THE EUROPEAN LEFT IN CRISIS
A New Left in Greece
PASOKs Fall and SYRIZAs Rise
GERASSIMOS MOSCHONAS
When Alexis Tsipras went to vote on June
17, 2012, television channels from all over
the world gathered around the school audi-
torium where he was casting his ballot.
Someone unfamiliar with Greek politics might
have supposed that this blaze of publicity
was focused on a rock star or world leader.
Who, after all, was Alexis Tsipras? As the
head of the parliamentary group of SYRIZA
(Coalition of the Radical Left), he had led a
motley confederation of small leftist parties
to an underwhelming 4.6 percent of the vote
in the 2009 elections. That same year, his
position as informal leader had been vehe-
mently challenged even within the coalition.
Nevertheless, the absence of any alternative
leadership combined with his own tenacity
and tactical flexibility enabled Tsipras to
survive inside SYRIZA.
As roulette players know, if you can stay in
the game, you may be able to turn it around.
With 26.9 percent of the vote in the June 2012
elections (and just 29.7 percent for the center-
right New Democracy), SYRIZA has turned
its self-destructive tendencies into a political
triumph. By making Greece the first case in
the West since the collapse of communism
where the radical left has overtaken the
traditional social democratic mainstream,
SYRIZA has become a critical political force
within Greece and an object of fascination
(and scorn) without. Thirty-one years earlier,
in 1981, during another earthquake election,
PASOK (the Panhellenic Socialist Movement),
Greeces traditional party of the left, laid the
foundations for its long rule in Greek political
life. In 1981 PASOK was riding the crest of a
great electoral wave that had carried it from
just 13.58 percent of the vote in 1974 to the
48.7 percent that it received that October. This
realignment produced one of the most stable
party systems in Europe, with very low elec-
toral volatility, organized around two parties:
PASOKs socialists and New Democracys
conservatives.
More than any other party at any other
point in Greeces postwar history, PASOK
in 1981 embodied the socially widespread
conviction that everything is possible.
Nothing better symbolizes PASOKs aspira-
tions during its first term in office (198185)
than its incomes policy. In January 1982 the
newly elected government announced a 46.4
percent increase (on average) in the basic
wage, and a doubling of farmers pensions. As
noted perceptively by the economist Chrisafis
Iordanoglou, the pay increases...were unex-
pectedly large even for the recipients them-
selves. The objective was that they should
be engraved in peoples memory for years.
The initiative helped launch what was to be
a more than thirty-year ascendancy, which
would end in political ruin during the Greek
debt crisis.
PASOK Changes the Fiscal Paradigm (1981
89)
PASOK, with a Keynesian program for
expanding overall demand, attempted to
revitalize economic growth and to implement
what it called the third way to socialism.
A central element in PASOKs economic and
social strategy was a policy of redistribution.
There was a steep overall rise in social expen-
ditures from a modest 10.2 percent of GDP
in 1980 to 16 percent in 1985 (the end of
PASOKs first term in office), stabilizing at
15.5 percent in 1989 (the end of the partys
F A L L 2 0 1 3 DI S S EN T 33
THE EUROPEAN LEFT IN CRISIS
second term). The establishment of the
National Health System in 1983 was central to
the construction of a genuine welfare state
and another symbolic move strengthening the
partys left-wing image. PASOKs Keynesian
program, like that of the French socialists, did
Greek debt, in short, is the product of
thirty years of budget deficits driven by
proportionately low tax receipts. This
shortfall is what distinguishes Greece from
the rest of Europe-not the absolute level of
expenditures.
not, however, have the anticipated results.
The government deficit more than tripled in
1981, PASOKs first year in office, to almost
8 percent of GDP and climbed to 12 percent
in the closing year of PASOKs second term.
Alongside the deficit, the national debt also
ballooned, nearly tripling between 1980
and 1990 to 80.7 percent of GDP. The major
reason for these worrying trends is familiar
to any observer of Greece today: the absence
of credible taxation policies and tax adminis-
tration.
The prevailing view that the Greek state
has always been wasteful is thus incorrect.
Until 1980, with the exception of the mild
relaxation of the first democratic period
(197480), postwar Greek governments had
pursuedwith German, as it were, assi-
duity and successpolicies of fiscal disci-
pline. PASOKs first period in government
(198189) was a watershed. A long tradition
of balanced (or approximately balanced)
budgets was abandoned in an active and
aggressive manner, and Greece entered a high-
risk zone from which it has never succeeded
in extracting itself.
PASOK and the Incomplete Fiscal
Rationalization (19932004)
Beginning around 1993 under the leadership
of Andreas Papandreou and Costas Simitis,
3 4 D ISSE N T F A L L 2 0 1 3
PASOK embarked on a modernizing
phase in which the party reduced inflation
and fiscal deficits, liberalized markets, and
moved away from income redistribution.
By 2000 the country was running a primary
surplus (the budget surplus not including
interest payments), as it would the next two
years. Most significant of all, however, was
Greeces entry into a period of high growth
rates (higher than those for the Eurozone as a
whole), marking the third great wave of Greek
economic expansion after those in 1930s and
1960s. However, along with these positive
trends, several negative ones also appeared,
most notably a significant deterioration in
the balance of trade. Notwithstanding the
growth in GDP, the Greek economy appeared
to be trapped between the low-labor-cost
economies and the high-labor-cost, high-inno-
vation economies. In addition, sovereign debt
remained high, fluctuating at levels of around
100 percent of GDP.
During Simitiss second term (20002004),
there was a further relaxation of fiscal disci-
pline. The goal of entering the Eurozone
fueled a significant increase in tax receipts, but
almost immediately after the decision in favor
of Greek entry (Greece joined the Eurozone on
the basis of 1999 figures), they began to fall
again. In short, PASOK under Simitis failed
to carry outin the favorable conditions of
high growth and low interest ratesthe type
of genuine, long-lasting fiscal reforms Greece
desperately needed. Indeed, it was at this
point that the slide toward bankruptcy began.
The Scandal of Tax Evasion
Historically, the Greek public sector was
limited in size, much smaller than the average
in the countries that would eventually become
the Eurozone. While the majority of European
countries had some variety of social demo-
cratic compromise, this did not happen in
Greece because of the civil war. The extraor-
dinary electoral dynamic of PASOK in the
1980s was a direct corollary of this historical
vacuum. Between 1980 and 2004 the Greek
public sector expanded so remarkably that it
came close to equaling the Eurozone average.
But it faced a chronic shortfall in tax receipts
at the same time, below the rest of the coun-

tries in the Eurozone.
Greek debt, in short, is the product of thirty
years of budget deficits driven by proportion-
ately low tax receipts. This shortfall is what
distinguishes Greece from the rest of Europe
not the absolute level of expenditures. What
is key to the Greek tragedy, in other words,
is not so much the size of the state as its inef-
ficiency, the most pronounced characteristic
of which is the inadequacy of the tax admin-
istration. And responsibility lies with politi-
cians and governments, many of which were
dominated by Socialists. The problem of tax
evasion by many sectors of Greek business
and the self-employed is one that should have
been tackled by the left. The term scandal
is fitting here: what kind of social democratic
party could allow taxation to fall dispropor-
tionately on wage earners?
Superficial Social Democracy
There are four policy factors that explain
PASOKs past electoral supremacy: the imple-
mentation of advanced social policies, demo-
cratic and liberal political measures adopted
by PASOK governments, the implementation
of culturally liberal reforms affecting private
life and relations in civil society, and, in a later
phase, PASOKs leading role in promoting the
European perspective. The success of PASOK
was the result of the cumulative impact of
these factors. To a certain extent PASOK did
indeed adopt ideas and pursue policies of a
social democratic type. But while PASOKs
achievements were real, economic policy and
social and institutional reform were often
given short shrift, and herein lies the rub:
PASOK never evolved beyond being a super-
ficial, fundamentally incoherent social demo-
cratic party.
Although PASOK did pursue an expan-
sionary income policy, extended and
deepened the welfare state, maintained rela-
tively friendly relations with trade unions
by promoting their participation (however
fragmentary) in policymaking, and espoused
social democratic rhetoric, its scandalous
toleration of tax evasion undermined many
of its other accomplishments. In addition,
PASOK allowed the flourishing of clientelistic
relations between the party, government, and
THE EUROPEAN LEFT IN CRISIS
the bureaucracy; was relatively indifferent
toward social outsiders like the unemployed;
cultivated intimate, scandalous relationships
with a segment of the Greek business milieu;
and had little in the way of a coherent strategy
for encouraging a competitive and outward-
looking private sector.
Moreover, within its own coalition or
voting bloc, PASOK allowed a variety of
destructive tendencies to flourish, including
a lack of wage restraint on the part of trade
unions affiliated with PASOK, a growing
disjuncture between wage earners in the
public and private sectors (the former was
permitted to grab whatever it could get away
with), and the development of a labyrinthine
and economically devastating set of regula-
tions and deregulations in numerous profes-
sional sectors. Taken as a whole, these policies
are antithetical to social democracy (however
broadly defined) and helped bring Greece to
the place it is today.
SYRIZA in Context
SYRIZAs backstory begins in 1968 with
a profound restructuring of the Greek
communist movement. The KKE (Communist
Party of Greece) split into two currents:
orthodox communists who remained with
the KKE and Eurocommunists who formed
the KKE Interior. The Synaspismos coalition,
established in 1992, represented the conver-
gence of the Eurocommunists and the critical
Communists who, through yet another split
(less dramatic than that of 1968), had departed
from the KKE. SYRIZA began as a confed-
eration of leftist organizations created in 2004
around the nucleus of Synaspismos.
SYRIZA more than doubled the electoral
influence of the old KKE Interior, averaging
about 4 percent of the vote between 2000 and
2010. This enabled the left outside the KKE
to be more active in popular mobilizations
and civil society initiatives, and SYRIZA thus
exerted a larger influence on politics than
would be expected by its still low electoral
returns. SYRIZA challenged the KKE on its
own radical terrain and sought to change
the intra-left balance of forces. But SYRIZAs
origins also explain some of its weaknesses:
its confederated structure (prior to its recent
F A L L 2 0 1 3 DI S S EN T 35
THE EUROPEAN LEFT IN CRISIS
Alexis Tsipras at a SYRIZA rally on May 4, 2012 (Asteris Masouras, Flickr creative commons)
conversion into a unified party in July,
SYRIZA had thirteen separate tendencies) has
negatively affected the partys cohesiveness
and style and limited its ability to generate
fresh programmatic thought. Instead, SYRIZA
has primarily generated condemnatory
discourse and ideological long-windedness,
exhibiting a tendency to repeat old-guard
communist clichs.
Without the shock of the economic crisis,
SYRIZAs meteoric rise would not have
occurred, and without Alexis Tsiprass lead-
ership and strategy, SYRIZA would not
have become the main party of opposition.
The June 2012 elections were more divided
on class lines than any other in the entire
democratic period: in the lower-class neigh-
borhoods of greater Athens, SYRIZAs 36.5
percent of the vote was 9 points higher than
the combined vote for New Democracy and
PASOK.
More than a year after SYRIZAs excep-
tional electoral performance, it remains the
only bearer of an alternative projet de socit; all
the other opposition parties (with the idiosyn-
3 6 D ISSE N T F A L L 2 0 1 3
cratic exception of the KKE) have embarked
upon a course of competitive demagogy,
gaucherie, and irresponsibility. But despite its
newly pivotal position in the Greek political
order, SYRIZA does not appear to have the
quality of political personnel, the strategic
perspicacity, or the alliances inside and
outside of Greece that would be required to
deal successfully with the current crisis.
Within SYRIZA itself doubts and debate
about its current status can be heard. The
realists wonder what their real margin for
movement will be within the hostile struc-
tures of the EU. How many painful compro-
mises must they accept? Can they, if they come
to power, keep the party united? The partys
left wing (approximately 30 percent of the
membership) has been radicalized: it favors
leaving the Eurozone and opening the road
to socialism. (Both proposals are supported
by only a minority of Greeces population.)
The disagreement over such key issues
undermines the partys cohesion and stra-
tegic maneuverability. These problems would
make it difficult for Tsipras, in the event he is

elected prime minister, to reach an honorable
compromise with Greeces partners (and
creditors) in the EU.
A New Laboratory for the Radical Left?
Historically, Western Europe social democrats
promoted four great sets of changes: democra-
tization, cultural liberalism, social protection
and integration, and social equality (through
some kind of economic redistribution).
PASOKs long ascendancy did indeed include
a large number of policies that fit in this
framework. Nevertheless, neither the PASOK
of Andreas Papandreou (19811996) nor the
PASOK of Costas Simitis (19962004) was
able to develop the economic and institutional
underpinnings of a truly successful social
democratic strategy. PASOK was a composite
and inconsistent party, simultaneously the
spearhead of the social democratization and
modernization of Greek society and the prin-
cipal obstacle to these processes. PASOKand
not only the populist PASOK of the 1980s
was indeed a central actor in the drama of
Greeces bankruptcy.
Does PASOKs trajectory have anything
to tell us about European social democracy,
or is it an extreme case from an extreme
country, far from the problems of the more
developed economies of Europe? Greece is
a peculiar, discordant, but modern country.
In the years between 1954 and 2008 it was,
in terms of GDP growth, one of the strongest
economic performers in Europe. The example
of PASOK is certainly extreme but it is not
irrelevant; what is clear is that without an
effective economic strategy combined with a
well-targeted redistributionist policy, projects
for maintaining the European social model
are doomed to fail. This became evident more
rapidly and more profoundly in Greece than
elsewhere but it applies to the whole of the
European left, particularly in the current era of
globalization.
PASOK obtained just 12.28 percent of the
vote in the elections of June 2012. Is the party
THE EUROPEAN LEFT IN CRISIS
finished? Social democratic parties have
shown an admirable capacity to renew them-
selves and survive. PASOK is undoubtedly
very close to the edge, but it may figure out a
way to bring itself back. Predictions that do
not to take into account previous historical
trends risk proving over-hasty.
The Greek left is now being led by a radical
party. The post-communist SYRIZA lacks both
the preparation and the governmental culture
for such a taskboth of which the radical
PASOK of the 1980s lacked, too. However,
SYRIZA has matured to a significant degree.
Its economic policy has changed gradually
during the three years of the debt crisis,
moving in a similar direction to the path
taken during the 1930s by social democrats
in Sweden and New Deal Democrats in the
United States. But globalization and European
integration place huge external constraints
on SYRIZA that governments did not face, at
least not to the same degree, during the Great
Depression.
SYRIZAs economic proposals are largely
inconsistent with EU policies. If SYRIZA wins
the next elections (which will occur no later
than 2016), it will be called upon to deal with
problems of a truly historic nature as well as
its own internaland profoundcontradic-
tions. Nothing better describes these contra-
dictions, not just in SYRIZA but across the
entire new radical left in Europe, than the title
of an article from the political scientist David
Arter: Communists we are no longer, Social
Democrats we can never be. Whether Greece
is the laboratory of the future for the European
radical left or a workshop with old technology
that will repeat failed experiments is the
question that SYRIZA will need to answer.
Gerassimos Moschonas, PhD University of Paris-II, is an
associate professor in comparative politics at Panteion
University of Political and Social Sciences, Athens, Greece.
He is the author, among other books, of In the Name of
Social Democracy: The Great Transformation, 1945 to the
Present (Verso, 2002). His current research is mainly focused
on European integration and the parties of the left.
F A L L 2 0 1 3 DI S S EN T 37
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