Events in honour of the 90th anniversary of the Communist Party Cyprus-AKEL

 

Press Conference of Andros Kypianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 23rd April 2015, Nicosia

 

2016 will mark 90 years in the presence and activity of the Communist Party of Cyprus CPC – AKEL in our country. We have already begun the discussions on the events that will be taking place in honor of the 90th anniversary of our Party.

AKEL is the oldest political party of the country. From this point of view, it is the most historical party. It was established by just twenty people, in 1926, in a small house in Limassol. Its goal was to fight to get wage earners, workers, peasant and poverty-stricken Cypriots out from the misery surrounding them and guide them in the struggle and assertions. These pioneering communists certainly didn’t have some divine inspiration. They embraced the messages that had been transmitted by the Russian October Revolution to all humanity just a few years before.

The vanguard Communists founded the Communist Party of Cyprus in the most difficult period. They struggled with all their strength to make it better. It was logical that the local ruling class and colonialism would attempt to strangle the Party at birth. They viewed the Party as the power that challenged their dominance and considered it a danger. After the October uprising in 1931, the CPC was banned and went underground for the first time. Its cadres suffered exile and persecution. But even in illegality, CPC continued its struggle. It managed to spread all over Cyprus. During this period, it took internationalist action, participating in the International Brigades for the defence of Democracy in Spain.

The CPC could not work on a mass basis because it was illegal. That is why the 4th Congress decided to establish a legal political mass organization: the establishment of AKEL. The founding assembly held in the village of Skarinou in April 1941, issued a brief announcement. AKEL was founded as a Party with “a clear democratic, anti-fascist and anti-Hitler character.” This explains its call for the people’s voluntary enlisting in the anti-Hitler camp. In that statement AKEL expressed its regret because “the Turkish element” was absent from the Constituent Assembly. This reveals another feature of AKEL, which is ingrained in its very DNA; our Party was from the outset and now, the Party of all the Cypriot working people, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins. It also expressed its regret at the absence of more farmers from the Assembly of Skarinou. It is also obvious that the founders of AKEL included both the farmers and the small and middle strata in the term “working people”. This broad perception that AKEL is the exponent and voice of the people of labour, in the broad sense of the term, was a gain of our Party from the first moment of his existence; an achievement opening up broad horizons of actions.

Subsequently, in the years that followed AKEL gained mass influence and became a strong socio-political force. It constantly mobilized the people with demonstrations and political strikes, demanding freedom from oppression and the liberation of Cyprus from the yoke of colonialism. AKEL supported with tenacity and vigor the position that the national liberation struggle is a struggle of the Cypriot people as a whole, rejecting chauvinism that excluded our Turkish Cypriot compatriots. Since then, our Party was and remains an unwaveringly firm force combating chauvinism and nationalism.

AKEL had concluded early on that working people’s interests coincide with those of peasants, wage earners, intellectuals and the small/middle strata. The initiative of organizing these strata led to many significant achievements. The Pancyprian Federation of Labour PEO, the United Democratic Youth Organization EDON, the Progressive Women’s Movement POGO and the Union of Cypriot Farmers EKA, together with AKEL, make up the Peoples Movement of the Left and forged our Party’s ties with the people. Each one of our Popular Organizations has marked with its presence the history of the Movement, but also of our country. AKEL had and is making an invaluable contribution not only to political and social struggles, but also in the field of culture. The radical decision to set up the local cultural associations paved the way for the emergence of figures of culture, arts and literature, such as Tefkros Anthias, Theodosis Pierides, Pavlos Liasides, Vladimir Kafkarides and so many others who with their work honored and continue to honour our country.

In all the decades of its activity, AKEL was in the forefront of the struggle for the freedom of Cyprus. In the 1940’s and 50’s, our Party waged a fierce anti-colonial struggle, seeking the right of self-determination and the conquest of political freedoms. Even when it was again in illegality in 1955, the Party remained the leader of the anti-imperialist struggle of the Cypriot people. Later, when our country went through turbulent times, with the murderous activity of EOKA B and the betrayal of 1974, AKEL was again at the forefront of the struggle. Thousands of members of AKEL were arrested, imprisoned, tortured and their names were on lists to be executed. When the Turkish Army invaded our island thousands of Party members rushed to the front line to defend the homeland. Many of them never came back…

After the double crime of 1974, AKEL was the constant supporter of thousands of refugees. It organized and carried out huge initiatives to offer moral and material support. It was also the leading force of the movement of rapprochement which built the prospect of our country’s reunification on the ruins of the war. Thanks to AKEL’s enduring and unbreakable bonds with the Turkish Cypriot community, the movement of rapprochement became rooted and keeps until today the hope alive for peace and reunification.

AKEL’ course was constantly on the advance, with significant electoral victories registered. In the 2001 and 2006 parliamentary AKEL Party came first and the then General Secretary, Demetris Christofias, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2001. For the first time in the history of Cyprus, an AKEL leader assumed a public post. In 2003, AKEL was in the forefront of the struggle for change in the administration of the country. February 2008 became the most important landmark in the history of AKEL.

During the Demetris Christofias governance the most comprehensive, one could say, proposal for the reunification of our homeland and people was submitted at the negotiating table. The road was opened up for Cyprus to become an energy centre and for its natural wealth to become a factor for peace and prosperity for the entire region. No matter much our opponents don’t want to admit it, the Christofias administration set up a bastion of protection of the working people and popular strata in order to confront the consequences of the economic crisis.

Today, 90 after the foundation of the CCP – AKEL and studying the documents of that first Congress one can understand why our Party exists from then up till today. One can understand why it is not easy to eradicate AKEL from the hearts and minds of the Cypriot people; to exterminate it from one moment to another. AKEL for 90 years has been waging a struggle that has continued in time; a struggle for the liberation of our homeland; a struggle for the reunification and peaceful coexistence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots; a struggle against big capital, whether it was at the beginning of the last century, that was tightly entangled with the Church, or the big capital’s thirst today, as then, for more profit, like the Church for more political intervention. AKEL raised the question of power that will not be imposed as a “hereditary right” or as “God’s will” but will be the outcome of popular sovereignty. It mobilized in mass numbers the people of Cyprus to demand the right to be the master of its own fate and not to be controlled by the handful of privileged. For 90 years, it challenges and questions the political spectrums that express the economic power, with everything that entails. For 90 years AKEL is the Party of all Cypriots; the Party of the people and not of the ethnic groups; the Party of the Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins; the Party all the working people.

At the beginning of the last century, the first Congress of the Communist Party of Cyprus spoke about the need to forge a united anti-imperialist front of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. It demanded increases in wages; the implementation of an eight hour working day; the protection of working people; free health and medical care; financial support for the unemployed and the freedom of workers to organize themselves. It demanded the termination of the forced sale of properties, the expropriation of the majority of monastic and church estates, the abolition of the church tax and of land tax, the taxation of those profits enriching from the black market, the taxation of inheritances and luxury goods, and the increase in the very low taxation of mining companies. It demanded that the interest rate of the loans from the agricultural bank, which had to be established, does not exceed 5% and many other demands.

If one considers the amount of fierce attacks the Communist Party of Cyprus came under at that time and subsequently AKEL too, because it wanted to bring together Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in a common political front and how vehemently Demetris Christofias and AKEL were attacked for the rotating Presidency proposal, one can understand how easily certain circles and forces want to drag Cyprus back decades. If one were to consider how many fierce attacks the Left suffered in the 1930’s and 1940’s because it fought for profits and wealth to be taxed and how many attacks were unleashed when AKEL during the Demetris Christofias governance submitted a proposal for the taxation of profits and large immovable property, then one can understand why this whole campaign to degrade AKEL has been unleashed. If one considers how many attacks have been unleashed against the Left from the first moment of its birth because it fought for an eight hour working day, the eradication of usury and seizures of worker’s and peasant’s small property, then one will understand why when all of these are once again being targeted AKEL is also targeted.

Ninety years of AKEL’s presence is the clearest proof that the Left in Cyprus is not some temporary or insignificant matter. It is a child of history and the need of the Cypriot people for a better tomorrow. Today in front of the unprecedented attack our people are facing, we feel even more the heavy responsibility on our shoulders. That is why we will continue to struggle with all our strength to defend the people and reunite our Homeland.