SOLIDARITY IS STRUGGLE AND ACTION

SOLIDARITY IS STRUGGLE AND ACTION

During the last years after the outbreak of the world financial crisis, which, since 2009 has hit Greece among others countries, the state, under the authority of international financial organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Union, has adopted a policy that aims to rescue the capitalistic system. This was followed at the same time by the intense increase of the suppression and the further hardening of the state against those who fight for the subversion of capitalism and the state, against those who choose armed revolutionary action, challenging the state’s monopoly of violence and power, against those who, using every means of fighting, stand against this policy of salvaging the system.

Although suppression was intensified in Greece in the beginning of the decade of 2000 with the establishment of the two anti-terrorist laws in 2001 and 2004, it was even more intensified after the first memorandum in 2010, when the regime lost the pre-crisis social consensus due to a unique assault by the capital and the state against the majority of the people.

It is therefore not accidental that the intensity of the state suppression all these years is relative to the intensity of the current attack by the capital, and the financial elite, which using the crisis have made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The impoverishment, the unemployment of millions of people, the cut on wages and pensions, the bank repossessions, the bigger reallocation of social wealth from the base to the top of the social hierarchy are all closely related to the strain of the suppression.

Based on this point, suppression by the state will attack any action that is a threat, and especially armed revolutionary action, which is regarded as a threat of the highest degree. It is therefore not accidental that these days in Greek jails there are dozens of political prisoners and imprisoned fighters.

Consequently, solidarity with the imprisoned fighters and comrades in persecution in general is not just a part of our struggle, but it is absolutely related to the fight for subversion and social revolution, in a way that comrades, men and women alike, who are imprisoned by the state, are a part inseparable to our struggle, they are a part of us.

We accept that comrades who are kept prisoners because of the types of fighting and action they have chosen,{ such as armed struggle, mutiny or demonstrations (including clashes with the police or attacks against specific targets of the system like banks), building takeovers or bomb-raids against target-symbols, actions of political insubordination and propaganda}, all these prisoners and their choice of struggle are inseparable members of our common fight for the subversion of capitalism and the state, they are an integral part of our revolutionary movement.

In that sense, we offer our solidarity to the political prisoners regardless of the range of the fighting/revolting movement they come from. Solidarity with political prisoners cannot be selective or partial, but is extended to all political prisoners.

What distinguishes a political prisoner is his/her fighting aspect and position at court and in prison, as well as his/her consistency of his/her course and actions before the arrest and his/her stand after it. We accept that all illegal for the state types of action are part of the revolutionary movement as it has been proved by its historical experience and tradition. We therefore reject any separation between types of struggle, we reject dipoles that have been presented at times such as “legitimacy or illegality”, “massive or armed struggle”, because such separations and dilemmas do not encourage but sabotage the struggle for subversion and revolution, they undermine the unity between comrades, inside and outside prison, whereas, on the contrary, they promote the “divide and rule” tactics of the system, leaving the imprisoned comrades exposed.

Based on these political criteria and principles, the Solidarity Assembly for political prisoners and imprisoned and persecuted fighters includes the vast majority of the political prisoners and imprisoned fighters who are in Greek prisons, whether they have taken political responsibility for their participation in armed revolutionary organizations, or they deny the charges against them, whether they are comrades who have been condemned for bank expropriations or they have judicial cases pending against them and are free.

In addition to these, we include, based on the same political criteria and principles, the comrades, men and women, who are outlaws, having been condemned or accused of illegal types of action, for example of armed struggle. As internationalists, judging that solidarity has no national characteristics, we include the Turkish communists who are political prisoners in Greek prisons, regardless of the organization they belong to.

Based on the same political criteria and principles, we exclude those who, following personal choices, have become informers and have renounced certain types of struggle. The Solidarity Assembly for political prisoners and imprisoned and persecuted fighters believes that those who chose such a kind of personalized course have renounced the struggle itself, have renounced their comrades and stopped being fighting or political subjects.

The Solidarity Assembly for political prisoners and imprisoned and persecuted fighters does not regard these prisoners as victims, but as comrades who continue to fight from a different bulwark, within the prisons, for the subversion and the revolution.

It is inevitable that solidarity is defined to a high degree by the political position and by the voice of the prisoners themselves. It is inevitable that the Assembly cannot but forward the voice of all imprisoned comrades. This however does not mean that the Assembly for political prisoners and imprisoned and persecuted fighters identifies with the opinions and speech of the imprisoned comrades. The Assembly maintains its autonomy and independence regarding the political views about the struggle, the movement and the revolution. Likewise, it maintains the right to criticize the prisoners when it is necessary to take a stand and, within the bounds of the interactive relationship we wish to build, it is willing definitely to accept criticism by the comrades’ side. The Assembly is not obliged to take sides in arguments or disputes between the prisoners. Solidarity is not empathy. Solidarity, like every social or political practice, has a certain ideology. Solidarity with political prisoners excels in that both its givers and recipients agree from the start that the demand for the overthrow of the social system is imperative, without having common views about all the issues of social antagonism and revolutionary upset.

The Solidarity Assembly for political prisoners and imprisoned and persecuted fighters is an open movement procedure which is based on a concrete and clear political agreement between the participants as regards the issue of solidarity. As long as we accept that solidarity with the imprisoned comrades is a part of a revolutionary movement and is unbreakably related to the struggle for subversion and revolution, then our actions not only support the defense of the prisoners against the state’s repression but also promote the struggle for the upset and the revolution itself. On the basis of these the Assembly does not involve itself with the legal defense of the prisoners nor the content of the prisoners’ documents file, thus rejecting effectively false dilemmas about “the innocent” and “the guilty”. In comparison to the past, the Assembly aspires to surpass the narrow, fragmental, frame of suppression and to address the issue of the unity of the movement and the struggle for revolution, by practicing actions of solidarity towards our imprisoned comrades, particularly in the current conditions of the systemic crisis, where using it as an excuse the capital and the state have imposed a new type of totalitarianism.

What distinguishes revolutionary solidarity from other types of solidarity is that it clashes with the core of the state’s dominance and civil legitimacy, that it connects each special issue with the general requirements of the liberating operation. Solidarity with political prisoners certainly merges dissident criticism with action, and in addition, it challenges directly the state’s monopoly in violence, which, together with personal property, is one of the basic pylons of the system.

Today more than ever there is an imperative need to face solidarity not from the side of our own defense against the attack by the state, but as our own counter-attack, aiming to escalate the struggle for social liberation. The movement should realize that the defense of those in captivity, of the political prisoners, is a fundamental principle of primary importance for its own existence and development.

The Solidarity Assembly for political prisoners

and imprisoned and persecuted fighters