Communist Party of Greece

An unprecedented situation and developments under pandemic conditions - new major tasks for the communist and labor movement

It is obvious that the working class and the peoples all around the world are facing an unprecedented situation, at least for the younger generations.

This situation provides the working class and the popular forces with new experience, offers more proof about the historically outdated character of capitalism and, from this point of view, sets new requirements for the class struggle and assigns new tasks to the Communist and Workers’ Parties.

Undoubtedly, the international and regional developments are defined by: ‣ The course and outbreak of the pandemic internationally, the tragic situation in the public health-care systems, the consequences of the pandemic for the life and the rights of the working class and the popular strata, as a result of the anti-popular policies of the bourgeois states and capital. ‣ The outbreak, the evolution and the depth of the economic crisis, whose basic cause is not the pandemic, as claimed by bourgeois governments and international organizations. Serious problems of capital over-accumulation pre-existed in the world capitalist economy, which mathematically led to a new crisis that was accelerated by the pandemic. ‣ The further escalation of the intra-imperialist competitions in the Eastern Mediterranean and other regions of the world, between the US, NATO, the EU and other blocks of forces and powerful states, such as Russia and China.

The above factors are not independent of each other, despite their relative independence; nor did they coincide, as various bourgeois governments and other political forces claim, defending the current exploitative system.

This analysis conceals the class essence and a deeper essence of facts. It conceals that all these factors feed off one other, while the one is the continuation of the other.

It is no coincidence that the governments and the big business groups were ready to seize the pandemic as an opportunity to pass measures against workers, such as further flexibility of working time or tele-working, which they already had in their plans.

It is no coincidence that a new financial crisis has been approaching for some time now, based on the estimates of the system staffs themselves. That the capitalist recovery of the previous period was weak and that the pandemic acted as a catalyst.

It is no coincidence that the fierce international competitions over the wealth-producing resources

and energy routes that are even on the verge of military confl icts or wars, are developing alongside the economic competitions between capitalist states.

It is no coincidence that even the treatment for the pandemic, e.g. the race and the competition over the vaccine, is subject to these contradictions.

In fact, they are manifestations of the same bourgeois policy. At the core of this policy lies the safeguarding of the profi tability of capital at all levels, sacrifi cing popular needs.

These are, aft er all, the impasses, the barbarism, the corruption and the decay of the capitalist system itself, to be paid by the peoples with further exploitation, poverty, unemployment, and even their own blood in the case of military confl icts.

All this is aptly refl ected in the slogan “Capitalism is the virus” that was put forward on the occasion of the pandemic.

The fact that the peoples all around the world are facing the same consequences, provides the possibility of strengthening the internationalization of the class struggle, and ultimately the revolutionary mately the revolutionary struggle against capitalist-imperialist barbatalist-imperialist barbarism.

The outbreak of the pandemic, its rapid spread, its profound consequences for human life, especially in the more developed capitalist states, have brought great problems to the surface, which of course pre-existed, but emerged today in a powerful and tragic way.

The great contradictions and contrasts are even more evident in all aspects of social, economic, political, cultural life and reality, in each country individually and internationally.

Without fail, we must make a greater collective effort and contribution not only to record and codify the new issues, but also to further highlight them, as well as the main trends of the developments, to draw the necessary conclusions and tasks, both at a theoretical and at a political, practical level. Aft er all, many issues and aspects are still in progress.

The developments we are experiencing at this time show, and once again confi rm, that the real 45danger for all the peoples of the world is capitalism at its highest stage, i.e. imperialism.

It not only goes against the needs of the people and social development itself, but it constantly causes irreparable damage on a massive scale in all sectors, due to the sharpening of its contradictions.

Either a solution will be provided based on the real needs of the people or the people will suff er, they will live in miserable conditions, they will constantly pay out of their own pockets so that the few and chosen ones of capital will become richer.

It is time, and will become even more urgent with the end of the pandemic in the coming months, to strengthen the Social Alliance, the anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist line of struggle, our own alternative proposal, our own response, the response of the hopeful socialist tomorrow.

The necessity and timeliness of socialism and socialist revolution are rising to the surface, and as time passes, they will do so in a more imperative way, with new dynamics.

The eff ects of the coronavirus pandemic certainly acted as a catalyst for the worsening of the serious problems that pre-existed

in the capitalist economy.

The KKE, even when the Greek governments (and not just them) were celebrating “growth”, warned that the problem of capital over-accumulation, as the root cause of the crisis, not only has not been overcome, but has sharpened, bringing closer the risk of a new crisis, perhaps earlier than expected.

In fact, the Greek economy is even more exposed to these shocks, due to its so-called “extroversion”, i.e. the great dependence on tourism and shipping, generally on international transport.

On the ground of the new crisis, which is the deepest aft er the end of WW II, there is an ongoing debate about the need for stronger state intervention in the economy.

The same debate is taking place within the EU, of course together with the debate about which capitalist states, and consequently which monopoly

46 groups, will benefit more or less from this intervention. Countries with smaller deficits and debts argue that lending to economies should be a matter of each state individually, through the current support mechanisms. Countries with higher deficits, such as

Italy and Spain, which will need large packages to support their own business groups, argue that this lending should be done on a “debt pooling” basis. What is being confirmed once again is the fraud of

“European solidarity”. This increased state intervention does not constitute a so-called pro-people turn, as some forces, especially of social-democratic origin, claim, nor is it something unprecedented in history. Often, when the stability of the capitalist economy is threatened, the state intervenes and, in essence, “nationalizes” the losses and debts of business groups and banks, so that after a while it can

“re-privatize” the profits for the few. The fact that the EU code-named this intervention “New Marshall Plan” is enough to reveal its real goals. It is worth remembering that the US funds that flowed into the ruined post-war Europe, as part of the Marshall Plan, after WW II, was not an act of solidarity with the European peoples, but a vital action for the capitalist system itself. They were used, on the one hand, for the capitalist reconstruction of Europe, which was crucial for US exports, and on the other hand for halting socialism and the revolutionary labor movement, which emerged from WW

II with great prestige among the people. For this reason, after all, a large part of the Marshall Plan was directed at infrastructure, e.g. military infrastructure, as in Greece, aiming mainly at the socialist system and the struggle of the peoples. However, the necessary post-war state intervention for the reproduction of capital neither ended the vicious cycle of crises, nor ensured the prosperity of the peoples. The benefits that it offered, with the aim of integrating workers’ and people’s forces, bore the stamp of the glory of the social achievements in the USSR and the other countries of socialism, but also of the very struggle of the peoples of Europe. Neo-liberal, social-democratic, and so-called “left” political forces whitewash this EU policy, claiming that “this time the EU is on the right side of history”.

They are consciously lying to the peoples. These are the same forces that committed crimes against their peoples and the public health systems when in government. This is happening e.g. in Greece, currently with the right-wing government and previously with the so-called left government of SYRIZA, as well as in Spain, with the social-democratic government supported by the so-called left Podemos, where thousands of people are dying left and right.

Particularly regarding the character of the crisis, core opportunist poles in Greece initially talked about “a health-care crisis that also has economic consequences because it coincided with the contradictions of the system”, thus contributing to the general bourgeois perception and propaganda claiming that the crisis was exclusively caused by the coronavirus. They conceal the fact that this is a crisis of capital over-accumulation resulting from the natural functioning of the capitalist system and that the necessary confrontation of the coronavirus pandemic affected the course of this crisis. Of course, at the same time they made some adjustments to their position, while others restored the widespread opportunistic perception of the memoranda period, claiming that the “dependent-subordinate position of Greece” is responsible for the crisis. According to this political analysis, uneven capitalist development appears simply as a political responsibility of the bourgeois governments and at the same time as a pro-people way out of strengthening the competitiveness of the domestic industry. This is a political line that obscures the real opponent and objectively fosters a climate of class cooperation and illusions about the existence of another so-called “pro-people model of capitalist development”. Concerning the escalating attack on workers’ and people’s rights, they mainly focus on the ND government and its “neo-liberal agenda”. Their “anti – right-wing” logic can be seen not only in the overemphasis of ND as solely responsible for the anti-popular policy, but also in the characterization of SYRIZA as “social-liberal”, while the determination of the “reactionary turn” of capitalism is only based on the emergence of liberal or “far-right governments” internationally, practically whitewashing all other versions of management that alternate in bourgeois power. In this way, they try to support the strategy of the various “transitional governments” that will gradually and eventually lead us to socialism, which international experience has proved wrong.

It is once again confirmed that there is a strategic convergence of these forces, and that the bourgeois parties, despite their differences, have the ability to adapt to the needs and priorities of the capitalist system.

At the given moment, the adoption of an expansionist-Keynesian policy will not bring dynamic growth, not even to any level of the past, because the previous capitalist recovery was also weak and did not reach the pre-crisis levels. Furthermore, the workers will not benefi t from this growth, while at the same time the fi erce attack on the workers’-people’s income and all rights continues. Increased state intervention, in the end, places the burden once again on the people’s shoulders, in a diff erent way. The people are to pay the new state loans and relieve the burden of the loss-making private business groups.

This is what we are experiencing in Greece at the moment. Over the previous years, the working people paid for the memoranda and the harsh anti-people measures that were imposed by all the governments. These remain in eff ect, while the people are now being called upon to pay the new loans and defi cits that will be created, with new measures that are already being tested out in the “health-care test-tube”, under the test-tube”, under the pretext of the pandemic.

On the one hand, On the one hand, thousands of layoff s, thousands of layoff s, harmful changes in emharmful changes in employment status, workers with fl exible employment relationships who are not even entitled to the meager benefi t of 500 euros, the destruction of self-employed and small and medium-sized farmers. On the other hand, a huge amount of money for big companies and banks.

At the same time the public health system is already bare-bones and defenseless, while the workplaces, the schools and the means of transport are turning into health bombs, as evidenced by offi cial government statistics.

The government’s claim that our country did not experience horrifi c conditions such as in other countries, e.g. Italy, is misleading. Not only because the public health-care system in Greece in the recent period was essentially turned into a “one-disease system”, excluding care in many instances for other critical cases, therapies, or chronic conditions, but also mainly because we have not yet gotten over the pandemic. 47

From the beginning of the pandemic, the government’s criterion was not the people’s health, but to stop the dilapidated public health-care system from buckling, a system that is in this despicable state today with the responsibility of all of the previous governments. Its criterion was to better control the impact of the pandemic on the economy, mainly in the run-up to the tourist season, to avoid undermining government stability from an uncontrolled upsurge in the pandemic, such as that we observed in other EU countries and the USA.

It is a crucial and urgent issue for the Communist and Workers’ Parties, the labor unions, other mass organizations of the popular movement, to lead the struggle: ‣ For protective health measures for the people.

‣For the protection of workers in their workplaces. ‣For no worker or unemployed person to be without a decent income, for them to not pay for the capitalist crisis once again. ‣ For the fortifi cation of the public health-care system with infrastructure and personnel, with the requisitioning of the

private health-care facilities.

Besides, today the necessity for an exclusively public and free health-care system, with the elimination of all business activity, is being demonstrated in a dramatic way. Today, it is indisputable that the health of the people, their care, protection, and safety, is incompatible with capitalist profi t, voracious capital, and the capitalist mode of production.

Let’s see for example what is going on with the test and the vaccine and how pain and fear are being commodifi ed.

The EU and the governments advertise their contracts with the multi-national pharmaceutical business groups for the vaccine, while no one guarantees that their vaccine will be safe and eff ective. With the war of competition hiding the truth, you don’t know who to believe. This is why the issue of health is one of life and death and as such there is no room for the market and profi ts.

48 Let’s consider how vital and at the same time, how feasible in the 21st century it is: To base research for prevention and therapies for diseases on scientifi c collaboration scientifi c collaboration between hospitals – between hospitals – universities – research universities – research centers – a state pharcenters – a state pharmaceutical industry, with maceutical industry, with the criterion being not the criterion being not one of profi t for the enone of profi t for the enterprises and patenting, but the direct management of needs, relief and therapy for human pain. All of the above was experienced by the peoples in the socialist countries decades ago, with much lower capacities and level of development.

All of which shows that today in the epoch of the 4th industrial revolution, with its infi nitely greater capacities, this is not a utopia, but something that is completely realistic, necessary and timely. For this reason, our daily struggle must be directed toward projecting this necessity, towards the superiority of socialism – communism. The virus will weaken at some point, but the issue is how we will deal with a rotten system that with or without pandemic conditions, condemns the people to exploitation, poverty, unemployment, stripped bare hospitals, the barbarism of profi t. ****

Whatever was won in the 20th century was made possible by tough battles, with a line of confl ict, joining in the struggle with communists and under the decisive weight that the gains of working people in the countries of socialist construction had.

While the system is attempting with all means to convince the people that the class struggle is over, that struggles are “retro”, in the same way the system is preparing with all means, to confront the new rise in struggles, the new response to the problems that are multiplying for the vast majority of the people.

The stronger they seem today, the more vulnerable they are. For this reason, they are encroaching on the right to strike and the operation of the trade unions. For this reason, they are passing laws to restrict demonstrations and voting in measures to defend against radical ideas. They are also attempting a huge ideological attack against the vanguard communist ideology by slandering it. They are “lumping together” the honorable vanguard labor-popular struggles with unfathomable things, such as individual terror, the Jihadists, fascist Nazi elements, and more, with phenomena which have been proven to be linked to the very same system in a thousand and more ways. and more ways.

This fear of theirs explains the escalating attack against the Communist movement but also against the socialism we knew.

Who is really attacking socialism? ‣ The EU and the exploitative system where their most powerful health-care systems collapsed, leaving the peoples unprotected, digging mass graves in order to confront the pandemic. ‣ The EU that has as a guideline work till 70 years of age with crumbs for wages and pensions at the level of income supplements. ‣ The EU that has made education an inaccessible commodity for the majority. ‣ The EU and the system of state oppression at the expense of the people, the EU of concentration camps for refugees and immigrants, of imperialist wars. ‣ The EU that persecutes Communist Parties and symbols, that vindicates the Nazi criminals and attempts to rewrite history as it suits them, with made-up stories and scenarios based on the theory of the “two extremes”. They are shelling out huge amounts for this, but it won’t get them anywhere.

Who here in Greece says that “socialism is outdated”? ‣ Those who have imposed in practice that health is based on how much money you have. In the middle of a pandemic, only the people that have the money to pay can do tests. ‣ Those who today are imposing unpaid overtime on those workers who were quarantined because they became ill, in essence punishing them. ‣ The ND government and the bourgeois parties, who in practice have all placed health on the cost-benefi t balance and have answered that what-

ever costs money, must be cut. ‣ Those who are observing health protocols as they see fi t, fi nally tearing them into shreds for the benefi t of shipowners, transport enterprises and hoteliers. ‣ Those who for six months now have done absolutely nothing to ensure the education rights of the youth, with as many educators needed, with as many classrooms necessary, with all of the requisite cleaning staff , with 15 students per class, with guaranteed means and measures of health protection for all. ‣ It is those who during the pandemic period and war declarations, instead of hiring all the necessary personnel, strengthening Primary health-care, and requisitioning the private health sector, they chose among others, to increase compensation for the funds of the huge private health-care clinics.

In the face of all this barbarism, the example of Cuba, who sent touching internationalist aid via International Brigades of specialized doctors and nurses to many aff ected countries, is a beacon. And they did this while having to face the long-standing destructive US embargo. The struggling peoples have already given them this year’s “Nobel Peace Prize”.

Within these, in many ways, completely unprecedented conditions in Greece, the KKE, the KNE, the class-oriented trade union movement, the trade unions that rally with PAME, the militant organizations of the working class of the private and public sector, as well as those of the self-employed of the city and the countryside (craft smen, tradesmen, farmers, scientists), artists and entertainers, women, university students, and pupils, projected signifi cant demands, for the support of popular incomes, the abolition of the hundreds of anti-people laws and government decisions that concern all the sectors. But also, support of immigrants and refugees that ended up in our country and are victims of imperialist wars and capitalist exploitation. This struggle is being organized against being organized against very dangerous logics and very dangerous logics and theories that attempt to theories that attempt to disarm the labor-popudisarm the labor-popular forces, to place obstalar forces, to place obstacles in the way of the class cles in the way of the class struggle. 49 It is mainly the theory of “individual responsibility” that is being systematically cultivated by the government, the state, the large employers that consider that the individual is exclusively responsible for the protection of public health, simply to hide the huge state defi ciencies and inadequacies. It is also about the irrational and metaphysical conspiracy theories, mainly far-right in origin, that deny the existence of the virus and the pandemic. These theories are advertised by various mechanisms of the system to entrap people who are concerned and worried. They are also utilized by the government as a convenient enemy, in order to provoke and sack the just and necessary demands of the movement. Above all, however, it is the poisonous logic of “national unity” being cultivated by the government, the bourgeois parties and capital, calling on the people to put their struggles and their demands “in quarantine” so we all “get through this adventure together”, giving free rein to their hypocritical bourgeois ethic. With this logic, not only the government of ND, but also the representative of the sinful and fallen social democracy in Greece today, SYRIZA, stands out, calling for a new “social contract”, a “radical realism”, essentially a class “peace” of the subjugation of labor power to capital.

The KKE, with its struggle during this period proved that the class struggle can be adapted, however, it is not suspended under any circumstances. Besides, the KKE, the KNE, the class labor movement, the unions that rally with PAME, proved throughout this period that they can wage a struggle, while observing the requisite protective measures for the people, under pandemic conditions like today.

The celebration of this year’s Workers’ May Day, the Days of Action for workers in retail and trade, tourism, the means of transport, etc., the dozens of political events, such as the large cultural events of the 46th KNE-Odigitis Festival, with its exemplary observance of the health protocols and the disobedience towards the hypocritical prohibitions of the bourgeois state

50 are such proof, that the class struggle can find ways of expression, even under prohibitive conditions, using original forms of struggle. Not for one moment did we back down facing repression, the anti-labor laws of violence, the prohibition of demonstrations, and the restriction of the right to strike. Because “mouths with masks” showed that they have a strong voice which is not covered up, nor silenced, no matter how many obstacles they put in their way. This organized “disciplined” disobedience against the anti-labor repressive measures, bothered and is bothering the bourgeois state, because it revealed the great virtues of the working class, of the organized people. The element of disobedience, the continuation of the struggle under whatever conditions, shows us the path that all of the Communist and

Workers’ Parties must consistently follow, based on our program and our strategic goal, with internationalism as our weapon. The element of “our own discipline” demonstrates the vanguard role that must and can only be played by the Communist Party as the leader of its class, the only Party that can rely on scientific facts, to open up shining paths, that can be the leader of the struggle, in the social alliance, to take matters till their final end, that is, the decisive victory of the working people against the dictatorship of the monopolies, to lead the peoples to a new society free from the exploitation of man by man. As a famous Greek song says, in this way “need becomes history”… The necessity of breaking the vicious circle of contradictions of a system which cannot satisfy the essential rights and needs of the vast majority of the people, while at the same time, the rise in productivity and the development of technology and science, create the conditions for leaps and the radical improvement and tackling of social problems. It shows even more vividly today how the organization of the economy based on capitalist profit, the power in the hands of a social minority, that is, the representatives of the monopoly groups, becomes an obstacle to social progress and prosperity. Evidence has accumulated that demonstrates the urgent need for socialism-communism, that is, of workers’ power, for the establishment of social ownership, of central scientific planning of the economy, with the criterion being the expanded satisfaction of all social needs.