Victory in Europe?

The following words are excerpts from a speech I gave at the Red Book Fair 2025.

When Churchill spoke to the nation 80 years ago he said,

“This is not a victory of any party or any class, but a victory of the Great British nation”

And he was right.

The victory against fascism has been celebrated here every year, but it has occurred to me that it was in some ways a hollow victory.

The men, the British workers, who fought against the Nazis must have gone through things most of us can’t imagine. Conscripts mainly, inexperienced, but who were willing to fight against such an evil as Hitler.

It’s right to celebrate what they did, but our establishment, our country that they sacrificed so much for is still milking it. A reminder of we once achieved.

You may be sitting in a freezing flat, with nothing but tins of beans to eat and no one but Loose Women for company. You may be stepping over piles of dog shit to catch a filthy bus to a low paid job. You may be wondering if you should give up your job or pay for childcare for your new baby.

But never forget, at least it’s not the Nazis making you do that.

Churchill was right, our class did not win a victory against fascism.

Volunteers from Britain and elsewhere were fighting fascism in Spain, with the backing of the Soviets, while western governments were still admiring the likes of Franco for being strong against unions and socialists.

We can’t forget that the Soviet Union also played no small part in our victory against fascism and had already defeated capitalism in its own country.

Then it had to face a second war against fascist troops, re-armed by our own leaders to deal with the threat of workers uniting against them.

Workers who were celebrating freedom from fascism, but denied further freedom from landowners and the capitalist system.

The prescription and dentistry charges brought in to our beloved NHS in 1951 were used to fight against socialism in Korea too.

This year Ukrainian troops marched with British veterans on VE day. Many people may not see the irony here, that the grandparents of the Ukrainians (unless they were in the Red Army) would have been soldiers in the SS-Galicia regiment. They were on the side our grandparents were fighting against.

Fascism does not mean “a foreign aggressor” or someone whose idea of democracy differs from our own. It is a tool used by our own rulers in capitalist countries to spread fear, especially amongst the working class, and to provide false hope against any enemy that is not the ruling class themselves.

I am not knocking the brave men who fought for our country, they did a great job.

But we at the project always aim to educate our class of what we can achieve together and who we need to fight.

Another rich and powerful man, Warren Buffet, once said “the class war has already started and we [his class] are winning”

As soon as all of us workers realise that, we will start winning.

To echo Winston Churchill again. “Victory in Europe was not a victory of our class”

That is yet to come.

Chris Haws

May 2025