94 years since the foundation of the Communist Party of Cyprus CPC – AKEL
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 13th August 2020, Nicosia
The establishment of the Communist Party of Cyprus (CPC) on the 15th August 1926, was the seed of the deeply-rooted tree of the Party of the working class and working people of our homeland. Inspired by the messages conveyed by the October Revolution and with the most conscious part of Cypriot workers as the basis together with young progressive intellectuals of that era, the Communist Party of Cyprus for the first time in the history of our country put the people themselves at the forefront of the struggles and life.
At a time when the local plutocracy and the hierarchy of the clergy were cooperating perfectly with the British colonialists – while our people were in chains and suffering from impoverishment – the CPC called for the establishment of a united anti-colonial front of struggle that would rally all Cypriots against the British colonial rule that was brutally oppressing our island.
The CPC was also the founder of the workers movement in Cyprus and organizer of the first labour struggles, putting its own mark on the assertions of the Cypriot working class to secure an eight hour working day, for daily wages and social insurance. It advocated the forging of an alliance between workers and peasants against the exploitation of the loan sharks and big landowners, putting forth radical demands such as the distribution of church and “vakouf” land and the large plots to the landless and the writing off of the debts of the poor peasants robbed of their land.
The CPC was the voice that spoke for the first time in Cyprus about gender equality and the protection of maternity, free education and the prohibition of child labor. It inspired artists and intellectuals to join their forces with the organized struggle for a better world. It disseminated and transmitted communist ideas, internationalist ideals and the vision of socialism among society. The first Cypriot communists operated as a beacon in the darkness of ignorance, prejudices and religious obscurantism and backwardness.
Precisely for all the above-mentioned, our Party, as the CPC in the beginning and subsequently as AKEL, became the target of local and foreign interests that attacked it through persecution, imprisonment, exile, the murder of its militants and members, with organized campaigns of slander, while our Party was banned twice. However, the people themselves recognized it as a vanguard and leading force because it was through the struggles it waged and the sacrifices made by thousands of people’s fighters within the ranks of the CPC-AKEL that the life of the people, working people and the poor became better.
The glorious History of the CPC-AKEL does not make us complacent. Quite the reverse, it raises the bar of responsibility for our Party today to strengthen its ties and bonds with the people and young generation. To correct mistakes and weaknesses. To continue to elaborate policies even more radically and to put forth demands that respond to our people’s modern problems because our country and people need a strong AKEL at the forefront of all struggles, a militant and radical AKEL, united and well-organised, a modern and constantly renewed AKEL. A Party tied to the working people, the young generation. A Party with the people, a force of struggle and change.
