Revolt in Athens: The Greek Communist Second Round, 1944-1945: Greek Communist "Second Round", 1944-45

355 Pages·1972·9.299 MB·English

by  John O. Iatrides

REVOLT IN ATHENS

REVOLT IN ATHENS
THE GREEK COMMUNIST "SECOND ROUND " 1944-1945
BY JOHN O. IATRIDES
With a Foreword by William Hardy McNeill
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Copyright (c) 1972
by Princeton University Press
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Publication of this book has been aided
by a grant from the Ford Foundation
LCC: 76-39052
ISBN: 0-691-05203-4
This book has been composed in Linotype Caledonia
Printed in the United States of America by
Princeton University Press
To Nancy

CONTENTS
ABBREVIATIONS VLU
FOREWORD by William H. McNeill ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiv
INTRODUCTION 3
I GREEK POLITICAL REALITIES 9
II IN SEARCH OF NATIONAL UNITY 57
III AFTER LIBERATION 132
IV THE STRUGGLE FOR ATHENS 200
V BETWEEN ROUNDS 256
VI IN RETROSPECT 276
APPENDICES 289
BIBLIOGRAPHY 325
INDEX 333
ABBREVIATIONS
EAM (Ethnikon Apeleftherotikon Metopon): National Lib-
eration Front
EDES (Ethnikos Demokratikos Ellinikos Syndesmos): Na-
tional Republican Greek League
EKKA (Ethniki Kai Koinoniki Apeleftherosis): National and
Social Liberation
ELAS (Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos): National
Popular Liberation Army
KKE (Kommunistikon Komma Ellados): Communist Party
of Greece
PEEA (Politiki Epitropi Ethnikis Apeleftherosis): Political
Committee of National Liberation
x (Khee): Extreme royalist armed group
FOREWORD
BY WILLIAM H. MCNEILL
BOBERT A. MILLKEN DISTINGUISHED SERVICE PROFESSOR OF
HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
ODD THOUGH it may sound, I have experienced the events
with which Professor Iatrides deals in this book no less
than three times: once as an eyewitness in 1944-45; once as
a writer and historian in 1946-47; and now for a third time
as a reader in 1970. Each experience carried its own
poignancy.
As an eyewitness I saw and heard a small part of what
took place in Athens during the revolt of December 1944.
Some events of greatest import, like the demonstration in
Constitution Square on December 3, which touched off
large-scale fighting in Athens, manifested themselves as a
series of more or less disconnected encounters, separated
from one another by periods of quiet when nothing hap­
pened within the range of my personal observation.
In such moments of crisis, normal patterns of communica­
tion break down; the eyewitness, if he pauses to reflect,
must realize how little he really knows about what is going
on. But everyone, even high military commanders, is in
nearly the same position. For even if the command and
communications net functions smoothly, it functions only
within the pattern of everyday channels, linking headquar­
ters with headquarters up and down the line. The desperate
confusion "out there," where thousands of angry, frightened
people are doing things and having things done to them,