Requiem For a “Leftist” Servant of the Capital

By Nikos Mottas.

Following SYRIZA's double resounding electoral defeat in the parliamentary elections of 21 May and 25 June, Alexis Tsipras announced that he steps down from the party leadership after 15 years. 

This is almost certainly not the end of 49-year-old Tsipras' political career — his talent in demagogy will be proved useful for the bourgeois class in the future —  but provides us a chance to review and evaluate some major aspects of his so far contribution to Greek politics.  

The Capitalist Crisis: The pretext for the anti-people agenda in Greece

The text below is the speech delivered by Kostas Papadakis, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and also member of the European Parliament (MEP), during his visit in Sydney, Australia on Saturday 29th of September. 

K. Papadakis travelled to Australia in order to represent the KKE in political events, held in Melbourne and Sydney, honoring the 100 years since the founding of the KKE and the 50th anniversary of KNE:

Dear comrades, trade-unionists, friends of the CPA, cadres of the Australian trade-unions.

Alexis Tsipras: From “anti-imperialism” to US-NATO's most loyal ally

By Nikos Mottas.

Those who follow the political developments in Greece during the last decade have certainly understood the rapid transformation of SYRIZA- the ruling party in today's coalition government- from a small party of the opportunist left into the country's major social democratic power. In this site we have written extensively, in numerous occasions, about the role of SYRIZA a major pillar (alongside the center-right New Democracy party) of the bourgeois political establishment.

Three years of SYRIZA government in Greece

"Everything was easier with Tsipras and Tsakalotos. It's a completely different situation." This particular statement, made a few days ago by Jeroen Dijsselbloem in his last interview as the head of the Eurogroup, could be an excellent headline in the chapter "Three years of SYRIZA-ANEL governance".

During this time, taking the towel of antipeople policy from ND and PASOK, the SYRIZA-ANEL government has managed in a record time to complete a series of dirty missions for the capital, that the former [governments] left in the middle, earning the credit from the "hawks", as SYRIZA was calling the representatives of the EU and the IMF in the past.

KKE: "Syriza and New Democracy compete with each other on who is the best executioner of the workers' rights"

"The New Democracy party, apparently being perplexed as long as the SYRIZA-ANEL government has taken its job, bids in anti-worker proposals and competes with SYRIZA on who is the best executioner of the workers' rights" writes, among other things, a recent statement of the Press Office of the CC of the KKE. 

Earlier, in a statement, the centre-right opposition party of New Democracy (ND) had expressed disagrements with some of the provisions of the new antiworkers' bill forwarded by the government. However, ND agrees on the new law's amendment which actually tries to abolish the right of the workers to strike. 

Tsipras-Varoufakis: Loyal servants of the capitalist system

By Nikos Mottas*. 

During the last few days we are witnessing a highly hypocritical “blame game” between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. In his latest book titled “Adults in the room”, Varoufakis tries to present himself as a “fighter” who resisted Europe's “deep establishment”.

In his “political thriller”, the ex-finance minister describes how the Tsipras government handled the negotiations with its creditors, outlining the role each government official played during that period. As for his former collaborator, Varoufakis writes among other things: “Alexis Tsipras appears totally overwhelmed, unable to collide with his own consultants who were pro loan agreement, in some cases he was totally manipulated by the ‘internal’ and ‘external’ Troika”.

Anti-workers rage by SYRIZA's newspaper “Avgi” challenges the right to strike!

In an anti-workers delirium that even the right-wing, neoliberal press would envy, SYRIZA party's newspaper “Avgi” launched a vociferous attack against the working people's right to strike! In an article published on 28/6, the newspaper shamelessly attacked the striking mobilizations of the municipal sanitation workers by reproducing the most reactionary arguments of the bourgeois press. Trying to justify the anti-people, anti-worker policy of the SYRIZA coalition government, “Avgi” characterizes the strike as the “ultimate medium” (!) which, according to the newspaper, should not be used frequently by the workers.

The nature of SYRIZA and why it is supported by the bourgeoisie

Photo credit: IDC.

Source: Rizospastis / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

The identification of SYRIZA's political positioning requires first of all the clarification of the relationship between bourgeois politics and the opportunist (political) stream. In respect to its class substance, the opportunist political line is a bourgeois political line, but as it is manifested within the lines of the labour movement. While it is a policy which supports the strategic objectives of the capital in economy and politics, it appears with a socialist cloak and slogans. The fact that the opportunist perceptions objectively have a common "core" with the bourgeois ideology and politics is expressed both in the occasional convergences between opportunist and bourgeois parties as well as in the convertion of opportunist parties into parties of bourgeois governance, especially in times when this is necessary of capitalism.

When an opportunist party is called to manage the general interests of the bourgeois class from governmental posts, then it de facto becomes subject to a series of political, ideological and organisational adjustments that are characterized by the retreat of its opportunist elements and references without, of course, meaning that these do not continue to be utilized for the entrapment of popular forces in the bourgeois pursuits.