Statement by the CC on the 90th Anniversary of KKE

On 17 November 2007, the Communist Party of Greece celebrates the 89th anniversary of its founding and enters into its 90th year of life. The Central Committee has decided that the period from 17 November 2007 throughout 2008 will be a time of political events and activities to mark this important historic occasion.

The KKE welcomes its ninetieth year with the unwavering conviction of the timeliness of socialism and with a heightened sense of responsibility towards the working class and the popular masses.

The KKE has never signed any statement of “repentance” addressed to the domestic and international bourgeois class, and never will. The heroism and sacrifices of communists embrace the past and the present alike, and constitute a valuable legacy for the generations to come. The Central Committee pays homage to the thousands of comrades, men and women, who lost their lives in the struggle.

The strategy of the KKE regarding Power to the People is in the long-term and short-term interests of the working class, of farmers with small and medium-sized holdings, and of people who are self-employed or tradesmen. It is the way out, the response to imperialist barbarity proposed by the KKE to the people.

KKE policy has been confirmed by life. Its positions regarding the international conditions after 1989-1991 and the Balkans more generally, its analysis of EMU and the euro, and of capitalist European unification, its absolute opposition to the strategy of capitalist restructurings and its essesments on their causes, as well as its other basic positions have been proved correct by the popular forces beyond its electoral impact. The KKE’s policy of alliances and the need to combat opportunism have been confirmed.

Our party expresses its determination to continue on the same course. It has made a commitment to the people and the youth that it will step up its efforts to push forward the creation of the Anti-imperialist, Anti-monopoly Democratic Front, which will fight for and demand power to the people. It will continue to place all its forces at the side of the people. It will take the necessary measures to establish more militant bonds with them, to make its ideological and political intervention more revealing, penetrating, and combative. The central slogan of the Declaration on the occasion of the KKE’s 80th anniversary is still timely: “VANGUARD THEORY, VANGUARD ACTION”.

We are optimistic that the policy of the KKE will rally broader working class and popular forces, who can already see that this policy expresses their class interests. They show confidence in our Party’s stability and reliability, in its experience and maturity.

The Central Committee emphasises that the overall strengthening of the KKE is the basic prerequisite for meeting its objectives, which are identified with the people’s dream of a better life. A strong KKE and a strong KNE imply, first of all, building strong organisations in the workplace and raising the ideological and political level of party members, and of the Party as a whole.

The KKE is a “child of necessity and a mature child of wrath”, a product of the merging of the working class and the labour movement through the theory of scientific socialism.

In the early 20th century, the first trade union struggles of the working class and the impact of communist ideas had led to the creation of a number of socialist groups and organisations, which were the organic components of the First, founding Congress (17-23 November 1918) of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Greece (SEKE), as the KKE was called until 1924 (3rd Extraordinary Congress). The creation of the KKE developed this progressive thought and raised it to a higher, scientific level.

The founding of the KKE signalled the starting point in the emancipation of the working class from capital and from the bourgeois parties. For the first time, a party appeared in Greek society whose banner proclaimed the abolition of man’s exploitation by man. The programme of the 1st Congress of SEKE declared, among other things that:

“[…] the productive forces of present-day society have increased disproportionately for this society and that private ownership of the means of production has become incompatible with the full and expedient use and development of these means of production. […] The change of production from plutocratic to socialist, effected through the society and for the good of the society as a whole, may become mass production by virtue of the day-by-day increase in the productivity of social labour, and may go from being a source of destitution and slavery of the working classes, to being a source of high prosperity and unceasing, multiple improvement. This social change means liberation not only of the proletariat, but also of all humanity who are suffering today. It can, however, be achieved only by the working class […] But the struggle of the workers is necessarily also a political struggle. The working class cannot fight for its economic interests nor develop its economic organisation without political rights; it cannot accomplish its historic mission without possessing political power […]”

By this statement, our party showed that the passage to socialism would be the result of the only fight that leads to it, the revolutionary one, in contrast to reformism, which proclaims that the working class will arrive at socialism through reforms.

Our party has been faithful to proletarian internationalism since the first moment of its founding. In 1919, it was associated with the Third Communist International (1919-1943) and in April of 1920, decided to become a member.

It greeted the victory of the great October Socialist Revolution with enthusiasm. It was a wholehearted supporter of the first workers’ state, and of Soviet power. It fought anti-Sovietism, expressed its class solidarity with the countries in which the working class was in power, and with communists and working people all over the whole world. In the existence of the Soviet Union, it saw help for the struggle of the peoples on a global scale. For this reason, it sustained a rabid attack by the bourgeois class and opportunism. The KKE is proud of the solidarity it offered and received, and of its contribution to developing workers’ internationalist solidarity.

However, we did not avoid prettifying and idealising the course of building socialism. We were aware of some of the problems that arose in the socialist countries. We attributed their appearance chiefly to objective difficulties; we explained them as problems in the development of socialism rather than deviations and distortions. The criticism levelled at our party, i.e. that it failed to perceive the nature of “perestroika” promptly, is valid. Despite our party’s wealth of experience in fighting reformism and opportunism, we were unable to see the more general international influences in the ranks of the communist movement and in the former socialist countries.

The KKE was never reconciled to the bourgeois ideology of nationalism, but opposed it. It contributed to developing awareness of real national interests, the interests of the majority of the people. This awareness was contrary to that of the bourgeois class, which put forward its own class interests as the interests of all. The KKE is equally opposed to the cosmopolitanism of capital, which is the other side of the same imperialist coin. The KKE’s patriotism is inextricably linked with proletarian internationalism, and identified with the struggle to overthrow capitalism.

For 90 years, the KKE has been tirelessly organising the working class and the popular struggle. The people have not won a single right that failed to find its most resolute defender in the presence and action of the KKE. Our party treats the rights of Greek working people and the rights of economic migrants as one and the same thing, since the latter, who are also victims of capitalist exploitation, constitute an integral part of Greece’s working class. The history of the labour movement, the youth movement, and the movements of the progressive intelligentsia, farmers and the urban middle classes demonstrates the vanguard action of communists always and everywhere.

Our Party also fought against social and political discrimination at the expense of women, against anachronistic views of gender roles and of women’s biological inferiority. It revealed the class cause of this inequity, and contributed to the radicalisation of the women’s movement against the bourgeois influence. It laid the foundations for the mass participation of women in the labour and popular movement, for expanding the horizons of struggle by the class-oriented labour movement with demands related to the special needs of working woman and women from working class strata. It disseminated the ideas of the emancipation of women, while promoting the prerequisite of class liberation, in order to liberate women from dual oppression.

The KKE introduced new cultural models and disseminated them within the Greek society; it defended the best that the popular culture has to offer, in conflict with the bourgeois ideology as regards the arts and culture. Many Communist workers in all fields of art adorn the history of the KKE (in literature, poetry, music, theatre, cinema, and the visual arts). It fought against illiteracy. Its struggle for culture and education has also marked the life of the KKE.

The KKE is the flag-bearer in Greece of popular action against war and in favour of peace. It has made an international contribution to the global peace movement. It opposed every imperialist war, including the Asia Minor expedition (1919-1922) and the war in Korea (1951), in which Greek troops fought. It opposed the war in Vietnam, and these days is fighting to prevent new imperialist wars. It has struggled to keep the Greek army from going outside the borders of our country, and from taking part in imperialist occupation forces in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The issue of national independence and sovereignty found a constant defender in the KKE. Even its cadres who suffered at the hands of the Greek state under the dictatorship of 4th August volunteered to be in the front ranks of the battle against the invading Italians in 1940.

On 31 October 1940, the (first) “open letter to the Greek people” written from the State Security dungeons by Nikos Zachariadis, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE, laid down the line of fighting in the war against Italy. The actions of EAM then followed the course set by his open letter.

The KKE emerged badly damaged from the dictatorship of 4th August 1936 imposed by Metaxas and the palace. The State Security succeeded in setting up the quisling “Provisional Government” in the role of a leading organ of the Party, which published a directed “Rizospastis”.

During the same period, on the initiative of KKE cadres, the “Old Central Committee” was formed, and functioned as the Party’s leading body.

The KKE was deprived of the significant services of hundreds of its cadres, whom the Metaxas government delivered to the Germans, including Nikos Zachariadis, the General Secretary of the Central Committee, who was handed over to the Gestapo and sent to the concentration camp at Dachau. But the KKE was able to overcome the difficulties, and in a short time grew into a strong and mass Party.

When the combined troops of Germany, Italy and Bulgaria invaded Greece, and the Germans entered Athens (17 April 1941), the Communists who escaped from the places of exile in which the Metaxas government had been keeping them, as well as others who were engaged in underground action, hastened to re-establish the KKE and to organise the Resistance against the invaders.

On the initiative of the KKE, the Workers National Liberation Front (EEAM – 16 July 1941) was created, and on 27 September 1941, EAM was established, the socio-political alliance of the working class, the poor rural strata and the middle urban classes. On 16 February 1942, its armed wing, Greek Popular Liberation Army (ELAS), was set up under Aris Velouchiotis. On 23 February 1943, the United All Greek Youth Organisation (EPON) came into being, which rallied the majority of young people into its ranks. In the same year, the National Popular Liberation Navy (ELAN) was formed. Alongside these organisations were National Solidarity, the Partisan Commissariat, and the Organisation for the Protection of the Popular Struggle (OPLA). In March 1943, the Federation of Greek Seamen’s Organisations (OENO) was established on the initiative of the KKE’s seamen’s organisation (KON).

The KKE was the soul, the guiding force and the main source of new blood for the EAM resistance. Kaisariani, Kournovo, Haidari and Ai-Stratis are just some of the sites of Communist sacrifice.

EAM saved the people from starvation. It created local governments and institutions of popular justice in liberated areas. It supplied the people’s cultural improvement. On 10 March 1944, the Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA), the central political administration body of the liberated regions, was established.

Following the two-phase elections that were held under the difficult conditions of Occupation, the National Council was elected and established its headquarters at Koryschades (30 April 1944). In the elections of 23 April 1944, all men and women over the age of 18 were entitled to vote.

EAM action included all forms of struggle: strikes, demonstrations, rallies, representations and armed organisation. Its mass propaganda work was broad and often original. The stance of the bourgeois political world was different. One segment chose the road of open collaboration with the invaders. These were the quislings who formed Occupation governments under prime ministers Tsolakoglou, Logothetopoulos and I. Rallis.

Another segment of the bourgeois political world fled to Egypt, together with the Palace, while one third was absent from the struggle.

After liberation, the KKE and other EAM forces were in the front ranks of the struggle against reaction and its allies. The bourgeois class wanted literally to break any spirit of resistance, any effort to vindicate the national liberation struggle. They tried in December 1944, by means of armed murderous attacks against the people of Athens, who were fighting an unequal battle against the united military force of British troops and the local bourgeois military forces (Security Battalions – Mountain Brigade, the “X” groups of royalist anti-communist forces, the gendarmerie, etc.). December 1944 was one of the great heroic moments in our popular movement. Then the people, having to choose between chains and arms, chose to take up arms.

Despite the unacceptable Varkiza agreement (12 February 1945) and the agreements of Lebanon and Kazerta, which were devastating for the EAM movement, the bourgeois class was unable to regain its full ideological and political dominance over the majority of the people, even with Parliamentary influence.

In order to achieve the full reversal of the balance of forces in their favour and to stabilise their power, after December the bourgeois forces resorted to violence, to murder and the most brutal terrorism. They chose to shed blood, relying on US economic, military and political support, after the expressed and clear inability of Great Britain to continue this role.

At the same time, after the 1946 elections and the rigged referendum on the return of the king that was held in the same year, state repression was further reinforced ("Third resolution" in June 1946, voting of "Emergency Law" 509/1947).

At that time, the popular movement was facing the dilemma of whether to submit or to organise the struggle and counterattack. After some delay, it chose the latter path, like all people who refuse to accept humiliation and slavery. The new querilla movement, the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), was born in the mountains. The people’s new, armed struggle relied on the organisational and military experience from the fight of ELAS between 1942-1945 and on the forces that took part in it.

The struggle of the DSE was the crowning moment of the class struggle in Greece in the 20th century, the greatest achievement by KKE. It was imbued with justice and ethics alone, since the unyielding struggle of the working class, the struggle of the KKE, was also imbued with justice and ethics.

The struggle of the DSE was anti-imperialist and internationalist. The anti-imperialist nature of the DSE’s battle was determined by the conditions that necessitated its creation and by the adversary camps that fought. On the one hand were the forces of the people, who were expressed politically by the KKE and its allies, such as the Agrarian Party of Greece (AKE), and on the other were all the domestic bourgeois forces joined together with their foreign allies.

The armed mass popular fight was directed against the armed institutional state violence exercised by the machinery of the governments of Tsaldaris, Sophoulis and Maximos and their “right-wing” and “liberal” parties, jointly with British and US imperialism. The “Truman doctrine” and the “Marshall plan” made a significant contribution to the victory of the bourgeois class.

In the years that followed the defeat of the DSE, the KKE again chose the path of resistance, under different conditions, until the collapse of the 1967-1974 dictatorship: it fought in prisons and places of exile, before firing squads, underground and as political refugees. Some of its most heroic pages were written in the prisons and concentration camps at Makronisos, Giaros, Aï. Stratis, Aegina and Itzedin, Goudi, the Averoff Prison and other places of suffering.

Thousands of Communist men and women held high the banner of KKE ideals and, at enormous personal cost, refused to repudiate it. They followed the example of other comrades from the pre-war period who had suffered at the hands of bourgeois and parliamentary governments and dictatorships (Venizelos, Pangalos, Metaxas etc.) in prisons and places of exile, because they did their duty in the fight for wages, better working conditions and a better future, but also because they refused to sign statements repudiating communism. The KKE has followed the same path up to the present day. Being sacked from one’s job, personal deprivations, and all modern forms of self-sacrifice have marked thousands and thousands of lives.

The Party’s Central Committee, all its members and KNE pay homage to the indomitable fighters in the class struggle. We respect those who gave everything they could, and stayed with the KKE; they did not cross over into the camp of the class enemy. We honour everyone who proves that those who come after honour their predecessors.

In our Party’s many years of action, its main weapon has always been “Rizospastis”, the organ of its Central Committee, which according to the teachings of Lenin regarding the Party press, became the Party’s means of promoting united action, enlightening and organising the workers and masses of the people. “Rizospastis”, when it was legal and when it was outlawed, was the sole daily comrade and leader of thousands of communists. The KKE pays homage to our newspaper’s reporters who died on the job or who fought all those years on the bastion of “Rizospastis”.

The KKE studies its history with pride in its 90-year contribution, trying at the same time to draw useful lessons from its experience. The study of history is not simply recording or assessing the past. It can and must also become an ideological weapon to reinforce our methodological tools for analysing the present and the future of our movement. This is how the KKE views the writing of its history between the years 1950-1968, the content of Volume II (Draft) of the KKE’s history.

This is not the first time the KKE has tried to approach its history. Several efforts have been made in the past to treat its history either as a whole or by periods. Today, however, the KKE is objectively mature enough to assess its course in greater depth, since the accumulated international and national experience is very much greater. It considers primarily the fundamental political problem, its strategy. It attempts to answer the question of why we have been unable to deal correctly with the issue of political power.

We believe that the years 1940-1945 are of particular importance as a source of knowledge and conclusions. Conclusions essentially similar to those drawn from this five-year period can also be derived from the study of the years 1946-49, even though the conditions were different.

Regarding the years of the EAM Resistance, the KKE has emphasised the following, among other things, in the past as well:

At the time of liberation from the Germans (12 October 1944) a revolutionary situation was created in Greece. EAM was dominant, while at the same time the bourgeois state machinery was in tatters. The bourgeois government that had been set up was still in Egypt and the British had not yet reached Greece.

The main conclusion is that our Party, despite its enormous contribution and its leading role, was unable to formulate a strategy that would have led to a revolutionary solution to the problem of taking political power, even then, especially after 1943, when conditions required that the issue of the revolutionary seizing of power be raised. Thus, it came about that ELAS subjected itself to British headquarters in the Middle East (5 July 1943) and later to the agreements of Lebanon (20 May 1944) and Kazerta (26 September 1944), in order to maintain and extend “national unity”. It did not create the subjective prerequisites for a course which, depending on other factors as well, could have led to victory.

First of all, it did not assess correctly the interaction between the social and class content of the people’s struggle and national liberation. Apart from the political and military clashes with quisling military organisations, this interaction can be confirmed by the armed clashes of ELAS with anti-Hitler and pro-British organisations such as EDES. The same fact is illustrated by the constant friction between ELAS and the British, the continuous ideological and political battle of the bourgeois Greek governments in the Middle East against PEEA and EAM-ELAS, the frequent collaboration of bourgeois organisations with the invaders in order to confront the “red peril”, as well as the bloody suppression of the heroic Antifascist Military Organisation (ASO) in April of 1944 by British forces and the Greek government in Cairo.

The forces taking part in EAM expressed different interests. In addition to the KKE, the participants included social democratic and liberal forces, as well as others of a general bourgeois political stamp. It should have been regarded as certain that, owing to the vacillations peculiar to parties and persons of this nature who are not prepared to take things to the end, it would not be possible for them to keep pace with the working class in all phases of the fight, especially when the Occupation was nearing its end and the issue of power (i.e. who would be ruling whom) arose. The KKE did not take into account that the ideological and political battle was also being waged within the alliance and that, for a successful outcome to the class struggle, prejudicial compromises could not be permitted. Especially when the compromises did not reflect the balance of forces between the allies.

The strategy of the British and the domestic bourgeois forces and their manoeuvres should also have been studied, so that the KKE could adapt its strategy accordingly.

Critical assessment – not nihilism or undue dwelling on mistakes – focuses on the KKE’s ability to confirm its independent ideological, political and organisational role at every stage of the struggle. This role was expressed through the scientific foundation of its strategy, on the basis of its application in the particular conditions, but also on the development of the theory of scientific communism. Consequently, it was expressed through the objective analysis of the socio-economic contradictions, the deployment of the class forces, the political correlation, and the tactics of the class adversary.

The KKE’s independent action ensures a policy of alliances that does not mortgage the strategic interests of the working class in the name of some short-lived successes. Alliances, an integral part of our strategy, presuppose compromises that do not hinder the advancement of Communist Party strategy.

History has also proved, often in a painful way, that if the bourgeois state is not broken by the revolutionary forces, the possibility of establishing and consolidating their succession to power is contested. On this issue, the bourgeois class has vast experience and relentless determination.

The course of the KKE has been marked by its fight to preserve its existence, against attacks by the bourgeoisie and subversion by the opportunist element. The most significant of these battles include the attempts made during the 1950s and 1960s, as well as in the period from the late 1980s to early 1991.

The influence of the opportunistic group in the dissolution of the KKE during the 1960s was manifested under entirely different conditions from those of 1989-1991, but with the same aim. The first vehicle was the United Democratic Left (EDA) which, although it had been established in 1951 as a coalition of parties and organisations (communists, socialists etc.), along the way evolved into a single party. Through EDA, and taking advantage of the fact that the KKE had been outlawed, a group in the party leadership undermined the KKE, parallel to its activity abroad, where the Party’s Central Committee, most of its leadership, the KKE Archives and the radio station “The Voice of Truth”, etc., were all located.

The decision of the Central Committee’s 8th Plenary Session (1958), by which KKE organisations were dissolved and all Communists joined EDA, was a major factor in the subsequent evolution of EDA into a united party.

The fight in the KKE, and by extension in EDA, continued until February 1968 (12th Plenary Session of the CC), when the decision was made that the Party would continue to exist. The group known as the “revisionist group” of the CC withdrew and then established its own party, the so-called “KKE of the interior”. The KKE’s Central Committee re-established the party organisations, and in August of 1968 decided to found the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE). This was the first time, after the self-dissolution (1943) of the Federation of Communist Youth Organisations of Greece (OKNE), that the KKE had set up its own youth organisation. It was a decision of profound importance, a landmark in the renewal of the KKE and in the greater militancy of the youth movement.

In all these years, KNE has vindicated its role and mission. It has supplied the KKE with thousands of members and cadres. Despite the jolts and splits that have occurred, KNE continues on its path beside the KKE, and constitutes its hope for the future.

The international counter-revolution of 1989-1991 found the KKE falling short of the demands of the times and of the need to deal with an offensive of an unprecedented extent and depth against socialism, its values and principles, on the part of imperialism and opportunism. The crisis in the international communist movement was expressed in the KKE as well, and took on serious dimensions. The split in our party became unavoidable, since two basic lines ran through the entire Party and KNE. On the one hand was the line that defended the existence of the KKE, and on the other, the line that sought to transform it into a social democratic party and ultimately to diffuse it into the then “Coalition of the left and progress” (Synaspismos). This had been preceded by the withdrawal of other cadres and the split of KNE. This group went on to create the opportunistic organisation NAR.

This change in the KKE was organised by its own cadres, members of the Political Bureau and the Central Committee, headed by the then general secretary of the CC, in collaboration with other forces outside the KKE, which had also joined the “Synaspismos”. The aim was to convert the latter from a coalition of parties, as it had initially been constituted, into a single party.

The success of this effort, in which bourgeois forces also took part, would have struck a crushing blow against the struggle of the working class, and would in essence have beheaded it, since the result would have been the assimilation of the KKE into a bourgeois political system, turning it into a party in favour of managing capitalism, a barrier to the radicalisation of the popular masses and a place for defusing the vanguard social power of the working class.

The KKE defended the fundamental principles and characteristics of a communist party, the ideology of scientific socialism-communism, Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism, democratic centralism and the necessity of socialism – principles that were the focal point of the anti-communist and opportunist attack. The KKE opposed nihilism in the course of building socialism during the 20th century, and showed the contribution of the workers’ and communist movement and the permanent timeliness of the class struggle as the sole moving force for the liberation of the working class by abolishing capitalist ownership of the means of production, for gaining political power and for building socialism-communism.

The tough confrontation over the existence of the KKE, together with the disappointment and confusion caused by the counter-revolutionary developments, led thousands of members of the Party and KNE to abandon all activity. The crisis was registered in the great depletion of its organised forces and its political and electoral influence, even among the labour movement.

It might have been possible to limit this drain, if the opportunist activity had been dealt with promptly, and if, among the other measures that were required, Party members had been responsibly informed by the CC about the problems that existed in the leading body.

Despite the opportunistic elements in its leading bodies at that period of crisis, despite the imperialist factor and the international opportunist trend, the KKE was finally able to stand on its own feet, gradually recovering its revolutionary action. This fact is of great historic importance, as it marks the Party’s entire 90-year course; it constituted the new starting point for the KKE, for its revolutionary renewal, and its increased contribution to the difficult task of maintaining the revolutionary unity of the international communist movement.

Conditions among the working class and the popular masses, as well as the more general political circumstances would have been worse if, between 1989 and 1991, the plans to eliminate or change the KKE had been successful. On the contrary, its existence and struggle all these years are recognised by broad forces of the people. These struggles led to its increased political influence, constituting a hope, for the popular strata showing a pespective serving the interests of the people, against the monopolies and the parties who serve their interests and power.

The KKE was able to recover because it remained faithful to Marxism-Leninism, because it has deep roots in the working class, and rich experience in waging sharp class struggles of all types, as well as experience in the fight against the opportunist trends that have tried in the past to dissolve it.

The conditions under which the KKE acted after 1991 were unprecedented in its turbulent 90-year history. They determined the equally unprecedented difficulties in the KKE’s fight that was waged against the background of the international counter-revolutionary upheavals. A new, daily self-sacrifice was required from the communists, different from other eras, owing to the counter-revolution and the profound crisis in the international communist movement. It was a struggle completely different – it even had partial defeats and backslidings, but took place under conditions of the rise and victories of the communist movement - from the struggle taking place today, when the communist vision has sustained a grave blow.

The most important lesson to be learned from these and the previous years is the need for a strong KKE everywhere, above all in every workplace of the working class, under all conditions. The necessity for the KKE to exist and act independently cannot be considered secondary, and above all it must not be ignored in the name of the importance of other factors. For example, the dissolution of the Party Organisations in 1958 in order to take advantage of the potential of legality offered by EDA, when the KKE was working underground and was being persecuted, was a fundamental mistake of a rightist opportunist nature. And this was because it left the working class leaderless and ceded its leadership to a non-revolutionary party, which was EDA.

The efforts of the class enemy and the opportunistic element to eliminate or neutralise the KKE ideologically will never cease. This was the purpose of their constant attacks against the Party, accusing it of dogmatism, undue attachment to the past, sectarianism and isolation, in order to transform the KKE into a party enable to challenge capital big business and its power.

The KKE, and every Communist Party, cannot be revitalised by rejecting those features that constitute a revolutionary party. True renewal is identified with the Party’s ability to correct its mistakes, so that it can better implement the tasks required by the class struggle.

This has also been proved by the experience gained along the way by many Communist Parties in Europe and elsewhere. Their decades-long and much-discussed renewal, which was expressed by banishing any part of its nature that was reminiscent of a Communist Party, led to the ruining of the labour movement and the alteration of its class base.

The KKE has always insisted that the counter-revolutionary reversals of the years 1989-1991 have not invalidated the nature of our time as an era of the passage from capitalism to socialism.

History has rejected the claim that the nature of the socialist-communist venture was utopian. In the history of humankind, no socio-economic system has ever been consolidated in one step, including capitalism in its fight against feudalism.

The necessity and timeliness of socialism are demonstrated by the contradictions in the capitalist system itself. They are generated by capitalism, which has socialised labour and production on an unprecedented scale, and the products of this socially organised labour constitute private, capitalist property.

This contradiction can be resolved only if the relations of production correspond to the development level of the forces of production, if the centralised means of production are socialised, and if their use is planned by socialist power for the benefit of the producers of social wealth.

The KKE has attempted to do research on the causes of the reversal of the socialist system in Europe, and to study the course of building socialism during the 20th century; it continues this study. It has derived experience and valuable lessons from the adverse developments and mistakes, but also from the contribution to the peoples made by the socialism we knew. The first attempt to clarify the reasons for the victory of the counter-revolution was conducted through a discussion held both within the party and publicly, and concluded with the document approved by the Panhellenic Party's Conference (1995) entitled “Assessments and discussions about the factors that determined the reversal of the socialist system in Europe – The necessity and timeliness of socialism.” The research work continued and was reported in a CC text. Account was taken of the discussion conducted internationally by Marxist scientists and scholars, while views were exchanged with Communist and Workers’ Parties in other countries.

The reversal of the socialist system constituted counter-revolution because it brought social regression in its wake, with the return of capitalism to these countries. On an international level, it facilitates passage of the strategy of imperialism and capitalist restructurings that had begun in the 1970s.

A fundamental issue is to acknowledge that in these countries, the building of socialism, with its weaknesses, mistakes and deviations, was under way.

The KKE rejects the term “collapse” of the socialist system, because this term conceals the fact that the counter-revolutionary process has its grounds in the sharpening of the class struggle to establish and develop the new society. This struggle is waged against the survivals and revivals of the capitalist past domestically and also in relation to the international correlation of forces. Above all, the term “collapse” conceals the opportunistic backsliding and social-democratic transformation of the majority of leaderships of the Communist Parties in power, primarily the CPSU.

The fact that the reversal was led by some members, or even entire party and state leaderships, shows what the history of the labour movement confirms: that opportunism in its development, particularly under conditions of the sharpening of the class struggle, ends up being a counter-revolutionary force.

The encirclement of the socialist system by imperialism was a significant factor reinforcing internal problems and conflicts. It led to decisions that made the building of socialism difficult.

In analyses by the international communist movement, the flexible tactics of capitalism were underestimated. Conflicts between capitalist states were not analysed objectively, and at the same time, a number of Communist Parties chose a policy of collaboration – even in government – with social democracy based on a strategy of “anti-monopoly governments”. The historical experience of this strategy, even adversely, has proved that intermediate power cannot exist and that, in terms of its nature, power will either be bourgeois or working class.

At the same time, the crisis in the international communist movement deepened, and was manifested initially by the complete severance of relations between the CP of the Soviet Union and those of China and Albania. Then, the difficulties increased when rightist opportunism appeared in the communist movement of Western Europe, under the label of so-called Eurocommunism, which openly sided with social democracy and exercised serious influence on the Communist Parties of the former socialist countries.

At that time, the reciprocal influence of opportunism among the Communist Parties in the capitalist states and the Communist Parties in power was reinforced by threats of a nuclear strike against the socialist states.

Under the new conditions that came into being after 1991, the KKE proceeded to regroup, made strong efforts to regain the revolutionary features that must constitute and distinguish a communist party and to overcome the adverse conditions created by the opposition within the Party.

At the 14th Congress (1991) of the KKE, an effort was made to summarise the main conclusions drawn from the crisis and to chart its general political line, the line of anti-imperialist struggle.

In the period that followed, the KKE elaborated its positions with respect to the European Union, and held a Panhellenic Conference (1993) on the subject, which approved the relevant documents.

The decisions of the Panhellenic Conference on the EU have been fully confirmed. The EU is an interstate association of capital, the imperialist pole, an enemy of the working class in its member-states, of the peoples of Europe and of peoples more generally. The struggle of the KKE against the EU and for Greece’s disengagement from it is a direct function of the fight for power to the people and the goal of a Europe of peace and socialism. On this basis, the KKE voted against the Treaty of Maastricht regarding European capitalist unification; those who voted in favour of it were the New Democracy government, PASOK and Synaspismos.

The general political line that was charted by the 14th Congress necessitated the withdrawal of KKE representatives from the Economic and Social Committee (ESC) of the EU, as well as from the Economic and Social Council in Greece. It was a line that opposed, denounced and fought against “social consensus”.

At the same time, the KKE analysed the situation in the Balkans, identified those responsible for the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the role played there by the US, Germany and other EU states.

The KKE was the only party that opposed the nationalistic demonstrations surrounding the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and, resisting the main stream slogans of that time, refused to take part in them, declaring that the fire it lit in the Balkans was the result of competition among the imperialists for spheres of influence. It fought against NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia on the pretext of “ethnic cleansing”, against any change of frontiers and against the creation of states that are protectorates of US and EU imperialism.

The KKE opposed “new NATO strategy (1999)” imperialist aggression on the pretext of terrorism, the so-called plan to “democratise the Middle East”, and the . It opposed the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

The KKE denounced the opportunist evasion “we are against the war and against terrorism”, and unmasked imperialism as the terrorist of the peoples. It strove to organise united anti-war popular action against the domestic and foreign policy of bourgeois governments. It did not select the EU as the “countervailing force” to the US, but emphasised the reason for the conflicts within imperialism, i.e. the battle over market shares and spheres of influence, especially control over energy sources and routes, and fight for hegemony. At the same time it pointed out the joint united attack by imperialist states against the peoples in all realms of the working people’s lives.

Under the conditions prevailing in the 1990s, the formulation of KKE strategy took into account the accumulated experience on the developments in Greek society and internationally, all our Party’s relevant experience, both positive and negative, in conjunction with the experience of the international communist movement, all of which one way or another influenced the charting of the KKE’s political line.

The KKE’s 15th Congress (1996), with the central slogan “FRONT AGAINST THE MONOPOLIES AND IMPERIALISM, FOR SOCIALISM”, considered that the material preconditions for socialism were mature in Greece, and constituted the reply to the question of what is in the best interests of the working class, farmers with small and medium-sized holdings, the self-employed and tradesmen. The need for socialist planning was put forward, since “state monopoly capitalism (SMC) constitutes a new step in the maturing of the conditions required, a threshold on a historical scale without any other intermediate step toward socialism”. The above positions sprang from the thesis that capitalism was developing asymmetrically, that it was possible for a generalised economic and political crisis and a revolutionary situation to mature earlier in one country and that revolutionary action could be on the agenda for the full clash and the overthrow of the bourgeois class.

The strategy formulated by the 15th Congress rejected the theory of stages, and defined the nature of the revolution in Greece as socialist, putting forward as criterion that which is objectively necessary and not the prevailing correlation of forces. On this foundation, the 15th Congress analysed the sharpening of the contradiction between capital and labour, around which the clash between the monopolies and the popular strata develops.

The KKE’s 15th Congress considered that Greece was a country with an intermediate and dependent position in the global imperialist system. It dealt with Greece’s network of military, economic and political dependencies, which differed in degree throughout its history, as an issue related to the country’s position in the imperialist pyramid, to the correlation between the various imperialist associations, the sharpening of internal contradictions and also those within imperialism. Consequently, the abolition of imperialist dependencies was linked with the fight for the radical overthrow of this socio-economic system in Greece.

The 15th Congress considered that there were two possible paths in the evolution of Greek society.

“- The path that serves the interests of the multinationals and capitalists, to the detriment of the people, the path of adapting and submitting to the new anti-labour anti-popular choices of the European Union and NATO.

“- The path of formation of the Anti-imperialist, Anti-monopoly Democratic Front of Struggle, which can give prospects to the working class, the lower middle strata of the town and countryside and young people.

“There is no classless third road. Either it will serve the monopolies, imperialism and the capitalist system, or it will serve the people and offer the prospect of socialism.

“(…) The moving forces of the socialist revolution will be the working class as the leading force, the semi-proletariat, poor farmers and the most oppressed petty bourgeois strata of the city. (…) The need for the KKE to contribute through its policy to the shaping and maturing of the subjective factor in the socialist revolution has become ever more urgent.

“The anti-imperialist Anti-monopoly Democratic Front of Struggle contributes to rallying the great majority of the people in the resistance and defence of its interests against the aggressiveness of big capital. This is the path that helps to change the correlation of forces, to make the approach and, under certain conditions, to go forward with the passage to socialism (…). By its very nature, it entails elements breaking and undermining the foundations of capitalist domination. It creates the prerequisites for seizing political power by the working class and its allies.”

The 15th Congress declared that the struggle of the Anti-imperialist Anti-monopoly Democratic Front must prepare the people to utilise all forms of struggle, depending on developments, and to alternate them promptly, in order to confront the reaction of the Greek bourgeois class and the international imperialist organisations, and to establish and consolidate the revolutionary working class state.

The 15th Congress, like the 14th, set as a major goal of the KKE’s policy of alliances that they be consolidated and rooted at the social level. Without this, any alliances made with other political forces would lack a strong foundation and be too weak to withstand any attack.

In the Programme approved by the 15th Congress, the scientifically based principle of the leading role of the working class in social progress was confirmed, as was its objective position and mission in liberating man from capitalist exploitation, as the force that can rally the oppressed strata of Greek society under its leadership.

The ideological struggle against contemporary revisionism was summarised in the thesis about the historic role of the working class. For many decades, the viewpoint of rightist opportunism was expressed by the position that the working class is shrinking owing to the scientific and technological revolution. This position does not accept the relationship with the means of production as the criterion for placing a worker in the working class, and rejects his class position as proletarian, by dividing people into the categories of skilled and unskilled workers, and scientifically and technologically skilled salaried persons, even though they do not take part in the management of production, and by separating old and new sectors of production, according to the type (overt or covert) of exploitative relations of salaried labour.

The 16th Congress of the KKE (2001), based on the Programme approved by the 15th Congress, proceeded to work out the KKE’s more detailed political proposal for the Anti-imperialist Anti-monopoly Democratic Front (AADF). The message of the 16th Congress was that there are no dead ends in the country’s social and political life. There is a solution to all. It is the path of the AADF, i.e. the rallying of forces in the struggle for power to the people and the people’s economy.

The KKE declared that with the general concept “power to the people” an opportunity was provided for forces that are not ideologically and strategically identified with the KKE to be accommodated in a common front of struggle against the monopolies and imperialist associations, and against the various alternating bourgeois government groupings in Greece. The objective basis for the alliance has always been the needs of the people, in contrast to the vested interests of the monopolies and imperialist associations, and power on a national state level. No step forward can be taken for the good of the working people as long as monopoly capital is in control, as long as Greece is trapped in imperialist associations.

The Resolution of the 16th Congress stated that: “For the formation of the AADF, common action based on common or similar views on the major problems of the times, or a common line of defence in the attack sustained by our people on all fronts is not sufficient. There must also be some level of agreement on the general direction of the solution to problems, which will be expressed in the programme regarding the People’s Economy and Power to the People.”

Fighting to build the Front, the KKE retains its ideological, political and organisational independence, which it also recognises in its allies. The strategic independence of the KKE is likewise expressed in its view that power to the people is socialist, and in its view of the conditions necessary for the AADF to acquire the features of a revolutionary front. The Congress also defined the nature of the process of forming the Front as a social movement.

A basic issue of concern to the 16th Congress was the strengthening of the KKE, in combination with the need for the dialectical relationship between the Party’s strategy and tactics to be understood and implemented in its daily action, on the basis of projecting and demanding solutions to the modern needs of the working people.

The 16th Congress determined the specific content of the KKE’s leadership work, from the CC down to the Base Organisations, in forging a uniform viewpoint on the policy of social alliances, daily action in the trade union movement, against the strategic choices and accommodating tactics of the majority of labour labour organisations, and the government-management-led trade union movement, as well as the movements of farmers, the self-employed and tradesmen.

Emphasising the policy of alliances, the 16th Congress rejected views referring to the unity of the people “based on the problem in each sector” as being contrary to the political line of the KKE. It described this viewpoint as a smoke screen to hide views in favour of managing the system, views related to or identical with the policy of centre-left governments. It opened a front against opportunist criticism of the Party for supposedly abandoning the struggle to resolve the people’s daily problems for the sake of the socialist revolution.

It declared that, in a period of strong capitalist aggressiveness on all fronts, “struggles will not provide a solution, unless the people’s fight is oriented towards a strong socio-political alliance, in the direction of radical changes at the level of power”, i.e. power to the people, which in the viewpoint of the KKE is socialist. It will socialise the sources of wealth and the centralised means of production, which will be placed in the service of the people’s needs through the central nationwide planning of the direction of the economy. Operating alongside the socialised sector of the people’s economy will be the agricultural productive cooperative movement and small-scale commodity production, expressing so the alliance of the working class with poor farmers and petty bourgeois strata.

The main fronts of struggle against capitalist restructurings were determined on this basis, while stressing in particular the need to rally many new forces (unions, federations, labour centres, various initiative committees etc) into the Workers’ Militant Front (PAME)

PAME is the greatest achievement by the working class trade union movement in recent decades. It has created new conditions in the labour movement. It has given a distinct presence and action to the militant pole which is combating the policy promoted by capital, the leaderships of the General Confederation of Labour of Greece and the civil servants’ confederation ADEDY that follow the line of class collaboration. The KKE supports the action of PAME, which aims to reorient the entire labour movement into the ranks of the class struggle, by overthrowing today’s adverse correlation of forces in favour of the working class and reversing anti-labour and anti-popular policies.

Another basic front is the fight against the new NATO doctrine of imperialist interventions, nuclear weapons, and rapid deployment forces.

Emphasis was likewise placed on rallying forces against the violence and repression by state bodies and big business, as well as on mobilising progressive producers of art and culture, in order to confront phenomena of corruption and decadence, fatalism and defeatism.

The main subject of the 17th Congress (2005) was strengthening the KKE as a fundamental factor in the growth of the workers’ and popular movement, which is facing “a new storm of reactionary reforms and restructurings.” The central slogan of the Congress was to raise the party to the level of the tasks imposed by the class struggle.

“The strengthening of the KKE has many aspects and indicators, as well as qualitative and quantitative criteria. It cannot be addressed in a general and abstract way, but by taking into consideration the specific existing conditions and objective difficulties. It must also take into account the particular stage which the labour movement, the popular movement more generally, and the policy of alliances are going through. Strengthening the Party is also influenced by international developments and correlations, by the general level and standard of the global workers’ and anti-imperialist movement. On our part, we must improve our subjective capabilities and increase our effectiveness. It is our obligation to contribute to developing and sharpening the class struggle, to creating a strong, popular majority current that combats the monopolies and imperialist associations. It is our duty to raise our action to a level corresponding to the assessed nature of the age, as an age of the passage to socialism.”

The CC, first of all, considered its own responsibilities and inadequacies in relation to the above duties, and then those of the lower leading bodies. As a central issue, it pointed out the fact that the required degree of unity of viewpoint on KKE strategy had not yet been achieved, the character of the Front had not been understood in depth in such a way that it would imbue the Party’s daily work, and make the fact that the struggle for socialism influences and leads the Party’s daily action better understood.

The 17th Congress took a strong stand on the problem of advancing KKE strategy, emphasising the fact that it is not enough for party members to agree with it. Action is required in order to orient comrades’ minds toward the general line of struggle against the monopolies and imperialist associations. “Our political proposal, as a proposal of action, can help shape the current of protest and rejection of the current state d' affairs that exists in the mature political mind. Politicisation is integrally linked with the problem of ‘socio-economic development by whom for whom’. Therefore, it is directly associated with the demand for change at the level of political power.”

It noted the need to develop a strong ideological front against bourgeois theories, imperialism’s corrupted use of ideology, and the viewpoints of reformists and opportunists that lead to the assimilation, defensive stand and backsliding of the movement. It stressed the need to develop trade union cadres with Marxist training.

At the same time, emphasising the thesis of the KKE Programme regarding the final stage of capitalism in Greece, it pointed out more specifically: “The basic features of the imperialist stage of Greek capitalism have been reinforced, such as: the export of capital to the European and global market. Participation in the planning and promotion of anti-labour and anti-popular directives and measures by the main imperialist centres and associations, such as the European Union and NATO […] In 2003, 65% of corporate profits were concentrated in about twenty colossal companies that cover all sectors. A dozen or so domestic monopoly groups were reinforced in the respective sectoral European and international markets from the point of view of gathering and centralising capital, profits and the corresponding share of sales. Greece holds the largest share, with 46%, of the banking sector in the Balkans, Turkey and Cyprus.”

The 17th Congress made special reference to the new anti-terror laws passed by the EU and to the tense situation in the Aegean Sea, where it confirmed a previous assessment by the CC that sovereign defence rights have been ceded to NATO and Turkey, by pushing through the new NATO structure and changes of headquarters.

The 17th Congress deemed the rise of the New Democracy party to the governance of the country as merely an alternation in government, since there are no basic platform differences regarding the political programmes between the policy of the ND and that of PASOK. Both have always aimed to promote the competitiveness of capital within the single EU market and the strategic goal of strengthening it in relation to the international capitalist market. It sharpened its ideological and political front against the opportunist positions of the Synaspismos-Party regarding the possibility of the EU moving in favour of the people and implementing policies favourable to the people. It revealed the particularly dangerous disorientation of the popular masses by the “renewed left” arguments in support of the imperialist “one-way Europe” and regarding their position in favour of the Political Union of the EU.

It also noted that Turkey’s violations and demands in the Aegean, as well as the dispute over sections of the borders, are supported by the US and the EU and must be addressed as issues that are part of the background of regional conflicts within the imperialist ranks and will become more acute. “The fight for sovereign rights in the Aegean, for Greece’s integrity, is integrally linked with the fight against imperialist plots in the region. It is a fight against war and in favour of peace.” It took a position against the policy of ND and PASOK governments, which assigned the Armed Forces an active role in imperialist interventions and policing duties. It reiterated the KKE’s position against a “professional army”. It re-stated previous positions regarding the importance of the relationship between the economy and politics. It noted the class nature of every party as expressing specific interests that serve its choices and are neither accidental nor subjective.

Regarding the Anti-imperialist Anti-monopoly Democratic Front, the 17th Congress confirmed that the Front does not constitute the KKE’s “Trojan horse” intended to deceive allied forces, that the KKE does not set agreement on socialism and its programme as a condition for creating a common framework of action, nor does its oblige its allies to adopt the slogans to achieve socialist power. At the same time it declared the right of each to have an independent strategic line, emphasising that there is no intermediate stage between bourgeois and socialist power.

In addition, it clarified the fact that today there is no possibility of a political alliance with other parties. Along the way, especially with the prerequisite of the influence of the class struggle, it is possible that political formations with a progressive radical orientation may be formed, with which the KKE could enter into an alliance, a fact that presupposes the mass disengagement of working and popular forces from the ranks of ND and PASOK.

In its Political Resolution, the 17th Congress made special reference to the need for coordination and common struggle among communist parties, and to the need to emerge a communist pole in the international communist movement.

The KKE has fought tough battles against opportunism. Today, this struggle must be stepped up, because opportunism is among the dominant ideological currents on a global scale, and because it is the “Trojan horse” that led to the growth and victory of the counter-revolution. Our party has accumulated a wealth of experience from the action and evolution of so-called “Eurocommunism”, the “renewal” trend in the communist movement, which constitutes a refurbishing of social democratic principles and practices, along the lines of “the unity of the left” in order to gain a “left-wing parliamentary majority” that expresses a policy of managing the system.

Opportunism has an objective basis. It is generated and reproduced by petty bourgeois strata that have been ruined and enter the ranks of the working class, young salaried groups of academics, as well as the “labour aristocracy” that has taken on major dimensions, thanks in part to the super-profits that capital distributes in order to buy off a section of the working class forces in the trade union movement and local government. The various EU programmes contribute to this end. In addition, the inability of the militant forces to adapt to the new circumstances and demands of the class struggle fosters the development of opportunism.

Today the development of opportunism is further assisted by the negative international correlation of forces, by the new hardships in the lives of the working people created by the attack on all sides by capital and its parties.

In order to address opportunism, in addition to the strong ideological front, a substantial degree of politicisation of struggles by the working class and the popular strata is needed. It has been confirmed that there is no classless or third road for the socio-economic development. Either it will serve imperialism, i.e. management of the capitalist system, or it will serve the people. The class and working people’s fight is a necessity imposed by daily life itself, and the aggravation of people’s major problems: the right to education and job security; protection of health and safety in places of work, residence and education; protection against fires, floods and earthquakes; social care for children, the family and the elderly; workers’ housing and others. Only a politicised struggle can bring immediate results and above all prospects, with demands that clash with the strategy of capital, demand the wealth produced for the benefit of its direct producers and prepare the subjective factor for the seizure of power. Such struggles can shape the correlation of powers in favour of the working class and their potential allies, the popular strata.

Among the top tasks of the communist ideological front is to restore the truth about the socialism of the 20th century in the minds of the working people, objectively, without idealisation and free of bourgeois slander. Upholding the necessity of socialism and at the same time defending the contribution of 20th-century socialism constitute a reply to opportunist theories about “models” of socialism adapted to “national” particularities, but also to defeatist dwelling on mistakes. Defending this contribution is, for the KKE, a criterion in relations with other Communist and Workers’ Parties for the formation of the communist pole in the international movement.

The slander and anti-communist crusade cannot hide the truth for long. Anti-communism, one element of which is the re-writing of history, is also evidence of fear on the part of the bourgeoisie.

All the old and new myths have been shot down and unmasked in practice, including the myth of the “free economy”, “competitiveness”, “modernisation”, “consensus”, “social dialogue”, “statutory democracy”, “one-way streets”, “globalisation” and “pre-emptive anti-terrorist operations” against the sovereign rights, security and borders of others, with most grave consequences at the expense of the peoples. The issue is who rules whom and for what purpose. Conflicts between states in the international imperialist system cannot be eliminated. The strategy of international imperialism against the peoples may be the same, but competition for a larger share is increasing, regroupings are imminent, and new claims are finding expression in imperialist agreements, e.g. in G8, the World Bank, the IMF, NATO and elsewhere.

Despite the common efforts of the EU and the USA to consolidate the return of capitalism to Central and Eastern Europe and to the countries of the former USSR through the new NATO doctrine, despite their joint action against labour and social gains, against peoples and countries on the pretext of terrorism, new conflicts have appeared between them, in their alliances with Russia over energy sources and routes, over control in Iraq and of other regional markets. Conflicts are becoming more acute among the leading powers in the EU, but also among the regional ones. Its autonomous militarisation is being pushed forward by means of various structures, and the so-called “European constitution”. US threats addressed to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and to Cuba, against which a trade embargo is still in place, and conspiracies to overthrow Fidel Castro are developments that bode ill for the peoples.

The situation in the Balkans may prove to be explosive, with the re-drawing of frontiers after the decision by imperialism regarding the secession of Kosovo.

The recent communiqué issued by the PB of the KKE’s Central Committee, “On developments in the Balkans, the question of FYROM and the issue of Kosovo” states the following,among others: “Greece is becoming increasingly involved in this hub of conflicts. It is in the interests of the Greek bourgeoisie – to whose interests the policy of the ND is adapted – to be in harmony with the EU strategy of differentiating sources of energy and thus, on the one hand, it utilises all possibilities to ensure that Russian oil and natural gas cross Greek territory, and on the other it is a steadfast and active member of NATO and an ally of the USA. […] The Greek people have now acquired experience and knowledge. They know that, apart from the KKE, all other parties, to one degree or another, agreed with the dissolution of Yugoslavia that was promoted by the EU and the USA. This policy brought about: the military intervention of NATO in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia and created the NATO protectorate in Bosnia and Kosovo, the ‘independence’ of Montenegro from Serbia, and the destabilisation of the situation in FYROM through the imperialists’ support of armed action by the Albanian element.”

Relations between the Greek and Turkish bourgeoisie are becoming more complicated over the issue of control of the Eastern Mediterranean, as they are simultaneously relations of collaboration and conflict, with the Aegean and Cyprus still open questions. Other sources of conflict, such as the unjust resolution of the Palestinian issue, constitute potential material for aggravating situations throughout the region.

The rabid competition among imperialists underscores the fact that humanity is by no means free of the danger that the hotspots of war will be rekindled and spread. The myth about the de-escalation of the nuclear arms race was fully refuted with the overthrow of the USSR and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

The primary task of the political workers’ vanguard in every country is to be vigilant, to prepare itself ideologically, politically and organisationally for major conflicts and upheavals. Along this line, the unity of struggle of the working class, with its social and political allies and its internationalist unity, will be forged. Any political forces (with communist or other titles) supposedly on behalf of the working class, that downgrade the national field of struggle because these changes can allegedly only take place on the European or global level, are in reality favouring the interests of capital and cultivating class compromise and fatalism.

The consistent class struggle in every country is the prerequisite for consistent and effective international action. The interaction between the national and international does not disprove the fact that internal contradictions and conditions play a primary role in the revolutionary process. The revolutionary popular movement in every country must guide its struggle in the direction of socialism, thus making its own contribution to improving and changing the international correlation of forces.

At the same time, international action, the international unity of the working class and the communist movement and its correct strategy will influence the successful and victorious outcome of the struggle by the working class and its allies on a national and regional level, wherever the weak link in the imperialist system appears, as the result of subjective and objective factors.

The recent election campaign, both before and after the elections, showed how much the bourgeois class, those who express it politically and its ideologists are worried about the dynamics and echo of KKE policy and ideas. Objectively, its goals converge with those of opportunism in aiming to divert the Party from its strategy, from its upward course.

The election result, which strengthened the KKE as an expression of the hopeful trend towards the increasing disengagement of the popular forces from bourgeois political influence, creates some concern among the ruling class. It is certain that the latter will step up its aggression against the prospect of the organisational and ideological emancipation of the working class. However, the power of the class struggle is unsurpassable when large numbers of people become aware of it.

It has been proved that when there is a vanguard ready and determined, the people will respond to the call. The correlation of forces does not remain constant. The 21st century will be a century of the revitalisation of the communist movement, of new social revolutions that will bring the working class and the other popular forces to political power with greater maturity and constancy. The social contradictions are unbridgeable and are becoming more acute, despite what the champions of capitalism proclaim.

The working class and the poor strata of the population will not remain fixated on the past. The working class, particularly its younger generation, as well as the young generation of the popular masses, deserve only a future that is feared by imperialism: the socialist-communist future.

20 October 2007
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE KKE