Editorial

Reaffi rming the goal

With daily news of restructuring underway in the USSR and other
European socialist countries, news of the re-examination of many concepts
of socialist construction and questions involving the rights and responsibili-
ties of citizens in socialist society — including the role of socialist govern-
ment and political parties — comes a degree of concern and often
consternation on the part of socialist-minded people. ;

The scope and pace of perestroika and the glasnost accompanying this
process is not always easy to grasp. To add to the complexity, we have a
sophisticated, relentless media barrage designed to “‘prove”’ the failure of the
socialist system — and, by comparison, to tout the virtues of capitalism.

Ina nutshell, the restructuring underway everywhere in the socialist world
reflects the fact that many old, bureaucratic and undemocratic forms which
took root over decades, are being replaced. The USSR, which built a
modern, industrial society in just 70 years, today is “‘re-tooling” for the
future. Outworn methods are being challenged and replaced as Soviet
society swings fully into play.

This process is not without difficulties, excesses and, yes, revelations which
socialists find jarring. But its overwhelming characteristic is that perestroika
is the struggle for socialism, for renewal, restructuring, democratization and
progress. A key to this is the need for economic modernization to satisfy the
material needs of society and the socialist consumer market. And for this to
happen requires the vast extension of socialist democracy now unfolding.

Capitalism restructures too. It utilizes wars, chronic unemployment,
transnational corporate penetration, racism, sexism, ecological destruction
and the brutal exploitation of two-thirds of the globe whose people live in
dire poverty in its drive for profits and markets. World-wide and here at
home, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.

The neo-conservative agenda of privatization, cuts in social services,
attacks on the labour movement, the free trade sellout, pitiless taxation
which transfers huge sections of wealth from citizens to corporations is
capitalist restructuring in real life.

With all the difficulties encountered in the practical building of socialist
society, including the difficulties imposed by a still-powerful imperialist
world system, the compelling humanist goal which has motivated and
galvanized millions of women and men for these many decades — of a
society in which the exploitation of one human by another is abolished, in
which corporate greed is replaced by concern for human need — stands as
true as ever.

Peg PcG

aN

Me
PREMIER
WHAT ABouT Wie posh lam

THSSE
OPPOSED

TIRIBONE

. EDITOR
Sean Griffin

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk
GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

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Base!

means to defend and promote the interests
of the working class, extra-parliamentary
action being the other.

In my view, that was the premise under
which the CPG acted to take part in the
coalition. The question yet remains: how
will this affect “popular front” politics?
There is no doubt that the transition to
socialism in Greece will be a rather lengthy
process. If the CPG decision appears to
have further complicated the process of
convergence of socialists and Communists
into a broad coalition with the help of
reform-minded organizations, this was
not dictated by sectarianism.

The difficulties currently encountered
as far as the promotion of a popular front
is concerned did not begin with the forma-
tion of the Right-Left coalition. They date
back to the days when PASOK formed a

After having spent a month in Greece
this summer, I flew back convinced that
the choice made by the Communist Party
of Greece (CPG) to enter into a temporary
coalition with the conservatives was cor-
rect because, simply put, there was no
other option.

In addition, the choice made by the
CPG and its allies had nothing to do with
“appeasing imperialism”. Further, it was
not brought about by the winds of peres-
troika, despite its merits. To say so is like
telling Greek communists that they have
no minds of their own. I believe that the
choice was the CPG’s alone and it was
strictly dictated by internal developments
and under the specific socio-economic cir-

_ cumstances currently prevailing in Greece.

I also have a problem with the position
advanced in a letter to the Tribune that the
CPG isa party like any other party, whose
main function is to take part in govern-
ments. My experience tells me that Com-
munists use parliament to advance the
interests of the working class and it allies.
In addition, parliament is only one of the

on “going it alone” while in power from
1981 to June, 1989. This can be explained
by the fact that its leadership, contrary to
that party’s September, 1974 Manifesto,
ignored and side-stepped the popular

majority government and its persistence.

demand for major reforms and an inde-
pendent economic foreign policy. Instead,
PASOK ran the country’s economy as if
capital and labour could reach an honest
compromise and both work for the public
good.

But as time passed, pressure by monop-
oly compelled the government to adopt
policies aimed at suppressing the demands
of the labour movement for an alternative

program of reforms. Working people were

subjected to “progressive rhetoric” in sup-
port of a restraint program.

Under PASOK, unemployment rose to
almost 10 per cent, while inflation hovered
at between 14 and 20 per cent for almost
nine years. (It still stands at 16 per cent,
one of the highest rates in Western
Europe.) Restrictions on the right to strike
were added, and the people’s living stand-
ards deteriorated steadily. Health care and
education took a nosedive, and major cit-
ies, including Athens; became environ-
mentally intolerable due to pollution. In

‘No other option’ than coalition for CPG

addition, Papandreou brought in a goods
and sales tax (GST) which today stands at
16 per cent.

As well, PASOK was further eroded by
all kinds of opportunists, right-wingers
and careerists who found themselves in the
public apparatus thanks to massive
government patronage appointments.

While the Left coalition entered into
agreement with the conservatives on the
formation of a temporary cabinet, the
door was left open for the socialists to take
part on equal terms. They declined. They
also refused to provide the terms necessary
for the Communists to take part ina coali-
tion with them — two of the conditions
being that they should abide by a program
of major reform and that a firm commit-
ment be made to lift the parliamentary
immunity for several PASOK MPs impli-
cated in the scandals.

Elias Stavrides,
Executive member of the Toronto Commit-
tee in Support of the Coalition of the Left

and Progress in Greece

4 e Pacific Tribune, September 11,° 1989