The entire Greek political spectrum has shifted sharply to the right. PASOK has done little to "anti-imperialist" front against Turkey and the USA, using the recognition of the Macedonian Republic by the USA and the EU to whip up Greek nationalism in their own interests. Greek from Athens. THE WHOLE of Europe has been hit in the last ten years by a rise in far-right and fascist parties.
A wave of nationalism spread like an avalanche when the regimes of so-called sotary"
absorbtion of Basi Germany by the West German imperialist state marked the end of an historical period.
The break up of the Soviet Union showed clearly how the stalinist bureaucracy had been incapable of solving the national question. It had simply hindered its free expression.
This demise of the bureau. cratic regimes provoked and abetted a risine of serbiar When the other republics asserted their claims to national independence the Belgrade leadership answered with military violence.
It is not an accident that nationalism developed so rap. idly when the cast Euronear states started to turn themseven tro "ordinary" bour- that the geois regimes National myths Nationalism and the cultivation of national myths and prejudices are indispensable components of the ruling ideology in capitalist states.
One of the strongest of Greck national myths is the military expansion of the Greek state during the so-called "Macedonian struggle" (1904—1908) and the Balkan wars (1912—1913).
The supposed liberation meant in reality the conquest by the Grock state of those areas Inasmuch as the population of the nowadays Grock areas of Macedonia and Thrace could not identify with the aims of the Greek state. result was the imposition of a new foreign yoke.
This was obviously the case in regard to all the Bulparians, slavomaccoonians. politics Turks, Vlachs, gypsies, Albanians, Jews and other minorities in the area. . in this sense, the expansion of the Greek state was "unjust" from a national point of view.
However, the state manfight it. The mainstream parties, the church and the mass media are trying to present a so-called Fourth Internationalist ANDREAS KLOKE reports aged over the course of sercral decades to unify and its aims, using violence and repression in many cases. so gle between "Greekness "of the dox" and state can no longer be denied The declaration of the Republic of Macedonia (FY. ROM) brought beck to life propaganda. many of the "forgotten" injustices which had been com. miloso cher natonalises a in particular the Slavomacedonians, and their minority population in Greece Greece is today the strong. Athens, Sofia, aids this process. Bucharest and Belgrade have forged an alliance donia. directed against all the "muslims" of the area. est economic and military power of the souther Balkans, with a very important roie in octermining paterns of ture in the future.
Athens, Sofia, Bucharest and Belgrade have forged an alliance directed against Albania, the Albanians of Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia and, indirectly. against Turkey and all thi Unwelcome embrace: Greek President Papandroou's government denies national rights and allles against 'muslims' "muslims" of the area. mail. It refuses to recognize The Greek bourgeoisie has any national minority on its not hesitated to drag up all the soil. talking only of "musmedieval legends about strug- lims" in regard to the Turkish "christian-ortho- and Pomac minorities in "islamic" groups Thrace. It denies the existence The mass media at the froot of of Slavomacedonians. the head of the spread of the In this policy it is behaving clerical hierarchy's chauvinist entirely like an imperialist They are sup- country. ported in this by the PASOK The reactionary Albanian "socialists" and the right. regime of Berisha has reIndeed, the policy of the sponded in the completely entire ruling class has under- wrong way. It has fostered gone a profound shift to ex- Greek nationalism by a farcical trial of the five members of treme nabonaism, arecang broad layers of the population. "Omonia". In doing it violated The lack of response by the the elementary rights of the traditional left-wing parties Greck minority in Albania.
Nevertheless, the Greek The essence of the policy is aggression towards Albania for the rise in tension. and the Republic of Mace- The entire Greek political spectrum has shifted sharply The Greck state uses all the to the right. PASOK has done economic power at its dis. little to fight it. And,despite a posal to impose its will, in- show of relection. both the cluding deportations of illegal Eurocommunist SYN and its Albanians and immigrants. GCP split have adapted to this and an economic embargo. shift.
Military engagement does They are near silent on the not appear its intention at the and the GCP colludes in the ing created for such an adven- state's aggressive foreign policy by calling Albania and the Grecoe is denying the right Republic of Macedonia proof self determination to the rectorates of US imperialism. Republic of Macedonia by its They are not even raising refusal of the symbols of state- opposition to the armament hood, and the controversy race which is dominating relaover the republic's name. tions between Greece and Turkey, devouring huge sums It IS aiso using AJdanian immigrants as a tool of black- ol money on bou sades The mainstream parties. the church and the mass media are trying to present a so-called "anti-imperialist" front against Turkey and the USA. using the recognition of the Macedonian Republic by the USA and the EU to whip up Greek nationalism in their own interests.
Greck-Turkish antagonism is one of the deepest roots of Grock nationalism. The nik of the bourgeoisie rests upon it This is what is behind the determination to new "anti-western" ideology spreading in Greece. It originates in the inter-imperialist quarrels fostered by the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Yet. despite the sharoness of the bickering, none of the belligerents are questioning Greck membership of NATO and the EU. Direct links with those who are the formal ob ject of such scom remains the backbone of stable bourgeois The poison of nationalism Is exploited by Turkish and Greek politicians. While Greek reactionarles exploit anti-Turkish chauvinism, the Turkish right proclaims the nationalist virtues of "Ataturkism'.
rule in Greece.
As the foreign policy of Greece becomes increasingly embroiled in the polscies of tate to its neighbours, so t00 does internal repression This provides the seedbed for growing racism. scapegoats and "traitors to national unity" are being picked Poison Nationalism remains the best vehicle for the bourgeoi.
particularly poisonous ideol.
ogy because it abuses the deepest human feelings of solidarity, compassion and community.
The struggle against the hots wave or coun who are striving for peace.
defending democratic rights and the rights of all working people, including immigrants The GCP. SYN and the trade unions are more or less boycotting this struggle in various attempts to align themselves with government Our medium term aim must be the construction of an anti-racist, anti-militarist and Equal rights It must include the princi oles of coual rights for all responding to norities - especially the Turks. Pomais and Slavomaccoontans - and r0oog nising their cultural traditions, languages and The trade embargo should militarisation of society halted. Instead of military agtional solidarity, especially with the people of BosniaHercerovins and the ordinary victims of the war in This is what OKDE, Greek section of the Fourth InternaBy the Editors ERNEST MANDEL, one of the world's most eminent Marxist economists and a lifelong revolutionary socialist activist, died in his native Belgium on the morning of July 20th, 1995.
In the post war period, there were few more passionate, eloquent and well known representatives on the internationa stage of the resolutonary tradition of Lenin and Trotsky than Ernest Mandel.
His life seemed to embody the struggles. hopes and setbacks of that period. Mandel would wish to be rerole as leader and foremost theoretician of the Fourth International, the world organisation founded by Leon Trotsky and his followers in 1938 to wreckage of Stalinism.
Resistance
Bor in 1923. Mandel joined the Trotskvist movement in Belgium in 1940, helping to rebuild an underground group after the Nazi invasion. He was active in the Resistance twice, ne was deporco to a prison camp in Germany in 1944. Prior 1o this, he had participated in the first ground sections of the Fourth International.
In 1946, the second world conros or the tatemational ciccico Mandel to its leadershin body. wher he remained on to his death. The 1950s proved difficult years for Trotskyists, in the context of an unexcapitalism.
Through this period of "crossing the desert", Mandel was instrumental in developing a non-sectarian and undogmatic brand of Marxism which allowed the Fourth International to link up with and grow rapidly out off the worldwide youth and student rad.
Mandel was a key intellectual in. fluence on many of the student lead. ers of the May 1968 revolt in France, leaders like Tariq Ali in Britain and Rudi Dutschke in Germany. In the post- 1968 period Mandel became one of the best-known spokespersons for revolutionary Marxism inthe charonary, analysiuk problems of the revolutionary move. mcat in a nost of pampnicis and icc* tures.
Banned
In that turbulent period it was evi. dent that the governments of the day did not regard Mandel as a minor irritant; he was barred at various penoos from catering te Unica stales. France, Switzerland, West Germany. The elas wildery wit de The militant solidarity with the oppressed evinced by his support for the student revolt, workers in strug. gle and oppressed nationalities was a tradition he maintained in recent years with the active support he gave to the revolutionary Sandinista gor. ernment in Nicaragua and the emer. Ernest Mandel speaking at 1988 Socialist Outlook rally supporting 50th anniversary of the Fl gence of the Workers Party in Brazil.
Shortly before his death, Mandel attended the fourteenth World Congress of the Fourth International; the building of that organisation, which today includes sizcable sections in countries as diverse as France, Sni Lanka and Mexico remained his central and burning concer until his Outside of the revolutionary movement, Mandel, who was Professor Emeritus at the Free University of Brussels, was best known for his pioneering work in the field of Marxist oconomics. "Marxist Eco-. nomic Theory" (1962) was an ambitious attempt at applying the principles of Marx's "Capita) to modern reality. "The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx" (1971) traced the develop. ment of Marx's economic analysis from the carly philosophical manuscripts to the writing of "Capital".
Mandel's most ambitious work was "Late Capitalism" (1975). which predicted the end of the period of rapid capitalist growth which had characterised the three decades subsequent to the second world war and put forward the theory of "long waves" of capitalist development (or rather updated the theory initially developed by honoraticy in the 19205/ The theory of long waves " has been at the centre of a debate going well bevond the circles of Marxist economists alone; it was restated in "The Long Waves of Capitalist Development", based on a series of lectures given at Cambridge University in is to be published by Verso later this year).
Global recession
"The Second Slump" (1978) was Mandels's attempt to analyze the global capitalist recession of 197475. Many readers will also be famil iar with the substantial introductions which Mandel wrote to the Penguin edition of Marx's "Capital".
Mandel's theoretical output was not confined to economics; he proSOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 88, August 1995, Page 11 duced a host of major works taking up a whole series of political and historic questions. Of these. "The Meaning of the Second World War" (1985) and the series of interviews collected as "Revolutionary Marxism Today"(1979) are perhaps the best introductions to the breadth of his thought.
.In recent years. Mandel's creative output barely flagged; he-produced major studies of Gorbachevism. tha nature of bureaucracy, and (most recently) "Trotsky as Alternative"
Mandel's activities in the wider labour movement. in particular in his native Belgium, should not he forgotten.
During the 1950s and 1960s he was a member of the economic stud. les commission of the FaTB. the well as cditor of the socialist newspa per La Gauche and he actively participated in trade unton and workers Optimism Always concerned with making economics accessible to workers. he took satisfaction in the fact that his "Introduction to Marxist Economics" had been translated into many languages and sold over half a million copies. From Class society so Communism" (1978), later republished as "Introduction to Marxism".
Mandel had been disappointed with many of the trends in global politics over the latter years of his life, but retained an unbreakable opamism, peraps best sumico up in the peroration to a talk he gave a couple of years before his death at the New York Marxist School: "Under. stand that you cannot be happier than if you know that you have dedicated your life to this defense of human nonis cyclywnere in the word, the defense of the exploited, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the de. spised. There is no better way to be a good numan being in this word than to dedicate your life to this great cause. That's why the future is with Marxism". 20th July 1995.
the Republic of Macedonia and using Albanian immigrants as a tool of blackmail.