AS the economic crisis continues to tear Greece apart and drives forward a revolutionary surge amongst workers and youth, so it is driving the Greek bourgeoisie, with the active connivance of their European capitalist masters, to dump bourgeois democracy in favour of outright and brutal dictatorship.
To this end, the Greek state is clearly marshalling the attack dogs of capitalism, the depraved forces of fascism, protected and encouraged by the police, and bolstered by the openly racist policies of the government.
In its great fear of the working class, the Greek state, with the full endorsement of the EU, has embarked on a campaign of openly targeting immigrants and asylum seekers and making them fair game for the brutal attacks of fascist gangs from the Golden Dawn party.
This is clearly brought out in the report published by Amnesty International yesterday which denounced the Greek state’s treatment of immigrant workers and young children as ‘shameful and appalling’.
The report indicts the Greek government for systematically failing to provide the most basic requirements of safety and shelter for thousands of migrant workers, singling out the plight of unaccompanied children being held in ‘very poor conditions’ at the Corinth detention centre.
Last August the government gave the signal for the opening up of brutal attacks against migrant workers when it detained 6,000 in a nationwide crack-down and announced that 1,600 of these would be deported.
Last week saw the completion of a 6.4 mile-long fence of barbed wire along the border with Turkey, a border that is enthusiastically supported by the EU and was built and managed with assistance from Frontex, an EU border control agency.
As a result of this fence, migrants have been forced to attempt to cross into Europe by the dangerous sea route.
Recently, 21 migrants died trying to cross the Aegean Sea in a boat, while Amnesty’s Greek branch accused the police of repeatedly jeopardising migrants’ lives by turning back intercepted boats, even knifing one group’s inflatable dinghy and sending another boatload back with no life vests.
John Dalhuisen, a director of Amnesty, said: ‘The situation in Greece today is totally undeserving of the Nobel Peace Prize recently awarded to the European Union.’
The Greek government is consciously whipping up a hatred of foreign workers, blaming them for the crisis that is tearing the Greek economy apart, with the Public Order Minister stating that they are a ‘bomb at the foundation of the security of the state’.
Complementing the state attack on migrant workers and asylum seekers has been the sharp increase in attacks by fascist gangs from the neo-Nazi New Dawn.
In their report, Amnesty draws attention to the ‘dramatic increase’ of racially motivated attacks which are now reported on almost a daily basis.
While these fascist gangs enjoy the support and protection of the state and its police force, anti-fascist demonstrators are beaten and arrested.
What the Greek capitalist state, in its death agony, is preparing is nothing short of a pogrom against foreign workers, as a prelude to imposing a right-wing military dictatorship, a return to the rule of the colonels that was overthrown in 1974.
Only by imposing a brutal military regime can the weak and desperate Greek bourgeoisie hope to carry out the savage austerity measures demanded by the EU and the bankers.
This task requires the defeat of the powerful revolutionary movement of the working class and the youth by the state.
For the working class to overcome the enemy it is vital that they dispense with the treacherous leadership of the Stalinists and reformists in the unions, and launch an all-out general strike and occupations to bring down the government and advance to a workers’ and small farmers’ government and socialism.
Central to this struggle is the rapid building up of the Trotskyist movement in Greece, the Revolutionary Marxist League, to provide the necessary revolutionary leadership.
