43. In the context of the implementation of the Political Resolution of the 20^th Congress, a Nationwide Conference was organized and carried out on the intervention of the Party in the urban self-employed, along with an Extended Plenum of the CC on the work on toiling farmers. The documents of both Bodies are published by “Synchroni Epochi”. A process of internal discussion preceded in the first case while it followed in the latter; however the discussion in the respective PBOs has not been completed yet. In both cases, the need for such a discussion is confirmed as regards the formation of a more unified view on the identification of potential allies of the working class, the direction of our intervention in their movements, and the promotion of joint action in the prospect of social alliance in an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist direction.

We need to engage in implementing the Resolutions in the run-up to the 21^st Congress and especially after it. The overall discussion confirms that, first of all, the leading organs should acquire the ability to guide our intervention in these social forces as well, and that this is not strictly the task of the respective Party forces of the urban self-employed or the farmers. In this regard, we have included already elaborated positions–decisions in the Theses for the 21^st Congress, in order to focus the attention of all the Party forces during the pre-congress discussion on them.

44. The social alliance includes the self-employed mainly in cities and towns who are characterized by the individual ownership of means of production and possibly limited commercial or other form of capital, limited extraction of surplus value.

The Party focuses on the self-employed without employees, knowing that they may also employ members of their family or other unregistered workforce, mainly on a seasonal basis. The theoretical perception and political action of the Party also take into account the stratification by sector. For instance, in the sector of scientific–technical services, in the offices of law services, in the technical–engineering offices, in accounting offices, etc. we witness the coexistence of salaried employees with a status of a freelance services provider, half-proletarians who mainly work under one employer, other self-employed, as well as employers. The Conference highlighted the need to focus more on the new sections of the urban self-employed, such as scientists, artists, and certain self-employed health professionals (e.g. physiotherapists).

In the lower middle strata, there is great variation from one sector to another and from a type of work to another in one specific sector, while the upper strata are clearly connected with the interests of capitalist ownership. The Party Organs and PBOs must prioritize their work within these social forces, knowing their composition, evaluating their various sections on the basis of general Leninist criteria (i.e. their relation to the means of production, their role in the social organization of work, the manner of acquisition and the size of the share of social wealth they possess), but also on the basis of contemporary analyses–estimations of the Party, as they were formed in the two Party Bodies.

Concerning the farmers, we prioritize our intervention in those who fight for survival as individual farmers, that is, those who depend on agricultural production to make ends meet. One part of them can increase its share in the total production, either by expanding its activity, or by changing crops, or by promoting a small processing of its production; nonetheless being burdened with the totality of its debts together with its reproduction.

Overall, the relatively large stratum of self-employed farmers is maintained mainly through the payment of direct income supports, since its existence is necessary for the monopolies of processing and commerce. This stratum suffers the consequences of the capitalist exploitative economy; it is crushed by monopolies, their alliances, and state; it has an objective interest in struggling against them and, on this basis, has common interests with the working class. This part of agricultural producers still produces the largest part, mainly of agricultural production, and that is why the working class is interested in forging an alliance with it.

The Party organizations should adhere to the combined criteria we have identified, taking into account the economic size of the exploitation, the degree of expansion of wage labour —especially of permanent wage labour—, and the amount of subsidies.

Experience confirms that the effort to approach and to unionize very small agricultural producers, who maintain farms for the purpose of supplementing their income, should be done on the basis of their main employment relationship and not as farmers. The same applies to farm labourers, permanent or seasonal, who are mostly immigrants, but also to women workers in the process of sorting and packaging, who have come into contact with some women's associations and groups.

45. First of all, the fact that there is a very limited number of Party forces in the self-employed, and mostly in farmers, should not be considered as a deterrent to the Organs. It has been proved that we have such forces of urban self-employed and farmers in the circle of influence of the PBOs, to whom we address through our general political work; however we are not oriented towards popularizing our positions that concern them in a proper and comprehensive manner, towards leading them to be at the forefront of the founding of trade unions or to act as the vanguard in existing ones, etc.

It is confirmed that in order to take further steps at working with the allies of the working class, it is necessary to ensure the specialized Party intervention, both independently as well as in their movement, with a constant commitment to develop the struggle around their basic problems, e.g. the intervention in the self-employed should focus on issues such as taxes and debts, social insurance, etc.; the intervention in the toiling farmers should develop around the axes of production costs, income/prices, protection of production, etc.

It has been proved that with the help of elaborated demands our intervention can be well received by self-employed and toiling farmers of other political persuasions. A goal that remains to be achieved is to learn to address to the people based on the framework of  struggle, the agreement on the issues raised in the movement, and the demands, in order to establish a way of work that embraces forces from different starting points who nevertheless agree on some basic issues and are willing to struggle.

We can utilize this basis in order to open up an outlook in our work, together with the overall framework of our ideological–political struggle. Preparation is needed in order to open up discussion on the causes of the problems, to relate them to the social–economic and consequently the political system, to capitalism overall, in order to respond to the notion of “national unity and productive growth” of each government, to highlight the need for stability in the direction of the content and forms of struggle, etc.

A key element is the engagement of the organs and the operation of the respective Party Groups that must focus on the thorough study of their area of responsibility, on the monitoring of the developments and the struggle, on the elaboration and specialization of frameworks and positions, on the generalization of the experience gained from our activity.

The Organs need to know how the movement is formed in terms of structure, correlation of forces, mass appeal, relations with capitalist organizations and state structures, etc. Only then we can assess to which trade union we are directing our forces —party members, supporters, etc.— and how, in relation to the intervention of capitalists, the groupings of bourgeois parties, chambers, institutes of third-level trade union organizations, cooperatives, organizations of regional and municipal administration, etc.

The Resolutions of both Party Bodies lay down the criteria in detail and clarify that the main issue is to penetrate into politically disoriented and manipulated popular forces; and not to concentrate a limited number of Party members and supporters in new trade unions through “easy” and “convenient” procedures.

An inviolable condition for the Party forces, whether they are assigned to the work among the working class or the self-employed, must be the in-depth knowledge of the strategy of the bourgeoisie and the EU, of the overall direction of their policy for the small and medium enterprises, which conjointly aims to support enterprises in certain sections and to develop the alliances of the bourgeois class. EU subsidies to toiling farmers, although not having the same effects as in the past, remain a source of illusion and disorientation, especially for landowners and producers, whose benefits essentially prolong their survival in order to ensure cheap raw material and farming having profits as a criterion for the benefit of big tradesmen–industrialists.

At the same time, it is necessary to provide appropriate guiding support to the Party Groups of the self-employed and the farmers’ associations, in order to broaden the appeal of young people and women in the respective movements.

The issue of the militant mass line of mobilization with an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly character or even sowing the seed of radical ideas in more difficult areas requires a relatively long-term plan with specialization, prioritization based on specific steps, and adaptations based on topicality. The communists’ intervention, in combination with the corresponding measures to improve the dissemination and scope of our positions in these strata, is a complex process with both successes and setbacks.

No form of mobilization or movement can have a perpetual and unchangeable character. A form of rally may occasionally take on anti-monopoly characteristics, sometimes more shallow; at other times more advanced. The selection of the respective forms of nationwide rallies, based on the general correlation of forces mainly in third-level trade union organizations, is made with the aim of gathering trade unionists; of creating mass associations, struggle committees, and federations in an anti-monopoly direction —which in its essence is anti-capitalist—, aiming to coordinate their action. We strife to create mass and militant organizations which will expand their action, strengthening their alliance with all the oppressed, the workers, the farmers, the urban self-employed, the women, and the youth of the popular families.

All this should not be taken for granted from the beginning. It is the result of constant struggle, activity, and communication; first of all between the communists and these social forces, with their trade unions, especially the first-level ones, making and effort to keep the forms of mobilization lively and representative. As regards the joint action by rallies of different movements, such as among the PAME forces, the Nationwide Committee of the Roadblocks (PEM) among the farmers, the Attica Federation of Craftsmen (OBSA) among the self-employed, the  Federation of Greek Women (OGE), the Students’ Militant Front (MAS) in the student movement, and the School Students’ Coordinating Committees, the communist vanguard must move flexibly, contributing to the maturation of the necessity of such a joint action, without violating the operation and the decisions of the very organs and individual rallies.

Of course, the communist vanguard is struggling to reveal the common interests of the conflict with the monopolies, the governments, the state, the EU, the consequences of the participation in NATO, and the imperialist plans in the region, being aware that it is not an easy process, nor equal for all; it contains steps forward, but also setbacks under the pressure of intimidating dilemmas, the attack of bourgeois parties, etc.

A crucial issue on which the Party should focus concerning the movement of the urban self-employed —taking into account the course and development of PASEVE and the deterioration of the correlation of forces in recent years— is the need to make improvements in the basis in order to form renewed preconditions of nationwide coordination in a radical anti-monopoly direction. This process presupposes that we strengthen the Party forces, that we gain positions and majorities in unions and federations, a goal from which we are now far away in the vast majority of urban centres.

According to the Resolution of the Nationwide Conference, today we should focus our attention on upgrading the operation and creating mass unions and federations in the administrations of which we have the majority; on paving new paths of contact with and mobilization of new forces, unions and federations; on the strengthening of contacts with  unionized self-employed and other trade unionists who differ from the line of GSEVEE–ESEE; on the strengthening of ties with second-level federations, in the administrations of which forces affected by capitalists that agree in a certain direction of the struggle are in the majority; on taking initiatives that intensify the militant actions and contribute to the mobilization of new forces.

In this direction, we are oriented towards proposing new forms of coordination. At the level of Attica, we support the effort of the Attica Federation of Craftsmen (OBSA). The struggle will be radicalized to the extent that the stabilization and expansion of our forces in the large cities and the mass sectors will be combined with the immediate initiative for certain problems with the well-founded reasoning of their causes, thus with the ideological–political struggle in the movement.

Respectively, as regards the toiling farmers we seek the organization of the farmers who make ends meet as agricultural producers, per village or per group of villages, in the form of an Agricultural Association. A first step can be the establishment of a Struggle Committee, especially in a phase of mobilization. We aim to establish Federations of Agricultural Associations at a region or neighbouring regions. The detachment of the popular sections of farmers from the influence of the powerful sections cannot be schematically dealt with the creation of an Agricultural Association which rallies mainly party members and supporters in its ranks and a very limited number of poor farmers, while the most active agricultural producers belong to another association. Of course,  their approach is a demanding issue; it requires planning, flexibility, escalation of the constant ideological–political and mass intervention, of the vanguard action of the communists with an apt framework of struggle, slogans, and proposed forms of struggle.

Our forces support the Nationwide Committee of Roadblocs (PEM) and its framework of struggle, the effort to help the national coordination be expressed in more stable forms of organization and alternating forms of struggle, in the direction of the regroupment of the farmers' movement, of the constant expansion of mobilization in an anti-monopoly and anti-CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) direction. We struggle for the promotion of joint action with the working class and the urban self-employed, as a result of the acknowledgment on the part of the unions and the unionists that this how they can strengthen their struggle.

The communists have the experience to not perceive any form of nationwide trade union rally in a static manner. The key issue is to understand (based on positive and negative experience) the way how the communists should work and contribute to the organization of the struggle.

46. The promotion of the unity of the working class with the self-employed and the farmers, as we defined it above, is first of all the communists' task. Under their  responsibility, the class-oriented labour–trade union movement will achieve more stable joint struggles in the form of organizing social forces whose social position pushes them to greater oscillation and hesitation.

It is not correct to assume that social alliance will develop from the outset on the basis of the acceptance of the demands of the working class by the popular sections of the middle strata as a sign of solidarity or because, in the final analysis, the general interests of the working class —the social ownership over the means of production— constitute social progress for these forces as well. It is also not correct to take the leading position of the working class in the alliance as given. This above-mentioned objective position of the working class in the revolutionary social progress and the social practice must be achieved, under the responsibility of its ideological–political organized vanguard.

Its achievement presupposes an understanding of the objective basis of the oscillations of the popular sections of the middle strata, the patience in the struggle to win over and to detach them from the influence of the upper middle strata and the capitalist class; it presupposes the vanguard perception and stance towards defending their income and other social needs in capitalist conditions. The fact that objectively these strata have a tendency to concentrate in the agricultural production, manufacturing, retail, hospitality–tourism etc., does not justify simplistic approaches about how their consciousness and stance are shaped. It is neither self-evident nor automatic to realize the joint interest of the working class, nor this happens without oscillations. Such perceptions and practices distort the essential and unique character of the working class, from which derives its leading role in the overthrow of capitalist power and in the construction of the new, socialist–communist one.

The way in which the bodies of the labour–trade union movement —first of all under the responsibility of the communists— address to the organizations of the self-employed and the toiling farmers an essential element that must be achieved. These bodies need to consider that they address to movements of small-owners, that is, due to their position as owners of means of production, land, and capital in commercial or financial form they cannot be a consistent revolutionary social force. Therefore, it is impossible to fully identify and align themselves with the goals and demands of the working class and, particularly, in conditions of general retreat of the movement. That is why it is necessary to elaborate a specialized line and framework of struggle and to tackle the perfunctory repetition of positions, forms of struggle and experiences gained in the labour movement.

This task is not easy in the current conditions in which the correlation of forces remains extremely negative. However, this does not mean that there are no possibilities that are formed on the very basis of the objective development of the capitalist economy. This is evidenced by some positive efforts of joint action, where we timely formed an apt framework that facilitated joint action. First of all, the joint rallies in Athens between PEM and PAME, as well as between labour, self-employed and women's organizations on the Sunday holiday and health issues. This positive experience includes the form of struggle adopted by the self-employed to close their stores in rural areas during farmers roadblocks on national roads, the joint action for major popular problems, e.g. waste management (Menidi), fire disasters (Eastern Attica), floods (Mandra) and the “Ianos” hurricane (Karditsa), oil tanks (Perama), etc.

In some of these joint actions on major popular problems, more forms of mass organizations joined their forces (e.g. parents and school students' associations,  cultural, environmental, scientific, artists’ organizations), in addition to the trade unions of social allies; they took the form of broader popular rallies. In some cases, they embraced more goals of struggle in a quick way, achieving in one or the other degree a more stable communication–cooperation between mass organizations. In the period of the sharpening of the previous economic crisis, particularly in the years 2011–2014, there were forms of militant popular mobilization —People's Committees— that developed action for acute problems, e.g. the cutting-off of electrical supply in poor people’s houses, the seizures of people’s houses, etc. In the immediate future, the need for mass popular defence of the people’s and small-professionals’ properties from auctions, solidarity for survival, etc. will arise. All of these are rightful and useful forms of organization and struggle of popular forces, which should not however be considered as permanent forms of social movements and their alliance, nor should their utilization and contribution to the mobilization and integration of new forces in the movements should be underestimated.

It is a matter of the communists assigned to the trade union movement, so that the latter, through  substantial collective processes (addressing executive boards, joint meetings, etc.), focuses on issues of survival and living conditions (health, social insurance, education, welfare, social infrastructure, nutritional needs and protection against natural phenomena) that concern more broadly the working class families, the majority of the self-employed and toiling farmers. It also need to support their demands for protection from auctions, seizures, etc., as well as to oppose imperialist wars, interventions and pressure. This is the way to achieve joint action, to realize its necessity and benefits.

Significant social problems are the basis for a more stable development of the joint struggle between workers' unions, farmers associations, and self-employed organizations, but also women associations and groups of OGE, bodies of self-employed scientists, artists, school and university students, to promote social alliance in practice.

The development of joint action between the associations and groups of OGE with the trade unions, the federations, the Labour Centres that are already rallied in PAME, but also with trade unions and unionists with whom we seek to come into contact, could help so that the positions and demands of employees are incorporated into the positions and the operation of unions, so that the participation of women in these organizations is increased. The same applies to the relationship of OGE associations and groups with farmers’ associations, bodies of the school and university students’ movement, with bodies of the urban self-employed  as an inclusion of positions and demands for the equality and emancipation of women.

In any case, the promotion of social alliance presupposes the expansion of the forces  rallied in PAME, but also the improvement of the communists’ positions in the farmers’ movement and especially in the movement of the urban self-employed, in order for farmers’ associations and federations and associations–unions–federations of urban self-employed to be formed and to be freed from capitalist influence. The special work that needs to be done in the bodies of the self-employed and the toiling farmers must be planned, in order to establish this participation, to mobilize active forces and not just to ensure a formal decision.

47. All the above presuppose the separately planned implementation of the ideological–political intervention in the farmers and the urban self-employed, based on the corresponding measures (allocation of tasks in the Organs, creation of PBOs, discussion in the PBOs); their central support, with propaganda material, articles, inner-party notes about  positions, criticism against other forces, interventions in the Parliament, in the Municipal and Regional Councils, etc.

Particular political guidance attention is needed for the emergence of trade unionists, for their communist steeling through their participation in all forms of class struggles, for the development of their communist consciousness through inner-Party educational schools, seminars, etc. A programme of specialized Party visits, meetings, and events is needed as well. There is need for a recruitment programme, prioritizing the sector, the village, and the cultivation that has a relative potential, where we must organize forces, to form a Party Group that will be at the forefront of getting in contact with associations or founding ones.

Special work is required regarding vanguard farmers, those who can understand that the future of agricultural production, of production overall, lies neither in the individual producer and tradesman nor in the capitalist farmer, but in the large, industrialized agricultural production, under social ownership and a central plan; that the agricultural productive cooperative is step in the preparation of a section of small farmers. Correspondingly, special work is required for the urban self-employed, particularly for the self-employed scientists as well as for craftsmen in new dynamic sectors.

Cadres are needed at all levels, from the CC to the PBO Bureau, capable of orienting  Organs and PBOs, to guide elected representatives on the administrative boards of mass organizations of farmers and urban self-employed.