Fifty years since the fall of the Greek junta

the day of the generals

by our Balkan affairs correspondent

On 24 July 1974 the military dictatorship that had ruled Greece collapsed. Seven years before, on 21 April 1967, a group of far-right army officers led by Brigadier-General Pattakos and Colonels Papadopoulos and Makarezos seized power after a coup d'etat. In the early morning of that day, tanks marched onto the central streets of Athens while small mobile units of the army were arresting politicians, government officials and prominent figures who were regarded as having left-wing sympathies.The coup was  supported by the American imperialists, the Greek oligarchs and some of the   bourgeoisie. 
The same junta, made up of right wing generals that acted on the behalf of President Nixon, Henry Kissinger and the CIA took power claiming that an “imminent communist plot” was about to take place. In reality scheduled elections were due in May of that year that would have seen George Papandreou’s moderate Centre Union Party come to power. But unfounded fear, spread by the Western powers, that a Papandreou government would undermine the country’s role in NATO allowed the Generals to ‘save Greece’ with the acquiescence of the then king, Constantine II, and the powerful Orthodox Church. 
“The Revolution of 21st April” was the slogan of the military dictatorship. Their symbol was a soldier standing in front of a phoenix rising from the flames. But resistance began from day one. Outside Greece communists and other democratic forces built solidarity movements to demand the release of political prisoners and the end of military rule. Inside Greece the fight-back was led mainly by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).The Junta was finally brought down by the actions of communists, left wing students, unions and ordinary working class people. 
This year the conservative New Democracy party government wanted to make a big show of the ‘Restoration of Democracy’, but in reality, after 50 years, the same bourgeois system is still in power along with its hallmark corruption, nepotism and populism.
In the 50 years since the fall of the Junta the country has seen many changes. The formation of a Hellenic Republic and the abolition of the monarchy by a nationwide referendum.The creation of a welfare state, a national health service, state schools and the like. However a small, wealthy landowning elite made up of powerful dynasties and oligarchs, still control the country through their old mechanisms. While the other “left wing” social democrat and liberal parties joined in the “celebrations”, to their credit , the leaders of KKE did not take part in the festivities marking the 50th anniversary of the "Restoration of Democracy".
Instead a speech was read out in Parliament and a letter published decrying the restoration of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. A senior KKE MP, Nikos Karathanasopoulos, stated that Greece had forgotten that the KKE was the only party that actively fought against the Junta , and that after "democracy was restored " it only lead to the stabilisation of capitalist power, further anti-communist persecution and greater integration into  NATO and the US Alliance.
He added that for all the achievements of the post dictatorship governments, a small minority still dominates the working classes. The struggles and sacrifices of the KKE may have brought the collapse of the dictatorship but the mechanisms that created it were still hard at work exploiting the masses. And that slogans such as "Greece Out Of NATO" must be heard even louder and the strikes against privatisation and labour exploitation must be expanded. As well as the popular struggles that still need resolving such as the Cyprus issue and anti union laws.
The invasion of Cyprus 50 years ago was a direct result of the Junta taking power and gave Washington the green light to allow Turkey to invade a weakened Cyprus under a puppet dictatorship, similar to the one in Greece. Fifty years on and the island is still divided, to the shame of the so called “guarantors”, namely, Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom with its military bases at Akrotiri and Dhekleia from where it launches its air-strikes against the Arabs in the Middle East.
The fall of the military dictatorship in Greece owes everything to the brave working class people of Greece who stood up to seven years of crackdowns , to the banning of political parties and newspapers. to the arrests of prominent communists and union leaders and to the complete militarisation of justice and law. The people and their leaders freed Greece from a tyranny that could have lasted decades. Thankfully the people remember the communist resistance ,the siege of the students at the Athens Central University, the general strikes and other acts of bravery, even if the current regime chooses to whitewash them from history.