The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will take up in plenary session, starting January 25, a draft resolution titled ‘The need for an international condemnation of the crimes of the totalitarian communist regimes.’

This draft, drawn up by an ultra-reactionary group in the European Parliament, is a new attempt to criminalise communism. It is not the first. In May of 2005 the European Commissioner Fantini tried to prohibit ‘communist symbols.’ Now it is a matter of the communist past and of the peoples of the USSR and the essential contribution of the communist parties to the victorious struggle against Nazi-fascism.

But the text goes still further; it tries to prevent the workers from relating to the communist ideal; it seeks to prohibit the parties and organisations that call themselves communists. They want to erase the concept of the ‘class struggle,’ which is the same as also criminalising the trade union and workers movement. And as it states and emphasises, the text is aimed particularly at the youth.

This is a new ideological offensive that is part of the framework of attacks in all spheres, in all the countries of Europe, and even more, by capital, the monopolies, the imperialists, against the social, political, and democratic gains won by the workers and peoples, particularly those that the world imperialist system was forced to concede after the victory over Nazi-fascism.

This offensive is arising at a time when imperialism is being denounced throughout the world, as the system responsible for famines, misery and war; at a time when the working class, the working people of town and country, the youths and peoples, are looking for an alternative to break with that system. The bourgeoisie fears that they are leaning towards socialism, toward the parties and organisations that defend it.

We, the Marxist-Leninist parties and organisations of Europe, members of the Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organisations, denounce energetically and indignantly, that reactionary and revanchist draft; we call on honest persons and those with common sense, on the democratic and progressive organisations, to show their repudiation of this new attack.

January 2006

Revolutionary Communist Party of Brazil (PCR)
Communist Party of Chile (Proletarian Action) (PC-AP)
Communist Party of Colombia Marxist Leninist (PC of C M-L)
Communist Party of the Workers of Denmark (APK)
Communist Party of Labour, Dominican Republic (PCT)
Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (PCMLE)
Communist Party of the Workers of France (PCOF)
Communist Party of Germany (KPD)
Organisation for the Reconstruction of the Communist Party of Greece
Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan)
Revolutionary Communist Party of Ivory Coast (PCRCI)
Communist Party of Mexico (Marxist-Leninist) (PCM (m-l))
Marxist-Leninist Organisation Revolution of Norway
State Committee of Communist Organisations of Spain (CEOC) – composed of the Communist Organisation of Catalonia, Communist Organisation October, September 27 Communist Collective – Castile and Leon – and Communist Organisation of the Valencia Country
Communist Party of the Workers of Tunisia (PCOT)
Revolutionary Communist Party of Turkey (TDKP)
Revolutionary Communist Party of Volta (PCRV)

This resolution is supported by:

Euskal Herriko Komunistak (EHK) – Basque Communist Movement
Boltxe Kolektiboa (Euskal Herria) – Basque Country
Communist Party of Benin (PCB)
Arbeit – Zukunft (Organisation for the Construction of a Communist Workers' Party in Germany)
Magazine Revolutionary Democracy (India)
Magazine Teoria y Practica (Italy)
Pakistan Mazdoor Mahaaz – (Workers' Front of Pakistan)
Refundación Comunista (Puerto Rico)
’Regülta’ Cantabria (Spain)
Action du Tchad pour l'Unité et le Socialisme (ACTUS, Chad)

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