Contribution of the Communist Workers' Party – For Peace and Socialism (Finland)

Dear Comrades,

 

We thank the KKE and TKP organizations for organizing this event in Berlin.

Today we commemorate 80 years since the victory over Fascism by the peoples. It was a historic moment when Russian soldiers raised the Flag of the USSR over the Reichstag building, marking the end of the Second World War. The war began in multiple places, starting with the invasion of China by Japan in 1935, with the annexations of the Sudetenland by Nazi-Germany – which was granted by the UK and France –, as well as the invasion and annexation of Austria and finally the invasion of Poland.

All this is to say that the Second World War did not break out overnight. It was a rapid escalation of tensions, driven mostly by the Axis powers who sought to escape the crisis of overaccumulation of 1929 through rearmament and the expansion of its territory. The idea of living space in the East as a solution to the crisis in Germany found its origins in the “winning of the American frontier”, the settlement of vast swaths of America by exterminating the Native American population. It was translated to the German context already following the First World War and which the Nazis attempted to implement 20 years later.

Finland's participation in the war began with the well known Winter War. Lesser known is that Finland allowed the passage of German troops through its territory and it was foreseeable that would participate in an attack on the Soviet Union. Finland’s long border enables an attacker to quickly march on Leningrad and other strategically important cities like Murmansk; it was a significant threat to the Soviet Union. This is also realized by NATO staff today, which sees Finland’s accession to its imperialist alliance as a big addition.

The invasion of the Red Army during the Winter War, was then a pre-emptive defensive action, which was limited in scope and had as its main objective to secure the Karelian Isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. Through the capture of this important piece of land it was possible to supply Leningrad during the 900 day siege that killed 1.5 million Soviet citizens of which 1 million were civilians. Finland’s government bears a heavy responsibility for these past crimes. Instead of seeing the Winter War as the avoidable disaster that it was for the Finnish and Soviet people, it is portrayed as an heroic act of resistance against a superior military force and an invader. The Winter War plays a momentous role in shaping Finnish perceptions of nationalism, russophobia and militarism. The Winter War ended with the defeat of the Finnish Armed Forces and the secession of territories to the Soviet Union.

In 1941 Finland joined Nazi-Germany’s Operation Barbarossa, which aimed at the military destruction of the Soviet Union, the displacement, enslavement and extermination of vast parts of its population and the annexation of its territory. Finland made similar claims as Germany, seeking to establish a Greater Finland, with Soviet territories, especially East-Karelia. It carried out the imprisonment and starvation of Russian prisoners of war and civilians as well as trying to Finnisize the Karelian and Russian populations. The advance of the Axis forces could only be stopped by the immense efforts of the Soviet people and its Red Army, which was able to halt the advance invading forces at Moscow and Stalingrad and reverse their gains, leading to the complete collapse of the German state and the capture of its capital Berlin on 8th of May 1945. The heroic efforts of the Soviet people must be commemorated and cannot be praised enough as they liberated half of Europe from fascism and established a strong socialist bloc that existed and improved the lives of its citizens until its destruction by counter-revolutionary forces in 1989-1991.

The war ended for Finland with a separate peace in September 1944. This “betrayal” of the German-Finnish alliance led the German troops to use scorched-earth tactics as they withdrew from Finland. Almost all buildings were destroyed in areas where German soldiers were stationed in Lapland (Yle, 2025).

 

All this destruction leaves one wondering. Was this really a battle of democracy against totalitarianism in the form of fascism and communism? The European Union seems to think so. Instead of promoting 80 years since the Victory of the peoples over fascism it promotes Europe day with this year's theme of the “Schuman Declaration, which laid the foundations for the European Union and paved the way for an unprecedented era of prosperity, peace, democracy, solidarity and cooperation in Europe”. It seems like the EU would like us to forget all about the war and its outcome. Instead of celebrating the freeing from the fascist yoke, it tries to convince us that we are experiencing prosperity, while many working class Europeans can barely afford their rents, the rising prices for heating and are suffering under general inflation. While Europe is preparing for the next “great war”, rearming at rates never seen in decades – also with the aim of reinvigorating industrial growth^[1] – the EU celebrates peace.

The heads of bourgeois governments have themselves openly declared that they seek to send weapons to Ukraine only to secure its minerals. The wellbeing of the Ukrainian people was never a serious consideration for the ruling class, neither in Moscow, Brussels or Washington. When the Ukrainians were hailed as the defenders of democracy and Western values, it was done in order to bolster its morale in its fight against the Russian competitor.

The world the EU seeks to create is a world of imperialist plunder, of repression of the organized power of the working class, of the protection of its borders no matter how many dead migrants this entails. The security it seeks is the security of its investments in the Ukraine and elsewhere.

With all its hypocrisy on equating fascism and communism^[2] its definition of fascism must not be regarded as useful for analysis, since it draws only superficial comparisons and tries to smear communism’s legacy through the comparison with fascism.

Attempts have been made to analyze fascism by looking at its core ideological tenets, from the writings of Mussolini, Hitler and other fascist leaders such as Mosley in the UK. This however yields little insights as well, since fascist ideology is self-contradictory and populist. Its stated aim was the destruction of the organized labor movement. The fascist movement never grew out of ideological necessity, instead its theory was created after the fact to justify its policies (Dutt: 200-201).

If it is impossible to get a grasp of fascism by the explanations of its founders, how is it then to be understood, analyzed and predicted?

To really understand fascism we must study it with the method developed by Marx and Engels and applied by the Comintern in its study of fascism. The method of historical materialism leads us to look at fascism’s relations of production. Fascism was often promoted by its exponents as a “third way”; neither capitalism nor communism, they said. Capitalism is defined by private ownership of the means of production and the exchange of commodities between these private owners through a market. It is dependent on the exploitation of the working class and the appropriation of surplus value by the capitalists.

Socialism-communism on the other hand is defined by common ownership of the means of production, the absence of an exploiting class and the working class in power. It is a qualitatively different socio-economic formation that in an evolutionary way, without the need for further political revolution, moves from its lower, socialist stage to the higher, communist stage.

What was fascism then? It had during its entire duration neither abolished private property nor markets. It had not carried out any political revolution – even though the fascists themselves want to portray their accession to power as a revolution. Instead it had strengthened the power of finance capital, by repressing the political opposition of the working class, thereby also disorganizing the petty-bourgeoisie which can only become a social force as an attachment to one of the two major classes – capitalist or working class. It further strengthened finance capital by guaranteeing a direct access to political power. Finance capital was also the main benefactor of the Nazis war industry, through the use of slave labor, acquired through the conquests in the East, through state orders of everything from food, to uniforms, vehicles and weapons and finally raising of the rate of exploitation, which was enabled by the crushing of the working class movement. As a closing note on this subject it is imperative to mention that the same war profiteers were only expropriated in territories captured by the Red Army, while the “democratic countries” left capitalist ownership untouched. Not only did they not expropriate them, they instead restarted German war industries to supply the newly labelled Bundeswehr, with the explicit purpose to use West-Germany as a bulwark against communism. Germany was thus split by the Allied powers against expressed attempts by the Soviet Union.

Fascism was then firmly capitalist, but what about its planned economy? It is true, Germany did plan its economy. This economic plan had however only the purpose to enrich the capitalists that had drawn it up, it was meant to coordinate industrial output and relied heavily on state orders. Planning also took place in the UK and the US during the war. The war, in fact, made planning a necessity, since the market was too inefficient a tool to produce the war materiel necessary for a prolonged war, no less for “total war”. Planning under capitalism then is nothing but a tool to save capitalism from itself and fundamentally different from the socialist planned economy of the Soviet Union, which was organized to satisfy the needs of the people.

In summary, fascism did not constitute a new socio-economic formation, a “third way”. Those seeking an alternative to capitalism will not find it in fascism. Fascism, on the contrary, is only the tool of the capitalist class which is used when the democratic mask of the dictatorship of capital fails, when the working people, through the experience of immiseration, become more and more disillusioned with bourgeois democracy.

Those who truly seek an alternative to the horrors that capitalism creates have to look elsewhere, they have to look towards communism, where the fundamental contradiction between the social production of wealth and its private appropriation is resolved.

A strong communist party that is able to lead the people towards socialism, is then also the only real antidote to fascism, its politicians, parties and paramilitary formations. All those supposedly democratic forces that oppose fascism, were yesterday's enablers and supporters of fascism and are tomorrow adopting the fascist program while dressing it in a democratic garb. The “democratic” parties are no less the enemies of the people as the fascists.

Anti-fascism means to be anti-capitalist. Anti-fascism means the fight for socialism. Anti-fascists must organize themselves in the communist party for the overthrow of capitalism that carries fascism in its womb.

 

Endnotes

Dutt, R. P. (1935). Fascism and Social Revolution: A Study of the Economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay . Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/fascismandsocialrevolution/page/n7/mode/2up

 Kukko-Liedes, P., Ullakko, A., & SA-kuvat, K. kaupunginkirjaston arkisto. (2025, April 27). Lapin sota päättyi tasan 80 vuotta sitten – kokosimme sen kymmenen poikkeuksellista piirrettä. Yle Uutiset. https://yle.fi/a/74-20156905

 

 

^[1] https://www.imi-online.de/2025/04/10/koalitionsvertrag-der-aufruester-auf-dem-weg-in-die-militaerrepublik/

^[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-6-2009-0213_EN.html?redirect