Massive class response to plutocracyand the anti-people policy of the social-democrat government, the EU and the IMF

• Unprecedented participation of tens of thousands of people in the demonstrations of PAME in Athens and 68 cities
• KKE denounces the provocations that sought to strike a blow at the people’s struggle for the death of 3 people

On 5th of May the nationwide strike of All Workers Militant Front (PAME) froze every productive activity in the country. Factories, construction sites and stores, ports and airports, universities and schools paralysed.

In the early morning thousands of workers and young people were outside the workplaces defending the right of the workers to go on strike, against employers’ intimidation. Hundreds of thousands of people protested at the demonstration organised by PAME in 68 cities throughout Greece.

At the same time, provocative groups tried to undermine the strike demonstration. Aleka Papariga, General Secretary of the CC of KKE, highlighted the importance of the organised political struggle and denounced also in her speech at the parliament the efforts of the provocateurs that led to the death of three young people who died of suffocation after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a bank.

The strike demonstration in Athens

In Athens the central strike demonstration of PAME took place at Omonoia Square, at the centre of Athens. Giorgos Perros, member of the Executive secretariat of PAME delivered the main speech stressing:

“No more sacrifices for the bankers, for the industrialists, for the monopolies. We will make sacrifices so as to defend, all together and united, our rights, our life; so as to defend the life of our children, not hand them over to the most brutal exploitation bound hand and foot. We do not give up our gains.

They lie when they argue about a rescue bailout package for the country; it is a rescue bailout package for the employers, the banks, the ship-owners, the ones who have been benefited from the previous rescue bailout packages; likewise for the foreign creditors, who along with the parasites of plutocracy will plunder the wealth produced by our people for the next decades.

They have elaborated and gradually implemented these measures since many years. These measures are outlined in the Treaty of Maastricht, in the White Paper; they are included in all decisions of the EU Summits; they were included in the programmes of PASOK and ND; likewise in the 9-point agreement between GSEE and Federation of the Greek Industrialists”.

G. Perros underlined: “we deserve our own Greece, which is far better than theirs, and we will struggle for it. Even if they pass these measures, we will never legitimate them in our consciousness, we will never obey the laws that impose those measures. Day by day, month by month we will gather forces to block the implementation of these measures, till the overthrow of them and their measures.”

The representative of PAME closed his speech stressing: “we, the workers, the self-employed, the craftsmen, the small tradesmen, the small and medium sized farmers, the young people, we are the majority.

We will become stronger as long as we build our front, our own alliance. And once we will have built our own people’s front we will not be merely strong, we will be almighty; because we will have created the body of our own state power; we will have created the tool in order to plan and produce according to our needs; we will have created the basic mechanism in order to stop the minority of parasites who plunder our wealth, who live off our labour which is suffice in order to build our life, the life of our children and the next generation.

This is our patriotic duty and our great responsibility, this is our “one-way road” and we do not give up not matter how many sacrifices we will have to make.

Following the speech, a march of PAME took place rallying against the line of concession, namely the line of GSEE and ADEDY which aids this policy with their stance. Apart from the forces of PAME, forces of Αll Greek Antimonopoly Rally of the self-employed and the small tradesman (PASEVE) and Students’ Militant Front (MAS) also participated in the mass rally and the demonstration.

At the head of the march was a delegation of the CC of KKE lead by Aleka Papariga, General Secretary of the CC of KKE.

The protesters of PAME marched through the central streets of the city to the parliament, where the social democrat government has tabled the bill with the anti-labour measures seeking to pass it through under emergency procedures. We should note that the parliamentary group of KKE utilised the parliamentary regulation asking to follow the article that requires qualified (180 MEPS out of 300) and not simple majority for the approval of the anti-people bill.

The position of KKE on the incidents

The massive and protected demonstration of PAME gave a dynamic response to the provocative action organised by several provocative groups and mechanisms in order to disorient the people, to reduce the importance of the massive mobilization, to slander KKE, to stop the dynamic of the struggles and intimidate the working people.

In her speech at the parliament, right after the announcement of the death of three people, Aleka Papariga made the following statement:

“The working people, who suffer an unprecedented attack, the worst after 1974, are able to distinguish the systematic political struggle for the defense of their rights, for their protest, a struggle that can take many forms according to the conditions at each time. They can clearly tell the difference between this struggle and every plan aiming at the subversion of the struggles, every provocative action that causes innocent victims and aids all those who want to create a scenery in order to slander the struggles.

People should not only defy the provocations but they should also take all the measures to protect their struggles which should start from the workplaces. They should hit where it hurts. the starting point of the battle must be the workplace and lead to a nationwide struggle.

I should also stress the following: stop putting the blame on the people. People are blamed for the crisis, for everything. The responsible organised people’s movement cannot be blamed for actions planned backstage. This provocation will not pass. We will continue our struggles”.

In addition the general secretary of the CC of KKE gave a resolute response to the president of the nationalist party LAOS who resorted to vile anticommunism and launched a provocative attack against KKE.

When the march of PAME arrived at the parliament, there was a group of members of “Xrisi Avgi” (ultra-right nationalist group), the so-called the known-unknowns, who in 1994 set the Polytechnic School on fire and they were saying “burn the parliament down”. We disarmed them and we took them away the flags of PAME. We denounced them, we marched with linked arms and not a single incident occurred while we were at Syntagma square

I do not know whether this group outside the parliament has blood ties, permanent or temporary with Mr. Karatzaferis but honestly Mr Karatzaferis is playing the role of a provocateur at service in order to impose the anti-people measures.

People have the right to create the conditions through the process of mass political struggle, for the revision till the radical change of the Constitution.

Was the parliament not changing the constitution all those years?

Of course, we have condemned this constitution and we are telling the people that they should struggle for its change. Telling openly and clearly that the Constitution has an anti-people and anti-labor character is different from being a professional –not even motivated by emotional reasons- provocateur”.

International Section of the CC of KKE