CRISIS IN GREECE
By George Sinos
ATHENS, July 25 -- The current governmental crisis illustrates in spectacular fashion something that can be concluded generally concerning the situation in Europe -- parliament is becoming increasingly ineffective as an instrument in defending and stabilizing the rule of the bourgeoisie.
A parliamentary regime, supported by 53% of the popular vote and holding an absolute majority of seats, was dismissed by the king, acting in this instance as the tool of American imperialism, the military camarilla and a key sector of big business. The king
mou
served all those who wanted to reinstitute a "strong" government,
Each of these forces had reasons to overturn the Papandreou government, American imperialism wants to put a definitive end to the Cyprus question, operating through its Greek agents. And it wants a completely docile government in Greece as it escalates the war in Vietnam, The royalist officers want to keep their hands on > power, while the king seeks to direct things from the wings. Big business wants the workers tied hand and foot in order to prevent them from effectively advancing their demands.
In spite of its constant compromises with all these reactionary forces, its own anti-Communist campaigns and its moves against the workers, the Papandreou regime sought to maintain bourgeois parliament with a more liberal physiognomy than graced the Caramanlis dictatorship which used parliament as a mere cloak,
In a climate of intense social antagonisms such as exists in Greece today, a regime like the one headed by Papandreou has no deep independent roots. It balances bonapartistically between the social extremes and is shaken as they move, or toppled as they come into: conflict.
Before its downfall, the Papandreou government had begun to lose. popularity even among the masses of the towns (not in the villages or among. student ranks, thanks to concessions granted these layers),
However, when Papandreou became the obvious target of a conspiracy involving the court, the officer caste, big business, imperialism and the right wing of his own party, the Center Union, the masses rallied to his defense (youth, workers, petty bourgeoisie in the towns and villages). Hence the great crowds that have turned out, the demonstrations and the tumult in the streets.
In spite of Papandreou'ts admonitions about peaceful demonstra tions within legal limits, masses in the streets tend to follow a logic of their own and the charged antiroyalistic and anti-imperialistic feelings of the people take on an explosive dynamism,
The political forces in conflict are as follows:
The royal court and ERE [National Radical Union], the party of Caramanlis headed by Canelopoulos today, support the king's appointment of Novas as prime minister because such a regime would offer the convenient camouflage of appearing to represent the Center Union. A successful maneuver of this kind would obviate calling new elections which would most likely give Papandreou a huge majority. Both the Greek general staff and their American inspirers obviously preferred this solution.
—4an
The sectors of the Center Union standing behind Papandreow — seek to oust Novas and compel the king to retreat, thus demonstra-~ ting their influence among the people in a "peaceful" way. Papandreou stands for a "royal democracy." :
Because of his concern over the general interests of his own class, Papandreou seeks to avoid posing the alternative: monarchy or democracy.
In addition, if he went so far as to pose that alternative, the sector of his party headed by Stepanopoulos \ would not follow him,
Only extraordinary circumstances could bring the Center Union to pose the dangerous alternative of monarchy or democracy. (For instance, an assassination organized by reactionaries in the state apparatus as in the case of Lambrakis, )
‘The EDA [United Democratic Left] and the Communist party of Greece constitute the tail of the Center Union. Their slogans are superopportunistic: "Democratization of the state"; "Democratization of the court."
As for the Greek section of the Fourth International, it is advancing the slogan of a referendum over the question of the mon= archy and calling for preparations for a general strike.
These two slogans fit in with the experience of the vanguard of the working class in Greece who detest the court and have undergone years of bitter and bloody repression since their freedom movement was crushed following the. close of World War ITI.
Under these two slogans the radicalization of the masses could advance rather swiftly to a much higher level than anything seen in the recent period,
Despite the crisis in leadership facing the working class in Greece, an attempt now to smother popular indignation by means of violent repression could give the mass mood extremely dynamic forms, compelling the king to stake everything on an open military dictatorship or to retreat in the face of Papandreou's demands.
A new important chapter has opened in the history of the mass struggle in Greece for democratic slogans.
Enormous possibilities for the labor movement and the revo= lutionary Marxist vanguard may now be on the agenda.
-5