Amid growing turmoil and instability around the world, Liberation recommits itself to the international campaign for peace, equality, human and democratic rights, and social justice!
Friday 9 May 2025
Friday 9 May 2025 is the 80th anniversary of the day on which victory was officially declared over Nazi Germany, following the coming into effect of the Nazi military high command’s unconditional surrender, bringing about an end to the devastating Second World War in Europe. It marked the culmination of combined counter-offensives by the Soviet Union, the Allied forces, and partisan resistance movements across Europe, which had reached their climax during the turn of 1944-1945. The Victory over Fascism marked the triumph of life over death and an affirmation of the vitality of democracy, led by the working people and their allies around the world.
The Second World War was the culmination of the drive by the Axis powers for world domination; an alliance chiefly comprised of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, along with collaborating forces. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had already combined to devastating effect to backing the overthrow of the Spanish Republic and the brutal crushing of democracy in that country – with a fascist dictatorship installed that would last until the death of its leader, Francisco Franco, in 1975, almost 50 years ago. Nazi Germany had originally received the support of Britain for its military takeover of central Europe in the expectation that Germany would turn east against the Soviet Union. These policies of appeasement failed. Aggression by the Nazi-Fascist states arose from economic necessity – a need to redivide the world against the existing imperialist powers, Britain, France, and the emerging United States, to resolve the drive for profit by big business in Germany, Japan, and Italy. The toll exacted was over 50-million deaths – including an estimated 6-million Jews murdered during the Holocaust and over 20-million Soviet citizens; as well as countries wantonly plundered and economies left in ruins, with destruction and upheaval wrought around the world.
The Victory, secured at such enormous cost, served to underline the futility of any appeasement of fascism – an approach and policy adopted by so many in power, so as to somehow try and not acknowledge the menace and very real threat that was being posed, until they could do so no longer – and the imperative of resistance and struggle against that vile and oppressive current.
Welfare state
Liberation and the Victory over Fascism in 1945 also heralded a shift towards a more progressive politics in the West over the years that followed – a shift won by a generation of working people unwilling to return to the hardship, grinding poverty, and continual instability they had experienced during the interwar years. This, of course, saw the foundation in Britain of the Welfare State and National Health Service – which were to become the envy of the world over – as well as a rigorous campaign of nationalisation.
Indeed, the Victory over Fascism was the dawn of a new era. However, it did not mark the end of colonialism. The empires of Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands remained, clinging on to their colonial territories in the face of reinvigorated campaigns for emancipation on the part of those living there – who saw freedom as their righteous bounty, having witnessed and endured so much during the horrors of the Second World War. The armies and security forces of the aged empires worked in concert with those of the US to suppress liberation movements from the Caribbean, through the African continent, to India and South East Asia. Having fought and sacrificed so many in the battalions and regiments of their colonial overlords in the struggle against fascism, these peoples could not countenance the notion of a return to pliancy and subservience once more along with the indefinite frustration of their own national aspirations and desire for liberation. Even after achieving formal independence through long and bitter struggles, these movements would soon also have to counter the threats posed by the controls exercised by international financial agencies as well as the underhand various countries’ intelligence services – not least those of the US. This situation unfortunately continues to this day.
On the momentous occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Victory over Fascism, Liberation applauds and salutes the memory of all those who stood and fell in the struggle against the Axis powers and their collaborators – the brave Red Army and partisan units who, at such great cost and sacrifice, turned around the Nazi war machine in the East and changed the course of the war ; the Allied forces that battled their way across North Africa, the beaches of Normandy, and in East Asia; the multitude of resistance movements that courageously waged their struggle against seemingly impossible odds, and who continued to do so in the cause of their peoples’ national liberation.
New Right
Liberation is, of course, conscious that this anniversary – and perhaps the last milestone anniversary for most of those still living, who actually partook in or bore witness to the campaign that led to the Victory over Fascism – takes place with the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine still raging. Indeed, the main parade for the occasion in Red Square in Moscow – with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi, as well as several other world leaders in attendance – takes place amid heightened security following an intensification in military exchanges between the two countries. This will undeniably be a source of poignancy and heartbreak for the both peoples – not least the surviving veterans, Russian and Ukrainian alike, who achieved the epic Victory over Fascism alongside one another as fellow comrades and compatriots.
Liberation also continues to warn against the evident and growing trend over the last 30 years of a New Right in the politics of several countries and increasingly acquiring traction internationally. This politics has taken root around the world, from the developing countries; through the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc; to an increasing number of Western countries, including the US where it manifests itself in such discourse as that pertaining to the Project for a New American Century and more latterly ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA). All of this has been borne of the abject failure of Liberal Democracy – along with the closely associated models of neoliberal economics and an unfettered free market – to provide any real solution to the myriad challenges facing so many, enabling the scourges of extreme nationalism and religious fundamentalism to gain traction.
Liberation unequivocally condemns the scourge of fascism in all its manifestations and forms, including its precursors and prototypes, as well as its natural companion, imperialism. We recognise the monumental importance of the Victory over Fascism 80 years later and the galvanising example it set for the movements around the world struggling for peace, social and economic progress, and national liberation. We restate the importance of never forgetting the toll and sacrifice of that era, or overlooking the still-pertinent lessons and warnings it holds for the world of today and the future.
