Solidarity with Greek resistance to austerity

 By New Worker correspondent

TRADE unionists and other progressives gathered last Saturday in Parliament Square to express their solidarity with the people of Greece and to call for a change to the failed austerity policies imposed on Greece by the IMF, European Central Bank and EU.

The protest was just one of many similar actions in major cities throughout Europe, timed for the run-up to elections in Greece on 25th January.

The centre-left party Syriza is expected to win on a promise to end the draconian austerity policies imposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

But communists doubt they can achieve this without a break with the EU, which is not on Syriza’s programme.

The Greek communist party (KKE) is campaigning for a total break with Nato and the EU and it dismisses Syriza as just another  social-democratic platform that merely seeks to make exploitation more acceptable to Greek workers.

“Syriza is not an alternative solution for the people,” the KKE state.  “In its quest to win the elections, it has rapidly completed its transformation into a party of bourgeois anti-people management. It conceals the causes of the capitalist economic crisis and exonerates the exploitative face of capitalism, the power of capital.

“The leadership of Syriza not only provides assurances to the creditors, the EU, and the “markets” that it will not act unilaterally, but it calls on them to trust and support a Syriza government because it can better serve their interests.”

 The New Communist Party of Britain sent a solidarity message to the KKE this week which said: “Your party is leading the resistance to the bourgeois offensive against the working people of Greece. Your party is also leading the fight-back across Europe against the austerity programme demanded by the European Union. The militant stand of the Greek communist movement is an inspiration to all communists and everyone campaigning against Nato and the EU. We stand side by side with you in the struggle and we wish you well in the forthcoming general election”.