Thousands of people demonstrated against the voting through of the anti-people budget

The new mass demonstration of PAME on Sunday afternoon in Athens, as well as in other cities against the voting through of the anti-people budget, a few days after the successful 48hr strike and the impressive strike demonstrations on Tuesday and Wednesday, sends a powerful message for the continuation and escalation of the struggle. It confirms the strengthening of the class-oriented current inside the labour movement, against the extortion of the coalition government, against the repression, against the illusions of another management with the monopolies and the European Union untouched.

The strengthening of the class-oriented current was clearly reflected in the mass and combative contingents of the thousands of PAME demonstrators in Syntagma, in contrast with the coexistence, a la “the movement of the square” of a few hundred people from the majorities in GSEE-ADEDY, from SYRIZA and ANTARSYA (a new opportunist formation), as well as from the Independent Greeks and nationalist groups, who once again found themselves side by side, a real potpourri.

In her speech in Parliament the GS of the CC of the KKE, Aleka Papariga, stressed amongst other things:

“ Whatever differences exist between the pole of ND and the pole of SYRIZA-which it has already replaced the confrontation between ND and PASOK- the differences are being minimized not because the individuals are traitors or incompetent, not due to ethical reason, but because the choice to manage the crisis in favour of the monopolies will lead you to such a convergence and identification, which in our opinion exists. It may not be apparent, because the full identification between the official opposition and the various governing parties is never fully apparent. There are three viewpoints, roughly speaking, within the EU at this moment which express the interests of sections of capital and have nothing to do with the people’s interests. What are they ? Germany, which of course wants a strong Euro, fiscal stability, is the leading power in terms of economic strength and if Greece was in its place it would have the same strategy as Germany (…) There is the other view expressed by France. I will not analyse why it expresses it but it is not because of social-democracy or because the President is a social-democrat. It expresses the fear that under this tough fiscal policy some countries will not endure and will leave the Eurozone, that the Eurozone will shrink and that the breadth of the European market will be reduced in relation to the USA and other imperialist centres (…) There is a third view that says that maybe it would be better to seek a reformation of the EU. Maybe what is necessary is the breaking of the Euro-Atlantic alliance and that we should ally with Russia and China or with the emerging capitalist economies. This is one of the viewpoints (…) Now SYRIZA is expressing a section of the businessmen in Greece, which is called the Drachma Lobby, as well as a section of the EU states, this is what is being argued about, it is predicting certain things. The prettifying of Obama’s political line is not at all accidental. Of course if Greece leaves the Eurozone it will then issue a lot of its own currency. It cannot do this now. This will be the recovery. It will issue a lot of money. Who will organize and be responsible for the investments? The monopolies, the big businessmen, the ones that will take risks will invest in these conditions. Then with the Drachma tourism will shine, the big hoteliers will acquire profits where they cannot now because tourism will be cheap. If when we talk of recovery we mean this, then there are sections of capital which will benefit from this. Possibly the construction sector, cement. There are sectors that have an interest in the return of the Drachma. And even if we had a communist government, a KKE government, if you manage the capitalist system you will inevitably end up on the same terrain with SYRIZA, PASOK, the Democratic Left, this does not mean we equate all the parties but in the final analysis it is the strategy that creates convergences and rapprochements.”

The GS of the CC of the KKE stressed that the KKE has an entirely different strategy and called on the people in these conditions “ not to raise foreign banners”, i.e. not to identify with a section of the bourgeois class’ interests , but to choose a radically different development path, which has as a prerequisite disengagement from the EU and NATO, unilateral cancellation of the debt, the socialization of the means of production, workers- people’s power.

The 12 communist MPs voted against the anti-people state budget for 2013, which nevertheless was passed midnight on Sunday in Parliament with 167 in favour and 128 against with 4 abstentions and one MP absent from the vote.