It was in the Peloponnesus that I felt most conscious of the Greek military regime this summer. lvery few hundred yards along the roads one was met by large hoardings proclaiming 'Long live the King! Long live the Army! Long live the Revolution of 2lst April!' By law every cafe and teverna in Greece must carry prop®°ganda posters displaying a complex chart with communism at one end and the Revolution of 2lst April at the other. The number of people detained in Greek prisons for political reasons is probably close to that claimed by the Junta around 3 000. But this is a floating population; it seems accurate to estimate that some 50 000 people have been arreted for political reasons since April. (see an excellent article by Mervyn Jones, New Statesman October 20th). And the censorship is not only oppressive, it is in many ways ludicrous: books, records, 2s well as newspapers are censored — last month a young man in Salonika was sentenced to four years prison for selling a record of Theodorakis. The cinema has been crip,led - I had little choice in Athens other than seeing bad westerns. And the Greek classical theatre festivals at Athens and Apidavros were impoverished by the banning of plays dealing with democracy and those of Aristophanes, because they mock governments and politicians. More serious is the problem of Greek schools, where children are segregated according to the 'reliability' of their parents. The children of parents with any left-wing views are segregated into schools where the emphasis is onh@lth,bodily vigour, and the glories of Greek history and where they are deliberately turned against their parents. The point of this long introduction is to sugsest just how insecure the Junta feels. Their censorship and restrictions would often be comical, if they were not in a tragic context. And it is not surprising that they feel insecure, for the political and social bese of the Junta is perilously narrow. There is support for the regime; when Pattakos entered the theatre at Epidavros at a performance which I attended some 15% of the audience was a vpluding enthusiastically. But who are these people? Greece is a polarised society; the native bourgeoisie is more a financial and business than an industrial one, and is therefore far more isolated from the working class and peasantry. There are growing Signs that the Greek middle classes are not happy with the regime: the economic state of the country gives them little cause for pleasure and hostile foreign opinion does them little good. A key moment in the Junta's career came in August when the two leading figures in the Bank of Greece resigned from office -— an action which both reflected and encouraged a widespread absence of confidence in the regime on the part of the bourgeoi-i sie. The main civilian support seems to come from petty-bourgeois elements, especially shopkeepers and clerks, sick of corruption and politics, and articulating their malaise in a Poujadist type reaction. The regime, indeed, is an utterly negative one; Papadopoulos may have some ideas, but the Junta is dominated by backward looking men like Pattakos. This base, narrow and insecure, cannot be a permanent one. The petty-— bourgeoisie relies too much on a now declining tourist trade for a regime unpopular abroad to remain in favour with them. It is on the army, socially as well as in terms of power, that the Junta rests.
In asking where hope lies for change, one important factor must be kept
in mind - the general fear among the mass of Greek people, even on Crete,
of another civil wor. I believe that there would be at the present no
mass following for a call to arms, and while the army remains solid such
a call would be sure to fail. Hope for change must lie in a nunber of
directions. Firstly, in the army itsclf. It is rare for an army dictator-
ship to maintain its unity with the pressures of politics and ambition
ready to divide it. and there are signs that splits in the army are
developing. Elements in the north were clearly willing to support
Con. tantine last week. More important is the emergence of a group
based on the younger officers, to the right of the Junta; this new element
wants no civilian politics at all - permanent military rule, whereas the
Junta still seems to want a retum to civilian politics, with strict
military control. The Averoff trial was clear evidence of this division.
and the return of troops, some 12,000 of them from the comforts of Cyprus,
will not help army stability.
The second crucial factor is the economic situation. The period of the
Junta's rule has been marked by falls in industrial output, building,
and in domestic and foreign investment. The Junta's indication of
increased bank balances is only a reflection of a decline in capital
investment. And the price fall, claimed as a success by the Junta, is
of a kind associated with a depression. Jest year's overull deficit on
external accounts was £lm; this year it will be about £80m. These problems
are not all of the Junta's making; the decline started at the end of 1966.
But the Centre Union policy of Gorge Papandreous met such problems by
stimulating purchasing power by encouraging wage increases and giving
farmers generous support prices. The Junta, predictably, is pursuing a
policy of ruthless retrenchment, cutting spending and freezing wages. This
is a policy which, in the context of Greek society, is likely to alienate
both the working class and bourgois sympathisers, and confirm the will to
resist.
It is here that the resistance movements that have formed are of importance.
At present they do not see themselves as leading an armed revolt, but of
spreading propaganda, of encouraging sabotage, and of being ready to lead
an armed rising to give the final push to a weakened regime. In a country
afraid, above all, of another civil wr, the strategy seems a correct one.
There are at present two main resistance groups in Greece, the EDA (United
Democratic Left), generally seen as the legal version of the banned Com-
munist Party. But because it has an identifiable membership, EDA has been
hard hit by arrests. More widespread is the Democratic Defence movement,
which developed during the summer. Its members are drawn chiefly from
supporters of the Centre Union party, the principal left party in Greece;
supporters and not members, because in Greek politics, apart from the EDA,
the parties have no memberships other than the politicians, and most Centre
Union politicians are at present unwilling to consider non-political means.
DD is spreading information through its widely circulated bulletin, develop-
ing local cadres to form the basis of future democratic action, and leading
and encouraging the various forms of sabotage. As.an exiled Centre Union
MP said on television last weck, if Constantine wis really a democrat it is
to these sorts of groups that he would have uppealed for support. But of
course Constantine is no friend of democracy; his relationship with Papandreou
in 1965 made that quite cleur.
It is here then, in divisions within the army, in an economic decline, and in the growth of the popular movements, that hope for the overthrow of the Junta must lie. At present the Greek people are not ready for a civil war and who would wish it upon them with the odds that they would have to face at present? The Junta will weaken - diplomatic isolation, in which Britain could play a key part, would help this enormously. It is then, through the popular resistance movements, that the people will intervene, if there are to be hopes of success. All that we can do is to press our government to cut off relations with the regime, and do all we can to spread the criticisms of the Junta, to which they seem extraordinarily sensitive.