Greek workers, students and professionals joined the biggest general strike in the country’s history on 28 February. More than 380 demonstrations were held across Greece and internationally, with sizable protests happening in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.
The mass outpouring was in solidarity with the victims of a 2023 accident on the Thessaloniki-Athens rail, in which a collision between a passenger train and a freight train claimed the lives of 57 people in the Tempe Valley.
In the two years since, the fallout from the crash has shaped Greek politics. The conservative government has tried to silence the uproar. From tampering with evidence to smearing the movement for justice as a ploy by opposition parties, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the New Democracy party, never took any responsibility or took any action to bring to justice those responsible for the crash. Instead, the whole case has been blamed on a single station operator in Larissa.
Yet an increasing amount of evidence revealing government interference, negligence and corruption has been brought to light. This reached a boiling point on 18 January, when Kontra News released voice messages containing the harrowing last words of passengers calling the European emergency line. Massive protests followed this development, providing a glimpse of the scale of the demonstrations that engulfed Greece a month later.
The recorded words of a young woman have become a slogan of the movement: “I have no oxygen”. This proved that many of the victims did not die in the initial collision but were engulfed in a massive fireball caused by dangerously flammable fuel being transported without the proper safety precautions, which the Greek state should have had full knowledge of.
Indeed, the National Organisation for the Study of Aviation and Rail Accidents and Transport Safety found that the fireball was “the result of flammable material on the freight train, and not of the collision of the trains”. It also found that poor and antiquated safety nets were caused by “poorly maintained and increasingly degrading infrastructure and a structural shortage of staff to continue to provide the usual service”, which in turn was caused by government funding cuts.
Furthermore, the Syriza government privatised the rail company TrainOSE and sold it to Italy’s national railway holding company for 45 million euros in 2016. This led to further cost-cutting, as the company was now run for profit and not for public use. The Greek working class understands that this crime results from the austerity measures imposed on workers, the slashing of public spending, and the privatisation of public goods. 
The 28 February general strike was the third in the past twelve months. It was distinctively political, and brought airports, docks, train lines, universities, hospitality and retail to a standstill. The protests were huge, the most significant being in Athens and Thessaloniki. Photographs from drones could not capture all of the crowds. While the scale is hard to measure, local journalist Nikos Evagelatos put it simply: “It was everyone”.
Greek workers have a long history of resistance and recent memories of the massive movement that fought against the austerity memorandums brought by consecutive governments after the global financial crisis. While that movement was defeated when the Syriza government capitulated to the demands of the European ruling class, this movement shows us that struggle can be reinvigorated. 
The message was clear on the placards and banners, and in the chants: it is their profits, over our lives. Similar conditions exist here in Australia. NSW railway workers have been in a long dispute with the state government over pay, conditions and safety. As consecutive ALP and Liberal governments slash public spending, criminalise unions and privatise public goods, a small clique benefits while the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves.
The mass mobilisations of Greek workers and students remind us of the recent anti-austerity movement and show us that something new can come of this situation: a movement of even greater proportions that can not only bring justice to the 57 people who lost their lives in that terrible night two years ago, but bring a new world free from the bloodthirst of capitalism.

Dimitrios Tafidis

Mass resistance breaks out in Greece

Mass demonstrations have taken place across Greece in recent weeks, as students protest against a bill, tabled in the parliament in December by conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which would introduce private universities into the country. 
Article sixteen of the Greek constitution guarantees free education “exclusively provided by institutes that consist of public entities with full self-governance”. 
Mitsotakis argues that the introduction of private universities would foster competition and force both public and private institutions to innovate and improve. The prime minister’s deputy, Pavlos Marinakis, also argues that Greece has “lagged behind too many years” when it comes to “modernising” education, according to reports in Kathimerini, an Athens-based daily newspaper.
Article sixteen has for decades protected public universities from privatisation, and also prevented the growth of a two-tier, public-private system, which would benefit only the children of wealthy families. 
So students have responded to the proposed bill with protests and campus occupations. Students chanting “Not a step back!” and “Hands off our degrees!” are a sign that the government’s arguments have not cut through.
Mass student assemblies in most universities have voted for the struggle to move forward, with a notable example being the University of Macedonia, where an assembly of more than 800 students last week voted to extend the occupation of the university in a supermajority vote of 77 percent.
 In an article published at left-wing news site Epohi, Foivos Zantes, Ioanna Mpoutza and Haris Halakatevakis, elected representatives of university unions, write: “Our demands must become everyday conversation in every workers’ union, in every organisation, in every cafe, because it affects all of us”.
The attempt to privatise education is not new. In 2004, the conservative government of Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, emboldened by a strong electoral victory, was set to carry out a wave of attacks against workers and students. One of those attacks was the rewriting of article sixteen. 
In April 2006, Greek students found the courage to step onto the streets. The following month, fifteen university occupations took place following a mass rally. By June, there were 420 occupations covering practically all schools and universities. In September, university teachers joined in an indefinite strike against the attacks. 
While the strike ended after six weeks, it helped turn the tide against the government. By December, it was clear that the bill proposing the constitutional amendment would not get the needed support in the parliament, something that could be attributed to the mass movement. The students defeated the bill through the power of organised mass struggle. 
Today’s students remember the struggle of 2006 and are taking inspiration from it. 
It is still early in the year, but students have already stopped the bill from being passed in January, contrary to the government’s wishes. Many student organisations are calling on the trade unions to act and prepare for a “blackout” if the bill is presented for a vote in parliament. The university workers’ union has responded by joining the student marches and giving speeches at the mass assemblies.
The students have learned that the only way to defeat the attacks they are facing is through mass struggle. It will be a long year, but they know they can win—they have done so before.

Greek students defend free education

The decades after World War Two were marked by increasing politicisation around the world. Greece was no different. While the left was defeated in the Greek civil war, which ended in 1949, socialists, through the leadership of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), continued to organise. This led to arrests, repression and even executions of anyone associated with the KKE. 
The years following the civil war were marked by political unrest and increasing dissatisfaction with the status quo. This unrest culminated in a mass movement in 1965 that lasted for two years. This period was marked by major strikes, protests and demonstrations against the repression by the state. The economic prosperity of the time meant there was room for concessions, but the situation worried the ruling class, as workers were once again on the offensive. On 21 April 1967, a military coup installed a dictatorship, known as the Junta, to quell the unrest. 
After the coup, all trade unions and worker organisations were declared illegal, and all political parties were dissolved. The years that followed were marked by extreme repression and brutality.
The coup did not come as a surprise to the masses of Greece. However, the KKE made no effort proactively to organise workers against it. Instead, the Communists put their trust in parliamentary democracy, specifically, the United Democratic Left (EDA) party. On the very day of the coup, Communist newspaper Avgi published an article arguing that a right-wing coup would not happen. 
This caused the left to go into disarray, with part of the KKE splitting to form the Communist Party of Greece, Interior (KKE-es), a split that left both parties much weaker. Both KKE and KKE-es, rather than take the opportunity to build a mass anti-capitalist and anti-dictatorship left, sought to create alliances with the “progressive” bourgeoisie, which at this time was reaping the fruits of hyper-exploitation and non-existent labour laws. 
This approach led both parties to contain and restrict the struggle to minor demands. An essay published in 1976 by the KKE Central Committee outlined its condemnation of the occupations of the law school and opposed any broadening of the struggle to more radical demands.
This collaborationist line continued throughout the dictatorship, the KKE seeking to build alliances with the sections of the ruling class that were against military rule, and the KKE-es arguing that the only hope for change was through the slow liberalisation of the Junta from within the bourgeois institutions of power. Mpampis Drakopoulos, a leading member of the KKE-es, emphasised that it was vital that the country return to the “road of democratic stability”.
Despite this, resistance to the Junta started in 1972, with small strikes beginning in workplaces and demonstrations on the campuses, and massively increased in 1973. The youth were the most rebellious, with the ruling institutions trying to recruit them to militarism and nationalism but failing. Instead, they were influenced by the international struggle. 
This struggle took the form of university protests demanding liberalisation and major reforms. The Junta responded with mass repression, beatings and conscription. 
The students were quick to answer. On 21 February 1973, they occupied the Polytechnic Law School. This demonstration shattered the Junta’s grip on society and pulled people from other social layers behind the students, most importantly workers. The message of the workers and students was clearly understood through their main slogan, “Bread, Education, Liberation”, a slogan that is still heard today at rallies, strikes and demonstrations. 
Both the Communist parties were against the occupation, stating that the struggle should restrict itself to student demands, so as not to upset the bourgeoisie they made alliances with. 
This created the space for the revolutionary left to take initiative and push the struggle forward. On 20 March, after a month of harsh repression from the forces of the regime, the students decide to retake the Law School, but this time were met by the armed police units of the Junta, as well as the army and fascist gangs.
The students now knew that they needed the support of the working class to defeat the Junta. The final fight came in November of that year. On 14 November, the students, who at the time were meeting to make plans for the year ahead, got news that there was a large police mobilisation in the Polytechnic. The revolutionaries immediately argued to end the meetings and mobilise a rally to counter the police. 
More than 500 students arrived at the Polytechnic, and fighting ensued between the students and the police. Half of the students broke the police lines and locked themselves on the campus, while the rest continued fighting in the nearby streets. 
Again, the KKE and KKE-es were against the occupation, the KKE accusing those who entered the campus of being agents of the dictatorship, in an article published the following year in the newspaper Panspoudastiki.
The revolutionary left, however, argued tirelessly to the students and passers-by about the importance of their actions and attracted more and more support for their occupation. By the dawn of 15 November, through to the evening of the next day, the struggle continued and reached new heights.
The struggle had become an uprising. University occupations spread to most major cities across Greece, workers, farmers and students all taking part.
The regime responded by sending the army and deploying tanks in the streets of Athens. Soldiers shot at protesters with live ammunition from the morning of 16 November until night, in an attempt to scare the protesters. 
The <a>students</a> chanted: “Workers-soldiers united! You are our brothers!” But it wasn’t enough. On the early dawn of 17 November a tank ran through the gate of the Athens Polytechnic. The actual number of the casualties remains unknown, but it is estimated that 59 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured.
While the November uprising was not enough to topple the regime, it proved to be an important nail in the coffin of the seven-year-long regime, which finally collapsed on 24 July 1974, under the pressure of the failed attempt to introduce the draft in response to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
To this day, the Polytechnic uprising is seen as a heroic act of resistance. The forces of the left return to the gates of the campus in the thousands every year on 17 November to remember the struggle that took place 50 years ago.

Mass resistance breaks out in Greece

Greek students defend free education

The Polytechnic uprising 50 years on

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