Majority of SYRIZA leaders against the coup
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Introduction by Socialist Worker (USA)
July 15, 2015 – In a statement issued on Wednesday, July 15, 109 of the 201 members of the Central Committee of SYRIZA took a position against the Greek government and the European creditors, calling it "a new Memorandum, with onerous and humiliating terms". The statement came as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was pressuring parliament to meet the ultimatum of the European authorities by passing core components the latest drastic austerity measures by Wednesday.
The 109 Central Committee members call on the government "not to succumb to the extortionate ultimatums of the creditors" and warn that the agreement is "not compatible with the ideas and the principles of the left." The statement also demands an immediate meeting of the Central Committee to consider the agreement Tsipras brought back from a European Union meeting last weekend. Tsipras had previously promised to hold a Central Committee discussion on any deal before a parliamentary vote. The smaller Political Secretariat of SYRIZA earlier voted unanimously for a Central Committee meeting to be convened, but it has not been called.
Greek socialists say this statement is also a definitive answer to those supporters of Tsipras and the government who rushed to ask for disciplinary actions against SYRIZA members of parliament and cadres who stood against the agreement. Below, we publish an English-language translation of the Central Committee members' statement.
Statement by 109 (of 201 in total) members of SYRIZA’s Central Committee
On July 12, a coup was carried out in Brussels. A coup which proved that the goal of the European leaders was to make an example of a people who had the vision of a different path, away and beyond the neoliberal model of extreme austerity. A coup that takes aim at any notion of democracy and popular sovereignty.
The agreement with the "institutions" was the result of the blackmailing of the country through economic strangulation. It is a new Memorandum, with onerous and humiliating terms of supervision, disastrous for the country and our people.
We realise that suffocating pressure was put on the Greek side in the negotiations, but nevertheless, we believe that the people's proud "no" vote in the referendum must forbid the government from succumbing to the extortionate ultimatums of the creditors.
This agreement is not compatible with the ideas and the principles of the left. But most importantly, it is not compatible with the needs of the working class and the popular masses. This proposal cannot be accepted by the members and the cadres of SYRIZA.
We ask for the Central Committee to convene immediately, and we call on the members, cadres and members of parliament of SYRIZA to stand for the unity of the party on the basis of our Congress decisions and our programmatic commitments.
Translation by Antonis Martalis
Communist Organization of Greece (Maoist faction) on SYRIZA deal
The International Relations’ Department of KOE sends the following information to our fraternal parties and movements, to all our international friends *
SYRIZA turns into its opposite
1. SYRIZA transforms rapidly into a force that continues the regime of debt’s colony through a Third Memorandum (qualitatively worse than the previous ones) in conditions of a deep and generalized crisis. Broad masses feel betrayed and disoriented. Many others maybe still and sincerely believe that SYRIZA governs Greece, and that such a government is better than any other government. They live a new illusion: Greece is nowadays again governed by the troika, which dictates even the details of the legislative procedures and even the minor governmental decisions. The government of Tsipras chose to become an instrument of the troika and a hostage of the old, rotten political system.
2. This government, with the help of the old political parties, imposed last Wednesday on the Parliament the adoption of the first series of measures demanded by the troika as prerequisite that proves the “good will of Greece towards the creditors”. Next Wednesday a second series of measures shall be adopted, also demanded as prerequisite by the troika. These extremely neoliberal measures are pushed forward by the government not as part of an agreement with the troika: they are adopted exactly in order that the troika graciously accepts to impose the Third Memorandum on Greece!
Dirty methods and illegitimate “laws”
3. Even the methods used by Tsipras’ government in order to impose the humiliating “prerequisite laws” are characteristic of its complete, unconditional and shameful surrender to the troika. The Parliament is used as during the time of the openly pro-troika governments, returning to the status of a colonial type registrar of resolutions taken outside Greece. The “fast-track” procedures, where the MPs are approving within a few hours series of measures that were “taboo” even for the previous governments, is the method used – combined with attempts of blackmailing and bribery of those who disagree.
4. Furthermore, Tsipras’ government violates openly the Constitution, in an even more provocative way than the previous governments did: According to the Constitution, the result of the referendum equals a law adopted by the Parliament, and cannot be overturned unless by a new referendum. In the referendum of 5 July, the Greek People rejected a series of concrete measures proposed by the troika – which have now been included in the “prerequisite law” adopted by the Parliament last Wednesday (and the one that shall be adopted next Wednesday).
Tsipras’ policy failed, SYRIZA’s experiment ends
5. Now it becomes obvious from various sources that Tsipras used the referendum as an adventurist tool to find a temporary way out from an impossible situation, hoping that a more or less 50-50 result would allow him to excuse the planned surrender to the troika. The huge popular NO (especially taking into account the incredible threats by all the foreign and local systemic forces, and with the banks closed) frightened Tsipras and his government. The leadership of SYRIZA proved unworthy of the Greek People.
6. All the above confirm the estimation that a circle has ended, including SYRIZA as an interesting and hopeful new endeavor. The Communist Organization of Greece does not support nor tolerate anymore this government that imposes such policies, and has no trust at all on Tsipras and the rest of the small leading group that decides about the fate of Greece together with the most rotten and guilty old political forces, ignoring the will and the needs of the Greek People.
7. The humiliation of Tsipras’ government will be complete: the troika shall push it to the end, obliging his government to impose policies that no other government could impose, before eventually getting rid of it as a squeezed lemon. The “prerequisite laws” and the Third Memorandum that will follow will further accentuate the character of Greece as colony of debt and shall worsen even more rapidly the already intolerable social catastrophe.
Bankruptcy and Grexit
8. Greece enters an era of bankruptcy and a course towards a catastrophic Grexit that will take place under the terms of the creditors (while the unconditional surrender of Tsipras’ government to the troika is “explained” by its perpetrators as a “negative but necessary compromise in order to avoid bankruptcy and Grexit”). The Greek banks are bankrupt and shall be seized for free by the German and other imperialists, together with whatever infrastructures, wealth and property are still public in our country. The big majority of the Greek People shall suffer a new wave of increased pauperization and the humanitarian catastrophe will further worsen rapidly.
9. The adoption of the “prerequisite laws” is just the beginning of a continuous blackmailing by the troika. The so called “financial aid” (which goes out of one pocket of the “creditors” directly into the other one) will come in tiny drops, demanding each time in exchange more blood by the Greek People. That’s why suddenly the systemic Media cope with Tsipras as “national leader who finally became a realist”.
Dramatic political changes and difficult choices
10. The political scenery also changes dramatically: the now enlarged pro-Memorandum camp is divided into two big groups (a “centre-left” with SYRIZA as its main force, and a “centre-right”) competing each other about which one out of the two is able to better manage the Memoranda regime. At the same time, because of SYRIZA’s mutation, a big part of the Greek People remains without political expression and alternative. The fracturing of the social alliance that was built on the basis of the struggle against the Memoranda, and the precipitation of the Greek economy, shall further accentuate the political crisis.
11. There is an attempt by various sides to bring forward a fake dilemma: “Euro or Drachma?” A part of the Left thinks that the adoption of a national currency is, under any conditions, sufficient to lead Greece out of the crisis. This is one more attempt to discover an “easy” way out of a most complicated and harsh situation. Today a Grexit (especially as planned by Germany and other dynamic factors of the EU) shall mean all but a weapon for national liberation. Such a Grexit will be translated into the imposition of an official foreign economic control over Greece. In a way, the Euro is pushing today Greece to bankruptcy and Grexit!
12. There can be no alternative (let alone an “easy” one) without the active participation of the popular masses in the form of a broad political current fighting for a way out. Moreover, there can be no alternative without the elaboration of a national plan for the endogenous productive reconstruction of the country. These are prerequisites for the preparation of the minimum conditions that will allow a course towards popular sovereignty and national independence. Then, the adoption of a national currency shall be posed in a completely different, pro-people way. Otherwise, the dilemma “Euro or Drachma?” will keep obscuring the minds and misleading the necessary efforts for a way out.
The stand of KOE
13. The Communist Organization of Greece salutes the brave NO of those MPs of SYRIZA, including those of KOE, who voted against the humiliating and deeply anti-popular “prerequisite law” demanded by the troika and supported by Tsipras’ government and by the old political system. We call them, and even those who bended and voted “yes” last Wednesday, to vote NO in the second and even worse “prerequisite law” next Wednesday. It is the minimum they can do in order to be worthy of the courageous Greek People.
14. The Communist Organization of Greece does not adopt the ambiguous stand followed by the “Left Platform”, which claims that “we oppose the Third Memorandum but we express our confidence to the government”. Such a stand ignores the deep transformation of SYRIZA and adds to the already great confusion. Our Organization does not have anymore any confidence to Tsipras’ government and totally opposes its shameful, failed, anti-popular and catastrophic policy.
Athens, 19 July 2015