 | Communist Party of Greece: Encyclopedia II - Communist Party of Greece - History
Communist Party of Greece - History
The history of KKE is an essential part of modern Greek history. The KKE either by itself or as a scapegoat was an integral element in most of the important events of the 20th century in Greece.
Communist Party of Greece - Foundation
The party was founded on 4 November 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece (Acronym: SEKE, Greek: Σοσιαλιστικό Εργατικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma Elladas) by Avraam Benaroya, a Greek Jewish teacher and leading labor movement leader in Thessaloniki. The party was run by a five-member central committee which included N. Dimitratos, D. Ligdopoulos, M. Sideris, Arvanitis and Kokkinos.
At the Second Congress of the SEKE in April 1920, the party decided to affiliate to the Third International. In addition, it extended its name to Socialist Labour Party of Greece-Communist (SEKE-K). A new central committee was elected, which included N. and P. Dimitratos, Y. Kordatos, G. Doumas and M. Sideris.
At the Third Extraordinary Congress of the SEKE-K in November 1924, the party was renamed the Communist Party of Greece and adopted the principles of Marxism-Leninism. It has been functioning ever since on the basis of "democratic centralism".
With a few exceptions it was banned from 1918 to 1974.
Communist Party of Greece - WWII Resistance and Civil War
Main articles: Greek Resistance, and Greek Civil War, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
After the German attack against the Soviet Union, the Greek Communists together with other parts of the Left formed a resistance group called the National People's Liberation Army (in Greek the Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos or ELAS), which by 1944 controlled three-fifths of the country. ELAS and other non-communist resistance groups, including the republican Greek National Democratic Union or (EDES), bitterly fought each other to secure post-war dominance. In a rare instance, ELAS and EDES-EOEA joined forces on November 25, 1942, and blew up the Gorgopotamos bridge in Phokis. This action disrupted the German transportation of ammunition via Greece to Rommel.
At the end of the war, fighting broke out between ELAS and the Greek government. ELAS forces were backed by Greece's communist neighbors, whereas the Greek government was backed by the British army. Following a cease fire agreement known as Varkiza pact, ELAS laid down arms with the idea of a political process. However, alleging percecutions of leftists after the Varkiza accord, ELAS reversed its stance and restarted armed fighting in 1946. The war was extremely violent, with heavy casualties on both sides. The Greek Civil War was to last until 1949, with the defeat of the communist insurgency.
Most historians attribute the final outcome of the war to two determining factors: on the one hand, the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine provided crucial support to the governmental side. On the other hand, Tito cut off all military support and training to ELAS after he broke-off relations with Stalin.
Communist Party of Greece - Post War Era
After the Civil War, KKE was declared illegal and most of its prominent members had to leave Greece or go underground. Those that chose to do neither were prosecuted, jailed and exiled. A notable member of KKE, Nikos Beloyannis, was executed in 1952 despite international appeals for clemency. Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, later to become the leader of the Regime of the Colonels was one of the three judge court martial that condemned Beloyannis to death.
During this period of illegality, KKE critically supported the "Eniaia Dimokratiki Aristera" (EDA) party and scores of KKE members also enlisted with the EDA.
Communist Party of Greece - During the Junta
Main articles: Regime of the Colonels, and [[]], and [[]], and [[]], and [[]]
In 21 April 1967 a group of right wing colonels of the greek army, lead by Georgios Papadopoulos succesfuly carried out a coup d'état on the pretext of imminent "communist threat", establishing what would be known as the Regime of the Colonels. Political parties (including EDA) were dissolved, civil liberties were supressed and communists, leftists and democrats were persecuted. KKE was demonized once again and a wich hunt to track down KKE members was taken up with even greater ferocity than pre-junta persecutions.
In 1968, amidst the junta, a crisis was precipitated between KKE's two main communist factions. The crisis arose out of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia that crushed the Prague Spring. That show of brute strength led many Greek communists to break with the Moscow-oriented KKE and to follow the nascent Eurocommunist line, which favoured national agendas and a more democratic road to socialism. A relatively big group split from KKE, forming what became known as KKE Interior ("ΚΚΕ εσωτερικού"), that later established new bonds with eurocommunism-leaning parties such as the Communist Party of Italy.
Communist Party of Greece - Legalisation
After the restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1974, Constantine Caramanlis in a historic move legalized KKE, recognizing its role in resisting the junta and hoping to thwart its growing power by taking away its charm as a "mythical" underground illegal party. In the 1975 elections KKE appeared in the first elections together with the KKE Interior and the EDA under the name United Left (Greek: Enomeni Aristera, Ενωμένη Αριστερά), receiving 9.36% of the vote. This collaboration could be hardly considered a coalition though, and from 1977 to 1989, the KKE appeared by itself in all elections, receiving usually around 10% of the vote. In all elections that took place after 1993, the KKE received a 4.54% to 5.9% of the vote, thus remaining the third party inside the Greek Parliament.
Communist Party of Greece - Participation in government
In 1989 KKE and KKE esoterikou, along with other left parties and organizations, formed the Synaspismos tis Aristeras kai tis Proodou, (Coalition of the Left and Progress, Greek:Συνασπισμός της Αριστεράς και της Προόδου). Synaspismos joined a controverisal coalition with New Democracy to form a short lived government amidst a political spectrum shaken by accusations of economic scandals against the previous administration of PASOK's Andreas Papandreou. The coalition ended when New Democracy won the next elections with a sufficient majority. In 1991, KKE withdrew from Synaspismos. A portion of its members, however, left from the party and remained in Synaspismos which evolved into o seperate left wing party..
Other related archives"Eniaia Dimokratiki Aristera", 1918, 1924, 1944, 1949, 1967, 1967-1974 dictatorship, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1989, 1991, 2004, 21 April, 4 November, Aleka Papariga, Andreas Papandreou, Andreas Tsipas, Apostolos Grozos, Avraam Benaroya, British, Cabinet, Charilaos Florakis, Coalition of the Radical Left, Communist Party of Italy, Communist Youth of Greece, Constantine Caramanlis, Constitution, Czechoslovakia, EU Politics, Elections, Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos, Eurocommunist, European Parliament, European Union, European United Left - Nordic Green Left, Foreign relations, General Secretaries, Georgios Papadopoulos, German, Giorgios Siantos, Greece, Greek, Greek Civil War, Greek Jewish, Greek National Democratic Union, Greek Resistance, KNE, Karolos Papoulias, Kostas Karamanlis, List of Communist Parties, List of political parties in Greece, Marshall Plan, Marxism-Leninism, New Democracy, Nikolaos Zachariadis, Nikos Beloyannis, PASOK, Pantelis Pouliopoulos, Parliament, Peripheries of Greece, Phokis, Political parties, Politics of Greece, Prague Spring, Prefectures of Greece, President, Prime Minister, Regime of the Colonels, Rizospastis, Rommel, Slavo-Macedonian, Soviet, Stalin, Synaspismos, Synaspismos tis Aristeras kai tis Proodou, Thessaloniki, Third International, Tito, Truman Doctrine, USA, Varkiza, Yugoslav wars, colonels, communist, coup d'état, democratic centralism, greek army, modern Greek history, trotskyist
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
