Två texter av Stathis Kouvelakis om den senaste utvecklingen i Grekland

GREECE: TOWARDS THE POLITICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE FRONT OF THE NO

The developments in Athens are dramatic and their pace is accelerating. In the next few hours the Greek parliament will vote the new, third, Memorandum agreed between the Syriza government and the Europeans following the now standard express procedure of a single-day (and night…) “debate”. The MPs of Syriza’s Left Platform have already announced that they will vote no and the number of other Syriza MPs who will do the same is still unknown. Among them there will certainly be Zoe Kostantopoulou, the president of the Greek parliament who is currently waging a desperate fight for the ultra-minimal procedures of the parliamentary debate to be respected. Her attitude has triggered a tremendous media attack which is now openly backed by members of the government and pro-government Syriza MPs.

Another major development was the call issued today for the popular mobilization and the constitution of committees against the Memorandum across the country by the leaders of Syriza’s Left Platform (Panagiotis Lafazanis of the Left Current, and Antonis Davanelos of DEA/Red Network) and leading figures of twelve other organizations of the Greek radical Left. Among them two (ARAN and ARAS) are founding components of Antarsya. This is widely considered as the first public step towards the constitution of a new political front that will regroup a large range of forces of the radical Left opposing the new Memorandum and the neoliberal U-turn of the Syriza government.

The Memorandum will certainly be voted by a broad majority in Parliament, thanks to the support of the centre-right and rightwing parties. However it is highly likely that the government will lose support among its own parliamentary group and will call for snap elections in a month’s time. The main rationale for this unprecedented move is to prevent the emerging leftwing opposition to its policy to organize and also to be able to hold elections before the concrete impact of the new austerity measures starts biting. In any case, these elections will be the first test for the new anti-austerity front that is crystallizing around the Left Platform. The next few days will be crucial.
Aghios Nikolas Fokidas, August 13, 2015

Below the full text of the call signed by the leading figures of the 14 organizations of the Greek radical Left

NO TO THE NEW MEMORANDUM
CALL FOR STRUGGLE AND MOBILIZATION ACROSS THE COUNTRY

The undersigned, representing a wide range of forces and organizations of the Left reject the new third memorandum submitted today to the Parliament and call for large unitary struggles to overturn all memoranda and impose a new progressive orientation for the country.

The signing of a new Memorandum by a government that was elected to abolish the previous two, amounts to a major disaster for the Greek people and democracy. The new Memorandum means even more austerity, further restriction of the rights of the citizenry and the perpetuation of the country’s regime of tutelage. The new Memorandum is a complete reversal of the mandate of the Greek people who rejected in the referendum of 5 July in their entirety the neoliberal policies of austerity and of neocolonial dependency.

Throughout the last five years the people opposed in every possible way the fear and blackmailing and struggled for an independent, just, reconstructed, democratic and sovereign Greece. As was the case for the previous ones, this Memorandum needs to be met with the wider militant resistance of a cohesive and determined society. We will continue down the path of July 5 until the end, until the overthrow of the policies of the Memoranda, with an alternative plan for the next day, for democracy and social justice in Greece.

The fight against the new Memorandum begins now, with the mobilization of the people in every corner of the country. For this fight to develop and win, it is necessary to build up popular organization at all levels and in all social areas.

We call for the constitution of a broad political and social nationwide movement and for the creation to of committees of struggle against the new memorandum, against austerity and against the tutelage of the country. This will be a unitary movement that will justify the aspirations of the people for democracy and social justice.

The fight that led to the triumph of ”No” of July 5 continues and will win!

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Panagiotis Lafazanis (Left Platform – Left Current)
Alekos Vernardakis (Communist Renewal)
Nikos Galanis (Leftwing Intervention)
Dimitris Kavouras (Communist Organization Reconstruction)
Kaltsonis Dimitris (Association Yannis Kordatos)
Panagiotis Mantas (DIKKI – Socialist Left)
Anthonis Davanelos (Left Platform –DEA)
Andreas Pagiatsos (Xekinima)
Spyros Sakellaropoulos (ARAN – Left Recomposition)
Dimitris Sarafianos (ARAS – Leftwing Anticapitalist Regroupment)
Maria Souani (Workers Struggle)
Themis Tzimas (Former member of PASOK National Council)
Lambros Heetas (Initiative of the 1000)

• Xekinima is the Greek section of the CWI
• The Communist Organization Reconstruction and the Association Yanis Kordatos are regroupments of former KKE (Greek CP) activists
• Workers Struggle is a network of activists who are still in their majority members of the KKE
• DIKKI –Socialist Left is a regroupment of former PASOK activists that was part of the Syriza coalition
GREECE: THE VOTE IN PARLIAMENT ON THE MEMORANDUM
43 Syriza MP’s vote ”no” or ”present”

GREECE: THE VOTE IN PARLIAMENT ON THE MEMORANDUM

The result of the early morning vote on the Memorandum was a slap in the face of Alexis Tsipras and his government. Of course, the Memorandum was approved, thanks to the support of New Democracy, Pasok and Potami, with 222 votes out of 300. But 43 Syriza MPs refused to support the government (32 ”no” and 11 ”present”), a figure higher than in any other previous vote. The ”no” vote regrouped the MPs of the Left Platform, the four MPs of KOE, Zoe Kostantopoulou and her close collaborator Rachel Makri, former finance vice-minister Nadia Valavani, Vangelis Diamatopoulos (an MP close to the ”anti-authoritarian” milieu) and Yanis Varoufakis. The ”present” vote came essentially from MPs of the 53+ tendency, the left wing of the ”majority” bloc.

The speech of Alexis Tsipras was particularly defeatist and incoherent. The result of the vote forced him to postpone the decision to call for snap elections. The newly invented manoeuvre will be to ask for a vote of confidence in Parliament, after August 20, to put in a difficult position the No camp within Syriza.

The widely shared impression is that Syriza is purely and simply disintegrating at record speed as a party. The Moloch of the Memoranda is devouring a new victim.

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EU och socialistiska strategier – viktig debatt i tyska Die Linke

I en för sig självklar medial skugga av den politiska debatten om uppgörelsen i Bryssel den 13 juli, bland Syrizas medlemmar, liksom bland partiets  vänner och fiender i Grekland, gjorde tyska vänsterpartiets Die Linkes riksdagsfraktion en dramatisk helomvändning när Angela Merkel och Schäuble den 17 juli sökte förtroende på hemmaplan i tyska Bundestag för den egna utpressningen, den ”mentala vattentortyren”, av Alex Tsipras och hans förhandlingsdelegation.

En förkrossande majoritet av Die Linkes riksdagsgrupp sa ”oxi”, ”nein” eller nej till den tyska regeringens mot Grekland så hånfulla förhandlingsresultat, 53 ledamöter röstade nej, två lade ner sina röster!

Nicole Gohlke och Janine Wissler, två medlemmar från riksdagsgruppen, knutna till Marxist21, ett nätverk för marxister i Die Linke och aktiva i partiets vänstersocialistiska grupp, understryker nu betydelsen av detta:

”Även om detta, kan ses som förvånande eftersom det kommer från en vänsterformation, representerar det i all ärlighet en omformulering av vår hållning, detta med tanke på att en stor majoritet av vår riksdagsgrupp i februari röstade ”ja”, en minoritet avstod och en ännu mindre minoritet röstade ”nej, i den omröstning som handlade om en förlängning av tidigare uppgörelser”.

De inleder också en strategisk diskussion inom partiet om denna svängning, tidigare stängd av sin låsning till perspektivet av att skapa ”ett socialt Europa” inom ramarna för EU. En strategi som nu har rammats ordentligt. Även om såväl yngre svenska journalister liksom yngre svenskar överhuvudtaget inte förstår ett enda ord av tyska (själv tragglar jag mig mödosamt igenom en del), till skillnad från under den epok när svensk arbetarrörelse föddes mycket tack vare just tyska impulser, kommer ändå denna nya vänsterdebatt i EU:s hjärtland självklart att nå även Sverige.

”Nu talar Europa tyska” har CDU:s gruppledare i Bundestag förtjust konstaterat när han sett hur Merkel/Schäuble fått de andra staterna i unionen att disciplinerat rätta in sig efter det egna landets exportstrategi och finanspolitik. Några av oss har kanske också konstaterat att Wolkswagen numer dristar sig att sälja sina bilar ”på tyska” i Sverige. ”Das auto”, heter det när det egna varumärket presenteras. Ett språkligt grepp som för tyska varor var otänkbart under de första decennierna efter Andra världskriget.

Williamsburg i New Yorks Brooklyn – svenska hipsters Jerusalem

Vi kommer inte undan inflytandet från Tyskland, med dess 80 miljoner innevånare, och även om svenska hipsters sägs vilja flytta till New York eller åtminstone göra om Södermalm till vårt Brooklyn, måste svensk vänster självklart också ta del av vad tyska socialister nu satt upp på dagordningen, en förutsättningslös diskussion om hur vi och andra européer, i och utanför euroländerna, som kämpar mot högerpolitik, svångremmar och kapitalism, ska gå vidare efter Eurogruppens förnedring av Greklands vänsterregering.

En bra början är det inlägg som Nicole Gohlke och Janine Wissler nu skrivit och som också översatts – till engelska! Det återfinns nedan i sin helhet hämtad från nättidningen Jacobin:

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The Terms of the Debate

On July 17 the parliamentary faction of the Left Party rejected the latest austerity program being pushed on Greece, with fifty-three MPs voting against and two abstaining. Die Linke‘s vote demonstrated a clear “oxi” to the blackmailing of the Greek government by Angela Merkel, Wolfgang Schäuble, and Sigmar Gabriel.

Although that may seem unsurprising coming from a leftist formation, it represents in all honesty a redefinition of our position, given that in February of this year a large majority of our parliamentary fraction voted “yes” to the bailout extension, while a minority abstained and an even smaller minority voted “no.”

Granted, the February vote was a different one, incomparable in terms of the gravity of the decision being put to a vote. The argument in favor of supporting Greece’s newly minted leftist government by giving them time to maneuver had to be taken particularly seriously at the time, despite the fact that the blackmail tactics and neoliberal demands of the European institutions were already plain to see.

Unlike in February, Die Linke voted “oxi” this time because the German government had forced the most severe austerity package since 2010 onto the Greek government. Unfortunately, Alexis Tsipras and the majority of Syriza MPs saw no way out of this blackmail, and accepted the austerity package.

This defeat represents an occasion to reflect, ask questions, and exercise some self-criticism. The capitulation of the first genuinely leftist government within the European Union since the outbreak of the economic crisis to the German government and the other European governments that follow Germany’s lead is ultimately our own defeat, and a defeat for the entire European left as well.

We must take this moment to rethink the central strategic premises that have guided our politics these past months, i.e. our principled “yes” to the EU and our categorical “no” to leaving the eurozone. Doing so means rethinking our political strategy as a left party as a whole. As a party of the European Left, we are obligated to discuss this question with our comrades throughout the continent and in Greece in particular. We cannot abandon them in this difficult situation.

It is of little use (and counterproductive) to denounce Syriza as traitors and declare their political demise. That is the job of our political opponents seeking to suffocate the political awakening happening in Greece. Equally as unhelpful, however, are knee-jerk reactions and blind, unquestioning loyalties.

We should neither reject nor uncritically support everything the Syriza government has attempted to end the widespread and ongoing impoverishment of the Greek people. The sort of disdainful moralism that says we as Germans and “outsiders” have no right to develop an opinion or a critique of what is happening in Greece will not help us to learn any political lessons from the situation either.

We owe both ourselves and our Greek comrades an honest and solidaristic debate about both the strategic successes as well as mistakes of the past months, especially if we wish to continue to fight together against austerity in Europe and prepare ourselves for coming European struggles. Thus it is crucial that we be confident enough to critically reflect on what has happened, to discuss Greece’s exit from the eurozone as a possible alternative, and attempt to understand what the current defeat and the massive “oxi” vote means.

In Bad Faith

Since being elected, Alexis Tsipras was blackmailed by the rest of the European heads of state, to whom he ultimately capitulated. He admitted as much to the Greek Parliament. His defeat is not a personal failure, nor is it due to some sort of egotistical drive to retain power on his part.

Nevertheless, the central premises of the Greek government’s political strategy — the non-negotiability of staying in the eurozone while simultaneously rejecting a politics of austerity — would not (and could not) have had any other result. Ultimately, this strategy gave the Greek government no choice but to submit to the diktat of Merkel and Schaeuble. We supported our Greek comrades in their strategy and had hoped that some sort of middle path could be found, but in retrospect we have to concede that no such middle path existed.

Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis recently published a telling account of the Eurogroup negotiations, in which he reveals that the suggestions of the Greek side were never really even taken seriously — doing so, after all, would have entailed a serious discussion about alternatives to austerity and the possibility of concessions from the Eurogroup.

This means that, in reality, the closed-door “negotiations” in Brussels were not negotiations at all, but rather a series of meetings in which the Eurogroup repeatedly decided that the compromises Syriza was willing to make were still miles away from what the Eurogroup sought to squeeze out of the country.

This dynamic culminated in Varoufakis — Greek minister of finance and official representative of an EU member state — being ejected and excluded from the Eurogroup meeting. His attempt to consult the Eurogroup’s bylaws subsequently revealed that the Eurogroup does not formally exist, and thus does not offer any rights or privileges to individual member states. And thus it was that the supposedly fair European rules of the game were shattered on the rocks of a Europe under German leadership.

In light of these facts, we must accept that the Syriza government’s strategy that focused on negotiation and diplomatic dialogue has failed. Not even the charismatic personalities of Tsipras and Varoufakis, nor extensive expertise and deep negotiating tactics, were enough to win real influence or shift the balance of forces within the European institutions even slightly.

The pledge to abstain from “unilateral actions” did not gain Syriza any extra time or breathing room. Rather, the negotiations proved that the European institutions are unfavorable and adverse terrain for the Left, and that a strategy of offering concessions to the other side in hopes of salvaging at least a modicum of humane social policies will fail. Merkel, Schäuble, and Gabriel were not interested in Greece alone: Greece was to serve as an example for the rest of Europe.

The message that the defeat is intended to send is this: it does not matter how many general strikes are conducted, it does not matter if you elect a new government and the majority of the population votes “oxi” in a popular referendum. These things will not help you and will not change your country’s politics.

That is the message that they want to use to demoralize the entire European left and stifle social protest across the continent. This demoralization and disappointment can only be countered if the European left conducts an open and self-critical debate about the lessons to be drawn from the current defeat.
A Left-Wing Grexit

Ultimately, Schäuble (in collusion with Sigmar Gabriel) threatened the Greek side with a forced Grexit from the Right. A Grexit “from the Right” would mean Greece leaving the euro unprepared, with the conditions for switching currencies, stabilizing an exchange rate, and restructuring the debt being negotiated with the EU from a position of profound weakness. Whether Schäuble and the conservative factions of European capital were seriously considering this option, or whether it was simply further political blackmail to force more concessions out of Syriza in light of the party’s lack of a strategic alternative, is difficult to say.

Either way, the Left in Europe utterly failed to think through a Plan B in a serious manner. Thus, Greek’s left government was robbed of any possible alternative in its negotiations with the lenders. Not having a Plan B meant Syriza had only one option: remaining in the eurozone at all costs. Thus, the institutions could demand as much from the Greek government as they saw fit, because the only other possibility was the break which was to be avoided no matter what.

What, then, could our Plan B look like? This undertaking strikes us a difficult one that poses more questions than it offers answers. Though there are many important contributions on the issue of a Plan B, particularly from the Greek left itself, there has yet to exist a detailed scenario for a left-wing Grexit.

The relative attractiveness thereof is owed more than anything to the alternative to it: remaining in the eurozone would mean further austerity and immiseration, the de facto abandonment of democratic and parliamentary competencies, and a historic political test for Syriza as a party. Remaining in the eurozone has forced the Syriza government — at least for now — to switch tracks from being a bitter enemy of austerity to the executive organ of the troika dictatorship in Greece.

A self-determined, left-wing Grexit is by no means a simple or an easy solution. The economic consequences thereof in particular remain highly controversial amongst left-wing economists and social scientists. At this point they appear to be more or less unpredictable. In the short term, a Grexit could mean a deepening of social fault lines, economic collapse, and further impoverishment of the Greek people.

On the other hand, it could also mean opening up new spaces of political maneuvering and scopes of action: e.g., self-directed lending, national measures against capital flight, and increased taxes on the rich without first having to seek the troika’s approval. These options are at least worth exploring. Such a move would of course mean taking on an almost incalculable political risk for the parties involved. It would entail a leap into the unknown, accompanied by the fear of being held politically responsible for missteps and unexpected consequences that may arise from it.

Our Greek comrades have nevertheless already demonstrated their willingness to think boldly and take risks. For example: in the heat of sharpening contradictions immediately before the referendum, Yanis Varoufakis suggested a raft of unilateral counter-measures to the prime minister’s cabinet as a reaction to the European Central Bank’s closing of Greek banks.

His suggestions can be read as a first step towards a self-directed exit from the eurozone. He suggested: 1) printing Greek promissory notes or announcing the government’s intention to introduce a separate currency (still tied to the euro), 2) enacting a haircut on Greek bonds held by the ECB since 2012, and 3) taking control of the Greek central bank.
What Do the People Want?

In the left debate around the Grexit, there is usually a political argument in addition to the economic: the majority of Greeks want to remain in the eurozone, meaning that the Syriza government could only undertake a left-wing Grexit against the wishes of the majority.

But is that really the case, or should we instead understand this moment as one of a contradictory dynamic within a scenario of polarized class conflict? It is undeniably the case that when asked if they would like to remain in the Eurozone — decoupled from the austerity program that remaining in the eurozone entails — a majority of Greeks respond with “yes.” But would the same be true if this question were posed with a clear focus on the link to austerity?

The Greek people’s preference for what seems like the easier solution (i.e., remaining in the eurozone while ending austerity) is not necessarily incompatible with a readiness to accept the consequences of a Grexit should it prove necessary — particularly if breaking with austerity while remaining in the eurozone proves to be impossible. This is precisely what the 61 percent of Greeks who voted “oxi” in the referendum on the July 5 expressed.

Although Alexis Tsipras sought to emphasize that the referendum was not primarily a vote on the question of Greece’s preferred currency, for most Greeks it was clear that they were making a choice between remaining in the eurozone (and thereby continuing austerity) on the one hand, and a clear rejection of the offer made by the “institutions” (and thus the possibility of a Grexit) on the other.

The Greek media sought to project just such a mood and stylize the referendum in this way. Panic and alarm about shuttered banks, images of long lines in front of (nearly) empty ATMs, a collapse of public life — the media established a doomsday scenario as the backdrop to the referendum in Greece, which the Eurogroup in turn used as a threat.

The message that emerges from 61 percent of the population voting “oxi” in the referendum is amplified by the very real relation between social position and voting behavior: the financially disadvantaged and socially marginalized voted against the deal in huge majorities. The referendum thus seems to indicate that remaining in the eurozone unconditionally is not necessarily a goal shared by the majority of the population, but is rather a project of the ruling and propertied classes of Greece.
A Common Defeat

The referendum also demonstrated how the brave actions of our comrades and the initiative to launch the referendum could lead to an enormous re-politicization of Greek society and renewal of the social movements. Many felt this possibility when Gregor Gysi and representatives of the Blockupy coalition spoke in front of tens of thousands at the closing rally at Syntagma Square. The mobilization around the referendum and the very overwhelming “oxi” vote indicate that there is most certainly an enormous desire for political alternatives and a Plan B within Greece itself.

Our comrades in the government had five months to convince a majority of the population of the utility of a Plan B. We had five months to demonstrate to the Greek people that we were doing everything possible to fulfill our electoral promise of ending austerity while remaining in the euro. But having a Plan B also means establishing red lines that we are unwilling to cross. It also means that — should an end to austerity inside the eurozone have proved impossible — then a real and plausible alternative to capitulation had to exist.

At the same time it would have been necessary, perhaps along the lines of Varoufakis’s suggestions, to begin making serious preparations for the worst-case scenario, i.e. preparing to issue promissory notes, to print a new national currency, to nationalize the banks, and to introduce capital controls.

Whether or not our comrades in Syriza could have won over a majority of the population to an exit from the eurozone in the case of a final breakdown of negotiations is of course difficult to say. The lack of a strategic alternative to remaining in the eurozone, however, not only weakened our negotiating position, but was also disorienting for people looking to the new government for hope and inspiration both in and outside of Greece.

The responsibility for the mistake of not preparing a Plan B and not fighting to win over majorities in favor of such a strategy is not that of Syriza alone — it is the responsibility of the entire European left. We all owe it to ourselves to reflect critically on the fact that we neglected to utilize or even entertain the thought of utilizing our last remaining strategic resource: a break with the institutions and the eurozone, thereby developing the scenario of a left-wing Grexit. Thus we have neither reason nor justification to act as if we had known better than our Greek comrades.

No one can claim that we would have performed better or more intelligently than they did. In fact, illusions about the space for maneuver and scope for reform within the EU are probably even more widespread on the German left than they are in Greece. These sorts of illusions were consistently nourished by our own party in the last European elections, while some currents went so far as to claim that principled left-wing criticism of the EU and its institutions was impossible.

In light of this mistake, we must engage in thoroughgoing self-reflection and self-criticism. For our common defeat suggests that truly left politics in Europe can from now on only be oriented against the institutions of the EU. It follows that, for a socialist government in the European periphery, left politics may only be possible outside of the straightjacket of the Eurogroup altogether.
Shattering the EU Illusion

So what questions have to be reevaluated in the EU debate? In Germany, a major reason why Die Linke often finds it difficult to criticize the EU as an imperialist project is because it is portrayed as a historical lesson learned after the second World War. As the story goes, the once warring great powers of Europe joined together in a new geopolitical alliance which would make future armed conflict on the continent a thing of the past.

Philosophers such as Jürgen Habermas take this point of departure to praise the EU as a post-national construct and an alternative to the European nation-state. But even though the EU has greatly transformed the political relations between its constituent member states, economic competition between said states has not been lessened by this transformation whatsoever. Indeed: the negotiations around Greece’s latest bailout extension make them easy for all to see.

That the EU introduced a common currency but not a common wage, social, or budgetary policy is not a mistake or an accident, nor is it a temporary condition of an as-yet-unfinished European Union. The construction of the euro and Germany’s aggressive export strategy are harmful to economically weaker countries like Greece, particularly since the various states do not share a common or coordinated economic policy. Instead of constraining the power of the German economy and political establishment, the EU simply provides it with a post-national alibi.

It is now clear that from now on “German” is to be spoken in Europe, as Volker Kauder gleefully declared a few months ago. Given this state of affairs, we must determine to what extent an EU-wide “reboot” of the European project constitutes a useful demand for class struggle in Europe.

The consequences of EU policies are very different depending on whether we are talking about Germany or Greece, Great Britain or Portugal. A state-driven reconfiguration of European social policy would require a synchronized political shift in nearly all twenty-eight member states. Even then, major corporations and financial markets would still serve as powerful opponents of any possible social reform.

We do not believe that concrete solidarity between the peoples of Europe is possible by making positive reference to an EU that is imagined and enacted by national governments as a common currency area and economic zone. The various struggles against austerity and for improved living conditions across Europe (which admittedly are yet to be united in common cause) appear to us as much more promising prospects. Not to be ignored is the concrete struggle against old and new forms of fascism and racism; this means fighting Pegida in Germany, the National Front in France, and Golden Dawn in Greece.

It is time to make the policies and politics of the EU the subject of the real social struggles existing in the various member states, rather than continuing to speak of a “social EU” for which we will be unable to build a social movement in the foreseeable future. Our politics must contribute to establishing, expanding and deepening pan-European networks of solidarity between political actors and activists in European, national, regional, and local movements.

Following Greece’s subjugation under the diktat of the institutions, it is both unlikely as well as inappropriate to expect that our comrades in the European Left will continue to view the EU or the euro in a positive light, as membership in the eurozone has revealed itself to be an instrument for the implementation and enforcement of austerity policies.
Living Up to the Slogans

It makes little sense to retrospectively search for the obstacles to a different conclusion of the Greek tragedy exclusively or even primarily in Greece itself. The reasons for Syriza’s (tentative) failure lie primarily in the absence of relevant left movements in the rest of Europe, as well as in the historic weakness of the Left in Germany. We believe that new and stronger efforts are necessary if we are to achieve a true social realignment in Germany with Die Linke.

We remain a party that receives 10 percent in elections and are only able to mobilize twenty thousand protesters to the Blockupy demonstrations. Our roots in the trade unions are still paltry, although we are at least mobilizing together against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in the fall.

This common action is important, but it is still far too little if we really want to live up to our slogan of “carrying the resistance into the heart of the European crisis regime.” To do so, we are going to have to go back to the drawing board and do our homework, in order to build an “oxi” to neoliberalism and austerity that truly earns its name.

One lesson of this defeat is to rethink the premises of our own politics and to dare to entertain the possibility of a break. A break with an EU that strengthens rather than overcomes nationalism, the sealing-off of European borders, and imperialist conflict. A break with a purely parliamentary politics that reduces parties to something one votes for once every few years and reduces parliaments to bodies for implementing the wishes of corporate lobbyists.

The best and most important kind of solidarity we can offer the people in Greece is to start putting real pressure on the German government here at home.

Translated by Loren Balhorn

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När Rubicon korsades…

En tidig januarimorgon år 49 f.Kr. valde Julius Caesar att gå över floden Rubicon söder om Ravenna med sin stridserfarna  Legion X Equestris (Tionde beridna legionen) för att sedan marschera mot det republikanska Rom och bara ryktet om trupprörelsen fick motståndarna att ge upp eller fly, det strategiska målet, den politiska och militära makten i Rom erövrades och republiken inledde en övergång till kejsardöme. En politisk revolution som förändrade romarrikets styre.

Rubicon, floden med namn efter sitt röda sediment, var ett landmärke i gammal romersk lagstiftning. De underordnade fältherrar eller guvernörer som styrde utanför imperiets hjärta, dess nära landområden, fick inte korsa floden utan att upplösa och avväpna sina trupper. Tog man sig över med soldater till Rubicons södra flodbädd utan att göra detta var det samma sak som uppror mot Rom. En strategi utan återvändo, där ett misslyckande var samma sak som avrättning, både av befälhavaren och av varje enskild soldat i hans trupp.

Den 20 februari i år korsade Tsipras och Syrizas ledning med honom om inte Rubicon så åtminstone dess biflöden genom att acceptera en förlängning av det Andra åtstramningspaketet från trojkan i Bryssel. Trots att det sågs och beskrevs som en taktisk reträtt, en kompromiss, ett försök att hämta andan från trojkans strypgrepp, innebar det att Syriza här gav upp det antikapitalistiska program, som antogs i Thessaloniki 13 september 2014 och av Alex Tsipras i valkampanjen före segern 25 januari i år lyftes fram ”som icke förhandlingsbart”. Det var med denna första kapitulation en ny ”realistisk strategi” myntades i hopp om att med äran i behåll kunna förhandla fram en hedervärd kompromiss.

Greklands BNP har sjunkit mer än 25 procent sedan 2007

Oavsett vilka tankebanor som tidigare kan ha korsats i huvudena hos Tsipras och hans kamrater var regeringens beslut att ta ansvar av det från högern och socialdemokratin ärvda Andra åtstramningspaketet definitivt ett medvetet skifte av strategi. Från antikapitalism till ett försök att i förhandlingar, och med hopp om solidaritet från Europa socialdemokrati, få Europas stater att mildra åtstramning och tysk budgetdisciplin till förmån för en mer expansiv keynesiansk finans- och budgetpolitik.

Anspråken på att åtminstone börja förändra också sociala egendomsförhållanden dumpades. Syrizas legendariske ikon från det grekiska motståndet under Andra världskriget, Manolis Glezos, i dag en av partiets parlamentsledamöter i Bryssel sammanfattade vändningen i mycket raka, men i sak helt korrekta ordalag:

”Det faktum att trojkan har döpts om till ”institutionerna” och åtstramningspaketet nu kallas ”överenskommelsen” samt att långivarna får heta ”partners” – ungefär som att kalla kött för fisk – förändrar inte det som gällde tidigare”.

”Överenskommelsen” från den 20 februari löpte fram till och med den 20 juni och under denna tid flyttade Syrizas ledning mycket av sin fokus bort från mobilisering av sin sociala bas till de medialt hela tiden mycket uppskruvade förhandlingarna med Eurogruppen. Partiets väljare, arbetande och arbetslösa, ungdomen samt andra utsatta grupper hänvisades till att passivt följa och diskutera dramaturgin på gatans caféer, i arbetsplatsernas fikarum eller i hemmen framför TV-skärmarna. Konflikterna på arbetsmarknaden klingade av och det blev färre politiska massmöten på torgen. De nästan rituella generalstrejkerna ställdes in. Referenserna till nationellt ansvar blev fler, samtidigt som de till arbetarrörelsens målsättningar blev färre.

Många av Syrizas`anhängare både i Grekland och i Europa hoppades nog ändå i det längsta innerst inne att Tsipras och Varoufakis med sina löften om eftergifter och möjliga kompromisser aldrig själva trodde på en ”hedervärdig uppgörelse” utan endast såg det som en taktik för att vid det oundvikliga sammanbrottet i förhandlingarna kunna lägga skulden på trojkan.

Nu släpar människors politiska ideologier och retorik ofta långt, långt efter den krassa verkligheten och så sent som den 25 maj kunde därför partistyrelsen ändå i ett uttalande med fet stil hävda att:

”Under fyra månader, dag efter dag, har vi hänvisat till de röda linjer vilka folket själv drog upp den 25 januari (valsegern). Regeringen kommer aldrig att skriva under ett nytt åtstramningspaket”.

Det var denna markering som gjorde att Tsipras – trots löften om motsatsen – aldrig kallade in ett nytt möte med partiets högsta beslutande organ innan han i Bryssel natten till den 13 juli kapitulerade för Wolfgang Schäubles drakoniska ultimatum. Han och det Verkställande utskottet valde i stället att denna natt korsa Rubicons huvudström.

Caesar intog Rom och segrade med hjälp av sina mest disciplinerade och stridserfarna soldater. Tsipras kom avväpnad och hjälplös till Bryssel, förnedrades av dess makthavare och sattes sedan att styra Aten i än värre banor än tidigare. Han blev ”ståthållare” åt den tyska övermakten, tvingades att sätta sig över Syrizas interna partidemokrati och överge sina mandat från tidigare kongresser, liksom manifestet i Thessaloniki samt alla viktiga budskap till väljarna under vinterns valkampanj.

Hur han och kretsen kring honom ska hantera medlemmarna i det egna partiet och striden om partiets inre själ vet de nog inte ens själva. En majoritet av sittande partistyrelse har i ett öppet brev tagit avstånd från regeringens kapitulation. Liksom de stora partidistrikten i Aten och Thessaloniki och partiets ungdomsförbund. De försöker också att vinna stöd utanför de egna strikta partileden för sitt alternativ.

Den oundvikliga sammandrabbning som närmar sig kommer därför att handla om det nya strategiska paradigmskifte som partiledningen vill ha accept för, vilket är en lika naturlig som logisk konsekvens av kapitulationen 20 februari. Den vill nu gå från startpunkten om att Syrizas regeringsinnehav, med stöd av Europas vänster, i praktiken skulle kunna bryta upp Lissabonfördragets grundlag med sina marknadsliberala traktat, en politik för skuldavskrivningar och investeringar i stället för privatiseringar och rigorös tysk budgetdisciplin, till att själv ta regeringsansvar för sociala försämringar, höjd pensionsålder, en sönderfrätt arbetsrätt samt omfattande utförsäljningar av gemensam statlig egendom.

Vilken väg för Europas nya vänsterpartier. Här Tsipras och Podemos ledare Pablo Iglesias på ett grekiskt valmöte med Syriza i vintras.

I en minst sagt förskönande omskrivning säger Tispras själv att en extra partikongress måste ”omfokusera målen” och enligt journalister på plats väntar sedan nyval i november.

Strategidiskussionen i Grekland om ”vänstern och regeringsmakten” berör i högsta grad alla socialister i Europa och självklart då också för oss i Sverige. Så här mitt i mångas semestertider har debatten ännu inte satt fart. Men Johan Ehrenberg, ägare och ansvarig utgivare för ETC, har kommit med en del reflektioner. Men med sin egen EU-positiva utgångspunkt, att det går att reorganisera unionen till ett vänsterprojekt, har han hamnat i en svår dilemma. I den svenska folkomröstningen om euron 2003 hävdade han bestämt att ”möjligheterna att föra en radikal ekonomisk politik är störst inom EMU”. I nutid har han hela vägen från Syrizas valseger fram uppgörelsen 13 juli därför ganska självklart haft förståelse för regeringens strategi och blev därför med rätta upprörd över att exempelvis Magdalena Andersson bara ville tala om Greklands skuld utan att med ett ord berätta om Bryssels utpressning. Men menade samtidigt att det var ”fantastisk desinformation” att tala om en kapitulation från Syrizas sida. Varför det? Ehrenberg slår ändå själv fast att han egentligen hade fel, då 2003, genom att i dag konstatera att: ”Syrizas försök har visat att en alternativ politik inte accepteras inom euron”.

Alla vi i vänstern är överens om att Eurogruppen bär huvudansvaret för den förnedring vi tvingats att vara åskådare till. Ehrenberg har också haft helt rätt när han radat upp alla de svårigheter som finns med en nationell dracma som en del av en reorganiserad grekisk kapitalism. Men nog kapitulerade Tsipras? Han var inte tvingad att offra sig, att böja sig för torterarna och då ska vi inte låsa oss fast vid dramats sorgliga upplösning där Syrizas helt värnlösa förhandlare gått över Rubicon och kom till Bryssel bara för att be om nåd. En annan politik, en annan strategi var möjlig, men då givetvis under den första tiden efter valsegern den 25 januari.

Offentligt opinionsmöte i går, måndag, med Vänsterplattformen i Aten.

Regeringen skulle för det första ha mobiliserat i stället för att demobilisera det folkliga Grekland. Den entusiasm och de förväntningar som fanns då, liksom vid folkomröstningen den 5 juli och som enligt den konservativa tidningen Kathimerini ”delade landet efter klasslinjer” och detta med en intensitet och eufori som var på gränsen till ”barbari”, dessa skulle man ha förstärkt genom att omedelbart genomföra de bärande delarna av sina vallöften. Eurogruppen skulle ha kontrats med löntagar- och regeringskontroll över bankernas kreditflöden, en egen skuldavskrivning, mått och steg för att införa en parallell valuta, kraftigt höjd beskattning av det rika Grekland, förberedelser för en Grexit från NATO samt inte minst en ständigt återkommande begäran till Europas löntagare och sociala rörelser om deras solidaritet.

Men, svarar säkert Ehrenberg och många ”realister” med honom. Det fanns och finns ingen majoritet i Grekland för denna socialistiska övergångsstrategi. Om vi bortser ifrån att politik ibland är att vilja och att det kan finnas en väldig dynamik, en verklig klassrörelse, om ett vänsterparti på allvar utmanar makten. Om vi trots denna möjlighet accepterar invändningarna som troliga. Ja, då återstod – och återstår – självklart plan B, nämligen att i ett nyval begära förtroende för detta program, samt att vid en förlust acceptera en återgång till rollen som ett trovärdigt oppositionsparti. Varför i expressfart göra om de misstag som i dag fått Europas socialdemokrati att krypa på sina knän? Bättre att låta de rikas partier ta ansvar för svältprogrammen och själv stärka alla folklig självorganisering i väntan på att tidvattnet vänder.

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Solidaritet med det utsatta grekiska folket – inte med bankernas slavavtal!”

I en historiskt halsbrytande vändning valde Tsipras och kretsen kring honom i regeringen att uppfatta ett nej i folkomröstningen 5 juli med 61.3 procent som ett indirekt ja till ytterligare åtstramning – samt att bara några dagar senare i parlamentet 11 juli få denna absurda och orwellska tolkning bekräftad med hela 83 procent av dess medlemmar!

I namn av ”ett ansvar för nationens 10 miljoner greker” valde han och Syrizas ledning att till sist ge upp. Efter långa och plågsamma månader av ”mental vattentortyr” i Bryssel, utan ens några små gester av solidaritet från kontinentens nyliberala europeiska socialdemokrati, samtidigt som ECB i ett drag av finansiell terrorism bryskt klippt av livlinan med likvida medel till de grekiska bankerna, drog den hastigt slutsatsen att alla improviserade försök till motstånd varit förgäves och egentligen bara förvärrat krisen. Partiledningens nya kommandord blev därför, för att tala i militära lystringsgrader, ett rungande ”Höger om” och ”Språngmarsch framåt”. Den breda uppslutningen i parlamentet bakom Greklands tredje åtstramningspaket sedan 2010 möjliggjordes genom en de facto historisk uppgörelse och allians med de i Grekland så hatade högerpartierna Ny Demokrati, Pasok och To Potami.

I tisdags var så “trojkan” eller “institutionerna”, EU, Europeiska Centralbanken och IMF, åter på plats i Grekland för att övervaka och förhandla med regeringen om hur den nya svältkuren ska införas. Men detta innebär inte på något sätt att ”Ordning härskar i Aten”! De ministrar i Syrizas ”regeringsförband” som vägrat att lystra till Tsipras kommando om ”helt om i sluten ordning” har visserligen kastats ut från hans kabinett, men de och andra från Syrizas vänster finns kvar i parlamentet. Högerpartierna har inte heller gett regeringen ett villkorslöst stöd, i någon form av grekisk ”decemberöverenskommelse” utlovar de likt den borgerliga alliansen i Sverige opposition och långbänkar när det kommer till enskilda sakfrågor. Regeringens parlamentariska stöd vilar på en mycket skör grund vilket gjorde att Tsipras valde att lyfta bort de accepterade, men politiskt så upprivande besluten om minskat jordbruksstöd och höjd pensionsålder från dagens plenadebatt i det ”Hellenska parlamentet”, vilket residerar i de salar i det gamla kungliga palatset vilka vetter mot Syntagmatorget med all dess plats för folkligt ursinne.

En taktisk manöver i syfte att framförallt vinna tid. Tsipras och hans krets måste på något sätt få rättning i de egna leden genom att göra sig kvitt de i Syriza som vägrat att i god ordning följa de nya kommandoorden. Borgerlig media både i Grekland och i övriga Europa, liksom ”institutionerna”, har gjort klart att Tsipras måste ha ”hela regeringsmaskineriet och hela sitt parti” bakom sig för att kunna bli det politiska relä som klarar av att transformera spänningarna mellan det byte den tyska predatorn Wolfgang Schäuble kräver och det som det grekiska folket vägrat att släppa ifrån sig. Enligt uppgifter från flera kamrater aktiva i partiets vänsteropposition ska den kongressvalda, stora partistyrelsen ha kallats in nu till helgen. Enligt samma källor ska också en majoritet av Syrizas alla regionala distrikt både ha krävt detta samtidigt som de skarpt har tagit avstånd från uppgörelsen i Bryssel. I måndags berättade Sotis Martalis, medlem i partistyrelsen, att många stora distrikt som Aten A, Aten Södra, Thessaloniki, Achaea, Itaka redan hade slutit upp bakom dessa krav.

Hur utgången av en sådan konfrontation blir är givetvis oklart. Vi vet inte ens om den blir av. I det politiskt heta, febriga Aten är det ständiga scenbyten. Dagordningar förändras hela tiden. Det som var en nyhet i går dementeras nästa dag. Tsipras och hans nuvarande majoritet är för stunden uppbackad av en borgerlig enhetsfront, många i den egna väljarkåren är dessutom säkert mer oklara, kanske desillusionerade, över det som sker och intar en mer avvaktande, dröjande hållning än Syrizas aktiva medlemmar. Vid en förtroendeomröstning i partistyrelsen finns det en del osäkra medlemmar som kläms mellan sína olika lojaliteter. Striden om den inre partidemokratin och om Syrizas själ kan ta tid. Trist nog fortsätter det sekteristiska gamla kommunistpartiet i Grekland, KKE, som organiserar sina egna fackföreningar och fronter, dessutom med att bara stå vid sidan om. I stället för att ge ett kraftfullt stöd (om än kritiskt) till Syrizas vänster har man valt att bara bespotta och håna hela partiet. Positivt nog sägs däremot analyser av folkomröstningen bekräfta vad många anat. Minst tre fjärdedelar av KKE:s väljare deltog i folkomröstningen och röstade där säkert nej. En fantastisk fanflykt från KKE:s bojkottlinje.

I fortsättningen måste Angela Merkel lyssna till predatorn Wolfgang Schäuble

I sommarhettan bildas också rykten likt hägringar över torg och caféers uteserveringar, för att sedan flimra fram både i traditionell media och i sociala medier: ”Syrizas partistyrelse kommer att inkalla en kongress redan i början av september”. ”Tsipras nödgas utlysa nyval i september eller oktober”. ”Tsipras ska bilda ett nytt parti”. ”Tsipras och högerpartierna tänker kalla in en teknokratisk och så kallad opolitisk regering”. Samtidigt finns Wolfgang Schäubles skarpa vapen i bakgrunden, han har flyttat fram sina positioner i Tyskland. I en tidigare valkampanj för kristdemokraterna CDU hette det om paret att ””Inte alltid samma åsikt, men alltid en gemensam väg”. Men fortsättningsvis måste Angela Merkel  ”ta rygg” på denne tyske politiska ikon när hon ska hantera eurokrisen – om det ska bli en gemensam framfart. Det är i dag egentligen ointressant om grekerna eller vi tycker att en Grexit är en bra eller dålig sak. Varje försök till bångstyrighet eller bristande samarbetsvilja från vilken regering det än må vara i Grekland så kommer svaret från Schäuble och ”institutionerna” innebära att landet tvingas att lämna euron.

Rödluvan Tsipras. Har han hamnat i i fel ”sängalag”?

Det enda vi kan vara riktigt säkra på är att den underliggande krisen för Europas kapitalistiska stater (oavsett euro eller inte) kommer att finnas kvar för en mycket lång tid. Dess ekonomier har alltsedan de generella åtstramningarna sedan 2010 inte ens lyckats att ta sig tillbaka till de genomsnittliga BNP-nivåer som gällde före krisen och kontinenten släpar efter andra stora och viktiga regioner i världen. Den politiska dramatiken i Grekland kommer – om än med olika intensitet – att leva i flera år framöver.
Under denna tid är självklart motståndet i Grekland ömsesidigt beroende av hur samma vilja till uppbrott kommer att se ut i övriga Europa. Flera stater i eurons Syd-Europa har om inte samma, så liknande, ekonomiska grundläggande problem som Grekland. Italien, Spanien och Portugal och Irland. Men till en del också Frankrike och Belgien. En rad stater i forna Öst-Europa är också hårt drabbade av denna samfällda långvariga ekonomiska nedgång. Liksom Storbritannien utanför euroområdet. Förutsättningarna till socialt och politiskt motstånd skiftar och dess former kan komma att ta sig de mest oväntade uttryck.

Europas verkliga BNP sedan finanskrisen 2008 i förhållande till förväntade prognoser om när uppgången skulle komma.

Vad vi däremot kan vara säkra på är att grekernas vägran att böja sig, och deras politiska debatter, till en del fortplantar sig i hela Europa. Frågor om makten över våra ekonomier och våra möjligheter till jobb och välfärd, alltmer segregerade klassamhällen och om hur vänsterregeringar ska kunna utmana Europas borgarklasser, tränger sig i diskussionerna alltmer fram i förgrunden.

Det Europeiska rådets mäktige ordförande Donald Tusk har insett detta och berättade nyss efter förhandlingarna med Tsipras i Bryssel om den obehagliga känsla som kommer över honom när han bearbetat det han tagit in från stämningarna på många håll i Europa:

”För mig är denna atmosfär lite lik tiden efter 1968 i Europa. Jag kan känna av, kanske inte en revolutionär stämning, men någonting av en vitt spridd otålighet. När otåligheten går över från en individuell historia till en social erfarenhet, är detta en introduktion för revolutioner. Jag tror att en del omständigheter liknar de som var vid handen 1968”.

Vår slutsats av samma iakttagelse är självklart att efter förmåga försöka bidra till att sammanfoga alla dessa individuella uppbrott till en enda gemensam social – och politisk erfarenhet. På det Rött Sommarforum som i dagarna samlats i Bottnaryds vackra nejder väster om Jönköping antogs i förrgår en solidaritetsappell för Greklands folk som i sina slutord ger en bra handledning till vad vi kan göra här hemma för att öka ömsesidigheten med det grekiska folkets försök till uppbrott:

”Svensk arbetarrörelse måste stödja det grekiska folkets försök till motstånd mot EU-diktaten, svenska fackföreningar knyta kontakt med sina grekiska kamrater, anordna gemensamma möten, ta del av de grekiska motbilderna och erfarenheterna, ge solidariskt ekonomiskt stöd, verka för fackliga blockader mot EU-sanktioner.
Det grekiska folket har rätt – och gör rätt i – att försvara sig med näbbar och klor mot slavavtalets följder.

Vänstern, kvinno- och ungdomsorganisationer, välfärdsrörelser och aktionsgrupper kan utveckla vänförbindelser med grekiska folkrörelser och initiativ i insikt om att vår kamp är gemensam. Det grekiska folkets och vänsterns erfarenheter ska göras till våra. Att bemöta EU-elitens myter och desinformation om Grekland är en central uppgift – även för vår egen välfärdskamp.

Sätt press på Sveriges rödgröna regering: protestera mot utpressningen av Grekland, stöd det grekiska folkets krav på skuldnedskrivning, gå aktivt emot alla EU-repressalier mot Greklands motstånd.
Det är nu det gäller: Solidaritet med det utsatta grekiska folket – inte med bankernas slavavtal!”

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Tyskland rider på euron

Varför inte kräva att Tyskland lämnar euron och återgår till D-marken? Låter kanske helt absurt, men varför inte? Den nya tyska marken skulle omedelbart stiga starkt i värde i förhållande till euron. Enligt IMF skulle en ny mark stiga med minst 18 % i förhållande till euron. De övriga länderna i EU kommer omedelbart att stärka sin konkurrenskraft i förhållande till den tyska exportmaskinen som hittills vunnit allt på de övriga EU-ländernas underskott i handeln med Tyskland. Är det ett skämt? Ja kanske det. Men varför är det normalt att Schauble kan kränga idén om en tillfällig ”grexit” men inte med ett ord ifrågasätta de tyska handelsöverskotten med alla andra länder i EU? Jo, det anses som helt naturligt eftersom EU inte är en solidarisk Union utan ett Imperium med ett centrum (Tyskland, Holland, Luxemburg, Finland) och en periferi med ett kuvat protektorat (Grekland) och framtida protektorat (Portugal, Spanien, Italien).

När Grekland sägs ha konsumerat över sina tillgångar finns det en sanning i det. Men det är en ”sanning” som gäller också alla andra euro-länder, inte minst Frankrike. Som bekant så innebär ett exportöverskott alltid ett motsvarande importöverskott på annat håll. När Tyskland övergav D-marken och antog euron innebar det en automatisk devalvering som gav den tyska industrin extra stimulans. (Se diagram ovan) Alla andra länders underskott finansierades med emissioner av statsobligationer som i fallet Grekland till stor del köptes upp av tyska och franska banker. På grund av landets svaga ekonomi kunde Grekland inte ge ut obligationer utan att locka med mycket högre räntor än starka industristater i norr. Sakta byggdes statsskulden upp för att sedan rusa i höjden med ”hjälp” av Trojkan.

Tysklands handelsbalans i miljoner euro 2011

Att Tyskland med sitt enorma exportöverskott gentemot resten av euro-zonen är den verkligt skyldige för den svåra obalansen inom euro-zonen talar Schauble tyst om. Det ger mer röster att sparka på de fattigaste av alla inom zonen. Höjda löner och bättre arbetsförhållanden inom de prekära branscherna i Tyskland skulle snabbt minska exportöverskottet och obalansen i utbytet inom EU.

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Om den politiska striden i Syriza

Sotis Martalis, aktiv i en revolutionär marxistisk strömning (DEA) inom Syriza där han verkar som medlem av dess stora partistyrelse (201 medlemmar) berättar i en länk nedan om den politiska kampen inom Syriza för att partiet inte ska förlora sin ”själ”. Tyvärr ännu så länge bara på franska.  Här ändå några viktiga delar i min fria tolkning.

Den mest centrala uppgiften är att partistyrelsen inkallas så att partidemokratin kan återupprättas. En majoritet av denna, alltså partiets beslutande församling mellan sina kongresser, 109 medlemmar, har redan begärt detta utan resultat. Vad som sker nu är att Syrizas regionala distrikt understödjer detta krav genom att i snabb följd komma in med deklarationer där de tar avstånd från uppgörelsen i Bryssel samtidigt som de också kräver att partistyrelsen sammankallas. Sotiris nämner de som ännu hunnit komma in: Athènes A, Athènes sud, Pirée, Thessalonique, Achaïe, Kefalonia, Ithaque (ön), Préveza, Arta, Zakynthos (ön), Dodécanèse (alla öarna), Lesbos (ön), Samos (ön)…

En bild från en av Syrizas tidigare partikongresser.

Alexis Tsipras, som vänt sig till parlamentets högerpartier i stället för till sina egna medlemmar, och uppenbarligen inte vill kalla in partistyrelsen, besvarar i en märklig, rentav absurd intervju för veckotidningen To Pontiki dessa upprorssignaler från partiets djup med att anklaga vänstern i partiet för illojalitet:

”Hela Syriza måste ta ansvar för det som skett, detta eftersom den utpressning vi utsattes för (i Bryssel) verkligen har ägt rum. Att de som röstade nej i parlamentet valde att göra detta i en så allvarlig stund och mot den interna andan av solidaritet, det har rivit upp ett öppet sår hos oss. När dessa kamrater (Vänsterplattformen) ändå hävdar att de trots allt stödjer vänsterregeringen, trots allt den första vänsterregeringen i vår historia, är detta något som i verkligheten är förbrukat. Jag är nu tvingad att fullfölja avtalet med en parlamentarisk minoritetsregering”

Sotiris avslutar sina kommentarer om den senaste utvecklingen med att betona vikten av att nu bygga upp en stark folklig enhetsfront i en kampanj mot Brysselavtalet. Inte minst understryker han vikten av att nu vinna Greklands fackliga organisationer för detta och i detta sammanhang är det naturligtvis tragiskt att han kan konstatera att ultrasekteristerna i KKE:s ledning fortsätter att hålla  sina medlemmar och sympatisörer i vad de uppfattar som ”en förnäm avskildhet” från den stora majoriteten av det motstånd mot Greklands tredje svältavtal med Bryssel som nu växer fram. Vid de fackliga demonstrationerna utanför parlamentet den 15 juli – när debatten om det nya avtalet ägde rum – ställde dess fackliga  front PAME som vanligt upp sig i ett hörn för sig själva. ”Beröringsskräcken” lever vidare.

Klicka här på länken till Sotis Martalis kommentar.

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Om maoismens avfällingar, den fördomsfulle skränfocken Johan Hakelius och hur de friska vindarna från Greklandskrisen, likt en gång de från Maj 68, bär med sig hopp och möjligheter, men också stora faror.

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Läste för några dagar sedan hur Maria Schottenius, tidigare kulturchef för först Expressen, senare under sex år i samma befattning för DN, glatt och uppenbart helt stormförtjust använder David Brolins senaste bok bok ”Omprövningar – Svenska vänsterintellektuella i skiftet från 70-tal till 80-tal” för en egen liten skadeglad uppgörelse med de sex ”omvändare” eller avfällingar som författaren satt under sin lupp: Lars Gustafsson; Håkan Arvidsson; Svante Nordin; Bo Gustafsson, Klas Eklund och Göran Rosenberg.

Skälet till att Schottenius nära nog fnittrar i sin text när hon livfullt berättar om dessa halsbrytande omvändelser är att hon själv, under samma tid, var en intellektuell akademiker, som under detta skifte i kultur och politik till en del fick leva i skuggan av dessa herrar och deras rätlinjiga linjaler, efterapade maoistmoral och hårda pekpinnar. Ska man bestämma hennes egen ideologiska art, hamnar hon nog, på samma sätt som sin man och färdkamrat i livet Olle Svenning, någonstans i gränslandet mellan radikal, traditionell socialdemokrati och humanistisk socialliberalism.

När dessa vänsterintellektuella, vilka Brolin granskat, under några intensiva år röjde runt i vårt gamla kulturlandskap och i dess politiska marker gällde det att hålla sig undan för att inte mejas ner av deras vilt svängande liar. I Kerstin Ekman hittade hon en medsyster i samma utsatta situation och det var nog mer än en tillfällighet att hon skrev sin doktorsavhandling om dennes författarskap. Kerstin Ekman (som jag tycker om att läsa) har för övrigt skrivit en kostligt rolig satir över dessa och andra år i sin ”Grand final i skojarbranschen”. Inte minst hennes lustmord på Jan Myrdal när hon låter hans alias under en fest, iklädd en murarskjorta från någon arbetarbod i Stockholms innerstad, sitta på golvet med korslagda ben och bombastiskt lägga ut sina maoistiska visdomsord för en beundrande publik, går definitivt rakt in i litteraturhistorien…

Nu missbrukar på sätt och vis Schottenius Brolins bok eftersom vi spontant, av hennes läsning och recension att döma, kan fås att dra slutsatsen att dessa ”omprövningar” var ett allmängiltigt fenomen. Men Brolins spaning efter den tid som nu flytt och hur sex vänsterintellektuella män hanterade detta, är av många olika skäl ytterligt begränsad och svarar inte alls mot hur det var för vänstern i hela sin brokighet eller för dess övergång in i vårt nya sekel.

De sex personer som Brolin valt ut har för det första det gemensamt att ingen av dem var ”partibyggare” i egentlig mening (Bo Gustafsson kanske undantagen). De var inga aktivister eller ledare i vänsterns politiska och sociala vardagsmiljöer. De tumlade främst runt i kulturlandskapet och fick ibland vara med i den tidens dominanta vänsterintellektuella tankesmedjor, som Häften för kritiska studier, Ord och Bild och Zenith. I synnerhet Lars Gustafsson hade ingen betydelse alls för den tidens vänsterrörelser. Men mer sällan syntes de vid vänsterns alla stencilapparater, deltog i lokala partimöten eller var med vid allt oändligt spring med flygblad och tidningsförsäljning i trappor, på torg eller vid grindarna till alla de arbetsplatser där vi försökte vinna insteg.

Det andra som förenar denna sextett var att de alla hade en dogmatisk maoism som utgångspunkt för sin radikalism. De analyserade inte sin samtida verklighet med en levande marxism utan sorterade med ett selektivt seende in vad de ville se i redan färdiga kategorier hämtade från den kinesiska kulturrevolutionens perversa värld. Med sådana dogmatiska avstamp in i den tidens omslitande och snabbt föränderliga värld, och om de samtidigt skulle kunna fortsätta med att ha sin försörjning från skrivandet, blev det nära nog nödvändigt med tvära vändningar när tiderna förändrades. Först snabba telemarkssvängar och sedan 180 graders vändningar, rakt upp för de backar man nyss åkt nerför med en sådan farlig fart…

Dessutom har Brolin valt att inte ta med någon kvinna från samma miljö. Visst, de var färre, som i politiken i övrigt. Fast det fanns många och flera fick också till det med tvärvändorna. En som exempelvis var framstående ”kamrat” på den tiden var Katarina Engberg. Under sin tid som medlem i maoistiska KPMLr, var hon en gunstling hos Aftonbladets dåvarande mycket radikale kulturchef Karl Vennberg, vilken haussade henne i sina spalter. Detta nämns inte om vi tittar in på Wikipedia. Inte ett ord om hennes förflutna som maoist (med Stalin i gott minne) och en uttalad antimilitarist, det förflutna är bortraderat ungefär som den Store lokföraren själv gjorde i de sovjetiska uppslagsverken vid behov. Men vi som kommer ihåg ser ett hisnande ideologiskt språng. För det Wikipedia förtäljer oss i dag är att den gamla revolutionären blivit departementsråd och chef för Sekretariatet för analys och långsiktig planering vid Försvarsdepartementet. Sammanfattningsvis heter det om hennes gärning: ”Enligt Engberg är det svenska försvarets uppgift att ge nationell trygghet och att solidariskt deltaga i internationell krishantering”…

En liten, men fortfarande inflytelserik grupp av maoister, har dessutom parat sina tidigare uppfattningar med reaktionär nationalism länkad till politiska ledare som Khaddafi, Assad, Khamenei, Putin eller i Jan Myrdals fall till och med Marine Le Pen.

Brolins selektiva urval måste definitivt användas med stor försiktighet. Var och en av dessa sex i dag äldre herrar har dessutom haft olika livsbanor och har stannat i uppförsbackarna på lite olika ställen. Göran Rosenberg finns i dag exempelvis på samma höjder som Schottenius själv.

Men det viktigaste, det vi måste ha vid minnet under en läsning, det är att Brolins bok – och på samma sätt Schottenius – valt att inte alls besvära sig att berätta om alla de människor som var med när det begav sig, under de år ”när allt var möjligt”, alla de människor som inte ens har funderat över att tvärvända. De flesta har förändrat sina utblickar och har gjort omprövningar av tidigare dogmatik. Andra, som kom ut ur startblocken och in i politiken med från början betydligt större rörlighet och mindre dogmatik, har självklart också förändrats, ofta utvecklats, men ibland självklart gått i stå som en hel del andra.

Det finns många skickliga akademiker som ”överlevt”, de har i huvudsak behållit sina åsikter, men ändå lyckats klara sin försörjning i universitetens lärosalar. Men framförallt är det ”tusenden” utanför universiteten och kultursfären som till en del förändrats med tiden, men fortfarande har ”jämlikhet, rättvisa, frihet och solidaritet” som sina rättesnören. De finns som vanliga löntagare inom industrin och andra privatägda verksamheter. Både som kollektivanställda och som tjänstemän. En del från 1970-talets vänster har egna små egna företag. Många är lärare eller rektorer. Andra är tand- och sjuksköterskor. En del har lyckats bli läkare, några är jurister. En hel del är journalister som faktiskt klarat sina ”hantverk” utan alltför mycket eftergifter åt den nyliberala tidsandan (även om andra sålt sig som brödskrivare åt Stampen, Schipstedt och Bonniers). En del är socialsekreterare andra har blivit uppskattade författare, konstnärer, musiker eller skådespelare. En del av alla dessa ”tusenden” är i dag socialdemokrater. På många arbetsplatser är det ”ett måste” för att få vara med och påverka den fackliga och politiska verksamheten. Andra är vänsterpartister. En del är som jag själv medlem i Socialistiska Partiet (sedan 1968 om man räknar in dess föregångare) eller i andra mindre vänstergrupperingar. Många har blivit eller håller på att bli pensionärer men fortsätter att hålla den röda fanan högt. Det vi alla lider av är kanske stundtals en viss pessimism. Allt gick inte så fort som vi drömde om. Motståndarna var mer välorganiserade än vad trodde. Men vi har definitivt inte gett upp och vi vet att nya generationer, i nya oväntade former, kommer att bära fram samma idéer!

Kort sagt. Vad Brolin valt att inte diskutera – och som därför Shottenius slipper att bry sig om – är att den stora merparten av alla oss som var med under skiftet i vänsterpolitiken från 1970-tal till 80-talet faktiskt har fortsatt att på olika sätt hålla fast vid några av de viktigaste grunderna för vänsterradikaliseringen under 1960- och 1970-talen. Genom sina urval reproducerar Brolin/Schottenius dessvärre myter om den tidens revoltörer, nämligen att de alla skulle ha vänt kappan efter vinden och nu omhuldar nyliberalismen i politiken. Myter som jag inte alls tror har något fog för sig. Allt rör sig, vi står inte kvar på samma fläck hela tiden, alla människor har förändrats, men de flesta oss står fast vid arbetarrörelsens gamla värderingar, uppgraderade med skarpare miljötänk och mer feminism.

Värre är det med den generation som kom efter oss. Den har självfallet drabbats hårt, stukats och bråkats ner av en helt annan värld, inte minst den första massarbetslösheten som kom under Göran Perssons tidiga 1990-talsår då han styrde med (v) och (mp) som regeringsunderlag. Internationellt är det nederlag och uppgivenhet som satt sina spår. Berlinmurens och stalinismens fall förlöstes inte av massrörelser för en socialistisk demokrati utan med hjälp av hänsynslösa oligarker lystna på att plundra gamla statligt ägda egendomar på sina tillgångar. En utveckling som självklart var en stor besvikelse för många som hoppats på en annan utveckling. Pol Pot-regimen vidriga massmord på den egna befolkningen, Massakern på Himmelska fridens torg samt KKP:s satsning på en statligt dirigerad råkapitalism gjorde att maoismen som ett internationellt fenomen, sånär som i en del asiatiska stater, främst Indien, helt utplånades. De organisatoriskt så starka gamla, traditionella kommunistpartierna i Europa kollapsade liksom dess mindre maoistiska efterföljare. Att den europeiska socialdemokratin kapade alla trossar med sina gamla värderingar för att sedan kunna ta sig in på nyliberala farvatten gjorde inte tiderna bättre för den generation som växte upp efter oss. 11 september-attackerna mot World Trade Centers tvillingtorn och Pentagons högkvarter samt de efterföljande ”krigen mot terrorismen, i synnerhet då i Afghanistan och Irak fick många att huka sig ännu mer. Varför bry sig om en vansinnig, depressiv omvärld med blott få tecken på ett motstånd som det gick att identifiera sig med? Bättre då att ta chansen med att satsa på sig själv! Nederlagen för de arabiska revolutionerna, samt den nära nog fullständiga hegemonin i media och politiken för nyliberala eller åtminstone individuella lösningar har givetvis förstärkt denna utveckling.

Detta kan man se överallt i våra samhällen. Vänstern i bred mening är i stort relativt kraftlös, den har blivit pessimistisk och visionslös. Antirasismen har fått en viktig plats, vi har till en del lyft frågan om diskriminering av sexuella minoriteter, men samtidigt har bredare insikter om våra klassamhällen gått i stå. Själv upplever jag dessutom en stor del av dagens vänster som lite humorlös, helt enkelt räddhågsen för att göra bort sig med ett feltramp. Saknar sångrösterna och texterna från förr, liksom upproren i konst, teater och musik. Men kanske är det bara jag som har blivit betydligt äldre…

Hur som haver med detta, det finns andra skrån än det akademiska, där vi kan läsa av vår egen tid. Ett av dessa är den skara som oftast kallas för krönikörer. I förra veckan skrev jag om hur illa Leif G W Persson gick ner sig när han jumpade ut på isar han inte visste något om. Hans krönika om den grekiska krisen, omhuldad av Expressen genom stopp för alla genmälen, var bland det värsta jag läst i genren. Men i dagarna har en yngre kollega i detta skrå, Johan Hakelius, gått ner sig på precis samma ömkliga sätt.

Hakelius är en del av den generation som vuxit upp under helt andra förutsättningar än de som var mina och andras på 1970-talet. När Majrevolten 68 blommade ut var han fortfarande i blöjåldern. Den Stora gruvstrejken i Sverige ett år senare eller 1970-talets vilda och framgångsrika strejker var självfallet inte heller något som han kunde ta in. När FNL och Nordvietnam ”befriade södern” 1975 var han bara åtta år. Som sjutton- och artonåring fastnade säkert däremot Margret Thatchers seger över de brittiska kolgruvearbetarna i minnet. En av de viktigaste upplevelserna i den påverkbara, viktiga ungdomen – när han var 22 år – var självfallet Berlinmurens kollaps liksom attraktionen från den finansvärld och de aktiebörser som gick i spinn med ständiga vinstökningar. Ett nytt Schlaraffenland som inte flödade av mjölk och honung, men väl av många framgångssagor krönta med fabulösa rikedomar.

Hakelius växte upp på Hacksta gård i Östergötland som son till en framgångsrik storbonde. Med stor talang som skribent, han är en skicklig, ibland halsbrytande provokativ och riktigt rolig sådan. Med den talangen i bagaget och intresset för ekonomi och finansvärlden hamnade han snabbt i Stockholms tidningsvärld. Var biträdande politisk redaktör på Svenska Dagbladet och värvades av MTG-koncernen som chefredaktör för Finanstidningen (för övrigt den blaska som Maria Schottenius en gång i ett av sina mer vågade stycken kallade för ”Svenska Dagbladets pissränna”). I dag är han kolumnist i tidningar som Aftonbladet och Affärsvärlden.

Tidsandan under ungdomsåren och de miljöer han sedan vandrat igenom förklarar till en del den fördomsfulla och föraktfulla syn som finns i hans krönika om Grekland. Men att den överhuvudtaget kunde komma i tryck förvånar. Tillåts man tycka vad som helst i Aftonbladet bara för att man är krönikör? Varför bara sluta ta med att ta in alla kommentarer influerade av sverigedemokraternas fördomar?

Under den grekiska krisens gång berättar Hakelius först att han ”kännt en allt större sympati för tyskarna… Hade tyskarna sagt ’Genug!’, lämnat grekerna åt Kronofogden och tröstat sig med en tallrik Saumagen (grismage), hade de fått min sympati”. En uppfattning som han grundlagt tidigare genom åren genom sitt intresse och sin beundran för det tyska ekonomiska undret. Efter denna utgångsställning smyger han in en liten brasklapp. Han reseverar sig mot Scheubles tilläggsplan på att värden från grekiska statliga tillgångar ska komma att förvaltas i en fond kontrollerad av EU (läs Tyskland). Men fortsätter sedan i en fullständigt besinningslös fördomsfullhet:

”Om man inte lever på att göra sig dummare än man är, begriper man ändå grundproblemet: Grekland är, som nation, ekonomiskt ansvarslös. Det finns säkert ansvarsfulla greker, men de har låtit nationens ekonomi hanteras av svindlare, mutkolvar och kretiner. Den idiotiska euron har inte gjort saken bättre, men euro, drachme eller chokladpengar: Grekland skulle ha haft problem ändå. Och sedan. När allt gick åt fanders valde grekerna sitt lands Johan Ehrenberg till statsminister och röstade för att det visst går att äta kakan och ha den kvar. När kakan inte gjorde som den var tillsagd, utlyste de generalstrejk. De hade ju bestämt att verkligheten inte gällde dem. Och ändå. Grekerna sitter där i din soffa. En hopplös new age-moster, som hinkar retsina och pratar demonstrationer, konspirationsteorier och revolt.

Men mitt i all nipprighet kan du inte komma ifrån att hon har en poäng. Det här är inte rimligt.”

Den enda poäng som Hakelius vill räkna hem till Grekland, är alltså att Scheubles tvångsindragning och tyska kontroll av grekiska tillgångar var att gå för långt. Han nämner också att det finns ”ansvarsfulla” greker. Men inte mer än så. Den enda verklighet han vill kännas vid för Greklands del är i grunden densamma som Leif G W Persson snappat upp från sin nuvarande vänkrets och skrev om i Expressen. Alltså om ”en hoper vanliga skojare … de politiska ledarna för ett land som i avgörande stycken lever på att upplåta sina badstränder, hyra ut solstolar, odla oliver och tillverka fetaost”. Hakelius vet ingenting om klassamhället Grekland. Eller vill inte veta. Alla greker är lata och odugliga, lever på oss turister, hinkar i sig Retsina, gapar och revolterar på gatorna.

Med sitt intresse för ekonomi vet han säkert att det var Mario Draghi som ansvarig för Goldman Sachs International som hjälpte den tidens skojare i de grekiska regeringarna att fiffla med sina statliga budgetbokslut så att de kunde kvalificera sig in i EU. Samme Draghi som nu är ordförande för Europeiska Centralbanken och i den rollen såg till att skapa kaos i den grekiska ekonomin, med bankstopp, genom att helt dämma flödet av likvida medel inför slutförhandlingarna. Hakelius vet självfallet också att Merkel och Sarkozy inte gav de egna bankerna ens gult kort för deras ansvarslösa lån till den grekiska staten. I stället vältrade de över kostnaderna på euroländerna skattebetalare…

Just för att han vet, eftersom han i grunden är ekonomijournalist, blir hans förnedring av grekerna desto mer hutlös. En skränfock som roar sig med att driva med ett ”gapande” folk. Jag skrev tidigare att han ibland kan vara riktigt rolig i sina skriverier. Men att hoppa och slå på utsatta människor som redan ligger ner, om än verbalt, kan aldrig vara roligt. Det är bara föraktfullt.

Nåväl, detta var hastiga nedslag i lite olika tidsskeden och ett försök att skissa hur ideologier kan skifta från en tid till en annan. Någon kanske tycker att jag varit väl pessimistisk i mina funderingar och jag avslutar därför med den optimism som vi trots allt kunnat smaka på den senaste veckan. Krisen, vare sig i Grekland eller i andra delar av Europa är långt ifrån över. Detta därför att det i grunden handlar om en kris för kapitalismens Europa och i detta perspektiv är det grekernas starka motstånd som låter oss ana en annan möjlighet, vi läppjar faktiskt på något helt nytt, vi smeks av friska vindar som kan bli till ett snabbt skifte när det gäller ideologier och politik. Har jag inte då helt plötsligt vänt på klacken och blivit en urbota optimist? Vi får se, allt är i rörelse och ingen vet var vi står i morgon. Men till stöd för min optimism ska jag avslutningsvis citera Donald Tusk, det mäktiga Europeiska rådets ordförande, vilket drar samman EU:s 47 stats- eller regeringschefer samt EU-kommissionens ordförande, för viktiga gemensamma beslut. Donald Tusk ledde och övervann alla svårigheter vid de slutförhandlingar som skedde i Bryssel med Tsipras och hans nye finansminister. Han tyckte för övrigt att Angela Merkel utnyttjade den hårdföre Scheuble på ett skickligt sätt. I manglingarna med Tsipras spelade paret skickligt sina roller som respektive ”den onde och den gode snuten”. Men det jag har gemensamt med Tusk är inte detta utan den risk för en grekisk ideologisk smitta över hela Europa som han säger sig frukta mer än den finansiella smitta som han inte ens bedömer som ett problem. Fast jag ser det förstås som en möjlighet. Men självklart bara om vi socialister och människor i den breda vänstern inte låter reaktionära högerpartier hålla i motståndets politiska taktpinnar. I så här klara ordalag berättade Tusk för en samling journalister om förhandlingarna och sina farhågor för framtiden:

”Jag var helt säker på att det inte fanns någon risk för en finansiell smitta även om Grekland lämnat euron. Det var inte bara en slogan, det var inte propaganda när Draghi och andra institutioner bekräftade att eurozonen i dag är relativt säker och att det inte finns en risk för smitta. Men självklart, efter en dramatisk händelse som en Grexit, kunde vi förutse en del politiska, ideologiska och geopolitiska konsekvenser.
Jag är verkligen rädd för denna ideologiska eller politiska smitta, inte en finansiell sådan, som skulle kunna komma ur den grekiska krisen. Dagens situation i Grekland, inklusive resultaten från folkomröstningen och de senaste allmänna valen, men också stämningsläget i en del kommentarer – vi har något som liknar en ny stor debatt i Europa. Allting handlar om nya ideologier. Faktum är att det inte är något nytt. Vi har något vi kan likna vid en ekonomisk och ideologisk illusion, nämligen att vi skulle ha en möjlighet att bygga en sorts alternativ till det traditionella europeiska ekonomiska systemet. Detta är inte bara ett grekiskt fenomen.
Denna nya intellektuella sinnesstämning, min intuition säger mig att det är en risk för Europa. Speciellt denna radikala vänsterillusion om att du kan bygga någon sorts alternativ till den europeiska ekonomiska visionen…Min rädsla är att denna ideologiska smitta är en större risk än den finansiella dito.
För mig är denna atmosfär lite lik tiden efter 1968 i Europa. Jag kan känna av, kanske inte en revolutionär stämning, men någonting av en vitt spridd otålighet. När otåligheten går över från en individuell historia till en social erfarenhet, är detta en introduktion för revolutioner. Jag tror att en del omständigheter liknar de som var vid handen 1968”.

Jag känner alltså av samma stämningar som Tusk – i de politiska vindarna från Grekland. Men ser givetvis helt andra möjligheter. ”Ungdomen är revolutionens stormsvalor” skrev Karl Liebknecht på sin tid. Samtidigt brukar vi säga att ”en svala gör ingen sommar”. Vi får se vad som flyger över Europa de kommande åren. Vem vet. Kanske Tusk och jag får rätt…

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Trojkan bäddar för fascismen.

Om regeringen Tsipras (i allians med andra partier) lyckas driva igenom det senaste åtstramningspaketet kommer trettitalsdepressionen i USA att framstå som ”mild” och kortvarig. Redan nu har depressionen i Grekland pågått längre än i USA och allt, absolut allt, pekar mot att BNP kommer att fortsätta i sin bana utför. De kriminella finanshuliganerna i Trojkan lägger grunden för en eventuell seger för fascisterna i Gyllene gryning vid nästa val om inte den samlade vänstern i Grekland (och Europa) lyckas slå tillbaka den vansinniga krispolitik som dikterats i den europeiska elitens glaspalats.

 

 

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Tsipras vände sig till Greklands högerpartier…

Stathis Kouvelakis komenterar nattens uppgörelse. 38 medlemmar av Syrizas riksdagsfraktion räddade Syrizas ”ära” genom att inte rösta ja till förnedringen i Bryssel. Partiet har samtidigt förlorat sin majoritet, dvs regeringsunderlaget i riksdagen, och försöker nu genomföra alla de brutala åtgärderna i EU:s ”räddningspaket” med stöd av de så avskydda partierna Ny Demokrati och PASOK. Framöver väntar en konfrontation vid det partistyrelsemöte för Syriza som ska ha inkallats. Partistyrelsen eller centralkommittén är Syrizas beslutande och demokratiskt valda ledning. Inte riksdagsfraktionen, tack och lov. Ute i landet får vi uppgifter om att partiets lokala organisationer revolterar, framförallt bland ungdom, i arbetarklassområden och bland fackligt organiserade medlemmar. Grekland och Europa går en stormig sommar och höst till mötes!

På bilden ser vi den fackliga demonstration som samlades utanför parlamentet i går kväll. ”Nej till privatiseringar”; ”Rädda Hamnarna, Energiverket och sjukhusen”;”Säg nej till uppgörelsen, skriv av skulderna” hette det på banderollerna.Tacksamt nog för sensationspressen kunde den i stället visa bilder på en liten hop anarkister och andra som idiotiskt nog valde att slänga lite molotovcocktails omkring sig. En uppvaktning som säkert gladde Tsipras och högern. ”Här ser ni vad som händer framöver om ni inte accepterar uppgörelsen. Det blir bara mer våld och annat dårskap”…

THE VOTE IN PARLIAMENT: 38 SYRIZA MPs REJECT THE AGREEMENT!
Overall result: 229 yes, 64 no, 6 abstain/present, one absence.

Today is a tragic day for Greece and for its Left.
More than two thirds of Syriza MPs voted jointly with the pro-austerity parties (New Democracy, Pasok, Potami) and the junior coalition partner Anel the prerequisite bill for the toughest by far austerity package ever accepted by any kind of left (including social-democracy) government in Europe, the only possible comparison being the 1st Memorandum passed by Pasok in 2010.
But it’s even more serious in a way than draconian austerity in a country already devastated by five years of ’shock therapy’: it’s the total destruction of democracy, of popular sovereignty, the perpetuation and aggravation of the sharpest form of subjection.
But 38 Syriza MPs (out of a total of 149) saved the honour: 32 voted no, six voted ”present” (there was also one absence)
It appears that all Left Platform MPs, + KOE (maoists) + Zoe Kostantopoulou + former ministers Varoufakis and Nandia Valavani and a couple of others voted No while six MPs of the ”53” current (left wing of the former majority bloc) voted present.
In any case, the government has lost control of its own majority: of the 162 MPs of the Syriza-ANel coalition, only 123 supported it, far less than the required by constitutional practice parliamentary majority of 151 MPs coming from the ranks of the government. In principle Tsipras should resign, he blackmailed this afternoon the Syriza MPs saying that if he hadn’t the support of all them he would do so. But of course he won’t, he was just trying to manipulate his troops. However it seems clear that it is only a matter of time for this new de facto pro-austerity majority to translate in a proper political coalition of some sort.

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”Hur blev det som det blev?” och ”Hur kan vi gå vidare?”. Stathis Kouvelakis om krisens Grekland.

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En majoritet av Syrizas stora partistyrelse, 109 av 201 medlemmar har precis uttalat sig mot den överenskommelse som regeringen träffade i Brysse! De begär nu att styrelsen ska kallas in till ett sammanträde. Du hittar uttalandet nedan efter intervjun med Kouvelakis. Här en bild från ett tidigare möte:

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I en intervju publicerad nedan diskuterar Stathis Kouvelakis, ledande medlem i Syrizas partistyrelse och representant för Vänsterplattformen, den senaste utvecklingen när det gäller krisens Grekland. Han börjar också skissa på ett första bokslut över den egna grupperingen agerande samt inleder, kortfattat, en diskussion om vänsterns framtid i Grekland – och Europa. Personligen tycker jag att detta är det mest intressanta och politiskt mest klargörande som har sagts och sedan kommit i text om utvecklingen i Grekland sedan Syrizas regeringsbildning! På vår blogg brukar vi inte publicera material på engelska eller andra främmande språk. Vi vet att vi har många läsare som helst håller sig till svenska. Men eftersom intervjun är mycket lång och att en översättning till svenska därför lär vänta på sig gör jag ett undantag. För den som verkligen vill förstå vad som händer, försök att ta dig igenom texten, den är nära nog oumbärlig för den som vill förstå vart Grekland – och Europa – är på väg och vilka politiska frågor som vi gemensamt har att tackla i framtiden!

Tsipras, who it has to be said is a kind of a gambler as a politician, thought of the referendum — an idea that was not entirely new and which was floated before by others in the government including Yanis Varoufakis — not as a break with the negotiating process but as a tactical move that could strengthen his negotiating plan.

I can be certain about this, because I was privy to detailed reports about the crucial cabinet meeting on the evening of June 26, when the referendum was announced.

Two things have to be said at this point. The first is that Tsipras and most of the people close to him thought it was going to be a walk in the park. And that was pretty much the case before the closure of the banks. The general sense was that the referendum would be won overwhelmingly, by over 70 percent.

This was quite realistic, without the banks closing down the referendum would have been easily won, but the political significance of No would have been changed, because it would have happened without the confrontational and dramatic atmosphere created by the bank closure and the reaction of the Europeans.

What happened in that cabinet meeting was that a certain number of people — the rightist wing of the government, lead by Deputy Prime Minister Giannis Dragasakis — disagreed with the move. Dragasakis is actually the person who has been monitoring the whole negotiation process on the Greek side. Everyone on the negotiating team with the exception of the new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, are his people and he was the most prominent of those in the cabinet who really wanted to get rid of Varoufakis.

This wing thought that the referendum was a high-risk proposal, and they understood, in a way that Tsipras did not, that this was going to be a very confrontational move that would trigger a harsh reaction from the European side — and they were proved right.

They were also afraid about the dynamic from below that would be released by this initiative. On the other hand, the Left Platform’s leader and minister of energy and productive reconstruction, Panagiotis Lafazanis said that the referendum was the right decision, albeit one that came too late, but he also warned that this amounted to a declaration of war, that the other side would cut off the liquidity and we should expect within days to have the banks closed. Most of those present just laughed at this suggestion.

I think this lack of awareness of what was going to happen is absolutely key to understanding the whole logic of the way the government has been operating so far. They just couldn’t believe that the Europeans would react the way that they actually reacted. In a way, as I have said, the right wing of Syriza was much more lucid about what they were up against.

This explains also what happened during the week of the referendum at that level. Tsipras was put under extreme pressure by Dragasakis and others to withdraw the referendum. He didn’t do that, of course, but he made it clear that his next moves were the ones that the right wing would agree with, and the measure was not a break with the line that had been followed up until that point, but was rather a kind of tactical move from within that framework.
And that was the meaning of the kind of backtrack on the Wednesday before the vote?

Exactly. That Wednesday some people even talked about an internal coup happening, and Athens was brewing with rumors that Tsipras was going to withdraw the referendum. During his speech he confirmed the referendum but also made it clear that the referendum was conceived as a tool for getting a better deal and that this was not the end of the negotiation but just the continuation under supposedly improved conditions. And he remained faithful to that line during that entire week.
One thing that I didn’t understand about the process even from a public relations perspective is that he called a referendum over a series of proposed measures that he then called on people to reject and yet in the run-up to the referendum, he made a move towards the creditors that seemed to be even worse in some aspects than the measures that he was calling on people to reject.
That all gave the impression of complete amateurism and chaos.

I’ve tried to reconstitute the intentions of Tsipras essentially to answer your question about whether he thought he was going to lose the referendum and to try to clarify the meaning the referendum had for him. But what is absolutely clear is that it unleashed forces that went far beyond those intentions. Tsipras and the government were clearly overtaken by the momentum that was created by the referendum.

They tried therefore by all means to put the devil back into the box. The way Tsipras dealt with pressure from Dragasakis — and why that Wednesday was so crucial — was that he accepted their line and sent that infamous letter to the Eurogroup and before that the letter asking for a new loan. This opened up the path for what was to come the week after the referendum.

But, on the other hand, in order to justify the fact that he could not without being totally ridiculed withdraw the referendum, he had to give some rationale for the initiative. He has to talk about fighting the austerity measures included in the Juncker package, about the blackmailing of the troika and the ultimatum he had been subjected to. And, of course, the dynamic that was developing from below at that moment seized that opportunity, took him at his word, and went ahead and to wage the battle against the troika.

This is a prime example of an initiative that was taken from above, as the result of internal contradictions, but ended up liberating forces that went far beyond a leader’s intentions. This is very important, because it also has to be understood that one of the biggest difficulties that Tsipras has to face now after the surrender of yesterday’s agreement is the very dubious political legitimacy of this move after the referendum.

We have to understand that it is a complete illusion to pretend that the referendum didn’t happen. It did happen, and it’s clear to both international public opinion and Greek society that Tsipras is betraying a popular mandate.
So on the big debate — is Tsipras some sort of Machiavellian super-tactical genius or some type of wild gambler overtaken by events, you’re definitely in the second camp?

Well, I’m definitely in the second camp provided that we clarify the following point: actually Tsipras and the leadership has been following very consistently the same line from the start. They thought that by combining a “realistic” approach in the negotiations and a certain rhetorical firmness, they would get concessions from the Europeans.

They were however increasingly trapped by that line, and when they realized that they were trapped, they had no alternative strategy. They consistently refused any other strategy, and they also made it practically impossible for another approach to be implemented when there was still time for that.

Now, in the interview he gave a couple of days ago to the New Statesman, Varoufakis says that a small team of people around him worked during the week leading to the referendum on an alternative plan including state control of the banks, issuing of IOUs and disconnection of the Greek central bank from the Frankfurt ECB, so on a sort of gradual exit. But that clearly came too late and was rejected by nearly all the rest of the economic team of the cabinet, by which he essentially means Dragasakis. And Tsipras, of course, validated that decision.

So we have to stress the continuity of the line of Tsipras. This is also the reason I think the word “betrayal” is inappropriate if we are to understand what is happening. Of course, objectively we can say that there has been a betrayal of the popular mandate, that people very legitimately feel they have been betrayed.

However, the notion of betrayal usually means that at some moment you make a conscious decision of reneging on your own commitments. What I think actually happened was that Tsipras honestly believed that he could get a positive outcome by putting forward an approach centered on negotiations and displaying good will, and this also why he constantly said he had no alternative plan.

He thought that by appearing as a loyal “European,” deprived of any “hidden agenda,” he would get some kind of reward. On the other side, he showed for some months a capacity to resist to the escalating pressure and made some unpredictable moves such as the referendum or travelling to Moscow.

He thought this was the right mix to approach the issue, and what happens is that when you consistently follow this line you are led to a position in which you are left only with bad choices.
And the roots of that strategy: to what extent is it ideological blindness and to what extent is it pure ignorance? What is confusing to many is that you have a government composed of a large number of intellectuals, people who spent their whole lives studying contemporary capitalist political economy, both in the abstract and the concrete, people who are political activists.
How can one explain what seems to be naïveté about their political opponents? Is it thoroughly rooted ideology or was it just a lack of experience with “high politics”?

I think we have to distinguish two elements within the government. The first is the rightist wing of the government led by two of the main economists, essentially Dragasakis but also Giorgos Stathakis. And then the core leadership, Tsipras and the people around him.

The first group had a consistent line from the outset — there was absolutely no naïveté on their part. They knew very well that the Europeans would never accept a break with the memorandum.

This is why Dragasakis from the outset did everything he could not to change the logic of the overall approach. He clearly sabotaged all the attempts for Syriza to have a proper economic program, even one within the framework that had been approved by the majority of the party. He thought that the only thing you could get was an improved version of the memorandum framework. He wanted his hands completely free to negotiate the deal with the Europeans, without himself appearing too much at the stage, he succeeded in controlling the negotiation team, especially once Varoufakis had been sidelined.

In summer 2013, he gave a very interesting interview that created a lot of buzz at the time. What he was proposing was not even a softer version of Syriza’s program, but in reality a different program that was a slight improvement of the existing agreement that New Democracy signed.

And then you have the other approach, that of Tsipras, which was indeed rooted in the ideology of left-Europeanism. I think the best illustration of that is Euclid Tsakalotos, a person who considers himself a staunch Marxist, someone who comes from the Eurocommunist tradition, we were in the same organization for years. The most typical statement from him which captures both his ideology and the outlook given to the government by the presence of all those academics is what he said in an interview to the French website Mediapart in April.

When asked what had struck him most since he was in government, he replied by saying that he was an academic, his job was to teach economics at a university, so when he went to Brussels he had prepared himself very seriously, he had prepared a whole set of arguments and was expecting exactly elaborated counter-arguments to be presented. But, instead of that, he just had to face people who were endlessly reciting rules and procedures and so on.

Tsakalotos said he was very disappointed by the low level of the discussion. In the interview to the New Statesman, Varoufakis says very similar things about his own experience, although his style is clearly more confrontational than Tsakalotos’s.

From this it is quite clear that these people were expecting the confrontation with the EU to happen along the lines of an academic conference when you go with a nice paper and you expect a kind of nice counter-paper to be presented.

I think this is telling about what the Left is about today. The Left is filled with lots of people who are well-meaning, but who are totally impotent on the field of real politics. But it’s also telling about the kind of mental devastation wrought by the almost religious belief in Europeanism. This meant that, until the very end, those people believed that they could get something from the troika, they thought that between “partners” they would find some sort of compromise, that they shared some core values like respect for the democratic mandate, or the possibility of a rational discussion based on economic arguments.

The whole approach of Varoufakis’s more confrontational stance amounted actually to the same thing, but wrapped in the language of game theory. What he was saying was that we have to play the game until the very, very, very end and then they would retreat, because supposedly the damage that they would endure had they not retreated was too great for them to accept.

But what actually happened was akin to a fight between two people, where one person risks the pain and damage of losing a toe and the other their two legs.

So it is true that there was a lack of elementary realism and that this was directly connected with the major problem that the Left has to face today — namely, our own impotence.
And this Europeanism that you describe in the center faction of the Syriza leadership, what is its ideological nature? Because these are not liberals or even Negrian federalists — these are people who think of themselves in most cases as Marxists? Is there an influence from Habermas or Étienne Balibar?

I think that, in this case, Balibar is probably more relevant than Habermas. Once again, I think we have to take Tsakalotos at his word. He gave an interview to Paul Mason just the day after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s very humiliating counter-proposals were sent.

When Mason asked him about the euro, Tsakalotos said that exit would be an absolute catastrophe and that Europe would relive the 1930s with the return of competition between national currencies and the rise of various nationalisms and fascism.

So for these people the choice is between two things: either being “European” and accepting the existing framework, which somehow objectively represents a step forward compared the old reality of nation-states, or being “anti-European” which is equated with a falling back into nationalism, a reactionary, regressive move.

This is a weak way in which the European Union is legitimated — it might not be ideal but it’s better than anything else on the table.

I think that in this case we can clearly see what the ideology at work here is. Although you don’t positively sign up to the project and you have serious doubts about the neoliberal orientation and top-down structure of European institutions, nevertheless you move within its coordinates and can’t imagine anything better outside of its framework.

This is the meaning of the kind of denunciations of Grexit as a kind of return to the 1930s or Grexit as a kind of apocalypse. This is the symptom of the leadership’s own entrapment in the ideology of left-Europeanism.
It’s easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of the European Union or even of the euro?

Exactly, I wrote as much a few years ago.
And yet this kind of softness on the European Union is inconsistent with Nicos Poulantzas’s own view, despite some intellectuals using Poulantzas to defend the leadership position.

Yes, Poulantzas talked about the European integration in the first part of his book on social classes in contemporary capitalism, in which he analyzes the processes of internationalization of capital and he clearly considered the European Economic Community an example of an imperialist form of internationalization of European capital within the framework of what he considered the new postwar structural hegemony of the United States.
Let’s talk about the referendum itself again. The referendum happened in a context of liquidity crisis, banks closing, hysterical media backlash, and other parties pushing for the “yes” vote. But then something happened to trigger a counter-reaction of enormous scale from ordinary Greeks.
Were they driven by national pride, was it mainly a class issue, or did, as Paul Mason and others speculate, memories of the Civil War play a role? What are the key sources of the “no” vote?

Of all the factors that you mentioned, the least relevant is the one that relates to the Civil War. We have to see that No dominated in even very traditional right-wing areas of the country like Laconia, near Sparta, Messinia, or other areas in central Greece where the Right dominates like Evrytania. The “no” vote was a majority in all the counties of Greece.

The class dimension was definitely the most important out of the three you mention, which I’ll go through in order of importance. Even relatively mainstream commentators recognized that this was the most class-divided election in Greek history. In working-class districts you had 70 percent and above for “no,” in upper-class districts you had 70 percent and above for “yes.”

The hysterical backlash of dominant forces and the dramatic concrete situation created by the closure of banks and the cap on cash withdrawals and so on, created within the popular classes a very easy identification that the Yes camp was everything they hated. The fact that the Yes camp mobilized all these hated politicians, pundits, business leaders, and media celebrities for their campaign only helped to inflame this class reaction.

The second thing that is equally impressive is the radicalization of the youth. This is the first moment since the crisis that the youth in its mass actually made a unified statement. Eighty-five percent of those from eighteen to twenty-four voted “no,” which shows that this generation, which has been completely sacrificed by the memorandum, is very aware of the future ahead of it and has a clear attitude with regards to Europe.

The French daily Le Monde had this article asking how come these young people, who had grown up with the euro, Erasmus programs, and European Union are turning against it, and the response from all those interviewed was simple: we have seen what Europe is about, and Europe is about austerity, Europe is about blackmailing democratic governments, Europe is about destroying our future.

This also explains the massive and combative rallies of that week, especially culminating with the Friday, July 3 rallies in Athens and other major cities in Greece.

And the third dimension is certainly that of national pride. This explains why outside the big urban centers, where the class lines are more blurred, in the Greece of the countryside and small cities, even there the “no” vote won a majority. It was a “no” to the troika, it was a “no” to Juncker. It was perceived that even for those who are skeptical of the government and don’t identify with Syriza or Tsipras saw that this was clearly an attempt to humiliate an elected government and maintain the country under the rule of the troika.
You went around several workplaces to campaign for No. Can you talk a little bit about that and what reception you faced?

It was of course a very unique experience. There was a disparity of situations — the atmosphere was tough within the railways, a company that has already been largely dismantled and whose remainder will be privatized, and the workers knew that the Syriza government had already accepted the privatization of the railways. It was included even in the first list of reforms announced by Varoufakis after the February 20 agreement.

But despite the varying contexts, in all these places, the discussion was around two different issues: why has the government done so little so far, why has it been so timid? And also what are you going to do after the No victory?

It was totally clear for these people that No would win, because the Yes campaign was invisible in workplaces and among the working class generally, so there was no doubt about what the result would be. But there was a massive amount of anxiety about what would happen after the victory.

So the questions were: what are your plans? What are you going to do? Why do you still talk about negotiations when for five and a half months we have seen this approach clearly fail?

I was in a very embarrassing situation, because, in my role as a Syriza spokesperson and central committee member, I couldn’t give convincing answers to all this.
No, of course, won massively. Were you surprised by the scale of the victory?

Yes, I was not expecting the No to reach the threshold of 60 percent. It has to be said that among the top Syriza cadres, only Lafazanis had predicted that and very few even among the Left Platform agreed with him. Most expected something like 55 percent.
The first immediate impact of this massive victory of the “no” vote was to increase the disintegration of the opposition parties.

On the very evening of the result, these people were completely defeated — this was by far the hardest defeat of the pro-austerity camp since the start of the crisis. It was much clearer and more profound than the January elections, because they had regrouped and mobilized all their forces but still suffered a devastating defeat. They didn’t win a single county in Greece.

New Democracy leader and former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras resigned almost immediately. And then, only hours later, this entire camp was resuscitated and legitimized by Tsipras himself when he called for the “council of political leaders” under the chair of the president of the republic, an open Yes supporter, who had been appointed by the Syriza majority in parliament in February.

At that meeting you saw an extraordinary thing happen — the head of the victorious camp accepted the conditions of the defeated camp. This, it has to be said, is something that’s unique in political history. I don’t we’ve ever seen this before.
The government was perhaps surprised by the strength of the “no” vote, and the class nature it must have understood as well, but its interpretation was simply that it confirmed the initial plans? There was no registering that something deeper was at work?

I can’t really speak for the way they have interpreted the referendum, because everybody has been absorbed by the so-called negotiations, which are just a joke of course. I think the best expression for those negotiations was reported by the Guardian correspondent in Brussels, Ian Traynor, who wrote that an EU official called them an “exercise in mental waterboarding.”

What is clear, however, is that the government immediately took those initiatives to deactivate the dynamic that was emerging with the referendum. And this is why hours after the announcement of the final resort, this meeting of all the political leaders was called, which fixed somehow an agenda entirely different from that expressed by the “no” vote.

The content of this new agenda was that whatever happens — that was of course already there in moves inspired by Dragasakis made the week before — Greece had to stay in the eurozone. And the most emphatic point of the joint statement signed by all the political leaders — with the exception of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), who refused to sign, and the Nazis, who were not invited to the meeting — was that this referendum was not a mandate for a break but a mandate for a better negotiation. So from that moment onwards the mess had been set.
Is there any evidence that people’s positions on the question of the eurozone were shifting during the time of the referendum?

Of course they were shifting. The argument that was constantly repeated by the media, by the political leaders of the Yes camp, but also by all the European leaders who clearly interfered in the referendum in the most blatant way during that week, was that voting for No was voting against the euro. So it’s completely irrational to say that the people voting for No were not in the very least taking the risk of a possible exit from the euro if that was the condition for saying “no” to further austerity measures.

It’s also worth saying that what was happening during that week was a process of radicalization in public opinion. You could feel and hear that in the streets, workplaces, all kinds of public spaces. Everywhere, people were just talking about the referendum, so it was quite easy to perceive the popular mood.

I’m not suggesting it was homogenous. People made the argument that voting “no” would actually just give the government another card for the negotiations. I’m not saying that this is not true. But we also must understand that the massive character of the “no” vote in the country means that the people, more particularly in the working class, in the youth and in the impoverished middle strata, had the feeling that they had nothing to lose anymore, and they were willing to take risks and to give a battle.

The combative spirit of the Friday rallies was another indication of that. It was quite impressive. Personally, I have seen nothing like that in Greece since the 1970s.
Let’s talk about the July 11 vote in parliament on the proposals sent by the Greek government to the Eurogroup. It became clear at that moment that the government had accepted the perspective of a new austerity plan.
Those proposals were finally approved by 251 MPs out of 300, with the pro-austerity parties massively backing them.

One of the conditions posed by the lenders was that the proposals of the Greek government had to be approved by the parliament, knowing that this did not make sense. It’s not even strictly speaking constitutional, because the parliament can only vote for bills or international / inter-state agreements, they cannot vote on a simple document that is the basis for negotiation and can be changed during the negotiation at any time.

But it was a symbolic move that gave carte blanche to the government to negotiate on a dramatically scaled down basis. The proposals of the government were only a slightly scaled down version of the Juncker plank that was rejected in the referendum. So actually what the government was asking for was approval for its U-turn during that week.
But the picture inside Syriza’s parliamentary group looks more complex. So let’s talk all about the differentiation within Syriza’s ranks and the position that the Left Platform took.

The position of the Left Platform was significantly debated internally, specifically inside the major component of the platform, which is the Left Current led by Panagiotis Lafazanis. The majority opinion was that we should go for a differentiated vote at that stage, which meant some people had to vote “present” in the vote itself — which practically amounts to the same as a “no” vote, though perhaps with a lesser symbolic meaning—
Why is it the same as a “no” vote?

Because it doesn’t change the fact of the requisite majority that a proposal needs in order to pass. In any case you need 151 votes to get it passed.

There is another part of the group who’d vote in favor of those proposals while at the same time issuing a statement, saying two things. First that were in a position of political solidarity with those who rejected it — with those who voted “present” in this case, who don’t accept this agreement — and that they would not vote for an agreement containing austerity measures.

And perhaps the second point is even more important than the first (we’ll come back to that in a moment certainly). The reasoning is that Greek constitutional practice is the following: on every bill the government has to show that it has a majority coming from its own ranks, from the party itself or from the coalition, which is the case here if we take ANEL, the party of the Independent Greeks, into account. And, in fact, actually the government lost control of its own majority.

Although it is not legally binding, it is the case that, in Greek constitutional history, when a government loses control of its majority, the famous dedilomeni as it is called (“declared majority”), it has to go for new elections. This is why immediately the discussion of new elections started. The new elections have already been announced — now it’s just a question of when they are going to happen.

So we can see that this line — with which I personally disagreed, I am among those who favored a homogenous “no” vote or “present” vote — failed because actually with the seven Left Platform MPs who voted present plus some Syriza MPs who also voted present (most significantly Zoe Konstantopoulou, the president of the parliament, and Rachel Makri, a former ANEL MP who is now very close to her) the government had already lost its own majority.

However, there is a bottom line now: all the MPs of the Left Platform will reject the new memorandum in the next vote, this has already been announced. To this I have to add that the two MPs of the Left Platform who are not members of the Left Current but close to the Red Network (and DEA and others), the Trotskyist component of the platform, voted “no,” and they were the only two Syriza MPs to vote “no” to the new agreement.
So what you’re saying is that the Left Platform took this complicated position, at least complicated outside the meeting rooms of the National Assembly, because it had miscalculated how unpopular the Tsipras proposal would be? It had underestimated the degree to which people outside the ranks of the Left Platform would step forward and oppose it?
They imagined that they were kind of the “last of the Mohicans.” They thought if they voted “no,” they would bring the downfall of the government and trigger new elections — whereas in fact there was a broader crisis going on that involved, for example, the leader of the parliament, and they didn’t factor that into their calculations? That they were carried by a sense of legitimism?

I would say it was essentially legitimism, it was to show that their intention was not to somehow overthrow the government, but to express their disagreement with its actions, to issue a warning that it was about to cross the final red line. So it was to express the illegitimacy of Tsipras’s move without, at that stage, opting for a clear-cut break with it.

I have to add that the two most important ministers and figures of the Left Platform, Lafazanis himself and the deputy minister of social affairs, Dimitris Stratoulis voted “no” in order to make it clear. Lafazanis also issued a statement saying that while that was the political position of the Platform, they were not trying to overthrow the government.
But do you think that the newly radicalized layers of the Greek working class who had just won a referendum understood what was going on?

Well they understood that the government had lost control of its own majority. The media did the job for us, focusing on Lafazanis, covering who voted “no,” “present,” and “absent,” etc. I also have to add that among those who were absent were the four MPs of the Maoist current (KOE) and Yanis Varoufakis himself, who supposedly had “family obligations.” So the media had done the work for us, and everyone became aware that there was a split within Syriza’s parliamentary group.

Immediately, the most rightist elements of Syriza demanded that those who had disagreed one way or another resign immediately from their positions, including their parliamentary seats. So it was quite clear that Syriza was fractured, though of course the tactics were unclear.

The most symbolic and crucial vote will happen now. Last week’s vote was a vote on the proposals for the negotiation. The next vote, which will determine the future of Syriza and the country, will be the vote on the agreement signed on Sunday. And I think the information I have so far is that the vote will be absolutely clear, and in the popular memory will be the real parallel with the famous May 2010 and February 2012 votes, when everybody was looking at each individual, each individual MP, to see how they would vote in this occasion.
What do you think of the argument of people like Alex Callinicos, who you debated a few days ago, which is that this was a moment in which the Left Platform had the legitimacy of the referendum and somehow fumbled that opportunity?

I think it is too early to say if we lost it or not. Things are not decided on a single moment — not on that moment at least. It is a process unfolding now, and I think the real shock in the broader society is coming with the new signed agreement.

At this stage, what I can say is that the decision of the Left Platform is to reclaim the party and demand a party congress. I think it’s quite clear that this U-turn of Syriza has only minority support within the party.

Of course, we all know that bureaucratic manipulations of party procedures are endless and display infinite capacity to innovate. However, it is very hard for me to see how the majority of Syriza members could approve of what has been done. Essentially the leadership will ferociously resist the call for a congress. We’ll see what happens, because the statutes allow us to call for a central committee meeting and so on.

But objectively, the process leading to the disintegration of Syriza has already started. Syriza as we knew it is over and splits are absolutely inevitable. The only issue now is how they will happen and what form they will take.

However what is also likely to happen is a drastic reshaping of a governmental majority, towards some form of “national unity” or “great coalition” cabinet. The whole logic of the situation points to that direction.

The four ministers of the Left Platform will leave the cabinet this week and tomorrow’s vote in parliament on the agreement will validate the existence of a new pro-austerity majority, regrouping most of the Syriza’s MPs and all other parties, with the exception of the KKE and the Nazis. It is expected that as many as forty Syriza MPs will reject the agreement and they might be followed by some from the Independent Greeks. Already the leader of To Potami behaves like a minister in waiting and the Right discusses quite openly the possibility of joining the government, although no such decision has been taken yet.
But what you are describing is the Left Platform acting as a disciplined bloc. So you suggest that it is not internally fissured, that the vote was not a manifestation of such a thing but a tactical maneuver?

We had some individual losses, but they were quite limited, and we have succeeded in preserving the coherence of the Left Platform. Clearly, I think it was a mistake not to have presented our alternative plan before, but a document has been submitted in the plenary meeting of the parliamentary group, and that was put forward as a common statement of the Left Platform, involving the two components of the Left Current and the Red Network. It’s absolutely crucial to maintain the coherence between those two components. But it’s even more crucial, actually, for the Syriza left to operate in a cohesive way.

There are all kinds of initiatives from beyond the ranks of Left Platform to react to what is happening. Already we know that the tendency of the so-called Fifty-Three (the left wing of the majority) has disintegrated, and there will be major realignments on that side. The key thing is for us to act as the legitimate representation of the No camp, the anti-austerity camp, which is the majority in Greek society and which has been objectively betrayed by what is happening.
And, constitutionally, is the leadership in a position to purge the party?

It is certainly in a position to purge the government, and this is a good thing. Of course, it means that the Left Platform ministers will soon be expelled from the cabinet. About the party, we’ll see.
But there are mechanisms they could use?

It’s very difficult to expel someone from the party, but we’ll see how they manipulate the procedures at the central committee level.
And you can force people to resign their seats, or not?

No, you can’t. It’s totally impossible. There has been a kind of charter adopted by all Syriza candidates elected MPs, saying they should resign from their seat if they disagree with the decision-making of the majority. But the decisions of the government haven’t been approved by any party instance. The central committee of the party, which is the only elected body by the party congress, hasn’t been convened for months. So the legitimacy of those decisions inside the party, and of course inside Greek society, is simply nonexistent.
But, if there are new elections, the party leadership can exclude people?

That’s clearly their plan. There was even talk of that happening before the referendum, during the last phase of the negotiation process when the deadlock was becoming more and more apparent — people were saying Tsipras should call for new elections and in between the elections purge all the candidates of Syriza’s left. And I think this is the type of plan they certainly have in mind. So it will be a race between the functioning and legitimacy of the party and the way to manipulate the political agenda and timetable, more particularly calling for new elections.
What is your assessment of the agreement signed last weekend between the Greek government and the Eurogroup?

The agreement is at all levels the total continuation of the shock therapy applied consistently to Greece over the last five years. It goes even further than everything that has been voted on so far. It includes the austerity package that was being consistently put forward by the troika for months, with high primary surpluses targets, increasing the revenue through VAT and all the exceptional taxes that have been created these last years, further cuts to pensions, and in public sector wages actually because the reform of the salary scale will certainly entail cuts in wages.

There also important institutional changes, with the inland revenue becoming fully autonomous from domestic political control, actually it becomes a tool in the hands of the troika, and the creation of another “independent” board, monitoring fiscal policy, and habilitated to introduce automatically horizontal cuts if the targets in terms of primary surpluses are not met.

Now what has been added, and gives a particularly ferocious flavor to this agreement, are the following: first it emphatically confirmed that the IMF is there to stay. Second, the troika institutions will be permanently present in Athens. Third, Syriza is prevented from implementing two of its major commitments like reestablishing labor legislation — there were some vague references to European best practice, but it was explicit that the government could not return to past legislation — and of course this is also true for increasing the minimum wage.

The privatization program is scaled up to an incredible level — we’re talking about €50 billion of privatization — so absolutely all public assets will be sold. Not only that, but they will be transferred to an institution, all of them, completely independent from Greece. There was talk of it being in Luxembourg — actually it will be based in Athens — but it will be completely removed from any form of political control. This is typically the kind of Treuhand process that privatized all the assets of the East Germany.

And the strongest of all these measures is that with the exception of the bill on humanitarian measures — which is very reduced of what Syriza’s program, essentially a symbolic gesture — on all the rest of the few bills passed by the government on economic and social policy, the government will have to repeal them.
And what about all these issues all the liberals and social democrats use to give politically correct arguments for austerity, namely the defense budget and the Orthodox church?

There is nothing about the church. There is a slashing of the defense budget indeed put forward, and there was a vague discussion about making the repayment of the debt more viable, while explicitly rejecting any writing off or cancellation of the debt, properly speaking.

This will change almost nothing because already the interest rate of the Greek debt is quite low, and the annual repayments are extremely stretched out over time, so there is very little you can do to alleviate the burden of the debt in that way. And we should not forget that the agreement is just a preliminary for the memorandum that will accompany a new 86 billion loan, that will of course lead to a further rise of the debt.

So the vague clause about a future reconsideration of the the terms of debt repayment an essentially rhetorical move that just allows Tsipras to say that they have now recognized the necessity of dealing with the issue of the debt. It is pure rhetoric, empty words.
Do you think it was a mistake of the government and the Left not to have done something more about the Orthodox church, the army, and the defense budget, and therefore give arguments to the other side?

This is, honestly, not the priority. The Greek debt is essentially due to the broader economic situation in the country of unsustainable growth fueled by borrowing all those previous years, and is due to the fact that the Greek state has not been properly taxing capital or the middle and upper classes. This is the core of the problem. Not the myth about the church.

It’s difficult: taxing the church is not something that can be done overnight, because the assets owned by the church are extremely diverse. Most of them take the form of companies, or revenue that comes from land, or real estate. So there is a myth about this, when actually if you tax this type of revenue and wealth properly, you also tax the church itself.
So there’s not some idea that the government was afraid of the political cost, either vis-à-vis ANEL, or more generally in the country, of taking a tough line with the church?

Look, there are many things we can criticize this government for, but honestly them trying somehow to shift the burden of responsibility to ANEL is the least relevant one.

I would even say the most shocking moves in the realm of defense or foreign policy — for instance, continuing the military agreement with Israel, carrying out joint exercises in the Mediterranean with the Israelis — all these are decisions made by key Syriza people, like Dragasakis. It’s quite telling that he was representing the Greek government in the reception given by the Israeli embassy to celebrate twenty-five years of normal diplomatic relations between Greece and Israel.
And what about the other spin people are trying to put on this: that Tsipras has reintroduced politics into these technical discussions, he’s exposed the other side for what they really are, now in public opinion Merkel and the others are shown for the monsters they really are, and so on . . ?

Inadvertently, I think this is the case. A comrade sent me a message saying it is true the Syriza government has succeeded in making the EU much more hated by the Greek people than anything Antarsya or KKE has been able to accomplish in twenty years of anti-EU rhetoric in that field!
Let’s talk about what is to come now. There is a vote on the new austerity package this week, which you’re confident the Left Platform will vote against, an emergency congress of the party to try and regain the majority with potentially splits or expulsions. What then? A reconstruction of the Left with elements of Antarsya?

It’s early to discuss such future prospects.
But relations between the Left Platform and Antarsya have improved?

I think what was important is the fact that most sectors of Antarsya really fought with a high spirit the battle of the referendum, and in many places there were local committees involving all the forces of No, which means essentially Syriza and those sectors of Antarsya. So I think there is a political possibility that needs to be explored.

However, I’m not that optimistic about Antarsya as such because I think the glue that holds this whole coalition together is still traditional ultra-leftism. We can already see that what they say of this defeat is that they have been vindicated, this is the failure of all left reformisms, and what we need is a properly revolutionary party, and of course that they are the vanguard that constitutes the core of that party and they will continue down that road. So I think there will be some recomposition, but I expect that to be on a limited scale.
And, potentially, some social movement activity today, talk of a general strike in the public sector?

This is the most decisive factor still unknown. What is the bigger picture now? We have a new memorandum, and we have a reconfiguration of the parliamentary majority that is behind this new memorandum. This will be symbolically validated by the forthcoming vote, where we will see most of Syriza MPs voting together once again with pro-austerity parties for a new memorandum, and once again we have a gap between the political representation of this country and the people. So this contradiction needs to be resolved.

Clearly this field is now open for the Nazis. They will certainly try to make the best use of it. They have already voted against the Greek proposal, they will certainly vote against the new memorandum, they will certainly call it a new betrayal. The big question is what will be the level of social mobilization against the tsunami of measures that will fall now on the shoulders of the working people and of course the absolute urgency of reconstituting a fighting, anti-austerity left. That’s the main challenge of course.

We know we have some elements to reconstruct the Left, we know the heavy responsibility lies on the shoulders of Syriza’s left, in the broad sense of the term. In the narrowest sense of the term an even heavier responsibility lies on the shoulders of the Left Platform because it is the most structured, coherent, and politically lucid part of that spectrum of forces. So that will be the test of the coming months.
Let’s step back a bit and look at the process as a whole, and the first interview you gave to Jacobin: first on the broad strategic question of the Left Platform working within the government and within social movements simultaneously, what is your balance sheet on that?

First of all let’s start with the broader picture. What I had said in the interview is that there are only two possibilities for the Greek situation, confrontation or capitulation. So we had capitulation, but we also had confrontational moments that were very poorly led on the side of the government. That was the real test.

Obviously the strategy of the “good euro” and “left-Europeanism” collapsed, and many people realize that now. The process of the referendum made that very clear, and the test went up to its extreme limits. This was a tough lesson, but a necessary one.

The second hypothesis I formulated at the time was you need political successes, including at the electoral level, to trigger new cycles of mobilization. I think this also proved to be true, in two crucial moments.

The first was the first three weeks after the election, when the mood was very combative, confrontational, and the spirits were very high. This ended with the agreement of February 20. And, from that moment on, it was a relapse to the mood of passivity, anxiety, and uncertainty about what was going on. The second moment was the referendum, of course. Then we saw how a political initiative that opens up a confrontational sequence liberates forces and acts as a catalyst for processes of radicalization in broader society. This is a lesson we also need to take from this.

On the relation of social movements and the Left Platform now. Well, given how poor the record of the government has been, what we can say is that there have been no specific government initiatives that could open up concrete spaces for popular mobilization. Those measures were actually never taken. So this hypothesis, at that level at least, has not been tested. And what is ahead of us is something much more familiar, that is mobilizing against the policies of a government converted to extreme austerity.

More generally, Syriza implemented almost nothing of its electoral program. The best Left Platform ministers have been able to do is block a certain number of processes, particularly privatization in the energy sector that had been previously initiated. They won a bit of time, but that was all. What we also clearly saw in that period is that the government, the leadership, became totally autonomous of the party. That process had already started — we talked about it in our last conversation — but now it has reached a kind of climactic level.

It was also increased by the fact that this whole negotiation process by itself triggered passivity and anxiety among the people and the most combative sectors of society, leading them to exhaustion. Before the referendum the mood was clearly, “We can’t stand this kind of waterboarding process anymore, at some point it has to end.”

This is something personally I hadn’t foreseen. I thought the pace would be quicker. I hadn’t foreseen that this process of being increasingly trapped in this absolute deadlock lasting for so long, limiting enormously our own room for initiative.

This is the moment of course of inevitable self-criticism, which is only just starting. Clearly, the Left Platform could have done more in that period in terms of putting forward alternative proposals. The mistake is even clear because the alternative document itself was there, there was just internal hesitation about the appropriate moment to release it.

We had been neutralized and overtaken by the endless sequence of negotiations and dramatic moments and so on, and it was only when it was already too late, in that plenary meeting of the parliamentary group, that a reduced version of that proposal was finally made public and started circulating. This is clearly something we should have done before.
And what do you make of the attacks on Costas Lapavitsas’s statements about Greece not being ready for Grexit and therefore, in a sense, there being no way out? One of the problems with that formulation is that, although it’s empirically true there were no preparations for Grexit, it’s kind of a self-reinforcing statement, because the people who want Grexit would never be in the position to make the preparations.

I think that Costas’s statement has been misinterpreted. First of all Costas is one of the five people who signed the document offered by the Left Platform which makes it clear that an alternative is possible even now, immediately.

What Costas wanted to emphasize in the declaration he made, behind closed doors in the parliamentary group, is the following: that Grexit needs to be prepared for practically and that there was a political decision to not prepare anything and therefore cutting off any possibility, materially speaking, of alternative choices at the most critical moment.

It was that bridge-burning type of strategy that was very systematically put forward by the government. And I think this was the obsession more particularly of Giannis Dragasakis — he made it impossible to make any moves towards public control of the banks. He is the man of trust actually of the bankers and sectors of big business in Greece and has made sure that the core of the system would remain unchanged since Syriza took power.
And you confirm there were initial preparations for Grexit put on the table and rejected?

Very vaguely. In restricted cabinet meetings, the so-called government council, where only the ten main ministers take part, Varoufakis had mentioned the necessity in the spring to consider Grexit as a possible action and prepare for that. I think there were some elaborations about parallel currency, but all this remained quite vague and poorly prepared.

Now, as I said before, in his New Statesman interview, Varoufakis presents a narrative according to which he prepared an alternative plan during the lineup to the referendum. But this is also a confession on how belated all this came.
What would you say now — apart from the issue of pace and demoralization — you failed to understand, or understood only incompletely at the beginning of this process, that you understand better now?

I have rewound the film in my head innumerable times all these years trying to understand the moments of bifurcation. And, for me, the decisive moment of bifurcation in the Greek situation was the period immediately after the peak of the popular mobilizations in the fall of 2011 and before the electoral sequence of spring 2012.

As you might know, I was very involved with Costas Lapavitsas and other comrades including the leadership of the Left Platform at that stage, in initiatives to constitute a common project of all the anti-Europeanist left.

The discussions were quite advanced, actually, because there was even a document drafted by Panagiotis Lafazanis, and then amended by other people participating in those discussions. The idea was to open up a space of common discussions and actions between the Left Platform of Syriza, certain sectors of Antarsya, and some campaigns and social movements.

This initiative never came to fruition because it was categorically rejected, at the final stage, by the leadership of the main component of Antarsya, NAR (the New Left Current), which showed how unable they were to understand the dynamic of the situation and the need to change somehow the configuration of forces and the mode of intervention on the Left.

Once this possibility was closed off, the only remaining one was what was eventually realized. The existing forces of the radical left were put to the test, and somehow only Syriza was able to seize the momentum and give political expression to the need for an alternative.

We could say, in hindsight, that some sections of the Greek left that were less tied to party politics could have taken a Podemos type of initiative, or perhaps more realistically, a Catalan CUP-type of initiative with sectors perhaps of the far left but of the more movementist tenor.

But, once again, there were no such sectors ready to do that. Everyone was much too linked to the limitations of the existing structures, and the only attempt to redistribute the cards failed to materialize, in this case because the weight of traditional ultra-leftism proved too strong.
Is there anything you want to add?

Yes, I want to add a more general reflection about what is the meaning of being vindicated or defeated in a political struggle. I think what, for a Marxist, is necessary is a kind of historicized understanding of these terms. You can say, on the one hand, that what you’ve been saying is vindicated because it’s proved true.

It’s the usual I-told-you-so strategy. But, if you’re unable to give a concrete power to that position, politically you are defeated. Because, if you are powerless and you have proved unable actually to transform your position into mass practice, then obviously politically you haven’t been vindicated. That’s one thing.

The second thing is not everyone has been defeated in the same way and to the same extent. I want to stress that. I think it was absolutely crucial for the internal battle inside Syriza to have been waged.

Let me be clear about this. What was the other option? Having passed the test of that decisive period, both KKE and Antarsya have proved, in very different ways of course, how irrelevant they are. For us, the only alternative choice would have been to break with the Syriza leadership sooner. However, given the dynamic of the situation after this crucial bifurcation of the late 2011 to early 2012 moment, that would have immediately marginalized us.

The only concrete result I can see would be to add a couple more groups to the already ten or twelve groups constituting Antarsya, and Antarsya instead of having 0.7% being at 1%. That would mean Syriza would have been offered entirely on a platter to Tsipras and the majority, or at least to those forces outside the Left Platform.

Now in Greek society, it’s clear that the only visible opposition to what the government is doing from the left is KKE. You can’t deny that, but they are totally irrelevant politically. We haven’t talked about the role of the KKE during the referendum, but it was an absolute caricature of their own irrelevance. They called actually for a spoiled vote, they asked the voters to use the ballot papers they’ve made themselves, with a “double no” written on them (to the EU and to the government). These papers were of course not valid the whole operation ended up in a fiasco. The KKE leaders weren’t followed by their own voters, about 1% of the voters overall, perhaps even less, used those invalid ballot papers.

And, aside from them, there is the Left Platform. Greek people know, and the media constantly repeat that, that for Tsipras, the main thorn is Lafazanis and the Left Platform. We can add Zoe Kostantopoulou to this. I think that’s what we’ve gained from that situation. We have a basis from which to start a new cycle, a force that has been at the forefront of that political battle and carries this unprecedented experience.

Everyone understands that if we fail to be up to the challenge, it will indeed be a landscape of ruins for the Left after this.

From that perspective, which is the perspective of the reconstruction of the anticapitalist left, without pretending that we are the only force that will play a role, we recognize how major the stakes are, which puts a very high responsibility on what we will be doing in the here and now.

Thanks to Nantina Vgontzas for question suggestions

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THE MAJORITY OF THE MEMBERS OF SYRIZA’S CENTRAL COMMITTEE REJECT THE AGREEMENT!

STATEMENT by the 109 (out of 201) members of Syriza’s Central Committee

The 12th of July in Brussels, a coup took place in Brussels which demonstrated that the goal of the European leaders was to inflict an exemplary punishment on a people which had envisioned another path, different from the neoliberal model of extreme austerity. It is a coup directed against any notion of democracy and popular sovereignty.
The agreement signed with the “Institutions” was the outcome of threats of immediate economic strangulation and represents a new Memorandum imposing odious and humiliating conditions of tutelage that are destructive for our country and our people.
We are aware of the asphyxiating pressures that were exercised on the Greek side, we consider nevertheless that the proud NO of working people in the referendum does not allow the government to give up in the face the pressures of the creditors.
This agreement is not compatible with the ideas and the principles of the Left, but, above anything else, is not compatible with the needs of the working classes. This proposal cannot be accepted by the members and the cadres of Syriza.
We ask the Central Committee to convene immediately and we call on the members, the cadres and the MPs of Syriza to preserve the unity of the party on the basis of our conference decisions and of our programmatic commitments.
Athens, July 15 2015

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Uttalande från 109 (av 201) medlemmar i Syrizas centralkommitté

Den 12 juli i Bryssel ägde en kupp rum i Bryssel som visade att målet med de europeiska ledarna var att statuera ett exempel på bestraffning av ett folk som hade tänkt en annan väg, som skiljer sig från den nyliberala modellen av extrema åtstramningar. Det är en kupp riktad mot varje föreställning om demokrati och folksuveränitet.
Avtalet, som undertecknades med ”institutionerna” var resultatet av hot om omedelbar ekonomisk strypning och representerar ett nytt Memorandum av motbjudande och förödmjukande villkor för förmyndarskap som är destruktiva för vårt land och vårt folk.
Vi är medvetna om det kvävande tryck som utövades mot den grekiska sidan, men vi anser ändå att det stolta NEJ från arbetande människor i folkomröstningen inte tillåter regeringen att ge upp inför trycket från fordringsägarna.
Detta avtal är inte kompatibelt med vänsterns idéer och principer, men framför allt annat, det är inte förenligt med behoven hos de arbetande klasserna. Detta förslag kan inte godtas av medlemmarna och kadrerna i Syriza.
Vi ber centralkommittén att sammankalla till möte omedelbart och vi uppmanar medlemmarna, kadrerna och parlamentsledamöter från Syriza att bevara enigheten i partiet på grundval besluten från vår konferens och våra programmatiska åtaganden.

Aten, 15 juli, 2015