Is the Sanders campaign a ‘new movement’?

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Senator Bernie Sanders continues to draw large crowds to his presidental campaign rallies. Now, un­ fortunately, a growing wing of the socialist movement in the United States is seeking a way in.

On July 29, Solidarity published a winding state­ ment approved by its convention entitled, “Connect­ ing Sanders’ Audience’s Aspirations to Clear Working Class Political Alternatives.” It seems to be an effort to support the enthusiasm for Sanders without support­ ing the candidate himself—or the Democratic Party, whose nomination he seeks.

The paper suggests there is a movement separate from Sanders that can be continued if and when he loses the nomination and throws his support to Hillary Clinton. It calls on Sanders supporters to not “waste this moment where folks are coming together around an anti-corporate, anti-austerity program by ... voting for Hillary and calling it a day. ...The tragedy would not be so much people pulling the lever for Clinton, but dissipating and disbanding this mass outcry.”

Dan La Botz, a leading member of Solidarity (who won 25,000 votes as a Socialist Party candidate in 2010), posted a far more explicit piece on July 30 en­ titled, “Sanders for President: a Political Phenomenon that Challenges all Preconceptions.”

He concludes that Sanders’ campaign may “contrib­ ute to the launching of a new period of social move­ ments and upheavals with a higher level of political consciousness” and that he will “work with the Sand­ ers campaign in the primary period, hoping—like oth­ er Sanders supporters—that out of this experience we can build a new, stronger, left in America.”

Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant, who was elected as a socialist to the Seattle city council two years ago, took a further leap into the Sanders camp with an announcement that she would conduct an Aug. 8 joint rally with Sanders. She called for support­ ers to attend, wearing 15 Now t-shirts. Sawant soli­ darized with Sanders as an “alternative to corporate politics,” and concluded, “let’s greet Bernie Sanders with a sea of red supporters. Let’s show him how strong the socialist movement is in Seattle!”

The assumptions that some tendencies in the social­ ist movement have made to justify their support must be examined. In the first place, there is nothing new about Sanders’ rallies that “challenges all preconcep­ tions.” Obama’s first presidential run was able to build many mass gatherings, with 10,000 to 20,000 par­ ticipants at most primary rallies and far more in the general election—75,000 in Oregon and more than 100,000 in Missouri.

The excitement for the former community orga­ nizer was qualitatively greater than that for the al­ leged “socialist” today. Obama’s campaign was pep­ pered with movement flavor, right down to iconic posters and “yes, we can” slogans. The campaign (we were then told) depended upon small donations, and Obama made a few promises to his supporters to pass reforms like universal health care, a ban on torture, and a closure of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Organizations like Progressives for Obama said this was a “movement,” and “one greater than the candi­ date himself ever imagined,” which would “renew our economy with a populist emphasis” and “confront the challenge of global warming.”

However, the rallies for Obama did not spawn a new ... Police ‘justice’

(continued from page 3: “Cops dish out racially defined ‘justice’”) of these incidents are recorded. Not so. Police violence usually occurs when only the police and their victims are witnesses. The fact is not lost on even the newest patrolman).

So, police expect to get away with their crimes, and they have every reason for that assurance. For instance, Florida’s Broward County, the largest in the state, has seen 168 deaths from police shootings since 1980, with no charges ever filed against any officer. Is it co­ incidence, then, that in the last 15 years the number of deaths in the county from police shootings has tripled?

The freedom-to-fire granted to cops in Broward County is not exceptional. According to a lengthy investigation published on May 31 in The Washington Post, “So far, just three of the 385 fatal shootings [in 2015] have resulted in an officer being charged with a crime—less than one percent.” In these three cases where charges were filed, and only in these cases, “videos emerged showing the officers shooting a suspect during or after a foot chase.”

Further, and more importantly, The Post reports that “of thousands of fatal police shootings over the past decade, only 54 had produced criminal charges.” In the movement, but rather ushered in one of the lowest periods of working-class and left activity in American history. How could it have been otherwise? Support for candidate Obama naturally became support for President Obama, and with him the capitalist state that he heads. Historic rallies for the candidate pro­ duced historic support for imperialism.

In exactly the same way, Sanders’ mass rallies are not rallies for socialism, but rallies for the capitalist state. As in any election, the primary question does not turn on a handful of promised reforms, but on the advance­ ment of the rule by one class or another—either the workers or their bosses. The question, then, is not which class supports a given party, but which class the party supports. Decades of working-class votes, for in­ stance, have failed to change the class basis of either the Democrats or the Republicans.

As James P. Cannon, the main founder of the Ameri­ can Trotskyist movement, observed in regard to the 1948 third-party campaign of Henry Wallace, “the class character of [a] party is determined first by its program; secondly by its actual policy in practice; and thirdly by its composition and control.”

There is nothing in Sanders’ program that threatens the rule of business. As Sanders himself observes, ev­ ery proposal of his fits neatly within the experience of imperialist states. They could be taken up by any number of other capitalist politicians.

Sanders’ practice will be fully explored in a future Socialist Action article. Suffice it to say here that with his voting record and his commentary, Sanders has thoroughly proven his loyalty to the Democratic Party and big business over 35 years in office. No serious political person disputes this.

In his career, he has graduated from small-time deals in waterfront developments to big-ticket items like F-35 jet manufacturing. When Sanders wants to know what he should do next he goes to the heads of Lock­ heed Martin and the Democratic Party, not to union locals.

Conservative George F. Will notes that any defini­ tion of “socialist” that includes Sanders would have to encompass most of the Republican Party. Meanwhile, other cases, internal department investigations or state prosecutors found that police officers were justified when they killed.

Of course, it should be recalled that the initial police inquiry into the death of Eric Garner in New York con­ tained no mention of a chokehold. Without video evi­ dence, police use of deadly force would have been con­ sidered legitimate and necessary.

Recently in Cleveland a white police officer who, from the hood of a car, had fired 49 shots into the front wind­ shield, was acquitted of manslaughter following the deaths of the car’s occupants, two unarmed Black men. Since 13 officers fired 137 rounds at the car, it could not be determined that the officer on trial had fired the fa­ tal bullets. Further, the defense lawyers argued that this policeman was in fear for his life, the circumstance that legally allows the police to use deadly force.

The harsh, brutal, and sometimes fatal measures of the police flow directly from their social function. The role of the police and the courts is to protect a national state founded on class division, permanent inequality, and racial discrimination. Their role in protecting the state gives them a special status and the belief that “the police are above the law.” They are the billy club of the state.

In this sacred duty local police are joined by the Na­ tional Guard and other branches of the military, by fed­ Eric Gay / AP Sanders caucuses with the Democrats, attends their policy lunches, and owes them his committee seats. Howard Dean says that Sanders is a liberal Democrat who votes with the party “98% of the time.” Clinton instructs her canvassers to tell voters that Sanders is a “Good Democrat” and that her votes were identical to his 93% of the time they were both in the Senate.

Managing a capitalist state means organizing society under the leadership of the capitalist class. It requires the cooperation of investors and the political parties who represent them. This has been Sanders’ job for the last 35 years.

Sanders’ call for a “political revolution against the billionaires,” which Socialist Alternative has mistak­ enly trumpeted, is completely hollow. Sanders’ plat­ form and campaign rhetoric are closely restricted to issues and proposals that lie within the parameters established by the Democratic Party. It is impossible to build any effective “anti-billionaire” tendency with­ in the Democratic Party—Sanders’ speeches notwith­ standing—since the party operates expressly to fur­ ther the interests of big capital.

Undoubtedly, many working people join Sanders’ campaign activities in hopes of building a movement against the big corporations. But they soon find they have no mechanism or leverage with which to alter or affect the Democratic Party’s pro-corporate politics.

Moreover, to support Sanders means to defend what he says and does—especially against growing move­ ments that demand more than he offers. Supporters must defend his attacks on immigrants, his opposition to anti-racist politics, his support for imperialism and for Israel. They must defend his politics because they cannot offer recruits any way to change them. A per­ son either buys the whole campaign or doesn’t par­ ticipate.

Joining his campaign doesn’t change the politics of Sanders and the Democrats—it changes yours!

The forces that will create a “new period of social movements and upheavals” must come from outside the Democratic Party—Sanders included. And we can hear them already. They’re saying, “15 Now!” and “Black Lives Matter!” n eral police agencies, and the security apparatus that taps the phones, stores the e-mails, and spies on Ameri­ can citizens.

The police are no more neutral or fair-minded than the government they ultimately serve or the laws they enforce. As attorney William M. Kunstler has observed, the law “is, in fundamental essence, nothing more than a method of control created by a socioeconomic sys­ tem determined, at all costs, to perpetuate itself, by all and any means necessary, for as long as possible” (“The Emerging Police State,” Ocean Press, pp. 38-39).

Kunstler goes on to say that in the United States, “We steadfastly deny, or refuse to acknowledge, that the criminal justice system, insofar as blacks and other minority members are concerned, is merely a device to keep them at bay” (p. 41). What Kunstler wrote two decades ago is no less true today. It only remains to be added: To change the behavior of the police, change the nature of their role in society. Change the nature of the state.

Meanwhile, police violence against Black people will continue. A people excluded from the mainstream of so­ ciety can only be held in check by force, including prison. Here is yet another sign, if any more are needed, that America’s “post-racial” society has yet to fully acknowl­ edge the crime that is racial injustice. n SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2015 5

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Greece 2015 Lessons of a tragic defeat T times of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides he classic definition of Greek tragedy from the 2500 years ago applies with a vengeance today. The Greek working masses have suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of Europe’s imperial economic and politi­ cal powers—tragically, with the full complicity of the reformist, that is, pro-capitalist, Syriza party (Coali­ tion of the Radical Left).

Tragedy in the theater is defined as an unfolding drama in which the main player is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow especially as a consequence of an innate flaw or inability to cope with unfavorable cir­ cumstances.

Today, without doubt, the “unfavorable circumstanc­ es,” an understatement if there ever was one, lies with the Syriza government’s “negotiating partners”—the brutal, bullying, and crisis-ridden European capitalist elite embodied in the “Troika” (the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the Internation­ al Monetary Fund). This is the same Troika that has reduced Europe’s weaker and debt-ridden capitalist states—Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece, among others—to subordinate status, rendering them increasingly incapable of effectively competing on the globalized world markets that are dominated by the most technologically, financially, and militarily advanced imperialist powers.

All the hype about European unity, the sanctity of the euro, “following the rules” of the European Cen­ tral Bank, and fiscal responsibility pales before the fact that European capitalist unity inevitably takes a back seat to the incessant and inherent drive to maxi­ mize the profits of big capital, represented in the most powerful European states. Were it otherwise, were the smaller and weaker nations treated as equal and harmonious partners in a humanistic endeavor in which the interests of peoples were prioritized above all others, the present European and world crisis would instantly disappear.

Pipe dreams aside, no self-respecting capitalist sees it this way. The cardinal rule of the corporate game is to destroy your opponent to maximize your own profits. Drive the lesser competitors out of the mar­ ketplace! Monopoly! “Dog eat dog!”

At best the European “dis-union” was conceived as a necessary or potential bloc to counter the weight of U.S. imperialist economic hegemony, to at least par­ tially combine the economic and natural resources of Europe to withstand the U.S. onslaught from without. But this never happened. It was doomed to failure at the outset as the conflicts between the ruling-class elites of all European states inevitably drove them to 6 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2015 prioritize their own interests.

The grand scheme of European unity stands in ruins as all agree that the weaker, less competitive states have been driven to near bankruptcy and massive in­ debtedness at the expense of the stronger. The capi­ talist playing field will never be made level. EU tops threaten Greece with shut down Greece today, as with all capitalist states, is ruled by an elite ruling class that long ago established the fundamental rules that govern social relations. Its highly profitable shipbuilding industry and related merchant-marine manufacturing stands second or third in the world. Yet these industries are virtually untaxed by the state. The same situation exists with virtually all major Greek private capitalist corpora­ tions and financial institutions.

In significant aspects, Greece is an underdeveloped nation; it stands among the poorest of the European capitalist states. Its technological infrastructure, ag­ riculture, and therefore its industrial capacity are in­ ferior to that of most European countries. It is thus subjected to unequal terms of trade, including prices for agricultural and other commodities it produces. Its capacity to obtain credit to renovate or modern­ ize its largely obsolete manufacturing infrastructure is extremely limited.

Like most poor nations, Greece’s imposed underde­ velopment renders it nearly incapable of competing with the more advanced capitalist nations. As with most of the rest of the world, it is subordinate to the dictates of the great world powers. A world capital­ ism in crisis requires victims, not equals—and cer­ tainly not vibrant competitors who threaten to or are capable of undermining imperialist hegemony.

The smashing of the Syriza “experiment” was a con­ scious decision—a message to all oppressed people of Europe and beyond that “leftist” rhetoric and the elec­ tion of “leftist” governments of the reformist variety cannot and will not alter the relationship of forces in favor of the oppressed masses.

Greece, as with all nations on earth, including the United States, where capitalist rule requires ceaseless attacks on every aspect of working-class life, has no solutions within the unequal parameters of the capi­ talist order.

With Greece tottering ever closer to the economic brink, and following Syriza’s January 2015 election victory, the Troika’s top European players, Germany and France, engaged Syriza’s leading “Marxist” econo­ mist professors and political leaders in six months of futile “negotiations.” Europe’s smug elite team, head­ ed by Germany’s Wolfgang Schauble and backed to the hilt by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, offered Alkis Konstantidis / Reuters (Left) Greek Prime Minister Tsipras at a late-night parliament session.

not a single revision of their third and most devastating “bailout” package—a series of proposals that would further reduce Greece to an occupied or vassal state of European capital.

Syriza’s chief negotiator and finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, stated fol­ lowing the early July breakdown of ne­ gotiations, and without exaggeration, that during his six-month stint in Brus­ sels and in talks across Europe, not a single counterproposal to his numerous revisions was ever made by the Troika! “Take it or leave it” was the top Euro­ pean banksters’ first, last, and only of­ fer—and if you leave it, we will immedi­ ately stop all credit flows to Greek banks and effectively shut them down, leaving essentially bankrupt Greece with no means to conduct the business of run­ ning the state!

Indeed, that is precisely what the Troika did almost immediately—17 hours after the resounding 61.3 percent “no” vote in the July 5 snap referendum called by Greek Prime Minister and Syriza leader, Alex Tsipras.

At the time, Greek banks were on the verge of collapse. There was not enough cash in their ATMs to sustain the mea­ ger withdrawals by pensioners and the unemployed. Factories were quickly exhausting their last stocks of raw materials, and preparing to cut work shifts. There was a risk that the country would run out of food stocks by the end of the month.

A portrait of Syriza Here we are compelled to frankly evaluate the other side of the Greek equation, the tragic side—the fun­ damentally flawed political perspectives of Syriza. We begin and end with the proposition that the capi­ talist system in its fundamentals cannot be reformed, a proposition that is rejected by the reformist Syriza-led government.

The almost unprecedented and ever intensify­ ing catastrophic conditions of life that confront the world’s working classes today—massive and Great Depression era austerity, poverty, starvation, endless wars, impending life-threatening global warming, racism, sexism, homophobia, slave labor and sex traf­ ficking, scapegoating Islamophobia, and racist attacks on immigrants—are inherent in the operations of the capitalist system of plunder and profit.

These are not accidental policy decisions made by right-wing governments (“left-wing” reformist gov­ ernments do the same), but rather brutally imposed and “necessary” measures to guarantee the exploi­ tation, oppression, and subordination of the world’s people to the dictates of the crisis-ridden capitalist world order.

While revolutionaries fight for any improvement or positive reform in the quality of life of working people, we have absolutely no illusion that temporary gains achieved in the course of struggle—and these are increasingly few and far between—can be main­ tained for long if the capitalist system as a whole re­ mains intact. Advocacy and the struggle for socialist revolution—the abolition of capitalism based on the organization and engagement of the vast working class majority—is the prerequisite requirement to ending the horrors of capitalist minority rule and ush­ ering in a new world order, in which the fulfillment of human needs, full equality and the elevation of all to the highest and richest standards of education, health, and culture are realistic and attainable goals and ob­ jectives.

The greatest contradiction of our times is that be­ tween our present technological capacity to achieve all of the above and the rule of the tiny but power­ ful minority elite that stands in our way. With this is mind, we offer the following evaluation of the decisive events that have transpired in Greece since the Janu­ (continued on page 7)

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(continued from page 6) ary election that allowed Syriza to form a government:

• Syriza is a reformist party, not a revolu­ tionary party. It is largely an electoral coali­ tion of various radical and reformist socialist groups, many with lofty aims but lacking the perspective of organizing the Greek work­ ing class for a challenge to capitalist rule and a struggle for state power. Most of the components of Syriza are made up of former members and/or leaders from the Eurocom­ munist tradition, a reformist current that “broke” with many of the “official” policies of the long Stalinized and counter-revolu­ tionary Communist Party of the Soviet Union but never with its overall anti-socialist and reformist politics.

Both Eurocommunists and the more or­ thodox variety of Stalinists inside the USSR routinely supported participation in elector­ al coalitions around the world with openly capitalist parties and, when these coalitions were “successful,” participated in coalition capitalist governments—taking ministerial posts and otherwise aiding in the adminis­ tration of the capitalist states.

All rejected the independent organization of the working class in a struggle for social­ ism. All, without exception, in both the ad­ vanced and underdeveloped counties, sub­ ordinated the organization of the working class for socialism to coalitions and agree­ ments with local and international capitalist powers at the expense of the interests of the working class.

John Pilger’s harsh but accurate Syriza description is noteworthy (“The Problem of Greece Is Not Only a Tragedy. It Is a Lie,” Global Research, July 13, 2015): “The day after the January 2015 election a truly democratic and, yes, radical government would have stopped every euro leaving the country, repudiated the ‘illegal and odious’ debt – as Argentina did suc­ cessfully—and expedited a plan to leave the crippling Eurozone. But there was no plan. There was only a willingness to be ‘at the table’ seeking ‘better terms.’”

Pilger continues: “The true nature of Syriza has been seldom examined and explained. To the foreign media it is no more than ‘leftist’ or ‘far left’ or ‘hardline’—the usual misleading spray. Some of Syriza’s international supporters have reached, at times, levels of cheer­ leading reminiscent of the rise of Barack Obama. Few have asked: Who are these ‘radicals’? What do they believe in?

“The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind—but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamen­ tary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose au­ thentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany’s finance minister, an imperial thug. Like the Labour Party in Britain and its equivalents among those for­ mer social democratic parties still describing them­ selves as ‘liberal’ or even ‘left,’ Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, ‘schooled in postmodernism,’ as Alex Lantier wrote.”

• For revolutionary socialists, participation in capi­ talist elections is a sometimes useful educational tac­ tic, but it is always subordinate to the ongoing orga­ nization of workers to challenge capitalism itself. For reformists, like the various social democratic parties and former Stalinist/Communist parties around the world, and Syriza in Greece, elections are a strategic orientation aimed at winning government posts to administer the capitalist state.

Today, in an era of capitalist crisis, such administra­ tion necessitates imposing the massive austerity mea­ sures that capitalism requires for its continued func­ tioning. Thus, every social democratic and/or social reformist government on earth today has become the willing and often preferred tool of capital, including the “left” capitalist governments of Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

• Syriza, elected on a pledge to refrain from all future austerity measures and to seek reversal of those im­ plemented by the previous government, won the Jan­ uary 2015 Greek election with 36 percent of the vote and 149 of the 300 seats in the Greek parliament— one vote short of a formal majority to form a gov­ ernment on its own. To achieve this constitutionally required majority, it formed a coalition government with ANEL (Independent Greeks) an openly rightwing nationalist, anti-immigrant capitalist party. This, in and of itself, amounted to an ironclad pledge that Greek capitalism’s essential prerogatives would not be challenged! As part of the deal, the Syriza leader­ ship granted ANEL ministerial posts to help adminis­ ter the new government, including the post of head of the Greek armed forces.

• Syriza’s new parliamentary majority voted to designate former Minister of the Interior and Public Order Prokopis Pavloupoulos as president of Greece. Pavloupoulos is a current Central Committee mem­ ber of New Democracy, Greece’s main capitalist par­ ty and the party in power prior to the January 2015 elections. Pavloupoulos’s election to the Greek presi­ dency, a largely ceremonial post, was nonetheless a conscious statement to Greek’s creditors that Syriza’s objective was a negotiated debt settlement as op­ posed to a challenge to Greek’s creditors and capital­ ist institutions at home and in Europe.

Prime Minister Tsipras said that Pavoupoulos has “a proven democratic sensitivity, a high feeling of na­ tional conscience, and ... enjoys broad approval in so­ ciety and parliament.” These are kind words indeed for a leader of Greek capitalism and a proponent of austerity and privatizations. Syriza further sought to insure its credibility as a reliable capitalist govern­ ment administrator by including in various govern­ ment positions members of the discredited and for­ mer governing capitalist PASOK party.

• In the year or so prior to the Jan. 15 election, the Greek masses engaged in an unprecedented number of strikes, including 33 one-day or two-day general strikes against the New Democracy and PASOK gov­ ernments’ implementation of sweeping austerity measures. Following Syriza’s Jan. 15 election victory, however, the number of such strikes against capitalist austerity dropped to zero!

• Syriza prioritized six months of negotiations with European capital over the mobilization of the Greek masses to challenge capitalism at home, a mistake of epic proportions. Syriza pledged to pay the debts in­ curred by the previous government and to carry out the austerity measures imposed by them while simul­ taneously seeking modest debt relief with possible measures such as lower interest rates, extended pay­ ment deadlines, or a partial debt “haircut.” That is, it asked for a measure of forgiveness of some of the debt on the basis that it was in fact nearly impossible to collect and that it was incurred by a corrupt govern­ ment that had been repudiated.

But Syriza, while agreeing at the bargaining table to not reverse the previous government’s two previous negotiated austerity packages, sought funds to “reor­ ganize” Greek capitalism to make it more competitive on world markets through investments in more ef­ ficient technology and privatization of governmentowned “inefficient” industries and other measures in the framework of maintaining Greek capitalism.

In short, Syriza’s entire negotiating strategy was to pay the $300 billion debt, continue the present aus­ terity, and perhaps moderate the terms of payment in return for an additional $96 billion in new loans to avert an impending bankruptcy. About $50 billion of (Above) Banners of the anti-capitalist coalition ANTARSYA at an Athens protest rally.

this new loan is set aside to pay off creditors immedi­ ately—in one door and out another!

Varoufakis’ blunt admissions Yanis Varoufakis’ negotiating counterparts, as he forthrightly stated in several widely published in­ terviews following his July departure/removal as Greek’s chief negotiator, did not believe for a second that Greece’s third bailout in the past five years would be anything other than an across the board heinous assault on the Greek people. His removal signaled nothing less than a Syriza/Tsipras decision to make this absolutely clear to the Troika.

There was an element of reality in the Troika’s po­ sition. Europe’s top negotiators knew full well that, Syriza’s posturing sound and fury rhetoric aside, Tsip­ ras had sent its negotiating team, hat in hand, with only a hope and prayer that the conditions of a third bailout might be slightly less onerous. Indeed, Varou­ fakis himself later admitted that he was personally granted permission to establish a secret six-person team to prepare a “Plan B” when it became clear that the Troika’s insistence that Greece pay its $300 billion debt in full, with interest, and via the imposition of even more draconian austerity measures than the two previous bailouts was the only option.

Here is Varoufakis’s blunt assessment of this matter based on an interview with Martin Hart-Landsberg, Professor of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Ore.:

“HL: You must have been thinking about a Grexit (Greek exit from the Eurozone) from day one....

YV: Yes, absolutely.”

“HL: ... have preparations been made?

YV: The answer is yes and no. We had a small group, a ‘war cabinet’ within the ministry, of about five peo­ ple that were doing this: so we worked out in theory, on paper, everything that had to be done [to prepare in the event of a Grexit]. But it’s one thing to do that at the level of 4-5 people, it’s quite another to prepare the country for it. To prepare the country an executive decision had to be taken, and that decision was never taken.”

“HL: And in the past week, was that a decision you felt you were leaning towards [preparing for Grexit]?

YV: My view was, we should be very careful not to activate it. I didn’t want this to become a self-fulfill­ ing prophecy. I didn’t want this to be like Nietzsche’s famous dictum that if you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss will stare back at you. But I also believed that at the moment the Eurogroup shut our banks down, we should energize this process.

“HL: Right. So there were two options as far as I can see—an immediate Grexit, or printing IOUs and tak­ ing back control of the Bank of Greece [potentially but not necessarily precipitating a Grexit]?

YV: Sure, sure. I never believed we should go straight to a new currency. My view was—and I put this to the government—that if they dared shut our banks down, which I considered to be an aggressive move of in­ credible potency, we should respond aggressively but without crossing the point of no return.

We should issue our own IOUs, or even at least an­ (continued on page 8)

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(continued from page 7) nounce that we’re going to issue our own euro-denom­ inated liquidity; we should haircut the Greek 2012 bonds that the ECB held, or announce we were going to do it; and we should take control of the Bank of Greece. This was the triptych, the three things, which I thought we should respond with if the ECB shut down our banks. … I was warning the Cabinet this was going to hap­ pen [the ECB shut our banks] for a month, in order to drag us into a humiliating agreement. When it hap­ pened—and many of my colleagues couldn’t believe it happened—my recommendation for responding ‘en­ ergetically,’ let’s say, was voted down.”

“HL: And how close was it to happening?

YV: Well let me say that out of six people we were in a minority of two. … Once it didn’t happen I got my orders to close down the banks consensually with the ECB and the Bank of Greece, which I was against, but I did because I’m a team player, I believe in collective responsibility.

“And then the referendum happened, and the refer­ endum gave us an amazing boost, one that would have justified this type of energetic response [i.e., Varoufa­ kis’s plan] against the ECB, but then that very night the government decided that the will of the people, this resounding ‘no,’ should not be what energized the energetic approach [his plan].

“Instead it should lead to major concessions to the other side: the meeting of the [European] council of political leaders, with our Prime Minister accepting the premise that whatever happens, whatever the oth­ er side does, we will never respond in any way that chal­ lenges them. And essentially that means folding. … You cease to negotiate.” [Emphasis added in italics — J.M.] “The referendum of 5 July,” said Varoufakis, “has also been rapidly forgotten—preemptively dismissed by the Eurozone, and many people saw it as a farce—a sideshow that offered a false choice and created false hope, and was only going to ruin Tsipras when he lat­ er [almost immediately] signed the deal he was cam­ paigning against. As Schäuble supposedly said, ‘elec­ tions cannot be allowed to change anything.’”

Wolfgang Schauble made a critical point here, one that goes to the heart of the Greek crisis. From his vantage point as the Eurozone’s top-gun negotiator, armed with the full powers of European finance capi­ tal, the January 2015 election that brought Syriza/ ANEL to government and the July 5 referendum that rejected his take it or leave it final and crippling bail­ out proposal meant absolutely nothing. Schauble and all the other Eurozone nations had full confidence that Greek’s coalition capitalist government had no alternative but to accept another austerity package— elections, referendum results, and political bluster notwithstanding.

The terms of the deal The first two Greek bailouts negotiated by the pre­ vious rightwing PASOK/New Democracy government brought Greece to its knees, reducing the standard of living by some 25 percent, raising unemployment levels to Great Depression levels exceeding 26 per­ cent—60 percent for Greek youth—privatizing major Greek industries, and slashing pensions and social services. The third and most recent bailout, this time negotiated by Tsipras on behalf of his “left” coalition capitalist Syriza government and approved by the Greek parliament in mid-July, is far worse!

The New York Times pointed out in a July 14 article: “In signing on to the deal, however reluctantly, Mr. Tsipras suddenly found himself the champion of poli­ 8 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2015 cies he was elected to oppose and the best hope for de-escalating a crisis he had helped to create. Should he succeed on carrying out the policies set out in the agreement, he would oversee just the kind of marketbased changes that creditors have been demanding and successive Greek governments have been failing to deliver for years.”

The July 13 British Guardian’s summary of the new agreement is devastating. Here’s my own shortened version: Tsipras, some 17 hours after the July 5 “no” vote, rushed to Brussels for an all-night session with the 18 representatives of the Eurozone nations and approved a seven-page agreement that included the establishment of a $55 billion Greek fund that is to be used to privatize Greek assets—that is, to sell them to corporate interests at bargain basement prices. Greek planes, airports, ports, vital infrastructure and com­ munication industries and banks are slated for the chopping block.

The new measures include a 50 percent increase in the cost of pensioner health care (almost 40 percent of pensioners live in poverty) and an extension of the age of pensioner eligibility to 67. New and increased sales and value added taxes up to 23 percent as well as restrictions on collective bargaining rights, auto­ matic or triggered social spending cuts when Greece’s future budgets fail to reach new required surplus cri­ teria, continued IMF monitoring—if not control—of Greek finances, and a host of other measures aimed at humiliating Greeks in favor of capitalist profits were all approved at Syriza’s insistence.

The seven-page agreement mandated that 13 billion euros be cut from the public purse—4 billion euros more than the “austerity” figure rejected overwhelm­ ingly on July 5 by the majority of the Greek population a week earlier. And if one believed that the agreement could not be even more deadly, it affirmed that “the Euro Summit stresses that nominal haircuts on the debt cannot be undertaken.” On this last point alone Varoufakis had previously noted, “If the specifics of debt relief are not written clearly into the overall package, it is not worth anything.”

Indeed, not only was debt relief/forgiveness in any amount not included, it was explicitly excluded. This rejection even irked the U.S.-dominated IMF, whose top echelons knew full well, and stated so in inten­ tionally leaked internal communications, that without a significant debt forgiveness as well as a prolonged, perhaps 30-year, extension of the maturity dates along with interest rate reductions, Greece would be absolutely incapable of anything resembling a recov­ ery. Greece would once again rapidly fall into bank­ ruptcy—as it now will—but not before the new aus­ terity measures take their pound of flesh and line the pockets of the creditor rich while further undermin­ ing the standard of living of the Greek people.

Schauble understood this well. He crudely and publi­ cally suggested an alternative—that Greece withdraw from the Eurozone for at least five years and seek re­ lief from other non-troika financial institutions. Pour­ ing into Greece the amount of debt relief that the IMF recommended as the minimum to avoid yet another and close to immediate bankruptcy and bailout—30 percent of Greece’s GDP—would, in his view, be the equivalent of throwing good money after bad.

For Schauble, and for essentially the entire Eurozone group, a “voluntary” Greek exit—in reality throwing Greece out of the Eurozone for non-payment of its debts—would be their first preference. In the end it was only political considerations that altered their approach. These centered on their fear that throwing Greece out of the Eurozone might well trigger a politi­ cal firestorm among the masses of the other European debtor nations that would threaten the present capi­ talist order. While forcing Greece out was put on hold, no one denies today that the third “bailout” will fail to resolve anything other than to postpone the day of reckoning to perhaps a year or so down the line. Why did Tsipras ignore the referendum results?

Tsipras began his government’s abject capitulation just hours after the massive “no” vote was announced. As a gesture of “good faith” and to assure Greece’s creditors that his government had ceased its high talk about challenging austerity he presented and won the approval of several initial and devastating measures insisted on by the troika.

A week or so before the referendum, when negotia­ tions had effectively ended, Tsipras had defiantly re­ ported: “They asked the Greek government to accept a proposal that accumulates a new unsustainable bur­ den on the Greek people and undermines the recov­ ery of the Greek economy and society, a proposal that not only perpetuates the state of uncertainty but ac­ centuates social inequalities even more.” Yet Tsipras now demanded its acceptance.

To date there has been but one plausible explanation put forward for this near instant Syriza reversal— Tsipras fully expected the referendum to produce a “yes” vote! Varoufakis’ lengthy interview strongly implies that this was the case. Tsipras, he implies, planned to use a “yes” vote to immediately go to the parliament to ask for approval of the “people’s will,” and thus provide justification for acceptance of the ruthless measures required by the Troika. Neverthe­ less, a stunned Tsipras went to the same parliament, throwing the “no” vote into the dustbin and demand­ ing acceptance.

On July 6, again, one day after the massive “no” vote, he secured a near unanimous vote of approval from Syriza’s parliamentary delegation, including its Left Platform. This vote, with only two Left Platform min­ isters in opposition—a pre-planned token opposition vote of the two—was secured based on the fear that if the Syriza/ANEL government failed to secure a ma­ jority of its own members of parliament, Greek law might require the holding of elections for a new gov­ ernment.

In addition to the almost unanimous Syriza/ANEL vote—minus the Nazis Golden Dawn “no” votes and those of the opportunistic and sectarian Greek Com­ munist Party (KKE), which in years past did its own stint in Greek coalition capitalist governments—the traditional Greek capitalist parties, New Democracy and PASOK, voted their approval. Varoufakis did not attend the meeting but sent a note indicating his vote in support of Tsipris’s proposal!

A week or so later, when the full Eurozone/Tsipris seven-page agreement came before the Greek parlia­ ment, some 32 MPs of the Left Platform and other leftist tendencies voted “no.” But the agreement was overwhelming approved by the parliament, with some 80 percent of the Syriza representatives voting in favor and joined by the traditional Greek capital­ ist parties. As we have noted, the terms of Tsipras’s negotiated agreement are harsher by a full order of magnitude than those rejected by Greek voters the previous week!

The lessons of the Greek experience in the “rule” of mis-named “broad parties of the anti-capitalist left,” with Syriza being today’s touted model by those who reject the formation of revolutionary socialist par­ ties of the Leninist type, is glaring and tragic. The spectacle of “leftists” in “power,” including “Marxist” professors, ex-Stalinists, social democrats, and even some who describe themselves as Trotskyists taking responsibility for and imposing massive austerity measures on the working class must be a warning to serious revolutionaries.

Syriza’s Left Platform’s alternative Grexit proposal was summarized on the Greek Reporter’s on-line news site as follows: “An exit from the Eurozone would generate further benefits, namely, the restoration of financial liquidity, a sustainable growth program based on private investment, the rebuilding of the internal economy to reduce dependence on imports, an increase in exports, independence from the Euro­ pean Central Bank, its policies and restrictions and finally the utilization of unused resources to create rapid growth so as to protect against the first difficult months following the Grexit.”

We must note, however, that this “technical” pro­ posal never once deviated from solutions based on Greece’s remaining in the world capitalist orbit via the promotion of a more profitable and efficient capi­ talist economy in Greece.

Syriza, and all its component currents, essentially subordinated organizing the Greek masses to defend and advance their interests to technical solutions and/or futile negotiations with Greek’s capitalist predators and their international troika superiors. This undeniably demobilized the working class! It fos­ tered illusions that socialists could administer capi­ (continued on page 9)

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... Whose Lives Matter?

(continued from page 12: “Whose lives matter?”) “Seven years ago, in the gauzy afterglow of a stirring election night in Chicago, commentators dared ask whether the United States had finally begun to heal its divisions over race and atone for the original sin of slavery by electing its first black president. It has not. Not even close.

“A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week reveals that nearly six in 10 Americans, includ­ ing heavy majorities of both whites and blacks, think race relations are generally bad, and that nearly four in 10 think the situation is getting worse. By compari­ son, two-thirds of Americans surveyed shortly after President Obama took office said they believed that race relations were generally good.

“The swings in attitude have been particularly strik­ ing among African-Americans. During Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, nearly 60 percent of blacks said race relations were generally bad, but that number was cut in half shortly after he won. It has now soared to 68 percent, the highest level of discontent among blacks during the Obama years and close to the numbers re­ corded in the aftermath of the riots that followed the 1992 acquittal of Los Angeles police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King.”

The once optimistic commentators referred to in The Times included virtually all participants in Net­ roots Nation. The Nation held a symposium speculat­ ing on what President Obama might accomplish in his First Hundred Days—an historical reference to FDR’s taking office during the Great Depression, warmed over by Bill Fletcher Jr. in the Black Commentator.

Joe Dinkin is right to be wary of a non-nuanced ... Greek defeat (continued from page 8) talist states without challenging capitalist power and capitalist rule itself.

Capitalist rule is based on the forced imposition of the will and interests of society’s tiny property own­ ing elite on the vast majority. It is based on the de­ ployment of the combined institutions of the capital­ ist state to enforce this minority rule, from capital­ ism’s legislative bodies, courts, police and army to all other government dominated institutions. All exist solely to defend the interests of the capitalist state power, its wealth and unimpeded right to exploit and oppress its working class victims.

A revolutionary course of action Some Greek revolutionaries did seek to alter the present relationship of forces between labor and capital. Revolutionary parties, small as they were— including the Greek Fourth International section, OKDE-Spartakos (Organization of Communist Inter­ nationalists of Greece)—looked to the organizations of the working masses and oppressed to exercise their power in the streets. They encouraged and helped to lead united-front mass actions that challenged capi­ talist austerity in all its manifestations.

They acted to defend the rights of immigrants against the fascist Golden Dawn attacks. They aimed at the organization of working-class communities and neighborhood groups to fight for their own in­ terests. In the electoral arena and in united-front mo­ bilizations, they participated in the relatively small but important ANTARSYA (Anti-capitalist Left Coop­ eration for the Overthrow) to pose a mass-struggle alternative to Syriza’s reformism.

They worked to foster the education and active en­ gagement of the Greek masses and warned that there are no reformist—that is, capitalist—solutions to the massive austerity imposed on by Greek and interna­ tional capital. Immediately following Syriza’s vote to approve the third “bailout,” they helped to build a general strike and mass rally of 15,000 in Athens’ Syntagma Square, which was brutally attacked by the government’s police, including the frame-up arrest of OKDE-Spartakos members and other revolutionary activists who challenged the Syriza sellout.

For revolutionary socialists, politics is the art of or­ ganizing, uniting, and mobilizing the working class for the seizure of power when the conditions have been properly prepared.

Revolutionaries operate on the irrefutable premise that no ruling class in history has ever voluntarily ced­ ed power to the vast majority of the working masses, who produce all the world’s wealth. When faced with a serious challenge to their rule, the capitalist elite resort to every means necessary to sustain it. Their tactics range from electoral guile (for example, run­ “economics and class trump all,” but that formulation is spot on concerning the first Black person nurtured by the ruling class to become president. The only problem is that the economic policies of the current administration are not in the interest of our class— and especially not the doubly oppressed Black sector of the working class.

The 100,000 jobs eliminated at the peak of the Great Recession by the bankruptcy/bailout restructur­ ing of General Motors and Chrysler, imposed by the White House, impacted African Americans hardest of all. The attacks on public education through the Race to the Top enriched testing and textbook companies as well as charter schools while hitting Black com­ munities with massive school closings and attacks on teacher seniority and pensions.

Pro-privatization policies have also axed tens of thousands of good jobs largely held by African Ameri­ cans at the U.S. Postal Service. The disparity in Black/ white unemployment and wage rates remains firmly entrenched—helping to make racism profitable for the employers of wage labor.

But there was still little criticism of the president at Netroots, and most unions and civil rights organi­ zations swallowed their tongues long ago. Even the “socialist” in their midst avoids denunciation of the reactionary character of the administration winding down its second term.

Ruling-class strategists appear to favor a “bump” from a first woman president taking the launch codes from the first Black. The real first choice for the Ne­ troots Nation would be Senator Elizabeth Warren— who has firmly declined the offer. Hillary Clinton—a loyal and highly visible part of the Establishment for as long as any Millennial can remember—is a tougher sell. Netroots hopes Bernie can at least force her to ning radical-sounding politicians for office), re­ strictive election laws, and stealing elections via their control of the ballot box to outright repres­ sion including mass arrests, imprisonment, and murder. And finally, when all else fails to stem an impending mass uprising that directly threatens their rule, they can resort to outright dictator­ ships of the fascist type, with rule by force and violent repression.

Revolutionaries certainly do not advocate isolated groups running wild in the streets de­ manding “socialism now!” Nor do we believe that socialism can triumph in a single country without its being accompanied by a social trans­ formation worldwide—especially including the most advanced industrialized countries.

But on the other hand, revolutionaries do not advocate passivity until the “world revolution” comes. In 1917, V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky won their Bolshevik Party to the task of organizing Russian workers, peasants, and oppressed na­ tionalities in order to prepare for the seizure of power to end capitalist rule. They saw back­ ward Russia, in the context of a worldwide rise in revolutionary struggles and the devastation brought on by World War I as a critical moment where their revolution—their example—might in­ spire workers everywhere to follow suit.

Indeed, they prioritized and helped foster the for­ mation of disciplined revolutionary socialist parties of the Leninist type everywhere in the world. They saw their revolution as only the first blow against the capitalist world order. And they also understood that the alternative to the organization of the working class for the seizure of power was the continued rule of capital, including Russia’s continued participation in a monstrous war, the starvation of the Russian masses, and the continued oppression of Russia’s co­ lonially oppressed nationalities.

In Greece today, the central question before seri­ ous revolutionaries is not the immediate seizure of power but the prerequisite steps that are indispen­ sible for achieving it. This begins, in Greece and in all nations, with the construction of a consciously con­ structed revolutionary socialist party of the Leninist type—a deeply-rooted mass revolutionary party that aims to unite all of society’s millions and billions of oppressed and exploited people, the vast majority, into an unbeatable force—the only force capable of defeating the repressive capitalist state power in all its manifestations.

That this process takes time is indisputable. Pa­ tience, fortitude, conviction, and confidence in the working class are the indispensible qualities of seri­ ous revolutionaries. There is no other way. Socialist revolution requires the organization of the working masses to rule in their own name, in their own inter­ ests, and through their own institutions.

Had Syriza spent its first six months governing trim “left.” She has in fact already out bid the “social­ ist” by promising to put solar panels on every Ameri­ can home within 10 years of taking office.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson ran an issue campaign for the Democrat nomination in 1988. It resembled in some respects the Bernie Sanders effort, with one impor­ tant exception—Rev. Jackson played a leading role in mass movements while the “socialist’s” resume is mostly based on winning elections in Vermont. When the Rev. Jackson gave his concession speech at the convention that nominated Dukakis, he reminded the delegates that the party needs “two wings to fly.”

Though it was not his intention—perhaps not even his understanding—this famous quote explains why American politics revolves around sentiment, rheto­ ric, and personalities masking the underlying divi­ sions of class and color. It’s what enables a tiny ruling class to run government without any effective oppo­ sition.

Those who do not yet understand this are not en­ titled to lead us. If you’re not part of the solution— you’re part of the problem.

I’m confident that, whatever organizational forms may evolve, the struggle for Black Lives Matter will continue. So will the Fight for Fifteen by low-wage workers who, at least in urban areas, are overwhelm­ ingly Black and Latino. We are seeing the early stages of a mass movement around climate change. These are battles that deserve the support of all workers.

It seems inevitable that in the course of these game-changing struggles will come recognition that our side needs a party of our own to challenge a po­ litical monopoly that benefits from racism, sexism, economic exploitation—and has put us in danger of wrecking our biosphere. Then—and only then—will working people have a stake in the elections. n Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis made telling criticisms of Syriza’s negotiation process, but voted for the austerity package anyway.

Greece looking to the working-class masses as its source of strength and power, the result might well have been inspirational to the workers of the rest of the oppressed European states and beyond.

But instead of mobilizing its millions to challenge capitalist rule, to take over the major industries, to tax and/or expropriate the rich, to national the banks and major corporations, all under the control of the working masses, Syriza and its sycophants (blind and obedient followers) envisioned social change as a product of clever negotiations with the capital­ ist elite, employing leading intellectuals to press for modest reforms within the framework of capitalism. Greece’s working-class masses were shunted to the sidelines by the Syriza/ANEL government.

Many of the “left” argued that this was the only pos­ sible choice, that the time was not ripe for revolution, or that the Greek workers were not ready to fight back. Some added that Tsipras and Syriza negotiators were exhausted from their yeoman efforts and should be praised for their work. They fought the good fight against unbeatable odds!

But nothing could be further from the truth. Reform­ ing capitalism as opposed to the perspective of abol­ ishing it, formation of multi-class electoral alliances to administer the capitalist state, and a rejection of revolutionary party building in favor of vaguely de­ fined “broad” reformist parties constitute Syriza’s “tragic flaws.” Now this dead-end strategy has once again ended in defeat.

Those who absorb these fundamental lessons of independent working-class politics will be best pre­ pared to help lead the coming struggles for a socialist future. n

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(continued from page 1: “Greek gov’t kneels to capitalist piracy”) barricades for protests in front of the Greek parlia­ ment—only to have them replaced by police clubs and teargas. An international campaign for their release has been mounted.

The Greek debt of $330 billion (300 billion euros) is currently 174% of the country’s Gross National Product (GNP), up from 134% GDP in 2010. The Eu­ ropean Union (EU) lenders have refused a “haircut,” meaning the kind of debt reduction that is offered to some countries by big lenders for mostly strategic po­ litical reasons, such as the recent write-off of a 13.5 to 18 billion euro loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the CIA-backed Ukrainian regime.

The major financial institutions that are strangling Greece, nicknamed the Troika, are the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the European Commission (EC). On July 20, a 7 billion euro EU bridge loan and an emergency bank credit got the bank doors reopened in Greece. Banks had been closed since June 29, ex­ cept for ATMS, where customers were limited to with­ drawals of 60 euros per day. Capital controls on large withdrawals are still in place.

Clearly, the EU’s hard line is meant to punish Greek workers for daring to defy capitalist diktat by electing an ostensibly “leftist” government. Since Syriza (Co­ alition of the Radical Left) took power in January with 36% of the votes, Greece’s corrupt elite have removed hundreds of millions, if not billions, of euros from the country and deposited their booty in foreign Europe­ an banks, depriving Greece of taxable wealth.

Greece’s debt crisis is only one of several scenarios of the worldwide debt and economic crisis, one that includes Puerto Rico, a colony of U.S. imperialism. Many nations are still reeling from the capitalist cri­ sis of 2007-8 and drowning in debt to international banks, particularly the U.S.-dominated World Bank and its austerity enforcement arm, the International Monetary Fund. In Europe alone unemployment re­ mains high: The youth jobless rate is still 42% in Italy and 49% in Spain despite mass emigration.

The fate of the proposal is now in the hands of Ger­ many, the acknowledged financial and political leader of the 28-member EU. Germany’s parliament should vote on the proposal within the next month, agreeing thus far only to discuss terms. The remaining EU par­ liaments must also vote on it. The draconian austerity guidelines of the bailout are to be monitored by the IMF, whose trickle-down, starvation policies have left hundreds of millions in poverty and misery.

Fifty billion euros of the Greek loan is to be used for bank recapitalization, i.e., private profit, 25% toward internal investment—mostly capitalist profit—and 25% to pay debt, mostly to bankers. Greece needs $7.7 billion currently and over $5 billion in August alone. Already implemented are cuts to pensions and added taxes on items, such as food.

Further austerity measures will wreck an already imploding economy. Unemployment in Greece is 26%, U.S. Great Depression levels; for youth, 60%. Some 800,000 haven’t been paid in weeks or months. Pen­ sions have been slashed in half, and wages and jobs have been massively cut since the capitalist crisis began and austerity measures imposed in 2010. The Greek economy has shrunk by 25% since that year. The suicide rate is up 35% since the crisis began.

10 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2015 During the early 2000s, the U.S. investment bank of Goldman Sachs played an important role in help­ ing to unleash the Greek crisis, masking Greece’s true debt while raking in 600 million euros in profit from a shady $2.8 billion deal with the corrupt Greek gov­ ernment. The managing director and vice president of the European branch of Goldman Sachs in 2010 was Mario Draghi, previously head of the Bank of Italy and involved in the privatization of public utilities there. In 2011, Draghi was made the head of the Europe­ an Central Bank and today negotiates directly with Greece over the debt.

Syriza: What went wrong The proposal passed in the Greek parliament on July 15 with 229 “yes” votes to 64 “no’s”; 123 members of Syriza or its right-wing governmental partner ANEL supported the bailout. Thirty-two “no” votes came from Syriza MPs, most of whom are in Syriza’s “Left Platform,” while seven other Syriza MPs abstained or were absent. The Left Platform makes up about 30% of Syriza’s Central Committee. Former Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, a leader of the Left Plat­ form, said that the memorandum was “incompatible with Syriza’s program” and added that the EU had “acted like cold-blooded blackmailers and economic assassins.”

The “leftist” Syriza was elected on a promise to re­ fuse the austerity that came with loans accepted by the former PASOK (social-democrats) and centerright governments. Most of Syriza’s major “red lines” that it pledged to workers that it would not cross were swept aside to maintain the euro-banksters’ choke hold on Greece.

Also swept aside were the June 17 findings of a Syriza-sponsored “Debt Truth Committee,” which had concluded that Greece’s debt to the banks was “illegal, illegitimate, and odious.” The committee had gone on to state that “Greece has been and still is the victim of an attack premeditated and organized by the Inter­ national Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. This violent, illegal, and immoral mission aimed exclusively at shifting private debt onto the public sector.”

Since the July 15 parliament vote, some 10 Syriza top government officials who did not back Tsipras have been removed and replaced with mostly conservative MPs. Energy Minister Lafazanis was dismissed from his post, but even so, the “leftist” pledged his support to the Syriza government. There is talk of another election in the autumn.

At a Syriza Central Committee meeting on July 31, the Tsipras leadership was able to defeat motions by the Left Platform to convene a Syriza congress in or­ der to discuss the Aug. 20 payment of 3.2 billion euros in interest on bonds held by the European Bank. The decision will leave Tsipras free to negotiate the Aug. 20 terms with the Troika.

This was not the first Syriza betrayal. The vote for Syriza in January 2015 was a major rebuke to capi­ talist rulers—the first electoral revolt in some years by the working class of a so-called advanced capitalist country. Syriza’s slogan was “no sacrifice for the euro,” but just a month after forming the government the SYRIZA leadership betrayed its supporters by broker­ ing a four-month bailout extension with the Troika— much as the previous capitalist government did when it negotiated a two-month extension.

Syriza Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras himself called the recent deal “a bad agreement.” Even the IMF re­ ferred to the Greek debt under the proposed deal as “unsustainable.” Nevertheless, Greek President Pro­ (Left) Protest against austerity takes place outside parliament building in Athens in February 2015. kopis Pavlopoulos, in an April interview in Spiegel Online, pledged to pay off the banks, saying, “We will pay back our debts to the last euro.” Pavlopoulos is a member of the conservative New Democracy party and was elected president by the Greek parliament in February with Syriza’s votes.

Syriza began in 2004 as a fusion party of reform­ ist ex-Stalinist “Euro-Communists,” like Tsipras, from the Greek Communist Party (KKE) but also included independent leftists, Trotskyists, Maoists, and later, Greek Occupy activists. Its leading lights, like Tsipras, are middle-class intellectuals, many of them centered in universities. The organized working class within Syriza is small, around 10% to 15%, according to es­ timates earlier this year. Despite a vote of 2,250,000 votes in the January election, only 35,000 voters were Syriza members at that time, a sure sign that it is a movement based on elections, not on mass struggles in the streets and in the factories (see the March 2015 Socialist Action newspaper).

Earlier Syriza platforms, such as the 2014 Thessa­ lonki Program, called for radical reforms such as na­ tionalizing the banks (the Greek government already holds most of the major banks’ shares), public ser­ vices, railroads, and airports, and saying “no” to the Troika memorandums on jobs and wages. It promised democratic, not top-down, decisions. However, since Syriza took office, there have been few meetings of its decision-making Central Committee; the leadership turned its back on its previous platform, ruling by de­ cree and photo-ops.

Electoral strategy and trying to outfox the Troika at negotiations drove Syriza strategy—not mass mobi­ lizations, strikes, occupations, let alone nationaliza­ tions. A July 13 radio interview with former Syriza Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis illustrates in stark­ est terms the middle-class mindset of the party’s be­ trayers. Varoufakis related the details of his personal meeting with Tspiris, as giant crowds surrounded the parliament in celebration of the “no” vote: “I sensed immediately a sense of resignation, a negatively charged atmosphere. I was confronted with an air of defeat, which was completely at odds with what was happening outside.

“At that point I had to put it to the prime minister, ”If you want to use the buzz of democracy outside the gates of this building you can count on me. If, on the other hand, if you feel you cannot handle the big in­ terest in ‘no’ to the rather irrational proposition from our European partners then I am going to simply steal into the night.

“I could see that Tsipris didn’t seem to have a posi­ tive attitude, didn’t have what it took sentimentally, emotionally to carry the ‘no’ vote to Europe, to use it as a weapon.”

Modern capitalism is adept at co-opting forces that have the attention and loyalty of the working class in order to corrupt, mislead, and derail any serious fight­ back against deteriorating conditions. At these times, reformists masquerading as “socialists” have shown themselves to be reliable allies of the super-rich and In that role, the non-revolutionary Syriza fits the bill. Syriza has organized few, if any, mass mobilizations against the 1%. Instead, it has focused attention on the negotiating table, not even employing the essen­ tial union tactic of supplementing talks with a display of labor’s power in the streets or in the shops. Without it, the struggle is thus reduced to a few elite members on both sides of the table. And when that happens, the ruling class always wins.

Syriza’s services to imperialism Syriza also renders services to international imperi­ alism. In June 2013, The New York Times published an op-ed: “Only SYRIZA Can Save Greece.” The piece was co-authored by future Finance Minister Varoufakis, who wrote that if Syriza took office, “Syriza doesn’t in­ tend to leave NATO or close American military bases.” The ever-expanding U.S.-led NATO forces are poised squarely at Russia, elevating the war danger.

A further example was Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias’ recent tour of Israel. Kotzias stated in a joint press conference with Israeli Premier Benjamin Ne­ tanyahu, “We must learn to love Israel.” Kotzias even claimed that Israel is part of a “line of stability in this area,” despite the atrocious bombing of Gaza last year, resulting in 2200 deaths, mostly civilians. Hypocriti­ cally, the Syriza 2012 platform calls for the “abolition of military cooperation with Israel.”

Since the introduction of the Syriza-proposed mem­ orandum, there is the growing danger that the fas­ cists of the Golden Dawn party, who won 6.3% of the votes in the January election, can steal the mantle as the opponents of the Troika. On Greek TV, a Golden Dawn parliamentarian ripped-up the memorandum.

(continued on page 11, in “Hands off the CBC!”)

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By BARRY WEISLEDER Over 90 per cent of Canadians back the concept, according to a recent An­ gus Reid Institute poll. Canada is the only country with a universal healthcare system that doesn’t also cover the cost of prescription medicine.

High prices force many people to avoid filling prescriptions; even more skip doses or split pills to try to make medicine last longer. In this way, thou­ sands risk aggravated illness and need­ less suffering.

It needn’t be this way. A study re­ leased in mid-July titled “Pharmacare 2020—The Future of Drug Coverage in Canada” makes a strong case for a national pharmacare programme. Not only would it ensure that everyone would have access to drugs they need; it would save billions of dollars.

Other countries achieve lower drug costs by purchasing medicine through a single, national buyer of pharmaceuti­ cals. In New Zealand, a year’s supply of the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor, costs $15; in Canada it is at least $811 annually.

Canada funds drugs through an ar­ ray of private plans and disconnected governmental systems that force many people to pay out of pocket. Many Cana­ dians aren’t covered by workplace drug insurance plans, and those who are of­ ten face extra charges such as deduct­ ibles and co-payments. This is totally unacceptable. website: http://socialistaction.ca For the New Democratic Party, which gave birth to medicare, this should be a no-brainer. So, what’s the hold up, federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair? Why isn’t pharmacare a top plank in the cur­ rent NDP federal election campaign?

Sure, there would be start-up costs. But these could be covered by the tax reforms also needed to fund a $15/day national child-care plan, and to provide for the housing, transportation, and education needs of the working class. Road test this slogan: For Housing and Pharmacare, Not Pipelines and War­ fare! This idea is clearly expressed in the 4 Ps petition of the NDP Socialist Caucus, which is attracting greater in­ terest as the federal election campaign gathers momentum. Visit www.ndpso­ cialists.ca to learn more about it.

And why stop there?

Should medicine continue to be a gold mine for giant, private profiteers? Or should the industry be taken into public ownership under democratic workers’ and community control? Putting those billions in assets to work for the com­ mon good would go far—beyond boost­ ing public medicare. n

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Syriza prioritized six months of negotiations with European capital above the mobilization of the Greek masses.

SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2015 7 ... The Greek defeat

SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 2015 9 ... Greece