DECLARATION DE CONSTITUTION DU CURRANT “ANTICAPITALISME ET REVOLUTION” – NPA

(Déclaration adoptée à la réunion nationale de constitution du courant le 1er décembre)

1. Une situation contradictoire : offensive des bourgeoisies, luttes de masse à l’échelle internationale, résurgence du réformisme et de l’extrême droite

Face à une crise mondiale qui se poursuit sans perspective de solution, et à des bourgeoisies qui tentent partout d’en faire supporter le poids aux classes populaires, les travailleurs et les peoples ne restent pas sans réagir. Le processus révolutionnaire en Afrique du nord et au Moyen-Orient se poursuit, et s’étend à de nouveaux Etats. De très grandes luttes touchent un nombre de pays croissant, sur tous les continents (de la Turquie au Brésil, de la Bulgarie au Bangladesh…). Le socialisme n’est toujours pas redevenu une idée crédible pour la grande majorité de ceux qui luttent, ce qui pèse sur les différents mouvements, mais n’empêche pas que la situation donne pour les anticapitalistes révolutionnaires une nouvelle actualité aux questions stratégiques, à la question du pouvoir des travailleurs et de la révolution. On assiste à l’expression multiforme d’une révolte qui est mondiale.

En même temps force est de constater que les pays centraux de l’Union européenne (Allemagne, France, Italie, Royaume-Uni) échappent pour l’instant à cette dynamique internationale. On y assiste même à une dégradation assez générale et qui tend à s’accélérer au niveau des organisations qui se réclament du mouvement ouvrier, du rapport de forces entre les classes comme du niveau de conscience au sein même du monde du travail. Pour l’instant les classes dominantes parviennent à imposer des reculs considérables pour la classe ouvrière en Europe. Cette situation des luttes et des rapports de classes peut changer rapidement comme elle peut s’installer durablement. La possibilité pour le NPA de faire face à la crise qu’il connait, comme la construction d’un courant en son sein qui y contribue efficacement, dépendent pour une bonne part de notre capacité à faire face aux aspects contradictoires de la situation et à y apporter une réponse politique plus approfondie et plus homogène que par le passé.

Dans ce contexte deux phénomènes politiques, en partie nouveaux, sont apparus ces dernières années en Europe. Le premier est la montée de l’extrême droite (dans différentes variantes, depuis des partis nationalistes populistes jusqu’à des formations ouvertement fascistes) qui s’explique par la crise économique, l’ampleur des attaques de la classe dominante et les nouveaux reculs dans le rapport de forces. Le second, la réapparition ou le renforcement de partis et coalitions réformistes antilibéraux, clairement différents du social-libéralisme même si, de par leur politique institutionnelle, leurs liens avec les directions syndicales ainsi qu’avec l’Etat, ils collaborent à divers niveaux avec les partis socialistes.

En France, l’installation du Front national dans le paysage politique, comme son influence dans les milieux populaires, sont en train de franchir un nouveau cap. Par son passé qui se reflète encore dans la composition de son appareil dirigeant, comme par les liens qu’il continue à entretenir avec divers groupuscules, le FN reste potentiellement une organisation à partir de circonstances un parti de type fasciste. Mais pour l’instant, le principal danger réside dans sa capacité à exploiter le désarroi qui existe profondément dans les classes populaires face à l’absence de perspective collective d’émancipation, bien plus que dans sa capacité à enrôler une petite bourgeoisie prête à en découdre avec les organisations du movement ouvrier, ou à exprimer les intérêts d’une classe capitaliste qui a pour l’instant bien d’autres cartes en main pour maintenir la paix sociale. Reconstruire une perspective d’émancipation, changer les rapports de force entre les classes sociales, permettre tout simplement au monde du travail de renouer avec des victoires même partielles sur le terrain de la lutte de classe sont des objectifs essentiels à cette étape. Dénoncer le «fascisme» ou prétendre interdire l’apparition d’un parti qui ne serait pas « comme les autres » ne permet pas aujourd’hui de combattre la montée de l’extrême droite. Par contre il faut chercher à construire à chaque fois que c'est possible une riposte militante et unitaire contre l'extrême droite.

Face à de possibles succès électoraux, c’est d’abord le caractère bourgeois, anti-ouvrier et raciste de ce parti, aspirant à bien s’installer dans les institutions et facilement corruptible, comme il l’a montré dans un passé récent, que nous devons dénoncer en priorité.

La résurgence du réformisme a pris la forme du Front de gauche, lancé au moment même où le NPA était fondé. Très vite, dans une situation qui nous était plus défavorable, nous en avons subi la pression et cela a conduit notre parti à subir plusieurs scissions, la dernière en date ayant impliqué un secteur central de son ancienne direction.

2. L’évolution de l’orientation majoritaire justifie la formation d’un courant

La rupture avec la GA, la campagne Poutou ont maintenu une separation organisationnelle avec les réformistes. Cela n’a pourtant pas permis de clarifier l’orientation du NPA.

Même si différentes orientations cohabitent au sein de la nouvelle majorité constituée après les présidentielles de 2012, celle-ci a repris à son compte, à travers le mot d’ordre de « gouvernement anti-austérité », la politique du « front social et politique », conçu pour l’essentiel comme une démarche permanente d’interpellation, discussion et recherche d’accords politiques avec le Front de gauche. Ainsi, aux difficultés réelles de la situation objective s’ajoute une crise d’orientation persistante.

Le but politique de notre parti, la revolution socialiste, implique une politique de front unique adaptée. Le front unique revêt une double dimension. La première est la dimension stratégique : c’est l’unité de millions de travailleurs qui permettra de s’opposer à la bourgeoisie. Nous proposons l’unité d’action à toutes les forces du mouvement ouvrier, de la base au sommet, pour agir sur des échéances ou des questions précises quel que soit leur positionnement par rapport au gouvernement.

Le critère déterminant pour l’unité est qu’elle permette la mise en action de notre camp social dans l’optique de gagner sur des revendications immédiates, de permettre de reprendre confiance dans nos propres forces, de favoriser l’auto-organisation et la possibilité de dépasser les organisations existantes et les appareils syndicaux. Pour autant, nous ne nous alignons pas sur leurs positions : nous menons les batailles nécessaires sur les mots d’ordre et la stratégie militante, y compris en organisant les participants contre la politique de ces directions.

De plus, il faut parfois savoir agir seuls, prendre des initiatives lorsque l’action avec les réformistes est impossible. A tous les niveaux, nous favorisons toutes les formes d’auto-organisation, des comités de grève et de lutte, des coordinations, dans la perspective de prendre le contrôle de toute la société, ce qui suppose pour les exploités et les opprimés de commencer par contrôler leurs propres luttes.

Nous ne partageons pas l’orientation des « gouvernements contre l’austérité » et de la priorité au débat public avec « toutes les forces qui ne participent pas au gouvernement ». Pour autant, c’est l’objectif d’un parti de poser la question du pouvoir. Mais on ne peut pas réduire la question du pouvoir à une réponse en termes de gouvernement.

Le « gouvernement des travailleurs » dont nous défendons la nécessité, un gouvernement dont l’objectif est de remettre en cause le droit des capitalistes à diriger la société, ne pourra pas résulter de combinaisons parlementaires dans le cadre des institutions bourgeoises. Il ne pourra surgir que d’un grand mouvement de mobilisation et d’auto-organisation des travailleurs et de la jeunesse (grèves de masse, grèves générales, manifestations, occupations, réquisitions...), d’un double pouvoir, d’un « nouveau Mai 68 qui aille jusqu’au bout ». Nous mettons donc en avant le mot d’ordre de gouvernement des travailleurs/euses comme mot d’ordre transitoire en partant des luttes pour aller vers le renversement du capitalisme. Il s’agit de répondre à la question « que feriez-vous à la place de Hollande ? » ou encore d’expliquer en quoi notre démarche est différente de celle des partis du FdG. Notre réponse s’articulerait donc autour de deux points : les mesures transitoires que prendrait un tel gouvernement (interdiction des licenciements, réquisition des entreprises qui ferment ou licencient, réquisition des banques, etc.) et la base à partir de laquelle pourrait émerger un tel gouvernement : la nécessaire auto-activité des masses travailleuses. »

Mais défendre cette perspective de façon effective, pratique, implique aussi de mettre notre implantation et notre intervention en rapport avec elle et, au-delà, avec notre objectif stratégique de la prise du pouvoir par les travailleurs. Or la majorité du congrès ne s’est pas donné les moyens d’une réelle priorité d’intervention et de construction, notamment celle qui est indispensable en direction des entreprises et de la jeunesse.

Lors du congrès du NPA de février 2013, la plateforme Y a porté principalement deux batailles, à nos yeux essentielles pour le NPA et son intervention dans la lutte des classes. D’une part, celle pour l’indépendance politique des anticapitalistes révolutionnaires, avec la volonté d’ancrer l’intervention et la construction du NPA dans les entreprises et dans la jeunesse. D’autre part l’approfondissement d’une discussion sur le bilan du NPA et notre projet de parti, qui a fait l’objet d’un texte alternatif. Près d’un tiers (32 %) des militants du NPA ont alors soutenu nos positions sans qu’il y ait eu ensuite, de la part de la majorité, la moindre volonté de nous associer autrement que sur la base d’un ralliement pur et simple à sa propre politique.

C’est parce qu’à l’issue du congrès nous ne voyions pas de possibilité d’amélioration sans la poursuite et le renforcement d’un combat politique organisé que nous avons alors décidé, non seulement de ne pas dissoudre la PY, mais d’explorer la possibilité de transformer cette plateforme en un courant interne, en lui donnant – sur une durée nécessairement indéfinie – plus de coherence et de moyens d’intervention.

L’évolution, depuis le congrès, du NPA et de sa direction confirme l’analyse que nous avions formulae et la perspective que nous avions tracée. La crise d’orientation et de direction se poursuit et s’approfondit, tandis que continuent à cohabiter au sein du NPA plusieurs projets de parti don’t celui, majoritaire, de « rassemblement de tous les anticapitalistes ». Cela entretient une grande confusion qui s’est également exprimée au travers du vote pour la PW, allant jusqu’à remettre en cause l’utilité même d’un parti fonctionnant sur des bases centralisées. A tel point que les différentes orientations qui cohabitent au sein de la majorité finissent par empêcher celle-ci de jouer son rôle de direction.

L’illustration la plus claire en est donnée dans la préparation des élections municipales : la variété de listes impliquant le NPA (anticapitalistes indépendantes, communes avec le PG et/ou d’autres secteurs du Front de gauche, communes avec le Front de gauche dans son ensemble en général sous la direction du PCF) donne lieu à une cacophonie dans le cadre de laquelle même la ligne officiellement votée devient inaudible. Les accords locaux d’ores et déjà passes avec le Front de gauche, dans des villes significatives, ne font que cautionner sa stratégie et sa politique. Au lieu d’agir sur les contradictions des réformistes, ce sont encore une fois les réformistes qui agissent sur nos faiblesses. Le conseil politique national et le comité executive continuent à passer plus de temps à discuter de la politique dite « unitaire » avec le Front de gauche qu’à orienter les tâches d’intervention dans la lutte de classe et de construction de parti. Sans pour autant traiter, sauf de façon très ponctuelle et superficielle, des grandes questions qui sont posées aux travailleurs et aux révolutionnaires au niveau mondial, européen et national.

3. Un désaccord stratégique qui a des conséquences politiques et pratiques

Mais ces désaccords vont au-delà des questions de simple tactique. Le mot d’ordre de «gouvernement contre l’austérité », compris comme le prolongement d’une « opposition de gauche » qui se construirait face à Hollande-Ayrault, découle en effet d’une hypothèse stratégique erronée. Pour en comprendre la portée, il faut faire un détour par la Grèce, où la direction de la IV° Internationale défend un mot d’ordre similaire, celui de « gouvernement des gauches », et surtout explique qu’un tel gouvernement pourrait être une « transition possible » vers une transformation radicale de l’économie et de la politique.

Dans le même sens, la résolution adoptée majoritairement au congrès et défendue par les camarades de la position X déclare que : « la proposition de gouvernement de la gauche unie, de ‘‘salut social’’, pourrait être un premier pas vers la réorganisation du pays sur une base anticapitaliste.»

On rejoint ici l’hypothèse stratégique qui a été formulae de manière plus systématique par des camarades de la Gauche anticapitaliste et que l’on peut résumer ainsi : dans les pays capitalists avancés, la rupture avec le système passera par une combinaison de mouvements de masse et de victoires électorales.

Cette hypothèse est erronée : loin d’être des points d’appuis pour une transformation révolutionnaire de la société, les gouvernements de gauche « radicale » ou des gauches, avec à leur tête des organisations réformistes, se sont toujours avérés être tôt ou tard des obstacles que les travailleurs ont trouvé dressés face à eux. Une démarche tactique est nécessaire vis-à-vis de ces organisation dans le but de leur disputer leur influence et leur audience, mais les anticapitalistes ne pourront en aucun cas faire l’économie d’une rupture avec elles. La question de la rupture ou des ruptures au sein du front unique est pourtant esquivée par les camarades de la majorité, au profit d’une vision stratégique linéaire : le gouvernement anti-austérité dans le prolongement de l’opposition de gauche, la reorganization du pays sur une base anticapitaliste dans le prolongement du gouvernement des gauches. Une telle orientation relativise le fait que seules la mobilisation et l’auto-organisation des salaries pourra modifier le rapport de forces et ouvrir la voie à un gouvernement représentant leurs intérêts, dans une dynamique qui ne peut être que de renversement du système capitaliste. C’est pourquoi nous maintenons le choix d’une orientation indépendante, dans laquelle la construction d’une alternative révolutionnaire, pour un gouvernement des travailleurs ouvrant la voie au socialisme, s’appuie sur des tactiques de front unique pour et dans les luttes, qui n’impliquent nul accord politique – encore moins de gouvernement – avec les réformistes antilibéraux.

C’est une hypothèse qui est également potentiellement lourde de conséquences quant au type de parti que nous souhaitons construire. En effet, si les victoires électorales sont une des clefs de la rupture avec le système, alors il faut construire des organisations taillées pour les élections. Le rapport sur la situation en Europe présenté lors du Bureau exécutif de la IV° Internationale en octobre 2012 déplore d’ailleurs l’incapacité à court terme des organisations anticapitalistes « de se transformer en puissant référents électoraux, à un moment où ceci est plus nécessaire que jamais

devant l’avancée des politiques d’austérité ». De là à conclure que les anticapitalistes et les révolutionnaires doivent pour devenir ces référents rejoindre des organisations ou coalitions plus larges, incluant des courants ou partis réformistes, il n’y a qu’un pas. Un pas qu’ont franchi les camarades de la GA, et que franchit d’ailleurs le rapport cité ci-dessus : « c’est pour cela qu’il faut placer la construction d’organisations anticapitalistes et révolutionnaires dans le cadre de la perspective plus ample de construction de nouveaux outils politiques unitaires… »

Nous devons au contraire avancer dans la construction d’une forte organisation marxiste, anticapitaliste et révolutionnaire, d’autant plus susceptible de mener une politique unitaire audacieuse et ouverte sur les autres courants, qu’elle sera capable de définir en son sein une orientation cohérente et largement partagée à l’échelle de tout le parti. Un parti centré sur l’intervention dans la lutte de classe, intervenant prioritairement dans la classe ouvrière (classe des salariéEs exploitéEs) qui est la seule à pouvoir mener un processus révolutionnaire vers le socialisme, donc avant tout dans les entreprises, ainsi que dans les lieux d’étude où se concentrent les travailleurs en formation. Ce qui ne signifie pas que des terrains tels que les luttes féministes, écologistes, antiracistes devraient être délaissés, mais que sur ces terrains aussi, c’est l’intervention des travailleurs et travailleuses qui sera décisive. Un parti qui, pour gagner en force et en efficacité, devra faire l’effort d’offrir à ses militants une véritable formation marxiste.

Un parti qui soit également pleinement internationaliste, pas au nom simplement d’une solidarité morale, mais sur la base de la conscience que la révolution socialiste ne peut être qu’internationale, donc nécessite une construction politique internationale. Les principes fondateurs adoptés en 2009 se concluaient par l’affirmation selon laquelle « le NPA engagera le dialogue et des collaborations politiques avec les autres forces anticapitalistes et révolutionnaires dans le monde dans la perspective de la constitution d'une nouvelle Internationale. » Une telle perspective reste juste. Des membres du NPA sont aujourd’hui membres d’une association, commune avec la GA et C&A, adhérente de la IV° internationale.

De nombreux liens existent par ailleurs, via les RIJ en particulier. Mais les rapports du NPA avec la IV°, comme avec les autres regroupements révolutionnaires internationaux, ne sont pas pour l’instant maîtrisés collectivement, ni par le parti ni par ses instances. Il nous faudra, dans la perspective du prochain congrès, ouvrir ce débat et plus généralement celui de la construction d’une Internationale.

4. Un courant pour changer le NPA, son orientation et sa direction

Le courant que nous constituons se donne pour objectif, à partir des acquis de la plateforme Y, un changement global de l’orientation du NPA dans le sens précédemment indiqué, ce qui implique aussi de redéfinir ce que devrait être le projet du parti dans la période actuelle.

Dans le même temps, nous continueront bien évidemment le travail de construction à toutes les échelles du parti. Le courant doit nous servir à être plus efficaces, doit être un outil pour l’intervention des militants, notamment autour de nos priorités : action dans les comités, structuration des branches, formation, construction dans la jeunesse et la classe ouvrière… Nous affirmons que la constitution de ce courant signifie aussi fortement notre attachement au NPA, à sa construction et à la solidarité fraternelle et politique de l’ensemble de ses camarades.

Un tel changement passera évidemment par l’émergence d’une nouvelle direction. Nous savons que cela ne proviendra pas d’un grossissement linéaire de notre seul courant politique mais impliquera des recompositions internes, notamment avec des secteurs de la direction qui aujourd’hui cohabitent dans la nouvelle majorité. Nous sommes également conscients que cette bataille politique n’aboutira pas nécessairement dès le prochain congrès, et devra alors être poursuivie à plus long terme.

Nous nous organisons aujourd’hui pour contribuer à un tel processus et le faire déboucher demain. Cette bataille pour l’émergence d’une nouvelle direction passera à la fois par des demonstrations militantes, la formulation et la défense quotidienne d’une autre orientation et par le fait de mener des débats stratégiques dans le parti.

Nous chercherons à nourrir le débat concernant les moyens de la prise du pouvoir par les travailleurs en prenant appui sur les acquis du marxisme pour les confronter avec les experiences des luttes et des soulèvements actuels dans les différentes régions du monde. Dans le même temps, et en vue du même objectif, nous nous efforcerons d’aider concrètement les comités (ceux où nos camarades sont présents, comme les autres) à développer leur intervention et à formuler leur politique dans la lutte de classe.

Le nouveau courant prend officiellement naissance les 30 novembre et 1er décembre 2013. En sont membres tous ceux qui se reconnaissent dans les textes de la PY du dernier congrès, dans la présente déclaration.

Le courant est dirigé par ses membres qui le représentent au CPN. Pour son intervention au quotidien dans la vie du NPA, il se dote d’une équipe d’animation nationale. Celle-ci, en lien avec la représentation du courant au CPN, sera responsable de l’organisation de réunions périodiques, nationales et régionales, de la liste de diffusion et de la publication de ses positions et élaborations à travers une revue et/ou un bulletin.

Ces matériels n’ont pas vocation à remplacer les publications du NPA mais à être un outil pour mener les discussions sur les orientations que nous défendons dans le parti et dans nos milieux.

Cette équipe d’animation sera élue lors de la reunion nationale de constitution et rééligible à chaque nouvelle réunion nationale. Elle pourra, en cas de besoin, être renforcée sur décision des membres du CPN.

Manos Skoufoglou (OKDE-Spartakos): "THE TRANSITIONAL PROGRAM AND THE TOOLS TO OVERTHROW CAPITALISM"

Introduction

When we say that we are in the middle of a deep historical crisis of capitalism, we have to take it seriously. We have entered a completely new period, so it should be clear that we cannot go on doing “business as usual”:

 we have already experienced massive strikes, revolts, even revolutionary situations in various countries: in the Arab world, in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Thailand etc), in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria, in the core of the developed countries (like the riot in London in 2011), but also in the so-called emerging economies, which were supposed to be the new miracles of capitalist development (Brazil, S.Africa). On the other hand, the left, in practically every case, has proved unable to offer a solid perspective on how to overthrow capitalism. Nevertheless, this is exactly what anticapitalist organizations and revolutionary Marxists should be prepared for, not in the distant future, but now.
 this brings to the forefront the urgent question of what a contemporary revolutionary strategy should be like. What kind of party, what type of program, what means of struggle, what attitude towards bourgeois institutions and the state?

I will try to point out that the transitional program is an important tool in this project, a tool which is interconnected to many other key strategic issues.
So, what is a transitional program? It is a set of demands supposed to be a bridge between the present level of workers' consciousness and the revolution, i.e. the seizure of power by the working class. A series of demands or tasks that is necessary in order to meet the needs of the working class, but at the same time it is incompatible with capitalism in its development. Starting from simple, elementary needs, one demand leads to the other. For example, if the working class refuses to pay off the public debt, this can only mean that the debt has to be canceled (no matter what “renegotiating” illusions may still exist). In its turn, this means that banks should be nationalized under workers control, so as to prevent big investors from withdrawing their money and provoking a massive crackdown. This would already be a challenge to private property, which the bourgeois class would not tolerate, most likely boycotting production. In order to confront such a situation and meet the needs of the masses, nationalization of key sectors of the economy, without compensation, and a democratically planned economy would be needed. But this would not be capitalism any more. This reflection may be still too much schematic and abstract, but it is nevertheless indicative of the transitional program method. In other words, a transitional program is a way to link the existing, partial struggles to an actual revolution.

A historical retrospect

1. The first time that we have something like a transitional program is probably in the Communist Manifesto, issued by Marx and Engels in 1948. In the chapter Proletarians and communists, the authors of the manifesto propose a set of 10 demands:

 Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
 A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
 Abolition of all right of inheritance.
 Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
 Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
 Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
 Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
 Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
 Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
 Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production

These demands are not defined by the term transitional, however they are meant to start from the immediate needs of the exploited and the oppressed and end up to workers' power, although Marx and Engels had not made it clear yet what workers' power and a workers' state would be like (they would be able to tell only after the experience of the Commune of Paris in 1871).

2. In the following years, the program of Marxist parties gradually degenerated. This is reflected in the critique that Marx and Engels wrote against the German social democratic programs of Ghotha (1875) and Erfurt (1891) respectively. The Erfurt program, actually, introduced the distinction between a “political program” for socialism and an economical one, for immediate use.
3. Despite Marx's and Engels's warnings, the program of the leading parties of the 2nd International  eventually split into 2 parts, with a very loose or no connection to each other: a minimum program of immediate demands, which is supposed to be what workers can achieve at this stage, and a maximum program for socialism, which was something to be postponed for the far future, when conditions mature. This also meant a split between economic struggles, i.e. struggles for the every day life conditions of the working class under capitalism, which were meant to be addressed by unions, and political struggles that were the responsibility of the party. According to social democracy, those 2 tasks shouldn't be mixed. Starting from the polemic of Rosa Luxemburg against the leadership of the German social democracy (mainly Bernstein), the communists of the 3rd international fiercely contested this idea, which has been repeated many times since by various currents and is still today quite common.
4. In his April theses, Lenin proposes a draft program, adapted to the specific conditions in Russia in the context of the World War. Apart from taking a clear position about the key issues of the war (fraternization, not the slightest concession to “revolutionary defencism”) and of the provisional governments (no support), the program also includes measures such as: abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy, equalization of the salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, with the average wage of a competent worker, nationalization of all lands, union of all banks into a single national bank controlled by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies etc. According to the author, these measures were meant to promote the “transition” to a second revolutionary stage, “which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants”.
In September 1917, in his article The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, Lenin puts forward a five point program:

 Amalgamation of all banks into a single bank, and state control over its operations, or nationalization of the banks
 Nationalization of the syndicates, i.e., the largest, monopolistic capitalist associations (sugar, oil, coal, iron and steel, and other syndicates)
 Abolition of commercial secrecy
 Compulsory amalgamation into associations of industrialists, merchants and employers generally.
 Compulsory organization of the population into consumers’ societies, or encouragement of such organization, and the exercise of control over it

5. Trying to completely break with the reformist tradition of the 2nd international, and also based on the experience of the Russian Revolution, the 3rd (Communist) International tried to elaborate a program that would overcome the distinction between minimum and maximum demands. The 3rd Congress stated:

The Communist Parties do not put forward minimum programs which could serve to strengthen and improve the tottering foundations of capitalism. [...]If the demands put forward by the Communists correspond to the immediate needs of the broad proletarian masses, and if the masses are convinced that they cannot go on living unless their demands are met, then the struggle around these issues becomes the starting-point of the struggle for power. In place of the minimum program of the centrists and reformists, the Communist International offers a struggle for the concrete demands of the proletariat which, in their totality, challenge the power of the bourgeoisie, organize the proletariat and mark out the different stages of the struggle for its dictatorship.

Again, this program was not called transitional, however it was defined as a program suitable for the transitional period that humanity had entered.
6. After its 5th Congress (1924), in the 3rd International, under the ever-strengthening control of Stalin's bureaucratic faction, the transitional method faded away once again. The corollary of this process has been the shift to the popular front strategy after the 7th Congress (1934), i.e. the call for political alliances between workers and the so called democratic bourgeoisie against fascism, including even participation in bourgeois governments.
7. It is not a coincidence, therefore, that the founding document of our current, the Fourth International, written by Trotsky in 1938, was called The Transitional program, or The death agony of capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International. The second title is also not a coincidence, as Trotsky's methodology started with the conception of capitalism as a historically bankrupt mode of production, that was about to die. Trotsky though that we were facing a final battle between capitalism and socialism-an idea bitterly criticized afterwards. But was this criticism correct or not? We will come back to this later.

The Transitional Methodology

1. More than a given set of demands, the Transitional Program is a certain methodology to “overcome the contradiction between the maturity of the objective revolutionary conditions and the immaturity of the proletariat and its vanguard”, in Trotsky's own words. What makes a demand or task transitional is its ability to revolutionize class consciousness under the given class struggle circumstances.
The concept is that, on one hand, in order to challenge the bourgeois power, the working class has to start from its actual struggles and experiences and, on the other, vice versa, in order to achieve even a small conquest within capitalism, especially in periods of crisis, the bourgeois class must fear that they will lose everything (so, a transitional program is even more effective in fighting for immediate needs).
2. In this framework, the program consists of 3 types of demands or, even better, tasks:
a. immediate (e.g. stop buying military equipment)
b. democratic (e.g. independence of all workers' organizations from the police and the army)
c. transitional to workers' power (e.g. substitution of the army by peoples' militia, confiscating capital etc).
3. Here we have to make an important remark: a transitional program can be such, transitional, only if it raises the question of power from a class viewpoint. So, the corollary of the program has been the slogans for a workers' and peasants' government and for soviets and dual power.
a. The second one refers to the matrix of a workers' state, which is the objective goal of the program. As Lenin pointed out in 1917, in the The state and revolution, the quintessence of a revolutionary communist project is not just to change the head of the bourgeois state, but to destroy its whole structure. Nowadays, it is even more important to be clear that strategically it is not possible to reform the bourgeois state, nor can we conquer it from the inside, but we have to build our own means of self-organization and dual power outside and against it
b. The first slogan is more complicated, as its content has not always been the same
i. in the case of the Bolsheviks, according to Trotsky, it was practically a synonym for the dictatorship of the proletariat
ii. later, in the early 20's, there seemed to be a real possibility for short-lived governments of workers' parties coalitions, in various combinations and of different types, still within capitalism. Communists could consider differentiated tactics towards different possible versions of such governments, including also support or participation, provided, though, that a workers' government would be a concrete path to workers' power, and not a substitute for it.
iii. In the hands of Stalinists in the 1930's, the same slogan turned out to be a synonym of class collaborationist governments.
iv. By the time of the creation of the Fourth International, the real revolutionary currents were too small to determine any alliance for a real workers' government, i.e. a government actually defending workers' rights. Even the possibility was almost totally excluded. So, in the Transitional Program, the “workers' and peasants' government” was mainly a slogan of agitation, meant to unveil that social-democracy and the Communist Parties would rather ally with the so called democratic bourgeoisie than fight for an independent worker's government.
v. Today, the slogan for a workers' government is still important when the question “what government” is raised by people, although it is interpreted in various and contradictory ways and despite its common abuse, which tends to assimilate it with a reformist stageist demand, restoring the illusion that capitalism may be reformed or overthrown by conquering the bourgeois state, and not challenging it itself.

Criticism

We should now pose the following question: is the idea of a transitional program still relevant today? Is it really a useful tool in our struggle against capitalism? We will try to answer though examining some popular objections against the whole concept.
1. There are currents, such as eurocommunists or the late stalinist Communist Parties, who claim that the transitional demands are invented, something like lab experiments with no connection to the actual needs of workers. Instead, they promote only those claims already adopted or easy to adopt by social movements.
On the other hand, there are others (anarchists, some maoists) who claim that putting forward such specific demands, like for example a sliding scale of wages and hours, will inevitably lead to  incorporation into a project to manage capitalism. How can we ask the bourgeois state to do something against its own interests?
Both arguments reveal a misunderstanding not only of the transitional program methodology, but also of the role that a revolutionary anticapitalist organization has to accomplish. It is neither to just reflect what workers and the oppressed think right now (in this case, then why not simply dissolve ourselves in the mass movement?), nor to ignore the present state of the class consciousness, avoiding the crucial question: how to help it improve towards a revolutionary direction? In both cases, though, as much as they may seem opposite, the result is the same: a return to the old social-democratic concept of dividing the program into two irrelevant parts: a minimum and a maximum one.
2. Another type of criticism is the argument that the Transitional Program is not timely any more. It is absolutely true that any program has to be updated, that it is not a doctrine for all times and that there is no eternal recipe. In the original of 1938, the program was already differentiated in three different versions, regarding bourgeois democracies, backward countries and fascist regimes respectively. Conditions have changed since that time. But are the fundamental idea or the general outline of the Transitional Program also outdated?
Actually this question was raised from the very beginning. Fighting against comrades who thought that to raise all those demands was premature in the US, in his well-known discussion with some members of the American SWP, Trotsky explained that the Transitional Program is not to adapt to the consciousness of the working class as it is, but to promote the objective interests of workers, even if the latter are not fully aware of them. He rejected excluding the task of equipping a workers militia, because for him the fundamental criterion was not whether the whole working class was ready to adopt it or not, but the fact that fascism was objectively threatening the American working class, and at least a vanguard minority of the latter should be aware of this. Just after the World War II, Tony Cliff supported that the Transitional Program was founded on the hypothesis that the crisis in the 1930's would be the final crisis of capitalism, which proved to be wrong, as capitalism entered a new upward phase. So, since we are not in a revolutionary period any more, we have to replace the Transitional Program with a list of radical immediate demands, not meant to question capitalism at once.
It is maybe true that there are some fatalistic elements in the articulations of Trotsky (revealed also in the title itself). However, in his work The third international after Lenin, Trotsky clarified that by speaking about a revolutionary period he did not mean that a revolution would inevitably happen or that a counter-revolutionary victory was impossible, but that in the period to come we have to anticipate abrupt shifts of both the objective situation and the class consciousness. Regardless of our estimation about previous periods, I think that this is exactly the case nowadays.

Misinterpretations

In order to better conceptualize the transitional method, maybe it is helpful to examine also some frequent misinterpretations of it.
1. Firstly, a program split into different stages is not at all transitional. We can't and shouldn't fight for democracy now and just put aside the social question, to deal with it in the future. Nowadays, this is a key issue in the Arab Spring revolutions, but it is also raised in Greece. Let's recall the “emergency plan” of SYRIZA, that is to say renegotiating the debt in order to “save the country” now and postpone the debate for socialism for another time, or even the illusion of more radical trends that a progressive, national economic development against the omnivorous imperialism but without confronting capitalism itself is feasible.
The transitional methodology is based exactly on the liquidity of the social consciousness and of the real course of the class struggle, which proceeds with leaps and gaps, and not in a linear way that can be divided into distinct phases. A country that today has only a weak workers' movement may experience monumental struggles tomorrow – and vice versa. Who could tell some years ago that we could have a revolt in Bahrain? In the 1980's, this was the main argument of Ernest Mandel in his polemic against Doug Lorimer of the Australian SWP, who questioned the idea of the permanent revolution and endorsed the older “Third Worldist” argument that a revolution in the developed capitalist countries was extremely unlikely because their working class had turned into “labor aristocracy” (Lorimer, unfortunately, passed away recently).
2. Secondly, the transitional program is often treated as a list of demands, proposed to reformist or/and social-democratic parties by small revolutionary groups. In my opinion, this has been, for example, the methodology of the Militant (Ted Grant) current all the time (as well as of the Pabloite current, in a different form). According to this conception, the revolutionary Marxists' role is to carry this genuine program and fight for its adoption in the congresses of mass reformist parties. This concept has lead to picturesque small groups that claim extreme orthodoxy, but in practice always spin around reformism. Of course it is important to fight for your position when being part of a broader party or front, but the main aim is for the transitional program to be adopted by the mass movement itself, including radical trade unions. It is more of an action plan for the working class, than a plan proposed with the illusion that it could be adopted by reformist left governments. Besides, in his work Where France is going?, Trotsky already remarked that a transitional program means nothing if adopted by parties that are not willing to do anything about its implementation.
In general, we have to avoid what we could call “objectivism”, i.e. the idea that any program, even the best one, has an automatic effect in itself. On the contrary, the transitional program, as part of an overall revolutionary program to overthrow capitalism, is tightly connected to the subjective factor, i.e. to a conscious and voluntarily disciplined political instrument. This cannot be but a party, a workers' party, and, moreover, a party independent from reformism. A revolutionary program cannot exist without a revolutionary party and vice versa. Therefore, rather than trying to reform the old workers' party bureaucracies, we have to consider what  revolutionary anticapitalist parties have to be like nowadays. How can they be prepared to challenge capitalism in deed? How can we use our historic experience? How can we actually build such parties?

The Transitional Program Today

What is the actual relevance of this discussion today? In the context of the crisis, the need for a transitional program becomes obvious even to currents who had nothing to do with it before. This is, for example, the case of ANTARSYA in Greece. The biggest organizations that form the front used to be hostile to the transitional methodology, more or less on the basis of the objections described above. However, nowadays everybody in ANTARSYA speaks in the name of a contemporary transitional program. No matter how different the interpretations of such a program may be, it is still a fact that actually ANTARSYA is the only visible left force in Greece that put forward a transitional program, even incomplete, and call it by this name.
Even if is rather impossible to make a list of demands suitable for all cases, it is crucial to engage ourselves in an attempt to form a new transitional program, in the framework of a broader revolutionary program which will be suitable for our time and constitute a real bridge to the workers' power. We can think of some universal demands, like the cancellation of the debt, the nationalization of banks and key sectors of the economy without conpensation and under workers control, the prohibition of lay-offs etc. In certain countries there are other, more specific key issues: in European countries, especially in the periphery, a rupture with the EU and an internationalist struggle to destroy it and replace it by the free right of the peoples to unite in federations. For the Arab world, the dissolution of all institutions connected to the dictatorial parties. In Greece and other countries, the need for massive self-defense structures against fascists etc.
Apart from underlining the need to formulate a timely list of remarks and tasks, though, it is important to make three concluding remarks:
1. The role of the working class and its organizations in the battle against capitalism is indispensable. We have to help the working class unite in action, by bringing different working class layers together: private along with public sector workers, domestic workers along with immigrants, women along with men. This means including the fight for the special needs of all oppressed groups. An objective of the transitional program is also to provide the political ground for a united front, a front meant to promote class self-confidence by joining its scattered forces, not by tailing everybody behind reformists, though.
2. We have to find the means to make the transitional program a really useful tool in the hands of the oppressed, and not just put it on a shelf and leave it there. We have already underlined that no demand is transitional in itself, regardless its actual function in the class struggle. People usually learn by their own experience, through their own actions. Therefore, means of struggle like the general political strike can be a strategic element of great importance in this direction.
3. To say that the working class and the oppressed strata are not militant or conscious enough is not an excuse for our inertia. The recent experience shows the contrary: there are more and more struggles. If they are not always conscious enough, it is also our fault. Besides, we cannot postpone our answer to the challenges that the crisis brings with it until the class matures – the concrete task is to prepare for revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situations on the specific ground that the current state of class consciousness, even if quite low, offers. How to build parties able to do that is something to discuss (through radical trade unions? by regrouping revolutionary groups and anticapitalist currents? by independently building our own section where possible? by taking advantage of splits from reformism?). But the need for such parties and for such an International is not.
Let's do as the slogan says: from Sao Paolo to Istanbul, from Athens to Cairo, from Revolt to Revolution.

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The article is a slightly adapted version of a presentation in an educational session that took place in the context of the 30th revolutionary youth camp of the 4th International. Across the text, where the Transitional Program is written in capital initial letters, the term refers to the original text of 1938. 

ANTARSYA: "Political Decision of the 2nd Conference"

A. The crisis, the new political situation and class struggle in Greece

1. Working people and oppressed popular strata around the world, in Europe and particularly in Greece, are confronted with a deep structural crisis of contemporary capitalism and a violent and qualitatively reactionary acceleration of attacks on the part of the capital, the governments, the IMF, the EU and all supranational mechanisms, that take advantage of the capitalist crisis to pass a sweeping capitalist restructuring. With the intensification of imperialist antagonisms and the strengthening of the propensity for military conflicts, especially in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, new, unprecedented risks emerge for work, social welfare, democratic freedoms, culture, the environment, education and healthcare. For millions of workers around the world, and more so for those in Greece, the anti-capitalist overthrow of this attack with a revolutionary perspective constitutes a condition for survival. At the same time, there is growing evidence that a large global cycle of uprisings remains active through a wealth of important struggles around the world—the most recent example being the heroic uprising of the Turkish people.
2. Three years after the first Memorandum, Greek capitalism has imposed a "social holocaust" at the expense of work. However, not only there has not been any growth, but also the crisis has deepened further. Additionally, the EU and particularly the Eurozone, not only did not overcome its own crisis, but now runs the risk of pulling the trigger and becoming the first victim of a new international cycle of crisis. The strategic choice of the Greek capital to remain in the euro and its absolute connection with the EU and its more reactionary perspective, is a factor that both supports the internal attack against labor and against the people and exacerbates the crisis of Greek capitalism. Contrary to the contention of the tripartite coalition government of New Democracy-PASOK-DIMAR, recession in the Greek economy will continue for at least the next two years. The Greek public debt is "unsustainable" even in capitalist terms. Based on the above, a new "haircut" and a fourth memorandum is a matter of time.
3. The events of 2010-2012 constitute a first cycle of revolts, a political period marked by massive, diverse, and persistent resistance struggles of the working class and the people against the Memorandum raid, that contributed decisively to the exacerbation of instability and to the political crisis of the bourgeois system, shaping thus the first elements of a crisis of hegemony. This political crisis was expressed by the fall of two governments and was reflected in the elections through the fragmentation and decline of the bourgeois parties and the rise of the Left, that was thereof exploited by the “managerial” politics of SYRIZA. The workers’ and popular struggles have delayed the implementation of the measures, they have created great difficulties for the materialization of the attack, and now constitute a valuable legacy for the significant showdowns to come. The fact that these struggles failed to cause qualitative ruptures, and much more, to thwart the attack, is due to many reasons; While shaken, the hegemony of bourgeois politics and of the trade union bureaucracy over labor and popular movements remains in place in conjunction with the strategic and political failure of the reformist Left, namely SYRIZA and KKE. This stresses the need for an anti-capitalist and revolutionary perspective, a strategic reestablishment of the Left and a class reconstruction of the labor and popular movements to overthrow the attack. The shaky bourgeois and bureaucratic hegemony that is now obvious in the unions, as well as the great experiences from the struggles between 2010 and 2012, provide new qualitative possibilities towards this direction.
4. Since mid-2012, class struggle encounters new difficulties in terms of the mass development of workers’ and popular struggles, that are due both to the formation of the coalition of New Democracy-PASOK-DIMAR as a temporary answer to the question of government instability and second, to the effect of imposing reactionary measures, to the pressure of unemployment and poverty. The capital, using as vehicle the coalition government of Samaras accepts the humiliating oversight of the Troika (EU-ECB-IMF) under the German hegemony, in order to pass with its help a general, reactionary reconstruction of Greek capitalism, in the hopes of attracting massive investments and achieving a quick recovery, which will be based on a 'medieval' exploitation of labor and on widespread misery among the people. This orientation reinforces the tendency to impose an undemocratic, authoritarian, emergency regime of parliamentary totalitarianism by reversing workers’ and people’s freedoms, using violence openly against the mass movement and the Left as well as the systematic use of "social automation." In this context, the capital uses the fascist threat and racism as a terrorist aggressive spear, and protects and supports the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. The aggressive stance of New Democracy around the so-called "anti-racism bill" confirms that a reactive, aggressive, political tendency is dominant in the circles of capital. This extreme reactionary political shift represents a major danger and a challenge for the working class movement and the Left.
5. At the same time, there is preparation for every possibility, putting pressure on SYRIZA’s leadership for a full integration into the system with the aim of continuing the same politics even so in a milder version, its final transformation into a "responsible" power and opening channels for dialogue, recognizing them as a discussion partner.  This trend is further reinforced by the choice of SYRIZA leadership to deal with the crisis in a “managerial” way, within the confines of EU policies and of capital. Based on the above, there should not be any more illusions that any "government of salvation with SYRIZA" might follow a qualitatively different anti-memorandum politics of rupture and subversion for the people. The Communist Party, on the other hand, despite its anti-capitalist, even revolutionary rhetoric, is strategically and tactically inadequate to address both the reactionary policy as well as the politics of integration. Its line eventually leads to defeat. ANTARSYA, however, will continue its tactic for unity both in relation to SYRIZA and KKE, and as an open and comradely discussion and debate on the basis of the overall rise of the movement, joint action and unity of class forces, especially within the labor movement.
6. ANTARSYA believes that political instability, political crisis, and those elements of a crisis of hegemony will reappear more acutely in new forms in the arena of the complexities of the crisis and of mass struggles. At the same time, sectoral, operational, and popular struggles and resistance of lately (e.g., Metro, OLME, MEVGAL, Skouries, etc.) despite their weaknesses, suggest, nevertheless, that the labor and popular movement are seeking avenues in order to break the violence and terror, to force the capital and government to a first defeat, to pave the way for the overthrow of the brutal "Memorandum" intrusion. In the dynamic of correlations, despite several turning points in class struggle, we see the development of a trend noted by the first ANTARSYA Conference for a «historical period characterized by multiple social explosions, unexpected popular uprisings, even revolutionary events." This trend is certainly not linear, nor does it overlap with the cycles of economic crisis. It creates, however, the medium-term conditions for the outbreak of revolutionary conditions in any one country, even in capitalist developed countries, in a transnational interaction, more so in our country. This trend will be addressed by the capital with the intensification of the counter-revolutionary attack. ANTARSYA the anti-capitalist, revolutionary and communist Left, the subversive left, and the working class grassroots movements must prepare theoretically, politically, and tactically in order to capitalize on the upcoming showdowns for an anti-capitalist subversion of the attack and in order to pave the way for the revolutionary process.
7. The current deep structural crisis of capitalism remains active, and will experience new complications, and possibly a transient, loose and anemic recovery. However, the structural crisis of capital will be eventually solved, either through the violent destruction of the capitalist over-accumulation of capital and a new qualitative, reactive and total reconstruction of the system, or through a violent revolutionary expropriation of capital, for the overcoming of capitalism and the abolition of capital relations, on the road to socialism-communism of our time; The only historical perspective that can save people from barbarism. These "two perspectives" spawn a new era of class struggle. They lead to a higher conflict between labor and capital, to a new round of revolutions towards socialism and communism, to the confrontation with the question of power and government of workers and working classes allies. The contemporary working class, the collective worker of our time, not only is subject to greater exploitation and precarity, above all, s/he has the knowledge and the possibilities for a new organization of production and society, where s/he will be in charge. ANTARSYA enlists in this perspective.

B. The political proposal and programme of ANTARSYA
8. In the present historical period, ANTARSYA’s central political objective is the anti-capitalist subversion of the attack waged on the part of the capital, its governments, the EU and the IMF, with the necessary anti-capitalist transitional programme. The anti-capitalist overthrow will be imposed by a militant front of rupture and subversion with a reconstituted class labor movement at its core, the political hegemony of a strong pole-a political front of the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-EU and subversive Left and under the power of a popular workers uprising. The anti-capitalist subversion of the attack will pave the way for the revolution, for claiming and seizing power and the government by the fighting forces of workers and the popular movement, the conflict and, ultimately, the destruction of the bourgeois state.

9. Definitive elements of such a trajectory are persistence and the emergence of the necessary transitional anti-capitalist programme. It is a programme for the survival and the substantial improvement of the economic and social life of workers and people in general, that is inextricably tied to the struggle for debt cancellation, the exit from the euro and the EU, workers' control, nationalizations, unilateral termination of all memoranda of 'medium-term frameworks and loan contracts; A programme that defends jobs and the collective productive capacity of society against the laws of the market and EU policy. This programme meets the immediate and vital interests of the masses. It inextricably connects the struggle for life of the working class and the people with the revolutionary perspective, paving the way for the socialist-communist transformation of Greek society. It is convincing to the degree that when we rely on the forces and the struggle of the people, we can live, we can produce and survive, we can have fuel and infrastructure, healthcare, education and security, justice and quality of life, without the euro and the EU, without debt, above and beyond the market logic; With elements of a true democracy against authoritarian and reactionary transformation of the political system.

10. This programme is anti-capitalist since it clashes with the forces of capital and the laws of the system, a logic thereby imposed by the nature of the crisis. It is anti-imperialist to the degree that it is situated against imperialist forces and organizations highlighting the class roles and their alliance with the Greek oligarchy. It is democratic because it incorporates both modern democratic rights of workers and the anti-fascist struggle. It aims at uniting the fragmented working class in the political struggle and at building its alliance with other popular and exploited strata that are destroyed by the onslaught of big business and multinational monopolies through labor hegemony. It is not intended to form an "alliance" with the non-monopoly strata of the bourgeoisie.

11. The main axes of struggle of this programme are:
- Unilateral termination of Memoranda for immediate improvement of the position of the working class and the oppressed people founded on the abolition of all laws stemming from the memorandum regarding income, pensions, collective bargaining agreements and with an eye on further improvement.
- The overthrow of ND-PASOK-DIMAR coalition government and of any government implementing the memoranda and only “manages” capital’s attack.
- The elimination of Troika EU-ECB-IMF and all para-mechanisms of the EU, the conquest and expansion of the working people's sovereignty and the right of people to decide their fate.
- Debt cancellation with immediate cessation of payments to creditors.
- The nationalization of banks and large businesses, including those that are closing down and firing workers, with worker-popular control and without compensation for losses.
- The exit from the Euro and the EU that ANTARSYA promotes as a demand with an anti-capitalist character for a new internationalist course.
- The overthrow of the undemocratic politics of violence, repression, and state of emergency through democratic gains to the benefit of workers and the people.
- The fight against the fascist threat and racism for the defense, legalization, and naturalization of the children of immigrants; safeguarding immigrants' rights as an integral part of the working class.
- The exit from NATO, the closedown of military bases, the conviction and refusal to participate in imperialist campaigns around the world, and right now in Syria. Preventing the threat of an imperialist war in our region, the dissolution of the Greece–Israel axis.
- The defense of a collective production potential in order to keep the businesses open and the factories under workers control, to cultivate the land by the small and poor peasantry and for the survival of self-employed working classes and their cooperatives.
- The defense and expansion of social and political rights of women and of all people who are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.
- The defense of nature and the environment from the pillaging invasion of capital.
12. Overall, ANTARSYA’s transitional anti-capitalist programme proposes the route of struggle to mass labor and popular movements. It collides with the bourgeois political hegemony and domination, and directly seeks material changes in the power correlation, becoming thus a blueprint for action, and for making gains in the interest of workers. The struggle for the implementation of this programme will demonstrate that the final deliverance from exploitation and oppression can only come through a revolutionary process and the power of the workers themselves. Based on the above, it is clearly a programme of "transition" towards the revolution, socialism and, eventually, communism; It is a programme that brings together different forces and bridges the movement’s present with its future.
13. On the basis of such a programme, a powerful, politicized labor-popular movement can bring down the government and the memoranda, "dismantle" the memorandum 'acquis' of the bourgeoisie, and restore and expand on the working class rights. Such orientation requires a new round of massive and decisive fights; it requires a multifaceted "prolonged popular war." By contrast, confronting the government in terms of "parliamentary standby" leads to defeat.

14. Through the process of class struggle and popular uprising, people will be organized by building their own institutions for the movement, with workers’ democracy in the unions and generalization of forms of coordination that clash with the union bureaucracy; by holding popular assemblies in neighborhoods and generalizing movement-inspired solidarity practices; expanding forms of popular self-defense here and now; struggling against the fascist threat and against the escalation of repression.
15. This programme, in its entirety, will be implemented by the government and the political power of the working class and its allying popular strata. Claiming the power of workers requires: First, a transitional anti-capitalist programme that takes a position in relation to basic questions, such as leaving the euro and the EU, debt relief, nationalizations, etc., breaking with the "legality" and the "acquis communautaire." Second, an actual confrontation with repressive mechanisms and capital’s power, combined with extra-parliamentary and parliamentary forms of struggle. Third, it requires a vigorous grassroots movement with counter-institutions of popular power, with forms of popular solidarity, self-organization and self-defense. Workers cannot have any power without any and all forms of struggle, with which organized people will materialize the transitional programme. That is why we insist that, in any case, the possibility for a revolutionary overthrow and an actual way out for workers goes necessarily through the formation of independent forms of struggle for workers' power, forms that are competitive with and external to the bourgeois state. Otherwise, the risk of incorporation or defeat will remain open.


C. The Militant Front of Rupture and Overthrow
16. Both the new situation, as well as previous experiences call for a decisive improvement of the political line of the militant front of rupture and overthrow (AMPA), putting at its core a class reconstituted labor movement, that will be linked with and inspired by the anti-capitalist transitional programme; The aim is to establish a social alliance of the fighting popular masses, with workers’ hegemony and a subversive political perspective. This is the only alliance that can confront the government and reverse the attack, one that can make gains and reverse the current historical trajectory.

17. The class reconstruction of the labor movement as the core of AMPA passes through:
- The creation of a unified and massive coordination of primary unions, militant associations and mass committees for struggle that will constitute a real militant point of reference within the labor union movement; Unions that will collide with and overcome trade union bureaucracy in GSEE-ADEDY federations and associations.
- The organized, copious effort for reconstructing unions both in the public and private sector and for creating new ones, especially in the private sector.
- The strengthening and coordination of class political unionist formation, so as to contribute to a working class cluster constituted by all the forces of anti-“managerial” unionism aiming at the class reconstruction of the trade union movement.
- Finally, we need to consolidate the political initiatives that will allow the labor movement to strengthen its political role as organizer and force of impact of the broader popular demands in the upcoming battles.


18. AMPA is further built through the efforts towards:
- A contemporary movement of the unemployed with local committees in all neighborhoods and areas; a movement that is connected with the labor movement and trade unions.
- A labor and popular front of struggle for freedom and democratic rights that supports the work of KEEDE.
- A massive anti-racist and anti-fascist movement with the contribution and cooperation of ANTARSYA with KEERFA in unified frontal action in neighborhoods, with anti-fascist committees coordinated in “movement” terms and not via the logic of the "constitutional arch."
- The struggle against the EU and the euro, and the support of any relevant initiative.
- The forms of popular self-organization, solidarity, disobedience to taxation and self-defense in neighborhoods and cities, with a class militant orientation.
- A militant mass youth movement with a subversive orientation in alliance with the working class movement.
- Multiple fronts of struggle in defense of public social services (healthcare, education, water, energy, transportation, etc.) against privatization and the wholesale of public property,
- The fight to defend the environment and the city against the predatory capital investment.


19. In order to build a militant front for rupture and subversion, we are calling on the base and the leadership of all social and political currents of the struggle and all the forces of the Left for joint action in the mass movement and on all existing fronts, with terms of equality and respect of opinions, based on the achievements of the movement. The joint action of the Left, especially that of militant forces, irrespective of where they belong to, is a strong prerequisite for the development of a movement for rupture.

D. The pole of the anti-capitalist, revolutionary, subversive Left and the frontal political joining of forces for subversion.


20. ANTARSYA’s aspiration is to rally the widest possible array of forces for the creation of a massive pole/a political front of the anti-capitalist, revolutionary Left and the broader forces of subversion, with the hegemony of an anti-capitalist transitional programme. This massive pole/political front is objectively necessary for the creation of a militant front of rupture and subversion and the reconstruction for the class labor movement.

21. An immediate step toward this direction is the "frontal political joining of forces for rupture," the collaboration of the forces of the anti-capitalist, anti-EU, anti-imperialist and radical Left. Such forces are, first of all, the men and women political activists in the different movements, people fighting in the Left, the "natural avant-gardes" who are born out of the class struggle and who feel more and more the distance between the needs of the struggle and the political inadequacy of the reformist Left’s leaderships. They are activists from the base of the Left, forces oriented to overthrowing the capital’s politics and the EU, with class intervention in the labor movement. They are forces with a communist referent; Forces that articulate decisively the issue of struggle against the euro and the EU, such as the Plan B - Front of Solidarity and Subversion. There are organizations of the revolutionary and anti-imperialist Left, such as KOA, EEK, OKDE Workers' Struggle and other organizations. There are the currents of Left that differentiate themselves from the various "patriotic," cross-class and apolitical currents of the anti-memorandum struggle.

We unite with all these forces on the basis of the following: an emphasis on the escalation of the struggle, the search for a modern anti-capitalist transitional programme, the persistence on the release from the euro and the EU, addressing the question of power in terms of rupture and not in terms of “management.”
Our assessment is that there are possibilities today for such a joining of forces. ANTARSYA aims at capitalizing on these opportunities to the fullest extent, and we invite the various forces to do the same. Ultimately, everyone will be judged by the substantial contribution to this effort.


22. Such a frontal joining of power is based on the necessary and indispensable transitional anti-capitalist programme today. More specifically: The unilateral cancellation of the memoranda and other loan contracts. The refusal to pay—debt cancellation. The ousting of the troika and of any other “guardian.” The exit from the euro and the EU as well as from NATO. The nationalization of the banking system and of strategic companies without any compensation for damages. The worker and social control in production and throughout society. The struggle for real democracy and popular sovereignty of the working people and the liberation from the shackles of modern totalitarianism of capital. The defense of the lives of workers in the struggle for survival and the improvement of their position against the dictatorship of the memoranda, profits and competitiveness. The overthrow of the government and its politics, and of every government that follows policies against the people. The escalation of the fight, the anti-managerial logic and the awareness that there is no room for a "populist" governmental management in the context of the euro, the EU and the system, the insistence on the need for revolutionary changes and for claiming a modern socialist perspective.


23. In this direction, based on the content that was developed, ANTARSYA enlists uniformly and takes on the political initiative to address the forces and the activists mentioned earlier. Together with those forces and militants who will agree on the necessary content, as it is determined in the previous paragraph, we proceed directly to join political forces for rupture and the joint intervention in the major social and political battles. Each joint force maintains its independency and we aim at making this process a concern not just for those organized but also for independent activists; we want this concern of joining forces to be debated widely on all levels and not to become just an issue for the leadership or for “media management.” Here and now ANTARSYA proposes a common political intervention on the following four fronts: a) in the battle for the exit from the euro and the EU, b) against civil mobilization (conscription) and generally for democratic workers' and people's freedoms, c) the creation of a large unified labor coordination and more generally, the class reconstruction of the labor movement, d) the struggle against the fascist threat and racism and the struggle for the legitimation and defense of immigrants as part of the working class.
24. Frontal politics requires the independence and strengthening of ANTARSYA, as a front of the anti-capitalist, revolutionary and communist Left, for the hegemony of the anti-capitalist transitional programme. It does not imply diffusion of ANTARSYA, much less its substitution with a frontal joining of forces for rupture.



E. For the most complete programmatic, frontal, and organizational constitution of ANTARSYA

25. The existence of ANTARSYA as an independent, coherent force, a visible pole within the Left is particularly important. ANTARSYA should become today a pioneer of the anti-capitalist Left, one that functions democratically, that processes a modern revolutionary strategy, that deepens the anti-capitalist struggle and is connected to a modern socialist and communist perspective.

On this basis ANTARSYA:
- Takes the initiative for a serious theoretical and political debate around the issue of the relationship between the state, revolution, power and government in the new era of class struggle.
- Sets up a plan for militant independent promotion of its overall political proposal and its frontal politics.
- Organizes the steps for a more in-depth processing, integration, and intervention particularly in the labor movement, but also in other fronts, such as democratic, anti-fascist - anti-racist, anti-EU, environmental fronts, etc.
- Sets up new committees and enhances the political and democratic operation and intervention of all committees, especially sectoral, for the development of deeper political ties with the working class and the popular strata.
- Upgrades qualitatively its frontal democratic character for an ANTARSYA of the organized forces and of independent political activists, for an ANTARSYA of the fighters and the thinkers.