Existential dilemmas for a traumatised left
OBTAINING between them almost 87% of the vote, the two big parties, PASOK and New Democracy, dominated the Greek general elections of April 9. Although this high percentage was not new, it represented an absolute innovation this time for two reasons: a) because
Greece * of its founder, Andreas Papandreou, its turn to the right under the leadership of the current Prime Minister, Kostas Simitis, have made the right-left distinction inoperative. It is not a question only of "objecthere no had been significant polarization between these two parties and b) because their respective programs resembled each other like two peas in a pod GEORGE MITRALIAS* significant given the general political calm, which contrasted with the traditional passionate rivalry between the electorates of the two big Greek parties. It is a clear and overwhelming vote in favor of their common orientation, that is in favor of the neoliberal policies accompanying Greece's (imminent) entry into European economic and monetary union.
In spite of the successive waves of big popular mobilizations during the arrest and trial in Turkey of the Kurdish militant Oçalan or the imperialist intervention in Yugoslavia, in spite of the very significant struggles of high-school students, peasants and teachers in the year prior to April 9, Greek society voted practically en bloc in favor of the policies which it seemed so virulently opposed to (according to all the polls, 90-95% of Greeks opposed NATO's war against Yugoslavia, as well as the presence of NATO in Greece!). This phenomenon deserves explanation.
### Blackmail
If one leaves side the usual "analyses" of the "schizophrenia" of the Greek electorate, as well as the denunciation (very justified) of various blackmails exerted especially by PASOK on left voters, it only remains to note that the spirit generated by all these struggles was not translated into votes. The reason is obvious: none the parties of the left was able to "inspire" the voters of the left. This being the case, the two big parties with identical programs were able to profit from the fact that there was no competitor on their left. Their neoliberal project thus appeared credible in the absence of an adversary and a coherent alternative project. Deprived of any real political expression, the various popular resistances remained atomized and uncoordinated.
The fact that left electors voted without much enthusiasm for PASOK in order to avoid the return of the hard right does not soften the blow; the defeat was crushing, almost "historic". And it does not portend anything good for the period to come. improving its score by 5%, were able to pose as the big "moral" victors in their duel with social democracy. The performance of the traditional formation of the Greek right deserves attention because it witnesses to a progressive slippage of the popular electorate towards the right. According to all the polls, this phenomenon, formerly unthinkable, is due to the erosion of the deep anti-rightist reflexes which existed in Greek society at least since the fall of the dictatorship of the colonels (1974).
### Cataclysm
To vote for the right no longer causes "remorse" or existential crisis! The reason for this cataclysmic change is located in the evolution of PASOK. Indeed, it is this party, dominant on the Greek political scene since 1981 (if one excludes the interlude from 1989-1993), which has contributed as much as any other to the "fall of the wall" separating the left from the right. On top of the disillusionment created by the policies followed by the governments tive" fact, but of the dominant impression among even the most faithful PASOK voters. According to all the polls, only a minority among them still dares to qualify "their" party as Socialist, while a crushing majority of Greeks of any party now characterize it as an inter-class party of the center" which follows a neoliberal policy!
### Disproportion
Moreover, the disproportion of financial resources between the two great parties was manifest. Thanks to the unreserved support of big capital and all the media "empires", PASOK's campaign had surpassed that of New Democracy to such an extent that the right dares to speak (with reason) of a true scandal. It is thus not a surprise if, benefiting from the Chiracian accents of its new leader, Kostas Karamanlis, New Democracy was able to capture a large part of the popular discontent. Although every bit as pro-European, pro-NATO and neoliberal as PASOK, New Democracy contested the elections cultivating its traditional profile of a party of the "popular right", not hesitating even to criticize the government for its " servility" towards the European Union, the US and NATO!
In reality the course followed by PASOK is not very original, and its evolution is comparable with that of the majority of European social democratic parties. On the basis of the structural changes in Greek society, the openly neoliberal PASOK of the last decade has kept its hegemony in the trade union movement while loosening its links with its bureaucracies. At the same time, its leadership began its transformation of a "socialist movement" ', albeit bureaucratized, into an electoral party obeying only its deputies and especially its government. Then it was time to bring to heel the "nostalgics" for a populist past, and all party structures which could serve as transmission belts for International Viewpoint #323 July-August 2000 27
* Greece the demands of the rank and file.
The new "standardized" PASOK of Simitis is now aligned with Tony Blair rather than Lionel Jospin. Obviously, such an evolution legitimates the opening of a debate on the nature of PASOK. However, the fact that even under the pressure of blackmail, there are always many people who vote for this party in order to stop the right deserves attention. Although it has been a bourgeois party or rather, a party of Greek and international big capital, for some time, PASOK continues to be different from New Democracy. Its transformation is a process which is not yet over and any final conclusion on its nature remains premature and could have disastrous consequences for the left.
But from now on one thing should be clear: the old internal opposition of the Papandreists and other populists and nationalists is so marginalized and discredited that it no longer represents any danger to Simitis and his "modernizers" . Any attempt to build a left tendency inside PASK must necessarily start from other bases and especially not entertain illusions of a return to a mythical past.
### Defections
PASOK's victory (43.8%) was made possible thanks to defections from a significant fringe of voters for left parties, the principal losers being the least solid of its components: the DHKKI (Democratic and Social Movement) and Synaspismos (Coalition of the Left and Progress). The result is eloquent; the DHKKI, which got more than 7% at the European elections, fell under 3% and did not elect any deputies. Synaspismos lost 2/5 of its electoral strength and with its 3.2% of votes elected only 6 of the 11 deputies it had previously. As for the KKE (Greek CP), it maintained the bulk of its support (5.5%), although it remains very far from the 8.7% it achieved at the European elections.
The overall result for the parties of left was, then, catastrophic. For the DHKKI, it was predictable since this old left nationalist split from PASOK awaited in vain the transfusion of new blood which was going to come from the explosion of an internal crisis in the latter party. A hybrid formation deprived of cadres, hesitating permanently between its nationalist aspirations and its anti-liberal discourse, the DHKKI is now threatened with extinction.
The case of Synaspismos is rather dif-
28 International Viewpoint #323 July-August 2000 ferent. Its defeat is also crushing, but its causes relate to the traditional dilemmas of the reformist left in our time. According to all its organized tendencies, the mass defection of its voters to PASOK is due to its unclear and confused orientations as well as its programme, which remains halfway between clear opposition to and collaboration with the Simitis government.
any to was rome cond
strength: its contradictions. Emerging from Greek Eurocommunism, this party offered refuge to a multitude of "dissidents" from the traditional left.
### Blur
Ex-Communists, ex-Social Democrats and ex-leftists could all coexist under the same roof, by cultivating the artistic blur which was to lead to the formation of a party without true organization and frontiers, inside which one could find the best and the worst — some social democratic tendencies which flirt with neoliberalism and a heterogeneous "Left Current" , which dares to speak (and sometimes to act) on the need for a united front against neoliberalism and imperialism.
And in the middle, a president (Nikos Konstantopoulos) and his faction in permanent and unstable balance, pulled about everywhere by forces that only a miracle could hold together. It is precisely this miracle which is now approaching its end Synaspismos is now wedged between the KKE and PASOK and is at a crossroads. Its extraordinary congress in June 2000 will test its capacity to survive.
But to do so, Synaspismos must change radically: position itself definitively to "the left of the left", giving up all its moderate and reformist illusions, i.e. rejecting once and for all the temptations of "governability" which periodically transform it into a simple appendix of the PASOK in the eyes of society. Hostage to the illusion that it will be able to take control of the party through its alliance with the "centrists"
around the president, the "Left Current"
unfortunately does not seem ready to take the step.
However, nothing is given in advance.
Much will also depend on initiatives which will come from outside, like the KKE or the extreme left. An affair, then, to follow with the greatest attention, especially as a possible evolution of Synaspismos towards the left will inevitably have repercussions within the KKE (and vice versa). In reality, in spite of their visceral sectarianism which renders them unattractive and not very credible to the mass of workers and left voters, Synaspismos and KKE resemble more than ever communicating vessels: even the beginning of the radicalization of the one will influence the other. And especially, any position taken by one in favor of unity of action, or better in favor of the united front, will spark off a crisis in the other! Both parties have forces inside them who have already shown themselves in favor of a new course for the Greek left as a whole. This is also true for the myriad far left organizations who saw their electoral influence reaching a historic low no more than 0.12% for each of them.
### Demoralized
Having witnessed the development of the KKE which was able to capture the youth radicalization, the main Marxist-Leninist organizations and especially the NAR (which emerged from a split in the KKE's youth organization in 1990) are currently completely disorientated and demoralized Their persistence in the practice of unlimited sectarianism and/or delirious leftist triumphalism will seal not only their disappearance, but also the fina loss of hundreds of militants devoted to the cause of the anti-capitalist struggle. It is in this context of defeat and general demoral ization that revolutionaries must work as a priority for unity of action and the recom position of the Greek left.
Already voices are being heard almost everywhere against sectarianism and in favor of coming together, collaboration unity and debate. Part of the far left (including OKDE-Spartakos, the Greek section of Fourth International) is active on the ground in favor of this coordination and recomposition. Militants or currents coming from Synaspismos, the KKE and the far left have also come together around the project of a common monthly review.
This review, to be called Manifesto, will appear in June and could be useful as a framework for this much needed dialogue, but also as a kind of "collective organizer"
and point of reference for all those who want to fight together against neoliberal aggression.
All things considered, in the grimness of the Greek political scene, there is a beginning of hope. *
*Georges Mitralias is a journalist.