British students on the march in 1989 PANOS VOVOS is a Graphic Arts student at Athens Technological Institute. Last year he was a NUS invited Panos to Britain to speak at the National Student Activists' Conference on 22 January. Socialist Outlook spoke to him about the lessons of the Greek student action. Socialist Outlook: What sparked off the student action last year?
Panos Vovos: The Socialist Party government introduced a new bill, the Multi-Bill, into parliament. It affected all parts of education. High school students were threatened by a separate bill which tried to imtures. So you had two move ments - one of high school students, and one of further and migner caucaton students You have to look at what the with education. It was trying to armonise its policy in line with hat of the EC Following the economic dictat of the IMF and the EC, the Greek government is trying to cut back what it spends on education.
The restructuring of education is designed to provide lowlevel, over-specialised training to meet the workforce require ments of industry. they are trying to make education an orpart of Market forces will determine which schools and courses stay open. SO: Were the politics of these changes understood Page, 6 • Feb. 1, 1992 . No. 15 by those students taking action?
PV: It depends on what you mean by 'political. Compared with the occupations here, it was more political. But, compared with ten years ago in Greece, it was less polltical Within the movement we had big discussions on what the government was doins and why, what they were going to do, and why we cannot wait for a new bill on education but must have an uprising. These discussions affected many people, but most supported the occupations on a gut level. SO: How widespread was the student action?
PV: Around 80 percent of further and higher education colleges were affected and about 2,500 high schools. It was the biggest movement since 1974 and the collapse of the dietatorship.
After the movement declined we realised there would similar social explosions in the future. Such explosions do not automatically have any direction. It is important to seize the opportunity from these situa• tons to give the movement a socialist orientation. Pro sam brain SO: What did the occupations achleve? PV: Both the Multi-Bill and the discipline bill scrapped. But while the government will not try and bring back the latter. thes are trying to re introduce the Multi-Bill - this time in parts. One problem is that, on the ground, there are no significant improvements. During last year's actions, we did not push other demands to the foreiront - in the interest of unity. If we had done this it would have been a political investment for the future.
You have to realise that the student unrest in Greece was born out of desparation. After the movement declined there was a degree of disappointment because people had expected much more to change. SO: What advice would you have for students in Britain?
PV: We were lucky because the government made lots of mistakes - the Multi-Bill was a big mistake because it tried to "In Greece we also have our own NUS.
At first they were against the occupations, but as the action spread they changed to not saying anything at deal with everything at once. The police also made the mistake of killing a teacher which brought out other teachers and the General Union of Workers onto the demonstrations.
This allowed us to build a huge movement very quickly. I don't think the British government will make these sort of mistakes, they serious and pay more attention to their own interests.
Students must look at the tacts or the struadon in every college, to counter the misinformation from the government and from college manage ments. You also have to look at the class composition of students at different colleges -whether they are mostly bourgeois, mostly middle-class or mostly working class. And you have to look at student unions, aiming to build these and orientate them in the right direction.
Before the student actions, the government had attacked the right to strike, social security and civil rights. there had been very little responseto these attacks, wedid Nevertheless, things would have been much easier had the NUS supported us. SO: Did the conduct of the Greek MUS weaken Its support within the student movement?
"V: For many years now, the has got progressively worse. It Jents, but it has fost their respect. It is important to challenge the leadership of the official union, in elections and so on. But while it is very important to work within the official structures, you cannot afford to have any illusions in them. Where there is lack of movement in any or ganisation, the danger bureaucracy will appear. We argue that we need the NUS, but we also need the self-organisation of students. SO: If you could go through the experience again, would you attach more Importance to bullding a left-wing within the movement? we had in this respect was that the movement grew so rapidly. After the murder of the teacher, the movement grew in a matter of days. In four days we had three demonstrations. The first had 40,000 present, the second 100,000, and the third about 70,000.
Throughout these days there was a big rise in consciousness of the movement, but there was no time to develop the discussions. Ans case This o, brothe time An excuse It is obviously im portant to take political and ideological discussions into such movements-in action people are very open to new ideas. This is necessary so that a left-wing base can be built.
You cannot just shout slogans about student poverty. Within a capilalist framework, the changes in education are necessary for the functioning of the economy.
Socialists have to work out an alternative framework - showing that economics and education are related.
You can fight and win on the issue of student poverty alone.
Things may get better for a few years. But without solving the underlying crisis the problems experienced today will keep coming back.
THE MASS action of tens of millions of workers is the only force capable of really finishing off the old ruling bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. In other words, a real popular, bureaucratic revolution is needed. has such strong social links, and can rely Oso uchiha ara couste Oos tion and sabotage, for it to be decisively werkened trom above Mikhail Gorbachev did not want to unleash such a revolution, nor was hel capable of doing so. His aim was to preserve the system and reform it, not io destroy it.
Gorbachev's attempt to radically reform the system was not primarily motivated by ideological reasons, but by the deeper and deeper crisis that the USSR slid into from the late 1970s. This was shown in a number of ways:
• The continual decline in economic growth, which had been lower than the • The impossibility, in these conditons, of simultaneousty maintaiming economic modernisation, the arms race, a regumar increase in the popular standard of living, and maintaining and increasins the bureaucracy s prvueses.
• The defeat of the attempt to prove the quatty of inoustrat produc tion. That requires making a priority of quality rather than quantity, exact calglasnost in the economy, and more say for consumens. bureaucratic dictatorship.
This had a number of consequences:
• A big social decline, with more Features Not much in the marketplace for Russian workers lez Coulsc at the last minute (his words) to liquidate the USSR. Both have been regional caders of the stalinist apparatus since Corbachev'scarly days. Both rely on the local' KGB, which has hardly changed.
At the start of the putsch, both took an expectant, if not favourable, attitude o it. Both knowingly used the popula: feeling of revolt gainst national oppression to convert themselves into 'nationalist leaders'.
And their cynicism was particularly highlighted by the fact that they did not hesitate to associate themselves with Yeltsin, a genuine Great Russian chauvinist - how long for is a different question.
The only conclusion is that there is stilla three-cornered struggle. Fractions oi the top nomenxiatura, forces that are for the restoration of capitalism - bourseoas in the socut sense - dha the work ing masses are three distinct forces with A new putsch?
New putsches are possible. Yeltsin risks rapidly losing his popularity, given the anti-working class policies that he is implementing:
him there is already the sinister figure of Vladimir Shirinovsky, the Soviet Le Pen, who associates himself with the Tsar and Pinochet. He has the support of some of the army and is openly Great Russian, anti-semitic and racist. His popularity should not be underestimated.
All this adds up to a situation which is neither revolutionary nor pre-revolutionary. As a social force, the working