Change After Greek Elections?

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Papandreou's "'unyielding asunder and a year and a in the armed forces, Cissy Vovou in Athens looks at the recent election victory of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and what it will mean THE exceptional advance of HE exceptional advance of PASOK in the October 18 elections represents a truly historical victory for the workers' and mass movement in Greece.

PASOK, with its crushing 48% of the vote, delivered a fearful blow against the parties of the Right and against the ruling class as a whole. These right wing parties have been continuously in power since 1945 with a brief exception in 1964-5 and, of course, during the dictatorship.

The slogan of "change" which was crucial in PASOK's electoral victory, expressed the hopes of millions of workers, farmers and middle class people bearing the full brunt of the economic crisis. The victory expresses the indignation of the masses at the economic state of the country and at the pro-imperialist_policies of the Right on the EEC and NATO.

A fresh wind of change has blown over Europe since the victory of Mitterrand in France and undoubtedly this benefited the rise of PASOK in Greece. Its victory in turn will greatly influence the course of European and Middle East politics.

This is above all true due to PASOK's enormous strength amongst the population and in its parliamentary representation.

Bankruptcy

Apart from PASOK, the Communist Party took 11% of the vote while the Communist Party (Interior) scored 1.5%, thus giving the parties of the Left 60% of the electorate. The liberal bourgeois parties. were clearly decimated, getting only 1-1.5%, and the Right along with its extreme right wing allies fell to 37.5%.

To understand fully the massive turn towards the Left which the country has experienced, it is worth noting that in the previous elections of 1977, the Right, along with the fascists, got nearly 50% of the votes, bourgeois liberalism, 13%, PASOK 25%, the Communist Party, 10% and the Communist Party (Interior), The electoral campaign was sharply contested. The hudge rally of the Communist Party and PASOK, led the Right to lose its alliance with the forces of the fascist right, which up to then it had kept at arm's for the Greek working class.

length.

The Right sought refuge in scaremongering about the 'Marxist threat' ', 'totalitariaffism' , 'the destruction of the motherland' and the 'undermining of the armed forces' etc.

This latest electoral campaign was the fiercest since 1963, but it occured in conditions (and this is the difference) of democratic freedoms which the mass movement has gained with its own struggles.

Reaction However, what is PASOK and what is the change that it promises?

In order that the British reader understands the significance of the present change and its scope, a brief historical review post-war Greece will be necessary as well as an outline of the ideology and policies of PASOK.

After the betrayal of the resistance movement-which in effect ran the country after the retreat of the Germans in 1944-by Stalin and the Communist Party, which led to the disarming of the guerrillas-the blackest of reaction engulfed the country from end to end.

Thousands of Communists were executed, hundreds of thousands were exiled to remote torture camps for years on end, tens of thousands fled to the East European states, where they live to this day.

Strident

The communist movement was defeated and drowned in blood, the trade unions trampled under foot and persecuted. Any even vaguely progressive movement in the arts, education or existing organisations of the masses was dealt with by terror and exile.

The bourgeoisie began to rebuild its post-war state on the basis of a strident anti-communism. Its previous fear when faced with a revolutionary situation was converted into an analagous, impassioned hatred. Its offensive against the masses was aided by the surrender by the Stalinists of the weapons of the People's Army.

Anti-communist security battalions, informers and rapscallions were the foundation of the resurrected state.

Despite the terror, by 1958 however, a thaw began yet again in political life.

Liberal bourgeois personalities united under the leadership of George Papandreou, who began his so-called "unyielding struggle" against the • entrenched Right.

The same Papandreou was Prime Minister of the Popular Front government in 1944 when the police attacked an unarmed demonstration in Constitution Square, resulting in countless deaths. afte Socialist support after victory Papandreou at Socialist election rally Papandreou's 'unyielding fight' was in fact carried out on two fronts. Not only against the governing Right wing and its party, but eventually, above all, against the left. The fight against the left was crucial given that in the 1958 elections, EDA (Union of the Democratic Left) the Communist Party's legal front, had scored a major share of the votes with 25% of the poll.

Papandreou promised to bring under control the excesses of the state and a better deal for the workers, farmers and destitute middle classes. In 1964 Papandreou's Centre Union swept to power; the workers' movement gained some significant democratic freedoms while the level of mobilisation and militancy soared.

Reappearance

Papandreou found himself increasingly squeezed between this emergent mass movement and the three pronged alliance of the Palace, the Parliamentary right and their supporters in the secret services and the armed forces, which would not countenance the slightest concession.

His government was torn asunder and a year and half after assuming office it 11c affinn it was dismissed by the Palace in July 1965.

The "July Days" were the peak of mass mobilisations and strikes against the monarchy. The movement was sold out by the EDA (the only significant left force in the country). The bourgeoisie began piecemeal to regain the ground it had lost. After a whole series of parliamentary 'coup d'etats' a military dictatorship was imposed in 1967, lasting for seven years.

The backbone of today's PASOK, as well as its leader Andreas Papandreou, has its origins in the left wing of the Centre Union. PASOK was formed in 1974 by activists of the anti-dictatorial movement and expressedly in conflict with the old Centre Union which with the legalisation of political parties in the summer of 1974, made its reappearance on the political stage.

It presented a socialist programme to the country, which despite its vagueness and ambiguities, was exceptionally radical compared with what the two Communist Parties (also legalised openly for the first time since 1947) were putting forward. However it was neither Marxist, nor Leninist nor revolutionary-and can be considered as socialist only in the context of European social democracy.

It acquired its political base amongst the workers and farmers but had as its central political axis the "anti-imperialist and anti-dictatorial" fight, expressed by its slogan-"Greece belongs to its people"

Dabbled On the original Out of NATO' position-PASOK has now changed to talking about a referendum to see whether Greece should leave the alliance. It was against EEC entry. Now withdrawal will occur only if the President of the Republic will allow it ... and so on and so forth.

In general the PASOK of today is unrecognisable from the PASOK of 1974. This applies not only to its politics but also to its leading cadres.

In 1974, PASOK's leading members were active against the junta. Today the majority of its MPs are either lawyers, republican officers who came into conflict with the royalist Right in the armed forces, or former cadres of the lib eral Centre Union (all of wh of course, have dabbled greater or lesser extent in the anti-dictatorial struggle).

The physiognamy of PASOK's leadership is a far more comforting sight for the ruling class, than it was in 1974.

"Privilege"

Hand in hand with this gradual swing to the right, has been the orientation towards the conservative forces and voters of the old Centre Union. To this end, PASOK in the working class and student movement has consciously acted as a brake, whenver they have threatened to go beyond bounds of peaceful protests.

In this it collaborates with the Communist Party which because of its superior organisational methods and 'experience' in dealing with the 'ultra-lefts' is generally recognised as the "political police of the worker and student movement.

It contends that society is divided into 'privilegec and non-privileged' and People and privileged nonprivileged nations. PASOK insists that this is a Marxist idea since the concept of "privilege' is an updating and modification of Marx's idea of class.

On the basis of this "theory' is erected a political programme with the following main features:

*the expansion of cooperatives in the rural areas. The establishment of agroindustrial units which aid the modernisation of agriculture. Replacement of the powermiddle men who have ruthlessly exploited the farming communities in the entire post-war period.

*Democratisation of the state machinery and the army.. The creation of a meritocracy to eliminate the Right's traditional monopoly of politically motivated appointments to the civil service, etc.

*Modernisation of Public Administration and rationalisation of the massive and parasitic bureaucracy.

*Increase in state intervention and formulation of a plan for industrial development, stepping up an exten sive mining and exploration programme and the decentralisation of economic activity away from the major urban areas.

*Concessions and credits light manufacturing which is being severely hit by Greece's entry into the EEC.

*Out of NATO. *No to the EEC. *Alliances and treaties with Arab and East European states in the Balkans.

*Against the doctrine of "belonging to the West" (the prevalent tenet of bourgeois political thinking and practice since the days of Truman and the Cold War).

The majority of these aims are couched in exceptionally strident chauvinistic terms.

PASOK's electoral slogan was PASOK in government, the people in power, . What does PASOK mean by this?

PASOK insists that up to the present, power has been formally centred on Parliament whereas the real decision making centres have lain elsewhere. To reverse this, PASOK aims to firmly entrench popular power in Parliament, local government and the trade unions.

Collaboration

As far as Paliament is concerned-PASOK promises to change the electoral laws which have been fashioned in the interests of the Right.

The existing electoral system is one of reinforced proportional representation. This favours the big political parties. For example in the recent elections PASOK with 48% of the vote got 172 MPs (57% of all Members of Parliament). New Democracy, with 36% of the votes, got 115 MPs (39%) while the Communist Party Experior with 11% of the electorate managed only 13 MPs (4%). PASOK has promised the introduction of simple PR.

Local government is promised much greater powers and economic resources. As for the trade unions, apart from the crying need for democratisation, PASOK aims to draft a law which will make provision for worker participation on the boards of all enterprises employing more than 50 workers.

By this institutionalisation of class collaboration PASUK hopes it willebe easier to get the working class to bear at least in part the burden of the crisis. This is especially true given that PASOK has not even promised the nationalisation of any of the enterprises concerned.

Continued

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socialist Organiser, Thursday 12 November 1981 Page 6 'arialict + Haassicas. harmandshi Organiser, Thursday

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