The Political Lessons of Syriza’s Betrayal in Greece

[TexasTowelie]

Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International

1. An immense strategic experience for the working class

The September 2015 election that returned the Syriza (“Coalition of the Radical Left”) government, led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, to power in Greece concludes a definite stage in what has proved to be an immense strategic experience for the working class.

As it swept into office in January, Syriza pledged to end European Union (EU) austerity measures. The EU’s savage social attacks had placed Greece at the center of the relentless global assault on living standards and basic rights of workers that has proceeded since the 2008 crash, and millions of workers and youth internationally looked to the struggles of the Greek working class. Media coverage, criticisms of Syriza from reactionary EU politicians, and the statements of Syriza itself all led masses of people to believe that Tsipras and his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, were firebrands ready to take on Greek and international capitalism.

Both within and outside of Greece, countless parties presenting themselves as “anti-capitalist” or “left” hailed Syriza’s rise to power as a triumph for the left and a model for the struggle against austerity in Europe and internationally.

In the ensuing eight months, however, Syriza comprehensively betrayed its election promises. After signing an agreement to extend EU austerity measures in February, only weeks after coming to power, it trampled the landslide “no” vote in the referendum on austerity that it organized in July and rammed a massive new austerity bailout through parliament.

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/13/icfi-n13.html

[Demeter]

1. Correction: it wasn't Syriza that betrayed the Greek people

It was Alex Tsipras and about half of his party...the other half, the losing vote, left or were thrown out of Syriza.

And STILL the Greeks re-elected Tsipras to power. Sometimes, there's no help for a people deluded into into a corner.

I have to concede though, Tspiras is a masterful politician.

And as for the Greek people....They want to keep the euro, controlled by people outside the Greek government, because the Greek government had a nasty habit of destroying the drachma at every chance they could get. They don't see the greater danger of giving up their sovereignty to outsiders who do not care about them or their future--not yet.

When the Greeks finally realize that the Eurozone is a scam and they are the sucker at the poker table, perhaps the Greeks will clean their own house, throw out the oligarchs, establish a true democracy and leave the euro....but I don't think they have it in them, frankly. If they were capable of it, they would have shown some tendency toward independence by now, in the 2000 years of being somebody else's whipping boy, starting with Persia and Rome...