The 19th Congress of the KKE: April 11 - 14, 2013
The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) is now advancing towards its 19th Congress, which according to the decision of the CC of the party will be held from the 11th to the 14th of April 2013. The Congress will approve the new Programme and Statutes of the CC, it will examine the CC’s report of work, it will determine the duties of the Party up until the 20th Congress and will elect the new leading bodies of the KKE.
The CC of the KKE last Sunday 9/12 published the “Theses of the CC”, which include the new Draft Programme and Statutes, announcing the beginning of the pre-congress discussion, which will be held in the pages of the daily newspaper “Rizospastis” and the bimonthly journal “Communist Review”.
As is mentioned in the prologue of the Theses of the Central Committee, “The capitalist system in Greece, as in every other country as well, is not going to collapse on its own, due to its contradictions. The major sharpening of the social contradictions will lead to conditions of a revolutionary situation, in conditions of a serious sharpening of the class struggle and while an all-powerful labour movement in alliance with popular strata which are suffering will have matured and will have come to the fore. In the conditions of the revolutionary situation, what will be judged is the will and decision of the people to break and abolish the chains of class exploitation, oppression, the entanglement in the imperialist war, with the suitable choice of slogans and all the forms of struggle. It requires a labour movement, which is not trapped in misleading alternative solutions, which the bourgeois political system utilises to organize the breaking of the movement, the striking against radicalism, the revolutionary attitude and will, in order to prevent or negate, for as long a period as it can, its overthrow.
The 19th Congress will elaborate the specific guidelines for the political tasks of the party and KNE, which will be in force until the 20th Congress, based on the report of work, the developments and the evaluation of the tendencies.
The basic task of the Congress is the contemporary elaboration of the party’s Programme, taking into account the developments which have taken place and the demands of today, and of its Statutes. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since 1996, when the 15th Congress formed the party’s Programme which is in force until today, regarding economic developments, trends and changes in the international imperialist system, in the EU, the position of Greece in the wider region of the South Eastern Mediterranean. The same is true of developments and processes regarding the reformation of the political system in Greece, with as its chief characteristic the relative destabilization of the post-junta bourgeois political system. There are also important developments in the working and living conditions of the workers, due to the economic crisis and the strategy of capital, resulting in the generalised increase of relative and absolute destitution, the rapid increase of unemployment, the immigration question etc. Important struggles have developed, strikes and other mobilizations, the impact of which was felt beyond Greece’s borders.
An integral element of the reformation of the bourgeois political system is the greater turn to reaction, repression and state-employer violence, the anti-communist and anti-socialist offensive which considers the large majority of the people to be a problem. The anti-communist offensive seeks alternatively the following: to pressure the KKE, so that the hopes are fulfilled regarding the adulteration of its character and its transformation into a component of the governmental left or its isolation or even that the achievement of outlawing its activity, an issue which must be dealt with decisively by the people, in order for exceptionally negative consequences for the labour and people’s movement to be avoided. Consequently, new duties emerge for the labour movement, the People’s Alliance, that is to say issues of strategic importance.
The Draft Programme incorporates the conclusions from the construction of socialism in the USSR and the countries of socialist construction more generally, the conclusions for the course of the international communist movement, which were approved at the 18th Congress, as well as the conclusions of the Nationwide Conference on the “History Essay of the KKE, Volume 2 (1949-1968)” which are of strategic importance.
Finally, it is the fruit of a long collective process, which continued after the 15th Congress in all its course until today, in the middle of struggles and tough class confrontations. The experience of the party and the labour and people’s movement is valuable living material which was utilised as far as possible in the elaboration of the Theses, the report of work and the Draft Programme. The Draft Programme was based on data and evaluations which emerge from the long term investigation of the developments in Greece and internationally, from the standpoint of the working class and people’s interests, i.e. with Marxist-Leninist theory as a compass, which constitutes the ideology of the KKE.
In the framework of the pre-congress discussion, the CC publishes the Theses for the 19th Congress of the KKE, which are comprised of three sections based on the agenda of the work of the Congress.
The first section includes the report of work of the party from the 18th Congress and the assessment of the CC which was elected at the 18th Congress. It also includes the political tasks of the party, along general lines, until the next 20th Congress.
The second section includes the Draft Programme of the KKE. The existing Programme of the Party was decided at the 15th Congress (22-26 May 1996). The Programme was enriched, brought up to date at the next congresses, the 16th (14-17 December 2000), the 17th (9-12 February 2005) and the 18th (18-22 February 2009), based on the international and domestic developments.
The third section includes the draft Statutes, in which older and more recent experience has been utilised.
The CC calls the members of the Party and KNE to study the text of the Theses, to contribute to their improvement with reflection, proposals, recommendations, so that the final documents will be the fruit of a collective process, to crystallise the rich experience accumulated in recent years.
The pre-congress discussion also includes the discussion of the Theses, with the aim of collecting opinions and comments from the friends and supporters of the party, from every militant who-irrespective of their particular views- understand that without a strong KKE with scientifically elaborated positions, the recovery of the labour and people’s movement is not possible, nor is its endurance in the face of the bends and turns it will pass. Nor will the defence against the barbaric offensive of capital, and nor even more so the aggressive activity of the people for social and political overthrow be possible.”
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr