Greece and the KKE

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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 28, 2018 10:58 am

On the SYRIZA-ANEL government's deceptive rejoicing

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The SYRIZA-ANEL government rejoiced on August 21st 2018 at the formal exit of Greece from the memorandum and attempted to cultivate a climate of joy among the people that now things will change for the better in their everyday lives. They even called this development “a return to normality” and “the beginning of just development”.

The KKE immediately responded with arguments against this government propaganda for these reasons:
The truth is that the memorandum, that is the agreements between the Greek governments and the EU and WMF for economic support, in exchange for anti-worker and anti-people measures, did not precede but followed the manifestation of the capitalist economic crisis in Greece 2009. This crisis whose causes were found in the the capitalist means of production itself, were manifested in Greece with the expansion of the public debt, the causes of which have been analyzed in detail in the past (see here http://interold.kke.gr/News/news2011/20 ... risis.html). The expression of the capitalist crisis in Greece led, among other things, to the signing of 2 memorandum by the ND and PASOK governments and a third memorandum by the SYRIZA-ANEL government with the imperialist organizations the EU and the IMF, the foreign lenders of the country. These memorandum stipulate hundreds of measures – commitments that have been undertaken and implemented by the Greek governments all these years with the full support of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) and the other associations of big capital. The measures were not imposed “by foreigners” but constituted a strategic program of capital in order to return to profitability again, loading the burden of the crisis onto the workers.

The bourgeois system showed that it has reserves in place, which was demonstrated when SYRIZA assumed power and continued the anti-people policies that today account for 700 anti-popular laws that have been voted in over these past 10 years.

In order for capital to return to profitability the price of labor power was shrunk, as much by the reductions in salaries and pensions, as with the reduction of social gains, the significant restriction in budget expenditure for social spending, as well as the heavy burden of taxation on the people. The losses in popular income are in the range of 30-40%.

The SYRIZA-ANEL government is lying when it speaks of a “new era” after the memorandum, because:
the hundreds of anti-popular laws have remained! There are commitments to capital and the imperialist associations that the same anti-popular policies will continue, which will benefit the so-called “competitiveness” and “entrepreneurship”, that is, the increase in capital gains.

New attacks on people's rights have been accepted and will be implemented over the next years.

With the so-called "European Semester", the "Euro Plus Pact", the "Financial Covenant", "Enhanced Economic Governance", just as in other countries that are in the EU, the EU will strictly monitor the continuation and the escalation of the anti-popular attack. In any case, anti-people measures were taken in the other countries of the EU that didn't have memorandum like Greece did.

But even if there were no oversight by the EU, there would be – as there is in every capitalist society – the “supervision” of big capital, the monopolies and there aims to increase their profitability. For this reason, there can be no “just development” under capitalist conditions.

In these years the leading role of the KKE and the class-oriented unions that struggle within the ranks of the All-Workers' Militant Front (PAME) is especially important, organizing the workers', popular struggle, carrying out dozens of strike mobilizations, hundreds of demonstrations, taking over ministries, and more. Despite the difficulties the role of SYRIZA, the new social democracy, and the other bourgeois parties was revealed. Popular resistance was promoted, new positions were gained in the trade union movement of the working class and the popular strata, the workers' struggle continued with demands based on their contemporary needs. The necessity for the anti-capitalist, anti-monopoly struggle with the real enemy, capital and its power, is emerging.

There is a way out for the people! It is found in the struggle with the KKE in the regroupment of the labor movement and the strengthening of the Social Alliance, against the plans of the government, the EU and its parties, serving the profits of capital, the struggle to abolish all anti-people laws, the restoration of popular incomes, the concentration of forces that will banish capitalist barbarism to the “dustbin of history” and will build a new society, without crises, unemployment and wars. A socialist-communist society with the socialization of the means of production, central planning of the economy, withdrawal from the imperialist associations of the EU and NATO, with workers' power.


23/08/2018

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/On-the ... rejoicing/
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 03, 2018 11:28 am

KKE demonstration on the catastrophic fires: A struggle against the policies that turn people's lives into ashes!

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On Monday 27th of August 2018 a huge demonstration was held by the KKE in the area of eastern Attica ( in Nea Makri ), an area that one month ago was ravaged by catastrophic fires with the result that roughly 100 people lost their lives and dozens of houses were destroyed by fire.

A huge crowd gathered for the demonstration, among them fire victims who responded to the KKE's call. This mass attendance was the result of actions that were carried out from the very first moment by area communists in order to provide substantial support to the victims and to organize the people in defense of their rights, supporting solidarity actions but also the just demands set out by labor unions and organizations of the area.

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas spoke at the demonstration.
The GS of the CC of the KKE emphasized among other things that the situation with such catastrophic fires in Greece that has been developing over time reveals the “greatness” and the “achievements” of a society that is built on the basis of exploitation of workers and the commercialization of everything for the benefit of the vested interests.

It is highly hypocritical and offensive that the key responsible parties for this continuing crime, the governments and parties of SYRIZA-ANEL today and ND and PASOK in the past, shed crocodile tears for the pain inflicted and the catastrophe.

The policies that sacrifice lives and the environment for the profits of the business circles are the very same ones that cut salaries and pensions, demolish labor, social security and social rights.

D. Koutsoumpas, after analyzing the positions of the KKE for the relief and support of the fire victims, stressed that the people must not compromise with today's barbarism, for so many people to lose their lives in fires and floods in the year 2018. He noted that today's situation can be reversed. People's basic needs can be met with centralized scientific planning, within the framework of workers' power.

What is needed is a movement that demands works and infrastructure that can serve popular needs, that will join up with the struggle that is being waged against the huge problems that tyrannize the people, in a great social alliance that aims against today's barbaric road of development, the rotten bourgeois state, the very capitalist system itself and the parties and leaderships that serve it.


KKE Rally Nea Makri

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Referring to the responsibilities of the government of the “left” SYRIZA and the “patriotic” ANEL, he noted the following:

And what have we been hearing all these past days....

Apparently, the government has only been in power for 3.5 years and it hasn't had time to change the negative situation that was created by previous governments. That is, this is where they identify their own political responsibility.

In these 3.5 years, however, the government:

--“Had time” to vote in dozens of memorandum laws.
--“Had time” to cut salaries, pensions, benefits.
--“Had time” to reduce funding for the area of forest protection and firefighting, reaching the point where the Forest Service receives 0.035% of the state budget (118.8 million euro) when only for NATO equipment the government boasts that it gives 2% of the GDP (4 billion euros) for this.
--The government also “had time” to send around 700 firefighters to guard the privatized airports, those airports that it sold to the German “Fraport”, further depleting the Fire brigade.
--And, it even “had time” to reject KKE's legislative proposal to establish permanent positions for all the contractual firefighters.

So the problem is not what they "did not have time to do", but what they chose to do. Because they simply continued the same catastrophic road for our people that the previous ones had prepared.

Because ultimately, it is the civil service staff of the same lawless, large, business interests. "
28/8/18

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/KKE-de ... nto-ashes/
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 14, 2018 4:41 pm

Parliamentary politics and the communist party: the electoral arena, experience and lessons from Greece and the KKE

Article by Giorgos Marinos member of the PB of the CC of KKE in the August 2018 edition of African Communist - the theoretical journal of the SACP

We would like to thank the South African Communist Party for giving us the opportunity to attempt to share some basic elements from the experience of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) with our comrades. In our opinion, the exchange of views on the issues of class struggle and the communist movement enhances our knowledge and experience.


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From a pre-election rally of the KKE, in Syntagma square, in front of the Greek Parliament

Introduction
The KKE was founded as a party of the working class one century ago, in November 1918, as a result of the merging of the labour movement with scientific communism, under the decisive impact of the Socialist October Revolution.

In the 1920’s and 30’s the party was making its first steps while at the same time it was at the forefront of the people’s struggle. It faced the repression of the bourgeois state, dictatorship in 1925 and 1936, severe conditions of illegality, imprisonment and exile.

During the Second World War within the framework of the struggle for liberation, it played a leading role in the foundation of the National Liberation Front (EAM) and the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) which liberated a large section of the country from the Nazi occupation forces where cells of people’s power, people’s militia, people’s justice, local government etc were formed.

Following the ousting of the German war machine and the liberation of the country the party, due to its mistaken strategy, did not move forward to assert state power. On the contrary, it became entrapped in an effort to ensure democratic smooth developments; it signed unacceptable agreements with bourgeois forces; it participated in the bourgeois government in September 1944 with 6 ministers and in February 1945, it surrendered its weapons.

In other words, our Party was not able to utilize the revolutionary situation that was created at the end of 1944 and ended in 1946 after a period of decline.

Under conditions of harsh repression, in 1946, our party took up guerilla warfare. It founded the Democratic Army of Greece which fought heroically for three years, a struggle that constitutes the crowning moment of the class struggle in Greece. The civil war was won by the bourgeois class which was supported by British and US imperialism and in 1949, the militants of the DSE sought refuge in the socialist countries.

Thousands of communists fell in the battlefields, were executed by the firing squads of the bourgeoisie; thousands were imprisoned and sent into exile. The KKE was outlawed from 1947 until 1974. This period was the longest period of illegality for our party.

After the civil war and under the harsh conditions of illegality, the party maintained illegal party organizations. At the same time, after 1951, the party operated within the ranks of the coalition “Unified Democratic Left” (EDA), an alliance with a social democratic programme which comprised communist and social democratic forces. Despite its struggles for the interests of the working people, the EDA proved to be a breeding ground for opportunist positions and illusions.

In 1958 the leadership of the party decided on the dissolution of the party organizations and the accession of the communists to EDA, which participated in the elections and in 1958 it held the 2nd position with 24%.

The dissolution of the party organizations was a grave mistake of the party which negatively affected the organizational, ideological and political independence of the party.

Parliamentary illusions were further fostered; the party cooperated with bourgeois “centre” social-democratic forces, whereas its forces were unprepared when military dictatorship was established in Greece in April 1967. Nevertheless, the communists with their illegal activity played the leading role in the struggle against the dictatorship, and many were sent to prison and exile.

In the 1960’s opportunism was reinforced inside the party leading to an intense ideological political confrontation. In 1968, after a hard battle at the 12th plenary session of the CC, in conditions of illegality, the right-wing opportunist group was defeated and the party split.

The party got on its feet and continued its struggle. After the fall of the dictatorship in July 1974, it imposed its de facto legalisation.

The 1980’s was marked by the development of the party organizations, which were reconstructed during the period of dictatorship, as well as by the development of the KNE which was founded in 1968. The communists won many positions in the trade union movement and played a leading role in the class struggle.

In a period when the signs of counterrevolution and the overthrow of socialism were evident, the KKE cooperated with opportunist forces which had been expelled from the party in 1968 as well as social democratic forces. In 1989 it formed the so-called “Coalition of the Left and Progress”, the predecessor of SYRIZA which is currently the ruling party in our country.

This development gave rise to a new wave of opportunism. The existence of the KKE was at stake given the counterrevolution and the overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union and the other countries of socialist construction. The communists resolved the problem at the 13th Congress of the party in 1991. At the Congress the party decided to withdraw its forces from the “Coalition”, it cleared its ranks and moved forward based on Marxism-Leninism, committed to revolutionary change.



The study of the history of the KKE in this period helped us to draw significant conclusions:

First, on the necessity of revolutionary strategy, which must be in line with the character of our era, an era of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Second, on the multifaceted ideological-political and organizational preparation of the party in order to deal with the complex conditions created by the class struggle, on the necessity to reject parliamentary illusions and utilize the revolutionary situation for the socialist revolution and the struggle for working class power.

Thirdly, on the safeguarding of the organizational, ideological and political independence of the party under all conditions, including illegality, imperialist war, dictatorship, fascism, as well as on the rejection of the participation in bourgeois alliances, “left coalitions” (or whatever name they take) which in practice negates the independence of the party and leads to compromises at the expense of the struggle for power.

Fourthly, on the rejection of the participation or the support of bourgeois governments and the safeguarding of the party so as not to come under the flag of sections of the bourgeois class.

Fifth, the resolute,uncompromising struggle against opportunism which is a vehicle for the penetration of bourgeois ideology in the labour and communist movement, which can lead to liquidation.



Recent period

After the crisis in 1990-1991 the party moved decisively to reconstruct the party organizations; it reinforced its orientation towards the working class, winning over forces and trade unions and at the 15th Congress in 1996 it began the elaboration of new programmatic guidelines. In this context, it replaced the strategy of transitional stages arriving at the conclusion that in Greece, a country with an intermediate position in the imperialist system, the material preconditions for the new society have matured and, thus, the struggle must aim at the solution of the basic contradiction between capital and labour.

This was a significant achievement which was further developed with the study of the causes and the factors that led to the overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union and the other countries of socialist construction, an issue which was dealt with by the 18th Congress in 2009, and the relevant discussion that contributed to the enrichment of the strategy of the party.

Based on the further elaboration of this material and new studies on the development of capitalism in Greece, as well as on the experience of the international communist movement, our party approved a new Programme at its 19th Congress in 2013.

The programme further clarified that the counterrevolutionary overthrows do not change the character of our era, the character of revolution as a key element of the strategy of the Communist Party which acts under the conditions of monopoly capitalism, i.e. imperialism, is not determined according to the current correlation of forces but by the maturation of the material conditions for socialism and the contradiction that is to be resolved according to historical evolution (i.e. the contradiction between capital and labour).

The party programme states that the Greek people will be liberated from the bonds of capitalist exploitation and the imperialist unions when the working class, together with its allies, carries out the socialist revolution and moves forward to construct socialism-communism with working class power, socialization of the concentrated means of production, development of the economy with central-scientific planning, disengagement of the country from the imperialist organizations of the NATO and the EU.

The motor forces of the socialist revolution will be the working class as the leading force, the semi-proletarians, the oppressed popular strata of the urban self-employed, the poor farmers, who are negatively affected by the monopolies, and for this reason have an objective interest in their abolition, the abolition of capitalist ownership, in the overthrow of its power, in the new relations of production. Today in conditions of a non-revolutionary situation, the KKE works to prepare the subjective factor for the prospect of socialist revolution, despite the fact that the time period of its outbreak is determined by objective pre-conditions i.e. the revolutionary situation ("those above” are no longer able to rule and “those below" no longer wish to live as they used to).

The necessity of the preparation of the party and the workers’ people’s movement involves the following tasks: the strengthening of the KKE, the regroupment of the labour movement, the social alliance which expresses the interests of the working class, the semi-proletarians, the self-employed in the urban centres and the poor farmers, the youth and the women of the working class and the popular strata in the struggle against monopolies and capitalist ownership.

The work of the party in all fields of class struggle is guided by the strategy of the party and the corresponding line for the rallying of forces. Likewise, the intervention of communists in the trade union movement, in parliamentary work, in local administration, in all fronts that concern the problems of the working class, the popular strata, and the youth.



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Visit of D. Koutsoumpas, General Secretary of the CC of the KKE and President of the Parliamentary Group of the KKE, to workers in the Elefsina Shipyards


ON THE PARLIAMENTARY WORK
Our party participates in the elections as KKE. Its lists also include militant people who are not communists but cooperate with the party and the mass organizations supported by the party i.e. trade-unionists, workers, farmers, self-employed, craftsmen, tradesmen, students, scientists, veterans.

Today the KKE has 15 Members of the Parliament (MPs), 2 members of the European Parliament, 5 mayors (amongst them in the 3rd biggest city, Patras), 31 regional councilors, and hundreds of municipal councilors.

The KKE intervenes in the national parliament, trying to prevent the adoption of anti-people measures and voting against anti-people draft laws or directives and other legislative acts of the EU. It tables questions, draft-laws and amendments on serious issues that concern the working class, e.g. the relief of the people’s families from loans and taxation, healthcare, education, in tandem with the struggle of the trade unions, the labour and people’s movement.

Recently it utilized an initiative of PAME and 513 Trade unions, Federations and Labour Centers concerning collective bargaining agreements and tabled a draft law initiating a debate in the parliament. This initiative has been very useful despite its rejection by the SYRIZA-ANEL government and the other bourgeois parties.

The positions of the KKE are normally rejected by the bourgeois and opportunist parties. Nevertheless, these interventions help us to reveal the exploitative character of capitalism and bourgeois democracy as the “dictatorship of the monopolies”.

They contribute to the enlightenment of the working class, the popular strata, and the youth. Based on this information the working people can improve the organization of their struggle.

Every time that anti-people measures are adopted, our party strives and struggles persistently so that they are not legitimized in people’s consciousness.

These interventions e.g. the intervention with a question denouncing measures that commercialize healthcare or impose taxes on the people can be utilized in the broad mass struggle in connection with the activity of the party organizations and the Communist Youth or they can be adopted by the trade unions and other mass organization of the people’s movement. This is the very content of the struggle of our party and our MPs.

The communist MPs maintain strong bonds with the workers in the factories, in the enterprises, with the poor and medium-sized farmers, the self-employed, with the youth in schools and universities, with the employees in healthcare services and generally with the working people in the workplaces and the popular neighborhoods.

In cooperation with the party organizations they collect material in order for the interventions in the parliament to be more effective and revealing.

They are at the forefront of the workers’ and people’s struggles, contributing to the organization of the struggle.

The communist MPs are not detached from the working class and the popular strata not even in terms of income. They give their entire parliamentary salary to the party which, to the extent that’s possible given the needs of the class struggle, provides them with an income that cannot exceed a workers’ salary.

Our party has also a significant experience from the struggle against the Nazi criminal organization “Golden Dawn”. Our party confronts them both in the parliament as well as in the workers’ and people’s movement and tries to reveal the dangerous role of the fascists who are currently in the courts for crimes, murders of militants and immigrants, attacks against communists and forces of PAME. The KKE and KNE, along with militant workers, contribute decisively to the protection of the struggles so that the working class isolates the fascist monstrosity.

The members of the Party who are elected or appointed by the party to legislative bodies, in representative or other elected bodies and generally in the institutions of the bourgeois state implement the policy and the decisions of the party, are committed to the cause of the working class and the defense of its interests and consistently defend the people’s interests.

When party members are proposed to undertake duties in these positions, the opinion of their Party Base Organisations and the respective organs must be taken into account.

This position is at the disposal of the party. The leading organs may appoint them to another field of responsibility according to the needs of the party.

The salaries, the allowances and the pensions or any other economic benefits that flow from this position belong to the party and are granted to it.

The MPs who are members of the party comprise the parliamentary group.

The lists of the party are formed by the CC, according to the proposals of the leading organs of the party organizations. The CC decides on the composition of the parliamentary group and its secretariat that coordinates its work.

The activity of the Party in the parliament serves the goals and the needs of the class struggle.

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Visit of the GS of the CC of the KKE to one of the dozens farmers roadblocks, which spread all over Greece
THE KKE FIGHTS AGAINST PARLIAMENTARY ILLUSIONS
The KKE tells the people that parliamentary work is merely an aspect of the struggle. The main issue is the acceleration of the labour movement’s regroupment, the strengthening of the trade unions, the consolidation of class orientation, the change of the correlation of forces, the defeat of the forces that support the EU, the bourgeois policy, of the reformist, opportunist forces that promote class collaboration and seek to disarm the labour movement.

It explains the need to construct the social alliance so as to strengthen the anti-capitalist, antimonopoly struggle and rally forces for the overthrow of capitalist barbarity.

The KKE underlines that the struggle against the bourgeois and opportunist forces in the Parliament and the European parliament for all the people’s problems in confrontation with the bourgeois class, the bourgeois state, the EU and the capitalist system has nothing to do with the fostering of illusions and confusion that parliamentary struggle can lead to a pro-people reformation of the capitalist system or the EU, the imperialist Union which is supported by strong monopoly groups, a position promoted by the ELP or SYRIZA or other forces in Greece.

The experience of our party demonstrates that this position has created serious damage to people’s consciousness. It is based on the dangerous illusion that capitalism can be humanized, in a period that the capitalist system in its current imperialist stage is becoming increasingly reactionary and dangerous.

Our fundamental position is that we cannot talk about “democracy in general” but only about bourgeois democracy. Likewise, there is no “dictatorship in general” but dictatorship of the oppressed class, namely the proletariat, over its oppressors and exploiters, namely over the bourgeois class aiming at the defeat of their resistance in their struggle for domination.

«….The most democratic bourgeois republic is nothing more than a machine for the suppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie, for the suppression of the mass of the toilers by a handful of capitalists …»[1] and that this suppression escalates when the power of capital is at stake.

In our opinion, these issues are fundamental for the elaboration of the policy of the CP as well as useful for the struggle for winning over workers’ people’s consciousness, for the maturation of the subjective factor.

The bourgeois parties utilize the political, ideological mechanisms of the system, the repressive mechanisms, the intervention of the employers. They deceive; they use false dilemmas, the logic of the “lesser evil” in order to trap popular forces.

The participation of communists in the elections is based on other criteria. The communists defend the truth, they do not ‘sweet-talk’ the masses, they struggle against the logic of the “saviour” from above. On the contrary, they show the real revolutionary path and as far as possible, the pre-election battle is organized around the mobilization of the working people.

Based on the above, our party dealt with the complicated developments in the period 2012-2015, a period which was marked by the rise of SYRIZA. SYRIZA was a small opportunist party that emerged from the split of the KKE in 1991. In the elections it got 3-4% while having no bonds with the working class. It was transformed into a party with a social democratic strategy and prepared for bourgeois governance with the support of powerful sections of the bourgeois class.

SYRIZA took advantage of the damage done to the old social democratic party PASOK during the capitalist crisis. It gathered leaders of PASOK and utilized forces from its support base.

Dealing with SYRIZA was not an easy task. SYRIZA utilized “left slogans”, it exploited the struggles of the communists and tried to ‘sweet-talk’ the working people. In January 2015 it won the majority and formed a government with the bourgeois nationalist party “independent Greeks” (ANEL).

Our party predicted the social-democratic transformation of SYRIZA way ahead of time, its promotion as a new social democratic pillar of the bourgeois political system and capitalist development and revealed its role from the very first moment.

The KKE resisted the pressure exerted on it with the discussion about a left government. Despite the fact that this principled position caused a loss in votes and seats in the parliament in the elections of June 2012, the KKE followed a policy that laid a strong foundation for the development of the class struggle in conditions of a deep capitalist crisis. At the same time, at the international level it dealt decisively with the opportunist forces and particularly the Party of the European Left which played a leading role in the support of SYRIZA at the expense of our party and sought to deceive the working people.

The position of the KKE was soon confirmed and vindicated in practice.

When SYRIZA took power in January 2015 it continued the anti-people policies of the previous bourgeois governments and parties. Together, (with ND and PASOK) they adopted and implemented the 3rd memorandum which was jointly elaborated by the government, the EU and the IMF promoting a package of measures that abolished Collective Labour Agreements, imposed cuts in salaries and pensions, the abolition of basic social rights, cuts in salaries.

This period is marked by privatizations in strategic sectors of economy (e.g. airports, ports etc); heavy taxation is being imposed on the working people, healthcare and education are being further commercialized.

SYRIZA supports big capital with funding, tax exemptions etc. High unemployment rates remain and exceed 20 % and flexible forms of employment, which intensify capitalist exploitation, are being expanded. These policies are being continued today in the conditions of the weak recovery of the capitalist economy. The anti-people measures are being maintained and reinforced. In many cases the struggle of the peoples are met with repression. Recently the government passed a law that undermines the right to strike while 90% of the strikes are declared illegal.

However, the most prominent contribution of SYRIZA-ANEl government is the support of NATO, the USA and the EU and the involvement of the country in the imperialist plans, the use and the creation of new US-NATO military bases which are used in the war against the people of Syria, Libya, and in all imperialist interventions.

The KKE and PAME are at the forefront of the struggles of the working class, the farmers and generally the popular strata with strikes, demonstrations, occupations, struggle against imperialist wars, for the development of internationalist solidarity.

More and more people have understood today the decisive position of the party towards the so-called left, social democratic government and the fact that no bourgeois party, no bourgeois government that serve the interests of capital can implement pro-people policies.

On the basis of this line, the communists are organizing the struggle in factories workplaces, in schools and universities, in neighborhoods and are strengthening their influence in the labour and people’s movement.

The forces of PAME are winning positions in the trade unions. The class-oriented movement occupies the second position in the trade unions with 25%. The lists supported by KNE in the universities are also second, exceeding 20%.

There is a crucial question: what would have happened if the KKE had retreated and had cooperated with the so-called left government, with social democracy and opportunism?

The damage would have been dramatic. The prestige and the character of the party would have suffered a great blow. Our people would have lost its confidence towards the communists and would have been deprived of a strong force that struggles both inside and outside the parliament for the interests of the people, concentrating and educating forces for the overthrow of capitalist exploitation.

The KKE utilizes its 100-year history, its achievements and mistakes; it examines its history objectively. Communists are not distracted by successes. Complacency is a big enemy. It is necessary to deal decisively with our weaknesses. Class struggle is hard, but the way is paved and we struggle for a strong party in the struggle for the strengthening the labour movement, the consolidation of the anti-capitalist antimonopoly social alliance. We struggle for a party that has deeply assimilated the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism, that will be prepared to lead the struggle against imperialist war, for working class power, i.e. socialism communism.


[1] V.I. Lenin «On “Democracy” and Dictatorship», Collected Works, V. 27, pgs., 388-393

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Parlia ... d-the-KKE/
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:32 pm

The fascists will be struck by the struggle of the people

On the occasion of the five years since the assassination of the young musician Pavlos Fissas a massive mobilization was carried out by trade unions and mass organizations of Piraeus on Tuesday 18/9/18, in Keratsini, at the site of his murder.

Kostas Mitilinou, General Secretary of the Trade Union of Workers in the Metal Industry in Attica and Shipbuilding Workers' Union of Greece, spoke at the meeting, who among other things stated:

"Today, September 18th, we mark five years since the day that Pavlos Fissas was murdered by the Nazi criminal organization, the Golden Dawn.

We are here today to honor his memory, but also to send the message, over and over again to all those who want to terrorize the working class, to break it, to squeeze whatever it can get from it, to immobilize it and profit from it, that their dream will never come true.

As long as there is a class-oriented labor movement, as long as there is exploitation, the workers will always defeat fear, they will respond to the attack.

This unprecedented in brutality criminal act is part of a collective, organized and guided action by central, regional and local bodies, resulting in death, injuries, attempted murders and other offenses.

A few days after the murderous ambush planned by the Nazi gang against trade unionist communists in the ship repair zone of Perama, taking on as the true child of the exploitative system the dirtiest work against workers'-popular rights and building a wall of protection for employers' profits, they murdered Pavlos Fissas.

They murdered the child of a popular family who, with his songs, denounced the criminal nature of the Golden Down and called for the isolation and confrontation of the fascist organization in the neighborhoods of Piraeus (...)

The workers need to draw clear conclusions. The fascists of the Golden Dawn are the system's bullies, they are enemies of the workers, of our rights, of our struggles.

They struggle to smash the class-oriented movement and this is what the big contractors, the shipowners, capital want.

They want the workers to remain with their heads down, only producing profits without making a sound. (...)

The only way forward is the organization of our struggle through PAME and the class-oriented trade unions.

The experience of the metalworkers in the zone, the dockers in "COSCO" and elsewhere shows the way.

Let's struggle to become the masters of our own labor.

The workers, the unemployed must isolate the fascists, the Golden Dawn.

So they won’t have any place to stand. "

In the meantime in a Statement of the Press Office of the CC of the KKE on the five years since the assassination of Pavlos Fissas, it is noted that:









On the five years since the assassination of Pavlos Fissas

Statement on the five years since the assassination of Pavlos Fissas
“Five years after the assassination of Pavlos Fissas, the trial – for this case, but also for their other crimes - has not yet been completed, and the Nazis of the Golden Dawn roam free despite the many overwhelming evidence which prove the Nazi-criminal character of this structure.

All these years, it has become even more obvious to the people and the youth that such fascist reactionary forces are products of the rotten system whichutilizes them in various ways. They are encouraged by the EU anticommunist ideology and practice, supported by sections of the capital and imperialist centers which do not even hesitate to support such forces to promote their plans (e.g. Ukraine).

Above all, these forces are utilized by the system so that dissatisfaction and anger from the anti-labor and anti-popular policy of the governments are trapped in racism and fascism, so that the real enemy is let off the hook.

This is why, 5 years after, the struggle of the workers and the youth must be strengthened not only to isolate them, but also to overthrow the system that bears and nourishes them.”

19.09.2018

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-fa ... he-people/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:37 pm

Festival 100 Years KKE – 50 Years KNE
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Thousands of people came out for the three-day central Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) Festival that was held 20-22 September 2018, this year dedicated to the 100 years of the KKE and 50 years of the KNE. The KNE Festival that first traveled to all the major cities of Greece, with dozens of political and cultural events, culminated in the events held at the “Tritsi” Park in Athens. There KNE built an entire “city” with music stages hosting concerts as well as multiple discussions; the huge bookshop featuring political and progressive books, the “International City” where 40 communist and anti-imperialist youth organizations from all over the world participated, and the exhibit dedicated to the 100 years of the KKE and the 50 years of the KNE.

On Saturday the huge awe-inspiring political gathering was addressed by the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas and greeted by the Secretary of the CC of the KNE, Nikos Abatiellos, as well as by the Palestinian activist, Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year old activist who was held for eight months this year in Israeli prisons, who became a symbol of the struggle of the Palestinian people against the criminal Israeli occupation, who participated in the Festival, invited by the KNE.



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Festival 100 years KKE-50 years KNE [1st Day]

In her greeting, Ahed Tamimi stated:

“I greet all of you here at the Festival. I want to thank all of you for the immense support you have given towards the Palestinian cause. I thank you for your powerful moral stance that gives great strength to our struggle.

First of all, I would like to congratulate the KKE on its 100 years of action and the 50 years of the KNE. We always say that we gather strength from the strength and support that you give us; however, we don't consider you only as supporters of our cause but as partners in the struggle and in our struggle.

Despite the suffering that each Palestinian undergoes every day, we don't view ourselves as victims, but as fighters for freedom and the cause. We always say that the peoples and our people can achieve change and can bring the struggle to fruition; for this, free people all over the world must join together to put an end to exploitation, capitalism and colonialism and to end imperialism.

We thank everyone for the support you have given us. Your stance means a lot to us and gives me great strength to return to my homeland, to my country and to continue the struggle against colonialism.

In closing, I would like to say that we come from the land of peace, from Palestine, which at no time had peace. If there is no peace in Palestine, there will be no peace ever in the world.

All of the governments that support Israel support it because of their capitalist interests and we must all unite against colonialism and capitalism that is the reason and the cause for all of the suffering of the world. Thank you all for your support!”

The Secretary of the CC of the KNE, N. Abatiellos commented, among other things on the action of the KNE: “We erect obstacles EVERYWHERE against the effort of the system and its parties to deceive the youth. These efforts will strengthen. We lead the way everywhere in order to reveal the false hopes the government and the other parties are sowing; we take the lead in order to create spots of resistance against the anti-people policies, collective struggles for the contemporary needs of the youth. To strengthen the anti-capitalist struggle with the participation, the liveliness, the militancy of the youth of working-popular families.... With a strong workers' movement, with a more powerful social alliance, our generation can be the generation of overthrows! (…) Together with the KNE and the KKE, the youth can become stronger, to struggle for a life with real freedom, to satisfy their contemporary needs.

Towards this effort we have powerful weapons. The contemporary revolutionary strategy of the KKE, its estimations and conclusions drawn from a century of History, full of struggles, sacrifices, confrontations with the bourgeois class, the state and its mechanisms. We have the forcefulness of the 50-year course of the KNE that is the youthful charge on the future, for a new world, for socialism – communism. We are optimistic. We are certain and decided.”

Festival 100 years KKE-50 years KNE [2nd Day]

Speech of the GS of the CC of the KKE, D. Koutsoumpas
Friends and Comrades!

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Here we are! Here are the 100 years of heroic, militant, vanguard action of our party!

Here is all 50 year-old history of KNE!

We are proud and we declare to every direction:

There is only one way; only forwards, only towards victory!

We walk into a new century in the history of the glorious KKE, placing the bar even higher.

Equipped with yesterday’s experience and conclusions.

“To win the fight for a world worthy of our dreams, worthy of our people” (quote by Nikos Belogiannis’ speech during his trial before being executed in Kaisariani,1952).

We are the seed ploughed by the sowers.

Children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the revolutionary action of the 20th century.

Of the strikers of May 1936, of prisoners in exile islands, of Akronauplia and Gyaros. Of Makronisos and Leros.

Of those who transformed the rock of the exile to a canvas. And their NO to the guards turned into a song, a decision and experience.

Of those that standing in front of the firing squad placed above all the honour of the Party.

Of the guerilla soldiers of EAM-ELAS and of the Aetopoula of EPON (children of 8-10 years old recruited in EPON- the “little eagles”)

Of the fighters of Athens and Piraeus in December 1944. Of the fighters, men and women, of the glorious Democratic Army of Greece.

Of the communists in the following years who managed to keep “nests of water in the flames”.

The communists that in the hard conditions of illegality decided, not just not to retreat, but to found the Communist Youth of Greece.

Those who held high the flag of hope and class struggle while the bourgeois historians were declaring our defeat.

Those who after many years of persecutions, when they were asked if they would chose the same path, they answered clear and loud: “Yes, I would do it again!”, with no second thoughts…

We continue the same path.

Under the flags of Marxism-Leninism, of proletarian internationalism…

More experienced, better equipped, better prepared.

Now this path is ours.

And we will follow it till the end.

With the ambition and with our help so the people can put ”a solemn signature to the avenues of the future” (G. Ritsos)

With courage and radically.

Because we are certain that everything will change!

What today seems still, will move forwrad.

Those who today stay silent will speak up!

And they will shout: This rotten world, can, must change, and will change!

This flame of the struggle is kept burning and is passed from one hand to another, from one generation to the next, by the KNE and Odigitis festival for the past 44 years.

Today, we have here with us the generation of the first Festival. Alongside the young communists of today we have the comrades, men and women, children of our people, who were victorious in the struggle against the junta!

The cadres from the ranks of the Party are here, who in September 1991, a month after the regroupment of KNE, when they could be counted on the fingers of one hand achieved the impossible: They organised the 17thFestival, once again in Peristeri, they sent a hopeful message, they proved wrong all those speculating the end of KNE.

The Festival is a unique, glorious chapter of the History of KNE

The Festival justifiably gained that position in the minds of the people. It became a true political-cultural institution for the youth of the country.

The Festival stages have been honoured by the most prominent artists of our times.

We can say that we have achieved the goal which was set when the celebrations for the 100 years of our party began.

To upgrade the Festival, to include more types of art, its activities to be based on and to respond to the interests and the concerns of the youth, its content to be more advanced and vanguard.

To make known to the new generation all the great work that numerous artists have created throughout the years.

And first and foremost, the course and evolution of class struggle in our country and internationally as well as the vanguard action of the KKE and the labour-popular movement.

But even more importantly the Festival brings the youth closer to the revolutionary politics and KKE's vanguard ideology.

It sheds light to the only realistic and hopeful road for the youth.

The road of confrontation and overthrow, the road of victory.

Festival 100 years KKE-50 years KNE [3rd Day]

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Friends and Comrades,

We know well that in order to shed light to this road, we need to overcome, one by one, the obstacles put in the minds of the youth by the prevailing system and its centres of power.

We need to make useless one of the most deceitful bourgeois’ arguments that “capitalism in Greece is not functioning properly” , that it needs some adjustments, some reforms as the bourgeois say to fool the workers, in order to make Greece supposedly a “normal” country with a “normal” capitalism.

They want to hide the fact that this rotten exploitative system, everywhere and in all countries, creates the same problems.

Poverty, unemployment, crisis, wars for the many, enormous profits and prosperity for a handful of parasites.

And Greece, the country of poverty and injustice, is not a special case but a miniature of the modern capitalist world.

In the metropolis of capitalism, the beloved USA for Mr. Tsipras, where capitalism, "is, supposedly, running like clock-work" and where 25% of the billionaires worlwide live, at the same time:

40 million people live under the poverty line
19 million live in conditions of extreme poverty
1 out of 5 children are poor.
In the USA, there is also a new category of working people, the “working poor”. Their wage is not sufficient for satisfying the elementary human needs, they eat in soup kitchens. they live in refuges.

In Germany, the supposedly top "normal" country of the EU, 1 million pupils cannot buy the school necessities because they are poor.

Their schools are understaffed. In order to operate 40.000 teachers posts are covered by students or pensioners.

About 7.7 millions people are under non-standard forms of employement

In the UK, also a supposedly "normal" country, the homeless are doubled surpassing the 300.000 people. If you lose your job, you risk sleeping in a carton box.

In Sweden, characterised as the exemplar country by some social-democrats, girl students turn to prostitution to cover the cost of their studies, while midwives train pregnant women to give birth in a car, due to shortcomings in maternity hospitals.

Poverty, unemployment and austerity is the normal situation in capitalism.

The truth of the matter is, that the this normal situation exists only in the minds of those promoting the fairy tale of “humane capitalism” which is almost approached but never reached.

In all these “normal” capitalist countries, on one side we have the exploiters and on the other the exploited. On one side we have those who create all the wealth with their minds and hands and on the other side those who steal all the wealth without working.

The exploiters are free to do whatever they want and recognise only one law and freedom:

The sacred and inviolability of their capitalist property
The freedom to exploit labour without any limits, and to usurp all the wealth produced.
To kill each other in order to exploit new markets and territories, even through wars ahile peoples being the victims.
Really, what can a young person do freely today?

Is he or she free to be educated?
Is he or she free to develop all its traits?
Is he or she free to work on his or her field of study?
Or even to enjoy in his or her own way arts and sports?
To what extend a is a young person free when the system advices him or her to further lower the expectations, to accept even worse terms of employment?

To what extend a young woman is free when she is forced to sign that she will not be pregnant when sh is hired to a new job?

Whatever freedoms are recognized by the system for the young workers are limited by the freedom of the capitalists to exploit. At the same time, these freedoms are aggressively violated when they dare to question this exploitative system.

However, the real freedom for the young people, starts with the questioning of this miserable reality and continues with the organization of the struggle aiming at the real enemy, its system and its power. This path is the realistic one.

Because, realism is what benefits the children of the working class.

Whereas, for those who support the system, realism means that our generation has to work and live with worse terms as compared to the precious ones. It also means to discredit the rights and achievements of our parents, claiming that these “abnormal” and “exceedingly high” rights led us to the crisis.

They say: do not complain, do not claim demands. Someday the maximisation of profits may co-exist with youth’s rights. Of course, we know that this will never happen and nowhere.

Their realism is the acceptance and final submission to the barbarian attack of capital.

Our own realism is the realism of modern needs which can be fulfilled. It is the realism of collective action, which defeats the rationale of the "lesser evil" and of the minimum expectations.

When following this path along side with our people, our youth is gaining power, determination and experience thus being transformed to the youth of revolution.

Following this path, it is capable of confronting the dominant ideology which presents that the exploited are in partnership with the exploiters.

That wants the youth of the popular strata to learn to think just like their bosses.

To accept “entrepreneurship” as a motor force of social progress.

To strengthen in their consciousness that the class of the bourgeoisie is not only useful, but “necessary”, supposedly irreplaceable in society.

Not to learn the class-oriented truth, that all the produced wealth is a result of the social labour of the exploited, and its overwhelmingly big part is accumulated in the hands of a completely parasitic class, now historically useless, for the production.

This is the biggest unfairness, proof that the capitalist development cannot be “just”, as SYRIZA mocks.

This is the biggest unfairness, and it does not change even if the wealth is increased, even if the pie grows, just as New Democracy (ND) also lies about.

Because the pie many times in the past grew, but the workers only got breadcrumps.

Because the profits never and nowhere are equally shared between the capitalists and the workers, the salaried in general, the capitalists take them even from the self-employed through various channels.

Social unfairness and its causes form the real dividing line in society.

And this is what the system tries to conceal with the glorification of the individual path.

It promotes some individual rights, in conflict with the total of social rights, because it wants to conceal that the majority of the youth is the new shift of the working class.

That it can claim its future, its social and individual rights, only if it sees why and who deprives it from them, how and with whom it can conquer them, meaning with social terms and not only as a sum of individual efforts.

SYRIZA with the “equal opportunities” and ND with the “many opportunities”, have distorted the context of the word “right”, they have deleted the “social right” from their vocabulary.

The rights were transformed into “opportunities” for the few. The rest will have to manage with charity and poverty benefits.

“Your death my life”, “live your life and let the others die”, that’s what they say to the young people.

All system’s staff work so every young man and woman stands alone in life and their problems.

In order to prevent the youth from choosing the path of class organisation and struggle, of true confrontation, which is the only path than can lead all the youth to a bright new society.

And in order to achieve that, they name as “confrontations” whatever suits them.

In order to undermine the true ongoing confrontation.

They slunder or deride the class organisation and struggle, they even call them “outdated”.

They present as radical measures even minor political changes, which not only do not challenge but favour the power of capital, while they promote as “anti-systemic” political forces, which, with their views and actions, not only they do not block the barbarism of the bourgeois class, on the contrary they participate in the estrangement of the youth from the peoples’ revolutionary struggle.

They do their work, and we have to do ours.

We fight against the multifaced attempt of the enemy to twist the meaning of confrontation, of the struggle, of the fight.

To widely promote the genuine struggle against the system.

To cancel the obstacles of the system.

For every young man and woman, with the desire to fight, to meet the ideas and actions of KNE and KKE



Friends and Comrades,

The workers, the unemployed, the toilling people do not need to look hard to find differences between the programs of SYRIZA and ND, as those where presented in the Thessaloniki International Exposition (TIE).

They do not need to look hard because those differences are few and unimportant.

The “just” development of SYRIZA and the “development that doesn’t leave anyone behind” of ND, is the capitalist development that is built on crushed salaries, unacceptable working conditions that ND-PASOK and SYRIZA created during the Memoranda era.

On top of everything they both hide that a new crisis is close.

The debt is accumulated in a global scale, profitability is low, a new highly profitable sector is yet to be discovered and the imperialist centres resort in the economic tools of protectionism -like those implemented by Trump- in order to protect the profits of their monopolies. As a result the problems increase.

The breakout of a new, deeper crisis of overaccumulation of capital is real. And that prospect, that is the crisis to affect even more the global economy, becomes dominant.

In particular the big openess of the Greek economy in sectors that may be challenged by a global crisis, such as maritime and tourism, could end up being the “Achille’s heel” of the future capitalist growth.

A generalised international crisis may negatively affect the Greek economy disproportionally to other economies.

Our country is already exposed to the uncertain future of the Eurozone due to the increasing opposing interests of the major players in the EU. With the confrontation amongst Italy, France and Germany beeing at the epicentre.

In the meantime the growing participation of our country in the NATO and the US military plans in the area increase the chance that the plan of a peaceful, long lasting economic growth goes up in a smoke.

That is why the promises of the government for relief measures are faulse, to say the least.

Because even the poor measures that were announced depend on: whether growth goes according to plan in the years to come…, whether the supervising institutions are persuaded…, whether fiscal finances go well.., and many more prerequisites…

Those are just general promises for which we do not know either the exact outcome or even the existence of at least an outcome.

Who established part-time employment?
Who legalised workers’ “slave offices”?
Who paved the way for redundancies?
Who abolished the Sunday closing?
Who dared to attack the most important right of the working class, the right to strike?
SYRIZA and its government!

They now have the audacity to mock by saying that they are going to increase minimum wages, by deploying one of the most antilabour laws of ND and PASOK, the Vroutsi’s (ND minister of labour) law which aligns minimum wages with capitalists’ profitability and competitions. This law abolishes collective bargaining for the minimum wage, being defined through a ministerial order!

Mr Vroutsis, the ND ex-minister of labour, even noted that this decision of SYRIZA makes him feel he is proved right. This demonstrates the scale of SYRIZA’s and ND alignment. Even if they give some crumbs – provocation for the working people, for pre-election reasons, these offerings will be overwhelmed by all the other anti-people’s measures, like the drastic lowering of the minimum income for taxation.

If the Government wished to really increase the minimum wage, it would vote for the amendment that the KKE put forward in the parliament, which restores the minimum wage to its previous level of € 751. Only this would have been a real increase!

Now, Mr Tsipras and Mr Mitsotakis (ND leader) remembered the disgrace of the hyper low level of the minimum wage, which permitted the employers to aggressively exploit young boys and girls.

Really, isn’t it ND that introduced this law? Isn’t it SYRIZA that implements it as a Government over the past 4 years?

They are caught lying again. They are not worried about the young people. They have in their mind the big bosses.

Because the shame of the labour jungle for the youth has many facets: part time work, flexible work schedules, apprenticeship.

It is basically the non-paid work which applies for the thousands of young trainees and even more. All those working almost for nothing, just for a few euros.

Really, whom they think Mr Tsipras and his minister of labour are mocking when they talk for the restoration of collective agreements?

Whom they are talking to? Aren’t they the ones who for the last 3 ½ years are implementing the laws which permit the employers to avoid the implementation of the collective agreements?

Don’t they know that because of their laws, only 10% of the working force is covered by a collective agreement?

Are they not aware of the strikes that have been declared illegal because of their laws?

Which free collective negotiations are supported by ND? Those that they turned out to be obsolete and useless?

What is the social security system that they negotiate with employers?

Is it for the one promoting “profitability” and private insurance, having the blessings of the EU and the OECD and being the core of the Katrougalos’ law, as well as of the “Pinochet plans” as mentioned by ND?

Their differences lie in the methods used for stealing the working class.

Whatever is not taken away by SYRIZA with the tax robbery and the housing taxes, is taken by ND with the major cuts in social spending, health and welfare.

At the same time, they both promise new tax and contribution exemptions and new incentives for investors and capitalists. Everything is put at their disposal immediately.

When SYRIZA and ND are talking about investments – which SYRIZA will “take off” and ND will “shoot them at the sky” – why they do not say to the unemployed what they are offering to the capitalists in order to invest in our country?

SYRIZA & ND assure the capitalists that the memoranda terms will remain in force and the ruins of the working rights will remain ruins.

With,

The Memoranda laws still in force, since they are not abolished,
The stained with blood surpluses that are maintained indefinitely,
The capitalist supervision that becomes ever tighter for the peoples of Europe,
The exploitation that is going to be intensified,
the capitalists will ensure their profits.

That is why SYRIZA enjoys the support of capitalists.

Capitalists cannot find a better representative.

In the recent 3 1/2 years, SYRIZA managed to implement all those measures that ND and PASOK, on their own or united, did not dare or did not manage to implement for decades.

Of course, capitalists would have no problem with a ND government, they are always ready to put the ‘Plan B’ in action.

When one government bankrupts, the other one is ready to take power, to implement even worse measures against the people.

SYRIZA advertises to capitalists its capability to manipulate and entrap people while ND advertises its commitment to reforms.

For their commitment to the NATO and USA they do not even argue. It is given and non-negotiable for both.

In the USA dominated Thessaloniki International Expo (TIE), both SYRIZA and ND officials accepted the title of a “geopolitical hinge” in the region, by the peoples’ murderers.

Mr. Tsipras is very proud for the title that the American Ambassador gave to Greece.

At the same time, ND has no objection and is aligned with SYRIZA and KINAL (Movement for change- alliance PASOK, The River, DIMAR, Democratic Allignment) to the objective of the geostrategic upgrade.

The geostrategic upgrade has nothing to do with the improvement of the interests and rights of the people. Also, it has nothing to do with peace, solidarity and friendship of the peoples.

It is about the improvement of the Greek bourgeois class, its participation in the sharing of markets, sources, energy and transportation roads. This consequently leads to the increase of all dangers and risks and further involvement in imperialist wars and interventions.

As SYRIZA-ANEL became a flag-bearer of the US and NATO, the risks in the region, the Balkans, Aegean Sea and the wider region, are escalated and are not prevented.

Mr. Tsipras is proud of making Greece into a US launching-pad, as they promise him investments made in USA

The USA have often been interested in investing in Greece.

The first time Americans invested in Greece was after the World War II, with the Marshal Plan and the second is now with the investments they are planning in shipyards and other industries.

After the World War II, the US investments targeted the Soviet Union and its influence in the Balkans. Now, they target Russia and China and their strategic interests in the wider region.

And what if SYRIZA has turned into a science the whitewash of the US imperialism ... And what if ND is jealous for losing its prime ...

Our people must know the risks because SYRIZA-ANEL engage them even more deeply in the plans of imperialists.



Friends and Comrades,

Neither their programs nor the false separating lines between SYRIZA and ND can hide the fact that they both serve today’s barbarian capitalist road.

Our people cannot have anymore rescuers, extortions and dilemmas.

First, it was the Memorandum – Anti Memorandum that turned into a “Memorandum with no second thoughts”

Then, it was the “NO” of SYRIZA and “YES” of ND in the “fake” referendum that was turned into a “YES” to everything.

In this procedure of reforming the bourgeois political system, it is easy for party members to move from one party to another, as they are similar.

Since SYRIZA and ND agree to important and crucial issues, they are trying to create imaginary division differences, they reuse fake dilemmas of the past.

“Right – Anti Right”, “SYRIZA – Anti SYRIZA”, distorting the contradiction between “progress – reaction” …

Really, is it progressive to say that you will make more fair the unjust law of ENFIA?

Is it progressive today for the US Ambassador to visit ministries and universities while SYRIZA has made the US Embassy a second home?

Is it progressive to claim that pension cuts concern only a portion of pensioners that are above 70 years-old, so consequently it will be erased as time goes by? Do they really expect them to die?

As the next day will be the same with the previous one…

As anyone in the government will continue the same policy from where the previous one left it …

That’s why we are saying

Do not try to find the differences.

You must make the difference by strengthening KKE.

We can move forwards, we can do so much, only with a strong KKE.

To put obstacles to the anti-peoples’ policies of SYRIZA, with which ND is in agreement.

To strengthen the fronts of resistance and of claims of the contemporary rights of youth and employees.

To make them fill helpless; Governments and parties that implements the SEV (employers federation), shipowners and bankers requirements, that crash our dreams and life.

To strengthen our struggle against our country’s involvement in the war plans of the NATO-USA-EU. To strengthen our opposition to imperialist wars and their causes.

To put as a first priority the modern needs of our people and youth.

All those can be measured through the strengthening of the KKE.

Because the KKE is a force determined never to quit its post at the forefront of the working class and youth struggles.

Because the KKE has no cties with businesses and millionaires like the other parties have.

The KKE has no ties with the EU, USA, SEV and NATO, as the others have.

The KKE is the force of the workers and the salaried, which can destroy the plans of the bosses.

The KKE is the force of the self-employed because it promises to them humane working conditions, leisure time and vacation time which now they cannot afford.

Because the KKE is not twisting its words and flattering the electorate to gain votes.

On the contrary, the KKE reveals the great picture.

It shows the only path in favour of working class interests, and the overthrow of the capitalist ownership and power.

Because the KKE has a program, organisation and a plan leading to a higher form of organising the economy and society having as a “steam engine” the satisfaction of popular prosperity and not the profits and the privileges of a handful of exploiters.

Because it reveals that the rationale “nothing can be done, nothing changes”, is the biggest lie that of course benefits the exploiters and their power.

Everything changes, everything can change. Everything can be done, as long as it is decided by the only one matter, the people.

Because the KKE and the workers’ movement are the only ones who can send the looters, murderers, Nazis of Golden Dawn where they belong; to the trashcan of history next to their idols, Hitler, Mussolini, Metaxas and Papadopoulos.

Because at the moment when everyone teaches the youth to learn to live with “opportunities”, the KKE shows the contemporary needs of young people, it struggles in order for them to be satisfied today, so that the standard of living can correspond with the great development of production and science.

Because the KKE reveals the real and big culprit for the problems and impasses that the youth faces: the capitalist system, which is what all the other parties worship.

Because the new and contemporary, a life with contemporary rights and real freedom means above all, the overthrow of today’s corrupted capitalist system.

This is the path the KKE follows relentlessly. This path leads to the clearing in favour of the people’s majority.



Dear friends,

Tonight here at the Festival of the 100 years of the KKE and the 50 years of KNE we meet again with many of you.

With you who were one of the children of KNE, just as Ritsos called you at the 3rd Festival in Peristeri...

His words still echo in our ears:

“They are the children of KNE

Who say to life the great YES.

These children come from far away, they are headed far away”.

We meet again with you who all of these years held in your hearts the red handkerchief of KNE.

Who stood with respect on the side of the militants of ELAS, EAM, DSE.

That you have marched during your university years with the carnation of Panspoudastiki at the lapel, with this red carnation we can meet again at our rallies.

You were shocked by the murder of Sotiria Vasilakopoulou outside the gate of ETMA. And the fact that the capitalist exploitation even kills, has never left your mind.

With you who contributed for the solidarity with the peoples who were struggling with the gun in their hands in Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, with the slingshot in Palestine. Who supported and continue to support the people of Cuba, all the struggling peoples of the world.

We meet again with all of you, who still quietly sing “The tree-To dentro” by Manos Loizos, especially the verse that says: “but it does not bend and it keeps spurting foliage”.

These are the songs that you taught your children.

Many of you might have in mind all of these that a few days ago Thanos Mikroutsikos said for our Party:

“ I, myself had my reservations sometimes – not for the strategy- but mainly for the hunt of the possible. But whoever has read History with passion, will notice that at least over the past 40 years, even radical left forces that in the beginning were chasing the possible, all over Europe, were either incorporated completely in the system or marginalized. As a result: They denigrated the dream even more, and thus, turned the average citizen, who in capitalism, because of the daily bombardment of by-products has a decreased political consciensness, to the extreme-right wing, with a result the nightmare to come back. The KKE is the only party – I can say this unreservedly- that does not create illusions that in the barbaric capitalism, especially today, things can become better. I definitely support it”.



Dear Friends and Comrades,

100 years KKE- 50 years KNE.

Yes, it has been a long road so far.

And we can walk on this road together again.

With the red handkerchief of KNE, we can hold on again in the struggles.

With the red carnation we can meet at the work places, at the neighborhoods.

We will meet again, at the great struggles that we have ahead of us.

At our rallies and events.

At the elections in the trade unions and the unions of our workers’- peoples’ movement.

At the upcoming parliamentary elections.

At the European elections.

At the municipal and regional elections.

Making KKE much stronger everywhere.

We will meet again, at the big popular rallies, at the popular, great red stadiums, of today and tomorrow, of our happy future.

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Festiv ... Years-KNE/

Can you imagine, filling stadiums?
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 19, 2018 2:38 pm

Party documents, relevant to the theme of the 20th IMCWP
Extracts from the Political Resolution of the 20th Congress of the KKE

THE TASKS OF THE KKE FOR THE REGROUPMENT OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT AND THE POLITICAL WORK OF THE COMMUNISTS IN THE TRADE UNIONS
The 20th Congress of the KKE, on the basis of the programmatic documents as well as the experience from the activity of the party in the previous period, defined the tasks of the party in relation with the work for the regroupment of the labour movement. The basic content of the regrouping of the labour movement is defined as the preparation and development of its abilty to confront decisively and effectively and in alliance with the popular strata of the self-employed and farmers the single elaborated strategy of capital and capitalist power.

The implementation of this task presupposes the intensification of the ideological-political struggle in the trade union movement. The bourgeois political forces intervene in the trade unions in an organized way, as well as the employers, the various state mechanisms, opportunism. The politicization of the activity of the trade unions in anti-capitalist direction above all is related to their general orientation, in the sense that they do not restrict themselves to a struggle framework of immediate demands. We aim for the trade unions to take positions in favour of the class struggle and the abolition of exploitation, against class collaboration, against the “common national interest”, against the submission to the capitalists. The labour movement paid a high price for the illusions that an allegedly “broader” line, which will only or chiefly focus on the specific problem in each workplace, can widen the framework of rallying and facilitate the main goal. Any short-terms results of such a line in other conditions quickly dissipated and led to the disillusionment and demobilization of even consistent forces.

Politicization occurs in the framework of the movement, through the participation of workers and taking into account that not all the members of trade unions have acquired political class consciousness. The work for politicization, to overcome sectional phenomena and attitudes must be developed on a daily basis with the creative concern and care of the communists in order to form the correct relationship between the party and the trade unions, so that the impression is not created unintentionally of transforming trade unions into “party organizations” sometimes, by mechanistically transmitting overly general positions, slogans and methods of party work.

What is mainly needed is a better specialization and elaboration of demands and the content of each struggle, of the positions and slogans in each trade union, in each sector, in every workplace. This is the only way to overcome over-generalizations, the repetition of non-specific overly general strategic slogans. The communists act openly, do not hide their views, do not retreat from the positions and programme of the party, however their ability to form a framework of struggle and demands that facilitates the mobilization of workers and impedes their easier manipulation and co-option by the system is judged on a daily basis.

We need to acquire a stable orientation but also greater ability to strengthen from below- beginning from the workplace itself, the trade union- the line of struggle which sets in focus the contemporary needs of the workers’-people’s forces. We must acquire the ability to project the fact that the obstacle to the satisfaction of contemporary needs and the demands which express them is capitalist ownership and capitalist profit. We must also have the capability to convincingly expose- through the ideological confrontation that will be developing in the small or bigger struggles- the mechanisms of exploitation and especially the conditions for their abolition. The party and every communist must have the ability to work on the basis of a plan and with continuity inside working class-popular forces, to promote their organization, mobilization and education, with the aim of radicalizing their consciousness, raising the level of demands and the the combativeness of the activity to satisfy all their contemporary demands.

Despite the fact that today they must be at the focus of the demands, the satisfaction of the contemporary needs is not possible inside capitalism, but presupposes the socialization of the concentrated means of production and their integration into scientific central planning.

The projection of the demands for the recovery of the losses does not idealize the pre-2009 period, but highlights the worsening of the exploitation in relation to the previous generations, in obvious contradiction with the real contemporary needs and capabilities. The false arguments that the reduction of rights today is due to the previous existence of some irrational privileges must be answered.

The regroupment of the labour movement is based on the activity to organize the working class. This effort is expressed with specific goals:

The trade unions acquiring mass characteristics. The influx of new workers in their unions must be a permanent concern and criterion for the regroupment efforts, insisting on the significance of the organized collective struggle and the concentration of forces against the class enemy. Greater focus on organizing women, young people and immigrants.
Coverage of all workplaces by sectoral trade unions, with their branches, and also by workplace trade unions, creating new ones where it is considered necessary, on the basis of the criterion of the organization and unity of the workers, irrespective of their employment relations. Development of an integrated network of such trade unions across the country.
The stable functioning of the trade unions as a basic criterion of regroupment, safeguarding the functioning of the executive committees, highlighting the importance of and consolidating the General Assemblies of the unions. Continuous updates for the workers by the trade unions, as well as the discovery of new ways and forms of activity that facilitate the participation of the working people (e.g. in the educational, cultural, sports sectors)
Systematic monitoring of the process of the elections, the changing of the correlation of forces in favor of the class forces. The utilization of the positive experience related to the more systematic and close control by the party organs, the early preparation, the effort to concentrate new forces, to promote new trade union cadres.
Strengthening of the solidarity, the mutual aid and class support for the workers’-people’s familoes and each worker. It must be realized that, essentially, this is not a means to attract workers, but chiefly a means to create a militant orientation, criteria, stance. On that point, the special work with unemployed and immigrants who are permanently settled in our country is of special importance.
The trade unions must be linked to the place of residence, to acquire access in organizational terms to the neighbourhoods, where a large section of workers not organized in trade unions live and work.

PAME- as the class-oriented rally of the working class in the trade union movement, in whose ranks dozens of federations and labour centres and hundreds of trade unions, struggle committees and trade unionists participate, has a line of mobilization and struggle in an anti-capitalist anti-monopoly direction and this is a great advantage for the movement. The initiative of communists and others who work together with the communists to establish it, as well as its constant activity over all these years serves-as the work of the communists in the trade unions in general does-the goal of developing militant bonds with the masses in order to mobilize them in the direction of overthrowing the capitalist system.

Its recent nationwide conference contributed, with its preparation and final decisions, to expanding it influence and the rallying of forces around it.

THE TASKS OF THE KKE CONCERNING THE SOCIAL ALLIANCE


There is detailed reference in the Programme of the KKE to the importance of forming the Social Alliance in order for the working class to play its leading role in the revolutionary overthrow. The 20th Congress of the KKE, examining the experience from the party’s work to form the Social Alliance, noted the following:

Firstly:The working class due to its position in capitalist production is objectively the only revolutionary class, the builder of the socialist-communist society and therefore is the leading force in relation to the other popular forces. Only the labour movement can take on complete revolutionary characteristics and develop into a consistent class revolutionary movement. It is an issue of constant struggle and efforts for the popular sections of the middle strata, as potential allies of the working class and for their respective movements to be drawn to a greater or lesser extent actively into the revolutionary struggle and other sections must at least be rendered neutral. The overthrow of capitalism, which will be led by the working class, is also in the interests of the popular strata, provides solutions to the right to work, to all the social rights of the self-employed, the individual commodity producer, to the prospect of integrating them into direct social labour.

The KKE is in practice responsible for the realization of the Social Alliances, as it is the organized ideological-political vanguard of the working class in Greece. It is realized through the political activity of the KKE concerning the problems of the popular strata, through the corresponding activity of the members of the party, KNE, the friends of the party inside the labour and trade union movement.

Second:The Social Alliance in an anticapitalist-antimonopoly direction is comprised of social forces, which are determined on the basis of their position in relation to the prevailing mode of production, without gender of age discrimination. Women and youth belong to specific social forces, while the social position of those sections of them that do not participate in production is determined by their family background.

Third:The Social Alliance must not be treated in a schematic way and identified with joint activity of the existing antimonopoly-anticapitalist forms of rallying like PAME, PASEVE, PASY, OGE, MAS. Particular care is needed because OGE, as the radical movement of women of a working class-popular social position or background and MAS as the rally of students cannot be considered as organizations that express distinct social forces. The certain form acquired through the joint struggle framework, which was formed in the previous years, does not remain static. It will develop according to the specific phase of the movement and the correlation of forces. It will emerge in other forms; it will be strengthened; it will be rearranged in movement terms, in relation to the real mobilization of the masses, strengthening and deepening the anticapitalist-antimonopoly goals of the alliance, constantly expanding its influence.

Fourth:In particular, the issue of developing the movement of allies of the working class, i.e. of the popular strata, must be studied. There needs to be a better understanding of our view as to how the work of the Social Alliance is served by our activity in the farmers’ movement, PASY and the Nationwide Committee of Farmers’ Roadblocks that is a new form of coordination, which was formed in 2014 and has developed into a Nationwide Coordinating Committee of Federations, Associations, Farmers’ Committees. The main orientation today is to organize the farmers into Associations, Federations etc. Similarly, we must examine the situation in the Associations of the self-employed, through the anti-monopoly rally of PASEVE.

The radical rallies in an anticapitalist-antimonopoly direction must not be treated statically, but as apart of the dynamic of the class straggle which is not one-sided or linear. The depth of the anticapitalist-antimonopoly content of the struggle is not the same in every phase, something that is reflected in the forms that will be taken by the alliance, which will develop

The 20th Congress of the party decided that the CC should organize a Nationwide Body in order to discuss comprehensively and in detail the issues of the Social Alliance, the updating of the framework of struggle and demands that are related to the farmers’ movement (the forms of organization, the alliance, the anticapitalist-antimonopoly rally etc.)

Fifth:The People’s Committees as forms of expression of the Social Alliance at a territorial-local level need to more solidly established. We must overcome the phenomena of some of them resembling “citizens’ initiatives”, where some members of various organizations participate, mainly members and friends of the party, without expressing existing trade unions, struggle committees, people’s movement organizations at the level of the city and neighbourhood where the working class-popular forces are mobilized. They must be forms of rallying where the trade unions or their local branches play the leading role, with the participation of forms of organization and mobilization of the self-employed and farmers, the participation of the associations of OGE or MAS, student’s committees, school students’ committees, at the level of the neighbourhood, the place of residence.

Sixth:The Social Alliance-due to its character as an alliance of social movements-is not a form of cooperation between parties nor a form of cooperation of the KKE with mass organizations. To the extent that other political forces of a petty bourgeois political character are active with their members in the forms of rallying of the Social Alliance, they will meet together with the communists in common struggle at the level of the movement and an ideological-political struggle will be conducted inside the movement. Any common activity and ideological struggle will be expressed within the ranks and the organs of struggle of the Social Alliance, which is rooted in the workplaces, the General Assemblies of the trade unions and associations, in the struggle committees in the neighbourhoods etc.

The KKE- with its activity, both independently as a party and via the activity of its members in the ranks of the organizations of the Social Alliance and the forms of rallying that are created for its more effective advancement-understands its responsibility to act more effectively, with the aim of approaching and mobilizing workers’-people’s masses. In the framework of these efforts, the following question arises: which political line provides a real answer to the problems of the people, the line in favour the monopolies or the one against their domination? The line supporting the power of the monopolies and capital or the line supporting the power of the working people, who are the creators of all of society’s wealth?

The rallying of the majority of the working class with the KKE and the attraction of leading sections of the popular strata will pass through various phases. The labour movement, the movements of the urban self-employed and farmers and the form that their alliance takes on with anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist goals, with the vanguard activity of the KKE’s forces, in non-revolutionary conditions, constitute the first form for the creation of the revolutionary workers’ and people’s front in revolutionary conditions.

The working class and popular masses, through the experience of their participation in the organization of the struggle in a direction of confrontation with capital’s strategy, will be persuaded of the need for their organization and confrontation to take on the character of a full and multi-faceted confrontation against the economic and political dominance of capital.



THE ROLE OF THE KKE IN THE LABOUR-PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT


The KKE as the vanguard of the working class has the responsibility of guiding the movement, not only in terms of its general programmatic direction or through the content of its statement, but also in organizational terms, i.e. through its leading organs, the Party Base Organizations, the Party groups that work directly in the movement, the comrades elected to trade union bodies.

The leading role of the party is secured through the activity of communists in the ranks of the trade unions, the mass organizations of the self-employed, the farmers, the radical forms of rallying, working to safeguard their anticapitalist-antimonopoly orientation.

The trade union groups, the election lists, and initiatives that exist or are being created cannot have this leading-vanguard role, nor the forms of rallying in the movement, even those that have a clear anticapitalist-antimonopoly line. Their basic role is the concentration of forces, the rallying of trade unions, federations, struggle committees, workers’ groups in an anticapitalist-antimonopoly direction, to coordinate their joint activity, to promote the anticapitalist-antimonopoly struggle, strengthening and enriching this direction.

The Communist Party also acts independently inside the movement. It ensures the connection of the daily struggles with the revolutionary overthrow, with the strategic proposal of the party for socialist power and construction. The discussion and ideological struggle inside the movement, the content of the struggle itself must pose the issue and goal of power without becoming detached from the specific, everyday, temporary and immediate demands. The struggle we are waging today must acquire anticapitalist-antimonopoly characteristics and be a struggle for workers’ power. And this must permeate the movement as a focus for discussion and ideological struggle.

This is a basic task for the communists, which they must simultaneously work on, understanding the need for persuasion and an escalation of their line of argumentation. It is their task to acquire the ability to pose this issue in a popular, persuasive way, understanding that in non-revolutionary conditions it is a slogan that determines the direction of the struggle and is not an immediate goal for action.

ON PARTY BUILDING AND THE CONSTANT RENEWAL OF THE RANKS OF THE PARTY


A basic factor that determines the role and effectiveness of the party in the labour movement, in the class struggle,in its work for the regroupment of the labour movement is party building in industry, in strategically important sectors, in new dynamic sectors of the economy, in combination with the increase of its strength and influence in the great mass of the working class and especially in its younger sections. It is of more general strategic importance.

Consequently, the construction of strong party organizations oriented to the masses in the monopoly groups, the factories, major financial, industrial, retail centres emerges as a basic task. The leading organs and party organizations must focus on this task. We underscore the following basic issues:

The deployment of forces and cadres focusing on the workplaces is what lends forward impetus to all party work. There must be no retreat from this. The adjustment requires time, a steady rudder, so that we are not pulled off course by the developments. The mobility in the structuring of the economic sectors as result of centralization, competition between businesses and new technological advances in production must be taken into account so that our intervention can be adjusted correspondingly. The political guidance work must improve; it must assist in the accumulation and generalization of experience, in the development of the ability of the party members, in the formation of young labour movement cadres.
The “buttressing”, consolidation and strengthening of the party’s intervention in the sectors is a necessary precondition for the reinforcement of our party’s vitally important characteristics. The positive steps in the coordination and unified orientation of work between sectoral and area-based party organizations must be utilized. Work in the sectors and places of residence must not be treated as being in confrontation with each other. There must be a common orientation for all organizations:Work in the working class, in the sectors, in the large workplaces. The phenomena of workers that are employed in important economic sectors and businesses remaining organizationally in neighbourhood organizations, i.e. meaning that the orientation towards redeployment is not proceeding, must be overcome.
We must focus on the central problem of party building, which is the delay in developing the party in large industries and strategically important sectors, prioritizing the following:Ports and airports (transport as a whole), energy, telecommunications, metal, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, food industry, construction-major projects, large retail centres etc.
The precondition for steps to be taken in expanding the influence and organizational strength of the party is the formation of a periphery around the party through mass ideological-political work, through the stable and systematic dissemination of its positions and political line, with the dissemination of “Rizospastis” being the main feature. This intervention must be at the epicentre of the activity of every PBO, every communist, as a basic precondition for party building. The methods for educational/propaganda work must be expanded and must not be restricted to short-term campaigning forms of activity. The dissemination and study of “Rizospastis”, “Kommounistiki Epitheorisi”, the ideological-political, historical and even literary publications of “Synchroni Epohi” must be intensified by each PBO, as well as the wide promotion and discussion of the positions and assessments of the party on the basis of current developments. The goal is to expand the party’s influence in every workplace, neighbourhood, sector, to draw in more and more forces into the class struggle.
The major efforts of the previous period brought certain results, which are expressed by the replenishment of certain forces, the building of party organizations, the formation of a periphery and the mainly through the improvement of the social composition of the party. This experience must be utilized in the further improvement of the plans to recruit and build the party in the workplaces by the Party Organizations.

We persist in the goal of achieving a leap forwards in terms of party building and the political strengthening of the KKE in the working class in the run up to the party’s 100th anniversary. This task can be summarized by the following codified goals for party building, which must be the object of friendly competition between the party organizations:

Improvement of the percentage of industrial workers and the number of PBOs in major businesses of strategic importance.
Improvement of the social composition of the party in terms of the percentage of workers.
Improvement of the age composition through an increase of recruits from KNE and from the 18-40 age group.
An increase of the recruitment of women and improvement of the their overall percentage in the party and in the leading organs.
Athens, March 30 to April 2,2017

The 20th Congress of the CP of Greece

https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Party- ... 0th-IMCWP/
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 26, 2018 1:14 pm

KKE – KNE: Militant rallies against plans to turn the country into a launching pad for wars

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With the central slogan "NO to government-imperialist plans, NATO and its bases Out of Greece", a militant rally of the KKE and KNE organizations in Athens took place on 23rd October 2018 within the framework of multi-faceted actions across the country , in cities that have military bases or where plans are underway to create new ones.





General Secretary of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas addressed the rally in Athens outside the Ministry of Defense, which was then followed by a militant march to the US Embassy.

In his speech, GS Koutsoubas, among other things, stressed that "the bases are launching pads for war, they are spewing fire and death at the expense of other peoples. This was demonstrated by the use of the Base of Souda in US-based operations against Libya and Syria, or earlier in the utilization of Greek territory for the intervention and dissolution of Yugoslavia. We have had bases for dozens of years, but this has not stopped the aggression of the Turkish bourgeoisie, which challenges the sovereign rights of the country in the Aegean. 6% of the territory of Cyprus is occupied by foreign bases, but they did not play a deterring role in the Turkish invasion and occupation. Quite the opposite! The truth is, therefore, that the military bases do not exist for the safety of the peoples nor for peace. They are military and geopolitical "tools" that the imperialists "sow" on the Energy routes, of the raw materials, to gain advantages in the divvying up of the pie of markets, serving their own monopolies, exploiting the peoples, the natural resources and all the wealth that workers produce with their sweat. "

The CC of the KKE stressed that "the logic of all those who support the emergence of new bases in our country is shameless. Indeed, they all recognize that these are a lethal tool of destruction and war, but they pretend that they will "increase turnover" in a number of areas! (...) This specifically-directed argument is aimed at those strata of the people that have been beaten down by the capitalist crisis, who say, "Who knows, maybe you can find some work since if the bases weren't here, they would be somewhere else." But the workers, our people, must not look at things in a narrow-minded, short-sighted way. (...) The bases are not the solution to unemployment and impoverishment, but only a "magnet" for dangers for themselves and their children. Today the SYRIZA-ANEL government, the other bourgeois parties "sweeten the pill" to manage to put NATO "blinders" on the workers, that jobs will be opened up with the bases, with the American vested interest shipyard in Syros, and also those of of Skaramangas and Elefsina which they are laying claim to. However, workers should think that NATO, with which our country is involved, is building major operational projects (...) With the so-called 4 30s, that is 30 battalions, 30 airships and 30 battle ships ready to be deployed anywhere, at most within 30 days, while plans for the use of nuclear weapons are being developed in the context of the competition with Russia. These plans threaten to overwhelm us, to destroy our lives, our children's lives. Under no circumstances, should these plans go through, with the "sack of 30 silver coins" promised by US Ambassador Geoffrey R. Pyatt, wandering around the country to turn it into, together with the SYRIZA-ANEL government, a gigantic Trouba, a huge American-NATO military base."

As the General Secretary, D. Koutsoubas, stressed: "The KKE and the KNE, continuing the struggle together with the working class, the popular strata and the youth, demand:

Greece not be used as a launching pad for the imperialists.

The Base of Souda and all the foreign military bases in Greece be closed

Greek troops to return from missions abroad.

No participation of Greek military forces in imperialist missions abroad.

Strengthen the struggle for disengagement from NATO and the EU.

Strengthen the common struggle and solidarity of the peoples against imperialist war and the system that creates it."

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https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/KKE-KN ... -for-wars/
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:54 pm

Mass anti-imperialist demonstration outside the US embassy

Events honoring the 45th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising of the students and the working class youth of Athens were organized on 17th November throughout the country.

The uprising was the crowning moment of the struggle against dictatorship during the period of the military junta which was supported by the USA and the NATO. Although, the uprising was severely suppressed by the military junta, it had signaled the beginning of its end (you can find more information here).

A big demonstration was held in Athens which ended at the US embassy. The contingents of KKE and KNE were particularly mass. The contingent of soldiers who participated in the demonstration under the slogan “soldiers are sons of the people, they have nothing to do outside the borders” was particularly impressive.

A large delegation of the CC of the KKE participated in the demonstration, headed by its GS, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, who made the following statement:

“The aims and the slogans of the Polytechnic uprising demanding the closure of the atrocious military bases, the disengagement from NATO, social, democratic, labour, people’s rights have not been fulfilled today. For that reason, we continue the struggle, until the final victory, forever”.

Demonstrations and other events took place in other Greek cities as well. In Thessaloniki the demonstration ended at the US consulate.



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https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Mass-a ... S-embassy/
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:36 pm

45th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising

The Communist Party of Greece honoured the Polytechnic uprising with massive rallies all around Greece.

ICP, 21 November 2018

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The resistance of thousands of workers and students against dictatorship on 17 November 1973 was a turning point which accelerated the end of the US-NATO-backed military junta regime in Greece. And the occupation of the Polytechnic University of Athens, which was brutally suppressed, later has become a symbol of this movement. On the 45th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) organized rallies throughout the country.

The big demonstration in Athens gave place to a massive rally that ended at the US embassy. Soldiers participating in the demonstration carried banners on which was written, “soldiers are sons of the people, they have nothing to do outside the borders”. The General Secretary of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, made the following statement:
“The aims and the slogans of the Polytechnic uprising demanding the closure of the atrocious military bases, the disengagement from NATO, social, democratic, labour, people’s rights have not been fulfilled today. For that reason, we continue the struggle, until the final victory, forever”.

See the link for more information in English, Russian, Arabic and German.

http://icp.sol.org.tr/europe/45th-anniv ... c-uprising
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Re: Greece and the KKE

Post by blindpig » Fri Nov 23, 2018 3:12 pm

20th IMCWP has started at KKE headquarters in Athens

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With representatives from 91 parties out ouf 73 countries, the 20th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties has started today, in Athens, Greece.

ICP, 23 November 2018

Hosted the by Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the meeting will mark the 20th anniversary of the international cooperation of communist parties under the IMCWP umbrella, since its establishment in 1998.

The theme of the meeting, as decided at the Working Group meeting on May 2018 is “The contemporary working class and its alliance. The tasks of its political vanguard – the Communist and Worker’s Parties – in the struggle against exploitation and imperialist wars, for the rights of the workers and of the peoples, for peace, for socialism”.

By the end of the three-day meeting, the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Communist Party of Greece will also be celebrated.

The contributions of participating parties can be retrieved from the SolidNet website: http://www.solidnet.org/meetings-and-st ... s-parties/

http://icp.sol.org.tr/international/20t ... ers-athens
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