Golden Dawn, Bonapartism and the Greek ruling class

This article was written before the arrests of the leadership of Golden Dawn. However, the analysis it contains has been absolutely confirmed by the subsequent events. The Communist Tendency follows the developments and will publish further articles with our analysis and conclusions.

The removal of key police chiefs from their positions, the controversial appearance of potential coup protagonists, the intense investigations into the Golden Dawn (GD), the first arrests of its members and the daily revelations in the bourgeois media regarding its structures, operations and plans, are very important facts that should be examined in a serious manner by the labour movement and the left.

The removal of two generals, who were in charge of south and central Greece and of a further eight high ranking officers who were in charge of the security branch of the headquarters of the Greek police, called EKAM, of the branch for the Prevention of Organized Crime in Attica, of the Department of Arms and Explosives Safety in Attica, of the Y.A.T. (riot police), of the Team Delta, and of the Police Department of Nikaia, was no routine change of administration. In reality it is an admission of complicity with the GD and of the cover up of its operation in the previous years. For these reasons, with obvious political costs for the government, it would be a mistake to assume that it happened because of the media.

Of course no activist of the labour movement and the left needed to witness the government removing these high ranking police officers to understand their close relationship with the GD. What was not realized, however, was the depth and broad scope of this connection. The latest removals reveal that the influence and even the control of the fascists over sections of the state apparatus were quite extensive. Let us recall that it was Engels who described the state as ultimately being “a body of armed men”.

The influence of the fascists within the police forces is verified indirectly, but clearly from the official statistics which were recently publicized regarding the latest attacks of the GD. According to the Ministry for the “Protection of the Citizen”, GD has been responsible for 38 offences and criminal acts this year alone. The “Public Defendant” announced on the 26^th September that in the last 16 months the attacks by GD have been 281. These attacks resulted in 400 people injured and 4 killed. Certainly, the real number is much higher than that, but what matters most is not the accuracy of the figures but the fact that they reveal an operation on the part of GD that is so intensive that it requires the coverage and backing of the state “law enforcement authorities”.

The military also has been heavily involved in the state’s deep connections with GD, as the government has indirectly admitted. This is clear from the on-going investigation that the Ministry of Defence is conducting after interviews of GD members appeared in bourgeois media according to which army officers have been training GD “attack squads” in military barracks. Just a few days ago we saw publicized a political manifesto of an aspiring military coup of the Union of Reserve Commandos, which uses in key points the same tone as the GD. The judges of the Supreme Court called a meeting to discuss this manifesto as they did not consider it a laughing matter. All these facts indicate that fascist elements have built up a strong presence within the state apparatus.

Almost three years ago in our analysis of Greek Perspectives (December 2010) we pointed out: “It is certain that within the armed forces of the state apparatus serious developments are taking place. We will soon see developing a tendency for a more ‘active’ involvement of the police and the military in politics, especially of the upper command and Special Forces, as is customary in Greek capitalism. As order gets disrupted and chaos starts to emerge in the form of protests and strikes, then extremists in these sectors of the state apparatus, who are a natural breeding ground for extreme reactionary groups and conspiracies, will start getting the upper hand…”

The latest developments have verified our predictions. The turning point for the process that is described in the above paragraph came in the double elections of May-June 2012. Since then this layer of extreme reactionaries has had a specific point of reference and leadership: the Golden Dawn.

The neo-Nazis of the GD were not preparing their organization to play the role of a party with a high level of electoral, nor did they ever imagine that one day this would ever happen. The founding directives of the GD established it as an unofficial fascist branch of state oppression. The neo-Nazis saw were transformed into a significant political force due to the collapse of the bourgeois political camp. The fact that they now had MPs reinforced their profile. Using this as a vehicle they created strong cells within the military and police, and also new powerful friends within the ruling class.

The news that is being published daily in the bourgeois media mention reports on relations between the Tax and Revenue Office and the GD; which proves its closeness with at least a section of the big capitalists. Specifically, the news mentions, “financing of illegal activities from big businesses, ship owners, even bishops”, that indicates that the neo-Nazis were becoming a rising force within the ranks of capital.

GD was especially active in Perama and the surrounding areas (the shipbuilding hub), trying to build a “nationalist union”. This is de facto proof of their close relations with the ship owners. One year ago during the budget discussion in the parliament the issue of low taxation on the ship owners was put forward. The MP of GD Panagiotaros stated that his party disagrees with this, using these words: “You found the easy solution of taxing and of course lots of ship owners will find the even easier solution of changing their flags so you’ll end up collecting no money (…) Once the ship owners gave all their ships for the fight of 1821 [the Greek war of independence], for the Balkan wars, for 1940. They are willing now, they just need the appropriate reciprocation” (!!!).

As we have repeatedly pointed out, the consistently high number of votes for the GD in the polls did not lead to the consolidation of a massive fascist party, as was the case with Hitler or Mussolini. This proved totally unachievable, as the rising social support that was expressed in the polls was mainly an act of belated and blind protest against the corrupt bourgeois political system. The fact that the support for the GD in the opinion polls after the murder of Pavlos Fyssas has fallen and the fact that only 1.5% of their voters say that they embrace its ideology, proves this point. However, public funding and donations from ship owners have provided the GD with the means to buy off impoverished lumpen elements and to build a sizeable army of paid murderers. An ex-member of the GD in an interview with the newspaper “Ethnos” stated that the GD could mobilize 3000 armed men.

The statement by Loverdos (ex-PASOK minister) some time ago that the “Golden Dawn is the only authentic movement” and the promotion of the GD by the newspaper of T. Anastasiadis reflect its increasing popularity within the bourgeoisie. The government used the GD in various ways, as a political scarecrow for the workers and youth, as an auxiliary power in its actions of oppression and expulsion of immigrants, and as an excuse to promote the theory of the “two extremes” with the sole purpose of defamation of the left. As the government crisis peaked this summer with the withdrawal of DIMAR (Democratic Left), a collaboration of New Democracy and the GD at some stage began to appear as inevitable.

Leading members of ND and notorious people form the bourgeois media such as B. Papadimitriou openly posed the question of cooperating with the GD. For this plan to work the GD would have to become more “serious”, more “respectable”, meaning that it would have to transform itself into a classic far right party and drop its more openly fascist image, and then it could play the same role as Karatzaferis did in the Papadimos government [Note: Karatzaferis was leader of the right-wing conservative party, LAOS, which emerged as a right-wing split from the New Democracy, buts which has since disappeared on the electoral front after participating in governments carrying out sever austerity measures]. The GD, however, was of a different opinion.

The election results, the deep links with the state apparatus, the generous donations of the capitalists and the general sense that the ruling class needed them made the fascists more arrogant. Betting on the increased bankruptcy and isolation of the traditional leaders of capital, blinded by their sudden popularity and their new role, they believed that the time was close for them to take power, not as auxiliary partners in a ND government, but exclusively through their own powers and methods!

The recent events, the news that fills the bourgeois media every day and the unusually hostile attitude of the government towards the GD, prove that the GD had started preparing for an attempt to seize power directly. The attempt killing of KKE militants at Perama and the murder of Pavlos Fyssas immediately afterwards, were part of a plan to attack the left and the labour movement as a whole, which the fascists thought they could benefit from. For every other political party a murder would objectively pose problems. However, according to the way of thinking, actions and political goals of the fascists, this act – always of course under the right political and social conditions – they thought would be a successful propaganda point.

The plan of the fascists with their murderous attacks was to spread terror and confusion on the left, show their determination, establish “order” that supposedly has been disrupted due to the strikes and protests, and thereby seek to gain some sympathy votes from the petit bourgeois and at the same time send a message to the capitalist bosses that theirs was a ruthless fight against their class opponents. The “repented” ex-GD members in their interviews said that the peak of the first part of the plan would be a big rally at Nikaia where Michaloliakos, leader of the GD, would speak. Through all this the GD would attempt a show of power in the heart of working class neighbourhoods, trying to appear as being close to the people, and thus mount a provocation against the labour movement and the left.

Taking for granted the accelerated state of decay of the government and the essentially passive opposition of the leadership of SYRIZA, the fascists believed that this new cycle of events could put them on track to take power. Initially, this would open for them through their involvement in a right-wing government, not as a minor player, however, but as a decisive partner, and later through a coup where they could mobilize the cells of supporters in the military and police. Their plans, however, proved arrogant and unrealistic.

As we have explained for a long time now, the bourgeoisie has understood that inevitably in the future they would have to rule through the methods of Bonapartism. This, however, does not mean that they would prefer the GD to lead this, or that this Bonapartism should take the form of a classic fascist regime. They would prefer, after having exhausted all other “constitutional” political solutions of government, a form of Bonapartism dressed in parliamentary robes.

The growing independent fascist activities were undermining today’s fragile government, and also threating to block the implementation of the Troika’s plans and the position of the country inside the euro. This explains the sudden about turn and the aggressive stance of the government and the bourgeois media towards the GD.

All this is in no way an indication of an attachment to democracy on the part of those very same people who have ridden roughshod over the basic elements of bourgeois parliamentary democracy in order to pass laws and force the workers to serve the interests of the bankers and other capitalists. What we have before us is a ruling class that considers ill-timed and high risk any plans to enforce n openly a Bonapartist regime at this stage.

The fascists decided arrogantly and impatiently to act on their own. The majority of the ruling class is now punishing them for this and bringing them back under their total control. This conflict within the ruling class is not one of “fascists” versus “democrats”, but between the openly fascist elements whose models are Mussolini and Hitler and those who believe the better option is to prepare the ground for governing through presidential decrees and forms of parliamentary Bonapartism at a later stage.