All language subtitles for Secret.Wars.Uncovered.S02E01.1080p.WEB.h264-BAWD_Subtitles01_Unnamed

(intriguing music)

NARRATOR: July, 2019.
Conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis

is sworn in
as Prime Minister of Greece

and shakes hands
with his predecessor,

leftist Alexis Tsipras.

At one time,
such a peaceful transition

between the two extremes
on the Greek political spectrum

would have been unthinkable.

- (intense music)

NARRATOR:
But Greece has come a long way

since the dark days
of division and tyranny.

Political acrimony first emerged

amid the fall-out
from the murkiest period

in the nation's history...

the invasion and occupation
by Nazi Germany.

The bloodiest episode in the clashes
between the Greek left

and right happened
on the 3rd of December 1944

in Syntagma Square,
in front of the Greek Parliament.

On that day,
a Communist Party demonstration

in support
of the resistance fighters

who fought against the Nazis
ended in a bloodbath,

after they were fired upon
by police.

RICHARD TOYE: One policeman dropped
to the ground on his knees,

pointed his rifle and said,
"Come on, let's shoot the (BLEEP)!".

- (gunshot)

- A significant number of people
are killed and wounded.

We don't know exactly how many.

- It took years for Greek society

to recover from that excess

of mutual hate and blood-letting.

NARRATOR:
World War II was not yet over,

but what lay behind this bloodshed

was not just recrimination against
the Nazis and their collaborators

but also against the British.

- A bipolar state.

For those who were
on the right side of it,

it felt like a free society
and opportunities were there

for the taking.
But for those who had a history

of being on the wrong side,

the various forms of repression

lasted a very long time.

- (indistinct chatter over radio)

- (siren wails)
- (indistinct shouting)

- (film projector clicking)
- (typewriter clacking)

- (engines rumbling)

- (explosion rumbles)
- (thudding footsteps)

- (intriguing music)

NARRATOR: In 1936,
after multiple coup d'etats

and years of political polarization
between republicans and monarchists,

the military dictatorship
of General Ioannis Metaxas

came to power in Greece.

- Metaxas, who was born in 1871,

was very much
on the monarchical side.

He owed progress
in his military career

to royal patronage and in 1936,

he became prime minister, and
quickly afterwards launched a coup,

which established what became known
as the 4th of August regime.

And with the support
of King George II,

he established himself
as a dictator.

NARRATOR: Metaxas dissolved
the Greek Parliament

and suspended
constitutional rights,

establishing an authoritarian regime
of anti-communist character.

When World War II broke out in 1939,

the king and Metaxas initially
maintained a policy of neutrality.

But this changed
when Italian troops invaded Greece

from their military bases
in Albania.

- In October 1940,

Metaxas was suddenly presented
with an ultimatum

that he should
give up this territory

um...or face invasion
by the Italians.

When Metaxas is presented
with this ultimatum at 3am,

he simply says, "No", and this
becomes known as 'The Big No'.

There is another version
in the diary of count Ciano,

who was
the Italian foreign minister,

that actually Metaxas equivocated,

and only decided to resist

after he had consulted with others,

including the British minister
in Athens.

- (tense music)

NARRATOR: Metaxas ordered
the defence of the country

and, with the help
of the British Air Force,

took up the fight
against Benito Mussolini's troops.

VO: (on recording) For a little
while, it looked as though Greece

were going to go the way of Holland
and of France, but not for long.

The man in Rome
shouts encouragement to his troops,

proclaims his early victory
to the world,

and then Greece
turns his armies upside down

and throws them back at it.

NARRATOR:
Metaxas died in January 1941.

His successor, Alexandros Korizis,

supported by King George II,

allowed British troops into Greece,

which, inevitably, triggered

an aggressive response from Hitler.

Operation Marita,

launched in April 1941,
was a coordinated action

by the Axis forces
to overwhelm Greece

and undermine British control
in the Mediterranean.

Nazi troops attacked from Yugoslavia

and the Italians resumed
the offensive from Albania.

Within a few weeks,
Greece was defeated

and its territory
was divided among the Axis forces.

- The British sent troops
in support of the Greeks,

unfortunately, this is really
a disastrous move.

The British are quickly forced out,

they lose about 11,000 men either
killed or wounded or captured.

That also has the consequence
that it weakens the British effort

in North Africa which, previously,
had been going reasonably well.

So, this is one
of the major military errors

of the British during World War Two.

NARRATOR: After the invasion,
King George and his family

fled to Crete.

From there they moved to Egypt
and then to London.

The Greek government
also functioned in exile there,

while in Athens, after Korizi's
suicide on April the 18th,

a collaborationist government
was installed.

- The brutality that
the occupiers brought to the country

actually trickled down very quickly,

so that the whole of Greek society
became embattled.

They were fighting for survival
against the occupiers.

But as often as not, survival meant

also just fighting
to keep alive yourself.

NARRATOR: The horrors of war
spread throughout the land,

but a new political force
was growing in Greece.

One that would form the vanguard
of armed insurrection

against the Axis forces.

- The country
had been very deeply divided

for 20 years before that,
and broadly, it's a division

between conservative monarchists

and liberal Republicans.

But come the Second World War
and the occupation,

a new force enters Greek politics

and really changes
the entire picture.

And that is the Communist Party,

which had been very marginal
until that time

and, indeed, outlawed,
almost annihilated

under the pre-war dictatorship.

There are essentially
three political forces

or factions in Greece
at the beginning of the 1940s:

the monarchists, the Republicans,

and the communists.

NARRATOR: Despite the enormous
ideological division

between these factions,
they would fight

against a common enemy.

However, they would not always
have the same goal

and when their common enemy
was vanquished,

they would soon be
at each other's throats.

Plunging the country into a conflict

with far worse consequences
than those of the Nazi occupation.

NARRATOR: From late 1941,
during the Nazi occupation,

The Greek resistance movement
was born.

It was, however,
divided along ideological lines.

On the left,
the National Liberation Front,

EAM for its Greek acronym,
was made up of left-wing militants

and led by the Communist Party
of Greece,

the KKE.

It also had a military wing, ELAS,

which was the
People's National Liberation Army.

- EAM and ELAS
dominated the resistance,

and they were dominated
by the Communist Party.

But many Greeks wanted
to fight for their independence,

so local resistance groups

sprung up all over Greece.

And many of those
quickly find themselves

in competition and then in conflict

with EAM and ELAS.

- (ominous music)
NARRATOR: On the right,

was the Greek National
Republican League, EDES,

an anti-monarchist,
nationalist organization

made up, mostly,
of Greek military personnel.

- (gunshot)
NARRATOR: The EDES and ELAS

led the armed insurrection
against the Nazis.

- The Greek Communist Party,
although it had been tiny

until this time, was ideally placed

to take on clandestine operations
under the occupation,

because they'd already
been forced underground

under the pre-war dictatorship.

And they were the ones
who actually assumed the leadership

at the beginning
of resistance to the Axis,

to the Germans and the Italians.

They had a great deal of success.
Over the course of the occupation

of three and a half years,
they recruited up to 50,000 men

and a good many women as well.

NARRATOR:
Seeing the growing strength

of the Soviet-backed KKE,

British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill was concerned

that the communists would try
to take over Athens

when the Nazis
were finally driven out.

He secretly met in Moscow
with Joseph Stalin,

the leader of the Soviet Union,
in October 1944,

to define the future of the Balkans
and Greece after World War II.

It was a coming together of two
implacable ideological enemies,

forced to unite in the interest

of negotiating influence
in the territories.

Their meeting became known
as the Percentages Agreement.

- This agreement
is rather controversial

for various reasons.
Firstly, because it seemed to show

Churchill being quite ruthless
in the way in which

he was dividing the world up
into spheres of interest.

He draws a list
of different countries,

and then shows the percentages,
the relative percentages

of influence that the Soviet Union

and Britain
should respectively have.

In the case of Greece,

Churchill writes down 90% Britain

and 10% for the Soviet Union.

- In terms of British interests
and later American interests,

Greece was seen
as strategically important,

in terms of Soviet Russian
interests, it wasn't.

NARRATOR: As Soviet armies advanced
decisively into Eastern Europe,

Churchill knew he needed Greece

to secure British influence
in the Mediterranean.

- In the days
when India was still...

part of the British Empire,
the sea routes to India

through the Suez Canal were always

of strategic great importance
to British Governments.

The other thing,
which actually has probably

more of a bearing
on the Greek Civil War,

was Churchill's fixation

on the institution
of the monarchy in Greece.

So, Churchill seems
to have felt a kind of loyalty

to the exiled king of Greece.

Both to make sure
that he got back to his throne

and also his belief,
which turned out to be a wrong one,

that a monarchy dynastically related

to our own would ensure

the benefit of British interests

and also the stability
of Greece itself.

And that was
a tragic miscalculation.

- (ominous music)

NARRATOR: For the communists
who controlled most of Greece,

the agreement reached in secret
by Stalin and Churchill,

would be a ticking time bomb.

- (projectior clicking)
VO: (recording) The German army

hastily left Greece
in October of 1944,

their occupation of the historic
country came to an abrupt end

after the allied invasion of Italy.

Acting as liberators,
the British forces arrive at Athens

receiving a joubilic
Hellenic welcome.

From the moment
the German occupation had begun,

two Greek
underground organizations,

The ELAS and the Royalist Forces,

fighting under the aegis
of the exiled King George,

had battled the Nazis
with undying hatred.

- (intense music)

NARRATOR:
By the end of October 1944,

all Axis forces had left Greece.

The Greek government in exile,
loyal to King George II

and headed by Prime Minister
Georgios Papandreou,

then returned to the country
backed by British troops.

They formed a coalition government

with minimal representation
of Greek Communists.

Among the first of his measures,
Papandreou called

for the disarmament
of all partisan militias.

EAM, fearing repercussions
from the EDES guerrillas,

called for the disarmament
of all factions, left and right.

However, Papandreou
refused their proposition.

- The communists saw this as being

an attack on them,

and the communist members
of the government

walked out on the first of December.
- (distant clamouring)

NARRATOR: The Communist Party
called for a peaceful demonstration

in Syntagma Square, outside
the Greek Parliament in Athens

on the 3rd of December 1944.

They were to protest against the
dissolution of the partisan groups,

unaware of the bloody outcome
that awaited them.

- Touchingly,
the communists actually filed

a formal request to the government
that they just left,

saying,
"As according to the regulations,

we want to hold this demonstration",
asking for permission.

Permission was given.
A few hours later,

the government panicked,
permission was revoked,

and all the national newspapers
on the Sunday morning

had banner headlines: "This
demonstration is not going ahead".

All except the communist newspaper,

which did not carry that news.

As a result, everyone who
supported the communists in Athens

came flocking to Syntagma square

in time for 11 o'clock
on that Sunday morning.

- They find police barricades,

which are there
to prevent them getting in.

In spite of that,
a number of them push forward

and succeed
getting past the barriers.

- The crowds were too many
for the police to hold them off

and more and more people
came flooding into the square.

Many, perhaps the majority,
were women and children.

Not long after 11 o'clock,
shots were heard,

not in the square,
but a few streets away.

Nobody quite knows
what was happening there,

but this atmosphere is tense.

- It is said that one policeman

dropped to the ground on his knees,

pointed his rifle and said,
"Come on, let's shoot the (BLEEP)!".

- The result was
an instant stampede.

Gunfire broke out from everywhere.

And when the square was cleared,

a few hours later,

somewhere between 6 and 22 people,

several of them women,
actually lay dead in the square.

- (melancholy music)

NARRATOR: It was clear
that the terror had not disappeared

with the Nazis
and it was equally clear

the British were not doing enough
to ease tensions in the country.

- The British
weren't running Greece,

they simply sent enough troops
as they thought

to maintain order
and to support the government.

Though in fact, as it turned out,
it was barely enough

to maintain order in Athens.

But this government

was a precarious affair
from the beginning.

NARRATOR: For Churchill,
the bloodshed in Syntagma Square

in December 1944,
made it easier to justify

the increased number
of British troops sent to Athens.

And they would be needed
because after the massacre,

EAM responded by attacking
police headquarters in the city.

Since November 1944,
the British had secretly begun

to release officers
from the Security Battalions.

These were
Nazi collaborationist forces

that had been integrated into the SS

during the occupation.

The officers released were to join
this new National Guard

in charge of maintaining order

and, above all,
fighting the communists.

- Many, particularly the communists,
really hated them,

because they saw their own police
as being part of the enemy.

- (explosions)

NARRATOR: Violence between
nationalist and communist militias

became widespread.

- In the aftermath
of the killing of the demonstrators,

Churchill sent a cable
to General Sir Ronald Scobie,

who was the British commander,
and he told him

to hold Athens as though
it was a conquered city.

And to do this, it will be better if
it can be done without bloodshed,

but should be done with bloodshed,
if necessary.

- (gunfire)

BEATON: Within a few weeks,
the battle for Athens,

as it came to be known, was a battle

not only between right-wing Greeks
and left-wing Greeks,

but also
between the Greek communists,

ELAS, and the British Army.

- (plane engine rumbles)

NARRATOR: The British Air Force
bombed the capital for weeks,

while massive street battles
between the various factions

left dozens dead.
- (sombre mandolin music)

NARRATOR: Britain openly supported
the right-wing nationalist,

anti-communist forces
during the Battle of Athens,

but gaining control of the capital
was no easy task.

- It was a close run thing.

British reinforcements
had to be flown in from Italy,

in order to quell this rebellion,

as it turned out to be,

during the month of December.

NARRATOR:
The situation was becoming dire

and Churchill decided
to travel to Athens himself,

secretly, over Christmas 1944

to chair a conference with Greek
and British representatives

seeking a cessation of hostilities.

Unbeknownst to them,

the Communists
had hatched a secret plan

to assassinate
General Sir Ronald Scobie

as part of their offensive
in the capital.

They planted explosives
at the Hotel Grande Bretagne,

where the conference chaired
by Churchill was taking place.

The communist guerrillas
were standing by

to detonate the bomb,

but the order never arrived.

The communists did not dare
carry out the attack

as they didn't want
to be responsible for killing

one of the leaders of the Big Three.

A few days later, Greek
Prime Minister Yorgos Papandreou

resigned in the face of great
national and international pressure.

Power was left in the hands
of Nikolaos Plastiras,

a military leader of EDES
appointed by Churchill

to head the civilian government,

which would be supported
by British forces.

But this did not bring stability.

The clashes continued in Athens

from December 1944
through January 1945.

The Dekemvriana, as the Battle
of Athens became known in Greece,

ended on February the 12th 1945

with the signing
of the Varkiza Treaty

between the Greek government
and the Communist Party.

A condition of which
was the disarmament of ELAS.

- So, that is the end of ELAS
and the beginning of a period

when communists,
having laid down their arms,

are now actually
being very heavily victimized

by the people
they had formerly fought against.

NARRATOR: Athens was controlled
by the Greek government forces

with the support of British troops

and the new National Guard.

Having rid themselves
of Hitler and the Communists,

the Greek Nationalists
were now in charge.

But the end of hostilities
between the factions

was far from over.

NARRATOR: By the beginning of 1946,

a right-wing government
took control of Athens.

But in the rest of the country
the communists were well-positioned

and determined
to change the direction

in which Greece was heading.

That year, elections
and a referendum were held,

under the supervision
of the British,

to consult popular opinion on
the return of the Greek monarchy.

The communists
decided not to participate, however,

instead boycotting the votes

since they did not recognize
the government as legitimate.

- It's one of the ironies
of the story of the Greek Civil War,

that the anti-communist government

that was voted democratically

in March 1946,

the first democratic election
for 10 years,

was actually boycotted
by the communists.

If the Communist Party
had contested that election,

it and its center-left allies

would almost certainly
have topped the poll

and formed the next government, but
because the communists boycotted it,

it was actually the right wing
who won a landslide victory

on about 50% turnout.

That in turn, led to a plebiscite

which was not quite rigged,

but definitely strongly slanted,

that ensured that King George II

did return to his throne

in September 1946.

And, thereafter,
anti-communist governments in Greece

ruled for most of the next 20 years.

NARRATOR: The return of King George
II galvanized the nationalists,

who, with the support
of the security forces,

had already started
to persecute the communists.

The White Terror began in Greece.

- The White Terror was basically
a series of revenge attacks

by Greeks who had, themselves,

been victimized by the communists.

Some who had actually worked with
or collaborated with the occupiers,

and others who just had personal

or family grudges with members

of the Communist Party.

- Persecution took various forms,

if you were known
to be an active communist

or seemed to be involved
in certain plots

or in certain publications,
you could easily end up in jail.

And some-some people
spent time in jail

until about the early 1960s.

That is 15 years in jail.

That means the better years
of your life are gone.

- (ominous mandolin music)

- Other people were known to be...

to have been
in a leadership position,

and political executions
of communists take place

in Greece in the 1950s,

as late as 1954.

NARRATOR:
In 1946, the Communist Party

refused to recognize
the monarchist government

and the various disbanded
ELAS units reunited

to form the so-called
Democratic Greek Army, DSE.

A bitter guerrilla war began

in the mountains
of Macedonia and Epirus.

The communists established
themselves in the North

of the country
and installed their headquarters

in the border area
with Albania and Yugoslavia.

Both socialist allies who could aid
them in their continuing struggle.

- Nobody quite knows why,
but everything just went back

to a kind of brutal basics.

And it took years

for Greek society to recover

from that...excess

of mutual hate and bloodletting.

NARRATOR: At the beginning of 1947,

with the situation escalating
into full blown civil war,

the Greek government
asked the British for help.

But the United Kingdom was in no
position to maintain the leadership

of the anti-communist struggle
in the region.

Greece that had been so important

to Churchill at the close
of the Second World War

was now slipping
through British fingers.

Instead, a new actor
enters the Greek conflict:

the United States of America.

- In 1947, the British government
was facing a domestic crisis,

there was a shortage of coal, uh...

the economy was really
in great difficulty.

And as a kind of emergency response,

one of the things which
the British did was to decide

to stop supporting, stop giving aid

and help to the Greek government.

And when this decision
is communicated

to the Americans, it really causes

a lot of anxiety, you could
even say, panic in Washington.

This leads to President Truman

making a speech known as the
so-called Truman Doctrine speech.

- This is a kind of a crucial moment
in the Cold War,

where the Americans decide
that they're going to take

a global responsibility

for attempting
to roll back communism.

NARRATOR: The Americans were
at the forefront of support

for the nationalist government
in Greece,

intervening with arms
and training for the army.

In turn,
the Greek Communist Party, the KKE,

asked the Soviet Union for help.

But Stalin knew that the British
and Americans would fight

to prevent a communist government
in Greece.

To avoid a conflict
with his former allies,

the Soviet leader ended up giving
very little help to the KKE,

despite their loyalty to the USSR.

- It's very clear
that Stalin chose to honour

the agreement
he had made with Churchill

in Moscow back in October 1944.

And beyond
a little bit of propaganda,

a little bit of agitation,
the odd gesture,

and things being dangled
towards the Greek communists

that never came to anything,
the Soviets never actually

intervened in any significant way,

in any of the stages
in the Greek Civil War.

And indeed, by the time it ended,

Stalin had already begun to fall out

with Greece's
communist northern neighbours,

Albania and Yugoslavia.

And it was to those countries
that the surviving Greek communists

fled at the end of the Civil War.

NARRATOR: Stalin's lack of support
for the Greek communists

was criticized by Yugoslav leader
Josip Broz, "Tito",

who was the main patron
of the DSE rebels.

For Tito, a communist state
in Greece was necessary

to safeguard its southern border.

However, his support for the DSE

fed the Soviet Union's fear

that Tito would revive the old plan

to create
a Balkan Socialist Federation

under his control,
without Soviet influence.

- There was the fact
that the Greek communist leadership

was closer to Tito and Enver Hoxha,

in Yugoslavia
and Albania respectively,

was a further wedge between them.

And the only communist leader
who might have helped them,

which was Stalin...

but Stalin didn't.

NARRATOR: The Greek Civil War
ended up deteriorating relations

between Tito and Stalin further,

which would eventually
break down completely in 1948.

A persecution of the 'Titoists'
within the KKE began

and the divisions
within the communists multiplied.

As a result, in July 1949,

Yugoslavia withdrew its support
to the DSE rebels

and militarily closed its borders
with Greece.

This was a bitter blow
to the communist guerrillas

fighting in the mountains,
who refused to surrender.

Meanwhile, the United States began

a series of CIA covert operations
in the region.

The first of these
took place in Albania

and was supported by Britain's
Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

- Shortly before, the Yugoslavs
had famously split

with the Soviet Union,

the schism between Tito and Stalin,

and this made Albania

geographically isolated.

Britain's cold warriors
and America's cold warriors

thought, one, we have
a communist government here.

And two, this communist government
might be a little bit fragile.

Is there anything we can do to...
cause trouble?

NARRATOR: These operations,
while intended primarily

to undermine the Albanian communist
regime of Enver Hoxha,

were also aimed
at cutting the supply lines

to the communist guerrillas
in northern Greece.

In 1949, British
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin

ordered MI6
to begin Operation Valuable.

- MI6 went around recruiting

various exiles and emigres,

and they brought them all to Malta,

where they instructed them,

gave them a crash course,
in sabotage,

in wireless radio communications,

in evading capture, combat.

Once MI6 felt that they were ready,

these teams left Malta

and sailed to Albania.

And their job essentially, was to,

one, gather intelligence
and find out if the local people

were up for an insurrection.

And they wanted to try and find some
new supply routes and sabotage them.

The problem was,

the Albanian security forces
had been tipped off.

They were ready
and they were waiting,

and it was a bit of a disaster.

- (ominous music)

NARRATOR:
With the CIA's entry into Albania,

both secret agencies
focused on sabotaging

the communist's supply
of arms distribution routes.

But they were still well-established
in northern Greece

and the fighting seemed
to be nowhere near over.

NARRATOR: From 1948,

the Greek government declared
the communist KKE illegal.

Anyone suspected
of being a member of ELAS or KKE

was arrested and sent
to any of the concentration camps

that were already set up
in different Greek regions.

- Many thousands of Greek communists

or even just their family members

were rounded up,
kept imprisoned,

tortured, uh...

deported to islands in the Aegean

where conditions
were very primitive,

and they were,
in effect, brutalized.

NARRATOR: In October 1949,

the leadership of the Greek
Communist Party, exiled in Albania,

ordered the cessation
of hostilities,

finally bringing an end
to the bloody civil war.

BEATON: Huge numbers
of people were displaced.

Many communists
were either forced to flee

or chose to flee north

into the Balkans,
into the communist countries

or the Eastern Bloc,
fearing persecution at home.

NARRATOR: Then there was the
extraordinary and little known case

of the children
from the Greek Civil War.

Tens of thousands
were taken from their families

and sent abroad for their safety,

both by DSE and government forces.

- If we think of the Greek Civil War

as a military or a political event,

we pretty much lose
70% of the history.

I'm absolutely convinced
that we need

to pay renewed attention
to the history of women

and children during this war.

And sure enough,
the Civil War of Greece

is marked and marred

by this devastating history
of child evacuation campaigns.

NARRATOR: Queen Frederica was
the wife of King Paul I of Greece,

who inherited the throne
in April 1947

after the sudden death
of his brother, George II.

Towards the end of the Civil War,

the popularity of Greek royalty
was at rock bottom...

so Queen Frederica conducted
mass child evacuation campaigns.

- She founded institutions
that soon became known

as 'paderpolis', children's towns,

in the name of the monarchy.

And she housed there,
she evacuated there

numbers between 12,000

and 14,000 children

in what was supposedly
a humanitarian effort.

Getting the children away
from the front,

but also a unique opportunity
for the monarchy

to try to win the hearts
and minds of the Greeks.

NARRATOR: Thousands of these
children ended up being adopted

in the United States.

In response to Frederica's action,

the Communists launched
their own evacuation campaigns.

They took
about 20 to 28,000 children

over the northern borders of Greece

into the countries
of the iron curtain,

Soviet Bloc countries.

These were then
communist-led evacuation campaigns

and it's highly contested

as to whether the parents agreed

to let their children go or not.

Hardly any of these children
ever returned.

NARRATOR:
As for the Greek communists,

they would be persecuted
for generations.

- This was a bipolar state.

For those who were
on the right side of it,

the Conservative government,
it felt like a free society

and opportunities were there
for the taking.

But, for those who had a history
of being on the wrong side,

on the side of the defeated
in the Civil War,

the various forms of repression
lasted a very long time.

- (gunshots)
- (plane engines rumble overhead)

NARRATOR: The Greek Civil War,
the first conflict of the Cold War,

was the direct result
of a British Prime Minister

and a Soviet dictator
meeting secretly

to divide up the spoils of war.

Ultimately,
the key role of the Americans

in deflating the Greek communists
marked the beginning

of American hegemony
in Western Europe.

- In the final years of the third
round of the Greek Civil War,

it was American involvement,
American firepower,

American hardware.
Though, interestingly,

if you compare that
with more recent wars,

not a single American boot
on the ground.

The advisors were there,
the generals were not far off,

the Navy was anchored off Faliro,

but there were no American troops
involved in the Greek Civil War.

(distant, thudding footseps)

NARRATOR: The confrontation
between the Soviets and Americans

intensified
with the creation in 1949

of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, NATO,

with the declared intention
to act as a bulwark

against Soviet expansionism.

This would soon be countered
by the creation

of the Warsaw Pact in
the kind of tit-for-tat realpolitik

which would come to characterize
the Cold War.

Greece joined NATO in 1952
and from then on,

the CIA and the Greek army
would work together closely.

The Greek Central
Intelligence Service was created,

copying the CIA scheme

and with clear
anti-communist objectives.

- As long as
the left wing suppression

continued to exist, the Civil War
couldn't even be spoken,

it couldn't be written,
it couldn't be spoken.

It was not included
in the history books,

it couldn't be taught in school.
It wasn't even granted

the very label of 'civil war',

it was called the bandit war,

thereby continuing
to blame the communists.

NARRATOR: This political repression
continued to be severe

until 1974, which signaled the end

of the seven-year military junta,

the so-called
'Dictatorship of the Colonels'.

A new, liberal era began in Greece

and the KKE was legalized again.

In November of the same year,
democratic elections were held,

with left and right-wing parties
competing freely.

Moreover, perhaps for the first time
in its post-war history,

foreign influence
in the region began to recede.

- In both world wars,
the great belligerent powers

did...directly...intervene

in Greek affairs,
in ways that were designed

to aid the interests
of the war effort at the time.

And, understandably,
the forefront in that

was not played
by the Greek interests themselves.

So, great power involvement
in Greece is a fact of Greek life.

And it carries right through from
the achievement of independence

to the disintegration
during the two world wars

of the 20th century.
And it's really only

since the end
of the dictatorship in 1974,

integration into Europe
beginning in 1981,

that Greece
has really acquired its own voice

and its own stability

as a democratic mature country

within the European Union.

And not actually having great powers

breathing down its neck.

NARRATOR: Although the wounds
of the Civil War began to heal

in the mid-1970s,
political polarization

has not yet completely disappeared
from Greek society.

The Great Recession of 2008

plunged the country
into a huge deficit

and the greatest economic crisis
of post-war Europe.

Significant cuts had to be made
in the public sector

and there was a considerable
reduction in Gross Domestic Product,

which led to staggering unemployment
and poverty rates.

Widespread discontent
revived the ghosts of polarization

in Greek society,
which took to the streets

in the form
of numerous demonstrations,

riots and strikes
between 2008 and 2014.

- The divisions
in Greek society go back,

at least to World War One,
arguably well before that.

They were definitely exacerbated
by both world wars

and by the Civil War. And of course,

these divisions
have been exacerbated by...

many things that have happened
since the Civil War.

Including
the Regime of the Colonels,

you could say exacerbated as well

by the global financial crisis.

But certainly,
Greece is still living today

with the legacy of the Civil War.

- (indistinct chanting)

NARRATOR: In 2015,
for the first time in the history

of modern Greece,
the socialists entered government

following the victory of candidate
Alexis Tsipras,

of the SYRIZA party.

Tsipras remained in power
until 2019,

when conservative Kyriakos
Mitsotakis assumed the presidency.

The peaceful transition of power
between the warring sides

suggests that Greece, at last,

may be forgetting the grudges

that marked its Civil War so deeply.

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