The social, economic and political events that are taking place in Greece are of extraordinary importance for the Spanish, European and the world wide working class people. The savage attacks against the Greek workers are an anticipation of a wide plan of social cuts and and cuts in rights looming on the European workers. The determination of the Greek working class and youth shown in general strikes, demonstrations and mass action, showws that there is a clear determination to fight and that this is the only possible way to face the bourgeoisy's plans.
The rescue plan for the Greek economy has been presented as an example of "European solidarity". This supposed altruism is an obscene manifestation of hypocrisy and an insult to the working class. In reality, the "aid" plan has one only aim: to protect the interests of the banks who have been pushing back for decades the living standards of Greek workers. Facing the lies from the EU governments, it must be highlighted that the working class of the countries participating in the plan will also be the ones paying with serious social cuts, this new injection of public money that will go straight to the bankers safe boxes. Also, far from being a solution to the problems of the Greek economy, this measure will push it further in a descendent spiral of crisis and stagnation.
Last May the 2nd, the Greek government, lead by Papandreu (PASOK) reached an agreement with the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to receive a loan of 110,000 millions of euros in three years (80,000 millions contributed by the EU and 30,000 millions by the IMF). But this money will not go to the Greek people. This mountain of millions of euros will be used to guarantee that the Greek State pays the high interests that the European banks demand for the financiation of their "public debt". That is, the workers, the retired, the Greek youth, as in the rest of Europe, will be the victims of brutal cuts in their living conditions so that the banks can carry on having insulting profits. The same ones that have provoqued the virulence of this crisis, that have filled their pockets with million of euros from public aids, now, with the blessing of the governments, sink the whole of the society into a unprecedented spiral of massive unemployment and social cuts. This is the real face of the capitalist system, a reactionary system in decadence
The adjustment plan
In order to receive this loan and to carry on paying to the European banks, the Papandreu government has agreed to approve a savage adjustment plan, which joins the three previous ones. The government is attempting to carry out a budget cut of 30,000 millions of euros in the next three years to reduce the current public deficit in 13.6% of the GDP to 3% of the GDP in 2014. In the immediate future, for 2010, they want to reach little more than 8%. To acheive this, they will apply the classic IMF plan: cuts in social expenditure and in working rights, privatizations, etc. We are seeing, right in the heart of Europe the same measures that were adopted in the 80's and 90's of the last century in Latin America and that were the cause of a tremendous social shift to the left and revolutionary processes in many of those countries.
Concretely, the package of measures that parliament approved on Thursday, 6th of May, while thousands of Greeks protested in front of the building, include:
- Rise of 10% in taxes on tobacco, alcohol, fuel...
-Increase of VAT to 23% (from the current 21%, that was already raised in March this year), from July the1st.
- Freezing of wages during three years and the elimination of salary bonuses and complements to public sector workers, where new contracts will be paralysed. All this will mean an effective decrease in wages of around 30%, a real arm robbery.
- Raising of the minimum age for retirement. Cuts in pensions and a new system for its calculations, applying the complete working life, raising the necessary working years (from 37 to 40) to be able to obtain the maximum pension.
- Introduction of private pensions plans, as the quantity contributed by the State will be drastically reduced. The trade unions have calculated that the cut in pensions will be between 30% and 50%.
- Reform of the labour market to make dismissals eaier and cheaper. It will be allowed to increase from 2% to 4% the number of legal dismissals per month in the private sector. The IMF is putting on pressure for the sacking of 200,000 workers from the private sector.
- The State has to sell public companies or reduce in a substantial way their participation in them. Also, will be liberalised the energy and transport sector.
- Reduction of the number of local administrations from 1,300 to 340 to cut costs.
Is also being considered, an increase in the workday.
The general strike of May the 5th. The Greek working class shows the way.
The general strike of May the 5th, which unified public and private sectors, was the firm and immediate answer to the brutal aggression on the living conditions and labour rights of the Greek people. This strike, which is the fourth general strike called by the main unions since February, was a historic success. On that day the widest protest since the beginning of the movement, in December of 2009, took place with a huge demonstration of between 150,000 to 200,000 people in Athens. Important cities in the country such as Salonika, Patras, and many others also came out on strike.
GSEE, the trade unionist confederation of the private sector, confirmed that there was a follow up of more than 80%, which showed the strength of the workers in all sectors: railways, aircrafts, ferries, buses, underground (which only ran to demonstrations assembly points), teachers (3 days on strike) refuse collectors, pensioners, bank employees, building workers, doctors, industrial workers, lawyers, journalists (24 hour strike) and air trafficcontrollers. The success of the strike is unquestionable.
During the week, several demonstrations and protests had already taken place. On Monday 3rd of May a group of teachers occupied a television channel and interrupted the main news program, NET, to read a manifesto, denouncing the government cuts; on Tuesday 4th, thousands of public sector workers and students demonstrated in the country's main cities and even, 150 members of the army marched in silence against the suppression of salary bonuses and complements to civil servants. The May Day demonstrations were also marked by the head-on popular rejection to this sinking plan approved by the EU and the IMF.
It is obvious that the atmosphere of the struggle that Greece is going through is ascending. According to several polls, 80% of the population thinks that the next few months will have greater social activity. In fact, Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary of ADEDY, the public sectors' trade union, has already announced the organization of more strikes for May.
Demonstrators and the majority of Greek society have clear in their minds that this a head-on clash between classes. The slogans shouted during the strikes and demonstrations, in people's declarations and declarations by the trade union leaders themselves are very explicit on this idea. In the journalists chronic of the strike of May the 5th, numerous witnesses accounts can be found . The atmosphere of social polarization is so huge that even the owner of a news agency, Raklis Voleter, reflected the essence of the conflict when saying: "These measures are killing people. We are on the verge of war, war between rich and poor". Andreas, a municipal service worker of the Athena's council, said: "This is war, or did anybody think that we would stay with our arm folded while our working rights are smashed and our families are left in ruins?". A 31 years old teacher said: "This crisis is not our fault. It is the fault of big companies, so the money should be claimed from them. We will carry on demonstrating and striking until the government reverses their line".
The Athena's demonstration, which ended up in front of parliament, where support to the measures from the EU, the IMF and the government were being discussed, shows the huge fall in the authority of capitalist institutions in the eyes of the majority of the people. "We will never! Never pay the EU and the IMF!", "Down with the EU and the IMF"; in the same line, May Day demonstrations were shouting: "Down with the IMF Junta!", in reference to the military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974).
Media manipulation
The bourgeois press, as was to be expected, instead of highlighting the massive participation in the strike, the massive character of the demonstrations and the clear consciousness of the Greek workers to carry this battle to the end, has transmitted a violent and chaotic view in order to mislead and discredit the struggle of the Greek workers and their organizations. Yesterday, many media were stiring up chauvinist prejudices against the Greek people and today they describe them as being violent. For the bourgeois media the aim is clear: to avoid that these historic mobilizations have an impact on the consciousness of all the workers of Europe and that they have take note of it, in a critical moment in which, at different rates, all the governments are putting into action hard plans of attacks.
With the aim of disprestiging the struggle, as always, the media is basing their reports on actions taken by semi-lumpens groups, as has already been denounced by the KEE leader (Greek Communist Party), and even by police provocateurs.
Regrettably, three workers died the day of the strike, asphyxiated in a fire caused by a Molotov cocktail. Scandalously, the press has had no inconvenience in linking these deaths to the demonstrators. The Papandreu government has also used these events to justify more repressive measures. However, the responsibility for these deaths, as is coming to light now, must be found in the provocative and cheap attitude of the owners of the bank. As was denounced by one of the Banco Marfin employees, where the tragedy took place, the building did not have the minimum conditions to face a fire and "the management directly banned the employees, in a very strict way, to leave the office today [the day of the strike], even when they had already requested to leave early in the morning, they forced employees to lock the doors (...) the building had to remain locked all day. They also blocked access to internet to avoid employees being able to communicate with the exterior". The declaration of this worker ended up in a firm way: "My comrades lost their lives because of the maliciousness of Banco Marfin and mister Vgenopoulos (one of the main capitalists of the country), whom explicitly affirmed that anybody that did not come to work today [May the 5th] should be worried about coming back tomorrow".
Despite this, the capitalist media carries on talking about violent demonstrators, ignoring the indisputable fact that, precisely in Greece, police attitude has always been characterised by its extreme brutality and violence, as shown by the killing of Alexandros Grigorópulos, a 15 year old youngster killed by the police. This event unleashed an important rebellion amongst the youth.
Campaign against the Greek workers
The media has launched the "violence" smoke screen and also has desprestiged the Greek workers by trying to present them with a false image of wasteful, lazy irresponsible people that enjoy living off States benefits. This campaign has two aims; on one hand to blame the working class for the crisis and in that way to justify the capitalist measures that are being taken. On the other hand there is a much more subtle aim: to feed chauvinist prejudices amongst the European workers falsely accusing the Greek working class of consuming the European economic resources when there is also a crisis in the majority of the European countries. This indecent, false and hypocritical way of presenting facts which are the opposite of the truth, seek to counteract the sympathy for the struggle of the Greek workers and for the disengagement from the problems that workers suffer in each one of our countries.
In reality, it shows fear from the ruling class of the gunpowder of the Greek rebellion extending to Europe.
Reality is very different to the picture presented by the big media. Greek workers have an average working week of 42 hours (UE-27 is 40,3h, and in the Euro zone is 40h.), the gross average wage in Greece is: 803 euros! The austerity plans imposed prior to the crisis, have made wages in the private sector decrease to 1984 levels. The average pension for retired people is 750 euros a month. In 2009, more than 4.5 millions of the workforce, worked without any kind of social protection. According to ADEDY, since 1990, civil servants have seen their income reduced in 30%.
What the Papandreu government, neither the EU, the IMF or the main media tells us is that, according to the Central Bank of Greece figures, in just a couple of months the country has suffered flight of capital for the value of 9,000 millions of euros. The most outrageous thing is that the government is attempting to make it easier to repatriate this capital by eliminating the obligation of justifying the origin of the money and by reducing by half the surcharge for bank deposits. This means that the PASOK is giving general amnesty to big capitals that are cheating with impunity and launching a furious attacks against workers' families. Once again ,this shows that the worsening of the workers' living conditions does not help to avoid crisis, of which the only responsibility is exclusively of the capitalist system, big companies, monopolies and banks.
Transforming strikes and mobilizations into a struggle for Socialism with an anti-capitalist class program.
The economic, social and political Greek crisis has just begun. As Ilias Iliópulos, general secretary of the union ADEDY pointed out, the adjustment measures "will bring a social explosion, recession and the stagnation of the economy". Forecasts already talk about a fall in the GDP of 4% during this year and almost 3% for 2011, this adds to the fall of 2% of 2009. These measures will become an extra burden on the economy, although the real problem is the adjustment itself. The nightmare that we are living is the logical consequence of a declining capitalist system, where financial capital is exercising a dictatorship with total impunity. Capitalism is a system incapable of satisfying the most elementary needs of the huge majority of the population and avoiding crisis with dramatic consequences.
The crisis of the Greek debt has also revived tensions between different national bourgeoisies, highlighting the limits of the European unification process on capitalist basis in a context of crisis. Workers cannot expect anything from a European Union on a capitalist basis. But the problem is that while capitalism exists, inside or outside the EU, the attacks against the working class will continue.
The process of unification of Europe has not been able to prevent the particular interests of each national bourgeoisie. The clash between different national interests is worsening the capitalists' crisis whose consequences are being paid by all the workers of all the countries in Europe. The only way out of the crisis in the EU is the struggle for a Socialist Europe, for a socialist transformation of society through the expropriation of the banks and monopolies. There is an alternative to the capitalists' crisis by ending the dictatorship of finance capital. With democratic control of the workers and their organizations in the means of production, freeing the productive forces from the selfish interests of each national bourgeoisie, we could advance in a genuine process of European unification for the benefit of the majority. In that way employment would be created. The defence of public health and education and quality social services would be possible as well as a rise in the living standards of the workers.
The degree of political radicalization of the Greek workers, wwhich has already reached a very high level, will carry on deepening and englobing wider and wider sectors of the population. Their disposition to struggle, their boldness and braveness are the the best proof that a socialist way out to the crisis of capitalism is totally possible. This process will not be stopped by the approval and implementation of the planned cuts .
The PASOK government was formed with an overwhelmingly electoral victory, in which millions of workers and youth protagonised a deep movement against the hated rightwing government. The people put their hopes in the new government and now they are openly betraying their social basis. Papandreu had the possibility of taking a different way, instead of accepting the plans imposed by the IMF. Firslty, to reject the payment of debt and the nationalization of the Greek banks, which are taking advantage of public money like leeches. Paralely, the PASOK government should have based itself on the Greek working class resisting the capitalist counter attack making an appeal to the European working class to follow the same way. What has prevented Papandreu in taking a genuine socialist way are the links that Panpandreu and the tops of the PASOK have with big capital and the belief that capitalism is the only possible system. What is taking place in Greece also reveals the total bankruptcy of social democracy, incapable of defending the interests of the majority with their political "realism".
This crisis is not a mere parenthesis but part of a new historical period. In the current circumstances, the existence of capitalism is incompatible with the social benefits that were conquered after the Second World War, which allowed a sector of the working class of the developed capitalist world to enjoy semi-civilised living conditions. The Greek crisis stages the definitive end of the "welfare State" in Europe. The real disjunctive is the following: either capitalism and their devastating logic for the majority of society, or a Socialist system, based on the nationalization of the banks, big monopolies and capitalists consortia to plan the economy in a democratic way and under workers control. There are not intermedium terms, "capitalism with a human face" does not exists. Through their own experience the Greek workers and the workers from the rest of Europe will draw the conclusion that a deep change is necessary and that the current struggle must be linked with a Socialist program for the transformation of the society.
The Greek debt is a small symptom of an illness spread all over Europe and the great majority of the capitalists countries of the world, which are anchored in a deep economic stagnation and with historic levels of debt. The possibility of the debt crisis spreading to countries such as Portugal, Ireland, Italy or Spain is real. There is a great emphasis in that the Spanish debt is lower than the EU average. However, what hardly is being said is the extremely high level of private debt, of companies, banks and families. In fact, the adding up of public and private debt is 350% of the GDP.
In the Spanish State, the leaders of CCOO and UGT have made a public declaration in favour of the Greek general strike. However, this position is totally contradictory with their actions. Their central aim is to reach an agreement with the bosses, while they still are not mobilizing the workers in a firm way against the attacks already put into practice by the PSOE government. The economic process in the Spanish state has not reached the same level of seriousness as in Greece but it is in the same direction. Only by mobilization, including a general strike, can be avoid that the government and the Spanish bourgeoisie are successful in imposing their brutal package of cuts and the labour reform.
"Peoples of Europe, raise up"
This week we have seen the spectacular image of the Pantheon with two big banners in Greek and English with the slogan "Peoples of Europe, raise up". One of the leaders of KKE stated: "This is a message for the peoples of Europe (...) people have the same problems everywhere. We could take control of our own destinies by organising protests, so we stop the EU and the IMF handling of our lives". Yiannis Panagopoulos, president of the trade union confederation, pointed out that "our struggle is also a message for the peoples of Europe. What started in Greece soon will be spreaded" Both are right.
Obviously, at the moment there are conditions for a massive mobilization of the Greek workers, but also for the Spanish and in European workers as a whole. It would be perfectly possible to unify the European workers movement with a struggle program against cuts in social expenditure and rights.This would be perfectly possible if the trade union leaders of all the European countries had the political will of making so and breaking up with their political commitments with the capitalists.
The world capitalist crisis will lead unavoidably to a world class struggle sharper and frontal.
In Europe this struggle will become more and more acute and wider layers of workers and youth will join the unavoidable political struggle. Greece is only the beginning of a long process of battles that will take place in the next years. This experience will shake the consciousness of millions of workers and youth in Europe and old traditions will be re-established. The ideas of revolutionary Marxism will conquest back a massive support. The Greek crisis and the European crisis are the crisis of world capitalism. The time has come to raise high the banner of Socialism, uniting all the workers in the struggle for a Socialist Federation of Europe against a Europe dominated by capitalists.
¡Workers of the world, Unite!
· Let us defeat the social cuts and austerity plans against the working class.
· For a great European mobilization in solidarity with the Greek workers and in defence of employment, pensions and social services. No to the looting of public money by the banks and the capitalists.
· For the nationalization of the banks under workers control. No to the payment of the debt.
· For a Socialist Federation of Europe.
