It’s not the Greek debt crisis which has shaken the finances of the Eurozone. The main cause is the international crisis of wild speculation started by the profits crisis. Putting to one side the technical facts of the crisis itself, which we deal with elsewhere, what we are left with is the state of collapse that parasitic capitalism has reached in the final phase of its crisis. Parasitic speculation, falsification of state budget sheets, the idea that value can be created by multiplying fictitious capital, the systematic recourse to debt and the financial criminality pursued scientifically by the great speculative financial centres, all show just where the intensified contradictions of international capitalism have brought it.

The basic fact is that tens of millions of workers have been thrown on the streets and tens of millions more will end up the same way thanks to the speculative manoeuvres of the likes of Goldman Sachs, in collusion with the corrupt and fraudulent ratings agencies. Under a capitalist regime the extraordinary development of productive forces, the ability to produce more in less time and at less cost, lowers the rate of profit so that instead of creating free social time, and a reduction in the length and intensity of labour, it produces exactly the opposite. In order to contain the crisis of low rates of profit capital more often turns to speculation in the real economy as well as increasing exploitation by intensifying production speeds and lengthening the working day. It forces older workers to remain at work whilst the young are unemployed. It dishes out cuts in public expenditure, making short term contracts worse, cutting wages as it increases unemployment and poverty.

The Greek episode is a prime example of this phase of the crisis of international capital. The consequence of the financial “aid” of the European countries and the IMF, which have made available €110 billion over three years, are that the Athens government accepts a drastic austerity plan. The plan provides for the ending of the thirteenth and fourteenth month (where they exist) for public sector workers. A straight cut of 30% in wages and an avalanche of taxes on consumers. For the ECB (European Central Bank) the principal worry is to prevent speculation on the Euro, to support the countries most at risk of failure, to always hold up the value of the Euro, to eventually issue bonds which risk default. It has no worries about the world of labour other than to heap onto it all the sacrifices needed to revive the capitalist machine in such a way as to clear the debts produced by inept and corrupt speculative capitalists. By ignoring the real background of the crisis the new “left wing” Government are blaming the old right wing government of Karamanlis for producing the crisis. It could have been the other way round. By participating in the speculative game to artificially increase the state budget the national debt has grown to the point of collapse and the new government – led by the Socialist Party’s Papandreou – is now left with the task of making the Greek working class pay the bill for the crisis.

The workers have responded and are still responding. This first big class response in Europe is no accident. It has been produced where the crisis has bitten most ferociously. The streets are once again full and inevitably there has been no shortage of clashes with squads of police in riot gear. The anger of the Greek working class is breathing life into strikes and organised demonstrations which have not been seen for years. It’s a good sign even if the line-up of the political forces which are present, as far as we know, are not the best. After the first more or less spontaneous tremors the unions have begun to take control of the demonstrations struggling against the government and its policy of sacrifices. As usual the unions act as they have always done. Riding through the situation they issue general pronouncements like: “the crisis must not be paid for by council workers but by everyone”. “Tax the Rich”, calls for penalties against the banks and “push the policy of sacrifices onto all those classes who live on rent”. Not a line about real class struggle, no critique of capitalism but only defensive demands within the national and international capitalist framework which produced the whole crisis. Inevitably, on this level, the unions in spite of their wishes find themselves alongside the political forces of the right and extreme right. The latter have not spared the Left government from heavy criticism and as soon as the anger exploded onto the streets took the opportunity to propose themselves as a government once again in the name of order and social stability.

A second political force which was mobilised within the demonstrations was the Greek Communist party (KKE). Originally Stalinist today it is so-called “democratic” still with a presence in parliament. It participates in the life of the bourgeoisie on a par with all the other political parties without too many contortions. It achieved publicity on the May 1st demonstration by “occupying” the Parthenon with the slogan “People of Europe Rise Up!” Well said but it would have been better to say “European workers unite with the struggles of the Greek proletariat”. The call for struggle should also not be limited to reformist demands to calm it down but to the need for anti-capitalism which is a basic condition of the future development of the struggle itself. But then to expect anything else from a party which only has communist for an adjective is like hoping a donkey can win the Derby. Like all unsold political stock in Europe and elsewhere the various so-called communist parties have become in fact as well as ideologically the lackeys of bourgeois interests which, as in this case they are attacking not to overthrow them but to put forward advice on mitigating the attacks on the labour force. At the most they chatter about the nationalisation of the banks or of the main productive sectors just like their unloved, if not actually hated, Trotskyist cousins. There is also a strong anarchist presence which with its “idealism” is unlikely to play a useful role in the coherent development of the class struggle.

The current Greek experience teaches one other thing. Without the active and working presence of a revolutionary party such anger and readiness to fight is destined to turn in on itself. The Argentine episode also taught this but it was only the latest in a long line. The history of class struggle is rich in these kind of situations where the response of the world of labour to the devastating consequences of the economic crisis doesn’t come up with an adequate political strategy which only a class party can put forward. Nor can we speculate that a class party can be born through spontaneous germination of the struggles themselves as a “natural” political outgrowth of the economistic demands which hide them. In similar clashes in the current political desert the only objective that can be achieved is the formation of the first political vanguards which start to settle accounts with the causes of the crisis, with the counter-revolutionary role of the so-called left organisations and with the limitations of the demand struggles which, by their very nature, are destined to remain within the very economic framework which produced them.