The prospect of a Syriza victory in Sunday’s Greek election is big news, and the international left has taken notice. The attention is welcomed, but Alexis Tsipras’ electoral prowess has obscured what the real political landscape in the country is like.

After all, Syriza is not the only left-wing party in Greece, and by some measures it’s not even the largest. In organizational terms, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) is bigger. Ignoring it, as most of the Left is content to do, means ignoring a force with important roots in the trade union movement and the longest history of all surviving Greek parties.

Communist Party representatives hold ten out of the forty-five seats on the board of Greece’s labor confederation, and in the last student union elections in 2014, its lists received 18.5 percent of the vote. Those affiliated with Syriza got only 6.5 percent.