[The following interview appeared in the September 14 issue of Rouge, French Trotskyist weekly. The introduction is by Rouge. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Our comrade T. Psaradellis, a militant of the Fourth International, became known in the revolutionary vanguard through his exemplary behavior before the military courts of the Athens dictatorship. An activist from the age of eighteen, he joined the Fourth International at twenty. He was a machinist in the textile industry and participated actively in the workers mobilizations of the 1960s. After the 1967 coup d'etat, he continued his struggle underground.
He was first arrested in 1967 and was tortured, but was released for lack of evidence. He was again arrested in May 1969 on charges of stealing and possessing explosives. "They kept me in a police station," he explained upon his arrival in Pa-
- Tor day ris, "after having beaten me for days on end. It was easy to escape. I caught a boat for Mytilene and from there I made it to Turkey in a stolen rowboat; it took eighteen hours of rowing.
"The Turkish authorities placed me under surveillance in an isolated place some 300 kilometers from Ankara. I slipped out twice to try to reach Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. After one failure, I made it on the second try. I got to Bulgaria - where I was imprisoned. After being dragged around from prison to prison, I was put on a train that was supposed to be taking me back to Turkey. When I saw some Greek cops, though, I realized what was up. I jumped out of the train and ran for about 40 kilometers, but I was finally caught."
During his trial, Psaradellis defended himself in an exemplary manner:
"I stand here as a representative of all the workers. I am fighting for all the oppressed exploited of the world; I struggle with them. I am a worker. I belong to the Fourth International. I admit these facts that 1088
I am charged with." To the judge, who asked why he had been thrown out of Bulgaria, Psaradellis answered: "That is between me and the Bulgarian bureaucrats."
Psaradellis was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. He managed to escape again and reached Italy, and then France, in 1972. Today, after the amnesty [issued by the Athens junta], his fight goes on.
Rouge. How did the release of the political prisoners come about?
Psaradellis. First of all I would like to stress that not everybody was released. There are still twenty-two political prisoners in the dictatorship's jails; three of them are young militants. The others are older political prisoners sentenced before 1967 under an antispying law.
Many of them have spent ten or fifteen years behind bars. Among those held is a man named Nicolopoulos, sentenced in 1969 for espio-
T. PSARADELLIS
nage; he had managed to get to France, via Belgium. But French authorities refused him political asylum and, after holding him in prison for three months, sent him back to the colonels. He was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. There is also a woman, sentenced to ten years, who did not get amnestied.
The Communist party has made token protests over this. But a militant campaign must be waged to win their release.
The demonstrations that took place when the prisoners were released were very encouraging. Thousands of persons came to show their solidarity. That will encourage the mobilization of the masses against the dictatorship.
Rouge. How do you explain this concession by the junta?
Psaradellis. The colonels' junta had to respond to a new situation. The 1967 coup had deeply traumatized the masses by decapitating the workers organizations and setting up a terrorist dictatorship.
Today we are seeing a new rise of struggles that is clearly showing that the masses are moving out of their lethargy. The junta felt itself in trouble and had to move ahead to counter Karamanlis, who had started to maneuver for installing a more stable Bonapartist regime around the person of the king and throwing the colonels out.
This is why they organized the referendum [on abolishing the monarchy] and declared an amnesty for political prisoners.
These maneuvers enabled the dictatorship to keep control of the situation for the time being. But the regime will rapidly be confronted by new mobilizations, by new struggles.
Rouge. Can you give us any news about recent, little-known struggles?
Psaradellis. There were of course spectacular student struggles this year. On the campuses there were countercouncils elected to boycott the rump councils set up by the colonels.
In the factories, the general attitude of the Communist party and the far left is to boycott the official unions. But for the moment, there are only a few attempts at setting up action committees and general assemblies of workers. The official, scab unions recently demanded a 30 percent wage increase. That looks like a lot, but in fact it should have been more like 100 percent. Wages have been frozen for five years, while prices have risen at a fantastic rate. The black market is flourishing and merchants have to pay higher than official prices. The government called on the unions to maintain order and granted a 15 percent increase.
But there have been several important strikes: those of the typographers, the streetcar drivers, and even the airline pilots. (The government tried to cover that one up, claiming it was a protest against skyjacks.)
The workers are fighting not only around economic demands, but also for the free election of union delegates. Finally, in certain neighborhoods where people have been evicted to make way for a refinery, for an airport, and for university housing, popular committees have been set up; there were street demonstrations; the surveying equipment was busted up. This too is an indication of an awakening.
Rouge. And what about the revolutionary vanguard? No doubt the release of the political prisoners will allow it to rebuild quickly?
Psaradellis. Unfortunately, no. Most of the militants released were broken by the 1967 coup and the repression that hit them and their organizations. It is mostly fresh militants who are again taking courage and are in turn launching the struggle. But police surveillance is still very tough. We have heard that the arrested streetcar drivers had to walk a police gauntlet. It is true that martial law has been lifted. There are no more sentences of twenty years and more being handed down by military courts. This will help in the construction of a revolutionary organization.
For the moment, no organization has emerged out of the far left. There are mostly just discussion groups. There are many Marxist books being published.
But the crisis of the Communist party is sharpening. The CP (Bureau of the Interior) [the faction of the CP that fell out of the Kremlin's favor] is totally disoriented. Its members don't know what they're supposed to do. The pro-Soviet CP (mostly in exile) is more homogeneous. It has a radio station, the "Voice of Liberty."
This crisis of the CP opens up more possibilities for our comrades to regroup the revolutionary vanguard.