Another point events. It is that the about these spontaneous reaction to the murder repression took scope, not only in Athens but also such as Salonika
This is a fact of special importance in that it shows that a is combining with great economic crisis.
to hold a march of witness for Tues- The echo in Salonika day afernoon. The motion was passed the votes of the PSK, the DA [the CP-Interior fraction], and the
[multi-tendency left groupings in the student union]. ministers of internal affairs and resigned to show their "sensitivity," but of course their resignations were
Throughout the night of Monday and also in the early hours of Tuesday, around the PolyThe fighting was between the occupiers and various elements (the party ENEK and its student organithe ENEP) the majority were members of the PASOK, who had come to help the MAT impose order on the occupiers, or between the occupiers and MAT, which gas, asphyxiating gas, and water cannon.
On Tuesday morning, there about a thousand people left in the Polytechnic, who were looking for a way to end the occupation.
At midday on Tuesday, the EFEE announced its decision its march, explaining that not defend it." Thus, in essence the of the traditional nothing but send people home.
however, was mainthe parties and organizations of the far left. At the same time, the Regas Feraios [the youth organization of the CP-Interior| held its own separate march condemning the EFEE's decision to call off the mobilization.
During the march, the occupiers left the Polytechnic, and the farleftists joined demonstration, while the anarchists dissolved. Despite the provocations of the MAT, which kept stopping the march and then retreating, there were no incidents.
In the coming months, an enduring
THE MURDER of a 15-year-old boy by the PASOK's MAT on the day when the working people and the youth honor the dead of the November uprising did not provoke any reaction from any of the big organizations in Salonika, except from the Regas Feraios [CP-Interior youth].
It seemed that the portrayal of Athens as in the grip of anarchy suited everyone from the DAP [the youth organization of the right-wing big bourgeois party, New Democ-
[the PASOK student organization], which exploited it for a provocative campaign. This hysteria about ted out the murderous frenzy of the of this picture of anarchy, the PhEAPTh [The Salonika branch of the student union affiliated to the GSEE, the national trade-union confederation] did not issue any communique, about the violation of university in-
The only reaction and tion came from the extraparliamentary left and the anarchists. The day after the murder, a march was held in the streets of the city to denounce the state terror and the violation of university inviolability. The march had two main contingents, one of anarchists and one of the far left (with about 400 people). The Demo also participated.
The two contingents divided when the anarchists threw Molotov cocktails at the offices of the EPEN [the farstudent organization] then started breaking store windows. Symptomatically, the MAT did not the march in the city, but late in (after the events in Athens), they
Friday, November 21, a new against state to demand the release of those arrested. It brought out between 500 and 700 people. a mass turn out was owing to change in the climate after the episodes in Athens. The groups particiwere the Left Student RePhoiteton], the KKE ML, the OKDE [Greek section of the Fourth International] and groups of anarchists.
Salonika's distance from the center of the events and the small forces that mobilized prevented a sharp clash on the far left between supporters of "forceful" actions and those who insist on an overall anticapitalist policy, who think that forceful actions should be carried out by mass mobilizations and not by "grouplets" of the far left and who believe that in a period such as the one we are passing through forceful actions by groups lead only to isolation. Athens (precisely because isolated character) prevented a sharper clash. But it did not prevent a ridiculous row in the middle of the road whether the far-left contingent should march behind the anarchists
We do not think that the anarchist's sectarian blind alley, with its glorification of small groups and their historie constitutes political action. Moreover, it is politically dangerous for those forces that want to be seen as a credible alternative by the working people and the youth. International Viewpoint 27 January 1986