 Health workers demonstrate, Athens May 20, 2015. (AFP) |
Articles From
 Greece |
| Against
the Eurobanker/SYRIZA Assault – Occupy the
Banks and Ports, For Workers Control of
Production and Distribution, Form Workers
Councils Greek Elections: For a Europe-Wide Workers Revolt Against Capitalist Austerity After ramming crippling new austerity measures through parliament in August, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras called a snap election. The outcome of the September 20 ballot was to return Tsipras’ SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) to office, with only slightly fewer seats in parliament than before. Having discarded its earlier anti-austerity platform for the exact opposite, rather than the euphoria of its earlier election victory, now there was only resignation. But his election gambit was successful in getting rid of leftists in his government, whose new coalition, Popular Unity (LEA), failed to get enough votes to make it into parliament, a potentially devastating blow. LEA is simply a return to an earlier version of SYRIZA, with one difference: it favors leaving the euro (“if necessary”). Yet the hard truth is that inside the EU or outside, with the euro or a new drachma, only socialist revolution will end capitalist austerity. The struggle in Greece is far from over. The Eurobankers’ program of extreme austerity will inevitably fail once again. The key is revolutionary leadership, and the task of the hour is to cohere the nucleus of an authentic Trotskyist party in Greece. Greek Elections: For a Europe-Wide Workers Revolt Against Capitalist Austerity (23 September 2015) “Radical Left” In Shock After SYRIZA Flip-Flop What Road for Greece: Perpetual Debt Peonage or Workers Revolution? Following Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras’ abject surrender to the austerity demands of the Eurobankers’ Troika, there has reportedly been a general mood of resignation in the Greek population. Among leftists in and around the governing Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) there has been mounting anger. And internationally there is disappointment and confusion among the opportunist left which not so long ago was singing hosannas for Tsipras and SYRIZA. But what’s lacking is a clear program for militant class struggle against this unmitigated disaster for Greek working people. Now leaders of the Left Platform of SYRIZA (which includes co-thinkers of the International Socialist Organization in the U.S.) are calling for a “Grexit” (Greek exit from the euro) under capitalism. Yet the SYRIZA debacle is not just due to the government’s commitment to the euro but to the fact that there will be no end to anti-worker austerity under capitalism, which a “left government” will enforce with the repressive apparatus of the bourgeoisie. What is required is to mobilize for a program of transitional demands preparing the way to Europe-wide socialist revolution, and building a Leninist-Trotskyist party to lead it. What Road for Greece: Perpetual Debt Peonage or Workers Revolution? (12 August 2015) ISO/Greek DEA: Theoretical Flim-Flam Greased Skids to Sellout Capitalist “Left Government” vs. Revolutionary Workers Government In order to prepare ostensible socialists in and around SYRIZA for participating in a “left government,” supporters of the social-democratic ISO in Greece and the U.S. have cited the call for a “workers government” by the Fourth Congress (1922) of the Communist International as justification. While they distort the Comintern's call for united-front action by the workers movement into an appeal for political alliances with reformist and bourgeois forces, there were important weaknesses in the Fourth Congress resolutions. Trotskyists insist that “workers government” must be based on bodies of working-class power in struggle against the institutions of the bourgeois parliamentary regime. Capitalist “Left Government” vs. Revolutionary Workers Government (12 August 2015) The ICL on Greece: Goodbye Trotsky, Hello Minimum Program The latest installment in the step-by-step renunciation of key programmatic positions of Trotskyism by the International Communist League is dropping Lenin and Trotsky’s call for a revolutionary workers government precisely when and where it is most urgently posed today. An agitational leaflet by the ICL's Trotskyist Group of Greece is aimed at attracting left-of-SYRIZA reformists with a program that makes no mention of revolution, the overthrow of capitalism or a revolutionary party, and whose ultra-vague governmental slogan is hardly distinguishable from those of other opportunist socialists. The ICL on Greece: Goodbye Trotsky, Hello Minimum Program (12 August 2015) Trotsky on Workers and Peasants GovernmentThe SYRIZA Debacle: “Leftists” Enforce the Bosses’ Austerity Greece: The Naked Rule of Finance Capital Workers: Sink the Bankers’ Memorandum, Occupy the Banks and Ports! Build a Trotskyist Party to Fight for International Socialist Revolution! In mid-July, the Greek parliament cast the fateful vote to accept the draconian austerity measures dictated by Europe’s central bankers. The “Agreement” by Prime Minister Tsipras and his Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) was a groveling surrender by these purported radicals who won office in January on a program to reverse the cutbacks and layoffs that have devastated Greek working people over the last five years. Worse yet, the populist left is now enforcing anti-working-class measures even more brutal than what its conservative predecessors tried and failed to carry out. The Eurobankers used SYRIZA to get what the right couldn’t deliver. This spectacle is the most dramatic illustration that imperialist democracy masks the dictatorship of finance capital. Despite the regime’s capitulation the battle is not over. Greek workers have the power to defeat the vicious European Union chiefs, but to use it they require not another SYRIZA but a leadership with the revolutionary program and determination to sweep away all the imperialist exploiters. Greece: The Naked Rule of Finance Capital (18 July 2015) Syriza Government Caves In to Eurobankers’ Assault Only Socialist Revolution Will End Capitalist “Austerity” Greek Workers: Defeat the Bankers’ Diktat, Occupy the Banks and Ports! Ever since the January 25 elections brought the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) into office in Greece, there has been a bitter struggle between the new regime and the “troika” of the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund. The Eurobankers insist that Athens comply with their program of brutal, anti-working class austerity which has devastated the Greek economy for the last five years. SYRIZA has sought to bargain for less onerous terms and for debt relief. Now this has come to a head in a July 5 referendum called by Greek premier Alexis Tsipras to say “yes” or “no” to the troika’s latest extortionate demands. A “yes” vote would mean abject surrender to the ECB-EC-IMF diktat. But a “no” vote cannot strike a blow against anti-worker austerity because the Greek government has already agreed to carry out almost all the demands of the imperialist financiers. While the bulk of the Greek left has joined in the campaign for a “no” vote, the Communist Party (KKE) has opposed both the “troika” and the government’s austerity programs. But the KKE’s opposition is purely parliamentary and nationalist. A revolutionary Marxist opposition to the bourgeois populist SYRIZA regime would call for militant workers action challenging capitalist rule and pointing to socialist revolution in Greece and throughout Europe. Greek Workers: Defeat the Bankers’ Diktat, Occupy the Banks and Ports! (4 July 2015) To Smash Capitalist Austerity, Mobilize Workers’ Power to Rip Up Eurobankers’ Diktat on Road to Socialist Revolution Greece: The SYRIZA Illusion Exploded When SYRIZA, the “Coalition of the Radical Left,” won the Greek elections of January 25 Frankfurt and London bankers warned of impending doom while leftists from Paris and Madrid to Latin America and the U.S. hailed the new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, as the messiah of struggle against austerity. Yet within hours the “radical leftist” party leader announced the formation of a governing coalition with the rightist pro-military, anti-immigrant Greek Democrats. Then, barely three weeks later, the flamboyant finance minister Varoufakis capitulated to the hated Eurobankers who had put Greece through hell for the last five years. SYRIZA had been peddling an illusion. Leftists in SYRIZA and their international supporters have acted as enablers for the next round of wage cuts, privatizations and debt gouging. Revolutionary Marxists stand for intransigent political opposition to the bourgeois Greek government. In the face of the unrelenting capitalist onslaught, there is no reformist or national solution to the immiseration of Greek working people, whether through illusory negotiations within the imperialist EU or by a Greek exit from the euro. What’s needed is to mobilize workers’ power in sharp class struggle leading to Europe-wide socialist revolution. Greece: The SYRIZA Illusion Exploded (March 2015) Bourgeois Populist “Radicals” Based on Middle-Class SectorsBeyond the June 17 Elections Battle Over Anti-Worker Austerity Comes to a Head in Greece On the eve of the June 17 Greek elections, imperialist bankers and political leaders are on pins and needles. They fear a worldwide "contagion" like that which set off the 2008 financial crisis following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers investment house. But Greek working people face a threat to their very existence, and it won't be solved at the ballot box. Following the earlier May 6 election, Greek rulers and the international markets were stunned by the dramatic increase in the vote for SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left. Greece today is seething with discontent on the cusp of a pre-revolutionary situation. June 17 is not one more parliamentary election, and defensive struggles by the workers are wholly inadequate to counter the capitalist assault. Most of the left is hailing the social-democratic SYRIZA, which calls for a bourgeois "left government." But neither the Communist Party (KKE) nor the other left coalition, ANTARSYA, present a program for revolutionary class struggle. Facing mass layoffs and drastic wage cuts, Greek workers should be waging industrial struggle leading to a real general strike and workers control of production, on a program of transitional demands pointing to Europe-wide socialist revolution. Battle Over Anti-Worker Austerity Comes to a Head in Greece (16 June 2012) Greek Revolt Against Bankers’ Diktat Upheaval in Europe Over Capitalist Austerity The Only Solution: Europe-Wide Socialist Revolution! After a series of workers struggles in 2010 in Greece, France and elsewhere, and the revolts in North Africa earlier this year, a new wave of mass struggle has broken out in Europe in response to the drive by the capitalist rulers to saddle the workers with the costs of the global economic crisis. On June 5, 100,000 gathered in Syntagma Square, followed by several days of rolling strikes in state-owned companies, a one-day general strike on June 15, and a two-day general strike – the first since the overthrow of the military junta in 1974 – on June 28-29 as parliament voted the austerity/privatization package. But the PASOK government succeeded in ramming its bill through parliament. Despite hundreds of thousands in the streets and thousands camped out in central squares, capital is winning round two of its offensive against labor. With the parliamentary “left” implementing the capitalists’ program, the “extra-parliamentary” left calls for limp trade-union tactics (more marches and symbolic “general strikes”) that are doomed to failure, while default and exit from the euro would hit workers with runaway inflation and even more massive unemployment. The only real answer to the capitalist crisis is Europe-wide socialist revolution. Upheaval in Europe Over Capitalist Austerity Workers Revolt: Government Wage Slashing, Jobs Massacre “Could Lead to Civil War” Greece on the Razor's Edge Economist Trade Unionism and Left Electoral Coalitions No Answer Build a
Leninist-Trotskyist Party to Fight
for Socialist Revolution
Greece is
where the current wave of European
workers’ struggles against a massive
capitalist assault on their livelihoods
first broke out this past January. It is
also where they have gone the farthest,
bordering on a full-scale revolt.
Protesters have repeatedly fought police
during national strikes and last May
hundreds of workers tried to occupy the
Greek parliament to prevent the
notoriously corrupt bourgeois
politicians from voting for an
“austerity” law that would destroy their
lives. Already many public employees
have had their pay slashed by 30%. Even
bourgeois economists say that such wage
slashing and mass unemployment cannot be
implemented without a dictatorship, will
only increase the debt and could provoke
civil war. While Greek workers have
shown their determination to fight back,
most of the left is mired in bourgeois
parliamentarism and coalitionism. Their
largely interchangeable platforms
consist of reformist demands to be
implemented by a “left” or “socialist”
government of the capitalist state.
Instead, Trotskyists seek to mobilize
the working class on a transitional
program to turn defensive struggles into
a proletarian counteroffensive leading
to socialist revolution. Rather than
nationalist calls to withdraw from the
euro and the European Union, which will
further impoverish Greek workers, what’s called for
is an international struggle to bring
down the EU/NATO imperialist alliance
and fight for a socialist united states
of Europe.
Greece
on the Razor's Edge (27 December 2010)From Resistance to Counteroffensive to the Struggle for Workers Power Focal Point Europe: Capitalism in Crisis, Class Struggle Erupts Over the
past year, a wave of class struggle
has swept across Europe. In country
after country, working people are
facing devastating attacks on their
livelihoods, their past gains, and
their futures. And they are fighting
back. On December 15, Greece had yet
another one-day nationwide strike –
its eighth this year. On November 25,
more than 3 million workers walked out
in the biggest strike in Portugal’s
history. All
fall, France was in turmoil as
millions of workers and students
repeatedly mobilized against the
government’s pension “reform,” with
numbers and militancy not seen in
years. In Ireland, Italy and Spain as
well there have been huge marches of
hundreds of thousands trade unionists,
students and youth. Now in Britain,
angry student protests against drastic
fee hikes could spark working-class
resistance to the government’s program
of vicious cuts. But demonstrations in
the streets, no matter how massive,
have not stopped European governments
– whether of the right or “left” –
from proceeding with their onslaught.
Nor will they in the future, for this
is not a matter of pressuring over
budget priorities, it is a concerted
capitalist assault on the working
class. To defeat it, we must go from
resistance to a struggle for power.The burning
question is how to get there. Focal
Point Europe: Capitalism in
Crisis, Class Struggle Erupts
(26
December 2010)
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