Greece and the KKE

The fightback
User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 03, 2022 2:42 pm

The KKE blocked a NATO convoy

On Tuesday 31/5/2022, members of the Thesprotia Sectoral Organization of the KKE proceeded with a symbolic blockade of a convoy of 17 NATO military vehicles from the UK returning from a NATO exercise in the Balkans, outside the port of Igoumenitsa.

The protesters demanded that the port of Igoumenitsa should not be used as a base of the imperialists, sending a message against our country’s involvement in the imperialist war.

Police forces attempted to intimidate the protesters; however, their efforts failed thanks to the determination and composure of the communists. After blocking the road for some time, the members of the KKE left in an organized manner.



Image

Image

01.06.2022

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-KK ... TO-convoy/

***************************

Image

Greek Police Shoot Student Protesting Their Installment on Campus, Demo & Clashes Follow
By Yegor Halva, Contributor May 31, 2022

Thessaloniki, Greece – Greek riot police shot a student protesting their installment on campus at point-blank range in the face with a projectile, breaking his jaw and rupturing his ear drum. After confrontations broke out across campus, traumatized students organized a massive demonstration through the center of the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki and clashed with police later in the night.


Greece’s far-right New Democracy government passed law 4777 [pdf] in 2021, allowing police back onto university campuses despite the historical ramifications of such a move in Greece. On November 17, 1973, a U.S.-backed military junta, or dictatorship, massacred at least 26 students during an occupation of the Greece’s largest college, Polytechnic University in Athens. The junta lost its power a week after slaughtering students and laws were enacted that prevented police on campuses, making universities an asylum for students.

Since the government crafted educational bill 4777, the student movement at Greece’s second largest school has been organizing against it. In March 2021, students from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki [AΠΘ / A.U.Th.], organized one of the biggest demonstrations ever held in Thessaloniki with over 10,000 people demanding no cops on campus.

Yet, the installation of the university police is now in its final stage in Thessaloniki. The scheduled move-in for the new “Unit for University Protection” is set for the beginning of June 2022.

Image

Meanwhile, the tension had been building as riot police have recently become permanently stationed on the campus under the pretext of building a library at the site of an anarchist squat that was evacuated some months ago.

During a student-led demonstration against the police on May 26, 2022, student Giannis Dousakis was shot with a flash-bang grenade at point-blank range in the face; breaking his jaw and rupturing an ear drum.


After the traumatic shooting of Dousakis, confrontations broke out across campus between students and the police who shot rubber bullets and used tear gas. In the evening, students organized a massive march through the city center in which over 5,000 people participated.

Image
Image

The march ended at nighttime on campus, where a few hundred people clashed with the police, attempting to chase them away from the university premises.

Image

The next day, May 27, 2022, more police were brought to the university along with a police water cannon. The students then held a press conference in front of the riot police denouncing the police and announcing their intention to not give up until the cops are off campus.

A student representative said:

“These universities they dream of, with cops with martial law in the A.U.Th., with the water cannons ten meters from the entrances of our schools will not become reality and we will not allow it to happen.

Our message is that we will not allow our universities to become prisons, to become places to torture students, because this is not a junta and those who want to make our universities a junta should go back to other times.

What we have to say is that the university police will remain on paper and we will step over them.”


Image

Dousakis has since had a successful surgery and has been released from the hospital with metal irons in his teeth for 6-8 weeks. In an interview after his release, Dousakis called for unity amongst students to protest against the university police and said he was afraid he would “die” from being shot with the projectile at such close range, calling it an “attempted murder.”

Demonstrations and protests are planned for the upcoming week in Thessaloniki and throughout Greece. For more on the education bill and the recent rise of the student movement, see ‘Greece: New Education Bill Brings a New Students Movement.’

https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/greek-po ... es-follow/

Image

Athens Police Acquitted in Death of Queer Activist Zak Kostopoulos/Zackie Oh
By Yegor Halva, Contributor May 28, 2022

Athens, Greece – After seven months and 18 hearings, the trial for the public murder of 33-year-old Zak (Zacharias) Kostopoulos in the center of Athens, was completed in early May 2022. On September 21, 2018, Kostopoulos was killed from an altercation with two shopkeepers, nine police officers, two paramedics and dozens of apathetic passers-by.

Zak Kostopoulos, or Zackie Oh, as his drag queen persona was called, was a well-known activist of the LGBTQI+ community in Athens and an advocate against the stigmatization of HIV patients. Many call his murder a lynching with a clear homophobic motive.


An Athens Mixed Jury Court found shopkeepers Spyridon Dimopoulos and Athanasios Chortarias guilty by a majority of 5 to 2 for the offence of causing fatal bodily harm, while acquitting four police officers given the same charges by a close majority of 4 to 3.

Dimopoulos and Chortarias were sentenced to 10 years in prison. Prosecutor Sotiris Bougioukos proposed the rejection of all mitigating circumstances for the two guilty, a proposal that was unanimously accepted by the court. For the final sentence the prosecutor proposed 8 years imprisonment for each of them. The court unanimously decided on 10 years imprisonment for each of the two guilty parties, with no suspensive effect on their appeal.

Image

The Chronicle of the Murder
September 21, 2018

“Savage beating of a would-be robber,” “Drug addict robber self-injured by broken windows as he tried to escape,” “Drug user, 33-year-old perpetrator.” “Dead man who attempted to rob a jewelry store in central Athens.” These were the titles of hundreds of articles and a series of videos, some of the most shocking and cruel Greece has ever seen, that were circulated on the Greek internet that day.

The videos show a young man trapped inside a jewelry shop and two others, the owner of the shop and the real estate agent next door, throwing objects/rocks towards him from outside.

When he tries to escape, crawling through the front window, they kick him furiously in the head until some people restrain them. Many passers-by looked on but did nothing.

In the videos, we see nine police officers making a violent arrest, beating him and tying his hands with zip-ties while the man lays on the sidewalk seeming to be unconscious. Paramedics rushed to the scene but did not remove the zip-ties.


The 33-year-old Zacharias Kostopoulos eventually succumbed to his injuries while in the ambulance on his way to the hospital with his hands still tied. The first reports spoke of an ischemic episode, the restriction of blood flow and reduction of oxygen, as a cause of death.

Despite the testimonies and investigations it is still unclear after all this time how Zak ended up in the jewelry store. Before that, he was seen at a corner bakery a few yards away, where four people are seen on a CCTV camera blocking his entrance. One of them walks into the bakery and buys him a bottle of water. Kostopoulos stays at the spot for about half a minute and then heads left towards the jewelry shop.

Several eyewitnesses at this point confirm that he appeared to be calling for help and trying to protect himself.

Image

The Narrative of the “Thieving Junkie”

Spyridon Dimopoulos, the jewelry shop owner, was quick to make statements saying he had taken legitimate defensive measures to prevent an armed man on a drugged rampage from robbing his store. These statements were reproduced verbatim by the media, while police statements were shared in the same vein.

Finally, after multiple videos were made public, both the jeweler and the broker are arrested. Their apologies are identical to the initial statements: ‘I saw him looking for money,’ ‘he was holding a knife in the shop,’ ‘Zak broke the window,’ ‘I just tried to restrain him.’ From what emerged from the eyewitness testimonies and the videos that have been released, is that all of their allegations were false.

It was Dimopoulos and the real estate agent, who broke the glass window that Zak was trying to pull on to get out. It was Dimopoulos that kicked Kostopoulos in the head as he was crawling over broken pieces of glass. The results of fingerprint testing, which was done on the cash register, the counter, the door and the knife, showed that Kostopoulos’ fingerprints were only on the outside of the glass door of the store and on no other part or object. Therefore, the robbery narrative began to fall apart.

What was left was the narrative that Zak was under the influence of drugs. From the toxicology tests that were conducted, no drugs were detected in Kostopoulos’ system.

The test is positive only for organic drugs, where reportedly a substance contained in common analgesic drugs was detected, along with a very small amount of alcohol.

Image

The Autopsy

The forensic conclusion states that multiple blows, especially those to the head, are linked to the severe traumatic shock of the victim and ultimately the ischemic-type myocardial lesions. The death would not have occurred if the victim had not been injured with great severity. In addition to the toxicological tests, the histological examinations of Kostopoulos were completed.

The macroscopic and microscopic investigation showed, among other things: intense congestion of the vessels of the brain and the leptomeninges with focal red blood cells, intense edema and congestion of the lungs with the presence of activated macrophage cells that phagocytose hemosiderin, ischemic-type lesions of the myocardium.

Simply put: he was beaten to death.

“The Policemen Did a Perfect Job”

“The policemen did a perfect job,” were the exact words of a police unionist on a news panel only days after the murder of Kostopoulos, while the narrative that he was armed with a knife was not dismantled yet. The police played a role in Kostopoulos’ death from the beginning. Videos of police violently arresting his lifeless body and beating him circulated very quickly.

With past practice in similar cases, police have deflected responsibility of wrongdoing and in Zackie Oh’s case, they were suspected of the same. Yet, four of the nine police officers who operated at the scene were found accused in December 2018, several months later.

From the immediate days after the murder, the lawyers for Kostopoulos’ family indicated that an attempted ‘cover-up’ was happening. They complained about the investigators’ reluctance to collect evidence and the delay in submitting it to the investigating judge. A week after the murder, there was neither a fingerprint examination report nor CCTV footage of the jewelry store and surrounding shops, even after a second request by the investigator to the police; under such circumstances, the case file was being formed during the investigative process.

Despite many people that can be seen in the videos that were on the scene taking videos of their own, police did not seek out all the witnesses to testify. At the same time, they did not bring in camera footage from nearby stores, which would have included the fatal beating incident itself and what preceded it.

Reluctance to cooperate with the authorities was also prevalent with regard to the recordings of transmissions from the respective operation centers of the Greek Police and the ambulance center. While these records had already been requested in the first days after the murder, in September 2018, there had been no response from the relevant police services until four and a half months later.

Data of the transmissions, together with others, which the National Police didn’t collect, could clarify the real questions surrounding the events.

Many Greeks depended on independent media outlets like OmniaTV and EFSYN for information on the case as mistrust in the police and mainstream media grew. Greece ranks last in the European Union for press freedoms, falling 38 spots since 2021 in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders.

OmniaTV, Grassroots Independent Media in Greece

A crucial role was played by the reporting research agency Forensic Architecture. Their investigative team uncovered a key witness, “the man in the yellow t-shirt.” Nearby cameras picked up the yellow t’eed man who was found to have been present from the beginning of the incident when Kostopoulos originally sought help at the bakery, until the end when he’s seen standing next to the police officers at the time they arrested the lifeless Kostopoulos.

From the very beginning it was clear to the defendants and the people in solidarity that the forensic work was sloppy, if not non-existent. The crime scene was not evacuated or cordoned off. In numerous images, such as the one in which the jeweler is shown sweeping, we see that there is plenty of material in the store (glass, bloodstains, fire extinguisher, items in the window) capable of keeping forensics busy for days.

Image

A few hours after Kostopoulos’ death, cleanup occurred with no one attending the crime scene. According to an eyewitness coming around 4 p.m. the windows to the shop were rolled up and the store shutters were down. However, although forensics investigators appears to have collected fingerprints, there is no search report on the premises in the case file.

In December 2018, four of the nine police officers involved at the scene of Zackie Oh’s death were charged with fatal bodily harm.

The Police and Media Interlocking, the Common Laundry

The police deliberately profiled Zak as a drug addict, thereby justifying the murder and escaping responsibility while activating the general societal ignorance and stereotypes surrounding drug-dependent people. This was achieved by what’s becoming a standard tactic in Greece, selective leaks to the press. A major issue arose from this, violating the principle of a fair trial, part of which is the inquiry stage.

Just two weeks after Kostopoulos was killed, a well-known police editor, reported that anonymous sources inside the police department said that Zackie Oh “had allegedly engaged in extensive drug use” in the days before his death … and his condition deteriorated on the fatal day.”

The report speculates that Kostopoulos was in such a drugged-up state of paralysis that he entered the jewelry store daring to steal while “having a minimal awareness of his actions.” Continuing the postulation, the police sources reportedly said “it has happened in dozens of other cases of robberies that the perpetrator due to the use of certain substances has no suspensions and acts without imputation.”

As of now, no consequences have come to the officers involved in Kostopoulos’ death. Yet, after several adjournments achieved by the lawyers of the police officers, the conclusion of an internal examination recommended the suspension of the four officers from the force, the maximum punishment that this disciplinary body can impose. However, no official move has been made in this direction.

Apart from the two citizens accused and the policemen who were complicit in the killing, the responsibilities of the paramedics, who committed many inconsistencies in their statements, have not been systematically investigated.

The most crucial question of all is whether giving Kostopoulos a Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), that was not and could not have been done properly with the victim’s hands tied behind his back, would have been life-saving.


The Trial

From the beginning of the investigative process and the formation of the case file, the prosecution fought to change the charge against the two citizens from fatal bodily injury to manslaughter with possible malice aforethought. The pleas by the lawyers for the Kostopoulos family were rejected by the Prosecutor’s Council. The prosecution’s proposal was accepted and the six defendants were indicted on the charge of fatal bodily injury.

Nearly three years after Kostopoulos was killed, in July 2021, the Athens Plenary Prosecutor announced the dismissal of the Kostopoulos family’s manslaughter charge proposal against all the police officers involved in his fatal beating as well as against the medical personnel for the offense of fatal exposure.

On October 20, 2021, the trial began.

The defense centered around incriminating the victim, slandering witnesses, distorting testimonies and disrespecting Kostopoulos’ family. ‘I smacked him two or three times, maybe I got a little carried away,’ said the jeweler, without ever straying from the narrative that Kostopoulos had come to his jewelry shop to rob.

Several eyewitnesses underlined the murderous rage of the two defendants, while one reported that after the violent arrest, which turned out to be fatal, a police officer referred to Zackie Oh as a “faggot.” Yet, the homophobic motive had not been investigated at any stage of the proceedings, although it had been requested by a prosecutor.

During the police officers’ apologies, they insisted that they acted on the basis of the principle of proportionality since they believed Kostopoulos was dangerous.

After 17 hearings, the prosecution’s proposal was reached. The prosecutor Sotiris Bougioukos managed to reconcile two incompatible and mutually exclusive logical assumptions in his summing up at the Athens Mixed Jury Court: that the two perpetrators of the murder of Zak Kostopoulos, the jeweler and the real estate agent, acted with intent, knowing that they would kill, but at the same time they killed out of negligence and recklessness.

The prosecutor then recommended their acquittal even while acknowledging that the officers’ blows during the arrest played a role in Kostopoulos’ death.

This suggestion was followed by the bench in the 18th and final hearing, convicting the jeweler and the real estate agent and acquitting the police officers.

From the very beginning, Zak’s case had not only a legal but also a social side, which intertwined with each other. Kostopoulos’ murder formed a movement that spread throughout Greece and through which a colorful, diverse and combative LGBTQI+ community emerged that established a visibility that was unprecedented for the Greek reality.

This movement asserted its pride and denounced discrimination based on gender and sexuality, those structural social and institutional discriminations that many believe were responsible for Zackie Oh’s death. This movement often joined the anti-fascist/anti-racist and feminist movements and consistently took to the streets reclaiming public space and discourse. Without it, this judicial outcome may have never been reached. Without it, Zak’s case may have ended up in a dusty drawer somewhere. Thus, the movement that arose with his death can look at this conclusion as no reason for defeatism and pessimism.

https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/athens-p ... zackie-oh/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:57 pm

CP of Greece, On the unacceptable stance of the RCWP towards KKE
6/3/22 3:07 PM

On the unacceptable stance of the RCWP towards KKE



To the CC of the RCWP

Athens 03/06/2022



Comrades,

We received your reply to the CC of the KKE of 6 May 2022 and we also read the article which was published in SOLIDNET.

First of all, we are saddened with the style and the unacceptable accusations addressed to our party in both texts, which are absolutely baseless and unacceptable. The leadership of the RCWP is well aware of the fact that the KKE has supported your party as well many CPs, that it has essentially assisted them in difficult moments, and that it has expressed its solidarity in practice, faithful to the principle of proletarian internationalism. These facts refute the slander of arrogance on our party which are used in order to justify the mistaken positions of the leadership of the RCWP, positions that are far away from our principles.

As regards the essence of the dispute, you rightly notice that the reasons are deeper. Moreover, the fact that the RCWP is dragged by the plans of the Russian bourgeoisie, reproducing many of the arguments of political forces which it used to denounce as opportunist, forces that seek to utilize the articles of the RCWP against the KKE, must be attributed to a deeper disagreement. As a result of this deep disagreement, the RCWP has been politically embraced by provocative and fascist forces of “national-Bolsheviks”. This disagreement may have manifested itself in 2014, with the adoption of the bourgeois concept of “exported fascism”; however, it originates from the weakness of the RCWP to understand the Leninist theory on imperialism, i.e. the operation of the modern capitalist world, as well as from its weakness to draw conclusions from mistaken notions which marked the Communist International and the international communist movement for years, e.g. the strategy of “Popular Fronts” with social democratic and other bourgeois forces.

We will not refer to these issues in detail, as we have already mentioned the essence of the imperialist war that takes place in Ukraine between the forces of Euro-Atlantic imperialism and capitalist Russia, a war which has nothing to do with the interests of the peoples, nor, of course with that of the people of Donbas. We will neither dwell on your position on the so-called “popular character” of the bourgeois regimes in Donbas or on the anti-communists, whom you consider to be fighting fascism, or on the danger you see for the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation but not of Ukraine. After all, an ideological struggle is being waged in the international communist movement on these issues, and each CP is judged by its stance.

In our reply we would like to focus on other issues which are related to the bilateral and multilateral relations, issues included in your letter as well.

In your letter you mentioned that it was not proper for the 4 CPs (KKE, CP of the Workers of Spain,CP of Mexico, and CP Turkey) to take the initiative to issue a joint statement without consulting the communists in Donbas, Russia, and Ukraine. This position underestimates the importance of this initiative, which was embraced by 42 Communist Parties and 30 Youth Organizations, ignores the actual dimensions of the conflict that takes place in the Ukraine, and entangles the peoples of dozens of countries who are already faced with the multifaceted consequences of the imperialist war, while Donbas is merely a flashpoint that can give rise to a more generalized imperialist war. Procedural issues, which might have caused a delay or the cancellation of the initiative of the 4 CPS, cannot conceal the effort of the RCWP to justify the role of the Russian bourgeois class and the bourgeois state.
You claim that the attitude of the KKE was not comradely as we sent our letter on 28/4 and the next day we published the article of the International Relations Section of the KKE, without waiting for your answer. However, the RCWP was the one who started the attacks, publicly criticizing the positions of KKE with successive reports in early April, without consulting us, something that forces exonerating anti-communist Putin and the Russian capitalism in Greece sought to exploit in their inter-imperialist conflict with the US and NATO imperialists. For this reason, in the letter we sent you, we noted that we do not waive the right to respond to the attacks of the RCWP.
You note that you informed us about the exploitation of title of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Union (Bolsheviks) - RKSM (b), from a group that left the RCWP and that we incorrectly included it in the 30 Communist Youth Organizations, which together with the 42 CPs, supported the Joint Statement on the imperialist war. However, the RKSM (b) in communication with the KNE and other youth organizations, presents the developments differently, supports the Joint Statement of the CPs and claims that actually a group has left the RKSM (b) and supports the positions of the RCWP.
In any case, we inform you that according to the Statutes of the KNE and the KKE, KNE is a political organization of the KKE, based on the Programme and Resolutions of its congresses, and at the same time it maintains its organizational independence. The same is true for the international relations it develops with other communist and anti-imperialist youth organizations around the world.

You are wrongly mentioning that the KKE intervenes in the internal affairs of the RCWP because in the article by the IRS of the CC of the KKE, there is a reference to the internal struggle within the RCWP. However, the article by the IRS of the CC of the KKE doesn’t make any mention of a secret or safeguarded issue, but of strife that took on publicity, in the media, on the websites, and was also reflected in the official statements of your Party.
You are mentioning the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP), the International Communist Review (ICR), and the European Communist Initiative (ECI) as “concrete steps for the establishment of a communist pole in the international communist movement”. While you recognize in theory that these forms of inter-party cooperation are steps towards the establishment of a communist pole in the international communist movement and not the pole itself, in the following lines, you are accusing the KKE that “it didn’t ensure the basic joint coordinated actions among the parties of the communist pole”, and, in fact, that the KKE did that deliberately to maintain the formal unity of the IMCWP, conspiring with the right-wing opportunist forces of the European left.
This position reflects the great confusion within the RCWP regarding the forms of multilateral cooperation among the CPs. The fact that a number of parties agreed on specific founding documents of the ICR or the ECI and decided to work together based on these documents doesn’t mean that a communist Marxist-Leninist pole was ipso facto formed. Rather, specific steps were made towards this direction in the midst of different ideological and political positions on a number of issues. Much more political, ideological, and organizational steps are needed and will be taken in this direction. Something that, as we read, you mistakenly interpret as an attempt by the KKE “to turn the ICR and the ECI into support bodies of its line”. We are saddened by such an assessment that undermines the significant collective efforts of many parties participating in the ICR and the ECI within the framework of the necessary ideological and political regroupment of the ICM in a revolutionary direction, which, as it seems, cannot be followed by the RCWP.

Lastly, regarding the accusations made that the KKE does everything in its power to preserve the unity of the IMCWP, we should note that ideological-political and organizational unity among all the forces participating in the IMCWP, such as the forces of Eurocommunism —to which you deliberately refer in your article—, cannot exist, due to the diametrically opposed positions on strategically important issues. However, we seek to maintain the IMCWP as a space for the exchange of views and ideological struggle with parties that consider themselves Communist and Workers’ Parties resulting in some joint or converging anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions by also safeguarding any of their communist characteristics.

Our Party will continue to work in the above directions both within the IMCWP and within the ICR and ECI, which are forms of multilateral cooperation among CPs and were all started on the initiative of the KKE. Of course, our party will also undertake new initiatives based on the directions set by our 21st Congress and the developments marked by the imperialist war, the need for a revolutionary regroupment of the international communist and workers' movement on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, the struggle against capitalist barbarity, the timeliness of its overthrow and the construction of a new socialist-communist society.

International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Greec ... wards-KKE/

JFC, this is turning into a pissing contest. There's a lot of nit-picking but some very substantive issues involved too. To be sure, RCWP has to all appearances been too cozy with the Putin government, acting more like social democrats. However, recent statements by the party give some reassurance that they still got some spunk left in them. Besides the righteousness of the Donbass cause the issue of domestic politics is also in play, Russians across the board support Donbass and to leave them to the tender mercies of the Nazis would be political suicide. This goes for Putin too.

KKE has taken a left turn with it's simplistic interpretation of "Imperialism'. There is no nuance, words like 'substantive' and 'relevant' seem ignored. And concerning China, their purposeful ignoring of the historical context: the fall of the USSR, China's weakness at that time and the utter necessity of maintaining sovereignty in order to accomplish anything is downright embarrassing. I do suspect their relation with China is colored by the presence of Chinese capital in Greece, especially the takeover of shipping terminals. The Chinese capitalists are gonna be capitalists, especially out of the close scrutiny of the Party. One can little doubt that the Chinese Communist Party is aware of this, but capitalists must be allowed to function to some degree, the Belt and Road is super important. If I were Greek I might harbor some resentment at being collateral damage in the fight against Western Imperialism.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Sat Nov 12, 2022 2:36 pm

The workers’ impressive participation sends a message of uprising in every workplace

“Today’s strike is a message of escalation of the struggle. It is a message of uprising in every workplace, sector, and region. Now it is necessary for the working people to become the protagonists, to come to the forefront for life and work with rights”, stressed the All Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) in its message concerning the general nationwide strike, which took place in Greece on 9 November 2022.

In all cities around Greece, tens of thousands of workers in the public and private sector, self-employed and small tradesmen, university and school students, women, and pensioners participated in the mass strike rallies organized by the class-oriented trade unions.

From early morning, strike picket lines were organized outside workplaces of many industrial sectors to ensure that the strike was safeguarded.

The demonstrators demanded substantial increases in wages and pensions, collective labour agreements guaranteeing permanent work with rights, as well as affordable prices in electricity and basic goods for the people, with the abolition of the burdensome anti-people’s taxes.

The class-oriented trade unions, which are rallied in PAME, called for organization and struggle for the overthrow of the anti-people’s policy that gives rise to poverty, hunger, exploitation, and wars; that makes the people freeze to serve the profits of business groups.

School and university students also had a strong presence in the mass strike rallies. A resolution of student associations was adopted in solidarity with a young university student–conscript who was punished for denouncing the war and Greece’s involvement in it. The resolution salutes the attitude of this young man and notes that “every day the majority of the people expresses its opposition to the war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine in a multifaceted way and demands that Greece’s participation in the criminal plans of NATO, the USA, and the EU be stopped”.




D. KOUTSOUMBAS: The mass nationwide strike sends a message that the Greek people will not show tolerance to the anti-people’s policy

The mass nationwide general strike was attended by the General Secretary of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, who stressed that “Today’s mass nationwide strike sends a message across Greece and Europe that the Greek people and their movement will not become accomplices and show tolerance to the anti-people’s policy of the ruling and other parties of the big capital, to energy poverty and EU policies, to the decay of the capitalist system.”



Image

10.11.2022

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-wo ... workplace/

On the resolution - warmongering frenzy supported by ND, SYRIZA, and PASOK in the European Parliament

Image

At a time when the imperialist war in Ukraine is dangerously escalating, the European Parliament adopted a resolution (07/10/2022) that literally constitutes a warmongering frenzy. Among other things, it ratifies and endorses the decision of the EU and member states to "increase military aid to Ukraine", calls for the establishment of "a mechanism for military aid through leasing and lending to Ukraine", and calls for coordination between governments even in regard to arms deliveries to Ukraine.

All the political groups that voted for it provocatively claim that all this must be expedited "in order to help shorten the war". They attempt to overlook the obvious, i.e. that this is precisely what is sharpening the military confrontation, considering the disastrous escalation brought about by Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian territories of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk.

The resolution, which was also adopted by the ND, SYRIZA, and PASOK MEPs, and the dangers it entails, underscore the responsibility of the ND government for involving the country in the US-NATO plans, sending military equipment to Ukraine, and utilizing US bases.

However, they also lay bare the pro-NATO "left" of SYRIZA, which was even praised for its vote in favour of the resolution by the ND MPs. In this way, the hypocritical character of Syriza's harnless references to "world peace" and the presence of SYRIZA cadres at anti-war concerts, the calls to "send humanitarian material, not weapons" etc. are highlighted. Besides, this is not the first time. SYRIZA and the other Euro-Atlantic parties have been irreparably exposed by supporting NATO resolutions, voting in favour of Sweden and Finland joining NATO in the Greek Parliament, and implementing the plan to establish US–NATO bases in Greece to the letter.

The MEPs of the KKE voted against the despicable resolution and highlighted that the escalation of the involvement in the imperialist war between NATO and Russia will be paid first and foremost with the blood and persecution of the people of Ukraine and Russia but also of the rest European countries due to the unbearable cost of skyrocketing prices, energy poverty, and the new round of military armaments.

It is vital and imperative that the Greek people, through their independent struggle, demand an immediate end to be put to the sending of materiel to Ukraine andthat Greece is disengaged from the war and the Euro-Atlantic plans, whichmultiply the dangers for themselves and their children. They need tofight together with the KKE, which from the very first moment, with a sense of responsibility and firmness, called upon them to refuse to choose one camp of thieves or another and to struggle so that they do not pay the price for the war and the new, impending crisis of the exploitative system; to play a leading role in the struggle, and to bring the workers'–people's needs to the forefront.

THE MEPs OF THE KKE

17.10.2022

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/On-the ... arliament/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Sat Nov 19, 2022 3:20 pm

49th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising of students in Athens

Image

The Athens University Students’ Organization of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) organized an event in the context of the militant commemoration of the students’ uprising in November '73 against the junta. The Secretary of the CC of KNE, N. Ambatielos, delivered a speech while the event was attended by the GS of the CC of the KKE, D. Koutsoumbas, and Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba, General Secretary of the Workers’ Confederation of Cuba (CTC) and Vice President of the WFTU, who gave a short address.

Similar events are taking place all over Greece and will culminate on 17 November with the great anti-imperialist march from the Polytechnic to the US Embassy.



In his speech, N. Ambatielos referred to the historical contribution of the KKE and KNE in the struggle against the dictatorship, stressing that “the people, with their struggles and sacrifices, proved that the power lies in the organization and the alliance of the youth with the labour movement". The Secretary of KNE demonstrated examples of today’s struggle of the workers and youth and called upon the youth to join the trade unions and other mass organizations, the student associations and participate in their mass processes, in order to strengthen the social alliance between the workers, the self-employed, and farmers, and form a mass, robust, popular movement that will pave the way for a way out for the benefit of the people.

At the same time, he noted that “the imperialist conflict between NATO and Russia in Europe, on the territory of Ukraine, is in progress, with a high risk of its expansion and escalation (...) For the past nine months, the people of Ukraine and Russia have been suffering for the interests of the few, i.e. their bourgeois classes and their imperialist alliances. From the very first moment, the KKE and KNE have been at the forefront of the struggle to stop the involvement of our country in the massacre; to close down the bases of NATO and the USA; to stop the utilization of the Greek territory, ports, seas, and air that fuels and continues this carnage; to avert the transformation of Greek universities and science into a tool for the production of ‘smart’ weapons and crude NATO propaganda.”

“The KKE is the only party that has no involvement with capital, business groups, and imperialist unions; that struggles for the people to rise up, and unwaveringly supports the workers’–people’s struggles. (…) The people’s struggle that targets the real opponent, that is, the dictatorship of capital, can deepen those cracks even further and pave the way for a radical revolutionary overthrow!” stressed N. Ambatielos.

Image

[youtube]http://youtu.be/LsV3tQF9szg[/youytube]

17.11.2022

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/49th-a ... in-Athens/

Thousands of people demonstrated outside the US embassy

Image

The KKE and KNE commemorated the 49th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising of students and workers in Athens against the fascist junta, which was supported by the USA and NATO. The mass and militant march ended at the US embassy, with slogans that conveyed to the people the call to write a new page in history, to take the baton of struggle for the timely and unfulfilled demands for “Bread–Education–Freedom”.

On 17/11/22, people of all ages, thousands of workers and young people, parents with young children, and workers that fought great battles at their workplace and are preparing for the next ones, participated in the contingents of the sectoral and area-based organizations of the KKE and KNE. They formed a vast red sea that sent the strong and clear message that the character of the Polytechnic uprising is relevant 49 years later; it is to be found in the people’s struggle for their rights, against imperialist plans and wars, for the overthrow of the system of poverty and exploitation.



The banner of the Party Organization of Attica, which was at the head of the march, read “On the path of the unyielding struggle, with the people at the forefront. That is how our just cause is won! That is how history is written!”, setting the tone for the demonstration. “The people do not forget, they honour the militants” was the slogan shouted by the KKE and KNE members to honour the militants of the Polytechnic uprising and the struggle against the dictatorship, continuing the ideological–political struggle against the dictatorship of capital, against the system that brings the people face to face with energy poverty, the harsh reality of deteriorating living conditions, and the inhuman face of imperialist war.

“Profits for the few, poverty for the many, that is the power of the capitalists”, the demonstrators denounced. In the face of today’s barbarity, they sent a message of militant optimism that “Our future is not capitalism, it is the new world, socialism”.

At a time when the war continues raging on the territory of Ukraine and the competition of the imperialists may lead to an escalation and generalization of the military conflict, the demonstration focused on the demand for Greece’s disengagement from imperialist plans. “NATO, the USA, and their bases out of Greece”, “No land, no water for the murderers of the peoples”, “NATO and Russia are redividing the world, they draw the borders with the peoples’ blood”, “NATO out of Greece, the bases must be closed down, no involvement in military interventions”, “In Greece and Turkey the enemy is the same; NATO, the governments, capitalism”, were some of the slogans read on the banners and shouted by the KKE and KNE organizations.



Thousands of protesters chanted the slogan “Conscripts are the people’s children, they must not be sent outside the borders”, which was also written in the banner of the young conscripts, who demonstrated despite the ban imposed on them, receiving warm applause for their stance.

“We honour November following the path of struggle for studies and life with contemporary rights”. This slogan written on the banner of the Athens University Student Associations demonstrated that the timely messages of the uprising find expression in the students’ demands, that the lessons drawn from the struggles of the past illuminate the path for the struggles of today.

The demonstration was also attended by trade unions and the Greek Committee for International Detente and Peace (EEDYE). Dozens of anti-imperialist demonstrations took place throughout the country, while in Thessaloniki the demonstration marched outside the US consulate.



The messages of Polytechnic uprising are still relevant and timely

The march was attended by a large delegation of the CC of the KKE, led by its General Secretary, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, who made the following statement: “The commemoration events and marches that take place 49 years later show that the messages of the Polytechnic uprising, such as ‘The USA, NATO, and the bases of death out of Greece’, the messages for the protection of the people's income, against poverty and unemployment, for public and free education and health care, against state repression, fascism, phone tapping and monitoring, i.e. the dictatorship of capital, are still relevant and timely to this day.”



Image

49 years since the Polytechnic Uprising

18.11.2022

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Thousa ... S-embassy/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Thu Mar 02, 2023 3:19 pm

CP of Greece, THE KKE ON THE FATAL TRAIN CRASH
3/2/23 3:15 PM

THE KKE ON THE FATAL TRAIN CRASH

Image

The Press Office of the CC of the KKEissued a statement on the fatal traincrash in Tempe, which reads as follows:

“The KKE expresses its sorrow for the unprecedented fatal train accident in Tempe and its sincere condolences to the families of the victims. It calls upon its members and friends to participate in the blood donations held in the towns where the injured are being hospitalized.

We demand that there be a full investigation into the causes of this tragedy, that nothing be covered up!

In any case, the tragedy in Tempe was not something that came as a bolt from the blue.

There have long been indications that a very dangerous situation has developed in rail transport, both for passengers and for workers. There were numerous warnings from workers that it was only a matter of time before a serious accident occurred, which were apparently ignored by the government and the company.

This is confirmed by the complaints about the poorly maintained network, about shortcomings and gaps in safety systems, staffing and critical infrastructure such as signage. These are precisely the issues raised just a few days ago by the statement madeby the trade union grouping of railway workerssupported by the KKE, with the shocking prediction that ‘we will not wait for the accident to come to see them shedding crocodile tears while making ex post observations’.

Therefore, this is not “bad luck”, but a crime that was bound to happen, having causes and culprits.

The company bears enormousresponsibility. In its statements, it provided no answer as regards the details and causes of the accident, or even the exact number of passengers on the train. However, it receives €50 million a year from the state as a subsidy.

All of the above are the result of the policy pursued over time of so-called railway liberalization, state underfunding, the fragmentation of the railway systeminto many parts and the privatization of the former TRAINOSE. This is a criminal —as is demonstrated— policy that bears the stamp of all the New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK governments to date. In the framework of this policy, workers have been made redundant, flexible working conditions and intensification have been imposed on those who remain, while the Italian company has been heavily subsidized.

These responsibilities cannot be absolved by the resignation of a minister, nor can they be hidden behind the Prime Minister’s statements about human errors.

This policy, which all the other parties loyally follow, has led to tragic accidents in other EU countries too. Therefore, no one has the right to pretend they did not know about the situation.

The necessary conditions for safe and modern rail transport are sacrificedon the altar of this criminal state policy and investor profits, since they are systematically treated as a cost.

The struggle against the above is literally a matter of life and death!”



Messages of condolences were sent to the KKE

Messages of condolences and solidarity with the Greek people were senton the occasion of the tragedy in Tempe. So far, the headquarters of the CC of the KKE have received messages by the Communist Party of Mexico,the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain and the Communist Party of Turkey.

Mobilizations of university students’unions in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa

Most of the victims in the trainaccident had been waiting to happen wereuniversity students, returning to their place of study from a short holiday.

On Wednesday 1/3,the students’unions in the cities of Athens, Thessaloniki and Larissa held silent demonstrations outside the offices of the company “Hellenic Train” and at the railway stations, with the slogan “Our dead - their profits”.

In Athens, there was an unprovoked attack on the students by the police and riot police, who tried to disperse the gathering with tear gas, without success. The students marched to the Parliament, with the repressive forces continuing their attempt to disperse them by constantly throwing chemicals.

http://solidnet.org/article/CP-of-Greec ... AIN-CRASH/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:06 pm

Greece: Massive Protests Against Mitsotakis and Train Accident

Image
People protesting against the Greek government, Athens, March 5, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/ @ScriptBlogger

Published 5 March 2023

Although the Hellenic Train railways are operated by an Italian company, the railway infrastructures and security systems depend on the Greek State.


On Sunday, thousands of Greeks took to the streets in Athens to criticize Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whom they hold responsible for the railway accident that left 57 dead on Feb. 28.

"Your police cost lives" and "murderous government" were some of the phrases that Greeks placed on banners during the fifth day of protests, which broke out after two trains traveling on the same track collided with each other near Larissa.

Protests in front of Parliament turned violent when police fired stun grenades and tear gas at people who were heading towards the offices of Hellenic Train. Some protesters set garbage containers on fire and threw Molotov cocktails.

On Sunday, Mitsotakis asked all Greeks for "a great forgiveness" and acknowledged the lack of safety measures and automated control systems on the rail network.


"We cannot, we do not want to and we must not hide behind human error," Mitsotakis said. Previously, however, his administration blamed the accident only on the Larisa stationmaster.

During a testimony before the Prosecutor's Office, the stationmaster acknowledged that he put the passenger train on the same track as a freight convoy coming in the opposite direction.

Although the Hellenic Train railways are operated by the Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane company, the railway infrastructures and security systems depend on the state company OSE.

Therefore, this accident might have a high political cost for New Democracy, Mitsotakis's conservative party, ahead of the general elections scheduled for spring.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Gre ... -0007.html

********

THE KKE ON THE FATAL TRAIN CRASH

Image

The Press Office of the CC of the KKE issued a statement on the fatal traincrash in Tempe, which reads as follows:


“The KKE expresses its sorrow for the unprecedented fatal train accident in Tempe and its sincere condolences to the families of the victims. It calls upon its members and friends to participate in the blood donations held in the towns where the injured are being hospitalized.

We demand that there be a full investigation into the causes of this tragedy, that nothing be covered up!

In any case, the tragedy in Tempe was not something that came as a bolt from the blue.

There have long been indications that a very dangerous situation has developed in rail transport, both for passengers and for workers. There were numerous warnings from workers that it was only a matter of time before a serious accident occurred, which were apparently ignored by the government and the company.

This is confirmed by the complaints about the poorly maintained network, about shortcomings and gaps in safety systems, staffing and critical infrastructure such as signage. These are precisely the issues raised just a few days ago by the statement made by the trade union grouping of railway workers supported by the KKE, with the shocking prediction that ‘we will not wait for the accident to come to see them shedding crocodile tears while making ex post observations’.

Therefore, this is not “bad luck”, but a crime that was bound to happen, having causes and culprits.

The company bears enormous responsibility. In its statements, it provided no answer as regards the details and causes of the accident, or even the exact number of passengers on the train. However, it receives €50 million a year from the state as a subsidy.

All of the above are the result of the policy pursued over time of so-called railway liberalization, state underfunding, the fragmentation of the railway system into many parts and the privatization of the former TRAINOSE. This is a criminal —as is demonstrated— policy that bears the stamp of all the New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK governments to date. In the framework of this policy, workers have been made redundant, flexible working conditions and intensification have been imposed on those who remain, while the Italian company has been heavily subsidized.

These responsibilities cannot be absolved by the resignation of a minister, nor can they be hidden behind the Prime Minister’s statements about human errors.

This policy, which all the other parties loyally follow, has led to tragic accidents in other EU countries too. Therefore, no one has the right to pretend they did not know about the situation.

The necessary conditions for safe and modern rail transport are sacrificed on the altar of this criminal state policy and investor profits, since they are systematically treated as a cost.

The struggle against the above is literally a matter of life and death!”



Messages of condolences were sent to the KKE

Messages of condolences and solidarity with the Greek people were sent on the occasion of the tragedy in Tempe. So far, the headquarters of the CC of the KKE have received messages by the Communist Party of Mexico,the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain and the Communist Party of Turkey.

Image
Mobilizations of university students’ unions in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa

Most of the victims in the train accident had been waiting to happen were university students, returning to their place of study from a short holiday.

On Wednesday 1/3,the students’unions in the cities of Athens, Thessaloniki and Larissa held silent demonstrations outside the offices of the company “Hellenic Train” and at the railway stations, with the slogan “Our dead - their profits”.

In Athens, there was an unprovoked attack on the students by the police and riot police, who tried to disperse the gathering with tear gas, without success. The students marched to the Parliament, with the repressive forces continuing their attempt to disperse them by constantly throwing chemicals.

Image
Image
Image

02.03.2023

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/THE-KK ... AIN-CRASH/

D. Koutsoumbas: Indignation must find expression in the organized struggle

Image

In the morning of 2 March, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, GS of the CC of the KKE, visited the site where the fatal train crash took place.

After a briefing on the incident, the GS of the CC of the KKE made the following statement:

“There are really no words to express our immense sorrow for this unspeakable tragedy, there are no words to express our condolences to the relatives of these innocent victims of this great tragedy. This was not an accident or bad luck, it was a crime that was bound to happen. This situation was denounced by the railway workers. It was denounced by the KKE in the Parliament. It was denounced by PAME trade unionists months ago. It was a crime that had been waiting to happen.

All responsibilities must be attributed; state, governmental, individual and private company responsibilities. They must not be absolved, they must not be forgotten. That is the role we will play from now on. Because as long as there are safety systems that do not work, at a time when they are provided by science and technology in the 21st century; as long as there are not sufficient, trained, qualified, certified personnel, with proper working relationships; as long as there are no controls, no coordination, no monitoring of the progress and no maintenance of the infrastructure, of the railway lines, of the signalling etc; as long as there is the notorious liberalization of the market, the privatizations, the fragmentation of OSE and TRAINOSE and the sale to a private company, which all the governments of ND, SYRIZA and PASOK have been carrying out over the years, the result will be this tragic situation, with new victims each time.

We stress that light must be shed on the case. There are huge responsibilities that must be immediately revealed. That is what we will do. The voices saying ‘never again’, the anger, the growing indignation of our people must find expression both in political choices and the organized struggle, demanding the obvious, that is, growth and protection of the life and well-being of the Greek people and not of the profits of a few companies.”

Image

Trade unions – Mass organizations: The crime will not be forgotten, we will become the voice of all those lost in the accident!
On 2/3, dozens of trade unions and mass organizations held a mass rally in Athens outside the offices of “Hellenic Train”, followed by a march to the Parliament, demanding that responsibility for the crime be attributed.

Similar events took place in Thessaloniki and Patras.

Image



03.03.2023

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/D-Kout ... -struggle/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Sat May 27, 2023 2:44 pm

The strengthening of the KKE in the parliamentary elections with 7.23%, 425,000 votes and 26 MPs is a positive step within a negative correlation of forces

Image

With 99.7% of the votes counted in the elections of 21 May 2023, the KKE made a significant 2% increase, getting 7.23%, 425,795 votes (+126,000) and 26 MPs (+11 MPs).

The right-wing party of New Democracy (40.79%) prevailed in the elections, while the parties of the new social democracy, that is SYRIZA (20.07%) and MeRA25 (2.62%), which did not cross the 3% threshold, recorded a significant decline. The oldest party of social democracy, PASOK (11.46%), was strengthened, while the nationalist party Hellenic Solution (4.45%) was reelected. You can find the detailed results here: https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Signif ... he-people/ .

Image

In the elections of 21 May, the KKE achieved a significant increase in the urban centres, in the working-class neighbourhoods of Athens, Piraeus and other large cities, getting close to or even over 10%. Nationwide, the KKE increased its votes by 42% in 12 of the 13 regions of Greece compared to the previous 2019 elections. The KKE also received more than 10% among voters abroad. It took the first place with 35% of the votes on the island of Ikaria, previously a place of exile for communists.

The ruling party of New Democracy, which elected 146 seats (out of 300 in the Greek parliament), decided not to enter into a governmental coalition with another party in order to secure an absolute majority in parliament. As a result, the country is headed for new parliamentary elections, most likely to be held on 25 June 2023. The new elections will be held under a different electoral law, which guarantees the first party a bonus of 40 seats, enabling it to form a single-party government. To retain the 26 seats it elected on 21/5, the KKE will have to achieve a new increase in its numbers and votes.

On 22/5/23 met the CC of the KKE, which assessed the result as a “positive step within a negative correlation of forces” and set the goal of intensifying the party's political battle to emerge even stronger in the new elections. In the next few days, we will publish the translated Statement of the CC of the KKE.

We would like to thank the dozens of Communist and Workers’ parties, both for the support they gave to our party during the pre-election period, and for the congratulatory messages arriving at the headquarters of the CC of the KKE.

Image
23.05.2023

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-st ... of-forces/

The only real positive outcome for the people is a much stronger KKE!

Image

The only real positive outcome for our people from these elections is a much stronger KKE! This was stressed by the General Secretary of the CC of the KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas at the party's massive pre-election rally in Heraklion, Crete, on Saturday 13/5/2023. He added that the weaker and the more unstable the parties of capital, i.e. New Democracy, SYRIZA and PASOK and their "supplements" are, the better for the people.

He also noted that the people of Crete are well aware of the fact that they have much to gain from a strong KKE with more MPs who will be on their side and highlighted the following: "we continue our efforts until the last minute! Those who have been in power for the last four years and have crushed the people with their policies must get an answer. This answer can only be given by voting for the original opponent of their policies, the KKE. Just as was the case in the university student elections, where Panspoudastiki, the list supported by the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), received first place, leaving DAP, the list of the ruling party, 10 percentage points behind, while the list of SYRIZA received almost the same percentage as the blank votes..."

Image

Image
15.05.2023

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-on ... onger-KKE/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 17, 2023 2:47 pm

WHEN STRATEGIC DECEIT TURNS INTO NATIONAL SUICIDE – GREECE VERSUS RUSSIA

Image

By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

It’s religious to believe that a slight young man with a slingshot can defeat a heavily armed giant with a single stone.

No general, head of government, or national electorate can rationally calculate risking their fortunes and fates on such a disadvantageous ratio of force; on a lucky shot; and on an article of faith. Icons can motivate soldiers to ignore the odds of survival in a battle; they don’t win wars of attrition.

In the two hundred years since Greece freed itself of Turkish rule with Russian and British support, it’s to be expected that the Greeks would be obliged to count and counter the strengths of their enemies with the resources of their friends. Over the years this Greek calculation has required them to conceal, lie, cheat, fabricate, and steal from them all when their survival was at stake.

In retrospect of the 20th century, that has happened more often to the Greeks than to most other Europeans. In the outcome for them of the Balkan Wars, 1912-1913; World War I; the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-22; the Italian and German invasions of World War II; the Civil War of 1945-49; the military dictatorship of 1967-74, the Turkish invasion and occupation of Cypus from 1974; and the European bailout terms of 2015, the Greeks have suffered incomparable losses. Measuring by the European standard of destructiveness in war — civil war and invasion — only one country exceeds Russia (and possibly Serbia) in the frequency of violence, in the percentage losses of Gross Domestic Product, and in casualties per head of population: this is Greece. In the anti-Russian European alliance of today, no country has been as damaged by the violence and depredations of its own allies — the Turks, Italians, Germans, British, and Americans — as Greece.

That is, until the US and NATO allies decided on war with Russia to be fought to the last Ukrainian and to the end of the Ukrainian state. For the time being, though, the money which the US, the UK and NATO allies, and the International Monetary Fund have paid into the Kiev regime dwarfs the sums of reparations, compensation and aid paid to Greece.

Notwithstanding, in the current war none of these allies has concealed its role in the battlefield fight against Russia more clumsily than the Mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis (lead image, left) and his uncle, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (right). No communist party in Europe has been as outspoken as the Greek Communist Party (KKE) in its verbal attacks on Russia. No domestic oligarchs have put their capital to the aid of Russia as much as the Greek tanker fleet owners. No rocket forces commander has exchanged one anti-aircraft and missile defence system which works for another which does not as the Greek exchange of the Russian S-300 for the US Patriot.

These aren’t individual Greek faults or follies. They are contradictions which have political and economic reasons. But there is a standard of deceit below which not even the Greeks in their historic and current predicament should fall. This is when the Greeks deceive and cheat each other for self-enrichment, and for the benefit of the country’s enemies. The first of these is corruption; the second is treason. When the two are combined in the running of the state – election votes, parliamentary majority, formation of government, allocation of budget, military pacts, security service operations – and when all of this is camouflaged by the courts and the media, then the country is committing suicide.

Is this the present fate of Greece? Listen to the discussion between Slobodan Despot, Alexander Mercouris, and John Helmer.

The podcast was recorded on June 13 and runs for an hour and forty minutes. Click for the playback link here:

Image
Source: https://drive.google.com/
For Slobodan Despot’s website and texts, https://antipresse.net/

A month ago, when the Mayor of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis, was tricked into thinking he was on the telephone with his Warsaw counterpart, Rafał Trzaskowski, he revealed that the Greek government has decided to provide the Ukrainian military with the Russian S-300 missile batteries installed in western Crete since 1998. The transfer, he said, will be made through a third country, Poland, in order to conceal its origin and final destination on the Ukrainian battlefield.

The conversation, produced by the Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus, was recorded in English and can be listened to here.

As reported in the Russian press, the incident makes it appear that it is the conservative New Democracy (ND) party government which is responsible, alone in Greek politics, for double-crossing Moscow over the S-300s. In fact — and the story is a long one — the Greek S-300s were originally ordered and paid for by the Cyprus government to defend the island against fresh Turkish attacks. Under Turkish pressure, reinforced by the US, the Cypriots were forced to give the missile defences up, and they were transferred to western Crete, beyond range for defending Cyprus. The decision to do that, betraying both the Cypriots and the Russians, were taken by the Greek prime minister at the time, Kostas Simitis and his Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK).

“The Simitis gang conned the Cyriots,” a senior official in Nicosia comments, “ encouraging them to buy it , the Greek MOD [Ministry of Defense] gave the specs and then pressured them to give it up. It cost Cyprus close to half a billion [dollars], plus the system plus the land infrastructure, Later, it was the Israelis who set up mock combat trials and practised with the Turks on how to attack it.”

Two systems of the S-300 PMU-1 model, with 16 launchers and 175 missiles, were based at a NATO firing range near Souda Bay. This location is 780 kilometres from Cyprus, far beyond the interception range of these missiles to intercept Turkish aircraft at a maximum of 200 kms.

Both ND and PASOK prime ministers allowed the S-300 units to be test-fired. But it was the Radical Left (SYRIZA) party prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, who secretly agreed to the Israeli Air Force testing the Russian system for application against Syria; the US had told Tsipras to agree. That was in 2015. Officially, according to the Tsipras government, “at this moment the S-300 is not in operation.” This was false. Follow the S-300 story here.

Image
Greek TV shows publicly a first test firing of the S-300 at Souda Bay in December 2013. The prime minister at the time was Antonis Samaras of ND.

The significance of Bakoyannis’s disclosure in the Russian prank is played down by a well-informed Athens political source. “Bakoyannis is a political moron. Now the mayor of Athens, his mother Dora [Bakoyannis] of the Mitsotakis dynasty wanted to become PM herself, but lost to her brother Kyriakos, the current PM, So she is grooming her son as the next PM of Greece to succeed his uncle. I do not think Bakoyannis junior ever worked a day in his life other than holding local mayorships before the Athens mayoralty which his mother hopes to be the jumping post for PM. I frankly cannot take seriously whatever he says about foreign policy. Maybe because of his connections and his mother he has inside information.”

“Bear in mind that for good or ill, Greece is in NATO and the European Union [EU]. For sure they cannot, and more importantly do not want to a play [the pro-Russian role] akin to Turkey. The Greeks are vassals. And they are afraid of the Turks. Since the 1950s the Americans taught them to be afraid of the Turks but not to worry because the Americans would always be there to save them. They might lose a foot, a hand or a toe, but not their lives. So they behave accordingly.”

“The existing state of Russian-Greek relations is extremely regrettable to me. But I am equally concerned about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan. They are establishing a relationship that poses a truly existential threat to us. It’s only a matter of time before Ankara acquires nuclear weapons. Akkuyu [Russian-built nuclear reactor] is only 150 kilometres from Cyprus. The Russians are the enablers.”

Image
The Akkuyu nuclear power plant is the first large-scale electricity producer in Turkey; its first unit becomes operational this year. Supply of fuel is the responsibility of Rosatom. Storage of waste is on Turkish territory. Read more.

“Yes, the historic relationship between Greeks and Russians is going to the dogs , I cannot disagree with that, ” the source adds from Athens.

GOn June 25 Greeks go to a new national parliamentary election following the failure of ND’s Mitsotakis to win a ruling majority in May. On the present polls, he is unlikely to make significantly greater gains in votes or seats in parliament. Tsipras’s SYRIZA will struggle to keep from a further decline of its voter base; with improving turnout these votes are now going to several smaller parties. The anti-Russian parties on the left – SYRIZA, PASOK, and Yannis Varoufakis’s MeRA25 – are losing public support on that issue, while the rank and file voters of the KKE and the Greek labour unions have become more demonstratively anti-NATO, anti-Ukrainian.

In the current Greek political lineup, approximately 20%, one voter in five, is now openly opposed to the gocvernment’s NATO line for war against Russia; the undisclosed number is likely to be greater. This may be a relatively larger bloc than can be found elsewhere in western Europe.

GREEK POLITICAL PARTY VOTE PERCENTAGES FROM THE 2015 ELECTION TO NOW

Image
Image

OWNER ORIGIN OF OIL TANKERS OPERATING IN BLACK SEA, BALTIC SEA
Image
Image

For background to the discussion of the Russian Orthodox Church, church-state relations, and the Napoleonic Concordat with Pope Pius VII, read this. For the 200-year history of Russia-Greek promises and disappointments, click.

The broadcast concludes with a discussion of how the NATO war against Serbia has transformed Serbian national identity, and a reminder of the modern icons of Greek identity – Zorba of Nikos Kazantzakis the writer, Anthony Quinn the actor, and Mikis Theodorakis the composer.

Image
The original dance filmed on Stavros Beach, near Khania, Crete, in 1964.

Image
The final dance filmed in Munich in 1995; Quinn was 80 years old (died in 2001); Theodorakis 70 (died 2021).

https://johnhelmer.net/when-strategic-d ... more-88136

KKK needs to dismiss it's far left/trotskyists notions and live up to it's heroic heritage.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 27, 2023 1:59 pm

Conservative New Democracy wins majority in Greek parliamentary elections, far-right makes gains

The conservative New Democracy (ND) party led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis secured a simple majority by winning 158 seats in the 300-seat parliament. Three far-right parties won seats in the new parliament, marking a strong return of the far-right following the ban on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party in 2020

June 26, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch

Image
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (left) with religious leaders. (Photo: via 902.gr)

In the repeat elections held for the 300-seat Greek parliament on Sunday, June 25, the conservative New Democracy (ND) party led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis secured a simple majority by winning 158 seats (12+) and 40.55% votes. The main opposition party, Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras, continued its slump as it was reduced to 48 seats and 17.84 % votes. The center-left PASOK-KINAL coalition and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) won 32 (9-) and 20 (6-) seats, respectively.

Far-right groups, mostly new political formations — Spartans, Greek Solution (EL) and the Democratic Patriotic Movement-Victory (NIKI) — won 12, 12, and 10 seats, respectively, marking a strong return of the far-right to mainstream politics following the ban on the Golden Dawn party in 2020. The anti-establishment platform Course of Freedom (PE), led by Zoe Konstantopoulou, secured eight seats. The elections saw a voter turnout of 52.82%.

In the last parliamentary elections held on May 21, which saw a 61.10% turnout, ND had emerged as the single largest party with 146 seats, but lost some of its seats from the previous assembly and fell short of a simple majority. The ND leadership, which was not interested in forming a coalition with other parties and was confident of winning a majority, went for a repeat election. According to the Greek electoral system which is based on proportional representation, if the three leading parties choose to forgo the option of forming a government after the first round of elections, a repeat election will be held where the single largest party is likely to get a bonus number of seats. The ND won a majority as it had hoped to but the gains made by the three far-right parties is a major concern for progressive, working class and liberal sections of the country.

902.gr reported that Mitsotakis was sworn in as prime minister on Monday after he received the mandate to form a government from President Katerina Sakellaropoulou. His new cabinet will be sworn in on July 3.

The neo-liberal policies of the ND government had faced widespread opposition from the working class and other popular sections. However, far-right groups managed to cash in on the people’s anger against the government, splitting the opposition vote. Syriza was also unable to capitalize on the popular discontent. The party does not seem to have recovered from what was considered its betrayal in 2015, when it came to power on an anti-troika mandate but surrendered and implemented the same neo-liberal policies promoting austerity.

Following the declaration of results, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Greece (KKE), stated that “Based on the result, KKE has an increase in percentage [+0.46%] with hundreds of thousands of votes, while the decrease in the number of MPs is due to the New Democracy law that steals our parliamentary seats.”

He said that under the new government, the working class was set to face a new round of attacks, including austerity policies and cuts in social spending, the possibility of a new economic crisis, and further involvement in NATO.

“The KKE will constantly fight the battle, in the streets of struggle and in Parliament, against every anti-grassroots bill. It will be the voice of the people.. The presence in Parliament of the far-right and fascist movement is undoubtedly another negative development of these elections. It proves once again that the roots of fascism-Nazism lie in the system and the state… they are born and bred of this rotten exploitative system,” he added.

In October 2020, a Greek court had convicted the leadership of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party of running a criminal organization. The party was banned and its members convicted for their role in the murder of Greek musician Pavlos Fyssas and other hate crimes. Following this, the far-right suffered a setback but has seen a resurgence, which is part of a trend across many parts of Europe.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/26/ ... kes-gains/

******

The KKE recorded a significant increase of 100,000 votes and 2.5% compared to 2019

Large increase in Attica, Thessaloniki, Patras and other urban centres

Image

In its statement, the Political Bureau of the CC of the KKE hails the thousands of people who strengthened the KKE with their votes and fought the battle for its electoral growth in the June elections.

Image

The statement stresses, among other things, that the electoral reinforcement of the KKE is not circumstantial but an indicator of the rise of the prestige that the Party has gained among the working class and the entire people, by leading emblematic struggles and demonstrations.

It is assessed that a growing momentum of the Party’s electoral influence is expressed, yet within an ongoing negative political correlation of forces.

It is stressed that the 20 MPs of the KKE, 5 more than before, will be where they promised to be, i.e. at the forefront of the struggles against the problems faced by the workers and the people.

The PB of the CC of the KKE calls upon the people to join forces and act in concert with it. In opposition to disillusionment, fatalism and compromise fostered by SYRIZA and other forces, hope lies in the path of conflict with this policy, this system, the directions of the EU and the commitments to NATO. In the important political battles ahead, such as the municipal and regional elections in October 2023, a further rallying of workers’–people’s forces can be expressed through the ballot papers of “People’s Rallying” nationwide.


Information on the result of the KKE
Compared to the parliamentary elections of 2019, the KKE increased its number of votes by 101,000, corresponding to a percentage increase of 33.7%.

The KKE took second place in the constituency of Samos (17.96%) and third place in the following electoral districts: Athens A (8.9%), Athens B1 Constituency - North (8.98%), Athens B2 Constituency - West (12.14%), Athens B3 Constituency - South (10.17%), Piraeus A (8.03%), Piraeus B (11.49%), Attica B Constituency - West (10.11%), Thessaloniki A (8.17%), Kefallonia (12.35%) and Lesvos (14.65%).

The KKE took first place on the island of Ikaria, with 35.86%.

The KKE also took third place among voters abroad with 12.54%. Greeks abroad voted for the second time after the May elections in their countries of residence, in 102 polling stations in 35 countries and 82 cities around the world. The KKE took first place in Denmark with 25% and second place in Switzerland with 13.65%, while the party’s share in Germany was also high (15.60%).

The exit poll findings on the voting choices per age group, profession, etc. are of particular interest.

7.9% of men and 7% of women voted for the KKE.

The KKE’s share among young people aged 17–24 years is 8.1%, that is, above the Party’s average percentage. The Party’s share among those aged 25–34 years is 8.9%. The corresponding share among those aged 35–54 years is 7.5% while among those aged 55 and over is 7.1%.






Voters of the KKE by occupation:
University and school students: 9.5%

Private sector employees: 9%

Unemployed: 8.7%

Public sector employees: 8.5%

Housewives: 7%

Self-employed: 6.2%

Pensioners: 5.7%

Farmers, livestock farmers and fishermen: 5.2%



27.06.2023

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-KK ... d-to-2019/

Further increase of the KKE, which rose to 7.7%

On 25 June 2023, new parliamentary elections were held in Greece under a rigged electoral system, which rewards the first party with a bonus of up to 50 seats.

Despite this unfair electoral law, which intensifies the dilemmas faced by the people, as well as the fact that many workers are, due to tourist season, away from the place where they exercise their right to vote, the KKE achieved a new increase in its percentage.

In particular, it received 7.7% and more than 400 thousand votes, electing 20 MPs.

It should be recalled that in the previous composition of the parliament from 2019 to May 2023, the KKE had 15 MPs.

Of particular importance is the further growth of the KKE in the working-class and popular districts of Athens, Piraeus, Thessaloniki and other large cities.

The conservative party of New Democracy (ND) got 40.55%, the social democratic party of SYRIZA recorded further fall, getting 17.84%, and the old party of social democracy PASOK got 11.85%. The far-right Spartans party, which had the support of the imprisoned criminals of the fascist Golden Dawn, got 4.64%, followed by the also nationalist parties Greek Solution with 4.44% and Niki (Victory) with 3.69%. The party of a former SYRIZA cadre called Plefsi Eleftherias (Course of Freedom) won 3.17%, while MeRA25, the party of another former SYRIZA cadre, got 2.49% and did not cross the 3% threshold.

Specifically, the result of the parliamentary elections of 25 June 2023 is as follows:

Image

Statement of Dimitris Koutsoumbas, GS of the CC of the KKE, on the evening of the elections

“We salute the thousands of voters who strengthened the KKE with their votes, the people with whom we fought the battle for the electoral strengthening of the KKE in these elections.

The MPs elected by the KKE will be where they promised to be the next day; at the forefront of the struggles against the problems faced by the workers and the people, at the side of the workers, the popular forces and the youth.

It is clear from today’s result that the vote for the KKE is not circumstantial or occasional. It proves the existence of militant ties in the workplaces, the neighbourhoods, the villages, the places of health, education and culture. Those ties are strong and they must be strengthened even further.

We continue in a determined way. It is crucial that we continue the discussion and joint action around the issues that are on the agenda for the development of the popular struggle and the rise of the labour movement, with all those who have approached the KKE throughout this period, regardless of what they voted for in these elections.

Based on the result, there is an increase in our percentage. Specifically, we won 7.7%, accounting for hundreds of thousands of votes. The decrease in the number of MPs in comparison to the May elections is due to the rigged law of New Democracy that steals our parliamentary seats.

All in all, the positive element of this electoral battle and result is the growing momentum of the Party’s electoral influence, despite the ongoing negative political correlation of forces. We believe that this momentum has a wider impact than its electoral expression and has been expressed by a change in the correlation of forces over the years, in dozens of elections of trade unions, federations and labour centres of the working class, the farmers, the self-employed, craftsmen, tradesmen, scientists, students, doctors and teachers.

We hail the working-class and popular neighbourhoods of Athens, Piraeus, West and East Attica, Thessaloniki, Patras; of the entire country.

We particularly hail the districts, towns and villages where the people waged great, harsh class and political struggles and today casted their vote for the KKE en masse, giving the Party sometimes 1st place, as in Ikaria, sometimes 2nd place, as in Aspropyrgos, and sometimes 3rd place, as in Attica, the largest region of the country, and Lesvos, where we regained the parliamentary seat that we lost in May.

The next day will be difficult for the people. The KKE, as from tomorrow, will put into practice its commitment to be at the forefront of a 100% militant, working-class, people’s opposition. The Greek people should not keep a wait-and-see stance or give a grace period; especially the large part of the people who voted for New Democracy with a heavy heart.

From tomorrow, the working class and the popular forces will be faced with a new round of attack, against the background of new developments and facts:

- The implementation of the new memorandum prerequisites for the disbursement of the Recovery Fund and Stability Pact instalments.

- The transition to a strict fiscal policy, which essentially means a new round of social cuts and austerity in the name of primary surpluses as demanded by the EU, for the objective of investment grade.

- The possibility of a new financial crisis, the warning signals of which are already present in the US and the EU, while the Greek capitalist economy is slowing down. These issues are highlighted both in the EU Commission’s spring economic forecast and in recommendations by the Bank of Greece.

- We are also following developments in the imperialist war in Ukraine, the pursuit of deeper Greek involvement in NATO plans, as well as the negative settlements being launched under the NATO umbrella in Greek-Turkish relations.

The KKE will constantly struggle, both inside and outside the parliament, against all anti-popular bills. It will be the people’s voice against this general negative political correlation of forces.

The KKE will follow and actively participate in the debate that will objectively open up as well as the domestic political developments, following the great rise of New Democracy, which has the absolute majority, the considerable decline of SYRIZA, i.e. one side of the social democratic opposition, and above all the political consensus of all of them, including SYRIZA and PASOK, on the above commitments that the New Democracy government will implement. In this context and based on today’s election result, processes will take place in SYRIZA and perhaps also in PASOK, as well as in other smaller political forces.

The presence of far-right and fascist MPs in Parliament is undoubtedly another negative development of this election. It is once again demonstrated that the roots of fascism-Nazism are to be found in the bourgeois system and state and they are deep; there are various centres and interests supporting them. After all, this decayed exploitative system gives rise to fascism–Nazism.

It is confirmed that fascism–Nazism, due to its nature, cannot be dealt with by some legislative measures, which in fact open up dangerous paths. It is a matter for the workers’–people’s movement. The KKE will continue to struggle in this direction, as it has been doing so throughout the previous period.

The KKE will struggle together with thousands of workers and young people who are abandoning the impasses of social democracy and other bourgeois parties, in order to reinvigorate hope. Tonight we call upon all of them for solidarity and joint action.

The answer lies in strengthening the tide of disputing the dominant bourgeois policy, its class character, the parties and governments that serve it and the state of capital, which is not looking for new saviours from the alternation in government; the tide that seeks a solution to today’s problems through organized struggle, participation in the movement, collective action and class struggle.

For our people to smile even broadly, for optimism to grow, for hope to be revived.

Because hope lies in a strong KKE!

We wish strength and health to all! Tomorrow we will meet again in the struggles. We will succeed!”

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Furthe ... se-to-7.7/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 02, 2023 2:21 pm

How the KKE uses Marxist terminology to cover its retreat from Marxism
What is the impact of the anti-Marxian theory of the ‘imperialist pyramid’?
Joti Brar

Sunday 1 October 2023

Image

This article was originally written for Platform, the organ of the World Anti-imperialist Platform.

*****

On the basis of a Marxist analysis of the rapidly escalating imperialist war drive, anti-imperialists of the communist movement came together last year to form the World Anti-imperialist Platform. This was done in order to apply our energies to what has been identified as the most pressing priority facing our movement at this moment: to rally the widest possible forces in support of the struggle against the US-led imperialist bloc – a struggle which has the potential to unleash the next, decisive wave of socialist revolutions if correctly approached.

Launched in Paris last year, the Platform’s founding statement [1] outlines the tasks that we believe all socialists and anti-imperialists must focus on during this crucial period of crisis and war. To help mobilise forces for this struggle, a part of the work the Platform engages in is necessarily in the ideological arena – opposing and exposing the wrong ideas (in particular the idea that Russia and China are imperialist countries) [2] that are confusing and demobilising workers, preventing them from joining wholeheartedly in the struggle against the US-led imperialist war drive and in support of the targets of US-led imperialist aggression.

This stance has brought the Platform into conflict with the anti-Marxist position of the Greek communist party (the KKE), which has been vociferous in condemning [3] it in the most blood-curdling terms, condemning as ‘opportunist’ and ‘reactionary’ every organisation that has taken part in Platform activities or signed the Paris Declaration, and using every means at its disposal to disrupt and sabotage our work.

The so-called ‘theory’ of the pyramid
It is important to realise that this dispute over the correct analysis of the present war is not an abstract one. As followers of scientific socialism, we understand that without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary practice. Without establishing a correct understanding, it is impossible for socialists to act in ways that benefit the workers’ cause; to work out which actions will lead to the development of the revolutionary forces and to the defeat of our enemies.

Without a correct theory, the working-class movement has no guide to effective action; it slips automatically into practices that can be safely contained within the parameters of bourgeois politics. This is why wrong theories must be vigorously opposed by communists – the victory of the correct line is a prerequisite for the victory of the revolution. The whole history of the Bolshevik revolution provided ample proof of this fact.

So what is the theoretical position being put forward by the Greek communist party? And what activity does it lead to in practice?

First, the KKE’s new theory of the ‘imperialist pyramid’ [4] bases itself on the incorrect assertion that every economy in which trade takes place and commodities are produced is a capitalist economy.

At a stroke this vulgarisation negates the Marxist historical understanding of the development of commodities; the understanding that capitalism is the stage of human social development in which commodity production is the dominant form of production. It ignores the fact that commodities have been produced since the time of the earliest class societies: that they existed in slave-owning and feudal societies, and that they will continue to exist for some time to come in socialist society. The KKE’s theoreticians appear to believe [5] that anyone who produces something for sale on the market, whether internal or external, anyone who uses money, is a capitalist.

And they follow this vulgarisation with another and even more problematic one. They tell us that, since capitalism globally has now entered its monopoly phase (as demonstrated by Lenin); since capitalist production tends everywhere towards concentration and towards monopoly (as demonstrated by Marx, Engels and Lenin), then every capitalist country in the modern era is also an imperialist one (as firmly rebutted by Lenin). [6]

This, we are told, goes as much for the capitalists of Burkina Faso as for the capitalists of the USA. Apparently, the desire to grow one’s capital reveals a desire to become an imperialist – and this desire is all that counts. According to the theory of the ‘pyramid’, every country that engages in trade, from Great Britain and France to Cuba and the DPRK, is guilty of imperialism – the various states of the world simply occupying different levels on the great global ‘pyramid’ of imperialism.

According to this travesty of Marxism, the contradictions between the various countries are all ‘interimperialist’, to be explained by their competing imperialist interests and the desire to displace one another from the top of the ‘pyramid’ of world imperialism. Such a definition, we should note, includes within its scope even the Soviet Union of JV Stalin’s time.

Again, with one stroke of the pen, and without a shred of evidence to back up its wild claims, the KKE ‘theorists’ have vulgarised and distorted the Leninist concepts regarding the monopoly control of the global economy and interimperialist rivalry until their fundamental essence has totally disappeared.

In true opportunist style, the KKE’s theoreticians have picked a few random truths taken from Lenin’s work on imperialism and, by robbing them of all context, turned them into a hollow and empty dogma which explains nothing and enlightens nobody.

Lenin’s material description of the global monopoly-capitalist economy revealed how a handful of dominant powers are able to use their financial, technological and military power to exploit and oppress the vast majority of nations. In place of this many-sided picture, with its historical development, overarching features, trends of development and glaring contradictions, the KKE has extracted one or two truths in such a way as to void them of all meaning.

Capitalism tends to monopoly says Lenin. Yes indeed. Now we are in the monopoly stage, all capitalism is imperialist says the KKE. 2+2=5, in fact. By this sleight of hand, the authors of this theory have presented us with the picture of a world in which imperialism, having been found in every country, is thus to be found nowhere.

Without explaining how they have done so, without a shred of evidence to justify overturning the Leninist conception of the present global system of extreme exploitation and inequality between nations, which Lenin himself described as “basic, significant and inevitable under imperialism”, [7] the creators of this theory have disappeared what they contemptuously refer to as the “so-called national question”. [8]

When and how the fundamental question of the liberation of the oppressed nations from their superexploited position as providers of superprofits to the parasitical monopoly financiers of the imperialist heartlands stopped being a real issue and became merely a ‘so-called’ issue, the authors of this profundity do not trouble to explain.

This is a particularly serious error considering how Anglo–American imperialism stepped up its campaign of wars for domination of all countries after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The ensuing ‘unipolar moment’ of the ‘world’s policeman’ was a period of classical neocolonialism; of imperialism seeking domination (not democracy) [9] over all the less developed, non-monopolist nations that lacked the technological, financial and military power to resist. [10]

In the name of Leninism, claiming to see monopoly everywhere, the KKE has obscured our vision of the actual, historically-evolved global monopolist powers – those countries whose real, historically-accumulated stores of capital enable them to use their monopolistic power to control governments and economies all over the world, and to continuously extract tribute from the world’s masses – under a welter of imaginary ‘monopolists’.

They have transformed the materialist conception of the world economy into a kind of idealist identity politics: you are a monopolist because you would like to be one; you are a monopolist because you are a capitalist in the era of monopoly; you are a monopolist because you run a sector of the state economy without competition, even if that sector happens to be run under the direction of a socialist or people-oriented nation-liberation government!

At the same time, they have also reduced communism to an identity. Communists of the KKE-approved type are no longer people who study socialist science in order to bring its powerful truths to the masses and help provide leadership and direction to the revolutionary movement for liberation and socialism, but simply people who hate capitalists – and who prove this by wearing the right badge, t-shirt and cap, being a loyal supporter of the right team, and chanting the right slogans against the appointed enemy.

Such ‘communists’ are now to be found all over the western world. They no longer have a positive role to play in the transformation of society; in the evolution of history. Instead they have transformed themselves into eternal ‘oppositionism’: ‘anticapitalists’ who will never overthrow capitalism; ‘antiwar activists’ who will never stop a war; ‘antiracists’ or ‘anti-sexists’ who will never do anything that threatens the real, economic roots of racism or sexism.

In the name of Lenin, the KKE and their kind have in fact put Lenin’s epoch-defining teachings and revolutionary practice against imperialism into the dustbin.

NGO-isation of the working-class movement
We appear to be witnessing in the KKE a particularly striking example of the modern phenomena of the NGO-isation of the left, in which professional machineries are created whose primary function is not to gather and train the forces for revolution, but merely to recreate and maintain the machine. These organisations must remain ‘radical’ enough to garner a certain percentage of working-class votes, and to win a certain number of elected positions, but not so radical as to bring down the retribution of the ruling class’s state machinery onto their heads.

Fundamentally, in order to maintain their machineries and their hard-won place in the political life of their countries, such parties must not rock the boat of bourgeois politics. Some letting off of steam – a pressure valve for working-class anger – is acceptable, even necessary, but no action that seriously calls into question the status quo or undermines the bourgeois order can be attempted.

Any such action would be bound to bring punishment to the party – starting with media blackouts and leading on to vilification of party leaders and policies, hounding of members, and eventually to the party’s outlawing, the confiscation of buildings and bank accounts, and the persecution, arrest or exile of its leaders as the economic and war crises escalate and domestic political stability is undermined.

This retreat from revolution into ‘oppositionism’ is not a new phenomenon, it is simply the latest reflection of the split in the working class and the assimilation of its leadership into the bourgeois state machinery that has been going on in various forms since the early 1900s. [11] Nor is it confined in our day to the KKE. Something similar has taken place in many parties of a certain size during the recent period, when the ebb of the tide of revolution and the theoretical degeneration of the communist movement combined to create a sense of pessimism and defeat.

That the KKE is one of those parties that epitomises this transformation and retreat is evidenced by the professionalisation of its core cadres – not in the Leninist tradition of workers who have been freed up to devote their lives to revolutionary activity but in a spirit of bureaucratisation and careerism.

The main criteria for such workers is not deep study and selfless devotion to serving the masses, but groupthink, willingness to carry out the busywork of machine-maintenance, and unquestioning (unthinking) loyalty to a leadership that is taking the party – and the workers under its influence – in entirely the wrong direction.

Exporting opportunism and sectarianism
The retreat into opportunism [12] by the KKE – a party with a great revolutionary tradition, with a mass base, and with and a long-established position in the political, social and cultural life of the Greek people – is a terrible blow to the class struggle in that country. The more firmly its leaders stick to their erroneous line and vilify all those who sincerely try to bring them back onto the revolutionary path, the more certain it becomes that the working people will have to form a new party in order to lead their struggle for social liberation.

This is indeed a great setback; a tragedy for the Greek working people who have suffered and struggled so hard for so long.

But the actions of the KKE do not stop at the borders of Greece. Using its international prestige as the inheritor of the Greek revolution; using its impressive professionalism, its strength in numbers and its financial power, the KKE has been systematically injecting its anti-Marxist muddle (‘theory’) everywhere it has influence.

It has been assisted in this by the theoretical confusion that prevails in much of our movement, which is a legacy of the revisionism of the post-Stalin USSR and the Sino-Soviet split, and which helps it to promote its militant-seeming but anti-materialist line everywhere – even going so far as to use bribery, threats, coercion and manipulation to get its way, or at least to disrupt the work of those who won’t go meekly along with its agenda.

In many parties, themselves sunk into a morass of social-democratic oppositionism, these false friends have been knocking at an open door. Such parties as the Communist Party of Mexico, the Communist Party of Sweden or the Kommunistische Organisation [13] in Germany, for example are led by those who are only too happy to have a revolutionary-sounding justification for abandoning the difficult positions of the class war and echoing Nato propaganda – in particular the propaganda about Russian or Chinese ‘imperialism’, ‘expansionism’, ‘aggression’ etc.

In other cases, the KKE has used its controlling influence in the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) to manipulate young members against the elders of their parties. In still others, it has used its extensive network of international officers to cultivate strong personal relationships with international secretaries and tried to use them as the promoters of its anti-worker line. Confusion, inner-party warfare and splits have been the result in communist parties all over the world.

The case of Spain [14] is well-known to all. Other operations, from Pakistan to Poland, from Mexico to the USA, from Germany to Switzerland, are talked about more quietly. But no one who operates in the international communist movement is unaware of at least some of the stories of Greek sectarian interference and subversion.

Reinventing Trotskyism
What is the practical outcome of the so-called ‘theory’ of the pyramid?

The practical effect on the policy of parties that have accepted this line is to characterise the present conflict in Ukraine as one between two imperialist powers in which the working class has no side.

And since every country that produces commodities for trade is described as ‘imperialist’, future wars even between the DPRK or China and the USA will likewise be characterised as ‘interimperialist’.

To tell the workers such lies at such a moment is a criminal act, which amplifies imperialist war propaganda and demobilises the antiwar movement.

It is to place the communists, who should be at the heart and the front of the anti-imperialist antiwar movement, giving it practical steel and theoretical clarity, onto the sidelines. No simultaneous calls for ‘working-class unity’ can cover the true, wrecking nature of such activities.

In place of working-class unity against imperialism, their call is for ‘a plague on both your houses’ – for inactivity and passivity.

As Lenin wrote in 1916: “War is often useful in exposing what is rotten and discarding the conventionalities.” [15] The conventional assumption that the KKE is a leading revolutionary communist party must be discarded and its rottenness recognised and responded to.

At its heart, the KKE’s ‘Leninist’ pyramid is a reinvention of Trotskyism.

Like Trotsky, the promoters of this ‘theory’ refuse to recognise the imperialist reality of oppressed and oppressor nations.

Like Trotsky, they refuse to recognise the need to unify the proletarian struggle in the imperialist countries with the anti-imperialist struggle in the oppressed nations.

Like Trotsky, they refuse to see the revolutionary potential in any class other than the proletariat.

Like Trotsky, they refuse get their hands dirty with any alliance that might allow them to take a concrete step towards the goal of socialism, which thus remains an abstract, unattainable dream.

Like Trotsky, they cover their reinforcing of imperialist propaganda against all anti-imperialist leaders and movements with revolutionary-sounding phrases about working-class solidarity.

Like Trotsky, they have converted themselves, whether willingly or by accident, into vehicles for spreading imperialist propaganda within our movement.

Given the persistent, aggressive and determined pursuit of this disorganising line, and the vitriolic ad hominem attacks (against the person, not the idea) on all those who try to show the working class why such a line is a political error, we can only conclude that the KKE’s leaders have fully committed themselves to the camp of opportunism. More than that, they have become the ringleaders of that camp – the organisers and directors of the section of our movement that works to hold back the struggle of the international working class for revolutionary anti-imperialist unity, and thus holds back our struggle for socialism.

A false analogy in place of concrete analysis
In their own documents, and in the those of their adherents, [16] the proposers of this anti-Marxian ‘theory’ like to compare Nato’s present proxy war against Russia on the territory of Ukraine with the first world war, describing it as an ‘interimperialist’ conflict between two monopolist powers over control of resources, markets and avenues of superexploitation.

Indeed, in a speech to a party meeting last year, former KKE leader Aleka Papariga went even further, declaring that the “people of Ukraine” (that is, the neo-nazi proxy government headed by US-backed actor-stooge Volodymyr Zelensky) were waging a “just war” against “Russian aggression”. [17]

How this assertion squares with the party’s avowal elsewhere that the (‘so-called’) national question no longer exists will require wiser heads than ours to decipher. Nor can such a statement be squared with the KKE’s assertion that the war in Ukraine is an ‘interimperialist’ one! Perhaps the KKE has different lines to present to different audiences?

Likewise, how this assertion differs from the imperialists’ claims that they are innocently (‘justly’) ‘defending Ukraine’s sovereignty with Nato weapons’ (a sovereignty the USA had been steadily eroding for three decades and fully usurped nine years ago), only the KKE can explain.

Lenin pointed out in 1915 that “no socialist will dare in theory deny the necessity of making a concrete, historical appraisal of every war”. [18] But the KKE’s ‘theoreticians’ have made no such appraisal – they have merely made an analogy with WW1 with no substantiating evidence to back up their ahistorical assertion.

No systematic detailed proof has been given for the characterisation of Russia’s economy as ‘imperialist’, just as no systematic detailed proof has been given for the same claim that is made about China, Brazil, India – and even Iran and Venezuela.

No concrete, historical appraisal has been made to demonstrate how these countries live by exporting capital, superexploiting the globe, and repatriating the superprofits thus earned back to their home territories. No evidence has been provided to show how these nations live by ‘clipping coupons’ from such parasitic activity. No evidence has been given to show how the workers of these countries are bribed into social peace by means of the crumbs they receive from such monopoly profits.

To date, the only facts and figures quoted by the KKE in defence of its ridiculous position have been cherry-picked at random to throw a sop to the credulous. [19] This is at one with their entire methodology, where sprinkled quotations of Lenin are substituted for a serious study of the entire body of works by Marx, Engels and Lenin. Of course, from 95 such volumes, a few quotations taken at random and out of context might appear to prove anything, but only the insincere sophist argues in this way.

The presentation of a few random statistics in support of such serious assertions is not a meaningful attempt to understand the Ukraine war in all its complexity, but eclecticism that obscures the truth; a classic case of searching online for ‘evidence’ to prove a predetermined point. Such ‘analysis’ brings forcibly to mind Lenin’s description of similar practices that were being indulged in by former eminent Marxists such as Georgy Plekhanov and Karl Kautsky during WW1:

“From the standpoint of Marxism … one can merely smile at the ‘scientific’ value of such methods as taking the concrete historical assessment of the war [or of a nation’s economy in the KKE’s case] to mean a random selection of facts which the ruling classes of the country find gratifying or convenient, facts taken at random from diplomatic ‘documents’, current political developments, etc [or from bourgeois press clippings]. The scientific concept of imperialism, moreover, is reduced to a sort of term of abuse applied to the immediate competitors, rivals and opponents of the two imperialists mentioned [or of the US-led Nato imperialist bloc] …” [20]

Similarities and differences between the world wars
On one point, however, the KKE is certainly correct: the present war, which will no doubt be looked back on as the opening of World War 3, has been brought about, just as were the first and second world wars, by the deep overproduction crisis of the global capitalist economy.

In 1914, two imperialist blocs faced one another and fought over who should have what share of the world’s territories and markets. It was a purely interimperialist war. And it fatally weakened the global imperialist system, bringing about the era of proletarian revolution, just as Lenin had predicted. World War 1 led directly to the October Revolution of 1917 – and the global capitalist-imperialist system has been living on borrowed time ever since.

In 1939, the war that was already being fought in several theatres around the world (eg, Spain and China) transformed into a global conflict with the entry of British imperialism against Germany. This, too, was an interimperialist conflict over control of territories and resources on the part of Germany, France and Britain. But the German invasion of the USSR, and the Soviets’ strategic manoeuvring of the USA and Britain into forming an alliance, changed the character of World War 2, so that its primary character became that of an antifascist war.

It was on this basis that workers in the imperialist countries were mobilised to fight on the same side as their rulers: to defeat the fascist threat and defend the Soviet socialist motherland. Britain, France and the USA continued to pursue their imperialist aims, but they were induced to do so in a way that prevented them from joining with Nazi Germany to destroy the USSR.

As a result, the Soviet Union was able, at a tremendous cost to itself, to defeat the greatest war machine humanity had ever seen, to liberate much of Europe, and to give a tremendous impulse to the spread of socialism across Europe and Asia.

After WW2, with the imperial powers of old Europe and Japan fatally weakened, unable any longer to maintain their military and technological dominance, the imperialist powers huddled together under the protective umbrella of the USA – the only imperialist power whose economy, productive capacity and military capability had been strengthened by WW1 and WW2 rather than weakened.

Without the financial backing and military support of the USA, the imperialists of Europe and Japan could not have survived – they would have been expropriated and displaced by the rising workers, and the triumphant march of socialism would have been pretty well unstoppable.

But history never moves in a straight line. Life did not follow the confident predictions of the communist and anti-imperialist liberation fighters of the 1940s. The help of the USA [21] combined with powerful bribes to their own working-class populations [22] allowed the weakened imperialist powers to recover to a certain extent, while the revisionism of the post-Stalin USSR and parties aligned with it led to the slow undermining of the strength and prestige of socialism and to the ultimate collapse of the revisionist Soviet regime.

The dissolution of the world’s first socialist state and of the people’s democracies of eastern Europe came at a vital moment for the imperialists, who were once more facing a severe global crisis of overproduction. They were saved by the orgy of imperialist looting that ensued as the wealth of the Soviet and east European peoples was plundered, while the masses of the world were further demoralised by the apparent triumph of bourgeois politics and economics over Marxism.

But while the Soviet Union and European people’s democracies were dissolved, socialism and anti-imperialism did not disappear from the world. China, the DPRK, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba continued to defend their socialist societies in the face of huge pressure.

Countries that were targeted by a newly-confident imperialist camp for ‘regime-change’ operations mounted tremendous resistance. And Russia, which for a time had allowed itself to be ruled by comprador agents of imperialism, got up off its knees, replaced its comprador leadership with a national-bourgeois one, and determined that it would henceforth use its vast resources for its own purposes, defending its right to national sovereignty by making use of the technological, military, educational and economic base that had been bequeathed to it by its Soviet builders.

In the face of a renewed global crisis of overproduction, the imperialists have determined that, in the present conditions, their best chance of saving themselves and their system remains in huddling together under the military and economic leadership of the USA and aiming their combined force at the destruction of the primary centres of independence and sovereignty in the world – Russia and China.

In doing so, they hope to bring about a repeat of the carnival of pillaging they enjoyed after the collapse of the USSR. They want to break Russia and China into pieces, subdue their peoples and plunder their considerable resources.

Thus we can see that the third world war will be primarily characterised by a confrontation between the camps of imperialism [23] and anti-imperialism. And that the workers of the world have everything to gain by ensuring the victory of the anti-imperialist camp and the defeat of the imperialists, which will be a hammer blow to the entire edifice of monopoly capitalism on the planet and thus a giant step towards socialist revolution in all corners of the world.

In promoting this understanding, our comrades of the World Anti-imperialist Platform have been accused of the crime of ‘social-chauvinism’; of calling for the victory of one imperialist power over another, as the social-democrats so notoriously did a century ago.

A moment’s reflection will reveal the hollowness of this parallel, however. The call of communists in Britain, France, Italy and the USA for the defeat of Nato imperialism cannot at all be equated with the treachery of the social-democrats of 1914, who mobilised workers to fight in defence of their own rulers’ empires.

War and the split in socialism
In one respect only is the KKE’s analogy with 1914 correct. The outbreak of the first world war revealed the deep split that had been developing in the socialist movement during the ‘peaceful’ decades leading up to the war. In developing the working class’s struggle for socialism in Russia, Lenin placed huge importance on exposing and opposing the rottenness of the opportunist wing of our movement and bringing together the revolutionary sections from each country into a common struggle.

This work, begun at the Zimmerwald conference of 1915, was one of the cornerstones of the Bolsheviks’ success in 1917, and it was the basis of the formation of the world communist movement and the revolutionary third international (the Comintern), under whose guidance the world’s workers were able to advance so successfully.

The present war in Ukraine has likewise drawn a line around the world and revealed a deep split in the socialist movement.

The Platform has every intention of following the great example set to us by Comrade Lenin. From him we have learned the vital importance of fighting for revolutionary ideology at a time of world economic crisis and war; at a time when the imperialists are doing everything possible to divert the anger and confuse the minds of the immiserated masses.

Let workers and oppressed peoples everywhere understand: this is not an abstract question of armchair theorising, but a fight for a correct understanding of our concrete conditions in order to allow us to determine the form that our practical activities should take.

And this practical work is a matter of life and death for our movement and for humanity. Let us be in no doubt: the victory of the imperialist camp over the anti-imperialist countries would set back the cause of liberation and socialism by 20, 30 or even 40 years – with all the attendant misery, death and destruction.

This is why we must expose and oppose the rotten theory and activity of the KKE and others like them, who have transformed themselves into the agents of imperialist ideology in the working-class movement. [24]

This is why we must do everything in our power to unite the forces of anti-imperialism, providing them with a correct understanding so that they are able to identify who are their friends and who are their enemies at this crucial moment in history; so that they are able to form the strongest possible alliance in order to achieve victory in the crucial battles that are coming.

One last point on the question of the international communist movement must also be made. We are being accused of ‘splitting the movement’ by attacking the KKE. But we cannot split what is not whole. Our movement is already deeply divided. Indeed, it has been for many decades.

The present war has revealed not only the deep divide within our movement generally but also the absolute rottenness of the group of parties clustered around the KKE and the futility of expecting anything useful to come to the working class from trying to preserve ‘unity’ with such elements – with individuals and organisations that have clearly shown themselves to be on the side of the imperialist camp.

Once again, we call to mind the words of Lenin, when he described the betrayals and rottenness of the majority of leaders of the Second International during World War 1: “This contradiction [between the revolutionary words and opportunist deeds of the social-democratic leaders] was a boil which just had to burst, and burst it has.”

“Is it worth trying, as Kautsky and co are doing, to force the pus back into the body for the sake of ‘unity’ (with the pus), or should the pus be removed as quickly and thoroughly as possible, regardless of the pang of pain caused by the process, to help bring about the complete recovery of the body of the labour movement?” [25]

Further: “The split in the labour and socialist movements throughout the world is a fact. We have two irreconcilable working-class tactics and policies in respect of the war. It is ridiculous to close your eyes to this fact. Any attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable will make all our work futile.” [26]

While the KKE talks emptily about ‘class solidarity’, about ‘Leninism’, and about some future revolution that it has no practical programme for achieving, a real revolutionary crisis is developing and spreading all over the world which is being either ignored or condemned by the KKE and its ilk. The overproduction crisis of the global capitalist-imperialist economy is at its root, and the war drive, impelled by this economic crisis, is accelerating its development.

This is not the moment to stand on the sidelines wagging our fingers at everyone who tries to act, nor is it the moment to try to reconcile what is irreconcilable.

The task of socialists is to explain, clearly and fearlessly, that the US-led Nato bloc is trying to save its blood-drenched system at the expense of the workers of the world. That the oppressed, independent and socialist countries are increasingly banding together to resist their onslaught, and that this movement is to be welcomed, supported and enhanced in every way possible.

As Lenin said: “War inflicts horrible sufferings on the people, but we must not, and we have no reason at all, to despair of the future.” [27]

The coming conflicts will undoubtedly be hard; they will undoubtedly require much struggle and sacrifice from the workers and oppressed peoples everywhere. But we have a bright future waiting for us on the other side, if only we are prepared to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to ensuring a decisive victory against the decadent, parasitic, moribund imperialist world order.

Notes
[1] The Paris Declaration, 15 October 2022, published on wap21.org.

[2] Note, in particular, the following claim made by former KKE general secretary Alexandra Papriga: “At the end of the 20th century there were three imperialist centres as they were formed after the world war: the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union, the USA and Japan. Today the number of imperialist centres has increased, while new forms of alliance have also emerged such as the alliance centred on Russia, the alliance of Shanghai, the alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (Brics), the alliance of the countries of Latin America: Alba, Mercosur etc.” (On imperialism – the imperialist pyramid, published in El Machete (theoretical and political journal of the CP of Mexico), April 2013)

[3] See, for example, On the so-called World Anti-imperialist Platform and its damaging and disorienting position by the international relations section of the KKE, 1 April 2023.

[4] On imperialism – the imperialist pyramid by Alexandra Papariga, April 2013.

[5] KKE, The Agrarian Question in Greece, 1980, cited in Ed: G Cox, P Lowe, M Winter, Agriculture: People and Policies, 1986, chapter 2, Capitalism, petty commodity production and the farm enterprise by D Goodman and M Redclift.

[6] In his article The revolutionary proletariat and the right of nations to self-determination, refuting Karl Radek’s (Parabellum’s) proposition that imperialism had made the national question redundant, Lenin stressed that the focal point of any communist programme “must be that division of nations into oppressor and oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism, and is deceitfully evaded by the social-chauvinists and Kautsky … This we demand, not independently of our revolutionary struggle for socialism, but because this struggle will remain a hollow phrase if it is not linked up with a revolutionary approach to all questions of democracy, including the national question.” (October 1915)

[7] Later in the same year Lenin again wrote: “Imperialism is the epoch in which the division of nations into oppressors and oppressed is essential and typical.” (The Peace Programme, March 1916) Indeed, this understanding of the fundamental essence of the imperialist system was at the core of the Bolsheviks’ successful revolutionary strategy and tactics.

[8] The Leninist approach of the KKE on imperialism and imperialist pyramid by the international relations section of the KKE, contribution to the ninth international conference of the CWPR on ‘Lenin and the contemporary era’, 2013.

[9] VI Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916, chapter 9.

[10] Yet the KKE insists that “The situation in Africa, in regions of Eurasia and the middle east bear out the fact that all the capitalist countries are incorporated in the international imperialist system, irrespective of whether they have the ability to carry out their own expansionist political line.” (A Papariga, op cit)

[11] The revisionist communist parties have been firmly attached to the left wing of social democracy ever since the postwar period. From that time until today, displacing the workers from the revolutionary path has been the main function of the public face of bourgeois politics (as opposed to the real business of ruling the country that goes on behind closed doors). The European Union, as an imperialist entity with huge resources, has magnified the funds and organisational mechanisms available for the corruption of Europe’s working-class parties.

[12] Opportunism: the selling out of the long-term interests of the movement for short-term gains, real or perceived, political or personal: “Opportunism is a manifestation of the bourgeoisie’s influence over the proletariat.” (Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International by VI Lenin, December 1915)

[13] The ‘World Anti-imperialist Platform’ – opportunists in ‘anti-imperialist’ garb by the KO’s international commission, 6 May 2023. (The KO split into two parts around 18 months ago. One part is at present clarifying its understanding of imperialism while holding to the idea that the German working class’s main enemy must be German imperialism and Nato, the other part has written this article declaring, among other things, that to side with Russia and China in the present war is ‘opportunist’, and that the Platform is spreading ‘bourgeois propaganda’ by supporting Russia’s goal of denazifying Ukraine.)

[14] See Position of the KKE on the developments in the Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) by the international relations section of the KKE, 4 May 2017 and To the comrades of the KKE, to the parties that are members of the Communist European Initiative by the PCPE, 4 May 2017.

[15] Opportunism and the collapse of the Second International, January 1916.

[16] See Joint statement by the general secretaries of the Communist Party of Greece, the Communist Party of Mexico, the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain and the Communist Party of Turkey, 8 July 2022.

[17] Former general secretary of KKE, Aleka Papariga, says that Ukraine is fighting a ‘just war’, KKE meeting in Corfu on 22 March 2022, Proletarian TV.

[18] Opportunism, and the collapse of the Second International, December 1915.

[19] On the political economy of contemporary imperialism: The concept of the ‘imperialist pyramid’ and its critics by Thanasis Spanidis, In Defence of Communism blog, 7 June 2023.

To provide just one example of the specious reasoning contained in this piece: GDP data in table one is used to show that China has already outstripped the USA to become the world’s ‘biggest economy’ and that this ‘proves’ that it has joined the imperialist club. But no reference is made to GDP output per head of the population – a list in which China currently appears in 71st place and Russia at 56th. The fact that India and south Korea also appear in this list of ‘top ten biggest economies’ does not appear to have given the author pause for thought as to whether the data is really demonstrating what he wants it to.

[20] Preface to N Bukharin’s pamphlet, Imperialism and the World Economy, December 1915.

[21] Help which included the Marshall plan to finance west European reconstruction, the division of Germany, the overthrow of communist forces in western Europe, and assistance in a string of neocolonial wars in Malaya, Korea, Vietnam, Angola and elsewhere aimed at retarding the wave of national-liberation victories.

[22] The granting of welfare states which persuaded workers in the west that they could enjoy the advantages of socialism without having to make a socialist revolution.

[23] The US-led Nato alliance in most of the world, supplemented by the US-led ‘triple alliance’ of the USA, Japan and south Korea in east Asia, which has been dubbed the ‘Nato of the east’, and which may well be subsumed into Nato as the war drive progresses and more European countries are persuaded to send military hardware into the Pacific, even as Japan and south Korea have been persuaded to send military supplies to Ukraine.

[24] An early draft of this article was published by mistake and withdrawn for finalising. While its essential analysis was correct, our opponents read it and took umbrage at the blunt way in which some of the points were made. Feeling offended about being called ‘agents of imperialism’, they are indignant about our ‘lack of evidence’.

Of course, in the legal sense, they are right. We have no conclusive evidence of malintent, nor are we in any position to properly investigate such a charge. In many cases, evidence of crimes against our movement many not emerge until after a successful revolution, when the workers have taken hold of the state’s secret archives.

The political point, however, is that whether the leaders of the KKE are acting deliberately as agents or accidentally (‘in good faith’) against the interests of the proletariat is immaterial. As Lenin pointed out in 1920: “As far as the individual is concerned, there is a very great difference between a man whose weakness of character makes him a traitor and one who is a deliberate, calculating traitor; but in politics there is no such difference, because politics involves the actual fate of millions of people, and it makes no difference whether the millions of workers and poor peasants are betrayed by those who are traitors from weakness of character or by those whose treachery pursues selfish aims.” (A Publicist’s Notes, February 1920)

[25] Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International, January 1916.

[26] The tasks of the opposition in France by VI Lenin, February 1916.

[27] Speech delivered at an international meeting in Berne, February 1916.

https://thecommunists.org/2023/10/01/ne ... portunism/

Damn shame for a party with such a storied history to fall into such error. One wonders if the 'takeover' of some Greek port operations by Chinese capitalists has anything todo with it. Not a happy circumstance, but failure to take the broader view is parochial.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply