The head of the Central Committee of the KKE Dimitris Koutsoubas, yesterday afternoon he attended and spoke at the launch of the book “My life, I confess, I lived it. Memoirs Pablo Neruda”.

The event was opened by Kostas Dardanos from Gutenberg publications. The performer Maria Farandouri and Giorgos Kentrotis, translator of the work, also spoke at the book presentation. Excerpts were read by Nikitas Tsakiroglou, while the discussion was moderated by Semina Digeni, KKE MP.

“Poet, warrior, revolutionary, communist. Chilean, Latin American, American, Global. This is Pablo Neruda, the poet, the man who truly lived his life, as he narrates it day by day, year by year, in the excellent book that we present with the scientifically conscientious translation and editing of Giorgos Kentrotis” D. Koutsoubas mentioned at the beginning of his speech and among other things, he added:

“Neruda was a communist with a dialectical understanding of the universe. The matter of his poetry is dialectical reflection, following the laws of life itself. At the same time, it meets the strictest demands of artistic creation and promotes the essence of Art: To humanize man.

D. Koutsoubas said that P. Neruda’s communist perception began to take shape in Spain during the Civil War when he served as consul of Chile, through his experiences of the anti-fascist struggle of the Spanish people and the international brigades, stressing that “for the These decisions P. Neruda never regretted”.

“In his eventful life he traveled much, loved much, fought much, was rewarded much.

Of the awards he collected, the most prominent being the Stalin Prize and much later the Nobel Prize, he considered that the greatest was his recognition by the everyday world, by the people, by the workers, because he touched the depths of their souls,” he pointed out.

“For this deep love and trust that the Chilean people showed him at every opportunity, his ability to captivate them, to organize their emotions and finally to guide them, but he was also greatly hated by the enemies of the people, such as the bourgeoisie , the Chilean companies and the US machinery, who overthrew the “Popular Unity” government in Chile in 1973 with the fascist coup d’états.

A few days after the assassination of Salvador Allende, Neruda also died. The official version was that the poet’s death was caused by prostate cancer. However, this version has been rejected by international expert researchers and only recently was the file on the circumstances of his death reopened.

It is clear that the ruling class of Chile, just like the Greek bourgeoisie in the 40s – 50s, just like every bourgeoisie in times of crisis, the rise of the movement, the possibility of creating a revolutionary situation, the rise of the rebellion of the working people’s forces, is afraid of the poets enlisted in the social revolution, the same she fears her political opponents” he added.

He noted, among other things, “that the struggles of the working class, the communists, the beloved Chile and Latin America, were raised in his poetry”, is what makes this poetry universal, current and above all necessary.

“Neruda never renounced socialist construction in the 20th century. He always defended the titanic work of the working class and the peoples of the USSR and other socialist countries. His most important legacy was his constant interest in the organization of the working class, the popular masses, their active participation in the cause of their social liberation” he underlined.

Referring to Neruda’s political views expressed in his memoirs, he said that they “echo, of course, the then strategy of the International Communist Movement and the Chilean Communist Party of which he was a member” and added:

“For the socialist construction in the 20th century, the positives but also the big mistakes and omissions, as well as for the policy of the Communist Party of Chile at that time, on the basis of the wrong strategy of the International Communist Movement at the time, the KKE has carried out modern revisions, contained in the volumes of the Essay on its History, with the aim of better equipping the working class, the people, the youth and making their next victory, with their conscious will, final and irreversible”.

“On this road we walk, battle after battle, year after year, hour after hour. On this path of struggle and in all aspects: of the labor-popular movement, politics, ideology, philosophy, aesthetics, honest people, fighters, people of letters and the arts are coming together, with the proposal of the KKE. as well as the university student, writer and winner of the State Prize for Translation of a Work of Foreign Literature, translator of this book, George Kentrotis, who was a candidate for MEP with the KKE on June 9” said D. Koutsoubas, thanking G. Kentrotis for overall his great translation contribution to Greek letters.

“On August 13 and 16, 1975, the Promethean voice of Manos Katrakis announced to the packed Karaiskaki Stadium that Pablo Neruda and Salvador Allende were planning to perform at the Santiago Stadium in Chile and dedicate the concert to the liberation of Greece from the junta “Kando General”, masterfully set to music by Mikis Theodorakis.

They didn’t make it. The concert was given in Greece with the thought of the Greek people focused on the struggle of the Chilean people against the Pinochet junta.

Our beloved, Maria Farandouri, thank you once again.

When your voice was raised to sing “The Liberators”, along with “Amerikani Amerika” performed by Petros Pandis, as well as other passages set to music from the “Canto General”, accompanied by the National Choir of France, under the Romanian address of Miki, for a while, the whole world was enlightened” said D. Koutsoubas, concluding his speech.