Mitsos Kostopoulos

Mitsos Kostopoulos was born in 1942 in the village of Glafyres, Volos. His primary profession was a builder, like his father and all his siblings. Later, he worked as a journalist covering labor reports for the newspaper Rizospastis. He moved to Athens in the early 1960s, worked in construction, and became actively involved in the union of concrete workers and later in the union of builders in Athens. During the same period, he became a member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) through the party's then-illegal support networks. During the dictatorship, he was sentenced and imprisoned in Averof and Korydallos prisons for five years. He was elected to the Central Committee of the KKE in 1978 at the 10th Congress. In 1986, he became a member of the Political Bureau. From 1983 to 1985, he served as the General Secretary of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and held the same position from 1989 to 1991. In 1988, he served as the president of the Athens Labor Center. He was first elected as a Member of Parliament with the United Coalition of the Left in 1989, and later, when the coalition split, he was elected as an MP for the KKE until April 2000. During his tenure as an MP, he represented the KKE Parliamentary Group as its president and later as its parliamentary spokesperson. In the pre-congress dialogue of the KKE's 15th Congress, he publicly expressed his views on the cooperation of leftist forces, the European Union, and the regime of existing socialism, which led to him not being elected to the party's Central Committee. In the summer of 2000, following the publication of his book on the 35-hour workweek and other internal and later public disagreements, he was expelled from the KKE. In February 2001, along with other expelled and resigned KKE members, he founded the Movement for the Unity of Action of the Left (KEDA). He has authored books such as "On the Occasion of a Slander," which comments on the phenomenon of social fascism and populism, "A War That Has Not Yet Ended," which discusses German reparations and the victims of fascism in Greece, and "We Can," which analyzes the Marxist perspective on reducing actual working hours and advocates for the need for united action by the Left. He has also written numerous articles, especially on the labor union movement and the Left. He is married to Mary Evangelopoulou, and they have two children.