On 6 June, the events organized by the KNE university student organizations at the University of Athens campus were held with great success.
The keynote speech was delivered by Nikos Abatielos, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the KKE. He began by referring to the efforts made this year to ban the KNE Festival events on the university campus: “Let those who think this dynamic movement —which has linked the struggles of the youth for over half a century and has its sights firmly set on the future— can be halted, listen carefully: the strength of the Festival lies in the very revolutionary ideas of the KKE and the promotion of the social prospect for which it fights: the overthrow of capitalist barbarity and the construction of socialism.”
N. Abatielos referred to international developments, expressing the KKE’s solidarity with Cuba, the people of Palestine, and all peoples who are victims of imperialist plans, emphasizing that: “Within this complex and dangerous environment, we have not ceased to fight for a single moment. Because we know that no outcome is predetermined, no force is all-powerful, when workers and youth decisively take centre stage” (...) The KKE and KNE are at the forefront of the struggle because we know that nothing changes without organization, collectivity, and struggle (...) No one should remain on the sidelines or adopt a passive, wait-and-see stance. Strength lies in organization, in the unions, on the path of struggle.”
Referring to the reshaping of the bourgeois political scene, with the emergence of new and supposedly “anti-systemic parties”, the member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the KKE noted:
“The system today is a society organized around the profit of the few, where the economy, technology, science, and the immense wealth produced by workers do not serve social needs, but the profitability of business groups.
It is capitalism that gives rise to crises, wars, inequalities, and insecurity, even in times of immense potential, such as the present.
That is why a truly anti-systemic stance is not a general protest that ultimately returns to the same vicious cycle of its own management. To be anti-systemic is to confront the causes that produce injustice, to challenge the power of capital, the commitments to the EU and NATO, and the path that many consider normal —where the many are deprived so that the few may profit.
The KKE is on this path, and perhaps that is what makes its message more necessary today. At a time when you hear everywhere that you should lower your expectations, the KKE insists that the world can change; that the new generation is not doomed to live worse than the previous one; that people can live free from exploitation, wars, and fear of the future. Join forces with the KKE, for socialism, for the life we deserve, for a world without the exploitation of man by man.”
