The Greek Resistance in World War II: Patriotism or internationalism?

Yes , I was rather concerned about the "rather uncritical " tone of the original article. Bear in mind that the Greek anarchosyndicalist Kostantinos Speras was beheaded by a unit led by an ELAS kapetan.
But don't bother ICC, if you're drooling over another potential recruit from the petty bourgeois anarchist swamp. I'm not particularly impressed by Stinas remaining in the Communist Party until 1931 ( it apparently hadn't gone over to the bourgeois camp yet- ha!)or by the Stinas group waiting until 1946 (!)to leave the Fourth International. I don't buy the apologies that the Stinas group weren't aware of the 4I's real position on the defence of the Soviet Union until the end of the War.

First off, it's not a critique, it's just a brief account of what happened. I wouldn't claim that the conclusions reached by it are especially analytical. Much of the thinking about the character of the Andartiko was deliberately left to the reader to work out for themselves. The patriotism of the movement is mentioned because that was how it happened, just as any account of the Hungarian revolution will include stories which feature symbols of nationalism.

Secondly, I'm not sure where you get the impression that it was uncritical, at various points the role of the KKE/EAM, USSR and the Britain are all mentioned as contributing factors in attacks on the working class.

Thirdly, given the land seizures, the relatively autonomous character of the establishment of administration/government in parts of "liberated" Greece, it would be surprising if one could not identify any progressive character to these bodies. What the KKE/EAM thought these were for, and what the people operating them thought they were for are not the same thing.

Please note, both the Greek ruling class, the KKE, the USSR and the British all joined in trying to suppress the elements of the movement against Nazism of which they did not approve. Why was this?

Fourthly, maybe such a position makes me too squeamish to be a Left Communist, but the occupation of Greece was astonishingly brutal, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, tortured, starved, beaten and all the rest. I would not characterise violent actions in resistance to such attacks as participation in imperialism per se.

Sorry, Sorry, I'm not a left communist BUT ELAS-EAM was under the hegemony of the KKE. The secret police wing of ELAS, OPLA, carried out murder, torture and intimidation against any oppositionists-- anarchists, ArcaeoMarxists, Trotskyists
See the list of those murdered by the OPLA here:
www.marxists.org/subject/greek-civil-war/revolutionary-history/stinas/memoirs.htm - 29k -
Trotskyists themselves have peddled the view that there was a tense relation between the KKE and ELAS- EAM, personified by the "oppositional" personality of the Kapetan Aris (later finally murderered by the Stalinists) Castoriadis , for one, believed this to be a myth and that ELAS-EAM and Aris were just as Stalinist

erm, I didn't deny that the KKE controlled the EAM as a formal organisation. That's a different claim to giving them hegemony over all the resistance activities of which they took part.

Yes, but the andartiko article seems to me to imply that ELAS-EAM was the resistance. ELAS attacked other Resistance groups during the War (especially around the National Democratic forces) as well as committing many atrocities against the rural population
And in the end the KKE recruited 100,000 members out of ELAS-EAM at the end of the War.

Trotskyism was never "part of the proletarian movement".
Trotsky lost the power struggle within the Bolshevik bureaucracy. He was up to then part of that bureaucracy and still had the ideology of that party after he lost the fight.
He would have been as brutal (if not more so) if he had won the fight as his track record in the Red Army ( where he ordered the shooting of Communists who had broken military discipline)as Stalin and just as anti-working class as his direction s on labour discipline, his treatment of railway workers etc) proved
The Bolshevik bureaucracy was profoundly anti-working class. Some talk about the defining moment for this happening being Kronstadt 1921. I don't really go for "defining moments" but I would date it back to 1918 at least.
It took a war for some Trotskyists to break with their ideology? Let's hope it doesn't take another one for people in the ICC to break with false notions like the above

How many years after Kronstadt? There's really no excuse for keeping with Trotskyism until the 1940s.

So who works with Trots?

I can think of one recently departed AF/solfed/IWW member who does, not that he's representative.

Aren't there both Trots and anarchists in the IWW as well?

afaik some local groups have worked with rank and file SWP members on specific things as well - although presumably lots of rank and file SWP are just hapless left-liberals who've never even read any Trot.

Just to make it clear, he's departed in the sense that he's been fucked out of the SolFed & the AF. Not sure if he's still in the IWW or not, tbh.

I believe I saw him on the IWW stall, so assume he's still in. My fault for contracted sentence.

I don't think that a rejection of national defence is a position that is solely held by the left communists. I don't think that the brutality of the occupation of Greece is anything to do with the issue. Capitalism is brutal, occupation especially so. That is not a reason to fall in with the nationalist opposition to it.

I am not suggesting that Sorry. is advocating this. I think that it is an illusion though that armed groups can exist in times of war, and low levels of class conflict without being pulled into siding with different capitalist factions.

Devrim

Anyone know of a well-researched work, beside Kolko's, that discusses the Greek situation in parallel with what was going on in partisan movements and even anti-colonial/independence movements around the world at the time? Read Lanneret's work on Internationalists in France, some stuff on anars there too, but I'm looking for something comparative and radical.

I realise that the original article was not referenced, but the facts seem to fit with those given (and referenced), in Baerentzen, Close, Woodhouse, Sarafis, Myers, Mazower,Fleischer, Papastratis, Scarfe, Kokolakis etc, etc.

It would be nice if those who disagree with the article could give some objective arguments against.

In particular, I would appreciate more detailed evidence for claimed atrocities against the rural population.

With regard to the popular belief that ELAS attacked other Resistance groups during the War, this is refuted by a number of sources, including Stefanos Sarafis (pp. 139, 193 etc), who makes it clear that the clashes were initiated by EDES and EKKA. One of the interviewees in Scarfe ('All That Grief', regrettably no page no.) is very emphatic on this point, asserting that ELAS has no need to attack the minor movements. Of particular interest is the comment by Woodhouse in Jane Gabriel's tv documentary 'Greece: the Hidden War', that when hostilities broke out between ELAS and EDES, 'the British authorities "decided" that ELAS was solely to blame' - Woodhouse is clearly distancing himself from this decision (my double quotes).

I think it's inaccurate to lump the entirety of the "Left Opposition" as folks doing Trotsky's bidding. There were many tendencies that were developing out of the bankruptcy of the Bolsheviks that joined forces for various reasons.

It's worth reading Stinas on this. Unfortunately there's only a partial English translation.

http://libcom.org/history/revolutionary-defeatists-greece-world-war-ii-aghis-stinas

I had a glance at the Stinas memoires. Others have commented on the unreliability of Stinas, but I must say that it is some achievement, to be both dull and hysterical all at once.

Sarafis describes in some detail the capitulation of the Pinerollo Division in mid-September 1943 (pp.182-6,198). ELAS accepted those who were prepared ot fight the Germans, although they had great difficulty feeding the Italians until the British got round to funding them. The British officer Chris Woodhouse asked that the Italians, with ELAS guides, raid the Larisa airport and destroy the planes. The operation was a failure because the Italians made no attempt to carry it out, abandoning ther equipment. The Germans found the equipment and burned 200 houses in reprisal. In mid-October, as the Italians still showed no willingness to honour the agreement and take part in operations, and threatened to be a liability, ELAS disarmed them.

The question of operations and sabotage is an interesting one, as it was a bone of contention between ELAS and the British, who were impatient with ELAS's concern for the repercussions (stated very clearly in Myers, cf also Kokolakis).