Statement of the Political Bureau of the CC of the KKE: To block and overthrow the policies which exterminate the people

Down with the government and the parties of the plutocracy

Radical overturning of the balance of forces in favour of the KKE

Working class-popular organization and alliance everywhere

There is a solution for the people with workers’-people’s power and disengagement from the EU-cancellation of the debt

The war against the rights and life of the people, which the KKE had predicted and warned of in a timely fashion, is fully underway and escalating. There is no time to lose.

The KKE calls the people in a militant and political alliance to block and overthrow the policies which will lead them and their children to live for decades in the most bleak misery with starvation wages, unemployment, insecurity, without basic rights, in order to protect the profits and interests of the business groups from their crisis and the state bankruptcy which is necessary for them.

What is needed now is popular emancipation, awakening and organization against our common implacable enemies, the government of the plutocracy, its other parties and its international allies, the EU and the IMF. People’s organization, the struggle and the forms of struggle must correspond to the ferocity of the all-sided and merciless offensive of capital.

In order for the barbaric measures to be impeded, the moment of the overthrow and the people’s victory to happen sooner, in every workplace, sector and neighbourhood there must now be raised a strong labour-people’s movement and a people’s front must be formed which will pose the following issues here and now:

• An end to sacrifices for the crisis and the profitability of the plutocracy.
• Down with the government, down with the parties that sacrifice the people to save capital and the European Union.
• Modern labour-popular rights. The working class and people must own the wealth they produce, with popular power, withdrawal from the EU and the cancellation of the debt.

No referendum must be accepted now. It will be a trap, with whatever excuse and whatever pretext the government attempts to carry it out. Its goal is to show that the people support or tolerate its policies. No to the referendum, elections must be held.

At this moment, nothing should prevent the people’s awakening, the impetuous development of the labour-people’s movement. This must determine the developments and overthrow the government. At the same time, it must seriously damage ND and other bourgeois parties of Karatzaferis and Bakogianni, which agree with the goals and essence of the memorandum so that the people are impoverished and capital remains untouched. And through the struggles and elections their strength must be drastically reduced, their influence amongst the people.

In the elections-for the people to enjoy any benefits, to gain time and be strengthened-PASOK, ND and the other parties which are eager to contribute to the creation of various forms of coalition government to continue and complete the anti-people crime must receive a big “haircut”. The bourgeois parties must be damaged and weakened, so in whatever way they form a government, it will be ineffectual at passing its policies. A basic pre-condition is that the people’s rage and indignation be transformed into a force of organized activity, a force for overthrow in alliance with the KKE. The people have every reason and duty to trust and strengthen the KKE which told the truth in a timely fashion, is experienced, capable and tested, has no obligations to the monopolies, the system, the EU and has demonstrated that it does not fear them.

The people must draw useful conclusions, to use the experience from Greece and Europe, to understand that it is in its interests for the bourgeois parties to be weakened as well as the political system and for the KKE and the organized popular movement to be strengthened. Thus, the people can head off and foil the reactionary developments. To put a brake on the extermination of its rights, authoritarianism and repression which is always used by the bourgeois political system to block the people’s intervention. To prevent the country’s involvement in imperialist wars.

The popular demand for elections must be combined with the militant people’s action for disobedience, the refusal to pay the murderous taxes which must be generalised and take on a universal character in Education, Health, Welfare, everywhere where the government and state demand that the family from the popular strata pay again and again for its rights.

The people’s alliance to impede the measures and counter-attack can be formed with the participation and activity of the workers and the youth themselves from below, sidelining the hostile and bankrupt political and trade union leaderships, which foster either compromise and fatalism, or illusions that the people can be saved without conflict and confrontation with the business groups, their parties, the EU.

The working class and popular strata must here and now extricate themselves from the bourgeois reactionary ideological constructs, as well as with old and new illusions fostered by the opportunist parties, which originate from the higher intermediate strata, the sold-out labour aristocracy, that is to say all those who can see that the monopolies cannot make the concessions which they made in the past, to safeguard their alliance and their support for the capitalist system. Capitalism is so outdated and reactionary that it cannot tolerate the working class popular gains anymore, which were won in previous decades. In spite of all the bourgeois and opportunist parties the “EU one-way street”, the EU have been proven to be a predatory alliance which serves the interests of the Greek plutocracy, but is disastrous not only for the workers and self-employed, but also for the middle strata, and the productive-development capabilities of the country.

Defensive and partial struggles are not enough today, they cannot make gains as in the past, nor can they ensure a basic defence against the aggressiveness of the monopolies and their power. No sector, no category of workers can be saved on its own.

PASOK did not change now, it sold its soul to capital long before it voted for the Maastricht Treaty. PASOK and ND cannot change, they are rotten and reactionary, as well as the system which they serve. The barbaric measures were in the programme of both PASOK and ND, they voted for then in the EU before the crisis, consequently it is a lie that the foreigners imposed these things on them. The essence of the Troika, the memorandum, which is the general reduction of the income of the working class and popular strata, came about with the agreement of the Greek government and was demanded by the Greek plutocracy. ND and the other parties, which pretend to be in opposition, are seeking their faster and more effective implementation. These measures are not temporary. They will bring even worse measures in the face of the scheduled bankruptcy by the government and the EU.

It is a major trap for the people to believe that a solution can be found in their favour through various governments whatever they are called, be they “ecumenical”, “centre-left”, “patriotic”, or “left-wing”. Such governments which are proposed by various forces, such as SYN/SYRIZA, will give no breathing space to the people, but to the system. Such governments can be supported by sections of the plutocracy, because they are in no danger from them, since they do not aim at overthrow of the power and dominance of the monopolies. On the contrary, they could prove useful to them, because they may prevent positive radical processes in the people’s consciousness and lead to disillusionment. The predictions of all the hues of opportunist forces in Greece and the EU have been proved bankrupt or useful for bourgeois governance. They find impossible to find and even harder to agree on the causes of the crisis and beyond some common demands they cannot form an alternative proposal for a way out and for power, because their political line starts and ends with humanization of capitalism and the transformation of the EU.

If a “common front” is today created between the working class, the people and sections of the Greek plutocracy, which seek other imperialist allies to replace the current ones, it will not have a patriotic character, but will simply constitute a change at the level of imperialist alliances which will be equally hostile to the interests of the people.

Patriotism is what is right for the people. It means popular emancipation and alliance against capital, domestic and foreign, disengagement from all the imperialist organizations. Only the people’s power and economy can safeguard national sovereignty, the protection of the country from the imperialist schemes, in favour of the people’s interests.

The working class and the other poor popular strata have not yet used their great strength. They have not yet spoken their last word. If they raise their heads, trust in their strength, the justness of their cause, they will understand that they are an all-powerful force which produces the wealth and can become a force of power, to create an utterly new organization of society and production, where they will be the masters.

Athens 13 October 2011

PB of the CC of the KKE