Dimitris Koutsoumpas, GS of the CC of the KKE, spoke at a political event of the KKE in Brussels, in a meeting room of the EU Parliament, on Friday 21/2. The subject of the meeting was: “95 years of the KKE- the communists in the frontline of the class struggle for socialism-we denounce anti-communism.”

Representatives from the Workers’ Party of Belgium, AKEL and the Portuguese CP participated in the event.

The full speech is below:

SPEECH OF THE GS OF THE CC OF THE KKE DIMITRIS KOUTSOUMPAS AT THE EVENT OF THE KKE IN THE EU PARLIAMENT ON 21 FEBRUARY 2014

SUBJECT: “THE COMMUNISTS IN THE FRONTLINE OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE FOR SOCIALISM –WE DENOUNCE ANTICOMMUNISM”

Dear friends and comrades,

The event of the KKE today here in the EU Parliament, on the subject “the communists in the frontline of the class struggle for socialism- we denounce anticommunism” is a real challenge. A challenge to those who seek to convince people that black is white, to those who seek in an organized and planned way to rewrite history, in particular the history of the last 100 years starting with the Great October Revolution and focusing more on the history of the Second World War.

It is a challenge to the EU itself which is leading ideologically and practically the antisocialist offensive (as its “Common Position” against Cuba shows) as well as with its ideological-political apparatuses that play a leading role in the campaign to defame the labour movement, the communist movement and the socialism we knew, a campaign which is dangerous for the peoples.

The choice of subject is not accidental. Especially at today’s juncture, in this phase when the reactionary role of the EU, as a union of capital, an enemy of the people, has been even further exposed in this phase.

The capitalist economic crisis has further exposed this hornets’ net of the monopolies which exists to suck the peoples dry, to serve the profitability of the monopoly groups. This is a union that from the very first moment of its foundation had an open front against the socialist countries, against the struggles of the peoples, the labour and people’s movement, against the anti-imperialist struggle, the struggle for a society freed from capitalist exploitation.

The course towards the EU Parliamentary elections in May will provide us with the possibility of highlighting such aspects regarding this imperialist edifice called the EU and which is not the “Europe” of course, as they would like to convince us. The Europe of the peoples, of justice, of people’s prosperity, of socialism will come about via the tearing down of this reactionary corrupt edifice. For this reason it must struck against in every country, in Europe as a whole. The necessity of people’s powerwith the socialization of the wealth which the peoples of Europe produce, with the emancipation from the chains of the EU and EMU, is what can plan the future, the development with stable and permanent work for all, without unemployment, with rights and freedoms that will begin in the workplace, the sector, with the people themselves protagonists in the developments, sovereign and truly free. The master of their lives.

Our event is yet one more demonstration that the KKE, the labour-people’s movement in Greece has no intention of bowing its head to the slanderous attack that distorts the truth. On the contrary it will do whatever it can so that the working people learn the truth about the contribution of the communists, the socialist countries to the great cause of the abolition of the exploitation of man by man.

We will continue to draw lessons from the achievements as well as from the weaknesses, the mistakes, the deviations from our theory which finally led to the restoration of capitalism in the former socialist countries.

We will not abandon the effort and the struggle for the working class and people’s power, for the construction of a new society, the socialist-communist society. We are not nihilists, we will not “throw the baby out with the bathwater” as the forces of opportunism do, the forces which play the leading role in the “European Left Party” and adopt all the obsolete bourgeois ideological constructs in order to justify their assimilation and their manipulation by the bourgeois class, the fact that they gave up the struggle for the radical change of society, for the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of socialism.

We would like to thank all the friends that responded to the call of the KKE, especially the comrades from the Communist and Workers’ Parties that take part in our event today. Our party is committed to the principle of proletarian internationalism. It acts as a part of the international communist movement and from this viewpoint it stands in every way possible at the side of communist parties which experience a naked anticommunist attack in their countries, a crude anticommunism, with the ban of parties, symbols, with the outlawing of the defense of the socialist path of development.

Over the past years our party has highlighted such issues several times, both here in the EU Parliament as well as in Greece through the media as well as through protests at the embassies of the countries that approve such measures stressing that the communists in these countries have our full support.

This issue concerns the joint activity of the communist and workers’ parties; it is a permanent front in the ideological political struggle regarding which we have to respond. We take into account that the bourgeois class and the various apologists who defend the exploitative system are trying with all the means at their disposal to smear the struggle of the communists and slander the socialism which was constructed in the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries.

This attack is not accidental. They target the past in order to strike against the present and what they are sure will come in the future. Through the attack on the USSR and the other socialist countries they want to persuade the people that the historical development has stopped with capitalism; that the working people, the other popular strata cannot expect another society where the means of production will be in their hands where they will plan the satisfaction of their contemporary needs themselves but they have to restrict themselves to “small repairs” of capitalism, to the futile effort for its “humanization”.

A very clear demonstration of this are the bloody events in Kiev, Ukraine, which are connected both to the intervention of the EU and the USA in the developments in Ukraine, as well as to the restoration of capitalism in this country and the intensification of the fierce competition of these powers with Russia, for the control of the markets, the raw material and the country’s transport network.

The attachment of the people of Ukraine to today’s capitalist Russia or to the capitalist EU and NATO is not a solution for them.

The solution for the people of Ukraine is to march on the path of socialism, of equal cooperation with the neighbouring countries, with all the world’s countries.

As they lived and achieved great things with peace, progress and development, decades before, in the framework of the then Soviet Union.

This explains the fact that- based on opinion polls- the overwhelming majority of the people of Ukraine fondly recall those years, the years of socialism.

Dear friends and comrades,

Last November our party reached 95 years of life and activity. The historical course of the KKE as a whole vindicates the necessity of its existence in the Greek society. The KKE has given a political content to the workers' struggles against capitalist exploitation and paid the price with many deaths, tortures and persecutions.

It faced state repression from every form of bourgeois power. It demonstrated endurance in especially harsh conditions of illegality in various periods.

It was at the forefront of the armed struggle against the occupation by the three powers (Germany, Italy and Bulgaria) through the Resistance of EAM-ELAS-EPON. On two occasions, in December of 1944 and in the three year struggle (1946-1949) of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), the labour movement, headed by the KKE, came into armed conflict with the bourgeois power, which was supported by the direct imperialist military intervention of Great Britain initially and later the of USA.

Over its 95-year course it fought against the notion regarding the class collaboration of the exploited with the exploiters, regarding the submission to the exploiters; it defended the gains of the working class and people.

Today the KKE has theoretical, historical and programmatic foundations which have been collectively elaborated and can also provide the methodology and the direction for the research of relatively new phenomena or other aspects of its history as well as of the international communist movement.

The assessment of the party at the 18th Congress regarding the socialism we knew in the USSR, the Essay on the history of the party in the period 1949-1968 which was discussed throughout the party and was approved by a nationwide conference, the current new Programme of the party and the decisions of the 19th Congress as a whole enable us to move forward, dynamically, decisively on a more solid basis so that the course of the restoration of the revolutionary characteristics of the party becomes irreversible, utilizing the experience from the history of the communist movement in Greece, in Europe and all over the world.

This is the source that will safeguard its continuity, as well as its vitality, its youthfulness. The KKE is marching towards the 100th anniversary of its existence, struggles and sacrifices while it continues to be the “youngest” party. It represents the new, the necessary and the only progressive future for humanity: the liberation of the working class from exploitation, the establishment of the new social relations, of the social ownership over the means of production, central planning, the active participation of the working people in the organization-administration of social production and social services , i.e. it represents socialism-communism.

The KKE is aware of the large share of responsibility it bears towards the working class, the people who are suffering i.e. with the revival of the labour movement and the strengthening of the People’s Alliance to respond to today’s duty of defending and struggling for working class and people’s rights, for the needs of the young people and to the duty of struggling for the overthrow of the exploitative system, for the construction of the socialist-communist society.

Friends and comrades,

All these years our party defended the Great October Socialist Revolution, the contribution of Socialism in the Soviet Union and in the other countries of the socialist construction.

The counterrevolution and the overthrow of socialism cannot negate a historical course that proved the advantages of the new, socialist society. It does not mean the end of the class struggle, social uprisings and revolutions. The temporary defeat provides experience. The mistakes that were made cannot be equated with the criminal class nature of capitalism in its imperialist stage. Socialism may have taken a big step backwards, but capitalism has no future. The 21st century will be a century of new revolutions, of the irresistible course of socialism-communism.

The construction of socialism in the USSR and in other countries demonstrates to the peoples that there can be a pro-people way out from the capitalist crisis which is embracing more and more countries, a way out from the impasses of capitalism that are tightening the stranglehold on the working class and popular strata.

Because socialism has demonstrated, for example, that there can be a social-political system that will eradicate the plague of our era, unemployment. A system that can establish and safeguard not only the right to work for all, but also a high level of free education as well as free healthcare services. A system that will concern itself with ensuring people’s housing, high quality services for the life of the people (heating, electricity, nutrition, municipal services, environment etc).

Allow me also to stress that as much as the EU and other bourgeois forces may try to instill in the consciousness of the peoples and particularly of the youth the unacceptable and anti-historical “theory of the two extremes”, the identification of communism with fascism, the contribution of the Soviet Union to the anti-fascist victory remains indelibly marked in the pages of history.

A victory that was achieved with the blood of 20 million soviet citizens, with the blood of 2 million members of the Bolshevik party, with the blood of hundreds of thousands of partisans antifascists-communists in Greece and other European countries.

On the 23rd of February, in two days, there will be the anniversary of the founding of the Red Army, which crushed the fascist hordes, at Leningrad, Stalingrad, Moscow, Kursk, and on the 9th of May raised the red flag over the Reichstag. Even if the EU tried to erase this with the appalling labeling of this day as the “day of Europe”, instead of the day of the Anti-fascist Victory.

There will also be the anniversary of our own EPON on the 23rd of February, which was a major source of strength for the anti-fascist struggle. The members of EPON in the cities, in the universities, in the schools, in the factories, in the neighbourhoods struggled for bread and freedom, organized political-cultural clubs for learning and creative activity. They waged the struggle from the very first moment against the general mobilization carried out by the Germans, contributed to the fight against hunger, played the leading role in the demonstrations in the cities, the strikes and the sabotage against the enemy. Thousands of young resistance fighters – “The young eagles” became shining examples for the people and youth, lighting up the path of relentless struggle with their ideals. They constituted the cadres of ELAS and later the DSE, waging an exceptional struggle in the climactic phase of the class struggle in the history of our country.

Friends, comrades,

The EU is systematically engaging in slanders against socialism and has elevated anti-communism to be its official ideology.

The political personnel of the EU assure capital at every opportunity about its intention to intensify the anti-communist campaign, with the slandering of socialism that we knew, the identification of communism with Nazism and the taking of measures to buttress the bourgeois political system and the imperialist edifice, such as the criminalization of the existence and activity of communist parties and symbols and at the same time they carry out persecutions against communists.

An aspect of the anti-communist hysteria is also the report of the commission entitled: “the memory of crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in Europe”. On this basis, events have been organized for the:”understanding of the crimes that were committed against humanity both by the Nazis and by the Soviet regime.” Indeed the EU has legislated that the 23rd of August is a day of memory for the alleged victims of “totalitarian regimes”, equating socialism with Nazism.

It promotes anti-communist versions of history through special resolutions (e.g. the genocide in the Ukraine, or the counterrevolution in Hungary), while with decision Framework Decision 2008/913 of the Council of Justice and Home Affairs of the EU, it advances the criminalization of the different historical viewpoint e.g. around the so-called “genocides”.

The wave of anti-communist hysteria has spread rapidly in the recent years. The report of the Swedish MEP G. Lindblad on 14/12/2005 to the Policy Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which voted with a majority in favour of the anti-communist memorandum entitled: “The Need for international condemnation of the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes” contributed to this, and referred it to the full plenum of the Council at the end of January 2006.

It is characteristic that today as a result of the counterrevolutionary developments in Europe, the anti-communist intervention of the EU and the Council of Europe, in a series of countries there are measures that persecute the CPs, like in the Baltic countries, in Poland, Romania. In other countries, there are restrictions on the use of communist symbols, such as in Hungary, or elsewhere, other anti-communist regulations such as in the Czech Republic or Slovakia.

The necessity emerges for solidarity with the communists who are being persecuted to be strengthened, as well as with the CPs that are facing obstacles to their activity, with the aim of decisively confronting them and abolishing them.

The EU which plays a leading role in anti-communism has undertaken this role not because it is ignorant of history, nor because it is unaware of the contribution of the communists to the labour and people’s struggles, to the struggles for social progress, for peace, for social and democratic rights, for social justice and prosperity.

The EU as an inter-state imperialist union, as the EEC when it was founded in 1957 and later on as the EU is a union of the monopolies, which has as its strategy the offensive against the working class and popular rights. The “freedoms” which it accepts, the movement of “capital”, commodities, services and the labour force, and which are described in the Maastricht Treaty, which was voted for by all the other parties in our country, are well-polished “chains” for the workers, they are the “deadweight” that is dragging all the social and political gains, which were achieved over the last 100 hundreds with blood and struggles, with the important contribution of the communist movement, to the “bottom”.

There is no decision and directive of the EU which has not led to the concentration of wealth, i.e. of capital, to the removal of working class gains, to the destruction of poor farmers and self-employed.

Continuously more reactionary measures are being imposed on the peoples with the complicity of the liberal and social-democratic governments of the member-states.

The reinforced economic governance, the Stability Pact, the European Semester, the banking union are harsh anti-people instruments in the service of capital.

The supervision and monitoring of the imperialist union n every member stated has been reinforced from the 1/1/2014, regardless of whether they are in the memorandum or not, regardless of the level of their debt and deficits.

The EU, with most of its member state being members of NATO as well, is organizing the war with financial, political and military means. It conducted a war on European territory, participates in the plans to intervene in Asia, Africa, today in the central African Republic, it accompanies the USA in its anti-communism and in dealing with the movement using terror legislation.

The EU is not a union of solidarity, but is characterized by the inequality in its relations, the unevenness, the tough competition.

It is a union that can not change, it can not be democratized and humanized, as the European Left Party and SYRIZA in Greece claims. There is no room for other illusions. No alleged new negotiation, no alternation in the government of centre-left and centre-right coalitions, alleged “left” coalitions in some states, no change of President in the commission can essentially alter the reactionary-anti-people character of the EU, because it was founded and operates in order to buttress the interests of the monopolies at the expense of working class-people’s rights.

The EU, due to its very nature, is hostile to the communist movement, it consciously treats it as its opponent, and even now when our movement is in retreat. Possibly it may consider this historical moment to be a “golden opportunity” with its anti-communist campaign against the communist movement, so that it will be able to continue and intensify its antipeople-antiworker policies without any obstacles.

However, as we say in Greece, they are counting “their chickens before they have hatched”.

Friends and comrades,

The strengthening of the KKE and the Communist Parties of Europe that are struggling against the Predatory Alliance, and in the impending EU Parliamentary elections, will send a message of resistance and a prospect to the peoples. It can lend impetus and strength to the labour and people’s movement. It is a vote that denounces the anti-communist persecution, the fomenting of existing and non-existent minority issues in the member states, it is a vote against Nazism-fascism, against racism and nationalism, against the concentration camps filled with foreign workers.

It will be a contribution against the imperialist political line of the EU, which behind the pretexts, is aimed against the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, Cuba.

The strengthening of the CPs can ruin the plans of the capitalists, strengthen the barriers against the antiworker-antipeople political line of the EU and the bourgeois governments.

The cooperation amongst the communist and workers’ parties which are consistently opposed to the EU and the offensive of capital in Europe must be strengthened. In this effort the appearance of the new form of regional cooperation of communist and workers’ parties, the “European communist INITIATIVE”, is of special significance. 29 parties from 26 European countries already participate in it and it is of course also open to other parties which agree with its Founding Declaration.

We are convinced that the peoples of Europe can achieve a common blow against the EU of the monopolies, the imperialist wars, capitalism.

In this way there can be continuity in every flashpoint of questioning, protest, struggle for another prospect for the peoples. It is in our hands to make the people’s movement in Europe the pole of antimonopoly –anticapitalist cooperation and activity, the opponent of war, imperialism, the violence of capital.

So that a new wind of optimism, of the revitalization of the revolutionary movement arrives in order to emancipate the people’s movements and to pave the way for radical social and political changes, both at a national, European and international level.

The political proposal of the KKE for disengagement from the EU and the unilateral cancellation of the debt, with workers’ people’s power and the socialization of the monopolies corresponds to the interests of the people and can lend strength to the struggle of the working class, the popular strata both in Greece, as well as in other European countries.

The peoples can break the chains of the monopolies, capitalism, and pave the way for the Europe of socialism.

We call on you to strengthen the KKE in the EU Parliamentary elections on 25 May 2014 in Greece, to strengthen the Communist and Workers’ parties that are struggling with stability and consistency against the EU of the monopolies, against the exploitation of man by man.

So that all the peoples of Europe will see better days, with people’s prosperity, work and rights for all, with friendship, cooperation, internationalist class solidarity.