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Comment on
"The 2015 Greek Elections (and Revolutionary History)":
By Salvatore
Engel-DiMauro
Many
good point, Steve. I am quite
surprised by the facile analogies made by many commentators. It reminds
me of
the ridiculous statements about Kobane (the new Stalingrad, 1930s Spain,
and
other nonsense.) These analogies are quite unhelpful in understanding
the
current conjuncture and I wish comrades would look at what is actually
occurring right now, not the 1930s, not 1917. NATO-US/EU aren’t
threatened or
weakened by any military defeat as Czarist Russia was when defeated by Japan
prior to
1917. There is no Spanish Republicanism in Greece, or within the EU,
and so
bourgeois forces at EU level need not have recourse to nazi groups at
all (but
fractions of the Greek national bourgeoisie do need Chrysi Avgi and
this is
probably why spokespeople from that nazi scum party are so confident
about
future elections).
Of
course all of that is right now. I
could not agree with you more about the potential. I may be a bit more
sceptical regarding the EU. They will find a way of reforming things,
as the
former incarnation, the “European Community,” found a way
of incorporating/co-opting
the largest Communist Party in Western Europe
(the Italian). Eurocommunism is far from over, regrettably, and NATO is
its preferred
shield. Syriza also has to contend with that bit of history—not
of their own
making, but heavily burdensome. That’s another reason I
don’t believe the analogies
to the 1910s or '30s are constructive in this conjuncture.
Syriza
is a coalition within which
there are contradictory political currents. That makes it very weak,
even in
terms of parliamentary processes. And the relationship between Syriza
and
potentially revolutionary movements in Greece is slim at best (see
the
struggle against the devastating gold mine in Halkidiki, for example,
which
Syriza has mostly stayed away from). If Syriza decides, without falling
apart
as a coalition, to go with the PRC and/or Russia, the German
bourgeoisie and
allied forces will throttle Greece immediately by making concessions to
Russia
or PRC with US consent (not publicized, of course), so that US
financial firms
can continue their global speculation and profit-making. In
part, what
lurks beneath all this austerity rhetoric as well as its supposed
alternative
is a struggle between US and German financial capital relative to who
gets the
biggest share of the loot—not just from the Greek people, but
from the EU as a
whole, divided as usual, and most stupidly as usual, along
national(ist),
racist lines.
This
is one big favor that the
Franquists (Rajoy and the other low-lifes), Alternative for Germany, Lega del Nord with Salvini,
Fidesz in Hungary,
Chrisi Avgi, etc. are handing to trans-Atlanticist financial capital.
It is almost
as if it were an orchestrated transnational move within the EU. Syriza
could do
more than simply block the EU financiers
from murdering Greeks via austerity ripoffs (higher mortality rates as
documented in journals like The Lancet)—important
as that is. It also needs to begin popularizing and widening the
reformist
platform it offers at an EU level, across national lines. The linkage
with
Podemos can be helpful in this way. And Podemos is in a similar
situation as
Syriza.
There
is no revolutionary anything
in all of this in an immediate sense. Not even remotely, though the
future,
after a bit more experience by the masses, is another question. As
matters
stand, we will be lucky if fewer people die as a result of the EU
financiers
making it impossible for a relative minority (still a large number of
people)
within and outside the EU (one must always include migrants in our
calculations) to
meet their basic needs. Everyone should grasp what the EU is and what
the
conjuncture is globally at the moment. But the left seems to be so
desperate that
people confuse their own yearnings with actually-existing power
relations.
There is already a lot to do and accomplish without having to deal with
wishful
thinking within our midst. More lucidity is much needed.
For more information on the EU as empire, see Capitalist Expansionism,
Imperialism, and the European Union by Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro.
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