Greece

As with the war in Ukraine, different communist parties around the world have taken different and even opposite positions regarding the current Israeli bloodbath in Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attack. The stance of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) is one of principled support for the struggle of the Palestinian people, far removed from other communist parties, which have succumbed to the pressure of bourgeois public opinion. However, there are several aspects of the KKE position on Palestine/Israel we disagree with, and which we think are at odds with a genuine communist position. 

Since the collapse of SYRIZA in Greece’s general election back in June, the party leadership has been captured by a populist shipping magnate. This is an ignominious but fitting ending for a party that once inspired hope among millions of workers, only to see those hopes dashed by the betrayals of the party leadership. New local elections have confirmed the party’s collapse. But while SYRIZA may be dead as a vehicle for the discontent and anger of the Greek working class, we are seeing that anger expressed in massive abstention, and to SYRIZA’s left, in the rising vote of the Communist Party (KKE).

Last August, the Minister of Labour Adonis Georgiadis outlined the New Democracy government's new bill on labour and insurance issues, which will shred the most fundamental remaining protections for workers. In the words of the minister himself: “our goal is to make working relations more honest between us [i.e., workers and the bosses]”, explaining that much of what the bill codifies is already happening, informally. He put his intentions explicitly: to give intensifying exploitation of the working class full weight of the law.

The recent Greek elections on 25 June saw SYRIZA take a hammering, with leader Alexis Tsipras announcing his resignation today. SYRIZA’s collapse has granted victory to the right-wing New Democracy. Coupled with the reentry of a fascist party into parliament, this has caused many on the left to claim that Greek society is shifting to the right, and is even threatened with the rise of fascism. This is a superficial conclusion that ignores the main trend: a surge in abstention, and disillusionment with the institutions of bourgeois democracy.

Dominating news headlines around the world presently is the huge search and rescue operation underway to retrieve a handful of wealthy tourists, including a British billionaire who went missing in the Atlantic on a submarine adventure to explore the shipwreck of the Titanic. Meanwhile, there is a conspiracy of silence in the international media over the details coming out about the drowning of 700 migrants in the Mediterranean last week – the direct result of a willful, callous neglect of human life.

Greek society has been deeply shocked by the deadly train collision at Tempi on the evening of 28 February that killed at least 57 mostly young people. The grief has turned to anger against a government that is trying to deflect from its own culpability and that of the capitalist class. The working class burst onto the scene with a general strike on 8 March. We publish below the English translation of the leaflet distributed by the comrades of the Greek section of the IMT at that strike.

Since the evening of 28 February, Greek society has been rocked by the deadliest railway accident in the history of the country, and one of the worst in European and world history. This terrible event, resulting from the negligence of the government and private rail operators, has provoked a huge outpouring of anger and protest, as well as strike action by railway workers and other sectors. A 24-hour general public sector strike has been announced for tomorrow (8 March). The tragedy has further ratcheted up the class struggle in Greece, which was already roaring back to life.

The stinking wiretapping scandal in Greece – which is now also known as the ‘Greek Watergate’ – has deepened the contradictions and political impasse of the right-wing New Democracy government, and of the capitalist bourgeois establishment at large. This, in turn, reflects the general economic and socio-political impasse of Greek capitalism, and the broader historical crisis of world capitalism.

Following the brutal attack by the government and the police against the students of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the comrades of the Greek section of the International Marxist Tendency released the following statement.

The French Revolution initiated a decades-long phase of bourgeois revolutions across Europe and beyond that raised the flags of democracy, national liberation, and civil rights against the injustices of the feudal system. These political convulsions prepared the ground for the international ascendancy of the capitalist system in the nineteenth century. Yet in most countries, the democratic promises of the bourgeois revolution remained largely unfulfilled. The Greek war of independence that began over 200 years ago was no exception.

On Wednesday 6 April, hundreds of thousands of workers from all over Greece responded to the call of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) and the Civil Servants' Confederation (ADEDY) to join a 24-hour general strike. Tens of thousands of workers, along with unemployed citizens and youth, participated in strike rallies organised in over 70 cities.

Workers at the Greek rail company TRAINOSE in Thessaloniki have forced the bosses to back down, after refusing to assist with transporting NATO tanks from the port of Alexandroupoli to Ukraine. The following statement was originally written in Greek on 5 April 2022, prior to the general strike that commenced the following day.

In recent days, Greece has witnessed a wave of murderous fascist attacks against leftist organisations. This is the most intense violence since 2013, when the murder of rapper Pavlos Fissas sparked a mass anti-fascist movement and the government cracked down on neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. This culminated in the banning of the party in 2020.

World music and the class struggle for democratic rights have both lost an important figure, Mikis Theodorakis, the much-loved composer of the Greek people. Mikis Theodorakis dedicated his life to the musical rebirth of post-war Greece. His musical compositions combined an incredible artistic prowess with a remarkable expression of the Greek working class’ mood, aspirations and struggles against poverty and oppression.

The immense destruction caused by the wildfires in Varybobi, Evia and dozens of other areas of Greece is not solely due to the winds, high temperatures and climate change, as the ND government and the bourgeois media claim. The real cause of this catastrophe is the reactionary policies and the criminal indifference of the Greek ruling class.

Throughout March, a mass struggle in Greece (led by the youth) has been waged against police violence and the reactionary, authoritarian New Democracy (ND) government. The main left organisations have scandalously distanced themselves from and refused to join forces in support of this militant movement. Nevertheless, the masses have emerged from a period of paralysis willing to fight. The movement against police repression has temporarily subsided for now, due to the emergency conditions imposed by the present spike of the pandemic. But what is clear is that a new chapter of the Greek class struggle has begun. Note: this article was initially drafted in March.

Mass protests involving thousands have broken out in Greece against the state persecution of a left-wing prisoner, who has gone on hunger strike to achieve basic rights. The mainly youth demonstrators have been met with vicious repression by the state. A united front of all left organisations is necessary to fight against the reactionary, authoritarian New Democracy government!