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Greece 2012-2014

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Views and Reports From the Greek Left

Pamphlet Cover "Greece 2012-2014: Views and Reports From the Greek Left"
by
various authors
2015
Pamphlet
-
61 pages

A Syriza-majority government taking office inspired leftists across Europe, although it eventually implemented austerity. This pamphlet presents interviews and discussions with many groups in the Greek left and labour movement in the run up, plus an article from January 2015 by Greek socialist Theodora Polenta, explaining the new political crisis there.

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Blurb 

After the failure of Greece's conservative party, New Democracy (ND), to elect a new president in late 2014, new elections were held. Polls in the run up to the showed that the left party, Syriza, which lost the June 2012 election was well ahead of ND. Syriza and the Greek Communist Party (KKE) between them won a parliamentary majority on 25 January.

Across Europe leftists saw hope as the Greek Left surged and attempted to take on the capitalist crisis that had befallen the country with hope of an anti-austerity government. Eventually the Syriza-majority government adopted austerity measures as part of a bailout deal with the EU and IMF.

This pamphlet from that time on Syriza, the revolutionary left and the class struggle in Greece. It presents interviews and discussions with many different groups in the Greek left and labour movement, plus an editorial article from 7 January 2015, by Greek socialist Theodora Polenta, explaining the political crisis there.

Table of Contents 
  • Timeline
  • Help the Greek Left Deny the Banks! (2015)
  • The Greek Left Takes Stock (July 2013)
  • Visiting the Greek Left (July 2013)
  • Discussing ODKE (2013)
  • Greece: The Simmering Revolt- Including:
    • Interview with Syriza Economist John Milios
    • Self-organisation for Workers' Power?
    • The Rise of the Neo-nazis
    • Syriza Wants to Make Itself a Mass Party
    • The Trotskyists in Syriza
    • “We Must End This Memorandum”: The Thessaloniki Unions
    • Building the Self-organisation of the Movement: OKDE
    • “To Build a Revolutionary Marxist Current...”
    • Quit the EU? Diversion, or Necessary Step?
    • Conversation with Xekinima
    • “Antarsya Proposes an Anti-capitalist Programme”
    • “A Revolution is Very Imminent” (EEK)
    • “Stop Dreaming About Elections...”: OKDE-Spartakos
    • The Greek Trotskyists: a sketch outline
    • A Left Government in Greece? Lessons from Trotsky
Related / Further reading 

Greece’s Election: End of a Chapter

The 7 July election in Greece confirmed the trends that emerged in the Euro elections:

  • a comfortable ND (New Democracy, equivalent of the Tories) dominance that revolved around engaging the centre right and alt right voters
  • a lack of momentum from Syriza (the leftish party that has governed since 2015), which paid the price of its capitulation and transformation into a pro-memoranda, pro-austerity party
  • the weakness of the anti-capitalist Left to persuade and inspire
  • the continuing fall of the Golden Dawn, leading them out of Parliament for the first time since 2012.

Abstention was at a historically high 45%. We are entering a new period in which a two-party system similar to the old one between ND and Pasok seems to be there, but without the depth or the stability of the old .

Why Greece’s “Left Government” Failed

The Syriza election was a reflection of the hard, militant class struggle by the working class and neighbourhood community movements against the attacks of the “Black Block” Memorandum governments of the years 2010 to 2012.

Syriza gave political substance to this movement, and it carried all of this movement’s political contradictions.
The movement had only a vague idea of what it expected of the Syriza government. It expected some form of relief, to get rid of the Memorandum laws and privatisation, to restore wages and pensions and collective bargaining, to give some right to housing. These demands were concretised in the Thessaloniki Declaration.

People were hoping that the Syriza government would restore what they had pre-Memorandum. It was a defensive rather than an aggressive type of hope.

Syriza: Dark at the End of The Tunnel

Participants in the Second Congress of Greece’s once-left party, Syriza, on 13-16 October, were reduced in the role of applauders of the Syriza-Anel government’s memorandum doctrines.

Reminiscent of the Tory Prime Minister Samaras, who defended the implementation of the second [2012] Memorandum by saying that “there is light at the end of the tunnel”, Alexis Tsipras claimed the third memorandum could bring a new dawn. “We continue to implement a fair deal and we expect from the institutions and our partners to meet their obligations ... The deepest darkness is before dawn,” he said. There was no serious opposition at the conference. Despite “murmurs” prior to the conference, no candidate challenged Alexis Tsipras for the Syriza presidency. He was elected president by 93.54%.

The supposed left opposition within Syriza is the “movement of 53”, nominally led by finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos and by Thodoris Dritsas, who has served as the Minister of Shipping and Island Policy and signed off (albeit, if we take his words for it, in a pool of tears and guilt) the sale of the port of Piraeus to the Chinese corporation Cosco. The “movement of 53” did not raise a “no to the memoranda”. It said there was no other way but to continue on the memoranda, but Syriza should explain to the working class that the implementation of austerity is a result of enforcement action by the creditors and not Syriza’s choice.

Six lessons from Greece

After Syriza’s betrayal, the international road to socialism?

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