This year marks 84 years since the founding of the Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL), Cyprus’ communist party, born from the Cypriot peoples’ anti-colonial and workers’ struggles of the late 19th and early 20th century.
This summer, the Communist Party USA’s Hello Comrade project will be sending a delegation to Cyprus to learn about AKEL’s work and exchange ideas. They will also be attending and tabling at the annual United Democratic Youth Organization’s (EDON) festival there.
For many People’s World readers, AKEL’s history—and its relevance today—may be unfamiliar. Yet its legacy offers critical lessons: a party forged in anti-fascist and anti-colonial resistance, now navigating the contradictions of electoral politics in a divided nation.
As U.S. socialists debate strategies for building working-class power, AKEL’s rich historical experience—from clandestine organizing to governing Cyprus—provides a unique study in resilience and internationalism.
For nearly a century, AKEL has been the main force of the working class and popular resistance—against British rule, fascist insurrection, and today, Turkey’s ongoing occupation of 37% of the island, or northern Cyprus, as well as NATO exploiting the country as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the Mediterranean Sea.
As the party prepares for the centennial of the CPCy’s founding in 2026, its courageous history offers lessons for the international working-class and democratic movements.
The Communist Party of Cyprus (CPCy), first established in 1926 and made illegal in 1931, paved the way for AKEL’s founding in 1941, addressing the whole population—Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, and Armenians—with a Marxist-Leninist program.
Initially, it was formed as a popular front organization that included both the then-underground CPCy and “progressive bourgeois elements,” or non-working-class forces opposed to fascism during World War II.
In the early postwar years, it played a key role in a series of class and democratic struggles that brought together Greek and Turkish Cypriot workers and popular strata. However, there were contradictions and contention between the working-class elements and other class forces within this grouping.
These tensions reached their peak during a massive miners’ strike in 1948. As a result, the “progressive bourgeois” factions within the organization withdrew.
“[The strike of] 1948 remains a bright landmark in the social struggles of the Cypriot working people,” the party says.
In an April statement commemorating the 70th anniversary of the 1955 anti-colonial uprising, AKEL paid tribute to those who fought—and died—for their freedom: “We honor the children of Cyprus who gave their lives on the battlefields, in torture, and on the scaffold,” the party declared.
Yet it also critiqued the limitations of armed struggle led by the nationalist EOKA, which, though heroic, failed to achieve its goals due to divisive tactics and Britain’s manipulation of ethnic tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
“The unity of the people, the choice of strategy based on objective conditions—these are the compass for today’s fight,” AKEL emphasized, underscoring its commitment to mass mobilization of the majority over isolated armed struggle.
The party’s resolve was tested in 1974, when a coup by Greece’s fascist junta and far-right Cypriot factions triggered Turkey’s invasion. AKEL members were among the first to resist, defending democracy in the streets.
But the coup succeeded, temporarily, until Turkey invaded the island five days later and seized 37% of Cyprus, displacing 170,000 Greek Cypriots to the south, while 50,000 Turkish Cypriots moved north. Today, 40,000 Turkish troops remain in the north, while Turkey floods the occupied north with settlers, “erasing the island’s demographic fabric,” the party argues.
AKEL has never wavered in its demand for a “bizonal, bicommunal federation” under UN parameters—a single state with equal political and human rights for all Cypriots. “The solution must guarantee the withdrawal of occupation troops, the rights of refugees, and an end to foreign guarantees,” says Stefanos Stefanou, AKEL’s General Secretary and member of the Cypriot House of Representatives.
Through the years, the party has strived to cultivate a spirited and popular anti-fascist culture rooted in workers’ trade unions, sports, and local clubs. Thanks to this initiative, the party has managed to instill in its supporters the values of coexistence of all Cypriots from each side of the divide—along with a commitment to the socialist transformation of society.
People’s World reached out to the AKEL International Department, which said the “promotion of culture, sports, and education enabled several parts of the society to get attached with the party in various ways. The work of the trade union PEO” that is affiliated with the party “has also been a huge factor for the connection of the party with the masses of the working class.”
From 2008 to 2013, Demetris Christofias of AKEL served as president of Cyprus. His time in office saw historic progress in reunification talks and the advance of pro-worker policies—blocking EU-mandated austerity and defending public healthcare and education.
But Christofias faced relentless attacks from Cypriot capitalists and imperialist powers and did not seek re-election. Subsequent Cypriot right-wing governments reimposed brutal austerity, including a 2013 “bail-in” that confiscated savings from ordinary working-class people.
Today, AKEL leads opposition to Turkey’s illegal drilling in Cyprus’ maritime “Exclusive Economic Zone” and its push for a “two-state” partition. The party also condemns NATO military bases on the island—used to launch strikes on Yemen and support Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza—demanding their removal.
Despite attempts by imperialist forces abroad to sow disunity and ethnic conflict, AKEL continues to build bridges between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, insisting that rapprochement and reconciliation is key to a just peace.
“AKEL as a working-class party had addressed to all Cypriot people from its foundation aiming to the unity of Cypriot workers, despite their community origin,” AKEL’s International Department told People’s World.
“The aim of the policy of rapprochement is to promote reconciliation, empathy, and mutual understanding among the Cypriot people, who have been traumatized through the years,” they said, by “the intercommunal violence, chauvinist atrocities, nationalist rhetoric, and ongoing occupation of the island by Turkey.
“AKEL aims to create bridges among ordinary people from both sides of the divide. The relations of the ordinary people can be a catalyst for the…reunification of Cyprus and its people.”
As AKEL approaches its 100th anniversary, it remains Cyprus’ most trusted force for the working class, for reunification, workers’ rights, and national sovereignty. From the Skarinou Convention of 1941 to today’s struggles against continued occupation and austerity, the party’s legacy is a testament to the power of organized, principled struggle of working people.
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