Greece in revolt

The sustained revolt by Greek students and young workers in major cities throughout the country may have been triggered by the shooting of a 15-year-old by police but is actually a confrontation that was waiting to happen. And it reveals that in the country that first conceived of democracy, there is no future for the ideal within the confines of the existing Greek state.

Greece has suffered a long period of corrupt rule, both by the existing New Democracy, right-wing government and before them the social democrats of Pasok. As a result, many Greeks have long lost any semblance of respect for the state in terms of abiding by laws and regulations. Tax evasion, for example, is widespread, an indication that the country has become ungovernable. A World Bank study on Greece found that one in every nine euros of company revenues is not recorded and therefore not taxed. The 11% level of tax evasion is exceeded by an underground economy which is reckoned to amount to nearly 30% of gross domestic product.

As the state has floundered, the divisions between rich and poor have grown sharply. In a country of 11 million, one in five lives below the poverty line and there is mounting anger at the government’s attempt to cut budgets in line with the requirements set down by the European Union in order stay part of the eurozone. A series of corruption scandals have hit the inner circle of Costas Karamanlis, the prime minster. Unemployment is already at 8% on average and much higher among 20 to 25 year olds. All the signs point to a sharp rise in joblessness over the next few months as the global crisis takes its toll on the country.

Today, schools are shut and thousands will attend the funeral of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos, killed by police at the weekend. Tomorrow, the trade unions which have been battling the government’s privatisation policies, have called for strike action in protest against his death. "A lot of teenagers identify with Grigoropoulos," said Christos Mazanitis, an Athenian journalist. "There's a whole generation out there who see their parents in debt and feel they have nothing to look forward to in the future. Fear and despair are what these riots are about."

The impotence of the state is even recognised by the right-wing, whose commentators are suggesting that Greece "will now be out of control" after the protests. Nikos Konstandaras, writing in the centre-right newspaper Kathimerini, said: "It is tragic that the loss of one life should highlight so many impasses in our society and our politics. Instead of seeing that our refusal to resolve problems makes them intractable, I fear the way that we will use this death will simply make our problems worse."

There is no certainly no answer to the despair of young people through another Pasok government. The party’s leaders are angling to return to power – to carry on where Karamanlis leaves off. "It is as if the state [machinery], the government, has collapsed," said Ioannis Rougissis, a spokesman for the opposition Pasok party. Clearly, Pasok sees its role as one of restoring the authority of the corrupt and ineffectual Greek capitalist state just at the moment when its grip on power is self-evidently draining away.

A reconstruction of the Greek state from top to bottom is the only practical way forward. This process, which will require organisation and a revolutionary strategy, would aim at a transfer of economic and political power to the majority as a basis for the equitable development of Greek society. Then, and only then, would the term democracy have any substantial meaning in modern Greece.


Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor

The momentum of 1968

The season of celebration of the tumultuous events of 1968 continues in London tomorrow. A World to Win’s new publication 1968 Revolution, analysing the worldwide impact and lessons of those times will be on sale there for the first time.

The momentum of 1968 continued for some years, especially in US. It reached a high point in 1970 with the only national student strike in US history, precipitated by the May 4 Kent State college massacre carried out by the Ohio State National Guard. On May 9, more than over 150,000 protesters, mostly students, converged on Washington to protest against the killing of unarmed students.

President Nixon, Henry Kissinger and others were kept in the White House protected by armed military guards with machine guns. The White House was surrounded and protected by a cordon of bumper-to-bumper buses. Nixon was pushed to the point of physical and emotional collapse and withdrew plans for the invasion of Cambodia. The tide of public opinion shifted against the war in Vietnam.

Key facts from research regarding the historical impact of these events show that:

* nearly 5,000,000 American students joined the national student strike
* approximately 175,000 faculty members joined the protests
* over 35,000 national guardsmen were called into action in 16 states
* highways, expressways, city streets and railroad tracks were barricaded across America
* on May 16, 1970, Business Week magazine warned: "This is a dangerous situation. It threatens the whole economic & social structure of the nation."
* 100 art museums and galleries closed in solidarity with the student strike
* over 500 US GI's deserted each day in May, 1970
* after the Kent massacre, entire companies of US troops in Vietnam refused orders to invade Cambodia
* in solidarity with the US students, numerous US soldiers wore black armbands and refused to fight any longer in Vietnam
* on Armed Forces Day, May 16, 1970, there were marches, rallies and rock festivals at 22 US military bases involving 43 different anti-war veterans' groups
* Congress passed the War Powers Act preventing the President from invading a country without the approval of Congress
* in May, 1970, Nixon began his "enemies list" & started the paranoid campaigns that led to his eventual impeachment and resignation
* Nixon and the Pentagon were forced to de-escalate the war, remove US troops and negotiate peace in Southeast Asia
* the voting age was soon reduced from 21 to 18 in America for the first time.

Whilst these events document the dramatic potential for change contained in mass action, capitalist rule remained intact. Four decades of globalisation have increased the tension that burst in 1968 to an unbearable intensity. In 2008, billions in every country throughout the world experience the effects of climate change, illegal wars for resources and markets, a widening gulf between rich and poor, unsustainable levels of credit and debt, a global financial and economic crisis, and increasingly authoritarian rule.

With a rapidly increasing number of people ready to challenge the status quo, and Stalinism no longer able to stifle the building of an independent movement that can inspire and lead the challenge for power, the potential for a revolutionary change is within reach.

Gerry Gold