Notes on the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) - International Aspects
by Costas Pateras*
The international dimensions of the Greek civil war are particularly striking; the involvement of the two major imperialist powers, the diplomatic activity of the Soviet Union, the various missions of and motions to the fledgling UN, the impact of Yugoslavia's break with the socialist camp, the large international solidarity movements with the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG). In light of this it is remarkable the lack of reference internationally to this struggle since, in stark contrast to the Spanish Civil War. There has been obviously a transparent attempt to suppress viewpoints which run counter the agreed imperialist "line". The Greek television broadcasting company which normal gives (brief!) coverage to the activities of the KKE and translates these reports to its English page, omitted to translate its Greek language report of the rally at Lykorakhi on July the 2nd. Another case in point was the British documentary "The Hidden War" (broadcast on Channel 4 in 1986), which for the first time showed interviews with former ELAS and DAG partisans and was extremely critical of British involvement in Greece and the "White Terror". As a result of the outcry from the British ruling class the documentary was banned from being shown again on British TV and the career of the producer seriously damaged. The fact that the Imperialist powers who connived at the suppression of the progressive forces in Greece are still hold sway internationally is the main cause for this silence. It is much easier to criticise the despised Nazi and Italian fascist governments and their interventions in Spain (while ignoring of course the hypocritical stances of the "democratic" countries).
In the first article the role of British Imperialism in Greece in the period 1944-47 was described. The Labour government and its foreign minister Ernest Bevin became more and more disheartened by their failure to crush EAM and the KKE, to establish a stable pro-British regime based on the return of the monarchy. Greek domestic politicians and parties were promoted, rejected and then re-embraced on almost a monthly basis. It became clear that the "Communist Threat" could only be averted by massive financial and military investment. The British Empire found itself in a crucial period; the moment of its decline. India was on the point of winning its independence, British interests in China collapsed in the face of the advance of the revolutionary army and Malaysia was in open revolt against its imperialist masters. Britain announced its withdrawal from Greece would take place on the 31st of March 1947, after a winter in which the Greek regular army had been routinely humiliated by the DAG. The prospect of the collapse of the Greek bourgeois state was imminent.
This caused US imperialism to act, in order to prevent "communist expansion" to the Mediterranean and to maintain anti-communist satellites in Greece and Turkey to threaten the underbelly of the Socialist countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. On the 12th of March 1947 President Harry Truman announced the "Truman Doctrine", promising US intervention to prop up any regime that was facing Socialist revolution. This was soon followed by a package of economic measures for this purpose, the Marshall Plan, named after the Secretary of State. On the first of April 1941 The USA took "responsibility" for Greece, outlining his decision Truman stated that "The Greek government is not in a position to deal with the situation. The Greek army is small in number and wretchedly equipped... The British government, which until today supported Greece, has stated that it finds itself unable to provide further support after the 31st of March...The situation is urgent, it demands immediate action." ON the 22nd of March the US congress voted through a package of 400,000,000 dollars worth of aid to Greece and Turkey. On the 20th of June of that year the Greek and US governments officially signed the agreement. The US government made it clear through article 8 of the agreement that it would dictate what would be done in Greece from that moment on.
This "aid" was directed to equipment and training for the Greek army. 5,000 US military adviser arrived in Greece and on the 24th of February 1948 General Van Fleet was sent to become the de facto commander of the Greek Army (At the airport the Prime Minister welcomed saying "Welcome to your home, general... Here is your army!"). It is estimated that the US government spent approximately 50,000 dollars for every partisan of the DAG, providing tanks, artillery, aircraft, training and all manner of explosives, including Napalm which made their "debut" at the Grammos mountain. American activity was not restricted to the military sphere. The American Aid Mission to Greece was set up under the leadership of Dwight Griswold (within the context of the Marshall Plan), which through the management of US state and private investments into Greece exercised tight control over Greece's internal affairs (Griswold withhold aid from Greece at one point in order to force a coalition government between the Liberals and the Popular party). The Greek government rushed to free US companies from the tax burdens which were imposed on all foreign companies. US strategic goals were neatly laid out in the Herald Tribune on the 27th of March 1947 "We did not choose Greece and Turkey... because they are shining examples of democracy and human rights, but because they make up the strategic entrance to the Black Sea and the heart of the Soviet Union". The ruthlessness of US imperialism is illustrated by the murder of left-leaning US journalist George Polk on May 16th 1948 in Thessalonica, by US and Greek security agencies. Polk had been critical of the US-backed regime and its record on human rights. Through massive investment US imperialism succeeded in military defeating the people's movement and ensuring a regime subservient to their strategic aims.
US aggressiveness was emboldened by the still weak position of the Socialist camp. The Soviet Union had been wrecked by the war, having lost 20 million of its citizens in order to defeat Nazi Germany and large areas of its most industrialised and developed regions had been destroyed. It was faced with a huge rebuilding task. The new people's democracies in Eastern Europe and also been badly damaged in the war. They faced a USA, strengthened industrially and military, buttresses by its new NATO alliance while in the majority of them the question of power had not been resolved when the Greek civil war broke out. At the same time the imperialist powers and the Greek regime were not hiding their hostility to the people's democracies of the Balkan countries. Their effort to use the civil war as a pretext in order to launch a direct attack against them did not succeed. On the contrary, one can argue that the heroic fight conducted by the DAG posed significant obstacles in their plans against the emerging socialist states in the Balkans; the fight of DGA had its internationalist contribution to the consolidation of the socialist power in these countries.
In 1945 the atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, a clear message to the USSR. It has become known that dozens of plans were formulated in Washington during this period for pre-emptive atomic strikes on the USSR. It is clear that not only there were no conditions for the Socialist countries to intervene military, but also the possibilities of offering any material assistance were limited. This was exacerbated after Yugoslavia's break from the socialist camp. Yugoslavia, while opening economic relations with the western powers closed its borders to the partisans of the DAG, refused to allow fighters who were being treated in Yugoslavia back to Greece and stopped providing any material support.
The USSR however did offer considerable diplomatic support concretely: At the meeting of the foreign ministers of the "big powers" in September 1945 it submitted a motion protesting at the situation in Greece. In January 1946 at the meeting of the UN Security Council they submitted a motion condemning the intervention of foreign military forces in Greece, the fascist terror and called for the unconditional withdrawal of British troops from Greece. Due to the Soviet protests and steps at the UN and other international bodies in 1947-48 hundreds of political prisoners convicted to death penalty escaped executions. In June 1949 the USSR made a proposal at the UN for a peaceful resolution of the conflict which called for a ceasefire, a general amnesty, free parliamentary elections, and the end of military aid to the Greek Government. These efforts went hand in hand with the appeals of the Greek democratic forces which were numerous and include the appeal of EAM to the UN against the terror. The fact that none of these initiatives bore fruit was down to the intransigence of the imperialist powers, which should leave no doubt about who should bear for the disastrous effects and casualties of the Civil War.
In addition to this solidarity committees were established in all the Socialist countries. These formed part of massive international solidarity movement, which developed a particularly strong base in Britain and France.
In 1943 the Greek Unity Committee (GUC) was established by Greek and British progressives with the aim of informing the British people about the activities of EAM/ELAS. The GUC cooperated with the Federation of Greek Sailors Unions (FGSU) which had been founded the same year in Cardiff and had developed political work amongst Greek sailors concerning the national liberation movement. It had close links with AKEL and the Communist Party of Great Britain and produced a weekly paper "Free Greek" and several pamphlets on the situation in Greece.
In 1944-45 the GUC intensified its activities in response to the British-sponsored suppression of EAM. In addition to its cooperation with the CPGB it developed links with some Mps from the left of the Labour party, pushing for a change in British policy, support for the persecuted EAM militants, communists and other left-wingers. After the electoral victory of the Labour party in 1945 the need was seen for the establishment of a permanent official pressure group. And so on the 7th of November the League for Democracy in Greece was born. Its first chair was Compton Mackenzie, a labour MP. In its first press statement it declared that its aims were a democratic Greece, based on a general amnesty, free elections, and appropriate punishments for Nazi-collaborators. In addition the League pledged material aid to imprisoned democrats and their families.
The League conducted many campaigns in defence of political prisoners and in support of democratic forces in Greece. In 1946 three Labour Mps visited Greece and wrote a shocking account of the conditions there, the "White Terror", and the involvement of British troops, called "Tragedy in Greece". After the Civil War the League continued its work in defence of imprisoned militants (especially those facing the death sentence) and for the abolition of concentration camps such as Makronissos. This activity continued right up and including the period of the Junta (1967-1974).
In France the Conseil National de La Resistance (CNR) and the French Communist Party initiated a campaign, starting in January 1946, in solidarity with the popular movement in Greece. The Communist deputies condemned the Terror and promised their active support for Greek democrats that same month. The PCF, in conjunction with many of the Greeks living in France then (including many leftwing political exiles). These included members of KKE and EAM living in France: Memos Makris, Dimitris Fotopoulos, Elli Alexiou, Marianna Veaki amongst others. This activity had three poles.
- To establish a permanent press office to inform the French people about the situation in Greece (Hellas press)
- To set up a French solidarity committee (Comite Francais d'aide a la Grece democratique)
- To send missions of French intellectuals, artists and journalists to Greece, to learn about the situation, and on their return to write articles, speak at meetings etc.
The PCF officially took on the full economic backing of these projects. On the French Committee participated many notable figures within France such as Jacques Duclos, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Paul Eluard, Louis Aragon, Elsa Triole, Picasso, Henri Bassis, Le Corbusier, Yves Farges and many others. It should also be noted that the intellectual grouping around "Les Tempes Modernes" including Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir played a very prominent role. The committee also received massive support from the CGT. Its president Leon Jouhaux visited Greece in September 1946 to support the 8th congress of the Greek General Confederation of Workers and its communist president Mitsos Paparigas, which was under attack from the regime. The CGT raised one million francs for its solidarity fund . By the beginning of 1948 the committee had already raised two million French francs!
The International Conference for Aid to Democratic Greece was held in Paris in April of 1948 with delegates from 23 countries. The French Bourgeois state attempted to stifle the event by refusing visas to representatives for Eastern Europe. The USA banned presidential candidate Henry Wallace from participating in the conference. An international Committee Despite this it had a massive impact. An international committee was established, an appeal to the Red Cross for immediate humanitarian aid, a manifesto in support of the struggle of the Greek people and a condemnation of the American intervention was adopted.
The solidarity of the French left did not end with the Civil War. L'Humanite and Les Tempes Modernes published important articles condemning the concentration camps. They were joined by magazines such as L'esprit and newspapers such as Liberation and Le Figaro.
The poet Paul Eluard visited Greece. The first time in May of 1946, where he denounced the British imperialist intervention at a mass rally at the Attiki theatre declaring that the "Greek people show us that no cause is lost, when the cause is the defence of Freedom". He visited Greece again 3 years later, travelling to the strongholds of the Democratic Army of Greece in the Vitsi-Grammos Mountains. His message which was read out on the megaphones to the conscripts of the national army, encapsulates the spirit of the international solidarity movement "Children of Greece, farmers, workers, intellectuals, I call on you who belong to the government army who does not represent you.a fratricidal war like yours is more terrible than any other war which benefits only those who led you here. I urge you to think of, you who find yourselves on the side of the prisoners and torturers, all those innocents who every day pay with their blood your future. I urge you; think of the hell of Makronissos and the prisons where tens of thousands of patriots, certain of their victory, wait daily for torture and death."
*Costas Pateras is an associate of the International Section of KKE
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr