The KKE as its 22nd Congress begins

A look at the Communist Party of Greece and its organizational strength, trade union influence among workers and university students, electoral influence and broad political outreach.

Image via the KKE

The Communist Party of Greece's (KKE) 22nd Congress has begun and will take place from January 29-31, 2026. On its foreign-language websites, readers can find the Theses of the Central Committee for the Party’s 22nd Congress, published on 5 October, available in English, Arabic, Spanish, and Russian. An internal discussion is currently underway within the KKE’s party organizations, while the party press publishes, on a daily basis, the views of party members and supporters. In total, 271 members and friends of the KKE took part in the public pre-congress dialogue by submitting contributions.

Our comrades in other countries often ask questions and request brief and well-documented answers about the KKE today and its course. The aim of this short article is to provide such answers, supported by figures.

First of all, the KKE was founded on 17 November 1918, under the influence of the Great October Revolution, under the name Socialist Workers’ Party of Greece (SEKE). On 26 November 1924, it was renamed the Communist Party of Greece.

From 1925 to 1926, the Party experienced its first period of illegality. From 1929 to 1936, it operated under conditions of semi-legality, while from 1936 to 1944 and from 1947 to 1974 it operated in illegality. Since 1974, it has been operating under conditions of bourgeois legality.

Today, the KKE publishes the daily newspaper Rizospastis (circulated five days a week), the theoretical journal Communist Review (published once every two months), and operates the portal https://www.902.gr/ , which provides live news coverage.

The KKE has its own political youth organization, the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), whose programme is identical to that of the KKE.

Improvement of organizational strength since the previous congress

As noted in the Theses of the Central Committee for the 22nd Congress, in the section on party building:

“Nationwide, the Party forces have recorded a new, modest yet noticeable increase between the 21st and 22nd Congresses. There has been a substantial improvement in the Party’s overall working-class composition, and the goal set at the 21st Congress has been met: wage workers now constitute an absolute majority in the Party’s social composition. Today, wage workers —manual and white-collar— make up 50.80% of the Party’s membership, compared to 46.64% at the time of the 21st Congress.

This positive result does not allow for complacency. It is now particularly important to improve the composition of this 50.8% working-class contingent, placing greater emphasis on the industrial proletariat and on workers in emerging high-tech sectors. (…)

A positive development is the improvement in the age composition of the Party. Over half of the Party’s membership is now within the productive age bracket (under 50 years old), while approximately two-thirds of the Party’s members have been recruited after 1991.

Furthermore, the proportion of organized women within the Party has increased.(…) This snapshot of the Party’s forces contains hopeful elements, but it also gives rise to new and significant demands for strengthening and steeling the revolutionary and communist character of our ranks, paving the way for bolder targets in party building.”

Significant reinforcement of the KKE’s trade union influence among workers and university students

Based on the obligations of the Statutes of the KKE, communists in Greece have to work within trade unions and mass organizations.

Unlike in other European countries, the workers’ trade unions, student unions and several mass organizations in Greece are not divided along political lines. This means that members of the same workers’ union or student association may be members, friends or voters of the KKE and KNE, as well as members, friends or voters of other political parties. Trade union leaderships are usually elected by separate lists compiled by the political forces and ideological currents represented within the trade unions. These lists are not identified with their political bodies. Members of the KKE and KNE therefore also form such lists with broader forces that do not agree with the communists on everything, but share a level of agreement regarding the content and orientation of the struggle against governments and employers in an anti-capitalist and anti-monopoly direction.

The list supported by the KKE emerged as the second force in the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) with 23% of the vote at its most recent congress in 2023. It also emerged as the first force in the Confederation of Greek Civil Servants’ Trade Unions (ADEDY), with 25.5% at its most recent congress in 2025.

Class-oriented forces supported by the KKE hold a majority in 14 sectoral Federations (Construction, Food and Beverages, Pharmaceuticals, Private Employees and Retail Workers, Teachers, Hospital Doctors, etc.), and are the leading force in 21 Labour Centres (Athens, Piraeus, Patras, Larissa, etc.) and hundreds of sectoral and enterprise-based unions (Telecommunications/IT, Hospitality–Tourism, Trade, Metal Industry, etc.).

In the youth movement, working with a similar orientation, KNE has emerged as the leading force in the student movement for four consecutive years, overturning a deep-rooted negative correlation of forces that had existed for decades. In the student elections held on 14 May 2025, the list supported by KNE secured a majority in 136 student unions across the country, winning 33.64% of the vote.

The electoral influence of the KKE

The KKE participates in bourgeois elections at all levels, including elections for the national parliament, the European parliament, and municipal and regional bodies.

In the most recent parliamentary elections, held in 2023, the KKE received 401,224 votes, or 7.69%, and elected 21 members of parliament (out of a total of 300) to the national parliament. Compared to the previous parliamentary elections in 2019, this represents an increase of 2.5%, more than 100,000 additional votes, and six more MPs.

In the most recent European elections, held in 2024, it received 367,803 votes, or 9.25%, and elected two MEPs (out of Greece’s 24 seats). This marked an increase of almost 4% compared to the 2019 European elections, when the Party received 5.35% .

In the local elections, the KKE runs through the Laiki Syspeirosi (People’s Rally) list. In 2023, the list received 10% of the vote in 13 regions of the country (up from 6.86% in 2019), elected six mayors (up from one in 2019), including in Greece’s third-largest city, Patras, and secured the election of 47 regional councillors (up from 38 in 2019) and 764 municipal councillors (up from 563 in 2019).

Broad political outreach by the communists ahead of the congress

It should be noted that since October 2025, when the Party began preparations for the 22nd Congress, KKE organizations have distributed over 90,000 copies of the Theses of the Central Committee and have held dozens of meetings and events involving thousands of workers, farmers, self-employed, and young people in schools and universities, as well as in working-class neighbourhoods and other settings. In these public discussions, the Theses of the CC were examined in depth, along with the need for the people to join forces with the KKE.

In addition, the fundraising campaign in honour of the 22nd Congress of the KKE was a success. All the KKE Regional Organizations exceeded their targets in raising financial resources for the Party from the working class and popular strata, with the overall coverage of the plan reaching 151%. This achievement came despite the anti-communist hysteria promoted by notorious fascist circles, which called for the prosecution of the KKE by recycling long-standing slanders about the Party’s finances. It should be recalled that, on the basis of these slanders, the Public Prosecutor’s Office forwarded a case file to Parliament last November, requesting the lifting of the immunity of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE under the law on party finances. This action was taken because the KKE refuses to disclose the names of the thousands of workers who support it from their meagre incomes, a stance that has led to the imposition of administrative fines on the Party for many. The attempt to politically persecute the KKE, which came to light last November, failed!

Once again, tens of thousands of people provided financial support to the KKE, which plays a leading role in the organized struggle of the people against anti-popular policies, imperialist wars and organizations such as NATO and the EU, and which highlights the path toward overthrowing capitalist barbarity and the necessity and timeliness of socialism.