Greece’s young communists speak: Transform society & transform ourselves

[Andrei Kuznetsov]

Greece’s young communists speak: Transform society & transform ourselves

http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/young-communists-in-greece-eric-ribellarsi-kasama.png?w=435&h=450

Eric Ribellarsi met with ten young members of the Communist Organization of Greece (KOE). They discussed their backgrounds, experiences, the student movement, the orthodox Communist Party in Greece (KKE), revolutionary strategy, and the political choices of revolutionary communists within the Greek crisis.

This interview is part of the Winter Has Its End project — and there is much more to come. Read it here:
http://kasamaproject.org/2012/06/18/greeces-young-communists-speak-transform-society-and-transform-ourselves/

[Delenda Carthago]

A. The only transform KOE has been through the last 2 years is more and more to the right. It has reached a point to say, last summer, that there is no "Left" and working class for them and its all about new age post modern movements like that awfull thing that happened last summer in Syntagma(which btw only paved the way for...nazis! Way to go "direct democracy"!)

B. To use the the term "Greece's young communists" for an organisation that in total(youth and older) has like...400 members, its a bit much. Only KNE has at least 10 times that members.

[Crux]

A. The only transform KOE has been through the last 2 years is more and more to the right. It has reached a point to say, last summer, that there is no "Left" and working class for them and its all about new age post modern movements like that awfull thing that happened last summer in Syntagma(which btw only paved the way for...nazis! Way to go "direct democracy"!)

B. To use the the term "Greece's young communists" for an organisation that in total(youth and older) has like...400 members, its a bit much. Only KNE has at least 10 times that members.
The square movement, although as usual with mass movements outside of their control (the examples are endless) the KKE stood aside, paved the way for SYRIZA. But I suppose they're basically the same as GD yeah? Or to be clear the only reason why the far right might have benefitted is because much of the left had the same attitude of KKE that is standing aside. If GD gained from that movement it is because the left did not intervene strongly enough to offer an alternative. And of course to weed out the fash scum.

KNE only have 4000 members?

[Red Heretic]

A. The only transform KOE has been through the last 2 years is more and more to the right. It has reached a point to say, last summer, that there is no "Left" and working class for them and its all about new age post modern movements like that awfull thing that happened last summer in Syntagma(which btw only paved the way for...nazis! Way to go "direct democracy"!)

B. To use the the term "Greece's young communists" for an organisation that in total(youth and older) has like...400 members, its a bit much. Only KNE has at least 10 times that members.

I think Delenda's hatred for uprisings of the people (such as the squares movement/arab spring) speaks for itself. I won't respond. I will also mention that KKE also dismissed the 2008 street fighting after the murder of Aleksandros. Was that also supposed to be "new age?"

But I will just say: it is a lie that KOE is only 400 members. KOE is the second largest organization in SYRIZA, and in places such as Crete, actually leads SYRIZA (the place where, by the way, SYRIZA had the highest percentage of the vote). KOE is also a cadre organization with a very high level of unity, unlike the larger group in SYRIZA, Synaspismos, which has a larger paper membership, but a low percentage of disciplined cadre and organizers.

[Delenda Carthago]

I think Delenda's hatred for uprisings of the people (such as the squares movement/arab spring) speaks for itself. I won't respond. I will also mention that KKE also dismissed the 2008 street fighting after the murder of Aleksandros. Was that also supposed to be "new age?"

But I will just say: it is a lie that KOE is only 400 members. KOE is the second largest organization in SYRIZA, and in places such as Crete, actually leads SYRIZA (the place where, by the way, SYRIZA had the highest percentage of the vote). KOE is also a cadre organization with a very high level of unity, unlike the larger group in SYRIZA, Synaspismos, which has a larger paper membership, but a low percentage of disciplined cadre and organizers.
A. I didnt spoke on the arab spring. You must be really fuckin stupid to read in my lines anything about it. I was talking about the post-modern media favored "movement" of the greek intignados, truly based on masses which had hatred for syndicates and working class parties. I dont know how you do it, but fortunatly even in the darkest hours, in Greece there is a party that keeps the flag of CLASS war standing up.

fSKf5v91F-0

B. KOE has 400 members and that I know it very well. It had a hunned more, but since the split in its CC(because many people had issues of KOE moving too much to the right) they are at that level right now. SYN won the whole Crete. And it was only logical, since Crete was always PASOK's playground.

[Crux]

B. KOE has 400 members and that I know it very well. It had a hunned more, but since the split in its CC(because many people had issues of KOE moving too much to the right) they are at that level right now. SYN won the whole Crete. And it was only logical, since Crete was always PASOK's playground.
yes, heaven forbid a left party were to win working class supporters of any other party. If you're not, at the very least, 2nd generetion KKE consider yourself a prospect member. Congratulations on driving away the 50% revisionist bloc of KKE voters though. Fewer but better yeah?
If you have any more concrete info on the KOE split you keep alluding to I would be happy to hear it.

[Delenda Carthago]

yes, heaven forbid a left party were to win working class supporters of any other party. If you're not, at the very least, 2nd generetion KKE consider yourself a prospect member. Congratulations on driving away the 50% revisionist bloc of KKE voters though. Fewer but better yeah?
If you have any more concrete info on the KOE split you keep alluding to I would be happy to hear it.
The point is not if you gonna take one party's voters, but how. And SYRIZA took them, because he took the whole mechanism of PASOK. From MPs, to big time members, to syndicalists. So its a PASOK 2.0 kinda thing. Hurray!

About KOE's split http://www.avgi.gr/ArticleActionshow.action?articleID=664116

[FSL]

What's indicative of their politics is the "Greece has no factories" part.
So Greece is like a 17th century colony, all we can hope is to turn the tides a bit in the EU so we'll have more "independence" and if possible a better capitalism.



John: These other parties just try to repeat the revolutions of Russia and the revolution in China. We believe that we must root our revolution in the central political problems of the Greek people. We are in a country that is not independent and that does not produce anything. There are no factories in this country.

Consciousness is not yet to the point of communist revolution. But it tends to be very radical.

Eva: In Greece, there is capitalism with special characteristics, the financial occupation and the political dictatorship of the regime over Greece. This is an imperialist-dependent country. They are using this policy to pass memorandums in all of the PIIGS countries.

[editor note: PIIGS means Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain.]

Today we fight for the independence, real democracy, and the reconstruction of Greece.
Greece is not already a capitalist state, it doesn't already have as much democracy as capitalism -a capitalism in crisis at that- allows and its economy isn't continuously being reconstructed in a manner that benefits capitalists.
No, all these things are the responsibility of communists and once we do them, then we might be able to talk about socialism.
And we're not talking about Nepal here or India, where these theories might at least seem rational, but for a eurozone country.
(Real democracy as a phrase and a concept, which I also saw in an antarsya poster, just reeks of kautskyism. Maybe some better educated communist here can tell me what is a real bourgeois democracy like)


KOE didn't intervene in the "squares movement" as communists. No one ever talked about their party. They intervened secretly as "dikaioma.gr", a leftist site run by them but that was only known to people already involved in the left.
So when the squares' movement began with the slogan "no parties, no unions" they didn't criticize that, god forbid we don't tail the "masses", they just went through.
Goes without saying that golden dawn did just the same, with them posing as "patriots" again with no party affiliation.
That is how you empower the people according to some it would seem. You trick them and hide your political identity.



But anyway KOE aren't that crazy about communism anyway. Synaspismos' paper, Aygh, photoshopped one of their flags on their front page to erase the hammer and sickle. They didn't even complain.
The real picture
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/7109/timthumby.jpg (http://img826.imageshack.us/i/timthumby.jpg/)

An the picture as it was shown on the first page of Aygh
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4522/avgi7may.jpg (http://img43.imageshack.us/i/avgi7may.jpg/)

[FSL]

I think Delenda's hatred for uprisings of the people (such as the squares movement/arab spring) speaks for itself. I won't respond. I will also mention that KKE also dismissed the 2008 street fighting after the murder of Aleksandros. Was that also supposed to be "new age?"

But I will just say: it is a lie that KOE is only 400 members. KOE is the second largest organization in SYRIZA, and in places such as Crete, actually leads SYRIZA (the place where, by the way, SYRIZA had the highest percentage of the vote). KOE is also a cadre organization with a very high level of unity, unlike the larger group in SYRIZA, Synaspismos, which has a larger paper membership, but a low percentage of disciplined cadre and organizers.

A question.
Do you as well only fight for "real democracy" in the US because all your factories moved to China?
I'm just wondering seeing you are close to those who do just that here.

[black magick hustla]

a KKE militant saying greece isn't capitalist, it couldn't get better

[FSL]

a KKE militant saying greece isn't capitalist, it couldn't get better

Maybe reading comprehension is not your strong point?
That's what KOE is saying or, more specifically, that Greece has "a special kind of capitalism and we need a better one before daring to think about socialism".
I'm disagreeing with that.

[FSL]

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4522/avgi7may.jpg (http://img43.imageshack.us/i/avgi7may.jpg/)
By the way, it's probably fitting to translate that bit near the bottom referring to the french elections on May 6th.


Hollande: Austerity isn't Europe's destiny

A new page opened in France yesterday with the eelction of the second socialist president since Francois Mitterand in 1981. Francois Hollande stressed in his first speech as the country's president that "austerity can no longer be Europe's destiny". On his part, the left front candidate Jean Luk Melanchon, after congratulating Hollande, specially mentioned Syriza's result stressing that "our party in Greece now leads the left"


People can reach their own conclusions.

[Delenda Carthago]

a KKE militant saying greece isn't capitalist, it couldn't get better
This, or either you are not that sharp.

[Crux]

What's indicative of their politics is the "Greece has no factories" part.
So Greece is like a 17th century colony, all we can hope is to turn the tides a bit in the EU so we'll have more "independence" and if possible a better capitalism.



Greece is not already a capitalist state, it doesn't already have as much democracy as capitalism -a capitalism in crisis at that- allows and its economy isn't continuously being reconstructed in a manner that benefits capitalists.
No, all these things are the responsibility of communists and once we do them, then we might be able to talk about socialism.
And we're not talking about Nepal here or India, where these theories might at least seem rational, but for a eurozone country.
(Real democracy as a phrase and a concept, which I also saw in an antarsya poster, just reeks of kautskyism. Maybe some better educated communist here can tell me what is a real bourgeois democracy like)


KOE didn't intervene in the "squares movement" as communists. No one ever talked about their party. They intervened secretly as "dikaioma.gr", a leftist site run by them but that was only known to people already involved in the left.
So when the squares' movement began with the slogan "no parties, no unions" they didn't criticize that, god forbid we don't tail the "masses", they just went through.
Goes without saying that golden dawn did just the same, with them posing as "patriots" again with no party affiliation.
That is how you empower the people according to some it would seem. You trick them and hide your political identity.



But anyway KOE aren't that crazy about communism anyway. Synaspismos' paper, Aygh, photoshopped one of their flags on their front page to erase the hammer and sickle. They didn't even complain.
The real picture
http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/7109/timthumby.jpg (http://img826.imageshack.us/i/timthumby.jpg/)

An the picture as it was shown on the first page of Aygh
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4522/avgi7may.jpg (http://img43.imageshack.us/i/avgi7may.jpg/)
Interestingly perhaps I think you are pretty much spot on, comrade. Your critique of KOE's low profile in their intervention in the square movement echoes what I've heard from my comrades in Xekinema. The comrades however, unlike the KKE, intervened in the square movement and, unlike the KOE, did so without lowering their banner. Precisely because the far right tried to profit from the movement this is even more important, you can not have a successful antifascist struggle through attempting to hide who you are. Sometimes being tactical is needed of course and the balance of forces is not and was not always in the lefts favour. But we should not hide, unless there is no possibility for open campaigning, like for example in mainland china. But a few fash in a demo in greece is not a dictatorship.
I just have to say something on the KKE because while I am of course very critical of them their what I have to call ultraleft brezhnevism sometimes make their critique of say SYN spot on. But their secterianism make it an ineffective critique even when they are right. And yet there is a fairly large workingclass base. A very peculiar and contradictory greek organization.

[FSL]

Interestingly perhaps I think you are pretty much spot on, comrade. Your critique of KOE's low profile in their intervention in the square movement echoes what I've heard from my comrades in Xekinema. The comrades however, unlike the KKE, intervened in the square movement
There were people from KKE there intervening. As communist party members though and while explaining where should that effort aim, not just praising everyone as most "progressives" did.

[Crux]

There were people from KKE there intervening. As communist party members though and while explaining where should that effort aim, not just praising everyone as most "progressives" did.
Which is not the same as KKE intervening. I know and have seen enough to see how KKE acts as a party with other movements although this is not necessarily true of every individual KKE or KNE member.

[Kornilios Sunshine]

Change the title to : Greece's young opportunists speak.