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The Communist Party of Greece, better known by its acronym KKE (Greek: Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, Kommunistiko Komma Elladas), is the major communist party in Greece.
It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece or SEKE (Greek: Σοσιαλιστικό Εργατικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma Elladas) and participated in the Second International for a couple of years before becoming communist and changing name to SEKE-K (SEKE-Communist) and then KKE. With a few exceptions it was banned from 1918 to 1974.
Its logo is made of the letters KKE below a hammer and sickle. The General Secretary of the Central Committee of KKE is Aleka Papariga.
During the German occupation of Greece during World War II, the Communists together with other parts of the Greek Left formed a resistance army called the National People's Liberation Army (in Greek the Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos or ELAS), which by 1944 controlled large areas of the country. At the end of the war fighting broke out between ELAS and conservative forces backed by the British army. This led to the Hellenic Civil War which lasted until 1949 and ended with the defeat of ELAS. The KKE remained banned until 1974.
During its period of illegality the KKE split into two groups, one based mainly in exile and sympathetic to the Soviet Union (known as the KKE Exterior, this is considered as a derogatory phrase by the KKE themselves) and one based inside Greece and following a Eurocommunist line (known as the KKE Interior). When democracy was restored in 1974 the KKE was overshadowed by the new socialist party PASOK, and has since been a minor party of the left.
In 1989 it formed Coalition of the Left and Progress (Greek: Synaspismos tis Aristeras kai tis Proodou, Συνασπισμος της Αριστερας και της Προοδου). In 1991 a group split off from the Communist Party which calls itself Synaspismos. The Communist Party claims that the current Synaspismos are falsely using that name, Synaspismos claim that they continued the coalition after the withdrawal of KKE.
The Communist Party stands in elections and has members in local government, national government and the European Parliament. In the European Parliament they are part of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left group. They poll about 5% of the vote.
KKE's youth section is the Communist Youth of Greece (Greek: Κομμουνιστική Νεολαία Ελλαδας, KNE).
See also
External links - KKE page in English (http://www.kke.gr/kke_en.html)
- Greek election results (http://ekloges.ypes.gr/en/), via the Greek Ministry of Internal Affairs
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