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Correction: Last sentence, second para. should read “millions”, not “tens of 
millions”.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Marv Gandall <marvga...@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Marxism] Facing bad choices, in or out of the euro, Greece 
> needs our solidarity
> Date: July 10, 2015 at 6:15:07 PM EDT
> To: ioannis aposperites <aposperi...@gmail.com>, Activists and scholars in 
> Marxist tradition <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu>
> 
> 
> On Jul 10, 2015, at 4:35 AM, ioannis aposperites via Marxism 
> <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
> 
>> …Tsipras was clear from the beginning: His government was declared to be a 
>> national salvation government. The promises to the proletariat were supposed 
>> to be the outcome of a fair class collaboration and were conditioned by that 
>> collaboration as long as the bourgeoisie had to be also satisfied. You like 
>> it or not, that was Tsipras' game. Of course the greek working class and its 
>> other political forces were and are playing a variety of different games, 
>> but that does not regard Tsipras' intentions.  Conclusion: speaking of 
>> treachery is not even technically correct.
> 
> The word treachery is sometimes bandied about too loosely, but let’s not bend 
> the stick back too far in this case. Tsipras was not “clear from the 
> beginning” that his intention, and that of his government, was to implement 
> the most punitive of a succession of austerity packages forced on the 
> battered Greek masses over the past five years. Exactly the opposite, of 
> course. The stated intention of the Thessaloniki program was precisely to put 
> an end to the austerity packages and the country’s debt peonage and to use 
> the state to launch a program of public works and other measures to promote 
> an economic recovery. The program was Keynesian in essence, and it is from 
> that standpoint, not that of revolutionary socialism, that Tsipras’ 
> government wholly abandoned the party program and the tens of millions who 
> rallied behind it. 
> 
> Tactical retreats and compromises which fall short of the full realization of 
> a party program are often necessary and inevitable given adverse economic 
> circumstances and the political correlation of forces. Calling on your troops 
> to lay down their arms and surrender unconditionally to the enemy the day 
> after they have won a resounding victory and their confidence and readiness 
> for further combat in pursuit of their objective has been greatly 
> strengthened (as well as that of their allies abroad) is a qualitatively 
> different matter. 
> 
> Finally, the Tsipras government was not a “national salvation” or unity 
> government, as the term is commonly understood. Syriza formed a coalition 
> government with the smaller right wing ANEL party which was also opposed to 
> the austerity program imposed on Greece. The two established parties, ND and 
> PASOK, and a new centre party, To Potami, were all outside the government and 
> were consistently critical of its declared intention to repudiate the debt 
> and resistance to so-called “structural reforms”. It was only earlier this 
> week that the Syriza leadership reached out to the discredited leaders of the 
> opposition parties to issue a joint statement in favour of an agreement with 
> the troika on the latter’s terms, precisely those which a strong majority of 
> Greeks had rejected by referendum a day earlier.


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