Lessons from Greece

In 2015, the politics of reformism were put to the test in Greece in a dramatic showdown with the institutions of European finance capital. In this article, Arturo Rodriguez looks back at this period to explain the causes of the crisis, how the masses mobilised to defeat the austerity packages imposed on the country, and how this inspiring movement was betrayed by the Syriza leadership.

[This article was originally published as part of issue 50 of In Defence of Marxism magazine – the quarterly theoretical magazine of the Revolutionary Communist International. Subscribe and get your copy here]

Marxist revolutionaries are regularly dismissed as utopian dreamers by ‘sensible’ reformist politicians, who claim they can lastingly improve the living conditions of the working class within the framework of capitalism. But the moment the system enters into crisis, all the illusions of the reformists burst like soap bubbles, with disastrous consequences for the masses.

Today, the crisis of capitalism is also the crisis of reformism. This is not just a theoretical hypothesis. It has been proven by recent experience. Ten years ago, reformism was dramatically put to test in Greece. The events of the first Syriza government in 2015 are full of lessons for the working class.

Capitalist crisis

Capitalism is a system riddled with contradictions, one of the most important ones being its tendency towards overproduction. Competition forces capitalists to produce as cheaply and efficiently as possible, but the exploitation and restricted consumption of the working class means that the ever-expanding mass of commodities thrown onto the market cannot be profitably absorbed. This contradiction inevitably results in crises, in which part of the productive forces are paralysed and destroyed.

Such crises cannot be abolished under capitalism, but Marx noted that the system has various ways of postponing them for some time. Nevertheless, dialectically, these temporary solutions only pave the way for even deeper slumps in the future.

The system’s most important instrument to temporarily avoid crises is credit, which can artificially expand the market. This is precisely what happened following the 2000-01 recession in the US and Europe.

Cheap credit was thrown at consumers at a frantic pace. Outstanding household debt in the US, for instance, almost doubled between 2000 and 2007 to $13.8 trillion, almost the same size as the entire US economy.

But the flip side of credit is debt, and debts must be paid back, with interest. Things thus turn into their opposite; credit booms lead to debt crises. This was the character of the slump in 2008.

The economic gallop of the 2000s ended in the ditch of a crisis. The recession began in the United States, then jumped to Europe, and later spread to the so-called ‘developing’ countries and China. However, it had national peculiarities, which attained their sharpest expression in Europe.

Imperialism

Another basic contradiction of capitalism is that the international character of the economy comes up against the division of the world into bourgeois nation states. The productive forces long ago became too vast for these narrow borders.

The burden of national borders on the development of the productive forces is most glaring in Europe, a continent fragmented into a jumble of small states. Capitalism, which developed first in this continent, quickly came up against the limits of the small European states.

Reaching this limit, the most advanced among them carved out massive global empires. So when an ambitious latecomer, Germany, found its industry straitjacketed by its own limited national borders, it was forced to attempt to carve an empire for itself at the expense of the continent’s old hegemons, Britain and France. The result was two world wars in the twentieth century.

The German bourgeoisie failed to economically dominate Europe through war, but it achieved the same end peacefully in the second half of the twentieth century through the European Union. This, however, involved a lot of horse-trading with the continent’s other ruling classes, and above all French capitalism, which had emerged greatly weakened from the Second World War.

In a phase of economic expansion, this arrangement could hold together. The European Common Market (later the Single Market) provided a ready market for Europe’s industrial giants, of which the strongest were, and are, German. At the same time, the French ruling class was able to draw on the strength of the German economy to subsidise its own, whilst projecting investment and influence south, particularly to its former African colonies.

To the European capitalists this all seemed like they’d found the royal road to ‘peace, prosperity and European unity’. Even a common currency was attained with the introduction of the euro in 1999. In fact, the means by which the European capitalists sought to overcome their own national limitations were preparing the way for a pan-European crisis.

German industry was, and is, far more productive than the Greek, Spanish and Portuguese industries. But inside the Eurozone, the Greek, Spanish and Portuguese capitalist classes could not devalue their currencies to cheapen their exports and boost competitiveness, as they had done in the past. German goods therefore increasingly tended to push out Greek industry.

Without currency devaluation, the Greek ruling class instead embarked on a policy of ‘internal devaluation’, with a programme of major privatisations (including most of the banks) and attacks on the gains won by the working class in the 1970s and 80s. The rules on ‘fiscal discipline’ imposed by the Maastricht Treaty, which established the European Union in 1993, only created a further pressure to cut back on things like healthcare and social services.

In return, Greece received access to cheap credit as long as the boom continued. Entry into the eurozone made it much easier for Greek banks to borrow at lower interest rates than in the past, which prompted a orgy of lending.

Prior to the 2008 crisis, European capitalism, like everywhere else, dished out credit to create new fields for investment to prolong the boom and expand the market. In Greece, household loans increased by 393 per cent between 2001 and 2008, while business loans more than doubled in the same period.

“Tomb of the Unknown Citizen: In memory of the thousands who lost their lives in an undeclared economic war (2010-2013)”, posted near where Dimitris Christoulas committed suicide at Syntagma Square / Image: public domain

This rapid expansion of credit not only helped to prop up demand and keep businesses afloat; it also allowed the banks to make super-profits. The Greek Central Bank reported in 2005 that the banks’ after-tax profits had gone up by 198 per cent in a single year. At that time, Greece had the highest level of banking profitability in the whole of the Eurozone.

But it wasn’t just the Greek bankers that were making a killing during the boom years. Attracted by easy profits, a number of French, German and Dutch banks massively expanded their lending to Greek banks. Foreign banks also acquired controlling shares in Greek banks in order to make the most of the opportunities in the country.

Collapse

The collapse of the American investment bank, Lehman Brothers, in 2008 precipitated a collapse of the international credit market. Banks stopped lending and sought to recover whatever cash they could, as they suddenly discovered that billions of dollars of ‘assets’ on their balance sheets were worthless. Almost overnight, Greek banks found themselves cut off from the cash they needed to keep themselves afloat.

Facing the collapse of the entire Greek banking sector, the government announced a €28 billion bailout. A sizeable chunk of the banks’ debts were thus lifted onto the shoulders of the state.

A year later, the social-democratic PASOK government of Giorgos Papandreou announced a budget deficit of around 12.5 per cent. International rating agencies immediately downgraded Greece’s credit rating, which in turn pushed up the government’s cost of borrowing. The Greek state ended up having to borrow at rates of 10 per cent, just to pay the interest on its €300 billion debt.

By early 2010, it had become impossible for the Greek state to finance itself on the international credit market. Greece was effectively bankrupt, and its government was compelled to ask for ‘help’.

European capitalism had broken at its weakest link. But Greece was joined by a long chain of weak links in southern Europe that were contemptuously designated the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain, with France not far behind).

Without immediate intervention, a series of defaults could have threatened the existence of the euro, and even of the European Union itself. The European ruling class therefore stepped in to save the system, but would make sure that it would be the working class who footed the bill.

The Troika

Greece was bailed out for the first time by a ‘Troika’ comprising the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In exchange, they demanded savage austerity measures and privatisations, set out in a ‘memorandum of understanding’. The Troika sent its apparatchiks to the ministries in Athens to oversee these cuts on the ground.

Yet this bailout could not bring Greek debt under control. It threw Greece deeper into recession, since its austerity cut demand from the economy. Papandreou planned to hold a referendum on a second bailout (so as to shift the responsibility for austerity onto the masses), but was blackmailed not to do so by the German and French governments.

Papandreou ended up resigning in late 2011. A ‘technocratic’ government under Loukas Papademos was then imposed without an election, and obediently signed a memorandum for a second bailout, which demanded further austerity.

There are endless indicators about the exceptional devastation that the Troika wreaked on Greek society. They resemble those of a country ravaged by war. The country’s GDP declined by 27 per cent. Average wages fell by almost 40 per cent, and pensions by 50 per cent. Unemployment rose to 27 per cent, and basic social services virtually collapsed. Workers and part of the petty bourgeoisie were driven to misery and despair.

The ruling classes of Europe claimed that the ‘profligate’ people of Greece, unlike the ‘industrious’ people of northern Europe, had ‘lived beyond their means’. The Greek ruling class itself joined in in blaming the ‘fecklessness of the masses’ for the crisis.

In fact, in the decade up to 2005, Greek workers worked the most hours per year of any country in Europe, at an average of 1,900 per worker, followed by Spain. The myth of ‘lazy Greek workers’ injected chauvinism into the situation, but it was false from start to finish.

The real causes of the crisis were to be found in the contradictions of European capitalism itself, and in the blind speculation of the banks, which the Troika was now endeavouring to save, scapegoating Greek workers in the process.

The Troika did not bail out Greece to ensure the sustainability of Greek public finances. Only a tiny fraction of the bailouts went to the state coffers, with most being pocketed by the country’s creditors. This was, in fact, an indirect bailout of European banks, mostly French and German (but also Greek), which had bought up to €200 billion of Greek public debt. In doing this, the Troika’s main concern was the viability of the international financial system.

In absolute terms, Greek debt was small. Yet it was politically significant. Had Greece’s debts been pardoned, other countries would have been encouraged to renegotiate their obligations, including heavyweights such as Spain, Italy, or even France. This, in turn, posed a serious risk to the international banking system, threatening to drag the world economy deeper into crisis.

The capitalists were perfectly aware of this danger, and thus refused to make concessions.

There was also an internal dynamic within Greece that the reformists, especially the far-left ones, never got their heads around. Through the Troika bailouts, the Greek state recapitalised the country’s ruined banking system. This was therefore also a bailout of the Greek financial system, and, through it, of the Greek ruling class. This is why the Greek bourgeois never wavered for a second in their defence of the memoranda, even if austerity pulverised the Greek economy.

The Greek ruling class, weak and dependent, needs the umbrella of the EU and of western imperialism, and will diligently bow down to all its diktats. Therefore, resistance against austerity was not in the ‘national interest’. It was a class struggle that would come up against Greece’s foreign overlords but also against its own bourgeoisie, as events would soon reveal.

The struggles of 2010-2014

The Troika bailed out Greece to save the world financial system, imposing harsh austerity. However, the bourgeoisie’s attempts to attain economic stability upended the political equilibrium.

Indeed, the Greek working class did not take these attacks lying down. It waged historic struggles. In all key moments, the initiative was in its hands. Once again, the workers proved in practice their immense power.

The years 2010-14 were marked by mass demonstrations and almost 40 general strikes lasting 24-48 hours each, riots, neighbourhood struggles, grassroots organising, etc., which at times reached an insurrectionary tenor.

In the summer of 2011, directly inspired by the revolutionary events in Egypt that brought down the US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak, hundreds of thousands occupied Syntagma square in Athens and other squares across the country. Again in the winter of 2012, half a million surrounded the parliament building.

The masses breathed in tonnes of tear gas, and rained petrol bombs on the police in pitched battles. Dramatic episodes punctuated the street fighting, like the public suicide of the pensioner Dimitris Christoulas in political protest against the regime and against penury. In his powerful suicide note, he wrote:

“I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945.”^[1]

Meanwhile, among the riot police, a process of internal selection took place, in which only those who positively thrived off bludgeoning workers and youths remained in the force. The fascist outfit, Golden Dawn, began recruiting among the police. “Over the last three years there [have been] many incidents in which fellow officers tolerated violence by Golden Dawn members”, admitted a police spokesman.^[2]

Golden Dawn thugs attacked left-wing activists and migrants. Their activities provoked a fierce counter-response, especially after the murder of leftist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013. Tens of thousands of anti-fascists came out to the streets to protest against Golden Dawn in a mood of anger and defiance. The ruling class was forced to rein in these thugs out of fear that they might create an uncontrollable explosion.

Under the whip of the crisis, ordinary working people tried to seize the country’s fate into their own hands. In the process, they drew radical conclusions about their own power and about the nature of the crisis.

The masses came up against a major obstacle, however: the lack of revolutionary leadership.

The majority of the trade union leaders played a lamentable role. The general strike, which is usually a formidable weapon in the hands of the workers, was turned by the Greek trade union bureaucracy into a routine charade so their members could let off steam.

Spontaneous movements such as the occupation of the squares in the spring of 2011 soon fizzled out, as they lacked a programme and a plan for action. After a phase of frantic street mobilisations in 2010-14, the masses therefore began to look for a way out on the electoral front.

The rise of Syriza

Since the late 1970s, most Greek workers had voted for the social-democratic party, PASOK.

PASOK had emerged in a time of revolutionary struggle of the Greek workers in the wake of the fall of the military junta in 1974. Back then, reflecting the degree of radicalisation, its leaders, such as Andreas Papandreou, even spoke in revolutionary-sounding language.

PASOK’s deeds, however, were far from revolutionary. But its connection to the workers was nonetheless cemented by the reforms it introduced during the years of ‘prosperity’ in the 1980s.

Mass meeting at Syntagma Square, June 2011 / Image: Ggia, Wikimedia Commons

However, the crisis from 2010 blew the party’s base of support to smithereens. Far from granting reforms, it carried out savage attacks. It plummeted in opinion polls, and by 2014 it tottered on the brink of collapse. Its traditional adversary, the centre-right party New Democracy, fared little better.

Conditions seemed ripe for the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to take off. This was a mass working-class organisation with heroic traditions going back to the struggle against fascism in the 1940s. Its sectarianism, however, and its passive outlook stemmed its development.

In the heroic struggles from 2010 to 2014, the false policy of the KKE succeeded in cutting adrift many of the best class fighters from the general stream of radicalisation of the masses.

The party’s trade union federation, PAME, for instance, often held sizeable rallies on the many general strike days. But it did so separately from the often much larger rallies organised by GSEE, on the excuse that the latter trade union leaders had, until just yesterday, been associated with PASOK.

The party likewise dismissed many of the enormous protests in Syntagma Square on the grounds that the masses were waving the Greek flag and not the red flag. They failed to understand the mood of national defiance, given that the Greek nation was being crushed by German imperialism. They even went so far as to scold mass occupations of the squares in the summer of 2011 as “mobilisations that entire bourgeois and opportunist political forces surrounded with affection”.^[3]

After the fall of Papandreou in 2011, a succession of rickety governments alternated in power. Looking for a way out, the masses oriented towards a political underdog: the Coalition of the Radical Left, ‘Syriza’.

This party traced its origins to a 1960s splinter of the Communist Party. It was a small formation on the fringe of political life, which obtained 4.6 per cent of the vote in the 2009 elections.

The masses seized upon it, however, precisely because it was an untested political outsider, and one, moreover, that used very radical language. It promised to end austerity, revert privatisation, cancel the memoranda, bring the banks under public ownership, and even spoke about the “structural crisis of capitalism”.^[4] It seemed to offer a clean break with the past.

In May 2012, under the new leadership of Alexis Tsipras, Syriza shot up to 16.8 per cent in the polls. In the June rerun it increased to over 26 per cent, becoming the main opposition to the hated right-wing New Democracy government of Antonis Samaras.

It called for a Left government involving the communists and other smaller leftist parties, a message which resonated with millions who wanted to see what they saw as non-essential differences put aside in order to kick out the establishment parties.

This prepared the ground for Syriza’s rise to power in January 2015, when it won 36.3 per cent of the vote, and only came two seats short of an absolute majority.

Syriza promised to audit the debt and to reverse austerity and privatisations. Tsipras’ so-called ‘Thessaloniki programme’ contained many positive pro-worker demands about wage rises, benefits, subsidies, pensions, and public investment. Yet the leaders of Syriza believed it was possible to attain this within the framework of capitalism (and of the euro and the EU).

Their formula to end austerity was to tax the Greek oligarchs, who keep their assets in tax havens; to nationalise the banks and use them to fund public investment (despite the banks being bankrupt!); and to demand a kinder deal from the Troika. The latter demand is like asking a tiger to become vegetarian. In truth, Tsipras did not really believe his own programme, which, according to one of his top allies, was just “a rallying call for our troops”.^[5]

The problem was that austerity was not a consequence of ‘neoliberal dogmas’ or ‘German wickedness’, as the Syriza leadership claimed, but rather flowed as a result of the crisis of capitalism.

The only way to break with austerity was to break with capitalism. This meant defaulting on the debt and nationalising the big corporations to plan the economy to satisfy social needs rather than private profit.

The reactionary and corrupt Greek state could not carry out such a break, which is only possible by harnessing the energy and the creativity of the working class. It would have required new institutions; it requires workers’ control and workers’ power.

Such a transformation, however, cannot be consolidated within the bounds of a small, impoverished country such as Greece. It would have had to spread to the rest of Europe and further afield. To survive, the Greek socialist revolution needed an internationalist policy.

For the cynical leaders of Syriza, such a programme was regarded as unrealistic. For them, socialism and revolution are, at best, a hazy aspiration for the distant future, but they are never a practical perspective.

Events, however, would quickly prove that the reformists were the real utopians. As Syriza came closer to power in 2012-15, it began to water down its programme, which was already quite moderate. This is no accident. The party began to come under the pressure of the ruling class, which began to ‘correct’ its irresponsible promises.

Communists, however, must always differentiate the treacherous leaders of reformist parties from their honest supporters.

Usually, in their search for a way out of the crisis, the masses first look towards reformism, which promises an easy and painless solution to their problems. The political education of the masses does not come from books, but from life. Only through experience, by putting the reformists to test in practice, can the masses come to realise that their most basic demands are incompatible with the entire capitalist system, which must be overthrown.

Therefore, the rise of Syriza was highly consequential, as it opened an important new phase in the class struggle. Yet, as we shall explain, it cannot be automatically assumed that the masses will draw the correct conclusions from experience. What is required is the presence of a sizeable revolutionary party with an adequate policy, which can win over the masses, help them overcome their reformist illusions, and lift the struggle to a higher plane, towards a victorious revolution.

What stands out in Greece, nevertheless, was the advanced level of understanding of the masses. Life teaches, and 2010-14 had been formative years. Voters gave Syriza an enthusiastic mandate, but not a blank cheque. They maintained a critical outlook. As such, despite its impressive electoral growth, Syriza always had relatively low membership figures, especially in its youth wing.

“On polling day”, recalled a prominent Syriza candidate, “people would walk up to me, pat me on the back and make me promise I would not go back on my word. We support you, but don’t you dare do a U-turn, because if you do we shall round on you, was the unanimous message.”^[6]

Blackmail

As soon as Syriza came to power on 26 January 2015, it immediately came under irresistible pressure from capitalism.

Feeling the breath of the ruling class on his neck, Tsipras entrusted key ministries to outspoken moderate reformists, such as Giorgos Stathakis for the Ministry of Economy and Yanis Dragasakis as deputy Prime Minister. On the other hand, he placed some figures from the party’s left-wing faction in secondary ministries in order to share out responsibility and cover his left flank.

The fact that Syriza fell short of an absolute majority in Parliament meant Tsipras was forced to seek a coalition. He struck an alliance with the right-wing nationalist politician Panos Kammenos from the Independent Greeks.

Tsipras failed to make an open demand on the KKE to support his government, backing up this call with a mass campaign. In fact, he was quite happy to team up with Kammenos, thus obtaining a convenient excuse for the betrayals he could see coming. In this operation, he was inadvertently assisted by the sectarianism of the KKE leadership, which wanted to have no dealings with Syriza and thus cleared the way for Tsipras to team up with Kammenos.

As soon as they took office, Tsipras and his ministers had to embark on numerous trips to Brussels and Frankfurt for negotiations with the country’s lenders. After two bailouts, the Greek state was still tottering on the verge of bankruptcy. Its banking system was under tremendous strain and required liquidity assistance to sustain its day-to-day operations. The Troika used this vulnerability to blackmail Syriza.

The sickening words uttered to the Syriza envoys by the head of the European Stability Mechanism, the German Klaus Regling, give a sense of the tone of the ‘negotiations’: “You must never, ever default on the IMF. Suspend all pension payments instead. This is what you must do.”^[7]

The treatment meted out to the democratically elected Greek government by the EU, the ECB, and the IMF will go down in the annals of international relations for its cynicism and callousness. In normal times, diplomacy under capitalism is shrouded in a veil of formalities and Aesopian language that conceals the domination of a handful of imperialist bullies in world relations. But the intensity of the eurozone crisis revealed the truth, that small nations such as Greece are expected to dance to the tune of the great powers.

The events of 2015 laid bare the real workings of capitalist ‘democracy’: parliaments and elections are all well and good as long as the fundamental interests of the bankers and the capitalists are not called into question. If workers dare to elect a government that challenges these interests, it will find itself being bullied until it is cowed into submission or brought down.

When the bourgeoisie in the West talk of ‘democracy’ and ‘sovereignty’, as they now frequently do over Ukraine, remember the way they crushed Greece. These words are just fig leaves for their rapacious interests. It must be said, however, that Syriza’s constant concessions only whetted the capitalists’ appetite.

Above all, the capitalists’ pressure was economic. The bourgeoisie use their ownership of the economy to impose their will on unruly governments, by threatening to starve the system of capital. In particular, the ECB threatened to pull the plug on the recapitalisation of the Greek banks, using the stability of the banks as a sword of Damocles over the government in Athens.

All the respectable ‘international institutions’ – the EU, the ECB, the IMF – were mobilised to strangle Syriza. The ruling class also carried on an uninterrupted political campaign against the new government. It was subjected to a carefully orchestrated barrage of propaganda from the European and Greek capitalist media, who worked hand-in-glove with European Commission officials.

The attacks not only came from abroad but, as a Syriza minister recounts, also from the Greek state itself.

The Greek Central Bank openly collaborated with the Troika in its attempt to manhandle Tsipras. The Greek secret services tapped ministers’ phones and leaked information to undermine the government. President Pavlopoulos, a right-winger from New Democracy whom Tsipras himself had nominated in order to appease the bourgeoisie, also added to the pressure in the summer, threatening to bring down the government.

Not only are the reformists’ economic ideas of ‘taming’ the capitalist system utopian, but so are their political ideas, believing as they do that the bourgeois state can be used to change society.

Yet the state is not a passive instrument passed on to the winner after elections. It has a distinct class character: it protects the interests of the rich and the powerful.

This comes to light especially in times of intense class struggle, when the state shows its true colours. Or rather, the state tends to split along class lines, with its upper echelons openly siding with the bourgeoisie and its lower rungs drawing towards the workers. Ultimately, the working class must create new organs of power to transform society.

As early as February 2015, the Troika demanded new negotiations to release a pending bailout payment. It began to make draconian demands on Tsipras, who came to power promising an end to austerity but who found himself instead confronted with a new, more brutal memorandum.

The expulsion of Greece from the eurozone was threateningly wielded before Tsipras. Under capitalism, this would have meant a return to the drachma, the sudden devaluation of the Greek currency, and the country’s dramatic impoverishment.

A temporary deal was struck in late February that promised to release a pending bailout tranche. This deal pushed the Greek government down a slippery slope of concessions. The deal forced Syriza to continue previous ‘reforms’ and refrain from ‘unilateral’ measures. The Troika then went on to renege on its promises, by withholding funds owed to Greece.

The most worrying aspect of this surrender was that the government hailed it as a victory, claiming they had ‘won the battle’. By insisting that it was possible to achieve an ‘honourable compromise’ through negotiation, the Syriza leaders sowed confusion among the working class.

Yanis Varoufakis

The key figure in the negotiations with the Troika was finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. As a famous academic, Tsipras expected him to secure a favourable deal in Brussels.

For years Varoufakis had stood to the right of the Syriza leadership. He recalls in his book, Adults in the Room:

“My preference was for Syriza to present voters with a basic, progressive, Europeanist, logically coherent, non-populist programme as a foundation on which to build an image of a credible future government, one capable of negotiating the country’s escape plan with the EU and the IMF. […] When I read the economic policy segment of Syriza’s 2012 electoral manifesto, my irritation was such that I stopped after a few pages.”^[8]

While he defined himself as an ‘erratic Marxist', he admitted he had ditched his leftist views to save the system. “It is the Left’s historical duty, at this particular juncture, to stabilise capitalism; to save European capitalism from itself”, he said.^[9]

His plan appeared very moderate: restructure Greek public debt, postpone repayments until certain growth targets were met, set lower budgetary surplus targets, and decouple Greek banking debt from the state, with banks in default being taken over by the EU. Ultimately, he expected the ECB to bankroll the Greek state by printing money.

To achieve this, he intended to exploit the tensions between ECB President Mario Draghi’s expansionist bond-buying schemes and the German Bundesbank’s conservative agenda; and to pit the Americans (who were less exposed to Greek debt) against the hawkish Germans, combining all this with clever media stunts.

Mr. Varoufakis went into these negotiations with his head full of the abstract models of ‘game theory’. It was all seemingly very clever, but it utterly neglected reality outside the negotiating room, and above all the balance of class forces across Europe.

Syriza barely tried to capitalise on the enormous support it garnered from the masses, both in Greece and abroad. There were numerous demonstrations against the Troika in these months, in Greece and elsewhere in Europe, including the encirclement of the ECB offices in Frankfurt. But these mobilisations were local initiatives rather than part of a concerted plan by the leadership of Syriza. They never contemplated the possibility of calling mass demonstrations anywhere. Instead, they staked everything on Varoufakis’ ‘shrewdness’.

In Varoufakis’ view, austerity further depressed the Greek economy and helped undermine its capacity to finance itself, creating an endless doom loop that imperilled the general stability of capitalism. The Troika’s policies, he claimed, were “organised folly”.^[10]

The problem with Varoufakis, as with other such petty-bourgeois economists, is that he believes that capitalism can be put on a sound footing through reform. Yet capitalism does not listen to reason.

The bourgeoisie is not swayed by appeals to rationality, democracy, or morality. Each capitalist and each national gang of capitalists is driven by the pursuit of profit, not the general stability of the system. Each acts quite rationally from the point of view of its own interests.

Varoufakis one-sidedly isolated an aspect of the crisis, disregarding the general picture, and drew all the wrong conclusions. While austerity did sink Greece deeper into depression, thus making it harder for it to repay its debt, it was much more important for the bourgeoisie to protect the interests and authority of the world financial system, by turning Greece into a sacrificial lamb.

The potential splits between Washington and Berlin that Varoufakis expected failed to materialise. Syriza was confronted by a united capitalist front. When their interests are at stake, the different national gangs of capitalists put their differences to one side.

The rise of Syriza posed a political threat for the bourgeoisie. Yielding to the requests of Europe’s first radical left government in decades would have encouraged similar demands elsewhere, especially from Podemos in Spain. Political and economic considerations became intertwined. Syriza, and the Greek people, had to be taught a lesson.

Varoufakis’ ‘clever’ proposals were well-suited for university seminars and other impressionable audiences, but were completely unfit when it was a question of actual struggle against a class enemy. As he rather candidly admitted later:

“My team and I worked very hard to put forward proposals based on serious econometric work and sound economic analysis. Once these had been tested on some of the highest authorities in their fields, from Wall Street and the City to top-notch academics, I would take them to Greece’s creditors. Then I would sit back and observe a landscape of blank stares. It was as if I had not spoken, as if there was no document in front of them. […] I longed for my academic days, when disagreements were resolved through the power of argument rather than brute force.”^[11]

The referendum

By the early summer, Tsipras and Varoufakis found themselves in a tight spot. The money promised in February was not delivered, but Greece kept paying its debt.

Varoufakis offered more and more concessions, crossing all his ‘red lines’. But the Troika would not yield. On 25 June, it proposed a scandalous new memorandum (a revised version of Varoufakis’ final barrage of concessions) with even more savage austerity and counter-reforms added on top. If Syriza signed, it would trample on all its promises.

Time and money were running out. Cornered, Tsipras announced a referendum on the Troika deal for 5 July.

As Varoufakis explains in his memoirs, Tsipras called the referendum as a desperate bluff, hoping it would force enough concessions to allow Syriza to sell the deal. But far from unnerving the Troika, the referendum aroused the fury of the international capitalists, who redoubled their pressure: financial, political, and in the media.

Greeks were told that if they rejected the memorandum, they would be expelled from the euro, outside of which they could expect to be turned into a ruined banana republic.

A banner for the NO campaign, where the vote is smashing the wall of austerity measures, including “layoffs”, “pension cuts” and “privatisations” / Image: public domain

For its part, the ECB tightened the screws on the Greek banks by placing limits on its liquidity assistance, i.e. the lifeline to help keep the banks solvent. In response, the government was forced to introduce capital controls to prevent a chaotic bank run. This included limitations on cash withdrawals from ATMs.

In Greece, the right-wing opposition parties made manoeuvres for a parliamentary coup, in cahoots with the president (again, appointed by Syriza!), who called for the formation of a “broad front of democratic forces”.^[12] The whole Greek establishment, including the Orthodox Church hierarchy and the owners of the big football clubs, threw its weight behind the YES campaign for accepting the Troika's memorandum.

If we are to believe Varoufakis (and we have no reason not to do so), Tsipras hoped the NO vote would lose or, at best, win narrowly, which would make it easier for him to sign a humiliating deal.

If fear and despair reigned in the headquarters of Syriza, the mood on the streets was altogether different. The working class rose to the challenge heroically. In the early months of 2015, the workers had largely stood by, carefully following the negotiations. Now they entered the scene in full force.

Between 27 June, when the referendum was called, and 5 July, when it took place, a revolutionary mood developed in Greece through the direct interference of the masses in events. Varoufakis recalls the mood on the eve of the vote:

“Students forced to emigrate by the crisis who had returned to cast their votes begged me not to give up. A pensioner promised me that he and his sick wife did not mind losing their pensions as long as they recovered their dignity. And everybody, without a single exception, shouted at me: No surrender, whatever the cost!”^[13]

Neighbourhood assemblies, local committees, grassroots propaganda campaigns, and countless rallies gave a powerful impetus to the NO vote. In the capital, this was capped by some of the largest demonstrations in the history of Greece, including a rally of almost half a million people on 3 July. This movement was largely spontaneous.

Tsipras, feeling the groundswell, actively tried to hold back the NO campaign, cancelling rallies and dampening expectations. Meanwhile, the YES campaign failed to gain significant traction on the streets.

Against the entire pressure of the capitalist propaganda machine, against economic terror, and, indeed, against the vacillations of the government, the Greek people massively voted NO.

This was above all a working-class vote, highest in the proletarian neighbourhoods of Athens, Thessaloniki, and other urban centres, while the YES vote won in the most affluent districts.

Yet the NO campaign carried along a sizable layer of the petty bourgeoisie, the students, professionals, farmers, intellectuals, etc. In all, 61.3 per cent of voters rejected the Troika deal, giving Tsipras a powerful mandate for a radical rupture. All things considered, this was a vote for revolution, backed up by mass mobilisations.

In the words of a Greek bourgeois commentator:

“The outcome of the referendum revealed some extremely dangerous behaviour on the part of the electorate, which expressed itself along class lines [...] bringing a conflict that should have remained confined to the Parliament and, perhaps, television shows into the streets.”^[14]

On the night of 5 July, when the results came out, thousands gathered in Syntagma square in Athens to celebrate their victory. Yet this was not just a celebration. The working people of Greece were rallying for a battle that, in their eyes, was only just beginning. They had flexed their muscles and gotten a sense of their own strength. The slogan of the crowds was Oute vima piso! ‘Not a step back!’

In a TV interview after the vote, minister Lafazanis recounted how he was stopped by a woman on the street who told him: “I don’t care if I end up eating from the garbage, but you shall not retreat!”^[15] This encapsulated the mood in the country.

The masses understood the internationalist character of the task at hand. Above all, they appealed to the workers of Spain, who were increasingly placing their hopes on the left-wing party Podemos. This party had risen from nothing, in parallel to Syriza, on the back of enormous protests by the indignados beginning in 2011. They hoped that the Spanish workers would follow them in their revolt against the bankers, the capitalists, and their Troika representatives.

“Syriza, Podemos, venceremos [we shall win]”, was chanted in the squares.^[16] Had Syriza been a revolutionary party, it could have swept away capitalism in Greece, which would have sent reverberations across Europe and beyond.

Marxists have unbreakable confidence in the working class. This is not blind faith. It is based on the understanding of the role of the workers in capitalist society. They hold the levers of the economy in their hands. Due to their concentration, cohesion, economic weight, the cooperative character of their labour, and their antagonism with the bourgeoisie, they have the potential to develop a consistent socialist consciousness, to overthrow capitalism, and to rebuild society on a higher basis.

When provided with a clear objective, workers can realise their enormous latent power and show the most self-sacrificing militancy. The events of July 2015 revealed this once again.

The retrospective lamentations of cynical leftists, who seek to divert blame for the subsequent defeat away from the left reformist leadership and instead to blame the workers themselves, cannot conceal the fact that the Greek working class rose as one man and defied the imperialist institutions of world capitalism.

Betrayal

The masses celebrated and readied for struggle, but Tsipras despaired. On the night of the referendum, his residence “felt as cold as a morgue, as joyful as a cemetery”, recalls Varoufakis.^[17] Tsipras found himself between the hammer of the Troika, which demanded its pound of flesh, and the anvil of the masses, who had expressed themselves so unambiguously in the referendum and were out on the streets.

Tsipras scrambled to Brussels to get a new deal. After the referendum, the capitalist class was divided. A wing around German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble and his Eastern European minions wanted to expel Greece from the eurozone. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was wary of the economic and political impact this would have. The US and the French capitalists were also opposed to ‘Grexit’. Partly as a result of these divisions, Tsipras was now presented with an even harsher memorandum than in June.

On 12 July, Tsipras signed the dotted line, trampling on all his promises, on his electoral mandate, and on the referendum result. Since many Syriza MPs rebelled (32 voted against and 11 abstained), Tsipras had to lean on the right-wing opposition parties to get the memorandum through Parliament.

Betrayal is inherent in reformism, especially in left reformism. This is because it promises much more than it can deliver within the narrow horizons of capitalism, to which it cannot envisage an alternative.

In their attempt to reconcile themselves with the capitalists, the reformists will always ultimately ditch their programme. When tested in action, the gap between words and deeds makes dishonesty an integral part of reformism, as it tries to distort and conceal its capitulations.

For critics such as Varoufakis, Tsipras betrayed because he was dishonest and because of his insecure character. But his moral bankruptcy was a consequence of his political bankruptcy.

To prepare the ground for this betrayal, Tsipras reshuffled his cabinet and pressed Varoufakis to resign. To his credit, Varoufakis denounced the third memorandum, and warned it was better to leave the eurozone than sign such a deal.

However, Varoufakis was just an ‘erratic’ economist who did not have the capacity, or the will, to organise an opposition to Tsipras. Others were better placed to do this. They failed miserably in this task.

The Left Platform

Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left, comprised various factions and tendencies. The largest caucus was the Left Platform, a loose faction that brought together different personalities and groups.

Controlling over a third of the party Central Committee, the Left Platform was a force to be reckoned with. It had around 30 MPs and had one ministry in the Tsipras cabinet, which was taken up by its main figurehead, Panagiotis Lafazanis. Many of their cadres were sucked into the state administration, fostering careerist illusions and denting their will to stand up to Tsipras.

For the first five months, Lafazanis and the Left Platform failed to provide a coherent analysis of events. Openly or tacitly, they accepted the government’s different concessions, including the February deal with the Troika and the appointment of right-winger Pavlopoulos as president, all while refusing to organise the left of Syriza.

While a few representatives of the Left Platform voiced some criticism, they never took their opposition to its logical conclusion: open agitation within the party and amongst the working masses for the repudiation of the debt.

After the referendum, when Tsipras U-turned on his promises, the Left Platform MPs and their allies refused to vote for the memorandum. Having lost his parliamentary majority, Tsipras called new elections.

After that, Lafazanis announced the Left Platform’s split from the party. For all their indignation, this was a defeatist attitude that actually made things much easier for Tsipras. The left of the party refused to wage a serious battle to wrest control from Tsipras’ wing.

Bringing down Tsipras in July was entirely possible, as he became completely isolated in Syriza. Tsipras lost the Central Committee (109 out of 201 signed a statement against the deal), he lost the party branches, and the Syriza youth. Even the party’s top body, the secretariat, protested.

The Left Platform and its allies should have called for an extraordinary congress, which they had a fair chance of winning. Although in July the Left Platform suggested convening a party congress, they did so timidly and without mobilising the rank and file. Moreover, they called for a ‘permanent party congress’, that is, a gathering of the previous congress delegates that would not have had the power to elect a new leadership. Only the Communist Tendency (today the Revolutionary Communist Organisation, Greek section of the RCI) called for a serious struggle to bring down the leadership through an extraordinary congress.

Once Tsipras called the September elections, the Left Platform began to organise a new party. This amounted to a friendly divorce with Tsipras. Why did they do this? The answer to this question is related to the broader political limitations of the Left Platform.

The Left Platform encompassed different hues of opinion, but the main plank of its programme can be summed up as exit from the euro and the EU within the framework of capitalism. Greece should default on its debt, Lafazanis and company argued, issue new currency to capitalise its banks and nationalise them, and use its monetary sovereignty to implement some pro-worker policies and stimulate capitalist development.

The expropriation of the capitalist class was clearly never part of the plan. In essence, this is a more ‘leftist’ variant of reformism, which envisioned a new type of ‘progressive’ Greek capitalism outside the EU that was not ‘neoliberal’. This is a dangerous utopia.

The cowardice of the Left Platform and its reluctance to fight Tsipras in earnest flowed from their lack of a revolutionary programme.

Certainly, if Greece had stood its ground in the negotiations with the Troika, it would have been pushed out of the euro. But the ensuing economic chaos could have been stemmed through rapid and audacious socialist measures: the expropriation not only of the banks but of the commanding heights of the economy, the planning of production to meet the basic needs of the people, and the introduction of a state monopoly on imports and exports. These measures would have raised the question of which class holds power in Greek society.

The Greek bourgeois state would have been incapable of carrying out socialist measures. The senior ranks of the army, police and civil service would have been the focus of putschist conspiracies and sabotage. Such a programme would have called for mass mobilisations, for factory occupations, for workers' control, and the creation of workers' committees, relying on the energy, creativity and vigilance of the working class.

These measures would have paved the way for the socialist transformation of Greek society, with a tremendous impact across Europe.

The European Union is a reactionary capitalist institution. It must be brought down and replaced with a European socialist federation. A break with Brussels was therefore necessary.

But to start off with the demand for Grexit was to fudge the real issue: socialism or capitalism? The confused reformist programme put forward by the leaders of the Left Platform was utterly insufficient. They did not believe in socialism and had no faith in the working class. Nor did they believe in themselves.

This is why they left the scene without putting up a real fight: because they were afraid of taking over. They were content to leave the hot potato in Tsipras’ hands, forming a small left-reformist party that would safeguard their parliamentary careers. The masses could see this quite clearly and lent no credence to Lafazanis and company.

The ‘balance of forces’

When confronted with their lack of a socialist perspective, Stathis Kouvelakis, a prominent Left Platform theoretician, argued that all talk about “some kind of mythical workers’ power [note his flippant tone] completely underestimates (a) the balance of forces within Greek society, and the position of the radical left properly speaking, and (b) confuses a more strategic goal with transitional objectives and demands.”^[18]

By a ‘strategic goal’, Kouvelakis seemingly implies that socialism is a long-term objective for the distant future, but unrealistic for the present.

In turn, Tsipras and his apologists similarly blamed the “unfavourable balance of forces in Europe”^[19] for forcing them to accept a new bailout. Let us examine this ‘balance of forces’ that overawed the reformists.

The first thing that stands out in their fatalism is that the reformists, even of the most ‘leftist’ variety, never considered the leadership of the working class as an active factor in the ‘balance of forces’.

On the contrary, they seem to consider leadership as a mirror that passively reflects the ‘objective’ situation in society. If the workers have bad leadership, the logic goes, this is only because they have the leadership that they deserve. This fatalism calls to mind one of Trotsky’s last polemics over the defeat of the Spanish Revolution, The Class, the Party and the Leadership:

“According to him [an author in the pseudo-Marxist periodical called Que Faire] a false policy of the masses can be explained only as it ‘manifests a certain condition of social forces’, namely, the immaturity of the working class and the lack of independence of the peasantry. Anyone searching for tautologies couldn’t find in general a flatter one. A ‘false policy of the masses’ is explained by the ‘immaturity’ of the masses. But what is ‘immaturity’ of the masses? Obviously, their predisposition to false policies. Just what the false policy consisted of, and who were its initiators: the masses or the leaders – that is passed over in silence by our author. By means of a tautology he unloads the responsibility on the masses. This classical trick of all traitors, deserters and their attorneys is especially revolting in connection with the Spanish proletariat.”^[20]

As Trotsky notes, leadership is, in fact, a decisive factor that powerfully shapes the balance of forces. Bold revolutionary leadership would have led to a very different outcome in 2015. The fatalism of the reformists is a way to avoid responsibility for their treachery, or rather, to unload responsibility on the masses they just betrayed, whom they accuse of ‘immaturity’.

The Syriza fatalists are unaware of the self-defeating character of their argument. The whole problem, they say, was that the Greek and European balance of forces was unfavourable for a socialist break with the Troika. Better to hold onto power even at the cost of sacrificing our programme, they thought, in the hope that the ‘balance of forces’ may improve someday.

But, in fact, the line they advocated only made that balance of forces much worse by demoralising their supporters at home and abroad. Indeed, the decline of Podemos after 2015 was in part related to the events in Greece.

The years 2010-14 had witnessed unprecedented mass mobilisations. In 2015, Syriza was propelled to power and enjoyed the sympathy of over 80 per cent of the electorate. Over 61 per cent of the electorate voted against the deal, dismissing the threats and the propaganda of all the powers that be. The masses came out on the streets, not just to celebrate, but to fight.

When the referendum results came out, the capitalist class was divided and disoriented. This coincided with a major round of radicalisation in Spain, where left-wing party Podemos was on the rise. Revolutionary developments in Greece would have shaken the whole of Europe. Consciousness was developing in leaps and bounds.

Such sudden changes in consciousness are a prime feature of revolution, where the ‘balance of forces’ evolves dynamically, week to week, day to day, and even hour to hour. To deny that revolution was possible under such conditions is to deny the possibility of revolution in general.

The reformists, both in Syriza and in the Left Platform, retorted that Greece was a small country, that it risked isolation, that it would undergo hardship if it went down the road of revolution. They resembled the Cretan chieftain Kambanaros in Nikos Kazantzakis’ famous novel Captain Michalis, who demanded absolute guarantees of victory before he would embark on any revolt against the Ottomans, and was rightly ridiculed by his comrades for his cowardice.

If you are looking for absolute guarantees, you should not enter politics. Victory is the product of struggle, in which living forces contend with living forces. Certainly, the Greek revolution would have been isolated for some time and would have come up against difficulties. But capitalism is bound to break at its weakest link.

The Greek link, however, was part of a longer chain. A revolution would have easily spread beyond its borders, starting with Spain, especially if it adopted an active internationalist policy. During the first difficult months, solidarity from across Europe would have hindered attempts to choke the Greek revolution.

All the talk about the unfavourable ‘balance of forces’ reflects the reformists’ lack of trust in the working class, which was their only firm point of support in their conflict with the Troika. Without this, Tsipras felt himself without solid ground under his feet, which explains his deep insecurity. This contempt for the working class was shared by the leaders of the Left Platform.

The bitter truth is that the working class was ripe for revolution in July 2015. It was the leadership of Syriza that was unripe: on the left, right, and centre of the party. The masses could have crushed the class enemy with their little finger. But they were lions led by donkeys. What was lacking was the subjective factor, the presence of a sizeable revolutionary organisation.

In the words of Trotsky:

“The development of the revolution precisely consists of this, that the relationship of forces keeps incessantly and rapidly changing under the impact of the changes in the consciousness of the proletariat, the attraction of backward layers to the advanced, the growing assurance of the class in its own strength. The vital mainspring in this process is the party, just as the vital mainspring in the mechanism of the party is its leadership. The role and the responsibility of the leadership in a revolutionary epoch is colossal.”^[21]

The KKE and the sterility of sectarianism

Amidst these great events, there was a political force in Greece that actually stood for socialist revolution. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) comprises some of the most class-conscious workers and youth in the country. During the years of the crisis, it put forward bold anti-capitalist demands. However, its sectarian policies raised a wall between itself and the masses.

The KKE lost many votes in the 2012 elections, as most workers oriented towards Syriza, which at the time called for a broad government of the left. The KKE criticised Syriza from the outset, and many of its criticisms to its reformist programme were entirely correct. But they were framed in a hysterical, rather than a patient way, that failed to resonate with Syriza voters that the KKE could have otherwise won over.

After the January 2015 elections, the KKE should have denounced the alliance with Kammenos, condemned the endless postponement of Syriza’s programme in favour of negotiations, and offered its support for any pro-worker measures that would have helped revert the memoranda and break with the diktats of the Troika. This would have helped unmask Tsipras, and, moreover, would have struck a chord among many Syriza voters.

The KKE’s mistaken sectarian approach reached its acme in the July referendum. Rather than call for a critical vote for the NO, it called for a spoilt ballot! They equated the government and the Troika:

“The people, through their activity and their choice in the referendum, must respond to the deception of the false question posed by the government and reject the proposal of the EU-IMF-ECB and also the proposal of the SYRIZA-ANEL government.”^[22]

But the people saw things differently. At a time when Greek society was being divided into two opposing camps, one supporting the Troika ultimatum, and the other opposing it, the position of the KKE was to stay aloof from this battle, which they considered a sham. While it is true that Tsipras regarded this conflict as a way of getting a stronger hand at the negotiations, the masses perceived it as a chance to deliver a blow against the Troika.

In order for communists to win over the mass of working people, they need to be able to relate to this mood and to help the people draw all the necessary conclusions. This is the genuine policy of Leninism.

The KKE should not have suspended its criticisms of the Tsipras government. But what the KKE leadership should have said to the hundreds of thousands who mobilised against the Troika ultimatum is: we are with you, we will fight shoulder to shoulder against the Troika, but we have no trust in the leadership of Syriza. Even if we win the referendum, in order to end austerity, we must repudiate the debt and break with capitalism.

The KKE thus stood on the side-lines during a decisive class battle. It was consequently looked upon with mistrust by those who had courageously voted NO. The KKE was therefore unable to capitalise on the discredit that befell the government when it signed the third memorandum.

The entire policy of the KKE, in fact, proved counterproductive and indirectly helped Tsipras. Through its sectarian aloofness, the KKE refused to take any responsibility in the class struggle, throwing its barbs from a safe distance.

The decomposition of Syriza

After signing the third memorandum, Tsipras held new elections in September 2015, which he won comfortably. The KKE did not make any gains, hovering around 5 per cent, while Popular Unity, led by Lafazanis, did not even make it into parliament. In turn, the hated bourgeois parties kept bleeding votes.

How did Tsipras win, when he had betrayed all his promises and trampled on the referendum? This is equivalent to asking why Popular Unity failed.

For five months, Lafazanis had been a minister in Tsipras’ cabinet, where he had refrained from making open criticisms. Following the signing of the memorandum, Lafazanis and the party lefts indignantly stormed out of Syriza. But this split was not prepared politically.

The Left Platform had gone along with the government, making veiled criticisms here and there, but failing to provide a coherent explanation of the situation. Moreover, its programme for a capitalist Grexit understandably failed to enthuse anyone – themselves included.

Tsipras provided the most coherent explanation for the events of the summer: we negotiated as hard as we could, but we were crushed by the Troika, and, having promised not to leave the euro, we had no option but to accept the memorandum, which we promise to apply as fairly and humanely as possible.

Lafazanis and Popular Unity, who had kept silent in the previous months, could not respond convincingly to these arguments. The masses do not break with their old organisations easily.

In the words of Trotsky: “only on the basis of their own experience through several stages can the broad layers of the masses become convinced that a new leadership is firmer, more reliable, more loyal than the old”.^[23] Lafazanis was neither firmer nor more reliable.

In the September 2015 elections, opposition to the third memorandum was expressed chiefly through abstention, which increased by 7.5 percentage points.

With time, Tsipras’ authority crumbled. Syriza implemented the new memorandum fully, making new rounds of cuts. Unsurprisingly, he lost the 2019 elections to Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ New Democracy, which has been safely in power ever since.

Many ex-Syriza lefts speak today of a ‘structural’ turn to the right in Greek society. Their logic is as follows: the masses weren’t ready for a revolution in 2015, thus the objective conditions for struggle were unfavourable for the Syriza leadership. After the events of 2015 the masses became demoralised, and supposedly turned to the right.

The aim of this sophistry is to get the reformists off the hook. But the truth, in fact, is the opposite: it was the betrayal of the reformists which prepared the conditions for the return of the right. The masses fought like lions, displaying remarkable courage and determination. They rose up without their leadership and sometimes against it. All the greater honour is due to the Greek working class. Nothing more could have been asked of it.

What was lacking was adequate revolutionary leadership, which is the crucial factor in the situation.

Almost a decade after the referendum, none of the fundamental problems have been resolved. Although Greek debt has fallen from its peak of 210 per cent of GDP in 2020, it still remains extremely high at 142 per cent. A new crisis is being prepared.

The working class is once again beginning to move. Its revolutionary leadership must be forged before the decisive events take place. This is the task the Revolutionary Communist International has set itself, in Greece and internationally.

References

^[1] Quoted in M Papasimakopoulos, ‘Note found on Syntagma suicide victim’, Athens News, 4 April 2012

^[2] Quoted in ‘Thousands join fresh Greece protests against Golden Dawn’, BBC News, 25 September 2013

^[3] ‘Οταν στις πλατείες ζεσταινόταν το «αυγό του φιδιού»’, Ριζοσπάστης, 29 September 2013, our translation

^[4] ‘Πολιτική Απόφαση 1ου (Ιδρυτικού) Συνεδρίου’, Σύριζα, 22 July 2013, our translation

^[5] Y Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment, The Bodley Head, 2017, pg 90

^[6] Y Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment, The Bodley Head, 2017, pg 140

^[7] ibid. pg 339

^[8] ibid. pg 62

^[9] Y Varoufakis, ‘Confessions Of An Erratic Marxist In The Midst Of A Repugnant European Crisis’, Z, 8 February 2015

^[10] Y Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment, The Bodley Head, 2017, pg 115

^[11] ibid. pg 308-309

^[12] ‘Αποφασισμένος ο Παυλόπουλος να διασφαλίσει την πορεία της χώρας στην Ευρώπη’, Πρώτο Θέμα, 16 June 2015, our translation

^[13] Y Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment, The Bodley Head, 2017, pg 463

^[14] C Iordanidis, ‘A short step from here to barbarity’, Kathimerini, 9 July 2015

^[15] enikosgr, ‘Λαφαζάνης: Πολιτικός σεισμός το αποτέλεσμα του δημοψηφίσματος’, Youtube, 5 July 2015

^[16] J L Aranda, L Almodóvar, ‘Miembros de Syriza: “Estamos en un momento histórico para Grecia”’, El País, 6 July 2015

^[17] Y Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment, The Bodley Head, 2017, pg 467

^[18] S Kouvelakis, ‘Greece: Phase One’, Jacobin, 22 January 2015

^[19] ‘Απόφαση της Κ.Ε. του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ’, 10-11 October 2015, our translation

^[20] L Trotsky, ‘The Class, the Party and the Leadership’, Fourth International, Vol 1, No 7, 1940, pg 191

^[21] ibid. pg 193

^[22] ‘The referendum on the 5th of July and the stance of the KKE’, kke.gr, 29 June 2015

^[23] L Trotsky, ‘The Class, the Party and the Leadership’, Fourth International, Vol 1, No 7, 1940, pg 194