The poor and medium-sized peasantry blocked the roads

The poor and medium sized peasants are escalating their struggle with tens of road blockades across the country. On January 18th the peasants from the region of Thessalia set up a blockade in the nod on Nikaia. Since Sunday January 17th more blockades have been set up throughout the country.

The poor and medium sized peasantry is motivated by the fact that they are forced to sell their products to merchant wholesalers and manufacturers in extremely low prices; by the enormous debt to banks, by the huge cost of production. These are the results of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Both the previous liberal ND government as well as the current one of the social-democrat PASOK consistently supported and implemented the CAP. This policy serves the interests of the capitalist farmers and the manufacturers who prey on the agricultural production. They seek to wipe out the small and medium sized peasantry and accumulate the land and production into the hands of the big agricultural enterprises.

Communist Party of Greece: full support to the poor and medium sized peasantry

In its statement on the peasants’ mobilizations the Press Bureau of the CC of KKE stresses among others: “KKE expresses its full support to the just demands of the poor and medium sized peasantry that stood up to prevent its extinction. The only option is the joint, determinant and persistent struggle so as to force the government to satisfy these demands”.

KKE underlines that the peasants “should not tolerate the deception of the government arguing that it has not enough money to satisfy the demands of the poor and medium sized peasants and that the problems can be solved by means of social partnership talks and understanding. However, when it comes to the funding of the importers and exporters, money is plentiful”.

KKE calls upon the workers and the self employed “to support the poor peasantry because the victory of its struggle is a prerequisite in order to ensure safe agricultural products in low prices and tackle with the food dependency of the country. What is needed is rallying of popular forces and people’s action in order to confront the anti-peoples storm”.

The stance of the other forces

The government of PASOK is urging the peasants to stop the mobilizations promising solutions through the social partnership talks. At the same time it mobilized the bourgeois Justice that proceeded to persecutions against the peasants. ND and the nationalist LAOS are also against the struggle of the medium sized peasants. At the same time, this struggle is also undermined by the positions of the opportunist SYRIZA that puts forward the need to form a national strategy that will not call into question the EU limits and will be in line with the shrinkage of the poor and medium sized peasantry as promoted by the EU . Organisation of the struggle and solidarity

The consistent movement of the peasantry struggles through the ranks of Militant Peasants’ Front (PASY) which rallies the peasants’ associations and the struggle committees. Communists also join the ranks of PASY that struggles for guaranteed prices, protection of domestic production, reduction of production cost, against the division of peasants to “primary and secondary occupation peasants”, etc. This struggle aims at the overthrow of this anti-peasant, anti-people policy. Its goal is to create the conditions at social and political level for the implementation of another policy serving the interests small and medium sized peasants and the Greek people in general.

The class oriented labor movement is once again a firm ally of the peasantry. The Labor Centre of the agro-industrial region of Larissa, in which the forces of PAME prevail, issued a statement stressing that the struggle of the poor and medium sized peasantry is inextricably linked with the struggles of the working class against the policy of the monopolies.