Poor and middle peasants block major roads in Greece

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Since last week poor and middle peasants have blocked major roads in northern Greece using their tractors. The blocking of major roads is a tactic that has been used for decades by the peasant movement in Greece and is often met with severe repression by the old Greek state. During the 1997 peasant struggle against the common EU agricultural policy which subjugated the Greek farming sector to the interests of the big bourgeoisie in Brussels the then Social Democratic government used the notoriously reactionary and fascistic Greek police to ruin the tires of the peasant’s tractors, something which devastated poor peasant households which often don’t have the necessary income to afford repairs.

The blocks started in Thessaly, a region with a major peasant population and rich history of peasant struggle against big landlords since the Ottoman era, and soon spread throughout northern Greece. The peasant demands are mostly economic and anti-corruption in nature. The recent OPEKEPE scandal in which it was revealed that the Government gave huge amounts of EU funding to rich big landlord families in the farming sector has exploded the anger of the peasantry which has faced rising production costs and non-existent government help.

Several sectors of the working class have joined the peasants including taxi and bus drivers as well as labour unions. The blocks follow the recent generals strikes which were launched by the working class against the 13 hour work day which the right wing ND government recently legalised. The peasant mobilisations are growing by the day and are unlikely to stop until the government agrees to the peasantry’s demands. However a ND minister has stated that if the farmers continue to be a problem to the functioning of the capitalist economy it will use all measures available to end the mobilisation.

The Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) has stated it supports the peasant struggle and calls on the peasants to expand their actions against the rotten Greek State https://kkeml.gr/thessalia-niki-sta-mploka-tis-agrotias/