Lets say that the communists win the Greek Civil War. How does this affect Greece then and later on and how does it affect the Cold War? What will their economy and armed forces look like, and how do any of their conflicts with Turkey go, or do they happen at all?
WI:Greece goes Communist
- Thread starter Have Blue-117
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There is no way for the communist side to win the civil war and take over the government after the percentages agreement. So you have to make the Soviet Union, the USA and the UK to agree to hand over Greece to USSR's zone of influence. That, in turn, is very, very difficult to do because it would isolate Turkey from the rest of the NATO, and threaten British Cyprus and possibly Malta*, plus it would give the Soviets all kinds of bases in the Mediterranean sea, which was unacceptable for the western powers. Only a very weird turn of events can enable your scenario, I'm afraid.
*Not to mention that with Communists still very strong in Italy, US/UK would be panicked to see a corridor from USSR through the Balkans and Greece all the way to a possible/potential Italian communist state. I think soviet agents will flour into Italy if they can get there through Greece.
*Not to mention that with Communists still very strong in Italy, US/UK would be panicked to see a corridor from USSR through the Balkans and Greece all the way to a possible/potential Italian communist state. I think soviet agents will flour into Italy if they can get there through Greece.
I wouldn't say it was that difficult. The Communist guerrilla group, ELAS, was the strongest by far in Greece. It had under it's control about 80% of the mainland (IIRC, I have a map in a book of mine that shows how much was controlled by different groups). Also, ELAS got some support from Tito. Whilst this is a lot harder after the percentages agreement (so you could do away with the % agreement), the Soviets could simply ignore the agreement, or you could (somehow) stop the British from intervening. If the British hadn't intervened, the Communists would have won.
Well, there's always a certain Josip Broz (or would that be Γιόσιπ Μπροζ?
) who could help save the day. After all, there is a possibility that Communist Greece would develop in a different direction than the rest of the Eastern Bloc, either as a part of the whole "Balkan Communist Federation" pet project that Tito had in the 1940s, or as an independent nation that also happens to be an ally of Yugoslavia. That would have some interesting consequences, either way, and some of that could use EAM/ELAS's prototypical "Free Greece" and anti-Nazi resistance as springboards. After all, the USSR didn't help Greece one way or another (so the argument would go), so why should Athens have to listen to every dictate from the Kremlin? So Communist Greece would more or less follow Titoism but adapted to Greek conditions, for reasons that you and I know all too well; in addition, though definitely following Tito's line vis-à-vis Milovan Đilas officially, back home the KKE would probably take his criticisms into consideration and adjust accordingly. The feeling between Yugoslavia and Greece in this case would probably be mutual.Hmm, here's some food for thought. In OTL, in 1948 the Dodecanese became part of Greece; obviously in TTL it won't, with Rhodes the capital of the Kingdom of Greece. Maybe the Dodecanese + Crete in this case for a Kingdom of Greece evolving from the government-in-exile in Cairo? In that case, a hybrid of the Cretan dialect and the southeastern dialects would be used as the standard pronunciation of Katharevousa in the Kingdom of Greece, whilst OTL Standard Modern Greek would be the official language in Communist Greece (with possible differences being no monotonic orthographic reform - at least initially - and a minor spelling reform where <ου> gets truncated to <υ>, representing /u/ when a vowel and, as in OTL, representing /v/ before a consonant, with old <υ> /i/ shifting to <ι> or even <υι>). So the troubles of the 1950s-1960s in Greece in OTL would be played out here in the Dodecanese and Crete in TTL, obviously with butterflies but you get the general idea.
Italy would be the sacrifical lamb here not falling for the Communists as per OTL. Apart from that, though, a Communist Greece would be interesting to see a TL for.
Hmm. Greece going Communist actually raises a lot of questions... For instance, would Greece change it's flag? The white cross represents Greek Orthodoxy, and a communist Greece would be officially atheist.
Somehow I find the argument for the West of not tolerating Greece being communist is the Soviet access to Mediterranean a little passe or too 19 cent.
Soviets could have judging by that scenario IRL made Albania into one giant naval base of theirs but they didn't.
You would see more troops and military bases stationed around Greece and Turkey and that's about it. Both USA and USSR would have an extra military theater to worry about and that wouldn't make them any happier.
Soviets could have judging by that scenario IRL made Albania into one giant naval base of theirs but they didn't.
You would see more troops and military bases stationed around Greece and Turkey and that's about it. Both USA and USSR would have an extra military theater to worry about and that wouldn't make them any happier.
But in the event of hostilities, Albania would've been cut off. If Greece was Communist, then armies/navies operating out of Greece could be supplied via land, which wasn't the case in Albania.
I don't think that Greece would have to change its flag.* If they do, I'd see something more like the current flag (here, showing the version used by the OTL 1967-1974 military junta - notable for its unusual ratio of 7:12, which I could see used by Communist Greece in TTL, compared with the OTL flag ratio of 2:3 which I could see used by the Kingdom of Greece - both because in my personal opinion it comes out better on the Internet, and also because it also displays a very peculiar tendency where Greeks tend to darken the blue that's in the flag for those flags that are mass-produced).
For an alternate flag for the KKE (do they even have an actual flag in OTL?), I'd suggest taking the historical flag of the Cretan State:
and running with it. Maybe adding a few details here and there, but you get the idea.
Or you could combine the two together. In which case the red would probably be a darker shade to match the midnight blue used on the flag.
*This is considering that the Kingdom of Greece has:
>As a state flag:
>As a civil flag:
>As the naval flag and state ensign:
>As the civil ensign (which in TTL won't be used in the Kingdom of Greece as there would be probably be some confusion, so the naval flag/state ensign would take over the civil ensign responsibilities in the Kingdom of Greece):
There are also a few workarounds for the place of religion that I'd see.
>It could be argued in Communist Greece that the cross is a very ancient symbol of Greeks, with its obvious manifestation in the Byzantine era, so retaining the cross in the flag is not a symbol of Christianity, but traditional. It also helps as a placeholder for that star.
>It could also be possible that here the KKE's attitude towards religion would probably be more relaxed. As such, attitudes towards religion would more likely be along the lines of laïcité. Ideally, religion would be frowned upon (as per the whole "religion is the opium of the masses" shtick) and such attitudes would prevail in the state schools if not in official discourse, and separation of church and state would be strictly enforced. In reality, however, it would be better to deal with it in a more pragmatic way, so as to avoid the jagged Russian seesaw where the Russian Orthodox Church was vehemently suppressed only to have it revived during WW2 (huge inconsistencies there). So it could be called a "pragmatic state atheism" (or "active neutrality" à la Turkey) where whilst Greece in theory would be atheist (more accurately, probably closer to agnoticism), in practice it would fall in line with laïcité.
>Having said that, however, in the Greek Orthodox Church the KKE could sense an easy opportunity to co-opt it for their ends whilst still having the Church remain separate from the government and thus not having it seen as the government promoting one religion at the expense of others. (Christian communists, anyone?) In addition, there's also Mount Athos, whose status would probably be somewhat uncertain but their independence would probably still be recognized, leading to arrangements like OTL. Mount Athos would definitely be a sticky topic, for sure.
In this case, that would the Kingdom of Greece's state flag and civil flag.
The flag of Czechoslovakia remained the same from 1945 onwards. The flag of Albania had a star added on top of it. The flags of Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland retained their original tricolors.
Obviously these states did add symbolism, but otherwise there was no clear break.
That should be an interesting map, I haven't seen any unfortunately.
Agreed that British intervention was decisive; without it, ELAS would have taken Athens by mid-January ('45) in the Battle of Athens.
Well, there's always a certain Josip Broz (or would that be Γιόσιπ Μπροζ?
The problem here is that KKE sided with Stalin in the Tito-Stalin split, and for that to be butterflied away, you have to prevent Zachariadis from becoming KKE's secretary-general (he defined KKE as a firmly stalinist party).
But yes, this would be a very interesting scenario, especially how the economy would go.
Oh no-no-no-no-no, the Katharevousa is never supposed to change in the slightest, even if it's adopted by the Greek-Congolese community's institutions or sth!
I can see Dodecanese and Crete becoming a 'Kingdom of Greece' but it would be little more than a UK/US satellite. Maybe sometime in the 50s-70s Cyprus would be attached to it, as the state would effectively be a network of bases for NATO. (Souda/Chania, Maritsa/Rhodes, Akrotiri,Nicosia/Cyprus) and it would be one of the most reliable ally for the western powers, contrary to OTL '63-'67 Greece.
The problem is, Crete was the most liberal region of Greece at the time, while the Dodecanese was one of the most conservatist and rightist. Moreover, the government-in-exile was created by and based on liberal parties with very strong roots and support in Crete, but once they united and, along with other politicians, created the Centre Union and won the election, the King wouldn't let them govern. The King, in turn, was OTL and would be ITTL very popular in the Dodecanese. An equivalent of the Apostasia ITTL may lead as far as a breakup of the Kingdom, because the division would be even deeper and very localy/regionaly-defined. That's also some food for thought.
Interesting how specific the orthography you mentioned was.
Yeah, Italy would be a very long shot, I just mentioned it as a talking point.
I might write a TL someday about post-2008 Greece, but a Communist Greece OTL would be difficult to do, IMO.
Greece had rail, naval and air infrastructure already in place, the situation in Albania was worse in that respect. Also, Albania effectively stopped being a USSR ally too soon for anyone to see Soviet intentions or lack thereof to develop bases in Albania.
So there's the POD. Is there anyone else besides Zachariadis who could lead the KKE and be friendly to Tito?
Oh, definitely. Who knows, Greece just might be better off in the long run in TTL.
Oh no-no-no-no-no, the Katharevousa is never supposed to change in the slightest, even if it's adopted by the Greek-Congolese community's institutions or sth!
But of course.
However, it should be noted that in Cyprus Katharevousa was the main orthography with no competition from Dimotiki, in large part because Katharevousa proved to be a natural fit for Cypriot Greek as Cypriot preserves quite a few archaisms. This would also be true of the spoken variety in the Dodecanese as well (this argument breaks down once we get to Cretan). Hence, for spoken Katharevousa (as opposed to written Katharevousa, which will remain the same regardless ) the only changes are minor and would basically be:>The replacement of OTL SMG palatal sounds [c], [ɟ], [ç], [ʝ] (preserved in the SMG in Communist Greece) with alveolo-palatal sounds [tɕ], [dʑ], [ɕ], [ʑ] (as in Crete). They are still treated as allophones of the velars /k/, /ɡ/, /x/, /ɣ/.
>The preservation of geminate consonants as written in Katharevousa and word-final /n/, both of which are lost in SMG in OTL and in the SMG in Communist Greece in TTL. (a concession to the SE dialects).
>No change of <-ía, éa> > /ja/ (as in SMG in OTL and in the SMG in Communist Greece in TTL), so παιδία /pe'ði.a/ instead of παιδιά /pe'ðja/ (note the placement of the tonos).
Minor stuff, really.
Exactement.
Of course it would be little more than a UK/US satellite - that's the whole point, right? I also agree on the Kingdom on being one of the more reliable allies in TTL, though like in OTL I would expect corruption and dynastic politics to abound like crazy, amongst other things. Of course this means that the military in TTL will be THE biggest driver of the Greek economy, along with agriculture, shipping, and this time tourism in a big way. That's because apart from that, there's really precious little to grow the economy with, even if you put light industry up in Crete, so emigration will again be a fact of like in the Kingdom. It would be interesting to see if the Kingdom of Greece in TTL maintain/expand/build upon the foundation left by Italian rule in the Dodecanese, obviously.Though Cyprus I'm not too sure about - I'm sure that in TTL Britain would be loath to give up Cyprus as it's in a perfect strategic location for HM Forces and the RAF and Royal Navy in particular. What it could potentially offer Cyprus, IMO, would be Dominion status within the British Empire, with the Sovereign Base Areas remaining separate from Cyprus.
Oh definitely - the political tensions are going to exacerbate things greatly, no doubt about it. So the politicos are going to have to scramble to find ways of uniting the two regions together, and a big one is going to be a revival of the Megali Idea (which I'm sure Communist Greece would disavow, for obvious reasons rooted in WW1 and the Asia Minor incident) which would not only include those areas of Greece under the control of the KKE, but potentially even Northern Epirus, Cyprus (though, as I already mentioned, Britain would refuse to give that up), and even those areas of Turkey that Greece administered pre-Turkish War of Independence (i.e. Eastern Thrace, Imbros and Tenedos, and Ionia) and expanded. The Turkish bit, however, would only be for domestic consumption only and not played up too much since both the Kingdom and Turkey are NATO members, but the other areas would be mentioned for both domestic and international consumption. Though even then I don't think the Megali Idea would be enough, so it would be possible for the Kingdom to be prone to military coups. An Apostasia analogue would threaten to break up the Kingdom, yes, but it would probably be certain that NATO would want the entire Kingdom to be maintained as one piece, in part due to potential concern of Crete joining with the Communists if they broke away (never underestimate Cold War hysteria). An EDA analogue in the Kingdom, if one is formed, would only heighten the tensions even further.
Well, I'd figure that the choice of written language would define a major difference between Communist Greece and the Kingdom of Greece, amongst other things, so in this case the devil is in the details. Communist Greece's adoption of Dimotiki is in part rooted in a resolution of the EAM/ELAS's Political Committee of National Liberation (Πολιτική Επιτροπή Εθνικής Απελευθέρωσης), which states that "the People's language is the formal language for all manifestations of public life and for all educational grades." It would also in part be based on a certain little book which called for Dimotiki as the official language of Greece, as mentioned in English Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_...E2.80.9322_Demoticism_in_education_and_reformWiki said:
That would appeal quite nicely to the KKE, as you can quite imagine. However, the Standard Modern Greek of Communist Greece would not be straight Dimotiki, but as in OTL basically Dimotiki enriched by Katharevousa - the "best of both worlds", as one academic put it. This SMG would also be pretty open to loanwords, so many of the old loanwords popularly used before the arrival of Katharevousa would be used again - and with Yugoslavia a major ally of Communist Greece, Serbo-Croatian loanwords would also be found in abundance, sometimes alongside a native Greek equivalent (i.e. samoupravljanje <σαμοϋπραυλιανιε> "self-management", with its equivalent in SMG). The Kingdom of Greece, obviously, would use Katharevousa, but as the language question hadn't largely been settled by this time there would probably be some challenge to it even as it phonologically kinda sorta fits the SE dialects better.
As for the orthography itself, well I mentioned how SMG in Communist Greece is mildly reformed vis-à-vis representation of the /u/ sound (which due to the orthographic reform is now either <υι> or <ι>, which Katharevousa avoids). There is, however, one other minor orthographic detail which would provide a major difference, and that is the use of diacritics. As already stated, the monotonic orthography is not adopted in TTL by Communist Greece, leaving us with SMG in polytonic, though monotonic would probably be in use by a minority. However, it would be conceivable for Communist Greece to adopt a simplified polytonic orthography, where:
- There are only two accents: the acute <´> and the circumflex <˜>; the grave is abolished and replaced by the acute. A minority of Greeks will use the acute exclusively and thus follow the monotonic orthography. The acute can take the form of the modern acute accent or a vertical bar or a dot, depending on personal preference, but all official texts, most printed text, and works published by the Orthodox Church use the acute accent. The circumflex always takes the form of the tilde.
- The breathings are not written over <ρ> or <υ>, the latter because only the rough breathing occurred over old <υ> which is no longer pronounced as such in reformed orthography so is not needed. The coronis, however, remains.
- The iota subscript is abolished. When used in religious texts (such as those published by the Orthodox Church) or when discussing Ancient Greek, however, the iota subscript is always used and never the iota adscript of Western practice.
- There are also a few modifications peculiar to Communist Greece, one of which would seem strange to both Greeks and non-Greeks but which has precedent in the history of Greek typesetting. As such, the accents are placed on top of capital letters instead of on the side (as in OTL), and sigma <Σ, σ/ς> is replaced with its lunate form <C, c>.
That should take care of the orthography stuff. Quite detailed, yes, but it has to be both because of the nature of the language question (which now takes on a Cold War aspect) and because certain forms of written Modern Greek are being used to differentiate one from another. I was thinking of adding additional contextual forms of letters as an analogue to the contextual forms of sigma (most of which have precedent in the history of Greek typography, such as for beta), but then I figured that the Communists would not want to make the orthography more needlessly complicated then it already is, so I eliminated the OTL sigma with its contextual forms and replaced it with the one historical form which just coincidentally also happens to be the standard form of /s/ in the Cyrillic script (as Cyrillic <C, c> descends from the Greek lunate sigma).
Of course, on both counts. A Communist Greece TL, however, would be very interesting to write simply because can get to play around with how Communist Greece is organized and developed.
Definitely. With Titoism completely surrounding Albania, Tirana is probably going to be more paranoid.
Oh AH.Com. Only here can we have immense discussions on how a language will change.
Well, let's put it this way - it seems trivial, but it's also very very Greek.
It was also a MAJOR issue back in the day, hence why that is just as important a parameter for Communist Greece as anything else, like the economy.