Communist Party of Greece
The Communist Party of Greece (Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas, KKE) is a Marxist–Leninist political party in Greece. It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece and adopted its current name in November 1924. It is the oldest political party in modern Greek politics. The party 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. The party has returned 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 the vote. 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, and others. The party 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 KKE has roots in more than 60 years of small socialist, anarchist and communist groups, mainly in industrialized areas. Following 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, Germany, and Russia at 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.
