The people do not bow their heads

The sharpening of the repression, the escalation of the offensive on democratic and trade union rights and freedoms by the bourgeois class in the entire capitalist world is a component of the strategy in order to buttress its interests and power, in conditions of increasing popular discontent. It is the other aspect of the pro-capitalist restructurings, the strategy of competitiveness and entrepreneurship, the intensification of class exploitation. The forces of capital, which hold in their hands the “reins” of bourgeois power, have a long-term view based on their class criteria: the organized people’s struggle worries them when this acquires a class orientation and content, even if this does not immediately threaten the dominance of capital.

The position of Lenin that “politically imperialism is generally the trend towards violence and reaction” is being confirmed. This general trend-which is expressed through the strengthening of the bourgeois political system through new repressive mechanisms, state and para-state, through the adoption of more reactionary and authoritarian laws in order to break the labour and people’s movement-is expanding and sharpening in the conditions of the crisis.

This trend, with which thousands of workers and youth came face to face with in Turkey in recent weeks, also has a clear expression in Greece. In conditions when the capitalist crisis is deepening and popular discontent is swelling, capital’s aggressiveness has formed a new situation, with reactionary changes which have already been expressed at the level of the bourgeois institutions.

In recent years the overwhelming majority of strikes had already been declared illegal and inappropriate by the bourgeois courts. And it is of very great importance that in these conditions, despite the intimidation, bans, repression strike struggles were successfully carried out in our country with the decisive contribution of the communists and PAME (All-workers’ Militant Front).

Certain glaring examples: In September 2011 the court banned the creation of a Student Union, because its aims are against the imperialist mechanisms of NATO and the European Union and the imperialist political line of the USA because according to the court “It is not allowed to have an aim which is contrary to public order” which is formed by “those provisions that form the foundations of the state social and economic system of the country.”

In 2012 at the order of the Prime Minister himself the factory of Greek Steelworks is occupied by the riot police, after a strike which had been underway for many months.

On 30 January 2013, the government carried out an obvious provocation against PAME and arrests 35 trade unionists, characterizing a simple demonstration as “extremism”. The accusation collapsed and the government’s plan fails in the face of the mobilization of thousands of workers.

For the 3^rd time in the last 6 months the government has carried out the civil mobilization of strikers, the seamen, the workers in the Athens Metro and now the teachers.

On 11/6 the Greek government suddenly and with “express” procedures announced the closure of the state radio-television (ERT), casting 2,600 workers into unemployment, with the pretext of “saving public funds” and “fighting against corruption”. The KKE provided the frequency of its television station 902 so that the strike television programme of the journalists of ERT could be broadcast, but the government in a completely “piratical” way places obstacles in the way of the broadcasting.

At the same time, the EU openly criminalizes the communist ideology, it strengthens its reactionary legal arsenal for persecutions, bans, violent repression and attacks against the labour-people’s movement, above all against the communist parties which call the exploitative capitalist system into question.

The swelling of popular discontent, the working class struggles and protests even if they do not correspond to the intensity of the attack are a source of concern for capital and the bourgeois political system, especially as the impasses of various bourgeois versions for the management of the crisis are intensifying. The course of the inter-imperialist competition and the contradictions amongst sections of capital are also exerting a significant impact on the orientation and international alliances of every country.

Nevertheless, the political line of authoritarianism and repression of the popular and labour struggles has “short legs”. Because there is no other path for the workers and the youth who come from the popular strata, there is no other path other than the path of struggle, with heads held high!