THE Syriza party won the last Greek general election with its declarations that once elected it would put an end to the austerity dictatorship from Brussels and Berlin that has pauperised the Greek people.
It immediately began to crumble and like the Labourites in the UK began to peddle a more humane austerity programme, that became heavier and heavier as the EU tightened its grip on Syriza’s throat.
Syriza leaders made dozens of trips to Russia to see if Putin would be willing to extend to Greece desperately needed financial support, but found out to their cost that Putin wants to repair his bridges with the EU, that were badly damaged by the US-EU coup in the Ukraine, not burn all of his boats at one sitting by appearing to become the champion of the Greeks.
After a few months in office, Syriza has made a final bankrupt gesture, by calling a referendum to let the Greek people decide either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to more savage austerity measures, when it was elected by the Greek people because of its pledge that it would stop all austerity measures.
It has now completely buckled, and tossed the red hot potato of austerity into the hands of the working class, and created a situation where, in the next week, up to and then after Referendum Day, the EU will be doing its best to destroy what is left of the Greek banking and industrial system, alongside all kinds of provocations to try to terrify the middle class and the rural poor into voting ‘yes’ on the basis that it is the only way to avoid absolute starvation.
The Syriza coalition has ceased to be the Greek government and has become just another tool of the EU in the Greek crisis, to the point where the Greek Interior Minister Voutsis, who moved the referendum motion in the parliament, has declared that, if the ‘Noes’ win, the Syriza regime will still carry on negotiating with the EU!
However, the Greek working class which fought the Nazi occupiers to a standstill, and then the British army, and then drove out the ‘Regime of the Colonels’ is more than up to the task. The Revolutionary Marxist League is leading the way with its demand for a massive turn out for the referendum to deliver a major blow to the EU and to the Syriza centrists.
The League however is also calling for the working class not to halt at a ‘no’ vote but to organise to carry out the Greek socialist revolution. In the next week, the working class and the youth must establish People’s Assemblies (Soviets) in every city and town in the country, to take charge to prevent both political provocations and ordinary people going hungry and suffering as the crisis develops.
There are undoubtedly going to be EU-US-organised provocations in the week and period ahead so it is necessary to establish, from amongst the working class, the youth and students, a workers’ militia that can protect the interests of the working class against all attempts at provocations by right-wing and military-police forces.
A victory in the referendum must be the signal for an indefinite general strike to boot out the Syriza regime and replace it with a Workers’ and Small Farmers’ government. In a situation of a US-EU-produced economic catastrophe, the working class must see to it that the banks and all of the major industries are nationalised and put under workers’ management, and that all state food and fuel stocks are secured and under the control of the working class.
In fact, this great revolution that is emerging, and which Syriza and the EU have failed to douse, is the beginning of the European socialist revolution. It will be supported by the working class of the EU and the United States who are fed up to the teeth with capitalism and its crisis and its austerity measures.
A Greek Workers’ and Small Farmers’ government will quit the EU and NATO and will link arms immediately with the workers of France, the UK and Germany, in fact with all of the workers of the EU states, to begin the historic struggle for the Socialist United States of Europe, run and controlled by the working class, with the bankers and bosses expropriated and replaced by planned production to satisfy the needs of the people of Europe.
This is the way forward. The Greek workers are taking it and will be followed by the workers of Europe!
