On Tuesday, July 8, the event-discussion for the 10th anniversary of the
fake referendum of July 5, 2015, was successfully held at the Idionymibookstore, with the active participation of dozens of comrades/same-sex
and residents of Korydallos. The dialogue that followed on the illusions
of the previous decade, the real stakes of the referendum and the path
up to the 3rd memorandum, as well as the discussion about today, was
rich in content and highlighted the necessity of not falling into the
trap of "the lesser evil of governmentism" again, no matter where it
comes from and no matter what kind of "radical" or supposedly
"anti-systemic" it wears. ---- The following is our collective suggestion:
The completion of ten years since the referendum of July 5, 2015 was an
event that did not pass by "in vain" in the public debate. On the
contrary, it marked a first-class opportunity, initially to trumpet in
all tones the propaganda of "justification", of "YES to everything".
Television shows, tributes, articles, interviews, "historical videos"
and "documentaries" of that period came to bombard the collective
conscience with the "rights of YES" and the "justification" of the
memorandum one-way street and the Euro one-way street that the then
SYRIZANAL government also "ultimately" served, transforming the result
of the referendum (according to the same propaganda) from "NO, to YES".
Of course, bourgeois propaganda, by recruiting the events of 2015, is
not simply interested in triumphing for a moral justification. In fact,
the propaganda of the "justification" of "YES to the memorandum and to
Europe" has clear material goals, in the here and now. The
"justification" of "YES to everything" is put forward to forge the
government narrative of "development" that supposedly succeeded the
"black memorandum years", the narrative that the "country overcame the
difficulties" and that the memorandums were a "necessary evil" so that
we could reach the "normality that we are experiencing again today".
Moreover, this "justification" is still being recruited 10 years later,
in order to once again identify the "break with the system" with the
"NO" that the then government of the "first time left" declared as a
voting option in the referendum. Consequently, the "justification" of
the denial of the supposedly anti-systemic "NO" continues to be
identified by the "YES to everything" as a denial of the "break" in the
system itself, as "naivety and unreality".
Of course, these days there were also some, extremely limited in
relation to the "YES triumphants", events and announcements by political
forces that have references to the "NO". These forces, mainly SYRIZA
splits (e.g. MERA25 and Popular Unity) are trying so many years later to
convince that "there was another way" through the negotiations between
the government and the "lenders", a way that despite SYRIZA's primary
commitments to "tear up the memoranda", was not followed at the last
moment. Essentially stepping on the propaganda of the "kolotoumba",
these forces are defending their supposedly "irreconcilably
anti-memorandum" stance, making "fish meat" every now and then for the
extension of the 2nd loan agreement in February 2015 or for the
commitment to a series of memoranda measures that they had already
locked in before the referendum. Facts, among many others, certify that
the third memorandum was predetermined and not a "last minute turn".
Of course, the admission of "mistakes" such as the agreement at the
Eurogroup of February 20, 2015 by these forces cannot wash away their
role as former participants in governance and parts of the path leading
up to the 3rd memorandum. Needless to say, we cannot accept the
invocation of "human errors" when referring to government decisions,
especially a decision to extend a memorandum that entailed millions for
the repayment of loans from the pockets of the starving social majority.
We are talking about class politics and conscious mobilization on the
side of serving the interests of the dominant side in the class struggle
by these forces. Even 10 years later, we have a responsibility to
confront the "scam" that all of them tried to throw at us, that the
negotiation was also "ours" and that between the government there were
the "compromised traitors" and our "allies". We will come back.
However, it is not only the agreement in the Eurogroup or the well-known
authorization of the former minister of austerity G. Varoufakis to
Tsakalotos to negotiate the third memorandum that are "proofs of guilt".
All these figures of the "uncompromising SYRIZA" were subsequently
trapped in their own attempt to convince that they were
"anti-memorandum". They are the same ones who "revealed" in every detail
the memorandum commitments and the acceptance of the 3rd memorandum by
the Maximos leadership group before July 5th. "Revelations" that they
brought to light for their own oppositional political reasons towards
their parent party, to prove that they "knew" about the 3rd memorandum
and how "fraudulent" Tsipras was. What they "missed" through the
"revelations" is that the admission of this "knowledge" makes them
complicit in the popular mockery that they themselves invoke. In other
words, they remained in government and contributed to the illusions of
the supposedly "rupture NO", while even according to their own
testimonies, this "rupture" would never come.
We also saw the "betrayed NO" from the side of the so-called
extra-parliamentary left, especially from the ANTARSYA parties that
sided with the government in 2015. We should not forget the
responsibilities that these forces have for the illusions of 2015,
initially hailing the victory of SYRIZA as a "defeat of the bourgeois
parties", then participating in the shameful pro-government
demonstrations in Syntagma in February and March 2015 and finally with
their stance on the referendum. These forces, by propagandizing the
"exit from the E.U." within the state and capitalism with a
bourgeois-governmental initiative, in reality they lost the propaganda
of the "YES" front according to which "NO" would mean "exit from the EU
and the euro". And since this expectation of theirs was denied, they
declare themselves betrayed to this day and attempt to spread their own
"bitterness" towards the then government that they supported with all
their might, to the entire working class and the exploited social majority.
We will say it many times: the working people are not in the same camp
of interests as the bourgeois governments to feel "betrayed". SYRIZA as
a government has always served the interests of the dominant bourgeoisie
that raised it and not of the socially majority class, that is, ours.
The political forces that supported it, that reinforced the illusions of
a "human capitalism", that wanted to grant the then government the right
to negotiate with a "movement and popular support" for our lives, that
projected the left-wing government as part of "our camp" against the
"memorandum right and the bad Germans" are ultimately the ones who
should, albeit belatedly, reflect honestly on the concept of class betrayal.
The referendum as a precursor to the 3rd memorandum
What was the question of the referendum on July 5th? What did "YES" mean
and what did "NO" mean?
The announcement of the referendum came at a time when the months-long
negotiations between the Greek government and the "institutions" had
reached a standstill. The focus was neither on the exit from the EU and
the eurozone, which were only brought to the negotiating table by the
German side as a lever of pressure, nor on the adoption of measures that
had already been agreed upon for the most part, with a typical example
being the high primary surpluses that are in force to this day. There
were two issues at issue from the Greek government's side. The first was
the achievement of a debt restructuring and the avoidance of the entire
package of measures promoted by the "other side" and the second was the
communication "mechanism" that would bring the third memorandum with the
least social and class reactions.
As for the second part, the communication part, the then government
presented the 3rd memorandum as "blackmail" from the beginning. This was
the word with which Alexis Tsipras defined the "ultimatum" of the
institutions in the referendum speech, paving the way for the third loan
agreement, and this was also the word that was used afterwards. The "NO"
to the "ultimatum" was of course not a "NO" to the memorandum. It was a
"YES" to the Greek memorandum that had been proposed, with a little debt
restructuring, a little "Keynesianism" and a little avoidance of minimal
measures. Regarding the debt restructuring, in retrospect we can
underline that the government side seems to have sought more negotiating
power from the IMF, which was positively positioned towards the prospect
of "making the debt sustainable", than from the "popular verdict" on the
bogus referendum question. For the record, both "papers" never
succeeded. The "American friends" and the secret friend in the German
chancellery did not put their hand up!
Ultimately, the referendum of July 5 came as an "escape route" from the
government's responsibilities for the 3rd memorandum. It came as a
transfer and diffusion of responsibilities, in the context of "we all
fought together, we all were defeated by the ruthless European
establishment". It was, in other words, the "heroic fall" of the
government from a negotiation that was rigged in terms of its results,
which would have led to the 3rd memorandum anyway. In this "heroic fall"
its "kinematic" foundations were fully utilized, which were dragged with
it to the cliff, unfortunately dragging along an entire society and an
entire historical period of great social struggles and resistance.
In this way, the referendum of July 5th was, on the one hand, the
precursor to the 3rd memorandum and not a step towards the "rupture"
and, on the other hand, the last stop of the anti-memorandum struggles.
It is therefore clear that the "NO" in the referendum never meant a
rupture, it never meant an exit from the E.U. and the eurozone. These
characteristics in the referendum came "from the outside" and not from
the government which from the first moment made it clear that there was
no question of exiting the "European family" and had already "locked in"
memorandum measures. They did not come either from the class and popular
will as the extra-parliamentary left and a negligible part of our own
political space argued with idealistic vagueness for a "CLASS NO". It
was the propaganda of "YES" that gave the referendum the characteristics
of a "rupture" with the E.U. and the eurozone and not the content of the
referendum itself. It was the "YES" propaganda that pushed the "NO" and
the illusions around it, ultimately doing the most damage, managing to
identify the "NO" with "anti-systemism" and "anti-systemism" with a
bourgeois government.
The political responsibilities for the illusions of 2015
This chapter could only be adequately developed in volumes. And this is
because in the previous decade a great historical opportunity was missed
for the construction of a revolutionary movement of overthrow, when the
crisis of political trust and representation led hundreds of thousands
of people to the streets of struggle against the barbaric plunder of
social life by the predatory memorandum measures. The "ears" at that
time had opened, the people were looking for solutions and were willing
to make sacrifices to claim better days. Ultimately, it was trapped
again in the assignment to intrasystemic "solutions" with the
collaboration of the political forces that led it into the arms of the
"first time left" and the illusions surrounding social democratic
governance. Fatally, this entrapment naturally encountered dead ends and
the denial of expectations, disappointments, privatization, and
de-massification of the lines of social and class resistance.
There are certainly political responsibilities and these should be held
accountable.
However, we must first look at ourselves as an anarchist space. Because
what concerns us is what we should have done differently, not so much to
"reflect" on a theoretical historical level that has little importance,
but to equip the "here and now" with conclusions and directions.
What was missing first of all in the previous decade was a revolutionary
counter-proposal that could inspire the struggles in a revolutionary
direction. The political positions, the analysis, the answers to the
issues of the time were missing. And the body (an anarchist
revolutionary organization) that could effectively promote this
proposal, which was competitive with the existing socio-economic system,
through words and deeds, fighting so that the necessity of revolutionary
change would become a common cause within the large social majority.
What we should have done was to highlight that no "break" with the
memoranda is possible without a revolutionary break, without revolution
and overthrow. And not only on a theoretical and declarative level. We
should also highlight the reformist and misleading character of the
proposals for "exit" from the EU and the eurozone within capitalism and
the state, to clash hard with the nonsense about "debt cancellation" on
a government initiative, to fight the various "dependency theories" that
were being deployed to transform the anarchist space into an
anti-imperialist reformist left, replacing the class struggle with
imaginary schemes against "bad Germans" and good or "compromised"
bourgeois governments that would "clash" or "subordinate" to the
"European establishment".
We should have vigorously confronted the management proposals, something
that we did not manage to do due to the inadequacy of submitting our own
counter-proposal. The illusions also drowned the social and class
movements themselves. The greatest proof is the referendum itself, when
the issue of the "rupture" was assigned to the government and identified
with the outcome of a negotiation that was not ours. Some dared to
include the exploiting social class in the same camp in the class
struggle together with the government and did everything for an entire
six months in order to suppress every anti-state and anti-governmental
voice. For them, on the one hand there was the government and the
"movements", and on the other hand the troika and the parties that had
voted for the memorandum.
These will at some point be analyzed in the depth they deserve.
What is certain is that the past decade was marked by opportunities and
illusions, by hard struggles and even harder disappointments. And
assessing the responsibilities and attributing them for the illusions
and disappointments constitutes today an important political
responsibility. But even more important, is the responsibility to
overcome the deficiencies that prevented the exploitation of the
opportunities and struggles to promote the revolutionary overthrow, so
as not to experience new defeats in the present and in the future.
The law of abstention
Our collective emerged from forces that were active in 2015, that had
clearly responded to the false dilemmas of the referendum and
participated in the organization of rallies and actions in favor of
abstention during the week of the referendum. From forces that had stood
against the government from the very beginning, declaring "kicks to the
merchants of hope," participating in the organization of the first
anarchist demonstration in the SYRIZA era in February 2015, and also
clashed fiercely at that time with the government's satellites, fighting
to keep the movement and the struggle afloat.
Ten years later, we should thunder that the forces that called for
ABSTAINMENT from the referendum are the forces that were ultimately
vindicated. Morally and politically. They were vindicated because the
course of events justified not general ideological certainties but
specific political considerations regarding the passing of the 3rd
memorandum , the European continuity and the depth of the integration
that would follow. They were vindicated because they not only declared
abstention but also organized the anarchist conflict bloc - the last of
that period - that engulfed the forces of repression in flames in front
of the parliament on the day the 3rd memorandum was voted on , which
they predicted and warned about when others were dancing guerillaly with
the EPAM during Tsipras's prime ministerial speech at the "NO" rally.
Should we admit that a part of the abstention spoke only ideologically?
Is it true? Should we admit that a large part that supported the
abstention did so only on the basis of (fair) value principles and did
not "get involved" with the critical stakes of the time? And this is
true. However, the comrades who remained (and did well) in adhering to
their principles and (very badly) did not move further, are hardly
concerned with the referendum today. Therefore, the critical invocation
to this day of "ideological purity" on the part of the movement's "NO"
supporters towards the anarchist forces that called for abstention,
constitutes maximum politicking and opportunism, equal to that of their
stance in 2015. Because political confrontation requires looking your
political opponent in the eye for what they are really saying and not
flying a kite.
What is certain is that 10 years later, the right - at every level - of
abstention is our obligation to safeguard it, to promote it, and in the
coming years to make it clear within the anarchist space that the choice
of "NO" was a choice not only against our principles, but also a
counter-revolutionary and opportunistic choice, a black page in our
political history for those who politically supported it.
Ten years later, we have a responsibility to assess not only what
happened in 2015 but also what followed. Today, we are told, that Greece
has emerged from the memoranda, that growth and normality have returned
to the country. What is the reality? Have we indeed entered a "new" era
of recovery and stability as initially proclaimed by Tsipras from Ithaca
and then by Mitsotakis, "seizing" his narrative? Then what are the
primary surpluses and fiscal discipline for? Why do all the memoranda
measures remain in force and have been supplemented with new anti-labor
laws, bankruptcy codes and "Hercules"-type plans? The global capitalist
crisis that broke out in 2008 was ultimately dealt with "successfully"
and today we are experiencing new "successive and successive crises" due
to "unstable factors" (e.g. pandemic, wars, energy); Or are we
experiencing "episodes" of this same crisis that were caused and
strengthened by the very policies of "dealing with" it? These questions,
which we have often approached both through the columns of our newspaper
"Black and Red Flag", as well as in our occasional public analyses and
announcements, we will attempt to answer in the discussion that will follow.
INITIATIVE OF ANARCHIST SAINTS OF ANARGYROS - KAMATEROS
https://protaanka.espivblogs.net/2025/07/13/eisigisi-tis-protovoylias-anarchikon-agion-anargyron-kamateroy-stin-ekdilosi-gia-to-kalpiko-dimopsifisma-tis-5is-ioylioy-2015/
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