Calls for a United Front for Greek Revolution
Posted by eric ribellarsi on February 16, 2012
Kasama received the following statement from Greece’s Communist Organization (KOE):
The intensified crisis of the political system is an opportunity for the promotion of a social and political front that will put a stop to this illegal regime and set the country in a different course, materializing what the people want and claim for. A social and political front which will pave the way for the salvation of the people and the country: Real Democracy. Independence. Productive Reconstruction. Stop the payments NOW – Not one more euro to the loan sharks. We can break the chains, the fight continues!
The fight against the new occupation’s regime continues
The Communist Organization of Greece salutes the hundreds of thousands of people who swamped Athens yesterday and protested throughout Greece, resolutely opposing the new bonds that the IMF-EU-ECB troika imposes. The Greek people proved their advanced readiness for combat, and showed increased endurance and courage facing the ruthless attacks of the “special police” forces. Despite the state terrorism and the blackmails of the establishment, the fighting spirit of the people against the new occupation and the tyranny is raging.
The new Bailout Agreement is imposed entirely as in a coup, by an illegal government, and “approved” by a parliament that has lost any legitimacy. The Papadimos’ puppet government, the three bourgeois pro-Agreement parties and the politicians who voted for and supported the new disastrous Bailout Agreement are continuously violating their own Constitution and the country’s sovereignty. Their whole political system is hence entirely illegitimate. They have definitively taken a divorce from the people, and must leave immediately.
Since the appointed “prime minister”-banker Papadimos and his entourage didn’t manage to terrorize the people with the default threat (besides, the Bailout Agreement leads to default with mathematical accuracy), they found as sole refuge the ruthless police violence and terror. They unpretentiously suffocated Athens with chemicals, not hesitating to use their “weapons” in the most ferocious way even against two emblematic figures, like our National Resistance hero Manolis Glezos and the internationally famous compositor Mikis Theodorakis.
The illegal and completely illegitimate government, with the full support of most mainstream Media, resorted to violence and invested in terror. The “journalists”-parrots of the system and the apologists of the troika talked systematically only about the damages provoked in buildings. They “forgot” to mention the hundreds of thousands of people who, despite the barbarous police attacks and the chemicals, remained in Syntagma square and the rest of Athens’ centre during 5 hours. For what happened yesterday, as well as for what’s coming, the sole responsible is non other than the illegal government, which in full contrast to the will of the people and with repeated coups is delivering the country, the life and the future of its people, to its patrons.
The political system that robbed and destroyed Greece, that leads it to default and is now delivering it as a colony to foreign commissioners and foreign “courts of justice”, is crumbling in front of our eyes. They cannot even convince themselves any longer: 45 MPs of the bourgeois parties, under the popular pressure, voted against the Bailout Agreement and were immediately expelled from their respective parties. For the first time since the fall of the dictatorship in 1974, fewer than 200 MPs voted “yes” at a decision that had the support of both the two big bourgeois parties.
The intensified crisis of the political system is an opportunity for the promotion of a social and political front that will put a stop to this illegal regime and set the country in a different course, materializing what the people want and claim for. A social and political front which will pave the way for the salvation of the people and the country: Real Democracy. Independence. Productive Reconstruction. Stop the payments NOW – Not one more euro to the loan sharks. We can break the chains, the fight continues!
• Down with the coup of the Bailout Agreement, down with the illegal Papadimos’ government
• Overthrow the whole rotten political system
• Democracy, Independence, Productive Reconstruction, Emancipation
Forward, to a radical political change led by the people!
Red Fly said
A very strong statement in my view, especially with respect to the characterization of the government as wholly illegitimate and illegal.
But I wonder how other people here feel about the invocation of terms like “sovereignty” and use of the phrase “a colony to foreign commissioners and foreign ‘courts of justice.’” Does this tread too close to opportunist social patriotism? We are, after all, talking about a first world country. Is there a danger here of playing into the far-right’s hands? Or is this language justified given Greece’s status on the periphery of the EU and its very real descent into something like a 21st century colony controlled by global finance capital?
eric ribellarsi said
Red Fly, I think you precisely hit on what is controversial about this statement:
The KOE’s view is identifying the principal contradiction in Greece as being one between the Greek popular classes and the foreign EU government.. and indeed, this involves forging an alliance with many revolutionary political forces which are bourgeois democratic or national democratic in character… with a commitment to struggle over the future of what the society will be in post-revolution, broad revolutionary society.
My suspicion is that it is a correct strategic approach in society that has a fractured Left, a broad revolutionary movement among the people, and an ambiguous content to its revolutionary movement. In fact, I suspect Greece has no potential for revolution without such a broad front (at least one that isn’t fascist in character).. but this road is also one that will also come with real difficulties later down the road.
Red fly also mentioned:
Well, yes and no. In the KOE’s view, Greece is a “developed capitalist country of a dependent kind,” which has been systematically de-industrialized (with all the class dis-figuration and complexity that comes with that), and now its welfare and state economy is being liquidated by foreign powers.. in many ways.. this is a society that does not fit into any previous models or analyses of three worlds. The idea that the principal enemy of the revolution is the Greek bourgoisie is actually the view of a different trend.. the KKE.
The KKE claims that the revolutionary movement is opportunist in character, and that communists must focus on a parliamentary road until a future time when the old unionized Greek working class rises up in revolution along explicit communist and workerist lines.. and in many ways, this position seemingly “ultra-leftist” is actually deeply and thoroughly rightist and a call for reformist politics.
PatrickSMcNally said
Greece is as much a part of the “Third World” as South Korea is. Greece experienced military coups after World War II, which is not normally identified with the First World. It’s true that from the 1970s and onward Greece began to improve its status, but so did South Korea. Greece might even have more characteristic features of a Banana Republic than South Korea does currently, though I don’t know of any methodical comparisons.
Red Fly said
Patrick,
What are your criteria for claiming that Greece is part of the “Third World?” The establishment of a strong welfare state, integration into the EU and bourgeois democracy since the 70′s are all indicators pointing towards First World status. On the other hand, the small size of the Greek economy, its import-dependent status and recent events vis-a-vis the debt crisis suggest that this First World status was largely illusory.
The KOE’s characterization, which rejects this old framework, may indeed be a closer theoretical approximation of reality.
What this suggests is that, in wake of this capitalist crisis, Greece has become a kind of rump state, a country with First World ideological and institutional trappings, but which is entirely subservient to outside forces.
Jan Makandal said
I would like to make a precision to avoid any type of formalism and dogmatism.
I don‘t think there is a general theory of the mode of productions and frankly there can’t be a general theory of the mode of productions that one could turn to as a guide for an ideal systematic theory of universal history.
Each mode of productions, by definition, raise the need for a specific theory with regard to its form of social process, its internal contradictions, its trends and dynamics with regard to the historical conditions in which the social process, the contradictions, all the tendencies [trend] are being constituted, reproduced and transformed [class struggle].
Even if, I argued of the non existence of a general universal systematic theory of the mode of productions but I will argued, as well, a specific theory implies always a general scientific problematic of the mode of productions such as:
• All modes of productions are characterized fundamentally by the nature of relations of productions between producers and non-producers.
• All modes of productions are derivatively characterized by the nature of the productive forces in relation to social relation of productions.
• All mode of productions are characterized by the super structural forms necessary for the reproductions of the relations of productions
So to define, for me, a mode of productions as Third World, Three World is indeed a general non- systematic and systemic theory of a mode of productions un-dialectically related to the objective reality of a specific mode of productions.
I will, however, take for face value Red Fly interpretation of the KOE theory of the Greece mode of productions. Here again, my knowledge of Greece’ s social formation is quite limited.
Now, if I do take for face value this specific characterization I will however point out the limitation of the KOE call for a United Front for the Greek Revolutions. This type of call, coming from a “Communist Organization” in a social formation dominated by a mode of productions of a “developed capitalist country of a dependent kind,” is quite limited, reformist and liberal. If this call emanated from a mass organization my assessment would be totally different but coming from a communist organization in a capitalist country is problematic.
We do need to support the struggle against imperialism and capitalism but as the same understand the limitations of these struggle.
In a capitalist social formation of an advanced independent capitalist mode of productions and even in the dominated social formation by imperialism
PROLETARIAN REVOLUTIONS MUST BE THE ORDER OF THE DAY.
Carl Davidson said
This is where the theory of the TCC, the transnational capitalist class, comes in, the true globalists who belong to no particular country, and their conflict with national capitals, even in relatively advanced countries like Greece
Gary said
Great to hear that the 86 year old Mikis Theodorakis is still out in the streets.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=zorba+the+greek+youtube&mid=F1895CB8A04465017A02F1895CB8A04465017A02&view=detail&FORM=VIRE3
eric ribellarsi said
Ah, Mikis Theodorakis is also a part of the calls for a broad revolutionary front, and was interviewed in Dromos (translates to “The Road”, the joint newspaper of KOE and another communist organization, KEDA).
It is available here through Google translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fedromos.gr%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_k2%26view%3Ditem%26id%3D7565%3A%25CE%25BC%25CE%25AF%25CE%25BA%25CE%25B7%25CF%2582-%25CE%25B8%25CE%25B5%25CE%25BF%25CE%25B4%25CF%2589%25CF%2581%25CE%25AC%25CE%25BA%25CE%25B7%25CF%2582%26Itemid%3D51&sl=el&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
Perhaps some of our Greek readers could give is a proper translation.
Joseph Ball said
Is the KOE’s call ‘social patriotism’. This is a difficult one. The minimum wage is getting reduced to 600 euros a month in Greece. This is similar (in purchasing power parity terms) to the minimum wage in a lot of the middle income Third World countries. At the same time, we should note that some workers outside the union agreements in Germany get only 5 euros an hour, while those in the agreements can get far more.
It is true that the argument that there is no difference now between the Third World and the First World that we hear from some quarters is silly and exaggerated in the extreme. You just compare working conditions at Foxconn in China with working conditions in factories in the UK. However, there has certainly been some degree of convergence in recent years. This may continue as some Third World countries acquire advanced technology. Or the US may lead a campaign of economic destabilisation or even open warfare against China in order to prevent the most immediate threat to its economic hegemony. There is after all a precedent for this. The UK and its allies fought two world wars to try and suppress economic competition from Germany at the cost of over 60 million lives. My personal feeling at the moment is we should avoid dogmas of the type: ‘The economic collapse of capitalism is inevitable.’ or a ‘A new imperialist war is inevitable.’ We must also avoid the subjectivism and idealism that has dogged Maoists so much. This is the tendency of refusing to consider objective and economic conditions at all while simply assuming that ‘having the right line’ in the sense of having a left-wing notion of some kind in your head is enough for the revolution to become reality.
Liam Wright said
A lot is well said and thoughtful here.
I will say, it is important in any revolution to question the long term affects, the new obstacles and new freedom made by any decision. The question posed of “is this social patriotism” is a good question to pose. But I tend to think that KOE is mainly on the right track.
It is my understanding that KOE’s approach to this is that while the principle enemy is the foreign “occupiers” that this is an assessment of the current stage of their revolution, and that given the overthrow of their current regime they would begin to work for furthering that revolution (through different forms).
It is a problem for many of us of not knowing what real revolutions look and feel like. It is often said that “revolutions are complex” but oftentimes that is grossly underestimated. Even in the previous experience of communist revolutions it has been a matter of going for the most revolutionary goal possible given their current conditions. In Russia, they overthrew the Tsar and joined the Duma which they worked to delegitimize and work to overthrow. In China they worked in a United Front with their comprodor nationalists to drive out the Japanese even while they were attacked and betrayed by their allies.
Every time we win, it is always in ways which break with the previous conception of communist revolution. I think that we should draw the lesson from this to stop demanding that revolutions fit a certain class configuration (of our choosing), a certain politics (when we want them to), and judge them instead by how they are being shaped and where they are going. (The distinction being what they are now and where they are going.) We of course have to be critical, as I have said. But this is KOE’s call for a united front, meaning a call for a movement and coalition of the broadest base possible to overthrow the current regime. This is not the end all be all of their politics. It is quite a myopic approach to judge their program off their momentary call.