Background
Florakis was born on 20 July 1914 in the village of Paliozoglopi, located near Agrafa in the Itamos municipality, in the Karditsa Prefecture, Greece.
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Charilaos Ioannoy Ioannoy Florakis
Edit Profilepolitician Member of the Hellenic Parliament
Education
Educated, College of Telegraph, Telephone, Post Office & Public Utility. Also law school.
Career
He joined the Communist Party of Greece in 1941. An EAM-ELAS partisan during the resistance to the Nazi occupation in World World War II, Florakis was on the losing side of the Greek Civil War that followed the liberation of the country, and subsequently left the country. On his return to Greece in 1954 he was arrested.
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 1967-1974 military dictatorship.
First elected to parliament in 1974 after the Metapolitefsi, Florakis led Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece) as its general secretary from 1972 until 1989, 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 Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece), 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 Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece) and to join one of the factions that emerged.
Synaspismos was created partly at the instigation of Florakis, and drew members from both the Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece) and the Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece)-Interior Eurocommunists. Florakis sided with the latter and at the 13th Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece) 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 Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece).
Florakis died of heart failure at his home in Athens on 22 May 2005. Florakis" body lay in state at the Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece) headquarters in Perissos on May 24–25 where thousands of party members and sympathisers queued to pay their respects.
Party leader Aleka Papariga addressed a civil funeral on the evening of May 25 which was attended by the President of Greece Karolos Papoulias, prime minister Costas Karamanlis, parliament speaker Anna Benaki-Psarouda, opposition Pasok party leader George Papandreou, Left Coalition leader Alekos Alavanos, Cypriot communist party Anorthotiko Komma Ergazomenou Laou (Progressive Party of the Working People) leader and Cyprus parliament speaker Dimitris Christofias, many ministers and MPs and other dignitaries.
He was interred on May 26 at the Agios Ilias cemetery in his native village.
Achievements
Politics
lieutenant 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 Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece) 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.
Membership
Central Committee Kommunistiko Komma Elladas (Communist Party of Greece) 1949, First Secretary 1973, General Secretary 1978-1989.
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Born
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Died
March 22, 2005 (aged 90) -
Nationality
Greece -
Ethnicity
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Religion
Greek Orthodox -
Political Party
Communist Party of Greece
Education
Career
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1974
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1989
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Awards
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Recipient Friendship of People award Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, Karl Marx decoration German Democratic Republic, Dimitrov decoration Bulgaria, Elas decoration, Decoration of Military Valor Democratic Army of Greece, Order of Lenin, 1984.Recipient Friendship of People award Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, Karl Marx decoration German Democratic Republic, Dimitrov decoration Bulgaria, Elas decoration, Decoration of Military Valor Democratic Army of Greece, Order of Lenin, 1984.