Harry Targ
Western
Imperialism and the Greek Left
When the Nazis were defeated in Greece in 1944, most
of the country was controlled by the Greek National Liberation Front (EAM). The
Greek Communist Party constituted the largest political contingent in the EAM,
but other liberal and radical anti-fascists were part of the coalition. Most of
the population supported the EAM.
The British military entered Greece to help reestablish
a dictatorial government as the Nazis fled. In collaboration with the Greek military
the British army put in place a coalition government in the fall of 1944. The
EAM representatives resigned from the government in December when the British
Army ordered the Liberation Front to disarm. Then Greek police fired on EAM
demonstrators. The British, with US assistance, brought two divisions of
soldiers, tanks, and planes to crush the EAM resistance. The EAM surrendered in
February, 1945. The surrender was followed by a “pacification” of the
countryside by the British in conjunction with participation by the Greek
National Guard.
In March, 1946, the Greeks held an election for national
office, boycotted by the Left, in which monarchist politicians secured 49 per
cent of the vote. The new regime restored the king to the throne and expanded
resources to the army and police. Meanwhile the population continued to
experience the economic misery extended by the war. For example, 75 percent of
the children of Greece were malnourished. The Greek government continued the
program of purging former EAM resistance fighters. They replaced trade union
officials with government-appointed personnel and purged former EAM affiliated
personnel from public institutions.
Finally, in the fall of 1946, a rebellion led by
Greek Communists and other EAM members was launched. While assistance to the
rebels came from neighboring states, the rebellion was a grassroots one. Many
commentators over the years insisted that the Soviet Union, still committed to
a “spheres-of-influence” agreement with the British, provided little or no
assistance to the popular forces, even
though the US administration would claim that the Greek Civil War was an
example of the westward expansion of Soviet Communism.
The
Role of the Greek Civil War in the Establishment of US Cold War Policy
By 1947, the Greek popular forces were engaged in a
protracted civil war against the reactionary British-supported Greek
government. With growing economic crisis at home the British were forced to
withdraw their material support from the Greek government. The British informed
the United States that if Greece were to be saved from “communism,” the US
would have to replace British support. By 1947, the Truman Administration was
ready to launch a full-scale military, economic, political, and cultural
assault on what would be called “international communism.” The Greek Civil War
could be the excuse needed to generate support from the American people for the
new Cold War.
During February, 1947, Truman mobilized his advisors
to prepare a declaration to be delivered to Congress concerning the world
situation. At one meeting Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson argued that “the
communists” were seeking to control Greece, Turkey, Iran, the Middle East, and
Italy. If they achieved their goals in these countries, France and China would
fall. As State Department historian Herbert Feis wrote: “The fall of the
dominoes could be heard as he talked along.” Senator Arthur Vandenberg, former
isolationist Republican Senator from Michigan, told administration officials
that President Truman must “scare hell out of the American people.”
In order “to scare hell out of the American people,”
President Truman appeared before Congress to request $400 million in military and
economic aid to Greece and Turkey. The aid request provided the vehicle for
Truman to articulate the government’s overall purposes of opening the world to
capitalist expansion in terms of “freedom” versus “tyranny.” The language of
the Truman Doctrine made it crystal clear that the struggle against socialism,
the Left, and autonomous national development would be a long one. Despite the
reality of the contending forces in the Greek Civil War, Truman said that the
United States must “support free peoples who are resisting attempted
subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” The gauntlet was
down. The United States would defend “free” countries like the reactionary
Greek government, which included Nazi collaborators, against “totalitarianism,”
that is, the Soviet Union and its “oppressed” allies in Eastern Europe. The
term, “totalitarianism,” would be used to lump together countries and movements
in Eastern Europe and later around the world which sought to construct
alternative economic and political systems.
The US response to the Greek Civil War and the
defeat of the EAM by 1949 was the primary force that led to the creation of political
and economic institutions in that country that have constrained working class
movements ever since. And the modest assistance program to the Greek government
in 1947 was a prelude to the much larger Marshall Plan economic aid program
adopted in 1948 that would do much to construct a Western European economic
system compatible with global capitalist interests. The struggles of European
social movements today are constrained by the establishment of European
economic and political institutions going back to the 1940s.
(Part 2 will
discuss the Marshall Plan and the construction of a European political economy
compatible with global capitalism. The materials for the two essays come in
part from prior blogs and Harry Targ “Strategy of an Empire in Decline: Cold
War II,” MEP Publications, 1986).
