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State repression

category greece / turkey / cyprus | history of anarchism | review author Thursday September 29, 2005 13:31author by Libertartian Historical Archiveauthor email llinos at par dot forthnet dot gr Report this post to the editors

Part 5 of “The early days of Greek anarchism”

Written by Libertartian Historical Archive, translated by P. Pomonis and published by KSL.

State repression against socialist ideas, which as we have seen in the Greek territory were mainly in the internationalist - anarchist vein, started during the Othonian regime. The arrests, the confiscation of newspapers, the deportations to islands of many liberal and radical journalists and intellectuals, who beyond their criticism to royalty, propagated libertarian views, became a favourite and common State practice. This was dictated by the agreements struck between the European secret services, a fact confirmed by recent research in the diplomatic archives of the era. Those tactics were in line with the respective practices throughout Europe, initially against all socialist factions and the International and subsequently against all those who defended the Paris Commune. Those persecutions, in France in 1871, in Italy in 1873, in Spain in 1874, hampered the functioning of the various sections of the International as well as of anarchist organisations. Already from the beginning of 1870, European governments had formulated a plan ofcriminalisation of every internationalist activity.

«...It appears that domestic legislation alone is not sufficient to repress the evil that is nowadays spreading throughout Europe and they are considering the need of curbing it internationally...» (excerpt from a letter of 1872 by the Greek ambassador in Paris addressed to the Prime Minister D. Voulgaris, published by M.Demetriou).

It is in that context that we have to study the rapid repression of the Patran anarchists, which followed the publication of the Hellenic Democracy.

The existence of the Democratic League was widely known during March and April of 1877 and to this P. Panas and his cycle must have contributed greatly. The bourgeois newspapers of the time, depending on the information they possessed, considered the organisation non-existent, childish, adventurer or outright dangerous. The Forologoumenos, the newspaper of the Patran merchant class, labeled them bought off organs of anti Hellenic motives...» and called for the intervention of the Public Prosecutor. The orders of the financial oligarchy to their political partners were clear. The circulation of the newspaper was just the occasion. Using extraordinarily rapid procedures, the Public Prosecutor of Patras commenced criminal investigations and preferred public prosecutions against all members of the Democratic Club. Very soon, as evidenced from a relevant letter of theirs, four (six according to Kordatos) members of the organisation were arrested and imprisoned. From prison, they sent a letter to their comrades of the anarchist federation of Jura. On June 10, 1877, the Bulletin of Jura published the following:

Greece enters in its turn into the accord of civilized nations, whose governments sleeplessly strive through active measures of pressure, towards the maintenance of «social order».

In confirmation, we have received the following letter: «Prison of Patras, 15/27 May 1877. At the time of writing this pamphlet here, the following: Dionysis Ambelicopoulos, Costantinos Bobotis, Alexandras Evmorfopoulos, Costantinos Grimanis. We are in prison due to publication of the first issue of the newspaper Hellenic Democracy, a copy of which you shall shortly receive. Greetings and Solidarity. Constantinos Grimanis».

Further below in the article, signed by J. Guillaumc, additional information is passed on to the readers: «We have recently received the first issue of Hellenic Republic. This issue features the agram of the «Democratic League of the People» that we have already reprinted, as well as explanatory elaborations, a call by the Democratic League to the Greek people over the Eastern Question, local news, an article pertaining to the Paris Commune and a brief report, which was first published last April, referring to the insurrection attempt underrtaken by Cafiero and his friends. The Greek government saw in this publication a menace to «social order» and impririsoned the editors of Hellenic Democracy. Thus, miraculously, it has thrown them, willy-nilly, onto the revolutionary path. From our part, we are forwarding the expression og our warmest sympathy to those courageous men who have first raised the banner of modern socialism. James Guillaume».

As noted by M. Demetriou. «…the main points of the indictment, as published in the newspapers of the time, were as follows: «They stand accused a) of conspiring, convening in secret-in a private dwelling at fixed hours, with the intention of overthrowing the currently established regime through violent means, and to remove from His throne, our ruler George the 1st (23), with a view of establishing democracy in Greece. B) attempting, by composing a club, convening as above and coming into contact with persons unknown, to stir civil war, through the application and execution of koinonistikai or socialist reforms, calling the people to revolt against the established Laws and to the plunder of the property of the well off by the penurious classes. c) of offending HM the King George through the publication and circulation, herein as well as elsewhere in the Kingdom, of the paper Hellenic Democracy issue 1, opening with «Revolution is the Law of Progress» and closing with «Thus act the koinonistai».

All conservative newspapers hailed the arrests of the anarchists. The Mohlos exulted: «We have been totally vindicated». The Forologounenos, just a few days after the arrests wrote: «...our society feeds in its bosom poisonous snakes which conspire against lawful order...». The republican newspapers kept silent, choosing not to mention a word. The cycle of libertarians of Athens, along with Panagiotis Panas and Rokkos Hoidas, the Heptanesian member of the Greek Parliament, who had openly declared himself a «koinonistis» were left as the sole defenders.

Those arrested did not renounce their beliefs but they refused to reveal to the investigating authorities anything related to the Club or the Federation. They justified their stance by their commitment to secrecy by oath, a practice that reminds the bakuninist organisations of the era. Following persistent agitation by R. Hoidas they were released and later on acquitted from all charges. In a speech he gave, Hoidas castigated the arrests undertaken by the Public Prosecution Office of Patras and defended those arrested based on their constitutional right of freedom of thought and expression.

On August 27,1877 the Bulletin of the Jura Federation published the following: «...A letter from Patras, sent by one of our friends, provides us with a few details on the socialist movement in Greece, as well as a translation of the article that led to the imprisonment of the editors of Hellenic Democracy. This article, which we cannot reproduce in full, was written according to the international socialist revolutionary view. After proving that the questions of the East (as well as all ethnicity questions) are but one of the means used by the bourgeoisie to exploit the people, the editors conclude the article thus: «We must therefore leam once and for all that the Turks are not to be found only in Thessaly, but also inside our own walls and our own homes; and if we are slightly intelligent, we must begin by killing the Turks of the interior before thinking about the others. This is our duty and for that purpose the Democratic League of the People was founded. That is, all those who wish to work for the benefit of the proletariat should join us».

As we have already written in a previous issue, the editors of the Hellenic Democracy were released only temporarily while remaining under strict surveillance. The government indicted them once again. The letter from Patras, an excerpt of which we are publishing, commented: «We are convinced that the solution of the social question is not possible without social revolution, and those who think otherwise are mistaken. Revolution is not just a means, it is a principle that should be stated: No matter the cost, we must realise our ideals. That is why we condone the Benevento events, not as a circumspect act, but as a necessary act. Circumspection, as perceived by our enemies, is worthless under those circumstances, the people must engage in concrete practice before arriving to revolution».

Local chapters of the Democratic League of he People are being founded in Athens, Messini, Aegio, Filiatra, Cephaionia. Let us hope that it won’t be long before Greece becomes one of the local sections of the International».

EPILOGUE

These are the last facts available on the Patran anarchists of the federation of the Democratic League of the People». Information on the latest activities of the organisation is vague. The wave of repression unleashed against them by the Greek State as well as the pressure applied on them by their social and familial milieu, led some of them to back away from action. The remaining members of the organisation had to move conspiratorially, retaining until the beginning of 1880 their contacts with antiauthoritarian organisations abroad. But these contacts were also gradually severed due to the decline of the International’s sections. The continuing supra State repression, product of the pan-European agreement of the early 1870’s, led the local federations to a prolonged clandestinity that weakened communication between them. The presence of the Patran anarchists as well as of their other comrades, about whom very little is known to the present day, marked through the libertarian character of their ideas and actions, the emergence of socialism in the Greek territory. Their ideas were not forgotten. They created a revolutionary tradition, which in the coming decades nurture organisations which would defend with unrivaled courage anarchist socialism.

NOTES: 1) Area in the center of Athens, in the proximity of the royal palace. 2) King Otho (1815-1867): Bavarian prince who became the first king of independent Greece in 1833. He was ejected in 1862. 3) Heptanesos: The seven Ionian islands (Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Lefkada, Ithaka, Kythera and Antikythera). 4) Yannis Kordatos (1891-1961): Historian and politician, who was among the founders of the Communist Party of Greece and acted as its Secretary General from 1920 to 1924, before being expelled. 5) Achaea: The north-western part of the Peloponnesos peninsula. 6) Costis Moskov (1939-1998): Greek leftwing historian. 7) Ardin: One of the best known pioneering Greek socialist newspapers, published in 1885 by Platon Drakoulis in Athens. 8) Cyclades: Archipelago in the Aegean sea. 9) Peloponnesos: Peninsula in southern Greece. 10) Achaean League: Federation of various cities and regions of Peloponnesos, that flourished during the Hellenistic years and was dissolved by the Romans. 11) Peloponnisian War: War fought between Athens and Sparta, that lasted from 431 to 404 BC and ended with the capitulation of Athens. It marked the end of Classical Age. 12) Which of course it hadn’t, women were allowed to vote in 1948. 13) Thucydides (470-400 BC): An Athenian aristocrat, general and the leading historian of the Classical Age. He wrote the History of the Peloponnisian War. 14) Kleftes: Klephts, bands of Greek brigands active in the 18th and early 19th centuries, similar to the Slav hajduks or the Muslim cetes. They provided the backbone of the first rebel groups during the Greek war of independence, thus acquiring national iconic status.15) The Language Problem: The conflict between everyday spoken Greek (demotic) and katharevousa, the ordeal State language of written and oral speech. The conflict started with the creation of the Kingdom of Greece in 1830 and raged on until the fall of the military regime in 1974. 16) Yannis Psicharis: The leader of the demoticist movement, who caused an earthquake when in 1888 he published his book «My Journey», which is considered the starting point of the demotic literary prose. 17) Megali Idea: Literally, the Great Idea (of a revived Byzantine empire and the recovery of Constantinople/Istanbul for Christianity), it served as the vehicle of Greek nationalism in its expansionist years, from 1830 until 1922. 18) The Russo-Turkish war of 1877, caused by events in Bosnia-Hercegovina. 19) 1854 refers to the failed insurrection of Greeks in Thessaly, Epirus and Macedonia against the Turks which broke out in 1853-54 during the Crimean War. Crete was a major bone of contention between Greece and the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century. Howarth is admiral Augustus Carl Howarth (or Howarth Pasha), 3rd son of the 3rd Count of Buckinghamshire who for decades rented his services to the Ottoman Empire, rising to the post of Chief Admiral of the Ottoman fleet. In 1877, acting as the commander of the Ottoman fleet, he contributed to the suppression of the anti Turk insurrection in Thessaly. 20) Paralos: Ceremonial ship of the ancient Athenians, it used to escort the Athenian fleet during its campaigns. 21) Epirus: Region in the North Western part of Greece, wrestled away from the Ottoman Empire after the 1 st Balkan War of 1912. 22) Thessaly: Region in Central Greece, incorporated in the Kingdom of Greece in 1881. 23) King George the 1st (1845-1913): Prince Wilhelm I, son of King Christian IX of Denmark; he became King of Greece in 1863, following the ejection of Otho. He was murdered in Salonica in 1913.

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