Solidarity with the Greek Proletariat
The Greek crisis: Bosses united, Workers Divided. For How Much Longer?
For the Greeks, who are paying for the economic catastrophe of their country, their enemies have a name and a surname: They are called the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, and together form the so-called troika , the capitalist leadership of the Old Continent that won’t allow any further "autonomy" for the Greek parliament or its Government.
On 21 February, in fact, the troika released the €130 billion that will go to Greece until 2014. The agreement provides that the Greek government continues to wage war on the working class through:
- a further, radical "deregulation" of the labor market, which will allow massive scope for sackings;
- reduction of 22% in the minimum wage;
- further cuts in pensions and health expenditure;
- reduction in public investment of €400 million;
- privatisation of oil, gas and water;
- 15 000 redundancies in the public sector to be carried out by 2015.
All this heaped on a proletariat already on its last legs: poverty wages, high unemployment, long lines at soup kitchens and employment. Add to this the arms that Greece is obliged to buy from France and Germany in exchange for European aid, "arriving annually at the equivalent of 3% of GDP " (see Il Manifesto February 17).
In these two years of frenzied attacks on their living and working conditions, the Greek working class have not just stood and watched: strikes, very harsh fights with the riot police, the creation of local assemblies and committees that decide from the bottom up the forms of struggle that have to be adopted, are all on the Greek agenda. The guerrilla warfare which burned Athens on Feb. 12, when 100,000 demonstrators besieged the parliament as it approved the measures demanded by the Troika, has demonstrated that most combative sectors of the street movement (which the bourgeois papers continue to define in bad faith as the Black Bloc) are by no means isolated and even gaining more and more support from those who are mobilising in the streets.
But how long can the Greek working class stand alone? On one side, the bourgeoisie are advancing together: the European ruling class is closing ranks to save the banks and the Greek capitalists, by continuing their aggression against the world of labour. On the other hand, the proletarians of Europe are divided, they mobilise - in a way which is quite inadequate to the seriousness of the situation - always within a national perspective and thus on the back foot from the start given that it is clear that economic policies that have long been established by the international bourgeoisie, are at the very least on a continental scale.
The attack on the Greek proletariat should be seen as a step in the onslaught that each national government, on behalf of the bosses, is bringing to the whole European proletariat. Why not go on strike in, say, Italy against the attacks on the Greek working class? The answer is all too simple: those who don’t even go on strike against the Monti government are not going to take to the streets on behalf of the Greek workers!
Incidentally, the varied world of the left, from the institutional to the so-called militant, have not proposed anything to promote national initiatives in support of the Greek proletariat: in last few years there have been (quote rightly) large demonstrations against the war, but against this real war on the working class - and, in part, the middle class - in this social and political laboratory of the bourgeoisie, they have not raised a finger: who cares about proletarian internationalism?!
But internationalists have to condemn this great weakness of the world and, in this case, European, proletariat, the lack of unity. Mobilising as a class means fighting in an international perspective, that is to go in the opposite direction to those unions - however they are organised - who ask instead for "the _revival of the country’s economy_": the maxim of interclass and nationalist servility!
We also run the serious risk that this supranational "interference" exacerbates this nationalism, promoting the false opposition between the treacherous and foreign banking capital on the one hand, and the healthy and productive national capitalism on the other. Fascistic venom is always ready to re-emerge, in order to prevent proletarian discontent from remaining on a class basis.
The letter of one of the main unions of the Greek police, the Poasy, circulated on the internet in recent days, states that
under no circumstances will we accept orders to kill our brothers...
and says it is ready to issue an arrest warrant for the representatives of the Troika
for their secret effort to eliminate or undermine our democratic political system and national sovereignty...
is a sign that the crisis in Greece has reached a point of no return. Either the class struggle can get out of the union swamp to go beyond national boundaries and involve other sectors of the proletariat at least on a continental scale, or the nationalist " anti-European " drift could become a real threat.
For the Communists the task is to accelerate the formation of a revolutionary party rooted in the working class, without which every revolt, however great, will never find the way out of capitalism.
GekStart here...
- Navigating the Basics
- Platform
- For Communism
- Introduction to Our History
- CWO Social Media
- IWG Social Media
- Klasbatalo Social Media
- Italian Communist Left
- Russian Communist Left
The Internationalist Communist Tendency consists of (unsurprisingly!) not-for-profit organisations. We have no so-called “professional revolutionaries”, nor paid officials. Our sole funding comes from the subscriptions and donations of members and supporters. Anyone wishing to donate can now do so safely using the Paypal buttons below.
ICT publications are not copyrighted and we only ask that those who reproduce them acknowledge the original source (author and website leftcom.org). Purchasing any of the publications listed (see catalogue) can be done in two ways:
- By emailing us at uk@leftcom.org, us@leftcom.org or ca@leftcom.org and asking for our banking details
- By donating the cost of the publications required via Paypal using the “Donate” buttons
- By cheque made out to "Prometheus Publications" and sending it to the following address: CWO, BM CWO, London, WC1N 3XX
The CWO also offers subscriptions to Revolutionary Perspectives (3 issues) and Aurora (at least 4 issues):
- UK £15 (€18)
- Europe £20 (€24)
- World £25 (€30, $30)
Take out a supporter’s sub by adding £10 (€12) to each sum. This will give you priority mailings of Aurora and other free pamphlets as they are produced.
ICT sections
User login
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Comments
From e-mail correspondence....I have readon your website a recent article about the current situation in Greece(''Solidarity with the Greek proletariat''). In that article you talk about: ''the creation of local assemblies and committees that decide from the bottom up the forms of struggle that have to be adopted.'' I don'tunderstand what exactly you are referring to. Do you know some cases of workers ''self-organization''. You also talk about ''The guerrilla warfare which burned Athens on Feb. 12'' and you conclude ''that most combative sectors of the street movement (which the bourgeois papers continue to define in bad faith as the Black Bloc) are by no means isolated and even gaining more and more support from those who are mobilising in the streets?. I don't understand your political assessment of these events. I don't see any profound connection between the fair indignation of the demonstratorsagainst police brutality and the need for a massive resistance against police attacksBy the way, you can see the current situation in Greece in the disgusting videobelow. youtube.com On March 7 a parade held in the island of Rhodes. As you will see, the mayor who lays wreath is hooted by the crowd who are cheering the police chiefof the island. Then, the crowd asks the politicians to leave from the platform and to stay only the police and army officials and the priests, screaming the slogan ''punks, traitors, politicians''(one of the traditional slogans of the fascist ''Golden Dawn''). One person says:''On this platform should sit the heroes of '40s (war between Greece and Italy), but now they are sitting the puppets of 'troika' who serves Hitler. They are traitors and they will die as traitors''. The crowd is interrupting the parade and they rush off thepoliticians who are leaving in order to save themselves. The crowd is screaming. The parade starts again after some time and the crowd is chanting the military march " " " '' Greece never dies''; they are cheering the army forces and especially the commandoes, screaming ''Greece belongs to Greeks''. All these people are not fascists. They are common Greeks. This picture is typical of what happens in Greece. I remind you that on October 28 (the anniversary of the Greek victory against Italy) the central parade in Salonika was interrupted by the crowd who attacked the political representatives of the government and the president of the state and they forced them to leave the platform. Maybe on March 25 in Athens (anniversary of the Greek revolution against OttomanEmpire) we will see the same situation. Many of the rioters of February 12 were that kind of people who accused the special police forces as ''collaborators of the Germans'', ''traitors'' and ''Turks''. And the same mentality is true for the working class. Nationalism s dominant in the consciousness of the people.Unfortunately, there isn't any 'revolutionary situation' or ''proletarian insurrection'' in Greece, despite the fantasies of far-leftists and anarchists. A KKKKKKKKKKKKKK My response I am in the UK and can only get a media picture of what is happening in Greece, but as far as I can tell, the article on our website does not contradict what you are saying and is an example of general themes we have pursued for years. The fact is that without a revolutionry party, the objective situation alone will not generate a mass scale revolutionary consciousness. The working class, without a communist prty, will fall short of a full revolutionary programme. The vacuum will be occupied by any one of the equally poisonous capitalist currents. You say ''All these people are not fascists. They are common Greeks. This picture is typical of what happens in Greece.''We have long refused the Trotskyist type line that fascism is some sort of special monster and that all capitalist ideology is equally opposed to the proletariat. Your assessment has a tinge of antifascism, which ultimately rallies to the defense of some or other form of capitalism. There are many variants on the theme, sometimes lumping any non parliamentary currents together in a nasty ''dictatorship camp'' as opposed to a sugar sweet ''democratic' camp which despite its list of faults (and that list is expanding rapidly), is preferable, worthy of defense and mass slaughter.The article says''the proletarians of Europe are divided, they mobilise in a way which is quite inadequate to the seriousness of the situation always within a national perspective and thus on the back foot from the start given that it is clear that economic policies that have long been established by the international bourgeoisie, are at the very least on a continental scale.'' And that is more or less what A says. Personally, and I think there has been a little resistance to this (not much), I have thought that we play down the grip of nationalism, racism and religion, but I hardly think anyone does not see them as fundamental pillars of bourgeois ideology. The proletariat, indeed the exploited of history, are going through a painful adolescent turmoil. Like a child who has to put aside sweets and cartoons, the working class has to discard its inadequate ideas and embrace revolutionary consciousness. The parental role in this metaphor is played by the insoluble, progressive capitalist crisis, (truly an abusive, alcoholic guardian) and an older sibling who has stepped in through necessity, the revolutionary party and its antecedents.
Destroyed all my formatting!
...They should be charged with the suicides all over the world of hundreds of thousands victims of the banking illegal acts ...they should be charged with millions of people hospitalized due to their loan sharking greed ...they should be charged with the poverty of billions of newly-poor unemployed people of the West, who cannot survive today for the simple reason that the destroyed the production procedure ...they should be charged with war losses, because they made war against the unsuspected human kind. All these should be the charges to the lame loan sharks who have decided on their own to impose the global dictatorship of global governing.People should start getting ready for great trials ...for International Courts, where the current loan sharks shall give account. Monetarism criminals should sit on the same benches that once sat Nazi criminals. Rothschild, Rockefeller, Greenspan, Bernanke, Trichet, Soros, Buffett –and other “kids” of the loan sharking- should not sleep calmly from this point on. So, should also do their Quisling-type partners ...all the traitors who undertook power supported by the Monetarists and exercised leadership at the expense of their people ...Merkel, Sarkozy, Barroso, Zapatero, Papandreou and others.---------Global Debt Crisiseamb-ydrohoos.blogspot.com