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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 19, 8 May 1950, p. 5.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
United States diplomacy lost a round when General Nicholas Plastiras was named premier of Greece. The United States pulled a couple of face-saving stunts when its plan did not work, but these stunts have fooled nobody in Greece.
The recent elections in Greece gave the center and left parties more than 160 seats out of 250 seats in the Parliament. The Populist (right wing royalist) party, which in the 1941 elections had obtained 55 per cent of all the votes, was reduced to less than 20 per cent of the total votes in the March election of this year, giving it only 62 deputies in the Parliament.
It was obvious that the center parties commanded the majority votes and would form a coalition – which they did as soon as the elections were over. The three center parties – Liberal, National Progressive Union, and the Social Democrats – signed a pact that they were ready to form a government and chose Plastiras as their candidate for premier. Sophocles Venizelos, leader of the Liberal Party, was in full agreement for a couple of weeks and then broke the coalition to become premier.
This was done on the advice of the U.S. diplomats who do not care for some points in Plastiras platform such as a smaller army, amicable relations with Russia as well as the United States and Great Britain, and the release of thousands of political prisoners from the island prisons.
The U.S. relied on Venizelos to obtain support from many parties. But Venizelos could not get the support of the deputies from his own party; the other center parties refused to play second fiddle – and Venizelos was left only with the support of the Populist Party that had lost so badly in the elections.
In the meanwhile Tito announced from Yugoslavia that he would not work with a Venizelist government, since it was only a puppet of the reactionaries and royalists. Venizelos knew that he and his party would be doomed if he did not inaugurate some of the reforms that he had promised during the election. But the royalists, his only supporters, said that if he tried to push anything that would affect their pocketbooks, they would not support him.
So the U.S. was left with its playboy premier who was on the spot. On March 31, Henry F. Grady. United States ambassador in Greece, issued a letter to Venizelos informing him that an economic and fiscal reform program was necessary in Greece if Marshall Plan aid was to continue. The letter was made public, of course, to give the impression that the U.S. was not backing Venizelos but on the contrary was criticizing him.
When the Grady letter appeared, everybody in Greece down to the smallest child knew that Venizelos could not get enough votes in Parliament to sanction his government, and that his government must fall before Parliament opened in the middle of April. In fact. Venizelos resigned as premier just before Parliament opened.
In other words, the Grady letter was not intended for Venizelos, but for the eyes of Tito, of American public opinion, and of Plastiras, who was to be made premier. The U.S. hopes that Plastiras will give the U.S. credit for his appointment to the premiership.
Plastiras may not be the smartest man in the world, but we are sure that he can see through this.
This recent chapter in Greek history shows U.S. diplomacy making the same moves that British imperialism made in attempting to put in its lackeys in the various governments. Even from the point of view of American imperialism, the Greek election was something that could have been exploited for jts own propaganda purposes.
But the U.S. State Department does not feel safe unless it has puppets wherever possible. The U.S. Diplomats have nothing to fear in Plastiras, and they know it, but he won’t jump fast enough to suit them when they crack the whip. He may have a few small ideas where he disagrees with U.S. policy.
Now it is up to the Greek people themselves to force the Greek government to live up to its election promises. Plastiras will make concessions to American diplomacy and even to the Greek royalists, for they have thousands of ways to put pressure on him. The people will have to keep forcing the issues through action in their trade unions and other workers’ and peasants’ organizations.
The Greek workers have a unique situation. The people voted overwhelmingly for democratic parties in the last election. Reaction has been beaten back, at least for the moment. The grip of the Stalinists on the trade unions has been smashed. Now is their time to rebuild on solid foundations.>
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