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| Dimitris Koutsoumbas and Theo Russell |
Last
month Greek communist leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas, the General Secretary of the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE), came to London for a number of events,
including a visit to the Marx Memorial Library and Marx’s tomb at Highgate
Cemetery. During his stay he talked to the New Worker’s Theo Russell about
the current situation in Greece.
Theo Russell: What are the main problems that working
people in Greece face?
Dimitris
Koutsoumbas:
The Greek economy was at the centre of the international capitalist crisis for
a decade, from 2009, when the first memorandum was signed, until 2019 when
these programmes formally ended. The capitalist economy in Greece is currently
entering into a phase of weak recovery but there are ominous forecasts for the
economy worldwide in the near future.
Capitalist development requires and
demands attacks on the rights of workers and the people by targeting wages and
pensions, imposing job losses and deterioration of working conditions
(especially for young people), and maintaining a pool of unemployed people. At
the same time, trade union rights are under severe attack. The most recent
examples are the efforts to restrain the right to strike and force the unions to
succumb to the control of the government and employers.
Finally, we have to note our great concern
over the continuous and prolonged questioning of the sovereign rights of Greece
by the Turkish bourgeois class through the unacceptable maritime agreement with
Libya for the establishment of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ). We are very
concerned over the increasing involvement of our country in imperialist war
plans of the USA, NATO and European Union, to which all the people in our
region (including Greek people) must be alert as antagonisms intensify in the
Aegean Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East.
Has the Greek economy recovered from the crisis of
2009–2010?
According
to figures and indexes, the Greek economy has recovered to some extent.
Nevertheless, living standards, rights and incomes that were lost during the
years of the crisis have not been recovered. Of course, any recovery of the
economy is uncertain and unsafe due to the conditions prevailing in the European
and global economy as well as the deceleration of strong economies, which might
bring forward and expedite an upcoming new crisis.
None of the rights that were stripped by
the governments have been recovered. On the contrary, the anti-people policies
are still in force and the flexible labour relations intensify. This barbaric
reality for the workers and the popular strata cannot be hidden behind benefits
for the extreme poverty given by governments – either the previous only-by-name
left-wing government of SYRIZA or the current right-wing government of New
Democracy (ND). These benefits aim only to hide the cause that creates and
augments poverty along with the fact that the product of any economic growth
will be at the hands of capitalists.
It is proven that in the vicious
‘crisis-recovery’ circle of the capitalist economy the only victims are the
workers, so the aim of the struggle must be to break this circle through the
fight for a development path where the needs of the people will be at the
centre, for socialism.
How is the Greek economy affected by the migration of
young people?
It
is a fact that during the recent years due to the capitalist crisis, the
immigration of young scientists, students and workers to other countries,
including Britain, increased dramatically. This deprives Greek society of the
workers, including the scientific workforce, that could contribute positively.
It also worsens the demographic problem in Greece as the population is ageing.
At the same time, though, Greece becomes a
host country of other migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and
Asia. They arrive in our country and they stay trapped because of the
reactionary EU policies. It has been established that economic crises, wars and
labour being a ‘commodity’ in capitalism are the causes of immigration and
refugees. The working class and people’s movements must aim at the elimination
of these causes.
How did SYRIZA survive the treachery of the 2015
referendum?
It
is worth reminding that the so-called ‘settlement’ or ‘treachery’ perpetrated
by SYRIZA was foreseen and rather anticipated. SYRIZA, even when it was only a
small opportunist party, always supported Capital’s strategic priorities and
strived to present them as ‘left’. People’s disillusionment of the SYRIZA-Independent
Greeks (ANEL) coalition government’s administration did not therefore, come as
a consequence of some sins committed by some leading cadres of SYRIZA.
SYRIZA never ‘lost its way’ or proved
‘inadequate’. Its true identity was just revealed: a force willing to be a
life-jacket for the bourgeois system as its two basic pillars, ND and PASOK,
could not form a stable government to manage the crisis to the benefit of
Capital. It actually took this step, contributing substantially to the plans of
US–NATO imperialism in the area.
Even the referendum organised by SYRIZA
was set with a trap question. It actually asked people to choose the
memorandum. It eventually joined the group of political forces that supported
“Yes” as its MPs voted a third memorandum together with the rest of the
bourgeois parties.
This course of SYRIZA, from false hopes to
denial, caused a great deal of damage to people’s consciousness. It led
left-wing, progressive people who believed in its misleading slogans, to the
biggest disappointment, fatalism, resignation. It contributed to greater
conservatism inside Greek society, which was also reflected in the election
victory of the right-wing party New Democracy last summer. This has always
been, after all, the role of social democracy. KKE has highlighted this danger
since 2012, when a stream of illusions erupted that SYRIZA would deliver
pro-people solutions within the context of EU and capitalist barbarism.
The conclusion that emerges from all this
is that the struggles of workers and the people, which break out on the ground
of the aggravated problems that the system generates, should target bourgeois
governments, international alliances of the Capital, the capitalist economy and
the bourgeois state. These struggles should not be trapped in the supposedly
‘humanitarian’ or ‘pro-people’ management of the system, which has never
occurred anywhere.
Does the extreme right-wing threat remain eminent
after the collapse of Golden Dawn?
The
threat of fascism and extreme right-wing will exist for as long as the
capitalist system exists; for as long as the big business interests and parts
of the capitalist state support and feed organisations such as Golden Dawn, in
their attempt to absorb popular discontent; for as long as bourgeois parties that
play games with fascism exist. For example, it’s far from coincidence the fact
that at the ongoing Golden Dawn trial the prosecutor’s proposal is very lenient
despite the fact that plenty of evidence came to light proving that Golden Dawn
is a neo-Nazi, criminal organisation.
The Central Committee of KKE in its
statement after the latest national elections when Golden Dawn failed to win
any seats in the parliament noted: “No one should underestimate the fact that
the same forces that previously promoted Golden Dawn ‘withdraw’ it in order to
keep this neo-Nazi organisation as a reserve; that a part of its votes moved to
other bourgeois parties or to political forces of similar ideology, such as the
new party ‘Greek Solution’.”
The strengthening of KKE is the basic
precondition to repel, and for the complete isolation of, such forces because
KKE is the only power fighting the capitalist system that breeds and uses them.
KKE steadily and consistently fought such forces, showed no tolerance, played
no games, did not fish for votes from nationalists like other parties did.
What is KKE’s position on the EU and the North-South
divide?
The
examples of the peoples of Britain, Greece and other EU countries, demonstrate
that this capitalist union has far from satisfied the contemporary popular
needs. To the contrary, people in all member states are faced with very
intensive and long-lasting issues.
This interstate capitalist union serves
the capitalist exploitative system and cannot be improved or transformed to a
pro-people union, as is argued by those who apologise on the EU’s behalf such
Labour in Britain, or SYRIZA and DiEm25 in Greece.
The imperialist nature of the EU has been
portrayed as a problem of management regarding which the interests of the
‘hard-core neoliberal’ North and the ‘open-minded’ South collide. This matter
is neither geographical nor cultural.
For example, one may consider that the
current dangerous situation in Libya is a result of the actions of the EU, USA
and NATO, whilst countries of the so-called South such as France and Italy have
played a leading role assisted by Greece through the use of the NATO base of
Souda in Crete, which has been used for bombings in Libya.
Similar anti-people measures for the
dismantlement of the social security system are promoted not only in Greece and
France, but also in other countries such as the Netherlands and the
Scandinavian countries. The fake and disorienting ‘North–South’ division hides
capitalist economies of different sizes and at different phases of capitalist
development.
In any case, without the working class and
the people who will play a leading role in any developments and take the power
and control of the economy, any renegotiation of a country’s position inside
the EU – or even the departure from the EU – unavoidably serves the interests
of the bourgeois class and specific parts of Capital.
The disengagement from the EU can be for
the benefit of the people through people’s power and the development of
mutually advantageous relationships with other countries and peoples.
