The resolution was put forward by Swedish Parliamentary member Goran Lindblad. However, a draft recommendation calling on Europe’s governments to adopt a similar declaration did not receive the necessary two-thirds majority of the votes to be passed.

Before the resolution was put forth for debate at PACE's meeting, many countries in the world had strongly protested against what they saw as an attempt by right-wing parties at PACE to justify the distortion of history.

A Committee of Russian Veterans on January 24 launched a statement denouncing PACE's plot to erase the fact that the Soviet Union's nationalities, under the leadership of the Communist Party, had decisively contributed to the victory over fascism.

"On all fronts during World War II, over three million Soviet Communist Party members died," said the statement.
"Besides, communist members from France, Italy and many other European countries had also struggled against fascism. We considered the provocation by a number of PACE members as a challenge to the international community. Therefore, we call on the world not to allow its history to be distorted."

The Central Committee of the International Federation of Soviet Officials also sent a letter to PACE President, strongly protesting against the plot of those who wished to equate communist societies that have real democracies and equality, with fascism, dictatorship and inhumanity.

"The main reason for those in PACE to raise a campaign against communism is that support for the spirit of communism is now gradually increasing in many countries in Europe as well as in other continents," the statement said.

Meanwhile, scholars who took part in the annual seminar entitled "Karl Marx's Works" at the Philosophy Institute under the Russian Science Academy launched another statement, saying that "those who had forgotten history needed to know that in many countries and in many eras, the communists had always fought fascism, and that they always stood at the forefront of struggle against fascism."

"Activities against the spirit of socialism and communism are meaningless as an action against natural law, and those who fight communism will not prevent objective historical trends," said the statement.

In Strasbourg on January 24, representatives from left-wing and communist parties in Europe launched marches and meetings to protest PACE’s discussion on the anti-Communist resolution.

A day earlier, at the opening session of PACE, First Vice President of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation's Central Committee Ivan Melnikov said the initiators of the resolution flagrantly violated democratic principles during its drafting process. Melnikov said the drafting process hadn't allowed for the raising of objections to having the anti-communism issue put on PACE's agenda.

The German Communist Party has issued a press release saying that German communists were well aware of the consequences of anti-communism movements. During the nation's period of fascism, as many as 150,000 communists were politically oppressed and 26,000 people were killed. During the time when the German Communist Party was forbidden to operate, from 1956 until its re-foundation in 1968 with its abbreviation DKP, up to 10,000 communists and their supporters were either politically oppressed or jailed for years. In the 1980s alone, around 10,000 people, including communists, were banned to practise communist theory.

France’s Le Monde newspaper in its January 23 edition quoted a Greek composer as saying that “On behalf of those communists who had died or were imprisoned in the jails of the German Secret State Police (Gestapo) for their fight for freedom and the annihilation of fascism, I have only a word to you: shame.” The composer said the PACE had changed history and distorted the truth by identifying victims of fascism with decapitators, heroes with criminals, and liberators with invaders.

Earlier, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) on January 19 held a rally that attracted thousands in the capital of Athens to oppose the resolution. KKE President Aleka Papariga said the draft of the resolution was an imperialist project and a declaration of war against the working class.

France’s L’ Humanite newspaper, in its edition on January 25, quoted Senator Jean Pierre Masseret, Vice President of the French delegation to PACE, as saying that this was truly a bad resolution.

Also, the French newspaper Le Figaro on January 25 said that the leaders of members of communist parties in France, Greece and Portugal felt indignant at the issuance of the resolution, regarding it as an act that stifled freedom.