Andrew Flood

English

26 Νοεμβρίου 2009

• Greece
• history
• communism
• communist-party

by Andrew Flood

* This talk is based around the Solidarity pamphlet ‘The Greek Tragedy’, subtitled ‘the failure of the left’ published in 1968 as a response to the coup in Greece the previous year. It states the left put up little resistance to the coup and places the reason for this in the lack of a tradition of self-activity in the working class. In particular the response of the Spanish workers to Franco’s coup of 1936 is contrasted with what happened in Greece. This is the text of a talk given to a meeting of the Workers Solidarity Movement (an anarchist communist organisaton in Ireland) in 1994.


Greek has been a somewhat unstable entity throughout its history and particularly with the coming into being of nation states in the 18th century. Its borders have shifted, expanded and contracted on several occasions over the last 200 years leaving behind a legacy of quite virulent Greek nationalism. Greek armies were also involved in foreign intervention against the Russian revolution in north west Asia minor.

The Greek communist party was founded in 1918 and was first attacked by the state in 1921 for their policy of revolutionary defeatism in the war with Turkey. It was banned under the military dictatorship in 1927. The ban came out of the demand for Macedonian and Thracian independence. This issue dominated the KKE (Communist party) in the pre-war years although the demand for independence was dropped by the Central Committee in 1935.

The treason trials of the leadership in 1925 were significant because it was in this period that the first graduates from the Communist college in Moscow arrived and filled the vacuum. The 3rd congress in 1927 saw a purge and the expulsions of two of the three factions as trotskyists. Typically of Stalinism the leader of the faction expelling the others was to be executed himself some eight years later as a trotskyist himself.

During the third period the CP repeatedly exposed its members to repression by for instance calling general strikes which only 12,000 or so would support. At the time the KKE had about 1500 members. Mass demonstrations of as few as 150 people were called and as might be expected the failure was not blamed on the Moscow line but on the local leadership.

This was followed by the popular front period which saw mass unrest up to 1936 when General Metaxas seized power with a regime modelled on the fascist states. The KKE disintegrated in this period helped along by a pardon for those who confessed and named others. Some 45,000, far more than the membership of the KKE did so.

When Italy attacked Albania in 1939 the KKE said there was no longer any need to overthrow Metaxas as he was now an allies. Metaxas tried to play both sides however and in October 1940 there were anti-fascist demos in many cities. The British sailed into Greek waters and on the 28th Italy invaded. The party again pledged support...

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