Social radicalism in Greece - Part 2

greece / turkey / cyprus | history of anarchism | review Saturday October 01, 2005 13:26 by P. Pomonis

Reformists - Utopians - Anarchists

Written by P. Pomonis, part of the pamphlet “The early days of Greek Anarchism” published by KSL

2) PEASANT ANARCHISM

In the last decade of the 19th century anarchist ideas met with favourable response in various rural regions of Greece, especially in the Peloponnesos and in Thessaly. Their propagation in rural centers was followed by spontaneous peasant mobilization, which in certain cases had an insurrectionary outlook. 1896 was a landmark year, as in Achaia and in Ilia, numerous acts of defiance against the laws of the state broke out and many violent attacks against authority took place. In 1895, 1896, 1898 as well as in the period 1903 - 1905, armed demonstrations of farmer workers were very common. Peasants took over villages or junctions, thus forcibly preventing the tax collectors and the armed forces of the state from entering the villages. On several occasions, bloody clashes broke out, which caused death or injury to many gendarmes. The situation in the countryside of the Peloponnnesos during that period can be summed up thus: There were no big estates, while landless peasants were employed for a few months a year in the cultivation and the harvest. Small land owners, dependent on the international division of agricultural production (single crop fanning of raisin), had fallen under the yoke of the big export houses and the usurers .On the other they were oppressed by the state through unbearable taxes. The state, ever so exigent, sent its tax collectors, bailiffs and gendarmes to the villages. The peasant, witnessing in the one hand his income dwindle away and on the other the agents of the state invade his home to impose fines or to arrest him for debts, rose against the state. There lies the reason behind the radicalization and the dynamism of the peasant movement. K. Vergopoulos, in his book «The Agrarian Issue in Greece. Social integration of agriculture» states that the agrarian issue had not so much to do with the question of land but resulted from social and impersonal conditions. Referring to the socialist groups of the Peloponnesos he wrote: «Similarly, the libertarian socialist groups of the Peloponnesos did not target the rich fanners, but almost exclusively the raisin merchants, the usurers and the anti-peasant state policies.

The peasant uprising of Pyrgos in 1898 channeled its violence against the whole system, represented locally by the state tax collectors». Elsewhere in his book Vergopoulos states: «In brief, it became increasingly obvious that the radical dynamism of the peasants could be expressed directly in an anti-bourgeois and and state direction, without having previously undergone an anti employer phase».

It can be unreservedly said that the peasant mobilization, which took place in the 1890’s, was anything but the jerky reaction of the down trodden, as argued by Marxist historians. On the contrary, it seems that the peasants were clearly conscious of their class enemies. Which explains the favourable response to anarchosocialist ideas in the Peloponnesos.

Anarchist ideas first spread in Patras by Italian anarchist refugees. At the time, 15% of the population of the city were members of the Italian colony, within the ranks of which various radical ideas clashed. In the 1870s, anarchosocialists founded the Democratic Club of Patras. The Club maintained very good relations with the anarchists of Bologna and Milan and it addressed the Conference of the Bakunist IWMA, held in Beme on the 26th October of 1876. In December of the same year it adhered to the resolutions of the International. In May 1877 it published the newspaper «Hellenic Democracy». From its very first issue, «Greek Democracy» was persecuted, accused of conspiring to overthrow the existing order, of inciting rebellion and plunder as well as offending the King. In the Charter of the Democratic Club of Patras they stated that they strove for the establishment of the Democratic Regime under the following conditions:

A. Total decentralisation and perfect self-administration of the Municipalities, i.e. every Municipality to be totally independent and self ruled

B. Total freedom of the human being

C. Every authority to be submitted directly to the rule of the people

The Democratic Club of Patras had a brief existence. However, from then on, anarchist activity never ceased in Patras.

In 1896, a group of anarchosocialists took over the newspaper «Epi ta Proso» and turned it into an anarchosocialist organ. The main contributors of the newspaper were the journalist and printer loannis Manganaras, the printer Dimitris Karampilias, the poet Panagiotis Tsekouras, the lawyer Vasilios Kalliontzis and others. The newspaper attacked the merchant class, described the misery of the popular strata and criticized politicians. It propagated the ideas of European Anarchists (Kropotkin, Reclus, Malatesta Ravachol etc). When important events occurred (e.g. the Lavrio strike) it put out small extraordinary editions. Moreover, the group translated and published in pamphlet theoretical texts, which constituted the small sociological series of the newspaper. However, the group did not restrict its activities to the publishing of the newspaper and the pamphlets. Manganaras and Karabilas organized lectures and public debates in Patras and the surrounding villages to propagate their ideas. When the raisin crisis broke out, causing many raisin workers to lose their employment and leading to the foreclosure of many small farms, successive marches and armed demonstrations broke out, while black flags of protest were unfurled. The newspaper «Epi ta Proso» spotlighted the mobilization, explaining the situation to the weak of heart and rousing the bold to action, while its members took active part in the demonstrations. Manganaras found himself leading the big demonstration organized by the peasants of Achaia and Ilia. His public speech calling for direct action, led to his arrest and condemnation by a Criminal Court, while the police prosecuted the newspaper on numerous occasions during the big strike of raisin workers and small farmers.

In order to demonstrate the views of the group we are citing some excerpts from «Epi Ta Proso»: «...Yes, our ideas are high and noble. We have already said so and we will keep repeating it, because we want man to become what he is destined to be on earth. We want him to be totally free. Free and not a slave. Free in his will. Free in his thought. Free in respect to his peers. Free in learning. Free in love. Free from prejudice. Free from every vice, passion, habit and malice; free from plunder, theft, cruelty, lie, envy, brutality, hatred etc We want him free from and not slave to money. We want him equal with all his peers. We want him equal when facing the strong. We want women to be equal to men. That is how we want man and that is what we are striving for».

«...By saying Anarchy we mean, that humankind following the natural law of the endless march towards perfection, will develop up to that point of Progress, whereby all human beings on Earth, liberated from biological needs, free from prejudice and cognizant that natural freedom is voluntary solidarity between social beings, will not need personal authority or power in order to desist from evil..»

Next to the Patras anarchists, there were the anarchists of Pyrgos, who published the newspaper «Neon Fos» in 1899. In the 1890s the Pyrgos anarchists participated in the peasant revolts, distributed leaflets, and organized public debates in the villages. The Pyrgos anarchists, who according to M. Demetriou were «supporters of direct revolution to overthrow the established order» did not believe in reformist struggle. They adhered to the view that the workers were not interested in alternations between bourgeois regimes, lest of all in attempts at modernization within the frame of the established political system. They rejected the so-called political struggle aiming at choosing between parties or regimes, such as monarchy and parliamentary democracy. Still, they published at the «Neo Fos», some letters by readers under pseudonym, who were opposed to such views and who supported that the workers and the peasants should be interested in a better political selection than the existing one. In the elections of 7-2-1899, «Neon Phos» wrote: «No, we do not vote. Parliament is not for us. Neither are the laws, nor the gendarmerie, nothing that is part of the established tyrannical regime; they belong to those who steal,.... who oppress, ..... who poison us daily». The main watchwords of «Neon Phos» were Liberty, Solidarity. We are citing a few excerpts from τexts edited by P. Noutsos:

«ASSOCIATIONS WITH MUTUAL AID, FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS» When the peasant and the worker hears about socialism, he feels that he will be working as a brother with other human beings in the fields or in the factories with no one there above his head, without being grumpy or caring whether one works two hours or two hours and a half. He does not tolerate being lectured about state or authority which will supervise and direct him; he understands that when he will feel hunger he shall eat without having to ask for anybody’s permission; when he will feel like working he shall go out and work without having anybody above him. He grasps very well that the world will consist of associations, big unions with mutual help and freedom and happiness; he understands that the merchants are parasites, flaneurs and that they will ot exist in the future society».

In another issue they wrote: «...Under the influence of our ideas, certain peasant demonstrations against the usurers took place in our town; they demanded among other things the abolition of taxes. The gendarmes and the bailiffs who had been sent to the villages to collect the taxes were chased away by men and women, holding arms, stones and clubs...»

This concludes our reference to peasant anarchism. It should be added that attempts were made to spread anarchist ideas in the rural centers of Thessaly. However, these attempts were not met with success. Reformist ideas and practices prevailed and anarchists were absorbed by them. The most important political endeavour, which gathered around it the local socialists, was the Labour Center of Volos, which issued the newspaper «Worker». A little later, the newspaper was renamed «Worker-Peasant» and a presentative of the Center took part in the elections for the 1st Revisory Parliament (August 1910). The dominance of the reformists can be observed in the agitation of the landless peasants, whose demand was to acquire land.

Another form of action we come across is anarchoterrorism.

3) INDIVIDUAL TERRORISM

We come across manifestations of this phenomenon mainly in the Peloponnesos. On the one hand the socioeconomic situation already described and on the other the persecutions of socialists, as well as a strong belief in direct action, led some I individual terrorism. On 3-11-1896, the cordwainer Dimitris Matsalis attacked two «respectable citizens» killing one and seriously wounding the other. In court Matsalis declared he was an anarchist and that he had acted on his own. He committed suicide by biting off the percussion cap of a stick of dynamite. On the 1st of May of 1898, A. Theodorids attempted to kill two Patras usurers, but only succeeded in injuring them.

4) CHRISTIAN ANARCHISM

It appears that the term is a misnomer. What we are dealing with were supporters Christian socialist theories, professing the abolition of the privileges of the kings and the wealthy, promoting a fair society, which would protect the workers under just and wide rulers. Extremely dogmatist, their objective was not to transform the world but to retire from the worldly affairs. The most important examples were the Brotherhood of Patras and the Armageddon Movement, who supported that the world was inescapably condemned to be destroyed.

Another Christian Socialist was Marinos Antypas, whose propaganda played an important role in the Kileler uprising.

Several Christian Socialists became active in the forming of labour unions.

* The two chapters of the “Early Days of Greek Anarchism” are: 1) “The Democratic Club of Patras” which written by Libertarian Historical Archive and published in Greece in 2002 by Libertarian Historical Archive and the anarchist mafazine “Contact” (published by members of OADE – now OAE). Translated in English by Paul Pomonis. 2) “Social Radicalism in Greece” which written by Paul Pomonis. Tne pamphlet published by Kate Sharpley Library in 2004.

** Contacts: 1) Libertarian Historical Archive, P.O. BOX 6027, 84401 Naoussa Paros, Cylades, Greece, email linos@par.forthnet,gr 2) “Contact” magazine, P.O. BOX 93, 30100 Agrinio, Greece, email Contact_agr@pathfinder.gr 3) Federation of Anarchists of Greece (OAE), P.O. BOX 1333, 26001 Patras (Central Post Ofiice), Greece, email outetheos@yahoo.com.au