This week, in the latest object of controversy in the ongoing battle between Greece’s Syriza government and the country’s European creditors, debt payments are due to the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. The extraordinary, ongoing pressure Syriza is facing has spurred intense debates about the limits and possibilities of left governments faced with such weighty choices.

In the first of a series of interviews that Catarina Príncipe and George Souvlis are conducting in Athens, Jacobin sat down with Michalis Nikolakakis, political adviser to the minister of economy, infrastructure, maritime affairs and tourism. Before joining Syriza, Nikolakakis was also active in the youth wing of Synaspismos. Here he discusses the origins of the Greek crisis, the relationship between Syriza and the state, and what accounts for the rise of the radical left in Greece.