The political system - Political forces and currents in Greek society

New Left Current for Communist Liberation 5^th CONGRESS

The political system - Political forces and currents in Greek society

The political system is being reshaped

1. The political system in Greece is being reshaped, while at the same time the attitude of the bourgeois political forces to important events of the last years (relations with EU-NATO, pandemic, refugee crisis, agreement on the NATO bases, electoral law, Greek-Turkish rivalry, wars) constitutes a political scene in which the consensus of the parties of the bourgeois administration plays a key role. New Democracy emerges as the authentic exponent of the bourgeois policy that dominates this phase. However, the bourgeois political system has not solved the problems of its stabilization. On the contrary, signs of a crisis of representation are appearing. This is reflected by certain features, such as the relatively "fragile" tolerance of popular strata towards ND and government policies on a number of issues, the deep crisis of the second pillar of bourgeois rule (SYRIZA) - which reaches degenerative and disintegrating phenomena -, the very high rate of abstention, especially in the three electoral processes of 2023. The decisive factor and catalyst for developments at this level will be the class struggle, the intensity and the form it will take.

Political forces and currents in Greek society

2. The New Democracy and its government consistently supports the need of the bourgeoisie to accelerate and complete the reactionary changes that Greek capitalism needs. It is the policy generally followed by the EU and governments all over Europe. The hegemony of the New Democracy is supported and is a result:

a. The impact on Greek society of the great reactionary transformations of the memorandum period with the strong blow to the working class and the popular strata on the ground of the defeat and retreat of the “anti-memorandum movement”, both by the bourgeois transformation of SYRIZA and its governing experience and by the general inability of the class forces to prevent the retreat and defeat.

b. The exploitation of other crises, such as the refugee crisis, the Greek-Turkish conflict and the war in Ukraine, as it invests both in the nationalist current in Greek society and in the need for “stability” that touches the popular strata

c. Its ability to build social alliances, appease opposition and buy consciences with the "weapon" of EU funds and the relaxation of fiscal stability rules over the past three years. New Democracy has the support of the powerful establishment media, promoting social alliances using the state apparatus and state funds. A catalytic element is the absence of a substantial opposition to the aggressive bourgeois line and policy of the New Democracy.

3. SYRIZA, as a bourgeois political party, claims to remain in the position of the second power, being one of the two main expressions of the so-called "democratic centre" (the other being PASOK) in our country. It agrees with the ND government on the basics and differs on individual issues. The social policy it proclaims is fully in line with EU policy, does not affect capital's profits in the slightest, does not overturn the anti-labour framework in wages and work, while any "redistribution" it proclaims is within the absolutely permissible framework of "fiscal stability". In foreign policy, it moves firmly within the framework of US and NATO policy. On the refugee issue, he supports the EU-Turkey agreement, the Evros [the river on Greece-Turkey river} fence, and proposes forced labour for refugees. He is absent from the mass movement, often even openly sabotaging it (e.g. struggles in education). The course of crisis and the degenerative phenomena in SYRIZA (resignation of Tsipras, election of Kasselakis, search for a new political identity at a distance from any leftist "tradition" and reference, bleeding of members and electoral base etc.) create more general processes and rearrangements in the so-called "center" of the bourgeois political system, which will crystallize in the next phase in order to strengthen the bourgeois power bloc as a whole. Overall, SYRIZA is not an alternative to unpopular policy, both on the basis of its experience as a government administrator and as a consensual opposition, a position reinforced by the current crisis and its overall course. The attempts to re-establish the "authentic", "leftist" SYRIZA by those who left and the attempts to create a new party in this area have nothing to offer.

4. PASOK is a party of bourgeois social democracy. It casts itself as a tabilizing factor in the system and projects its contribution to system-critical choices. It is openly praised by the bourgeois system and supported by sections of the media, so that the bourgeois "modernizing" social democracy can intervene in political developments and be another political crutch in the effort to stabilize the system in the face of popular discontent. Political developments - after the last elections - are shaping certain possibilities for further upgrading the role of PASOK, on the basis of the crisis of SYRIZA, the processes in the so-called "democratic center" will continue, with the aim of shaping new conditions and correlations for the reconstruction of a second pillar of bourgeois politics towards the "right", in an effort to stabilize the bourgeois-party political system.

5. In the area of the far right, new forms appear, in a different way and expression than in the previous phase with the Golden Down. The rise of far-right currents is above all the result of the overall aggressive, reactionary shift in mainstream politics on all issues, especially around so-called national issues, immigration, issues of 'order' and 'security', racism and anti-communism. This 'legitimizes' in the popular consciousness the views of nationalist, racist and religious organizations that influence the political scene in a right-wing direction. These forces are reinforced by the system: by a section of the ruling class, by shipowners, judges and the church. The entry of three far-right parties into parliament, including the fascist 'Spartans', is also 'riding on' a strong far-right wind across Europe and the integration of large sections of the far-right into the official bourgeois political system (Le Pen, Meloni, AfD, etc.). The far-right exploits in a reactive way social issues that have emerged in the past years ('anti-vaccination', irrationality, racism, patriotism, nationalism, 'anti-immigration') in order to renew its social 'resources', while the government of the New Democracy and the mainstream media, with their political agenda and rhetoric, have become a major sponsor of the far-right. At the same time, it attempts to "wash itself" of the stain of anti-Semitism by blatantly supporting Israel and the massacres it is committing in Gaza - which, in fact, it links to the necessary "cleansing" of Europe from the “threat of Islam”.

Overall, the far right has as its background a value shift towards individualism, cannibalistic competition, the apotheosis of blind violence against the "different", the rise of irrationalism, nationalism and religiosity. The far right and fascism have as their main social reservoir certain sections of the poor popular strata, who find a false reactionary 'anti-systemic' appeal. To counter the far right, along with the battle in the street, requires a strong communist current, the building of an ideological, political, cultural, revolutionary current of workers' and internationalist humanism that will inspire the youth and workers.

6. MERA25 DIEM is a force of contemporary social democracy and moves within the bourgeois scene and within the framework of the EU. It puts forward the need for Keynesian management of the capitalist crisis - already out of the question in the context of capitalism - in the even weaker version of Euro-Keynesianism. Therefore, it obscures the character and purpose of the EU by claiming that its central institutions, and especially its powerful capitalist states, will undertake to 'transfer' resources (i.e. give up their profits) to weaker economies, such as Greece, and even to the working classes rather than to the bourgeoisie. Its political proposal is a managerial technocratic proposal within the system, projecting a model of “healthy competitive” Greek capitalism. It does not raise the question of the country's exit from NATO.

With the formation of the "Alliance for the Rupture" it tried to project itself as a broad unifying anti-ND frontal force. The "rupture" put forward by MERA25 was nothing but a proposal of "realistic disobedience" within the EU framework. The recent election results are a defeat for MERA25, who tried to repeat the politics of the "good old" SYRIZA of 2015. This caricature of "rupture" fails to convince and inspire the struggling people, as MERA25 is operating as a strictly leadership and electoral party, without roots and member organizations. The failure of SYRIZA and MERA25's policy is not due to the fact that the people in general are "afraid of a rupture", but because their policy is within the suffocating framework of bourgeois politics, without a program and a horizon of rupture, doomed to crash on the rocks of reality.

7. The KKE consolidates and strengthens its role as a basic force of a communist reformism and containment of radical tendencies within the limits of the system's basic strategic choices. The main feature that defines its physiognomy is the absence of a revolutionary strategy and the corresponding revolutionary tactics to serve it. There is an increasingly blatant lack of reference to the need and the paths of revolutionary overthrow in Greece for the transition to socialism/communism. Instead, the scheme of "permanent parliamentary reinforcement" prevails, where the element of revolutionary intersection is absent. In practice, the KKE continues along the line that has marked its intervention and role in its historical path, mainly in the top events and turning points of the class struggle, both earlier and more recent historically, in which it plays the role of a stabilizing factor instead of an instrument of escalation of the class confrontation, as would befit a revolutionary communist party.

KKE communist physiognomy is mined by the identification of the communist "vision" with the experience of the societies of "existing socialism" that overturned the conquests of the October Revolution. The KKE describes a social change that will emerge from a revolutionary situation, without referring to ways of approaching it. Any positive self-critical positions (e.g. the participation in bourgeois governments 1989-90) are not transformed into cuts in his political line today. It shows adaptation to central issues raised by the bourgeoisie, especially the so-called “national” ones (refugees, Macedonian Issue, Greek-Turkish antagonism, EEZ/exploitation). It is characteristic that, despite its positive stance on the war in Ukraine and Palestine, it follows an opposite methodology on the Greek-Turkish antagonism. It does not advocate independence vis-à-vis both bourgeoisies, confuses EEZs with "sovereign rights", insists on the one-sided denunciation of "Turkish aggression", yields to the aggression of "our" bourgeoisie. On the occasion of the crime in Pylos (where hundreds of refugees died in a shipwreck), it went so far as to formulate the unacceptable position of "gathering and sorting refugees in Turkey", yielding to the pressure of the system.

In recent times, there has been a constant scrutiny and political encouragement of the KKE by various systemic circles, aiming at its assumption of an increased role in terms of the integration of social and political discontent and the 'risks' that an uncontrolled expression of it would entail. However, today, against the background of the retreat and fragmentation of SYRIZA the KKE is recorded as a tendency of left opposition of workers and youth at the central political level. It seeks to project itself as the only solid and coherent force of the left that is "useful" to the people. In conclusion, with this physiognomy, the KKE cannot play the role of a modern party of revolution and communist perspective.

8. In the space of the extra-parliamentary left, there are also organizations and forces with a reformist conception and action, which put forward logic of "left governmentalism” with elements of "productive reconstruction" of Greek capitalism. They move along a line of pan-left unity and anti-neoliberal fronts and reduce a number of central political objectives of rupture (such as the question of the exit from the EU). In the labour movement they do not take a line of break with bourgeois trade unionism and support a program of trade union demands that fails to counter the attack of capital. On the question of the war in Ukraine, these forces deny its character as an imperialist war. Also, some forces satellite themselves around the official left and limit themselves to parliamentary pursuits and alliances.

There are still sections and organizations of the radical anti-capitalist left or even of communist reference that choose not to contribute to the formation of an anti-capitalist front and prefer a line of "rallying the whole left", from MERA25 to KKE, under the weight of the the shift of the reformist left in a more right-wing direction. There is a tendency towards ostensibly broader political fronts, which are subordinated to aspects of bourgeois politics and are unable to break with bourgeois bureaucratic trade unionism. On this basis, a part of the forces of the extra-parliamentary left have continued to integrate or satellite themselves around the reformist left. This attitude further deepens the political retreat of forces that are part of the radical and anti-capitalist left. It leads to a downgrading of the political and programmatic criterion, to a fragmentation of the people who follow these forces and, ultimately, to a process of "incestuousness" towards the reformist currents. Nevertheless, contradictions appear in a number of these forces that are worth noting, as in some cases and with the concerted intervention of the anti-capitalist Left they have resulted in an unstable but existent political shift in some political battles. From this point of view, there are possibilities for the anti-capitalist and communist left to influence also in an organized potential, reversing the arrow from the - currently dominant - line of alliance with the reformist left, towards a new anti-capitalist political project. At the same time, there are organizations of communist reference related to traditional currents of the communist movement that insist on an autonomous course, denying the need for a front of the anti-capitalist communist Left, considering that the conditions allow only defence and resistance. With these organizations we have communication for joint actions, which we will continue to pursue.

Overall, the anti-capitalist current, as it is expressed through organizations, but also through left-wing movements and trade union organizations, is in a phase of retreat. However, despite the new difficulties, it is important that the broader potential of the struggling radical and anti-capitalist left is expanded in Greece and in many battles it stands against the policies of governments and capital. In fact, when its subversive joint action is achieved and the promotional role of the anti-capitalist wing and the modern communist tendency is developed, there is a remarkable positive contribution to the development of the movement.

9. The anarchy/autonomy space has been in political decline in recent years, although it continues to rally and mobilize a significant part of the youth. Parts of this space are regressing in relation to the steps of politicization and mass presence they had taken in the previous period and incorporate reformist logic, others are fully subordinated to apolitical and nihilistic action, while there are also parts that are radicalizing and approaching Marxist and communist concepts, although most of the time in a problematic way. In the period of the pandemic, this area was particularly embarrassed, as a result of which it was unable to oppose in mass terms the government's policy of managing the pandemic, while parts of the autonomy adopted irrational and dangerous approaches to the pandemic. Nevertheless, it seems to have a considerable impact and a particular fascination for the youth, which is why a substantial political confrontation and critique of it is needed, while conditional practices of joint action with anarchy forces that try to detect elements of workers' intervention are possible, always within the framework of the mass movement.