A socialist alternative to the capitalist crisis!

The following leaflet is to be distributed by supporters of Der Funke at the IUSY festival in Austria next week. The leaflet explains the need for a socialist answer to the crisis, rather than the bail-outs and austerity programs that are put forward by various Social Democratic or Socialist parties around Europe.

The crisis in Greece and other European countries, together with the revolutionary wave in the Arab world, marks a decisive turning point in the development of the international class struggle. The cuts and privatisations, which have been foisted on the Greek population by the EU, the ECB and the IMF, so far are the most extreme example of how the workers and youth are being made to pay for the crisis and the huge debts.

As socialist youth organisations it is our duty to counter the propaganda of the bourgeois media against the so-called “lazy Greeks”. In fact, the root cause of this crisis lies in the very mechanisms of the capitalist system itself. The supposed “aid package” for Greece is nothing more than a second bail-out for the banks. Governments and parliaments are completely under the pressure of the “markets”, i.e. the banks and finance sector.

Where the people are fighting back against this policy, like in Greece with mass demonstrations and general strikes, governments attempt to break their resistance brutally with state repression. This system is not a democracy but a dictatorship of the banks and the capitalists.

In the conditions of the deepest crisis of capitalism for decades, there is no room for social reforms. Governments that do not challenge the very basis of the system will end up implementing counter-reforms and attacks on the living standard of the people. So it is no surprise that in Greece, Spain and Portugal the social-democratic parties are doing the job of the bosses instead of representing the interests of the working class. It is therefore a disgrace that someone like the Greek prime minister Papandreou should also be the president of the Socialist International (SI).

The demand to tax the rich and to share out all the wealth equally is not the answer. What we need is a system that uses this wealth in a planned manner for productive purposes, for the benefit of the whole of society, not the profits of a handful of super-rich individuals and families.

We call on all participants at the IUSY festival to oppose the pro-capitalist policy of Social Democracy and to stand for a real socialist alternative in Greece:

• Real democracy instead of the dictatorship of the banks! In all Greek neighbourhoods and workplaces action committees should be formed to elect delegates to a Centralised National Action Committee. Based on the legitimisation of the popular and working class movement, preparations should be made to replace the present Papandreou government of the “Troika” and place the banks and the concentrated wealth of the country under the control of the working masses.
• Workers are not responsible for this debt! For the cancellation of the whole state debt, so that interest should no longer be paid to the loan sharks.

The socialist youth organisations in those countries whose governments are responsible for the Greek workers and youth being forced to accept these cuts have a special responsibility in this crisis:

• Long live international solidarity! We are in full solidarity with the mass protests of the Greek workers and youth. We condemn the state terror which has already caused hundreds of injured.
• Hands off the Greek working class! Let’s mobilise against our own governments who are also responsible for these harsh attacks on the living standards of our class brothers and sisters.
• No struggle between nations but class struggle! Let’s stand up against the smear campaign in the mass media against the so-called “lazy Greeks”. It is not the Greek people but the bankers and capitalists who have caused this crisis.
• No country can escape this crisis. Let's fight for a Socialist United Europe!

Source: Der Funke (Austria)