The Immediate Demands of the Greek Working Class

Throughout the previous period, PAME, the class-conscious movement, was at the forefront of the struggle against the attack of capital on labour and popular rights. We will continue in the same direction, because the problems and the factors that led the vast majority of the people to poverty, misery and the loss of rights and conquests are still here. 

Our opponent is still here! The business groups, industrialists, ship-owners, the hotel-owners, shopping mall owners, all of them, along with their governments and the EU, placed the consequences of the crisis and the debt on the backs of the people, and they continue to become richer over the suffering and misery of the overwhelming majority of the people. 

The opponent did not leave with the change of government. Using this change, the opponent remains here, ready and equipped. The best wishes and compliments from representatives of big capital to the new government reflect its commitment to new privileges, to a different mixture of capitalist management that will help them emerge from the crisis. They want to consolidate this entire anti-labor arsenal that has been created, so they can, in conditions of capitalist recovery, neutralize the militant, demanding voices of the workers. A key pillar of the new management is that we learn to live with less, to be satisfied surviving on breadcrumbs, as the new Finance Minister advocated with his proposition of a  “frugal life”. 

On SYRIZA and an article by "Morning Star"

The Morning Star on the 17/1 featured an article on the developments in Greece and the prospects regarding the election of a SYRIZA government (“Athens stands on the verge of its liberation” by Kevin Ovenden). The writer paints a picture of the situation in Greece today that has nothing to do with the reality and misleads the paper’s readers. Specifically, he states that SYRIZA belongs to the “Radical Left” and that the impending election of a SYRIZA government marks a rupture with the European establishment. Indeed, he attempts to depict SYRIZA as the historic continuation of the titanic struggles of the communist movement in Greece in the 20th century. This is an anti-historical approach and although an analysis of these issues is beyond the scope of our article, we would merely like to note that EAM, ELAS and the DSE came into fierce confrontations with the fascist occupier, US and British imperialism and the class enemy in Greece, paying the price with thousands of dead, years of persecution, torture and exile and in contrast to all this, the President and leading officials of SYRIZA are feted in the mansions of the plutocracy, the IMF, in Texas, in the Bilderberg Group of Italy’s (Ambrosetti Forum) meeting in Lake Como, in the City of London and provide assurances and loudly declare that our country’s membership of the EU and NATO is not disputed. 

Empty Blustering

The bargaining between the SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government and the staff of the EU officially began on 30/1, when J. Dijsselbloem, the Eurogroup President, visited Athens. 

In his meeting with the Prime Minister, A. Tsipras, and the Finance Minsiter, G. Varoufakis, the new government's dedication to the competitiveness of capital, balanced budgets, primary surpluses and restructuring was confirmed. 

At the same time, the more general antagonisms of capital manifested themselves more intensely. The formulation of J. Dijsselbloem was characteristic: in response to the position regarding an "international conference" about the Greek state debt, he stated that the "conference has a name, it is the Eurogroup". In other words, he stated that whatever decisions are taken will be taken at the level of the EU without interventions from other sides, such as the IMF, for example. 

A revealing overview of the dangerous geo-strategic “challenges” facing the Greek bourgeoisie

A revealing overview of the dangerous geo-strategic “challenges” facing the Greek bourgeoisie 
 THE ARMED FORCES WHITE PAPER 

Rizospastis presents extensive excerpts taken from a multi-page Defence Ministry report, revealing the deep involvement of the Armed Forces in the imperialist plans of the Greek bourgeoisie.

Today Rizospastis presents extensive excerpts of the Greek Armed Forces White Paper, published just two days before the elections, i.e. on January 23rd, and revealing the plans of the Greek monopolies to advance their positions in the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean and the former Soviet Democracies, to enhance their geo-strategic positions by turning Greece into an energy hub and an energy producer, to reach higher levels of the imperialist pyramid with the Armed Forces (AF) in a world policing role and to further involve the Greek people into dangerous intra-imperialist rivalries, safeguarding their trade ways, energy supplies and transit trade, as well as the overall operation of the capitalist economy. 

Why there was no government coalition between SYRIZA and KKE, from Syriza's standpoint

I copy from "Radical Initiative", SYRIZA's Union in National Insurance Corp; the article is by George Gialouris: 

The third option for government coalition was with KKE, but their leadership had rejected - and quite rightly in my view - any such scenario. SYRIZA is a party of bourgeois management that seeks solutions within the EU and wishes to find a path within the EU. KKE doesn't.

Of course, this doesn't prevent the surprisingly candid SYRIZA member from adding the ritual coda:

M. Papadopoulos-Negotiations at the Enemy Camp, Part II

A different path to the "frugal life" 

Whatever the outcome of the negotiations, it will not lead to a significant improvement of the position of the working class. The previous big "haircut" of sovereign debt in Greece (PSI) not only did not result in the economic relief of the people but it was accompanied by an escalation of anti-popular attack. This example helps make clear that a change in the management and the level of government debt does not automatically lead to any improvement of social policy or to an increase of popular income. 

As long as the goal of increasing monopoly profit remains, the sacrifice of social needs and rights will continue. Protecting the competitiveness of capital and the recovery of losses of the workers at the same time are not compatible goals. Capitalist development runs counter to popular welfare, whichever management of sovereign debt is chosen. 

M. Papadopoulos-Negotiations at the Enemy Camp, Part I

M. Papadopoulos*

Negotiations at the enemy camp 
Rizospastis [The Radical]: Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece,
1 February 2015

"Substantial negotiations." This will be the slogan of the post-election trade in hope in the coming months. Both the coalition government of SYRIZA - ANEL and the major bourgeois media are promoting the meeting of the Minister of Finance Yannis Varoufakis with the President of Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, as the starting point of a marathon of negotiations that may lead to better days in Greece and in the EU at large. 

The ideological climate which promotes reduced expectations and demands, one which unfortunately prevails today among the wage earners, is exploited to reinforce the illusion that a "tough", "decisive" negotiation might lead to a shift of the bourgeois administration of the economy in the people's interest. There is an attempt to establish the idea that the large losses in the family income of the Greek lower classes during the crisis period are final, and that this is no longer the issue anyway; at the same time, what is projected as the only way out for future popular prosperity is the speedy return to higher rates of capitalist growth, to economic recovery and increased profits for monopoly groups. 

To expose the myth of hard bargaining that will allegedly lead to "development for all", wherein both monopolies and wage-earners and the self-employed "win", we must examine that myth's content.