A report on the working class struggles against austerity measures in Greece by Proles and Poor’s Credit Rating Agency aka TPTG, a Greek communist group.
In periods of crisis, such as the current period of over accumulation crisis, capitalists use the politics of “public debt” in order to devise new ways to intensify exploitation. In contrast with capitalist upturns when the private debt is increased, downturns are characterized by the increase of the “public debt”. Private investment in state bonds ensures profits which are extracted from the direct and indirect taxation of the workers, aiming towards interest repayments, and leading, ultimately, to the reinforcement of the banking sector capital. Therefore, the “public debt”, contrary to what is usually said, provides help to private capital and, in this respect, should be counted in its profits.
Moreover, in the last 2 years, the “public deficit” tripled in 20 out of 27 countries of EU because of massive expenditures for bailing out the financial sector. This is money that was not given through loans to (non-banking) private capital for productive investments. Furthermore, public borrowing was done and continues to be done on terms that exceed by far the average profit rate, making investments in state bonds far more profitable than investments for the creation of production units, and, all the more so, since this kind of investment is exempted from the risks of class struggle in the sites of production.
The global economic recession of the previous years, which is the most recent manifestation of the permanent crisis of reproduction of global capital in the last 35 years –a crisis interrupted only by temporary recoveries– inevitably affected domestic capitalist accumulation. However, apart from the consequences of the reduction of global economic activity to the exports of Greek capital, especially in the shipping and the tourist sectors, it became also the peg for the revelation of the permanent crisis of exploitability and disciplining of the proletariat.
After a period between the mid 90’s and the mid 2000’s when capital had managed to increase the rate of exploitation and expand its profitability, the profitability of capital in Greece has been continuously slowing down in the last years because of the slow growth of productivity in relation to wages. As a result, it started to fall since 2006 onwards, until it collapsed in the first half of 2009 by 51.5% in relation to the same period of 2008, because of the global recession. The fall of the turnover and of the profitability of private enterprises led in turn to a significant reduction of investments because of the increasing inability of private enterprises to get credit from the banks. Moreover, banks were directly affected since their profits dramatically declined because of the significant increase of losses stemming from the overdue loans or even from the non-repayment of loans, having, in addition, a more general liquidity problem because of the global financial crisis.
Naturally, the state did not stay idle. It hurried to confront the problems that emerged because of the outbreak of the crisis by increasing its expenditure by 10.9% in 2009 in order to support capitalist accumulation, thus contributing to the GDP by 1.7%. At the same time the state provided banks with funds of 28 billion euros, which is an amount that corresponds to 11.5% of the GDP, in order to save their profitability. This policy will be continued by the government of PASOK which will provide an additional amount of 10 billion euros. Besides, public expenditures were increased for other reasons as well, such as, for example, the payments of the unemployment benefits since the number of unemployed workers has increased, while revenues from taxes and contributions were decreased because of the recession, i.e. the decline of GDP (and what’s more because of the consecutive decreases of the rate of taxation of profits in the last 20 years). Unsurprisingly, the result was that both public deficit and debt rose steeply to reach 12.5% and 112.6% respectively as a proportion of the GDP.
Since 2008, financial institutions have decided to invest mainly in government bonds which almost everywhere have multiplied because of the global state policies of bailing out banks. After the sovereign debt crisis of Dubai in last October and the failure of the credit rating agencies in forecasting it, these agencies went frantic to downgrade Greek government bonds and "upgrade" Credit Default Swaps. The fact that the European Central Bank is going to raise the minimum credit rating for the eligibility of government bonds as collateral in liquidity provision from the start of 2011 encouraged the financial institutions holding Greek government bonds to dump them, precipitating the “debt crisis” and raising the interest, which in its turn raised the cost of debt refinancing. Thus, public expenditures related to the payment of interest as well as forecasts for the increase of public deficit and debt have risen.
So, in a climate of fiscal terrorism that has been orchestrated for some months now by the media, a state of emergency has been called in Greece in an effort by international capital and the Greek state to turn the country into a laboratory of a new shock policy. The huge ”public debt” and the ”imminent bankruptcy of the country” are the mottos used as efficient tools to terrorize and discipline the proletariat and legitimize the decrease of the direct and indirect wage and thus curb its expectations and demands in an exemplary neoliberal fashion of international proportions.
The mobilizations have been rather lukewarm so far and certainly do not correspond to the critical situation and the ferocity of the measures. There is a generalized feeling of impotence and paralysis but anger as well that cannot find a proper outlet. Certainly, there is a real discontent for the shock policy that the PASOK government is promoting (cuts on wages, cuts on benefits, more direct and indirect taxes, extension of retirement age, intensification of police control etc.) One can trace that discontent in the every day conversations in the work places, however, there is a prevailing fragile silence facing the dictatorship of the economy and the omnipotence of the “markets”. The “national unity” mantra is one of the government’s favourite tools, as expected in such times, however, it has not reached yet a dangerous point.
The union confederations, GSEE (the umbrella organization of the private sector unions) and ADEDY (the corresponding organization of the public sector) are totally controlled by the socialist government and do their best to avoid any real resistance against the recent offensive. At the moment, it seems rather improbable that the crisis and the pressure exerted to those dinosauric bodies by the rank ’n’ file will lead to major changes in their structure and function, if we consider the almost lethargic behaviour of the low in hierarchy union cadres of the socialist party who still win most of the votes in most workplaces.
On the 10th of February there was the first strike called by ADEDY with a rather low participation of strikers from the public sector. We will try below to give a description of the demo in Athens on the 24th of February when the first general strike against austerity measures was called by GSEE and ADEDY. The estimation on the number of people that went on strike is around 2-2.5 million. In some sectors (ports, shipyards, oil refineries, construction industry, banks and public service companies) the participation ranged between 70-100%. In the public sector (education, health, public services and ministries, post offices) the participation was lower, ranging between 20% to 50%.
Estimations on the number of the people that participated in the strike demonstration vary a lot. Police refer to 4,000, according to some media the number is 100,000 and some others talk of abοut 9,000 or 30,000 protesters. As participants, we can say that a number of about 40,000 people could be a reliable estimation.
Two were the main features of this demo. The first is the noticeable participation of many immigrants not only “under the command” of left-wing organizations but also diffused in the body of the demo. We have to mention that the participation of immigrants is currently related to the new law for “the citizenship of immigrants”, which creates divisions among them by categorizing them into those few eligible for citizenship and those thousands condemned into the no man’s land of illegality.
The second feature is the street fighting that took place between riot police and protesters who did not necessarily come from the antiauthoritarian-anarchist milieu –in a lot of cases there was close combat, since the riot police have been ordered by the socialist government to use less tear gas. There was breaking of bank fronts, looting of commercial shops (bookshops, department stores, supermarkets and cafes) and, though not generalized, they certainly gave a quite different tone to what one might expect from the usual GSEE-ADEDY strike demos. One incident in the end of the demo can maybe best convey this change of climate: as the protesters were marching down Panepistimiou St where Kolonaki, a posh district in the heart of Athens, starts, they saw that in Zonar’s, a traditional bourgeois and very expensive café, dressed-up and prim customers were drinking champagne (!) and enjoying their expensive flavoured beverages. The enraged crowd invaded the café, smashed its window panes and soon cakes were distributed among them at a much more affordable price!
These features, in our opinion, show the great impact of December 2008 revolt on the way of protesting. A general approval of violent acts against cops and capitalist institutions like banks and stores was obvious during the demo. Actually, there were a lot of cases where demonstrators attacked the cops to prevent them from arresting “trouble-makers”. Of course, the left-wing calls for “peaceful protest” were not absent, but they seemed meaningless in the eyes of most proletarians.
There was certainly a general feeling of joy in releasing indignation against the cops and thus expressing the anger against this recent onslaught, so in this sense the strike and the demo functioned as a powerful antidepressant, although with a temporary effect.
Last, we should mention a spectacular move by the CP1 (actually by its workers’ front called PAME) on the eve of the strike: they squatted the Stock-Exchange building early in the morning with a surrealist and rather unintelligible banner saying in English “Crisis pay the plutocracy”. Their purpose was, in their words, to “show to the inspectors of the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF where the money is” –as if they did not know! Actually, the services of the Stock-Exchange were transferred to a different building and the protesters left the blockade at 14:00. On the practices employed by the CP and their influence, however, we will return later in the report.
On the 3rd of March the socialist government announced the new measures for the “salvation of the country” including a 30% cut in the 13th and 14th salaries of public workers, a 12% cut in salary subsidies, increases in petrol, alcohol and tobacco taxes as well as cuts in education and health spending. The first reactions came from the PAME that escalated its spectacular short missions occupying this time the Ministry of Finance and some TV stations in provincial cities the next day. It was again PAME that first called for afternoon demos in Athens and several others cities and towns for the 4th of March. Later, some leftist unionists and leftist organizations, joined by the high school teacher’s union and ADEDY, called for a separate demo in Athens. Given the short notice of the demo and the general feeling of helplessness, about 10,000 people demonstrated in the central streets of Athens in a rather lifeless way which was about to change somehow only the day that followed.
Once again, the initiative for the strike on the 5th of March was taken by the CP which had called for a “general strike” on that day and a demo. ADEDY and GSEE followed with a 3-hour work stoppage, while other unions (both primary and secondary teachers’ unions, public transport unions) called a day strike. The PAME demo gathered around 10,000 people and it ended before the other one had started. Anti-authoritarians and younger people had a more visible presence this time and the atmosphere was tense from the beginning at Syntagma Square near the Parliament where the Socialist Party was going to vote for the new measures.
After a while, the head of GSEE, Panagopoulos, made the mistake to try to speak to the crowd only to have first some yogurt landed on him, then some water and coffee and finally punches. The astonishing thing was that the attacks came from different directions and soon his thugs were unable to prevent a multiple crowd (where certainly anti-authoritarians and leftists were in the majority) from expressing practically their hatred against him and what he stands for. He was chased and beaten all the way to the entrance of the Parliament and then protected by the riot police. Soon an angry crowd gathered just below the building. The folklore Guards of the Parliament had to leave immediately and some fighting started between the enraged people and the riot squads. It was then that the MPs of SYRIZA coalition chose to make their own spectacular movement, opening a banner in front of the entrance with Breton’s saying “The human being is the answer whatever the question might be” –a sentence which probably made the anti-humanist Althusserian intellectuals belonging to SYRIZA feel uneasy, although it can be read in the proper SYRIZA-like social-democratic way of “People above profits”, this coalition’s favourite motto of the time. When Glezos, an 88-year old SYRIZA member and a symbol of the national resistance to the Nazi occupation tried to prevent the riot police from arresting a young man, he was beaten and sprayed in the face and soon the fighting with the police was generalized. About three hundred or more people were throwing stones at them (mostly anti-authoritarians but not only) and the rest remained there shouting and cursing for some time until the riot police made a heavy attack trying to disperse the crowd. A refreshing incident occurred when some people took the microphones of the union confederation and chanted slogans against wage slavery and the cops that could be heard all over the square in the clouds of tear gas. In the meantime, Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA, hurried into the Parliament to inform his fellow-MPs, who had just passed the new measures, of the attack against Panagopoulos, condemning it in the most emphatic manner.
The demo then started marching towards the Ministry of Labour, something that was criticized by many demonstrators as an effort on the part of the unionists to release the tension near the Parliament. However, spirits were still running high and so when the demo reached the building of the State Council, some demonstrators attacked the riot squad which was guarding it. Soon a huge crowd started throwing rocks and various objects against them chasing them inside the building. One of them, however, did not make it and was captured and almost lynched by the angered people. The incident, which points both to an acceptance of the escalation of violence even by people who would normally react differently and to the increasing hatred against police especially in those days, lasted some time because support riot squads were hindered from approaching by nearby laid-off workers of Olympic Airways. These workers, soon after the new measures were announced, occupied the State General Accountancy in Panepistimiou St and had been blocking the traffic up till the 12th of March with cars and dustbins. The demo headed down to the Ministry which had already been evacuated when the first demonstrators arrived. Although police presence became heavier, some incidents of smashing occurred (banks, big bookstores and department stores) and the demo ended later at Propylea.
Although the government is trying to put the blame for the mobilizations on the “extremities” of the parties of the Left, it should be pointed out that SYRIZA has a very weak influence on workplaces (except for the secondary teachers’ union), while, on the other hand, the stalinoid CP’s ideology and practice needs some further analysis.
The present conjuncture constitutes an ideal terrain for the activities of the CP since the propaganda of the government itself and of the mass media about the alleged imposition of the tough measures by EU, international markets and speculators seems to confirm its rhetoric about “exiting EU” and “resisting to monopolies and the big capital”, which keeps repeating with religious devotion since the 80’s. As one of the main political representatives of the working class (as a class of the capitalist mode of production and communication) inside the Greek state and its institutions, the CP proclaims the establishment of a nationalist “popular” economy where the working class will enjoy the merits of a social-democratic capitalism with a flavor of Stalinism. As a matter of fact, the actions of the CP ensure the entrapment of struggles into the limits of capitalist institutions, and what’s more, into the most fetishized of them, elections and the parliament since for the CP, voting for the party and getting organized in it constitutes the culmination of class struggle.
The most prominent characteristic of CP’s activism remains the complete separation of the mobilizations of its union organ (PAME) from the rest of the struggling proletarians. The demonstrations organized by PAME and the CP never come together with the demonstrations called by other workers’ unions and student organizations. Although we are not in the position to know exactly what’s happening inside the apparatuses of both the CP and PAME because of their completely secretive mode of organization, the experience we have from our participation in union assemblies shows that they exercise complete control upon their rank ’n’ file. We are certain that actions are decided by the party leadership without a trace of rank ’n’ file participation in the decisions, that’s why nowadays the ex-members of the CP are more than the active members.
It must be admitted that the level of class activity is low: neither have long-term strikes been organized by many sectors simultaneously nor there are daily militant massive demonstrations. In this context, PAME activities (occupations of public buildings such as the Ministry of Economics and the stock market, massive demonstrations and rallies –practices that have not been unusual for the CP since at least the mid 2000’s) seem impressive, especially when they succeed to call first for a strike or a demo obliging GSEE and ADEDY to follow. It is possible that a plan for splitting GSEE and ADEDY and creating a third “independent” union confederation lies underneath this strategy. Of course, it goes without saying that if the situation gets out of hand by going beyond some 24-hour strikes on a weekly basis, that is to say if long-term strikes break out accompanied by a permanent proletarian presence and militant activity in the streets, the CP will again assume the role of the police by undermining the strikes it does not control, by calling its members off the streets and by trying to repress violently every radical activity. After all, this has been its standard practice since the fall of the dictatorship and they did exactly the same during the December 2008 rebellion.
As for the small, rank ’n’ file unions that have multiplied in the last years, whether leftist or anarchist, they are too impotent to mobilize workers in general apart from their politically affiliated members. Their militant practices (blockades of firms, taking part in demos) rely mostly on the active participation of anti-authoritarians that do not belong to them.
On the 5th of March, GSEE and ADEDY called for another 24 hour strike on Thursday the 11th of March, in response to the climate of a general yet passive discontent with the announced austerity measures, attempting to retain a grain of legitimacy. There are no definite figures available for the levels of participation in the strike, but we can say for sure that it was higher than the previous one (GSEE claims that participation in the strike reached 90%). This was also proved by the number of demonstrators which was almost double than the demo on the 24th of February. According to our estimations, a number of around 100,000 people participated in both demonstrations of PAME and GSEE-ADEDY (PAME organized a separate demonstration following its standard practice), even if the media estimate this number at around 20-25.000. The composition of the crowd was also slightly different since there were more university students, a few high school students and more young workers while immigrants were absent this time. Moreover, a large number of demonstrators coming from almost the entirety of the antiauthoritarian milieu participated in the GSEE-ADEDY demo, dispersing into its whole body.
Another distinctive characteristic of the demonstration was the different, far more offensive tactics of the police. More than five thousands cops tried to prevent an escalation of proletarian violence by closely following the demo from its both sides. Their goal was reached to a certain extent since relatively fewer people not coming from the anarchist-antiauthoritarian milieu supported the street-fighting or actively participated in clashes with the police. This may also be related to the more extended (and thus more conservative) composition of the demonstrators, most of whom have no such previous experiences. Nevertheless, there were many confrontations with the police in various points during the demonstration which continued until its end and extended afterwards around Exarchia where many demonstrators headed following the “tradition” in such occasions.
Furthermore, it must be noted that this time the leadership of the union confederations did not just openly cooperate with the police but they actually gave specific commands to the riot squads to stop the demonstrators on Patision avenue in order to take the lead of the demo and avoid possible conflicts with the rank ‘n’ file and a repetition of the events of last Friday, when they received the (active) booing they deserve. Although the police stopped and attacked the first lines of the demo (which included blocks of some leftist first-degree unions) in order to help the GSEE and ADEDY leadership come to the front, the coordination committee of same first-degree unions and other leftist unionists (such as a group of unionists from OTE, the former public telecommunications company) backed politically this move of GSEE and ADEDY by following their route through a detour from 3rd September avenue, making space for them to lead and then following just behind the GSEE and ADEDY leadership block! Moreover, GSEE and ADEDY did everything in their power to help the cops police the demo. When they reached Syntagma square they tried to send away people arriving next. It is not surprising that the police split the demo at Propylea, where clashes broke out, after the block of the bureaucrats headed back for their headquarters.
We must also note that unionists from the security forces (the police, the fire brigade, etc) who waited on Kolotroni square for the separate demonstration of PAME to pass were applauded by the PAME demonstrators and in their turn applauded them, too. Of course, they quickly disappeared afterwards since it would not be a very pleasant experience for them to “come together” with other demonstrators.
The composition of these last demos is different from the December 2008 demos, as expected. High school students did not show up at all, at least in recognizable blocks, except for a few ones in the last demo, but university students were present in the two last demos as more and more general assemblies are called. In general, apart from the students, the precarious, “lumpen”, marginal segments of the class which was the dominant subject of the riots is understandably not present, since the point at issue, at least for the time being, is the fiscal terrorism imposed through the austerity measures threatening workers with more stable jobs and more to lose. So, what needs some explanation is rather the inertia showed by this part of the proletariat since its mobilizations so far have neither constituted a movement nor have corresponded to the present critical situation. The strikes have been called by the leaderships of either the confederations or the federations of the unions. Even where first-degree unions have called a strike, no mass extraordinary assemblies have preceded, which means that no rank ’n’ file processes have been organized. The destructive and paralyzing influence of the socialist unionists and the control they still have of the unions is still the major obstacle and can be illustrated with the following example. The employees of the National Printing Office occupied it on the 5th of March on the grounds that the new measures provide for an extra 30% cut of the income of the employees of the Ministry of the Interior. The occupation, however, was closed to anyone who “was not employed at the Ministry”, as comrades who tried to visit them were told and were actually sent away. The socialist union cadres who control the union decided to end the occupation in a hurry without even bringing the matter to the assembly with the argument that the government “promised” to omit the particular regulation –a decision that was met by anger but has not been reversed. The occupation of the State General Accountancy by laid-off workers of Olympic Airways had the same sad ending. They are mostly technicians that have not been paid for 3 months now after Olympic Airways had been privatized or laid-off workers that were promised to get transferred to other workplaces. In the first day of the occupation they kept an official as a hostage for several hours and in the same evening they beat and chased a riot squad away. Although they were open to discussions and seemed determined to keep the blockade as long as it needed, since, in their own words, they had “nothing to lose”, they let no one into the occupied building. After a 10-day occupation, their socialist (and right-wing) representatives decided to accept the government’s “promise” to have a special committee formed to look into the matter! In this case, the socialist unionists acted as conveyor belts of the government’s threats against the workers and the Public Prosecutor’s order to have them arrested.
As we had already noted last year in relation to the inability of the December rebellion to extend to the workplaces, the lack of autonomous forms of organization and new contents of struggle beyond the trade unionist demands seem to weigh heavily down on the proletarians in an era of ”public debt” terrorism. What’s more, the limits of that rebellion with its minority character are even more obvious now and soon those who had stayed out of it will probably discover that they will need almost to start a new one to get themselves out of this mess.
Proles and Poor’s Credit Rating Agency
aka TPTG,
March 14, 2010
Comments
Very enlightening article,
Very enlightening article, thanks! A question: the whole analysis seems much less optimistic than the tone of taxikipali's contrbutions on this site. The control that the unions still enforce, is still almost complete, independent workers' struggle still quite weak, if I understand the above correctly. I wonder what taxikipali thinks of this...?
I never hold another position
I never hold another position here I think: the unions are in terms of organisation monopolising the reactions to the measures. This however does not mean they are hegemonic in terms of their legitimacy, as proven by the attack on Panagopoulos. Now when it comes to optimism, I think it is an inescapable anarchist trait...for good or for worse.
Finnish
Finnish translation
http://takku.net/article.php/20100317122137834
French
French translation
http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/dette-greves.pdf
Very interesting text.
Very interesting text.
Taxikipali - the following
doesn't really answer rooieravotr's question satisfactorily imo...or rather, I'd say that the "for worse" side of your optimistic reports tend, like all anarcho-voluntarist optimism, to minimise the problems, the weaknesses, the limitations, the contradictions and sometimes seems to hide them. E.g. in reporting uncritically the spectacular actions of the CP - the occupations - you have certainly given the impression (to me at least) of not seeing them as a way of boosting the CP's profile but have made them seem a part of the real movement, a genuine part of the class struggle: you can't constantly justify this "without comment" attitude in the light of such an analysis by the TPTG, which you apprently agree with, because by omitting your opinion, you contribute to the illusion that these actions aren't spectacular, you undermine your undoubtedly genuine desire for genuine radical opposition ( this gets back to the problems I posed in that other thread that I abandoned answering to, because i found the arrogant, vapid and utterly liberal stance of particularly Rob Ray about journalism just side-tracked any useful debate - though I admit, I should probably have explained that). You can't separate the facts from being explicit about your point of view if you want the movement and yourself, to make some progress, and if you want others reading your generally very interesting reports to understand the situation. This "understanding" isn't just academic: people reading and maybe posting on these threads, in some way contribute to this movement, in the inevitably very limited way determined by the nature of internet communication and of writing and reading in general (though such communication is often followed by verbal discussion and then sometimes followed by drawing practical conclusions, and not necessariy just in relation to Greece). If you want those conclusions to be useful, they have to be based on as much clarity about the contradictions of the movement as possible.
Optimism of the practical will, pessimism of the critical spirit.
Stop 'hoping for the best'.
Dear General Samotnaf- Oh how
Dear General Samotnaf-
Oh how I wish you were in Greece so you could report critically on everything you see because surely only then could we possibly know the truth. But I'm sure it's better for all of us to have you sitting in front of your computer directing your troops. That way you can see things more clearly and fight off the spectacle from afar whilst sleep deprived (I'm sure you haven't slept because any good general will do what he asks from his soldiers!).
ffs.
Samotnaf you are a realist,
Samotnaf you are a realist, so ask for the impossible...I wish I could do what you ask but between work and the struggle I cannot. I am not a pessimist, I am just a mortal. No offense.
Pessimism of the spirit,
Pessimism of the spirit, optimism of the will. Is that not what taxikipali is engaged in?
Keep up the good work and the reporting none the less.
ffsx2
Quote: Dear General
thank you
taxikipali wrote: Samotnaf
taxikipali
Of course people only do what they can, and possibly equally important what they want to. However, as valuable as I find your reporting, I too think that comment and analysis is equally important.
To digress a little, when the wars in the great lakes region were going on, there were constant newspaper reports about Hutus killing Tutsis and vice versa. Nevertheless however hard I tried I couldn't find a single article explaining why any of this was happening. Of course it is not as extreme as that. I understand the basis of what is going on in Greece, but sometimes the constant reports leave me lacking in understanding.
I think that this is important. How strong is the struggle? What is happening in strike? To what extent, if any, have workers taken control of struggles? It is easy to focus on a few spectacular incidents such as the beating of a union boss by strikers, but that does not mean that workers are in control of their own struggles.
Devrim
Taxikipali: Quote: Samotnaf
Taxikipali:
.
No offense taken, taxikipali - yet the TPTG have produced something that is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, and they work and participate in the struggle. And i didn't say you were a pessimist - but the opposite. Being mortal usually means swinging from optimism to pessimism and back again without struggling to find a path that goes beyond these 2 and assessing the balance of forces with greater sharpness. Obviously it's not just up to you of course, and I apologise if I put it all down to you: it's up to everyone who wants the class struggle to go further, who doesn't merely want to be a spectator, however cheerleading, of events they don't immediately live... Your flatterers will get you, and the movement, nowhere. I certainly didn't want to "direct" you (as jesuithitsquad put it). The attempts towards searching points and questions, very hard to develop between work and the struggle (at present I have very little work, hence I can try to assess things happening elsewhere between bouts of struggle at a more immediate level) were intended to contribute to the struggle and certainly not from on high.
But I like your use of the May '68 phrase - "you are a realist, so ask for the impossible" - short, sharp and sweet. And I mean that - certainly no irony intended. And it's also appropriate because today in France there are loads of different strikes, both public and private sector ones (transport workers, teachers, post office workers, France Telecom workers, law courts, some State admin workers, etc). Unfortunately, these strikes are mostly controlled by the unions, to which most people are submissive. The other day, 14 and 15 year-olds walked out of a school near where I live because of "overcrowding" (ie - too low a teacher/pupil ratio). They are NOT yet being realistic and demanding the impossible, unfortunately, any more than I am in practice - but the "impossible" has to be posed theoretically first if theory is to develop and unite with practice. Things are happening everywhere, but let's not just "hope for the best": critique is essential if such movements are to develop, and that's all I was saying. As I've consistently said, I find your reports useful, interesting, exciting etc. - but if we're all so fragile that critique now has to be steroetyped as some theoretically correct high-handedness aimed at sending people into battle as cannon-fodder, as jesuithitsquad portrays me (ffs!!!), then we really are fucked - and for nobody's sake but the rulers of this shit world. And if I am obsessed a bit with Greece, it's because I think what's going on there is vital for the rest of Europe, and of the world: maybe i'm wrong (Debord forbid!) but I genuinely think the next 18 months or so could be one of the most significant in the history of life on the planet, more important even than the period 1917 - 19, because far scarier wars and ecological collapse are increasingly looming whilst social movements are also beginning to awake. That's my optimism: as always, tinged with despair. Being mortal also means dying. But I want us to live, and to live "forever" - not in the sense of physical immortality nor in the sense of the "Fame" song (or in the "fame" idea - the sad desire for fame) - but in the sense that what we do against this world will live after us as well as immediately, will influence others who haven't yet started to move, and will prove we are not as the rulers of this society would like us to be - not "mere" mortals. And I'm not the only one who wants this - again obviously.
jesuithitsquad:
Unlike taxikipali, this month i have, as I said very little work - just 22 hours; I suppress the anxiety of the personal financial crisis looming, and the global crisis as well, and my anxiety about my daughter's future, partly by sitting in front of my computer and, as jesuithitsquad put it, "directing [my] troops", ho ho. And yes, jesuithitsquad, I don't sleep, any more than my virtual troops at least: this last night I've had just 2 hours sleep and i have to keep my eyes and mind open enough to drive in order to do a bit of wage slavery this morning (no - I'm not scabbing on this strike day - today I work for a very small private school teaching adult workers/cadres, and I have not managed to even meet most of the teachers who work for it, let alone try to get them to strike). This lack of sleep has been fairly consistent since Christmas, and before - averaging less than 5 hours a night. Of course, you almost certainly don't care about my sleeping habits or seriously meant your put-down, and, despite knowing that the sleep of reason breeds monsters like your parody of me, will probably snore through what's coming up - my clever in-reference to fighting off (though certainly not just "from afar") the spectacle - the Guardian Angel of sleep (ho ho).
My attempts to offer some insights has fuck-all to do with directing toy soldiers, obviously. I do other things, which involve, for example, sometimes being threatened with arrest or being punched in the face ( and these fairly recently), and a lot of other hassles - not the usual behaviour of "Generals", even if I do like to draw the general out of the particular .... Ho ho again: us theoretical "generals" have to pretend to laugh - but only at dialectical jokes. And here's a Greek one, by "Philogelos" (the friend of laughter), from the 3rd or 4th century AD:
"An intellectual is someone who almost drowns whilst trying to swim and so swears he'll never again put his foot in the water before he knows how to swim correctly." For the 21st century one could add, "An anti-theory person is someone who rushes into the whirlpool of social conflict before he's even begun to understand the forces which can easily pull him under". Dialectics, like this epoch, is no laughing matter.
PS will loook at Devrim's post later.
@ Devrim Of course I realise
@ Devrim
Of course I realise there is always a problem of understanding, but you must understand I am not the Communications Commissioner of the People's Liberation Army of Greece for Abroad...there are many other greek speaking comrades who read and write here and they can and do contribute far more substantial articles in terms of an analytical understanding than mine. TPTG are doing an excellent work within their ideological horizon and the analysis above hold enough water to make us here reconsider our course of action (esp. their 8 pages long analysis which is far more interesting than the short piece here).
As for me, whenever possible, either in the main text or in the comment boxes I try to translate texts by greek groups or even newspapers on issues I consider particularly complex (for example the assassination of Lambros Foundas). You are right that Greece might not be so "other" as Rwanda but it is still a far way from the usual west european self-imagined "self". As this requires explaining issues that most of us here consider common sense, please point out at these so that whenever possible I can provide some explanation.
Now regarding my way of reporting the anti-measures reactions, comrades would have noticed that unlike earlier posts it covers more extensively CP/PAME actions etc. This is done in terms of context, and exactly so that readers abroad can grasp the general climate here, not to endorse its politics or portray it as continuous with the anarchist struggle. I have commented on the role of the CP many times in the comment boxes and whoever bothers to read these updates will have a clear image of why the CP and the Radical Left Coalition are doing what they are doing.
As far as a general comment on how "strong" the struggle is, I first of all fail to understand the question. It is as if the struggle was one thing, and one thing that can be measured and calculated. Whose struggle? Do people imagine there is such a thing as a conscious proletariat in greece that acts like a fist, or some other communist fantasy? Yes, the reactions to the measures are a "struggle" but this struggle is contradictory, internally antagonistic, fragmentary and confused as all struggles are. It is neither strong nor weak, it is dynamic. It could go away for ever tomorrow, or become an insurrection in May, because greece is in a condition of intense fermentation that is not "reportable". A tension and fermentation that does not manifest itself either in workers beating the scum Panagopoulos, or in factory occupations, either in bomb campaigns or in riots. It lies in between these events, which cannot be separated from each other, and most crucially in the social relations of people on the street who are of course touched by our actions and campaigns and counterinformation, but are also touched by union promises, PM speeches, TV scandals etc. If I had the time for a realistic portrayal of what is going on in greece now, far more space would be given in analysing the biggest commercial success in the last 20 years currently poisoning the minds of people here, the porn-movie of Jullie Alexandratou, than any of the things PAME does. This would provide a real insight into how the spectacle works, diverting the workers from their becoming-autonomous - not the rusting skeletons of the KKE, but the hot thighs of the show business. I am sorry I have not the time for all these. I specifically woke up two hours earlier today so that I can have some time to consider and write this answer. But when you press too much on the horse's back, it just breaks...
Quote: Of course I realise
Thanks a lot for your time. I certainly don't 'press' that you write more. You write much more news on here than we do. When we do articles though we try to make them more in-depth. What we do, and what you do comes from what we view as important, which is obviously different. We don't write about every strike in English. For example, the last time I was on strike, a few years ago now, and when my wife was on strike last year, we didn't write news articles about it, and we certainly don't write about every bomb that goes off. This is about perspectives. Yours are obviously different from ours. I don't see the problem with raising the question of perspectives though.
Actually, we are neighbours and I live in the country next door. I have been to Greece a few times, and I think that apart from religion in lots of ways its very culturally similar to Turkey. What I meant was that when seen from a distance struggles obviously seem quite different, and difficult to understand. There wasn't anything particular in what you wrote. I will come back to this point.
This is all true (though I doubt there will be an insurrection in May). The reason I raised it was that I think that people can get a little carried away when looking from afar. How strong is the struggle in Greece is, of course, not a question that can be answered with something like 6.47 wp/h.
I feel that it is important for people not to get carried away with things. You read a lot of anarchists, for example on the board RevLeft, commenting that Greece is on the edge of revolution. I doubt it is. I think that also it is necessary to be clear about these things as lots of leftist groups survive on this "the revolution is round the corner" type line. I think that it just leads to disillusionment when it doesn't occur, and it is not a road I want us to go down.
I was chatting with one of the younger comrades about the struggle in Greece last week, and he was very enthusiastic and optimistic, which as you say is the duty of revolutionaries. I was being 'old and cynical' and wondering how much control workers had in these strikes. He said something like "well that beat up some union official the other week".
Now, I think the momentum in the struggles in Greece is much stronger than the recent TEKEL strike here, but workers there attacked union stages, and jeered leaders and occupied offices. As much as it shows the anger, it doesn't show the struggle 'within the struggle' for control. We know in that strike because we were working closely with people involved that workers made two attempts to set up their own strike committees,... and failed both times. I think stuff like that is much more important.
Maybe it is just that information on things like that seems more important than news of another bomb attack in my personal opinion, and that is what I would like to read.
Anyway, once again thank you for your time,
Devrim
I think that a couple of
I think that a couple of people here are being are being very unfair to taxikipali. (Although I think it's important to point out that this is only one or two people, out of the many tens of thousands of people who have read his/her articles, or the many other people who have translated them into other languages)
From my point of view, his/her perspective comes through clearly - and in his comments s/he has elaborated his views, for example on the Communist Party using anarchist tactics in order to attempt to recuperate the struggle.
Sam, while you point out that TPTG has produced this useful analysis, this is only one short article by a group whereas taxikipali has written dozens of factual reports in the same period of time, as an individual.
As she/he says, she/he is not the spokesperson for the working class there, and can't be expected to do everything alone. What would be better would be not that taxi change the style of the reports but that more people from Greece, or with in-depth knowledge of the situation there post more analytical content.
Asking any more of him/her at this time I think is completely out of order - already the sheer amount of information passed on to those of us elsewhere in the world but these reports is absolutely huge, and is hard to believe that it is just the work of one individual. I think it is unfair to demand anything more of one individual, especially as we all have personal lives, jobs, relationships and problems to be dealing with on top of everything else. And it is clear that the vast majority of readers recognize this.
My question to taxikipali was
My question to taxikipali was not meant to be criticism of taxikpali, and the answer s she/ he gave are clear and to the point, as far as I am concerned. I agree wit Steven that she/ he is doing what can possibly be hoped of him, and I am very grateful for thet she/ he is doing.. I just noticed a difference in evaluation between his reports en the TPGP text, and I wondered aloud what that was about. I think any kind of serious analysis of the events can very fruitfully use the vey valuable work taxikipali is doing in his reports.
Quote: TPTG are doing an
Sounds interesting. Where can i find this?
Spanish translation:
Spanish translation:
http://www.klinamen.org/article7618.html
Quote: Asking any more of
Exactly, Samotnaf taxikipali has been extremely good about answering the massive volumes of questions you leave after each new article. Give the guy a break.
edit: /girl
I welcome the extremely
I welcome the extremely interesting developments reported by taxikipali and the general view given by news of the struggle. I don't think that the clarification sought by Samonaf is at all out of order and he couched it in very respectful terms. I don't think that he deserves abuse along the lines that he's an armchair general. I tend to agree with both his and Devrim's points.
Apologies for the delay in
Apologies for the delay in responding (due partly to problems with my internet connection at home), and even now i am pressed for time.
Steven:
is clearly an implicit reference primarily to me - and yet I have consistently said that his reports are "interesting", "exciting", "useful" etc etc etc.
So what is this falisification of my attitudes based on? I think it's based mainly on a liberal ideology (most overtly expressed by Rob Ray in the old thread I started, and which taxikipali iirc rightly criticised) of separation between agitational factual propaganda "for the masses" - ie a kind of journalistic ideology of "reporting the facts", and a hangover of the old Leninist perspective of one set of attitudes for "the people", and another set for "revolutionaries", which recretes the hierarchical divisioàn of labour within the "revolutionary movement". .
It's as if the selection of facts exist independently of your point of view, and as if the facts themselves exist independently of their interpretation. As I said, t. iirc criticised this, and yet still contradictorily holds to it in some way. I don't know enough about Greek education and the influence of philosophy on it, but is this a reaction to that? Reactions always remain defined by what you are reacting against: they can be a starting point, but unless you go beyond that and see what is useful in "theory", you just reproduce the flipside of theory, which is rather like the empiricist ideology of English philosophy - the self-contradictory idiot AJAyer etc. A way of keeping "theory" reserved for the after-thought, something separate (which is taxikipali's general way of posting here: first the 'facts', then, in any thread that follows s/he gives his/her point of view). The TPTG article combines facts and theory - and this is a task for everyone, not just taxikipali. The selection of the facts is explicit:it is based on the desire to push things further , to not be blinded by optimism (in '81, after the riots, there were those in the Uk - some really good people at the time - who genuinely believed that Britain was about to erupt into revolution: whilst it was a real possiblity, this attitude tended to minimise the problems; Greece is further along the road to revolution in many ways than the UK in '81, but 2010 so far is not like 1981 internationally in terms of class struggle, when Poland, South Africa, and to a lesser extent, innumerable other places such as Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, were experiencing significant social movements...I'm not saying it couldn't happen obviously - but we have to try to see the obstacles, rather than rely on some anarcho-voluntarist wishful-thinking, which is a powerful tendency here and which can so easily lead to its opposite when things don't work out as hoped - as I think Devrim has kind of said).
I've got a lot more to say, and certainly could elaborate more concretely - and i will when I have more time; I aplogise in advance if I haven't made everything clearer with various quotes form the posts here etc. and if i ramble without sorting things out a bit more but I'm rushed.
Readers outside of greece
Readers outside of greece should also take into consideration that the greek media (which the greek state and the parties in government exercise significant control over) is notorious for preventing news of "left-wing" and "revolutionary" activity within greece from escaping its borders.
With the increasing "globalization" of the media, the ability to quarantine such news has diminished but, for example, if one regularly reads the english edition of kathimerini then one would be presented with an image of greece minus any mention of a domestic insurgency or any form of proletarian activity. A better historical example of this tendency can be noticed in the media blackout surrounding the decades long activity of the Revolutionary Organization November 17th which was grossly under-reported by the english speaking (and american) bourgeoisie media.
If taxikipali's updates sound optimisitic, it is most likely because he is sharing reports about aspects of the struggle that are often suppressed internationally. Furthermore, many of the actions (strikes, occupations, and attacks) that are common place, and even deemed insignificant, in greece would make front page new in European or American news. Thus contributing to our own foreign conceptions about "the strength of the struggle" in greece.
Lastly and most importantly, readers on Libcom should recognize that no one has provided such update and continuous information on the struggle (whether it be labor activity, anarchist attacks, or the urban guerrilla) in greece as taxikipali. For years there were just a scattered reports from different outlets and now we have weekly run-downs, which is especially important now that the situation in greece has gotten more crucial.