THESES OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE FOR THE 19TH CONGRESS

The KKE has travelled a long way, since 1918, when it held its Founding Congress as the ripe fruit of the development of the labour movement in our country which was merged with the theory of scientific socialism. The foundation of the KKE was accelerated by the impact of the first socialist revolution in history, the October revolution of 1917 in Russia, an event which confirms the era as the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism.

The KKE is the genuine and worthy heir of the national, democratic and revolutionary traditions of the Greek people. It managed, in difficult conditions, to preserve its revolutionary character, while it was never afraid of recognising mistakes, deviations, of carrying out self-criticism openly in front of the people. Its historical course vindicates the necessity of its existence and activity in Greek society.

The KKE is the organized conscious vanguard segment of the working class. It struggles for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism-communism. It is faithful to the principle of proletarian internationalism. It struggles for the regroupment of the international communist movement after the setback and crisis which it experienced, particularly after the victory of the counterrevolution in 1989-1991.

The capitalist system in Greece, as in every other country, is not going to collapse on its own, due to its contradictions. The major sharpening of the social contradictions will lead to conditions of a revolutionary situation, to conditions of a serious sharpening of the class struggle while an all-powerful labour movement in alliance with popular strata which are suffering will have matured and will have come to the fore. In the conditions of the revolutionary situation, what will be judged is the will and decision of the people to break and abolish the chains of class exploitation, oppression, the entanglement in the imperialist war, with the appropriate choice of slogans and all the forms of struggle. It requires a labour movement, which is not trapped in misleading alternative solutions, which the bourgeois political system utilises pursuing to break the movement, to deliver a blow to the radicalism, to the revolutionary attitude and will, in order to prevent or negate its overthrow for as long a period as it can.

The 19^th Congress will elaborate the specific guidelines for the political tasks of the party and KNE, which will be in force until the 20^th Congress, based on the report of work, the developments and the evaluation of the tendencies.

The basic task of the Congress is the contemporary elaboration of the party’s Programme and of its Statutes, taking into account the developments which have taken place and the requirements of today. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since 1996, when the 15^th Congress formed the party’s Programme which is in force until today, regarding economic developments, trends and changes in the international imperialist system, in the EU, the position of Greece in the wider region of the South Eastern Mediterranean. The same is true of developments and processes regarding the reformation of the political system in Greece, which is characterised mainly by the relative destabilization of the post-dictatorship bourgeois political system. There are also important developments in the working and living conditions of the workers, due to the economic crisis and the strategy of capital, resulting in the generalised increase of relative and absolute destitution, the rapid increase of unemployment, the immigration question etc. Important struggles, strikes and other mobilizations have developed, the impact of which was felt beyond Greece’s borders.

An integral element of the reformation of the bourgeois political system is the greater turn to reaction, repression and state-employer violence, the anti-communist and anti-socialist offensive which is a problem that concerns the large majority of the people. The anti-communist offensive seeks alternatively the following: to pressure the KKE, so that the hopes are fulfilled regarding the adulteration of its character and its transformation into a component of the “governmental left” or its isolation or even to achieve the outlawing of its activity. This issue must be dealt with decisively by the people, in order for exceptionally negative consequences for the labour and people’s movement to be avoided. Consequently, new duties emerge for the labour movement, the People’s Alliance, that is to say issues of strategic importance.

The Draft Programme incorporates the conclusions from the construction of socialism in the USSR and the countries of socialist construction more generally, the conclusions on the course of the international communist movement, which were approved at the 18^th Congress, as well as the conclusions of the Nationwide Conference on the “History Essay of the KKE, Volume II (1949-1968)” which are of strategic importance.

Finally, it is the fruit of a long collective process, which continued after the 15^th Congress in its entire course until today, in the middle of struggles and tough class confrontations. The experience of the party and the labour and people’s movement is valuable living material which was utilised as far as possible in the elaboration of the Theses, the report of work and the Draft Programme. The Draft Programme was based on data and evaluations which emerge from the long term examination of the developments in Greece and internationally, from the standpoint of the working class and people’s interests, i.e. with Marxist-Leninist theory as a compass, which constitutes the ideology of the KKE.

In the framework of the pre-congress discussion, the CC publishes the Theses for the 19^th Congress of the KKE, which are comprised of three sections based on the agenda of the Congress.

The first section includes the report of work of the party from the 18^th Congress and the assessment of the CC which was elected at the 18^th Congress. It also includes the political tasks of the party, along general lines, until the next 20^th Congress.

The second section includes the Draft Programme of the KKE. The existing Programme of the Party was adopted at the 15^th Congress (22-26 May 1996). The Programme was enriched, updated at the next congresses, the 16^th (14-17 December 2000), the 17^th (9-12 February 2005) and the 18^th (18-22 February 2009), based on the international and domestic developments.

The third section includes the draft Statutes, in which older and more recent experience has been utilised.

The CC calls on the members of the Party and KNE to study the text of the Theses, to contribute to their improvement with reflection, proposals, recommendations, so that the final documents will be the fruit of a collective process, to crystallise the rich experience accumulated in recent years.

The pre-congress discussion also includes the discussion of the Theses, with the aim of collecting opinions and comments from the friends and supporters of the party, from every militant who -irrespective of their particular views- understand that without a strong KKE with scientifically elaborated positions, the recovery of the labour and people’s movement is not possible, nor is its endurance in the face of the bends and turns it will go through. Nor will be possible the people to defend themselves against the barbaric offensive of capital, and even more so to act aggressively for social and political overthrow.

11-14 APRIL 2013

1. The outbreak of the generalized and synchronized capitalist economic crisis brought to the forefront the historically outdated and inhuman character of the contemporary capitalist system, the timeliness and necessity of socialism, the need for the regroupment of the international communist movement, for the emancipation of the labour and people’s movement. It contributed to the sharpening of the unevenness and inter-imperialist contradictions, to the change of the correlation of forces in the international imperialist pyramid, to the fluidity of the alliances and the ignition of old and new war flashpoints.

The capitalist crisis dealt an overwhelming blow to the bourgeois theories, e.g. regarding sustainable development. It very clearly highlighted the sharpening of the contradictions and the difficulties of the bourgeois management and generally the difficulties regarding the transition into a new cycle of extended reproduction of social capital. Whatever recovery took place was uneven, anaemic, while a new decline followed it in the Eurozone and Japan. The next crisis cycle at an international level will be even deeper.

2. The contemporary pro-monopoly political line, which has a strategic character and aims at the rise in the rate of profit (cheaper labour power, reactionary restructurings, privatizations etc.), began at the beginning of the 1980s in the USA and Great Britain, it later spread to the EU, to the Eurozone and elsewhere. Its strategic character is also demonstrated by the fact that it was promoted equally by liberal and social-democratic bourgeois governmental forces over the last thirty years. It is the only way for capitalist development to curb the tendency of the average rate of profit to fall and to adapt to contemporary conditions, where the internationalization of the capitalist economy as well as of the labour market is continually intensifying.

3. The EU and the Eurozone are bearing more of the brunt from the pressures of international competition, while the internal contradictions are constantly being strengthened. The crisis has the effect of slowing down countries which are still having high rates of capitalist development.

The common goals of big capital -which determine the formation of the EU as an inter-state imperialist alliance- do not negate the uneven development inside it, and they do not negate the nation-state organization on which the largest part of capitalist accumulation is based on.

The outbreak of the crisis reinforced the decline of the share of the USA the EU and Japan of the Gross World Product. The USA continues to hold the 1^st position, but its share of the GWP fell from 22.23% in 2005 to 18.9% in 2012 (based on rates of purchasing power parity). The Eurozone no longer maintains the 2^nd position, its share has fallen from 16.53% in 2005 to 13.73% in 2012 (the EU-27 as a whole has a share which is equal to that of the USA).

It is characteristic that, as a sum total, the share of the economies of the G7, i.e. the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan which were the strongest developed economies, on the terrain of the crisis, fell from 45.03% of the World Product in 2005 to 37.75% according to predictions for 2012, with the prospect of a continued further reduction in the years to follow.

In contrast, today China’s and India’s share of the GWP is steadily increasing, while the share of the remaining BRICS countries remains stable (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). The international role of Brazil is strengthening due to the country’s size and the rate of capitalist development, and consequently the role it is playing in Latin America.

Nevertheless all the emerging capitalist economies continue to have a comparatively low level of productivity, while the productivity of the USA greatly outstrips them. The only member-states of the OECD which are ahead of the USA in terms of productivity (the volume of production per worker in a unit of time) are Norway, Ireland, Luxembourg, while France, Germany, Belgium and Holland are close.

4. Based on the entirety of the economic indicators (GDP growth rate, industrial production, productivity, current account balance, fiscal situation) three categories can be discerned inside the Eurozone today. The strong group (Germany, Holland, Finland), the category of France and Italy, whose distance from Germany is increasing and the category of the weakest indebted economies (Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece etc.).

The temporary compromise at the EU Summits led to the creation of a joint supervisory mechanism of the financial sector of the member-states and the possibility of the direct re-capitalization of the European banks by the European Stability Mechanism.

For this reason the German and French bourgeois classes face serious dilemmas in relation to the future of the Eurozone. At the Summits of 2011 and 2012 a temporary fragile compromise was reached which does not negate the causes of the sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradictions nor does it signal a relaxation of the anti-people political line which is being followed in all the EU member-states.

The dominant trend in the German bourgeoisie gives priority to the buttressing of the Euro and monetary stability and doubts the advisability of Germany shouldering the great burden of capital depreciation in the indebted countries and whether it is capable of doing it. A second trend, which is growing stronger, exaggerates the danger regarding the Euro’s strength and the stability of Euro-Atlantic relations in case that certain weak links are expelled, a development which will lead to a shrinking of the unified internal market of the EU. A third trend calls the current form of the Eurozone as a whole into doubt and prioritizes approaching the China-Russia axis.

The outbreak of a new economic crisis in the Eurozone in 2012 and the prevailing conditions in the international market demonstrate that the working class in all the EU member-states of the EU will be at a disadvantageous position, will be subject to continual sacrifices in order to protect the competitiveness of the monopolies. Objectively, larger sections of the working class will come into opposition with the bourgeois management solutions which are trying to control the extent of capital depreciation and to control the distribution of the losses amongst its various sections.

5. In the framework of uneven development, Greece remains in an intermediate position in the international imperialist pyramid, which has shown signs of retreat with dependencies on the USA and the EU.

Greece is the weakest link inside the Eurozone, remaining in a deep crisis, with retarded industrial production, a negative balance of current accounts and a high level of state debt.

The distance of Greece from the strong capitalist economies in the Eurozone has widened. It is amongst the weakest links in the instance of a recomposition of the EU. Even though Greece still has an important position in the wider region of the Eastern Mediterranean, it is becoming weaker compared to the position of Turkey and Israel. Over the last decade it recorded losses regarding its position in capitalist competition, a large reduction in production, mainly in manufacturing and construction and less so in agricultural production. At the same time, the shipping sector maintains its leading role in the international capitalist market (the Greek-owned fleet is the 2^nd largest in the world and the 1^st in the EU, while the fleet which flies the Greek flag is the 6^th largest in the world). The Greek fleet transported and continues to transport a significant section of the maritime traffic of commodities and oil to the USA. It is the only section of domestic capital which has a strong bargaining position in the EU.

The real reasons for Greece’s position are to be found in the multi-facetted consequences of uneven development as a result also of its course of assimilation into the EU-Eurozone and more generally into the international imperialist system. The capitalist economic crisis is exacerbating this reality even further.

6. The struggle between the imperialist centres, in this particular period, is focussed on the control of the energy resources and their transport routes, the sources of water, the sea lanes for the transport of commodities, with characteristic flashpoints of tension in the Caspian Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Africa, the South China Sea and the Arctic. The danger of generalized regional conflicts is increasing, and even of a general imperialist war. It is in this framework that the imperialist axes are realigning for the control of markets and territories.

7. The strategy of Greek capitalism in the region has resulted in the contradictory character of the competitive relations with Turkey, as well as in the choice of strategic cooperation with Israel (military cooperation, economic cooperation, particularly in the energy, tourist, and agricultural sectors), while it is seeking a solution for the establishment of sovereign rights within NATO’s framework. It has not declared a Greek Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), according to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, which constitutes the first step for its demarcation, an issue which has been subject to criticism from a bourgeois standpoint as well. At the same time, it is promoting the exploration of energy deposits in the Ionian Sea and Southern Crete.

6. The upgrading of Turkey’s position is in step with the geostrategy off “Neo-Ottomanism”, which aims at consolidating and extending the activity of Turkish capitalism in the wider region of the Middle East, Balkans and Central Asia. The prevailing Turkish strategy utilises, aside from the historical Ottoman tradition, the religious and cultural element in the wider region.

The Turkish state seeks to utilise for its own benefit the inter-imperialist contradictions between the Euro-Atlantic axis and the Russia-China-Iran axis in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as the existing contradictions inside each axis (e.g. between the USA and Israel). It is conducting a complex negotiation with the USA and Israel, with as its basic goals the maintenance of a strong presence in Cyprus, the renegotiation of sovereign rights in the Aegean (with an emphasis on outflanking the “obstacle” of Kastellorizo-Strongili in order to determine the Turkish EEZ in the Eastern Mediterranean) and the prevention of the creation of an independent Kurdistan, on the axis from North Iraq to Syria, which will destabilize the Turkish borders. It is using the particular significance of its geopolitical position and military strength in this direction in order to promote the plans of the USA-NATO, in relation to the construction of the “New Middle East”. The participation of Turkey in the intervention against Libya and in the internal affairs of Syria is proof of this, as well as its influence in the Balkans (privileged relations with Albania, FYROM etc). Nevertheless, the Kurdish population, in conjunction with its aggressive policy against Syria and its ally Iran, is a factor which exacerbates the internal contradictions of Turkey.

The developments in the region of the Balkans are characterised by the enlargement of the EU and NATO and consequently their more direct involvement in the imperialist plans and competition. The independence of Kosovo which was a part of the plan for the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in 1999 is incorporated into this framework, as well as the military agreement of Turkey with Albania, the cancellation of the Greek-Albanian agreement for the demarcation of national waters by the Albanian constitutional court, the strengthening of the US-NATO intervention for the association and accession of FYROM to the EU and NATO. The Expansionism and irredentism which are being developed by the leadership of Albania are also being fomented by strong imperialist powers. Albanian nationalism is being strengthened at the expense of Greece and other states in the region, at the same time fostering nationalist circles in Greece and elsewhere.

The dangers are increasing in the wider region for a generalised imperialist war and a direct involvement of Greece.

9. The deepest and lengthiest crisis of capital over-accumulation since the 1950s has manifested itself in the Greek economy from 2009 onwards. From the first moment, there began a systematic effort of misinformation, obfuscation by the bourgeois parties as well as by reformist, opportunist forces headed by SYRIZA in order to conceal the real causes and factors of the crisis. Their goal is to impede even a small step towards the emancipation of the labour and people’s movement. Theories have been promoted about “Casino Capitalism”, about a crisis which is exclusively and only caused by the financial system, “over-consumption”, or the opposite of it “under-consumption”, which has recently been developed after the 2010 Memorandum.

The economic crisis in Greece worsened due to its assimilation in the EU-Eurozone, which sharpened the deep unevenness in the development/structure of the industrial sectors and contributed to Greek manufacturing’s loss of competitiveness, to the increase of imports, to the inflation of the trade deficit and the state debt.

10. The inflation of the state debt is due to:

• The management policy in favour of the monopoly groups which has been followed throughout the entire post-dictatorship period through their funding, the reduction of taxation, the tax exemptions. The spending on the public works for the Olympic Games in 2004.
• The enormous spending on armament programmes and expeditions for the needs of NATO.
• The consequences because of the expansion of the trade deficit due to the rapid increase of imports from the EU.
• The vicious circle of the reduction of the GDP-inflation of the debt as a percentage of the GDP and measures for internal devaluation.

The accession of Greece into the Eurozone minimized, objectively, the margins and options of manoeuvring in monetary policy, as it is subjected to the jurisdiction of the European Central Bank (ECB). At the same time, the fiscal policy of Greece is subjected to the restrictions of the Maastricht Treaty and the subsequent agreements. On this basis national state rights are ceded, the precedence of EU law over national law is recognized on many issues. Despite this, the Eurozone is not organised as a federal state, consequently it does not have unified bodies or a fully unified market.

11. On the one hand, the unevenness inside the Eurozone deepened in the conditions of the crisis, and on the other the contradictions between the member-states over the management of the crisis sharpened further, as well as over the control of the state debt, and even over the pre-conditions for the maintenance of the common currency. Such contradictions were also manifested at least inside the two strongest Eurozone powers, Germany and France. The IMF took an active part in these contradictions as well as states outside the Eurozone, such as Britain and the USA.

Greece, as the first Eurozone country in which the crisis manifested itself in a highly exacerbated manner, became a meeting point for all these powers and the contradictions between them.

12. Greek capitalism, seeking to improve its position in the EU, in the region and generally in the international imperialist pyramid, has as its strategic goals: the promotion of Greece as a transport node for energy and commodities from Asia to the EU; the joint exploitation of its rich energy deposits (Aegean Sea - Ionian Sea, Southern Crete); the reinforcement of the competitiveness of big capital and the bargaining position of Greece in the Euro-Atlantic imperialist alliance. It also promotes the goal of developing certain sectors and fields such as: tourism, the production of certain agricultural products, certain industrial sectors with an export orientation.

The other political parties that support the capitalist development path converge on these strategic goals.

13. Over the last decade, the overall employment fell from 4.09 millions in 2001 to 3.7 millions in 2012, while there had been an increase until 2008 before the outbreak of the crisis.

The overall number of those employed in the agricultural- primary sector fell from 16.1% in 2001 to 13% in 2012. There has been an important reduction in the secondary-industrial sector from 23% in 2001 to 16.1% in 2012. In contrast, an increase in employment in the tertiary sector has been recorded from 60.9% of the total number of those employed in 2001 to 70.4% in 2012.

The number of salaried employees in 2012 is about the same as the number in 2001, 2.4 million, but this equivalence conceals an important increase in the number of salaried workers before the outbreak of the crisis and their rapid reduction afterwards. In 2001 their share in the total employment was 59.4% and in 2012 63,3%. Before the outbreak of the crisis the rate of increase was higher.

The number of self-employed as a percentage of the total appears to have a slight increase, from 23.6% in 2001 to 24.3% in 2012, but the amount in numbers remains relatively stable with small fluctuations at 950,000. However there was a course of reduction until the outbreak of the crisis, while the apparent increase afterwards conceals a level of under-employment which approaches unemployment.

A significant trend has been recorded regarding the reduction of the number of self-employed and salaried workers in manufacturing and construction. In contrast, there has been an increase in the sectors of tourism-food, telecommunications, the financial sector and scientific-technical services.

The number of those employed in manufacturing has shrunk from 577,000 in 2001 to 367,000 in 2012. The number of salaried employees in manufacturing has fallen from 426,000 in 2001 to 266,000 in 2012. The share of salaried employees shows a small reduction from 73.8% in 2001 to 72.2% in 2012, while, in contrast, the percentage of self-employed has increased from 11.5% in 2001 to 14.1% in 2012.

The number of those employed in construction has seen a large reduction from 307,000 in 2001 to 216,000 in 2012, with the number of salaried employees falling from 203,000 to 128,000 in the same time period. The percentage of wage labour has been significantly reduced from 66% in 2001 to 59% in 2012, while the percentage of self-employed has increased from 18.1% to 27%, with a slight increase in their number from 56,000 to 58,000.

In the retail sector, the number of those employed has seen an small almost imperceptible fall from 705,000 in 2001 to 687,000 in 2012 (-2.5%), while the number of salaried employees saw in the same period an important increase from 345,000 to 383,000, with their percentage increasing from 49% in 2001 to 56% in 2012. The number of self-employed fell significantly from 213,000 in 2001 to 190,000 with their share falling from 30.2% in 2001 to 27, 7% in 2012. The retail sector still has a large number of self-employed, but the tendencies for concentration-centralization and proletarianization in this sector are obvious.

In the tourism-food sector, due to the intense seasonal nature of employment, we refer to the period 2001-2011 where there is the possibility of inferring a yearly average. The number of those employed in the sector increased from 269,000 to 295,000 in 2011 and the number of salaried employees increased from 156,000 to 170,000 in 2011. The percentage of salaried employees in reality remained stable at 58%. The number of self-employed increased from 48,000 to 50,000 with their percentage falling from 17.8% to 16.9% in 2011.

The number of those employed in the finance sector saw a small increase from 108,000 in 2001 to 121,000 in 2012. The number of salaried employees also slightly increased from 96,000 in 2001 to 107,000 in 2012. The sector has a very high percentage of wage labour, which approaches 90%, and has been stable from 2001 to 2012.

The sector of scientific-technical services employs 221,000 workers, of whom 85,000 (39%) are salaried, 103,000 (47%) are self-employed and 30,000 (13%) are employers. Based on the available data we can only assess that there has been a trend for the sector to increase by 30% over the last decade.

Official unemployment, in this period, rose sharply from 11.2% in 2001 to 25.4% in 2012, but not as a uniform trend. The outbreak of the crisis led to a sudden reverse of the course of its reduction which had been the case until 2008. The unemployment rate is not homogenous across the entire population. Amongst women, the rate of unemployment fell from 16.9% in 2001 to 12.3% in 2008, and in 2012 it increased to 29%. Amongst men, it fell from 7.5% in 2001 to 5.6% in 2008, and increased to 22.7% in 2012. Amongst foreigners, unemployment rate fell from 11.7% in 2001 to 7.4% in 2008 and later increased to 30% in 2012. Based on these statistics, 180,000 out of the 1.27 million unemployed in 2012 are foreigners.

Regarding the educational level, amongst university graduates unemployment rate amounts to 16.2%, amongst graduates of Technical Institutes 26%, High School graduates 26 %, amongst primary school graduates 22%, while it reaches 33% amongst people who have not graduated from primary school. Regarding age groups, for young people under the age of 24 unemployment rate is almost 60%, while in the 25-34 age group unemployment reached 32.9%. The rate of unemployment has exceeded 20% in the 35-44 age group. A result of the explosion of unemployment is the significant increase of adults who live in a household without any employed person, from 8.1% in 2008 to 16.9% in 2012, while it is estimated that 12.6% of children under 18 years of age live in a household without any worker. In relation to the regional variations, unemployment in Western Macedonia-Epirus amounts to 28.5% and in Thessaly-Central Greece is 26.4%, while in regions with the lowest unemployment the rate approaches 20% (Crete 19.6% and the Aegean 20%). In Attica unemployment rate amounts to 25.9%.

Long-term unemployment has also risen rapidly in the period 2008-2011 (those looking for work for more than a year). From 3.2% for men and 7.9% for women in 2008, it reached 11.7% for men and 16.9% for women in the 2^nd quarter of 2012. The number of long-term unemployed now exceeds 680,000.

According to Eurostat data, in 2011 there were 956,007 immigrants officially registered in Greece, that is to say 8.45% of the population, which stands at 11,309,885, rather higher than the EU average which in the same year was 6.63%. The qualitative difference in relation to the EU is that only 16% of immigrants in Greece are EU citizens, while the corresponding average of the immigrants in the EU from EU countries is 38.45%. The current number of immigrants has altered, as a new wave of thousands of immigrants has arrived, chiefly because Greece is considered as gateway for immigration to other European countries. A section of them have returned home because of unemployment and the inability to live in Greece, as a consequence of the economic crisis.

When the bourgeois governments, as is the case in Greece, in the conditions of the economic crisis and the swift increase of unemployment, cannot manage the reserve army of labour, then, as collective representatives of the capitalists, resort to the offensive to restrict and suppress immigration, they are closing the door on the influx, using measures of mass persecutions and deportations. The anti-immigration policy with violence and repression reinforces the racist atmosphere.

The immigrant population is also a fertile ground for the development of activity by secret services and embassies, something that took place in the past amongst the so-called émigrés. At the same time, there is a significant rise of criminality by immigrants who are being led into petty crime or organized criminal networks.

14. In relation to the structure of the economy, the agricultural-primary sector had a total production of 8.6 billion euros (Gross Added Value) in 2001, while it fell to 6.5 billion euros in 2008 (output had remained quite stable until 2005 and then shrank rapidly), while in the crisis period it has remained stable (witnessing indeed a small absolute increase in 2011 to 6.7 billion). As a percentage, it was reduced from 5.8% in 2001 to 3.5% in 2008, and increased to 4.1% in 2011 (due to the fall in the GDP and not the small increase in numbers). Despite the large reduction, production of certain products seems to have increased in this period (e.g. durum wheat, maize and rice).

The production of livestock products in comparison to 1981 (accession to the EEC) saw a significant fall in meat, general stagnation in dairy production (with an increase in fresh dairy products), a reduction in butter. In livestock production we observe significant concentration, despite the fact that there remain a large number of cultivations with a very limited amount of livestock.

In the agricultural sector, the average area of an agricultural cultivation remains very small up to the present day (at 25% of the EU average). The agricultural cultivations with a Standard Gross Margin (SGM) over 48,000 euros in 2007 constituted 12.9% of agricultural land as opposed to 3.94% in 1990. We consider that cultivation with a SGM under 48,000 Euros does not safeguard a generally extended reproduction of its capital.

The secondary industrial sector as a share of Gross Added Value fell from 21.1% in 2001 to 17.1% in 2011. Based on the volume of production, production in 2011 was at 70% of the level of 2001. At the same time, there was a significant reduction in manufacturing and construction.

The tertiary sector as a percentage of the Gross Added Value increased from 75.2% in 2001 to 78.8% in 2011. Bourgeois statistics includes in this sector the industrial sector of shipping, the Gross Added Value of which is assessed to have increased from 4.1 billion euros in 2001 to 7.8 billion euros in 2011 and the industrial sector of telecommunications, the Gross Added Value of which has increased from 3.1 billion euros in 2011 to 6.2 billion euros in 2010.

15. The greatest weakness in the exercise of capitalist power manifested itself in the irregular participation of the state in the international capital market, due to the sudden inflation of the state debt and the shart rise of the market interest rates. So an inability to repay the loan or to renew it via the market emerged, which led to its borrowing from the IMF-EU mechanism.

Nevertheless, these malfunctions did not take on the characteristics of a real shaking of important institutions of the capitalist system in Greece, nor was it even expressed by an inability of the bourgeois parliament to support governments which brought to the parliament barbaric agreements-memoranda and anti-worker laws. Conditions of a manifest weakness of the state mechanisms have not been formed yet, the weakening and changes in the international alliances of the capitalist power in Greece have not yet occurred. The correlation of forces remains favourable for the capitalist forces and unfavourable for the working class.

16. The bourgeois political system in the testing conditions created by the consequences of the crisis, as well as a general tendency, irrespective of the crisis itself, is reinforced by new repressive apparatuses, both state and para-state, by the adoption of the most reactionary and authoritarian laws in order to break the labour and people’s movement.

The European repressive apparatuses and the institutional consolidation of imperialist interventions are in the service of state repression-violence. The functioning and role of the repressive apparatuses is being strengthened in this direction, as well as the European police service (Europol), the European unit of judicial cooperation (Eurojust), the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (Frontex). The connection between the “civil protection apparatus” and the “mutual defense and solidarity clause” is becoming stronger, the reactionary characteristics and aggressiveness of the EU are being reinforced in relation to military interventions in its member-states, with the pretext of “terrorism”, “destruction of natural or human resources”, “cyber attacks” etc for the breaking of the labour movement and the protection of the bourgeois political system. The anti-people offensive is escalating with the adoption of activity against “radicalism” and “extreme ideologies”, with the pretext of “terrorism”. The ideology and political activity which leads outside of the boundaries of the capitalist system is being criminalized, anticommunism is intensifying and being transmitted through the various channels of manipulation. The surveillance mechanisms have multiplied as well as the collection of data against radical militants aided by new technology, so that the traditional profiling pales into insignificance in comparison to the contemporary forms.

The development of the current economic crisis brought about cracks in the existing bourgeois political system, a certain malfunctioning in the mechanisms of the capitalist states and agencies such as the tax offices and the public hospitals, while the situation in the social-security funds and in public education has deteriorated. That is to say, in reality the means through which the capitalist state ensured its control over working class and popular masses, through its direct participation in the reproduction of labour power, were weakened.

The bourgeois governance adjusted itself in a new form, that of the cooperation of bourgeois parties – despite their contradictions- which for years had alternated in government (the government of L. Papademos was supported by PASOK-ND and also initially by LAOS, the A. Samaras government is supported by ND-PASOK-Democratic Left after the June 17 elections 2012). The reformation of the bourgeois political system has been initiated. This includes as well the restoration of contemporary social-democracy, which was expressed by the sudden electoral rise of SYRIZA which is supported by a large number of officials from PASOK’s apparatus and gathers the largest part of PASOK’s losses.

17. The political contradictions between the parties which support the pro-monopoly policy for the management of the crisis are manifested as contradictions over the one or the other management formula, the monetary fiscal one and the expansive one, masked as a confrontation between the liberal and the reformist-opportunist formulae. Both management formulae have the common characteristic of serving the monopolies, the recovery of capitalist profitability, which objectively will lead to a new crisis cycle. The alternation of both the liberal and Keynesian management model brought about economic crisis cycles throughout the 20^th century, sharpened the inter-bourgeois and inter-imperialist contradictions and led to two World Wars.

On the basis of the alternation of the management formula, the reformation of the bourgeois political system is being promoted, so that it can provide more alternate governments through parties cooperating with each other.

18. A feature of the reformation of the bourgeois political system is the intensification of state anti-communism, as well as the development and parliamentary representation of national socialism/fascism, the sharpening of authoritarianism and of state and para-state repression. At the same time, the reformation of the functioning of the bourgeois parliament is being scheduled, while proposals in favour of strengthening the powers of the President of the Republic are being promoted.

In recent years, and especially during the two electoral battles, new political parties which operate in the spectrum of nationalism, racism, anti-communism were given a more discrete political presence on the political scene. The party of the “Independent Greeks” adopts nationalist positions.

Golden Dawn is a national socialist, fascist organization. National Socialism, at the level of ideology, constitutes a merging of nationalism with petty bourgeois “socialist” views which have no relationship with the theory of scientific socialism. It utilizes the existing problems caused by the increase of the immigration current to Greece, the majority of whom come to Greece with the aim of travelling to Europe. Golden Dawn is supported by important cells in the state and para-state and its role is aimed at striking against the KKE, at breaking the labour movement.

Golden Dawn is a section and party of the bourgeois political system, an organization of the bourgeois class, of capital. It is a vehicle for the infiltration of reactionary ideas into the working class and popular strata, packaged in an alleged anti-plutocracy line and demagogy in the conditions of crisis. It utilizes fascist demagogy and impersonates or reminds us of the positions and practices of the Assault Division (Sturmabteilung), particularly in the period before Hitler took power. It prioritizes the promotion of the Greek nation above others, with the characteristic position “Greek blood above everything”. It considers the immigrants to be the racial enemy, chiefly the “dark-skinned”, “blacks”, gypsies, in the same way Hitler considered the Jews as enemies.

Processes are underway for the emergence of other nationalist formations, with the transfer of forces between them.

The working class and its social allies, the self-employed, the farmers, the radical women and youth organizations must and can face Golden Dawn in the workplaces, neighbourhoods and rural areas.

19. The changes in the institution of local government with the “Kallikratis” law which was the continuation of the initial “Kapodistrias” law and other institutional changes which had preceded it, were an element of the adaptation of the bourgeois state and the bourgeois political system to the needs of capital for cheaper labour power and the reinforcement of the liberation of the markets.

“Kallikratis” in the two years of its implementation has confirmed the position of the KKE that it constitutes the necessary adaptation of the Greek capitalist state to the contemporary conditions of capitalist development. A relative decentralization of central state functions and responsibilities to local government is being carried out, with as its basic goal the more direct implementation and escalation of the pro-monopoly political line in a more extensive and intensive way. Local government is an integral part of the capitalist state for the strengthening of business activity and competitiveness, the drastic cuts in state social spending on health-welfare, education, agriculture, live-stock farming, urban transport, in combination with the increase of local taxation at the expense of the working people. The regime of cheap flexible labour force, the abolition of labour rights is being promoted through Kalikratis; likewise the adaptation of education to the needs of the local businesses through the “Flexible Zones” and the entrance of businessmen into the schools as sponsors through the mediation of the municipalities. “Life-Long Learning” is being promoted which aims at teaching the labour force whatever the businesses need.

In every municipality or neighbourhood, in every village and city, a multitude of political forces operate, a multitude of old and new party bosses who are connected with the mayors and regional prefects, with the managers of businesses, hospitals schools principals, the church, with the capital’s chambers of commerce, as well as with the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs). The NGOs are a labyrinthian network for manipulation and exploitation, which is supported and promoted by the state, the business groups and the EU, as an allegedly modern form of social organization and solidarity. They foster hopes for job finding, while they come into opposition with the organized labour and people’s movement.

20. In this period the KKE operated in the specific socio-economic and political domestic and international conditions which were formed and are referred to in the previous theses.

21. The working class, that is to say the class which will carry out the socialist revolution, and its allies, the popular strata, i.e. the semi-proletarians and the poor intermediate strata -taking into account contemporary conditions- experienced an unprecedented decline in the living standards, and their labour and social rights, due to capital’s strategy and the counterrevolutionary overthrow which took place in the 1980s and 1990s.

After the fall of the Junta and mainly in the first half of the 1980s, the Greek capitalist state followed a selective policy of providing higher benefits in various sectors and fields which created a large protective shield for the prevailing political line. It became a pillar of support for the most reactionary and anti-labour choices of capital in Greece, such as the support for the single European market, the accession to the EU-EMU, and created the labour aristocracy. For some years Greek capitalism benefited from the major destruction in the Balkans, in countries of the Black Sea, due to capitalist restoration there. It also benefited through the direct export of capital and the entrance of a cheap labour force, particularly as agricultural workers, and in construction sector, in the hospitals as auxiliary staff, in the services and manufacturing, via contractors.

The manifestation of the prolonged absolute destitution occurred in Greece, as well as in other capitalist states, following an extended period of buying off and assimilating workers. This period had as a result the gradual retreat and disorganization of the labour and trade union movement, the loss of its mass characteristics, the chronic compromise with the degeneration of its highest structures and the toleration shown by members of trade unions regarding their government-led and employer-led and pro-EU leaderships.

22. The farmers’ union and cooperative movement were subjugated and degenerated by the choices of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), by subsidies which bought off the farmers and in essence led to the abandonment of agricultural production, to the replacement of vital cultivations by secondary and supplementary ones, to the utilization of cooperative associations for the concentration of capital. The negative consequences had already manifested themselves from the middle of the 1990s onwards, which resulted in the leaderships of the farmers’ movement (GESASE, SYDASE) becoming the objects of disdain and to the emergence of farmers’ struggles with other organizational centres. The National Union of Young Farmers is being promoted (PENA), separating farmers on an age basis, fostering entrepreneurship and competitiveness in the agricultural sector, i.e. the EU’s CAP.

The situation in the movement of the self-employed is even worse. Forces which express the interests of a section of the intermediate strata seeking a satellite role in relation to the monopolies dominate the third level bodies of GSEVEE, ESEE and the majority of the Federations. They use the Centres of Professional Training (KEK) as a mechanism for corrupting and buying off consciousness, systematically downgrading the role of the trade unions. In certain union bodies, especially in the professional chambers, representatives of the monopolies are prevalent. They form positions which come into opposition with the immediate and long-term interests of the poor self-employed.

23. With the exception of the section of the labour and trade union movement which is rallied in PAME, of the self-employed which rallied in PASEVE (Nationwide Antimonopoly Rally of the Self-employed and the small Tradesmen) and that of the farmers which is rallied in PASY (All Farmers’ Militant Rally), with the hard efforts of the KKE, the working class and popular masses found themselves significantly unprepared in the face of capital’s new offensive and the already major material losses. In the new period of reformism-opportunism, in conditions of a prolonged economic crisis they became easy prey for practices such as: the flattery of the spontaneous in opposition to the organised labour trade unionism and the struggle in the form of, sectionalism, as well as bourgeois, petty bourgeois and church-based charity. The doors were open for provocations and every form of intimidation by the employers, state and para-state.

The labour movement was not prepared to counterattack in a way which was in proportion with the scale of the offensive unleashed against it in the new conditions. Despite all this, the compromised leaderships carried out certain maneuvers, they were dragged into repeated strike mobilizations, even if they did not essentially support them, under the pressure of the sudden deterioration of the people’s living standards, the militant initiatives and activity of its class-oriented section. A sudden upsurge was expressed with the mass strike mobilizations of 5^th May 2012 and 19^th October 2011, on the demonstration of 12^th February 2012, as protests against the signing of the memoranda between the government, EU and IMF.

Certain extended strikes were carried out. The most characteristic example was the almost 9-month strike at “Greek Steelworks” and the moral and material solidarity with the strikers which had a nationwide and international dimension.

The trade union and labour movement has not been essentially regrouped based on the sector, the business group and the organization in the workplace, it has not acquired mass characteristics. It has not become combative using the weapon of the mass and well-protected strike against the capitalist, as well as against the state of the capitalists.

24. In this period, with the decisive contribution of the KKE, particularly on the basis of the decision of the Nationwide Party Conference regarding the work in the working class and party building (March 2010), a certain foundation was created which constitutes a legacy for the organization of working class and popular forces and the orientation of their struggle against the large capitalist businesses, the monopolies, their imperialist unions, their parties and governments. The labour and trade union pole of PAME (All Workers’ Militant Front) has been recognized by a significant number of workers, and correspondingly the anti-monopoly rallies of PASY and PASEVE, the radical poles of MAS (Students' Militant Front) and OGE (Greek Women’s Federation) in the radical students and women’s movement. The coordination of their activity with a common framework of struggle formed and promoted by the KKE and its cadres in these organizations is also a legacy. The militant initiatives of PAME, its activity as a whole, the battles in the workplaces and the sectors contributed to the formation of a militant vanguard, which can contribute to the regrouping of the labour movement. There is also a need to develop the social at the level of the sector, which is still in its initial phase.

The labour and people’s movement in Greece emerged at a European level as a combative force, despite the fact that compromised reformist forces, which have operated in a treacherous way for a long period of time, are dominant in the central trade union bodies.

The contribution of the KKE was important in promoting the slogan of disobedience and defiance of the banning of strikes, state and employer intimidation, the emergency taxes, head-taxes, in the immediate drastic intervention to reconnect electricity to families from the popular strata, for the abolition of the new heavy taxes in health, of the charge on care, as an element for strengthening the movement and making it more experienced. The working class, the popular strata learn through such experiences not to be afraid of the law or punishment, the sacrifices that the class struggle, the people’s struggle entail, to take their just cause into their own hands. Such initiatives must be multiplied, as they educate, provide experience for the conflicts which will intensify and become more demanding in the future. The slogan of disobedience and defiance as an element of the counterattack must be rooted above all in the workplaces, in the factories, in the sectors, so that broader popular masses can be rallied and militantly educated. The mass counterattack should be supported on the basis of the individual’s responsibility regarding the uprising, the people’s intervention, the concentration, rallying and cooperation in the political social struggle.

The People’s Committees in the neighbourhood are a seed, a first form for the People’s Alliance and for this reason their formation must acquire a clear character with an orientation of resistance and conflict against every governmental and other vehicle of bourgeois power. The People’s Committees express the joint activity, the joint struggle of social forces, i.e. they are the particular expression of the Social Alliance in the neighbourhood. Their creation and development responds to the contemporary social reality where the factories, the businesses, the industrial zones are a long distance from the homes of the workers and employees. Other forms of the People’s Alliance can develop in the sectors or across various sectors and regions. This development will enrich the experience and more generally the arsenal of the working class and its allies. The following issues are crucial for the character of the People’s Committees:

• The participation and mobilisation of broader popular forces on a social-class basis.
• The formation of the People’s Committee by trade unions and other organizations which belong to PAME-PASEVE-MAS-OGE and are expressed at a local level.
• The intervention everywhere where popular forces are active in order to put forward correct demands.
• The responsibility of every component of the alliance for its area of responsibility, and the simultaneous coordination between them.
• The connection with local organizations and groups of workers.

The forces of the KKE in the People’s Committees are responsible for the development of this new form of organization and, at the same time, for the maintenance of the independent ideological-political-organizational presence and activity of the party.

25. The activity of various bourgeois “patriotic”, petty bourgeois nationalist, fascist and as well as opportunist political currents and forms of bourgeois institutions is a trap for the orientation of the struggle of the working class and popular masses, in conditions of a prolonged economic crisis, and even more so of a certain political instability.

In such conditions together with the development of the mobility of the popular forces, the phenomena of disorienting this mobility in various directions intensify: volunteer activity which replaces the struggle to win things from the state, anarchist attacks and clashes with the forces of repression, national socialist-racist-fascist activity etc.

The development of activities and “movements” for the management of the sharpening problems of the people, the so-called “movement without middlemen” etc was promoted, particularly in the recent months with the contribution of forces of opportunism. This includes a large variety of activities which are connected to the action of state institutions, municipalities, the church, the NGOs, organizations etc. Their activity leads to the formation of mechanisms for the assimilation and the demobilisation of the poor popular strata, so that they become reconciled with poverty, with the view that they must work together to manage poverty and the consequences of the crisis, so that they give up on the resistance, the disobedience, the counterattack, class solidarity.

There needs to be a stable orientation to mass forms of organization of the working class in order to neutralize these misleading interventions in the working class and popular masses, particularly in the most inexperienced and destitute, the young unemployed, the immigrants, the school students.

The so-called “movement of the indignant citizens” and the “squares”, was supported and encouraged - if it was not indeed planned- by mechanisms of the bourgeoisie, with the aim of manipulating, preventing radicalization, by channelling sections of the labour aristocracy and petty bourgeois strata. A section of the workers and unemployed was attracted to this “movement”. Both right and left-wing opportunism allied in its ranks. The prevalent slogans were reactionary, slogans of the petty bourgeois democracy, with the aim of striking against the class-oriented movement. Particularly at the beginning, popular masses were rallied which have not acquired the necessary political experience, supporting another option for the management of the system which allegedly would stop the downward spiral, would solve their problems. This line for rallying disparate masses was also expressed later by the voting criteria in the electoral battles of May and June 2012.

The well-known issue arises regarding which forces will be at the head of and influence the movement of the masses. The working class and its alliance in an anti-monopoly direction or petty bourgeois forces which foster illusions about the potential of a pro-people solution without a rupture with the capitalist relations of production.

This is why it is important to struggle for the change of the correlation of forces and why the pre-conditions for the strengthening of the class struggle are significant.

26. The KKE played an active role in exposing the causes of immigration and refugee flows. It pointed out the real guilty: the imperialist wars and imperialist interventions, the great poverty and unemployment brought about by the counterrevolution, the capitalist development path which entails unevenness and competition for the re-division of the markets. It made a particular effort to expose the danger for working class unity, for the course of strengthening the people’s movement posed by racism and nationalism. It contributed, as far as possible in difficult circumstances, to creating conditions for the unified class-oriented activity and unity among Greek and immigrant working men and women. It elaborated a comprehensive framework of demands which deal with- as far as possible in the specific circumstances and the situation as it has been formed- the sharpening problems of the immigrants. At the same time it fought against the cosmopolitanism of capital, the arguments of which aim at concealing the basic contradiction between capital and labour. Proletarian internationalism, as a communist principle, is related to the immigration question, and consequently the KKE will continue its activity for the unity of Greek workers and immigrants, to multiply the ranks of the labour movement with immigrant men and women. The regroupment of the labour movement will also be determined by the participation of immigrants into the trade unions, into the class struggle. In the conditions of a revolutionary situation, the immigrant working men and women must be mobilized together with Greek workers. This issue will determine the entire course of the struggle.

27. The party counterattacked in a combative way and developed systematic activity on a series of ideological-political issues which were posed in the confrontation inside the movement, in the general political struggle, in all the electoral battles, regardless of the losses experienced in the two electoral confrontations.

The KKE played an important role in revealing the character of the crisis, the memoranda, the agreement on the “haircut” of the debt, the significance of the difficulty of the bourgeois political system and capitalism generally in managing the crisis, in predicting the developments in the EU. In addition, it highlighted the two development paths, the various recipes for the bourgeois management of the crisis and the pro-worker pro-people way out of the crisis, the need to disengage from the EU, to unilaterally cancel the debt, the need of the working class-people’s power and its basic content. It highlighted the value of international class solidarity with the victims of immigration, economic immigrants and political refugees.

The ideological confrontation, where the voice of the party could be heard, with various forms and ways on all the developments in the period 2009-2012 centred on this question: management of the crisis or a way out in favour of the people? In other words: reform or revolution?

The improvement of the intervention of the party which was noted in the period 2009-2012 came up against the ideological-political consequences which flow from relatively long term factors as well as that of the period of the crisis, i.e. the multi-facetted consequences of the overthrow of the socialist regimes and the inevitable negative change in the correlation of forces.

28. Basic issues of the ideological-political struggle:

A) The limits of the trade union struggle in the current phase of capitalist development and especially in the conditions of crisis have been highlighted.

When a workplace, a sector takes militant initiatives without receiving the necessary and appropriate support, it finds it difficult to handle the development of the struggle, as the employers show their well-known class intransigence. It was demonstrated that particularly in conditions of the capitalist economic crisis and especially in sectors which are negatively affected, even a partial struggle will have difficulty in being successful if the pre-conditions for conflict at the level of the business group, sector, the total conflict with capital for the radical overthrow at the level of political power have not been formed.

B) A basic aspect of the realignment of the bourgeois political system was the development of a well-studied attack against the KKE, using classic or new methods, like the utilization of the internet.

The goal of the offensive is to isolate and marginalise the KKE and even to transform it into an extra-parliamentary political force, to the benefit of reformist, opportunist forces which seek to participate in a government of bourgeois management. At the same time, it is attempting to exert ideological pressure, so that the party is assimilated into the bourgeois political system as a feature of its reformation and as a force to support the change of the management formula.

The offensive against the KKE and the forces of the class oriented trade union movement, which was systematically planned from 2007 onwards, when the KKE recorded an increase of its political influence expressed in the election result in the same year, took on the following characteristics in the previous period:

• The vulgar anti-communism, the slanderous anti-socialist propaganda which constitutes the official ideology of the EU.
• The attempt to present the KKE as a “systemic” party, committed and subjugated to the system. This slander is launched in combination with the dissemination of the view that “they are all the same”.
• The bourgeois political system has implemented a planned attack on the moral standing of the party, focusing on its finances. The provocation regarding the “Germanos” company, the refusal of the party to publish the names of those who support it, the dismissals at “Typoekdotiki” and “902” were all utilised in order to lump it together with the bourgeois parties in the consciousness of the workers, along the rationale that “they are all the same”.
• The “friendly” attack, with attempts to pull the KKE into an “anti-memorandum” line, to support the change in the formula of bourgeois political management.
• The strengthening of anti-communist bourgeois political forces which can constitute a militant strike against the labour movement.

C) Reactionary trends in the people’s consciousness are being strengthened by these political forces and organizations which promoted a series of views, for instance strengthening racism and xenophobia, targeting sections of the political personnel, “the politicians-thieves”, so as to conceal the essence of the political problem and the class character of the bourgeois state and the parties that support it. At the same time, they prettify other sections of the bourgeois state (Army, Judiciary) versus the political system etc.

D) An alternative version of the reformist line is being promoted by the forces of opportunism which seek to come to a political agreement based on the so-called “transitional political programme of struggle”.

Aims such as the rupture with the EU, when they are put forward detached from the struggle for power, lose their class character, they can – especially in today’s conditions when the EU is experiencing a disturbance of its cohesion- be assimilated into the bourgeois aims. The goal of the exit from the Eurozone or from the EU has a class character on the part of a section of the bourgeoisie which poses the issue of a reorientation of the country’s imperialist alliances.

The general anti-memorandum line leads the labour movement essentially under the banner of a section of the bourgeois class, serving the bourgeois interests.

E) The parliamentary illusions and the expectation of a pro-people way out via a bourgeois government remain prevalent amongst the large majority of the people, they are strong even amongst a section of the party’s voters.

Bourgeois power is made up of institutions, open and hidden mechanisms, which operate regardless of which bourgeois party is in the government or to how the parliamentary majority is formed.

If there is even the slightest possibility of such working class and popular moods being expressed in parliament, it is certain that the bourgeois power will not waver at all in negating such a possibility.

Through its systematic and multi-facetted activity, the KKE must contribute so that the vote for the KKE by sections of workers and poor popular strata expresses not only the desire to support a political force which consistently struggles for the people’s problems, but also expresses the class choice aimed at weakening the bourgeois political system, the bourgeois governance, so that every crack will reinforce the direction for the overthrow of bourgeois power and capitalist ownership.

F) Sloganeering about the loss of Greece’s national sovereignty and its supposedly occupation by Germany is being reproduced. It is a misleading bourgeois argument, which seeks to obscure the substantial issue i.e. that the subordinate position of a country in an imperialist alliance of capitalist states (from which their unequal relations flow) does not negate their common strategic interests, on which the alliance is formed. It has been demonstrated historically that capitalist states were supported even via military and political intervention in their internal affairs, in order to deal with domestic crises and the possibility of political instability.

The character of contemporary patriotism is identified with the overthrow of bourgeois power, the capitalist ownership of the means of production, the withdrawal from every capitalist inter-state coalition and imperialist alliance.

G) Doubts are intensifying, due to the consequences of Greece’s assimilation in the EU, the negative international correlation of forces, as to whether a positive “pro-people” development is possible in only one EU member-state. At the same time the position that the terrain of the class struggle has been transferred from the national to the regional, interstate level is being propagated.

This position is being systematically promoted by the opportunist forces, not only in our country, but at a European and international level, which, in the name of the regional or international struggle, justifies a policy of tolerating the regional imperialist unions, e.g. the EU. These views underestimate the relative independence of the sharpening of the social contradictions at a national level. The struggle must first of all be waged at a national level against the bourgeois class and its power. As is written in the Communist Manifesto “the proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie”. The uneven economic development is an absolute law of capitalism. On the basis of this law, socialism can be victorious initially in a few or in only one country, on its own.

Historical experience has demonstrated that the sharpening of the class struggle in one state is also connected to corresponding processes which take place in other states, at least at a regional level.

29. The party received increased percentage of votes in the elections for the European Parliament (June 2009) as well as in the regional elections (October 2010). The higher percentage of the party in the elections for the European Parliament in relation to the parliamentary elections which took place in the same year was not accompanied by an increase of votes, as the abstention (which turned against the two big parties) influenced a section of our voters, who if they had voted would have voted for the KKE. The same was apparent in the regional elections. The party’s choice to appear with a unified list and unified positions nationwide in the local and regional elections, as it had done in the previous years in the prefectural elections, was correct. It was an important step in dealing with the manoeuvres of the other parties and narrow localist views. The dynamism the party showed in the regional elections was not expressed in the elections for the municipalities, except from certain large municipalities where the percentage of the party increased as the local elections took on a more general political character. We bear responsibilities for this issue, because we do not combine the general political struggle, the social demands, the ideological confrontation with the role of local government and the elected officials. In this way Local Government remained relatively out of the firing line. We underestimate the fact that Local Government binds thousands of families in a web of ties through public works, jobs, and multiple activities carried out in the field of culture or medical centres etc. Now indeed, due to the crisis they have a much deeper network of these types of activities. The decline of the bourgeois parties is not extended to their local officials who support the general political line of the system and work so that it is tolerated. The personality-centred system also plays a role, as well as the fact that the lists on many occasions are made up of candidates who belong to many different parties. The local elections are used as a testing ground for new political formations, new figures, for formations-obstacles, which particularly in the last elections sprouted like mushrooms.

The first symptoms of the contradictions caused in the working class and people’s consciousness by the economic capitalist crisis appeared in the national elections in October 2009, in conditions when the labour movement is not equal to the demands created by the full-scale assault of the bourgeois class. At the same time, the dominant ideology and propaganda, which says that the political problem is the management and the way governance is exercised, is strengthened.

The total sum of PASOK’s and ND’s votes, in combination with the reduced electoral strength of the KKE (in comparison to the parliamentary elections of 2007), the major abstention from the ballot box of discontented popular strata was a negative result for the people’s movement.

The two electoral battles of 2012, apart from the complex objective conditions -which were unprecedented to a certain extent- highlighted the long-term weaknesses and delays in the work of the party, and above all the CC, for the regroupment of the labour movement, the strengthening of the social alliance, the party building in conditions of crisis where there are difficulties in the organization of the masses, so that all the possibilities which flow from the objective developments are exhausted.

Regardless of the objective factors which determined the electoral reduction, weaknesses and deficiencies of a subjective character were notable in the pre-election period. The CC did not focus its attention on the fact that for the first time, in comparison with previous elections, the sorely-tested people had to choose between a government based on ND or PASOK on the one hand and a government of the so-called “left cooperation” on the other.

The CC should have determined the framework of the first elections in the same vein with its elaborations immediately after May 6^th, should have sounded the alarm in the first pre-election period about the danger of the party losing forces, and the systematic attempt by the system’s forces to promote the weakening of the party. This does not mean, of course, that the elaboration of suitable tactics in the election period would have made the reversal of the reformist current in favour of a government to manage the crisis possible. Its development has an objective basis, it corresponds to the needs of the bourgeois power. However, it is quite likely that the losses would have been relatively more limited and chiefly an atmosphere of disappointment would have been prevented, which was justifiably created by the election result especially among the supporters and the friends of the party.

The refusal of the party to participate in a government for the bourgeois management of the crisis is an important legacy for the labour and people’s movement.

30. After the Nationwide Conference of March 2010, for the regroupment of the labour movement and the Extended Plenum of the CC on party building in July 2010, significant efforts in the field of redeployment of forces and the new structure of the party were made. This does not constitute a narrow organizational measure, but is a measure for the orientation of the activity based on the character and the strategy of the party. The redeployment as a form and content of activity is one of the basic pre-conditions for party building in the workplaces, in the sectors, for the regroupment of the labour movement, the promotion of the social alliance.

The redeployment brought even more clearly to the surface difficulties for the orientation of the organizations to work in the working class and social alliance. There remain strong remnants of mistaken views which were fostered in the long period during which the main bulk of the party’s forces had an orientation of activity with geographical criteria and not with combined social-class criteria. Amongst other things, the view was prevalent that the activity of the party for its electoral strengthening, for the widening of its circle of influence is facilitated by the criterion of the place of residency, taking into account the difficulties which have increased in recent years in approaching the workers-employees in the workplace. Difficulties which flow from the consequences of the crisis (closure of factories, transfer of factories a long way from the place of residency, the fear of dismissal, the employer and state intimidation etc), which nevertheless demand even more focussed work, without a sprit of retreat and compromise in the name of existing objective obstacles.

31. The party building demands a full plan of action amongst the broad working masses, chiefly those that suffer more due to the capitalist crisis, a plan of action which faces – as far as it depends on the subjective factor- the factors which restrict recruitment, and also fully exhausts the possibilities which the dynamic activity of the party and its strategy include. The weapons which the party has at its disposal today are:

• The ideological weapons, the elaborations, the party publications which are a support and a resource for multi-facetted stable and permanent planned work, in order to generalize experience and propagate it amongst the widest possible working class masses. These weapons, to the level which they are utilised by all the party forces, can deal with mistaken views and ideological-political aspects which are posed by the enemy and impede activity. They form the suitable atmosphere and “incentive”. Even more planned work is needed which is addressed to the young age groups, to the women of a working class background.
• The political and cultural activity which fosters the class consciousness, the combativeness and contribution, selflessness and readiness for sacrifice, contributes to the rise in the political and cultural education and development which constitutes an important front against the bourgeois ideology in all its versions, against opportunism.
• The multi-facetted preparation and education of the workers through all the forms of struggle and their understanding of the timeliness and necessity of socialism. The bonds of communication and relations with the working men and women are developed on the terrain of the class struggle and the rallying over the sharpening problems. But this relationship is not enough for the voluntary acquisition of the honoured title of member of the KKE, without the existence of a level of preparation and awareness about the revolutionary character of the party and the strategy for socialism-communism.
• The systematic penetration in the working class popular masses, through propaganda and work in the movement, so that it can bear results over time.

Elements of such a plan are:

• The activity around the sharpening problems everywhere and the formation of the organs of struggle. Systematic activity on the problems of unemployment in combination with the mobilization of the unemployed themselves and their families.
• The specialized work in each sector, area, category of worker and by age-group and gender.
• The proper study and knowledge of the area.
• The acquirement of a wider understanding of the problems of the workers in our contacts with them.
• The mobilization of all forces.
• The engagement with allied strata and their organization.

Particular aspects are:

• The assimilation of the new recruits who objectively have not acquired the necessary political experience, the vigilance and strict monitoring of those who want to rejoin.
• Responsible work with the transfer of members from one party organization to another.

32. There has not been substantial progress regarding the social working class composition of the party and the leading organs, which a crucial issue for the safeguarding of the KKE’s character. Consequently, the radical change and improvement of the situation is an immediate issue. The objective developments must not be ignored regarding the structuring of the economy and employment, as well as the consequences of the economic crisis, dismissals and the dominance of employer intimidation, the hiring regime and the labour relations in the employment sectors. The issue is not only related to objective factors. The weaknesses and deficiencies of the party are reflected in the attempt to create substantial ideological-political bonds with the working class and its movement, and in the work with the youth, its class education.

The ability of the CC regarding political guidance was not equal to the demands. This is also true of the political guidance work of the party organs and cadres as a whole. The following are particular areas of weakness:

• The care and assistance particularly for young working class cadres, so that they can overcome their limited experience, so that they do not reproduce practicalism, the alienation of organizational work from its ideological-political content, but so that they contribute to the correct planning for the escalation of the struggle. The same weakness and delays are related to the promotion of young men and women, who work and study, and graduate from the various professional training schools.
• The decisive improvement of political guidance, so that the party organs function and responsibly guide all the work in their area of responsibility, so that the cadres and members of the party and KNE actively participate in their trade unions. This means that must have a wide knowledge of their area of responsibility, the developments for example in the sector, the wider region, so that they have the ability to specialise the directions, and provide substantial assistance to the Party Base Organizations (PBOs) and the party groups, so that they develop creative initiatives. The PBOs and party groups must adapt to the sectoral, local needs and at the same time support in a coordinated way the central activities of the Party. The content of the PBOs must become more specific, according to their area of responsibility and the duties of every party member.
• Despite the important steps that have been taken, through multi-facetted party activities, discussions of documents, militant events for anniversaries, there was not a sufficient and substantial focus on the observance of the principles of the formation and functioning of the party and on the treatment of the related issues in an educational, persuasive and decisive way. The tolerance due to underestimation, friendship or whatever spirit of subjectivism is a phenomenon which undermines -regardless of intentions- collectivity, effectiveness and combativeness. Especially in today’s conditions, the treatment of these issues is a condition for party building, the development of the ranks of the party, its readiness and ability, its revolutionary physiognomy.

33. Because the social composition of the organs and organizations continues to be unsatisfactory, as we had no significant change and improvement, the following goals remain to be fulfilled:

• The increase of the percentage of industrial workers and the number of the Party’s Base Organizations (PBOs) in large companies of strategic significance.
• The strengthening of the percentage of the working class in the party.
• The increase in the recruitment of poor self-employed and farmers.
• The increase in the ages from 18 to 40. The direction must be understood, to be planned and to be transformed into systematic practical work based on the developments which have been witnessed over the last 20 years and especially in the conditions of the crisis. According to these developments the number of unemployed, workers with flexible labour relations, of workers who frequently change jobs etc is increasing rapidly.
• The increase of the recruitment of women for the strengthening their percentage in the organizations and also in the party organs.

34. The extent to which the phase of the redeployment of the Party Organizations has been completed and stabilized must be constantly monitored by the CC and all the leading organs. This will enable them to respond to the main duties which are the organization of the class struggle, the party building in the companies, in the sectors, the promotion of the people’s alliance from the bottom up, so that it can be reinforced from above. One-sidedness in the orientation of sectoral and geographically-based organizations must be dealt with in cases it survives and is being reproduced. The same is true for the difficulty of a planned specialization of cadres in areas of responsibility which demand specific knowledge and correct orientation for dealing with this particular field from our strategic standpoint.

A new deployment of cadres and members based on the developments in the sectors and regions must be decided on by the organs in a planned way and without any hesitations. The plan for promoting and developing cadres, their utilization in a planned way must overcome the negative phenomenon which exists i.e. cadres having multiple assignments, which makes the quality of work difficult to achieve, and impedes the main and basic orientation towards the work in the working class and poor popular masses.

A section of cadres was not able to adapt to the contemporary demands of the struggle, to the new conditions which emerged, after the negative change in the correlation of forces, the consequences of the crisis, and this resulted in their development coming to a halt and the emergence of elements of retreat. This problem is related to the collective and individual assistance they receive, but is also related to the individual responsibility of the cadres to adapt to the new conditions, so that they do not get stuck in a rut, that they continuously improve, of course in line with their individual capabilities.

The general elaborations of the party, of the sections of the CC must be utilised. At the same time, the Regional Organizations must be in a position to assist in the specialization of the general study and to organize an examination of specific problems in their area of responsibility as far as possible in a scientific way. They must carry out at least a first attempt to study, so that they can provide material for the more general elaborations of the party.

35. The leading organs, starting with the collective and personal example of the members of the CC, must ensure the suitable atmosphere, so that a combative spirit is fostered in order to face difficulties. The combative spirit does not just require general slogans of enthusiasm but the adequate elaboration of the directions and decisions in general; their preparation for the sudden change in the developments, the assistance so that they do not submit to the rationale of the negative correlation of forces. They must exhaust every possibility to think hard about the improvement of the activity of the subjective factor, to utilize every possibility that exists even the most underground one.

What is required is the promotion of many cadres from the working class, with a background from the working class and popular strata, with assistance so that they acquire multi-facetted abilities and a good level of specialization in the areas they can, a good ideological-political level, capability regarding issues related to political guidance, orientation to the regroupment of the labour movement, to the development of the People’s Alliance. At the same time, members of the party who are scientists and artists must be utilised, so that they place their scientific endeavour and artistic creation in the service of the working class. This duty depends on the timely preparation of forces from KNE, their location, the planning of their development.

The cadres who are responsible for the political guidance of PBOs, and BOs of KNE need special assistance.

The cadres must acquire the ability to generalize experience by constantly drawing conclusions from the organs and ensuring the imparting of collective experience.

The eradication of practicalism which appears mainly in mass and organizational work is a serious issue, while the ideological work is endangered by routinism and standardization.

The assignment of the cadres to work in the political guidance of organizations, in the ideological field, in the ranks and organs of the mass movement must not lead to a one-sidedness of experience and orientation. All the cadres must have direct personal experience in propaganda and enlightenment, in the communication with the workers, in the struggles inside the ranks of the trade unions and other mass organizations, so that they can in a lively and specific way elaborate and specialize the tasks of the PBOs in the movement, in the ideological-political confrontation.

36. In addition, the ability of the party members to deal with every attempt to undermine the unity of the party, blunting of criteria in relation to party organization, slackness, organizational flabbiness, and liberalism must improve. An aspect of this serious issue is the creation of an atmosphere, so that every member of the party and KNE expresses their views in a substantiated way, the decision should be a product of as many proposals and thoughts as possible, so that well-argued answers are provide to views which are mistaken or express ideological confusion. In addition, a serious aspect is for the rich, older and more recent historical experience of the party and the international labour and communist movement to be utilized in the struggle against every form of opportunism.

37. The issue of the periphery of the PBOs and BOs cannot be left to chance and spontaneity or for supporters, friends and allies of the party only to be utilized during the period of trade union elections and national, local elections. Usually the periphery means all our known voters (which is a much smaller number than those who have periodically voted for the KKE), people who have been friends and supporters for many years. Our view regarding the periphery must be broadened to include all those who we come into contact with in the workplaces and the struggles, with all those each PBO has listed, orienting its activity above all in the factories, supermarkets, all the shops, regardless of whether they vote for us not. Active militants can become a force for our work, as well as friends, supporters and voters and some of them indeed over the course of time can acquire the title of party member.

There is a need for the periphery around the party to be consolidated in a planned way, with as a criterion the regroupment of the labour movement and party building, without placing obstacles in way of the communication with wider working class and popular strata. Because through such a periphery, new blood will enter the party, new forces will emerge for the vanguard of the movement in the conditions of crisis, a renewal will take place through the recruitment of younger working men and women. The issue of widening and renewing the periphery, utilizing it next to the party, is a permanent duty. Today it acquires even more significance, as the developments in the capitalist economy, in the structure of employment impose the need for planned work above all in the working class, the young age groups, in strata which are becoming impoverished, so that the periphery corresponds as much as possible to the character of the party and its strategy, its policy of alliances.

We must rid ourselves of out-dated, mistaken habits and practices of working with friends and supporters only regarding current political issues or treating them only as voters.

It is an obligation for all the PBOs to have as a goal the systematic ideological-political work with and the briefing of friends and supporters, and also to study their opinions, so as to protect them from the work of the opponents who seek to utilise them as a vehicle of exerting pressure on the party.

38. KNE as the revolutionary communist youth of the KKE stood next to the party in the struggles, the general political activity, in the confrontations, over the 4 year period and made a serious effort to specialize the strategy of the party in places where the youth is concentrated, both as workers and students. It actively participated, with the responsibility and assistance of the party, in the discussion of its decisions and documents, and contributed to the enriching of its political and mass activity. Today a new generation of cadres of KNE has emerged. The maturation of these cadres enables them to be tested in more complex tasks by passing into the party work. It is a generation which has been militantly educated, as it has improved its political education and its experience from the major confrontations to a relative extent. A significant number of party members who were elevated in the organs of KNE have passed into the party and have renewed and improved the age composition of the organs. The promotion of young cadres from KNE to the party and the ranks of the movement is a permanent continuous process and must acquire a more intense rate through a process of promoting and developing cadres in the youth communist organization.
39. From 18th Congress onwards, even more serious work has been carried out by the CC and the City and Regional Committees regarding the ideological-political guidance of the organs of KNE, while there is an even closer cooperation of the PBOs-BOs than ever before. Nevertheless, however important this ideological-political assistance is, it is not enough. It must be completed through the assistance concerning the specialization of the strategy of the party not only in relation to the demands, the framework of activity, but also in relation to the specialization of the forms and ways of organizing and rallying the youth, as well as the tactical development of the struggles.
40. The Communist Youth of Greece is the organization of the youth of the KKE. It is established at the side of the party with a discrete organizational structure. It is guided ideologically, politically and organizationally from the Central Council to the Base Organization (BO) by the corresponding organs of the party, as the youth due to its very nature cannot have its own strategy and its own programme for the conquest of power. The relation between the character of KNE as the youth of the KKE and its organizational independence must be correctly implemented so that contradictions do not emerge.

It must not be considered that KNE has the exclusive responsibility of operating in the youth and its movement, with the party merely providing ideological-political guidance. The party itself, due to its character, programme and strategy has a direct responsibility to address itself to and develop its bonds with the youth. At the same time, it assists and supports KNE to specialise its strategy and decisions amongst younger age groups. This task today takes centre stage, as it constitutes an integral element for the regroupment of the labour movement, the Social Alliance, the renewal of the ranks and the cadres of the Party with new blood from the working class and the poor popular strata.

The party’s assistance to KNE includes the building of KNE, the communist education, the preparation for recruiting members of KNE to the party, the attraction of younger age groups to the labour movement and its allies and the strengthening of the People’s Alliance.

41. The developments in the working conditions of the youth, in their lives as a whole, have brought about such and so many changes which increase the responsibility of the party to develop ideological-political and organizational bonds with the younger age groups. Even people over the age of 30 maintain certain characteristics and a way of living which usually are associated with younger or even much younger age-groups, as they find it difficult to find work, to start their own family, with the result that they continue to be supported by their parents.

The ages of young couples who take on obligations and responsibilities for work, as well as the raising and education of children, have increased. An important section of young people are unemployed, have not yet found work, or were dismissed after a few months of employment in various sectors or in a disguised employment relationship etc. As a result they have not acquired ties with a specific sector and do not understand the need for trade union organization, so there are no direct channels of communication with the work of the party in the working class and its movement. It is to an extent easier to have contact with them in the place of residence, where there are schools, places of entertainment, sports, to the extent which they can have access to such facilities.

In reality, the party and KNE address themselves to the same social strata, which is also true in regards to the younger age groups whether they belong to the working class, the unemployed, the self-employed and farmers. The cooperation, the planning, the coordination must be in absolute harmony between the organs of the party and organizations of KNE, so that they can enrich each other. The party building amongst young workers is also a common goal with KNE’s goal to recruit on the basis of specific class criteria.

The activity in the schools, vocational education, in the whole network of training centres has more particularities. These are constantly being set up by the system, businessmen and self-employed as they provide even cheaper and easier to manipulate labour power, with even less economic and institutional rights. A similar specificity is characteristic of the activity in the universities and the Technical Institutes. In these places, due to their composition, KNE addresses itself to more forces, since the number of young people who study is far greater in comparison to the teaching and auxiliary staff, and consequently it possesses a greater number of organized forces than the party. The responsibility of the party in these places remains integral, while there must be a much more organized coordination and cooperation, so that the organizations of the party and KNE can act in joint way and specialize the directions etc.

Consequently, there must be certain changes which improve and make the cooperation of the organs of the party and KNE more substantial, so that they work jointly in the labour movement and its allies and in the places of education and training.

It is proposed that this issue should be better studied at a Nationwide Party Conference and after a relevant discussion in the organs of KNE.

42. Today in KNE, despite the progress that has been made in the elaboration of criteria for recruitment and testing out before they join the party, there are still problems such as a relatively delayed rate of recruitment in relation to the needs especially in the workplaces which employ younger age-groups, as well as in schools, technical schools, training centres, Technical Institutes, Universities. There continue to be delays in the assimilation of new members or even haphazard recruitment. These problems are the source for the haemorrhaging of forces under the pressure of sharpening difficulties which most young people experience.

These are generations which are experiencing major losses and shortages regarding their needs and feel on the one hand disgust with the bourgeois political system in its various forms, but at the same time are influenced by the atmosphere of the counterrevolution.

Regardless of the necessary adjustments, it is the responsibility of the CC and the leading organs of the party to face urgent issues such as:

• The deployment of party cadres in the leading party organs, who have acquired the ability or have the potential to acquire the specific ability to assist the organs and cadres of KNE, the orientation of the BOs. The care and planning in the promotion of leading cadres suitable for the various party organizations which work with younger age groups, who have the necessary special characteristics and knowledge of the problems and needs of the youth, their tendencies and orientations.
• Assignment of responsibility to members of the party who can also assist the specialization of the party and KNE’s work amongst young age groups, according to the place and their needs.
• The decisive improvement of the cooperation and assistance of the organs of the party and mainly of the PBOs in relation to the organs and members of KNE so as to prepare and assist the members of KNE as future members of the party, once they have passed though the special period of preparation and testing in the organizations of KNE.
• The stabilization of the General Assemblies of the BOs, the safeguarding of the atmosphere and assistance, so that the contribution of the members can be developed in the elaboration and implementation of the decisions, the study of the experience of activity amongst young age groups, the orientation of activity in the places where young people are found, the rallying in the struggle and in the ideological-political struggle. Problems regarding the reduced vigilance and the protection of the organization must be dealt with.

43. The party continued its efforts to deal with the crucial and major problems inherited from the victory of the counterrevolution, with the struggle against opportunism being the most basic element. The results are limited though this issue does not depend on the KKE but on the general situation of many communist parties in all continents and indeed of the parties in the powerful capitalist countries.

The class confrontations in Greece, the conflict with the capitalist employers, and the vanguard activity of the KKE have contributed to the development of reflection within many communist parties around the main issue i.e. what the political line should be for the activity of the communists in the conditions of the crisis. The reflection and the debate between different views show the significant contribution of the KKE along with other parties in order to substantiate the need to concentrate forces for the overthrow of the bourgeois power, for the struggle for socialism.

Thanks to the initiative of our party, as well as of other Communist Parties, the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties take place every year. In these meetings there is an ideological struggle against opportunism, reformism and various currents. In addition, there are Regional and Thematic Meetings of Communist Parties taking place and joint statements are being issued on current issues. A website of the Communist Parties (www.solidnet.org) is also functioning which has an incorporated system for the rapid exchange of information among them. There is also the publication of the “Information Bulletin” that contains the materials of the Meetings of the Communist Parties.

Nevertheless, these steps in the coordination cannot alter the main issue: the communist movement remains organizationally and ideologically fragmented. It is experiencing a situation of a long-term ideological-political crisis that coexists with the corrosive activity of the strong opportunist current and the weaknesses of the Communist Parties that struggle on the basis of Marxism-Leninism. In the conditions of the crisis, of the new requirements for the communist movement, signs are emerging regarding a new retreat from treating the relevant problems from a class viewpoint.

44. There are CPs which under difficult conditions maintain a correct orientation in general, they fight against bourgeois ideology and opportunism and make efforts to work in the labour movement while facing serious weaknesses.

The developments in Cuba have an impact on the international communist movement. The KKE steadfastly expresses its solidarity with the Communist Party and the people of Cuba, it struggles for the lifting of the longstanding blockade imposed by the USA and the abolition of the anti-Cuban “common position” of the EU, it demands the release of the 5 imprisoned Cuban patriots and their return to their homeland.

Our party defends the gains of the Cuban revolution that have demonstrated the advantages of socialism, achieving in the difficult conditions of the imperialist aggressiveness the solution of the basic problems that remain unsolved and torment the working class and the broad popular strata in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The KKE, in the framework of proletarian internationalism, develops a constructive dialogue with the Communist Party of Cuba on the socio-economic changes which have been promoted over recent years, it expresses its concern about the implementation of measures that reinforce the presence of capital and weaken socialist ownership, the socialist relations of production.

In the countries which claim to be constructing socialism the KKE examines the developments according to the criteria of the laws of socialist construction, the working class power, the socialization of the means of production and central planning, the workers’ and social control. From this point of view, the KKE expresses both its concern about the strengthening of the capitalist relations of production in Vietnam and also its opposition to the so-called “market- socialism”.

In today’s China the CPC leads the capitalist path of development; it develops relations with the “Socialist International”. This course and generally the positions regarding a “mixed economy”, which was previously supported by social democracy, regarding “market socialism” exert a negative influence on the communist movement; they are utilized in a multifaceted way against it.

Some Communist Parties, which have distanced themselves from Marxism-Leninism, present China as a “model of socialist development”.

45. The KKE, without giving up on the existing forms of cooperation and coordination of the Communist Parties, is oriented to the effort to form a communist pole among the communist parties which defend Marxism-Leninism, the existence of the socialist construction and its contribution, but also recognize its fundamental mistakes that led to its overthrow, the necessity of the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism.

The journal “International Communist Review” (ICR) was founded in this direction on the basis of a framework of common principles –starting from a first discussion in Athens at the end of 2008 and in Istanbul in 2009- currently with the participation of eleven theoretical and political journals of Communist parties. The aim of the ICR is to discuss ideological and theoretical issues and to contribute to the formation of a unified revolutionary strategy of the CP so that the international communist movement gets out of the situation of the ideological-political and organizational crisis.

The KKE considers as its duty and obligation the development of the ideological and political struggle, at an international level as well, against the opportunist forces (European Left Party- left “networks”), the forces of social democracy, the Trotskyite forces, which exert an ideological and political impact on the international communist movement.

46. Certain crucial issues that concern the confrontation inside the communist movement:

• The character of the revolution, the logic of stages. The participation of communist parties in bourgeois governments on the terrain of capitalist society. The international communist movement and opportunism.
• The distancing from the Leninist concept of imperialism.
• The stance towards imperialist unions and interstate organizations, the stance towards Russia-China etc.
• The stance towards social-democracy and the centre-left. The stance towards the possibility of utilizing all forms of struggle in order to confront successfully the violence of the capitalists, the imperialist intervention.
• The parliamentary illusions as well as the retreat from the utilization of the battle of elections.
• The stance towards the capitalist crisis.
• The issue of the environment detached from the issue of the character of ownership and power.
• The lack of a revolutionary line in the labour movement.
• The mistaken view that the struggle at a national level has become outdated.
• The stance towards the socialism which we knew.
• The mistaken view about “models” of socialism and the “socialism of the 21st century”.
• The proletarian Internationalism.

47. In the previous period the KKE developed significant initiatives in order to express its solidarity with the great workers’ and people’s struggles that take place in many countries against the aims, the strategy of capital, against the imperialist plans, the interventions, for the defense of labour and democratic rights, against anti-communism, against the bans and the persecutions at the expense of the communist parties and militants, against the persecutions carried out with the slogan of the unacceptable identification of communism with fascism.

The KKE expresses its solidarity with the working class and the popular strata of Venezuela against the imperialist interventions and threats.

It supports the struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation, for the resolution of the Palestinian issue; for an independent, viable and sovereign Palestinian state with the borders of 1967 and East Jerusalem as its capital.

The KKE supports the struggle of the Cypriot people for a unified Cyprus, independent with a federal bi-zonal, bi-communal solution, with a single sovereignty and international representation, without foreign bases and troops, a common homeland for Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, without foreign guarantors and “protectors”.

48. The general conclusion is that despite the efforts and the progress which was made regarding the particular duties which were set by the 18th Congress (regroupment and focus on the work in the working class and its movement, strengthening of the activity of the People’s Alliance, sharpening of the ideological struggle, formation of a common framework of the struggle of the working class and its allies, elaboration of the Second Volume of the Essay on the History of the Party, systematic ideological- political work for the understanding and the propagation of the positions of the party on socialist construction) the KKE has not met the increasing and complicated requirements that arise from the correlation of forces, the requirements and the dangers-possibilities that the phase of the crisis contains.

The main problem related to the political guidance is that we did not concentrate in good time, particularly over the last 10 years i.e. before the 18^th Congress, all the forces we had in the main front of struggle, on which the general progress depends, namely in the workplaces and the sectors. That is to say in the field that determines the progress of class struggle, the development of political consciousness and militancy, the communist education, the spirit of contribution and self-sacrifice.   Of course there was the negative impact of the objective difficulties, the new problems that arose due to the capitalist restructurings and subsequently the crisis. Nevertheless, the problem has also a subjective aspect, that is to say that the hesitations, the mistaken views which did not understand the importance of regrouping the forces were not dealt with.

The CC bears the primary responsibility due to its position and its role as the highest leading organ of the party between the Congresses.

A second problem is that the confirmation of the correctness of the party’s strategy created a spirit of complacency from top to bottom and it was not accompanied, to the required extent, by the acquisition of the necessary competence of the party regarding political guidance so as to play a vanguard role and rally working class and popular masses, in difficult and complicated conditions. The assimilation of significant collective documents and analyses of the party, first and foremost the Conclusions from the Construction of Socialism and the Essay on the History of the KKE Second Volume (1949-1968) required a longer period, than that between the 18^th and 19^th Congress. It is a process that requires time, in order to study and assimilate these kinds of documents.

The required competence in political guidance was not achieved so as to deal with both existing dangers: either in the name of correct strategy underestimating aspects of the creative adjustment and specialization (and convey the general positions with slogans) or in the name of specialization to foster a disjointed and selective attitude in the realization of the complicated and multifaceted duties, to disperse activities, to submit to spontaneity, to what is considered to be feasible in the name of objective factors that arise from the negative correlation of forces. In the name of generalizing the assessments and the experience to miss partial but important aspects and problems in the organization, the rallying and the class education of the masses taking into account the activity of the multi-tentacled enemy.

Although the orientation of the activity of the party was improved with the redeployment of forces and the progress in the Social Alliance, this was not translated into a unified plan of action elaborated and controlled from the level of the CC to the Party Base Organizations. Of course, the unified plan of action must not be understood as a decision of the CC that includes all the details of the plan in a unified and unvarying way for each PBO or for all PBOs. The unified plan must contribute to the development of the ability to specialize in each field, of the ability to take initiatives, to generalize the experience of the PBOs, to enrich and improve the general planning of the CC.

49. A particular problem – as a matter of political guidance- is the incomplete systematic work for the maturation of cadres which is necessary for the period we are going through so that they respond to the current requirements, so that they do not reproduce the experience and the ways of working that do not correspond to the strategy of the party or include experience and ways of working which have become outdated. A mechanistic way of promoting the strategy is still being promoted through the political guidance. It has not been achieved, to the required extent and as much as it depends on the efforts of the subjective factor, the party to act among broader working and popular masses which are ideologically trapped into the bourgeois and opportunist views; which due to the correlation of forces have the tendency to fall into the trap of petty bourgeois impatience or of the fatalist passivity which are the two sides of the same coin, namely of assimilation.

The party has not attained the ability -and this is a problem of political guidance- to act in conditions where popular masses enter the struggle spontaneously and the enemy has the potential to assimilate them with the immense means it has at its disposal. It has not attained, to a satisfactory level, the ability to intervene in a militant and convincing way in fields where other forces develop activities that seek to disorient the movement, to isolate the KKE. There is also the opposite problem: to lose the vanguard communist role in conditions that the struggle embraces for the first time sections of the working class and petty bourgeois strata that suddenly lost their gains and turn to struggles only in order to save their gains at a sectoral and local level, in the narrow sense, and those which were granted in order to buy them off and assimilate them.

50. Despite the weaknesses, the deficiencies and the delays that appeared in the party, and without having any intention of underestimating them, the activity of the party as a whole provides positive experience and it is possible to become a factor that will lead to the recovery of the party, to its strengthening, to the achievement of competence and endurance in view of the coming battles, so as to prevent developments that constitute a setback with tragic consequences for the people, so as to utilize the possibilities that might exist or emerge, so as to pave the way for the radical change. Of course this requires the drawing of objective and instructive conclusions without nihilism and definitely with a spirit of self- criticism.

At the same time, it should be taken seriously into account that the negative international correlation of forces, the fact that the international labour movement has retreated due to the counterrevolution and the widespread expansion of opportunism in its ranks exert a decisive and negative influence on the activity and the effectiveness of the party. The situation in the labour movement in Europe, the corrosion which has been caused by the participation of Communist Parties in bourgeois governments, the line of assimilation that they support, their nihilist stance, based on bourgeois criteria, towards the construction of socialism and the possibility of socialist construction constitute particularly negative factors.

51. The CC which was elected by the 18^th Congress acted according to the position that the Political Resolution of the Congress and the Conclusions from the socialist construction constitute a unified and indivisible totality. It had to face new problems, those of the severe and prolonged economic capitalist crisis, as the question regarding what is the way-out of the crisis in favour of the people arises objectively and at the same time the conditions are created for the working class and its movement to be trapped into the two bourgeois poles of the social democratic or opportunist line of management.

The central task and the criterion for the performance of the CC is its political guidance with the aim of:

• accelerating the activity for the regroupment of the labour movement and the formation of a common framework of action for the Social Alliance. The development of party building in workplaces and sectors is a central issue.
• The targeted, combined ideological-political and mass activity in the industrial sectors and especially in the new ones which are being developed according to the structure of the Greek capitalist economy, among the young people and the women, taking into account the new labour relations.

52. The CC prepared and carried out the Nationwide Party Conference on the regroupment of the labour movement, the Extended Plenum of the CC on the party building. It elaborated the guidelines and the specific measures for the intervention of the party in the labour and people’s movement in conditions of the crisis. It carried out the Nationwide Conference that elaborated the Essay on the History of the KKE Second Volume (1949-1968). It organized the discussion about the Essay and the Resolution of the 18th Congress on the Conclusions from the construction of socialism and the programmatic perception of the KKE throughout the party and in the system of party schools. In addition, it organized discussions and lectures throughout the party, aiming at providing information and facilitating the contribution of the members of the party to the elaboration of issues of the ideological political struggle and activity.
53. Despite the deficiencies and the partial weaknesses, the CC as the highest leading organ was equal to the main task in the most difficult moments of this four-year period, such as the two recent electoral battles: it vigorously resisted the pressure exerted on the party in order to give in and make a fundamental mistake of tolerating or participating in a coalition government.

Nevertheless, it was apparent that there are issues that constitute a permanent feature of the ideological-political work which have not been dealt with in a timely way i.e. the issue of revealing the character and the functioning of the bourgeois parliament on the basis of the experience from our participation in it.

54. The CC contributed to the improvement -compared to the past- of the guidance of the PBOs, based on a combined programme of action regarding their contribution and participation in workers’, people’s struggles, in the ideological-political work, with their independent political activity. It made efforts so that the strategy of the party is popularised among broader masses, enriched with the developments of the crisis and the class struggle, the international developments, especially in the Eurozone, so that the strategy of the party responds to the workers’ and people’s experience.

The results of the political guidance and the responsibility of the CC do not correspond to the efforts it made and above all to the current requirements, to the complicated character of the objective developments.

The CC fell short in the guidance of the Organisations and hence of the PBOs regarding the main duty, i.e. the manner and the forms of the party’s work, the content and above all the organizational measures to the level of the PBOs so that the effort concerning the regroupment of the labour movement and the party building with a special emphasis on the younger people enters a more stable and effective phase. There has been a certain progress: several measures were taken for the redeployment and the concentration of forces, there has been an intense activity of the party both independently and in the ranks of the movement. But still these duties have been fulfilled to a low degree

It has been borne out that it is not enough for the CC as the highest leading organ to play a positive role in the elaboration of positions, issues of the ideological struggle generally of the strategy of the party. What is required is an increased consistency as regards the main goal for the regroupment of the labour movement, for the party building in the workplaces and the sectors, for a stable development of the competence in political guidance so as to translate the guidelines and the decisions into a comprehensive general plan of action. This plan should enable the leading organs of the Regional Organizations to specialize the guidelines and orient the PBOs, to meet the requirements in their field of responsibility, integrating their own activities to the general framework of activity, enriching it with the experience of the every-day practical work.

The problem constitutes a problem of political guidance and practical ideological-political education so that each cadre and member of the party emerges and is recognized in practice as having vanguard characteristics in terms of militancy, selflessness, competence, knowledge. The CC fell short in the development of bonds with young people, especially in the workplaces and the new sectors as well as with younger people who are in the process of education and the unemployed youth. The assistance and support of KNE was improved but it continues to be extremely weak at the level of the PBO-BO.

55. The CC took several steps to reinforce its staff i.e. the auxiliary committees and sections but it did not manage to complete the efforts in all these auxiliary bodies. In certain cases it did not manage to provide substantial support to these bodies in order for them to meet the new requirements.

The general assessment is that the “Communist Review”, “Rizospastis”, the media of the party, the auxiliary bodies of the CC improved their performance, contributed to the formation of positions, demands, goals of struggle, to the ideological-political struggle. There has been an improvement in the cooperation among the sections in order to deal with complicated issues, problems of the movement, for the development of the Social Alliance. A particular delay is observed in the sector of propaganda in all media and in all its forms with the responsibility of the CC. There has also been a delay in the utilization of the internet and dealing with it as an ideological means of the class enemy and a means of factionalism. The creation of the portal [http://902.gr] in place of the 902 TV channel , the closure of which was dictated by financial reasons, can contribute to the fields of information and propagation of the positions and the proposals of the KKE, especially among the younger people.

The publications of the party have been improved. KNE has also made a positive effort while there has been a relative progress in the circulation of political books which nevertheless remains low compared to the needs and the existing interest despite the fact that the economic crisis makes their purchase more difficult.

Over the four year period there has been an improvement in the work of the CC with the assistance of its Sections, mainly through the realization of the important scientific conferences on the work of Yiannis Ritsos and Costas Varnalis while a similar conference on the work of Bertolt Brecht is being prepared. A seminar was organized on the international economic crisis, the elaboration of issues that shed light on the character of the crisis and the bourgeois management, on the uneven outbreak of the crisis in the Eurozone was continued with articles in the Communist Review and the organization of events. The political and cultural content of the festivals of KNE was also enhanced. Furthermore, there has been an advance in the section of Sports and Physical Education with the elaboration of positions and the support of the initiatives of KNE in this field. Nevertheless, we have a long way to go to meet the requirements in the fields of Culture and Sports.

56. The Political Bureau and the Secretariat have a particular share of responsibility in the framework of the collective work of the organ for the delay in the decisive orientation of the party’s activity to the regroupment of the labour movement , the party building, the work for the preparation and the promotion of cadres for the strengthening of the auxiliary bodies of the party.

57. The unwavering stance of the KKE in the previous period provoked the rage of economic and political centers which escalated their slanderous attacks and provocations precisely around the finances of the party. Their aim is to create confusion and doubts about the integrity of the party, to reinforce the view that the KKE is no different from the other parties. The attack regarding the finances of the party and generally anticommunism have been prevalent all these years.

It is expected that state financing will be used as a means to exert pressure for compromises and retreats. In the name of transparency, of combating bribery and the buying off of politicians they are considering taking the measure of the exclusive financing of the parties by the state. This measure is part of the general framework of the reactionary provisions which are promoted in the framework of the EU aimed at the complete manipulation and control of the functioning of the parties.

The KKE will not accept any control of its relations with its members and friends, any intervention in its functioning and activity or the manipulation of its political line in the name of receiving financing from the state.

The state funding cannot be the main source of the revenues of a revolutionary party. The issue of the financial independence of the KKE is a crucial issue. It is related to the ability of the party to cope with the most difficult conditions.

Since its foundation the KKE has suffered persecutions for many years and it is absolutely reasonable for it to be vigilant especially in today’s conditions when the class struggle is sharpening.

In the years after the 18^th Congress we have faced serious financial difficulties, mainly in the field of our propaganda and as a result “Tipoekdotiki” [the party’s printing house] was included in the regulation of article 99 of the Bankruptcy Code and the 902 TV-channel ceased its operation.

The new conditions demand a better organization and monitoring of the economic activity of the Organizations in order to collect all the dues by the party members, the contributions of friends and supporters. Even more persistence and decisiveness is necessary to tidy up our finances, to reduce flexible operational costs, to regularly and substantially monitor the revenues of the organizations.

The increase of the circulation of “Rizospastis”, of the Communist Review and the books of “Synchroni Epochi” publishing house, apart from its particular importance for our ideological and political intervention, makes a significant contribution to the reinforcement of the finances of the party.

We went through a particularly difficult period for the working class and the people of our country and this will continue. It is a period where the attack against the workers’ rights and achievements is on the increase while the consequences from the sharpening of the economic crisis are becoming torrent that drowns the popular strata.

Nevertheless, experience shows that in these conditions new opportunities are created for more working people to support the party from their meager income even with smaller sums than before.

The financial support of the KKE for 94 years constitutes a kind of political relationship between the working people and the party. It is an element that shows the development and the consolidation of the bonds of each PBO with the supporters and the friends of the party.

The attack of the class enemy must meet our preparedness, competence and self-reliance regarding the financial means for a multi-faceted political, ideological and publishing activity that will provide an effective response. We are confident that the party as a whole will meet the requirements of our period.

58. The uneven manifestation of a new crisis in the Eurozone/EU and the possibility of a new synchronized crisis in the USA-EU-Japan combined with the depth of the crisis in Greece and the difficulty of the bourgeois policy in managing it show that the crisis will continue in 2013 and reinforce the prediction that in the next three years the GDP is not expected to increase to the level it was before 2008. The insufficient depreciation of capital during the crisis, the loss of the competitive position of Greek industrial production, the significant loss of fiscal flexibility and the sharpening of competition in the wider region (Balkans, Eastern Mediterranean) sharpen the contradictions of the bourgeois policy. The reflection over whether remaining in the Eurozone continues to serve effectively the bourgeois strategic interest of the extended reproduction of social capital is being reinforced. The developments as a whole outline two main possibilities: the choice of a new internal depreciation with a new “haircut” of the public debt and the possibility of an uncontrolled bankruptcy of the state which will be combined with a compulsory exit from the Eurozone. In both cases the process of centralization of accumulated capital in a smaller number of larger monopoly groups is being intensified.

On this terrain the intra-bourgeois struggle over the choice of restrictive or expansive management as well as over the priorities at the level of imperialist alliances will continue. As the contradictions within the Eurozone and Greece are sharpening the bourgeois forces that give priority to the Atlantic axis of geopolitical influence (USA, Israel, Britain) compared to Germany and France are being reinforced. The struggle amongst imperialist centres and monopoly groups over the division and the control of markets and infrastructure is being strengthened particularly in the sectors of transportation (ports, airports etc.), energy, telecommunications and the banking sector. Russia and China are also showing interest regarding these sectors.

These contradictions do not negate the agreement in the direction of the bourgeois policy to utilize the deep crisis as a launching pad in order to accelerate and extend the restructurings, to increase the rate of exploitation, to accelerate the centralization of capital, to eliminate small businesses and poor farmers, to expand capitalist enterprises. The escalation of the anti-people attack is dictated by the strategic need of the monopolies to safeguard their competitiveness and manage the crisis at the expense of the popular strata.

These developments will be accompanied by the increase of destitution in relative and absolute terms as well as by the maintenance of the immense rate of unemployment, the proletarisation, the poverty of self-employed owners of small businesses in urban and rural areas. Objectively the difficulty for the bourgeois class in building solid social alliances is on the increase while the conditions are being created for the promotion of the building of the social alliance of the working class on a better basis and with an improved orientation. The development of the capitalist economic crisis with the prospect of the further deterioration of the life of the workers and the popular strata as well as the possibility of an anemic recovery will definitely have an impact on the development of the class struggle in Greece. Of course this will not be a linear process; the phases of the rise of class struggle will be followed by phases of retreat.

59. In this framework the attempts and the more systematic efforts for the reformation of the political system in Greece will continue. On the basis of the current evidence that indicates that PASOK is in a course of disintegration, the main perceptible tendency is that the reformation will be based on two political poles: the one of the centre- right with ND as its axis, which has lost forces not only in votes but also due to splits, and the other of the centre- left with SYRIZA as its axis. The bourgeois class of the country is adjusting its choices, taking into account which political force, which government can control the labour and people’s movement, prevent the rise of class struggle and ensure that the bankruptcy, either controlled or uncontrolled with the exit from the EU, will take place with the least possible reactions.

The two poles, the centre-right with ND at its core and the centre-left with SYRIZA, is a relatively realistic scenario for the bourgeois class. It may have a transitional character, as processes are underway for the creation of new parties in order to trap the workers’ and people’s conscience.

Today SYRIZA is developing into contemporary social democracy, which will be more conservative compared to the social democracy in the post-dictatorship period. Significant sections of the labour and governmental bureaucracy, sections of the intermediate strata that enjoyed immunity as allies of the bourgeois class and its parties, with benefits, tax evasion, with participation into the management of EU funds are seeking and finding their political expression in SYRIZA. Its particularity is that it consists of opportunist forces that broke away from the communist movement, maintains several slogans, methods, ways of work, so as to present itself as a left party that rallies in its ranks various forces, from the social-democrats of “3^rd September” [the founding declaration of PASOK] to the communists of “renewal”. Its strategy, as regards the issue of power, the EU is clearly social-democratic, pro-monopoly. In the instance that SYRIZA becomes a substitute for the defeated social-democracy it is not impossible that centrifugal forces from it and some extra-parliamentary forces will form a new obstacle of the so-called left or communist renewal. The bourgeois class will do everything in order to stem the rise of the class struggle and the KKE. It wants to achieve what it did not manage in 1989-1991, either to dissolve or marginalize the KKE or to transform it into a component of contemporary social-democracy so as to stem the rise of the class struggle.

60. The labour movement must find itself in a state of readiness so as to be able to utilize the prospect of the rise of the class struggle, to take advantage of conditions of a significant change in the correlation of forces. The labour movement must be also prepared for the possibility of a negative development, for the possibility of a retreat in the class struggle and a setback so as to be able to prepare itself in accordance with the new conditions for the new rise that will definitely occur within a reasonable period of time.

The labour movement and its allies will have to achieve readiness and the ability to act so as to deal with the increasing violence and repression of the state, para-state and the employers, and the activity of the new government-led trade unionism that SYRIZA is trying to form. In addition, they will have to deal with the activity of the reactionary forces, of national-socialist, fascist tendencies in the ranks of the movement which intend to suppress it, to impede the rise of the class struggle.

The inter-imperialist contradictions in the region increase the dangers for local military conflicts that will take on a more general character since a conflict between imperialist centres and imperialist forces is taking place in the wider region and indeed in conditions of subsequent crises that are affecting the hard core of the imperialist pyramid. Such an instance, in the current conditions, with the active participation of Greece in NATO and the EU, requires the sharpening of the imperialist competition in the region which cannot be solved by non-military means. It entails the breaking of alliances, serious changes and realignments even strong centrifugal tendencies both in the framework of the EU and of NATO, a general realignment of the alliances.

Amongst the possibilities regarding the stance of the Greek bourgeois class, of a section of its political representatives is the possibility of it seeking to take part at the side of the one or the other imperialist power even seeking to transform the defensive war into an aggressive war according to the conditions.

If Greece is attacked by a neighbouring country or by another country in the region or if it attacks first, whether in the framework of an alliance or not, the party in any case must lead the independent organization of the workers and people’s resistance and link the resistance with the struggle for the complete defeat of the bourgeois class, both of the domestic one and the foreign one as an invader. A workers’ and people’s front with all forms of struggle must be formed on the basis of the initiative and the guidance of the party. This front will have the following slogan: the people will give freedom and the way-out from the capitalist system which as long as it prevails brings war and “peace” with the gun to the people’s head.

61. The People’s Alliance, expresses the interests of the working class, the semi-proletarians, the poor self-employed and farmers in the struggle against the monopolies and capitalist ownership, against the assimilation of the country in the imperialist unions. Its struggle is directed towards the conquest of the working class- people’s power. For the KKE the new power is identified with working class power, the socialist power which scientific socialism defined as the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the very opposite of the dictatorship of the bourgeois class, the bourgeois state.

The strength of the People’s Alliance lies in the leading role of the working class, but also in the participation of young people and women that belong to these social forces, in the conscious effort of the labour movement to form, along with its allies, a common platform and direction of action. It also lies in the leading role of the KKE which is interested in the strengthening, the consolidation and the reinforcement of the People’s Alliance and the preservation of its character and the direction of its struggle.

The poor farmers, the self-employed in retail and crafts, in restaurants and tourism, in repairs, in cleaning services, in the service sector of the beauty industry etc. those who at times work for 10 and 12 hours a day together with the other members of their families, although they own land or certain other scattered means of production, have a sole interest in the abolition of the monopolies, in the final analysis in the abolition of capitalist ownership, and the overthrow of its power.

Contemporary capitalism is the monopolies in industry and trade, the banks, the taxation of their state which altogether remove the largest part of their production from the majority of the self-employed, squeeze their income. It is the capitalist system that sooner or later will eliminate and destroy them as independent producers and workers and will drag them to unemployment or to underemployment in the best case. Even if they maintain their position for a period of time their living conditions will deteriorate, their working time will increase; their terms of retirement will deteriorate, as will the conditions in the education of their children, in the prevention and rehabilitation in healthcare, in free time and generally there will be a deterioration in their quality of life and that of their families.

The prolonged and deep crisis brought about a sudden change even in sectors that self-employment survived on better terms, in professions that had to do with construction, repairs.

The prospect of the self-employed scientists is similar even if they have a better income and mainly less restrictions than the salaried workers. They will increasingly be subjected as salaried workers to the large capitalist enterprises which extend to the legal, accounting and technical professions, to professions which have to do with the prevention of diseases and the rehabilitation of health, maternity, safety in the workplaces, public health, culture and sports.

Objectively their medium-term interest lies in the path of conflict with and overthrow of the monopolies, the capitalist ownership, at the side of the working class for the conquest of power.

The only way for their interests to be realized is the joint struggle with the salaried workers, their dissociation from the organizations that serve the capitalist interests with the label of the “single scientific organization”. Their interest is the working class state to provide them with all the conditions in order to carry out their scientific work for the benefit of social prosperity.

It is inevitable for the organization of the most advanced sections of poor farmers and of the self-employed in the urban centers to be separated from the capitalists, to dissociate themselves from the inter-imperialist rivalries and wars for the markets of raw materials and the routes of energy transport, for other natural resources etc. It is inevitable for the most advanced sections of the self-employed to coordinate their struggles with the struggles of the working class against the monopolies, against their imperialist alliances (EU, NATO, Schengen, etc), their parties and their governments in the final analysis against the state of capitalists.

It is inevitable for them to side either with the capitalist path of production which entails the violent destruction of the biggest part of them or with the path of development which is based on the social (people’s) ownership, on central planning in favour of social prosperity. This path of development requires the rupture with and overthrow of the economic dominance and political power of the monopolies and the full disengagement from the EU, NATO and every imperialist union, the abolition of all foreign military bases. It is in the interest of the working class to win these strata, with the working class-people’s power or to ensure that they will not side with the reaction of the capitalist class. For that reason, it can and must express with its revolutionary programme their needs for satisfactory living conditions and chiefly their planned gradual integration into the socialist production and the socialist services.

62. The People’s Alliance answers the pressing question: how will we organise the struggle for the repulsion of the barbaric class anti-people measures? How will we organise the counterattack so as to achieve some gains? What is the way of struggle and rupture for the overthrow of the power of monopolies? The People’s Alliance has a definite antimonopoly anti-capitalist orientation –given that contemporary capitalism is monopoly capitalism- it promotes the rupture with the imperialist unions, it fights against the imperialist war and the participation in it.

The People’s Alliance is in agreement with the position that the KKE proposes concerning the rallying of antimonopoly anti-capitalist social forces with the struggle leading to the workers’ and people’s power, a rally that expresses and serves the interests of the working class and its social allies. The struggle of the People’s Alliance is mainly directed against the monopolies, the imperialist unions and their repressive mechanisms. It develops on the basis of the joint activity of the social forces on the terrain of the immediate demands. Each social force has its own duties beyond the common framework of activity.

63. The people’s alliance gathers its forces in each city, centred on the monopoly groups, factories, shopping centres, hospitals, Health Centres, electric power plants, telecommunications, public transportation etc. It guarantees the common activity of these forces on the basis of each sector and generally with the unemployed, the self-employed farmers and other people in the cities who struggle to make ends meet. It has an enhanced course as a process of maturation of the political consciousness and the organization.

In these given conditions it is organized and coordinated for the resistance, solidarity, for survival, for the defence of workers’ and people’s income: salaries and collective bargaining agreements, pensions, workers’ and people’s rights, the prices at which producers sell agricultural products, the protection of the farmers, self employed, unemployed and people’s housing from the profiteering of the banks and the taxation. It defends the right to free public education, healthcare-welfare, to cheap high-quality mass consumption products, infrastructure for culture and sports. It struggles against drugs, for women’s emancipation and equality, for the protection of the unemployed, for transportation, lodging and meals for school students and students, for the immediate needs of the young couples, against drug addiction, alcoholism. It demands measures for the protection against earthquakes and floods, public works for infrastructure that improve the living conditions, the balanced intervention of people into the environment. It highlights the development potential of the country from the viewpoint of the existence of raw materials, of the concentration of means of production, the skills of the labour force, the scientific-technological achievements.

The People’s Alliance struggles against the state repression, against the violence of the employers; it defends the trade union and civil liberties etc. The struggle for a pro-people way-out from the crisis is inextricably linked with the disengagement from the EU and the unilateral cancelation of the debt without any implications for the social security funds, for public hospitals etc. in rupture with the EU-IMF. It struggles for the overthrow of the power of the monopolies.

It adopts the socialization of the monopolies, of all the concentrated means of production, central planning, workers’-social control. It agrees with the disengagement of Greece from the EU and NATO, from every kind of relation with the imperialist unions. It aims at the abolition of the foreign bases, of the presence on various pretexts of foreign troops and police forces in Greece.

The notions democracy, people’s sovereignty, imperialism and imperialist war have a deeper, class content for the people’s alliance. They are based on the abolition of class exploitation, on the socialization of the concentrated means of production combined with the organization of the small farmers in cooperatives. They are founded on the participation in the workers’ assemblies and people’s committees etc.

64. The Peoples Alliance seeks and achieves to attract constantly into its ranks new trade union organizations and generally mass organizations of the working class and its allies so that the bourgeois, reformist and opportunist trade union forces that prevail in the highest trade union bodies but also in Labour Centres and federations are steadily and effectively weakened according to the development of the balance of forces at a social and political level.

The strength and the effectiveness of the activity of the People’s Alliance in the change of the correlation of forces and its reversal, in its ability to confront the hard class enemy and its international supports depends on the extent of the workers’ and people’s organization and participation from the bottom up in the workplaces and the sectors, in the workers’ neighbourhoods, in districts populated by farmers and popular strata.

Over the course of the development of its activity it will gather workers’ and people’s forces with a low level political experience which to the one or the other extent will be under the influence of the ideological-political views of the bourgeois parties, reformism and opportunism. They will waver regarding the realistic and necessary character of the struggle for working class power as the only alternative power against the power of the monopolies.

The activity of the People’s Alliance contributes to the active effort to reinforce the internal life of the trade unions and the mass organizations, so as to attract even more people to the assemblies organized by the trade unions, the organizations of the self-employed, the farmers, the students, the school students, the women’s organizations that constitute the basis of the Alliance, in order for them to participate in the organization of the mobilizations, in decision making, in the electoral procedures for the representation from the bottom up, in the multifaceted activities that embrace the full spectrum of problems. Through these processes the political experience will increase and fears, hesitation and wavering will be overcome and even more militants will be stabilized on the path of the class struggle, of the people’s alliance for the solution of the problem of power.

The People’s Alliance seeks the coordination of its activity at a regional and international level with similar criteria, i.e. with workers’ and people’s organizations with an anti-monopoly orientation.

65. A basic factor that determines the role and the effectiveness of the party in the labour movement and class struggle is the party building, above all in industry, the ability to rally workers’ and people’s masses in the specific conditions in an antimonopoly and anti-capitalist direction, in the struggle for power, in the struggle against imperialist war, imperialist peace.

The tasks of the party include the prediction of the development of the correlation of forces so that the labour movement above all and consequently the People’s Alliance do not to lose sight of the goal of power and are not trapped in governments on the terrain of capitalism.

The struggle for the solution of the problem of power requires constant and stable efforts for the scientific analysis of the economic and political situation in the country, in its wider region and internationally. It requires a scientifically planned activity. Therefore, the party can and must ensure independently the preconditions of the class-oriented scientific research.

The competence of the communist party is determined by its ability and readiness to struggle against opportunism, which emerges in the form of new political formations often as a split from old ones, occasionally invoking communist slogans (e.g. declarations in favour Marxism-Leninism, recognition of socialist revolution, of the leading role of the working class in social progress) while at the same time they bring back the strategy of the stages.

The leading role of the KKE as a revolutionary political vanguard and the leading role of the working class will be achieved and recognized in practice; they do not depend on political agreements, they are not guaranteed by the official recognition of its vanguard role by the People’s Alliance.

The KKE with its international activity and its cooperation with other communist parties supports and contributes to the internationalization of the activity of the People’s Alliance.

66. Today the People’s Alliance has acquired a certain form with the activity of PAME, PASEVE, PASY MAS, OGE with a common framework. It does not constitute an alliance of political parties. The KKE participates in its organs and in its ranks through its cadre and members, through the members of its youth, KNE, who participate and are elected in the organs of the organizations of the working class, the self-employed, the poor farmers, the students, the school students and the women. The party is steadily seeking to deploy competent cadre in the ranks of the movement so as to ensure the character of the alliance from inside, its capability to approach and forge links with new forces of the working class and the popular strata.

The course of the political struggle includes the possibility of the emergence of political forces that express positions of petty bourgeois strata, that agree in one way or another with the anti-capitalist, anti-monopoly character of the social –political struggle, with the necessity of its direction towards the working class and people’s power and economy. The KKE, maintaining its independence, will seek the joint action with these forces in supporting the People’s Alliance. The cooperation is being expressed with the joint activity of their members and supporters in the ranks of the mass organizations that form the alliance or in its organs through their elected members. This cooperation is not formed into a unified organ of the Alliance comprised of the parties-constituent parts, with a structured organisational form and structures. Objectively an organization with a form like this will be short-lived, it will come into conflict with the independence of the KKE, it will not contribute to the development of the labour movement and its allies.

67. In the conditions of monopoly capitalism there emerge opportunist political parties and groups with various forms (direct splits from CPs, or with their origin in previous splits or through the creation of new groups-parties with a communist reference) which are differentiated from the KKE in various ways above all on the main political issue, that of reform or revolution. The KKE cannot carry out any political cooperation with these political forces neither in a period of the concentration of forces nor in conditions of revolutionary situation. This holds true regardless of the manoeuvres that the opportunist political forces carry out in conditions of the movement’s rise adopting slogans that seem to be in favour of the people but are in opposition to the struggle for the working class power. Their political proposal for the problem of the power is integrated in the framework of the management of the capitalist system, in other words they adopt a stage between the bourgeois and working class power with the one or the other form. Of course, the popular masses which are rallied by the opportunists might participate in the ranks of the mass movement, even in the ranks of the revolutionary movement, in conditions of a sudden sharpening of the class struggle that attracts broader popular masses, in conditions of a revolutionary situation. In each phase of the struggle the KKE must carry out an acute ideological struggle as opportunism constitutes a force of capitulation with the bourgeois political system and the bourgeois class, a force that undermines the development of consciousness in the revolutionary direction.

The KKE maintains its independence in the bourgeois elections as well, though, its lists may also include individuals who cooperate with the party. The People’s Alliance as an alliance of the most radical politicized sections of the labour- trade union movement and its allies, of the organizations of the youth and the women, as an alliance that acts in the ranks of the movement, with the aim of bringing about the broadest possible rallying of new masses, does not take part in national and local elections, in elections for the European Parliament, in referendums.

68. The CC proposes that the 19th Congress decide on the following activities:

1. Extended Plenum of the CC with the aim of examining the decisions of the Nationwide Conference of March 2010 and of the Extended Plenum of June 2010 for our work in the labour movement and party building.
2. The realization of a Nationwide Conference on the activity in the youth and the support of KNE.
3. To organize a study on the self-employed in the cities. To hold a Nationwide Conference for the work of the party among the poor self-employed and their movement.
4. To improve the system of enlightenment and propaganda with all the means that the party has at its disposal and utilizes. The new CC must form a special detailed resolution that will be discussed throughout the party.
5. To continue the historical research of the party concerning the period 1968-1974, to publish a new edition of the Essay on the history of the Party in the period 1918-1949. To attempt to start the historical research concerning the period 1974-1991.
6. To elaborate the preparation of the multifaceted events of the party for the 100^th anniversary of its foundation.
7. To improve “Rizospastis” and increase its circulation. To increase the circulation of the “Communist Review” (KOMEP), the theoretical, political books so as to develop a kind of a “movement”, an educational current in the party and KNE, and more broadly in the circle of friends and supporters. The new CC must elaborate a new concrete programme.
8. To form a comprehensive material-technical and human infrastructure for the scientific research of the party and on this basis to substantiate its elaborations and studies.
9. To create along with KNE a material-technical and human infrastructure so as to support the activity of the party in the section of Culture and Sports, in the movement against drug addiction, in the realization of events in the framework of the KNE festival during the year.

69. The activities for the regroupment of the international communist movement must take on many aspects and forms:

1. Continuation of the efforts for the formation of the Communist Pole, utilizing the steps which are being taken with the “International Communist Review”.
2. Participation in international, thematic and regional Meeting of the Communist Parties, trying to preserve the communist characteristics of the International Meetings, countering plans to widen them with the so called left forces.
3. Independent ideological intervention of the party for the propagation of its positions, its analyses and their scientific substantiation.
4. Development of the bilateral relations as well as of the joint activity with the Communist Parties of our region (Balkans, Middle East, Europe) as well as with the Communist Parties from other regions.
5. Strengthening of the international activity of KNE for the regroupment of the Communist Youth Organizations and their joint activity, the intensification of the struggle against the bourgeois and opportunist views that affect the ranks of the youth communist and anti-imperialist movement.
6. Mobilization and activity for the condemnation of the imperialist interventions, the imperialist war and the imperialist conditions of “peace”. Contribution to the strengthening and the expansion of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) with new class-oriented organizations, confrontation with the current of reformism, of the employer and government-led trade unionism at a global level. Support for the international anti-imperialist organizations, of the World Peace Council (WPC), for the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF).

PROLOGUE

The KKE was founded in 1918, as the mature product of the development of the labour movement in our country, and also under the impact of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia.

The KKE is the conscious, organized, vanguard section of the working class and has as its strategic goal the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism-communism.

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

It is guided by the revolutionary worldview of Marxism-Leninism. It attempts to interpret the developments in a dialectical-materialist way, systematically following the new developments in science and technology, to generalise the experience of the labour and people’s movement with the communist ideology as a foundation and with the need for the liberation of the working class from exploitation as its criterion. It fought against the reactionary theories, such as Greece being a “poor relation”, the “inferiority of women”, the racist theories, obscurantism and intolerance, it struggles for a deeply humanist, scientifically substantiated people’s education. It has inspired radical intellectuals and artists with its ideology and struggles, it became a consistent and stable defender of the Greek people’s culture.

From the time of its foundation, the KKE steadfastly defended the socialist construction in the USSR, in the other countries of Europe, Asia and in Cuba. It participated in the Communist International. It expressed its solidarity with the struggles of the world’s working class, with the peoples fighting for their national liberation, for socialism. The KKE in turn, at critical and difficult periods in its struggle, also received internationalist solidarity and support from the international communist and labour movement.

It is faithful to the principle of proletarian internationalism and struggles for the regroupment of the International Communist Movement after the retreat and crisis it experienced and is still undergoing today, particularly after the victory of the counterrevolution in 1989-1991.

From the time it was founded, KKE has stood by youth of our country. It has always concerned itself with the youth and taken care of their problems and their future. It continues to trust young generation and their abilities to contribute to the construction of the socialist future.

Its entire historical course vindicates the need for its existence in Greek society. The KKE never lost its historical continuity. It fought against opportunism and liquidationism in its ranks and was able to draw conclusions from its 95 years of activity. It was able to maintain its revolutionary character in difficult conditions, while it was never afraid to recognize mistakes, deviations and to carry out self-criticism openly in front of the people.

The KKE over its 95-year history demonstrated a stable commitment to the fundamental principles of a revolutionary workers’ communist party: the recognition of the leading role of the working class in social development and of Marxist-Leninist ideology as revolutionary theory for revolutionary political activity. It never renounced the class struggle, the socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The KKE withstood the turbulence of the victory of counterrevolution in the Soviet Union and the other states of the socialist construction in Europe and Asia. This endurance is not accidental. It has been forged through historical blood ties with the working class and the poor farmers from the very first moment of its foundation.

From 1918 onwards the KKE has given a political content to the workers’ struggles against the capitalist exploitation and paid the price with many deaths, tortures and persecutions. It was at the forefront of the armed struggle against the occupation by the three Axis powers through the Resistance of EAM-ELAS. On two occasions, in December of 1944 and in the three year struggle (1946-1949) of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), the labour movement, headed by the KKE, and the allied farmers’ movement came into armed conflict with the bourgeois power, which was supported by the direct imperialist military intervention of Great Britain initially and later the of USA.

Over its 95-year course it fought against the notion that the exploited should collaborate with the exploiters, that they should not submit to the exploiters, and defended the gains of the working class and people.

The deep historical roots of the KKE explain why it managed in previous crises (1968) and especially in the crisis of 1991 to safeguard its historical continuity, despite the departure of a large section of its forces.

The KKE has regrouped organizationally, ideologically and programmatically over the entire new period in its history, based on the 5 intervening Congresses. A product of this course is the Draft Programme which has been submitted by the CC to the pre-congress discussion for the 19^th Congress, which develops the overall strategy of the KKE for socialism and the basic duties of the class struggle.

The contemporary world and the position of Greece in the imperialist system.

70. The counterrevolutionary overthrows of the last 30 years do not change the character of our era. The current historical period of the major retreat of the international labour movement, is a temporary one. We live in the era of the historical necessity for the transition from capitalism to socialism, as the material pre-conditions are mature for the socialist organization of production and society.

The historical setback in the development of the class struggle is accompanied by the mass influx of cheap labour force into the international capitalist market (from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe etc.), resulting in the devaluation of the labour force in the most advanced capitalist countries (OECD countries), the emergence in these countries of the generalized absolute destitution of the working class, the intensification of capital’s offensive at an international level.

The tendency for important changes in the correlation of forces among the capitalist states became more apparent with the deep crisis of capital over-accumulation in 2008-2009 which in several capitalist economies has in reality not been overcome. This process occurs under the impact of the law of uneven capitalist development. This tendency concerns the higher levels of the imperialist pyramid as well.

The USA remains the first economic power, but with a significant reduction of its share in the Gross World Product. Until 2008, the EU as a whole maintained the second position in the international capitalist market, a position which it lost after the crisis. China has already emerged as the second economic power, the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) has been strengthened in the international capitalist unions, such as the IMF and the G20. The change in the correlation of forces among the capitalist states brought about changes in their alliances, as the inter-imperialist contradictions over the control and re-division of the economic areas and markets are sharpening, chiefly of the energy and natural resources, the transport routes of the commodities.

The inter-imperialist contradictions, which in the past led to dozens of local, regional wars and to two World Wars, will continue to lead to tough economic, political and military confrontations, irrespective of the composition or recomposition, the changes in the structure and the framework of goals of the international imperialist unions, their so-called new “architecture”. In any case, “war is the continuation of politics by other means”, especially in the conditions of a deep crisis of over-accumulation and important changes in the correlation of forces of the international imperialist system, in which the re-division of the markets rarely occurs without bloodshed.

71. The periodical outbreak of the crises of over-accumulation tests the cohesion of the Eurozone, as a monetary union of the economies of member-states with deep unevenness in the development and structure of industrial production, in productivity and their position in the EU and international market.

The tendency for the strengthening of the interdependence of the economies of the states in the international imperialist system does not lead to a decline of the role of the bourgeois state, as many theoretical variations of “globalization” claim.

In any case, the future of the EU and the eurozone is not only determined by the imperialist plans, because the contradictions have their own dynamics. Whatever choice is made by the bourgeois management, it will come into conflict with the working class and people’s interests in all the member-states of the Eurozone.

The crisis highlighted even more intensely the historical limits of the capitalist system. The contradictions are sharpening, as well as the difficulties regarding the bourgeois political management of the crisis and the difficulty in passing into a new cycle of expanded reproduction of social capital in general.

72. Greek capitalism is in the imperialist stage of its development, in an intermediate position in the international imperialist system, with strong dependencies on the USA and the EU.

The adaptation of the Greek market to the western-European one began with its accession to the EEC at the beginning of the 1980s. Later on, with its accession to the EU in 1991 and more particularly to the eurozone in 2001. The Greek capitalist state was more organically integrated into the international imperialist system, through its participation in the restructuring of NATO and other imperialist inter-state alliances.

Greek capitalism initially benefited from the counterrevolutionary overthrows in the neighbouring Balkan countries and from joining the EU; it achieved significant capital exports in the form of direct investments which contributed to the profitability and accumulation of Greek businesses and consortia.

The capital exports also expanded to Turkey, Egypt, the Ukraine, China as well as to Britain, to the USA and other countries. It actively participated in all the imperialist interventions and wars, such as those against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.

In the decade which preceded the latest outbreak of the crisis, the Greek economy maintained a significantly higher annual rate of GDP growth than the corresponding level of the EU and the Eurozone, without substantially changing its position within it. However, it enhanced its position in the Balkans.

After the outbreak of the crisis, the position of Greek capitalism deteriorated in the framework of the eurozone and the EU and the international imperialist pyramid in general, something which does negate the fact that the accession of Greece to the EEC-EU served the most dynamic sections of domestic monopoly capital and contributed to the buttressing of its political power.

The participation of Greece in NATO -hence the bonds- the economic-political and political-military dependencies on the EU and the USA limit the negotiating strength of the Greek bourgeois class and its room for manoeuvre, as all the alliance relations of capital are governed by competition, unevenness and consequently the advantageous position of the strongest, as relations of uneven interdependence are formed.

The intra-bourgeois contradictions up to this point do not negate the strategic framework of accession to NATO and the EU. The intra-bourgeois contradictions are related to the priorities at the level of imperialist alliances. Even if the trend for remaining inside the eurozone continues to be strong, at the same time the trend for the strengthening of relations with Russia and China is being strengthened.

The dangers in the wider region are increasing, from the Balkans to the Middle East, for a generalized imperialist war and the involvement of Greece in it.

The struggle for the defence of the borders, the sovereign rights of Greece, from the standpoint of the working class and the popular strata is integral to the struggle for the overthrow of the power of capital. It does not have any relation with the defence of the plans of one or the other imperialist pole and the profitability of one or the other monopoly group.

The material basis of the necessity of socialism in Greece

73. The Greek people will be liberated from the bonds of capitalist exploitation and the imperialist unions when the working class together with its allies carries out the socialist revolution and moves forwards to construct socialism-communism.

The KKE’s strategic goal is the conquest of revolutionary working-class power, that is to say the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the socialist construction as the immature phase of the communist society.

The revolutionary change in Greece will be socialist.

The driving forces of the socialist revolution will be the working class as the leading force, the semi-proletarians (i.e. those who have their main income from waged labour and not from some kind of ownership of the means of production), the oppressed popular strata of the urban self-employed, the poor farmers.

74. Over recent years, the material pre-conditions for socialism in Greece have developed even further. The capitalist relations have expanded into agricultural production, education, health, culture-sports and the media. There was greater concentration in manufacturing, retail, construction, in tourism. Enterprises belonging to private capital have developed with the abolition of the state monopoly in telecommunications, and in the monopolised sections of energy and transport.

The economically active population has increased over the last 15 years, a tendency which was halted after the outbreak of the crisis.

Over the decade wage labour increased significantly as a percentage of employment as a whole, while the number of self-employed remained stable, as the reduction of a section of the self-employed was accompanied by their increase in the service sector.

Since 2008 the Greek capitalist economy has entered a new crisis cycle, resulting in its cumulative reduction of 20% by the end of 2012.

An even larger reduction was witnessed in industrial production, which is less than 80% of 2005 production levels. The rapid increase of unemployment and absolute destitution-extreme poverty, the increase of the number of homeless people are results of the deepening of the crisis and of the bourgeois political management of it. Youth and long-term unemployment have become an explosive problem.

The distance between the contemporary needs of the people and the working class and their satisfaction increased sharply. The parasitism and decay of monopoly capitalism have been manifested in all the sectors of production, retail, in the circulation of money capital, in all the structures for the organization of capitalist society, in all the institutions of the system: financial over-speculation, fraud, embezzlement, corruption, disasters such as pollution in general and in the food production chain, in water, in the atmosphere, in the forests and coasts. The most parasitic profiteering has expanded, such as the drug trade, the organized prostitution of women and children etc. The connections between the centres which illegally bribe MPs and ministers and the organs of power became apparent as well as the connections between organized crime networks and the criminal prosecution authorities.

At the same time, the changes in the structure, the content and the extent of the sectors of the bourgeois state which serve strategic needs for the reproduction of capital create difficulties for the policy of social alliances of the ruling class as well as the sharpening of the basic contradiction between capital and labour.

The acceleration of the restructurings reduces the stratum of the labour aristocracy and the state employees and obstructs the effort of the bourgeois policy to manipulate the labour movement and to assimilate large sections of wage labour.

The contradiction between the social character of labour and the private capitalist appropriation of the largest part of its results, due to the capitalist ownership of the concentrated means of production is being highlighted intensely in every aspect of economic and social life. The need for social ownership, Central Planning with working class power is emerging as an urgent necessity. Socialism is more necessary and timely than ever from the standpoint of the material conditions.

In Greece there exist the material conditions for socialist construction. This fact flows from the historical era of capitalism, from the level of Greek capitalism’s development, from the sharpening of its basic contradiction and its contradictions as a whole. Socialist construction can safeguard the satisfaction of the people’s needs which are constantly expanding.

Greece today has major unutilized productive potential which can be liberated only through the socialization of the means of production by the people’s-working class power, with the central scientific planning of production. It possesses important domestic energy sources, considerable mineral resources, industrial, craft, and agricultural production which can meet a large part of the people’s needs: in food and energy, transport, the construction of public infrastructure works and people’s housing. The agricultural production can support industry in its various sectors.

The duties of the KKE for the socialist revolution

75. The KKE operates in the direction of preparing the subjective factor for the prospect of the socialist revolution, despite the fact that the time period of its emergence is determined by objective pre-conditions, the revolutionary situation.

The activity of the KKE in a non-revolutionary situation decisively contributes to the preparation of the subjective factor (party, working class, alliances) for revolutionary conditions, for the realization of its strategic duties:

• The rallying of the large majority of the working class with the KKE, determined for the revolution.
• The alliance of the working class with the popular strata oppressed under capitalism, some to be drawn more or less actively into the revolutionary struggle, others to be rendered neutral.
• The support for the people engaged in the revolution by the broadest possible forces which are detached from the army.
• The ensuring of the overwhelming superiority of the revolutionary forces rallied with the KKE against the reactionary bourgeois and wavering petty bourgeois at the decisive moment and in the decisive areas. This is an important political and at the same time organizational issue.

These duties are implemented only in a revolutionary situation; their implementation will develop simultaneously, and interact with the main and decisive task of rallying the majority of the working class with the party.

More specifically on the revolutionary situation

76. The revolutionary situation is a factor which is created on an objective basis, that is to say it combines a sudden weakness in the functioning of the bourgeois power (“those above can no longer govern as before”) and a sudden upsurge in the mood and activity of the popular masses (“those below”) who no longer wish to live as they used to, subjugated to the exploiting power. It includes the sudden mass upsurge in the mood of the working class as well as the questioning of power by the people and the tendency for an uprising. In these conditions, the role of the organizational and political readiness of the vanguard of the labour movement, the communist party, is decisive for the rallying and revolutionary orientation of the majority of the working class, especially of the industrial proletariat, and the winning over of leading sections of the popular strata.

It is not possible to predict in advance the factors which will lead to the revolutionary situation. The deepening of the economic crisis, the sharpening of the inter-imperialist contradictions, which can even turn into military conflicts, can create such conditions in Greece.

In the instance of Greece’s involvement in an imperialist war, either in a defensive or aggressive war, the party must lead the independent organization of the workers’-people’s struggle in all its forms, so that this is linked with the struggle for the complete defeat of the bourgeois class, both the domestic one and the foreign invader, and with the conquest of power in a practical way. A workers’ and people’s front, using all forms of struggle, must be formed on the basis of the initiative and the guidance of the party. This front will have the following slogan: the people will provide the liberation and the way-out from the capitalist system, which as long as it prevails brings war and “peace” with the gun to the people’s head.

During the revolutionary process, the working class together with its allies creates the germs of the organs of working class power.

The economic crisis and the imperialist wars are common threats for the working class and popular strata of every capitalist society. This constitutes the objective potential for the revolutionary movement in one country to be supported by the activity of the revolutionary movement in another country, especially in neighboring ones, in the wider region. What flows from this is the need for planned and coordinated joint action against every imperialist alliance which aims to suppress the revolution in one country, as well as the potential to form the conditions for the victory of socialism in a group of countries.

More specifically on the revolutionary worker’s and people’s front

77. The rallying of the majority of the working class with the KKE and the attraction of leading sections of the popular strata will pass through various phases. The fronts of struggle – above all the labour front- and the forms of the People’s Alliance with anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist goals, with the vanguard activity of the KKE’s forces in non-revolutionary conditions, constitute the first form for the creation of the revolutionary workers’ and people’s front in revolutionary conditions. The working class and popular masses, through the experience of their participation in the organization of the struggle in a direction of confrontation with capital’s strategy, will be persuaded of the need for their organization to have a character which is in a full and multi-facetted confrontation with the economic and political dominance of capital.

In the conditions of the revolutionary situation, the revolutionary workers’ and people’s front, using all forms of activity, can become the centre of the popular uprising against capitalist power. It must prevail in the basic regions, particularly in the industrial-trade-transport centres, communications and energy centres, so that the full demobilization of the mechanisms of bourgeois power is possible as well as their neutralization, and so that revolutionary institutions created by the people can emerge and prevail. These revolutionary institutions will undertake the new organization of society, the overthrow of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of revolutionary working class power.

There will be the constant impact of opportunist and reformist positions in the revolutionary process, and consequently the need to struggle against them and to marginalize them inside the workers’ and people’s front.

In the conditions of the revolutionary situation, the workers’ and peoples front will create committees to protect the strikes and other forms of the uprising. It will acquire the ability and means to protect the revolution in all its phases, to impose the workers’ control in the factories, banks, agricultural production together with the poor farmers, to feed the people, to deal with the various mechanisms of reaction.

The revolutionary workers’ front will acquire the ability to oppose the violence of capital with its own violence, the ability to have a paralyzing effect on the staff of the class enemy, to neutralize its counterrevolutionary plans, to cut it off from the active support of people who come from the working class and popular strata. It will have the ability to express the poor sections of the farmers, the popular sections of the urban self-employed, the semi-proletarians, the masses of unemployed and immigrants and integrate them in this direction of struggle.

78. Historical experience demonstrates that the socialist revolutions of the 21^st century, compared to the bourgeois revolutions of the 19^th century and even to the socialist revolutions of the 20^th century, will have to face a much more organized repressive machine, more technologically developed means of information and mass destruction. They will have to deal with the mechanisms of the capitalist state’s violence which are integrated into inter-state structures, like NATO, the Euro-army, the Schengen Agreement etc.

Despite all this the human being does not cease to be the decisive factor in using and dealing with technology. On this basis, the workers’ and people’s activity has the potential to neutralize these means or to use them in favour of the revolutionary movement.

The conquest of working class power in one country contributes to the development of the international revolutionary labour movement, to the conciliation of the working class, popular forces, irrespective of ethnic background, language, cultural and religious heritage, and to the coordination of the class struggle at a regional and international level, to the formation of revolutionary alliances, and even for the defense of each socialist revolution against the international capitalist counterrevolutionary activity.

The leading role of the Party in the revolution

79. The KKE emerges actually as the leading force inside the revolutionary process as long as it safeguards the revolutionary line and its competence and has organizations in large units of production, in fields and services which play a decisive role in the overthrow of bourgeois power.

The organizational, ideological and political independence of the KKE holds true in all conditions and in every instance, regardless of the forms of mass organization of the working class engaged in the revolution and its alliance with the poor farmers and other self-employed taking part in the uprising.

The existence of strong organizations of the party and KNE ensures the formation of party members and members of KNE capable of propagating the ideological and political positions of the party, mainly in the large workplaces and the places of vocational training, as well as in the mass organizations; of inspiring trust; of setting the example of vanguard, selfless activity with self-sacrifice; of utilizing the initiative of forces taking part in activity, fighting against reformism-opportunism and national socialist-fascist activity.

The party fights for the unity of the working class in Greece irrespective of race, national background and language, cultural and religious heritage.

The readiness, the material and ideological equipment, the continuous confrontation with opportunism are the pre-conditions for the effective guidance of the confrontation against the mechanisms of bourgeois power at every level.

80. The leading role of the party in the concentration of forces for the revolution will not be a “one-act play” or a process which will unfold smoothly. It will have upward and downward phases; it will be influenced and determined by the correlation of forces between the bourgeoisie and the working class, by the consciousness of the majority of the industrial proletariat, by the detaching of the semi-proletarians, poor farmers and other self-employed from the bourgeois class and petty bourgeois and opportunist influence. It is impossible to predict all the phases of this process, and all the factors which will accelerate or slow down the developments, the exact condition of each class and social group, the correlation of forces inside the forces of the working class and the popular strata engaged in the struggle. Nevertheless, the role of the KKE and its ability to assess the developments in a timely and objective way and to intervene accordingly will be decisive.

The leading role of the party exists, in practice and not just at the level of proclamations, after the overthrow of the power of capital as the first act of the transition of the revolutionary process into a new period of the class struggle. This is related to the abolition of capitalist relations and the creation of new socialist relations, as well as to dealing with the domestic and foreign re-organization of capitalist violence.

The party aims for the revolutionary working class power to be supported by the revolutionary and people’s movements of neighbouring and other countries against the capitalist states which seek its overthrow. It aims to form a joint revolutionary centre at least amongst neighbouring countries, as long as similar conditions exist.

The party, stably committed to proletarian internationalism, practically expresses its support for the revolutionary movements of other countries.

It fulfils its revolutionary duty without canceling it in the name of the difficulties created for the class struggle by the international correlation of forces, without considering the international correlation of forces as still and immobile.

Socialism as the first, lowest phase of communism

81. Socialism is the first phase of the communist socio-economic formation; it is not an independent formation. It is an immature communism. The basic law of the communist mode of production is valid: “planned production for the extended satisfaction of social needs.”

The development potential of the country will be placed at the service of the people and their needs through the Central Planning. This is also true of whatever has been created by human activity in science, technology and culture. This will endure a higher standard of living and intellectual development. Unemployment and labour insecurity will be eradicated, free time will be increased, so that the working people will be able to actively participate and exercise workers’ control in order to safeguard the character of working class power.

82. Socialist construction is a single process which starts with the conquest of power by the working class. In the beginning, the new mode of production is formed, which basically prevails through the complete abolition of capitalist relations, of the capital-wage labour relation.

• The socialisation of the means of production in industry, energy-water supply, telecommunications, construction, repair, public transport, wholesale and retail trade and import-export trade, the concentrated tourist – restaurant infrastructure, the capitalist agricultural cultivations.
• The socialization of land and the capitalist agricultural cultivations. State production units will be created for the production and processing of agricultural products as raw materials or consumer products. The Greek reality does not require the redistribution of land. Those who do not own land will work in the socialist agricultural and livestock units. The measure of the socialization of land ends the possibility of land being concentrated, the change of its use and its commodification by individual or cooperative agricultural producers.
• The abolition of private ownership and economic activity in education, health-welfare, culture and sports, in the mass media. They are completely and exclusively organized as social services.
• The abolition of the use of alien labour, i.e. wage labour, by those who still possess isolated means of production in sectors that have not been compulsorily socialized, e.g. in crafts, agricultural production, tourism-restaurants, in certain auxiliary services.
• Means of production, raw materials and other industrial materials and resources, and labour force will be used in production and the organization of social and administrative services via Central Planning.
• Industry and the largest part of agricultural production will be carried out with relations of social ownership, Central Planning, workers’ control over the whole spectrum of management and administration.

83. Agricultural productive cooperatives will be promoted, which will have the right to utilize the socialized land as a means of production. The integration of small farmers will be carried out on a voluntary basis. The incentives for cooperativization are: the reduction of the cost of production through collective cultivation work and collection of agricultural produce; the protection of agricultural production from natural phenomena through the state infrastructure and scientific and technical support; the concentration of agricultural produce via the state retail sector; the even distribution of labour time on a year basis though the extension of mechanization and central coordination to deal with unforeseen weather hazards. The reformation of the village with urban features regarding unified education, fully equipped health centres connected with hospitals in the nearest urban centres, cultural infrastructure, transport etc.

To the extent which labour is socialized through producer cooperatives and the use of mechanized means of production and collective infrastructure, the pre-conditions will be created for direct integration into social ownership and full integration into the central plan. In this direction the contradiction between the city and countryside, industrial and agricultural production, will be eliminated. The improvement of their working and living conditions will be the benefit for those who previously worked in the cooperatives.

84. The division of labour in the socialized means of production is based on the central plan that organizes production and social services and determines its proportions, with the aim of satisfying the expanded social needs, and the distribution of products (use values). It is a centrally planned division of social labour and directly integrates - not via the market - individual labour, as part of the total social labour.

Central Planning consciously outlines the objective proportions of production and distribution, as well as the effort to develop the productive forces in an all-sided way.

It prioritizes the production of means of production. The development of productive capability as a whole and the technological equipping of the social services depend on this. In the final analysis, the ability of the expanded reproduction and the rise of social prosperity are dependent on this.

The scientific laws of Central Planning are not identified with each specific plan, which approaches to a greater of lesser extent the objective proportions of the expanded socialist accumulation and social prosperity.

Central Planning aims, in the medium and long term, to develop in a generalized way the ability to perform specialised labour, as well as shifts in the technical division of labour, to achieve the all-round development of labour productivity and the reduction of labour time, for the prospect of eliminating the differences between executive and supervisory labour, between manual and intellectual labour.

Cooperative production is subordinated to some extent to Central Planning, which determines the part of the production that is allocated to the state and sets the state prices, at which the produce is collected by the state, as well as the prices, the produce is sold at in the state-organized popular markets.

85. Central Planning will be organised by sector, through a unified state authority, with regional and industry-level branches. Planning will be based on a totality of goals and criteria such as:

• In Energy:

Development of infrastructure for the reduction of the level of energy dependence of Greece, safeguarding adequate and cheap popular consumption, the safety of workers in the sectors and of residential areas. Protection of public health and the environment. In this direction, energy policies will have the following pillars: the utilisation of all domestic energy sources e.g. lignite, hydro-electric power, wind power, solar energy, oil, natural gas etc, the systematic research and discovery of new sources, the pursuit of mutually beneficial inter-state cooperation.

• In Transport:

Priority will be given to mass rather than private transport, to rail transport on the mainland of the country and to ferry services with modern vessels for coastal regions and islands. Planning will be carried out based on the criterion of having all forms of transport operate in an interlinked and complementary way and with the goals of cheap and fast transport of people and goods, the saving of energy, the balanced human intervention in the environment, the planned development for the eradication of uneven regional development, the full control of defence and national security of the socialist state. This requires also the planning of the relevant infrastructure -ports, airports, railway stations, roads and of an industry for the production of means of transportation.

• In manufacturing and mining industry:

Priority will be given to the production of means of production through the utilisation of the mining industry combined with the development of the respective sectors of manufacturing, by means of supporting national scientific research.

Greece has important reserves of metallic mineral resources such as bauxite, metallic minerals (gold, nickel, copper), mineral resources (perlite, magnesite, marble, etc.).

The mining of mineral resources will be combined with their industrial processing (e.g. production of aluminium and of relevant aluminium components), with the development of metal and petrochemical industry, the production of machines and means of transport aiming at the reduction of the dependence on foreign trade; similarly in sectors of manufacturing, such as the chemical industry.

The Central Planning will promote the proportional harmonized relation between agricultural production and industry for significant and necessary raw materials in the sectors of food industry, textile, leather and clothing industry and generally in the industry of consumer goods. Accordingly agricultural production will be based on domestic industrial production of fertilizers, pesticides, fodder, seeds etc. agricultural machines, irrigation infrastructure.

• In telecommunications:

Cheap, rapid, safe and universal access to communication, information, entertainment as well as the utilisation of technological capabilities for the enhancement of scientific central planning and workers’ control, for equal utilisation of the corresponding applications of the scientific central planning and workers’ control in industry, in administration, as well as in social services (tele-medicine, tele-teaching etc). Priority is given to the construction and enhancement of the respective infrastructure works for the development of the domestic industrial production of telecommunication equipment.

• Spatial planning- construction:

Spatial planning on the basis of the results of research concerning the definition of new needs, the elaboration of regulations and standards as well as on the basis of a national plan for the management of wastes, for the comprehensive management of the water resources for their protection and utilisation according to the criterion of people’s prosperity and the construction of cities that will be people-friendly.

Even development of construction in order to cover the needs for housing, for public infrastructure works, for supporting agricultural production, industry, social services. Industrial production can cover the needs of the sector of construction in cement and building materials.

Safe, modern standards for people’s housing combined with the reshaping of cities, operational infrastructure for quick safe transportation, protection against floods, fires, earthquakes, sufficient green spaces combined with zones for sports, culture and entertainment.

86. Scientific research will be organised through state institutions, universities, institutes, etc. and will serve the protection and promotion of health, Central Planning, the administration of social production and social services, in order to develop social prosperity.

State social infrastructure will be created which will provide high-quality social services in order to meet needs which today are being tackled by individual or family households (e.g. restaurants in workplaces, in schools, facilities for leisure. In addition, welfare institutions and high-level facilities will be created in order to protect, take care of and ensure the dignity of people who cannot help themselves due to their age (children, elderly) or due to illness (people with special needs).

All children will be provided with free and public pre-school education, exclusively public, free of charge, general 12-year education through schools with a unified structure, programme, administration and operation, technical equipment, specialised staff educated in a unified system. The systems of evaluation aim at the consolidation of knowledge, at the development of a dialectic-materialist way of thinking, self discipline and collectivity. Through a unified system of free public higher education, scientific personnel will be formed, capable of teaching in universities and of providing the specialised staff in areas of research, socialised production and state services.

An exclusively public and free health and welfare system will be established. A particular emphasis is given to the prevention of diseases and services which are necessary for physical and psychological well-being, for the intellectual and cultural development of every individual, for ensuring the environmental and social conditions that affect public health, social activity and the ability to work.

87. The role and the function of the Central Bank will change. The regulation of the function of money as a means of commodity circulation will be restricted to the exchange between socialist production and the production of agricultural cooperatives, in general with the commodity production of that portion of consumer goods that are not produced by the socialist production units, until the final eradication of every form of private ownership over means of production and of the existence of commodity production. On this basis, the respective functions of certain specialised state credit institutions for agricultural cooperatives and certain small commodity producers will be controlled by the Central Bank.

The development of Central Planning and the extension of social ownership in all areas make money gradually superfluous, both in terms of content and form.

The Central Bank, as a department of Central Planning, controls international transactions (inter-state, trade, tourism) as long as capitalist states exist on earth. These transactions are carried out exclusively by state authorities. It will also regulate gold reserves or reserves of other commodities which operate as world money or any other general reserve. The Central Bank will play a role in the exercise of general social accounting and it will be connected to the organs and goals of Central Planning.

88. Socialist construction is incompatible with the participation of the country in imperialist unions, such as the EU and NATO, IMF, OECD with the existence of USA-NATO military bases. The new power, depending on the international and regional situation, will seek to develop inter-state relations of mutual benefit between Greece and other countries, especially with countries whose level of development, problems and immediate interests may ensure such a mutually beneficial cooperation.

The socialist state will seek cooperation with states and peoples who objectively have a direct interest in resisting the economic, political and military centres of imperialism, first and foremost with the peoples who are constructing socialism in their countries. It will seek to utilize every available “rupture” which might occur in the imperialist “front” due to inter-imperialist contradictions, in order to defend and strengthen the revolution and socialism. A socialist Greece, loyal to the principles of proletarian internationalism, will be, to the extent of its capabilities, a bulwark for the world anti-imperialist, revolutionary and communist movement.

The satisfaction of the social needs

89. Social needs are determined according to the level of development of the productive forces which has been achieved in the given historical period.

Basic social needs (education-health- welfare) are provided to all for free according to the needs while another part of them is covered by a relatively small part of the money-income acquired through labour (housing, energy, water, heating, transport, nutrition).

A characteristic of the first phase of communist relations, i.e. of the socialist relations, is the distribution of one part of the products “according to labour”. The distribution of a part of socialist production “according to labour”, which resembles commodity exchange only in terms of its form, is a result of capitalist inheritance. The new mode of production has not managed to discard it yet, because it has not developed all of the necessary human productive power and all the means of production to the necessary dimensions, through the widest use of new technology. Labour productivity does not yet allow a decisively large reduction of labour time, the abolition of heavy and one-sided labour, so that the social need for compulsory labour can be eradicated.

The planned distribution of labour force and of the means of production entails the planned distribution of the social product. This is a fundamental difference compared to the distribution of the social product through the market, based on the laws and categories of commodity exchange.

90. Labour time in socialism is not the “socially necessary labour time” that constitutes the measure of value for the exchange of commodities in commodity production. It is the measure of the individual contribution to social labour for the production of the total product. It operates as a measure for the distribution of these products of individual consumption which are still distributed “according to labour”.

Access to that part of the social product that is distributed “according to labour” is determined by the individual labour contribution of each person in the totality of social labour, without distinguishing between complex and simple labour, manual or otherwise. The measure of individual contribution is the labour time which is determined by the plan based on the total needs of social production, the material conditions of the production process in which “individual” labour is included. The special needs of social production for the concentration of the labour force in certain areas, branches, etc., as well as other special social needs, such as maternity, individuals with special needs, etc. are taken into account in the determination of the labour time.

The personal stance of each individual vis-a-vis the organization and the realisation of the productive process plays a decisive role in the productivity of labour, in the evolution of labour time, in material saving, in the application of more productive technologies, the more rational organisation of labour, the exercise of workers’ control in administration-management.

91. Incentives will be formed for the development of a vanguard communist attitude vis-a-vis the organization and execution of labour in the production unit or social service, as a result of the combination of various specific types of labour. The incentives will aim at the reduction of purely unskilled and manual labour, at the reduction of labour time, in parallel with access to educational programmes, leisure and cultural services, participation in workers’ control. We reject the monetary form of incentives.

The planned development of the productive forces in the communist mode of production should increasingly free up more time from work, which should then be used to raise the educational-cultural level of working people; to allow for workers’ participation in the realisation of their duties regarding workers’ power and administration of production, etc. The all-round development of man as the productive force in the building of the new type of society, of the communist relations and the communist attitude towards directly social labour, is a two-way relationship. Depending on the historical phase, either the one or the other side will take precedence.

The struggle of the new against the old. The necessity of the conscious and planned eradication of the elements of immaturity

92. The overcoming of the elements of immaturity that characterize the lower phase of communism, that is socialism, is a precondition in order for the laws of communism to fully prevail.

In socialism the vestiges of the previous modes of production have not yet been eradicated and the material conditions of the socialist mode of production have not matured so as to fully take on its communist character, so that the principle “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” enters completely into force.

Initially there remain forms of individual and group ownership that constitute the basis for the existence of commodity-money relations.

On the basis of its economic immaturity, there still continue to exist social inequalities, social stratification, significant differences or even contradictions, such as those between city and country, between intellectual and manual workers, between specialized and unskilled workers. All of these inequalities must be completely eradicated, gradually and in a planned way.

During the construction of socialism, the working class acquires progressively, not in a uniform fashion, the ability to have an overview of the different parts of the productive process, of supervisory work, a substantive role in the organization of labour. As a result of the difficulties in this process, it is still possible that workers with a managerial role in production, workers engaged in intellectual labour and possessing a high scientific specialization, would tend to isolate the individual interest and the group interest from the social interest, or would tend to lay claim to a larger share of the total social product, since the “communist attitude” towards labour has not yet prevailed.

93. The social revolution is not restricted only to the conquest of power and the formation of the economic base for the socialist development, but is extended during the entire course of socialism; it includes the development of socialism for the attainment of the higher communist phase.

Subsequently, the new relations will be extended and deepened, communist relations and the new type of man will develop to a higher level that guarantees their irreversible supremacy, provided that capitalist relations have been abolished on a global scale or at least in the developed and influential countries of the imperialist system.

The socialist course contains the possibility of a reversal and a retreat backwards to capitalism, as the experience from the counterrevolutionary overthrow in the USSR and the other socialist countries showed. Retreat is in any case a temporary phenomenon in history. The transition from an inferior mode of production to a higher one is not a straightforward ascending process. This is also shown by the very history of the prevalence of capitalism.

The leap that takes place during the period of socialist construction, i.e. during the revolutionary period of the transition from capitalism to developed communism, is qualitatively superior to any previous one, since communist relations, which are not of an exploitative nature, are not shaped within the framework of capitalism. A struggle of the “seeds” of the new system against the “vestiges” of the old one takes place in all spheres of social life. It is a struggle for the radical change of all economic relations and, therefore, of all social relations, into communist relations.

94. During this long-term transition from the capitalist society to the developed communist one, the policies of the revolutionary working class power, with the Communist Party as the leading force, give priority to the formation, extension and deepening of the new social relations, to their complete and irreversible prevalence, not in a voluntarist manner, but based on the laws of the communist mode of production.

There will be an ongoing battle for the eradication of every form of group and individual ownership over the means and results of production and of the petit-bourgeois consciousness that has deep historical roots. It is a struggle for the formation of a communist consciousness and attitude towards the direct socialised labour.

The socialist accumulation which will be achieved, will lead to a new level of social prosperity. This new level makes the gradual extension of new relations in that area of productive forces possible which previously were not mature enough to be included in the directly social production. There is a constant expansion of the material prerequisites for the abolition of any differentiation in the distribution of the social product among the workers, in the directly social production; for the continuous reduction of the necessary labour time; for the constant educational-cultural development and the technological-scientific specialisation of man; for the eradication of reactionary and anachronistic views, customs and attitudes regarding a series of social issues such as the women’s question.

In accordance with the universal social law of the correspondence of the relations of production with the level of development of the productive forces, each historically new level of development of productive forces that is initially achieved by socialist construction, demands a further “revolutionization” of relations of production and of all economic relations, in the direction of their complete transformation into communist relations, by means of revolutionary policies. 

The development of the communist mode of production in its first phase, socialism, is a process through which the distribution of the social product in monetary form will be eradicated. Communist production – even in its immature stage – is directly social production.

Fundamental principles of the formation of the socialist power

95. The socialist power is the revolutionary power of the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat. The revolutionary working class power requires a high level of organisation with all means available. It requires workers’ control in the exercise of the administration of the industrial units in the sectors of strategic importance. In that way the working class power carries out its creative, social-economic and cultural work under all conditions -war communism, a relatively more peaceful period of socialist construction- it makes possible the supremacy of the workers’ and people’s majority against the organised domestic and foreign resistance of capital, its counterrevolutionary activity after the loss of its power.

This requires preparation and the ability to mobilise as quickly as possible the socialised means of production, the entire labour force through Central Planning so as to rapidly restore the losses that will occur in the period of nationwide crisis that will have preceded, the losses caused by the resistance of capitalists but also of the upper intermediate strata, by the external economic blockade, the imperialist interventions and wars etc.

96. The fundamental principles of the revolutionary working class power arise from the objective position of the working class in the socialised production process as well as by the fact that the working class as a whole has not achieved a unified consciousness of its social role. The fundamental principles of the new power are in total opposition to the old, bourgeois power. This arises from the fact that the socialised labour renders the private ownership over the means of production obsolete.

The extent and the forms that the revolutionary working class power uses for the repression of the counterrevolutionary activity depend on the stance of the political and social organisations towards the two conflicting forces, the working class and the capitalist class.

The organisation of the new power is a matter for the working class as a whole. The participation of other social forces

97. The socialist state as an organ of class struggle, which continues with other forms and under new conditions, does not have merely a defensive-repressive organisational function. It also has a creative, economic, cultural, educational function under the leadership of its ideological –political vanguard, namely its party. It expresses a higher form of democracy whose chief characteristic is the active participation of the working class and generally of the people. The people are educated on the basis of moral incentives that arise from the higher mode of production and democracy, during the formation of the socialist society, during the resolution of the old contradictions and social inequalities, during the control of the management of the productive units, of the social and administrative services of all the organs of power from the bottom up. The exercise of workers’ and social control will be institutionalised and safeguarded in practice, as will the unhindered criticism of decisions and practices which obstruct socialist construction, the unhindered denunciation of subjective arbitrariness and bureaucratic behaviour of officials, and other negative phenomena and deviations from socialist-communist principles.

The foundation of workers’ power is the productive unit, the social services, the administrative unit, the producer cooperatives where the working people exercise their rights: to elect and recall the representatives of the unit; to be elected in the lowest level of the working class power, in the Workers’ Council or the Cooperative Council; to elect and recall the representatives to the immediately higher organ of power.

The direct and indirect working class democracy, the principle of control, of accountability and the right of recall, which is extended to the members of the management, is based on the Assembly of the working people.

The Assembly in the production units, the social services, the administrative units, the producer cooperatives is the Body that safeguards the substantial participation of all workers, men and women, irrespective of their educational level and specialisation, irrespective of their linguistic, cultural religious heritage.

The voting right is safeguarded through the obligation of every man and woman, who are capable of working, to work while the working class state guarantees the corresponding job through Central Planning. The exclusion from the election right takes place on the basis of the criminal-disciplinary system.

The working class power will seek to integrate the women who are able to work and are below retirement age (18-55 years) into the direct social labour. This integration can take place gradually depending on the range of the problems that the working class power inherits and resolves.

The adults who do not work i.e. students will participate through the respective educational unit that is comprised of university professors and other workers.

The pensioners form a special social group, as they are characterised by class differentiation. For that reason pensioners will participate in the procedures of their last workplace.

The retired cooperative farmers will participate through their cooperative organisation. The self-employed will participate with their representatives.

The disabled, depending on their degree of disability, will either be incorporated into pensioners or will work under more favourable conditions, or into special educational-productive units.

The so called “minorities”, the sections of the working class who speak a different language, the immigrants inherited by capitalism, the political refugees will be treated according to these very principles. The socialist power ensures the preservation of the language and cultural traditions, their acquaintance with their historical roots by means of a special programme integrated in the cultural and educational system, without separate settlements, providing for their participation in the highest bodies.

Special committees for the needs of women, the young people, the people with special needs may arise from the organizations that took part in the revolution. These committees will be incorporated into the structure of the working class power.

The appointment of economic managers and managers of production –at least in units of a considerable size- will be related to the division of the specialized labour force which will be dealt with by Central Planning. The managers will be appointed as salaried employees without any special economic privileges. The organs of power will have the obligation to create the preconditions so that the unit can cover the needs for its administration on its own.

The management of the productive unit or the social service or the administrative unit will be comprised of many persons. The Workers’ Council will not be merely represented in the management but the management will participate in the Workers’ Council.

All the respective Bodies and Organs can pose the issue of controlling and recalling the management.

The socialist power inherits from capitalism a large number of salaried employees that come from the administrative services of capitalism (state employees, employees from the administrative mechanism of the businesses). The working class power seeks their political and cultural adaptation and their incorporation into the socialist productive units and the social services.

The working class character of the state power will be reflected in the composition of the people’s organs.

The socialist state will express the alliance of the working class with the self-employed, whose economic activity will continue to exist for a transitional period. It determines the conditions (obligations and rights) for sections the scattered self-employed and the cooperative farmers which constitute a transitional form and prepares them for their integration into direct social production.

In any case cooperatives are a transitional form of ownership. Therefore the Council of the Cooperative which is elected by its members is a self-administration organ with a transitional form.

Certain guidelines for the formation of the organs of power

98. The basis of the workers’ participation is the Assembly of the socialist productive unit, of the social or administrative service through which the lowest organ of power is elected, i.e. the Workers’ Council. The structure of the organs of power includes:

The Workers’ Council, the Regional Council and the Highest Organ of Working Class Power.

The Highest Organ of the Working Class Power is responsible for Central Planning, for the creative work in economy and in all social relations, for the protection of the socialist construction, the interstate relations. It has full authority, legislative, executive, judicial which are organized respectively in supervisory structures.

All three levels of the organs of power, according to hierarchy, are responsible for the organization of the protection of the revolution, for the people’s judiciary, the control mechanism.

The organs for defence and the protection of the revolution are based on workers’ and people’s participation as well as on permanent and specialized personnel.

All organs are characterized by the principle of democratic centralism which ensures the unified character of Central Planning and the specialization of its implementation.

A state organ which has particular importance is the Highest Administration of Central Planning that embraces committees for special issues e.g. women’s equality and women’s rights, committees that operate within the framework of the Highest Organ of Working Class Power.

The possibility of being recalled, the regulation of working-time in the workplace for the specific period of election according to the obligations in the organs, the exclusion of participation in more than two organs, and the exclusion of any economic privilege applies for all those who participate in the state organs of all levels.

A revolutionary constitution and revolutionary legislation will be formed, which will be in accordance with the new social relations-social ownership, Central Planning, workers’ control- and which will defend revolutionary legality. Labour Law, Family Law and all the legal consolidation of the new social relations will be shaped accordingly. The new judiciary will be uner the direct responsonsibility of the organs of power. The judiciary will be made up of elected and recallable lay judges, as well as of permanent staff, answerable to the institutions of working class state power.

New institutions will be created in place of the bourgeois army and repressive organs-which will be completely dissolved-based on the revolutionary struggle for the defeat of the resistance of the exploiters and for the defence of the Revolution. Their cadre will be shaped on the basis of their stance vis-à-vis the Revolution.

Gradually, via new military schools, a new corps will be created, chosen mainly from the youth with a working class background. It will be educated according to the principles of the new state-power. The positive experience of socialist construction, where the duties for the defence of the revolutionary achievements were carried out not only by the specialized permanent bodies, but also via the responsibility of the people through workers’ committees on a shift basis etc, will be utilised.

The working class power will utilise all new technical means, the new organisational forms based on technology in order to acquire an effective defence against international imperialism, in organisation and control as well as in order to restrict administrative acts to the necessary ones, to reduce the number of the working people in administrative-non productive labour to the minimum necessary degree.

The relationship of the KKE with the working class power

99. The KKE, as the ideological-political organised vanguard of the working class, will constitute the leading force of the revolutionary working class power, the dictatorship of the proletariat. It will vindicate its revolutionary leading role as long as it expresses the general interests of the working class and the scientific laws of the socialist-communist construction in practice. The working class even when revolutionary will not have achieved a unified communist consciousness, a communist stance towards the direct social labour, social ownership, it will not have overcome the differentiation among its sections as they develop in capitalism. The members and the cadre of the KKE and its Youth will participate in all forms of society’s organisation and will exercise their role as ideological-political leaders, with self-sacrifice, selflessness and without any economic privilege or any other privileges.

The members of the Youth of the KKE, of KNE, will act accordingly among the students and the school students under the political guidance of the organs and the forces of the party e.g. in education, in the workers’ army, in the groups for the protection of the revolution etc.

The role of the members and the cadre of the KKE is constantly being judged –confirmed or negated- in practice. This requires them to achieve a higher level of theoretical, scientific, technical knowledge so as to contribute to the ideological and political maturation of the working class for its new role as the leading power of the socialist –communist construction.

The KKE is the political force that introduces in all organs of the working class power the ability to carry out scientific predictions, to organize the activity in a planned way, to elaborate political plans for the formation of the socialist economic basis , of the new socialist relations of production and distribution, of all the new socialist-communist relations that characterize all the levels of the society’s organisation, education, culture, the relations between the two genders, the eradication of the long-term influence of the metaphysical dogmas etc.

The party through its members in each field –and KNE correspondingly in education- expresses its opinion on all issues (e.g. candidacies in organs, for the planning, the report of work etc).

100. The recognition and the realization of the leading role of the party, the acquisition of the corresponding social consciousness not only by the working class masses but generally by the majority of the people is the result of its revolutionary ideological political and organizational formation which is constantly judged in life. The dialectical relation between the revolutionary theory and the revolutionary practice is constantly being judged. This relationship entails:

• A party that will be essentially committed to the revolutionary communist ideology, on Marxism-Leninism from which it will acquire the ability to interpret the new phenomena and guide the class struggle according to the need to develop and consolidate the new mode of production; to consolidate socialism as the lowest phase of communism, as the decisive victory of the social ownership against every form of private ownership and the final victory of communism.
• A party with working class composition throughout its structure, members and cadres. Particularly in conditions of relative stabilization of the revolutionary power, the expansion of the forces of the party and its rejuvenation should not reverse the majority of the workers from the productive sections of industry.
• The working class composition of the party is combined with the collective responsibility so that all members of the party have a high level of Marxist education, the ability to protect the party and especially its highest organs from the penetration of bourgeois ideological constructs, revisionist tendencies and opportunist choices.
• A party that will be capable of producing-educating communist scientists, hence a party that will be at the frontline for the development of science, for the acquisition of new knowledge as well as for the extensive utilization of its results in favour of the irreversible victory of communism. Leading organs capable of ensuring the unity of the class and scientific character which is a precondition in order for the party perform its revolutionary vanguard role.
• A party that will be capable of expanding and renewing its revolutionary bonds with the working class, the creator of the social wealth, in new conditions, in the new turns of the class struggle, in every shift–negative or positive- of the correlation of forces in the country and internationally with an unwavering orientation regarding the basic social contradiction, that between capital and labour. With the vanguard stance of its members and cadres it will contribute practically to the development of a communist stance in labour.

The KKE has travelled a long way and has a long way to go because “the cause of the proletariat, communism, is the deepest, broadest, most universally human.”

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE KKE

4^th December 2012

PROLOGUE

These Statutes are proposed for adoption at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of Greece which will be held in April 2013.

They were formulated to by amending and supplementing the Statutes approved by the Party’s 15^th Congress. Experience from the distant and more recent past was also utilized in drafting them.

The Statutes determine the aims and character of the KKE, and the principles on which it is structured and operates.

They define the rights, obligations, primary duties and rules of activity for the Party’s members, Organisations and organs.

The great value and significance of the statutory principles and operating regulations of the KKE, as a revolutionary Party of a new type, have been judged and tested during the approximately 100 years of the KKE’s existence and activity, as well as by the rich experience of the international communist movement.

To defend these principles in a conscious and resolute way and to observe and apply them strictly and constitutes a paramount duty of every Party member. This duty is identified with the defence of the Party’s very existence and of the main conditions which enable it to lead the working class to accomplish its historic mission, the revolutionary conquest of working class power for the socialist construction.

INTRODUCTION

1. KKE is the Party of the working class, its conscious organised ideological political vanguard, its highest form of organisation. It is a revolutionary organisation of like-minded volunteers which is struggling to overthrow capitalism and build the socialist-communist society in which all exploitation of man by man, every form of private ownership of the means of production will be abolished, and in which a higher standard of living, the rights of the people and equality of opportunities and rights will be assured, as will the all-round social progress in Greece.

The strategic goal of the KKE is the conquest of revolutionary working class power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, for socialist construction. The KKE aims to devote all its forces to building this superior society, being fully aware that it will be the task of the working class itself, at the head of all those who suffer from capital’s power, and of its substantial participation both in the struggle to win it, and in the process of safeguarding and consolidating it.

The working class, the vehicle of socialist change, fighting in the front ranks of the struggle to overthrow capitalism, is striving not only for its own liberation, but for the liberation of all working people.

For these reasons, it is a historical necessity for the KKE to exist and grow stronger in Greek society. In order to win its fight against daily capitalist oppression and to end exploitation of man by man, the working class needs its own independent political organisation, a revolutionary Party capable of guiding its struggle for their vital interests and the construction of a new higher society, the socialist-communist one.

1917. b. In its organization, functioning and activity to realise these noble aims, the KKE is guided by the ideology of Marxism-Leninism and the proletarian internationalism. It is inspired by the first attempt in history at working class power, the Paris Commune (1871), and even more so by the first victorious socialist revolution in Russia in October 1917. It utilises the positive and negative lessons learned from the construction of socialism in the 20^th century, above all in the USSR. It understands the lesson that the class struggle continues until the abolition of every source of social inequality, every form of private ownership of the means of production. The KKE is guided by lessons of the class struggle in Greece, the heroic struggles of EAM-ELAS in the period of the occupation and December 1944 and especially in the climactic struggle of the Democratic Army of Greece 1946-1949.

The KKE, based on its worldview and with the aim of developing it, studies the socio-economic and political developments in Greece and internationally. On this basis it forms its programme, strategy and tactics.

1. The transition from the capitalist society, which is going through a profound crisis, to a socialist society presupposes the conquest of political power by the working class, the socialisation of the concentrated means of production, the creation of producer cooperatives in the non-concentrated means of production, the central scientific planning of social production and services, workers’ control, which will liberate the creative activity of the workers, the youth. The KKE is struggling with all its strength to make the working class and its allies aware of this need. In this framework, it exhausts every opportunity in its daily struggles to improve the lives of the working people, to protect and extend their economic, political, trade union, and cultural rights and freedoms.

In this struggle it seeks the unity of the working class, regardless of specialty, educational level, nationality, cultural and linguistic traditions or gender. It seeks the alliance of the working class with the poor farmers and self-employed in a people’s antimonopoly anti-capitalist alliance of struggle for working class power.

1. The organisational structure and operation of the KKE are determined by its aims and its revolutionary nature. Its fundamental principle is democratic centralism.

The consistent application of democratic centralism, in all its aspects, is necessary for the ideological, political and organizational unity of the Party, a necessary condition for it to achieve its goals.

1. The KKE is founded on the principle of proletarian internationalism. It bases its internationalism on the common interests of the working class, and on the common necessity and goal for socialism-communism in every capitalist country. It educates its members in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, international solidarity and cooperation with workers all over the world. It fulfils its internationalist obligations consistently and participates in the struggle for the regroupment, ideological and strategic unity and the strengthening of the international communist movement.

The KKE struggles against all manifestations of fascism, nationalism, chauvinism, racism and identifies patriotism with the class struggle.

CHAPTER 1

ORGANISING PRINCIPLES AND RULES FOR THE CONSTITUTION, OPERATION AND ACTIVITY OF THE KKE

ARTICLE 1

The structure and operation of the KKE is based on the principle of democratic centralism, which is an irreplaceable component of its revolutionary character.

Democratic centralism means inner-Party democracy, centralised leadership, unified action in the implementation of decisions with conscious discipline.

Based on democratic centralism, the creation and activity of organised groups within the Party is not permitted. This would undermine its ideological political organisational unity, its democratic operation and its effective action.

The main components of democratic centralism are:

1. A) Bringing the operation and activity of all Party organisations under one single leading centre, the Central Committee, which is the highest leading organ during the period between congresses.
2. B) That decisions made by higher leading organs must be implemented by lower organs, Party organisations and Party members.
3. C) Conscious Party discipline where the minority submits to the will of the majority. In the event of disagreement, those who disagree are obliged to unconditionally implement the decision made by the majority.

D)The election and right to recall regarding leading organs or members of these organs. Regular and extraordinary accountability to the organisations and the bodies that elected them. Systematic provision of information to the Party organisations about their decisions

1. E) Collectivity as the highest principle of the Party’s leadership, an essential condition for the unity, the unified and effective activity of the Party and all its organizations, the correct education, the development of the activity and initiative of the Party members. Decisions taken by only one individual substituting the collective decisions of the organs cannot exist in the Party.

In the framework of collectivity, the personality and contribution of every Party member develops.

1. F) Equality of all Party members with respect to their rights and obligations.

G)The monitoring, the criticism and self-criticism as necessary elements for the implementation of decisions and the development of activity, the generalization of experience, dealing with weaknesses and the correction of mistakes, the education and strengthening of conscious Party discipline.

Criticism and self-criticism is only exercised through the responsible organs and PBOs of the Party.

ARTICLE 2

1. a) Party Base Organizations (PBOs) are created in the workplaces, above all in the industrial businesses and sectors, in other enterprises, institutions and services, as well as amongst the self-employed. In addition, PBOs are created in the places of residency, the cities and villages.

The Party members, who work in industrial or other enterprises, institutions and services belong compulsorily to the organizations in their workplace or sectors. Exceptions are decided on by the Regional Committees and Sectoral Committees.

Party organizations are created on the decision of the Central Committee in countries where Greek immigrants and students live.

b)The PBOs are joined together in Sectoral Organizations and the Sectoral Organizations in Regional Organizations. If the CC decides, where there is a need, Area Committees which will unite a number of Sectoral Committees can be created.

In special instances, the Central Committee can create PBOs and Sectoral Organizations which are directly guided by it.

ARTICLE 3

Leading organs, Secretaries and their Bureaus, as well as representatives to Conferences, are elected by secret ballot, according to the procedure set out in the regulations.

Persons who receive 50% + 1 of the votes cast by those present are elected. If, after the first ballot, the number of those elected is not filled a second final ballot is held that included the candidates who did not receive 50% + 1 of the votes. In the second ballot they are elected according to the number of votes received.

All other decisions on other issues are taken by open ballot and a relative majority.

ARTICLE 4

In conditions of prohibitions of the Party’s activity, democratic centralism is applied with forms that safeguard the continuity of its single leadership and activity.

CHAPTER II

PARTY MEMBERS: OBLIGATIONS AND RIGHTS

ARTICLE 5

Any man or woman over the age of 18 who accepts its ideology, Programme and Statutes, belongs to and works in one of its organisations and pays their dues regularly is a member of the KKE.

ARTICLE 6

Members of the KKE are primarily workers. Also, leading working people from the popular strata, as well as students, housewives, who actively participate in the class struggle.

1. a) New members are accepted into the Party on an individual basis only. People who wish to become members of the Party must first become candidate members. This probationary period lasts for one year.
2. b) The accession of someone as a candidate member requires the recommendation of two full Party members who must have known the candidate for at least one year. The Party members who make the recommendations are responsible to the Party for their proposal. The accession to the Party is decided on by the assembly of the PBO and is ratified by the immediately higher organ within 2 months.

Members of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) who are of the required age, have been members of KNE for at least one (1) year, can join the Party directly as full members upon the recommendation of two full Party members and two Party members of the leading body of the relevant KNE organisation.

The length of a person’s Party life is calculated from the day on which the Party’s Base Organisation (PBO) made the decision to admit them to the Party as a candidate member. Regarding Party members who have come up through KNE, their Party file records the length of time they were members of KNE before becoming KKE members as being time served in KNE.

Candidate members have all the obligations and rights of members, apart from the right to vote and stand for election. Their votes are advisory. The PBO Bureau must provide every possible assistance to new members so that they may start their Party life in the right way, assimilating the principles of the Party’s organisation and operation. Candidate members must compulsorily pass through a self-education course. The decision to promote a candidate to full membership is made at the assembly of the Party’s Base Organisation. The decision is made upon a proposal of the Bureau of the BO in the presence of the person concerned. The decision is ratified by the immediately higher leading body within two months.

1. c) Former Party members who were expelled from or left the Party can be readmitted, as long as the Regional Committee approves the beginning of the procedure; there follows a special examination and decision of the General Assembly of the PBO with an increased majority of 4/5 of the members present and the final ratification by the higher organ with a similar majority.
2. d) Former members of other parties may be accepted as candidate members of the KKE, with a probationary term of two years, after recommendation by two Party members with three years of Party life. In such cases, ratification is required by the Regional Committee.

When leading cadres from another Party are involved, approval of the Central Committee is required for the procedure to start. The PBO examines the application as is determined by paragraph C and afterwards the final decision of the Central Committee is required.

A group accession of former members of other political parties and organizations cannot occur. What is required is the first approval of the Central Committee for the procedure for the individual application of each member of this group to begin and then the General Assembly of the PBO follows, based on the aforementioned provisions.

1. f) KKE members who live in another country may transfer to the corresponding Party in that country, upon approval by the Central Committee. Likewise, approval is required from the Central Committee for acceptance into the Party of a member from another Communist or Workers’ Party, provided that they have ceased their previous organizational relationship.
2. g) A KKE member cannot belong to any other Party, political organization, political initiative or grouping.
3. h) Party Members who move from one organisation into the range of activity of another organisation must notify their original organisation in good time, ensuring the transfer to the organisation to which they are going. The transfer of Party members is accompanied by a note with the opinion of the leading organ regarding their activity in the organization they used to belong to. The transfer of cadres requires the approval of the corresponding leading organ. The completion of the transfer procedure is monitored by the leading organs and the Secretariat of the CC, within the space of 2 months.
4. i) The Party can carry out a reregistering of its members, if decided on by Congress. The time and procedure are determined by the CC.

ARTICLE 7

The KKE member represents the Party wherever they are, particularly in the workplace. They are distinguished by the militant stance, class solidarity with colleagues, for their character and responsible stance at work, in the family, and in their lives as a whole.

The member of the KKE cannot have him/herself privileges from participation in the Party nor can they tolerate the existence of such privileges. All Party members have the same rights and obligations.

ARTICLE 8

Party members have the following obligations:

• To participate in the Assemblies of the PBOs to which they belong and pay their dues to. To take personal part in the discussions, decision-making and practical work of their organisation.To contribute to the elaboration of the Party policy by voicing their thoughts and experience of practical action.To carry out the decisions of the PBO and higher leading organs irrespective of their own personal views.
• To make the Party’s policies and ideology known among the working people. To contribute to consolidating and widening its links with the workers and other working people; to their enlightening and organisation in the workplaces and neighbourhoods.
• To belong to their union, or other mass popular organisation and to be in the vanguard in these organisations based on the political line of the Party.
• To study and distribute Rizospastis, KOMEP and other Party publications in order to put forward its policy and ideology and defend it against distortions, slander, snticommunism and unjust criticism. To make sure they keep up their knowledge of the Marxist-Leninist worldview, and to enhance their ideological, educational and political level, so that they will be in a position to fulfil their vanguard role consistently; to struggle firmly; to fight resolutely and uncompromisingly against bourgeois ideology and political line, and against right or left deviations from the theory of Marxism-Leninism, against opportunism.
• To fight actively for the Party’s ideological, political and organisational unity, to comply with and defend the Statutes and the principles contained therein.
• To develop the inner-party democracy and to fight against any violation of the operating bylaws, any complacency, selfishness, nepotism or localism. To deal decisively with any attempt to obstruct criticism against anything that may damage the Party or stand in the way of the free expression of opinion and, regardless of the persons involved, to report this to the Party organs, up to and including the Central Committee.
• To draw new members to the KKE, to contribute tirelessly to strengthening the Party organisationally, especially in the large factories and other workplaces, and to keep trying to improve the methods used in Party work.
• To protect the Party from attacks by adversaries of all kinds, developing a revolutionary vigilance. To defend the Party’s ideals and aims everywhere, always and under any circumstances whatsoever, without concessions.To protect the Party in their practical work, under interrogation, in the courts and in prison and steadfastly to defend the values and noble title of member of the KKE.

ARTICLE 9

Party members have the following rights:

• To participate in discussions held to shape Party policy at PBO Assemblies, in the organs of which they are members, and at conferences and congresses to which they are elected delegates. To participate in discussions and dialogue determined by the Central Committee through the Party press.
• To take part in the election of the Party’s leading organs and to stand for office in them, if they meet the qualifications set out by the Statutes.
• To express their opinion freely and responsibly to the competent organs about the activity of any Party member or cadre of any leading organ or organisation whatsoever.
• To demand responsible information from Party organs about Party issues. To be informed as fully as possible about the ideological and political basis for decisions which are to be put into effect, as well as about the activities of the organs and cadres.
• To address themselves, on any Party or personal issue, to the organisation they belong to, as well as to any higher leading organ in the organisation including the CC and the Party congress. To demand to be given prompt, reasoned responses to proposals or questions. PBOs or the leading organs are obliged to responsible deal with any issue arising to the detriment of a Party member and to make sure that the member is promptly informed there of.
• To take part in Party Assemblies and meetings of the bodies or committees to which they belong, when an issue is brought up with respect to their activity.
• To demand the undeviating application of the operating regulations of the Party’s organisations and organs.

ARTICLE 10

The recruitment of women from the working class and other popular strata to the Party must be the permanent concern of the Party members. All the Party organizations must develop permanent and stable activity for the rights, equality and emancipation of women, their participation in the social and political struggles.

CHAPTER III

THE LEADING ORGANS OF THE KKE

ARTICLE 11

The Congress is the Party’s highest leading body. A regular congress is convened by the Central Committee every four years. An extraordinary congress may be convened, if decided by the Central Committee, or upon a proposal by a Regional Committee, if it is approved by the other regional committees representing 50% of the Party members. This proposal must be submitted to the Central Committee. The Central Committee is obliged to submit it to the judgement of the other regional committees within three months, at the latest, from its date of submission. The Central Committee is obliged to hold a congress within at least two months. In both cases, an extraordinary congress cannot be convened on the same issues before one year has elapsed.

ARTICLE 13

The decision to hold a regular congress and the issues to be discussed at it are announced by the Central Committee at least three months before it is to take place.

The congress is in quorum when the number of delegates present constitutes the majority of the delegates elected.

The delegates to the congress are elected in a uniform ratio which the Central Committee lays down, by regional conferences and organisations under the direct guidance of the Central Committee. Members of the Central Committee and the Central Audit Committee who have not been elected delegates may take part in the congress with the right to speak.

ARTICLE 13

The Party Congress:

• Discusses and judges the report of the Central Committee and the Central Audit committee. It determines the duties of the Party until the next Congress.
• Votes on or amends the Party’s Programme and Statutes.
• Elects the Central Committee and the Central Audit Committee.
• For a person to be elected to these bodies, he or she must have at least seven years of Party life.

The number of members of the Central Committee and the Central Audit Committee is determined by the congress.

ARTICLE 14

The Central Committee is the Party’s leading organ between congresses:

1. a) It guides the Party’s entire ideological, political and organisational activity.
2. b) It regularly examines the Political Bureau’s report of its activities.
3. c) It sets out the Party’s policy and relations with other parties or organisations on the basis of the directions laid down by the congress.
4. d) It appoints the persons to be responsible for the Party’s main mass media, both press and electronic media.
5. e) It decides on the creation, content and composition of auxiliary sections and committees of the Central Committee and appoints persons to head them.
6. f) It ratifies the number and composition of the professional cadres in the Party, after a proposal by the Political Bureau and Secretariat.
7. g) It decides on the candidates for public elected offices of broader or national importance.
8. h) It decides to recall Party members occupying public elected national offices.
9. i) It determines the percentage of revenues which must be handed over by the Party organisations to its central Treasury. It manages the Party’s finances and all its property.

ARTICLE 15

The Central Committee elects the General Secretary and Political Bureau. The Political Bureau is responsible for leading the Party between sessions of the Central Committee on the basis of the latter’s decisions. The number of its members is determined by the Central Committee. Between Central Committee sessions, the Political Bureau briefs its members about Party matters. The Political Bureau, in all its actions and operations, must reinforce the leading role and responsibility of the Central Committee.

The Central Committee elects a Secretariat from among its members. The Secretariat is engaged in guidance the organisations, in monitoring the implementation of decisions and in dealing with on-going Central Committee and Political Bureau matters.

The number of members of the Secretariat and its precise responsibilities are determined by the Central Committee.

The Central Committee elects the Party Control Committee (PCC) and appoints its chairperson. The PCC examines charges brought by Party organisations and members against members, organs and organisations with respect to violations of Party discipline, of the Statutes; it also examines objections against decisions to expel members from the Party or to impose other penalties. A report is drafted containing proposals to be sent to the Central Committee for final decisions.

It examines applications for the reinstatement of Party members who have for various reasons lost their Party membership, and determines the number of years of their Party life.

ARTICLE 16

The Central Committee meets in regular sessions every three months and extraordinarily on decision of the Political Bureau, when a particular issue arises.

The members of the Central Audit Committee take part in Central Committee sessions with the right to speak and cast an advisory vote.

In special cases, the Central Committee may convene an extended session in which other Party cadres, decided by the CC, may take part.

ARTICLE 17

The Central Audit Committee (CAC) monitors the treasury, audits the management of the Party’s finances, and informs the Central Committee thereof regularly. The CAC assists the financial committees of the organizations and where necessary monitors the finances of the organizations themselves.

The Central Audit Committee elects a chairman from among its members.

ARTICLE 18

During the period between congresses, the Central Committee of KKE may call a Nationwide Party Conference:

Obligatorily, if there has been a decision by a previous congress to examine a particular issue. In addition, if it considers that a serious matter based on the socio-economic developments, the class struggle, or that there is an extremely serious need to discuss problems which concern the Party.

The following will take part in such a conference: the members of the Central Committee, the members of the Central Audit Committee, delegates from Party organisations elected by the regional committees. The Central Committee will decide on the number of delegates to be elected in a uniform ratio. The conference can made decisions within the framework of the Party’s Programme and Statutes and may fill in up to 1/10 of the members of the Central Committee.

The Central Committee will set the agenda for the conference and announce it at least one (1) month before the conference is to be held.

ARTICLE 19

The highest organ among Party organisations on the sectoral, area and regional level is the corresponding Party conference and for PBOs it is the general assembly of its members.

Between Party conferences, it is the relevant sectoral, area and regional committee.

ARTICLE 20

The regular conference of the sectoral, area and regional Party organizations is convened by the relevant committees every two years.

Extraordinary conferences are convened: a) on decision of the relevant leading organs and on approval by the immediately higher organ. b) on decision of the higher organ. c) When requested by the leading organ or the PBOs of the organisation in question representing 1/3 of its members.

ARTICLE 21

Delegates to the conferences of the relevant organisations are elected in a uniform ratio determined by the leading organs in question in accordance with Central Committee regulations.

The conferences of Party organisations discuss and decide on the report of the leading organs and audit committees, discuss and decide on matters related to Party work in their field, and elect the leading organ and audit committee. For members to be elected to the Sectoral or Area Committee and corresponding Audit Committee, they must have two years of Party life, five years for the Regional Committee and corresponding audit committee.

ARTICLE 22

The leading organs for sectors, areas and regions elect a Secretary or a Bureau.

The Bureau leads all the work between committee meetings. The election of committee members, the Secretary and the Bureau are ratified by the higher leading organ.

Regional committees meet in a regular session every two months; area and sectoral Committees every month. They meet extraordinarily by decision of the committee Bureaus or by decision of the higher leading organ.

The Audit Committees, at least every 3 months, supervise financial activity, the treasuries and the regular collection of dues and the management of the finances of the relevant organisations down to and including PBOs. They take part in the meetings of the relevant organs with the right to speak and an advisory vote.

ARTICLE 23

For a cadre to be selected and promoted to the leading bodies, they must have a heightened sense of Party responsibility. It is the responsibility of the leading organs at every level to take all the necessary ideological and political measures for the harmonious promotion and succession of cadres. The collective assessment of the cadres’ performance and the essential procedures for their election must be ensured in compliance with the relevant regulations.

Particular care and attention must be shown in the composition of the leading organs, to reflect and reinforce its character as the Party of the working class. The aim is for the Central Committee and Regional Committee to have a majority of workers and employees as members, while in the organs there must be care of the election of self-employed, poor farmers. There must be constant care to elect women to all leading organs, and to ensure a harmonious blend of older and younger cadres.

The Central Committee and the other leading organs are obliged to provide for the alternation of cadres on leading organs, as well as in elected positions in the institutions of the bourgeois state (Parliament, European Parliament, regions, municipalities), as well as in the trade union movement, especially at the secondary and tertiary level.

ARTICLE 24

Positions which may become vacant on the Central Committee between congresses are filled by the election of new members at a nationwide conference, if the CC deems necessary. For other leading organs between conferences, new members may be co-opted if judged necessary, on the responsibility of the corresponding leading organ. Co-opting a new member requires the consenting opinion of 2/3 of the members of the organ in question and approval by the higher leading organ. The number of new members must not exceed 2/10 of the existing members of the organ in question.

ARTICLE 25

The leading organs from the CC to the Bureau of the BO, in the middle and at the end of their term, assess the work of the organ as a whole and brief the lower organs and PBOs. In addition, the leading organs evaluate the individual work of its members.

These assessments are made available for the information during the procedure of the discussion of the election of new organs in the relevant conferences and for the CC at the congress.

ARTICLE 26

Procedural issues related to holding election assemblies and conferences are determined in a regulation decided upon by the CC.

ARTICLE 27

In order improve the study and elaboration of various issues and to facilitate the practical application of the Party’s decisions, special auxiliary sections, Party groups and committees may be created alongside the leading organs. The CC and the other leading organs must take care so that members of auxiliary sections, committees and Party groups are sufficiently tested through their participation in leading organs.

When decisions are being made about the cadres who are to participate in the auxiliary sections, Party groups and committees, the opinion of the PBO and organisations to which the cadres belong is necessarily requested.

ARTICLE 28

The leading organs call regular meetings of the cadres in every organisation. These meetings are of an advisory nature.

ARTICLE 29

Before taking decisions of general significance, and if circumstances permit, the leading organs have the obligation to seek the opinion of the lower Party organs and Party members.

ARTICLE 30

The KKE has the following mass media and means of enlightenment:

Rizospastis, organ of the KKE’s Central Committee, is the Party’s daily newspaper, organizer and guide of the masses. The Central Committee is responsible for publishing it and for its general directions, and appoints its management and editorial board.

Rizospastis promotes and defends the ideology and policy of the KKE. It publicises and defends the interests of the working class, the working people, and people’s movement in general. It provides full information on developments in Greece and throughout the world.

Communist Review (KOMEP) is the Party’s theoretical and political journal, organ of the Central Committee. It is directed by an editorial board appointed by the Central Committee.

KKE may create or participate in other central or regional print and electronic -radio/TV and internet- media. The Central Committee sets out the terms, framework and aims of KKE in each particular case. It appoints those responsible, the management and editorial boards of these media.

CHAPTER IV

PARTY BASE ORGANISATION

ARTICLE 31

The Party Base Organisation (PBO) is the foundation of the Party, the Party in its field of activity.

PBOs are created with the approval of the higher body, in places determined by Article 2 of these Statutes, provided that there are at least 3 Party members.

In places where no PBOs exist, they can be created upon the responsibility of the higher body, with Party members who come from other Organisations.

PBOs which do not fulfill their purpose are dissolved by decision of the higher body and with the approval of the Central Committee.

ARTICLE 32

Once a year, the PBO meets in a general account-and-election assembly to elect the Secretary and Bureau that are accountable to the PBO.

In PBOs with up to 10 members, one secretary is elected together with one deputy secretary. PBOs with ten and more members elect a Secretary and Bureau. The number of its members is determined by the assembly of the PBO, in proportion to the number of PBO members.

ARTICLE 33

PBOs can create sections or working groups in the framework of the PBO and Party groups in mass organisations in order to improve their operation and in order to meet the requirements in their field of responsibility in a comprehensive way.

The Bureau of the PBO appoints the responsible persons for the sections, the working groups and the Party groups in the mass organizations. They meet in order to elaborate the specific application the decisions of the PB and monitor their implementation by the members in their area of activity and are accountable to the assembly of the PBO.

ARTICLE 34

The PBO assembly is convened regularly, once a month. The assembly is convened at the decision of the PBO Bureau or of the higher organ. The comprehensive and timely notification of all its members is required in order to call an assembly. The assembly is in quorum when 50% +1 of its members are present.

The assembly of the PBO approves the agenda that includes the issues proposed by the Bureau or the ones that the assembly decides to discuss.

The report to the assembly is presented by the PBO Bureau, the higher leading organs and Party members, with the approval of the Bureau. The assembly states its position on the report, it takes concrete decisions and practical measures and assigns responsibilities for the implementation of the decisions of the PBO and the higher organs. At every assembly, and during the period between two assemblies, systematic control is organised as to the implementation of decisions and the mobilisation of members, on the responsibility of the PBO Bureau and of all the members.

ARTICLE 35

The main responsibilities of the PBO are:

1. a) With its planning and its stable activity It provides for the accession of new members into the Party and the corresponding organizations of KNE .
2. b) It participates responsibly and actively in the elaboration of the Party’s policy and decisions. It popularizes, applies and elaborates the specific application of the Party’s policy and the decisions of the leading organs in its field of responsibility.
3. c) it works for the class orientation of the activity of the trade unions and the other mass popular organizations in its field of responsibility. It plays a leading role in the creation of class oriented rallies and forms of people’s organization. It seeks the development of the struggle in the direction of the political goals of the Party, it elaborates the goals of struggle in the framework of the policy of the Party, it plays a leading role in the organization of the working class, the other popular strata.
4. d) It organises ideological work among its members, the friends and supporters of the Party and generally among working people and youth.
5. e) It provides for the daily dissemination and study of “Rizospastis” the Communist Review, the publications and the other printed materials of the Party.
6. f) It is responsible for the collection and development of the Party’s financial resources.
7. g) It is in contact with and directly linked with the supporters, friends and voters of the Party, it utilizes them and asks their opinion about the policy, the decisions and the activity of the Party.

It carries out a broad activity among the masses in its field of responsibility based on social and class criteria. It permanently and steadily strives to extend its bonds with all the leading elements in its area of responsibility; it provides for their systematic political information.

h)It discusses the problems of the youth; it takes initiatives about them and struggles in order to rally the youth around the policy of the Party. It makes efforts to establish a Base Organisation of KNE in its area of responsibility and takes care for its political guidance along with the leading organs of KNE. Thus it fulfills at the level of the PBO the respective articles of the Statutes which are included in the chapter about the organization of the Youth of the KKE, KNE.

ARTICLE 36

All the members of the PBO undertake specific duties and work to accomplish them. They give an account for these, they monitor and are monitored with respect to their action and to the activity of the PBO. Party cadres, regardless of the leading organ they may belong to, participate in their PBO, are given duties by the PBO and contribute to its activity.

ARTICLE 37

A PBO may address itself to the leading organs and to the CC to request information and suggest issues to be solved. The leading organs , within a short period of time, must provide or convey responsible answers to the PBO assembly in the presence of a member of this leading organ.

CHAPTER V

THE COMMUNISTS IN THE MASS ORGANISATIONS

ARTICLE 38

The KKE pays particular attention to the development and to the class orientation of the mass movement, and above all of the labour trade union movement.

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 organisations, these groups are comprised of members elected to their committees as well as of other members. In case there are no elected Party members, a small Party group is formed of members belonging to and working actively in the particular organisation.

Party groups, with the consent of the Party organisations, may hold meetings of Party members and supporters belonging to and acting in these fields.

Party groups discuss the problems in their field of activity on the basis of the Party’s general positions and the guidelines of the corresponding leading organs.

CHAPTER VI

THE COMMUNISTS IN THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE BOURGEOIS STATE

ARTICLE 39

The members of the Party who are elected or appointed upon a decision of the Party to legislative bodies, representative or other elected ones, and to the institutions of the bourgeois state in general, implement the policy and the decisions of the Party, are dedicated to the cause of the working class and consistently defend the people’s interests in general.

The proposal of Party members to undertake duties in these positions requires taking into account the opinion of the PBOS and the organs to which they belong to.

This position is at the disposal of the Party. The leading organs of the Party can appoint them to another area of work according to the needs of the Party.

The salaries, the compensations, the pensions or any other economic benefits that flow from their position are given to the Party according to a decision of the CC.

ARTICLE 40

The members of the parliament and the members of the European parliament who are members of the Party constitute the Parliamentary Group.

The Central Committee is responsible for the formation of the lists of the Party according to the proposals of the leading organs. It decides on the composition of the Parliamentary Group.

The parliamentary activity of the Party is subordinated to the goals and the needs of the class struggle.

The operation of the parliamentary group is specified by the Central Committee of the Party.

CHAPTER VII

KNE- THE YOUTH ORGANISATION OF THE KKE

ARTICLE 41

Throughout its history, the KKE has always paid special attention to the ideological and political intervention among the young people of the working class and the poor popular strata.

1. a) The Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) was founded by the KKE. It is the revolutionary youth organization of the KKE which adopts its worldview, Marxism-Leninism, the Programme of the KKE and promotes its strategy.
2. b) KNE is organized at the side of the Party with a distinct organizational structure. It is guided by the respective organs of the Party ideologically, politically and organizationally at all levels, from the Central Council to the Base The Party devotes its members and cadres who are members of KNE to the guidance of KNE.
3. c) The Party is consistently providing for the revolutionary education of the members of KNE, their acquaintance with its history and their preparation in order to join the ranks of the KKE. The Party is responsible for providing to the organizations of KNE any possible political and ideological assistance in order to extend its influence among the youth, in order to rally, to mobilize and militantly educate the young people of the working class and the poor popular strata.
4. d) The respective organizations of KNE are represented at the Party congress, at its nationwide conferences and at its PBO conferences by a delegation that has the right to speak.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PARTY'S FINANCES

ARTICLE 42

The Party’s financial resources come from the members’ dues, their fund-raising activity, from fund-raising campaigns, voluntary contributions, donations or bequests.

In addition, from the salaries, the pensions and the compensations that the members elected or delegated by the Party to institutions of the bourgeois state receive, as well as from state financing.

The Party can develop business economic activity in order to safeguard its ability to inform the people about its positions, ideologically and politically, to develop its mass political enlightening activity in the framework of the promotion of its political line.

ARTICLE 43

The Central Committee stipulates the level of the members’ monthly dues which should be at least 1% of their monthly income.

The contribution of the new member for their accession to the Party is equal to one month’s dues.

The Central Committee can readjust the level of the monthly dues of the Party membership according to the conditions and the needs of the Party.

It also stipulates the percentage of the fundraising activity of the organizations which must be handed over to the CC and decides on the fundraising campaigns of the Party.

It is a duty for all the leading organs and the members of the Party to seek the constant improvement of the Party finances so as to ensure its financial independence which is an essential condition for its existence and activity, for the fulfillment of its goals.

ARTICLE 44

The budget of the Party is approved by the Central Committee. The budget of each organization is being approved by the respective leading organs.

The Audit Committees present to the bodies that elect them, conferences or the congress,   a report on the financial situation and management.

The Central Committee manages the Party’s finances and property and provides regular briefings to Party members about the general state of the finances.

It appoints a Finance Committee which monitors and directs the sectors in question.

ARTICLE 45

The financial management carried out by the Party organisations is audited on a permanent, continuous basis by the relevant audit committees.

Audit is carried out regularly throughout the Party concerning the records of revenues and payments as well as concerning the advisability of the expenses.

ARTICLE 46

The professional cadres of the Party receive a financial support which must not exceed the average salary of the working people in private sector.

The same holds true for the members of the Party who work in the technical or auxiliary apparatus of the Party, in “Rizospastis”, in Communist Review, in other Party media, in the publishing house of the Party.

CHAPTER IX

MEASURES FOR THE OBSERVANCE AND THE DEFENSE OF THE STATUTES

ARTICLE 47

Every member, organisation and organ of the KKE is obliged to and responsible for the observation and the defense of the provisions of the Statutes.

Party members, cadres, PBOs and organs which violate the Statutes are subject to the following disciplinary penalties, according to the offence:

• Admonition
• Censure
• Warning of expulsion
• Expulsion from the Party.

In case of serious offences by cadres in leading organs the respective organ itself may impose the penalty of removal from office. In this instance their PBO is informed as well as the PBOs which are included in the spectrum of the activity of the organ that imposed the penalty.

ARTICLE 48

Undermining Party unity, attempting to create platforms or groupings, and violating the rules for the Party’s protection, the non-implementation of the decisions of the Party as well as other actions that may harm the Party and violate Party discipline shall result in Party penalties which may, according to the seriousness of the actions involved, include expulsion.

Members whose actions are not compatible with membership in the Party must certainly be expelled, in particular members who betray the Party to the class enemy under interrogation, in the courts; members who misappropriate funds or property belonging to the Party or to other organisations in which they represent the Party, as well as members whose behaviour and conduct is incompatible with the requirements of Party loyalty and ethics.

ARTICLE 49

The organizational relationship of a member of the Party is cut short either in case of withdrawal from the Party or in case of a constant absence without due reason from Party activities for more than six months, despite the recommendations. The organizational relationship between the member and the Party is also cut short in case a member does not pay their dues for more than six months in succession despite the reminders.

In these cases the leading organ removes this member from the membership. The assembly of the PBO is informed and ratifies the decision that removes this member from the Party membership.

ARTICLE 50

The PBOs and all Party organs have the right to impose penalties.

The expulsion from the Party is decided on by the assembly of the PBO and is ratified by the higher organ.

If necessary, the expulsion decision may be published in the Party press.

The higher organs can submit proposals for expulsions to the PBOs. In exceptional cases, the Central Committee may decide to expel a Party member. This right is used for serious reasons in the case of Party members whose field of responsibility extends beyond the limits of the PBO to which they belong to.

When the Statutes are violated by an entire organisation or a leading organ, then the penalty imposed by the higher Party bodies may include dissolution of that Party organisation or organ, to be followed by its reconstitution. For such a decision to be implemented the approval by the Central Committee is required.

ARTICLE 51

The decision to impose any penalty whatsoever, and particularly that of expulsion from the Party, must be taken with the greatest care and attention, and there must be verification of whether the charges laid are in fact well grounded, the reasons for the charges must be formulated in a concrete way.

No penalty can be imposed on any member, if they have not been informed of the charges against them and have not been called to the organization or the organ which they belong to in order to express and support their view.

No Party member will face repercussions for personal views expressed within the framework of the Statutes.

ARTICLE 52

Every Party member who considers that the penalty imposed on them is unjust or excessive has the right to register an objection to the higher Party organs, up to the Central Committee, the Party Control Committee and the Party congress.

The penalties may be re-examined by the organs that imposed them, or by the higher organs and the Central Committee.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE KKE

December 4 2012