In the party elections for the succession of Alexis Tsipras as party leader, Stefanos Kaselakis prevailed, winning 56 percent. He is a new “star” who hasn’t even been a party member and who neither has nor claims any connection to the organized political Left whatsoever, either with its history or with its prospects.
The June 25 elections in Greece confirmed, but also reinforced, the harsh negative features of the results of the “first round” of the May 21 election. In the new parliament, the sum of the right and the far-right parties reached 200 seats (out of a total of 300), thus creating a correlation of parliamentary forces that is unprecedented in the years following the overthrow of the military dictatorship in 1974.
The actual class balance of forces, the political balance of forces and the electoral balance of forces are different quantities and qualities to measure. They are interrelated and they influence each other, but they are not identical.
The social pillar that supported this political achievement of the Right was the mobilization of the ruling class and the affluent upper-middle classes, with their potential to pull along with them a certain broader audience.
The emergence of mass mobilizations, during the “delicate” time of a pre-election period, is a rare phenomenon in Greek political history. And it seems like this will continue to be the case: Left-wing unionists are already pressuring for a new 24-hour general strike before the Easter holiday.
This collision is inconceivable, given the technology at our disposal in the 21stCentury. Yet all systems of tele-command, and even the signal lights, were out of function. This is not a question of some general technological backwardness of the Greek State.
Ahmed was a sensational political orator, a great propagandist of revolutionary Marxist ideas. As an editor of his organization’s journal, he made International Socialist Review a “center” for Marxist debates with and international reach.
On the roots of this situation lies the social question, the explosive growth of social inequalities as a result of Mitsotakis’ ultra-neoliberal economic and social policies. Austerity in Greece is devastating, pushing the actual income of working-class households below 50% of the corresponding average for member-states of the Eurozone.
It is obvious that the November 9th strike could probably constitute the beginning of a progression in the coming period of workers’ struggle. The crucial question is therefore where do we go from here?
Facing a rough winter, the crucial question is whether the working-class movement and the youth will find the strength for their own independent massive intervention from bellow.
It is a political “moment” where everyone—both the ones above and the ones from below—understands that the status quo is not sustainable, and they must prepare for drastic changes.
The account of this disastrous August, when temperatures and drought reached record-high levels even for a warm and dry country like Greece, is literally tragic…
The coming months in Greece will be far from smooth. The labor law, the privatization of social security, the repression in universities, will come up against resistance. This is where the future of Mitsotakis and the course of future developments will be determined.
A destructive Greco-Turkish war in the Eastern Mediterranean is not the most probable outcome of the competitions in the region, but it is a scenario whose prospects have been raised recently. In the waters south of the Greek island complex of Dodekanisos, south of the island of Crete and around […]
In January 2015, SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) won the Greek general election and its leader, Alex Tsipras, became president on an anti-austerity platform. Almost immediately, and to the alarm of many left organizations in SYRIZA, Tsipras began backtracking, betraying all the hopes placed upon him by the millions […]
