Festival KKE –KNE

The central events of the Festival KKE-KNE were successfully held in Athens from 18-21 of September 2008, marking the culmination of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the foundation of KKE and the 40 years of KNE. Tens of thousands of workers and young people took part in the cultural and political events of the festival despite the difficulties created by the rain which lasted both Saturday and Sunday night.

The festival concluded with the speech by the general secretary of the party’s Central Committee Aleka Papariga at a massive rally on Sunday evening where greeted also the Secretary of KNE, Giannis Protoulis and the delegate of the CP of Cuba Juan Carlos Marsan.

Aleka Papariga in her speech pinpointed lessons from the history of the party, and underscored its firm adherence to Marxism-Leninism, to proletarian internationalism and to the socialist perspective. Speaking about the situation in Greece she underlined that the only way out for the people lies in the alternative proposed by KKE, that is the formation of the anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly democratic front. This will be a social and political alliance which will take into consideration correlation of forces and differences among the allies around the perspective of socialism. She also stressed that daily struggle was more than ever necessary and should be targeted to reversal and victory of people’s power and people’s economy.

She called on the working class and the popular strata to put a halt to bourgeois class efforts to rehabilitate the bipartisan system or its disguise under centre-right or centre-left coalition governments. The only substantial difference between the ND and PASOK parties is their selfish competition on who is going to win the rule of the country. She also noted that people also should not trust the forces of opportunism, which are trying to flatter and mislead them with the so called projects of “leftist governments” without any intention to touch the power of monopolies.

61 delegations of communist parties and youth organizations honoured with their presence the festival, delivered solidarity messages at various stages of the festival and participated in the discussions at the “International Village” of the Festival. The topics touch upon at the discussions at the international area of the Festival were around the interimperialist contradictions and the Caucasus issue and around the anti-communism at the EU level. Saturday night was dedicated to solidarity with Cuba and a special event was held with massive turnout. On Sunday evening, in a special ceremony, KNE presented the results of the fund-raising and solidarity campaign for KSM.

Taking into account the huge damage caused by the hurricanes in Cuba, an emergency fund-raising effort was launched at the Festival.

The foreign delegations had the opportunity to meet with the General Secretary of KKE and to be informed about the views of KKE on issues the domestic and international policy, as well as about the forthcoming 18th congress of KKE. They also visited the social research centre “Harilaos Florakis” -at the house of the late communist leader, and historical places like Kokkinia and Lavrio/Makronissos that are linked with heroic moments of the struggle of the Greek communists and people.

Participants issued statements of solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, of Bolivia and Venezuela, of Pakistan and of Palestine.

*Info by the International Relations Section