Now, the smaller parties in the SYN, along with the renewers in the KKE, want to give the SYN an organizational autonomy corresponding to their view of its political dimension. The conservatives are not keen on this idea and accuse the others of suspidirectly political. The "renewers" and the other forces think that the SYN? is the instrument of a modern open left in tune with current trends (the Italian CP, perestroika etc. The foot-dragging of the conservatives over the SYN is due to a number of factors: very strong reservations about the international impact of perestroika, dogmatic attachment to models and the claim that it is the petty bourgeois project of Kyrkos — the leader of the EAR, a group of intellectuals issued from the KKE-es? in full ideological flight
-that is being put into practice.
Consequently the KKE is ready to use disciplinary measures against the renewers to defend itself. And they have good reason; the basic charge against Kyrkos made by conservative leaders Aleka Papariga and Harilaos Florakis is that the overall orientation of the SYN, supported for two years by almost the whole of the KKE leadership, has not only been a failure, but has also made the EAR look like a real political force.
The raison d'etre for the creation of the
SYN was clearly stated by both the KKE party to present themselves as the harbinger of a left force that had been renovated and rendered modern, competent, open to dialogue without class barriers and uninvolved in the scandals that had played a role in the downfall of the PASOK government. The aim was to break up PASOK and influ. ence a wing of it towards regroupment in a future broad party. The bloc offered the KKE a chance to belie its reputation as the most Stalinist and sectarian of European Communist Parties. It was, above all, an opportunity to stem its decline and remobilize disillusioned or critical militants. The make-up of the SYN gave a foretaste of what was to come; besides the KKE and the EAR, there was also a small right wing group and some former PASOK people along with a scattering of independents. This was the time of multicoloured meetings, when the Stalinist leadership criticized groups of militants who turned out carrying red flags. In pursuit of this line, the KKE leadership expelled many militants and the majority of the youth organization (KNE) who went on to form the NAR (New Assembly of the Left).4
Balking at nothing
The SYN balked at nothing to achieve its ends, which became reduced to its own survival; an objective made still more clear after the elections of April 1990. What the Stalinists had not understood was that collaboration with the right serves only the right. And the workers have not forgiven the SYN for contributing to the defeat of PASOK and the installation in power of Constantin Mitsotakis, one of the politicians loathed by the left for his role in the preparation of the colonels' coup of 1967.5
The SYN very soon reaped the rewards 1. These expulsions have been described as totally unacceptable by the renewers, who point out that only the congress can remove an elected CC member from 2. Between the June 1989 legislative elections, when it got 13.6%, and those of November 1989, the SYN lost 20% of its support. The results of the first gave rise to the govemment of "catharsis" — a coalition between the SYN and the right, while the second ushered in the "ecumenical" government of the right, the SYN and PASOK. The April 1990 elections offered the right the possibility of governing alone, with the SYN's vote falling to 10.3%. However, in all three cases, the total PASOK and the SYN vote was greater than that of the right, and in the first two cases was above 50%. In the local elections of October 1990, PASOK took over ir 3. The KKE-es - known as the Communist Party restrict the press, realignment in support of
US policies, and in the absence of big mobilizations (with the exception of the high school students, whose mass mobilization forced the government to retreat in
January), signs of discontent multiplied and found a political and trade union expression. The current linked to PASOK improved its position in the professional elections, amid murmurs of disapproval among traditionally right wing professions such as doctors and lawyers, and support for PASOK has increased among students. PASOK is now tipped to win elections if they took place today.
Getting rid of the right
What seemed possible two years agothe explosion of PASOK — now seems to have produced the opposite, at least for the time being. For most workers wanting to get rid of the right, PASOK is the party to turn to. The SYN meanwhile is doing prac-
When it is not actively blocking struggles, as it did at the time of the teachers' strike in June 1990. It spends most of its time on parliamentary interventions or on speechifying about the need for a great modern left party. This is the background to the campaign of the last few months to try to put some life back into the
It was over the way to achieve this objective that the crisis erupted. In fact the reason why the crisis has become so serious is that the KKE's survival is at stake. The renewers have an openly reformist position and are ready for all the required adaptations and changes, but they also need the party to follow them, if only to provide the foot soldiers; the conservatives however believe that the party's survival depends on a rapid application of a new coat of red paint, and an affirmation of the ideological purity of the SYN — still seen as an essential tool. Thus despite the tactical differences there are not in fact differences of line; both tendencies start out on the basis of Stalinism, despite the fierce disputes.
Another sign of the tactical differences was the attitude to the Koskotas trial°. The (Interior), was born from a split in the KKE in 1968. It went in a Eurocommunist direction. It still exists and oscillates between common action with the far left and the pole of attraction of the SYN. 5. Very many Greeks over 40 have not forgotten this treason. As to the youth, they had an opportunity during the high school student's movement in January to the Greek right did not hesitate to have recourse, not only to the worst police violence, but also 6. Koskotas was a crooked businessman, the owner of the Bank of Crete, several journals and the Piraeus football team, who was accused of financing PASOK. His trial, preceded by that of the PASOK leaders, was was suspended almost as soon as it began owing to a 19 to have been the big spectacle of this June. However it Greek lawyers strike. July 22, 1991 • #211 International Viewpoint
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and EAR leaders. They hoped to profit from the decline in popularity of the social democratic PASOK
GREECE was whether to continue with trials of PASOK leaders, including former
Andreas Papandreou, despite the fact that the "trial of the centu- prime minister ry" turned out a fiasco, with contradictory evidence from the prosecution witnesses. A year ago, the conservatives were lukewarm and the renewers keenly in favour, but now it seems that the positions have been reversed; the most lucid renewers now understand the importance of cooperation with PASOK, while the conservatives want to put forward the KKE as the clean party of the working class.
### Murky finances
In any case, one of the first concrete signs of serious disagreement was the resignation in mid-May of Grigoris Farakos, who had been general secretary until the recent 13th Congress, from the central committee. He walked out denouncing the lack of "openness" in the finances of the
KKE, a theme explosively developed by the German weekly Der Spiegel, which
KKE, via East Berlin, of involvement in the arms trade, and even with breaking the embargo of South Africa. Treading the same troubled ground, a
PASOK deputy recently accused the right of favouring enterprises tied to the KKE in the framework of agreements with the
The theses of the KKE's 13th Congress in February 1991 proclaimed the need to
SYN. At the Congress the strength of the two warring factions was more or less equal, with perhaps the conservatives having a slight edge. Using this slim majority, the new general secretary,
Aleka Papariga, dotted the "i"s, insisting that the new decisions of the KKE leadership be respected, including one calling for the appointment rather than election of leaders of the SYN and another postponing the broad preparatory meeting for the
SYN national conference to the indefinite future. The aim of such measures is above all to restore order in the party, and in particular in its media, which is strongly influenced by the renewers. The conservatives are highly critical of the excessive openness of the radio station Aristera PM and the daily paper, Rizopastis.
The renewers, headed by Maria Damanaki (who had recently replaced the conservative, Harilaos Florakis, as president of SYN, had to resist this tightening up.
The Central Committee majority then responded to this indiscipline by replacing the KKE's representatives on the SYN
The CC majority continued its attack in the second half of June, with disciplinary measures for infringement of withdrawal of conservatives from leading bodies of the SYN, calls for boycotts of local aggregates of the SYN and even some attempts at sabotage. Despite this, 20 terence, with the loss of something less the SYN has continued to prepare its conInternational Viewpoint #211 • July 22, 1991 than a half of its militants. Only in one district has it proved impossible for the SYN to hold an aggregate for lack of people. The purge of the media has also turned out to be a difficult process. Despite sackings and threats against the journalists, the tone of the daily newspaper remains a curious mix.
Attitudes to current events in the Soviet Union are interesting; some are seeking Gorbachev's blessing — Papariga has come back pledging his total support, while the Aristera FM representative claimed that Gorbachev had warned the KKE's general secretary. According to this correspondent, Gorbachev had said that "the Bolsheviks paid heavily for the split in 1914" and that it was necessary not only to be concerned about the unity of the party but about the enlargement of that
Current events have shown that the renewers have considerable They are in the majority in the city committees of the three main working class urban centres? and include many leaders who are well-known and well thought of by the rank-and-file, such as Logothetis, who was elected mayor of Piraeus in May after a strong united PASOK-SYN campaign, which ousted the former mayor on the first round with 56% of the vote. Many union activists have expressed their intention to take part in the SYN's work, while the normalized KNE (Young Communists), which has been reconstructed more or less from scratch after the expulsions of autumn 1989, has stated that the youth should continue to construct the SYN.
The conservatives are thus in a tight corner, subject to various temptations — a retreat into splendid isolation on the basis of its legitimate majority, informal links with the French and Cuban CPs, an interest in the policy of the Chinese CP and so on. Self-proclamations from a bygone age
- "long live the glorious KKE!", "KKE;
people, here is your party!" were to be during the information meeting called on June 24 in Athens. The meeting itself showed the impasse into which such a retreat leads. Far from the expected crowds, the meeting was attended mostly by older people. However, what is not yet clear is what line the majority of the worker militants will take. After the June 24 meeting many seemed perplexed and unsure of what to do.
It is also hard to be sure whether the conservatives will pursue their retreat further or will try in one way or another to regain ground in the SYN. They seem to be keep7. A declaration of the political bureau in Piraeus city just before the wave of expulsions said: "we believe that the present CC majority, through its decisions and practices, is giving the KKE an unfavourable popular image and is undermining the SYN. The real problem is not, as has been said, nature' of the SYN, but the attempt to get rid of a big current with mass influence in the KKE. The CC's decisions override the decisions of the party's highest body, the Congress. They have, therefore, no legal ing two irons in the fire: in the run up to an extraordinary congress in the autumn, each has the time to dilute their fervour somewhat. And although the KKE majority has given the order to withdraw from all the SYN's activities, it has also been at pains to express its support for a great coming together of the left and for
Above all, however, it is difficult to foresee the consequences for the Greek left. For the moment the crisis is mainly of concern to the right wing government, since it is likely that PASOK will benefit, and the unions, because they already face a diffi cult situation and could do without new internal ructions. If there is a split, the KKE may lose its parliamentary fraction, and thus the possibility of making its views known to the public. From every point of view, then, it is PASOK that should be the main beneficiary, despite
Papandreou's hypocritical declarations about how regrettable he finds the crisis.
It is, on the other hand, hardly likely that the far left will be strengthened by this crisis; first of all owing to the reformist prothe two blocs — whatever
Papariga's rhetoric about the party of the revolution - and then because of the far left's own weaknesses. The hopes aroused at the start of 1990 with the appearance of the NAR (see /V 182) have not been realized; this organization has remained very timid, and the regroupment of a radical and effective left is a task unaddressed.
Ex-celebrities from the KKE, such as
Kostas Kapos (ex-NAR), sing the praises of the Cuban and Vietnamese CPs and declare themselves ready to rejoin the
KKE if it gets rid of its "petty bourgeois
Not only observe
However it is clear that the reformist left in all its guises will remain in an impasse.
and it is important for the far left not to rest content with observing the intensifying fighting between bureaucrats, pleasant though this may be. It is necessary to find ways to put forward concrete proposals for united anti-capitalist action; it will be through this that the programmatic questions can be sharply raised
For, apart from the fate of the bureaucrats, there is is also the issue of what perspective can be given to the many thousands of militants who today find themselves in total confusion.
A declaration of the political bureau in Athens on June
20 said: "We call on the CC to take into account the anguish and hopes of thousands of Communists and militants of the left who see the SYN as the only way forward. We insist on the characterization of the SYN arrived at by the congress and on the congress decision that the party should participate to the full in the pro It should be noted that the new secretary of the KKE was not even elected as a congress delegate by the