The following is an interview with Andros Payiatsos by Contro Vento for their journal
What impact did Tsipra’s dramatic U-turn –his so called “kolotoumba”[1] – have on the Greek working class exactly 10 years ago?
Tsipras’ capitulation to the Troika (the IMF, the ECB and the EU) came as a shock to the working class and the oppressed layers, and has been rightly described as a betrayal.
The laboring masses took SYRIZA from an average of 3-4 % (which was its normal polling in elections) to a staggering 36.5% in a matter of a few years, after the onslaught of the Troika in 2010. The masses turned to SYRIZA as a result of the attack they faced against their living standards and rights, hoping that putting SYRIZA in government would put an end to these policies. These policies were not only neoliberal but also insulting and racist against the Greek working class, blaming them for being lazy, irresponsible and corrupt, for spending money at the expense of German and European pensioners, and many similar remarks full of hate, at a time when the Greek working class was (and still is) working longer hours than in any other EU country and receiving amongst the lowest wages in the EU.
The Greek working class fought monumental struggles in the period 2010-15, especially in the first 3-4 years, from 2010 to 2013. There were around 40 general strikes in total, many of them 48-hour general strikes, long sectoral strikes, huge demonstrations of up to 800,000 people in Athens (according to foreign capitalist media) long occupations of private and public sector workplaces, a very important “occupy” movement of Syntagma Square lasting for many weeks, a huge “no pay” movement, tremendous local struggles like the one against gold mining in Chalkidiki, etc, etc.
On July 5, 2915, we had the Referendum. The Greek people were called to vote “Yes” or “No” (OXI) to the demands of the Troika, with the banks already closed down by the Troika’s refusal to provide liquidity, from June 29 onwards. And yet, the popular masses voted by a staggering majority of 61.3% for “No”.
In the next couple of days, it became clear that Tsipras had already decided to capitulate and called the referendum hoping to lose it, so as to justify his “kolotoumba”.
SYRIZA’S capitulation represented a serious defeat for the Greek working class. It came as a complete shock to see the government that promised to change everything, follow the same policies as the right-wing ND (New Democracy) and –the so called “socialist”– PASOK governments before it.
It represented a very serious political defeat, after the defeat of the huge struggles of 2010-13 on the trade union and social level. To the working class and the youth, it meant massive disappointment, a feeling of defeat, even despair: “there is nothing we can do to change the situation”, “they are all [political parties, left and right] the same”, “there is no way out”, are phrases that reflect the mode of thinking in the period after July 15.
The working class was exhausted and did not have the energy or the means, but also could not see the point, to continue struggle against the SYRIZA government, as there was no other political alternative available. Atomization was inevitably on the rise, with the economy having collapsed by 27% and unemployment climbing to 28% (youth unemployment at around 45%). Workers and youth were trying to find the means to survive in a very difficult economic and social situation.
SYRIZA, of course, paid the cost for the betrayal of its leadership. It went through repeated waves of splits and is now an insignificant factor in politics in the region of 4% in recent polls. It cannot really be considered as a party of the Left anymore, but as part of the establishment, advocating policies identical to the official Social-democracy.
The difficult situation on the trade union and social level continues until today. It is not as bad as in the “black years” immediately after 2015, but it is still quite hard, although we have seen some very important moments of struggle in the past few years, especially the movement around the Tempi train crash in 2023 (which, incidentally, came entirely from below, with the central leadership of the trade unions playing no role).
The situation with the parties and organisations of the Left, unfortunately, is a factor in this general lull in struggle, allowing the ND government to continue its vicious attacks against the working class, without serious resistance. It is indicative that the ND government passed a law that allows workers to work 13 hours a day, for 6 days (i.e. 72 hours a week) without any serious effort by the trade unions to mobilize against it!
What is the current state of the Greek Left (KKE, Mera 25, ANTARSYA and other anti-capitalist organizations)? Under today’s conditions is it possible to build a united front among the forces that still identify with the labor movement?
The Greek Left remains quite strong, despite the defeats of the previous period and the general pessimism of the working-class movement especially of the older generation (it’s different with the youth who have not gone through the defeats of the previous decade and therefore have a more positive approach).
Having said this it is also correct to stress that the Greek Left is facing serious problems and has not yet recovered from the events of the previous decade. Both the KKE and ANTARSYA (the main organisation of the anticapitalist Left) were expecting growth and breakthroughs, after SYRIZA’s capitulation, only to end up in crisis and splits themselves. They both underestimated the impact of a defeat of the working class due to SYRIZA’s capitulation, on their own organisations, which was magnified (or enabled) by the fact that they rejected a united front approach towards SYRIZA before the latter was elected to government. The masses that turned to SYRIZA in the period 2010-15 never saw the KKE or ANTARSYA as a viable alternative mainly as a result of their sectarian attacks on SYRIZA at the time of the struggles of 2010-15.
The KKE is a Stalinist party[2] and by far the strongest force in the Greek Left, but it is sectarian towards the rest of Left and as a general rule refuses to support united actions. In the polls and in recent elections it received around 8-9% of the vote, which is progress compared to the 5% of the previous period (the time between 2012 and 2022), but in absolute numbers of votes it is below what it used to get even after the capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union, in the 1990s – its rise in percentage terms is to a large extent due to the huge increase in abstention rates. Still, it has strong roots in the working class and the unions, particularly in the private sector.
SYRIZA proposed to KKE an electoral alliance in 2012, with the declared aim of forming a left government. The KKE’s response was a blunt “no”, at a time when the Greek masses were desperately looking for an alternative to the governments of ND and PASOK that were the long hand of the Troika in Greece. KKE lost close to half its electoral support because of its rejection of SYRIZA’s invitation and went straight into crisis losing a big chunk of its membership (up to 30% according to some sources – no official figures exist).
Of course, we were not arguing that the KKE should have gone into government with SYRIZA on the basis of the naïve, reformist programme of SYRIZA which promised pro-working-class measures and reforms, on the basis of convincing the EU to change its vicious policies against the Greek people. But, KKE could have answered SYRIZA’s appeal by saying “we are open to forming a government of the Left, but we must first discuss the programme and the policies that such a government should apply”. By proposing an anti-capitalist programme as a basis for negotiations between SYRIZA and KKE, the latter could have shifted the balance within the Left. KKE failed to respond, because it saw things statically: it did not want to enter a reformist government and at the same time did not want to enter a revolutionary road. It could not see (or rather it was not interested in engaging in) the dynamic revolutionary potential that would open up if it proposed a left government on an anti-capitalist/socialist programme. This, of course, is a reflection of the internal contradictions of Stalinism.
Since then, and given the huge vacuum in the Left, KKE has made a partial recovery, but it has not returned to its previous position.
MERA 25 (DIEM 25 in Greece), one of the many splits that came out of SYRIZA, led by Yiannis Varoufakis (the ex-minister of “National Economy” of the first Tsipras government of 2015) is a left radical party, but without any roots in the working class – it has a petit bourgeois character, with weak organisational structures and is mainly centered around the personality of Varoufakis. In the past couple of years, it has united with the remains of Popular Unity, which split from SYRIZA in 2015 but then went through a number of splits that led to its collapse. The positive elements about MERA25 is that it is open to collaboration with other forces of the Left with the aim of building broader mass movements on a local and national (and even international) basis.
The rest of the Left, i.e., the anti-capitalist left, is fractured into many tens of small organisations, of a Maoist, or Trotskyist or a mixed/confused origin/character. The majority of these organisations are very sectarian and reject the method of the united front.
The most important of these is ANTARSYA, which is an alliance of a number of different organisations (6 at the present time, it used to be around 10 in the past). At its height, in the early 2010s, ANTARSYA could claim up to 3,000 members and received nearly 2% of the electorate and about 165,000 votes. With such forces and appeal it could have played a crucial role in the development of the Left and of the mass movements, in the course of the 2010-15 period. However, its refusal to engage in united front tactics with the rest of the Left –SYRIZA at that time and also KKE– kept it isolated from the great mass movements despite its modest successes.
When SYRIZA collapsed and KKE went into crisis, ANTARSYA failed to gain support and grow: on the contrary it went into crisis and in the last elections (Euro-elections, 2024) it received only around 15,000 votes.
The anti-capitalist Left in general has significant potential in Greece, which as a rule is not reflected in electoral results due to the fragmentation of its forces. This potential was clearly shown in the case of the local elections of 2023. Due to a law passed by the ND government that raised the threshold for electing delegates to the local councils to 3%, all the major anti-capitalist groups in Greece were forced to come together into electoral alliances in around 15 major municipalities. The results were absolutely staggering: more than 6% in Athens, close to 6% in Thessaloniki, up to 9% in one municipality and nowhere less than 4.5%.
So, the potential is great, if only the anti-capitalist Left would be willing to meet, discuss, coordinate and act together and also stand together in united lists in elections, local and national (with each one of the constituent organisations retaining of course its full independence).
The potential of the anti-capitalist Left is not just on the electoral front but also in the role it plays in society and in the mass movements. It is a fact that most of the initiatives taken for the creation of significant social movements of all sorts, in Greek society, come from the anti-capitalist Left. The other factor that plays a key role in the development of movements is, naturally, KKE – especially as regards trade union initiatives.
Despite all of these positive elements, the fragmentation and the sectarian traditions of KKE and the majority of the anti-capitalist organisations, makes it impossible to achieve united action. There are no common campaigns by the Left in general, but only partially, not even common protests on the same issues. It is often the case to have 4, 5 or even 7 demos on the same day, on the same issue, in the same city! To the eyes of the majority of working-class people this is simply ridiculous, and of course they won’t take part in any of the protests because they are identified with political parties and not with the mass movement.
In this general context of fragmentation and sectarian traditions, the answer to the question if in today’s conditions it is possible to build a united front among the main forces that still identify with the labor movement, is unfortunately negative.
But it is necessary to also stress that there is, now, a significant number of independent anti-capitalist organisations that have drawn conclusions/lessons from the experiences of the past decade and are raising high on their banners, the idea of united front action but also the idea of the need of a new anti-capitalist political pole in Greece. Some of these forces come from SYRIZA, some from ANTARSYA, and some (like Xekinima) have a history of independent existence.
Last June, together with other forces of the Greek anti-capitalist Left, you organized a meeting in Athens. Starting from the lessons of the 2010-2015 period, the event focused on the need to rebuild a genuine class based left. What are your reflections from that discussion.
That was an important meeting [3], organised by five anti-capitalist organisations, but also followed by a number of other organisations and with speakers from other anti-capitalist organisations on the platforms. The organizers are part of the anti-capitalist Left mentioned above, coming from different traditions and basing themselves on the experiences and lessons of the past decade and the capitulation of SYRIZA’s leadership.
There were four main themes/sessions:
- One on the mass movements of the period 2010-2015;
- a second one on the ideas of the transitional programme, the united front and the necessary strategies of the Left in the conditions of 2010-15;
- the third one on the experience of the capitulation of 2015 and the alternative strategies;
- and finally, the fourth one, on the way forward.
The level of agreement was very high. And this of course is of great importance. The idea of the transitional programme was common to all the participants. In relation to tactics there was unanimity about the necessity of the united front towards the rest of the Left. In relation to the alternative strategies, there was agreement that revolutionary policies were necessary, meaning a clash with the local capitalist class, but also with the EU and the international bourgeoisie. In the last discussion it was clear we were in agreement on the general task of the need to build a new left pole which will base itself on the united front approach to all sections of the Left and on a clear anti-capitalist programme.
The five organisations have been meeting since the beginning of the year, but bilateral discussions between them were taking place in the course of 2024. Apart from this two-day event, we have also organised some other public meetings, have been able to have common contingents in quite a number of protests and to bring out common leaflets on a number of issues, like the Tempi train crash, Palestine, etc.
The initiative of the 5 is an important development, but its development is not yet certain. We need to be cautiously optimistic, but stressing the positive signs and the potential that exists in the situation, in general, and the vacuum in the Left in particular.
In such a dangerous and rapidly changing period, how can we build a real alternative to war, labor exploitation, rising inequality, environmental collapse, gender oppression, and the erosion of democratic institutions?
The Left, in general, even sections of the reformist Left, is at the forefront of struggles against war, increased exploitation and inequality, environmental collapse, democratic and trade union rights, for gender equality, etc.
But it is not sufficient to fight over these issues without raising the prospect and the need to fight against the capitalist system as such, because it is impossible to achieve these goals within capitalism. There is by now sufficient experience to verify it – one has to be naïve to expect to see a solution to these problems within the context of the capitalist system.
The Left, not only the reformist Left but also the majority of the anti-capitalist Left, have removed the vision of an alternative socialist society from their demands and slogans. That is, they avoid saying that the struggle for all the above demands can only be successful if it is linked to the vision of a socialist society, in conditions of course of workers’ democracy and not in the tradition of the one-party dictatorial regimes of the Stalinist states of the past (that inevitably led to their collapse as L. Trotsky had brilliantly predicted in his analyses in the 1930s).
This “deficiency” of the Left is a reflection of two important defeats of the working class internationally in the past three decades.
First, we had the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, which provided a historic opportunity to the capitalists of the West to go on a full onslaught against the working class. It also sent the Left internationally into havoc – with splits and disintegration of the Communist parties, full turn to the right of the reformist/Social-democratic parties.
Second, we had the global crisis of 2007-8-9, which led to big struggles and even revolutions (the Arab revolutions in north Africa) all of which were defeated.
These conditions increased confusion and demoralization in the working-class masses, including the more advanced layers.
But we still need to stick to the basics in the tradition of the great revolutionaries of the last century: linking the everyday tasks to the socialist future is the main task of the “transitional programme” as developed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the course of the Russian revolution of 1917 and by Trotsky in the interwar period, after the degeneration of the revolution into Stalinism.
We need to bring the vision of the socialist future forward. That is one of our central political tasks.
And at the same time, we need to build the forces that will make this a reality. The political and the organisational tasks are bound together in one inseparable whole.
Of course, this is not an easy task. The Left internationally is in crisis – all sections of the Left, not only the reformists but also the anti-capitalist and the Trotskyist organisations. This is a reflection of the adverse objective conditions, of course, but also of the huge subjective weaknesses we see in the anti-capitalist Left – and this is a long and very important discussion on its own.
Building the forces of revolution, i.e., the necessary revolutionary left parties in the context of a mass revolutionary international organisation, is not at all an easy task. But it is a necessary task, for there is no other way forward from the barbarism of capitalism.
This requires a self-critical approach by the revolutionary/Trotskyist left, in relation to mistakes and deficiencies of the previous periods and historically. It needs both fresh approaches and drawing lessons from the past. It needs to find ways to appeal to the new generation which thinks and behaves in different ways. It needs clear and balanced perspectives together with a united front approach. And it needs bold initiatives or bold tactical turns when it comes to the building of the forces that will provide the embryo for the future mass revolutionary parties.
We need to approach this new “dangerous and rapidly changing period” with determination, and optimism combined with a sense of proportion. After all capitalism is facing a devastating crisis on all levels and this, from an objective point of view, provides tremendous opportunities for the working class and the ideas of Marxism, if not in the immediate future and everywhere, in the medium to long term and in one country after another.
[1] Greek word for somersault
[2] Officially, i.e., by congress resolutions, the KKE describes the Soviet Union of the time of Stalin as socialist, and argues that its degeneration started after Stalin’s death. In the recent period, we see some criticisms of the policies of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, especially on the issue of the Popular Fronts. It’s not clear yet where the KKE is heading, in this respect.
[3] For more information and analysis, see “Developments in the Greek Anticapitalist Left – lessons of 2015”
