Greece: Historic victory of left - First time in history a party with roots in Communist movement wins elections

Read here the initial analysis of the Communist Tendency on the outcome of today's election results and this historic victory of the Left.

A SYRIZA-KKE agreement is the only way to form a stable self-standing Left government able to implement a radical, socialist programme. This historic opportunity must not be missed!

The 25 January 2015 proved to be a historic day, not only for the Greek people but also for the European and international working class. For the first time in a country of the developed Western capitalist world, it is possible to form a majority government with parties that have roots in the Left/communist movement, despite and against the persistent and constant attempt by domestic and foreign capital to thwart this prospect.

Today's historic victory of SYRIZA is a dramatic change in the correlation of forces between the working class and capital in Greece, that will find an echo throughout Europe given the crisis of capitalism globally. The total share of the vote of parties with roots in the communist movement (SYRIZA and KKE), with the main protagonist being SYRIZA, at a time when the electoral strength of the traditional bourgeois party, New Democracy, is disintegrating, reflects the class consciousness of the vast majority of working people, and the abandonment of bourgeois parties by a significantly large section of the petty bourgeois, who having gone through the painful experience of the crisis and the austerity Memoranda and are no longer under the sway of their deeply held illusions about the merits of capitalism.

The vote in this historical election campaign was clearly based on class. The big electoral advantage of SYRIZA over New Democracy, especially in the large urban centres, was an expression of the workers, the unemployed, pensioners on low pensions, and those petty bourgeois layers that have been crushed by the crisis, voting to punish the parties they perceive as representing their class enemy, the bourgeois parties, which with their policies have only spread more poverty and unemployment.

But apart from this historic victory, the current election result, above all, presents a unique historic opportunity for the Left. The formation of a self-standing Left governement would be possible, and it would be able to bring an end and reverse the effects of austerity, and also denounce the public debt that is the yoke on Greek society, and to realise the strategic aim of the communist movement which is to overthrow the capitalist system and carry out the socialist transformation of Greece and Europe.

The working masses have already demanded deep social change with their spectacular shift towards SYRIZA, producing its meteoric rise from a party of 4% to now becoming the primary political force.

SYRIZA's big share of the vote and the notable growth of the KKE's influence, particularly in the large urban centres, indicates that the founding socialist ideas and principles of the Left, not only are no longer 'taboo' for the majority of society, but that they actually view these ideas with considerable sympathy.

This day calls for celebration on the part of the thousands of Left activists across the country. After decades of persecution and political marginalisation of the communist movement, the formation of a self-standing Left government is now feasible. But tomorrow, for all conscious Left militants, the celebrations must give way to an organised political struggle. The 'Communist Tendency of SYRIZA' calls for this struggle to be carried out on the basis of the following political demands:

Self-standing Left government! No collaboration with the Independent Greeks (ANEL) or other bourgeois parties; the KKE is the only natural ally of SYRIZA at present! This historic opportunity for the Left must not to be wasted! There must be a SYRIZA-KKE agreement on the basis of a radical, socialist programme!

No retreat from the radical commitments in the "Thessaloniki programmei". For the immediate implementation and completion of anti-capitalist, socialist measures!

The Greek ruling class must be entirely disarmed before starting the war against a Left government: this requires the nationalisation of the banking system and commanding heights of the economy and the mobilisation of workers to smash any attempt on the part of the capitalists and their faithful servants in the state to prevent the implementation of a Left programme!

Disarm the 'Troika'; liberate the people from the yoke of predatory debt through unilateral action; call for European workers' active solidarity towards a Greek Left government and for them to fight for the direct election of left socialist governments across Europe with the aim of instituting a European Federation of Socialist States!

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