Lessons in Greek — for Leftists

 By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

As I said in the column which inaugurated my “Duopoly Watch” series for The Greanville Post, one of the most important books by the great leader on the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, was “The State and Revolution.”  Among other things, I noted:

“it deals with the nature of the state apparatus under capitalism. It is important to understand that the state apparatus never exists independently of the economic system of the country within which it stands.  Rather it is there to make sure that it, the economic system, stays firmly in place.  The disagreements between political parties in the capitalist nations come over how best to go about maintaining the ruling class’s control, the ruling class being those individuals, corporations, organizations, and interests that have their hands on the levers of economic power in the nation. In other words, the direct and principal beneficiaries of the rule of capital. 

“Concerning the nature of ‘constitutional democracy’ under capitalism, Ulyanov himself put it this way:

‘To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament – this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics’ ”.

Now, every once in a while comes along a leftist party, although pledged to operate within the confines of capitalist “constitutional democracy,” that truly believes that it can get elected (a), and (b), that it can really change ruling class control, through the parliamentary system. 

Well, Greek lesson 1: what has happened to Syriza and Tsipras shows, once again that that is not possible.  The ruling class is the ruling class, and short of revolution, as Lenin so rightly noted, it will always rule, one way or another.

Greek lesson 2:  The Greek ruling class seems to be coming out of the mess in very good shape.  They managed to make sure that the worst of the “austerity” measures, imposed by their brethren in the European Union, were carried out under the nominal governmental control of a “leftist” government rather than its “center-right” predecessor.  Of course it was the latter that was largely responsible for presiding over the making of the mess to begin with, e.g. (a VERY important article): “How Goldman Sachs Profited From the Greek Debt Crisis: The investment bank made millions by helping to hide the true extent of the debt, and in the process almost doubled it,” by Robert B. Reich (who, by the way, is no socialist). 

Please note also, that the tax increases demanded by the European Union do not seem to be falling on the Greek ruling class (although I may have missed something there), nor do the demanded “reforms” (read further punishment for the Greek working class to pay for the ruling class’ mistakes/greed) seem to include, for example, forcing the Greek billionaires to pay the taxes that they have avoided for years by shipping their profits overseas.

The upshot of all of this is that the Syriza government has now become the enforcer for the evermore punitive measures being imposed by the European Union on the Greek working class.

Greek lesson 3: The international capitalist ruling class (of which the Greek ruling class is of course a part) is absolutely intent on showing the people of Italy and Spain what would await them if they were to elect a left-wing government that would attempt something along the lines of what Syriza originally intended to do, if we are to take their rhetoric as a true reflection of intent (at bottom, force a significant amount of loan forgiveness upon the most irresponsible of the original lenders).  In my view, it is the teaching of this political lesson, even more rather than the “regardless of who was responsible for incurring them, good people pay off their debts, donchaknow” lesson, which Angela Merkel and the joint ruling classes of the EU nations, want to accomplish through the “negotiations.”

There are more lessons for the left in parliamentary so-called democracies, of course, but to my mind, thanks to Vladimir Ilyich, these are the most important ones.

Senior Editor, Politics, Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 30 books. In addition to his role with The Greanville Post, he is a Contributor for American Politics to The Planetary Movement, a columnist for BuzzFlash@Truthout, a “Trusted Author” for OpEdNews, and the Editorial Director of and a Contributing Author to The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy.  Dr. Jonas’ latest book is The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A futuristic Novel, Brewster, NY, Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013, http://www.puntopress.com/jonas-the-15-solution-hits-main-distribution/, and available on Amazon.