SOCIETY [1897-1922]




"In 1908 Drakoulis gathered all pro-worker and Socialist elements and founded the League of the Working Classes of Greece (STET) and a year later the Socialist Party of Greece (ESK).[...]
*Statutes of the League of the Working Classes of Greece* Objective (article 1st). The League of the Working Classes of Greece was founded to achieve enactments securing the comfort, well being and development of the productive classes of Greece and aspiring to the overthrow of plutocracy and predominance of humanism. Acting to this direction it co-operates with the huge international movement sharing the same goal. [...] Programme (article 3rd). The League of the Working Classes of Greece is striving to implement a programme aspiring to the overthrow of plutocracy through these gradual means: 1. Recognition of the principle that every act of the State should concern first the comfort, well being and development of the producer, therefore nationalization of all lands and other means of production and transportation, all used for the benefit of the producer.
2. Recognition of the principle that only the producers -that is labour classes- should be called nation. By labour classes are designated all those earning their living with their own hands, that is their useful activity and not from income out of capitals or lands in the form of interest rate or profit, in other words all those who execute any useful work themselves and do not exploit the work of others. Plutocracy is not the authority held by the capitalist and the landowner to remove the fortune of the worker. 3. In the meantime the state has to enact pensions for overaged workers, maximum of working hours, minimum of wage, compensation of workers for body handicap and forbid children from working in excess. The State also has to provide jobs to those deprived of it by organizing public works and instituting an insurance system against the hazard of unemployment". G. Kordatos, Istoria tou ellinikou ergatikou kinimatos, Athens, Boukoumanis editions, 1972 (seventh edition), pp. 149-150.