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 **Charalambos Aristotelous, Phedias Christodoulides, Athina Karyati, and Marios Thrasyvoulou**
-//On December 22, 2022, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel on AKEL at the House for Cooperation in Nicosia, Cyprus. The speakers were Charalambos Aristotelous (independent candidate in the 2023 presidential elections), Phedias Christodoulides (Platypus and 1917),[1] Athina Karyati (New Internationalist Left),[2] and Marios Thrasyvoulou (historian and author). The moderator was Charis Theodorou. The panel was translated into English by Phedias Christodoulides, Charis Theodorou, and Thodoris Velissaris. An edited transcript follows.[3]//
+//On December 22, 2022, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel on AKEL at the House for Cooperation in Nicosia, Cyprus. The speakers were Charalambos Aristotelous (independent candidate in the 2023 presidential elections), Phedias Christodoulides ([[en:groups:platypus|Platypus]] and [[en:groups:1917|1917]]),[1] Athina Karyati ([[en:groups:neda|New Internationalist Left]]),[2] and Marios Thrasyvoulou (historian and author). The moderator was Charis Theodorou. The panel was translated into English by Phedias Christodoulides, Charis Theodorou, and Thodoris Velissaris. An edited transcript follows.[3]//
 **Introduction**
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 What is the relationship between the Communist Party of Cyprus (CPC) and AKEL? How and why did one party evolve into the other? How did AKEL’s nature change over the years? What were the turning points in its history? What is AKEL’s relationship with the Greek Cypriot Right, both historically and today? How would you assess AKEL’s stance on the Cyprus problem, both historically and today? What is the relevance of AKEL to the tasks and problems facing the Left? How do you see the future of AKEL?
-Opening remarks
-**Marios Thrasyvoulou:** In order to understand the character of AKEL today, we necessarily have to go back in time. Its creation in 1941 was an attempt to break the left out of its isolation and make its ideas more accessible to the world. Although both Communist Party of Cyprus (CPC) cadres and bourgeois democrats took part in this effort, the influence of the Communists was clearly more significant. AKEL, as the continuation of the CPC, has its ideological and historical origins in Marxism and the October Revolution. De facto, its policy was influenced by what was happening in the center of the communist world. But it would be a mistake to assume that the communist parties that existed at the time were controlled in an absolute manner by Moscow. Yes, they were broadly subordinate to it, but at the same time they retained a degree of autonomy in their policies within their own countries. Those of the West in particular had more freedom of movement, let alone if we are talking about a party from a small and relatively insignificant country, such as AKEL. Their policy depended to a large extent on the circumstances of each place, the choices they had before them, but also on the level of their leadership.
+**Opening remarks**
+**Marios Thrasyvoulou:** In order to understand the character of AKEL today, we necessarily have to go back in time. Its creation in 1941 was an attempt to break the left out of its isolation and make its ideas more accessible to the world. Although both [[en:groups:cpc|Communist Party of Cyprus]] (CPC) cadres and bourgeois democrats took part in this effort, the influence of the Communists was clearly more significant. AKEL, as the continuation of the CPC, has its ideological and historical origins in Marxism and the October Revolution. De facto, its policy was influenced by what was happening in the center of the communist world. But it would be a mistake to assume that the communist parties that existed at the time were controlled in an absolute manner by Moscow. Yes, they were broadly subordinate to it, but at the same time they retained a degree of autonomy in their policies within their own countries. Those of the West in particular had more freedom of movement, let alone if we are talking about a party from a small and relatively insignificant country, such as AKEL. Their policy depended to a large extent on the circumstances of each place, the choices they had before them, but also on the level of their leadership.
 In Cyprus, the geographical peculiarities (small place, small population), colonialism, the powerful Church, social conservatism, and the predominance of nationalism are factors that influence the communists, pushing them into ideological retreat. AKEL does invoke Marxism, but from the outset it seeks to win over the other national forces, putting aside radical politics. Moscow’s position in favor of communist parties’ involvement in popular fronts with the democratic bourgeoisie and other forces, either first to counter fascism or shortly afterwards to counter imperialism, simply came to reinforce the already formed conservative policy of the AKEL leadership. Although the Party exploits the open field of promoting workers’ rights and trade-union organization, it lacks the courage to go against the unifying current within the community, which is growing stronger and stronger as a result of the messages sent by the struggle against Nazism in World War II.
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 A large part of the extra-parliamentary Left claims that we need a strong AKEL against the Right and the far Right. What it avoids mentioning is that we have had a strong AKEL over time, with the Party coming first or second in every election since the founding of the Republic of Cyprus (1960), without this threatening the hegemony of the Right on the island. Over the years we have seen neither a class struggle nor the promotion of the socialist perspective. AKEL went so far as to elect its general secretary as President of the Republic, and its government proved that AKEL has no alternative socio-economic proposal to neoliberalism, ultimately leading us to a memorandum.
-Now I will talk about the negative influence of AKEL on the extra-parliamentary Left, something that we have not yet addressed much. Unfortunately, the influence of AKEL on the extra-parliamentary Cypriot Left is enormous and has been naturalized to an extent that it is not easily perceived. Following AKEL, the vast majority of extra-parliamentarians are hardly concerned with the category of class, taking for granted that national struggles are of paramount importance, and focusing on whether the Left in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey should support independence or Union. This is, for example, what the milieu of “Defteri Anagnosi” does, and is more generally evident in the work of our Leftist historians as expressed in the recent book series Rotsos centering on the Cyprus problem.
+Now I will talk about the negative influence of AKEL on the extra-parliamentary Left, something that we have not yet addressed much. Unfortunately, the influence of AKEL on the extra-parliamentary Cypriot Left is enormous and has been naturalized to an extent that it is not easily perceived. Following AKEL, the vast majority of extra-parliamentarians are hardly concerned with the category of class, taking for granted that national struggles are of paramount importance, and focusing on whether the Left in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey should support independence or Union. This is, for example, what the milieu of [[en:groups:defteri|“Defteri Anagnosi”]] does, and is more generally evident in the work of our Leftist historians as expressed in the recent book series Rotsos centering on the Cyprus problem.
 Another, related legacy of AKEL is the burial of an internationalist approach to capitalist reality. AKEL early on invoked the so-called anti-colonial internationalism that emerged after the end of World War II, but this was in fact nothing more than the coalescence of various nationalisms, each claiming the creation of its own nation-state. There was no ultimate internationalist goal in most of these movements that could constitute them as internationalist. The error of this so-called “anti-imperialism” lies in the naturalization of all nation-states as political subjects and as fields of potential political action. This “anti-imperialism” ultimately agrees with the imperialists in their political horizon: the existing international nation-state system. The Left can be divided into local and national Lefts who take one or the other position on national issues — for example, independence or Union — but all these divisions of the Left, and certainly the Cypriot Left under the leadership of AKEL, are on the same side, that of adaptation to the global capitalist imperialist system. But socialism / communism was not intended to be a political ideology of “national liberation,” but of a global political and social transformation intended to respond better to the need for liberation from national oppression under capitalism.
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 **AK:** I didn’t say that the CPC or AKEL was once good either. The striking thing is that the CPC was the first party in Cyprus, appearing before anything from the Right was created. It appeared among the working people and had radical rhetoric. It brought together GCs and TCs. It stood for independence-autonomy, i.e., it proposed a solution for a united Cyprus based on GC-TC cooperation. What I mentioned was the circumstances that led to AKEL being created and taking a Union position and what that had as a result. I don't want to get into the debate whether or not the CPC was dissolved or not dissolved, etc., because it doesn’t matter. I would never want to say that AKEL is the continuation of the CPC. That was thought out at some point by the AKELists, and they started signing as “CPC-AKEL.” That doesn't matter. It is in the context of them losing members and support, with them trying to find a way to stop that.
-On the other question. Because we belong to the Left which is not a tail of AKEL, and we were also in one of the two efforts for an alternative Left — Drasy-Eylem,[21] which did push AKEL to a certain extent, as AKEL ran Niyazi Kiziljirek, a TC, in the next European elections. We had formed Drasy-Eylem which had a bi-communal list in the 2014 European elections — four GC and two TC candidates — and it did well. A lot can be said about what happened then, but AKEL was indeed pushed.
+On the other question. Because we belong to the Left which is not a tail of AKEL, and we were also in one of the two efforts for an alternative Left — [[en:groups:drasyeylem|Drasy-Eylem]],[21] which did push AKEL to a certain extent, as AKEL ran Niyazi Kiziljirek, a TC, in the next European elections. We had formed Drasy-Eylem which had a bi-communal list in the 2014 European elections — four GC and two TC candidates — and it did well. A lot can be said about what happened then, but AKEL was indeed pushed.
 //A common point that all the speakers mentioned is that AKEL, both historically and today, does not have a pro-worker, communist policy. What steps do we need to take today to start seeing a more radical, communist perspective? Do we want unions, a party, a front? What is missing?//
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 As for the question about today, the easy answer is that yes we need a new party and new unions. The problem is that the majority of the Cypriot extra-parliamentary Left does not believe in the possibility of a new party or does not want one, e.g., the anarchists think it is authoritarian. We need to have a discussion about why such a psychological fixation of many with AKEL exists, the difficulty of admitting that it is bourgeois, Right-wing, and that we want something new, and we need to start a discussion about what needs to be done.
-**AK:** The fragmentation of the Left internationally, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, has occupied the Left; the Left has debated, investigated, studied, etc. The Left came to the conclusion that it needs to create new formations so that there will be, in a federal way, Left fronts that will come together and create new mass parties of the Left and the workers. That’s how Syriza, Podemos, etc. were created. It should be a matter of debate on why they failed, went to the Right, and eventually supported the TINA[22] theory, which is what AKEL ultimately supports and supported in the 2013 and 2014 Memoranda. The Left in Cyprus also took two steps: ERAS[23] and Drasy-Eylem, which were attempts at creating an independent Left beyond AKEL.
+**AK:** The fragmentation of the Left internationally, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, has occupied the Left; the Left has debated, investigated, studied, etc. The Left came to the conclusion that it needs to create new formations so that there will be, in a federal way, Left fronts that will come together and create new mass parties of the Left and the workers. That’s how Syriza, Podemos, etc. were created. It should be a matter of debate on why they failed, went to the Right, and eventually supported the TINA[22] theory, which is what AKEL ultimately supports and supported in the 2013 and 2014 Memoranda. The Left in Cyprus also took two steps: [[en:groups:eras|ERAS]][23] and Drasy-Eylem, which were attempts at creating an independent Left beyond AKEL.
 **PC:** Why did these efforts fail?
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 I arrive at the proposal we made. When AKEL announced the candidacy of Mavroyiannis, we as NEDA took the initiative to contact the whole extra-parliamentary Left, to see what they say to the possibility of us running a Left, independent, collective candidacy, which would emerge from the extra-parliamentary Left, the front of the Left, and the movements created in recent years. Our opening was general and broader in scope than the basic Left. The intentions were all positive, and the responses were positive in the summer, but it was not possible to find that candidate that we as a front could support in a collective way. The project was abandoned, but there are still discussions, and we want to start discussions again in the next period with all the forces of the Left to create a new Left that will be a real front, be democratic, respect disagreements, exchange ideas, and discuss — because it has to discuss what positions it will have, what tactics it will use, etc.
-What I was asking is this: is there even a small possibility that these problems of the Left are structural? That structurally we cannot have a Left-wing party? Perhaps hierarchical structures always end up creating bureaucratic layers and leading the party to failure.
+//What I was asking is this: is there even a small possibility that these problems of the Left are structural? That structurally we cannot have a Left-wing party? Perhaps hierarchical structures always end up creating bureaucratic layers and leading the party to failure.//
 //[A separate audience member asks] Charalambos, you are talking about management. You think that if a miracle happens and you become president, you will not resign the next day. My point is that I notice in the debate that there are central disagreements about what the Left is, what should be done, where we should go, how far Left, what is feasible, etc. Communist movements and parties tend to go to the Right or lose a lot of people because of the way movements are formed. We have to deal with the issue that if we create movements, everyone would create their own to represent their own point of view. Take the example of SYRIZA, which grew on the basis of a specific purpose, the Memorandum policy that people couldn’t stand. But because we have different views on what to do and how to do it, either the movement’s positions have to be so loose that people with different views can exist within it or the movement is constantly breaking up into smaller movements. The looser your positions are, the more Right-wing you are.//
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 Lastly, ultra-Leftism is the childhood disease of communism, as Lenin masterfully puts it. According to Lenin, we must participate in bourgeois institutions; we must fight both on the road and in parliament. But I did not say to take over the management of capitalism. I said clearly before that I have disagreed with Demetris Christofias ever since, and that was one of the reasons why we split our position and left AKEL afterwards. But we are running this campaign so that we can be ready to contest the parliamentary elections in 2026.
-**PC:** As for what is to be done today, I see the candidacy of Charalambos in a positive light, despite any disagreements we may have. We do need to break with AKEL in the first instance, including breaking with AKEL’s satellites on the extra-parliamentary Left such as Workers’ Democracy,[24] Left Wing,[25] and Defteri Anagnosi. By the way, these groups were invited and refused to participate in this event because they consider Left-wing unity in favor of the Mavroyiannis candidacy to be paramount. We wanted to have people who support AKEL, critically or not, at the event, so that we could hear their arguments and have a discussion, but they refused to be here.
+**PC:** As for what is to be done today, I see the candidacy of Charalambos in a positive light, despite any disagreements we may have. We do need to break with AKEL in the first instance, including breaking with AKEL’s satellites on the extra-parliamentary Left such as [[en:groups:ergatikidimokratia|Workers’ Democracy]],[24] [[en:groups:aristeripteriga|Left Wing]],[25] and [[en:groups:defteri|Defteri Anagnosi]]. By the way, these groups were invited and refused to participate in this event because they consider Left-wing unity in favor of the Mavroyiannis candidacy to be paramount. We wanted to have people who support AKEL, critically or not, at the event, so that we could hear their arguments and have a discussion, but they refused to be here.
 We need to get away from the logic of Left-wing unity and return to Marxist unity. We don’t need to invite the whole extra-parliamentary Left to join a new project, because a large part of it is made up of unrepentant AKELists who are not really on the Left. We need to focus on the people who are against AKEL and really want to create new unions, maybe even a new party.
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 **AK:** In conclusion, there is a method: Marxism. We can study it; we can see how it can be applied to our case. There are international movements with which we need to get in touch and cooperate. Because we believe that there should be no dogmas, we have to look at history and theory with a critical eye, discuss the conditions of today, and come up with positions. It takes work. Even though it is up to the organizers to decide its format, something could come out of this event: maybe soon we could have a follow-up meeting to discuss the next steps for the Left to take.
-**PC:** I would like to respond to the last point that Athina and audience members said  — that this event should have been organized so that a Left front could begin to be created, etc. We didn’t collect any emails, but that doesn’t mean that this event happened for nothing. The event was filmed, recorded, and will go down in history. It will go into the Cypriot movement archive, and may even be published in the //Platypus Review.// It will not be lost.
+**PC:** I would like to respond to the last point that Athina and audience members said  — that this event should have been organized so that a Left front could begin to be created, etc. We didn’t collect any emails, but that doesn’t mean that this event happened for nothing. The event was filmed, recorded, and will go down in history. It will go into the [[en:groups:archive|Cypriot movement archive]], and may even be published in the //Platypus Review.// It will not be lost.
 The purpose of Platypus as a group is to combat ideological obstacles that prevent the re-creation and re-foundation of a Marxist revolutionary Left. That is why we are having these discussions. We are not trying to become that Left ourselves, which is why some of us who feel the need to build that Left formed the 1917 group. As the 1917 group we would like to create a communist party in Cyprus. Now, I am not sure that the conditions are ready. It was said before that now is not the time to discuss the ideological differences of the past but to try to make something new. Yes, but why did ERAS fail? Why did Drasy-Eylem fail? Perhaps because, instead of discussing history and the mistakes made, we were again in a hurry to promote Left unity, where “Left unity” ultimately means the logics of popular fronts, etc. Why should we continue this vicious circle? That is why we need to take a step back and look at history again and learn, because the problem today in Cyprus and in the Left worldwide is that it suffers from historical amnesia; it does not learn from the mistakes of the past, and repeats the same mistakes even more unconsciously and therefore in a worse way. I agree with Marios that we should not forget the Soviet Union and we should discuss it. We used to have such events in the past.
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 Calling all the groups of the extra-parliamentary Left once again won’t lead anywhere, because many of them are not willing to break with AKEL and with the system. |**P**
-----
+---
+[1] 1917 is a newly formed political organization that aims to build a Marxist Left in Cyprus.
+[2] Nea Diethnistike Aristera (NEDA), founded in the 2000s; it disaffiliated itself from the International Socialist Alternative on June 24, 2021, which was a split from the Committee for a Workers’ International that was founded in 1974.
+[3] Video of the panel is available online at <https://www.facebook.com/PlatypusNicosia/videos/1193945398166562/>.
+[4] Anorthotikó Kómma Ergazómenou Laoú, founded in 1926 as the Communist Party of Cyprus, before being made illegal in 1931. Leading members of the CPC, along with others, founded AKEL in 1941.
+[5] Founded in 1941, The PEO is an umbrella organization for trade unions in Cyprus.
+[6] [Greek] Union. Enosis is the movement of Greek communities outside of Greece for the incorporation of their regions into the Greek state. We will use “Union” here. Reference to the Soviet Union will always be made explicit as “Soviet Union” or “USSR.”
+[7] Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters), operating in 1955–59.
+[8] <https://akel.org.cy/our-concept-for-socialism/?lang=en>.
+[9] The Battle of Tillyria, also known as the Battle of Kokkina or the Erenköy Resistance, was a conflict on August 6, 1964 between the Cypriot National Guard and Turkish Cypriot armed groups.
+[10] Dimokratikó Kómma, founded in 1976.
+[11] Founded in 1969 as the United Democratic Centre Union (Eniaia demokratiki enosi kentrou).
+[12] See Leszek Kołakowski, “The Concept of the Left” (1958).
+[13] V. I. Lenin, “Trade-Unionist Politics and Social-Democratic Politics,” in What is to be Done? (1902), <https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm>.
+[14] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Proletarians and Communists,” in Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm>.
+[15] Eniéa Dimokratikí Aristerá (United Democratic Left), founded in 1951 and dissolved in 1991.
+[16] Ethniko Laiko Metopo (National People’s Front), founded in 2008.
+[17] Kommounistikó Kómma Eládas, founded in 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece and given its current name in November 1924.
+[18] The Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties (Informatsionnoye byuro kommunistischeskikh i rabochikh partiy), known as Cominform, was a body of Marxist-Leninist communist parties, including that of the Soviet Union, founded by Joseph Stalin in 1947. While not intended as a replacement of the Third or Communist International (Comintern), it was seen as a kind of successor to it.
+[19] The 1931 Cyprus Revolt, or October Events — Οκτωβριανά (Oktovriana) — was a revolt against British colonial rule that took place in Cyprus — then a British crown colony — between October 21 and early November 1931. The revolt was spearheaded by Greek Cypriots who advocated the Union of the island with Greece. The defeat of the rebels led to a period of autocratic British rule known as “Palmerocracy,” that would last until the beginning of World War II.
+[20] Rosa Luxemburg, “Introduction,” in Reform or Revolution? (Paris: Foreign Language Press, 2020), 1.
+[21] A political party formed in 2014. Its name is a combination of the Greek (drasy) and Turkish (eylem) words for “action.”
+[22] “There is no alternative.”
+[23] Επιτροπή για μια Ριζοσπαστική Αριστερή Συσπείρωση (Committee for a Radical Left Rally), founded in 2011.
+[24] Εργατική Δημοκρατία.
+[25] Αριστερή Πτέρυγα.
+[26] The 1974 coup d’etat by the Greek military junta to take control of Cyprus.
+[27] The main far-Right nationalist current in Cyprus, taking its place from Grivas.
+[28] The European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
+[29] The Permanent Structured Cooperation, part of the EU’s security and defense policy in which 26 of the 27 national armed forces pursue structural integration.
 {{tag>
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 "Other Material"
-Groups:"antifa λευkoşa (Group)"
+Groups:"Platypus Nicosia (Group)"
 "Decade:Decade 2020-2029"
 "Year:2024"
 Subject:AKEL
 Areas:"Undefined Location"}}