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| EEK contingent in General Strike against Syriza government, November 2015. |
While the overall turnout of about 30-35 participants was gratifying to the organizers, one
disappointment was the lack of representation of members of the Greek community in New York. This is undoubtedly related to the demoralization many Greeks now feel as a
result of the betrayal of their hopes by the Syriza government. (While the
Greek Diaspora in New York includes all shades of the political spectrum there
was great excitement over the victory of Syriza in the elections last year
within this community.)
Alex
Steiner summarized the unifying theme of the essays included in the volume. Although
the book was not originally conceived as having a unifying theme – it is a
series of essays written at different times by different people in response to
events – a unifying theme can be discerned in retrospect. That theme is the
inversion of the usual understanding of what is radical and “utopian” – in the
negative sense of an unrealizable goal, and by way of contrast what is
considered “practical” and “moderate”.
With the crisis facing Greece after 6 bitter years of austerity, the
so-called “practical” approach, which was embraced by the Syriza government,
was the strategy of attempting to ameliorate the effects of austerity by
negotiating and gaining concessions from the European institutions. This proved to be a completely unrealizable
goal and had little behind it other than wishful thinking. No less unrealizable was the so-called
“practical” agenda of the European Institutions; that Greece should increase
its debt by borrowing more money so that it can pay off the bankers. In return
for the brutal austerity measures that the European institutions demanded,
including the de facto surrender of Greek sovereignty, the politicians and
bureaucrats representing the European institutions promised that eventually
Greece would climb back to economic health.
This was of course a complete pipe-dream as nearly everyone recognized
off the record – and in the case of the International Monetary Fund even on the
record - but that was and remains the official position of the European institutions.
By
way of contrast to the unrealizable nature
of these “practical” proposals, Steiner noted that the only genuinely
realistic approach to ending austerity in Greece is to break completely not
only with the Eurozone but with capitalism. The socialist solution to Greece’s
economic crisis has usually been viewed as a fantasy of the far-left, having no
chance of success. But Steiner argued
that the impossibility of the traditional “practical” approaches made
consideration of the socialist alternative a real possibility as opposed to the
wishful thinking and dishonest propaganda behind the alternatives proposed by
both Syriza and the European institutions.
Steiner referred to his essay in the volume, 'Plan C: The SocialistAlternative for Greece'. In that essay Steiner argued against another
alternative to the plans of the European institutions that has been championed
by the former Syriza deputy and Marxist economist, Costas Lapavitsas. Lapavitsas, alternative, what he calls “Plan
B”, involves an exit from the Euro and a return to the drachma and native Greek
capitalism. Steiner argued that
Lapavitsas alternative was another false path and that native Greek capitalism
had as much chance of success as a flower blooming in the Arctic winter. Steiner read an excerpt from his essay in
which he tried to work out concretely some of the policies that a socialist
government in Greece would undertake. He concluded his remarks by noting that the inauguration of socialism in Greece
cannot be completed in Greece but would require the assistance of the working
class internationally while at the same time a movement toward socialism in
Greece would inspire political movements for socialism throughout Europe
and the rest of the world.
Following
Steiner’s presentation, George Caffentzis spoke.
Although Caffentzis was not involved in the book,
he was invited to speak as a participant in the events in Greece last summer
and as someone who has written on the fight against austerity in Greece. Caffentzis, who has done a great deal of
theoretical work on the nature of the crisis of capitalism, argued that those
on the Left who are sympathetic to the fight against austerity in Greece
frequently oversimplify the problem. They tend to see Greece as a victim and
the European Institutions as this powerful bully that is behind the crisis in
Greece. What they don’t see is that the historic crisis of European capitalism
is the driving force behind the attack on Greece. Caffentzis noted that while European capitalism
in absolute terms produces enormous profits, the rate of profit has been
steadily deteriorating and it is now getting close to zero. This is an unsustainable situation for
European capitalism which he described as in a state of “euthanasia”.
The
“solution” that has been embraced by the leaders of the European bourgeoisie is
to import the methods that had previously been applied in third world countries
– structural adjustment and austerity – and see if they can be applied to
Europe. Greece has become the main
experiment to see if this project is viable.
What the European institutions are trying to do is to see if it is
possible to reduce the standard of living of the working class by 50% or more
and boost profits through the increased exploitation of workers. They reckon
that if they can successfully do that in Greece, without unleashing a
destabilizing civil war, they can do it in the rest of Europe. For this reason, Greece is in the front lines
of the class struggle internationally.
Caffentzis
also noted that in recent years a new political phenomenon has appeared on the
scene – left wing parties like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. These parties, when claiming to be fighting
austerity, had more credibility within the working class than the traditional
parties of Social Democracy, all of whom without exception have been severely
compromised by their embrace of neo-liberalism in the past 3 decades. But what is now evident, he went on to
say, is that these new parties have become willing participants in the plans of
the European bourgeoisie to resolve the problem of European capitalism by
forcing the European working class to accept third world conditions. Caffentzis seemed to indicate - it was not
entirely clear since he did not get a chance to elaborate on this - that
the fate of parties like Syriza and Podemos was the inevitable fate of parties
as such and the real alternative must come from autonomous acts of resistance
from the ground up.
The
last speaker was Savas Michael-Matsas.
Savas provided a historical summary of the evolution of class relations
in Greece following the collapse of the CIA-backed dictatorship in 1974. The
post-dictatorship era saw an equilibrium established in which two establishment
parties, New Democracy and PASOK, one a center right party and the other a
center left party, traded places in running the government. This arrangement
lasted until Greece was forced into bankruptcy in 2010. In the next few years,
both New Democracy and PASOK completely collapsed. Beginning in 2012, Syriza, a coalition of
left wing forces that originated in a split from the Communist Party, became a
major force in Greek political life as the old political system was
disintegrating. In January 2015,
following the collapse of the New Democracy government, Syriza became the
ruling party running on a platform that promised an end to austerity. Savas then followed the twists and turns of
the Syriza government leading up to their betrayal of the results of the
referendum on July 5. He likened that betrayal to the historical betrayal of
the Greek partisans in 1944 by the agreement drawn up by Stalin, Churchill and
Roosevelt and the later even worse betrayal by the Greek Stalinists when they forced the fighters in the civil war to surrender their arms to the British in 1945. Savas
received a good round of applause when stating that he did not agree with those
who were reticent about calling Tsipras action a “betrayal”. Savas painted in graphic detail the effects
of the policy of “social cannibalism” that had been implemented by the European institutions, policies that have reduced Greece to conditions of social misery
unprecedented in a modern bourgeois democratic country of Europe. He noted that while the working class had
been betrayed, they have not been defeated.
The capacity of the Greek working class to fight has not been broken. He
also discussed how the resistance against the attacks on the working class can
be seen not only in the general strikes that have broken out against the
Syriza-led austerity measures in recent months, but also in the tremendous
solidarity shown by the Greek people to the refugees that have landed in Greece
from Syria and other countries in the Middle East.
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| George Caffentzis |
He ended his talk by explaining that his
organization, the Workers Revolutionary Party of Greece (EEK), believes that the
only solution to the crisis in Greece is the overthrow of capitalism itself and
that this is seen as part of an international struggle for the Socialist United
States of Europe. And he ended by
pointing to the signs of a radicalization of the American working class shown
in - among other things - the Bernie Sanders candidacy. With the U.S. being at the center of the
crisis of world capitalism, any sign of the awakening of the sleeping giant of
the American working class energizes the struggle everywhere. The coming period will see new forces coming
into struggle who reject the false façade of leftism of parties like Syriza and
Podemos.
To
get the full impact of Savas' talk, we have provided a link to the audio of his
contribution. You can listen to it here:
You may also download the mp4 file by clicking here
A
spirited question and answer session followed the presentations.
Kudos go to Michael Lardner, coordinator of the Marxist Educator Project, and Melissa Ennen, proprietor of the Brooklyn Commons, for making this event possible.
