The building of socialism
KKE’s concept of the building of socialism is based on Marxist-Leninist theory, and on enriching it with the conclusions and discussions of our Party and of the building of socialism in the 20th century. The building of socialism is governed by general laws that apply to all countries. The starting point for the transition of Greek society to socialism, the lowest level of communism, is: The revolutionary gaining of power by the working class in collaboration with its allies. The nationalisation of the main means of production. The socialist planning of the economy.
The achievements of science and new technologies will be used for the all- round growth of the productivity of labour and of social production, so as to secure jobs for all those capable of working, to maintain a constant improvement of the working people’s living conditions and to raise the people’s level of social and cultural well-being on the basis of the socialist principle: To each according to the quantity and quality of his work.
Socialist planning of the economy serves the primary law of building socialism: Production having as an incentive the broader and fuller satisfaction of social needs, on the basis of the best techniques and technology, using the modern achievements of science. Under socialism, social relations will change radically.
Socialism will eliminate the acute problems that the working people experienced under capitalism, such as unemployment, underemployment, management and state terrorism, insecurity, uncertainty about the future, the downgrading and disdaining of their role and personality, violations of their rights and freedoms. Socialism provides the opportunity to use objective laws and scientific prediction in a conscientious, planned way to the benefit of the entire society.
Irrespective of the form it will take, the socialist state, from the point of view of its class essence, will be a revolutionary power of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The tasks of the socialist state will include hindering the efforts which the local capitalists and international reaction are certain to make to restore the regime of capitalist power, and creating a new society by abolishing the exploitation of man by man. Its function will be of a leadership, organisational, economic, political, cultural, educational and defence nature. It will express a higher form of democracy, and have as its main feature the active participation by the working class and the people in solving the main problems of building the socialist society and controlling power and its instruments.
The form to be taken by the revolutionary workers’ state in Greece will be resolved through the revolutionary fight, through tough class struggles, under conditions in which the revolutionary process will emerge and develop. The history of the class struggle of the workers’ and farmers’ movement in Greece, in the special conditions of struggle for national liberation, such as the history of socialist revolutions, has established various forms of popular power (soviets, popular councils for defence, security and meals, popular tribunals, etc.).
The socialist republic will safeguard the existence of the parties that act within the framework of the socialist system. Socio-political associations, e.g. radical social movements of women, young people and ecologists with political orientations, with the participation of the socio-political anti-capitalist front during the revolutionary period, will develop their own significant role according to their social base.
Mass social organisations, especially the labour unions, are the instruments by which the working class will control its state, and protect itself from the dangers of high-handedness, bureaucracy, and deviation from the general interest.
Democratic centralism is a fundamental principle in the formation and operation of the socialist state, in the development of the socialist republic. It will serve to draw the working people constantly into the exercise of the functions of power, in an close relationship with the growing importance of the central administration. The social organisation will be founded on the new relations of production and distribution which are based on state social ownership, in particular: on the industrial sectors of means of production and modern technology, on developing consumer product industries, on the extraction and energy fields, on telecommunications and transport, on the banks, on the foreign trade network. The new socialist economic relations will extend to the main trade and commercial networks, to the large tourist units, to shipping companies, to the mass media and to the service and social security sectors. Commercial secrets will be abolished.
Free services will be ensured in education, health, welfare, social security and other social benefits to children and the aged. Large-scale capitalist land holdings, and those of monasteries, churches etc., will be nationalised. Regional disparities in development will be offset.
Socialist power will take into account the increased modern needs of the working class, particularly those workers who have lived under conditions of poverty, and the needs of poor farmers and the middle strata, as well as the special needs of young people, infants, children, women and the needs and capabilities of the working intelligentsia.
It will create the conditions necessary for the development and concentration of small production and fragmented services, through different types of socialisation. It will encourage co-operativism in various forms through specific policy measures. It will satisfy the working intelligentsia by the objective evaluation of the social worth of their services. It will apply a policy of incentives for working people who have migrated and will be encouraged to return if they wish to contribute to building socialism.
The foundations will be laid to improve the general standard of living and culture. To increase personal leisure time as a result of reducing the socially necessary work time. This will come about through the increasing productivity of labour. Personal work will be liberated from heavy, monotonous bodily labour. Illiteracy will be confronted. The right to personal ownership acquired through labour will be recognised.
The material conditions will be created for the abolition not only of every source of class exploitation, but also every source of social oppression. The process by which the exploitation of man by man will be totally abolished in Greece, and which will certainly be influenced by the international context, will be a complex one because of the difficulties Greek capitalism will have bequeathed to the new society through its participation in international imperialist organisations.
The difficulties will be dealt with by the revolutionary action of the popular masses, by the socialisation of the basic means of production, the extension of the socialist relations to commerce, services and small production; all possibilities will be used for the productive forces to overcome the difficulties.
The central field on which the building of socialism will be judged will be the planned development of the productive forces and the improvement of socialist relations of production so as to ensure the satisfaction of human needs on an ever higher level. At the focal point of attention must be the utilisation of new scientific and technological achievements on a broad scale in production and services with a view to developing the productive forces. The planned and rational use of material, financial and labour resources. State and labour control will confront profiteering, graft, and the black market.
Socialist power will calculate the influence of the law of value, it will utilise commercial relations within the framework of planned production and social ownership, with a view to deepening the socialist relations of production. Among the first steps in the building of socialism, according to the conditions and problems to be faced, a part of capital, non-monopoly capital, may be permitted to operate under certain conditions.
According to the international conditions and Greece’s immediate environment, mutually beneficial inter-state relations will be developed between Greece and other countries, particularly with countries whose level of development, the nature of their problems and their direct interests can secure such a beneficial co-operation.
Greece, which is located at the cross-roads of three continents, belongs to the geographic-strategic region in which, objectively, there are states and peoples in whose direct interests it is to resist the economic, political and military centres of imperialism.
Socialist cultural policy, in both its educational and cultural aspects, aims to develop integrated personalities. It links general educational development with occupational and scientific specialisation, and general cultural development with the shaping of a socialist consciousness that is primarily expressed in an attitude toward work and social ownership.
With the revolutionary gaining of power by the working class and its allies, the transition from capitalism to socialism begins. The class struggle does not stop, but its forms of expression change. The residues and effects of capitalism may remain for a relatively long period, according to the particular conditions in each country. The victory of the socialist revolution cannot remove these imprints automatically, but will do so along the way, according to the internal conditions and the influence of international developments. Even after the building of the foundations of socialism and the abolition of capitalist ownership there will be an objective, material foundation for the sharpening of old and the appearance of new conflicts. As the experience of building socialism in the 20th century has attested, underestimating contradictions can lead to their evolving into serious antagonisms, to their undermining the socialist structure, to reinforcing counter-revolutionary elements and to the return of capitalism.
Socialism constitutes a society whose birth and growth are inextricably linked with the leadership action of the Communist Party as a bridgehead for social progress. The vanguard leading role of the Party develops, is confirmed and consolidated in action, in life.
The main prerequisite is the dialectical relationship between the party in power and the masses, its vital link with the working class, with labour and other popular organisations. The building of socialism is not a cause for a revolutionary vanguard that will wield power. It is a cause for the working class, for the entire people.
A decisive role will be played by the social composition of the Party, the policy of promoting cadres from the working class, and the developing of theoretical and ideological work. The Party’s vanguard role is linked also with its ability to develop and enrich revolutionary theory through the on-going study of theoretical and scientific issues and through the generalisation of experience from the new problems and contradictions which the building of socialism will be called upon to solve.
The ability of the socialist system to defend itself will not cease with the efforts to achieve progress and the growth of the socialist economy and to develop its defensive armour. It will also continue the effort to develop the ideological defence of the working class and the people more generally, through their understanding that imperialism will not abandon its effort to undermine and overthrow the new society.
Progress in the building of socialism will depend on the training of the new type of person who, under complex and adverse conditions, will take an active and responsible part in building socialism, and on constant vigilance and the prompt handling of the violation of principles.
The Party, as the vanguard of the working class, the class which can express and defend the total interests of the socialist society, represents the interests of the people. It confirms its vanguard and leading role, combining correctly the duties of power with the duty of providing ideological leadership for the working class and for the popular masses to ensure their active participation in building and directing social and political matters.
Ensuring popular participation and social control, and drawing the working people into the exercise of the functions of power, are neither spontaneous processes nor easy ones. Socialism will not be built in a society that is uniform in terms of class. The vital leading relationship of the Party with the working people and their mass organisations depends on maintaining and developing its revolutionary features under the most varied historical circumstances.
The CPG will focus its attention on developing popular initiative, on utilising the role of working groups and experienced and specialised cadres, and on the lively democratic functioning of the lower levels of its organs of administration and power.
It will develop systematic, ideological, political and training work so that the relationship between the working people and socialist ownership does not become an employer-employee relationship. Labour discipline and coresponsibility must not become dulled, especially among those workers who acquired them under the enthusiastic conditions of the early revolutionary period. It will be vigilant so as to prevent phenomena of high-handedness, discrimination and privileges.
The negative effects on the socialist consciousness of the working class and the people more generally can be mitigated, dulled and reversed. This will depend on the degree of understanding of the new phenomena and contradictions which arise in the course of building socialism. It will depend on the readiness, vigilance and action by the Party, by the socialist state.
Democracy and collectivity in the Party’s operation and consistent observance of the principles and regulations of its operation are important conditions to safeguard it from deviations and violations.
KKE, under conditions of power, must safeguard its orientation and action: it must take care to develop collectivity and democratic life within the party, to cultivate and utilise the initiative of non-party organisations, to ensure effective supervision from top to bottom and in particular from bottom to top. It must ensure critical and self-critical examination of cadres’ work, and when their action is not constructive, it must be prepared to remove them.
The Party must be strict with the cadres who violate the principles and operating regulations of the Party and communist morality; this is a problem of decisive significance particularly for parties in power who are building socialism.
Despite the great present difficulties, we communists retain our optimism. Humanity will go forward. The working class will take their fate into their own hands, through common action with other oppressed strata of the people. With this certainty, KKE makes its Programme public, hoping that its ideas will become a material force for radical social change. The building of socialism will open up a new era in the history of Greece and its people.
The achievements of science and new technologies will be used for the all- round growth of the productivity of labour and of social production, so as to secure jobs for all those capable of working, to maintain a constant improvement of the working people’s living conditions and to raise the people’s level of social and cultural well-being on the basis of the socialist principle: To each according to the quantity and quality of his work.
Socialist planning of the economy serves the primary law of building socialism: Production having as an incentive the broader and fuller satisfaction of social needs, on the basis of the best techniques and technology, using the modern achievements of science. Under socialism, social relations will change radically.
Socialism will eliminate the acute problems that the working people experienced under capitalism, such as unemployment, underemployment, management and state terrorism, insecurity, uncertainty about the future, the downgrading and disdaining of their role and personality, violations of their rights and freedoms. Socialism provides the opportunity to use objective laws and scientific prediction in a conscientious, planned way to the benefit of the entire society.
Irrespective of the form it will take, the socialist state, from the point of view of its class essence, will be a revolutionary power of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The tasks of the socialist state will include hindering the efforts which the local capitalists and international reaction are certain to make to restore the regime of capitalist power, and creating a new society by abolishing the exploitation of man by man. Its function will be of a leadership, organisational, economic, political, cultural, educational and defence nature. It will express a higher form of democracy, and have as its main feature the active participation by the working class and the people in solving the main problems of building the socialist society and controlling power and its instruments.
The form to be taken by the revolutionary workers’ state in Greece will be resolved through the revolutionary fight, through tough class struggles, under conditions in which the revolutionary process will emerge and develop. The history of the class struggle of the workers’ and farmers’ movement in Greece, in the special conditions of struggle for national liberation, such as the history of socialist revolutions, has established various forms of popular power (soviets, popular councils for defence, security and meals, popular tribunals, etc.).
The socialist republic will safeguard the existence of the parties that act within the framework of the socialist system. Socio-political associations, e.g. radical social movements of women, young people and ecologists with political orientations, with the participation of the socio-political anti-capitalist front during the revolutionary period, will develop their own significant role according to their social base.
Mass social organisations, especially the labour unions, are the instruments by which the working class will control its state, and protect itself from the dangers of high-handedness, bureaucracy, and deviation from the general interest.
Democratic centralism is a fundamental principle in the formation and operation of the socialist state, in the development of the socialist republic. It will serve to draw the working people constantly into the exercise of the functions of power, in an close relationship with the growing importance of the central administration. The social organisation will be founded on the new relations of production and distribution which are based on state social ownership, in particular: on the industrial sectors of means of production and modern technology, on developing consumer product industries, on the extraction and energy fields, on telecommunications and transport, on the banks, on the foreign trade network. The new socialist economic relations will extend to the main trade and commercial networks, to the large tourist units, to shipping companies, to the mass media and to the service and social security sectors. Commercial secrets will be abolished.
Free services will be ensured in education, health, welfare, social security and other social benefits to children and the aged. Large-scale capitalist land holdings, and those of monasteries, churches etc., will be nationalised. Regional disparities in development will be offset.
Socialist power will take into account the increased modern needs of the working class, particularly those workers who have lived under conditions of poverty, and the needs of poor farmers and the middle strata, as well as the special needs of young people, infants, children, women and the needs and capabilities of the working intelligentsia.
It will create the conditions necessary for the development and concentration of small production and fragmented services, through different types of socialisation. It will encourage co-operativism in various forms through specific policy measures. It will satisfy the working intelligentsia by the objective evaluation of the social worth of their services. It will apply a policy of incentives for working people who have migrated and will be encouraged to return if they wish to contribute to building socialism.
The foundations will be laid to improve the general standard of living and culture. To increase personal leisure time as a result of reducing the socially necessary work time. This will come about through the increasing productivity of labour. Personal work will be liberated from heavy, monotonous bodily labour. Illiteracy will be confronted. The right to personal ownership acquired through labour will be recognised.
The material conditions will be created for the abolition not only of every source of class exploitation, but also every source of social oppression. The process by which the exploitation of man by man will be totally abolished in Greece, and which will certainly be influenced by the international context, will be a complex one because of the difficulties Greek capitalism will have bequeathed to the new society through its participation in international imperialist organisations.
The difficulties will be dealt with by the revolutionary action of the popular masses, by the socialisation of the basic means of production, the extension of the socialist relations to commerce, services and small production; all possibilities will be used for the productive forces to overcome the difficulties.
The central field on which the building of socialism will be judged will be the planned development of the productive forces and the improvement of socialist relations of production so as to ensure the satisfaction of human needs on an ever higher level. At the focal point of attention must be the utilisation of new scientific and technological achievements on a broad scale in production and services with a view to developing the productive forces. The planned and rational use of material, financial and labour resources. State and labour control will confront profiteering, graft, and the black market.
Socialist power will calculate the influence of the law of value, it will utilise commercial relations within the framework of planned production and social ownership, with a view to deepening the socialist relations of production. Among the first steps in the building of socialism, according to the conditions and problems to be faced, a part of capital, non-monopoly capital, may be permitted to operate under certain conditions.
According to the international conditions and Greece’s immediate environment, mutually beneficial inter-state relations will be developed between Greece and other countries, particularly with countries whose level of development, the nature of their problems and their direct interests can secure such a beneficial co-operation.
Greece, which is located at the cross-roads of three continents, belongs to the geographic-strategic region in which, objectively, there are states and peoples in whose direct interests it is to resist the economic, political and military centres of imperialism.
Socialist cultural policy, in both its educational and cultural aspects, aims to develop integrated personalities. It links general educational development with occupational and scientific specialisation, and general cultural development with the shaping of a socialist consciousness that is primarily expressed in an attitude toward work and social ownership.
With the revolutionary gaining of power by the working class and its allies, the transition from capitalism to socialism begins. The class struggle does not stop, but its forms of expression change. The residues and effects of capitalism may remain for a relatively long period, according to the particular conditions in each country. The victory of the socialist revolution cannot remove these imprints automatically, but will do so along the way, according to the internal conditions and the influence of international developments. Even after the building of the foundations of socialism and the abolition of capitalist ownership there will be an objective, material foundation for the sharpening of old and the appearance of new conflicts. As the experience of building socialism in the 20th century has attested, underestimating contradictions can lead to their evolving into serious antagonisms, to their undermining the socialist structure, to reinforcing counter-revolutionary elements and to the return of capitalism.
Socialism constitutes a society whose birth and growth are inextricably linked with the leadership action of the Communist Party as a bridgehead for social progress. The vanguard leading role of the Party develops, is confirmed and consolidated in action, in life.
The main prerequisite is the dialectical relationship between the party in power and the masses, its vital link with the working class, with labour and other popular organisations. The building of socialism is not a cause for a revolutionary vanguard that will wield power. It is a cause for the working class, for the entire people.
A decisive role will be played by the social composition of the Party, the policy of promoting cadres from the working class, and the developing of theoretical and ideological work. The Party’s vanguard role is linked also with its ability to develop and enrich revolutionary theory through the on-going study of theoretical and scientific issues and through the generalisation of experience from the new problems and contradictions which the building of socialism will be called upon to solve.
The ability of the socialist system to defend itself will not cease with the efforts to achieve progress and the growth of the socialist economy and to develop its defensive armour. It will also continue the effort to develop the ideological defence of the working class and the people more generally, through their understanding that imperialism will not abandon its effort to undermine and overthrow the new society.
Progress in the building of socialism will depend on the training of the new type of person who, under complex and adverse conditions, will take an active and responsible part in building socialism, and on constant vigilance and the prompt handling of the violation of principles.
The Party, as the vanguard of the working class, the class which can express and defend the total interests of the socialist society, represents the interests of the people. It confirms its vanguard and leading role, combining correctly the duties of power with the duty of providing ideological leadership for the working class and for the popular masses to ensure their active participation in building and directing social and political matters.
Ensuring popular participation and social control, and drawing the working people into the exercise of the functions of power, are neither spontaneous processes nor easy ones. Socialism will not be built in a society that is uniform in terms of class. The vital leading relationship of the Party with the working people and their mass organisations depends on maintaining and developing its revolutionary features under the most varied historical circumstances.
The CPG will focus its attention on developing popular initiative, on utilising the role of working groups and experienced and specialised cadres, and on the lively democratic functioning of the lower levels of its organs of administration and power.
It will develop systematic, ideological, political and training work so that the relationship between the working people and socialist ownership does not become an employer-employee relationship. Labour discipline and coresponsibility must not become dulled, especially among those workers who acquired them under the enthusiastic conditions of the early revolutionary period. It will be vigilant so as to prevent phenomena of high-handedness, discrimination and privileges.
The negative effects on the socialist consciousness of the working class and the people more generally can be mitigated, dulled and reversed. This will depend on the degree of understanding of the new phenomena and contradictions which arise in the course of building socialism. It will depend on the readiness, vigilance and action by the Party, by the socialist state.
Democracy and collectivity in the Party’s operation and consistent observance of the principles and regulations of its operation are important conditions to safeguard it from deviations and violations.
KKE, under conditions of power, must safeguard its orientation and action: it must take care to develop collectivity and democratic life within the party, to cultivate and utilise the initiative of non-party organisations, to ensure effective supervision from top to bottom and in particular from bottom to top. It must ensure critical and self-critical examination of cadres’ work, and when their action is not constructive, it must be prepared to remove them.
The Party must be strict with the cadres who violate the principles and operating regulations of the Party and communist morality; this is a problem of decisive significance particularly for parties in power who are building socialism.
Despite the great present difficulties, we communists retain our optimism. Humanity will go forward. The working class will take their fate into their own hands, through common action with other oppressed strata of the people. With this certainty, KKE makes its Programme public, hoping that its ideas will become a material force for radical social change. The building of socialism will open up a new era in the history of Greece and its people.
May 1996
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr