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Strengthening the rallying of the youth around the KKE
On Saturday 28 September, the European Communist Action (ECA) held a teleconference on “The work of the ECA parties within the youth”, with the aim of exchanging experienceson the crucial task of acting among the youth and rallying them around the CPs in the struggle for socialism. Kostas Papadakis, a member of the CC of the KKE and MEP, made a contribution on behalf of the KKE.
The contributions of the parties are uploaded on the ECA website and can be found in the link below:
The full text of the KKE’s contribution reads as follows:
Dear comrades,
Warm greetings from Athens to all the ECA parties participating in this important teleconference. We especially want to thank the comrades of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain for organizing and preparing this teleconference.
Together we have initiated a new effort within the framework of the European Communist Action. We are aware of the difficulties in the crucial field of the work among the youth. Commitment to the goal, concrete measures and great perseverance are needed so that all parties can make substantial steps forward in the coming period.
From this point of view, it is useful to share experiences and that is what we will try to do, in short, with our contribution today.
For the KKE, action and intervention in the young age groups as well as the support and political guidance of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) are fundamental tasks. The vanguard intervention of the communists has left an indelible mark on all the struggles of the youth in our country for more than a century. The valuable experience that the KKE has accumulated allows it to intervene in the youth today, drawing on certain important conclusions.
The starting point of our understanding is the fact that the youth is not a separate class or stratum. Therefore, the youth movement, the school students’ movement, the university students’ movement, etc., cannot put forward an independent political proposal, i.e. there cannot be a youth movement with its own separate goal to seize power, with its own separate programme of power. The possibilities of the youth are mainly determined by the class they come from, the development of the class structure and the development of the class struggle in each respective country.
Of course, it is clear that the vast majority of young people in Greece come from or belong to the working class, as well as to the other popular strata of small producers and the self-employed in the cities and the countryside. Thus, the overwhelming majority of the youth has an objective interest in joining the cause of the working class and the people, their struggles and demands, in giving an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly orientation to their struggles and, of course, in joining forces politically with the KKE.
The prism through which we approach the position of the youth in the overall class structure of society should not lead us to overlook certain common characteristics that derive from youth, such as volatility and mobility, instability and fluidity, certain psychological characteristics and concerns based on their little social and political experience as well as on their lifestyle, combined with the elaborated specific attack of bourgeois ideology, reformism and opportunism, the rise of anti-communism, xenophobia, racism, and imperialist policies for the division of markets and spheres of influence. In this regard, we believe that both the KKE and KNE have to do a significant work in popularizing and specifying their ideological and political intervention among the younger generation and in elaborating corresponding demands in the youth movement.
At the same time, we have to take into account that there are also differentiations by age group and position in the educational levels, which later on appear in the process of finding work and integrating into production.
Our Party takes into account the developments in the working conditions of the youth, in their life as a whole, because they have brought about such changes that increase the responsibility of the Party to develop ideological-political and organizational ties with the younger generations. For example, even after the age of 30 years, people retain certain characteristics and lifestyles because they find it difficult to find work, remain unemployed for long periods of time, and are financially supported by their parents. Moreover, the age of young couples who take on the obligations and responsibilities of raising and educating children has increased. A significant proportion of young people work in flexible employment relationships and change jobs frequently. As a result, they have not developed ties with any particular sector and are unaware of the need for trade union organization.
Dear comrades,
The crucial point, as we have already mentioned, is that the specific characteristics of the youth alone cannot bring positive results for the youth and the society, unless they are linked to the struggle in an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist direction, the struggle to resolve the problem of power in favour of the working class and its allies, unless they are linked to the struggle to abolish the exploitation of man by man.
On this basis, it is necessary and imperative that our Party has a firm and concrete plan and objectives that contribute to the development of the political consciousness of the young people, to a correct orientation of the struggle.
The KKE does not consider that KNE has the exclusive responsibility to work within the youth and its movements, simply and only under the ideological-political guidance of the Party. The Party has a direct responsibility to address and develop ties with the youth, a fact which derives from its character, programme and strategy. This is a priority task today, as it is an integral part of the regroupment of the labour movement, of the Social Alliance, of bringing new blood from the working class and the poor popular strata into the Party’s ranks and cadres.
Our party has many years of historical experience and has arrived at the following basic elements, which also define the relationship between the KKE and KNE: The Communist Youth of Greece is the revolutionary youth organization of the KKE. It is formed on the side of the Party with a distinct organizational structure. From the Central Council to the Base Organizations, it is guided ideologically, politically and organizationally by the respective organs of the Party. It does not develop its own political programme; its programme is the programme of the KKE.
KNE, as the revolutionary communist youth of the KKE, stands by the Party across the whole range of its activities, its struggles, its general political action, its political confrontations. It makes serious efforts to specify the strategy of the Party in areas with many young workers and students. It actively participates, under the responsibility and with the support of the Party, in the discussion of its resolutions and documents, and contributes to the enrichment of its political and mass action.
An important tool in its action is its journal, “Odigitis”, as an ideological–political enlightening organ, which also contributes to the organization of the struggles of the youth. Furthermore, this year the Festival of KNE - “Odigitis” celebrated its 50th anniversary. The multifaceted events of the Festival, which took place under the slogan “We are writing history, we are changing the world, our future is socialism”, highlighted its long historical journey as the largest political-cultural event of the youth in the country, as well as the strengthening of the rallying of even more young people around the revolutionary policy of the KKE.
Today, a generation of cadres of KNE has emerged. Their maturation will help them to test their abilities in more complex tasks whenthey are fully assigned to the Party. It is a generation educated with militancy, as it has relatively improved its political education and experience of major confrontations. A significant number of Party members who have been promoted in the organs of KNE have been fully assigned to the Party, thus, renewing and improving the age composition of the organs. The promotion of new cadres from KNE into the Party and the ranks of the movement is an unceasing process of crucial importance for the continuity of the Party.
For several years, the KKE has been trying to do serious work concerning the ideological and political guidance of the organs of KNE by the CC and the Regional Committees, while the cooperation between the Party Base Organizations (PBOs) – Base Organizations (BOs) is closer than ever. This important ideological–political support concerns the specialization of the Party’s strategy in the issues of demands and frameworks of action, but also in the forms and ways of organizing and rallying the youth, in the tactics of developing the struggles. At the same time, the rich intra-organizational discussion, which fights against a sterile list of tasks, and the development of a general orientation for education in the ranks of KNE, reinforces the crucial task of the best possible assimilation of its members and cadres, their resistance to the bourgeois ideology and the pressures of the transitional phases, the goal of becoming worthy members and cadres of the Party.
At the same time, our Party assumes the responsibility to intervene in the younger age groups, through “The Red Hot-air Balloon” journal, which is addressed to children aged 9 to 13, i.e. the age when they start developing a perception of the world and society. Groups of children are formed around the journal and carry out activities adapted for children, against the decay with which the system bombards the consciousness of children, trying to graft militant values and ideals on them, in order to lay a more solid foundation in the education of young communists.
In conclusion,
The action of the KKE and KNE is developed on the basis that we have briefly described, with the aim of cementing the ties with the youth, strengthening the struggles in schools, universities, vocational training and in the sectors with may young workers (e.g. tourism), and developing the organization with many new members of KNE and the KKE in these crucial areas.
Thank you very much.
04.10.2024
