Interview with Stamatis Karagiannopoulos on the explosive events of the past period and the perspectives for the Greek revolution.

This article was published in the run up to the SYRIZA congress and poses the need for a genuine revolutionary programme to be adopted by the party. We publish it as we await a more detailed report of the congress. What we can say for now is that two comrades of the Communist Platform were elected to the Central Committee of the party.

During the recent SYRIZA congress the Press Office of New Democracy issues a press release, pointing the finger at the ideas defended by the Communist Platform. We publish here a short note from the Communist Platform and the text of the Press Release for the information of our readers.

We received today this statement from the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA, which explains that, while prior to the party congress rules had been established allowing alternative documents to be presented on condition they received the backing of a sufficient number of party members (the Communist Tendency managed to get the required signatures), now as the national congress of SYRIZA is unfolding the party leadership is manoeuvring to remove the Communist Platform document from the agenda!

The founding congress of SYRIZA is taking place July 10-14, where all the component parts that previously made up the alliance are to dissolve into one unified party. In the process, however, party leader Tsipras has moved to the right, endangering the significant gains made by the party in the recent period. We publish here an article explaining the emergence of the Communist Tendency within the party and its struggle for a Marxist programme and policy.

The crisis facing the Greek coalition government continues, thus strengthening in the minds of thousands of militant activists of the labour movement the secret hope that new elections are coming soon. Now all the mass organisations of the working class – political and trade union – must put all their resources into escalating the militant anti-government movement that has built up following the closure of ERT (the national public broadcaster).

As we write this article a 24-hour general strike is taking place in Greece against the Samaras government’s decision to shut down the state broadcasting company ERT and sack 2,700 jobs. In Athens workers are marching on the ERT headquarters.

Yesterday, one of the leading daily papers in Greece, the left-leaning Eleftheropia (“Free Press”) published a full-page interview with the political editor of Marxist.com, Alan Woods. We publish here a complete English translation of this interview.

More than 100 people attended the launch of the Communist Tendency of Syriza. Among those present were cadres of SYRIZA and the SYRIZA youth, trade unionists and veterans of the Greek workers’ movement.

"Avgi" (The Dawn) is the official daily paper of the party of the Greek Left, SYRIZA. Its Sunday edition has a very wide circulation (the fifth largest in Greece). Yesterday, April 28, 2013, it published a full page interview with the editor of Marxist.com, Alan Woods. We provide here a full translation of the interview.

The leader of Syriza, Alexis Tsipras, visited London last week. On the 14^th March he spoke in the LSE on an event of the Hellenic Observatory titled “Greece’s way out of the crisis” week. On 15^th March, He met with member of the Labour’s shadow cabinet and the TUC and concluded his visit to London with a public lecture at the Friends Meeting House. This event was organised by the Syriza branch of London and attracted over 500 people that packed the venue. Comrade Tsipras started his speech by giving a grim description of the current situation of the Greek economy and society.

The following text is an appeal written by thee Marxists in the Greek left-wing party Syriza in preparation for its congress later this year. We also ask our readers to read our most recent analysis of the situation in Greece here: The Class Struggle in Greece

The class struggle in Greece continues.  A general strike of public transport in Athens was aborted after five days when the government forced the workers to return to work, using reactionary legislation left over from the period of open reaction. One week later, the same fate awaited the seafarers. The government of Samaras is recovering its nerve, and passing on to the offensive. This year alone, a minimum of 25,000 jobs in the public sector are due to be destroyed as a result of the deal with the Troika. Yet there has not been any serious response from the Greek trade union leaders.

Events in Greece are once again in the headlines, after another day of militant strike action and the new 'deal' agreed by the EU today. This deal to reduce Greece's debt is completely inadequate to solve the problem and is an insult to the Greek working class, who have now endured years of brutal cuts whilst the EU dithers. The only real solution to Greece's problems is for the debt to be cancelled and for the expropriation of capitalism in Greece and Europe. This article, which was produced in the second issue of the In Defence of Marxism magazine - the theoretical journal of the International Marxist Tendency -  gives some theoretical analysis to the economic and political

The following article was originally written by the Greek Marxist paper Marxistiki Foni, on Thursday 18 October, as yet another general strike had taken place in Greece.