“ROADS OF PEACE”: 60 years of contribution to the struggle against exploitation, poverty, war, human displacement

The Greek Committee for International Détente and Peace (EEDYE) honors this year the completion of 60 years since the first release of its magazine “ROADS OF PEACE” on May 9, 1958. From then until today, “ROADS OF PEACE” are an important “tool” in the development of the anti-war and anti-imperialist struggle. The 60th anniversary of

The Greek Committee for International Détente and Peace (EEDYE) honors this year the completion of 60 years since the first release of its magazine “ROADS OF PEACE” on May 9, 1958. From then until today, “ROADS OF PEACE” are an important “tool” in the development of the anti-war and anti-imperialist struggle.

The 60th anniversary of our Peace Magazine coincides with the Great Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples, the crushing of the fascist powers, with countless sacrifices of the peoples, with the Soviet Union and its people at the forefront, giving 20 million victims.

The strengthening of the anti-war anti-imperialist movement, which as an integral part of the workers-popular movement having since then its own presence in the struggles of our people, brought to maturity the creation of the EEDYE’s magazine. “ROADS OF PEACE” were released on May 9, 1958, in difficult times, in the aftermath of the guns that executed Nikiforidis and his comrades in the years of prison and exile for thousands of fighters during the cold-war hysteria of imperialism, with Greece joining NATO and the military bases being spread across the country.

Thousands of working class intellectuals and workers, such as Ritsos, Varnalis and many others, thousands of young people, have rallied through the lines of EEDYE in the manifestations and the Peace Marches, from the 1st forbidden Marathon march of Grigoris Lambrakis and his companions, in 1963, as the newer era. “ROADS OF PEACE” accompanied fighters in a period when even the public reading of this magazine was not an easy task.

The release of the “ROADS OF PEACE” was interrupted in 1967, due to the military dictatorship that disbanded EEDYE, as well as other mass organizations that were at the side of our people in the previous period.

In the post-dictatorship period, EEDYE, with its reestablishment – on May 16, 1975 – is undergoing a new phase of rebuilding its forces and works again with its Peace Committees. It approaches workers, broad popular strata embracing the goals of the fight of the anti-war-anti-imperialist movement. A new development cycle opens. In April 1977, the magazine “ROADS OF PEACE” is being released again and its release gradually increases.

In the covers of the magazine constantly figure actions, slogans against imperialist interventions and wars, against the presence of foreign militarybases in Greece and nuclear weapons, against Greece’s participation in NATO and the EU, against the strategic choices of the capital and its political forces that serve its interests. A stable element of the “ROADS OF PEACE” is the internationalist solidarity with the struggling peoples, refugees and immigrants, the overthrow of all those who have been applauding imperialism and imperialist associations.

Despite the painful, for the peoples, upheavals of 1989 -’91, EEDYE stood upright at the forefront of the anti-imperialist – anti-war struggle. She steadily marked her opposition and highlighted that the ENEMY IS ONE, IMPERIALISM. EEDYE was not fooled by the new strategy, the update, the new dogma of NATO. In the important tasks undertaken by EEDYE at the World Peace Council (WPC), the “Roads of Peace” constituted the voice, the pillar of the anti-imperialist anti-war movement. In contrast to other “peace movements” and their prints, which attempted to turn the people’s struggle into painless channels, EEDYE and its magazine, “ROADS OF PEACE” made strong resistance, held upright forces against the attempt to subdue people to imperialism.

In their many years, the “ROADS OF PEACE” marched along with the workers’-popular movement. Its pages captured the conditions that each time prevailed, the operation and action of EEDYE, of WPC, and the Peace Committees nationwide. It is a valuable source of knowledge, both for the anti-imperialist struggle in Greece and internationally, offering experience for the needs of the struggle today, when the horizon is being shaded by the heavy clouds of sharp contradictions-rivalries and imperialist wars. Through the pages of the magazine, is setting down the decisive and consistent collision of the EEDYE against the anti-people policy of the ND and PASOK governments that have incorporated our country into NATO and the EU, have preserved and strengthened Euro-Atlantic bases, and are also responsible for the involvement of Greece in imperialist wars.

Under today’s conditions, with SYRIZA-ANEL’s co-government to escalate its unpopular policy and give its turn to the co-operation of Greece with US-NATO-EU, the “Roads of Peace” with articles, analyses, etc. underlined and highlight the inextricable link between the policy that crashes the working class and at the same time under the pretext of “geostrategic upgrading”, turns Greece into a hub of energy and transport in the interest of monopolies. The magazine is steadily being improved, spreading to the people through the systematic opening of EEDYE Committees.

The “ROADS OF PEACE” counteract the complacency plan and the “multicolored” calls for “national unity”, in other words the submission of the people to the objectives of capital inside and outside the country. They also contribute to EEDYE’s effort to highlight the realism of resistance, the struggle to close the Bases and military headquarters, the disengagement of Greece from NATO and the European Union.

EEDYE celebrates this 60th anniversary of “ROADS OF PEACE” magazine with a series of activities: Campaign to increase the release, subscription of new subscribers, thematic meetings – Peace Committees discussions throughout this year. Through these interrelated activities, we strive to achieve the following goals:

  • To make the “Roads of Peace” as broadly known as possible, with particular emphasis on youth, the history of the magazine and its contribution to the struggles of the anti-imperialist-anti-war movement
  • To highlight, among other things, its cultural character with the cooperation of important journalists, artists and intellectuals, as well as the amateur creativity of the fighters who participated in and participate in movement and its action.
  • To highlight key aspects of the conflict both in Greece and the character, direction and action of the movement
  • To intensify the use of the magazine in the whole operation and action of the Peace Committees nationwide, i.e. to read, to be discussed, to be an organic element in the anti-imperialist anti-war movement, the peak in the conflict, the peak in the rallying of the fighting forces in the fight against the Greek involvement in imperialist designs and wars.

We honor the anniversary of the Great Victory of the Peoples. We honor the 60th anniversary of the “ROADS OF PEACE” magazine, holding even higher the flag of the anti-imperialist struggle against capital, the involvement of Greece in the imperialist plans and its transformation into a vast base of wars against the peoples.

We shall continue and strengthen our struggles.

 

9/5/2018

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