Speech of the Secretary of the Central Council of KNE, Thodoris Chionis, at the event of internationalist solidarity in honour of the fraternal delegations

On behalf of the Central Council of the Communist Youth of Greece we warmly welcome the representatives of 77 communist and workers parties from 58 countries. Our meeting today is dedicated to all you who have travelled from all the regions of the world.

The 13^th International Meeting of the communist and workers parties is an important political event and acquires particular importance in the conditions which it is being held.

The inter-imperialist contradictions are sharpening over the distribution of the markets and the spheres of influence. The dominance of the monopoly groups is being reinforced as well as the competition between them. The imperialist war flash-points are strengthening, new ones are being created, and the possibility of more generalised wars is more than likely. We feel that the responsibilities of the communists are growing, so that the peoples do not shed their blood, especially the young people, at the side of the one or the other imperialist. But to struggle to overthrow the bourgeois class of their country, the capitalist system which gives birth to wars. The global capitalist crisis which has manifested itself very sharply in the strongest centres of imperialism, the EU and the USA, generalizes to a great extent and as now permanent phenomena: poverty, unemployment and destitution. The enormous dead-ends of the capitalist system, which is in its final stage, brings all its aggressive nature to the surface. They make its revolutionary overthrow, working class power and socialism more timely and necessary than ever.

In recent years we have accumulated rich experience from the development of the working class and popular struggles, from the participation and contribution of the youth, in Greece and in other countries. Of course we do not underestimate that in conditions of crisis there coexist together pre-conditions for the development of the class struggle and pre-conditions of the temporary stagnation of the working class and popular movement.

The International Meeting itself is in our opinion an important element in these developments. Because the course of the class struggle will be determined to a great extent by the regroupment of the labour-popular movement, by the strengthening of the socialist perspective in the daily struggle of the working class and especially by the new generations, its new shift. This is also concerns the communist youth organizations which take on a serious share of the responsibility.

We are for this reason particularly pleased that you are here, that we are with you.

KNE was created in 1968 by the decision of the PB of the Communist Party of Greece. In conditions of the dictatorship, deep illegality and major difficulties. Despite all this it filled very quickly a large void that had existed since 1943. This was the existence of the political organization of the youth of the KKE. This decision has been confirmed over time. The organizations of KNE in the workplaces, popular neighbourhoods, schools, technical schools, university faculties, have all these years played a leading role in the development of the struggles of the youth, in its participation in the organization of the waging of the class struggle. Its rallying in an antimonopoly-anti-capitalist line of struggle, in the struggle for socialism.

The character of the revolutionary aims of KNE, as the youth of the KKE, the orientation and strength of KNE in the working class youth is one of the factors which strengthens its ability to contribute to the working class and popular struggles, to the militant and revolutionary education of the rest of the youth from the popular strata who have not yet entered production. The most important thing is to respond to its basic mission. To educate young militants in a communist way, to renew the ranks of the KKE with new working men and women, of a young age. In recent years thousands have acquired the honoured title of member of the KKE.

Our organization has rich internationalist activity, close relations and joint activity with dozens of communist youth organizations all over the world; it struggles within the ranks of WFDY and contributes to its development.

A source of strength for KNE is the ideological, political and organizational relationship with its party. The revolutionary strategy and tactics, the programme, the theoretical and political elaborations of the KKE. Particularly the decision of the 18^th Congress concerning socialism, which gives the possibility to young communists who grew up-many were born- after the overthrows to struggle every day for socialism without embarrassment concerning the reasonable questions “what happened, why was socialism overthrown?” To fight decisively and from a position of supremacy against anti-communism, opportunism and the rewriting of history, 20 years after the counterrevolution. Similarly important is the ability of the KKE to study its history, the history of the class struggle in Greece and internationally, as occurred with the publication of the 2^nd volume of the history of the party. At the same time the KKE provides a large section of its members and cadre to work amongst the youth. Either for the formation of the leading bodies of KNE, or for their guidance by the corresponding organs of the party. The stable orientation of the KKE in the labour movement and in the activity of the youth of the popular strata, the assistance to KNE, is carried out by national bodies organized by the CC of the KKE for the strengthening and elaboration of the intervention in the youth.

These are the main reasons for the fact that KNE is being strengthened, that it can educate its members with the revolutionary virtues of our party. We can better recognize and fight against our weaknesses, and the difficulties we face. In any case we are being judged and KNE is able to wage tough and decisive battles in all the places where the young people from the popular strata work, are educated and live. In all the fronts of struggle for the contemporary needs of the people, which only with the overthrow of the outdated capitalists system can be satisfied. A new generation of working men and women is being educated which have as their second nature the battle against the capitalists, the effort to organize their colleagues in the line of the struggle of the classes, the participation in the strikes, the dismissal.

Capital’s offensive on the needs and the rights of the young people is accompanied by the operation of a multi-tentacled ideological apparatus to manipulate and trap them. The goal of which is the exploitative system, the compromise of the youth with the regime of waged slavery, unemployment, illiteracy. Fatalism is being fostered, defeatism, illusions and fake dilemmas. Anti-communism, the attempt to slander socialism its contribution in the 20^th century runs through all the bourgeois educational system and not only. The independent ideological-political activity and intensity of the struggle against the bourgeois ideology and political line is the counterweight, in order to foster the faith in the working class of its historic mission. About the truth concerning social progress which only the socialist-communist perspective can bring.

Over recent years in Greece we have organized over 22 strikes, dozens of demonstrations and other forms of struggle. KNE contributes next to the KKE so that the content of these struggles has nothing to do with bargaining with the system of exploitation, another form of its management, its reform. So that the struggles do not become tools for the rebaptization of social-democracy, for the rotation of the bourgeois forms of governance. KNE contributes so that they are oriented and to foster the rupture and the overthrow of the bourgeois power and its system. Capitalism, particularly in conditions of crisis, does not have the ability or the will to make concessions, becomes continuously more hostile. The struggles, the fronts of struggle, the slogans either will concentrate forces in the struggle for the working class-people’s power or they will be assimilated into the system.

The confrontation for the orientation of the struggle in the movement and its organizations are a serious matter and we believe that much will be determined by this. Particularly against the forces of social-democracy which today have no differences either with the liberal ND and opportunism which prettifies the system, blunts the class criteria, fosters parliamentary illusions. That with another governmental management, without the overthrow of the power of the monopolies, without the abolition of class exploitation and oppression there can be pro-people solutions. That the EU, this predatory alliance of capital against the peoples can change. That it can be refounded, i.e. the wolf will become a lamb. They talk about the youth with flattering phrases, they fawn on sections of it, presenting them “as the new revolutionary subjects”, they present as new movements and “new forms of struggle” all the bourgeois plans and objectives for assimilation, control and provocation.

The revolutionary youth has no need to flatter itself, the youth of the working class and the popular strata. You have certainly been informed about the heroic struggle of the steel workers who are on strike for one and a half months. Their children, the young workers have nothing in common with the industrialist, his class and their parties, but also nothing in common with their children who are educated to become the new bosses, to renew the ranks of the bourgeois parties. For the class opponent, even when they are at a young age, we nurse only class hatred and anger.

The future belongs to the youth, this is obvious and we do not need to prove it. The question is which youth will take the future in its hands, the youth of the exploited class or the exploiting class. The young working men and women, the youth of the popular strata cannot expect anything from the old historically obsolete capitalist system, which is in its final imperialist stage. Their future for a better life, for the satisfaction of their needs is directly connected to their participation and contribution to the development of the class struggle, the overthrow of capitalist barbarity, the construction of the new, of the socialist system.

We wish you every success in your proceedings.