From 1875 to 1880

greece / turkey / cyprus | history of anarchism | review Wednesday September 21, 2005 14:32 by Libertarian Historical Archive

Part II of The early days of Greek anarchism

Written by Libertarian Historical Archive. Thanslated by P. Pomonis and published by KSL.

The period 1860-1875 was marked by the emergeance in Greece of libertarian ideas, which appeared and developed parallelly in Athens and the Heptanesos. The character of this specific tradition paved the way for the formation of several revolutionary organisations in various parts of the Greek territory, like Athens, Syros, Messini, Aegio, Filiatra, Cephalonia, Patras. The Patras anarchists of the “Democratic Club”, due to the propitious position of the Achaean (5) port, forged close and firm links not only with their comrades of neigbouring Italy, but also with the respective European organisations, which were at the forefront of the socialist and workingmen’s movements at the time.

They undertook the initiative to coordinate all groups active in the Greek territory and attempted to form the first local section of the International Workingmen’s Association.

The repression unleashed by the Greek state against them, which was part of an arrangement between governments throughout Europe - as proved by a multitude of diplomatic documents of the time - all but totally crushed the antiauthoritarian-socialist movement for a decade.

It should be noted that from 1872 to 1877 the International had espoused a majoritarian antiauthoritarian utterance and came to be known as the «Antiauthoritarian International» - Following the Hague Congress in September of 1872, when the marxist majority expelled Bakunin and a Swiss comrade of him, all national sections reacted and called into question the legitimacy of the Congress, denouncing the false majority created by the marxist members of the General Council.

In September of 1872, in the Congress of Saint Imier, all the participating federations voted for an ideological platform based on libertarian principles with a working class, syndicalist character. In that Congress Belgian, French, Italian, Spanish and Swiss deleguates of the national sections, rescinded the decisions of the Hague Congress and founded the Free Union of Federations. During that course the most important role was played by the Swiss Federation of the Clockmakers of Jura, led by James Guillaume, a history and litterature professor. In the Congresses that were subsequently organised participated Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Costa, Cafiero and others. The bulletin they issued, the Bulletin of the Jurassian Federaton became the international bulletin of European anarchists.

THE FIRST REVOLUTIONARY GROUP

A pleiad of historians, most prominently C. Moskov (6), consider that the people of Patras came into contact with anarchist ideas through the city’s Italian colony. Following the 1848 revolution, Patras was swarmed by Italian political refugees, who formed a very impotrant colony, which kept alive its ties with the metropolitan organisations of Italy. Histrorical testimonies estimate that the colony amounted to 10% of the total population of the capital city of Achaea. By 1861 however, the majority of the refugees had returned to Italy. In 1871 there were no more than 10 persons left in Patras.

Therefore the spread of anarchist ideas in the city of Patras must be traced, either to the cycle of the Heptanesian radicals, who had been promoting libertarian ideas in the previous decades and who kept alive their contacts with the city, or to the cycle of Italian anarchists, like Amilcare Cirpiani and Gustave Flourens, who visited Greece.

We can assume that the events of the Paris Commune had a catalystic influence on the radical elements of the Achaean capital and gradually gave birth to discussion clubs, most probably clandestinely in various private houses.

As pointed out by K. Moskov, out of such a club there sprung a group which decided to become politically active.

THE FOUNDATION - THE MEMBERS

The «Democratic Club of Patras» was founded at the beginning of 1876 and it was an anarchist group. The most important members of the Club, known to us by the research undertaken to the present day, were intellectuals and workingmen. Dionysios Ambelicopoulos, who teached mathematics in a high school and was familiar with the socialist tendancies of his time; Constantinos Grimanis, an accountant who used to work in a store, Panagiotis Evmorfopoulos, a veteran Patran printer and the owner of the Phoenix printing firm, the publisher of many Achaean newspapers, his son, Alexandros Evmorfopoulos, who would later, in 1896, run the newspaper Epi Ta Proso (Onwards), Constantinos Bobotis, a lawyer, Georgios Paparretor a rentier who would collaborate in 1885 with P. Drakoulis’ Ardin (7) loannis Asimakopoulos, Dimitris Spatharas, Panagiotis Sougleris, Giorgos Stratos. Their meetings were held in a private place, where a splendid library was maintained and which was decorated with pictures of the Paris Commune. Around these members, a cycle, mostly constisting of students, was created, which was regularly conferring and discussing and out of which sprung the first nuclei of propaganda and resistance to every form of authority.

PARTICIPATION IN THE BERNE CONGRESS

The 8th Congress of the International Workingmen’s Association was held in Beme, from 26 to 29 October 1876. The agenda of the Congress, which was published in the Jura Bulletin, included inter alia, proposals made by various national federations aiming at the unity of all socialist tendencies and the return of the German speaking marxists, who had been cut off the International in 1872.

On October 22, the Bulletin of Jura published the following passage: «A specific number of socialists from this country, will send to the Berne Congress an address where their ideas on the organisation of labour shall be exposed. They have assigned the composition of this document to comrade Andrea Costa, who is a permanent resident of Switzerland. This will be the first time that Greece will participate in a Congress of the International».

Two remarks are necessary: At the time, all socialist factions proclamed themselves as socialist, while in Greece the term «koinonistis» was often used. Andrea Costa, an anarchist and a member of the International, later espoused parliamentarism and electioneering and became the founder of the Italian Socialist Party.

The resolutions of the Congress were sent to the Patran anarchists, who accepted them with a letter, dated December 1876, and thus became affiliated with the Bureau of the International in the Jura. The letter was published in the Bulletin of Jura, with the following reminder, dated 7 January 1877: We have received an answer, sent by the Secretary of the Democratic Club of Patras, to the letter directed by the correspondance committee of the Beme Congress. We read inter alia:

«We received the fraternal letter which you addressed to us as well as the formal abstract of the Congress. Provided that we have interpreted accurately your reasoning, we are persuaded that our ideas and the principles of your program are in total harmony.Desiring to come into closer contact with you, since we believe that our solidarity will result in the triumph of our common ideas, we will initiate as of today a regular correspondance. Please accept the fraternal greetings of all the comrades in Greece.In the name of the Democratic Club of Patras Costantinos A. Grimanis».

But what did the Democratic Club of Patras endorse and what did they agree with? The Congress confirmed Collectivism (redistribution according to the labour offered) as the principal element of the International’s propaganda. It supported that mutual respect and peaceful! parallel development could and should be established between libertarian and authoritarian socialists and adopted the respect of all means of action selected by every national federation.

The relations that the Patras organisation developed henceforth, allowed it to come into contact with respective Italian anarchist organisations. The correspondance of the group with the anarchist periodicals Plebe of Milan and II Martello (The Hammer) of Bologna bear testimony to these contacts. A letter published in II Martelo’s issue of 11 March 1877, stated inter alia:

«...On January 20 we sent you a letter, exposing our opinions on the common cause, in which we further added: The type and the fashion of our intervention cannot be identical in every country, as only the citizens of a specific region are in a position to be aware of the means that should be used. The people are not a Tabula Rasa, but a book already written and it is upon the people we should base our cause. We also added: Our ultimate goal is the well being of the human race and we strongly oppose those who wish to bring about the gradual emancipation of the people. We are in accordance with you that only through Revolution we may retain our hopes...» (published by M. Demetriou).

From the above passage it is clear that they unreservedly supported the resolutions of the Berne Congress and they unwaveringly espoused anarchism as their ideological identity. We must not forget that during that period there were two opposing views: That of the marxists who proclaimed the «scientific stages towards socialism» and that of the Bakuninists’ “direct action”.