daris, has dominated the political ma-chinery since 1945. Every once in awhile, the government is reshuffled, butthe same reactionary politicians are leftwith the power and the purse- strings.Government in Greece remains an un-shaken, monopolistic bureaucracy.Even the conservative press is not freeto publish what it likes or to circulatewherever it wants to. Freedom ofspeech and assembly hardly exist.Thousands of citizens are held in con-centration camps as political prisoners.As a result of all this, Greeks of almostevery political persuasion are becom-ing increasingly resentful of the right-wing party leaders, who are more at-tached to their excessive privileges thanto democratic liberties.

In 1946, fear of Communism drovea great many Greeks to vote for thePopulists , who even then were widelyregarded as anti- democratic. Todaymany Greek conservatives, who helpedput Tsaldaris in office three years ago,have lost their respect for the right-wing parties." Most of the best Greektechnicians," according to one ECA offi-cial," cannot and will not co- operate

with the people we have supportedpolitically here for the last two and ahalf years."

When conservatives demand change,as they do in Greece , it is time to takenotice. One Greek conservative de-clared recently:" If we do not raise ourstandard of living within the first yearsafter the civil war ends, we will haveCommunism here again. What Wash-ington must understand is this: If welose the reconstruction, we lose thewar. But to save the reconstruction youhave to dissolve this Parliament, whichhave to dissolve this Parliament, whichis no longer in any sense representa-tive, and hold free elections. There canbe no solution in Greece until you get apolitical foundation on which to build."

In the workers' districts of Athens ,there is the same attitude, even moreemphatic, toward the" governingGreeks," and the same demand for far-reaching political change.

Until now, the American policy hasbeen:" Hands off politics!" That pol-icy is based on the theory that the 1946elections were free and representative.elections were free and representative.Henry F. Grady , the American Ambas­ sador

in Athens , who was our represen­ tative

on the Allied Mission to Observethe Greek Elections, has always main-tained that they were free, and there isno reason to question his good faith.But it is possible that the 1946 ballotingwas free only in the most narrow andtechnical sense. The curtain of repres-sion and fear was undoubtedly liftedon the day in March, 1946, when theGreeks went to vote. But a free electionmay be a farce if there is no freedombefore and after it. Before the 1946election, Greece was in a state of half-real, artificially- concocted panic, theprincipal issue appeared to be Commu­ nism ; the destiny of every voter washeld to be at stake; the Greeks werestampeded into voting indiscriminatelyagainst Communism , which meant vot-ing for the Populists and their allies.

It is apparently on that twenty- four-hour spell in 1946 that the United States bases its policy of political non-intervention. The British , who helpedput Tsaldaris in power in 1945, todayregard this policy as inelastic and self-defeating. They are interested in themoderate center and republican par-

The Reporter, October 11, 1949

VOTE HERE

robt.

86

B

31