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The Euro/pean Crisis and the Left: A Sober Proposal (Panagiotis Sotiris)
Political Crisis, the Left and the Possibility
of a New Historical Bloc
Panagiotis Sotiris
The combination of economic crisis, social devastation and open political crisis in ‘weak links’ of the European Project such as Greece has raised the possibility of social and political change. In Greece we have witnessed a sequence of social and political developments that are based on an extreme case of economic and consequently social crisis (and open economic aggression by the EU and IMF) have led to an open political crisis, to a realignment of social alliances and relations of representation, to a huge electoral loss for systemic political forces, to the de-legitimization of aspects of the neoliberal orthodoxy, and to the rise of the Left, a development that for the first time in many decades has opened the possibility (but not certainty...) of a government organized around the Left.
To me this brings a huge challenge for the Left. This forces us to think again in terms of revolutionary strategy, not in the sense of an abstract theoretical justification of radical political and social change, nor in the sense of simple anticapitalist rhetoric and verbalism, but in the sense of a set of highly original and necessarily uneven steps that will lead from the break with ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ to a new socialist alternative.
This is in sharp contrast to most Left wing politics since the 1980s. For a whole period, talking about Left-wing politics meant mainly organizing resistances (and gaining concessions from) a dominant neoliberalism and making sure the reproduction of communist (or communist oriented politics...) as some form of ideological interpellation. Besides, in the past decades the question of power, at least in Europe, meant participating or supporting mildly neoliberal ‘centre-left’ governments, usually with catastrophic results, exemplified in the experiences of France and Italy. Now the question of power, of affecting the actual balance of forces, of initiating sequences of radical social and political change comes again to the forefront. It catches us unprepared perhaps, but -- contrary to the metaphysics of a certain Marxism -- historical surprise always comes when conditions are unripe.
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Comment by Ira Wechsler on June 7, 2012 at 11:54 -
Panagiotis Sotiris' analysis of the current European crisis is fraught with misconception. It continues the age-old misconception of the capitalist state that somehow with a new alignment of "Left" parties that the capitalist state can become a worker's state The Left cover is provided by revisionist Antonio Gramisci's Popular Front theory. This vision historically came out of the Soviet Union's lack of confidence in the working class' ability to be won to communism during the war against fascism. The Popular Front failed in Spain where the military was left in the hands of the bourgoisie and the armed defense of the working class was transformed to a defense of the liberal capitalist state. This strategy failed all over Europe. In Italy the working class was armed and ready to seize power but because of the Yalta Agreement they were thrown to the capitalist wolves and told to win power through the elections. The Marshall Plan managed to help buy the Italian elections and revitalize the center-right Christian Democrats. So this formula for Europe is NOT and advance for the Left, but anotherpaln by so-called "Left" reformists to mislead the masses and steer them away from the task of building the international party. That is why Syriza and the Greek "Left" electoral efforts will loead to naught, and also why the effort in Wisconsin for recall was doomed to failure even as it began. Only a plan for intensified class struggle and the building of the revolutionary communist international party is of any consequence to the long term aspirations of our class.
The nature of the capitalist state has not been ameliorated over the years. It is larger and more intrusive and essentially been ever more fascist in its development even with its neo-Liberal face. Violence is the mid-wife of history. Our class will never pull the wool over the capitalists eye. We can't come to power with simplistic chicanery. We have to do it the hard way: years of base building wi8th our comrades at work and community and recruiting tens of millions into the party that has an insurrectionary outlook.
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