Greece: SYRIZA leaders preparing for government

As SYRIZA gets closer to power, its leaders are coming under immense pressure. On the one hand the Capitalists demand further attacks on the workers and, on the other hand, the working class expects SYRIZA to defend its interests. But one cannot serve two masters, Tsipras will have to choose.

In drafting its 2014 budget the Greek government announced in October that it was expecting 0.6% growth for the coming year, finally emerging from a 6-year long recession. Whether this will materialise, however, is another matter. The OECD, which has less of a reason to fool the Greek people, is in fact predicting a further contraction of 0.4% of Greek GDP in 2014, which would make it the seventh year in a row of economic decline.

Since the crisis began in 2008 overall GDP has contracted by 25%; one million workers have lost their jobs; unemployment stands officially at 28%; 2.5 million have no social security cover; one million workers are still owed some of their wages and thousands have committed suicide. Between 2008 and 2010 more than 2,500 people took their own lives, an increase of one third on the previous levels of suicide. Since then the suicide rate has continued to grow.

Greece has managed to avoid outright default only by borrowing more from the troika (the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF) since 2010, having received 240bn euros (£206bn) in loans. In return the troika has kept a close watch over the economic policies of the Greek government, forcing through severe austerity measures, which have finally produced their long-desired surplus in the primary budget, i.e. before the payment of interest on the overall debt. In 2013 this surplus stood at around 800 million euros (0.4 percent of GDP) which makes Greece eligible for further debt relief. The government aims to repeat a similar surplus in 2014.

Watch our documentary Greece on the Brink

The declared aim of the government is to reduce overall debt to 124% of GDP by 2020 from the 176% it stands at today. But the OECD has published figures which show that on present trends the public debt will stand at 157%, i.e. practically the same level as in 2012.

Although, for the first time since the crisis broke out in 2008 Greece has achieved a surplus in its annual primary budget Greece’s overall interest payments represented 3.8 percent of GDP in 2013 and are estimated to rise to 4.4 percent this year. It is the sheer size of the debt that renders the small primary surplus meaningless, for after paying the interest the state finances end up in deficit anyway.

The government, as explained above, in putting together its budget for 2014 is counting on some economic growth, hoping that the signs of “recovery” in other parts of Europe may give Greece some respite. But whereas the OECD expects a contraction of 0.4%, other economic observers are in fact expecting Greece’s economy to contract by up to 1%. Thus, its economy continues to decline.

The constant pressure on people’s real incomes is having a dampening effect on the internal market. The more austerity they impose, the more jobs are lost, the more real wages are cut, the more spending declines in a downward spiral. Today around 20% of the workforce earns €500 a month or less, while another 43% earn €800 a month or less. There are reports of young workers being taken on legally on 40-hour a week, €320 per month contracts!

From the point of view of the Greek bosses, they have no alternative but to keep piling on this pressure on the working class. To be more competitive in the European and world markets they must cut their cost of labour. And as investment levels are low, their only option is to attack wages. In fact, in the last few years wages have been cut dramatically.

According to the Institute of International Finance, wages have been significantly cut in Greece since 2010. Relative unit labour costs have been cut by around 20%. Hourly wages in the public sector have been cut by around 33%. And yet the same document concludes that more must be done.

And while the workers are being forced to pay for a crisis not of their making, the bosses are making huge profits. Greek companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange recorded over 150% increases in their profitability in 2013. What is happening is clear: squeezing workers’ wages is leading to an even greater concentration of capital in the hands of the few.

Productivity can go up in various ways, by investing in more advanced technology, by cutting real wages, by rendering the workforce more “flexible” or by combining all of these. That is what the German bourgeois have done. In the case of Greece what is lacking is investment on the part of the bourgeoisie; therefore any increase in “productivity” has been achieved solely at the expense of the working class, through sackings and wage cuts.

Tax evasion by the big private companies is rampant in Greece. But the government, instead of going after these to get them to pay their taxes, actually gives them tax concessions, as in the case of the ship-owners, and continues to pile on the pressure on those least able to pay!

Weak government

All this makes the government very unpopular. The Samaras government – a coalition of the conservative New Democracy (ND), the PASOK and DIMAR (a right-wing split from Synaspismos, which later became SYRIZA) – is governing the country on the basis of the results of the 2012 elections, but now only has the support of a minority of the electorate, with the three parties that make it up able to muster no more than around 27-28% in the opinion polls. One of these, DIMAR, may not even be re-elected to parliament on its present standing.

Under present electoral laws in Greece, any party that fails to win more than 3% nationally loses it parliamentary representation. The Greek bourgeoisie is looking to use all the votes it can to bolster the present coalition. That explains why, for instance, there is now pressure on PASOK and DIMAR to fuse into one “centre-left” party. This could take place before the next general election. Such a party would save the dwindling DIMAR votes and make them useful in the complicated arithmetics of Greek coalition politics. There is also mounting pressure to split the Independent Greeks in order to use at least a part of this party to strengthen the government. All this, however, will not be able to put a halt to the general process of weakening of the parties that make up the present government.

The European elections are coming up in May and in Greece they may prove to be the final undoing of the government. More than any opinion poll, these elections will reveal the real opinions of voters and with a major defeat for the three coalition partners – with ND possibly going below 19% – there could be mounting pressure for the government to resign, opening up the road to early elections. In fact, some bourgeois commentators have even suggested that such a scenario would justify holding Greece’s general elections in conjunction with the European elections and thus get the pain out of the way.

The government has also lost much of its initial parliamentary majority, with several defections of MPs. Initially it had a majority of 179 MPs out of a total of 300, but this has now gone down to 152, very close to becoming a minority. This is because the constant pressure for these MPs to vote severe austerity measures is making some of them think of their own personal parliamentary careers, as they know that they may not be re-elected at the next elections.

The PASOK group of MPs is no longer under the full control of Venizelos and inside ND many MPs have announced that they will not vote in favour of any new measures, any new taxes or for the granting of rights to the banks to repossess homes.

At the same time, international finance capital is not happy with merely pushing the government to force through austerity. The latest pressure is on two fronts. They want banks in Greece to be free to repossess the homes of families that fall into arrears with mortgage payments and they want so-called “labour reforms” that will make it easier for bosses to sack workers.

The Greek government is fully aware of the fact that the freeing up of banks to begin a wave of repossessions could bring millions back onto the streets as family after family begin to be evicted. We will see many daily local outbursts of protest in every neighbourhood of the big towns. And the freedom to dismiss workers will further aggravate the already dire situation of employment.

Samaras is saying that if they accept these latest proposals there will be revolution in Greece and the government will fall… and he is right! The problem is that the troika is insisting on these demands because the German ruling class wants to send a clear message to all the countries of the European South. It cannot afford to make too many concessions to Greece as this would set a precedent for Portugal, Spain and Italy, who would ask for similar concessions, something German capital cannot afford to allow.

German capital squeezing Greek capital

However, it is not just about how far to go in terms of attacking the Greek workers. The Greek bourgeois would like more time, so as to try to cushion somewhat the blow and avoid a new wave of angry mobilisations of the workers and youth. On this the differences between the Greek ruling class and the more powerful European, mainly German, ruling classes are about how deep to cut and at what pace.

There are, however, other matters of concern for the Greek bourgeoisie, which has been angered by the troika because the latter has also been in the process of taking over control of the Greek banking system. The troika now has de facto control of the Greek banks. Many big Greek enterprises that have debts with Greek banks have problems covering their loans. So the new master of the Greek banks, the troika, instead of renegotiating with the Greek bosses or offering them new loans to cover the old loans, is forcing them to increase the number of their enterprises’ shares (in other words to look for new capital input).

The problem is that the Greek capitalists cannot compete with the more powerful foreign investors in providing this recapitalisation. That is why now they are in danger of losing control of their own enterprises to the big foreign private investment funds, which have enough money, and can take over the big Greek enterprises and exploit their established position in the market. In this way the troika-controlled banks will be able to get back the money from the old loans, so these can become more viable (with fewer "non-performing" loans). This can lead to the quickest possible "cure" for the Greek banks and provide the troika new investors to sell the Greek banks to. The problem is that the non-performing loans are now 30% of the total and the loans with delays in service payments have reached 65%.

This is the material base that explains why Samaras recently adopted a firmer stance in his negotiations with the troika. The Greek bourgeois are afraid of both the revolutionary upheavals that the constant austerity policies will lead to and the complete loss of control over their home base, the Greek market.

The troika is also pressing the Greek banks to sell off all their subsidiaries in the Balkans. The European Commission’s Directorate General for Competitiveness has put pressure on Greek banks not to transfer funds to their subsidiaries in neighbouring Balkan countries and to reduce their operations there. Some of the Commission officials have even called for an immediate withdrawal of Greek banks from the Balkans. The same Commission has also called for the urgent selling off of Greek bank assets, so as to be able to pay back the funding received from the state.

In fact, prior to the present economic crisis, Greek banks had more than 1900 branches in the Balkans, employing over 20,000 workers, with financial commitments of 70 billion euros, a 15 percent share of overall banking capital in the region. However, because of the crisis back home, Greek banks have been forced to withdraw much of their capital from the region.

It is a question of mainly German finance capital squeezing the Greek bankers in order to strengthen their position on the Balkan market, the only region where Greek capital has any real influence outside its home base. So the already weak international role of the Greek bourgeoisie is at risk of disappearing altogether. Because of this, very soon the Greek bourgeoisie, or at least a significant section of it, in a desperate mood could soon come out in favour of a return to the Drachma! This will be combined with much nationalist rhetoric, such as that espoused by the Independent Greeks, a right-wing split from New Democracy.

So we see that the Greek bourgeoisie, while in conflict with the Greek workers – and in this it is in an alliance with the capitalists of the more powerful economies – is also in conflict with them as there is a struggle for control of the markets that were previously considered Greek.

Class conflict

The main conflict, however, is with the Greek workers who have shown over and over again their willingness to fight. Since this crisis broke out there have been 30 days of 24-hour and 48-hour general strikes and five major mobilisations against austerity (May 2010, May-June 2011, October 2011, February 2012, November 2012) and the most recent was the strike movement in September 2013.

In September there was the latest in the long series of general strikes, a 48-hour strike against the government and its plans to dismiss thousands of public sector workers. The strike coincided with a visit of troika officials “to check on the progress of promised reforms”, i.e. to make sure the Greek government was not being soft on the working class of Greece! The strike affected transport, schools and hospitals.

The strike wave in September actually proved to be short-lived and weak. The reason for this is that the trade union leaders – as well as both the SYRIZA and KKE leaders – while vowing to increase pressure on the government, offered no real concrete plans to escalate the struggle and take it to its logical end of an all-out struggle to bring down the government and stop the austerity.

There have been many general strikes now and these have not budged the government one millimetre. In spite of the anger expressed by the workers and youth, the government keeps on rolling out more and more austerity and there seems no end to it. This has had the effect of devaluing the very idea of a general strike. It has dampened workers’ enthusiasm towards the idea that such action can actually have any effect on the government. A typical comment last September was the following: “I don’t think strikes have anything to offer anymore. I think that the unions are trying to show that they are doing something. Have you seen any strike succeeding in its goal?”

What is happening here has a clear logic. The workers have mobilised many times with no concrete results and therefore they don't see a clear way out. That explains the "lull", but at the same time they are very radicalised. Strike activity and radicalisation do not always appear together. It would be wrong to deduce from the strike figures of recent months that there is no radicalisation. One can have radicalisation with no movement on the streets.

One also has to take into account the severe economic crisis which weakens the working class on the industrial front, especially in the private sector. In general, the shock of such a deep crisis can paralyse the workers for a period. A strike against a boss who is planning to close down a factory has little effect. That also explains why some disputes have led to factory occupations, as the workers have understood that mere strikes and demonstrations are not enough. The very militant months-long strike of the University workers in the autumn was also symptomatic of the underlying mood of anger, as was the strike of the doctors who work in the EOPYY [National Organisation for Healthcare Provision]. Unfortunately, in none of these cases did the workers find a leadership up to the task of generalising these struggles, including the KKE’s trade union front, PAME.

An element of tiredness has therefore crept in. This does not mean that anger has dissipated or that any of the problems have been solved. On the contrary, the conditions of working people are worsening by the day. It is now even affecting the air people breathe in Athens. Air pollutants in some parts of Athens have reached levels 15 times those recommended by the EU in recent months. This is due to the fact that because people cannot afford to pay for electricity, gas and oil, they have started to burn wood in stoves in their homes, including very bad quality scrap wood.

But as we said, the lack of a movement does not mean the anger and the desire for change has gone away. In fact, the lack of movements indicates the workers feel something bigger is needed. There have been some very militant struggles in the recent period, but they have been isolated and have not led to a wider movement. After so many mass mobilisations and general strikes that have achieved nothing, the workers are disappointed. Therefore, having failed to make a breakthrough on the industrial front, the workers are now looking to the political front for a solution, i.e. to the next elections.

Conservatism of workers’ leaders

The unfortunate thing in all this is that the workers’ leaders draw the completely wrong conclusions from this development. They use this lull to make people believe that the workers are not prepared to fight. Instead of accepting their own responsibilities in provoking such a situation, they claim there is lack of militancy. The leaders of SYRIZA use this to push forward an even more moderate agenda, with the excuse that there is no real support for a militant, fighting, socialist programme. They are responsible for this situation, put they put the blame for it on the shoulders of the masses.

SYRIZA is now coming under immense pressure from the Greek bourgeoisie. On the one hand there has been a massive propaganda campaign aimed at scaring the more conservative layers of the population from voting for the party. This propaganda involves depicting SYRIZA as a “communist danger”, as a party that wants to take people’s property from them, in the classic scare-mongering that we have always seen in times of acute crisis of the system.

In this ideological assault on the part of the bourgeois media, the Marxists in SYRIZA have been picked out for special treatment, with huge exposés in the media. These have led to the leaders of New Democracy calling on Tsipras to remove the Marxists from the ranks of the party.

However, at the same time as pressuring the party leaders to remove the more radical elements from its ranks, there is another campaign aimed at pushing Tsipras to moderate his stance, to become more realistic and so on. Much free advice is being given to Tsipras and the other SYRIZA leaders by bourgeois commentators, all aimed at preparing a SYRIZA that would not challenge capitalism once in government.

In spite of this, the only alternative the masses have is to vote SYRIZA, in the hope that this will produce a government that will alleviate the pain and lift some of the austerity they have had to endure. That explains why in the latest opinion polls SYRIZA is emerging consistently as the first party, ahead of New Democracy. However, the polls also indicate that SYRIZA is not doing as well as it should be in such a situation. The reason for SYRIZA coming first is not so much due to growing support, but because New Democracy is going down in the polls. There is in fact no big enthusiasm for SYRIZA and this is due to its shift towards more and more of a Social Democratic stance.

One opinion poll indicates the following situation: SYRIZA 21%, New Democracy 20%, Golden Dawn 8.2%, KKE 5.8%, PASOK 5.6%, Independent Greeks 5.6%, DIMAR 4.2%, ANTARSYA 1.5%. Other polls indicate a more finely balanced situation, with some confirming SYRIZA to be ahead, while others show New Democracy still slightly ahead of SYRIZA. A Marc poll showed SYRIZA at 29.7% and New Democracy on 27.8%, while a Metrisis poll put New Democracy just ahead of SYRIZA, 21.5% against SYRIZA’s 20.6%. The Marc poll indicated that as many as 30% of the electorate were undecided on who to vote for.

The most likely outcome of the next general election will be a SYRIZA victory. What is not clear is whether, even with the 50 bonus MPs that the first party is entitled to, it will have an outright majority in parliament. Should this be the case, then the leaders of SYRIZA will be forced to seek allies with which to form a coalition. If the leaders of SYRIZA were serious about stopping austerity they would be turning to the KKE leaders offering them an alliance. This would have a huge impact on the whole Greek political scenario. But, unfortunately, this is the last thing they want. In fact, of all the parties that are available, Tsipras has raised the idea of a possible alliance with the Independent Greeks, a right-wing nationalist split from New Democracy!

More and more, the leaders of SYRIZA are abandoning their previous more radical positions. The reason for this is that they have no real alternative to the market economy, to capitalism. They accept its laws and will thus attempt to operate within the limits of the system. This means, that in spite of themselves, they will come under immense pressure once in government and will be forced to buckle under and find the money to pay the debt.

One SYRIZA MP, Giorgos Stathakis, recently issued a statement that only about 5 percent of Greece’s debt, could be considered “odious”, a reference to previous statements of Tsipras that the odious debt should be cancelled! And, as if anticipating what will happen once they are in government, the same MP pointed out that, “Over 90 percent of the debt is traditional, public debt of the markets, in other words bonds. There is no legal process to challenge this.” These words speak volumes about what a SYRIZA government would do, or rather, would fail to do!

Golden Dawn under pressure

It is worth commenting here on what has happened to the Golden Dawn. It has lost its dynamic of growth and now they are in a defensive position. Under pressure from the bourgeois, they have been making public statements that they are not fascists, in an attempt to clean up their image. Nonetheless, in spite of the attacks of the judiciary and the media, their electoral support has remained unchanged.

The electoral success of this far-right Nazi party is an indication of the desperate situation facing a layer of the petit bourgeoisie, the small shopkeepers and small businesses. Many of these have been forced into bankruptcy, falling into the depths of poverty, while others are just keeping their heads above water but in constant fear of going under.

After the killing of the left-wing rapper and anti-fascist Pavlos Fissas, there was a huge reaction against the Golden Dawn. This cut across the plans of the Greek bourgeoisie. They were in fact making preparations for the possible inclusion of the Golden Dawn in a coalition with New Democracy should the present coalition collapse. This, however, is a very dangerous game to play, considering the historical traditions of Greece, going right back to the Civil War. The inclusion of openly Nazi elements in any government would be like a red rag to a bull for the Greek workers. Instead of providing stable government, any such move would destabilise Greek society even further.

The problem was that the electoral success of the Golden Dawn had gone to the heads of its leaders. They thought they were on their way to taking power, just as Mussolini and Hitler had done. But any such attempt would open the road to civil war in Greece. The workers and youth would not stand idly by in such a scenario. Thus the bourgeois had to reign in these neo-Nazis, and they did so by arresting their leaders and giving them a warning.

However, the aim of this pressure is not to destroy the Golden Dawn, but to force it to clean up its act somewhat and present themselves as a more palatable right-wing conservative party. The pressure is on for this party to cleanse itself of the more rabid Nazi elements. In spite of all the attacks they have received in the media, however, their vote has remained relatively strong. What this reveals is that there is a layer of the petit bourgeoisie which has lost all trust in the traditional bourgeois parties. It is one thing to vote for New Democracy, or even PASOK, in times of economic growth, when everything seems to be going well, and the middle layers are also benefitting. It is a completely different question when these same layers are seeing their living standards fall, with some suffering a steep collapse in their incomes.

The state these layers find themselves in is something the reformist leaders of the labour movement do not understand. They consider this layer as being in a state of permanent “moderation”. They see them as conservatives who will never shift to a radical stance. And on this basis they develop a whole political position of the need for moderation on the part of any potential left government. Thus we are told that any radical demands, such as the nationalisation of banks and corporations would alienate these layers. What this ignores is that these layers do not own the corporations and big banks, but are exploited by them! In normal times this does not appear to be the case, as loans can help small businesses to expand, and in a generally growing market there is also some room for the small fish. But in the present situation, the loans have turned into unpayable debts and with the shrinking market it is precisely the small fish that are eaten up by the big fish.

Some of these small fish have turned to the Golden Dawn as a way of hitting out at those parties who are supporting austerity, the New Democracy, PASOK and DIMAR. Rather than seeking “moderate” solutions, these layers are now seeking real concrete action. Some of these could be won by SYRIZA, but not if the leaders of the party insist on “moderating” their programme. When Tsipras talks to big business and reassures them that Greece will stay in the euro, and that any government led by SYRIZA would guarantee their interests, it means that the party has nothing to offer these layers. If SYRIZA were to come out boldly for the nationalisation of the banks and the big corporations, and boldly against the European Union, the party could win these layers. As usual with the reformists in times of acute crisis, they stand reality on its head and move in the wrong direction.

Tsipras attempts to soothe nerves of capitalists

In the initial stages of the radicalisation of the Greek working class and youth, we saw the rise of SYRIZA and the corresponding collapse of PASOK. This process started with the youth, where the swing towards Synaspismos [now SYRIZA] was evident among the 18-25-year olds. It was the radical talk of rejecting the Memoranda that attracted the leftward moving workers and youth.

Now Tsipras feels the urge to become a more “serious politician” a more “statesmanlike leader”. He has been moderating his stance and continuing his turn to the right. In December Tsipras continued in his attempts to appease the “business community”. He spoke to the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce. This is how the Greek newspaper To Vima reported his speech:

“Opposition leader is making conscious efforts to approach the business world…

“Since SYRIZA came in second at last year’s double elections, Mr Tsipras has made conscious efforts to approach the business world by arranging a series of trips to the USA and meeting with various institutional players. Today’s speech is essentially a follow up to his recent appearance at a conference in Austin, Texas in November, where he categorically stated that Greece will not exit the Eurozone.

“Mr Tsipras’ efforts to approach the business world have not gone unnoticed, with business circles associated with the American-Hellenic Chamber expressing their approval and considering him a reliable party, which cannot be said about other European officers.

“In his speech the SYRIZA leader asked whether they would like profits with high taxes or no profits and argued that his party was in favour of supporting Greek enterprises and encouraged investments in innovation, while respecting the labour, tax and environmental legislation…” (Tuesday, December 3, 2013)

Notice how business people consider him a “reliable party”. Tsipras also said that "we will assist real investors," and that "the public, social and private sectors of the economy will coexist, functioning in a clearly distinguished and complementary fashion". Basically he was saying to the Greek and foreign capitalists that they should invest in Greece under a SYRIZA government and that such a government would guarantee their profits

While such sweet words may be reassuring to some of the capitalists, they have had the complete opposite effect on the radicalised workers and youth who are suffering the consequences of the incessant austerity measures introduced over the recent years.

Radicalisation of the youth

Tsipras’ turn to the right has had the effect of slowing down the trajectory of the party. It was growing both in terms of votes and members. Now a layer of the new recruits has already abandoned the party. In the local branches of the party there is very little youth, with the average age of the membership being around 50-55. And there is no longer the enthusiasm within society towards the party as there was in the early stages of radicalisation. On the electoral front SYRIZA is ahead of New Democracy not because of any significant growth, but because New Democracy’s electoral base is slowly but surely being whittled away as Samaras continues to impose austerity.

Now a layer of the youth has gone beyond Tsipras. They do not trust him as they did previously. They have begun to suspect that he will go the same way as many reformists before him. A layer of the youth is drawing openly revolutionary conclusions, and due to the lack of any credible alternative, at this stage, the most radicalised youth are turning to the anarchists. They do not look to SYRIZA or the KKE but seek out what they perceive to be “revolutionary”.

This is the dialectical nature of the situation: the masses will vote for SYRIZA at the next election and most likely will push Tsipras to take the reins of government. But within this main current there is another counter-current of radicalised youth looking beyond the party.

And a turn to the left within the trade unions

Meanwhile, within the working class there is also a process of radicalisation, which – as we have already explained – does not necessarily express itself in strikes and demonstrations. After all, there have been many such activities with no concrete result. The workers have drawn the conclusion that a change of government is necessary. That explains the votes SYRIZA will receive. But they also have drawn the conclusion that a change of trade union leaders is required if there are to be effective actions in the future.

In the recent period there have not been major strikes, but within the unions we are seeing a very sharp turn to the left. This can clearly be seen by the changed balance of forces within ADEDY, the public sector trade union confederation. PASKE, the old PASOK faction within the unions, has lost half its votes inside this important trade union, while SYRIZA has gained 40%. New Democracy also has its trade union faction, known as DAKE, which has lost 20%. Further to the left some of the far left groups have won seats on the national council of ADEDY for the first time, while the KKE’s front PAME has risen by 5%.

This has created the unprecedented situation where PASKE has lost its long established majority and for the first time the “traditional left” (KKE and SYRIZA) plus some small left groups, together have a majority in ADEDY. This is a dramatic turnaround and an extremely significant one at that. In the past the government workers were considered a privileged and conservative layer. But after the constant attacks on all the gains of the past with job losses and wage cuts, this layer has been radicalised and has begun to change its leaders, seeking what they perceive to be more militant leaders. This indicates that they are preparing for bigger and more effective battles in the future.

Impact on the Communist Party (KKE)

In all this, what is happening inside the Communist Party (KKE)? In spite of everything, it continues with its sectarian approach to the rest of the Greek left. It is worth remembering that in the build up to the elections in 2012 there was a very strong desire for unity on the left among the Greek workers and youth. But the leadership of the KKE refused, as it has done for decades, to apply the tactic of the united front as formulated by Lenin in works such as Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder.

This explains what happened in the May and June 2012 parliamentary elections. In May the party scored a very modest increase of about 1%, taking it to 8.5% but barely a month later in the second election it lost 4%, falling to an overall vote of 4.5%, the lowest result in its history.

If the KKE had declared its willingness to form a government with SYRIZA this would have enormously strengthened both parties. Instead the KKE leaders attacked SYRIZA, writing it off as a reformist party, no better than PASOK. The point the leaders of the KKE ignore is that such a statement has to be proven in practice, through the experience of the workers themselves. It is true that the leaders of SYRIZA do not have a programme that challenges capitalism. The direction they are moving in is one where they will end up in government under enormous pressure from the capitalists to buckle under and continue with the austerity measures demanded of the troika.

The leaders of the KKE seem to envisage only two possibilities: either they enter a coalition government which carries out austerity measures, thereby weakening the party further, or they maintain a hidebound sectarian approach and talk about a socialist future that will come into being once the party has become strong enough to govern on its own.

However, between these two positions there is a more balanced Marxist approach. The leaders of the KKE could have offered unity to SYRIZA, while also posing conditions, with demands such as the need to cancel the Memoranda, to cancel the debt, to stop privatisations, to stop unloading onto the shoulder of the workers and poor the burden of paying for this crisis, for the nationalisation of the banks and so on. The party could have declared itself in favour of unity with SYRIZA on these conditions. Then it would have been the responsibility of the SYRIZA leaders to accept or refuse such unity.

Instead what we have is a situation where the moderate SYRIZA leaders have been saved from exposing themselves as having no programme to solve the crisis. It is the leaders of SYRIZA who blame the KKE for lack of unity, and in this moment this plays to their advantage, as they appear to be “non-sectarian”.

The irony of all this is that in the past, in 1989-90 the KKE (when it was still one united party, including those who later split away to form Synaspismos, later to become SYRIZA) had an experience of being in government with the New Democracy. Of course, they paid dearly for such a policy, and this has marked its politics ever since. From extreme opportunism they swung towards an ultra-left stance.

How does one explain this peculiar development of the Greek Communist Party? The party has a significant working class base and has the ability to mobilise – always separate from the rest of the labour movement unfortunately. Nonetheless it has a base, but the leaders apply a policy which is designed to build a kind of fortress around the party, inside which its ranks are isolated from the rest of society. The leadership fear that any softening on its part of the intense antagonism with other parties of the left, in particular with SYRIZA, would loosen their grip over the party as a whole and would also expose the fact that they do not know what to do in this situation.

In spite of this, with the growing discontent in society, with all the mass movements of the recent period, it has become more and more difficult to isolate the ranks of the party from the mass movement. This situation has led to a questioning within the KKE of the party’s tactics. As the party is very tightly controlled from the top, not much of its internal affairs seeps out, but it is clear that discontent has been growing. The continued sectarianism of the party, especially inside the trade unions, has been often questioned.

It is precisely to cut across this growing criticism within the ranks, that the party leaders have made a significant shift to the left on a series of questions. The leadership has abandoned the two-stage theory which stated that the coming revolution in Greece would be bourgeois-democratic (the first stage) and only at some later moment socialist (the second stage). Now they talk about the necessity of socialism. They have gone so far as to denounce the ideas of the historical leader of the KKE Florakis (Secretary General of the Communist Party of Greece between 1972–1989), abandoning Popular Frontism, i.e. of alliances with “democratic-bourgeois” parties. The party theoretical magazine has actually carried articles against him and his heritage, but in doing so they have gone back to sterile “Third Period” ultra-leftism of the late 1920s! They have even published articles critical of the programme of EAM ELAS [Greek People's Liberation Army - National Liberation Front at the end of the Second World War] and have gone so far as to come out against the Popular Frontist policy adopted at the 7th Congress of the Comintern under Stalin.

This situation is leading to an escalation of internal conflict within the party. More and more disciplinary measures are being implemented against the internal opposition, who are described as “Khrushchevites”, i.e. anyone who is opposed to the “Third Period” sectarianism and is in favour of alliances. A well-known figure in the party who defends such positions is Nikos Bogiopoulos, a journalist who had been working for the KKE paper Rizospastis since 1992, but was recently removed from his position. Bogiopoulos is a very popular figure on the Greek left, well beyond the KKE itself. He is also very popular within SYRIZA.

The “Bogiopoulists” in effect represent a right-wing reformist opposition to the ultra-left turn of the party, and accuse the party leaders of being Trotskyist conspirators. They have gone so far as to quote articles that have appeared in the Marxist journal, Epanastasi [the journal of the IMT in Greece], to prove their point. The comrades of Epanastasi have commented positively on the KKE’s abandonment of the two-stage theory – while of course, criticising the party’s sectarianism. Nonetheless, the right wing of the party identify the recent turn as “Trotskyist”. This is an extremely interesting situation, as it poses within the ranks of the KKE “what is Trotskyism?”

An abandonment of the old two stages theory and Popular Frontism clearly poses the question as to why for such a long historical period the party stuck to these ideas. But the party needs to go further. Abandoning class collaborationist, Popular Front ideas is a step forward but it also requires a return to the United Front tactic as elaborated by Lenin. If the KKE leaders were to adopt the genuine ideas of Lenin, the party could play a significant role, especially as SYRIZA gets more and more embroiled in applying bourgeois economic policies. Otherwise, its leaders could condemn the party to sterile sectarianism aimed at hiding their own inadequacies in the present situation. Only the genuine ideas of Marxism, as espoused by the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA and its journal Epanastasi, can answer the many questions that will be posed within the ranks of the KKE.

The next period

The present stalemate situation is going to change sharply in the coming period. The present government is limping along, but will soon be removed. All the opinion polls indicate that the most likely scenario will be a SYRIZA victory in the next election. Then that the SYRIZA leaders will seek to form a coalition government of some kind. This will be an important experience for the Greek workers and youth. Initially they will place their hopes in such a government, but very quickly will learn that Tsipras and the other SYRIZA leaders do not have real concrete solutions to the crisis of Greek capitalism.

This will prepare the ground for new waves of mass protests and struggles. The workers and youth will have no alternative but to fight. In this process large layers will draw revolutionary conclusions. This process has been anticipated by what is already happening among a more advanced layer. This will continue and be deepened by further experience.

In this context, the ideas of genuine Marxism will get an echo within the ranks of both SYRIZA and the KKE, and within the trade unions. The task is to strengthen the Marxist tendency in Greece and prepare for the big events of the coming period.