Intervention by SWP of Croatia

Intervention by SWP of Croatia

mailto:vladimir.kapuralin@pu.t-com.hr


Dear comrades, I'm very glad to be here to represent my party (the Socialist workers' party of Croatia). We all know about the extremely difficult situation the leftist movements are in. We Europeans have lost our main political reference in 1989, while the strength of socialism in other continents haven't changed significantly; South America is even going towards socialism, although is still a long way to be achieved. We comrades should use all our forces to educate and enlighten, especially the youth, which are told a lot of lies about communism and socialism, since they're in school. And even culture and the artists often do so. I've been at the demonstrations against COP15 in Copenhagen in December, and I've seen in many activists not only an anticapitalistic stance, but often even a declared anticommunism, or complete lack of communist ideas! And this showed me that there is something seriously wrong among our leftist youth: what do they have as political reference if they reject communism? They actually have nothing, no ideology! And without political fundamentals you go nowhere, you are lost, you cannot organize any realistic and coherent political program and struggle.

Anticommunism has been raging in Croatia since the secession of the 90s, with the consequent change of the political and economic system, and strengthened, in press, politics, culture, in everyday life, during the Yugoslav civil war. There is a general fear for the former country, almost some kind of hysteria. The national television shows old movies, calling them Bosnian or Croatian or anything else, not to call them what they are, so Yugoslav. Partisans are called criminals, and totally discredited. Monuments of the partisan struggle have been dismantled throughout almost all Croatia. In history schoolbooks the program of World War II, and of the socialistic revolution, which occurred simultaneously in our territories, is seriously reduced, and it's replaced with revanchistic interpretations. I experienced on my own the devious review of the historical facts by educational institutions. Unfortunately, I've began my education in the 90s, and I remember being taught that the most thankful for the fall of the Axis were the future NATO troops; the Red Army gave some help, and Yugoslav partisans were just a little local army, that wouldn't have freed any territory without help from the Allies, and without the preceded withdrawal of the Germans. A pack of lies! All historical documents prove that the Yugoslav partisans grew, during the war, into a big and well organized army, which had a great moral and material help form the vast majority of the civil population. Only little, unimportant help came from the Allies. That's why the Socialistic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had been the only European country that built up an original experiment of a socialistic sovereign system, while almost all other countries entered USA or USSR influence. This of course is never mentioned, it is in fact advised against to teach, because is an absolute truth, and uncomfortable truth is kept most quiet as possible.

But these savage fantasies passed as truth don't stop with the completion of education. History documentaries, even the ones that claim to be left oriented, want to convince us that the turning point of the war was the entrance of the USA; and what about Stalingrad and the disastrous defeat of the Germans in Russia? So, the western front was the key front. What a lie! But we know that a lie which is continuously repeated turns into truth after some time, and that a half lie is the worst lie: not talking about the war would have probably caused less damage to younger generations, because it would be easier for them to get the truth. This way, with their brain mismanaged, they are almost unrecoverable, they can not and don't want to hear about other stories, different from the ones which have been always told them. Anticommunist beliefs are strongly present even in the high educated middle and upper middle classes. I'm helpless when I hear that Venezuela and Belarus are violent dictatorships, while in Venezuela there is too much freedom if some medias can call on fascist military coups. While Belarus has probably the only European government, among with Cyprus', engaged in protection of lower classes from capitalist beasts, and where history is surely not distorted at all, as it is in rest of Europe.

And none says that USA had strong economic interests, with big corporations, in Hitler's Germany. And after the war many fierce nazists and fascists were amnestied, and then scandalously re-established in society, often with their previous mansions. Partisan divisions were called gangs by western Allies and obliged to lay down their arms. They suffered heavy punishments by puppet governments that followed. In fact Partisans, for example in Italy, outclassed fascists for the number of years of prison collected. So how would you call the western allies? Liberators? This is the official (and only) status they have. But I wouldn't call them this way. I'd rather call them invaders. They fought the nazifascists not for the cause of antifascism, but for the control of the territory; in fact they subsequently allied with the worst nazis in an anticommunist key. There have been just a ridiculous number of trials against war criminals. Some criminals have been processed only in the last years, after the end of the Cold War.

The Allies then substituted the rule of the nazifascists with a subtle imperialistic power, differencing mostly for the less aggressive methods, but because of that more resistant and difficult to defeat. They were not ravaging and killing like nazifascists, and so forcing people to go illegal and join the Resistance forces, but distracting them, with medias, materialism, consumism, empty ideals and ways of life: so distracting the masses, especially the youth, from the real problems and possible solutions, showed to be the most effective way to keep the lower and middle classes passive, and quiet.

I am convinced that the primary tool used by manipulators of history and reality is the educational institutions setting: universities are becoming more and more similar to private institutions, acting like companies: there is more and more external consulting, collaboration with big oligopolies, subsidiary societies, private finantiations for research projects. Bologna process has made this direction official: and this means the creation of a private, company-alike university, embedded in the national and international setting, not as a mere producer of technicians like before, but as an active figure in the procedures of managing, controlling and actuating the industrial production. Big private capitals enter the universities financing research projects, and students are forced to apply to these projects, if they want to increase their knowledge. The latter becomes therefore unobjective, partial, lined up, connected more to the financing company imposed results of the project, than to free knowledge., following a precise strategy at the service of the capital. This way the intellectual resources are controlled and exploited in a more firmer way.

It has been, and it will be, very hard times for the communist movement in the years to come. But I'd like to end my speech informing you a bout a student organization I've been in contact with and been acquantited with their initiatives. They are called RedNet, and are composed by student groups active in 7 big Italian cities. It's a class organization, assuming tasks typical of the workers' and peoples' movements. It concentrates its action especially in universities and high schools. Of course this is just an example: there are many other groups and associations throughout the whole country, which promote communism although standing outside parties.

So communists are alive, even if the young differ from the older generations, carrying different struggle methods, and maybe different languages, but with the same marxist recall; they have to be supported by communist parties, because they are active part of the communist struggle and activity, even if they aren't joining bigger political parties. Because they are the worst enemy of the capital, and they are and will be in first line in fights against unjustness. We must not leave the young alone. We must solidarize with young communists and help them to fill with marxism the brains of the confused anticapitalist youth.

Thank you.Â