Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] From crisis to resistance in Greece
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Speech: Antonis Davanellos
======== FROM CRISIS TO RESISTANCE IN GREECE =================================
July 5, 2012
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Greece has a new government led by the conservative New Democracy party, in
coalition with the center-left social democrats of PASOK, among others. The
country's new leaders claim they will demand a better deal, but Greece under
this regime will remain subject to the Memorandums--documents signed by the
government which agree to drastic austerity measures in return for a bailout
of the country's financial system.
The two parties of Greece's political establishment were nearly beaten by the
Coalition of the Radical Left, or SYRIZA. In elections on May 6--and then
again on June 17, when the first vote failed to produce a governing
majority--SYRIZA finished second overall, and dominated the turnout among
workers, the unemployed and the poor, and in Greece's major cities.
SYRIZA represents the continuation of a resistance movement that produced 17
general strikes in Greece; a nationwide movement to occupy the country's
public squares, including Syntagma Square in front of the parliament in
Athens; and many other struggles.
In the national elections this spring, SYRIZA ran on a radical program of
canceling the Memorandum and rolling back austerity measures agreed to by
PASOK and New Democracy. In spite of a fanatical media campaign to claim that
SYRIZA intended to pull Greece out of the euro--the common currency shared by
17 countries, but on the basis of financial policies primarily dictated by
the continent's largest power, Germany--voters twice nearly put SYRIZA at the
head of the Greek government.
In this speech given at the Socialism 2012 conference in Chicago, and edited
for publication here, Antonis Davanellos, a member of Internationalist
Workers Left, known by its Greek initials DEA, one of the founding
organizations to form the SYRIZA coalition, talked about the scale of the
crisis in Greece, the developing resistance, and what lies ahead for the
left.
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I WILL try to say something about the crisis and about the resistance, then a
few more things about the program of SYRIZA, and also about the other parties
of the left in this period.
The crisis in Greece has meant a huge attack on the population, and at the
same time, a huge impasse for the ruling classes.
Let's start with the attack on the population. By their own numbers and
statistics, wages in Greece in the last 13 months have fallen by 26 percent.
I don't know of an example like this in the modern history of Europe. And you
must remember that in Greece, wages were starting from a low level before the
cuts--and that we already had cuts before these 13 months.
During this period of the crisis, by our calculations, the working class has
lost almost 50 percent of its real income in three or four years. This is
huge. To find another example like this, you must go far back to the past. In
reality, you must go back before the Second World War to the period of Weimar
Republic in Germany.
The cuts have also been very severe in the pension system. In the last three
years, they have cut pensions four times. The pension system became a huge
trap for older people who cannot work because they are on pensions. If they
don't have other income, they cannot live on their pension. Poverty among the
elderly is really shocking in Greece at this time.
But the conditions for workers aren't dependent only on wages, on salaries
and on pensions. The cuts in the social spending were really unimaginable. In
the first Memorandum, which the social democrats alone signed, it was a rule
that the overall austerity program should be comprised of two-thirds cuts in
social spending and one-third increases in taxes.
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I WILL give you some examples what these numbers mean in real life. The
minister of health--he's a social democrat now, but he came from the
Communist Party--was Andreas Loverdos. He is one of the most hated figures in
Greece. He destroyed the social security system, and then he started
destroying the hospitals. One week before the election, he said that with his
party's policies, 20 large public hospitals would be closed before the end of
2013.
The reality in all the other hospitals is very bad--it is unsustainable.
SYRIZA underestimated how bad the situation was. During our election
campaign, after the intervention of doctors and nurses, we changed our
program, and we have put a big priority on saving the public hospitals.
At many of the assemblies held by SYRIZA, doctors and nurses appeared with
tears in their eyes, saying that we must do something--because we are very
near the moment when these doctors and nurses will have to stand there in the
hospitals and say to people that they must not come to the hospitals, even if
they are sick, because you would be in danger of dying from lack of medicines
and resources.
One very, very important story in Greece is about missing medicines. Greece
is a country that produced pharmaceuticals based on the latest
technologies--very expensive medicines. But the capitalists preferred to
export all this, and now there is nothing left.
I know of an example that was very shocking to me because I know the people
involved. In my own neighborhood, at an assembly of SYRIZA, two
comrades--members of Synaspismos, one of the major organizations within the
SYRIZA coalition--appeared and dared to tell their story. The story is this:
One of them is teacher, and the other is unemployed. The woman of this couple
has cancer. For three years, she has been undergoing chemotherapy.
But now, the medicines for chemotherapy have run out at the public hospitals.
So the hospital told them to go to the free market to find the medicines she
needs. These chemotherapy medicines cost more than 2,000 euros per month.
Their income is 1,000 per month. They had to go back home and discuss between
them: Should we buy the medicine, or should we continue to buy food for the
kids?
The numbers are huge--we are cutting so many billions from here, so many
billions from there. But this is what they mean in reality. These are real
stories of real people, and they aren't only about people who have cancer. In
the hospitals, there are no medicines or supplies for people who have
diabetes or asthma--for people who need ongoing medicines or treatment.
The conditions are the same in the public schools. This year, books arrived
at the schools three weeks before the end of the term--right before the start
of the examinations. And in the lower grades, there are a lot of reports of
teachers saying that many kids in class can't follow the lesson because they
haven't eaten properly for weeks, and so they can't concentrate for long.
That's the reality for the population in Greece. And that explains many
things about politics and about perspectives.
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AT THE same time, the crisis has meant an impasse for the ruling class. I
remember well the major crisis of the Eastern European countries when the
Stalinist regimes fell in 1989. The economic contraction was 12 percent at
that time--and that opened up the way for all these political changes that we
know about.
In the last three years--not including this year, but the three previous
years--the Greek economy has shrunk by more than 20 percent of gross domestic
product. The estimation was that this year, the fall in GDP will be 6
percent. Before I left the country, the latest prediction was that the slump
would be more than 9 percent by the last three months of the year.
Then there is the question of Greece's debt. The ruling class is supporting
an absolutely crazy formula. Greece's debt, after 10 years of huge austerity
programs and economic depression, is predicted to be equal to its debt in
2009. In other words, if things go /well/ for them, by 2020, the debt will be
exactly the same as it was in 2009. And all the sacrifices of the population
will be for nothing.
Every year, the Greek public funds make interest payments on this debt of
around 16 billion euros. Debt on this scale, comrades, cannot be paid.
So you find in the press speculation that the end of this process will be a
chaotic bankruptcy--a disorderly exit from the euro under the power and the
continuity of the capitalists in Greece. I don't know whether the European
Union will throw Greece out of the euro, because Greece is connected with the
future of the euro and the euro is connected with Greece. But I'm sure that
if these policies continue, it is very possible that the end of the process
would be default and a disorderly return to drachma.
The reality is that Greek capitalists prefer to stay in euro, whatever the
cost. But the danger remains that after all the austerity measures taken in
the name of staying with the euro--of what they call an "internal devaluation
inside the euro"--we will face a new austerity after being thrown out of the
euro, with huge attacks and a further drop in anything of value that working
people possess, from salaries and wages and pensions, to savings, houses,
land and so forth.
The former Prime Minister Costas Simitis has described what a return to the
drachma would mean. When Greece entered the euro, the exchange rate was 340
drachmas for one euro. Simitis believes that if Greece exits the euro, the
exchange rate will be 550 drachmas for one euro--and in a week, the new
drachma would be further devalued by 100 percent.
We must not forget that as we are speaking, the richest people in Greece have
more than 600 billion euros in the banks of Switzerland, Britain or even more
exotic places like the Cayman Islands. So you can imagine an economy with two
sides--one for workers, using the new devalued drachma, and one for the rich,
using the euros in the banks in Switzerland.
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I NOW want to go from the crisis and speak about the resistance.
The backbone of the resistance has been the working class movement--a series
of strikes, then a general strike, then a new cluster of walkouts, a new
general strike, occupations and on and on.
As an aside: Remember, comrades, how many times you heard about the end of
the working class movement? We are happy this never happened. And that itself
is important for the left, the political current that tries to change the
society based on the mobilization and in the interests of the working class
movement. So the first point is that Greece has given us many examples of
working class power that are important to the discussions about whether you
need a new movement and things like that.
The second point is that this resistance has spread everywhere in Greek
society. We say that we are protecting public space in Greece. That means
that every public hospital has become a fortress of resistance--not only, by
the way, involving the workers inside the hospital, the doctors and nurses,
but the people who are in the hospital and their friends relatives. Everyone
together works to protect and save the hospital.
Around the hospital is the neighborhood, and the chains of solidarity are
built between them. The same is true with public schools. The same is true
about child care facilities, which are absolutely crucial for working-class
families. But it's not only that--it's parks and other public facilities.
This is the public space that we are protecting against privatization,
against speculators and against austerity.
My third point is that in these circumstances, the organization of the people
is growing and spreading. And I'm not speaking about strictly political
organizations.
At the beginning of the struggle, the left created committees from below. The
most successful of these was the "I Won't Pay" committees--of people who said
they won't pay taxes, they won't pay tolls on the road from Athens to
Salonica. It was a very successful campaign. And around these committees,
further chains of solidarity were created.
But this was only the beginning. After the rise of the movement to occupy the
public squares last year, we created what we call popular assemblies, meeting
in the neighborhoods. This was very important. In the beginning, it was only
SYRIZA and ANTARSYA and some anarchists. Now, these assemblies are real. And
that means in the neighborhoods, one day each week, people are getting
together and discussing about what we have to do, or what might need
something in the neighborhood, or how we confront the fascists, or other
questions.
In the unions, there are very important developments. With every union
election, the social democrats and the right wing are losing positions, and
the left is winning positions. But that isn't enough. So around the unions,
there are many coordinating committees made up of rank-and-file fighters. All
this is very important, but even this isn't enough to confront the duties
that we have.
My last point about the resistance is that politics have become more and more
important to people. The question of power has appeared as the only method to
save our basic workers and social rights.
People have started to understand that even if you have a legal contract that
says if I work eight hours, I will get this kind of money, in order to
actually get it, you must overthrow the government. Because the owner says,
"Yes, I want to give it to you, but the government says 'no,' and the
Memorandum says 'no.'" So you must overthrow the government or the
memorandum, and you can only do this together.
This tendency has appeared electorally. SYRIZA has posed in the elections the
question of power--the question of who controls the government. This isn't
control of the state or the whole economy or society at large. But these are
the first steps of the politicization of the people.
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I WANT to say some things next about the program of SYRIZA.
The important question is the priorities that SYRIZA is highlighting and the
public discussion about these priorities, which engaged people with the
party. These are the top priorities from SYRIZA.
The first priority is that we must cancel the Memorandum. Many other left
parties have been discussing the wider program of SYRIZA, and they have many
ideas about this and that, but for us, the biggest thing was stay focused on
the need to cancel the Memorandum.
This was the point where the pressure of the enemy was at its highest, and
inside SYRIZA, there were voices calling for a "realistic" approach. They
were not traitors. They were saying that SYRIZA must ourselves more space for
maneuver--so let's say "no" to the Memorandum, not that we will cancel it.
Let's say that we are against it in order to have time to go to Brussels and
discuss the matter with Angela Merkel, and come back and decide.
But SYRIZA itself, until the end, stuck to this position. Three days before
the election, the head of the coalition, Alexis Tsipras--not me--was speaking
at a big rally of SYRIZA, and he said openly: "If SYRIZA wins the elections
on Sunday, on Monday, the Memorandum is dead." That was in all the newspapers
the next day.
The second priority is that we would stop austerity. But comrades, we don't
tell lies to the people. It's easy to say, in these circumstances, that
salaries would be, in a single day, much better, because we want them to be
better. The position of SYRIZA was that the day after taking office, we would
take the minimum wage and the minimum pension back to the level that it was
at before. And then gradually, we would try to extend these increases to all
pensions and all salaries--to raise them to what existed before, and improve
them.
You must understand that for two months, the program of SYRIZA was discussed
on the television, on the radio and in the newspapers, from six in the
morning until 12 at night. The question we heard over and over was: "Where
will you find the money to do all this?" And the answer, comrades, is simple:
We will find the money where the money is. So the third priority of SYRIZA
was that we would tax--heavily tax--business profits and the rich.
Tied to this were several important points. First, nationalization of the
banks--and that's not only in order to find the money. This is also the only
way to protect society, because the banks become very big and very dangerous.
All these new financial products they have introduced, like credit default
swaps and the like, mean that on the basis of one euro of debt, the banks are
building up much larger amounts of debt. At the end of the day, no one knows
what is happening.
This whole party must stop with a nationalization of the banks, we
said--under public, democratic, workers' control.
It wasn't by chance or because it was a lower priority that workers' control
was the third on this list. We must, at this moment, face the reality that,
in the banks, after 20 years of neoliberal policy, the unions have been
destroyed. So you have to create the force to impose workers' control.
Workers' control cannot come as a law issued by the government. The reality
is that you must organize the workers to take workers' control.
The other point tied to SYRIZA's priority is that exactly the same
nationalization under public, democratic, workers' control was promised in
all the big public enterprises that have been privatized or in danger of
privatization.
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I WANT to say a few words about two very crucial subjects in Greece.
One is about Greece's debt. Inside SYRIZA, there was a big discussion about
this question. Members of DEA--and not only DEA, but many others, including
comrades from Synaspismos--supported the position that we must say we will
immediately cancel the debt. At the end of this discussion, we came to an
honest compromise.
The compromise was the following: The first step of a government of the left
must be to control the debt. The second step is to cancel all parts of the
debt that are illegal or the product of financial speculation--and our
estimation was that this will be the biggest part of the overall debt. And
for the rest of the debt, we must demand a memorandum with conditions about
the payment--and if the creditors don't agree to this memorandum, then we
would go to the unilateral halt of any payments to the creditors. This
position was a little bit flexible, but it was a compromise to keep our huge
political current together.
The next question is about the euro. I talked before about the fears that
people have in Greece about a disorderly bankruptcy and return to the
drachma. Our position was that we would not support an exit from the euro by
our own initiative. That's the first point. The second point was that we
wouldn't accept any sacrifices for the euro. And the third point is that we
support a European fight to stop austerity by every initiative taken by the
left and the working class movement in Europe.
If you look at this all together, you can say, as some left-wing
organizations in Greece and elsewhere did, that it's "left reformism." But
this is an abstraction. In my point of view, under the circumstances that
exist in Greece today, this is a transitional program.
I want to focus on this for emphasis. What is a transitional program? Between
revolutionary left organizations, there is often a competition to propose
something more advanced toward socialism as part of a transitional program.
But that's not a transition. If such demands belonged in a transitional
program, then I have the solution: All power to the soviets. And I'm sure
that maybe someone else would find a more radical solution.
A transitional program means that you are starting from the existing
reality--that you have demands which have a consensus among an important part
of the population that is ready to fight for those demands. And through the
experience of the fight, those people can go further--to more advanced
demands and, at the same time, to bigger confrontations with the real
enemies.
This was an important part of a statement made by the Fourth International to
their section in Greece, which is part of ANTARSYA. The statement of the
Fourth International was that you should support SYRIZA, but it importantly
focused on the question of SYRIZA's demands being transitional, which is
exactly what I have tried to describe.
My last point is about other left organizations.
There is a general belief that the Communist Party of Greece is to the left
of SYRIZA. This is not the truth. The truth is that the Communist Party has
important organized forces inside the workers movement in the private sector.
But the truth is also that the Communist Party of Greece is something like
the Communist Party of France in the early 1960s: a hard Stalinist party, a
hard reformist party, and a very conservative party.
I will give you two examples of this third statement--about how conservative
the Communist Party is.
In 2008, we had the revolt of the youth in Greece against the killing of a
young student by police in Athens. For a month, every night, the banks were
burning in Athens--and each day, peaceful demonstrations were defending the
protests at night. From early on, the Communist Party first accused SYRIZA of
protecting the Black Bloc--and then they accused the police of not
intervening on time to stop the fires.
The second example was in this election. In this election, the Communist
Party was saying to the people that we cannot win--that it's impossible to
have a government of the left, it's impossible to cancel the memorandum. That
SYRIZA was telling lies, and don't trust them.
On May 6, the Communist Party won something near 8 percent of the vote. After
that, the party decided its appeal for the June election would be to tell the
working class to change their vote from SYRIZA--to tell them: "You are
irresponsible, you have voted for SYRIZA, change your vote and support the
party." "Change your vote" was the only slogan of the Communist Party to
become reality--because they lost half of their power. They now have only 4
percent of the seats in parliament.
This was a punishment of the working class for the Communist Party, and there
are many developments inside the party. We will see whether this creates
change because the apparatus of the Communist Party has the expertise to deal
with an internal situation. They are now kicking people out.
The last thing to say is about ANTARSYA. These comrades have made a sectarian
mistake that is absolutely obvious. After the election on May 6, SYRIZA made
a very generous proposition: to stand with us in a common electoral front in
the elections. We guaranteed to them their visibility, their absolute
independence and three seats in the parliament, which was exactly what they
could get with the votes that they had on May 6 if there was no minimum
percentage for parties entering parliament. They refused.
On June 17, out of every four voters that they had on May 6, they lost three.
This was also punishment.
So this is the situation in Greece, comrades--and in this situation, we are
trying to build today.
/Transcription by Leela Yellesetty and Corey Larson/.
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