1. The Central Committee of the KKE met
and agreed on the Party’s programme of action for the following period,
based on the political and economic developments and with a view to the
upcoming battle of the parliamentary elections.

It approved the main body of the Party’s
candidates in the parliamentary, regional and municipal elections and
elaborated key issues concerning the content of the political call in
view of the election battles. 

It discussed about the preparations for
the 13th Congress of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), which has
entered its final stretch and will be held on 10–12 February 2023,
aiming at its success.

The Central Committee calls upon the
members and friends of the Party and KNE to rally and act to organize
and carry out a new, broad, political campaign aiming at the people in
order to strengthen the KKE, which is the best response against the
false dilemmas and blackmails that will intensify in the coming period
in view of the electoral battle.

The multifaceted political,
organizational and electoral strengthening of the KKE is a condition for
raising the degree of organization, militancy and effectiveness in the
intervention of the labour–popular movement in the developments, which
is of vital importance, more necessary and urgent than ever. That is the
spirit of militantly joining forces with the KKE, which is also
reflected in the slogan “Only the people can save the people, on the
path of the overthrow of capitalism, with a stronger KKE”.

At the same time, the KKE fights with
all its might so that all the critical fronts of struggle concerning the
life and future of the working people acquire mass characteristics and
be strengthened. These fronts include high prices, energy poverty,
labour rights and workers’ income, foreclosure auctions of primary
residences, the protection of health, the consequences of Greece’s
involvement in the imperialist military conflict in Ukraine being waged
between NATO and Russia, and the aggravation of Greek-Turkish relations.
In the framework of those fronts, the workers, the people and the youth
are faced, among other things, with the problems and consequences of
the anti-popular strategy of the government and the European Union,
acting on behalf of capital.

2. The battles of the next period will
be waged under conditions of international economic and geopolitical
developments that will bring an even greater “harsh winter” for the
peoples. Under these conditions:

·         The imperialist war in Ukraine
is escalating, between the Euro-Atlantic bloc on the one hand and
Russia and its allies on the other.

·         The conflict between the USA
and China for supremacy in the world imperialist system is intensifying
and the contradictions within “traditional” alliances such as NATO and
the EU are becoming more acute.

·         Greece’s involvement is
intensifying both in military plans, with the latest development being
—among other things— the plans to send S-300 missiles, and in the energy
war and economic competition (LNG transport stations, EU sanctions
packages against Russia, etc.). The risks for the people and the country
are thus multiplied due to the sharpening of the contradictions in the
region and the aggressive plans of the Turkish bourgeoisie, which is
bargaining for its relationship with NATO and the EU.

The economic developments certainly lead
to a further aggravation of the totality of workers’–people’s problems.
The vast majority of the people in society, i.e. the working class, the
lower middle strata in the cities and the countryside, women, the
youth, pensioners, the disabled, and workers in the field of culture and
sports, are fighting a daily battle for survival under worse
conditions. The exploitation of the working class is intensifying, and
its absolute and relative impoverishment is increasing. The so-called
great achievement advertised by the ND government, i.e. the investments,
not only did not address the problems of the workers, but on the
contrary, they multiplied them. They did not bring about an improvement
in the people’s income nor did they contain its deterioration because
they are based on old memoranda and new anti-labour and anti-people
measures, on tax breaks and state subsidies for capital, which are paid
for by the people through taxation.

The lignite phase-out and the reliance
on natural gas, the investments in certain Renewable Energy Sources and
“green” electricity that have skyrocketed prices for workers, and the
huge profits earned by the energy groups of the US monopolies that
produce LNG and the shipowners that transport it, are precisely the
heart of energy poverty. Investments in tourism turn people’s vacation
into an expensive commodity, drive up the cost of people’s housing and
small business premises, and are based on increasingly cheap labour in
the sector. The expansion of e-commerce is sharpening competition,
driving tens of thousands of small businesses to closure, accelerating
the concentration of capital, while its huge profits are based on the
miserable conditions of exploitation of workers in distribution and
sorting. The one-sided orientation towards the export of agricultural
products mainly benefits the big tradesmen–industrialists and the large
agricultural capitalist holdings, while the massive import of
agricultural products adds further difficulties to the life of small
farmers, degrading the quality of basic foodstuffs for the people.

The dispute between ND, SYRIZA, PASOK,
and other bourgeois parties over which one represents the “middle
class”, seeks to equate the needs of the upper sections of the middle
strata with the problems faced by the vast majority of the popular
forces of the self-employed and farmers, as well as the working class,
to which they avoid any reference.

It turns out that “growth for all” is
the greatest myth, since the people are constantly suffering losses, a
fact that cannot be concealed even by the statistics.

If the workers are paying dearly in the
growth phase, we can imagine how much they will pay in a slowdown of the
economy on the way to recession in the coming months. Besides, analyses
warn of an even deeper and more synchronized capitalist crisis in the
EU and around the world.

The European Central Bank is preparing
for a new increase in interest rates, with a direct impact on the
repayment of mortgages and other loans, further burdening the incomes of
already heavily indebted workers and people. Industrial production in
the major industrial centres worldwide appears to be reduced. The volume
of maritime transport is declining significantly and the forecasts of
economic institutes point to a new crisis, deeper than the 2008 crisis.
Pressure is mounting for a return to a “restrictive policy” and an end
to “horizontal state aids” across the eurozone. “Cheap money” and the
ability to borrow is bumping up against the huge increase of public debt
in many EU countries. The familiar threat of the so-called failure to
meet fiscal aims is emerging again and after the forthcoming elections
it will constitute the new narrative on which cuts in state spending,
even the current meagre ‘social policy’ spending, are based.

The developments of the past few years
are indisputable and confirm that the “remedy” used for one problem
becomes “poison” for another, proving that no proposal of bourgeois
management can cancel the laws and contradictions of the capitalist path
of development, which in any case are paid for by the workers
themselves. It is also confirmed that the implementation of one or
another formula of economic management is imposed by the very needs of
the capitalist economy and not by the “ideology” and disorienting
slogans of any government. That is why the “social-democratic SYRIZA”
implemented austerity policies through memoranda and the “neoliberal New
Democracy” implemented expansionary measures like their “foster
siblings” in a number of EU countries and elsewhere.

The “expansionary policy”, worshipped by
SYRIZA and social democracy in general, as well as the “cheap money” to
support growth, have led to rising inflation, which is eating away at
people’s income. Now, in order to contain inflation in the EU, a return
to “restrictive policies” is being engineered, accelerating a new
recession by raising interest rates, putting the working-class and
popular families even further in debt.

The contradictions in the EU on the pace
and form of austerity policies and the difficulties of the EU member
states to reach an agreement on the natural gas cap issue reflect the
different interests of the member states and business groups, and
certainly not of the people. The temporary compromise reached on a cap
at a very high price neither cancels the contradictions nor will it
relieve the people of energy poverty.

The alternation of forms of bourgeois
management and the transition from crisis to growth and vice versa
further burden the workers and the popular strata, since each “new”
phase is based on the anti-labour and anti-people measures of the
previous one, as happened in Greece with the memoranda laws passed and
implemented successively by the ND, PASOK and SYRIZA governments.

3. It is unfounded to say that the Greek
economy can emerge unscathed by a European or global recession. The
Greek economy is not developing in a bubble. Besides, the so-called
great asset of the Greek economy, i.e. tourism, may suffer a significant
decline in the event of a European or global crisis. It is revealed
that the “outward-oriented policy”, which is the holy grail of all
bourgeois parties, serves only the profitability of big Greek
enterprises, while being a time bomb for the interests of the working
class, the farmers, the self-employed small tradesmen and the people.

The government’s claim that energy
poverty is an “imported problem”, a result of the war in Ukraine, is
also a huge deception. Not only because the price spike preceded the war
—and at the time governments attributed it to other causes— but also
because Greece, as a strategic choice of the bourgeoisie and its
parties, is fully integrated into the single EU market, the respective
structures and mechanisms, such as the ECB, the emissions trading and
the Energy Exchange, which are the catalysts for high prices.

The rest of the parties do not reject
the theory of “imported high prices”; they only disagree on the
percentage of deviation from the European average, speaking of “high
prices caused by Mitsotakis”. Their stance on the one hand exonerates
all the causes and mechanisms that give rise to soaring prices, which
have been jointly shaped by SYRIZA and PASOK/KINAL. On the other hand,
it provides a convenient alibi for a possible coalition government with
their participation in order to put forward the same argument.

The attempt to manipulate the people
with various subsidies that pay a pittance and deceive the people aims
to redivide poverty between the poor and the poorer, by perpetuating
anti-popular taxes and sparing the profitability of business groups.

4. It is daily demonstrated that both
the proclamations on the “contemporary” state and “the state based on
the rule of law” aim to enhance a decayed, anti-popular state of the few
to oppress and exploit the majority of the people, that is, the state
of the dictatorship of capital.

The phone-tapping scandal, the Kaili and
Patsis-type phenomena of corruption, the intensification of repression
and state violence that go hand in hand with the anti-popular policy
are, among others, some elements of this decay and reactionary turn.

The carrot of manipulation is combined
with the stick of repression, which takes on various forms such as
police violence and arbitrariness, the prosecutions against militants,
the people’s houses that go under the hammer by the state, and the
institutional morass of monitoring and phone-tapping that all
governments have formed with the ultimate aim of tackling people’s
reactions. Of course, it is also being used to settle political and
business scores, which is what we are seeing happening at the moment, as
are the successive government measures to control information.

The people’s response to state violence
and repression takes place through the struggle for the abolition of all
reactionary laws and institutions, the various special repression
units, such as the riot police, university police, etc., and not through
their alleged —general and abstract— “democratization”.

This state cannot ensure “justice for
all and everywhere”, as SYRIZA claims, because the interests and the
power of capital cannot in any case identify with the workers’–people’s
needs. This is the same state that is selectively “incapable” of
protecting the people and their needs from natural disasters and other
dangers, as was amply demonstrated with the pandemic, because it
prioritizes capitalist profits. That is the case with the government’s
recent law on the national health system, which calls on patients to dig
even deeper into their pockets and turns hospitals into a place for the
“vultures” of private healthcare to attract customers. At the same
time, it is a state capable of fast-tracking the interests of capital.
It is the same, hostile state that leaves children exposed to the
violence of poverty, school dropout, underage work, abuse and entrusts
them to all kinds of private individuals and NGOs.

5. Particularly the scandal involving
former PASOK/KINAL MEP, E. Kaili, reveals the true face of the EU; it is
a European Union of business interests and lobbies that provides a
breeding ground for scandals and corruption.

This did not come as a surprise for the
KKE, since it has been revealing evidence and documents about the
activities of lobbyists and the “blood ties” they have developed with
the EU and its institutions for years now. These scandals are not an
isolated incident or a rare exception. Institutionalized business
lobbies act within the EU and the European Parliament, which, together
with informal ones, are estimated at 25,000 to 30,000. In the European
Parliament, legislative texts, directives and specific wordings are very
often written directly or are dictated by representatives of such
lobbies and then signed and tabled as amendments by MEPs.

This decay was whitewashed by the MEPs
of ND, SYRIZA, PASOK/KINAL and Greek Solution, who adopted the
resolution where it is cynically admitted that “the ability of interest
group representatives to influence decision-making in Parliament by way
of arguments is a vital part of European democracy”!!!

These revelations must be utilized to
draw conclusions of crucial importance for the working class, to awaken
the workers’–people’s consciousness, to realize that this is the
notorious “European democracy” and the “European values” that all the
other parties jointly praise.

6. The totality of developments shows
that possibilities are being formed so that popular discontent is not
entrapped in false and blackmailing bourgeois dilemmas. It shows that
the ruling class is not omnipotent and that its power may face cracks
and shocks. Without disregarding the negative correlation of forces, the
mass labour–popular mobilizations in a number of countries, despite
their still weak orientation, as well as the recent strike on 9 November
in Greece, confirm that the peoples’ numbness must not be taken for
granted and that the popular movements will not always be exploited as a
stepping stone for both the overthrow and coming into power of
anti-popular governments.

The bourgeois staffs in the EU and
Greece know that the dire consequences of the implementation of
capital’s strategy for the people will be more evident in the coming
period. That is why they seek stable governments “for the following day”
that will implement the strategy of capital and the EU commitments,
that will promote the Euro-Atlantic plans in the Mediterranean and make
painful compromises for the sovereign rights of the country; governments
that will seek to effectively counter any radical mood that can lead to
an upsurge in the labour movement. They are concerned about social
explosions, the possible rise of radicalism, the momentum that workers’
struggles can gain with a stronger KKE on their side.

The goal of this “governmental
stability”, which for the people means greater instability and
insecurity, is served by both New Democracy and the other parties,
regardless of the way each one pursues it. ND seeks to form a
single-party government. SYRIZA utilizes the same old story of a
“progressive” government that we have experienced in Greece and in other
countries and has proved to be the best ally of “neoliberal” policies
and a vehicle for conservatism and disappointment. In a similar vein
acts PASOK/KINAL, which, behind the slogan of “independence”, hides its
pursuit to play the role of the wild card, either in a government with
ND or with SYRIZA, depending on developments.

The stability of the governments of
capital means inability on the part of the labour–popular movement to
react against the anti-labour and anti-popular attack.

Stability for the people presupposes a
strong KKE, a strong labour–popular movement and at the same time weak
anti-popular governments. The sooner that the people impede the various
anti-popular government plans, better conditions will be formed for the
obstruction of anti-popular measures and for achievements; new
possibilities will open up on the path of a radical overthrow. That is
why every single vote for the KKE, coming from all the people who
recognize the KKE’s credibility, consistency, stability and militancy
under all circumstances, counts.

7. The people now have the experience to
avoid being trapped in false dilemmas. Those who have been fostering
such blackmails over time are the same people who — when the system
needed so— put aside their differences to jointly support the
anti-popular bourgeois stability. That was the case with the coalition
government of PASOK, ND and the far-right LA.O.S party. That was the
case with the the coalition government of ND, PASOK and DIMAR. That was
the case with the coalition government of SYRIZA and the far-right ANEL
party. That was the case in 2015, when ND, PASOK and POTAMI rushed to
make up for the loss of SYRIZA’s parliamentary majority to pass the
third memorandum.

The same may happen again since their
“common agenda” includes the EU commitments, the new “super-memorandum”
called the Recovery Fund, the “green transition” strategy leading to the
devaluation of domestic energy sources, the commitments to NATO and the
US, such as the allocation of at least 2% of GDP per year for NATO
needs and armaments and involvement in wars.

That is why in this four-year period of
the Mitsotakis government, SYRIZA and PASOK/KINAL voted for most of the
critical anti-popular bills brought before Parliament by ND.

Their pre-election disagreements do not
concern the basic, strategic issues, but individual aspects that have
nothing to do with the interests of the people. SYRIZA complains about
the high VAT, but as a government played a crucial role for its
increase. It complains about energy poverty but was the initiator of the
Energy Exchange and the closure of lignite plants. It talks about the
return of 51% of the Greek Public Power Corporation (DEI) to the state.
However, during the SYRIZA government, DEI formed the energy cartel, in
the context of the liberalized energy market and by selling electricity
to individuals at below-cost prices. After all, there were increases in
electricity prices burdening the popular household even when 51% of DEI
was owned by the state. That is  because, in the context of the
liberalized energy market, every enterprise —wholly or partially
state-owned— seeks maximum profitability for its shareholders and
competition with the rest.

The proposals of both the Greek Solution
and the MeRa25 follow the same path, that is why they do not decisively
reject their participation in a government either with ND or with
SYRIZA respectively. Particularly the bombast of MeRA 25 against
“Mitsotakis SA” and the “oligarchs” in essence leaves untouched the
nature of ND as a party of business groups and seeks to hide its own
great contribution to the “oligarchy” (i.e. to capital). This
contribution is none other than a supposedly pro-people “transformation
of the EU” and above all the elevation of “debt” as the main cause of
the crisis and the people’s problems, exonerating the capitalist mode of
production, a symptom of which is also the high state debts.

The same strategy of capital is served
by various far-right and fascist-prone formations, which attempt to
contain popular discontent by obscuring the real causes of the situation
faced by the popular forces today and by fostering racism and vulgar
anti-communism.

8. The KKE presents to the people its
positions and its Programme of Power-Governance based on the people’s
needs, its proposal in conflict with the corruption of the EU and the
modern dictatorship of capital.

The Programme of the KKE scientifically
documents that the people today can live with contemporary rights and a
quality of life corresponding to the 21st century, to the possibilities
of our era. The scientific central planning of the economy, the
socialization of the means of production, the all-round utilization of
workers and scientists, the institutions of workers’–people’s power, and
the disengagement from imperialist unions can advance the development
of the country based on ensuring people’s welfare.

The Programme of the KKE includes the
disengagement of the country from NATO and the EU, with the people
sovereign in power, saving valuable resources and shaping mutually
beneficial international relations with all peoples and their countries.
Among other things, it proclaims the abolition of entrepreneurial
activity in the energy sector. That is the only way to ensure the
utilization of all energy resources in the country, with the aim of
energy sufficiency and the elimination of energy poverty for the people.
It proclaims the abolition of entrepreneurial activity in the
healthcare sector and other social services, which the people have paid
dearly for, particularly during the pandemic.

Only the Programme of the KKE addresses
the political problem of the country. The socialist economic and social
organization is the novelty in the 21st century and secures the
workers’–people’s interests.

Only the Programme and the positions of
the KKE provide an answer to the urgent workers’–people’s problems. The
time has come to reject the well-known and bankrupt notion of the
so-called lesser evil, which calls upon the people to suffer losses in
order to protect the interests of the few. The people can and must think
outside the current box of the EU and the power of capital, which is
the common denominator of all the parties of the system, to be able to
breathe a sigh of relief and assert their rights.

The participation in, support for or
tolerance of a bourgeois government on the part of the KKE does not
constitute a real pressure to resolve people’s problems but the exact
opposite. The only effective pressure that can be exerted on such an
anti-popular government is by the working class, the people, and their
movement, i.e. by the grassroots, together with the KKE that will be at
the forefront of those struggles and play its independent leading role
at all levels, without commitments. Only as a result of popular
intervention can positive measures be achieved, because the class
struggle itself and the improvement of the correlation of forces on the
path of the overthrow can  bear certain results, as the entire history
of the labour movement has shown.

The KKE has positions and a Programme of
confrontation with the strategic, political and economic, key issues;
that is why it is a guarantee in the daily struggle concerning all the
problems that the people face. Because the KKE has no commitments to the
EU, the capitalist employers, the power of capital and its various
multi-tentacled mechanisms; it disputes the current path of development
and the notion of the “economic resilience”; it does not accept that its
hands be tied within the framework of an anti-people’s government. For
this reason, it can lead a great workers’–people’s counter-attack
concerning both the present, that is the urgent problems of the people,
and, above all, the prospect, aiming at a real popular victory and
overthrow, with the people as the protagonist and a much stronger KKE.

Because, today, the target of cheap
energy presupposes opposition and a rupture with “green growth”, the
abolition of the Energy Exchange and the CO2 clause, in order to reopen
the lignite plants with measures to protect the environment.

The protection of people’s housing from
foreclosure auctions requires a confrontation with the “stability” of
the banks and the profits of the funds.

The protection of the people’s income
today requires a confrontation with capitalist profitability and
competitiveness itself; it requires a struggle for substantial increases
in wages and pensions.

9. From this point of view, the
communists are at the forefront of all the crucial fronts of struggle:
For the increase of wages and pensions. For Collective Labour
Agreements. For the abolition of anti-popular taxes. For the
cancellation of debts, the abolition of taxes and true relief measures
for the self-employed and farmers. For the protection of people’s
housing from evictions and foreclosure auctions by funds and banks. For
the abolition of the institutional framework formed by ND, SYRIZA and
PASOK/KINAL. That is what the KKE struggles for both inside and outside
the Parliament, with concrete proposals that the other parties reject.

When workers have taken matters into
their own hands, when they have rejected the notion of solutions “from
above”, they have had small and larger victories. That is why the KKE
calls upon the people to turn their backs on would-be “saviours” and
“protectors” of the government, both old and new.

We firmly believe that the slogan “Only
the people can save the people, on the path of the overthrow of
capitalism” can be put into practice. We need a stronger KKE because it
is the only party that endows this slogan with substance, vitality and
perspective.

The CC of the KKE

5/1/2023.

inter.kke.gr

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