This year the country's ruling class is celebrating fifty years since the restoration of democracy. It is celebrating while the ambitions and goals it has proclaimed throughout this process have been repeatedly contradicted. It celebrates this while being in a context of great impasses that the political system attempts to present as a "context of possibilities". Just as the "maturity" with which the ruling class appeared in 1974 was given by the imperialists of the USA and Europe and the compromise they formed, so is given the "power" and the "perspective" with which it appears today towards the people of the country. Today we would even say that there is a surplus of reactionary cynicism and savagery and a complete absence of "people- friendly promises ", even as hints of the parties and the forces of the system. And it is a typical conclusion of its route that the dependent capitalist system of the country reproduces itself by adapting to the dynamics of its deadlocks!
The ruling class of the country, adventurous, serving foreign interests, with a mediator role, can "always" present itself with arrogance, cynicism and reactionary shameless, both when the "investment grade" is A or B. Both when the middle-class is close to it and its parties and when it collapses and becomes unsupportive to the available political forces of the system. Both when the EU is presented as having "dynamism and perspective" and the management of the issues and tensions of the region is "shared" between the US and the European imperialists, and then the double dependence has a stable balance and the confinement of the people within it is "undeniable". But also, when the European structure is seriously affected by exits, frictions, contradictions and the absence of a strategy of the European imperialists is highlighted, the US becomes the power that the country must "lean" much more on and serve it in every possible way.
All this - and more that can be said - does not mean that these changes do not produce results and effects in all fields. In the economic-productive, social and political spheres. They are producing dramatic and serious changes in all these areas. And since 2008 -when the ruling class reached a "peak" of its "successes"- we are in a period where these changes are constantly evolving. And also because the geopolitical environment -in the region and internationally - is such of "preparation for world war", every new element produced by these changes is not stable and given. Such as, for example, the economic "successes" recorded by the system's indicators in recent years after the pandemic.
Therefore, with the phrase "the ruling class can always boast etc." we are not at all advocating the theories of the "omnipotence" of the system, which in their current version take the form of the "omnipotent" government of ND (New Democracy) and Mitsotakis (Prime Minister). It is obvious to us that at the same time that the system and its forces present themselves as "powerful" and with a "clear perspective" they are in great anxiety and in constant reactionary vigilance and mobilization. Because the possibility of adjustments in their impasses that we have mentioned has two limits: One is the geopolitical-warlike developments in the wider region that can produce anything from major blockages to reversals in local -let us call it completely abusive - "planning" and calculations. The second is the formation, strengthening and development of the mass struggle. The resistances, the demands, the struggles that the working class, the people and the youth can and must make. This parameter of the class and political struggle of the people from below and to the extent that it develops in the given conditions will create new facts and situations.
These are the two issues that the agents of the system and its government "exorcise", since they understand that these are the ones that can overthrow the political "normality" that they can have today and the "stability" of the "law and order" that they have imposed with their facistization. But at the same time, the policies of the system feed the emergence of both these issues. Because on one hand they contribute to the intensity of geopolitical turmoil and war risks, and on the other they increase the working-people's deadlocks, deepening the class gap between the lower and the upper classes.
It is with these contradictions that the system of dependence and exploitation is forced by its nature and its aspirations to walk in the era of uncharted waters, of generalized and all-round crisis, in the era of preparation for the world war that the capitalist-imperialist system finds itself in internationally. It is in the face of these contradictions and on the basis of the dramatic deterioration of working and living conditions that working people and youth need to build their own responses.
The electoral success of ND in 2023 was based on two issues: "Investment" and "security". It is not just about the electoral positioning of a party -even if it is the primary system party. It is about the view that the system as a whole has to present to the people and essentially blackmail them politically and demand their alignment behind the aspirations that this view puts forward. The question is therefore what the real content of this line is, what are the prospects for the people and the country that the objectives of "investment" and "security" offer in every respect and at every level. On the economic and productive level, on the question of labour relations and the right to work on the question of freedom and democratic rights of the people and youth, on the social rights of the masses, on the question of the "utilization" of the country and the roles it assumes in the region.
The second issue ("security") will be discussed below. Here let's look at some data concerning "investments" and the overall background of the country's specific capitalist economy. An economy of which the indicators may go up and down dramatically (e.g. GDP: 93bn in 1995, 242bn in 2008, 178bn in 2017, 224bn in 2023) but its character cannot be changed, despite the rhetoric about "changing the production model". The character of a dependent economy, an economy annexed and complementary to the European and US monopolies. A resale economy which is basically not producing but consuming. An economy that over time seeks adjustments and “development” in the context of this dependence and in accordance to the international conditions that are formed at any given moment. This is always the context that defines its existence and its quality. This framework is the basis for the interpretation of the spectacular ups and downs of its indicators, either overall or in sectors (e.g. construction). It is this context and its irreversible subsidiary character, particularly in the context of an intensifying crisis and imperialist rivalries that have led in recent years to the shrinking of the primary and secondary sectors and the over-expansion of the third sector (services -trade).
All this is given not as an "opinion" or "estimate" but as a reality recorded by official European and Greek data. Of course, the Economist had its own political reasons to declare the "Greek economy" the "best economy in the world" for 2023! After all, for the interests that the Economist serves and expresses, the country's economy is indeed "excellent". That is what the imperialist bosses want and need. But at the same time there are numerous public confessions by prominent bourgeois officials about the real characteristics of the country's economy. A recent example is M. Stasinopoulos (who, among others, was a member of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises for 13 years) who in December 2023, echoing the anxieties of Greek industrial manufacturing, stated: «the per capita productivity of Greek industry is very low compared to other European countries. This fact is not related to the industriousness and efficiency of workers. It has to do with the small installed production capacity and the dynamics of industrial intensity. In order to increase GDP and catch up with other EU countries, industrial production must be strengthened [...] Despite the fact that our own exports have more than doubled compared to 2009, the beginning of the crisis, the contribution of industry to GDP is at 9.1%, a figure that ranks us among the laggards (24th) in the EU».
The systemic-governmental celebrations of the "economic successes" of the last years are made for obvious political reasons and seek to exaggerate the real context, the real data of these "successes" which, apart from everything else, are measured by the starting point of the nadir to which the local economy had fallen with the memoranda and the pandemic. Let us therefore look at some indicative and briefly summarised data of these “successes”:
- The picture of the 100 dominant companies with a turnover of more than 100 million euros gives an outline of the economy from the side of the ruling class (published in the Greek edition of Forbes magazine and refers to the before-tax profits, concerns companies that published a balance sheet by the end of 2023 and does not include companies of groups outside the country, e.g. subsidiaries).
So in these top one hundred, manufacturing occupies about 40% and mainly concerns businesses that refer to the food cycle, pharmaceutical industry (which Mitsotakis dreams of making it a Balkan centre), construction materials and activities related to construction e.g. plastics, cements, pipes, connections, etc.
The remaining 60% are basically owned by energy and service companies (e.g. IT) but also by large retail chains, agencies of all kinds and of course banks and large construction companies and conglomerates.
However, only Mytilineos and Titanas, representing manufacturing in the broad sense of the term (Mytilineos is also involved in the energy sector and recently in construction such as the “fly over” highway in Thessaloniki), are in the top 10 companies and groups in terms of profitability. Also, the top ten companies with the highest turnover are dominated by commercial, energy, health (first is Euromedica!) with Mytilineos saving the pretext for manufacturing.
Individual ejections exist (companies with export orientation in the manufacture of batteries, auxiliary war material, management of shipping ballast, two or three companies of assistive robotics, etc.) but the basic picture of the economy does not change, where the production of means of production is basically and naturally absent.
But also in the so-called start-up sector (most of which are limited to a variety of IT applications, retail, artificial intelligence and agricultural technology) we have a first dip in the funding wave (stemming from the related crisis of the bank/fund/start-up relationship that recently rocked the US.) Eight out of ten of Greek start-ups are funded by overseas funds and large tech giants that eventually buy them. Not the kind of business that will take root in the country!
As far as the "investment narrative" is concerned, which is at the centre of government propaganda and systemic aspirations, the 90% increase that occurs after 2019-20 arises -as we have already mentioned - after the memoranda and the pandemic. These investments represent 15% of GDP (European average 22.6%) but the main issue is what ...Stasinopoulos points out! That they are not investments that start from scratch and set up new production units, i.e. investments that increase the fixed productive equipment and therefore the real GDP produced. The famous FDI (foreign direct investment) is oriented towards real estate and tourism where mergers, acquisitions and recapitalisations take place. Let us point out here an obvious contradiction produced by these investments: Given the shrinking of the primary and secondary sectors, this type of investment leads to an increase in imports which in turn worsen both the trade and current account balance, thus feeding the cycle of deficits and debt again!
- The country's debt when it entered the IMF program was 116% of GDP and its credit rating was A. Today, and after all that has happened "to reduce the debt and gain financial credibility for the country", they celebrate for a rating two steps lower (B-) and of debt at 162.3% of GDP! In reality this beastly figure is virtually reduced due to inflation (which virtually increases GDP) while early debt payments have been made! The real public debt if calculated deflationary is much higher than what is officially stated (358 billion is the budget target for 2024) and is estimated to be 400 billion euros. Moreover, if private debt is included (for which Stournaras likes to declare that ... "it doesn't make him nervous"!) Greece is in the world's first place in terms of total debt as a percentage of GDP!
- But the "quality" of the GDP is also very important: 65% of the GDP comes from consumption expenditure. But in addition, the 65% increase in the value of goods and services in the country -compared to 2019- mainly through tourism was fuelled by the 81.2 billion surge in imports in the same period. That is, tourists consumed goods that were largely or entirely imported! So despite the increase in exports, the contribution of "net" exports to GDP becomes negative.
A first conclusion from all this is that the bourgeoisie is showing signs of adapting to reality, which is why it is planning the so-called energy and pharmaceutical hub and is export and tourism oriented. One question is what will "come out" of all this and especially for the "energy hub" which directly depends on the geopolitical-war developments in the region. Moreover, it is Stournaras himself, as Governor of the Bank of Greece, who in his report for 2022 points out as the first "downside risk for the growth rate of the Greek economy the deterioration of the external environment due to unfavourable geopolitical developments..." A remark that concerns the economy as a whole and not a particular sector or a specific target. On top, it was made when the deadlocks of the unjust war in Ukraine had not yet developed and flared up to the current levels and the hot turmoil focused on the Zionist massacre had not started and had not "left" the Middle East reaching NE Africa and Central Asia.
However, what we have mentioned above as indicative of the economic developments in the country is not just the "reselling tricks" of a ruling class that reproduces and thrives in the shadow and in the framework that its imperialist patrons define for it. They do not all capture the “gift” that, due to its dependent nature and its experience over more than 200 years, this ruling class has developed: to adapt, to find “holes and opportunities” to groom its accounts in Switzerland and other tax havens.
There is more to all the above. Firstly, the highlighting of the historical bankruptcy of this ruling class which, as long as it remains ruling, it is further destroying the country economically, productively and socially.
It is this ruling class that only 14 years ago bombarded the people in every way to "accept" the decline in GDP - mainly through the reduction on wages and pensions- because the people were supposedly "living beyond the country's possibilities". Because supposedly we had to "stop living on borrowed money". And it is this ruling class now that continues to enrich itself with borrowed money, increasing imports with its policies, opening a new cycle of mortgaging the country and whatever wealth is left in it. And thus proving once again that this country, or more correctly this dependent capitalism, is impossible to reproduce and exist without borrowing.
The short-sightedness and adventurism of the country's decision-makers -to their shame- is demonstrated in every situation. This time like looters, the ruling class drone has rushed to the "Recovery Fund" and are talking about the "three-year window of opportunity" left until it expires. Ahead and not far away is 2032 when the peculiar protection ends (relatively low interest rates for repayment of public debt, not including defence spending in the debt, etc.) provided that until then it will still produce the well-known "bloody surpluses" and that the debt as a percentage of GDP is reduced by 1% each year. But really, how will all these issues evolve not until 2032 but only in the 3 years we are now in, for which the ruling class wants to discount "stability" and "growth" for the sake of the European Recovery Fund which they put in their pockets?
In any case, the ruling class adapts, it has its aspirations, it has its "successes" and all its problems in the economic field bear a heavy class bias. All this is loaded and paid for with dismantled rights, with trampled conquests in work and life by the working class, the people and the youth. This is the common denominator of all economic developments that have become increasingly heavy in the (many) last years.
This situation is of course obvious in everyday life. Savage overexploitation and conditions of slavery at work. Poverty, misery for ever larger sections of the working people. Expansion and deepening of social barbarism with the abolition of the most basic social rights of the masses (health care, unemployment, education, working mothers, right to housing, etc.). All this is not an "empirical picture" behind which there is supposedly a "better situation". The opposite is true if we account for the “dynamics” of the last laws (e.g. the Georgiades law on 13-hour workdays and zero hours contracts), if we account for the evolving sinking of the petty-bourgeois (e.g. the new taxation law), the survival issue faced by poor farmers and even middle sections of the peasantry as their last mobilisations have highlighted. This "dynamic" is taking on decade-long or, more correctly, lifelong dimensions as far as the new generation is concerned, judging only by the law on the so-called Technical-Vocational Education passed on 18/1/24.
However, there are of course also the typical elements that highlight this situation. Indicatively:
- According to OECD data for Greece in 2022 the average nominal gross wage was increased by 1.5% but the average real wage was decreased by 7.4% due to inflation.
- According to the European statistical office, workers in the country top the list of EU workers in terms of annual working time with 1,886 hours (absolute working time). As for the reduction in unemployment -apart from the well-known tricks- this is due to the reduction in the labour force (immigration, under-generation) and not to the actual percentage reduction in the same labour force.
- 26.3% of households in the country (i.e. 1 in 4) cross the poverty line set by the EU itself, putting Greece second in the relevant table after Bulgaria! At the same time 18.7% cannot keep their homes sufficiently warm in the winter.
- Very important are the data presented by the Foundation for Economic % Industrial Research on the evolution of the annual "labour costs" in manufacturing (which is not the worst case). According to these, in 2011 in the EU of 27 member-states this was 36.6k euros and in Greece respectively 28.1k euros. In 2020 the corresponding values for EU-27 were 43.4k euros and for Greece 21.9k euros! That is a 25% decrease in the country and with the distance from the EU (where the workers are far from doing well...) to reach 100% in 2020!
- The savings of the people have been shredded and all relevant indicators show a further decline thereafter (e.g. the "intention to save" indicator for the next 12 months has fallen from -61.8% to -67.4% with 85% of households not considering savings likely in the next 12 months). This indicator shows that those who can and have are spending savings of previous years to cope with the immensely high prices, a development however not bad for the capital that is collecting people's withdrawals.
- At the same time, the large reduction in savings is the basis of the interpretation of the increase in tax revenues that the government "boasts" about, wanting to show that "the economy is working". This increase in tax revenues is of course due to the rise in inflation, since indirect taxes in particular are calculated as a percentage of commodity prices. (e.g. VAT). Nevertheless, the debts to funds and the tax authorities are increasing, revealing the escalation of tax evasion. At the end of 2023 these debts were 115 billion, of which 72 billion were business “red” loans, about 30 billion were mortgages and another 10 billion were consumer loans.
However, in order to "do justice" to the ruling class, the governments, the parties and the forces of the system, we have to point out that not all issues are "played by ear". On the backs of their patrons, they have ordered all their forces into a position of constant and increasingly ferocious class attack against the conquests and rights of the working class, the people and the youth.
In the same report of the Governor of the Bank of Greece mentioned above and in the same section on the assessment of the "downward risks" that "the growth rates of the Greek economy" may face, Stournaras points-out as a key risk: "the discontinuation of the implementation of reforms or the reversal of past reform changes, with negative effects on enhancing the productivity of the economy and the competitiveness of enterprises.." In other words, says Stournaras, we defend all the blows and hits of rights that have been struck in all the previous years (without allowing their "reversal") and we continue with new measures the savage capitalist attack (for which there must be no "interruption"). Indeed, in relation to this supreme necessity for the ruling class, Stournaras, addressing the political system, points out another risk, that of "a possible prolonged electoral period that will intensify political uncertainty". The report was written before the 2023 elections but the "risk" that he points out should not be considered only as an "election" directive. The directive concerns the political system as a whole and constantly concerns the political system which is not allowed to leave any crack of promise even for relief to the people!
It is precisely this uninterrupted alignment of all the parties of the system in the line of attack that has no end, that the working people and the youth live and face every day. This alignment that has abolished the appearance of "alternatives" within the system produces the very serious side effects in the constitution and order of the political system. But since we will deal with this question later, for now let us remain to the obvious for us but fundamental question for the working-people's interests: The working people and the youth need to move in exactly the opposite direction from the one determined by the two points of Stournaras, with their struggles, with the mass struggle of resistance and demand. With this and only with this struggle they can achieve both the "stopping of the implementation of reforms" and the "reversal of past reform changes"!
Finally, let us ask a rhetorical question to close this section. To which area of the system's politics should we attribute the crime in Tempi? The 1,726,260 acres of agroforestry land incinerated in 2023? The 1,407,440 acres incinerated in 2021? The hundreds of thousands incinerated each year? To which sector of the system's politics should we blame the drowned and destroyed Thessaly, a disaster that is exploited by the master plan to make it permanent for the poor farmers who are being wiped out, to further advance the concentration of land to the neo-cophiles and for capital to reap the spoils? who are responsible for the transformation of the Attica Basin into a gas chamber, especially in conditions of fires, and the conversion of the well-known major projects paid for by the people and very expensive to use (from Attiki Odos to the Kalatrava canopy... ) into traps even deadly for the working people?
The question is rhetorical because the answer is obvious. These are all crimes of the system of dependency and exploitation. They are crimes of the policy of selling off infrastructure and services to foreign and local capital. Crimes on economy and production, crimes that devastate the country and its productive potential. Crimes against the life of the people whether they have direct victims (as in Tempi and elsewhere) or crimes whose victims are not "measured" because their consequences in health, work and life are spread over time. All these are at the same time indicators of the rot, decadence, criminal cynicism, of a system that wants to present itself as having a "plan and perspective" for the "development and prosperity" of the country.
This is the primary dimension in the relations of the country and the ruling class with its patrons and this is a timeless realisation and reality as we can see in the book "200+1 years" (which can be a source of reference in view of the 10th Conference). It is primary to both side: On one hand, the imperialists' "interest" in the country was and is mainly related to its location, the famous "crossroads of 3 continents and 5 seas" which they wanted to control and have available as a military-political base and as a platform for their raids in all directions for obvious geopolitical reasons.
Based on this position, the country has been used in recent years on behalf of the European imperialists against the waves of refugees and migrants generated by imperialist interventions. In other words, it was and still is used as a "fence" of repulsion and as a force to push back the uprooted, even for their mass murder, as was the case in Pylos. But also as a prison that denies any labour, social and political rights to the tens of thousands of the persecuted who arrive in our country.
On the basis of the above, even the confiscation of the country's wealth, the imposition of conditions for the productive-economic annex of the imperialist monopolies, apart from its intrinsic value for the imperialists, was used at the same time for the geopolitical alignment of the country to imperialist aspirations. On the other hand, the ruling class, being aware of this value of the country, offered and "sold" this very "position" to its patrons.
This main dimension, the geopolitical use of the country (with its consequences for the country and for our people) has been sealed in recent years by the US-Eastern and basically US aspirations and choices. Up to the Samaras-Venizelos government, the calls and aspirations of the ruling class regarding its role in the region (EEZ, mining, etc.), regarding its competition with the corresponding Turkish ruling class, seemed to be mainly oriented towards the European imperialists. Far from it, the decisive role and presence of the US factor was of course missing. But however, on the one hand the "inertia of the successes" of the previous years (Greece's accession to EMU, Cyprus' accession to the EU/EMU) and on the other hand the fact that the EU project had not yet highlighted its problems to the extent that they later emerged, had shaped this political orientation for the ruling class and governments.
In any case, the direction of sharpening imperialist antagonisms internationally and in the region (e.g. Nuland "fuck the Europeans" for Ukraine in 2014) and the escalating problems of the European imperialists (e.g. Brexit 2016) steadily highlighted the decisive weight of the US and "pushed" towards a shift in the balance of dual dependence in favour of the latter. Moreover, the signing of the 3rd Memorandum by the SYRIZA-ANEL government was done with the arbitration of the US, which, as it is written in recent years "used their weight" so that "Greece would remain in the EU and the West".
On such a basis, since 2015, this shift of dual dependence towards the US has been a constant and key element of the policies of all governments. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was a new starting point to further escalate these policies. The size and gravity of this development in the dependent ruling class of the country and in the given circumstances left no room for any "distance" from the US demands shaped by this development. Moreover, and because the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not totally unexpected, before, after and "in view of" this invasion (i.e. in the context of the intensification of imperialist antagonisms and the US's pursuit to respond to their mismatch on the ground), there were a series of developments in the alignment and preparation of the country according to US plans. Indicatively:
- In October 2019, the US Secretary of State Pompeo and the Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Dendias signed the Protocol of Amendment of the Mutual Defence Cooperation Agreement, i.e. the agreement on US military bases. Strengthening of the Souda base, the use by US UAVs and other aircraft of the air base in Larissa, permanent deployment of US helicopters at Stefanovikio, deployment of a US military echelon in Alexandroupolis, with a view to upgrading the role of its port in the transport of military personnel and material on the border line with Russia. The US came back after the signing of the agreement on the issue of its duration, which until then still remained annual.
- In November 2019, at the Ground Forces Conference of the General Staff, addressing the Commander of the US Ground Forces in Europe, the Minister of Defence, Panagiotopoulos, made the historic statement "We fought alongside the United States of America, our men bled alongside American soldiers in the wars in which we participated, and this will also be the case in the future. We honour the fact that we are part of these alliances, we honour the fact that we are on the front lines of the Western world, often defending the integrity of the Western world, freedom and democracy".
- A new amendment to the Mutual Defence Cooperation Agreement between USA and Greece was signed in October 2021 in Washington by Dendias and Blinken. The scope of US activities in Greece was expanded (e.g. clear upgrading of Alexandroupolis, but also Souda, Larissa, Litochoro, Stefanovikio), while the duration of the agreement was now extended indefinitely (unless... terminated after a 5-year period with a written notice two years before). The agreement was voted by the Greek Parliament in May 2022.
- Costas Tasoulas, Speaker of the Greek Parliament, to the now-prosecuted Menendez, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate, in autumn 2021: "From Corfu to Kastellorizo and from Crete to Thrace, we deliver Greece into your hands today. And we are confident that it is in good hands". And Menendez replied: "We are grateful that Greece is hosting us in Souda Bay, but we are building on that, Alexandroupolis is a new dimension of that partnership".
With the beginning of the unjust war in Ukraine, the phrase "we are on the right side of history" (which is also expressed more directly and cynically by "we are at war with Russia"!), this view is proclaimed in all tones, supported by all the parties of the system, even expressed in a hysterical way in the media, in cultural-sporting events, etc. In April 2022 the government is reaching the point to welcome, together with Zelensky, the Azov Battalion inside the Parliament.
Of course, all the preparations of the previous years are manifested militarily as the country is transformed into an outpost of the US. From the very first moment the local ruling class gives land and water and joins the Western sanctions. They offer Kalashnikovs, anti-aircraft scoops, rockets, launchers, ammunition, and the very port of Alexandroupoli for the transfer of NATO troops to Romania and Poland, but also of the 4 NATO Battlegroups, as well as military equipment. US spy planes from Souda, APACHE to Poland from Stefanovikio, AWACS at Aktion, multinational military exercises at sea, all of Greece is a US-NATO base on the "right side of history" proclaimed by bourgeoisie and the list of involvement in the more than two years imperialist conflict is never ending. Worthy of mention is that with Ukraine as the occasion and cause, at the suggestion of the US, Russian military equipment of the Greek armed forces, was sent to the Ukrainian forces, thus removing all Russian equipment from the army of a NATO-member.
These developments are obviously a major upgrade of the involvement of our country and our people in the US-NATO military steps that carry -in the dynamics of developments- the greatest dangers.
However, as we well know, it is not only them! In the same context that we mentioned above about the shift of the policies of the ruling class towards the USA, the compliance with US demands was also developing in the south side all the previous years. The 3+1 scheme, Greece-Cyprus-Israel, under the auspices of the US, is being promoted and upgraded with frequent meetings. The same applies to the other axis, Greece-Cyprus-Egypt. These US options aim together with the "Abraham Accords" to support their Zionist watchdog in the Middle East and to shape their own responses in the SE Mediterranean. The "explosion" of the Palestinian issue since October 7, 2023 when its seismic waves have passed out of the Middle East and reached Central Asia and NE Africa have already highlighted what these "axes" and the country's involvement in these plans mean. Let us also recall here indicative facts of this involvement:
- The signing of an agreement in autumn 2020 for upgrading military cooperation with the UAE, with a mutual defence assistance clause. In September 2021 the Greek Saudi Arabian Force is formed and the Patriot missiles are sent. Moreover, at the end of 2021 the first trilateral meeting between Greece, Cyprus and Jordan takes place.
- From the very first moment of Israel's genocidal operation against the Palestinian people, the government and the parties of the system have proclaimed their support for Israel's "right to self-defence". There is talk of sending the frigate "Psara" to the Southeastern Mediterranean to join the NATO SNMG2 force operating in the region. Mitsotakis visited Israel. Greece was one of 45 abstentions the UN General Assembly for a ceasefire on October 27 2023, with a majority of 120 countries voting in favour.
- In 2023, through DFC's US financing, control of the Elefsina Shipyards passed to the US company ONEX. The goal is to support the repair needs of the 6th Fleet, as well as support the construction of frigates and corvettes to be purchased by the Navy. As of 2018, the shipyard Neorio Syros had passed to ONEX.
- The 112th Fighter Wing in Elefsina is allocated for the relocation of large American aircraft. Dozens of C130s land daily to transport American supplies to Israel.
- At the end of 2023, the government decided to participate in the US-led multinational operation "Prosperity Guardian" in the Red Sea against the pro-Iranian Houthis. This decision is "completed" at the informal Council of EU Defence Ministers in early 2024, where the corresponding operation of the European imperialists in the Red Sea, called "Aspides", is announced. The government of ND through Dendias announces the decision to send the frigate "Hydra", as well as to use the headquarters of Larissa as the headquarters of the operation.
This... river of the ruling class's alignment and subversion to US imperialism is what the government and the forces of the system call "the right side of history" and "security" for the country and the people. That is, "security" consists in turning the country into a US-NATO war base, in becoming an objective target of their rival imperialist powers, in undertaking missions and even open engagements with military forces inside the war zones opened by imperialist antagonisms and conflicts.
"Security" is to have the country in an endless military equipment race costing tens of billions of euros and paid for by the people in conditions of poverty and misery. Equipment that even before each "package" is received, the next order is planned, in fact blackmailed by the imperialists. Equipment which -when it is not the “rusty” ones that the imperialist bosses want to get rid of - their use is subject to control, spare parts, know-how of their sellers. Precisely because if, how much, and against whom they are used is not a decision of the ruling class but of its protectors.
The obvious truth is the exact opposite of what the parties and the forces of subordination claim. If the previous US ambassador had characterized Tsipras-Kamenos as "Balkan hinges" for the service they offered to the US with the Prespa agreement for the accession of North Macedonia to NATO (an agreement that the government of New Democracy has reverently adhered to...), based on all the services offered to the US since then, and until today, the characterization should be upgraded. The political staff of the system is becoming a "multi- hinge" on all US war fronts (north and south of the country) and is turning the country into a tool of war in the service of US interests and aspirations.
The subservience and dependence of the ruling class to the US-West is certainly not a new condition, however the intensity and the degree of the country's involvement in the US military demands is unprecedented, at least in the 50 years after the dictatorship in Greece. The interpretation of this situation is obviously related to the escalation of imperialist antagonisms and rivalries, also unprecedented in the last several decades. It is in the maelstrom of these antagonisms and evolving conflicts that the policies of the ruling class and governments are dragging the country and our people. However, this situation (of the great shift towards the USA) feeds the already existing and produces new frictions and contradictions on the question of the balance of dependence between the USA and the European imperialists and also between the latter (France-Germany) who are anything but "united"!
Recent developments on this issue are indicative. Before Russia's invasion in Ukraine and with French imperialism seeking to strengthen its presence in the Southeastern Mediterranean and the Middle East and therefore presenting itself as "anti-Turkish", the ... "Greek-French friendship" had taken significant steps. In January 2021, the Greece-France agreement for the supply of 18 French Rafale fighter jets was signed and in September of the same year the "Greece-France defence agreement" was signed. It provides for the purchase by Greece of three Belharra frigates and contains a mutual defence assistance clause (the infamous Article 2). The agreement also provided for the purchase of French corvettes from Greece. In addition, from 2020, the country also has an officer on the staff of the EU's multinational mission "EMASOH/Agenor" in the Strait of Hormuz (based at the French naval base in Abu Dhabi) for "the safe and free passage of merchant ships in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman".
After the explosion of the Ukrainian conflict and the ongoing massacre of the Palestinians and the war crisis in the Middle East and given the strategic dwarfism of the Europeans in the face of all this, US demands undermined the development of this "Greek-French friendship". The decision to buy the F-35s was accompanied by the purchase of US corvettes and the cancellation of the purchase of the corresponding French ones.
But overall, the attitude of complete alignment of the Greek side with the steps of the US in the Middle East war crisis - with the Europeans still seeking their role - was not at all welcome to them. This is how the European Parliament's condemnatory resolution which was "concerned about democracy" in Greece came about. This resolution reactivates the "pretador scandal" which before the 2023 elections (and in view of them) was a tool of the US-European debate on how much, how and which master the country serves. In addition, however, the resolution calls on the European Commission "to evaluate the disbursement of EU funds", giving a hint of the consequences that a major shift towards the US could bring.
In any case, the ties of dependence of the ruling class with the European imperialists, given the decades in the EEC/EU/EMU and the results in the “daily operations” of the system, are very strong. They are so strong that it is unthinkable for the ruling class to exist without them. Yet at the same time, in the given geopolitical-war conditions, it is also unthinkable for the ruling class to go even a little bit outside the umbrella of the USA, even a little bit disregarding the demands of US imperialism, whose strategic weight is incomparably greater than the one of the Europeans.
This contradiction-weakness of the ruling class is echoed by some interventions (e.g. Dendias), and perhaps the most characteristic case was this of Karamanlis, who often "requests" "Europe" to ...lift itself to the height required by the circumstances...
It is obvious that the resolution of this contradiction is beyond the limits of the ruling class and its political staff, which can only take "balancing" decisions, such as the double participation of the frigate in both the US and the European operation in the Red Sea. Consequently, the ruling class will continue to suffer in this contradiction, facing the possibility that the contradiction will develop into one that will bring "divisions" in the bourgeois camp and very serious developments and reversals. It is also obvious that the consequences of this contradiction and the developments it produces are paid for in many ways by the working people and the youth, who live under the overall matrix of dependency and the suffering it produces in all areas of their lives.
The government (and others with it) trumpeted for the "upgrading of the country's international role", but what they all really mean is precisely the role of "multi-hinge" that Greece has assumed on behalf of the USA. A role that is hostile and dangerous for our people, for the peoples of the region and which is far from forming relations of cooperation and peace with countries in the region. A role guided by US imperialism, which exploits, uses and, in some cases, feeds the reactionary aspirations and adventurism of the ruling classes and regimes involved in the “axes” that the US is building.
At the same time, in addition to the reactionary and antithetical ambitions of the countries that make up these "axes", there are also the other imperialists! "Partners" and opponents of the US, who foster and support opposing tactics and choices by intervening in these countries as well. In reality, the tangle of imperialist antagonisms using nationalisms, mega-idealisms and maximalisms of the bourgeois classes and powers is becoming more and more entangled, burdening the peoples of the region with greater dangers. On this basis, for the Greek side, denials and failures of its ambitions are the norm in the constant "stretch" it is in to serve this role. Typical is the case of relations with Albania, with which just a few years ago an agreement was supposedly being promoted to regulate the EEZs of the two countries. Now not only can it do nothing about the Beleri affair, but in addition Erdogan and Rama have signed a “military framework” agreement. All in all, the situation and relations between Greece and the Western Balkans, for which the Prespa agreement was supposed to "relieve the country from the northern front" and create conditions for "harmonious cooperation", are "fragile" and with serious risks behind them!
The fiasco of Greek ambitions with Libya was also important, as the drumbeat for the relationship with Haftar resulted in the exclusion of Greece from the Berlin Conference in Libya in June 2021, while the investigation of the "accident" (with dead and injured Greek officers) in September 2023 was never completed!
Similarly "fragile and relevant" is the cooperation with Egypt, both in the context of the US axis and with regard to the agreement on the partial delimitation of the EEZ in 2020, with the clear aim of driving a wedge into the Turkish-Libyan memorandum. Already Egypt -apart from being a member of the BRICS since January 2024- is on the path of restoring its relations with Turkey that had been severed over the last 12 years as Erdogan had backed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood against Al-Sisi. The Greek-Italian agreement (June 2020) on the demarcation of maritime zones in the Ionian Sea and the decision of the Parliament in June 2021, in national consensus, on setting the coastal zone at 12nm in the Ionian Sea are also incomplete in relation to their real objectives.
Of course, the most ...emblematic failure, precisely because it reveals the complete mortgaging of "successes" to imperialist tactics and aspirations, is the one concerning the East Med pipeline. After a long course of talks and under the direct supervision of the US Secretary of State at the time, Michael Pompeo, the "historic" agreement for the pipeline between Greece, Cyprus and Israel was signed in January 2020. There was plenty of celebration and accounts from local leaders and their media about the billions of cubic meters of gas that the pipeline would “carry”. And yet! Two years later the deal was cancelled. An informal document ("non paper") from the US State Department was enough for this cancellation.
It is clear and obvious that behind all the "stretching" of the ruling class and the political system to serve the expanding US aspirations, behind all participation in the "axes" and missions in the region, behind the celebrations for the "upgrading" of Alexandroupolis (which replaces the Bosphorus Straits for the US forces), and Souda, behind the cries for the extension in time and the enlargement of the bases and for the repeated military equipment upgrades, behind all this, lies the reactionary Greek-Turkish antagonism and in this case the aspirations of the ruling class towards its counterpart in Turkey. Such is the weight and the "blurring" caused by these aspirations that often "reputable and peripatetic" journalists, analysts and politicians of the bourgeoisie go so far as to form analyses of the international situation and the geopolitical turmoil in the wider region in the light of the Greek-Turkish competition!
There is a plethora of official testimonies and declarations about "what the bourgeoisie of the country would like" to achieve in this competition. Indicatively we can list:
- To make the Aegean a "Greek lake", by declaring a 12nm range for the territorial waters (hence the "rehearsal" in the Ionian Sea).
- To limit, even to zero, the influence of the Turkish coast and to "fill the SE Mediterranean with Greek EEZs" (Kotzias had referred to "quadrupling of sovereignty" as Foreign Minister of SYRIZA). Therefore, it will be Greece -possibly together with other countries, but not Turkey- that will have a certain role in the reselling of hydrocarbons from the region's deposits by the imperialists.
- To establish a leading role on behalf of the imperialists in the Balkans, by pushing Turkey out. There are similar "wants" and "aspirations" for the NE African region.
Of course, at the same time as all these "wants" of the ruling class of the country, there is also Turkey! A country of considerable size and a critical geopolitical position on the "frontier" of the great imperialist competition. A country with a bourgeoisie that has its own "wants" its own megalomania. For the Aegean and Thrace, for the "blue homeland" as a whole and even more for the role of a "regional power" in the Middle East, in North Africa... A country which, historically being a bulwark of the West on its border, had degrees of freedom in its movement in the "East" as it had now with Russia regarding the war in Ukraine. On all this one could refer to our relatively recent publication on "Greek-Turkish antagonism and the rights of peoples".
We come to the present facts to add that apart from the two countries and the bourgeois classes in them there is another factor which is decisive and predominant in the development of the reactionary antagonism. The imperialist dependence of both bourgeoisies on the West and mainly on the USA. And at the same time, today there is a very specific level of imperialist competition centred on Ukraine, with conditions of wider inflammation in the Middle East, with the US in relative retreat against partners and rivals.
So what the ruling class of our country "wants to achieve" in its reactionary competition with the ruling class of Turkey is obviously outside the framework allowed by the US and the West, because what the ruling class of Greece "wants, or would like" to achieve would have the result that Turkey is "lost" to the West. If this was always true in the previous conditions and correlations in the imperialist tableau, it applies one hundred times more in the current conditions of the acute antagonisms, in which for the US in particular and for the West as a whole it is unthinkable to "lose" Turkey. On the basis of the above, there have been the well-known developments and, in a sense, the "spectacular fluctuations" on the issue of Greek-Turkish competition in recent years. Developments that were led by the US baguette and that even their chronological order were shaped by the course of escalation of the US-Russian confrontation over Ukraine, by the event of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent developments in the Ukrainian field and in the southern region.
Thus, after the climax of the competition in the Aegean Sea with Oruc Reis in August 2020, the blackmail of the US towards Turkey intensified, taking full advantage of the Greek attitude that consistently maintained the role of "good boy". While the cancellation of East Med (which constituted the maximum pressure towards the Turkish side) in January 2022 did not happen by chance so close to the Russian invasion in February of the same year. Then against the many obstacles and tactics of Turkey and the serious difficulties of the Greek side, the US insists. Thus, at the NATO meeting in Vilnius in July 2023 (essentially immediately after the completion of the elections in both countries), Mitsotakis and Erdogan meet and agree on the three axes (political dialogue, positive agenda, confidence-building measures) on the basis of the "cooperation", i.e. the cohesion of NATO's SE wing, that will be pursued. This will be followed by Erdogan's visit to Athens in December 2023 and the signing of a joint declaration on "good neighbourly relations". Shortly afterwards, the joint declaration is "ratified" by the US with the announcement of the decision on both Greece's F-35s and Turkey's F-16s at essentially the same time. Prior to this US "ratification" Turkey had rapidly completed the signing of Sweden's NATO membership which had been delayed for many months. In order to leave no doubt about the continuation, the well-known Nuland was quick to announce the future purchase of F-35s by Turkey as well.
Within the reactive Greek-Turkish antagonism, the Cyprus issue is also included, on which the attitudes of the two sides over the years have been shaped on the basis of more general developments. Typical was Erdogan's inflammatory visit in July 2021 -when the Turkish side was particularly cornered- in which, among other things, he raised the issue of the opening-colonization of Varosha, which constitutes 3.5% of the enclosed city of Famagusta, which the Turkish side has been using as a "negotiating card" since the 1970s. Based on the developments that took place in the following years, Tatar (Erdogan's chosen one, who had been elected "president" in the occupied territories since October 2020) arrived in February 2024 to declare that the airbase in Lefkoniko (and after the occupied state's parliament transferred its ownership to Turkey) can function as a NATO base.
At the same time these years the Greek Cypriot side with its minds "blown" by the "axes" (with Egypt and Israel) and the drilling operations (EXXON MOBIL, ENI, TOTAL) in the plots of the so-called Cyprus EEZ appears more and more ready to accept a "two-state solution". A "solution" in which the Greek Cypriot side definitely wants the "supervision" of the EU (as the interventions of Christodoulides show) to which it belongs and therefore is responsible to "guarantee" that the Greek Cypriot side will have roles and business within the framework of the dichotomous regime that will be formed.
Greece's ruling class also agrees with this perspective (and under the scheme of "we support the Republic of Cyprus"), as Stylianides' recent statement in the Parliament showed. And in this matter, therefore, the policy of the "good child" prevails, which, despite the "myopic desires", recognises as a priority the -upgraded on the basis of the war conditions- need of the US imperialists that Cyprus is their unsinkable aircraft carrier and for the Greek and Turkish Cypriots are divided and subservient to the imperialists and instruments of the reactionary negotiations and aspirations of the "guarantor powers", Greece and Turkey.
All this clearly shows who is leading, controlling and benefiting from the reactionary Greek-Turkish antagonism. It is revealed that this competition is subject to and exploited -even in its difficult moments- by the USA and in reference to their own interests, their needs to form the "war front in the region" which is a crucial factor in their aspirations for global hegemony-dominance. At the same time, the enormous contradictions and the deadlocks of Greece's ruling class are highlighted.
Obviously, similar issues exist for the ruling class of Turkey, which has also "spread its legs" far beyond its real capabilities, while at the same time within Turkey the Kurdish issue is serious and critical, and already being exploited by the imperialists. But staying with "our" ruling class we will point out two issues.
The first concerns all the aforementioned developments of the last years, which confirm what we have already declared. Namely that the famous "successes" that governments and the ruling class are wielding in geopolitical matters are not theirs. They are literally on loan from the imperialists, which is why they can be taken back by those who lent them to them, simply by an informal announcement like the one with which the State Department cancelled the East Med. But of course, the issue does not end there, in the (also international) highlighting of the worthlessness, the absence of any “weight” of governments, which in the face of every fiasco pretend that "nothing is wrong". Apart from that, each borrowed "success" drags and drags the ruling class and governments to new rounds of adventurism, preparing the next entanglements and services to imperialist demands and aspirations.
The second concerns how the ruling class and the political personnel as a whole face the "turn" imposed by the US on the course of Greek-Turkish relations. This approach requires one to view the issue through the "glasses" of adventurism, nationalism and at the same time subservience embedded in the retina of the bourgeoisie. We would therefore say that the bourgeoisie wants what we have mentioned above as its desires in the context of its competition with the Turkish bourgeoisie. At the same time, it knows -already since 1952 with the simultaneous accession of the two countries to NATO- that the USA and the West consider the support of the "alliance" by both countries as an inviolable issue.
These two conflicting facts produce within the bourgeoisie the most contradictory mixture as both are very powerful. Today one could say that it is even "surprised", since an entire course of "good services" by the "good boy" is not rewarded, but instead the "justification of historical desires" remains far away. Even worse, there is even a slight chance that the Hague could be the final denial of these "historical dreams". This is precisely why the possibility of the Hague is also conjured up by those (such as Mitsotakis) who, due to their position, have taken an active role in promoting "rapprochement" and "dialogue" which, at least at this stage, is the prevailing line in the bourgeois camp. At the same time, of course, interventions like those of Samaras (who is not only a fringe) who denies and denounces dialogue with the "pirates" are indicative of the contradictions of the alloy mentioned above.
All this would be merely graphic if it did not concern the lives and fate of our people, more correctly the peoples of Greece and Turkey and other peoples in the region. All of this constitutes a reactionary chimera that "at the very least" reproduces the enmity between the two peoples with the multiple costs it has in times of "non-war". But in today's times "less" becomes "more" as this reactionary antagonism becomes a tool for the "great war" sought by the great killers of the planet.
The "end to normality" that we have already estimated since our 8th Conference (2015), is now emerging as the strongest and most basic rule in terms of the configuration and state of the political system! The image and reality of the "Parliament" as a whole and of each parliamentary party and formation separately, is the image of the continuous right-wing reactionary course, it is the image of the fragmentation and chameleonism of a political staff that jumps, masquerades, oozes unpopular cynicism and savagery and is looking to find in which of the thousands of holes of this miserable scene it will find its place and role.
The defiant brutality of first-rate ministers with "heavy names" (e.g. M. Varvitsiotis, K. Karamanlis) are not "unfortunate moments", but the most authentic manifestation of the perception this system has of the people and its life. This is confirmed by the fact that this very brutality becomes policy and laws (in the Ministry of Labour, Health, Education...) which are presented as policies of "progress and development". Moving next door, the "party of the heart" (Konstantopoulou) that utters an uninspired reactionary speech is not a "quirk that happened" it is (also) an expected and necessary product of the conditions of the ruling class. That is precisely why between May and June 2023 it was pushed and supported by the most official centres of the system.
Moving further to the left, it is not by coincidence that the "New Left" did NOT vote in the Parliament against the demands of the funds ("Hercules 3") for the auctions (they declared "present"). As their leadership stated, to further clarify their attitude and outlook: "it is an EU directive" in the "right direction" and the country "is obliged to incorporate EU directives". Similarly, the leadership of the CPG did not make a "mistake" by voting with ND for the inquiry committee on the Tempi accident. This was derived by the overall policy of the leadership of this party, just as it was for the 600 euro allowance (to policemen) which, when it was "corrected" ...they merely elaborated on their constructive attitude towards the security forces of the system.
But let us look more globally at the issue of the political system as highlighted by the double parliamentary elections of May-June 2023 and in a way even more so by the local elections of the same year. The "8-party" Parliament that emerged (which became "9-party" with the "New Left") expresses and indicates conditions of political instability, conditions in which the political personnel serving the system of dependency and exploitation cannot be "drawn up" and constituted in two basic political formations (and 2-3 small and complementary ones) as required for an orderly and stabilized bourgeois political operation.
The focus of this instability is of course on SYRIZA, which has lost the role it formally had until May 2023, that of an alternative governmental solution. Of the two "pillars" of bourgeois political power, only one remained. The people and youth "have nothing to look forward to", not a "different" governmental version while they are under the thunderous anti-peoples, anti-workers attack. We have already experienced the political importance of this situation for the stability of the system with the outbreak of the student and peasant struggle in the beginning of this year. On one hand, these struggles broke out because they had "nothing else to expect". But moreover -and above all- in their development they did not have a central (bourgeois) political reference to which they could be "subjected" and by which they could be "channelled" as the system would need. All this happened just 6-7 months after the election of ND as the "sole and dominant" political force in the country, and the centres of bourgeois power are already worried (and concerned) about how it will manage in the next period and while the 41% victory is becoming a more distant past. Besides, this "dominance" of the ND had already been challenged in the local elections of October 2023 (the results of the second round were far from the government's electoral objectives), only under the weight of reality (fires, Thessaly, the Georgiades law, high prices...) which was already evolving very wildly. Therefore, the absence of an "alternative" governmental solution is a factor of destabilization of the system's offensive, an important factor of limiting the political control of the masses.
So while the epicentre -as we have called it- of instability is in SYRIZA (where spectacular situations are developing), at the same time we observe that in all parties of the political system, frictions, contradictions, upheavals appear and are produced. From ND and PASOK to "Plefsi Eleftherias", "Hellenic Solution" and the formation of the "Spartans", various issues are manifesting themselves, which sometimes are intensely on the surface but sometimes are withdrawn and disguised. The "exception" of the CPG is actually not an exception because the problems can so far be controlled to a considerable extent, but at the same time we believe that they are accumulating.
A first general observation is that things could not be otherwise. The instabilities in a "lame" political system are transmitted, affect, and influence all its parts and its members. The “roles” are entangled, in every major (and minor) class-political issue “seeking'” who will take on which and how many responsibilities. This brings us to the basis of the question, to the causes of the "lame" political system and its fragmentation. To why and how it is so obviously discredited among the people and the youth while at the same time it continues as a whole to shift to the right, becoming more reactionary and thus becoming more distant and hostile to the people.
This situation is of course not "new", it was not formed in the 2023 parliamentary elections. From 2010 until today we can count a number of parties of "various shades" (LAOS, Potami, DIMAR, Leventis, ANEL...) that despite their ambitions "burned" while serving the system of dependency and exploitation. We can count a multitude of government solutions and combinations that were called (even with open outside interventions, like the case of Papademos) to give "continuity" to the system's policy. And of course, we cannot forget the decline of PASOK (which has been a key political pillar of the system after the dictatorship, 50 years ago) which after a series of "disguises" ("Elia", KINAL...) and departures-disassociations (G.Papandreou's KIDISO) continues to seek its reconstruction. ND did not escape from the storm (ANEL was part of it, Bakoyanni founded DISY in 2010...), even the emergence of Golden Dawn, which the system tried but failed to make it "normal", is part of this storm.
This brief and indicative review is made to show the continuity in the reproduction of the deadlocks of the ruling class which is the basis of the devaluation, fragmentation, and the constant reactionary shift of the political system. It is done to remind and highlight that over the years, if anything is constant and recurrent it is none other than the refutations of the narratives presented to the people by the governments and parties of the system. From Samaras' "success story" to Mitsotakis' "growth-stability". In the meantime, the hyperbolic "we are changing Greece and Europe" by Tsipras-SYRIZA were even more blatantly refuted. And it is not "just" a course of refutations, but a course of continuous and dramatic deterioration of the most basic living and working conditions of the people and youth.
In fact, then, the answer to the question "what is the basis of the present state of the political system" lies in what we have recorded in the two previous sections of this paper. However, if we seek to codify and focus this answer we will point out:
- The process of sinking of small and middle social strata, which now also affects "large and middle class" sections, as we have seen with the farmers. This process is intensifying on the basis of the generalized crisis and the intensification of imperialist antagonisms. Developments after 2022 (Ukraine) particularly sharpen aspects of this crisis (energy) and raise the level of imperialist demands on the country, with multiple negative consequences (terms of borrowing, taxation) for these strata. This submergence is the main cause of the expulsion of these strata from the main parties of the system and overall a factor of upsetting the social-political balance that the system needs. In this issue it is shown that the big bourgeoisie on the basis of its dependence and its characteristics and in the given international conditions cannot function as a force of reference and constitution for all the bourgeois classes.
- The generalized anti-popular -anti-worker policy, is experienced daily by the working class, the people and the youth as a declaration that "tomorrow will be much worse than today". This correct perception -as far as the direction of the system is concerned- widens the class gap, increases the disgust, the anger at the parties of the system among those below. The (electoral) abstention, the percentage of "nobody" in the polls, a series of attitudes and behaviours of the youth (from 15 to 30 years old) above all record the extent of growing rejection of those who govern or want to govern.
- Within the ruling class itself and the leaderships of its parties there are upheavals, quests, frictions caused by the questions produced by the conditions. Questions concerning the management of the conflicting demands of their multiple patrons and the issue of the Greek-Turkish rivalry. Questions and approaches that are governed by the alloy of subordination-nationalism-adventurism in changing doses due to the conditions and the unhistorical character of these forces. This friction also reflects the pressures of the mid-level strata and the aspirations-resistances-claims of the working people and youth. And if the former they attempt to show that they “share” them (while constantly contradicting themselves), for the latter the questions concern “how much” their suppression will be violent and absolute.
Based on the above, the main conclusion that emerges is the inability of the system in the present conditions to formulate a political management alternative to some extent. A management that will have visible differences from the existing one, which will certainly not be identical with it. This is the problem that cost the system the loss of the second political pillar. This is also the basis of the collapse of SYRIZA, which, moreover, was the "right" party to suffer it. Because its rapid rise and its transformation from a petty-bourgeois reformist party into a party of the system and the carrier of the savage attack was stepped on and extorted by the extraordinary conditions produced by the memoranda. In other words, it emerged as a solution of necessity for the system and needed "intensive private lessons" (as Meimarakis used to say) to overcome illusions and adapt to the reality it was called upon to serve. Based on this origin and route, it was the "appropriate" party to "pay" the inevitable political consequences of the system's deadlocks. Moreover, in the 2019-23 period and in the 2023 elections, Tsipras confirmed the opposite of what the bourgeois literature cultivated about his "great potential" and "genius tactics". It thus paved the way for ND and Mitsotakis who, with the support of the centres of power and the "promise" (based on the pandemic) to "uplift" the middle classes -and always on the basis of wild electoral blackmail- dragged these strata and achieved 41% in June 2023. However, as we are already experiencing, the "promise" is being flatly contradicted and the distance to June 2023 is growing.
The New Democracy (ND) is, we would say, the predominant party of the system. It is the party of the "big political families" of the system, the flesh of the flesh of the highest bourgeoisie, the organic power of the imperialist bosses, of the bourgeoisie and the country. On this basis, and as its post-war transformations show (Elinikos Synagermos, ERE), it is the "political constant" of the forces of dependency and exploitation and on this basis it has had the relatively less -but not minor- consequences of the "crisis of memoranda". In the current circumstances it is the main party of the system that attempts to answer the political issues, with simultaneous reinforcement and absorption of forces from both its extreme right and the -old- “Centre'”. This "hybrid" (for which Mitsotakis has been accused by his intimates) is a "response" but also an accumulation of contradictions within New Democracy. Contradictions that are manifested and formed by Samaras-Karamanlis and relate to the basic issues ("dosage of dependencies", Greek-Turkish relations) mentioned above. Around these contradictions dozens of MPs of the ruling party "swirl" as the vote on same-sex marriage showed. These issues are open and together with the politics that hit even high social strata will be areas of "crisis" for this party which, however, in the given circumstances, its cohesion and support is closely guided by the main centres of the system for obvious reasons.
After Tsipras and the elections of 2023, SYRIZA is in the process of demolition (of what existed) and at the same time in the process of "reconstruction" in order to create "another party". The system has judged -and we would say correctly- that the SYRIZA that existed cannot, in the given circumstances, by "patching up", be formed into a party that will serve it effectively, let alone one that has the potential to be an alternative to ND.
This is the task that Kasselakis has undertaken -in reference to and on behalf of centres outside and inside the country. A task that has the particular difficulty of getting rid of that part of the political staff of the old SYRIZA that does not have the qualifications to respond to the new project, while at the same time finding the new political staff to serve the cause. This is the particular parameter that produces the incredible farces that are unfolding in this party.
However, the main difficulty is "what will be" this "other party". There are in fact no answers to this question from the system's side. Because the "other party" must also side with all the choices of the system on the basic issues (aggression, dependence) and with the severity that they have today. This is the political line presented by Kasselakis in search of "forms" that will present it as "different". And of course, Kasselakis himself was chosen, promoted and supported by centres of the system precisely because he does not carry any trace of commitments that would make it difficult for this "other party" he is called upon to build, neither in its content, nor in its function or form.
In this sense, its "ignorance" of political-party issues is not only not a "handicap" but a key advantage that counted in choosing him. It is therefore not a matter of a non-political approach. This is the policy that capital and imperialism need in the present conditions. It is a different question -concerning the actual deadlocks of the ruling class- what (any) Kasselakis can ultimately achieve in relation to these objectives. Moreover, within this sought-after "squaring of the circle" there is also the important to critical parameter of the coalescence-merger with PASOK that has been openly raised by cadres by both sides.
PASOK, by violently dismantling in 2010 from Kastelorizo with G.Papandreou whatever was left of the elements of compromise between parts of the big bourgeoisie and small and middle classes, lost the basis on which it had been the main governmental representative of the system for decades. It has collapsed and entered a spiral that in reality continues precisely because the memoranda never finished, precisely because there is no basis for the reconstitution of a kind of social democracy, even if it is very right-wing like that of Simitis. Or as Venizelos would say (who changed his "constitutional considerations" on private universities as the times demand...) "there are no narratives" and that is why the "whole PASOK" cannot be reconstituted. Thus PASOK "manages", while its supposedly neighbouring competitor (SYRIZA) is in collapse, to give cadres to ND or its cadres who remain in PASOK to deny any differentiations attempted by Androulakis, from the direct support of government policy (e.g. Giannakopoulou for private Universities). In other words, Loverdos lost the leadership battle in PASOK but the line of the crutch of ND is strong within PASOK and Androulakis (as well) cannot find a line and direction that will present PASOK as a "different party" from ND.
All in all, we believe that centres of the system consider the separate existence of these two parties (SYRIZA and PASOK) a "luxury" and their merger necessary to form another relatively reliable systemic party. With the reconstruction of SYRIZA in full swing and after the European elections (and on the basis of the results that will emerge) we may see developments in this pursuit.
The far-right-fascist parties and formations (Velopoulos -NIKI-Spartiates) together with others that did not enter the Parliament recorded a cumulative percentage of about 13% in the parliamentary elections of 2023. This figure reflects on one hand the great reactionary shift of the political system, the escalation of reactionary policies on all issues (exploitation, impoverishment, nationalism, racism, immigrants, women, social rights, freedoms) that constitute the soil and the feeder of these forces. Moreover, the main political forces of the system have, through their choices over the past years (SYRIZA-ANEL, the absorption of LAOS by ND, the cooperation of both with Golden Dawn), given these forces maximum political legitimacy.
On the other hand, however, this percentage reflects the responsibilities, the delays, the inaction, the inertia, the conformity of the forces that are referred to the Left towards all the main fronts (exploitation, imperialism, war, dependence) that the working class, the people and the youth are facing. We therefore insist that the relative autonomy of the antifascist struggle, of the struggle against the obscurantism represented and served by these forces is precisely ...relative! Their confrontation first and foremost lies in the formation and development of the basic fronts of struggle that we have mentioned. It is in this struggle that the most basic ideological, political and organizational conditions are formed and developed that give outlets to the anger of the people and youth and shield the working-people strata from the influence of the black ideas and forces.
The system itself and its parties use and look forward to the use (and parliamentary use) of these forces to support their policies. However, having also the experience of Golden Dawn, they formulate conditions of control of these forces (or even like hostage-taking as in the case of the Spartans) in order to avoid undesirable side-effects in a period of "combustibility" both in the social field and in the critical and open geopolitical issues.
The case of "Plefsi" next to the emergence of the most miserable bourgeois "value" characteristics that it has as a formation (with all the give and take that goes on within it), has also highlighted the only political role it could serve. That of the reactionary wild card willing to be used for any and all purposes required.
The New Left is a party that is clearly further to the right than the position where SYRIZA began its ascent. It is not only that it is the party of Tsipras' ministers who consistently served the anti-popular, anti-worker policies of his governments, and all the choices of the imperialists and capital. It is mainly that to this policy they swear today, forming their protest within the limits set by the system of dependence and exploitation. Moreover, their "big" political proposal, what they are looking forward to is to become the "catalyst" and the complement to a SYRIZA-PASOK partnership. On this basis they seek "approval of usefulness" from the system. This is the only basis on which they can conceive of their political perspective, which they certainly perceive within the framework of the official political scene.
The leadership of the CPG participated and followed all these years the right-wing reactionary shift of the political system. After the collapse of SYRIZA and the fragmentation of the political system resulting from the parliamentary elections of 2023, the leadership of this party seeks to strengthen its political role by responding to the needs of the ruling class, posed by the problems of the political system. This pursuit is based on and stems from the reformist DNA of this party and manifests itself in all key political and class issues:
- The "abolition" of the imperialist dependence of the ruling class, i.e. the conformity of not raising the question on where its power is founded and the framework that produces and defines its politics. The recent "abolition" of the role of the US in the dictatorship is an upgrade of this policy and therefore received a lot of attention in the bourgeois media.
- The political support it provides to the bourgeoisie in its reactionary competition with its Turkish counterpart through the theory of "Turkish aggression" which results in a useful for the negotiations of the ruling class "denunciation" of the "compliance" of the local bourgeoisie.
- In bowing to the anti-worker - anti-popular attack against which the limit set by CPG is the protest that will "consolidate" in the consciousness of the people and youth the "condemnation" of the system's policy. On this basis, it takes the lead in the denuclearization-disassembly of unions and associations so that they do not exceed its own political limit, so that they do not "escape" in the direction of the struggle for the overthrow of the attack and the demand for rights. On the same basis, it is methodizing the political and practical splitting of the struggles (recently with students-farmers-workers), i.e. preventing even elements of the formation of a Front of Resistance and Claim against the brutal and generalized attack. Moreover, the "condemnation" is complemented by a flood of law proposals in the Parliament that take off the parliamentary cretinism and compose a social-democratic program that constitutes the "proposal of CPG to the people".
With all this, the leadership of the CPG serves class collaboration, i.e. class subordination, within the increasingly narrow limits set by the system. For this it wins multiple systemic praise and a certain "cooperation" with the system that became even more obvious in the period of the pandemic and the bans. At the same time as all this, it seeks to manage its working-people base, presenting perhaps as the strongest asset of this policy its strengthening in (all kinds of) elections as in this right-wing course it collects electorally part of the vacuum created by the shift of SYRIZA. The “easiness” that this leadership has to promote all its compromises, adjustments and virtual and fake successes is to a significant extent due to the satellite to reformism and the state of resignation and paralysis that the forces of the extra-parliamentary Left are in.
This policy and practice of the leadership of the CPG is obviously increasingly detrimental to the cause of the mass struggle and the movement, that it is a basic negative factor in the overall cause of the necessary ideological political and organizational constitution of the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-managementist direction. At the same time, this (basically successful so far) rightward course and adaptation to the given conditions of the political system brings the leadership of the CPG closer to the possibility that it may have to assume a role also at the central political level. Of course, it will first of all be a question for the system to assess and decide whether it will lose its informal but valuable "co-government" with the leadership of the CPG within the spaces of the workers and the youth in order to use it at the central political level.
A basic conclusion that emerges from the above is that the socio-economic situation in the country is a limit, a barrier to the system's aspirations to build a stable political system with two main pillars that will be presented as "alternative" governmental solutions. In turn, this socio-economic situation in which class polarization is becoming increasingly acute and due to the constant degradation of the middle social strata, cannot be stopped, much less normalized. It is constantly fuelled by the parasitism and trading of the ruling class, by the deepening of dependency and its consequences in all matters. This nature, this character of the ruling class in the present conditions of international crisis and the escalation of imperialist antagonisms constantly produces conditions of political instability. Not only on the basis of the socio-economic data it creates, but also "directly" in the political system on the basis of the country's great involvement and use in the geopolitical-war field shaped by imperialist rivalries, interventions and wars in the region.
Consequently, there is no sign of a reconstitution -stabilisation of the political system. The ruling class will continue to march on with a lame and unstable political system, regardless of the more specific and concrete forms it may take. Moreover, this situation may even get worse and face further complications, since, as we have mentioned, the "good leg" of the political system (ND) is facing significant problems.
Of course, the ruling class and its parties and in total the system of dependency and exploitation, with its centres of power inside and outside the country, is far from giving up! It will continue to do -within the framework of its deadlocks and its reactionary contradictions- as much as it can:
- To construct and serve "narratives" of "growth and stability" on the very day that the precedents it has circulated have been contradicted, insisting that this ruling class with its patrons and their shackles is the only path the people and youth of the country have to follow.
- To "produce" all sorts of small political parties, fragments and formations that for a short period of time will assume reactionary roles to complete the political system, even the governmental solutions that will be proposed from outside and from above.
- To pursue larger and more "ambitious measures" for the political system (such as the cooperation-merger between SYRIZA and PASOK), presenting them with the most subtle -but constantly more right-wing- grandstanding, even though the main centres are aware of the small limits, the small range that these aspirations can have.
- To shape a political system that is increasingly reactionary. A political system in which all its actors, permanent and temporary, "serious" and graphic, will bombard the people and youth day and night with reactionary sermons, with "multiform" calls for resignation and submission.
To the above a number of others can be added, all of which together constitute the political power of the system.
Let there be added the role of the print and electronic media, the evolution of which and the increasing (in the electronic media) "variety" is such that they are becoming ever more cynical instruments -apologists for the system of profit, exploitation, social barbarism and subordination.
Let there be added the role of the so-called "social media", which even the most naïve probably realize now that they are not generally "of society". That they are means of the specific (capitalist) society. And that is why they were not "given" to the people and the youth to emancipate themselves but to serve the bosses of this particular society. That is why they are being promoted as tools that will contribute to alienation, to removal not only from the collective but even from the level of companionship. And that is why, of course, the rivers that circulate within their optical fibres are dominated by the messages, “values'” and perceptions produced and shaped by the system and its “influencers” of all kinds and levels.
We should also add the role of the Church, which the more the political system limps and is devalued, the heavier it needs it to become for the system. To assist more decisively with its "holy theories" in the obscurantism, in the devaluation of the worker, the immigrant, the woman, life itself. In other words, to contribute more decisively with its multifaceted mechanisms and its "modern hangouts" to capitalist barbarism and the worship of the big imperialist masters. This is how its "great party" (The "Holy Synod") came to acquire a "branch" in the Parliament.
However, the system judges -and rightly so- that the political power constituted by all the above is not enough. It is not enough for it to face the main and basic threat to its political stability (whatever it has today), the uninterrupted continuation of its savage attack (and certainly not its "reversal" as Stournaras says), the disposition of the country to the war plans of its imperialist masters. This (real) threat is none other than the development of the mass struggle of the people and youth with all the (also real) greater dangers for the system that this can create. The "meeting" of masses with the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-managementist direction. The formation of organs of struggle of workers and youth. The formation of terms of a Front of Resistance and Claim that will oppose the politics of the system in a more comprehensive way. The emergence and strengthening within this whole process of the revolutionary communist direction, the direction of confrontation with the system.
In the face of this threat and the dangers it generates, the lame and discredited political system - in order to serve the system of dependent capitalism- fortifies itself with the politics of fascistization and with the incessant intensity of anti-communism.
Always and everywhere the capitalist system is founded on violence, on the oppression of the working class and the popular masses. Precisely because it is a class system, precisely because its reproduction is based on the exploitation of the working class and the robbery of the working people, violence and oppression are its basic and permanent component. In every country, in every period, however "prosperous" and "solid" it may be. Always and everywhere the conditions of organization and struggle of the masses, their freedoms and democratic rights are always and everywhere restricted and suppressed in order to ensure the freedom of the exploiters, in order to ensure the domination and power of the ruling class.
In our country (and not only in our country) we have been for years on a steady course of escalating restriction and abolition of all these rights of the masses. This is not an "anti-democratic diversion" as the forces of the extra-parliamentary Left at least misleadingly claim, cultivating the worst illusions about a "democratic capitalism" in the present conditions. It is a policy of the system (and not of some of its governments or its tendencies) which is a necessary corollary of its overall policy in the given conditions of poverty crisis, misery and the transformation of the country into a US-NATO stronghold. It is a policy that is now an organic part of the overall policy of the system, with which, among other things, it attempts to “compensate” for what it no longer has.
- The middle classes that used to act as “pillows” that absorbed the class shocks of those below, while today they are becoming the very same middle layers that are fuelling political upheaval and political instability.
- The two strong parties that have been accumulating percentages of over 80% (both) in the parliamentary elections and with strong mechanisms and networks of forces in unions, student associations, municipalities, regions.
- The much more powerful than today ability of the forces of the system to present themselves as "leaderships" in confederations, federations, workers' centres and to have an increased mediating role for the assimilation-conversion of the workers' and people's moods. Today, mediation is almost not tolerated because, on one hand, the system does not want to give even a crumb and, on the other hand, because the "custom" of declaring, for example, a typical strike may in the present conditions turn out to be a "game of fire". That is why the trade-union leaders of the system have found themselves in the present situation of complete disdain from the working world and are looking for a new role.
All these "normalities" are therefore no longer valid and are being "replaced" by the politics of fascistization. The policy that sets prohibitive conditions for the holding of a demonstration, a strike and defines as "illegal" the propaganda of the strike. The policy that has declared by "law" the aim of the abolition of the union and the student association, the prohibition of class and militant trade unionism. The policy that with particular ferocity hunts and persecutes young people and young women. In the parks and squares. In schools and colleges with invasions of armed praetorians and with coordinated forces from directorates and deaneries. The policy that abolishes the Asylum and prohibits the circulation of ideas and posters everywhere. The policy of mass prosecutions of militants (even for "expressing their opinion"!) with "evidence" the pamphlet they were circulating (as is the case in Piraeus). The policy that almost revokes a court decision (Kolonos) because it won't be a conviction. The policy that tramples and imprisons migrants and refugees en masse and forbids a national to sit on the same bench and talk to the migrant without the "permission of the authorities". The policy that persecutes the Palestinian flag and declares "outside the constitutional arc" the position against imperialist dependence, against the murderers of peoples.
This policy has years behind it. We have learned it and lived it on its largest scales. When in December 2008 "the possibility" of using the army to deal with the explosion of the youth was "discussed". When military exercises of "crowd control" in cities were announced. When Wikileaks "informed us" of the US demand that Universities cease to be places of militant formation of the youth. When the "Police Director" during the pandemic decided to "ban gatherings of 3 persons or more throughout the country". This is how we arrived at the passing of the law on the new penal codes and of course this will continue as a basic component of the politics and necessities of the system.
Along with it, the anti-communist torrent will continue. A sewer that also has "extra-systemic" repeaters as forces referring to the left and of course anarcho-autonomy, are fascinated by the most vulgar falsifications of the history of the struggle of the workers and peoples and by the "radical quests" of intellectuals on CIA payrolls. In any case -and while a firm ideological and political front against anti-communism is necessary- this systemic hysteria that wants to "protect societies from the communist danger" is a confession that what has been defeated needs to be reconstituted and prevail. For the communist revolutionary direction is the only real way out of the present gloom.
Let us conclude this section with a brief but –as we consider- a key political point about fascistization. With this policy the system wants to "abolish the class struggle"! Of course this cannot happen, as the social and political reality itself shows. The banned demonstrations, occupations and strikes are happening again and again, shielded by their rights and their massiveness. The defence of the rights of the masses to organize and struggle is a matter of their struggle and will be judged in it and by it. With the struggles that defend rights and claim conquests against the savage capitalist attack. With the struggles against imperialist dependence, against imperialism, in solidarity with the peoples of the region, the peoples of the whole world.
In recent years, two main factors have been influencing this major issue simultaneously and in opposite directions. On one hand, the developments in the central political scene, with a focus on what is happening in SYRIZA. On the other hand, the ever-increasing intensity of the aggression, the developments in the region (unjust war in Ukraine, Zionist massacre in Palestine) and the great deadlocks, questions and anxieties that all this brings to the lives of the youth and the working people. So let us list key elements and issues that these influences produce.
We will end this section by summarizing the main conclusions that we believe emerge from all of the above.
- The savage attack constantly feeds the conditions for mass outbreaks, uprisings and struggles. These conditions are also fuelled by the wars, massacres, blood and destruction that surround the region, while in the same direction the struggles of workers and peoples that are breaking out and growing in density all over the world are acting in the same direction. They are still fuelled by the barbarity and cynicism of the dominant powers internationally and in the country. From Biden-Putin proclaiming the preparation for nuclear war, to Macron announcing the "end of carelessness and certainty". From the blunt proclamations of government officials on 13-hour daily work and "zero-hour contracts" to their parroting of the government's "explaining" to the TV channels that "4 pieces of toast are enough to feed a family of 4".
- In this context, questions, concerns and anxieties are constantly being generated in very large sections of youth and workers, which are not covered and not answered by the forces that refer to the Left and the movement, in which resignation, submission and conformity to the policies of the system prevail. One manifestation of this "mismatch" is the mobility, the shifts of militants that we have been witnessing for some time now on the spectrum from the CPG to anarchy. The "answers" given to this situation are based on electoral and organisational blackmail, as a kind of "homogeneity" is forming between all these forces in terms of political perceptions and orientations. It is therefore necessary to intervene -to keep intervening- politically and ideologically, but with tactical flexibility and with the awareness of the confusions that prevail.
- The line of conformity, reformism and compromise is very weak in mobilisations, in outbursts, in struggles. The possibilities that to a small extent we have detected in the student struggle are not the "exception" but the rule! We need to understand the specificity of the conditions in which we live. The struggles do not break out because "there are coherent forces that can make struggles break out" but because those on the grassroots level cannot stand the politics of the system and in fact, by coming out in the mass struggle, they overcome the forces of compromise and submission. This peculiarity is not new but is sharpened in view of the intensity of the savagery of the system and the parallel course of resignation and conformity of the forces that refer to the left and the movement. Our own possibilities and responsibilities are thus increased in terms of our role in the struggle, in terms of the directness of our discourse, the effectiveness of our tactics that these conditions demand.
- If tens of thousands of young people and workers have already come to the forefront of the mass struggle, "behind" this forefront there is a much larger mass of students, young workers, and people who are looking -semi-consciously, instinctively- for a way out in the mass struggle, in the militant, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-managementist direction. We are aware of the correlations but we are not fatalistic! We therefore need our propaganda and our interventions in all their forms to seek this "great mass" and our connection with people from it!
The savage capitalist attack together and side by side with the conditions of preparation of a world war that are developing in the region, killing peoples and with our country playing the role of a stronghold of the US-NATO murderers, form and define the fronts on which the struggle of the working class, the people and the youth is required to develop.
Our tasks are defined on the basis of these fronts. With our tasks we serve the emergence of these fronts of struggle with a defined direction and line that we consider necessary to be projected and fought within these fronts. To structure the forces of struggle of the working people and youth on the basis of this direction and line, to form ties and relations on the basis of this direction and line. It is obvious that this document cannot identify the more specific priorities, hierarchies and choices that will be required throughout the coming period on the basis of the developments that will take place and the demands that will be made by the class and political struggle.
However, and given the central task of moving towards a struggle-ready revolutionary communist organisation with an upgraded role in the movement and in the mass struggle, as defined by the Steering Body's proposal in the first cycle of the Conference process, we consider it important and necessary to set out the directions and objectives of struggle that we propose on these fronts. Directions and objectives of struggle that constitute our proposal to the movement, our proposal to the working class, the people and the youth. Directions and objectives of struggle that are either direct or related to our strategic directions, we consider them to be the content and orientation that the struggles need to conquer in order to have successes and victories, to take steps of emancipation from the system and its forces, to modify the negative correlation of power. Directions and objectives of struggle on the basis of which a distinct political current against the system and its forces and against the line of conformity and submission of the forces of reformism and compromise needs and can be formed.
We therefore record directions and objectives of struggle on the main fronts the working class, the people and the youth are facing, which are "summed up" by the "struggle for life and work with rights". Directions and objectives of struggle that on one hand are part of the struggle required by the workers and peoples of the planet against the preparation of the world war and the devastation with which it threatens us. Directions and aims of struggle that at the same time -and in mutual support with the struggle against war, dependence and imperialism- seek to give a way out to the ever-expanding and growing agony for survival of the working-people masses, to give a way out to the struggles for the overthrow of the savage capitalist aggression, and the demand for rights.
GREECE OUT OF NATO AND EU - OUT WITH THE MILITARY BASES - NO INVOLVEMENT OF THE COUNTRY IN THE UNJUST WAR (UKRAINE) AND THE ZIONIST MASSACRE - DENUNCIATION - OPPOSITION TO THE "AXES" OF THE USA.
PEOPLE DO NOT NEED PROTECTORS - USA, NATO AND RUSSIA OUT OF UKRAINE - FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE - DENUNCIATION OF THE ZIONIST STATE & PROMOTING THE PROSPECT OF A FREE, INDEPENDENT PALESTINE "FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA".
NO TO THE REACTIONARY GREEK-TURKISH CONFLICT – FRIENDSHIP - SOLIDARITY OF THE PEOPLES OF GREECE & TURKEY AGAINST IMPERIALISM AND WAR.
NO PARTITION, NO FEDERATION - CYPRUS UNIFIED, INDEPENDENT.
SOLIDARITY-UNITED STRUGGLE WITH ALL THE PEOPLES OF THE REGION AGAINST IMPERIALISM, WAR AND FASCISM. NO TO NATIONALISM-RACISM - PEOPLE'S FRONT OF STRUGGLE.
INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY WITH THE WORKERS-PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE AROUND THE WORLD.
INCREASES IN WAGES AND PENSIONS TO COVER THE COST OF LIVING - COLLECTIVE AGREEMENTS – PERMANENT, STABLE WORK - 5 DAYS, 8 HOURS - INSURANCE FOR ALL.
HANDS OFF THE UNIONS AND THE RIGHT TO STRIKE - STRUGGLE FOR THE OVERTHROW OF THE HADJIDAKIS-GEORGIADIS LAWS - STRUGGLE FOR CLASS UNIONS INDEPENDENT OF THE STATE AND THE EMPLOYERS.
NO TO TAX THEFT OF THE POPULAR MASSES.
WE FIGHT FOR FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION FOR ALL THE PEOPLE.
STRUGGLE FOR THE REPEAL OF THE PIERAKAKAKI LAW (PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES) AND THE LAW FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION.
ABOLISH THE EXAMS SUBJECT BANK AND THE MINIMUM PASSING GRADE - NO TO THE NATIONAL BACCALAUREATE.
NO TO TELE-COURSES AND TELE-EXAMS.
STRUGGLE TO OVERTURN THE ENTIRE FRAMEWORK OF EVALUATION.
HANDS OFF THE STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATIONS AND THE STUDENTS’ STRUGGLES - WITHDRAW ALL PERSECUTIONS – STUDENTS’ ASSOCIATIONS INDEPENDENT OF THE STATE AND THE PROFESSORS’ GUARDIANSHIP.
THE YOUTH ON THE ROAD TO THE STRUGGLE FOR AN OTHER SOCIETY WITHOUT WARS, POVERTY AND TERRORISM.
WE FIGHT FOR EQUAL, FULL, FREE CARE FOR ALL THE PEOPLE.
NO TO HOSPITAL-HEALTHCARE CENTRES CLOSURES - NO TO LAYOFFS AND BURN OUT OF HEALTH WORKERS - MASS RECRUITMENTS – PERMANENT, STABLE WORK FOR ALL – PERMANENCE FOR ALL CONTRACT WORKERS.
STRUGGLE TO PREVENT THE POOR PEASANTRY FROM BEING WIPED OUT - TO STAY IN THEIR VILLAGES AND LIVE OF THEIR FIELDS.
AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT'S ANTI-PEASANTRY POLICY - DO NOT IMPLEMENT THE NEW CAP - NO REDUCTION IN SUBSIDIES TO SMALL FARMERS.
FULL COMPENSATION FOR DAMAGE - PRICES OF PRODUCTS THAT CAN COVER THE COST OF LIVING.
UNITED FARMERS' ASSOCIATIONS - ORGANISATIONS FOR THE STRUGGLE OF POOR FARMERS.
HANDS OFF THE RIGHT TO ORGANISE AND STRUGGLE - NO STATE CONTROL OF POLITICAL ORGANISATIONS AND COLLECTIVES - ALL PROSECUTIONS TO BE WITHDRAWN. REVOKE THE FINES ON POLITICAL ACTIVITIES.
HANDS OFF DEMONSTRATIONS - THE POLITICAL POSTERS - THE FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS. HANDS OFF UNIVERSITIES ASYLUM - THE UNIVERSITIES ASYLUM BELONGS TO ALL THE PEOPLE.
A POLITICAL-IDEOLOGICAL FRONT FOR THE EMERGENCE OF CLASS ANALYSIS OF WOMEN’S ISSUE AGAINST ALL KINDS OF BOURGEOIS PERCEPTIONS.
STRUGGLE FOR THE CONQUEST OF EQUAL LABOUR AND SOCIAL RIGHTS AND AGAINST THE OPPRESSION AND BARBARISM FACED BY THE HALF OF THE SKY.
THE PLACE OF WOMEN IS IN THE CLASS-POLITICAL STRUGGLE - THEIR LIBERATION IN THE REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE.
SOLIDARITY - UNITED PEOPLE AND YOUTH STRUGGLE WITH REFUGEES/IMMIGRANTS FOR EQUAL POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND LABOUR RIGHTS - IMMIGRANTS ARE PART OF THE WORKING CLASS OF THE COUNTRY.
DENUNCIATION OF MASS IMPERIALIST CRIMES - UNITED PEOPLES’ STRUGGLE OF IMMIGRANTS/REFUGEES AGAINST WAR AND IMPERIALISM.
NO TO CONCENTRATION CAMPS - NO TO REACTIONARY NATIONALIST/CLASS DIVISIONS.
NO TO THE "CEMENTATION" OF URBAN CENTRES – STRUGGLE FOR FREE PUBLIC SPACES (PARKS, SQUARES, AND BEACHES).
THE NATURAL WEALTH OF THE COUNTRY IS THE PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE!
NO TO THE CONVERSION OF MOUNTAINS - MEADOWS - ISLANDS INTO PARKS FOR ANTENNAS - WIND TURBINES AND SOLAR PANELS.
NO CHARGE TO THE PEOPLE FOR FLOODS-FIRES - FULL COMPENSATION TO ALL FLOOD VICTIMS – WE DEMAND PROTECTION MEASURES FOR FORESTS AND COUNTRYSIDE.
NO TO FASCISM, THE MOST FANATICAL SERVANT OF CAPITAL AND IMPERIALISM! NO TO ITS "POLYMORPHOUS" VARIANTS THAT PROMOTE AND SERVE IRRATIONALITY, OBSCURANTISM, THE DEVALUATION OF HUMAN LIFE.
POLITICAL-IDEOLOGICAL FRONT FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST MOVEMENT - DEMONSTRATION OF THE HISTORICAL CONQUESTS OF SOCIALISM - PROMOTION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE AS THE ONLY REAL PROGRESS OF THE WORKING-PEOPLE'S MASSES.
We think it is obvious that with the above we attempt to identify the basic directions on the main fronts of struggle. This means that for each of them a selection and specific elaboration and development of the objectives of struggle is required in each case of a mobilization, a process within a mass space, a neighbourhood, etc. Also the definition of specific objectives of struggle that will respond to the working people and/or youth to what they face and for which they are called to mobilize and struggle. But at the same time this highlighting of the "concrete" needs to be done in such a way as to highlight its connection, its dependence, with the "global" aspect of what it faces. And for this (and given the present conditions), facing it will also need to be linked -either indirectly or directly, depending on the specific issue and field- to the revolutionary perspective that the struggle and movement needs to formulate and conquer.
[1] In the presidential election in SYRIZA, when Kasselakis won, anybody could pay two euros to become a party-member and therefore eligible to vote!
