June 2016 Political Theses of SYRIZA’s Central Committee for the Second Congress held on October 13-16. (Hyperlinks added by this blog.)
A. REVIEW
1. SYRIZA’s Victorious Advance – Unification at the First Congress, Preparation to Assume Responsibility for Government
The starting point of Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) great advance dates back to the late 1980s, when the first signs of a general political crisis and the crisis of the bourgeois party system appeared. This happened when the Greek Socialist Party (PASOK) started being fully controlled by the state, placing the state’s imperatives and rationale, as well as the particular vested interests it was involved with, at the core of its existence, gradually acceding to the rising neoliberalism and abandoning the political representation of those afflicted by the inequalities perpetually produced by capitalism. New Democracy (ND) emerged as the pure champion of neoliberalism and, thanks to PASOK’s shift and the now apparent corruption, managed to have two short, but equally scandalous, terms in government.
On the other hand, badly affected by the collapse of the so-called real socialism and the discrediting of the anticapitalist-socialist platform, the Left couldn’t deepen — and capitalize on — its critique of the Soviet system and dogmatic communism. The forces that eventually formed SYRIZA soon responded creatively and democratically to the political crisis, which did not offer society a political way out, as well as to the Left’s existential crisis after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The majority of the members of the groups and parties that contributed to SYRIZA’s creation were in direct contrast to the practices of all the established parties after the fall of the dictatorship. This breakthrough, which also overcame negative ways of the Left, did not only undermine the traditional rationale of partisanship, substitution and governmentalism (i.e. unprincipled clinging to government power), but also constituted a real promise for a democratic way out of the then already foreseeable crisis. Despite the apparent difficulties, young SYRIZA responded consistently to this strategy, even when it had to take a stand against the bourgeois political and social powers and the media of the vested interests that now played an instrumental role.
Important milestones in this course were: the participation in the anti-globalization movement and in the proceedings of social forums, the Greek contribution to the founding of the European Left Party, the movement for the support of public education and the prevention of the 2006-2007 reactionary constitutional reform, participation in the mobilizations after the signing of the 2010 Memorandum (mobilizations whose momentum was arrested after the still unsolved murderous attack on MARFIN), ground-breaking participation in the “Movement of the Squares” and helping to isolate the extreme right elements that tried to infiltrate it, and the resistance to Neo-Nazi as well as state pogroms against immigrants.
SYRIZA’s form as a political and electoral front of multi-tendency Synaspismos with various smaller left-wing organizations differing significantly from one another, did not stop it from achieving — unprecedented for the Radical Left in Greece and in Europe — electoral successes in May and June 2012 (16.8% and 26.9%, respectively).
These were due to:
The collapse of bipartisanism on account of the social destruction inflicted by the two Memoranda (2010, 2011) signed by the governments of Papandreou and Papadimos and because of people’s rage against the old regime.
The leading role of SYRIZA members in popular resistance.
The formation of instrumental representational relations with large parts of the working and popular classes, particularly with the lowest levels in the social stratification, mainly due to SYRIZA’s key role in the creation of “solidarity structures.”
Alexis Tsipras’ appeal, who for large numbers of people symbolized the new radical political current that came to replace the old and corrupt regime.
The fact that lots of everyday people, as well as senior members leaving PASOK, joined SYRIZA.
The prompt adoption of the slogan “Government of the Left,” which opened up political prospects for the various resistance movements and for the rage of the popular classes.
The fact that SYRIZA displayed to Greek society the new characteristics and the new ideas of the 21st century Left.
SYRIZA’s rise was also helped by the fact that the ideology and practice of austerity never and nowhere else took on the obsessive objective and implementation of the Eurozone economic policy mix. With the first Memorandum six years ago, Greece was turned into a quasi-social laboratory for neoliberal experimentation at a terrifying humanitarian cost. The established parties of the Political Changeover (after the dictatorship) — for three decades having made the state partisan, having lost any genuine democratic representational function, having corrupted generations of citizens in patronage exchange and self-interest — saw the crisis as an opportunity to apply the most aggressive neoliberal plans. The notorious policies of labor flexibility and restriction of social rights were attempted in a country that for years had been plagued by hidden pockets of precariousness in employment, undeclared work, insurance evasion, fragmented social benefits, in transparency in resource allocation, dysfunctional institutions; conditions that ideally matched the established parties’ traditional rationale of partisanship, substitution, and governmentalism.
The memoranda period of the Political Changeover is the turning point for SYRIZA’s emergence as the force that resisted with clarity and persistence the Brussels’ bureaucratic logic, which displaces any sense of political participation and process. At the same time, SYRIZA put a stop to the Greek governments’ compliance with any measure that gradually and systematically destroyed the country’s last hopes for growth and productive reconstruction. The demand that the government step down was a normal evolution of the 2009-2012 social struggles and not a violent outside intervention of party planning. The social struggles’ intervention met up with the political demand for subversion to transform the economic crisis into hegemony crisis.
The moment of the movement’s explosion at the “squares,” the popular classes’ emergence to the fore, reflects a long history of social pressure and popular anger that rose above political prejudice and party identity, forming the yeast for the actual challenge of Troika’s failed recipes. At the same time, it was the basis for SYRIZA becoming the political entity that would represent not only the hopes for exiting the crisis, but also the need to implement the groundbreaking changes that would put an end to a state problematic in its administrative organization, designed as a system of political patronage, and incessantly hostile to its citizens; undermining, all things considered, the very concept and value of public good.
In an asphyxiating framework for the Left in Europe and in the world, SYRIZA’s dynamic rise gave birth to hopes and not unjustifiably so. The Coalition of Radical Left represents, by its very constitution, a paradigm and a reference point for the forces of the Left signifying that they can and will cooperate to form a united, powerful front against austerity and fight for their rise to power and the production of a leftward policy with an emblematic social footprint.
From the very first moment, in collaboration with the foreign neoliberal centers, the old bourgeois party system implemented a recipe that led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. The adoption of such a policy cannot be considered naïve or politically neutral. It was in fact the policy whose implementation had been attempted for decades but to a certain degree had been cancelled by popular resistance. The same political personnel, who smoothly moved from the one party to the other — proving there are no ideological barriers or real political differences between the two poles of the traditional post-dictatorial bipartisanism, corroded the state, and vaporized its resources — were now trying to resurrect themselves politically, putting forward the pretext of a reform logic and thus revealing the close links between their perspective and that of the lenders.
SYRIZA succeeded in intervening effectively during the aforementioned period and in deepening the representation crisis of bipartisanism precisely because of its political practice. This practice was shaped through our participation in the European and international movement against neoliberal capitalist globalization. Through this participation, a number of political and organizational characteristics were crystallized, drastically helping us to push forward. On the political side, the most important one was the questioning of the concepts of the “end of history” and the capitalist dominance as a one-way street, as well as the aim to change the balance of power through wider alliances that would form a front against neoliberalism. On the organizational side, the creation of a new culture of dialogue between various currents of the Left and also between political organizations and social movements. It was a valuable lesson for the Left that there is a lot to learn from social struggles instead of just leading them from above and outside.
The success in the 2012 elections sparked a lot of enthusiasm and great expectations in SYRIZA’s members and friends, who had passionately fought for it. The new conditions and the dynamic the party gained showed the limits of its organizational structure as a coalition of parties and groups. Its configuration not only became dysfunctional, but it could not even observe the basics of intra-party democracy. Although opinions about the intensity, feasibility and means of meeting the demand differed among members, tendencies of Synaspismos or SYRIZA components, SYRIZA’s transformation into a unified party became a imperative political and democratic demand that no one could ignore. This was clearly understood by the senior members of the tendencies and the founding components of the party, regardless of the degree to which they agreed on this turn of events.
Requirements related to this unification were that:
SYRIZA should become “a party of members” so that political resolutions would not be contingent on non-transparent agreements heads of tendencies and components under the party president’s arbitration.
The party’s image should be shielded from the attacks of the rival political and media system, which took advantage of any disagreement, any ideological or strategic deviation in order to weaken SYRIZA’s appeal, on the pretext of the “multilingualism of the multiple components.”
There should not be any discrimination against SYRIZA on the grounds of the electoral law which does not favor party coalitions.
The first step in this direction was the First Pan-Hellenic Conference in December 2012. The election of joint higher party bodies and its political resolutions signified to both the party’s interior and society that SYRIZA had developed into a mature party, ready to claim the representation of wider popular classes afflicted by the Memoranda policies. The Conference’s resolutions, but mostly SYRIZA members’ participation in the social sphere, showed that the target was not only the subversion of the Memoranda austerity regime, but also the reversal of the bipartisan corrupt logic in favor of society. At the same time, it became clear that SYRIZA’s honest promise to the Greek people for democracy was intertwined with a solution to the social question.
In the conference’s declaration it was apparent that for SYRIZA the “other world” which “is possible” is the “world of socialism with democracy and freedom” and that “socialism is not the amelioration of capitalism”; therefore, accession to social democracy was not part of the party’s platform.
The founding first Congress in July 2013 — despite its ceremonial character and massive participation — solved the organizational issue but did not lead to the party’s political and organizational upgrade. Procedural and technical issues (abolition of components, election of Central Committee, election of the President) and the details of the new statutes dominated. The exceptional legacy of the Conference’s documents was not enhanced, nor was it in effect brought up to date. Thus, the Conference’s political theses left room for multiple interpretations of both the Declaration and the Political Resolution, which at the end of the day did not decrease deviations on strategic issues (transition and social transformation, stance toward the Eurozone and EU, the importance of solidarity structures, etc.)
The debate focused mostly on the issue of currency [Euro or Drachma], producing a number of negative repercussions for the whole political discussion inside the party organizations. A range of essential political characteristics of the restructuring process that go together with today’s crisis were underrated. The whole party found itself discussing in the framework of a simplistic economic rationale, underrating critical political questions related to the reversal of the present situation. In that specific framework, the alternative to the Memoranda program proposal often appeared to be formed on the basis of a currency depreciation plan as a move that would essentially help lead to economic growth. In conditions of generalized capitalist crisis, however, the answers the Left gives should to a certain degree take on universal characteristics; that is, be formed on the basis of guidelines that can be implemented on an all-European scale. A policy of competitive depreciations and export war cannot be an alternative to the plans for internal devaluation. Such an alternative should be formed on the basis of a redistribution of power and wealth in favor of the world of labor and the social majority against the forces of capital. All of the above-mentioned do not mean that we naively believe we should wait for a complete change in the balance of power in Europe in order for things to change in Greece. A plan of competitive depreciations would constitute a decision to escalate economic competition, which would rapidly develop into competition between nation-states. This would probably fuel the Far Right and generally cause a shift to the right in Europe.
From the start, SYRIZA functioned as a multi-tendency democratic party, as do all parties of contemporary radical Left, in which the free functioning of intra-party tendencies is acknowledged as an element of respect for freedom of opinion, both individual and collective, and of the members’ sense of responsibility for the party’s unity. However, from SYRIZA’s initial phase as a cooperative formation made up of autonomous components, it inherited a mode of operation that did not foster the synthesis of different viewpoints and the members’ leading role in decision-making. It would be a mistake though to limit the problems of collective and efficient organization of the party to the issue of tendencies.
In the three years since its founding Congress, SYRIZA hasn’t managed to acquire a culture of synthesis, of combating exclusions, of respecting the majority to the degree that these are essential for the democratic as well as efficient operation of a party of free people who think and act collectively. The intra-party tendencies made the impression that they were organizations within the party, with their own discipline and their own autonomous agendas and pursuits. This was manifested both in decision-making, which often involved not a synthesis but an unlikely assortment of different views cobbled together and in the election of senior members with quotas and intra-tendency lists while personal responsibility and accountability had in effect been cancelled. This operation of tendencies also had its impact on the operation of party organizations, where partitions were created and exclusions were made.
The non-transparent operation of the tendencies favored but did not cause the split of SYRIZA last July. The split may have been determined by the negative characteristics of the overall operation of the party, but arose mainly as a result of the crisis created by the [Troika’s] blackmail and the signing of the agreement in July and the questions stemming from this new situation. This situation also exacerbated the rivalry between the different platforms within the party.
After the congress, SYRIZA focused its action almost exclusively on its attempt to topple the government so that national elections would be held. Meanwhile, it prepared its election platform. As a result, the involvement of its organizations in the restructuring of the social subject subsided, and – in combination with the decline in social resistance, which had offered so much since the beginning of the crisis – a peculiar logic of delegating the social to the political prevailed in the country. This, of course, was assisted by the dominance of bureaucracy and dependence networks in trade unions, local governments, professional associations, and cooperatives, which the party had neither sufficiently analyzed nor drawn up a political plan to deal with.
With hindsight, it is obvious that the early and up to a point – as far as the May election is concerned – unexpected success in 2012 elections led a large part of the party and its leadership to believe that the road to power would be a relatively easy process. That particular tactic was in part a result of the popular pressure and the party’s corresponding commitment to stop the social destruction that had been caused by the policies of the previous governments. The devotion to the quick subversion of the old regime contributed to underestimating the need for upgrade and adaption of the party’s operation to the new conditions. Even though the need to adapt the platform was acknowledged and efforts were made, in which thousands of our senior members took part, the party never actually benefited from the results of those efforts because there was never any organized discussion – not even in the party’s leading bodies. Moreover, there was no planning or any assembly procedures of the party’s academics and scientists’ sections that could probably give our policies a scientific basis and renovate our theoretical tools. There is still an imperative need for this given the fact that the opponent is more powerful, with means both in Greece and abroad.
From the start, but primarily in the two years after the 2012 elections, there was a necessity – which was not met – to set up procedures for the political and scientific equipment of our party members so as to reinforce our presence in critical sectors – the state, local governments, trade unions, but also the party itself – and our competence in staffing them, thus helping the consolidation and improvement of the party’s strategy, which had proven so successful. Even the initiative for a broad committee of scientists to process positions did not go beyond the level of a temporary communication policy. The results were submitted but were ignored and never reached party members. This material remains an essential and topical contribution to the now opening discussions about the revision of the constitution, about the political system, freedoms, and rights.
This was also essential for the encouragement of the social alliance that supported the party electorally to participate, and even more importantly for the politicization of young people and the adaptation of the old party members to new and novel conditions.
A key factor in the success of our policies is international solidarity. SYRIZA’s bonds with the parties of the European Left – but also the interest shown by trade unions, citizen initiatives, church organizations, parts of Social Democracy and the Greens – were the basis for the planning and development of our policy to this purpose. SYRIZA needed and still needs a new solidarity movement, especially in Europe, militant but broad, far beyond the Left itself. The party leadership underestimated this need and has not been able to plan the necessary actions, which were undertaken by party senior members under their own initiative, with modest results – compared to the potential ones.
Despite important actions in the social field and mainly in the field of social solidarity, the party seemed to be guided by conventional practices, which, being somewhat hasty, drastically limited our political intervention to the Parliament and the (mostly electronic) media – in both which cases it was admittedly very well planned and quite effective.
Furthermore, the party leadership has not been able to organize its operation in a way that would enable the party to play an instrumental part in the preparation to assume governmental responsibility and participate in guiding government. This was manifested in the lack of preparation in critical fields, where ministers improvised (successfully or not), either because they had no ready material in their hands or because they did not care for it. In addition, in the two years of its preparation, the party did not manage to connect specific policy fields with specific persons, to prepare party officials for government responsibilities. What is more, the selection of persons was often made according to “communication” abilities or “intergroup” profile without thorough scrutiny of their qualifications and competence.
The virtual paralysis of the party’s collective operation – especially of the intermediate and leading bodies, with the Central Committee often confirming rather than processing and making decisions – and the inability to set up a legitimate and cohesive leading center led to the operation of informal and illegitimate decision-making centers and to a strong tendency to weaken SYRIZA’s collective and democratic operation. This tendency was further fueled by the need for fast decision-making – even more so after its accession to government.
During the period until the January 2015 elections, the view that prevailed in SYRIZA, as expressed by the majority of the party’s leading bodies, was that the “Government of the Left” would cancel the austerity memoranda, would oust the Troika from Greece, and at the same time would negotiate with the lenders to write off most of the debt. The majority in the institutional bodies of the party thought that the aforementioned goals were attainable inside the Eurozone, estimating that the lenders wouldn’t risk the Eurozone breakup that a Greek exit (Grexit) would cause. On the other hand, the Left Current and then the Left Platform kept their old disagreement with this estimate, believing there was bound to be a clash with the lenders, which would inevitably result in the country exiting the Euro, a development their majority considered desirable, one way or another.
This is how SYRIZA proceeded from its first Congress to the triumph in the January 2015 election. A landmark in this course was the great victory in the European elections. Alexis Tsipras’ nomination as a candidate for European Commission president helped internationalize the Greek issue and establish SYRIZA as a party that could play a key role on the European political scene. Moreover, Tsipras’ presence in European capitals and mostly his presence as the candidate of the European Left against the other parties’ candidates in that Pan-European election highlighted him as a leading figure of the European Left, a reflection on SYRIZA’s prestige in Greece.
In the 2014 local and regional elections, despite significant successes – first of all, the victory in the region of Attica and the very good result in the municipality of Athens, both in the most “politicized” areas – the overall results were inconsistent with SYRIZA’s appeal to society. The party and often its local organizations underestimated the power of local interest networks and collusion that bolstered local authorities. The importance of distinguished local officials and of an alliance policy on a local level was also underestimated. What prevailed was the notion that SYRIZA’s prestige and the citizens’ indignation against the old regime would suffice for the success of the lists we supported. Yet again, it was confirmed that nothing can substitute for lack of sufficient preparation. Instead, this lack is conducive to opportunistic and often unfortunate decisions and choices, which in certain cases were due to inter-tendency compromises. On the other hand, wherever the party, in few cases altogether, chose candidates with high local status and experience in local matters, it was often successful – with the exception of some special cases, of course.
The prospect of SYRIZA gaining power in the elections and taking the reins of the government gave the party the opportunity to draw up a realistic “transitional” program that wouldn’t ignore the country’s tragic predicament (economic and social crisis, unemployment and precariousness, destruction of the production web, lack of access to markets, lack of funds, etc.)
The Thessaloniki program, which was drawn up by a relatively small staff, was SYRIZA’s first serious move to get rid of a tradition of far-reaching objectives and historic demands of social transformation that ignored the compelling pressures of the time, context, and the international balance of power. The Thessaloniki program’s objectives, as were expressed in its four pillars (confronting the humanitarian crisis; restarting the economy; regaining employment; democratic restructuring of the state) were part of SYRIZA’s overall government plan, serving its wider political and programmatic targeting for the termination of austerity policies and the promotion of social justice. The core of the Thessaloniki program’s rationale was characterized by the wish to defend the interests of the popular classes and its central aim was to confront the humanitarian crisis. In the same spirit, there were some more demands — just but hard to achieve — because of the extremely harsh economic reality and the given balance of power. In addition, the feasibility of an increase in revenues from various sources was overestimated while underestimating the danger of our lenders imposing a state of fiscal asphyxiation, not only during the negotiations but much earlier, when the PASOK-ND government, with the assistance of EU’s conservative circles, was formulating the “Left parenthesis” plan [a scheme of sabotage to ensure that any SYRIZA government would be short-lived and that the old parties would quickly return to power, rendering SYRIZA’s importance in Greek history to that of a parentheses or footnote — P.W.].
2. The January 2015 Victory and the First Term in Government – the Negotiation, the Government Policy, the Party
The January 2015 election and its outcome will go down in the history of the European and World Left as the radical Left’s first victory in the 21st century and indeed in a country of the hard core of capitalism. The formation of a coalition government the day after the election took opponents both in Greece and abroad by surprise. This decision thwarted the plans to drag SYRIZA into either long negotiations with other parties or into an unstable minority government, or even to make the country enter the adventure of a new pre-election period at a very critical moment. Of course, the coalition (in addition to the Ecologists Greens and other political forces of the Left, such as the group “Pratto,”there was also the participation of persons from the wider Left, socialist and democratic spectrum) with Independent Greeks (ANEL) – an anti-memorandum party that does not belong on the Left – made a negative impression to a part of the Left in Greece, but also to a part of the European Left. However, we managed to convince them that our decision was correct and absolutely essential.
The new government was called on to implement its program while calculated efforts were being made to trap it in a state of absolute financial asphyxiation. When SYRIZA came to power, the projected cash deficit was at 500 million Euros and there were suffocating deadlines for the completion of the fifth assessment, which had been deliberately left unfinished by the previous government. Moreover, no tranches had been disbursed by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Stability Mechanism (ESM) since April 2014 while the ability to issue treasury bills had been exhausted and the European Central Bank (ECB) was taking restrictive measures, excluding Greece from the protective shield of the European financial system offered by the commencement of the ECB’s quantitative easing program just before the January 25 election.
Despite all this, the government succeeded in implementing part of its pre-election promises, such as restructuring the payments of arrears to tax offices and social security organizations, protection of primary residence for the most vulnerable households, rehiring unfairly laid-off state employees, re-opening ERT [Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation], and the program to confront the humanitarian crisis. All of these gains were legislated and implemented – as far as possible – in conditions of unprecedented economic strangulation.
From the beginning of its term of office, the government was faced with a cruel asymmetric war through financial asphyxiation. The last tranches had been disbursed by IMF and ESM in April 2014, just before the European elections. Since then the country had been regularly servicing its debt obligations to its lenders without receiving the owed tranches though. At the same time, after five years of supposedly “successful” memoranda policies, in late February 2015, just a few days after the new government had sworn in, the country already couldn’t fully pay salaries and pensions. Meanwhile, the ECB’s restrictive measures and the uncertainty that was deliberately cultivated by local and foreign officials exacerbated the acute liquidity problem since the flight of deposits increased, as did the non-performing loans.
Apart from the country’s economic strangulation there were plans and attempts from European power centers – as well as from domestic forces that aimed not only at exerting pressure but also at creating chaotic economic conditions – to cause the government to collapse or be overthrown.
The dominant forces in Europe got scared that a left government in Greece could set an example and be the harbinger of radical political developments and renewed demands for progressive alternatives everywhere in Europe, particularly in its southern part. In addition, domestic established interests foresaw that the successful outcome of the negotiation and the signing of a mutually beneficial agreement by the government of the Left would put their interests at risk and would signify a strategic victory that could establish the Left in power. The fierce attack that was launched aimed at forcing the government to exit the Eurozone voluntarily or overthrowing it and make SYRIZA split under the strain of trying to accept an unsustainable agreement.
The government made a series of moves to strengthen its negotiating position and cope with the unprecedented economic strangulation that was imposed on it. It sought – unsuccessfully – alternative funding sources abroad to cover the country’s borrowing requirements and start the disengagement from the memoranda. It suspended the payment of the loan installment owed to the IMF and secured the transference of the public sector’s cash reserves to the Bank of Greece in order to safeguard the payment of salaries and pensions as a priority over meeting the lenders’ demands. After the ECB cut Greece’s liquidity when the [July 2015] referendum was called, the government went on to implement the decision to impose controls on capital movements with the sole purpose of securing the solvency of the bank system and protecting citizens’ bank deposits. From the beginning of its term of office, the government stressed the failure of the policies of austerity, internal devaluation, and harsh fiscal adjustment – which the Greek people expressed their disapproval of with their vote – and pointed to the pan-European dimension of the Greek problem in any attempt to find a truly sustainable solution.
The government’s target was to find a “middle area” that could become the common ground on which the two sides would find a new, mutually acceptable agreement to stabilize the economy and stop the economic destruction, opening the way for a transition to a new, post-memoranda era. To this purpose, it aimed from the start at a functional and honest compromise that could on the one hand satisfy the popular will democratically expressed in the election and on the other secure the respect for European Union (EU) rules and for the principles of solidarity, democracy, and parity between member states. From the first day it was elected, the government fought for the signing of a bridge deal that would allow it to gain time and certain degrees of freedom in order to implement part of its program within the asphyxiating framework of its commitments and the pending fifth assessment of the second memorandum, which was never concluded.
However, the government’s policy presented serious weaknesses. Our major strategy to achieve a mutually beneficial agreement did not let us see clearly – even when we cited it – that for the neoliberal forces, both in Europe and in Greece, we constituted a systemic danger. Our political opponents’ objective was to overthrow the government, or at least humiliate it. This was absolutely clear, especially after the February agreement.
In this context, we inexcusably underestimated a number of crucial factors:
We underestimated the political time factor, which resulted in delaying interventions that would have offered us significant popular support and advantages in negotiations, so today we are trying to realize them in a more negative environment.
We underestimated the operation of the state apparatus, and as a result, even today in important areas there are administrations that sabotage central policy directives or openly operate in a different direction.
While we used a number of weapons in the negotiations, we never had the first-move advantage. The default, the capital controls, and even the [July 2015] referendum were all done as our ultimate line of defence against the financial asphyxiation and not as part of our planning.
We did not continue the unilateral legislative intervention as we had done about the humanitarian crisis and the 100-installment plan (for debts to tax office) – measures which, to a considerable degree, averted the exhaustion of the popular classes and brought households and small businesses out of tax debt, preventing them from being destroyed. In a number of sectors with positive or neutral budgetary balance, such policies might have led us to a better position.
We did not realize either a plan of defence or a plan to limit the damage from the asymmetric war that was launched on us with the operation of the banking system as a major weapon. We found ourselves watching the banks go bankrupt due to the flight of capitals, without taking any action.
We underestimated the need for fast tactical moves that, in the new suffocating context, would enable us to implement as much of the Thessaloniki program as possible, as well as execute readjustments, wherever it was necessary.
We did not utilize – to the highest possible degree – the dynamics of the people, who supported us in the negotiation with mass mobilization in Greece and in Europe.
The above problems magnified the apparent weaknesses of a party that is trying to govern for the first time. The field of programmatic elaboration manifested the party’s overall difficulty in prioritizing, both centrally and in the various particular areas. It was also clear that a large part of our work was limited in generalizations and that we were not ready to translate it into practical policy. The result was that even in fields where there was no disagreement, e.g. restoration of collective bargaining and combating undeclared work, we were not ready to legislate.
In the government and SYRIZA’s efforts to cope with the new situation resulting from the January election, the party’s substantial assistance was essential. The party was principally required to do the following three things: form a new political hegemony in society on an ideological and theoretical level; provide the necessary political and state personnel so as to promptly realize all the necessary amendments in the government’s policies and in the state itself; and finally be transformed into a political formation of the governing Left, taking on the role of feeding the government with social demands, securing the popular movement’s support of radical reforms, but also planning a strategy that would relate the current administration to the purpose of social transformation.
In the new conditions, SYRIZA emerged as a dominant model for both the European Left and the international left radical movement. In this framework, it needed to give a practical answer to the primary question: How could a government of the Left operate effectively and leave a positive footprint in a small European country inside the Eurozone, in conditions of absolute neoliberal hegemony? And in conditions of general crisis in the country (debt crisis, crisis of state structure and function, crisis of the production model), could it cope with the critical problems, which had taken on an acute form, and seek recovery and transition to a different path of sustainable development?
Therefore, it was necessary that measures be taken for the restoration of the party so that it would respond to the necessities of this new period. It is the responsibility of the leadership elected at the first congress that the party has failed in this duty. Although in the previous congress it was decided that the party should be reinforced with new members and that new party officials should be promoted, there was no planned policy for new membership or for matching the party’s organization with its social and political dynamics. As a result, these decisions merely remained a declaration of good intent.
Moreover, we failed to develop the so necessary gender-equality culture and this, as a rule, led to silencing of women’s experience in the party’s decisions and functions. Thus, even though the party managed to listen to the demands of the people, the movements and the “squares,” and to relate to them, to affect and be affected, it was unable to acquire close organizational bonds with them and incorporate new ideas. It remained a small party without new party officials emerging from the struggles of this new period and with a relatively limited presence of women in its leading bodies, which is also apparent in the parliamentary group and the government. All these are a problem for a party that is supported by such a large part of the voters, already 26.5% in 2012.
A significant exception was the party’s great successful intervention in the mass movement of solidarity – to the victims of both the economic and the refugee crisis; a new, patently real and grave problem, which is like no other experience in the recent past. Despite minor differentiations that did not seriously affect our stance and practice, the members and the organizations of the party dealt with it in unison. With consecutive initiatives, they secured equal participation, without partisan or other narrow criteria. There was also a natural emergence of leadership, full autonomy of the structures and cooperation with any other initiatives appeared.
3. The Clash, the Referendum, and the Compromise
The deal of the February 20, 2015 — which foiled the plans of those who had invested in the government’s immediate fall — shaped a new field for the clash that would follow, in which a major tool the institutions used was economic asphyxiation. At the same time, the completely unrealistic targets for enormous primary surpluses, to which the previous government had committed itself, were revised downwards and the newly elected government was given the necessary time to draw up its own package of reforms and changes in the state, society, and economy.
That deal contained ambiguities and did not include an explicit commitment for funding. It was interpreted in an undermining way by the lenders as a continuation of the fifth assessment, which had not been concluded by the previous governments, and the new government was called on to do so in conditions of economic asphyxiation.
In addition, despite the merciless war from domestic circles who held the keys of power, the government went on to make crucial changes in the criminal justice system in the direction of humanization, virtually abolishing juvenile prisons and generally promoting favorable arrangements that up to a point corrected injustices and created a humane environment in Greek prisons. Meanwhile, the citizenship law was passed while the policy on immigration-refugee issues largely upset established xenophobic conceptions, but also practices of repression and deterrence, which fueled racism and far-right poisonous rhetoric during the whole previous period. SYRIZA’s policy at that time decisively contributed to the creation of a movement of solidarity to refugees and put our country in the path of international legitimacy and defence of human rights.
The changes were not made without shedding any blood, metaphorically speaking. The conflict grew, as the opposite side felt that the core of their ideology was being affected. In the clash between Left and Right in the field of values, the deep state wholeheartedly supported and promoted the positions of the bourgeois parties.
Continuing the negotiation, until the referendum was called, but even afterwards, the Greek side submitted proposals that could lessen the distance with its creditors and set the basis for the promotion of a number of critical and mature economic, social, and institutional changes aiming at the recovery of the economy and the financing of growth, the restoration of tax fairness, the redistribution of burdens, and the democratic reconstruction of the state apparatus.
By contrast, after every attempt of the Greek side to bridge the differences, throughout the long tough negotiations, the lenders always made new demands, constantly undermining the necessary common ground. The institutions’ intransigent hard line, as expressed through Juncker’s ultimatum, torpedoed any prospect of achieving a sustainable agreement and led the Greek government to resort to the people’s verdict so that a democratic way out would be given and the negotiation process would resume.
In this process, the party was not as present as it should be. The leading bodies did not operate appropriately so as to elaborate on the party’s tactic in the negotiation and see that – through the party’s organizations – it was assimilated by the members. The effect was that at every turn of the negotiation the party was taken by surprise by the ever-changing circumstances and was unable to react to the opponent’s attacks and undermining actions.
The declared objective of the referendum was to improve the government’s negotiating position in an unequal and asymmetric battle. In conditions of unprecedented economic asphyxiation and the opponent’s overwhelming political and institutional superiority, the government sought democratic mandate in order to repel a proposal that specified a five-month extension of the previous loan contract, without sufficient funding, prolonging the economic uncertainty and merely shifting the danger of a Grexit to the immediate future. It called upon the Greek people to reject the lenders’ proposal and keep alive the hope for a sustainable and realistic agreement in the context of the existing, particularly adverse, European balance of power.
With the referendum we proposed a new paradigm, beyond the logic of submission with which all the adjustment programs had been connected so far. It was the first time the government of a country member of the EU and the Eurozone had directly challenged the policies of aggressive austerity, internal devaluation, suffocating supervision, and harsh fiscal adjustment. It was the first time a European people had directly claimed the right to assess, judge, and co-decide everything that concerns it. Even though the endeavor was not fully successful, it did manage to wedge a new paradigm of political instrument into the heart of Europe, at the opposite end to the until-then prevalent logic of unconditional surrender and blind submission of the previous governments.
We brought back to the fore the issues of democracy and respect for popular sovereignty, awakening people’s consciousness and activating democratic political reflexes. The Greek government claimed – on behalf of all the European peoples – a different path and a different Europe. The outcome of the referendum and the punitive logic of retaliation that came as a reply to the “No” (OXI) of the Greek people revealed how visible the danger of the revival of nationalisms is in a Europe led by a single power and showed that the abuse of a people’s democratically expressed will can be a severe blow to the foundations of the entire European institutional edifice. All this led to the mobilization of progressive forces, intellectuals, and politicians. In addition to the traditional allies of the Left (European Greens, a part of European Socialists), a lot of European political forces stood with the government and SYRIZA in asking that the democratic will of the Greek people be respected.
Both the institutions’ ultimatum and their entire policy was part of an ongoing coup with a dual purpose: to preserve the existing memorandum framework and overthrow the Greek government. The overwhelming “No” of the vast majority of the Greek people did not allow the fulfillment of the above plans. Moreover, until the referendum was called, the only proposal on the negotiation table on the lenders’ side was the conclusion of the fifth assessment – at a standstill since August 2014 – together with a third harsh memorandum.
The July 5 referendum made possible a three-year agreement with coverage of the country’s funding needs and commitment for debt adjustment at a specified time and with a relatively defined content.
It is true that we did not manage to secure the agreement we wanted. The agreement did not represent the government’s will. Even though the agreement was signed under coup d’état circumstances after an unprecedented blackmail and was marked by an asymmetric negotiation determined by the lenders’ unwavering insistence on the strict application of the same policies; it was also shaped by the Greek government’s will to resist this prospect and obtain the best result possible under the circumstances.
In the aftermath of the referendum, the government was faced with the following extortion dilemma: either to sign an agreement that would secure a three-year funding of 86 billion euros, in return for the adoption of a series of undoubtedly harsh measures or lead the country to an uncontrolled default with unpredictable economic and social consequences. Besides, the dilemma in which we were put was not “memorandum or drachma” but “memorandum, either with euro or drachma, or uncontrolled default.” Rejecting both a blind rift and unconditional submission, we opted for retreat and tactical redeployment in order to regroup and move on, keeping alive our hope of eventually prevailing in an ongoing unequal fight.
As regards the first part of the agreement – that is to say the loan contract – the Greek government managed to avert the plan of continual financial blackmail, which was supported by extreme conservative European circles – mainly the Schaeuble group – and which remained active until the August 14 Eurogroup. According to that plan, Greece would either have to content itself with a five-month program as an extension of the previous loan contract, or face a series of consecutive repayments that would prolong the uncertainty but also increase the possibility of blackmail from the lenders for the implementation of recessional and anti-social measures and policies.
Instead, we managed to secure, on the one hand, the change of the legislative and institutional framework with a new loan agreement, and, on the other, the financing of the country’s borrowing needs for the following three years – both its foreign obligations and the state’s domestic debts.
Another positive point is the reevaluation of fiscal targets, which allows for a definitely milder adjustment, reducing the possibility of new blackmails for additional measures in the next years. Most importantly, though, the agreement for the first time sets a binding timetable for the commencement of discussions about the restructuring and repayment terms of the public debt, while – although it imposes privatizations – it also allows for the utilization of public property with a view to planned development.
Certainly, though, the agreement, the memorandum, is not SYRIZA’s government platform, nor is it property of the Left, as is publicly claimed by the lenders’ representatives, in an attempt to rewrite the history of the tough negotiation and our struggle and to erase the traces of their unscrupulous blackmail. Our platform, as detailed in our collective decisions, opposes the memorandum commitments, endeavoring to weaken them and lay the basis for breaking the asphyxiating neoliberal framework.
The effort to break out of the memorandum and the guardianship is exceptionally hard and demanding. However, it is a condition necessary for society to remain standing on its feet, to open the way to democracy and popular sovereignty, which in the present circumstances are being held hostage. It also requires an overall competitive political project, which is detailed and coherent, with international allies – parties and radical movements, progressive governments, especially in the South – with definite dividing lines that the government of the Left will not cross, even if this means clashing with the European elite, such as anything that is related to labor rights, collective agreements, the right to strike, salaries, etc.
In the next period, we will have to accelerate actions in the “parallel” program in Education, Healthcare, Solidarity, etc, which are oriented towards meeting people’s needs and will work as far as possible as a relief for those afflicted by recessional memorandum measures or as opposition to the dominant conservative and authoritarian policy promoted, tooth and nail, by the lenders and local bourgeois forces.
In addition, there are measures and interventions for the implementation of which SYRIZA did not need any external intervention: reform of the tax system with the aim of tax fairness and increase in public revenues; the fight against tax evasion and corruption; the construction of a National System of Social Solidarity; the profound change in public administration; the regulation of the television landscape and the elimination of the vested interests in the media. All of these are measures that the previous governments and the lenders agreed on, but the parties of the old regime in Greece showed no intention of decisive intervention and the lenders never exerted any real pressure. Today, as well, we see that SYRIZA’s initiatives in such a direction are met with objections from the lenders and strong reaction from the opposition.
In this respect, the government’s task is difficult and demanding since it first requires the implementation of the agreed measures in a way that will minimize or offset their negative impacts by a series of specified interventions, within the designated fiscal framework. It also calls for constant vigilance and persistence so that the measures stipulated in the agreement will be included in the context of a broader project of radical changes that will lay the foundations for a new development and production model that will go beyond the asphyxiating neoliberal framework.
4. SYRIZA’s Split, the Victory in the September Elections, the Government Policy, the Party’s Reorganization
SYRIZA’s split, after the July agreement, was bound to happen. The extent of the demobilization, though, could have been reduced if the party leadership had readily organized the necessary intra-party discussion. The decision to convene an extraordinary congress and its later cancellation, due to the definitely necessary calling of a general election, distanced a lot of people from our lines – people who could and should have been with us, even after the disappointment caused by the July agreement.
The calling of the election was necessary because, first of all, the government had been forced to retreat and reevaluate its policies and therefore had to – as was SYRIZA’s commitment before the elections – ask the people anew, and, secondly, because it did not have the parliamentary majority after a significant number of its MPs refused their vote. The demand of the bourgeois opposition and our comrades who founded Popular Unity [LAE] – each having their own different motives – that a new government be formed by the same Parliament would have dragged SYRIZA into a coalition government with the parties of the old regime and practically led to the irrevocable cancellation of January’s breakthrough – contrary to the popular mandate. The victory in the September election proved that SYRIZA had built a strong bond with the popular classes, while the bourgeois opposition continues to identify with the old regime.
With the September popular mandate, SYRIZA has been established as a dominant force in the country’s political scene and as a new hegemonic pole in the evolving domestic and European political landscape. SYRIZA’s second electoral victory cancelled the plans of local and foreign forces that had invested in the strategy of the “Left parenthesis,” dashing the hopes of those who had been engineering the early end of the Left government and the restoration of bipartisanism.
If the collapse of bipartisanism had helped the accession of the Left to the government for the first time a year before, SYRIZA’s second electoral victory accelerated the decomposition of the old political system and sparked procedures and processes of reformulation and reconstruction of the country’s political map. It particularly pressurized the forces of the so-called Center and Social Democracy (PASOK’s existential identity crisis, Democratic Left’s (DEMAR) three-way split, POTAMI’s shrinking, ND’s so far fruitless search for political, ideological, and programmatic character under its new leadership). It discredited the myth of SYRIZA’s supposedly accidental or coincidental rise to power the previous January.
It also showed that the strengthening of the Left forces in Greece was not an isolated or passing incident but part of a wider social dynamic against the policies of austerity, internal devaluation and tough fiscal adjustment. This social dynamic spurs a series of progressive shifts and changes elsewhere in Europe as well (new government supported by Left forces in Portugal; crisis of bipartisanism in Spain after Podemos’ great electoral success and the retreat of the conservative forces; defeat of the rightwing government in Ireland; radicalization of the Labour Party under Corbyn in Britain; etc.).
It proved wrong those who believed that the July blackmail and the fact that the government was forced to withdraw from its aims and commitments would cancel the leftward tendencies in the rest of Europe halting this dynamic. In defiance of the lenders’ tough line against SYRIZA’s government, that second electoral victory proved that the fight against the neoliberal policies continued, keeping alive the hope that a new political situation is gradually taking shape.
At the party’s base, with the exception of the Youth, SYRIZA’s split did not reach the size many had expected. However, its leading bodies and many Prefectural Committees were mutilated; organizations disbanded or lost a considerable number of members. With the measures provided by the party’s statute, after considerable efforts, the Prefectural Committees, the Central Committee, and the Political Secretariat were reorganized; the organizations were reconstructed and, to a limited degree, new members came or comrades that had left came back.
The party’s reconstruction was greatly helped by last September’s election battle, in which our members and officials, despite the exceptionally adverse conditions, gave their best; and, of course, by our new electoral success.
The completion of the first assessment provides us with valuable conclusions. It is clear that the blackmail method on the lenders’ part will continue in an attempt of a continual negative shift of the agreement’s initial framework. In addition, it is inferred that the aim to overthrow the government is still active on the part of the neoliberal forces inside and outside the country. In contrast to a dominant narrative, both right and left, the signing of the agreement after the summer blackmail did not create a mutual political center without political oppositions between the government and the institutions. In spite of the asphyxiating supervision they tried to impose on the entire governmental organization and policy, there will be a number of critical conflicts, as has already happened. The realization of the uninsured citizens’ access to the health system happened through a long process of conflict with the old regime inside and outside the country. The same happened when the government tried not to cut primary pensions but increase insurance contributions instead.
In this respect, the party and government’s central priority is not defined by the verbatim implementation of an agreement that is the result of blackmail but by the efforts to organize the social forces so that the conditions which have turned the lenders into a super-government will be lifted and valuable time will be won, so as to follow a different policy.
The issue of labor relations is now the central front that lies ahead of us. The core of our project is the redistribution of wealth and power in favor of the working classes. This process cannot but have as its most crucial element the repulse of the neoliberal plans for collective redundancies, lockouts, attack on trade union freedoms and on the right to strike.
But this is not confined to defence. It also involves the fight for the substantial reinstatement of collective bargaining agreements with safeguards in favor of employees, such as arbitration, extensibility, continuance, etc., as well as the determination of minimum wages through collective bargaining procedures.
In this struggle we must give all our strength for the development of multiform social and political initiatives in Greece and Europe. What is happening in France shows that even governments that for their own reasons try to distance themselves from a restrictive fiscal policy can implement labor deregulation plans. In this respect, our central alliance must be first of all formed at a grassroots level, with the working classes and the European trade unions.
5. Youth of SYRIZA
The Youth of SYRIZA with its members was present in every battle we fought at the social level against memoranda imperatives in these last years. It actively participated in all the great labor struggles, the youth rebellion in December 2008, the fight for the defence of Education, at the squares, the Hypatia building (migrants’ hunger strike in 2011), in every clash, in every movement event. We should acknowledge that the Youth Organization made great efforts to give SYRIZA’s battles the features that would bring the young generation to the center of the events. The struggles against the management in the workplace, the active presence in the great movements of the last five years, in universities, schools, neighborhoods were all very important. Particularly during the “hot” time of the Referendum, the Youth of SYRIZA fought everywhere in Greece, participated in mass events in favor of “No” and contributed to the great struggle against austerity.
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