POE-OTA union mobilisation against the representative of the EU-4th Reich Project Chancellor Merkel in Greece
Leon Trotsky bitterly denounced
“the
empty abstraction of anti-fascism” and the Popular Front in his writings on
Spain as follows: “The very concepts of ‘anti-fascism’ and ‘anti-fascist’ are
fictions and lies. Marxism approaches all phenomena from a class standpoint.
[Republican prime minister] Azaña is ‘anti-fascist’ only to the extent that
fascism hinders bourgeois intellectuals from carving out parliamentary or other
careers. Confronted with the necessity of choosing between fascism and the
proletarian revolution, Azaña will always prove to be on the side of the
fascists. His entire policy during the seven years of revolution proves this.”
What are the real reasons behind the
hue and cry against Golden Dawn?
There is an international effort by the British media (e.g. Paul Mason on
Newsnight), the Greek corporate media (Lambrakis media), Reuters, the US media
(New York Times) and a whole host of organisations the world over who are
embedded to the agenda of the corporate New World Order. This is the same
corporate media that sold the lies of Al Quaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction
to launch the ‘War on Terror’ i.e. the neo-colonialist brutal occupation of
both Afghanistan and Iraq on behalf of the oil and drug cartels that are part
of the clique that rules the world.
In the piece below:
http://greecesolidarity.org/?p=410
“Love or nothing: The real Greek parallel with Weimar
Paul Mason, who originates from the ‘Far’ Left, asserts the following:
“Of all the operas written during Germany’s Weimar Republic (1919-33), probably
the most haunting is the last.
Kurt Weill’s The Silver Lake, written with playwright Georg Kaiser, tells
the story of two losers – a good-hearted provincial cop and the thief he has
shot and wounded – as they make their way through a society ruined by
unemployment, corruption and vice. After spending a week again in Greece – amid
riots, hunger and far right violence – I finally understood it.”
When in reality if one is to use culture to be appropriate for Greece one
would have to use Brecht or more appropriately his last play written in 1929
‘St Joan of the Slaugherhouse’ which depicts the collapse of capitalism.
History does not repeat itself in a linear fashion. Stalinism and fascism
aren’t coming back in the same form. They are dead.
Searching for historical parallels and from them issuing statements about
Greece, which not so long ago was characterised as having ‘humane capitalism’
but now it resembles Weimar Germany. This serves certain New World Order
agendas, which is what Paul Mason’s role is.
After all he is on a lecture circuit for personal gain and promotion selling
the story in his latest book, that global capitalism is suffering a new 1848!
No to the 4th Reich
The rise and rise of Golden Dawn…
Golden Dawn, whose precursor was EPEN which received 7% in 1977, are
supporters of foreign backed military juntas and have constantly revealed this.
They are embedded rightists who have supported the foreign backed juntas. In
that sense they differ not one iota from the internal troika running Greece
now. There never was a neo-nazi movement in Greece for it cannot have mass
social support as Greece never was a developed imperialist state. This myth of
the developed imperialist nature of Greece is peddled by those who are
supporters and promoters of the cornerstones of EU free trade policies (in
labour, capital and goods). The organisations that make up Syriza were either
embedded PASOKites all their life or were supporters of Maastricht, ex-KKE who
had no moral issue governing with New Democracy and PASOK in 1989 and 1990.
On Saturday 6th December 2012 a demonstration
organised by the Town Halls allegedly against ‘fascism’ occurred.
Official participants in this demo was Kaminis (Athens Mayor), Vallianatos
(head of the Homosexual Association of Greece), Manos (ex-New Democracy extreme
free marketer who called the arrival of immigrants a blessing for capitalism),
Tzimeros (extreme free marketer), PASOK MP’s, Dimar, Syriza and Antarsya
alongside Amnesty International and other US based NGO’s. We have had a Troika
government for more than 2 ½ years; now an internal Troika (ND, PASOK, Dimar)
are presiding over around 30% unemployment which shows no sign of abating and
over 3,500 suicides without including those who have had heart attacks or
diagnosed with a severe disease due to the economic crash (lack of medicines
and hospital care
now being a permanent
phenomenon).
Instead of the
Left leaving Parliament
campaigning on the streets to overthrow
this Quisling formation, they are embedded in a parliamentary perspective
which no longer holds water as the Government runs on Administrative Decrees
which don’t follow due parliamentary process and German gauleiters introduced
into every ministry until the end, i.e. till their final dissolution. No one
has called for Genocide charges to be laid against the Troika and no one will;
instead
they now march with them on the
streets as there is allegedly a greater danger lurking round the corner.
Despite countless localised rebellions against the wave upon wave of illegal
immigration, the violent deaths of countless Greeks young and old, nothing is
heard or seen in the corrupt Mass Media: only reports of when an illegal
immigrant has their forehead scratched or they allege they were sworn at or
chased by people professing to be Golden Dawn do come alive. Golden Dawn hasn’t
held a single national demonstration in Central Athens and neither has Syriza
despite the fact that the situation is getting worse daily. What characterises
this period, as opposed to the 1930’s,
is
that today no one wants to govern, neither the fake far Left nor the fake
far Right.
Town Halls vs Dustmens Union
Last summer there was a dustmen’s strike against wage reductions and
increases in work loads and the government, then under PASOK-Venizelos,
employed illegal immigrants to break the
strike. This is the agenda they want to impose right across the public
sector, using the Bolkeinstein directive to permit companies to be set up so
they pay e.g. Bulgarian minimum wages in Greece after they have subcontracted
everything. Indicative of this is what occurred in Thessaloniki University
where cleaning contractors employing Greeks struck for non-payment of contract
payments. It lasted over a month. To ensure the viability of the strike,
rubbish was allowed to pile up internally and eventually the Mayor Boutaris in
Thessaloniki (from the well known winemaking corporation) called in the riot
police to break the strike and arrest striking cleaners.
Where was the fake Left?
But more importantly, the ‘silent demo’ held in Athens on 6th December was
organised by the Town Halls, the same town halls who are in conflict with their
own workers in a long drawn out conflict where they want to sub-contract all
council services to foreign multinationals, and here one understands why they
funded an ‘anti-racist’ protest in Central Athens and invited all their
political supporters the fake far left with representatives from the
government.
The class basis of fake
‘anti-fascism’ is exposed fully here...
How can one claim to be on the far Left and support the imperialist EU
project? How can one claim to be on the far Right and support the Euro stand
for EU elections etc?
Political analysis has degenerated from one which defines what one is from
deeds, not words, to one which defines what one is from words, not deeds. So as
Syriza calls itself the party of the ‘radical left’ it must thus be, so Golden
Dawn must be neo-nazi as they printed an edition of their magazine praising
Hitler. The so-called communists for decades defended Stalin’s gulags and the
Greek KKE still does, so moral lectures from those quarters regarding their
political positions are far and infrequent. They believe there is an upturn
round the corner, that the collapse of capitalism can be arrested if only it
changes course; that neo-Keynesianism is the solution to the crisis and that the
stale parameters of the past, viewing things in terms of Right and Left, when
what we are really confronted with is much worse: the erasure of nations from
the map by the twin threat of economic immiseration and the flooding of labour
markets by anyone and everyone from anywhere, a mini-USA, not in times of
economic boom, but economic collapse.
Imperialism has been in a state in collapse since the dawn of the 20th
century. We had two imperialist world wars, countless of localised wars and,
with the advent of the ex-USSR on the scene, the collapse of capitalism was
arrested. But the system managed to go global with the fall of the ex-USSR. The
world market exists for the production of goods. America became centre of the
de facto world capitalist Empire. All other imperialisms were subsumed under
it. The contradictions of the global system are now measured within the context
of the collapse of US imperialism.
The rise of the EU occurred as a first step towards a world government with
a world currency. But, due to the crisis of overproduction, all the old
antagonisms covered for a large historical period came to the surface with the
collapse of Lehman Bros. No other area could be antagonistic or in competition
with the USA. Hence the Euro had to be curtailed. Greece was chosen for that
specific role. Socialism or barbarism has resurfaced not in the distant future
but immediately.
The economic hitmen of
the Troika would make Hitler look like a democrat in peacetime (he provided
jobs, albeit many for war production), our lot are the SS in suits. You
won’t hear that from the fake left.
The hue and cry over Golden Dawn has class roots. Those remaining on the
left are middle class protest groups. Sensing their imminent immiserisation,
want the working class to succumb to globalism as the only alternative to
social struggles,
to accepting internal
colonies and open slave labour. If anyone questions the process they are to
be labelled a ‘racist’ by these self-styled… ‘anti-racists’, who have no moral
objection to marching with the representatives of the Troika in Athens...
Who wanted a parliamentary career and who blocked their rise into
Parliament? ANTARSYA, EEK, KKE(ML), Den Plirono, EPAM, of they aggregated their
votes and one would have got at least another 2% for Syriza hence...so their
venom is on the rise of the ‘far right’... is about them not passing the grade
ie being elected as MP’s or ensuring the Left wins. Their policies are about ‘divide
and rule’ pure and simple.
GD wouldn’t have been known if it wasn’t for its position on illegal
immigration, or, more importantly for taking part in residents’ protests in
central Athens against the squatter camps which developed in the centre. In
2009 they received 0.29% votes or around 20,000 votes, in the local council
elections; in November 2010 they received 5.29% and Mihaloliakos (leader of GD)
was elected on the Athens City Council. A year later they got 6.97% in the May
elections of 2012, surpassing the KKE, and a month later 6.92%, forcing the
KKE into 7th place! Now they state it
might become the 3rd party after Syriza and New Democracy. The irony of Greek
rightist ‘nationalism’ is that GD supported the Euro in its inaugural speech in
Parliament as the Greek ‘people paid dearly for it’, they unfurled a ‘junta
banner’ in a meeting in Crete during the celebrations over the fall of the
Junta (i.e. the American backed Papadopoulos one) and, like Syriza, they
haven’t held a single national demonstration and in their internal party
briefings they have said members must play it cool waiting for the 7th
Memorandum of Understanding-Bailout packages which have led to 50% cuts in
wages and about 25% cuts in pensions (we are now on the 3rd) and power will
fall on their lap, in other words when 99% of Greeks are destitute they
will...take over!
Golden Dawn wanted the arrest and called for those who protested against
Merkel to be locked up. So much for their ‘anti-MoU’ political stance: as clear
and militant as that of Syriza, which remains in Parliament to this day, even
when, in neighbouring FYROM, the opposition has left after they openly stated
there is no point in remaining in Parliament as it runs on
Presidential/Executive Decrees i.e. does not allow voting for the passing of
laws, exactly like the fake Greek Parliament.
How could the Fake Left justify its
politics of Abstention without GD?
Where can we now find Marshall Skobie or the Varkiza sellout to justify the
sellout policies of the fake Left? We can’t. But we have GD instead,
Mihaloliakos and Kasidiaris. Thank God they emerged as it provides a holy cover
for the rotten leaderships of the fake left. It restores their fake
credibility.
Combined votes would have
meant they would have had a majority but they remain disunited so as to not
govern. The current crisis cannot be resolved in a peaceful manner as the
effects of the crisis are no longer peaceful. This is what the fake left
peddles, reformist nonsense in an era where reforms have long gone. 50% cuts in
wages and pensions 70% plus inflation, busting tax rises, mass homelessness and
unemployment are the new terrorism, the neo-fascism of the corporate World
Order which they defend and support by asking us to remain embedded to the neo-colonial
EU project.
They make noises regarding attacks on Syriza MP’s, yet, apart from allegations,
we haven’t seen any. They allege GD has brutalised and killed illegal
immigrants, yet many Greeks have died at the hands of illegal immigrants. To
name just a few which led to riots: a father on his way to hospital with his
pregnant wife was killed by illegal immigrants for a video camera in central
Athens; in Patras a young lad was stabbed to death for complaining about noise
on the street.
Syriza have never
demonstrated against the killing of Greeks by illegal immigrants. Why?
They support a one sided policy: anyone but
Greeks. Who said the Greek nation has to accept wave after wave of illegal
immigration? The Troika ‘anti-racists’! The fake Left used to have the slogan ‘
National Independence and Popular Rule’.
Now they have forgotten the first part as they are interested in the abolition
of the nation states, hence they support ‘minority’ rights on the principle
that Greeks have none. Golden Dawn offices were blown up with the aid of lots
of ammunition placed there. This could only come from the security services.
Who said anything about that explosion? No one apart from GD of course?
Why? Those who seek to use paramilitary methods against GD (demand its ban),
taking into account that Greece has had a history of paramilitary activities
centred primarily on the Left (under the guise of attacking ‘fascism’)
are opening the door to attacks on the Left
in general. Why? Only the Left has fought for social change in Greece. No
one else. When I say the Left, I mean the thousands imprisoned, chased, hunted,
killed, maimed or butchered by local quislings operating for foreign
controllers. Greece was the only country never de-nazified, which the foreign
powers used and abused in their Cold War pursuits: let’s not forget the
despicable role of the British Labour Party in the Greek civil war, working in
tandem with the Greek quislings of Hitler.
Imperialist Lectures
For a long period of time the quisling fake leftist grouplets in Athens
adopted all the lectures from the imperialists of the north, labelling Golden
Dawn a neo-nazi outfit, when previously they had assigned this role to LAOS, to
Fini, to Lepen, etc. Fini governed in Italy; so did LAOS in Greece. So what
happened? Nothing. All the parties of the fake far right who allege they are
‘nationalist’ are there just to assume some political steam from the far right
for internal reasons.
Did mass immigration decrease under Fini’s participation in government? Did
it under LAOS in Greece? Will it under GD? Of course not! Those embedded in
capitalism are also embedded in its current transnational pro-globalist nature.
So to listen to frequent lectures from those who have a colonial and racist
past like the BBC and its correspondents is like listening to Dracula about
blood blanks. It’s a total joke.
That is why there is no far right or far left anymore. They are just two
sides of the same coin. Embedded to the EU nation destroying project of
creating internal colonies. We have been here before. It was known as the 3
rd
Reich. N o wonder they keep silent when Greeks march in Nazi uniforms and in
fake tanks (bought by the Town Hall workers POE-OTA union) against
Merkels 4th Reich, the real fascism of our times, the one that governs and is destroying the Greek nation.
The fake far lefts’ covers are being blown.
The fake far rights will soon be blown as well.
From the Archives
Pouliopoulos
on the Nature of Greek ‘Fascism’
Translated by VN Gelis
The Dictatorship of the August Fourth Written in July 1939 in Akronafplia
1. The Metaxas dictatorship of 4th August has now completed 3 years of rule.
In this period the bourgeois parliamentary parties were erased from the
political scene. The organisations of the working class were dissolved and most
of its militants were either in exile or imprisoned. The proletariat didn’t
express any resistance. Metaxas organised national labour unions and
agricultural cooperatives on the basis of the ‘leadership principle’ and a
hierarchy like Mussolini and Hitler. He every now and again organises popular
demonstrations where he is declared to be the first worker, the first farmer
etc. of the country. In the Administration, in Education, even in the Church,
he implements the same bureaucratic totalitarian policy of autarchy in the
economic field, just like fascism and he hasn’t been slow to show his energetic
support towards the fascist countries – including in trading with the Nazis. In
the controlled press, in schools, in universities - everywhere - Metaxas has
established the dominant ideology of the ‘absolutist’ state, of anti-communism,
anti-liberalism and anti-capitalist demagoguery. Finally he created
paramilitary units, just like those of National Socialism and Fascism. The
whole political life of the country permanently revolves around what Metaxas
says and does. Thus Greece became a Fascist country, with a Duce, a Fuhrer,
Ioannis Metaxas. Such observations like the above were made by Stalinism. Such
were also made by various Fourth Internationalists.
2. Stalinism didn’t require as many signs as above to see Fascism appearing
from the royalist proclamations of the 4th August 1936 when Parliament was
dissolved. From the era of the “twin brothers” (Fascism and Social Democracy)
and the ‘Fascist’ Bruning and before, they had characterised as Fascist,
according to the period: Venizelos, Kondilis and Tsaldaris and every government
which passed anti-labour legislation or overturned the so-called democratic
freedoms of Bourgeois Democracy or Parliament. And the leading members of the
KDEE (State-Capitalist, Stinas) needed a few months to pass after these events
so they could raise a whole series of ‘new political tasks’. This they
incorporated into a new programme so as to justify the creation of the ‘Workers
Internationalist Party of Greece’, as they declared in their official illegal
bulletin. I summarise these tasks because that is imposed on us by the
political reality (of imprisonment): due to the defeats of the workers by the
fascist regime, they say, we must limit ourselves to communist propaganda, to
cadres operating with all the restraints imposed by illegality and to wait in
particular foreign victories of the European proletariat before we can
re-propose active political slogans against the Dictatorship. As this was
followed by the defeats in Spain and France, mass direct action against the
Dictatorship became a political impossibility for an indeterminate future period.
Stalinism produced different conclusions from the same characterisation of the
government of the 4th August. The KKE sold out the rebellious workers in
Thessaloniki on 9th May 1936 to the supporters of Metaxas and the Liberals. And
it supported Sofoulis in the Parliament. This gave power to General Metaxas.
They then called on the bourgeois parties to form an alliance with them against
the Dictatorship. The raise the ‘antifascist democrats’ reactionary officers
and overemphasises the chauvinism of Metaxas with indescribable socialpatriotic
cynicism.
3. The practical result of this ‘antifascist’ policy has been the total
erasure of the Fourth Internationalist KDEE within the first six months of the
Dictatorship. It isn’t the case that this total disappearance - from the
beginning of 1937 - was due to numerical and organisational weakness. In fact,
its leaders and some of its members were free and it even had the technical
capability to publish illegal documents. These comrades had been instilled with
a spirit of defeatism, political indifference and reductionism: ‘nothing can be
done’. The practical result of Stalinist ‘antifascism’ was that most of its
leaders and members were untouched by the regime: 90% of the CC and of the
central and local cadres, their parliamentary leader, their second in command,
MP’s and prospective MP’s and their regional committees, and theoretical
leaders such as Glinos were free in Athens, in his case guaranteeing he
wouldn’t bother the government. The KKE officially declared for the ‘patriotic
policy’ of the Dictatorship, “for the defence of the borders from external and
internal enemies” and became followers of Metaxas’ Okhrana. The
Sklavenas-Sofulis agreement found its logical consequence in Sklavenas-Metaxas
and this a long time before the KKE, first of all the democratic parties shook
hands with the Palace and the British backed liberal George II.
4. If the proletariat were to choose either one of these two policies, the
Workers United Front pessimism and the Stalinist Social Betrayal, it would be
incapable of overthrowing the Dictatorship and to proceed to its historic
liberation from the capitalist yoke. We believe that such a dilemma isn’t
currently in front of it. So the political considerations are to a great extent
unclear and pessimistic and the Stalinist conclusions mistaken. If they told us
only that a regime which abolishes parliament and dissolves workers
organisations must be called fascist, as most liberal bourgeois have done in
all the totalitarian countries, it would then be just a question of choosing
the most suitable propagandistic label. But the question isn’t the name,
despite the social bases and political support of the current dictatorial
government in Greece, as well as our tasks in confronting it. It is also known
to us that confusion and the double edges in conditions which we always use, we
end up with a mistaken confused opinion for the determined situations.
5. We all agree that there are differences within the dictatorship of 4th
August and in the regimes that dominate today in Germany and Italy. But the
truth is that what basically characterises both these regimes doesn’t exist in
Greece. Even were we able to talk about the ‘Fascism of 4th August’, our
political conclusions would be very different. In those countries the
dictatorship is an agency of finance capital and the ‘still hungry’
imperialists, which is based on a big social base: pettybourgeois (post war
dust) and workers masses disappointed by their experience of democracy (workers
who are in provisional despair from the revolution which was sold out by the
Social Democrats and the Stalinists). From here came the mass and paramilitary
organisations (the basis on which these dictatorships to a large extent rely
on) and from there we had vicious bureaucrats who comprise fascist and
national-socialist unions and ‘professional associations’: and an alleged new
state. This mass base fascism can to a greater or lesser extent be occupied
either before or after its coup. It presupposes a long experience of the petty
bourgeois masses from bourgeois democracy and bourgeois parliamentarism and a
partial despair from the conditions of post-war bankruptcy of this
parliamentarism. It is also sure that the enraged petty bourgeois masses are
used against the proletariat. Fascism deceives them and contains them by means
of a very effective organised social and chauvinist demagoguery. In these
countries, due to their economic and technical coordination, the objective
possibilities allow them, for a period of time, to carry out economic
experiments known as ‘totalitarian autarchy’. Despite the protestations of
various circles, rotten capitalism in these countries provides sufficient to
allow expansionist war preparations. They accept and support even this policy
of economic isolation as a situation of extreme emergency. On the basis of such
economic, social and historical conditions lies the relative stability of the
regime. They explain the relative domination of the bourgeois and
pettybourgeois intelligentsia (in Germany and many Junkers (the big landowners
in Germany translators note) inside the political, administrative, military and
educational hierarachies of fascism. Thus fascism in those countries became the
only party of the national bourgeoisie, but it permanently despairs about the
excessive cost which the overbloated parasitic administration of fascism
spends. Despite this it is known that the accumulations of internal
contradictions which is expressed and highlighted by the fascist pyramid, is
being undermined, more and more threatening contradictions are being
accumulated from their own policies which will blow the pyramid apart with
either revolution or war.
Outside of the above essential features this particular from of class
absolutism of monopoly capitalism called fascism can’t be understood. This
particular character of fascism in its birth and its historical development has
been analysed scientifically by the Communist International’s 3rd and 4th
Congresses and by Trotsky from 1931-38 – including comparing fascism and the
current Soviet regime in his work Revolution Betrayed. Never did the Left
Opposition and the 4th International tire of emphasising that we don’t have
fascism when every dictatorship dissolves the labour organisation and attacks
democratic freedoms. If we do, we confuse every form of absolutis, we don’t aid
in a more clear understanding of the many varied and contradictory political
developments which fill our era or the more precise determination of the
corresponding tasks of the revolutionary proletariat.
Which of the above characteristics exist in Greece and Romania eg in which
other country of the Balkans where we have to a smaller or lesser extent
destroyed or abolished parliaments, where the Courts rule with military-political
cliques? None. That is why the sister party of our French organisation, last
year, when writing about the Rumanian dictatorship of Karl, had called it not
fascist, but Bonapartist. And of course the attacks against the workers’
movement elsewhere is done by fascism, but here it is done by dictatorships of
Kings and their cliques, even if we can call many of their measures ‘fascist’.
Despite all of their fascist trappings, the Bonapartist regimes aren’t governed
by the same historical laws nor do they follow the same path.
Here the masses never had the time, as in Western bourgeois democracies, to
be so disillusioned by Parliaments so as to pass over into
‘counterrevolutionary despair’. They maintain their relative illusions
untouched to a large extent. With all the disillusion in their old parties and
with all their distrust to the old leaders, the literature of Metaxas leaves
the masses untouched and they are still waiting for their parties, despite the
fact that now they have fallen prey to political apathy. The fact that Metaxas
lasted three years and wasn’t able to manage an administration of his own nor
even a ruling party coalition – his political friends left his and the
composition of the government appears to be a ship in stormy seas which every now
and again throws the passengers into the sea – this shows how wrong is the
estimation of the power of the dictatorship, characterising it as fascism.
