedom", "human rights" and "the rule of law" to exclude the Soviet Union and the people's democracies of eastern and central Europe. The counter-revolutionary regimes in Russia and eastern Europe were made welcome after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990.
Since then PACE has been used as a sounding board to justify attempts to outlaw communist parties in the former socialist countries. Now it seeks to launch an anti communist drive throughout the continent. The assembly has adopted a resolution on "the need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes," drafted by a rabid anti communist Swedish conservative who believes that the French Revolution and the Paris Commune were also grave mistakes in the development of European history.
Communism is equated with fascism in this resolution that notes with some regret that "Communist parties are legal and active in some countries, even if in some cases they have not distanced themselves from the crimes committed by totalitarian communist regimes in the past", and communist parties are encouraged "to reassess the history of communism and their own past".
It then calls on all European members to establish a memorial day for "victims" of "totalitarian communist regimes" and establish museums to document the "crimes" of communism and launch a "public awareness campaign" that includes the revision of school text books and encourage local authorities to erect memorials to these supposed "victims" of communism. In fact it's a call for an anti communist witch hunt throughout Europe.
Though the Council of Europe has nothing to say about Anglo-American imperialism's invasion and occupation of Iraq or the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, it would like to pose as an international human rights tribunal. This resolution will be used by Anglo American imperialism and the reactionary forces within the European Union to attack the organised working class and communist and workers' parties across the continent.
The attack on the communists in Europe demonstrates not only that the movement is reviving and growing amongst the working class, but that the ruling class continue to fear and loathe it.
People's Voice - Feb. 15/2006 (With files from The New Worker, Britain)
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Currently based in Venezuela. Can be reached at
Residencias Anauco Suites
Departamento 601
Parque Central, Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
Caracas, Venezuela
(58-212) 573-4111
fax: (58-212) 573-7724
