Version imprimableDown with the tripartite parliamentary junta now!
• Unified - overall coordinating struggle center in ERT
• Committees and struggle centers in workplaces and neighborhoods
• A lasting general political strike and an uncompromising political struggle for the fall of the government!
There are some moments in history where within a “fact” there are so many things at stake that a victory or defeat counts decisively. The fight against the shutdown of ERT (the public TV and radio enterprise) after a junta inspired "decree" by the government’s spokesperson "Goebbels" Kedikoglou is just such a case: The victory of the movement will be equivalent to overthrowing the government and the initiation of an “unraveling” of the memoranda and austerity policies. On the contrary, if we lose this battle, the government will establish a parliamentary regime of disguised dictatorship, along with political and operational support by the Nazis of Golden Dawn, they will impose terror and the dogma of "law and order".
The venture is so critical that "right here and right now" we must move from complaints and general struggling mood in “countersign”: organize a battle plan to overthrow the tripartite memorandum junta. We need to discuss and decide directly! In the context of this necessary discussion, we put forward the following thoughts-suggestions to all comrades and struggle fellows:
Total battle - Comprehensive Plan - a unified struggle and coordination center
1. The fight is not only about the workers’ rights in ERT that are instantaneously “eliminated” nor the right to information and the fight against the total prevalence of the troika news. As in all the battles of the last period (metro, teachers, etc.), now the fight is central and total: trade-unionist (where the militancy of unions and the wider trade union coordination counts), political (the opponent is the tripartite memorandum junta) and ideological (every attack is invested with the ideological trash of social automation: they talk about lazy and lavishly paid public sector, etc.). In order to win this (and every) struggle we should overthrow the government! And conversely, our victory will inevitably mean the overthrowing of the government.
The counter-information is not enough, we also need counter-propaganda!
The trade union struggle is not enough, we need a comprehensive, political and ideological struggle.
It is not enough if the left unites to stand by the side of the trade union workers’ struggle, the left must play a key role in leading and creating a central, aggregate, political and social battle front.
Certainly useful and necessary parliamentary initiatives for the parties of the Left are not enough, we need the Left –united in action and political front– to "declare" civil disobedience and political unyielding lasting struggle.
Union coordination at the press is not enough, we need aggregate trade union and social coordination.
Even the total union coordination is not enough, we need a comprehensive, political and trade union struggle center.
2. If we are aware of the centrality of this battle and the preconditions it requires to be victorious, in that way, then we need a battle plan with similar characteristics:
• ERT should emerge as a comprehensive, trade union and political center of the fight. With ERT as a “base” we need to establish an overall Struggle Coordination Committee, with union leaders not only from the press, but also from other strata of employees (first and foremost the ones working in public utilities, threatened in their entirety with "decrees" like Kedikoglou’s one) with representatives from struggle committees should be created in all workplaces and neighborhoods, but also with representatives of the parties of the Left. Such a Coordination Committee should organize ERT as tradeunionist and political center of the struggle (with committees for each activity, guarding, etc.), but also to prepare-coordinate the overall battle plan. Parties and groups of the Left should put generously their organised forces available to the Coordination Committee for this purpose.
• The strike on Thursday should not be the “peak” or, even worse, the “epilogue” of a struggle "for our honor”, but a first step towards the centralization and generalization of the battle. The slogan should be lasting General Political Strike for the abolition of the Kedikoglou’s junta “order”, equivalent to the fall of the government. This means that we must prepare today the next step that will follow on Thursday in this direction: transmission of the struggling upheaval in social spaces and neighborhoods, road-blocking and campaigns into neighborhoods, preparation for the establishment of regional struggle centers.
3. Any parliamentary initiatives of the Left must take the form of parliamentary “guerrilla” rather than institutional opposition, which traps people into a passive wait for developments at the parliamentary level. In this direction, the statement of the President of the Parliamentary Group of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, that “the government will be overthrown by the people and not by the parliamentary crutches” is correct, with the obvious precondition that this is accompanied by an unfolding of an aggregate battle plan as described above. In the context of such parliamentary initiatives and of the declaration of lasting political unyielding, the parliamentary parties of the Left (SYRIZA and KKE) must devise and dare far reaching moves which will accelerate political developments.
Do not allow the weak to become “powerful”!
Immediate mobilization on Tuesday by tens of thousands of people at ERT proved that society is “boiling” and that militant resources are not exhausted. During the recent months of the government’s success story there were crucial struggles (metro, professors, now ERT) each of which was a real opportunity for an aggregate confrontation with the government.
The government’s success story, despite the "global conspiracy" ... to be believed, is hanging by a thread, as evidenced by the government’s inability to sell DEPA (public gas company) according to the privatization schedule, the fracas between IMF and Germany bode “savage” developments after the German elections, the predictions for the seventh year of recession with 27% official unemployment, and the massive expansion of poverty and misery.
The government is weak, and draws its strength only from their victories against the movement. The conscriptions of strikers four times during the recent months, the 28 legislative acts and the establishment of a 21st century postmodern junta with parliamentary mantle, is the policy of the weak that can collapse at any time if an important struggle wins. ERT demonstrates how much we miss, what we didn’t do, or what is the cost of what we did wrong at the teachers’ strike. At the metro workers’ strike etc.
However, if the tripartite junta government wins again this time, then “the weak” can turn into a steamroller ...
To get a comprehensive view of the “ERT battle” stake, we should think that the struggle mood created by the rebellion of the Turkish people should not be wasted as well. The insurrectionary mood already gone from North Africa to Europe (Turkey, Sweden, Bulgaria and Romania), it surrounded Greece and it is giving us back the power of international solidarity for our struggle.
The pictures of a coalition of the Left forces (PAME, SYRIZA, ANTARSYA) in the courtyard of the ERT headquarters prove that unity in action and the political Left Front is not unattainable, but it is built in action. In such a battle plan, this section may prove to be the political force that will function as the political multiplier for our victory. On the other hand, the role of all political forces becomes absolutely clear. PASOK and DHMAR, the political representatives of the alleged political “center”, prove to be the political remnants of the tripartite, “tail” of the Right and handmaidens of the parliamentary junta. In this deep division between the defenders of memoranda and austerity measures and those who seek to overthrow them by abolishing memoranda and austerity policies, the dipolism Left – Right is being clarified, demonstrating a political expression of class polarization and controversy. And we know who are our friends and who are our enemies.
• Now is the time to overthrow the tripartite parliamentary junta.
• Struggle until the victory!
• “If not us, who, if not now, when?”
Kokkino, component of Siryza
