Greece continues to attract the attention of workers of many countries all over the world, in light of the new crucially important parliamentary elections, which will be held on the 17th of June, as none of the three parties, which received the most votes, could form a coalition government.

Of particular interest, judging by the relevant articles in communist and other progressive newspapers, journals and web-pages are the recent election results as well as the political line traced by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), which has found itself in the firing line of various analysts in this period. But let us start from the beginning.

On the Result of the May 6th elections
The elections on the 6th of May created a new political scene, as the three parties, which had governed together supporting the anti-people political line of capital and the European Union (EE), fell in the elections. Specifically:
The social-democratic PASOK gathered only 833,529 votes or 13.2%, an unprecedented fall of -2,179,013 and -30.8%.
The conservative ND received 1,192,054 or 18.9%, a fall of 1,103,665 votes or -14.6%.
The nationalist LAOS could not reach the 3% threshold to enter Parliament, receiving 183,466 or 2.9%, a fall of -202,739 or -1.6%.
At the same time, nevertheless, the change of the political scene does not mean an overthrow of the political scene, as the forces which support the political line of the “EU one way street” were the ones that chiefly benefited from the anger of the workers. And so, the large majority of the voters of the bourgeois parties were scattered mainly to ideologically related political formations.
Specifically: SYRIZA, which is an alliance of opportunist forces, which had left the KKE from the “right” (in the Party splits in 1968 and 1991) and which has been joined in recent years by forces from the social-democratic PASOK, gathered 1,061,265 votes or 16.8%, an increase +745,600 or +12.2%.
A split from SYRIZA, Democratic Left, which had also absorbed former PASOK MPs and officials, gathered 386,116 votes or 6.1%. A large number of votes were also directed to reactionary and nationalist parties such as the “Independent Greeks”, which emerged from ND and received 670,596 votes or 10.6% and the fascist Nazi “Golden Dawn”, which received 440,894 votes or 7%.
Also, about 20% of the electorate voted for dozens of parties, which participated in the elections, but could not break through the 3% threshold.
The KKE had a small increase in this election. Specifically it received 536,072 votes or 8.5%, that is to say +18,823 votes or +1%. The KKE elected 26 MPs (of the 300 in Parliament), 5 more than it had previously. In working class neighbourhoods the KKE received almost double its average percentage. Indeed in one of the 56 electoral regions (Samos-Ikaria) the KKE came first with 24.7%.
The CC of the KKE came to certain initial conclusions on the election result. It mentions in its statement amongst other things: “the CC salutes the thousands of working men and women, and unemployed who appreciated the militancy, consistency and the truthful clarity of the KKE’s words, the militancy and unselfishness of the communists and supported it at the ballot box, irrespective of their level of agreement with its overall political proposal.
A large section of the workers as well as a section of the party’s voters, under the pressure of the exacerbation of the popular problems, the misleading slogans concerning the renegotiation of the memorandum[1] and the immediate relief for the workers, could not understand and take on board the difference between a government and real power.”
But as is noted by the CC of the KKE: “the political proposal of the KKE regarding the struggle for working class-people’s power will find itself at the core of the people in the next period, as the difference between a government and real people’s power will become even clearer, as well as the overall proposal concerning the immediate issues of the people’s survival and working class popular power.
From this standpoint political electoral activity of the KKE in harmony with its strategy, as is proper, constitutes an important legacy for the years to come.”

On SYRIZA

Certain international bourgeois media, presenting SYRIZA as the “winner” of the May 6th elections, did not explore beyond its title: “Coalition of the Radical Left” and came to the conclusion that it is a radical left or even communist party.
Of course this has no basis in reality. The central force within SYRIZA is the party “Coalition of the Left” (SYN), which has a social-democratic programme. In 1992 it voted for the Maastricht treaty in the Greek Parliament and is a supporter of the imperialist European Union, which it believes can be improved.
It joined the anti-communist campaign against the USSR and the other socialist countries we knew in the 20th century. SYN is a member of the Presidium of the so-called “European Left Party” (ELP), which is an instrument of the EU to eradicate the communist characteristics of the CPs in the EU countries.
Together with SYN there are forces that entered SYRIZA from the Social-democratic PASOK, as well as various smaller ultra-left groups of a Trotskyist hue, and mutated former “maoist” groups, which add political “spice” to the basically social-democratic and anti-communist “meal”. A basic goal of this particular formation is the reduction of the electoral, trade union and more general political influence of the KKE,
Thus, there are numerous examples over the last decade of the anti-KKE character of this political formation. In dozens of trade unions, sectoral federations and labour centres (local trade union councils), the forces of SYRIZA cooperate and form electoral alliances with PASOK forces in order to impede the election of communist delegates to the higher trade union bodies.
SYRIZA is the sworn enemy of the All-workers Militant Front (PAME) which is a rally of class-oriented trade unions. SYRIZA’s forces openly collaborate with government and employer-led forces in the leading bodies of the compromised trade union confederations in the private (GSEE) and public sector (ADEDY). In many instances they have a similar stance in local elections.
A particularly characteristic example was the stance in the municipal elections of 2010 in Ikaria. The KKE possesses significant electoral influence on this island, which was a former place of exile for communists. In the 2010 elections SYRIZA collaborated with the social-democratic PASOK, the liberal ND and the nationalist LAOS so that the island would not elect a communist mayor. Then the KKE’s candidate received 49.5% of the votes and the municipality was won by the anti-KKE alliance by a few hundred votes.
Today SYRIZA is trying to attack the KKE with proposals of political expediency regarding the so-called “unity of the left”, in an attempt for the KKE to erase whole sections of its programme, to abandon its principles and to accept the policy of managing the capitalist system, which is proposed by SYRIZA.
Based on this, the least we could say is that the stance of certain CPs was not responsible, which rushed to salute the electoral rise of this opportunist and anti-communist formation in the name of the electoral increase of the “left”, without knowing the real situation in Greece. They saluted a sworn enemy of the KKE, an enemy whose participation in a coalition government of the supporters of the EU has been proposed by the president of the Greek industrialists.
The illusion of “unity of the left” and the lie of the “left government.”
Many politicized workers, from various countries in Europe and the world, pose this question: Why does the KKE not make some compromises? Why does it insist on its political line for the rallying of social forces, which want to struggle against the monopolies, against capitalism, against the imperialist unions, for people’s working class power and does not support the political line of “unity of the left”, the struggle to correct capitalist reality, and the EU, with political and/or governmental collaboration with other “left” and social-democratic forces, as other CPs in Europe have done?
To begin with, The KKE has for some time now clarified that the meanings “left” and “right” are not terms that reflect today’s political situation. The term “Left” today could be used to describe the GS of NATO or the Prime Minister of a country who is conducting an imperialist war and is carrying out anti-worker and anti-people measures at the expense of the workers in his country.
The Communist Party is not simply a “left party”, but the party which struggles for the overthrow of capitalism, the construction of the new socialist-communist society. It is this path, this line of struggle that can bring about gains and not the reverse! As history has demonstrated, reforms, the struggle to “correct” the capitalist system, to blunt the most extreme anti-people measures, which is what the opportunist-social-democratic forces focus on, have never led to the overthrow of capitalism anywhere.
On the contrary! On many occasions this approach has led to the consolidation of capitalism, through the creation of illusions amongst millions of workers, that capitalism can be allegedly humanized; that today the European Central Bank can be transformed from a tool of capitalism into… a charitable organization which will hand out interest-free loans or that the European Union, can be transformed from a union which serves capital into a “union of the peoples”, as SYN/SYRIZA and the ELP claim.
This is the reason why the KKE promotes its political proposal in a comprehensive fashion, which it specialized for the elections on the 6th of May in the slogan: “Out of the EU, with people’s power and the unilateral cancellation of the debt.”
In this sense, the KKE remains consistently oriented to Marxism-Leninism. As Lenin wrote: “The proletariat is fighting, and will continue to fight, to destroy the old regime. Towards this end it will direct all its propaganda and agitation, and all its efforts to organise and mobilise the masses. If it fails to destroy the old regime completely, it will take advantage even of its partial destruction.
But it will never advocate partial destruction, depict this in rosy colours, or call upon the people to support it. Real support in a genuine struggle is given to those who strive for the maximum (achieving something less in the event of failure) and not to those who opportunistically curtail the aims of the struggle before the fight.”[2] The KKE has rejected the idea of forming a “left government”, which will keep Greece in the EU and NATO and the capitalist relations of production untouched, and which will allegedly be able to implement a pro-people management of the system.
Our party is struggling for the development of the class struggle, the political consciousness of the workers, their liberation from the influence of the bourgeois parties and ideological constructs and for the formation of a social alliance, which will defend the interests of the workers and will also seek to extricate the country from imperialist interventions, and will also pose the question of power.
Goal : The reduction of the influence of the KKE and its assimilation into the system!
The refusal of the KKE to submit itself to “left” formations or even to a government of the “left” is being targeted by its enemies, and “friends”, who directly or indirectly call on the KKE to “unite” with the other “left” forces. The CPs which are in the presidium of the ELP are following this line. There were also some rather crude attacks e.g. by various Trotskyist groups that are more well-known abroad than in our own country who characterized the KKE as sectarian and dogmatic.
How is it possible for the KKE to rally hundreds of thousands of people in Greece, with the line of class struggle, if the party is sectarian? How is it possible, for example, for the All-workers’ Militant Front (PAME) to rally dozens of first-level trade unions, sectoral federations, and labour centres which represent hundreds of thousands of workers? We should note here that PAME, as the class-oriented pole in the labour and trade union movement rallies 8 sectoral federations, 13 labour centres, hundreds of first-level and sectoral unions, with 850,000 members. In addition, PAME also operates in trade unions where the class-oriented forces are not in the majority.
For example, PAME is the second force in a series of sectoral federations (such as the federation in the tourist and catering sector and the Metalworkers’ Federation) as well as in the country’s two largest labour centres (Athens and Thessalonica). How is it possible for the Panhellenic Anti-monopoly rally of the self-employed (PASEVE) to organize thousands of self-employed people, who understand the need to come into conflict with the monopolies? How is it possible for thousands of poor farmers, through their farmer’s associations and their committees, to be inspired by the struggle of the All-farmers Militant Rally (PASY) against the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy?
How is it possible for women and thousands of students, who belong to the working class and popular strata to enter the struggle in the framework of the demands and the initiatives of the Federation of Greek Women (OGE) and the Students’ Front of Struggle (MAS)? The members and cadres of the KKE play a leading role in all these socio-political organizations without hiding their identity. They accuse the KKE of being “isolated”, or even “dogmatic” and “sectarian” due to its rejection of a “left government” or due to the fact that its percentage in the elections does not increase as fast as that of the social-democratic formation of SYRIZA. These accusations against the KKE do not stick.
We should remember that 2 and a half years ago PASOK, the other social-democratic party, received 44% while this time it received just 13%. This decline, which took place in conditions of political fluidity boosted SYRIZA, its closest ideological relation. Even more so as a revolutionary communist party, like the KKE, is not judged exclusively by its percentage in elections.
Our party has accumulated immense historical experience regarding the policy of cooperation! It led the anti-fascist struggle of a large armed front that made an enormous contribution to the people’s struggle. Nevertheless, in that period the party did not manage to form a strategy for the transformation of the antifascist struggle to a struggle for the overthrow of bourgeois power.
During the 1950’s and 1980’s the KKE formed “left” alliances. The KKE has drawn valuable conclusions from its experience regarding the policy of alliances and it does not intend to repeat similar mistakes. But why they are attacking the KKE?
Of course they are irritated by the significant international activity of the KKE for the reconstruction of the international communist movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Besides, the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties as well as other international communist initiatives started in Athens.
But the most important thing is that the KKE is a party with strong roots in the working class, with significant experience in the workers’ and people’s struggles, a party that refuses to abandon its principles, a party that refuses to become the “tail” of social democracy, a party that does not submit to the EU and NATO.
At this point we quote a comment of an article published in the well known French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique: “the secret goal and wish of all the left people in Greece is to dissolve the Communist Party and reshape it on a new basis and give to the Greek left its proper position in society”. That is to discredit the KKE and transform it, like certain other mutated communist parties of Europe, into a “communist alibi” of social democracy for the management of capitalist barbarity. Our own goal is to thwart their plans! To preserve and strengthen the KKE. Despite the pressure exerted on our party there are several encouraging signs that show that the KKE will prove to be a tough nut to crack. Ten days after the elections of May 6th the students’ elections took place in Greece.
The lists supported by the Communist Youth of Greece received 16% in Technological Educational Institutes (TEI) and 14% in the universities, an increase compared to last year. On the contrary, the lists of SYRIZA achieved a low score with 2,3% in TEI and 6,9% in universities.
Face-lift of the bourgeois system
The KKE has for some time warned the Greek people that the bourgeois class is preparing a face-lift of the political scene in order to preserve its power. The reason is that it cannot manage the political system on the basis of the rotation of a conservative (ND) and a social-democratic party (PASOK) in power as it has been doing since 1974, after the fall of military dictatorship.
The bourgeois system seeks to get rid of parties and persons who have been exposed in the eyes of the people once and for all. Under these conditions SYRIZA, which has a social-democratic programme, reaped benefits in the elections by spreading blatant lies, both before and during the election period, fostering illusions which in essence claim that there can be a better future for the workers without a conflict with the monopolies and the imperialist unions. That is why it bears enormous responsibilities vis-à-vis the people!
The KKE urges the working people to realize that this face-lift has nothing to do with the satisfaction of the contemporary needs of the people. Even the so called “left government” is a leaking lifeboat for the working people who have been suffocated by the impasses of the capitalist system.
The people must not be trapped in false dilemmas In the electoral battle of 17th June the bourgeois parties and opportunism promote new misleading dilemmas, which will be utilized in the next period in order to trap the people, reduce the endurance of the radical masses to the pressures exerted on them, as well as the influence of the KKE in the elections. The KKE does not conceal the fact that this battle will be particularly difficult for the communists! In order to make clear what kind of false dilemmas we are talking about allow us to examine some of them:
1. Euro or drachma?
One of the false dilemmas is the accusation brought by ND against SYRIZA arguing that its policy leads the country out of euro and that it would be catastrophic for the working people. SYRIZA answers that the cost of the exit of Greece from the euro would be immense for the other countries of the Eurozone and for that reason it will never occur.
Of course in reality, taking into account that the capitalist crisis is in progress, we cannot exclude, given the scenarios which are already being discussed, the shrinkage of the Eurozone through the expulsion of Greece and other countries or through an internal devaluation of euro in our country.
Consequently the blackmails of the EU and the IMF are real and the answer cannot be the complacency that SYRIZA fosters. However, we should note that all the parties apart from the KKE i.e. ND, SYRIZA, PASOK, and Democratic Left are quarrelling over who is the most competent to keep the country in the euro. Each party is accusing the other of leading Greece to the drachma with its policy.
All of them aim at imposing on the people’s consciousness the false dilemma “euro or drachma” in order to conceal the fact that they have the same strategy because they are parties committed to the EU. They call on the people to vote for and struggle under false flags, contrary to their interests in the false line “inside or outside the euro” when all the parties – apart from the KKE - are saying inside the EU and the euro. Either with the euro or the drachma the people will be destitute.
The KKE calls on the people to bypass this dilemma. They should not accept the choice of which currency they will measure their poverty in, as well as the reductions in their income and pensions, the taxes, the medical expenses and the tuition fees. The dilemma “euro or drachma” is the other side of the coin of the intimidation concerning the uncontrolled bankruptcy which is already a fact for the overwhelming majority of the people.
They want the people to be trapped in the false dilemmas so as to be able to blackmail them when they want to pass anti-people laws, telling them to choose between the barbaric measures and the return to drachma which they identify with chaos and misery.
At the same time, there are sections of the plutocracy, both in Greece and abroad, that seek a return to drachma. This would enable them to make more profits for themselves and the bourgeoisie as a whole than they do now in the conditions of the country’s assimilation into the euro. The bankrupted people will not make any progress either with the euro or with the drachma as long as monopolies direct production, as long as the country remains in the EU and the bourgeoisie remains in power.
The only answer to the dilemma “euro or drachma” from the viewpoint of the people’s interests is: disengagement from the EU with people’s power and unilateral cancellation of debt. It goes without saying that in this case the country will have its own currency.
2. Greek or European solution?
All of them are talking about a European solution of the crisis in Greece and refer to negotiations with the EU bodies for a comprehensive solution to the debt problem that will concern Greece as well. All Greek parties, apart from the KKE, saluted the election of Hollande in the French presidency, which as they claim puts an end to the anti-people duo “Mercozy”. They also talk about the consultations with the EU on development measures, by subsidizing the big businesses so that they can make investments.
Their tactics seek to conceal that those who are chiefly responsible for the suffering of the people are not in Brussels but within the country. It is the bourgeoisie, the employers who possess the means of production i.e. the ships, the offices, the services in our country. The participation of Greece in the Eurozone, based on the decisions of the parties of plutocracy, serves their interests. It is provocative to present the EU as a terrain where a pro-people way out from the crisis can be found.
It is the EU which has elaborated the memoranda together with the national governments and the IMF. It is the EU which has as its strategy the “EU 2020” and the Maastricht Treaty i.e. the source of all anti-labour and anti-people measures with or without memoranda.
They tell the people that even the slightest relief from the measures is a matter of negotiations within the EU that endeavours to ensure for its monopolies a way out of the crisis at the expense of the peoples. They urge the victim to expect a solution from the persecutor, in a Eurozone which is sinking even deeper into the crisis and becomes even more reactionary, given the rivalries inside the EU but also between the EU and other imperialist centres.
SYRIZA also bears an enormous responsibility as it seeks a renegotiation of the strategy of the memorandum putting the movement on ice and fostering a stance of “wait and see” until the negotiations of the “left government” it dreams of with the EU partners yield results.
At the same time, it talks about “social cohesion”, about “social peace” that will be imposed by a “left government” i.e. muzzling the workers’ and people’s struggles in a period when they have to be escalated and radicalized against the national plutocracy and the parties that serve it or support it through intimidation and illusions.
The KKE reveals to the people that it is necessary to have a people’s and workers’ movement that will struggle for the rupture and the overthrow of the choices of capital and the EU and to promote the coordination at a European level not through negotiations but through strengthening the workers’ people’s movement in its struggle against the EU, in the line of rupture.
3. Austerity or development?
In a capitalist Europe foundering in the crisis the governments seek “development” namely the exit of EU capital from the crisis. In Greece the pro-EU parties quarrel over the proportion of austerity and development included in their policy. They seek to conceal that the capitalist path of development entails austerity in the conditions of sharp capitalist competition and acute inter-imperialist contradictions.
The measures of “fiscal consolidation” taken in a series of countries, with or without memoranda, in the name of the need to create a surplus in the state budget in order to provide subsidies to capital are also serving development.
In addition, the “structural changes” are promoted in Greece and throughout Europe also in the name of development and include chiefly the abolition of social security and labour rights in order to make the labour power cheaper for capital. The privatizations and the liberalization of markets that provide new profitable fields for the plutocracy also aim at development, squeezing small businessmen and the self-employed.
Consequently, everything is done for development which owing to its capitalist nature is served solely by anti-people measures that appear either as austerity measures or “structural changes” or as bailouts for big businesses. In the previous period the bourgeois governments in the Eurozone have loosened or intensified the measures in one or the other direction in order to regulate the contradictions between them as well as the deep crisis.
The KKE notes that the way out in favour of the people does not lie in the management of the crisis with expansive or restrictive tools by the political personnel of capital in the bodies of the EU. It lies in the organization of the struggle at a national level, for a different path of development which will develop all the production potential of the country in favour of the people based on the people’s power, the disengagement from the EU and the socialization of the means of production.
4. “Right” or “left,” “pro-memorandum” or “anti-memorandum.”
These are dilemmas which according to the developments will take on a new form of two poles, centre-right and centre left. The above-mentioned dilemmas, primarily with the responsibility of SYRIZA, marginalized and obscured the real contradictions within Greece and the EU.
The artificial dilemma, “memorandum" or "anti-memorandum,” is used by the bourgeois and opportunists in order to conceal that their common denominator is the “EU one way street” namely the alignment with the strategy of capital.
Irrespective of their different tactics these forces “right-wing, “left-wing”, “pro-memorandum”, “anti-memorandum” are fooling the working people, the popular strata when they tell them that there can be a solution in favour of the people within the EU. ND, PASOK, Independent Greeks, SYRIZA, Democratic Left and other forces do not have a programme that comes into conflict or at least challenges the power of the monopolies.
The terms that they use, namely “development”, “redistribution of wealth”, “audit of the debt”, “European solution” conceal the contradictory class interests that exist in Greece and the EU, i.e., the fact that as long as there is capitalist ownership over the means of production there cannot be any prosperity for the popular strata.
The memorandum is the tip of the iceberg of the strategy of the EU which provides for anti-people measures in all member-states. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Hungary, Romania have contracted loan agreements unlike Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Britain which does not participate in the Eurozone.
But the assault of capital is common to all countries and includes cuts in salaries, flexible working relations, increase of retirement ages, privatizations of public services, commercialization of health, education, culture, sports the relative and absolute destitution of the working people.
Even if we get rid of the memorandum in Greece the anti-people measures will continue, in fact they will intensify as long as capital and its power are not overthrown because this has been established by the strategic guidelines of the EU which were either signed or supported by the bourgeois parties and SYN/SYRIZA. The real question that the people will have to answer and which will emerge even more intensely in the next period is the following: Greece and working people independent and disengaged from the European commitments or a Greece assimilated into the EU?
Will the people be the master of the wealth they produce or will they be slaves in the factories and the businesses of the capitalists? Will the people be organised and play a leading role in the developments or will the movement be out for the count and expect the victimizer to solve its problems as its representative?
The KKE has a clear cut position. The fact that all its predictions and assessments have been confirmed is one more reason for the people to trust it and struggle alongside it. In the forthcoming electoral battle there is a need for the consistent international solidarity with our party to be expressed in a mass way!
The Greek communists need to feel the support, the proletarian solidarity and comradely spirit of the communist and workers’ parties, of the other anti-imperialist forces in view of this tough battle given that the bourgeois class aims at the reduction of the electoral results of the KKE.
And the reason is that it is worried about its revolutionary policy, about its clear positions in relation to the imperialist organizations, about the solid basis of the KKE in the workers’ and people’s movement, in the factories, in the enterprises, in the popular neighbourhoods of the big cities. Because they cannot subjugate the KKE.
The communists, the friends of the KKE, the members and the friends of KNE fight in this battle, organized and determined, declaring to the Greek people and the international working class that after the elections we will be in the workplaces, in the cities and in the countryside alongside the people’s and workers’ families, at the frontline of the struggle regarding the people’s problems, faithful to the historical commitment of the revolutionary party, unwavering in the struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist barbarity, for socialism-communism.


More... (http://politicalaffairs.net/greek-cp-on-the-greek-elections/)

This is a very good piece originally published by the KKE (I thought I had read it before). So I posted at PA and told them this is good. The PA and all of us should stand in solidarity with Communists everywhere who are actually fighting the class war. See if it gets posted...

Take heart Hellenes, SYRIZA is gonna save the euro.



Lest there be any doubt, my movement – Syriza – is committed to keeping Greece in the eurozone.

http://politicalaffairs.net/i-will-keep-greece-in-the-eurozone-and-restore-growth/

And only one way to do that, on your backs.

Any point in asking whose side they're on?

Just to be sure...


Alexis Tsipras has held his last campaign rally in Athens, warning speculators not to bet on Greece leaving the eurozone "because you will lose".

Mr Tsipras's party has enjoyed a surge in support, even though his opponents say his economic plans do not add up.

Sounding confident, he said the die had been cast and on Sunday "we turn the page". He vowed to keep Greece in the eurozone but renegotiate the tough terms of its bailout agreement. If Spain can have more lenient conditions, he asked, why can't we?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18455465

What part of 'no re-negotiation' does this guy and his supporters not understand? I really doubt that a SYRIKA win is gonna make the Germans blink, and even if so I very much doubt that the effect would be felt on the streets of Athens. It's shyster politics and nothing but. Couple years from now this guy's gonna be working for the banks(formally) or selling used cars.

Couple years from now this guy's gonna be working for the banks(formally) or selling used cars.

Or filling a jail cell. That's my vote...

Italian communists for KKE



Senza principi si costruisce solo sulla sabbia.

Marco Rizzo, Segretario di Csp-PARTITO COMUNISTA al Partito Comunista di Grecia-KKE

Grazie compagni, grazie Aleka, il risultato di una elezione passa ma i principi restano. Nel mondo del capitalismo globalizzato il voto e la democrazia non esistono, o meglio, esistono solo se vincono “loro” (come dimostra l’uccisione di Allende). Con i mezzi di comunicazione di massa si possono spostare enormi consensi da un partito all’altro, da uno schieramento all’altro, ma sempre sotto il comando del sistema. Capita anche in Italia dove movimenti nuovi possono irrompere nella scena e cogliere persino la maggioranza relativa. Ma sono voti senza radici, consensi dettati più dal sorriso o meglio dal dentifricio usato dal personaggio che sponsorizza un ‘prodotto’ politico tanto quanto fosse una merce da vendere. I comunisti sono un’altra cosa. Hanno un progetto di cambiamento generale della società. Prefigurano un altro sistema contro quello degenerato del capitalismo globalizzato che va sempre di più in crisi e che cerca di sopravvivere distruggendo l’ambiente e facendo la guerra imperialista. Ai veri comunisti non piace prendere in giro il popolo, i risultati che cambiano le vite delle persone non sono quelli elettorali, sono quelli che spostano realmente i rapporti di forza nella società. Cosa cambia adesso che Hollande ha sostituito Sarkozy o viceversa cosa è cambiato dopo che Zapatero è stato sostituito da Rajoy o qundo Prodi e Berlusconi governavano una volta l’uno, una volta l’altro. Per il popolo non cambiava e non cambierà nulla , saranno sempre la UE , la BCE, i monopoli capitalisti e le banche a dettare la lezione. Certo cambieranno le ‘corti’ che circondano le leadership di gente che pensa solo al proprio destino individuale. Per questo vogliamo ringraziarvi fratelli e sorelle del KKE, avete tenuto alta la bandiera dei principi, della necessità dell’unico e vero cambiamento, quello socialista-comunista. Avete perso dei voti, ma quelli possono andare e poi tornare. Chi ha votato oggi in Grecia per il KKE non è solo un elettore, è una persona che milita, si impegna. Sono queste le persone che hanno cambiato e cambieranno il mondo. I voti degli altri partiti si “contano”, quelli dei comunisti si “pesano”.

Con queste parole vogliate avere la solidarietà mia e dei militanti di Csp-PARTITO COMUNISTA dall’Italia. Certo, come comunisti dobbiamo lavorare per rendere più efficace la nostra propaganda, la nostra comunicazione, ma non vogliamo a vere nulla a che fare con quegli opportunisti che qui , in Italia come in Grecia ed in Europa, sono pronti a barattare i ‘principi’ per il calcolo delle poltrone in Parlamento.

Lavoriamo da subito per un Coordinamento dei veri Partiti Comunisti.

Cominciamo dall’Europa, dai paesi più attaccati dalla crisi del capitalismo.

Viva il KKE, Viva il Comunismo!

Google translator

Thanks mates, thanks Aleka, the result of an election passes but the principles remain. In the world of globalized capitalism, voting and democracy do not exist, or rather, they exist only if they win "them" (as evidenced by the killing of Allende). By means of mass communication can move huge support from one party to another, from one camp to another, but always under the command of the system. It happens also in Italy where new movements can break into the scene and capture even the majority. But votes are rootless, consents or rather dictated more by the smile from toothpaste used by the person who sponsors a 'product' politics as much as a commodity to sell. The communists are another matter. They do have an overall change of the company. Foreshadow another system against the degenerate capitalism that is increasingly globalized in crisis and trying to survive by destroying the environment and the imperialist war. For the real communists do not like to make fun of the people, the results that change people's lives are not those elections are the ones who really move the balance of power in society. What will change now that Hollande has replaced Sarkozy or vice versa, what has changed after that Zapatero has been replaced by Rajoy or qundo Prodi and Berlusconi ruled once each, once the other. For the people had not changed and nothing will change, will always be the EU, the ECB, the monopoly capitalists and banks to dictate the lesson. Of course change the 'short' surrounding the leadership of people who think only of their own destiny. For this we thank you brothers and sisters of the KKE, have held high the flag of the principles of necessity and the only real change, the Socialist-Communist. You lost the vote, but those can go and come back. Who voted today in Greece for the KKE is not only a voter is a person who plays, agrees. These are the people who have changed and will change the world. The votes of the other parties will "count", those of the Communists "weigh".

With these words I want to have the solidarity and militant Csp-COMMUNIST PARTY Italy. Of course, as Communists must work to enhance the effectiveness of our propaganda, our communication, but we do not want a real nothing to do with those opportunists that here in Italy as in Greece and Europe, are ready to trade 'principles' for the calculation of the seats in Parliament.

We have been working now for a real coordination of Communist Parties.

We start from Europe, the countries attacked by the crisis of capitalism.

Long live the KKE, Long live Communism!

http://www.comunistisinistrapopolare.com/?p=2783


French communists of the French CP


Appel de communistes français à la solidarité avec le Parti communiste grec (KKE)
Le Parti communiste grec (KKE) ouvre courageusement la voie
Communi stes français, nous tenons à saluer le comba t des communistes grecs du KKE
Déclaration, 1er juin 2012

Nous félicitons les communistes grecs du KKE pour leur progrès aux élections du 6 mai 2012, obtenu dans les conditions les plus adverses, comme nous saluons les progrès de la Jeunesse communiste grecque aux élections étudiantes. Nous les remercions pour le point d’appui et les repères qu’ils apportent à nos propres luttes et au mouvement communiste international.
Nous observons et étudions avec grand intérêt le travail résolu et rigoureux du KKE dans les entreprises et auprès de toutes les couches exploitées, notamment au sein d’un mouvement syndical dominé par les forces réformistes.
La Grèce constitue le laboratoire des politiques de super-austérité en Europe.
Main dans la main, le capitalisme grec, l’Union européenne, la BCE et le FMI ont entrepris de liquider tous les acquis du mouvement ouvrier grec, de réduire le pays au sous-développement, à une néo-colonisation.
Ils entendent faire payer au peuple, au prix le plus cher, leur propre crise, la dette publique dont les capitalistes grecs et européens se sont gorgés.
L’euro aujourd’hui est l’instrument de cette politique. L’expulsion de la Grèce de la zone euro le sera éventuellement demain, tant que la sauvegarde de cette monnaie de domination sera assurée en Europe de l’Ouest dans l’intérêt des grands trusts à dominante allemande.
Le KKE rejette globalement l’Union européenne. Nous nous reconnaissons dans son analyse, dans le refus de toutes les illusions sur une réorientation de ses institutions conçues dans l’intérêt exclusif du capital, de « la BCE en organisation de charité » comme le disent ironiquement nos camarades grecs.
L’organisation du KKE et la perspective de lutte qu’il ouvre représentent un obstacle majeur au projet du capitalisme en Grèce, alors que le peuple est partagé entre colère et désespérance. L’action du KKE accuse le discrédit des forces politiques conservatrice et social-démocrate qui se succèdent au pouvoir. La condamnation de l’UE du capital par le KKE rencontre l’attachement fondamental des masses à la souveraineté nationale, si chèrement acquise.
Aussi les forces du capital, nationales et européennes, sont-elles amenées à recourir à tous les moyens pour sortir de l’impasse politique dans laquelle elles se trouvent en Grèce.
Elles tentent de réhabiliter les partis traditionnels.
Elles ont ravivé successivement plusieurs partis de droite et d’extrême-droite nationalistes et xénophobes.
Plaçant d’autres fers au feu, elles s’efforcent de développer une social-démocratie de substitution, en remplacement du PASOK disqualifié. Il s’agit d’enfermer toute la vie politique, notamment la gauche, dans le carcan européen.
La promotion de la coalition hétéroclite « Syriza », comme alternative à la droite avant les élections du 17 juin, est à situer dans ce cadre. C’est la branche grecque du Parti de la gauche européenne, le PGE, appointé par la Commission européenne. Syriza a multiplié par 4 son résultat électoral de 2009, récupérant de nombreux électeurs de la social-démocratie. La complaisance du système à l’égard de Syriza contraste avec l’énergie déployée pour diaboliser le KKE. Les ralliements d’anciens du Pasok se succèdent.
L’affichage « radical » de ce « front de gauche à la grecque » est trompeur. Sa perspective véritable s’est aussitôt révélée quand son leader médiatique Alexis Tsipras s’est tourné vers notre nouveau président Hollande pour l’aider à réformer l’UE, à sauver l’euro… Hollande qui défendait hier le Traité de Lisbonne côte-à-côte avec Sarkozy ! Les leaders de Syriza furent également d’ardents partisans de Maastricht. Tsipras dispute aujourd’hui à la droite la qualité de meilleur défenseur de l’euro et plaide pour une « renégociation » de la dette. La mise en avant de Syriza permet de canaliser la colère du peuple grec dans une logique d’acceptation de diktats européens « renégociés ».
L’autre raison d’être fondamentale de Syriza est de réduire l’influence du Parti communiste grec. C’est dans ce sens qu’il lui propose une participation empoisonnée à une coalition de « gauche » pro-européenne, de gestion de la crise capitaliste.
Cette situation nous incite encore davantage, en tant que communistes français, membres et responsables d’organisations du PCF, à apporter notre soutien au KKE, parti frère au glorieux passé, notre soutien à son action, à son rejet de l’opportunisme, à son combat pour le socialisme.
Nous incitons nos camarades communistes, les militants syndicalistes français à prendre connaissance des analyses et des expériences de lutte de nos camarades grecs. Nous dénonçons les entreprises de dénigrements du KKE relayées dans notre pays par la presse et les médias au service des forces du capital et même, plusieurs fois, de façon inacceptable, par l’Humanité. A leur manière, elles témoignent de la portée internationale du combat de nos camarades grecs.
La meilleure solidarité qu’il puisse exister entre nous est de combattre chacun l’ennemi commun, dans nos cadres nationaux : les capitalismes et impérialismes de nos pays respectifs, leur internationale, l’UE, le Traité de Maastricht et son application.
Illustrant la réalité militante du KKE et de son émanation syndicale le PAME, les banderoles déployées à plusieurs reprises sur l’Acropole d’Athènes constituent un appel formidable à la résistance dans tous les pays. Merci !

Premiers signataires (responsabilités dans le PCF : CD = Conseil départemental ; CN = Conseil national)

ALLEG Henri (91 – Palaiseau) - AURIOL Stéphane (75 – RATP – ex. CN), BECOURT Corinne (02 – Saint-Quentin – CD/CN), BERNABE Frédéric (70 – Vesoul – CD/CN – Secr. Fédéral), BERTRAND Robert (31 – Verfeil) ; CARPENTIER Laurie (02 – Saint-Quentin) ; CAUVIN Aline (78 – Mantes) ; CHANTRELLE Jean (92 – Malakoff) ; CHANTRELLE Laurence (92 – Malakoff) ; CHATAIN Monique (83 – Carqueiranne) ; COPIN Joël (62 – Rouvroy) ; CREZEGUT Anthony (75 – Paris 15, CD) ; DANG TRAN Emmanuel (75 – Paris 15 – CD/CN), DARGHAM Pierre (92 – Vanves) ; DAVOISE Olivier (75 – RATP) ; DEBEAUVAIS Fabienne (80 – Amiens – CN) ; DELVAL Jean-Claude (78 - Mantes) ; FAINZANG Claude (75 – Paris 19 – CD/CN) ; FRICOUT Serge (24 – Jumilhac) ; GAGLIANO Michel (42 – cheminot communiste de Saint-Etienne) ; GARCIA Jacqueline (10 – Romilly) ; GARCIA José (10 – Romilly) ; GAWSEWITCH Josette (75 – Paris 15 – CD) ; HAREL Guy (37 – Montlouis) ; Armelle HERVE (78 – Mantes – secr. Section- CD) ; JALADE Eric (81 – Castres – CN), JAMELOT Joran (75 – Paris 15 – AP-HP) ; JAMMET Marc (78 – Mantes- CD ) ; JUNG Véronique (70 – Gray) ; LANDAIS Benjamin (75 – Paris 5 – CD) ; LAROSIERE Jean-François (59 – Douai – CD) ; LE ROY Olivier (31 – Toulouse – JC) ; LIEVIN Fabienne (70 – Vesoul – CD) ; LIEVIN Patrick (70 – Vesoul – CD) ; LLORENTE Marie (78 – Mantes) ; LUBRINA Antoine ( 03 – Désertines) ; MARION Fabien (13 – Aix) ; MARQUES Camille (75 – Paris 14 – CD) ; MATTA Robin (13 – Aix) ; MUZARD Patrice (70- Gray – CD) ; NEGRI Dominique (38 – Saint-Martin-d’Hères – CD/CN) ; NEGRI Jean-Louis (38 – Saint-Martin d’Hères) ; NIEL Guy (94 – Gentilly) ; ODETTI Christiane (81 - Lavaur – Secr. Section – CD) ; NEGRI Jean-Louis (38 – Gières) ; PERRIN Michel (87 – Limoges SNCF – ex-Secr. fédé) ; RALLIERES Danièle (81 – Bastides - CD) ; RALLIERES (81 – Bastides – secr. Section - CD) ; RICHARD Laurent (38 – Terres froides) ; RIO Paul (58 – Guérigny) ; ROLLO Stéphane (38 – Saint-Martin-d’Hères – JC) ; SABATTIER Henri (07 – Sud-Ardèche) ; SCHMIDT Jean-Claude (75 – Paris 15) ; TORNER Emile (75 – Paris 15 – ancien déporté-résistant) ; TOURNAY Jean-Luc (02 – Saint-Quentin – Secr. Section) ; TOURNAY Olivier (02 – Saint-Quentin – CD) ; VARENNE Georges (02 – Saint-Quentin) ; YAGHLEKDJIAN Pierre (75 – RATP) ; YATES Russell (77 – Meaux – Secr. Section) ; ZICCHINA Noël (2A – Ajaccio)

AGIUS Alain (13 – Vitrolles) ; ALI Alain (02 – Saint-Quentin) ; AUTIER Jean-François (33 – ex CD PCF 33) ; BARDE René (81 – Lavaur) ; BERNARD Nicole (75 – Paris 15) ; BERNATETS Jean-Claude (02 – Chauny) ; BERNATETS Monica (02 – Chauny) ; BOUCHER Sébastien (38) ; CHAUVINEAU Jean-Marc (Etr - Ho-Chi-Minh-Ville) - CHERRUAULT Yann (75 – Paris 14) ; CREUZEVAUT Gérard (01) ; CROS Jacques (34 – Béziers) ; DANG TRAN Jacqueline (35 – Rennes) ; DEFFONTAINE Claude (75 – Paris 16 – CD) ; DIMIER Rémy (83 – Toulon) ; DURAND Raymond (81 – Lavaur) ; FERRIER Martine (69 – Lyon) ; FEVRE Thomas (42 – Saint-Etienne) ; FOURNIER Jean-Pierre (03 – Commentry) ; FRASSIN Claudine (81 – Lavaur) ; GERMAIN Roland (70) ; JEAN Robert (2B – Cap Corse – CD) ; JORQUERA Christophe (38 – Saint-Martin-d’Hères) ; JORQUERA Roger (38 – Saint-Martin-d’Hères) ; LAFLEUR Michel (81 – Lavaur) ; LAFLEUR Marie-Rose (81 – Lavaur) ; LATCHER Jean-Pierre (81 – Lavaur) ; LATREILLE Michel (75 – Paris 15) ; LE GLOHAHEC Yves (73 – Saint-Genis) ; LEMEE Raymond (22) ; MAISSE France (80 – Amiens) ; MILHAS Jacques (77 – Noisiel) ; OUKZIZ Moha (81 – Albi – CD) ; PATE Jean-Claude (50 – Valognes) ; PATTE Jean-François (62 – Arras) ; PICARRETTA Savino (38 – Echirolles) ; PLE Christian (02 – Saint-Quentin) ; PUGNALE Nelly (38 – Poisat) ; REINKINGEN Christian (33 – Sadirac) ; ROULET Régis (etr – Ho-Chi-Minh-Ville) ; TOURNAY Alain (83 – Toulon) ; TOURNAY Josette (83 – Méounes) ; TOURTEAUX Jacques (51 – Reims) ; TRANCHANT Valérie (38) ; WAGNER Ysaline (13 – Marseille) ; WEINMANN Gautier (62 – Leforest) ; YAN Joël (64 – Nay) ;

BELLICHE Karima (02-Gauchy) ; BELLICHE Nora (02-Gauchy) ; BERNSSI Zahra (13 – Aix) ; BLONDEL Françoise (02-Saint-Quentin) ; BRANCOURT Jean Luc (02-Saint-Quentin) ; CARPENTIER Paulette (02-Saint-Quentin) ; CARRIER Serge (02-Harly) ; CASIER Serge (02 - Saint-Quentin - syndicaliste) ; CHOULY Stéphane (75 – RATP) ; DEGUELDAIRE Jean Michel (02-Rouvroy) ; DEGUISE Loïc (02 - Saint-Quentin) ; DENIS Guy (02-Saint-Quentin) ; MICHEL David (02-Gauchy) ; DESMIDT Jean Marie (02-Saint-Quentin) ; DUCHET Vincent (02-Grugies) ; GABERT Jean Jacques (02 - Gauchy) ; GABERT Michèle (02-Gauchy) ; GARNODIER Luc (69 – JC Rhône) ; GIMENEZ Gisèle (81 – Albi) ; GIRARD Joëlle (75 – Paris 13 – CD) ; LAVEILLE Georges (02-Saint-Quentin) ; LESUR Alexandre (02-Saint-Quentin) ; PALLIERES Augustin (75 – Paris 5 – CD) ; PECH Jérôme (13 – Pays d’Aix) ; PLE Sabrina (02-Gauchy) ; POINT Jean Pierre - (02-Gauchy) ; ROLLAND Jean-Louis (17 – La Rochelle) ; ROQUIN François (38 - Saint-Martin-d’Hères) ; RZEPKA Christian (02-Saint-Quentin) ; SAUVET Bruno (02-Saint-Quentin) ; SMAL Jocelyne (02-Saint-Quentin) ; TASSERIT Brigitte (02-Saint-Quentin) ; TENEZE Gilbert (28 – Voves) ; TOURNAY Mauricette (02-Saint-Quentin) ; VOVARD Jacques (95 – Argenteuil) ;


Translation

French Communists call for solidarity with the Greek Communist Party (KKE)

The communist Party of Greece (KKE) bravely opens the way

We congratulate the Greek Communists KKE for their progress in the elections of May 6, 2012, resulting in the most adverse conditions, as we welcome the progress of the Greek Communist Youth student elections. We are grateful for the support point and marks they make to our own struggles and the international Communist movement.


We observe and study with great interest the work of committed and rigorous KKE in companies and among all the exploited, particularly in a labor movement dominated by reformist forces.


Greece is the laboratory of super-austerity policies in Europe.


Hand in hand, the Greek capitalism, the European Union, the ECB and the IMF have begun to liquidate all the achievements of the Greek labor movement, to reduce the country to underdevelopment, a neo-colonization.


They intend to charge the people, the highest price, their own crisis, debt which Greek and European capitalists gorged themselves.


The euro is now the instrument of this policy. The expulsion of Greece in the euro area will eventually be the future, as safeguarding that currency of domination will be available in Western Europe in the interest of major corporations, predominantly German.


KKE rejects the whole European Union. We recognize in his analysis, in rejecting any illusions about a reorientation of institutions designed solely for the benefit of capital, "the ECB charitable organization" in the words ironically our Greek comrades.


The organization of the KKE and the prospect of war he opened a major obstacle to the project of capitalism in Greece, while the people are torn between anger and despair. The action of the KKE accused the discrediting of the conservative political forces and social democratic succession to power. The condemnation of the EU capital by KKE meeting the fundamental commitment of the masses on national sovereignty, hard-won.


As the forces of capital, national and European, they are brought to resort to all means to break the political impasse in which they are located in Greece.


They try to rehabilitate the traditional parties.


They have revived several successive right-wing parties and right-wing nationalist and xenophobic.


Placing other irons in the fire, they try to develop a social democratic alternative in lieu of PASOK disqualified. This is all locked up in politics, especially the left, in the European yoke.


Promoting diverse coalition "Syriza" as an alternative to the right before the elections on 17 June, is to be within this framework. This is the Greek branch of the European Left Party, the EMP, appointed by the European Commission. Syriza has multiplied by four of its 2009 election result, many voters of retrieving social democracy. The complacency of the system with respect to Syriza contrast the energy expended to demonize the KKE. The former PASOK rallies succeed.


The display "radical" of this "front left to the Greek" is misleading. His perspective was soon proved true when its leader Alexis Tsipras media turned to our new President Holland to help reform the EU, to save the euro ... Holland yesterday defending the Lisbon Treaty side- side with Sarkozy! Syriza leaders were also strong supporters of Maastricht. Tsipras argument today at the right quality for best defender of the euro and calls for a "renegotiation" of the debt. The highlighting of Syriza allows to channel the anger of the Greek people in a logic dictates acceptance of European "renegotiated."


The other fundamental reason for Syriza is to reduce the influence of the Greek Communist Party. It is in this sense that it offers a poisoned participation in a coalition of "left" pro-European management of the capitalist crisis.


This encourages us even further, as the French Communists, members and leaders of organizations of the CPF, to provide support to KKE, sister party to the glorious past, our support for its action, its rejection of opportunism, his fight for socialism.


We encourage our Communist comrades, the French trade union activists to read the analysis and experience of struggle of our Greek comrades. We denounce the denigration of the companies in our country KKE relayed by the press and media serving the forces of capital and even several times in an unacceptable way, for humanity. In their way, they demonstrate the international significance of the struggle of our Greek comrades.


The best solidarity may exist between us all is to fight the common enemy, into our national: the capitalism and imperialism of our respective countries, their international, EU, the Maastricht Treaty and its implementation.


Illustrating the reality of militant offshoot of the KKE and PAME trade union, the banners displayed several times on the Acropolis of Athens is a great call to resistance in all countries. Thank you!

http://solidarite-internationale-pcf.over-blog.net/article-appel-de-communistes-fran-ais-a-la-solidarite-avec-le-parti-communiste-grec-kke-106964824.html




As it seems not all members of French CP agree with the socialdemocratic policy of the Party afterall. It is great to hear the communists of the Continent again. Maybe one day, maybe very soon we see the communist forces reorganize the european CPs.

edited : double post

Czech Communists are also mobilizing against the socialdemocratic "European Left".



Czech Communists oppose the immediate Formation of a European Left Party

By Ken Biggs

One of the issues currently taxing the minds of European left politicians and activists is whether to go along with the European Commission’s establishment of so-called “European Political Parties”. Just after the EU’s expansion to 25 member states in May, elections for the European Parliament will be held throughout the enlarged Union. One of the few left parties from the new member states which is guaranteed success in these elections is the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (CPBM), the Czech CP. Below, party member and long-time Czech resident Ken Biggs explains why his party opposes the proposals.



Contrary to various reports, the Czech Republic’s Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia does not support the immediate foundation of a so-called “Party of the European Left”. According to a report in the Czech left daily Halo Noviny on January 16, there are plans to found such a party in April. But representatives of some 20 parties attending a meeting in Berlin on January 11/12 hosted by Germany’s Party of Democratic Socialism were seriously divided over the plan, especially the new party’s statutes, which have to be approved by the EU as a condition of the party receiving funds from Brussels.



Speaking at a meeting of the CPBM’s central committee on January 25, party leader Miroslav Grebenicek said that the issue had been discussed at last October’s CC meeting and the party had adopted an unequivocal position on the formation of a European Left party. He quoted the view of the Communist Party of Greece, which refused to attend the Berlin meeting on the grounds that the new party’s statutes included an article stating that: ”The European party will develop its activities in the interest of the European Union’s institutions.”



Grebenicek reminded CC members of the statement they adopted last October, part of which said: ”Institutionalisation of the collaboration and cooperation between Left parties can be achieved as the natural result of a stage of successful united action. Bypassing this stage, and also a passive approach to achieving this aim, cannot at the present time contribute to real unity of the European Left.”



Miloslav Ransdorf, one of the party’s five vice-chairs and the vice-chair responsible for international relations, was criticised at the January CC meeting for ignoring last October’s CC resolution and creating the impression that the CPBM endorsed the founding a European Left party in April by signing a statement at the end of the Berlin meeting committing the Czech party to supporting this, even though the party had sent him there only as an observer.

The founding of a European Left party has been a controversial issue for the CPBM, which is one of Europe’s most influential communist parties, with a membership of 120,000, 41 deputies in the Czech Parliament’s legislature, the Chamber of Deputies, and over 6,000 local government councillors.



As last October’s CC statement pointed out, “Our party has always worked for cooperation and a coordinated approach by the European Left because this corresponds to the objective needs of our time. The whole European Left must confront the policies of militarisation and neoliberalism and the dangers arising from the imperialist character of globalisation as it is at present. The concept of a European Left is a broader concept embracing a wide range of political parties operating throughout Europe.



“The Left, however, is not politically or ideologically united, and this is true both inside some parties and also within the framework of individual countries and Europe as a whole. The objective conditions of economic and social development are different as a result of differences in historical development. If we want it to be successful, the organisational level of coordination and cooperation between the Left parties must take account of these different objective and subjective conditions.”



The statement continues by emphasising that the role of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament “corresponds to the objective conditions in the EU and the party structure of the European Left.” But, according to the CPBM, “it is also necessary to work towards (broader) united action by the European Left parties which is based on the principle of respect for the objective and subjective conditions and secures Left unity on fundamental European issues, and this on the basis of bilateral and multilateral activities which bring the views and attitudes of these parties closer together.”



On November 14 last year the CPBM’s executive committee issued a statement opposing the formation of a new Europe-wide Left party and criticising behind-the-scenes moves to sideline the Czech party and parties sharing its view that the forming of such a party would harm their attempts to build sustainable long-term unity on the Left. It said: “Attempts to create a European Left party without consulting a number of influential parties sharing our views are at odds with the aims of some European communist parties, including the CPBM.”



The party’s EC expressed “its disquiet at certain tendencies which have emerged around the issue of the creation of a European Left party and the damage which this could do to the necessary cooperation of the forces which, regardless of certain differences, have been working together as part of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament and in other international organisations.”



It is common knowledge that two parties were the driving force behind the Berlin meeting in January – the German Party of Democratic Socialism and the French Communist Party. They disagree with the position of the CPBM and its allies that united action by the Left in Europe based on bilateral and multilateral initiatives in the struggle against the dangers posed by militarism, neoliberalism and war is the way to build unity among the fragmented European Left rather than any precipitate move to found a Europe-wide Left party immediately and mainly as a response to the Euro-elections due to held in June of this year.



Both the PDS and the French Communists argue that the EU is reformable from within and support the founding of a European Left party funded by Brussels and geared to operate solely in the context of the European Parliament. But the new party’s statutes would have to be approved by Brussels as a condition of it receiving EU financial backing. This is unacceptable to the Czech Communists and a number of other European communist parties. *



Even though Miloslav Ransdorf topped the poll in a January CC vote to decide who would lead the CPBM’s list of candidates in next June’s elections to the European Parliament, he is a controversial figure inside the CPBM’s leadership. Some of his colleagues feel he is too close politically to the PDS and French Communist Party leaderships. Strongly pro-EU and a supporter of moves to strengthen cross-border Euro-Regions (some would say, at the expense of Czech national interests and sovereignty), he has also spoken out in favour of NATO’s enlargement.



Ken Biggs edits Postmark Prague.



* As do a number of non-Communist or “post-Communist” parties, including all Nordic parties in the European Parliament United Left Group (GUE-NGL) and the Socialist Party of the Netherlands (Spectre Ed.)


http://www.spectrezine.org/europe/CPBM.htm

The key words from Marco Rizzo are here:


In the world of globalized capitalism, voting and democracy do not exist, or rather, they exist only if they win "them" (as evidenced by the killing of Allende). By means of mass communication can move huge support from one party to another, from one camp to another, but always under the command of the system. It happens also in Italy where new movements can break into the scene and capture even the majority. But votes are rootless, consents or rather dictated more by the smile from toothpaste used by the person who sponsors a 'product' politics as much as a commodity to sell. The communists are another matter. They do have an overall change of the company. Foreshadow another system against the degenerate capitalism that is increasingly globalized in crisis and trying to survive by destroying the environment and the imperialist war. For the real communists do not like to make fun of the people, the results that change people's lives are not those elections are the ones who really move the balance of power in society. What will change now that Hollande has replaced Sarkozy or vice versa, what has changed after that Zapatero has been replaced by Rajoy or qundo Prodi and Berlusconi ruled once each, once the other. For the people had not changed and nothing will change, will always be the EU, the ECB, the monopoly capitalists and banks to dictate the lesson.

It may be debatable whether this has not been the case for a very long time but, it is incontestable that this is true today.

"In the world of globalized capitalism, voting and democracy do not exist, or rather, they exist only if they win..."

Thanks for posting this. It is great to see other communists in Europe standing up and supporting KKE. Some of the opportunist in the CPUSA (like our old friend Norm) should read these posts and be ashamed of themselves. All they have to do is get their faces out of the bourgeois ass and try thinking again.

The initiative for the formation of the European Party of the Left was taken by then Synaspismos, now Syriza



1. Upon invitation from SYNASPISMOS - the Greek Coalition of the Left, the Movements and Ecology - instructions were carried out in mid-March 2003 to actively strive for the creation of a European left-wing party, after being passed and agreed upon during the NELF meetings in Copenhagen and Paris in 2002. In 2003 further meetings were arranged by the initial European Left group, at which debates took place on the Basic Political Document (programme) as well as on the necessary structure and basis for transactions (statute).

Finally, on January 10th and 11th 2004, a meeting of the parties took place in Berlin, which, by calling on all interested left parties in Europe, triggered the initiative for the founding of the Party of the European Left. Eleven parties answered that call; other party representatives present in Berlin declared they would actively observe the process.

The follow-up meeting in the beginning of February of the initial group in Athens (all parties having signed the Berlin initiative, which was also open to the interested observer parties) resulted in an agreement to arrange the founding Congress for May 8th and 9th 2004 in Rome. An international preparatory group was formed, in which representatives of all parties from the initial group adhered.

http://www.european-left.org/english/about_the_el/introduction/


Together for a different Europe - democratic, social, ecological, feminist, peaceful

In Europe and in the world, there is growing resistance to wars, destruction of the welfare systems, arms build-up and market radicalism. We of the European left are part of the movements for a different policy. We are convinced that another world, another Europe is possible: democratic, social, ecological, feminist, peaceful - a Europe of solidarity.

The time is ripe for a European Left Party. We want to found it before the 2004 European elections take place.

http://www.european-left.org/nc/english/positions/statements/statements/browse/9/zurueck/statements-documents/artikel/together-for-a-different-europe-democratic-social-ecological-feminist-peaceful/



KKE's position on Euroleft party (in english)

http://inter.kke.gr/News/2004new/2004-02-el/

excerpt of G. Moschonas' (associate professor of Comparative Politics in Greece) speech in CPF (French Communist Party)


"The European Union structurally, not conjuncturally, undermines the modes of action of historic radicalism. Negotiation, the endless processes of compromise and wheeling and dealing, and the increased weight of technocratic solutions, are incompatible with the culture of radicalism. In reality, classical revolutionary concepts and the European Union are incompatible. There is no revolutionary strategy for Europe and it serves no purpose to attempt to formulate one. If a left party gives priority to “revolution”, if it thinks that the conditions of a major anti-capitalist overturn or even of a complete exit from capitalism exist, or will exist in the relatively near future, it has no reason to get involved in a complicated game with another 26 member-players and in an extremely rigid system of multi-level governance (a system moreover equipped with an enormous assortment of escape valves - 27 at a minimum, as many as there are national governments). It is irrational. Symmetrically, for any political party that makes the choice of working in the EU framework, the pivot of all coherence is called “reform”. The segment of the radical left that opts for a European strategy opts – of necessity – for a strategy of reforms. The European terrain is by definition the terrain of reform, and indeed difficult, tortuous reform. War of position, not war of manoevre, is its key distinguishing characteristic."

http://www.transform-network.net/en/categories/article.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1274&cHash=47ab3e7b8b3851656a0928070025ebaa

As a greek communist blogger noticed: the antagonism which is going on for years between the communist anti-EU forces and the pro-EU leftist parties in Greece is now spread all over Europe where the remaining CPs are reorganizing their political stracture at last.

URGENT: Hell freezes over


Trotskyist Group of Greece Says:

Vote KKE! No Vote to Syriza!

The following is a translation of a leaflet being distributed by our comrades in Greece.

The Greek section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) calls on workers, minorities and all opponents of capitalist austerity to vote for the candidates of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) on June 17. The central issue for the working class in Greece today is rejection of the devastating attacks dictated by the troika [the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund] and imposed by the Greek bourgeoisie. A massive vote to the KKE—which opposes the EU—would deliver a slap in the face to the imperialists and their Greek lackeys and could give a boost to the defensive battles of workers across Europe.

The KKE rightly stands against Syriza’s perspective of keeping “Greece in the EU and NATO and the capitalist relations of production untouched” (KKE Web site, “Between Two Tough Battles,” 23 May). Despite intense pressure for unity, the KKE has rejected Syriza’s appeal to form a “left” (bourgeois) government. Syriza stands in favor of the imperialist EU and the euro, while claiming it can “renegotiate” the austerity package. As proletarian internationalists, we oppose the imperialist EU on principle (as well as the single currency) as part of our perspective for the Socialist United States of Europe. A socialist society cannot be achieved within the borders of Greece alone.

The KKE correctly notes that the central force within Syriza, the “Coalition of the Left” (SYN), voted for the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, is a supporter of the EU and “joined the anti-communist campaign against the USSR” (“Between Two Tough Battles,” 23 May). Today, the pseudo-Trotskyist groups who also hailed counterrevolution in the Soviet Union—including the Socialist Workers Party (SEK) and Xekinima—place themselves to the right of the KKE, whom they denounce for rejecting Syriza’s call to join them in government. We say: Down with the EU! No vote to Syriza!

Our call for a vote to the KKE in this election is an application of the tactic of critical support outlined by Lenin in “Left-Wing” Communism—An Infantile Disorder in 1920. While supporting KKE candidates, we have fundamental differences of program. Our program is proletarian, revolutionary and internationalist. In contrast, the KKE panders to Greek nationalism, the chief obstacle to building a revolutionary party in Greece. Their perspective of “people power” liquidates the proletariat—the only class with the power to overthrow capitalism—into “the people” and obscures the class line, the central division in capitalist society. The KKE’s populism—expressed as “the people” against “the monopolies”—is counterposed to the class independence of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie.

The violent racist attacks on immigrants by rampaging mobs of Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) fascists pose the urgent need to mobilize contingents of workers to defend immigrants and to sweep the fascist vermin off the streets. The KKE has the social weight in the trade unions to do this, but its nationalist populism is a barrier to it. Rather than mobilizing workers and immigrants against Golden Dawn, which represents a threat to the whole of the organized working class, the KKE appeals for votes from among the same backward layers of the population who voted for the fascist scum, demanding: “The working people who voted for Golden Dawn must correct their vote” (KKE Press Office statement, 2 June).

The KKE admits that: “During the 1950’s and 1980’s, the KKE formed ‘left’ alliances” and claims that it “has drawn valuable conclusions from its experience regarding the policy of alliances and it does not intend to repeat similar mistakes” (“Between Two Tough Battles,” 23 May). These were not mistakes but betrayals that flow from their Stalinist program. Despite the KKE’s refusal to participate in a coalition government at the present time, they have not broken politically with the program that led them to join bourgeois governments in the past.

Our international tendency actively fought, to the limit of our resources, for defense of the Soviet Union against counterrevolution. We also stood for a proletarian political revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy, whose politics of “socialism in one country” and of “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism undermined the defense of the USSR and ultimately led to the triumph of counterrevolution in 1991-92, a defeat for the world’s working masses.

With this call to vote for the KKE we are mass-distributing the article, “Banks Starve Greek Working People” [Workers Vanguard No. 1002, 11 May], to introduce to a wider audience our broader political views. We seek to coalesce into a political formation those forces who agree with the politics expressed there.

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/leaflets/votekke.html



I hear that they are also a split.

Thanks for posting this. It is great to see other communists in Europe standing up and supporting KKE. Some of the opportunist in the CPUSA (like our old friend Norm) should read these posts and be ashamed of themselves. All they have to do is get their faces out of the bourgeois ass and try thinking again.

It is important that the european CPs are trying to coordinate their actions at last.

URGENT: Hell freezes over



I hear that they are also a split.

But not without a few digs. Still, more than you'd expect from that crowd. They'd better be careful, those contradictions cause splitting headaches.

The violent racist attacks on immigrants by rampaging mobs of Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) fascists pose the urgent need to mobilize contingents of workers to defend immigrants and to sweep the fascist vermin off the streets. The KKE has the social weight in the trade unions to do this, but its nationalist populism is a barrier to it. Rather than mobilizing workers and immigrants against Golden Dawn, which represents a threat to the whole of the organized working class, the KKE appeals for votes from among the same backward layers of the population who voted for the fascist scum, demanding: “The working people who voted for Golden Dawn must correct their vote” (KKE Press Office statement, 2 June).

Nikos, I know you commented on this at least once here on The Bell, but I am still a little puzzled over it. To my limited understanding, it seems that the best time to sweep the fascist scum off the streets is (always) now. I don't put much stock in the Trot critique but I can't say I totally understand the logic of what the KKE is doing either.

Nikos, I know you commented on this at least once here on The Bell, but I am still a little puzzled over it. To my limited understanding, it seems that the best time to sweep the fascist scum off the streets is (always) now. I don't put much stock in the Trot critique but I can't say I totally understand the logic of what the KKE is doing either.

It's harder than it looks... and the Nazis are always looking for a street fight. For us, it is a tactic; for them, it is a "strategy" (and sometimes their only "strategy").

The workers have got to support it broadly, because behind the Nazis will be the police and then the Army.

Don't take advice from Trots, even when they are your "friends".

It's harder than it looks... and the Nazis are always looking for a street fight. For us, it is a tactic; for them, it is a "strategy" (and sometimes their only "strategy").

The workers have got to support it broadly, because behind the Nazis will be the police and then the Army.

Don't take advice from Trots, even when they are your "friends".

Gotcha. I was trying to find or remember exactly what Nikos had written on the topic actually, which is what inspired me to ask.

Gotcha. I was trying to find or remember exactly what Nikos had written on the topic actually, which is what inspired me to ask.

More on this...

The Nazis do blend a very funny mix of class hatred (for the rich) with patriotism, jingoism, racism, etc. - "god and guns" - and into a form of right-wing populism. They play on the edges of the working-class movement and, particularly when they are growing quickly, they create substantial confusion.

It is a myth that the Nazis draw popular support from within the working class. There are no Nazis in factories (or more properly, there is one guy and everybody knows his name), but as you get away to the peripheries... small craftspeople, shopkeepers, truck drivers, plumbers, mechanics, the permantly unemployed, lumpen, people who live in cafes, etc... there, the Nazis find a more regular footing. Most people who work have friends/family who sympathize with the scum. There has to be great clarity before challenging them physically can work.

Even more than this, the Nazis are marginal. Their power comes, not from their popular draw, but the support that they attract from the rich: millionaires, reactionary politicians, military officers, government officials, police brigadiers, Republican Party appara-chic, etc. Their street theater is part of that appeal for support. Direct challenges must come from a plan and not from simple emotion or revulsion.

The Trots are good with advice... and they won't be around for the fight in any case.

It is a myth that the Nazis draw popular support from within the working class. There are no Nazis in factories (or more properly, there is one guy and everybody knows his name), but as you get away to the peripheries... small craftspeople, shopkeepers, truck drivers, plumbers, mechanics, the permantly unemployed, lumpen, people who live in cafes, etc... there, the Nazis find a more regular footing. Most people who work have friends/family who sympathize with the scum. There has to be great clarity before challenging them physically can work.

Too true. Common to all of those, for however disparate reasons, is an illusion of personal freedom, and the perception that this is being lost. That this freedom is being lost to the inevitable workings of capitalism doesn't appear on their radar. Those who do work for themselves live a life of adversarial relationships, them vs vendors, them vs customers, them vs their employees, a microcosm of day to day capitalism. The lumpen would deny their prostrate condition by fixing blame upon those even more defenseless than themselves, from their view there is only adversity. The commonality of these two groups lies in their lack of solidarity with their class. Solidarity is fostered by proximity and common purpose, thus the great industrial enterprises of the past were the great hotbeds solidarity building. Not so much of that in these parts today.

Common struggle against class injustice and war

http://www2.rizospastis.gr/getImage.do?size=medium&id=370386&format=.jpg

The political and cultural event for Greek and foreign workers was successfully held on Friday in the Fix park in Patissia organized by the Attica Party organization of the KKE. Many people came to listen carefully to the speech of the GS of the CC of the KKE, Aleka Papariga, who outlined the party’s policy on immigration, by proposing specific relief measures, calling for an anti-imperialist anti-capitalist struggle against the EU one-way street and the forces that support it. More specifically the GS of the CC of the KKE mentioned amongst other things in her speech the following:

“For us above all deep red blood flows in the veins of every people (…) we do not ignore the problems, we do not idealize or prettify the situation, nor do we have the right to bury our heads in the sand. It is a problem that exists. But before we touch on this serious issue once again, we must clarify the basic fundamental question, that we reject racism, xenophobia, and nationalism. We reject every policy and practice which “divides and rules”, every act which leads to the fostering of hostility between the peoples. (…) The immigrants are the victims of capitalism, imperialist war, state violence and repression, and cruel exploitation. Consequently for us the issue is to defend as mush as possible- whether we have a crisis or not- the interests of Greeks and immigrants, to unite them in a common struggle against class injustice and war.

All the capitalist countries in Europe opened their doors to the immigrants, precisely in order to increase their profits; they used them to reduce the value of labour power even further. But they open and close the doors according to the circumstances. The EU wants controlled immigration, as the capitalist crisis has increased the reserve army of the unemployed and the salaries of local workers have been dramatically reduced. But controlled immigration without violence and repression and without the increase of illegal immigration cannot exist. We clarify that our positions are being brought up to date based on the developments, and we do not change them for electoral purposes. The other parties ND and PASOK did change their policies talking about concentration camps and threats against the immigrants so that they would not lose votes to the fascist and racist Golden Dawn, as did SYRIZA which watered down its positive demands to get votes. This is what they all do. To begin with we posed the issue, during the discussion of the programmatic statements that the government and the judiciary should intervene against Golden Dawn which uses verbal and physical violence against immigrants. We must not accept the role of Golden Dawn in repressing the immigrants. We are clear about this. Because we underline the following: At this moment they are trying out murderous attacks against the immigrants, they will extend this practice in the future against Greek militants. Have no doubt. They are using the immigrants as training. They will be transformed into a para-state mechanism, which will be tolerated by the people. This is their goal!

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-07-17-metanastes/

The immigrants are the victims of capitalism, imperialist war, state violence and repression, and cruel exploitation. Consequently for us the issue is to defend as mush as possible- whether we have a crisis or not- the interests of Greeks and immigrants, to unite them in a common struggle against class injustice and war.

Papariga, as usual, is dead on; and it is just as true here as there - and everywhere else...

Latest news about the class warfare in Greece the last months.

http://indefenseofgreekworkers.blogspot.gr/

Greek PM Antonis Samaras sets off on grovelling EU jaunt

It was the same old story of vain hopes for Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras today as he kicked off a two-day trip to Berlin and Paris.

Despite clear messages from German Chancellor Angela Merkel that Germany had no appetite for any further concessions to Greece, Mr Samaras continued to press for more time to make spending cuts.

His budgetary hole is said to be close to €14 billion (£11bn) and, with a recession now in its fifth year, Samaras wants a two-year extension from the EU.

But just a day before Mr Samaras arrived Ms Merkel and French President Francois Hollande stressed they wanted to keep Greece in the euro but insisted it must redouble its reform efforts to hack back public spending and accelerate privatisation of anything that was not locked down.

"It is important for me that we all stick to our commitments ... but I will encourage Greece to continue along its path of reforms," Ms Merkel said.

For his part the French president, who is attracting criticism at home for his readiness to accept Chancellor Merkel's policies, said he was in favour of Greece remaining in the eurozone but this was in the hands of the Greeks themselves.

In the run-up to the talks Mr Samaras had engaged on a determined charm offensive, telling papers in Germany and France that a Greek exit from the euro would be catastrophic for Europe.

He repeated time and again his mantra that Greece wanted a "little breathing space" to enact key reforms and get the recession-wracked economy moving again.

"The Germans will get their money back, that I guarantee personally. And all the others will get their money back too," he pledged.

Mr Samaras insisted that "more time does not automatically mean more money."

But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble appeared to slap down this idea, saying: "More time would, in case of doubt, mean more money."

And conservative parliamentary leader Volker Kauder was also adamant: "Nowhere is the saying that time is money so true as in this case," he said. "And we cannot make more money available."

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/content/view/full/123078

Pathetic.

Pathetic is all they got.

Answer the new anti-people measures with a general strike

The coalition government of ND-PASOK-Democratic Left will take new barbaric measures worth at least 13.6 billion euros. These are measures such as the so-called “minimum wage” with which they will permanently eradicate the content of the National General Collective Agreement., that is to say what is safeguarded in it (pay scales, vacations, benefits and other rights). They have announced amongst other things reductions in public and private sector wages and pensions, cuts in benefits, the dismissal of 150,000 public sector workers, expanded privatizations of state enterprises and organizations, the closure and merger of hospitals, new and even more barbaric cuts in healthcare, education and welfare, the increase of income tax and the taxation of even the smallest property, special industrial zones which will provide provocative support for big capital with medieval labour conditions and nonexistent labour rights, and the dramatic price increase of oil for heating and electricity.

These measures which the coalition government and troika are preparing to “serve up” to the people will lead to mass poverty and destitution of an even larger section of households from the popular strata.

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Aleka Papariga, made the following statement on the 28/8 regarding the new measures of the government-EU:

“There is a raft of measures which will fall on the shoulders of the people and take from them whatever has been left to hem. Of course there can be variations in the management formulas. The people must not wait whether one option or the other will prevail, from what pocket they will take the money and how they will handle the issue. What is important is that the people must meet the measures with a general strike, with escalating struggles in between the major strike mobilisations. Each sector must struggle for its demands and at the same support general mobilizations. It is not possible for us to hear about a new raft of measures which will be tragic and simply stay at home and complain in a disillusioned and fatalistic way. This would simply assist the government.”

A similar call was made by the All-workers Militant Front (PAME) while the class-oriented forces in GSEE tabled a proposal for a general nationwide strike which underlined amongst other things that “ every discussion with the government and employers which has as its main goal the attempt to massacre the rights of the workers must cease. No social dialogue! No participation in it, which leads to submission, compromise and surrendering whatever labour rights have remained. It assists the anti-worker and anti-people measures. The Executive Committee of GSEE has no formal or real legitimization to participate in this dialogue.”

On the 28/8 a joint meeting of the secretariats of PAME, PASEVE, PASY, MAS and OGE in Thessalonica discussed the preparation of demonstration that will be held in Thessalonica on the 8/9. As was noted the three pillars of the PAME’s framework for the mobilization are:

Resistance to the new measures of the government, block them with activity of the mass movement.

Organization of the working class and other popular strata from below, strengthening of the social alliance as the only way out of the capitalist crisis in favour of the people, for the prospect of another development path.

Mass support for the proposal for the abolition of the memoranda and the loan agreements.

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-08-29-strike/

Pensioners storm Greek health ministry

Athens (dpa) - Hundreds of protesting pensioners in central Athens on Tuesday stormed the Greek Health Ministry during a rally to protest health care cuts, demanding a meeting with the minister.

Some 300 pensioners briefly scuffled with riot police as they pushed their way into the building, reaching the office of Health Minister Andreas Lykourentzos.

The minister refused to meet with the demonstrators.

The pensioners are protesting plans by the government to further reduce pensions and benefits and the ongoing action by pharmacists and doctors who are refusing to provide medicine and medical care on credit.

Pharmacists and doctors are refusing to accept credit from Greece‘s largest state-run health care provider, EOPYY, arguing that the government has allowed debts to accumulate, leaving them unpaid for months.

The demonstration ended peacefully a short while later. dpa cp mga Author: Christine Pirovolakis

http://en.europeonline-magazine.eu/pensioners-storm-greek-health-ministry_235716.html

From what I heard on NPR this event was organized by the KKE but no mention from a Greek source, huh.

Maybe there is already "retaliation". KKE has got a fight on their hands.


Statement of the Press Office of the CC of the KKE on the attempted arson of the Educational centre/Library-archive “Charilaos Florakis”

We denounce to the people that last night in Halandri there was an attempted arson of the Educational centre/Library-archive “Charilaos Florakis”, which is located in the house donated to the KKE by the former honorary president of the party Ch. Florakis.

An incendiary device thrown by the perpetrators onto the balcony of the two-storey building, obviously targeting the area where the library and a large section of the KKE’s archive are held, was used in the attempted arson. It ignited quickly, but the building did not go up in flames due to the intervention of neighbours who hurried immediately to extinguish the fire and informed the fire department, our party, as well as the police.

We should bear in mind that the KKE has denounced similar acts in the past.

This terrorist act is only one aspect of the activity of the para-state which the people have come to know through its attacks on demonstrators. This anti-people and anti-communist provocateur activity is encouraged by the more general anti-communist atmosphere which is being created and aims at the subjugation of the workers so the policies which are at their expense can be passed.

Anti-communism will not succeed. Whoever believes that with terrorism they will suppress the activity of the KKE is very mistaken. The government must take on its responsibilities. The thuggish arsonists must be uncovered.

Maybe there is already "retaliation". KKE has got a fight on their hands.
what is the correc t way to deal with fascist worms when the balance of forces is against you but history is on your side? keep your powder dry?

what is the correc t way to deal with fascist worms when the balance of forces is against you but history is on your side? keep your powder dry?

Personally, I like it when fascist worms have "accidents". You know, accidentally falling off a cliff, or accidentally getting hit in the head with a pipe on a deserted street at night, you know accidents like that. But I am not in the group that is making policy and planning actions for a living, viable working class party. A party that is growing strength in an incredibly hostile, violent environment. There is a huge weight on the shoulders of the CC of KKE, the Party has to walk a very narrow line, with none but enemies on every hand. The fascists are working for the government, a government that is working for the rich, the rich who have their moves dictated by the Troika. A party or group cannot be ready to act until they are ready to act. Of all the players in this thing, the ones I trust are the KKE...

Greece calls general strike on Sept 26

Greece's largest trade unions said today that they have called a general strike for September 26 in response to continuing efforts by the government to impose a new austerity package.

The date of the 24-hour strike was just decided today, a General Confederation of Greek Labour spokeswoman said, adding that the strike would be joined by a civil servants' union.

So-called Troika lenders - the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - are demanding that Greece's conservative-led government slashes a further €11.5 billion (£7bn) in budget costs over the next two years, resulting in a new round of wage and pension cuts.

The country's three-month-old coalition government had previously pledged to avoid these cuts.

"One thing that has not been made sufficiently clear is that labour costs in Greece are already very low," said government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou.

The leaders of the three governing coalition political parties are at odds over the proposed changes, with two minority parties insisting that that they will not accept any public-sector firings or further cuts to the minimum wage.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is fighting on two fronts. As well as getting the support of his coalition partners, he has to get the approval of EU debt inspectors. So far, Mr Samaras hasn't managed to get either.

He met the heads of the Pasok and Democratic Left parties on Wednesday evening but agreement eluded them.

"Our European partners must realise that certain measures cannot be taken in a society that's falling apart," Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis said.

"Under no circumstances can our already degraded labour rights be dismantled further."

Widespread strikes had continued on Wednesday as the governing coalition remained deadlocked.

Hospital doctors, schoolteachers and local authority employees walked out in protest at salary and funding cuts.

The three unions held a march in Athens carrying banners reading: "We will not pay for the crisis, we did not create it."

Among the marchers were several mayors, including the capital's Giorgos Kaminis.

Later, about 1,500 military officers marched to oppose a new round of salary cuts and disabled protesters angry at likely benefit cuts were out in force.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/content/view/full/123873

Big day today, 200,000 in the streets of Athens today, the cops say 25,000, typical. Seems like PAME and KKE were quite prominent. Something need be done about the black clad provocateurs and it will probably need be extrajudicial.

Strike on 26th September: Major participation in the strike-significant response to the anti-labour barbaric measures

http://www2.rizospastis.gr/getImage.do?size=medium&id=376754&format=.jpg

A truly massive and major strike was held in Greece on Wednesday 26th September. Thousands of workers overcame the intimidation and the threats of the employers, the difficulties that the barbaric measures have created for the lives of the workers’ and popular families, as well as the illusions and went on strike. Tens of thousands of workers participated in the demonstrations of PAME which were held in 70 cities throughout the country.

In Athens and Thessalonica the demonstrations of PAME were impressive due to their remarkable militancy and the enormous participation of the people, something that even the sworn enemies of PAME cannot deny. It took many hours for the march to pass through Syntagma Square. Tens of thousands of workers, unemployed, pensioners, immigrants, self-employed and small traders took part in the strike demonstrations of PAME throughout the country. The high-level of the participation of the youth was also characteristic.

The impressive demonstration of PAME in Athens was the result of the work of the trade unions, the struggle committees in various workplaces, of the people’s committees which in the previous period organized assemblies, meetings and discussions in the sectors, in several factories, in workplaces and neighbourhoods. This is a fact that shows the strengthening of the class-oriented current in the labour movement; it points to the path we should follow.

Before the demonstration, the pickets of PAME in many workplaces defeated the intimidation in workplaces-ghettoes and contributed decisively to the strike. The slogans which prevailed were: “no more sacrifices for the plutocracy- we can live without memoranda and outside of the EU”. This strike is a significant response given that in this period the coalition government of ND/PASOK/Democratic Left together with the Troika is finalizing the new massacre of the people in the name of the previous allegedly life-saving haircut.

At the same time, the EU and the IMF are quarrelling over who will benefit from the possible new hair-cut while they are unanimous regarding the breaking of the people. With the new package of measures, which aims at ensuring the capitalist recovery and their profitability in the future, the capitalists and the EU are demanding the complete abolition of the collective bargaining agreements. They demand that the wages and the salaries be decided upon unilaterally by the employers and the government. The abolition of the minimum wage and salary concerns the working people in the private and the public sector as a whole as it leads to a wholesale reduction of salaries and pensions.

The 33% increase of the number of social security stamps which are required for retirement means that retirement age will not be merely the age of 67, as they officially claim, but much higher i.e. 72 years so as to conform with the average life expectancy, as is provided for by the Treaty of Maastricht. Those who own a house or a shop will be taxed without mercy. Furthermore, they promote dramatic cuts in benefits and healthcare spending by means of closing down or merging hospitals. They impose new heavy taxes along with the old ones, they cut the electricity to those who cannot pay the bill, they impose fines, cut salaries, pensions, allowances and increase the prices of all goods.

“We have never said that we will turn things upside down with a single strike. The effective struggles require above all the conflict with the capitalist employers in the basic sectors. This is what they are afraid of” said amongst other things Giorgos Perros, member of the Executive Secretariat of PAME in his speech at the strike demonstration of PAME.

“Effective struggles mean conflict and rupture with the EU. They do not want this because it does not serve the interests of the monopolies. When these gentlemen are claiming that the memoranda are an ineffective policy they are being hypocritical and lying. Effective struggles mean condemning the racist-Nazi views of “Golden Dawn”.

Alongside the well-known trade union bureaucrats we now have a new generation of bureaucrats who come from the same breeding ground of compromise and retreat in the face of the big interests, but they wear a new mask and have new customs. We are talking about the trade unionists of “Independent Intervention” which belongs to SYRIZA. After they now belatedly saw the bankruptcy of the majority of GSEE and ADEDY they are raising the flag of struggles. Struggles without any cost. Struggles without sacrifices. They consider strikes as simply being one more day’s wage lost and claim that we have to find new forms of struggle outside of the factories, the services, the workplaces.”

A large delegation of the CC of the KKE headed by the GS of the CC of the KKE, Aleka Papariga, took part in PAME’s demonstration. The GS of the CC made the following statement:

“What is needed is a new beginning in the rallying of forces, heightened forms of struggle and radical demands for the struggles to be effective. The people must believe that a Greece which is disengaged from the EU, a Greece where the people are in charge can ensure social prosperity and prevent the worst. If the people do not believe this, then the parties of power will have the upper hand, as well as the plutocrats and the various managers of the system who shamelessly mock them.”

The limited incidents, which the media, especially the international media, exaggerated, were aimed at concealing the size and the demands of the strike mobilizations. The KKE made the following comment:

“The enormous mobilization of the police in order to deal with a few dozen hooded ones, the arrests even of school students a long distance away from the centre of Athens from early in the morning onwards, the chase and the game of “hit and run” up to Omonia square, demonstrates the desire of the government and the various mechanisms to intimidate the people. It also proves that they have prepared a plan for the repression of the people’s movement even though it was not fully implemented today at the general strike and the enormous demonstrations of PAME all over Greece”.

The next steps are being prepared from the day after the strike, in militant readiness for new mobilizations in all sectors, workplaces so as to prevent the measures that lead to the destitution of the people. The people must fearlessly strengthen their struggles even more; they must not accept the contemporary slavery.

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-09-27-apergia/

Introductory Speech of the GS of the CC of KKE A. Papariga to the European Communist Meeting, Brussels 1-2 October

Subject: The stance of the Communist Parties towards the capitalist crisis: Assimilation or Rupture

http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-10-01-ecm-omilia-kke

This is a very clear and realistic appraisal.