This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Victory To The Greek Workers- Build
Workers Councils Now-Fight For A Workers Government!
Re-post from an American Left History
blog, February 14, 2012 the major points which are appropriate today as we head
into the upcoming January 25th Greek parliamentary elections:
Markin comment:
The situation in Greece today cries out
to high heaven for a revolution and a revolutionary party to intervene and lead
the damn thing. Enough of one day general strikes. General strikes only pose
the question of power, of dual power. Who shall rule. We say labor must rule.
Strike the final blow. Back to the communist road. The Greek workers are just
this minute the vanguard, yes, terrible word to some, vanguard of the
international working class struggle. Forward to victory.
Tuesday, May 11,
2010-Repost from American Left History blog
*Be Still My Heart- On Calling For The Greek Communist Parties And Trade Unions
To Take Power
Markin comment:
On May 10, 2010 I posted an entry on
the situation in Greece in response to a post from the International Marxist
Tendency’s Greek section’s analysis of the tasks that confront revolutionaries
today. I agreed with the comment in the post that general strikes were of
limited value if they did not, at some point, pose the question of who shall
rule- working people or the capitalists. I went further and proposed two
propaganda points that revolutionaries in Greece, and their supporters
internationally, should be fighting for. Right now.
The first point revolved around the
fight to create workers councils, committees of action or factory committees in
order to fight for a revolutionary perspective. That program, the specifics
which are better to left to those on the ground, needs to include refusal to
pay the capitalists debts, under whatever guise, defense of the hard fought
social welfare gains of the past, the struggle against the current government’s
austerity program, the fight against any taint of popular frontism (opposition
to alliances, at this critical juncture, with non-working class forces where
the working class is the donkey and the small capitalist parties are the
riders), and prepare to pose the question of who shall rule. Thus there is
plenty of work that needs to be started now while the working masses are
mobilized and in a furor over the current situation.
The second point, which flows out of
the first, is the call for the Communist parties and trade unions to take power
in their own right and in the interest of the working class. Now, clearly, and
this is where some confusion has entered the picture, this is TODAY a
propaganda call but is a concrete way to pose the question of who shall rule.
Of course, we revolutionaries should have no illusions in the Stalinists and
ex-Stalinists who run those parties and who, in previous times, have lived very
comfortably with their various popular front, anti-monopolist strategies that
preserve capitalism. However, today those organizations call for
anti-governmental action and are listened to by the masses in the streets.
The point is to call their political
bluff, carefully, but insistently. In that sense we are talking over the heads
of the leaders to their social bases. Now that tactic is always proper for
revolutionaries to gain authority but today we have to have a more concrete way
to do so. In short, call on the Greek labor militants to call on their parties
and unions to take power. And if not, then follow us. This is not some exotic
formula from nowhere but reflects the sometimes painful experience, at least
since the European revolutions of 1848.
Note: I headed today’s headline with
the expression “be still my heart” for a reason. It has been a very long time
since we have been able to, even propagandistically, call for workers parties
on the European continent to take power. Especially, after the demise of the
Soviet Union, for Stalinist (reformed or otherwise) parties to do so. Frankly,
I did not think, as a practical matter, that I would be making such a call in
Europe again in my lifetime. All proportions guarded, this may be the first
wave of a new revolutionary upsurge on that continent. But, hell, it’s nice
just to be able to, rationally, make that political call. In any case, the old
utopian dream of a serious capitalist United States of Europe is getting ready
to go into the dustbin of history. Let’s replace it with a Socialist Federation
of Europe- and Greece today is the “epicenter.” SYRIZA-KKE to power!
A new chapter in Greece’s uphill struggle to remain solvent – and in the eurozone – has begun in earnest as anti-austerity politicians assumed the helm of government following the radical left Syriza party’s spectacular electoral victory on Sunday night.
Ushering in the new era, Alexis Tsipras was not sworn in, as tradition dictates, in the presence of Archbishop Iernonymos but instead took the oath of office in a civil ceremony. At 40, he becomes the country’s youngest premier in modern times.
The leftist, who surprised Greeks by speedily agreeing to share power with the populist rightwing Independent Greeks party, Anel, was on Monday afternoon handed a mandate by president Karolos Papoulias to form a government following his investiture at the presidential palace. Afterwards, the new prime minister pronounced that he will give his all “to protect the interests of the Greek people”.
Earlier, Panos Kammenos, Anel’s rumbustious leader, emerged from hour-long talks with Tsipras saying the two politicians had successfully formed a coalition.
“I want to say, simply, that from this moment, there is a government,” Kammenos told reporters gathered outside Syriza’s headquarters.
“The Independent Greeks party will give a vote of confidence to the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras. The prime minister will go to the president and … the cabinet makeup will be announced by the prime minister. The aim for all Greeks is to embark on a new day, with full sovereignty.”
How Greeks made history in one day - video With 36.3 % of the vote, Syriza fell two seats short of the 151 MPs it needed to govern alone. The Independent Greeks, who have huge ideological differences with the leftists but are bonded by the desire to end biting EU-IMF-mandated cutbacks, won 4.75% of the vote and 13 seats. The conservative New Democracy party – the dominant force in a coalition lead by the outgoing prime minister Antonis Samaras – suffered ignominious defeat, collapsing to 76 seats in the 300-seat parliament.
Syriza’s victory could encourage other radical anti-austerity parties in southern Europe, including Spain’s Podemos, whose leader, Pablo Iglesias, told a rally in Valencia: “Hope is coming, fear is fleeing. Syriza, Podemos, we will win.”
After five years of austerity-fuelled recession that has driven the vast majority of Greeks into poverty and despair, Syriza cadres described the new administration as a “national salvation government”.
The veteran leftist Dimitris Vitsas, who sits on Syriza’s political secretariat, said now that the “people have spoken” the government would move quickly to tackle the devastating effects of austerity. “Our immediate and most pressing priority is to alleviate the humanitarian crisis,” he said in an interview on SKAI TV. “The Greek people have spoken, they have cancelled the policies of the memorandum,” he said referring to the deeply unpopular bailout accords debt-crippled Athens has signed with creditors.
With more than 26% of the population out of work, and more than a third at risk of poverty, the new government was assuming the reins not only of a broke state but a broken society.
“And yet despite all this talks of economic catastrophe, [with the advent to power of a leftwing government] “we have woken up to a sunny day,” Vitsas said. “The banks haven’t closed, they are operating normally, schools are open. Everything is just as it should be.”
Optimism and uncertainty on the streets of Athens following Greek elections – video But Tsipras faces a formidable task, and within hours of his victory, foreign and European officials pressed home the point that there would be little wiggle room – and not much of a grace period – for the new government.
The leftists say full economic recovery can only come if Athens’ bailout agreements are rewritten and the country’s monumental debt pile – totalling €318bn (£238bn) – is reduced.
Yanis Varoufakis, the internationally renowned economist, newly installed as a Syriza MP and tipped to become the finance minister, likened the Greek economy to a “poisoned chalice”.
“Fiscal waterboarding has turned us into a debt colony,” he told the BBC.
Before Sunday’s election, Varoufakis, who gave up his post at Texas University in Austin to run with Syriza, had described the prospect of resuming stalled talks with foreign lenders as daunting.
“It is an extremely scary project and prospect,” he said. If, as looks likely, the academic assumes the finance ministry portfolio, he will almost certainly head the negotiations.
Yet Greece’s partners show no signs of letting up. “There are internal eurozone rules to be respected,” IMF chief Christine Lagarde told Le Monde. “We cannot make special categories for such or such country.”
Arriving in Brussels for a scheduled meeting of euro group finance ministers, Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economics and finance, told reporters that the EU expected Greece to pay back its debt. “We all want a Greece that stays on its feet, creating jobs and growth, reducing inequality, and a Greece that repays its debt.”
Germany has pledged to work with Greece’s new government, but has not given any hint that it might support a debt deal. In a press conference on Monday, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: “The Greek voters have chosen Syriza and we have to respect that … Currently, we have a result and no government. But when we do we will offer to work together with them.”
However, Seibert made clear that any talks would not be taking place between Germany and Greece, but between Greece and its European partners.
Analysts in Athens warned that with the new government poised to ratchet up tensions with creditors, Greece was headed for a prolonged – and possibly fatal – period of political uncertainty. The country, which faces debt repayments of €4.3bn in the coming months, has been guaranteed bailout funds only until the end of February.
The unexpectedly good showing of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party – with 6.28% of the vote the extremists emerged as the country’s third biggest political force – added to the fears. “Greece is for sure entering a new era and my great worry is that it could be very destructive,” said the prominent commentator Alexis Papahelas. “There are people in this country who know what war and occupation means but the young don’t seem to know,” he said. “My fear is that they may turn to an even more anti-systemic party, on the far right [in the event of failure]. I really don’t rule it out.”
The shocking, cold blooded slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, and more killings in subsequent days, has been met with mass outrage
Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales) website editorial
The shocking, cold blooded slaughter of journalists and others in the Paris office of satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, and more killings in subsequent days, has been met with mass outrage. Early condemnation was voiced on the day of the massacre in a leaflet produced by the French section of the CWI, Gauche Revolutionnaire, which called it “a cowardly and barbaric” attack. TheSocialist Party in England and Wales adds its condemnation, as we did when previous terrorist attacks have occurred, including the US 9/11 and London 7/7 attacks.
As 9/11, 7/7 and the massacre at Charlie Hebdo have shown, al Qaida directed or inspired attacks in the west have been directed at ordinary working people.
People across France reacted to what has been the worst terror attack in their country for over half a century by turning out on the streets in over 30 cities; and globally there have been many solidarity rallies. A large demonstration will also be taking place in Paris on Sunday 11 January.
Mass demonstrations of opposition are crucial, as terror attacks like this one can serve to ratchet up division and polarisation and play into the hands of those who attack the interests of working class people. But quickly, government ministers in France – whose policies in power have laid the basis for terrorist atrocities to occur – have moved to head the demonstrations, with president Francois Hollande even inviting David Cameron to attend Sunday’s event.
The far-right Front National will try to make gains out of the situation – by further whipping up anti-immigrant, racist sentiment.
Others across Europe will also try to jump on the bandwagon, for example right-wing populist Nigel Farage in Britain, said following the massacre: “We in Britain, and I’ve seen some evidence of this in other countries too, have a really rather gross policy of multiculturalism … we do have a fifth column within our countries”.
Blind alley of terrorism
While the terrorists struck a terrible, tragic blow against the staff of Charlie Hebdo, their desire to silence it has failed. Its cartoons, previously seen by tens of thousands of people are now being seen by millions because of the attack, and the journal has declared it will carry on.
Moreover, far from aiding the situation for Muslims in France, the terrorists have worsened it, as state repression in their communities will be stepped up and physical attacks by far-right groups and individuals are likely to increase – as is already being seen. However, it should be added that organisations like al Qaida and Isis that are encouraging terror attacks in the west are certainly not intending to build a struggle against oppression. They are highly authoritarian and reactionary, seeking to build regimes based on capitalist and feudal exploitation, censorship and bans.
Now it is urgent in France, as the moving displays of shock and horror subside, to develop the building of workers’ unity – across all religions and none – to quickly organise against any attacks on democratic rights in the name of fighting terror, and against scapegoating of minorities. In Britain, the head of MI5 has already used the Paris killings to call for new powers for the security services, with chancellor George Osborne responding that they will be given ’all the resources they need’.
Rising threat
Head of UK counter-terrorism policing Mark Rowley, said: “At this stage, there is no UK connection” but ominously added “the threat levels remain unchanged, at severe for the UK”. MI5 director-general Andrew Parker assesses that around 600 people have gone from Britain to Syria to fight with Isis or the al-Qaida linked Nusra Front. Around half of them have returned, many disillusioned with Jihad, but not all. However, past attacks like 7/7 in 2005 and Woolwich in 2013 (both in London), and now the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, show that the danger of terrorist acts exists in any case from alienated individuals who have never fought abroad.
The media makes much of the fact that the massacre in Paris was not committed by disorganised ’loners’ but the attackers appeared to be well-trained in using guns and had planned the atrocity. They appear to have had the backing of al Qaida, as they shouted out allegiance to it during the attack. But they are said to be two young French men of North African descent, brought up and educated in France who have not fought abroad.
Imperialist interventions
After the start of the US-led wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, socialists were among those who warned that the threat of terrorist attacks in the west would become higher. Outrage swept the globe – not least in Muslim communities – at those imperialist interventions and the death and destruction they caused.
There has also been outrage at the Israeli regime’s onslaughts on Gaza and the refusal of the US government to condemn them. The terrorist threat is being worsened further now by US-led air attacks on Isis in Iraq and Syria – including by French imperialism – which are in some ways boosting the strength of Isis as well as increasing the overall death toll of people on the ground.
In France there is also the legacy of interventions in North Africa, including the Algeria Independence War which ended in 1962, in which hundreds of thousands died. In October 1961 up to 250 Algerians peacefully protesting in the centre of Paris were massacred by the French police.
Adding to the anger at the foreign policy of western capitalist governments is the austerity they are imposing at home, which is escalating inequality. The rich are becoming ever more wealthy while the overwhelming majority suffer cuts in living standards, with a layer becoming more and more ’excluded’ from access to decent jobs and pay.
This is no less true in both France and Britain with different manifestations of it; in France poverty-stricken immigrant populations are particularly concentrated in sprawling high-unemployment suburbs of the cities, and face vicious discrimination. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe, estimated at 9% of the population, which includes around 4 million immigrants and their descendants from the Maghreb.
The riots that broke out across France in 2005 indicated the level of frustration and anger against poverty, police harassment and racism felt in the suburbs, conditions that remain today. In addition, many Muslim youth across Europe feel the effects of stigmatisation of Muslims and anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy by right-wing and far-right media and politicians, in different forms and degrees.
Freedom of expression
Charlie Hebdo, regarded as a left-leaning journal, has based itself on ferocious irreverence to religious leaders, prominent politicians and authority in general. It desires to shock and outrage with its blunt satire – targeting anyone and everyone, and has been deliberately provocative, including by publishing cartoons of Mohammed.
Socialists support the right of individuals to be part of any religion of their choosing, or none, free from discrimination and oppression. At the same time we strongly defend freedom of speech and publication, including the right to criticise and use satire and humour. This isn’t just for cultural reasons but also because infringements on what can be said and published can and will be used against trade union activists and socialists by state institutions, hampering our ability to expose class exploitation and interests.
But this doesn’t mean we advocate there being no boundaries at all. Few people would support turning a blind eye to material that deliberately and consciously promotes rabid racism or sexism, for example.
However, who decides what is acceptable and what is not? We can’t trust ’censorship’ bodies appointed by government institutions and politicians when those governments are at present almost entirely composed of pro-capitalist, pro-austerity politicians. The boundaries of what is acceptable should be democratically decided, which in a socialist society would be by regularly elected representatives of ordinary people, subject to recall at any time.
Working class led response essential
Countering terrorism by the followers of Isis or al Qaida is not largely the task of ’moderate’ Muslims as some right wing commentators have argued. The very small minority in society who consider turning to terror acts can come from any religious background or none, as attacks by the far fight, for instance, bear witness – Norway in 2011 saw far-right terrorist Anders Breivik kill 77 people in a shooting spree.
Nor is the way forward the ’unity’ against terror led by the likes of Francois Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron. As Gauche Revolutionnaire put it in their leaflet: “This attack will serve the ruling classes and the capitalists. Hollande, Sarkozy or Le Pen can try to claim that they are the defenders of our freedom, when they are the ones who suppress struggles, stigmatise migrants, and attack our rights”.
Instead, essential is a unity led from below, by working class people. Mass movements of the working class, acting together in an organised way for improvements in living standards, and challenging capitalist governments with the strength of unity, can and will turn the tide against the growing threat of terrorism.
Gauche Revolutionnaire stated at the end of their leaflet:
“Trade unions, and other labour movement organisations and associations should put out a call to rally and pay tribute to the victims of Charlie Hebdo on their own platform: for the unity of workers, youth and the great majority of the population regardless of their origin or beliefs, for freedom of expression, against all reactionary and fundamentalist terrorists, against the racist and imperialist policies of French governments that increase sectarian divisions, intolerance and obscurantism.
“A mass, unified, movement against racism, and against the policies that force millions into insecurity, must be built. It is on that basis that we must show support for the journalists and employees of Charlie Hebdo”.
Terrorism is not a danger that will be eliminated by the capitalist ruling classes and governments; they have created the conditions for terrorism in the first place and are now incapable of removing them. No amount of increased state repression will end the threat.
The ongoing crisis of the world economy leads governments to be even more hell-bent on launching attacks on the majority, and is serving to increase imperialist division and armed conflict. In France, Britain and across the globe, new mass workers’ parties need to be built, putting forward socialist ideas that can show the only way out of this nightmare scenario.
Public ownership of the key industries, socialist economic planning and democratic decision making at all levels of society would lay the basis for ending war, oppression, exploitation and poverty on a permanent basis; and terrorism. More material by Gauche Revolutionnaire (CWI in France) to follow shortly Image by Pierre-Yves Beaudouin, resized to fit website.
In The Twilight Of The Folk Minute- Peter Seeger And Arlo Guthrie In Concert In The Late 1980s
Sam continued along that line of his about “the back in the days” for a while, with the three who were also something of folk aficionados well after the heyday of that music in what Sam called the “1960s folk minute” nodding their heads in agreement saying “things sure were cheaper then and people, folkies for sure, did their gigs for the love of it as much as for the money, maybe more so. Did it, what did Dave Van Ronk call it then, oh yeah, for the “basket,” for from hunger walking around money to keep the wolves from the doors. For a room to play out whatever saga drove them to places like the Village, Harvard Square, North Beach and their itch to make a niche in the booming folk world where everything seemed possible and if you had any kind of voice to the left of Dylan’s and Van Ronk’s, could play three chords on a guitar (or a la Pete work a banjo, a mando, or some other stringed instrument), and write of love, sorrow, some dastardly death deed, or on some pressing issue of the day.”
After being silent for a moment Sam got a smile on his face and said “On that three chord playing thing I remember Geoff Muldaur from the Kweskin Jug Band, a guy who knew the American folk songbook as well as anybody then, worked at learning it too, as did Kweskin, learned even that Harry Smith anthology stuff which meant you had to be serious, saying that if you could play three chords you were sure to draw a crowd, a girl crowd around you, if you knew four or five that meant you were a serious folkie and you could even get a date from among that crowd, and if you knew ten or twelve you could have whatever you wanted. I don’t know if that is true since I never got beyond the three chord thing but no question that was a way to attract women, especially at parties.” Laura, never one to leave something unsaid when Sam left her an opening said in reply “I didn’t even have to play three chords on a guitar, couldn’t then and I can’t now, although as Sam knows I play a mean kazoo, but all I had to do was start singing some Joan Baez or Judie Collins cover and with my long black hair ironing board straight like Joan’s I had all the boy come around and I will leave it to your imaginations about the whatever I wanted part.” They all laughed although Sam’s face reddened a bit at the thought of her crowded with guys although he had not known her back then but only later in the early 1970s.
Those reference got Julia thinking back the early 1960s when she and Sam went “dutch treat” to see Dave Van Ronk at the Club Blue. (Sam and Julia were thus by definition not on a heavy date, neither had been intrigued by the other but folk music was their bond and despite persistent Julia BU dorm roommate rumors what with Sam hanging around all the time had never been lovers). She mentioned that to Sam as they waited to see if he remembered and while he thought he remembered he was not sure. He asked Julie, “Was that the night he played that haunting version of Fair and Tender Ladies with Eric Von Schmidt backing him up on the banjo?” Julie had replied yes and that she too had never forgotten that song and how the house which usually had a certain amount of chatter going on even when someone was performing had been dead silent once he started singing.
That was the night during that same intermission Dave also told her that while the folk breeze was driving things his way just then and people were hungry to hear anything that was not what he called “bubble gum” music like you heard on AM radio that had not been the case when he started out in the Village in the 1950s when he worked “sweeping out” clubs for a couple of dollars. That sweeping out was not with a broom, no way, Dave had said with that sardonic wit of his that such work was beneath the “dignity” of a professional musician but the way folk singers were used to empty the house between shows. In the “beat”1950s with Kerouac, Cassady, Ginsberg, and their comrades (Dave’s word reflecting his left-wing attachments) making everybody crazy for poetry, big be-bop poetry backed up by big be-bop jazz the coffeehouses played to that clientele and on weekends or in the summer people would be waiting in fairly long lines to get in. So what Dave (and Happy Traum and a couple of other singers that she could not remember) did was after the readings were done and people were still lingering over their expressos he would get up on the makeshift stage and begin singing some old sea chanty or some slavery day freedom song in that raspy, gravelly voice of his which would sent the customers out the door. And if they didn’t go then he was out the door. Tough times, tough times indeed.
Coffeehouses too where for the price of a cup of coffee, maybe a pastry, shared, you could wallow in the fluff of the folk minute that swept America, maybe the world, and hear the music that was the leading edge then toward that new breeze that everybody that Julie and Sam knew was bound to come what with all the things going on in the world. Black civil rights, mainly down in the police state South, nuclear disarmament, the Pill to open up sexual possibilities previously too dangerous or forbidden, and music too, not just the folk music that she had been addicted to but something coming from England paying tribute to old-time blues with a rock upbeat that was now a standard part of the folk scene ever since they “discovered” blues guys like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Bukka White, and Skip James. All the mix to turn the world upside down. All of which as well was grist to the mill for the budding folk troubadours to write songs about.
Julie made her companions laugh as they stood there starting to get a little impatient since the doors to the concert hall were supposed to open at seven and here it was almost seven fifteen (Sam had fumed, as he always did when he had to wait for anything, a relic of his Army days during the Vietnam War when everything had been “hurry up and wait”). She had mentioned that back then, back in those college days when guys like Sam did not have a lot of money, if worse came to worse and you had no money like happened one time with a guy, a budding folkie poet, Jack Dawson, she had a date with you could always go to the Hayes-Bickford in the Square (the other H-Bs in other locations around Boston were strictly “no-go” places where people actually just went to eat the steamed to death food and drink the weak-kneed coffee). As long as you were not rowdy like the whiskey drunks rambling on and on asking for cigarettes and getting testy if you did not have one for the simple reason that you did not smoke (almost everybody did then including Sam although usually not with her and definitely not in the dorm), winos who smelled like piss and vomit and not having bathed in a while, panhandlers (looking you dead in the eye defying you to not give them something, money or a cigarette but something) and hoboes (the quiet ones of that crowdwho somebody had told her were royalty in the misfit, outcast world and thus would not ask for dough or smokes) who drifted through there you could watch the scene for free. On any given night, maybe around midnight, on weekends later when the bars closed later you could hear some next best thing guy in full flannel shirt, denim jeans, maybe some kind of vest for protection against the cold but with a hungry look on his face or a gal with the de riguer long-ironed hair, some peasant blouse belying her leafy suburban roots, some boots or sandals depending on the weathers singing low some tune they wrote or reciting to their own vocal beat some poem. As Julie finished her thought some guy who looked like an usher in some foreign castle opened the concert hall doors and the four aficionados scampered in to find their seats.
…As they walked down the step of Symphony Hall having watched Pete work his banjo magic, work the string of his own Woody-inspired songs like Golden Thread and of covers from the big sky American songbook and Arlo wowed with his City of New Orleans and some of his father’s stuff (no Alice’s Restaurant that night he was saving that for Thanksgiving he said) Sam told his companions, “that fourteen dollars each for tickets was a steal for such performances, especially in that acoustically fantastic hall” and told his three friends that he would stand for coffees at the Blue Parrot over in Harvard Square if they liked. “And maybe share some pastry too.”
