Student and workers struggles in Greece

We recently received this text from the comrades of the TPTG (‘Children of the Gallery’) in Greece, and are very pleased to publish it, because it represents one of the first clear statements on the ‘assembly movement’ in Greece, written by comrades who have been taking part in the movement.

After negotiations with the EU, IMF and the European Central Bank, the Greek government got parliamentary backing for a further array of austerity measures. The responses to the blows from the economic crisis and the attacks by the state have varied.

During the huge demonstrations in Athens against the Greek government's austerity measures on 5 May, the Marfin bank was set alight, apparently by molotovs thrown from the crowd. Three bank workers died of smoke inhalation. These events provoked a frenzied response from the government, eager to brand all demonstrators as ultra-violent hoodlums, and from the police, who have mounted a series of brutal raids in the ‘anarchist' dominated district of Exarcheia in Athens.

The Greek state is on the edge of a precipice. The international media talk non-stop about its bankruptcy. The journalists like talking about the ‘Greek tragedy'. But the dramatic reality of the situation is being felt most cruelly by the workers, the unemployed, pensioners, young people who have precarious jobs or are trying to gain their qualifications...in short, the working class.

Never has the bankruptcy of the capitalist system been more obvious. And never before have such massive attacks on the working class been planned. What developments in the class struggle can we expect?

This is a report on the struggles against austerity measures in Greece, written by a group calling itself ‘Proles and Poor's Credit Rating Agency', formerly TPTG, whose analysis of the uprising in December 2008 we published in WR 328.

The eyes of the world ruling class are on Greece today, not only because the failure of its economy is a harbinger of what lies in store for the rest of Europe, but above all because the bourgeoisie is well aware that the social situation in Greece is a real powder-keg.

This is an updated version of the article Greece:One Year On.

One year ago, there were three weeks of massive struggles in the streets of Greece over the police murder of a young anarchist, Alexandros Grigoropoulos. This article looks at what has happened since then.  

Ta Paida Tis Galarias is a Greek group that's been around since the early 1990s. They participated in last December's struggles and published a provisional balance sheet of events in February this year. A further analysis appeared on libcom.org in early September. While its language can be occasionally obscure it brings out some important points about last year's movement.

Now the G20 London Summit is over, what is the message that the rulers of the earth is they can deal with the economic catastrophe facing the capitalist system.The present crisis of overproduction, however, has its roots not, as the economic experts claim, in any kind of temporary ‘imbalance' in the world economy, but in the basic social relations of capitalism.

Faced with the avalanche of attacks now raining down on the working class - unemployment, cuts in services, police repression - we are seeing the beginnings of a very widespread response from those under attack.

We have just received the declaration below, originally posted on libcom by a comrade from Greece. While we don't know the background to these events they seem to us sufficiently important to be given the widest possible distribution. GSEE (General Confederation of Greek Workers) is the national trade union in Greece.