The Origins Of The Greek Civil War

262 Pages·1995·5.467 MB·English

by  David H. Close

THE ORIGINS OF THE GREEK CIVIL WAR
ORIGINS OF MODERN WARS
General editor: Harry Hearder
Titles already published:
THE ORIGINS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS
T.C.W. Blanning
THE ORIGINS OF THE CRIMEAN WAR
David M. Goldfrank
THE ORIGINS OF THE ITALIAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Frank J. Coppa
THE ORIGINS OF THE WARS OF GERMAN UNIFICATION
William Carr
THE ORIGINS OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
Ian Nish
THE ORIGINS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR (Second Edition)
James Joli
THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE
P.M.H. Bell
THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN ASIA AND
THE PACIFIC
Akira Iriye
THE ORIGINS OF THE GREEK CIVIL WAR
David H. Close
THE ORIGINS OF THE KOREAN WAR
Peter Lowe
THE ORIGINS OF THE VIETNAM WAR
Anthony Short
THE ORIGINS OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI WARS (Second Edition)
Ritchie Ovendale
THE ORIGINS OF
THE GREEK CIVIL WAR
David H. Close
LONGMAN
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Fint published 1995
ISBN 0 582 06472 4 CSD
ISBN 0 582 06471 6 PPR
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publicarion Data
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicadon Data
Close, David (David H.)
The origins of the Greek civil war / David H. Close.
p. cm. — (Origins of modem wan)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-582-06472-4 (csd). — ISBN 0-582-06471-6 (ppr)
1. Greece—History—Civil War, 1944-1949—Causes. 2. Greece—
Politics and government—1935-1967. 3. Greece—History—Civil
War, 1944-1949—Diplomatic history. 4. Kommounisdkon Komma tes
Hellados—Influence. I. Tide. II. Series.
DF849.52.C56 1995
949.507'4—dc20 94-39794
CIP
Set by 8 in 10/12pt M Bembo
Produced by Longman Singapore Publishen (Pte) Ltd.
Printed in Singapore
Contents
Editor's foreword vii
Ust of maps ix
Preface
X
Abbreviations xii
1. Greece after the First World War 1
Dependency and schism
1
The hydrocephalous state 7
Social structure 13
The Greek Communist Party 15
The bourgeois reaction 23
2. Right-wing Dictatorship, 1935-41 32
Anti-Venizelist resurgence 32
Parliamentary democracy in crisis 37
Metaxas’s tyranny 42
The legacy of the tyranny 50
Axis invasion 53
3. Invasion and Collapse of Authority,
April 1941-March 1943 60
The old order in decay 60
The birth of the National Liberation Front, EAM 68
Communist strategy 79
4. EAM Challenges the Old Order,
April 1943-October 1944 88
Reactions to EAM 00
00

>
Contents
EAM predominant 96
The start of civil strife 102
Communist agreement with the British 106
Nation-wide polarization 113
Liberation 116
5. Revolution Defeated, October 1944—February 1945 127
Growing Communist power 127
The demobilization crisis 131
The battle for Athens 137
Communist surrender 141
6. The White Terror, February 1945-March 1946 150
Right-wing vendetta 150
The British role 163
Communist revival 165
Election victory for the right 173
Communists on the brink 176
7. Descent to Civil War, April 1946-March 1947 189
The monarchist regime 189
Revival of guerrilla warfare 193
The national army intervenes 199
The Truman Doctrine 203
8. The Civil War, 1947-50 209
The Democratic Army 209
Right-wing victory 214
Aftermath 220
Bibliography 224
Maps 231
Index 239
vi
Editor’s Foreword
In his lucid and vivid account of the origins of the Greek Civil War of
1943-1950 Dr David Close deals with a comparatively recent tragedy that
has had less attention than it deserves from historians. It belongs to that
transitional period between the end of the Second World War and the start
of the Cold War. This series has had two volumes devoted to the origins of
the Second World War, by Philip Bell and Akira Iriye, and Professor
Geoffrey Warner is writing a volume for the series on the origins of the
Cold War. But this study of the Greek Civil War fills an important place in
our understanding of that post-war period.
David Close’s book is the twelfth to be published in the series, but the
first dealing with a civil war. If Peter Lowe on Korea and Anthony Short
on Vietnam had an element of the civil war about them, both volumes had
eventually to concern themselves with participation by the USA and other
powers. Two other books concerned with important civil wars are being
written for the series; Brian Holden Reid is writing on the American Civil
War, and Martin Blinkhom is writing on the Spanish Civil War. Civil wars
are by their nature often more savage than international wars, and have a
stronger ideological content. The two factors are certainly related.
When, during the Second World War, Hider’s armies were driven out
of countries they had been occupying, they left behind ideological con­
frontations, which could lead to civil war. This was especially the case in
the countries on the northern coast of the Mediterranean. Yet the nature of
developments in Greece, Yugoslavia and Italy were strikingly different. In
Greece Close shows us that a bitter civil war ensued between Greek politi­
cal groups whose plans or visions for the future were diametrically opposed
to each other. Ideological confrontation led to savage conflict, often
descending to torture committed by both sides, though rather more by the
right than by the left, if only because the right had more power. In
vu
Editor's Foreword
Yugoslavia there was also civil war, though less prolonged than in Greece,
and it is interesting to observe that whereas in Greece Britain — or more
specifically Churchill - supported the right, in Yugoslavia he supported the
Communiste. In Greece Churchill favoured the king, in spite of his unpop­
ularity, and here there was an analogy with Italy, where Churchill also sup­
ported the monarchy and the right. But in Italy civil war, with all its hor­
rors, did not result. The Communists, Socialists and Catholics joined forces
in the resistance, and, because they were separated from the King and
Badoglio by the armies of the great powers, they could eventually establish
their supremacy and create the Republic of 1947-8. Greece was less fortu­
nate.
On the question of responsibility — or blame — for the war, Close has
some interesting things to say. The Germans, he writes, deliberately
'fomented civil war between Communists and their opponents’. And while
there was a 'multiplicity of motives for alignment in the civil war’, ‘some
protagonists, at certain points, pursued policies or took decisions which
they could arguably have avoided’ . So this war, like other wan, was not
‘inevitable’. Political leaden were not always crushed by inescapable histor­
ical forces. They could often make choices, and to that extent could subse­
quently be held responsible if their choices led to immense human suffer­
ing. Lord Acton argued with Bishop Creighton that it was for the historian
to point an accusing finger at the criminals in history. The historian should
be the 'moral arbiter’. If academic historians today are a little shy of being
moral arbiten, they can at least gently suggest that certain decisions in his­
tory were mistaken, or sometimes wicked.
In that Close excites the interests and raises the emotions of the reader in
this fine study, he makes it clear that certain actions were reprehensible,
and that often both sides, or all parties, are to blame for the ensuing cata­
strophe. And yet the tragedy was that, in the words of David Close, ‘Civil
war was a prospect viewed with revulsion by all except a small minority of
fanatics on each side’. As too often, it was the fanatics that called the tune.
Harry Hearder
Vlll
U st of Maps
Map 1 Provinces in Greece 233
Map 2 Physical features of Greece 234
Map 3 Major towns, roads and railways in Greece in the 1940s 236
IX
Preface
In recent years it has become easier to reflect on the causes of the Greek
Civil War. With the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s, and the
general disillusionment with ‘actually existing socialism,’ the Greek Civil
War ceased to seem like the beginning of the contemporary era, but like
part of a bygone era, which could be contemplated more dispassionately. In
Greece a sign of this change in 1989 was the entry by the Greek
Communist Party into a government for the first time since December
1944, and the enactment by this government of a reconciliation law, con­
ceding full equality of status to the Communist-led losers in the civil war.
Reconciliation was accompanied, very controversially, by the incineration
of an estimated eighteen million police security files on left-wingers, to
commemorate the 40th anniversary of the decisive batde of the war. We
can only hope that this action marked the end of the large-scale destruction
of historical records by the survivors and descendants of the two sides — a
crazy and malign way whereby they have until recently continued the civil
war.
Meanwhile, interpretation of the events of the 1940s has become easier
for other reasons, as scholars have continued to explore the mountain of
evidence made available in the 1970s and 1980s by the opening of the
British and American archives, and as memoirs and documents have con­
tinued to be published in Greece. Several major studies have been pub­
lished in the last few years; and more are expected soon. In time, also,
more of the archives of protagonists in the civil war - the Greek govern­
ment, the Greek Communist Party, and the British Special Operations
Executive - are likely to appear. It has only just become possible to write a
book like this one; and the interpretations therein cannot be definitive.
The Greek Civil War presents some fascinating problems of causality.
x