Speech by the Chairman of the CPRF G.A.Zyuganov at the Third International Anti-Fascist Forum
24 May, 2026
Moscow
Esteemed comrades! Dear friends! Fellows in arms!
We have gathered for the Third International Anti-Fascist Forum to discuss our common tasks in the struggle for peace, friendship among the peoples and social justice. This many-sided activity of the left forces cannot be separated from the struggle against imperialism and state terrorism, military aggression and neocolonialism, reaction and neo-fascism.
Capital continues its global expansion. It tries to reach its goals leaning on two pillars, physical force and manipulation of consciousness.
Already in ancient Rome Cicero insistedthat a flourishing state needed an “alliance of the sword and the pen.” He was referring to the combination of miliary might and the power of persuasion. Centuries later this thought was echoed by the Italian Machiavelli who advised the ruler to be like a lion and a fox at the same time, combining bravery with cunning.
An important milestone in the assertion of capitalism was the rise of Protestantism. Early Christianity prized morality and life according to “God’s canons.” It encouraged help to the poor and condemned extravagance. The new teaching directly linked faith with self-enrichment. Material success, the Protestants preached, was tangible proof that the person was agreeable to God. Poverty and privation were seen as “a mark of a curse.”
Thus Europe created an ideological basis for enrichment, exploitation and expansion. In the eyes of capitalists, commoners and the inhabitants of other continents were “castaways.” Their wealth was to be taken away from them. Bourgeois empires grew on the basis of these perverse ideas.
The West has achieved great success in combining various instruments of dominance. This enabled it to become the leading global force and to dominate the rest of humanity. To maintain its hegemony it made wide use of brainwashing the popular masses. That system became truly global due to the development of new technologies.
By the beginning of this century predictions were made that the Internet would destroy the monopoly on information. That optimism was ungrounded. Possession of the means of production is the guarantee of economic and political dominance. This applies equally to material production and to information.
It is utterly naïve to believe that the owners of internet platforms, social networks, global servers and data centers are inspired by the ideas of freedom and democracy. Their aims are exploitation, profit and concentration of power.
The same thing is happening with “artificial intelligence.” It is by no means a gift of fortune or well-meaning programmers to the rest of us. It is yet another resource in the hands of those who have capital. Obviously, the capitalist will use it to enrich himself and strengthen his dominance. It is very important for the struggle we are waging to understand these phenomena. Our ideological adversaries are doing all they can to gain a monopoly in “the sphere of meanings.” It strengthens world capital in its battle for the future of humankind.
Even in spite of the crisis of capitalism and the decline of the old development centers and the emergence of new ones, the global oligarchy can go on “shuffling the cards” for a long time yet. It can set peoples and countries against one another and invent ever new “enemies” masking itself as “the beacon of freedom and democracy” or “champion of traditional values.” It will go out of its way to prevent people from becoming conscious of their class interests and understanding that the problems are rooted not in the differences between races and nations, customs and cultures. They are rooted in the socio-economic system and in who owns the means of production.
To sort these things out and to open the eyes of the working people is the key task of the communists and all the popular-patriotic forces. Unless it becomes conscious of itself as a class, the proletariat will be a toy in the hands of capital. Alien ideas and values will be foisted on it. As Antonio Gramschi, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party, wrote, the working people must acquire a new worldview. It is the duty of the communists to help the proletariat to gain a class consciousness and work out its conception of life.
The bourgeosie is skillfully imposing its morality and rules of behavior on the masses. The West makes clever use of the mechanisms of manipulating consciousness. Whenever the state ruled by capital begins to shake, the structure of bourgeois society comes to the rescue. The state is but the front trench of capitalism. Behind it is the solid string of ideological fortresses and casemates created by the oligarchy.
This defense cannot be broken by a quick “head-on” strike. This requires a long and thorough “war of attrition” to gain the consciousness of the working people, to pull them out of the bourgeois camp into their own proletarian camp.
It has to be remembered that the West has not always been the “locomotive” of the world economy. Up until the 17th-18th centuries Europe lagged far behind China, India and some other societies in terms of the size of the economy. What turned Europe into the leader was unrestrained and ruthless expansion covered up by false concepts of “messianism.” These are the roots of fascism and other forms of dominance.
The justification of colonial conquests was the idea of the superiority of the white race. It was the basis of the genocide of the indigenous population and slave trade. The inhabitants of the colonies were seen as inferior creatures. They were denied human rights.
In 1825 the Discovery Doctrine of the US Supreme Court determined that a land belonged to those who have “discovered” it. The Indians who lived there were stripped of this right. This created the “legal” basis for the herding of Indian tribes into reservations and their extermination.
Many Western ideologists were enlisted to justify racism. One of them was the Englishman Thomas Carlyle who, in an essay titled “The Nigger Question,” argued that God had appointed blacks to be the slaves of those “born to be their masters.” Carlyle berated those who championed the abolition of slavery as “scoundrel protection societies.”
Cecil Rhodes, the ideologist of British imperialism, insisted that God wished the Anglo-Saxon race to dominate the world. He wrote: I raised my eyes to the sky and then looked down to earth. And I said to myself: both must be British. It was revealed to me…that Britons are the finest race worthy to dominate the world.
Adolf Hitler in his book “Mein Kampf” held up the 19the century British Empire as an example for the Germans. He based much of his racist doctrine on the works of the Englishman Houston Chamberlain. Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich’s propaganda chief, called him “the father of our spirit.
Racist ideas accompanied capitalist conquests from the outset. The bourgeois system is based on maximizing profits at all costs. At first the young European capital took away the lands of its own peasants and drove them into work houses. Then it proceeded to conquer other peoples and destroy entire civilizations. “Big industry created a world market prepared by the discovery of America,” wrote K.Marx and F.Engels.
A new stage of global expansion was ushered in by the transition to imperialism. V.I.Lenin identified its main features. First, the concentration of production and capital culminating in the creation of monopolies which came to determine economic life. Second, the merger of banks and industrial capital and the creation of “financial capital”, the financial oligarchy. Third, the export of capital which becomes more important than the export of goods. Fourth, the formation of international monopoly alliances of capitalists and redrawing of the world map. Fifth, final division of the world between big powers.
Lenin characterized imperialism as the world system of colonial oppression and financial strangling of the vast majority of the earth’s population by a handful of imperialist countries. He proved that reaction, parasitism and decay were inherent in imperialism. Big capital establishes its dictate over society. It seeks to suppress workers’ and national liberation movements. Reaction intensifies. Militarism grows.
Under imperialism the bourgeoisie increasingly gravitates toward total control of society’s life. “Financial capital seeks dominance, not liberty, Lenin stressed, “political reaction all along the line is a feature of imperialism.”
Economic development draws millions of people into production and spreads elementary literacy. All the more important for the exploiters become sophisticated methods of manipulating consciousness.
Things did not end with the ideological connection between Anglo-Saxon capitalism and Fascism. Western capital in practice fostered the fascist regimes in Germany, Italy, Spain and other countries. Italian fascism and German Nazism were generously supported by the oligarchs. This was an answer to the revolutionary wave that swept Europe in the wake of the First World War. The Bavarian Soviet Republic, the Hamburg Uprising and mass strikes pointed to a profound crisis of the bourgeois system.
As early as 1922 a circle of industrialists in Bavaria put the stake on Adolf Hitler. Henry Ford of the USA invested heavily in German Nazism. In 1938 Hitler decorated him with the Big Cross of the German eagle, the highest decoration of the Reich for foreigners.
Support for the Nazis grew rapidly. The party was sponsored by industrial and financial tycoons in Germany. The German Bank, the Commercial Bank and the Imperial Credit Society were Nazi supporters.
The union between big capital and the Nazis was sealed by the meeting on February 20, 1933 when the heads of concerns and banks approved Hitler’s bid for dictatorship. A week later the Reichstag was set ablaze.Thisprovocation provided a pretext for a crackdown on the opposition andthe decimation of the communist party.
The Western powers contributed to the strengthening of Nazism. London and Washington observed calmly as the Nazis tore up the Versailles Treaty, created the Wehrmacht and embarked on accelerated militarization. They continued to credit Germany, provided it with strategic raw materials, took part in the building up of the submarine fleet and sent arms and materials.
The Mussolini regime also enjoyed US support. The Morgan house issued massive credits. Italy became a major recipient of foreign capital in Europe. Washington cynically turned a blind eye to Rome’s aggressive policy.
Dear comrades, in less than a month the world will mark a tragic date of its history. Eighty-five years ago Hitler’s fascism attacked the Soviet Union and the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 began.
The heroic struggle of the Soviet people led by the Communist Party brought about the defeat of Fascism. The Soviet people paid an enormous price for this sacred Victory. One in six Soviet citizens died in the battlefield. One in three Byelorussians. One in two communist party members.
As long as Fascism lives, terror, genocide and other bloody crimes will be part of its arsenal.
The post-war attitude of the Western powers to the Nazi war criminals is extremely telling. Many of them have avoided punishment. They collaborated with the USA and took part in creating NATO. They became Cold War warriors, working for Radio Liberty, the German Wave and other anti-Soviet media outlets. All this is direct proof of the profound symbiosis of Big Capital, the liberal elites and fascist regimes. Together they have formed a single phalanx of the stranglers of humanity’s revolutionary hopes.
Oligarchic capital has not for a minute given up its plans of revenge. Soviet towns and villages still lay in ruins when yesterday’s allies in Western countries were planning a nuclear attack on the USSR. They started the Cold War. Murderous conflicts flared up in Korea and Vietnam.
Capital did everything it could to prevent the collapse of colonial empires. It drowned in blood the national liberation movement. Terror never ceased to be part of capitalism’s arsenal. We have ample evidence of this. Some of it we have presented in the film “Imperialism and Terror” of the CPRF TV channel Red Line (Krasnaya liniya) the screening of which opened our forum.
Imperialism unleashed its most vicious forces to undermine the bulwark of the liberation movement, the USSR. Sadly, they have succeeded. However, the temporary defeat of the Soviet Union did not mark the triumph of Big Capital. The banner of socialism has been hoisted aloft by China. That country has become the leader of the world ‘s economic and social development.
As long as there existed the USSR, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), and the Warsaw Treaty capital had a common enemy. This was a powerful stimulus for development. Capitalists were upgrading the quality of products, making concessions to the working people and expanding social security.
The collapse of the USSR triggered all-round degradation of capitalism. It is evident in economic and social life, in politics and morality. The crisis of democratic institutions and the electoral system grew worse.
Capital responds to its mounting problems by overt militarization. It is stoking up international tensions. The threat of a new world war is growing.
The Western powers have ramped up their practice of neo-colonialism. Their main instruments are the dollar system, crippling IMF and World Bank loans, information pressure and reliance on the pro-Western fifth column. Sanctions, provocations, ”color revolutions” and military interventions are deployed against undesirable countries. The peoples of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran and Venezuela have been on the receiving end of all this in the most brutal forms.
The world reactionary forces display particular cynicism in making short shrift of the fraternal Ukraine. It has been turned into a military testing ground by declaring war against the Russian World. We are rendering all-round assistance to those who are fighting Bandera Nazism. We have dispatched to Donbas more than a hundred and fifty humanitarian convoys. We regularly play host to the children who come to us from there at health and holiday facilities. We express gratitude to all those who are helping us in this exceedingly important matter.
We are sincerely grateful to the parties and movements whose representatives have come to this forum for your principled stand, solidarity with our country’s anti-fascist position in these difficult times. We express particular gratitude to the Korean people for their determination and courage in the struggle against neo-fascism.
Capital has launched a dismantling of the social state. The wave of neo-liberalism has met with resistance of the popular masses. There is mounting popular discontent in the USA, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and other countries. The protest of the working people against the policies of bourgeois authorities is growing.
Simultaneously, the movement against neo-colonialism is mounting. The countries of the Global South areincreasingly vocal in demanding full liberation from the vestiges of the colonial policies of the Western powers. Conditions on our planet are gradually changing in favor of large-scale changes for the better. This process must be made irreversible.
The initiatives of China are particularly important for the creation of a just world. After the concept of a shared future for humanity the Chairman of the PRC Xi Jin-ping has come out with important proposals in the field of global development, security and inter-civilizational interaction. In September of last year in Tianjin the global governance initiative was launched. It is symbolic that this was done at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. The members of SCO and BRICS are called upon to play a special role in creating a new system of international relations.
World capital reacts to the moves to shake its positions by taking steps to establish total control over the humanity. To this end it intends to use the latest communication means: the Internet, social networks, artificial intelligence. By now these aims have ceased to be a secret. Publications of the heads of Palantir Technologies attest to this.
In my article “Globalism and “New Imperialism” published early in this century I stressed: ”A third world war is effectively beginning to flame …At first it was “cold,” then “cool” and then “warm.”Now, with the advent of globalism, it is fast entering the hot phase… Humanity is sitting on a powder keg around which ever new sparks are flashing.”
The modern world is living through the process of transition to multipolarity. The hegemony of Western capital is waning. Contradictions between imperialists are growing. They have developed into a confrontation between the USA and the EU. Into conflicts within NATO and other associations.
However, a just international system is still a long way off. The old power centers are holding on to world dominance by the skin of their teeth. To preserve it they are prepared to use the whole arsenal of political, financial, information and military pressure.
Admittedly, not all present-day poles of influence seek an equitable world structure. Frequently, their ruling circles care only about repartition of markets and spheres of control. That is why we, the representatives of left and popular patriotic forces, should understand that mere change of world leaders within the capitalist framework will not liberate the working people from exploitation. Only socialism guarantees a real alternative.
Developing Lenin’s characterization of capitalism, the CPRF stresses key features of globalism. First, the financial capital increasingly dominates industrial production. The real owners of the biggest world assets are such capitalist giants as Black Rock, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. Their resources exceed those of many individual states.
Second, the world economy is based on non-equivalent exchange. Developing countries provide cheap raw materials and buy expensive manufactured goods. The noose of debts tightens. According to the UN, the world debt is approaching 100 trillion dollars. Almost half of humanity lives in countries which spend more to service their debts than on public health and education.
Third, the global model of labor division perpetuates colossal social inequality. According to Oxfam, the total fortunes of billionaires stood at 18.3 trillion dollars in 2025. This is twice as much as in 2020 and 7 times as much as in 2000. Last year the number of billionaires in the world topped the 3000 mark. The twelve richest people on the planet own wealth exceeding the total wealth of the poorest half of the Earth’s population.
Fourth, the influence of transnational capital on politics increases dramatically. Financial tycoons and corporations determine the course of states. The US administration demonstrates the growing fusion between power and the financial-industrial groups. Oxfam data literally repeat Lenin’s conclusions about the link between monopolies and political reaction.
Economic inequality erodes rights and political freedoms. Authoritarianism is on the rise. Governments take wrong decisions to please the elites and the rich, suppressing the rights and wrath of the citizens caused by the growing cost of living which is exorbitant for many,” notes Oxfam executive director Amitabh Behar.
Fifth, international law is more and more often supplanted by a system of “rules” which suit the global oligarchy. Nation states lose control over economic processes. Big Capital uses international institutions as an instrument of pressure. Ritual statements about “inviolability of private property” do not prevent the West from freezing and confiscating the assets of other countries.
Sixth, information and cultural expansion has become a distinct and extremely destructive form of aggression. Global media platforms, social networks and digital monopolies dictate models of consumption and behavior. The attempts of some countries to protect their information sovereignty are declared to be “an encroachment on freedom of expression.”
Finally, global capital becomes more and more parasitic. It skillfully appropriates the benefits of technological progress. Meanwhile much of humanity remains poor and dependent. Ecological crisis and spiritual degradation are on the rise. Social relations are being dehumanized. A special symbol of this is the tragedy of the Palestinian people and the reaction of the Western states to what is happening.
Again, like in the last century, capital increasingly leans on right-wing forces. Europe is witnessing the rise of right-wing radical parties which sympathize with Hitler, Mussolini, Franko and Horty. In Latin America some politicians condone the crimes of military dictatorships. The actions of Argentina’s Havier Miley, a bosom friend of Donald Trump, symbolize right-wing radicalism.
The features that all members of the reactionary public share are aggressive anti-communism, Russophobia and the tendency toward global diktat. These forces are prepared to use their armies and state apparatus to establish their dominance.
The USA increasingly perceives the spectacular achievements of socialist China as a strategic challenge. Washington tries to regain its position as the world’s industrial powerhouse[H1] . To this end it is weakening Europe and seeks to harness it to is interests. This, of course, deepens the contradictions between imperialists.
But it has to be stressed that on the whole capitalism retains a high capacity to adapt and survive. In addition to military might it controls information and manipulates public consciousness. It is both sad and funny to watch how political opponents are suppressed under the slogans of democracy. Bans from voting, toughening of censorship, campaigns to “cancel” Russian culture – all these are parts of the Western political life.
Nor has global capital renounced the old time-tested methods. Various forms of neo-fascism are being resurrected. Ukrainian neo-Nazism, which grew out of Bandera’s murderous ideology, has received generous help. The extreme right has become more active in many European countries.
A telltale phenomenon was the coming to power in the USA of the team of Donald Trump. Having won the sympathy of common citizens through sophisticated demagogy and populism, the oligarchic capital is destroying whatever remains of “the social state.” It also organizes interventions all over world.
The ideologists of “peace through strength” turn to the most reactionary concepts of the colonial era. A vivid example was the speech of the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference this year. Describing the Western civilization as the greatest in history, he admired its gains. Over five centuries, until the end of the Second World War, the West expanded its boundaries, its missionaries, pilgrims, soldiers, explorers left its shores to cross oceans, develop new continents, and build vast empires spreading across the whole world, Rubio pontificated.
In his opinion, the emergence of the Soviet Union, “the evil empire,” led to “dark times.” Characteristically, Rubio called 1945 the turning point in the West’s dominance. After that, he said, great Western empires entered a period of decline precipitated by ungodly communist revolutions and anti-colonial uprisings which changed the world and put vast territories on the map under the red hammer and sickle.
I would like to stress that this is the logic of died-in-the-wool imperialists.
In the words of the American foreign policy chief, the Trump administration was committed to reviving the West’s former grandeur. In alliance with the USA, Europe must throw off the “shackles” of economic norms and social guarantees. According to Rubio, together we have restored the devastated continent after two horrible world wars… The free West, together with the courageous dissidents fighting tyranny in the East, defeated Soviet communism. Under President Trump the United States will assume the task of renewal and rehabilitation.
Such sentiments pose a direct threat to the whole humankind.
Capitalism proved to be unable to solve the key problems facing our planet. Moreover, seeking to preserve its power it becomes ever more dangerous. The crisis of world capitalism increases exploitation, conflict potential and the threat of large-scale wars.
Unlike in previous epochs, the situation in the world has changed in a fundamental way. At this stage humanity has the resources and the technological potential to overcome poverty, hunger and appalling inequality. But capitalism does not want it. It is turning the colossal wealth and exciting opportunities into a source of aggression and degradation.
We, the representatives of the parties and movements, public associations and initiatives, scientists and experts, have no right to stand aside. Our reason and our conscience do not allow us to watch what is happening in the world with equanimity. This is a special time for the human civilization. It is no longer possible to justify the existence of capitalism. Transition to socialism is the only answer to the crisis and the global problems to ensure a peaceful and successful development.
Humanity’s agenda is the creation of a new world, free of the diktat of global capital. This is not something that can be put off until later. The struggle is taking place every day – here and now. Together with like-minded people in other countries the CPRF is conducting its political battle persistently and consistently. Our focus is on exposing imperialism, reaction, neo-colonialism, neo-fascism and state terrorism.
In 2023 we proposed putting this work on a new level. Together with the communist party of Belarus we initiated the holding in Minsk of the First International Anti-Fascist Forum. It was attended by representatives of 50 states. It issued a Manifesto “To Safeguard Humankind Against Fascism!” calling for unity of the peoples of the world.
The ideas and conclusions of the Minsk Manifesto were widely supported. In April of 2025 the Second International Anti-Fascist Forum in Moscow was attended by 164 delegations from 91 countries. Six months later we held an International Anti-Fascist Media Forum to discuss coordination of the information policies of the left.
The common approaches of our parties and movements help as to take part in the struggle for peace together. We express our solidarity with the peoples that have become victims of aggression. We demand an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people. Together we say “Hands off the free Cuba and its historical choice!” We insist on the immediate release of the President of Venezuela from captivity in the US.
As early as January, the CPRF formed a Public Committee for the liberation of Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores. It is working actively and expanding its activities. We demand freedom for Evgenia Gutsulo in Moldavia, Vardan Gukasian in Armenia and all the political prisoners who have suffered fighting for the ideals of justice and friendship of peoples.
This Forum marks another stage of unity in the struggle against world reaction. Imperialism has washed all vestiges of the peace-making make-up off its face. It is sowing poverty and state terrorism, war and death on our breathtakingly beautiful planet. It is our common task to expose the essence of Big Capital’s policy. To unite the left forces, to put forward our alternative and to work persistently toward our goal.
We shoulder great responsibility. The progressive forces need common tactics and strategy. We need a precise roadmap of the struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism, neo-fascism and state terrorism.
The path ahead will be arduous. We must traverse it and win! This is a great task on a truly historic scale!
Let us be worthy of this ideological choice!
Let us be worthy of our great predecessors!
Together, forward toward the bright ideals of peace and friendship of peoples, justice, progress and soc