(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #248 - international,
Europe: Syriza at the moment of truth (fr, it, pt) [machine
translation]
Since the victory of SYRIZA parliamentary elections of 25 January 2015, the media
spotlight on Greece and its radical left government. But the honeymoon was short-lived.
The outcome of negotiations with creditors of the Greek State is already cringe within
SYRIZA. ---- Since the announcement of the results of the Greek elections, comments
flourished in the "left of the left" to greet a historic victory and recognize Syriza a
model for a political alternative to the dominant liberalism. ---- This electoral success
immediately gave wings to the reformist formations more or less close SYRIZA who hoped
they spill over the popular will Tsipras. However, the exercise of power already proving
to be already much more disappointing than expected and the wave Syriza on which relied
surf Podemos Spain, the Left Front in France or the anti-austerity in Ireland does now
Alliance This contained.
A zone of turbulence in Europe
The coming to power of the radical left has undeniably caused turbulence in a Europe
governed by parties followers of liberalism. While the austerity dogma is hardly
questioned, the accession of Tsipras as Prime Minister was something eerie in the European
institutions.
By doing so the renegotiation of Greek debt and the questioning of understanding signed
with the troika 's workhorse, the new Greek government intended to meet the aspirations of
the people who had brought the party to power and mark the break with governments precedents.
The first Tsipras government announcements were in this sense: stop the privatization of
the port of Piraeus and of large public companies (especially electricity operator DEI)
emergency program to respond to the humanitarian crisis, thousands of reintegration
officials, raising the minimum wage, pensions increase for the poorest pensioners, etc.
But the first adverts Tsipras following negotiations with the Eurogroup will clearly not
in a good way and the whole question is now how will act the left wing Syriza, but
especially how the organized proletariat will put the government under pressure.
Especially as the Syriza program ambitious in some respects, is indeed not in itself
anti-capitalist social transformation and no magnitude can not be expected if the social
movement remains wait.
The boundaries of a reformist program
The latest version of Syriza program was presented by Tsipras at the Thessaloniki
International Fair in September 2014. The "Thessaloniki agenda", to be funded by the fight
against tax fraud and by resorting to various European funds, provides a set of measures
to provide urgent solution to the humanitarian crisis, to support economic recovery
(especially by raising the tax threshold on income and the creation of an investment bank)
at governance reform and curb unemployment by creating 300,000 jobs in the public sector
and the private sector. In short, a welfare program crossed with Keynesian measures.
It was on this program, much less ambitious than the claims previously worn by SYRIZA,
Tsipras that the party managed to win a relative majority of seats in the Vouli, the Greek
Parliament.
We can now ask what are the objectives of the new government: immediate response to
poverty and simply try to return Greece to the situation before 2008 or build on these
first steps to consolidate a popular majority bloc in the population and then lead more
radical social transformation?
In all cases, it is primarily the Greek popular movement that we need to support. It is
within this movement must continue to develop self-management and anti-capitalist forces
able to weigh significantly on the political situation to wear self-contained social
transformation project that is not limited to symptomatic treatment of austerity.
The fact that the protesters and Greek protesters adopted the slogan "Not one step back"
suggests that openings exist and government experience is not a limited horizon.
The contradictions of power
By the end of January, the new government Tsipras, the result of an alliance of
convenience between Syriza and the right-wing Independent Greeks sovereignty, began
negotiations to arrange the repayment of Greek debt and obtain new financing.
But Yanis Varoufakis, new Ministry of Finance, faces already in the inflexibility of the
Eurogroup (comprising the finance ministers of the euro area, the ECB and the IMF) as a
condition to any negotiation extension the memorandum. And announcements of the Greek
Government show that the warm compromise was preferred to direct confrontation with the
European institutions.
According to the terms of the agreement, even if the initiative for reform comes to the
Greek government, they must be validated by the creditors of the Greek State before being
implemented.
This is what cheap compromise which led the veteran Manolis Glezos, an emblematic figure
of the Greek resistance to Nazi occupation, to denounce the capitulation of the government
and Tsipras, in an open letter, asking "to the Greek people of [him ] forgiveness for
having contributed to this illusion " [ 1 ].
At the same time, the immediate increase in the minimum wage to EUR 751 has been pushed
back to 2016 while stopping the privatization of Piraeus seems to be defended with equal
force.
Manolis Glezos and Alexis Tsipras in 2008. With blood shot the old man, the whole left
Syriza who rebels. © DPA
Develop against powers before taking power
The coming to power Tsipras will undoubtedly lead, initially, to a substantial improvement
of the lot of the most precarious and may even be conducive to the development of the
revolutionary forces.
However, government Adventure Syriza has two major risks:
curb popular aspirations for change by opposing manager speeches;
feed, for its failure, the reactionary ideas and precipitate a brutal return to order.
These two risks are related to utilitarian report met with the social movement: a period
of reflux of struggles after 2012, SYRIZA's strategy has been to provide a "political
market" in social movement rather than try to strengthen , within it, challenge
perspectives and developing a project autonomous social transformation.
The Left Front, which, in France, Syriza gives a model and claims to support the social
movement by proposing an electoral opportunity, risk, and, to curb trade unions and
associations fighting already weakened by making them lose sight any autonomous political
perspective.
Beyond this, make electoral redial left and looking for a programmatic agreement a
priority to challenge the government's liberal policy returns to harbor illusions and to
forget that it is building a patient balance of power in favor of the popular classes that
will be key to undermine the foundations of capitalist power and start building, from
below, another company.
Benjamin (AL Paris North East)
[ 1 ] The entirety of his open letter is available on the website Alencontre.org
http://alternativelibertaire.org/?Europe-Syriza-a-l-heure-de-verite
