Interview of Eliseos Vagenas Member of the CC and Responsible for the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE with the newspaper Tiedonantaja of the CP of Finland

The Communist Party Of Greece turned 95 years last year, We Congratulate You for that! How was this celebrated?

This is an important landmark which our party celebrated over the previous months, with wide campaigning work amongst the people, with dozens of events, lectures, initiatives all over Greece, with as their climax the central event in the largest indoor stadium in the country which was full to the rafters. Tens of thousands of workers and young people took part in these events all over the country.

In essence, the celebration of the 95^th anniversary of the party constitutes the beginning of a 5 year period of political-cultural activity with as its title: “From the 95^th to the 100^th anniversary of the KKE.” The CC declares as its goal of these 5 years the dissemination of the KKE’s programme for socialism, the exposure of the rottenness and contemporary barbarity of capitalism to the working class and popular forces, especially to the young men and women. It declares as its special goal the ideological-political and organizational steeling of the party-as well as of its youth organization, KNE- as a party for the revolutionary overthrow. With its Declaration the CC announced a series of central activities such as publishing initiatives on the history of the party and the Communist International (CI), of which the KKE was a section, the political-ideological book, as well as a range of rich cultural events, and the encouragement of the discussion with communist parties of other countries on issues regarding the necessity of the revolutionary strategy.

What are in your opinion the most important achievements of KKE during these 95 years?

It is difficult to distinguish isolated moments and to detach them from the historical environment where they were realized.

The KKE was founded in 1918, as the mature product of the development of the labour movement in our country, and also under the impact of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia. The soil of the country has literally been drenched in the blood of thousands of cadres, members and friends of the party.  It is the conscious, organized, vanguard section of the working class and has as its strategic goal the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism-communism.

The many years of positive and negative experience of the international communist movement and the KKE have confirmed that the working class cannot fulfil its historic mission, unless it has its own robust, well-organized and theoretically equipped party, the communist party.

The KKE is guided by the revolutionary worldview of Marxism-Leninism. It fought against the reactionary theories, such as Greece being a "poor relation", the "inferiority of women", the racist theories, nationalism and cosmopolitism of capital, obscurantism and intolerance. The people have no gains – from the 8-hour and 7-hour day in certain sectors, social security, collective labour agreements, unemployment benefits, the distribution of land to farmers, compulsory public education, the improvement of the working conditions and rights of women and young people and many other things – which are not linked to the vanguard activity of our party. And today our party supports the struggle for every popular problem of the workers, the poor farmers and self-employed, at the same time declaring the necessity of the construction of the new socialist-communist society. This is the historical contribution of the KKE: that it has not given up on its historic mission and has not been trapped in the vain attempt to “humanize” capitalism.

From the time of its foundation, the KKE has been faithful to the principle of proletarian internationalism. It defended the socialist construction in the USSR, in the other countries of Europe, Asia and in Cuba. It participated in the Communist International. It expressed its solidarity with the struggles of the world's working class, with the peoples who were fighting for their national liberation, for socialism. The KKE at critical and difficult periods in its struggle, received internationalist solidarity and support from the international communist and labour movement. It struggles for the regroupment of the International Communist Movement after the retreat and crisis it experienced and is still undergoing today, particularly after the victory of the counterrevolution in 1989-1991. At the initiative of our party the International Meetings of the CPs began after the counterrevolution in the USSR. These meetings were hosted in Athens from 1999 to 2005 (and in 2011). Today our party supports the website SOLIDNET (www.solidnet.org), onto which each CP uploads its materials. We support the regional cooperation and coordination of the CPs, through the regular Balkan communist meetings, the meetings of the CPs of the Eastern Mediterranean, the annual European Communist Meetings, as well as the new form of regional cooperation of the CPs of Europe, the “INITIATIVE” (http://www.initiative-cwpe.org). In addition it supports the cooperation of the theoretical journals of CPs in an attempt to study the contemporary issues and to elaborate a revolutionary strategy through the journal “International Communist Review” (http://www.iccr.gr/).

Nevertheless, if you insist, we could consider as climactic moments of the 95 year history that the KKE was at the forefront of the armed struggle against the occupation by the three powers (Germany, Italy and Bulgaria) through the Resistance of EAM-ELAS. On two occasions, in December of 1944 and in the three year struggle (1946-1949) of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), the labour movement, headed by the KKE, and the allied farmers' movement came into armed conflict with the bourgeois power, which was supported by the direct imperialist military intervention of Great Britain initially and later the of USA.

The endurance our party displayed during the long period of its illegality, in the 1950s and 1960s and its contribution to the anti-dictatorship struggle 1967-1974 were also important.

It´s well known that Greece is in economical crisis and it´s people has been made to pay for this in different ways. What is the reason for the crisis?  What is the answer of KKE to the crisis? How has the ordinary citizens outlived the crisis? What is there to be done now so that the people should suffer any more?

In recent years the people are experiencing the consequences of the capitalist economic crisis, which is not due to the neo-liberal management, to the so-called “casino-capitalism”, as the social-democratic and opportunist forces claim. The mechanism that created was described very well by Marx and it holds true today. The internationalization of capital, the financial derivatives are nothing other than the features of the capitalist system itself and not some form of distortion of it. There can be no “healthy” or “productive” capitalism. The crisis is of the capitalist system itself and its cause is the over-production and over-accumulation of capital which is based on the central contradiction between the social character of production and the individual appropriation of its results in capitalism.

When you ask how the average Greek is surviving the crisis, we must take into account that, as Marx said, “The crisis is precisely the phase of disturbance and interruption of the process of reproduction.” The first major consequence is unemployment, which has officially reached 30% and 60% amongst young people. In addition, the workers are now paid with very low salaries, or they are not paid for months. The pensions have been cut. The taxation of the working class and popular strata has grown enormously.

All these things are happening because the capitalist crisis is accompanied by the harshest attack on the working class rights and gains. Work, social security, health, education, culture are being sacrificed on the altar of the profits of the bankers, ship-owners, industrialists, so that they can safeguard the rate of profit necessary for them and to bring the country back to levels of capitalist growth.

The KKE has as its central slogan that the plutocracy must pay for the crisis and has been organizing the working class and people’s resistance all these years. Dozens of general strikes were organized in recent years by the class-oriented forces that act in an organized way via the All-workers’ Militant Front (PAME), despite the obstacles placed by the compromised forces of the trade union bureaucrats.

The KKE struggles every day so that the real cause of the capitalist crisis is understood by the workers. The communists play the leading role in the struggle of the people concerning every popular problem, through the class-oriented trade unions, the other popular rallies of the self-employed (PASEVE), the poor farmers (PASY), the women (OGE), the students (MAS), as well as the People’s Committees, which supports the working class and popular families in their difficulties to safeguard the basic things: food, electricity, heating. It is struggling against the dismantling of collective labour agreements, against flexible labour relations, unemployment, poverty, the tax robbery of the people, the seizures of homes, the commercialization of health and education.

This struggle has a direction and highlights the contemporary people’s needs which are being suffocated because private ownership is dominant at the level of production, which the working class and its allies must aim to overthrow. A pro-people way out of the crisis in the framework of the capitalist system can not exist. The anti-worker political line of the government (of liberal ND and social-democratic PASOK) is continuing, intensifying the pace of the implementation of the measures that bankrupt the workers, benefiting capital with new profits and at the same time sharpening the repression which aims at controlling the working class-people’s struggle.

On the other side, SYRIZA, an opportunist party which is very rapidly developing into a contemporary social-democratic party, fosters illusions amongst the people that despite the dominance of the monopolies there can be a better form of management. It is playing with the anxiety of the people, with the pressure for immediate solutions without radical changes, “without changing the treaties” of the EU, as its leader Tsipras recently proclaimed. The assurances of SYRIZA that the “state has a continuation”, i.e. clearly stating that it will continue the work of previous governments on the terrain of the anti-worker political line, the ruins of the working class-people’s rights, highlights what he means when he refers to the so-called governmental left.  Tsipras’ candidacy for the presidency of the Commission, exposes SYRIZA”s devotion to the EU, this union of the monopolies. The promotion of the Obama government as a model by SYRIZA is a confirmation that it will govern in order to manage capitalism. These are assurances that have been assessed very specifically by the Federation of Greek Industrialists, which praises the “useful radicalism of SYRIZA”. For this reason the workers must not fall into its trap.

Our answer regarding the way out from the crisis is specific and is the only pro-people one: unilateral cancellation of the debt, disengagement for the EU-NATO with the socialization of the basic means of production, central planning of the economy, workers’ people’s control, with working class-people’s power.

What are the most essential questions, that your party is going to deal with in the future?

The KKE is seeking in the next years to carry out a leap in party building, with clear progress concerning the goals, to be based on the productive age groups, above all on the working men and women in industry, in the places with the concentrated salaried workers, on the young people-workers and not- from the working class and popular families.  We seek our party to become an “all-weather party”. A party which is closely connected with the working class and people. To develop its communist educational capability, its ability to shape young communist men and women, capable members and cadres of the KKE, militants of the tough class struggle in various conditions.

The KKE supported on its solid ideological base, Marxism-Leninism, its new programme, will reinforce its ability and endurance in the face of every kind of diifculties arising from the domestic, European and international correlation of forces in the struggle for socialism-communism, in the face of every kind of pressure. Such a party that is a precondition for all the virtues of the working class to be highlighted, as a class that will be the liberator from exploitation, crises and imperialist wars, together with its allies.

A strong party that will contribute to the development of the labour movement emancipated from the bourgeois and petty bourgeois influences, and chanfes auch as the possibility of a mew social democratic-opportunist government like that of SYRIZA. To connect every economic and political struggle and under any correlation of forces with as the main political task the struggle for the revolutionary workers’ power. To repel the anti-communist offensive and to be vigilant, fighting against the rise of fascism.

The 95^th anniversary of our party’s foundation was utilised to cast light on the main issue of the class struggle: the uncompromising devotion to the struggle for the conquest of working class power in a period of revolutionary conditions, the consistency in the corresponding ideological-political-organizational preparation, not only of the members of the party, KNE, active supporters, as well as other leading workers above all and scientists dedicated to the class struggle, leading self-employed in the cities and farmers.

This year there is going to be the European Parliament elections. What are the goals of KKE in these elections?

The real dilemma of the EU Parliamentary elections is whether the people will say yes or no to the EU and the parties of the EU one-way street. Today the people must answer this question based on its many years of experience, which demonstrates that this predatory alliance brought them many torments and will bring even more, because this is required for capital’s interests which the EU protects. For this reason the people must denounce in the EU parliamentary elections as well the political forces that promote the EU as the only way. Such forces are the traditional bourgeois parties, as well as the “left mouth-piece” of the EU, SYRIZA, which is one of the leading parties of the so-called “European Left Party” (ELP), which according to the estimation of the KKE causes serious, significant damage to the communist and workers’ movement of Europe.

The EU despite the claims of ND and SYRIZA can not be humanized. Neither is a simple exit from the Eurozone or the EU a solution, as the power of capital will remain untouched. A change of currency does not change the base of this system which is based on exploitation. Also the so-called “euro-scepticism” which is fed by centrifugal trends in the EU and sections of the working class is a disorientation. The so-called euroscepticism traps the indignation of the working class and the poor popular strata and does not touch the essence , i.e. its capitalist character. The No to the EU without the combined struggle for the overthrow of bourgeois power can easily be assimilated into the plans of various sections of the bourgeois class. In any case this is highlighted by the similar experience of the Scandinavian countries.

The people’s opposition to the policies of the EU can have a result only through the strengthening of the KKE which has been revealing the character of the EU for many years and promotes as its goal the struggle against the anti-people EU choices and disengagement from it, as a basic precondition for development in favour of the people.

We intend for this strengthening of the KKE to be expressed in the EU Parliamentary elections. At the same time we would like the communist movement to be strengthened at the European level. In this direction, the KKE together with  28 other communist and workers’ parties from EU countries, associated states and from other European countries have created a new form of regional cooperation of the communist parties of Europe, the “communist INITAITIVE”. We should also clarify that parties which are not bound by the EU i.e. they are not full members of any Euro-party. The “INITIATIVE” will develop activity on the occasion of the EU Parliamentary elections, however, it is not an electoral alliance, but our goal is to strengthen the struggle against the imperialist EU and at the same time through the struggles of the workers to highlight the only pro-people alternative solution, the Europe of peace, progress, socialism.

How should EU help Greece and has it helped Greece or has on the contrary made things worse?

What assistance can be given by a “lions’ den”? This how our party characterized the predecessor of the EU, the EEC.

The EU is an inter-state capitalist union is a support for the business groups, the monopolies, the capitalists of Greece and Europe. It really helps them in various ways in order to reinforce their profitability against their competitors, the monopolies of the USA, China, Russia etc.

On the contrary as regards the working class and the popular strata, the EU together with the government and businessmen removes social and labour rights and gains. The EU and the 4 “freedoms” (capital, commodities, services, labour force) which have been institutionalized as the “corner stone” of all the reactionary restructurings of the last two decades, spreading everywhere the commercialization in education, health, the abolition of the social gains, unemployment and destitution, the reduction of the price of labour power. In addition, the EU is seeking to secure the continuation of the exploitative capitalist mode of production, to buttress (ideologically, politically, legally, with repressive measures) the power of the bourgeois class in Europe.

Our people can expect no helping hand, nothing positive from the EU. Only torments and new sacrifices! For this reason the organization of the struggle in Greece and in every country for the disengagement from the EU with working class-people’s power is the only way.

How should the well doing Finland help Greece?

We know very well that relations on uneven inter-dependence are being formed inside the imperialist unions and in the global capitalist system, based on the economic and political-military strength of each country. This is happening in the EU as well. Thus, the impasses of the capitalist mode of production are expressed with greater intensity in Greece and other countries of the South: unemployment, poverty, destitution etc, because the capitalist crisis, which is not caused by the “thieves” and “swindlers” (who are the “icing” on the system’s “cake”), but by the nature of the capitalist system itself, which is now only capable of giving rise to crises and wars.

We also know that in the poorest countries of the world there is accumulated wealth in the hands of the few, who live provocatively in relation to the rest of the population. That even in the richest countries in the world there is enormous poverty. That the rich in the “poor countries” and the rich in the “rich countries” have a “common front” against the workers. They create their own unions and mechanisms in order to maintain and reinforce their power. NATO and the EU are such unions. That the workers, regardless of whether they live in “poor countries” or in “rich countries”, have common interests in the overthrow of capital’s power.

The bourgeois and opportunist parties, in the name of the “nations’” interest and the “national economy” are calling on the working class in the developed countries to “consensus” and sacrifices in order to maintain the lead in competitiveness, while in the less developed countries they call for “consensus” and sacrifices so that the country can be upgraded and develop, so that its economy can become more “competitive” etc. In both cases capital keeps the lion’s share.

The goal of the capitalists of every country is the upgrading of their position in the global imperialist “pyramid”, in order for their businesses to gain larger shares of the markets through the exploitation of the natural wealth and the labour force. Their goal has nothing to offer the workers, apart from a very small section, the “labour aristocracy”, which waits like a Hyena to eat the scraps left by the lions of capitalism, the powerful monopoly businesses.

What the workers of Greece would like is the solidarity from the Finnish people and the strengthening of their struggle, the coordination of the struggle against the EU, against capitalism, the monopolies, to pave the way for the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.