IN Greece, the Syriza government, which was elected to break with the Troika of the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank, has capitulated to all three.
It now accepts that Greece will have to repay its ‘debts’ to the EU bourgeoisie and the IMF, and carry on with the hated austerity programmes.
Currently the Troika is in Athens. Its representatives are checking the books of the Greek government in order to draw up and finalise more austerity measures.
In the early hours of last Thursday, the Vouli (Greek parliament) passed the government’s Social Humanitarian Bill that provides free electricity and health care as well as food coupons to about 30,000 families in absolute poverty.
This is a drop in an ocean compared to an estimated three million people living in Greece on the verge of poverty unable to pay the household bills and buy all the food they need.
The Bill was voted for by the opposition conservative and social-democratic parties, as in line with the requirements of the austerity agreements with the Troika of EC-IMF-ECB. The KKE (Communist Party) voted against the Bill as being too little.
Syriza has not honoured its election promise to reinstate the sacked Finance Ministry cleaners, school guards, teachers and universities’ administrative staff and to reopen the state ERT TV and radio corporation. These promises ‘will have to wait’, as Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has stated.
The Greek masses are now restive and angry and are beginning to grasp that they have been betrayed. Meanwhile, the Syriza leadership is due to meet with Putin on April 8.
Last Tuesday, in a visit that was kept quiet, the American Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the pro-imperialist coup in the Ukraine, visited Athens and met with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, and Defence Minister Panos Kammenos.
When Yanukovich refused to submit to the EU and instead turned to Russia, it was Nuland, who previously had handed out goodies to the fascists in Maidan Square that organised the coup that set the whole of the Ukraine ablaze, costing tens of thousands of lives.
The Athens American Embassy stated that Nuland discussed ‘security and defence issues, Ukraine, the anti-ISIL coalition, and energy issues’ with the leaders she met.
The USA is putting the pressure on Greece to firmly line up with the sanctions against Russia and submit to the EU. Meanwhile, the Greek Prime Minister Tsipras is to visit Moscow on April 8.
Rather than tolerate Greece turning to Russia or the working class bringing down Syriza from the left, Nuland and Co will organise a Greek right-wing coup, mobilising the Golden Dawn fascists, the military, the riot police, and the right wing to do so; of that there is not the slightest doubt.
In the Ukraine, Nuland intervened with the US ambassador Pyatt to organise the coup, and picked the new leadership.
She was recorded saying to Pyatt: ‘I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the … what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in … he’s going to be at that level working for Yatsenyuk, it’s just not going to work.’
With the capitulation of the Syriza government to the Troika, the imperialists are determined that it must not be allowed to seek a loan from Russia or to oppose sanctions against Russia.
However, the working class will now enter the scene more and more to fight the betrayals of Syriza and to mobilise for a socialist revolution, to establish a workers’ and small farmers’ government. The US coupist Nuland and the Troika must be permanently barred from entry into Greece.
Workers Councils must be set up all over the country to unite the working class and the rural poor to occupy all privatised industries and return all sacked workers to their jobs. The workers councils must establish their own workers and youth militia to defend the working class from the fascists, the right wing and the riot police.
There is only one way out of the catastrophe that threatens Greece, and that is to carry out a socialist revolution!
