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Address By D. Koutsoumbas, GS of The CC Of The KKE
ADDRESS BY D. KOUTSOUMBAS, GS OF THE CC OF THE KKE,
AT THE INTERNATIONALIST EVENT FOR THE 108TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
ATHENS, SATURDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2025
Dear friends and comrades,
Tonight, we commemorate the 108th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution with militant optimism and unwavering confidence in the inexhaustible strength of the working class and the peoples of the world.
We salute this event of world-historical significance, which changed the course of humanity, indelibly marked the 20th century and heralded the beginning of the end of capitalist barbarity and exploitative systems, as well as the dawn of a new society, socialism–communism.
With unshakeable faith that the world will eventually turn red from edge to edge, we welcome our comrades from the delegations of the Communist and Workers’ parties of Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Palestine, Paraguay, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, the USA and Venezuela, who join us tonight.
Thirty-five years after the counter-revolutionary overthrows in the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, despite the celebrations of the ephemeral victors at the time and their arrogant proclamations about the “end of history”, reality has made its verdict: the ideas of October —the ideas that shook the world— remain immortal and, despite the extremely negative correlation of forces, continue to captivate millions across the globe today and will captivate even more in the future.
We will ensure this, by continuing and intensifying the organized effort launched by the KNE (Communist Youth of Greece) for the “Week of Spreading Communism”. This effort began on Monday, with the mass anti-imperialist march marking the Polytechnic uprise and the anniversary of the founding of our Party, and culminates in today’s event.
Our opponents are foaming at the mouth. They have spilled much ink, passed reactionary laws, shaped curricula and funded cultural productions —all in an attempt to slander communist ideas, to ignorantly equate socialism with fascism, to brand the October Revolution either as a “coup” or utterly obsolete.
This offensive is, of course, concentrated in the USA, the EU, and NATO countries, but it is also unfolding in capitalist Russia, where rallies were banned this year, and communists seeking to commemorate the anniversary were arrested.
Because these ideas are more relevant today than ever, and they are being reaffirmed more strongly every day.
Because each day the gap widens between the potential of our era to fully meet the people’s needs and the extent to which these needs are actually met.
Because every day the impasses and contradictions of a system based on the pursuit of profit —which leads only to exploitation, crises, wars and refugees— become ever more evident.
Because, at bottom, these ideas stand for truth and what is just.
For the KKE, the October Revolution does not belong in museum vitrines. It is alive and, together with the experience of subsequent socialist construction, it teaches us the rights and wrongs, the admirable achievements, but also the deviations that allowed the counter-revolution to take root.
It teaches us that the working class is the only truly revolutionary class under this system: the class that, through its labour, produces all the wealth appropriated by the capitalists, and therefore the only class that, by taking power into its own hands, can align the relations of production with the current level of development of the productive forces, owing to the vast socialization of labour that has taken place.
We thereby open an ideological front against erroneous perceptions that claim to be new, but are, in fact, very old and speak of the “end of the working class” and its replacement by technology and artificial intelligence.
These remarkable technological achievements stem from human labour; they could make it possible for us to live better, with shorter work hours — if profit were removed from the equation. But in the hands of capital, the same advances become tools of deeper exploitation, harsher repression, and even tighter subsumption of labour to capital.
After all, capitalists, despite what their staff say, know better than anyone that their profits derive solely from the exploitation of the labour force. That is why they push their governments to pass laws like the recent 13-hour working day adopted by the New Democracy government in our country, based on the anti-labour directives of the EU.
The October Revolution teaches us the necessity of a revolutionary vanguard, the Communist Party, in order to finally overthrow this barbarity.
Only a Communist Party that truly lives up to its name and its mission can lead the popular forces in the most decisive struggle against capitalism.
The effort to formulate a revolutionary strategy by each Communist Party in its own country as well as by the International Communist Movement, is a fundamental prerequisite for a truly victorious course.
This is necessary to counter the ideas propagated primarily by the corrupt social democrats, who claim that the era of revolutions is over and that the only way to improve the lives of the working class is through reforms —by restoring the so-called “rule of law”, building a “welfare state” or pursuing “democratic capitalism”, as we have recently heard from former supporters of so-called “democratic socialism”.
And yet, the experience of the peoples leaves no doubt: capitalism, whatever flattering labels its apologists attach to it, remains a system of exploitation, inequality and injustice. It remains the dictatorship of a social minority, the capitalists, over the social majority.
It demonstrates that the hostile bourgeois state reforms only to make matters worse, never changing or softening its class character.
For this reason, the only solution is to overthrow it, to smash it, as Lenin wrote, and to replace it with a radically different state, a different power: workers’ power.
Dear friends and comrades,
The October Revolution was truly an event that shook the world like no other.
It proved that theory can be turned into practice, that the working class can “storm heaven” and prevail.
It was truly an event of global significance, which, among other things, led to the establishment of Communist Parties in many countries around the world —such as our own party, which this year has celebrated its 107th anniversary— and the founding of the Communist International.
Our Party has collectively assessed the negative consequences of the dominance in the International Communist Movement of strategic approaches that deviated from the victorious strategy of the Bolsheviks, which of course contributed to the self-dissolution of the Communist International.
Under the current circumstances, the KKE views the regroupment of the International Communist Movement as an urgent task, but one that must rest on certain essential foundations:
- Our guiding theory is Marxism–Leninism and proletarian internationalism, which we are constantly developing and adapting in response to new data.
- The necessity and timeliness of socialism, of revolution and its socialist character are not contingent on the correlation of forces.
- There is no room for any cooperation or alliance with the bourgeoisie or any section of it, whether in the name of defending bourgeois democracy or opposing supposed “warmongering” or fascist forces, as the experience of October has shown.
Today, we witness the bourgeoisie and its power in every country, and as a whole, undermining and suppressing workers’ and people’s rights and achievements, all while preparing for wars under the guise of “peace treaties”.
This is true of governments across the spectrum, from “far-right” Trump in the USA, the “centrist” Macron in France, to “Labour” governments in Britain and, of course, the Social Democratic-Christian Democratic coalition in Germany.
A crucial issue is understanding the scientific laws of socialist construction, which must be upheld by the revolutionary vanguard.
From this point of view, we point out that the theory and practice of “market socialism”, which with mathematical precision reproduces and strengthens the forces of counter-revolutionary overthrow, is disastrous.
Thus, instead of the victory of communism, we have witnessed a return to capitalism, as evidenced by the dissolution of the USSR and the Communist Party in 1991, and later in China, where the name “People’s Republic of China” and the Communist Party of China were maintained.
Dear friends and comrades,
The year 2026 will mark the 70th anniversary of the 20th Congress of the CPSU: a turning point in this counter-revolutionary course that eventually culminated in the definitive dissolution of the USSR and the CPSU, and the rise to power of new capitalist forces.
What defines the counter-revolution, however, is the restoration and consolidation of capitalist relations of production, not the specific forms or ways in which this restoration is carried out.
In some cases, the counter-revolution may unfold gradually, maintaining the power of the Communist Party and presenting it —or, as some may sincerely believe— as a temporary tactical solution.
Realizing this issue is of great importance, not only theoretically for the future, but also for the present, especially when some people attempt to draw unhistorical parallels.
And we characterize them as such because they label the current conflict between the USA and China for supremacy in the international imperialist system as a conflict between capitalism and socialism.
Therefore, they call on the working class to choose which imperialist to align with, leading only to defeat, further disappointments and potentially missed opportunities.
Dear friends and comrades,
Today we are in the 21st century, where capitalism, in its imperialist stage, dominates the world.
Every day brings new developments that highlight the growing intensification of competition among the imperialists.
This is reflected in the escalation of major conflicts over the division of markets and the control of natural resources, energy and commodity transport routes, as well as the struggle for geopolitical control, and the strengthening of each country’s influence both regionally and globally.
We also see this happening in our country, which, under the responsibility of the government and other Euro-Atlantic parties, is being turned into a gateway for US LNG and a key lever for blocking competitive Russian gas.
We make it clear that it is not the people who will benefit from these agreements, but the transport and energy monopolies, which will get their hands on the country’s energy wealth.
At the same time, turning the country into an energy, transport and military hub not only fails to protect it but also places it in the “eye of the storm” of trade, geopolitical and military competition and wars that are intensifying internationally between the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian blocs.
Suffice it to recall that Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and other countries were such hubs in the past, and we are all aware of what their peoples are experiencing today.
All these developments, the creation of new alliances and blocs of forces leading to axes and counter-axes, increase the risks of military conflicts, not only locally but also regionally, with the possibility of a generalized imperialist war.
At the same time, the possibility of a global capitalist crisis is increasing due to the enormous over-accumulation of capital.
This possibility reinforces the assessment that imperialist war will escalate further and that new fronts may open up in the coming years in the Arctic, on the American continent, in the South China Sea, etc.
We would also like to take this opportunity to denounce the new escalation of imperialist aggression by the US government against Venezuela, under the pretext of combating drug cartels.
The KKE categorically condemns any plan for armed intervention in Venezuela and expresses its solidarity with the working class and the people of Venezuela, who are the only ones responsible for determining developments in their homeland.
It expresses its solidarity with the Communist Party of Venezuela, which, under difficult conditions of persecution, is fighting to defend the interests of the working class and the people.
The question today, therefore, is how the International Communist Movement should respond to these developments and to what tomorrow may bring.
Lenin saw war as a continuation of the policies of capitalist states by violent means; as a continuation of the exploitation that persisted in the previous, relatively “peaceful” period.
There can be no second thoughts today about the pretexts used by the bourgeois classes and the imperialists, such as “defending the homeland”, “freedom” or “justice”, with which they try to obscure the imperialist character of war.
Their only concern is profit.
And the only “freedom” they recognize is the freedom to rob the people.
“Just wars” can only exist from the perspective of the working class, which organizes and fights against all oppression until it is liberated from capitalist enslavement.
Consequently, the International Communist Movement must formulate its own line of struggle for each country, continent and internationally, to overthrow imperialist barbarity that brings wars or peace at gunpoint.
The crucial thing is for there to be an independent, distinct organization and action of the working class, one that does not bow to the call of national war mobilization or nationalism.
Under no circumstances should the working class and the people accept what the Greek Minister of Defence recently asked for, namely that workers prepare themselves to see coffins with Greek flags or EU flags returning from the fields of imperialist conflicts, and to be happy and proud of it!!!
Our people must not be taken in by various pacifist calls for “peace” through a supposedly “new security architecture”, a “multipolar world”, and so on.
Real peace for the people means that the exit from the war must be combined with the struggle to exit the barbarity of the capitalist system.
And of course, it must be clear that communists never abandon the people, including in wartime, regardless of how the situation develops or how the war unfolds.
The Bolsheviks did not declare a strike against the war; they found themselves in the trenches of World War I alongside Russian workers and peasants, fought with them, led them, and, together with them, reached the point of overturning the cause that breeds wars.
Dear friends and comrades,
We believe that what we are experiencing today, apart from uncertainty and dangers for the peoples, also creates greater conditions for questioning the dominant policy as a whole, with repercussions on the very “credibility” and “stability” of the bourgeois political system.
Objectively, all this can create situations of large mass movements, even the possibility of uprisings or a revolutionary situation in certain countries or groups of countries.
The ability of the Communist Party to play a decisive role in such critical conditions is largely determined by its preparation today, by the battles we are fighting today.
Therefore, acting in non-revolutionary conditions, we must prepare today for tomorrow.
This concerns both the corresponding strategic–programmatic readiness and the current policy and action under contemporary conditions.
A crucial issue is the combination of the Party’s revolutionary programme with daily revolutionary action in all areas of activity, at every stage of political guidance work.
This is the issue we are placing at the centre of the discussion ahead of the 22nd Congress of the KKE, which will be held on 29–31 January 2026, with the slogan “A powerful KKE, steadfast in every trial, ready to answer history’s call for socialism”.
For we know that the moments we dream of will come!
And we want to be able to respond, to prove ourselves worthy of the comrades who fought before us!
To rise to the realization of our own great goals.
Because our era is the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism.
The era of the overthrow of capitalism began in October 1917. That is when the ice broke, the road was opened and the era of socialist revolutions began.
That is why we will not go back on our words or back down until we complete this task!
LONG LIVE PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM!
LONG LIVE THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!
