A Workers’ International Network meeting, June 2023
THE LESSONS OF GREECE – YouTube
Between 2010 and 2015, Greece was the scene of the greatest wave of mass protest witnessed in Europe for decades. Hundreds of thousands were marching on the streets, organising mass strikes and workplace occupations lasting for weeks and in some cases months, massing in the public spaces, hoisting banners in multiple European languages calling for international solidarity. In opinion polls, 35% of the population declared their support for “revolution”. Their defiance was shown in some fifty general strikes and in the election in 2015 of SYRIZA, a new left party promising resistance to the bankers’ demands – its support having swelled over the previous six years from 4.6% to 36.3% of the vote. This culminated in the magnificent referendum of 2015, when on a high turnout a massive two-thirds of the population voted NO to the bankers’ programme of cuts.
SYRIZA’s prime minister Tsipras thereupon blatantly ignored this mandate of defiance and scuttled off to negotiate an even more draconic austerity programme which plunged millions of Greeks still deeper into poverty. The economy shrank by more than 25%, unemployment rose to 27% (58% for young people), and hundreds of thousands were forced to emigrate.
The latest election result, in which the right-wing government increased its majority and SYRIZA’s vote collapsed to 20%, reflects the despair that currently grips the population after SYRIZA’s capitulation to the bankers, the IMF and the EU. At the same time, however, the parties of the left (KKE, DEM25 and ANTARSYA) also did very poorly, having failed to offer a convincing alternative.
What lessons can workers throughout the world learn from the Greek experience? How soon can we look forward to a revival of the workers’ struggle? How can future defeats and betrayals be avoided?
To introduce a discussion on these vital issues, we are welcomed Andros Payiatsos, a prominent activist associated with the Marxist journal XEKINIMA and with INTERNATIONALIST STANDPOINT, an initiative by revolutionary socialists worldwide.
Image – “Tsipras, Syriza !!! ..Thank you Grecia!” by annalisa ceolin is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse.