Dimitrios Patelis | Revolutionary Unification (Greece)
At the peak of World War II (WWII), 80 years ago, the imperialists with their local collaborators, trapped the Greek national liberation movement, launching a crushing attack on its weakest section in the capital, Athens. On 3 December 1944, two months after liberation from the fascist yoke and violating every pretext of democracy and anti-fascism, the British attempted to put in power their agents and subservients to serve their colonial and anti-communist objectives.
Revolutionary Unification deems necessary the scientific research of this crucial turning point in history, on the basis of the creative application and development of revolutionary theory and methodology. Here we will settle for a few critical remarks in the light of the duties posed by the ongoing World War III (WWIII).
The conflict at that period focused on the diametrically opposed interests and the corresponding approaches of the British imperialists and their local subservients, on the one hand, and those who actually liberated the country, the forces of EAM[1] and ELAS[2], on the other hand, i.e., the forces of counter-revolution and revolution, as far as the most crucial issues on the agenda of the situation were concerned: 1. the constitutional question (preservation or abolition of the foreign-imposed monarchy); 2. the trial and prosecution of the corrupt collaborators of the occupier; 3. the formation of a national army and police force, with the integration and/or disarmament of the partisans; and 4. the escalation of the revolutionary process from one of national liberation to a socialist revolution.
On 1 December, the British, along with the government, demanded the one-sided disarmament of ELAS and the liberation movement. The members of EAM had just resigned from this government, having been deceived on the first three of the above mentioned imperative issues.
Instead, defying the government ban, the movement proceeded to the mass unarmed rally called by EAM on 3 December and to a general strike on 4 December. During the rally, the paramilitary and police forces―at the command of Ronald Scobie (a British general, commander of the army that was now orchestrating the British occupation) and the bourgeois politician George Papandreou (British agent), executed by Angelos Evert (police director of the occupation authorities, under the SS High Command of Greece, who retained his post under the new, British occupation); opened fire on the demonstrators, as a consequence of which at least 33 people were killed and 148 wounded. On 4 December the strike was general. As the people of Athens and Piraeus were on strike and at the same time mourned their dead in a grand procession, there was another murderous attack that took place, leaving a further 40 dead and 70 wounded. This was followed by 33 days of heroic fighting by the city’s reserve and poorly equipped ELAS against the British forces and their local collaborators, which ended with a ceasefire on 11 January under the overwhelming superiority of the imperialist forces.
In order for the British to be able to lead the Greek liberation movement to compromise, they were forced to transfer military forces from the Italian front, which shows that the Greek issue was of equal, if not greater, strategic importance than the front against the Axis. Since the regular ELAS army was not involved in the armed confrontation that was confined to Athens-Piraeus, it had an inherently defensive character on the part of the Greek liberation movement. This fact, despite the unparalleled heroism and self-denial of our partisans, resulted in the bloody defeat of the armed uprising of the people of Athens-Piraeus―inadequately armed and cut off from the main, experienced armed force of ELAS―by the overwhelmingly superior forces of the new occupier on land, air and sea. A defeat that led to the unacceptable Treaty of Varkiza (February 12, 1945) and the disarmament of the military wing of the uprising.
Of course, history is not written with the help of retrospective assumptions and speculations. However, at a moment when the enemy’s forces are superior, in order to avoid a certain crushing blow with irreparable consequences for the revolutionary movement, it is clear that the optimal tactic lies both in avoiding the entanglement in a direct confrontation on the enemy’s terms, as well as in the suspension/ postponement of this confrontation, with the preservation and development of the strength of the revolutionary army, in order to choose, if not the optimal, at least the most favorable conditions for the victory of the revolutionary movement on a local and global scale.
In the case of Greece, we had not only the exposure of the most unprepared, detached from the main force and inadequately equipped part of the movement in the capital to a crushing blow from imperialism, but also the self-destructive negation of the possibility and necessity of a victorious confrontation through the disarmament of the military wing of the uprising. From this point of view, the fact that the leadership was dragged into the shameful Treaty of Varkiza was an act of suicide for the movement and for the people.
This is a fundamental principle of revolutionary theory and practice, which was confirmed by the tragedy of our heroic December, the escalation of white terrorism and the subsequent defeat in the last round of our defeated revolution, in the Greek Civil War and imperialist intervention (1946-1949). One can endlessly argue over all the probable and improbable mistakes, all the oversights or even betrayals on the part of the at-the-time subjective factor of the country’s armed revolutionary movement. However, unfortunately, that which remains completely out of the scope of most historical and ideological-political studies and debates is the following: the confrontation of the communist-led victorious armed revolutionary movement with the forces of the British imperialist invaders and their collaborators, precisely because of the imperialist schemes, took place at a historical circumstance in which at least five more months of bloody fighting by the Red Army and other anti-fascist forces were required before the red banner of victory was planted on the Reichstag.
The communists were at that time called upon to face problems of escalation and revolutionisation of the Greek national liberation struggle in a socialist direction that were unprecedented in history and still unresolved in theory, while the anti-fascist war of liberation required long and relentless confrontations until its formal termination.
The relentless aggression of the British, who invoked the treaty/alliance obligations of EAM & ELAS, while creating ultimatums, as well as handing over the initiative to the headquarters of the Middle East of the initiative of the movements (which could be used as a tactical manoeuvre to gain time and preserve/develop the military wing of the uprising), combined with the surprisingly hesitant and indecisive attitude of the Greek partisan leadership, is largely explained precisely by this historically unique circumstance.
Any hesitation and reluctance to fight until the end is not compatible with the Marxist-Leninist approach to armed uprising.
However, here we have a confrontation in which the reactionary imperialist forces of the “allies” are waging a swift pre-emptive war of annihilation against a victorious communist movement of the anti-fascist alliance, which made an extraordinary contribution to the defeat of the then Anti-Comintern axis. In an unsurprising display of British cynicism, ELAS was viewed as an operational branch of the Soviet Army and of the communist movement.
The Greek communists were faced with tasks of phenomenal complexity in an unfavourable situation in terms of the global balance of forces. Not only did they have to deal with the problem of transition from a national liberation revolution to a socialist revolution in the country through the urgent solution of practical questions of the structures and characteristics of the transitional power. They were called upon to solve these extremely complex questions in conditions where any all-out attack on the new invader could be perceived by USSR officials as an undermining of the anti-fascist alliance in Europe and in the world, which was already fragile until the end. After all, the secret negotiations between the Anglo-Saxons and the Nazis and the plans for a mutual attack on the USSR up to the last months of the war, are well known. In these circumstances, the battle of December, which was doomed from the start, and the resulting disarmament of the revolutionary forces had fatal consequences for the movement.
The December conflict was practically a prelude to post-war developments, a precursor of the coming “Cold War” between the imperialist camp and the emerging camp of early socialism, before the end of WWII.
It is impossible to scientifically evaluate the experience of the conflict between revolution and counter-revolution and the imperialist intervention of the 1940s in our country under the prism of a short-sighted Ethnocentrism or Eurocentrism at best, as if it was and is the history of the Greek revolutionary movement detached from the law governed escalation of the global revolutionary process. Greece was of strategic importance for the post-war balance of forces, was obviously one of the weak links of the global system, with a revolutionary situation in progress and a massive popular base of the movement, which led the British and later the American imperialists to the well-known brutal pre-emptive intervention and occupation, which continues and deepens to this day, under the regime of foreign bases.
Despite our tragic defeat in December ‘44 as well as in the next round of the confrontation, with the heroic epic of the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) [Greek: Δημοκρατικός Στρατός Ελλάδας (ΔΣΕ)], this struggle, precisely in the light of the world revolutionary process, was in many respects not a futile one.
It is worth pointing out the following: although the forces of imperialist reaction may have defeated the heroic Greek communists and their allies on the fields of uneven battles, their comrades at the time achieved proud victories on other strategically important fronts of the global revolutionary struggle!
The mere fact that until August 1949 important imperialist strike forces remained confined in Greece, far from the other theatres of warfare of the global revolutionary process, constitutes in itself de facto internationalist aid of unparalleled historical importance to those victorious early socialist revolutions (in Korea, China and Vietnam).
The narratives/ideologies that are fabricated by the opportunists of our time (mainly by the leading group of Communist Party of Greece) are extremely short-sighted, anti-scientific and counter-revolutionary, in their insistence on attributing the defeat of that time to the very tactics of the anti-fascist front decided by the Third Communist International. They dare to stain the heroic epic of the EAM (without which the Democratic Army of Greece would not have existed), calling it “opportunist”, in the context of the unprecedented revision of revolutionary theory and history that is part of their incessant scheming. Similar is their metaphysical view on “strategy”, which is abstracted from any tactics, from any historically specific gradual escalation of the means and ways of the formation and development of the subject of the revolution. In spite of this unprecedented opportunism and revisionism, all the victorious early socialist revolutions that emerged through the flames of WWII and its legacy, without exception, were the result of frontal revolutionary movements, led by communists, where they dialectically combined frontal tactics with a commitment to the strategic purpose of the socialist revolution. Today, the forces of imperialism, losing ground rapidly (against the strengthening coalition of the forces of early socialism, anti-imperialism and weaker capitalist countries oriented towards this alliance), cannot afford to be divided into two camps, as in WWII.
The Great December of 1944 inspired, is inspiring and will continue to inspire our struggles. It is of particular didactic importance today for the stance of the communist and progressive forces, in the historically unprecedented glow of the forthcoming victorious anti-imperialist and socialist revolutions that the rapidly escalating WWIII is carrying and delivering.
The present US-led axis of imperialism must be shattered by a powerful global anti-imperialist front. This is a condition for the survival of humanity. It is an indispensable step for the coordinated victorious escalation of the global revolutionary process.
This requires the theoretical and practical-organisational struggle for the militant coordination of the anti-imperialist forces in every country and around the world, with the consistent communist forces in its vanguard.
Honour and glory to the heroes of December ‘44!
Long live the World Anti-Imperialist Platform!
Victory to the unbreakable global front of the forces of anti-imperialism and socialism.
Victory to the coming unstoppable wave of anti-imperialist and socialist revolutions.
Notes
[1] EAM: National Liberation Front (N.L.F.) [Greek: Εθνικό Απελευθερωτικό Μέτωπο (Ε.Α.Μ.), a Greek World War II Resistance Revolutionary Movement.
[2] ELAS: Greek People’s Liberation Army
[Greek: Ελληνικός Λαϊκός Απελευθερωτικός Στρατός (Ε.Λ.Α.Σ.)].