Where Syriza went wrong

Kady Tait argues that Left Unity needs a clearer line on the why Syriza’s leaders Alexis Tsipras failed in the negotiations

The statement The struggle of the Greek people issued by Left Unity’s national secretary Kate Hudson makes too many concessions to the Syriza leadership.

Left Unity regularly proclaimed its solidarity with Syriza as our “sister party” thus, at least implicitly taking responsibility for its strategy since its election in January.

The statement lays the main blame for Greece’s predicament on the “economic terrorism” of European imperialism and observes that the deal will “strip Greece of its national sovereignty and self-determination”.

This is true. Yet economic terrorism has always been the strategy of the Troika. In October 2011 the Troika offered Greece a second bailout worth €130 billion, conditional on further austerity measures. When Pasok Prime Minister George Papandreou threatened to put this deal to a referendum, the Troika responded by with-holding a €6 billion loan instalment.

The result? A parliamentary coup which saw the referendum cancelled and Papandreou resign and replaced by technocrat and former ECB vice-president Lucas Papademos, who headed a national unity government that pushed through austerity and secured the second bailout.

That Syriza was able to actually hold a referendum to reject the Troika’s latest ultimatum was down to its deeper roots and support amongst the working class. It survived the Troika’s threats and the Greek people ignored them to vote No.

Tsipras ignored the 61 per cent Oxi mandate and opened negotiations with the pro-austerity opposition to secure parliamentary support for his plan to offer the Troika even worse concessions than those rejected in the referendum. As far as the Troika – and Tsipras – was concerned the referendum result changed nothing.

Kate Hudson’s statement calls the deal a “serious blow to the fight against austerity”. This is true, but it was a deal delivered by the Tsipras leadership itself and there should be no diplomatic language about it. It was not just a defeat; it was the worst sort of defeat; a defeat without a fight. In one word it was a betrayal.

The statement argues that, “the balance of forces is heavily weighted in favour of the EU institutions  and powerful states like Germany.”

This is indisputably true. Yet the Syriza leadership did nothing to alter the balance of forces because its strategy was limited by its commitment to remain in the Eurozone at any cost.

When the decisive majority in the referendum threatened to alter the balance of forces, the Syriza leadership moved to undermine it by offering further concessions during the referendum and then striking a deal to ignore its result completely.

The statement excuses this by pointing out that, “the Syriza-led government has been caught in a contradiction: it was elected by the people to oppose austerity but to keep Greece in the Eurozone.”

Yes, and the result of the strategy of the Syriza leadership has been that it has come down on one side of the contradiction; staying in the Euro at all costs, at the cost of more austerity.

If Syriza had acted on its mandate, as we believe it should have – if it had mobilised the maximum forces on the street and taken measures to insulate Greece from the Troika’s economic terrorism – then it would have either forced the EU to make substantial concessions, concede – or take the blame for the consequences of expelling Greece from the euro. Even Varoufakis pointed out that there were measures to take control of the banks, make the debtors take a haircut etc. that would have prolonged the resistance and magnified the crisis for the eurocrats.

The Left Unity statement says “the Syriza-led government has been caught out and brought low by the political contradictions within Greece, its isolation as a state fighting austerity and the overwhelming might of European capital ranged against it”

It is a basic element of political solidarity to point out that the Syriza government has been brought low by the failure of a strategy that can be summed up as negotiation with both hands tied behind its back, that did not appeal to the one force capable of standing up to the might of European capital.

Criticising the strategy of the Tsipras leadership – as many in Greece did – is an essential part of our common struggle. It will be true in Spain with the leaders of Podemos too. Criticism of the limitations of leaders before they betray is vital because forewarned is forearmed. Uncritical flattery of the kind that has dominated the British left becomes a material factor in spreading demoralisation and disorientation when the betrayal comes ‘by surprise’.

Kate Hudson rightly observes that “[h]ow Syriza will address the continuing crisis and ongoing catastrophe, how other political organisations will respond and pose alternatives, and above all how the people of Greece will respond, is an urgent matter that concerns us all”.

Those in Greece who are responding by mobilising the resistance to the betrayal, by preparing to fight within and without Syriza to oppose the new memorandum are the forces who deserve our political and material solidarity.

The news of Wednesday’s general strike is a welcome antidote; we as a party need to state unequivocally that we stand alongside the socialist and working class forces preparing for a decisive struggle – and that we condemn and oppose those leaders who have crossed over to the camp of the class enemy and are preparing to carry out its attacks.