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I think that this article i well worth reading. The excerpt Louis
chose, tied together with his own article criticizing facile calls for
socialist revolution, might cause you to underestimate it imo. As i
read it, Karpozilos is saying that Syriza's plan for 'changing Greece,
changing Europe' and overcoming Eurozone austerity policies simply by
winning an election is looking hopeless. But this apparent reformist
dead end can not be surmounted by facile calls for national
revolution. The way forward is using transitional demands directed to
the needs of European working people to build a new revolutionary
international movement that makes the capitalist EU an anachronism.
I will share some additional excerpts below. btw Karpozilos is
teaching history at Columbia University
The promise of history: Syriza and the future of the left
by Kostis Karpozilos
Red Pepper, June 2015
<http://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-promise-of-history-syriza-and-the-future-of-the-left>
. . .
...Even though much of the European left focused on the radical
tendencies within Syriza, the transformation of the party’s rhetoric
was much more important. In order to convince voters that the
catastrophic propaganda of the right was unfounded, Syriza
overstretched a promise of radical change without considerable cost.
According to Syriza's strategy, the dominant powers in the European
Union were eager to accept that the austerity program in Greece was
not working because it was irrational. Therefore, they would welcome a
new agenda for the exodus of Greece from recession, appreciating at
the same time that Syriza had abandoned the radical proclamations of
the past in favor of a noble compromise. This mind-soothing reasoning
appealed to the Greek public. Recent polls have demonstrated that the
vast majority of Greeks want the country to stay in the European
Union. Therefore Syriza’s promise sounded like a win-win situation:
the end of austerity with Greece in the Eurozone.
The emphasis on the irrational character of the dominant neoliberal
model had a self-assuring effect, but avoided the difficult question:
what if the European elites are following a conscious plan that
guarantees the material interests of the dominant economies? If this
were indeed the case, then the left would have to think over its
position towards the European Union. If the European Union structure
does not allow space even for the slightest reform then the left
should emancipate its political imagination away from the European
Union towards a new European project.
. . .
Confronted with a historic crisis of capitalism, the left appears
trapped in history: in its own history of failures and in the
repetition of analysis and tactics that have no broader appeal. This
is equally true for reformists and revolutionaries alike. The former
dream of a retreat to the social contract of postwar capitalism; the
latter dream a repetition of history based on the belief that the
masses are always ready and just need the right kind of leadership.
Both models have been tested across the European left and have failed.
This failure is the elephant in the room.
The left of the 21st century should attempt a synthesis between a
programme for the immediate future and a vision of a radically
different world. The Greek left has a unique opportunity, in power, to
promote this synthesis. More than once the representatives of Syriza
have been confronted with the question 'do you want Greece outside or
inside the Eurozone?' It is time for the left to reframe this
question: do we want the Eurozone to look like Greece in the near
future? If not, it is time for a radical project, encompassing
reformist changes that will revolutionise everyday conditions not only
in Greece but also across Europe.
On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 6:55 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism
<marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
> Within the disheartening political map of Europe, defined by ruling
> neoliberal and reactionary forces, any effort for a progressive national
> solution is doomed. This is particularly true for countries in the European
> periphery. In the 1990s the celebrated ‘Greek miracle’ of unprecedented
> growth was founded on a structural transformation of the national economy,
> encouraged ideologically and financially by the European Union. The decline
> of agricultural production and the decline of small and medium-scale
> industries was greeted as a sign of modernisation, while Greek capitalists
> transferred their activities to the Balkans, taking advantage of low wages
> and a lack of regulation.
>
> This structural transformation became evident in the last few years. Even
> though mainstream media focus on the transfer of personal savings to foreign
> banks, the hidden parallel universe of ship-owners and elites that
> traditionally evaded taxation has readily transferred its financial
> activities beyond the borders. As the historian Christos Chatziosif has
> underlined, this shift explains the paradox of a national elite that has not
> given any assistance to the governmental efforts for the restoration of the
> national economy. Deprived of allies in the European Union, Syriza’s agenda
> for national reconstruction within the European Union is deadlocked.
>
> full: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/syriza-and-the-future-of-the-left/
>
> At the risk of defying reality, I think it would be worthwhile to think
> about what it would mean to “build socialism” in Greece. In fact, there’s
> very little engagement with that question in the IDOM website. Mostly there
> are calls for radical action such as the following: “Rather than requesting
> a European debt conference with bourgeois governments we should hold
> directly in Greece an international conference of the mass organisations of
> the working class and of the youth against capitalism!” (The comrades are
> fond of the exclamation point.)
>
> full:
> http://louisproyect.org/2015/05/18/socialist-revolution-in-greece-easy-to-say-harder-to-do/
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