| From Unity, 20 May 2006 |
Our struggle can’t afford to stop |
| The May Day celebrations by the German Communist Party (DKP) in the working-class city of Essen have been famous for decades now. This year, alongside the spectacular performance of the Cuban music and dance ensemble “Tercer Mundo,” an unusually large number of international guests helped to turn the night into a moving show of international solidarity.
Visitors from Iran, Scotland, Turkey, Cuba, Ireland and Greece were present, and the organisers asked three of them to deliver greetings to the large crowd: Dulce María López Domingues, Minister of Culture in the Cuban province of Matanzas; Marion Baur, member of the Communist Party of Ireland; and Evangelia Mitsiakou, the leading official of the Communist Youth Organisation of Greece (KNE), who spoke to the DKP paper Unsere Zeit afterwards. The interview turned into a deep look into communist politics in Greece and beyond. |
| The increasing social struggles in Europe, particularly the massive youth protests in France and the strikes in Germany, have dominated media reports recently, while the attempt by the bourgeois press to ignore them failed completely. We didn’t hear as much about Greece. What is happening in your home country? How do you judge the situation in Europe?
The struggles in Greece are increasing, like elsewhere in Europe. The strong involvement of youth, especially in France, has been very interesting to observe. That is very important and spills over into other countries, like Greece. For us as communists the contents, the claims are important, not just the struggles. The ruling class has—we cannot overlook this—got most of what they were looking for: the privatisation of public services, worsening conditions for workers, less security of jobs. But they often had to use the “side door” to introduce things in the face of the strike and the protests. It is now extremely important for the struggle to continue. The chairwoman of the Communist Party of Greece said that youth protests like those in France are likely to happen in Greece. These protests need leadership. We don’t need little explosions that lose their effectiveness after a few weeks or months. What we need urgently is a continuous fight against EU imperialism, and it will depend on the communists to add continuity to the partially sporadic protests, to move them in the right direction. Wherever we don’t manage that, nothing is really going to happen. The fight of the enemy is continuous, and it never stops. Likewise, our struggle can’t afford to stop. We have to be prepared to counter every attack of the ruling class; that’s the centre of our work in Greece at the moment. We believe that youth is the most important group in society, but we find it important to be aware that youth can’t be the sole motor of social struggles. The young people who demonstrate now are not a class within society; most of them are working-class youths. Therefore they must fight with the working-class movement. If the youth movement does not co-operate with the working-class movement it cannot win. Take the example of the cuts in the education system and the privatisations—in Greece they affect even primary schools now—which will result in a new generation of less educated workers. The struggle against this development has to be carried by the young people and the workers together. The trade union struggles, including the many strikes in Germany and elsewhere, have been mainly defensive ones. The results are humble and in many cases not enough to halt the worsening conditions. From a Greek point of view, can you see the working-class movement going on the offensive within the near future? Is there a chance of real success? Generally speaking, if I wasn’t convinced of that I would stop fighting—stop living, if you like. On the situation in Greece, it is an absolute necessity for the workers—and the trade union movement—to be on the attack. It is crucial what claims the unions take into the struggle. In Greece we have different strands of the union movement; the communist one is called PAME [militant workers’ unity]. They go into the struggles with claims that are based on one thing only: the real needs of the workers, not compromises with the capitalists. PAME has often been blamed for dividing the union movement; we experience now that exactly the opposite is taking place: the demands that represent the real needs of the working people are the ones worth fighting for. The unions that have gone into all sorts of compromises with the bourgeoisie, and also the Labour camp, are lost and sold their souls. The debate about minimum wages is a good example. PAME calculated how much a person needs to live decently; in Greece that is €1,300 net per month. And that is exactly what they demand—not some obscure part or percentage of that. They are not the least bit interested in the shouting by the bourgeoisie (and the social democrats for that matter) about being illusionist. We take to the streets and claim what the people need; these demands are not negotiable, and we don’t go for compromises. As a result, you have a completely different political debate in the country: it is about our need, not about those of the capitalists. Given the overall situation, is PAME developing successfully? Of course it is. If you work continuously and consistently you will have success. PAME is increasing in membership, and—what is maybe more important—they are increasingly winning the respect, the trust of the working people. As young people we go to the union demonstrations, and they are waiting for us and our viewpoint, our leaflets. The young people like PAME because they don’t co-operate with the government, because demands like free education, rejecting privatisations in the school system, the struggle against university fees etc. are part of their struggle and part of negotiations. The people in Greece are beginning to understand what is happening. Life has become more difficult, it is “driving people into the streets” to fight, if you like. On May Day there have been large demonstrations in sixty-eight Greek cities and towns—a novelty in this country. Tell us about KNE, your youth organisation. We have been growing for the last fifteen years now, in numbers and regarding our influence. Next week will see our annual national conference. Its major task will be to find ways of involving the large number of new members and to discuss new types of activities. Go to any demonstration in Greece now and you will notice KNE in a big way. We are now one of the largest youth organisations in the country. Our task is now to stabilise the big organisation, use our increased influence. I’ll give you an example. For the recent national elections of the students’ parliaments at all universities we fielded candidates. We stood under our own name, consciously not in any alliance or front. That means that the students who voted for us knew they were voting for communists. We achieved an average of 17 per cent of the vote [making them the second-strongest group—Editor]. What are the reasons for this rapid development? Besides the general situation we have spoken about—the growing involvement of young people for their own needs—I would say, Our policies are the right ones. I am a student, and when I go into the students’ parliament these days it’s always the demands of KNE that make for the centre of debates—simply because they represent the real needs of young people. Equally important I think is our relationship to the Communist Party. It’s just great to have such a strong party at your side, which supports you without ifs and buts and which guides you in the right direction whenever you ask for it. We are very optimistic for the coming years. |
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