Comment on the proposed strategy of the KKE: “Reformism”

Analyse of the KKE: The first people’s response to the new government - 11/11/2011 ¹

The leaderships of social-democratic PASOK, right-wing ND and Nationalist LAOS, expressing the strategic intentions of domestic capital and the EU, proceeded with the formation of a new government coalition, which on behalf of the plutocracy will attempt to advance even further the offensive against the workers and the people.

The political cooperation between these three, with encouragement of other bourgeois parties, such as the centre-right DHSY, the centre-left DHMAR, the ecologists and others, resulted in the creation of a coalition government with the appointment of the banker L. Papademus as Prime Minister. (....)

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Aleka Papariga, who participated in the demonstration made the following statement to the media:

“We must not waste even a day. Before the government even regroups, before it takes its first steps, it must find the people opposed to it. There are specific immediate problems e.g. for the heavy taxes to be abolished, immediate problems which are related to taxation, the “solidarity” tax, the increased VAT, school committees which have no money, student accommodation which will close tomorrow, there is no money for the universities, nowhere, to fund them.

Consequently, the problems are immediate and there must be struggles everywhere. Immediate and at the same time, of course, intensified demands to lead to the great people’s counterattack, because, as Mr Papademus said , everything is fiscal. Do you know what fiscal means? It means cessation of funding for education, health, everything. With the pretext of not losing salaries, pensions and the 6^th instalment, they will cut everything from us, when they take the 6^th instalment, the 7^th instalment and with the new memorandum.”

This could be a comment on it....(as the KKE pretend to be Marxist-Leninist):

““We must choose”—this is the argument the opportunists have always used to justify themselves, and they are using it now. Big things cannot be achieved at one stroke. We must fight for small but achievable things. How do we know whether they are achievable? They are achievable if the majority of the political parties, or of the most “influential” politicians, agree with them. The larger the number of politicians who agree with some tiny improvement, the easier it is to achieve it. We must not be utopians and strive after big things. We must be practical politicians; we must join in the demand for small things, and these small things will facilitate the fight for the big ones. We regard the small things as the surest stage in the struggle for big things.

That is how all the opportunists, all the reformists, argue; unlike the revolutionaries.(...)

What is the main flaw in all these opportunist arguments? It is that in fact they substitute the bourgeois theory of “united”, “social” progress for the socialist theory of the class struggle as the only real driving force of history. According to the theory of socialism, i.e., of Marxism (non Marxist socialism is not worth serious discussion nowadays), the real driving force of history is the revolutionary class struggle; reforms are a subsidiary product of this struggle, subsidiary because they express unsuccessful attempts to weaken, to blunt this struggle, etc. According to the theory of bourgeois philosophers, the driving force of progress is the unity of all elements in society who realise the “imperfections” of certain of its institutions. The first theory is materialist; the second is idealist. The first is revolutionary; the second is reformist. The first serves as the basis for the tactics of the proletariat in modern capitalist countries. The second serves as the basis of the tactics of the bourgeoisie.(...)

This may sound paradoxical, but its truth is confirmed by the whole history of the international Social-Democratic movement. Reformist tactics are the least likely to secure real reforms. The most effective way to secure real reforms is to pursue the tactics of the revolutionary class struggle. Actually, reforms are won as a result of the revolutionary class struggle, as a result of its independence, mass force and steadfastness.   Reforms are always false, ambiguous and permeated with the spirit of Zubatovism²; they are real only in pro portion to the intensity of the class struggle. By merging our slogans with those of the reformist bourgeoisie we weak en the cause of revolution and, consequently, the cause of reform as well, because we thereby diminish the independence, fortitude and strength of the revolutionary classes. ³“

1http://inter.kke.gr/News/news2011/2011-11-11-pame

2Zubatovism— the policy of “police socialism” named after Zubatov, colonel of gendarmerie and chief of the Moscow Secret Police. In 1901-03 on his initiative legal workers’ organisations wer set up intended to divert the workers from the political struggle against the autocracy. Zubatov’s activity had the support of B. K. Plehve, Minister of the Interior. The Zubatovists attempted to direct the working-class movement towards the achievement of purely economic aims and make the workers believe that the government was ready to satisfy their demands. The first Zubatov organisation was set up in Moscow in May 1901 under the title “Society for Mutual Aid of Workers in the Engineering Industry”. Others were established in Minsk, Odessa, Wilno, Kiev and other towns.

The reactionary character of Zubatovism was unmasked by the revolutionary Social-Democrats, who made use of legal workers’ organisations to draw wide sections of the working class into the struggle against the autocracy. Owing to the rise of the revolutionary movement in 1903 the tsarist government was compelled to put an end to the Zubatov organisations.

3http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/jun/28.htm, V. I.   Lenin, “Once Again About the Duma Cabinet”