Dear comrades,

 We are particularly happy to be here with you for the work of the 17^th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties in Istanbul.

 I would particularly want to underline the unwavering bonds that connect the communist movements of the two neighbouring peoples, the Greek and the Turkish peoples.

 And using this opportunity we express our thanks to the Communist Party in Turkey for hosting today’s meeting.

 We express our full solidarity with the struggling Turkish people, our support for the families of the victims of murderous provocation that led to the death and serious injuries of hundreds of our fellow people in Ankara, while they were demonstrating for justice and peace.

 In the recent period, all humanity has focused its gaze on the sea between Turkey and Greece. They saw tens of thousands of people seeking to cross the Aegean Sea in every way imaginable, to reach some Greek island after leaving the Turkish coast with the aim of heading to other European countries, in order to seek a “better future”.

 This “passage” has proved fatal for thousands of people, for many children, who perished struggling against the waves. However, the factor that led so many people to uproot themselves from their homes has a name. It is capitalist barbarity that creates economic crises, poverty and unemployment, imperialist wars and interventions.

 The 17^th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties was held from the 30^th of October to the 1^st of November in Istanbul, Turkey. A delegation of the KKE participated in the meeting, headed by Dimitris Koutsoumpas, the GS of the CC of the KKE.

The KKE struggles against the causes that lead to refugees and immigration; it struggles against Nazism-fascism and its representatives today in Greece, who sought amongst other things to use this major issue of immigration waves in order to sow nationalism, xenophobia and racism amongst the people.

 Our party calls on the people, the labour-people’s movement to be vigilant and to intensify their solidarity with refugees and immigrants, demanding:

•    The end of the imperialist interventions and wars of the EU-USA-NATO. No Greek participation in them.
•   The abolition of the Dublin Regulations, the Schengen Agreement, Frontex and all the other repressive mechanisms of the EU.
• No to the EU’s measures for repression at the borders.
• Immediate transit of refugees from the island and entry points to their final destination countries, under the responsibility of the EU and UN.
• The creation of decent reception centres.   The creation of decent reception centres. The increase of personnel and strengthening of the infrastructure related to rescue, registration-identification, accommodation-food-care and the safe transit to the country’s exit points.

 Dear comrades,

 Our region, the region between Europe and Asia, the Black Sea and the Middle East, the region of the Eastern Mediterranean like a magnet attracts hundreds of warplanes and warships, as well as every other kind of military hardware.

 Military forces from dozens of countries, inside and outside of NATO, are constantly participating in military exercises and some of them have already been used in battles in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine etc. What we have described is just the tip of the iceberg of the intense inter-imperialist competition which endangers the peoples.

 This is a competition that is being expressed over the division of the raw materials, the transport routes of the commodities, the market shares. In short, over capitalist profit, which is the motor force of capitalist society. A society that is based on the exploitation of man by man.

 In recent years, due to the consequences of the counterrevolutions in countries of socialist construction, and also due to the capitalist crisis that reshuffled the deck, due to uneven capitalist development, we can see the inter-imperialist competition sharpening. The famous so-called “multi-polar world” is none other than the world of harsh inter-imperialist confrontations, which are being waged with economic, diplomatic and military means, as it is well-known that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”.

 We all know that in Ukraine we had the open intervention of the USA, EU, NATO in the framework of their competition with Russia, while the previous relations of socialist cooperation and integration inside the Soviet Union had already been overturned. The intervention of the USA-NATO-EU, relying on nationalist and even openly fascist forces, has led this country to collapse and unspeakable bloodshed.

 We see similar developments in the Middle East region, where there was an attempt to hijack and exploit the people’s desire for social and democratic rights. Through the vehicle of the so-called “Arab Spring”, there was an attempt to “recompose” the international alliances in the region, and possibly to carry out some bourgeois modernizations. The USA, the EU and their “allies” in the region, like the authoritarian regimes in the Gulf and Turkey trained and supported the jihadists of the “Islamic State” in order to advance their plans.

 The same is true of the developments in Syria, where after the interventions of the EU, USA and NATO, the knot of antagonisms is being further complicated by Russia. It has goes beyond the whiff of gunpowder, the wider region of the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean is being threatened. There is a real danger that the entire region could explode.

 It is precisely these major contradictions in the region that increase the danger of a generalization of the military conflicts, because in our wider region imperialist centres like the USA, NATO and the EU, old and new emerging powers like Russia, China, Turkey, Israel, the Arab monarchies in the Gulf, are coming into conflict, with a real danger of the greater involvement of other countries, like Greece.

 The SYRIZA-ANEL government in only 7 months of ruling has proposed the creation of a new NATO-US base on Karpathos, the establishment of a multi-national command and control unit on Crete, as well as the expansion and reinforcement of the Suda base.

 While now it is ready to accept the request of the USA so that the notorious drones of the US airforce can station on Greek territory and specifically in Crete in order to bomb the region and of course create new waves of refugees and immigrants. The peoples, like the Greek people, will once again pay the price for this.

 The issue of the EEZ is more clearly bringing to the fore the savage confrontation amongst the imperialist powers, old and new, something that further entangles our country in the danger of being involved in an imperialist war at the side of one or the other predatory alliance.

 The participation of Greek governments in these plans serves the interests of Greek capital which aims to increase its share in the redivision of the markets, i.e. from the robbery carried out against the peoples.

 The Greek government, on behalf of the Greek bourgeoisie, Greek capital, is advancing the aim of transforming Greece into an energy hub and thus involving it in the competition over the energy transport routes and pipelines like TAP

 We can not really understand these developments and, what is important, examine what we should do if we do not study some factors:

 For example, the synchronized character of the capitalist economic crisis in the last decade that has affected powerful capitalist states. It is doubtful whether these states will achieve a dynamic expanded reproduction at pre-crisis levels. This crisis is due to the nature of the capitalist system and demonstrates its boundaries.

 In these conditions, the realignments in the correlation of forces amongst the capitalist states are accelerating. New powers are emerging that seek a redivision of the markets that is to their benefit.

 They are seeking this, using all means available-economic, diplomatic, with compromises and fragile agreements, but when this is not possible military means are used. This is how capitalism, the system of exploitation, functions.

 That “war is the continuation of politics by other means” is absolutely valid. When the system, the ruling class can not service its predatory interests it resorts to open war. This been demonstrated at many points in history.

 We should not forget that before the two previous world wars, major global capitalist crises had broken out.

 It is a tremendous historical inaccuracy what is said and written in the history books, in the books of the bourgeois political economy, which are taught in schools and universities, something that various social-democratic forces, like SYRIZA in Greece, as well as opportunist forces in the communist movement loudly proclaim: that the great capitalist crisis of the period 1929-1932 was solved by the Keynesian management! This is used to excuse their own anti-people management formula, their anti-people strategy, like that of SYRIZA in our country.

 In fact, the crisis was finally overcome by the enormous destruction of productive forces in World War II and after the economy was first oriented to the military industry,

These are not theoretical and academic issues. They are issues that above all must be learned and understood by the youth. They are historical experiences that should be used to see how developments are moving today, where things are going, what should be done to get rid of this barbarity

The capitalist system, especially today when it is in its highest and final stage of imperialism, can offer nothing positive to the workers, to the peoples, but only an intensity of class exploitation, oppression, naked barbarity, economic crises and wars.

 All this demonstrates one great truth to the peoples of the entire world: that capitalist crisis and imperialist war go together.

That is why today the slogan "the people and especially the youth should not shed blood for the interests of capital, of the exploiters." is extremely important.

 And as regards the workers of our countries, this is not safeguarded by the participation of our countries in the imperialist organizations, the EU and NATO that is accepted by all the bourgeois parties, liberal and social-democratic, left and right, and in Greece this includes the parties from ND, SYRIZA, until Nazi Golden Dawn.

It is not safeguarded by the logic cultivated by various parties that the people should choose imperialist, select a block of imperialist powers, a block of international geopolitical alliances.

It is something entirely different for worker’s-people’s power to utilize existing contradictions and different interests of capitalist states and quite another to attach oneself to an imperialist alliance, a union of capitalist states, with the illusion that this could benefit the working class and the people and the prospect of people’s power, socialism.

 We believe that the communist movement must utilize the inter-imperialist contradictions, with the aim of weakening the imperialist alliances, destabilizing capitalist power in its country or other country, whether the aggressor or the one under attack.

 For a CP to correctly utilize the inter-imperialist contradictions it must not be trapped in the plans of any imperialist centre, it must defend the vital working class interests in its country, in the region and at an international level.

 In this direction, the KKE seeks to actively highlight the consequences of our country’s participation in the imperialist unions, their interventions, in imperialist war for the working class and people. We fight against the irredentist nationalist slogans. We fight to isolate the fascist forces and the supporters of Euro-atlanticism, to isolate all those who work to create a “pro-war current”.

 Our party directly raises the issue of Greece withdrawing from all the imperialist alliances, such as NATO and the EU, underlining that this can be ensured by workers’-people’s power, the socialist development path.

 At the same time we stress that the struggle for the defense of borders, for Greece’s sovereign rights, from the standpoint of the working class and the popular strata, is inextricably linked to the struggle for the overthrow of capital’s power and of course, has nothing to do with the defense of the plans of the various imperialist poles or the defense of the profitability of the various monopoly consortia.

 The working class, the popular strata and their youth, in our opinion, have only one choice:

 They must put an end to the system that gives rise to exploitation, crises and wars, to direct the militant insurgent forces towards the overthrow of capitalism and the construction of the new socialist society.

 Dear comrades,

 Today the bourgeoisie, benefiting from the negative correlation of forces internationally, is carrying out an ideological offensive, seeking to gain not just the passive toleration but the active support of the working class-popular masses for its imperialist plans, concerning issues related to imperialist interventions and wars.

 Here, beyond the issue of defending the “homeland” and other new pretexts are being utilized such as the “promotion of democracy”, “humanitarian reasons”, the “war against terrorism”, “combating piracy”, “the non-dissemination of weapons of mass destruction”, “the prevention of the immigration and refugee current”, “the protection of religious and national minorities” etc.

 Unfortunately, there are still forces that call themselves “leftwing”, “progressive” and pro-labour which accept these imperialist pretexts.

 We consider that the forces that participate in the Party of the European Left and voted in favour of the NATO intervention in Libya and accepted the imperialists’ arguments regarding Syria bear enormous responsibilities. They had a similar stance towards the earlier imperialist interventions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

In conditions where the inter-imperialist contradictions are sharpening, the workers must not have illusions that it is possible via “round tables” or “regional security systems” to prevent war. The events in Syria, Ukraine etc demonstrate that the “peaceful path” for the resolution of the problem of the division of markets sometimes remains closed to capitalism, imperialism. Then there is only one way out: the new division of the markets and spheres of influence through violence, military conflicts, new imperialist wars.

The communist movement must hold a decisively independent class ideological-political stance and fight against any attempt to co-opt the peoples to the aims of the bourgeoisies, whether they be older or new emerging sections of this class.

It is particularly important for the communist movement to have a consistent ideological-political front against every imperialist power, regardless of how it presents itself.

Dear comrades,

We must not overlook the fact that in the context of the fierce competition, which alternatively is expressed as an economic, political or diplomatic war, there is the confrontation over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The TTIP is proceeding very slowly, as sections of the French and German bourgeoisies consider that the US proposals are a “Trojan Horse” in order to secure US hegemony in Europe in the medium term.

The recent US acts to expose the scandal of the Volkswagen pollution emissions and the similar attempts to reveal the illegal funds of Siemens by the USA are examples of the sharpening of the competition between the USA and Germany in the sphere of the economy. It is becoming obvious that the US pressure on Germany is increasing in order to advance the TTIP.

Another front is the confrontation underway inside the EU itself around issues of the further deepening or not of capitalist unification, where France, Italy and also more discreetly Britain (in the medium term) are disputing Germany’s primacy.

In addition, the confrontation of the USA-EU against Russia over Ukraine is a major and special issue that is connected to energy policies in Europe and elsewhere.

Another important issue is the exacerbation of the contradictions between USA and China, in the first phase economically, while there is intense activity at the military level as well for the control of the Pacific.

Inside the framework of the competition between stronger and less powerful capitalist states, a number of contradictions and conflicts over the demarcation of sovereign rights in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean, which is rich in hydrocarbons, remain unresolved. Characteristic examples of this are: the war in Israel-Lebanon, the Cyprus question, the Palestinian issue and the contradictory nature of the relations between Israel and Turkey.

All of these point to the danger of a general imperialist confrontation in the Middle East, in Eurasia and the world more generally and are rightly of concern to communists.

Dear comrades,

It is true that the bourgeoisie of our country is not united as regards what formula will contribute to the most rapid and stable capitalist recovery. This is also true of the bourgeoisie at a European and international level. The entire web of inter-imperialist contradictions is manifesting itself in the context of these formulas and variations. Axes and anti-axes are altering quite frequently and while it is understood that the capitalist system, especially in capitalist Europe, can not use Keynesian measures, general state productive investments and social benefits in the same way as it had done in the past in order to boost the market.

The formulas of Keynesian and liberal management of the crisis are confronting each other on this terrain, both with the same class aims. These management models frequently alternated during the 20^th century and of course did not prevent cycles of economic crisis, dozens of local wars for the redivision of markets or to change the first positions in the imperialist pyramid.

The character of the strategy and tactics of parties is not determined by how they define themselves ideologically (left, socialist, communist), but by how they act in relation to the basic interests of the classes in society. And chiefly in relation to the two basic opposing classes, the bourgeoisie and the working class. In addition they are defined by how they deal with the intermediate social strata, which are characterized by significant stratification and differentiations of interests amongst them as well as regards what common interests they have with the working class.

A policy of supporting the general interests of the bourgeois class is being followed not just by bourgeois liberal parties but also by parties with leftwing, socialist or even communist references that are calling on the working class and the popular strata to contribute to and support the goals of the capitalist class, such as “productive reconstruction”, “the enhancement of national production-economy”, “modernization”, of bourgeois economic and political structures etc.  In other words, they are pushing the people into fighting under a false flag instead of their own flag, into choosing between the various anti-people governments for the management of the system.

As is also the case in our country, the people are being trapped by the question of government; they are being trapped into supporting the reformation of the bourgeois political system, in conditions when the older bourgeois parties and social-democracy are in decline.

In these conditions we can observe fluidity and mobility in the bourgeois parties, both in those that are liberal and those that are social-democratic in ideology.

In the conditions of the prolonged economic crisis in Greece, on the one hand we saw the emergence of national socialism-fascism as a parliamentary party, detaching forces from ND, and on the other hand the regroupment of social-democracy, through the formation of SYRIZA, also assimilating opportunist forces which had sprung up over the last 25 years.

At the same time, there continues to be fluidity in the centre-left, social-democracy (PASOK) and the opportunist pole as a current of the communist movement (ANTARSYA, Popular Unity, other forces that claim they will form a new revolutionary workers’ party).

Our party studies these realignments which had negative consequences on the electoral influence of the KKE itself over the last 3 years, despite the fact that it maintains significant forces in the national and EU parliaments, and chiefly maintains the ability to intervene militantly in conditions of a major retreat of the movement and of combativeness. It is able to influence forces well beyond its electoral influence, in the struggles of the workers, farmers and people for survival.

Certain “well-wishers”, who are allegedly interested in the strengthening of the KKE- mainly in the previous period, now after the failed experiment of SYRIZA they are of course quieter- criticized us because we do not promote cooperation with SYRIZA or some sections of it with the aim of halting the downward spiral of the people’s living standards and then afterwards to examine how the struggle will progress to socialism, because allegedly these forces remained stably in favour of this perspective.

They are proposing that we again adopt a political line that has already been tried and tested in Greece as well, e.g. the cooperation with the government of George Papandreou after the liberation in 1944, the support provided to the Centre Union by EDA (the United Left Front where communists were active) in the 1960s before the military dictatorship.  Alternative forms of management of the system were tested in many European capitalist states before the crisis (as both centre-left and centre-right formulas had been tried out), with the participation of communist parties and other opportunist, renewal as they call themselves, parties that arose from splits in the CPs. We have also seen governments, even if relatively short-lived, with the participation of far-right parties as in Austria, Netherlands, Norway etc.  We have seen alternation between parties with different formulas of bourgeois management in Latin America as well.

They are proposing that we ignore the relationship between politics and the economy; they are telling us to forget that the monopolies prevail everywhere in the economy and the superstructure and are being reinforced through centralization of capital, that Greece’s integration into the EU in reality imposes greater commitments and dependencies, new restrictions and concessions of rights and powers.

They are suggesting that we overlook the fact that capitalist relations have extended into agricultural production, education, health, culture, sports, the Mass Media.  That there is a greater concentration of capital in manufacturing, retail, construction, tourism.  That with the abolition of the state monopoly in telecommunications, energy and transport, businesses have developed and chiefly those based on private capital. Enormous European monopolies are pouncing like crows in order to buy property, businesses, land, while interest is mounting around the prospect of the extraction of hydrocarbons in the Aegean and Ionian seas, and in the region south of Crete.

That we should forget that the capitalists, the monopolies are the economically dominant class, while the government and parliament are their organs.

And that SYRIZA, as a party of government, accepts the monopolies, the EU, the capitalist businesses, their competitiveness, as the motor force of the economy.

SYRIZA played an especially valuable role for the bourgeois class, chiefly in order to avert political instability in conditions of a prolonged economic crisis and the major reduction of the workers’-people’s income. Only a party with social-democratic references, like SYRIZA, could curtail the mass popular protests, as Juncker also admitted.

Certain parties, of various political shades, elevate as the main issue, capable of constituting the basis for the cooperation of anti-memorandum forces, the question of dealing with the “neo-colonial” situation that has enveloped the country, as it is under the guardianship, the heel of the Troika. They say that the country has lost or is endanger of losing its national status and independence.

Of course, Greece has a subordinate position inside the established imperialist alliances in which it participates (EU, NATO, IMF etc). This position, however, arises from its economic-political-military strength as a capitalist state. This is the source of the unequal relations that prevail amongst capitalist states-allies (antagonistic relations that can even lead to rupture and war), which does not negate the common basis of the alliance. History has shown the dangers related to the uneven development of capitalist states, the unequal antagonistic relations between them when the differences are not resolved by political and economic methods, lead to these states choosing military methods, war, state violence. Capitalism does not just advance capitalist internationalization, the various forms of imperialist unions, whether formal or informal, and is not just permeated by cosmopolitanism, but also by nationalism and belligerent tensions.

All the parties promoted the Greek problem as being a European one. This view is accompanied by the position that there can be no pro-people changes at a national level, beyond the alternation of governments, i.e. changes in the political personnel of the system and not in the economy. I.e. that the people ca not struggle for another socialist society. It fosters the utopian and compromised view that radical changes, overthrows, will either happen simultaneously throughout Europe as a whole or globally, or nowhere at all. “Left” governments, like SYRIZA-ANEL, with this slogan, demand submission as regards the new deterioration of the workers’-people’s living standards.

Greece today has major unutilized productive potential which can be liberated only through the socialization of the means of production by the working class-people’s power, with the Central Scientific Planning of production and workers’’ control at every level of its organization.

We raise the issue that the preconditions exist in order to satisfy not just the people’s needs in general, but the people’s needs today. To abolish unemployment, to reduce the working hours, to increase free time. To secure a certain future for the children of the workers, to stably and substantially improve the people’s living standards. So that development does not come into conflict with the environment, so that health is based on prevention, that there will be an extended network of exclusively public and free services, along with other issues that we have positions on. The family and mainly women should be liberated from the exclusively private care of children, the elderly, the chronically ill. There should be extensive social services to support maternity, positive discrimination so that maternity is combined with social labour, so that women have more time available for cultural and social activity and to participate in workers’ control.

Greece possesses important domestic energy sources, considerable mineral resources, industrial, craft and agricultural production which can meet a large part of the people's needs: in food and energy, transport, the construction of public infrastructure works and people's housing. The agricultural production can support industry in its various sectors.

 The position supported by SYRIZA and other parties that demand a new “haircut” of the debt, adopting the IMF position, is completely different from the KKE’s position in favour of the unilateral cancellation of the entire debt and not its reduction through equivalents, new measures, new memoranda, new anti-people programmes, with privatizations of strategically significant sectors and property etc.

The withdrawal from the Eurozone, as proposed by some, or the view that the euro is not a fetish have nothing to do with the KKE’s position for disengagement from the EU.

The KKE’s position that there should be no participation in any imperialist union, something that will be ensured by workers’ power, is completely different to the position for withdrawal from the EU in order to enhance participation in other centres.

The KKE’s proposal for the governance of workers’-people power has nothing in common with SYRIZA’s proposal for a “left” government. Especially now that the Greek people have got to know at first hand “the first and second time left” that votes for memoranda and anti-people prerequisite measures.

In the first instance we are talking about the radical change in political power, in the second instance a mere change in government-figures that will operate within the same framework as the previous governments, as the monopolies and capital will determine the decisions and choices made for economic recovery.

Comrades,

Our party from the beginning of the 1990s confronted the reformist and opportunist view that we are living in the era of the return of liberalism, which is called neo-liberalism. This view argued that on this basis it is necessary to establish an anti-neoliberal front. This position is also prevalent today and indeed is used to explain the basic cause of the crisis. This is an ideological construct that is widely used by SYRIZA and social-democracy in general. We exposed, using concrete arguments, that the abandonment of Keynesian management was a necessary choice which corresponded to the needs of capital for expanded reproduction, after the general crisis at the beginning of the 1970s.

Nevertheless, many CPs enthusiastically promoted Keynesian programmes and on this basis cooperation with social-democracy. This position was based on whether social-democracy was being drawn to neo-liberalism or not. In this way, the ideological front against it was weakened to a great extent. In the name of the unity of the working class (which looked to the creation of governments together with social-democracy or a section of it) the CPs carried out serious ideological and political retreats, while the declarations of unity on the part of social-democracy did not look to the overthrow of the capitalist system, but to the class alienation of the working class and to detaching it from the influence of communist ideas.

 The great Leninist legacy is timely, the lesson that the victory of the working class, the exploited people, and even the rise of the class struggle is not possible without a struggle against opportunism that is unrelenting and uncompromising. That the content of the struggle was different in the conditions of the development of the bourgeois revolution and that it is different today in the era of the transition from capitalism to socialism, in the conditions of the highest stage of capitalism.

 In any case, no party can become a party of government if it does not provide the relevant credentials to the capitalists as a class, to their domestic and international personnel. This has been confirmed by the actions of SYRIZA. It is a myth that universal suffrage in capitalism can change the correlation of forces between the opposing classes. For this reason the issue of whether a government based on parliament can contribute to the beginning of the revolutionary process is groundless and utopian, we would say completely misleading, on the basis of the experience of the 20^th and the first part of the 21^st centuries.

The KKE attaches importance to all the forms of struggle in non revolutionary conditions, such as today’s, and utilizes the electoral struggle and its parliamentary presence to inform the people, to reveal what is being planned at their expense, to impede-as far as possible on the basis of the correlation of forces-the antiworker, antipeople measures, above all to strengthen the class struggle so that the need for total conflict is understood by more people.

In this framework, the KKE focuses on the regroupment of the labour-people’s movement, the construction of the social alliance with a rise in class struggle, the expansion of the communist party’s bonds with new forces of working men and women, other employees, farmers and self-employed, mainly youth and women from the popular families, with the construction of robust party organizations in all the workplaces, in strategic sectors of the economy.

The struggle against capitalism, imperialist interventions and wars, Nazism-fascism that is rearing its head again, requires strong communist parties in our countries, with a strategy of conflict and overthrow, with coordination and common action, chiefly ensuring common strategic activity and the preparation of forces to fight against capitalist exploitation, imperialist barbarity and to pave the way for the only hopeful future for humanity, socialism.

Today is the period that will determine the existence, maintenance and regroupment of the revolutionary vanguard, so that it is capable of directing the insurgent working class-popular masses towards the revolutionary solution, when the mood of masses and situation matures due to the sharp and general crisis of bourgeois power.

The KKE, which took on the responsibility of organizing the international meetings after the counterrevolutions, will continue the effort, despite the difficulties, both inside the International Meetings, and also through other forms, which in our estimation not only do not come into contradiction with the IMCWP but act in a way that reinforces and promotes joint activity and the formation of a unified revolutionary strategy of the communist movement, on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and Proletarian internationalism.

As the great Turkish communist poet, Nazim Hikmet, said “We have a centuries-old impetus… We will emerge victorious even if our sacrifices are great.” Yes however great are sacrifices, this rotten world “this pirate ship, will sink - come hell or high water, it will sink. And we will build a world as hopeful, free”

30.10.2015