Greek fascist party convicted of criminality

Written by: Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) on 9 October 2020

Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi organisation that was the third-largest party in the Greek parliament in the 2012 elections, has been convicted by the Athens Appeals Court of being a criminal organisation.

In 2012, the party won 18 seats on an anti-immigrant, racist ant-worker platform.  There are no seats held by the party in the current parliament.

In court were 68 member defendants jointly accused of running a criminal organisation.  Their crimes included the murder of an anti-fascist rapper musician, and violent attacks on migrants and left-wing political opponents. Five Golden Dawn members were convicted of the attempted murders of Egyptian fishermen and four of the attempted murder of communist activists in the PAME union

Excerpts from a statement released two days ago by the Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) follow:
………………..

More than 25,000 people gathered on Alexandras Avenue and surrounding streets ¬¬erupted in applause with the announcement of the decision of the Criminal Court of Appeals at the Golden Dawn trial. Only minutes later, riot police attacked with an obvious predetermined government plan to dismantle the rally with chemicals, flash grenades and water spraying from their modern new armored vehicles…

CPG (m-l), formed a militant block from 9.30 in the morning, with the goal of expressing with its banner, slogans and announcements its perception and political position both for the specific fascist-Nazi organization and its trial, as well as for the system that nurtured it and today "replaces" and "withdraws" it, because of its own contradictions, but of course also as a result of the pressure of the people. All left forces and the anarchists were present. People responded to the general call, despite the overall right-wing shift of the political scene and the anti-popular policies they have to endure, because they felt that this day "belonged" to them. All those tens of thousands of protesters in many cities of the country prove that reflexes still exist in the masses…

For years the imperialists, the bourgeoisie, the state and their system "invested" in Golden Dawn. They nurtured it, supported it, made it gigantic, they made the fascist "agenda" the basic political direction and implemented policy of all bourgeois governments. It was flesh from the flesh of the system, a helper to the repression mechanisms, an acceptable interlocutor for the bourgeoisie, a figure next to high-ranking government officials and not just system executives, with open multifaceted channels of communication between them. 

Today, they all lie and pretend they had nothing to do with it. However, the race for political exploitation of Golden Dawn’s "pool of votes", reveals otherwise. At a time of great pressure for the system on both the economy and the so-called national issues (economic and geostrategic memoranda, as we have called them), at a time when capitalist-imperialist aggression intensifies, an openly fascist version with an "anti-systemic" profile was useful, to channel the anger of the people in paths painless for the system. Always against the workers, the refugees-immigrants, the toilers, the youth. That is how the fascist formation was laundered…

All those who even had open political dealings with it, who tolerated its actions, who grafted their programs with extreme right-wing, chauvinist and racist positions, who knew of its high percentages in the police force, in the highest ranks of military and judicial level, pretend today that they were the ignorant and condemn this "exception" of their political system...

We are of the opinion that fascism -as the offspring of the system- will continue to exist and operate to its advantage. Its uprooting requires the strengthening of the workers and the revolutionary communist movement. As much as we rejoiced together with all the truly democratic and anti-fascist people, we also know that the womb that gives birth to it will continue to reproduce and transform it in various forms, more or less obvious, covered or uncovered. And if today the regime made the choice to "end" with the specific model of the criminal-knife-thrower who reveals and exposes it, the official political system will continue to promote fascist practices in public and political life. In this sense, fascism will disappear only when the working class and the people take over political power and the administration of society, when they overthrow the system of dependence and exploitation.

Until then, we have many more episodes of "resorting" to fascism to see, in its most official governmental, state versions. We are not done with fascism. The struggle continues!
 
October 7, 2020
The Press Office of CPG (m-l)

Print Version - new window Email article

-----