Mihalis Skourtis and Andreas Kloke spoke to Martin Thomas at the Anti-Racist Festival in Athens on 6 July 2012.
They are long-standing leaders of OKDE-Spartakos (not to be confused with the other OKDE, publishing Ergatiki Pali). OKDE-Spartakos is the official group in Greece of the Fourth International (a network centred around activists in the NPA in France). OKDE-Spartakos participates in the Antarsya coalition, together with NAR and SEK (both of which are much larger than Spartakos). It recently clashed with the Fourth International bureau over the bureau's statement, backing Syriza rather than Antarsya, on the 17 June 2012 Greek elections: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2643. In Greece the Fourth International also recognises Kokkino, a participant in Syriza, as an "observer" group: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?auteur831.
"The first thing", said Mihalis, "is for all the organisations of the left, especially the radical and internationalist left, and no matter how they voted on 17 June, to go back on the streets.
"Over the summer", he said, "we will all have a few holidays. But as from the end of August, we must all return to the streets".
Street action is needed on three main issues: against the fascists; against the government; and in solidarity with the poor and the homeless.
Over the last two and a half year, Mihalis continued, we have seen that workers have not trusted the bureaucrats, and have tried to self-organise.
I asked Mihalis about the idea that Sofia from OKDE had put to me, that in coming elections the old Pasok-aligned union leaders can be swept out of office.
"Yes", he said. "Not all of them, of course!" But he saw movement. For example in the local government workers' union, even a small left group like OKDE-Spartakos has two representatives on the all-Greece committee.
Can the Greek Trotskyists - or at least some of them - unify? Mihalis said that unification must come on the streets and not from discussions behind closed doors.
OKDE-Spartakos can work with OKDE and EEK a bit on the streets, but they won't come into Antarsya.
Mihalis thought Trotskyist groups in Syriza would now face the prospect of having to dismantle their organisations as Syriza becomes a single party rather than a coalition. "Sooner or later", said Mihalis, "the Trotskyists in Syriza will have to leave it. They are already thinking about Plan B. Syriza has moved to the right even since 6 May.
"Syriza's five points, which the Fourth International referred to in order to justify supporting Syriza" [Spartakos protested at the Fourth International's stance] "don't even exist any more. Syriza has abandoned them".
Won't new radicalised people come into Syriza? "If the left doesn't get onto the streets, people have no reason to go the left. They will go to the Nazis.
"The situation is hard. Left-wingers should stop dreaming about elections and broad parties, and move to the streets".
OKDE-Spartakos puts special emphasis on the idea of workers' control: the slogan (in English) was splashed across the issue of the group's irregular magazine, Spartakos, which it was promoting on its stall.
Andreas Kloke took me through a narrative of the last couple of years in Greece, and gave me his assessment of the Greek far left.
Describing the role of the KKE [Communist Party] in the movement, he said that it had proved itself "the most right-wing part of the movement", and was "always trying to split the movement". By contrast, Antarsya, some other left group, and Synaspismos [the biggest group in Syriza], especially the Synaspismos youth, have always participated in the mobilisations.
Most of the Greek far left, Andreas said, is of Stalinist origin. The biggest group is NAR, the New Left Current, created by the KKE's [Communist Party's] expulsion of a large part of its youth section in 1989.
You can't call NAR Stalinist any more, said Andreas. It has different currents in it. Some of the currents are "a bit left-nationalist", and some are "a bit sectarian towards the trade unions".
OKDE-Spartakos is in the Antarsya coalition with ARAN and ARAS (two groups of Maoist and Eurocommunist origin), the SEK (Greek group linked to the SWP in Britain), and a number of smaller groups.
Andreas reckoned that the political decisions of the Antarsya conference in late 2011 were "all basically programmatically correct". Antarsya rejected paying the debt; called for the nationalisation of the banks and big capital under workers' control; and declared that the crisis is a worldwide capitalist crisis and cannot be dealt with by parliamentary means.
