Trotskyists Fought

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The Workers Vanguard group have an extremely principled record of struggle. They were the only group of Trotskyists who maintained the majority of their members in Greece and fought underground during the dictatorship, enduring considerable persecution and maintaining an agitation and a clandestine Trotskyist press. position they put, but our respect for this record of struggle compels us to publish this interview with the secretary of Workers Vanguard who has himself a long and principled record. The Workers Vanguard has fought as a Trotskyist organisation in Greece since the early 1920's. Their history is one of a fight against Stalinism and against Pablo's attempts to liquidate the Fourth International. They affiliated to the International Committee of the Fourth International in 1960. In 1967 they were expelled from the IC for questioning the political line of the leadership. They attempted to maintain themselves as part of the IC but this was made impossible International Conference of the IC in 1972 with Healy recognising his new group - almost all of whom were in London during the dictatorship - as the official section.

Prtakos, Papadopoulos and Makaresos, three leaders of the military Why did capitalism mule in Greece?

In 1967 Greek capitalisin was forced to take power in the form of the Army *dictatorship in order to defeat the movement of the working class. Capitalism was -faced with conflict between the bourgeois parties and the -interests behind them.

Conflict between the two main classes was increased after the revolutionary events of July 1967 when the well-known left-wing student, Petroulas, was killed by the The dictatorship was an international action of the ruling idlass The emergence of dictatorship in this hot-point of the S.E. Mediterranean was connected with the antagonism between the big powers - European capitalism and the U.S.A. on the one hand and the Russian bureaucracy on the other. Capitalism fought to maintain ànd increase its military bases and the green light was given to NATO and the CIA to establish , their own servants in power.

Did the Trotskyist movement fight so mobilise the working class before the dictatorship came?

The highest point of the mass movement of the working class was in 1965-66. This was headed off by the continuous betrayal by the Stalinists and by the betrayal of the general strike in 1965. In these events Workers Vanguard was in the front line, many comrades were persecuted both by the Stalinists and the capitalist state. We must also mention the leadership given by the International Committee. Cliff Slaughter came to Greece as Secretary of the IC in 1966 (whilst we were still part of the official section) to discuss the situation. The situation was clearly close to dictatorship.

Power did not rest in Parliament, strikes were illegal, demonstrations forbidden and trials everyday. In this situation Comrade Slaughter argued that everything was moving forward. This was the first difference between our group and the IC. A few months later the Papadopoulos dictatorship took power under conditions where the working class were paralysed by their leadership.

When did the split the IC? movement was split apart by the Healy • tendency. They expelled all minority members of the CC and their supporters, they took all our equipment and expelled the majority of the youth movement. One month later the tanks came rolling in and the dictatorship was established; many were arrested. Two of the three leading supporters of Healy, who were CC members, signed police declarations that they were not communists and were allowed to go free. The main leader of the split, Shlanos, left the country and went to Clapham to work with Healy.

A few months after the start of the dictatorship, in January 1968, we held a national conference. It was the only conference any tendency held during the dictatorship. At this conference we had to establish a principled position and we expelled the three Healyites as declarationists and as deserters. They came back to Athens six years later, after the fall of the dictatorship, as the official section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

How did Workers organise underground ?

The political struggle against the capitalist dictatorship was carried out through our illegal papers Workers Struggle and Salonica Students Struggle. We grew particularly strong in the student movement in Salonica. We were leading a university trade union in Athens which worked semi-legally. (Trade unions were not abolished by the dictatorship, but their leaders were put in prison and leadership installed by the junta). This was a big struggle.

We had members in the leadership of some of the trade unions before the dictatorship. The Tailor and Garment Workers Union in which we had the leadership was abolished.

Trade Union work under the dictatorship was very difficult. We worked illegally. The majority of the members of our organisation went to the cells of the notorious ASFALIA of Bouboulinas Street, the headquarters of police security - they were tortured and questioned.

In the youth our struggle was carried forward illegally in the NC of the youth.

We took some heavy blows.

Our section in Salonica was defeated by the police and this was the beginning of the worst attack on our organisation; it came at the end of 1968.

The secretary of the Salonica section brought a platform into our organisation, arguing that the Greek revolution was neither a proletarian nor a bourgeois revolution. Because out country was between Asia and Europe, then our revolution would be decided by this.

We split and they supported Maoists - first remove the junta and see where we go from there. We opposed this replying to it in our papers in an article called «The Death Agony of an Ex-Trotskyist" During that period they had an alliance with the Maoists in Salonica. We warned them that it was a dangerous policy. They would not listen and they were all caught.

They were taken in front of the military courts of the junta. Four got life sentences others got 2 - 20 years. They were accused as Trotskyists. The police tried to connect Salonica with Athens, but they were not able to make the connection.

MEMBERS Many of our members including our secretary passed through Bouboulinas' cells. Many of the leaders of the Salonica group went over to Healy or the Pabloites when they were released. We were the only tendency in Greece to fight for a united front of students, peasants and workers to overthrow the capitalist dictatorship and establish a workers' and peasants' government - the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Pabloite tendency at first said that the front would probably not be clearly anti-capitalist but anti-dictatorship. This policy opened the door to the popular front. One Pabloite tendency broke from the United Secretariat and openly established democratic committees of resistance. They also supported terrorism. The Healy tendency argued that the only way to bring about progressive, transitional economic and political change was to call for government of the Greek Communist Party.

The Greek Stalinists were wracked with internal problems, the roots of which lay in the crisis of the bureaucracy - the differences between China and the USSR and over Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Healyites outside Greece openly called for the reunification of the Stalinist sections.

In the Papadopoulos referendum in 1973 the Healyites voted no" along with everyone who opposed the junta, Papandreou and King Constantine. The referendum was 'to give' the junta new powers with a corporatist constitution abolishing legal trade unions and levelled against the working class at all levels. Under these conditions a "NO" was a bourgeois liberal vote against Papadopoulos.

We put forward a position rejecting all capitalist constitutions and called for a soviet constitution of socialist democracy.

One of the two Communist Parties - the interior one which supported the Italian Stalinists -openly called for the return of King_ Constantine. They, put this What form did the class struggle take during the dictatorship?

The working class could not conduct mass strikes against the dictatorship, but despite the terrorism there were various kinds of strikes taking place.

There were also other forms of pressure. Taking advantags of the full employment workers moved from factory to factory en-mass to attempt to force up wages.

During this period the main demand of the Healyites was for a general strike to bring to power a CP government.

Where did Workers Vanguard stand on the Cyprus question?

We have done a lot of work on this question and we must of course start from a class position. Most sections of the ruling class are putting forward the nationalist position of Makarios - for an independent Cyprus. The ruling class also supported the 7 day Sampson dictatorship based on the suppression of the Turkish minority. Some bourgeois tendencies such as Grivas, favoured Enosis - or union with Greece.

Our 1974 policy statement stood out against all other tendencies. We were the only tendency in Greece who called for the self determination of the Cypriot people against US and British Imperialism and the Greek and Turkish dictatorships. We fought to show the working class the necessity of the unity of Greek and Turkish workers and peasants against Imperialism. SELF DETERMINATION We stood for the right of self. determination of the Turkish minority if they so wished. We fought for self determination with the method of the class struggle and we attacked all those tendencies who supported Makarios. We were for the soldiers in the front in the invasion to turn against their own capitalist government and to divert the war into the socialist revolution, for which there would be the necessity for Trotskyist parties in both countries.

We fought for self determination and against federation because federation represses minorites. The States in Cyprus, as part of the Corialist Soviet States in the Middle Where did other tendencies stand on Cyprus?

The Pabloites of the USFI had a leaflet with the same position as us at the beginning, but after they changed their minds, and during the invasion they supported the masses of Cyprus against the Turks. The Healyites before the invasion were calling on Makarios, and not the masses, to throw out Grivas from Cyprus. During the invasion, with all Stalinists and opportunists, the Healyites supported the bourgeois slogan - no division of the island. This meant to continue in the old way - Greeks under Turks and Polytechnic student events Turks under Greeks.

To explain: the Turkish bourgeoisie wanted the division of the island, the Greek bourgeoisie did not. We were for socialist revolution in Cyprus, with the right of seli-determination of Turkish minorities if they wanted it.

Grivas and Sampson in 1955 and 1963 had slaughtered whole villages of Turks. All opportunists cried about the Turkish atrocities, but not about the Greek.

How was the brought down?

The November ev result of the very capitalism and the hig dictatorship nts were the ep crisis of • inflation of

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The collapse of the dictatorship 5 281 By A. Westoby

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