The central election rally of the KKE was held on the 16^th of September 2015. The main speaker was Dimitris Koutsoumpas, GS of the CC of the KKE, who called on the people not to add their votes to the 222 votes and 5 parties that voted in Parliament in favour of the 3^rd memorandum which was agreed with the imperialist institutions of the EU, ECB and IMF.

He noted that a vote for SYRIZA to give it a “second chance” means a new retreat in terms of the people’s willingness to defend their needs. At the same time, he called on the workers not to return to ND and PASOK, because SYRIZA disappointed them. He stressed that no one must go to Nazi and criminal Golden Dawn, the lackeys of the system, and that Golden Dawn must not emerge as the third force in parliament. They must not support parties like POTAMI, PASOK, ANEL, which are equally responsible for the anti-people political line both in the past and in the future. He also underlined that so-called “Popular Unity” promotes the fraudulent slogan of abolishing the memoranda and returning to the Drachma without confronting the monopolies and the capitalists.

The GS of the CC of the KKE noted that the votes of the workers, the unemployed, the self-employed, the poor farmers the youth and women from the popular families must not go to the same parties that the industrialists, bankers, ship-owners and other exploiters of the people vote for and whose interests are served by the memoranda and application laws. They must vote for the KKE to smash the atmosphere of disappointment and fatalism that says “nothing can be done”. Voting for the KKE is step on the path to overthrow the system, a vote for any of the other parties constitutes a new barrier to hope. A strong KKE in every sector can pave the way for the overthrow of the system.

D. Koutsoumpas noted that on the 21^st of September, whatever the results and MPs that the other parties receive, there will be consensus for the formation of a government, ready to implement the anti-people measures, which are described in the memoranda and are demanded by the monopolies.

D. Koutsoumpas referred to the false promises of the parties that are eager participate in this government and that claim that they will ease the burden of the people and bring growth, stressing that:

“There is no management policy or “model of capitalist growth” which can lead to a capitalism without exploitation. For this reason, the same anti-people measures are being taken in all the EU member-states, whether they have memoranda or not, even if, like Britain and Denmark, they have a national currency. And everything that is true for the all the EU member-states is true for those countries that are in the EU but have a national currency, whatever their position in the EU hierarchy. All the barbaric measures today, all the policies are being implemented in all the states, regardless of whether they are in the crisis or recovery phase. And the issue is not whether you comply or not with the EU’s rules, but whether you choose to disentangle yourself from its chains. And we must be clear, it is one thing to be expelled, because you do not follow the rules of the common currency or because they want to create a club for powerful countries and it is quite another thing for the people to leave the EU, with their own decision and their own power, and to unilaterally cancel the debt and leave the vice of capital’s markets.

They ask us:

“And where will we find the money if the people turn their backs on the international capitalist market?”

But the people’s socialist economy means a complete divorce with capital. It means a radically different way of calculating which resources and which products are destined for productive investment, which go for consumption, which head for social services.

This requires central scientific planning. And this means that less spending is needed for modern social services from the section of production which is today appropriated by the capitalists for their profits.

 Such surpluses exist today in crisis-ridden Greece, but they became legally and illegally exported profits and capital. In 2014, many business groups had profits, even in instances when their turnover shrank.”

D. Koutsoumpas in his speech focused on the solution, the way being proposed by the KKE:

“To the question, “Is there is a solution, is there a prospect” we answer YES categorically.

The solution and prospect for the people is to be found on the path of rupture and conflict so that the people can take the power and socialize the means of production, scientifically plan the economy, disengage form the EU, unilaterally cancel the debt.

The proposal of the KKE is the only real alternative for the people, capable of utilizing and further developing the country’s productive potential in favour of our people.

We should think: Why have we got some many thousands of unemployed builders and engineers?  Why has construction activity ceased, while thousands of young people are forced to live with their parents, while thousands of houses remain empty, while infrastructure projects are needed, as well as anti-earthquake and anti-flood protection?

Greece is a country rich in energy resources, so why do we have houses without heating and the reduction of lignite production in Macedonia? Why do the profits of the monopoly groups, refineries, wholesale trade and high taxation lie behind the very expensive fuel prices? In contrast, central planning and a single socialized energy organization can meet the needs of the peoples as a whole today.

We should think about why today we are importing milk and dairy products, e.g. from Holland, as well as other agricultural products.

Is it unrelated to the policies imposed by the EU? Greece could fully meet its needs as regards basic food items, like milk, meat, wheat, pulses, with state production units for their production and processing.

Scientific central planning can quickly support local production and ensure livestock feed, medicine, fertilizers, energy needs.

The same is true for construction. Only a socialized construction sector can operate under central planning, with as its criteria the overall needs for infrastructure, transport, not only nationwide but  regional axes, anti-flood, anti-earthquake and anti-forest fire projects, buildings for social services, all over the country, on the mainland and on the islands, for modern homes for everyone.

We could mention many other examples.

Our development path will liberate and lend impetus to the country’s productive potential, which today remains frozen due to the fact that production is subordinated to profit, the competition of the business groups, the EU commitments.

We can see this in the shrinking of the shipbuilding industry, despite the fact that Greece possesses significant infrastructure and expertise.

Greece of people’s power, disengaged from the EU and NATO, can sign mutually beneficial agreements in a series of sectors, from hydrocarbon extraction to agricultural production,. This radical overthrow in Greece will not leave the wider region unchanged. It will lend impetus to other peoples and other movements in these countries.”

In reference to international developments, D. Koutsoumpas noted amongst other things:

“We have seen enough “crocodile tears” from the managers of the system SYRIZA and ND about dead children, the uprooted refugees and immigrants. While the leaders of Popular Unity and others like ANEL, who held governmental positions only yesterday, served the specific political line that creates imperialist wars, interventions, jihadists and reaps pain, tears, the further exploitation of the peoples, millions of refugees driven from their homes.

All those who supported the implementation of the imperialist plans bear a share of responsibility for this situation, all those who agree with our country’s participation in new crimes being committed for the oil, natural gas, and the transport routes of the commodities more generally and the market shares i.e. for capitalist profit.”

The GS of the CC of the KKE referred to the political line of fully aligning with NATO, the EU and the USA, which was followed by the previous SYRIZA-ANEL government, in which leaders of the Popular Unity party participated in.

  “SYRIZA and ND say that our country’s participation in the EU and NATO is the only way to ensure peace, security and stability. But what “stability” are they talking about, when all around us and due to the same path our country is following i.e. the path of capitalist competition for the division of energy resources and their transport routes, countries are being dismantled :Iraq, Libya, Syria…

What stability are they talking about when Eastern Europe, particularly with the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the Middle East and North Africa are “boiling”, due to the competition between the strong imperialist powers?

We should not fool ourselves! No one can be relaxed and think that they have a “roof” over their heads and are not in danger. Particularly when this roof belongs to NATO, which is a criminal imperialist organization, and to the EU, the “gang” of European capital.

They say without blushing that participation in NATO and the EU means “stability” and that disengagement from these imperialist organizations means “isolation”! Is there any greater isolation than poverty, destitution and war? In reality however, each people including our own is isolated inside the EU and NATO. It is faced with anti-people memoranda and the dangers of imperialist war.

In contrast, when the people decide to their fate into their own hands, to take power and the “keys” to the economy, they will find not one, but dozens and hundreds of other peoples that will support them.

Because when the “ice breaks”, the ice which the workers and people’s rights have been put in by the barbarity of capitalism, then it will not only affect one country and its people. The developments will be more generalized.

In addition, our people will have the support above all of the other peoples that will follow the same path, and then later even more, and even of countries and governments that will remain in capitalism, but whose particular interests and contingencies will coincide with our country’s interests. And such opportunities, even if temporary in nature, are created by uneven capitalist development and capitalist competition itself.”

At this point, D. Koutsoumpas mentioned that despite the claims of the KKE’s opponents Greece cannot today sign economically beneficial relations with other countries, as it participates in the EU embargo against Russia and against Iran, highlighting that “local agricultural production is being sacrificed to the benefit of European industrial monopolies.”

At the end of his speech, D. Koutsoumpas focused on the need for the KKE to be strengthened in the elections

“The strengthening of the KKE everywhere, and in the elections also, means strength for us to more effectively organize the struggle against the decay, the barbarity and the war that is escalating against the people.

Many people say to us:”What you say is correct. But it is for the future. What will happen tomorrow, how will we survive the next day?” This view is what leads the workers and many self-employed into the arms of the bourgeois parties and into making mistaken choices, which lead to passivity, submission, fatalism. The result of this is that they accept life with minimal rights, that they continually accept the lesser evil which in the end becomes the new greater evil.

This inhuman and rotten corrupt system cannot be improved with half-measures, it cannot become humane.

Our people have now tried everything, all the various types of government, parties. They tried them all and showed patience, acceptance and the desire to leave their fates in the hands of others. But they have not yet tested their own strength. They have not taken their place at the side of the KKE on the path of real conflict and rupture with the monopoly interests, the EU and their power, in order to overthrow them.

We do not tell them that this will happen on the 21^st of September. But only a stronger KKE, as the people’s opposition in parliament as well, can pave the way for this and lend impetus to the people, to hope, to the will to act, in order to impede the realization of the planned anti-people measures and to lead to the only pro-people prospect.

Because the political problem is not how and when the preconditions will be created for us to struggle for the other development path, in a line of rupture with the system. The real problem is whether the working class, the self-employed and tradesmen, the poor farmers, the youth and women, the unemployed will take a position on this vital issue.

That is to say, whether we will decide to come into conflict and to free ourselves from the dictatorship of capital, the dictatorship of the monopolies.

This is the problem that already is in front of us. Today, we have more evidence that this choice is now inevitable for our people, for all the peoples, that it is the only choice that leads to salvation, hope, prospects.

Consequently, what will be judged in the elections is whether we will take a step forwards in this direction, by supporting the KKE electorally and by adopting its proposal for another development path.

This matter will not just be determined of course in the elections and from one term of government to another. It will be determined on the road of struggle with a powerful labour-people’s movement, with a big popular social alliance. Only this path can bring real change in the correlation of forces between those forces that produce and those that exploit.

What will be judged in these elections is whether a step will be taken along this path, via the strengthening of the KKE.

There are only a few days left. Those of you who are still thinking things over, who have not yet made your decision, take the step now, take the decision that will open a new chapter in your lives, the lives of your children, all our lives. You have tried nearly all of them, you have experienced nearly everything. Now you can only rely on the KKE. Put your reservations and various disagreements to one side. The solution is to follow the path to overthrow the system, joining forces with the KKE.”

18.09.2015