Varoufakis Back on His Bullshit

Yanis Varoufakis, the most famous veteran of the Syriza debacle, has taken a break from his prolific career as a male model to smugly host the 2020 Summit of the Progressive International, taking place, as everything else does lately, over Zoom and broadcast on YouTube.

Varoufakis, who dominated far too much of the Summit’s time with his self-important bullshit, spoke at great length about the importance of reforming capitalism maximally on its own terms, at a time when those terms are about to plunge us all into a global climate crisis the likes of which have yet to be seen.

Not content merely to take up so much of the actual audio and video time, he made sure that his pitiful, washed-up and frankly no longer relevant self was centred in discussion of the Summit in other news sources, even including extensive quotes from his prepared speech under that which he was expected to say.

Due to the Spatula’s perpetual commitment to combatting even the ghost of Nikita Khrushchev, Varoufakis’s hair-twin, we would remiss if we did not note that in a flagrant revisionism of class struggle, Varoufakis called for the problem of exploitation of workers to be addressed by converting each capitalist enterprise into “a corporation of all classes”.

Varoufakis also informed us that he personally does not shop on Amazon, and buys lots of fair trade coffee, or something.

The absolute highlight of the dismal Varoufakis Show where most of his guests were likewise held back by Keynesian cowardice from saying a single fucking thing of substance, was the appearance of Nick Estes, who is absolutely killing it on Twitter lately. In addition to a greatly Marxist call for land back to the Indigenous and a [planned?] economy for people and other such dank nugs, Estes heroically caused the one moment of tension by using the dreaded “s-word” which Varoufakis had clearly forbidden all guests from using.

“The name of the system we need to construct is socialism.” said Nick Estes, leaning forward for emphasis and staring into the camera. “Socialism. Socialism. Socialism.”

Varoufakis scrambled to regain control of the situation, lest he have to lose any sponsors for this unacceptably Stalinist turn of events: “Just so everyone out there knows, Progressive International doesn’t believe in any of that ‘actually existing socialism’, stuff, we’re just… we want to be beyond capitalism and critical of capitalism and contra-capitalist and everything else but allow me to emphasise that Mr. Estes is quite alone in his Enver Hoxha-esque call for ‘socialist construction’. No fucking way. No thank you.”

Before Estes or anyone else could interject any clarifying question or comment in response to this rant, Varoufakis nervously scratched his scalp and continued rambling: “I mean, if this were the Soviet Union, which thank God it’s not, I mean, that would be a really dystopic vision for the future, let me tell you, especially because I personally would be sent to GULAG. I mean I would. Me. Yanis Varoufakis. Imagine we’re in the Soviet Union now. I’d be the centre of attention then too, and Stalin couldn’t stand me getting all the attention, and so I’d have to go to GULAG. Is that what you want, Nick Estes? This is a fun game too, right?”

At time of press, [REDACTED] at the Worker’s Spatula Twitter was tweeting fantasies about an entirely different kind of summit with Varoufakis, if you catch my meaning, wink wink, nudge nudge.

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Labour Party Harassing Theresa May at Home Now

LONDON – Following a frustratingly long process of undoing the damage of decades of New Labour, by which the Party of Labour abandoned not only its fierce, Albanian-inspired, anti-revisionist line in favour of abandonment even of the pet causes of the English labour aristocracy, the left wing of the Labour Party have taken to harassing Tory Prime Minister Theresa May at her home in Sonning.

“We know you’re in there Theresa!” shouted Diane Abbott towards a curtained window. “Your austerity is bad and you should feel bad!”

“I stand by all those things I said in the House of Commons!” agreed Jeremy Corbyn, to cheers from local students.

Street harassment of the Prime Minister is at an all-time high as Momentum’s momentum is at an all-time low. Twitter harassment of Tory accounts has remained more or less stable, witnessing only a slight spike after it was revealed that Tory youth group “Activate” have been WhatsApp chatting about whether Churchill was too hard on the Nazis when the Soviet threat loomed much greater.

“We never should’ve taken power,” moaned a visibly drunk Alexis Tsipras. “Labour can’t get a thing done either, but because they don’t get control of government, you forgive them for very similar failings to ours. Admit it, you’re still going to tell people to vote for them, aren’t you?”

Our local Athens correspondent confirmed that, yeah, probably, English people should still vote Labour, come the elections or whatever, what else are you going to do, launch urban guerrilla warfare?

“John McDonnell already tried that, anyway.”

John McDonnell and Diane Abbott were arrested last night, when their latest harassment of the Prime Minister went too far. Abbott drove herself and McDonnell to Sonning, where they blasted Ken Loach’s 2016 socialist realist film “I, Daniel Blake” over the car’s stereo system with the bass turned all the way up.

“Do you hear that, Prime Minister? This is the part where Katie eats directly out of the tin of beans at the food bank! It’s very sad and reflects the struggle of the poor under your austerity regime!” shouted Diane Abbott, shortly before the police drove up to take her and the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer into custody.

As of this morning, TKP chair (and generally nice guy among revisionists), Erkan Baş, had touched down in London to protest this suppression of the Party of Labour by the British state.

At time of press, Erkan Baş’s face–complete with that glorious, solidarity-worthy moustache–was being slammed into the pavement by the police.

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Campaign to Free Paul Murphy Gaining Momentum

DUBLIN – Ever since Worker’s Spatula incorrectly and shamefully implied that there was a shortage of Trotskyist political prisoners in the world, CWI activists have been quick to correct this misconception. A particularly heinous instance of the harsh repression of the Trotskyist movement to be found in many countries is that of Paul Murphy, a member of the Irish CWI affiliate Páirtí Sóisialach or “Socialist Party”.

Paul Murphy was arrested in August during a protest in Dublin’s Jobstown district, at which the Gardaí beat him thoroughly and screamed “that one Gramsci quote” at him repeatedly, in English, Italian, and Irish Gaelic. Such is the brutality of the Stalinist police of Dublin.

The IRSP has issued a statement of solidarity with the still-imprisoned Mr. Murphy, who was charged with ten years in prison for his revolutionary activity. “We too know the brutality of the bourgeois justice system, and we will not rest until Paul Murphy is freed.”

Paul Murphy, who has been tweeting regularly from his cell, informed us that he had been tortured several times by the “fascist Free State authorities”. In one such case, he was forced to stand naked before the other prisoners and state that no Trotskyist group had ever carried out a revolution, anywhere in the world, at any time.

While he disputed claims that the series of bombing attacks against police stations in Dublin were carried out by Páirtí Sóisialach’s alleged armed wing, the Permanent Brigades, he likewise refused to condemn the attacks.

“These attacks must be understood in the context of the violence carried out by the state against socialist groups such as my own. If the state really wants peace, as it claims it does, it will sit down for direct negotiations.”

“While I appreciate all the solidarity I’ve received from the outside, and sure, I’ve made a great sacrifice, the revolution isn’t just one man, and it’s not just in one country. Let’s not forget our comrades in Greece, Xekinima, who we all couldn’t shut up about a few months back. They’re still a viable force in Greek politics and an important player in the coming world revolution. Up the CWI!”

At press time, our Dublin correspondent was unable to hear us over our mobile connection due to the massive crowds pushing against the Dublin Gardaí screaming “FREE PAUL MURPHY!” and “FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!”

Britain Proposed “Lord Protector” Model for Syria

LONDON – Leaked documents from the recent Vienna talks on the future of Syria have shown British negotiators pushed for a radical solution to the conflict.

The files, posted on Wikileaks early Monday, appear to show that Britain had sought answers to Syria’s civil war by looking into its own history.

“What is clearly needed, as shown by recent and historical civil wars, is some form of ‘Lord Protector’ to emerge,” one speech reads.

“We put it to this conference that we should support a leader with strong religious values, support from all classes of society, and who is willing to act nationally and internationally for the good of his people.”

The recourse to history is no new innovation. British diplomats worldwide have long advocated the Northern Ireland solution to the Kurdish issue in Turkey, saying that they believe it is the only way that Protestant and Catholic Kurds will be able to get along in peace.

Similarly, Britain has long been in talks to help democratise Myanmar, though these recently stalled after the King of Holland refused to take part in a plan to take over the country.

The formal diplomatic proposals are accompanied by a series of cryptic margin notes.

Those on one page read as follows: “Execute King, Invade Ireland, Extreme Religion, Defeat Moderates, Ban Christmas.”

However, the delegation’s ultimate proposal appears never to have been made, presumably after the mood of the talks turned against it.

“Hence we propose that this conference do everything possible to support Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the hastily scribbled-out final conclusion reads.

In its place, the delegation had quickly come up with a paragraph about backing Syria’s “moderates”, with a circled note reading “politically correct bullshit”.

Defence Minister Michael Fallon was barely able to conceal his disappointment this morning, however, telling parliament that the moderate jihadists were “not a New Model Army”, “whereas al-Baghdadi is clearly Cromwell in the flesh.”

Responses were issued by the New Communist Party of Britain and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist). The NCP argued that the solution lay in the Syrian proletariat “voting Labour everywhere”, and announced that they would engage in a purge of their own members, for tradition’s sake. The CPGB(ML), meanwhile, gave its expected response:

“We couldn’t find a way to get any of the factions in Syria to rhyme with ‘same old story’, or any other dismissive witticism, but naturally whatever the British government proposes is indeed the same old story,” Harpal Brar informed the attentive British masses who hang on his every word. “We call on the British government to support Bashar al-Assad against the menace of British imperialism.”

Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Germany, pointed out the similarity of Brar’s proposed strategy to Syriza’s actual strategy. “Will my brother in good hair also support our struggle against ourselves?” enquired Tsipras in a now publicly available e-mail exchange with Brar.

Brar’s response reads: “Nice try, Yorgo.”

For his part, Vladimir Putin, Tsar of all Russias from Belorussia to Prussia, proposed that Bashar al-Assad step down, to be replaced by Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov’s duties in Chechnya would be taken on by Assad, and Putin himself would “just keep doin’ Putin.”

Sectarian Disputes within Turkish Trotskyism: AKP State to Prosecute Tariq Ali

ANKARA – Turkish courts have made the decision to prosecute Onur Erem after Erem published an interview with well-known international Trotskyist commentator Tariq Ali after Ali called Erdoğan a “tin-pot dictator”. Future investigation of Ali is possible, but clearly the importance of this case lies not in the legal questions, but in the power struggle within Turkish Trotskyism.

Assessments of the situation from the various sides of this struggle were ready at hand. Erdoğan himself mentioned the case of Tariq Ali at the G-20 meeting in Antalya. In his speech Erdogan suggested that the recent terror in Europe was a result of “capitalism’s greed” and proceeded to denounce Ali as a traitor to permanent revolution. He said: “Look at this person. What does he want? Who does he think he is? Look at the world situation today. Mursi and I were carrying the flag of permanent revolution together, but now Mursi has been brought down by the Stalinist Sisi. Yes, Sisi! Yes, so I am the last one standing, surrounded by enemies.

“I thought Ali was on our side in this. After all, he is a Muslim, and therefore a Turk. We are both Turkish Trotskyists and therefore naturally comrades and brothers. But clearly, his class background as the son of a rich Pakistani family led him to betray our movement.” The chairman of Turkey’s biggest holding by far, Ali Koç, rushed to the assistance of his leader: “Capitalism creates poverty and terror. It has to go. Degenerate bourgeois like Tariq Ali will go down together with capitalism.”

Reactions within Turkey were mixed. Turkish IST affiliate DSİP issued a statement saying: “We understand that Ali is not a supporter of our sister party in the UK, the SWP, which already makes him suspect. However, we did not think he would go as far as denouncing our president as a dictator, which would put him in the same category as Stalin and therefore completely unacceptable. We call on Ali to renounce his statement. If he does, we hope that our president will reconsider his intentions, as the movement for permanent revolution should not be split in such dire times.“

A protest note came from the HDK in a joint statement: “Seriously? We say things much worse on a daily basis, providing a much deeper understanding of the AKP regime. Why give such importance to Tariq Ali? By this standard, thousands, if not millions of members of the various organisations which make up the HDK should’ve been arrested in the past few months.”

A short message to Ali was sent from the KCK in the Qandil Mountains: “Heval Tariq, please ignore all the slander and attacks. We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if we had listened to the naysaying of our enemies. We see that you are serious, so we invite you to join our ranks to take up the armed struggle. We leave it up to you whether you would prefer to fight against ISIS or the Turkish state.”

One of the first international reactions came from Alexis Tsipras, a columnist for a pro-AKP newspaper who splits his free time between his hobbies of being Prime Minister of Greece and being the chief critic of the Prime Minister of Greece: “I really think this is not the time for this. As I recently wrote in one of my columns, we have to cooperate on the central issues of our time. I would be willing to mediate between the two camps. I recommend as a compromise that Erdoğan will condemn his own policies, while Tariq Ali will come to Turkey and encourage Turkish citizens to vote for the AKP.”

Tsipras Calls on Greek Masses to Rise Up Against Him

ATHENS – Greek prime minister and four-time European Governmental Head Cheese-Eating Champion Alexis Tsipras today called on the people of Greece to rise up against the “corrupt and incompetent Tsipras government”.

“We in Syriza stand with the people. The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history. The protests, strikes, and riots across the country make clear that the people totally reject the austerity policies implemented by the EU and its puppet government in Athens, which is to say us.”

“Syriza should’ve never surrendered to the neoliberal blackmail and accepted the terms of the third international bailout. That traitor Tsipras must be held accountable!” Tsipras concluded.

Later in the day, while Tsipras was in a meeting with European creditors, Worker’s Spatula correspondents in Athens roamed the streets seeking opinions. It wasn’t long before they came across representatives of the KKE and Popular Unity.

“We always opposed Syriza, but we also always opposed any strikes or protests that weren’t organised by us, so we’re not actually sure how to respond to this.” a protesting KKE member said, chanting softly in an alleyway so as to not be confused with the rioters on the main street throwing petrol bombs at a bank. “Anyway, the revolution will come as soon as the Greek people vote us into power. Any day now.”

“This was quite a shocking development, honestly.” said a member of Popular Unity as she was handcuffed by the police. “We left Syriza because they didn’t support things like this, so now we’re thinking of rejoining Syriza, although they’re the government that we’re protesting against. I’m sure nobody outside of Greece knows what we Greeks are up to, but frankly neither do we. I’m just riding it out at this point. Something’s gonna happen, somewhow.”

From Germany, response was predictable. Die Linke condemned the “adventurism” of the Syriza government and called on them to take part in “principled” struggle, “ideally in the form of a politely worded editorial for junge Welt”. Meanwhile, MLPD chair Stefan Engel responded by saying “I’m sure the KOE know what they’re doing. Resistance and that.”

“Can we talk about Kurds again? I know what’s going on there at least.”

Reading Group in Shock: Žižek Not an Original Thinker

CHICAGO – Michael O’Grady and Saul Feinstein are two members of a small Marxist reading group in Chicago. It is composed of PhD students with an interest in Marxism, “but not in a dogmatic way”, from Philosophy Departments at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and DePaul University. Having all graduated from top undergraduate programmes across the US, they chose to pursue their PhDs in Chicago, working mostly on Badiou, Rancière and Žižek. Following the advice of their advisers, they had been attempting to read some of the classics of the German and Marxist philosophical traditions, promptly finding themselves completely lost in horrendously difficult texts containing no pop culture references or dirty jokes. Thus, they started the “Pervert’s Guide to Ideology Reading Group” to struggle through the difficult task together.

Eventually they came to grasp the basics of the views of Kant, Hegel and Marx, as well as some foundational texts by Vladimir Lenin, “just to get an idea of what he was all about.” Upon returning to their treasured libraries of Žižek’s work, they were horrified to discover that they comprised a mere assemblage of copied ideas mixed with wild cross-references. O’Grady explained:

“I was already getting increasingly worried before, you know. I thought the idea that the most interesting aspect of Greek tragedy was the chorus that was the democratic instance representing the people was a great insight from Žižek. When I told a fellow PhD student from Austria, he was less than impressed and told me that this was already elaborated on by the Austrian critic Egon Friedell in his ‘Cultural History of Greece.’ But when I actually read Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, I realised how much Žižek had copied out of their works and presented as his own. I’m shocked. I don’t even know what to do with myself.”

Feinstein was also deeply affected by learning the truth about his former idol: “It’s just fucked up, you know? We came here thinking we were gonna take on the world, write PhD theses that get quoted during a revolution or something, I don’t even know. But now we understand how little we really knew, and what a fraud our main inspiration is. I mean, come on, doing a PhD in philosophy, you don’t do it to get girls, do you?”

“Although Žižek had all of his model wives. That was a source of hope for us too. Was he even married to an Argentinian model, or was that bullshit too?”

Podemos Formulating Secret New Strategy

MADRID – According to several reports, the leadership of Podemos is developing a new strategy to combat austerity in the EU. Intense discussions among the leadership have been taking place almost every day since the defeat of Syriza, sources said. “It’s been really productive,” said one associate of Pablo Iglesias. “I mean, we’ve actually started discussing important topics. For the first week or so, it was all about Pablo’s beard and pony-tail. I am not sure what conclusions they reached on that, but I guess he’s not going to get a haircut. I’m really happy about that.”

Statements from Podemos in the wake of the Greek disaster have left supporters all over the EU with a profound sense of unease. Iglesias went on public record stating: “We can’t do more than that. We defend the same thing that Christian Democracy did thirty years ago. But in this chess game in which we have got almost nothing, there’s not much more we can do. Spain can do a little more than Greece.”

Subsequently, in a poll of Podemos supporters, 67% answered the question “Do you approve or disapprove of Iglesias’s statement… [above]?” with the phrase “So why should we vote for you?”

Podemos appear unfazed, however. A member of the Politbureau, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave Worker’s Spatula some insight into their new strategy: “You see, most of us are political scientists. We evaluated years of research and experience and we have come to the conclusion that politicians never do what they promise before an election. In fact, they mostly do the exact opposite. Thus, we sketched out this brilliant new plan: Starting now, until the election, we will always say exactly the opposite of what we are planning to do when we get elected. And then, after we are elected, we will miraculously emerge advocating the left-wing politics our supporters craved in the first place. You get it? I believe this to be a quite sophisticated strategy. I just hope the people will understand it. Did you get it? You did, right?”

International reaction to the new plan was mixed. Former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was videotaped downing enormous amounts of ouzo in his apartment by his neighbours, one of whom swore he heard him say: “Where did this grinning, pony-tailed Spaniard come up with this plan? That was it, that’s what we were looking for…”

Sebastian Budgen of Verso Books, and a regular reader of Worker’s Spatula, commented on Facebook that Verso is planning to publish a book on Iglesias and Podemos’s new strategy in their Radical Thinkers series. Immediately, an intense discussion ensued in the comments section of that post. With about 167 comments within 20 minutes, 123 of them from Budgen himself, Budgen’s last comment reads: “Yeah, sure, we’ll probably just offer it as an e-book at 50% off, 3 days after we publish it. After a week we’ll have to bring the price down to 90% off, and after 10 days we’ll give Iglesias the rights to offer it as a free download on his homepage. But you all should really buy it the minute it is out!”

MLPD leader Stefan Engel, apparently still on holiday in Istanbul, tweeted a picture of himself on a boat on the Bosphorus, enjoying raki and grilled fish. The text read: “@ahorapodemos, even I have nothing to say to your right now.”

DHKP-C Claims Responsibility for Attack, Maybe

ISTANBUL – Following an armed attack on the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul yesterday that left the two assailants and one police officer dead, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) has issued three statements within 2 hours. In its first statement, the DHKP-C claimed responsibility for the attack and hailed the militants as revolutionaries fighting against the dark forces of imperialism and the fascist AKP government, sacrificing their lives for the revolution.

Approximately 35 minutes later, the party issued a second statement saying that there had been a miscommunication and apparently the assailants were not members of the party, but of some right wing or Islamist reactionary paramilitary group. “Honestly, we’re a bit confused as well,” said a masked party spokesperson who appeared in a video message and goes by the name of “Haydar Ali”.

“I mean, there are so many different groups in Turkey carrying out armed attacks right now. Most of those actions are completely meaningless anyway, including our own. But how are we supposed to tell if it was our own people or not? We were planning an attack at the same place on the same day. We urge the fascist AKP government to provide an official registry in every municipality, so that various groups can register themselves for attacks and confusion can be avoided.”

Following the second statement by about an hour, “Haydar Ali” issued yet another video message. “All right, I know, don’t say anything, but, well… So we have learnt that it might have been our people after all. The downside of our tactical line is that our people are mostly dead afterwards, so no one can ask them which organisation they support. We had to launch an investigation into what happened. There is still no conclusive evidence, but as the attack was completely meaningless, unnecessary and unsuccessful, a secret party committee concluded that it probably was our people who carried it out. In other words, we celebrate the martyrs who carried out this heroic act against fascism in their unwavering struggle for the people.”

Sources close to the legal fronts of the party said that there is quite a bit of discontent within the party ranks. Most agreed that if a fourth statement were to be released, it might start to be a bit embarrassing. As a precautionary measure, it has apparently been decided to blame any future development that would diverge significantly from their last message on propaganda by the fascist state. Another source said: “See, they always accuse our party of lacking a theoretical basis, but we even issued three statements on the attack in the form of thesis – antithesis – synthesis. In this one can see our mastery of the dialectical method invented by the great Anatolian revolutionary Mahir Çayan.” Upon being corrected with regard to the source of the dialectical method, the anonymous source responded: “Oh, leave us alone with all these imperialists and their degenerated culture. Some guy from Germany might have said something about dialectics, but did he know how to play the saz? All the theory we need stems from our Anatolian soil and from the people who grew up in Anatolia. Just listen to the poems of Pir Sultan Abdal – that’s all the dialectics we need.”

MLPD leader and chairman of the board of Ermen and Engel, a corporation formed through a hostile takeover of Ermen and Engels, Stefan Engel commented on these events from his holiday in Istanbul. Our reporters were able to get a brief statement from him in a traditional hamam. “See, this is why they’re not in ICOR. ‘Nuff said. Oh, and of course, they have not managed to create an interactive time-line of the life of their ideological leader Dursun Karataş. You know, like the one I have on my personal homepage. You should really take a look at it.”

Former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reportedly was impressed with the tactics of the DHKP-C. His barber quoted him as saying: “This is what we should have done. I mean, not the armed attacks necessarily, but all these attempts at confusing everyone, including oneself. We tried so hard, but the Germans are like teflon.”

Alper Taş, co-chair of the ÖDP, insisted we print this statement: “If they’re going to be an ineffectual, quasi-Marxist, ex-DEV-YOL cult, they should at least do so peacefully, like we do.”

Greece in Chaos; KKE to Fix Everything

ATHENS – After the total defeat of Syriza, the situation in Greece has descended into a chaotic mire which is difficult to penetrate at first glance. The Syriza leadership has driven the party to a split through unwavering belief in its strategy of having polite and productive discussions over a cup of tea with the people who intend to crush you. Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is reportedly still confused as to why his plans were unsuccessful. An unnamed source close to Tsipras claims to have seen him in fierce discussion with Euclid Tsakalatos, former Minister of Finance and successor to Yanis Varoufakis, named “sexiest Greek alive” and “sexiest motorcyclist alive” by People Magazine Ellas. Tsipras was reported to have desperately shouted “why did we not serve them coffee and some sweets too? Should we have brought more olive oil and feta cheese for Schäuble? Should I have changed my name in Tsopanis, so Hamdi Ulukaya could have helped us out like he did Kobanê?”

The international response to developments has been mixed. On the one hand, proven revolutionaries like Leo Panitch, whose credentials of training revolutionaries how to use AK-47s in his Toronto basement are well known and widely admired, were still trying to blame everyone but the Syriza leadership for Syriza’s failed politics, and the most “movementist” components of the organized German Left such as Interventionistische Linke and the Blockupy alliance were supporting the political line of the Syriza leadership using the most statist and bureaucratic logic available to them, thus proving they were more Marxist than everyone else, as one must “dive into the manure of contradictions whilst engaging with realpolitik.”

On the other hand, CWI affiliates around the world continue to praise their Greek section Xekinima for its bold decision to leave Syriza and then cry about how Syriza leadership fails to reflect their views.

Additionally, Stefan Engel, chairman of the MLPD and winner of “most fuckable flabby white guy” at the International Communist Awards five years running (since he dethroned Slavoj Žižek after the formation of ICOR) convened a press conference in Berlin, at which he stated “KOE. I will not be taking any questions”, and promptly left.

Since the left wing of Syriza finally broke away from the party to form Popular Unity, Greek affairs have grown more complex still. Thankfully, the KKE came to the rescue: Dimitris Koutsoumpas, General Secretary of the Central Committee, spoke at a press conference, referencing Ancient Greek philosophy: “We Greeks invented dialectics and so we understand it better than anyone. We are the most dialectical, on racial grounds.” He quoted Heraclitus’s famous dictum that “you cannot step twice into the same river” and added, that “unfortunately, too many Greeks today have been de-Hellenised by EU colonialism and are thus too stupid to understand that. These are the ones who will vote for Popular Unity.” When our reporter at the press conference noted that Heraclitus’s saying may indicate almost the exact opposite conclusion to the one proposed by Koutsoumpas, he responded: “Well, that’s just more proof that you cannot trust petty bourgeois individualist enemies of the people like Heraclitus.”

However, as the average Greek on the street will readily tell you, the KKE’s unparallelled insights put them head and shoulders above all political competition, and they needn’t stoop to “pointless discussion of such moronic concepts as philosophy”. To shed light on the latest confusion. Koutsoumpas declared that the party will release a scale of “different forms and levels of deceitful and obfuscationist anti-people factions.” This scale is supposed to provide the party and the people which it so self-evidently leads orientation in these dark times. “It’s actually quite simple,” Koutsoumpas explained, “everyone but us is an enemy of the people. Syriza and now Popular Unity are just the ‘left’ reserve of the system. There is no difference between any of them, they just dress up in different clothes.” Asked how the people could make use of this scale, he responded: “If you’re curious about a given faction of the Greek left outside of KKE, check our scale, and you’ll see that they are indeed enemies of the people. They just differ in degree of deception of the people. Being on the scale makes something true, so we put true things on the scale.”

“There’s your goddamned dialectics.”

Asked how the KKE intended to concretely engage the current dynamics, Koutsoumpas was visibly stunned. “Isn’t that obvious? We have to strengthen our movement and in order to do that we will form anti-monopolistic and pro-people alliances. We will soon release a catalogue of criteria of political positions that qualify for such an alliance. It is a little bit more complicated than the scale I told you about before.”

After repeated attempts by reporters to glean some cursory summary of what kind of criteria the KKE was looking for, Koutsoumpas gave in and stated: “Alright, if you must know, I can say this much: It would be really helpful if everyone seeking an alliance with us agrees with our party line on every major issue, including our predetermined role as sole saviours of the Greek nation. This is because our party line is quite simply correct on every major issue. And, you know, it’s like Marx said: Die Partei, die Partei, die hat immer recht.” He concluded the press conference by taking a shoe that he had kept on the table throughout the press conference and placing it on his bare foot, thus demonstrating his absolute lack of revisionism.