Refugees still stranded on Lesbos.

The only thing worse than defeat is defeat without a fight

By Katie Pelikanou On February 28 representatives from the European Union, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund arrived in Athens to discuss terms for a fourth bailout package for the Greek government. These negotiations had initially stalled, with the IMF dubious about Greece’s ability to achieve a ‘sustainable’ fiscal surplus, givent that the […]

By KD Tait Monday 13 July After a 17 hour final session in Brussels, Germany’s “Iron Chancellor”, Angela Merkel, and her finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble finally accepted the complete capitulation of Alexis Tsipras. Their terms reduce Greece to a virtual colony of the imperialist powers that dominate the Eurozone, supreme amongst them Germany. If this […]

By KD Tait 11 July 2015 Alexis Tsipras and the leadership of Syriza have betrayed the mandate given to them twice by the Greek people. Scarcely a week after 61 per cent of voters said Oxi!-No! they have presented a nearly identical proposal to the parliament in Athens, which has voted by 250 votes to 32 to […]

Monday 6 July, 2015 By KD Tait   No to blackmail. No to humiliation. No to austerity. The determination of the Greek workers and youth to end austerity has been expressed in a defiant rejection of the Troika’s ultimatum. Today, Syriza has an overwhelming second mandate to carry out its promise to break with austerity, […]

29 June, 2015 All eyes are on Greece as its citizens prepare to vote in a referendum on the Troika austerity ‘offer’ that will dramatically shape the course of the wider European resistance to austerity. The consequences of rejection – No – should not be underestimated and cannot be entirely predicted. Nevertheless it is right […]

25 March 2015 Despite the election of a government pledged to ease the intolerable burden of paying interest on Greece’s €320bn foreign debt and to renegotiate the terms imposed by the Troika (the IMF, the ECB and the European Commission) so far, no meaningful concessions have been allowed. The country faces a deadline of April […]

By KD Tait 5 March 2015 Syriza’s failure to secure concessions on Greece’s loan repayments shows the weakness of a strategy based on exploiting divisions within Europe’s ruling class. The priority now is to halt the retreat, and to prepare the working class to take all measures necessary to defy the Eurozone and carry out […]

By Tobi Hansen and KD Tait 19 January 2015 A snap general election in Greece looks set to end in victory for radical left wing party Syriza, ending a six-year monopoly of pro-austerity governments across Europe. The prospect of a government that rejects the massive social cuts and privatisation dictated by the European Union institutions […]

To the surprise of many, the conservative Greek government has launched a crackdown on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. KD Tait looks at the reasons for this and what it means for the working class movement Six MPs and around 30 party activists, including Golden Dawn’s top leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos and his deputy, have been arrested […]

Martin Suchanek attended the Syriza Congress in July as an international observer from the New Anticapitalist Organisation (NAO) in Germany In last year’s elections in Greece, Syriza (The Coalition of the Radical Left) narrowly failed to gain the largest proportion of votes that would have given it the opportunity to try to form a government […]

By Martin Suchanek, Gruppe Arbeitermacht Before last year’s elections in Greece, Alexis Tsipras was described by the bourgeois press as the “most dangerous man in Europe”. It was said that if he were to enter government the euro and the European Union would be in danger. A representative of the Merkel government in Germany accused […]

The continent is still deep in recession. Coordinated by Germany, France and the European Commission and Central Bank, savage austerity is being imposed on its weaker economies. KD Tait looks at resistance in Portugal and Greece and opposition in France to the new Fiscal Treaty. The southern states of the European Union – Portugal, Italy and […]

Nassos Theodoridis, a member of Syriza’s Human Rights Commission, spoke by live-link to a meeting organised by the Labour Representation Committee, Leeds Against the Cuts and Leeds Anticapitalist Alternative. The meeting was introduced by Andy Young of Workers Power who gave a brief outline of the situation in Greece and then Nassos spoke about the […]

By the narrow margin of just 2.77 per cent of the popular vote, the Greek electorate succumbed to the blackmail of the Greek media and political class and the threats of the leaders of the European Union to give Antonis Samaras of New Democracy, ND, the initiative to form a coalition to continue wreaking havoc […]

Austerity, its consequences, and how to resist: these are the issues fuelling the rise of radical Greek party Syriza. Its programme rejects the cuts imposed by the International Monetary Fund, EU Commission and European Central Bank – the so-called “Troika”. This rejection has exposed the fact that the interests of the Greek workers and youth […]

With millions of Greeks prepared to vote the left-reformist SYRIZA coalition into power on the basis of its programme of rejecting austerity, revolutionaries in Greece should fight for the formation of a workers’ government. The Fourth Congress of the Communist International, held in December 1922, outlined the key tasks of a workers’ government; “The most […]

Dave Stockton looks at why the formation of a workers’ government in Greece is necessary to mobilise the popular forces to strike the decisive blow against austerity regimes in Greece, in Europe and in every country where capital insists that workers, youth and the unemployed must be made to pay for its crisis   On […]

SYRIZA is no revolutionary party, but neither is it a normal reformist one. Since 6 May, Syriza has become wildly popular across Europe and around the world. In Europe, at least, it is decades since a party that could seriously challenge for power has had such radical proposals in its programme or its leaders’ speeches. […]

It’s no wonder that the opinion polls, immediately after 6 May gave Syriza between 23 and 28 per cent. People realised that Syriza was now a serious contender for power. They realised, after the experience of the last two years, that protest alone would never solve the problems they faced. The issue was quite simply […]