→ We are part and bred of the communist movement. Our roots go back to the beginnings of the communist movement. To the Communist Manifesto and the Paris Commune in 1871. Where the worldview and the struggle that seeks to give a historically new direction and way out to the class struggle was born. In the class struggle that existed before Marx the existence of which is independent of the will of communists and all people in general as it is driven by the antagonistic and irreconcilable class antagonisms. In the class struggle that anyway exists in every class society and that constitutes the driving force of History.
The communist worldview and the communist movement envision and strive for a society without exploitation and oppression. A society without classes, a socialist-communist society, a society of free producers.
The communist movement within these approximately 150 years has had an impressive course. A course in which it proved that its worldview is not a utopia but is based on the real and material contradictions and needs of this world. A path that brought it to the centre of global developments, so becoming the main and basic issue of all the ruling classes, all the dominant social and political forces of the planet. A path that hundreds of millions of masses of the planet followed. A path that –with admirable events during which heroic deeds were performed– brought unprecedented victories in the history of humanity in favour of humanity. But also, a path that was interrupted, overthrown, defeated. Because of this defeat –today and for many decades– the communist movement has been mocked and slandered by all the dominant social and political forces. Systematic and relentlessly and on a global scale the capitalist-imperialist system aims to exorcise and erase from the history of humanity the achievements of hundreds of millions. To present the defeat of the communist movement as a causality, and even more to present its goals ranging from «destructive» to «criminal».
From these roots and from this course we too were born and exist today as a political organization. All that was produced during the impressive course is (also) ours. The steps for the organization and strengthening of the struggle of the communist movement, these that brought our worldview to the daily life of the millions of barefoot, these with which the masses rushed into their raid to heaven. But also, the problems, the inadequacies born in this struggle are ours. The ones on which the blocking and stopping of the struggle was based and that brought the retreat and defeat.
All these that we must defend, keep, develop it's ours. And also are ours all the questions and issues concerning the conditions that gave birth to retreat and defeat. Those that must be answered –with and through mass struggle– to continue the path from its new starting point.
→ We are fighting to serve the working class, the people, and the youth of our country. It is these social forces that we address and we are solely accountable to. Our policy on every «small», individual, larger, or central issue that is posed in the country, is formed on the sole criterion of the defence of the interests and rights of these social forces. The defence of their ability to resist en masse and as a movement against the attack of the system. The projection of their need and ability to claim en masse, to fight to attain rights and victories. So, we are fighting for the working people and the youth to win, in the daily class struggle against capital, the bourgeoisie and its imperialist patrons. This struggle concerns all issues of life of the working people and the youth. It concerns all labour, economic, social, and democratic rights. It concerns its right to peace and thus to the struggle against unjust war, against imperialism that causes it in general, against the US-NATO imperialism which every day –even in times of «peace»– strengthens its hegemony in our country and promotes and seeks the same throughout the wider region.
But at the same time, and on the basis of this daily class struggle that is evolving more and more fiercely nowadays, the question of its perspective, its overall outcome, arises. The question is imperatively raised first of all based on the characteristics, the very nature and deadlocks of the system which constantly reveal that in its context there is no «space» for life with rights for the working people and the youth. That is why the attack on the part of system does not leave a single point of breathing space and rights to the «below». This attack is also the system's strategic response to the question of the overall outcome of the class struggle. An attack that does not «only» strike labour, social, economic rights, but that, on the basis of these strikes, seeks to remove the conditions of organization and struggle of those below. Above all, the working class that based on its position in production and in society constitutes the core of the forces that can stand against the system and confront with it. The system therefore seeks the «definitive defeat» of the working and peoples’ masses in its framework, in its barbarity, no matter how deep it is. It does not consider and will not «discuss» any other version of the evolution of the class struggle.
We, therefore, exist in the opposite of this strategic choice of the system. We exist to serve and fight within the working class and the people, for the direction and for the prospect of the overall confrontation with the system. The revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the power of its imperialist patrons in our country. The expulsion of the military bases and all sorts of support of the imperialist suzerainty in the country, the country's exit from NATO and the EU, the crushing of the bourgeois state. The conquest of the country’s Independence that is a necessary precondition for the working class and the people to fight for and build socialism with their own power in their own country. Building socialism is the necessary precondition for ensuring the independence of the country.
We consider this strategic direction to be the only real way out for the working class and the people.
→ We are aware that under capitalism any rights acquired by the people and the working class are not forever «guaranteed» but are subject to the balance of power between classes. And while we are fighting for conquests and victories of the working people, it is clear to us that when these are achieved, they do not constitute «changes» of the system, they do not «pave the way for its transformation», they do not constitute an argument for the infamous «peaceful way» for change and socialism. After all, all conquests and victories are achieved through hard and often bloody struggles. Through and with them the working people’s masses and the young people are taught in the school of the class struggle about the unbridgeable opposition that separates the working class from capital and the people from imperialism. They are taught about the struggle, about their own strength and potential. They form, organize and upgrade them. They progress on the issue of overall confrontation. The confrontation which is the only one that can ensure their victories, which is the necessary condition for their struggle to enter a new historical phase, the phase in which the working people will not be under the power of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. The struggle to build a socialist society.
On this basis all struggles within the confines of the capitalist system can and should be a field where the establishment and formation of the workers’-people’s forces will take place. In all aspects, ideological, political and organizational. And that is why it is indeed the case that «the only lost struggles are those that were never waged».
We stand against the political blind alley of revisionism, reformism and anarchy, as wherever they have prevailed, they have brought about retreat and defeat of the workers’-people's and communist movement. Revisionism built the terms of capitalist restoration and constituted the political expression of neo-bourgeois elements in the first country of socialism, the USSR.
The unwavering struggle against revisionism and its counter-revolutionary theories in our country, both by the consistent communists in the Eastern European socialist countries and the exiled communists on the barren islands, especially in Ai Stratis Island, constitute the seed of our existence[1].
→ The restoration of capitalism has confirmed that socialism is a transitional society, a society in which the class struggle continues. Therefore, a society which can go «back», to be dominated again by the bourgeois forces, to become capitalist again. The agent of this retreat is not primarily the old bourgeoisie, but the new bourgeois forces born within socialism on the basis of the new issues faced by the working class in the context of its struggle for socialist construction. Or else, in the context of its struggle for development, straying and deepening of the transformations required in all fields. In production relations, in class differences, in social relations, in the realm of ideas.
There is a basic concept-direction of what and what not communism is. Marx's position «Communism is not a model to which society has to adjust. Communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things» rejects the mechanistic-metaphysical logic and already detects a vast scope of issues that will be set before the «vastness of our ends». But in a more concrete way Marx in his work «The Class struggles in France from 1848 to 1850» points out the «4 all» with which the dictatorship of the proletariat is called upon to confront: «…This Socialism is … the class dictatorship of the proletariat, as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations.»
The communist movement treated this issue as a direct political question, as a question of the agenda of the class struggle after 1917. This is what the communist movement fought for, which after 1917 formed the first socialist state and gave shape to historically unprecedented conquests for the working class and the people. The communist movement even then fought for the construction of socialism and in terms of mobilizing the masses, on a certain scale, as for example with the Stakhanovite movement. But the communist movement was unable to meet the demands for the continuation, the broadening, and the deepening of the dictatorship of the proletariat even though the question was raised more substantively in the CPSU in 1950 by Stalin. And although negative terms had already been formed and accumulated it was raised only within the framework of leadership. Therefore, and while the issue remained at this level, the agreement of Molotov, Malenkov, Beria (and Zhdanov’s who preceded) was not enough to fight the reverse direction. So came the year 1956 and the 20th Congress of the CPSU, i.e. the revisionist turn, which signalled the capitalist restoration.
To prevent the same danger that appeared for the Chinese revolution and given, of course, the capitalist restoration in the USSR at the time, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) in China fought against the capitalist restoration. A revolution within the revolution, which struggled to formulate concrete answers to this question, making the capitalist restoration a matter of the struggle of the working class and the people’s masses. A revolution that ultimately failed to achieve its goal. Capitalist restoration prevailed, as it became evident after Mao's death (1976), in China as well, although then -and even years later- Deng’s leadership was obliged to hold up the portraits of Mao Zedong. The GPCR that broke out immediately after the restoration of the USSR was a confirmation and manifestation of the «inner strength» that the communist movement has. Τhe communist movement directly and practically declared itself «present» to confront the new problems that its struggle had encountered.
To sum up, we can say:
The revisionist turn was the starting point of the retreat, the disorganization, the basis of the defeat of the workers’-people’s revolutionary communist movement, as it was shaped and developed since the time of the First International. Of course, this path –from the First International until 1956– was anything but linear! Within this path there were raids and setbacks, delays and great accelerations, retreats, and big jumps. Overall, however, this is the period when the communist movement presents itself and raises before humanity, as a real possibility, the issue of a future different from that of the class, exploitative, oppressive societies that had hitherto characterized its history.
At the same time, the GPCR takes the baton. To equip the proletariat with answers to the question of socialist construction. To transfer Lenin's position on the revolution, i.e. «a class can only be overthrown by another class», as a fundamental issue in the class struggle within the transitional socialist society as well. In this society the case of its transformation in the socialist-communist direction (the four «all» that Marx says above and that Zhang Chunqiao also invoked as a member of the group of the «Four» of the GPCR in 1975) is judged and determined by the same question as well: whether the working class conquers every day more and more powers and fields in this socialist society, whether the working class constantly emerges in this society as the power that controls and determines all its functions.
→ We were «born» and formed within the framework of the Marxist-Leninist movement. The movement that was initially formed and fought against the revisionist turn of the USSR. A confrontation given by the CP of China with Mao Zedong, the Party of Labor of Albania with Enver Hoxha and by large sections of the communist forces around the world. A confrontation concerning the crucial and basic issues of the right turn imposed and enshrined in 20th Congress of the CPSU: «Peaceful passage to socialism», «peaceful coexistence with imperialism», «all-people’s state» instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of course the Stalin question. However, it was a confrontation –in its first phase– that did not question the socialist character of the USSR and the socialist camp as a whole, which took for granted both its existence and its (socialist) character.
Today, 60 years later, it is quite clear that this great confrontation was not at that time, on the part of the forces that gave it, aware of the depth of the problem the communist movement was facing. And this became evident in the following years when Mao Zedong and the revolutionary forces of the Communist Party of China decided, by launching the GPCR, to raise the issue of warding off the danger of capitalist restoration as a matter of mass struggle of the working class and the people. At that time, the Marxist-Leninist movement, sticking to the ideological characteristics it had formed in its first phase, we could say that it basically «did not follow», did not study the issues raised and did not join this struggle.
We are not the ones who today and decades later, will «suggest claims and demands» from the revolutionary forces and fighters who opposed the revisionist turn because they did not have a full awareness of the depth of this turn, and because they did not form the response of the movement, the ideological and political responses that the issue really required. Such a stance would be political disrespect, a lack of elementary political appreciation for the pioneering role played by this struggle, which defended the basic revolutionary principles of the communist movement against the storm of the right-revisionist turn. However, such a stance would also be a denial of the materialist-dialectical view of the history of class struggle. The view that understands that in every epoch and phase the social and political subjects of struggle have their limits and their conditions that are determined by that phase. If we refuse this view, if we refuse the «concrete analysis of the concrete situation», we will... be at odds with the entire history of the Communist movement. With Mao and the «4» of the GPCR who did not «ensure» that the GPCR wins. With Stalin who died and left the road «open» to the restoration. With Lenin who did not «ensure» that the October revolution would reach the final victory. With Marx and Engels who did not «tell us everything» from the beginning. In other words, such a stance clears the way for known enemies of revolutionary perception and direction. It clears the way to understanding the development of the class struggle in terms of anti-dialectic and determinism, which are both aspects of renunciation and withdrawal from the class struggle.
We are the ones who want and seek to bring the CPG(m-l) today as close as possible, on the basis of all the data generated by the life and history of the communist movement, to the demands and tasks of our time. After all, after 40 years since the reconstruction in 1982, we would not say that «everything is well done» but we can reasonably claim that we have struggled to form an –at least initial– awareness of the phase in which we find ourselves. Through the analysis and processing of the data as well as our struggle over the years, we engaged with interest in the problem of capitalist restoration. We approached the issue raised and opened up by the GPCR, without at the same time getting «confused» and thinking that what the GPCR raised is the denial of the revolutionary legacy given by the communist movement.
→ To summarize: in the question of «what to keep - what to conquer» we need to attempt to define what we would call «particularity of our era». The particularity that consists of its double –and in a sense contradictory– character that is inherent and manifested in the attitude of the masses in the world, at the level of their organization, at the level of the formation of the communist and revolutionary forces.
On the one hand, and from a historical point of view, we continue to be at the time that Lenin defined: the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. This has not changed, since imperialism is the «highest stage of capitalism», since the historically progressive role of the bourgeoisie has long been completed, and the capitalist-imperialist system is emerging everywhere in the world and in every aspect of it only decay and barbarism. A reality that cries out for the need for the proletariat and the peoples of the world to rise up, to organize, to confront their oppressors, and to build their own freer and fairer world, a socialist world!
On the other hand, however, the people’s-workers’ revolutionary, communist movement is disorganized, disintegrated in conditions of almost dissolution under the weight of the defeat of the communist movement. In this regard, we live «in the era of restoration». The capitalist restoration that stopped and overturned the onslaught of the masses and the communist movement and led it to defeat, challenging or even abolishing the vision of socialism that worked for decades attractively and acted as a driving force for the struggle of the millions of masses.
In front of this double knot of our time and on the solid ground of the ever-sharper class struggle and the great struggles, uprisings and resistances produced in recent years by workers and peoples in the imperialist metropolises and in the peripheral and imperialist dependent countries, we point out what we must keep and what we have to conquer:
→ To maintain the entire revolutionary direction of the communist movement, against capital, the bourgeoisie, the bourgeois state and imperialism. The capitalist restoration by posing the question of blocking and overturning the socialist transformation of a society went obviously and naturally to the end of the «reverse course». It also raised the question of the repudiating of the revolution and consequently the question of the repudiating of the class intransigence of those below within the framework of the class struggle in the context of capitalism. The balance of power that the restoration and defeat have formed for the system works obviously negatively and even destructively both at the level of the initial formation of the struggle –a formation that is at an early stage and usually has shortcomings–, and in cases where this struggle reaches a higher level.
We live daily this negative balance of power and in every effort and initiative to have a struggle and fight against the unjust war in Ukraine and the country's involvement, for the overthrow of latest legislation against workers and students. On all these and many other fronts concerning either the basic (working class-capital) or the principal contradiction (people-imperialism), the balance of power that has been formed works deterrently, negatively and raises storms of black attacks and repression when, despite all, steps are taken in the ... forbidden direction.
At the same time, we must once again point out that in place of this necessary direction of the struggle, other, individual, more «privileged» or «acceptable» issues are proposed as «substitutes» or even as «replacements». Issues (such as women's rights or gender) that are of course dominated by the bourgeois notion and approach, and which are «proposed», of course, not to be fought on their class basis, but as the legitimate political outlet of a potential within the framework of bourgeois democracy and within the limits it has set today. This bourgeois political line and legitimacy is also attached to the classless generalization of rights that pervades and penetrates the forces and collectives of the extra-parliamentary and anarchist autonomy. This line is pressing and attempting to politically suppress and stifle the fighting tendencies, the mood for organization and mass struggle of the youth (but also of the workers) on the front lines of struggle that need to be formed.
We saw the impact of this negative balance of power just a few years ago (in 2006) with the turning point that the development of the revolutionary struggle in Nepal reached. A revolutionary struggle that is perhaps the most vivid expression of the particularity of our time. A revolutionary struggle that, with a series of victories, managed to liberate 80% of the country's territory, only to retreat and then be defeated under the influence of «21st century socialism» theories. That is, under political choices and directions of compromise and «collaboration» with the ruling class and imperialism.
This line of class collaboration and submission, the line of the repudiating of the class organization of working people and youth in the context of capitalism, is also served by the reformist analyses that are constructed to interpret and supposedly answer the causes of the capitalist restoration. As, for example, the analysis of the leadership of the Communist Party of Greece (CPG), which is based on the assumption that the construction of socialism is identical with central planning, casting out and abolishing the crucial and defining issue: the development of the struggle for expansion and deepening the domination of the working class within the transitional socialist society. These analyses, having such «supplies» from the... socialist future, all they need in the capitalist present are workers and youth in the corner and trade unions suitable for practicing the policy of submission and compromise with the policies and forces of the system.
→ To analyze, elaborate and elucidate both the lessons learned from the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the path that has been opened on this issue by the GPCR. If we were to attempt a completely concise and codified reference to this great issue, we would say that there are two interrelated and basic axes that define and determine it:
→ On the basis of all the above, we seek to shape our physiognomy, the way we operate and our policies. On the basis of all the above we strive to acquire ever more expanded relations with the working people and youth. We are struggling to give a definite form or shape on these relations in the building of the frontal formations and of the Organization itself. This process is a sine qua non for fighting and serving the interests and revolutionary perspective of the working class, the people, and the youth.
In our 42 years, we have made important steps and conquests that were and are anything but self-evident. Achievements that have established a great and valuable base, which allow us to face with militant optimism the great ordeal period into which peoples of the whole world and our people have entered. There was, of course, no lack of vacillations, delays, and weaknesses. In any case, we are at a «beginning», and it will be judged by our struggle whether the richness of our conquests, in our era with its particular, distinct characteristics, in the context of the sharpening of the class struggle and the negative balance of power, will be transformed into a politically, ideologically and organizationally upgraded force. A force that will claim an important role in the struggles, in the movement, in the opening the road of the revolutionary perspective.
What do we do - what to do
To put forward and highlight our programmatic direction for the Revolution, for Independence and Socialism, on the basis of the required analyses. Analyses of the country and its actual characteristics and what these dictate for the character of the revolution. For the need and the possibility of forming an alliance between the working class and the popular strata. For the Front of Resistance and Assertion which is the first milestone of the struggle, but also a first and initial formation of the alliance of the working class with the popular strata –formation which is at an early stage and usually has shortcomings. For the systematic effort to form the conditions of a Struggle and Alliance Front of the peoples of the region, a need that is exacerbated by the intensity of the warlike imperialist antagonisms, but also a need that concerns the perspective and conditions of the revolution.
The case of the formation of the working class as a class for itself and the conquest of its hegemony in the class struggle is a fundamental condition on the road to the revolutionary way out. However, this constitution will not be shaped «by itself», it will not come as an «inevitable result» of the class struggle. This constitution in turn has its own political preconditions. And speaking of our country, which is basically a geopolitical arena of imperialism, the double issue of constitution-hegemony cannot be understood «mechanistically» –in a mechanistic or automatic manner without taking into account certain particularities– and in a chronological order, but by having as a basic criterion that the constitution of the working class is mainly realized in its confrontation with capital and its hegemonic position is mainly conquered in its confrontation with imperialism.
In order for this issue (i.e., constitution-hegemony) to evolve, it needs the conscious intervention of the political subject that will provide answers on the basis of political-ideological direction and line, which will be put to the test within the struggles and the movement. The above issues that we raised as necessities for what we need to do determine to a certain extent, the content and the foundations that this line should have in order to become established. As Lenin says «History in general, the history of revolutions in particular, has always been richer, more varied and variform, more vital and «cunning» than is conceived of by the best parties, by the most conscious vanguards of the most advanced classes ... «
→ Today, it is clear that the developments around the war in Ukraine are shaping a gloomy landscape for the workers and peoples of the planet, and of course for the people and youth of our country. A landscape that even causes «awe» for working people and young people, as they realize that they are facing the biggest issues. That they are threatened en masse by destitution and impoverishment. That they are potential cannon fodder of a wider war massacre set up and brought about by the fiercest imperialist antagonisms.
We encounter next to us, in our daily lives, the feeling of «powerlessness» cultivated by those above and those outside who demand that we «surrender ourselves» (in fact to submit) to developments as they will be shaped by imperialism and the reactionary forces.
What do these developments reveal, what do they mean and what do they require?
→ But what does all this mean for the proletariat, for the peoples and our people, for our direction and our struggle as we have defined them above?
The developments will not be led «by themselves» in the direction that we struggle, towards the formation of the revolutionary communist movement and the revolutionary path. This means that the possibilities, the demands, and the responsibilities for forces that want to fight in this direction are increasing.
→ We support and contribute to the spread and dominance of the direction of revolutionary overthrow in our country, and the conquest –by the working class and the working people– of the political power, as the only comprehensive response against the system of exploitation, oppression, and imperialist dependence.
However provoked and distant it may seem, the direction of the revolutionary overthrow (in our country and globally) and the conquest of political power by the working class and the masses of people is the only perspective, the only comprehensive answer against the system of exploitation, oppression, and imperialist barbarism.
The bourgeois domination is not an inevitability, it is not unshakeable. Capitalism-imperialism not only makes its inability to provide a path to the future of peoples and the working class evident every day, but creates new, more upgraded deadlocks.
The «end of history», which the defenders of capitalism were quick to proclaim with jubilation when the regimes of the Eastern bloc collapsed, has been resoundingly refuted:
→ This ongoing process of refuting hopes, promises and self-delusions is accompanied by the rapid deterioration of living conditions for the vast majority of society all over the planet. The peoples of the whole world and the working class are experiencing the consequences of the total attack by the forces of the capitalist-imperialist system. While the wealth produced worldwide is increasing, poverty and hunger are spreading, working conditions are getting worse, entire regions of the planet are becoming desertified; the predatory activities of the capitalist-imperialist system are becoming more and more evident.
→ The period of the pandemic was mostly important in revealing the inhuman nature and functioning of this system to the people's consciousness. During this period the priorities of this system became apparent. It became apparent that the priority was to maximize profit and not to protect human life. To ensure capitalist production rather than to protect the working class. To maintain the imperialist domination and the competitive advantage of each imperialist, and not the understanding-cooperation, even on such crucial issues.
During this period, it became clear once again what kind of «paradise» the countries-bastions of capitalism, the imperialist metropolises, are for their peoples. During this period, it became clear where and on what terms capital invests. It became clear that the capital is not interested in investing in the enhancement of health care, but in promoting its complete destruction. It became clear that the huge investments in research (even in medical research) aim at profit and not at protecting human life in general.
But it also became clear that violence and repression are constituent elements of this system against the masses of people. Elements that were tested in even more extreme forms, as the pandemic was exploited by the system as an «opportunity» at this level as well.
→ There can be no rationalization of the capitalist system. For capitalism lives and breathes on the basis of profit production. For the capitalist system is forced by its nature to operate on the basis of a huge contradiction: on one hand, to increase and even exacerbate the exploitation of the large social majority, with the aim of extracting the greatest possible surplus value and, on the other hand, and at the same time, to limit, to deprive the large social majority of the ability to consume what it produces with its labour, so that the surplus value is transformed into real profit for the capitalists.
It is on this basis –and on no other basis– that the capitalist system promotes the development of the means of production, it is on this basis that it makes (or does not make) any of its business investments, and it is on this basis that its repeated crises arise.
Capitalism cannot and will not «escape» from this function. In fact, capitalism is forced to intensify it, to take it to even more extreme levels, to attack the working class with greater ferocity. To deprive the working class of basic rights, to openly question and strike at conquests acquired over decades. To lead to mass impoverishment of the working class, not only in the dependent countries but also in the imperialist metropolises themselves.
The delusions of a «human faced» capitalism have been disproved, after, of course, they have been exploited by the forces of reformism and social democracy to ideologically and politically disarm the peoples and the working class. Whatever «concessions» made on the part of the bourgeois forces were the result of their fear of the overall impetus and momentum given by the existence of the awe-inspiring adversary and the conquests of the peoples and the working class in the countries where socialism was being built. The restoration of capitalism in these countries and the overturning of the balance of power at the expense of the working class fuelled the bourgeois forces to unfold their wildest dispositions and compress every margin of class «conciliation», but also the role of the political and social forces that served this line.
→ The struggle for the revolutionary overthrow in our country is determined by the fact that the principal contradiction in Greek society is the contradiction between imperialism and the people. It is in this direction that as many social and political forces as possible must be mobilized, with the working class and the revolutionary communist political forces in the leading role.
In this respect, we consider that the struggle for the revolutionary overthrow in our country must serve the dual strategic objective of independence and socialism. It aims at overthrowing both the local bourgeois dominance and the regime of imperialist dependence. It will have to face both the local ruling class and its foreign masters, at the same time. Therefore, it will be done on the basis of an alliance between working class and popular strata, with the working class in the lead and clear anti-imperialist characteristics, in order to seize independence and break all links of dependence (USA, NATO, EU), and promote socialist transformation.
The existence and dominance of our country's bourgeoisie depends on its attachment to imperialism and on serving the imperialist interests of the US and the EU. The regime of dependency is intertwined with every function of the ruling class. It dictates policies, imposes limits on activities. Formed from its infancy on the basis of imperialist support, the local ruling class neither wants nor is able to go beyond the limits of dependence. In every field (i.e. economic, political, military), its potentiality results from the help of the imperialist centres and is limited by the degrees of freedom that these centres allow it.
The role intended for the local ruling class by imperialism is not only the exploitation of the country as a military base for the US or as a market for the products of the EU. Without underestimating this serious dimension, there is also the dimension of the contribution of the local ruling class to the wider imperialist plans for the region and the world. It is the transformation of the country from the imperialist centres to a bridge-corridor (energy, trade, etc.) due to its geographical location. It is the utilization of the local ruling class and its political personnel for the purpose of imperialism's influence over the neighbouring regimes, in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, and the establishment of a broader geopolitical balance of power at the expense of the competing imperialist powers.
A key feature of the regime of dependency is the support of bourgeois dominance over the people and the working class of the country, of which both the imperialist protectors and the local ruling class benefit.
Therefore, the struggle for the revolutionary overthrow in the country is a struggle against bourgeois dominance, but at the same time against imperialist dependence.
As we have mentioned in the documents of the two previous Conferences of our Organization, the working class is formed mainly in its struggle against capital and conquers its hegemony mainly in its struggle against imperialism.
Therefore, the process of forming the working class as a social vanguard towards the revolutionary overthrow in our country, as a guide on the road to the revolution, must also answer the question of its alliances with other sections and strata of society that are oppressed and suffering, with as many social and political forces as possible that can contribute to the revolutionary overthrow.
→ The leading role of the working class arises from the fact that it is the only one that can give perspective to the question of revolutionary overthrow. It is the only one that can realize as a necessity, but also serve as a possibility, the vision of socialist construction.
Due to its position in the production process and the constant theft that it undergoes (a structural element of the capitalist mode of production), it is the only one that objectively stands in permanent and unbridgeable opposition to the forces of capital. From its own productive labour arises the surplus value obtained by capital. From its own work everything in this world moves and is produced.
And it is the only one that can be organized on the basis of this unbridgeable, irreconcilable and unrelenting opposition to capital.
A precondition for the working class to assume the leading role that historically corresponds to it is to constitute itself as a «class for itself». It is not enough for the worker to become aware of the injustice he is suffering, which is easily done. It is not enough for him to realize the theft that is being committed every day at his expense, but to realize that this theft, his exploitation by capital, is a relationship between socially constructed classes with unbridgeable, conflicting interests. A political relationship, which in principle is realized by the worker through the struggle for the day’s wage, but which must find its continuation in the more general political struggle against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state, in order to be led in the direction of revolutionary overthrow.
→ The class analysis of Greek society continues to be a serious political issue. The aim of any political force ―especially a communist one― that seriously wants to contribute to the cause of revolutionary overthrow must be a deep political understanding of this analysis on the basis of its ever greater connection with these strata. However, although we know that our Organization cannot perform a reliable record of this kind today, and given that (despite the continuous process of deindustrialization of the country and the shrinkage of the primary and secondary sector) the working class exists and continues to produce surplus value, and that the productive worker has not disappeared, we can confidently say the following about our country:
The broad mass of the employed persons of the private and public sector, in non-productive labour, are also victims of exploitation. They suffer all the anti-labour measures and the sweeping away of labour rights and conquests. Their interests are closer than any other social strata to the working class.
Low and medium-income peasants are a prime example. With the laws that are imposed by the EU and lead to suffocation and shrinking of the poor and middle-class peasantry. With the burdensome terms imposed by all kinds of memoranda, but also the abolition of subsidies, for the sake of serving the economic figures imposed by the European imperialist centres.
The catastrophe of the Thessalian Plain[2] is the most striking evidence of the effects on this stratum of the policy of a deeply dependent and unsteady, wavering, vacillating, hesitating (without thought or plan, unstable and changeable) ruling class. A ruling class that bases its existence and hypostasis on the support of the imperialists. Which, while regurgitating various things about development, it promotes the productive disintegration of the country, the eradication of any productive capacity, any concept of productive independence.
Sections of petty-bourgeois strata ―self-employed, small producers, etc.― engaged in a whole cycle of service provision, trade, tourism, and food supply are part of the equation. No matter how much the bourgeoisie wants to have these strata under its control (since they are numerically extensive and a politically calculable quantity) it is difficult to realize this goal.
Where these strata will turn politically, to which political forces they will seek support, is not a given. Because their social position and their social role are always contingent on circumstance. Because, as a result of their social position, their consciousness is volatile and is sometimes closer to the bourgeoisie and sometimes closer to the working class.
However, these strata will continue to be squeezed, to be unable to find a prospect of a way out, to be proletarianized. And it is certain that ―in one way or another― they will turn again against the policy of dependence (whether they perceive it as such or not).
Objectively, that is, and on the basis of the development of the attack and the plundering of the country by imperialism, these strata can be part of the socio-political front of the overthrow.
However, we emphasize again that this presupposes the crucial factor of the reconstitution of the working class. Such a constitution ―on a political, organizational and programmatic level― that will be able to convince these strata of its own perspective, revolutionary overthrow and socialist construction.
→ The revolution of the working class and the popular forces that will join it, after clashing and breaking all the bonds of dependence (US, NATO, military bases, EU) and smashing the bourgeois state, will take control of all the main sectors of production and the economy. It will take immediate steps to satisfy the right to work, health care, education, and housing for all the people.
This titanic and great project includes and means the formation of the conditions of food and energy independence and self-reliance of the country.
This will be the starting point of the struggle to build socialism. A struggle that will seek to advance with rapid steps, but which cannot ignore the two decisive factors that will determine its development:
→ The reconstitution of the working class and the communist movement is a process starting from and presupposing peoples’ struggles, the unfolding and strengthening of centres of resistance, the advance of the critical fronts of struggle.
We are fighting in the direction of forming, establishing a Resistance and Assertion Front to create the right conditions for the struggles to grow and thrive. To put our own logic and perception into the movement, contrasted with empty verbalisms.
The Resistance and Assertion Front is not a cooperation of organizations, it has nothing to do with the ideological construct of the unity of the Left.
It is the coalescence of social and political forces with the aim of resisting-overthrowing the reactionary policy and the emergence of central demands for the defence and assertion of the interests of the broad social majority. It is a proposal for a common march and action of trade unions, associations, people’s - labour - youth initiatives to decisively serve the front lines of struggle emerged by the attack of capital and imperialism. It is a proposal for the formation, establishing of workers’-people’s first-tier organization forms, it contributes to the revitalization of collective organization processes.
The question is how the Front can be materialized in each phase of the movement, however the aim is that the form it takes each time favours its continuation and broadening, as well as the upgrading of its objectives.
This is a total view that we want raised to the forefront in the movement, beyond the various adhesions, the electoral illusions and all kinds of «political patronage» that thrive due to the overall political retreat and the bad situation prevailing in the people's and workers' movement.
It is the defence of struggles, against the idea of various «tricks» and «smart solutions».
It serves the understanding of the need for a more comprehensive uprising, a wider activation and participation of the masses in the cause of resistance and the overthrow of bourgeois politics.
It is a more general call to organized struggle and assertion, to clash with the bourgeois state, capital, imperialism and their political expressions.
It is the field where the direction of Confrontation and revolutionary overthrow will be widely cultivated.
→ In this critical period, when the system is unfolding its attack with the greatest brutality and harshness against a disorganized working class and a defeated and discredited communist movement, the basic necessity is to organize mass resistance, to organize mass struggles that will claim rights (even the most obvious ones), that will seek to overthrow aspects of the attack. The tool of joint action was and remains an important element that decisively contributes to the existence and massification of this resistance. We insist on joint action and coordination of left, fighting forces within the movement. We insist on giving prominence to the basic common ground (points of agreement) that will favour the maximum possible common march and action in the context of a struggle or a fighting front. However, we are not defined by this. We are not constituted as an organization by having joint action as the horizon of our actions or activities; it is not our end in itself. We do not exist to take joint action. Joint action, but also collaborations, is a tactical political decision, which sometimes arises and sometimes does not. We will not relinquish, betray our core views in order to fit into this or that initiative. Joint action does not mean uncritical and unconditional adhesion.
We seek joint action, but we are aware of the bad political situation that prevails on the Left and especially in the extra-parliament. A state of confusion and disintegration. We heard a lot of «big tricks» and grandiose declarations from the Left in our country, but all of them ended up in favour of the so-called left governmental solutions that serve the system.
We do not overlook or underestimate a fairly large circle of activists who still have reference to forces like these, nor the existing ability of forces in this political area to mobilize and influence a significant part of student youth. However, none of this can stand in for the ideological and political inadequacy of these forces, their inability to outline a more comprehensive goal and perspective.
We seek joint action, but we know that here too it is the strengthening of our own political action and our own political influence that can give impetus.
→ In each country, separately, there are the possibilities both for revolutionary overthrow and for building of a new society without waiting for «world revolutions» or without the fears of an «enclosed country». This follows from the fact that the uneven development (economic and political) is an absolute law of capitalism.
However, this does not mean that revolutionary overthrow in a country and the building of socialism will happen in a «dead landscape». In the same way that imperialism universally unfolds its attack on the peoples worldwide, in the same way that capital unitedly unfolds its attack on the working class, so the working class and the masses of the people will manifest their response.
The process of awakening the oppressed masses and reconstituting the working class into a class for itself, the process of reconstituting the workers' revolutionary communist movement and the process of changing the balance of power in favour of the peoples and the working class will all proceed mutually feeding each other.
The history of the communist movement is rich in examples of the wide, world class radiance of the revolutionary ventures. And we're not just referring to the enormous impact of the overthrows in the Soviet Union and China, but also to the revolutionary overthrows and movements that took place and developed all over the world.
The enthusiasm and hope that these developments generated among the peoples was due –above all– to the confirmation of that the direction of overthrowing capitalism-imperialism can be realized, that the vision of social emancipation is a historical possibility.
In this sense, the question of developing and expanding internationalist solidarity, of re-establishing and strengthening contacts and relations with left, communist forces around the world is very important.
Particularly important to us is the question of solidarity with the peoples of the Balkans and the wider region of the South-Eastern Mediterranean. This issue –above all else– concerns our very opposition to the issue of dependence and the role assumed by the local ruling class on behalf of imperialism. A role that the local ruling class seeks to maintain and enhance, tied even more tightly to the shackles of imperialism and its devastating policy.
→ Overall, the development of solidarity relations and the direction of the formation, establishing of a Peoples’ Front:
The question of internationalist solidarity has nothing to do with views on world revolution. Not only does it not negate the necessity-possibility of the revolution in one country, but also it must reinforce this direction as the only real way out and perspective.
The constitution of the working class in a country, the emergence of the fronts that concern it, and more generally the formation of the forces that will build the front of revolutionary overthrow in our country, is a component element of the wider modification of balance of power in the class struggle. It is a prerequisite so that the strengthening of the workers' and people's resistances in the world as a whole, as well as the outbreak of mass struggles against capitalist-imperialist barbarism, can be utilized in the right direction.
→ The struggle against reformism is a permanent struggle against the negation of the revolutionary perspective of the working class and the people’s masses, against the illusions of other directions, i.e. electoral-parliamentary, which struggles must be subordinated to and must serve.
Reformism distorts the concept of struggle and of organizational structure. It does not hesitate to provoke and undermine the struggles when they are out of its control, when they become dangerous for the bourgeoisie.
The line of reformism constitutes effective refusal to build the terms for the reconstitution of the working class and the communist movement, it constitutes an obstacle to understanding the balance of power, the phase we are in and the necessities it gives rise to.
In this sense, it is an obstacle to the reconstitution of the working class and the communist movement.
The defeat of the communist movement and the depressing balance of power for the peoples and the working-class are fertile ground for the reproduction of the reformist delusions. That is why reformism refuses to recognize the defeat as such, and above all the causes that led to it and its own responsibilities. Reformism's retrospective of the restoration of capitalism denies seeing the social forces that led to it and the conditions under which these forces prevailed.
Even reformism's retrospective of current situation is completely inverted. Defeats are called victories or, at worst, are «preserved as precious heritage».
Reformism distorts the relationship between party and movement. CPG identifies itself as the party of the working class, deliberately overlooking the disorganization of the working class. The movement exists to serve the party (which exists and has organisational structure). In a complete denial of the guiding, leading role that the party of the working-class must play in the revolutionary process, CPG goes so far as to describe itself as a «prop» for the masses of the people, a confession of the real view it has of its role and its relationship with the people, but also of the real understanding it has of the period.
The electoral strengthening of reformism is in direct proportion to the disorganization of the workers and people’s movement. Contrary to what reformism solemnly proclaims, its higher electoral results are a confession of the inability of the masses to see the struggles as a means by which they can break out of the impasse, and an apotheosis of the rationale of delegating the movement to the reformists.
In the conditions of political crisis of the system, reformism is willing to show its «responsibility» and even present itself as a governmental option. It is willing to assume an even more elevated role in the bourgeois political scene (as it has done in the past), bypassing «details» such as the... revolutionary overthrow of bourgeoisie.
→ Benefiting from the defeat and disorganization of the workers' communist movement and triumphing over this development, anarchism finds a fertile soil in which to thrive and has the opportunity to unfold its dead-end petty bourgeois preaching. Relying on the well-known general notion of «anti-authoritarianism» and «anti-statism», anarchism promotes a classless-anti-dialectical analysis of society and social relations.
It equalizes the bourgeois power with the power of the revolutionary working class and the bourgeois state with the working class state after the revolutionary overthrow.
It equalizes bourgeois rule (i.e. the domination of a handful of capitalists over the great social majority in terms of oppression and exploitation) with the dictatorship of the proletariat (i.e. the necessary imposition of workers’ and people’s power over the defeated bourgeoisie).
It therefore denies-negates the entire history of revolutionary overthrows, as it treats them as precursors of «oppressive» structures and systems that are equivalent to those under capitalism - or even worse! It feels vindicated by the historical regression signalled by the restoration of capitalism, just as the forces of the system claim to be vindicated (and feel «at least temporarily» relieved).
But in this way anarchism highlights its own huge contradiction-deadlock. Because the (especially attractive for young audiences) line of «confrontation», detached from the revolutionary perspective, is not applicable, devoid of purpose, meaningless, dead-end. It is a mere venting, very convenient for the bourgeois powers.
Anarchy’s classless view of society does not see the revolutionary subject nor the need for its constitution. It denies the leading-pioneering role of the working class and the need for its class-political constitution. Even its work in the trade union movement is on a trade unionist basis, without broader political aims and goals.
Anarchy does not see the struggle against imperialism and war. It certainly denies the struggle against imperialist dependence and obviously the need to form, establish social alliances on this basis.
On the basis of a false immediacy, «here and now» solutions and «confrontations», and always against the background of the general depoliticization that prevails, anarchy is an attractive space for the youth. In essence, it is an expression of petty-bourgeois impatience with a «confrontational» wrapping, which only hurts the need of organizing mass struggles to overthrow capitalist-imperialist barbarism, and the effort of reconstructing the workers' revolutionary communist movement.
The outbursts of anger that have occurred over the past few years and which will continue and intensify have made this necessity abundantly clear.
These and dozens of other examples can be cited to highlight the essential absence of the necessary organizational structure of the people and the working class where they live and work.
The vast majority of the people and the working class are outside of any such organization. They do not participate in collective discussion and co-decision processes. Even in the existing formations (trade unions, student associations) the mass processes range from non-existent to caricatures. At best, a worker or a student is informed of the decisions taken by the boards of the unions or associations, without any prior discussion, without any mass process.
→ The direction of the formation of a Resistance and Assertion Front presupposes and moves towards the overthrow of this situation.
It presupposes the broadest and more substantial possible organization of the people’s-workers’ forces, against a fully organized opponent, with this negative balance of power. It is the first and basic precondition for building the self-confidence of the masses and their reliance on mass struggle. It is the first step towards breaking defeatism, helplessness, and individualism. Which will contribute to a more effective repulsion of bourgeois ideological propaganda. Which will fight against the rationale of delegating the struggle to representatives and against the cultivation of delusions. Which will contribute to the organization, the continuation, the strengthening, and the correct orientation of the struggles.
And of course, it is the place where the «seed» for the overall necessity-possibility of revolutionary overthrow and socialist construction can be planted.
Without this primary organization, any grandiose plan ―of those that are too often drawn up to amuse the weakness and unwillingness of the forces that announce them― remains dead letter, mere chatter. Blowing trumpets to announce «counteroffensive» is mere fanfare. And of course there is no such thing as a working-class party, with the working class out and away from this process.
The struggles that are breaking out need this formation. The intervention of communists in the struggles must favour this kind of formation. Not just for one struggle to be effective, but to lay the groundwork for the next one to be even more effective.
→ As far as we are concerned, this means that the demands, possibilities and responsibilities for our own Organization, for our organized members and cadres are increasing.
It is not enough to have correct general analyses of the international situation and domestic issues when these are not translated into a guide for action. It is not enough to point out the inherent danger of the developments and the danger of the slaughter of the peoples for imperialist interests, if we do not make every possible effort to build an anti-war, anti-imperialist movement, if we do not promote in practice the direction of a Peoples’ Struggle Front and its internationalist dimension. It is not enough to record the dire situation experienced by the working class and the necessity of its class reformation, when we do not take effective steps to approach it. It is not enough to recognize the criticality of youth policy initiatives and not devote thought, effort and resources to approaching them.
We do not diminish the importance of doing a correct analysis and of drawing the correct conclusions. No, just the opposite. However, a communist organization analyses in order to act! To turn theory into practice and this, in turn, into a new theory and back into practice. That is why it should not escape our notice that without substantial engagement with the masses, the people, and the working class, even the most correct conclusions reach a limit that cannot be exceeded. Of course, some comrades –thanks to their experience, insight and judgment– may be able to more or less cross that line, but the rule remains. And the ability of one or a few members to logically delve deeper and come to right conclusions cannot and should not define the organization. A communist organization must form each of its members and cadres in such a way that they can effectively contribute to the deepening of the analyses, to defining the policies and the direction towards the goal, to the correct guidance of the organization.
→ A communist organization must recognize the phase in which it is. It is a crucial element, and CPG(m-l) has never been afraid to acknowledge and state explicitly and unequivocally that we are passing through the phase of defeat of the communist movement.
We never sought to eliminate the impressions, to putt a good gloss on situations, to hide behind adventurous formulations.
We did not tickle anyone’s ears, blowing trumpets to announce «counteroffensives».
We were not dazzled by various «earthshaking, world-historical changes» such as «globalization», the «end of History» or the «first time Left»[5] that were proclaimed from time to time.
We did not pretend to be the guardian of the Marxist-Leninist movement and theory. We prefer to apply this theory, not as a static perception or a closed, dogmatic scheme, but as a dynamic perception, a guide to action.
We never sowed delusions, because we know the results very well, especially the effects they have on people struggling to get involved in the movement or – even more so – in the organized struggle.
We acknowledge the balance of power just to overthrow it, not to submit to it!
Changing the balance of power does not simply mean an accumulation of forces or good election results. It does not mean assumption of governmental authority. A change in the balance of power between classes means an ideological, political and organizational reconstruction of the working class into a class for itself. It means awareness of its place in society, its role and its historical destination.
It means confrontation with bourgeois ideologies. It means confrontation with reformism and its dissolving action. It means squaring accounts with the petty bourgeois theories of anarcho-autonomy.
It means formation of structures of struggle that will advance its own class interests. It means trade unions independent of the bourgeois state, trade unions that promote the real demands, the real class struggles and not a false, virtual reality. Trade unions with reference to the entire working class, not to convenient party audiences.
→ We want an organization that will form militants of the people’s-workers’ movement. That will produce the necessary ideological and political knowledge so that its members and cadres can meet the needs of the class struggle. That will equip them so that they can engage with the people, with the movement, without being afraid of difficulties, but willing to overcome them. Without feeling uninvited or like intruders among the people but seek to establish relations with them. Without giving up trying, but persevere. Without imposing their (our) weaknesses on the people and the situation in general, but trying to identify and overcome them. Combining theory with practice, against «convenience», against dogmatism and empiricism.
We want an organization that will form militants. Militants who will realize the responsibility, who will be able and willing to assume it. Not as an unbearable burden, but as an affirmation of their capabilities and their role.
This means that every cadre of the organization must operate not just on the basis of «getting the job done», but mainly on the basis of grafting the experience of their spaces of action and fields of responsibility into the party line. It is there that the organization's line will be tested ―verified, rejected or modified― and specified. It is there that new questions will emerge to be answered. And the cadres should be there, properly equipped, but above all aware of the need to operate in this way.
The cadres of the organization are the ones who can and must contribute so that the party organs become policy making tools, instruments to produce positions and not for the mere reproduction and sterile reiteration of the general political line.
This means that cadres must ―first of all― be aware of their area of responsibility: its characteristics and peculiarities, the issues and problems it faces, the particular political balance of power that prevail and the political forces that intervene. It is this knowledge that we must require to become deeper, wider, and more complete. And this presupposes substantial, daily systematic engagement, it presupposes active participation.
The members of the organization are not listeners nor visitors, they are not mere units. They bear the seal but also the responsibility of the great choice they have made to serve the cause of the working class and the people. Their joining the Organisation is not «yet another activity» but a life decision, opening the way to a new quality. This decision is even more important in the present period of defeat and disintegration, in the period of growing evidence of disillusionment and demobilization. And they must defend this decision, both in their daily contact with the people and their social surroundings, as well as within the Organization by demanding a substantial contribution from themselves and a substantial political operation from the Organization and the rest of the comrades.
Communists are not made for the easy things, they do not exist only when the situation is favourable. The organized struggle is not a «fad». Communist organizations are ―must be― formed and organized on the basis of confrontation with the system of injustice and exploitation. This is a difficult and demanding confrontation, but absolutely necessary. One that cannot be overcome by bright ideas, facile replies, and all kinds of «quick fixes».
→ For a communist organization to be able to respond to these duties, it must be built on solid ideological and political foundations. This presupposes two things, tied together: First, the essential ideological and political equipment of each member.
Second, the political «implementation» of the views-positions it conquers and the line it chooses to highlight. The testing of its views-positions within the movement, within the struggles, in our relationship with the political surroundings. It is there that this or that position is confirmed-justified. It is there that the choice of organized struggle is finally confirmed-justified. This is what makes each member confident in their views, courageous enough to defend them and a reference point for those around him or her. This is what each member should demand of him/herself and the Organization, this is what the Organization should demand of its operation and its members.
There can be no substantial party membership and operation when the members of the organization operate only within the framework of the ideological agreement. A communist organization cannot contribute to the cause of formation anew when it does not take care of its organizational and political reinforcement, of its active participation in the struggles, of gathering that critical mass that will enable it to create political events, to foster struggles and resistances, and to make its political identity distinct on a large scale.
→ The working class not only has not disappeared (as various «left» intellectuals have argued), but it is here and still constitutes the only social force that can consistently set and implement the task of revolutionary overthrow. We have had serious confrontations with all those who wanted to eliminate it, «stretch» it or mock it. However, we cannot but realize the distance that separates us from the working class, our inability to gain any substantial connection with it up to this moment. This is something that needs to be changed, a contradiction that needs to be resolved. The process of resolving it will bring us face to face both with the real situation and the dead ends experienced by the working class, and with the bad situation prevailing in the unions: with the dominance of reformism, but also of bourgeois forces (ND and PASOK). It will bring us face to face with the reality of its disorganization. Its lacking or even nonexistent relationship with organized struggle. The lack of reference to the communist perspective or even its provocation. The widespread influence of far-right views. It will bring us face to face with the working class even in matters of «culture» (as we recognize the mostly petty bourgeois composition of our organization).
The «guide» for overcoming these difficulties is primarily the attitude we have towards the position and role of the working class. It is this attitude that has led us, for example, to take up an important role in supporting the strike at the Malamatina factory[6], but also in a series of other struggles that working men and women have fought and are fighting.
We have much to learn from the working class, despite its disintegration, and we have much to offer to it. We should not treat it with either awe or disdain. It should not be an occasional engagement, but a permanent and substantial responsibility, a constant concern.
→ We need frontal formations that will favour our wide work in the mass spaces: in schools, in universities, in workplaces, in neighbourhoods. Formations that will not confuse their operation with that of the Organization, but will be a major concern of the Organization and a basic element of the work of its cells.
In these formations, the members will have a real role. They will make a real commitment, on the basis of real tasks, but also on the basis of a substantial political agreement. They will not feel like a guest or that they are participating on a temporary, ad hoc, opportunistic, situational, occasional basis.
There can be no substantial broad-based work without such frontal formations. There can be no substantial enhancement of our political relationship with the group of people that surrounds us without their inclusion in one of our broad formations.
These formations are not branch offices of the party. They cannot operate on the basis of the broader and deeper political agreement that the members of the Organization have. And in that sense, they have their own autonomy, which should not alienate or frighten us. We must learn to manage it, learn to work with the reality it produces.
The character of our frontal formations cannot be merely the trade union work, but primarily the political intervention.
They must encourage the political discussion, the maturation of the political thought of their members and the upgrading of their political relationship with the Organization. They must give at union level intervention the necessary political weight that will make the intervention more effective and will integrate it into the overall strategy of the working class and the people’s masses. They must equip their members in the struggle against bourgeois and reformist forces and the distortions and dissolution these forces produce.
They should be able to produce their own political material for their propaganda. One that meets their specific needs. Recording their own points of view to help fighting for them in their special domains.
Such an operation cannot be occasional. The political commitment we seek requires organizational commitment as well. It requires frequent and substantial operation. It requires preparation and greater accountability.
Such an operation will also be a school for the members of the Organization. It will raise the level of their contribution, help to deepen and refine their point of view and the positions of the Organisation. It will bring us face to face with the new problems that concern the special domains and the broad masses. It will enable us to better and more timely identify the processes taking place in the consciousnesses of the masses. It will enable us to intervene effectively in the fronts that are opening up and in the struggles that are breaking out.
→ All these points and all these objectives are not raised for the first time. However, today they are set in an even more urgent manner. The reasons were already outlined:
Within this landscape that we briefly described, CPG(m-l) must claim a more enhanced role. It has to realize the necessity, but also the possibility of it. The account of the party’s action over the last 4-5 years –and especially during the quarantine period– includes enough evidence to demonstrate this possibility.
This possibility primarily arises from the party’s positions. By correctly reading contradictions and developments and highlighting crucial fronts. By emphasizing the crucial nature of the intra-imperialist contradictions. By emphasizing the dependent character of the local ruling class and the tasks generated by the confrontation with its politics.
By encouraging the confrontation with reformism and governmentalism. The criticism and confrontation with demands and slogans that sow confusion and disorientation.
By defending the history, the conquests and the perspective of the peoples and the working class, against the preaching of bourgeoisie and imperialism.
By encouraging the confrontation with the system and its forces. By revealing the character of the bourgeois state and by defending the independence of people’s and workers' organizations from it.
This possibility arises from the characteristics that the party has acquired all these decades. The continuous participation in people’s and workers’ struggles. The unceasing effort to set up joint action initiatives with other forces of the Left and to highlight sites of resistance. The promotion and defence of its views and positions against bourgeois views that were projected as «radical» and uncritically adopted by forces of the Left.
But this is also a possibility that requires the party to confront its weaknesses, delays, and mistakes.
The 10th Conference must lay the foundations to overcome these weaknesses. It must lay the foundations so that the Organization can enter with new impetus and enhanced obligations and responsibilities into the front lines of struggle, into the workers' and people's movement.
[1] After the defeat of the armed revolutionary movement in Greece in 1949, many communists moved as political refugees in the socialist Eastern European countries, with Tashkent as their stronghold. Many others were imprisoned in barren islands in Greece. The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, where the revisionist forces prevailed, found many of them standing proudly and fighting against revisionism in exile or in prison, thus forming the first Marxist-Leninist groups in our country.
[2] Heavy rain in September 2023 resulted in flood of the Thessalian Plain. Entire villages sank under almost 2 meters of water, agricultural production suffered heavy cost. Despite their declarations, to this day the government has not done anything for recovery.
[3] Great forest fires in the summer of 2023 in Euboea, Rhodes and Evros destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of forest, agriculture, even villages. The state has done nothing to this day to compensate the peoples of those areas.
[4] On February 28th 2023 there was a railway accident in the area of Tempi in Northern Greece, in which 57 people died. Although the reason was the bad condition of the railway network, the government practically denied all responsibility.
[5] This was the central slogan of the government of SYRIZA in 2015. SYRIZA’s political ancestors are the euro-communist reformist movement. While it remained at very low electoral power (below 5%) for many years, after 2010, when the policies dictated by the memoranda imposed on Greece by IMF and the EU almost destroyed the traditional social-democratic party (PASOK), SYRIZA’s power started to increase rapidly, to the point where they won the election of 2015. Many organizations and even militants of the Left considered this an opportunity for the people.
[6] The workers in the Malamatina wine factory in Thessaloniki started a 10-month strike in the summer of 2022 against lay-offs, which did not succeed in securing their jobs. Our Organization actively supported this struggle by standing next to the workers against the riot police and by trying to gain the support of all peoples to the strike.
