en) Left is dead, -again-. English version of political
analysis in Greece, from group for social anarchism "Black & Red"
[Thessaloniki July 2015] (gr)
The referendum’s outcome leaves the government exposed against people’s will. There is a
question openly put: what is the new social condition on which the new, left- wing party’s
memorandum will be based? The answer is obvious even for the ignorant ones, the ones who
voted for “yes”. What social class interests are served by this “yes”party? This is also
widely known. The upper class’s interests. Hence, the political restoration of the upper
class and the surveillance of its ideology will not be carried out by the traitors, who
played a rather “preventive” than dynamic role, (except for the coup Tzimeros posted on
facebook), but through the overall assimilation of SYRIZA within the upper class bloc, and
this is exactly what is happening in front of us.
Of course, the issue here is not merely the “left” government itself, but the dominance of
the bourgeoisie- capitalist ideology on the massive blocs of people who defied and smashed
the fear and terrorism of the capitalists. SYRIZA will be the bridge of communication,
meaning the political representative, between capitalists and “no” voters, because it’s
the only political power who has access on these social classes and can influence them.
SYRIZA is the “Trojan horse” for the subjugation of the collective resistance of the
oppressed masses, which is turned into an affirmation in front of the local and
international capitalists’ orders.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The referendum was not held in order to play a key role
outside the country, but in order to be a possible ornament of “democratic reassurance” in
Tsipra’s negotiation agenda. The only use the referendum was headed for, was lying rigidly
inside the country, and this was well known not only among the various political powers,
but also to us.
SYRIZA government handled it in the following way: with “no” it puts the political
personnel of the traditional bourgeois parties in a tight spot and deprives them of the
capability to make any “criticism” on the execution of a new memorandum, as they fully
support its unconditional acceptance. At the same time, they ensure the well expected
concurrence of the opposing party on the configuration of a “national strategy” which is
politically managed by the government. Simultaneously, they deceive people creating an
impression of “democracy”, and they come up with new excuses for the members of the
party’s mechanism. The bourgeoisie back up abandoning the dilemma “euro or drachma” which
they posed before the referendum, as the government has turned the meaning of “no” into
“no clash with Europe”.
One step backwards, three steps forward for capitalists. Finally the bourgeoisie can stand
back on their feet again. SYRIZA has played a major role: It attempted to renew the social
legitimization of institutions and intercept fiercely the social reaction, to bring social
peace right in the middle of the worst social crisis which bursts out even worse for those
oppressed , while a third three-year-long memorandum is at hand. The king is naked, the
ghost of the left wing becomes history as it is: a delusion. And so people stand wondering
if there's any chance at all to hold on to.
Yet, there is another more meaningful use of the referendum on the government’s side, the
use of it as a “reassurance of democracy”. This can of course be used not only to bring
upon a possible clash with the E.U. and lead to an exit from euro, but also to sustain
Syriza’s new argument about a peculiar “European- german coup”. Taking the so-called coup
and the government’s inability to face it for granted, (the truth is that it doesn’t even
want to face it), the conditions of the new governance on the grounds of a “left”
memorandum are fully starting to take shape. This governance will regurgitate again and
again the following: “a denial of a new memorandum is not possible, meaning the further
and harsher depreciation of labor and the life of the lower classes, but a left government
is better because it can manage more effectively issues like corruption, tax evasion, mass
media control e.c.t. ” We answer: these are bullshit that all the alter egos of the
previous governments, which are now fully exonerated, spit over and over again. The whole
process, including the spectacular memorandum and all the other bravados on the side of
the government had one and only purpose which is crucial for every one oppressed to put in
mind: to make SYRIZA the leader of the bourgeoisie, at the expense of the rest of the
traditional political forces whose power on the masses had started wearing off. Having in
mind that SYRIZA-AN.EL government has fully joined up the memorandum wing, the dilemma
“memorandum or against memorandum ” which brought SYRIZA on power collapses completely
because of the victorious sovereignty of those who always called the shots: capitalists.
There has never been a memorandum supported by 251 parliament votes. These so many “yes”
are completely incompatible with 3.358.450 “no”. The reward for this unprecedented
treachery of the left for the sake of capitalism belongs to SYRIZA who, in this way,
becomes the “helmsman” of capitalists’ political triangulation. So far so good. However,
the class exploitation, which SYRIZA tries to mitigate desperately but theoretically, will
forcefully escalate due to the social reality very soon. Furthermore, the extent of the
treachery can be fully comprehended if we consider the fact that even those rats of the
Greek Workers General Confederation are once and for all smashed because of their public
statement about the referendum. How will these “institutional representatives of the
working class” call 24 hour strikes, when at the same time they are willing to give up
everything at the earliest opportunity?
However, in order not to be blamed for being out of touch with reality, let’s say this:
what the governmental advocates call “European coup” is nothing else but the obvious
aspiration of the international capitalists to go on unhindered and without the least
retreat with its full consummation. Simultaneously, the hard core attitude of the E.U.
exposes in the most decisive way the ridiculousness of the suggestion for a Europe in
favor of its people. Facing this reality, the left government management will either prove
its foolishness and hence its dangerousness, in case they pretend they weren’t aware of
the obvious truth that the E.U. institution was inspired in order to subdue massively the
European peoples (as all the international political commissions which serve the
capitalist ethics), or her mastery in political deceit, in case they were aware of it
while at the same time they made promises about applying the “Thessaloniki agenda”,
“tearing up memorandums”, and “sublime patriotic denials” through a referendum.
This is the point of view from which we must analyze separately why the german
commissioners might consider that they ensure their European leadership even in the case
of a Grexit, when at the same time this was out of the question for the Greek left
government. The tricks proved fake when after 5 months as a government, SYRIZA and ANEL
paid over 7 billion euros for interest at IMF, an amount which could be handled
differently in case of a Grexit.
Therefore, there is no one to declare a collective no. There is no one except for the
greek people who we resort to. Some will say that due to the government’s use of the
referendum (or its non-use at all), this was also meaningless for the people. They are
wrong. No matter what means are used, no matter how the “memorandum wing”( meaning the
political realization of capital’s assault on labor) is now stronger than ever, no one
will ever manage to persuade millions of oppressed people who resisted or resisted more
consistently that July 4th of 2015 skipped immediately into the events of July 6th. No
mechanism, however strong it might be, can persuade easily the social majority that this
was all a delusion. On the contrary, although the referendum’s “no” reversed highly the
fear and terror unleashed by capitalists, their institutions and mass media propaganda,
today it comes to integrate a negation towards the government itself, whose attitude
proves plainly that when authorities say “no” they imply “maybe” but in the end they
always apply “yes”.
No government can ever have a positive impact on its people by its very nature, because
its existing precondition is the enslavement of people by quitclaiming their right to
decide for themselves. Noone can decide for us , without us, what is best for the
community. Every government will always be the embodiment of authoritarian tactics,
corruption and tyranny. Today is the turn of the “great left leader” A. Tsipras to
ascertain in the most brash way what Mr. Samaras, Papadimos and Papandreou came up with,
meaning nothing more than that what people need “for their own benefit” is a new
memorandum, so that the noose of a new loan can further throttle people.
Furthermore we are in the middle of a paradox: although the stakes of the referendum were
high because of our denial to voluntarily consent to a condition of enslavement, at the
same time occurred to an extent what anarchists have been declaring for ages now: not even
the guise of democracy is ensured in liberal democracy. What constitutes the paradox is
that a large section of society realized the futility of voting through … the vote itself
(especially when the government will deal with the outcome at will). Let’s put it this
way: those who consciously abstained from the voting process feel “vindicated” and spit at
the government, those who voted for “no” posing a more collective disavowal either feel
“disgusted”, either (wrongly) “betrayed” and also spit at the government’s face. So here
there appears to be a ground which provides the appropriate conditions for the anarchist,
antiauthoritarian and non-institutional ideologies to develop as far as their impact on
the masses is concerned.
Before we discuss something of more importance let us give an answer to some childish
absurdities which illustrate the demagogy the bums of the governmental mechanism of the
so-called “radical left” deploy once again. But before exploring the depth of the issue,
we must say how sorry we are for those whose naivety and stupidity, along with a bunch of
delusions and obsessions for a “left management”, makes them nothing more than timorous
bourgeoisie who look desperately for hope. But this observation, of course, does not mean
that they are not really a threat. We will juxtapose on this a crucial argument. They
claim that a left memorandum is preferable because the measures that go along with the
loan agreement put the burden on the big capital. So, before we laugh our hearts out on
these matters, let us start from the minor issues: this does not hold any water because
there are measures that affect directly the lower classes, meaning: VAT raise, abolition
of early retirement, expansion of retirement’s age boundaries, raise on Agricultural
Insurance Organization’s incomes, clause of entrepreneurship gap on insurance funds, raise
on health incomes, sellout of public wealth, open stores on Sundays e.c.t. Even those who
do not analyze it a lot could notice that all these are more than enough to contradict the
argument about who the burden is on, but for us it is not enough at all, because we must
indicate this disgrace on its full dimension.
Even if we take into consideration those measures which are going to “burden capitalists
”, who can prevent those same capitalists from decreasing labor cost on private sector and
lower wages in order to balance “the taxing damage”. The answer is obvious! Nobody can and
nobody will as long as there is no labor legislation, which is the exact reason why all
these were set up in order to further degrade labor and life in general. At this point,
let us bring in mind the magic of the situation. Even if the taxing incomes from greek
capitalists returned through state benefits to the workers as wage raises on public
domain, then what we would have is the resurrection of an old ghost, meaning the welfare
state. However, whatever incomes may be reserved from the so-called “capitalists’ taxing”
and the raise of luxury tax end up to the IMF and European capitalists. And this is
roughly the use of “debt” which is nothing more than a blackmailing tactic, which ensures
the disorientation of labor and the unhindered capitalist fulfilment. Hence, not only do
these measures not burden capitalists, but also oppress multiply the lower class.
The third memorandum will be even worse than the previous ones. Neither does it take to be
a valid ideologist who highlights that “neither right or left, bosses are the same” to
find that, nor to analyze one by one the measures and compare them to the previous ones as
if one is a desperate victim of SYRIZA youth who tries to cover up whatever they can from
this manifest of social genocide. It just takes to be a worker or unemployed who has
already been severely affected by the previous two memorandums’ consequences, and now the
current left government asks them to tighten their belts. Well, this is out of the
question. And this is what we, the anarchist movement, must grasp in order to reorganize
the social dynamics and strike in a victorious spirit the unified bourgeois bloc which is
now under a left leadership.
At this point let us make a historical and philosophical reference. It’s worth mentioning
that there’s an imminent danger. History proves that whenever the traditional left
collapsed (weather Stalinist or reformist) its share of the blame addressed to all the
forces of social liberation, as masses cannot perceive the clear cut boundaries between
anarchists and left. We should bear this in mind and not allow the disintegration of the
left ( it is quite possible that SYRIZA turns fast into a traditional centrist bourgeoisie
structure) to drag into it the social movements.
After the 25th of January elections and the time before that, when it was patent that
SYRIZA would be the next government, some of its younger parliament members who had
roughly known Ferenc Feher (the well- known Hungarian philosopher who reenacted Fukuyama’s
“end of history”, declared passionately that “SYRIZA’s victory eliminates once and for all
the bourgeoisie theories about “end of history” because it proves that the left can govern
and – of course- “it will govern differently” ”. Five months later, Francis Fukuyama’s
laughter wafts like a ghost over greek democracy the fate of which is at the hands of our
left government. Does this mean that we truly believe some sort of end has come? No way.
But we must point out that capitalists’ laughter which insinuates their final dominance
will never stop with the temporary election of some arrogant European leftists of our
small country.
The only thing that can end laughter and the dramatic narrations about an end is the
social movement’s action itself. As a carrier which will activate the social
self-motivation against the ongoing dissolution of life by capital and authority against
the logic of delegation and any form of triangulation. In other words, there can be no
social/ liberating conditions brought by the orders of a left authority. For us, of
course, this is no surprise. No contradictory institutions could model new liberating
social bonds, even if they are the members of, let’s say, “a revolutionary government” who
really want it, let alone if we refer to this “pinkish neo-bourgeoisie nomenclature”, who
likes for some indeterminable reason to pretend being “radical social democracy”, whatever
it may signify.
At this point we must remind the repressed class of why there cannot be social democracy
again. It’s a good period to do it, as it has been proven clearly that this cannot indeed
occur and that’s why whoever the political carrier that tries to resurrect social
democracy will be crushed down.
Social democracy was a historical choice made by capitalists of west bloc, roughly between
1930 and 1970. It was prefered on the grounds of the general crisis caused by the
over-accumulation of capital on the one hand, and the revolutionary threat of workers'
movement, who claimed “the whole fucking bakery”, on the other. Social democratic
management was the only model which responded to this double problem. With state
intervention, as the major economic factor and administrator, there was a gradual control
of the crisis of accumulation, while simultaneously, through its welfare politics, the
state integrated the workers' class into the dominant ideology in order to counter their
will for a massive upheaval. Of course, murderous crackdown and the manslaughter of the
world war were sufficient measures to “persuade” those who continued to resist vigorously.
Capitalist management achieved the disbandment of the revolutionary movement indeed, but
it could not prevent new crises from taking place.
However, it shaped new tactics, for instance internal loans, in order to both handle these
crises and avoid taking new welfare measures. So, after social democratic management,
which is nothing more than the capital in a state of emergency, burnt out, it was
abandoned. It had managed to constrain all the social goods in a place where only the
upper class had access to: the state. The upper class, on turn, took them out of this well
hiden place and took them home, under the nose of an alienated working class, which was
gently lulled by the corrupted syndicates' bureaucracy. Capitalists are not at all in the
mood of taking steps backwards, unless they are forced to.
But what history has shown, is that the only thing that has forced capitalism to reshape
in order to survive is the revolutionary movement which persists on demanding everything.
SYRIZA is not of this kind. If it was, it could never gather the necessary electoral
patronage in order to govern during a bourgeoisie democracy era. But even this patronage
will eventfully stop buying from a store which cannot satisfy its hunger anymore. In this
case, the king will not be merely naked, but dead and gone.
But such persistent and hard work cannot be carried out without us: the movement which
thinks that the only feasible perspective is that people handle their own business. What
would be of utter use is us having a plan in order to reverse the potential in favor of
the revolution.
So, what is necessary, is to deepen our judgment and update our means of action by
resharpening our interpretative and theoretical tools, without putting anarchism,
anarchist ethic, aside as it is the wealth from which we can learn to earn possibilities.
Before anything else, we must reconsider our attitude toward the exploited class. During a
time when ears are wide open and people question more and more things around them, the
society's denouncing approach and the exorcism of a reality with the enemy's endless atm
lines will not be of any use. Besides, the symbolic smashing of the exploitation front was
brought upon by the anarchist movement some years ago through its contribution to the
social uprising on December 2008. Now we have to win on the whole. In order for this to
happen, it will be more effective if we boost human dignity by turning it into a revolting
conscience, if we try to outreach reality by rearranging its structural properties. This
could happen if the repressed subjects themselves coordinated, legislated politically and
economically the social needs. Our squats,our unions, our meetings, our current structures
and the ones we will establish, must aim at getting disengaged from the- almost especially
private- “anarchist cyrcles” and develop as public and social laboratories of social
solidarity and coherence having always in mind the the overall clash with state and
capitalism. Social self-reduction actions could possibly play a supportive role on this
occasion, but we must be careful. We must absolutely not fall behind the possible state's
concessions. Besides, it is a basic principle of the revolutionary struggle that when
current events make assertions collective, we must not reset them on being sparse.
Nevertheless, this procedure of establishing structures must not be left without a
coherent political suggestion, which will take into consideration the social reality,
bearing always in mind its subversion. The overthrow of the E.U. and the eurozone by a
radical and liberated movement of europeans, seems more than ever the only way in order to
both deepen the struggle with the bourgeoisie class and shape gradually- and only if we
fight against capital- the conditions for the survival of the lower classes and the
improvement of their life quality. But we must point out that, not by any means, “Greece's
possible decommitement from the eurozone”( a suggestion that even from the point of view
of terminology underlines a patriotic disposition) , is not alone a self-contained
“anti-imperialistic action”, a “progressive- democratic attitude” or “a liberal movement”,
or, anyway, anything else bothers the extra-parliamentary left. The society that will
eventually be shaped after a “decommitement” will be at its worst, if we take into
consideration that the well-known decommitement will not necesserilly come along with
revolutionary conditions, but it is more possible to come with the vision of the national
growth, within the limits of a national economy, run by an already out-of-control national
capital which will continue to supress labor forces in order to win more competitive
market positions, and make up for the losses, which are the outcome of its devaluation on
the international map of labor- exploitation allocation.
And of course national capital will not be left alone, but it will get all the support it
needs from both an overprotective state and the well-known mafia of oligarchs along with a
mob of bourgeois nationalists strolling around with the helmets that were left behind
during the spontaneous movement in favor of the governmental negotiation. Nevertheless,
remaining into E.U. and the euro creates the impression that class war is feeble because
it takes place within a set of conditions that do not indicate any sign of change for the
lower social classes. A crack, an intense concussion at the structure of capitalist
integration of E.U. is what the revolutionary movement needs to do at this time in order
to venture new paths. And this is not something insignifcant. We are not afraid of
difficulties.We must detect anything we think that can bring us closer to social
revolution, anarchy and liberal communism. The attempt to be the first to unpick the
european structure of hate, which we know it will never reform in favor of the europeans,
is a suggestion that can be held within the revolutionary perspective. However, this
perspective will be clearly belligerent if it is not framed by an internationalist spirit,
which will defy structurally left's patriotism and right's nationalism, and fight for the
fracture of national unity, without double talk and fuzzy national-liberating bravados,
which will be inspired by an anti-state anti-fascism with clear-cut class war
characteristics. The intensification of the above processes the next period is the
necessery prerequisite to achieve the overthrow of all governments, and establish the
revolutionary board management on all occupied factories, social structures, public
meetings, horizontally stuctured unions of workers and unemployed.
'Order reigns in Berlin!' You stupid henchmen! Your 'order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the
revolution will already 'raise itself with a rattle' and announce with fanfare, to your
terror:I was, I am, I will be! - Taken from Rosa Luxemburg's "Order reigns in Berlin",a
revolutionary figure who was executed by a social-democratic government
Sunday, July 12 2015
