Soldiers in ELAS, the main Greek communist armed forces during the Greek Civil War. Wikimedia. PD.Greece is, inevitably, a country obsessed with its own history. Yet the recent furore does not have to do with the burdensome heritage of classical antiquity but with a much more recent and internationally obscure history.
The left-wing government’s refusal to attend a European conference on crimes committed by communist regimes, held in Estonia in August 23, has reignited an interminable debate on communism which – incredibly – still divides Greek politics and society, nearly three decades after the Berlin Wall fell. The clamour continued well into September and October, and it will no doubt restart at the slightest incitement.
Greece is probably the only country left in the world where communism is still such a hot topic of debate. The irony is that it never had a communist government and, until World War II, communist parties had very little support, as the country lacked an industrial proletariat of significant size.
