At the time of the writing of this article the ruling class is continuing to search for the “right” person who as “transitional” prime minister can guarantee implementation of the unpopular measures to be taken against the people of Greece, squeezing them once again and ensuring continuation of the most savage exploitation in recent history.
English original at anarkismo.net
Let's go one step further
On the present situation in Greece
At the time of the writing of this article the ruling class is
continuing to search for the "right" person who as "transitional" prime
minister can guarantee implementation of the unpopular measures to be
taken against the people of Greece, squeezing them once again and
ensuring continuation of the most savage exploitation in recent history.
We are in a situation where new austerity - and other - measures are
continually being announced, wages cut, redundancies constantly growing,
bargaining agreements hacked to pieces, the number of unemployed and
poor people is increasing, social rights and civil liberties are being
up, where repressive mechanisms and their assistants act more and more
like a Mafia than ever before, and where society is being crushed
further every day.
As a result there is massive social unrest, as thousands of
demonstrators take to the streets and squares either as strikers or
simply as frustrated people. There are numerous new attempts at social
organising such as the local people's open assemblies and new movements
(such as the No Pay Movement), while at the same time the whole social
movement contines in its conflict and clashes with the forces of
repression and their parliamentary assistants.
The 48-hour strike called by the central union confederation GSEE
(General Confederation of Greek Workers) and ADEDY (Civil Servants'
Confederation) on 19-20 October produced a massive, unprecedented
mobilisation across the country, as thousands of workers, unemployed,
pensioners, students, schoolchildren, etc. went on strike and took to
the streets to show their opposition to the measures being taken by the
rotten political system and the plethora of laws that are now destroying
our entire society. In Athens, a vast sea of people turned out - one of
the largest strikes in recent decades - clearly showing the huge social
and political rupture between the great majority of the people and the
entire class of political and economic power. As a result, the social
plundering has been fully de-legitimised and the only weapons left in
the hands of the State and its institution is complete suppression and
the salvation generously offered by the world of parliamentary
representation.
In particular, the contribution to this process by the PAME (All
Workers' Militant Front, a syndicalist part of the Communist Party-KKE),
copying the counter-revolutionary practices of social democracy and
Stalinism since the 1920s, has tried to block every movement with
different characteristics to their own, suppressing all forms of labour
and popular radicalisation and preserving and saving the bourgeois
parliament building from angry demonstrators. This attitude by the
PAME/KKE exceeded all bounds when, on the same evening of 20 October, a
militant worker and member of this party died because of the murderous
chemicals that the police used and the party attempted to link his death
to the clashes between the KKE and other protesters. Some other left
formations have been moving on the same wavelength (perhaps with more
audacity), organizations like ANTARSYA (a non-parliamentary coalition on
the anti-capitalist left, outside the KKE) and some of their
components, together with some Maoist groups, imploring the Communist
Party to give them some attention.
But apart from the clearly repressive - at the expense of the autonomous
and non-party-aligned social movement - tactics by the Stalinists, the
miserable attitude by some parts of the protesters must also be
condemned, some sectors of which are self-characterised as anarchists
and anti-authoritarians, who attacked not the KKE guards, but the simple
PAME protesters with marbles and petrol bombs that fell into the crowd.
We must condemn these practices in the most categorical manner, as we
do the attacks of the KKE guards who used helmets and sticks against any
other demonstrators.
However, we can now see that there is a broader "systemic arch" that
includes both the State, its institutions and the parties involved in
those institutions, but also some leftist extra-parliamentary forces
which have been already deployed in the name of "safeguarding" the
constitutional system (from the "uncontrolled" people) and the
"organised" movement (that is, institutionalised syndicalist and
political representation) and is attempting to control and define the
limits of bourgeois normality within which the social anger and
indignation can move.
As the crisis deepens and the social war is exacerbated, the challenge
now is to bring up the issue of how to finally overthrow social
barbarism, by collectively building a new life on the wreck of the
entire old world which is adrift together with its components. Another
goal must be to go beyond the limits of the spectacle of mass
demonstrations, limits which are imposed by the system and the mass
media, and turn the mobilization into something more real, with more
concrete action and not just a regular spot on the TV news.
While we are at a historic crossroads, in a situation where the
possibilities for social counter-attack and subversion have now occurred
and one can no longer hide behind the alleged passivity of society, we
have seen, however, the weaknesses and failures of those forces who act
in the name of social change but who are substantially hiding behind the
mistakes and systemic choices of the institutionalised Left.
However, the forces of class-struggle anarchists are still small and
fragmented and cannot manage the burden of responsibility by themselves.
Yet the dominant characteristics of a significant part of the
anarchists are still violence for the sake of violence, hostility to any
anarchist organisation and aformalistic tendencies that lead nowhere,
despite some flashes.
But it is time that this multi-tendency current for unmediated,
horizontal, direct-democratic social disobedience and change in society,
should develop its own independent, autonomous path of struggle for
social counter-power. Through its own instruments, which have no
connection with military-style debates, parliamentary and press
aformalistic illusions. It needs this social movement to establish its
own counter-institutions for the organisation of life on the basis of
individual and collective empowerment, solidarity, cooperative economics
and direct democracy everywhere. Grassroots unions in workplaces have
appeared over the past 3-4 years, there are scattered, local, public and
open assemblies, self-managed projects that have timidly begun to
appear as a result of the generalised crisis... these all point the way.
And there are also the class-struggle anarchists, and also various
other militants who share the same views, despite their small and
scattered forces and the lack of a relevant tradition... they too must
play a multifaceted role.
Let's go one step further. If we are to bring about the social
revolution we must begin from a change in our lives towards an
organised, creative way! For anarchy and communism!
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