To the Crucible – An Irish engagement with the Greek crisis and the Greek left | PART 1

By Helena Sheehan

Part two is here

A Greek tragedy

A monumental drama is playing out before our eyes. It is a true Greek tragedy. The plot: A society is being pushed to its limits. The denouement is not yet determined, but survival is at stake and prospects are precarious. Greece is at the sharp end of a radical and risky experiment in how far accumulation by dispossession can go, how much expropriation can be endured, how far the state can be subordinated to the market. It is a global narrative, but the story is a few episodes ahead here.

Greece is the crucible.ⁱ It is a caldron where concentrated forces are colliding in a process that will bring forth either a reconfiguration of capitalism or the dawn of its demise.

Salaries, pensions, public services are falling, while prices and taxes are rising. Massive asset stripping is underway. Water, power, ports, islands, public buildings are for sale. Unemployment, emigration and evictions have brought a sense of a society unraveling. Homeless people wander the streets and scavenge for food in bins or beg it from the plates of those eating in tavernas. If they are immigrants, they are terrorised. Those looking into a horizon without hope either drift into desolation or perform the ultimate decisive act of suicide. Some have done so in private spaces, while others have chosen public places to underline the political nature of their fate, as they jump from heights, set themselves on fire or shoot themselves. In April 2012, Dimitris Christoulas, a retired pharmacist, who felt he could no longer live a dignified life after his pension had been slashed, shot himself in front of parliament. His last words were: “I am not committing suicide. They are killing me.” He urged younger people to fight.

Speaking to Greeks, it is hard to find any without a far reaching systemic critique. They tell you so many details of the deceits of the troika, the corruption of government, the decline in their own standards of living, the pervasive sense of social disintegration. When asked if they see any hope, few answer in the affirmative.

Nevertheless, some do. It is a precarious hope. For some, it is hesitant and weak, full of doubt, but a faint sense of some possible breakthrough from the morass. They protest, they march, they strike, even if they sometimes feel as if they are just going through the motions, because they do it so often now. They are not sure what it will take to break this cycle and move it on to another level, but they know it cannot go on as it is. For others, hope is clearer and stronger, although not without doubt and not without a sense of nearly overwhelming forces that could swamp all their best efforts. These are the ones who are not only critiquing and resisting, but also strategising and organising for a social transformation that would chart a path out of the crisis, ultimately a new path out of capitalism and to socialism. Conscious of all previous attempts that have crashed and burned or have betrayed the hopes they engendered, they are sober about their chances, but determined in their work.

Ireland and Greece

The forces swirling around Greece are swirling around us all. In Ireland we watch Greece very closely. We do so with different degrees of trepidation, terror, hope and inspiration. The crisis brought the troika first to Greece and then to Ireland. Our successive governments, and indeed many of our fellow citizens, have been keen to make the point that we are not Greece. Although all measures enforced on us point in the same direction, the idea is that we’ll be compliant and it will go better for us. The narrative of Irish exceptionalism has prevailed. It was put to me on a radio programme: “We don’t want to be like Greece, do we?” I couldn’t agree. Naturally I don’t want wages and pensions and social services to plunge so low and for poverty and suicide to blight even more lives, but I do want us to resist in such massive numbers. Moreover, I do want us to have an alternative on offer such as what I see shaping up in Greece.

In international tv coverage of demonstrations in Greece, we saw a banner declaring “We are not Ireland” and we heard of protesters chanting “We are not Ireland. We will resist.” It stung. Those of us who are resisting felt acutely our failure to mobilise sufficient numbers to put up the resistance the situation required. Nevertheless, the Irish left has looked with respect and solidarity at the Greek resistance and continued in our efforts to up our game here. The United Left Alliance (ULA) organised a meeting where Syriza MP Despina Charalampidou spoke. Few remarked upon it, but I was aware of how impossible it would have been in previous decades to have trotskyists sharing a platform so harmoniously with a left eurocommunist. On the day before the June election in Greece, we held a demonstration of solidarity with Greece on O’Connell Street, which was initiated by people associated with the occupy movement and inclined to be skeptical of electoral politics. Although it was to support the Greek resistance and not Syriza specifically, there was strong support for Syriza in evidence. I spoke at it myself in this vein.

The whole world was watching

International focus on Greece had soared when Syriza came second in the May 2012 election, leaping from 4.6% to 17%, with polls indicating that it could come first in another election to be held in June. Massive media attention ensured that all eyes were on Greece during this interval. The global elite warned of the dangers. Indeed it could be construed as international intimidation. RTE, our own public service broadcaster, adopted the tone of the masters of the universe as they reported the situation in Greece. Although most international commentators were warning the Greek people not to vote for Syriza, an article in Forbes magazine advocated “Give Greece what it deserves: Communism … What the world needs, lest we forget, is a contemporary example of Communism in action.”ⁱⁱ

As it turned out, although Syriza leapt to 27%, it came second again to New Democracy, which formed a coalition government with Pasok and Dimar, two supposedly left parties. The international media, which was giving Greece saturation coverage between the two elections, then turned their attention elsewhere. The left has kept its eyes on Greece, however, and watched, as Syriza rose in the polls, consistently coming out the highest party and raising the prospect that Syriza will win the next election.

Despite this, much of the recent international media attention has seen Syriza reduced to a footnote with the focus on Golden Dawn. GD are rising and are now the third party in most polls. This does deserve attention and analysis. This xenophobic party demands deportation of immigrants, attack them on the streets, overturn their market stalls, threaten dire consequences if they remain in Greece. Their theatrics create media spectacle: nazi salutes in parliament, distribution of food and collection of blood for Greeks only, denouncing a theatrical production as blasphemous and driving it out of town, etc. Many of their antics and claims are comical, particularly the conceptualisation of themselves as in a direct line in the story stemming from the glories of ancient Greece. What is most worrying is the vigilante role they are playing with support from the police. Using demagogic techniques, they have won significant support in destitute city neighborhoods with large immigrant populations by stirring up desperate Greeks against them. This toxic syndrome has even penetrated schools with students threatening each other or their teachers with a call to GD.

Syriza as synthesis

There is a more sober and serious storyline at play in the transition of Syriza from a coalition of 4.5% to a party of 27% and the main opposition to a potential government in a scenario of epochal crisis. This is the story that I have been following in the last months. I saw the international left being galvanised by the success of Syriza in a way that raised our sights and held hope of becoming a force up to the demands of our times.

What is it about Syriza that has so stirred the international left? Is it because a left party suddenly surged from being one of many parties standing up to those who rule the world to one that could come to power in a way that could chart a new path for the left? Is it because we want, not just to struggle, but to win somewhere? Yes, this is surely part of it, but I think that it is more than that.

For me, Syriza is synthesis. It is a convergence of the old and new left. Within that, it is a convergence of diverse old left traditions, which were once so divergent, as well as various new left forces. Gathered up into Syriza are ex-CP communists, trotskyists, maoists and left social democrats as well as independent leftists, feminists, ecologists, alter globalisation activists and indignados.

This is particularly meaningful to me, because I have been part of both the old and new left. I have participated in and sometimes polemicised against all of these forces. I was an activist in the 1960s new left as well as the recent occupy movement. I have been a member of social democratic and communist parties. I have reflected over the years on the best and worst of all these strands. I have had a particularly intense relation to the communist movement, which set the last century on fire, attracted the commitment of brave and brilliant comrades and ultimately, often tragically, disappointed so many of the hopes it engendered. My engagement with it, both as an author and activist, is much of what has drawn me over the years to Synaspismos and now to Syriza. It represents a critical continuity with that history along with a radical openness to a different future.

I believe in a politics that makes the long march through all the institutions of society. This includes electoral politics, but not in a myopic fixation on parliaments. It struggles for power and creates alternative structures in the streets, workplaces, schools, universities, media, arts. I see Syriza as oriented to this kind of politics, seeing their presence in parliament as part of a wider social movement. It is even bringing in those in new movements who are skeptical about state power, seeing it as so limited, so subordinate to capital, so controlled by oligarchy, and persuading them that states still have some power and that the state must be a site of struggle. They envision governing in such a way as to combine horizontal and vertical power, both representative and direct democracy. They are attuned to the demands of the historical moment, requiring the left to surpass itself.

A mini-odyssey

This brought me back to Greece in August-September and again in October. I have been there many times over the past decades, swimming in the sea, drinking in tavernas, discussing politics, reading novels and histories shedding light on Greek society and especially the Greek left. Now I wanted to test my sense of Syriza and its importance for the international left, to extend my interaction with it, to explore the dynamics of the older and newer forces within it, to discover what discussions and debates were underway and to probe how they were preparing for power. I knew that power was much more than winning elections and forming a government. I wanted to know more of what sort of social transformation they envisaged.

There were a number of visits after the election from leftists from abroad asking: What next? Several of these were in July during an interval of post-strike, post-election exhaustion and sweltering heat, which brought the level of activity down a few notches. Laurie Penny wrote in a book called Discordia, based on a week in Athens, that she had come expecting to see riots and instead saw what happens when riots die away and horrified inertia sets in.ⁱⁱⁱ Hilary Wainwright in Red Pepper reported on the quieter political activity going on under the surface, describing Syriza as “Like a swan moving forward with relaxed confidence while paddling furiously beneath the surface”.^iv I wanted to follow up on this a few months down the line, especially in the autumn when the tempo was rising again.

Sojourning in Zakynthos

I started in Zakynthos, combining a holiday in late August – early September with seeking and finding Syriza there. I contacted the secretary of Synaspismos there, with a referral from Synaspismos in Athens. Along with Sam Nolan, secretary of the Dublin Council of Trade Unions and long time left activist, I met Nikos Potamitis, an orthopedic surgeon and an astute and articulate activist. For hours we talked politics in a café in Bohali as the sun set over a panoramic view of Zakynthos town. We started with his own political trajectory from KKE (Communist Party of Greece) through the different forms of Synaspismos and Syriza and covered a wide range of topics, from the end of the USSR to the next phase of Syriza. We next met when we visited the Syriza office in Zakynthos town and he showed us their election literature and posters and described the range of their activities on the island. Syriza won the June election on the island and sent a left MP to the national parliament for the first time in many years. Support for Syriza leapt from 4% to 35% and activist numbers swelled from 50 to 500 between May and September. We then experienced the generous hospitality of his home in Akrotiri over a dinner of many courses with his wife Effie, a drama teacher, and his children, as well as Syriza candidate, Athena Mylona. Again we talked politics for many hours. We left laden with gifts of cake, chocolate, wine, brandy, a cd of local music, a Syriza poster and flag. The following week, we were invited to come to the office again when we met the central committee of Syriza in Zakynthos, who welcomed us warmly. I enquired about their occupations. There were two doctors, an actor-director, a financial consultant, a tourist shop owner, a teacher, an architectural detailer, plus several who worked in the agricultural sector. They commented that Sam and I embodied the ideal combination for the left: a carpenter and a professor. We walked along the harbour in the evening, feeling more hopeful than we feel at home. The daily swim in the sea at dawn made for a great sense of well being too.

Our discussions, particularly with Nikos, raised themes that would recur in most of my conversations with Syriza activists: the concrete manifestations of the crisis in Greek society, the need for a radical alternative to be on offer, the transformation of Syriza to a bigger, more diverse, yet more unified, party, the debate about whether or not to exit the eurozone. Nikos is on the left of Synaspismos and wary of Syriza becoming the new Pasok. He is strongly in favour of nationalising the banks and exiting the eurozone, so as to take control of the economy. He gave many details of the manifestations of crisis in society: impoverishment, emigration, suicide. He described the collapse of the middle strata and proletarianisation of professionals. Well aware of what doctors abroad earn, he is determined to stay, although the economics of a basic salary of €1500 a month and falling are not so easy. He is also conscious of the struggle of those who work for €500 a month and those who have no work and no pay at all. He is acutely concerned about the deterioration of the health service, which cannot meet people’s needs.

Some of those on low wages in Greece are so highly qualified. The woman who was cleaning our room was a math teacher in Albania, who was delighted to discuss the novels of Ismail Kadare with me. She has lived in Greece for 15 years and doesn’t want to go back to an Albania run by mafia. Many Albanians have returned. A waiter serving us was from Bulgaria and aspiring to be a professor of philology. He liked the idea that I was a philosopher until it came out that I am a marxist. He said that socialism wiped out traditions that took thousands of years to build. He is an orthodox christian and a constitutional monarchist. The fluency in multiple languages among those working in the service sector is striking.

Staying in touch with Nikos since we left, we were delighted to receive a link to a video of a creative protest where they burnt in the public square a representation of Cerberus, a mythical creature, a three headed dog guarding the entrance to the lower world from which it is impossible to return. This dog was made in the theatrical laboratory in the Potamitis home. The three heads of the dog were named as the troika and the hind flanks were Pasok and New Democracy.^v

The crisis is not so evident on the islands as in the cities. Tourists come for their holidays and most go away having seen little sign of it. Indeed, tourism has brought income and employment to these islands and spared them many of the indignities of the cities, where people beg and scavenge in the streets. However, when you ask people about their lives, the working people who staff the hotels, shops, hospitals and schools, they will tell you how their incomes have dropped, how their conditions of work have deteriorated, how many are leaving, how their society is unraveling. If they are immigrants, they will tell you that their children fear Golden Dawn coming for them in their schools and kindergartens. Even though the neonazi presence is not so strong on this island, they see them on television and a sense of menace has skewed their forward gaze.

Arriving in Athens

When I arrived home from Zakynthos in September, I began planning my trip to Athens in October. I started building my network of contacts, starting with my existing professional counterparts, ie, professors of philosophy, and my political counterparts, ie, ex-communist-party-communists, ie, Synaspismos / Syriza. From there, I branched out, especially after I arrived in Athens. I spoke to university professors, members of parliament, party workers, trade union officials, journalists, teachers, doctors, lawyers, hotel staff, taxi drivers, shop assistants, waiters, unemployed. I heard the stories of people from all stages of the life cycle, articulating political views ranging from communist to neonazi, ie, KKE to GD. I walked miles of the streets of Athens every day, mostly alone, but sometimes with academics, activists and journalists. I looked and listened with the heightened awareness of the curious visitor, many notches up from that during my daily rounds of Dublin.

I arrived on 9 October, an hour after Angela Merkel also arrived. My flight had already been booked when her visit was announced. The timing was unfortunate in that itmeant a lot of logistical stress about whether and how I would get there with all the police restrictions and work stoppages and, even worse, arriving too late to join in the protests. Despite the cancellation of public transport options and road blocks, I managed to get a taxi. The taxi driver drove while talking on his mobile and spreading a huge map over the steering wheel and writing on it, which was really nerve wracking. When I arrived at my hotel, it was so shuttered down that it was hard to find a way into it. My twitter feed showed that the tens of thousands were gone from Syntagma Square and only small numbers scuffling with riot police remained.

I strolled around the area surrounding Omonia Square and struck up conversations about the events of the day. No one welcomed Angela Merkel. Many referred back to the German occupation of Athens during the war and claimed that they still owed war reparations. In the hotel, visitors wanted to know where not to go to avoid danger. The receptionist on duty told me that he had been in Syntagma Square for the mass protests. Eventually the shutters came up and the road blocks came down. On the television I saw Merkel leaving. On a loop was footage of the visit, the weirdest part being Samaras and Merkel walking down a leafy deserted street talking sedately. It was so surreal, considering the real atmosphere on the streets. Only riot police could create that bubble for her. I watched hours of news and current affairs on Greek tv in the evening, as I was to do every other evening, getting the gist, but missing the nuance, but finding it riveting notwithstanding.

My first port of call the next day was the office of Synaspismos / Syriza in Eleftherias Square. It is a multi-story building where 70 people work. Another 100 or so work for Syriza in the parliament now as well. I was greeted warmly by Dimitra Tsami, with whom I had been in e-mail contact for some months. I met a number of other comrades and settled into a meeting with Costas Isychos, secretary for international affairs. He knew more about Ireland than most people I met in Greece and asked me for my assessment of various forces, especially ULA and Sinn Fein. Mostly we spoke of Greece and Syriza. Again the main themes were those characterising all my conversations with Syriza activists: the manifestations of crisis, the transformations of Syriza, the preparations for power. Costas covered much ground. There is extreme alienation from the political system. The class structure is changing. The middle strata is becoming proletarianised. There is a new strata of the wealthy bourgeoisie. In addition to the old oligarchs, typified by the shipowners, there is a newer layer of casino capitalists, who have GD as their reserve force. As the crisis deepens, people are moving from the centre to the right and left. The influx into Syriza, while a source of optimism, is a source of danger too, as some of the newer elements have been infected with neoliberalism and clientalism. Although the political system is corrupt, it is necessary to engage with it in order to transform it.

It is necessary to show that the left can govern. If Syriza is to take state power, it will do so in an extremely unfavourable geopolitical situation. As he spoke, I got some sense of the sober strategic thinking going on about how to deal with various scenarios that might come into play. For example: about how to survive if cut off from international funding and existing trade relations. They have a team of economists working on all possible problems, such as exiting the eurozone, alternative sources of energy, etc. He stressed the need to build international solidarity. Syriza is the last hope for Greece, as they see it. After that, it’s Golden Dawn. This makes people very serious, realising what a heavy weight of responsibilty they bear. Among the disparate elements that have combined to become Syriza, there is a good climate for dealing with differences and converging to put their efforts into the tasks before them.

Professors, parliamentarians and policy process

This theme of how serious the situation is and what a weight of responsibility they bear was echoed over and over in my talks with Syriza, especially by those in leading positions. In my e-mails and conversations with Aristides Baltas, there was a really strong sense of this. He is a professor of philosophy and a very influential thinker in Syriza. We met in Syntagma Square and walked to the University of Athens. It is a very urban university. The main building is a striking classical edifice standing between the National Library and Academy of Athens on the wide boulevard of Panepistemiou Street. The rest of its buildings are scattered through city streets in between shops, cafes and offices. We settled into one of these cafes. So many of my meetings were right out on the city streets with all the noise of the traffic and bustle of city life. Those months of Occupy University sessions out there on Dame Street made me accustomed to this, so I not only managed it, but found it bracing and appropriate. I thought of our discussions as in continuity with those of the agora of ancient Athens.

Aristides Baltas has been co-ordinating an elaborately participative programmatic process. In the past few years there has been a collective effort to pull together the best ideas for exiting the crisis and transforming the society into a coherent programme. This was published in a book of several hundred pages, which was mostly ignored by the Greek media, who nevertheless kept saying that they had no programme. Since the election, a more intensified and encompassing process has been underway. They are thinking very concretely about what to do the day after being elected, about what legislation to pass to revoke the memorandum and the austerity measures, about how to restore wages, pensions, public services, about how to clear out corruption and clientalism. Moreover, they are strategising about how to transform the structures of the state itself and how to formulate policy within this transformation. They reject an approach that concentrates on shadow cabinet and special advisors. When elected, they will call those who work in various ministries together to ask them how they could best do their jobs and to discuss how the ministry should be run. Indeed, they are already doing this now. They are assembling people who work and have expertise in various areas to come together to form committees and formulate policies now. There are groups working in economics, energy, culture, education, local government, foreign policy and other areas.

Indeed I attended one of these meetings that was set up to co-ordinate foreign policy and defense. Nearly a hundred people gathered in Art Garage in Exarchia. They included professors of international relations, members of parliament, diplomats, public servants in the ministries of foreign affairs and defense, members of the armed forces and others who felt they had a contribution to make to policy in these areas. They also included people from all the constituent elements of Syriza. At the beginning of the meeting I was introduced by Sotiris Roussos, a professor of international relations, who had been given a surprisingly elaborate internet-researched bio of me, doubtlessly prepared by Dimitra. He then translated for me as I spoke of how I see Syriza and its importance for the international left. I then listened to the five hour deliberation that followed, which was serious and harmonious. It was not that everyone agreed about everything, but that there was a constructive atmosphere in discussing disagreements.

Although the room was bursting with expertise, the point was made that policy was not just about expertise, but about politics, about what class interests were being served. The foreign policy of all previous Greek governments had served certain class interests and they would have to go down a different road and serve different class interests. There were proposals to widen policy participation even further through the creation of interactive internet portals, not only in Greek, but in other languages. Parliamentarians warned against domination of the party by the parliamentary group. Rena Dourou especially spoke about this. She argued that the centre of gravity should not be the parliamentary group, because there was need to maintain multilevel relations with wide social forces. She is most famous abroad for being the one who was soaked with a glass of water during an encounter with Ilias Kasidiaris of Golden Dawn on tv. In Greece, she is seen a possible future foreign minister.

There were many speakers who focused on particular countries or regions. It was striking how little emphasis was put on the EU, especially the north of it, as opposed to Greece’s neighbours in the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa. One of the comrades who did a stint translating for me was Yiannis Bournous, who represents Syriza at the Party of the European Left. One of the few Greeks I met with much knowledge of Ireland and the Irish left, he made the point that Ireland has no party affiliated to the PEL, which is not good, we agreed.

My discussions with Aristides before and after this Syriza meeting put the process I was witnessing in broader context. There are open Syriza meetings everywhere, especially in workplaces, universities and neighbourhoods (often outdoors), where people are putting forward their ideas for the future. Not only that, but there are solidarity networks struggling to meet people’s needs in the present by providing food and medical care to those in need. There are alternative economies in exchange of goods and services at grassroots level. Syriza participates in these. These networks can’t solve all these problems, but they can socialise them. These activities have a strong prefigurative thrust to them, enabling a more collectivist experience and an alternative to individual isolation, as impoverishment intensifies, on the way to a more collectivist future society. It reminds me of our 1960s liberated zones.

The old reform-revolution debate is irrelevant now, Aristides claimed. The space for a social democratic solution is closed now. It is capitalism v the people. While it is not possible to do everything they want as soon as they want, the socialist perspective remains firm, he underlined. It is only Syriza, Aristides insisted, who are doing the transitional thinking. Both KKE and Antarsya speak as if it would be possible to move immediately and totally from capitalism to socialism. Indeed, I have read the KKE statements and the attitude seems to be that it is the October Revolution or nothing. It is necessary to learn everything that can be learned from the left of the past and to redefine socialism for the 21st century, we agreed.

Preparations were underway for a conference to be held at the end of November leading to a bigger congress in the spring to reorganise Syriza into a unified party. It was going well, Aristides said. When they were smaller, it was more difficult getting the coalition to cohere and stabilise, but now that they are so much bigger and have so much more responsibility to provide an alternative for Greek society, it concentrates minds and there is a good atmosphere now. The purpose of the conference was to define further their political / ideological identity, to concretise further their programme for government and to decide on new organisational structures. They are still trying to find the right balance between their existing traditions and formations and new political forms. The structures of Syriza are radically open, very much in contrast with those of KKE. It is possible to participate without being a member. Indeed it is only under new structures that some of those who have been participating until now, without being a member of any of the component organisations of Syriza, will actually become members of Syriza.

Aristides was responsible for drafting the declaration for this conference. At the end of our second meeting, he walked with me to the university office of Michalis Spourdalakis, professor of political science, who was also working on this. They discussed various amendments to it, doing so in English, to include me in their deliberations. We spoke of the traditions of political education in left parties, something which was stronger in the past than now, which we all agreed need to be revived. There are no permanent structures for this in Syriza and they thought that there need to be now. There is a great thirst for knowledge in evidence and they told me of lectures at the universities on the history of the left, marxist theory and the fate of the USSR that had attracted large attendances. Many of the younger generation involved in left politics, I have found, are highly educated in a formal sense, but not in the traditions and ideas of the left. This was underlined for me a few days later when I asked an educated young woman active in Syriza what she thought about marxism. She said that she was well disposed towards it, but didn’t really know much about it.

Both Aristides and Michalis stressed that Syriza is an experiment. It is following the shape of history and the rhythms of the social movements. Both at different stages quoted to me a poem of Antonio Machado “We make the road by walking.” Both of them have a long history of political activity and have been in Synaspismos from its earliest days. Both are marxists, but committed to an undogmatic form of marxism. Syriza as such is not marxist, but marxism is a strong force within it, with no one position within marxism having the status of orthodoxy. There is support for a whole spectrum, from A to Z, Althusser to Zizek. Or going further back, from Bukharin to Trotsky to Mao.

Aristides then left and I had a long talk with Michalis. He continued on the theme of transformation of Syriza, the convergence of the traditions of the left with those of the newer social movements. He was involved in the Greek Social Forum as well as the European Social Forum and World Social Forum. He emphasised, as did others on this question, that Synaspismos and Syriza participated in wider social movements without trying to control them. At the time of the more recent movement of the squares, Syriza people played their part in it while respecting its autonomy. While the KKE condemned it as anti-communist and anti-labour, Syriza argued from within in the face of these tendencies, which beset the occupy movement almost everywhere. He described the many activities in which Syriza is involved now and discussed their prefigurative dimension. Their local bases are more community centres than party offices.

Syriza is forging a way of strategising about socialism that critically evaluates all previous attempts at socialism, while overcoming the long disputations and divisions of the left on this question. He believes that capitalism is testing its limits in Greece, which puts an extraordinary challenge to the Greek left. This is why it is time for the left to recompose, to transcend both the bankrupt reformism of social democracy and the deluded vanguardism of those still dreaming of storming the winter palace. Syriza wants neither to settle for whatever might be on offer by capital nor to reject whatever reform might lift people’s lives now in a paralysis that puts everything off until the ultimate revolution. Syriza wants neither to settle for governmentalism nor to succumb to governmentophobia.

Another professor at University of Athens with whom I had discussions was Kostas Gavroglu, whom I knew from a symposium at University of Paris on marxist historiography of science, where we both spoke. We met at the university’s historical archive, of which he is director, and went to a café across the street for lunch. He spoke of Syriza as coming from a long development from KKE interior, opting for ’socialism with a human face’ over Moscow domination, basically from the eurocommunist tradition. He was on the central committee of that and has been part of the various transformations of the Greek left for those decades. He is hopeful about Syriza’s prospects and put a lot of emphasis on its participation in wider social movements, unlike the KKE who undermined them. This was a constant theme in my conversations.

Generations

It was great talking to my contemporaries about those decades and how we had experienced the same movements, but particularly the communist movement, from different places. There was not only an ideological harmony, but a generational sensibility, in our interactions. I needed to speak to the younger generation too, I knew, and Aristides and Kostas encouraged me to do so and put me in touch with younger activists. I found the intergenerational dynamic to be healthy on the whole. My contemporaries, the 60-somethings, referred to it the most, making the point that that they should be on the second line these days, with younger faces out front. They are proud to have someone of the caliber of Alexis Tsipras, who is 38, to be the forward face of their party. They are also proud to have Manolis Glezos, who is 90, out there beside him as well. Glezos is a Syriza MP, who took down the swastika from the acropolis during the nazi occupation, served time in prison and parliament over the years, as well as working as a writer and editor, still a strong voice, still facing the riot police in the streets.

Seeking younger perspectives, I met Demosthenes Papadatos in Syntagma Square and we proceeded to yet another café in the university area. He is editor of Red Notebook, an online journalⁱ, which is colorful, energetic and intelligent. I follow it with the help of computerised translations. It deals with the latest political news, reviews films, books and lectures, notifies of events and engages in critical analysis of everything from the memorandum to the relation of the left to the enlightenment. Demosthenes is keen on the left using its voice in social media and on the internet generally. He is not only active in doing this, but also works in the parliament on immigration as well as on his PhD. From a Pasok background, he became involved in anti-imperialist and alter-globalisation movements while still in high school. He participated in the World Social Forum. When in university, he first joined the Greek SWP, but moved to Synaspismos and then Syriza, because he believed in unity of the left. Syriza has gained much ground among youth through their participation on social movements, working within them, rather than coming into them with an agenda formulated elsewhere. When the movement of the squares began, he recounted, left activists were personae non grata. There were even banners saying “Left, go away”. However, as a result of the constructive participation of Syriza people, the climate changed. By the end of June 2011, there was a rapprochement between the indignados, the left and the unions, culminating in a two day general strike. Red Notebook published in Greek a lot of material from the occupy movement. As others in Syriza, he put a huge stress on international solidarity. He sees Red Notebook as playing a role in bringing the conversation taking place elsewhere, especially on the crisis, into Greece. Greece will need all the support it can get in the coming period. As others, he was thinking seriously about the next phases of Syriza as a party and as a government. The two hours went quickly and I had to rush away to another appointment on this day when I scheduled my time too tightly, but there were many threads left for another day.

Another 30-something I met was Ioanna Meitani, who is on the editorial board of Enthemata, a supplement on theory and opinion, of the daily left paper Avgi. She had a distinctive generational perspective that was a challenge for me to consider. She sees the 60s generation of the left, my generation, as being young when everything seemed open, whereas her generation came on the scene when everything seemed closed. It was the loss of dreams that led them to revolt. She felt that my generation had dreams, but a habit of defeat, although some of them, she admitted, were still working incredibly hard at this stage to realise such dreams in the new scenario. When I asked about socialism, she said that it was a dream, but she wasn’t sure if it was possible. Even in revolt, they have scaled down dreams, it seemed to me. On marxism, she knew that there were lots of marxists in Syriza, but hasn’t engaged with it enough to have formed a position on it. She has been very active in the open structures of Syriza, but is not actually a member of it, because she is not a member of any of its constituent organisations. When the new party is formed with direct individual membership, she will be a member. She is in favour of this new direction. There will still be platforms, but these constituent groups will fuse. I asked about gains and losses in this scenario. She sees only gains and no losses. I have to admit that, although I know that it is the right way to go, I worry about losses, about postmodernist or social democratic sensibilities swamping marxist analyses.

Ioanna works now for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, an educational and research network set up by Die Linke with funding from the Bundestag, which has set up an office in Athens. This was where we met. It is a bright attractive space, dominated by red and white walls with big black and white photos from the history of the left in Germany and Greece. Syriza also has such a foundation called the Nikos Poulantzas Institute. Both are part of an international network called Transform ‘a European network for alternative thinking and political dialogue’. ⁱⁱ

Haris Golemis is director of Nikos Poulantzas Institute. This institute was initated by Synaspismos in 1997 and ‘aims at fostering the values of the left, systematically developing an awareness of contemporary social, ecological, political and cultural issues and exploring the emerging changes within society’ with a ‘commitment to the ideals of socialism with democracy’.ⁱⁱⁱ We agreed to meet as a march was assembling in the grounds of the National Archeological Museum. We co-ordinated our positions by mobile phone. There were so many people gathering, I wondered how I would recognise him. “He looks like Einstein”, a comrade told me, and sure enough he did. He explained that the NPI came from the renovative communist tradition, but its political space now could be defined as broad left. Although it came from Synaspismos and now Syriza, it is autonomous. It will be expanding further in the future. One of its projects is to study the new political forces in the European left. In describing the composition and activities of Transform, he noted that one of the few countries without a body affiliated to it is Ireland. We would have to think about what we might do about that, I said.

The communists (the KKE ones)

I thought that I should also speak to those of other political perspectives on the left, both about how they see the crisis in Greek society and how they see Syriza. I was especially interested in finding out what was going on in the KKE. I had been reading their statements during and since the elections, where they prioritised attacking Syriza over the troika and the right. “Don’t trust Syriza.” was their message. Obviously many of their own voters thought otherwise, as their voters deserted them and voted for Syriza in significant numbers. They won 26 seats in May, but only 12 in June. Their leader, Aleka Papariga, is a small combative woman, who lashes out at Syriza, even when it is not a relevant answer to the question asked. In Ireland, two parties, the Communist Party of Ireland and the Workers Party, both support the KKE and echo their attacks on Syriza. The KKE is a formidable party with deep roots in Greek history and considerable support in the Greek working class. Many members of Syriza were once members of the KKE and feel part of a common history. When Syriza reached out to them in the name of unity of the left, a unity that might have made a crucial difference in being able to form a left government in June, they were spurned and attacked. Syriza have expressed regret, rather than attacking back, although at a Syriza event, the Slovenian philosopher Slovoj Žižek referred to the KKE as “the party of the people who are still alive because they forgot to die”, which was offensive.

Although they have driven away people who want to relate to the communist tradition in a critical manner, I thought that there still must be people left in it who were reflective and disturbed by the current line. I wanted to meet someone who would speak to me honestly about this. I found someone who was willing to do so, through a trusted intermediary, but it is indicative of the atmosphere in the party that he did not want me to use his name in my writing. We spoke openly for three hours in an outdoor café. He is a young, serious and highly educated person, who is strongly committed to the party, proud of its past, but worried about its future, because of its present line. He defended the party programme, which is committed to appropriate alliances, and he believes that the party’s current practice is at odds with its programme. The KKE, as he sees it, is the historical party of marxism in Greece. It has been at the forefront of all progressive struggles in Greek society. It resisted occupation, fought a civil war, endured torture and exile, led anti-imperialist opposition to wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq.

The attacks on what is now Syriza go back to splits from the party, which were bitter and passionate. He sees those who split as abandoning that history, although I argued that it is still their history too. They see themselves as carrying it forward in the most appropriate way for these times. He does not see it that way. He thinks that they have moved to the right. The KKE are organising for socialism, he argued, whereas Syriza want to manage capitalism. He also took issue with their position on both the EU and the euro. I pointed out that many in Syriza agree with him about the eurozone. He replied that Syriza is fluid. It is many things. He respects people in it. He is open to an alliance with it, but with many reservations and conditions. Is there much discussion of this in the party? I asked. No, the subject is taboo, he admitted. There is a more general debate about alliances and coalitions, but no open discussion of the attacks on Syriza. The party is not only losing voters, but members, he revealed regretfully. There are stricter critieria for membership now. Members are being expelled. This strategy, this atmosphere, will drive the party to extinction, he concluded, as we ended on this sad note.

The other left coalition: Antarsya

Another force on the left standing apart from Syriza and making some of the same criticisms is Antarsya, a coalition of the anti-capitalist left. I had thought of it as primarily trotskyist, but Kostas Skordoulis explained to me that it more or less mirrors the composition of Syriza in encompassing trotskyists, maoists, eurocommunists, etc. Kostas is a professor of epistemology of science at the University of Athens. We had only met face-to-face on this day, despite several years of e-mail contact regarding work of mine in Kritiki, a journal he edits, and an Engels symposium he is organising for the upcoming international history of science congress. We went walking around Exarchia together, as he showed me the spot, now a shrine, where Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15 year old student was killed by police, setting off widespread rioting, especially of youth, in December 2008. We moved on to the famous polytechnic, the scene of resistance, marking the beginning of the end of the junta. We moved on to Exarchia Square and eventually settled down in a café across from his party’s hq. He mapped the current state of trotskyism globally. I have always found the proliferation of trotskyist parties and their different 4^th internationals or committees to reconstruct the 4^th international a bit bewildering. The atmosphere on the left has shifted and those of us from the different streams of the left are interacting more constructively with each other now. With Kostas, it is particularly easy and we have no problem in establishing a warm, respectful and honest rapport.

Antarsya, he told me, has 4000 members, organised in all cities and many islands. They have councilors elected in every prefecture. In the May elections, they got 1.2%,whereas in June they only got 0.33%, as voters moved toward Syriza. There are voices in Antarsya advocating joining Syriza, he admitted, although he is not one of them. Indeed, the international body to which his group is affiliated, the USFI, supports Syriza, against the will of their Greek members. Kostas believes that it is necessary to have a left alternative to Syriza, a mass revolutionary party that can overthrow the system, because Syriza is too adaptationist, too willing to work the system, too anxious to win the electoral base alienated from Pasok. All the same, unlike the KKE, they do not adopt a sectarian stance towards Syriza. They work together in communities, unions, universities. Indeed, earlier in the day, he was walking past the café where I was with Aristides Baltas and a pleasantly collegial conversation ensued. We met again the following week on the day of a march when Kostas was marching with Antarsya and I was marching with Syriza, but nevertheless we were colleagues and comrades.