THE fact that Papandreou has had to sack the Greek Military General Staff at the same time as he has angered Sarkozy and Merkel with his announcement of a referendum on the EU’s austerity programme for the Greek workers and poor is no surprise.
Papandreou has tried might and main to pauperise the Greek people for the benefit of the EU’s bankers, but the working class has seen him off
He is now history and his government is set to fall either today or any day soon.
The bosses of Europe having failed to impose what they want through a parliament will now seek to do it through another regime of colonels. Papandreou clearly wants to avoid becoming another Allende. He is therefore getting out!
Last night he had a meeting on the fringes of the G20 conference with an enraged Sarkozy and Merkel who informed him that there can be no renegotiations of the austerity programme: i.e. there can be no compromise.
Merkel in the run-up to the original deal had told her Party conference that maintaining the unity of the EU and the euro was the only way that a return to war could be avoided in Europe.
The Greek workers have shown a defiant response to this open threat of the return of the jackboot.
Workers in the Greek city of Thessaloniki were yesterday carrying banners written in German, and stating ‘One people, one Reich, one Euro’, and ‘No to a new German occupation’.
A Greek ‘wanted’ poster bearing the photos of PM George Papandreou and finance minister Evangelos Venizelos saying ‘Wanted by the Greeks’ was also widespread on the streets.
It is now becoming clear for all to see that far from looking to a referendum or a new general election to resolve the crisis, the massive resistance of the working class to the austerity programmes has led the EU ruling classes to embrace the notion that if they want to see the austerity programme carried out and the euro saved from the socialist revolution, the only answer is military police regimes in Greece and in other EU states.
However, the Greek workers do not have memory problems. They know how the workers were made to suffer under the Colonels in the 1970s.
They also know that revolutionary measures were necessary to overthrow them and that revolutionary actions will be required to defeat the modern Colonels.
The Greek working class will fight the threat of military police dictatorship by organising the socialist revolution, to bring in a workers and small farmers government, as the beginning of the end for the EU and the beginning of the European Socialist revolution.
Greek ministers yesterday morning voted unanimously for the referendum on the bailout deal to take place in December.
Inevitably in Ireland, and Portugal and Spain, demands will be made for referenda of the entire people to reject the austerity programmes that are being forced on people who have not even a shred of responsibility for the world crisis caused by the bosses and the bankers and their capitalist system. The workers of Europe are about to rise!
The Greek working class must now organise to take the power and establish its own government.
This is the only way to see off the colonels and their backers throughout the EU.
Organising the struggle for power requires a revolutionary leadership. This means that the Greek section of the Fourth International must be built up rapidly, without delay.
There is no doubt that the Greek revolution is the beginning of the European socialist revolution.
The only way that the working class will be able to hold the power in Athens will be to spread the revolution throughout Europe, to bring the EU to an end and begin its replacement with the Socialist United States of Europe, with nationalised banks and industries and a planned socialist economy that will see production in Europe based on satisfying people’s needs and not providing super profits for bankers, bosses and speculators.
