Speech of the KKE in the internationalist event of the party “Communists-People’s Left-Communist Party of Italy”

On the 6th of April an internationalist event was held in Rome, organized by the CP of Italy-Communists-People’s Left. Elisseos Vagenas, member of the CC and responsible for the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE, represented the KKE at the event. His speech was as follows:

Speech of the KKE in the internationalist event of the party
“Communists-People’s Left-Communist Party of Italy”

Against opportunism, for socialism, to build the Communist Party

Elisseos Vagenas, Member of the CC

Responsible for the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE

Dear friends and comrades,

On behalf of the CC, the members and cadres of the KKE we address you warm militant internationalist greetings.

The proceedings of the 19^th Congress of the KKE will begin next week in Athens. The communists of Greece have been engaged for four months in an intense inner-party process, discussing the Theses of the CC, the New Draft Programme and Statutes of the KKE. At the same time, however, they were able to combine this discussion with their leading activity in the struggles of the working class and the poor farmers which have broken out in the same period, something which demonstrates the deep roots which the KKE has in the working class and popular strata of Greece.

The 19^th Congress is called on to examine the activity of the party, to further study the ideological, political and organizational strengthening of the party of the working class. A party, which for a century, has left and leaves its mark on the struggles, the development of the class struggle, and from this standpoint the congress of the KKE, is not only something that concerns the communists of Greece but all the workers in our country.

Friends and comrades,

The bourgeois class seeks the reformation of the political scene in Greece which is undergoing the deep capitalist crisis. Basic elements of it are the recomposition both of the social-democratic terrain, where the basic role has been taken on by a party with former communists in its ranks and characterises itself as “radical left”, as well is in the terrain of the right, where new political parties are being created, among them the fascist Golden Dawn.

A component of this reformation is the attack against the KKE, through which they are attempting to exert opportunist pressure on our party, so that it will give up on its revolutionary strategy, or to reduce the electoral strength of the KKE so that its voice and political intervention are weakened. The proposal for our participation in a “left government” was used as a “tool” for this goal in the last elections. The KKE rejected this proposal, paying a significant “price” with the reduction of its electoral strength, however this rejection prevented our party from sliding into a historic mistake, i.e. to support the management of capitalism and its crisis. Today, a few months after the Greek elections, the developments in Cyprus are very instructive for the Greek people as well as demonstrate that inside the EU, inside the framework of capitalism, regardless of the intentions which a “left” governmental formation may have, there can be no pro-people management. Capitalism has laws, which must not ignored by the workers.

The KKE presents its own detailed political proposal to the workers about how society should be today, about how the economy should work. We the communists do not hide our goals, we are not interested in tricking the workers in order to gain some votes. In any case, the KKE has discarded parliamentary illusions many years ago. We do not believe that the overthrow of capitalist barbarity can occur through parliamentary elections, without this meaning that we underestimate this form of struggle.

We say, then, to the Greek workers that there are all the objective conditions for them to organize their lives, the our country’s life on another basis. What is this basis? It is the socialization of the means of production, the central planning of the economy, the workers’-people’s control. Only such a system, socialism, can satisfy the contemporary needs of the people. Those parties that say there can be a system in which on the one hand capitalist profits are maintained, and on the other that the “person” will be more important than them, i.e. allegedly “above the profits” are lying.

Of course, a Greece of working class’ power is not compatible with the participation in the Eurozone, more generally in the imperialist unions of capital, such as the EU and NATO. Nevertheless, our party since 1996, since its 15^th Congress, has discarded the so-called “intermediate stages” on the path to socialism. To begin with the correctness of the strategy of “intermediate stages” has never been demonstrated anywhere or at anytime., and apart from this we believe that a capitalist Greece, even if it is outside of some of the unions of capital, will not stop having multi-facetted dependencies, as long as the capitalist system is maintained and it objectively participates in relations of uneven interdependency, which exist in the framework of the global imperialist system. So, we pose the issue of the disengagement of the country from the imperialist unions in a comprehensive way, underlining that only the working class power can guarantee this disengagement.

The KKE, from the moment when it had determined as its goal the overthrow of capitalism has elaborated and the analogous policy of alliances. The alliance policy of the KKE must be objectively subordinated to the strategic goal of the party. We have rejected the so-called “left unity” for many years, with the opportunist forces, which characterize themselves as “Left”, “radical” etc, because these terms have lost their content in our era. Now even “left” General Secretaries of NATO are appearing. We declare, then, the need to form a People’s Alliance, which can be formed by social forces, which have an interest in the overthrow of capitalism, the conflict with the monopolies and the imperialist unions. Such forces are the working class, the semi-proletarians, the poor intermediate urban and rural strata.

This alliance will struggle for every popular problem, will rally and educate the working class and popular masses in the struggle and conflict with the employers, the bourgeois governments, the imperialist unions and will highlight the necessity and possibility of the other society. In conditions of a revolutionary situation, the People’s Alliance will be transformed into a Revolutionary Workers’ and People’s Front for the overthrow of the dictatorship of the bourgeois class and the establishment of revolutionary working class power.

Dear friends and comrades,

What is of decisive significance for the developments is not just the existence of the CP but also the mapping out of a revolutionary line. The front against opportunist and reformist positions which will be waged inside the labour and people’s movement. The building of strong party organizations, above all in the workplaces, in sectors of key importance in every country. What is required is the ideological-political conflict against the bourgeois ideological constructs, which present the EU and capitalism as the “end of history”, against the opportunist forces, which proclaim the “democratization”, the “humanization” of capitalism and the “launch” of a ..so-called “democratic socialism” of the “21^st century”. What is needed is patient work with the intermediate strata, which even though they are being destroyed by the capitalist crisis, express their petty bourgeois impatience demanding immediate “solutions”, but always in the framework of capitalism, with illusions about a pro-people centre-left management, which on so many occasions has led to the exacerbation of the people’s problems. What is needed is that the communists, popular forces, trade unions, mass organizations decisively repel the fascist monstrosities, rejecting at the same time the rationale of the so-called “anti-fascist fronts” being proposed by the social-democrats and reformists in order to trap the communists and whitewash their responsibilities for the strengthening of such forces, which are a product of capitalism and the spearhead of the bourgeois class against the communist and workers’ movement.

Friends and comrades,

The regroupment of the international communist movement on a revolutionary basis is of crucial importance in today’s conditions, as today it continues to find itself in conditions of crisis, ideologically, politically and organizationally. The opportunists influence exerts pressure on its ranks, which have formed their own “centre” in Europe, the so-called “Party of the European Left”.

The KKE considers that the struggle against opportunism must be strengthened at a national, European and international level as a necessary condition for the revolutionary regroupment of the communist movement. With this assessment as a starting point, the KKE not only supports the international and regional meetings of the CPs, but also the idea of the emergence of a “communist pole” by CPs, which remain faithful to Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism, defend the socialism which we knew, study the contemporary developments and seek to map out a common revolutionary strategy, recognizing the timeliness and necessity of socialist construction.

Comrades,

The fragmentation of the workers by sector, colour, religion, nation, between workers of the “poor” and so-called “rich” countries, between workers of the “developed” and the “developing” countries etc is a part of the plans of the bourgeois classes. Their goal is to “divide and rule” on the one hand and to “mobilize” the workers under a “false flag” on the other, some times “to make our country great”, other times “to make our national economy more competitive”, or “for the recovery of the country’s sovereignty” etc. But we know that in our era, in the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism, which was heralded by the Great October Socialist Revolution, that contemporary patriotism is identified with the overthrow of bourgeois power, the capitalist ownership of the means of production, with departure of our country from every capitalist road and every inter-state capitalist coalition and imperialist alliance.

We have a valuable “weapon” in our hands, which we must never surrender and which can impede the plans to divide the working class. And this weapon of ours is Proletarian Internationalism.

The slogan “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” is more powerful than ever today.

And we consider it particularly important that this message of proletarian internationalism can be spread in Italy, thanks to the efforts that have been started by the comrades of the Communist Party of Italy-Communists- People’s Left to build a communist party with a revolutionary strategy, attempting to eradicate the dirty and long-term undermining work of euro-communism and contemporary opportunism.

Comrades, we assure you that the KKE will be at your side on this difficult and demanding path!