Concerning the New Memorandum and the Elections of 20 September

The 3rd Memorandum signed by the SYRIZA government marks the complete political bankruptcy of the left regime and the chimerical aspirations for a more “humane” capitalism. After taking office last January, this marks the collapse of the attempted Syriza management of the defeat of the popular social movements from the period 2010-2012. For those who had no illusions, this whole period until the adoption of the 3rd Memorandum represents simply a waiting period for the predicted backtracking, where the campaign promises to repeal or renegotiate the Memorandum and partial cancelling of the debt along with a parallel policy for the relief of the poor was first followed by the agreement of February 20 which extended the second memorandum, and then came (despite the disapproval of 62% of the voters in the referendum of July 5 rejecting the proposals of lenders) the third memorandum which is much worse than the measures rejected in the referendum.

Within a few months, Syriza crossed over its “red lines” in complete retreat and acceptance of the creditors’ demands, towards the acceptance of a Memorandum far more brutal than that which was voted by the previous Samaras government.

“First time left” [note: πρώτε φορά αριστερά- a popular Syriza slogan claiming that they were for the first time a left government in Greece’s history, as if they were somehow different from PASOK] and the total humiliation of the will of the social majority to get rid of Memorandum policies that make them serfs of the markets is unprecedented.

“First time left” and there was a quicker and more resounding denial and betrayal of expectations than all prior governments in political memory.

“First time left” and the Troika, now called “the institutions”, became officially quadripartite, since besides the EU, the ECB and the IMF who are the real masters of the country, now we also have the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) from which the SYRIZA government requested new loan agreements and signed the third memorandum.

“First time left” and the robbery against the people and the poor continues to further reduce wages and pensions, to increase the retirement age, for more savage taxation, and further accepting the privatization of public property. The left regime appropriately continues the politics of societal genocide launched in 2010 by the Papandreou government [the left of PASOK] with the first memorandum and which continued with the Samaras government signing the second memorandum.

The names of Tsipras, Varoufakis, Dragasaki, Skourletis, Pappas, Voutsis, Lafazanis, are added to the list of criminal policians such as Papandreou and Venizelos, Papaconstantinou, Loverdos, Chrisochoïdis, Samara, Mitsotakis, Vroutsi, Georgiadis and others who acted as puppets for the international economic elite.

With the passage of the third memorandum, SYRIZA signed in reality their political bankruptcy and condemnation, because in order to pass the new agreement with the lenders, support was based more on the votes of the opposition pro-European parties ND, Potami, PASOK, which led to the Syriza split which forced them to early elections on 20 September. These developments demonstrate the disgrace of bourgeois parliamentarism and that the political system is more destabilized than ever.

The social majority, the hungry, the poor, the destitute, the unemployed, the homeless, workers and youth have nothing to hope for from these elections as well. As I said before referring to the previous elections of January 2015, the solution is not given by elections, but by the people in arms.

No one has anything to hope from the criminals of political parties, the useful idiots and puppets of the international economic elites and the European Union, the implementers of the memorandum policies. No one has anything to hope from the new “anti-memorandum saviors” that emerged from the breakup of SYRIZA, Popular Unity, the former Left Platform of SYRIZA, supporters of adopting a national currency who present themselves as consistently anti-memorandum.

Popular Unity (LAE) is itself insolvent and unreliable, just as insolvent and unreliable as was Syriza well before taking power- when it appeared with anti-memorandum rhetoric and an unrealistic social-democratic and Keynesian program. These developments of the new “left Memorandum” have justified our prediction as Revolutionary Struggle concerning the transformation of SYRIZA into a neoliberal party, which we made long before they came into power. With almost all the political parties discredited, with PASOK and ANEL not far from inexistence as parties, with SYRIZA bankrupt within seven months and becoming a purely neoliberal party, with ND shrinking because of the second memorandum, with LAE not persuading anyone by adopting the old unworkable social-democrat program of SYRIZA, with a large part of society turning its back on the political system by abstaining from electoral illusions, and without any chance of a majority government, the country is in a status of permanent political instability, which those who want a revolutionary overthrow should exploit.

The bankruptcy of SYRIZA dispelled illusions about solving social problems due to the crisis within the existing system, because saving the system requires the enslavement and destruction of large sections of the population.

The country is a powder keg and needs only a spark or a detonator to blow up capital and the state.

The fact that the 3rd left Memorandum passed amid general social apathy, with only a few people coming to the streets on 15 and 22 July for clashes, is the result of the deadlock of the major social and popular movements of the period of the First Memorandum from 2010-2012 , a deadlock due to the lack of perspective and proposals for the revolutionary overthrow of capital and the state and the lack of an organized political-military force that will attempt to undertake the overthrow, that is to say, a revolutionary movement. But this situation should not disappoint us.

Revolutionaries have never acted by waiting for the masses to rise up spontaneously or get mobilized; rather they made their way by first giving the example of antagonistic action and taking advantage of turmoil at the base of society. There have never been more favorable objective conditions for action, for struggles, for revolution, because of the devaluation and instability of the regime; and there were never worse subjective conditions, apathy, deadlock, and resignation, due to a lack of perspective and hope.

Our duty is to act in order to change the unfavorable conditions, to inspire hope and strength to revolt and overthrow. This action consists in destabilizing and undermining an already unstable system, the sabotage of the ruling policies for the implementation of memoranda and rescue programs, the sabotage of the policy that aims for investments of multinational capital in the country by privatizations and sell-offs of public property, the sabotage of the ongoing social theft and societal genocide.

The adoption of dynamic forms of action, guerrilla war and armed struggle, is a necessary choice for the sabotage of the ruling policies. Bombings or armed action on a massive scale, against offices, facilities, structures or entities of government and of local and international capital could destabilize even more the regime to deter investment and halt the selling off of public property, in making the country unsafe for investors.

Our struggles, besides the adoption of the guerrilla and armed struggle, connect with other forms of action- such as the violent protests of this July 15, with squats or relief actions of the socially weak and vulnerable, these may have social and popular acceptance and so be footholds on the path to revolutionary overthrow. But the overthrow of the capitalist state can only be guaranteed by the recourse to arms, the armed seizure of enemy strongholds, parliament, ministries, banks, the Bank of Greece and the disarming of the police stations.

At a time when all illusions dissolve, armed social revolution is the only way forward, the only way to save ourselves from societal genocide imposed by the international economic elites and the state…

To avoid counting other dead from suicides, diseases, shortages of basic goods.

To prevent children fainting from hunger and malnutrition.
To abolish social classes and the state.
To socialize collective wealth.
To live with dignity and to take our life in our hands.

Let us not delude ourselves that all this can be done without having goals or proposals, or by being unable to popularize our proposals and confined to a sterile insurrectionism or having alternative illusions concerning peripheral self-managed “islands of freedom” and ventures that will surround the state and make the market economy disappear.

Let us not delude ourselves that all this can be done without risking our lives for freedom …For as history has shown, the tree of liberty grows only with blood.

NO ELECTORAL ILLUSIONS
ARMED SOCIAL REVOLUTION

N. Maziotis,

Member of Revolutionary Struggle,

Korydallos Prison

(via The Barbarian Times)