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Greece: strategic questions in the current period

Martin Suchanek, Gruppe Arbeitermacht, Germany

The occupation of the headquarters of the state television station ERT, and the mass solidarity that it generated, show that, in terms of militancy and preparedness to fight, the Greek working class stands at the head of the European movement. However, the rapid response to the dramatic closing down of the TV station by the Samaras government should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the Greek working class is in a very difficult situation.

Although the government was indeed thrown into crisis and DIMAR, the Democratic Left, one of the three coalition parties, resigned from the government, it nevertheless survived. Samaras has reconstructed his cabinet, making the PASOK Chairperson Foreign Minister. Thanks to the undemocratic electoral law that gives the strongest party 50 extra seats, the government maintains its parliamentary majority and DIMAR continues to vote for government policy.

The government also has the support of the IMF and EU because at the moment there is no other option that would willingly implement their conditions and austerity measures, even if the timescale has been a little stretched.

Despite the inspiring occupation of ERT and the mass solidarity and unity shown by various left parties and currents – SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) KKE (Communist Party of Greece, Stalinists) Antarsya (Anticapitalist Left Collaboration for Revolution) and the Anarchists in defence of the TV station, there is no denying that the working class remains on the defensive.

The social situation

Recent years have seen a massive restructuring of the working class and a dramatic worsening of workers’ social circumstances. Unemployment has risen dramatically and in November 2012 officially reached 27%, while amongst the youth under the age of 25 the figure is 59.4% and rising. Between 2010 and 2012, real wages shrank by an average of 20% and since the beginning of the crisis in 2007 the overall cut is almost 50%! The unemployed and pensioners are even more severely hit. According to Eurostat, in 2011, 31% of the population was living under the poverty line, the figures for 2012 are yet to be finalised.

There is no sign yet of any economic recovery in Greece. On the contrary, the recession in the EU and the turmoil in the world economy make it likely that there will be a further decline. As a result, a further round of attacks is to be expected. The closing of ERT should probably be seen as a test run; up to 100,000 officials in the public sector are to be “let go” by the end of the year.

At the same time, a collapse of the government as a result of changing Parliamentary combinations, such as a resignation from government by PASOK, or a withdrawal of support by DIMAR, looks unlikely. That is the flipside of developments in workers’ struggles. Even the ERT occupation does not alter the fact that actions over the last year have lost their dynamism.

Of course, the level of struggles remains higher than in practically anywhere else in Europe, with the possible exception of countries like Portugal and Bulgaria. On any day, anyone walking through the centre of Athens is likely to come across a demonstration. However, these activities lack coordination, they remain divided and some sections of the population are showing a certain discouragement and demoralisation.

The time when it appeared that a government committed to carrying out the policies of the Troika could quickly be forced out of office is now long gone. The hope that things might be improved quickly, certainly related to illusions in the leadership of SYRIZA, has now dwindled amongst the masses. Anger and defiant determination are certainly still there in abundance, but there is also doubt and resignation.

The government has stabilised itself, even if it is still going downhill. Its ability to enforce further austerity measures has strengthened its position. That it has had to resort to more and more authoritarian methods does not alter this fact. In the last year, the Samaras government has declared strikes illegal and threatened them with military law four times. They have successfully broken the strikes and thus forced the class to recognise a shift in the balance of power.

In passing, we note that this development has contradicted all those Lefts who thought that it was unimportant for the class struggle whether or not SYRIZA won the election, or even thought that a victory would create bigger problems because it would form a “left government” which would then discredit itself and lead to widespread disillusion. Such a position ignored the fact that, even if it was gained on the basis of questionable electoral rules and media propaganda, the victory of New Democracy under Samaras was a victory for the ruling class and the imperialist bourgeoisie and their agents in the European Central Bank and IMF. It handed the initiative to the Samaras government and he has known how to use it.

Another factor that has strengthened the position of the government is racism. In the bourgeois media, the situation is presented as if it was “only” the fascist Golden Dawn that posed a threat to migrants. In reality, state racism, stretching from the draconian border controls to the denial of rights to hundreds of thousands and deportations on a massive scale, and the daily propaganda in the bourgeois media, are no less threatening.

Finally, the role of the trade union leaders of GSEE and ADEDY must not be forgotten. Because of the extremely reactionary electoral rules in the trade unions, the leaderships of the big trade union federations and of individual unions remain in the hands of PASOK or even New Democracy. On the basis of the existing electoral procedures in Greece, it could take up to 8 years to replace them, during which time the trade unions would remain under the control of government parties. There is one positive exception, but only one, and that is the teachers’ trade union where a majority from the left parties, SYRIZA, Antarsya and KKE has emerged through new elections.

Strategic questions

It is against this background and in the context of the Congress of SYRIZA, taking place between 10th and 14th of July, that the central strategic questions of the Greek Revolution need to be redefined. At the time of the elections in 2012, the question of a “Left Government” stood in the centre of the debates of the Greek left. SYRIZA’s proposal, that, in the event of an electoral victory, the Lefts should build such a government was a decisive factor in its electoral success, just as the sectarian rejection of this proposal by the KKE and Antarsya was a decisive factor in their electoral defeat. However, since then, the situation has changed. The decisive question today is how the divided and sectoral resistance can be combined into a common political counter-attack against the government and the bosses.

The majority of workers are well aware that, ultimately, they cannot win just at the workplace or local level. Clearly, self managed plants such as Vio.me, understandable as they are as a means of self defence, cannot provide a perspective that can offer a way out of the crisis for the class as a whole.

Here, the slogan of united front of all the workers’ organisations against the austerity measures of the Troika and the government, against all the social attacks, all the closures and mass sackings, for a minimum wage and minimum pension which cover real living costs, for the removal of restrictions on the right to strike and so on, can play a central role.

Such demands must be placed on the leaders of SYRIZA, Antarsya and the KKE but also on the trade unions. That SYRIZA and Antarsya have repeatedly made the proposal for such an alliance is positive and can simplify things. Likewise, the unity which was shown around the struggle over ERT provides a positive example.

Above all, what is crucial is that such a united front must be built and taken forward from below through the creation of action committees in the factories, in the public sector, in the universities and schools as well as in the urban districts, small towns and villages.

This struggle must be combined with agitation and propaganda for an unlimited general strike against the attacks and austerity measures. No doubt many Greek workers and unemployed will be somewhat sceptical of the call for a “general strike” because in the last few years there have been almost 30 one or two day, that is limited and ultimately symbolic, “general strikes” which did not, and could not, bring the government to its knees. The decisive significance of a “real”, that is, unlimited, general strike, is that it is the only way to overcome the fragmentation of the struggles and turn the situation, which is essentially defensive at the moment, into a new offensive.

The demands and strategy of such a general strike, its tactics and its leadership, should be decided upon at a national conference of delegates elected by local and workplace action committees.

Such a general strike, like all “real” general strikes, would not only raise the question of the withdrawal of the austerity measures and the imperialist diktats, but also pose the question of power.

In this situation, revolutionaries must agitate for the formation of a workers’ government based on the organisations of the general strike; action committees and self defence organisations which, for their part, must be developed into councils and a workers’ militia. They must demand that the left parties form such a workers’ government that will reject the Memorandum and its conditions, and the austerity programme as a whole, and take the offensive against the capitalist class by massive taxation of their wealth and nationalisation of key sectors of the economy such as the banks and the biggest corporations under workers’ control and with a democratic emergency plan to provide the most urgent needs, create jobs for all and reverse the wage cuts, increased taxes and worsening conditions of recent years.

Such a government must legitimise the action committees as organs of power and disarm the reaction, developing the self defence organisations of the masses into militia, accelerate the formation of workers’ councils in the army, break the power of the officer caste and replace the army itself with a workers’ militia.

Entrism and the fight for a revolutionary party

In our opinion, the revolutionary Left in Greece today needs to be in SYRIZA to fight for such a perspective. Not that we regard SYRIZA as a revolutionary party, it is dominated by a reformist leadership around Tsipras and Synaspismos. Under pressure from the bourgeoisie it is moving to the right, toying with a reformist strategy for resolving the crisis and saving Greek capitalism. The right wing of the party is openly pressing to replace the slogan of a “Left Government” with that of a “Government of National Salvation”. There is no doubt that the Centre, around Tsipras, and the Right, want to use the Congress to consolidate their grip and to weaken the Left wing.

However, SYRIZA is a rapidly growing mass party with around 40,000 members, taking into account the relative size of the countries, this would equate to around 320,000 in Germany. The depth of the crisis and the resulting instability in the country also mean that SYRIZA is a party in which the Greek working class movement is being politically reconstituted. The fact that the Left in SYRIZA (a combination of the Left wing of Synaspismos and the R Project, a coalition of Trotskyist groups such as DEA, Kokkino and AC) picked up 25.7 per cent of the votes in the pre-congress shows that the struggle in SYRIZA is anything but hopeless.

However, what is unavoidable is that this struggle must come to a head in the next period because the different wings within SYRIZA reflect the interests of different classes.

We do not hide the fact that we have serious political differences with groups such as DEA, Kokkino and AC, particularly with regard to the content of a revolutionary action programme for Greece. That is precisely why we want to enter into a dialogue with these comrades – and not only over the strategy and tactics for Greece but for the whole of Europe.

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