A huge Athens strike rally on Wednesday demanded the resignation of the ‘murderers’ government’ of Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis.
Under glorious sunshine tens of thousands of Greek workers and youth marched through the Athens city centre to a magnificent rally of an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 outside the Vouli building (Greek parliament).
The march and rally were fully dominated by the continuous chanting and shouting of slogans demanding the resignation of the current right-wing government.
‘Down with the government of murderers’ shouted mass contingents of school students from every Athens education district, while the massive secondary teachers’ contingent kept on chanting ‘indefinite struggle to overthrow the murderers’ government.’
Only the previous night all the leaders of the opposition parties, of the social democratic PASOK, of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and the Coalition of the Left party (SYN), having met with Prime Minister Karamanlis, refused to call for the resignation of the government.
Wednesday’s rally was organised by the GSEE (Greek TUC) which had called a 24-hour general strike against the ‘economic policies’ of the government.
According to trade unionists’ reports, the strike was most successful in government and municipal offices and services, schools, hospitals, ports and airports, railways, telecommunication, banks, electricity and the post office.
The strike had limited success in manufacture, chemical plants and other large factories as the GSEE leadership have refused for years to carry out serious trade union work there, bowing to the pressures from government, businessmen and managers.
The Greek Communist Party (KKE) held their own separate mass rally of some 15,000 youth and workers mostly from the construction, engineering and garment industries.
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They staged a short demonstration away from the Athens city centre.
The GSEE leaders had bowed to the demands of the government and cancelled their own demonstration so as to ‘avoid troubles’!
They got the absolute contempt of the tens of thousands of workers and youth who marched in an insurrectionary mood from the Athens Polytechnic to the Vouli.
The GSEE bureaucrats staged a hasty half-hour rally outside the Vouli to avoid the thousands that were marching into the square.
Shocked by the power and the demands of the demonstrators, the GSEE President Yiannis Panagopoulos was forced to state that ‘if the government does not change policy, then it will be overthrown’ and called yet another 24-hour general strike for December 22, on the date the Vouli votes on next year’s Budget, already declared obsolete, due to the economic crisis, by the Minister for Economy himself!
After the largest part of the rally had left the square in an orderly fashion with their banners high up, the armed riot police moved forward out of the Vouli building’s grounds and attacked the school and university students still in the square.
The riot police threw dozens of tear-gas grenades and stun and smoke bombs as they were showered with stones and water bottles.
The square and the surrounding roads became a battlefield.
Fighting spread to the Polytechnic campus and to University of Athens buildings.
Fierce street battles also took place throughout the day and into late evening in several Greek cities.
Wednesday’s massive demonstration and its central demand for the ‘overthrow of the government of murderers’ have brought the Greek working class and youth ahead of the left-wing trade union, political, and students’ leaders who have been organising the protest marches for the murder of the 16-years old school boy Alexis Grigiropoulos last Saturday night.
No marches or rallies have been called for the rest of the week.
Only the Greek Trotskyists of the Revolutionary Marxist League have called and fought for the continuation of the daily demonstrations in par with an indefinite general strike to get rid of the Karamanlis government.
The Coalition of the Left party told students to go back to their schools and universities, shut for the last three days, and fight there.
The Greek Communist Party have no mobilisations planned nor have the other left-wing parties and groups.
At the highest point of the fight, the lefts are abandoning the struggle and ordering students back to schools and strikers back to work, breaking up the revolutionary mobilisations and isolating students and workers from each other.
Meanwhile the right-wing government are stabilising themselves and are preparing to take the offensive.
But they now have to face a youth revolutionary movement who have made tremendous political strides.
The task now is the forging of a revolutionary youth leadership.
