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) by Avram Benaroya , a Greek Israelite teacher, 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 three-fifths of the country. At the end of the war fighting broke out between ELAS and Greek government backed by the British army. This led to the Hellenic Civil War which lasted until 1949 and ended with the defeat of ELAS guerillas. 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). After the restoration of Democracy in 1974, the KKE appeared in the first elections together with the KKE Interior and the EDA under the name United Left (Greek: Enomeni Aristera, Ενωμένη Αριστερά), receiving 9.36% of the vote. This first form could be hardly considered a coalition though, and from 1977 to 1989, the KKE appeared by itself in all elections, receiving usually around 10% of the vote.

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, it withdrew itself from the coalition; a part of its members, however, split from the party and remained in 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.

In all elections that took place after 1993, the KKE received a 4.54% to 5.9% of the vote, thus remaining the third party inside the Greek Parliament.

KKE's youth section is the Communist Youth of Greece (Greek: Κομμουνιστική Νεολαία Ελλαδας, KNE).

See also

• Politics of Greece
• List of political parties in Greece
• List of Communist Parties

External links

• KKE page in English
• Greek election results, via the Greek Ministry of Internal Affairs