NO PEACE WITH THE STATE AND THE BOSSES
From the state’s crime in Tempe to the daily murders of workers in the sweatshops of wage slavery, from the growing exploitation and systematic social exclusions to state terrorism and the murders of immigrants—at borders, in police stations, and at the blockades
Join the General Strike on April 9!
On 28 February 2023, Hellenic Train’s passenger train IC 62, carrying hundreds of passengers, collided with commercial train of the same private interests—at Tempe. The disaster claimed 57 lives, dozens were injured, and there are still missing people.
This unspeakable tragedy serves as a brutal reminder of the utter disregard the State and capital have for human life. What happened in Tempe was not an accident but a presaged crime, with the Greek State and private capital as culprits.
With the sale of TRAINOSE to Italian investors (under SYRIZA government) and the reintroduction of trains that had been withdrawn in Switzerland, there followed triumphant declarations by the government about the upgrading of the railways. The so-called “upgrade” they were advertising, consisted of outdated or entirely absent maintenance and control systems, as well as an understaffed workforce.
Meanwhile, railway workers had repeatedly warned those responsible—through press releases, extrajudicial notices, and repeated mobilizations and strikes (which the civil courts ruled illegal and excessive)—demanding improvements to the network and additional hiring. However, things remained as they were and the contract 717 was never completed. When our lives are treated as just another expense in the budgets of the state and capital, we are talking about preordained murders—not accidents, not “human errors,” not “bad timing.”
So who is responsible? Is it not the fault of those who left the country’s main railway axis without any signaling? Is it not the responsibility of those who took funds for telematics projects that were never completed? Are those who handed over the public railways to private companies that deliberately understaffed critical positions not also to blame? We claim that the responsibility lies in the insatiable thirst for extra profit by corporations and capital, operating under the absolute protection of the state. Because the state apparatus, its officials, the political representatives, judiciary, and uniformed services, forms the other half of the alliance they share with the bosses.
The criminals of the Ministry of Transport, the administration of Hellenic Train, and the entire state apparatus that contributed to this murder will have to answer to the entire social base, the organized movement, and its resistance. Not only because they are the main perpetrators of this mass murder but also because, two years after the state crime in Tempe, in an effort to cover up their responsibilities, they continue to mock and ridicule the families of the victims while attacking those who, by fighting in the streets, expose the system of power for what it truly is—murderous in its entirety. The state crime in Tempe 2 years ago, but also the experience from previous mass state crimes, such as Rikomex, Samina, Ilia, Mandra, Mati, Pylos show without any doubt the incurable and unsociable murderous nature of the imposed authoritarian and hierarchical way of social organization by the state and the capital. Thus, it becomes evident that the state’s mediation of social relations, regardless of its political management, has consistently prioritized the perpetuation and reproduction of the parasitic relationship between political and economic elites at society’s expense, rather than serving social needs.
At the same time, we are dealing with the constantly escalating attack of the state and the bosses against the vast social majority, in every social field, such as work, health, and education. The penalization of workers’ mobilizations, trade union action and strikes, the deregulation of dismissals, flexible working hours, the abolition of the 8-hour day and the introduction of 6-day and 13-hour working hours, the intensification of working conditions, and the actual reduction of the minimum wage are part of the anti-social and anti-labour restructuring for the further exploitation and oppression of the grassroots, the imposition of which is conditional on the crushing of any social and class resistance. The social base is challenged by exorbitant rents and the rising cost of living, insecurity and the difficulty of meeting basic needs, with the poorest sections of society facing the imminent risk of impoverishment. In addition, there are dozens of employer murders in the sweatshops of wage slavery as well as injuries, as even the few protective measures are simply increased costs for the pockets of the bosses. The criminal condition of daily worker murders and injuries is so tragically evident, where as of early 2025 we can count more than 40 workers dead and more than 200 injured, and is only the tip of the iceberg of savage class exploitation. Typical of the above-mentioned situation is, of course, the attempt to suppress both administratively and punitively any labor mobilization by firing those who participate in strikes or even disciplinary prosecutions of thousands of teachers and educators, strikers culminating in the recent decision of the former Minister of Education, Pierrakakis to put on potential leave the secondary school teacher H. Hotzoglou, calling her action against the evaluation “improper conduct in service” and bypassing the unanimous acquittal of the disciplinary board.
In a situation where schools are collapsing and underperforming, where there are still basic needs for teachers – and not only – the state is attempting to dismantle public education and further privatize it. Thus, the promoted restructuring measures, such as the ‘Onassis Schools’, teacher and school unit evaluations, the International Baccalaureate, the Pisa exams, and vocational academies, have no other aim than to exacerbate social and class exclusions in education, to control and discipline students and teachers, to repress those who resist, and to completely abolish teachers’ labour and trade union rights. At the same time, the state attack on higher education continues with disciplinary proceedings and the imminent expulsion of students, police terrorism on university premises, the evacuation of self-organized spaces of struggle, the attempted abolition of Article 16, the collaboration of the institutions with private capital and the war industry, and the attack on asylum and its social character.
In this context, the state is shielded by reinforcing its legal arsenal and constantly arming its repressive mechanisms, in the direction of preventive counter-insurgency and with the aim of imposing fear, silencing, and individualization through the repression of social and class resistance, as well as to prevent any possibility of a social explosion, at a time when the great social majority is faced with restructuring, which is leading to its increasingly savage exploitation. The state and capital, in an attempt to maintain their power, are trying to break down all that is collective, to erase the memory of past struggles, and to crush anyone who now stands up to the ever-escalating state violence of misery and repression. The repression of squats, the anarchist movement, and the persecution of activists, the prohibition of demonstrations and the striking by the police, the intensification of control, the police terrorism in the centre of the cities, the attack on strikes and workers’ mobilizations, on the university asylum, and the ongoing state killings of the poor, workers, Roma, and refugee-immigrants are all part of the state’s repressive grid to subjugate society and its resistances.
Against the generalized attack, pillage and destruction, a broad social awakening and a comprehensive social critique of the dead-end and bankrupt system, the overcoming of delegation, mediation and inaction, the strengthening of social-class struggles, the formation of self-organized, anti-institutional fronts of resistance and the creation of every possible dike at every point where state and capitalist aggression manifests itself, are required. In the face of the dystopian future that the power and wealth elites have in reserve for us, there is the choice of collective resistance and struggle. Let us remind them of what can happen when the society of the exploited and the oppressed take the situation into their own hands and resist their designs massively and militantly. If there is anything left to be saved from the horror and brutality that the state and the capital condemn us to, it is in our own hands. The only solution for a world of equality, solidarity, and freedom, for a world where our lives are not bargained and do not depend on the calculations of the rulers, for a world without wars, poverty, plundering of nature, uprooting, disease, and death is SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
THE STATE CRIME IN TEMPE WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN – JUSTICE WILL BE FOUGHT FOR IN THE STREETS
EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE:
Health – Education – Food – Housing – Transportation
EVERYTHING IN SOCIETY’S HANDS
DETERMINED RESISTANCE – SOCIAL SELF-ORGANIZATION – CLASS SOLIDARITY
Occupations – Strikes – Assemblies – Demonstrations
GENERAL STRIKE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9
Athens: Kolokotroni Square (Stadiou), 10:30 | Thessaloniki: Kamara, 11:00
Anarchist Political Organisation – Federation of Collectives
