The global economic crisis is delivering shock after shock to the working masses of the world. Repeated stock market collapses have become a regular occurrence, every economic measure from quantitative easing to negative interest rates designed to alleviate that crisis has failed and war has cut a swathe of misery across North Africa, the Middle East and eastern Europe. Within the EU the peripheral economies have been decimated and the core economies are flat lining as they impose severe austerity measures on the working class that are designed to restore profitability to capitalism. Ireland claims to be the exception, but this claim seems more and more doubtful.

In Greece, scores of strikes and pitched battles in the streets led to the election of the Syriza government which promised reforms but delivered nothing. Having been  carried to power on a wave of hope and, it has to be said, widespread illusions in their politics, Syriza and their right wing coalition partners, Anel, defied the outcome of the referendum on the third memorandum which produced the magnificent OXI [NO] vote and accepted a deal which was worse to the tune of €4 Billion than the original Troika deal.

Following the 'No' vote it took only 48 hours for Syriza to expose its political bankruptcy to the Greek working class and to comply with the Troika's diktats. Taxes are being increased, public utilities privatised, pensions cut and   labour agreements discarded as Syriza uses the full weight of the state against striking workers, arresting and jailing anti austerity protesters.

The Fightback

The Greek working class is far from demoralised and are fighting back. The general strike of November 12th was the first test of working class opposition to Syriza's cuts. During the general strike and subsequent stoppages workers in almost every service and industry have taken action encompassing not only the public sector where the left are strong but the private sector and layers of the lower middle class including shopkeepers and small   farmers badly affected by pension cuts in particular. The tax and pension cuts will see small farmers incomes cut by 50%! Driving this on are the merciless demands of the IMF, calling for another €7.5 b to €9.5 b in cuts to the  already decimated pension schemes.

The rising mood of resistance among the working class is now not only directed at the reactionary Syriza government but at the trade union bureaucracy which has controlled and suppressed resistance. The leadership of the main trade union confederation GSEE discredited itself with its support for the third memorandum, calling for a 'Yes' vote, (shades of Jack O’Connor’s support for coalition and the ICTU endorsement of “fresh start” in the North). The response of rank and file trade unionists has been the development of 'workers  associations' in workplaces focussed on direct action against the cuts and closures and bypassing the control of the trade union  bureaucracy.

The Left in Greece

The left platform of Syriza have split to form an  alternative project, 'Popular Unity', but they follow the same basic reformist strategy while Yanis Varoufakis tours European capitals, including a electronic address to Right2Change, launching an initiative to 'democratise Europe', exactly the same programme as Syriza on a larger scale but hoping for a different result. 

But illusions in a 'left government' administering  capitalism and achieving meaningful reforms has been dealt a blow in Greece. Not only by Syriza's attacks on the working class but also by its alignment with imperialism's allies in NATO and, in the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt and Israel.

Syriza has been deeply discredited and is shedding rank and file members as the focus of opposition to the Troika's memorandum moves slowly outside the confines of parliament. The revolutionary left are fighting to strengthen that move and to build class solidarity and   internationalism in action, defending refugees against Fascist attacks and by street mobilisations and the building of popular assemblies. Workers are occupying factories that have ceased production and as the frequency and strength of strikes and demonstrations is growing the revolutionary left are fighting for unity in action, a united front, against the Syriza government, the Troika's memorandum and, in the words of OKDE Spartakos, to; 

"clarify the transitional demands of an anti-capitalist program as the basis for the political independence of the working class."