babyhueypnewton posted:I dont get the PSL's line here at all. The KKE has clearly expressed it's decision based on the failure of Eurocommunism and post-WWII popular frontism. Instead of actually addressing this they've already decided what is going to happen with vague references to Weimar Germany. There's more to history than the NAZIs.
Also no one seems to be addressing the inescapable stagnation of the European Union (and the world economy) and that the world rate of profit remains depressed. Thus the situation is going to get much worse before it gets better. The exception are the true left communist infantiles like Andrew Kliman and Michael Roberts. For greeks, who've had a civil war and a fascist dictatorship to suppress the KKE, communist revolution isn't a game and it isn't cheap political negotiation. The KKE in their statements and on the street/working class organization have shown me nothing but clarity and purpose.
the KKE are obviously correct in their criticisms of syriza. but the idea is that they would be in a stronger position, even if only from a propaganda perspective, to make these criticisms if had also showed a willingness to lead with syriza. not because syriza's program is the solution, but because when their program comes short, both because it is not marxist and consistently erases class and due to the structural crisis of capital you address in your second paragraph, people will start to look for alternatives. that alternative could as easily be a rightward swing as a leftward one.
by agreeing to form a ruling coalition, they may have been in a better position to advocate for a turn to the left by offering consistent criticism within it, especially while retaining their prerogative to split at anytime.
or maybe not. history will tell. but given that the kke already lends the capitalist parrliamentary system its 'support' by consistently participating in its elections, this seems more like sectarianism than genuine disagreement with the concept of bourgeois democracy..
shriekingviolet posted:to be fair, one could leverage being "the party that turned down syriza" into a pretty good propaganda line, but good luck getting anyone to pay attention to it lmao. otoh none of syriza's member parties are getting much coverage either, it's mostly being treated as a homogenous blob by the press except where it could fuel a scandal, so i'm not sure how much joining would really help in the way of visibility
some of that is because over the past year or so they've changed the structure of the party. it's now a unitary party. the main eurocommunist current disbanded into the party. the smaller organizations are not official parties. so the media mostly looks at who supported 'left platforms' during platform talks and committee elections.
i agree that KOE/maoists would probably be an early test if the coalition can maintain itself. it seems possible to me that a new electoral front could be built out of dissident syriza MPs, KKE, and antarsya (the latter isn't electorally important but is significant streetwise in major cities). that might be important medium-term. in the short term if syriza fractured i am skeptical a large number would leave, and they could lean on the small center-left parties to make up the difference.
postposting posted:but because when their program comes short, both because it is not marxist and consistently erases class and due to the structural crisis of capital you address in your second paragraph, people will start to look for alternatives. that alternative could as easily be a rightward swing as a leftward one.
which is why it makes sense for the kke to maintain independence from and opposition to syriza? you can't sustain a position that allows you to be both a benefactor of and participant within a bloc while absolving yourself of any responsibility at the point of its failure. in what possible way could "left voice from within the syriza bloc" offer a stronger position than "consistent opposition to the syriza bloc" when the question at hand is the failure of said front?
postposting posted:but given that the kke already lends the capitalist parrliamentary system its 'support' by consistently participating in its elections, this seems more like sectarianism than genuine disagreement with the concept of bourgeois democracy..
this really doesn't concern the question of participating within bourgeois institutions or not, it's a more specific point regarding the real and involved history of the popular front & eurocommunist strategies that emerged within the 20th century and for the most part were unambiguous failures. there's more nuance to a reluctance to retread the mistakes of the past than simply being sectarian
the problem was that PASOK was completely discredited as an anti-austerity option and SYRIZA existed and was credible. so there was momentum created by the possibility of SYRIZA getting the plurality bonus. as in, many social-democratic voters went with SYRIZA to try to block a conservative government. once SYRIZA was in striking distance, the argument used against the KKE was basically that if they added their ~5% to SYRIZA that they would win the plurality bonus and form government. but SYRIZA was able to do that on it's own, even after shedding part of it's right wing (DIMAR). if SYRIZA wanted to fix this they could use their new position to change the electoral laws so there is no plurality bonus. the whole idea of a plurality bonus is pretty dumb. there are various strategic and practical reasons why they might not get rid of the bonus though (including the cynical reason that it reinforces that SYRIZA is the strategic vote choice).
we're sort of in a black hole because a lot of different things could happen. what i think is possible though is that the center-left will quickly consolidate into a new party and poll around 10% - 15%. PASOK has to realize that they got crushed and come up with Plan B. i think that fact alone could cause large problems for SYRIZA. if there's even a little bit of disillusionment then a shift could go back to the centre (poll-wise), which would mean that the center-right could get the plurality bonus and there would be a viable centrist coalition. that nukes SYRIZA.
i think SYRIZA's leaders are probably smart enough to say, basically, look, we've got a year here to change the whole landscape of politics in greece, and if we don't do it, we're dead anyway so whatever. so their main concern is finding ways to provide tangible short-term results and change the political culture. if a 'people's recovery' materializes then they have a chance of holding power. if they can't deliver, they don't deserve to win again anyway. there are a lot of problems with this thinking, though, because much of the right will prefer scorched earth to tangibles for the left. but there is also a danger from the smarter elements of the right, that remember that when you're weak you've got to bear-hug your opponents, who might want a love-in with SYRIZA to paralyze them within the structures of the EU, which turns them into PASOK-2, which nukes their larger ambitions.
blinkandwheeze posted:postposting posted:but because when their program comes short, both because it is not marxist and consistently erases class and due to the structural crisis of capital you address in your second paragraph, people will start to look for alternatives. that alternative could as easily be a rightward swing as a leftward one.
which is why it makes sense for the kke to maintain independence from and opposition to syriza? you can't sustain a position that allows you to be both a benefactor of and participant within a bloc while absolving yourself of any responsibility at the point of its failure. in what possible way could "left voice from within the syriza bloc" offer a stronger position than "consistent opposition to the syriza bloc" when the question at hand is the failure of said front?
when the intended audience is syriza voters? it's all academic of course, an alliance was never going to happen unless kke was happy to basically act as a silent partner. but i think there is at least some merit in considering how kke act to position themselves in relation to syriza voters. from that perspective their rhetoric is probably not great. i know this is the tone argument: politics edition, but what kind of political success is possible without persuasion? they needn't have formed a bloc with syriza to do a better job on this front. it's an important one and it doesn't necessitate throwing vital principles out the window.
blinkandwheeze posted:the real and involved history of the popular front & eurocommunist strategies that emerged within the 20th century and for the most part were unambiguous failures. there's more nuance to a reluctance to retread the mistakes of the past than simply being sectarian
yeah i think this is a fairly complex issue. i think allying with the liberal bourgeois parties against fascism was clearly successful. the immediate result was that extreme-right politics was largely destroyed, imperialism took on a much more liberal character, decolonization spread like wildfire, and the idea of planned economics became dominant.
but liberal-capitalism was still enormously powerful because it controlled most of the bigger levers of world power. plus the socialist and progressive countries endured staggering losses in the wars. so there was a position in some countries where people wanted a consensus around rebuilding and 'normalization' rather than continued class struggle. if you look at the narrow communist camp, it controlled a lot of physical land and lots of people but was still a small and devastated part of world production. there were also strategic issues like nuclear arms, which is probably easier for me to dismiss than people at the time.
i really do think that 'modern revisionism' played a large role in the problems that followed. there was a need to pivot from resisting fascism to advancing against liberal imperialism. but the soviets moved away step by step from trying to build communist governments to simply having allied progressive governments. anyway i'm rambling tonight!!!! but yeah.
Petrol posted:when the intended audience is syriza voters? it's all academic of course, an alliance was never going to happen unless kke was happy to basically act as a silent partner. but i think there is at least some merit in considering how kke act to position themselves in relation to syriza voters. from that perspective their rhetoric is probably not great. i know this is the tone argument: politics edition, but what kind of political success is possible without persuasion? they needn't have formed a bloc with syriza to do a better job on this front. it's an important one and it doesn't necessitate throwing vital principles out the window.
i think there is a lot of confusion surrounding this though.
“Thereby the Bolsheviks solved the famous problem of ‘winning a majority of the people,’ which problem has ever weighed on the German Social-Democracy like a nightmare. As bred-in-the-bone disciples of parliamentary cretinism, these German Social-Democrats have sought to apply to revolutions the home-made wisdom of the parliamentary nursery: in order to carry anything, you must first have a majority. The same, they say, applies to a revolution: first let’s become a ‘majority.’ The true dialectic of revolutions, however, stands this wisdom of parliamentary moles on its head: not through a majority, but through revolutionary tactics to a majority – that’s the way the road runs.”
- Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution, 1918
marxism is essentially a theory of civil war. democracy is more important in terms of directing a movement for socialism than simply polling the broader population. even then, line is more important than numbers, which is the whole reason you form separate and revolutionary worker's parties. workers need a vector of representation in order to take and hold power, but socialism should be constitutional, there shouldn't be an imagined liberal separation of state and ideology. i think it's possible (if unlikely early on) to come to power by parliamentary means, but it's very doubtful a revolutionary party could build socialism without neutralizing its enemies and emptying the state of any liberal features that liberal-bourgeois parties would find meaningful.
Petrol posted:when the intended audience is syriza voters?
roughly speaking, i mean, yes? i don't think it makes sense to assert that the privileged position following the inability for syriza to address the crisis of secular stagnation exasperated by the european union would be a member of the syriza bloc
i don't think "we contributed to and actively benefited from the governing bloc, yet we should be absolved of any responsibility from the consequences of their direction" makes a persuasive argument. at the exasperation of stagnation and crisis i think it's more likely you will see rejection of the governing bloc and their constituent members. that rejection can either go left or right, and an independent kke allows that left to be a much stronger possibility than it would be otherwise. the people need an autonomous representation in the form of a revolutionary workers party to take advantage of moments of crisis
but of course all this is missing the point that the kke did show a willingness to align with syriza, it is syriza that rejected their terms. allegations of kke sectarianism is basically wrong, this is an instance of the revisionist left aligning with the political right in opposition to the radical left
getfiscal posted:
To be clear I am not suggesting kke should seek to woo syriza voters in order to win their votes, but to see them as potential comrades, and promote marxism. Syriza itself is bourgeois, obviously so, but many of their voters would not be. It seems to me worthwhile to be wary of inadvertently insulting those potential comrades. But, indeed, not with the simple goal of winning votes
Petrol posted:To be clear I am not suggesting kke should seek to woo syriza voters in order to win their votes, but to see them as potential comrades, and promote marxism. Syriza itself is bourgeois, obviously so, but many of their voters would not be. It seems to me worthwhile to be wary of inadvertently insulting those potential comrades. But, indeed, not with the simple goal of winning votes
yeah. i mean i do think it's true that you don't start a conversation with a potential convert by calling them stupid for who they used to support. but as you suggested i'm not sure friendliness has much to do with it in this situation.
c_man posted:is the kke really in any better of a situation if syriza falls than they were before syriza came to power? if this is the presence the kke has in the wake of a large swell of interest in left politics in the wake of austerity how will they fare in the wake of disillusionment? what is the kke even supposed to be positioning itself for, beyond its normal activities?
i think the answers to those questions need to be rooted in real historical experiences of revolution, otherwise it's just chatter. i think it is true that successful communists have been seen as unhelpful extremists until the bourgeois left was thoroughly discredited. the exceptions where they have built electoral coalitions to promote socialists have typically ended poorly (allende, mitterrand). of course, it's not impossible to have national governments that do progressive things where self-described communist parties are part of the coalition (south africa), but these are bourgeois-democratic governments and the goal of communists is socialism.
getfiscal posted:i think it is true that successful communists have been seen as unhelpful extremists until the bourgeois left was thoroughly discredited
are there examples of that in the imperial core? i see people saying that revolutionary theory must be informed by practice and also that the first world is very different from the third world, where basically all successful revolutionary activity (am i missing something? maybe it depends on what you call a success, do the panthers count?) has taken place.
Edited by c_man ()
and i know i shouldn't be surprised to see "support sanctions against Russia or you love the bare chested Kremlin dictator" is an actual talking point but i must admit i am.
c_man posted:are there examples of that in the imperial core? i see people saying that revolutionary theory must be informed by practice and also that the first world is very different from the third world, where basically all successful revolutionary activity (am i missing something? maybe it depends on what you call a success, do the panthers count?) has taken place.
i'm not sure what your precise question is. do you mean have communists taken power in imperialist countries? yes, in russia, and later by extension into central europe.
i think there were a lot of examples of progressive governments in the 20th century. i don't think the main aim of communists should be to support progressive governments, though, but to try to abolish capitalism. and i think there are a lot of insights available through historical and economic research into why one might guess that a particular communist movement might fail at its goal of building socialism, especially if it stops trying to actually do that anytime soon. i don't think these insights are iron laws that make every other strategy stupid, but i think communists should be aware of the problems and choices involved and the past evidence of what similar choices has resulted in.
c_man posted:i guess i should have said "advanced capitalist countries" which are the current imperial core, i.e. NATO i guess
then no, of course not. then the question becomes 'why not?' and the answer is depressing and leads to dark thoughts of accelerationism. better to forget about the first world perhaps
c_man posted:i guess all the talk about the kke's strategic position was making me wonder if everyone else was expecting them to see some sort of tremendous surge in membership post syriza and i was missing something obvious
the KKE is currently bigger than SYRIZA in some respects. it is powerful within trade and student unions. they polled 5.5% in the last election but just three years ago they took 8.5%. they have room to grow, whether or not they have a viable path to holding power by themselves.
blinkandwheeze posted:but of course all this is missing the point that the kke did show a willingness to align with syriza, it is syriza that rejected their terms.
i see people saying this, but does anyone have a source? I haven't seen anything like it, and the KKE has been consistently attacking syriza since well before the elections so seems strange.
Petrol posted:getfiscal posted:To be clear I am not suggesting kke should seek to woo syriza voters in order to win their votes, but to see them as potential comrades, and promote marxism. Syriza itself is bourgeois, obviously so, but many of their voters would not be. It seems to me worthwhile to be wary of inadvertently insulting those potential comrades. But, indeed, not with the simple goal of winning votes
Given how many of KKE's voters sided with SYRIZA this is a good point imo.
c_man posted:i had heard that they were very union oriented so them being bigger than syriza in unions i guess doesnt surprise me that much but them being bigger than syriza with students is very surprising to me
i think it has to do with KKE's street tradition. While there is a maoist current inside SYRIZA that does stuff its certainly not a large one.
postposting posted:i see people saying this, but does anyone have a source? I haven't seen anything like it, and the KKE has been consistently attacking syriza since well before the elections so seems strange.
KKE made a disingenuous proposal. they said they would support a government that defaulted on the debt, nationalized strategic sectors of the economy and exited from EU and NATO. SYRIZA's line is to demonstrate the capacity for anti-neoliberal coalitions to function within existing institutions, and that's why they have been elected. a realistic KKE proposal (and recognizing they won 1/7th the vote of SYRIZA) would have had to work within this 'anti-neoliberal' framework. KKE is very worried that the crisis will be 'normalized' where SYRIZA will contribute to a new stability by paralyzing the left. i think that's a reasonable fear. they also question the underlying logic that you can produce an 'anti-neoliberal' capitalism in a situation of global crisis, or at least that a few crumbs for greece can't solve the underlying imperatives.
this is their statement on the elections: http://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/-strong-workers-peoples-opposition/
of course, this sort of maneuvering and such is interesting but i think the KKE can exaggerate how much 'principle' and 'betrayal' is involved. i don't really blame the communist parties in latin america for generally backing the pink tide. if KKE had offered 'critical support' to SYRIZA to strengthen their coalition then it might have been a good thing. things could still change a lot. if SYRIZA contrives a left turn against the EU then there could be a new social crisis where technocrats and fascists unite to try to smash the government. the police in major cities are filled with golden dawn supporters.
probably the take away line is his emphasis that they must have a short-term anti-neoliberal reformist policy to improve greek lives and strengthen the left. he believes that if capitalism fails at the immediate moment, it is only the right-wing and fascists/racists who will win & take control. the left he believes is still too weak for a revolutionary moment, although that is certainly the ultimate goal. i think he might be right about that, at least in the greek context.
EmanuelaBrolandi posted:i mean he's probably right... but the far right and fascists/racists have already won / taken control?
someone actually says pretty much that in the Q&A of that video lol @ 1:22:00
aerdil posted:this is a great video for understanding syriza's praxis or at least the logic the finance minister is operating under:
pWa0dZMHYeE
This analysis seems pretty correct to me: SYRIZA is fucked. They took exiting the EU/Euro off the table to assuage the concerns of scaremongered voters (probably necessary to win election tho), which means they have no leverage at the negotiating table. If they agree to terms it will be seen as a betrayal/they won't get much, if they don't their economy will collapse further as capital flees and their banking system runs out of money (since the ECB won't let them get it).
chickeon posted:In that video he says American hegemony has ended... I do not think that this is the case
not really true but the rise of china/russia and our current overseas adventures have reduced our military/econommic/diplomatic clout significantly. dollar still reigns supreme tho
chickeon posted:In that video he says American hegemony has ended... I do not think that this is the case
idk.. i think that china is already more powerful. they are just careful not to show it
even megacapitalists are calling this "ultra vires" and against European treaties. also woops
sure is a nice democratically elected leftist government you've got there, shame if something happened to it. woops three times!
drwhat posted:the ecb just announced they're no longer accepting Greek bonds as collateral for anything. this basically now means Greece is using a foreign currency and has none of the self-funding capacity of a modern state. woops
by self-funding do you mean printing money to pay off government debts?