We are struggling for a socialist Greece and Europe

Dimitris Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE, highlighted several key points in his speech at the 52nd Odigitis festival, including:

«Today, the question is no longer whether the world can change —it changes day by day anyway— but who will determine its future direction.

Today, when military preparations are no longer just news on the internet, but rather permeate every aspect of young people’s lives, from the workplace to universities, and determine which projects and investments will go ahead and which will not, it is of the utmost importance to realize that the sacrifices demanded of the people are not temporary, until analleged “state of emergency” has passed.

Once capitalism enters its war phase, there can be no return to normality. After all, this is not the first time that sacrifices and patience have been demanded of the people.

The previous generation of young people, who are now in their thirties,  remember well that from their school days up until today they have been asked for nothing but sacrifices and patience. First it was to help the country overcome the economic crisis, then to consolidate growth, then to cope with the COVID pandemic, and now to get over the energy crisis. It is always one excuse after another.

The excuses may vary, but what never changes is who pays the price and who profits from each “state of emergency”. Every time the people believed them, they suffered losses. They have lost rights for which so much blood has been shed. They have wasted precious time and suffered disappointment.

As for the promises made by the Mitsotakis government and the social-democratic parties of PASOK and Tsipras, that at some point capitalist profitability —the “growing of the pie”— would also bring prosperity to the people are like a rainbow: the closer you get, the further away it appears.

It is certainly not an optical illusion, but a great delusion to believe that the exploited and their exploiters can have common interests.

Therefore, the question is not whether sacrifices will be made, but whether they will be made for our class interests, our rights and equality, and not under a false flag. So that we may open upa new, promising path to defeat greedy and predatory capital once and for all and allow the true homeland of our people to triumph!

So that today’s youth do not spend the best years of their lives in a Greece and a Europe of exploitation and war, but demand to live in a Greece and a Europe of social justice, prosperity, and solidarity amongst peoples —that is to say, in a socialist Greece and Europe!

This is the realistic, necessary and mature answer for the 21st century!

Those who serve the homeland of capital —the New Democracy government and the other parties of the system— have been engaged, for some time now, in a farcical discussion about comparing their “costed” programmes. This sort of confrontation is by no means innocent.

A party’s proposals may differ by a few euros or a few decimal places from those of another, but the aim is exactly the same. Let the vultures of big capital, the EU and NATO – the von der Leyens and the Ruttes – get the message that they are all committed to their fiscal corsets and their broader strategic choices, to the war memoranda.

At the same time, of course, they seek to ensure that the people will get the message, too, and learn to lower their expectations, voluntarily deny their contemporary needs, and internalize the view that anything they demand could supposedly put the country in jeopardy.

Thus, the standard response of Mr. Mitsotakis and his ministers to every just popular demand, as well as to the proposals tabled by the KKE in Parliament, is that they come at an “unbearable cost”, are “maximalist”, and that “the economy cannot afford it”!

The parties of the convenient opposition follow suit, rejecting these proposals either by speaking out or by remaining silent. However, we have never heard them describe the €7.5 billion spent each year on military equipment for NATO as “unbearable”, and they all vote for it together. This military equipment isreferred to as“the country’s defence shield”, butit is actually fully integrated into plans that  put us in danger and have absolutely nothing to do with our country’s defence.

We haven’t heard them describe the net profits of 12.1 billion euros made by companies listed on the stock market in 2025 as “maximalist”. They call all this “growth” and a “positive climate for investments”!

We have never heard them say that “the economy cannot afford” the Deferred Tax Assetsof banks or tax breaks for shipowners! They have  even enshrined these in the Constitution and are now preparing to add tax breaks for strategic investors as well!

Therefore, the issue is not “costing” in general, but rather the criteria by which it is carried out. For us, there is only one criterion: how the degree of fulfilment of contemporary people’s needs can be aligned with the objective possibilities offered in our era.

Because there is no question of a lack of resources today, as they claim. Resources are created by human labour and end up as profit in the capitalists’ coffers and portfolios.

If fact, the problem is the over-accumulation of profits and the squandering of available resources on unproductive, or even destructive purposes, something which is, unfortunately, in the very DNA of this system.

Using this criterion, the absence of thousands of teachers from schools represents a huge cost to our children's education. Similarly, the absence of doctors and nurses from hospitals represents a huge cost to public health. Vacant posts in the fire service and a lack of flood protectionprojects also represent a huge cost to us all and to our environment.

It is a huge cost when workers are injured or killed at work as a result of work intensification, long working hours and a lack of workplace safety measures. It is a huge cost when children and women are not protected from the monsters spawned by this system's rotten values. It is a huge cost when there is no care for the elderly and drug rehabilitation centres that do remarkable work are closed down.

Ultimately, capitalism costs us dearly; the profits of capital and the policies of the parties that serve them cost us dearly. We cannot, and must not, tolerate this cost any longer!

These are the costs that must be “cut” if the people are to breathe today. They must be swept into the dustbin of history if the wheel of history is to get out from the mire and move forward!

So that we can construct a society where the needs of the many are not  regarded as a cost, but as the driving force behind all human activity. A society without exploitation of man by man, the society of “universal friendship”: socialism-communism!»