117-593: Former parties Former parties Former parties The Communist Party of Greece ( Greek : Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας , Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas , KKE ) is a Marxist–Leninist political party in Greece . It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece ( SEKE ) and adopted its current name in November 1924. It is the oldest political party in modern Greek politics . The party
234-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
351-460: A country that had a cooperation agreement with the Soviet Union. The main political line of this manifesto was the call to the soldiers on the front not to go beyond Greek borders, but after securing them to try seek a peace agreement with the enemy. Zachariadis may have issued a third letter on 17 January 1941, in which he explained the motives for his first letter and wrote: "Metaxas remains
468-460: A directive to all party forces not to engage in any armed conflict, but to try to prevent attacks by other means. This caused confusion among the majority of its supporters and served to weaken the party organisation across the country. Large groups had returned to their partisan hideouts in the mountains and gradually formed smaller partisan units. As most of the ELAS armoury had been surrendered under
585-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
702-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
819-487: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
936-499: A manifesto addressed "to all the workers and public servants, to all soldiers, sailors and airmen, to patriot officers, to the mothers, fathers, wives and children of the fighters and the workers of all neighboring countries", in which it describes the war as a game of the imperialist powers, headed by the British. According to KKE, the "Old Central Committee" based this opinion on the belief that Mussolini's Italy would not dare to attack
1053-573: A new phase in its history. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ ) is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of
1170-552: A prominent role in the organisation. By the end of the war, some 200,000 Greek citizens, both workers and peasants, had joined the ranks of KKE. KKE maintained its alliances with the EAM. Its main stated aim at this time was to form a united government with all parties that wanted to see Greece liberated from foreign powers. ELAS conflicted finally with the rest of the resistance organizations and armies (especially EDES and EKKA ), accusing most of them of being traitors and collaborators of
1287-530: A regional communist cadre who proclaimed the following as Greece was being bombed by the Axis: "The Germans will not bomb us. The mustached-one [Stalin] will not let them". Ioannis Ioannidis was purged by Nikos Zachariadis, leader of the KKE in exile in 1953, and was stripped of his party offices. The article in the reference just cited ends with just the fact of his "Purge" and being "stripped of his Party offices", so it
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#17327660213781404-405: Is a form of organisation that Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists, and other democratic centralists abide by, both when having seized the government and also while trying to seize it. Most communist parties have a democratic centralist structure. In party meetings, a motion (new policy or amendment, goal, plan or any other kind of political question) is moved (proposed). After a period of debate, a vote
1521-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
1638-620: Is also stated in Article 3 of the current constitution of the People's Republic of China : Article 3. The state organs of the People's Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism. The National People's Congress and the local people's congresses at different levels are instituted through democratic election. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial, and procuratorial organs of
1755-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
1872-466: Is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki ,
1989-672: Is permitted in all forms. Once a resolution is being carried out, discussion and criticism which may disrupt unity in performing the action is forbidden, to ensure that the action is not derailed. In several socialist states, related practices were also adopted to ensure freedom of discussion, such as Mao's "Don't Blame the Speaker". Some Trotskyist and orthodox Marxist perspectives describe "deficient" forms of democratic centralism as "bureaucratic centralism," often those espoused by Marxist-Leninists. According to these views, bureaucratic centralism de-prioritises democracy, and thus fails to serve
2106-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
2223-840: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Democratic centralism Democratic centralism
2340-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
2457-543: Is taken. If one vote clearly wins (gaining a share of 60% or above among two options, for example) all party members are expected to follow that decision, and not continue debating it. The goal is to avoid decisions being undermined by participants whose views are in the minority. In the development of socialism in the Soviet Union and China, it was implemented in response to rapid political developments, which required faster mechanisms of decision-making. Before an issue has been voted on and carried out, discussion and criticism
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#17327660213782574-794: Is the organisational principle of communist states and of most communist parties to reach dictatorship of the proletariat . In practice, democratic centralism means that political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party . It is mainly associated with Leninism , wherein the party's political vanguard of revolutionaries practice democratic centralism to select leaders and officers, determine policy, and execute it. Democratic centralism has primarily been associated with Marxist–Leninist and Trotskyist parties, but has also occasionally been practised by other democratic socialist and social democratic parties such as South Africa's African National Congress . Scholars have disputed whether democratic centralism
2691-591: Is unclear whether he was physically Purged (executed), as many Communists still were in 1953. A large number of KKE members were already in prison before the Nazi invasion. The pro-Nazi occupation government handed some of them over to the Nazis fearing that they—following the pro-Soviet party line—would resort to sabotage in Greece following Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. There were many occasions that police officers released Communist prisoners, especially
2808-674: The Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from
2925-624: The Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are
3042-627: The Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute the objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of
3159-694: The EKKA ). The Macedonian Bureau of KKE organised the first two partisan units at the end of June 1941. The first was based in Kilkis and was named Athanasios Diakos , the second was based in Nigrita and was named Odysseas Androutsos . These small partisan units blew up bridges, attacked police stations and eventually organized into larger combat units of more than 300 men each. In several other places and in major cities, small armed groups of KKE members and non-communists began to emerge, protecting people from looters,
3276-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
3393-788: The First and the Second Internationals, held the Soviet Union in a central position and functioned as one big body instead of many independent communist parties in different countries. The Leninist practice of democratic centralism was introduced during the Republic of China era to the Kuomintang in 1923. It was allied with the Chinese Communist Party during the Warlord Era and received support from
3510-593: The Gramos Mountains and try to establish connection with all the DSE forces that remained within Greece. The battalion indeed reached small DSE units south of Gramos down to Evritania and retreated thereafter back to Albania. Floriakis later served as General Secretary of KKE from 1972 to 1989. On 28 August 1949, the Civil War in Greece ended with the DSE forces defeated militarily and politically and KKE entered
3627-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
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3744-621: The Minister for Public Order , to win his release from prison. According to one source, when drafting this letter Zachariadis was unaware of the German–Soviet Non-aggression Pact and was castigated by the Comintern for an anti-Soviet stance. According to KKE's archives, the "Old Central Committee" had been denounced for its stance on the war issue and today KKE claims that the majority of the party membership had not followed
3861-694: The Nazis . These were the first conflicts of the coming civil war . Nikos Zachariadis was imprisoned in Dachau ; he was released in 1945 and returned to Greece as the elected general secretary of the KKE. During his imprisonment, Andreas Tsipas and Georgios Siantos served as party general secretaries. After the liberation of Greece from German occupational forces, the government of National Unity, led by G. Papandreou, landed in Athens in October 1944. The government
3978-645: The October Revolution and the Russian Civil War , the Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin, instituted a ban on factions in the party as Resolution No. 12 of the 10th Party Congress in 1921. It was passed in the morning session on 16 March 1921. Trotskyists sometimes claim that this ban was intended to be temporary, but there is no language in the discussion at the 10th Party Congress suggesting such. The Group of Democratic Centralism
4095-657: The Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of
4212-810: The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903 as did Leon Trotsky , in Our Political Tasks , although Trotsky joined ranks with the Bolsheviks in 1917. The Sixth Party Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) held at Petrograd between 26 July and 3 August 1917 defined democratic centralism as follows: After the successful consolidation of power by the Communist Party following
4329-542: The civil war (1946–1949), an article written by Nikos Zachariadis expressed the KKE's strategy after the envisioned victory of the Democratic Army of Greece regarding what was then known as the "Macedonian Issue": "The Macedonian people will acquire an independent, united state with a coequal position within the family of free peoples' republics within the Balkans, within the family of Peoples' Republics to which
4446-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
4563-429: The "Old Central Committee" on 18 March 1941. In any case, Zachariadis himself referred in his public statements after liberation almost exclusively to his first letter as proof of the patriotic character of KKE and its role as an inspiration to the Greek resistance movement during the war. On 22 June 1941, the very same day that Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, KKE ordered its militants to organize "the struggle to defend
4680-687: The 6th Conference. In his memoirs for the Greek Civil war, C. M. Woodhouse (the British liaison with Greek resistance groups during World War II) wrote: "The 'Old Central Committee' interpreted a directive issued by Comintern as indicating collaboration with the German and Italian dictatorships, given the Hitler-Stalin alliance". On the other hand, Woodhouse argues that Georgios Siantos , who had escaped from prison; and Nikos Zachariadis , who
4797-827: The Axis invaders. At the same time, the "Old Central Committee" submitted to the authority of the new Central Committee. The first united resistance organization was founded in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace on 15 May 1941. In Thessaloniki , the Macedonian Bureau of KKE established the Eleftheri (Liberty) Organization, along with the Socialist Party , the Agrarian Party , the Democratic Union and Colonel Dimitrios Psarros (who later founded
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4914-721: The Civil War formed the Provisional Democratic Government ("Mountain Government") under the premiership of Markos Vafeiadis . After this, the KKE (still legal due to the Treaty of Varkiza) turned illegal. On 29 January 1949, the Greek National Army appointed General Alexandros Papagos Commander-in-Chief. In August 1949, Papagos launched a major counter-offensive against DSE forces in northern Greece, code-named "Operation Torch". The plan
5031-625: The Communist Party. When the Supreme Soviet was not in session, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet performed its ordinary functions. It also had the power to issue decrees in lieu of law. Nominally, if such decrees were not ratified at the Supreme Soviet's next session, they were considered revoked. However, ratification was usually a mere formality, though occasionally even this formality was not observed. Thus, decisions made by
5148-424: The EAM, resigned from their positions in the government of Georgios Papandreou in November 1944. Fighting broke out in Athens on 3 December 1944 during a demonstration organised by EAM and involving more than 100,000 people. During the demonstration, Greek gendarmes opened on the crowd. More than 28 demonstrators were killed and 148 injured. According to other accounts, it is uncertain if the first shots were fired by
5265-605: The German Social Democratic Party , inspired by remarks made by the social democrat Jean Baptista von Schweitzer . Lenin described democratic centralism as consisting of "freedom of discussion, unity of action". The doctrine of democratic centralism served as one of the sources of the split between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks . The Mensheviks supported a looser party discipline within
5382-478: The Germans on 1941, were executed at the Kaisariani Shooting Range on 1 May 1944. Although the KKE was suffering from a lack of central political leadership since its leader Nikos Zachariadis had been taken by the Germans to the Dachau concentration camp , its members succeeded in maintaining communication with each other. The 6th Meeting of KKE Central Committee was held in Athens from 1–3 July 1941, which decided on strategy for an armed liberation struggle against
5499-456: The Germans, or collaborators. On 27 September 1941, Greek communists together with five other leftist parties formed the National Liberation Front (EAM) in Kallithea , Athens and began forming partisan militia units. On 16 February 1942, the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) was founded in a small kiosk in Phthiotis and by 1943 it consisted of 50,000 members, both men and women, with 30,000 as reserve units in major cities. The KKE played
5616-444: The Germans, seized this opportunity to persecute many KKE members. According to EAM figures, in the few months after the Treaty of Varkiza the anticommunist violence on the Greek mainland had resulted in the imprisonment or exile of 100,000 ELAS partisans and EAM members, the deaths of 3,000 EAM officials and members, the rape of between 200 and 500 women, the burning of houses and other acts of violence. The KKE Central Committee issued
5733-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
5850-442: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
5967-636: The Greek people will belong. The Macedonian people are today fighting for this independent united state with a coequal position and is helping the DSE with all its soul". The policy of self-determination for Macedonia within a People's Republic was reiterated during the 5th KKE Central Committee meeting held in January 1949, which declared that the "Macedonian people participating in the liberation struggle would find their full national re-establishment as they want giving their blood for this acquisition [...] Macedonian Communists should pay great attentions to foreign chauvinist and counteractive elements that want to break
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#17327660213786084-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
6201-446: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
6318-451: The Leninist principle of democratic centralism. According to the regulations of the Party, democratic centralism is performed following these rules: The Lao People's Revolutionary Party which governs the nation of Laos applies democratic centralism. The party's centralised and hierarchical organisational structure is based on democratic centralism, which was conceived by Vladimir Lenin . This structure entails that lower party organs obey
6435-401: The Party's top leaders de facto had the force of law. The democratic centralist principle extended to elections in the Soviet Union . All socialist countries were—either de jure or de facto — one-party states . In most cases, the voters were presented with a single list of unopposed candidates, which usually won 90 percent or more of the vote. The Third International , in contrast with
6552-465: The Soviet Union and the overthrow of the foreign fascist yoke". On 6 April 1941, the German invasion and occupation was launched and Athens was occupied on 27 April following an unconditional surrender of the Greek forces by General Georgios Tsolakoglou , who was later appointed Prime Minister by the Nazis. Confusion remained among many Greek Communists as to what the Moscow-sanctioned position was. In his memoirs, KKE leader Ioannis Ioannidis wrote about
6669-400: The Soviet Union. The organizational structures of the Kuomintang would remain in place until the democratization on Taiwan in the 1990s and would serve as a structural basis of several Taiwanese political parties such as the Democratic Progressive Party . Since 1945, the Chinese Communist Party's constitution has defined the party's view of democratic centralism. Democratic centralism
6786-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
6903-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
7020-456: The beginning of the century and the destruction that almost 20 years of wars had brought upon the Greek workers, a unified social-communist party was founded in Greece. At the Second Congress of the SEKE in April 1920, the party decided to affiliate with the Comintern , an international communist organization founded in Moscow in 1919. It changed its name to the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece (Communist) ( SEKE(K) ). A new Central Committee
7137-403: The creation of labor unions in all sectors, including the General Greek Workers Confederation (ΓΣΕΕ), which shared common goals with KKE. These activities met by opposition from the Mid-War governments. In 1929, as minister of Education in the government of Eleftherios Venizelos , Georgios Papandreou passed legislation against organised communist teachers, known as Idionymon . Such legislation
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#17327660213787254-436: The crowning achievement for today's fight should be and shall be a new Greece based on work, freedom, and liberated from any foreign imperialist dependence, with a truly pan-popular culture". Several party members, including Nikos Ploumpidis of the "Old Central Committee", denounced this letter as a forgery produced by the Metaxas regime. Zachariadis was even accused of writing it to win the favour of Konstantinos Maniadakis ,
7371-411: The decision of being neutral in case of an invasion. On 16 November 1940, Zachariadis repudiated the line of his first letter in a second letter where he accused the Greek Army of waging a "fascist" and "imperialistic war" and appealed to the Soviet Union for peaceful intervention, thus aligning his position with that of the "Old Central Committee". On 7 December 1940, the "Old Central Committee" issued
7488-446: The decisions of the higher ones, such as the LPRP Central Committee . It also entails a ban on internal party factions. In the end, every decision-making organ has to be guided by the principle of collective leadership , a process that emphasises collegial decision-making, in contrast to one-person dominance. LPRP General Secretary Kaysone Phomvihane, in a speech to the 5th National Congress in 1991, stated "that our Party's democracy
7605-437: The disarmament of ELAS and the trials of the collaborators were stalled. Meanwhile, British-led Allied forces together with Greek troops were landing in all major Greek cities and EAM was welcoming them as liberators. In mid-November 1944, the situation escalated dramatically; KKE criticised the interference of General Ronald Scobie in Greek affairs, and EAM refused to disarm ELAS and ELAN as demanded by Scobie. Six ministers of
7722-502: The event of an invasion of Greece. Nikos Zachariadis, KKE General Secretary, wrote from prison on 2 November 1940: "Today the Greek people are waging a war of national liberation against Mussolini's fascism. In this war we must follow the Metaxas government and turn every city, every village and every house of Greece into a stronghold of the National Liberation Fight... On this war conducted by Metaxas government all of us should give all our forces without reservation. The working people's and
7839-430: The example of the Paris Commune and the 1892 Chicago workers' movement for the eight-hour working day , these groups had as immediate political goals the unification of Greek workers into trade unions , the implementation of an eight-hour day in Greece and better salaries for workers. Inspired by the Paris Commune and the communist revolutionary efforts in the United States , the German Empire , and Imperial Russia at
7956-501: The gendarmes or the demonstrators. A member of the pro-monarchists Nikos Farmakis, in one of his interviews revealed that they had a direct order to fire at will when the demonstrators reach the court of the Palace. This incident was the beginning of the 37‑day Battle of Athens ( Dekemvriana ). Following a ceasefire agreement called the Treaty of Varkiza , ELAS laid down the majority of its weapons and dissolved all of its units. Right-wing groups, including elements which had collaborated with
8073-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
8190-399: The interests of the proletariat. The text What Is to Be Done? from 1902 is popularly seen as the founding text of democratic centralism. At this time, democratic centralism was generally viewed as a set of principles for the organizing of a revolutionary workers' party. However, Vladimir Lenin 's model for such a party, which he repeatedly discussed as being "democratic centralist", was
8307-414: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
8424-478: The lowest to the highest, their accountability to the people, and the obligation of lower bodies to observe the decisions of higher ones." For much of the time between the era of Joseph Stalin and the 1980s, the principle of democratic centralism meant that the Supreme Soviet , while nominally vested with great lawmaking powers, did little more than approve decisions already made at the highest levels of
8541-615: The mainland. KKE collaborated with the Soviet ambassador to persuade Venizelos ’ administration to withdraw its troops from Asia Minor and to persuade the Soviet Union to exert political pressure on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to allow autonomy for Greek cities in Asia Minor. KKE played a prominent role in strikes, anti-war demonstrations, foundation of trade unions and worker associations. KKE and other leftist political forces fostered
8658-576: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
8775-595: The military and political involvement of the Kingdom of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 , which it considered an imperialistic scheme to control the market of Asia Minor given the new political situation after the defeat and collapse of the Ottoman Empire . KKE members propagated this position both on the front—which provoked accusations of treason from the Greek government—as well as in
8892-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
9009-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
9126-471: The official position of the Third International for "independent Macedonia and Thrace". Some members disagreed with this, but it remained the official position of the party and caused expulsions of communists by the Greek state. KKE was seen by many as a party whose policy was "the detachment of large areas of northern Greece". According to Richard Clogg, "this was dictated by Comintern and hurt
9243-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
9360-485: The one side was the British and American-backed Greek government, led by Konstantinos Tsaldaris and later Themistoklis Sofoulis , which was elected in the 1946 elections which the KKE had boycotted. On the other side was the Democratic Army of Greece , of which the KKE was the only major political force, backed by the NOF , Bulgaria , Yugoslavia and Albania . In December 1947, the KKE and its allies that participated in
9477-537: The ones who were in exile in Aegean islands. In 1941, several KKE members managed to escape prison. One of many stories includes the 20 communists held as political prisoners in Heraklion , Crete , who demanded to be released to fight against the invading Germans. The Greek government, which had left mainland Greece by then and was en route to Egypt , had no power to release them. They eventually escaped after their jail
9594-509: The party's two thousand members were in prison or in exile. The Security Police proved successful in dismantling the party structure; not only had it imprisoned the leadership, but it created a fake series of Rizospastis , the Central Committee newspaper. This generated confusion among the remaining scattered underground members. A small group of old party officials formed the "Old Central Committee" and two of them were elected by
9711-658: The police station in Litochoro , armed their forces and founded the Central Greece Command of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) . After this successful operation, the remaining scattered groups reorganized the pre-Varkiza Treaty ELAS formations all over the country. KKE's political influence and organization structure helped form units in the Aegean Islands of as Mytilene , Chios , Icaria , Samos and Crete . The Civil War involved two sides. On
9828-441: The popularity of Communism at the time". In 1934, the KKE changed its view and expressed its intent to "fight for the national self-determination, under a People's Republic where all nations will found their self-determination and will build the common state of the workers". Nikos Zachariadis , General Secretary of the party, officially renounced KKE's policy of secession in 1945. Anti-KKE propaganda up-to-day added on this quote
9945-541: The predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation
10062-410: The principal enemy of the people and the country. His overthrowing is in the most immediate and vital interest of our people ... the peoples and soldiers of Greece and Italy are not enemies but brothers, and their solidarity will stop the war waged by capitalist exploiters". According to KKE archives, Zachariadis had issued no further letters and the third letter may have been in fact the statement of
10179-457: The region. At its Third Party Congress in 1924, KKE announced its policy for the self-determination of minorities, pointing out the minorities in Macedonia. Its policy was dictated by each Marxist–Leninist theory , that stated any minorities should be self-determined under a common socialist state and it had its roots in the example of the newly founded Soviet Union. In 1924, the KKE expressed
10296-476: The return of islands in the Aegean and parts of Macedonian territory to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . This policy was repeated several times throughout the pre-war era. The main impetus for their demand was the ethnic and religious minorities then living inside Greek borders in Northern Greece. The KKE opposed any geo-strategic game in the area which would use minorities to start a new imperialistic war in
10413-709: The rise of the Fascist movements in Europe . In 1934, the Comintern decreed that anti-fascist fronts be formed internationally. KKE responded by creating the People's Front, which was the largest Marxist anti-fascist organisation in Greece prior to the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas . The party was banned in 1936 by the dictatorial regime of Metaxas and brutally persecuted by his security chief, Konstantinos Maniadakis . Many KKE members were imprisoned or exiled on isolated Aegean Islands . KKE members volunteered to fight on
10530-793: The side of the republican government of Spain during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. About 440 Greeks joined the ranks of the International Brigades , especially brigades such as the XV International Brigade and the Dimitrov Battalion , many of whom were high-ranking KKE members. After the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, World War I in 1916–1918 and the disastrous Greco–Turkish War of 1919–1922, there were diplomatic approaches from
10647-423: The state are created by the people's congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they operate. The division of functions and powers between the central and local state organs is guided by the principle of giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of the local authorities under the unified leadership of the central authorities. The Communist Party of Vietnam is organized according to
10764-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
10881-543: The superpowers of that era regarding the re-drawing of Greek borders, based on the territorial claims of the Kingdom of Bulgaria and diplomatic relations between Turkey and the United States pressing for more territory to improve trade routes with the British Empire . The ruling parties were simultaneously trying to move parts of Northern Greece ( Macedonia and Thrace ) to Bulgaria and Turkey; and to win
10998-473: The terms of the Varkiza treaty, these units armed themselves with weapons seized from attacks on militia units that had been provided arms by the police as well as attacking police stations. By mid-1946, these units forced the KKE leadership to change its neutral position and to plan the formation of a partisan army with the officers and fighters that were still free. On 26 October 1946, KKE militia units attacked
11115-424: The unity between the Greek and Macedonian people. This will only serve the monarcho-fascists and British imperialism ". In order for KKE to clear up its position on the "Macedonian subject", the 6th Congress of its Central Committee was called a few months later, during which was clearly stated that KKE was fighting for a free Greece and for a common future for Greeks and Macedonians under the same state. The issue
11232-538: The unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes difficult the unity of an action decided on by the Party." By the Brezhnev period , democratic centralism was described in the 1977 Soviet Constitution as a principle for organizing the state: "The Soviet state is organized and functions on the principle of democratic centralism, namely the electiveness of all bodies of state authority from
11349-447: The various stages of the Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
11466-529: The vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in the early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between
11583-692: The vote. The KKE is a member of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (IMCWP) and the European Communist Action (ECA). The October Revolution of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 gave impetus for the foundation of communist parties in many countries globally. The KKE was founded on 4 November 1918 by Aristos Arvanitis , Demosthenes Ligdopoulos , Stamatis Kokkinos , Michael Sideris , Nikos Dimitratos [ el ] , and others. The party
11700-690: The will to collaborate for this goal with the Bulgarian organizations of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and the Thracian Revolutionary Organisation . This is not mentioned on any of KKE official documents. The quote is referenced as KKE's policy for "giving Greek soil to the northern enemies of the country", a fact that can not be crossed referenced with any of KKE referenced literature of that era. During
11817-486: Was a "pawn of British imperialism in the region" and therefore the "Old Committee" viewed any war between the Axis forces and the British as an "imperialistic war that the people of any of the countries involved should not participate in". According to KKE's account, this position was criticised by Comintern in 1939 (a few months after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact ), which had instructed KKE to fight against Italy in
11934-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
12051-512: Was a group in the Soviet Communist Party who advocated different concepts of party democracy. In On Party Unity , Lenin argued that democratic centralism prevents factionalism. He argued that factionalism leads to less friendly relations among members and that it can be exploited by enemies of the party. Lenin wrote of democratic centralism that it "implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does not disturb
12168-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
12285-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
12402-529: Was banned in 1936, but played a significant role in the Greek resistance and the Greek Civil War , and its membership peaked in the mid-1940s. Legalization of the KKE was restored following the fall of the Greek Junta (χούντα) in 1974. The party has achieved appointing MPs in all elections since its restoration in 1974, and took part in a coalition government in 1989 when it got more than 13% of
12519-597: Was damaged by German bombs and joined the British and Greek forces defending the Heraklion harbor. After the fall of Crete, many officers of the Greek Army joined forces with ELAS and became commanders in ELAS's corps of partisan units. It became German policy—especially after it became obvious to them that they were losing the war—to execute civilians in retaliation for attacks against them by communist or non-communist partisans. Approximately 200 communists, delivered to
12636-571: Was elected, which included Nikos and Panaghis Dimitratos , Yanis 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 . Pandelis Pouliopoulos was elected as general-secretary. Ever since, the party has functioned on the basis of democratic centralism . KKE strongly opposed
12753-543: Was ended by Central Committee in 1954 with the withdrawal of the position of self-determination of minorities. In 1988, the General Secretary of KKE, Charilaos Florakis , once again presented KKE's political position on the matter in a speech to the Greek Parliament. By 1940, the KKE had almost collapsed after Metaxas' dictatorship had imprisoned many of its leadership and members. By October, half of
12870-525: Was for the Greek National Army to gain control of the border with Albania in order to surround and defeat the DSE forces, numbering 8,500 fighters. The DSE suffered heavy losses from the operation, but managed to retreat its units to Albania. Charilaos Florakis , whose nom de guerre was Kapetan Yiotis, was a DSE-appointed Brigadier General during this battle. Florakis was ordered by the DSE High Command to re-enter Greece with his battalion via
12987-510: Was formed after the Treaty of Cazerta and its main purpose was to form the new Greek state, try accused political and military personnel of collaboration with the Germans and to hold a referendum for the government and the constitution. After several weeks, it became obvious to the KKE and EAM that the returning Greek government and their British allies were hostile to the significant amount of control that they exerted in Greece. Papandreou demanded
13104-441: Was implemented in practice in the Soviet Union and China, pointing to violent power struggles, backhanded political maneuvering, historical antagonisms and the politics of personal prestige in those states. Socialist states, such as the former Soviet Union and present-day China, have made democratic centralism the organisational principle of the state, and the political power principle being unitary power . Democratic centralism
13221-682: Was often used to prosecute KKE members and other leftist activists. Under the Idionymon all members of the Communist Party of Greece, being considered dangers to the state, were to be removed from public service or put in exile. The first prison camps for left-wing citizens and communists were founded in that era. KKE and its organisations, although small in numbers, continue operating in all Greek major cities, especially industrial areas such as Athens , Piraeus , Patra , Thessaly and Volos , Thessaloniki , Kavala , and elsewhere. The KKE collaborated with other newly founded Communist Parties to oppose
13338-499: Was run by a five-member Central Committee which initially consisted of Dimitratos, Ligdopoulos, Sideris, Arvanitis and Kokkinos, and had a three-member Audit Committee initially including George Pispinis , Spyros Koumiotis , and Avraam Benaroya . Ligdopoulos was elected director of the party's official newspaper, Ergatikos Agon . The background of the KKE has roots in more than 60 years of small socialist , anarchist , and communist groups, mainly in industrialized areas. Following
13455-505: Was still incarcerated, took the opposite view that KKE must support Metaxas in his fight against Mussolini . The archives of KKE also address the confusion between different KKE cadres as the "Old Committee" interpreted the politics of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as part of the "imperialistic game between the Axis forces and the British". This faction of KKE felt that the Metaxas regime
13572-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
13689-673: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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