Five years after SYRIZA’s rise: How did we arrive here?

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 who had voted for him by signing the Third Memorandum committing Greece to more austerity in order to pay back the Greek debt. After five years in office, Tsipras lost the election of July 2019 to the conservative party New Democracy. Here, Antonis Davanellos, a leader of the Internationalist Workers’ Left (DEA), an organization that had been on the left of SYRIZA in its earlier years, assesses its legacy. Translated by Panos Petrou.

After the elections of 2019, when Kyriakos Mitsotakis succeeded Alexis Tsipras in governmental power, the “new normal” was coming in as a smooth continuation of the previous government.

After 4.5 years with a party in power that insisted on calling itself “Radical Left,” capitalists in Greece felt more secure than during the panic of 2015 (when they rushed to transfer tens of billions of euros abroad). The Third Memorandum was implemented, a relative “social peace” was imposed, and neoliberal reforms were strengthened: privatizations enjoyed the support of a huge majority in parliament, the precarity of labor relations skyrocketed to record heights among the member-states of the European Union (EU), and the pension reform of [minister] Katrougalos had laid the foundations for a complete transformation of the social security system towards the notorious “3-pillar” system.

The last deal that Tsipras made with the creditors, the one that was shamelessly described as “an exit from the Memorandums,” predetermined the future course: all laws and regulations that were voted under the dictates of the Memorandums were declared as sacrosanct, with any future modification needing the agreement of the creditors as a precondition. Vicious surplus budgets became obligatory for a long period of time in the future. Economic and social policy was put under “enhanced supervision” until… 2060. Even moderate social-democrats, like N. Christodoulakis, are frustrated with this “straitjacket” and declare in public that such a course is a non-realistic dead-end, in the context of a serious international downturn in the economy.

These deeds of the Tsipras government help us understand the electoral results of 2019. Popular disappointment and the retreat of social movements formed the basis for the political-electoral victory of Mitsotakis. The same factors also explain the fact that SYRIZA maintained its electoral support at 31%, in the absence of an alternative massive pole of attraction.

These deeds also help us understand the political direction of the deep transformation of SYRIZA—as declared by Alexis Tsipras. Many commentators talk about “Pasokification” [the transformation of SYRIZA to something similar to the traditional social-democratic party PASOK]. This is not accurate. The social-democratic mutation of SYRIZA is almost complete, but it is happening at a time that social-democracy is no longer a political current which manages the hopes and illusions of the working class in a reformist way. It has become a current that converged with traditional conservative parties, mutating into “social-liberalism” both in Europe and worldwide. So, the actual “model” for Tsipras is not Andreas Papandreou [the founder and historical leader of PASOK until his death in 1996], but Emmanuel Macron.

The great political power that was amassed by the leading circle of SYRIZA around Alexis Tsipras—this fortified “party inside the party”—was not a product of its own abilities, political views and tactics (at least not mostly). Subsequent events cannot be understood if we don’t take into account the explosion of social resistance during 2010-13.

Background reading:

Turning point in Greece: Syriza, the Left, and the struggle ahead

Paul D’Amato

Reflections on Our experience with Syriza

Antonis Davanellos

Crisis, Austerity, and Class Struggle in Greece

Antonis Davanellos

The storming of the working-class and popular masses against vicious austerity demolished PASOK and delivered a serious blow to ND [New Democracy, the mainstream right-wing party]. Thus, it created a political “vacuum” in the regime. Such “vacuums” often form the basis for new “Bonapartist” phenomena in history.

The first serious defeat of the left-wing of SYRIZA—not just the Left Platform, but a wider “milieu” that eventually left the party in 2015—was its failure to guarantee collective democratic control over the decisions and actions of the party. This outcome was the result of a long period of struggle, it was accelerated after the elections of 2012 and reached its climax in the Party Congress of 2013. The emblematic points of this defeat were the “autonomy” of the “presidential guard” inside in the party, the “autonomy” of the parliamentary group from the party, the establishment of “inaccessible” mechanisms (like the “Committee for the Program” etc.) right before 2015.

In the current debates in the radical Left, it is important to recall that the complete “autonomy” of the circle around Tsipras was achieved under the flag of “a party that belongs to its members” that attacked the “mechanisms” of party-tendencies and structured party functioning. Yet again in the history of the movement, an assault to structured democratic function was not aiming for some sort of “direct-democracy” but for unchecked power.

The political project of the activity of this leading circle, during the period it established its “autonomy”, was the complete reversal of SYRIZA’s program, including the decisions of the party it supported in the Congress of 2013.

As Nikos Filis [well-known cadre of SYRIZA who remained in the party after July of 2015] used to argue before 2015, the touchstone for SYRIZA’s politics would be addressing the issue of the debt.

The political confrontations—inside SYRIZA and among all the Left— around the best position to take towards the debt are well-known. All the views that were argued back then retain their importance in the field of theory. But the crucial point—which seemed to unite SYRIZA (except for its small “right-wing” current)—was the cessation of debt payments. This choice would save the remaining available public funds and would provide a left-wing government the ability to organize a policy of class unilateralism in support of the working class. This choice would bring a left-wing government in a de facto position of war against the creditors and the Troika [IMF, ECB and European Commission]. This choice would pose clearly to the working class movement and the Left all around Europe the task to support the rupture in Greece. The importance of this last factor is usually underestimated in subsequent accounts, and I think this is an important mistake: It was proven that Schauble and Dijsselbloem understood better the threat of a “contagion” of the Greek paradigm, and that is why they chose a fully rigid strategy during the negotiations, aiming to kill the alternative from the onset.

From what is revealed in the memoirs of Yanis Varoufakis, everyone now knows something that was argued only by a small fraction in SYRIZA back at the time: That the small leading group (Varoufakis mentions Tsipras, Pappas and Dragasakis)—way before 2015—had chosen Varoufakis to serve as a battering ram to cancel the policy of the party. No collective body of SYRIZA ever approved the government’s shift to the commitment to repay all debt installments “fully and on time” (agreement of February 2015) or the de facto recognition that negotiations with the creditors are the sole field of political activity for the left-wing government. This shift was objectively accompanied by other, major reversals.

The disputes around the “immediate” program that SYRIZA promised during the electoral campaign are well-known. In the [so-called] Program of Thessaloniki, certain commitments that would improve the situation of the working and popular classes (raising the minimum wage and the pensions, restoring Collective Contracts, abolishing the tax on small property) co-existed with some “new ideas” that would allegedly secure some sort of peaceful and easy exit from the crisis, a return to growth, a “productive reconstruction” and so on. Examining this program in detail, one would see that it was perforated, full of “holes”. What provided this program with a certain political dynamic was the promise of “unilateral actions” to reverse austerity. Indeed, if a left-wing government chose (or was forced—under the pressure of party members and the social movements) to raise wages and pensions immediately, then all the “bubbles” in the program (like the Investment Bank for Development or the notorious productive “complexes” that would supposedly change Greek capitalism) would prove to be out of place and time. Unilateral actions would have, just like the cessation of payments, direct political consequences: they would make the viability of the left-wing government an issue of immediate interest for the working class and the popular classes, and they would define the relation between the government and the ruling class as one of confrontation. That is why the leading circle around Tsipras avoided this commitment at all costs. It was not easy.

I can still recall the event of a common session of the parliamentary group with the Political Secretariat of SYRIZA: It was there where Dragasakis suggested for the first time that the promise to raise the minimum wage should not be understood as an immediate commitment, but as something to be done “in the course of the 4-year term”. The room was frozen. The opposition was expressed by many members who no one would even think of describing as “far-left”. Dragasakis left the session without defending his view. And yet this was the policy that was imposed, under a series of political blackmails but also in the context of a retreat of the working-class movement from playing an active role and the strengthening of the mood of “delegation” to elections (and then to the government).

A crucial component that articulated these right-wing shifts in a coherent policy was the position on the Eurozone. The dispute inside SYRIZA around this is well-known. One part claimed that support for even a reformist political program in favor of the working class was inevitably combined with the support (and the preparation) of a rupture with the Eurozone and the EU. The majority claimed that such a program could be supported while leaving open the question of the margins available in the Eurozone-EU, to be tested in practice. The problem was somewhat solved with the algebraic formula “not a single sacrifice for the sake of the Eurozone.” It is important to recall the concrete “translation” which made this formula a majoritarian position. We could mention dozens of documents, articles or electoral-campaign speeches of Alexis Tsipras, where it was clearly stated that if SYRIZA was forced to choose between, for example, the defence of public schools and hospitals and the stability of the Eurozone, it would not hesitate to support the people’s interests. In that sense, the shift to the political direction of “remaining in the Eurozone at all costs” represented another deep political reversal of the (before-2015) political balance in SYRIZA, which was prepared in the shadows way before January of 2015.

The composition of the economic staff that “prepared” the negotiations with the creditors, picked by the leading group around Tsipras, is indicative: people who had worked in the IMF, the international banking sector, the American establishment and the European social-democracy, were delegated to “negotiate” with only one clear red line: to avoid a rupture with the Eurozone and the EU. The results of this negotiation are now known: The Third Memorandum.

As usual, the “truth” about any political direction can be seen clearly on the field of the political allies it chooses. The decision of the founding congress of SYRIZA, in 2013, was clear at this point: from the far-left to the left of social-democracy. The “left of social-democracy” was defined as consisting of those who did not share the responsibilities that came from the Memorandum and had reacted early on against the plans for vicious austerity. Sometime later, [representative of the “right-wing” tendency of SYRIZA] Yiannis Balafas (at least he was being honest and I give that to him) spoke publicly about a completely different range of allies: he excluded only “the pro-Samaras faction of the Right and Golden Dawn” [Samaras was then prime minister and leader of the right-wing faction of ND]. No one else defended in public and in time such a huge reversal of the decision of the congress, which led to addressing as potential allies a big part of the established politicians, including the pro-Karamanlis fraction of the right-wing party [a more “moderate” fraction around former Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis].

This direction was adopted by the leading group around Tsipras. As 2015 came closer, he started to talk about a government of “Social Salvation” and then a government of “National Salvation”. It was not a matter of pure terminology, it was not a product of ignorance about the difference between these terms and the goal of a left-wing government. The maneuvering that led to the governmental coalition with the Independent Greeks [a split of New Democracy] and the election of [former minister and member of the pro-Karamanlis fraction in ND] Prokopis Pavlopoulos as President of the Republic were not organized overnight.

We should not view this course as a “conspiracy” with a predetermined outcome. On the contrary, it was a political adventure, during which there were many instances that other possibilities were open, completely different political developments.

The last such instance was the Referendum. The fact that Tsipras chose or was forced to resort to it was proof of the confrontation that was raging between different forces during that time. Leaving aside the estimates that emerged after the facts, about the motives of SYRIZA’s leadership—that it believed it would lose the referendum and thus it would have the perfect alibi to regress on all its promises—it is a huge political mistake to address the Referendum as one big fraud.

The ruling class’ panic, the massive capital flight, the banking crisis and the capital controls, the hurried creation of the “YES front” and the calls to the repressive apparatus of the state to intervene if things got out of control—all these were completely true.

After many months of inaction in the streets and a prevalence of “delegating to others,” the popular will was expressed with a big majoritarian force and with a clear mandate: NO to the “compromise” of submission to the creditors, NO to the continuation of austerity.

That was the last major opportunity for the radical Left, both inside and outside SYRIZA. The weakness to coordinate politically and the failure to build an organizational network that could defend the result the day after, was crucial. Especially for the radical left forces inside SYRIZA, self-criticism should include the delay in concluding that the leadership of SYRIZA was the one that had now taken the task to do the dirty job for the sake of the stability of the regime. This realization dictated way more drastic interventions, both inside and outside the party, beyond its political and organizational margins and beyond the discipline to them. There are many and different justifications for this delay. But the result remains: a major opportunity was lost.

The failures on the left, reinforced the audacity of the “leader.”

Indeed, the 180-turn (the so-called kolotoumpa), the day after the Referendum was imposed as a coup, where a party leadership moved on its own way, ignoring even the majority of the Central Committee of the party, and making sure that it would “legitimize” its decisions a posteriori.

Aristidis Baltas [well-known intellectual of SYRIZA] in his book about SYRIZA, describes the elections of September 2015 as purgatorial. In a sense, they were: having the support of the domestic establishment (PASOK, Potami and ND voted with Alexis Tsipras on the Third Memorandum), and enjoying the support of Angela Markel (“new elections in Greece are no longer part of the problem, but part of its solution”), Tsipras was able to dedicate himself in purging his party and nailing the working masses to the position of a passive witness. The warm embrace with [ANEL leader] Panos Kamenos at the night of the election was a warning for the quality of the government that had emerged.

Αll of us who participated actively in all this course have important responsibilities. These can be measured for each of us, by taking into account what each one said in public while the developments were still unfolding.

On 13^th May of 2015, we wrote in our paper, Workers’ Left:

There were many of us who did not agree with the “easy” character of the pre-electoral discourse, which made the path to government easier but left a crucial question unanswered: Is it possible to enact a radical program against austerity inside the Eurozone and by negotiations with its institutions? Today we know the answer: NO…

For anyone who still wants to see, it is obvious that we are trapped in a downward spiral, in a negotiation where in each phase we are forced to defend our people from a lower level. Where this downhill leads is also obvious: To force the signing of a Third Memorandum…

…Cessation of payments to the usurers – Crack down on the “freedoms” of capital flight – implementation of the congress decisions about [nationalizing] the banks – taxation on the capital and the rich to fund measures against austerity – support of this policy by any means necessary, including the confrontation with the EU and the Eurozone.

Such a “rupture” would be completely normal right after 25^th of January, but should now leave open the prospects of resorting to a popular mandate. In a new national election, under the condition that these choices will be clearly presented by the government and openly supported by the party of SYRIZA.

In any case, crucial decisions that are ahead of us cannot be taken by a closed circle… The party, from the Central Committee to its local branches, must decide. The party has to resist the dark wind that rises as a menace.

With this reasoning we engaged in the political confrontation inside SYRIZA, a confrontation of crucial importance. Knowing from before—and having no doubt at all after February 2015—that its final outcome would be a rupture.

Keeping in mind the political difficulties that were present in an unprecedented political situation, knowing today the regretful final outcome, we don’t think it is productive for those who reacted, to compete among them over who reacted when and how. A big part of members and cadres of SYRIZA reacted and refused to share the responsibilities of implementing a new Memorandum of austerity. They were defeated. The price paid was heavy. A rare opportunity for major ruptures was lost. The SYRIZA experience turned from a beacon for the international radical Left to an argument in the hands of the establishment, with Rajoy and Macron using it to persuade the social majority that There Is No Alternative, that the radical Left neither wants nor can change the world.

The wave of hope that had risen during those years was defeated by the combination of two factors mostly: on the one hand, the retreat of workers’ struggles from the scene, after the amazing climax of 2010-15. On the other hand, the defeat of the left-wing inside the party of SYRIZA, against the coalition of forces who under the banner of “remaining in the Eurozone at all costs”, signed and implemented neoliberal policies of austerity.

A big part of the Left interprets the defeat by moving to a generalization which is mistaken in my opinion: that the slogan for a left-wing government was a mistake.

The question of governmental power was posed by the workers and popular struggles during the period of their climax. It had to be answered, in real terms, which are defined by the strengths and weaknesses of the existing working-class movement. The answer of a true workers power, a revolution like the one of October 1917, was not on the agenda—not because someone excluded it, but because despite the climax of the crisis and the confrontation, Greece never reached a condition of “dual power”—there were no forms of independent organization of workers and their allies similar to the Soviets.

The Third International, in the times of Lenin, during the 3^rd and 4^th Congresses, had warned us about the possibility of this “paradox”. It has also given us a foundation to build on the appropriate answers: Transitional Policy – Transitional Program – United Front – Workers Government or Left-wing Government.

Daniel Bensaid, elaborating on the contemporary context in which the international Left finds itself after the collapse of the USSR in 1989, defines 3 criteria which “in various combinations allow or impose as a necessity the support of or participation in a left-wing government in a transitional perspective”. These are:

A context of crisis, or—at the very least—an important growth of social mobilization.
(A political alliance that can support) a government which commits itself to the prospect of a dynamic rupture with the status quo.
A balance of forces that allows the revolutionaries to guarantee that either the reformists will uphold their commitments or they will pay a heavy price for their retreat.

In my opinion, it is clear that the first two criteria described by Bensaid were absolutely present in the Greek crisis of 2010-2015. The complexities, the reasons for defeat and the main self-criticism for the radical Left are mostly related to the third one.

The questions are not around whether we should engage in a radical change in government, but around how we should engage and especially how many more of us, earlier and more dynamically, should confront those who were determined to “go halfway.”