The student revolt in Greece continues

Until now 396 University faculties and Technical Institutes (in a total of 450) all over Greece are in occupation and indefinite strike action. Students as well as most of the professors are fighting the anti-popular "education law" that the right wing Karamanlis government wants to introduce to privatize Universities, abolish the asylum right in the University and tight the links between education and the demands of the market for cheap, "flexible', precarious labor.

On June the 8th a 35.000 strong demonstration of students coming from all over Greece to Athens showed the rising radicalization and determination of the biggest youth movement of the last 15 years in Greece. The State repression forces launched a barbaric attack on the demonstrators, wounding dozens and nearly killing some of the young people, arresting 44(4 are sent to trial on June 21st) and putting under siege - reminding the bloody days of the uprising and attack on the Polytechnic by the military dictatorship tanks in 1973-the Polytechnic University again where the demonstrators found refuge from police brutality. In the new Polytechnic siege together with the riot police, fascist thugs made their re-appearance. The students were not intimidated and later on they organized a march of protest to the Police Headquarters demanding the release of the prisoners.

State brutality manifests the fear of the government and the dead end in which it is found. The Stalinist CP which until now opposed the occupations, now, in deep crisis, is obliged to make a U turn and its student organization belatedly has joined the occupations. (Nevertheless on June the 8th, the CP student youth has its own separate demonstration, apart from the main mass of the students. Their contingent was not attacked by the police and peacefully dispersed itself). The youth of PASOK is split and the majority takes part in the occupations despite the fact that their President George Papandreou (currently President of the Socialist International!!) officially supports the privatization of Higher Education.

The unstoppable radicalization is manifested, among other things, by the political platform adopted by a vast majority in places such as the University of Piraeus (where the youth section of EEK is leading the fight) or the Faculty of Architecture in the Athens Polytechnic University( led by NAR) calling not only for the withdraw of the draft law and the resignation of the Minister of Education Mrs Marietta Yannakou( known also as the 'Cow') but also for the overthrow of the bourgeois government and a planned, free for all, public Education according to the needs of the people and not of the big capital.

The entire political system is in crisis: both parties alternating in bourgeois power, the Right wing "New Democracy" and the Official Opposition PASOK supporting privatization of the Universities as well as the third Party in Parliament still calling itself "Communist Party of Greece" have clashed for weeks now, unsuccessfully, with the mounting movement of student occupations and are, consequently, in deep crisis. All of them now they make an apparent turn, trying to find a way out to save the government's (and theirs) legitimacy- as they have done a few months ago, in France, the Socialist Party and the trade union bureaucracies.

The international content of the rebellion of the students in Greece, after that in France and Chile is obvious. For this reason also, messages of support coming from abroad are important. The message sent from Russia by the Executive Committee of the Regional Party of Communists, by the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party- CPSU and the Central Council of the "Alternatives" movement addressed to EEK, NAR and the student far left front EAAK that leads the struggle all over Greece had a great impact when it was read in student assemblies here (a big impact particularly to the members of the CP of Greece and their youth!).

Yesterday the Minister Marietta Yannakou (the 'Cow') announced that the discussion on the draft with the academic community will start next week but the law as such will not be presented now to parliament for vote. The students will not fall easily to the traps and the maneuvers of the government and of the opposition Parties that desperately try to find ways to defuse a political crisis threatening every day the system as a whole. In most of the general assemblies of the students today (June the 13th) the decision is to continue the struggle until the full withdrawal of the draft law and the resignation of the Minister. On June the 15, next Thursday, a new mass demonstration of the students in Athens will take place. La lutta continua!

Savas Michael