Charilaos Florakis (also Harilaos Florakis; Greek: Χαρίλαος Φλωράκης; 20 July 1914 – 22 May 2005) was a leader of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). He is best known for establishing the dominance of the KKE over other left-wing elements, and for his flexibility and forming alliances with the conservatives.
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Quick Facts General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece, Preceded by ...
Charilaos Florakis |
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Florakis in 1969 |
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In office 20 December 1972 – 11 July 1989 |
Preceded by | Konstantinos Koligiannis |
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Succeeded by | Grigoris Farakos |
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In office 8 April 1989 – 18 March 1991 |
Preceded by | Position established |
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Succeeded by | Maria Damanaki |
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Born | (1914-07-20)20 July 1914 Paliozoglopi (near Karditsa), Greece |
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Died | 22 May 2005(2005-05-22) (aged 90) Athens, Greece |
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Resting place | Ai Lias Hill, Paliozoglopi |
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Political party | Communist Party of Greece |
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Other political affiliations | Synaspismos |
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Spouse |
Magda Anagnostaki
(m. 1976 ; died 1984 ) |
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Residence(s) | Chalandri, Athens |
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On his return to Greece in 1954 he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. During his life he spent 18 years in detention or jail - including being put in internal exile by the Greek colonels in the beginning of the 1967-74 military dictatorship.
First elected to parliament in 1974 after the Metapolitefsi,[2] Florakis led KKE as its general secretary from 1972 until 1989,[1] when, though still fit for the job, he announced his decision to step down from the party's top post and proposed Grigoris Farakos as his successor.
Florakis did not retire from politics, however. In the same year he retired from the leadership of the KKE, he was approved as the president of the newly founded Synaspismos or Coalition of the Left. Synaspismos was an attempt to reconcile Greece's two main communist factions, which arose in 1968 out of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia that crushed the Prague Spring. That show of brute strength led many Greek communists to break with the Moscow-oriented KKE and to join one of the factions that emerged.
Synaspismos was created partly at the instigation of Florakis, and drew members from both the KKE and the KKE-Interior Eurocommunists. It also became an umbrella for other leftist groups and disaffected supporters of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement of Andreas Papandreou, which lost the general election in 1989.
In 1991, as it became increasingly clear that Soviet communism would not last, a rift arose within the KKE between those who supported continuing efforts towards a reconciliation with the Euro-communists through Synaspismos, and orthodox communists who felt that communism was threatened internationally and favoured a return to ideological roots. Florakis sided with the latter and at the 13th KKE conference in early 1991 —even before the fall of Mikhail Gorbachev and the dissolution of the Soviet Union— the party officially withdrew all support from Synaspismos and Florakis was elected honorary president of the KKE.
Florakis received many awards during his lifetime for his multiple achievements and political activities:
- Wilsford, David, ed. Political leaders of contemporary Western Europe: a biographical dictionary (Greenwood, 1995) pp 144-150.
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