KNE's 35th anti-imperialist camp to honor 80 years since the founding of the Democratic Army of Greece

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The Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) will hold its 35th Anti-Imperialist Camp from July 1 to 5 in Vitsi, northern Greece, under the slogan: “80 years since the founding of the Democratic Army of Greece. With the KKE in the forefront and the people as protagonists, history is written. We continue until victory!”.  

 

The camp will take place in the historic area of Pissoderi, near Florina, where the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) maintained a strong presence during the years of the armed struggle (1946-1949).

 

In its announcement, KNE stresses the need to defend the historical truth about the DSE against anti-communist distortion and falsification. Paying tribute to the thousands of fighters, political prisoners and executed communists, it underlines that the DSE was the revolutionary army of the working class and the popular strata, which fought against the bourgeois state, its political representatives and its imperialist backers, Britain and the United States.

The youth organization recalls that the DSE emerged from the sharp class struggle that followed the liberation of Greece from fascist occupation. Following the Varkiza Agreement and the wave of terror unleashed against the communist-led resistance movement, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the popular movement faced the dilemma of submission or resistance. The creation of the DSE was the answer to bourgeois violence and persecution.

KNE emphasizes that the struggle of the DSE was just, necessary and internationalist. Although defeated militarily, the DSE was not politically or morally defeated, since it chose confrontation with bourgeois power instead of capitulation. Its heroic struggle remains a valuable source of lessons for the contemporary revolutionary movement.

Drawing conclusions from that experience, KNE notes that the class struggle did not end with the Civil War but continues under new conditions. It denounces the imperialist wars and interventions that are devastating peoples across the world, from Palestine, Lebanon and Iran to Ukraine, while reaffirming solidarity with peoples resisting imperialist aggression, including socialist Cuba.

The Anti-Imperialist Camp will include political events, discussions, cultural activities and visits to sites linked to the history of the DSE. KNE calls on young workers and students to draw inspiration from the example of the communist fighters and strengthen the struggle for socialism-communism, stressing that the dreams and sacrifices of the DSE remain alive in today's battles against exploitation, war and capitalist barbarity.

The Anti-Imperialist Camp is one of KNE's most important annual political initiatives. Organized every summer since the early 1990s, it brings together thousands of young communists and militants from across Greece for political discussions, cultural events, hiking routes through historic sites of the people's movement and internationalist activities. Over the years, the camps have been held in places associated with major moments of the revolutionary and anti-fascist struggle in Greece, combining historical memory with contemporary political action and anti-imperialist solidarity.

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