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'The Politics of Working Class Communism in Greece, 1918-1936'
This PhD thesis was successfully completed at the University of York in 2004.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate the relatively unknown territory of labour movement and working-class communism in Greece as they developed in the years between the First and Second World Wars. Based on an extensive range of primary sources, including state archives and the archives of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), it examines previously unidentified aspects of communist politics in Greece, drawing on the experience of the country's two main industrial centres with relatively large working-class concentrations: that of Kokkinia in Piraeus and that of Kavala in Northern Greece or Macedonia.
The first chapter provides the historiographical context against which the arguments of the thesis are developed, and emphasis the exceptional weakness of the existing literature on communism in inter-war Greece. Chapters 2 and 3 then provide the economic and political framework respectively for the development of the working class and the organised labour movement in Greece. Chapter 2 is concerned with the social and economic factors which can be identified as the preconditions for the emergence of working-class radicalism. Chapter 3 assesses various methods of incorporation by which the labour movement was confronted, and offers initial pointers regarding the extent to which various sections of the working class managed to respond to and deal with these challenges, or failed to do so. Chapters 4 and 5 then deal with the KKE at national level, including the question of its relationship with the Communist International. Chapters 6 to 8 comprise case studies dealing with the development of labour and communist politics in the localities of Kokkinia and Kavala. Chapter 9 provides a summary and a set of conclusions to the study.
Attempting to place the Greek experience within a wider international context, the thesis examines whether models that have been applied to western societies with liberal regimes and long labour traditions can be applied to the study of communism in a country like Greece? In the Greek case, the limited degree of industrialisation played an important role not only in defining the shape of in the emerging shape of working-class politics, but also its timing. The lack of strong pre-existing labour traditions, combined with emerging ideological doctrines that had not existed in the nineteenth century but proved decisive in the beginning of the twentieth, were critical factors affecting the character of labour politics in Greece in the interwar period. Additionally, the timing of industrialisation was such an important factor in the Greek case because it largely coincided with an unresolved national question. The case studies accordingly turned up evidence that such factors as the idea of 'national trauma'; important national and ethnic identities among workers of refugee origin, as well as the political complexities of newly annexed national territories like Kavala, all played an important role in shaping the nature of labour movement politics. In the thesis, these features are examined alongside themes of development and regime change, and the existence of a state that was not representative in character, but which both possessed and exercised a very considerable repressive capability.
One of the most challenging aspects of the thesis was the re-evaluation of longstanding 'myths' and accepted conclusions regarding the KKE widely reproduced in the existing literature. These include the unidirectional power relationship within the party working from top to bottom; the relationship with the Comintern (and the issue of a single, internationally applicable periodisation of Comintern history); the character of inner-party crises, the dichotomy between 'stalinists' and 'trotskyists', and others. These are re-examined under the prism of previously unseen material from the KKE archives, as well as from local party branches and testimonies of party members, activists and sympathizers.
In addition, the thesis touches upon a number of qualitative characteristics of the development of the KKE, with particular emphasis on the party's membership composition and on key moments and turning points in its development. It assesses how party members responded to state oppression and how far they managed to extend their influence in a hostile environment, through which organisations and with what degree of effectiveness.
The thesis gives special attention to the development of communist politics at a grassroots, community level, as opposed to an overview of developments based entirely at national leadership level or the level of the international communist movement. The interplay between formal party politics and what communists did in the community provides a valuable analytical tool for explaining the growth of communist politics, going beyond objective factors, such as the growth of industry or variations in wages and living conditions, and focusing on the interaction of various factors of incorporation and emancipation. This interaction was never one-sided. Although the state was capable of drawing on a variety of resources, such as legislation, clientism and active oppression, communists and organised labour had the capacity, in various degrees, to adapt and respond to them. Within that context, there are cases when communists manage to forge new forms of identity and values that become increasingly hegemonic at the community level, as the Kavala case demonstrates. In other cases, communists created enclaves of radicalism which, while not yet hegemonic, serve as an influential platform for the promotion of communist politics and ideas, as signaled in the second case study of Kokkinia. The distinct cultural dimension, in other words, the processes through which experience was channelled into radicalism - or, conversely, conservatism or apathy - constitutes one of the key themes in this study.
In this lies part of its wider significance. National and international communist politics provide a backdrop against which local labour struggles and local communist initiatives took place, but are not alone sufficient to explain local dynamics, notably the divergent experiences of communists in different localities. This comparative analysis of two local experiences has shown that local social structures, in which ethnic patterns were a crucial factor, combined with local political traditions, are critical in explaining the varied experiences of communist activists operating in different milieus.
