A few quick points about the Greek Elections by Norman Markowitz

by: Monday 18 June 2012

I've been reading about the Greek elections , the sudden but quickly  fading  band and stock market happiness that the old guard looks like it will be able to form a governent, President Obama's unneccesary and unwise praise for the results(given the fact that the leaders of Syriza made clear their willingness to stay in the "Euro Zone" and even their sympathy for some of his goals in seeking to defend peoples interests.

Let me make a few very quick points which mass media here isn't highlighting at all

1. Syriza finished with 26.9%  about 2.7 % percent behind the rightwing New Democracy, and way ahead of Pasok, the social democratic party  The KKE(the Greek Communist Party) which  not only opposed Syriza but denounced it, received 4.5% of the vote.  Although the position of the CPUSA is not to criticize other parties, I can' help as an individual but state the obvious.  Had the KKE formed a united front with Syriza(which the center and the right throughout Europe, especially in Germany have been villifying) Syriza would have run first and have had the possibility of crafting among the various parties and factions a left center government to challenge the austerity policies

2.  The neo Nazi Golden Dawn party, which specializes in storm troop hoodlumism, received 6.9 % of the vote, "hanging around" Greek politics and, according to British and European press reports, having a significant following in the Greek police, a clear and present danger politicaly

3. The election solves nothing of course for the European crisis or for the Greek people.  The issue remains one of shifting the burden of the crisis from the backs of the working class unto capital and the wealthy, of reviving both employment and mass purchasing power, not, as one left comentator noted, making the Eurozone into the Fourth Reich  in economic terms, with the prime ministers of the various countries becoming the Gauleiters of German finance capital, which has been calling the austerity tune in Europe and put the squeeze most heavily on Greece

4. As a good friend said about the United States(and this from a progressive person not involved organizationally with any left party or faction) we in the U.S. should be so lucky as to have an electoral force like Syriza which could on its own gain more than a fourth of the electorate and put real fear into the capitalist class

Norman Markowitz

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  • Steve Johnson's responses are intelligent and reasonable, unlike some of the cartoon tirades that were the responses from KKE supporters on the Bell Forum, which I am not able to answer, since I cannot register in their system however much I try. I would say though that a Syriza led coalition would be in a position to negotiate much better EU deal because it woud be clear to the EU leaders that they were not dealing with New Democracy and Pasok, with those they were used to controlling. Also, the KKE would actually be in a better position to influence(assuming they tone down their imitation of early 1930s Communist party denunciations of socialists as the agents of fascism) to move a left-center coalition in the direction of creative alternatives, experiments, to deal with the crisis.
    Speaking for myself only, not the cpusa as an organization of which I have no right to speak, from reading of KKE materials I seem them acting as self-segregating sectarians in the present crisis. And they simply don't have the mass support in elections or in the society to be effective. The more they continue to advance these policies, the less likely they will be to advance either the interests of the working class or to strengthen themselves
    The military and police threats certainly do remain. They deserve to be taken into consideration more than they have been, certainly by both the KKE and the international movement
    Norman Markowitz

    Posted by norman markowitz, 06/21/2012 12:46pm (12 years ago)

  • A few comments.
    SYRIZA is a very heterogeneous group which includes ex-KKE people, Trotskyites, Maoists, left-Greens, and left social democrats. So it is likely to be pulled in different directions going forward. But its leader Tsipras seems to have some political skill as well as audacity. He refused to join a coalition with Nea Democratia (now finalized with ND, PASOK and Democratic Left, and Antonis Samaras as prime minister) because he said that would involve supporting the austerity package. However, he also said that SYRIZA did not want to leave the Euro zone or the European Union. Polls show most Greeks wantint to stay in both. How you oppose austerity but stay in the Euro/EU remains to be seen; it would require changes in policy by the EU / Eurozone leadership. We will now have to see if the new president of France, Francois Hollande, will have some impact on EU austerity policies, or try. He was quoted yesterday or the day before in L'Humanite, the newspaper of the French Communist Party, as saying that France should not be sucked into the game of extortion against Greece, or words to that effect. Time will tell if those are just words. At any rate, for Greece to extricate itself from the present horror can not be accomplished by Greece (population 11 million) alone, but has to involve struggle at the European level and beyond. Also this involves internal class struggle in Greece, which has a bloated military budget and an exceptionally selfish ruling class. Shipping magnates, for instance, by law pay no income taxes. KKE has called for Greece to withdraw from NATO, and SYRIZA's program calls for the dissolution of NATO. To me this amounts to the same thing, and, of course, is what we are all fighting for.
    As for Obama's statement, it is international protocol among states that either the head of state or of government or both congratulate the winners of elections in other countries. This has sometimes annoyed the opposition; for example, when Ernesto Zedillo was elected president of Mexico in 1994 Cuban president Fidel Castro sent him one of these routine congratulatory notes, which greatly annoyed some people in the Mexican left. But to imply that the election of a conservative government pledged to the austerity promises is a positive step, is, of course, quite mistaken.
    I quite agree with Norm that if we had a left wing electoral party half the size, even, of SYRIZA in the United States, our prospects would be quite improved.

    Posted by , 06/21/2012 12:43pm (12 years ago)

  • Point 1 seems wrong. SYRIZA was committed to the EU and there isn't the slightest reason to think that they could successfully negotiate away the memorandum. The KKE is now free to fight the austerity by labor action and direct political means, without being demoralized by abandoning the opposition as a pact with SYRIZA would have required. SYRIZA has already conceded they will not oppose the new coaliation. Of coure, the KKE may yet fail. The menace from the military and Golden Dawn remains.

    As for the "unnecessary and unwise" praise, I expect the President is a shrewd enough politician to know when diplomatic praise for an opponent is required. Since it is not, I expect it was a good to make a politically popular (with certain forces) statement of moral principle.

    Posted by steven johnson, 06/20/2012 4:27pm (12 years ago)

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