Cde Kabilan of Workers Unity Movement welcomed the participants and explained the purpose and agenda of the meeting. He explained that the issue of fascism is very important for the working class. We have to learn from the lessons of history to take our struggle forward.
Shri Raghavan, President, Lok Raj Sangathan explained the relevance of this meeting on the 70th anniversary of victory over fascism in today’s context and the intentions of Lok Raj Sangathan in taking up this program all over India along with other organisations who are opposed to fascism.
This was followed by a presentation prepared by Lok Raj Sangathan on the subject of "Learnings of History should not be forgotten". This presentation traced the history of Hitlerite fascism in Europe and its genesis. Based on facts it clearly brought out forces behind fascism and German militarization as the big corporations of US and US government itself. It exposed how the UK and French governments rejected the proposal of then Soviet Union for a treaty of mutual non-aggression treaty in Europe. Instead these countries signed non-aggression treaties individually with Germany and Italy. In this way, US, UK and other imperialist powers tried to use Hitler to crush Soviet Union. In this they were successful, but eventually the militant heroism of the Soviet Union and its people stood out and they defeated the Hitler fascist military aggression.
Presentation went on to elaborate how US has taken over the Nazi’s fascist role in today’s world and brutally attacking and suppressing the nations and peoples who oppose the domination and intervention of US imperialism in their own affairs. Indian big capitalists and their political parties such as BJP and Congress do not hesitate to use the same fascist measures to attack the working class and people fighting for their rights. It concluded by calling on the people to draw correct lessons from the experience of fascism in Europe and in order to put an end to Fascism, it is necessary that people put an end to imperialism.
This meeting was attended by activists of Tamilnadu Makkal Katchi, AITUC, F.I.T.E., CPIML Peoples Liberation and Students Organization.
A healthy discussion on how the Indian state is fascist from its inception and how the imperialist agenda of the Indian capitalist class is driving the various policies and direction of Indian economy and orientation of the Indian state whichever party is in power, ensued after the presentation. Various participants of the meeting talked about how the ballot and bullets are used by the Indian state to implement the agenda of the ruling class against the interests of the majority of the population. This is what precisely happened when emergency was forced on the country 40 years back by Indira Gandhi and now similar measures are being taken by Modi.
In this context participants pointed out that how state prevents workers and mass of the people from holding any meetings and other agitations, put up posters, and exercising any democratic rights etc. However big capitalist parties are permitted to monopolize these avenues. All these also constitute fascism in many ways. Media controlled by big capitalists do mass propaganda and influence the middle class in their favour. It is the big monopoly houses who are behind the parties of the ruling class and direct them to implement the fascist measures. Hence to get to the root of the problem and eliminate fascism, the anger of the people should be directed against the system and not merely against individual faces that are being promoted from time to time by the capitalist class to manage the state in their interests and fool the people.
The participants praised this initiative as informative and being timely. They also suggested that this propaganda should be taken forward to lot more people by repeating this kind of meetings in many other areas.
