Mourners gathered at the courtyard of the Panhellenic Federation of Resistance Fighters (SFEA), behind Freedom Park in Athens, on Tuesday for the political funeral of Spyros Halvatzis, a former secretary of the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE) and a leading figure of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) during the Metapolitefsi, the country's transition to democracy after the fall of the military junta in 1974.
Halvatzis, who also served as a KKE member of parliament, died on Saturday, September 12, at the age of 79, following a long battle with serious health problems. Relatives, friends, party comrades and political figures attended the ceremony to pay their final respects.
Tributes from party comrades
Speaking to the Orange Press Agency, Nikos Triantafyllou, a member of the SFEA board of directors, recalled his shared history with Halvatzis. Triantafyllou said he had been a comrade and friend of Halvatzis since the Metapolitefsi, and that the two had worked together in KNE, in the party, in local government and in the Association of Resistance Fighters.
Triantafyllou said Halvatzis was a figure of both the anti-dictatorship movement and the communist movement, and that he had stood out for his modesty, his militancy and his insistence that socialism remained relevant and achievable, a message he said Halvatzis carried through his years in both KNE and the party. He said they were bidding farewell to an unbending fighter of the communist movement, an uncompromising figure of the class struggle and a modest fighter of the people.
A leading role in the resistance association
Vassilis Douros, another close collaborator, focused on their working relationship and on Halvatzis's leadership of the Association of Imprisoned and Exiled Resistance Fighters. Douros said he had known Halvatzis very well and that the two had worked together for many years under the same ideology and the same goals for the welfare of the Greek people, for democracy and for socialism and communism.
Douros said that in recent years Halvatzis had served as president of the Association of Imprisoned and Exiled Resistance Fighters of the 1967 period, a reference to the group representing those persecuted under the 1967 to 1974 military dictatorship in Greece. He described Halvatzis as the best that his generation, and the progressive and communist movement, had to offer, saying he represented those values and deserved to be remembered, emulated and honored by continuing the struggle.
