On 11 September 1973, a military coup d'état took place in Chile, led by General Pinochet, who, with the support of the USA, overthrew the Popular Unity government.

The Chilean experience tragically confirmed the basic lesson drawn from the experience of the Paris Commune, which Marx and Engels also stressed in the Communist Manifesto, that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery and wield for its own purposes". It must, as Lenin stressed, "smash the 'ready-made state machinery' and not confine itself merely to laying hold of it".

The goverment of the Popular Unity and President Allende, who fell heroically, has since then dispelled once and for all the illusions of a "peaceful parliamentary path towards socialism", which had been the banner of the Eurocommunist and other opportunist parties in the International Communist Movement.

The 50th anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on issues of the strategy of the revolutionary movement regarding the state, power and the stance towards social democracy in order to reject once and for all the bankrupt theories of "the socialism of the 21st century", the advocates of "transitional programmes", the "left governments" within capitalism, the "intermediate" goal of power, the so-called anti-imperialist and anti-monopoly power, etc.

We honour the heroic struggle of the communists and the popular forces in Chile, of all the victims of the US-led coup d'état, as well as the struggles of the working class and the peoples against the monopolies and capitalism that continue to this day, which raise the main question for the communist movement: The formulation of a revolutionary strategy for the overthrow of capitalism, for the socialization of the means of production, for central planning, for workers' power, for the construction of socialism–communism.

Athens 11/9/2023

International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE