Greece: Syriza's huge victory must be built on throughout Europe.

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

This is a short report by Irish Socialist Party member and member of the Irish parliament (Dail) Paul Murphy. It is very good.

The  huge victory for Syriza in the Greek elections shows that the Greek working class has definitively decided that the savage cuts imposed on them by the European, and indeed global capitalist class, must cease.

The election result that gives Syriza somewhere around 40% of the vote is also a tremendous victory for the European working class and workers throughout the world. At this point it is not clear if Syriza will have an outright majority in parliament and as of this writing is one vote short. The response from the Troika, the EU, the ECB and the IMF backed by global capitalism, will be an all out war against the Greek people.  They must be punished for their democratic expression.

From my limited understanding, the KKE, the Greek Communist Party also has five or six percent of the vote and has a refused, as it has all along, to work with Syriza.  Facts For Working People says emphatically that this is not the time for the disease of sectarianism.  The European trade union movement and all left forces, especially those in Greece must join with the Greek workers and Syriza in their struggle against global capital and its austerity agenda.

An all European movement against capital is what will help Syriza move forward after receiving the go ahead today.  There will be more on this situation as it develops but now is not the time for hesitation or retreat, the movement must move forward or die under massive pressure from the European bourgeois which will include funding and promoting fascist elements.

With this short commentary we would also argue that an important first task for Syriza and its allies would be to take in to public ownership the banks, financial institutions and the dominant sections of the Greek economy.