Greece and the KKE

[blindpig]

KKE: Statement on the dangerous developments in the Korean Peninsula



The Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece issued the following statement regarding the dangerous developments in the Korean Peninsula:

"The KKE expresses its intense concern about the dangerous situation in the Korean Peninsular. The developments reflect the escalation of the economic and military competition and inter-imperialist contradictions in the entire Asia and Pacific region between powerful capitalist states and business interests, at an international and regional level.

It is not the result of choices of the allegedly "crazy" leaders of the USA and North Korea, as is being deliberately cultivated by the mass media in order to conceal the real causes of the confrontation.

These antagonisms between the USA, Japan, China, Russia etc. are related in particular to the new division of the markets, the exploitation of the energy resources, which are to be found in regions such as the Korean Peninsular, the South and East China Sea, the Arctic and elsewhere. All this results in the constant intensification of the dangerous arms race and even the possibility of a military conflict. The USA is also paving the way for the increase of the sales of modern armaments to Japan and South Korea, while maintaining powerful military forces (28,000 troops) and military hardware in their bases in South Korea. It is constantly conducting major military exercises with provocative scenarios for the invasion of North Korea.

It is no accident that from the very first moment, the new US administration of Trump, together with the goal of renegotiating large scale economic agreements, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), turned its attention to this specific region, which is in the under-belly of China and Russia and is considered by China to be a region vital to its interests, as well as other regions of Asia that are on the "Silk Route".All the above, together with USA's large trade deficits in relation to China, influence the formation of an aggressive political line in order to defend the US monopolies.

The USA is in the dominant position amongst the capitalist states with a nuclear arsenal, which it has already used, while it is characteristic that very recently the USA, Britain and France absented themselves from negotiations for the signing of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, with the excuse that this is not compatible with the realities of the international security environment. At the same time, NATO is talking openly at its summits about the possibility of using nuclear weapons. Consequently, the USA's entreaties about the nuclear programme of North Korea are enormously hypocritical and serve as an alibi, the moment when the USA and other capitalist states, like Britain, France, Pakistan, India etc possess nuclear weapons.


The USA invokes the nuclear threat from both North Korea and Iran in order to install its so-called "anti-missile shield" both in the Pacific and in Europe, while in collaboration with the EU it follows the path of overthrowing or supporting governments in line with its own interests and imposes sanctions that target the peoples. In addition, it is once again reinforcing its military presence in Afghanistan, with its attention turned towards China and also Russia. The same is also true regarding the concentration of NATO troops in the Baltic.

On its part, Russia is taking a position against these plans, which objectively serve the aim of impeding a possible response by Russia, in the instance when the USA and NATO alliance attempt a "first nuclear strike".

The USA is utilizing the stance of North Korea to develop its own nuclear programme, to promote its geostrategic interests in the region and more generally. However, the brutal crime the USA committed 72 years ago, with the nuclear destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the long-term consequences of this crime, demonstrate that the solution is not to be found in the development of nuclear weapons. It is no accident the first workers' state in the world, the USSR, had abandoned the first nuclear strike and played a leading role for a world without nuclear weapons.

The exacerbation of the situation in the Korean Peninsular will not change or reduce the tension in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. This is not only because the consequences of a possible military clash, with the use of nuclear weapons indeed, will be global, but because in the final analysis we are talking about fragile inter-imperialist "balances" and a geopolitical "domino set" that is unfolding on an international level, from the Baltic, Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean to Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

This is not the first time the USA has focused on this region. It played the leading role in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, which led to over half a million dead and to the dismemberment of the country. In any case, it should not be forgotten that Greece sent troops to participate in the imperialist military intervention in Korea, with over 180 Greeks being killed and 600 wounded. This was the choice of the Greek bourgeois class and its representatives.

The Greek government, with the support of the official opposition and the other bourgeois parties, is undertaking enormous responsibilities, as it participates in and agrees with the decisions and dangerous plans of NATO, serving the interests of the local bourgeois class, as all the bourgeois governments have done up until today. It places enormous emphasis on the role of Greece in the framework of the alliance, in the name of the country's "geostrategic enhancement".It has just recently agreed to expand the base at Souda and other military bases and infrastructure for the operations of the USA, NATO and the EU. It continues Greece's contribution to the enormous NATO budget and integrates the armed forces even more deeply into the imperialist plans, intensifying the competition with Turkey.

Various mass media, as well as politicians, utilize the situation around the nuclear issue related to North Korea, not only slandering the struggle of the peoples for a world without the exploitation of man by man as a whole, but also in order to prepare the ground so that our people accept a military intervention by the USA and NATO in North Korea, under the pretexts of "restoring democracy" and "dealing with weapons of mass destruction", which were also utilized in other imperialist interventions, such as in Iraq. The KKE supports the position that it is exclusively a matter for the people of each country to decide on the economic, social and political regime they will have, and also whether they will change it, through their own organization and struggle.

The developments impose vigilance, the intensification of internationalist solidarity and the strengthening of the struggle against the imperialist interventions and wars, against nuclear weapons. This struggle is integrally linked to the struggle for bread and wages, against capital and its governments, whatever shade of bourgeois government they may be. It is linked to the struggle against the imperialist unions, like NATO, the EU, as well as against others in Asia and elsewhere, against the capitalist system of exploitation and the power of capital, which, as history has shown, does not hesitate to commit all kinds of crimes against the peoples in order to overcome the sharpening contradictions and major problems, in order to achieve its goals and to safeguard its dominance."

https://communismgr.blogspot.gr/2017/09 ... ments.html

[blindpig]

KKE GS Koutsoumbas: NATO-USA-EU are in no way guarantors of "peace" and "security" in the Balkans

The Secretary General of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Dimitris Koutsoumbas spoke at a major political event of the 43rd KNE-Odigitis Festival in Thessaloniki.

Source: inter.kke.gr.

The political and cultural events of the 43rd Festival of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) and its newspaper "Odigitis", which this year are dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution.

The three days' of events of KNE's Festival in Thessaloniki were held from the 13th to the 16th of September. At the Festival a major political rally was held, where the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas spoke and called on the youth "from tomorrow, with the impetus of the successful festival, more workers and young people should come with us on the path for revolutionary change.

All together we should struggle for the society that can satisfy our contemporary needs. A society where each of us on the basis of our capabilities can fully develop our personalities and utilize all our abilities and play a leading role in constructing this society. A society that cultivates initiative, creativity, truly innovative thinking and conscious activity, which liberates all the potential of young people which today is being suffocated by the system of exploitation and wars, capitalism. It is the society where the working class will have the power, where the working people will control the economy because they will possess its keys, and for this reason they can enjoy all the wealth that they produce with their hands and intellect, sweat and toil. The Bolsheviks 100 years ago in October 1917 gave the same response i.e. that the world changes. The new smashes the old through a revolution. This has always been the case. We call on the youth to learn, to ask about, to study the days that shook the world. To dispute the view of the exploiters, who throw mud at the revolutionary movement in Greece and internationally."

The GS of the CC of the KKE made reference in his speech to the domestic and international developments. He denounced the SYRIZA-ANEL government for the harsh anti-worker and anti-people measures it is implementing. He called on the workers to join forces with the KKE, with the labour-people's movement which has a line of rupture and confrontation with the capitalist system.

In this speech, D. Koutsoumpas, speaking from Thessaloniki, which geographically is located in the "heart" of the Balkans, made detailed reference to the developments in the Balkans, to the sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradictions in the region. Below is an extensive extract from the speech, which is related to the situation in this region and the assessments.

"Dear comrades,

October confirmed in practice that the struggle for disengagement from the imperialist war is integrally linked to the struggle for worker's power and this strategy of the Bolsheviks was confirmed 100 years ago.

In particular, we want to discuss this experience today, when the confrontation, competition between the strong powers of the global capitalist world is also involving our region, the Balkans, the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean.

The relations of our country with the neighbouring Balkan countries, and also the Greek-Turkish relations and the Cyprus issue are entangled in this competition, in one way or another.

Here the "rope" is not simply taut, but is becoming a "knot" due to the contradictions, not only of the most powerful states, but of other smaller "links", of the plans of the region's bourgeois classes.

The multifaceted disputing of the sovereign rights and borders of Greece by the Turkish bourgeois class, and also by the bourgeois classes of other neighbouring countries, where nationalistic chauvinism is re-emerging, such as for example, in Albania, is taking place at a moment when in our wider region the war in Syria is being conducted, when the "cauldron is boiling", not only in the Middle East and North Africa, but also in Europe, in Ukraine, all along NATO's border with Russia.
This is why the decision of the SYRIZA-ANEL government to renew the U.S.-Greece mutual defense cooperation agreement is not a "routine" act but a move that entangles our country even deeper in the plans of the USA and NATO, which seek the reinforcement of the already very significant role of the naval-air-force base of Souda, a powerful "tool" in their war plans in the Mediterranean, as well as for a wider scope of operations.
At the same time, the maintenance and modernization of the base at Araxos is taking place so that it is ready to receive the transit of nuclear weapons, increasing the dangers for our people. And the government is concealing all this from the Greek people.

We call on you to be ready, to organize the struggle.

No to the bases and no to the nuclear weapons!



Indeed, when the US Vice President, Mike Pence, made statements in August that Russia seeks military conflict, the destabilization in the Balkans, anyone can understand why the USA is interested in reinforcing the Souda base and why the Defense Minister of the SYRIZA-ANEL is proposing to provide them with new territory for military bases and why the US ambassador in Athens is "touring" the Greek islands.

And these statements of the US Vice President which were made here, in the Balkans, in August and specifically in Montenegro, which hastily and without a referendum, as it had promised the people, entered NATO, are indicative of the intensification of the inter-imperialist contradictions in the wider region.

This summer's NATO military exercises in the Balkans, naval exercises in Bulgaria and military exercises in Romania,are very characteristic of this situation.

The SYRIZA-ANEL government completely involved in the NATO plans, sometimes invites NATO into the Aegean in the framework of the war in Syria and other times as a transit route for NATO forces, as was the case this summer. It does not safeguard the interests of the country, as it claims, but places the "noose" of the inter-imperialist antagonisms around the neck of our people.

So, when Greece is becoming a "tool" in the Euro-Atlantic plans against Russia. The bourgeois class of Russia, seeking to benefit from any fissure inside the opposing NATO alliance, signed an agreement with Turkey to sell it the modern Russian s-400 systems.

This is a move that is integrated in the inter-imperialist antagonisms and which are being conducted in every way. Diplomatically, as we see from the mutual expulsions of US-Russian diplomatic personnel, militarily, as we see from the increase and mutual targeting of the enormous arsenal, as well as economically, around how, for example, the international weapons' market will be divided up.

At the same time, however, such moves, at a time when Turkey is directly threatening the sovereignty of 17 Greek islands, only contributes to intensifying the arms race between the bourgeois classes. A race which the two peoples will pay for, at a time when the Greek and Turkish peoples are facing the impasses of the capitalist development path, poverty, unemployment, exploitation.

In addition, the sale of these weapons, even when they are considered to be "purely defensive" reinforce and strengthen the aggressiveness of the Turkish bourgeois class at the expense of Greece and other countries, like Syria, whose borders Turkey is disputing.

This is the reason why when the governments claim that our country is a "pillar of stability" is a "triangle of instability", because it is assimilated in the plans of the USA-ANTO-EU, they are once again telling lies.

In reality, they want the working class and our people to wear Euro-Atlantic "blinkers" which will impede them from seeing how dangerous our country's involvement in these antagonisms is, which serve aims alien to theirs and specifically aims related to how the bourgeois classes, above all the strongest ones, the "lions", and then the rest, the 'tigers", "hyenas", and even the "vultures", will share the "prey" of the energy resources, raw materials, the transport routes of the commodities, the market shares.

This is the reason the much vaunted "pillar of stability" of the SYRIZA-ANEL government, as well as the previous ND and PASOK governments is made of "straw", illusions, is built on the "shifting sands" of the instability of capitalist barbarity, of the economic crises and imperialist wars.



NATO cannot safeguard a resolution for issues amongst the Balkan countries, as it has not ensured a solution between Greece and Turkey for 65 years or in the relations between Greece and Albania.

Indeed, over the last 8 years when Albania has been a NATO member, the trend to expansionism, unacceptable territorial claims against Greece has not receded but on the contrary has intensified, while Albania cancelled the agreement on the EEZ in the Ionian Sea, which had previously been signed.

Of course, neither NATO nor the EU can vaccinate the Greece-FYROM relations with "peace" and "security".The rekindling in the recent period of discussions about the issue of the "name", the involvement of various mediators in order to resolve this issue is also integrated in the framework of the further assimilation of the neighbouring country in Euro-Atlantic imperialism.

The USA and its allies do not want at all to see the increase of the influence of their competitors in FYROM and its integration into energy plans and other plans that are in conflict with their own. In any case, we cannot forget that next door, on the borders with Kosovo, the USA has its biggest base in the world, Camp Bondsteel.

Nor can the various political-military axes, which are being promoted, like those with Israel or Egypt, safeguard "peace" and "prosperity".These "axes" which indeed they present as "richly dowered brides" and as a solution for the unimpeded exploitation of the energy wealth of Greece and Cyprus, for the salvation of the people in conditions of capitalist crisis, the only thing they can create are new torments for our people.

To begin with, because wherever "axes" are being created all over the capitalist world, life demonstrates that they find equally strong "anti-axes" in front of them, i.e. rival economic and geopolitical interests. Then it is well-known that the few, the enormous energy colossi profit from the exploitation of the energy wealth and not the working class, not the peoples!

This is the reason why the pressures being exerted on the Cypriot people are unacceptable, regarding an "alleged" solution to the Cyprus issue, in the name of the unimpeded exploitation of the energy resources by the monopoly groups and with the aim of legitimizing the consequences of the Turkish invasion-occupation and its results.

The KKE consistently expresses its solidarity with the Cypriot people against the Turkish invasion-occupation and every kind of dichotomous "solution".

Our party fights for a united Cyprus, for one and not two states, with one sovereignty, one citizenship, one international personality, for a common homeland for Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, without occupation and other foreign armies, without foreign bases, without guarantors and "protectors", with the Cypriot people masters in their own land."

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/0 ... re-in.html

[blindpig]

The 12 cartoons censored by the EU Parliament as politically "controversial"



Last week, the EU Parliament rejected 12 caricatures by Greek artists for a Brussels exhibition as “inflammatory” cartoons mocking EU leaders and their policies allegedly go against “European values.”

The exhibition, featuring work from both French and Greek cartoonists, was due to be unveiled at the European Parliament in Brussels on September 25 as part of the year marking 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. However, after evaluating the work for offensive content, Liberal Democrats' MEP Catherine Bearder rejected 12 of the 28 submissions from Greek artists. From their side, organizers denounced it as an act of “violent censorship.”

Below, you can see the cartoons (caricatures) which were rejected by the EU's "politically correct" censorship:


The blackboard reads: "Geneva Treaty 1951-2016". A pupil asks: "Sir, can we have a new Geneva
or Nurenberg must occur first again?"








"A zombie lies beneath Europe"

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/0 ... by-eu.html

Other images at link. The 1st the best , imho.

[blindpig]

Playing with fire" - the possible transfer of US nuclear weapons to Greece



During his recent speech in Thessaloníki, the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, highlighted amongst other things, that they are carrying out maintenance, upgrades and modernization of the military base of Araxos in western Greece and that there is the possibility of US nuclear warheads being transferred there from the NATO base at Incirlik.

On the 20th of September, the daily newspaper "Rizospastis"-organ of the CC of the KKE-on its front page highlighted the continuing suspicious and conspicuous silence of the government in relation to this accusation made by the KKE.

"Rizospastis" denounces the plans to transfer US nuclear weapons to Greece, which it characterizes as "playing with fire". At the same time, it reveals that the coalition government of the "left" party SYRIZA and the allegedly "patriotic" ANEL has agreed to provide upgraded services at the naval-airforce base of Souda, after the recent renewal of the agreement with the USA regarding its use. It is also discussing "hosting" US marines from Incirlik.
In addition, it notes that in recent months, US officials visited military installations in mainland Greece, seeking an "expansion" of cooperation with Greece regarding other hardware, beyond what is "hosted" at the Souda base.

Finally, it should be noted that on the 19th of September a mass meeting was held in Patras (the 3rd largest city in Greece, which is 40 km from Araxos), at the initiative of the Construction Workers' Union and with the participation of dozens of trade unions and mass organizations, with the aim of organizing the struggle of the people in the region against the installation of US nuclear weapons in Araxos. As was stressed at the meeting, the labour-people's movement of the region will respond in the face of decisions that entangle our country even more deeply in dangerous plans.

20.09.2017

http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Playing ... to-Greece/

[blindpig]

Powerful message for struggle: At least 250,000 people attended KNE-Odigitis Festival in Athens


With the tremendous, unprecedented participation of thousands of people of all ages, the three-day events of the 43rd Festival of the Communist Youth of Greece and its newspaper "Odigitis" were concluded in Athens.

According to KNE, the number of the people who attended the cultural and political events of the festival reaches the record high of 250,000.

The third and last day of the Festival, among other events, included a large concert dedicated to the late composer Manos Loizos, with the participation of popular singers like George Dalaras, Maria Farantouri and Vasilis Papakonstantinou. The concert took place on the occasion of the 80 years since the birth of Loizos, one of Greece's most talented composers who died at the age of 45.


The Festival, which was dedicated to the 100 years since the Great Socialist October Revolution, sent a powerful message for the continuation of the struggle with a massive political event on Saturday evening. The event began with a video including a sensational audio document of Lenin's voice and continued with the central speech delivered by the Secretary General of the CC of the KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas. The Secretary of the CC of KNE Nikos Abatielos also delivered a greeting message.

"The future is here! Honoring the October Revolution, the great historical event of the 20th century which, 100 years ago, paved the way. So that we, the working class, the peoples of the whole world, take measures in the 21st century, making him the century of the definite victory of the "new" over the "old", to leave our mark in History, to conquer the future of socialism-communism" said, among other things, Secretary Koutsoumbas.


In a powerful speech, Dimitris Koutsoumbas called the working class, the popular strata, the youth, to go together with the KKE, for the counter-attack and people's victory.

"Come together with the KKE, because it never abandoned the revolutionary struggle", Dimitris Koutsoumbas underlined and continued: "It did not deny the 20th century's socialism. It did not hide that against the brutal dictatorship of the capital, there is only the "dictatorship of the proletariat", that is the power of the working class which, along with her valuable social allies, consist the overwhelming popular majority, the only capable to pave the way for the real freedom, peace, for the satisfaction of the big modern popular needs".

Secretary Koutsoumbas concluded his speech by declaring: "We continue on the way opened by the October Socialist Revolution. For the victory. For socialism-communism".

(The whole speech of the KKE Secretary General will be published within the next few days)

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/0 ... least.html

[blindpig]

D. Koutsoumbas: "We continue on the road opened by the October Socialist Revolution. For the victory, for Socialism - Communism"

Speech by the Secretary General of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Dimitris Koutsoumbas in the political event of the 43rd KNE-Odigitis Festival in Athens. Source: inter.kke.gr:

"Friends and comrades,

The future is here! The future is here, at the 43rd festival of KNE and ODIGITIS, in this beautiful picture of the enlightened future world which all visitors can admire.

The future is here, in the Tritsi park, in the center of the western Attica, which has been transformed into a red city thanks to the volunteer work and will of our KNE’s members and friends.

You can see the future in the faces of the thousands of young people who are determined to fight for a life with modern rights to work, education, life, sports and culture. That’s the origin of our slogan, “Youth does not bow its head, it attacks and struggles alongside the KKE!”

The young people’s hearts beat here these three days and this is a proof that the festival –the unique political and cultural event for the youth- continues to be a meeting spot a place for thousands of young people to explore and have fun. It enhances itself as the years pass.

The festival reminds us of the “Tree” one of Manos Loizos’ songs that we are going to listen to at the concert in a short while. It’s a tree that never bends, a tree that keeps growing with dozens of events in different cities, islands, neighborhoods and villages in our country.

This year, thousands of young people heard our message, that we have to take measures in order for the future to come in order for young people to take the place they deserve in the workers’ movement, in the social alliance which will crush the exploiters of the peoples.

The future is here! We honor the great October Socialist Revolution, the monumental event of the 20th century which paved the way 100 years ago. Now the working class and the peoples of the world can get prepared in order to make the 21st century the century of the final victory of the ‘new’ against the ‘old’, in order to make history and conquer the future of socialism and communism.

The future lies in the revolutionary, unique political position of the KKE . Thanks to the tireless and vanguard work of the youth’s members and friends thousands of workers and young people get in touch with this position every day!

History isn’t over! Earth will finally turn into red! Red out of life! We believe in it! We fight for it every day! Our weapon is our 100-year history of the ΚΚΕ, its revolutionary program and the resolutions of its 20th Congress.

Our Congress confirmed that our party is politically and ideologically united. It confirmed the decisiveness of our cadres and members of KNE and KKE to make the KKE stronger, to make it more capable of fighting for the regroupment of the labor movement. Make it more capable to build the social alliance in an anticapitalist, antimonopoly direction. Make it more capable of fighting against the imperialist wars, for workers’ power, for socialism.

The October Socialist Revolution paved the way 100 years ago in Russia. As Lenin said “We have made the start. When, at what date and time, and the proletarians of which nation will complete this process is not important. The important thing is that the ice has been broken; the road is open, the way has been shown”.

Since these days of October, we passed definitively to the era of the overthrow of capitalism, to the era of socialist revolutions. This happens independently of the setbacks, the new difficulties in the correlation of class forces.

We ask young people to search, to ask, to learn about communists’ action. Also, to read and study about the days that shook the world, about the October Revolution and discover all that is hidden about USSR.

We ask young people to see beyond all the slander and falsification about Socialism that was built in the 20th century. We ask young people to wonder why anti-communism is so intense, why do they care that much every single day on the media, the radio, they even write books, organize events about socialism that, as they say, failed and collapsed?

Why do they insist to write and talk about it? Why do the keep attacking a system that they like to call obsolete and inapplicable?
We recommend that young people read “Bolsheviks’ way to victory”. In 1914 the Party of the Bolsheviks had already (later on Communist Party) opposed betrayal of social democracy that supported Ist WW.

Bolsheviks did not support bourgeois government. Nor that formed by the February Revolution of 1917, overthrowing the Czar. With the struggle of the Bolsheviks, it became possible for the poor peasants and soldiers to ally with the revolutionary vanguard of the working class.

Under these conditions, in October 1917 they made the socialist revolution. Under these conditions, they were theoretically, ideologically, organizationally prepared in the harsh class conflicts and won when conditions of revolutionary situation were created. In conditions when vast masses of workers, peasants, soldiers, turned their backs to the bourgeoisie that weakened and was defeated in the final confrontation.

The workers who produced the wealth became its owners.

The country came out of the imperialist war.

The 8 hour working day, social security, free healthcare, unemployment were established, unemployment was finally eliminated.

Millions of acres of landowners passed into the hands of the Soviets, of the workers and peasants.

General education became compulsory and free, illiteracy was abolished.

Women’s inequality was eliminated in family law, voting rights, the way for right to work, for participation in social action was opened.

All the nations of the multinational Russia of that time acquired the same rights.

The Soviet Union contributed decisively to smashing the Nazi-fascist war machine with 20 million dead, with 1,700 cities and 70,000 villages destroyed by the troops of Hitler.

In this titanic struggle for socialism, Communist Parties in all countries, members, cadres, leaders in every country had a very important role.

Communists also had a huge contribution for the peoples, for the revolutionary movements in all countries. The National Liberation Front (EAM), the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS), the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), were the heroic creations of the KKE in our country. As many times as our people accepted to fight, based on the revolutionary policy of the KKE, it had successes and victories.

The October Socialist Revolution, proved that capitalism is neither eternal nor invincible. A superior organization of the society can be built without exploitation of man by man.

Of course, never before in the history of mankind, has a more progressive, superior social system been established. Today's capitalism consolidated itself over feudalism as a new superior social system, over the centuries: Since 1400 it appeared, only in the 19th century, it fully developed its own characteristics.

Workers’ power emerged for the first time in the 19th century and lasted only 70 days in France, with the Paris Commune. The second time, comparatively more mature, with the October Revolution in 1917, it lasted about 70 years.

The third time in our century it will win definitely and irrevocably, and only so will humanity be saved from hunger, environmental destruction, exploitation, unemployment, wars.

We have studied and have drawn conclusions about the causes of the overthrow, except that we do not ignore the contribution of socialism, as the apologists of capitalism do.

A gradual slide into capitalist functions, with the so-called market socialism theory, weakening the social character of the product and central planning, led to the overthrow.

The 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 was a turning point, because by employing the so-called personality cult, it adopted a series of opportunist positions, mainly on the issues of strategy of the communist movement, of international relations, and partly of the economy. Perestroika in 1985 became the final vehicle of the counter-revolution

For the KKE, however, these 26 years that have passed, they have made even more categorical the timeliness of socialism - communism.

But what is even clearer is the truth of Mayakovsky’s verses that called us to unravel the future. "The future will not come by its’ own ... if we do not take measures too."

And the future is not behind us, it is not capitalism, it is the new world, socialism - communism.
Comrades and friends,
Lately, SYRIZA and Mr. Tsipras are more exposed, giving us lessons of defense of capitalism.

Sometimes employing "healthy entrepreneurship", sometimes "social economy" or "innovation and research", Mr. Tsipras performs well at what any seller does to meet the goals and get the bonus, in this specific case the renewal of the support of capital.

He seeks to acquit a whole social system based on the exploitation of man by man, which is enshrined in countless anti-labor laws, which, of course, are implemented by healthy companies.

He tries to absolve a rotten system that has profit as the main motive. This motive applies even when states, governments in capitalism are tricking workers, telling them that there are also some supposedly non-profit companies, public utilities, NGOs and others.

Research and innovation are exploited to the benefit of capitalist accumulation, not to the satisfaction of the needs of the working class, the people.

Of course, we are not in 2015, nor in 2012. SYRIZA has completed its mutation into a bourgeois party and has already completed two and a half years of bourgeois management.

It can now turn to capital by advertising his government as the best “dealer” for businesses and investors, and can sometimes take off its left masque to reveal its real face as a servant of monopoly groups, of capitalist development.

Capitalist development, despite what SYRIZA says when talking to the people, cannot be fair. Because fair development in an unfair system cannot exist.

Examples are countless and more the recent is the shipwreck in Salamis. On the one side, they celebrate that Piraeus becomes an "entry gate", an international hub "and on the other, ships that are floating coffins destroy health and the environment, they deprive the people of Athens even of swimming in the Saronic Gulf.

That’s is their development.

Greece is on fire, popular dwellings flood from the rains, everyone is afraid of a major earthquake.

Because their growth is motivated by profit rather than the protection of the life of the working class, the people.

The abolition of the Sunday holiday, the extension of the memorandum regulations for the Collective Labor Agreements, the essential legal establishment of the lock out, the liberalization of collective layoffs, the abolition of trade union rights, the attack against the right to strike through the facilitation of its outlawing and many other measures recently voted by the SYRIZA-ANEL government and also what it is preparing to vote with the 3rd assessment pave the way for capitalist development.

And all these anti-worker measures, independently of how SYRIZA baptizes them, are deeply class-based and unjust!

This is capitalism! In Greece and all over the world. Barbarity, unemployment, misery for the lives of the workers.

The promises of New Democracy, which, of course, claims that, unlike SYRIZA, it knows and wants, and can better do the dirty work on behalf of the capital, function inside the same unjust class framework.

In fact, in order to overcome SYRIZA as for its anti-people character and also its devotion to the capital, it brings up against reactionary slogans like "parties out of the schools and universities", " parties and trade unions out of the workplaces".
It goes so far as to say that social inequalities stem from human nature by reproducing reactive theories drawn from the textbooks of the Nazi Mengele.

Both of them are particularly focused on the youth and they pretend to worry for its future. Their hypocrisy has no limits.

SYRIZA's "fair development" and "sustainable growth” that will not leave anyone behind" of New Democracy the historically outdated capitalist growth that is accompanied by rising unemployment, especially among young people and women, that obliges youngsters from a very young age to experience the unfairness of unemployment, the unfairness of starvation wages, uninsured labor, non-payment, impossibility to work in their chosen profession, to experience the unfairness of immigration abroad. It’s the capitalist development that leaves behind the children of the workers’ people's family and their rights.

They avoid talking even about the minimum. That no one should be paid under 751 euros.
Comrades and friends,

In a society that that everywhere projects the principles "your death is my life", "take care just of yourself" that "the capitalist system is invincible and the end of history and whatever we do is in vain " we know there are youngsters, and there will be much more in the next few days, who are concerned.

They are angry because the system of exploitation deprives them of their rights and life and they fairly say that "something must happen, the situation must change". They wonder about how this can be done.

We address all these young people and say: "There is a solution! With the KKE on the way of the overthrow "! The youth is fed up with messiahs who "save them" every time, is fed up with lies that the governors say each time to become such, is fed up with promises.

SYRIZA and New Democracy, as well as the other parties only acknowledge to the young generation the right to have no rights, to claim no rights. Both Mr. Tsipras and Mr. Mitsotakis talk continuously about the new generation, at the same time that they crush its life. Give them the answer now!

The time has come for action! KNE, the Youth Organization of the KKE, is here for you all! It has a clear struggle proposal, it has proposals and positions on all the issues that concern young people of the workers’ peoples’ families. However, in order for these proposals of KKE and KNE to take effect, they need your support, the struggle of all of us in the workplaces, the centers of education, the neighborhoods.

So let's all overcome the dirty propaganda of the system, the hesitations that everyone may have!

Each one of us counts in the big struggle that we have in front!

Every youngster organized in KNE means a great failure of the system to control the,, to neutralize their soul and body! It means that no one will be alone, to be exploited, to be deceived.
But it also means much more ... Every youngster who decides to join KNE in fact is not just one, but thousands. The slogan "One for All and All for One" and all together for the most sacred aim, the abolition of exploitation of man by man is put into action. Every youngster organized in KNE is part of the collective struggle, of the effort to change our lives, to "make man a human”.

The fact of being organized multiplies the power of each and every one of us!

Think ... Would the great revolutionaries, whom we admire and honor this year – by devoting the festival to the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution - such as Lenin, Stalin and so many others - had made their thoughts come true without the conscious action, the organization of thousands and millions of people?

The people's struggle is all-powerful, and we communists have confidence, even when the opponent imagines itself omnipotent, even when the movement is not on the up.

So we say to every youngster something that has been repeatedly confirmed by historical experience: The struggle of the youth, of the people in our country is connected by a red thread with all the revolutions and uprisings that humanity has experienced, in order for the peoples to live better days.
We proceed with this course of the peoples to the final victory! With its ups and downs, with its turns and stops, and sometimes with huge leaps forward! But we do not hesitate; we are constantly trying to conquer knowledge, to understand developments and to make our own battle plan with only one purpose: "For the need to become history"!

The future will come! The new generation will live it!

This is undisputed. The question is whether the black future where the capitalists will continue having the power, crushing the rights of the workers and the youth, to make wars shall continue ... or the bright future, without exploitation of man from man, socialism – communism shall come earlier!

Our struggle is part of the struggle waged by the peoples of the world! And this is evidenced by the fact that today, among us, we have comrades, young communists from all over Europe, from Asia, Africa, and America.

We have comrades from Mexico, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and so many other countries that fight in very difficult circumstances. We also salute the representatives of the embassies present with us here at the festival: Palestine, Cuba, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

Our minds and our hearts are together with all the peoples that fight. We coordinate our action, and spot all together against the same aim, capitalism, imperialism, which crushes our rights all over the world.

Comrades and friends,
We address to those who are currently studying and making proper use of their experience. The experience that says that saviors are over, to those who have come to the conclusion that the lesser evil always leads to the greater evil.

We address to those who feel frustrated, cheated by SYRIZA, to those who instead of looking ahead, look back at their previous choices.

We say they shouldn’t have any confidence in New Democracy which tries to whitewash its anti-people policy, and once again asks for the support of the people for its turn of anti-people’s management, as SYRIZA succeeded New Democracy two and a half years ago.

To have no confidence in PASOK and the other parties, which through the renaming of the center-left, with their historic support for the system, that they supported in the previous years, is attempted to be whitewashed by staff of the system.

Remember: Every new government will be worse than the previous one, because the system of exploitation itself becomes worse.

It is not a solution for the people and the youth, the constant rotation of parties and governments, which, when one fails, prepare each other to replace it and treat the people equally bad.

The hope, the way out for the working class is far and away from the bourgeois management where the bourgeois parties, sometimes one by one and sometimes in collaboration between them, carry out the anti-people policy.

The hope, the way out, to come along with the KKE.
In order to get rid of the causes of misery.
In order to overthrow and definitely abolish barbarity.

We invite you now, no matter what choices you made until yesterday, to come along with the KKE. Here is your position, the position of the unemployed people, the workers, the employees, the self-employed farmers, professionals, scientists, the students, all the women of the popular families.
Now with the KKE, because it told the truth about SYRIZA.

It particularly warned those who felt that they were politically left-wing, they based their hopes on the "left for the first time ", to a bourgeois government that independently of its name, faces, phraseology did well the dirty work for the quartet, the EU, the NATO, the big capital.

Now with the KKE, because in the workers' people’s movement, it has the line of rupture and conflict with the capitalist system.

With the KKE for the movement that regroups its forces, it prepares for the conflict with the real enemy.
That is why it does not retreat, it does not stumble on the traps of social consensus, political instability, it does not ask for sacrifices for the recovery of the profits of the capitalists but for sacrifices in the class struggle that bring closer the perspective.

We call upon the working class, the youth, not to be trapped again by obstacles that are being prepared. Do not submit to the system and the EU plans for the new disposition of their political staff.

Now with the KKE, because its truly promising alliance policy is not in meetings and summit agreements, but in the alliance of all the oppressed, in the social alliance where workers can meet with poor farmers and the self-employed can meet, with their children and the women of the popular strata and together they walk in the way of the conflict in order for all of them to be in the power.

In this social alliance, the KKE, through the members and cadres of the Party and KNE, as well as any power in an anti-capitalist-antimonopoly direction, through its people, can find its place.

Now, along with the KKE to strengthen the workers’-popular readiness and struggle against imperialist war plans, the scenarios of border change, against the involvement of any country in these plans. These plans serve the so-called "geostrategic upgrading" of SYRIZA, New Democracy and other bourgeois parties, which in essence is the upgrading of the Greek bourgeoisie in the region.

Along with the KKE for the final closure of the murderous military base of Souda. In order not to be transferred NATO nuclear warheads to Araxos base, which is being visited by US military delegations, inspecting its infrastructure maintenance and modernization in order to host nuclear weapons in their premises.

Alongside the KKE, because the struggle against the imperialist war is inseparably linked to the struggle for workers’ power, which is the only that can guarantee disengagement from the EU and NATO's predatory alliances.

To make the slogan "neither earth nor water to the murderers of the peoples". For the people not to take place "under a foreign flag", not to spill its blood for interests that are not their own.

To isolate the Nazi criminal organization of the Golden Dawn killers, these henchmen of the bosses.

Those who deny and vote in the Parliament against the obvious, that the employee must be paid their wages, obviously because their ideal are the Nazi forced labor camps that offered for free slave-workers to the German and other monopolies.

Those who commit murderous attacks against PAME trade unionists, these henchmen of those who support military war operations that create refugees and immigrants who are then murdered by racist criminals of the Golden Dawn in the streets of our homeland, the leading henchmen that sow hatred, poison and discord in our people from the podium of the Parliament and leaving behind dead fighters such as Pavlos Fissas exactly 4 years ago.

That's why we shout once again: “Deeply understand what fascism is! It won’t die by itself, smash it!

Friends,

We are addressing to all of you who, even though the prospect temporarily blurred before you, you never believed that capitalist barbarism was the end of the evolution of human society.

To all of you who are outrageous with raw anti-communism, with the methodical concealed anti-communism of the slander of socialism, but also with the anti-communism of stupidity that lately has overwhelmed some people.

We invite you to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution, to teach your children about the first attempt to make man a human, that you want your children to live in a society without unemployment, poverty and wars.

That’s the society for which the KKE fights. With the working class, the people in the power. This workers', peoples’ government is the rival awe of capitalist barbarism. Because with the socialization of means of production, central planning and workers’ control, it can meet modern needs of the working class, the people and their children.

Come with KKE because it never abandoned revolutionary struggle. It did not abandon socialism in the 20th century. it did not conceal that against the harsh dictatorship of the capital, there is only the "dictatorship of the proletariat", that is, the power of the working class that, together with its precious social allies constitute the vast popular majority, which is the only force capable of opening the way of the real freedom, peace, and satisfaction of great modern people's needs.

Remember: The KKE, at the crucial moment, the day the Kremlin's red flag came down in 1991, had the strength to summon the communists through "Rizospastis", saying: "Comrades, keep the flag high! Hope is now in the struggle of the peoples "! We are proud of this.

We continue to keep up this red flag!

We continue on the road opened by the October Socialist Revolution. For the victory, Socialism - Communism.

The days that will re-shake the world will come. We take our measures for this!"

https://communismgr.blogspot.gr/2017/09 ... -road.html

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100th anniversary of the October Revolution: Speech by the GS of the KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas

Speech by the Secretary General of the CC of the KKE Dimitris Koutsoumbas at the internationalist event hosted by the KKE in Athens, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution / Source: inter.kke.gr.

Dear comrades,

We honour here at the headquarters of the CC of the KKE the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution, a great epic of struggles and sacrifices for the construction of a new society, without the exploitation of man by man, which the peoples experienced and continue to experience under capitalism and also under the previous exploitative social systems.

This epic, which began victoriously in the country of the Soviets inspired the working class and the peoples all over the world.
"It was born" in the blood of the imperialist 1st World War.

From it emerged its own heroic figures:

- The heroic red guards, who protected Soviet Power in revolutionary Russia, during the imperialist intervention of 14 capitalist states.

- Millions of communists and leading workers, who defied the decisions of the courts, and even the guns of the bourgeois armies and waged tough battles.

The millions who crushed fascism, which emerged from the bowels of capitalisms and is the "flesh of its flesh".

We salute the presence, here at the headquarters of the CC of the KKE, at today's event, of the Communist and Workers' parties that participate in the efforts of the "International Communist Review".

Our party particularly appreciates the effort of the ICR, the joint effort of a number of parties that base themselves on Marxism-Leninism, defend the revolutionary principles and at the same time study and form a modern revolutionary strategy at a national and international level.

After the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and other socialist countries, it is very difficult even impossible to inspire, to play a leading role in the workers'-people's movement, which is rising up, to have some results against the most reactionary offensive of capital since World War II, against the new cycle of imperialist interventions and wars, if we do not assimilate and use the assessments, experience and lessons from socialist construction in our strategy
There are new features in the general developments that must increase the level of demands in the international communist movement, in the international labour movement.

We live in a period when the old is dying and the new is struggling to be born.

Despite the global domination of capitalism and its apparently undeniable victory over the last 30 years after the counterrevolution, capitalism is permeated with very sharp contradictions and implacable antagonisms between various capitalist states, their military-political and economic-political alliances, antagonisms that have led to wars and realignments.

These contradictions are intrinsic to capitalism, especially in its monopoly stage, namely imperialism.

The phenomena of decay, parasitism, the varied destruction of forces of production are intensifying in this period.

These are consequences related mainly to the expansion of the gap between the productive potential of our era and the level of satisfaction of the contemporary social needs.

A new, more synchronized economic crisis is gestating, as well as the sharpening of the struggle for the control of markets, energy resources and the transport routes of oil and natural gas.

The basic contradiction between capital and labour is intensifying.

The trend of the absolute and relative destitution of the working class is being reinforced.

The percentage of the long-term, permanently unemployed is increasing.

The rate of exploitation of the working class is also increasing in the most developed capitalist economies.

All the social contradictions are intensifying.

The communist and workers' parties that base themselves on scientific socialism must take initiatives, not just to coordinate the struggle, to promote some just worker's demands all over the capitalist world, but also to form a unified revolutionary strategy against the strategy of capital.

Such efforts cannot be made by parties that have given up on the goal of the socialist revolution and worker's power and have chosen the path of managing capitalism.

These efforts can only be made by communist parties that believe in the overthrow of the barbaric capitalist system and the construction of the new socialist-communist society.



Dear comrades,

Proletarian Internationalism was and remains a strong weapon in the hands of the communists and the working class, against the attempts of the bourgeois and opportunists to spread division amongst the workers.

No isolated specific feature, no existing or fabricated secondary contradiction, such as "North-South", "Centre-Periphery", "developed-under-developed countries", "Golden Billion-rest of the world"and other such things, can eliminate the basic contradiction between capital and labour or the necessity for the working class to emancipate itself and achieve workers' power.

Of course the communists, in forming our tactics, take into account the situation in each country, the course of the class struggle, various contradictions, but this cannot be at the expense of our strategy and the general laws for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of the socialist-communist society.
In any case, tactics are integral component of strategy. They are the flexible element of strategy.

An issue that was borne out by the October Revolution is that 100 years ago, in a relatively backward country in relation to other advanced western countries, with many vestiges of previous social systems, capitalism had created the material preconditions for the construction of the new socialist society.

This socialist society provided enormous impetus to the development of the productive forces, overcoming backwardness and centuries old prejudices.

As today, the necessity and timeliness of socialism in even more intense, we cannot speak in a general and abstract way about some vision of socialism, without answering some fair questions in an objective way.

Why was socialist construction interrupted?

Was this development inevitable? Or was it due to specific factors and what were they?

At the same time, there needs to be an evaluation of the strategy of the International Communist Movement in the implacable international confrontation between the socialist and capitalist systems.

The counterrevolution and the current negative correlation of forces does not alter this fact, that a socialist revolution was carried out and socialism was constructed.

They do not change the character of our era, as an era of the transition from capitalism to socialism, as this emerges from the impasses of the capitalist mode of production itself, such as the crises, wars, unemployment, poverty and other torments for the peoples.

The October Revolution confirmed that for the working class to be able to fight for power it must establish its own social alliance with the poor farmers, oppressed urban strata.

It must conquer political power,create its own institutions of workers' power, which based on the superiority of central scientific planning, on the solid terrain safeguarded by social ownership of the means production, the factories, the domestic energy resources, mineral wealth, land, infrastructure will develop the productive forces for the satisfaction of the contemporary needs of the people, rejecting once and for all economic categories such as capitalist profit.

At the same time, October highlighted the irreplaceable role of the revolutionary political vanguard, the communist party, which must demonstrate persistence, stability in terms of its revolutionary line and goal and at the same time adapt to the ups and downs of the class struggle so that the necessary measures are taken for the more decisive and effective confrontation against the forces of capital.

The necessity of proper preparation was apparent so that the working class and its party, the vanguard, can struggle in all conditions, in all forms of struggle, with endurance and self-sacrifice and to acquire a high level of ability so that they can make their mark on the developments in the revolutionary situation.

However, the role of the CP is distinguished not only as the leading force of the socialist revolution, but during the entire course of the class struggle in various forms in order for the new communist society to be shaped, strengthened and finally be victorious.

In all the historical phases, both in the period of preparation, as well as during the revolution itself, even more so during socialist construction, the need for the CP to maintain a strong front against opportunism was apparent.

Opportunism is a vehicle of bourgeois ideology and politics in the labour movement, and as we saw from the experience of the USSR after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and more openly during the period of Perestroika, it is transformed into a counterrevolutionary political force.



Dear comrades,

The 70-year existence of the USSR demonstrated that, despite the weaknesses and criticisms, socialism is a superior socio-economic system.

A system that can safeguard the right to work for all and solve major problems, such as free health-care, education, housing, transport, leisure and many other things that capitalism cannot and does not seek to solve, as they are spheres for the profitability and speculation of capital.

The historical contribution of the USSR to humanity was enormous.

Not only was it an inspiration for all the labour-people's-revolutionary movements, but its work in every field of daily life, science, culture, sports, created a great legacy.

Demonstrating that the construction of a new society is possible.

That the barbarity of capitalism is not the end of history.

We well know that no previous socio-economic system (not even capitalism) was established in a single moment.

That the socialist society is the lowest phase of the communism and not an independent stage between capitalism and socialism.
It does not mean because we are active in the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism that there cannot be a capitalist restoration in one or more countries as a consequence, e.g., of the negative correlation of forces.
However, these general and correct assessments cannot lead us into concealing or excusing specific mistakes, mishaps, deficiencies and serious weaknesses that are related to the subjective factor, to the party above all, during the course of socialist construction, as well as in the international communist movement (ICM) in its confrontation against imperialism.

We are referring to specific political choices that altered, initially at a gradual rate, and later rapidly the class character and scientific basis of the political line of the CPs, and ended up as an opportunist deviation.

Unfortunately, they were not effectively resisted, even if there were such forces willing to do so. However, in the end, the course to capitalist restoration and the opportunist corrosion of the ICM became irreversible in this specific period.

We recognize that, especially after the 2nd World War and in the USSR in particular, new needs and unprecedented issues arose in terms of the course of socialist construction, as of course there was no previous experience or detailed and elaborated plan for construction.

This, however, does not excuse the responsibility of the subjective factor, of the CP, whose leading role is dialectically related to the guidance of workers power and the active mobilization of the masses.

And in these conditions of capitalism and in the conditions of socialism, the party must be more advanced than the consciousness of masses.

In socialism, however, there is the potential and therefore the responsibility to strengthen the socialist elements, practically reinforcing the value of communist relations of production, with socialist construction aiming to approach socialism, in the sense of consciously overcoming features of immaturity which socialism has as the lower imperfect phase of communism.

The womb that gave birth to mistaken views and choices that transformed into the socio-political and ideological force of the counterrevolution is to be found in the fact that while after the 2nd World War and the impressive reconstruction of the Soviet economy from the destruction from the war, while the development of the productive forces received new impetus, political decisions for the expansion of communist relations in agricultural production, decisions, in addition, which would have led to measures to develop and orient industry to resolve issues of mechanization and infrastructure, to form the suitable central planning.

During the period of the preparation and realization of the 19th Congress there was a significant and positive confrontation between various viewpoints. Some on the one side supported the role of commodity-money relations and the market in socialism and on the other side there were generally correct views that the law of value and commodity-money relations must not regulate socialist production and distribution, something that led to the realization of the fact that the Kolkoz and the circulation of products for private consumption in form of commodities had bean to become an obstacle to the development of the productive forces.

Unfortunately the above-initially correctly based-positions did not become the object of complete scientific theoretical work, consequently they could not effectively oppose the pro-market views that flourished not only in the ideological field but influenced the social base in the Kolkoz, amongst management cadres in agricultural production and industry.

Despite all this, the developments had not been determined once and for all. A turning point for the prevalence of the opportunist deviation in socialist construction was the 20th Congress of 1956, which in the name of dealing with existing problems, strengthened views about commodity-money relations, "market socialism", which in turn led to the weakening of central planning, to the policy of the self-management of enterprises, to the forming of commodity-money relations horizontally between enterprises, which meant the dissolution of central planning.

Problems also emerged in the strategy of the ICM, which of course were rooted not only in the CPs that led worker's power in the socialist countries, but also in the CPs of the capitalist countries, especially of Western Europe, which exerted in turn a general pressure in the ranks of the ICM.

The underestimation of capitalist reconstruction after the 2nd World War, in combination with the mistaken assessment that due to the creation of postwar socialist system there was the possibility of peaceful coexistence of the two systems played and important role as fertile ground for deviations.

In the assessment about the favourable change at the expense of imperialism, they calculated the role of the so-called non-aligned countries, i.e. of bourgeois states that had not entered imperialist alliances and unions, while in some cases, bourgeois movements that sought to upgrade their position in the global capitalist market or abolish vestiges of the colonial system in favour of the local bourgeoisie were considered to be anti-monopoly-antiimperialist movements.

The opportunist line of peaceful coexistence that existed with the view about a variety of forms of transition to socialism prevailed at the 20th Congress and were linked to the alleged possibilities for a parliamentary road to socialism under some some conditions, with the expansion of bourgeois democratic freedoms as the vehicle.

Pre-existing positions regarding the participation or support of CPs for governments on the terrain of capitalism, with the criterion of utilizing contradictions with the USA, with bourgeois forces that were separated into "national patriotic forces" and "anti-patriotic subservient forces", an issue that demonstrated that the relations of dependence and inequality were not assessed as an element intrinsic to the capitalist system, but were identified with subordinate policies.

A serious factor that led to the reinforcement of deviations in opposition to the need for a revolutionary strategy was the fear of a nuclear war.
Of course, some of the above ideological and political views and choices did not arise only in the postwar period, but emerged in essence in the inter-war period in decisions and and congresses of the Communist International.

After the war, the character of the elaborated and flexible strategy of capitalism towards socialism was underestimated, which was based after a point on the understanding that a foreign military intervention was no longer realistic, but the encirclement in other ways, as well as the utilization of difficulties in socialist construction and the deviations in the ranks of the CPs and ICM.

Serious warnings, not just signs, were underestimated about the relationship between internal deviations and the tactic of imperialist encirclement, which began with a systematic psychological warfare, also networks aimed at undermining socialism, triggering counterrevolutionary developments, and even the role of the IMF, of economic and trade relations of various socialist states that bordered the USSR.

Phenomena related to inciting and supporting counterrevolutionary activity existed in the 1950s. Especially later in the 1970s and 1980s, while the victory and overthrow of Allende's Popular Unity in Chile, the Carnations Revolution in Portugal, and the assessment of the capitalist economic crisis of 1973 were not thoroughly studied and taken on board.



Only the restoration of the revolutionary strategy of the ICM could deal with the imperialist interventionist policies and the opportunist deviations.

Through the decisive struggle against opportunism and reformism.

Through the restoration of the laws of socialist construction and the abolition of the strategy of stages and intermediate forms of power.

As the KKE, we fully understand that we have a long way in front of us in order to deepen our analysis of he factors that the led to the counterrevolution even further.

At the same time, we must constantly study the developments in the capitalist world, without shying away from sacrifices in the daily struggles to improve the position of the workers and deal with new attacks.

However, in this struggle we must acquire the maturity and readiness to respond in revolutionary conditions which cannot be predicted, when they will break out and in what form, in one or more countries.

We must help the preparation of the peoples so that they do not follow the banners of their bourgeois classes in the conditions of imperialist war, regardless of whether the one or the other state was the first to carry out the military attack or is on the defensive.

They must struggle to exit the war, if it cannot be prevented, fighting not only against the bourgeois class that is leading the war but also against the bourgeois class of their own country, because the bourgeoisie does not wish to and cannot guarantee peace and the protection of the homeland of the worker, the employee, the poor popular strata.

The revolutionary enthusiasm, the appetite for sacrifice, the communist selflessness and internationalist solidarity, are not just big talk and slogans for us.

They are based on the indivisible unity of theory and practice.
On the historical experience of the ICM and our party.
On the contribution of socialist construction.
On the position at the end of our Party programme:
The KKE has traveled a long way and has a long way to go because "the cause of the proletariat, communism, is the most universally human, the deepest, the broadest

LONG LIVE THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM AND PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/1 ... ution.html

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Interview of the KKE Secretary General Dimitris Koutsoumbas on "Pravda" newspaper (EN/RU)



Interview of the Secretary General of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Dimitris Koutsoumbas on "PRAVDA" newspaper, organ of the CC of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF).

Source: inter.kke.gr.

1. Which was the role of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the experience of the soviet power in USSR in the constitution and development of your party?

This year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia, which put its seal in the 20th century. Its outbreak and victory has had a tremendous impact on global developments. The Russian working class with the October Revolution came to embody the vision of millions of working-popular masses for a better life. It has given great impetus to the development of the workers´ movement internationally, accelerated the process of establishing communist parties in many countries, including Greece. In November 1918, representatives of the socialist organizations of Greece originally created the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece (SEKE), which a few years later was renamed toCommunist Party of Greece (KKE). Among the decisions of the KKE's founding conference is a greeting to Soviet Russia, as well as a protest - denunciation against the planned military intervention by the imperialists against Soviet power.

The struggle of the rebelled Russian people gathered attention and mobilized the solidarity of the most progressive sections of Greek society, as well as the bourgeois class hatred. It was imprinted in popular songs, in the working peoples culture, it has had a decisive impact on progressive intellectuals and artists. Thousands of workers and peasants of Greek descent who lived in Russia took part in the struggle for the victory and the defense of the revolution.

The newborn KKE decisively condemned Greece's participation in the imperialist intervention against the young Soviet power. The KKE then and over time, stood a prominent supporter of the first workers state and constantly fought the forces of so-called Eurocommunism, or other petty bourgeois currents, such as Trotskyism or Maoism, that fought the USSR and socialism.

The KKE, and more widely the working people's movement in our country, accepted the internationalist solidarity of the USSR in critical moments of their struggle.

After the military defeat of the Democratic Army of Greece and the stop of the civil war in 1949, Soviet power intervened to stop the executions, torture and persecution in Greece, embraced and cared for tenths of thousands ofGreek political refugees, who in turn actively participated for decades in the construction of socialism in Uzbekistan and other Republics of the Soviet Union. Similar USSR assistance was given by the USSR during the junta's military dictatorship.

The KKE is proud of the solidarity it had given and accepted, for the blood ties it developed with the USSR and the Soviet people. The beginning of the study of socialist construction, initiated by our Party after the overthrow of socialism in the USSR, the drawing of useful conclusions from both the course of the positive and the mistakes, weaknesses, deviations, helped the KKE in forming a contemporary revolutionary strategy, in finding answers to concerns about the whole course of the socialist construction, a process of study that we undoubtedly continue to do.

2. At what periods in your party's history was the influence of the ideas of the Great October Socialist Revolution expressed more clearly?

The faith in the necessity and timeliness of socialism, in the historical mission of the working class, in Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, permeate the entire historical course of our party. They were a source of inspiration and power.

After the counter-revolution, investigating the causes that led to the overthrow of socialism, we focused on issues related to the economy in socialism, issues of the political superstructure, decisions taken which strengthened thecommodity-money relations, weakened the workers power, created social forces interested in the overthrow of socialism, and which eroded the CPSU and the Soviets. As a "turning point" we have identified the 20th CPSU Congress. We have also been concerned in a similar evolution of the strategy of the International Communist Movement. We had to study the evolution of the Bolsheviks' strategy that led to the successful outcome of the socialist revolution in 1917.

We are concerned by why and under which circumstances the positive experience of the October Socialist Revolution and Lenin's strategic perception did not finally dominate, but instead a strategy that continually proposed an intermediate power or government between bourgeois and workers' power as a basic strategic line through all the Communist parties was justified. A perception which, although connected with the level of development of each country and proposed the elimination of foreign “dependence”, capitalist delay, promotion of "democracy", even prevailed in Communist Parties that operated in highly advanced capitalist countries and established bourgeois regimes. The mistaken view that the character that the revolution must have is determined mainly by the correlation of forces is still strong in the International Communist Movement, and in our opinion is a source of serious mistakes and constant deviations.

The KKE, studying also the experience of the October Revolution, came to the critical conclusion that the definition of the character of the revolution, the political goal of the workers' power, must be based on the objective definition of the character of our era. In spite of the counter-revolutionary overthrows, our era remains a period of transition from capitalism to socialism, so it is of great value in our daily action to keep the "flame" that lit up the October Revolutionundimmed, to refute the slanders by the bourgeois and opportunists as well as to draw valuable conclusions from the whole course of the October Revolution.

3. The Great October Socialist Revolution was a proletarian revolution. How does your party define its social base in the contemporary conditions? If you could share the experience of your party inside the businesses, inside the working masses.

The October demonstrated the possibility and ability of the working class, as the only truly revolutionary class, to materialize its historical mission of leading the cosmogony of the construction of socialism-communism. At the same time, the October shows the irreplaceable role of the guiding factor of the socialist revolution, i.e. the Communist Party, the enormous force of the proletarian internationalism.

The 20th congress of our Party raised as central issue the comprehensive ideological – political – organizational steeling of the Party and its Youth as a party of the revolutionary overthrow.

The effort for the regroupment of the workers movement, for promoting the social alliance with the self-employed of the city and the countryside, the party building inside the big businesses and the strategic sectors are basic aspects of the tasks we set. There is a positive report of our work, which is also expressed by the improvement of the party’s social composition.

We are trying to generalise the important experience from the action of the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), which is a rally of trade-union organizations in an anti-capitalist, anti-monopoly direction, a consistent class rally distinct both from the government-employer led trade unionism as well as from the line of the reformist and opportunist current. We study issues concerning the organization forms of the self-employed farmers and the self-employed tradesmen and craftmen. The relation between the party and the movement and especially between the party and the workers´trade-union movement.

We distinguish as a basic task the building of strong and massive party organizations inside the monopoly groups, the factories, the vast economic, industrial and commercial centers. We prioritize the branches and the sectors of transport, energy, telecommunications and metal, the branches of chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, food, major construction works and the big commercial centers. We have results in this direction both as for the class trade-union organisation of the workers in these places and the organisational building of the Party with new party base organisations (POB) and the increase of our influence.


4. Which are the main characteristics of your party tactics in the current conditions? How do the ideas and the experience from the Great October Socialist Revolution help in today’s class struggle?

Our party in the elaboration of its strategic starts from the fact that the capitalist system the only things that can give to the peoples is economic crises, unemployment, poverty, misery, imperialist wars and interventions. Socialism remains timely and necessary. The clarification of the socialist character of the revolution in the party’s programme from 1996, the onward elaboration of its strategy on the basis of its history and the history of the ICM are important tools for our action.

In Greece, in the last years of the crisis, various bourgeois and opportunist forces promoted – and promote – the creation of a “left”, “progressive”, “democratic”, “anti-right”, “anti-memorandum”, “patriotic”, “national”, “ecumenical” government (all these are names have been used for such governments) as an immediate proposal for a way out of the economic crisis and the anti-people policies.

The historical experience teaches us that the first “workers”, “left” governments arose from social-democratic parties or as governments of coalition of social-democrats with other bourgeois parties of that time. There is not a single case in the history of the international workers’ movement and that time, namely immediately after World War I, in which these governments did not emerge mainly as maneuvers of the bourgeois class in order to outface revolutionary upsurge, to incorporate the workers’, popular discontent in conditions of great economic crisis, before or after the war.

The goal of such a “left”, “workers´” government, on the terrain of capitalism, without a revolutionary overthrow, through parliamentary procedures, was adopted by various CPs as an intermediate goal with transitional measures, aiming, as was believed, to facilitate the struggle for socialism and to also solve some individual mature popular claims.

However, everywhere in the world, the experience shows that, despite the good intentions of the CPs, not only they failed to open a way for socialism, but even they could not secure the consolidation of some conquests of the popular movement. Judging from the experience of several countries, some before, some after the World War II, until today, at the end, the Communist Parties have found themselves disarmed organizationally, ideologically and politically.

The historical experience and significance of the great October is insuperable. It confirms that the salvation of the working class and the other popular strata, in conditions of economic and political capitalist crisis, in conditions of imperialist wars, is possible only through the path of overthrowing capitalist power and ownership, which of course presupposes also the weakening, the complete bankruptcy of its various “left” versions through the dangerous form of reformism – opportunism and the “ruling left”, as is expressed in Greece through SYRIZA, which has now fully transformed to a typical bourgeois party implementing all the policies of the industrialists, the ship-owners, the bankers, the EU and NATO, that are overall turned against the Greek people and all the other peoples.

We believe that the scientific explanation and defense of socialism’s contribution in the 20th century is an element of strengthening the revolutionary strategy of the communist movement. The restoration of the historical truth for the 20th century socialism, is the eminent task of all communists, without idealizations, in an objective way and free from the slanders of the bourgeois class that are also based on the disasters caused by the counter-revolution. The study of the contradictions and inconsistencies, of the subjective mistakes of the entire historical movement is a process of developing the theory of socialism-communism, which equips the communist and workers´ movement for the “assault to the sky”.

If the 20th century began with the assault to the sky by the proletarians and ended with their temporary defeat, then the 21st century can bring this time the final and irrevocable overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism-communism.

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/1 ... neral.html

[blindpig]

Actual Solidarity of the KKE to the Communist and Labor Movement of Pakistan

Source: inter.kke.gr.


A delegation of the KKE consisting of Giorgos Marinos, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, and Vasilis Opsimos, member of the Economy Section of the Central Committee, visited Pakistan on October 16-20, invited by the “TAREEK FOUNDATION TRUST” and took part in events in honor of the October Socialist Revolution.

In particular, the KKE delegation took part in an international conference on "the 100 Years of the Russian Revolution: 1917-2017", held at the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology in Karachi on October 17th.

There, in a room packed with students and workers, a large number of university professors, historians and writers, they shed light on a variety topics concerning the October Revolution.

In his speech, Giorgos Marinos, member of the P.B. of the C.C of the Communist Party of Greece, gave a warm greeting to the organizer of the event, “TAREEKH FOUNDATION TRUST” and the participants, and he particularly talked about the international importance of the October Socialist Revolution, about its conquests, the achievements of the Soviet Union and among others he mentioned the following:

“Undeniably a new epoch in history has emerged, the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. The October Socialist Revolution demonstrated this. The bourgeoisie has taken the position of the feudalists who were overthrown by the bourgeois revolutions. Today, even in countries with a subordinate position in the imperialist system, the maintenance of some "pre-capitalist vestiges", as they are sometimes called, does not change the trend for the monopolies to expand and penetrate every sector of the economy.
Monopoly capitalism permeates the economic relations all over the world and is the complete material preparation for socialism. Consequently, in our times, the character of the revolution cannot be determined on the basis of the criteria of another historical era which has ended.
The relative backwardness in the development of the productive forces in a country, compared to more advanced capitalist countries, is an objective development and does not negate the fact that, to a certain extent, the material preconditions for the construction of the new socialist society have been created.
Workers' power, the socialization of the means of production and central planning, the movement towards the construction of socialism will resolve problems of backwardness. It will accelerate the development of the productive forces, will consolidate and ensure people's sovereignty and will break the relations of dependence on imperialist centers and unions, forming new conditions in the international relations, with the people's interest as the sole criterion.
The discussion about the character of the revolution is of major importance. Its determination on the basis of present-day conditions is a matter of life and death and a precondition for the communist movement to overcome its crisis, to escape from the illusions created by the so-called "transitional stages" and to meet the complex demands of the class struggle.
The Socialist character of the revolution is determined by the objective necessity of resolving the basic contradiction between capital and labour.”
On Wednesday the 18th of October the KKE delegation, accompanied by members of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP), visited the city of Hyderabad on the southern part of the country. There they held a substantial discussion with members of the Progressive Writers Association and participated in an activity of the Communist Party of Pakistan to honor the October Socialist Revolution.

Workers and poor farmers of the region massively welcomed the KKE delegation with enthusiasm, highlighting the strong internationalist bonds between the two Communist parties.


In a full theater and in a climate of particular combative spirit, the General Secretary of the CC of the Communist Party of Pakistan, Imdad Qazi, the University professors Mubarak Ali and Saeed Ahmed as well as Giorgos Marinos took the floor. G.Marinos in his speech, among others, mentioned:

“We are happy to meet here with our comrades and we address warm militant greetings to the Communist Party of Pakistan, to the militants who are struggling for the rights of the working class, the people of Pakistan, who are experiencing the sharpening problems of the capitalist system of exploitation and the anti-people policies of its governments.

We know the difficult conditions in which our comrades are struggling, we follow the attacks of the forces of reaction, obscurantism that are a product of the rotten system and serve its needs for the repression of the labour-people's movement.

We say to our comrades: comrades we greatly appreciate your struggle and we assure you that we are at your side and will fulfill our internationalist duty in a firm and consistent way.

The violence of bourgeois power confirms the analysis of the communists about the dictatorship of the monopolies and underscores that the struggle for democratic, social rights is directly linked with the struggle for socialism.
This conclusion also emerges from the experience of the KKE which has faced, over its 100- year history, illegality for many decades, dictatorships, imprisonment and exile, torture and executions, the murders of thousands of communists.

It played the leading role in the resistance of the people against the fascist occupation during World War II; it conducted an armed struggle in the period 1946-1949 against the bourgeois class and the imperialist intervention of Britain and the USA.

The KKE stood upright, strong through many storms, with strong links with the working class and continues to play a leading role in the workers'-people's struggles in Greece, to actively work for the coordination of the struggle of communists all over the globe.

So that the ideas of Marxism-Leninism prevail and so that opportunism is defeated, for the regroupment of the communist movement on a revolutionary basis and for it to acquire a unified revolutionary strategy, equal to the principles that led to the victory of October.

Our party and dozens of other communist parties were founded and developed due to the powerful influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The existence and strengthening of the Soviet Union, the establishment and activity of the Communist International and the reinforcement of the international struggle of the communist movement assisted the peoples in a number of countries to throw off the yoke of colonialism.

This leap in social development provided and provides the strength to communists to fight against the difficulties and to militantly intervene in the most difficult moments of the class struggle, confronting capitalist barbarity, the bourgeois state and its multi-faceted mechanisms.

The October Socialist Revolution has been vindicated historically, it has demonstrated its incredible endurance and is alive, in spite of its opponents, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, who are the agents of bourgeois ideology and politics inside the labour movement.

Its shining messages express the interests of the direct producers of all wealth, the prospect of the struggle of the working class and oppressed popular strata at an international level. It is for this reason that they have been a source of inspiration for a century and will continue to guide our political-ideological struggle, so that the peoples become liberated from the shackles of exploitation, social injustice, for the socialist-communist future.”

On Thursday, October 19th, the KKE delegation took part in an activity at the Doctors Association in Karachi against the imperialist wars and transferred the experience of the Communists’ struggle in Greece.

30.10.2017

https://communismgr.blogspot.gr/2017/10 ... unist.html

[blindpig]

From Souda to Alexandroupolis: Tsipras' government transforms Greece into a huge US-NATO base

The U.S. ambassador in Greece Geoffrey Pyatt made some quite revealing remarks about the interest of the United States regarding the strategic role of Greek ports and maritime industry, during a speech at the 17th Navigator Maritime Forum.



Here is part of the report by the Athens News Agency-Macedonian News Agency (bold letters are ours):
Commenting on Prime Minister Tsipras' recent visit to Chicago and Washington, he said it strengthened Greek-U.S. ties and that "the message Americans heard throughout the visit, at the very highest levels, was that Greece is back, open for business and a pillar of stability in its region."
Pyatt said this partnership includes enhanced bilateral investment cooperation, including an overall strategy where Greece serves as a regional hub and supplies energy from diverse sources to Europe, spurred by increased U.S. investment in this sector, as well as U.S. investment in Greek shipping, ports, and shipyards.
"In particular, I hope we will be able to celebrate a major U.S. investment in the Syros shipyard in the very near future," he said, referring to U.S. company ONEX which has expressed an interest in investing at the Syros shipyard.
"I am glad to see that deal making progress and look forward to celebrating a major U.S. investment there in the coming weeks," he added.
The ambassador stressed however that privatizations of state-owned assets must be done in an open and transparent way, based on free and fair competition.

"We saw this here already with the privatization of the 14 regional airports, where the winning bidders had a known track record of doing business in Greece and Europe. It was clear where their financing came from and who their shareholders were," he said, referring to Fraport's deal to manage and operate the airports.
"An investment and privatization system based on transparency and the rule of law will help build confidence in Greece as an investment destination, and create momentum that can sustain the Greek economic rebound. I am confident that if Greece continues to commit itself to building such an environment, American investors will take a fresh look at Greece," he said.
The U.S. is also interested in the port of Alexandroupolis, he continued. "The strategic position of this port is on full display right now: elements of the US Army's 10th Combat Air Brigade are using it as a staging area for Blackhawk helicopters and cargo moving back to the U.S. from Romania- demonstrating, as I discussed with the Mayor of Alexandroupolis this summer, the potential of that port to play a much bigger role in regional infrastructure and connectivity," he said.
* * *


Privatisations, investments by U.S. monopolies and, of course, strategic importance of Greek infrastructure for the imperialists of US-NATO-EU. Regarding ambassador Pyatt's remaks, the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) issued the following statement:

"Like a government spokeman, U.S. ambassador in Greece announced the transformation of part of the Alexandroupolis port into a U.S. military base, while, for two weeks, the SYRIZA-ANEL government is defiantly silent towards the KKE questions about the agreements with the Trump government.

Seems that Tsipras' trip to the U.S. starts to bear fruits, the extend of the "political striptease" of shame begins to unveil and the government must inform the people about all the commitments it undertook.

Mainly, however, the Greek people must fight these shameful agreements which involve them in big dangers, within the frame of NATO-USA-EU imperialist plans in the region that go hand by hand with the overall antipeople policy".

Source: 902.gr / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

https://communismgr.blogspot.gr/2017/11 ... ipras.html