MODERN GREECE: A History since 1821 - Amazon Web Services

116 OCCUPATION AND CONFLICT (1941–9)
the atrocities committed by EAM-ELAS haunted the party years after
the event. Individuals incarcerated for collaboration were let free and
acts of revenge against the Communists and sympathizers throughout
1945–6 produced paramilitary bands of vigilantes that terrorized the
countryside.
By early January the British numbered around 75,000 men and the
“National Guard” possessed 23 battalions. EAM-ELAS was forced to
give up the capital Athens on January 6. British intervention in Greece
established a precedent soon to be repeated in Eastern Europe by
Stalin.
Interpretations of the motives of the two sides to the conflict abound.
Both Iatrides, who offered the first documented non-Communist interpretation
8 and more recently, David Close, generally agree that mistrust,
rather than design, guided KKE decisions. According to Close the
Communists preferred a principled take-over, without excluding
violence if all else failed. What appears to be contradictory behavior
(joining the government in exile while preparing for war with it) is
merely the simultaneous preparation for two different courses of
action. 9 Right-wing interpretations evoke the revolutionary nature of
the party and therefore consider its coup of December 1944 inevitable.
The left places the entire blame on British imperialism, although during
the first stages of the conflict EAM-ELAS were better equipped for it.
Nikos Marantzidis, in his 2008 compendium for a televised version
of the 1943–9 period (O emphylios polemos), discussed the view of
Philippos Eliou, a respected intellectual of the Left. The latter believed
that KKE’s decision to confront Papandreou was merely a scramble for
position in a future power-sharing. Marantzidis rightly points out the
futility of an armed attempt without the intention to capture power.
The vanquished in any conflict have little to expect, besides the magnanimity
of the victor.
Varkiza and the Civil War
The December 1944 attempt of EAM-ELAS to usurp power marked the
future of the Communist Party in public affairs. Its chance to become an
important element in parliamentary politics through the influence it
had gained during the years of occupation and resistance was forfeited
in the party’s all out attempt to establish a monopoly of power in