This translation was created for the purposes of archiving and does not originate from the original creators of the text.
This pamphlet was published by the Communist Party of Cyprus in 1931 in Limassol. It appears to have been written by Charalambos Vatiliotis (Vatis).
This version is a reprint located in the magazine Entos ton Teihon, in the Double Issue 39-40 of March 1989.
The opening speech of the Governor of the Colony, which has recently seen the light of day, finally acknowledges the existence of a crisis in Cyprus as well, as a result of “the violent economic storm” that “exploded all over the world”.
The data published in this speech testify quite well to the existence of the crisis.
Cereal production in 1930 is smaller than in 1929 and the production forecasts for 1931 are even worse. The use of chemical fertilizers has been reduced, as has the area sown. The landowners, especially the landowners, especially the chiflik owners and the monasteries have left their fields untilled and rented them for sheep herding.
The Governor acknowledges that the prices of carob, cotton, grain and other agricultural products are humiliating. For some products e.g. carob and cotton, “prices have fallen to levels unknown to this generation”.
Mining operations have been limited, and Amiantos is likely to work this year only in June-August.
Both imports and exports in 1930 have been reduced by about 25% in total and by about 50-60% for some products.
It is obvious that in such a situation, unemployment must be very widespread among the working class. Yet the Governor says nothing about unemployment and only implicitly hints that the Government is studying the issue, promising “that the Government is studying the possibility of introducing … a mutual insurance scheme to protect the worker in the event of unemployment” only “in the event of illness” and if “the country's finances permit”. This reminds us of the proverb: 'Let the donkey die, until the honey comes out'! The government thus proves that it has no intention of taking any serious measures against unemployment, which is literally plaguing all branches of the working class and has been the cause (because the workers are unorganized) of a 30-40% reduction in wages from last year to this year!
The mobilisation and the demands of the unemployed have so far not been taken into account by the foreign government. “At the deaf man's door, you can knock as long as you like”!
The condition of the poor and middle peasants is getting worse and worse, the payment of the annual interest on behalf of the Co-operative Societies is falling behind (as the Governor's speech states) and the “civil suits” have increased from 9,337 in 1929 to 11,031 in 1930. And the Governor explains that the “increase in civil litigation lies mainly in lawsuits on behalf of the lenders.” This shows that our smallholder peasants are constantly being destroyed and losing their fields.
What are the measures with which the Government is considering to help the working masses? None! It promises to make savings in the budget and to obtain a loan of 600,000 for the development of the naval base in Famagusta and for the construction of roads, which, after all, are of strategic importance. That is all. In other words, the crisis in Cyprus is being fought by turning Cyprus into a future military field and naval base in the preparations for a new war!
The rest will be corrected by “Divine Providence” and the infinite optimism of His Excellency. And indeed his optimism is inexhaustible.
One bright spot that he sees on the horizon is the increase in “oligarchic” trade, that is, the export of more products. This is the result of the exorbitant prices and presupposes the robbery of the peasant masses. The proof is that the import of foreign currencies from the sale of more products is less than last year.
Another “bright spot” is the “better trade balance”, i.e. the reduction of the trade deficit.
This, in brackets, is the bright spot that Greek economists also see in Greece.
But this reduction in the trade deficit is entirely apparent because it is due to the general reduction in trade caused by the great fall in prices. This would be of some importance if we could suppose that the cost of producing our agricultural products could be so reduced as to leave a profit to the producer even at present prices. Speaking in economistic language, a tremendous growth in the productivity of labour is needed, which can only be achieved by better means of production.
That is, our peasants must change their methods of cultivation (which is impossible without a change in our system of agricultural property), use other tools and other ways of working.
But this is impossible under the colonial and capitalist exploitation our peasants are now under. In such a situation, therefore, reducing the trade deficit is tantamount to cutting off the head of a scoundrel to make him a normal human being!
Another supposed bright spot is the (almost insignificant) increase in bank deposits. But this shows precisely the existence of a possible crisis, which does not allow the beneficial use of capital in capitalist enterprises, so capitalists seek to liquidate their capital and deposit it in banks. This means capital unearned, which is the result of the existence of a crisis. An eventual retreat of the crisis will result in the withdrawal of deposits from the banks.
His excellency's only advice for overcoming the crisis is “patience” and the “common sacrifices” of “all classes”, which in the language of reality means patience of the working classes and the poor-medium peasants in all the economic ventures that capitalism is making for them and their sacrifices for the support of the crumbling capitalist edifice.
The Governor's optimism is based on the fact that “history records no case of stagnation that has not been followed by a similar revival”. Yes! This was true as long as capitalism was going through its “youth”, that is, as long as it was following its upward course. But nowadays capitalism has entered the period of its “pre-mortal” agony, the period of imperialism which presupposes the struggle of the international monopolies among themselves for markets and colonies, the imperialist wars, the period in which one sixth of the earthly sphere has been cut off by the capitalist body and this law has ceased to be valid.
Capitalism after the world war is undergoing a general crisis, in the context of which it can only experience convulsive “revivals” that prepare it for a greater crisis, invariably as the efforts of the person at death's door to keep himself alive exhaust him further and bring him closer to death.
For this reason his excellency’s optimism about a “revival” that is to follow the period of the “storm” (to use his own terms) has no scientific basis and is intended only to cultivate among the working people false hopes for a brief improvement of the situation and thus to limit their revolutionary struggle.
But the working masses of our country cannot live with illusory hopes. We must mobilize for the success of their immediate demands and thus somehow alleviate their grave situation and fight against the imperialist and capitalist system that gives birth to the crisis and to wars.
the economic crisis and the union with Greece
If the foreign government through the Governor here cultivates “optimism” regarding the economic crisis and invites “all” classes to suffer sacrifices to overcome it by paying the heavy taxes without protest, the Cypriot bourgeoisie is facing the economic crisis in its own way. The merchants seek to buy the island's agricultural products at prices as low as possible, the moneylenders try to collect the loans and the “rightful” interest up to the last penny, the chiflik owners and the monks want their rents intact from the poor peasants or they incessantly cut the wages of their workers, the Cypriot petty industrialists literally drink the blood of their workers and in general all exploiters throw the burden of the economic crisis on the backs of the workers and try to overcome it by robbing the workers and the poor middle peasants.
These bunch of exploiters know well that in this aim they has as an ally foreign imperialism, which does not refuse to share the product from the robbery of the workers – the work of both exploiters -the local and the foreign- is the same.
But the Cypriot bourgeoisie, together with the chiflik owners and the monks, would have no objection if they could rob the Cypriot working people on their own. That is why they wish the English to leave Cyprus, and the Greek exploiters would very much like to link their fate with that of the Greek capitalist state, by uniting Cyprus with Greece. They would then be sovereign on their own and would not have to share the plunder with the hated “foreigners”.
But this desire is manifested only in romantic appeals and hysterical speeches. Many “radicals” often recall the revolutionary struggle against English imperialism of the Ionian radicals and invite Cypriot nationalists to imitate them.
But those were different times, those years are gone. At that time Greek capitalism as a whole was playing a revolutionary role in the Balkans, fighting the semi-feudal Turkish Empire. In the Greek government was Kolettis and his “national” party - an instrument of French imperialism that was an enemy of England. Hence the Greek governments of the “national” party actively supported the Ionian movement.
But now the situation is different. The Greek capitalist state is closely -very closely- tied to English capital, the Greek state is indebted to the English bankers, to Hambro and Company, the proletarian revolutionary movement in Greece is advancing with great strides, which forces the Greek capitalist state to be constantly more fascistic. How is it possible for the fascist government of Venizelos to support a real revolutionary movement in Cyprus? The Cypriot capitalist regime follows the general course of the Greek capitalist regime and when we add the reactionary role of the feudal remnants -the Church, monasteries, the chifliks- we see that the resumption of the radical struggle of the Ionian Islands in Cyprus is impossible. That is why we see the “enosis” (union with Greece) movement being reduced to nothing more than writing memorandums, pointless and useless.
In fact, if we read carefully the speech of the leader of the “unionists” Mr. Lanitis in the last session of parliament, we will see that this is not about the “Union of Cyprus [but] of Greece with Cyprus”! Our nationalists, in order to achieve the Union of Cyprus with Greece, are ready to sacrifice the last souls of Greece's national independence, opening “the ports” and “the Greek seas” to English imperialism (a pointless gift for the British Empire, since it already has all this without giving Cyprus to Greece).
The enosis movement after the crisis that followed the war would have been bankrupted for good and would have lost all meaning if the economic crisis which dealt a severe blow to the agrarian policy of English imperialism had not arrived.
The economic crisis, which in Cyprus is mainly agrarian, has developed the political activity of the working masses, has strengthened their resentment against their exploiters.
This causes the sharpening of class antagonisms and the development of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and the working peasants, both against the foreign government and against the local exploiters.
The poor peasants increasingly began to see their salvation not only in the liberation of Cyprus from British imperialism, but also in the struggle for land, for their freedom from usury debts, etc.
The chiflik owners, the Church, the moneylenders, the merchants and industrialists are trying in every way to stop the turn of the masses to the left and to prevent them from the truly revolutionary path. That is why they revive and galvanize the dead slogan of union with Greece and even present it as the panacea that will save the poor from the economic crisis.
Like the ancient slaves and the ruined artisans of the Roman era, unable to rebel against the system of work and the crumbling “ancient” regime, they sought their salvation in heaven and, embracing Christianity, waited (like today's millenarians, from day to day the “Second Coming” not of Anthias but the “real” one), so the “unionists” of Cyprus are trying to convince the working masses that they will find their salvation only in Greece. For them Greece is a real paradise. It has neither crisis nor misery. Everyone there is prospering, the global economic crisis that did not stop at the borders of either of the wealthy America or the mighty British Empire, miraculously stopped at the borders of tiny Greece, which is a happy island in the ocean of misery that is overwhelming the rest of the capitalist world. (Our unionists are not interested in explaining why the workers of Greece go on strike and are killed every day in the streets, why the peasants revolt, why the gendarmes kill peasants who do not pay their taxes, and many other facts of the Greek paradise).
In the meantime, the Cypriot workers, awaiting their salvation in the Greek paradise, ought to sit quietly, not to rebel against exploitation, not to want relief from debts and thus not to hinder the honest work of the merchants and moneylenders, of the chiflik owners and the monks, nor to protest at all when they are robbed, when their land is taken from them, when their fields are taken from them, when they are eradicated.
This is the role played by the rebirth of the enosis movement in the conditions of the economic crisis. This is clearly visible in the Parliament. The Greek MPs (except for Galatopoulos), agents of the capitalist regime, could not submit any demand of the poor in Parliament and ask the Cypriot government to implement it.
This would be contrary to the interests of the exploiters. So they took the “radical” road and called for “Enosis and only Enosis”. So on the one hand they look radical because they do not make any “retreat” against imperialism and on the other hand they avoid the obstacle of the poor waiting for them to ask for something that would provide relief for the working people. The working people must starve and surrender in misery, believing in nonsense, in Enosis!
The slogan of Enosis is therefore a counter-revolutionary slogan which prevents the working masses from following the path of struggle both against foreign imperialism and for their immediate and daily demands, which are their only salvation today, to follow the line indicated to them by the only revolutionary party – the Communist Party of Cyprus.
But apart from its pure counter-revolutionary role, the slogan of Union with Greece is used directly by the British imperialism as a weapon for the division of the Cypriot working people. Cyprus is not inhabited only by Greeks. One fifth of its inhabitants are Turks who are as Cypriot as the Greeks, even if the “Unionists” say that the Turks are “foreigners”.
It is obvious that the Turks of Cyprus in no way want union with Greece and should not want it. Since their number is not so large as to justify the slogan of Union of Cyprus with Turkey (as a counter to the slogan of the Greeks), the Turkish capitalist regime of Cyprus follows the motto: “Between two bad options, the least bad is better”. It therefore prefers to support the British administration and work for the eternal colonization of Cyprus, dragging the Turkish working masses along on this path.
This is attested to by the tactics of the English official members of Parliament on the question of the “enosis paragraph”.
Because in recent months there has been some rapprochement between Greek and Turkish MPs, especially after the arbitrary actions of the local government against Turkish education, the “official” MPs withdrew from the vote on the enosis paragraph, leaving the Greeks and the Turks facing each other. And yes, the enosis paragraph was voted for, but the local government managed to divide the Greeks and the Turks and to inflame the passions between them.
And now we can draw a general conclusion: The slogan of Enosis is counter-revolutionary, utopian and a weapon in the hands of English imperialism for the division of the Cypriot working people. It is a slogan that serves the interests of the plutocracy, which fears the awakening of the working people.
The only right way that will lead to the liberation of Cyprus from imperialist oppression is the unification of the working Greeks and Turks in the struggle for their immediate demands and for the workers' and peasants' Soviet Republic of Cyprus.
nationalism or communism
The economic crisis in Cyprus, which pushed the proletariat and the poor peasant masses into the most abject misery, became the cause of sharpening class antagonisms, of separating “the sheep from the goats” - the plutocrats from the exploited. Hitherto the Cypriot capitalist regime and the semi-feudal clergy -its ally- had kept the working masses under their influence and dragged them chained with all sorts of superstitions behind their chariot.
The “Megali Idea”, the resurrection of the “Marble Emperor”, the Agathaggelos, the war against “the heathen Muslims” for “the holy faith of Christ” – these are the very medieval slogans with which the merchants, money lenders and the semi-feudal and commercial Orthodox Church have for centuries nurtured the Greek working masses and imbued them with the poison of the most intense chauvinism, of the most ridiculous ancestral obsession and the most vile national egocentrism. The motto of Union with Greece is for Cyprus the comprehensive manifestation of all the above national and religious superstitions.
But the working masses both in Cyprus and in Greece began to free themselves from the spiritual influence of bourgeois-feudal ideology and found the road that will lead them to their economic and spiritual liberation – the road of the world proletarian revolution of Communism.
The working masses of Cyprus - Greeks and Turks - are enthusiastically embracing the line of the Communist Party of Cyprus – the only party which can lead them to their liberation both from British imperialism and from the exploitation of the local merchants, money lenders, industrialists, chiflik owners, and monks.
The open disapproval of the “Unionists” in the courtyard of Ayia Napa gave the signal for the definite separation of the two opposing camps – Nationalism and Communism. There was a definite separation between the Nationalists, the instruments of the local capitalist regime and the concealed allies of foreign imperialism, on the one hand, and the Communists, the defenders of the poor and the unrelenting enemies of imperialism and the local plutocracy, on the other.
In vain the bourgeoisie shouts that in Cyprus “there are no classes” and complains because “the Moscow agents” (Ah those agents who are “paid in roubles”, but they do not mean to be paid in pounds sterling which our good and hardworking bourgeoisie would gladly dispose of!) “create” class differences. The Holy Synod complains in vain about the infiltration of the “atheists” among its hitherto patient flock, which is beginning to show signs of insubordination. In vain the petty Philistines are surprised and cannot digest the brutal “fruit of Communism” which has begun to sprout in this hitherto “quiet” and “barren” country.
As Karl Marx wrote in 1847, “a spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism.”
This spectre is also haunting Cyprus. There is no coffee shop, no village where the question of Communism is not discussed. Neither the Holy Synod nor the various “national associations” can avoid the temptation of Communism. Are there elections? The question of Communism becomes the pivot of the whole movement!
The unionist rhetoricians, overwhelmed by the hopeless turn (for them) of the political movement, beg for the support of the foreign government, forgetting that they are at least in words “opponents” of it, and demand that “anarchy” be crushed. And the imperialist government does not turn a deaf ear to the advances of its allies for the exploitation of the working classes, applying an increasingly active policy of terror against the Communist Party.
Communism has finally forced the rusty minds of the ideologists and journalists of the bourgeoisie to move into a struggle against “anarchy”, against the “unpatriotic” and against the “atheists”! All the antiquated intellectual baggage was and is mobilized in the struggle against Communism.
The champion of “the nation and orthodoxy”, the bourgeois press and above all its most regressive and evangelical organs, “Alithia” and “Eleftheria”, lead this struggle and demand no less than the extermination of the Communists and their cutting off from the rotten tree of capitalist society.
The president of the “Volunteer Association”, I. Pegasiou, who does not work “for the sake of his stomach and intestines”, but “for the sake of high ideals”, for the sake of clientele and fundraising, does not want to be left behind and has decided to give “a teaching to a Communist” published in that old rag, “Eleftheria”.
In his teaching, he teaches some non-existent “communist” who wants to “share everything”, while Mr. Pegasiou is in favour of nationalising everything, “as was done in Russia”. Communism, of course, does not want to share out anything to anyone, but to nationalize the means of production in order to provide work for all workers. And there is no Communist who wants to “divide everything”, except some deranged person who thinks he is a Communist and with whom Mr. Pegasiou has preferred to open a discussion.
This mister scares his pupil that Communism will make him live as they live today in Russia. What blasphemy! The Cypriot worker should prefer to work 6-7 hours a day instead of 12-15, to get a daily wage that ensures a better life instead of starvation, to have social security instead of dying in the streets and so many other evils of “Soviet hell”!
Mr. Pegasiou even threatens his student that under the Soviet government “others will live in beautiful houses, because they have the means to do so” (i.e. the workers), while “others will live in shacks because they are not counted” (i.e. the former exploiters). You see, unbearable things! Mr. Pegasiou tells his student: “It is true that you live in a small house (read shack) while others live in mansions and are fed lavishly.” Mr. Pegasiou wants things to stay as they are because “there are not enough mansions for everyone”!
But the workers are modest. They accept to dwell in the existing mansions and for those who stay out, the future government will think of them! Otherwise the mansions are built by the workers, who will continue to work under the Soviet regime. They are building more!
He scares the workers that they will suffer under the Soviet regime, just as the workers of Russia, according to Mr. Pegasiou, are suffering today.
But he goes on to tell his supposed disciple that the communists abandoned “country and religion” in order to accomplish only “that their mouths and bowels may be well fed”. So, then, Mr. Pegasiou, can Communism provide bread for the “mouth and bowels” of the workers? (such a vile thing in the eyes of the pot-bellied bourgeoisie: the worker getting used to eating!)
But now you are really contradicting what you said. Your whole polemic against Communism was based on the view that Communism (and you cited Russia as an example) cannot guarantee a good life for the workers.
Now you come to scold the workers for renouncing religion and country to achieve a better life under communism. Surely “you cannot unite the two ends”, as your Russian enemies say!
I doubt whether the workers of Cyprus are so “ideological” as to accept to fill their mouths with gospel sayings and cheers for “Enosis”. In any case, Mr. Pegasiou and his bourgeois class comrades who are so “ideological” are sure not to accept such a diet as Mr. Pegasiou is seeking for the workers, making a list of the “communists” of Nicosia and suggesting in a evangelical and nationalistic way the dismissal of them from their jobs. Unfathomable true protection for the workers!
Anyway, in the end, Mr. Pegasiou, you finally convinced your worker that the Communists are “exploiters”, because they “drink beer and champagne” (the ideal of happiness for the bourgeois, if we also add a girl's deception), which the prison guards of the Central Prison where they are imprisoned give them in abundance. The worker, then, after such a lesson, has only to see to it that he meets Mr. Pegasiou again, not, I suppose, to congratulate him, but to spit on him, if he does not, of course, feel sorry for wasting his spit.
Another rusty weapon wielded against Communism is the Church. The Holy Synod is discussing the question of Communism and will probably adopt the evangelical proposals of “Alithia” and excommunicate all Communists. This would be in accord with the Gospel as well. Why should workers “provide for tomorrow” and not expect to live “like the beings of heaven” who “neither sow nor reap”? Why should they fight against the plutocracy and not turn on their other side when they are struck on one side and not expect their salvation after death? These mortal sins scandalize the venerable representatives of Christ (who neither “trade” nor gather “treasures on earth”) and therefore preach a true crusade against Communism.
The gold-mouthed preachers of the “Orthodox Church in Cyprus” have mobilized to teach the “Christian flock” that the Bolshevik wolves “threaten it” and that the “antichrist” has appeared in Cyprus with all his evil tricks.
If the Pope of Rome is organizing crusades against Communism using all means and even the radio (no matter if his predecessors burned the ancestors of Marconi, Galileo and Copernicus on the fire), why should His Beatitude the Archbishop of New Justiniana and All Cyprus stay behind? If one is heir to the Apostle Peter, the other is heir to the Apostle Barnabas. Both are descended from the black medieval times of the feudal period, from the time of serfdom and servitude.
The Holy Synod of Cyprus has already found its scapegoat, the proletarian poet Tefkros Anthias, who, with his "Second Coming", burned the fevered wounds of the Orthodox Church and ridiculed every national and religious superstition. In the “Second Coming” the age-old “truths” for which the bourgeoisie hypocritically cares, were presented like the pierrots and butterflies of carnivals, capable of stirring only giggles. That is why the poet Anthias has been excommunicated and must remain “unresolved” after death until the “true” Second Coming, unless, until his death, we will have in Cyprus a Crematorium (a furnace to burn the dead) that can neutralize with high temperature the posthumous consequences of excommunication. As for its earthly consequences, at most excommunication will give Anthias a subject for one of his bitter rhymes.
However, next to the flintlock rifles that are the monks, the Cypriot capitalist regime mobilized its most modern weapons, the “socialists”, rather the “national socialists” of the type of Phedias Kyriakides.
The latter must now present themselves in the mask of the philanderer in order to draw the workers away from Communism and organize them into law-abiding trade unions similar to the reformist and treasonous trade unions of England. This is the significance of the liberal speeches of some MPs in voting for the Trade Unions Act which also pursues a similar aim.
Yet the working masses of Cyprus are not seduced by the anti-communist propaganda. On the contrary, they are slowly liberating themselves from the political influence of the capitalist regime and moving into the proletarian camp under the banners of the Communist Party.
This has been witnessed in the Paphos election. The National Organisation and its candidate have made the struggle against Communism the main issue in their election campaign.
On the glorious occasion, as they thought, of the fact that the Communist Party was supporting Galatopoulos, the “nationalists” presented themselves as opponents of “Communism” and “atheism”. They used all their weapons and all their arguments against Communism, THEY USED THE CONDEMNATION OF ENOSIS IN LIMASSOL, convinced that the supposedly nationalist peasants of Paphos would become wild beasts, and yet the result was disheartening for them.
The official representative of Nationalism has been soundly defeated and “the protégé” (as he has been characterised) of Communism, Galatopoulos has won, despite the wavering and timidity of many of his friends who thought that the support of the Communist Party was “harmful” in their electoral struggle.
This is a great victory for the Communist Party, even if Galatopoulos “renounces Communism”, as the nationalists expect, but up to now in vain.
The Paphos voters also showed that the two camps are now definitively separated. But they also showed something else. That Nationalism is constantly going bankrupt and its place is rapidly being taken by Communism, the only hope of the oppressed masses of Cyprus. The outcome of the struggle for the conquest of the working people requires today the most active vision of the Communist Party of Cyprus and the frontal attack against Nationalism and its organisations, as well as the better organisation of the struggle of the working masses -Greeks and Turks- for their immediate demands.
This is the only correct line for the Communist Party of Cyprus. It is in vain that the nationalists are “interested” in the application in Cyprus of the political line of the Communist International, which, according to them, is “distorted by the Communists here”. According to them, the Communists must seek union with Greece “in order to obtain freedom to propagate their ideas” (they forget Venizelos' idiom!) and to stop mobilising the workers on immediate demands. In short, they want to make the Communist Party the tail of nationalism!
But the Communist International does not support any national movement but only the revolutionary ones, and so far we have seen that the enosis movement is a counter-revolutionary romantic-philological movement and a weapon in the hands of British imperialism.
Another condition is to ensure the political independence of the Communist Party and the free organisation of the workers, things which are not recognised by the nationalists here who regard Communism as a mortal sin. To avoid any misunderstanding let us quote an extract from the Programme of the Communist International:
“The Communist Parties in the colonial and semi-colonial countries must carry on a bold and consistent struggle against foreign imperialism and unfailingly conduct propaganda in favour of friendship and unity with the proletariat in the imperialist countries. They must openly advance, conduct propaganda for and carry out the slogan of agrarian revolution, rouse the broad masses of the peasantry for the overthrow of the landlords and combat the reactionary and medieval influence of the priesthood, of the missionaries and other similar elements.”
“In these countries, the principal task is to organise the workers and the peasantry independently…and to free them from the influence of the national bourgeoisie, with whom temporary agreements may be made only on the condition that they, the bourgeoisie, do not hamper the revolutionary organisation of the workers and peasants, and that they carry on a genuine struggle against imperialism.”