Announcement of OKDE on the "Macedonian" Agreement
ORGANIZATION OF COMMUNISTS INTERNATIONALISTS OF GREECE
19 June 2018
1.The "Macedonian issue", the outcome of which is the Tsipras-Zaev agreement, was rushed at the end of 2017. Not because the new Zaev government had just ascended to power in neighboring Macedonia (the result of essentially a putschist, led by the American imperialists, overthrow of the previous Gruevski government). Neither because Tsipras wanted to close a pending issue, and so on. The issue was opened up by the American and European imperialists, so as to accelerate Macedonia's accession to NATO and the EU. The American imperialists, with the active role of the US ambassador in Greece G. Pyatt, are the ones who designed, orchestrated, executed, encouraged and guided the negotiations. It is they who "pushed" Tsipras and Zaev, and they are mainly those who threatened the opposition in Macedonia and its president Ivanov (with reference to a court for their scandals), in an effort to ensure as much as possible the achievement of the agreement. Their goal is obviously to include the Balkans, and especially the states of former Yugoslavia, in the EU and NATO in order to expel Russia and China from the Balkans, to exclude them from the Middle East, to bring Turkey over to their complete influence, to crush Iran, to crush the resistance and struggle of people and workers in the wider region, to control again Syria and the Middle East.
2.This does not mean that the opening of the issue was not to Tsipras’ interest. On the contrary. It was an opportunity for the government: a) To conceal the devastating and degrading measures of the Fourth “Assessment”, the Medium-Term Program, the “Enhanced supervision”, the permanent memoranda, and, more so, serving the imperialists, to look for verbal concessions on the debt issue. Which would allow the government to "sell" politically the "exit from Memoranda", the "return to normality" and generally their miserable and non-existent "success story". b) To appear as a reputable representative of the interests of the Greek bourgeoisie and of the imperialists, in order to stay in power as long as possible. c) To create a problem to ND (New Democracy) and secondarily to KINAL (Movement of Change – “coalition” of Pasok, Potami and Dhmar), dividing them between their desire to serve the interests of the Greek bourgeoisie and the imperialists, on the one hand, and the pressure inside them by the far-right or nationalists on the other.
However, these plans threaten to become a boomerang for the government. Indeed, ND has been trapped and divided between its desire to fulfill the interests of the imperialists and the Greek bourgeoisie and, on the other hand, to keep its electoral base untouched and to prevent its outflanking by a new far-right party. Its attempt to oppose the deal verbally, seem to be difficult to help it escape (it is a bit difficult to repeat Samara's tricks on the 1st Memorandum in 2012). However, the issue poses a huge problem in the government's electoral response - the life of the government seems to end in a few months - but also within the coalition government (problems in ANEL).
3.The Agreement has the seal of the American and European imperialists in their attempt to reconcile temporarily two nationalisms (Greek and Macedonian) so as to promote their plans. This is done in the well-known hobbled, cowardly way - and most of all in the deceitful and undermining way for the interests of the workers of the two countries and of the Balkans, and of the wider region in general. Because, in essence, the issue had been more or else resolved in practice (and these data are not about to change significantly with the agreement): the neighboring country was called the Republic of Macedonia, the nation Macedonian, the language Macedonian, and were thus recognized by almost all the countries of the world, and in any case by the most important ones. And, as the status was, the issue had been solved more or less in our country (Greece) as well, despite what nationalists of all shades have discovered and brought back again.
Thus, in the Agreement:
a) The citizenship/nationality is defined in a contradictory way: "Macedonian/citizen of Northern Macedonia", their language is defined as "Macedonian," and at the same time it is mentioned that the two states may translate however they want the word "Macedonian".
b) While nationality is defined in a contradictory way, it changes the name from the present "Republic of Macedonia" (which was also applied to the former "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia") to the "Republic of Northern Macedonia". This is both a humiliating change for the neighboring people, and it whets the appetite (as a geographical definition) to the surrounding Balkan nationalisms for dissolution or seizing or mutilation of the neighboring country, based on their own interests.
c) The agreement stipulates that "Ancient Macedonia" belongs to Greece, and this does nothing more than to extend the policy of the Balkan ruling classes of drawing the borders on the backs of the people. Now this policy is extended to also defining history based on the same logic, ignoring the mix of peoples and nations, their common and indivisible history, their common interests against the ruling Balkan classes and the imperialists who have sacrificed for their interests the peoples of the Balkans.
d) But above all: the Agreement has been born, shaped and identified and will survive mainly with the accession of Macedonia to NATO and the EU. In other words, this Agreement exists only for Macedonia to pass - but also Greece to remain- in the EU's exploitation, in the implementation of the memorandums, in the implementation of NATO projects.
4.All sorts of nationalists try to convince us that "the name is our soul," that above all it is "our homeland", and so on. But all of them have neither a "homeland" nor a "soul" nor do they hold anything "sacred". They try to convince us that "we are all to blame for the crisis", that "we all together abused the public wealth", etc., and that "we may have become poor, be humiliated with the memoranda”, but "if we keep our soul, then we will flourish again as a nation." This is the hideous and miserable "success story" of all those, who not only didn’t oppose the total collapse of wages and pensions, the misery and poverty, the takeoff of unemployment, the dissolution of education and healthcare, the humiliation and enslavement of the workers from the employers, even the removal of this pretext of "national sovereignty" and "popular sovereignty." All of them support the humiliating and predatory stay inside the EU, they are looking for American and European imperialists to save us from our "barbarian neighbors", they want to have the primacy of serving the most warlike and dirty interests and plans of NATO, of USA and the Western imperialists in general. All of them can be protesting against the government, but of course they are not demonstrating when wages and pensions are cut, or against the billions spent for new military equipment. All the more, they are not demonstrating against the EU or the American imperialists when US-N??? bases are expanding in Greece and decisively help bombings in Syria. When, with the help of the offensive axis of Greece and Israel, the latter slaughters the Palestinians – and so on. All those “merchants of homeland”, who take advantage of the reactionary feeling of nationalism, are always a useful reserve or even the "ultimate solution" of the Greek capitalists.
5.This Agreement, imposed by the imperialists, tries to solve the two-state “disagreement” in a hobbled and cowardly way, covering up somewhat two nationalisms, just to serve the interests of the imperialists. In this sense, this Agreement is completely temporary - and even if it reconciles two ruling classes in favor of the imperialists, it only does this in order to rekindle both nationalisms, to generalize their nationalism and the divisions in the Balkans and in our region. Just so they subjugate the working classes of the Balkans and of the region to the permanent memoranda and to the permanent war of the imperialists among themselves. That is, to solve the problem of the crisis of capitalisms and global capitalism at the expense of the working class.
The danger is great for the people of the Balkans. The "stability" invoked by Tsipras and Zaev is totally deceptive. The circle of the imperialist re-drawing of borders in the suffering Balkans and on the bodies of their peoples, which opened with the dissolution of the former united Yugoslavia, has not been closed. The risks to a new wave of nationalisms, conflicts or even wars in the region are growing with such agreements (e.g. the problem of the position of the Albanian minority in neighboring Macedonia). Especially with the Balkans are thrown by the American-NATO imperialists at the forefront of their ruthless aggression against Russia, in which the Balkan "eager" bourgeoisie and cliques will crowd out to offer their services to this new crusade, asking each one of their own part of the prey and their own "national rights" in exchange.
6.The attitude of the reformists in Greece is both unacceptable and criminal. In the name of their supposed opposition to NATO and imperialism, they stand with the greek bourgeois nationalism. Seeing everywhere only aggression from the neighboring side, citing the greek bourgeois "national sovereignty rights" or by denying with vulgarity the very existence of the neighboring people, parroting fully the bourgeois distortion of history. "There is no Macedonian nation and language," as D. Koutsoumpas said (general secretary of the KKE, the greek CP) - a phrase beyond any characterization for someone who claims to be a Communist. So, they are once again giving tribute to the bourgeoisie. KKE is the leader of this policy, but not just that it (see, for example, the left-wing forces flirting with the nationalist rallies). A policy that has nothing to do with the interests of the workers, with protecting the people from the dangers of wars in our region. Which has nothing to do with Proletarian Internationalism, the only truly communist policy and attitude on this issue.
7.Against the resurgence of nationalisms that the crisis of the capitalist system has brought to bear, against the murderous plans of the American and European imperialists to dominate our region against Russia and China, against the risk of sinking the Balkans into the swarm of the Middle East wartime slaughterhouse, against the permanent memoranda and the straitjacket of the EU and the ruling classes of the Balkans and the wider region, the workers, the youth and the poor common people in our country, in the Balkans and the wider region, we must unite. We must develop our common struggles, against the reactionary bourgeoisie and their political elites, against NATO, imperialism and war. Beyond nationalism, which means respecting the national self-determination of all of us, in our struggle to impose our own independent class interests, to liberate ourselves from the rotten capitalist system, the ruling classes, and the imperialists.