APPEAL FOR STRUGGLE AGAINST GREEK MONARCHY
[The following is a translation of a declaration issued and distributed by the International Communist Party (Trotskyists), the Greek section of the Fourth International, during the recent turbulent events in Greece. ]
% te To the Workers, Peasants, Students To All Working People
Brothers,
Our party hails the superb struggle of the popular masses and aur invincible youth against the united front of reaction headed by the palace which threatens the most elemental democratic rights of the people and the semifreedom won in the political and trade-union fields,
After two previous royal cabinets were toppled, the court circle of social parasites and enemies.of the people is now trying for the third time with its antidemocratic, provocative Stephano~
poulos cabinet. It counts on some windbag deputies of the Center Union, willing to sell their souls for a cabinet post. .
Representing the palace, big capital and American imperialisn, the new government obviously aims at the following:
* To undertake dictatorial, fascist measures in order to throttle mass struggles, and liquidate the last vestiges of the trade-union and political freedoms of the working people.
® To lower the standard of living of the masses through starvation wages.
° To impose the junta of Makris and his henchmen on the trade unions in order to tighten the bonds on the working class,
* To crush the democratic political organizations of the people and the youth, particularly the Lambrakis movement.
* To overthrow the Makarios government in Cyprus and impose the NATO solution to the Cypriot problem,
* To send troops to participate in the dirty war in Vietnam and to recruit more for the imperialist warfronts of tomorrow,
°® To suppress and enslave the Greek people by setting up a neofascist police regime and setting in motion the gangs of fascists and followers of ERE [National Radical Union].
¢ To reinstate in power the hated ERE, which was condemned by the people's votes, maneuvering it in through the back door, In parliament the ERE will support the center-right Stephanopoulos ‘sovernment" until the ERE is ready to take over again either through a "royal decree" or elections of the 1961 Dovas! kind.
The main lever of the conspiracy against the people is the THRONE, the most feudalistic, reactionary, degenerate institution of bourgeois rule in Greece. The THRONE was formerly the most faithful servant of British and German imperialism; today its allegiance is to American imperialism. In prewar days the THRONE backed the Metaxas fascist dictatorship. Now, after the phony referendum of 1946, it has become the symbol of the counterrevolution.
The Greece of the working people, the suppressed and exploited masses and the militant, progressive youth understands the reaction=ary role of the palace and the king today. Hence the growing strength of the battle cry, "Down with the monarchy! Referendum}"
The "democratic" supporters of the throne seek to counteract this growing antiroyalist feeling among the broad masses. Although the throne ousts elected governments, the bourgeois democratic poli-~ ticians like Papandreou and Co. claim that it is not the fault of the
Pn ATT king and the royal institution. They lay the blame on the king's "bad counselors."' They demand improvement of the “Royal Democracy." In this way they help bolster the court, which hates and fears the people and bans freedoms "guaranteed" by the constitution.
This policy seeks to spread confusion among the masses by get ting them to argue, "Who is guilty, the king or his counselors?" The leadership of the EDA [United Democratic Left] has fallen in with this game, demanding of all things, "Democratize the Palace!" The Greek dynasty has resisted being democratized for 130 years; will it listen now to the sage advice of Papandreou and Iliou?: Today when peoples all over the world are overthrowing the thrones and regimes that exploit them? .
But the masses are wiser than their thick-headed leaders, Through class instinct and experience they understand how false it is to demand, "Democratize the Palace!" In their meetings and demonstrations they seek an end to the monarchy.
We, the Greek revolutionists, the Greek Trotskyists, have been saying from the beginning: . We are with the big majority of the working people who are struggling against the king and shouting, "Down with the monarchy! Referendum!"
The working class, the poor peasants, all the exploited people in the towns and countryside, above all the working and student youth, are struggling intransigeantly against the throne. In this way they face the traditional mass leaderships with a crucial issue: Either with the king against the people; or with the people against the throne and with their demand, REFERENDUM,
woe OK
Workers, Peasants, Students!
No political maneuver can succeed in changing the situation, The degeneration is too deep. It extends to the very base of the regime. Only firm, unyielding and continuous struggle by the masses for political and trade-union freedom, for economic demands, can open the road to victory over the reactionary front of the palace, the neofascist right, big capital, the military clique and American imperialism. Join in an invincible UNITED FRONT of the working people of the towns and countryside, Participate in every popular movement, meeting, demonstration against the royal government of Stephanopoulos, against the ERE and the throne. Oppose the compromises and political maneuvers of the bourgeois democratic politicians. Condemn the opportunism of the EDA leadership. Defend democracy in your meetings. Build your own organs of struggle: Combat Committees in the shipyards, workers areas, in the villages.
Only the continuous and united struggle of all the working people to improve our standard of living can overcome misery and
~460 enslavement.
Only intransigeant, united and continuous struggle for our trade-union and political freedoms (systematically curtailed by all the bourgeois "democratic" governments and under threat of liquida-~ tion by the royal government) can overcome the danger of a royal authoritarian dictatorship with or without a "parliamentary fagade."
Long live our unyielding militant people!
Down with the monarchy!
Free Elections! Referendum! Constituent Assembly!
Oust the trade-union junta!
Demand a 30% increase in workers wages!
Hands off our Lambrakis youthl
Long live the united front of workers, peasants, students]
Directeur-Gérant: