The march on November 17 marked the 49th anniversary of the bloody suppression of the Athens Polytechnic uprising by the fascist military junta in Greece in 1973.
All photos and video via the KKE
November 17 was the 49th anniversary of the bloody suppression of the Athens Polytechnic uprising by the fascist military junta in Greece in 1973. The anniversary was marked by a mass march on the US embassy in Athens organized the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and its youth and student wing the KNE.
On November 14, 1973 students at the National Technical University of Athens occupied the school and barricaded themselves inside calling for the end of the junta and for a general uprising. Thousands of people came to rally outside the university in support. On November 17 the junta violently suppressed the uprising officially leaving at least 24 dead and hundreds wounded. These included several teenagers and one child.
The junta was supported by NATO and the United States at the time.
This year's march honoured the uprising's slogan of “Bread–Education–Freedom” while also protesting against capitalism and ongoing US and NATO imperialism.
The banner of the Party Organization of Attica, which was at the head of the march, read “On the path of the unyielding struggle, with the people at the forefront. That is how our just cause is won! That is how history is written!”, setting the tone for the demonstration. “The people do not forget, they honour the militants” was the slogan shouted by the KKE and KNE members to honour the militants of the Polytechnic uprising and the struggle against the dictatorship, continuing the ideological–political struggle against the dictatorship of capital, against the system that brings the people face to face with energy poverty, the harsh reality of deteriorating living conditions, and the inhuman face of imperialist war.
“Profits for the few, poverty for the many, that is the power of the capitalists”, the demonstrators denounced. In the face of today’s barbarity, they sent a message of militant optimism that “Our future is not capitalism, it is the new world, socialism”.
The demonstrators also protested the imperialist war in Ukraine with slogans such as:
“NATO, the USA, and their bases out of Greece”, “No land, no water for the murderers of the peoples”, “NATO and Russia are redividing the world, they draw the borders with the peoples’ blood”, “NATO out of Greece, the bases must be closed down, no involvement in military interventions”, “In Greece and Turkey the enemy is the same; NATO, the governments, capitalism”
Nikos Ambatielos, Secretary General of the KNE gave a speech at the rally in which he noted that:
The imperialist conflict between NATO and Russia in Europe, on the territory of Ukraine, is in progress, with a high risk of its expansion and escalation (...) For the past nine months, the people of Ukraine and Russia have been suffering for the interests of the few, i.e. their bourgeois classes and their imperialist alliances. From the very first moment, the KKE and KNE have been at the forefront of the struggle to stop the involvement of our country in the massacre; to close down the bases of NATO and the USA; to stop the utilization of the Greek territory, ports, seas, and air that fuels and continues this carnage; to avert the transformation of Greek universities and science into a tool for the production of ‘smart’ weapons and crude NATO propaganda.
The KKE is the only party that has no involvement with capital, business groups, and imperialist unions; that struggles for the people to rise up, and unwaveringly supports the workers’–people’s struggles. (…) The people’s struggle that targets the real opponent, that is, the dictatorship of capital, can deepen those cracks even further and pave the way for a radical revolutionary overthrow!
