Communist Party of Greece Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας | |
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| Abbreviation | KKE |
| General Secretary | Dimitris Koutsoumpas |
| Founded | May, 1917 |
| Newspaper | Rizospastis |
| Youth wing | Communist Youth of Greece |
| Trade Union Wing | All-Workers Militant Front |
| Political orientation | Marxism–Leninism |
| Website | |
| https://www.kke.gr/ | |
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The Communist Party of Greece is a political party founded in 1918, being the oldest political party in Greece. It is now the third largest party in Greece and one of the most influential communist parties in Europe. It was the initiator of the organization of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.
History
Formation
The party was founded on 17 November 1918 as the Socialist Labor Party of Greece.
World War 1 and aftermath (1918-1922)
First Congress and Greco-Turkish war
Its First Congress took Place in the same month in Pireaus.
SEKE pushed the Soviet Union to persuade Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to give autonomy in Turkish areas with a large Greek minority, but opposed the imperialist Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 and also wanted Eleftherios Venizelos to withdraw Greek troops from Asia Minor.
Second Congress
During the Second Congress of SEKE in April 1920, the party got affiliated with Comintern and, as such, changed their name to SEKE-K (Socialist Labor Party of Greece - Communist).
Interwar Period (1922-1939)
People's Front
After the Comintern encouraged the formation of anti-fascist fronts worldwide, and as such SEKE-K formed the People's front, an anti-Metaxist front, the largest Marxist one during the time.
Third Congress
During the Third Congress of SEKE-K in November 1924, SEKE-K was renamed to Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Marxism–Leninism was adopted as an official ideology and democratic centralism was adopted as the party's system.
Macedonian Issue
KKE supported an independent Macedonia and Thrace, as this was the Comintern's position at the time, though some members of KKE disagreed with this position. In turn, many communists were expelled from Greece.[1]
KKE (and the Comintern) believed in the self-determination of the people in these areas and wanted to prevent a new imperialist war in the Balkans. The USSR was a model for an independent Macedonia, where all Greeks, Bulgarians and Turks could self-determine, just like how Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians could in the USSR.[2]
Idionymon
In 1929, as minister of Education in the government of Eleftherios Venizelos, Georgios Papandreou passed legislation against organised communist teachers, known as Idionymon. Such legislation was often used to prosecute KKE members and other leftist activists.
Metaxist Dictatorship
By 1940, KKE was in turmoil due to the Metaxist fascist dictatorship. By October 1940, half of the party's two thousand members were in prison or in exile. The Security Police (the secret fascist police) proved successful in dismantling the party structure; not only had it imprisoned the leadership, but it created a fake series of Rizospastis, the Central Committee newspaper. This generated further confusion among the remaining scattered underground members.[3][4]
World War 2 (1939-1945)
Before Nazi Occupation
The KKE was divided in whether it should support Metaxas in Greece's struggle against Mussolini or not. Whereas the "pro-Metaxas" faction was the one that the Comintern supported, as it encouraged KKE to fight against fascist Italy whereas the "anti-Metaxas" faction considered Greece as a de facto colony of the British Empire and that the war which was taking place was an imperialist one.
During Nazi Occupation
Prisoners
On 6 April 1941, the Germans invaded Greece and occupied Athens on 27 April following an unconditional surrender of the Greek forces by General Georgios Tsolakoglou, who was later appointed Prime Minister by the Nazis. Many of the communists in Crete, which wasn't yet occupied, asked to be freed so as to fight the Nazi invaders, but the Greek government-in-exile had no power to do so, so they escaped. The pro-Nazi occupation government handed some political prisones of KKE over to the Nazis fearing that they—following the pro-Soviet party line—would resort to sabotage in Greece following the commence of Operation Barbarossa. It became German policy—especially after it became obvious to them that they were losing the war—to execute civilians in retaliation for attacks against them by communist or non-communist partisans. Approximately 200 communists, delivered to the Germans on 1941, were executed at the Kaisariani Shooting Range on 1 May 1944. [5]
Resistance Movements
Along with five other left-wing parties, KKE formed the National Liberation Front (EAM) on 27 September 1941, in Athens and militia units, called the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) on 16 February 1942. By 1943, ELAS had 50,000 members and 30,000 reserves in major cities.
During 1943, ELAS clashed with other resistance movements, which spend more time fighting communists than the Axis itself. This prepared the ground and tension for the Greek Civil War.
Nikos Zachariadis was freed from the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1945 and returned to Greece as KKE's General Secretary.
Civil War (1945-1949)
Main Article: Greek Civil War
In October 1944, the last German soldiers left Greece and ELAS reached Athens. After the Axis retreated, a National Unity government was formed under Georgos Papandreou. While the British released Nazis from prison, they also pushed for disarmament of ELAS. After leftists were prevented from joining the new army, the KKE withdrew from the government.[6]
On 3 December 1944, British snipers and Greek police opened fire on a communist demonstration in Athens. [7]Later that day, 60,000 rallied in Syntagma Square and began an uprising against the British. 25,000 people were killed in the Battle of Athens and 12,000 leftists were deported or imprisoned in its aftermath. The British set up machine gun nests and bombed proletarian neighborhoods. They also released thousands of fascist collaborators to help them fight the communists.[6]
Kingdom of Greece and Military Junta (1949-1974)
During the post-WW2 Kingdom of Greece, KKE was banned and communists were harshly persecuted by the US-backed police state. Most of its prominent members had to either flee the country or denounce communism. Nikos Beloyannis and Nikos Ploumpidis were executed in 1952 and 1954 respectively. In 1955, there were 4,498 political prisoners and 898 exiles while in 1962 there were 1,359 prisoners and 296 exiles.[8] During this period, KKE supported the United Democratic Left, a leftist party.
Since Stalin's death in 1953, Zachariadis (a supporter of Stalin) clashed with the new revisionist leadership of the USSR, and as KKE followed this leadership's line, Zachariadis was expelled from the party in 1957, a year after Khrushchev's "secret speech" was made, denouncing Stalin.
The CIA-backed military Junta which seized power in 21 April 1967 outlawed all political parties and persecuted communists even more harshly.
In 1968, a Eurocommunist faction split from the KKE and was named KKE (interior), claiming that the original KKE was directed from the USSR. During the same year, the Communist Youth of Greece was founded.
Third Hellenic Republic (1974-present)
Cold war (1974-1991)
The new Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis legalized KKE, however it was Andreas Papandreou who allowed communists to return in Greece and receive special pensions for their resistance in WW2.
During the 1989 and 1990 elections (and counter-revolutions of 1989), KKE participated under a left-wing alliance of parties (Synaspismos) under the leadership of Charilaos Florakis. They formed a coalition government with the parties of New Democracy and PASOK (only in the first temporary government).
In 1991, Aleka Papariga got elected as General Secretary.
Days before the overthrow of the USSR, Zachariadis' remains were returned to his homeland of Greece, and he was given a funeral, which gave his supporters the opportunity to honour him.[9] At the same time, the reformist faction of the party split from KKE and formed Synaspismos, which was what would become today's Syriza.
Post-Cold War (1992-present)
KKE actively participated in the anti-austerity protests beginning in 2010 and also supported Greek steel worker's strikes.[10]
In the 1993 elections, they had significant losses.
In 2011, a National Conference of the Communist Party of Greece fully rehabilitated Zachariadis as General Secretary of the KKE and denounced the revisionist line followed from 1953 up until 1991. That was in line with the KKE's general political reorientation since the overthrow of the Soviet Union.[11]
In March 2022, the party announced it would not attend Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech at the Hellenic Parliament on April 7 after he banned several left-wing opposition parties.[12]
In the 2023 elections, KKE reached a 7.7% and completely won in Icaria.
References
- ↑ Richard Clogg (1992). A Concise History of Greece (pp. 106, 141). Cambridge University Press.
- ↑ Vladimir Lenin (1914). For The Issue of Self-Determination of the People.
- ↑ Aggelos Elefantis (1999). The Promise of the Impossible Revolution, Greek Communist Party self-meditation and the bourgeois during the inter-war Period. Themelio.
- ↑ KKE. Official Documents: 'Vol. 5'.
- ↑ History of the National Resistance 1940–1945: 'Vol. 1'.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Arturo Rodriguez (2015-07-31). The Greek Revolution and Civil War: the Battle of Athens – Part Two Socialist Appeal. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
- ↑ Arturo Rodriguez (2015-07-31). The Greek Revolution and Civil War: the Battle of Athens – Part One Socialist Appeal. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
- ↑ Polymeris Voglis (2002). Becoming a Subject: Political Prisoners During the Greek Civil War (p. 223). Berghahn Books.
- ↑ "Μια ιστορική προσωπικότητα του κομμουνιστικού κινήματος (Translation: A historical personality of the communist movement)" (2003-08-03). Rizospastis.
- ↑ Gus Lubin (2010-05-07). KKE actively participated in the anti-austerity protests beginning in 2010 [79] and also supported Greek steel worker's strikes.[80] Business Insider.
- ↑ Michael Karadjis (2012-05-16). "Greece: SYRIZA, the Communist Party and the desperate need for a united front" Links.
- ↑ "No to Zelensky: Why the KKE will not attend Zelensky's address to Greek Parliament" (2022-04-02). In Defense of Communism. Retrieved 2022-04-02.