crisis that has shaken Greece since the first part of July is deepening and moving toward a climax.
For almost thirty years dictatorial regimes governed Greece, At the end of the second world war, the Greek masses, who had already struggled heroically against the Metaxas dictatorship and the occupation by Italian and German fascist troops, took up arms to get rid of the monarchy and capitalism, They were defeated due to a betrayal by Stalin, who made a deal with Roosevelt and Churchill at Teheran and Yalta, putting Greece in the Western "zone of influence." The Greek revolution was crushed. Greece became the only remaining capitalist state on the Balkan peninsula.
A dictatorial regime ruled for long years. However, due to a Common Market boom, Greece underwent a certain economic development and some of the bourgeois parties projected expansion of the internal market and structural modernization (these are the forces behind Papandreou); while the traditional capitalist circles, particularly the big shipowners, backéd the court and the reactionary generals,
In face of a divided bourgeoisie, a mass upsurge began in 1964, The right wing was beaten in the elections. Papandreou, the leader of the Center Union, gained power. A fresh breeze of liberalism swept the country. The masses regained some of their civil and political rights, It was not much. But as the masses began moving, regaining self-confidence, Greek capitalism and the monarchist camarilla, supported by the representatives of American imperialism, decided that the Papandreou government was not strong enough to hold back the mounting mass movement.
An operation that closely resembled a coup d'état removed Papandreou from power. Carried out precipitately, the operation led to results opposite from those expected by its authors. It served to whip up the masses. For some two months demonstrations have continued in Athens, in the towns and countryside. In the big cities workers and students have been struggling in the streets with the police. Up to now the bloody repression has increased the militancy of the masses. It is these multiple and powerful demonstrations that have frustrated the court's numerous attempts to buy off members of parliament who would ordinarily respond to such offers. No minister has been able to win a vote of confidence in parliament despite three attempts to split the Center Union either toward the right or to the left. The crisis is tending toward a prerevolutionary situation.
The masses are displaying admirable militancy. But the out-
come of the crisis has not yet been decided. Great dangers threaten the Greek workers and peasants. The forces of reaction have not yet undertaken to settle things by military force because they know that such an attempt, under present conditions, would: unleash the working masses. But they have not at all renounced such a course, They are only waiting for the masses to become tired, for their spirit to die down. “
cee Papandreou's policy in particular fosters this hope among the reactionaries, It is a policy which the Greek Communist party is backing to the hilt.
Papandreou has. openly declared that all he destires is to maintain the constitutional monarchy and to keep Greece in the North. . Atlantic Treaty Organization; that is, in the world's main capitalist coalition, He accuses the right and the court of creating, through their provocations and blunders, a situation in which the masses can escape from control and start a course of action that would liquidate the monarchy and the capitalist regime. Knowing that after so much suffering the Greek masses place their hopes in socialism, Papandreou offers himself as the last card of Greek capitalism.
It is the Greek Communist party that is playing this role at present, Although it enjoys the support of the majority of the Greek workers, who associate it with socialism, it is refusing to inspire the masses by opening up the perspective of a socialist republic. Doing just the opposite, it does not even dare advance the 3logan of a "referendum" which would pose the alternative of "monarchy or republic"; it backs Papandreou in demanding respect for the bourgeois constitution; it even demands "democratization" of the court! In a situation like the present one in Greece, such a policy of maintaining the status quo in face of the efforts of the right to overturn it to its own advantage, leads to nothing and can only end in draining away the energy of the masses,
The present situation in Greece is unstable. It can give way to a military crackdown and a new dictatorship if the upsurge of the masses does not turn into a revolutionary struggle. The present situation thus calls for a bold policy in the workers movement, a policy that calls on the masses not only for a vigorous struggle for their immediate demands and defense of civil and political liberties but also to end the monarchy and to establish a workers and peasants government. The slogan for a referendum poses the alternative of “monarchy or republic." This alternative will not have a favorable outcome unless the masses engage in extraparliamentary action, in a general strike. The struggle now demands the formation of big mass organizations in the form of defense or vigilance committees aimed at blocking any attempt at a coup d'état or a plot by the army or the reactionaries and at developing mass action in a great struggle for a workers and peasants government, for a socialist republic.
The struggle of the potting Greek masses is an integral part
of the international struggle for socialism. It is of prime interest to the European workers movement which must show its readiness to grant the necessary aid to the Greek workers. Like the Belgian gen-= eral strike of 1960-61, it demonstrates once again that the European proletariat has retained its potential for struggles intact, and that relatively small changes in the political or economic situation are sufficient to unleash big mass struggles that can turn into prerevolutionary situations, Revolutionary Marxist organizations must constantly be ready for such situations and struggles, without letting themselves be hypnotized by the apparent stability of the regime,
To the militants of the Greek section of the Fourth Interna= tional, who hav® a rich history of heroic combat and who are engaged in the current struggles, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International-sends fraternal greetings and assures them of the whole-= hearted solidarity of the International. It salutes the memory of Sotirios Petroulas, member of a group of young students recently expelled from the EDA [United Democratic Left] for "Trotskyism," who was murdered by the police during a street demonstration.
Directeur-Gérant: Pierre FRANK. l'éditeur).