Speech by Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL, to the event for the 1973 Athens Polytechnic uprising

17th November 2015, “Parnassos” People’s Club, Nicosia

Four decades after the Polytechnic uprising leading Junta official Pattakos was asked: “Why so much violence?” He replied: “Unfortunately, the soldiers didn’t have a key with them so they opened the gates with the force of tanks.” The fascists remain forever unrepentant. The Athens Polytechnic uprising in November 1973 was drowned in blood because it was the voice of an entire people demanding its freedom. It was, is and will be a golden page in the people’s struggle, which the students wrote with their blood choosing not to yield, but to resist and prove to the whole world that fascism and black reaction could be defeated.

The Athens Polytechnic student’s uprising embodied the universal demand of the Greek people for democracy, freedom, independence and dignity. In 1973 the anti-dictatorship movement was on the rise. Strikes and protests were little by little breaking the chains which the Junta had shackled the country. The student movement, together with the progressive forces of the country, took the step to pass from trade union to anti-junta activity. The events that took place at the Law Faculty in February 1973 were the beginning and the Polytechnic uprising in November that same year were the culmination. “Bread – Education – freedom!”, “Down with the junta!” “National independence!”, “NATO and bases out of Greece!” These were the main slogans which were heard in Athens during the uprising until the tank crushed the gate of the Polytechnic.

“Young scoundrels, you disgrace the army” shouted the Junta official Ilarchos to the rebellious students and gave orders for the tank to crush the gate, according to the Finding of Prosecutor Tsevas on the events of the Polytechnic. A few hours later, the junta declared martial law, initiating a new round of murder and blood. Police were shooting in cold blood and blindly while tanks on the move and gunfire spread death in the central streets of Athens. The Finding contains the characteristic reference of a young lieutenant of the armoured corps who was boasting to his colleagues that “I shot down a lot of them and cut a girl in half.” However, whenever the investigators were asking questions about all these, the junta military men claimed that “we heard nothing.” A tragic reminder: the same was true during the case of the File on the Cyprus problem when every time the instigators of the coup d’état on the 15th July 1974 were asked about the events they couldn’t remember anything; they didn’t see and hear anything, so they said.

The junta and its supporters went down in history as mere dictators and puppets at the service of imperialism; as subordinate servants who bowed their heads to their masters abroad, while at home they attacked everyone indiscriminately. Anticommunism, the shedding of blood, exile, torture, the looting of national wealth and obedient statements to their masters – this was the Junta, a regime which owed its existence to its foreign masters and its survival to a corrupt deep state.

In the period preceding the Junta over 50 neo-Nazi organizations were active in Greece. The main organization was the “Anti-communist Crusade of Greece”. Its leader was the Deputy Chief of the “Security Battalions” of the Peloponnese region, T. Papadogkonas, who swore loyalty to Hitler in the period of the German occupation. The other principal organization was the “National Social Organization of Students” (EKOF), while within the framework of the National Intelligence Service the Government of the right-wing conservative National Radical Union party (ERE) a committee was formed to “guide” the activities of these groups. The head of the committee was the subsequent dictator of the military Junta Georgos Papadopoulos.

However, the Junta would not have managed to prevail had it not received powerful backing. The Chief of the Army General Staff Spandidakis wrote the following in the newspaper “To Vima” as soon as he had lost his government post in 1971: “My opinion on the necessity for the army’s intervention was formed several months before the 21st April 1967 and my orders to Colonels G. Papadopoulos and N. Makarezos to change the “Prometheus” plan was given in mid-February 1967″. The “Prometheus” plan was drawn up and elaborated by NATO. The Chief of the Army General Staff himself had confessed publicly that he set in motion the plan that had been drawn up by NATO. NATO’s backing however did not stop there. From 1968 to 1970 the US granted 400 million dollars to the Junta. West German monopolies, such as KRUPP and SIEMENS, funded the junta until the middle of 1971 with credits amounting to DM 320 million and weapons/arms worth hundreds of millions.

In turn, the junta offered and handed everything to local and foreign capital. Capital was exempt from paying taxes, even excluding their owners from being prosecuted for tax evasion, whilst it assumed 80% of the building costs of seagoing and passenger shipping. The fact that that Andreadis, the President of the Greek Ship-owners for the Junta, gained control of five banks, twelve hotel units and industries is characteristic. The statement by Junta Finance Minister Sioris that the regime “took the entrepreneur out of the dock, freed him from the condemnation of the crowd and offered him everything it could!” is also characteristic. However, the junta’s “patriotism” went a step further: it safeguarded in the constitution the exemption of foreign multinationals from paying tariff charges. So the monopolies of the US and other countries got rich with the Greek people’s money, while the profits of Greek industrialists, according to the Statistical Service, quadrupled in the five year period 1967-1971.

All at once, the Junta was emptying public coffers. Through emergency legislation it doubled the salaries of the Prime Minister, Ministers and deputy ministers. The country’s public debt for seven years skyrocketed, while as the press reported, Greece’s external debt increased to a level not seen before. In just six years, the Junta made Greece’s debt 1.5 times bigger than it had grown in 145 years. The people paid 91% of tax revenues. So shameless was the Junta that it even lit up the mansion of the dictator Papadopoulos every day at public expense.

At the same time, Greece and its people were being plunged into darkness. The voices from the torture of those who dared resist were heard every night from the rooftop of the Special Investigations Department of the Greek Military Police ESA. “We want the people to hear the torture so that they will tremble”, the ESA Commander Theofilogiannakos pointed out. Cold-blooded executions were even committed by Junta officials themselves, and indeed openly. The driver of the well-known Junta leading member Ntertili who admitted the cold blooded execution of a 20-year old student to investigators is characteristic. Ntertilis, who is the idol of the Greek Cypriot ultra-right organization ELAM, remained unrepentant with regards all the crimes he committed to the end of his life. Theofilogiannakos also remained unrepentant, despite the fact that the testimonies of all those who were tortured by the junta exposed a true Hell: bayoneting, electric shocks to genitals, relentless beating of bear feet, unbearable constant beatings. Other than that, Papadopoulos stated without blushing that “We are fascists, we are not Nazis.”

This is how the Junta was constructing the so-called “third Greek civilization” – on the blood of the people and the ruins of Greece. It overwhelmed Greeks with pompous declarations and nationalist fiestas. However, behind closed doors it was selling out Greece bit by bit to foreign interests. At the same time, it was talking with Turkey, accepting “double enosis” (Note: the dissolution of the Republic of Cyprus through the union of Cyprus with Greece and Turkey respectively) and the granting of sovereign bases. Together with their NATO directors, Grivas and EOKA B were perfecting the plans to overthrow President Makarios, waiting for the “green light” from the US to implement them. Eventually they managed to do so. The Junta fell. However, it still managed to betray Cyprus and took half of Cyprus with it to the bottom of the pit.

“No one died at the Polytechnic”, “The Junta achieved an economic miracle in Greece and at least they didn’t steal from public funds”, “the Athens Polytechnic uprising provoked the invasion of Cyprus”, “It was Makarios who invited Turkey to invade”. Myths are the castles of the system, somebody wrote. And it is true. Because the more the years go by, the more the system relies on people forgetting and exoneration. Those who need the extreme right as a reserve shock force in their battle to attack and damage the Left choose to perpetuate the myths, distortion and falsification.

It is for those who have sacrificed their lives that we he Left have an obligation to constantly remind people of the historical events. For several years the attempt by the Right and the extreme right is to rewrite history, little by little. Every one of them for their own reasons is attempting to hide the historical truth under the carpet – now and then about how we arrived at 1974, now and again about everyone’s role, who the traitors were, who the heroes were, even about why party leaders should have to be baptized as national leaders, converting a political party’s view into a historical narrative that should be universally accepted.

Through this course of distorting and falsifying history we have today arrived at the point where certain forces and circles in Cyprus consider neo-fascism as yet another point of view in democracy. Fascism however does not fit in with democracy. Fascism by definition is at the exact opposite of democracy and murders it. The conditions created in societies plagued by crisis pave the way for neo-fascism to raise its head and grow. In such cases, as Dimitrov aptly put it, “Fascism aims at the most unbridled exploitation of the masses but it approaches them with the most artful anti-capitalist demagogy, taking advantage of the deep hatred of the working people against the plundering bourgeoisie, the banks, trusts and financial magnates, and advancing those slogans which at the given moment are most alluring to the politically immature masses. Speculating on the profound disillusionment of the masses… Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands.” Dimitrov in another reference went on to say that, “Fascism acts in the interests of the extreme imperialists, but it presents itself to the masses in the guise of champion of an ill-treated nation, and appeals to outraged national sentiments…”

Who cannot identify in Dimitrov’s references the darkest moments of the history of Greece during the junta dictatorship, Germany during Hitler’s rule, Mussolini in Italy, Spain’s Franco, Salazar in Portugal, Chile during the dictatorship of Pinochet? Who cannot identify in Dimitrov’s references the rhetoric of the Junta then and of Golden Dawn today? Who can read these references without recalling ELAM’s public interventions, which is seeking to enter into parliament? These forces today shouldn’t fool anyone by putting on a different mask so as to usurp the people’s vote. Their statements like “we do not support fascism” should consequently be put to one side because fascist regimes are anti-communist, as ELAM is. They are nationalist, as ELAM is too. They are racist just like ELAM. They are intolerant and fanatical like ELAM.

AKEL will continue to expose this content of neo-fascism and struggle against it politically on a day to day basis. Maybe had all political forces rallied together in this battle when we were denouncing these forces, the situation today would have been different. Unfortunately they closed their eyes and showed tolerance towards ELAM because since their own considerations were being served during the Christofias administration; because they were attacking with the same ferocity as them, back then, the efforts to solve the Cyprus problem; because they were attacking with similar arguments the proposals tabled by Christofias at the negotiations, given that back then, neo-fascism was one more voice in the campaign of hate that had been unleashed against D. Christofias and AKEL. As a result, the monster of neo-fascism was revived in Cyprus in our times and certain circles and forces should not pretend today that they don’t know where it came from…

I have no doubt that in making these references today perhaps I might be attacked by the incurable cases of the extreme right that take it upon themselves to measure one’s patriotism and call us “anti-Greek”. The difference between us is great.

Our Greece has nothing to do with the Greece they want to praise.

Our Greece is the Greece that shed blood at the Ai Stratis camp for exiled communist fighters of the Greek Civil War, but the Greece that did not betray its ideals, while theirs is the Greece that saluted the dictator Metaxas with Nazi salutes.

Our Greece resisted alone and called on the people not to yield to the German occupation, while their Greece awaited the Germans at the backdoor to hand them the key to Athens.

Our Greece won with its bloody sacrifices the battles at Fardykampos, the Greece that was being executed in the Athens working class neighborhood of Kaisariani and that was resurrected again when it brought down the swastika flag from the Acropolis, while their Greece wore a black hood and was betraying the patriotic guerillas and fighters.

Our Greece lifted the banner of the rallies for freedom and independence, while their Greece fired guns to kill the people demanding the self-evident.

Our Greece is the smile of Greek Communist leader Belogiannis at the time of his sentencing and their Greece is the deep state and court that sentenced him to death by execution.

Our Greece is the Greek flag soaked with the blood of the Polytechnic uprising which every November 17th is raised as a banner of honor, while theirs is the Greece that commemorates Papadopoulos or Ntertilis or Grivas in Cyprus.

In commemorating the Polytechnic uprising we honor the memory of those who sacrificed their lives. But the anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising is not a memorial. It is a call for struggle so that fascism will not pass today. It’s a call for struggle not to permit again our homeland to be sacrificed to the interests of imperialism.

It is the reminder of History that the people must not bow their heads and yield!