The election victory of Syriza in Greece marked a fundamental shift not only in the situation in Greece, but throughout Europe. We publish here an interview with Ilias Kirousis, a member of the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA as well as the leadership of SYRIZA’s youth wing, who provides his analysis of the elections and the perspectives for the SYRIZA government.
We publish here a recent statement from the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA, which analyses the enormous contradictions facing the SYRIZA leadership in their attempt to reach some sort of compromise with the Troika and their representatives, Merkel and Draghi. There is no room for manoeuvre within capitalism. A bold, radical, socialist programme is needed.
Hundreds of thousands marched in Madrid on 31st January, in a demonstration called by PODEMOS to mark the beginning of their campaign to win the general election this year in Spain. The huge march came just after SYRIZA’s victory in Greece and reflected the deep anger of millions of working people against capitalist austerity, as well as the hope that it can be ended.
Heinz Dieterich – the German academic, self-proclaimed prophet of “Socialism for the 21st Century”, and so-called “friend” of the Bolivarian Revolution – has recently written another new article offering “advice” to the Venezuelan Revolution. We publish here a response to Dieterich by Alan Woods, who explains the tasks necessary for completing the Revolution.
Having won a resounding victory in the recent Greek elections, the SYRIZA leadership have established a coalition with the Independent Greeks, a right-wing nationalist party. We publish here a statement by the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA, which analyses what could have been done in order to achieve a government composed solely of parties from the Left.
According to the latest figures, whilst homelessness has increased and people who can’t afford their mortgages are being evicted from their homes, there are 11 million empty houses across Europe. This is yet another damning indictment against the irrational capitalist system.
Despite all the Keynesian experiments and the monetary stimulus, China has failed to escape the global economic crisis. Chinese workers are experiencing the economic slowdown in terms of the closures of factories and non-payment of wages. The result has been a surge in the number of strikes and the organisation of the working class in China.
Sunday 25th January saw general elections in Greece, with SYRIZA – the left-wing party – winning 36% of the vote and 149 seats in parliament – just short of the 151 needed for a majority. SYRIZA’s victory marks an historic event, and is an important step in the process of radicalisation taking place in Greece and across Europe. All eyes will now be on what actions the SYRIZA leadership takes.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. After years of crisis and further months of prevaricating, quantitative easing will soon be implemented across the Eurozone. However, the contradictions that have prevented such a programme of QE in Europe up until now have not gone away, and the fault lines along which the Eurozone will crack are already apparent and clear.
This Sunday, on January 25th, Greece will vote in a general election. Syriza is likely to be the party voted to power. This poses a dilemma for the European capitalists and is seen as a serious threat to the plans of the rulers of Europe to solve the economic crisis by an all-out attack on the living standards of the working class.
The rich are getting even richer and the poor are getting even poorer. This is the conclusion of a new report on inequality produced by Oxfam, which confirms that the richest 1% of the world’s population, based on current trends, will soon own over half the world’s wealth – that is, more than the other 99% of us have put together.
The vicious cycle of state and individual terror continues unabated. Now France has been pulled violently into the maelstrom. The Marxists have long explained that imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism are two aspects of the same reactionary phenomenon—the decay and decline of capitalism—which threatens to take the whole of humanity down with it.