Greek Workers and KKE are fighting for all of us

Communist Party Usa (CPUSA)

May 25, 2010

http://www.cpusa.org  , mailto:international@cpusa.org

Greek Workers’ Resistance Benefits all Workers

The dramatic scenes on the streets of Athens and other Greek cities have raised the ire of the right and of international monopoly capital. In the corporate-controlled press in the United States and elsewhere, the Greek people are slandered daily. We are told that the crisis in Greece is due to the laziness, greed and complacency of Greek workers, who have had it too good for too long. The Greek workers are told to tighten their belts and prepare to work longer hours for more years, and to see their wages, pensions and social benefits cut drastically. The IMF, the governing structures of the European Union, and political figures in wealthier countries such as Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose negative attitude toward Greece contributed mightily to the current crisis, have been successfully putting the centrist PASOK government in Athens under pressure to accede to these anti-worker demands. 

We don’t agree. The crisis in Greece was not brought about by workers but by international monopoly capital and the Greek ruling class. They now seek to shift the blame for the explosive results of their own greed and irresponsibility onto the shoulders of ordinary people who had no role in creating the crisis. So while the accidental deaths of three bank workers in one of the demonstrations is tragic, we think Greek workers are doing the right thing by fighting back as hard as they can.

And they are fighting for us. If the capitalist class forces Greek workers to accept both the blame for the crisis and the burden of a specious “resolution” via the bailout, no worker in all of Europe will be safe. First, they will try to do the same thing to the other poorer countries in the European Union who are facing similar problems: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland. But it won’t stop there. The offensive of capital is already underway in our own country, and our own workers struggle against layoffs, plant closings, cuts in benefits and government programs and rollbacks of democratic rights, is exactly the same as that of the Greek workers. We must give them all the support we can.

We would particularly like to salute the Greek Communist Party (KKE), its labor federation PAME, and allies left and people’s forces for their heroic role in the resistance to the reactionary capitalist offensive. They are fighting our fight, and merit our support and gratitude.

NATIONAL COMMITTEE, COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE USA (CPUSA)