KKE and the socialist system

We recognised the incontrovertible gains in the countries of socialism which exerted a great influence all over the world, and became a propelling force for the working people in the capitalist countries to achieve gains.

We appreciated the enormous help generously provided by the socialist countries to the national liberation movements and to the cause of peace and disarmament.

Our militancy in defence of the major fact, i.e. the socialist gains, was dictated by the needs and the special features of the struggle in our country. It was our own distinct response to the persecutions of communists, to anti-communist propaganda. The defence of socialism and communism was a conscious choice by our party both in the past and today, when adverse, dramatic developments have taken place.

40. The developments which occurred during recent years have shown our responsibility for the fact that we, too, like the other communist parties, did not avoid the idealisation and embellishment of socialism, as it was built in the former socialist countries. Our party, in a number of party bodies and documents, spoke of problems and weaknesses which appeared in the course of the socialist construction. Also, in our bilateral contacts and relations with other parties, criticism was expressed with respect to certain problems related to international issues or erroneous assessments of the situation in Greece, without briefing -- in most cases -- our party members. In cases when criticism was levelled, we confined ourselves to general references, descriptive without being accompanied by an effort to discuss the deeper causes, to the extent permitted by conditions.

We attributed the problems which we had noticed as being due mainly to objective factors. We justified them as being problems related to the development of socialism, which proved not to correspond to the reality in all cases.

The causes were partly due to objective reasons and partly to serious subjective reasons. The many years during which our party was underground, the long years of persecutions prevented the development of systematic theoretical work and a contribution to utilising the experience of socialist construction. Our party, however, had the capability, mainly from its own experience in confronting deviations in the course of its history, of acquiring certain reflexes which would have helped it confront viewpoints, which we now judge not to have been correct or objective, in a critical spirit. It has been proved that our party too failed to pay sufficient attention to the need to acquire an adequate theoretical background, to promote the creative study and assimilation of our theory, to utilise the rich experience of the class, revolutionary struggle, i.e. to contribute with its own forces to the creative development of ideological and political positions in the light of changing conditions.

We became reconciled to the formality which appeared in the relations between the communist parties, and in their joint action on matters of theory and ideology. We did not rnanage to combine respect for the experience of other parties with an objective judgement of their policy and practice, and with comradely criticism of deviations, which once again proved to have had more general adverse effects on the communist movement, since the repercussions could not be limited to the national or local level.

Our party welcomed "perestroika", perceiving it to be a reform to the benefit of socialism, and taking into consideration its unanimous acceptance by the leadership of the CPSU, in whose ideological firmness and long years of experience we had unlimited confidence. But there were opportunities to discuss the signs of the adverse course being taken at least as early as 1987, when the coexistence of capitalist and socialist ownership was openly adopted by law in the Soviet Union.

At the plenum of January 1990 and later, at our 13th Congress, an effort was made to interpret the events in the socialist countries and the changes which were taking place. These estimations were not correct. The theses of 1990 were governed by illusions about the "new thinking" and about "perestroika" itself. They contained a distorted approach to the events in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic, which were perceived as an "outburst by the masses", while in reality it was an "outburst" by the counter-revolution in order to reverse the system. And most serious of all, the "collapse of the regimes in the socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe" was considered to be "to some extent...inevitable".(23)

Events of the last few years have shown that the uncritical acceptance of "perestroika" and the failure to perceive its nature in time, exerted a negative influence on our party, as well as on the ranks of the communist movement more generally. Ideological vigilance was relaxed with the result that revisionist and even anti-communist views developed in the Central Committee, and among a fairly large number of the party cadres, who had recently been elected to various organs, leading to the inner-party crisis of the 1990-91 period.

41. Our party must pay careful attention to the lessons to be drawn here, from  even a quick glance, regarding: the policy of promoting cadres, the social composition, collectivity and internal democracy, the steadfast struggle against opportunism and reformism, as well as the study, assimilation and development of our theory in the changing social and political reality.

The recent tragic experience showed that it is not enough for a party to adopt Marxist-Leninist theory in order to function in practice on the basis of its theory and functioning principles.

There must be a permanent concern for respect of principles, for the creative application of theory and for its development and enrichment in practice on the basis of objective developments. The main responsibility rests with the CC, and with the party cadres who must create the prerequisites and conditions for knowledge and experience of the struggle to be acquired by all party members and more broadly by the circle of the party's influence and activity. Complacency and relaxation lessen the party's capacity to develop and mature continuously, to retain and broaden its ability to fight for the interests of the working people, for the cause of social change and socialism.