In the interview, conducted by Riktpunkt's Josef Brant, Koutsoumbas addresses a wide range of issues of international and domestic importance: developments within the Greek workers’ movement, the political role of KKE, imperialist war and militarization, the European Union, NATO, social democracy, fascism, and debates within the international communist movement.
What follows is the English translation of the interview
Intervju med Dimitris Koutsoumbas, generalskereterare för KKE:s centralkommitté
Riktpunkt: What factors have so far made it possible for KKE to develop its forces and play an important role in the struggle of the Greek people and in political developments in Greece?
Koutsoumbas: After the counterrevolutionary upheavals, our party did not bend; it did not go with the flow. When others lowered the red flag with the hammer and sickle, KKE raised it high—one example is the front page of the Central Committee’s organ, the daily newspaper Rizospastis, which during the dark year of 1991 declared: “Hold the red flag high—hope lies in the struggle of the peoples.”
KKE remained faithful to its principles, to Marxism–Leninism and to its revolutionary symbols. By studying the experiences and causes of the overthrow of socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and by drawing conclusions from its own history, the party laid the foundations of its strategy and formulated a modern revolutionary program for the overthrow of capitalism—not for “reforms” or nationalizations within the framework of its barbarism, which only provide the system with new breathing space.
We made it clear—and continue to make it clear—to the people that their own power is the only prerequisite for opening a path that serves their own interests—a power free from exploiters and exploited. We also clarified that there is no intermediate stage between capitalism and socialism.
We rejected participation in so-called left governments and in any bourgeois government, and we kept our word. Responsibly, we warned the people in time, when those praising the system portrayed SYRIZA as a savior—only for it to ultimately prove to be an executioner of our people. Today many workers tell us they cannot imagine what would have happened had we also given in; they acknowledge that KKE was right and appreciate the consistency and integrity between word and deed.
KKE fought social democracy in all its forms and exposed the trap of the so-called anti-right fronts, whose aim was to turn our party into an appendage.
When we chose this difficult path, other forces—and even certain communist parties—claimed that KKE was sectarian, that it was isolating itself, and that it would be left alone. The same things were said when the All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) was formed.
Today, the trajectory of the forces that followed the supposedly “broad alliances” and the so-called “unity of the left” is well known. At the same time, the forces supported by KKE have become the leading force in trade unions at the country’s major hospitals, among doctors, teachers, and students for the third consecutive year, and just days ago—after 100 years—they also became the leading force in the Civil Servants’ Confederation (ADEDY).
Riktpunkt: KKE is approaching its 22nd Congress under the slogan: “A strong KKE, steadfast in every trial, ready for history’s call to socialism.” What is the main theme of the congress?
Koutsoumbas: The main theme of the congress is the party itself—the party whose entire functioning, and the condition of its forces, must be brought into full alignment—more rapidly and more effectively—with its revolutionary program and statutes.
We are conducting a strict review and inspection of our forces to assess to what extent they are—above all ideologically and politically—prepared to meet the harsh and intense class struggle. We aim for our party to be ready for anything, at any time and under all circumstances—to be, as we say, a “party for all weather conditions.”
We focus on how our organizations operate on a daily basis, with the goal that our revolutionary program and strategy permeate every level of their work. With this fighting stance, we concentrate—despite the difficulties—on how those difficulties can be overcome. We also want a corresponding decisive step to be taken in the activity of party members and friends abroad.
Our party’s revolutionary program was adopted in 2013. On this basis, the party also prepared for issues related to imperialist war already in 2017, at our 20th Congress—that is, during a seemingly calm period, long before the imperialist wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. We placed imperialist war at the center of discussion, as well as the sharpening of contradictions, imperialist alliances, and the stance communists must take in the face of the risk of deeper Greek involvement, and toward the war itself.
KKE studies its adversary—the capitalist system—carefully and knows well its reactionary nature and character. The party knows that this system produces nothing but exploitation, crises, wars, the generalization of poverty, and refugee flows. Therefore, the party’s orientation is directed toward the revolutionary overthrow of the system and the construction of socialism–communism.
Riktpunkt: The EU and NATO are pushing forward a record rearmament program. How does KKE link the struggle against military spending with the struggle for wages and social demands, so that the antimilitarist/antiwar front becomes effective and rooted in the working class?
Koutsoumbas: Stormy times with major upheavals are approaching for the capitalist system. This is not an arbitrary prediction: contradictions are sharpening, a new capitalist crisis is at the door, and two imperialist wars—in Ukraine and the Middle East—are already underway, despite the increasingly intense processes for a so-called imperialist peace, that is, a peace with a “gun to the peoples’ temples.” The number of active war hotspots now reaches the dozens.
The EU, governments, and their “ministers of war” demand sacrifices from the peoples for war and urge us to become accustomed to coffins draped in the EU flag. They are already enforcing brutal cuts to rights and social needs, strangling them so that war-economy monopolies can enrich themselves.
The fundamental problem in the international capitalist economy today is the existence of enormous amounts of idle capital, because the monopolies that own it do not obtain the level of profit they seek from investments. This results in overaccumulation of capital.
The “green” and digital transitions, although profitable, did not reach the profit levels expected by capitalists. That is why they now turn even more aggressively toward the war economy. They know that this not only opens a relatively underexploited market—the arms industry—but also that there is no greater destruction and devaluation of capital than through war. Only in this way can infrastructure and industries be destroyed, and through reconstruction from the ruins of war, profits revived and their rotten system given a breathing space.
This is not a conspiracy—it is how the system works. As long as they cannot find markets to invest in, competition over existing markets intensifies, over who will control them.
The struggle against war plans, with the class-conscious labor movement at the forefront, constitutes an important legacy and valuable experience—for example, the dockworkers’ struggles at the port of Piraeus in Greece, refusing to unload war material destined for the terrorist state of Israel, intended for the genocide of the Palestinian people.
The persecution of the communist president of the ENEDEP union, M. Bekris, was met with international proletarian solidarity, including from trade unions in Sweden. Equally telling is the ongoing struggle of small farmers and livestock breeders, who with tractor blockades across Greece demand real support measures in order to survive, confronting the stubborn stance of the bourgeois New Democracy government, which claims there is no money for their needs.
This struggle demonstrates that, at the same time, a cascade of billions is flowing into war preparations. Farmers demand guaranteed prices for their products, while the EU and the government secure contracts for the hawks of the war industry, as well as for shipowners and big capitalists in the construction sector.
It is necessary for the workers’ and people’s struggle to develop even further in this direction, by raising decisive demands such as:
No sacrifices of working-class and popular rights for the slaughter of war; no involvement in war plans.
Disengagement from and withdrawal from every imperialist alliance—with the people in power.
Riktpunkt: The so-called “Green Transition,” the EU emissions trading system, “green” bonds, etc., largely benefit corporate profits and do not lead to real reductions in people’s bills. How is the struggle waged to shatter capital’s “green” façade? What class policy does KKE propose instead?
Koutsoumbas: This façade has already cracked, because it is deeply provocative for the EU, governments, and big capital to present themselves as protectors of the environment—the same forces that once wagged their fingers at the peoples for polluting the environment with… plastic straws. They counted emissions in milligrams, and today those very same actors bomb and spread devastation, first and foremost killing entire peoples while destroying the environment. For what is war if not the primary and irreversible destruction of the environment?
All promises of cheaper energy prices for the people through renewable energy sources have collapsed. The energy market was deregulated, the energy exchange was created, and energy was transformed into a commodity traded on the stock exchange, where energy corporations enrich themselves. Everything begins and ends with the goal of their profitability.
The only way out is for energy, natural and mineral resources, and transmission networks to become the property of the people, so that the people can enjoy cheap and abundant energy by utilizing all forms of energy, free from the profit motive and from the exploitation of corporate monopolies.
Riktpunkt: With the recent election of Zoran Mamdani—a social democrat and reformist—as mayor of New York, how does KKE assess projects such as the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America)? Do they divert working-class anger away from revolutionary politics, or can such forces, as claimed, be tactically utilized without weakening the class line?
Koutsoumbas: This is a well-rehearsed scenario that we have seen many times before—with Obama, Biden, Boric in Chile, and others. On the one hand, the illusion is once again promoted that capitalism can be managed in a “humane” way, and on the other hand Trump and similar forces portray him as a dangerous communist—something he himself even denies. This is a bankrupt narrative that fuels the bipolar alternation of bourgeois management and sows disappointment and reaction among the people.
The so-called “new hope,” positioned against the far right and “Trumpism,” has already met Trump and exchanged pleasantries with him…
Mamdani’s proposals remain entirely within the framework of bourgeois governance: rent freezes or symbolic taxes for appearances’ sake on the wealthy. He represents the more cosmopolitan strata of capital, the logic of the “lesser evil,” and low demands. In the United States, the absence of a revolutionary communist party—that is, an independent political expression of workers’ and people’s interests—is evident.
The decisive question for the working class and the people in the U.S., as everywhere, is how they can free themselves ideologically and politically from the chokehold of the bourgeois class, how they can advance their own independent interests against all factions of capital and their political representatives. In this, the building of a strong communist party plays a decisive role.
Riktpunkt: When the leaders of the neo-Nazi organization Golden Dawn in Greece are released, what does this reveal about the class character of the Greek bourgeois state? What immediate measures does KKE demand to prevent fascists from reorganizing in neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces?
Koutsoumbas: The vigilance and mobilization of the working class and the people undoubtedly played a decisive role in the conviction of the Nazis as a criminal Nazi organization by the bourgeois courts. KKE, with its forces, played a leading role in the mass movement that acted in this direction. However, as history repeatedly shows, such fascist and Nazi organizations are treated by the state and the judiciary according to the current needs and priorities of the bourgeois class.
Their supposedly anti-system rhetoric is naturally exposed, since their links to sections of the state apparatus are well known. It is the bourgeois state that at one moment strengthens and at another restricts their activity, as it uses them as a scarecrow and as a political reserve. The goal is obvious: to intimidate and strike at the workers’ and people’s movement, spread anti-communism, present social democratic and liberal governments as the “lesser evil,” and channel popular discontent.
The people must reject the various “anti-fascist” calls for cooperation with social democracy, because it too serves and supports the capitalist system that gives birth to and reproduces fascism.
The people now possess both the experience and the strength to shatter the plans of the exploiters. This requires focusing on the real enemy: the barbaric system—the dictatorship of capital—in all forms of bourgeois governance, from the most brutal and repressive to the most refined, which conceal profound real inequality and capitalist exploitation behind formal equality.
The struggle must be organized not only for the isolation of criminal Nazis and fascism everywhere, but also—through organization and action—to create the conditions for liberation from the exploitation of human by human, for social emancipation and socialism.
Riktpunkt: There are today forces within the international communist movement that argue that the peoples’ perspective in fighting capitalism, the U.S., the EU, and NATO is to support Russia “because it constitutes an anti-imperialist force” and China “because it is building socialism.” What is KKE’s position?
Koutsoumbas: The imperialist war in Ukraine has created new and deepened old ideological and political divisions within what is commonly called the international communist movement.
In the long-standing discussion about what imperialism is—and about positions toward intra-imperialist contradictions, toward social democratic forces and “progressive” governments, toward the character of our epoch, the character and role of the working class, and the principles of socialist construction—the question of imperialist war and the stance of communist parties toward their own bourgeois class and its imperialist alliances has now emerged more clearly than before.
Communist parties that previously identified imperialism solely with the aggressive foreign policy of the U.S. and certain powerful European capitalist states—thereby embellishing the role of other capitalist states—now see in Russia or China certain “anti-imperialist forces” or even an “anti-imperialist axis.” In this way, they arbitrarily and unscientifically disregard intra-imperialist contradictions and competition, which constitute the fundamental cause of imperialist wars.
They advance the notion of a just, peaceful, and multipolar world, and some of them support either the capitalist European Union or capitalist China or Russia as “new poles” and as a counterweight to the U.S. To a large extent, they identify these forces with the interests of the working class and the people in their respective countries.
We reject any cooperation with bourgeois forces and governments in the false name of “anti-fascism” and the deceptive name of “anti-imperialism.” We stand at the forefront of the struggle against the U.S., NATO, and the EU, against Greece’s involvement in the imperialist war, as well as for workers’ and people’s struggles for their rights, and we rally forces for the break with the capitalist system and imperialist alliances.
In this way, we safeguard our independent strategy and refuse to be drawn into serving one or another imperialist bloc—whether the one that claims to oppose a revision of international law, or the Eurasian bloc in formation that promotes a supposedly just architecture of international relations and a multipolar world. The peoples, through their independent struggle and with communists at the forefront, can pave the way for their own interests—for the new world, socialism–communism.
