Transcript
Who remembers Greece of 2015? All the comrades here are very young. Even in Greece young people have no recollection of those events. But this is an extremely important session- extremely important discussion especially today because if you think about it ten years ago in Greece the working class of a so-called developed capitalist country could have taken power.
And you know reformists and academics say: “Okay you can have revolutions in Africa and Asia and poor countries because they’re desperate. But this is not happening in the West.” And in Greece we were on the verge of an apparent revolutionary crisis. And this was only averted by the role of leadership. And as we said at the time Greece only shows the future developments of other countries.
In one country after another as you’re starting to see happening now. And we had some glimpses like the general strike in Italy. The working class is moving in that direction. The other important reason for this discussion is that Greece is really a textbook example of the role of reformism and the especially the role of left-reformism especially in particular. And we must prepare for this comrades because reformism and left-reformism in particular will be our main opponent in the coming period in the working class movement. Left-reformism and centrism. That is people that sound like Marxists but they’re not Marxists at all.
So we say that the crisis in capitalism is also a crisis in reformism and that’s absolutely true. You cannot have reformism without reform. It’s impossible. And so one reformist after another is tested and discarded. That’s why all over the world we see the fall of social democracy. Social-democratic parties collapse one after another and left parties like Syriza. Syriza was elected government in 2015 by more than 36% and now in the polls has around 3% and will probably disappear. But we’re not done with reformists. It will come again and again as they are offering an easy way out to the working class.
And the workers of course will test one reformist after another and they will seek more and more radical solutions. But until the Bolsheviks the revolutionary communists are ready reformism is not going to go away on its own. And of course you also have as the comrades here said you also have your own reformist mayor here.
And we have to get all those lessons from the Syriza period and add them to our arsenal. And in order to fight reformism- to explain to the workers that are sympathetic to these reformist leaders what happened in Greece what happens always with reformist leaders that try to reform capitalism. I think another interesting reasons to have the session is because in Greece we didn’t have only the test of left-reformism.
We had the test of all main tendencies. The test of the Stalinists. In Greece as you know have one of the few remaining Stalinist- true Stalinist communist parties. We had the test of all kinds of different sects. The Maoists inside and outside Syriza. So-called Trotskyist sects that participates in Syriza. They were very, very small. But as I will show in my leadoff they were able to play a very disastrous role.
If you give them an opportunity they will mess up that’s for sure. So these are also very important lessons to use and all those tendencies we will meet in front of us. Now before you delve into the events you have to talk about the source of these events of this stormy period in Greek class struggle. And because the Greek bourgeoisie also the European bourgeoisie and the imperialists they create a myth about what happened in these days in Greece.
They said okay what was happening there was a specific Greek phenomenon and the crisis of Greek capitalism was due to the fact that the Greeks have been living beyond their means for a whole period. You know lazy Greeks sitting in their beds drinking their coffee and things like that. A huge campaign to prepare the ground to attack the Greek workers. Of course nothing of this was true even then. Even before the attack to the Greek working class the Greek working class was working longer hours than their European counterpart.
The Greek so-called “welfare state” was much smaller than the counterpart in Europe. But of course they wanted to use this myth in order to justify to the workers of Europe that they had to smash the Greek workers. But the real reason for all of those events was the crisis- The historical crisis of capitalism of 2008. That led to the breaking of the weakest link in reality—which was Greece in the context of European capitalism.
But that’s what we were telling then: Greece was showing only the future for other countries. As you see happening now with one country after another the bourgeoisie going into a harsh attack on the workers. Now I should explain at the time capitalists were able to postpone the inevitable onset of the crisis through the expansion of credit. In all countries capitalists said you don’t have money to buy a house no worries get a loan. And we’ll find it later. But they don’t have any money. No worries. We can sell the house. The price for the house are rising. You know a party. Of course at some point the loans must be paid back with interest.
That’s the problem with this procedure. And then we have the crisis of overproduction taking the form of crises of debt and the banking crisis. So this started in the USA started here with the Lehman Brothers collapse. But very quickly went all over the world and hit the weakest links first. This was the situation in Greece also. For example in Greece from 2001 to 2008 there was a rise in household debt of 400% a huge rise. I remember- I’m old enough to remember that we were receiving calls in the house that were telling us: “You can get a loan for a vacation and don’t worry about it. We’ll do this. You can get a loan for buying stuff. No worries if you don’t have any money go for it.” So the problem is at some point as I said moneys must be paid back. And the- when the crisis came loans stopped to come. The banks themselves could not borrow from the European banks and the European market.
So the Greek state had to bail out the banks giving a blank check of 28 billion dollars- euros at the time which was a huge amount that was added to the state debt which was also huge- 300 billion euros. And the Greek state had to pay it now interest of 10% to borrow which was unsustainable.
Practically the Greek state was bankrupt. And the social democratic government of Papandreou at the time asked for a bailout from the imperialists of Europe and the IMF. This the imperialist were called to- for the so-called bailout was- were called the Troika which was the three parts the IMF the European Central Bank and the European Union.
The European Commission. And they intervened and the reason they said they intervened was to help the Greek people in the hard hours they had. In reality the reason they want to intervene was only to save the European banks and to save European capitalism because an uncontrolled bankruptcy of Greece could quickly spread out in Europe and they tried to avoid it.
Of course, this bailout had a price tag on it. It was severe austerity with which they tried to put all the burden of the crisis on the shoulders of the Greek working class. But there was another reason they did this. They wanted to have a model in order to implement the same austerity in the Greek- in the working class of other countries of Europe.
The attack on the working class of Greece had a devastating effect. The GDP of the country was reduced by 27% which was a huge, huge percentage. Average wages fell by 40%. The pensions were cut in half. Unemployment rose by 27%. And no other country in the developed capitalist world suffered such a huge reduction in GDP percentage.
Only 12 countries after 1870, over the so-called developed capitalist world, suffered such a huge reduction in GDP. But the 11 rest countries faced a war or a civil war. So Greece after all this program was like a country devastated by war. Were seeing people- old people searching the garbage. A complete disaster for the working class.
But this attack did not remain unanswered. The working class in Greece rose up again and again in a heroic movement that took many forms and in this period the working class could have taken power. I cannot go into the details because it’s not the specific point of the talk and it will take a lot of time, but the working class struggle was derailed by their trade union leaders at the time. and the leaders of the mass organizations. From 2010 to 2016 in January, where you had the last general strike, we had 44 general strikes in Greece. I mean if you hear- the European- the American working class going to a general strike it will be a revolutionary event. But in Greece we had 44 general strikes, a huge, huge mobilization. Some of them very massive. We had the movement of- the so-called movement of the squares where people occupied squares in Greece.
There were- taking the example of the Arab Revolution at the time. And from 2012 onwards they, because they were defeated in the strike movement due to the leaders, return to the electoral front and pick a small party of almost 4% and they go to government winning a few years. That was Syriza. This period of class struggle was a model historic record not only in the postwar era in the advanced capitalist world, but even in the period before where we had revolutionary movements in in Europe.
Now this was not a normal period of class struggle with just big movements. We called this period a pre-revolutionary period. And this is not to just put a label on a period, but for the Marxists it is important to have an understanding of the different stages of development of the consciousness of the working class in order to put forward the right slogans.
And we say that we had a pre-revolutionary period because the conditions put forward by the classics Lenin and Trotsky for what these revolutionary period were developing or have already matured. That was: we had the decline of the productive forces, that the ruling class was unable to govern as they did before, to have the disillusionment of the petty bourgeoisie and it’s tendency to look to the working class for a solution, the beginnings of splitting in the ruling class and finally, the majority of the workers tried to find a solution with the revolutionary action.
Now we have to ask ourselves why this pre-revolutionary period did not become an open revolutionary one. Was it because the workers were not so advanced? They were conservative. This is the explanation the Stalinists and the reformists give—the ones responsible for the betrayal of the working class. But it was not so. The decisive reason why you did not have an open revolutionary situation was not the backgrounds of the workers. It was the betrayal of the leaderships.
This brings us to the central position of this talk which is the decisive role of the leadership of the working class, which is, as Trotsky said the most decisive subjective condition for the revolutionary win of the working class.
When we repeatedly emphasize the importance of leadership- I’m sure you’ve heard it in your periphery, also, people say: “Okay every time you say the same thing. It’s the leadership, the leadership, the leadership. Is the leadership responsible for everything?” And you have to say: Okay, in a revolution there are other conditions that are important. It’s like you when you have two armies in a conventional war, it is important how well trained are the soldiers, what kind of equipment you have, soldiers you have.
Those are very important factors but who would say that the generals and the General staff is not a decisive factor? This is the same in the revolution. And as you will see in the events, the decisive role in the defeat of the Greek working class was the leadership. Now I think there is a appropriate quote, I would put in this discussion, fitting of this period from Trotsky in “Whither France?” that he said: “The situation is revolutionary, as revolutionary as it can be, granted the non-revolutionary policies of the working-class parties. More exactly, the situation is pre-revolutionary. In order to bring the situation to its full maturity, there must be an immediate, vigorous, unremitting mobilization of the masses, under the slogan of the conquest of power in the name of socialism.” And such a call never came from any leader of the Greek working class and they were led to defeat.
Syriza after 2012 replaced the main party of the Greek working class which was PASOK that had this position for over 35 years. And this happened because of course the PASOK was years in government, passing austerity policies. The second reason was that the Greek working class had sharply turned to the left the previous period.
And lastly the Communist Party, which was much stronger electorally and mainly organizationally and with roots in the working class movement of Greece, did not want to pose the question of power which was the decisive fact. Now, the masses turned electorally to Syriza but they did not do this with enthusiasm and that is because they were skeptical from the betrayals of PASOK of the previous period and they were afraid this will come very soon from Syriza.
And on the other hand they were not really enthusiastic with Syriza’s program which was a mild left reformist program. And this was reflected in the fact that we did not have the massive organizational support that we’ve seen in the PASOK in the 80s and 90s. Where the masses participated, were organized in the thousands, and tried to actively push the leadership of PASOK to the left. Syriza in reality never had massive organizational support.
In reality, by 2013 they only doubled their members from since they were 4%. In 2013 they were already 26% in the elections. And they maxed out at 35000 members. Greece has 10 to 11 million, by the way, to those who don’t know. And the youth of Syriza remained only a small sect of max 3,000 members and mostly petty bourgeois elements.
And the new elements that got inside Syriza were not enthusiastic workers and youth. Mainly they were ex-PASOK members waiting to get into government and get in positions of the state. So when Syriza was approaching government, as is always the case with the reformists, they started to shift even further to the right. In 2012 they got 27% of the vote and they abandoned some of the more extreme positions they had before this result. They stopped talking about the partial cancellation of the debt.
They stopped talking about the need for nationalization of the banks. They started to talk about the need for to talk with the Troika to have negotiations and this is absolutely normal. Now in Syriza there was also a left- so-called left-wing, left faction. It was called the left platform which consisted of a nucleus of ex-Stalinist, ex-Communist Party members, and also smaller organizations. Mainly ex-Cliffite splits.
One of them was there. Internationalists workers left, that despite being small, played a disastrous role in the movements in the events. We also had the small Maoist- relatively small Maoist sect that also played a disastrous role, as we will discuss in the end, it was named KOE, Communist Organization of Greece, and they supported Tsipras’ group which was really, really funny, if it were not disastrous. They really played a disastrous role. Now, the left platform was not a small portion of the party. They controlled 30% of the members which was a huge percent. And what were the political differences with Tsipras? What are they fighting for socialism. No. The main difference that the Tsipras group, the majority were the euro-friendly reformists.
They want to reform not only Greece but the whole of European capitalism. And left platform were the Eurosceptic reformists. They wanted to get out of the Euro, print the Greek currency, the drachma, and start printing massively drachmas to pay the debt, pay the wages and everything is good. Something like the Americans are doing years now. But the difference is that one is a powerful imperialist country with a strong currency, and the other is a very weak capitalist country. If they did this, if they print drachmas, try to solve the problems, they will be printing just colored paper, and that will surely lead to hyperinflation and a new disastrous stage of Greek capitalism. So this platform also started to turn to the right after 2012. In reality, they were the loyal opposition of Tsipras. In no Congress, and no Central Committee they presented an alternative document. They always made small amendments and they always supported the main line of the leadership. This includes the small sects that were around the left platform. The Cliffites made just corridor intrigues that they present as real politics, and they didn’t present one amendment one serious alternative to the leadership of Syriza.
The only tendency that presented alternatives, that gave a fight in all this period and had clear perspectives, is our organization and our international.
About that—about our international. I would suggest the comrades, if some comrade is reading about those events, to go back in the website of the international and find our text, our program of this period. There are crystal clear analyses of what was happening and what should happen. In reality, we are the only tendency that could reread what we wrote in this period and be proud of it.
All the other organizations if they read what they were telling at the period they will get into crisis and split. We were saying the following: “The overall shift to the right of all the main leadership factions prepares an even greater shift to the right in government. Syriza leaders lack the appropriate program to face the suffocating pressure of the Troika and capital once in government. But they seem to already have a democratic alibi ready to avoid direct confrontation. The popular vote. When the moment of a resounding failure of their so-called negotiation comes, the majority and the left platform leaders appear willing to support a referendum.
It is certain that the leadership in government will find itself between colossal opposite class pressures. The Troika will seek to demonstrate exemplary harshness in its demands to the Syriza government sending a message to the rest of the southern European governments, to the leaders of Podemos, and to the working class across Europe, including Germany. The great bourgeoisie using controlled private media who will launch an open frenzied attack.
On the other hand the working class encouraged by Syriza election will mobilize to pressure the government not to retreat and to send its own message of strength to capital and the Troika.” So this was us before the events showing the superiority of Marxist analysis in comparison of opportunistic blindness and empiricism.
When Syriza came to government, it would be fitting to use the quote from Engels that said there were some days in which there are condensed 20 years. This was this period, condensed with heightened class struggle. Syriza won the elections in 2015 36.3% with huge support in the working class areas and the youth. And this represented accelerating radicalization of the workers. Now if in the place of Syriza, you had a revolutionary party, you could have at this period the working class come to power in a very short period of time. Such a party would prepare for the inevitable attack of the imperialists and the Greek bourgeoisie, which would surely kick the Greek state out of the European Union.
They would close the banks. The Greek capitalists will go on lockout. Every kind of sabotage. And the government will be faced to nationalize the banks to avoid the fleeing of capital. Nationalize the big businesses and have socialist plan for the economy. And moreover they would call on the working class of Europe—but all over the world—to support the working class struggle and very soon socialist example of Greece will pass from one country after another.
I was surprised talking at the time, comrades of the international, not only from Europe but all over the world from Latin America, Asia, that they were saying in the movement in our countries we are talking about how we can emulate the example of Syriza because it’s the first country where someone, a movement, is stepping up and showing a way out of austerity which was global.
It’s not a Greek phenomenon. But of course, the betrayal of Syriza did not affect only the Greek working class, it affected everybody in the world. The bourgeoisie all over the world said: “You see what happened in Greece? Don’t vote for the left. Don’t go for the left. Stay home.” And that had an effect for a period.
Syriza- They tried to find support in the so-called progressive bourgeoisie in Greece. Such a thing of course does not exist. And in progressive figures all over the world. Then, here in the USA, you had Obama. You had Hollande in France and Renzi in Italy.
And Syriza leaders thought that these progressive figures will help the new left government in Greece. So Syriza sets support from the Greek bourgeoisie and from American imperialism, French imperialism, and Italian imperialism. And of course nothing came out of it. When it came to government it formed a coalition—because they did not have absolute majority—with a right-wing party. So-called anti-austerity right-wing party.
Of course this was also a joke. And they proposed for president of Greece a right-wing MP, Pavlopoulos. And with this they wanted to have guarantors towards the Greek bourgeoisie, and say: “Don’t worry we want to defend the interests of the Greek capitalists. Don’t worry, we don’t want to go far away.” And they put their right-wing partner in the Ministry of Defense.
So saying: “Don’t worry, we won’t touch the army, we won’t touch the state. Everybody will be happy with these reforms we are going to pass in the next period.” They continued to implement the so-called plan. What was the plan of the reformists, in which both left-platform and Tsipras were agreeing on? It was to use the threat of exiting the European Union as a leverage to press for concessions.
Because they did not believe that they could implement real reforms. What they wanted—as it was proven by events—they wanted a mild austerity, not the crushing austerity of the memorandum. And in this way they wanted to appease the working class, appease the Greek capitalists that they had some kind of deal, and appease the international finance system—finance capital—that the situation was stabilized, and the crisis will not spread out.
But of course as we explained in the period, this was an entirely utopian plan. Some would say: “No, it wasn’t utopian. Greece was a very small economy and there could be an intervention from European Union and the IMF to cut the debt, to have a light austerity. It was a realistic.”
In reality, it was not only an economic issue happening in the abstract. It was a political and class issue. The so-called Troika and the capitalists, if they proceeded in cutting the debt, for example, other the bigger countries like Spain, Italy, even France that had problems with debt would also ask for such a measure.
And the German capitalists that were mainly paying the bill were not ready to do any such thing. More importantly if the so-called left-wing government in Greece succeeded in having light austerity then it will send the signal that this was a way out for the working class in other countries in Europe and we would have the rise of left-wing governments in one country after another, as seen with the emergence of parties and formations like Podemos.
And they were not going to allow this to happen. Now eventually we get to the point in the summer of 2015 that Tsipras, completely desperate with the so-called negotiations that got to nowhere, the Troika had promised to give money to pay the debt from February. But they withhold it until the summer. And Greece was on the verge of bankruptcy.
So they proceeded in the second part of the plan as we predicted in our perspectives document. And they proceeded in a referendum that they were asking the question: “Yes or no to the proposed memoranda, the proposed austerity of the Troika?”
This was the first time the leadership made a call to the masses to do something—to give a fight. And the masses responded massively. There was a heroic response by the masses, despite the fact that the bourgeoisie had a huge terror campaign in the workplaces. They were saying if you vote for no you will lose your job. In the media, they said: “If this referendum succeeds Greece will be destroyed. There will be an Armageddon.”
And of course economically they had the banks closed. There were capital controls. People were having lines to get money to get groceries, but this had almost no effect, comrades. There was a defiant mood in every pensioner, simple workers. They say: “Don’t care. Don’t care. Finally someone is willing to fight,” and they were willing to make sacrifices to change the situation. And just a few anecdotes on this period. First of all, this period we were really on the verge of a revolutionary crisis and you could feel it in the atmosphere. There was electricity in the atmosphere.
Everybody was talking politics. Comrades were informing me that there is a Greek cafe in Brooklyn called Omonia Cafe that when they passed at this period in front, people were shouting: “No- you will vote for yes, vote for no, what will happen?” This was the case in all over Greece. Everywhere. Everywhere. I have a friend in one Greek island.
It was summer in July. Okay. And, you know, Greek islands have a lot of tourism. And he was working in a taverna, a Greek taverna, which is a very loud place. And he said when there was a rally for the no vote and Tsipras was going to speak, there was for the first time in this taverna’s history, there was complete silence.
No one was talking. Everybody was waiting to hear the next step of action from the leader. What they believed a progressive leader. In reality, in this speech, Tsipras was preparing already to betray the working class. And I was in this rally selling the paper. People were crying on the streets. And one old lady, like 70- 60 years old.
A cleaning lady. She said finally we have a government of our own. Finally. And what can I do to help? I know the bosses, the dirty work they are doing upstairs. Tell me who can I tell? What can I say? This is the first time I see a worker describing in her own words the need for workers control.
And she was waiting for Tsipras to say what she was going to do next. And of course this call never came. Tsipras would not address the crowd anymore. He was already going to make a resounding victory of the Greek working class to a devastating defeat. The result of the referendum shocked everybody. Mostly Tsipras. It was 61.3% No. The ruling class was really in panic. You could see in their face they were—on the night of the defeat—they were white because they did not know what Tsipras would do. He could easily come to the TV and say: “Today we pass these laws and expropriate the banks, expropriate the big businesses.”
And so New Democracy, the right-wing president at the time came on TV and said if Tsipras does not make a deal with a Troika and capitulate, the citizens of the bourgeoisie—he used this word—the citizens of the bourgeoisie will have a completely different answer. Now this was class language. This was civil war language in reality.
And of course we don’t know what he really meant, but you can imagine. Use the Army, use the state, use their thugs, use the levers of the economy to strangle the working class and have a revolutionary crisis coming. And recently, the current Minister of Health of New Democracy said at the time, when there was the referendum, the first thing he did was take his family and bring them here in the USA, because he was convinced that there will be a civil war. They were preparing for such a thing. And of course they didn’t have the need to do this because Tsipras would do the spectacular “kolotoumba”—it was an international word then, it means sudden change—and defect to the enemy, defect to the bourgeoisie.
In a few days he went to the Troika and signed a much more cruel, much more severe memorandum than the one that the Greek workers voted “no” to. This defection was a crushing defeat for the working class. Someone can say: “Well, why wouldn’t the workers, you know, get out from Tsipras, vote for another left-wing party continue to struggle.”
You know. This is not how the class struggle works, comrades. After a rise in the class struggle if there is a defeat, there is inevitably demoralization. Trotsky in the Russian Revolution when he was describing the July days and the betrayal of the Social-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, he said the following, that: “The workers are running into the resistance from the bodies they want to turn over to the power”—the Soviets, to their leaders who were the Social revolutionaries and the Mensheviks “lost a clear sense of goal. From their mighty mass movement the political axis has been torn out.” And that was, of course, the same case with the Greek working class. They fought in the streets for years. They had massive general strikes. When they were betrayed by the trade union leaders they turned to the political front.
They took a small party, put to power to solve- to break with austerity. And this same party turned its guns on them and attacked them. And this completely demoralized and broke the axis of this movement. And the result was devastating. After 2015 and the betrayal of Tsipras, there was a mood of complete demoralization of the working class movement. Joy in the capitalists—that wrote a series of articles saying thanks to Tsipras, that create a condition in Greece never again existed after the fall of the dictatorship in 1970. Class peace. No rallies, no nothing, no movements. 500,000 people emigrated to survive outside Greece. And the bourgeoisie was completely happy with the situation. And of course this was also a very difficult period for the organization, in many ways still continues to be difficult, because there was this mood of demoralization.
All the students we were talking- they were thinking: “Okay I will just leave Greece, and go to emigrate abroad where they don’t have such kind of problems.” And we were fighting again against the current all this period. Of course, the situation changes, as some of you have read in February, we had the biggest political general strike in the history of Greece—just for one day, because the leaders never gave any continuation of this struggle.
But it’s a clear sign that things are changing. And we’re again in the process of the re-entering this period of mass struggle. We have to ask the question: “Okay, Tsipras was going to betray the working class, but was it possible to stop this betrayal, to stop this capitulation?” And the answer was yes. Even to the last moment there was the possibility to stop this betrayal.
If there was a force inside Syriza that would fight for such a cause. And this poses the question that in reality, if only a few thousand- I described the top membership of Syriza was 35,000 members. It’s a very small, very small number. If you had the attendance of a few thousand members, like half the percentage for the left platform, they could stop the betrayal by imposing an extraordinary Congress.
That would kick out Tsipras, who betrayed the working class, elect a new leadership with a socialist, revolutionary program. And this could be done easily by the left platform, in reality, of those crucial days. If they really wanted, they could have stopped Tsipras. They could have gone into an extraordinary congress just by having 15% of the members signing the need for a Congress.
As I said before they had 30% of the members. Like half of their members to put their names that they need the Congress. And they didn’t do that. They went to the Central Committee, which by the way was already split and turning against Tsipras. This showed the situation in the party.
The discussions in the leadership were going on that Tsipras was thinking of leaving Syriza and creating a new party. Because they thought that if he would go to a Congress he would be expelled.
In the crucial days after the betrayal of Tsipras there was a document in the Central Committee, that most of the members of the Central Committee of Syriza said they were against a memorandum. 109 out of 201 members.
So the Central Committee was against the betrayal. This of course would be much bigger percentage in the membership. But in this crucial Central Committee that was discussing the events and the betrayal of Syriza the left platform asked for a continuous Congress. This is a Congress in the statue of Syriza at the time that said you will have to make a Congress with the delegates of the last Congress.
No discussion. And the leaders cannot change. Tsipras will remain the president. Only we put forward the question of the need for an extraordinary Congress. And at this crucial discussion of the Central Committee, the Maoist organization I told you about that was supporting Tsipras at the time, left the Central Committee. So the majority was lost for the call for a Congress.
And Tsipras got his way, no Congress, no nothing. The left platform preferred to have peaceful divorce with Tsipras—they just quit the party. Make announcement: “We are leaving.” Without even discussing in the rank-and-file trying to give a fight. Nothing. And why did they do this? Why did they do this? Because they did not want to have the hot potato of a head on collision with the bourgeoisie in Greece and in Europe.
They want the small party and their positions in parliament and they would to see what happened in the next period. Of course they were kicked out by the workers. There was hate in the working class about the role of the left platform, which participate in government and to the last minute the leadership of the left platform would say to the workers: “There is no way Syriza will betray you. Keep supporting us. Keep supporting us.”
So it was not only Tsipras betrayal, Syriza leadership betrayal. It was a combination of all the main tendencies inside Syriza the played a disastrous role in those events. And of course outside of Syriza the Communist Party also played a disastrous role in all of this period, the Communist leadership, Communist Party leadership. First of all, by not posing the question of power in the beginning- in the beginning Syriza leaders knew workers want unity and they posed the question of a left-wing government and they proposed the Communist Party to be the head of this government. General secretary of Communist Party to be prime minister, and the Communist Party said no.
In an interview with the general secretary at the time, called Papariga, said: “Even if Syriza accepts socialism we will never participate in a government with Syriza.” So the workers say: “Okay this is this crazy, we will vote for the smallest party and give them the percentage.”
Even in the referendum, which was for the workers a crucial battle that polarized the Greek society completely, they had the position of spoiled ballot. That is: “Don’t participate. Because you know, Syriza is the same. He will also propose austerity. You have to choose between two kinds of austerity.”
In reality, if you think about it, the overwhelming majority of the Communist Party members would vote for no. So the spoiled ballot, it was a sabotage, strike-breaking action of the Communist Party in a serious battle. And this created a huge gulf amongst the working class masses and the Communist Party even today. This was expressed in the elections that came in September in 2015 where the Communist Party went from 5.4% in January of 2015.
And after the betrayal, which supposedly confirmed their position, they got marginal number 5.5%. 0.9% growth from their confirmation. So everybody played a disastrous role.
As I said we are what are the only ones that can hold our head high in this period, with our analysis, with our constant struggle against the position of the leadership. We produced an alternative document in the first congress of the unified Syriza in 2013 called the Communist Platform which posed all of the position what Syriza should do step by step to fight for power.
We elected two members in the Central Committee, in the party, and one the youth. But of course, we were too small. And this is also comrades, a very serious warning that we must build before the big events. I told you many examples how this disastrous event could be averted not only by the Syriza leadership, but a series of other leaders that played a disastrous role in the events.
We must fight to grow to a level that we can exploit those opportunities and create the necessary lever to intervene in events. Now comrades, the situation now is changing in Greece. We are also entering a new period and we want to enter this new period of a heightened class struggle, not with a dozen comrades, but with 100 to 200 comrades.
Probably the numbers are much higher in USA, but we’re on a good road. And I’m sure that if we don’t make a serious mistake, and I don’t think we will- it is inevitable with ups and downs to build strong revolutionary communist organizations, strong revolutionary eventually, Bolshevik parties in the USA in Greece and all over the world.
Comrades, long live the RCA. Long live the RCI!
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