Hope and progress lie in the struggle alongside the KKE

Political life in Greece is beginning to take a pre-election rhythm, despite the government’s assurances that parliamentary elections will be held at the end of its term, in the spring of 2027. In recent days, two new parties have emerged.

One, named “Hope for Democracy”, was founded by M. Karystianou, who became widely known in Greece as the mother of one of the victims of the Tempe train collision. This personality-driven party speaks vaguely and without substance about “justice”, “transparency”, “democracy”, and “independence”. At the same time, it praises bourgeois laws and EU institutions, and from the outset has been linked to religious circles, even expressing reactionary positions.

The other, likewise personality-driven, party was founded by A. Tsipras, former prime minister and leader of the social democratic party “SYRIZA”, which, together with the far-right ANEL party, governed the country from 2015 to 2019 on behalf of big capital. The establishment of this new social democratic party, under the name “Greek Left Coalition”, reviving the political proposal of the “governing left”, has caused major internal turmoil within both SYRIZA and “New Left”, which are at risk of disintegration, while also creating concern within PASOK, the traditional centre of social democracy in Greece.

Speaking recently at a rally in Menidi, a working-class neighbourhood of Athens, amid this political climate, D. Koutsoumbas, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE, noted: “The New Democracy government and the opposition parties of the system squabble daily over who is better able to guarantee growth. New Democracy and Mitsotakis call for ‘political stability’, that is, for them to remain firmly in power as a prerequisite for this, while PASOK, Tsipras, and others speak of ‘political change’, which, however, does not mean any change in policy.”

Focusing in particular on the role of the opposition, D. Koutsoumbas stated that there exists “the convenient opposition that votes alongside the New Democracy government on bills and EU directives; all those who kowtow to the EU, NATO, the US, and their Israeli allies; who say not a word about the country’s dangerous military entanglement; and who —above all— serve the interests of the same class, the class of capitalists, the exploiters of our people’s labour”. Referring to personality-driven parties, he added: “With a leader playing the role of a ‘Messiah’ who ‘has all the solutions’, all the people are expected to do is get off their sofa once every four years, cast their vote, and then sit back down and watch their own slaughter. We have seen many such ‘Messiahs’, and we will see many more in the period ahead”.

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE, referring to the role of the KKE, added: “You will not hear such things from the KKE. We believe that the people themselves, by joining forces with the KKE, have the power to become the protagonists of developments, to turn things upside down, provided they decide to do so”.

1. Koutsoumbas spoke in detail about the problems faced by workers in working-class neighbourhoods and added: “Whatever problem we examine, the same conclusion emerges: this path of development, the capitalist path, this very state, which is hostile to our people, and this decayed system, are not designed to serve the needs of the many, of the workers and the people. They are designed to serve the profits of the few, and to achieve this, they constantly erect insurmountable barriers in the way of the people and the youth, in their effort to live as they deserve and as they could.

For the past seven years, the New Democracy government of Mitsotakis has taken it upon itself to serve this policy —and with fanaticism, moreover— taking the baton from its predecessors, who shamelessly exploited the hopes of the people.

The anger of a large part of the people toward this government is therefore justified, as is their demand that it step down. But alongside it, its very policy must also go (...) Within the New Democracy party and other parties waiting in the wings, there is eagerness to continue the same anti-people agenda, despite their pre-election promises while in opposition.

We, as we have always done, look you straight in the eye and say that the situation we are living through cannot be improved with patchwork or band-aid solutions. There will be no real improvement in the lives of the people, neither through the reforms being prepared by the New Democracy government nor through a mere change in the manager of this barbarity.

A state that exists to serve injustice and exploitation will never become a “state governed by the rule of law”, as they all claim. On the contrary, it will become increasingly aggressive towards the people, particularly now that the rivalries and dead-ends of this system have, on an international scale, drawn their knives.

The EU of the lobbies of corruption, monopolies, and war is not and will never be a guarantor of “justice” and our rights! It will only become more anti-people, especially now that it is losing ground in the context of the major US–China conflict over global supremacy.

The exploiters and the exploited will never have common interests. After all, the people of Menidi, with its hundreds of industries, know very well who produces wealth and who ultimately reaps its benefits. That is why radical change is needed immediately —a completely different path for the country, with the people truly in power.

That is where the prospect, the hope, and the progress lie. The prerequisite for meeting all the contemporary needs of the people lies in social ownership of the means of production of wealth and the scientific central planning of the economy, services, and social life, with the workers and the Greek people effectively at the helm of power.

Only the KKE has such a programme, and it openly presents it to the people. This is what enables it to remain today, together with the workers’ and people’s movement, the only workers’ and people’s opposition to the New Democracy government, both inside and outside Parliament.

Indeed the people’s struggles and the KKE’s activity have been the government’s only real opponent throughout these years, when all others have provided support and alibis! It is these struggles, this action by the KKE, that have cornered the government, undermined its propaganda, and inflicted several serious setbacks upon it.

Now is the time to strengthen the people’s struggles, organization, and action through the movement’s organizations, and to bring broader sections of the movement together with the KKE.

It is not the political starting point of each individual worker that is decisive, but their position in society, their class position, whether we face the same hardships and whether we have an objective interest in the KKE’s political proposal and action.

So let us leave behind hesitations and illusions. Let us join hands firmly and walk together down the difficult, uphill, yet at the same time uniquely hopeful path for the people —the path of struggle and revolution.

Until the final victory of our people! Until the dawn of a truly new and happy society, free from the exploitation of man by man, with the Greek people as the true masters of our beautiful country.

The KKE is here, more powerful, more experienced, steadfast in every trial, ready to answer history’s call for socialism.”