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May! Labor! Peace? Op-Ed by Victor Pelin


https://www.ipn.md/en/may-labor-peace-op-ed-by-victor-pelin-7978_1089496.html

“The aforementioned reasons rather convincingly explain Putin’s hatred of Lenin. This hatred includes the differences between the Moldovan Communists and Socialists, which can lead to the dismemberment of the Communist-Socialist bloc…”
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Not everyone deserves peace ...

May 1 is considered the international day of solidarity of workers. In half of the states of the world, including the Republic of Moldova, the given day is officially declared a bank holiday. We expected events to defend the rights of salary earners to be staged by trade unionists or by the Bloc of Communists and Socialists (BCS) on May 1. But it wasn’t meant to be. The holiday passed unnoticed. It’s true that the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) addressed a congratulatory message by which it wished “peace to our people, health, prosperity, wellbeing”. It should be noted that peace is wished only to our people, which is not to all the people, for example, those from Ukraine, Russia, etc.

Unlike the PSRM’s message, the message of those from the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) was titled in an internationalist manner – Peace, labor, May! The latter’s message turned out to be full of regrets:  Earlier, this day was a symbol of the revolution and of class fight, but the last few years the holiday acquired a fully new significance. In the Republic of Moldova, the celebration of May 1 is considered a tradition inherited from the Soviet Union. This holiday acquired a non-political color and the people use only the nonworking day. The day of May 1 the last few years has been celebrated by picnics inside nature. Another aspect is that there are almost no workers as a political class in the country.

The difference between the messages of the Socialists and the Communists is non-essential only at first sight. In fact, there are very important practical and ideological nuances that can cause the dismemberment of BCS in the nearest future.

Rebelliousness of Moldovan Communist-Socialists

From the aforementioned, we can deduce the great sorrow of the Moldovan Communist-Socialists – lack of common views on topical events. We convinced ourselves that, according to the Socialists, not all the nations deserve peace and, consequently, wellbeing etc. For their part, the Communists regret the disappearance of the Soviet inheritance, avoiding highlighting the horrid details of the imbedding of this inheritance. If they are honest, they should admit that the Soviet tradition of celebrating the workers’ day started on May 1, 1918, in only several months of the cruel suppression of a large-scale workers’ protest on January 6, 1918. In fact, the civil war that claimed the lives of over 12 million people started then. Here are the stages of the imbedding of the nice inheritance left to us by the Bolsheviks:

  • organization of the putsch of November 1917;
  • losing of democratic elections to the constitutive assembly in favor of the Socialist and Social-Democratic party that gained an absolute majority of votes;
  • forced dissolution of the democratically elected legislative assembly;
  • shooting at the demonstration of over 20,000 workers who protested against the Bolshevik anarchy;
  • proclaiming, in several months, of May 1 as the workers’ day.   

Evidently, everything was done for revolutionary necessity reasons. However, we must admit that on the occasion of May 1, the PCRM has the courage to use the traditional slogan – Peace, labor, May! Their Socialist partners are very much afraid to pronounce the word peace without specifying that they refer only to peace for their people. Why does it happen so? Because, after the Russian military aggression, this word was practically banned in Russia. Moreover, even the public posting of euphemisms designed to replace the word peace is immediately ended by the Russian forces.

However, we should admit that the public use by the Moldovan Communist-Socialists of the word peace is actually an act of great courage and a manifestation of rebelliousness to the strategic partner in Moscow. The point is some of the leaders of PSRM are full-fledged members of the Russian imperial movement and the party benefited from fabulous financial support from different entities of Russia. So, they are obliged to be loyal to the backers. But following the sanctions imposed on Russia, the financial support for PSRM can be cut and such a reason perfectly explains the cause for Socialists’ rebelliousness.

The Socialists’ mercantilism was noted not only once even by their Communist mates who claim that they care a lot about their Marxist-Leninist ideology. After Russia started its aggression against Ukraine, the Communists have serious reasons to be angry with Vladimir Putin. The latter actually set the goal of destroying Ukraine for the reason that this was created by Lenin himself. For the Communists, the attack on Lenin’s work is a sacrilege. That’s why the Moldovan Communists’ rebelliousness is manifested by the simple use of the word peace.   

Putin’s fear of Lenin’s shadow

In the aforementioned, we could see the existence of fissures in the Communist-Socialist bloc of the Republic of Moldova, which is not at all solid. The ideolologized Communists, unlike the mercantile Socialists, have reasons to be precarious. The truth is one of the main slogans of the Bolshevik idol Vladimir Lenin was: Turn imperialist war into civil war! Namely for this slogan, Vladimir Putin hates Lenin. Putin’s goal is to restore the empire, while the risk of degeneration of the imperialist war into a civil one is very big, especially because Putin asserts that the Russian and Ukrainian nations are actually one nation. If this is so, we should admit that in Ukraine we have a real civil war, not an imperialist war. The civil war initiated in Russia by Lenin caused at least ten times more victims than the imperialist war of 1914-1918. Vladimir Putin does not want the Russian citizens to remember this as they, in such circumstances, can plead in favor of peace. For this not to happen, the given word and all its possible substitutes were banned in Russia.

The aforementioned reasons rather convincingly explain Putin’s hatred of Lenin. This hatred includes the differences between the Moldovan Communists and Socialists, which can lead to the dismemberment of the Communist-Socialist bloc.