ATHENS GRAFFITI: BOSSES ARE KILLERS OF THE PEOPLE
Following the vote by parliament to accept the brutal austerity package, Greece must still clear four further hurdles before it receives its €130bn bailout package.
1) The eurogroup of finance ministers, which meets on Wednesday night, must agree that Greece has now met the terms of the package
2) The leaders of its political parties must pledge in writing that they will implement it.
3) The German Bundestag must vote to approve the package, probably on February 27th.
4) The long-running negotiations with its creditors over debt restructuring (the Private Sector Involvement) must be concluded.
These are tantamount to requiring that Greece surrenders its national sovereignty, and the conditions of Greece’s bailout effectively make Greece into a colony of the EU.
Nor is the bailout package likely to work, as there is no credible plan for Greece’s economy to grow itself out of its current crisis.
Let me start this thread off as the resident CWI clone and post a statement by four sections of the CWI in Europe.
International struggle can end dictatorship of the markets. Joint declaration by CWI sections in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5573
And meanwhile in the real world
http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2012/2012-02-13-info
#3 Good for the KKE deputies, but the Party need to get out of their stalinist sectarian comfort zone (almost guaranteed 20 odd %) and link up with wider forces, including the left of PASOK and with SYRIZA. The latter need to reject adveturism.
I know I’m breaking my usual rule about other counties but I know Greece a bit better than other places.
And if I were to choose I’d probably vote KKE who I have a lot of time for in spite of what I’ve said above.
#4 Yes it seems a shame that the KKE uses supposed adventurism as an excuse for its sectarianism, while some of the anarchists do the reverse.
Talking of graffiti, let’s not forget:
The Syrian uprising erupted after school children sprayed anti-regime Graffiti on a wall in the town of Daraa and were tortured for it.
The statistics speak for themselves. Before the current crisis one fifth of Greeks lived in poverty now it is one third. People in the big cities of Thessalonkii, Athens and Volos are forced to find food in soup kitchens and dumps. Farmers are sending what surplus they may have to the cities. Children are sitting in unheated classrooms because of 55% budget cuts and a new tax on heating oil. This year has been by co-incidence a foul winter. Only 3.9 million people out of 11 are currently working. Unemployment is 21% and rising and youth unemployment is now 48%. Inevitably because of the hike in VAT from 13 to 23% and the new property tax, tax receipts are down 7%. the latest measures call for a 22% cut in the minimum wage and a 32% cut in pay for the under 25. The minimum wage will end up being 430 euro a month. We’ve heard the phrase bombing someone back to the middle ages well this is an alternative way of doing it. This plan is not working and was never going to.
However it would seem the German government and their allies simply don’t care about the suffering they are imposing. Their racist view about the profligate Greeks ignores the reality. Ersi Kousougli a worker from Athens is quoted in today’s Guardian;” If they apply these measures the whole nation will be bankrupt soon. Its better to start from zero all over again. Doing it this way going along with these conditions just robs us of our dreams and sends our children abroad. What makes me really mad is that the Germans think we are lazy that we never work when most Greeks hold two jobs and are not to blame for this mess.”
If ordinary Greeks are not to blame for this mess then who is? Well look no further than the political class who seek to impose the cuts to save their own skins, or the rich Greeks most of whom own property abroad and have spent generations paying no taxes at all (interestingly both Panpandreou (Labour) and Samaras (Conservative) were educated and brought up in the US). Or even the professional classes such as doctors who whilst raking it in in the good years paid tax on only 10,000 euro. Or maybe the fault lies with the Euro-bureaucrats? Both Germany and France broke the stability and growth pact in the early years of the currency and were allowed to get away with it. They then have the temerity to suggest that maybe Greece shouldn’t have been allowed in. Both Germany and France continue to resist fiscal transfers to less productive zones of the eurozone. Despite all the talk about dire financial problems were Greece to leave the euro it is quite clear that some in the north believe it won’t be that bad and a re preparing to press the eject button.
The situation in Greece is now polarising. LAOS which has refused to vote for the austerity package is pretty right-wing and probably includes fascists. “Golden Dawn” (sorry can’t pronounce the Greek) which is the real fascist party is experiencing an increase in its vote in polls – only 3% but rising and now enough to get MPs in the April elections. The left is also getting stronger especially as has been mentioned the KKE.
There are problems on the left however. The KKE whose reputation stems from its roll in the 1940s is hopelessly sectarian. It always has separate demonstrations in Athens for example. It is also hopelessly obsessed with getting deputies in parliament which at a time when parliament has no solutions to the crisis is perverse. The KKE is also fond of spouting Stalinist variant nationalist propaganda. A brief trawl through Nick Wrights KKE link shows that it is offering no solutions beyond vague propaganda. In a way I have more sympathy for the anarchists because at least they are prepared to fight on the streets for what they believe. Of course it is difficult to decide what policies they have also.
I think the situation in Greece now depends on the course of action taken by the working class organised or otherwise. It is clearly within their remit to call an all out strike to eject the government. Syntagma square could be occupied yes but so could Parliament and all the important buildings of the state. Workers could seek to organise their own type of government. Yes yes I know it is probably unpopular for me to say this on this site but what other solution is left open at the moment to ordinary Greeks? I think it goes without saying this means an exit from the euro, the nationalisation of all banks without compensation and strict currency controls. Given the number of rich Greeks who have re-homed to London in the last year an exhaustive trawl of their financial affairs would be in order.
FYI
http://www.europeagainstausterity.org/?p=622
“stalinist sectarian comfort zone”
Goodness; that sounds like a late 1980s experimental noise band.
I don’t think that’s an unpopular thing to say.
It’s unpopular when people say it devoid of reality – such as the CWI telling the Syrians that they need to do this and that, despite the concrete reality making it almost impossible.
In Greece, there is a real chance that working class activity – as you say, organised or unorganised – could create new situations and give birth to some serious action. Put it this way: When you read the nonsense put out about how the Syrian working class must organise local neighbourhood committees with the right to bear arms and all that, you know that it’s utterly devoid of any real knowledge of what’s happening on the ground.
But in Greece? It’s not so far-fetched to imagine that the Greek working class might make some pretty bold leaps in the coming days and weeks.
In other words, for the first time in ages, the sentiment you’ve expressed is actually perfectly in tune with the concrete possibilities.
Yes, agree. It was evident from the size of the protests in Greece over the last couple of years that Greek workers mean business. Hopefully they’ll give a boost to the anti-austerity movement Europe-wide.
#7
would be a great alternative strap line for the blog
stalinist sectarian comfort zone”
That is where I take my holidays.
(i.e. some very nice bits of Italy)
Were Lenny Henry more left wing maybe Stalinist sectarian comfort zone is what he gets when he stops in a travel lodge or similar?
“sectarian”?
So tens of thousands of solid, disciplined men and women marching in the streets of every town in Greece representing a powerful uncompromised trade union federation-led by a party 100 per cent committed to the fight to save the Greek people IS…
… SECTARIAN!
SO what do you call a handful of armchair commentators in Britain, putting their own narrow interests above those of the movement as a whole in attacking the above mentioned force-instead of the Greek ruling class, EU or IMF?
#5 This is a truly idiotic, sectarian and woerfully uninformed posting from Joh Grimshaw.
The KKE’s repuation is certainly rooted in its 1940s heroic activity fighting the fascist occupation, domestic reaction and the post-war British army expedition. Not to mention decades of clandestine activity since the war. But its present rise in poularity is precisely because it offers no easy solutions within the framework of capitalist production relations and the EU straitjacket and because its militant trade union front PAME ha splayed an exemplary role in independently mobilising militant workers and incidentally putting pressure on the government affiliated union centres to go beyond words.
The KKE and PAME do not march seperately out of sectarian impulse but precisely to limit the ability of the state forces (and their balclavaed and helmeted outriders in the heavily infiltrated ultra left fringe) to stage provocations.
They are the only force in the Greek working class movement that can physically mobilise on a national scale and because they are very deeply rooted in the core working class have the practical apparatus to protect their mass mobilisations. That is why increasing numbers are joining the PAME contingents.
The right-wing LAOS incidentally failed to vote against last night and skulked in the corridors rendering as empty their demagogic slogans.
#5 ‘A brief trawl through Nick Wrights KKE link shows that it is offering no solutions beyond vague propaganda.’
In the nationwide strikes and demonstration the KKE called for unilateral cancellation of the debt and disengagement from the European Union!’ Hardly vague.
14 “They are the only force in the Greek working class movement that can physically mobilise on a national scale…”
No, they are not the ‘only’ force. The trade unions have shown (despite the sell out leaders) they can out-mobilise the KKE. The aganaktismenoi/square movement last summer out-mobilised the KKE.
Yesterday, all over Greece, though the KKE had impressive numbers, they were still in the minority. For example here in Thessaloniki, the KKE/PAME march had around 10,000, the trade union one had 20,000 (according to the police) and up to 50,000 according to the local radio station.
“The KKE whose reputation stems from its roll (sic) in the 1940s is hopelessly sectarian. ”
I would think that its reputation largely is a result of its being one of the very few European communist parties that still gets a large popular vote and is communist in more than name.
anticapitalista presents the mobilisation of the public sector and private sector centres as distinct from PAME however PAME functions as an independent organising centre and political leadership but itself is made upon national unions, local trades councils, sectorial and enterprise based union organisations that overlap with the ‘official’ unions.
The point is that its political pressure has compelled the PASOK affiliated union leaders to go beyond words.
http://www.pamehellas.gr/content_fullstory.php?pg=1&lang=2
#17 “The point is that its political pressure has compelled the PASOK affiliated union leaders to go beyond words.”
To an extent I agree with you. However, it is not just political pressure from the KKE, but from all sections of the Left and from ex-PASOK members/supporters as well. The complete disintegration of PASOK inside the unions has seen great advances for the Left, including the ‘ultra-left’ that Nick scorns. PASOK has gone from a party that 3 years ago won the election getting c. 40% of the vote, to one getting 8% according to the latest opinion polls.
Oh, and you are wrong to say that the KKE marches separately to protect itself from ‘infiltrators’. This policy of separate marches is relatively new to KKE (they chose this path in 1999 with the formation of PAME, with huge disagreements within the party at that time). Previously they had always marched with the other demonstrators, as a block with its own ‘stewards’
It’s unpopular when people say it devoid of reality – such as the CWI telling the Syrians that they need to do this and that, despite the concrete reality making it almost impossible.”
What are people on this thread doing but telling the Greek working class this and that and how to organise their workers action. And look at the thread on Syria, what are people doing but telling the Syrian people this and that, like implicitly accept capitalist/imperialist help against the Assad regime; rather than the workers and poor of Syria use their own power to defend and turn the situation around; and what is the reality on the ground in Syria, but working people taking action against the Assad regime, yes at great cost, and fighting against the Regime. That is why their defence needs to be coordinated by them for them through democratic organisations. It is quite clear you do not see the concrete possibilities in Syria where the CWI does.
On the question of Greece the CWI statement in post 1 gives a programme to advance the struggle further, of course it will be said that the CWI do not know what is happening on the ground.
•End the dictatorship of the 1%! For real democracy now! Working people and the unemployed should decide, not the markets!
•No to the dead end of austerity! For massive investment in jobs, housing, education and society instead of cuts! End the nightmare of youth unemployment!
•For a way out based on international struggle! For co-ordinated general strikes! Towards a 24-hour all-European General strike!
•For democratic and fighting trade unions! Build struggles from below through assemblies and committees of action! Build genuine mass left political instruments of the working class and youth!
•Reject the blackmail of the Troika and markets! Only mass struggle can stop the straitjacket of austerity! No to the anti-democratic “technocrat” governments! Referenda to stop the EU’s new austerity deal!
•For a workers’ Europe! Oppose the capitalist EU! Fight for an alternative Socialist con-Federation of free and independent states, in Europe!
Maybe one should read the Greek CWI organisation to see what is concretely taking place:
It’s unpopular when people say it devoid of reality – such as the CWI telling the Syrians that they need to do this and that, despite the concrete reality making it almost impossible.”
What are people on this thread doing but telling the Greek working class this and that and how to organise their workers action. And look at the thread on Syria, what are people doing but telling the Syrian people this and that, like implicitly accept capitalist/imperialist help against the Assad regime; rather than the workers and poor of Syria use their own power to defend and turn the situation around; and what is the reality on the ground in Syria, but working people taking action against the Assad regime, yes at great cost, and fighting against the Regime. That is why their defence needs to be coordinated by them for them through democratic organisations. It is quite clear you do not see the concrete possibilities in Syria where the CWI does.
On the question of Greece the CWI statement in post 1 gives a programme to advance the struggle further of course it will be said that the CWI do not know what is happening on the ground.
•End the dictatorship of the 1%! For real democracy now! Working people and the unemployed should decide, not the markets!
•No to the dead end of austerity! For massive investment in jobs, housing, education and society instead of cuts! End the nightmare of youth unemployment!
•For a way out based on international struggle! For co-ordinated general strikes! Towards a 24-hour all-European General strike!
•For democratic and fighting trade unions! Build struggles from below through assemblies and committees of action! Build genuine mass left political instruments of the working class and youth!
•Reject the blackmail of the Troika and markets! Only mass struggle can stop the straitjacket of austerity! No to the anti-democratic “technocrat” governments! Referenda to stop the EU’s new austerity deal!
•For a workers’ Europe! Oppose the capitalist EU! Fight for an alternative Socialist con-Federation of free and independent states, in Europe!
Maybe one should read the Greek CWI organisation to see what is concretely taking place:
It’s unpopular when people say it devoid of reality – such as the CWI telling the Syrians that they need to do this and that, despite the concrete reality making it almost impossible.”
What are people on this thread doing but telling the Greek working class this and that and how to organise their workers action. And look at the thread on Syria, what are people doing but telling the Syrian people this and that, like implicitly accept capitalist/imperialist help against the Assad regime; rather than the workers and poor of Syria use their own power to defend and turn the situation around; and what is the reality on the ground in Syria, but working people taking action against the Assad regime, yes at great cost, and fighting against the Regime. That is why their defence needs to be coordinated by them for them through democratic organisations. It is quite clear you do not see the concrete possibilities in Syria where the CWI does.
On the question of Greece the CWI statement in post 1 gives a programme to advance the struggle further of course it will be said that the CWI do not know what is happening on the ground.
•End the dictatorship of the 1%! For real democracy now! Working people and the unemployed should decide, not the markets!
•No to the dead end of austerity! For massive investment in jobs, housing, education and society instead of cuts! End the nightmare of youth unemployment!
•For a way out based on international struggle! For co-ordinated general strikes! Towards a 24-hour all-European General strike!
•For democratic and fighting trade unions! Build struggles from below through assemblies and committees of action! Build genuine mass left political instruments of the working class and youth!
•Reject the blackmail of the Troika and markets! Only mass struggle can stop the straitjacket of austerity! No to the anti-democratic “technocrat” governments! Referenda to stop the EU’s new austerity deal!
•For a workers’ Europe! Oppose the capitalist EU! Fight for an alternative Socialist con-Federation of free and independent states, in Europe!
Maybe one should read the Greek CWI organisation to see what is concretely taking place:
http://www.xekinima.org/
oh, btw, the slogan written on the column is ‘taking the piss’ out of the KKE. The word Bosses replaces Americans.
#19 The comments on this thread are about actual existing working-class and left movements and formations that (speaking for myself) we have some knowledge and experience of- I know anticapitalista lives there for example.
Even the CWI piece I guess will be similarly distinguished from the one on Syria, albeit full of the usual transferable demands. I’ll confirm that when (if) I can be bothered to read it.
And again, the childish victimhood chip on the shoulder stuff about the CWI does your organisation no favours whatsoever.
post 21 ~~ So Vanya, by this statement you are saying there is no working class in Syria. there are no industries and/or the service sector; and I was called not living in the real world!!! So Vanya if that is your belief then yes the CWI programme would be irrelevant to you. ps sorry for the double take on post 19, do not know what happened there.
#22 Jimmy, I referred to ‘actual existing working class and left MOVEMENTS’ (sorry, don’t know how to italicise or underline), not to the existence or otherwise of a working class.
For the avoidance of doubt I am well aware that there is a working class in Syria.
You quoted me selectively in the Syria thread as well to have me saying something different to what I was actually saying. Given that previously it was sometimes possible to have a sensible discussion with you I will be charitable and assume that it’s failure to read properly or reading too quickly rather than stupidity or dishonesty (or both).
JimmyH, what Vanya and others are saying here is that it’s clear that in relation to Greece, talk of general strikes, workers’ committees etc actually have some concrete meaning.
Contributions like yours, Nick’s, anticapitalista’s, John Grimshaws etc are serious responses to the real situation on the ground in Greece.
The situation in Syria is vastly different – the US and Russia fighting a proxy conflict for power and influence in the region and no identifiable “progressive” side.
Your “general strike” template has zero purchase in the Syrian situation and the consensus from that discussion was that the focus of our efforts should be on the struggle against UK intervention.
But in Greece there’s a huge and ongoing class struggle taking place and yes, you’re quite right to raise the point about EU-wide working-class solidarity. Absolutely spot on JimmyH.
We should be taking this up within our trade unions here in the UK as a matter of urgency.
I’m not sure a 24-hour EU-wide general strike is achievable at this time (although it shouldn’t be ruled out) but certainly an EU-wide day of action against austerity, with co-ordinated marches in Europe’s capital cities is not unrealistic.
What do others think?
#24 Thanks Karl.
Interestingly the KKE, who like many parties with their traditions do sometimes pander to narrow nationalism, made the point about linking struggles across Europe with the huge banners in Greek and English (not the favourite language of the KKE!) on the Acropolis a couple of years ago saying ‘Peoples of Europe Unite!’ That was a superb bit of agitprop and an iconic photograph.
I think one problem may be the extent to which workers in the wealthier more northern European countries have bought into the racist agenda about the PIGS, which has of course attracted the understandable (if negative) anti-German sentiment in respect of some of the protests in Greece.
There is information (various commentators on here including Kevin O and I think one of the Socialist Action supporters have referred to it) about the distortions about the level of profitability of the Greek economy and the BS about the Greeks being lazy, and that needs putting into a popular and understandable form.
To those who think I’m too harsh on the KKE, my point is that I want to see them actually capitalise, along with other progressive forces, on the crisis and the growth in popularity of left politics.
There is huge respect for them in many places amongst people who they don’t seem to engage with. They have their loyal voters, parliamentary caucus(es) and stongholds and seem content to maintain that (I have no apologies for my much quoted term for this which I am going to copywrite
).
And their apparently hermetically sealed demos seem an extension of this.
SYRIZA on the other hand seem like a woolly amorphous blob with the opposite problems, including a tendency to pander to ultra-left hooliganism. But they too have a level of support the outside of labour left in this country could only dream of, and their lack of dogmatism could be a helpful counterweight to the tendency in that direction of the KKE, were it possible for the forces of the left to unite in some way.
According to the latest polls Pasok’s support has collapsed and they will be big losers at the next election (which explains why some Pasok MPs refused to back the latest Troika package). KKE, Syrizia and the Democratic Left (which split from and has even more illusions about the EU than Syrizia) all have registered big increases in their support.
It is difficult to analyse what is going on in Greece from the perspective of our own political culture but we should bear in mind that families will include older generations who have experienced serious repression, exile and prison, decades of underground work and armed struggle.
Class stratification is very pronounced and parties possess very clearly defined class characteristics. Syrizia/Synaspismos have a very pronounced petit bougeois character and some of the ultra left grouplets have a distinct lumpen identity. Part of the KKE political culture is linked to their distinct working class base and their single minded orientation to politically represent the working class including highly exploited migrant workers in the service and construction industries and agriculture. That they are intolerant of the vacillations of some other left forces and of the unsavoury undergrowth of police provocateurs and anarchist elements is a reflection of their experiences.
They make an analysis that suggests little potential for concessons based on a capitalist renewal of the economy or a resolution of the profound social crisis
#26 To be clear.
The KKE’s ‘stronghold’ inside the working class is amongst manual workers, usually in the private sector. Examples include, dock workers and ship yard workers (especially in Piraeus), construction workers. They are ‘weak’ relatively speaking in the public sector where PASOK, SYRIZA/SYNASPISMOS and even the anti-capitalist Left are stronger eg hospital workers, teachers, workers in local authorities including manual workers, ote (telecon), DEH (electricity). So, unless you think public sector workers are ‘petit-bourgeois’, the class base of KKE and SYRIZA is actually more similar than different.
As far as organising immigrant workers. It is a great move that the KKE decided to organise immigrant workers, though they were very late to do so. (they have been doing this for the last 5 years or so -however- mass immigration of Albanian workers started in 1990 and the KKE did not attempt to organise them at all. In fact, they were hostile).
The KKE also vascilates. Up until the National Unity government, the KKE OPPOSED the demand to cancel the debt and leave the EU as adventurist and reformist (sic). Now they (quite rightly) support and make the same demands!
Ultimately, it will be up to all the forces of the Left to organise against the implementation of the policies in the workplaces, schools etc. There is where our real strength lies and where, despite all the political differences, the Left can unite in practice.
#27 “the class base of KKE and SYRIZA is actually more similar than different.” I tend to agree. In fact I think that there is a blurring of sociological and political class analysis on the part of some who refer to the latter as pettit bourgeois- in other words it is the politics of SYRIZA, with its origins in Eurocommunism which is seen as non-proletarian.
You mention the dockers and ship builders of Piraeus. Just out of interest do you have any idea which football team those who were KKE supporters would be likely to support? (I know that may seem a bizarre question but I’m interested).
The indefinite strikes in steel and associated industries had a very important political effect on the left in drawing all elements, including Pasok trade unionists, into supporting initiatives which were not the property of any one section of the left.
It points to the fundamental truth in what anticapitalista is saying. The driving force both for rise of the left in the polls, both the left with parliamentary representation and those who have been short of the 3 percent threshold, and for the shift in the centre of gravity of the argument of the left away from renegotiation of the memorandum (the first one) and towards a break with the logic of the Euro sado-monetarism is not just something called resistance but the actual process of central sections of the working class movement becoming a social and political agency.
Now none of this answers the real and legitimate debates among the left or the strategic questions – whether to call for a government of the left, if so on what basis, what prospects are there for forcing through an anti-capitalist break with the Euro, the banks and so on. Like others I try to follow those discussions and developments intently but wouldn’t dream of pronouncing from afar.
But one thing I am certain of is that the development in all aspects of the movement – its scope, militancy and political clarity – is vital, even for those whose position is that what is required is something like a plural left government – sort of (Mitterrand x Andreas) squared. The resolution of these questions is visibly lying in the way in which a mass social movement develops, rather than primarily in an ideological struggle.
#28 Well, the working class team down south is seen as Olympiakos and Panathinaikos is seen as the ‘bosses’ team.
It is not really true though.
For the demos on Sunday, all the ‘ultras’ of the football teams in Greece called on their supporters to participate in the demonstrations.
Up here in the north, Iraklis fans have been involved (as an organisd group – Gate 10 Autonomists) in the movement since day one.
Similar or different? Dockers, construction workers, steelworkers are perhaps more similar to each other than they are to civil servants and teachers who, perhaps, are more similar to each other than they are to ‘manual’ workers.
It is not possible to mechanically reduce political orientation and ideology to an unproblematic relationship with the means of production nevertheless there is a relationship and this is specific to each country, each economy, each epoch and each political culture.
Apart from the effect of years of bans and clandestinity entry to the public services is limited to KKE members. The public sector in Greece is notoriously open to patronage and this continues to be a factor that reduces the role of the KKE in these sectors, although they seem pretty effective in some ‘middle class’ sectors especially the creative intelligentsia, academia, students and of course among traders and craftsmen. I have a friend who, despite being a qualified teacher, has been denied work for years because she come from a KKE family while in her village clearly less qualified Pasok loyalists are appointed.
Kevin raises critical questions about what might be the character of any government of the left. One factor is the orientation of the different forces to integration into the EU – precisely the issue which divides people at the moment.
“Niall Mulholland spoke to Andros Payiatsos, from Xekinima (CWI in Greece) a participant in last weekend’s huge protests in Athens.”
“The demonstration on Sunday 12th February, in central Athens, was enormous despite all attempts of the media in Greece and internationally to downplay it. It was called by the unions and supported by all the main left parties. Up to half a million people marched and rallied at Syntagma Square, outside the national parliament building. Salonika and other Greek cities and towns and islands like Corfu and Crete also saw huge demonstrations. The Greek media underplayed the scale of the protest but people flowed endlessly out of the metro stations in central Athens becoming a tidal wave of protesters.”
The above quotations are taken from the following:
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5582
#32
If that figure of 500,000 is correct, that is an astonishing turnout for a city of around 3 million.
#33 The figure is accurate – at least according to friends of mine who I know to be extremely sober participants in and commentators on such events. Something around 7 percent of the Greek population (as a whole, including children and infants) probably took to the streets on Sunday in militant protests. That is an indication of the scale of the social upheaval and why various strategic options open up as real possibilities rather than boilerplates.
#34
Well then that’s brilliant news,Kevin.I really hope this is the beginning of something big.
#35 I think it is, Omar. Not easily – of course it never is. But this is a very important development. And already there are cracks in the euro-consensus. For all the limitations, perfidy and weaknesses (and please, people, I know them), the Le Bourget speech by Hollande in the presidential campaign in France signalled something. So much so that Merkel has decided to campaign in a French election for Sarkozy.
All of this casts an unflattering light on Ed Miliband and those around him.
Post 36~~~”All of this casts an unflattering light on Ed Miliband and those around him.” The friends of the Labour Party will not like this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/14/gmb-union-debate-future-links-labour
remember Europe’s largest economic failure is not Greece http://ablog.typepad.com/key_trends_in_the_world_e/2012/02/europes-largest-economic-failure-is-not-in-greece-but-in-the-uk-italy-and-spain.html
#37 Except that some of the motions are about ‘reclaiming Labour’, which is precisely the political position of much of the Labour left and the argument made by those left leaning trade unionists who support Labour, such as McCluskey (the favoured candidate of the SP for GS of Unite).
The thing about Greece is that if people become disenchanted with PASOK there are already existing parties to the left of some significance and varying degrees of links with the wider movements including the unions.
Of course if things in Greece really do kick off in a positive direction (half a million on the streets of Athens is clearly a sign that this is a strong possibility) any political movements that arise as a manifestation of this should be given maximum coverage over here so that we can learn any relevant lessons from them.
Btw Jimmy Haddow, I remeber trying to pursuade a Greek friend at University to buy a copy of Xekinima when I was a “millie”- he was a KKE member and was totally bemused at the headline which apparently (I couldn’t understand it as I don’t read Greek) called on people to join PASOK. How things change!
Not long after that the KKE and the the Eurocoms (SYRIZA as they are now) went into a coalition with the New Democrats against PASOK because of the apalling corruption scandal that gripped the latter at the time.
Any thought on Costas Lapavistas’s analysis that PASOK are completely finished?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9696269.stm
#40
Yes well the CWI used to argue the same tactic in every country on the whole planet.then a few get kicked out in the UK and then the whole planet changes lol…It is a bit like the old CP in the 1930′s…….the line just changes without any debate, discussion etc. The Militant always had a problem with seeing any contradictions….not a good sign for a marxist party!!
Post 42~~~“Yes well the CWI used to argue the same tactic in every country on the whole planet.then a few get kicked out in the UK and then the whole planet changes lol…It is a bit like the old CP in the 1930′s…….the line just changes without any debate, discussion etc. The Militant always had a problem with seeing any contradictions….not a good sign for a marxist party!!”
So much lying bullshit. You must have got your reasoning and lessons from the stalin school of falsification. I leave a few post from the history of the CWI for you to learn. Of course you have such closed mind you will just ignore it. Short enough for you Vanya?
http://www.marxist.net/openturn/index.html This is the democratic debate that took place within Militant and the CWI in the early 1990s about the changing situation in post-Stalinist world and the degeneration of the Labour Party into a Bourgeois political party.
http://www.marxist.net/namechange/mainframe.htm This is the democratic debate that took place in the CWI on what role a socialist organisation has in rthe post-Stalinist world.
http://www.marxist.net/scotland/index.html And this is the democratic debate that took place within the Socialist Party and the CWI about how genuine marxist should work within new worker formations.
As you will see the idea that ‘the line’ changes at the whim of the ‘leadership, like the 1930s Stalinist CP and Comintern, is just pure balderdash. Of course your ossified sectarian minds will just block out the evidence before you.
#41 – I would hesitate to say that PASOK is “completely” finished (at least in the long-term).
In the here and now, yes, PASOK has seen its vote slump from c40% to less than 10% (some opinion polls have them at closer to 5%) – in less than 3 years. In union elections, the situation is even worse for PASOK eg in recent elections for the teachers unions in Thessaloniki, they managed to stand in only 3 of the 5 branches, and only got elected in one. Previously, PASOK dominated the union (though the Left was strong as well).
The issue is where are those disillusioned PASOK members/voters/supporters going to go? The Left as a whole, reformist and revolutionary, with few exceptions, saw/see PASOK as a new Tory party and their members as the same. The exception was/is SEK (Greek SWP) who have seen PASOK in much the same way as the SWP see and relate to the Labour Party. Back in 1993 (ND – Tory government), we (OSE then now SEK) were slated by all the left (KKE, SYN, Maoists, other Trotskyists) for having the headline:
“Defeat the Right! Vote PASOK without illusions. Build a socialist alternative!”
Almost 20 years on, a mass socialist alternative to PASOK is a reality (though split into various left groups). Now it is time to build the anti-capitalist/revolutionary Left alternative.
Vanya – so which Greek football team are you going to support?
#45 Because I love Melina’s renditition of Children of Piraeus, as well as the place itself although I’ve only been there once, I lean towards Olympiakos.
#46 I kept winding up the Panathanaikos supporting barman in the place I stayed in Kefalonia last year by threatening to chalk Gate 7 on his menu board.
What an ultra I am!
I’ve just realised I don’t have a Greek football team which is remiss of me. Does anyone have any suggestions for a revolutionary socialists? I know the southern mainland far better than anywhere else.
#48 Olympiakos has a proletarian fan base and Piraeus is a militant working class town with a strong left tradition.
Melina Mercouri the wife of the witchhunted US film director and KKE fellow traveller Jules Desain sings about the team in the song Children of Piraeus in the film Never on Sunday in which both of them starred. She later became PASOK mayor of Piraeus.
However, I understand that the political ethos of the Olympiakos ultas tends to be quite right wing- maybe Anticap knows more?
IRAKLIS for revolutionary socialists. (Thessaloniki team) Booted out of the football league, huge and militant demonstrations by fans. At the forefront of the fight against the Troika.
See here: (in Greek)
http://www.iraklis-g10.gr/site/
http://www.iraklis-g10.gr/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1330&Itemid=41
#49
Not being chippy but are you not referring to Jules DASSIN?
#51 Yes I probably am.
At least it shows that I show off my catalogue of useless information stored in my memory rather than cutting and pasting from WIkepedia though
Thank you Vanya and Anticapitalista. Unfortunately your links are are not helpful because I am thick and have no Greek. I will investigate Iraklis and add it to my collection: of Stockport County by birth, Manchester City really because of family and Palermo coz I love the place (beats Milan any day).
#43
But is it odd to you that all over the entire planet at the same time social democratic parties cease to be and become simply ruling class parties??
It’s utter bollocks and it showed how dreaful the Militant were and are at having any attempt of looking at the concrete situation. It is so wooden and mechanical..ah just like stalinist marxism…
post 54~~~ what utter uninformed and unenlightened crap you write, with no intelligence, with no prognosis, with no discernment of the tangible processes that has taken place over the past epoch. Maybe you should watch and listen to this video about the reality that is going on around you instead of the stilted and nadir consciousness that is in your head.
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/5585
JimmyH, as I undertand it, the CWI is the Socialist Party’s “fourth international.”
So do your erstwhile comrades in Socialist Appeal also belong to CWIu? Or do they have their own “fourth international”?
#56 When Socialist Appeal and Militant parted company leading the latter to become the Socialist Party, the CWI also split. THe international Socialist Appeal belongs to generally carry on with the old entry tactic, such as in the PPP in Pakistan wnere the CWI helped set up the Pakistan Labour Party (which they subsequently broke from). In Venezuela the Grantites have good relations with Chavez (I believe).
For some reason they don’t do this in Ireland where strangely for their tradition they have (or had the last I knew of it) close relation with the IRSP.
I don’t know if they are still in PASOK.
_________________
Anyway, on Chanel 4 News someone from the Greek Chamber of Commerce was warning that more austerity could lead to a general uprising.
Post 57 and 56 ~~ Vanya, a superficial dictum for a very complex period during and just after the collapse of Stalinism in the late 1980s and through the 90s. Rather than me explain it in looong screeds I want to post the History of the CWI and Marxists and the Labour Party for you and Mr Stewart to peruse at your leisure on the differences between the SP/CWI and SA/IMT. These can be found the CWI site Marxist.net where all our documentation on various theoretical and tactical discussion are for open inspection.
http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/history/00.html
http://www.marxist.net/openturn/intro/index.html
Jimmy, repeating the word ‘democratic debate’ over and over again doesn’t help your cause at all. Nor does pasting eeendless links to what by popular acclamation is the most lifeless and badly-written prose on the left.
Contrary to what you say it certainly *is* remarkable that the expulsion of a ‘section’ in the UK oh-so-suddenly leads the leadership to decide not only that their former ‘mass organisation of the working class’ has become ‘bourgeois’, but also that *so has everyone other social-democratic party IN THE WORLD… AT THE SAME TIME*! When does history ever work like that??
You mention – vaguely – the end of Stalinism. Can you describe what mechanisms could have existed that commuted the collapse of the Soviet Union into the transformation of EVERY REFORMIST PARTY IN THE WORLD into a capitalist party – *simultaneously*?? These sorts of things have to be explained seriously, not asserted with bits of history hanging around like nice bits of background.
Also Jimmy, brainteaser: Ramsay MacDonald or Tony Blair?
Apart from the CWI-bot though good discussion everyone – genuinely informative about this most critical juncture.
#53 Never been to Palermo, although I believe it’s magnificent. Stockport I’m in about 3 times a week at least -nice town, great pubs. As for the other team you mentioned, I feel the same affection for as I do for Liverpool, Bolton and Leeds (not to mention most teams in London). And family’s no excuse
#57 – “I don’t know if they are still in PASOK.”
No, they left (there was a split though). Later on they became one of the main formations of SYRIZA, but they left about a year ago (or so). Not sure for what reason.
Vanya I’m from Stockport (if you haven’t tried the Crown then I recommend it to you) but my father is from Gorton/Ardwick where supporting City is compulsory, no excuses accepted.
post 63~~~ for you anticapitalista on the reasons why! I could have cut and pasted, (LOL), but as an academic(!!!) I prefer to give the original (English) text.
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4328
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/3535
Is it not possible to write an answer of your own that isn’t way too long for anyone to bother reading?
#65
Jimmy, I think this is persistent posting of links to SP articles is getting a bit much. It jars, to be honest.
Perhaps you should consider posting your own thoughts, analysis etc in your own words rather than continually regurgitating the party line. This isn’t the place for that.
It really doesn’t reflect well on the SP that their members lack the confidence to express themselves in their own words.
#67,
I agree. Come on Jimmy, you can do better than that. In particular, I am very keen to hear your answers to the questions posed by rev9 in posts 59 and 60. And I have to say Jimmy, I read the stuff you posted on the Falklands from 2007 and I’m mystified. If I interpret the position correctly you think calling for the return of the fleet was abstract, and those that did so were wrong, but as an alternative you called for Labour To Power On A Socialist Programme which then means that, on the assumption of a Labour Government, you can legitimately fight the war with the forces already in situ because it will no longer be an imperialist war.
Clarification please, Jimmy. From a fellow Trot.
Post 66/67, I am sorry, but I find it incredulous that you cannot accept my persistent reasons why sometimes do not post and give links instead on this website. The majority of the time I just do not have the time so sit in front of a computer composing something then await for a god awful response.
This morning I have completed job application forms and trawled employment websites. While it would like to tell the job centre and the workfare provider I am with, that I could not look for jobs because I am writing on a Left-wing blog which is more important to do. I am sure they will tell me “go ahead we will still continue to pay your benefits”. If I was employed during the day I would not be posting and in the evenings I would be doing something else. As when I was employed and I just used to read the threads and posts on SU but did not intervene in it.
I am leaving shortly to go to CAB training and then off to a meeting. When I get home I am generally too tired to say something ‘sensible’. It is extremely jarring and pisses me of somewhat that I am continually getting complaints when I say read from the ‘horses-mouth’, by posting something, when others just say something which is reality not their opinion or own point of view but a manipulation of other sources.
#64 Real ale pub under the arches? Love it but not been in for a while.
I’m on the edge of Gorton/ Longsight/ Levenhulme myself and yes, there are an unfortunate number of blues I agree.
#68 I was a millie at the time and remember the embarassment of pushing that line. Withdrawal of the fleet was unrealistic in comparison with suggesting a socialist federation of Britain the Falklands and Argentina!
The thing is I’ve never understood why troops out was unrealistic in 1982 in relation to the S Atlantic and therefore an excuse not to participate in the anti-war mobilisations, but not in relation to the Iraq war.
Except that a full timer confessed to me in a conversation at the centre that the real reason for holding back on being too anti-war was to preserve the paper sales at the docks in either Prtsmouth or Southampton can’t remember which.
Being laughed at in Colchester town centre selling a paper with the headline, “Falklands, war now likely” is something that I have never forgotten. I suppose it would have been safer than being threatened for selling one with a headline opposing the war, but a damn sight more humiliating
#69
Look Jimmy
We have tried to explain the issue to you, because at heart I think you are a good bloke and a sincere socialist.
Other people who post on here do so in the spirit of entering into an exchage of views and a debate, where their views may be challenged, and theyre is a to and fro.
In contrast, you post links to SP articles, and then do not respond if people do want to debate any of the points raised in those articles.
What hapens then is that the debate sometimes becomes sidetracked to revolve around you, and your habit of posting SP links, instead of the substantive issues. I suspect it is unintentional on your part, but this means you effectively disrupt debate in the same way a troll does.
When you post a link to an SP article as the very first comment on a thread, then that shows a lack of self-discipline on your part, as it is even more likely to disrupt debate.
You say that you have limited time, ( I must admit that being unemployed is one of the least convincing reasons I have ever heard for having limited time). In any event, you are not obliged to post here, if you don’t have time to comment in the same spirit that everyone else does, then simply don’t post.
We all know where to find the SP’s views if we want to, so there is no need to keep posting up links.
#65 Jimmy, neither of those links explain why Xekinima (CWI Greece) left SYRIZA fairly recently.
That’s was what I was going to add – the links don’t even actually answer the question anyway.
@70Being laughed at in Colchester town centre selling a paper with the headline, “Falklands, war now likely” is something that I have never forgotten. I suppose it would have been safer than being threatened for selling one with a headline opposing the war, but a damn sight more humiliating
You have to hand it to the bravery of those who publicly demonstrated against the Falklands War back in ’82.
I recall the war fever back then and one of the earliest interventions of the newly-formed BNP was to attack and heckle anti-war demonstrators in Central London.
#74 Go on JT, say it, those brave folk included the dreaded SWP
But seriously, wars are one of the few times when being a Leninist is probably a help in coming to the right general position.
#72 Given that the SYRIZA is a classic example of the type of organisation despised by workerists I’m surprised they were in it in the first place.
But then they sell Che t-shirts now. I was accused of being “P-B” (petit-bourgeois) for wearing one back in the day!
A question to the Greek comrades who post here (idk if anticapitalista is the only one): What do you think the chances are of the protests turning into occupations of state buildings and factories? Is there much talk of this on the ground atm? And what do you think the chances are of the fascists supplanting the left as the main vehicle for protests? (The news here seems to focus on ‘a-political’ middle class types, which fills me with concern about fascisms’ potential. But it could just reflect the anti-left bias of said news outlets.)
To those heavily involved in trade unions outside Greece: How do you rate the chances of organising significant solidarity actions with Greek workers, both as the struggle stands now and if it intensifies?
An EU-wide anti-austerity general strike would be quite something, and as unlikely as it seems now, I think it could be a real possibility if the struggle intensified – it would probably be essential to halting intervention by the major European powers.
#70,
I would suspect that the reservation around calling for the return of the fleet was about pandering to the chauvanism of the time, perhaps an extension of ‘labourism’. I would estimate that by 1990, Militant had realised the error but could never admit to it. Maybe they genuinely thought that in 1982 we were close to a revolution in Britain, albeit in the form of a revolutionary Labour government, but even then I’m not sure a sociaist would advocate ‘revolution at bayonet point’ in Argentina.
“To those heavily involved in trade unions outside Greece: How do you rate the chances of organising significant solidarity actions with Greek workers, both as the struggle stands now and if it intensifies?”
I couldn’t pretend to be heavily involved due to the nature of my work, but my response would be that we have to counter the lies that put the blame for this crisis on the Greek people themselves.
#76
I have a feeling the Greek government might be doing all it can to limit the amount of detail available to the general populace in the most recent EU “rescue package” for precisely the reason that it could trigger even more intense protests. Part of the package calls for a 32% cut in the minimum wage for under-25′s and 22% for over-25′s:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/doubts-over-viability-of-new-greece-rescue-deal-7282726.html
€350bn Approximate total of Greece’s debt – more than 160 per cent of the country’s annual economic output
€3.3bn Package of spending cuts Greece must stick to this year under the conditions of the bailout, one third of which will come from health budgets
€23bn Proportion of the bailout fund that will help to recapitalise Greek banks. Hardly any of the cash will go directly towards helping the economy
20.9% Rate of Greek unemployment
40.8% Rate of youth unemployment
5,000 Number of calls to the Athens suicide telephone hotline last year (twice the number received in 2010)
27.7 The percentage of Greeks at risk of falling below the poverty line
€751 Minimum monthly wage, which the government must commit to cutting by 22 per cent
32% Cut in minimum wage for under-25s that government must commit to for bailout funds to be released
@75Go on JT, say it, those brave folk included the dreaded SWP
Yes, the SWP had the correct line on that particular conflict. Although it shouldn’t have been that difficult. Anybody on the Left in Britain should have called that one correctly.
@75they sell Che t-shirts now. I was accused of being “P-B” (petit-bourgeois) for wearing one back in the day!
I’d have thought you’d be called a Stalinist.
@77I would estimate that by 1990, Militant had realised the error but could never admit to it.
Militant’s position was a ‘dog’s breakfast’ of a line; opaque nonsense.
It could be argued in Militant’s defence that they were always more liable than the rest of the far left to come under social chauvinist pressure, since they were alone on the far left in having something of a mass base in 1982. Not an excuse you could ever make for Matgamna’s crew, who were and are quite capable of adopting reactionary positions without the slightest pressure from the masses.
#76 “What do you think the chances are of the protests turning into occupations of state buildings and factories? Is there much talk of this on the ground atm?”
It is already happening, though not on a mass scale, and of course it is uneven.
Today, Thursday, sees a 4 hour stoppage of teachers and a 24 hour strike of hospital workers. Yesterday, hospital workers occupied the regional health authority offices here in Thessaloniki.
There are on going occupations/all out strikes in the private sector as well. Steel workers have been on strike for about 3 months, media workers for the Alter tv channel, the same as well as workers on the second biggest (in circulation) paper.
Here in Thessaloniki, workers at a cement factory have been out on strike for 3 months. There are other examples as well.
“And what do you think the chances are of the fascists supplanting the left as the main vehicle for protests?”
At the moment, none. Though they are trying. They went to the steel workers picket line and handed over food parcels and money. The union response and that of PAME/KKE (though delayed) was a press announcement slating the fascists for what they really are. It was an excellent announcement.
The fascists will gain if the left fails to provide an alternative. At the moment, the Left, in all its forms, is providing an alternative and has been at the forefront in the struggle against the cuts/memorandum. The latest opinion polls put the forces of the parliamentary Left (KKE, SYRIZA, Democratic Left) as totalling over 35%.
Having said that, there is a need to challenge the fascists, both politically and physically. Again, there have been successes eg the fascists wanted to march through the centre of Thessaloniki in celebration of 100 years of the city’s liberation from the Ottomans (and re-unite all of Macedonia), but anti-fascist mobalisation prevented the march from happening. 17 March will see anti-fascist mobilisations across the country. It is uneven as most of the Left (KKE, sections of SYRIZA and even sections of ANTARSYA, the Maoists), unfortunately, do not take the anti-fascist struggle seriously enough. (The anarchists, anti-authoritarians and SEK does).
#81 Absolutely spot on re both Militant and Matgamna.
@81It could be argued in Militant’s defence that they were always more liable than the rest of the far left to come under social chauvinist pressure, since they were alone on the far left in having something of a mass base in 1982.
That is fair point but you could also argue that precisely because they had something of a mass base in 1982 it would have been good for them to have had a better line which they could have propagated to their consituency.
#84 Also a good and not contrdictory point.
KKE have made an important point in regards to slogans such as “solidarity with Greece”..etc With newspapers going on and on about lazy Greeks…etc it should be pointed out that the Greek capitalists and politicians were the ones who got Greece into this mess, the working class actually works some of the longest hours in Europe for some of the lowest wages.
I am sure you know from talking to family or workmates that this idea about ‘lazy Greeks’ is quite ingrained on those who unquestioning fall for the comment in the monopoly-owned newspapers.
However, it seems that the crisis in other European countries, particularly in Italy, Portugal and Spain, seems to be getting worse. It might be harder for the press to push the line that the Greeks brought it upon themselves.
The KKE have made the following statement:
“Recently, demonstrations have been held in many countries across the world under the “umbrella” of slogans of “solidarity with Greece” and “we are all Greeks”. Working class and popular solidarity are powerful weapons in the struggle of the peoples. But the workers must deal with any attempt to mislead them.
Which Greece needs solidarity? The Greece of the capitalists, who seek to acquire new loans from the EU and the IMF in order to strengthen the profitability of their capital, to reinforce their position against the people, or the Greece of the working class and the other popular strata, who are suffering due to the consequences of the capitalist crisis, for which they bear no responsibility?
In many of these events this issue remained unclear. And this is the case because there is an effort by certain forces (mainly of social-democracy, the opportunists of the Party of the European Left and the “Greens”) to use vaguely the “solidarity with the Greek people” to whitewash their support which they had provided in the past to the Maastricht Treaty, and the other Euro-treaties, to the EU of capital itself, which is reactionary and in no way can be “democratised”, as they are even now claiming.
In addition there is an attempt for the issue of Greece to be utilised in the inter-imperialist rivalries, inside and outside the EU.
Yes, the workers in Greece want the solidarity of the workers in Europe and all over the world! But solidarity with their struggles, their strikes, their militant demands, the KKE, and the class-oriented trade union movement, PAME which is in the front line of the struggle and not the “solidarity”, which seeks the continuation of capitalist exploitation and the squeezing of the workers.
Regarding this issue the Press Office of the CC of the KKE issued the following statement:
“The KKE addresses a message to all the workers of Europe: It is not necessary for you to “become Greeks” in order to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Greece.
We call on you to join us on the same road for the contemporary rights of the working class and the poor popular strata, in order to impede and overthrow our common enemy, the dictatorship of the monopolies, the EU, the parties which serve them.
Their overthrow in every country or group of countries, the socialization of the monopolies, disengagement from the EU, NATO, with working class-people’s power will be the greatest contribution to the struggle of the peoples of Europe and the whole world.
The newest and most contemporary slogan, which is more timely than ever is: “Workers of all countries, Unite!”
That ain’t a bad statement at all
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