The 4th European Social Forum in Athens

For a week Athens became the centre of intense international political activity as it hosted the 4th European Social Forum (ESF) and the movement against Capitalist Globalization.

About 35.000 youth and activists (10.000 from abroad) participated in the 4th ESF that took place in the capital of Greece from May 4 to 7, 2006. The gathering culminated into a powerful, more than 70.000 strong, international mass demonstration on May the 6th against the imperialist war in the Middle East, against the war threats on Iran, against the Occupation of Iraq and Palestine as well as against mass unemployment and all social problems exacerbated now in Europe and internationally.

Apart from the 4th ESF which was hosted in the space of the former Hellinikon Airport, parallel and alternative international meetings have taken place mainly in the Panteion University organized by far left organizations and social movements, criticizing from the left the ESF political framework, as well as smaller ones organized by anarchists and autonomists in the Polytechnic University and other places in Athens. More than 4.000 attended the International Anti-imperialist Anti-Capitalist Meeting in Panteion and much smaller numbers the anarchist/autonomist meetings.

By far attendance was more massive in the ESF space. Apparently there was an improvement in relation to the last 3rd ESF meeting in London in autumn 2004 where in a much bigger country, closer to Western Europe, only 20-30.000 attended the activities in Alexandra Palace and a series of incidents happened for example with the scandalous presence of the Iraqi Stalinists "trade unionists" collaborating with the Quisling regime in Baghdad.

Nevertheless, behind the appearances, the political contradictions within the so called "social forum process" were sharper now than two years ago. The decline in attendance of international activists continues: 100.000 in Florence in 2002, 60.000 in Paris in 2002, 20-30.000 in London in 2004. In Athens only 10.000 activists came from abroad; the majority of participants were Greeks both in the ESF in Hellinikon as well and above all in the mass demonstration reflecting the very strong anti-imperialist popular feelings and the growing radicalization in the country after two General Strikes and in preparation of new ones. The demonstration of May the 6th was the biggest in Greece from the time of the General Strike of April 2001 and the mass anti-war demonstrations of February-March 2003.

The crisis in the ESF was manifested in the fact that for the first time in the history of this institution in the final Appeal no mention was made for the time or place of a next meeting of the ESF. Proposals on Germany or Austria to become the host of a 5th ESF were turned down because of sharp disagreements. The Appeal itself is a very moderate, reformist text where, apart from criticisms to neo-liberal polices in Europe, no challenge against the imperialist EU or the capitalist system was made and not even the word "socialism" was spelled out.

The absence of Fausto Bertinotti, the previously much publicized by the LCR, the United Secretariat et al. as the president of the "movement of the movements" and now Chairman of the Italian bourgeois Parliament and integral part of the Prodi imperialist "center-left" Italian government, was emblematic; Bertinotti in Europe and Lula in Latin America were the political pillars of the European and World Social Forums, the leaders of the apparatuses that wanted to control and manipulate the movement against capitalist Globalization for their Center left policies of class collaboration with the IMF, the EU and imperialism. As the mass movements are clashing with these agencies of imperialism and global capital in Latin America and Europe, the crisis in the WSF and the ESF is exacerbated making their future totally uncertain.

EEK, Balkan Center "Christian Rakovsky" and the CRFI in the events

The Greek Section of the CRFI, EEK, supported by our CRFI comrades of Isci Mücadelesi (IM-Workers Struggle) of Turkey and Progetto Comunista of Italy as well as by the Parties, organizations and militants supporting the Balkan Socialist Centre 'Christian Rakovsky", made a major intervention both in the 4th ESF as well as in the International Anti-imperialist Anti-Capitalist Meeting in Panteion University.

It was a unique experience for EEK. For the success of this intervention we were able to mobilize not solely our party forces in Greece but also to mobilize (and host) dozens of comrades from Turkey, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Italy, France, Britain, United States, South Africa, and India. Particularly significant were: the presence with us for the first time of the EHP( Party for a Labor Movement), an important left wing party of Guevarista origin from Turkey, brought in contact with the Rakovsky Centre and EEK by our Turkish comrades of IM ; the presence of comrade Mihri Belli, known by his nom de guerre as Kapetan Kemal, the legendary Turkish communist leader of a multi-ethnic Partisans Brigade that fought during the Greek Civil War for a Balkan Socialist Federation; the presence of the Leningrad Communists headed by the leaders of the RPK comrades Yevgeni Kozlov and Iosif Abramson ; the presence of internationally well known Marxist intellectuals like Hillel Ticktin, the editor of the Marxist journal Critique, and the American radical activist and Marxist philosopher Bertell Ollman.

We had a number of stalls both in the ESF space in Hellinikon Airport as well as in Panteion University distributing our literature, the newspapers of the CRFI Sections in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Obrero Internacional, the Bulletin No 1 of the Rakovsky Balkan Centre (with the materials from the last 2005 International Conference of the Centre and recently written articles from Bosnia/Herzegovina, Albania, Turkey, Kurdistan and Palestine).

In the ESF, comrades Savas Michael-Matsas (EEK) and Sungur Savran (IM) were invited as speakers on panels on the crisis of world Capitalism, Russia, the current workers' struggles and the trade union movement. Both in the presentations and in the discussion the political demarcation line between CRFI's revolutionary Marxism and the democratic reformism of the ESF ideology was sharply manifested and attracted a lot of attention.

In Panteion University, the International Anti-imperialist Anti-Capitalist Meeting was organized by the Front of Radical Left(MERA) organizations( the New Left Current- NAR, EEK, the Revolutionary Communist Movement of Greece-EKKE), by the Communist Party Marxist-Leninist of Greece, by social movements in popular neighborhoods, class struggle trade union factions and independent left wing militants. These alternative activities had as aim to make manifest the rejection of the Center Left perspective of class collaboration promoted by the organizers of the ESF, particularly by Synaspismos (ex-EuroStalinists) and PASOK (the pseudo-Socialist neo-liberal party led now by George Papandreou). It is obvious, as the right wing government in Greece has entered a phase of deep political crisis that a center left alternative governance is prepared by the ruling class in Greece as they already did in Italy and prepare to do in France.

In that political space, EEK and the Rakovsky Centre have organized a number of independent meetings and participated as well in common meetings and discussions with the other organizations of the far Left.

The most important public meeting by the Rakovsky Centre took place in the great Celebrations Hall of the University with 500 seats. The place was packed and more participants had to remain standing up. The meeting has been called on "The Balkan peoples struggle for Unity and Socialism" and has as a main speaker the 93 years old and still politically active Turkish revolutionary comrade Mihri Belli/ Kapetan Kemal. Comrade Belli spoke about his life of revolutionary struggle for international Socialism, from the '30s onwards, from the Mississippi of United States to Northern Greece and Turkey. Particularly he mentioned his experience leading the multi-ethnic Partisans Brigade in Western Thrace where Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Gypsies, Pomaks and others fought together in the '40s against the ruling classes, fascism and imperialism, for a Balkan Socialist Federation. The old revolutionary remembered the revolutionary song of the Brigade and moved the audience by repeating it: ".we will break down the national borders; we will finish the system that produces massacres and wars." While not a Trotskyist, Comrade Belli spoke with a profound respect about Trotsky and his own bitter experiences with Stalinism. In the same meeting- where three-four languages were used, Greek, Turkish, English and some French- short contributions were made as well by the other members of the Rakovsky Centre, by comrades Sungur Savran(IM, Turkey), Uzgur Sevgi Goral (EHP, Turkey), Iosif G. Abramson(RPK, Russia), Ana Bazac (Marx Nucleus, Romania) and Savas Michael-Matsas(EEK) who chaired the meeting. The speakers not only paid tribute to the struggle of Mihri Belli and his dedication to internationalism but also emphasized the actuality of the international socialist revolution today in the region and in the entire world. At the end hundreds of participants sang the International in Greek, Turkish, Romanian, Russian, French and English.

The Rakovsky Centre and EEK organized also a number of other meetings and discussions, all well attended (200-300 people each):

* on Russia 15 years after the collapse, with speakers Yevgeni Kozlov(RPK), Iosif Abramson (RPK), Tatiana Filimonova (Association of Marxist Organizations, director of the Plekhanov House in Leningrad), Tamara Smirnova( Alternativyi, Ukraine), Alexander Buzghalin(Alternativyi, Russia), Ludmila Bulavka (Alternativyi, Russia), Hillel Ticktin ( Critique, Britain) and Savas Michael-Matsas(EEK, Greece).

* on The world capitalist crisis with Hillel Ticktin and Yannis Aggelis( EEK).

* on Beyond Patriarchy: the Gender issue in the 21st Century with comrade Katerina Matsa, psychiatrist(EEK) and the Lacanian psychoanalyst Dimitris Vergetis.

The other very important and well attended meeting was jointly organized with the other organizations of the International Anti-imperialist Anti-capitalist Meeting and it was dedicated on Europe after the French Rebellion and the Italian Elections with main speaker comrade Marco Ferrando from the Progetto Comunista, left wing of the Rifondazione Comunista and Italian Section of the CRFI. Comrade Marco analyzed both the situation in Italy and in Europe as well as the lessons from the witch hunt launched on the eve of the elections against him and against Trotskyism by all the forces of the bourgeois political system, from Berlusconi and Fini to Prodi, D' Alema and Bertinotti. In the same very successful meeting other speakers took the floor for shorter interventions, including a representative of the SUD trade union in France and Savas Michael (EEK) who insisted on the lessons from the recent rebellion in France, the crisis of the bourgeois political system all over the Continent, the treacherous role of the social democratic, Stalinist and so called far left and the necessity for the struggle for workers' power.

Speakers from EEK, IM and other Rakovsky Centre members spoke in 22 other common meetings in Panteion against imperialist war, state repression, social movements in popular neighborhoods, workers' trade union struggles, education, environment, the Greek-Turkish relations and the Cyprus issue et. al.

The International Anti-imperialist Anti-Capitalist Meeting in Panteion University ended with a general assembly, on May the 7th, to discuss about "The international revolutionary Left in the 21st Century". Speakers from all the organizations participated in the discussion. Comrades Savas from EEK and Sungur from IM presented the perspective and the basic principles of our international struggle to re-found the Fourth International. Contributions from the Romanian and Russian comrades of the Rakovsky Centre strengthened further our intervention by raising sharply the question of Stalinism as well as of the principled defense of the revolutionary social conquests of the Soviet Union by our movement.

Very important was the contribution of our comrades in the cultural events of the Meeting. We have organized very successful music concerts, happenings, theatrical improvisations etc. Above all a great success was the play The Caucasian Cray Circle, by Bertolt Brecht adapted to the current workers conditions and struggles in Istanbul, Turkey, an excellent show played by the Turkish theater group Prova Tiyatrosu and animated by comrades of EHP.

The political problems were not absent form the Meeting in Panteion. In one point we had to publicly clash with a delegation of Iraqi Stalinists in exile (in opposition from the majority Iraqi CP that collaborates with the US Occupation forces) who wanted to prevent an Israeli Jew, Peretz Kidron, representing the "refusenik"Consciousness Objectors in the IDF, to speak "because he was a Jew and never we can speak with Jews from Israel!" In our intervention we made clear that the Fourth International from its beginnings was against Zionism and defended the Palestinian national cause; that in 1948 it was Stalin and Stalinism that legitimated the creation of the Zionist State and not Trotskyism; that our strategic goal was and is the defeat of Zionism and the creation of one secular, democratic and socialist Republic in the entire historic territory of Palestine; finally, that while not agreeing with many political views of Kidron we defend his right to speak as a fighter against the Zionist regime atrocities, and we oppose anti-Semitism and all reactionary nationalist-racist prejudices. This battle for principles was also won and everybody took the floor on equal basis.

Unfortunately in another important point, the sectarian tendencies within the organizations of the Panteion meeting manifested themselves: they refused to join the main international march on May the 6th and organized their own, small, less than 1000 strong march separately in another direction in the streets of Athens.

The Rakovsky Centre and EEK called to join the main international march in which we participated with all our international comrades in a strong contingent of more than 300 people under the independent banners of the CRFI, of the Rakovsky Centre, of EEK, IM and EHP with slogans for "permanent revolution against permanent imperialist war", for "freedom to Iraq and Palestine", " imperialist troops out from the Middle East", "hands off Iran", for the overthrow of the capitalist governments and workers' power, for a Balkan Socialist Federation and the United Socialist States of Europe, for the Fourth International. The slogans were shouted in Greek and Turkish but sometimes also in Italian and Spanish (in front of the Embassy of Argentina!). Our multilingual, international appearance provoked a very enthusiastic impact to the people watching the march. Some asked "Who are they?" and others bystanders replied to them: "They are those who want to re-found the Fourth International!" Our contingent became the pole of attraction of other groups from the revolutionary Left that came and marched with us, particularly working class and youth organizations that split from the Stalinist Communist Party-KKE (It is noteworthy that the Stalinist Party boycotted this magnificent march).

In conditions where the revolutionary crisis is ripening in Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, and the volcano in the Middle East is continuously exploding, while the reformist "social forum process" and the Center Left is plunging in crisis, the revolutionary vanguard around the CRFI makes important steps forward.

--Savas Michael-Matsas

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