The 19th of August marked the 92nd anniversary since the foundation of the Communist Party of Cyprus which in 1941 was renamed as AKEL (Progressive Party of Working People).
On the occasion of the Party's foundation, the Press Office of the Central Committee of AKEL issued the following statement:
"The foundation of the Communist Party of Cyprus in Limassol on 19 August 1926 was and remains a landmark in our country’s history. From that day onwards, the working people of Cyprus acquired their own Party.
The revolutionary message conveyed throughout Cypriot society by the Communist Party of Cyprus (CPC) is summarized in the following reference of its Program: "People are no longer dividedinto Greeks and Turks to fight amongst themselves about the greatness of their homelands, but dividedinto the poor and the wealthy." This is the class and internationalist content of the ideology that has been guiding the CPC-AKEL for 92 years.
The revolutionary message conveyed throughout Cypriot society by the Communist Party of Cyprus (CPC) is summarized in the following reference of its Program: "People are no longer dividedinto Greeks and Turks to fight amongst themselves about the greatness of their homelands, but dividedinto the poor and the wealthy." This is the class and internationalist content of the ideology that has been guiding the CPC-AKEL for 92 years.
The establishment of the CPC is an extension and the result of the momentum that was unleashed all over the world by the October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917. Its messages had reached Cyprus too, finding a resonance in the most vanguardsection of the Cypriot working class, but also among educated young people of the time, with the formation of the first Communist cellsin the early 1920’s. These cells formed the basis for the establishment of the Party of the Working Class of Cyprus with Marxism-Leninism as its ideology.
It projected the need for analliance of workers and peasants to confront the exploitation of their landlords, the usurpers and the big capital of the time.
Ithighlighted the need for the forging of a united anti-colonial front of struggle and thewaging of a common struggle between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots against the British colonialists.
It embraced and organized within its ranks the vanguard Turkish Cypriot workers.
It became the first voice on our island that proposed gender equality.
Itclashed and combated chauvinism, religious obscurantism, ignorance and prejudices.
It inspired pioneeringpeople of the arts and letters and intellectuals to rally their forces in the organized struggle for a better world.
It spread and transmittedthe communist ideals and the belief in socialism as a qualitatively advanced stage in the history of humanity.
Inevitably, the CPC suffered ferocious attackswaged against it by colonialism, the domestic ruling class and the hierarchy of the Church. Persecution, imprisonment, exile, trials, assaults and vilificationrepresented the daily life for the vanguard communists of Cyprus. Nonetheless, the CPC managed to plant the seed and guarantee that the tree of the Party would be rooted firmly among our country’s working people.
The courageous activity of the members of the Communist Party of Cyprus became the yeast and basis for AKEL - the successor of the CPC - to become a mass and leading force in our country’s life and affairs, with an international recognition.
A force which wrote, with the bloody sacrifices it made, History in the struggles for the vindication of our homeland and which put its own mark in all thegains and rights of the people and workers.
A force that has withstood and endured all kinds of fierce attacks launched against itfrompowers both inside and outside Cyprus and which continues to withstandtrials and ordeals.
A Party with a strategy that serves the present and tomorrow, which addresses all working people and the people and expresses the aspirations and demands of the young people of our country.
A Party that constitutes a force for our homeland and represents the perspective of the country.
With the momentum of our glorious 92-year history, with the strength that working people give us, with faith in the future that our people deserve, we are continuing our militant path of struggle."
