Declaration of the CC of the KKE on the EU Parliamentary Elections May 2014
Workers, employees, self-employed who struggle to make ends meet, poor farmers, young people, pensioners,
THERE IS A SOLUTION FOR THE PEOPLE
The path for this solution is the joint struggle together with the KKE
Take part in the battle of the EU parliamentary elections, decisively voting for the KKE.
Everyone must contribute to the immediate revival of a dynamic workers’ people’s opposition that will contribute to the struggle in order to halt the anti-people offensive, the successive anti-people measures, in order to lay the ground for the only path that can ensure the satisfaction of the people’s needs.
The strengthening of the KKE is a guarantee for your interests. The KKE struggles, focused on the major and sharpening problems, for the regroupment of the labour-people’s movement, the People’s Alliance, it paves the way for an economy for the benefit of the people, with their own power.
Now it is more evident that it was the Greek people who were harmed by the reduction of the electoral power of the KKE in June 2012, by the support they gave to the parties that support capital and the EU one-way street.
Now you have experience! Do not allow, once again, the seizure of your vote through intimidating dilemmas, with the rationale of the “lesser evil” which always ends up paving the way for a greater evil.
Now you know that over the previous years the EU has been taking anti-people decisions which were signed by all the governments of the member-states, centre-right or centre-left, with the participation of parties that belong to the “European Left Party” like SYRIZA.
The KKE addresses itself to all those who know that the decisions concerning privatizations e.g. of the Public Power Corporation (DEH), of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) were accompanied by:
the abolition of people’s gains.
changes in labour relations.
high unemployment rates.
the more rapid entrance of European and other monopoly groups from every continent into Greece.
the export of capital, the transfer of industrial production of Greek businessmen outside of Greece.
The KKE appeals to those who see where the basic direction of the EU concerning the “freedom of movement” has led i.e. the abolition of restrictions on the movement of capital and commodities:
The result is the prolonged crisis and the shrinkage in basic sectors of domestic manufacturing such as the textile industry and shipbuilding industry.
NOW YOU CAN TAKE A BIG STEP FORWARD WITH THE KKE!
With a strong KKE you can support the necessary regroupment of the labour- people’s movement, the People’s Alliance for the struggle against the anti-people political line, the EU and the parties of EU one-way street.
A STRONG KKE CAN PAVE THE WAY FOR THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE MONOPOLIES, THE UNILATERAL CANCELATION OF THE DEBT, THE DISENGAGEMENT FROM THE EU SO THAT THE PEOPLE ACHIEVE THEIR OWN POWER, AND INITIATE DEVELOPMENTS FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT.
In the EU parliamentary elections, as in the national parliamentary elections, what we need to do is to punish the core of the political line and the activity of the governments of ND and PASOK, their choice in favour of the monopolies, in favour of the EU one-way street. The shift from one party of the EU one-way street to another e.g. from PASOK to SYRIZA does not constitute any real punishment and it is not an act of resistance. SYRIZA is deceiving the people claiming that the EU will be transformed into a “European Union of the peoples” from within and from above by means of negotiations and allegedly better alliances.
The question in the elections is to punish all those who with lies and intimidation propagandize that a pro-people development is possible for the Greek people and other peoples of Europe inside the EU.
The vote in favour of parties which have been fostering the worship of the EU for years and which now that the EU has been exposed in the eyes of the Greek people and the other peoples of Europe are criticizing Merkel or appear as eurosceptics and support the drachma, mark, franc, lira or claim that the EU can be “refounded” with a “new Treaty”, with “new principles” is fraudulent and a wasted vote in terms of the people’s interests.
Workers,
Now you have enough experience so as to avoid being trapped by the parties that claim that the EU is allegedly violating its “founding principles and aims”. From 1957 until today, and as long as the EU exists, whether it is split into a union of the South or of the North, whether it becomes a federation, or a confederation, it will be an imperialist union, aimed against the peoples and youth.
THE DISENGAGEMENT WITH PEOPLE’S POWER IN ALL COUNTRIES OF EUROPE AND IN GREECE CAN LEAD TO THE ABOLITION OF THE EU, TO THE UNITED EUROPE OF SOCIALISM.
ND and PASOK are intimidating the people with the false dilemma “YES or NO to Europe”.
The other parties, regardless of the differences that may exist among them, are deceiving the people with the position that the EU can be transformed into a union of the peoples.
SYRIZA, due to its position as the official opposition, bears a great share of responsibility for the conscious deception of the people.
The parties of the so-called “anti-memorandum arc”, of “anti-Merkelism”, of the “anti-neoliberal” and “anti-banking” version of the EU and Eurozone, the parties that only criticize Germany, bear responsibilities because they conceal their essential support for the EU of capital, of the monopolies.
The memorandum constitutes the specialization of the general political line of the EU in the conditions of crisis in Greece. Consequently, the opposition to the memorandum must be opposition to the EU and the strategy of the EEC since its foundation in 1957, since it transformation into the EU in 1992.
However, the problems today in the member-states of the EU , in the EU as a whole, are not general problems of Europe as a continent, but problems of capitalist Europe, of the EU as an imperialist alliance.
For this reason the position in favour of the participation of Greece in the EU IS A POSITION AGAINST EUROPE BECAUSE IT IS IN CONFLICT WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE IN THE REGION.
The KKE on two occasions, at the most crucial moments, took the only correct position, with the “NO TO THE ACCESSION”, with the “NO TO MAASTRICHT”, as well as with its consistent position for DISENGAGEMENT.
On this basis it organized and supported struggles with specific demands, in order to hinder the implementation of EU decisions. And today it remains the only force with a clear position:
DISENGAGEMENT, SOCIALIZATION, UNILATERAL CANCELLATION OF THE DEBT.
FOR THIS REASON THE PEOPLE MUST BEGIN TO MAKE THEIR OWN CONTRIBUTION TO THE PATH OF STRUGGLE FOR PEOPLE’S POWER, TO THE PATH OF THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE, TO THE EUROPE OF SOCIALISM.
Inside the European Union, inside the “lions’ den”, the peoples are on their own. The Greek people are alone, faced with the beasts that are tearing them apart. The peoples will be truly unified in the struggle for disengagement, they will not be alone, the Greek people and their children will have allies.
DISENGAGEMENT, IN CONFLICT WITH THE MONOPOLIES IS ONE THING, AND THE CONTINGENT EXIT FROM THE EUROZONE OR THE EU AS CHOSEN BY THE FORCES OF DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN CAPITAL IS QUITE ANOTHER THING
In recent years, due to the economic crisis, due to the realignments in the position of capitalist states in the international competition, unevenness was reinforced inside the EU, bourgeois forces emerged that question its ability to be cohesive.
Τhis “euroscepticism” these whispers about the exit from the EMU express conservative, regressive and reactionary views that serve the nationalism of the bourgeois class, the pursuit of or the realignment of its allies, or utopian positions that the EU can be restructured with another type of treaty, which will safeguard the redistribution in favour of the weaker economies and the popular forces.
The EU is a hell for all its peoples
Τhe truth is that the anti-people measures concern the working class and popular strata of all the countries, regardless of memoranda and debts.
In other countries measures were taken in the 1990s and in the 2000s, in some altogether in the form of a “shock”, like Greece in the conditions of the crisis, in others gradually like in Germany.
Of course there are differences from country to country in terms of workers’ gains, social needs, the rate of unemployment. The reason is that Greece had a weaker starting point in the Eurozone and it is not a question of bad political choices.
For example, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a general policy which has as its aim the concentration of the agricultural production and land in fewer hands. However, it was more painful in countries which still had numerous small producers.
Τhe trend for the income of the working class and people and the social services to shrink is a general trend for all the peoples of the EU.
The decay of the EU as an imperialist formation is also apparent from the fact that scandals and corruption are appearing and multiplying in all the member-states.
The EU, with most of its member-states 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 anti-communism and in dealing with the movement using anti-terror legislation.
The EU one-way street does not provide any guarantee for territorial sovereignty. Cyprus entered the EU- with the decision of the Cypriot communists as well- with the main aim of solving the Cyprus Problem. The EU, on the contrary, supported the “Annan Plan”, and continues to support the policy which leads to partition. In addition, the EU has not at all dealt with the violations in the Aegean Sea carried out by Turkey, which is negotiating its accession.
The participation of communist parties in governments of EU member-states has not contributed to peace and the respect of the people’s will. On the contrary they were assimilated and they supported decisions for military interventions. The example of Cyprus, with the participation of AKEL in the government, is characteristic in revealing the utopian nature of the view that the crisis can be halted in that way or that it can be managed in favour of the people.
Objectively the policy of the accession to the EU leads to the assimilation and finally to the reactionary transformation of the parties that supported it.
THE EU IS NOT AN ECONOMY IN FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE. IT IS A UNION OF CAPITAL, A HORNETS’ NEST AGAINST THE PEOPLES! IT CANNOT BE CHANGED FROM WITHIN
Ιn the EU there have never existed and there cannot exist equal relations between its member-states since the solidarity between the monopolies concerns merely their agreement on the economic and social attack against the peoples.
The KKE revealed in good time that there cannot be any convergence for the peoples through interventions from above, and highlighted the abolition of the EU for all the peoples through their own struggle.
Uneven development prevails inside the EU, as well as the competition and unequal relations between states.
The deep economic crisis contributed to the change of the correlation of forces inside the leading core of the EU, in favour of Germany and at the expense of France and Italy. Thus, their competition is being further sharpened. On the basis of these contradictions the struggle over the distribution of the consequences of the economic crisis is being sharpened amongst the countries of the Eurozone as well as the confrontation over the formula for the management of the crisis.
The governments of the USA, France, Italy are pressing Germany to undertake a larger role in the management of the debt of the indebted states of Eurozone and limit its trade surplus.
This confrontation is not at all related to the interests of the popular forces. It does not concern the peoples neither in the more powerful capitalist economies nor in the weaker ones.
The powerful capitalist states seek to achieve a compromise. Nevertheless no compromise, given that it will always be a temporary one, can prevent the implementation of the anti-people measures, the periodic outbreak of the crisis of capital over accumulation and the consequences of uneven development.
In the years to follow the difficulties of the capitalist states of Europe that participate in the EU will become more apparent in terms of dealing with the crisis, the anemic growth, the uneven relations and competition amongst each other.
Now, the peoples must intervene so as not to allow the alternative plans that will give breathing space and time for the EU to continue its sweeping offensive against the working class, the workers. The peoples must not be entangled in rivalries which can bring about older or new local war flashpoints either in Europe or in the wider region.
REJECT THE TRAP OF THE EU ONE-WAY STREET BY VOTING FOR THE KKE
All the parties, some enthusiastically, others with certain criticisms, adopted the rationale of the EU one-way street, from the founding of the EEC. Parties such as ERE and the Centre Union, the predecessors of ND and PASOK respectively, as well as the “KKE Interior” and the Coalition of the Left, the predecessors of SYRIZA. They fooled the people about the EMU and used the con trick regarding the convergence of the growth rates, prices, salaries and social gains.
ND and PASOK, the parties that are intimidating the people that the exit from the EU will be a tragedy for the workers, employees, the popular sections of the middle strata, are concealing the truth.
There is no decision and directive of the EU that did not lead to the concentration of wealth, i.e. of capital, to the taking away of gains, to the destruction of the farmers, self-employed leaving them without any other job prospect. Now is the time to punish them not just for today, but for their stance in the past.
The big businessmen are not worried about the possibility of a government with SYRIZA at its core. Today, every worker who thinks radically can distinguish that SYRIZA speaks in one way in parliament, in a way to create an impression amongst the people that it has a political line that is allegedly radically different from ND-PASOK, and in another way in the international forums, where it takes exams for the monopolies and seems to be passing them with good grades.
There is no room for illusions! No negotiation, no alternation of government in the member-states, no change of president in the Commission can alter the reactionary-anti-people character of the EU, because this was founded and operates to buttress the interests of the monopolies at the expense of the working class-people’s rights.
The EU one-way street, which SYRIZA bows to, also means the acceptance of commitments in the framework of the EU, subjugation to the goal of the competitiveness of the monopolies, which finally leads to new sacrifices of the working class-people’s rights.
For this reason SYRIZA does not commit itself, in the instance that it may form the government, to replenishing the losses of the people in recent years. But at the same time it commits itself to providing new state funds, state money, to the so-called “healthy businessmen” who… respect the legislation!
The international allies and support that are invoked, such as the governments of the USA, France, Italy, the Mediterranean South, are enemies of the people, they steamroller the people’s rights in their countries, just as the German government does.
Young people, workers, employees, small farmers and self-employed,
BE VIGILANT!
It is a trap when they say that there is a people-friendly management of the crisis, a people-friendly way out from the Eurozone following the model of Argentina, Japan etc., i.e. without conflict against monopolies, domestic and foreign, the monopolies of the EU, the USA, Asia and any other state.
Don’t fall into the trap of the allegedly “revolutionary”, “subversive”, “left” parties and groups that promise better days, with a departure from the Eurozone, with a change of currency or even with a departure from the EU, while at the same time with the monopoly groups and the plutocracy remaining in power.
The truth is that the peoples of Argentina, Japan, whose governments managed the debts and crisis in another way, have suffered losses, their situation continues to deteriorate.
This line leads the movement and people to new impasses and in no instance leads to a victorious prospect, because the economy will continue to operate with the profit motive, competition, the money markets, production will continue to be concentrated in fewer hands.
New sacrifices will be demanded of the people, in order to safeguard the competitiveness of the monopolies, in order to achieve the capitalist recovery. The reality of the deterioration of the lives of broad popular strata outside the Eurozone and the EU, in European states, in the USA, Brazil, Argentina highlights this undeniable truth.
Positions like those above are promoted by certain former components and today “currents’ of SYRIZA, the Plan B of Alavanos, ANTARSYA, as well as by bourgeois political forces in other EU countries. These positions are neither left, progressive, or radical.
It is an illusion today after so much experience to think that the “departure from the euro”, or “disengagement on its own”, can become a rung on the ladder for a radical change in the situation, without other preconditions, without a complete programme and a strategy of conflict, without the most important thing: the struggle for the instruments of development, of the economy, to pass into the hands of the working class, the people, with their own power.
It is a political line that detaches the confrontation against the EU from the struggle against the power of the monopolies, it leaves the domestic capitalist class that is guiding the anti-people offensive out of the firing line.
Turn your backs on and isolate the neo-nazis, the far right scum, nationalism and racism, which targets the working class, the popular strata, the youth.
Golden Dawn is the creation of the system, the guard dog of capitalism, which uses it against the people.
It serves the interests of the ship owners, other sections of the plutocracy, it is supported by them. Utilizing the immigration issue and the major problem of unemployment, it is seeking to break the movement, to poison the working class-popular consciousnesses with anti-communism and racism. Golden Dawn, like every Nazi-fascist party, has turned demagogy into a science.
It sloganeers against the EU, supporting an allegedly “a national participation on an equal basis” of Greece, in order to conceal its criminal nature, the support for the big employers, the “slave-trading” networks in which it participates that reduce wages, eliminate basic rights, cancel collective labour agreements. It conceals its reactionary nature by throwing crumbs of bread in order to keep the popular forces in a permanent state of poverty.
It sloganeers about financial scandals or about the size of the MP’s salaries and pensions, because it paves the way, with popular support, for the capitalist power to move to a more concentrated and terrorist form, when this is necessary, so that it has a free hand to use violence against the labour-people’s movement and the KKE.
Anybody from the popular strata that believes by voting for Golden Dawn they are punishing the decay and corruption are making a serious mistake. They are strengthening the mechanism that creates these things. They are strengthening a gang which is the enemy of the people’s demands.
BY VOTING FOR THE KKE WE STRENGTHEN THE STRUGGLE FOR A GREECE WITH PEOPLE’S PROSPERITY, WITH THE UTILIZATION OF THE ALL THE COUNTRY’S PRODUCTIVE POTENTIAL, WITH SOLIDARITY AND COOPERATION WITH ALL THE PEOPLES, IN OPPOSITION TO THE SHACKLES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, OF CAPITALIST EXPLOITATION AND INJUSTICE.
WE BREAK THE CHAINS OF THE MONOPOLIES, CAPITALISM, WE PAVE THE WAY FOR SOCIALISM.
WE VOTE FOR A STRONG KKE
Because, despite the negative correlation of forces, it is struggling with faith in the strength of the working class, for the regroupment of the labour movement. It devotes all its forces to the struggle for the organization of the workers’-people’s fight in the factories, in the businesses, in the schools, in the Technical Institutes, in the universities, in the vocational training centres, in the neighbourhoods, in the trade unions. It is playing a leading role in the daily struggles, in opposition to government and employer led trade unionism, both old and new, which is the lackey of the EU and the big employers.
It struggles concerning every popular problem, for the increases in salaries and pensions, Collective Labour Agreements, working class-people’s rights.
It stands at the side of the farmers, so they do not lose their houses and livelihoods to the banks, big retailers and the industrialists in sector of agricultural supplies.
It stands at the side of the self-employed, against the monopolies which crush them, against the shameful profiteering of the banks and the harsh taxation.
It struggles for the right to people’s housing, exclusively free and public education, health-welfare, cheap and high quality people’s consumer goods, free cultural and sports’ infrastructure.
It struggles against all drugs ad alcoholism, for the emancipation and equality of women, for the protection of the unemployed, for the free transport-accommodation-food for school and university students, for the immediate needs of young coupes. It struggles for anti-earthquake and anti-flood measures, public infrastructure projects that will improve the living conditions, the balanced intervention of man on the environment.
A STRONG KKE
Because the KKE conducts battles in the Parliament and in the EU Parliament. It has tabled important proposals for laws in order to relieve the popular households, it is opposed to the anti-people measures, it informs the workers, it is their voice.
Because its central slogan-message and practical activity is that no one must be on his own in the crisis, the people’s solidarity for their homes, electricity, food, education must be strengthened.
The KKE devotes its forces to the strengthening of the People’s Alliance, which today, in its first steps, is expressed by the common struggle of PAME, of PASY, of PASEVE, of MAS, of OGE, which are making inroads by intervening regarding every popular problem.
WE HAVE THE POWER TO OVERTURN THE SITUATION TODAY. WITH A STRONG KKE THERE IS HOPE-THERE IS A PROSPECT.
The vote of the Greek people for the KKE:
Is at the same time both a vote of resistance and a vote with prospects. It can lend impetus and strength to the European movement of workers as well. 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 is a vote against the imperialist political line of the EU, which despite the pretexts, is at the expense of the peoples of Africa, against its plan for the alleged democratization of the Middle East, its reactionary choices against the peoples of Latin America, especially the “Common EU Position” against Cuba.
It is a vote that ruins the plans of the capitalists and those that support them to isolate the KKE, to prevent its impact on the regroupment of the labour and communist movement in Europe.
Over these years the KKE has been consistently and ceaselessly acting with other Communist and Workers’ Parties, with forces that oppose the EU and the offensive of capital in Europe.
The peoples of Europe can delver a blow together against the parties of he EU one-way street and the parties that compromise with the EU. It is important the day after the EU Parliamentary elections for the EU and the bourgeois governments – centre left and centre right- to count losses, for their political line to have been damaged. This blow can be achieved by voting for communist parties, radical, genuinely anticapitalist-antimonopoly forces in Europe that are struggling against the imperialist EU and its class based choices against the workers inside and outside of Europe.
ONLY IN THIS WAY CAN EVERY FLASHPOINT OF QUESTIONING, PROTEST, STRUGGLE FOR ANOTHER PROSPECT FOR THE PEOPLES CONTINUE. IT IS IN OUR POWER TO MAKE THE PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT IN EUROPE THE POLE OF ANTIMONOPOLY-ANTICAPITALIST COOPERATION AND ACTIVITY, THE OPPONENT OF WAR, IMPERIALISM AND THE VIOLENCE OF CAPITALISM.
Only in this way can a new wind of optimism, the revitalization of the revolutionary movement come in order to emancipate the people’s movements and to pave the way for radical social and political changes.
The EU Parliamentary elections can contribute to a change in the correlation of forces in favor of the people. With a strong KKE for a truly strong workers’-people’s opposition, a strong antimonopoly-anticapitalist people’s alliance for workers’ people’s power.
There is a proposal for a way out, the potential for the production and the society to be organized by the people for the people. What is still missing is the decisive people’s will to come into conflict with the forces that impede it.
The way out is to be found in the socialization of the mineral wealth, energy, telecommunications, transport, retail, land, capitalist agricultural and livestock businesses, the natural resources. They must all become the property of the people.
Agricultural producer cooperatives must be organized next to the socialized sector of the economy.
The workers'-people's power with these instruments can centrally plan the economy, lend strength to the development of the sectors and the regions, so that agricultural and industrial production, social services develop in a proportional way with the satisfaction of the people's needs at the widest possible level as the criterion.
This centrally planned economy, on the basis of social ownership of the means of production, is the only one that can provide a final solution to the question of unemployment.
Business activity in health, welfare, education, culture, sports, must be abolished. Exclusively public free upgraded modern social services must be developed.
Maternity, children, the old people, must be protected. The preconditions for free time must be formed for all the workers, especially for women, in order to facilitate their participation in the organs of working class power, from the bottom up.
THE PROPOSAL OF THE KKE IS REALISTIC AND ABOVE ALL IS IN THE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE-IT IS IN THE SERVICE OF THE WORKER
The labour-people's movement, struggling in an anticapitalist-antimonopoly direction in every country, provides its own contribution to the weakening and overthrow of the imperialist structure called the EU. The disengagement with people's power will be a contribution to the internationalist struggle of the peoples, it will accelerate the emergence of conditions for the conquest of workers'-people's power in other countries as well. In this manner, the way will be paved for the Europe of equal cooperation, socialism.
The disengagement which is advanced by the KKE is integrated into another development path in favour of the people, on the path of unifying Europe in favour of the peoples. The path of the KKE is the internationalist path of the peoples.
LET US SHOUT LOUDLY: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
The KKE is proposing to you the path for the people’s way out for from the crisis and the wars. All the other paths have been tried.
In these EU Parliamentary elections we must say a powerful YES!
FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE WORKING CLASS, THE POOR INTERMEDIATE STRATA, AND THE WOMEN AND YOUTH FROM THESE STRATA.
CAPITALISM AND THE IMPERIALIST UNIONS-ALLIANCES ARE NOT UNBEATABLE!
WHEN THE PEOPLE HAVE THE WILL THEY CAN ACHIEVE ANYTHING!
THE COMMUNIST MEN AND WOMEN CAN BECOME THE POWERFUL VOICE OF THE WORKING MEN AND WOMEN, OF THE ECONOMIC IMMIGRANTS, OF THE YOUTH THAT DO NOT COMPROMISE, OF THE ELDERLY PEOPLE THAT HAVE A RIGHT TO SOCIAL CARE!
WITH GREATER STRENGTH WE CAN DO MORE WE CAN GO FURTHER, FOR RADICAL CHANGES!
VOTE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE IN THE EU PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN MAY 2014!
January 2014
Central Committee of the KKE
