Document adopted at the International Anti-Fascist Forum in Minsk, April 22, 2023

We, the participants in the International Anti-Fascist Forum from the countries of Asia, America and Europe, have gathered in Minsk to say a firm “No!” to war and reaction, neo-Fascism and oppression.

We have met in the land of Belarus, every inch of which has been washed in the blood of millions of the victims of Hitlerism. It is here that in June 1941 began the sacred war of the whole Soviet people against the Black Plague. One in every three citizens of the Byelorussian SSR was killed or tortured to death as a result of the German Fascist aggression.

Nazism was the direct result of the crisis of capitalism. It grew out of the lust of Big Capital to preserve its power over the working people at any cost. To further their selfish ends the imperialists have embarked on the road of supporting the darkest forces.  They brought to power Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and their ideological accomplices. The Nazis turned from a political fringe into makers of destinies of millions of people.

The peoples of the world have no right to forget the experience of the struggle against Fascism. In 1936, with the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, a civil war broke out in Spain. The people’s power was supported by the USSR and many progressive forces. But at the time Fascism turned out to be stronger. This paved the way for the most horrible war in human history. The final decisive steps were taken towards the furnaces and gas chambers of Buchenwald and Mauthausen, Dachau and Sobibor, Majdanek and Oswiecim. 

The tragic lessons of the past should be well known and always remembered! The world has paid a huge price to rid itself of Nazism. The heroes of that struggle have covered themselves with undying glory: soldiers and officers of the Red Army, Allied warriors, fighters of the People’s Liberation Army of China, member of the French and Italian Resistance, participants in the German anti-Fascist underground, Yugoslav and Korean partisans, Polish and Czechoslovak patriots.

The Red flag over the Reichstag in May 1945 is not only a special fact of the past. The meaning of the Great Victory over Fascism reaches out to the future. It sounds like a tocsin appealing to the hearts of new generations.

Today, like in the 1930s, the black smoke of fascism is spreading over the planet. It overcasts the horizon more and more. People of goodwill must show unity and courage in their decisive struggle.

The situation is extremely alarming. Neo-colonialism is rearing its head in Africa and America. The imperialists are whipping up tensions in Asia. Blood is being shed to the roar of cannon in Europe and other corners of the planet. The misery and suffering of people are multiplying. Once again the moaning of the wounded and croaking of the dying are heard. Sorrowful tears of mothers are flowing. Before our eyes the world is about to fall into a gaping abyss in which the sinister outlines of the swastika are emerging.

The treacherous destruction of the USSR, the country which vanquished Fascism, has stirred the world predators. Global capital sensed total impunity. It is imposing its dictatorship by hideous means. The deadly threat of a Fascist revenge is growing every day. The Nazi beast has licked up its old wounds and is fast gathering strength. Emboldened, it is creeping out of its den in search of new victims.

The world evil came back in a neo-liberal guise. It has created a global system of plundering entire countries and peoples. It has stained itself with aggression against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. Attempts have been made to overthrow the legitimate governments in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Byelorussia. Sanction pressure has been unleashed against the peoples of Russia and China, Cuba and the DPRK. Military threats and political blackmail are resorted to.

On the eve of World War II Hitler’s storm troopers were directed by financial capital. In the 21^st century it is guided by the latter-day Nazis. Fascism, which was vanquished 78 years ago, has not disappeared from the face of the earth because the world oligarchy badly needs its services. That is why Nazi riff-raff march in Vilnius and Tallinn. Books are being burned in Kiev. Monuments to Soviet liberator warriors are pulled down in Warsaw. Euro deputies in expensive suits initiate wicked resolutions trying to equate Hitler’s Nazism to Soviet socialism. The Fascist scum is set to take a historical revenge. Direct support of the USA and its NATO allies has elevated Nazi ideology to government level in Ukraine. For many years, Bandera ghouls have been having a bloody ball in Kiev, tormenting the popular masses. They have: turned Ukraine into a concentration camp for dissenters, have shut down media outlets they do not like, banned opposition activities and launched persecution of communists. Reprisals target all those who have preserved the ideal of the brotherhood of peoples and loyalty to the Great Victory over Fascism. The Nazis burned people alive in Odessa, blew up and shot people from behind the corner. Year in and year out the Azov thugs with a wolf hook on their chevrons terrorized Donbas. Its courageous citizens rose up in a liberation struggle against militarism and neo-Nazism.

Western governments are pumping Bandera Ukraine full of weapons. Zelensky already says he wants to have the nuclear weapon. But NATO has failed to slap him on the wrist. On the contrary, it says it is prepared to transform the Ukrainian army according to its standards. And the imbecile people in London are themselves ready to put shells with depleted uranium in the hands of the neo-Nazi regime.

NATO countries are not only spreading deadly weapons. They have deployed their military bases throughout the world. Four hundred biolaboratories in the USA and other countries are conducting experiments with deadly viruses and bacteria. The consequences of these actions may upset peaceful development of entire states. Moreover, they threaten the whole mankind as a biological species.

The communists have always warned that “Fascism is war.” The course of events confirms this. The answer of the peoples can only be one: the Fascist monster must be destroyed. The bacilli of the brown plague are too dangerous. They should be neutralized confidently and swiftly. The price of unconcern may turn out to be extremely high. The atrocities, condemned in Nuremberg, must not be repeated. We have no right to allow the world reaction to perpetrate new bloody crimes.

The acts and intentions of the imperialist West are soaked in vicious hatred of everything progressive, sovereign and free. Biden and Scholz, von der Leyen and Borrel, Duda and Morawiecki and their ilk are but auxiliary personnel in the system of global dictatorship. Their career prospects are directly determined by their readiness to serve the interests of the world financial oligarchy.

The globalists cover up their actions by pseudo-intellectual studies. They pluck the most reactionary ideas from the theories of Nietzsche, Chamberlain and Gobineau about the “superman” and “race superiority.” They brew their grim cocktail from neo-Malthusianism and post-humanism. They put forward man-hating nonsense about the “priority of technological progress over social development.” They pass off for humanism praise of vices and perversions. Klaus Schwab and his ilk pack the old ideas that inspired Hitler and his accomplices in pseudo-scientific “bioengineering” wrapping.

All this sham “innovation” is hostile to the peoples. It is promoted by those who are afflicted with ethnic and race prejudices, those who desire to take revenge on peoples for the victory over Fascism and colonialism. These circles are possessed by the idea of total control over humankind. Declaring that they cancel the Great Russian culture, they seek to destroy the humanistic culture of the whole world and to throw us back to the times of untold savagery and an electronic concentration camp.

Neoliberalism is a vicious enemy of any independent development and democratic norms. The political forces in the West have degenerated into absolute autocracies. The bourgeois elites have lost touch with the values of freedom and humanism. Their behavior is opening ever wider the doors for neo-Fascism.

Writhing in agony, capitalism is clinging to life at all costs. It is not afraid of a reincarnation of Fascism. The world reaction merely encourages the heirs of Hitler and Mussolini, Franco and Salazar, Antonescu and Mannerheim, Pilsudski and Quisling. They are furiously destroying the memory of the Second World War and falsifying historical facts.

The plans of “a new world order” end up in aggression and conflicts, neo-Fascism and neocolonialism, and the threat of a new world war. The whole world is becoming a battlefield. It is our duty to win this battle in the name of all the best that has been created by world culture, in the name of a worthy future for humankind!

The key to success is the unity and cohesion of the peace-loving forces of the planet. A victorious resistance to world reaction can only succeed if it is worldwide. We are deeply convinced that our international solidarity can safeguard humankind against the Fascist threat and the slide into the abyss of a world war. We declare it firmly here in Byelorussia. On this sacred land the sense of inseparable link between the past, present and future is particularly acute.

Dear friends, in the flaming days of the Second World War a great militant alliance was formed against Fascist barbarism – a union of communists and patriots, fighters against tyranny and democrats. It was created in spite of social and ideological differences, and different political and religious views. This is the bidding of the time. The new era of trials calls for unity of actions of all the people of goodwill.

Let us then unite in the struggle against neo-Nazism, reaction and militarism!

Long live the united front of progressive forces!

Long live the solidarity of the working peoples and nations in the struggle against Fascism!

Do not allow the world to be blown up!¡No pasarán! They shall not pass!