Passions of the past reverberate in the present every November 14–17 in Greece, when tens of thousands of citizens take to the streets to commemorate the anti-junta uprising that initiated the fall of the U.S.-backed Papadopoulos dictatorship 41 years ago. In 1973, slogans such as “Bread, Education, Freedom!” could be heard echoed through Athens. This slogan takes on renewed meaning today as 40,000 Greeks participated in Monday’s demonstration, protesting how seven years of economic crisis has steadily pushed the debt up, employment down, and has increased homelessness and destitution.

November 17 commemorations begin with the customary laying of wreaths at the Athens Polytechnic University. The demonstration begins outside the university campus, passes Syntagma (Constitution) Square, and heads to the U.S. Embassy, denoting the legacy of U.S. influence in the country’s affairs. The demonstrations honor those students who participated in the 1973 Athens Polytechnic anti-junta uprising. It also honors, and gives a special place in the main demonstration to current Polytechnic students.

The Athens Polytechnic University uprising in 1973 saw the culmination of years of anti-junta opposition to the repressive U.S.-backed “Regime of the Colonels.” The Regime took power in 1967 and followed more than 30 years of conflict that included Nazi occupations, famine, British and U.S. occupation, and civil war. This war-torn period was characterized by polarized political forces and included the establishment of a far-right security apparatus that continues to the present day.

The judicial policies that the Greek government adopted between 1944–1945 — and which were finally used to persecute leftists — help explain the conditions that gave rise to The Regime of the Colonels. During that period, the government’s judicial policies included the formation of Collaborators Courts to try those suspected of having collaborated with the Nazi regime and for those who were suspected of having committed, or being complicit in, war crimes. European historian Mark Mazower has explained that the main judicial problem by mid-1945 was not the (non)-prosecution of suspected-Nazi collaborators but rather “the terrible overcrowding of the country’s prisons, packed full of real and suspected leftists” — many who were arrested on false charges (Mazower, 2000).

The official figures for the prison population in September 1945 — almost 70 years ago — was 17,232. Of this figure, over 10,000 were alleged leftists and just 1,246 were alleged Nazi collaborators. Mazower suggested that the above official figures, from the Athens Foreign Office, are conservative and that the total number of prisoners was actually much higher. By the end of 1945, roughly 50,000 members of the leftist group EAM (National Liberation Movement), who were Nazi resistance fighters, were behind bars.

Following the end of World War II, on March 12, 1947, U.S. President Harry Truman addressed a special joint session of Congress, in which he articulated what became known as “The Truman Doctrine,” a Cold War strategy aimed at affecting the balance of power in favor of the U.S. Through the Truman Doctrine, the U.S. began to support authoritarian regimes in Greece and other countries to ensure that these states did not fall under Soviet influence. Fearing the spread of a leftist contagion in countries surrounding Greece, the U.S. and British helped to brutally defeat the Greek Communist Party. The CIA began working closely with the Greek military in the early 1950s, including supporting those that would later carry out the coup to bring The Regime of the Colonels to power.

Following World War II, Greece entered into a civil war that lasted between 1946-1949. The U.S. and Great Britain supported the Greek government and army against the Greek Communist Party. The post-civil war years in Greece were characterized by social and material crisis. The Truman Doctrine sought to contain leftist forces and exacerbate political polarization in the Mediterranean country. On May 22, 1963, two far-right extremists assassinated left-wing politician and peace activist Gregoris Lambrakis. They murdered Lambrakis publicly after he had delivered the keynote speech at an anti-war meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city.

On April 21, 1967, with the intention of allying Greece with NATO to combat “communist influence,” Greek right-wing army officers led by Colonel George Papadopoulos, who The Observer reported six years later to be “the first CIA agent to become premier of a European country,” executed a coup. Thus began the reign of The Regime of the Colonels.

Immediately after taking power, the Regime of Colonels initiated martial law, engaging in censorship, arrests, beatings, torture, and killings. The total number of victims were, by some estimates, 8,000 in the first month. The Regime of the Colonels attempted to coercively rule over every aspect of Greek life during its seven year reign. The Regime abolished civil liberties and political parties, banning strikes, labor unions, and even the music of Greek composer Mikas Theodorakis. The Regime also banned long hair on men, mini-skirts, the peace symbol, The Beatles, Sophocles, Tolstoy, Aeschylus, Socrates, Eugene Lonesco, Sartre, Chekhov, Mark Twain, Samuel Beckett, free press, new math and the letter Z, which means Life in Greek. These events, as well as the 1963 assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis, inspired both the novel “Z” by the prolific Greek writer Vassilis Vassilikos and the movie by the same name directed by renowned Greek-French film maker Costa-Gavras.

Finally, on November 14, 1973, students at the Athens Polytechnic went on strike against The Regime. Students occupied the university and set up a radio station that broadcast around all of Athens. Time Magazine reported in 1973 that:

…several thousand students occupied the prestigious Polytechnic University. Barricaded inside, they chanted “Down with the junta,” “Americans out,” and “Death to Papadopoulos.” They set up a radio transmitter. Despite government jamming efforts, they broadcast pleas to Athenians to launch a general strike and oust the government. One neophyte announcer, his voice shaking with emotion, shouted: “Tonight is our night! Don’t be afraid of police! The junta collapses tonight!”

The uprising spread through Athens, with youth and workers joining. Time Magazine reported:

Shouting “Bread, education, freedom!” thousands of students, many of them carrying clubs, surged through downtown Athens, where they started fires and tied up traffic. Some used appropriated buses as barricades, from which they peppered police with fruit and stones. In Constitution Square, students were met by a massive force of truncheon-swinging riot police and clouds of tear gas. In scenes that to some observers seemed like a re-enactment of the Costa-Gavras film Z, some police kicked and bludgeoned the demonstrators, while others fired machine guns into the air to scatter the student mobs.

The Regime soon re-declared martial law. Tanks patrolled the streets. Greek soldiers detained youth and workers in an Athenian soccer stadium. The Guardian reported at the time that roads were “gouged” by tanks and that one former policeman claimed he saw 50 tanks going into Athens. The “main strategic points were occupied by tanks, troop carriers, and commandos,” he told the paper.

A Greek tank crashes through gates of the Athen’s Polytechnic, November 17, 1973.

The morning of November 17, 1973, The Regime sent a tank to crash through the Polytechnic University gates. A government spokesperson tried to explain to reporters that the government had done its best to avoid violence, but the invasion of the Polytechnic was the only way to silence the pirate radio station (government attempts to suspend the radio station had failed). The spokesperson insisted that the troops and police had entered peacefully but at least one foreign correspondent asked about the allegations that troops had injured students with bayonets. Reports indicate that up to 24 civilians were killed outside the Polytechnic campus with hundreds injured. Although an official investigation undertaken after the fall of the Junta declared that no students of Athens Polytechnic were killed during the incident.

The Athens Polytechnic uprising triggered a series of events that brought The Regime of the Colonels to an end July 24, 1974. But The Regime’s repressive actions at the Polytechnic University gave rise to the University Asylum Law, which was introduced 1982. The aim of the law was to protect freedom of thought and expression on university campuses across Greece. The law made it illegal for police to enter universities without the permission of university rectors and guaranteed students sanctuary from arrest and state brutality. The law enabled many occupations and protests to take place and thrive at University campuses — particularly recently in the context of renewed police brutality and the economic crisis which has plunged many in Greece into poverty.

The University Asylum Law was abolished in 2011. A year before, a 2010 WikiLeaks cable by then U.S. Ambassador to Greece Daniel V. Speckhard showed that the U.S. did not like the law. Speckhard expressed his opinion that it was “nothing more than a legal cover for hoodlums to wreak destruction with impunity” and “threatens the academic and student communities.” But students continue to view university grounds as sacred spaces and sought to occupy universities in the week leading up to the November 17 anti-junta anniversary this year.

Political concert in 1974 celebrating the end of the dictatorship and featuring banned musicians, including by then banned Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis.

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