22nd Congress of the Communist Party of Greece:Theses of the Central Committee

With a spirit of responsibility, pride, and combative yet realistic optimism for our just struggle, we welcome the 22^nd Congress of the KKE. We are committed to promoting our Programme for a life free from exploitation and imperialist wars, with dignity and social prosperity befitting the contemporary needs of the working class, other popular forces, and the youth in the 21^st century.

A year ago, entering the final stretch toward the 22^nd Congress, the Central Committee of the KKE circulated the Central Committee’s Resolutions to the Party for discussion. These resolutions covered the following topics: a) Developments on the fronts of the imperialist war and our tasks, b) The course of party building within the Party and KNE, c) The ideological and political work of the Party and the course of Rizospastis, and d) Conclusions from our action in the workers’–trade union movement and the struggles of the people.

These Resolutions by the Central Committee were essential elements in preparing for a deeper assimilation of critical assessments and conclusions, so that we could better understand the conditions in which we operate and fulfil the Party’s purpose as an ideological and political vanguard, serving as a guide for the working class in fulfilling its historic mission: freeing the working class from the shackles of capitalist exploitation and building a new socialist–communist society.

The Theses for the 22^nd Congress, which we are making public, summarize and incorporate the rich discussion that preceded them, through repeated General Assemblies of the Party Base Organizations (PBOs) throughout Greece and abroad. We aspire, through the pre-congress discussion and the work of our Congress, for the Party to take another decisive and solid step in the development of all its contemporary revolutionary characteristics.

The main theme of the 22^nd Congress is the Party itself. The Party must fully harmonize its entire functioning and state of forces with its revolutionary programme and statutes at an accelerated and more effective pace. It must be a truly “all-weather party”, ready for anything, not just in words or as a general goal, but in deeds, reflected in its daily actions and contribution, raising the consciousness of working people and guiding our people’s struggle for socialism. Our Party’s capacity and preparedness concern both its strategic programmatic readiness and its current organizational policy and action in today’s conditions, in continuous unity.

A crucial issue is combining our revolutionary programme with daily revolutionary action in all spheres and at every stage of political guidance work. After all, even in a non-revolutionary situation such as the current one, we must carry out revolutionary work in preparation for the future. We must carry out systematic work to convince an increasing number of workers in both the private and public sectors, as well as the broader popular strata, to break free from bourgeois ideology and all its variants (liberal, social democratic, etc.), opportunism and all bourgeois parties, regardless of their guise, and to intensify and strengthen their struggles, demands, strikes and demonstrations to the fullest extent. We must strengthen the revolutionary movement without sparing any sacrifices or limits to our contribution and organize long-term, persistent preparation.

The Party’s overall assessment of its progress, and the contribution of its guiding organs, cadres and members in this progress, is based on whether our political guidance work corresponds to the Party’s revolutionary character, as defined in its programme and statutes. This is an issue that must be reaffirmed at every Congress, enriched with developments and the generalization of the experience of class struggle. While the positive steps taken in many areas of our activity are undoubtedly valuable, we must not allow ourselves to overlook weaknesses, gaps and shortcomings if we are to bring the entire Party into full alignment with our revolutionary programme.

The question that arises and must be constantly on our minds is how the vanguard, revolutionary character of the Party is achieved in practice and within the Party’s functioning. We focus on the functioning of the PBOs because it is at this level that all weaknesses in political guidance are expressed. The readiness, ability, will and selfless work of every communist, wherever they may be and whatever the circumstances, are general, mandatory and uniform features. It is essential that communists emerge as popular leaders in their neighbourhoods, workplaces and schools, making their mark everywhere, and remaining ready to face any difficulty.

Consequently, the Party’s daily work requires a qualitatively higher level of organization. We must engage with the hundreds of thousands of workers, poor farmers and self-employed in the cities who are affected by the capitalist system and the hardships of war, exploitation, heavy taxation and many other issues that they cannot overcome without overthrowing the bourgeoisie and establishing workers’ power. We must explain this simply and clearly to the broader masses, to the millions of people. We must talk about and promote the characteristics of the socialist society that we are planning to build and start discussing and preparing them today. We must prepare the vanguard, the working class and allied popular forces to gain experience in the harsh conflicts of class struggle.

The KKE operates in Greece, Europe and the wider region under very difficult conditions, within an overall negative correlation of forces, in the struggle for the definitive overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism–communism, the only system that can put an end to imperialist wars, poverty, exploitation, refugees and oppression.

A. THE CURRENT INTERNATIONAL REALITY 

1. Overall assessment of where we stand today

2. Uneven development and sharpening of competition

3. The course of the EU and the Eurozone

4. The imperialist war in Ukraine. Τhe KKE’s positions on the causes of the war, its character and the danger of its generalization

5. The imperialist war in the Middle East, the aims of Israel–USA–NATO, the genocide of the Palestinian people, internationalist solidarity and support for their just struggle

6. Other significant hotspots of conflict and tension today

7. Strategic directions of NATO and the EU

8. The stance of the international communist movement on imperialist wars

B. GREECE IN THE CONTEMPORARY CAPITALIST WORLD 

1. On the Greek economy

2. Shift to a war economy

3. Digital transformation and artificial intelligence

4. Intra-bourgeois contradictions

5. Overall deterioration of the people’s standard of living

6. Increasing aggression of the Greek bourgeoisie and deepening of Greece’s involvement in imperialist wars

7. The course of relations between Greece and Turkey

8. The course of the Cyprus issue

9. On the migrant–refugee issue

C. PROCESSES IN THE GREEK BOURGEOIS POLITICAL SYSTEM 

1. The conditions under which these processes are unfolding

2. The basic elements of the processes in the political system

3. Reactionary developments in bourgeois justice system and the intervention of the Party

4. On Local and Regional Administration

1. Overall assessment of where we stand today

Thirty-five years after the counter-revolutionary overthrows, the balance of power worldwide remains unfavourable to the class-oriented forces, despite the problems of capitalism and the intensification of its contradictions. Capitalist power has managed to co-opt not only sections of the working class, the labour–trade union movement and the popular middle strata, but also Communist Parties. However, developments themselves increasingly point to a system that is outdated, decayed and historically obsolete.

In recent years, the gap between the wealth concentrated in monopoly groups and the relative and absolute poverty experienced by the vast majority of workers has widened.

Instead of being used to fully meet expanding social needs, new technological capabilities, digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) are exploited by capital to increase profitability and the concentration of capital, to increase the degree of exploitation and to suppress and manipulate the working class and the people in general. This capitalist exploitation exacerbates the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system itself.

The intensification of the trend towards relative and absolute impoverishment and long-term unemployment, coupled with the failure to utilize modern scientific and technological capabilities to safeguard the health of the people, fulfil their educational needs, and protect the environment, underscores the sharpening of the fundamental contradiction between capital and labour and, more broadly, of all social contradictions within the capitalist system.

Compared to the long-term average for the period 2000–2019, the slowdown in the international economy over the last three years highlights the large amount of over-accumulated capital that cannot be recapitalized or invested to secure a satisfactory rate of profit. The recession in the Eurozone economy, particularly in Germany, as well as in Japan in Asia, and the marginal slowdown in the USA, are indicative of the real situation of the international capitalist economy.

The over-accumulation of capital and the manifestation of the crisis are periodic results of the normal functioning of the capitalist economy. This is not a deviation, as bourgeois analyses would have us believe. Rather, it arises from the contradiction at the core of the functioning of the capitalist system in the production sphere.

The previous period also proved, once again, that no proposal for bourgeois management —whether Keynesian or neo-liberal, expansionary or restrictive fiscal and monetary policy— can override the laws of capitalist production, nor the contradiction between the social character of production and the capitalist appropriation of its results, which is the fundamental contradiction of the capitalist mode of production and the principal cause of its economic crises.

All management formulas were tested (such as the increase and subsequent decrease of interest rates by the central banks of the imperialist centres, and the large packages of state aid for the “green transition”), confirming once again that they only temporarily mitigate contradictions; they cannot resolve the growing contradictions inherent in the capitalist system.

In this context, and given the sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions, there has been a shift towards a war economy and preparations for a large-scale imperialist war. The aim is twofold: on the one hand, to postpone the onset of the next major capitalist crisis through investment in the war economy; and, on the other hand, to create the conditions for a relatively controlled, large-scale devaluation and destruction of capital in the various hotbeds of war. This shift is accompanied by an increase in the degree of the exploitation of workers, reduced social policy spending and intensified authoritarianism and repression in all imperialist centres.

Once again, it is clear that there is no crime that big capital will hesitate to commit in order to preserve its power and maximize its profits.

For the same reasons that it is escalating its attack on workers’ incomes and rights during this period of imperialist peace, it is planning to drag the peoples into war.

All these developments confirm that capitalism is a historically outdated system. They highlight that the only progressive way out for our times is the revolutionary transition to socialism–communism. 

Uneven development is playing a decisive role in changing the correlation of forces and further sharpening the contradictions between imperialist alliances, within existing alliances, and in the intra-bourgeois contradictions of capitalist states.

Competition between imperialist powers for control of mineral wealth, energy resources, fertile land, water resources, energy and commodity transport routes, geopolitical footholds and market shares has caused two regional imperialist wars —one in Ukraine and one in the Middle East— in which a large number of capitalist states around the world are involved in one way or another. In addition, there are dozens of flashpoints on all continents, where people are shedding their blood for the interests of monopolies and the bourgeois classes. Imperialist alliances are being formed and realigned, and contradictions within them are intensifying.

A key element of the struggle at the international level is the challenge to the supremacy of the USA and the NATO–EU bloc of forces in the international imperialist system.

Opposite the Euro-Atlantic alliance stands the Eurasian alliance under formation, with China as its main force, challenging the USA for supremacy in the international imperialist system, and Russia, which remains the second strongest military power. This alliance, despite its various forms, is looser than the Euro-Atlantic (USA–NATO–EU) alliance and is influenced both by internal contradictions and the interventions of the Euro-Atlantic alliance.

The USA, which still holds the leading position, is trying to halt the shift in the balance of power in China’s favour. International financial institutions have already downgraded the US credit rating. This trend is reflected in the decline of the US share and the significant increase of China’s share in Gross World Product (global GDP) between 2000 and 2025, in the significant difference in growth rates between the USA and China, the large US trade deficit in bilateral trade with China and the EU, and the sharp rise in US public debt. International financial institutions are already downgrading the credit rating of the USA.

In this context, the new Trump administration is further strengthening the protectionist measures introduced by previous US administrations, increasing trade tariffs and threatening to escalate the trade war, even against its allies in the Euro-Atlantic camp. It is abandoning its international commitments to the “green transition” and intensifying the extraction of hydrocarbons. It is promoting a relative devaluation of the dollar to boost US exports, putting pressure on China to prevent the expansion of its influence, while reinforcing the inflow of capital to the USA.

It is trying to limit China’s influence within the emerging BRICS alliance by holding special talks and negotiations with Russia and India. It is also trying to weaken China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, which strengthens its economic ties with countries in Asia and Europe.

US policies are sharpening contradictions within the Euro-Atlantic camp and causing a deterioration in relations between the USA and the EU, Canada and Australia. They are exacerbating intra-bourgeois contradictions within the USA, which are also reflected in developments within the bourgeois political system. They are increasing the likelihood of the decline of the dollar as an international currency. They have a negative impact on international trade and reinforce the downward trend in the international capitalist economy. 

At the same time, China is taking a series of countermeasures to respond to the pressure of US protectionist policies. It has reduced its dependence on exports to the US market and is generously funding the development of new domestic technology and consumption. It is capitalizing on its privileged position in industrial production and supply chains, particularly in the control of rare earths, which play an important role in key sectors in the US and the EU, such as the automotive and the military industry as well as aerodynamics. It is strengthening its strategic alliance with Russia and building on the momentum created by the BRICS, which now includes 10 states and 10 cooperating partners. That is why the US government, despite its aggressive declarations in the trade war, is forced to make temporary compromises and agreements with China.

The People’s Republic of China is currently the most striking example of capitalist restoration led by a Communist Party that has been co-opted in capitalist power, exploiting its ability to intervene extensively in the economy —a fact which, however, has not reduced social inequality and class exploitation in China, as is the case throughout the capitalist world. 

The BRICS countries now far exceed the G7 in their share of global GDP and labour force. They have established a Development Bank (NDB) and a Common Reserve Account (CRA) for emergency situations and are taking steps to strengthen bilateral trade based on their national currencies rather than the dollar, but their structure remains loose, without binding commitments and with internal contradictions (particularly between China and India).

The sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions could widen existing cracks in the Euro-Atlantic axis in the coming years. There are already significant differences, and opinions are increasingly diverging on the stance towards the war in Ukraine, and, more broadly, on relations with Russia and China, trade tariffs, military spending and the “green transition”.

The EU is losing ground and its position in international competition with the USA and China is deteriorating.

In this context, bourgeois states are casting aside diplomatic channels, giving priority instead to trade and economic wars, as well as military preparation. There is a general trend towards a so-called “war economy”.

The eurozone economy has been relatively stagnant over the past three years, with a growth rate not exceeding 0.5%. The most optimistic forecasts suggest that it could reach only 1.1% in 2025.

The EU has become less competitive relative to the USA and China for a number of reasons: higher energy costs; lagging behind in digital transformation, artificial intelligence and new technologies in general; its greater degree of outward-looking policy, which makes it more vulnerable to trade wars; and its heavy dependence on imports of critical raw materials (e.g. rare earths).

The possible escalation of the trade war by the US government, combined with the relative appreciation of the euro against the dollar and comparatively higher energy prices, will have a negative impact on Eurozone exports. 

This situation exacerbates inter-bourgeois contradictions both within and between EU member states (e.g. France, Germany and the Netherlands), due to the objective differences in their fiscal situations, the uneven consequences of the green transition and the shift toward a war economy, their different responses to migration, and, more generally, the impact of uneven capitalist development. Nine EU member states have already breached the EU’s fiscal rules (e.g. France, Italy and Belgium). The differences also concern the stance toward Trump’s policies, as well as toward Russia and China (e.g. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland). 

In any case, the EU is heading toward a further reactionary turn. The implementation of EU directives requires an escalation of the attack on people’s incomes and rights, the extension of flexible labour relations and retirement age limits, new cuts in social spending (e.g. health care), and a further increase in the relative and absolute impoverishment of the workers. 

At the same time, the leadership of the EU and the European Central Bank are promoting the escalation of the trade war with the USA as an opportunity to accelerate efforts to secure the EU’s “strategic autonomy”. More specifically, the EU is attempting to strengthen the euro’s position as an international currency, reverse the flow of capital (from the USA to the EU) and expand its international alliances.

This provides the context for the shift toward a war economy and the reinforcement of the EU’s military forces. This shift is accompanied by a significant increase and reallocation of Community funding, aimed at adapting broad sectors of the economy and scientific research to the needs of the war economy (e.g. the “ReArm Europe” plan to mobilize up to €800 billion, the SAFE financial instrument, etc.).

Of course, the shift toward a war economy is marked by contradictions. Given the EU’s stance on inter-imperialist conflicts and the fact that the overwhelming majority of its member states are also NATO members (with the exceptions of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta), this orientation leads to the purchase of US weapons systems and the further strengthening of the US war industry. At the same time, this shift intensifies contradictions over the redistribution of EU funds (e.g. for the agricultural sector and the green transition) and over the forms of financing (e.g. joint borrowing mechanisms).

Our Party was quick to expose the imperialist character of the war in Ukraine, on both sides of the conflict. It emphasized that the Ukrainian people are paying the price for the competition and interventions of NATO and the EU, which support the Zelenskiy government, on the one hand, and of capitalist Russia, on the other. This represents the culmination of a process that began with the overthrow of socialism and has intensified over the last decade, following the events in Maidan Square. These events were backed by sections of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, as well as by the EU, NATO, and other capitalist states, and led to a coup d’état against the Ukrainian government, accompanied by persecutions of communists, attacks on the Russian-speaking populations in Ukraine, and the banning of all political parties that opposed Ukraine’s integration into NATO and the EU.

The KKE has revealed to the people how the fuel for this war was accumulated. It highlighted the responsibilities of the bourgeois classes of all the forces involved, rejected their pretexts and countered the anti-communist and anti-Soviet distortions of history promoted by both sides. It stressed the need for the peoples to struggle together and opposed Greece’s multifaceted involvement in the war, for which the New Democracy government and all the Euro-Atlantic parties bear responsibility.

In the three-and-a-half years of this war, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have lost their lives, mainly young people of the working class and the poor popular strata. Approximately twenty-five million people have fled their homes. Homes and public infrastructure have been destroyed on a massive scale. Amidst the ruins, capitalist states and monopolies are competing for the “reconstruction” of Ukraine, viewing it as an “investment opportunity”. This will cost hundreds of billions of euros, a burden that the people will be made to bear.

The Russian bourgeoisie has succeeded in seizing 20% of Ukrainian territory and seeks to incorporate Ukraine, in one way or another, into its imperialist alliances, thus preventing its accession to NATO and the EU. The current interim goal of the Russian leadership is to demilitarize Ukraine and ensure that it does not join NATO, while securing recognition of the territorial gains achieved on the battlefield.

The Ukrainian bourgeoisie and its Euro-Atlantic allies seek Russia’s withdrawal from all Ukrainian territories, promoting deeper NATO involvement in the war and Ukraine’s parallel alignment with NATO.

The Trump administration appears in favour of a settlement that would not address the underlying causes of the conflict, but would instead establish a temporary “peace”, providing fertile ground for monopolies to profit from reconstruction and enabling the US to expand its political and economic cooperation with Russia. This would aim to drive a wedge into the emerging Eurasian bloc, concentrate US forces in the confrontation with China and reshape the global balances that govern the unequal relations of interdependence in the imperialist “pyramid”. Such a realignment, under US planning, would seek to reverse the current trend of decline in its power.

This plan is opposed by dominant circles within the EU, who believe that their own interests are being undermined. There is also resistance from sections of monopoly capital and the bourgeoisie in other countries, which have an interest in prolonging the military conflict and maintaining the sanctions policy against Russia. This is an issue  is causing tensions within the EU as well.

The outbreak of contradictions and realignments within imperialist alliances as imperialist conflict and competition unfold is neither paradoxical nor  unprecedented, but a typical feature of imperialist wars. It can lead to former adversaries becoming allies, and former allies becoming adversaries.

Whether the war continues or a temporary “peaceful” settlement is reached, the root causes of the conflict will remain. The danger of escalation and generalization persists, alongside the conditions for a major humanitarian and environmental disaster. The opposing forces are now deploying increasingly modern, state-of-the-art weapons with greater range, even in battles fought near nuclear power plants. The risk of nuclear disaster is also heightened by the fact that Russia, as well as NATO and EU member states involved on Ukraine’s side (e.g. the USA, the United Kingdom and France), are among the world’s most powerful nuclear powers.

The Israeli war machine supported by the USA and the EU, launched a massive operation in the Gaza Strip, using the Hamas attack as a pretext. This operation resulted in the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of innocent people, including unarmed civilians, young children, women and elderly people.

Our Party has consistently stood on the side the Palestinian people, organizing large demonstrations and demanding the recognition of the Palestinian state within the borders that existed prior to June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. We have waged decisive battles in the ideological confrontation propagated under the pretext of combatting “terrorism”, Israel’s right to “self-defence” and other arguments invoked by the dominant bourgeois propaganda, supported by the government and other bourgeois parties, as well as by those who support the Eurasian imperialist axis under formation.

We denounced and opposed the Greek government’s refusal to implement the unanimous 2015 decision of the Greek parliament to recognize the Palestinian state, as well as its whitewashing of Israel’s crimes. This strategy aligns with that of the country’s bourgeoisie, which has pursued economic, political and military cooperation with Israel, a process that began under the PASOK government led by Prime Minister G. Papandreou. Subsequently, the Samaras government (New Democracy–PASOK–Democratic Left) extended cooperation agreements, and the SYRIZA–ANEL government, with Prime Minister A. Tsipras, negotiated and agreed on the terms of the defence cooperation agreement with Israel, which was ultimately ratified by the ND government led by Prime Minister K. Mitsotakis.

Strengthening solidarity with peoples fighting against the imperialist plans of the US and NATO, such as the Palestinian people, remains a matter of ideological–political importance. The imperialist nature of the war in the Middle East and the bourgeois character of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority do not invalidate the just struggle of the Palestinian people and other peoples in the region, who  resist and fight against foreign occupation and other imperialist plans. Through this struggle, they can create the conditions necessary to free themselves once and for all from the system of exploitation and war. It is a matter of internationalist solidarity to defend the struggle and the right of the Palestinians to obtain their own homeland, which requires challenging the accusations of “terrorism” and “terrorists” levelled by the US, NATO, and Israel, as well as the ideological construct that equates any criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism.

In addition to the Palestinian territories, Israel occupies parts of Lebanon and Syria. Among other things, this gives it control over a significant proportion of the region’s water resources, which it exploits for its own benefit.

Its aim is to impose a broader plan on the region, either through economic agreements such as the “Abraham Accords” or through military aggression, in order to establish Israel as a key power throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, in line with the objectives of the Israeli bourgeoisie and the interests of the USA. This goal is linked to the creation of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which will reach Greece and Europe through Israeli ports, facilitating the US in fully aligning India in its competition with China and Iran.

Other regional powers (Iran, Turkey), presenting themselves under the guise of 
“protecting” the Palestinian people, pursue their own agendas, including claims over a share of the pie of transport routes for commodities and energy from Asia to Europe.

Similar interests of capital also underlie the stance of other bourgeois classes in the region (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, etc.).

The competition between these forces has led to military clashes between Israel and Iran–Yemen, the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanese territory and the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria by jihadist forces trained and armed by Turkey. The Kurdish issue has also been drawn into these developments, with both Israel and Turkey seeking to exploit it to serve their own objectives. Turkey is reinforcing its presence in Syria and continuing the aggressive actions of its bourgeoisie under the banner of “neo-Ottomanism”.

The US continues to exert strong influence, supporting Israel and the Gulf monarchies in addressing both the Israel–Turkey conflict in Syria and the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme, while also instrumentalizing the Kurdish issue to serve its own goals.

All these facts demonstrate that the region remains mired in imperialist rivalries and that conditions are being created for a further escalation of the war in the Middle East and beyond. This was the direction taken by Israel’s planned air and missile attack against Iran on 13 June 2025, followed by the US, which on 22 June 2025 employed heavy bombers and high-yield bombs against Iran under the pretext of its nuclear programme, but in reality aiming to advance the “New Middle East” plan and assert tight control of the wider region.

The focus of US competition with China is shifting towards the Indo–Pacific region, the South China Sea —an important shipping artery through which one-third of maritime transport passes— and the Taiwan Strait, which are major sources of tension.

Other areas of tension include the Panama and Greenland sea routes and the Arctic.

The conflict between Pakistan and India, both of which possess nuclear arsenals, is also gaining new dimensions.

Relatively close to our country, two armed civil conflicts are raging in Libya and Sudan. These conflicts have claimed tens of thousands of lives and made life unimaginably difficult for millions more. These conflicts involve the bourgeois classes of neighbouring and nearby capitalist countries as well as more powerful imperialist forces. Here too, the issue is the division of mineral wealth (e.g. oil, uranium, gold), transport routes for commodities (e.g. ports) and military footholds (e.g. foreign military bases), while in Sudan’s case, control of the waters of the Nile is also a powerful factor.

As demonstrated by Trump’s actions against Canada, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela, no region is immune to fierce competition. Venezuela is advancing its territorial claims against Guyana over the oil-producing region of Essequibo.

 Furthermore, the contradictions between the bourgeois classes in the Balkans and the Caucasus are intensifying due to the involvement of more powerful imperialist states, which could lead to bloodshed among the peoples.

NATO’s strategy reflects the intensification of competition between the USA and China, and between the USA and Russia, as well as the demands of the war in Ukraine. The NATO Strategic Concept 2030 is being implemented, combat-ready multinational military units are being established, its conventional and nuclear arsenal is being modernized, and its actions are reoriented towards the formation of a “global NATO” capable of intervening across the globe. Relations with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and India are being strengthened. The Southeast Wing (Mediterranean, Middle East, North Africa, etc.) is being reinforced and “partnerships” with states in these regions are expanding, while the mobility of NATO forces and weapons to war or potential war fronts is being enhanced. Key elements include:

• NATO enlargement (North Macedonia, Finland and Sweden have already joined), political and military support for Ukraine, and the struggle for the accession of Georgia and Moldova;

• Increase in military spending (to 3% and then 5% of member states’ GDP) and acceleration of military production, enhancing interoperability and securing critical supply chains;

• Modernization of nuclear infrastructure within the framework of the “first nuclear strike” doctrine.

In order to serve the needs and interests of European monopolies in international capitalist competition, and to enhance its position in the imperialist system, the EU cooperates with NATO and the USA. However, it also engages in imperialist wars and interventions independently. Based on the “Common Foreign and Security Policy” (CFSP) and the “Common Security and Defence Policy” (CSDP), it is proceeding with the establishment of military and non-military missions and operations in many areas of the globe. Amid a climate of internal contradictions, the foundations are being laid for so-called Strategic Autonomy, adding new weapons to the EU’s arsenal.

A key feature of this period is the shift of the European capitalist economy towards war and the war economy, and, within this framework, the strengthening of the war industry. A decisive factor is the shift in EU subsidies from “green growth” to the war industry, a shift that reflects both the limits of “green growth” as an outlet for over-accumulated capital and the preparation for impending military engagement. It should be noted that this shift does not mean  abandoning the “green growth” policy, but rather a readjustment of subsidies and investments for the coming period. Within the context of war economy and military preparation, the so-called White Paper is being implemented, which includes the EU’s Safe Regulation, providing €150 billion in loans for the benefit of the war industry in member states and third countries, creating a new field of competition that also affects relations between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey.

The imperialist war in Ukraine has caused new ideological and political divisions and deepened existing ones. Communist parties, which previously identified imperialism solely with the aggressive foreign policy of the USA and certain powerful capitalist states in Europe and glossed over the role of other capitalist states, now see Russia, China and Iran as supposed “anti-imperialist forces” or even an imaginary “anti-imperialist axis”.

Such forces, arbitrarily and unscientifically, overlook inter-imperialist contradictions and corresponding competition, which are the root cause of imperialist wars, and believe that sooner or later a “just”, “peaceful” and “multipolar world” will gradually take shape. Some of them support China, Russia or the European Union, considering these forces to be “new poles” and “formidable adversaries” of the USA, equating the aspirations of the bourgeois classes of these states or unions with the interests of the working class and popular strata in their countries.

Two issues are of great importance:

a) The character of China: Communist parties that do not recognize its capitalist nature —due to the extensive state sector in its economy and the title of the ruling party— view China’s rivalry with the USA for supremacy in the international capitalist system as a struggle between “socialism and capitalism”.

b) Parties whose strategy is based on the notion of stages in the revolutionary process, which posits a supposed pro-people stage before socialism, treat fascism as a “deviation from bourgeois democracy” rather than as a product of capitalism, and are prone to “anti-fascist” rhetoric, which translates into notions of “anti-fascist fronts”, “anti-fascist war” utilized by bourgeois forces and governments to promote their anti-popular objectives, political alliances, and even military operations. Maintaining the strategy of stages leads these parties to consider a series of bourgeois (social democratic) governments as “anti-imperialist” and “progressive”.

The imperialist war in Ukraine has affected the international forms of cooperation in which our Party participates. The International Communist Review (ICR) had to undergo a period of restructuring, while the European Communist Initiative (ECI), which was dissolved, was replaced by the European Communist Action (ECA). The ideological–political conflict intensified in the context of the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWPs), held in Havana (2022) and Izmir (2023), as reflected in the positions of the Communist Parties and the different resolutions they tabled and adopted.

The situation of the IMCWPs is very problematic; issues of joint action and solidarity have significantly weakened, with characteristic cases including those surrounding the Communist Party of Venezuela and solidarity with the peoples of the Middle East. A situation is emerging that threatens their continued existence, while various forms (“platforms” and “forums”) whitewash imperialist plans and attempt to drag the communist movement into the service of the imperialist Eurasian axis under formation, following the example of the Party of the European Left (PEL), which supports the imperialist EU.

In this difficult and complex situation, our Party supports the Communist Parties with which it cooperates and disseminates its positions on imperialist war and other crucial issues. This aims to initiate discussions within the Communist Parties and Communist Youth Organizations.

In addition to the parties with which we cooperate closely, we maintain good relations with Communist parties on all continents which follow our elaborations and positively evaluate the activity of the KKE.

We believe that it is necessary to:

- Strengthen our internationalist solidarity against imperialist aggression, repression, and anti-communism, with methodical support for initiatives and workers’–people’s struggles to address the challenges faced by the Communist Parties, trade unions, and workers’–people’s forces.

- Safeguard and strengthen cooperation with the Communist Parties of the ECA and the ICR. Develop a plan to foster joint action and promote cooperation with Communist Parties and communist forces that follow the activity of the KKE and KNE and are concerned about the situation in the communist movement.

- Defend, as far as possible, any communist characteristics in the IMCWPs, preparing for all eventualities.

In particular, we seek joint action and cooperation with Communist Parties and communist forces that meet the following criteria:

a) Defend Marxism–Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and recognize the need to form a communist pole at an international level.

b) Fight against opportunism and reformism, rejecting the centre-left or any form of bourgeois management of capitalism, participation in or support of bourgeois anti-popular governments, and any variation of the strategy of stages.

c) Defend the scientific laws of the socialist revolution, based on which they assess the course of socialist construction and seek to research and draw lessons from the problems and mistakes. Reject positions on “market socialism” or any negation of the laws of socialist construction due to national peculiarities.

d) Condemn the imperialist war and highlight the responsibilities of the bourgeois classes on both sides. Maintain a clear ideological front against erroneous views on imperialism, particularly those that detach military aggression from the economic content of imperialism. Oppose any imperialist alliance and refuse to take sides in the imperialist conflict.

e) Establish ties with the working class, are active in the trade union movement and the movement of popular sections of the middle strata, seeking to integrate the daily struggle for workers’ and people’s rights into a contemporary revolutionary strategy for workers’–people’s power.

f) Do not detach anti-war and anti-fascist struggle from the struggle against capitalism, which gives rise to war and fascism. Reject the phony “anti-fascism” and the various “anti-fascist fronts” used by bourgeois and opportunist forces to entrap the peoples in their plans.

The Party organizations of the KKE abroad have made a significant contribution to supporting and advancing the KKE’s policy in their countries of residence, and today they can contribute even more effectively to the development of the communist and labour movement. The objective basis for such a political orientation is that KKE and KNE members abroad encounter the same or similar challenges as other workers’–people’s forces in the countries where they live, work and study.

The domestic economy is currently in a phase of growth, following the deep capitalist crisis of 2008–2015, the subsequent period of stagnation and the smaller crisis of 2020–2021. Despite GDP growth and a declining unemployment rate over the last four years, GDP remains below its 2008 level, as does total employment. At the same time, capitalist growth remains relatively precarious in the medium to long term, as the domestic economy is closely linked to EU economies and a new recession in the EU is expected to negatively affect Greece’s capitalist economy. 

Although the Greek economy has grown faster than the EU average over the past year, it remains at the bottom of EU rankings in terms of labour productivity and investment as a share of GDP. Investment is concentrated in tourism and hospitality, as well as in replacement of constant and variable capital related to changes in labour relations and practices, particularly concerning the digital work card and the purported effort to combat undeclared or unregistered work. The current account deficit, and especially the trade deficit, has widened. Over the past four years, the main trends of growth in salaried employment and the expansion of monopoly groups have intensified.

Bourgeois policies sand capitalist growth in recent years have somewhat altered the sectoral structure of the domestic economy compared to the 2000–2008 period. The strengthening of the tourism sector and the relative decline of construction, despite its strong growth, are the most significant changes in the overall economy, with ripple effects across all related sectors.

Tourism now contributes most significantly to GDP, driving growth in many related sectors (e.g. food and beverages, transport), and remains the main export sector of the domestic economy. The majority of new jobs created over the last five years have been in the broader tourism sector.

The petroleum sector has also recorded high export levels. Electricity and telecommunications have also strengthened significantly, reflecting the green digital transition policy, while the basic metals sector has grown mainly due to its ties with energy (cables, pipes).

Maritime freight transport (shipping) continues to be a key pillar of the Greek economy.

Agricultural production remains important for the domestic capitalist economy, in contrast to its performance in most EU countries, while the retail sector continues to account for the largest share of employment, particularly during the winter months. 

The country’s involvement in war and war preparation does not concern only the war industry itself (weapons, ammunition, electronic warfare), nor the core group of businesses producing commodities essential for war (e.g. supplies and construction). The war economy ultimately involves the overall preparation for war and the integration of multiple sectors into the war effort. The country is actively engaged in the energy and trade war, as well as in the economic sanctions against Russia, which have a drastic negative impact on energy prices, while it also participates in providing economic and material support to Ukraine.

At the same time, as a member of NATO and the EU, the country is more deeply involved in the broader international confrontation between the two major blocs —the USA–NATO and China–Russia— which extends from rare earths and technological superiority to the prioritization of transport routes. A characteristic example is the intensification of conflicts over control of domestic ports (e.g. Thessaloniki, Volos) and the development of energy routes from the Middle East to the EU (e.g. the Great Sea, Gregy, East Med) and within the EU (e.g. the Vertical Corridor). More generally, the twofold use (political–economic and military) of certain infrastructures (transport, ports, telecommunications, energy pipelines, etc.), along with their geopolitical significance, is reshaping priorities for their development, always shifting their cost onto the working class and the people.

Over the past five years, rapid digitization has advanced in both the economy —through the growth of e-commerce— and in public administration, with the digital bourgeois state leading the way. The digital bourgeois state can operate far more effectively for the benefit of capital at the expense of the people, facilitating the implementation of reactionary measures, for example in taxation (myData). At the same time, the transfer and exploitation of data by the bourgeois state for domestic and foreign groups is becoming increasingly widespread.

New technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence, are being exploited by the power of capital —both internationally and in Greece— as tools to increase exploitation, as well as to control, manipulate and repress the people. Capitalism exploits cutting-edge technologies to achieve the complete subsumption of labour to the objectives of capital.

The plans and frameworks for the development of Artificial Intelligence promoted by the EU and NATO, and implemented by the Greek government, confirm this reactionary direction.

Capitalism undermines the potential offered by the deepening of the social character of production, the development of artificial intelligence and automation, and scientifically organized labour, which could shorten the length of the forced working day and improve the content of non-working time across all aspects of social life. It negates the enormous potential to meet contemporary needs, make work creative, provide meaningful education, protect health, and ensure free time rich in content. Consequently, the advent of the era of artificial intelligence today exacerbates the fundamental contradiction between capital and labour.

In any case, the modern working class remains the main productive force and the decisive factor in confronting the contemporary mechanisms of the system of exploitation, in overthrowing capitalism and building socialism–communism. Capitalism, which is in decay, is neither invincible nor omnipotent.

Against the backdrop of these technological changes, there is a trend toward the further growth of certain large business groups that play a decisive role in the production process and often have a nationwide character, both in terms of production structure and their impact on the working class and popular strata.

The aforementioned changes in the structure of the economy and bourgeois policies are fuelling a series of intra-bourgeois contradictions, which have intensified in recent times. These contradictions concern, among other things, energy and the high cost of green energy in industry; the overall sectoral structure; the dominance of tourism in the economy, often referred to as a “tourism monoculture”, which competes with other sectors and shapes debates about the so-called productive model of the domestic economy; the distribution of state and EU funds among sectors and branches of the economy; and the prioritization of subsidies.

A special aspect of these contradictions is so-called over-tourism, i.e. the excessive influx of tourists to certain areas of the country. This is a complex issue, involving, among other things, the size of tourism in relation to other sectors, the distribution of tourism income between tourism capital and petty-bourgeois strata, and the major negative impact that large tourist flows have on the popular strata living in these regions, including the strain on infrastructure and natural resources.

Economic growth in recent years has not led to an improvement in workers’ living standards, but rather to a significant decline. Wages in Greece are the second lowest in the EU after Bulgaria, while the country ranks first in terms of monthly working hours. Nominal wages have increased but remain —in nominal terms— lower than pre-crisis levels and far lower when one takes into account the levels that nominal wages would have reached with the increases provided for in the collective labour agreements of the pre-crisis period. Above all, however, real wages, despite the increase in nominal wages, have fallen during the period under review due to massive inflation, which has been caused by many factors. These include the monetary policy of the ECB, huge increases in energy prices, the imposition of high prices by international and domestic business groups that have a dominant position in the market (two groups control petroleum products, three to four groups control food sales, three groups control telecommunications, three groups control shipping, etc.), the government’s tax offensive through excessive VAT, and the tax burden on the self-employed, which objectively increases the cost of commodities. The attack on workers’ income is further complemented by the expansion of the commercialization of an entire category of services, leading to a large increase in their prices, with typical examples being health and education, as well as the increase in rents and housing loans. There is also a declining trend in household savings, while the gap between deposit and loan interest rates is widening and remains one of the largest in the EU.

At the same time, the current phase of capitalist development allows the capitalist system to implement policies of alliance with the middle strata of popular forces. Also, in combination with the reduction of unemployment and the extension of working hours, conditions are being created for the co-option of sections of the working class due to limited increases in wages, etc.

Over the years we are examining, all bourgeois political forces are fully complicit in the current outcome. The “green–digital transition”, the extremely costly “alternative” forms of energy and digitization are all aspects of a unified policy: from PASOK’s vision for a “Denmark of the South” to SYRIZA’s aggressive promotion of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and the digital agenda through credit cards, leading up to the period of the ND government. All are complicit in the heavy taxation on salaried workers and the self-employed, and especially in the explosion of VAT and the housing problem. The general agreement of the bourgeois parties on the central policies of the EU for “green growth”, competitiveness and the promotion of the single market —and ultimately their role as managers of capitalist power— lies behind their shared responsibility for the relative impoverishment of working people.

The attack on workers’ income and rights is a one-way street for the strategy of capital. The shift to a new increase in military spending, the termination of the Recovery Fund in 2026 and the pressure to attract large investments over the next three years, as well as the goal of prepaying loans to the EU, will lead to an escalation of the anti-people attack, particularly in relation to retirement age limits, the expansion of flexible labour relations and the maintenance of high food and energy prices.

The Greek bourgeoisie, with particular aggressiveness, defends and promotes its strategic interests independently and through the imperialist alliances of NATO and the EU, while also strengthening relations with the USA, in order to enhance Greece’s position in the international imperialist system and the region as a powerful energy and transport hub, claiming a larger share of the spoils of imperialist wars and interventions.

These objectives are currently being pursued by the New Democracy government with the support of SYRIZA, PASOK, and all the bourgeois parties, engaging the country in NATO and Euro-Atlantic plans in the role of aggressor against other peoples. This policy places the Greek people at great risk, leaving them caught in the crosshairs of retaliation by rival imperialist alliances.

Within Greece’s bourgeoisie there are also powerful business interests that are harmed by developments and are dissatisfied, seeking “corrective measures” and expressing concerns about what they describe as the “unconditional” participation in NATO planning, while calling for relations with Russia to be maintained. However, these intra-bourgeois contradictions over the foreign policy of the Greek state do not currently form a cohesive bourgeois political force capable of challenging the country’s stable alignment with the imperialist NATO and EU camp.

The policy of involvement of the Greek bourgeois state permeates all governments and the entire bourgeois political system, acquiring qualitatively more dangerous characteristics each year, and even raising the prospect of the Greek Armed Forces participating directly on the front lines in military conflicts.

 Characteristic elements of this policy include:

 • The transformation of Greece into a US–NATO launching pad, through the US–Greece Strategic Dialogue and agreements to expand US–NATO military bases,. This process, initiated by SYRIZA, is being implemented by the New Democracy government, with the agreement of PASOK and other pro-NATO parties. Military bases in Souda, Larissa, Magnesia, Alexandroupoli, Aktio and elsewhere are used as forward outposts for the USA and NATO in all imperialist wars in the region, with a particular role in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

 • The shipment of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, along with discussions about supplying Ukraine with fighter jets.

 • The integration of the Greek Armed Forces into NATO’s planning of the proposed €28 billion “Agenda 2030” armament programme, which continuously burdens the people with new costs. The Greek people have already paid €8.054 billion in military spending for NATO needs in 2022, €6.224 billion in 2023 and €7.126 billion in 2024.

 • The dispatch of Greek warships and military units on Euro-Atlantic missions abroad.

 • Military agreements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, as part of NATO’s plans against Iran.

 • Participation in NATO preparations for a generalized imperialist war, including the potential use of nuclear weapons.

The KKE, as a matter of principle, condemns and opposes this policy of involvement. It stands fully aligned with the interests of the working class, the popular strata and the rights of the youth, in opposition to the various pretexts used by the bourgeoisie and the prevailing policy to entrap the people, whether under the banner of the so-called national interest, “typical alliance obligations” or similar justifications.

Greek-Turkish relations are shaped by a mix of cooperation and confrontation between the bourgeois classes of the two capitalist states, both NATO allies.

The so-called restart of Greek-Turkish relations, initiated at the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July 2023, and the “Road Map” being promoted under US-NATO supervision —with its “Political Dialogue”, “Confidence-Building Measures” and so-called positive agenda (trade and economic agreements focused on the interests of business groups)— serves specific objectives, including:

 • Strengthening NATO’s southeastern flank in line with the demands of imperialist competition and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

 • Developing the economic and energy relations between the two states, including joint exploitation and management in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, within the framework of the broader Euro-Atlantic planning for the benefit of the interests of monopolies at the expense of the peoples.

Despite plans for cooperation on joint exploitation and management of the Aegean and parts of the Eastern Mediterranean, competition between the two bourgeois classes will not disappear. New points of contention are emerging, including issues related to Maritime Spatial Planning and Marine Parks.

The Turkish state continues to put forward a set of unacceptable claims that challenge the sovereignty and sovereign rights of the Greek islands in the Aegean, reiterating arguments about “grey zones” (islands and islets) and the demilitarization of the islands. It promotes the so-called “Blue Homeland” doctrine, asserting claims to a wider area including the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. It exploits the Turkey-Libya Pact with the threat of energy exploration in maritime areas that do not belong to Turkey, while portraying the Muslim minority in Thrace as Turkish, in violation of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Turkish consulate and nationalist forces actively intervene in the region, aiming to divide and entrap the people.

The Greek government deliberately fosters a climate of complacency, but the people must remain vigilant, because the haggling in the Greek-Turkish negotiations involve fundamental issues of sovereignty and sovereign rights.

The crucial task is to strengthen the friendship and common struggle of the Turkish and Greek people against the bourgeois classes and their interests, their alliances, and the anti-popular policies of bourgeois states and governments. The KKE advances this cause in cooperation with the Communist Party of Turkey, upholding the goal of “no change in the boundaries and the treaties that define them”, which remains both timely and necessary.

Despite the unfounded expectations raised by promoting Cyprus as an energy hub in the region, Turkey’s occupation of 37% of Cypriot territory continues, and the Cyprus issue is further exacerbated amid the maelstrom of imperialist rivalries. Dangerous arrangements are being promoted with the aim of enhancing the island’s status in Euro-Atlantic planning, reflecting broader regional developments.

Claims that Cyprus’s accession to the EU and the strengthening of relations with the USA and NATO would contribute positively to the search for a “fair” solution have collapsed.

The role of the pseudo-state in Turkey’s strategy is being strengthened, serving both as a military base and a tool to claim energy resources in the region. Efforts are underway to pave the way for “direct trade, flights and contacts”, with the complicity of Euro-Atlantic actors, moving toward international recognition.

The partition of Cyprus into two states, shaped by Greek-Turkish bourgeois rivalries and intense imperialist competition, risks becoming permanent.

The approach to the Cyprus issue as an international matter of invasion and occupation has been weakened. The proposal for a “bi-zonal, bi-communal federation”, which has shifted from a compromise position to a principle based on “two constituent states”, amounts to a confederal solution. It objectively facilitates partitionist aspirations and legitimizes the consequences of the invasion and occupation. This approach runs counter to the need to develop a coordinated workers’–people’s struggle of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, for the reunification of Cyprus and its people, to resist nationalism and the cosmopolitanism of capital. The goal must remain an independent and united Cyprus: one state, not two; with a single sovereignty, a single citizenship and international personality; a common homeland for Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins; free from occupying forces, foreign troops and bases of any kind; without guarantors or protectors; with the people masters in their land.

Under today’s circumstances, the migrant-refugee issue is becoming increasingly complex. The escalation of imperialist war, the predatory exploitation of countries, environmental destruction caused by unbridled business activity, and relentless competition in the global division of labour are driving ever greater migration and refugee movements. The contradictions among bourgeois forces over how to manage the balance between repression and the attraction of labour are intensifying. The insurmountable deadlocks of the system of capitalist exploitation are becoming increasingly apparent.

These contradictions are expressed in the new EU Pact on Immigration and Asylum, which is an integral part of the war economy and preparation and constitutes the guiding framework of bourgeois strategy on immigration and refugee policy across all member states. The Pact prioritizes the intensification of repression, violating every principle of “international law” that had prevailed since World War II under the influence of socialism. Border controls extend to both the external borders of the EU and to internal borders between member states, even leading to partial suspension of the Schengen Agreement. The so-called first reception countries, such as Greece, continue to act as gatekeepers, entrapping migrants and refugees. At the same time, a network of agreements with third countries outside the EU is being promoted, whereby these countries, in exchange for investment capital, undertake to prevent migrants and refugees from entering the EU, through brutal repression, the creation and maintenance of migrant and refugee detention centres (“return hubs”), and the supply of a cheap renewable labour (“circular legal migration”). Policies aimed at attracting labour are accompanied by discussions about the demographic problem and the population ageing.

The refugee–migration issue continues to be instrumentalized in major geopolitical bargaining, for example in the preferential treatment of Ukrainian refugees compared to those from other war-torn countries, in relations with Turkey and African countries such as Libya and Tunisia, and in the context of the Palestinian issue.

At the same time, migration is central to bourgeois political processes in many EU countries and is being used to reshape the bourgeois political system. Racist and xenophobic hatred is cultivated, and far-right and fascist forces are strengthened. Repressive measures against immigrants and refugees form part of a broader framework of repression, authoritarianism and the terrorization of the people, in the context of war preparations. They serve the broader objective of subordinating the  working class and popular strata to dangerous imperialist plans.

The Greek bourgeoisie remains faithful to this approach on migration and refugees. The New Democracy government, building on the work of the previous SYRIZA–ANEL government, continues to play a key role in advancing EU policies. The recent racist and inhumane law of the ND government (Plevris law) on the deportation and imprisonment of immigrants and refugees opens up extremely dangerous paths. At the same time, transnational agreements on labour importation (so far with Egypt and Bangladesh) and the framework for the so-called hiring of workers and seasonal workers serve the interests of capital in key sectors of the Greek economy, including construction, tourism and the primary sector. Migration and refugees remain central to the foreign policy agenda and are linked to broader geopolitical conflicts and processes, such as the Greek-Turkish relations and relations with Libya and Egypt.

Under these circumstances, the Party has a major responsibility to promote the common struggles of Greek, migrant and refugee workers, and to carry out deeper ideological work so that the phenomenon of migration is better understood, while countering bourgeois ideological constructs and the poison of racism and xenophobia. The task set at the 21st Congress remains: to develop action defending the rights of immigrants and refugees, both in terms of solidarity against intensifying repression and in opposition to capital’s attempts to exploit them to further reduce the price of labour as a whole. It is also essential to engage even more systematically in encouraging migrants and refugees to join trade unions and struggle alongside Greek workers, both for the problems they face due to the system of exploitation and the broader issues of the working class. This task has taken on new dimensions today, in light of attempts to import cheap labour through transnational agreements, which our Party has rightly characterized as modern-day slave trade agreements.

Developments in the economy, the intensification of inter-imperialist contradictions and the escalation of military conflicts, competition between sections of capital, and military preparations constitute the ground on which processes within the bourgeois political system are also unfolding.

This confirms the assessment that we as a party have held for a long time: that a broader discontent is growing within the working class and among the popular forces as a result of a series of developments in the capitalist economy. The effects of the “maturation” of “new” forms of flexible labour relations, new methods of intensifying capitalist exploitation, the decline in real workers’ and popular income, the increase in the cost of living, and the exacerbation of a series of problems such as housing, health, etc. are now being experienced first-hand. At the same time, distrust of certain “institutions” and functions of the bourgeois state has grown, uncertainty and concern about the future have increased, and there is growing fear of war, even though it continues to be underestimated as a real danger to the country.

Although this broader discontent was expressed in a very massive and militant way in the recent demonstrations marking the two-year anniversary of the crime in Tempe, it remains shallow and, to a significant extent, politically limited, focusing mainly on specific issues of individual responsibility of certain politicians, widespread corruption, and the lack of the “rule of law”, seeking a solution only in the overthrow of the New Democracy government, in Mitsotakis’ resignation, or in the imprisonment of certain guilty parties, etc. Bourgeois forces and business interests that have scores to settle with the New Democracy government and its current leadership are also contributing to this discontent and opposition to government policy and are trying to influence its orientation.

Although, to a certain extent, under the influence of our own forces, slogans such as “their profits or our lives” were adopted and the long-standing responsibilities of all bourgeois governments were recognized, this discontent does not signal an overall challenge to the capitalist system, capitalist property or the power of capital. All this reflects a negative correlation of forces and shows that the development and level of class struggle are lagging behind the needs of the period.

However, from the perspective of the bourgeoisie, the focus is on the future, particularly on the possibility of mass opposition to the bourgeois political system under conditions of generalized imperialist war, a new deep economic crisis and a sharp intensification of intra-bourgeois contradictions. Today, the debate on the reform of the political system is distinct from the similar debate that has been going on for about twenty years.

a. At present, significant sections of the bourgeois class continue to support the New Democracy government as the best manager of capitalist interests. 

At the same time, however, there is dissatisfaction with the priorities in the “development plans”, as a section of capital considers itself to have come out on the losing end, and reservations are also being expressed about the severing of all relations with Russia as well as about developments and compromises in Greek-Turkish relations. 

A special issue is the plans for constitutional reform that are currently in the works at the initiative of the government. Bourgeois analyses point out that, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1975 Constitution, a broader debate should be opened on the need to radically modernize the bourgeois Constitution and adapt it even more closely to the current and future needs of capitalist management. The issue of constitutional reform is also an area in which broader convergence and consensus among bourgeois parties is sought. This can also become an arena of confrontation and the formation of artificial dividing lines between, on the one hand, those who will defend supposedly progressive provisions of the current Constitution or propose other reactionary ones under this guise, and, on the other hand, the “neo-liberal” government that seeks to change them. However, the government and the New Democracy party still show cohesion, despite all the tendencies and movements challenging its leadership that are emerging internally.

b. Concerns are expressed about the so-called gap in the bourgeois political system in relation to the formation of an alternative bourgeois government proposal, intended to channel the discontent that is objectively shaped by the implementation of capital’s strategic choices into the bourgeois political system. 

The concern focuses in particular on the situation of the existing political actors of social democracy: the tendency of SYRIZA and the forces that emerged from it, mainly the “New Left”, to contract; the great difficulty of PASOK in emerging as the dominant force of alternative governance; and the fact that the broader working-class and popular forces that traditionally formed the basis of social democracy appear dissatisfied and disillusioned, feeling betrayed by the course taken by the actors in this political space due to the policies they pursued in previous years, either as government or opposition forces. At the same time, powerful sections of the bourgeoisie are expressing reservations about decisively supporting forces that they consider weak, unreliable and largely ineffective as an alternative government solution. In this context, various scenarios are being discussed for the reform of the broader social democratic space, the role that various personalities (such as the former president of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras) or even the formation of new political actors.

At the same time, all alternative plans for the reform of social democracy come up against the objective reality of the capitalist economy, which is also responsible for the inability of social democratic political actors to formulate proposals for bourgeois management that would co-opt broader workers’–people’s forces, as was the case in the past.

c. The situation in which social democratic political forces find themselves does not mean that the “social democratic” and “reformist” current has diminished, even if at the moment it does not find sufficient expression in a particular party. Social democracy has a strong social base within sections of the working class as well as among sections of the popular forces affected by the capitalist management policies currently in place. For this reason, despite the blows it has suffered, it maintains significant support in the trade union movement of the working class, as well as in several middle-strata organizations. It also retains significant support in local administration (municipalities and regions), which it uses to reshape the political landscape more broadly. There remains a strong expectation for a “progressive alternative” government solution within the country, a “less anti-popular economic and political management”. Under the banner of “justice” and the “rule of law”, strong illusions and delusions are maintained that there can be a “fairer management” of the capitalist system, a “more equitable functioning” of the bourgeois state. Despite the relative —compared to the past— discrediting of the EU as a capitalist alliance, the belief persists and is reproduced that Greece is an exception to “European normality” and that the EU remains a factor providing “security” for the country. The negative experience of the social democratic governments, whether PASOK or SYRIZA, is seen as the result of broken promises, betrayal and deception, rather than as a consequence of the scientific laws of the capitalist system and the strategy of capital, which social democracy also serves in its entirety, and the illusion that the pursuit of maximum profit by business groups can be reconciled with the interests of the popular forces. There remains the possibility of a mass reformist current forming in the immediate future. In this context, the forces of opportunism within the movement play a special role, which, by focusing their action on the fragmented goal of “bringing down the Mitsotakis government”, are essentially backing the strengthening of reformist illusions and delusions, contributing to the continued entrapment of the working class and popular forces.

d. With the direct and indirect support of sections of capital, a false “anti-systemic pole” is being formed within the political system. The main elements of this pole are:

 • Strongly critical rhetoric regarding the New Democracy government and the other “systemic parties”, i.e., those that have participated in governments.

 • The glorification of the role that bourgeois justice can play, the defence of the bourgeois Constitution and laws, and the functioning of the “separation of powers”.

 • The centralization around one figure and the promotion of supposedly “self-made” businesspeople or scientists, who are allegedly independent and accountable to no “party mechanism”.

 • The promotion of various “parliamentary stunts” as a criterion of militancy.

 • Anti-communism and the slander that the KKE is a compromised, systemic party “that backs the ND government”, etc., which sometimes takes on the character of provocation.

This constitutes an overall reactionary and dangerous rationale for the people and the youth, which ultimately leads to the defence of this system, since the problem presented is “the malfunctioning of its institutions”, thus reversing reality.

This line is followed by the “Course of Freedom” party of Z. Konstantopoulou, the forces rallying around the “Democracy Movement” of S. Kasselakis, the nationalist “Greek Solution” party of Velopoulos, etc. This effort had the direct support of the bourgeois media, owned by large businesses and safeguarding their interests. Within this context, forces derived from opportunism and the far right are reviving, as was the case with the “movement of the squares” during the crisis. The aim of this pole is to fish in troubled waters, contain popular discontent and contribute to the formation of new alternative political actors within the system in a reactionary direction.

Part of this effort to form such a pole is the utilization of the mass mobilizations over the crime in Tempe. Behind the calls for an “non-partisan and independent movement”, the effort to create a contrast with the organized workers’–people’s movement, and the slogans of “justice” lie the interests of certain large business and political actors, who want to exploit individuals speaking on behalf of the deceased and their relatives. In this direction, certain opportunist forces also play a special role, attempting to embellish —as they did during the period of the memoranda—the reactionary direction of such plans or to equate an anti-systemic stance with a fetishization of conflict forms against the forces of repression.

e. In response to the attempt to reform the bourgeois political system, the KKE is developing its ideological and political intervention, highlighting the dead ends for the people that arise when the weakening of some bourgeois political forces is channelled into supporting others.

It emphasizes the class-based and, consequently, anti-popular character of the bourgeois political system, parliamentary processes and governments in the context of capitalism, as well as bourgeois institutions as a whole, such as justice.

It reveals the harmful role of social democracy in trapping workers’–people’s forces over time, drawing on examples from the recent and historical past. A section of workers’–people’s forces with social democratic views approach the Party’s forces in the labour–trade union movement, join them on certain battle fronts, express themselves in trade union elections through the lists supported by the communists, and follow the Party with great interest. Obviously, there are opportunities for these forces to break out of the deadlock; however the basic prerequisite is the deepening of the ideological and political struggle and the promotion of the KKE’s programme, so that illusions are dispelled, drawing on the experience gained from participation in struggles and the processes of the movement. They KKE opposes harmful notions that bourgeois parliamentary elections every four years are the highest form of democracy, that so-called governability and participation in or support for bourgeois governments within the framework of capitalism, in the name of “political stability”, constitute a step towards a way out in favour of the interests of the people.

A crucial indicator of this entire effort is the broadening of agreement and the rallying of vanguard workers’–people’s forces behind the Party’s Programme; that is, the struggle to concentrate forces in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction, with the prospect of socialism. This is, after all, a condition —as experience has taught us— for countering the opportunist pressures that are objectively shaped by developments, so that the Party does not retreat in the face of a reformist and social-democratic current. This action by the Party helps to hinder such processes within the bourgeois political system, preventing the healing of ruptures that are forming in the consciousness of the working class and the people, in their trust in bourgeois politics.

The KKE emphasizes that a true anti-systemic stance involves questioning and confronting the capitalist system, the bourgeois state and the bourgeois political system as a whole, and not defending bourgeois institutions, justice, and the Constitution; that real anti-systemic stance is not about stunts in Parliament but about the development of class struggle, the struggle for workers’–people’s interests, and the concentration of forces in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction —in other words, the path to a radical change in the correlation of forces to the detriment of capital and in favour of the working class and its allies.

In the period since the 21st Congress, not only has a series of reactionary reforms in the field of justice accelerated, but issues such as the bourgeois “rule of law” and and the “independence of the judiciary” have come to the forefront of political debate, with the 2022 wiretapping scandal, the crime in Tempe and the recent Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aid (OPEKEPE) scandal as the main points of contention.

The social democratic parties are promoting the defence of the “EU rule of law” as the main line of confrontation with the New Democracy government, presenting the “independence of the judiciary”, and the various “independent authorities” as guarantees for the “control of executive power”. Meanwhile, the EU, the European courts and various European institutions (such as the European Public Prosecutor’s Office) are actively intervening in developments, being promoted as “guarantors” against corruption and as a shelter for workers and the popular strata.

At the same time, the EU’s main direction and a prerequisite of the Recovery Fund are the ongoing reactionary reforms in the justice system, which the New Democracy government is promoting with two main objectives: on the one hand, more effective and faster support for investment projects and the broader needs of capital, and on the other hand, intensified repression against the enemy, i.e. the people and the organized workers’–people’s movement. The upcoming constitutional revision will also serve these objectives.

Of course, the government relied on the actions of previous governments, particularly the SYRIZA government, since reactionary restructuring of the justice system was a key requirement of the memoranda (e.g. electronic auctions of foreclosed properties and prosecution for those who take part in mobilizations against them, modifications to the Penal Code, etc.).

On the part of the New Democracy government, a strong effort was made to legitimize and gain acceptance for these changes among workers and the popular strata, with a focus on the “acceleration” of the operation and the “digital transformation” of the justice system”. The KKE strongly opposed this effort, highlighting the real content of these reforms as key components of the contemporary bourgeois state designed to support the profitability of monopoly groups, which are hostile to the people and their rights.

In response to these developments, the Party promptly revealed the class character of the government’s measures, the bourgeois “rule of law” and bourgeois democracy, and the special role of the Constitution and “independent justice system” in defending the interests of capital through events, conferences and publications.

It shed light on the effort to strengthen the repressive framework, spearheaded by the incorporation and activation of the provisions of the “Doctrine of Necessity” in conditions of “normality”.

In the same vein, it revealed and opposed corresponding measures that were introduced and tightened within the country, aimed at: 

a) Reinforcing and upgrading electronic, digital and conventional surveillance and profiling by the bourgeois state, moving toward preventive state intervention against the people.

b) Strengthening repressive legislation and its constitutional legitimisation. 

c) Intensifying measures for the ideological acceptance of state repression by invoking abstract, elastic concepts (such as “national security” or “countering terrorism”), and by exploiting acute problems generated by the system itself and anti-popular policies.

At the same time, by demonstrating the real purpose of bills such as changes to the Penal Code and repressive measures in universities, and by utilizing publications such as “LEARN - FIGHT for your rights”, the Party highlighted the importance of the workers’–people’s movement knowing and defending its rights and freedoms, putting obstacles in the way of intensified repression, and thwarting in practice the attempts at terrorization by the bourgeois state and government.

Similarly, it took the lead in ensuring that it was widely understood that the changes being promoted in bourgeois justice primarily affect workers and the popular strata, as they reinforce the obstacles to their access, and open the way for the issuance of increasingly reactionary decisions hostile to the people (such as facilitating funds to seize people’s homes, delivering a death knell to retroactive payments owed to tens of thousands of pensioners, and approving the establishment of private universities). The Party has done its utmost to ensure that trade unions, mass organizations and thousands of people oppose the implementation and application of unacceptable bills, most recently including the reform of court organization and tax measures, among others.

In this direction, the effort to further demonstrate the superiority of workers’ power as a higher form of democracy, where workers play an active role in decision-making, implementation and control, enabled the Party to rally broader forces and shift the correlation of forces.

Since the 21st Congress, the specialization of this effort among those employed in the field of justice has been linked to the strengthening of our intervention in the movement, achieving positive steps forward:

 • The independent organization of both salaried and trainee lawyers (trade unions of salaried lawyers of Attica and Central Macedonia) and self-employed lawyers (through a relevant initiative to establish a Trade Union of Self-Employed Lawyers).

 • The joint coordination of workers in the field (self-employed, salaried and trainee lawyers, court officials, judicial officers, interpreters and notaries) by developing a framework of demands and recording an increase in votes and in the number of those elected to the boards of their trade unions and associations.

 • The necessary joint action and intervention of self-employed and salaried scientists (engineers, lawyers, economists, accountants, etc.) with a focus on the tax bill and other pressing problems (such as debts from social contributions, etc.).

Developments confirm our position on the role of local and regional administration as part of the state apparatus and an active factor in the implementation of bourgeois plans.

The context of fiscal stability; the contradictions between sectors of the economy and the shift to a war economy; the general difficulties of the political system and the organizational, ideological, and political problems faced by the bourgeois parties; the involvement of local and regional administration in the anti-popular, anti-worker management of the bourgeois state and the immediate, daily popular reactions that this generates, combined with the more direct relationship of local and regional administration with the popular strata, will create difficulties in the implementation of bourgeois plans.

In any case, there are opportunities for intervention and contact with people that constitute the mass of workers and self-employed in the cities and villages, most of whom are disconnected from their unions and collective demands.

There are particular demands in the six municipalities we have taken office, as well as in the Regions in general and the many municipalities where we have high percentages. This is a relatively new reality for KKE and KNE organizations,organs and party forces deployed in the work of the “People’s Rally”. We have taken steps to improve the functioning of party groups, but we are still unable to provide the organs with the elements of lively debate and political processes. The local rallies and mobilizations that took place in the first four months after the municipal authorities took office in the six municipalities were an important initiative, mainly because they signalled our way of working and what we mean by “popular opposition from the position of municipal authority”. An effort was made to specialize and enrich the political framework with demands, and in our propaganda we summarize elements that better reveal the issue “development for whom”.

The experience we have gained is not sufficient. Moreover, our existing experience has not become an integral part of our political guidance work in the PBOs, the Party Groups and the organs, nor has it become the subject of cooperation with the local administration workers for the development of solidarity, which will be necessary in the coming period. Party organs need to systematically support the organizational and ideological–political work of Party Groups and be more demanding for better intervention in their area of responsibility, so that their work  strengthens and expands ties and contact with mass organizations, movements in neighbourhoods and volunteer groups. Each comrade has an individual responsibility to contribute to raising the overall capacity of Party forces in a municipality or region, through lively debate, popularization of our positions, identification of problems and their causes, and initiatives that facilitate the mass mobilization of the people.

A. ON THE STRENGTHENING OF THE POLITICAL GUIDANCE WORK AND THE IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL STRUGGLE TO OVERTHROW CAPITALISM UNDER CONDITIONS OF OVERALL NEGATIVE CORRELATION OF FORCES

1. Taking stock of our forces

2. Main lines of action under conditions of imperialist war

3. The all-round preparation of the Party is crucial

B. UNDER DIFFICULT CONDITIONS, WE PREPARE FOR POSSIBLE ABRUPT CHANGES AND TURNING POINTS IN THE CLASS STRUGGLE 

1. Party building as a multifaceted issue

2. Better integrating the goals of organizational and ideological strengthening of the Party as a single task

C. TAKING BOLD STEPS IN PARTY BUILDING, RECRUITMENT, THE RENEWAL AND GROWTH IN THE RANKS OF THE PARTY 

1. The current organizational situation and composition of the Party

2. Taking bolder steps in party building

D. IMPROVING THE FUNCTIONING OF THE PARTY, THE POLITICAL GUIDANCE WORK OF THE ORGANS, THE PARTY GROUPS IN THE MASS MOVEMENT AND THE PARTY BASE ORGANIZATIONS (PBOs). THE DEPLOYMENT OF FORCES AND CADRES. 

1. More decisive steps to be taken in the functioning of the PBOs

2. The consistent and rich internal functioning of the PBO is a critical factor

3. The important role of the Secretaries and Bureaus of the PBOs

4. The deployment of the PBOs

5. Strengthening political vigilance, Party safeguarding and information gathering for this purpose in today’s challenging times

6. On the progress of the specialized work of the Party and KNE among women of a working-class or popular position and origin

7. The critical issue of improving the functioning of the guiding organs of the Sectoral Committees

8. The role of the Regional Committees and Regional Bureaus

9. On the Auxiliary Committees of the guiding organs

10. On the Party Groups in the mass organizations

11. Fostering the education and advancement of cadres

E. THE IDEOLOGICAL–THEORETICAL WORK IN THE KKE AND KNE IS A BASIC CRITERION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE PARTY’S VANGUARD INTERVENTION 

1. General assessment

2. Utilizing and further advancing the significant achievements in the period between the 21st and 22nd Congresses

3. Rizospastis is the primary duty of every party member

4. Systematic dissemination and utilization of the Communist Review (KOMEP) and the publications of “Synchroni Epochi” as part of the political guidance work

5. Improving substantially the structure, functioning and utilization of Ideological Committees and other Committees as well as the specialization of ideological struggle

6. Improving the system of inner-party education and the ideological courses for the party’s circle of influence

7. Providing ideological support to KNE and promoting ideological work among the youth

8. Summarizing certain basic fronts of the ideological struggle that require the improvement of the ability of the PBOs and each party member to intervene

F. ON THE ADVANCEMENT OF WORK AND EDUCATION IN KNE 

On the Party’s intervention among younger ages

As we enter the final year of the first quarter of the 21st century, it is our duty to take stock of our forces, deepening our thinking and political line on issues relating to the functioning, guidance, and building of the Party. Recognizing the need for faster and, above all, more robust steps to develop the capacity and preparedness of the entire Party, particularly the guiding organs, to effectively promote and advance the Party’s strategy for socialism and communism, as well as the tasks of class struggle in the daily intervention and action of the Party Organizations.

In a period of rapid and complex developments where demands are increasing in response to difficult conditions and abrupt changes, the implementation of this task is of urgent importance. Imperialist competition, military confrontations and the capitalist economic crisis are more likely to lead to the mass radicalization of the working class and popular forces, an intensification of the class struggle and even the destabilization of capitalist power than in other periods. The intensification of all the interacting contradictions of the capitalist system can create a situation of broad mass mobilization, with the potential for uprisings and even the emergence of a revolutionary situation, which, of course, arises objectively and at an unpredictable moment. Without ruling out any possibility, it has been historically confirmed, both at the European and global level, that under such conditions, the ideological–political and organizational readiness of the Communist Party is put to the test, and that its ability to respond to the demands of class struggle requires long-term preparation and struggle. This preparation is taking shape under the current conditions, as popular discontent is intensifying and potential is growing to strengthen both the mass character and orientation of the current of dissent.

Thus, even though we are acting under non-revolutionary conditions, the sharpening of contradictions and rivalries compels us to begin preparing today for the struggles to come, ensuring, at all times, the ideological and political independence of the Party from every variant of bourgeois politics. We must continuously strengthen the Party’s ability to combine its revolutionary Programme with day-to-day action across all fields of activity and at every link in the chain of guiding work.

It is necessary to be prepared for any development, positive or negative, that may result in a sharp escalation of class struggle or in a new setback. In either case, the ideological and political intervention of our opponent is being recalibrated, along with the mechanisms of the bourgeois state and capital, which also exploit new scientific and technological advances in their efforts to co-opt popular discontent and suppress the movement. In any case, the human factor remains decisive in the use and confrontation of these mechanisms.

Nevertheless, the ability to meet the current demands of the class struggle has always required —and still requires— theoretical and programmatic preparedness. This is forged through the study of the history of class struggles and the lessons it offers. Yet such preparedness must be reflected daily: in the Party’s capacity to interpret developments through the lens of class analysis, in its guiding role, in its political and ideological struggle, and in the internal party life. At this stage, it is important to highlight that the intensification of rivalries and the course of the imperialist war decisively shape the overall framework for action, the terrain on which the class struggle is unfolding, including in Greece.

The Party Programme has clearly defined our position on imperialist war and our line of action. The Resolutions of our 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st Congresses have been confirmed in practice, and together with the recent Resolution of the Central Committee, they form part of the Party’s political arsenal. We have laid solid foundations that have strengthened the Party’s preparedness and its leading role in the class struggle, in the struggle for Greece’s disengagement from the slaughterhouse of war.

We have identified the main lines of action for the Party’s intervention under the current conditions, which must focus on the following issues:

1. Demonstrating the imperialist character of the war and the connection between war and capitalism, while exposing and refuting the arguments put forward by both sides of the inter-imperialist conflict. Particular emphasis should be placed on countering domestic bourgeois and NATO propaganda that promotes alleged “benefits” from Greece’s participation in the war. It must be made clear that the right side of history is defined by the struggle for the people’s interests and the common struggle of the peoples to overthrow the exploitative system.
2. Working to cultivate critical questioning and distrust toward the bourgeois government and state, which is hostile to the people; fostering the understanding that there are no common national interests between workers and capitalists, not even in times of war. This must be pursued not only through ideological and political agitation, but also through concrete intervention in the labour and popular movement.
3. Strengthening the front against the war economy and its consequences, which are borne at the expense of the working class and popular strata.
4. Developing the work among young conscripts, reinforcing a spirit of questioning and defiance toward the directives of the bourgeois government, its policy of involvement in the imperialist war, and NATO.
5. Formulating all conditions and prerequisites, and ensuring the Party’s readiness to act in any circumstances, including readiness to switch from legal to underground work. This requires the continuous refinement of planning, grounded in close monitoring of developments and developed in step with the corresponding intensification of ideological-political intervention, the slogans of the struggle, and the related actions, while combining and specifying general strategic tasks. After all, we are not waiting for a “Day X,” especially since the deepening of involvement proceeds day by day, step by step, and is, of course, linked to other plans in the region that are not purely military but possess strategic military–political significance.

Under today’s conditions, the Party’s ability to fulfil its leading role as the revolutionary vanguard of the working class is constantly being honed in practice through the preparation of the labour movement, the movements of allied popular forces, in the struggle against the strategic goals of the bourgeoisie, the capitalist state, and the imperialist alliances in which it participates. Only in this way can the contradictions and ruptures that will arise within capitalist states and imperialist alliances be used to destabilize and overthrow the capitalist system. Therefore, the criterion for the Party’s capacity and the effectiveness of its intervention is the process of class political emancipation and the growth of vanguard forces in the Party’s struggle for socialist revolution.

While it may not yet be the moment to sound the call for a direct “storming,” it is nonetheless essential and necessary to clarify the purpose, objectives, conditions, and prerequisites of revolutionary overthrow. This is a period of systematic preparatory work with a clear perspective, with particular attention and focus on guiding the movement and engaging in struggle: to detach broad sections of the working class and allied popular forces from all forms of bourgeois politics—liberal or social-democratic—as well as from opportunists; to intensify, with all their strength, their demands, struggles, strikes, demonstrations, and rallies; and to strengthen the anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly orientation of unity and struggle across the revolutionary movement as a whole. Workers and popular forces must be prepared, through the struggle against the daily oppression of capital, to gain experience in hard-fought conflicts and sacrifices.

To succeed, we need a more profound and advanced revolutionary consolidation of the organized forces of the Party and its Youth, one that reinforces a militant and unwavering stance, steadfastness, and strategic stability; the capacity to act under all circumstances; and the formation of a broader vanguard of workers and popular forces rallied around the Party’s Programme.

Each Party Organization must be transformed into a vehicle for the implementation of these tasks, successfully resisting the pressures to adapt the Party’s activity to bourgeois, systemic, and opportunist parliamentary and trade union practices. By strengthening the Party’s overall ideological and political capacity, it must remain active and combative amid unfolding events, ready for any unexpected development, whether a slowdown or acceleration.

At any given moment, the Party must be able to adapt swiftly to a wide range of rapidly changing conditions, while maintaining a steady focus on developing its anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist orientation in rallying and struggle. The aim is for discontent and workers’ and people’s struggles to be expressed in an organized manner, oriented toward building a nationwide, coordinated, and progressively unified movement —grounded in common positions and objectives— with an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist direction, opposing the EU and NATO, and advancing unified demands across Greece.

We do not approach the issue of party building narrowly, based solely on quantitative indicators of growth. Rather, we see it as a multifaceted challenge, involving the level of ideological and political intervention and guidance of the Organizations, their operational effectiveness, their engagement in the labour and trade union movement, in the movement of self-employed farmers and small business owners, the development of KNE, changes in the correlation of forces within the movement and other political struggles, the deployment and organization of party forces and cadres, the quality of guiding work, and the social, age and gender composition of new members, among other factors.

To ensure the comprehensive ideological, political and organizational strengthening of the KKE under current conditions, these issues must be addressed in a unified, integrated manner, without fragmentation. By focusing our attention and developing a coherent approach to emerging challenges, we can reinforce the Party as the guiding force of the revolutionary labour movement and the social alliance in the struggle for socialism and communism.

In our report to the 21^st Congress, we noted that party building had proved to be a highly challenging task under the specific conditions of pressure and widespread illusions among the popular masses, combined with defeatism and the constraints imposed by the pandemic. Nearly four years later, the demands for advancing the task of party building have grown even greater, while new difficulties have emerged alongside the existing ones.

It remains essential for us to become more capable in our guiding role, in connecting our rich ideological, political, and cultural intervention —including within the movements— with the task of building the Party and KNE.

The problem remains that the objectives of organizational strengthening are largely detached from ideological–political strengthening, and are still treated as a “parallel task”. This is reflected in the political planning of the Organizations, where, not infrequently, under the pressure of the sheer volume of practical work, priorities and hierarchies become blurred or neglected. This concern applies not only to the forms of intervention, but also to the elaboration of content, the selection of themes, and other related issues, so that they may be politically precise and effective. It also manifests in the somewhat formalistic handling of the Party’s Programme and Statutes. It is further evident in the fact that, in practice, many Party Base Organizations (PBOs) rarely provide a substantive account of the ideological and political struggle in their area of responsibility, as interpreted through the Party’s Programme (the content of socialism, the path toward its achievement).

The terrain of struggle is fundamental. However, the development and maturation of political consciousness cannot advance on this terrain alone, without the necessary connection to and support from ideological struggle and the Party’s ongoing work to raise its ideological–political level, and so on. We must take into account that the bourgeoisie, with its long-standing experience in Greece and internationally, its use of science and technology in its service within the productive process, and the breadth and depth of its elaborated propaganda, exerts a multifaceted negative influence, continuously driving social and political consciousness as a whole in a conservative direction.

There are still views that this demanding work primarily concerns only a limited circle of potential recruits and steadfast supporters, or that it can be postponed, based on the assumption that pursuing it now might hinder our efforts to broaden our bonds. As a result, a significant portion of the Party’s reach in practice remains confined primarily to trade union activity. This is reflected, to a considerable extent, due to the strong pressure exerted on our cadre and Party forces —on our ranks as a whole— by prevailing attitudes in society today, within the working class, the popular strata, and the youth: “what you’re saying is not realistic,” “it’s already been tried and failed,” “people do not understand,” or “this world will never change,” and so on. These views are also a product of the counterrevolution, of the historic setback that took place 35 years ago, as well as the overall negative balance of power internationally. Unfortunately, these factors lead certain members of the Party and KNE to retreat —in essence, to abandon the effort to patiently and persistently promote our strategic political proposal for socialism–communism and the path toward its conquest, grounded in our theory and the rich historical experience of the Greek and international communist and workers’ movement. These observations and assessments aim to consolidate the necessity of intensifying the ideological and political guidance and functioning of the Party organs and of the PBOs.

Although there is ideological and political agreement with our strategy within the Party Organizations, this agreement must be expressed in a more concrete way:

• Through the continuous development of content and the essential integration of ideological and educational work with the substance of the daily activity of all Party and KNE Organizations —with the purpose and constant aim of broadening and strengthening the revolutionary current within the ranks of the working class and youth.
• Through the day-to-day guiding work of the Party Organs, Regional Bureaus, Sectoral Committees, PBO Bureaus, Party Groups, as well as the Sections of the CC and the Auxiliary Committees of the Regional Party Organizations, it is necessary to confront various mistaken views regarding the otherwise correct need to widely popularize our strategic perspective in the most accessible way possible, without vulgarizing its scientific content or obscuring its essential meaning.
• By incorporating all aspects of communist educational work —such as the use and distribution of Rizospastis, Odigitis, KOMEP (Communist Review), the Party’s publications, internal education systems, and similar tools— into a unified, ongoing programme of daily activity across all Party Organizations.
• By providing substantive guiding support to KNE at a time of heightened demands, particularly concerning the work of assimilating new members, which also entails understanding recruitment criteria. Challenges in guiding KNE are reflected in various ways: the ratio of recruitment to expulsions; potential issues related to prior addictive behaviour among some KNE members; the prevailing sense of “disillusionment due to the negative balance of power”; and the limited engagement of KNE members in union activities, especially within Student Unions in university settings.

One of the primary causes of the weaknesses and delays noted above can be traced to the fact that the majority of the work is organized in a “top-down” manner. From this perspective, it is the responsibility of the Central Committee, its Sections, and the Regional Bureaus to place greater emphasis on strengthening work, planning, and actions that are “bottom-up,” originating in the PBOs themselves. We must decisively support this direction so that all members gain a clearer understanding of their assigned tasks, the need engage their circle of influence in the Party’s strategy and Programme, and the obligation to ensure these activities yield concrete results in recruiting new members and building up Organizations. Several difficulties are evident here, objectively, but the main issues concern insufficient understanding, assimilation, and even confusion, which we must confront. In highlighting these points, we do not imply that the Central Committee or other guiding organs should replace the work of lower-level organs or PBOs by organizing the work themselves or intervening administratively. Rather, they should provide substantive assistance —ideological, political, and organizational— working in a comradely manner to address all the challenges faced by our Organizations, Party cadres, and members, who daily engage in a very difficult struggle across many areas of their lives and activities.

Ideological work with the Programme and the Statute for recruitment is not merely a standard procedure. These texts constitute the foundation, addressing questions such as how and why the world changes, why the working class is the only revolutionary force, what kind of party the KKE is, and why it adheres to its specific principles of formation and operation. From this perspective, substantive engagement with prospective Party members cannot be reduced to a routine check of whether they have read and agreed with these documents. Rather, it must involve systematic discussion and genuine understanding, individual preparation, and organized participation in activities that strengthen the conditions for proper organization and help them fully integrate into Party life and activities.

It is essential for the PBOs to critically reflect on how widely the Party’s Programme is disseminated and how we engage in discussions about it —independently and explicitly— particularly regarding its three fundamental components: the revolution, the rallying of forces toward it, and socialism and its construction. Such discussions cannot be resolved solely through the elaboration carried out by a Party Organ on a specific issue —of course, based on our strategy— which is in itself necessary and indispensable, for example on topics such as flood protection, energy, or infrastructure. These elaborations are crucial for shaping struggle objectives in line with our overall strategic position and for demonstrating the superiority of the socialist mode of production in addressing fundamental problems. At the same time, we must reflect on how to bring to the forefront of our daily work and discussions the question of what kind of movement is required to overturn the influence of social democracy and bourgeois modernization, so that class-based ideological and political emancipation prevails over the mechanisms of capitalist power, and the necessity and preconditions of the socialist revolution are fully understood. This requires continuous and systematic effort on a daily basis, beginning with the critical issues of class struggle and its lessons. We must consider how the PBOs can regularly discuss —at least within a circle of influence— the experience of past struggles, how effectively we highlight the objective limits within capitalism, and how we avoid treating these issues merely as propaganda. Instead, we must open discussions about what it truly means for the working class to achieve victory in a struggle, what conditions exist today for that, and so on. Ultimately, more work must be done on the core content of the Party’s Programme.

Nationwide, the Party forces have recorded a new, modest yet noticeable increase between the 21st and 22nd Congresses. There has been a substantial improvement in the Party’s overall working-class composition, and the goal set at the 21st Congress has been met: wage workers now constitute an absolute majority in the Party’s social composition. Today, wage workers —manual and white-collar— make up 50.80% of the Party’s membership, compared to 46.64% at the time of the 21st Congress.

This positive result does not allow for complacency. It is now particularly important to improve the composition of this 50.8% working-class contingent, placing greater emphasis on the industrial proletariat and on workers in emerging high-tech sectors.

The progress made in concentrating Party forces in specific sectors and key workplaces is the outcome of coordinated Party and mass intervention, primarily in certain branches of manufacturing, in hospitals, airports, new technologies, and elsewhere. However, the progress achieved remains disproportionate to the urgent need to build the Party and develop strong, mass-based Organizations in critical workplaces and sectors of major importance. We still lack a foothold in major factories and corporate groups in the metal and food industries, as well as in major hotels and supermarket chains.

A positive development is the improvement in the age composition of the Party. Over half of the Party’s membership is now within the productive age bracket (under 50 years old), while approximately two-thirds of the Party’s members have been recruited after 1991.

Furthermore, the proportion of organized women within the Party has increased. This improvement is the result of recruitment of new members, both of young women from KNE and from the radical women’s movement who have become Party members. However, the overall percentage remains lower than that of women in the economically active population, particularly among waged workers. Moreover, this general figure conceals considerable regional disparities. It is once again confirmed that the guiding organs must consistently assess the influence exerted by bourgeois institutions and ideological mechanisms on women, so as to organize a sharp and effective ideological–political confrontation. This also concerns the assessment of interventions by monopoly groups targeting waged women, which have intensified in connection with capital’s need to increase female participation in the labour force.

During the period under review, no progress was made in organizing self-employed workers and toiling smallholder farmers within the Party. In this area, we encountered greater difficulties, and more shortcomings were revealed in setting targets for recruitment and party-building, despite the improvements in the Party’s activity and overall political influence among these strata. A more thorough elaboration of plans is needed within each Regional Party Organization, with proper prioritization, deployment, and implementation of concrete measures.

This snapshot of the Party’s forces contains hopeful elements, but it also gives rise to new and significant demands for strengthening and steeling the revolutionary and communist character of our ranks, paving the way for bolder targets in party building.

Based on the experience we have accumulated, the Party’s activity, and the prestige it has earned among a vanguard section of the working class, the popular strata, and the youth, the Party can and must take bolder steps in its organizational building. These steps involve the recruitment of new vanguard members of the Party and KNE in all major workplaces, both in the public and private sectors, members who are integrated into PBOs and the Youth’s Base Organizations (BOs) and who will become genuine leaders and guides in their workplaces.

We can further refine our goals for outreach, engagement, recruitment, and Party building by identifying and overcoming obstacles and challenges, drawing on the experience gained in recent years from penetrating key sectors crucial for Party building, and maintaining disciplined, focused effort toward the goals we set at each stage.

We must not underestimate the influence of bourgeois propaganda on parts of our circle of influence, particularly younger people, which acts as a deterrent to their joining the Party. What is essential is that they are persuaded to join based on our ideology. Overcoming subjective difficulties in Party building requires the careful elaboration of a plan for mass ideological and political activity, grounded in the study of developments and close monitoring of trends across sectors, in large enterprises, and at all levels of education. This also involves planning our confrontation with employers, other political and trade union forces, the government, the EU, and all mechanisms (ideological, cultural, and repressive) that influence the shaping of class consciousness. All of this aims to strengthen our ability to specialize our activity within each sector and workplace, particularly in how we integrate each sector into our political proposal for workers’ power. Particular attention must also be given to the Party’s work in Universities and Vocational Training Institutes, where the new generation of workers and scientific-technical personnel is being trained, those who will soon enter the productive process.

Based on all the above, we must focus our attention, at every level of the Party, from top to bottom, on the following:

• Consistent ideological work among workers, cultivating through ongoing struggle and agitation the understanding of the principle “class against class.” This helps break the narrow, individualized perspective tied to their workplace or employer, and enables vanguard workers to grasp the necessity of the struggle to overthrow capitalism. Achieving this requires a solid grasp of our theory and focused ideological work, because the above cannot be fully realized through the experience of class struggle alone. This does not mean, however, that these experiences are unrelated to that orientation, which can only be strengthened in an anti-capitalist, anti-monopoly direction through the intervention of communists.
• Updating our positions and analyses regarding sectoral developments, the composition of the workforce, labour relations, the tactics of employers, their intervention to co-opt workers, manufacture consent, or engage in overt intimidation, and so on.
• Consistently exposing the true nature of the bourgeois state, its functions and institutions, and the characteristics of the conditions being formed for civil servants amid deep capitalist restructuring (e.g., civil servants performance appraisals, abolishment of tenure, etc.).
• Utilizing vanguard, progressive cultural creation, which must be an organic component of the work of Sectoral Organizations and PBOs.
• Incorporating into daily struggles issues affecting the quality of life of the working class and the popular strata, such as health, education, popular housing, nutrition, the environment, and the quantity and content of leisure time.
• Organizing an ideological–political counter-offensive to defend objective reality, the essence of the human being, the social nature of motherhood, and the role of parents —issues that have come under sharp ideological attack in connection with gender-related matters.

These remain elements of ideological struggle, regardless of whether they are currently in the spotlight, since critical questioning permeates all social activity and the entire superstructure.

An important arena in the formation of communist consciousness has been the struggle against both old and new bourgeois and opportunist views concerning the class character of women’s inequality, theories of “gender fluidity” and “indeterminacy,” and the contemporary currents of subjective idealism. A notable effort was made during the internal discussion of the Central Committee’s Resolution on the law regarding “marriage equality and joint parental custody for same-sex couples.” The collective discussions revealed delays, particularly within the school and university student BOs, in sharpening our ideological struggle against “rights-based individualism”[1]—a trend that, under the guise of defending individual rights, seeks to erase distinctions of class, gender, sexual expression, and other social boundaries, thereby contributing to the fragmentation of the working class along identity lines. Our polemic against the so-called concept of “inclusion”—a levelling approach that effectively denies not only the exploitation of the working class but also the differentiated needs based on age, gender, type of work, disability, and other factors— should have been developed earlier. These shortcomings were reflected in a lack of coherent understanding of how “gender indeterminacy” theories have infiltrated not only Greek universities but also other levels of education. At the same time, related discussions in guiding organs and PBOs did, albeit belatedly, increase awareness among some parents, educators, Party members, and supporters.

The positive projection of a militant way of life, and the cultivation of interest in the arts, culture, knowledge, and reading, must become permanent fields of intervention and activity for Party Organizations, not occasional or isolated efforts. These elements highlight the value of joining the ranks of the KKE and KNE, and demonstrate the ideological, political, and moral superiority of the KKE. The positive initiatives developed over the years compel us to recognize that our current efforts are still far too limited compared to the wealth of resources available, and to the shortcomings that still characterizes many Organizations in this area.

Another significant factor that positively influences and motivates people to join the communist movement is the conduct of communists in the workplace: their eagerness to receive training in new sectors of production, their diligence, their pursuit of employment in strategically important workplaces, their solidarity with colleagues, and the broader stance of communist teachers, doctors, and young scientists toward issues concerning both the content of their work and their professional and scientific development—not from the perspective of personal gain or career advancement, but in the spirit of collective service to workers, the people, and the popular movement. More broadly, questions of communist ethics, which distinguish KKE members not only from members of other parties, also allow those around them to glimpse, through their conduct, the future socialist–communist society and the communist human ideal.

Undoubtedly, the question of communist education requires complex and multifaceted guidance. This includes systematic ideological and educational work, fostering militancy and steadfastness through a solid knowledge of the Party’s heroic history, and the daily effort to gain experience through confrontation with the class enemy. It demands a constant struggle against elements of laxity and liberalism, strict adherence to the principles and rules of Party operation, cultivation of revolutionary readiness and vigilance, and an uncompromising stance toward employer and state mechanisms. It requires a continuous front against individualism, which is increasingly promoted through social media platforms that today serve as a major tool for bourgeois influence and manipulation, especially among younger generations.

It is vital to recognize that today there is a significant gap —a contradiction— between evolving contemporary needs and the reality experienced by the working class and its social allies. This contradiction can serve both as a factor for awakening and maturation, and as a source of fatigue, frustration, and co-option. Our task is to turn it into a tool for political and ideological education, challenging distorted criteria among the people and clarifying what truly constitutes a contemporary need, in opposition to consumerist logic. This must be done without exaggeration, guided solely by the way communists understand and address these issues, and by the way they shape individual action within the collective framework.

Alongside all the above, it is essential that the Party’s plan for organizing solidarity within the ranks of the working class, and more broadly, be kept in a high state of readiness, in opposition to big employers and the bourgeois state.

We must emphasize that the Party’s significant achievement —renewing its ranks under counterrevolutionary conditions, with the decisive contribution of KNE, which has been, is, and will remain the seedbed of new communists— coexists with a section of Party members who do not respond adequately to their duties. This hinders the functioning and quality of work of the PBOs, undermines communist characteristics, fosters inefficiency, and diminishes militancy.

The communist steeling of Party cadres and members is an ongoing task. It requires careful attention to ensure adherence to the rules of revolutionary functioning and action, and the cultivation of a contemporary communist personality, well-educated ideologically and politically, steadfast in its principles, and uncompromising in their defense.

All the above are key factors in organizing more workers, men and women, into the ranks of the Party.

[1]    By this term, we refer to a conception that isolates individual rights from social rights and treats individual experience, rather than objective social reality, as the basis for their formation. Throughout the text, the term is used in this sense.

The steps forward taken by the Party since the 21^st Congress could not have been achieved without corresponding progress in the functioning and activity of the Party Organizations. However, under today’s conditions, the demands placed on a party of conscious revolutionaries such as the KKE are great —just as great as the responsibilities of every Party Base Organization (PBO) to ensure that the Party’s vanguard and revolutionary character is gained, consolidated, and expressed in practice through its internal functioning.

We focus on the functioning of the PBOs because it is at this level that all guiding weaknesses become evident, and because it is here that attention must be firmly oriented toward the demands of the class struggle in line with current developments.

The fundamental criterion for improving the functioning of the PBO is the enhancement of its capacity, both collectively, as a PBO, and individually, for every Party member, to organize and carry out mass ideological and political intervention within their area of responsibility, on the basis of the Party’s Programme, its key positions and conclusions, and the criteria and priorities derived from them.

In other words, the question is how the functioning of each PBO contributes in practice to ensuring that Party members act as vanguard revolutionaries in their respective areas: promoting the Party’s strategy, organizing the struggle, enlightening the masses, building organizations, and maintaining vigilance.

This also concerns the issue we have raised in various ways; that the PBO and each Party member must embody and act as “the Party in their area of responsibility”.

Despite the positive examples that do exist, this crucial task has not yet been pushed forward in a decisive, unified, and comprehensive manner. In this direction, it is necessary to highlight certain key issues that must primarily be addressed, like:

• The increase in the use and circulation of Rizospastis within the PBO, as a core element of the ideological and political equipping of Party forces. Overcoming the current situation requires systematic attention and concrete measures to ensure that all Party members purchase the newspaper on a daily basis. The newspaper must serve as the central instrument for organizing their ideological, political, and mass intervention.
• Overcoming the difficulty faced by the PBOs in developing their own plan of mass and ideological–political activity based on their area of responsibility, rather than solely operating on the basis of central initiatives set by higher Party organs. The specialization, adaptation, and prioritization of tasks reflect the need to properly connect the Party’s unified duty with the activity of each PBO. The programme of every PBO must correspond both to the Party’s overall unified duty and to the specific, local or sectoral one. Adaptation and specialization are demanding processes, as they come up against the narrow and limited boundaries of a particular area of responsibility (e.g., a factory, service, neighbourhood, or village).
• Addressing the identified difficulty among both Party members and cadres at the level of the PBOs (Secretaries and members of PBO Bureaus) in organizing political discussions and taking the lead in meetings; that is, in acting as propagandists, political educators, and organizers of the Party’s political intervention, without waiting for directives “from above,” by instead developing initiative in their activity. This problem is ideological and political in nature. It also reflects a lack of political self-confidence, arising from insufficient assimilation of our Programme and from the absence of systematic, daily engagement with our political line. As a consequence, ideological and political struggle is weakened, and the mistaken notion persists that such struggle is carried out only by the higher Party organs.
• In recent times, significant efforts have been made —compared to the past— to record the contacts and acquaintances that the PBOs have within their area of responsibility. However, these records continue, to a large extent, to be treated merely as “electoral lists,” as “trade-union influence,” or simply as lists of people to be invited to rallies and events. What is needed is the development of specialized and systematic ideological and political work with these forces, and a strengthening of the effort to integrate them into the planning of action within the workers’ and popular movement, so as to create the conditions for a more stable rallying around the KKE, its political line, and its Programme.
• Even more, both positive and negative experiences highlight the possibilities and the requirements of working with a closer circle of influence —people with whom we can engage more directly and consistently, based on the Programme and our ideology. This is a dynamic that can multiply our forces, be harnessed in our political and mass interventions, in our work within the workers’ and popular movement, and generate opportunities for recruitment and Party building.

All of this is important so that the existing agreement finds real and practical expression in the activity of the Party Organizations and Party members.

In the previous period, many rounds of General Assemblies (GAs) of the PBOs were held, prompted by various topics, Resolutions of the Central Committee, ideological seminars, etc. Significant progress has been made in ensuring that the statutory obligation for PBOs to hold their Assembly each month is now stabilized in a large number of PBOs. This entire process represents an important accomplishment and a necessary precondition for proper functioning.

Although internal Party functioning is not limited to the General Assembly alone, greater attention must be given to its thorough preparation and proper conduct. Phenomena of carelessness must be addressed, for example, when the Assembly’s proceedings are reduced to mere updates on developments (which should instead be followed through by daily reading of Rizospastis), or on current tasks; when there are no well-prepared reports, or when reports from higher Party organs are simply repeated without being adapted to the specific level of the PBO, and so forth.

We must also reflect on the fact that participation in the PBOs is not always at the desired level. Irregular work schedules and shift work are not adequately taken into account, resulting in the absence of active, productive-age members from General Assemblies, or in some cases, absences occur too easily and without substantial justification.

Internal Party functioning must be grounded in the development of ideological and political work within the Party itself. As we have emphasized, this issue is not limited to, nor primarily concerned with, the required ideological seminars of the PBOs. It is first and foremost about how ideological–political discussion is carried out around the daily activity of the PBO, how the PBO studies and analyzes the class struggle in its area of responsibility, and within the mass organizations it guides. It entails the need to enrich the PBO’s ideological–political discussion with topics drawn from current developments, as monitored through the Party press. It also requires that every discussion within the PBO conclude with clearly defined tasks, understood by all members, accompanied by a concrete division of responsibilities and the corresponding guidance to ensure their execution.

At the same time, not everything can be resolved in the General Assemblies. Greater time and substantive attention must be devoted to individual guidance sessions and smaller member meetings, where issues can be addressed, our forces can be consistently equipped and supported, the activity of the PBO can be practically organized, and tasks can be specified through each Party member’s individual plan.

Clearly the demands for discussion, guidance, and support increase as we move closer to the PBO level. Therefore, the tendency for richer content coming from the higher Organs to become narrowed and diluted by the time it reaches the PBOs must be addressed. This, of course, does not mean passing down unrefined tasks that have not been clarified or specified by the higher Organs.

To the extent that this practice changes, the level of individual responsibility, commitment, and initiative of Party members will also rise, along with militant dedication and willingness to sacrifice. Each comrade will add their own unique contribution to the collective effort to organize and mobilize the working-class and popular masses, to the struggle against the class enemy. Ultimately, this will help overcome the limiting mindset of “this is all they can do, this is all they can offer,” which is incompatible with the Party’s great goals and our responsibility toward the working class.

For all the above reasons, the role of the PBO Secretaries and the Bureaus is of critical importance. They are the vital links that can set the tone for a meaningful communist functioning of the PBOs.

It is necessary to decisively address practices that in effect limit the role of Secretaries and Bureaus to merely informing members or drafting reports. They must receive substantial support to carry out their guiding role within the PBOs. This includes ensuring the regular convening of Bureau meetings and individual guidance sessions, fostering organized ideological–political discussion, preparing a concrete action plan, and allocating responsibilities related to the struggle and our line of intervention within the mass organizations under the PBO’s responsibility.

The PBO Bureau must be able to codify the issues it encounters in its work and seek to address them using its own capacities, while the Sectoral Bureau’s support should feed into the elaborations of the Party apparatus —both upwards and downwards. These prerequisites are not a luxury; they are a necessity and an imperative.

At the same time, this task must confront real challenges, particularly regarding time commitment and prioritization, given that a significant number of Secretaries and PBO Bureaus are private-sector employees with varied, and often irregular, working hours, many of whom work late into the evening. This complicates the organization of Party work, and these comrades require additional support. The comrades in the Sectoral Bureaus responsible for guiding them should remain closely involved, anticipate gaps, and provide practical solutions.

In addition, concrete measures are needed to ensure that members of the PBO Bureaus and the Secretaries are actively involved in political action, both by participating as speakers in meetings and by engaging in the labour and popular movement. This issue is relatively resolved within the sectoral PBOs; however, confusion often arises between the role of a trade unionist and that of a Party cadre. For instance, some elected trade unionists, in the name of “non-partisanship”, conceal their Party membership and refrain from distributing Party materials or Rizospastis, while others forget that, as presidents or board members of mass organizations, they have responsibilities that require adherence to specific procedures, meetings, and modes of operation.

In area-based PBOs, the issue is more complex and can only be addressed through consistent guidance and appropriate measures. In particular, in large urban-area PBOs, it is essential to assign comrades whom we can evaluate over time, providing them with the necessary support and time to become thoroughly acquainted with their area of responsibility. The same approach applies to large rural PBOs, where the area of responsibility includes working-age populations, younger age groups, and other segments.

The deployment of PBOs must serve the strategic orientation of Party forces, taking into account the socio-class hierarchies we have identified within the working class and among our allied forces, including the self-employed and farmers. Naturally, no deployment alone can be a cure-all, nor does it override the statutory provisions regarding the concentration of forces in the workplace. For the deployment of organized forces to be effective, it must be accompanied by the appropriate substantive content that supports it, facilitates unified communist work with the working-class and popular forces, and ensures the necessary guiding support. Moreover, deployment should be carried out within a long-term framework, incorporating knowledge of economic developments, workforce distribution, the allocation and deployment of cadres, and the selection of suitable organizational structures, so that Party forces can carry out their primary task: recruiting and building within their areas of responsibility.

Although steps have been taken in this direction in recent years, further action is required to address specific issues:

• The heterogeneity of certain area-based PBOs, particularly those with large areas of responsibility in urban or semi-urban zones, where they can become confined to a surrounding of retirees and lack consistent orientation toward workers in smaller workplaces (e.g., retail, food service, tourism), the self-employed, farmers, and others within their area of responsibility. Addressing these issues allows for the practical application of an area-productive orientation, focusing work on the working class and allied social forces, regardless of deployment. It also facilitates a more effective orientation of the PBOs toward the work of mass organizations within their area (e.g., Women’s Associations, Parent Associations, Self-Employed or Trade Associations, Farmers’ Associations), even though, in many cases, the guiding responsibility rests not directly with the PBO itself but at the Sectoral level. This approach can be further supported through the organization of PBO sections with a corresponding division of responsibilities for these assigned tasks.
• Sectoral PBOs must overcome tendencies to function primarily as a Party group within a sectoral union, that is, to center their activity mainly around the sectoral trade union. This requires persistent effort to raise the quality of their work by enriching the thematic scope and substance of discussions, so that they encompass the full spectrum of ideological and political work within their area of responsibility. Strengthened monitoring based on relevant indicators should accompany this effort, addressing in practice the phenomena of “trade-unionization” of their surrounding environment.
• The orientation toward establishing Party Organizations in strategically important enterprises, industrial units, and corporate groups must be consistently supported, with corresponding measures to deploy forces appropriately. Naturally, this must be combined with measures to strengthen the ideological and political functioning and discussion within the PBOs, as their work can easily become narrowly focused or fragmented into overly specific tasks under the guise of “specialization”.
• The positive experience of coordination between area-based and sectoral organizations in the overall work within the working class —both in key enterprises and workplaces, as well as in neighbourhoods— must be fully utilized and generalized. Such coordination helps overcome the artificial separation that is often reproduced around various issues affecting the life of the working class. The coordination demonstrated during the major political fronts of the period (civil protection, evictions, health, education, etc.), through the formation of guiding staff for these fronts, and the preparation of proposals discussed at both sectoral and area-based levels —even in joint meetings of Sectoral Organs— contributed to strengthening the political content of work within both sectoral and area-based PBOs. It is imperative, however, that all guiding organs provide uniform support for this coordination, in order to address the significant disparities between different Party Organizations. This need is especially pressing due to the complexity inherent in the cross-sectoral structure of corporate groups or in the operation of such groups across multiple regions, which highlights the necessity of cooperation and coordination between sectoral and area-based organizations, including between Regional Organizations themselves. This coordination applies both to the development of political content and to the formation of a unified plan. As a working method, it primarily concerns the Central Committee, its Sections, the Secretariat, and the Regional Party Organizations.

The development of vigilance, safeguarding and information gathering for this purpose must become a critical aspect of the functioning of the PBOs, especially under today’s conditions. These elements need to be strengthened, because the Party’s long-term activity under peaceful and parliamentary conditions of bourgeois legality has fostered certain inertia, a degree of compromise, and a tolerance for laxity in Party functioning.

The strict and consistent application of the Party Statutes, its principles of operation, and, in particular, the measures to politically educate younger and newer members so that they develop such characteristics, are issues that must be advanced within Party life under the responsibility of the guiding organs. They include the need to deepen discussion on understanding the multifaceted mechanisms of intervention employed by the class enemy and its deployment against the Party, as well as the need to draw on the Party’s valuable historical experience. At the same time, a small segment of the Party remains members in title only, showing signs of disengagement, following our political line from a distance, and has not fully internalized it —or even continues to harbour reservations or disagreements with our strategy. Such tendencies of compromise and retreat must be addressed decisively in accordance with the Party’s statutory principles and operational rules.

The assessment of the Party’s and KNE’s specialized work among women of our social and class interest highlights, above all, the urgent need to address delays and shortcomings in this complex and strategic task.

A key objective is to secure a consistent orientation among the Party’s guiding organs, so that the content of specialized work with women is fully integrated into the planning of the Party’s mass ideological and political activities. This encompasses efforts to strengthen the organization, to guide Party forces in the labour and trade union movement, in the movements of the self-employed and farmers, in the student and university movements, and in the guidance of communist women within the radical women’s movement.

During the recent period of successive electoral battles, some initial steps were taken toward collective discussion within the Party’s guiding organs regarding the content and forms of its specialized intervention among women. These steps must now be consolidated and stabilized. The experience gained from political engagement with women should be generalized based on age and socio-class criteria, taking into account the influence of material conditions of work and life on the consciousness of working-class and popular women. This also involves addressing the contemporary manifestations of women’s inequality, the unmet needs of women today, and the ideological influence of bourgeois and opportunist perceptions.

A key issue remains the planning of both the content and forms of specialized ideological work, aimed at substantially strengthening the Marxist ideological foundation and raising the educational and cultural level of Party members and supporters. This entails developing a multifaceted plan rooted in the Party’s ideological and political elaborations, with a central focus on the persistent and consistent projection of our strategy toward women. It includes incorporating strategic lessons from the history of the communist movement and the experience of socialist construction in the 20^th century, while highlighting women’s participation in class struggle, particularly under conditions of imperialist war. These initiatives must foster resilience and militancy among women Party members and cadres, as well as among women within the Party’s wider circle of influence, promoting the values that define a militant communist way of life — in direct contrast to the dominant bourgeois lifestyle.

Particularly during the period under review, the imprint of the dominant bourgeois perception of individual and family responsibility in child-rearing was especially marked in the thinking and attitudes of women within the Party’s wider circle, and even among Party forces themselves. This may have been reinforced by the pandemic, during which individual responsibility —particularly that of women— was intensified in caring for children and other dependent family members, under conditions where caregiving labour is increasingly commodified. Consequently, from a leadership perspective, substantial support is required for communist parents, both women and men, through comprehensive ideological, political, and organizational measures. Most importantly, this concerns the preparation of younger Party members, which must be based on a deep assimilation of our understanding of the family, its evolution, and its responsibilities under prevailing historical and social conditions, including the content and scope of parental responsibility.

At the 21^st Congress, we emphasized the critical role of Sectoral Committees (SCs) as the organs directly responsible for the guidance of Party Base Organizations. It was clearly stated that all efforts must be focused on strengthening their leading role in relation to the PBOs.

Clearly, steps have been taken to improve both the functioning and composition of the Sectoral Committees. Efforts have been made to support newly appointed cadres and to allocate responsibilities so that all leadership tasks within a Sector are adequately covered, combining guiding duties with specific areas of work. However, in many cases, this allocation remains somewhat unstable, subject to the pressures of evolving needs and circumstances. Overall, the Sectoral Committees consist of the most advanced cadres of each Sector, who take the lead in planning and carrying out the Party’s tasks. A significant portion of them serve as Secretaries, members of PBO Bureaus, or as comrades guiding the PBOs.

A key issue remains the establishment of consistent ideological and political discussion within the Sectoral Committees and their Bureaus. Where organized discussions of key issues have taken place, they have yielded results, contributing to the elevation of the Organ’s ideological and political level. Many Sectoral Committee members also engage in the Party’s education systems. Nonetheless, the main challenge continues to be the stabilization and strengthening of ideological and political discussion, particularly on current issues, including sharing experience from engagement with workers, political and trade union activities, and discussing lessons learned. This process must contribute to raising the ideological and political level of the PBOs, as well as improving the quality of content directed at them. Ideological and political discussions within a Sectoral Committee or Bureau are not conducted solely —or even primarily— for the self-development of the Organ or its cadres. Rather, they are intended to support and strengthen the guiding work carried out with the PBOs. If this way of working does not permeate the daily functioning of the guiding organs —with thorough preparation and sufficient time allocated— we will not be able to advance to the next crucial step: systematically extending thematic discussions to the PBOs. Central elaborations and elaborations from the guiding organs must not be presented to PBOs in a formalistic manner or merely as tools for equipping them. Instead, they should serve as the basis for genuine discussion, fostering members’ critical reflection, enabling them to contribute their own ideas, practice making these ideas accessible to the masses, and participate with greater competence and militancy in the Party’s mass political activity. In doing so, members take on more responsibilities and enhance their overall contribution.

At the same time, two negative tendencies must be addressed. On the one hand, some cadres from the Regional or Sectoral Committees adopt a condescending or detached attitude toward the difficulties faced at the level of the Party Base Organizations, remaining distant from the practical effort to tackle the ideological, political, and organizational challenges in implementing the PBOs’ plans. On the other hand, certain vanguard comrades and a narrow core of members sometimes take over the work of PBO Secretaries and Bureaus. Issues of “trust” toward the PBOs and their members are often expressed by lowering expectations and potential, or by resorting to top-down criticism and bureaucratic approaches. This problem is not merely “organizational” in nature; it often reflects a retreat or compromise by cadres in the face of difficulties, a tendency to underestimate the real potential of today’s Party forces, especially the younger members, and a search for “ideal” Party members and “ideal” PBOs that exist only in imagination, turning guiding weaknesses into seemingly objective limitations.

Such problems can easily become entrenched if not addressed systematically, particularly given that many Sectoral Committee members have limited social and political experience, due to their relatively young age, short time in the Party, and the one-sided experience gained mainly through their work in KNE, among other factors. This is why a systematic approach is needed, combining ideological and political support with the development of a concrete method of guidance, grounded in the principle that Party members must be consistently and persistently prepared, both collectively and individually, in ideological and political terms. They should be integrated into the PBOs’ planning, monitored, and assisted in overcoming the difficulties they face. Within this process, special attention should be given to the work of the most vanguard comrades, whose example can serve as a model, highlighting best practices and helping to extend them more broadly.

The Sectoral Bureaus that have been established are composed of comrades, the overwhelming majority of whom work in production. They face challenges related to working hours, employment conditions, family obligations, and other responsibilities, leaving them with very little free time during the day. As a result, Sectoral Bureaus tend to include a relatively large number of members to ensure that all tasks are covered. However, in some cases, this makes these organs cumbersome and less effective in their coordinating and leadership role. This also affects the conduct of their meetings. For this reason, it is essential to follow the measures we have discussed in specific decisions —namely, ensuring thorough preparation for each meeting, limiting the number of topics, pre-prepared reports that have been studied in advance, and members ready to participate. Practical matters or issues requiring oversight should be addressed through individual guiding sessions, allowing the meeting itself to focus on meaningful exchanges of experience and conclusions, clarifying tasks for planning our activities, and addressing the guiding responsibilities that arise. Moreover, other forms of guidance should be used more systematically, such as meetings between the leading comrade and the Secretaries and Bureaus of the PBOs, for example at the municipal level. Each cadre should become more well-rounded, gaining experience through their assigned area of responsibility. Rotation of duties is also essential, as it enriches experience and injects new energy through new responsibilities.

Despite the progress made, the issue of inadequate allocation of tasks within the Sectoral Bureau, particularly regarding specific areas of work, remains. This challenge must be addressed across all levels of the Sectoral Organizations. Much of the limited time available to cadres continues to be devoted primarily to guiding the PBOs, while responsibility for and organization of work in their assigned area often takes a back seat. Improvement will only occur if the Organ approaches each area of work more systematically, plans its interventions and initiatives with a long-term perspective, and regularly monitors and evaluates their outcomes. It is, of course, primarily the responsibility of the Secretary to implement improvements in task allocation, taking into account each comrade’s aptitude for particular areas, their abilities, interests, and accumulated experience, as well as the need for rotation of tasks —a process that supports the comprehensive development of every cadre. This task is closely linked to the need to strengthen ideological and political discussion within the Organs and the PBOs, to the extent that the guiding organs are increasingly supported by their auxiliary teams, and collective participation is enhanced in the elaboration, specialization, and planning of ideological, political, and mass interventions within their area of responsibility.

There has been a clearer effort to establish the understanding that the Sectoral Organization guides an entire area of responsibility, not just a few PBOs. It must recognize its role as representing the KKE’s intervention and presence within its assigned area. These efforts have been reflected in contributions to Conferences and in the depiction of the “organizational map.” However, they have not yet become a consistent and stable part of the functioning of all Sectors.

Clear progress has been made in strengthening the functioning of the Regional Committees (RCs) as leading organs under the direct guidance of the Central Committee. The RCs encompass a significant core of cadres, marked by relatively solid political formation and accumulated experience. Progress has also been achieved in the efforts of the RCs and Regional Bureaus (RBs) to systematically study their areas of responsibility, including economic developments and the interventions and activities of other forces —particularly the bourgeoisie, employers, business groups, and imperialist centres.

This work has laid an important foundation, enabling the Party to adapt its positions in various circumstances with the support and guidance of the Central Committee and its Sections. In turn, this has positively affected the development of the Party’s ideological, political, and mass interventions. However, much greater effort is still needed to ensure that these analyses are not left unused but are further developed and serve as a consistent guide for advancing the Party’s activity across sectors and strategic branches of the economy, as well as in its confrontation with the bourgeoisie’s growth plans, and related challenges.

The ideological, political, and educational level of RC members has improved compared to the past, although the use of the Party Press and the books of Synchroni Epochi remains limited, even within the RCs themselves. Nevertheless, despite this ideological and educational progress, subjective and empirical practices continue to influence the formation of guiding perspectives and practices. This suggests that the ideological and political foundation is not yet fully integrated into everyday guiding work, and that experience is not consistently analyzed according to the ideological and political criteria established by the Party.

At the level of the RCs —as with the Sectoral Committees— there is full agreement with the Party’s Resolutions, Programme, strategy, and positions. There are cadres who, through their contributions, are able to highlight, illuminate, and confirm the correctness of our political line based on the Party’s practical experience. However, this must not lead to complacency. For between agreement in principle and the way that agreement is expressed in practice, there is often a significant distance. The fact that we operate under conditions of an unfavourable correlation of forces inevitably influences, in one way or another, what we refer to as the detachment of day-to-day work from strategy —and this requires no underestimation. On the contrary, we must cultivate a higher level of demand from cadres, so that they contribute, with persistent and creative effort, to the study and elaboration of issues, thus resolving this problem in practice, and ensuring that such ideological and political criteria predominate in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of our work.

It is necessary to strengthen both the critical and self-critical aspects in the evaluation of our work, in a creative and educational manner. Party cadres at the level of the Regional Committees undoubtedly bear a heavy burden, carrying out complex and demanding tasks and achieving significant successes in organizing events and leading political or trade-union struggles. Yet even generally positive results are often not assessed in a comprehensive way; weaknesses that coexist with these successes are easily underestimated, despite often being crucial. At the same time, there are cases in which situations are presented in an overly idealized light. The effort to maintain high morale and spirit under today’s counterrevolutionary conditions does not mean that serious and significant weaknesses should be downplayed. On the contrary, the spirit of criticism and self-criticism among Party cadres must be strengthened.

At the level of the Regional Committees, cadres often make accurate assessments of the Party’s situation and of the difficulties and problems in guiding work, highlighted from various angles. However, these correct assessments are not always accompanied by a corresponding contribution to addressing these issues in practice. This is a significant problem, as it often shifts the responsibility for resolving them downward —to the Sectoral Committees and the PBOs— without the RCs and their cadres assuming the necessary ideological, political, and organizational responsibility to provide the required support in resolving these guiding issues.

The Regional Committees need to pay greater attention to ensuring the Party’s principles of functioning are upheld. Many cases of tolerance or laxity toward organizational violations reflect an underestimation of responsibility by the RCs, the Regional Bureaus, and their cadres. At the same time, we must recognize the importance of cadres at all levels, as well as RC members, contributing through their conduct to addressing manifestations of authoritarian bureaucratism. They must remain open to criticism and avoid fostering distrust or suspicion toward the guiding organs —sentiments that the opponent will inevitably exploit to strengthen anti-leadership tendencies.

Overall, starting with the Central Committee itself, cadres must be trained so that defending our ideology, the Party Programme, and the principles of Party operation does not obstruct criticism from below — whether through observations, corrective proposals, or suggestions to supplement specific aspects, especially when new issues are under discussion. More generally, the capacity to lead must include the flexibility to guide comrades who may have broader, more specialized, or more general skills and knowledge, regardless of their formal position in the leadership hierarchy. At the same time, it is necessary to cultivate communist modesty, reject top-down or condescending guidance, and avoid underestimating the difficulties faced by other comrades. Cadres must be equipped with patience and perseverance, particularly when explaining new and complex issues as they arise.

Today, Auxiliary Committees (ACs) are better organized at the level of Regional Committees, and to a lesser extent at the level of Sectoral Committees. These ACs play a crucial role in ensuring that the elaboration of issues is supported directly within the guiding organs themselves. Their establishment is therefore not a luxury but a vital necessity. However, the mere fact that they have been formed does not guarantee their consistent and effective functioning. Fully guiding their work remains a task to be accomplished, with responsibility resting on the Regional and Sectoral Bureaus and the comrades in charge. This includes identifying the needs of the Regional Committees and Sectoral Organizations, assigning specific issues, and thereby enhancing the role of ACs as supportive teams. Their mission is to assist the work of the guiding organs by contributing to the development of elaborations, the specialization of positions, the formulation of struggle frameworks, and the generalization of experience.

Each Auxiliary Committee, under the responsibility of the corresponding Sectoral or Regional Bureau, must develop its own work plan, be held accountable for its implementation, and be assigned specific tasks. At the same time, staffing these committees remains a challenge that is not always addressed in the best way. Too often, they are staffed with overburdened comrades, instead of making an effort to involve comrades who, despite some limitations in their training, could contribute effectively to the Auxiliary Committees’ work thanks to their available time and capacity. What is crucial, however, is that the comrades leading the Auxiliary Committees meet the basic requirements for cadre-level responsibilities.

This is part of the broader framework of the Party’s policy on cadre development and advancement. It is a crucial issue that encompasses specialization, education, and ongoing development of cadres, as well as fostering their inclination and ability to specialize in specific areas of work. It also involves ensuring their active participation in the Party’s internal education systems.

We have not yet resolved problems in the organization and functioning of Party Groups[1] (PGs), particularly within primary-level unions, both regarding their content and how they operate. In many cases, these Groups are underperforming or not functioning at all. Often, in their planning and activities, they overlap with the work of the union’s Executive Board, making decisions on minor matters that could be addressed by the Board or the union’s General Assembly. This effectively undermines the more advanced ideological and political content that PGs should uphold. Such content includes the development of struggle frameworks; the actions of the union or other mass organizations; the overall ideological–political debate in the sector; the study of sector developments and prospects; the activities of other forces, including employer interventions; Party-building tasks, and so on.

The Party Groups have a particular responsibility for increasing the unions’ mass base, developing plans to create new unions, and ensuring their stable functioning (their Executive Boards, holding General Assemblies, and meetings) as a key criterion for the regroupment of the movement. They are also responsible for the systematic monitoring, timely, and effective organization of union elections, with an emphasis on ideological and political activity, and the adoption of appropriate organizational measures that contribute to shifting the correlation of forces in favour of the class-oriented forces. At the sectoral and broader industry level, the PGs must develop common struggle objectives for waged workers in coordination with the self-employed in these sectors, and with farmers, against the common enemy —monopolies and corporate groups. They should also develop specialized objectives for women, youth in the sector, or other categories such as migrants, and initiate measures to broaden the work of unions into areas that concern the overall life of working-class and popular families. All members of the Party Groups must be responsible for discussing and preparing candidates for recruitment, contributing to the corresponding PG plans for the establishment of PBOs in large factories and enterprises. They should also pay particular attention to the promotion of new trade union cadres.

These tasks must be pursued simultaneously and in a unified manner, rather than piecemeal. The implementation plan should set out hierarchical objectives with intermediate milestones.

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[1] Statutes of the KKE, Article 38: The leading Party organs create Party groups that act under their guidance for the specialization and the promotion of the goals of the Party in order for the Party be more effective in fulfilling its mission in the mass worker’s and people’s organizations. These groups are comprized of members elected to their committees as well as of other members who operate under their guidance.

The trend observed in recent years of promoting new cadres, primarily comrades transitioning from KNE into the Party, has continued. These comrades give a significant boost to the Party’s work, staff guiding organs at all levels, participate in Sections of the Central Committee, and take on responsibilities within the broader movement. A notable renewal of cadres has taken place in most guiding organs, particularly in major urban centers. Many have assumed important leadership responsibilities and demonstrated considerable capabilities, yet they require a sufficient period to further develop and fully realize their potential.

The development of cadres begins with a thorough understanding of their personal characteristics and unique potential, which must be effectively utilized and nurtured according to Party criteria. Today, it is essential to cultivate multifaceted cadres, avoiding one-size-fits-all approaches, while taking into account factors such as age, experience, and other individual circumstances. At the same time, this preparation must have common features, including attaining a certain level of theoretical education and a solid grasp of the Party’s positions and elaborations, which serve as a foundation for ideological–political unity and conscious agreement. For the all-round development of cadres, it is also important to rotate responsibilities periodically, rather than permanently assigning them to general organizational guidance tasks. This rotation should include work within the mass movement, the ideological sector, and other areas of Party activity.

Alongside the measurable indicators of effectiveness that we monitor, a deeper and more comprehensive evaluation of cadres is essential. Of course, all cadres are and will continue to be assessed, particularly under the more challenging conditions of the class struggle that lie ahead. At the same time, we must not overlook or underestimate the need for cadres to remain vigilant against manifestations of liberalism —such as individual use of social media, tolerance of behaviours incompatible with the communist way of life (e.g., addictions, narcissism, etc.)— and to resist the complacent rationalization that “this is just how things are today”. Issues of communist ethics, lifestyle, and the inseparable integration of political and personal life must be actively cultivated by cadres themselves through their communist formation and the development of communist virtues —virtues that inspire others through their daily conduct and ensure unity between words and deeds. Attending to these aspects creates stronger conditions for Party-building and recruitment efforts within both the Party and KNE.

At the same time, we must not underestimate that some new cadres today are showing signs of fatigue, retreat, or even withdrawal. Simply noting these trends is not sufficient; we need to engage more deeply with the issue. These developments are influenced by the current unfavourable correlation of forces, the detachment of daily work from a long-term strategic perspective, and the fear and uncertainty about future developments. Directly or indirectly, this expresses an individual choice linked to a lack of faith in the path of the revolution.

The planning of the Party’s guiding organs must comprehensively support the development of women cadres. The guiding organs need to devote greater and more consistent attention to assessing women’s participation in the Party’s and the movement’s Organs, as well as to their education in the specialized work of the Party and the KNE among women, regardless of their assigned tasks. We face shortcomings in enabling more women cadres to substantively contribute to the work of the guiding organs. Frequent rotation of women cadres within these leadership roles hinders their ability to develop a deeper familiarity with these complex tasks, maintain continuity in decisively addressing weaknesses and gaps, and ensure that planning, oversight, and evaluation of results are carried out with clarity.

More broadly, the effort to enhance the Party’s work begins with the members of each Organ themselves. It requires a steady orientation toward planning and carrying out daily political activity, based firmly on our elaborations, our documents (Congress Resolutions, Nationwide Conferences, Specific Resolutions of the Central Committee), and the relevant theoretical and historical conclusions.

It entails the painstaking and persistent effort to integrate Party publications, including articles in KOMEP (Communist Review) and Rizospastis, as well as the content of internal education courses and seminars, into the formulation and specialization of each PBO’s intervention within its area of responsibility. Reflection and elaboration by each Organ must consistently address the questions, gaps, and difficulties faced by our forces, as revealed through internal education system and daily political activity. The deeper causes of these difficulties and even the hesitations of some members to present the Party’s strategic proposals in a well-grounded and accessible manner must be carefully examined and overcome.

A fundamental prerequisite for implementing a comprehensive plan of ideological and political intervention by the Organs is the enhancement of cadre education, their proper deployment, and the long-term planning of their development. This is a complex task that must take into account both the personal characteristics and the specific capacities of cadres in their development, guided consistently by Party criteria.

All guiding organs, starting with the Central Committee, must, based on the new experience, address more extensively, deeply and steadily the significant weaknesses and delays we have previously identified, in order to achieve in practice a higher level of guidance in accordance with the criteria set at the 21st Congress and to ensure that the daily class struggle is not diverted from our strategy.

We must realize more substantially and uniformly that the goals of the comprehensive and multifaceted organizational strengthening of the Party remain to a great extent detached from the efforts for ideological and political strengthening; and that our political guidance work must be determined by our strategy in all circumstances and be firmly supported in a multifaceted way by communist ideological and educational work. In this direction, we must strengthen our capacity to examine issues of the ideological and political struggle in every movement, workplace, and area of responsibility, so that the expansion of our bonds and the necessary and critical change in the correlation of forces within the movement ultimately serve our strategy.

This is a complicated problem that is reflected in weaknesses in political guidance, more specifically in the deployment of cadres, their political education, the prioritization of tasks, and, consequently, in the proper preparation so that the central positions and axes of the ideological struggle against bourgeois and opportunist currents are steadily and repeatedly disseminated from top to bottom. The generalization of   experience from the struggle in the wider area of each Sector and each Region should be effectively assimilated by the PBOs. Furthermore, their contribution to the improvement of the ideological–political content of the work has not yet been assimilated in practice as a basic criterion for evaluating the work of cadres and organs, while the assignment and assessment of tasks usually does not take into account the above objective.

a.  The fact that the Party’s predictions, assessments, and positions on major issues —such as the development of imperialist war and the capitalist economy in the EU and in our country, the character of the shift to a war economy and the restructuring of the bourgeois state— were proven correct. This specific achievement of the Party was based on the fact that we carried out a significant part of the research tasks set by the 21st  Congress, such as the study of the implementation of the EU’s strategic guidelines; the reform of the bourgeois political system and the current bourgeois digital state in Greece; the further investigation of socialist construction in the 20th century; and the struggle against opportunism at the domestic and international level.

b. The rise of the Party’s political influence, which was reflected to a certain extent in the political battles of the period under review. The positive steps taken in the organization and development of struggles, in the maturation of several cadres and organs, and in the formation of cadres that understand more clearly than before the need to enhance political guidance and improve ourselves in enlightening and popularizing our positions.

c. The positive impact of the ideological courses held at the PBOs according to their plans, so that they keep pace, as far as possible, with current party intervention and action, ensure the repetition of basic concepts and subjects, and improve the ability to engage in strategic debate and promote specialization of the Party’s positions. Of course, the results vary depending on the preparation that took place in each PBO.

d. The support, despite delays, of KNE in the ideological struggle against the current of self-identification and rights-based individualism, against the postmodern denial of objective reality, the concept of multiple identities, etc.

e. The steps taken to support comrades teaching in Party schools and improve the instruction and content of courses within the internal education system, as well as to expand the schools for the Party’s circle of influence.

f. The expansion and enrichment of the content and thematic scope of KOMEP and the Party’s publications, by making use of various anniversary and thematic publications, as well as related events, book presentations, exhibitions, etc. 

We should immediately take a decisive step towards the comprehensive planning of ideological and educational work as a whole and its incorporation into political guidance work, in order to harmonize it more effectively with our programme. In other words, we must not allow our practical daily political guidance work to be diverted from our strategy in the name of existing objective difficulties and factors. On the contrary, we must focus on deepening our ideological and political bonds with our circle of influence, especially with the working class, and on building a foundation for the future, so that this orientation can be consolidated.

The continuous, consistent integration of ideological, communist educational work into the daily functioning and activities of the organs and organizations will be evaluated based on whether cadres and organs manage to apply a dialectical–materialistic method of analysis and problem-solving. As a result, the tasks will be prioritized and allocated more effectively, fragmentation will be addressed, and forces will be deployed based on the needs of the struggle at any given time. In this way, a faster and more targeted development of party forces will be achieved and the preparation of KNE forces to join the Party will be improved.

It is also critical to improve and consolidate the ability to monitor developments, to elaborate the line and framework of struggle so as to promote our strategy in every workplace, sector and movement at every stage of the struggle, and to carry out a specialized ideological and political struggle for the orientation of the movement, as part of the Party’s independent activity or within the movement. Ideological– political knowledge and assimilation of positions are important prerequisites for the contribution of each Party member to the elaboration and implementation of decisions.

The measures for implementing the integrated long-term plan should serve its organic incorporation into political guidance work.  We must reverse the tendency whereby the more we move “downward”, the less effectively we utilize our ideological positions and elaborations.

Specifically, we focus on:

a) Intensifying ideological and political work for a deeper understanding of the revolutionary character of the Party.

This concerns understanding the importance of daily intervention based on our strategy and the application of the principles that govern the Party’s functioning.

b) Integrating the ideological programme into the action programme under the responsibility of the organs.

Under the responsibility of the guiding organs, the goal of assimilating positions, conclusions, and elaborations should be more firmly combined with the immediate political activity of our forces, also within the movement. This will broaden and stabilize the effort to effectively link ideological educational work with the content of daily action, ensuring that the ideological work programme no longer functions as a “parallel programme”. 

Achieving this goal requires strengthening the contribution of the guiding organs in the formulation, implementation, and control of a comprehensive plan for ideological and educational work, as well as for the preparation and intervention of our forces in their area of responsibility.

It requires a plan that will include and integrate all aspects of ideological and communist educational work, i.e., the system of inner-party education, the utilization and circulation of KOMEP, Rizospastis, and the publications of Synchroni Epochi, and the effort to specialize the ideological struggle.

It also requires a plan that will be monitored constantly and rigorously in terms of its progress, taking into account at the same time all indicators (e.g., circulation and subscriptions to Rizospastis and KOMEP), so that additional and corrective guidance measures can be taken in good time.

Measures to restore the relationship between KKE cadres and members and Rizospastis must be implemented. This will enable us to address a series of problems in political guidance. The main question is to achieve a unified understanding of the core of the problem, i.e. the restoration of the daily relationship between KKE cadres and members and the newspaper, and its utilization in mass and ideological–political activity. This issue must be discussed within the Organs, with members of the guiding organs, as well as between the Secretaries of the PBOs and the members of the Bureau and the PBO. We must insist on the goals set by the Party Organizations, particularly on certain goals concerning the increase of subscribers (in areas where a subscription network exists) among cadres from Regional Committees to Sectoral Committees and respectively among cadres of KNE, as well as on the planned circulation of the daily edition of  Rizospastis in cases where subscription is not possible. The issue of the purchase and utilization of Rizospastis should be a basic criterion for the promotion of cadres, and an element of criticism and self-criticism.

Political guidance must ensure that the articles of KOMEP and Party publications are studied and utilized so that they consistently and systematically cover all aspects of internal Party life (e.g., thematic discussions at the organs and PBOs, preparation of reports to the Party assemblies and ideological courses, elaboration of the ideological struggle for the Party’s intervention independently and within the movement), as well as the Party’s activity in the area of responsibility (e.g., events, book presentations, exhibitions).

We have now created conditions for the development of an educational trend within our ranks based on the Party’s functioning and activities, a trend that will embrace political books and literature, theatre, and cultural creation in general, with the aim of improving the quality of life of members and cadres according to communist criteria.

Ensuring time for studying Rizospastis, KOMEP, and the Party’s political analyses should become part of the daily routine. It must be understood that the effort of self-education cannot be limited to the political intervention on current issues, but must aim at establishing a solid ideological and political foundation that guarantees unity of thought and action for the effective promotion of revolutionary policies.

The guiding organs are responsible for the timely formation and effective functioning of the Ideological Committees, as well as other necessary Auxiliary Committees. This means that the Organs shall take constant care to staff them with members, evaluate and support their work, assign tasks, and make effective use of their elaborations and reports. At the same time, they must ensure the necessary feedback and interaction between the guiding organs and the Ideological Committee in order to enhance political guidance work.

The recognition that the Ideological Committee is an important foundation for the implementation of the comprehensive plan of the ideological–political work by the guiding organs must be reflected in practice by ensuring that it has the necessary staff to carry out its mission, operate with a clear division of responsibilities, and  fulfill its duties.

For this purpose, the Ideological Committee should consist of cadres without multiple responsibilities, or at least with responsibilities that are largely complementary.

Economy and History Groups must also be established and operate independently, at least at the level of Regional Committees. The operation of the Economy Groups is necessary in order to separate in practice and implement relatively distinct tasks relating to the specialization of our intervention and  ideological struggle. The stable guidance of the work among scientists at the level of Regional Committees (engineers, economists, lawyers, etc.) will be also useful in this direction, as it can ensure, among other things, a network of associates for studying developments in various areas of responsibility.

The Economy Group should focus on analyzing issues and phenomena related to the economic operation of the system, changes in the social and class structure in each municipality, city, and region which have an impact on the movements. It should also focus on economic and social policies, on the elaboration of a line for Party intervention and on a framework of demands, for example, through the analysis of a redevelopment project and the change of land use in a region.

Similarly, the History Groups, in cooperation with the History Section of the Central Committee, should monitor and develop not only the local history of the labour movement and the Party, but also the teaching of history at all levels of education, and the ideological–political bourgeois and opportunist intervention on the occasion of historical events.

Based on the positive experience from the seminars at the PBOs over the past four years, we can now set as a medium-term goal the establishment of a new educational tier of foundational knowledge for all PBO members. This tier will be distinct from the Party schools for candidate and new members, as well as from the intermediate-level schools. All PBO members will be required to participate progressively at regular intervals. It will be launched on a pilot basis in universities and sectoral organizations in Education and Healthcare.

Transitionally, for the next two years, until the conditions for the new level are established, we set the goal of increasing the frequency of seminars at PBOs (one every four months). In this context, we should utilize the positive experience of the past years, i.e. the repetition of basic concepts and topics, the presentation of seminars so that they align, as far as possible, with current Party intervention and debate, the contribution of Sectoral Committees to the specialization of content in their area of responsibility, as well as the support of comrades teaching the seminars with guidelines and auxiliary materials.

Key aspects of the responsibility of the Organs for maximizing the outcome of the lessons include:

• The assimilation of the basic issues of each course first by the Sectoral Committees and their contribution to the specialization of the relevant presentation.

The regular assessment of courses by the Sectoral Bureaus, which will result in guidance measures aimed at filling knowledge gaps and addressing confusion and misconceptions. In cases where questions indicate a persistent problem in the assimilation of fundamental positions or a delay in our fundamental elaborations, these measures will also help identify the underlying reasons why such questions recur.

• Contributing to the proper preparation of seminars (ensuring participation, collecting questions in advance, adhering to the schedule, etc.) and to the appropriate deployment and preparation of comrades teaching them, with the aim of gradually involving more comrades who are members of the Regional Committees and the Sectoral Bureaus in the tasks of teaching and providing comprehensive support for the courses. 

A primary task for all guiding organs of the Party is to recognize their responsibility in supporting the ideological, political, and educational work within the ranks of KNE, which constitutes the lifeblood of the Party.

Assuming this responsibility in a substantive way —and not merely formally, through declarations— is a necessary condition for safeguarding the revolutionary character of the Party in the future. It requires an unyielding struggle against perceptions and, above all, practices that create a disconnect from the pursuit of knowledge, as well as against attitudes that undermine the importance of substantive education or reduce it to fragmentary information. It also requires an unyielding struggle to ensure that party members understand that the individual use of social media can leave the door open to shaping thought according to the orientation of the class enemy, thereby reinforcing mechanisms of manipulation.

This general task is translated, in practice, into the formulation and persistent implementation of a unified plan by the Party and KNE organs. This plan encompasses all aspects analyzed so far (e.g., the promotion and circulation of books, KOMEP, the operation of Ideological Committees) and emphasizes specialized work in the fields of Education, Apprenticeship, working youth, scientific research, Culture and Sports.

A key axis for elaborating and monitoring the content of the unified plan is the substantial improvement of the assimilation and promotion of the Party’s programme, our fundamental contemporary elaborations, historical conclusions and our overall understanding of socialism–communism (including the laws of the socialist revolution and the construction of socialism–communism).

In this specific field, the planned use of our tools will be tested in practice, starting with Rizospastis, KOMEP, books, etc.  We are intensifying our efforts to:

•  Deepen our understanding of exploitative relationships and uncover the contemporary forms that capitalist exploitation takes, particularly as shaped by new technologies, the use of Artificial Intelligence, and changes in the methods of  the organization of labour. This issue is directly linked to the capacity to wage a combined economic and political struggle of the working class, demonstrating that all anti-labour governmental measures, all EU directives, and all decisions of capital —including those of employers— are driven by the need to defend and intensify capitalist exploitation and the laws of the capitalist mode of production. 

• Assimilate our positions and deepen our understanding of the course of capitalist economy. Interpret economic changes and management policies in the context of the economic crisis cycle in capitalism, including the alternation of recession and recovery phases, and the management formula implemented at the expense of the working class and other popular forces in each phase.  On this basis, strengthen the capacity to uncover the strategic objectives of capital, the EU, and governments in promoting business plans, investment programmes, and their shifting priorities (green growth, energy mix, infrastructure, exploitation of hydrocarbons, digital economy, war economy, etc.), as well as the ongoing strategic goal of transforming Greece into an energy and transport hub. 

• Expose the class nature of the bourgeois state as a state that serves capital and business groups, operates as a whole according to their class interests, and therefore adopts anti-labour measures, strengthens its repressive functions, maintains class-based priorities, and defends and shields capitalist exploitation and injustice at the expense of the working-class and popular majority through all its institutions. Based on the accumulated experience and discontent over the years regarding the stance of the state toward the people and the working class, we should reinforce a critical questioning of the state as a whole, while simultaneously highlighting the type of state and society that the working class and popular forces need, and envisioning how people’s state power should be organized. 

• Expose the nature of imperialist war as a war for the division of markets, territories, and spheres of influence, and as a continuation of the “peaceful” capitalist competition between monopolies, capitalist states, and imperialist alliances. On this basis, we should confront the propaganda and pretexts of the bourgeois classes and the opposing imperialist camps, while simultaneously waging the ideological struggle against the various bourgeois and opportunist positions on war (pro-war positions, alignment with imperialist camps, nationalism, pacifism, etc.) within the workers’–people’s movement. We must reveal the fundamental opposition between the interests of the bourgeoisie and the working class in conditions of war, rejecting the ideological constructs of “national unity” and “social peace”. We must explain that war erupts at a moment when the contradictions of the system, as well as the potential of the working class and popular masses to intervene, take initiative, and seize their own fate —as history has demonstrated—become clearly evident. From this point of view, the relationship between war and the capitalist system itself can be better understood and, consequently, the connection between the way out of it and the necessity of overthrowing the system and establishing socialism–communism can be emphasized.

• Deepen our understanding of socialist construction in 20th century and promote socialism–communism as a superior socioeconomic system offering the only realistic, timely and effective solution to the problems facing the working class and other popular strata today. This requires the ability to assimilate the laws of socialism–communism, the role of workers’ power, the Communist Party, social ownership, scientific central planning, and the character of socialist society as immature communism. On this basis, we should strengthen our capacity to defend the first historical attempt to construct socialism in the USSR and other countries during the 20th century not by embellishing or idealizing it, but by critically analyzing the causes that led to the counter-revolution and the overthrow of the socialist system, and thus confronting bourgeois and opportunist distortion and anti-communism. From this perspective, today we can more effectively demonstrate the relevance and timeliness of a society and economy that operate based on the needs of workers and the people, rather than capitalist profits. Accordingly, our positions on a number of critical issues such as health and education, should be highlighted in the context of current developments. 

•  Promote the path of overthrowing the capitalist system, that is, the revolutionary perspective: the necessity of overthrowing bourgeois power and capitalist relations of production as a prerequisite for eliminating the process of capitalist profit-making and paving the way for a superior socioeconomic organization —one providing a way out from the impasses of the system for the working class and the people. Within this framework, we must be able to confront the illusions about “solutions in favour of the people” that are supposedly achievable through shifts in the balance of forces in the parliament; illusions regarding the role of the bourgeois state or the possibility of supposedly pro-people governments under capitalism through a more “fair management”.  At the same time, it is necessary to explain that these conditions for such an overthrow are being formed today, and that this overthrow will be the task of the working class and the people, with the Communist Party playing the vanguard role. From this standpoint, it is essential to highlight as of today the perspective that the workers’ and people’s struggle must acquire: the need to strengthen the anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly orientation of the struggle and the unification of the various fronts of struggle into a single nationwide movement of counterattack, as well as the  steps toward forming a social alliance between the working class,  poor farmers, and the self-employed; in short, the need to rally broader working-class and popular forces around the KKE’s programme. This task requires: 

- Carrying out a precise and specialized ideological and political struggle against other forces within the movement over its direction, orientation, and objectives. 

- Constantly studying the processes within the movement, correctly assessing the sentiments of the masses, gaining new experience and knowledge, and collectively assimilating them at all levels.

- Addressing reactionary postmodernist theories, which constitute a significant part of the ideological–political front. These include irrational, idealistic views of self-identification and rights-based individualism, which lead to positions denying biological sex, recognizing only “social gender” or promoting “gender fluidity”. Such positions influence popular forces, especially younger people, yet they are unrelated to the collective struggle to defend all individual and social freedoms and achievements of the working class, popular forces,  youth, and women with a working-class or popular social position and origin. Highlighting the social and class dimensions of the above issues requires studying  scientific findings in biology, neuroscience and anthropology, as well as  critically and creatively using the findings of the social sciences —which are shaped by bourgeois power—through a Marxist lens. At the same time, it is necessary to develop the Marxist philosophical foundations and enrich our positions from the perspective of socialist economy and workers’ power.

- Maintaining the Party’s internationalist stance, which encompasses issues of solidarity, imperialist war, and understanding the struggles of workers’ and popular movements in other capitalist countries. This involves utilizing international experience and monitoring developments in the EU and on other continents, in order to comprehend the strategy of contemporary capitalism and the importance of the internationalist action by mass movements and communist parties.

KNE has contributed to the overall action of the Party, renewing its ranks with new members. At its 13th Congress, it further developed its intervention among young people from working-class and popular strata, strengthening its capacity to respond to all circumstances in line with our revolutionary goals, alongside the Party. KNE made substantial efforts to renew its ranks in all areas, new cadres emerged, and it supplied the Party’s ranks with new members and cadres. This is a normal and positive development, provided it occurs in a planned manner and ensures that no gaps are created within KNE’s organs. 

The central challenge remains assisting the revolutionary education of KNE members and cadres, and promoting a new generation of communist cadres across all areas of work. The Party’s guiding organs have yet to fully address the primary issue: assuming in practice their responsibility for tackling the slow pace of recruitment and the difficulties in assimilating a number of new KNE members in various areas. This is particularly critical among school students, where renewing our ranks is challenging, and university students, where recruitment rates remain low. This issue is crucial for the overall development of the KNE.

The influence of KNE has grown, as has its capacity to communicate with broader masses of young people and contribute to the development and orientation of their struggles. At the same time, the demands in the ideological–political struggle to liberate young minds from bourgeois ideology and win them over to the socialist perspective and organized action under today’s conditions have increased.

The bourgeois ideological assault on young minds begins early, often in childhood, and is increasingly sophisticated and multifaceted. It permeates all aspects of young people’s lives, seeking to co-opt their struggles, instill Euro-Atlantic propaganda and bourgeois aspirations, and channel their concerns, questioning, and creative pursuit of the new, the innovative, and their own future into bourgeois norms and patterns. Subjective idealism, the so-called self-identification and rights-based individualism exert a strong influence on the youth. They make use of the bourgeois education system and new technologies, which are controlled by large monopoly groups, to shape young people’s mindset, communication, information, and socialization, promoting  standards, values, and ethics rooted in individualism. They cultivate tolerance toward and addiction to drugs, gambling, the internet and social media, alcoholism,and other phenomena inherent in the impasses generates and reinforced by the decayed capitalist system. 

The Party has the duty to strengthen its political guidance and support for KNE, focusing on the assimilation of the Party’s programme and the  promotion of communist education within its ranks. In this way, conscious commitment, endurance, and stability in the face of the fluctuations of the class struggle can be fostered, grounded in our theoretically and practically confirmed positions on the class division of society, the role of class struggle in social development, revolution, socialism, and its construction, and the Party’s role as the organized vanguard of the working class. Members and cadres of KNE must be systematically supported so that they develop class-oriented political criteria for understanding objective reality, interpreting economic, scientific, and technological developments, as well as social relations shaped by the fundamental contradiction between capital and labour and the dominance of exploitative relations of production. 

The Party’s guiding organs must reinforce the ideological, political, and educational work within KNE, primarily by improving the functioning of the organs of the Sectoral organizations and the BOs, strengthening ideological courses and systems of inner-party education, increasing the study of Rizospastis, Odigitis, KOMEP, and political books, enhancing the Marxist ideological foundation, and generally raising the educational and cultural level within KNE. 

The criterion for the success of this work is the advancement of KNE members’ preparation to join the Party, improved assimilation of the KKE programme and ability to promote it, and the establishment of a methodology for organizing young people and intervening among them. In this context, KNE can increasingly consolidate its revolutionary characteristics, its confidence in the superiority of socialism, in the power and vanguard role of the working class, its militant and unwavering life stance, its vanguard approach towards knowledge, and its resilience against the difficulties of struggle and life, especially during transitional phases.

The development of these characteristics will help KNE to influence and attract young people to the revolutionary struggle, often swimming against the tide, based on the personal example of its members, which is achieved and inspired by the vanguard communist attitude of the Party’s cadres in their daily activities and in guiding KNE. 

At the same time, we need to examine issues related to a more effective deployment of our forces, based on our priorities; improve coordination between the KKE and KNE; promote and develop suitable cadres for the Party’s work among young people; specialize our work among younger age groups; and prepare KNE forces to operate in critical areas and sectors of strategic importance. The plan for the Party’s building should take into account the corresponding plan of KNE , both to guide it and provide support.

In view of the 60th anniversary of KNE’s founding, to be celebrated in 2028, we should set goals to rapidly develop its forces, intensify ideological work and fortify its members politically and ideologically. Furthermore, the Party should either proceed to a Pan-Hellenic Conference on Youth or organize a Broad Session of the Central Committee to examine emerging issues related to the effective intervention in the Greek youth and their movement as a whole, and more specifically, to determine the most effective ways to support KNE.

The KKE has always given priority to the younger generation. In recent years, since the previous Congress, it has launched numerous initiatives aimed at children. It has been at the forefront of struggles to improve their living conditions and has sought to study contemporary phenomena and challenges, such as through the formation of a working group on juvenile delinquency. The Party has also continued its  efforts to educate children from families of Party members, Party friends and its circle of influence. This educational work is inextricably linked to collective activity, opposing the standards of the ruling ideology and fostering the values of the working class and the communist way of thinking, living, and acting.

Synchroni Epochi has continued and improved the publication of the “Red Hot-Air Balloon”, a bimonthly magazine with varied content for elementary and secondary school students. At the same time, other publications were produced emphasizing developments during the period under review. Separate books were published on the 80th anniversary since the end of World War II and the Asia Minor Campaign and Catastrophe of 1922, alongside multi-page magazine supplements dedicated to the war in Ukraine —including a corresponding anthology of short stories—,  the imperialist intervention in Yugoslavia in 1999, the environment, and an introduction to the work of Mikis Theodorakis. Particular emphasis was placed on producing original educational material and creating school lesson plans on a variety of topics, including historical anniversaries, current events, and international observances. This extensive material is already being used by teachers in classrooms and by parents at home, and this intervention has significant potential for expansion.

Since the previous Congress, it has become clear that our intervention among younger children should focus on the formation and operation of “Red Hot-Air Balloon” friends groups in neighbourhoods,  municipalities and cities. This involves supporting and guiding regular, systematic meetings of children of the same age with an adult group leader, where topics and activities suggested in the magazine are discussed. These groups also meet regionally on the occasion of festivals, excursions, visits, and nationally at KNE’s multi-day Anti-Imperialist Camp.

The effort to establish and operate a group of “Red Hot-Air Balloon” friends in every municipality and city has revealed both opportunities and challenges. 

On the one hand, there is significant potential to reach many more children. Families with young children, especially those we are in contact through trade unions, parents’ and women’s associations, recognize the superiority of our positions on children and approach us from this starting point. On the other hand, to multiply this work, we need to actively involve Party Education Groups, engage more comrades and friends of the party, and improve the skills of those involved. It is also necessary to inspire and cultivate a similar approach among those who work with children professionally or out of passion —including teachers, artists, gym instructors, and students in relevant fields— and to support and expand similar initiatives across the movement, such as through labour unions, women’s associations, and the Greek Committee for International Detente and Peace (EEDYE) .

This comprehensive effort is also being used to improve the quality of  KNE’s Student BOs, especially in high schools, and and has the potential to significantly strengthen KNE’s organizational development.

A. FOR THE WORKERS’–TRADE UNION MOVEMENT AND THE ISSUES OF IDEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL CONFRONTATION

1. Where we stand today

2. The militant mobilizations are gaining strength 

3. The decisive role of the Party in the debate over what kind of movement and class struggle is needed today

4. The Party’s intervention and the responsibility of the workers’ movement for a social alliance in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction

B. THE PARTY’S TASKS TOWARDS THE SELF-EMPLOYED OF THE CITY AND THEIR MOVEMENT

1. The popular middle strata from the 21st Congress to the present day. The particular demands of the ideological–political struggle among the self-employed.

2. The main problem of Party work

C. ASSESSMENT OF THE TOILING SMALLHOLDER FARMERS’ MOVEMENT AND THE ACTION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN IT 

1. The situation of the toiling smallholder farmers, the regroupment of the movement and the strengthening of the anti-monopoly direction

2. On our political guidance capacity

D. ON THE ACTION OF COMMUNIST WOMEN IN THE RADICAL WOMEN’S MOVEMENT (OGE) 

- The steps we have taken since the 21st Congress

E. THE ORIENTATION AND INTERVENTION OF THE PARTY, THE WORKERS’ MOVEMENT AND THE SOCIAL ALLIANCE TOWARDS THE ACUTE PROBLEMS FACING THE PEOPLE AND THE YOUTH 

1. Bourgeois strategy in the field of education and the intervention of the Party in the movement

- The Party’s main task in the field of education

2. Our action in the health sector

- More specifically, regarding our involvement in welfare issues

3. Ensuring affordable housing and the fight against foreclosures

4. Our action in the field of culture

5. On environmental protection

6. On the utilization of free time, on physical education and sports

7. The struggle against all drugs and all forms of addiction

The 21st Congress clearly set out the priorities of our work in the direction of regrouping the labour–trade union movement and the content of our work in this regard, namely “the preparation and development of its ability to decisively and efficiently confront the unified elaborated strategy of capital and capitalist power, in alliance with the popular sections of the urban and rural self-employed struggling to make ends meet”.

Appreciation and trust in the Party have grown among a broader section of the working people and within the trade union movement as well.

The Party has made a significant contribution to the formation of the current that questions the ruling policies among the working class and the trade union movement. This current began to strengthen during the pandemic, thanks to the Party’s stance and our action within the movement, and it has continued to grow throughout the period that followed up to the present day.

Of course, the line of co-option into the system and class collaboration continues to dominate, especially in the leading trade union bodies (GSEE, ADEDY) and in the majority of second-level bodies, i.e. in Federations and Labour Centres. Over the past four years, they have supported the New Democracy government in passing anti-labour measures of great importance to capital. 

Their stance has been recognized by the ND government, the employers, and the EU itself, which praises their contribution to the abolition of the 8-hour working day and the 5-day working work week in Greece and the expansion of flexibility.

In some cases, these leaderships are experiencing symptoms of crisis, with intensified antagonism between the factions and groups that make up the majorities in their boards, as well as phenomena of decay and collaboration with the state and employers. These phenomena have deepened disregard and aversion among certain sections of workers.

However, in conditions of intensified attacks by capital on the working class, of our country’s involvement in imperialist wars, and of intense processes, especially in the field of social democracy, our struggle against their forces in the GSEE and ADEDY becomes more demanding.

This is also related to the fact that at this stage they are seeking to confront our forces in the large urban centres, especially in Attica, as they see that a current of joint action is strengthening among trade unions and mass organizations rallying around the initiatives and the fronts of struggle opened up by PAME, and that our forces are steadily being strengthened in the elections. In fact, as a mechanism of the system, they want to halt a trend of joint action with the KKE, which, in the case of certain forces, is taking on more conscious characteristics. They foresee the danger of this trend growing and deepening.

To achieve this, they feel compelled to take into account certain demands put forward by employees. They cannot completely ignore real problems, such as the reinstatement of certain collective agreements or the return of bonus payments to employees in the public sector. Moreover, the mission of assimilating workers requires them to adopt some of the workers’ demands in order to use them to promote social partnership, class cooperation, and government alternation. However, their continued support for policies which, despite the material possibilities, widen the gap between new social needs and their satisfaction remains unquestionable.

The policies of these forces must be dealt with in their entirety, strategically, and not only based on certain demands that they may be uttering amid the intensification of workers’ problems and the impact of the class movement. However, the policy of integration and their strategic agreement with bourgeois aspirations must be revealed, even at the level of economic demands. Likewise, their  aversion to collective, mass processes, the undermining of class demands, the promotion of social partnership, and their consistent opposition and obstruction to class struggle must be exposed.

We have achieved positive results in key indicators regarding the regroupment of the movement (vanguard action, mass participation in trade unions, change in the correlation of forces, the anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly line of struggle) and in practical activity on major fronts concerning the social alliance. There has been an improvement in the balance of power among workers who are organized in unions. However, the degree of organization of the working class in trade unions remains low, and the creation of new unions continues to be slow and painful. Since the pandemic, for the first time after many years, the general decline in workers’ participation in unions was curbed, and there was a slight increase in union elections, of about 4%, which will be reflected in the upcoming conferences of the GSEE and ADEDY. This development expresses the willingness of certain sections of workers, amid the general attack, to rely on collective organization. 

The factions formed by our forces in dozens of first-level unions won an absolute majority or first place, as did those in large second-level organizations, Labour Centres (e.g., Piraeus, Trikala, Evia, Corfu, Livadia) and Federations (e.g. Private Employees, Teachers, Hospital Doctors). The positions we hold in the trade union movement enable us to plan our work for the regroupment of the labour–trade union movement under better conditions, to utilize these positions to intensify the class struggle, and to take the initiative in organizing the struggle based on the class-oriented framework of demands. 

The improvement in the correlation of forces reflects processes in the consciousness of workers and the people and is the result of the hard, long-term work of communists. We must not become complacent or blur our judgment regarding the correlation of forces. For us, the criterion for the assessment of the correlation of forces is the radical change in the situation first and foremost at the first-level trade unions, i.e., the participation of workers in their operation and action, the rise in the organization of workers, the establishment of new unions, the strengthening of the anti-capitalist orientation of the struggle, and the general influence of the KKE’s policy and its perception of the role of the working class as a revolutionary force for socialism.

In strategically important sectors of the economy that we prioritize, such as energy and transport, the situation has not been reversed. The results of the elections in these sectors show stagnation and decline, further compounded by subjective weaknesses.

In the public sector and in the large federations that belong to ADEDY, we have witnessed a significant increase in our trade union influence, which has stemmed from the widespread discontent caused by the abolition of many rights of public employees by all governments. In response to this, our forces have taken the initiative and organized the struggle with a proper framework of demands. They are recognized as the only force that has warned against the reactionary changes and that has been fighting against them. However, there is no room for complacency. The state apparatus has a great ability to co-opt forces. The results we achieve in elections cannot be taken for granted, unless the Party’s ideological and political intervention is decisively strengthened. If the organized forces of the Party within the state apparatus are not decisively strengthened, there is always the danger of a setback in the correlation of forces, especially as social democracy is being reorganized. At the same time, we take into account the concerns of the government, employers, and the officials of employer- and government-led trade unions about the positive steps taken by PAME. It is certain that they will take additional measures to isolate and cut off forces that are close to the KKE and class-oriented unions.

The orientation towards “work from below” has strengthened, as has the effort to draw forces into the organization of the struggle, as well as in the direction of the struggle, e.g. through General Assemblies and mass processes, and the coordination of trade unions activity through meetings, such as the meeting of 5 October 2021 and the National Conference of PAME in July 2022.

The National Conference of PAME in November 2024 was a real milestone, with the participation of 663 trade unions and Struggle Committees as well as 80 Pensioners’ Unions —the largest since its founding in 1999. The number of trade unions and organizations rallied in  PAME that are active in all these mobilizations has increased.

At the 2024 National Conference of PAME, 151 unions that are not fully aligned with PAME participated for the first time, compared with 66 such unions in 2016. Over the last three years, we have coordinated our action in various mobilizations with more than 230 unions  that are not fully aligned with PAME.

The intervention of the Party and PAME has played a significant role in the development of the militant initiatives and mobilizations against the employers, the state, the New Democracy government and the other parties of capital, as well as against the leaderships of the GSEE and ADEDY. The framework and the orientation of the struggle that we promoted within the movement became more distinct, exerting a growing influence on broader sections of workers.

Since the previous Party Congress, three mass nationwide strikes have been organized without a decision by GSEE. In fact, on 28 February 2024, we achieved the largest number of second-level unions that joined the strike without a decision of GSEE (22 private-sector federations and 37 Labour Centres).

The pressure of PAME’s initiatives and the rallying of Federations, Labour Centres, and Unions were crucial in all nationwide strikes that took place during these four years, whether they were based on a decision by GSEE and ADEDY or not. These forces rallied around a collectively elaborated content and framework of demands for better wages and pensions,  the restoration of Collective Labour Agreements, measures against inflation, against the Georgiadis and Kerameos law (named after the former and current Ministers of Labour) that imposed 13-hour working days, initially for workers employed by more than one employer and more recently for those employed by a single employer, but also against the crime in Tempe and the line that defends the strategy and profits of business groups.

The crime in Tempe gave a major boost to the sharp rise of mass protests against the government. The working-class and youth outburst over the crime in Tempe was the culmination of the broader working-class and people’s indignation and discontent, their anxiety and concerns about the future, fueled by the impasses they face in their lives. It was triggered  by the intensification of exploitation, the attack on workers’ and people’s incomes, inflation, low wages, and high taxes, the dire state of critical social services and infrastructure, such as education, health, protection from natural phenomena and disasters, as well as by the uncertainty and fear caused by international developments and our country’s involvement in war fronts. The bourgeoisie intervenes in the processes of class and political consciousness-raising among the people, with the aim of controlling discontent and indignation so that it does not take on more mass, militant, and anti-capitalist characteristics under the organized intervention of the KKE.

Throughout this period, large sectoral and local mobilizations were organized to defend labour rights. Of particular note were many sectoral strikes by construction workers, who succeeded during this period in signing two sectoral Collective Labour Agreements (CLAs) and a number of agreements at workplaces. Also noteworthy were the strikes by metalworkers in the Shipbuilding and Repair Zone for the signing of a CLA and the coordinated strike by metalworkers, seamen and dockworkers at the port of Piraeus, focusing on health and safety measures. Mobilizations on the same issue took place in a period of rising accidents in a number of workplaces following deaths and injuries of workers. The Collective Bargaining Agreements signed as a result of the struggle of unions in a number of sectors (Food & Beverages, Metal, Chemical Industry, Financial, etc.) were also important, as were the militant actions that developed against layoffs, changes in labour relations and working hours, resulting in small but significant achievements for workers. 

On the initiative of our forces in workers’ and trade union movement, large rallies of pensioners were organized, which broadened the rallying of unions with the Coordinating Committee of Struggle established on the initiative of the Federation of IKA Pensioners. 

The struggles at LARCO, COSCO, E-FOOD, the Halkidiki Mines, the oil companies, and Kavala Fertilizers and Malamatina highlighted the power of workers’ organization, were met with strong solidarity, and became a point of reference for broader popular forces.

The vanguard action of the members and friends of the KKE and KNE in defending public and free healthcare, as well as in the field of education as a whole, against the entire line of commercialization and privatization, is widely recognized. A positive change in the correlation of forces was expressed in the trade union movement of health workers in public hospitals, teachers in public education, and university students’ unions, as well as in the intensity and content of the struggles of the period.

All the above confirms the decisive role of our Party, i.e. the organized ideological–political vanguard within the workplace, and, hence, the decisive importance of organization. Our ability to work with an elaborated framework of demands and a line of confrontation has been strengthened in certain areas where our forces remain the minority in union boards. However, there is still room for improvement, as in most sectors we are still behind in working with such an orientation. Similarly, after many years, two sectoral strikes were organized in the Food and Beverages industry for the signing of a sectoral Collective Labour Agreement, further confirming the need to work even more decisively to develop party and trade union foundations at the workplace. Under the current circumstances, the government and the employers are not going to make the slightest concession. Even for the most basic achievements, such as the cancellation of a dismissal, workers need to close ranks and take decisive action. The role of communists in the workplace is crucial. Without this action, without the decisive contribution of PAME and the class-oriented unions, the setbacks would have been even greater.

In order for a struggle to have a broader impact, to contribute to a change in the correlation of forces, and to create the conditions for change, it must broaden its horizons, take steps in the direction of counterattack, and strengthen its anti-capitalist orientation, i.e., contribute to the formation of the terms and conditions for the conflict with capitalist power, and prepare the revolutionary army, a task that is also being promoted in today’s non-revolutionary conditions.

This goal is not spontaneously set by the indignant working forces, even if they show an increased willingness to engage in mass mobilizations or to adopt heightened forms of struggle. It requires continuous ideological and political intervention by the Party with strong organizations in all mass workplaces and in all sectors of strategic importance. Continuous and fierce ideological and political struggle is also required so that the mobilizations —either in a specific workplace or more broadly— serve the struggle for awareness and the concentration of forces for the revolutionary overthrow, rather than fostering illusions that ultimately lead to co-option into the system.

The promotion of this line in the trade union movement requires the ability of the communists to systematically elaborate, throughout the process, using suitable forms and methods, the preparation of a struggle, its development, and particularly the drawing of conclusions.  The ability, responsibility, and collectivity of the guiding organs and Party Groups at all levels in the elaboration of the frameworks of struggle and our tactics in the labour–trade union movement must be raised. Above all, this must be expressed in the ability to formulate a comprehensive plan for the development of critical fronts of struggle for the rallying, mobilization, and orientation of workers. 

We intervene and shape the framework of struggle on all issues that arise from developments and affect the lives of workers. We raise issues in terms of counterattack rather than mere defence, highlighting the real enemy: the very system of capitalist exploitation, which is expressed in all aspects of workers’ lives.

The consequences of years of privatizations, cuts in public spending on social services, and the Greek state’s support for imperialist wars, together with the relatively long term in office of the New Democracy party, and the effects of the counter-revolution and the overall setback, create fertile ground for the strengthening of a reformist current promoted by the forces of social democracy and opportunism. These forces essentially seek to transform the workers’ and trade union movement into a vehicle for the reform of the bourgeois political system, which would facilitate their rise to the bourgeois government in place of the New Democracy party. The slogans of “renationalization,” “measures to combat inflation and profiteering,” pressure for the “humanization of NATO,” and similar demands are presented as an alternative progressive, left-wing government policy, even implying a transitional role in the defeat of capitalism. These are clearly disorienting political demands, accompanied by attacks on the Party for "patronizing" the movement or “politicizing” it.

Certain forces of social democracy and opportunism promote the line of supporting Russia and China against the USA and the EU as a means for “defeating NATO,” “defeating the European Monetary Union” or even for the “exit from the EU,” cultivating illusions about the character of these or other imperialist alliances. The same applies to imperialist war, as they call on the labour movement to ally with part of the bourgeois forces with the aim of reviving the line of “anti-fascist fronts.” These positions appear to be “conflictual,” in contrast to the line of the KKE, which they distort as “compromising with the system,” or supposedly “referring everything to revolution and socialism.” 

The influence and pressure of these positions on radical forces in the labour movement essentially reflects the revival, in a new form, of the rationale of stages and the strategic proposal that invokes “unity in the problem” as a line of rallying. This is a line that has been condemned and refuted by life itself, by the experience of class struggle, and that is why it has been rejected by our Party in its programmatic elaboration, in the resolutions of its Congresses, and in our daily action on the basis of our strategy. 

In this discussion, we underline that the answer to the pressing question “what should be done immediately” is to intensify the discussion and action to gather forces and strengthen the struggle on the fronts arising from developments, with a policy of class conflict that matures workers’ consciousness, so that they can decisively fight for radical changes in the economy and political power. For this purpose, the main priority is to systematize and intensify our ideological–political intervention among unionized and non-unionized workers, especially those who are rallied in the movement, to intensify the ideological struggle among this section, and, above all, to strengthen the independent action of the Party. Thousands of militants are rallying around our trade union electoral lists. The priority is to win over the majority of them with the Party’s strategy, to help the vanguard forces mature as communists, and to plan their accession into the Party.

In this framework, the CC’s resolution to raise the ideological and political background must be better and more practically internalized in the work of the majority of the Party’s cadres and members, through systematic self-education and the assimilation of our collectively developed positions. At the same time, we must raise the level of readiness and the ability to act under all circumstances, organizing militant and escalating interventions, systematically promoting our strategy and positions on all major issues affecting the lives of wage earners and their children, and guiding the organization of the struggle, to rally more forces.

A critical issue for political guidance work is to assess the mood of the masses. However, this ability, i.e. understanding how broad sections of the working class and the popular strata think, is not sufficient for an effective intervention, which must utilize every possibility so that the militant mood acquires class characteristics. Party organs and cadres are not merely mood observers or analyzers; they are required to evaluate how our intervention affects the workers’ mood and take this mood into account, not in order to submit to it but elevate it —as far as possible— in a specific radical anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction.

A new economic crisis, especially in the context of the shift to a war economy, will be accompanied by new restructuring in the sectors of economy, new repercussions for workers, and additional anti-popular measures in labour relations, social security and trade union rights. It will involve increased taxation and the seizure of insurance fund reserves, a rise in the retirement age, further cuts in spending on health, education, and social benefits, new attacks on wage rights and collective agreements, and further privatization of critical infrastructure such as water, energy and transport. It will further restrict the limited satisfaction of the needs and reduce the value of labour power in relation to the huge increases in the prices of commodities and services. It will also create and dramatically increase permanent damage to health, alongside the intensification of exploitation and the rise in unpaid working hours.

At the same time, the shift to a war economy will be accompanied by authoritarianism, in the form of state repression and employers’ intimidation, restrictions and bans on political and trade union activity, persecution of vanguard workers, and attempts to co-opt workers into the war industry through material pressures. It is crucial for the Party to be prepared and vigilant, through its vanguard action and the communists’ action in the workers’ and people’s movement, to foster solidarity, mass popular struggle, and combative opposition to prohibitions, setting an example that inspires, dispels fear, and motivates action.

The main task of the Party in the labour–trade union movement is to take more decisive and significant steps in the process of regrouping the labour–trade union movement, and to strengthen the anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly line of struggle. This is necessary for a movement that will not submit to the strategy of capital, bourgeois governments, the EU, and NATO; a movement that will reject the calls to bow down and oppose the so-called “national” goals of capital; a movement that will not align with its exploiters to make them stronger. Such a movement will contribute, through internationalist action and solidarity, to preventing the workers of the world from being divided, forced to take sides between those who steal the wealth they produce. This needs to be reflected in the strengthening of our planned intervention among immigrants, in order to increase the level of their organization in the unions, ensure their active participation, and promote their election to the Executive Boards of trade unions at all levels. 

The steps that have been taken in a number of sectors must be accelerated. The real, unjust, and class-based character of the bourgeois state —a state capable only of protecting the profits and exploitation of the capitalists— must be exposed. This pursuit of profit is the source of the state’s barbaric, anti-popular, and murderous nature, both in wartime and in peacetime; a state that cannot change or be humanized, but must be overthrown. A movement is needed that will have a united front against employer- and government-led unionism in GSEE, ADEDY, and other trade union organizations, against their line of class collaboration and “social peace”, which reinforces workers’ manipulation and exploitation.

The KKE, with its cadres and members, is actively fighting for the regroupment of the labour–trade union movement; the defence of workers’ rights, including wage increases and collective labour agreements; contemporary social services in education, health care and welfare, based on the possibilities offered by scientific progress;  safe and upgraded, exclusively public mass transportation based on people’s needs rather than capitalist profit; water treated as a social good rather that a commodity; for public housing against foreclosures of primary residences and commercial properties; a life free of drugs, with free time for physical education and sports, for culture and entertainment, and for holidays for all workers; for the disengagement of our country from imperialist war. A movement is needed that will promote organized disobedience, confront the policies of capital and the attempt to use the movement as a stepping stone for bourgeois governmental change, and contribute to the maturation of the subjective factor for decisive conflict and rupture with exploitative state power. In this direction, the strengthening and expansion of PAME, as a class pole in the trade union movement, is important for the formation of a nationwide, coordinated, unified movement with common positions and goals to meet the contemporary needs of workers.

The main problem and task of political guidance remain the ideological and political support of the cadres and members who act within the trade union movement, as well as the assistance to the Party Groups. The operation of many Party Groups remains formal; they meet shortly before the meetings of the Executive Boards of the unions and often with the same content. The work of some Party Groups and the way we work with many vanguard trade unionists included on our electoral lists demonstrates that we need to discuss more deeply both the orientation and the content of the movement’s struggles in accordance with the Party’s programme, while at the same time facing difficulties in specializing our work and developing our strategy in each sector. 

The political guidance of Party Groups in trade unions and Labour Centres needs to focus on women’s participation in the labour and trade union movement, with specific measures to increase it. Women’s participation in the labour and trade union movement remains far below the percentage of women employees in the total workforce, despite some steps towards improvement in the elections of first-level unions in certain sectors. The Party Groups of the Labour Centres, Federations, and trade unions need to focus on and regularly monitor measures to improve the functioning of the unions, addressing all aspects of the lives of working women and their families (e.g., health, education, preschool and special education, care for the elderly, creative use of non-working time, culture). These issues must be linked to the framework of the struggle for collective labour agreements. 

The guiding organs are required to engage more systematically and in depth with the Party’s work in the labour and trade union movement and to support the Party cadres who operate within them, broadening and deepening our ties with new forces that we have liberated from the political and trade union influence of other forces in recent years. This certainly applies to all organs and Party Base Organizations, not only those in sectoral and enterprise-based, but also area-based ones, something that, unfortunately, has not yet been fully achieved. The thousands of workers who are included in our electoral lists in the trade union movement, as well as the newly elected cadres at all levels of the movement, need guidance and assistance in order to develop a strong ideological and political foundation. The criteria for promoting cadres to positions of responsibility, especially in the central Party Groups, have been raised. A crucial factor is the effective functioning of the Party Groups and their cooperation with the Regional Committee Bureaus.

Steps have been taken to deepen our understanding that the social alliance is not merely a coordination of various organizations designed to facilitate the rise of the movement, but rather an alliance of social forces aimed at overthrowing capitalism and building socialism–communism.

This perspective objectively serves the interests of the majority of self-employed workers in both urban and rural areas and the popular strata, who suffer from competition with monopolies and are crushed by the capitalist state that serves them. 

The vanguard class, the working class, is primarily responsible for preparing the ground for this direction. Today, this effort takes the form of expressing solidarity, joint action and coordination on pressing popular issues among the leaders of various movements. 

From this perspective, the specific work of communists within the unions must be carefully planned, and the orientation of unions rallied in PAME in this direction must be strengthened.  On the initiative of Labour Centres, Federations, and unions, contact with organizations of the self-employed (farmers, small business owners, etc.) should be developed, using appropriate forms in each case.  Experience has shown that in order to create the conditions for unity, systematic awareness-raising work is required in advance, with well-developed frameworks that explain the causes of problems and the prospects for overcoming them.

The joint rallies of Labour Centres and farmers’ organizations that culminated in a large rally in central Athens in February 2024 were a milestone. Nevertheless, all actions developed so far remain temporary in nature, arising from and evolving on the basis of struggles organized around acute issues, mainly at the local level, as well as from the solidarity of the labour movement with farmers’ and university students’ movements. They have not yet taken on more solid and permanent characteristics based on a common framework of demands in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction.

A notable example is the coordinated action by trade unions and popular movement organizations in Larissa, which has taken on a more permanent and broader character within the framework of the struggle elaborated and promoted by the Larissa Labour Centre at each phase. Without rushing, Party organizations can examine where conditions have matured and take similar initiatives for the permanent coordination of mass organizations in other areas where circumstances allow. At this stage, joint action has been achieved primarily around the consequences of ruling policies and in opposition to government policies. Although this process raises questions about the role of the bourgeois state, the policies supporting monopolies, and the role of the EU, it is still far from reflecting an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist orientation.

The comparatively less favourable correlation of forces —such as in the self-employed movement in relation to the farmers’ movement— and the fact that the self-employed movement has not separated itself from capitalist dominance, make the ideological–political struggle within it more demanding. They also emphasize the need to promote frameworks of struggle in an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist direction, rather than a narrowly trade-unionist one. The same approach is needed in farmers’ movements, where some steps have been taken to raise awareness and increase recognition of the necessity for joint action with the workers’ movement. In this regard, the organized intervention on the issue of the large price disparity “from the field to the supermarket shelf,” which highlighted the monopolies and the state that serves them as the common enemy of farmers, workers, and other popular strata, has played an important role in recent farmers’ mobilizations. This issue has been a key point of intervention both for the labour unions that joined the farmers’ protests and for the farmers’ forces rallied in the Nationwide Committee of Roadblocks (PEM). The insistence on targeting the common enemy serves as a guiding line that can foster to a deeper understanding of the need for action with more permanent coordination. 

Certainly, a guiding question that stands out is how all movements can integrate the struggle over major general social issues into the daily practice of collective action, with the aim of addressing all contemporary needs. This approach objectively can also create a foundation for joint action among potential allied social forces. 

The movement of self-employed and craftsmen requires sustained effort to broaden the scope of struggle beyond immediate concerns such as taxation, debt, and similar issues. Most importantly, it must  overcome narrow, guild-minded demands, which tend to dominate where  our forces are not in the majority. The pandemic has provided some positive experiences in this regard. Constructive efforts have also emerged in response to the Tempe tragedy, the floods in Larissa, the health crisis, and foreclosures.

In the farmers’ movement, the effort to unify the framework of struggle —enriched and updated based on current acute problems and opening up a range of issues affecting rural life more generally— has also been a positive development.

In the period since the 21st Congress, there have been no radical changes in the development of the popular middle strata, so that we can identify new trends today. The return of the economy to growth rates, albeit low after the pandemic, has particularly favoured self-employment in the sectors of food service, tourism, construction, accounting and tax services but this has been accompanied by conditions of overwork. In contrast, the decline in self-employment in the retail trade has continued, despite the overall growth of the sector. The trend towards concentration was also reinforced by e-commerce and digital platforms.

The mechanisms of integration and co-option, which concern the self-employed, permeate the entire bourgeois state apparatus (central and local), with the involvement of all the bourgeois parties, a factor that objectively ensures the adherence of the petty bourgeois strata to the power of the bourgeoisie. 

The Party’s independent ideological and political struggle among the self-employed and the conflict which is taking place within the movement is particularly demanding since it is directed at individual owners, who often utilize wage labour and feel threatened by the achievements of the working class (compulsory insurance, wage increases, working hours, etc.). At the same time, the objective trend of deterioration in the popular sections of the self-employed is the basis for their rallying around the KKE.

The rise in the Party’s political influence, reflected in the elections of the period (parliamentary, municipal, regional, European) was also expressed among the self-employed. However, our specialized, independent ideological and political intervention is significantly delayed, not so much in terms of their current needs, the objective trend of their decline under capitalism, but in terms of their creative integration into the struggle for socialism–communism, through an understanding of the position they will occupy in the context of socialist production.

It is clear that a stronger core of party members and self-employed supporters is necessary in all major urban centres and sectors. The steady progress made in certain cities shows that where there is a relative improvement in our ability to guide our intervention among these social forces, this also leads to a stabilization of party intervention and results. 

The Party’s intervention to strengthen the anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly line of struggle in the trade union movement of the self-employed has become more complex due to the great contradictions that characterize the course of self-employment, especially among the more popular sections.

The main fronts of struggle that stood out during these four years were the struggle to counter the consequences of the pandemic and then against the new tax law and the digital strangulation of small businesses (see MyDATA), in which our forces took the lead. They also participated in mobilizations against the consequences of natural disasters, the surge in energy prices, and foreclosures, as well as in certain mass sectoral mobilizations, e.g., taxi drivers, accountants. Initiatives such as those for protection against occupational diseases and accidents were positive, resulting in a broader coalition of unions.

However, the militant activity of the self-employed —with the exception of self-employed scientists— in relation to other social forces remains generally low, despite the insecurity they experience that has accumulated.

The correlation within the trade union movement remains negative, despite fluctuations in our influence from sector to sector. We are seeing a distinct rise in the Hellenic Confederation of Commerce and Entrepreneurship (ESEE) and trade associations, the prestige of the Attica Federation of Craftsmen (OBSA) has stabilized, and it continues to act as a militant front in Attica, the situation in Larissa is improving, and to a lesser extent in Thessaloniki and in certain sectors such as tax consultants/accountants. At the same time, however, there are still delays in mass sectors such as construction, transport, and farmers’ markets, which are also reflected in our trade union influence in the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen, and Merchants (GSEVEE). 

The formation of a Panhellenic Militant Pole of Federations – Associations of the Self-employed remains essentially at a standstill as long as we do not take steps to change the balance of power in the primary associations and secondary federations, both local and sectoral.

Two factors are at play here: the small number of our forces, which prevents us from exerting a more decisive influence, and the dominance of capitalist representatives in the trade union bodies of their movement, which is politically expressed by the dominance of the New Democracy and PASOK parties and the systematic intervention of mechanisms (municipalities, regions, trade union and chamber of commerce mechanisms) that shape relationships of material assimilation and buy-out. 

The main problem lies in the difficulty of providing combined guidance throughout the entire structure of the trade union movement, or at least its most popular bodies, in terms of content, the development and promotion of our line, but also in the necessary organizational measures required per city, sector, with a plan for the deployment of forces, the formation of Auxiliary Committees and Party Groups, and ongoing check-up and monitoring. This intervention is necessary in order to overcome the obstacles created by other forces, where we are in the minority, but also to ensure the stable and upgraded functioning organizations so that they can influence the massification and militancy of broader forces where we are in the majority. 

To this end, the following is required:

• The inclusion of all self-employed party members in their unions, regardless of which PBO they belong to (i.e., whether they belong to a base organization of self-employed workers, or an area-based PBO).

• Recording and evaluating the people rallied around the Party. Ensuring their action in the mass movement, in their corresponding union, and in its militant activities. 

• We confirm that the main sectors targeted by our intervention are Commerce and commerce associations, sectoral associations in Construction (electricians, plumbers, refrigeration technicians), Manufacturing (mainly metal and wood), Food Service, Automobile repair, Tax technicians/accountants, Farmers’ markets, and other associations that we believe can yield positive results in each area.

We focus on the following main issues in guiding work among the city’s self-employed:

• Continuing ideological and political training based on the Resolutions of the Panhellenic Conference of the KKE regarding the Party’s intervention with the city’s self-employed. This ensures a clear understanding of the hierarchy of self-employed toward whom our efforts are directed, as well as the inherent contradictions in the radicalization of the petty bourgeoisie, especially among management executives. The devaluation of work by institutions and executives, combined with the failure to address schematizations and subjectivities in a timely manner has allowed such social forces —which are numerous in urban centres— to create conditions that are also detrimental to the stance of the working class.

• Organizing a more systematic ideological–political discussion with Party supporters, focusing on our programmatic position on how, under socialism, the majority of the self-employed are directly integrated into social production and central planning as workers, while only a few forms of self-employment remain; a position that must be combined with enlightenment about their objective course under capitalism, despite the contradictions with which it evolves. Patience is required, because the element of individual ownership is not easily eradicated; it has a real material basis. But, on the other hand, the consequences of overwork on health and quality of life, and the consequences of individual responsibility for entrepreneurship, create conditions for understanding the advantages of direct social production, state trade and social services. Only in this direction is it possible to form a vanguard, and even more so to recruit the most vanguard elements from this social stratum into the party of the working class.

• Better monitoring of developments and trends. Understanding the contradictory course of the self-employed and the great heterogeneity from sector to sector, and from region to region, depending on bourgeois priorities, the rate of capital concentration, the needs of monopolies for a cluster of small businesses, etc.

Continuation of the positive effort to study changes in the number of self-employed persons without staff in key sectors, as well as relatively new phenomena, such as the expansion of e-commerce and the dominance of digital platforms in trade, with further in-depth analysis. More systematic study of the intervention of local and regional administration, to assess the progress of relevant programmes (e.g., open malls) in collaboration with the corresponding Intersectoral Committee and Party Organizations. 

• Establishing regular discussion in the organs. Specific examination of the progress made, the difficulties we are called upon to overcome at each stage, and the processing of the conflict. Selection of suitable leaders without constant changes in responsibilities, substantive understanding of their leadership responsibility within the framework of the division of the organ. Formation and systematic guidance of Party Groups and auxiliary cadres alongside the organs. 

• Plan for building by sector. Special work to form party cores, intervention in the respective associations, utilizing all the party forces of the small-businesses/self-employed. An elaborated line in order to take the lead in developments that often have different intensity and requirements per sector.

• Specific study of the deployment of cadres that objectively arise from the issues discussed above: The formation of PBOs for the self-employed, organized according to their respective sectors within Sectoral Organizations in Attica and Central Macedonia has provided a positive experience, while the need remains to strengthen the guidance work in the area-based Sectoral Organizations. To consider the possibility of setting up Sectoral Committees in large urban centres as well as in other smaller urban centres, the formation of new PBOs and, depending on progress, the formation of sectoral PBOs for construction/manufacturing, services, trade, and Food Service.

• A specific issue concerning guidance is the cultivation of a willingness to contribute based on the Party’s strategy, with the necessary ideological and political preparation, and improved individual support, so that forces are mobilized and organizational and trade union leaders are developed under the conditions of longer working hours which prevail that also affect Party members.

The conditions for farmers to make a living have objectively become more difficult. Factors contributing to this development include the policy and planning of the EU's CAP, which is further specified in government decisions, the destruction of a large part of production by natural phenomena, low prices for many products that do not cover the extremely high cost of production, etc. In essence, it is the capitalist system itself and the economic laws that govern it. The worsening of these problems has a contradictory effect on farmers’ consciousness. Many farmers understand the situation, are anxious about their prospects as agricultural producers and their ability to earn a satisfactory income, and are willing to fight. On the other hand, the difficulty of survival brings disappointment, which in some cases can be expressed by low participation in protests.

The New Democracy government intervenes in a calculated way, with a plan to assimilate any agricultural association that shows even the slightest intention to fight back: Through constant meetings at the ministry, by distributing some money on the eve of protests and making many more promises for additional funds to be claimed from the EU, through favours, even blackmail or intimidation. The other bourgeois parties pay lip service to the farmers’ just struggle, but in practice they play a deterrent role in participation in the roadblocks, even more so with the Nationwide Committee of Roadbloacks (PEM). The role of the Local – Regional Administration, cooperatives, producer groups, and interprofessional organizations, which hold and support various meetings in opposition to the meetings initiated by the PEM. They seek to discuss agricultural problems without focusing on the development of struggles. This tendency to consult with the government is also represented by certain agricultural associations. They try to sow disappointment and fatalism in order to undermine agricultural mobilizations, especially those in the form of roadblocks. They consistently resort to anti-communism and targeting the PEM, with the aim of alienating forces that are close to it, and in some cases they succeed. 

The agricultural protests in the form of roadblocks during the period 2022–2025 were the result of persistent party planning to elaborate demands, for bottom-up processes coordinated by organizations that were not only agricultural, such as in Thessaly and elsewhere in response to floods and major disasters. It was the result of the work of the organized movement in which the members and cadres of the Party are active, with a better orientation towards opening up to farmers and especially those who depend on agricultural activity for their survival, based on the combined criteria we have defined. The agricultural protests in large EU countries also contributed to the culmination of the protests in the period December 2023 – February 2024, which also targeted the CAP. The scale and forms of the European agricultural protests had an impact on the consciousness of farmers in Greece and contributed to the mass mobilization of farmers who had not previously taken part in roadblocks. Roadblocks and various forms of protest developed throughout Greece, from Evros to Crete and from Epirus to Rhodes, with Thessaly playing a central role in their development, despite the fact that it was not possible to set up a single roadblock in Nikaia.

Some steps were taken in working with the unified framework of demands of the PEM, which had a broader impact on farmers and was the main tool of our intervention in all the mobilizations of the period. The conflict addressed, to a certain extent, mainly through the framework of struggle, issues related to divisions by region or product, which are fueled by movement opponents on the basis of existing differences in agricultural income and its relationship to subsidies. The main thing is to find a way to influence politically disoriented and manipulated popular forces, taking advantage of the new opportunities that have opened up to strengthen contact and ideological–political debate with broader agricultural forces. 

It is now better understood that the PEM is a form of nationwide coordination of Agricultural Associations (AS) and Federations of Agricultural Associations (OAS) with a unified, coherent framework for struggle that is updated from time to time. PEM has an informal body, its Secretariat, which currently includes representatives of OAS and AS. They are communist agricultural trade unionists and members of other political groups. Economic and political developments, and the conflict within PEM show that the path of agricultural trade unionists in terms of their political awareness is contradictory, resulting in a more stable and conscious cooperation among some, but also vacillations and setbacks among others. This has both positive and negative effects on the functioning of the PEM.

In any case, regroupment of the movement means mass mobilization of the AS and OAS, forming new AS in each village or group of villages and OAS at the prefecture level, radicalization of the framework of struggle, active functioning and intervention that contributes to overcoming difficulties in influencing wider groups of people.  The serious problem in the functioning of the movement’s structures, which has been observed in several cases and is expressed through significant and dangerous delays or repeated postponements of elections in Agricultural Associations (AS), at conferences of Federations of Agricultural Associations (OAS). Greater perseverance and responsibility are needed to ensure that the nationwide action called for by PEM is not fragmented. A prerequisite for the revitalization of the associations is to attract the many young people who participate in the roadblocks, who are young farmers, farmers’ children, etc. Many of them do not live in villages but in towns and cities because of the lack of infrastructure, etc. in the villages. That is why it is important for the discussion and action of the associations to extend to more general issues focusing on contemporary needs. Experience has now crystallized in terms of forms of struggle, alternating between escalation and de-escalation of the struggle, with new forms also emerging. It is important that this experience be passed on and understood by the all the Party forces, so that it can be transmitted to more inexperienced rural forces and the capacity for struggle be developed within the movement.

The need remains to broaden the debate on the causes of the problems so that they can be linked to the socio-economic and, consequently, the political system, capitalism, and to highlight the need for permanence and direction in the struggle, etc. Persistence in the debate on the CAP, its role and orientation, opens up new directions for us, as it is only getting worse as it serves the interests of the farmers’ opponents who are the same as the workers’ opponents. Especially now that farmers’ skepticism has grown and other popular forces are becoming more aware that the CAP is indeed a tool for concentrating production and land in fewer hands, there has been increased questioning of the EU or even acceptance of the fact that it is hostile to farmers. At the same time, continuous, well-thought-out and targeted intervention is needed to weaken the deceptive political position on reforming the CAP for the benefit of small farmers throughout the EU. Opportunities for a more widespread debate on this issue arose following the recent revelation of the major Payment and Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aid (OPEKEPE) scandal, which still dominates the political agenda and tragically confirms everything that the KKE and the agricultural movement itself warned about through its mobilizations against the CAP and the way subsidies are granted. In particular, the demand for domestic production of cheap, high-quality food could become a rallying point for unity and joint action in the coming period, with even greater intensity, as the demand for cheap, high-quality domestic food production. Even the EU staff themselves estimate that the problem of food prices is going to get worse, admitting that the implementation of the CAP and “outward-looking” objectives will lead to further increases in food prices.

In the coming period, the issue of the struggle against the country’s involvement in imperialist wars should be better addressed in the agricultural movement by revealing the consequences of NATO membership and imperialist plans in the region, starting with the consequences of imperialist conflicts (e.g., embargo on Russia) on agricultural income, the rise in production costs (fertilizers, irrigation, energy, etc.), etc. This experience should be used to weaken the tolerance and patience that is expressed, not only towards the current ruling party but towards every bourgeois party and all their allies. The EU’s military preparations require additional funds from its budget, while in the context of discussions on the CAP after 2027, the possibility of redirecting part of its funds in that direction has already been put on the table.

The “new model” of agricultural production is firmly entrenched in the debate, which is being pushed more heavy-handedly by the government and the bourgeois parties as a whole, following the EU’s line on farmers-businessmen, etc. They are trying to entrap them in the supposed way out offered by the various CAP programmes and measures”, tailored to the profitability of merchants, industrialists, and banks, to bring them into conflict with the framework of the PEM’s demands, such as guaranteed prices for producers, reduction of production costs, infrastructure projects and disaster prevention, which are the antithesis of planning based on capitalist competition. There is a wealth of experience in the agricultural world which, with our intervention, can be turned into knowledge: This “new model” is the old one, the one that has been around for years, the model of the CAP and capitalism, which periodically changes its preference for a particular product, crop, etc.

The PEM and the organized movement are constantly targeted by all the bourgeois political forces, whether they admit it openly or covertly. They seek to support a movement that will act as a partner in dialogue and advisor to the government and the ministry of the moment. They are promoting the goal of a “new and modern” agricultural movement more intensely, based on “new faces,” demands, and forms of action, technocratic and “uncompromising,” which will make proposals to the government within the limits of the CAP and the system. In this way, they seek to combat the assertive, anti-monopoly agricultural movement. They also target the agricultural world that still manages to survive and use the Regional – Local Administration, Cooperatives, Interprofessional Organizations, etc. as a battering ram. We need to better prepare our forces to deconstruct the “non-partisan, independent movement” line. We must not hesitate to open the necessary debate within the movement as a whole (AS, OAS, Roadblock Committees) but also within the Secretariat of the PEM. We are fighting to ensure that all farmers who show the slightest willingness to fight participate and organize themselves in Agricultural Associations, without examining their political position. We do not back down in our efforts to ensure that this movement acquires content that targets the real enemy of struggling smallholder farmers, namely anti-monopoly and anti-CAP content, with demands and a framework for struggle focused on the survival of smallholder farmers, with nationwide coordination through the PEM, etc. This cannot be done without the vanguard intervention of communist farmers who participate in Agricultural Associations, Federations, and PEM. Without this specific intervention, the movement will be nothing more than a prop for either the government of the day and the EU, or the pursuit of a bourgeois change of government, a prop for the next government, vulnerable to the demagoguery of bourgeois parties, etc. The “non-partisan, independent” role that other bourgeois and opportunistic forces promote is being under complete control and manipulation by capitalist enterprises, monopolies, bourgeois parties, governments, and their transnational alliances.

Another struggle issue is the attempt taking place to cultivate a climate of disappointment among farmers, suggesting that "struggles achieve nothing,” etc. Proper preparation is required, more targeted work, which includes, in addition to tangible examples highlighting the experience gained by farmers from their struggles, the orientation of the movement and its demands towards governments, to industrialists and the EU, and work that goes deeper, relating to the farmer’s perspective on capitalism and their position under socialism.

We need to persist so that struggling smallholder farmers realize that agricultural production is subordinate to industry, which controls both the necessary inputs and the raw materials it produces. Under capitalism, this reality crushes the farmers, who are forced to buy expensive industrial products from a handful of monopolies and sell their own products cheaply to the monopolies of trade and manufacturing, as there is a huge gap between the productivity of their own labour and that of industry. It is workers’ power that will ensure the liberation of the toiling farmer from the shackles of capital.

Farmers, livestock breeders, beekeepers, and fishermen should not fear the goal of overturning the current system of exploitation, the transition to workers’ power, social ownership, and central planning of production, with state trade and production motivated by the satisfaction of expanding social needs.

This requires continuous, planned, and monitored guiding responsibility in its implementation by all organs, from the Central Committee and the Regional Committees to the Sectoral Committees and the Bureaus of the PBOs. A vital prerequisite is the substantive, rather than merely nominal, appointment of responsible cadres, ensuring that they have the knowledge and time required for their work, and the guidance of the Secretaries of the organs, ensuring conditions for collective action, such as meetings, the formation of Auxiliary Committees at the Regional and Sectoral level, Party Groups and their effective functioning, with an emphasis on planning, specialization, prioritization of steps, and adjustments based on current events. A more specific aspect of planning concerns the promotion of young agricultural unionists, the targeted recruitment of farmers, and the specialization of ideological work among farmers. The level of intervention by communists, combined of course with the corresponding measures to improve the dissemination and reach of our positions among farmers, is a complex process with successes but also setbacks.

The directions of the 21st  Congress for the action of communist women in the radical women’s movement, through the Associations and Groups of the Federation of Women of Greece (OGE), contributed to the orientation of the guiding organs towards strengthening the participation of women party members, mainly due to the deeper understanding of the character of the OGE by communist women. As a mass organization, it brings together women based on social class criteria, regardless of their political position, developing militant action in every aspect of women’s economic and social life, while at the same time highlighting the class nature of women’s inequality, the role of bourgeois governments and parties that follow the directives of the EU and NATO in intensifying contemporary forms of gender inequality.

Recently, some steps have been achieved towards increasing the involvement of working-class women in its associations and groups, and in the formation of new OGE groups. At the same time, demands are elevated to increase the capacity of female party members to work with broader masses of women from the working class and popular forces who do not participate in their unions and associations. The active participation of communist women in all the activities of the Women’s Associations and Groups of the OGE —and not just formally in the elections for the Executive Board— is a prerequisite for attracting new forces of women to the movement. 

For the period under review, it has been confirmed that central initiatives of the OGE on critical fronts of struggle help for the better assimilation of the line of rallying forces in the radical women’s movement, feeding into corresponding interventions by OGE associations and groups (A/G), such as around the issue of multifaceted violence against women. The central congress of the OGE, with the participation of dozens of labour unions and other popular movement organizations, the publication of its materials together with the articles in the ‘”Bulletin,” the central campaign initiatives, which have essentially fed the content and forms of intervention of the OGE A/G. There is also positive experience from the discussion in the A/G of the OGE’s statement on the law concerning the extension of marriage and joint parental care to same-sex couples, popularizing Party positions and adapting the debate given prevailing perceptions. 

However, there remains a need for a more substantive discussion in the Executive Boards of the A/Gs on the issues of women’s equality and empowerment, so that they can become a force for action on women’s issues, reaching out and rallying new forces. Of course, assimilating the Party’s positions and developing them into positions and a framework for action for the OGE requires time for collective study, discussion, and planning. 

During this period, female party members expressed greater difficulty in working in the OGE’s A/Gs on the issue of imperialist war and the stance of the labour and popular movement, which consistently permeates the material and militant actions of the OGE. The inability to assimilate our positions has resulted in either pacifist views prevailing, or difficulty in engaging, or an inability to match the forms of action with the content. This hinders the ability of the executive committees of the A/Gs to develop initiatives that will raise awareness and mobilize women from the working–popular forces, not only as an expression of solidarity with the peoples targeted by imperialist aggression, such as the Palestinian people.

Despite the steps taken to internalize the line of unity on all fronts of struggle, gaps remain even on issues that have long been at the centre of the A/Gs initiatives, such as healthcare, which could be a critical front in the joint action of the OGE with healthcare workers’ unions, other labour unions, associations of self-employed workers, farmers’ associations, and student associations. Similarly, on the education front, there is considerable scope for enriching the activities of the OGE women’s associations with issues relating to the content of education. Furthermore, the OGE’s intervention in school classrooms and with teachers on aspects of gender inequality discussed in schools continues to open up avenues of communication, contact, and militant action.

The above concerns the support of the guiding organs of the Party Committees of the OGE Women’s Associations, so that they can respond to the contradictory development of women’s participation in social labour, the elimination of certain inequalities and, at the same time, the formation of new inequalities or special needs. This has led to a revival of bourgeois and opportunistic intervention in the feminist movement, which requires a more demanding ideological confrontation from the radical women’s movement. 

An issue that needs to be addressed is the regular and effective functioning of the OGE’s Executive Boards, stability, continuity in their action planning, with responsibility also being assigned to other women in the A/Gs. Therefore, frequent General Membership Meetings and thematic meetings are needed to ensure the participation of more and more women who rally with the radical women’s movement. A creative spirit is required from communist women to overcome the difficulties they encounter in the meetings of the Executive Boards, as a result of the current working and living conditions of women, with flexible and irregular working hours and the responsibility of children on the shoulders of new mothers. Trust is needed in the proposals and initiatives, and responsibility must be assigned to all members of the Boards and A/Gs. 

The stance of communist women in the Executive Boards and General Membership Meetings of the A/Gs needs to encourage women who are rallying around the organization to express their questions, thoughts, concerns, and proposals, in order to better develop the ideological struggle with contemporary bourgeois and petty-bourgeois perceptions of women’s issues and the feminist movement; to raise awareness of radical demands and claims; and to decide on militant initiatives and multifaceted interventions that will strengthen ties with women from popular forces. On this basis, the meetings will not result in a dry list of tasks - a calendar of actions on an issue raised by the OGE or concerning the broader labour-popular movement (e.g., actions for strikes, PAME mobilizations, foreclosures etc.). The distribution of the OGE’s “Bulletin” and its statements will not be formal, but will be used as a weapon of information and enlightenment. Cultural creation can be a source of inspiration, social awareness, and consciousness, as can amateur artistic groups under the responsibility of the A/G Executive Boards. In this way, the activities of several A/Gs merely marking the anniversaries of March 8 and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women can be overcome. 

The action of communist women in the radical women’s movement does not contradict nor does it replace women’s participation in sectoral or company trade unions, in the Union of Self-Employed Workers or in the Workers in Commerce trade union, or in the Agricultural Association. On the contrary, it creates incentives for such participation and conditions for the planning of specialized intervention by these unions on behalf of women, working on demands for their specific needs. On this basis, the OGE contributes to the promotion of social alliance without representing a separate social component of it. 

The joint action of the OGE with organizations of the social alliance of the labour-trade union movement, the agricultural, self-employed, student, and other specific movements needs to become more meaningful in order to contribute to the development of mass events and forms of struggle, as well as to a better understanding of common problems and their causes. It must go beyond a formal character, on the initiative of either the guiding organs or the presidents of the organizations. We must achieve meaningful cooperation, with discussion of the goal, the plan, and the content of each action, escalation actions, by formulating common demands, the framework of the struggle, and the preparation for the implementation of militant mobilizations or events with the substantive participation of the boards and members of the respective organizations. 

The OGE’s intervention plan needs to be pursued more decisively, especially at the level of student unions, in universities, in order to familiarize female students with the radical women’s movement. Female students who are members of the KNE and have been elected to the boards of student associations can contribute to this effort. 

Experience shows that planned and organized joint action by OGE Associations/Groups and parents’ associations can open the way for broader intervention in neighbourhoods (on issues of the education system, e.g., against the merging of departments and schools, against addiction and drug culture, on the content of sex education, etc.). At the same time, it paves the way for the radical women’s movement to utilize women who are active in Parents’ Associations.

A prerequisite for all of the above is a decisive improvement in the deployment of cadres and party forces by the guiding organs, so as to ensure the necessary time for the acquisition of knowledge and experience. This concerns those elected to the boards of the A/G, the formation of Party Groups, their guidance, and above all, the accountability of those responsible in the guiding organs. 

Similar support is needed in KNE, where the percentage of elected female members of KNE in the movement’s bodies is much lower than the percentage of female members of KNE. 

Since the 21st Congress, bourgeois strategy in education has been based on the following main axes:

a)    Promotion of new skills and abilities required for employment in the capitalist economy in the context of the development of new means of production, but also for the perpetuation of bourgeois ideological domination. 

b)    Closer linking of educational structures to the needs of capital, , a process justified through claims of “autonomous” and differentiated operation, which ultimately reinforces a tiered education system.

c)    Acceleration of the processes of “performance appraisal” and certification of the entire educational project in light of their more efficient operation for the reproduction of capitalist society as a whole. 

More specifically, during this period, the work of the New Democracy government was accelerated with the passing of new reactionary laws (universities framework legislation, establishment of private universities, Vocational Education and Training, private education) and the overall implementation of the reactionary legislative framework that already exists. Notable examples include cuts to university curricula, the mergers and reorganization of educational units, and the invocation of “excellence” [schools, Higher Vocational Training Schools (SAEK), university departments] against the backdrop of overall spending cuts, which highlights —from this perspective— the priorities and hierarchies of state spending on education to satisfy the plans of capital at the expense of the social and educational needs of the majority. 

The political and ideological intervention of the bourgeoisie and its mechanisms is also intensifying, beyond the school curriculum itself. In the context of the generalization of imperialist wars and Greece’s alignment with NATO, interventions by NATO, the murderous state of Israel, the EU, and other imperialist mechanisms in education are becoming more frequent. In this context, repressive and disciplinary measures against the educational movement in every area are being reinforced with prosecutions, a new framework for the operation of universities, etc.

The forces of the Party and KNE intervene in the field of education with multi-faceted vanguard action. They highlight the class causes of the problems with detailed arguments, the contemporary needs and possibilities arising from the development of science; engage in debate with old and contemporary bourgeois philosophical currents and ideologies; organize and rally broader popular and youth forces in the direction of breaking with the government’s choices, in order to create obstacles and achieve gains that can give confidence in the power of the people’s–youth struggle.

Since the 21st Congress, a new, positive correlation has emerged among the movement’s organizations in the field of education in a series of electoral battles. In fact, there is a possibility that this correlation will be consolidated as such and expanded. 

More specifically: From 2022 onwards, the “Panspoudastiki” (KNE and supporters) electoral slate emerged as the leading force in the student elections. In the 2024 elections for the Federation of Primary School Teachers (DOE) and the Federation of Secondary School Teachers (OLME), the “Militant Rally of Educators”(KKE and supporters) slate emerged for the first time as the first and second strongest forces, respectively. The results in the Higher Federation of Parents of Students of Greece (ASGME ) are also positive, where the “Democratic Unity of Parents” (KKE and supporters) slate once again received an absolute majority of delegates, with approximately 70%. Similarly, the efforts of the school student forces of KNE stand out, which, together with other militant students, play a leading role in organizing the struggles, while the Athens Student Coordinating Committee is widely recognized in the consciousness of students nationwide. Significant steps have been taken in establishing and consolidating positive relationships in student associations in training institutions [public and private vocational training institutes, merchant marine’s academies (AEN) etc.], with thousands of young people participating in elections for executive committees in which members of KNE and other student activists play a leading role. Positive progress has also been recorded in the Association of University Faculty and Research Personnel (POSDEP) and among university employees. 

In the period since the 21st Congress, serious fronts of confrontation with government policy on education have been formed, which have been consolidated   by the efforts of the Party and KNE forces to highlight the class parameters and the political solution to the problems. 

The implementation of the controversial “performance appraisal” continues to be stifled, with massive mobilizations of teachers. There have been large student mobilizations against the Minimum Admission Threshold, struggles supported by ASGME, with significant expressions of solidarity at the school level, which effectively thwarted the efforts at “divide-and-rule” etc. There were huge protests against the law on private universities, which —in combination with the consistent political intervention of the Party and KNE— undermined the government’s narrative of progress and, in a reversal, also undermined the desired social consensus, created conditions for questioning the EU’s policies and highlighted the social need for an exclusively public, free, and contemporary education system. 

Communists were at the forefront of all these struggles. They launched a powerful ideological–political effort that did not function in parallel to work among the masses, but was carried out within the masses armed with the KKE’s proposal for Preschool Education, for 12-year schooling, for universities and vocational education. With a much better understanding that our strategic positions and proposals are relevant to today, are realistic and necessary, and are a weapon for understanding change, they establish a well-developed framework for struggle that provides a way forward for contemporary needs.

Our efforts focus on improving the functioning and action of the movement’s bodies, increasing participation in their processes, and the creation of structures —where they do not exist— that will facilitate and serve the demands for all their contemporary needs. 

From this perspective, the communists’ responsibility to improve the situation in the movement’s organizations is also a response to the plans to discredit and denigrate them —primarily the university students’ movement, through not exclusively— based on only on low participation in movement processes, but also on the exploitation of  actions by other forces that, in fact, facilitate the government’s plans. 

These elements, both the need to strengthen the level of organization, collective discussion and action, and the infrastructure of the movement, are linked and mutually reinforcing with the content, with the promotion of real current possibilities and needs. Within the structures of the movement, a more meaningful discussion and reflection can be opened up on issues of scientific subjects, teaching and pedagogy, and others such as history, etc.

In other words, in educational settings that have a given “intellectual” and ideological function due to the nature of the profession, we cannot discuss the daily routine of work or studies without discussing their content. 

All developments in education make it clear that the modernization attempts of bourgeois governments cannot and do not want to respond to the new challenges of knowledge and the development of productive forces, which require a high general level of education and skills in the use of state-of-the-art technological means. They seek to adapt General Education to the contemporary needs of capitalism, at the expense of comprehensive education. Among the concerns of the bourgeoisie in Greece is the problem of the overall level of education as a prerequisite for the assimilation of the intellectual wealth created by humanity.

However, this problem cannot be universally resolved through comprehensive education, the acquisition of dialectical materialist knowledge and methodology, because capitalism is unable to provide a solution to this need and possibility. Similarly, a series of behavioural phenomena within schools (bullying, etc.) clearly highlight its “crisis of legitimacy” and its “failure” to create conditions for a “school community,” a problem that reflects more general changes in social consciousness.

From this point of view, working with the Party’s strategy, with programmatic specializations in each area and educational level, contributes decisively to the ability to develop goals for struggle within the powerful action of the movement. It enables the government’s policy in the field of education to be addressed in a class-conscious manner with well-documented argumentation. It also promotes engagement with a range of new issues that come up or acute problems that arise in education, even if they express the problems stemming from the development of bourgeois society (e.g., linguistic poverty, bullying, the influence of capitalist exploitation of the internet on young minds, etc.).

Experience confirms that to the extent that, within the movement or independently as a Party, we focus on pressing issues relating to the content of school knowledge and the development of science in every field, the initiatives embrace new forces. This is clearly confirmed by the participation of parents in discussions on issues of addiction and bullying, by the participation mainly of teachers in events and conferences, the mass distribution of the “Red Hot-Air Balloon” with its particularly interesting and useful thematic publications, and the participation of university students in events related to scientific subjects and employment prospects.

In this sense, the results of our action are positive, because they are the fruit of work that implements and enriches the conclusions we reached collectively at the 21^st Party Congress.

Steps have been taken towards understanding, first and foremost “from above,” i.e., in a guiding capacity, that the educational problem must be addressed as a social and political problem, and from the point of view of general theoretical positioning, but also from the point of view of formulating arguments and developing goals that unite the various movements and organizations on the education front.

Our positions create conditions for breaking free from the existing different approaches to education management, which however, promote the same strategy, as expressed in the continuity that exists between governments on critical issues: The intensification of business activity in universities, the categorization of educational structures (schools, universities, etc.), the direct intervention of capital in the orientation of all levels of education, and the emergence of a skills market that undermines the value of degrees.

In the coming period, the main task of the Party and KNE in the field of education is to strengthen the ideological and educational effort, focusing on popularizing the Party’s proposal for education, labour, health, and all social needs under socialism–communism, exposing the bourgeois argument about the “neutrality” of science, combating contemporary idealism and “rights-based individualism”, historical revisionism and anti-communism, highlighting the contemporary potential of the productive forces, first and foremost of human beings, which capitalism restricts.

To open up discussion and action at all levels on the basis of the unity of education, economy, society, and ideology, that is, with the Party’s strategy.

The Party’s programmatic elaborations on preschool education, schools, and universities, as well as a series of other publications by Synchroni Epochi and the magazine Education Issues are weapons in the complex political and ideological struggle that can strengthen the organization and dynamics of the educational movement. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures to encourage and organize discussion based on the above publications.

We continue to organize and stabilize the rich, multi-thematic, and multifaceted intervention focused on the school, the lesson, and other activities carried out therein. We are enhancing our comprehensive guidance support and intersectoral cooperation, focusing on the teachers and student forces of KNE.

We contribute more decisively so that mastery is achieved built in the Party Base Organizations and Communist Youth Base Organizations at universities, based on Marxist education, the ability to follow the subject of study, and the development of critical thinking. Our comprehensive plan must include the curriculum, intervention in the scientific subject, the formation of a basic knowledge base to develop a critical attitude, the linking of action for labour – professional rights, and the cultivation of criteria for the role of the scientist.

At the same time, by the 23^rd Congress, under the responsibility of the new Central Committee and its respective sections, a corresponding study needs to be carried out on Special Education and Training, drawing on the rich socialist experience. It is also necessary to create a theoretical infrastructure to respond to new issues arising from the development of bourgeois education, such as the application of Artificial Intelligence, etc.

In recent years, issues relating to Public Health, during the pandemic and thereafter, have been at the centre of the Party’s intervention.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically highlighted the limitations and shortcomings of a commercialized Healthcare System, tailored to the needs of profitability rather than prevention and care for the people. From the outset, the KKE has been at the forefront of the struggle to reinforce the Public Healthcare System, formulating demands of vital importance for the health and survival of the people, such as mass recruitment of permanent staff, the conversion of contract workers to permanent staff, the requisitioning of the private Health sector without compensation, and the upgrading of Primary Health Care facilities.

Through constant interventions inside and outside Parliament and in mass organizations, it supported the struggles of healthcare workers, unions, and mass organizations for the adoption of effective measures to protect the people’s health and life. It broke the silence that the government and the bourgeois parties tried to impose. From then until today, when attempts were made to whitewash the criminal responsibilities of the state and governments, the KKE stood up against it, exposing the continued commodification and further privatization of Health Care.

The strategy of capital for Healthcare is shaped by the guidelines of the EU, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and other imperialist organizations and is specified by the New Democracy government with the aim of further commercializing the public healthcare system (expansion of PPPs, operation of public healthcare units as public limited companies with patients as customers), strengthening the business and private sector, and further exploitation of critical sectors (medicine, prevention, diagnostic tests, digital Healthcare) by business groups.

In recent years, bourgeois policy has been strengthening measures in favour of the development of insurance and private healthcare. Government policy itself encourages private insurance. Since the pandemic, the narrative of “individual responsibility” has been cultivated at an impressive rate. The bourgeois state seeks to transfer the responsibility for prevention and care to the individual, who is called upon to seek services on their own, pay for them, manage their health risks on a case-by-case basis, relieving the state of its obligation to provide universal care.

The strategy of capital and restructuring are leading to new burdens for the people, intensifying class inequalities in healthcare and making access to healthcare a privilege for the few. For the many, only minimal services will be provided, and those with an expiration date.

The KKE took the lead in organizing mobilizations of healthcare workers, hospital and health unit employees, by setting up Struggle Committees, strengthening unions, and taking joint action with unions in other sectors. This action highlighted that the struggle for the broad front of healthcare is not only a matter for healthcare workers, but for the entire labour and popular movement.

From the many days of strikes and mobilizations by OENGE (Federation of Hospital Doctors’ Unions) and health workers’ unions, the actions in hospitals, the interventions in healthcare centres, to the militant interventions in every neighbourhood, pockets of resistance and protest have been created. Experience confirms that changing the correlation of forces in the movement requires fighting for every small or large issue, along with demanding radical changes away from the “shifting sands” of capitalist development, which in healthcare involves new profitable investments by monopolies in the sector.

During this period, the electoral slates in which communists participate in hospitals, among doctors, in private health associations, and in welfare institutions were further strengthened. Our forces in OENGE were strengthened, and we won first place in EINAP (Association of Hospital Doctors of Athens–Pireaus), in various doctors’ associations, and in several large hospitals throughout the country. We are fighting to improve the balance of power against the forces of compromise, co-option, and opportunism, together with hundreds of comrades and friends of the Party who resist, among other things, the deep material and ideological assimilation that is being attempted in the sector of Health. 

The KKE places the issues of public health at the centre of its action as a front of struggle that strengthens the characteristics of the social alliance between health workers, workers in critical sectors of the public and private sectors, the self-employed, young people and women of the working-class and popular strata.

Our main points of action are:

• Revealing the nature of the reforms in Healthcare and creating pockets of resistance against anti-people plans.

• The struggle for humane working conditions, decent wages, and mass recruitment of permanent health workers.

• Support for prevention, Primary Care, and free pharmaceutical care.

• The demand for an exclusively public, universal, modern, and free Health and Welfare system, free from commercial interests.

• Nationwide action must be combined with local interventions, linking health issues with poverty, war, work, and life as a whole.

The answer, in order to take full advantage of the modern possibilities of science, so that the people can live longer and better, lies in the overthrow of capitalism, in the struggle for a new socialist organization of society and the economy, where the direct producers of social wealth will enjoy the results of advances in medical science and research.

Science and technology can offer a great deal to people today: disease prevention, longevity, and a better quality of life. However, scientific achievements are not being used for the benefit of prevention and free healthcare and rehabilitation, but for the profit of the few, deepening the exploitation of the workforce and seeking to overcome the biological limits of the human organism. The KKE is fighting for the socialist organization of the Healthcare system, where:

• Health is a social right and not a commodity.

• Scientific knowledge is utilized centrally, with planning, to meet the needs of the people.

• Medicines, research, primary, secondary, and tertiary care structures, and prevention are integrated into a unified, state-run, exclusively Public Health and Welfare System, operating under social ownership of the means of production —that is, within the framework of workers’ power.

• Workers are not treated as a cost, but as creators of wealth, entitled to and enjoying their lives and health.

That is why the Party’s struggle today around Healthcare issues is not limited to demands for relief, but is linked to the necessity of socialism, of a society that focuses on the contemporary needs of people and not on profit.

Our Party’s constant struggle is our intervention in issues of disability and chronic illness. These issues are an additional burden on the lives of working-class families as a whole, and not just on the disabled themselves. They begin with preschool education and training of children with disabilities and continue throughout all aspects of their lives, including treatment, rehabilitation, employment, social integration, and social protection. The government’s strategy in the field of disability has been to implement the guidelines of the EU and capital, i.e., cuts and restrictions on social benefits, dramatic downsizing or closure of the corresponding state structures in the name of “deinstitutionalization” and “de-asylumization”. The same strategy, from another perspective, is served by the commercialization of the additional needs of disabled and chronically ill people at all levels: health, education, sport, culture and leisure.

In this sense, the issues of disability, chronic illness, and special education and training are more broadly related to the needs of working-class families and concern a large section of the working class. For this reason, they are not strictly and solely the subject of political and mass intervention by the Party Organizations in Health and Welfare where they exist, but more broadly of our Party’s forces at the national level.

Since the 21st Congress, efforts to intervene in the disability movement have continued and intensified through the alliances we have formed , mainly through the Coordinating Committee for the Struggle of People with Disabilities (SEAN) and the Unified Association of Parents and Guardians of Persons with Disabilities in Attica on the acute issues of persons with disabilities and the chronically ill, who face obstacles in receiving treatment or transfusions, the poor state of infrastructure in public special schools, the extreme deterioration of public rehabilitation clinics, increases in the contribution of insured persons to medicines and treatments.

The formulation of demands and frameworks for struggle relating to disability must become the task of every class-based union, federation, and Labour Centre, and of the labour movement as a whole, with the central focus being the slogans: “Welfare is a social good, not a commodity,” and “Prohibition of any overt or covert business activity in the sensitive areas of disability and chronic illness.” With this in mind, our forces in the disability movement are fighting against government-led unionism and the reformism that prevails among the leaders of the trade union bodies for people with disabilities, i.e. the National Federation of the Disabled (ESAME) and the National Federation of Associations of Parents and Guardians of Persons with Disabilities (POSGAMEΑ). 

A new element and focus in our struggle has been the front of the seizing and foreclosures of the primary residences of families with a disabled member. The large number of such families dramatically demonstrates that disability under capitalism can be a cause of impoverishment. On this front, an effort was made to bring together disabled people with Labour Centres, unions, and the PAME committee on foreclosures. Contact was made with dozens of associations of chronically ill people, parliamentary meetings and interventions were held, and we proceeded with militant and repeated mobilizations to prevent disabled people and their families from being evicted from their homes. This is a valuable experience of working-class and popular solidarity, in opposition to the rationale of individual responsibility and fatalism cultivated by the mechanisms of the system.

One issue on which the Party’s intervention stood out was the fight against foreclosures and the promotion of the important issue of affordable housing.

An effort was made to highlight how the basic social right to secure housing conflicts with the commodification of land, the capitalist housing market, the role of construction groups and banks, the EU’s strategy, and the policies of the current and previous governments.

The Party’s elaborations, events, and interventions shed light on a number of factors that exacerbate the housing problem, such as:

• The undermining and eventual abolition of protection for the primary residence of over-indebted households.

• The intensification of commercialization with the unlimited spread of short-term leases (such as Airbnb) and the golden visa regime.

• The worsening ratio of real wages to housing costs (which concerns both the large increase in rent prices and the repayment of predatory housing loans), the concentration of land ownership in the hands of large groups, the imposition of property taxes for popular housing, energy prices, and the increase in energy poverty.

In other words, the factors leading to a decline in home ownership and an increase in housing costs, which can consume up to 40% of disposable income for one in four households, were highlighted. This is an acute problem that affects the EU as a whole, where the last decade has seen a much greater increase in house prices and rents than in real wages.

The lack of effective pre-earthquake inspections and, more generally, of earthquake protection as well as spatial and urban planning that takes into account the needs of the entire population, has also been highlighted.

An effort was made to expose the false nature of the proposals of the government and the social democratic parties, which are moving towards the commodification of housing, accepting as a fait accompli the thousands of foreclosures, and securing new investment opportunities for the exploitation of state buildings and land by corporations. It must be made clear that a comprehensive solution to the housing problem requires the construction of socialism, central planning, and the conversion of housing and land into social property.

In the face of the wave of foreclosures, a systematic effort was made to intervene, initially by the PAME Committee against Foreclosures, which spread to many cities across the country and neighbourhoods in Attica, intervening and literally saving hundreds of primary residences of working-class and low-income households, disobeying repressive laws and the unjust legislative framework that uproots poor families from their homes and reinforces the concentration of real estate in the hands of “vultures” and various business funds. Certain mobilizations, such as those in Elefsina, Petralona, Zografou, Thebes, Chalkidiki, etc., became a point of reference for entire cities in their struggle against the government’s anti-popular policies.

This intervention was expressed through the strength of the Party and PAME, which are recognized by broad sections of the people as the forces that deal with this issue with stability and consistency. Many people were heard saying, “Go to PAME to save your home.” It is a militant initiative that paves the way and contributes to the coordination of struggles with the small and medium strata of the city and the countryside, so that steps can be taken towards a social alliance on the major issue of popular housing.

On this front, we have gained significant experience from the action against foreclosures, which is a legacy for escalating the struggle for the people’s right to housing:

• For there to be planning under the responsibility of the state, the reactivation of the Housing Organization of Greece (OEK), and the utilization of the stock of state-owned buildings.

• Protection of primary residences from foreclosures and the “vultures” of banks and funds by repealing reactionary legislation.

• Abolition of property taxes for popular housing, restrictions on short-term rentals, and abolition of the golden visa.

• Upgrade and expansion of student residences.

• Cheap electricity for the people, substantial wage increases, and state support for the housing costs of working-class families.

In the four years since the previous Congress, the Party’s multifaceted cultural intervention has continued with broader impact.

Through the rich and high-level activity that developed with major concerts, the  Festivals of KNE - “Odigitis”, the 6th Scientific Conference on literature, the operation of the “Giorgos Varlamos” Cultural Centre, tributes to artists, exhibitions, the initiatives of the KNE Central Council’s Youth centre, efforts were strengthened to highlight and disseminate the socially useful work of leading Greek and foreign creators, but also to give younger promising artists the opportunity to present their work. Several regional organizations also held important events with a significant impact, drawing on the central experience.

Culture also confirms the revolutionary and radically different character of our Party from that of the bourgeois parties, which do not develop even the most basic cultural activity, as they are covered by the dominant bourgeois ideology and aesthetics.

There was also a broad range of artists, intellectuals, and other workers specializing in art who participated or actively contributed to the Party’s cultural activities, as a result of the Party’s political interest in art and artists, combined with the action of party forces in the mass movement of artists and workers in culture. However, this contribution of artists to the Party’s cultural activity is neither sufficient nor should it be taken for granted. The steady development of interpersonal contact and discussion is an irreplaceable prerequisite for the creation of solid political and ideological ties, especially with younger artists, with whom our relations need to be strengthened and expanded.

It seems that the perception —which was established at the 20th Congress— that culture is a decorative element of our politics is gradually receding. However, there is still no uniform understanding of how culture can contribute to the promotion of our strategic proposal for revolutionary change in social reality. Of course, no one is under the illusion that art can change reality, replacing class struggle. But art can influence those who will change it, affect the consciousness of the working class and other popular strata, especially young people. In order to unleash its transformative power, however, it needs a stable, organic connection with the labour movement and Party political action.

As far as the movement is concerned, this connection presupposes first and foremost that all the major trade union organizations that we influence (Labour Centres and Federations, Unions) to include cultural activities in their planning on a regular basis, ensuring that their content responds to the needs of the contemporary class struggle. This, in turn, will have a multiplier effect downwards, in the unions and associations.

The utilization of culture in the activities of Party Organizations requires, first and foremost, the establishment of permanent Culture Committees in each Regional Organization, and not just a person in charge, who does not even exist in some Organizations, while in others, this position has been in a state of constant change. Stability is more than necessary for certain cadre to specialize in a field with specific requirements, such as culture, which requires interest, monitoring of developments in the field, and familiarity with the subject of art.

In the field of research, the study of old and newer topics in literature, art, and aesthetics continued. More specifically:

The Scientific Conference on EAM-themed (The National Liberation Front) and bourgeois literature of the 1940s and 1950s was completed. A scientific study on the political activity of writers in the 1930s and 1940s was published. A publication on the literature and art of the Paris Commune was produced to mark the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune, which also contains original translations of poems and songs by the most representative writers who participated in or closely followed the events (Potié, Clément, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Hugo, etc.). The study of Marxist aesthetics was expanded with an examination of its development in the USSR, particularly during the period following the opportunistic turn of the 20th Congress of the CPSU until the 1970s. An initial investigation was conducted into the relationship between artificial intelligence and art from the perspective of Marxist philosophy and, in particular, Marxist theory on human psychology. Previous work on the ideological content of the European Union’s cultural policy was expanded, EU and government policy was studied, particularly in the audiovisual sector, and progress was made in the elaboration of cultural heritage issues.

Despite the achievements in the Party’s cultural work, there is still a long way to go in terms of acquiring the knowledge and ability to counter the bourgeois theories taught in universities on the content of art (Frankfurt School, postmodernism, etc.).

An even greater problem is the serious delay in the study, assimilation, and dissemination of the work that has already been done, both recent and previous, on the role of art, socialist realism, Russian avant-garde, and postmodernism, even though they are the subject of intense debate within the network of universities, institutions, state organizations, and business groups —a debate that seriously affects the younger generations of artists.

It is necessary for university departments directly related to culture (literature, theater studies, music studies, fine arts, architecture) to present the content of these elaborations within their institutions by organizing events with topics adapted to the needs of each Department. (e.g., book presentations, conferences on literature, events for writers, postmodernism, etc.) 

An important parameter for the Party’s intervention in culture to be consolidated and developed is the emergence of a new generation of artists —creators and scholars in the field of art and literature— who are highly specialized and have a Marxist education. It is therefore necessary to address the reluctance to continue doctoral studies in the theoretical subjects of literature and the arts, a situation which, in the current climate of fierce anti-communist attacks, is leading to a regression in these sciences, without any strong opposition. This effort to promote these sciences should be planned in collaboration with the relevant university departments.

The government’s policy over the last four years has been characterized by the expansion of commercial operations and the commodification of culture, with extreme manifestations in the field of cultural heritage (e.g., fashion shows and advertisements at iconic archaeological sites). At the same time, cultural production was more closely linked to the outward-looking policy, with culture being more deeply tied to tourism and its exploitation in order to promote and strengthen the country’s presence on the international stage. The country’s military involvement and preparations for war brought cultural diplomacy more actively to the fore, with a recent example being the attempt to whitewash the murderous state of Israel through culture. Ensuring “social cohesion” —that is, the reconciliation of the working class with capital— continues to be a constant ideological goal of the bourgeoisie for Culture, with the irrational theories of postmodernism, such as those concerning the social construction of language, gender, etc., but also anti-communism, as its main vehicle.

In this context, throughout the previous period, artists have shown resistance, both through their artistic work and through their mass action. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there have been major struggles in the artistic community and a spectacular increase in their participation in trade unions in the sector. Today, despite the decline in militant mood, the degree of their unionization and participation in elections remains high, while the participation of drama school students in their association has also increased. In addition, thanks to a timely initiative by political forces, two new organizations were established in the crucial and rapidly developing Audiovisual Sector (O/A): The Audiovisual Sector Workers’ Union and the Union of  Directors. 

Throughout this period, our forces were tested in a fierce confrontation with the theories of rights-based individualism, while at the same time facing the reformist current, as expressed through a mixture of forces of social democracy, opportunism, and anarchism. These forces continue to lead the Panhellenic Federation of Performing Arts (PΟΤΗΑ) despite the improvement in the balance of power in the Actors’ Union, where our forces regained first place. The fundamental prerequisite for achieving dominance in our struggle against these forces is to eliminate the separation of artists’ economic claims from the promotion of and discussion about our artistic and aesthetic perception, which is evident in our actions.

In the coming period, we must ensure that our positions and ideas on art and culture are assimilated by the Party forces and permeate the entire content of our mass work. As a rallying point for the movement, we must highlight our perception that culture cannot be a commodity and put the question “how, what, for whom, and for what purpose does the artist create” on the agenda. Theoretical knowledge of art, combined with pioneering artistic work and a vanguard stance in the movement, are the necessary conditions for strengthening the prestige and ability of our forces to rally artists and associations in the struggle against the barbarism and inhumanity of capitalism. These conditions are even more important today, given the influence that art and artists can exert on broader sections of the population.

In the period since the 21st Congress, the Party’s ability to formulate positions and intervene immediately has been confirmed, particularly around issues of civil protection (fires, floods, etc.) and environmental protection in general.

During this period, the government’s implementation of the EU’s guidelines for the “green transition” focused on the following areas:

a) Ensuring the profitability of new “green investments” and further commercialization in important sectors, from water to waste and forests.

b) Assessing and managing risks, based on the principle of cost-benefit for capital and the state, particularly regarding the surpluses —secured through the sacrifices of the people— required by the EU. In this context, the decoupling and downgrading of prevention in relation to the management of natural disasters, the huge shortcomings in necessary infrastructure (e.g., flood protection works) and controls (e.g., pre-earthquake checks), as well as the inadequate staffing and insufficient protection of the role and resources of state services (e.g., Fire Service, Forestry Service, Town Planning), continued.

c) The inclusion of Civil Protection in the context of the war economy and preparedness through planning to ensure the resilience of the system and, in particular, critical infrastructure against “external and internal threats.”

Through a series of conferences, publications, and interventions in the Greek Parliament and the European Parliament, we have highlighted the real causes of the creation and exacerbation of environmental problems and the criminal responsibilities of government policy.

We have exposed the hostile nature of the bourgeois state towards the people, which over time has neither wanted nor been able to ensure that the needs of the people are met, and which attempts to conceal its role by invoking the “climate crisis.” We have highlighted the negative consequences for the people of plans to further commercialize water under the pretext of tackling water scarcity, dangerous plans to promote waste incineration and the transfer of forests to private operators.

We have demonstrated that the Civil Protection mechanism is an integral part of the strategy of the so-called “internal and external security of the European Union” and NATO.

Our political intervention focused on promoting the superiority of socialism in ensuring a balanced relationship between production and social life on the one hand and the environment on the other, in contrast to the capitalist system and the strategy of capital and the EU, which commercializes and degrades it.

The forces of the KKE played a role in protecting life and public property from disasters in populated areas, such as the fire in northern Euboea, the flood in Thessaly, the fires in Ilia, Evros, Attica, and Achaia, which reached industrial areas.

In all cases, it became clear that decisive, combative, dynamic, and immediate action was needed to protect the people.

A decisive factor was that our forces, with self-sacrifice and heroism, took the lead in the battle, as well as the work we carried out within the movement, albeit limited, which was oriented towards taking the initiative in organizing solidarity and protest. Experience shows that in such situations, it is necessary to immediately emphasize collective demands and mobilization, along with solidarity, without waiting for the damage to be recorded.

The various forms of protest initiatives (rallies, protest demonstrations, solidarity centres, etc.) also proved to be effective. This approach made it possible to quickly mobilize large numbers of people, giving them a purpose and a reason to act, who might otherwise have remained inactive. The systematic efforts of the opposition in such situations to prevent the expression of anger through popular mobilization and to recreate a climate of waiting for whatever crumbs of relief might be offered combined with the promotion of investment projects on the ruins, turning them into an “opportunity” for profit.

In any case, however, there is one general, mandatory, unifying element: the readiness, ability, will, and self-sacrificing work of communists, wherever they may be, under all circumstances.

It is crucial that we make progress in the struggle around environmental issues, in highlighting the class character of development, in putting forward demands that meet the needs of the people, shedding light on the KKE’s progamme. All these are criteria for the effectiveness of the guiding work, the functioning, and the action of Party Base Organizations.

Throughout the previous period, and particularly after the 21st Congress, a broad and multifaceted intervention has developed in the field of Physical Education and Sports, which contrasts with the consequences of the dominance of commercialization that has turned the need for sports and exercise into an expensive luxury or hobby for those who can afford it. We sought to counteract the exploitation of sport for the promotion of the values and standards of capitalism, competition, and bourgeois ideology.

At the same time, an effort was made to develop a group of personnel in the field of Physical Education (PE) and Sports in Regional Organizations, so as to ensure that we keep abreast of developments and intervene both in Sports and its structures (Federations - Associations - Clubs), as well as in Education at all levels. The main difficulty remains: the importance of the Party’s intervention in the field of Sports and the corresponding organizational measures and initiatives are still not fully understood. 

Our overall effort is becoming more urgent today, if one takes into account that we are referring to an area which, beyond education, concerns teachers of all levels, students, and parents, in the competitive aspect, the number of clubs is approximately 6,000. In summary, we are talking about a well-structured field and a total of approximately 500,000 individuals who, from different positions (athletes, coaches, board members, parents), have systematic, if not daily, contact and involvement with sports. Overall, we are dealing with productive ages that are of interest to us from a socio-economic perspective, such as young couples and young people who start engaging in sports from an early age. All these are indicators demonstrating that the working-class family is struggling to keep its children in contact with a sport, despite all the cuts that have been made in terms of state support, and considering the complete downgrading of physical education and physical activity in schools.

All of the above is confirmed by the positive impact of all the initiatives we take together with KNE, which are no longer limited to the duration of the Festival of “KNE – Odigitis”, but extend throughout the year, combining athletic activity with militant demands. It is important that the discussion of problems, shortcomings, and demands be specified and transformed into militant action at the municipal and regional levels.

Our goal is to create the conditions for a broad coalition in the field of club sports, representing people at the level of federations, associations, and clubs from all sports, seeking to strengthen demands against the commercialization of sports.

Another important aspect is to increase the participation of people in the tournaments organized by PAME and MAS. This will happen as these tournaments become more frequent and widespread, reaching other cities and involving the 15-member committees at junior and senior high schools and student coordinating committees in similar activities. Sport needs to be incorporated as a right and a broader demand in the organized popular movement and in mass youth organizations.

Drugs and addiction are the result of the capitalist mode of organization of the economy and society. That is where they are rooted and on that basis they find fertile ground to spread. From this point of view, drug addiction and other forms of addiction will be tackled to the extent that the fight against them is linked to the fight against exploitation, with a view to its abolition.

We oppose the policies of the bourgeoisie and the EU, which all governments in our country have faithfully served to date, resulting in the closure of all treatment programmes, the constant alteration and downgrading of the comprehensive treatment of dry treatment programmes, and the reinforcement of the policy of “harm reduction” (substitutes, Supervised Consumption Rooms). We oppose the downgrading of addiction prevention by altering its content, with the bourgeoisie promoting “healthy use” and the “functional user,” while leading to the closure of 75 Prevention centres in our country.

Today, we need a broad movement with demands that will combat the causes that give rise to and reproduce the social phenomenon of addiction. The members of the KKE and KNE must take the lead in this movement, massify and expand the action of the National Council Against Drugs (ESYN). We must intensify our action on the front against addiction in Parents’ Associations, Teachers’ Associations, trade unions, and Sports and Cultural Associations.

As a Party, we have taken steps to strengthen the ideological, political, and social front against the spread of drugs and the lifestyle they represent, reinforcing our programmatic vision. We are taking similar steps in relation to the problematic relationship with alcohol, which is constantly expanding among younger age groups.

We need to strengthen our study, as a Party, and the formation of a framework for struggle and demands on the consequences of behavioural addictions (internet, social media, gambling) on the formation of consciousness and action in young people, but also how tolerance is formed by people who use these substances occasionally or not at all —a fact that has a multiplier effect and weighs negatively on increased familiarization with these substances.

Codification of specific tasks regarding our forthcoming elaborations up to the 23rd Congress

1.      Within the framework of the research effort on the study of socialist construction in the 20th  century, based on the work carried out so far (publications, Central Committee seminar, etc.), particularly concerning the superstructure and the socialist state:

·         The second part of the study on changes in the Soviet Constitution, including its conclusions, is to be completed and published. The research should also be expanded to incorporate the corresponding experience of the German Democratic Republic.

·         The translation and publication of key works, as well as the effort to present critically the discussion on Law and, more broadly, on socialist construction in the Soviet Union, should be advanced.

·         The study of the People’s Democracies established after the Second World War, as well as the course of the Communist International, should proceed.

·         A study should be designed on the course of capitalist restoration in China, as well as developments in Cuba.

2.      Building on the specific studies of previous years on key aspects of the contemporary international imperialist system (the development of productive forces – Artificial Intelligence, war economy and capitalist crisis, inter-imperialist contradictions and expansion of imperialist war, contemporary bourgeois state, etc.) a comprehensive study on imperialism in the 21st century should be undertaken. This study will take a holistic approach to examining the contemporary changes in the material conditions and living and working circumstances of the working class, as well as their impact on the formation of class consciousness.

3.       Building on previous, albeit fragmentary, positive experience, the aim is to upgrade and stabilize inter-departmental cooperation on key issues such as:

·         The anticipation and study of new problems and consequences arising from the integration of Artificial Intelligence into economic and social life. This includes the effort to philosophically generalize scientific achievements and to develop our line and necessary adaptations for ideological and political struggle in universities, research centres, and the movement. In the period remaining before the 22nd Congress, a session of the Central Committee on matters related to Artificial Intelligence could be scheduled.

·         The support of KNE in the struggle against subjective idealism, rights-based individualism, and self-identification of gender and identity, alongside the Euro-Atlantic agenda promoting inclusion and multiple identities. This also includes the study of contemporary youth lifestyle, such as excessive internet and social media use, reactionary or false anarchist positions disseminated through the arts. Emphasis is placed on promoting communist principles and values and the importance of communist education in contrast to bourgeois role models shaping young people’s lives.

·         The study of the Communist Party under contemporary conditions, combined with a deeper examination of the causes behind the long-term retreat of the revolutionary labour movement in relation to the enhanced opportunities of the bourgeois system to co-opt the working class. A comprehensive effort to strengthen the ideological and political struggle on issues concerning the bourgeois superstructure under present-day conditions.

·         The critique of bourgeois policies regarding juvenile delinquency.

·         The enhancement of inter-sectional work for our intervention in the Regions and municipalities.

·         Our intervention on the demographic issue and the struggle against bourgeois policies.

·         Teaching methods in primary and secondary education, both overall and by specific academic discipline.

4.      Building on the extensive theoretical, historical, and popularized material developed in previous years, the plan for assimilating and independently presenting the core positions of the Programme should be updated, covering the necessity of socialist revolution, the importance of concentrating forces for its achievement, and the laws of socialist construction, as a direction for ideological work within the Party organs and the PBOs. Emphasis should be placed on enhancing the ability to confront critically with the notion of a “humanized system”, the idea that capitalism can be managed in a pro-people way. Attention should also be given to what kind of movement is needed for the working class to truly prevail, and to the conditions required to withstand the current negative correlation of forces when immediate positive results are not evident.

5.      Completion of the final part of the study on class stratification, including a detailed breakdown by region, the pressing issues of the ongoing struggle, and deeper conclusions for planning the class struggle.

6.      A distinct research task, undertaken with the contribution of the relevant Sections and Organizations, is the continuous monitoring, analysis, generalization, and forecasting of all aspects concerning the development of the imperialist war and the ongoing shift towards a war economy. This constitutes a primary priority for supporting accurate Party readiness, for intervention, and for contributing to the effort to regroup the International Communist Movement.

7.      The intensification of the struggle through multifaceted intervention in matters of history, ideology, and culture within the bourgeois mass media, with the involvement of academics and scientists aligned with the Party.

8.      The study and writing of the History Essay of the KKE covering the period 1974–1991 should proceed without delay.

9.      The Scientific Conferences on literature organized by the Central Committee should proceed.

10. A National Conference or a Broad Session of the Central Committee should be convened to address the Party’s work among the youth, its movement, and the comprehensive support provided to KNE.

Building on the rich experience we have accumulated over all these years, the Central Committee must, in the upcoming period, better integrate our revolutionary Programme into the ongoing tasks on the path towards our next 23rd Congress.  

We must study it continuously and actively promote it, assessing various tasks according to the principle that the everyday struggle, from our standpoint, is part of the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, for workers’ power, and for socialist construction on the path to communism; the comprehensive preparation of the Party to fulfil all its responsibilities when the revolution comes onto the agenda.

Ultimately, the daily struggle is measured by the line of rallying, by ideological support, and by forms of struggle —by the extent to which they cultivate understanding of the overall class confrontation, the conflict, and the overthrow of capitalism.

By utilizing the wealth of accumulated experience, our elaborated revolutionary strategy, and the creative, collective development of our world view, grounded in new and ongoing developments, and in trust in the principles guiding the revolutionary Party of the working class in our country, firmly on the tracks of Proletarian Internationalism, we organize the Communist Party as an “all-weather party”, a party ready for all situations. It stands prepared to respond effectively to complex developments, bringing the working class and the people to the forefront, for the ultimate, definitive victory of socialism and communism over capitalist barbarity.

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE KKE

9 SEPTEMBER 2025