Big and small enterprises and shops ceased any activity during the general strike. Millions of working people took active part in the strike, both in the public and the private sector. It is now totally undisputed that this “government” of the IMF-EU-ECB troika’s lackeys has no more the slightest legitimacy. The general strike was a loud political statement by the Greek people: “The troika and its government must leave immediately”. Nothing less than that. The struggle goes on, the struggle shall further escalate!
It is obvious that this government will not fall down by itself. It will not be obliged to resign under the pressure of the majority’s MPs, who pathetically keep offering their consensus, each time “for the last time”. The internal contradictions and quarrels within the enemy camp are not sufficient to bring down this regime. Papandreou’s government and the parliamentary group of PASOK are faithfully executing the contract they have signed, assassinating the society. In order to fulfill their task, they repose exclusively on the following three pillars: the foreign troika, the internal reactionary interests, and the bloody repression. This much hated by the popular masses government will fall only by the Greek people’s uprising. It is the duty of each and every resisting force to contribute to the uprising, to the escalation of the struggle, to the building of a broad popular political and social front which will pave the way for the survival of the country and of the people.
The government, the “anti-riot” police forces and the dark para-state mechanisms are responsible for the death of the construction worker Dimitris Kozakidis, member of the PAME trade-union, on the second day of the general strike. This time, the transformation of Athens into a chemical gas chamber had an unbearable cost. The ruthless Papandreou government declares once again openly, now through this murder, that it does not count the human cost in order to execute the assassination contract it has signed with the troika. The sorrow and the anger for the death of the 53 years old demonstrator must be transformed into tenacity and will to continue the fight. The barbaric repression, which this time resulted to the loss of Dimitris Kozakidis, is one more reason to throw out this regime as fast as possible.
The mass popular movement these days managed to meet and demonstrate in the same streets, despite the existence of different flags, different plans and maybe different aims. The broadest possible unity of all those who want to fight against the troika and the government is a sheer necessity. The squares’ movement, the “indignados”, all the leftist parties and collectivities, all the trade-union federations and base unions, all the students’ associations, each and every one, have to regroup against the actual course of misery and bankruptcy. The violent incidents of Thursday 20 October [between the PAME trade-unions, affiliated to the KKE-Communist Party, and groups of self-proclaimed “anarchists”] must not be allowed to function against this sheer necessity.*
The death of one demonstrator as a result of the “chemical treatment” of the masses by the regime, the indiscriminate violence unleashed once again by the same dark groups, and the adoption of the new anti-people legislation by the parliamentarian majority, are creating a bitter feeling among the fighting masses. There is no reason to hide that. However, the important fact is that again the people expressed its fighting spirit and its force – this is something that cannot be hidden, distorted and silenced. This regime insists on executing the assassination contract it has signed, but in a context of complete social dismantling and without any legitimacy. The waves of the uprising, since 5 May 2010, are advancing, then retreating, but only to return each time more huge – until they drown those who have targeted the future of today’s and tomorrow’s generations.
Now it is the time of the organization of the people, together with the escalation of the political struggle. In each and every working place, in each and every school and university, in each and every neighborhood, in each and every city, the popular organization and solidarity must strengthen. All the struggling sectors, the workers struggles, the youth’s movements, the local resistances, the disobedience movements must meet. The initiatives of unity and coordination among the political and social organizations must multiply. The struggle continues, until the definitive overthrow of the government, the troika and the whole accomplice political system!
Athens, 21 October 2011
[*] On Thursday 20 October, PAME became the target of an attack by groups that have no relation at all with any militant ideology and conception. We saw stones and Molotov cocktails thrown by these groups against strikers and demonstrators. Such actions remind only para-state mechanisms. The politically unacceptable decision of KKE’s leadership to safeguard the parliament, thus keeping away from this building all the other unions, the other left and communist forces and huge masses of working people and demonstrators, do not constitute the slightest excuse for the fascist-type murderous attack of these groups against PAME.The previous day, Wednesday 19 October, the same violent groups sent to the hospital demonstrators from the teachers’ unions, with head wounds. And we do not forget that one and half year ago, on 5 May 2010, the huge popular demonstration had suddenly frozen, and the Papandreou government was saved, when such dark gangs provoked the tragic death of 3 bank employees. For us it is clear: the debate and opposition in a massive and political way against wrong lines, as the one followed by the KKE leadership, is one thing. The murderous amok of the non-political hooliganism is another! Those groups objectively function in a supplementary and supportive way in the service of the bourgeois and state plans.
The Syntagma Square of Athens is the place where the people in struggle finds expression. This character must be safeguarded, and in that way the squares of the country will become dangerous for the political system of bankruptcy and foreign occupation. The Syntagma Square of Athens unites the people and the forces in struggle – it does not divide them. The Syntagma Square of Athens and all the squares of the Greek cities can again become a space of real and not virtual movement; of real and not virtual encirclement of the parliament; of real and not virtual popular uprising.
The character of the demonstrations can be safeguarded only by the people in struggle. This is a key lesson of all past experience of the movement. Let us remember how, during the whole period of the squares’ movement since May 25, and especially during the huge meeting of June 5, hundreds of thousands of people imposed, leaving no margin of doubt by anyone, the peaceful character that the masses themselves had chosen for their protests. The broadest democracy, the political addressing of all the differences, the active participation and information of all the people, the opposition to any logic of “confrontational mechanisms”, and especially against all mechanisms of indiscriminate violence and military-style confrontation, are the common heritage of the new mass popular movement. This movement will find ways, forms and structures in order to overcome all the obstacles that delay and hold back the popular will.
