TRAGIC GREECE-BATTLEGROUND OF RIVAL IMPERIALISMS
Markham, R. H.
Tragic Greece—Battleground Of Rival Imperialisms By R. H. MARKHAM IN GREECE our Allies have been shooting one another with American-made weapons. Bullets intended for our enemies have been...
...The Balkan situation is extremely complicated...
...Some follow Hitler...
...And...
...That many idealistic little people follow the Communist leaders of ELAS is certain...
...Tragic Greece—Battleground Of Rival Imperialisms By R. H. MARKHAM IN GREECE our Allies have been shooting one another with American-made weapons...
...Ninety years ago Russia was comparatively weak, largely undeveloped, with a population not half as large as its present one and 600 miles from Greece's Salonika...
...It certainly doesn't appear so...
...Probably not...
...There was a rather fundamental cabinet re-shuffle in 1927, and another in 1928...
...Early in 1924, the famous Liberal, Venizelos, returned to Greece to restore order...
...But in 12 days Kondylis smashed it, and made himself dictator...
...The only comparatively tranquil period with jails fairly free from political prisoners was from 1928 till March 1935...
...The last were won by Venizelos, who became premier...
...George Metaxas launched a revolution against Plastiras, but was defeated...
...What should America do...
...That is why she is clinging so desperately to it...
...The question of the monarchy is much less vital...
...Modern Greece is marked by political instability...
...Russia has mighty armies in Persia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, has placed a weak Turkey in a very difficult position, has turned the Black Sea into a Russian lake, has obtained control of the whole lower Danube, and is planning to build powerful navies...
...And there are also two Empires struggling for advantages...
...He gave Greece four fairly tranquil years and led the country toward stabilization...
...Venizelos lost the elections of 1932 and his successor, Tsal-daris, the head of a more conservative party, did pretty well until 1935, although during much of this period the political situation was exceedingly tense and a revolution was feared at any moment...
...A Communist-led Partisan organization is trying to seize power...
...They think in opposing ELAS they are opposing the friends or devotees of Russia...
...Greece was proclaimed a republic and the decision was confirmed by a national vote of about 5 to 2. At that time the Greeks were plainly against the monarchy...
...They caused mutinies in both the Greek Army and Navy, thus diminishing Greece's contribution to the fight against Hitler...
...Britain Balks Russia The chief, but by no means the only foreign tutor has been Britain...
...For their heroic acts they deserve the gratitude of all the United Nations...
...Many Americans and Britishers have greatly oversimplified the situation in their minds...
...In spite of everything, she was pushing Britain back...
...To be sure the ELAS men are all Republicans and many are democrats—as far as passionate, hate-filled, fanatical killers of fellow Greeks could be democrats—but the furious idealism of many of these people is being used by political chiefs to gain power...
...Some idealists followed Huey Long...
...Greece's Thermopylae has become Britain's Mediterranean Thermopylae...
...Plainly it is not going to be easy for Britain to keep her toe-hold in the Balkans...
...When the king is in Athens many Greeks want him out...
...In 1930 Pangalos tried another revoluation but failed and was interned...
...Also, the ELAS certainly killed more Greeks than Germans...
...Great Britain and Russia, along with other European powers, have been intensely interested in Greece for more than a century, and have frequently intervened in Greek affairs...
...Then, also, four other continental powers tended to side with England...
...Thus, during the 60 years following the Crimean War, Russia had pushed her way against all British opposition to the very edge of the Mediterranean...
...the Black Sea, or fortify her own port of Sevastopol 01 exercise control over Rumania...
...Political revolutions there are very common...
...It is fighting the battle of Sevastopol in Athens...
...And on the whole she was quite successful...
...Now one cannot but ask: are Churchill's present methods best designed to win friends and influence people in Greece...
...Kondylis drove out Dictator Pangalos and made himself prime minister...
...One revolution followed another, dictators came and went, elections were held every year or two, and no government was stable...
...The two chief factors in the struggle are imperial interests and the ambitions of local politicians...
...The answer is, two sets of imperialists...
...Almost all that England has saved in this long retreat from Sevastopol is an option on Greece...
...In the first place Americans should free themselves from the illusion that a world revolution is going on in Greece...
...Greece has always hated this foreign tutelage, but has never seemed able to get along without it...
...The leaders of the present revolutionary group are Communists...
...However, Plastiras, head of the present British sponsored government is anti-king...
...Army and naval officers constantly intervene in partisan politics and party chiefs frequently resort to revolutions...
...The two main parties were about evenly represented and this left the 15 Communist representatives masters of the situation...
...26,1922 Gen...
...Much of the army was involved...
...Twenty million Bulgarian and other Southern Slavs, tending to unite under Russian-sponsored Partisan leadership, look with longing eyes at Greece's second port...
...Both sides benefited and both complained...
...However, the ELAS was not able to drive the Germans from any place which the Nazis thought was worth holding and they most certainly didn't free Greece from the occupiers...
...Metaxas imposed a terrible dictatorship which continued until the collapse of Greece after the Nazi invasion, even though Metaxas himself died during the war...
...For many decades the British Empire beat the Russian Empire...
...They added new glory to Greece's classic record as the champion of freedom...
...That was a major British interest during the last century...
...when he's out many want him back...
...She ruled the waves not only of the oceans, but of the Black Sea and kept Russia out of the Balkans, so near to her...
...There were elections in 1923, 1924, 1926, and again in 1928...
...In 1912 and 1913 the Balkan Slavs, potential friends and allies of Russia, aided by Greece, again drove Turkey out of practically the whole of Europe and prepared the way for further Russian expansion...
...The situation is far more complicated...
...Precarious Toe-Hold Now, in 1945, it has gone much farther...
...The next year Gen...
...They carried on a civil war, and saved a large part of their ammunition for it...
...The British have more right insofar as they are preserving the chance for the Greeks, uncoerced, to vote for the government which they desire...
...For example, in the 1850s Great Britain, with a number of Allies, went to war against Russia, on a pretty flimsy pretext, wholly to prevent Russia from expanding her influence and power in the Balkans and Turkey...
...Nevertheless by that time—1878—Russia was much deeper in the Balkans and much nearer the Dardanelles than 25 years earlier...
...This is a characteristic struggle of a political group for power...
...Again Great Britain intervened, forced Russia to relinquish the fruits of her victory, reduced Big Bulgaria to a small principality and put Christians back under the Turks...
...Both fights are old and both have been very bloody...
...Many Greeks are in deadly fear of an ELAS dictatorship...
...There was bloodshed in Athens and by that time the Communists had begun to play a role...
...In August 1936, Gen...
...George declared a very wide amnesty, deprived Kondylis of his power, held fair elections and tried to establish democratic government, but failed...
...That is a bright chapter in the history of this war...
...he chased two kings out and had six royal ministers killed...
...Then England's guarantee of Rumania would have meant something...
...He is a man of the people, as was Papandreou, also...
...Bullets intended for our enemies have been killing our friends and compromising democracy...
...Her main motive was to use Greece in Britain's imperial struggle against Russian expansion in the Near East...
...Thus the anti-royalist Plastiras is fighting the anti-royalist ELAS...
...They are destitute and hungry and distressed...
...In stopping ELAS, Britain thinks it is stopping Russia...
...Now Russia is terrifically powerful, is rapidly augmenting its enormous population, and has established her own forces, or those of her Slav Allies and admirers, a few miles from Salonika...
...it is, among other things, another attempt of ambitious men to replace ballots with bullets...
...Plastiras had six ministers of the deposed government shot...
...He held a very unfair plebiscite and brought the king back...
...There will be elections...
...He has always been on the side of the Republicans and Liberals...
...The members of the revolutionary ELAS have more right on their side, in that they are fighting foreigners on their own soil...
...Nichola Plastiras pulled off a revolution and chased out King Constan-tine, who was succeeded by his son, George...
...After that Plastiras drove out King George...
...That factor is a group of able, trained, fanatical Communists determined to seize power...
...In 1928 Venizelos again returned...
...And even that is pretty precarious...
...Next year, 1925, in June, another general, Theodore Pangalos, made a revolution and the people choose him president at a one-candidate election...
...Parade Of Dictators The next year Gen...
...Naturally the question of the king enters the struggle, as it has for three decades or more...
...Many of the old forces and some of the old actors are in operation...
...However, Russia continued her pressure toward Constantinople and a quarter of a century later sent her armies through Rumania and Bulgaria almost to the capital of Turkey...
...Foreign powers used Greece for their interests and Greece also used them...
...The British attacked Russia on Russia's own soil, defeated her, and forced her to agree not to keep a fleet i...
...Naturally we ask who is responsible for the tragedy...
...This peace, concluded at Paris, was a bitter humiliation for Russia and a striking demonstration of Britain's imperial power in the world...
...Nor is it certain that when England shoots at a Greek Partisan, it will hit Russia...
...As stubborn politicians squabbled, democracy simply ran down and the Parliament suspended itself, turning power over to a committee...
...As a result of this smashing victory over Turkish arms, Russia freed from Turkey almost the whole remaining part of the Balkan Peninsula and created a big Bulgaria...
...It broke out, under Venizelos' instigation, and proved to be on a. large scale...
...They should not urge American intervention in Greece's political revolutions...
...A Role For America The Germans withdrew because of Allied pressure from above, chiefly Russian pressure...
...He failed and hurriedly left...
...That ELAS fought against the Germans is true...
...For example, on Sept...
...The regent is certainly not known to be a royalist...
...However, they should do everything possible to make our Government use America's power and prestige to bring about fair Greek elections, under international auspices, as soon as possible, and to guarantee, with the cooperation of the Great Powers, that the winners of the elections shall be permitted unhampered to form a government and direct the affairs of the nation...
...Because the ELAS wants to seize power by force and govern coercively and Plastiras is against it...
...This is not an uprising of all the good men and women against the devils...
...Now we may again ask: Are the British gaining anything by shooting ELAS members...
...now again we have a Greek revolution—one more revolution...
...In 1914, at the beginning of the first World War, Russia actually obtained from England a written agreement that after the war Russia could annex territory bordering the Dardanelles...
...Local groups in all lands there are ferociously fighting for power...
...There was a Plastiras revolution, two Pangalos revolutions, two Metaxas revolutions, a Kondylis revolution, a Venizelos revolution...
...She was determined to prevent her rival, Russia, from reaching the Eastern Mediterranean...
...And all the more, since Russian-backed Tito is insistently claiming Trieste and domination of the Adriatic...
...If the Greek people are behind EAM-ELAS, they will be able to put them in power...
...It does not seem probable that England will shoot its way into Greek good will...
...the picture consists mostly of grays and each group is fighting mainly for political control—none is defending democracy as its main aim...
...America's duty is to use all of its mighty influence immediately and everywhere in a way to make just settlements in each liberated country that they will save as a basis of an effective world organization, supplanting and eliminating imperial rivalries...
...These sad, bereaved idealistic little people of Greece, who for 25 years have followed one chief after another, are not the main factor in the situation...
...The chief aim of the ELAS leaders was to become masters of Greece...
...Direct American intervention would be futile...
...England is determined that Russia shall not push her into the sea at Salonika as Hitler did at Dunkirk...
...And there will be more revolutions...
...It may have a temporary victory...
...Again London had humiliated Russia and pushed her back from the Mediterranean...
...But before giving a definite answer we must recall what has been going on in Greece during the last quarter of a century...
...They played a major role in the liberation of Greece from Turkey, which took about 100 years, and in the establishment of an independent, fairly stable, and economically sound state...
...This is not a fight between Greek democrats and reactionaries...
...There are little people on both sides, good Greeks on both sides, democrats on both sides, fanatical politicians on both sides...
...They desperately want a new order...
...The picture of pure white and black, of saints and sinners which they have drawn is imaginary...
...The people of Greece have been poorly governed...
...This brief recital shows that the internal history of Greece during the two world wars was very turbulent indeed, with rival political factors violently fighting one another and with the military constantly intervening...
...I mean from the purely imperial point of view...
Vol. 9 • January 1945 • No. 5
