95th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution

It is perhaps ironic that one day after the dismal election of 2012 we are celebrating the 95th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.  There could hardly be a starker contrast.  In one case,  the working class is presented with a choice between two representatives of the bourgeoisie, each of which is pledged to continue the assault on living standards and democratic rights that have marked the decade since 9/11.  As long as the two parties of the bourgeoisie continue to define political life, there is no future.

On the other hand, we recall a time 95 years ago when the working class shaped its own history and at a single stroke abolished the rule of capital.  To be sure the coming to power of a proletarian regime did not bring about the transformation of social relations envisioned in the program of socialism.  That was not possible in a single backward country still in the destructive grip of world war and economic breakdown. Nor is this the occasion for an explanation of how the proletarian regime that took power in 1917 underwent a bureaucratic degeneration in subsequent years culminating in the destruction of the flower of the revolution by the murderous regime of Stalin.

Today is a time to reflect on and celebrate that moment in history when it appeared that the prophetic slogan -  'The meek shall inherit the earth' - could become a living reality. We salute the workers, soldiers and sailors who stormed the winter palace in 1917. They stood on the shoulders of Spartacus' rebellion against the Roman Empire, the German peasant revolt, the Diggers of the English Revolution, the sans-culottes of the French Revolution  and the martyrs of the Paris Commune.  

We are reprinting below excerpts from a chronicler of those events, the Left Oppositionist Victor Serge. His book, Year One of the Russian Revolution, is notable for its portrait of the mood of the ordinary participants in these events. While not ignoring the decisive role of the leaders of the Revolution, particularly Lenin and Trotsky, Serge's account brings to life the workers and soldiers who were the engine of the revolution.

The complete text of Serge's book is available online at the Marxist Internet Archives.  The excerpts that follow are taken from chapter II of that book:  http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1930/year-one/ch02.htm

Victor Serge

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Victor Serge

Year One of the Russian Revolution

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The Insurrection of 25 October 1917

THE MASSES

From the rostrum Trotsky had just announced the withdrawal of the Bolsheviks from the Pre-Parliament (Democratic Conference). His voice, grating metallically, hurled the defiance of proletariat and peasantry before the highest authority of the Republic. Then he went out, passing in front of the sailors who were guarding the hall. As he passed them their bayonets wavered, and hard faces with burning eyes turned to the man who had just spoken. Gesturing with their bayonets, they asked him:

‘When do we use these?’

It was 6 October. The Democratic Conference, a mock parliament for the revolution summoned by the S-Rs and Mensheviks, had opened in Moscow in the middle of the previous month. Strikes had forced it out of the city; the staff in hotels and restaurants had refused to wait upon its members. It had now been transferred to Petrograd, and was deliberating under the protection of a picked unit of the most reliable sailors. But the bayonets of these men shuddered at the passage of a Bolshevik spokesman:

‘When do we use these?’ 

This state of feeling was general in the fleet. Two weeks before 25 October, the sailors of the Baltic squadron, anchored at Helsinki, demanded that no more time be lost, and that the destruction of the fleet by the Germans, which now appears to us to be inevitable, should be made holy by insurrection.  They were willing to die: but only for the revolution. Since 15 May the Kronstadt Soviet had refused to recognize the Provisional Government. After the July riots, the commissars sent by Kerensky to board ships and arrest ‘Bolshevik agitators’ received only this curt response: ‘Agitators? We are all agitators.’ It was true. The masses had innumerable agitators.

Delegates from the trenches came to the Petrograd Soviet with speeches of denunciation:

How much longer is this unbearable situation going to last? The soldiers have mandated us to tell you that if peace proposals are not presented immediately and seriously, the trenches will empty and the whole army will come home. You are forgetting all about us! If you cannot find the answer to the situation we shall chase out our enemies ourselves, at bayonet-point – but you will go with them!

Such, Trotsky relates, was the language of the front. 

At the beginning of October the insurrection broke out everywhere, spontaneously; peasant risings spread all over the country.

The provinces of Tula, Tambov, Ryazan and Kaluga are in revolt.

The peasants have been expecting peace and land from the revolution. They have been disappointed; and so they rise, seize the granaries of the landlords, and burn down their houses. The Kerensky government re-presses the risings wherever it has the force to do so. Fortunately its resources are limited. Lenin warns that ‘to crush the peasant upsurge means the murder of the revolution’. 

Within the Soviets of the cities and the armies, the Bolsheviks, until recently a minority, become the majority. In the Moscow Municipal Duma elections, they win 199,337 votes out of 387,262. Of the 710 members elected, 350 were Bolsheviks, 184 Kadets, 104 Socialist-Revolutionaries, thirty-one Mensheviks and forty-one other groups. On the eve of civil war, the moderate, middle-ground parties now fall back, and the extreme parties gain. At a time when the Mensheviks are losing all real influence, and the governing S-R party, which only a short while before appeared to carry immense weight, is reduced to the third place, the Kadets – the bourgeoisie’s own party – acquire new strength as they line up to face the revolutionaries. At the last elections in June the S-Rs and the Mensheviks had obtained seventy per cent of the vote: their share now is eighteen per cent. Of the 17,000 soldiers who vote, 14,000 are for the Bolsheviks.

The Soviets are becoming transformed. Once the strongholds of the Mensheviks and the S-Rs, they are becoming Bolshevized. There are new majorities forming in them. On 31 August in Petrograd and on 6 September in Moscow, the Bolshevik resolutions put before the Soviet obtain a majority for the first time. On 8 September, the Menshevik-S-R executives of the two Soviets resign. On 25 September, Trotsky is elected President of the Petrograd Soviet. Nogin [5] is elected to the same position in Moscow. On 20 September, the Soviet in Tashkent takes power. It is suppressed by the troops of the Provisional Government.  On 27 September, the Soviet in Reval decides in principle for ‘all power to the Soviets’. A few days before the October Revolution, Kerensky’s democratic’ artillery fires upon the revolutionary Soviet at Kaluga.

A little-known fact is worth recording here. At Kazan, the October insurrection triumphed before it had even begun in Petrograd. One of those who took part relates this dialogue between two militants at Kazan:

‘What would you have done if the Soviets had not taken power in Petrograd?’

‘It was impossible for us to refuse power, the garrison wouldn’t let us.’

‘Moscow would have rubbed you out.’

‘No, you are wrong. Moscow could never have got past the forty thousand soldiers we had at Kazan.’ 

All over this immense country, the whole labouring masses are moving towards revolution: peasants, workers, soldiers. It is an elemental, irresistible surge, with the force of an ocean.

Petrograd Soviet in session -1917

THE PARTY OF THE PROLETARIAT

The masses have a million faces: far from being homogeneous, they are dominated by various and contradictory class interests; the sole means by which they can attain a clear-sighted consciousness – without which no successful action is possible – lies in organization. The rebel masses of Russia in 1917 rose to a clear consciousness of their necessary tasks, of their means and the objectives, through the organ of the Bolshevik party. This is not a theory, it is a statement of the facts. In this situation we can see, in superb relief, the relations that obtain between the party, the working class and the toiling masses in general. It is what they actually want, however confusedly, the sailors at Kronstadt, the soldiers in Kazan, the workers of Petrograd, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Moscow and everywhere, the peasants ransacking the landlords’ mansions; it is what they all want without having the power to express their hopes firmly, to match them against the economic and the political realities, to formulate the most practical aims and choose the best means of attaining them, to select the most favourable moment for action, to extend the action from one end of the country to the other, to provide the exchanges of information and the necessary discipline, to co-ordinate the innumerable separate efforts that are going on – it is what they really want, without being able to constitute themselves into (in a word) a force of the requisite intelligence, training, will and myriad energy. What they want, then, the party expresses at a conscious level, and then carries out. The party reveals to them what they have been thinking. It is the bond which unites them from one end of the country to the other. The party is their consciousness, their organization.

When the gunners of the Baltic fleet grew anxious for the perils hanging over the revolution, and sought a way forward, it was the Bolshevik agitator who pointed a way. And there was no other way, that much was clear. When the soldiers in the trenches wanted to voice their determination to finish with the butchery, they elected, to the committee of their battalion, the candidates of the Bolshevik party. When the peasants became tired of the procrastinations of ‘their’ Socialist-Revolutionary party, and began to ask whether it was not time to act for themselves, it was Lenin’s voice that reached them: ‘Peasant, seize the land!’ When the workers sensed counter-revolutionary intrigue all about them, it was Pravda that brought them the slogans of action that they already half-knew, the words of revolutionary necessity. In front of the Bolshevik poster the wretched folk passing by in the street stop and exclaim, ‘That’s just it!’ That is just it. This voice is their own.

That is why the progress of the masses towards revolution is reflected in one great political fact: the Bolsheviks, a small revolutionary minority in March, become in September and October the party of the majority. Any distinction between the party and the masses becomes impossible, it is all one multitude. Doubtless, scattered among the crowds, there were many other revolutionaries: Left S-Rs (the most numerous), anarchists and Maximalists, who also aim towards the revolution. These are a handful of men swept along by events, leaders who are being led. How clouded their perception of realities is, we shall see by many instances. It is the Bolsheviks who, owing to their accurate theoretical appraisal of the dynamism of events, become identified both with the labouring masses and with the necessity of history. ‘The Communists have no other interests distinct from those of the working class as a whole’: thus the Manifesto of Marx and Engels. This sentence, written in 1847, now appears to us as one of fantastic foresight.

Since the July days, the party has passed through a period of illegality and persecution, and is now barely tolerated. It forms itself into an assault column. From its members, it demands self-denial, passion and discipline; in return, it offers only the satisfaction of serving the proletariat. Yet we see its forces grow. In April it had numbered seventy-two organizations with a member-ship of 80,000. By the end of July its forces numbered 200,000 members, in 162 organizations.

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THE RED GUARD

The events which now unfold in the two capitals are very different, but display a remarkable basic parallelism.

The initiative in forming the Red Guards in Petrograd came from the factory workers, who began it instinctively after the fall of Tsardom. In disarming the old order they had to begin to arm themselves. In April, two of the Bolshevik militants, Shlyapnikov  and Yeremeyev, began to put the spontaneous organization of the Red Guards into a systematic shape. The first regular units, if they can be called such, of’ this workers’ militia were formed in the outlying proletarian districts, principally in Vyborg. The Mensheviks and S-Rs tried, at first, to oppose the movement. At a closed session of the Soviet held in June, when they still had a majority, the Social-Democrat Tseretelli demanded the disarmament of the workers. He was too late. Proletarian command units had now been set up in every ward, and these were co-ordinated by a General Staff Headquarters for the city. Formed on a factory basis as a volunteer army – it was not individual workers but the factory as a whole that took the decision to enlist together or form its own unit-the first Red Guard detachments undertook the duty of protecting the great working-class demonstrations. During the July riots the Vyborg section kept the troops sent by Kerensky at a respectful distance. At this time Petrograd had about ten thou-sand Red Guards.

With Kornilov’s coup d’état (25-30 September) and the march of a Cossack division on the capital, the imminence of counter-revolution forced the Menshevik-S-R Soviet to arm the workers at speed. Not without friction: the munitions workers at Schiisselburg sent a bargeload of grenades, but the Soviet refused to take delivery of them – whereupon the Red Guard took delivery with-out further ado. The initiative of the workers made up for every-thing, sweeping past the insincerity and feeble will of the Socialists of ‘social peace’. The mobilization of the proletariat against Kornilov showed that an abortive counter-revolution can be as disastrous for the bourgeoisie as the failure of an insurrection is for the workers.

In September, the use of weapons was being taught in seventy-nine Petrograd factories. In a good many factories all the workers carried arms. The military organization of the Bolshevik party could not find enough instructors for these masses. On the eve of the October rising, the Red Guard numbered20,000 men, organized in battalions of 400 to 600 each divided into three companies, a machine-gun section, a liaison section and an ambulance section. Some of the battalions had an armoured car. Non-commissioned officers (workers) headed the battalions and the companies. Duties were performed on a rota system, with two thirds of the workers at their jobs in the factory at any time, and the other third ‘on guard’, with wages at their job rate paid for time on duty. The rules of the Red Guard required, for admittance, sponsorship from a Socialist party, a factory committee or a trade union. Three absences without excuse were grounds for expulsion. Infractions of discipline were tried by a jury of comrades. Unauthorized use of arms was an offence, and orders had to be obeyed without discussion. Each Red Guard carried a numbered identity card. The officers were elected; in practice, though, they were often selected by factory committees and other working-class bodies, with nominations for senior posts always submitted to the ward Soviets for approval. If the officers had not already received military training they were obliged to take special courses. 

It is worth remarking that this impressive initiative on the party of Petrograd’s proletariat was the fulfilment of Lenin’s own wishes in the urgent advice he gave in one of his Letters From Afar, written from Zurich on 11 March 1917 (24, Old Style). This advice was ignored at the time and the letter was only published later on as a historical document. In it Lenin discusses the ‘proletarian militias’ and appeals to the workers: ‘Do not allow the police force to be re-established! Do not give up your own local organizations!’ And form a militia without delay, including the women and the young people. ‘ Miracles of organization must be achieved’, he concluded.

In Moscow, it proved to be much harder to establish the Red Guard. The authorities, who were headed by S-Rs and Mensheviks, succeeded in virtually disarming the workers and part of the garrison. Grenades had to be manufactured in secret and explosives obtained from the provinces. The organization of the command and of communications was deplorably late. These weaknesses and delays were to cost the proletariat of Moscow a bloody street battle lasting six days.

The military organization of the party now numbered more than 100,000 soldiers and a certain number of officers. Out of this, Military Revolutionary Committees were to be formed every-where, the organs that directed the insurrection.

Red Guards in Petrograd - 1917

THE ARMED WATCH

The conflict between the two powers (Kerensky’s Provisional Government and the Soviet) entered a new, sharp phase from 16 October, when the Military Revolutionary Committee, headed by Antonov-Ovseyenko, Podvoisky and Chudnovsky, was formed by the Soviet. The garrison in Petrograd had now been won over to the Bolsheviks. The government tried to send the most revolutionary regiments off to the front, arguing that a German offensive was imminent. The MRC, now with its own communications, intelligence and munitions departments, began by appointing commissars in every unit of the troops. The bourgeoisie was arming – but the appointment of commissars at the arms depots put a stop to that. The delegates of the MRC were welcomed warmly by the soldiers, who knew that the Committee was determined to prevent them being sent off to the front. The MRC in effect refused to countersign the order for the departure of the Red regiments, pleading that it needed further information on the defence forces now available. The MRC now assumed the functions of a General Staff for the Red Guards, and issued definite instructions to the troops not to pay any attention to orders proceeding from their regular commanders. From then on, the insurrection was, as it were, latent. Two powers took the measure of one another, and two military authorities, one of them insurrectionary, deliberately countermanded each other’s orders.

The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets was due to meet in Petrograd on 15 October. The Mensheviks succeeded in having it postponed until the 25th (7 November, New Style), thus gaining a respite of ten days for the bourgeoisie’s Provisional Government. Nobody could doubt that the Congress, where the Bolsheviks were certain of a majority, would vote for the seizure of power. ‘You are fixing the date of the revolution!’ said the Mensheviks to their Bolshevik opponents. In order that the predetermined conclusion of the Congress should not be a simple pipe-dream, it was necessary to support that decision by force of arms. Concerning the date of the uprising, two points of view were manifested: Trotsky wanted to link the action to the Congress itself, believing that an insurrection conducted on the party’s own initiative would have less chance of winning mass support; Lenin believed it ‘criminal’ to temporize until the Congress, since he feared that the Provisional Government would forestall the insurrection by a vigorous offensive. This fear, though legitimate, was not justified by the actual march of events: the enemy was caught napping.

In our opinion, the conflict here arose from two perfectly correct conceptions arising from different vantage-points. One stemmed from the strategic consideration of linking the party’s action with a demand immediately intelligible to the broadest mass of people (‘All power to the Soviets!’); this is, naturally, a condition of success. The other was based on the general policy of shattering any illusion that genuine proletarian power could be institutedbefore the insurrection. Once this possibility was admitted in theory, why not allow of power without an insurrection? There lay the slippery slope. Ever since 1906, Lenin had attacked the tendency to gloss over or discard the question of insurrection, in favour of the question of the organization of revolutionary power ... His position of realism could be summarized as: Conquer first! And so Lenin wanted the insurrection to precede the Congress, which would have no alternative but to sanction the accomplished deed. He urged this policy in a personal meeting with the organizers of the insurrection.  The details of the preparation interested him passionately: he would not have the attack put off at any price. Nevsky and Podvoisky tried vainly to persuade him that a few days’ extra preparation would only increase the chances of success. ’The enemy will profit by it too,’ he replied obstinately.

Antonov-Ovseyenko has left a vivid account of his meeting with Vladimir Ilyich a few days before the rising, in a house in the working-class district of Vyborg. Lenin arrived in disguise; he was wanted by Kerensky’s police and in the event of capture would doubtless have ended his days through an ‘accidental’ bullet.

We found ourselves in the presence of a little, grey-haired old man wearing pince-nez, wearing them with a proper, almost debonair style. One would have taken him for a musician, a schoolmaster or a second-hand book-dealer. He took off his wig, and we recognized his eyes, sparkling as usual with a glint of humour. ‘Any news?’ he asked. He was full of confidence. He wondered about our chances of calling the fleet up into Petrograd. Somebody objected that this would leave the front at sea undefended, and his reply was brusque: ‘Come now, the sailors must know that there is more danger to the revolution in Petrograd than on the Baltic.’

The Peter-Paul Fortress was a source of considerable disquiet to the Military Revolutionary Committee; it was situated in the centre of the city on an island in the Neva, and bristled with guns. Its artillery overlooked the Winter Palace and its armoury held 100,000 rifles. Its garrison appeared to be loyal to the Provisional Government. Trotsky proposed that the fortress should be taken from the inside – by holding a meeting there. He went there with Lashevich, and succeeded.

Peter and Paul Fortress

22 October was the Day of the Petrograd Soviet, the occasion of the great plebiscite of the insurrection, as it were. The immediate cause of its meeting was fairly trivial, as often happens when events of immense importance are in the course of accomplishment and the last link, often a slender one, appears in the long chain of causes. The Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, still under the sway of the social-peace Socialists, had charge of the funds of the Petrograd Soviet. The latter body needed a news-paper. It was decided to hold a series of large mass meetings on the 22nd with the aim of raising money for the foundation of the journal. The bourgeois press, terrified by this mobilization of masses, proclaimed that it was a riot, Kerensky gave out apparently forceful utterances which were nothing but wind: ‘All Russia is with us! We have nothing to fear!’ He issued a threat against ‘all those elements, groups and parties who are menacing the liberty of the Russian people, running the risk of opening the front to Germany, of a final and complete catastrophe’. A regular Galliffet or Cavaignac, [22] to all appearances. But his threats were empty. The 22nd saw a tremendous mobilization of the masses.

Every hall was filled to capacity. At the House of the People (Narodny Dom) thousands crammed the halls, the galleries, the corridors; in the great auditorium, human clusters were hanging, palpitating, like grapes from the metal structure of the building. John Reed was present. His notes on the gathering, where it was Trotsky’s voice that thrilled the crowd, deserve to be quoted: 

The people around me appeared to be in ecstasy. They seemed about to burst forth spontaneously in a religious hymn. Trotsky read a resolution to the general effect that they were ready to fight for the workers and peasants to the last drop of their blood ... Who was in favour of the resolution? The innumerable crowd raised their hands as a single man. I saw the burning eyes of men, women, adolescents, workers, soldiers, muzhiks. Trotsky went on. The hands remained raised. Trotsky said, ‘Let this vote be your oath. You swear to give all your strength, not to hesitate before any sacrifice, to support the Soviet, which undertakes to win the revolution and give you land, bread and peace.’ The hands remained raised. The crowd approved; they took the oath ... And the same scene was repeated all over Petrograd. The last preparations were made everywhere; everywhere they swore the last oath; thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of men. It was the insurrection.

KRONSTADT AND THE FLEET

On the morning of the 25th, the revolutionary forces at Kronstadt received orders to prepare to undertake the defence of the Soviet Congress (for the whole offensive was conducted under the formal pretext of defence). We may pause for a moment at the preparations in Kronstadt, one of whose participants (I. Flerovsky) has left an excellent account. The rational element of co-ordination,. the superb organization of the rising as a military operation con-ducted along the rules of the war-making art, is clearly demonstrated here, and forms a striking contrast with the spontaneous or ill-organized movements which have been so numerous in the history of the proletariat.

The work of preparation for our intervention at Petrograd was carried on entirely at night. . . . The Navy Club was crammed with soldiers, sailors and workers, all of them obviously ready for battle. ... The revolutionary General Staff worked out the plan of action precisely, designated the different units and sections for each task, checked off the inventory of supplies and ammunition, and picked the leading personnel. The night was one of strenuous work. The following ships were selected to take part in the operation: the torpedo-boat and minelayer Love, the old cruiser Dawn of Liberty (formerly Alexander III), the monitor Vulture. Love and Vulture were to land troops in Petrograd. The cruiser was to take up a position at the entrance to the maritime canal, commanding the coastal railway with its guns. In the streets an intense but noiseless activity went on. Army detachments and squads of sailors marched towards the harbour. Only the serious, resolute faces of the leading ranks could be seen by the light of the torches. There was no laughter, and no talk. The silence was broken only by the military tread of marching men, by brief commands, and by the grinding of the lorries as they went past. At the harbour, the ships were speedily loaded. Detachments of men waited in line on the quay patiently awaiting their turn to embark. Is it possible, I could not help thinking, that these are the last few moments before the great revolution? Everything is going off with such simplicity and neatness that one would imagine some perfectly ordinary military manoeuvre was involved. It all has so little resemblance to the vistas of revolution that we remember from history... ‘This revolution,’ my companion said to me, ‘will go off in style.’

The revolution did, indeed, go off in proletarian style – with organization. That is why, in Petrograd, it won so easily and completely.

Another significant scene may be borrowed from Flerovsky’s memoirs. It is on board a ship steaming towards the insurrection. The delegate from the revolutionary headquarters enters the officers’ mess.

Here, the atmosphere is different. They are worried, anxious, disoriented. As I enter and salute, the officers rise. They keep standing while they listen to my brief explanation, and the orders I give. ‘We are going to overthrow the Provisional Government by force. Power is being transferred to the Soviets. We are. not relying on your sympathy: we have no need of it. But we do insist that you remain at your posts, going about your duties punctually and obeying our orders. We shall not give you any unnecessary trouble. That is all.’ ‘We understand,’ the captain answered. The officers went off immediately to their posts, and the captain mounted the bridge. A numerous flotilla came to the assistance of the workers and the garrison. Up the Neva sailed the cruisers Aurora, Oleg, Novik, Zabyika and Samson, two torpedo-boats, and various other ships.

THE TAKING OF THE WINTER PALACE

Three comrades had been deputed to organize the seizure of the Winter Palace: Podvoisky, Antonov-Ovseyenko and Lashevich. [25] With them Chudnovsky was working, a splendid militant from the earliest days of the party, who was soon to meet his death in the Ukraine. The former Imperial residence is situated in the centre of the city on the banks of the Neva; the Peter-Paul Fortress faces it 600 yards away on the other bank. To the south, the palace’s facade looks out over a vast paved square which contains the Alexander I Column. A historic spot. At the back of the square, in a semi-circle, lie the huge, respectable offices of the former War Department and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Over this square, in 1879, the revolver shots fired by the student Soloviev cracked out, and the autocrat Alexander II could be seen running zigzag across the stones, with his head down, and pale with fright. In 1881 these dismal buildings were rocked by the dynamite charge set off under the Imperial apartments by the carpenter Stepan Khalturin. Under these windows, on 22 January 1905, soldiers opened fire on a crowd of workers who had come, carrying ikons and singing hymns, to petition the Tsar, the ‘little father’ of his people. Here lay about fifty dead and more than a thousand wounded; and the autocracy was wounded, too, to the death, by its own bullets.

Now, on 25 October, from the morning onwards, the Bolshevik regiments and the Red Guards began to encircle the Winter Palace, where Kerensky’s government had its offices. The assault was planned for 9 p.m., although Lenin was impatient and wanted it all over before then. While the iron ring closed slowly around the Palace, the Congress of the Soviets was assembling at Smolny, in a former high school for young ladies of the nobility. In a small room in the same building, Lenin was pacing up and down nervously, still an outlaw, still in his old man’s disguise. Of every new arrival, he asked, ‘The Palace – has it not been taken yet ?’ His fury mounted against the ditherers, the procrastinators, the indecisive ones. He threatened Podvoisky – ‘We shall have to shoot him, yes, shoot him!’ The soldiers, huddled around fires in the streets near the Palace, showed the same impatience. People heard them murmur about how ‘the Bolsheviks are starting to play at diplomacy too’. Once more, Lenin’s feelings even on a point of detail were those of the mass. Podvoisky, certain of victory, kept back the assault. The doomed enemy was demoralized with all the anxiety. Revolutionary blood was now easily spared, and each drop was precious.

The first summons to surrender was conveyed to the ministers at six o’clock. At eight, there was a second ultimatum. Under a flag of truce, a Bolshevik orator addressed the defenders of the palace, and the soldiers of a crack battalion crossed over to the revolutionaries. They were welcomed by loud hurrahs over the square which was now the field of battle. A few minutes later, the Women’s Battalion surrendered. The terrified ministers, guarded in a vast room without lighting by a few young officer-cadets, still hesitated to give in. Kerensky had run off, promising them that he would return shortly at the head of a troop of loyal soldiers. They expected to be torn to pieces by a howling mob. The guns of the Aurora – firing only blank cartridges! – finally demoralized the defending side. The Reds’ attack met only very slight resistance. Grenades exploded on the great marble staircases, there were hand-to-hand tussles in the corridors. In the twilight of a great ante-chamber, a thin line of pale cadets stood with bayonets crossed before a panelled door.

It is the last rampart of the last bourgeois government of Russia. Antonov-Ovseyenko, Chudnovsky and Podvoisky push past these powerless bayonets. One youngster whispers to them, ‘I’m on your side!’ Behind the door is the Provisional Government: thirteen wretched, trembling gentlemen, thirteen crestfallen faces hidden by shadow. As they are escorted out of the Palace by Red Guards, a cry for their blood goes up. Some soldiers and sailors have a fancy for a massacre. The worker-guards restrain them: ‘Don’t spoil the proletarian victory by excesses!’

The ministers of Kerensky go off to the Peter-Paul Fortress, that old Bastille which has held all the old martyrs of Russian free-dom. There they meet the ministers of the last Tsar. It is all over.

In the adjoining areas of the city, normal traffic had not been interrupted. On the quays, the idlers were staring peaceably.

One detail more on the organization of the attack. In order to ensure that any temporary successes won by the enemy should not interrupt their work, the military leaders of the uprising had prepared two  reserve headquarters.

THE CONGRESS OF THE SOVIETS

Just as the Reds are surrounding the Winter Palace, the Petrograd Soviet meets. Lenin comes out of hiding, and he and Trotsky announce the seizure of power. The Soviets will offer a just peace to all the belligerent powers; the secret treaties are going to be published. Lenin’s first words underline the importance of the bond between workers and peasants, which is yet to be consolidated:

All over Russia, the vast majority of peasants have said: Enough of playing with the capitalists, we are marching now with the workers! One single decree, abolishing the landlords’ property, will win us the trust of the peasantry. They will realize that their only safety lies in their association with the workers. We shall inaugurate workers’ control of industry.

The All-Russian Congress of Soviets opens in the evening in the great white ballroom at Smolny, flooded with light from enormous chandeliers. 562 delegates are present: 382 Bolsheviks, thirty-one non-party Bolshevik sympathizers, seventy Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, thirty-six Centre Socialist-Revolutionaries, sixteen Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, three National Socialist-Revolutionaries, fifteen United Internationalist Social-Democrats, twenty-one Menshevik supporters of national de-fence, seven Social-Democratic delegates from various nationalist groups and five anarchists. The hall is packed tight, the atmosphere is feverish. The Menshevik Dan opens the Congress on behalf of the outgoing All-Russian Executive; as the new officers are elected, guns thunder on the Neva. The resistance at the Winter Palace is still dragging on. Kamenev, ‘dressed in his Sunday best, and beaming’, becomes Chairman in place of Dan. He proposes an agenda with three headings: organization of authority; war and peace; the Constituent Assembly. The oppositional Menshevik and S-R parties take the floor first. For the Mensheviks there is Martov, their most honest and talented leader, whose extreme physical weakness seemed to symbolize the bankruptcy, despite his great personal courage, of the ideology he served. ‘Martov, planted on the rostrum as usual, with a trembling, bloodless hand over his hip, an undulating, half-comical figure, shaking his head of unruly hair, urges a peaceful solution to the conflict ...’ A fine time to say it! Mstislavsky speaks for the Left S-Rs. His party mistrusted the Provisional Government and was sympathetic to the seizure of power by the Soviets, but had refused to join in the rising. His speech is one qualification after another. Yes, all power to the Soviets – particularly since they have already seized power. But military operations must be stopped immediately. How could we deliberate in the middle of gunfire? To this, Trotsky replies with alacrity: ‘Who, now, is going to be upset by the sound of the guns? On the contrary, it can only improve our work!’

The roar of the guns makes the glass in the windows rattle. The Mensheviks and Right S-Rs denounce the ‘crime which is taking place against Fatherland and Revolution’, and a sailor from the cruiser Aurora comes to the rostrum to answer them.

A bronzed figure he was [Mstislavsky relates], with brusque, confident gestures, and a voice that came straight out, cutting the air like a knife. As soon as he mounted the rostrum, stocky and sinuous, his shaggy chest showing below the high collar that curved back gracefully around his tousled head, the hall rang with cheers. ... ‘The Winter Palace is finished,’ he said. ‘The Aurora is firing at point-blank range.’

‘Oh!’ groaned the Menshevik Abramovich, standing up distraught and twisting his hands. ‘Oh!’ The man from the Aurora responded to this outcry with a large-hearted, graceful gesture, and made haste to calm Abramovich down with a loud whisper that trembled with quiet laughter: ‘They’re firing with blanks. That’s all that will be needed for the ministers and the ladies of the Women’s Battalion.’ Tumult in the hall. The Mensheviks of national defence and the right S-Rs, about sixty delegates, leave, determined ‘to die with the Provincial Government’. They do not get very far: their diminutive procession finds the streets barred to them by the Red Guards, and disperses one by one ...

Late in the night, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries resolved in the end to follow the Bolsheviks and remain in the Congress.

Lenin did not come to the rostrum until the session of the following morning, when the great decrees on land, peace and workers’ control of production were voted. His appearance set off an immense acclamation from the whole hall. He waited for it to end, looking out calmly over the triumphant crowd. Then, quite simply, without any gesture, his two hands resting on the stand, his broad shoulders leaning forward slightly, he said:

‘We will proceed to construct the Socialist order.’

Storming of the Winter Palace as dramatically depicted by Eisenstein

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North and Service on Trotsky's attitude to Plekhanov

by Alex Steiner

Sometimes a small matter can shed light on a larger problem. In that regard a remark of David North’s in a recent speech to a conference of historians in Mainz, Germany deserves some comment. First some context.

As any regular reader of the Word Socialist Web Site (WSWS) would know, North, the editor-in-chief of that publication, has been vigorously prosecuting a case against the historian Robert Service, whose book, Trotsky: A Biography, is full of numerous errors and outright lies. We are all for exposing the falsifications of history perpetrated by Service and others. Service is a cynical anti-communist whose career has been devoted to discrediting the Russian Revolution and those who led it. His academic affiliation with Oxford University provides a respectable veneer for the rubbish he produces. In his biography of Trotsky he went as far as reproducing a number of Stalinist inspired slanders against Trotsky. North and other critics have done a commendable job in exposing these falsifications.

Robert Service

However it’s also necessary to say that there seems something out of proportion in the fact that this campaign of North and the WSWS against Service’s book has now gone on for over three years. Reading the WSWS one almost gets the impression that this campaign is on a par with Trotsky’s exposure of the Moscow Trials. The latter was an event of world historic importance. The exposure of Service and other academics of the same ilk, while a praiseworthy enterprise, hardly has the same significance today. Unlike Stalin in the 1930s, Service does not command an audience of tens of millions of workers, who while misled by the Stalinists, still had a sense of loyalty to the Russian Revolution and the cause of socialism. No such comparable situation exists today. One has a right to wonder if this continuing attack on an ignoble but not very consequential slanderer has by now come to serve as a convenient way to divert attention from the deep theoretical and political problems that afflict North’s own party.

As it so happens, the small matter I want to discuss ties in directly with those problems. In his most recent outing as a historian North made a revealing error about Service's distortion of Trotsky's attitude toward Plekhanov. Here is what North said:

"Just a few paragraphs later, Service writes: “For the first time in his [Trotsky’s] career he entered into polemics with Plekhanov, whom he now regarded with utter contempt.” The sentence is footnoted. Service informs us that he is citing a letter from Trotsky to the much older revolutionist, Pavel B. Axelrod, dated December 22, 1914. It is part of the famous Nicolaevsky Collection that is housed at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, where Service did almost all his research for the biography. When I first read this passage, I was taken aback. While Trotsky certainly deplored Plekhanov’s support of the war, it was surprising to read that Trotsky regarded the “father of Russian Marxism” with “utter contempt.” After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky affirmed in several moving essays his intense and enduring admiration of Plekhanov. So what did Trotsky actually write to Axelrod in December 1914? Did Trotsky, in a private letter to an older comrade, give vent to an inner rage provoked by Plekhanov’s political betrayal?

Trotsky’s letter to Axelrod consists of three brief paragraphs. Only the first paragraph makes any reference to Plekhanov. It reads:

Have you read Plekhanov’s pamphlet? I have begun a series of articles about it. For the first time in my life I am polemicizing against Plekhanov. He is not as secure as he had seemed to me.

Most readers, lacking access to the source material, would assume that Service has accurately interpreted the content of the letter that he is citing. But it would be a mistake to extend such credit to Service. There is nothing in the referenced paragraph that suggests that Trotsky’s attitude toward Plekhanov had become one of “utter contempt.” That sentiment, which would reflect on Trotsky’s own character, is simply invented by Service. In reality, this short letter conveys a sense of regret and sorrow over Plekhanov’s evolution, sentiments far more appealing in the circumstances than that suggested by Service." [1]

G.V. Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism

Knowing something about North's adulatory attitude toward Plekhanov - he once described himself as "member Number 1 of the Michigan Branch of the G.V Plekhanov fan club" [2] - I began to wonder if perhaps something was amiss in North's account. I did not have available to me the Nicolaevsky Collection from which North quotes,but I do have a copy of Trotsky’s book Political Profiles (published by the press of the former Workers Revolutionary Party of the UK), which consists of a series of sketches of some of the leading figures of Social Democracy before and during the First World War that he encountered during his years of exile in Europe. Most of the sketches were written before the October Revolution although a few consist of speeches Trotsky gave in the early years after the revolution. One such well known piece was a talk Trotsky gave to a meeting of the Moscow Soviet on the day that Plekhanov died in 1918. Trotsky's tone in this speech, titled "In memory of Plekhanov" [3] was to claim for the revolution all that was positive and of lasting value in Plekhanov and discard that which the enemies of the revolution embraced, namely Plekhanov's social chauvinism and his hostility to the revolution.

But there is an earlier piece in that book with the title "Stop Worrying Us" written in 1915, in which Trotsky berates Plekhanov for mis-educating the new generation of workers and youth with imprecations aimed at the parliamentary deputies representing the Social Democrats. Plekhanov called on the deputies to support the war efforts of the Tsarist government. Although Trotsky acknowledged the pioneering work of Plekhanov he was not one to mince his words, and gave free expression to his outrage. He wrote,

"And while immediately around Plekhanov in his surrounding retinue of nobodies there is no one who could make him understand that his public actions are not only destroying him; but also hopelessly darken the image which now forms the property of party history, we are left not only the duty but the right to be contemptuous."[4]

Trotsky addressing Red Army soldiers in Moscow, 1918

So it turns out that in this one instance Service was not making up out of whole cloth the notion that Trotsky held Plekhanov in "utter contempt". True, Service adds the word “utter” in his depiction of Trotsky’s attitude. His account is also one-sided. He provides no context and gives the impression that Trotsky’s attitude toward Plekhanov was solely one of contempt when in reality it was far more complex than that. It is also obvious that Service provided the wrong citation. Instead of the letter to Axelrod, which as North points out, provides no evidence of Trotsky holding Plekhanov in contempt, Service should have cited the sketch “Stop Worrying Us” which does in fact provide some support for his claim. So while it is true, as North says, that “There is nothing in the referenced paragraph that suggests that Trotsky’s attitude toward Plekhanov had become one of “utter contempt.” it is also true that there is solid evidence in another paragraph from a published essay by Trotsky in this same period that he felt a good deal of contempt (if not “utter contempt”) towards Plekhanov from 1914 on. In fact Trotsky is not only describing his own feelings towards Plekhanov, but is insisting that it is both a “right” and a “duty” for other party members to hold Plekhanov in contempt! But leaving aside the smaller matter of whether Service’s footnote established what he claimed or not, the larger question remains, what was Trotsky’s attitude toward Plekhanov after the latter became a social chauvinist. On this larger question North writes,

“That sentiment [contempt], which would reflect on Trotsky’s own character, is simply invented by Service”.

As we have seen, on this larger question North is in fact wrong.

As errors go this may not seem that significant, but I would argue that it’s indicative of a mindset that thinks you can settle scores by collecting incriminating quotations. Even when North's quotation hunting is in the service of a worthy cause, in this case exposing the falsifiers of Trotsky's history, and not (as in his polemics with us) aimed at perpetuating a mythical history of his own political evolution, or smearing a political opponent, it is a poor method for historical scholarship. Furthermore, considering North’s close attention to the writings of both Trotsky and Plekhanov, it is hard to imagine that North was not aware of the quote in the essay “Stop Worrying Us”.

What can then account for North’s error at this speech in front of an audience of international historians? A hint is provided in the highlighted words of North’s last statement,

“That sentiment, which would reflect on Trotsky’s own character, is simply invented by Service.”

The implication is that an attitude of contempt by Trotsky towards Plekhanov would reflect badly on Trotsky’s own character. But why would it? When Service makes this argument [that Trotsky had “utter contempt for Plekhanov] the reason is clear enough. It is part of Service’s character assassination of Trotsky - to portray him as arrogant and overbearing toward his fellow Marxists, echoing in fact the slanders of the Stalinists. And obviously Service sees nothing wrong in Plekhanov’s social chauvinism, and therefore portrays Trotsky as unreasonable and even ungrateful to "the father of Russian Marxism". But on the other hand, why should a revolutionary not feel contempt toward Plekhanov’s support for the war, tempered it is true with respect for his past contribution to Marxism? Recall that Plekhanov’s support for the war effort was so loud and his denunciation of his fellow socialists who opposed the war so vehement that it shocked even those socialists who held a moderate position on the war question. The Italian Socialist leader Angelica Balabanoff expressed her shock when she heard Plekhanov say the following words to her,

“So far as I am concerned if I were not old and sick I would join the army. To bayonet your German comrades would give me great pleasure.”[5]

That North feels that holding Plekhanov in contempt for his actions after World War I reflects badly on Trotsky is more a comment on the drift of North’s politics than anything having to do with a historical analysis of either Trotsky or Plekhanov. For a number of years now North has partaken in an effort in the WSWS and elsewhere to soften the conflict between Social Democracy and revolutionary Marxism. This became an important issue in our polemics with North. (See Dialectical Path of Cognition and Marxism Without its Head or its Heart.) [6] Particularly in our essay The Dialectical Path of Cognition, we brought out the sharp differences that Lenin had with Plekhanov on philosophical questions. His critique of Plekhanov emerged when Lenin undertook a study of Hegel's Science of Logic in the opening days of World War I as part of an effort to get at the philosophical roots of the betrayal of orthodox Marxists such as Plekhanov and Kautsky. Lenin located their failure in their rejection of dialectics and their adaptation to the philosophical methods of the bourgeoisie. North strongly disagreed, basically denying that philosophical method has anything to do with one's political practice. North then went on to ascribe the political betrayal of the principles of socialist internationalism and opposition to imperialist war by Plekhanov and Kautsky to the personal misfortunes of their fate. We showed that North's softening of the theoretical conflict between Social Democracy and Marxism was the flip side of the WSWS's turn in practice away from Trotskyism into the blind alley of sectarian abstentionism on the one hand and adaptation to bourgeois nationalism on the other. [7] North has over the past decade continued to blur the conflict between Social Democracy and Marxism. We had noted this continuing trajectory of North's work when we commented on his participation at another conference where he indicated his solidarity with a revisionist school of historians who have in recent years denied that there was ever a philosophical break by Lenin with the Second Internartional. [8]

A page from Lenin's notes on Hegel

Thus, North's error in his lecture on Service, while a small matter in itself, provides an insight into an attitude that has been developing for over a decade. And we are not speaking about the attitude of Trotsky toward Plekhanov in this case, but the attitude of North toward Trotsky. One might say that in this one instance North goes from defending Trotsky against Service to defending North against Trotsky.

[1] http://wsws.org/articles/2012/oct2012/lect-o04.shtml

[2] I previously wrote an extended critique of North’s mostly uncritical attitude toward Plekhanov and its relationship to his current political perspective. See my essay, The Dialectical Path of Cognition and Revolutionizing Practice.  For the "fan club" quote, see http://permanent-revolution.org/polemics/dialectical_path.pdf, page 71.

[3] http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/profiles/plekhanov02.htm

[4] http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/profiles/stop.htm

[5] Quoted in Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism, by Samuel H. Baron. P. 324.

[6] The Dialectical Path of Cognition was composed in 2003 and published on the permanent revolution web site in 2006.  That essay includes a thorough critique of Plekhanov's Marxism. See http://permanent-revolution.org/polemics/dialectical_path.pdf.  Marxism Without its Head or its Heart (MWHH) was published in installments in 2007.  In that document the relationship between philosophy and political practice is discussed most explicitly in chapter 1, http://www.permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch01.pdf, chapter 3,

http://www.permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch03.pdf, and chapter 4,

http://www.permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch04.pdf. 

[7] For a discussion of the WSWS's sectarian abstentionism towards the revolutionary events in Mexico, see Chapter 1 of MWHH, http://permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch01.pdf, page 19 and following. For a discussion of the WSWS's abstentionist attitude toward an important strike of transit workers in New York, see chapter 5 of MWHH, http://www.permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch05.pdf, page 122 and following.  For a discussion of the WSWS's adaptation to bourgeois nationalism in Iraq, see chapter 2 of MWHH,  http://www.permanent-revolution.org/polemics/mwhh_ch02.pdf, page 25 and following.  

[8] At a conference held in 2008, North shared the podium with Lars Lih, the most outspoken historian pushing the thesis of a continuity between Lenin and the theory and practice of the Second International. See Comments on 'Leon Trotsky, Soviet Historiography, and the Fate of Classical Marxism' , http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2008/12/comments-on-leon-trotsky-soviet.html.   

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Atina: Genel Greve bir Bakış

Bugün, Yunanistan’ın büyük bölümü, kamu ve özel sektör işçilerinin, ülkenin en büyük iki emek konfederasyonu -83 özel sektör işçi sendikasını kapsayan GSEE ve kamu sektörü işçilerini temsil eden ADEDY- tarafından yapılan genel grev çağrısına uydukları için, durma noktasına geldi. Greve katılanlar arasında memurlar, öğretmenler, doktorlar, hastane personeli, tüccarlar, avukatlar, inşaat mühendisleri ve banka çalışanları yer alıyordu. Günlük gazeteler için çalışan gazeteciler dün bir günlük greve gittiler, böylece hem genel greve katılmış oldular hem de bugünkü olayları haber yapabildiler. Ulaştırma işçileri işi yürüyüş ve gösterilerden sonra durdurdular, böylece diğer işçiler yollarda mahsur kalmadan bu eylemlere katılabildiler. Bu nedenle Atina metrosu sabah saat 8 ile akşam 9 arasında çalışıyordu. Havaalanına bağlantı sağlayan demiryolu hattında ise gün boyunca hiçbir hizmet verilmedi.

Kemer sıkma önlemlerinin üç yıl önce ilk kez dayatılmasından bu yana, genel grevler Yunanistan’ın siyasi manzarasının yinelenip duran bir özelliği haline gelmiş olmasına rağmen, bugünkü genel grev, Yeni Demokrasi’nin önderliğindeki sağcı koalisyon hükümetinin geçtiğimiz Haziran ayında göreve gelmesinden bu yana yaşanan bu türden ilk olay olduğu için dikkat çekicidir. Emek konfederasyonları tarafından bu eylem kararının alınmasına neden olan şey, hükümetin can alıcı öneme sahip kamu hizmetlerinde 11,5 milyar avro tutarında yeni bir kesinti yapmayı öngören planlarına son halini vermiş olmasıydı. Antonis Samaras’ın başbakanlığını yaptığı hükümet emekli maaşlarının (bir kez daha) budanmasının ve emeklilik yaşının 67’ye yükseltmenin yanı sıra on binlerce memurun işten çıkarılmasını öngörüyor. Bu, Avrupa Birliği'nin Yunanistan’dan, bir sonraki 31 milyar avroluk kurtarma fonunu kullandırmanın karşılığında talep ettiği bedeldir. Kredi diliminin serbest bırakılmaması durumunda Yunanistan hükümetinin elindeki nakit fonlar kısa bir süre içinde tükenecek ve ülke borçlarını ödeyemez hale gelecek.

Gün, Atina’da, Sindagma Meydanı’nda, Yunanistan Parlamentosu önünde düzenlenen kitlesel bir gösteriyle sona erdi. Gösteriye katılanların sayısı hakkında yapılan tahminler farklılık gösteriyor olmakla birlikte, sayının polisin açıkladığı 45.000 kişiden çok daha fazla olduğuna hiç şüphe yok. Birleşik Krallık’ta yayımlanan The Guardian gazetesi yürüyüşe katılanların sayısını 200 bin kişi olarak verdi. Emek konfederasyonlarının tahminine göre yürüyüşe 120 bin kişi katıldı ve buna ek olarak Stalinistlerle birlikte ayrı olarak yürüyen 40 bin kişilik bir grup daha vardı. Medyada yer alan haberler az sayıdaki anarşistin çevik kuvvet polisine Molotof kokteylleri attığı birkaç olay üzerinde yoğunlaştı. Onlarca insanın tutuklanmasına ilişki haberler de basında yer aldı.

Sindagma Meydanı'nda patlayan molotof kokteyli. (Reuters)

Ancak asıl sözü edilmesi gereken ve basında neredeyse hiç yer almayan şey, sol gruplarla yan yana toplumun her kesiminden gelen, tabanda yer alan işçilerin yürüyor olmasıydı. Stalinist Komünist Partisi, yürüyüşçülerin oluşturduğu ana gövdeden tamamen ayrı olarak, kendi gösterisini düzenledi. (Göstericilerin bu şekilde farklı gruplara ayrılmış olmaları, katılımcıların toplam sayısını tahmin etmeyi daha da güçleştirdi.) Stalinist Komünist Partisinin taraftarları Omonia Meydanı'nda toplandılar ve ardından hızla Sindagma Meydanı'na doğru yürüyüşe geçtiler ve alandan erken ayrıldılar. "Aşırı solla" ve anarşistlerle bağlantı olan gruplar Politeknik üniversitesinin önünde toplandılar. Politeknikten Sindagma Meydanı'na yürüyüş mesafesi üç kilometreden az olmasına rağmen, cadde ve sokakların aşırı derecede kalabalık olması nedeniyle yürüyüşçülerin bu yolu kat etmeleri iki saatten fazla sürdü. Ellerinde ağır silahlar bulunan miğfer, kalkan ve gaz maskeleri ile donatılmış polisler yürüyüş güzergâhı boyunca tüm yan sokakları tutmuşlardı.

Yürüyüşe katılan gruplardan birinin taşıdığı pankart

Bir anti-faşist pankart

Uç sol gruplardan biri

Yürüyüş

Yürüyüş boyunca kalabalıktan bir kesit

Bazı katılımcılar

Arkadan görünüş

Sindagma Meydanı’na yaklaşırken

Ateşli bir biçimde slogan atan yürüyüşçüler

Kendi pankartlarının ardında yürüyen farklı gruplar

Yürüyüşçüler son derece canlıydılar ve Yunanistan'ı saran öfke ve hayal kırıklığını dile getiriyorlardı. Yakın tarihli bir ankete göre Yunanlıların% 90'ından fazlası planlanan kesintilerin adil olmadığına ve yoksulların omuzlarına haksız bir biçimde ağır bir yük bindirdiğine inanıyordu.

Yürüyüşte atılan sloganlar arasında şunlar yer alıyordu:

“Troyka’ya teslim olmayacağız!”

“AB, iMF defol!"

“İnsanlar, savaşın, onlar kanınızı emiyorlar.”

Öne sürülen taleplerinden biri, sendika konfederasyonun bir günlük genel grevi "uzun vadeli bir genel greve" çevirerek, onu etkisiz bir protesto biçiminden çıkarıp işçi sınıfının, bir işçi hükümetini getirmeyi amaçlayan güçlü bir silaha dönüştürmesiydi.

Yukarıdaki videoda Sindagma Meydanı'nda, Parlamento binasının önünden geçen yürüyüş kolunun görüntüleri yer alıyor. Bir süre sonra göz yaşartıcı bombaların yüksek sesle patladıklarını duyabiliyor ve uzakta, meydanın diğer tarafından yükselen dumanı görebiliyorsunuz.

Kalabalık şu sloganı atıyor:

"Kahrolsun Troyka hükümeti, işçi iktidarı için ileri!"

Yunanistan'daki kitlesel gösteriler ve genel grev, İspanya'da, Madrid’de, Parlamento binası önünde yapılan büyük gösteriden bir gün sonra gerçekleştirildi. Orada da kitlelerin öfkesinin merkezinde hükümetleri tarafından dayatılan, Avrupa Birliği tarafından kurtarma fonlarının bedeli olarak talep edilen kemer sıkma önlemleri yer alıyordu. Komşu ülke Portekiz ise bu haftanın ilerleyen günlerinde uygulamaya koyacağı kemer sıkma tedbirlerini tartışmaya başlayacak. Şurası çok açık ki, Yunanistan işçi sınıfı, uluslararası krizin bir uzantısı olan avro kriziyle ortaya çıkan daha geniş toplumsal ve siyasi hareketin en ön saflarında yer almaktadır. Giderek daha fazla sayıda işçi kapitalizmin bir alternatifi olduğunu görmeye başladıkça, on yıllardan bu yana ilk kez toplumsal ilişkilerde köklü bir değişimin yaşanmasına yönelik bir açıklık ortaya çıkmaktadır.

Ancak tüm bunların sosyalizm yolunda bir kitle hareketinin oluşturulmasının önünde duran pratik ve teorik sorunların küçümsenmesine yol açmamalıdır. Her şeyden önce, bir sola dönüş olasılığını yaratan aynı koşullar -geleneksel burjuva partilerinin çöküşü, [1] sınıflar arasındaki ilişkilerin göreli bir istikrarı korumasını sağlayan toplumsal sözleşmenin ortadan kaldırılması, eskiden orta sınıfa ait olan bir kesimin yoksullaşması- faşist hareketin yükselişi için de verimli bir zemin oluşturmaktadır. Neo-Nazi Altın Şafak partisinin gösterdiği hızlı büyümenin önemi burada yatmaktadır. Altın Şafak şimdi sadece Yunanistan'da en popüler üçüncü parti olmakla övünmüyor, ama aynı zamanda eskiden solun çok gerisinde kaldığı yerleşim yerlerinde ilçe örgütleri ve temsilcilikler açıyor. Atina’nın eteklerinde yer alan ve geçmişte Komünist Partisi’nin oyların yüzde 80’ini aldığı bu tür bir yerleşim yerinde, Altın Şafak şimdi bir yerel örgüte sahip. Altın Şafak kısa bir zaman önce, Yunan diasporası içinde örgütlenmeye çalıştığı New York'ta bir büro açtı. Solla özdeşleştirilen partiler daha çok iktidarsızlık sergiledikçe ve Troyka’nın kemer sıkma önlemlerine daha fazla uyarlandıkça, faşistler daha fazla cesaret kazanacak ve toplumun daha geri unsurlarından daha fazla destek alacaklar.

Faşist hareketin gösterdiği bu yükselişe sol büyük bölümünün verdiği tepki, faşistlere karşı ahlak ve adalet çağrıları yapmak oldu. Oysa tarih faşizmin pasifist protestolar ve ahlaki çağrılarla yenilgiye uğratılamayacağını göstermektedir. Bunu kimse, faşizm üzerine klasikleşmiş yazıları mutlaka okunması gereken, Lev Trotskiy’den daha iyi kavramamıştır. [2]  Faşizm, krizdeki kapitalizmin bir ürünüdür ve faşizmi yenilgiye uğratmak için tek geçerli strateji kapitalizmi alt etmektir. Yunanistan işçi sınıfının önünde duran görev budur.

Alex Steiner

[1] Bkz. "Yunanistan: Geleneksel partilerin çöküşü", http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2012/09/yunanistan-geleneksel-partilerin-cokusu.html

[2] Trotskiy’in Faşizm üzerine yazıları 1975 yılında “Faşizme Karşı Mücadele” başlıklı bir kitapta toplandı. Bu kitabın Türkçe çevirisi pdf formatında şu adresten indirilebilir: http://www.iscinet.org/ekitap/trocki/fkm.pdf

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Αθήνα: άποψη της γενικής απεργίας

Ένα μεγάλο μέρος της Ελλάδας ακινητοποιήθηκε σήμερα καθώς στον δημόσιο και τον ιδιωτικό τομέα, οι εργαζόμενοι ανταποκρίθηκαν στο αίτημα για μια γενική απεργία που δόθηκε από τις δύο μεγαλύτερες συνομοσπονδίες εργασίας, τη ΓΣΕΕ η οποία περιλαμβάνει 83 συνδικαλιστικές οργανώσεις του ιδιωτικού τομέα και την ΑΔΕΔΥ που αντιπροσωπεύει τους εργαζόμενους στο δημόσιο τομέα. Μεταξύ των απεργών είναι δημόσιοι υπάλληλοι, δάσκαλοι, γιατροί, νοσηλευτικό προσωπικό, έμποροι, δικηγόροι, πολιτικοί μηχανικοί, και τραπεζικών υπαλλήλων. Οι δημοσιογράφοι που εργάζονται στον ημερήσιο τύπο κατέβηκαν σε μονοήμερη απεργία χθες έτσι ώστε να μπορούν να συμμετάσχουν στη γενική απεργία αλλά και να εξακολουθούν να παρέχουν κάλυψη της σημερινής εκδήλωσης. Οι εργαζόμενοι στις μεταφορές είχαν προγραμματίσει στάσεις εργασίας μετά τις συγκεντρώσεις και όταν οι διαδηλώσεις θα έχουν λήξει έτσι ώστε οι εργαζόμενοι να μπορούν να συμμετάσχουν χωρίς προβλήματα μεταφορας. Έτσι, το μετρό της Αθήνας λειτουργούσε από τις 8 π.μ. έως 21:00. Δεν υπάρχει καμία υπηρεσία κατά τη διάρκεια της ημέρας για την σιδηροδρομική γραμμή που πηγαίνει από και προς το αεροδρόμιο. 

 Αν και γενικές απεργίες έχουν ένα επαναλαμβανόμενο χαρακτηριστικό του ελληνικού πολιτικού τοπίου δεδομένου ότι τα μέτρα λιτότητας επιβλήθηκαν για πρώτη φορά πριν από τρία χρόνια, η σημερινή απεργία ήταν η πρώτη τέτοια περίπτωση αφότου η δεξιά κυβέρνηση συνασπισμού υπό τη Νέα Δημοκρατία ανέλαβε τα καθήκοντά της τον περασμένο Ιούνιο. Αυτό που προκάλεσε τις αντιδράσεις της εργατικής συνομοσπονδίας ήταν η οριστικοποίηση των σχεδίων της κυβέρνησης να περικόψει άλλα 11,5 δισεκατομμύρια ευρώ από δημόσιες υπηρεσίες ζωτικής σημασίας. Η κυβέρνηση του πρωθυπουργού Αντώνη Σαμαρά προτείνει μείωση συντάξεων (και πάλι) και αύξηση του ορίου ηλικίας συνταξιοδότησης στα 67 καθώς και την απόλυση δεκάδων χιλιάδων δημοσίων υπαλλήλων. Αυτή είναι το τίμημα που η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση απαιτεί ως αντάλλαγμα για την λήψη από την Ελλάδα της επόμενης δόσης του ταμείου διάσωσης των 31 δισεκατομμυρίων ευρώ. Χωρίς τη δόση διάσωσης, η ελληνική κυβέρνηση σύντομα θα ξεμείνει από μετρητά και θα αναγκαστεί να χρεοκοπήσει . 

Με μια μαζική διαδήλωση μπροστά από τη Βουλή των Ελλήνων στην Πλατεία Συντάγματος στην Αθήνα, ολοκληρώθηκε η κινητοποίηση. Οι εκτιμήσεις για τον αριθμό του πλήθους ποικίλλουν, αλλά μπορεί κανείς να είναι σίγουρος ότι ήταν σημαντικά μεγαλύτερη από την εκτίμηση της αστυνομίας από 45.000. Η Guardian στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο εκτιμά τον αριθμό των διαδηλωτών στις 200 χιλιάδες. Η εκτίμηση της εργατικής συνομοσπονδίας ήταν περίπου 120 χιλιάδες συν 40 χιλιάδες που διαδήλωσαν χωριστά με τους σταλινικούς. Οι μαζικές αναφορές των μέσων ενημέρωσης για την  διαδήλωση επικεντρώθηκαν σε λίγα περιστατικά που αφορούν ένα μικρό αριθμό αναρχικών που πετούσε βόμβες μολότοφ σε ΜΑΤ. Αναφορές για δεκάδες συλλήψεις από τον Τύπο. 

Μολότοφ που εκρήγνυται στην Πλατεία Συντάγματος. Από το Reuters

Αλλά τη μεγαλύτερη σημασία, σχεδόν εντελώς απούσα στα δημοσιεύματα του Τύπου, είχε η παρουσία πολιτών και εργαζομένων κάθε κατηγορίας, παράλληλα με τις αριστερές ομάδες. Το σταλινικό Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα κατέβηκε εντελώς ξεχωριστό από το κύριο σώμα των διαδηλωτών. (Αυτός ο διαχωρισμός των διαδηλωτών σε διαφορετικές ομάδες έκαναν πιο δύσκολο να εκτιμηθεί το συνολικό αριθμό των συμμετεχόντων.) Υποστηρικτές του ΚΚΕ είχαν συγκεντρωθεί στη πλατεία Ομονοίας και στη συνέχεια βάδισαν γρήγορα από εκεί στην πλατεία Συντάγματος και διαλύθηκαν νωρίς. Οι ομάδες που σχετίζονται με την «άκρα αριστερά» και οι αναρχικοί ξεκίνησαν μαζί από το Πολυτεχνείο. Παρά το γεγονός ότι η πορεία από το Πολυτεχνείο προς την πλατεία Συντάγματος είναι μικρότερη των τριών χιλιομέτρων, χρειάστηκαν πάνω από δύο ώρες για να την διασχίσουν οι διαδηλωτές λόγω  του συνωστισμού στους δρόμους. Βαριά εξοπλισμένες δυνάμεις των ΜΑΤ με ασπίδες, κράνη και μάσκες αερίου έκαναν αισθητή την παρουσία τους σε όλους τους δρόμους κατά μήκος της διαδρομής της πορείας. 

Πανό μίας από τις συμμετέχουσες ομάδες

Βαδίζοντας  στην πορεία

Μερικοί από το πλήθος κατά μήκος της πορείας

Ορισμένοι από τους συμμετέχοντες

 Ορισμένοι από τους συμμετέχοντες

Εικ. από το τέλος της πορείας

Ορισμένοι από τους συμμετέχοντες

Ορισμένοι από τους συμμετέχοντες

Ορισμένοι από τους συμμετέχοντες

Ορισμένοι από τους συμμετέχοντες

Πλησιάζοντας στην πλατεία Συντάγματος

Πλησιάζοντας στην πλατεία Συντάγματος

Ένθερμη συνθηματολογία

Ένθερμη συνθηματολογία

Διάφορες ομάδες παρατάξεις πίσω από τα πανό τους

Οι διαδηλωτές είχαν υψηλό ηθικό και έδωσαν φωνή στην οργή ​​και την απογοήτευση που έχει καταλάβει την Ελλάδα. Μια πρόσφατη έρευνα διαπίστωσε ότι περισσότερο από το 90% των Ελλήνων πίστευαν οι προγραμματισμένες περικοπές είναι άδικες και μια ακόμη επιβάρυνση για τους φτωχούς. Μεταξύ των συνθημάτων που ακούστηκαν στην πορεία ήταν 

"Δεν θα υποταχθούμε στην τρόικα!" "Έξω η ΕΕ και το ΔΝΤ!" «Λαέ πολέμα, σου πίνουνε το αίμα" 

Ένα από τα αιτήματα-συνθήματα που τέθηκαν ήταν ότι η συνδικαλιστική συνομοσπονδία πρέπει να αλλάξει την πολιτική της μίας ημέρας γενική απεργία σε μια "γενική απεργία διαρκείας», μετατρέποντας την από μια ανώδυνη διαμαρτυρία σε ένα ισχυρό όπλο της εργατικής τάξης με στόχο την επίτευξη μιας κυβέρνησης των εργαζομένων. 

Το παραπάνω βίντεο δείχνει την πορεία μπροστά από το κτίριο του Κοινοβουλίου στην πλατεία Συντάγματος. Μετά από λίγο μπορείτε να ακούσετε τις εκρήξεις των δακρυγόνων  και στο βάθος μπορείτε να δείτε καπνό που υψώνεται από την άλλη πλευρά της πλατείας. Το πλήθος φωνάζει, 

 «Κάτω η κυβέρνηση της Τρόικας, προς τα εμπρός με τη δύναμη των εργαζομένων!"

 Οι μαζικές διαδηλώσεις και η γενική απεργία στην Ελλάδα έρχεται μία ημέρα μετά την τεράστια διαδήλωση στην Ισπανία μπροστά από το κτίριο του Κοινοβουλίου στη Μαδρίτη. Και εκεί επίσης το επίκεντρο της οργής του πλήθους ήταν τα μέτρα λιτότητας που επιβάλλονται από την κυβέρνηση τους, ως το τίμημα που απαιτείται από την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση σε αντάλλαγμα για τα κεφάλαια διάσωσης. Και η γειτονική χώρα της Πορτογαλίας πρόκειται να συζητήσει μέτρα λιτότητας αργότερα αυτή την εβδομάδα. Είναι σαφές ότι η εργατική τάξη στην Ελλάδα είναι στην πρώτη γραμμή ενός πολύ ευρύτερου κοινωνικού και πολιτικού κινήματος που προήλθε από την κρίση του ευρώ η οποία με τη σειρά της είναι ένα σύμπτωμα της κρίσης του διεθνούς καπιταλισμού. Υπάρχειένα άνοιγμα για πρώτη φορά εδώ και δεκαετίες από μια θεμελιώδη αλλαγή στις κοινωνικές σχέσεις, καθώς όλο και περισσότεροι εργαζόμενοι αρχίζουν να βλέπουν ότι υπάρχει μια εναλλακτική λύση στον καπιταλισμό.

Ωστόσο, παρ’ όλα αυτά δεν θα πρέπει να ελαχιστοποιήσουμε τα πρακτικά και θεωρητικά προβλήματα που στέκονται στο δρόμο του μαζικού κινήματος για το σοσιαλισμό. Οι ίδιες συνθήκες που δημιουργούν την πιθανότητα μιας στροφής προς τα αριστερά - η κατάρρευση των παραδοσιακών αστικών κομμάτων, [1], η καταστροφή του κοινωνικού συμβολαίου, μέσω του οποίου η σχετική σταθερότητα των σχέσεων μεταξύ των τάξεων διατηρήθηκε, η εξαθλίωση εκείνων που στο παρελθόν ήταν μέρος της μεσαίας τάξης - έχουν επίσης δημιουργήσει γόνιμο έδαφος για την άνοδο του φασιστικού κινήματος. Αυτή είναι η σημασία της ταχείας ανάπτυξης της νεοναζιστικής Χρυσής Αυγής κόμμα. Όχι μόνο μπορεί η Χρυσή Αυγή τώρα καυχώνται ότι είναι το τρίτο πιο δημοφιλές κόμμα στην Ελλάδα, αλλά τώρα έχουν ιδρύσει γραφεία σε γειτονιές που ήταν προηγουμένως σταθερά υπέρ της Αριστεράς. Μια τέτοια γειτονιά στα προάστια της Αθήνας, όπου το Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα είχε πάρει κάποτε το 80% των ψήφων τώρα φιλοξενεί ένα τοπικό υποκατάστημα της Χρυσής Αυγής. Και μόλις πρόσφατα ή Χρυσή Αυγή έχει ανοίξει ένα γραφείο στη Νέα Υόρκη, όπου προσπαθεί να στρατολογήσει μεταξύ της ελληνικής διασποράς. Όσο περισσότερο τα κόμματα που προσδιορίζονται  Αριστερά δείχνουν ανικανότητα  και προσαρμόζονται στα μέτρα λιτότητας της τρόικας, τόσο ενθαρρυνονται οι φασίστες και ανεβαίνει η πιο υποστήριξη που συγκεντρώνουν από τα πιο καθυστερημένα στοιχεία της κοινωνίας.

 Η αντίδραση μεγάλου μέρους της Αριστεράς για την αύξηση αυτού του φασιστικού κινήματος ήταν να αντιταχθεί τους φασίστες με εκκλήσεις για ηθική και δικαιοσύνη. Ωστόσο, η ιστορία δείχνει ότι ο φασισμός δεν μπορεί να νικηθεί με φιλειρηνικός διαμαρτυρίες και εκκλήσεις προς τα χρηστά ήθη. Κανείς δεν κατάλαβε αυτό καλύτερα από τον Λέον Τρότσκι, του οποίου κλασικά κείμενα για το φασισμό πρέπει να διαβαστεί. [2] Ο φασισμός είναι μια απόφυση του καπιταλισμού σε κρίση και η μόνη βιώσιμη στρατηγική για να νικήσει το φασισμό είναι ο αγώνας για την υπέρβαση του καπιταλισμού. Αυτό είναι το καθήκον μπροστά από την ελληνική εργατική τάξη.

Alex Steiner

[1] http://forum.permanent-revolution.org/2012/10/blog-post.html

[2] http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm

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Ελλάδα: Κατάρρευση των παραδοσιακών κομμάτων

Τα νέα από την Ελλάδα τις τελευταίες εβδομάδες είναι ότι η παραδοσιακή πολιτική δομή έχει καταρρεύσει εντελώς. Αυτό ήταν ήδη εμφανές στις εκλογές το Μάιο, όταν ένας συνασπισμός υπό την ηγεσία του δεξιού κόμματος της Νέας Δημοκρατίας, που έλαβε μόλις το 30% των ψήφων ήρθε στην εξουσία. Το προηγούμενο κυβερνών κόμμα, το ΠΑΣΟΚ, το οποίο έλαβε μόλις το 13% των ψήφων σε αυτές τις εκλογές, εντάχθηκε στο συνασπισμό με τους δεξιούς αντιπάλους του, προκειμένου να διασφαλιστεί ότι τα μέτρα λιτότητας που υπαγορεύονται από την Ευρωπαϊκή Κεντρική Τράπεζα θα συνεχίζονταν χωρίς διακοπή. Ωστόσο, τα πράγματα έχουν προχωρήσει από τότε σε τέτοιο σημείο που δεν μπορεί να προσποιηθεί  πλέον κανείς ότι αυτά τα κόμματα έχουν υποστήριξη. Η συντριπτική πλειοψηφία των Ελλήνων αντιτίθενται στα περαιτέρω μέτρα λιτότητας και τα κόμματα που ταυτίζονται με αυτά, εισπράτουν το κύριο βάρος της οργής τους. Η Νέα Δημοκρατία, το κύριο κόμμα της κυβέρνησης συνασπισμού, τώρα υποστηρίζεται από λιγότερο από το 20% του πληθυσμού. Είναι τώρα το δεύτερο κόμμα στην Ελλάδα, ελαφρώς πίσω από το αριστερό κόμμα της αντιπολίτευσης τον ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, που λαμβάνει πλέον λίγο πάνω από το 20%. Ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ μέχρι πριν από λίγους μήνες, θεωρείτο ένα μικρό ακροαριστερό κόμμα, αν και η πραγματική πολιτική του απέχουν πολύ από το να είναι «ακραία» ή «άκρα αριστερά». Ακόμη πιο εντυπωσιακή είναι η άνοδος στην τριτη θέση στην Ελλάδα της νεοναζιστικής Χρυσής Αυγής. Σύμφωνα με τις τελευταίες δημοσκοπήσεις λαμβάνουν το 13%. Και το ΠΑΣΟΚ, το οποίο όλοι πίστευαν ότι είχε δει χαμηλό σημείο στο 13% στις εκλογές του Μαΐου, τώρα δεσπόζει σε ένα άθλιο 7-8%  μεταξύ των ψηφοφόρων. Επίσης, σημαντική είναι η εξάλειψη του κάποτε δυνατότερου Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος, το οποίο έχει περιθωριοποιηθεί στο  3-4%. Η Ευρώπη έχει να δει κάτι τέτοιο όπως η ταχεία κατάρρευση των παραδοσιακών κομμάτων και την άνοδο νέων πολιτικών ομάδων τόσο στα αριστερά όσο και στα δεξιά, από την κρίση της Δημοκρατίας της Βαϊμάρης στη Γερμανία που άνοιξε την πόρτα στο θρίαμβο του ναζισμού στη δεκαετία του 1930.

Όμως, ενώ η απειλή του φασισμού στην Ελλάδα είναι αρκετά πραγματική, έτσι είναι  και οι πιθανότητες για μια σοσιαλιστική επανάσταση της εργατικής τάξης , και αυτό θα μπορούσε να συγκεντρώσει ευρεία υποστήριξη διεθνώς. Ακόμη και η πιο βιαστική βόλτα στην Αθήνα αυτές τις μέρες αποκαλύπτει το βάθος της πολιτικής δράσης. Γκράφιτι πολιτικού χαρακτήρα, ως επί το πλείστον από τηναριστερή πτέρυγα είναι πανταχού παρόντα.

Έντονη επίσης είναι η παρουσία βαριά οπλισμένων αστυνομικών και παραστρατιωτικών μονάδων σε μεγάλες διασταυρώσεις και περιοχές όπου οι άνθρωποι μπορεί να συναθροιστούν.

Αφίσες από διάφορες αριστερές ομάδες είναι παντού, ειδικά στην περιοχή γύρω από την πλατεία Συντάγματος και το Πανεπιστήμιο. 

Υπήρξε μια περίοδο σχετικής ηρεμίας στην τους τελευταίους μήνες σε σχέση με τις καθημερινές μαζικές διαδηλώσεις του πριν από ένα χρόνο, αλλά αυτό μπορεί πιθανόν να αλλάξει ανά πάσα στιγμή. Μια γενική απεργία έχει κληθεί για αυτή την εβδομάδα. Όπως και οι προηγούμενες γενικές απεργίες, έτσι και αυτή έχει σχεδιαστεί από την συνδικαλιστική γραφειοκρατία ώστε να είναι μια ακόμη ανώδυνη και αναποτελεσματική διαμαρτυρία. Οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι που συμμετείχαν σε τέτοιες διαδηλώσεις στο παρελθόν δεν είδαν κανένα θετικό αποτέλεσμα προκύψει από την απλή διαμαρτυρία και ως εκ τούτου δεν είναι τόσο πρόθυμοι να συμμετέχουν. Ωστόσο, αυτό δεν σημαίνει ότι έχουν προσαρμοστεί στις αμείλικτες επαναλήψεις των μέτρων λιτότητας χωρίς τέλος. Αντίθετα, ψάχνουν για μια πραγματική εναλλακτική λύση  στην πτώχευση που φέρνει η πολιτική της λιτότητας. Το πρόβλημα που αντιμετωπίζουμε είναι ότι, ενώ τα παραδοσιακά κόμματα και οι ηγέτες τους έχουν απαξιωθεί, δεν έχει προκύψει μια νέα ηγεσία που να μπορεί αξιόπιστα να προτείνει μια εναλλακτική λύση. Σίγουρα δεν είναι ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ, του οποίου ο ηγέτης Αλέξης Τσίπρας πρόσφατα ανέφερε ότι  ο ηγέτης  που τον εμπνέει ήταν ο αείμνηστος Σαλβαδόρ Αλιέντε. Μπορεί κανείς να υπενθυμίσει ότι ο Αλιέντε οδήγησε μια αριστερή κυβέρνηση της Χιλής που πνίγηκε στο αίμα από το στρατό το 1973. Και μόλις πριν από τη δολοφονία του στο πραξικόπημα του Πινοσέτ, ο Αλιέντε, έκανε έκκληση στο στρατό για τη διαφύλαξη της δημοκρατίας. Με σημαντικά τμήματα του ελληνικού στρατού και της αστυνομίας, να δήλωνουν ότι βλέπουν με συμπάθεια την άνοδο της νεοναζιστικής Χρυσής Αυγής, αυτό είναι σαν μια στρατηγική αυτοκτονίας στην Ελλάδα το 2012, δεδομένου ότι συνέβη το ίδιο στη Χιλή το 1973. Αν η ελληνική εργατική τάξη είναι σε θέση να ξεπεράσει τις αυταπάτες της για ηγέτες, όπως ο Τσίπρας, στη συνέχεια, μια νέα αυγή θα μπορούσε πράγματι να προκύψει στην Ελλάδα. Δεν θα είναι η «Χρυσή Αυγή» των φασιστών, αλλά η Κόκκινη Αυγή της σοσιαλιστικής επανάστασης. Αυτή είναι η μόνη βιώσιμη απάντηση στα δίδυμα κακά της λιτότητας που επιβάλλει η ευρωπαϊκή αστική τάξη ή την εξίσου αντιδραστική εθνικιστική λύση της επιστροφής σε έναν ελληνικό καπιταλισμό με βάση  τη δραχμή.

Alex Steiner

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