Lessons of a major student
A WAVE of student protests welled up in Greece at the end of 1987 that not only rocked the government but shook up the left as well. It was a sudden explosion after eight years of apparently growing passivity and conservatism in the rebellion universities. GERRY FOLEY
T HE MAIN demands of the strug-
gle were material. One of the problems most acutely felt by the students was housing. There is not a lot of university housing in Greece, and rents on the free market have skyrocketed out of sight. Students demanded that the government rent hotels to meet the most urgent needs. They also protested against a delay in the distribution of course manuals. In Greek universities, one manual is used for each course and given out for free by the government. But for the current academic year, the government had not yet distributed the books. In general, the actions were in protest against the "privatization" of higher education.
The financial squeeze on Greek universities had become very severe. At the beginning of November 1987, University of Athens president Mikael Stathopoulos announced that the funds for higher education had essentially been exhausted since the end of September, and that about a million dollars in supplementary credits would be necessary for the universities to meet minimum expenses until the end of the year.
The situation in higher education was clearly so bad that even the student fraction of the ruling PASOK party, the PASK, was forced to go along with the protests. The minister of education, Andonis Pritsis, even said originally that he would march at the head of the student protests. Needless to say, he quickly started talking out of the other side of his mouth, saying that the lack of money in higher education was the result of the poor management of the universities.
At the time the protests began, the largest fraction in the Greek national student organization, the EFEE, was the DAP, the student fraction of the right-wing New Democracy party. It got 31.38% of the vote in the 1987 EFEE elections. The second largest was the Communist Party fraction, the PSK, with 30.38%, followed by the PASK, with 18.27%. PASK has ing Committees of the occupied schools, the
Student Regroupments
(ASF) held the majority.
In the 1987 EFEE elections, the ASF got only
Thus, the student protests were an extremely important, unhoped for opportunity for the far left. They also had the advantage that the protests coincided with the fourteenth anniversary of the 1973 Polytechnic uprising against the dictatorship of the colonels, which has a great symbolic significance. It was the only mass rebellion against the dictatorship, and thereby in a sense saved the honor of the Greek left and of the Greek democratic movement. The dictatorship was finally ended by an agreement among bourgeois politicians in 1974.
Failure of far left to lead the struggle
Unfortunately, the far left let the opportunity of the 1987 student protests slip through its fingers. The following articles from the press of the Greek section of the
Fourth International, the Organosis Kommuniston Diethniston Elladas (OKDE), explain why. The unexpected explosion and the failure of the far left to lead it forward
GREECE have aroused a considerable interest in the behavior of the student generations of the economic crisis and in the tactical lessons of this most recent struggle.
The first article that follows is from the December issue of Spartakos, the paper of the OKDE. It explains the political dynamics of the struggle and the basic reasons for the failure of the ASF. The second article, from the January issue of Marxistike Syspeirosis ("Marxist Regroupment," journal of the OKDE), takes up the character of the new generations of students. It was part of a dossier in the magazine on the student movement, alongside another more theoretical article on the problems of developing a revolutionary Marxist program for education. The final article, from the February issue of Spartakos, deals with a recent reform of the examination system, which represents a continuation of the right-wing reconversion of education. 21
In the 1988 EFEE elections, analyzed in April 18, 1988 • #139 International Viewpoint
GREECE the March issue of Spartakos, all of the big political fractions lost, either in percentage or in the absolute number of votes that they got, and there was also a notable increase in abstentions. The PASK dropped from 18.27% to 14.56%. The DAP increased its percentage from 31.38, but its absolute vote fell from
24,737 in 1987 to 22,827. The PSK increased its percentage from 30.38 in 1987 to 31.06, but its absolute vote fell from 23,950 in 1987 to 20,815. The only political fraction that increased both its percentage and its absolute vote was the ASF which rose from 4.10% to 6.10%, and from 3,243 votes to 4,094. * dent organizations], where it outweighed the ASF organizationally. Through these national organizations, the KNE [Commuunisty youth] took the political initiative for organizing central demonstrations
"block of the occupations" was forced to follow in the train of an initiative that it should have taken itself. Regaining the initiative on the central level, the KNE drew the occupations politically and organizationally into its tow; where it could
A critical assessment not control them, it sabotaged them.
The battle with the repressive forces on
November 13 deprived the ASF of its only argument against the reformists, that they did not fight and were trying everywhere to hold the struggles back. Their primitive notion of reformism was upset in practice by a skirmish, and the AS was left inarticulate and demoralized.
The ASF's impasses become worse. From then on, the KNE played with the "Block" of the occupations like a cat with a
THE STUDENT actions have once again have revealed the subjective weaknesses of revolutionary forces with respect to the problem of confronting reformist mechanisms. The inability to take the correct political initiatives and to apply a correct tactic (the united front) are not just due to a lack of understanding of what should be done, but unfortunately have more deep-seated causes.
DEMETRES KATSONIDES
N EMPIRICIST approach to the
A problem of reformism leads either to avoiding any collaboration with the reformists, or to adapting to them. The conception that reformists do not fight, that reformism is in all circumstances a strike-breaking mechanism and so on produces "surprises" and
"disillusions."
In the recent events a combination of many factors led on the one hand to losing a political opportunity to radically alter the relationship of forces in the student movement in favor of revolutionary views and on the other, to the breaking (hopefully only temporarily) of the dynamic of the student movement itself. Since this problem will reappear (and not only in the student arena), these weaknesses need to be analyzed so that revolutionary forces can he more effective, give impetus to the movement and at the same time change the relationship of forces in their favor.
The conditions that gave rise to the student explosion are more or less well known. Accumulating deficiencies on all levels (economic, teaching and the organization of education) led to it. Thus, occupations of the schools followed one after the
The relationship of forces in the schools took on a dynamic favorable to the revolutionary forces and unfavorable to forces that opposed the occupations. Coordinating
22 committees (SEs, Syntonistikes Epitropes)
were elected in the occupied schools in
International Viewpoint #139 • April 18, 1988 which revolutionary forces, mainly organized in the Left Regroupment of Students (ASF, Aristeres Syspeiroseis Foiteton), gained the majority. From that time on, the narrowness of their outlook, and to a certain extent "big chiefism", took over.
Occupation committees were not centralized
Instead of coming together and electing a central coordinating body, the SEs remained separated from each other. Every school, and similarly every dominant group, tried to play the role of the center of the student movement. Everyone else was supposed submit to "domination" of one group in one school or another. The student movement as a whole and its demands disfrom the horizon of these
Not only was there no activity to unify the SEs of the various schools but no reasoned concrete idea was developed for getting out of the "ghetto" of the schools and for carrying out central demonstrations. On the other hand, it was not easy to make such a proposal because nothing was done to unify the committees. After this the death agony of the struggle began.
The PSK-KNE, after losing one school after another, came to understand these weaknesses in the movement. It shifted the center of gravity from the schools to the EFEE and to the ESEE [the national stumouse. In all the demonstrations, it continually proposed an action front (even if indirectly) to the "Block" in all the demonstrations. But the "Block" had fallen into complete confusion, since yesterday's "strikebreakers" had became the "heroes" of the day.
The fact that the ASF were dragged, on the anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising, into a KNE political and organizational framework was the result and not the cause of the problems, as some claimed. The acceptance of this framework was the result of a lack of any alternative, in particular of any other organizational one, on the part of the "Block." Therefore, a sterile rejection of the "bad" framework could not be a panacea for saving revolutionary purity; it did not have, and could not have produced, any results.
The fundamental fact is that the ASF and the "Block" had let the (political and organizational) initiative slip through their fingers long before, and after that they could not regain it so easily from the KNE, inasmuch there were no concrete proposals, other than mere evasions.
A "dual power" existed in the movement
The EFEE is a higher representative body that emerges every year from elections of the "parliamentary type." The SEs, on the contrary, were base organs of struggle which were elected during the fight. At the level of the schools, the Administrative Councils (CDSs)— which are the only recognized base organizations — lost all validity in the conditions of the struggle. The SEs of the occupations upset completely not only these bodies (the DSs), but also the relationship of forces.
The direct relationship between the struggle and the SEs led to a toppling and disappearance of the elected DSs in every school that was occupied. The problem was that in this process the base organs of the student
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of the new student movement
movement were not extended and they did not coordinate among themselves.
A "dual power" existed in the movement between the new base organs and the EFEE, which tended to lose all its authority, like the DSs in the individual schools. In fact the problem was not organizational but mainly political. The "Block" of the occupations, which the ASF dominated, did not think about mobilizing centrally, with the result that it did not feel the need for a central coordinating body.
Lack of an alternative policy
Since no such central coordinating body of the SEs existed, the KNE, by intelligently taking the central initiatives, restored an authority to the EFEE that it had been losing. Inasmuch as the SEs of the occupations could not coordinate and centralize the struggle of the student movement, they could not gain the authority of a centralizer of struggle. Remaining "inactive" bodies of a passive occupation, they relinquished the role of central leadership to the KNEEFEE.
The conflict between the KNE-EFEE and the "Block" of the occupations was decided at that level.
The KNE, through the EPEE and by taking the central initiatives, pulled the "Block" of the occupations into a front of struggle that was not of the occupiers' choosing. The "Block" of the occupations should itself have proposed to the KNE a front of struggle based on the occupations. If the EFEE wanted to become the organ of struggle, it should have called for occupations in all the schools in order to have the right to lead the struggle. (Such a proposal, obviously, would not have been accepted either by the PASK or naturally by the
Parallel to this, the "Block" should have taken the initiative for the central demonstrations, outside of the EFEE-KNE, and not waited for it to make an unusual display of energy. The KNE, standing with one foot in the occupations and the other in the EFEE, tried, successfully, to hold the center of gravity of the central demonstrations.
The lack of an alternative policy and an alternative organizational solution made it easy for the KNE to play the gambit of an action front to suit itself. While it should not have rejected the front, the "Block" should have shifted the center of gravity away from the EFEE (in which it had no presence) to the SEs and a central organ of
No political force should have been excluded from the SEs, inasmuch as it wanted to actually participate in the struggle of the student movement. Every political force that fought would similarly have had its place in the SEs of the schools and in a central coordinating body. Sectarianism of groups in the ASF
What strength did the SEs of the schools have in the EFEE? None. What strength could the PASK or the DAP [the student fraction of the main bourgeois party] have had in such a new body of struggle? None. The united front of struggle is a united front of struggle and not an electoral
If the EFEE had lost the initiative in the central demonstrations to a coordinating committee of the SEs (and it would have lost, because its position was determined entirely by the KNE), then a united front would have been a challenge for the KNE and its supporters to participate in the organs of struggle and not in the electoral den of thieves with the PASK
Only in this way, could the EFEE-KNE "front" with the "Block" and the ASF have had a real meaning in an organization of struggle. Such an organization, after the extension of the occupations throughout Greece, would have been very well able to take on the character of a national body of the struggle. The KNE would have been forced to leave the EFEE to the PASK and to participate in the new body, or else isolate itself still further in the schools.
Unfortunately, however, the narrowmindedness of the individual groups in the ASF kept them from giving precedence to the broader political and organizational
GREECE
Reasons
for the
student
explosion
RECENT EVENTS among the youth oblige everyone to study the reasons for the mobilization explosion of students in order to find the right conclusions and perspectives. S NIKOLAIDES
E VERY generation experiences its
own problems. Thus, the recent youth mobilizations have come afI ter eight years of inertia, passivity, atomization, indifference and conservative choices to which young people had been driven. This was the result, on the one hand, of the attack they suffered from the right-wing bourgeois policy of the PASOK leadership and the government; on the oth er, of the domination of the bureaucratic mechanisms of the PASK and PSK (the PASOK and CP student union fractions), which blocked activity by the student
Today, the problems students are experiencing are different. It is the material conditions they face - such as buildings and equipment, catering, the content of their studies, as well as the problems of unemployment — that are the basic impetus to the development of consciousness in the rebellion of the student youth and in their further politicization. It is these things that are forcing them to understand the bourgeoismodernizing role which the universities and technical institutes are trying to play, that are forcing them to move on to more political demands, to anti-capitalist
Comparisons to the 1960s and 1970s
For the sake of a better understanding of the the reasons for the explosion among students, it is useful to make some comparisons with the rebellions of the 1960s and 1970s in order to draw some conclusions.
These earlier rebellions, like May 1968 in France, were the result of the post-war 23 phase of the development of capitalism. April 18, 1988 • #139 International Viewpoint
The new examination rules
MISLEADING public opinion is the stock in trade of bourgeois journal-
Ism. Numerous reports about the new examination rules have evoked a alone will be responsible for their activity;
• the overcoming of the professional differences among working people so as to reinforce their common character. *
GREECE
The tempos of the development of science and technology were rapid. There was an unprecedented rate of innovation in production. The universities, to an extent, ceased being the province of a limited number of young people from the upper stratum lot reactions, both positive and negative. They have even gone so far as to make the "original" - If sensational - observation that these measures were closing universities off to working class children.
These reports, however, have deliberately avoided saying that the new examination rules do not introduce any fundamental innovation into the already rotten Greek educational system. They simply change the relative grading of subjects, leaving untouched the overall logic that
• selection, Intensification, specialization for the few;
• mass unemployment, under-employment, decay, valueless diplomas for the many.
The basic "Innovation" of the new examination measures consists in Introducing the rule of basic studies in each track. Specifically they are the following:
Track A (polytechnic and scientific schools): The basic subject is mathematics. Exceptions are physics faculties (in which the basic subject is physics), and faculties of chemistry, agriculture etc. (where the basic subject is chemistry).
Track B (medical schools): The basic subject is biology. Exceptions are faculties of dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacology (in which the basic subject is chemistry and some faculties of the Technical Institutes (where the basic subject is physics).
Track C (philology, law, theology schools): The basic subject is ancient Greek. Here there are no exceptions to the rule.
Track D (economics schools): The basic subject is mathematics
In which of these areas of education is there a consistent division of studies Into basic and non-basic up to the end of university level educa tion? On the basis of what scientific criterion do economists need mathematics more than chemists, physicists or agronomists? There is no use waiting for the ministry to answer these questions, they simply have no arguments.
The "reformers" of the ministry of education are limited to playing the role of employees of the EEC and other such mechanisms of the bourgeols class. These reformers have chosen the Polytechnic as a "good" school (on the basis of the criteria mentioned at the beginning). Thus, otherwise, the Polytechnic is the only Greek school which has any rela tion - a weak one of course - with material production.
The physics and mathematics schools produce only teachers there is an abundance of those; you only have to read the papers. The philosophical and law schools have produced thousands of humanities graduates and jurists who are consistently under-employed, Why, then, should the Greek bourgeoisle concern Itself with these schools, when it cannot derive a profit from them? it is only interested in the engineering schools, and only a few of them.
From now on it will be more difficult for teachers to play the role of mandarins among the classes. Along with the authority of education, which has been crumbling for a long time, now the authority of the "educators" will also crumble - an "authority" that they acquired mainly through the terrorism of grading.
The critique that we make of education under capitalism starts out from the separation of manual from Intellectual labor that it creates. Consequently, under capitalism, the problems of education are "solved" only to the advantage of the ruling class. Therefore, we have to demand the following:
the possibility for all to go on freely to the university (without exams);
• the opening of study centers for the workers' movement, which
24
International Viewpoint #139 • April 18, 1988 of society. Intake began rapidly to assume a mass character in order to meet the needs of booming capitalism.
In this context, the idea started to develop among large numbers of students that universities were not "neutral" ground but an ideological mechanism of capitalism for reproducing its own ideology. As a result, both radicalization and alienation began to develop. At the same time, these young people started to gain a confidence in their own strength.
Another important cause of these rebellions was the successes of the left internationally, the war in Vietnam, decolonization, the victory of the Cuban revolution and the cultural revolution in China. These events exercised a catalytic influence on the consciousness of the masses, and especially young people.
Anti-capitalist dynamic of previous rebellions
To start with, the watchwords raised by these rebellions were sexual liberation, the abolition of the disciplinary rules in the university and educational reform. Quickly, they were extended to a critique of consumer society. They took on an anti-capitalist character. This, however, was not expressed in a framework of a rounded and radical theory of social reality. Nor was it accompanied by any clear-cut political orientation. The main reason for these limitations was the lack of a strong, mass revolutionary party.
Today, making a general comparison with the period of post-war development of capitalism, we find that boom capitalism has given way to a prolonged economic crisis, whose effects we see everyday.
The class barriers to education are increasing. Fewer working-class children go to university. Budgets are being cut, investment is being reduced, unemployment is increasing. However, at the same time we are witnessing a rapid development of the new technologies, as in the period of the capitalist boom. 1. Lambrakis was a radical left political figure murdered by the right in the 1960s. The most radical section of the youth in the orbit of the Communist Party identified with him.
Article 114 was a guarantee of democracy defended by the masses oppressed by the monarchicalparliamentary machinations in the mid-1960s, by which the liberal govemment of Papandreou was ousted.
The Polytechnic rebellion in November 1973, was the major uprising against the dictatorship of the colo. nels, which was brought down by the events in Cyprus in the following year (a rightist coup, the Turkish invasion, the threat of war with Turkey).
Law 814, adopted in 1978, was a right-wing reform of education, introducing selection, among other things. It touched off major struggles in 1979.
Thus, the schools are losing their mass character. Individualism is being pushed, along with two-track education. The latter is dividing students into a few "sheep," who will be the elite; and the many "goats," who will make up the broad mass of unemployed [see box]. This represents the needs of capitalism today.
To be sure, today's youth mobilizations have not yet taken on a clear anti-capitalist character.
No sources of inspiration
We should not ignore the fact that today's youth do not have sources of "revolutionary romanticism." Disgusted by politics and the social situation and by the bureaucratic manipulations of the reformist parties, they have no source of inspiration because there are no evident successes of the left movement internationally. These are the most basic reasons why the demands of today's youth movement are more on the economic level and only gradually taking on a systematic form.
Greece, as is well known, is a country with a dependent capitalist development, and this has played and is playing an important role in shaping the country on all levels. Up to and after the post-war period, the society's lack of a bourgeois democratic framework for a whole period became a focus of the radicalization and growth of the mass movement of youth and strong organizations of the left.
The generation of the Lambrakis Youth, Article 114, the Polytechnic Rebellion and Law 815 had clear political anti-rightist aims and raised demands for freedom, democracy, independence, for education and work.! As already mentioned, they were inspired by the successes of the international workers' movement. The radicalization of this generation therefore took on the character of challenging capitalism.
Today, two-track education is being pushed, whereas previously they pushed the production of cheap, semi-skilled labor
There is now a long tradition of bourgeois democracy. It dates in general from the period of the transition to parliamentary rule after the fall of the dictatorship of the colonels [1974], and in particular from the the rise of PASOK to governmental power [1981]. And the anti-rightist orientation that dominated strongly until that period made it difficult to respond to the new needs that were taking form. A gap therefore started to develop between young people and the left and therefore between young people and politics.
For a long period young people were led into indifference, atomization, depoliticization and conservative choices by a whole series of factors: the lack of concrete political goals suffered by the left as a whole; the bourgeois policy of the leadership of PASOK; the disappointment of the young people's hopes; the authoritariansm; the intensification of study; the military rules; the sharpening of the economic crisis and of unemployment; the lack of professional perspectives; the crisis of the educational system and so on
Young people ceased to challenge bourgeois values and stopped radicalizing. All this, together with the lack of successes of the workers' and left movement internationally, led to the formation of a different sort of consciousness
These are the reasons why we are seeing quite different sort of demands being raised today in student mobilizations than those that were raised by the older generations. Their demands do not arise from specific political goals, but start out from their cur-
Today, the young people, the students who mobilize are those who pursue their studies regularly, who read, who do their homework and take their exams, who have gone through the rat-race of accelerated study, who are finishing their work according to the rules, who are looking forward to settling down and so on.
But they find that the studies they are pursuing are barren. Their studies become tiresome. Professors are the lords and masters. The material and technical facilities are insufficient to the point of wretchedness. Libraries and recreation are nonexistent. The future is uncertain. They begin to understand exploitation and to feel
Because of PASOK's bourgeois education policy and the bureaucratic manipulations of the reformists, for eight years all of these problems impelled students toward individual solutions, to resignation, to settling down, to conservatism. At the same time, they prepared the way for the 1987 developments, the powerful mobilizations and occupations - despite all the important weaknesses that exist. They created what could be called a "new type of radicalization."
Danger of return to apathy and atomization
Here one thing has to be said: If this youth movement does not find a solution, if it does not adopt concrete goals, directions and a clear political orientation, the danger exists that the steam will go out of it again, that it will fall back to the point where there will be the same phenomena of apathy, conservatism and atomization as before.
Therefore, this struggle for the reorientation and re-politicization of young people will be decided on the basis of the social and political problems and the answers offered. From this also flows the need for developing a convincing program of
On one hand the accumulation of discontent and indignation gave rise to the recent mobilizations. On the other, the
GREECE bankruptcy and the austerity policy is imposing cuts and reducing investments. And that in turn inevitably leads to authoritarianism and to attacking the gains of the people's movement, with the aim of marginalizing it.
By the same token, likening the 1987 occupations to the 1979 ones is wrong. A comparison of these actions shows us that the relationship of forces in 1979 was completely in favor of the left organizations. At that time, there was an intense anti-rightist climate.
But today this has largely a faded. Then, there was systematic opposition to Law 815 and to the orientations that were being set in education, against the policy of the right. Today there is neither an anti-rightist climate nor concrete goals.
In 1979, there were national organizations of the extra-parliamentary left that played an important leading role, while today the Aristeres Syspeiroseis [Left Regroupments] and some others do not have a structured national organization, or concrete goals or coordination. This is one of the most basic weaknesses.
Re-politicizing the youth movement
Today, there are no goals, because there is no leadership that can project concrete goals. The PASK is sabotaging things, and the PSK is trying to cool things down. At the same time, the EFEE-ESEE [Student Federation], which is led by these two groups, does not enjoy confidence among
The problems of youth are problems of society itself. Along with the failure of the left to offer a convincing alternative, they form the basis of the crisis of the movement and of its conservative behavior on many occasions. The main goal that has to be posed today is rebuilding unity and of re-politicizing the youth movement.
The left can win back young people only if it restores values of socialism in the consciousness of the youth, which PASOK and the rest of the "official" left made bankrupt with their policy.
The left has to propagate and defend the principles of socialism, namely collectivism, equality, unity and universal solidarity, against the arguments of liberalism and individualism. Collectivism must become the alternative to liberalism, individualism and privatization.
The defence of freedom and minority rights is the answer to the logic of the subjection of the majority to the minority. In this regard, we cannot overlook the important contribution of the Committee to Defend the Rights of Youth. It is striving to organize young people nationwide in the framework of their own self-managed, genuinely democratic organization, which would struggle in the vanguard of the youth movement for a solution to the 25 social problems. April 18, 1988 • #139 International Viewpoint