#popular unity

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Credits: Octubre CCC/ Flickr

1970-1973, SOCIALISM

When Salvador Allende was elected president in 1970, the regime was said to constitute the peaceful transition to socialism. Allende and Popular Unity– the coalition consisting of socialist and communist parties– managed to pass an amendment to the Constitution that legalized the expropriation of the mining companies. This resulted in the nationalization of major copper mines and large industries (such as the telecommunications industry dominated by ITT) which contributed to increased public spending on social services. Unemployment fell from 8 percent in 1970 to 3.8 in 1971, and the waged sector received 62.9 percent of the total national income, compared to the 37.1 percent received by the propertied sector. 

Allende and Popular Unity continued the Agrarian reform initiated by the Frei government, and by 1972, practically all privately-owned farms of over 80 basic hectares had been eliminated. The government further introduced innovative measures such as the “milk-bars” in Santiago, which guaranteed low-cost milk and dairy products to the poor, and devoted increased funding to health and education institutions. The government also articulated housing as “the right of all Chilean families, regardless of their income level (…)”, and they set as a goal the construction of 80 thousand dwellings in 1971; the highest figure undertaken by the public sector in the history of Chilean housing, and a number that was to a great extent attained. 

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Credits: Raymond Depardon/Magnum Photos.

Demonstrations in support of the Popular Unity coalition, 1971. 

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Moody's Confirms Greece's Government Bond Rating at Caa3; Outlook Stable

Moody’s Confirms Greece’s Government Bond Rating at Caa3; Outlook Stable

Moody’s Investors Service has today confirmed Greece’s government bond rating at Caa3 and changed the outlook to stable. The short-term rating is unaffected by this rating action and remains at Not Prime (NP). Moody’s government bond rating applies to debt issued on private sector terms only. This rating action concludes the review for downgrade that commenced on 1 July 2015. The key drivers…

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Costas Lapavitsas has been vindicated — not that there’s much comfort in that.

From the beginning he argued that Greece leaving the eurozone was the only way Syriza could carry out its election program. The Syriza leadership instead stuck to their “good euro” policy, with disastrous results. The party recently split, with Lapavitsas and other members of Syriza’s parliamentary group, along with a coalition from across the Greek left forming Popular Unity to contest in the elections later this month.

In the conversation below, building on his March interview withJacobin, Lapavitsas looks back at the tumultuous events of the past year, evaluates Popular Unity’s prospects going forward, and discusses what a Grexit from below would look like.

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Released on September 2 and translated for the first time below, the manifesto of Popular Unity is signed by the fifteen organizations of the radical left that comprise this political front, which seeks a rupture with austerity and the eurozone.

Usually presented as a split from Syriza, Popular Unity actuallyincludes a more variegated blend of forces, from left social democrats and social movement activists to far-left currents. Some of these forces come from Syriza: the two components of the Left Platform (the Left Current, led by Panagiotis Lafazanis, and the Red Network around DEA/Workers Internationalist Left), which constitutes the backbone of the movement.

There’s also the Communist Tendency, which is affiliated with the International Marxist Tendency, and the Movement for the Radical Left, a network constituted by activists essentially working in the antiracist, pro-migrant, and LGBT movements previously part of the now-defunct tendency “53+”.

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Syriza failed to stop austerity in Greece. What can Popular Unity do differently?

When Alexis Tspiras resigned his premiership earlier this month and called for a snap election, it signaled a new round in the ongoing battle between Greece and its creditors.

For Tsipras, next month’s election represents an attempt to secure a mandate for the deal Syriza has signed off on. Yet the former prime minister’s approval rating has dropped from 61 percent to 29 percent in the last month. Almost 80 percent of voters say they’re disappointed with Tsipras’s performance during Syriza’s time in office. And 70 percent think the bailout package the leadership approved will deliver more economic pain than the previous two austerity agreements.

It is to this discontent which Popular Unity, a new formation of dissident Syriza members and other anti-austerity forces, hopes to give institutional expression.

In this recent interview — conducted by Thomas Lemahieu for the French paper L’Humanité — Stathis Kouvelakis, a member of Popular Unity’s leadership, discusses the formation’s anti-memorandum program, how to find allies outside of Europe, and what Popular Unity wishes to accomplish in the upcoming election.

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The SYRIZA rebels who will challenge Tsipras from the Left - now the third largest political formation in Greece

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Early this morning, twenty-five Syriza MPs left the parliamentary group of the party to create a new group under the name of “Popular Unity.” Most of these MPs are affiliated with the Left Platform, but some others also joined like Vangelis Diamantopoulos or Rachel Makri, a close collaborator of Zoe Kostantopoulou.

This is a major development in Greek politics but also for the radical left, in Greece and at an international level.

Three things need to be emphasized.

The first is that “Popular Unity” is the name of the new political front, which will regroup thirteen organizations of the radical left — those who signed the text issued on August 13 calling for the constitution of the Front of the No. This front is therefore the first tangible result of a recomposition within the Greek radical left — recomposition that draws the lessons of the last five years and of course of the experience of Syriza in office and of the resulting catastrophe.

But the goal of the front is even broader than this. It is to provide an expression to social forces that do not necessarily recognize themselves as part of the Left but want to fight austerity, the memoranda, and the “troika rule reloaded” of the new memorandum.