Article to be published in “Unity & Struggle” (Extended version of an interview given to the comrades of Iran)
1. Several dozens of glorious general strikes and constant struggles of the masses in Greece against the austerity policies of ND and PASOK that plunged Greece into poverty and unemployment expressed the anger of the people and demanded a change in Greek society. How do you see and interpret the victory of SYRIZA in the elections?
By voting for SYRIZA, the majority of the Greek people rejected and condemned the cruel economic measures that were imposed, the neoliberal economic policy, in general, and the great-bourgeois parties of ND and PASOK that implemented these measures with the outmost servility. The victory of SYRIZA is also explained by the people’s resentment towards the fascist re-modeling of social life promoted by the government of the fascist scoundrel Samaras.
2. Tsipras and some political forces characterize SYRIZA as “radical left” that is going to somehow liberate the people of Greece from the economic misery. What is the class nature of SYRIZA and what program has the government of Tsipras promised the people to implement?
The old revolutionary KKE, under the leadership of the then General Sceretary Nikos Zachariadis, was the only communist party from a capitalist not to have accepted Krushchevian revisionism. For this reason, it was eliminated by the brutal intervention of the soviet Krushchevian revisionists in 1955-1956 and replaced by the Greek Krushchevian revisionist party (“K”KE), a bourgeois, party of social-democratic type. More than 90% of the party members led by Nikos Zachariadis opposed and fiercely resisted Krushchevian revisionism and many tens of cadres were sent to exile in Siberia including Nikos Zachariadis himself who has murdered by the social-fascist clique of Brezhnev (CPSU) – Florakis (“K”KE) in August of 1973, in Sorgut, Siberia after of 17 years of exile.
In 1968, “K”KE was split into two parties: the euro-communist part known as “K”KE (interior) and the Krushchevian-Brezhnevite part known as “K”KE. SYRIZA originates from the first part and, consequently, is a social-democratic and reformist party guided by a right opportunist general line and characterized by petty bourgeois class features.
SYRIZA has pledged to implement a kind of neo-Keynesian economic program with the aim, at best, of relieving the burden of the consequences coming from the economic crisis of over-production and extreme neo-liberal economic policy without, however, touching the capitalist system and the imperialist dependence of Greece. Nevertheless, the implementation of this program has met negative reactions from the representatives of the imperialist organizations Commission – ECB – IMF that continue to interfere in the internal affairs of the country provocatively and without any pretext. This attitude amounts to the annulment of the recent elections in our country.
In the sphere of social questions, SYRIZA is an anti-fascist party suffering from inconsistencies and contradictions as it is evident from the fact that it formed an alliance with the bourgeois nationalist party of ANEL and the nomination of Prokopis Pavlopoulos for President of the Republic, a right-wing politician from Nea Demokratia who was responsible, as Minister of Public Order in the Karamanlis government, for the bloody police violence unleashed on the country’s school youth after the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos in December of 2008.
3. Greece is a member of European Union, a member of NATO, and has implemented the neoliberal policies of the Western imperialist powers. Has Tsipras the willing and determination to eliminate political, economical, and military dependency on the Western imperialist powers and to cut the hands of EU-ECB-IMF from the lives of Greek people?
Tsipras and the leading group of SYRIZA is neither willing nor determined to eliminate Greece’s political, economical and military dependence on imperialism, that is the cause of certain problems for Greece in addition to the ones stemming from local capitalism. The only thing that he seems determined to do is to reduce the pressure coming from European Union and the European Central Bank regarding the implantation of extreme austerity programs that have deteriorated further the living conditions if the working class and deepened the process of absolute impoverishment. Today, the situation in our economically bankrupt country is disastrous; as a share of GDP, the national debt has increased from 118% (2009-2010) to 181.16% (January 2015). The production drops continuously, taxes and prices have increased, social spending has been slash, there is a massive unemployment of 2,000,000 people (the unemployment rate among young people is about 68-70%), and more than half of the population lives well below the poverty line.
The strategic position of SYRIZA is that Greece should be a member of the European Union and the Eurozone. This is also the position of the other parties present in today’s bourgeois parliament (ND, PASOK, ANEL, Potami, “K”KE) and it reflects the strategic choice of the Greek capital as it has been expressed by, among others, the president of the Union of Greek Industrialists in the following form (20/3/2012): “Europe or chaos”
4. Certainly, the victory of the people of Greece against the austerity measures of ND-PASOK governments is good news. How is the dialectical development of the situation after the elections? Will the conditions created by the Tsipras’ victory strengthen the class struggles of the Greek working masses?
During the first three weeks following the elections, the SYRIZA government has taken a series of actions in order to implement its program that has won the support of wide popular strata, an attitude that is unfortunately accompanied by certain illusions. At the same time, the government’s actions have met a very negative reception from Commission – ECB – IMF whose pressure and constant interference in the country’s internal affairs is condemned by the Greek people. We think that, up to a certain extent, SYRIZA’s victory creates favorable conditions for the strengthening of class struggles. Whether this possibility becomes a reality depends, of course on many factors the most important of which is the organization of the majority of the working masses in independent and united trade unions and the influence exerted on these and, the society in general, by the consistent left-wing, anti-imperialist and revolutionary communists.
5. The so-called the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) participated in the European elections. Despite all its phrase-mongering demand about Greece leaving the Eurozone, how different are the politics of this reformist party from those of SYRIZA?
It is important to clarify that, despite its verbal attacks against EU and the Eurozone, “K”KE does not put forward (not even for the sake of demagogy) the question of Greece’s immediate exit neither from the EU nor the Eurozone. In relation to Euro, the leadership of “K”KE has stated: “A solution outside the euro and return to the drachma in the present circumstances would be catastrophic” (30/5/2011), i.e. a position that is similar to the one expressed by the president of the Union of Greek Industrialists (20/3/2012) and mentioned above: “Europe or chaos”
This is also evident in the party’s program that was approved by its last congress).
Since some time now, “K”KE has expressed the view that “the term “national dependence” is not applicable in contemporary conditions” (1/2/2005). After the 19th Congress, it has openly adopted Trotskyite positions that mention “imperialist Greece”, “imperialist Second World War” etc and are evident in the “Program” approved in the last party Congress: “the capitalism in Greece is in the imperialist stage of development” (“K”KE Program, p. 12, Athens 2013). Concerning the character of the Second World War it is claimed that: “the problem was not only with KKE but the overall strategy of the international communist movement before and during the Second World War. In 1941, another negative point was added when the correct assessment of the war as imperialist – with respect to both sides of capitalist states – was replaced by the position that it was only anti-fascist” (“Rizospastis”, 21/12/2104).
Therefore, in essence, the policy of this reformist party is not different than that of SYRIZA as far the question of imperialist dependence and the continuous membership of the country in the imperialist EU is concerned. Both reformist parties (“K”KE-SYRIZA) have accepted the Greek capital’s present strategic choice to maintain the country in the EU and the Eurozone.
6. The crises in Greece demand a vast mobilization of the popular sectors of the society and the development of a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. Could you tell us about the tactics adopted by KKE (1918-55) in the present situation in order to strengthen the struggles of the working class and to deepen the revolutionary demands of the protesters on the streets?
In order to contribute to the growth of the working class struggles and the rise of the revolutionary movement, the Movement for Reorganization of KKE (1918-1955) is striving, under very unfavorable conditions, to achieve the following:
A) Together with the reorganization, re-birth of KKE (1918-1955) and the ideological-political-organizational unity of the Greek communists on basis of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism and the dissemination of the Marxist conception of socialism-communism, it actively supports and participates in the struggle of the working class and all the toilers against the reduction of salaries and pensions, against the deterioration of their position in general and supports all demands that aim to defend their (economic, trade-union, social and political) class interests in opposition to the foreign and Greek capital and in particular, the EU monopolies which impose directly the current austerity measures.
B) The formation of united, massive and truly independent trade unions whose aim will be the resistance to the extreme neo-liberal policy of austerity and the further development of the workers’ and people’s struggles combined with the struggle against nationalism-racism-fascism-Nazism (all very dangerous enemies of the working class and the people) as well as “anti-germanism”-“anti-hellenism” (the two sides of the bourgeois nationalism) incited, during this period, by the nationalist circles of the two countries. At the same time, these new trade unions will put forward the demand for the exit of the country from the imperialist EU not only because of the increasing dependence and the deterioration of the Greece-EU relations at the expense of our country but also because of the fact that the economic policy and the hard, anti-popular measures are directly imposed by Brussels.
C) The cooperation between the consistent left-wing, anti-imperialist and anti-fascist forces that will aim at the formation of a massive, anti-fascist, popular, front that will fight against the dependence on imperialism, in general, and the exit of Greece from the EU, the Eurozone and NATO.
