95th anniversary of the KKE

The political-cultural event was very successfully completed in the packed Stadium of Peace and Friendship to honour the 95^th anniversary of the KKE, on Sunday the 8^th of December 2013. Thousands of people filled the stands and the central space of the stadium in order to celebrate its 95^th anniversary together with the KKE and to honour the struggles and sacrifices of the communists and people, responding to the KKE’s call to mobilization which was addressed by the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas.

“Lets finally dispense with the illusions, you are either with capital or with the workers” and “Capitalism is not the future, Socialism, the new world, is the future” were some of the slogans that were heard in the stadium, which had been dressed in red earlier that day in order to welcome the workers and the youth to the event of the Attica Party Organization of the KKE.

An important moment of the evening was the announcement that 60 Communist and Workers’ Parties from all over the world sent messages of greetings for the 95^th anniversary of the KKE.

In his speech, the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, stressed the following amongst other things regarding the 95^th anniversary of the KKE:

“We learn from our heroic history, we remain unshakably fixed on our goal for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man. We learn from the selfless contribution and sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of children of our people, communist men and women, militants, who were in the front line of the battle, consciously fighting in the class struggle. We learn from the positive, but also from the negative turning-points of this titanic struggle. From the weaknesses, the mistakes, the omissions. (…)

The KKE is the only party that dared and dares to study its history, because it knows very well that the study of history is an element for the development of a revolutionary party.

The KKE never renounced its role as the party of the working class, of the class that has the historic mission of leading the revolutionary transformation of society, the construction of the socialist-communist society.

The KKE, despite its deficiencies, never abandoned its strategic goal, socialism, it never renounced the class struggle, the socialist revolution, the need to overthrow the dictatorship of a minority, i.e. of the bourgeois class, of the exploiters and to replace it with the dictatorship of majority, which is comprised of the proletariat, the working class, the exploited.

The KKE dared and dares to study its past, to draw valuable conclusions, to correct its mistakes, to elaborate its strategy.

It is the maturation of collective thinking of the party, the elaboration of a contemporary revolutionary strategy by the KKE that annoys the opponent, that infuriates him.

The essence, of course, of all this is to be found elsewhere. The conclusions from the study of the history of the party, the conclusions from the socialist construction are a “nail in the eye” of the bourgeois and opportunists. The elaboration of the revolutionary strategy of the KKE, the decisions of the 19^th Congress, its Programme and Statutes are a “nail in their eyes”. (…)

We feel the agony of the worker and the unemployed, of the public sector worker, the self-employed, who says in desperation “something must happen now”, we address them all and say: now we must utilize the experience we have acquired all these years and think:

Who was right? The KKE or the other parties in relation to their stance towards the European Union and NATO?

Did the KKE tell the truth or not when it warned about the Maastricht Treaty and its notorious freedoms which are chains for the peoples?

Have we not been proved correct from the very beginning when we warned about the notorious accession to the EMU and euro, at the time then the KKE voted against, when everyone else altogether – and today’s supporters of the Drachma- were celebrating it?

We once again call on the popular strata, the youth, the women to think (…) about why the KKE does not enter a government on capital’s terrain, from whatever part of the two-poles it might originate.” This was the question posed by Dimitris Koutsoumpas, noting that on the terrain of capitalism, any “left” government or government with another name “in the final analysis, the result for the people will be the same, because this government will also proceed along the path of capitalist development which breaks the people for the profitability of the monopolies. Because this government will also operate inside the anti-worker walls of the EU, it will undertake and implement the same commitments which are disastrous for the people.”

In a particular reference to SYRIZA, the GS of the CC of the KKE noted: “SYRIZA is the one who wants, indeed in the name of the left, to implement the pro-monopoly management formulas like that of the IMF, which advertises the “made in the USA” models, is providing its credentials to and collecting letters of recommendation from the institutes of the plutocracy all over the world. All those same people who gave letters of recommendation to Giorgos A. Papandreou and are promoting Tsipras this year, as they did two years ago with Papandreou, as the great world intellectual, with SYRIZA’s party organ boasting and celebrating this pitiful situation…

SYRIZA praises the founders of the EU, like Kohl and Mitterrand, and is calling the notorious big investors-capitalists to mobilize for the supposed productive reconstruction of the country, a reconstruction the purpose of which is also to strengthen the big businesses, the monopolies, to make them competitive. Due to this competitiveness of the “state economy”, the public and private sector of the economy will cooperate and the people will pay a high price for health, education and other social services. Even if it gives something more to the minimum wage, it will take it back through new price increases and through direct and indirect taxation.

And the people should think on the following: After last year’s election result - when SYRIZA became the official opposition with 27% and indeed stating that it is also ready to become the government- did the movement advance or retreat? Did the people come out onto the streets or, like “a desperate man who is drowning” simply try to survive?”

D. Koutsoumpas stressed that “the KKE today is undertaking a great responsibility to strengthen the People’s Alliance, the social alliance of the broad popular majority which is struggling with an anti-capitalist anti-monopoly line for working class-people’s power.

The KKE is seeking strength everywhere today with this perspective.  We are asking for strength so that we can reinforce this struggle and not so that we can be entangled in the utopia and mockery of allegedly making the EU more humane, of giving the kiss of life to the capitalist path of development (…)

There is a pro-people answer. All this is not inevitable. The proposal of the KKE provides answers for today, it is a programme for power, “a programme for government”, as our people say, for the working class and its allies, for their interests, who will fight under their own banners and not under a false flag.

And what is this proposal? Listen to it: The economic instruments can be placed at the service of the people. They must be socialized. The mineral wealth, the infrastructure and the machines of the industry, energy, telecommunications, transport, retail, land, the capitalist agricultural-livestock businesses, the natural resources must become the people’s property, and retail must be state-owned.

Next to the socialized sector of the economy, agricultural producer cooperatives must be organized. The new working class people’s power with these tools will centrally plan the economy, to strengthen development of the sectors and the regions, to breathe life into the countryside. This development has as its criterion the satisfaction of the people’s needs and not the profits.” Said D. Koutsoumpas in conclusion.

The emotions climaxed in the musical progamme. The lyrics from the works of Mikis Theodorakis were on the lips of all. These works were interpreted at the event by distinguished Greek singers, such as M. Farandouri, M. Mitsias, V. Lekkas with the assistance of the Symphony Orchestra and choir of the Municipality of Athens.