Central Coordinating Committee of ANTARSYA briefing (14/9): People and workers must impose their own government and their own power to the power of capital and the EU

The Central Coordinating Committee of ANTARSYA discussed the current political developments and its intervention

1. Since the collapse of the “re-negotiation” myth it is clear that Samaras-led government is a government ‘by coup’, a government subservient to the demands of the Troika, the commands of the Banks, the Capital and the EU.

New cut-throat measures are announced; savage cuts in salaries and pensions; disintegration of healthcare and education; sellout of state enterprises and public utilities, land water, air, ports, islands and airports; massive layoffs of public functionaries, new reduction of the minimum wage. They only care to save the repressive forces from the cuts, presuming that the uniformed bully of Greek Riot Police (MAT) is worth more than a doctor or a teacher. They even want to impose a 6-day working week so as to turn us yearlong into slaves of the employers. 

2.  We need to take the streets again. To continue where we left it at, with strikes and demonstrations, occupations and mobilization in central squares. To organize resistance and solidarity. Through class reconstruction of the labor movement, with movements operating as safety nets, with popular assemblies everywhere. With an anti-capitalist program that opens a different path in the face of destruction:

-The overthrow of the ‘by coup’ Government of Nea Demokratia, Pasok and DIMAR.

-Immediate unilateral denunciation of the Memorandum and of the Loan Agreements; abolition of any laws stemming from the Memorandum

-Out of the Euro and the EU

-Debt Cancellation

-Nationalization of the Banks and of strategic enterprises

-Increases in salaries and pensions, prohibition of layoffs

-Down with employers’ and state terror in workplaces and throughout society

-Labor and popular control everywhere by organized people and their institutions

-Immigrants and Refugees are Legal- out with fascists and racism

-Capitalize on the productive potential of the society with social planning, public-social ownership, respect for the environment.

-Support farmers for nutritional sustainability and rebirth of the rural areas against the EU, bankers and the merchant class.

People and workers must impose their own government and their own power to the power of capital and the EU. Using a plan of subversion; Through organization and self-defense against the “deep-state” of repressive forces and fascist battalion raids, of propaganda, and of the powerful wealthy; With institutions of popular power and labor control on the way for the revolutionary change of the society; With head on rallying of those powers who want rupture and subversion; With a left that will not wait for the other shoe to drop for the coalition government Nea Demokratia- Pasok- DIMAR, but one that will organize the movement, will be in the forefront of struggle for subversion and salvation of the working people today!

3.  Developments in the political system and the left were equally important this last period.

SYRIZA, through its action and the statements of its top-ranking cadres (see for instance the meeting with Israeli president Shimon Peres, the faith oaths to the EU, to “legality”, and to the reinstatement of competitiveness) as well as through its stance in the trade union movement (as in the signing of the Collective Bargaining Contract that includes large decreases in salaries in alliance with unionized bureaucracy) is oriented towards a “responsible opposition” in the context of big enterprises and the EU through the memorandum “renegotiation” and along the logic of waiting for when the time is ripe. Its development into a single party is accompanied by a strong tendency to become like Pasok (see also SYRIZA’ stance towards the 3^rd of September). This trajectory will not be free of problems and contradictions. ANTARSYA will continue its unitary appeal to the people of SYRIZA on the basis on an anti-capitalist program, calling them to break free from such logic, defending the development of the movement acquis, the conflict with any attempt at “realistic adaptation” (cancellation of memoranda and loan agreements and of all the laws that accompany them, anti-euro, anti-EU orientation, etc. overthrow of the government, etc.) and the need of self sufficient head on alliance of those forces that move towards an anti-capitalist and anti-EU direction.

Similar will be our stance towards the Greek Communist Party (KKE). Unfortunately, it seems that its leadership hasn’t drawn any conclusions from the electoral results. On the contrary, it keeps on implementing the same tactic that refers all fronts of the current political struggle to the future of “people’s rule.” Instead of supporting the need for stopping payments, debt write off and exit from the Euro and the EU today in the context of an anti-capitalist path, it reproduces the rhetoric of the dominant powers, presenting these propositions as disastrous for the people and as a goals set by part of the capitalist class. At the same time, it aligns with the government discourse on the “Lobby of the Drachma.” It uncritically insists on the promotion of socialism as we’ve known it. Despite the fact that it does contribute to some efforts that have a unitary class direction (as in the struggle against the treasonous contract of the union of workers in Greek hospitals, or participating in the Coordinating Committee of sectors under abolition), it hasn’t changed as a whole its position of denying a common militant action. Finally, KKE heightens the front to ANTARSYA and the anti-capitalist left, most likely in order to dispel the unitary spirit of thousands of activists its own lines.

 ANTARSYA will not get sidetracked in a “civil war” with the people and forces from the Communist Party and the Left. It will insist on the need of joint action for the subversion of the attack, especially in the labor-union movement and on the dialogue around the major issues of our times

4. This past period, fascist Golden Dawn has unveiled even more its role, under the auspices of the official governmental racist policy of “Xenios Zeus”(police operation). They have supported the giveaway of the “Agricultural Bank of Greece” to Mihalis Sallas, they attack poor immigrant street vendors as well as “illegal Greeks.” They show interest in the salaries of their political clientele, the armed forces but not in the salaries of the teachers and the doctors. A dark relationship with the rings of extreme right terrorism are uncovered (see the case of Sparta) that turns against the progressive movements and the Left. This Nazi assassin gang operates as the “long hand” of the state and the capital against the people. The popular workers movement and the Left will crush that reserve of the dominant classes. ANTARSYA will be at the forefront of this fight together with anti-racist movements (United Against Racism and Fascism Movement) with immigrant communities, unions and parties of the Left.

5. The strike on September 26^th constitutes a critical landmark in the unfolding of workers and popular resistance against the whirlwind of new measures. We need to give this fight not just for the development of mass participation in the strike and the rallies, but also in order to contribute to the escalation of strikes in as many sectors as possible. We need to capitalize on the hopeful messages from the International Exhibition of Thessaloniki, the strike of September 12, as well as the escalation of strikes and activist mobilizations in places like hospitals, Municipalities, Hellenic Postbank, Transportation, and Universities. Men and women, comrades of ANTARSYA must be the at the avant-garde of the fight for strikes: they must organize assemblies in the trade unions, discussions in workplaces, propose escalation of mobilizations, fight against the promoted numbing or disheartening that dominant powers try to cultivate, set a reference point that it will not be unionized bureaucracy but only workers themselves who will give their own victorious and dynamic perspective to the fight. Local and sectoral committees of ANTARSYA must conduct special planning for the strike, campaigning with ANTARSYA material (pamphlet and poster) to support the sectors that participate in the strike. We invite everybody to the Museum at 10 a.m.

6. We live at a critical time when the crisis deepens and the explosive contradictions of the Eurozone are made bare, when political crisis becomes more acute, and when the limits and insufficiency of the left “Europeanism” and “governmentalism” are obvious. New great possibilities are emerging for a left anticapitalist intervention and the rallying of the forces around a necessary anti-capitalist program.

ANTARSYA addresses a combatant call for common head on action to every activist, every collective, every force etc that is oriented towards a politics of rupture and subversion. Now, more than ever before, it is the time for all forces that move in an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-EU direction to join forces. ANTARSYA seeks to open the discussion for left politics today and the necessary revolutionary strategy for the period we live in.

For this purpose, we are organizing the weekend of October 27-28 a wide two-day political-theoretical event in Athens to discuss the crisis of the Euro, resistance in Greece and in Europe, the anti-capitalist program of the era and the confrontation/showdown with the question of power through a modern revolutionary strategy. In the next days, there will be information for the exact program of the event and there will also be a poster and propaganda material.

5.  ANTARSYA insists on the direction of head on rallying of diverse social and political forces that move to an anti-Euro, anti-EU direction and on clashing with the politics of the capital on the basis of the decision of the Panhellenic Coordinating Committee back in the summer and the common announcement of ANTARSYA and the Solidarity and Subversion Front. In this context, we consider very important and support the initiatives taken by the “Initiative against the euro and the EU”. The contribution to the front of struggle against the euro and the EU constitutes today a criterion for every Left force and an important path for rallying forces and activists for the necessary left anti-capitalist front.

In the next period of time and on our way to the Second Conference of ANTARSYA, that will take place in the first fifteen days of December, we will discuss the issue of head on politics for ANTARSYA, the necessary content and the direction.

 The Central Coordinating Committee invites all local and sectoral committees of ANTARSYA to upgrade their operation and intervention; To proceed with well-prepared assemblies; To plan their intervention on all fronts (strikes, solidarity organization, self-organization, anti-fascist struggle); To intensify the collection of contributions in order to meet the financial needs of our action; To bring together again men and women activists of ANTARSYA and to open up to other activists that seek a militant left action and a way of contributing to the necessary uprising of all workers and people.