A new stage of the class struggle
Despite the divisions within the workers’ movement in Greece (in Athens 5 different rallies and marches were called by different trade unions, left organizations and the anarchists…) tens of thousands turn to the streets in Mayday 2010 in a powerful demonstration of popular anger for the IMF/EU/ PASOK government’s draconian measures of austerity( in the picture, from the demonstration in Athens, a part of the contingent of EEK; the second banner writes “Out with the IMF, the EU and the government of their lackeys- All the power to the workers!” ; the banner in front says “ Forward for the world socialist revolution!”). In Syntagma Square, in front of the Parliament, in front of the Athens University, and in Omonia square, the riot police attacked with chemical gas the demonstrators, particularly, from the contingents of class struggle trade unions, extra-parliamentary left( including EEK) and anarchists. Dozens of young people were arrested and savagely beaten. Popular anger was targeting bourgeois politicians and parliamentarians as during the revolt in Argentina in December 2001. The former Chairman of the Greek parliament Apostolos Kaklamanis (PASOK) was recognized by the crowd during the Athens Mayday demonstration, and he had to hide himself in the toilets of a coffee shop near by, and to remain there for some time until the riot police comes to “liberate” him from the people who were shouting “Liars! Thieves! Go home!”.
When the new package of anti-popular measures was announced by Papandreou, Sunday morning May the 2nd, spontaneously many local demonstrations were formed in working class neighborhoods. As in the Parliament is discussed now a new bill of (anti) Education “reform”, in the spirit of the IMF demolition of all social services, the teachers unions are in a 3 days strike. On Monday, May the 3rd, during the broadcasted News of 21.00 pm in the State TV Channel, a group of radical teachers working under conditions of “flexibility of labor” (which means that they will be fired soon) invaded the studio and read their message to the Greek people, denouncing the destruction of education by the IMF/EU, and calling also for the General Strike of May the 5th. The previous time that such an invasion of the State TV Channel took place was during the December 2008 youth revolt.
ADEDY, the National Federation of Public Employees, has called for a 48 hours strike on May 4th and 5th. Wednesday, May the 5th, a one day General Strike is called again by GSEE (Co-federation of Labor) in the private sector and ADEDY in the public sector. The hospital doctors union has a two days strike this week, and the local government workers an indefinite strike. The trade union bureaucracy is terrified and tries desperately to control the situation, which tends to become uncontrollable.
Even the officers of the Army, Navy and Air-force have organized their own demonstration against the cuts in their salaries; but in their ranks members of the fascist organizations entered turning the event into a nasty fascist gathering that was quickly dissolved.
The crisis within the discredited bourgeois political system and the State deepens. Some sections of the ruling class are pushing for the formation of a “national government” declaring a State of Emergency and “freezing” the Constitution articles on the right for strikes and rallies…. But this is easier to say than to do it; an attempt by the Papandreou government to call today a “national emergency meeting” of all parliamentary party leaders under the auspices of the President of the Republic has collapsed. Not only the parties of the left but even the Right and the far right that previously supported the austerity program to “save the fatherland” have now to retreat and denounce the government, out of fear of the angry masses.
Deep divisions exist within the ruling class first on the question how to repel a social explosion, and secondly how to deal with the debt, the bankruptcy of the Greek economy itself. The “rescue package” of 110 billions euros for three years has as aim only to save the banks of France, Germany etc, holding a big portion of Greek debt, and to prevent the contagion to other Euro-zone countries. But signs of contagion already exist in Portugal, and above all Spain, while Italy is not far behind in the list of “weak links”. Some circles of the ruling classes both in Greece and in Europe find a “restructuring” of the gigantic Greek debt, a polite expression for the “d” word (default), inescapable. In the left there is a lot of confusion: some are speaking for “re-negotiation of the debt”( SYRIZA and the Maoist KOE); the KKE( Communist Party) ignores the issue leaving it for the day in the distant future when an ‘actually existing Socialism” establishes itself in Greece; some organizations speak about a repudiation of the foreign debt in the way that Correa in Ecuador did, and others( the USFI section OKDE-Spartakos) preach to solve the problem in the way that Kirchner in Argentina did!! Our Party EEK calls for the cancellation of the debt to the international usurers, nationalization of all banks and a re-organization of all social relations on new, socialist bases under a workers power.
The Greek workers, after an initial shock, start now to mobilize against the brigands of capitalism, and their policemen, the IMF, the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the Greek PASOK government. It is important to note that mobilizations of solidarity to the Greek working class take place these days throughout Europe, from Berlin to Lisbon.
In this 140th anniversary of Lenin’s birth, we live the birthpangs of a new stage of the European social revolution!
Savas Michael, May 3rd 2010
