Greeks go to the polls and reject Wall Street imposed austerity measures

The Greeks are speaking out at the polls very strongly; they are fed up with Wall Street's dictated austerity measures being shoved down their throats.


But, there is a hitch--- How will Syriza approach the Greek Communist Party and its huge working class coalition?


Here in this country there has been a lot of support for Syriza when there was virtually none for the KKE and its coalition partners prior to there ever having been a Syriza.


The KKE is quite capable of speaking for itself:


http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/Appeal-of-the-Central-Committee-of-the-KKE-concerning-the-parliamentary-elections-on-the-25th-of-January-2015/

A big part of the problem is that anti-Communism has been responsible for not including the positions of the KKE in the debate... especially here in this country and now you pretend the KKE position needs some kind of explanation; aren't they very clear where they stand?


Also a very big problem is the intervention on the part of the CIA infiltrated and directed, International Trade Union Confederation, with its ax to grind with the KKE, P.A.M.E. and the World Federation of Trade Unions. All of this is a matter of record.


This CIA infiltrated, led and bankrolled group only became involved in Greece--- including supporting and funding Syriza--- after the KKE, P.A.M.E. and WFTU affiliates brought masses of workers out into the streets and led actions in the workplaces.


Now Syriza needs the KKE... the better question to ask is: Why has Syriza been so anti-Communist?
Another question you might want to ask is: Will Syriza as a social democratic organization and party cave to the demands of the big monopolies (domestic and foreign).


Another question: Just what are Syriza's connections to the Democratic Party and these phony liberals, progressives and leftists here in this country who supported Obama--- the Wall Street imperialist war monger who has led the G-7/G-8 in tightening the noose around the neck of the Greek working class?
My hunch is that the KKE has good reason to be leery and suspicious of Syriza... of course, we will find out very quickly just how honest Syriza is when it has to approach the KKE for support--- or, will Syriza turn towards big-capital representing coalition partner?


Quite frankly, the question I would like to see answered is why Syriza took funding from all of these ITUC affiliations and used the offices established by the ITUC for its campaign when the leaders of the ITUC openly stated they were moving their organizers into Greece in order to counter the influence of the KKE, P.A.M.E. and the WFTU?


If you want to know what the KKE is thinking and doing, just go to their web site:


http://inter.kke.gr/en/

We should all hope that what comes out of all of this is a Greek left working together in coalition to bring down capitalism in Greece with socialism being established.


Will Syriza allow itself to be used as a safety breaker to diffuse the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and movement for socialism that the KKE, P.A.M.E. and WFTU initiated long before there was a Syriza--- a very legitimate MASSIVE mass movement that those who initiated a split AFTER by initiating Syriza they were invited to join the existing mass movement.


It really befuddles me to try to understand why those who never gave any support to the Communist led working class movement in Greece that was struggling pre-Syriza who now want to get explanations of why the KKE does what it does when they could have taken the time to learn who was leading the Greek working class and why.


My other hunch is that if Syriza initiates the kind of dialog necessary to bring the KKE into an electoral coalition, it won't be long before the anti-Communists from the ITUC--- withdraws support--- and stops backing them and withdraws from the coalition.


The Greek Communist Party (KKE) has a rich, deep and very proud and distinguished history of working class unity, militancy, activity, international solidarity and involvement including fighting against Hitlers takeover, together with its fascist partners--- Italy and Bulgaria; and then fighting for years against another fascist government put in place by U.S. imperialism.


Quite frankly, the long-established social democrats in Greece couldn't get elected to dog-catcher positions because of their slavish adherence to Wall Street's and the EU's domination so Syriza was created to replace these social democrats as a safety valve to prevent Greece turning to socialism.
I would encourage my leftist friends, and everyone, to study closely what is taking place in Greece.



Richard Trumka should explain why the AFL-CIO has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into building Syriza and he won't invest one single penny building a working class based progressive anti-imperialist people's party for peace, social and economic justice intent on challenging Wall Street for political and economic power right here in our own country. Anyone care to explain this?

The only reason Syriza came into existence in the first place was to undermine and thwart the massive movement the KKE was leading against austerity measures.

Communist Party of Greece - Appeal of the Central Committee of the KKE concerning the...

Communist Party of Greece

inter.kke.gr


This is the:

Appeal of the Central Committee of the KKE concerning the parliamentary elections on the 25th of January 2015

THERE NEEDS TO BE A STRONG KKE THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTIONS!

 A STRONG PEOPLE’S OPPOSITION ALLIANCE AND STRUGGLE FOR THE OVERTHROW OF THE SYSTEM!

Workers, employees, self-employed, unemployed people, farmers, pensioners, young people and women from the popular families,

We call on you to support and decisively strengthen the KKE in the parliamentary elections.

You should think about the fact that the day after the elections, whoever is in government, the EU and the “permanent memoranda”, old and new measures that are demanded by capital in order to make it more competitive in the global capitalist market,  will still be here and will continue to bleed the people.

The anti-people laws in their entirety will still be in place. Laws  which were voted for by all the governments and which they are not going to abolish.

The unbearable debt will still be here, which is recognized by ND-PASOK, SYRIZA and the other parties that support the EU. They call on the people to pay for it. The people who did not create it and do not owe anything.

The contradictions and squabbles inside the Eurozone will be here. The squabbles that take place are over the management of the deficits and debts which are created by the capitalists and are repaid with the aim of increasing the capitalist profits, the power of the strongest, always at the expense of the people’s interests.

Above all, capital, the monopolies, both domestic and foreign will be here. It is they that hold the keys of the economy, the real power and will demand even more privileges in any recovery phase, always at the expense of the people. They will demand an even cheaper and more subjugated work force in order to invest. Unemployment will be here, even if there are some investments.

The power of capital will be here, the state that consistently serves the interests of the monopolies at the expense of the people and demarcates the role of each government.

Irrespective of the course of the negotiations with the Troika and the transition to the new phase of supervision, the monopolies are demanding new anti-people measures, such as the complete dismantlement of the social security system, new reductions in salaries and the people’s income, privatizations, the restriction of trade union activity. For this reason, there can be no relief for the workers in the crisis or recovery phase without struggle, without conflict with capital’s interests.

For this reason, the working people need a powerful KKE the day after the elections in parliament, everywhere, a force for the workers’ –people’s resistance and counterattack.

It is the certain guarantee amid the uncertainty and insecurity that the working class and the people can rely on.

A powerful KKE, to pave the way for the only solution in favour of the people, the unilateral and complete cancellation of the debt, the disengagement from the EU and NATO, the socialization of the monopolies, for the people’s prosperity, with the working class and people at the helm of power, the socialist perspective. The people need their own government, the government of workers’-people’s power and the KKE will play a leading role in it. So that the ideals and values of the people can become a reality, for a society without the exploitation of man by man.

A powerful KKE, so that the people are not tricked again by blackmail and illusions. Because they will have to face governments of the one or other version of bourgeois management, which not only do not guarantee the recovery of the people’s enormous losses, but serve the same path that leads to greater hazards and will try to deceive them with crumbs. The KKE will play a leading role, inside and outside of parliament, so that there can be a militant people’s opposition which can exert real pressure. This is something that has not existed up until now, either due to hesitation or illusions.

A powerful KKE, because it is force that, without retreats and recantations, plays the leading role in organizing the people’s struggle for the abolition of all the memorandum-related legislation and the recovery of the people’s losses. It consistently and selflessly struggles for the just cause of the workers, employees, the rights of the youth, women, unemployed, self-employed, poor farmers in order to organize the people’s solidarity.

A powerful KKE, because it fights against Greece’s participation in imperialist alliances and wars that are taking place or being prepared in order to serve the interests of the big business groups. It defends the country’s sovereign rights, against NATO and the EU, against those that try to trick the people by saying that these imperialist organizations will protect the people’s sovereign rights, peace and security. It struggles for Greece’s departure from NATO. It struggles so that Greece stops supporting and participating in military interventions at the expense of the peoples.

A powerful KKE, so that the labour-people’s movement can be revived, so that the people’s social alliance against the monopolies and capitalism can be established and strengthened. It struggles to isolate and defeat the fascist ideology and activity of Nazi Golden Dawn.

Working men and women, young people, unemployed, pensioners,

In the face of the electoral battle, the ND-PASOK coalition government and EU figures are again investing in alarmist talk and extortion in order to trap the people and extract their consent for the continuation of the anti-people political line. They invoke stability and the alleged need not to once again endanger the sacrifices of the Greek people. The intimidating dilemmas are not mainly aimed at its party-political squabbles with SYRIZA. The government knows very well that SYRIZA does not dispute the EU and the capitalist system. The extortions and dilemmas are addressed, above all, to the people and they aim to ensure the people’s submission to the same anti-people path and the new torments that it will bring.

The government is lying when it claims that the new anti-people measures can be prevented, if there is political stability and the creditors are placated. This is because the old and new anti-people measures are not just demands of the creditors. These have been for many years directions of the EU, integral to the strategy of big capital in Greece and Europe so that the labour force becomes even cheaper. Such anti-people reforms are being carried out in all the countries of the EU-eurozone by rightwing (e.g. Germany) or social-democratic (e.g. France, Italy) governments.

For this reason as well, the government and other centres of the establishment (Mass Media, Federation of Greek Industrialists etc.) are constantly talking about “the need to continue the reforms even if they do not demand it of us”. SYRIZA conceals this reality from the people. The reforms that it proposes follow the rationale of the EU and the businessmen.

SYRIZA is not an alternative solution for the people. In its quest to win the elections, it has rapidly completed its transformation into a party of bourgeois anti-people management. It conceals the causes of the capitalist economic crisis and exonerates the exploitative face of capitalism, the power of capital.

The leadership of SYRIZA not only provides assurances to the creditors, the EU, the “markets” that it will not act unilaterally, but it calls on them to trust and support a SYRIZA government because it can better serve their interests (e.g. the meetings with investment funds in the City of London). It has, even at the level of slogans, abandoned the declarations about “annulling” and “abolishing” the memorandum and the related legislation, about the recovery of the people’s losses, the return of the 13^th and 14^th salaries, the 13^th and 14^th pensions, the abolition of the heavy taxes.  It does not call into question the supervision mechanisms of the EU or the balanced budgets, the European semesters, i.e. the “permanent memoranda” at the expense of the people. In this framework, it is engaging in alliances with former cadres, ministers and MPs of PASOK, the Democratic Left (Dimar) etc who have supported the memoranda and anti-people measures.

At the same time, utilizing fake “radical” rhetoric of opportunist forces inside it, especially of the so-called “Left Platform”, SYRIZA is trying to trap leftwing people, young workers who are concerned and have a militant political stance. This is a repeat of the well-known tactics of social-democracy, of PASOK in the past, which presents a “left tendency” that allegedly is pressing the leadership but in reality provides it with a leftwing alibi. In the same vein, the electoral alliances formed by Antarsya are misleading. They point to certain struggle goals, like “the departure from the euro”, without rupture with the economic framework that is controlled by the power of capital today.

SYRIZA, particularly after the last two years, has been demonstrated to be useful for capital in order to undermine the labour-people’s movement. It is not just that it did not utilize its high percentage to strengthen the people’s mobilizations, but on the contrary it fostered the rationale of wait and see, of the people consigning their fate to others, restricting the people’s intervention to participating in elections and choosing which government  will implement the anti-people policies. This demonstrates that it has no appetite for coming into conflict with the capitalist interests in Greece and Europe. Life has demonstrated that the higher the electoral percentage of SYRIZA is, the more this acts against the workers’-people’s struggle.

Working men and women, young people, unemployed, pensioners,

It has become even more obvious in the recent period that the argument between the government and SYRIZA is focused on the “markets”, i.e. capital, in particular over which of the two will gain its “favour”. They are seeking to undertake the role of the more capable negotiator for the interests of capital and not for the interests of the people. Both talk about a “national consensus”, which means class-social peace, the subjugation of the people to the interests of capital.

Their differences are related to the management formula for capitalist development. They both prettify its anti-people and class content. SYRIZA is demanding the relaxation of the strict fiscal discipline, joining forces with France and Italy, which are continuously taking measures against their peoples, in order to exert greater pressure on Germany.

At the same time, however, both the government and SYRIZA are concealing that any adjustment of the debt and relaxation of fiscal discipline will not lead to the relief of the people, but to the increase of the state support for local business groups and investments. The lightening of the debt, either by the proposal of ND or the proposal of SYRIZA will occur through an agreement with the partners, and therefore will be accompanied by new anti-people commitments, as happened in relation to the “haircut” of the PSI in 2012, and in other countries as well.

However, no change in the management formula can cancel out the outbreak of the crisis or lead to capitalist development in favour of the people. The examples of the USA and Japan prove this.

Both the coalition government of ND-PASOK and SYRIZA, despite their differences, deceive the people, promising the same thing: that if the capitalist economy is strengthened, the people will benefit. They are lying. Any form of capitalist recovery will be based on the ruins of the workers’-people’s rights, it will not provide decent work for the millions of unemployed. The so-called “comparative” advantages for the reconstruction of the country’s economy that are invoked by SYRIZA are related to the potential for big business to achieve even greater profitability.

The recovery, even if it is achieved, will be weak and will occur in a period of recession for the strong capitalist countries and the indebtedness of states which presage a new deeper crisis cycle. For this reason, capital is also insisting on “national consensus”, which is not rejected by ND-PASOK or SYRIZA, trapping the people inside the framework of capital’s interests. Their quarrel is over who will have the upper hand.

Only crumbs from the new feast of capital will reach the people. The government and SYRIZA are competing and promising only crumbs for “extreme poverty’, which will arise from the bleeding of the rest of the workers and will evaporate the following day due to the anti-people measures as a whole. And both promote the political line of the EU and capital, with measures of the kind that “take from the poor in order to help the destitute” and which cost capital nothing. They serve capital’s goal, which is that the basis for salaries and pensions should be the minimum guaranteed income of destitution.

One hands out “social dividends”, the other promises soup kitchens and the return of the 13^th pension only for the most destitute pensioners. Even SYRIZA’s proposal for the minimum wage is an empty phrase, as it does not affect the thousands of workers, particularly young workers, that work with flexible labour relations and do not even receive the reduced minimum wage. It is fostering, in essence, the well-known reactionary propaganda about “privileged” and “non-privileged” workers that paves the way for the majority of workers with better salaries to be attacked. In addition, the increase of the minimum wage in many EU countries in a detached way, without a return of the collective labour agreements, was used to reduce the average wages.

We must not compromise with crumbs. The contemporary needs of the people and their children must be a criterion for their stance and struggle. A criterion must also be the enormous possibilities that are provided by technology, science, the development potential of the country in order to satisfy the people’s needs, if all these things are placed at the service of the people.

Working men and women, young people, unemployed, pensioners,

We address ourselves to you, understanding your desire to be free of the memoranda, the unjust policies and anti-people governments. We feel your anxiety about the future, your children, so that you can experience better days.

We trust the people and their strength. The people have the strength and responsibility not to be passive or deceived spectators of the anti-people attacks carried out by the governments of the EU and capital. They can draw conclusions and prevent a repeat of the anti-people two-party system of the past.

We must have a powerful KKE everywhere, because it is the only real opponent of the monopolies, their power, the EU of permanent memoranda, the anti-people governments. There will be a government after the elections. In any case, there are several that are willing- parties and formations of a limited shelf life- to contribute to this. What is important for the people is that there is a strong KKE so that the people themselves can be strong.

You know the KKE as a consistent, unwavering force against every anti-worker-anti-people offensive. You know what the KKE has done for 96 years and which was the only force of the workers-people’s opposition, inside and outside of parliament over the last three years since the 2012 elections.


Wherever you look, you will see the contribution and impact of the communists’ struggle. However, you know that the electoral reduction of the KKE had a negative impact on the dynamism and mass character of the labour-people’s movement. You know that despite all that, the KKE did not give up. It supported employees, farmers, self-employed, pensioners, students, school students for the right to health, social security, pensions, education, the protection of income, and housing, the professional premises of the self-employed and farmers from the usurious loans and unbearable taxes. The KKE never told the people lies.

We address ourselves in particular to those of you who justifiably think that the situation can not continue like this, that “they must go”. We must reject today’s government by rejecting the strategy of the EU and capital and not by choosing some other government that will implement the same strategy, with some differences that do not affect the people in a positive way. Everyone should consider the following: in previous years one-party and coalition governments came and went, extorting the popular vote sometimes through fear of the “worst” or through illusions about the “lesser” evil. What changed for the people? As long as a government manages the fortunes of the people and the country, trapped inside the shackles of the EU and the capitalist development path, which is obsolete and rotting, this trap of the lesser evil will continuously lead to new anti-people governments. The people must be freed from all the anti-people governments and their political line, they themselves must take power. The situation today-both in Greece and internationally- does not allow for any time to be wasted.

We address ourselves to those of you who feel radical, leftwing, progressive, who have experience and memory and have taken part in struggles and today are looking to vote for SYRIZA, with a heavy heart and little hope, on the basis of the rationale of the “lesser evil”. Today, you can see more clearly that the leadership of SYRIZA, with the credentials it provides to capital and the imperialist organizations, is cutting every tie with the history of the people’s movement. It is providing the opportunity for the most reactionary forces to slander the militant traditions of our people. It is very rapidly taking the place of social-democracy, and an even worse version than before because capitalism’s situation is worse, and the situation in the labour movement is also worse.

We address ourselves to you who do not agree with the KKE on everything or have reservations about some of its positions, but who understand that the KKE is the people’s consistent support. Whatever has been won by the people was won through struggles, with the KKE in the frontline. When the movement and the KKE were weakened, the people were the losers.

Think about which force tomorrow will be next to the people in the frontline of the struggle for salaries, jobs, their rights.

The KKE calls on every concerned young person, worker, pensioner everyone who has not compromised with misery and defeatism to join forces with it.

It calls on them to vote for the KKE and strengthen it everywhere. So that the people themselves become stronger and so that the people’s resistance and struggle are reinforced. So that the People’s Alliance against the monopolies and capitalism is strengthened, so that we can pave the way for the prospect of workers’-people’s power.