Criticising Lithuanian nationalism to be banned
On May, 22nd, members of the fraction of right wing party Fatherland Union — the Lithuanian Christian democrats (FU — LCD) Paulius Saudargas and Petras Luomanas have registered with the secretary of the Seim (Parliament) a project of appendix to the Criminal Code that once again is equating communism to fascism and providing criminal liability for negation of the anti-Soviet and nationalist myths (the myth about genocide arranged by communists in Lithuania, the myth about bourgeois-nationalist armed banditism and terrorism portrayed as “struggle for national liberation”, the description of Hitlerite collaborators as national heroes). According to this project, for negation of these myths a person can receive up to three years of imprisonment. On June, 9th, Lithuanian Seimas adopted this project in the first reading with 32 votes (2 votes were against the project and 9 legislators did not vote). It is time to examine the processes that began in Lithuania this year, and to pass our verdict on them.
The fact that P. Saudargas and P. Luomanas have undertaken this step right now is not a coincidence. It is obvious that this project is directed exclusively against Lithuanian Marxists and the people honestly looking at the history who are not financially connected with the present bourgeois state machinery and consequently do not give in to current ideology and valuations of history which it imposes. It is directed first of all against the Internet sites Komunizmas.org , Pokaris.info and Leftas .
Attacks against these sites in the capitalist mass media have begun several years ago, but already at the end of 2008, appeals to use administrative measures against the authors of these projects came also from the lips of politicians. Then members of FU-LCD V.Aleknaite — Abramikiene and K.Cilinskas started to threaten with state security measures the forum Komunizmas.org. Soon members of the fraction of “liberals” D.Kuodyte and V.Grubliauskas officially addressed state security Department (SSD) with a request to investigate, whether the activity of Leftas and Pokaris.info broke the law. Shortly after receiving a SSD reply that “the criminal liability is not established”, this campaign was continued by the right wing nationalist members of FU-LCD P.Saudargas and P.Luomanas who asked the State Office of Public Prosecutor to take measures on relation to “slander towards the guerrillas”. They also added ridiculous charges that Pokaris.info and Komunizmas.org so-called incite “xenophobic and antidemocratic moods”. The public prosecutor probably just thought that they were crazy because even a person without any law degree perfectly understands that if the authors of these sites would have been charged with such offences, any court would have acquitted them, as the above mentioned sites do not act neither against foreigners, nor against democracy (only the left and the right differ on the concept of democracy), and there is absolutely no criminal liability provided in law for naming the post-war gangsters with their real name. The new steps of these two right-wingers were taken for certain after they have received a reply of this content from the State Office of Public Prosecutor. Moreover, they were most probably very much enraged by reaction of the Lithuanian Internet to their appeal to the State Office of Public Prosecutor, when the majority of observers not negatively commented on this step as such, but a considerable part of them also severely criticised these so-called “guerrilla”. Quite possibly, the new initiatives of P. Saudargas and P. Luomans could also be related to a series of reportings on Leftas on the occasion of May, 9th that have shown that in Lithuania not only many respect this day, but also that in different parts of Lithuania appear many activists who happily celebrate it and honestly inform the society about these celebrations: something one cannot say about the big mass-media
This crusade against the only truly independent from the capitalist and bourgeois ideology Internet sites that stand on the front line of confrontation with this ideology and struggle for the historical truth, takes place along some other processes in the society. On January, 16th of this year, after long years of social apathy, in Lithuania there was an explosion of national anger. That day during many thousands’ demonstration in Vilnius against the actions of the new right government, people began to stone the Parliament building, there were attempts to break inside. The angered crowd shouted “Thieves!”, “Down with the Parliament”, “Give us work, bread and money”. Collisions with forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs begun. In one of the provinces of Lithuania workers even have occupied the local government building. And the next months were marked by the offensive of right wing forces unprecedented for the last couple decades of the bourgeois state. After January, 16th a whole chain of interdictions and limitations was brought into life. In the second half of February we were informed that the self-government institutions would not allow to hold at the Parliament any meetings with more than 300 people. There were interdictions to come close to the Parliament: for example, on March, 10th teachers and students were not allowed to hold a meeting on the square in front of the Parliament, this meeting was pushed away, to the car parking lot behind the Parliament.
Within a short period of time a number of demonstrations were prohibited: among them the demonstration of the party “Frontas” and the demonstration of students planned for February, 19th against the education reform. And this was despite the fact that the top of the present student's organisations itself is right wing and reactionary. It means that the means of suppression apply not only against the left or, at least, those who pose as a left, but also in general against everything, even some right-wing groups, which are for whatever reasons unhappy about the actions of the current regime. In reality, we see the tendencies of establishing of a dictatorship by some right groupings, which express the interest of the large capital most clearly and most passionately.
Moreover, the permission to a march on March, 11th was requested by the Human rights monitoring institute along with the Center of development of equal opportunities, i.e. by the organisations that have very little in general with leftism and of course do not have anything in common with communism, and operate exclusively on the basis of norms of bourgeois democracy. The initiative group “For Lithuania – for all” has explained the purpose of this procession like this: “To encourage the European values in Lithuania and to support the democratic system strengthened by the Constitution of Lithuania “. But even this request was rejected. As a reason they were given this explanation: “The skinheads would not accept such march and consequently they will turn violence! But the permission to march on Vilnius streets was received on March, 11th by the neo-Nazis, i.e. those very skinheads. It speaks for itself about the preferences and the priorities of the ruling clique. About 500 far right wingers, organised by several neo-Nazi organisations, have walked through the streets of Vilnius: several times more than during the scandalous and less organised procession on March, 11th last year. In certain respects it can be regarded as the demonstration of muscles of the right wing forces, demonstration of their street groups that in the near future could be given permission to “clear” the streets, the policemen who live on small wages and also take part in protests, would refuse to do it. After all, even among the intelligentsia circles there are talks that on January, 16th some police departments almost came over to the side of the protesters.
All these events were accompanied by attacks on the left. On January, 16th a correspondent of the newspaper “Lietuvos profsajungos” (“Trade unions of Lithuania”) was physically attacked by the fascist thugs who accused trade unions of “leading the Russians into the Parliament” who allegedly “arranged disturbances”. In March the member of “New left 95” D. Burba was beaten. This was classified by the police not as political prosecution, but as an assault and a robbery. The attempts to pursue legally and to intimidate leaders of meeting of January, 16th also began. Even the activist of semi-official trade unions Chernjauskas had to appear before court which, to be honest, soon has acquitted him. The leader of the opposition party “Frontas” Paletskis also appeared before court.
There are no doubts that we are witnessing creeping fascization of Lithuania. Bourgeois ideologists made up heap of interpretations and theories using which they try to deny in every possible way the class sources of fascism, its social and economic basis. It even comes to such statements that ostensibly Hitlerite Germany was not at all fascist, that only Italy’s Mussolini was fascist. But the real, Marxist evaluation has been given to fascism on the XIII plenum of Executive committee of Comintern in 1933 – 1934, and in 1935 the well-known Bulgarian communist G. Dimitrov repeated it on the VII Congress of Comintern:
“The fascism is an open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, most imperialistic elements of the financial capital … It is the organisation of terrorist punishment of the working class and the revolutionary part of peasantry and intelligentsia. The fascism in foreign policy is a chauvinism in the most rough form that cultivates zoological hatred towards other peoples”.
Many years have passed from the time of this definition, and the society structure has somewhat changed, but the essence of this definition remains correct and actual, especially now, when the capitalist world including Lithuania, faces the crisis of an unprecedented scale, unseen in almost a century. Marxism confirmed and asserts that the fascism is a political trend inherent in the period of a general crisis of capitalism, which aspires to preservation of domination of the capital by means of open dictatorship, to protect it from mass discontent of the working people. The processes that occur now in Lithuania, are leading exactly to formation of the state-terrorist organisation, to practice of terrorist punishment of dissatisfied masses of population and of the progressive part of the intelligentsia. Meanwhile, zoological Russophobia is being cultivated by some part of the ruling classes already for a long time.
We can already make a list of the right, singers of fascism who most actively aspire to legalise reprisals against Marxists. Apparently, most active of them are the fascists members of FU-LCD Paulius Saudargas and Petras Luomanas who authored this fascist project. If to take into account that the majority of legislators who voted for this project were representatives of FU-LCD and other members of FU-LCD threatened to use SSD against us (V.Aleknaite — Abramikiene and K.Cilinskas) this party can reasonably considered to be fascist. Not far behind them are the following reactionary figures from “The Movement of Liberals” (D.Kuodyte and V.Grubliauskas) that had already called for and tried to use legal measures .
While it is not known yet, whether this amendment to law will be approved in the Parliament in the final reading, it is possible to predict that the offensive of the right wing forces will not stop at that. Especially, if this amendment at the end of the day will be accepted, this would finally cross the line beyond which begin the political prosecution in the interests of big capital, the political reprisals against a progressive part of intelligentsia only for different interpretations, and in general against activists of all levels of population who stand not on the side of the capital, but on the side of the working people. Even more so because this step is undertaken not during a quiet period of capitalism prosperity, but during the capitalist crisis, facing the growth of resistance of workers to the power of the capital, during the birth of ideological and theoretical spokesmen of this resistance. In Lithuania there will be political prisoners, victims of fascist reprisals. When this last line will be crossed, formation of a fascist regime in Lithuania will go faster, and sooner or later in the Eastern Europe we will see again, after many years, an open, terrorist dictatorship of the big capital , not covered with any ornaments of bourgeois democracy, cultivating excited chauvinism, greatness of the nation, rabid hatred and violence against any opponents of the regime, against the left wing people who defend the interest of the working population, especially against communists.
By Leftas
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Leftist international solidarity requires a strong condemnation of fascist actions and support for the young Lithuanian left, which was formed very recently, in 2007, that fascist groups try to suppress at the very beginning of its development. We urge the foreign leftist organizations to protest in the Lithuanian embassy in their countries and to send their protests, appeals and applications for the following institutions in Lithuania:
Law and Justice Committee of Seim that will discuss this fascist project. Its e-mail is teiseskt@lrs.lt. The e-mail of the Head of this Committee Stasys Sedbaras is Stasys.Sedbaras@lrs.lt.
Human rights Committee of that will also discuss this project on the next session in the autumn. Its e-mail is zmteiskt@lrs.lt. The e-mail of the Head of this Committee Arminas Lydeka is Arminas.Lydeka@lrs.lt.
The Board on rights and affairs of the participants of resistance to occupation and victims of the occupation that will also discuss the project. The e-mail of the Head of the Board Arimantas Dumcius is Arimantas.Dumcius@lrs.lt. Also in this Board tooks part a well-known social-democrat Vytenis Andriukaitis that had spoken negatively about this project and voted against it. You should urge him to make efforts to do so that this project not to be accepted by Seimas. His e-mail is Vytenis.Andriukaitis@lrs.lt.
The e-mail of Human rights monitoring institute is hrmi@hrmi.lt The e-mail of the general manager of this institute Henrikas Mickevicius is h.mickevicius@hrmi.lt.
The e-mail of the Ministry of foreign affairs of Lithuania is urm@urm.lt
The address of Lithuanian social-democratic party is info@lsdp.lt. It should be urged to oppose adoption of this project. The e-mails of the Head of LSDP Algirdas Butkevicius are Algirdas.Butkevicius@lrs.lt and albutk@lrs.lt.
The e-mail of fascistic FU-LCD is sekretoriatas@tsajunga.lt
The e-mails of the Head of FU-LCD Andrius Kubilius are Andrius.Kubilius@lrs.l and ankubi@lrs.lt .
The e-mails of authors of this project are: Paulius Saudargas Paulius.Saudargas@lrs.lt
Petras Luomanas Petras.Luomanas@lrs.lt
You can contact us at leftas@left.ru