Comment of the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE on current issues

The images of the demonstrators in Kiev, of the far-right, pro-Nazi Svoboda party, tearing down the statue of Lenin were shown all over the world. By chance the fall of the statue coincided with the event organized by the KKE in an indoor stadium with 20,000 workers and young people to celebrate the 95^th anniversary of its foundation. Certain malicious journalists presented it in the following way: “When the GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, was speaking about the necessity, the timeliness and importance of socialism and communism, demonstrators in Kiev were tearing down the statue of the leader of the October Revolution.”

Of course, the truth is that this was not the first time that the specific statue of Lenin had been targeted by certain political forces. During the so-called “orange revolution” in the Ukraine, about 10 years ago, the statue lost an arm in a similar vandalistic attack. However, it remained in its place. As an irrefutable witness of another era, when the workers did not know what unemployment means. An era when education and health were public and 100% free. Like public transport, medicines, electricity, water. Where no child had the anxiety about “What will I do when I finish school, university”. Where the workers retired at 60 and the women workers at 55. Where culture and sports, vacations were a social good, available to all, not a commodity. Clearly there were also some problems, but this socialist system, which had been constructed in the USSR, had solved basic problems of the workers which the capitalist system not only can not but does not even seek to solve.

If, then, the statue had a “soul”, it would have left its place a long time ago. It could not have endured to look on as one by one the gains the workers had for ever 70 years evaporated. The 8-hour day has been abolished, social security, education and health have become commodities. It could not endure to see the “armies” of young people, who in the conditions of capitalism are seeking to find an individual solution in drugs, alcohol, prostitution. It would have got up and left its platform in the central streets of Kiev, because he could not bear to listen to almost 25 years of slanders about the “so-called genocide of the Ukrainian people by the Bolsheviks”, it could not bear to see those people “parade” in the streets of Kiev, who during the 2^nd World War collaborated with the Nazis and now are considered to be “patriots” and “liberators” by the Ukrainian authorities.

In Greece, the news of the fall of the statues followed the impact of Tayyip Erdogan’s statement on the importance of Thrace (including Thessalonica) for Turkey. A statement that was utilized by nationalist voices in our country. What did Erdogan want to say precisely? Maybe it will become apparent in the following period, but as in the case of the Ukraine, it is clear that they are seeking to use “patriotism” as the vehicle to disorient the workers. To trap them in the phoney “national pride”! The “left” forces in one way or the other are also contributing, like SYRIZA in Greece. The MP of SYRIZA, Rena Dourou, responsible for foreign policy of this party, in her recent trip to Serbia, speaking to Greek businessmen, stated: “It is you who are holding the Greek flag high abroad”.

If, then, the statue of Lenin had a “soul”, it would not merely leave its podium, but it would play the leading role in the struggle of the workers concerning their problems, for the radical overthrow of the capitalist barbarity. It would pick up its pen again to enlighten the workers, so that they are not mobilized under a false flag, but to fight under their own banners. But even fallen down, even if they finally break him up and sell him piece by piece on the internet, Lenin, his work will continue to show us the way : ‘Proletarians of all countries, Unite!”