The Presentation of the Report of the CC of the KKE to the 19th Congress

11-14 April 2013

We have reached this point after a 4-month long pre-congress process, with the completion of the assemblies of the PBOs (Party base Organizations) and the conferences of the Sectoral, Prefectural and Regional Committees.

The discussion was conducted in two rounds in the general assemblies of 98.5% of the PBOs. The participation of the party members was 77.8%, those absent with justifiable cause 14.9%, without justifiable cause 7.35%.

96.8% of the party members votes in favour of the Theses and draft Programme of the Party, 1.65% against, blank votes 1.55%.

97.3% of the party members votes for the draft Statutes in the PBOs, 1.21% against, blank votes 1.49%.

The results of the discussion in KNE are the following. 98.9% votes in favour, 1.1% votes against and blank votes.

This time we have not invited representatives of Workers’ and Communist Parties to follow the workings of the 19^th Congress, solely for financial reasons. We have sent the Theses, and of course, as always, we are open to comments-suggestions and we will inform them about the decisions.

We received dozens of messages of greetings which will be included in the publication of the Congress materials.

We assure you that our internationalist solidarity remains at a high level. We feel that we must do even more, despite the fact that we face important events in Greece and the people’s position deteriorates in Greece on a daily basis. We believe in proletarian internationalism and in the pressing necessity for as many peoples as possible to come together against the imperialist centres and powers, against capitalism. Therefore it is inevitable for us to make efforts for the coordination and common activity of the people’s movements in the countries where the peoples are suffering from the economic crisis, imperialist wars, interventions, military occupation, poverty and hunger, oppression, torture, persecution, every form of injustice and arbitrariness created and reproduced by capitalist exploitation, the inter-imperialist competition.

 We understand full well that for a substantial step forwards to be taken in the common activity of the peoples, basic and unfortunately chronic problems must be dealt with, such as: The continuation of the efforts for the formation of a Communist Pole, utilizing the progress made with the International Communist Review, the indefatigable efforts to maintain the communist characteristics of the International Meetings, against the plans to widen them with the so-called left forces.

The issue of which contradiction will be resolved by the social revolution and which class will take the power is the most important one for the elaboration of the Programme of the Communist Party and is the central strategic question. This fundamental issue was solved by the 15^th Congress and for this reason it is one of the most important congresses in the contemporary history of the party. The 15^th Congress determined that in the era of the passage from capitalism to socialism the class struggle is directed towards resolving the basic contradiction between capital and labour. The revolutionary change in Greece will be socialist. The driving forces of the revolution will be the working class as the leading force, the semi-proletarians, the poor farmers and the most oppressed sections of the urban intermediate strata.

At the same time the 19^th Congress provides the answer to the pressing question of how the struggle to repel the barbaric class anti-people measures will be organized. Anti-people measures which are being taken by all the governments for the management of the crisis and the interests of the monopolies, either with ND as its core or with SYRIZA, or with a government of the so-called anti-memorandum arc from the populist right to the extra-parliamentary left.

We must rid ourselves of every spirit of practicalism, slackness, haphazardness, so that all activity is oriented to the same goal: To rally the anti-monopoly anti-capitalist forces on the basis of the common activity and their own tasks in every sector and place.

Every organ, from the CC to the PBO, every cadre and member, must feel part of a fighting staff and an integral section of the labour-people’s movement. We must acquire the ability to specialize and adapt and to unify the currents and sites of struggle at the grass roots. A unified strong nationwide current must be formed which has strong foundations: in every city, centred on the monopoly groups, factories, shopping centres, hospitals, health centres, electricity plants, telecommunications, public transport, all the traditional and contemporary sectors of the economy, the urban labourers, the poor farmers, the villages and of course in the places of education, in the places where the youth who are suffering are concentrated.

The issue of the organization of the unemployed, workers, employees and self-employed, professionals and immigrants- political refugees is a crucial one for the regroupment of the labour movement and the Social Alliance. There can be no forgiveness for any delays.

We must not allow the unemployed and destitute who live off the social groceries, handouts of food and medicines, which are provided by those who are chiefly responsible for the tragedy, the monopoly groups, to be transformed into passive individuals in the name of charity. We do not at all underestimate that the starving must eat, but the solidarity which we back must lead the suffering people to feel supported, to take part in the struggle, to live on the basis of their work, their own income, not to be dependent on the so-called charity which has also taken on the character of manipulation and assimilation instead of a dish of lentils.

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We have accumulated valuable experience regarding the issue of tactics being detached from strategy, which had serious and even dramatic consequences for the global communist and workers’ movement. This conclusion is drawn from: the experience of a number of countries of socialist construction in Europe, the fact that, while the world war created conditions for a major sharpening of class contradictions inside many countries, the anti-fascist struggle led to the overthrow of bourgeois power only in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with the decisive support of the Red Army for the people’s movements. The bourgeois class was able in good time, with the assistance of reformism, opportunism, to deal a blow in the capitalist states which play a leading role on a global level that has lasted to the present day. On this occasion, we should think about what the situation would be if there was a strong class-oriented labour movement in the USA, Germany, Britain, France and in Northern and Western Europe in general. We cannot bypass the fact that in these countries the communist parties, which had acquired strong positions in the movement with a parliamentary presence reflective of this, were assimilated and mutated, in the framework of the prevailing strategic view that  the possibility exists for a transitional anti-monopoly-democratic political programme on the terrain of capitalist dominance, which without being socialist, could defend the needs of the working class and popular strata and pave the way for socialism.

The basic problem of the strategy is the identification of the main link in the chain of events and in the web of contradictions in capitalist society. The policy of alliances, the slogans, the forms of struggle are a relatively more flexible element of strategy, as it is influenced by what link in the chain-in each phase- becomes important or decisive for the correlation of forces, the development of the correlation of forces, the level of the class struggle and the political consciousness of the working class and its allies. The limits of its flexibility are determined in the end by the strategic goal.

WHAT IS THE LINK IN THE CHAIN?

What is the link today, in non-revolutionary conditions, for the regroupment of the labour movement, the formation of a strong People’s Alliance? Maybe the struggle against the Memorandum, the haircut and the extension of the debt repayment, the expansion of state interventionism, the way out of the crisis through the recovery of capitalist profitability with the good capitalists in the forefront and not the pirates, as SYRIZA is saying, through which you will be able to grasp and hold the entire chain in your hand?  Is the Keynesian management proposed by the reformists and the opportunists a link? Is the cooperation with a section of the bourgeois class a link? Of course not.

The fact that the way out of the crisis does not constitute on its own a link in the chain for the recovery of the movement is demonstrated by the unwillingness of both the governing and opposition parties to acknowledge the character of the crisis as a crisis of over-production and over-accumulation of capital, as a phenomenon which is rooted in the nature and character of the capitalist system. They attribute it to the bad management of the financial revenue of the state, to the fact that the Greek people spent more than they earned and therefore state and private borrowing was needed. Or that tax evasion is exclusively to blame, party-political favours, the generous benefits for friendly businessmen. Or the fact that the reactionary reforms were delayed in Greece, as well as the restructuring provided for in the Maastricht Treaty etc. All the parties talk about thieves, the corrupt, and indeed SYRIZA, as long as it sees that it may govern, talks about a “kleptocracy” about good and bad businessmen, about a government of corruption, so that it is freed of whatever commitments it undertook in the last elections that it would take measures against the interests of big business.

The struggle against the consequences of the crisis, the prevention of the people becoming even more bankrupt, a pro-people way out of the crisis can constitute, under certain pre-conditions, a link for the organization of the working class-people’s counteroffensive, and become the launching pad of the support, which will have as mass a character as is possible, for the struggle for the overthrow of the power of the monopolies, in combination with the struggle against imperialist war and whatever form of participation on the part of the Greek bourgeois class in it.

The alliance policy of the KKE is based on the objective necessity to promote the unity of action of the working class and its joint activity with the semi-proletarians, poor self-employed and tradesmen and the poor farmers, with particular care to draw in young people and women, who due to a number of well-known reasons face additional difficulties and obstacles regarding their stable participation in the organization and struggle.

The KKE does not hide the fact that, as the leading organized section of the working class, it has socialism-communism as its strategic goal, the overthrow of bourgeois power and the conquest of political power by the working class. Through its proposal for the People’s Alliance it makes those necessary compromises, as it is not possible to require the Social Alliance to agree with its programme.

The objective interests of the working class lie in the abolition of every form of ownership of the means of production, large and concentrated, medium and small, as this entails the exploitation of the workers, their alienation from the wealth they produce. The self-employed, due to their intermediate position, have an interest in struggling against the monopolies on the one hand, but they find it difficult to take a position against the exploitation of man by man.

The compromise proposed by the KKE does not abolish the differences between them, on every occasion the maintenance of joint action will be attempted inside the ranks of the People’s Alliance, there will be realignments, the alliance itself will be restructured without losing its character, according to the developments in the correlation of forces and the progress of the class struggle.

These who accuse us of referring everything to socialism and that we withdraw from the struggle regarding the sharpening problems of the workers are pretending that they do not see and do not know that the KKE, and together with those who cooperate with it, took on its shoulders the greatest burden of the popular mobilizations, while we took initiatives for the development of fronts  of struggle on specific and immediate problems: from the heavy taxes and road tolls, to the strike mobilizations for collective bargaining agreements, against all the memorandum measures, for social security and health, the farmers’ problems, the major needs of the self-employed, the youth and women.

We refer to the hard work inside and outside the factory gate, on the ramps of the ships, in the national roads, the poor neighbourhoods, the schools, the Universities and Technical Institutes, the rural areas.

Regarding the issue of the line of the alliances of the 15^th and 19^th Congresses, it is the, same, alliance of social forces which have an interest in abolishing the power of the monopolies. Indeed in the conditions of the crisis, most sections of the intermediate strata approach the working class, pass into the category of the poor intermediate strata, the semi-proletarians are on the increase. In comparison to the period of the 15^th Congress, the role of the immigrant workers and political refugees has increased, despite the fact that a section of them are leaving Greece mainly due to unemployment.

It was underlined at the 15^th Congress that the formation of the alliances begins from the bottom up, that the decisive arena is the social one, while it clarified that the contradiction with imperialism and the monopolies was very deeply anti-capitalist. It mentioned that, in the instance when the class struggle intensifies to unprecedented levels and the bourgeois parties are weakened, the possibility of the formation of a government, through elections, may emerge with sections of the anti-monopoly anti-imperialist forces. It very clearly talked about this as a possibility and not as an aim or political goal of the KKE, but about the possibility of the sudden change in the correlation of forces being expressed in this way for a moment, and indeed it was underlined that this would not be able to last very long, either a revolutionary situation would manifest itself openly or there would be a setback.

It talked about a government of anti-imperialist anti-monopoly forces and not about a government of the AADF (Anti-imperialist  Anti-monopoly Democratic Front), the participation of the KKE was not mentioned anywhere, nor the commitment of the KKE in relation to it. The study of the socialist revolutions of the 20^th century, the maturing of the party, the 18^th Congress highlighted the need to clarify programmatically the position of the KKE on the issue of alliances, the relationship of the party with the People’s Alliance, the stance of the party regarding governments on the terrain of capitalism, the development of the alliance in a revolutionary situation. It is not of course possible to predetermine the “moments” through which the correlation of forces will be expressed in the phase when the revolutionary situation and the confrontation for the transition to socialism matures. These “moments” can be assessed afterwards regarding their form, content etc.

The People’s Alliance is social, as regards what social forces should join together in the struggle, it has movement characteristics in a line of counterattack, rupture and overthrow. It has a proposal for governance-power which is clearly distinct from the bourgeois governance or the government of bourgeois management, i.e. from the political power of the monopolies, in the sense that it directs its activity towards the change of class and social forces which are in power.

Today the seedlings of this alliance are being created in Greece, in the form of PAME-PASEVE-PASY-OGE-MAS, with an organized movement basis in the workplaces and the working class and popular neighbourhoods. Of course the form which this alliance takes, its reach reflects the specific correlation of forces at a specific moment and is not static. The People’s Alliance will be reinforced through the change in the correlation of forces at the level of the movement’s organizations, from the bottom up. This development will also lend it new forms especially from the bottom up, new realignments will emerge inside it and under the impact of the change of the correlation of forces in general, which cannot be predetermined today.

The problem is not whether the movement will promote immediate demands, this issue has been resolved, but what political line will provide an answer to the pressing and accumulating problems of the people. With the monopolies or against their dominance? With the power of the monopolies or with the power of the working people?

The character of the People’s Alliance as a social alliance with a political perspective of working class-people’s power is not consistent with the participation of parties, including the KKE of course.

To the extent which through the development of the class struggle political forces are formed with a petty bourgeois character and which adopt the direction of the struggle in their programme that has people’s power as its outcome, then in this instance the KKE will cooperate with them, while in reality there will also be a confrontation with these forces regarding the character and perspective of the People’s Alliance. The joint activity of the KKE with such political forces will be expressed in the ranks and organs of struggle of the People’s Alliance which will be based in the workplaces and popular neighbourhoods, with the trade union, general assembly and struggle committees as the forms of organization.

We will not constitute a united political vehicle with these forces, a united electoral formation and parliamentary group, precisely because it is not possible for us to have a unified programme for power and a unified view regarding its conquest. Otherwise, the independence and raison d’etre of the KKE will be lost.

The capitalist system in Greece, as in every other country, 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, to conditions of a serious sharpening of the class struggle 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 appropriate choice of slogans and all the forms of struggle .

THE RECIPES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE CRISIS

It is a fact that the bourgeois class of our country, as well as of course the European bourgeois class and the global one is not united as to what recipe will contribute to dealing with the capitalist economic crisis. The whole knot of inter-imperialist contradictions is being manifested regarding the recipes and variations, with axes and anti-axes which are quite often changing and while itas bee realized that the capitalist system, especially in the old capitalist world in Europe, cannot use the methods for the way out in the same way and manage the poverty and unemployment with some partial benefits and similar concessions.

The recipes of the Keynesian and neo-liberal model of management which alternated in the 20^th century and of course did not prevent the economic crisis cycles are confronting each other in the same framework and with the same class goal. They have led to two world wars and dozens of local ones for the re-division of the markets and concerning changes in the top positions of the imperialist pyramid.

We witness mobility in the history of he bourgeois parties, both of liberal and the well-known social-democratic ideology. National Socialism-fascism and contemporary social-democracy, which from the standpoint of its organizational background constitutes a new opportunist current originating  from the communist movement, both belong to bourgeois ideology and the bourgeois political system.

In the first years after the fall of the dictatorship we had the two pole system  of ND and PASOK which is being transformed into ND-SYRIZA, while in the recent elections (apart from the dismantling of social-democracy)  there were splits both from ND and from SYRIZA itself. In addition, the national socialist and fascist Golden Dawn emerged with electoral strength and influence.

The changes in the arrangement of the political forces which support in one way or another the capitalist system (and consequently its political superstructure, the composition of the parliament and the formation of a government) express the general and more specific needs of capitalist development in the specific phase. In any case the liberal and Keynesian political lines were followed in our country both by ND and PASOK.

The reformation of the political system took place in EU states before the current crisis broke out, with the best example being our neighbour Italy. Alternations in the management were tried out before the crisis in many European capitalist states, as centre-left and centre-right recipes have been tested, with the participation of communist parties and other opportunist parties, “renewed” as they call themselves, which arose out of splits from the communist parties. We have seen governments, even of a relatively brief duration, with the participation of far-right parties, such as in Austria, the Netherlands, Norway etc. We have seen an alternation of parties with different recipes for bourgeois management in Latin America. The participation of AKEL in government also provides us with experience.

Some well-wishers criticize us today because we do not promote cooperation with political parties or with some sections of them with aim of preventing the downward spiral which the living standards of the people are in, i.e. they suggest that we ignore the relationship between politics and the economy.

They are telling us that we should forget that the monopolies are dominant everywhere in the economy and superstructure and indeed are being strengthened through centralization, and that the assimilation of Greece in the EU imposes objectively greater commitments and dependencies, new limitations and concessions of rights and responsibilities.

They advise us to ignore that the capitalist relations have expanded into agricultural production, education, health, culture-sports, the mass media, that there is greater concentration in manufacturing, retail, construction, tourism. They advise us to ignore that with the abolition of the state monopoly in telecommunications and in the monopolized energy and transport sectors companies have developed and those that are based on private capital will develop in the future.

That we should forget that whatever governmental changes may occur, however much the political system may be repaired, the protagonist will still be the monopoly.

The three-party government has mapped out a line both regarding the EEZ and the continental shelf, with as its main aim the freeing of the hands of the monopoly groups that will undertake the exploration and up to and including the exploitation of the hydrocarbons, placing in a secondary position and even ignoring the sovereign rights in the Aegean Sea and anywhere else they may be called into question in the future. The knot is so confused in relation to the region of the Aegean, Ionian Sea and Southern Crete, due to the inter-imperialist contradictions and the political line of the government, that the developments require close monitoring and vigilance.

SYRIZA, having drawn in forces from PASOK,  entire sections of PASOK’s apparatus, having added to its electoral strength a section of the communist votes, very quickly shed promises and radical slogans, which had made it popular with leftwing and radical masses.

Greece today has major unutilized productive potential which can be liberated only through the socialization of the means of production by the working class-people’s power, with the central scientific planning of production.

What we say is that the conditions exist in order to satisfy the contemporary needs of the people and not just the people’s needs in general; in order to eradicate unemployment, reduce the working time and increase free time; in order to ensure a secure future for the children of the working people; in order for the living standards of the people to constantly and essentially improve;  in order for development to be in harmony with the environment; in order for healthcare to be based on prevention, on an extensive network of public health and other issues mentioned in the Theses; in order for families and  mainly women to be released from a part of the housework so as to have more free time for cultural and social activity and for their participation in the workers’ control.

Greece possesses important domestic energy resources, considerable mineral resources, industrial, craft, and agricultural production which can meet a large part of the people’s needs: food and energy, transport, the construction of public infrastructure works and people’s housing. The agricultural production can support industry in its various sectors.

The position that a new “haircut” is needed which is supported by SYRIZA and other parties, adopting the position of the IMF, is something different from the position of the KKE. The KKE demands the unilateral cancellation of the whole debt and not just a reduction with new anti-people rafts of measures, new memoranda, with the privatization of strategically important sectors, prime real-estate etc. as a counterbalance.

The withdrawal from the Eurozone as some suggest or the view that Euro is not a fetish is one thing and the position of the KKE for the disengagement from the EU is altogether quite another thing.

The position of the KKE which is against any participation in imperialist unions, something that is ensured with the workers’ power is one thing and the withdrawal from the EU in order to enhance the participation in other centres e.g. USA- Britain, China, Russia, Brazil is quite another.

The proposal of the KKE which is addressed to the people has no relation with the change of currency nor with linking the drachma with the dollar, sterling, yen or any other currency. We do not choose between a rock and a hard place.

It is possible for a party to adopt the withdrawal from the Eurozone in the instance it assesses that basic sections of the bourgeois class benefit from a national currency and indeed a devaluation.

The proposal of the KKE for the governance of workers’ and people’s power is one thing and the proposal of SYRIZA for a government of the left or with the left at its core is quite another. In the first instance we have a fundamental change in the political power while in the second instance a change of government that will follow the same line as the previous one, since all decisions and choices for the recovery will be taken by the monopolies, capital.

Of course, Greece holds a subordinate position in the established imperialist alliances in which it participates (EU, NATO, IMF etc). However, this position flows from its economic-political-military power as a capitalist state. The unequal relations which prevail among the capitalist states-alliances flow from this very fact. They are competitive relations and they might even be relations of hatred, however, they do not negate their common strategic interests.

The question of whether a government based on parliament can pave the way for the revolutionary process is baseless and utopian according to the experience of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st.

We have paid the price for complacency

We should seriously take into account the assessment of the Theses that we did not avoid, starting from the outgoing Central Committee and consequently till the level of the PBO, a spirit of complacency because we have a correct political line. This is not enough although it constitutes an essential precondition for a Communist Party. As a result of complacency we have not taken all necessary measures in good time so as to achieve the respective competence in promoting our strategy in practice regarding the main front which is the working class and the party building, the assistance to KNE, the development of bonds with young people.

For a certain phase (its duration cannot be predetermined) the correlation of forces is determined irrespective of the will of the party as it is a product of the activity of the classes and the parties. This does not mean that it remains still and unchangeable. Under certain conditions there might be a change in a positive direction, as well as a setback, as the capitalist reality itself does not remain static.

It is at this point that the subjective factor intervenes. The activity of the party and the working class must have such a direction  so as to facilitate, so as to assist the change of the correlation of forces according to the existing possibilities. Of course the result of the change is determined by the correlation of forces as a whole.

The CC is responsible for the delay in the redeployment of the forces of the party in the working class from the 16^th Congress onwards. In addition it is held responsible because it should have formed a plan for the promotion of the redeployment, more systematically and above all with more effective political guidance; a plan that should reach the level of the PBOs, a plan that should be combined with activity so that all forces are working for the same goal, so that they support all the necessary central initiatives, so that the experience from below enriches the central  political guidance and makes it more apt, more effective.

 At the same time the work among women has not become an essential, inextricably linked aspect of this task. The building of the Social People’s Alliance everywhere in the sectors, in the neighbourhoods has not been incorporated as a way of working.

Without the strengthening of our activity in the working class and its movement, without the activity among the self-employed, who also exert influence on the orientation of the working class, it is not possible to achieve the rise and the politicization of the movement, including in the places of residence.

In conditions of a revolutionary situation the class struggle rises very sharply , forces determined to take their future into their own hands, broader working class and oppressed popular masses join the struggle are ready to come into conflict. The possibility is created for them to realize that their interest lies in the socialization and the agricultural cooperatives. This holds true even for forces that have not gone through the ordeal of a long-term struggle. However, the conscious revolutionary core of the people who have risen up must be strong and experienced, it must have a strong basis in the organized workers in industry, in centres of commerce and transport, in centres of communication and energy so as to achieve the demobilization and neutralization of the mechanisms of the bourgeois power.

When the labour movement and the poor popular strata have sentiments which at least show that they can go beyond exerting pressure on a government, even more so, when they start realizing to one or the other extent the necessity of a more fundamental change then it is certain that forces that will try to keep the movement in the framework of the system, to divert it or use it for their own particularly narrow sectional interests will be activated in an organized and planned way.

We have very recent examples from other countries which show that once the people became active forces that sought to hold back and impede the people took action, forces that wanted “to become the caliph instead of the caliph”.  The Egyptian and Tunisian “spring” is an example of this. Indeed it provoked such admiration on the part of the opportunists and reformists in Greece that they said  that what the Greece of the “memoranda” needs is a Tahrir Square. There are many examples from EU countries, with the emergence of parties and politicians-shooting stars –with an alleged anti-systemic character- that trap the working class and popular strata in a rationale of the alternation of governments, far removed from the class struggle, the Social Alliance, the prospect of socialism-communism.

We have seen such movements in the 1960’s and the 1970’s which were called new social movements and were supposed to bring about the desired change and put the class struggle and the struggle for the solution of the problem of power in the dustbin of history. These movements were identified with the alternation of liberal and social democratic parties in government, centre-left and centre right governments, they were leader-oriented movements with the extravagant promotion of leaders that charmed the masses.

The so-called alternative parties of bourgeois governance, the allegedly alternative movements to the class struggle are created or reinforced after their emergence as a basis for this exists and this basis is the labour aristocracy, a section of the state employees, of the intermediate strata that operate as the allies and periphery of the monopolies. These movements are convincing because they deceive the people talking about rupture without a line of rupture, about overthrow without overthrow, about revolution without revolution given that they enjoy the good favour of sections of the bourgeois class as well as cells and mechanisms of the system, with indeed international connections.

The participation of AKEL in the government provides significant experience as well as the stance of the partner-parties in conditions of EU-membership and while the issue of Cyprus remains unresolved not only due to the intransigent stance of Turkey that insists on the occupation but also due to the interests of the imperialists as well as due to their own competition in a significant region with hydrocarbons and their transport routes.

We have not managed to achieve the required competence, as a party, to work among popular masses either of working class background or masses that come from the petty-bourgeois popular strata and have a very low level of organization and experience.

This assessment of ours has nothing to do with the slanderous allegation that the KKE participates actively only in activities of the movement which are led and controlled by it. This is a lie. The fact that we have to be everywhere where  struggles break out, everywhere where masses take action,  the fact that our criterion should not be whether they agree with us or whether they adopt all the demands that we believe does not mean that we do not make  criticisms or even that we cannot refuse to participate in activities organized  behind the scenes by specific groups and forces that seek to steal the people’s consent and indeed with slogans such as “burn down the Parliament” or “down with the thieves all of them to the firing squad”. The same holds true when party officials appear with another label that of the independent and autonomous with indeed the position “out with parties and mass organizations”.

We have to take very seriously into account that our party, and KNE in particular, address themselves mainly to young people between the ages of 15-25 in workplaces, in sectors, and to young people who are unemployed, dismissed or are looking for a job for the first time in their lives and cannot find one, to hundreds of thousands of young people who are in schools, universities or vocational schools. We should not forget, we should take into account in each step that the working class has children and therefore the activity oriented to younger people concerns all workplaces no matter if the number of young employees there is small.  In many cases young people have two “characteristics” i.e. they study and work at the same time either in the framework of their traineeship or in order to ensure an income as they belong to poor families. For instance the number of people employed in the 5-month programmes of the municipalities is on the increase. These programmes appear as sectors of “social economy” which in the next years will apparently expand with the graduates of the Technical Institutes as an extension of the so called institution of “traineeship” and “work experience”.

The activity in the schools, vocational education, in the whole network of training centres has more specificities.  The latter are constantly being set up by the system, businessmen and self-employed as they provide even cheaper and easier to manipulate labour power, with even less economic and institutional rights. A similar specificity is characteristic of the activity in the universities and the Technical Institutes.

A kind of contradiction appears in practice: according to which criteria do we approach them, which element prevails, that of employment or that of education. It is obvious that both elements should be taken into account in a unified analysis focusing above all on educating them in a class-oriented way, on the coordination with the workers’ unions, in each sector etc.

The bourgeois state and its political staff, especially the ideological state apparatus in education, the multi-tentacled state and business mechanisms in education, propaganda, culture and sports organise their ideological-political intervention among much younger age groups i.e. nursery, primary school, junior high school, age groups that cannot have acquired experiences of collective militant activity. These age groups children cannot acquire critical thinking and collective activity given the ideological political assimilation that takes place through the school programmes and in the same way that the respective ideological struggle in the movement of the teachers and the youth. Definitely, parents and teachers must be at the frontline of the struggle against the “devshirme” (boys’ recruitment in the Ottoman Empire) which is organized by the Golden Dawn in order to educate the children, the very young age groups –and therefore very sensitive- in the Nazi views and practices, in the persecution of the communist ideals and the communists themselves.

The course of the developments- a party for all seasons

Anticommunism is the first stage of the new overall attack against the people.

The developments indicate that state violence and repression, the restriction of any political and trade union liberties which are established by law will signal the reactionary revision of the constitution that will incorporate the laws and the restrictions of the EU. The bourgeois class and its parties are not satisfied with the bourgeois democracy that they established themselves, with the limited bourgeois legitimacy. Their choice to break the labour movement, to impede any possible radicalization of the poor popular strata is inextricably linked with the restriction of the activity of the KKE  even with the declaration of anticommunism, of the well known theory of the two extremes, as the official state ideology.

In case of a more direct and active involvement in an imperialist war the first measures that will be taken will be related to the movement and the party. Therefore, our duty is for our party to achieve a complete readiness targeting mainly the development of more substantial bonds with the largest possible section of the working class, to overcome weaknesses either in terms of orientation or in terms of taking practical measures, in order to reinforce the People’s Alliance, in order for the anti-monopoly anti-capitalist direction of struggle that protects the people from all kinds of attacks to become a conviction of the people.

According to the current data it is not easy to predict whether the possibility of an uncontrolled bankruptcy followed by the withdrawal from the Eurozone or its split due to the withdrawal of a more powerful country such as Italy has vanished. Such predictions are a fact and these fears exist in the regional and global staffs of imperialism especially those which are engaged with the assessment of the economic developments. It is not a coincidence that the government –especially the Prime Minister- speaks about the possibility of an accident.

It is also possible that the Eurozone will remain as it is today, though, with the recognition and the establishment of different zones. It is also possible to opt for a new internal depreciation with a new “haircut”, a demand which is also shared by SYRIZA   thus supporting the position of the IMF, which it regarded for a long time as a black sheep compared to the EU.

Definitely, irrespective of the various scenarios which haven’t been finalized yet, the process of centralization of the accumulated capital in the hands of a smaller number of larger monopoly groups will intensify.

We concentrate our attention on the developments in Cyprus while it is necessary for us to follow the possible implications for Greece. The depreciation of accumulated capital of the Cypriot banks constitutes the launching pad for the promotion of the multiple goals and results in Cyprus being transformed a weak link inside the Eurozone.

We concern ourselves with the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean as a whole. It becomes more complicated, it will have new negative consequences for the Cyprus issue which is a problem of invasion-occupation, given the rapprochement between Cyprus and Israel, the aspirations in Egypt concerning the revision of the agreement on the demarcation of the Exclusive Economic Zone in the background of the Turkish demands.

 The recent developments with the cowardly and ambiguous-in terms of objectives- effort of the government to deal with the issue of the Exclusive Economic Zone brought more clearly to the forefront the fierce war among the imperialist powers, old and new ones, something that increases the danger of the country being involved in an imperialist war at the side of the one or the other imperialist alliance.

The contradictions between Turkey and Albania as well as Egypt will be even more intensively expressed in Greece and the wider region and thus everything is possible, including war. The KKE assesses that the working class of the country and its allies in the antimonopoly struggle must prepare themselves ideologically-politically above all about the line to deal with such a development. In this direction, the KKE must place emphasis not only on the general ideological-political preparation but also on the regroupment of the labour movement, on the strengthening of the people’s alliance, on party building in sectors of strategic importance.

The position of the KKE is clear: it is not possible to restrict ourselves to our old valuable experience. We cannot rule out the possibility, unlike the period of the Second World War when the liberal section of the bourgeois class fled from the country, that this time the bourgeois class of the country, a section of its political representatives will seek active participation at the side of the one or the other imperialist power in case of an attack by a neighboring country or by another country in the region and that it will seek to transform the defensive war into an aggressive one. Do not forget that the bourgeois class had not abandoned the effort to break the movement of EAM from within.

 It set up EDES (National Republican Greek League) and the other sections of “Security Battalions” before it left in order to break the robust movement of resistance and particularly the KKE. The appetite of the bourgeois class to take an active part in the distribution of the markets through war will be increasingly connected to a misleading nationalist campaign that will use various pretexts, that will seek to convince the Greek people that their material interest lies in being drawn into an expansionist war, to seek annexations or to accept new compromises and dependencies. In any case, whatever form the participation of Greece in the imperialist war takes, the party must lead the independent organization of the workers’-people’s resistance and link it with the struggle for the complete defeat of the bourgeois class, both of the domestic one and the foreign one as an invader.

The KKE must take initiatives, according to the concrete conditions, for the formation of the workers’ and people’s front with the slogan: the people will give freedom and the way-out from the capitalist system which as long as it prevails brings war and “peace” with the gun to the people’s head. What do we predict?

A.                  The implementation of European repressive laws and mechanisms (similar to martial law), which have been incorporated into laws based on the Parliament, and the utilization of some of them in the revision of the constitution.

B.                  That the current constitution or the new constitution will be utilized for the separation of the parties into parties that are in the constitutional arc and those that are outside, according to the criterion of whether the programme of a party praises the capitalist system or not. In this case the sole and exclusive target is the KKE, which from the very first moment of its foundation has very clearly declared the struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the victory of the socialist working class power. 

C.                 That the right to strike, the forms of struggle that correspond to the needs of the class struggle will be restricted and may even be outlawed.

D.                 That laws will be passed which will intervene in the internal affairs of parties, in their functioning etc, obviously targeting the KKE, in every form of organization that calls the capitalist system into question and aims at protecting itself from state violence and repression.

Today the bourgeois political system has found its instrument in order to promote such measures, which is none other than Golden Dawn, the national-socialist Nazi formation which is based on the criminal underworld, uses physical violence and abuse and is transforming into an organization- assault battalion along the lines of the SS.

Golden Dawn must be isolated from the people in the ranks of the movement and not outside the movement, for being a national-socialist party, for being the extreme expression of the system and not for being something outside the bourgeois political system and the bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Golden Dawn cannot be dealt with or isolated with anathemas like “it does not belong to the constitutional arc” or with slogans calling for the defense of bourgeois democracy, but with the antimonopoly anti-capitalist rally and alliance, with the organization of the people at the grassroots’ level, in the workplaces and the sectors, with the Social Alliance that will be organized on a geographical basis as well.

On the party’s programme

The main material for the elaboration of the Programme was the relevant document of the 18^th Congress which enriched our perception on socialism.

In the new Programme which we propose there are several differentiations compared to the 18^th Congress which are due to the further study of the developments in the political system of socialism, of the issue of socialist democracy and the forms of the workers’ power.

There are already issues or issues will emerge, which require  further study so as to proceed to a prognosis and specialization in as timely fashion as possible.

For instance, today there is a need to carry out a more detailed, based on a scientific method, analysis of the developments in the urban intermediate strata, in the self-employed. We should better analyze the development of social stratification in conditions of a new monopoly centralization, in conditions of the complete liberalization etc. in order to better determine the anti-monopoly, anti-capitalist social forces which objectively can become allies of the working class as well as in order to define the role of the self-employed in socialism, especially of those who cannot be incorporated into the socialized and cooperative sector from the initial stage of socialist construction, in order to predict their stance and development.

In the programme of the party we clarify that a large part of the self-employed will be incorporated into the socialized sector while another part will remain self-employed, though without using salaried labour.

The producer cooperatives have been designated for the small agricultural producers. It will require further work in order to shed light on the policy for the development of agricultural production, on agricultural producer cooperatives.

We elaborated the organization of the new power which is a matter for all the working class and the way to ensure the participation of the other social forces. We defined the role of the party in the organs of power, from the bottom up, we specified the criteria regarding remuneration, the distribution of the social product, the way and the criteria according to which the satisfaction of the social needs will take place.

Another important element is the chapter on the revolutionary situation, the struggle of the new against the old, the planned eradication of the elements of immaturity which characterize socialism as the lowest phase of communism. We highlight the relation between economic immaturity and social inequalities, social stratification as well as the general line of the necessity for the new socialist relations to be extended, to deepen, for the communist relations and the new man to develop to a higher level so as to consolidate the irreversible course of socialism in conditions when the capitalist relations have been abolished at a global level or at least in the most developed and significant countries in the imperialist system.

The decisions that will be taken at the 19^th Congress, based on the opinion of the great majority of the members of the party and of the assemblies of the Party Base Organisations, of the sectoral and regional conferences, on the opinion of the members of KNE, of the friends and supporters of the party, oblige the whole party to be more demanding in relation to the Central Committee, to meet the requirements in complicated conditions, sharp turns and bends , and regarding new issues that will possibly arise.

 The work of the Congress is starting now. The delegates have been elected in order to contribute to the elaboration of the decisions, to the election of the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Committee, in order to make decisions with a sense of responsibility, something which has been confirmed by the processes up until now.

On the 15^th of April we must have taken one step forwards. It is our duty. The thousands of militants have the right to demand from us an increased capacity and militancy, readiness, selflessness, unity of theory and practice, unity of words and deeds.