The First Hundred Days of the Left Government in Greece
Papandreou justified his retreat by point- is getting more definite backing from the the past right governments. These include a Turkey.
(The following article is from the April
2 issue of Rouge, the weekly paper of the
Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, French section of the Fourth International.)
Little more than a hundred days ago, the
Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) roundly defeated the right, winning an absolute majority and forming the first "socialist" government in the history of the
This reflected the fact that like the SP in France a few months earlier,
Andreas Papandreou was able to channel the aspirations of the masses for change toward
In announcing his program on November 22, the new head of government declared that he wanted to carry out a series of democratic reforms. These included nationalizing industries that constitute "public utilities, " along with the pharmaceuticals industry, transport and communications, and the cement factories, steel, fertilizer, and some shipyards.
Papandreou said that he was for organizing a referendum on Common Market membership and announced his intention to negotiate with Washington a "time-table for dismantling the American bases" set up on Greek territory since the 1950s. In the meantime, they were to be put under the supervision of the Athens government.
These promises were enough to set the international press ringing the alarm bells about Papandreou's so-called radical and leftist intentions.
However, this program was no sooner presented than it was buried. In January, Papandreou announced an important series of measures for getting the economy going again. He officially dropped his nationalization plan and, more broadly, all the structural reforms that had originally been projected. In the place of all that, Papandreou announced the setting up of "Inspection Councils."
These councils were to include representatives of the local authorities, of the national government, and the workers. They were to be set up only in certain factories, and their task would be to establish "a system of inspection of the key sectors in order to assure that the economy serves the broader social interest and that resources are more efficiently utilized. " ing to the economic problems left behind by
9 billion dollar foreign debt and a balanceof-trade deficit exceeding 2.5 billion, an inflation rate approaching 25% and a growth rate under 2% for 198l, as well as a situation of multiplying bankruptcies.
This disastrous picture is primarily the result of the economic development options taken earlier, which gave priority to building up a parasitic tourist industry and to assuring higher profits for the subsidiaries of international trusts that infest the area. But in order to deal with this situation, the left government chose not to attack the capitalists' interests but to seek "benevolent cooperation" with the private sector, to use the term used by one of Papandreou's economic experts, loannis Papanikolaou.
Everything is being done to promote foreign investment "as long as this creates jobs, protects the environment, generates exports, and brings in new technology, the government's representatives hasten to add, to forestall comparisons with the economic policy of the preceding regimes.
Some concessions have been made to the mass movement--lowering of the voting age to eighteen, repeal of the measures taken against Communist Party members who were participants in the resistance to Nazi occupation, repeal of the antitrade-union laws, the introduction of a system of adjusting wages for cost-of-living increases.
These measures are far from negligeable, of course, but they pale by comparison with the problems facing the working people. Wages are 30 to 40% lower than in the other countries of capitalist Europe. The incomes of the peasants, because of pressures from the EEC, are constantly dropping. A lot of workers are obliged to take two jobs to sur-
"The oad to change will be a long one, " has now become the watchword of the PASOK leaders.
On the international level, the retreats of the PASOK leaders are no less marked. They no longer talk about consulting the Greek people about Common Market membership but only of getting some improvement in those clauses in the Treaty of Rome that are disadvantageous to the weakest economies. Negotiations on closing the U.S. military bases are not yet envisaged. And Papandreou's latest statements seem to indicate that what he is mainly interested in Reagan administration in the conflict with
Compared with this, what is the value of a few spectacular diplomatic operations (a noisy departure from the NATO Defense Committee at the end of last year, an invitation to Yasser Arafat and recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization, refusal to cutback trade relations with the East European countries after the Polish
Such moves seem, rather, fundamentally to be an attempt to compensate for a moderate domestic policy with radical-appearing words and gestures, to try to appeal to the anti-imperialist feelings that in recent months have brought tens of thousands of people into the streets.
If more proof were needed of the real intentions of the Papandreou government, Greece's decision to support Spain for NATO membership should be enough.
Obviously, by such a moderate policy the new government wants to forestall opposition by the reactionaries, who maintain important strong points in the state institutions. The army still holds the position of arbiter, and the president of the republic has powers modelled on those of the Gaullist constitution.
The conflicts that have arisen over the attempt to carry out certain reforms show that Papandreou is far from having succeeded in his attempt to avoid a right-wing backlash.
When a bill was drawn up permitting civil marriage, the Orthodox church rose up to defend its monopoly. Likewise, the attempt to revamp the administrative system to eliminate the traditional corruption and sabotage of government decisions and the setting up of the inspection councils have run into furious resistance.
It remains to be seen how long Papandreou can keep postponing payment on his election promises in an attempt to conciliate a capitalist class that is in no mood to compromise.
He does have the advantage that the trade-union movement is weak and that there is no real internal political life in PASOK. But Papandreou cannot forget that he came into office on the crest of a mass upsurge that was marked by a series of strikes and demonstrations. Isn't there a danger that his present policy will exasperate broad sectors anxious to end super-exploitation and the pillage of the imperialist trusts?
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