In most countries, following the collapse of Stalinism in 1989-91, the working class is still without its own mass political organisations. Syriza and other ‘new left formations’ were initial attempts at filling that void but they failed. One decade on HANNAH SELL looks back at Syriza in government and draws the lessons for today.
On Friday 28 February, 2025 more than a million people took to the streets across Greece, a tenth of the entire population. The general strike, the biggest in many decades, was called to demand justice for the victims of the Tempe train crash that had happened two years earlier. The strike’s demands – against austerity and privatisation, for pay increases and the restoration of collective bargaining – represented an uprising against everything the Greek working class has suffered over the last sixteen years, where average household expenditure today is 31% lower, in real terms, than it was in 2009.It showed beyond doubt that the Greek working class has re-entered the scene of history, a decade on from the defeat resulting from the betrayal of Syriza – ‘the coalition of the radical left’ – which was swept to power in January 2015, only to capitulate seven months later.
Inevitably, as the class struggle in Greece intensifies, discussions will take place on the lessons of the Syriza government. Nor is it relevant to Greece alone. The coming to power, and then the capitulation, of Syriza was one of several experiences of ‘new left formations’ that surged in the wake of the 2008-09 Great Recession. This was a period of generalised capitalist crisis. In the Eurozone the capitalists of the most powerful countries, particularly Germany, inflicted brutal austerity on the weaker countries of the ‘periphery’ – Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The working class fought back in every country, with general strikes in Spain, Portugal, Italy and above all Greece. New left political formations developed in a number of countries – from Podemos in Spain to Corbynism in Britain – but the lessons of Syriza, where the class struggle reached the highest pitch and the betrayal was deepest, are particularly stark.
Greece’s economy shrunk by more than 27% from 2008 to 2014, a similar scale to that suffered by the US working class in the Great Depression from 1929-1933. Inevitably the Greek ruling class was determined that it should be the working class that paid for the crisis. They were backed up by the institutions of global capitalism. As the economic crisis left the Greek government facing default on its huge debts, the ‘troika’, made up of the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the EU, granted ‘bailout packages’. More than half of all the bailout money was consumed servicing existing debts, and it came with ‘stringent conditions’ of wholesale privatisation, cuts in public spending and other austerity measures, including a 22% reduction in the minimum wage. Unemployment soared from around 8% in 2008 to 28% in 2013. Youth unemployment hit a peak of nearly 60%.
The Greek working class did not accept the misery on offer. They fought against it with incredible determination. Between 2010 and 2015 there were around 40 general strikes. There was a wave of workplace occupations. Significant social struggles erupted throughout the country, particularly in 2011-12, including the movement to ‘occupy the squares’ of Greek towns and cities.
The working class also sought an electoral weapon with which to wage struggle. At the beginning, in the 2009 general election, PASOK, the ex-Social Democratic Party, came to power with over three million votes (43.9%), winning 160 seats in a parliament of 300. In that election Syriza received 315,627 votes – just 4.6% of the total. PASOK, no different to Starmer’s Labour, implemented brutal austerity on behalf of the capitalist class. Consequently, in 2011 PASOK prime minister George Papandreou was forced to resign and, in order to be able to continue acting in the interests of the capitalist class, PASOK formed a ‘government of national unity’ with New Democracy, the traditional capitalist party, equivalent to the Tories in Britain.
In 2012 there were two general elections, in May and then – after attempts to form a government failed – again in June. In both elections PASOK was severely punished for doing the bidding of the troika and the elite. In the second election it was reduced to 13% of the vote and 33 seats. Syriza, standing under the slogan ‘for a government of the left’ made gains – reaching 26% of the vote and 71 seats in June – but it was New Democracy which came to power with 30% of the vote. New Democracy, of course, continued with the same brutal austerity as before. In the next general election, in January 2015, PASOK was annihilated, gaining just 4.6% of the vote, New Democracy’s vote fell by a small amount, and Syriza surged to power with over 2.24 million votes, 36.3% of the total. They were two MPs short of a majority, but formed a government with the small right-wing Independent Greeks party.
Syriza in office
The Greek working class voted for Syriza, up to then a minor party, because they saw it as the only option available that would fight in government in defence of their living conditions. Syriza’s 2015 general election programme was limited and more ‘moderate’ than its 2012 programme – the election slogan was now ‘for a government of social salvation’ – but it promised the end of austerity, an increase in the minimum wage, re-introduction of the abolished ‘13th month’ payment for poorer pensioners, free public transport for the poorest, free healthcare for all, the creation of 300,000 jobs, and some other pro-working class reforms. It said it would be able to implement this programme because it would renegotiate the bailout agreements and ‘request’ debt relief.
At that stage Greece’s government debts were 175% of GDP, the second highest in the world. Immediately, the new government faced a showdown with the troika. Under the terms of the 2012 bailout, each loan payout to Greece had to be approved by the Eurogroup (the finance ministers of Eurozone countries) and the IMF. Before each pay out they ‘reviewed’ Greece’s compliance with their draconian terms. Syriza came to office as the final review was taking place, with £5.1 billion of loan money depending on its outcome, and any future loans being dependent on a new agreement.
Immediately, the Syriza government stepped back. It agreed to a four-month extension on the existing loan programme based on accepting no reduction in debts, a continuation of ‘structural reform’ overseen by the troika, and an agreement that the Greek government would make no ‘unilateral changes’ without troika say so. This was a serious retreat, but it might have been legitimate, had they openly told the Greek working class that this was a temporary measure to give time to prepare the necessary struggle for victory next time – and, of course, proceeded to do so. Instead, however, Alexis Tsipras, the Syriza leader and Greek prime minister, claimed that the agreement “broke the cycle of austerity”. Yanis Varoufakis, the finance minister, declared that first deal as “pivotal”, based on “genuine negotiations” in a “relationship of equals”.
Later, once Varoufakis had resigned, he told an entirely different story, saying of his meetings with the Eurogroup: “You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on, to make sure it’s logically coherent, and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem – you’d have got the same reply”. That dishonest approach, covering up the reality of the situation – not only then but throughout the negotiations – left the working class ill-prepared for what was to come. Yet despite the retreats and obfuscation at the top, the Greek working class repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to defy the troika.
Following months of ‘negotiations’, or more accurately “an exercise in mental waterboarding” as one EU official called them, the Greek government had not moved the troika one centimetre with their supposed ‘skilful arguments’, or their willingness to crawl on their bellies to show how reasonable they were. At no point did the government call on the Greek working class to take to the streets, never mind to strike, in support of its anti-austerity programme. Meanwhile, disgracefully, the government continued to pay back the debts to the troika even while the troika were refusing any new funding, leading to further savage cuts in public spending.
In desperation, on Friday 26 June 2015, Tsipras called a referendum for 5 July on the troika’s latest ‘loan-for-austerity’ proposal. He did not do this in a first attempt to mobilise the working class to take on the troika, but in the hope that the result would give him cover for a final capitulation. Regardless of the government’s intentions, however, the class forces on both sides responded decisively.
The Greek capitalist class and all of the establishment parties raged against the Syriza government – and how it was responsible for the impending collapse of society. The Eurogroup suspended negotiations and let the existing bailout programme expire, and the ECB refused to increase emergency funding to the Greek banking system. By the end of the weekend, it was clear that banks were in danger of becoming insolvent if they opened as normal on Monday. The government therefore – very belatedly – introduced capital controls and shut the banks, along with the Athens stock market.
The majority of the working class, however, were not fooled by the lies. When the referendum came the ‘Oxi’ or No vote was 61%. Not a single county had a majority for ‘Yes’ to accept the troika’s austerity ultimatum. The class divide was clear. In working-class districts 70% or above voted ‘No’, whereas in wealthy areas 70% and above voted ‘Yes’. Young people also stood firm – with 85% of 18-25 years olds voting ‘No’. The Syriza government took this magnificent victory – and handed it to the enemy. Tsipras immediately called a council of the leaders of all the political parties and accepted their programme. The government then proceeded to accept the demands of the troika, which insisted on an even worse, more brutal deal than the one that had been on offer the previous month. The Syriza government had capitulated utterly.
Lessons being learned
What lessons are there to be learnt from this sorry tale? Firstly, the enormous determination and heroism of the working class once it takes the road of struggle. It is a testament to the power and resistivity of the country’s working class that a decade after such a serious defeat it is back in action. Nor is Greece alone. We have seen mass workers’ struggles in a number of countries over recent years, including northern European countries like Britain and Germany where the fightback has been on a much bigger scale than at the time of the Great Recession.
Globally, capitalism today is an ailing and increasingly decrepit system. In Greece, the economy has returned to modest growth over the last couple of years, but there has been no recovery in the conditions of the working class. Wages are 30% lower than in 2007 in real terms. All the pain of the troika’s ‘restructuring packages’ has only bought Greece’s debt to GDP ratio down to around 160%. While the Greek working class has suffered particularly badly, there is no European country where the working class is experiencing a sustained rise in living standards. Austerity is the capitalist norm now, even before the looming global downturn hits. As a result, everywhere there is rage against the elites, and consequently a hollowing out or even shattering of traditional parties. ‘Pasokification’ has entered the dictionary to describe this process, but it is not peculiar to Greece – in fact it is likely to be in British prime minister Keir Starmer’s future!
However, the consequences of the defeat for the working class represented by the collapse of Stalinism in Russia and Eastern Europe over three decades ago have not yet been fully overcome. In most countries the working class lack mass political organisations. Syriza and the other ‘new left formations’, which were the first attempts to fill that vacuum, failed.
In Greece the current movement again objectively poses the need for a new party. Syriza is currently on around 6% in the polls, PASOK has recovered slightly to around 12%. Clearly both are now accurately seen by the majority of the working class as representing the interests of the elite. The Greek Communist Party, the KKE, which still has some base in the working class, has now overtaken Syriza and is on around 9%. The KKE took a sectarian position on the 2015 struggle – standing aside and predicting betrayal – rather than fighting for the concrete steps forward that were needed. In January 2015 it refused to commit to its MPs allowing Syriza to form a minority government, thereby giving Tsipras an excuse for the coalition with the Independent Greeks. Incredibly, in the referendum they called for an abstention. Nonetheless, the moderate increase in their support shows of a layer of Greeks consciously looking for a left alternative.
At the same time, three different far-right parties entered parliament in the last election, with 16% of the vote between them. A mood exists among broad layers of the working class in many countries at this stage that all politicians inevitably defend the interests of the 1%. Given the absence of mass workers’ parties, some express their rage by voting for right populist or far-right politicians, while others abstain from voting. In Greece, given the depth of Syriza’s betrayal, those moods are absolutely inevitable.
But that is only one side of the issue. The other is that the Greek working class experienced firsthand the brutality of capitalism and had bitter experiences that point to what a workers’ government would need to do to genuinely act in the interests of the working class and poor. As the question of how the movement can develop a political voice is inevitably raised again, so will other vital questions about why Syriza’s leadership capitulated, and what kind of party – with what programme – is needed to avoid future betrayals.
Capitulation was not preordained. Had Syriza used its position to act in the interests of the working class of Greece the situation would have been transformed. That would have required rejecting the memorandums, immediately imposing capital controls and a state monopoly on foreign trade, and nationalising the commanding heights of the economy, under democratic workers’ control and management. This could not, of course, have been carried out successfully if the struggle was limited to proclamations by the Greek parliament. It would have needed a mass mobilisation of the Greek working class in support of such a programme, but the Oxi vote, and the wave of workplace occupations that took place, gave an indication of the potential for the working class to act in support of a programme in defence of their class interests.
An appeal for solidarity to the working class continent-wide, and in Turkey and the Middle East, would have also been required. But there is no doubt that such an appeal would have garnered a huge response. At that stage the working class in all the countries of the periphery were engaged in their own huge battles against austerity, and were watching the Greek drama on tenterhooks, urging the Greek working class to victory. The capitalist classes of Europe understood this. Bailing out Greece, a small economy, was not theoretically impossible for them – except that it would lead to unstoppable demands from the other countries like Italy, with an economy ten times as big. Had the Syriza government been prepared to fight, it would have had a tremendous effect on galvanising and giving confidence to the working class across Europe and beyond to fight for a socialist transformation of society.
Some defenders of Syriza argue that such socialist measures were impossible in Greece because it is part of the Eurozone. It is true that a workers’ government coming to power in any of the Eurozone countries would face a more complex situation than in those with their own currency. It would have been necessary for the nationalised banks to have quickly issued a transitional domestic currency in order to ensure wages were paid and society able to function. However, the same fundamental issues would apply. The European Union is not a nation state. It has no independent armed forces and very limited powers. The Eurogroup was not some ‘supranational’ all-powerful institution, it was made up of the finance ministers of the individual EU states.
In reality, any government taking decisive measures in defence of the working class – in or out of the Eurozone – would face every imaginable attempt at sabotage from all of the institutions of capitalism – domestic and global. There is no doubt that, for example, a workers’ government in Britain would face bond market sabotage on a scale that would make the troubles encountered by the Tory premier Liz Truss look like nothing – which could only be effectively countered by the same fundamental programme that was required in Greece.
We also got a hint in Britain, when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party, that the machinery of the capitalist state is not neutral but ultimately defends the existing order. Remember the ominous public statements by a number of serving army generals about the prospects of a Corbyn government: like Britain’s most senior general expressing his “worry” that Corbyn’s programme might ever be “translated into power”. They were warnings of how far the capitalist class would be willing to go against a democratically elected government. The Syriza leadership naively hoped to avoid such problems by, at every stage, Tsipras showing the Greek capitalist class, and the institutions of the troika, how ‘reasonable’ he and his government was, including bringing in a NATO commander and general as undersecretary of defence. Such measures could never have prevented the capitalists brutally defending their interests.
However, that does not mean that a future workers’ government – whether in Greece or Britain – would be powerless to take decisive socialist measures. Provided it had the active support of the majority of the working class it is the capitalist class who would be powerless to stop it. The working class, and large parts of the middle class, turned to Syriza because they wanted a party that was prepared to stand up against the troika, and take the struggle ‘to the end’. That included some who had previously voted for the right. It is estimated that 11.5% of New Democracy voters, and 12% of voters for the neo-fascist Golden Dawn, switched to Syriza in the January 2015 general election. In the aftermath of the election their support swelled further as Greeks hoped that real change was coming. Had Syriza set out to take every necessary step to defeat austerity, being honest with the working class at each stage about what was needed and mobilising their support, they could have been unstoppable.
What was the character of Syriza?
The particular weaknesses of Syriza, and the other ‘new formations’ of the period, were a factor in the complete capitulation of its leadership. However, there is no organisational structure which a party can adopt to prevent class struggles being played out within it. In the Great Recession and its aftermath Greece was the country in which the class struggle reached its highest pitch, as a result of the depth of the crisis of capitalism and the heroism of workers’ struggle. It would be laughable to argue that the capitalist class – facing a mass movement that threatened its interests – would ever leave any left or workers party with widespread support free to do as it pleased. Instead, a combination of hostile attacks from the outside, combined with a ferocious campaign for ‘moderate’ – ie pro-capitalist – policies from within, was absolutely inevitable.
That is why there was a crucial need for a Marxist nucleus, tested over the previous period, with sufficient roots in the working class to become a serious factor in the struggle, and a concrete programme able to point a way forward at each phase of the movement. A sufficiently strong party of this type did not exist in Greece a decade ago, nor today, but the need for such a party is the single most important lesson from the Syriza experience.
That is not to argue, however, that it is a question of a revolutionary Marxist party alone. On the contrary, it is inevitable that, on the basis of the experience of struggle, broad sections of the working class will begin to draw conclusions about needing their own political voice, and set out to forge new parties. Such parties are bound, at least initially, to be ‘broad’ parties containing sections of the working class with varying outlooks on what programme is needed and, of course, those elements – particularly in the leadership – who ultimately, whether conscious of it or not, act as agents of the interests of the capitalist class. Nonetheless, by providing a forum for workers to test out the different programmes that will inevitably emerge and draw the necessary conclusions, such parties will be a step forward, and an opportunity for revolutionary Marxists to intervene with a programme offering a way forward.
Syriza, however, could never have accurately been described as a mass workers’ party. Tsipras’s first cabinet said a lot about the makeup of the party leadership. It was jam-packed with university academics – the Minister of Public Order was a criminology theorist, the Minister of Shipping a historian, the Minister of Education a philosopher, and so on. However, it was not only a question of the leadership. The party’s membership peaked at around 35,000, and although it temporarily won the votes of wide sections of the working class, it never had significant or deep-rooted working-class involvement. Therefore, while there is no doubt that the mass of the working class was horrified by Syriza’s betrayal, they had no means to put pressure on its leadership from within. As a result, while it’s true that left splits from Syriza took place in the wake of the government capitulation, they had limited social support, and did not pass the threshold to get into parliament in the general election of September 2015.
By contrast, the capitalist class had been working for a period to make Syriza more subject to their pressure and influence. Syriza’s name, ‘the coalition of the radical left’, was an accurate reflection of its initial structure. It was founded in 2004 as an electoral alliance of different left organisations – who maintained their own independent programmes and activity – but came together on common electoral lists. The initial instigators of Syriza were Synaspismos, which Tsipras was part of and who were Eurocommunists (right-wing split-offs from Communist Parties who accepted the logic of the market). Most of the other component organisations had programmes to the left of Synaspismos.
It was after the 2012 general elections, when it became clear that Syriza was heading towards government, that Tsipras used his authority, along with others from Synaspismos, to drive through a change in Syriza’s federal structure. The components were ordered to dissolve into one centralised party at a congress in July 2013. The party president was no longer elected by the national committee, but by the party congress, which only met every three years. That meant that Tsipras, the president, was largely freed from being held to account by the party’s democratic structures. Syriza’s organisational framework had become, in essence, no different to that of PASOK or New Democracy.
These points have relevance to the tasks ahead in Britain. The Socialist Party argues that at least the first stage in the development of a new mass workers’ party will need a federal approach – allowing different trade unions and socialist organisations to collaborate together in the electoral field without giving up their own programmes and independence. This was the basis on which the Labour Party was initially built, which didn’t even have individual membership up until 1918. A common counter-argument is that a party can only be successful if it is far more centralised. The reality of the Syriza experience however, is that success – reaching 26% of the vote – came for a federal electoral alliance, and the process of centralisation was not needed to ensure victory in the following general election but rather to try and remove the pressure of the party base on the leadership, in order to free it to behave ‘moderately’ in office. Syriza’s programmatic move to the right and its organisational centralisation were intrinsically bound together and prepared the ground for the path which Syriza took in office.
Tsipras and co were probably genuine in their belief that their ‘rational’ and ‘reasonable’ arguments and behaviour could convince the Troika and Greek capitalism to cease trying to drive the Greek working class into the dirt, but reality bashed them over the head. In response they capitulated, but the Greek working class demonstrated its enormous capacity for struggle. Greece 2015 was one of the first major class conflicts of this age. The lessons to be learnt are myriad, but key are the capacity of the working class to struggle, the need for genuine mass workers’ parties, and to fight for such parties to break with capitalism and build a new socialist order; and – above all – the urgency of building a Marxist organisation, with roots, tested in struggle, and capable of advancing the programme needed to take the movement forward at every stage of the huge battles ahead, of which Greece 2015 was a foretaste.