KKE leader visits Athens Brewery

She said that the two mainstream parties - leading New Democracy (ND) and main opposition PASOK - must lose votes, stressing that those lost votes should not be the result of voter abstention or votes cast for other, smaller parties "which do not exercise opposition", but should instead be case for the KKE.

Papariga explained that, in speaking of a storm of anti-popular measures, she is referring to the sectors education, health, social welfare, extension of the flexible forms of employment, but also on the national issues, wherever there are "local trouble spots".

The Communist Party of Greece (Greek: Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas), better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ (usually pronounced "koo-koo-eh" or "kappa-kappa-epsilon"), is the oldest party in the Greek political scene.

The ΚΚΕ was founded on 4 November 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece (Acronym: SEKE, Greek: Σοσιαλιστικό Εργατικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma Elladas) by Avraam Benaroya, a Sephardic Jewish teacher and labour movement leader in Thessaloniki. The party was run by a five-member central committee which included Nikos Dimitratos, D. Ligdopoulos, M. Sideris, A. Arvanitis and S. Kokkinos.

KKE was not founded overnight. Its background is rooted in more than 60 years of existence of small socialist, anarchist and communist groups, mainly in industrialized areas. Those groups, following the example of the Paris Commune and the 1892 Chicago workers' movement for the 8 hour day, had in their immediate political goals the unification of the Greek workers in factory Unions, the struggle for the 8 hour working day in Greece, rises in the salaries, etc. The memory of the Paris Commune and the communist revolutionary efforts in the US, Germany and Russia at the beginning of the century, as well as the destruction that almost 20 years of wars had brought upon the Greek workers, boosted the foundation of a unified Social-Communist party in Greece. The October Revolution of the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 gave the signal for the foundation of Communist Parties nearly all over the whole globe. 

At the Second Congress of the SEKE in April 1920, the party decided to affiliate with the Third International. In addition, it extended its name to the Socialist Labour Party of Greece-Communist (SEKE-K). A new central committee was elected, which included Nikos and Panaghis Dimitratos, Yannis 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. A series of laws aimed explicitly at punishing communist thoughts and beliefs were soon implemented (the 1924 Katochyrotikon, the 1929 Idionymon, etc.). The party was banned in 1936 by the Ioannis Metaxas' 4th of August Regime. Many KKE members were imprisoned or exiled on isolated islands.