The Communist Organization of Greece (, ''Kommounistikí Orgánosi Elládas'', KOE) is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

political party. The KOE's ideology is revolutionary

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

and

Maoism Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

, supporting Marxist ideology with all the historical experience of the

communist movement The history of communism encompasses a wide variety of ideologies and political movements sharing the core theoretical values of common ownership of wealth, economic enterprise, and property. Most modern forms of communism are grounded at least ...

Origins

The KOE has its origins in the Communist Party of Greece ( / Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas, KKE). As a result of the KKE's revisionist turn in 1956, Nikos Zachariadis was exiled and many hard-line Stalinists were excluded from the party. A lot of former KKE members founded the Organisation of Marxists-Leninists of Greece (OMLE) in 1964, and published the Anagennissi (Rebirth) monthly review and the weekly Laïkós Drómos (People's Road). Many people who would eventually found the Communist Organization of Greece joined the OMLE. In 1984, the future founders of the KOE established A/synechia, an effort aimed at rebuilding the communist movement, without revisionist or leftist trends, based on an analysis of the world development and the crisis that was shocking both western and eastern camps. The most prominent member of them was Yannis Hotzeas, who was one of the founders of both the OMLE and the KKE and was also a member of EAM and EPON.

Ideology

The KOE supports revolutionary Marxism, following the teachings of

Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

Leninism and

. The KOE was also against Marxist revisionism and against viewing it as merely academic or theoretical instead of practical.

Paper

The party paper was called ''Aristerá!'' ("Left!"). ''Aristerá!'' was first published in February 1996 as a monthly paper, eventually becoming biweekly. The last issue of the paper was published in January 2010. Since February 2010, the KOE has published the newspaper ''Drómos tis Aristerás'' (, ''Road of the Left'') with another left party also affiliated to the

Coalition of the Radical Left The Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance ( el, Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς – Προοδευτική Συμμαχία, Synaspismós Rizospastikís Aristerás – Proodeftikí Simachía), ...

(SYRIZA), KEDA (, Movement for the United in Action Left). The newspaper's publishing committee mostly consists of members who are unaffiliated with any Greek leftist party, and the newspaper's slogan is "from all the left, for all the left". People who collaborate with ''Drómos tis Aristerás'' include

Mumia Abu-Jamal Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. While on death ...

, political cartoonist Carlos Latuff, Communist Party of the Philippines leader

Jose Maria Sison Jose Maria Canlas Sison (February 8, 1939 – December 16, 2022), also known by his nickname Joma, was a Filipino writer and activist who founded the Communist Party of the Philippines and added elements of Maoism to its philosophy – which ...

, and American historian, author, and social activist Max Elbaum.

Elections

A/synecheia participated in the

municipal elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct vary ...

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, taking approximately 4% of the votes. The party won approximately 9,800 votes in the 1999 European parliamentary elections. The KOE supported the

in 2004, although it did not present its own candidates. The KOE also abstained from the 2004 European parliamentary elections. The KOE affiliated itself with the SYRIZA on 20 June 2007. The best scores of the KOE's candidates on the joint ticket with SYRIZA in the

2007 Greek legislative election Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 16 September 2007 to elect the 300 members of the Hellenic Parliament. The leading party for a second term was New Democracy under the leadership of Kostas Karamanlis with 42%, followed by G ...

s were in Aitoloakarnania (1st with 1,126 votes), Achaia (2nd with 2,628 votes), Thessaloniki (2nd with 2,165 votes), Larissa (3rd with 1,294 votes), Attica (3rd with 4,022 votes) and Piraeus (3rd with 1,958 votes). In the last two, consecutive national parliamentary elections in May and June 2012, KOE elected 2 and 5 respectively of its members in the national parliament as a part of SYRIZA, which ended up as the second party. Following the June 2012 elections, 5 MPs from SYRIZA were members of KOE: Vasileios Hadjilamprou (Achaia), Dimitrios Kodelas (Argolida), Alexandros Meikopoulos (Magnisia), Vasileios Kiriakakis (Fthiotida) and Maria Triantafyllou (Aitoloakarnania). As of 10 September 2015 KOE announced they would not run for the snap election in September encouraging its voters to absent from the elections or vote for 'no one'.

Front organizations

The workers' front organization of the KOE is called the "Union of the Working People", the youth group of the KOE is simply called the "Youth of KOE" and its students are members of "Left Unity", which includes several leftist students' organizations supporting SYRIZA. Until 2008, its students led the Left Groups (Aristera Schimata), created in 1989.

International relations

The Communist Organization of Greece is a member of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO), a founding member of the Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties of the Balkans (CCWPB)List of participants in the CCWPB
and a founding member of the Anti-Imperialist Space in the

European Social Forum The European Social Forum (ESF) was a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement (also known as the Global Justice Movement). In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but late ...

References

External links

*
/ Drómos tis Aristerás home pageCCWPB home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Communist Organization of Greece Communist parties in Greece Former components of Syriza International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (International Newsletter) International League of Peoples' Struggle International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations