For several months now, the events of the 50^th festival of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) and its newspaper, “Odigitis”, have been taking place all over Greece.

In the past few days, the political and cultural activities of the festival took place in big cities like Thessaloniki, Patras, Larissa and Ioannina.

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, spoke at the festival in Thessaloniki, and noted, among other things, that:

“We are proud as a Party because we can say, without any trace of boasting, that the 50^thFestival of KNE-Odigitishas an evermore contemporary, dynamic andmass character.

It isin tune with the demands of thetimes, and it conveys the most innovative message of our era: This world is going to change, we are going to change it! Our future is socialism!

The Festival has written, is writing and will continue to write history because, first of all, our Party, the KKE, has written, is writing and will continue to write history.

The KKE wrote history not only when it led the epic of the National Resistance (EAM) and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and in the difficult years that followed.

But also when it stood tall against the counter-revolutionary storm of 1989–1991, when it ensured its historical continuity; when it confronted head-on and thwarted the organized efforts of the opportunists to change its character, its symbols, its ideology and even to dismantle it. They did not take into account that the historical roots of the KKE among the people and the working class are very deep, that there was a blood bond with the generations of the interwar period, of EAM-ELAS, of DSE, which created a different kind of reflex against the attempt to undermine and dismantle the KKE.

Our Party stood tall and moved forward, while those who then presented themselves as the standard-bearers of ‘renewal’ are today descending into their political bankruptcy, their ideological, political and organizational degeneration.

The KKE made history when the red flag came down from the Kremlin in Moscow and the historic front page of Rizospastis read: ‘Hope lies in the struggle of the peoples!’. And it sent a message to the whole world: ‘The red flag with the hammer and sickle has been lowered from the Kremlin. But we are raising it high. Millions of communists all over the world are raising it high. Tomorrow many more will be raising it. Comrades, RAISE THE FLAG.’ (...)

We did it, because we did not become complacent.

We elaborated our Programme, studied the experience of the socialist construction, interpretedcurrent developments. Armed with our ideology, Marxism–Leninism and with the conviction that the events of our time herald the need for a new reality to be created by the peoples themselves. For a new society free from capitalist exploitation, socialism-communism.”

17.09.2024