Pacifism Won’t Work Greece: Cops Attack Workers’ Blockade of Parliament over Cuts, Layoffs

GREECE, June 21 — The working class in Greece is under a severe attack by the capitalist ruling class, and they are fighting back. Taking a lesson from the workers in Spain, thousands of Greek workers are occupying Syntagma Square outside of Parliament in Athens. Like the Spanish and Egyptian workers, they are setting up assemblies to discuss what actions to take against the coming cuts and layoffs. Although the workers are braving severe state repression in these acts of defiance, the assemblies are just as reformist as their Spanish and Egyptian counterparts, pushing for reformist and pacifist positions (see CHALLENGE, 6/08).

When the assemblies decided to peacefully blockade Parliament as part of a general strike against the Socialist Party-led government that approved the cuts, the state did not “turn the other cheek.” The kkkops attacked with clubs and tear gas, and the ultra-nationalist fascists in Greece began attacking many of the protestors, supporting the kkkops as paramilitary forces. So much for pacifism being anything other than a pathologically suicidal position designed to get workers to passively slaughter themselves for a pathetic “moral high ground.”

The economic aspect of imperialism is that foreign capital subjugates the national interests to the needs of the creditor states in the name of profit — and there is a lot at stake for the Greek ruling class, and capitalists around the world. The German ruling class that is behind the bailouts demands privatization of Greek resources, such as ports and utility companies. This will not only lay off thousands of workers while driving down wages, but it will also open up Greece, and thereby Europe, to their imperialist rival bosses in China and Russia, who are looking to buy ports in Thessaloniki and gain a foothold in the energy market. In addition, France, the U.S.’s closest ally in the European Union, is now in danger because a major international credit agency, Moody’s, said it might downgrade the three largest banks in France because of their exposure to Greek debt.

With a mass revolutionary communist PLP based in the native-born and immigrant Greek working class, dedicated to revolution and a communist society, the rolling strikes and looming general strikes could indeed be transformed into insurrections for state power. Unfortunately, there were a lot of Greek flags at the protest because many leftists and workers have fallen into the trap of believing that they should support their national bosses against the international bosses in the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  Unlike the old communist movement, the Progressive Labor Party believes nationalism is a dead end for the working class, and fights to organize internationally amongst all workers as a class.

Without the Party there can be no revolution.  The brave workers of Greece are inspiring to the international working class and are illustrating internationalism by learning from their class sisters and brothers in Spain and Egypt and refusing to lie down and be trampled by the bosses, but we need to build a revolutionary PLP to go all the way and seize power!