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.

Nicholas Skoufoglou: "SYRIZA'S STRATEGY OF CLASS COLLABORATION FURTHEROMORE CONSOLIDATED"

Below you can read the recent interview of Georgios Stathakis for the "Vima", one of the biggest tabloids in Greece. Georgios Stathakis is currently a SYRIZA MP and the person in charge of the Economic Development Sector of SYRIZA. He is one of the closest consultants of President Tsipras and one of the most prominent leading cadres of the party.

TO VIMA: Mr Stathakis, in your interview for the “Sunday Vima” in September 2012, you had declared that the new Memorandum would not survive the next six months. There is one month remaining...Is this estimation still valid?

STATHAKIS: It is valid that the Memorandum has no future, is not viable, without one or more than one restructuring of the public debt, which it supposedly serves, and without the stabilization of the Greek economy as well. Today there is a restructuring of the debt ahead of us in the end of the year and, at the same time, the stabilization of the economy that they envisioned back in that time is still not visible. There is new recession and new disarrangement of public revenues”.

The stabilization for you remains...

...our primary goal, yes.

How can the recession be stopped at this moment, as obviously we cannot have such thing in two or three months?

The stopping of the recession requires economic policies exactly on the opposite of the Memorandum, which means  stabilization of the public expenses at a level of 40-42%, it is not that important,  stabilization of the tax income at the same level, but combined with measures of redistribution of the tax weights, which should facilitate the tendency for consumption in domestic demand to increase, and it requires also some necessary counterweights, a development agenda which would form a mechanism with the minimum investment funds needed in order to achieve recovery.

Domestic or foreign investment funds?

Both domestic and foreign ones.

Consequently, the whole disapproval of foreign investments from the part of SYRIZA is somehow relativised...

There is no such thing as disapproval of foreign investments, there is disapproval of those investments that are exclusively oriented towards the program of privatizations, public utility and real estate. SYRIZA in general supports all investments that upgrade the country's productive economy, the infrastructure in tourism and other sections and, consequently, we are highly positive towards them, we want an institutional, tax and environmental framework that will be clear and this is what we are going to do as a government, in order to facilitate foreign investments in Greece.

Speaking of public expenses, how is this compromising with the commitment of Mr. Tsipras to restore pensions at the pre-Memorandum levels?

Without the word “gradually” this phrase stays meaningless. This “gradually” is very important. Salaries and pensions can return to levels that are compatible with those before 2009 only provided that economy recovers and reaches the level of 2009. This is a gradual procedure. Obviously, the intention of SYRIZA is, as far as economy comes back to development rates, both working people and pensioners to have the responding portion in this development.

Consequently this is not something achievable by “one law”...

...that's why Alexis Tsipras also used the word “gradually”.

You emphasize on the reform of the state and the public sector. On what model is this going to happen?

All major changes that there have historically been in Greece, under Trikoupis, Venizelos or Konstantinos Karamanlis, were combined with a profound change in public administration, because the effort to change things in economic policies and set goals can't go forward, without an effective and just state. This is the big bet for SYRIZA, there must be profound changes in public administration. The state delivered to us is not ours, but all goals set by SYRIZA depend on the profound changes in public administration.

State apparatus, public administration, these mean “middle class” or something around it. As you mentioned Konstantinos Karamanlis, is this mention linked with the recent “flirting” between Mr. Tsipras and the supporters of Karamanlis inside ND?

I think it's a matter neither of love nor hatred. The exit of the Greek society out of the impasse obviously surpasses the narrow ideological frameworks in which our political system has been formed until today and SYRIZA acts as a force which tries to clearly describe the way in which we can have this exit. In this process it will be politically supported by broader strata that exceed the traditional space of the left. Thus, it addresses to the centre and to parts of the right that at this moment can form a new political coalition.

So, you estimate that there are possibilities of collaboration everywhere.

I estimate that the political scene will be very different than how it used to be in the past. Obviously, there will be more rearrangements in the space of the centre and SYRIZA must be present in all these processes, in order to build a very powerful social and political bloc, which is necessary, if it (SYRIZA) is to make any change needed in the Greek society.

You say that the open space of Social-Democracy will be covered by you and nobody else.

I imagine that everybody has the ambition for this space to be a field where SYRIZA will gather all these parts that look for expression.

I don't think Mr. Lafazanis has such an ambition...

Our party has space for various and different strategies. Nevertheless it is our common belief and there is a convergence of opinions on that, that we used to seek and still we seek unity of the left, this is given and nobody disagrees with that, and at the same time we agree on the fact that SYRIZA must express a much broader spectrum of political forces.

The involvement of SYRIZA in the “law and order” agenda favors you or should you insist on the economic field?

My personal opinion is that SYRIZA should insist on the economic and social agenda. The government is substantially absent from this. It has put extravagant weight on the “law and order” agenda, where SYRIZA obviously will strongly defend matters of human rights. It is not the field, however, where it can show its capability of intervention at the moment.

You consider a new “haircut” of the Greek debt as given. But who will buy Greek bonds in the future?

As far as the debt is not viable, nobody will buy Greek bonds. The debt must get viable. As long as there is no application of a policy to reduce it, which usually happens in two ways, either by higher development rates or by inflation, but instead of a policy of austerity and deflation, there is no other way than successive “haircuts”.

You have recently been in the USA. It is not finally a problem for SYRIZA that its interlocutors are found outside the euro zone?

SYRIZA should do these trips to North and South America, as we should do the next ones to China and Russia. We come from a political family that does not govern at the moment in Europe, therefore we should, if anything, form on the international level an elementary familiarity with the opinions and strategies promoted by SYRIZA. In America things are easier because Obama's policy has much in common with what we intend to do. He reinforced the welfare state in the crisis, he raised minimum salaries by 25%, he created an agenda of restraint of the recession with an increase of the public debt and he taxes the rich.


Some short comments:

1. It is highly provocative for workers, employees, unemployed and pensioners in Greece the fact that, according to Mr. Stathakis, one of the most prominent members of SYRIZA leadership, the level of salaries and pensions are directly linked with the growth of the economy and consequently the GDP. This means accepting that working people are destined to get only a certain percentage of the wealth they themselves produce. This acceptance equals acceptance of one of the most fundamental rules of capitalist economy. As long as it is true that for the salaries to rise, there must be positive development rates, one can easily assume that, when there is a recession, as is the case in Greece, cuts in salaries and pensions are a reasonable consequence. We recognize that Mr. Stathakis criticizes the size of these cuts, that's his point of criticism to the Memorandum. At any case though, Mr Stathakis is clear: working people must pay for the capitalist crisis (their responding portion).
2. Mr Stathakis, agreeing with president Tsipras (who expressed himself in a recent interview mildly in favor of the COSCO investment in the port of Piraeus) is enthusiastic about foreign investments in Greece. Foreign investments, no matter what one may imagine, equal some very simple things: privatizations, layoffs, lower salaries, environmental disaster. That's the meaning of Mr Hollande's recent visit in Athens: the expression of French corporations' interest in buying the water services in Greece. That's the meaning of the Qataris’ interest in the ex-airport of Athens: the conversion of a huge free space in the city into a huge commercial centre. Domestic private investments are not better at all. There is the same meaning in the great investment by Mr Bobolas in the gold mines of northern Greece: buying a gold deposit probably worth some billion euros, for only 11 million, with consequences for the environment that can't be even predicted yet. In his last public speech, Mr Stathakis made it clear that SYRIZA will unconditionally support, for the development’s sake, any enterprise that is profitable and does well, whether it is a public or a private one. On the issue of large investments in regions where there is significant opposition by the local society, he spoke for the need of establishing an institutional tool that can decide which part is right (the investor/entrepreneur or the people), so as to avoid lawsuits and trials, that are usual in such cases (people suing corporations) and if the verdict is for the investor, the investment should go on.
3. Mentioning three prominent bourgeois prime ministers as examples to align with is of course odd, but not so unpredictable. Harilaos Trikoupis was the prime minister under whom the first bankruptcy of the Greek state occurred, back in 1893. Eleftherios Venizelos is responsible for the disastrous nationalist military campaign in Asia Minor (after World War I) and for the ethnic cleansing of the Greek state, through harsh expelling or suppression of the then existing national minorities. A government under him, later on, established a law prosecuting ideas and not actions, according to which thousands of communists and progressive workers were exiled, imprisoned or executed. Konstantinos Karamanlis is the successor of the civil war state, being elected as a prime minister for the first time in 1955. Under his governments, the prosecutions of communists went on, Grigoris Lambrakis (a left deputy) and Sotiris Petroulas (a radical left student) were murdered and electoral fraud dominated. He had close relations with parastatal groups and above all with the militaries that imposed the military junta in 1967. He was also the first prime minister after the fall of the junta, and thus the person who secured the peaceful return to bourgeois democracy, that is the consolidation of class domination that had been seriously questioned in the insurrectionary years of 1973-74. All these three persons are mentioned by bourgeois politicians and historians as being connected with the capitalist modernization of Greece in three different periods. Trikoupis promoted the industrialization of the country and introduced the railway, Venizelos gave Greece its current borders, Karamanlis led Greece joining the EU (the then EEC). I'm not implying of course that the SYRIZA program or strategy are directly inspired by these three persons. But, the leadership of SYRIZA has since long ago adopted the catchword of “productive reconstruction” of the country as their central strategy. And as this strategy is deprived of any class reference (by whom and for whom?), it can easily lead to such mentions.
4. There is no need to say that finding common elements between SYRIZA program and Obama's policies is just a mark of SYRIZA having gone simply too far.
5. Concerning the agent which is to apply the SYRIZA governmental program, let me make a short remark. In the elections of May and June, the leadership of SYRIZA spoke of an “anti-austerity left government”, addressing a call to all left (or “left”) parties: KKE, ANTARSYA and “hopefully” DIMAR, indirectly trying also to attract support by the right anti-memorandum party of Independent Greeks. This catchword shifted to a “government of national salvation” in the months to come, comprising non-left parties. Next, as Tsipras described in the same interview mentioned above, the primary collaborators turned to be the traditional centre-left. Now we see that SYRIZA go even beyond that: they plan to form a government collaborating with parties expanding from the left (themselves, as other left parties are not mentioned anymore) to the right (even parts from inside ND). In fact, the eventuality of forming a government with right-winged parties (namely the semi far-right Independent Greeks of Panos Kammenos) was open from the very beginning. It was also theoretically justified by the scheme introduced by President Tsipras: that the old traditional division between left and right is no more timely, and is to be substituted by the division between pro- and anti-Memorandum forces. But now Mr Stathakis insists on the necessity for a government which is to “express a much broader spectrum of political forces”. In his last public speech, he meticulously described how SYRIZA will form their governmental program: not on their own, but in collaboration with social organizations, scientific societies, business institutions, workers etc. This is a bad version of Popular Front governments, which historically have led to treasons and disappointment among the working classes and in some cases prepared the ground for authoritarian of even fascist regimes to emerge.
6. The working class in Greece has no real solution to expect from such projects of class collaboration. What is needed is a conscious strategy of rupture with capitalism, and a party that will be able to propose and apply it. In Greece we have the social material, the militant vanguard that can support such a project. The processes inside SYRIZA have already shown their short limits: they can't pressure the leadership, who feels every passing day freer to speak, they can't restrain the socialdemocratic adaptation to class collaboration. Therefore, the creation of such a party mainly depends on processes outside SYRIZA, above all ANTARSYA, despite all existing problems.

PS: According to the last gallop that was published yesterday (26/2), 23% of the questioned would vote for SYRIZA, and at the same time only 20% think things will get better under a SYRIZA government. This is a clear sign that this kind of “realism” expressed by SYRIZA not only lowers the masses' willingness to struggle, but it doesn't even offer a reliable alternative.

Nickolas Skoufoglou

PTS (Argentina): "Argentina: Kirchnerism begins to lose its grip on the workers’ movement"

During November and December 2012, there was a series of demonstrations in Argentina which graphically expressed the loss of hegemony of the Kirchner government and the depth of its crisis of succession. There were several ‘cacerolazos’ - demonstrations in which kitchen pots and pans are banged together - similar to the one which had taken place on September 13th, expressing the high level of discontent among the middle and upper middle classes with the government. These demonstrations were encouraged by big corporations and the church, and had the support of right-wing opposition politicians like Buenos Aires mayor Mauricio Macri, the Peronist governor of Córdoba province, José Manuel de la Sota, former MP and leader of the liberal ARI party Elisa Carrió, and current right-wing Peronist MP Francisco de Narváez.

With the government priding itself that the only opposition to its policies was coming from the right, the first national workers’ strike against the Kirchner government took place on November 20th. The last general strike in Argentina was on December 13th, 2001, a week before the government of Fernando de la Rúa fell during the uprising.

The strike was called by Hugo Moyano of the CGT and Pablo Micheli of the CTA. The CGT is the trade union confederation covering industrial, service, retail and transport sectors. However, during recent years there have been splits and there are now three CGTs. One of them, led by the metalworkers’ trade union leader Antonio Caló, supports the government. The second is the CGT Blue and White, led by the trade unionist/entrepreneur Luis Barrionuevo, which opposes the government but is allied with the right-wing of Peronism. The CGT led by Moyano, which controls the lorry drivers’ union, has moved into opposition after supporting the government for ten years. The CTA is the main confederation among public and service sector workers, and is divided into two parallel confederations, one that supports the government, led by Hugo Yasky, and one that opposes the government led by Micheli.

Support for the strike went beyond the oppositional trade union confederations, extending to trade unions which are part of the pro-government grouping - in workplaces with members of Yasky’s CTA and Caló’s CGT, the level of absenteeism was very high. The empty streets of Buenos Aires were testament to the high level of support. As well as showing the dissatisfaction of broad sectors of the working class, the strike exposed the weaknesses of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government. which was put on the defensive. The result has been to deepen the fight within Peronism over the presidential succession .

Following the strike there was a call by Moyano and Micheli for a rally in the Plaza de Mayo on December 19th which provoked discussion among left-wing parties that are part of the Left and Workers’ Front (Frente de Izquierda y los Trabajadores, FIT) about the character of the proposed demonstration and whether or not the left should participate in it. In this regard, the first thing to say is that it makes no sense to discuss December 19th without putting the national strike of November 20th at the centre of the debate.

Groups of workers are distancing themselves from the Government

The strike was the major political event of the year and showed, in contrast to Kirchner’s claim that the only opposition was coming from the right, that there is what we in the PTS have been calling an ‘opposition from the left’. Dissatisfied with its policies, workers are beginning to break with the Kirchner government, although this doesn’t mean that they are joining the ranks of the bourgeois opposition. The central demand of the strike was against a new tax on salaries, cynically called a “tax on profits” by the government, which will affect 25% of workers. This is deeply resented, especially since inflation is running at 20-25%.
The strike allowed a significant fraction of the working class to speak with its own voice, which frightened the entire bourgeoisie, mainly because of the movement’s potential rather than the strike itself, which was limited in its scope by the cowardly leadership. The reason that workers are beginning to break from Kirchnerism can be found in the combination of the crisis of the so-called “Kirchnerist economic model” due to the fiscal deficit and rising inflation, and the crisis of the presidential succession. The importance of this lies in the fact that if the government can’t guarantee its own continuity, it is certainly the case that the bourgeois opposition cannot guarantee its superiority either because it is fragmented and without significant political personalities.

A very important aspect of the strike was that it showed the increasing influence of the left, in particular Trotskyism, inside the workers’ movement. The left is representing sections of the working class through its leadership of works councils and shop stewards’ committees. These sections of workers participated in the strike with their own demands. The high profile of the left in the strike was noted by the mainstream media and recognised by the trade union bureaucracy itself.

On the morning of the strike, TV stations showed pictures of anti-bureaucratic and class conscious workers’ delegates from the nearby factories blocking the Pan American Highway with placards reading: “We are not with Moyano”. This event didn’t fall from the sky as some currents of the left who are not active in the workers’ movement claim. It was part of a political struggle to defend the correctness of the demands of the strike: against the tax on salaries, for an increase of pensions to 82% of the basic salary, and for a rise in family benefits. We fought for these demands even among those workers whose pro-government union leaders were calling for the strike to be boycotted, while differentiating ourselves completely from the Moyano/Micheli leadership which called the strike.
The PTS took this struggle into every workplace were it holds leadership positions. At 6am, workers from Kraft, PepsiCo, Stani foods, Fate tyres, teachers of the April 9th current inside the teachers’ union, alongside comrades from the Number 60 bus line and the Rioplatense cold storage plant, blocked the Pan American Highway. Not long afterwards, a combative column of more than 200 graphic workers from Donnelley, Word Color and Printpack arrived from the north and joined the picket line. In total, there were 700 workers on the picket when comrades from our North Buenos Aires branch, a delegation from the PTS youth, telephone workers and public sector workers from the left grouping in their unions, delegations of the FIT and other left-wing groups joined them.

The picket was addressed by our comrades Javier “Poke” Hermosilla and Lorena Gentile, both delegates at Kraft; Eduardo Ayala, delegate at Donnelley; Luis Medina, delegate at PepsiCo; and by Christian Castillo, a leading member of the PTS. In a live link from the Jorge Newbery airport, LAN delegates Charly Platkowky and Eduardo Saab explained why they were on strike despite the leadership of their trade union APA. The TV screens were divided into two parts so they simultaneously showed the blockades on the Pan American Highway and at the intersection of Callao and Corrientes avenues in the city centre called by the PTS youth.

Simultaneously, the “B”subway line was in the news because the service was paralysed. Our comrade Claudio Dellecarbonara explained to the media that the subway workers had held their own assemblies and were joining the strike despite the fact that their trade union - which is loyal to the government - did not support it. He explained that the methods of the “B” subway workers were opposed to those of Moyano.

In the southern province of Neuquén in Patagonia, the day began with the blocking of Route 7, the main trunk road linking Buenos Aires with Santiago in Chile, by workers from the textile, ceramic and paper industries, along with hospital workers, teachers and students. Also present was our comrade Raúl Godoy, a leader of the ceramic workers’ trade union of Neuquén (SOECN) and a worker in the Zanon factory, which recently celebrated ten years under workers’ control. On December 10th, Godoy took office as a FIT deputy in the provincial parliament. It is the first time that a Trotskyist workers’ leader has become a deputy in Patagonia.
These actions, and many more throughout the country, in which the PTS also participated, opened a day in which the working class showed its strength in its first big confrontation with the government for over a decade.

The change in the political situation represents an historical opportunity for the Left

November 20th marked a change in the political situation. Between 2003 and 2009 the national situation was clearly not revolutionary and was characterised by the efforts of the Kirchner government to re-establish the authority of the state and the political regime, which had been in crisis since the 2001 rebellion. These were years of solid economic growth based on increasing demand in the world market for Argentinean exports. But in 2008 the agrarian bourgeoisie held back food from the cities, blockaded main roads and mounted demonstrations in an attempt to force the government to reduce the tariffs on agricultural exports. These actions weakened the government, whose Justicialista party fared badly in the mid-term elections. However, the government soon recovered ground after it introduced ‘child benefit’ for unemployed families.

Today, there is a new situation. The world crisis is making its presence felt and the Kirchner model is looking increasingly exhausted, which means that the revolutionary left, with its deeper penetration into the working class, has an historic opportunity: the possibility of constructing a workers’ left in Argentina which would prepare the basis for a revolutionary party. We are calling for a National Worker’s Assembly to discuss how to achieve ‘trade unions without bureaucrats and a workers’ party without bosses’. We want to discuss the building of a workers’ left with all anti-bureaucratic and class consciousness forces.

This is the context in which the call for the December 19th rally took place. It had many limitations: it did not build on the November 20th strike and neither was there any attempt to initiate a democratic debate in the workers’ movement on the way forward - although there were discussions in those workplaces where the left has a presence. Moyano and Micheli raised the same demands as on November 20th plus a call for the state to return the money it owes which had been paid into social security plans. The aim of the bureaucracy was to back up the bourgeois opposition rather than strengthen its hand in negotiations with the government.

But there is a huge gap between the aims of the trade union bureaucracy and the needs of the working class. Discontent with the bureaucracy, which has been growing since the 90s, has reached the point were a fissure is opening up between the workers and their trade union leadership, thus creating an opportunity for the left to mount a challenge. December 19th saw the masses take to the streets, placing a great responsibility on the left to provide a political alternative. Not to have taken part in the demonstration because it was not accompanied by a strike or because it was called by the trade union bureaucracy would have been sectarian.The PTS proposed that the groups that are part of the FIT march together to make a greater impact. This column, headed by dozens of workers' leaders, would enter the Plaza de Mayo as a combative, anti-bureaucratic, class consciousness left alternative.

The FIT, an alliance between the PTS, the Partido Obrero and Izquierda Socialista, has an important responsibility because in the last presidential elections in 2011 it obtained almost 600,000 votes and gained two provincial deputies in Neuquén and Córdoba. This was on a class struggle, anti-capitalist and class independence programme, as against other left unity campaigns which have adopted reformist programmes in an attempt to win seats.

However, the PO oscillated between the sectarianism of calling for non-participation in the December 19th march and the opportunism of only participating in order to get publicity for the FIT. These two positions have a common denominator: a pronounced electoralism which stresses media coverage but gives very little importance to building the left inside the workers’ movement. This also explains their limited influence inside the combative trade unions. The attitude of PO is becoming an obstacle to using the FIT as a springboard for the building of a revolutionary left in Argentina. For its part, Izquierda Socialista refused to form a unified column and ended up on the platform with Moyano and Micheli.

To ensure that combative trade unionism and the left had a strong presence in the Plaza de Mayo, the PTS marched behind a column of hundreds of workers carrying banners which read “Neither the Kirchner government nor the bosses’ opposition” and “For a plan of struggle to be voted in assemblies”.

We are now faced with the need to discuss the fight for political independence among sections of workers that are beginning to break with the government. We should also discuss with them the necessity of building our own workers’ party in order to make the capitalists pay for their own crisis, and the longer term aim of establishing a workers’ government.

The Left and Workers’ Front is a considerable achievement. With a view to future elections, its programme must be developed through a debate that clarifies and reaffirms its policy for the independence of the working class. But the tactical conquest that the FIT represents needs to be part of a strategic battle for the political independence of the working class.