The Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska was used to cultivate complacency and false hopes that a compromise between the imperialist powers could lead to the elimination of the causes of war and "real peace" for the peoples, which would put an end to the bloodshed in Ukraine. The KKE has already taken a position on this issue (see here https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Statement-by-the-Press-Office-of-the-Central-Committee-of-the-KKE-on-the-Trump-Putin-meeting/ and https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Statement-on-the-negotiations-regarding-the-war-in-Ukraine/ ), yet we would like to take the opportunity today to comment on some political positions that are being reiterated regarding the achievement of a "just solution," which you argue could also be supported by communists.
In our opinion, there are many misconceptions and inaccuracies in the above positions.
On "lasting" peace
First of all, it is unrealistic to believe that certain "left-wing governments" or even "democratic-revolutionary" ones, which will remove from power those specifically "responsible" for the war, will be able to bring about peace. This is because every government that emerges within the realm of capitalism, regardless of how it is labeled ("leftist,""patriotic,""revolutionary," etc.), operates on the basis of the capitalist economy and the pursuit of monopoly profits. It is obliged to abide by the iron-clad and anti-popular laws that provide for the "squeezing" of the people in order to increase competitiveness, profitability, and the effectiveness of capital investments. It has been proven that this policy paves the way for the contradictions that arise within the global imperialist system for control of raw materials, energy, trade routes, geopolitical footholds, market shares, etc.
In other words, all of these factors that ultimately lead to imperialist wars, including the one in Ukraine.
The Greek people went through a harsh ordeal with the coalition government of SYRIZA (i.e., the "Coalition of the Radical Left") and the "patriotic" (i.e. nationalist) ANEL (Independent Greeks) party, which, for the reasons mentioned above, imposed new anti-popular burdens on the working class and strengthened the country's ties with the US, the EU, and Israel. The European and international experience of the so-called "left-wing governments" is similar, whether they have the support or even the participation of communist parties.
Under the conditions of imperialism, it is illusory to expect "fair" or even more so, "lasting" peace. Such approaches, which had developed during the existence of the USSR, especially after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, favouring global and regional security systems, based on the mistaken notion of so-called "peaceful coexistence and competition," proved misleading in practice. The way out of the capitalist barbarism of "peace" and war lies only in socialism!
On the logic of "stages toward socialism"
In the above argument, it is obvious that some parties have not overcome the destructive logic of "stages," which characterized the strategy of the communist movement in previous decades and is still maintained in the programs of many communist parties.
The logic of an intermediate stage expresses a compromised position that fails to resolve two critical issues: the question of power and the ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is a historically obsolete system. No form of government can give it a human face. Regardless of whether we are talking about traditional forms of bourgeois governance: liberal and social democratic, or bourgeois governance that would be called "left-wing,""revolutionary,""progressive," etc.
The KKE has moved beyond the specific logic of "stages towards socialism" and judges that the path we must follow is not that of "left-wing" governments, but of a social alliance between the working class and other popular strata, and of ideological, political, and mass struggle against the monopolies and capitalism, to overthrow capitalist barbarism, so that the conditions can be created for the elimination of the causes that give rise to capitalist exploitation, economic crises, and imperialist wars. What is needed is not simply a change of government, but a revolutionary overthrow that will lead to workers' power and the socialization of the means of production, with central scientific planning of the economy.
Once again on "self-determination"
With regard to "self-determination," we must remember that the Russian leadership, when launching its "special military operation," as it called the invasion of Ukraine, invoked the "denazification" of Ukraine and the protection of the Russian-speaking population's right to "self-determination."
Let us remember that, in turn, the Euro-Atlantic forces in Greece invoke the right to "self-determination" to support Ukraine's accession to NATO, while bringing the accession of North Macedonia, Finland, and Sweden to NATO to parliament for a vote, invoking precisely this right to "self-determination." Of course, the KKE voted against the accession of these countries to NATO, which is consistent with its position on Greece's disengagement from the imperialist alliances of NATO and the EU.
It is the same "right" that Turkey invokes to promote the two-state solution in Cyprus, which consolidates the results of the Turkish invasion and occupation of Cyprus. Similar "rights of self-determination" led to the breakup of Yugoslavia, the protectorate of Kosovo, and are often invoked by various bourgeois classes in the Balkans and other parts of the world.
The invocation of the "self-determination of peoples" has nothing to do with Lenin and Bolshevik policy. Not only because they spoke of the "self-determination of nations" at a time when two-thirds of humanity was colonized, but also because they clarified that: "The various demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not something absolute, but a 'part' of the pan-democratic (today: pan-socialist) 'world' movement. In certain specific cases, a part may conflict with the whole, and in this case, it must be rejected" (V. I. Lenin: "The Results of the Discussion on Self-Determination.""Collected Works," vol. 30, p. 39).
Lenin called for us to examine self-determination in dialectical unity with the struggle to overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie.
Today, the KKE approaches this issue in a similar way. It takes into account that in all Balkan countries, as well as in many other countries around the world, for historical reasons, there are religious and ethnic minorities, often from neighboring countries. Bourgeois circles and imperialist powers, in order to promote their own interests, seek to exploit these minorities and turn them from "bridges of friendship" that can be built between neighboring peoples into "tools" for stirring up issues of border changes and territorial annexations. However, border changes do not serve the interests of the peoples, but on the contrary, are part of bourgeois-imperialist rivalries and lead the peoples to great bloodshed and destruction.
Based on this assessment, the KKE defends the rights of national and religious minorities and opposes both bourgeois nationalism, which seeps through every crack, as well as bourgeois cosmopolitanism, which are used to justify imperialist interventions. On the other hand, it defends the territorial integrity of countries, their borders, and the treaties that define them, and is at the forefront of the common struggle of workers against their common enemy—capitalism, the bourgeoisie, and its interests. The KKE's position is internationalist, supporting the common struggle of the peoples against the bourgeoisie and imperialist alliances, for socialism.
