On Wednesday 23 July, the political funeral of comrade Ammar Bagdash, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party, took place at the Kaisariani Cemetery in Athens. Comrade Bagdash had come to Athens after being persecuted by the criminal regime of the jihadists in Syria.

A large delegation from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece, a delegation from the Central Council of the Communist Youth of Greece, and a delegation from the Syrian Communist Party attended the ceremony.

In his eulogy, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece, noted the following:

“The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece and its members, cadres, and friends, bid a respectful farewell to our beloved comrade Ammar Bagdash, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party. He was a worthy son of the working class and people of Syria, a communist leader and internationalist, with whom the KKE maintained strong comradely and internationalist ties for decades.

The unexpected and sudden death of Comrade Ammar has filled us with unspeakable sorrow. This is all the more poignant given that our comrade passed away here in Athens, where he found the warm, comradely and unconditional support of the KKE from the outset, enabling him to continue his struggle after the jihadist regime took control of Syria.

Comrade Ammar was one of the countless people persecuted by this regime imposed through the imperialist intervention by the USA, Israel, and Turkey, but also with the support of the Greek government and other Euro-Atlantic parties in our country, which welcomed the fall of the Assad government, while carefully concealing who overthrew him and the reasons why.

Comrade Ammar continued his militant struggle in Athens alongside his comrades who are fighting under harsh illegal conditions and brutal persecution unleashed by the jihadist regime against communists, its political opponents, ethnic and religious minorities, and the Syrian working class and people.

During the months he spent living in Athens, we kept in daily contact and discussed every issue that arose. Our mutual respect and friendship grew stronger. We proceeded with the political asylum case together in a planned manner and he managed to obtain an asylum seeker’s card. He had given his first interview, and we were preparing for the second one, scheduled for Friday 17 July. However, in an ironic twist of fate, he unexpectedly passed away just a few days ago.

We bid farewell to our comrade Ammar, and will continue the joint struggle of the KKE and the Syrian Communist Party in these new circumstances. We will stand firmly on the solid foundations that we have built, based on proletarian internationalism and our worldview, Marxism–Leninism.

Comrade Ammar Bagdash was born in Damascus on 16 August 1954, and was the son of communist leaders Khaled and Wissal Bagdash. He joined the Syrian Communist Party in 1969, studied in Moscow, and obtained a Master’s degree in Economic Planning from Plekhanov University. He completed his higher education at the School of Economics of the State University in Moscow (Lomonosov), where he received a doctorate in economic sciences in 1983.

Returning to Syria in 1984, he became actively involved in politics, taking on important party duties, including Secretary of the Syrian Democratic Youth Union from 1986 to 1992.

He was elected to the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party at its 7th Congress in 1990, and to the Political Bureau in 1992. In 1993, he was elected to the Central Secretariat. In 2003, he was elected to the Syrian parliament, where he served until June 2024.

At the 11^th party congress in 2010, he was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee, a position he retained after being re-elected at both the 12^th congress and the 13^th congress, convened in autumn 2023.

We will always remember our comrade Ammar Bagdash, the proven leader and General Secretary of the Syrian Communist Party.

We will always remember our numerous bilateral meetings. We will remember the faith he expressed in the strength of the workers’ and people’s struggle; his thoughtful analyses and assessments of the situation in Syria and our region; and his commitment to the struggle against imperialist interventions and the attacks by the USA, NATO, the EU, and Israel against his homeland and the Syrian people.

We will remember his high regard for the KKE’s struggle against imperialist interventions, his dedication to internationalist solidarity, and our shared stance on proletarian internationalism — a potent weapon in the hands of communists.

We will remember his active participation and interventions in the International Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties, and the importance he attached to exchanging views and cooperating with our party.

We will also remember Comrade Ammar’s stance during the early years of the counter-revolution and the overthrow of socialism in the Soviet Union and other countries building socialism, when the International Meetings began in Athens under the responsibility of the KKE.

At the 4^th International Meeting in Athens in 2002, Comrade Ammar, who was then a member of the Political Bureau of the Syrian Communist Party, raised important issues in his speech, in which he pointed out the following:

“The Syrian communists highly appreciate all steps towards more co-ordination and solidarity among the world communist and labour parties , and we should say that Athens meetings are among the most important events in this context. (…) We have all seen how these communist parties, which kept their values and stuck to their principles, have maintained their position and respect, and how they are moving forward ahead successfully under by Marxism-Leninism. While the communist parties, which ran after false innovation i.e. tried to graft the scientific theory of socialism by liberal, bourgeois concepts and elements, have not only lost their credibility and revolutionist nature but also their impact and effectiveness because the masses stayed away from them no matter what the banner they tried to raise was. These renegade parties, that denounced their original thought and traditions, have equally lost their own future turning into a mere appendix to the Social Democrats of forming an impotent leftist folklore entities that will end in the bourgeois antique shops”.

In 2015, amid the imperialist intervention in Syria, our Party, in the context of its rich internationalist struggle and solidarity with the Syrian Communist Party and the Syrian people, invited Comrade Ammar to speak at a mass internationalist anti-imperialist rally at the Sporting Stadium.

His words moved us and gave us the strength to continue our struggle. Speaking  from the heart, he praised the actions of the KKE as “The stable party of
principles, the glorious Party that holds the Red Flag high in the sky of glorious Greece, the flag of Marxism-Leninism, the flag of the bright socialist future for the Greek people and the peoples of the whole world. The Red Flag symbolizes proletarian internationalism and the militant solidarity of the proletariat worldwide against capitalist tyranny. The glorious KKE proves its devotion to these ideals day after day”.

He noted that the struggle of the Syrian Communist Party was being waged under the great slogan “In defence of the homeland and the people’s bread”, and that in this context, Syrian communists demanded a complete break with economic liberalism, which had helped create fertile ground for the imperialist reactionary conspiracy against his country. “In the opinion of our party, resistance and endurance against the savage attack of imperialism presupposes the meeting of the demands of the working masses of the country, the workers, the farmers, the salaried workers, and the self-employed in the city and the countryside, who constitute the main social pillar of today’s honourable resistance”.

His struggle was relentless. He carefully and comprehensively studied developments and imperialist competition, and we discussed at length the imperialist plan for a “New Middle East” being promoted by the US and Israel in the region, with criminal consequences for the peoples. We jointly condemned the murderous state of Israel and expressed the unreserved solidarity of our parties with the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people to throw off the occupation, stop the genocide and establish their own free homeland.

We discussed about the mass people’s mobilizations in our country and informed him of Greece’s deep involvement in imperialist wars for the interests of the bourgeoisie and the promotion of Euro-Atlantic plans. We often spoke about the war of the US, NATO, and the EU against Russia on Ukrainian territory, and about the cooperation of our parties that co-signed the Joint Statement of 41 Communist Parties and 28 Communist Youth Organizations on the imperialist character of the war.

A recurring theme in our discussions was the need to strengthen the independent action of workers and people’s forces in defence of their own interests, in opposition to the capitalist system of exploitation that gives rise to wars, poverty and refugees.

As the leader and political guider of the Syrian Communist Party, Comrade Bagdash worked tirelessly every day to organize the struggle against the anti-people regime in his country and the atrocities of the jihadists, emphasizing that: "Throughout its history, our Syrian Communist Party has endured difficult and harsh conditions, emerging with its head held high and confirming the correctness of its path. This will also be the case at this stage. No matter how great the difficulties, the banner of Marxism-Leninism will not be lowered in the Syrian sky”.

Dear comrade Ammar Bagdash, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece bids you farewell with great sadness but also with pride, because you honoured us with your friendship, and I also felt that on a personal level. We bid you farewell with pride, because we marched together on the path of struggle towards workers’ power and the socialization of the means of production, towards a socialist - communist society. This is the beacon that illuminates the future of the producers of wealth.

The CC of the KKE expresses its deepest condolences to our comrades, to your beloved son and wife, to all your relatives and friends, and our thoughts are with them. We also extend our heartfelt condolences to the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party, its members and cadres, and all the militants who support it in its just struggle.

We borrow the words of the farewell statement of the CC of the Syrian Communist Party, which states: “While the funeral of the General Secretary will take place in Athens, we, the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party, announce to our people that the condolences and tribute to the great departed Comrade Ammar Bagdash will be held in Damascus in a manner befitting his esteemed position and exceptional militant qualities. He will be laid to rest at the foothills of Mount Qasioun, which he loved, once the dark clouds clear from the sky of the homeland and the sun of freedom and dignity shines”.

Comrades, on that day, we would like to take part in that ceremony and stand alongside the Syrian militants to pay our respects.

Farewell, comrade Ammar!

24.07.2025