European
Labour Conference in Athens on the 9th
and 10th
of June
FOR
AN INTERNATIONALIST LABOUR EXIT FROM THE CAPITALISTIC CRISIS
Notice
of the Politburo of the E.E.K. (Workers’ Revolutionary Party)
Down
with the imperialist European Union austerity, unemployment, racism
and social cannibalism!
Down
with the capitalist governments of Merkel, Letta, Samaras and Rajoy!
All
power to the workers! We fight for workers' governments and the
United Socialist States of Europe!
Europe
is at the heart of the vicious cycle of recession and global debt
crisis erupted five years ago, and has flooded the continent with
more than 50 million unemployed and underemployed.
The
years that have passed since the outbreak of the crisis, after the
collapse of Lehman Brothers, no way has resulted from the policies
and actions of the European ruling class. Each “response” of the
capitalist governments of the EU to the crisis, brings greater
destruction of productive forces, repression and political crisis,
thus laying reactionary movements to the brutal austerity programs
that destroy the remnants of the post-war welfare state. The
decisions of the EU summit formulated by the dominant groups of the
–fragmented– European ruling class and especially the German
chancellor have spawned a new economic policy institution, the
notorious “troika”. It’s the troika that has undertaken, on
behalf of the European capital, governance in most countries of the
European region by imposing devastating “memorandums”, with its
first victims the workers and the petty bourgeoisie in Greece. By the
devastating program imposed on Cyprus, the dead end of the debt
crisis and recession has caused a new rift within the structures and
the cornerstones through which the capitalist European integration is
attempted, by multiplying the volume of solvent and centrifugal
forces in the Euro zone.
The debility, political and economic, of the capitalist governments has forced the Central Banks as well as the European, in an unprecedented policy of “monetary inflation” of no effect. Instead, the immediate threat of a new “crash” in the international stock markets, which are currently hidden behind temporary market euphoria, has begun to restore in the foreground. More than twenty years after the fall of the USSR, the strategic project of the European bourgeoisie to “recover” economically and politically the area with its “tool”, the new unified European currency, has been irrevocably undermined.
The
global systemic crisis of capitalism in its historical decline has
undermined even the initial objectives of the European ruling class
during the capitalist restoration. It is now clear that it has opened
a transitional period of great social upheavals and the emergence of
pre-revolutionary and revolutionary situations where the issue of
power has been objectively put in question, both in national and
international levels.
The
crisis has documented in the most unequivocal of terms that the
European Union, the tool of European imperialism and big business,
cannot be “reformed” or converted into a “social Europe” for
the benefit of the workers and peoples. It must be destroyed before
we bury under its ruins.
But to escape from both the EU and Euro zone’s prison does not mean that we must return to the straitjacket of the bankrupt national capitalist state; but to fight for the alternative internationalist perspective: the common struggle of all European workers and oppressed for the socialist unification of the continent, the United Socialist States of Europe, also including Russia. Millions of European workers and oppressed cannot tolerate this social catastrophe that the survival of the sovereignty of European capital carries with it in Europe.
The
unprecedented austerity and exploitation, the dissolving of the
residues of the post-war welfare state, of its health and education
sectors, destroy the European youth’s hope for a better tomorrow
and condemn it to unemployment. The state repression intensifies;
racist violence against immigrants and minorities has surpassed all
previous records. Fascist gangs proliferate: the “task force” of
the Nazi “Golden Dawn” in Greece acting under state protection,
relying on the funding from a portion of the shipping industry, is a
warning for all of Europe, as they exploit on the social despair
produced by social disintegration.
All political events and developments in Europe, particularly southern Europe, confirm on one hand the very deep crisis that has become a crisis of political power; on the other, they record an unprecedented polarization among the masses with the emergence of a left turn (both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary) on the masses’ direction of mobilization.
Self-organization
of the masses and their mobilization on the basis of a program of
transitional demands and the prospect of power for the expropriation
of capital by the working class, for the reorganization of the
economy on the basis of social needs can and should give way
vis-à-vis the capitalist crisis and destruction. A United Front of
action of the exploited masses, the oppressed and their organizations
is absolutely necessary. The active role of a combatant political
organization of the revolutionary vanguard of the working class in
this process is vital and its construction can no longer be delayed.
In this context, the Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International (CRFI) invites all workers, popular organizations and collectives battling in social struggles, as the forces of the revolutionary left, to participate in the International Conference organized in Athens on the 9th and 10th June by the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (E.E.K.). The main theme of the Conference is the crisis in Europe and the debate on taking a Direct Action Program against social disaster. A program out and beyond the limitations of bureaucratic mechanisms that block the mobilization militant labour and oppressed masses.
The main pillars of the action proposed are:
- Cancellation of all debt towards international moneylenders and expropriation of the banks under workers' control.
- Cancellation of all “austerity” programs and social cannibalism, imposed by the EU, the ECB, the IMF and the capitalist governments. Restoration in wages, pensions and workers’ employment rights, according to real social needs.
- Race against layoffs and unemployment: distribution of working hours to all employees. Public infrastructure to create new jobs. Seizure of all factories that are closing or laying off workers en masse. Expropriation of the big industry and the strategic sectors of the economy without compensation under workers’ control and labour management.
- Struggle against fascism, racism and discrimination against minorities! Self-organization of social solidarity networks!
- Labour defence groups against fascist gangs and state repression. Dissolution of the civil state apparatus of repression, NATO and all imperialist military bases and alliances.
Down
with all capitalist governments! Governments for workers and workers'
power!
Down
with EU imperialists! For the Socialist United States of Europe!
Athens,
05.16.2013
Take
part in the international Protest on Saturday, June 8th
in Athens