The ability to promote strategy is directly related to the course of strengthening the Party
The great majority of Party members, irrespective of observations and recommendations, agree with the Party strategy. This agreement is neither emotional nor formal; it is rooted in the experience gained by party workers through developments. It is rooted in the assessments of the broader popular masses about the positive role played by the Party.
Agreeing with strategy is not sufficient for the demands of action today nor should we see it as something definitively established. We should not forget that, at every second and every minute, Party action is literally face to face with the strategy of the adversary and the means at the latter's disposal to impose it. We should likewise bear in mind that the Party is fighting with the specific balance of forces that has suffered setbacks during the past 15 years in Greece and internationally. Increasingly intense pressure will be exerted on the Party and on the popular movement.
The bourgeois class in our country, its parties and their allies have strong backing. They draw strength and experience from alliances of European capital, from NATO and more generally from the international imperialist system which has regained the positions it lost after 1917 and World War II. The class adversary has a lot of experience in propaganda and in working out its goals and slogans. It is capable of manoeuvring and of hindering the people's awakening and adoption of the line of dispute and disengagement. It has a thought-out strategy and each time it studies specifically where and in what way it will strike the main blow against the popular movement and the KKE, well aware of the demands of its policy and action.
Anti-socialist propaganda remains the basic ideological weapon, enriched by the effects of the victory of the counter-revolution. It utilises the strategy of the opportunists, who irrespective of the scope of their policy, rely on repercussions and reversals in order to justify their own damaging, utopian logic regarding the "humanisation" of capitalism.
Therefore, general agreement with strategy is not sufficient. It is not enough to analyse and excoriate capitalism and the role of the monopolies, or to prove why imperialism is the enemy of the people. To censure the contradiction between wealth and poverty, and to point out acute social, financial and democratic problems is relatively easy. But denunciation by itself is not enough when it is not accompanied by corresponding action, and when it does not differentiate awareness, or draw the masses in the labour and the popular movement toward the general front of struggle against the monopolies and imperialist associations.
But today more than ever before the prerequisites exist to project the Party's comprehensive political proposal, since it concerns both the general political direction that developments should take, focused on the people, as well as its specific positions on all issues and problems.
Our political proposal, as a proposal for action, can help reshape the current of protest and dispute that exists in mature political consciousness. Politicisation is inevitably linked to the problem of "development by whom and for whom". Therefore, it is directly linked with the demand for change at the level of political power.
The people should understand more and more, on the grounds of the struggle to resolve their problems, that a party's political choices are neither accidental nor subjective. They are determined by the class interests they serve and represent, by their stance toward monopoly interests and by imperialist associations. In the final analysis, they are determined by their stance towards the root of this conflict, which is none other than the conflict between capital and labour.
It is necessary today for members, cadres and the entire Party, as a collective entity, to acquire dialectical thought in interpreting developments and prospects, to assimilate the dialectical relationship between the economy and politics at the level of the movement, and on the question of political power.
In order to raise the level of the popular struggle and rallying together, in order to bring about significant changes in the correlation of forces, the main link is the question of how the nature, character and motivation of capitalist restructurings is understood, under conditions in which Greece's participation in the strategy of imperialism is becoming more active. How, in particular, is capitalist restructuring expressed in Greece, given its intermediate, dependent position in the international imperialist system.
The strengthening of the KKE has many aspects, indicators, and quantitative and qualitative criteria. It cannot be addressed in a general or abstract way, but must take into consideration the particular conditions and their objective difficulties, the specific phase that the labour movement, the popular movement in general, and the policy of alliances are going through. Strengthening the Party is likewise influenced by international developments and correlations, by the level and weight of the world labour movement and the anti-imperialist movement more generally. As far as it depends on us, we must improve our subjective capabilities and skills, and upgrade our effectiveness. It is our obligation to contribute to developing and sharpening the class struggle, and to forming a strong, popular majority current that fights against the monopolies and the imperialist associations. It is our duty to raise our action to a level corresponding to the assessment of the nature of the period, as a period for the passage to socialism.
Today, then, on the basis of the above points, we can determine the content of strengthening the Party as follows:
The more the class struggle develops, the broader will be the popular masses who join the struggle, and the more complex and responsible the Party's duties will become.
The aspects that will judge the course of the Party and its strength should not be understood in a fragmentary way, even though each aspect requires special work and has its own special demands.
What should be retained, based on the pre-Congress discussion, is that the central axis in the promotion of special strengthening duties is to gain capability, stability and resoluteness in action, based on the Party strategy. Any deviation from this line will bring the Party into direct confrontation with problems that are difficult to solve.
If quality and adequacy are not ensured in the central axis of our work, then individual improvements will not bring about qualitative change, but will lose their potential. There will be a lurking danger of deviations of a right-wing or left-wing nature, under the growing pressure exerted by the adversary and the adverse correlation of forces, and under the pressure of complex and composite tasks.
Therefore more light must be shed in the discussion of how the basic problem raised by the Theses will be addressed. The overwhelming majority of Party members agreed that: Despite the positive upward course of the Party, it has not been possible – with the CC bearing the first responsibility, then the lower leading bodies – for Party strategy to be assimilated deeply in terms of theory and practice, or a unified concept of how this is advanced. As characteristically pointed out in the Theses, the nature of the Front as a socio-political alliance of anti-imperialist anti-monopoly forces needs to be understood more profoundly, as it will be called upon not only to achieve gains, but also to accomplish the task of power being taken by the people. This viewpoint must permeate the Party's daily work. The fact that the struggle for socialism affects and determines the action of the Party today must be understood more substantially.
In this way, more and more working people will be convinced that they can change the correlation of forces, that they can appear more militantly on the scene and demand a change at the level of power.
Today, the conditions are mature enough for this leadership problem to be addressed with ideological and political measures, but also with a decisive improvement in our organisation policy. This is another very serious reason why we must "run" faster: Along the way we will find ourselves having to perform ever more complex duties.
We should not forget the opinion expressed in the Theses that the next crisis is gestating in the body of the Greek economy and in the society more generally. Some preliminary omens already exist. During the next few years, the people will find themselves in an even more adverse position, particularly young people. No variation in management can avert the appearance of an economic crisis in Greece. Even if there is a relatively faster and less painful passage to the phase of revitalisation, historic and modern experience proves that it will be shallow and short-lived. In any event, the losers will as usual be the working people, and the winner will be monopoly capital.
It is likewise is necessary to consider the influence of international developments in Greece, particularly the intra-imperialist conflicts in our region. For example, NATO's Mediterranean Strategy is opening the way to new threats against the peoples of the region. It implies military interventions, the stirring up of civil wars, provocations and exploitation of tension hotspots. This policy of intervention will have significant repercussions in Greece, and as a result the popular movement will find itself facing grave new problems.
Developments in our country will also be affected by the course of developments not only in our immediately neighbouring countries, but also in the imperialist competition and interventions to control the regions of the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, the Black Sea and Siberia. These developments could lead to corresponding rapid socio-political events that are impossible to predict.
The popular movement must sharpen the conflicts in the system and utilise any crack that may appear in the stability of the two-party system, any possibility of crisis in the political system. Any difficulties that appear in the operation of the political system must be utilised to intervene to liberate entrapped forces. The popular movement, together with the labour and popular movement in Europe more generally, must utilise the conflicts that appear within the EU, as well as the problems and contradictions that accompany the process of EU enlargement.
How the united view of strategy will be gained and the ability to fine-tune it in the daily struggle on the fronts of cooperation
The assimilation of strategy is judged in practice and not only in its formulation, terms and slogans. These too have their value, as can be seen in the Programme, but tend to become empty words when there is no corresponding practice in all the Party's forms of action and struggle:
The Party acts in a single direction, which is fine-tuned, adjusted, and in this sense creatively differentiated according to the form and the particular front of struggle. That is, according to whether it is action in some specific socio-political alliance, or in a mass organisation. Whether it is activity amongst young people, women, in the fields of art and the intelligentsia, among academics etc. There are different demands for action in the ranks of the labour movement and in trade unions, different ones in local popular organisations or in mass organisations engaged in a specific issue and whose members may belong to the working class or to other strata of the people.
Account is taken of experience in each sector, the correlation of forces but also the necessity – capability of convincing the working people about the need for a consistent militant stance.
There should be no underestimation or conflict with struggles and alliances that are self-limited to defence measures and to isolated demands, and that cannot provide a viable solution. Of course criticism should be levelled at activities that are of a closed-shop nature, as they make unity of action more difficult and are vulnerable to the policy of "divide and rule". Action on the basis of strategy means that on the front line is the contribution to increasing political experience and improving quality that leads the movement to exert considerable pressure, to extract concessions and to make differentiations in the correlation of forces so that the popular movement can go forward to the counterattack. It is futile to expect that imperialist aggression can be curbed with limited demands and defensive, fragmentary claims, without fighting for modern vital needs, without passing to a real counterattack against the monopolies, imperialism and its associations and managers, and unless the correlation of forces changes on all fronts of struggle on the political level as well.
Agreeing with strategy is not sufficient for the demands of action today nor should we see it as something definitively established. We should not forget that, at every second and every minute, Party action is literally face to face with the strategy of the adversary and the means at the latter's disposal to impose it. We should likewise bear in mind that the Party is fighting with the specific balance of forces that has suffered setbacks during the past 15 years in Greece and internationally. Increasingly intense pressure will be exerted on the Party and on the popular movement.
The bourgeois class in our country, its parties and their allies have strong backing. They draw strength and experience from alliances of European capital, from NATO and more generally from the international imperialist system which has regained the positions it lost after 1917 and World War II. The class adversary has a lot of experience in propaganda and in working out its goals and slogans. It is capable of manoeuvring and of hindering the people's awakening and adoption of the line of dispute and disengagement. It has a thought-out strategy and each time it studies specifically where and in what way it will strike the main blow against the popular movement and the KKE, well aware of the demands of its policy and action.
Anti-socialist propaganda remains the basic ideological weapon, enriched by the effects of the victory of the counter-revolution. It utilises the strategy of the opportunists, who irrespective of the scope of their policy, rely on repercussions and reversals in order to justify their own damaging, utopian logic regarding the "humanisation" of capitalism.
Therefore, general agreement with strategy is not sufficient. It is not enough to analyse and excoriate capitalism and the role of the monopolies, or to prove why imperialism is the enemy of the people. To censure the contradiction between wealth and poverty, and to point out acute social, financial and democratic problems is relatively easy. But denunciation by itself is not enough when it is not accompanied by corresponding action, and when it does not differentiate awareness, or draw the masses in the labour and the popular movement toward the general front of struggle against the monopolies and imperialist associations.
But today more than ever before the prerequisites exist to project the Party's comprehensive political proposal, since it concerns both the general political direction that developments should take, focused on the people, as well as its specific positions on all issues and problems.
Our political proposal, as a proposal for action, can help reshape the current of protest and dispute that exists in mature political consciousness. Politicisation is inevitably linked to the problem of "development by whom and for whom". Therefore, it is directly linked with the demand for change at the level of political power.
The people should understand more and more, on the grounds of the struggle to resolve their problems, that a party's political choices are neither accidental nor subjective. They are determined by the class interests they serve and represent, by their stance toward monopoly interests and by imperialist associations. In the final analysis, they are determined by their stance towards the root of this conflict, which is none other than the conflict between capital and labour.
It is necessary today for members, cadres and the entire Party, as a collective entity, to acquire dialectical thought in interpreting developments and prospects, to assimilate the dialectical relationship between the economy and politics at the level of the movement, and on the question of political power.
In order to raise the level of the popular struggle and rallying together, in order to bring about significant changes in the correlation of forces, the main link is the question of how the nature, character and motivation of capitalist restructurings is understood, under conditions in which Greece's participation in the strategy of imperialism is becoming more active. How, in particular, is capitalist restructuring expressed in Greece, given its intermediate, dependent position in the international imperialist system.
The strengthening of the KKE has many aspects, indicators, and quantitative and qualitative criteria. It cannot be addressed in a general or abstract way, but must take into consideration the particular conditions and their objective difficulties, the specific phase that the labour movement, the popular movement in general, and the policy of alliances are going through. Strengthening the Party is likewise influenced by international developments and correlations, by the level and weight of the world labour movement and the anti-imperialist movement more generally. As far as it depends on us, we must improve our subjective capabilities and skills, and upgrade our effectiveness. It is our obligation to contribute to developing and sharpening the class struggle, and to forming a strong, popular majority current that fights against the monopolies and the imperialist associations. It is our duty to raise our action to a level corresponding to the assessment of the nature of the period, as a period for the passage to socialism.
Today, then, on the basis of the above points, we can determine the content of strengthening the Party as follows:
- Strengthening its role and influence in the organisation and struggle of the people for their vital needs. Enhancing our role in the policy of alliances in an anti-monopoly anti-imperialist direction. Consequently, it must keep constant and systematic track of how its links with the working class and the youth, with the popular strata more generally, with the salaried intelligentsia, and with intellectuals and professionals who resist are expanding and growing qualitatively. How it responds to the struggle over the problems of emancipation and equality for women. How and how much it helps KNE. Of course special attention must be given to developing trade union influence, and influence more generally in the organisations and movement of the working people, so that its electoral influence can grow.
- Developing a high-level ideological front against bourgeois theories and viewpoints, against the modern fictions of imperialism, but also against the modern reformist and opportunistic views that lead to assimilation, to defensive withdrawal, and to decline of the movement. Polemics against views that are damaging for the people and for their movement will be apt and convincing to the degree that they are based on systematic work in developing our theory, and are enriched on the basis of developments and the movement's experience. The political, educational and cultural level of the Party should improve. An effort should be made to develop working class cadres with Marxist training.
- Improving the qualitative content of leadership and intra-party life as well as the level of collectivity and internal democracy. Strengthening the Party has the fundamental criterion of constant concern for the swelling of our ranks and the improvement of the social composition of the party's base organisations and bodies. Developing the party in workplaces, in sectors and in industries of strategic importance. A serious factor in the strengthening of the KKE is the constant care to lower the age level of its members and to plan its policy for the promotion and development of working class women cadres.
- Continually increasing our contribution to the international communist movement, and to the international anti-imperialist front of struggle. For the KKE, the internationalist struggle is integrally linked with its daily action.
- Raising communist militancy and ideological and political vigilance to a higher level under all conditions, at every phase of the struggle, in conditions where developments are slow, but also in conditions where they are changing abruptly. A strong KKE means, apart from anything else, a high level of ability to predict promptly and therefore to prepare, with the appropriate fine-tuning and creative adjustment.
The more the class struggle develops, the broader will be the popular masses who join the struggle, and the more complex and responsible the Party's duties will become.
The aspects that will judge the course of the Party and its strength should not be understood in a fragmentary way, even though each aspect requires special work and has its own special demands.
What should be retained, based on the pre-Congress discussion, is that the central axis in the promotion of special strengthening duties is to gain capability, stability and resoluteness in action, based on the Party strategy. Any deviation from this line will bring the Party into direct confrontation with problems that are difficult to solve.
If quality and adequacy are not ensured in the central axis of our work, then individual improvements will not bring about qualitative change, but will lose their potential. There will be a lurking danger of deviations of a right-wing or left-wing nature, under the growing pressure exerted by the adversary and the adverse correlation of forces, and under the pressure of complex and composite tasks.
Therefore more light must be shed in the discussion of how the basic problem raised by the Theses will be addressed. The overwhelming majority of Party members agreed that: Despite the positive upward course of the Party, it has not been possible – with the CC bearing the first responsibility, then the lower leading bodies – for Party strategy to be assimilated deeply in terms of theory and practice, or a unified concept of how this is advanced. As characteristically pointed out in the Theses, the nature of the Front as a socio-political alliance of anti-imperialist anti-monopoly forces needs to be understood more profoundly, as it will be called upon not only to achieve gains, but also to accomplish the task of power being taken by the people. This viewpoint must permeate the Party's daily work. The fact that the struggle for socialism affects and determines the action of the Party today must be understood more substantially.
In this way, more and more working people will be convinced that they can change the correlation of forces, that they can appear more militantly on the scene and demand a change at the level of power.
Today, the conditions are mature enough for this leadership problem to be addressed with ideological and political measures, but also with a decisive improvement in our organisation policy. This is another very serious reason why we must "run" faster: Along the way we will find ourselves having to perform ever more complex duties.
We should not forget the opinion expressed in the Theses that the next crisis is gestating in the body of the Greek economy and in the society more generally. Some preliminary omens already exist. During the next few years, the people will find themselves in an even more adverse position, particularly young people. No variation in management can avert the appearance of an economic crisis in Greece. Even if there is a relatively faster and less painful passage to the phase of revitalisation, historic and modern experience proves that it will be shallow and short-lived. In any event, the losers will as usual be the working people, and the winner will be monopoly capital.
It is likewise is necessary to consider the influence of international developments in Greece, particularly the intra-imperialist conflicts in our region. For example, NATO's Mediterranean Strategy is opening the way to new threats against the peoples of the region. It implies military interventions, the stirring up of civil wars, provocations and exploitation of tension hotspots. This policy of intervention will have significant repercussions in Greece, and as a result the popular movement will find itself facing grave new problems.
Developments in our country will also be affected by the course of developments not only in our immediately neighbouring countries, but also in the imperialist competition and interventions to control the regions of the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, the Black Sea and Siberia. These developments could lead to corresponding rapid socio-political events that are impossible to predict.
The popular movement must sharpen the conflicts in the system and utilise any crack that may appear in the stability of the two-party system, any possibility of crisis in the political system. Any difficulties that appear in the operation of the political system must be utilised to intervene to liberate entrapped forces. The popular movement, together with the labour and popular movement in Europe more generally, must utilise the conflicts that appear within the EU, as well as the problems and contradictions that accompany the process of EU enlargement.
How the united view of strategy will be gained and the ability to fine-tune it in the daily struggle on the fronts of cooperation
The assimilation of strategy is judged in practice and not only in its formulation, terms and slogans. These too have their value, as can be seen in the Programme, but tend to become empty words when there is no corresponding practice in all the Party's forms of action and struggle:
- In the immediate growth of political activity and communication with the people.
- In initiative and action regarding specific alliances and fronts of cooperation, in the direction of building the Front.
- In participation and contribution to the mass movement, and more generally to mass organisations.
- In action in the international communist movement, in the international struggle against imperialism.
The Party acts in a single direction, which is fine-tuned, adjusted, and in this sense creatively differentiated according to the form and the particular front of struggle. That is, according to whether it is action in some specific socio-political alliance, or in a mass organisation. Whether it is activity amongst young people, women, in the fields of art and the intelligentsia, among academics etc. There are different demands for action in the ranks of the labour movement and in trade unions, different ones in local popular organisations or in mass organisations engaged in a specific issue and whose members may belong to the working class or to other strata of the people.
Account is taken of experience in each sector, the correlation of forces but also the necessity – capability of convincing the working people about the need for a consistent militant stance.
There should be no underestimation or conflict with struggles and alliances that are self-limited to defence measures and to isolated demands, and that cannot provide a viable solution. Of course criticism should be levelled at activities that are of a closed-shop nature, as they make unity of action more difficult and are vulnerable to the policy of "divide and rule". Action on the basis of strategy means that on the front line is the contribution to increasing political experience and improving quality that leads the movement to exert considerable pressure, to extract concessions and to make differentiations in the correlation of forces so that the popular movement can go forward to the counterattack. It is futile to expect that imperialist aggression can be curbed with limited demands and defensive, fragmentary claims, without fighting for modern vital needs, without passing to a real counterattack against the monopolies, imperialism and its associations and managers, and unless the correlation of forces changes on all fronts of struggle on the political level as well.
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr
