MASSES of workers and youth clashed with the state forces in the Greek capital Athens yesterday, on the first day of a 48-hour general strike by all of the main trade unions.
The masses are furious that after the EU-appointed Greek government leaders (Quislings) accepted the massive austerity programme to be imposed on the Greek workers to pay the debts of the EU bankers and bosses, the EU central bank and the IMF have demanded even bigger cuts.
The EU’s bankers and bosses are determined to drive the Greek working class into pauperism and starvation to try to save the bankrupt and out-of-date capitalist system.
The Greek working class and the youth are determined not to accept such measures, meaning that we are on the brink of a massive collision of class forces in Greece, without any possibility of a class compromise of any sort – we are on the brink of the Greek socialist revolution and the beginning of the European socialist revolution.
After the Greek Quislings accepted the harsh austerity measures, the eurozone leaders demanded a further 325 million euros of savage cuts before the Greek government can receive their 130bn euros of bail-out funds.
The EU bosses are determined that the Greek workers must be crushed to save the euro. Angela Merkel is on record as saying: ‘if the euro fails, Europe fails.’
The ministers who met in Brussels on Thursday said their new conditions must be fulfilled by next Wednesday, when they are due to meet again to consider releasing the bail-out funds.
Already, Greece is deep in slump with unemployment rising above 20 per cent. On Thursday, Greece’s three-party coalition approved a new austerity plan including 15,000 public-sector job cuts, the ending of collective bargaining in industry, the slashing of the minimum wage by 20 per cent, and by 30 per cent for young workers, and the destruction of the existing pensions system.
Only a military police dictatorship can impose this programme. Any such attempt will be met by an insurrection of workers and youth who have already formed popular assemblies (soviets) to control the local areas.
The massive resistance of the Greek workers to the rabid austerity plan will send the euro currency and the euro banks crashing.
This will deepen qualitatively the capitalist crisis all over Europe.
The tendency to have non-elected, selected governments to impose dictatorial measures has already spread from Greece to Italy and Portugal. There will be attempts to impose such dictatorships all over Europe to impose Greek-style savage austerity measures as the banks begin to wobble and then tumble.
This is not a Greek struggle or even a European struggle, it is a worldwide struggle of the working class which requires revolutionary leadership to resolve the problem of power by the working class seizing it from the bourgeoisie and establishing workers states, ie the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This revolutionary crisis can be seen everywhere, including the UK. Here, the Health and Social Care Bill launched by the Tories, with such arrogance that they have been implementing it before it has even been passed by parliament, has turned into a poisoned chalice for the Tories.
Tory MPs are already screaming that the vast opposition of the working class, their unions and the professional associations to the privatisation of the NHS will do for the Tory Party what the Poll Tax did to Thatcher – bring it down.
However, the truth is even more concrete. Then, it was just the Poll Tax. Today, the entire Welfare State is at stake. To defend it, the working class of the UK will organise a socialist revolution, not just a change of Tory leader.
The Greek, the British, the EU and the workers of the world are now faced with carrying out the world socialist revolution. We must build up the Fourth International to see that they have the leadership that is required to do the job!
