A massive vote for Syriza

On January 25, Greek workers massively voted for Syriza (Coalition of the radical left : 36.3 % of the votes) that had promised to cancel the debt of the ND and PASOK governments. Others voted, out of distrust towards Syriza, for the other party born of stalinism, the KKE (Communist Party of Greece : 5.5 %).

Workers are tired of suffering the consequences of the depression that affects Greek capitalism since the world crisis of 2007-2009, of the reactionary policies of the bourgeois governments and of the Troika (EU-IMF-ECB) : 27.6 % unemployed, 38 % decrease for wages, 44 % for pensions…

On the other hand, big capital (among which ship-owners) and the Orthodox Christian Church (the greatest landowner) continued to escape taxation. As everywhere, « austerity » hit public health and public education, but spared the police and the army.

LinkePartei, NPA, PCF and PdG sow illusions on Syriza. Workers from here should not be contented with hollow phrases for a party that has also the support of EELV and the FN. The responsibility of German and French workers’ organizations is to fight for cancelling the claims of their banks and of their state on Greece.

In fact, the loans of the European Union served to save Greek, German and French banks that had lent to the Greek state and allowed the Greek army to keep on buying from German and French capitalist groups (26 milliards euros last year only for the French armament industries).

32 « days of action » to save bourgeois governments

The discontent of the working class has been contained by the trade union leaderships that dissipated the combativeness with 32 « days of action » instead of calling for the general strike that could have countered the attacks and pulled down the bourgeois governments, ND or PASOK or ND-PASOK.

Syriza, the KKE and Antarsya supported these diversions, as they called for respecting the parliament, to wait for elections and recognized the legitimacy of the ND, Pasok or ND-Pasok governments. They took well care not to encourage the formation of soviet organs. Quite to the contrary, the KKE ferociously divided the workers’ and students’ ranks: splitting trade unions, separate demonstrations, campaigns centred against other workers’ organizations on its right (Syriza) and on its left.

After the parliamentary elections, far from committing itself to forming a workers’ government on a program corresponding to the interests of the workers, the two parties turned their backs on each other. The KKE demands first of all leaving the European Union, trying to persuade that Greek capitalism would do better with the drachma and by closing the borders.

Syriza formed a popular front with a bourgeois party

The first visit of the Syriza leader was for the head of the Orthodox Church. Syriza chose to ally itself with the AN.EL (Independent Greeks: 4.8 % of the votes), a nationalist bourgeois party, an anti-immigrant and antisemitic party from a right-wing split of the ND, linked to the Church and the army,. The pretext of Syriza is that one must form a national unity between the parties that want to snatch the country from foreign claws. The basis of the government is thus the bourgeois State, capitalism and nationalism. Against revolution, socialism and internationalism.

Without confronting the bourgeoisie, the fate of workers could not improve and the fascists (XA, Golden Dawn: 7 % of the votes; LAOS: 3 %) can reinforce themselves. One of the first measures of the government of the Bolshevik Party and of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party had been to cancel the debt of the Russian bourgeoisie (February 1918). The first announcement of the Syriza and AN.EL government was to acknowledge the debt of its bourgeoisie to the German and French bourgeoisies, asking only its refitting. Should workers continue to pay the banks and the army, instead of the shipowners and bishops?

Similarly, the popular front government declared that it would not go back on the previous privatizations. Quite out of the question either to leave the NATO and to close the American military basis in Crete.

For the break with the bourgeoisie

All workers, whether they abstained or voted Syriza, KKE, Antarsya, OKDE-EP or EEK, whether they hold Greek citizenship or are immigrant, must organize themselves together in workplace, neighbourhood, casern, village committees

With its committees and their centralization, the proletariat will be able to establish its government, arm the people, expropriate the capitalists and open the perspective of the Socialist United States of Europe and the Socialist Federation of the Mediterranean. For that, one must build an internationalist communist party, section of a new revolutionary workers international.