Towards revolutionary syndicalist struggles!

greece / turkey / cyprus | education | opinion / analysis Thursday June 29, 2006 13:06 by Federation of Anarchists of Greece (OAE)- Students Committee - Anarkismo outetheos at yahoo dot com dot au

A leaflet by OAE-Students Committee

We stand with the organised direct action and the creation of rank n’ file bodies which when federally constituted will clash with those in charge of our problems, up to the final victory!

Dear colleagues

With our demonstration today we close the first circle of the mobilisations against the law-frame by the Education minister. The first victory came. The “freeze” of the law about the third degree education and the upcoming “dialogue” was a retreat by the New Democracy government which in collaboration with the PASOK leadership tried to impose it during this summer through the summer departments of the Parliament. However, this “dialogue” in which the government call us is a mockery and a challenge because it places as its base this same law, which protested students and workers during the last two months.

The fight however does not stop here, it is continuing for the total withdrawl of the law and all its logic which is restored into the “dialogue”, and the creation of conditions for another educational system, in according with the needs of workers and poor people layers of the society and not for the Capital and capitalists.

So, do not have delusions. The law will come back fragmentarily after the prefectoral and municipal elections in October, but even also if they do not dare to restore it, we have a lot of subjects as a movement to deal with. The beginning was difficult, now with the proof into practice that we can have victories we should continue extending and deepening our demands.

This will become drawing conclusions from the last mobilisations in the fire of organisation of the struggle but also from its preparation. The conclusions that we draw are as following:

1. The collective action and the long-lasting preparation of the struggles bring results. The governmental laws are papers without any force when the people does not want them and organised to overthrow them. We should not forget that those in the government and the bosses are trembling when the total of the exploited and oppressed of the society is struggling as a class. On the contrary, when the struggles are corporate with the class solidarity broken then the pressure is small and combatable. Hence, in the current economic situation the student movement must be supported by the school movement and, as generally speaking, by the working class movement on the principles of class solidarity. With this way the charge that is prepared against the working class conquests can be confronted and thus a collaboration will be built, which will bring to us in an aggressive action in the future. With few words, the correlation of the social forces today are at the expence of the exploited classes and as a result of this we are found in a defencive position, but we can and we must aim to obtain the more possible massivity and quality of demands in order the correlation of the social forces to be in favour of us and to pass in an aggressive policy against those in government, which, we should have in mind, serve the interests of a few while they are supported by the tolerance of many.

2. The way of the organisation of the struggle has an importance in order to have victorious results. The attendance also of the rank n’ file of the interested students, in the level of decision-making and also in the level of action, makes the governmental powers trembling. The voluntary organisation of the base is the absolute organisation, it can be compared with no government or authoritarian organisation that is based in the fear and in coercion. When we simultaneously with the organisation of the rank n’ file have General Assemblies with class orientation then it is the perfect mix for the ignition of radical movements with social dimensions. This elects also the current student movement, the power of the rank n’ file that is organised into the General Assemblies with class demands, that materialise and execute the decisions from the open sea of the coordinative occupation, that is organised in Pan-Hellenic scale by the rank n’ file committees aiming at the crash of the law that ties up absolutely the universities in the chariot of the Capital.

3. The political fermentation into the movement for more promoted demands it is necessary, in order to give a final blow in the reasons that create the problems. No movement solidify demands and it would be an error if we wish something such as this, because with this way we would break the open character of the movement changing it progressively into a caricature. Demanding only possible degrees, better places of work in combination with those not graduated, we dig our grave. We are never win if we struggle corporately, and big sectors of the society will rightly turn their back to us. We are not blaiming the society for it does not support us, but our own demands which claim the segregation and no the class unity of the exploited that is asked in order to achieve victories. We believe that our main demand should be the equality of wage of all workers, graduated and not, better life conditions for all. This demand is adopted by the revolutionary syndicalism more than one century now, it is the demand that can coil all exploited in a real class unity and solidarity. Beyond this we can specialise in demands that concern specifically the university and individual faculties that will create libertarian cracks in the existing educational system. We do not wait for the realisation of a libertarian university into a capitalist system. We believe that through the syndicalist action in the universities and at extension in the society, with our radical demands, should prepare and materialise struggle in the prospect of revolutionary inversion of existing social model of the organisation of the society, aiming at the creation of another university that will provide a real education in the new working society of equality and freedom.

4. If we need the victory the fight should not be romantic. Many times as conceiving the freedom as pluralism of ideas and action, without certain decided principles, we fall in the trap of the immunity. Many into our movement believe that a person is by its nature good, is not a few times where the slogan “you leave each flower to bloom” constitutes our movement. Others, again, having incorporated the individualism from the capitalist society transfering it also into our movement slandering the unity and collectiveness which are necessary for every small and big inversion. We believe that the person is not good or villain by its nature, we believe that the freedom of one stops there where that begins the other’s. Thus every social movement through the General Assemblies must establish rules of operation in the organisational sector but also moral libertarian codes in the level of action. Whoever does not respect and does not self-discipline in the collective decisions are objectively characterised as people wanted the split. Those who again under a party expediency make riskyly zigzags in the backs of the movement can be characterised as provocateurs. The current student movement does not have time for romanticisms, wants the victory, and should not hesitate to isolate each party “avant-garde” that acts with splitting ways at its expence. Real avant-garde stand as vanguards in the struggle, they diffuse ideas into the movement leading to a radical progressive inversion and also simultaneously self-discipline to the decisions of the masses. On the contrary, those who are “parachutists”, and present themselves in the big development of the movement, and denying to respect the collective decisions, they have no place in the struggle. It is a responsibility of the movement for applying into practice the isolation of every party mechanism (whatever its cloak is) which with a “I want so” seeks the leadership of the movement and in the substance making its dynamics useless.

Colleagues

The movement of this May and June in Greece considered by many as the continuation of the recent movement in France. It is not the truth, but it is our duty to become the truth. The movement in France has other qualitative characteristics, in the level of organisation and also in the level of demands. It is necessary for us to not see on the surface the logan “here it will become Sorbonne” but deepening into the movement of France drawing conclusions which will help us here, today and tomorrow. The movement in France has been influenced deeply by the revolutionary syndicalism, which supported and prompted the anarchists for more than 100 years, by the Bakunin and the International Union of Workers (First International) era. It is still influenced by the decisions of the Congress of Saint Imier of the First International (1872), which declared that “proletarians of all countries owe to establish, outside from each political bourgeoisie, the solidarity of revolutionary action”. With a few words, the tranfer of the French movement in Greece requires deviation of conscience of the exploited and oppressed classes in Greece to the direction of the class solidarity independently from working places, education, neighborhood. This means that as a first priority we should have the revelation of the dirty role that the partisanship and the corporatism play in the social movements of Greece. This revelation is essential for mass liberation of the people, not only from the two biggest political parties (PASOK, ND) but from all the political parties. It is essential to understand that we do not need power experts (professional politicians, high-standing trade-unionists in order to resolve our problems. We by ourselves have the power, with the organised direct action, to resolve them through the creation of rank n’ file bodies (revolutionary trade unions, assemblies of neighborhood etc) which when federally constituted will clach with those in charge of our problems, up to the final victory!

Towards revolutionary syndicalist struggles!

Federation of Anarchists of Greece (OAE)- Students Committee

P.O. BOX 1333, Central Post Office, Patras 26001, Greece

27/6/2006