KKE (Communist Party of Greece) What is wrong with it?

[Philosophos]

Hello I'm a young man living in Greece and I just can't understand why KKE doesn't want to get elected... Papariga the general secretary of the party said before the elections that if they end up as the first party they will not make a goverment... WHY?

In my opinion KKE has the best and most stable ideas and they still don't want to take responsibility about what is happening in Greece.

I watch the TV and I see the statements of SYRIZA and I can't believe that these people are actually the second biggest party in Greece(they are incredibly stupid in my opinion because one member of the party says something and another member of the party cancels the previous guy's statements).

To conclude I wonder why KKE and all the other parties in Greece and out of Greece don't want to be elected?

[A Marxist Historian]

Hello I'm a young man living in Greece and I just can't understand why KKE doesn't want to get elected... Papariga the general secretary of the party said before the elections that if they end up as the first party they will not make a goverment... WHY?

In my opinion KKE has the best and most stable ideas and they still don't want to take responsibility about what is happening in Greece.

I watch the TV and I see the statements of SYRIZA and I can't believe that these people are actually the second biggest party in Greece(they are incredibly stupid in my opinion because one member of the party says something and another member of the party cancels the previous guy's statements).

To conclude I wonder why KKE and all the other parties in Greece and out of Greece don't want to be elected?

I have many criticisms of the KKE, but on this matter they are absolutely right.

The only way to put an end to the capitalist austerity measures knifing the Greek people is to overthrow capitalism, smash the current bourgeois state, and create a workers state.

Anyone elected to office, no matter what their ideas and programs are, would have to administer the state and balance the budget. If they tried to run things on a socialist basis, they would have to violate the Greek constitution as well of course as the EU's rules, seize capitalist property illegally, and the police and military would overthrow them quickly after a brief period of chaos and collapse.

No, the only way for Greece to go socialist is the old fashioned way, by a revolution. As Marx put it more than a hundred years ago, the workers cannot simply lay hands on the current capitalist state and use it. It is a capitalist state, whoever is in office.

-M.H.-

[Philosophos]

OK now I can see some reasons but at the same time I can't accept the violation of the Greek constitution as an excuse.

I see the constitution getting raped every single day by the goverment... Seriously they are doing whatever they want and they don't care especially the previous goverment of PASOK with the idiotic president Papandreou.

So I don't really think that greek people will mind if the constitution gets scouted once again (most of them don't even care now why whould they mind later?).

Anyway thx for your answer sorry for any mistake I made :)

[A Marxist Historian]

OK now I can see some reasons but at the same time I can't accept the violation of the Greek constitution as an excuse.

I see the constitution getting raped every single day by the goverment... Seriously they are doing whatever they want and they don't care especially the previous goverment of PASOK with the idiotic president Papandreou.

So I don't really think that greek people will mind if the constitution gets scouted once again (most of them don't even care now why whould they mind later?).

Anyway thx for your answer sorry for any mistake I made :)

Quite likely the Greek people wouldn't care, but the police and military would, it would give them any excuse they needed, if they needed any.

Getting elected to office to run the bourgeois state doesn't mean you run the bourgeois state, it means that the bourgeois state runs you. You can issue all the orders you like, that doesn't mean the army and police will follow them if they contradict the class interests of the ruling class, from whom they really take their orders, no matter who wins elections.

And those class interests are all written down on paper, that's what constitutions are all about after all, so the cops & troops don't even have to think too hard about when to tell you to get stuffed or else.

No, first the police have to be smashed and the rank and file soldiers have to organize against their officers, and the class rule of the bourgeoisie must be broken. Then and only then does it really mean anything who wins an election.

-M.H.-

[Philosophos]

The bad thing about Greece is that the people say that communism is bad but they don't even know why(it's the same thing I think around the whole world).

At the same time we have the rise of Golden Dawn and some people (including my father) that want to bring back a dictatorship.

I don't think most people want to have communism in Greece even if they see the bad face of capitalism... I'm kinda desperate about it but I can't really change the mind of everyone

[Geiseric]

You don't need revolution though to get rid of Austerity, one simple flaw. And the greek working class aren't pushing for revolution, in fact according to the recent election, they like SYRIZA's memorandum. KKE are being Ultra Leftists so they don't compromise their place in the bourgeois state, and actually act against the capitalists.

[A Marxist Historian]

You don't need revolution though to get rid of Austerity, one simple flaw. And the greek working class aren't pushing for revolution, in fact according to the recent election, they like SYRIZA's memorandum. KKE are being Ultra Leftists so they don't compromise their place in the bourgeois state, and actually act against the capitalists.

Except that you do need revolution to get rid of austerity in Greece. Either that or Santa Claus landing from Mars with a few hundred billion Euros in his stocking.

Yes, most of the Greek working class, like you Brody, has illusions in the possibility of getting rid of austerity through easier and less dangerous methods, like electing SYRIZA with its worthless memorandum.

Hopefully the reformist illusions will drop from their eyes with time. Hey, maybe even your eyes too.

-M.H.-

[RedskinUltra4]

To conclude I wonder why KKE and all the other parties in Greece and out of Greece don't want to be elected?

The KKE has very close ties to the trade union bureaucracy. Their role is to keep workers' struggles within the confines of the Greek establishment. In other words, they block any independent movement of the working-class (e.g. their isolation of the steel workers strike at the Halivourgia Aspropyrgos plant).

They employ radical rhetoric but do not want to bear the responsibility of the crisis because they ultimately support the austerity measures, albeit in a modified form. They would be utterly discredited so it is in their best interest to stay on the outside.

[A Marxist Historian]

The KKE has very close ties to the trade union bureaucracy. Their role is to keep workers' struggles within the confines of the Greek establishment. In other words, they block any independent movement of the working-class (e.g. their isolation of the steel workers strike at the Halivourgia Aspropyrgos plant).

They employ radical rhetoric but do not want to bear the responsibility of the crisis because they ultimately support the austerity measures, albeit in a modified form. They would be utterly discredited so it is in their best interest to stay on the outside.

A pseudo ultra left criticism by a "left" union buster with a suspicious monicker that would be more appropriate for a Golden Dawn supporter. And false.

Does the KKE support the austerity measures in modified form, like the DL or the right wing of SYRIZA? Not as far as I can tell. If they do at some point in the future, well, it's a Stalinist party so I wouldn't be totally surprised. But as of this moment, that's just a slander.

And it's not the KKE who isolated the steel strike to the HA plant, that was the SYRIZA and other union bureaucrats at the other big plant. No doubt the KKE leadership's strike policies may not be of the best, but slander is slander is slander.

This poster's bottom line problem with the KKE is that--they lead a union federation, PAME, and the basic position of the SEP on unions is to oppose them and seek to destroy them.

-M.H.-