For Syriza and the Left Platform

Syriza’s victory in the Greek elections in January is the most important event to take place in Spain and Greece since the outbreak of the 2010 Eurozone crisis forced the re-shuffle of popular left-wing parties. Syriza was formed in 2004, mainly from breakaways from the Greek Communist Party (KKE). The party gained momentum in 2012 when it became the second biggest party in the Greek election, despite a massive negative publicity campaign by the international media. With the support of the wage-earning working classes and the Greek intelligentsia, Syriza has a similar electoral base to West European socialist parties in their heydays; yet around 2012 it also had a vibrant ‘movementist’ element far more comfortable with the spectrum of radical currents than traditional parties of the Left.

Syriza is clearly a party with significant internal divides. Though this has been in many ways one of their greatest assets, it may now prove infelicitous. In 2013, Syriza merged from a coalition into a unitary party in a process that centralised power around the pugnacious but economically moderate leader Alexis Tsipras, yet simultaneously increased the influence of the Left Platform (LP), going from 25% to 30% of seats won on Syriza’s central committee.

The central difference in policy between Tsipras (and the Syrizian right) and the LP is on the issue of Greek exit from the Euro (‘Grexit’). The former are unequivocally against Grexit: the most blunt opponent, Yiannis Stathakis, may become Economics Minister, while the more nuanced views of the party’s foremost economics spokesman, Yiannis Dragasakis, do not change this essential antinomy. Whatever the relative merits of the monetary union, I find it hard to see how a party essentially identified for its anti-austerity position will avoid betraying its voters and the EU, International Monetary Fund, and European Central Bank enforced austerity. Symptomatically, there is a conspicuous absence of any advance programme of action detailed by the leadership. This can hardly be said of the LP; currently led by Panagiotis Lafazanis, the LP have a detailed program for Grexit.

Faced by an intellectually superior internal opposition, it will be curious to see how Tsipras reacts to the new conditions of power. The progress of the coalition with the populist right-wing party Independent Greeks is as yet unclear, though possibly motivated on Tsipras’ part by a desire to undercut internal Left opposition. However, despite a negative elective affinity between Independent Greeks and the LP, economically it seems reasonable to assume that an anti-immigrant party may well prove hostile to the Euro. The choice could of course have been motivated by the dearth of appropriate coalition partners, with neo-fascist Golden Dawn, lately incumbent New Democracy, and the nominally Left PASOK all excluded from consideration. Independent Greeks, though, remain a volatile factor. Still, this piece is not a proleptic for Syriza’s inevitable failure.

Gramsci said to accompany the pessimism of the intellect with the ‘optimism of the will’. The Greek people understood; let us hope Syriza does also.