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That was my point. THIS general strike could be different because after the
experience of failed previous strikes and failed parliamentary
efforts,workers are open as never before to NOT going home when the strike
ends...
On Mon, Jul 13, 2015 at 9:13 PM, Philip Ferguson via Marxism
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote:
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As Louis noted, general strikes in Greece are somewhat a dime a dozen. The
Greek ruling class has long since grown accustomed to them. The problem is
that the workers strike for a day and then go back to work and nothing has
changed.
The point about a general strike is that unless they're connected to the
question of *actual power* they are quite easily managed in a country like
Greece which has so many of them. (Of course, in many capitalist
countries, any strike wave around workers' rights would be a step
forward!!!)
One of the problems in Greece is the one Louis alluded to. That Greek
workers had general strike after general strike and in the end, because
they didn't get anywhere, opted to use parliamentary politics and voted for
Syriza. The electoral process ran ahead of the process on the ground.
Unless workers were occupying workplaces and beginning to organise
alternative structures of power, the possibilities for serious resistance,
let alone going on the offensive, were limited. For instance, what if the
government nationalised the banks, without workers having occupied them and
demanding workers' control over them?
Tsipras was always going to do a deal, he's a social democrat at best.
Surely the role of the left was to prepare for that eventuality.
In 2013 I interviewed a spokesperson for the Vio.me factory occupation in
Thessaloniki and he told me that after the general strikes and mass
protests, the Greek working class had gone home and tried to make ends meet
the best they could. Vio.me was very much an exception. But this, it
seems to me, is the road that hasn't been taken but offers a fruitful
alternative to trying to manage things within the confines of capitalism.
And surely the chief task of the global left is not around bemoaning the
fact that a social democrat acted in a social democratic way, but advancing
the struggle where we are and supporting concrete advances by workers in
Greece, like the Vio.me occupation.
The interview is here:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/
It links also to other articles on the occupation and a video:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/workers-self-management-only-solution-interview-with-spokesperson-for-vio-me-occupation/
Phil
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