The full statement about the first assessments on the results of the elections for the European Parliament

On 8th June the CC held a session in order to elaborate a first assessment of the results of the EP elections on 7th June 2009. The CC summed up its initial conclusions and promoted a process of discussion within the Party and generally with friends and supporters of the Party as well as with people who cooperate and struggle along with the Party.

1. The CC extends militant greetings to the members of the Party and KNE, the friends and supporters of the Party, the people who cooperate and struggle with KKE, those who gave the battle of the EP elections along with the communists, having intervened systematically in the struggles over the past period and up to the elections. The multifaceted political and mass activity of the Party developed under particularly hard and complicated conditions that have to do with the economic crisis and the system’s well-elaborated strategy for the management of people’s indignation; it constitutes a significant basis and offers new positive experiences.

The CC calls the Party Organisations and the Organisations of KNE to examine the holding of the elections and their results and express their views, in order for the CC to ensure in its next session a collective assessment and specification of its duties according to the guidelines of the 18th Congress as well as the new experience and lessons. Similar work is required in order to gather the opinions of friends, supporters and voters of the Party. Those who voted for KKE for the first time, those who did not move on to cast the ballot for KKE, despite their orientation in the previous period, are also called to express their view and draw conclusions. The more this process of opinion gathering proceeds the safer our conclusions will be.

2. These elections are similar to a great extent to the battle of the parliamentary elections. It has been the most complicated and hard EP elections battle over the last 25 years; it took place under the conditions of the contradictory impact of the economic capitalist crisis on the consciousness and the stance of the working people. The reliable yardstick for this battle is the result of the parliamentary elections in 2007 and to a lesser extent the results of the EP elections in 2004 as they were held after the national elections and under different political conditions.

KKE managed to confront the strategy elaborated within the ranks of the system in the period 2007-2009 up to the eve of the elections which aimed at delivering an electoral and political blow on KKE and at its displacement from the 3rd position. To a great extent this attack failed to accomplish its goals. However, it did inhibit the dynamic of the Party in conditions of mass abstention and through the dirty attack against the Party that focused on its finances and aimed at affecting its acknowledged militant morality and its unity of words and deeds. The escalation of the attack has been especially motivated by the confirmed ideological-political unity of the Party, which was further forged in the 18th Congress through the effort to draw important concussions and lessons from the course of the socialist construction in the 20th Century that constitute the starting point for the revival of the struggle for socialism.

This anticommunist attack took place at a time when it has been proved that both bourgeois parties are tangled up in scandals, while at the same time, a large part of the people was disappointed by the consequences of the capitalist restructurings and the policy of the EU in general. The slanderous campaign was realised with the active support and, in certain cases, the tolerance of the rest of the parties as well as of a part of the media. However, this is not merely a Greek phenomenon; its source lies within the EU institutions and in most of its member-states, promoted through the equation of fascism with communism and with persecutions in several countries.

KKE faced the provocations straightforwardly proving its experience and strength. It prevented, to some extent, the vote of resistance and counterattack to be directed to parties of painless protest that the ruling class uses as obstacles to peoples’ radicalisation. KKE has never had the illusion that the system and the bourgeoisie in general would tolerate its activity, its dynamic. It does not have any illusions. Each electoral battle will create particularly difficult conditions in order the emancipation and liberation of the working and popular strata and youth to be prevented.

It has been confirmed that without the utilisation of “RIZOSPASTIS” on a daily basis and its wide propagation in factories, enterprises, and neighborhoods it will be difficult to inform and shield the party forces and our wider sphere of influence from slanders and provocations. Even more so, we should take into account that the majority of the media propagate the anti-communist attack and exert influence on the working people, while at the same time, the system utilises all its mechanisms, the education system and of course the employers’ intimidation.

3. Taking into consideration the above mentioned factors, the final result achieved by KKE is evaluated as positive. We arrive at the conclusion that a significant part of the people who voted for KKE over the last years, especially in the 2007 elections, is new voters. In the meantime, we have not managed to get in contact with them to extend and deepen our links and, mainly, to contribute to the achievement of their systematic participation in the struggles. We must develop reciprocal and close ideological and political links that constitute the most important factor for resistance in complex and difficult conditions

The Party Organisations need to study the specific results in their area of responsibility in order to draw comprehensive conclusions concerning the factors that hindered the dynamic of the Party. The comprehensive assessment of the review of our activity in this period will highlight our shortcomings and it will enable an overall and comprehensive assessment, an increased readiness for the improvement of our activity and the development of our links with the working and popular strata, the youth and the women that belong to the popular strata.

4. The electoral result and the general conditions require utmost vigilance. No rest. The economic and political establishment in the country and the imperialist centers will not give up easily their objective to deliver a blow to KKE. The anti-communist attack will continue with dirty tricks, by all means and ways. Their target is the dynamic of KKE and mainly the role it can carry out in the near future in the development of the class struggle that constitutes the impetus for all positive developments. This goal is linked with the launch of a new attack against the working people in order for them to pay for the crisis and contribute to the recovery of the profits.

This attack can and should be confronted. The source of the Party’s strength is its strategy, its constant effort to forge new links with the working and popular strata and the youth; its effort to contribute to the development of daily struggles, to propagate the prospect of another path of development and power; likewise, its firm and militant stance against opportunism and reformism, which would have been be much stronger in Greece, if KKE did not have an elaborated and effective political line, if it had submitted to the pressure to abandon its strategy.

5. The two parties, ND and PASOK that express the interests of bourgeoisie through their strategy and their alternation in governance, have also received blows. This is concluded from the total number of the votes they received as well as from the unprecedented abstention. The abstention also expresses protest and disappointment in the EU policy as well as a spirit of retreat and compromise due to the impact of fatalism and the view that struggle is ineffective.

However, this protest is far from being moulded into a wider antimonopoly anti-imperialist consciousness. A significant part of the discontent has not yet been directed towards the condemnation of the strategy of the two bourgeois parties. People have illusions either that these parties can change or believe that critical problems can be dealt with through an improvement of the management and the mode of governance. The position of KKE that the development of political consciousness, the realisation of the need for a different path of development contrary to the interests of monopolies in the direction of rift and overthrow is not shaped automatically under the intensification of problems, but combined with the participation in the class and popular struggle, through the organisation and rallying of forces, has been justified.

Irrespective of the views that abstention may express, it does not harm the anti-popular policy of ND and PASOK. On the contrary, it objectively benefits the plans of bipartisan alternation or anti-popular coalition governments. Irrespective of the intentions of the people, it actually hinders the revival of the movement; it entails the danger of demobilisation from the popular movement and becomes an obstacle for the dynamic participation of new popular masses in the struggles.

Very hard work and mostly rise and strengthening of the movement will be needed in order to cause rifts in the system of bipartisan alternation and cancel the efforts to balance the difficulties in its reproduction through cooperation schemes between ND and LAOS, PASOK and SYRIZA, or any other suitable schemes.

6. “Under the conditions of capitalist economic crisis two tendencies exist: the positive one that leads to the sudden rise of the labour and popular movement in general and the strengthening of KKE, and the negative one that may lead to painless protest and consequently to disappointment, demobilisation, conservatism, strengthening of anti-communism and trapping into nationalist and racist ideologies” this assessment of KKE has also been vindicated. All the above mentioned constitute serious obstacles to the emancipation and the radicalisation of the working class and the popular masses. Anti-communism, racism and nationalism are bred in the ranks of ND and PASOK and the bourgeois political system in general, as they constitute significant reserves for the blow against the labour movement and the people’s alliance.

KKE is the only force that can give strength to the movement in order for it to deal with demobilisation and retreat and hence contribute to the struggle against the poison of nationalism, racism and anti-communism; through the role it can play in the development of class struggles and the social alliance, through its proposal for the alliance and change at the level of political power; through its daily activity in order to prevent the worse to come, in order to achieve gains that create a spirit of optimism and militant realism.

7. The CC in cooperation with Communist and Workers’ parties that took part in the elections and had a joint action will examine the general results in the EU member-states as well as the important problem of abstention taking into consideration the particular conditions in each country. The first conclusion is the big damage caused to the labour and people’s movement in several countries by the strategy of the liberal and social-democrat bourgeois policy towards the labour, people’s, women and youth movement in general. The damaging role of opportunism and reformism in the movement and its recovery is once again confirmed. The support of these forces in the elections has not always been achieved even in countries where there has been a lot of concern for the support either of opportunist forces or the so-called anti-capitalist forces.

8. The CC of KKE estimates that the vigorous mobilisation of the members of the Party and KNE, friends and supporters of the Party, people who cooperate and struggle along with the Party should strengthen and continue. In the following period the attack against workers, people’s rights and KKE will intensify; the slanderous attacks and dilemmas aiming to intimidate will increase. The resistance, the counterattack and the development of essential ideological and political bonds will be determined within the labour movement and popular movement in general, in all its expressions. The bonds of the Party with the working class and the popular strata as well as the links of the militant bodies of the movement with their members and the workers in general must grow stronger. We should not underestimate the reserves and ability of the bourgeois political system, which is supported by the bourgeoisie, the multinational groups, the EU, to counterattack in order to prevent the social awakening and the people’s counterattack.

However, we should not overestimate it. Nowadays, there are forces that can contribute to the revival of the movement: KKE, KNE, the friends and supporters of the Party, the people who struggle along with the Party, the new voters of the Party, even those who appreciate the role of the Party, but did not move on to vote for it. There is a need to focus on the line of resistance and counterattack; to increase our ability to develop ideological-political links, to organise the popular masses in the trade union organisations, in the sectors, in the workplaces, but also in the places of residence, to develop close contacts with the youth that suffers form the consequences of the anti-popular policy and the crisis.

9. Today, more than ever, the great importance of the organised collective struggle is highlighted. The individual protest, the effort of each one to find individual solutions to the impasses is not only ineffective, but also detrimental, because it postpones the struggle that has to be conducted today fomenting illusions and fatality. The collective responsibility is significant, though, in order to develop and bear results it must be based even more on the awareness of individual responsibility, on the constant contribution of each communist, of each member of KNE, of each person who struggles.

The CC calls, in a spirit of militant optimism, to assess the difficulties and opportunities that the consistent action according to the Party’s strategy and the elaborated specialisation in each area, industry and region entails. It calls upon the working class, the working people, regardless of political beliefs and preferences, to defend KKE against any slanderous attack taking into account that the anti-communist action and hysteria inflict blows against the popular movement in general.