Athens Polytechnic uprising
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The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974, which was otherwise known as the Regime of the Colonels and led by the dictator George Papadopoulos. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to nearly an open anti-junta revolt and ended with bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 when a tank crashed through the gates of the Polytechnic.
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[edit] The causes
Greece had been, since April 21, 1967, under the dictatorial rule of the military, a repressive regime which abolished basic civil rights, dissolved political parties and exiled, jailed and tortured politicians and citizens based on their political beliefs.
1973 found the junta under Papadopoulos having undertaken a "liberalisation" process of the regime, which included the release of political prisoners and the partial lifting of censorship, as well as promises of a new constitution and new elections for a return to civilian rule. This created a power vacuum for leftist and generally democratic elements to undertake political action against the junta.
(17 November is also the name of a Greek Terrorist Group named after the uprising.)
The junta, trying to control every aspect of politics, had from its beginnings in 1967 interfered with student syndicalism, banning student elections in universities, forcefully drafting leftist students and enforcing non-elected student syndicate leaders in the national student's syndicate, EFEE. These actions eventually created a fierce anti-junta sentiment among students that was first manifested by the suicide-protest against the junta of Geology student Kostas Georgakis in 1970 in Genoa, Italy. Subsequently, the first massive and public action against the junta came from students on February 21 1973.
On February 21 1973 law students went on strike and barricaded themselves inside the buildings of the Law School of the university of Athens in the centre of Athens, demanding the cancelling of the law that imposed forceful drafting of "subversive youths", as 88 of their colleagues had been forcefully drafted. The regime ordered the police inside the Law School. Many students were reportedly subjected to police brutality. The events at the Law School are often cited as the prelude to the Polytechnic uprising.
The student uprising was also heavily influenced by the youth movements of the sixties, notably the events of May 1968.
[edit] The events
On November 14, 1973 students at the National Technical University of Athens (also known as "Athens Polytechnic" or Polytechneion) went on strike and started protesting against the military regime (Regime of the Colonels). There was no response, so the students barricaded themselves in and built a radio station (using materials from the laboratories) that repeatedly broadcast across Athens: "Here is Polytechneion! People of Greece, the Polytechneion is the flag bearer of our struggle and your struggle, our common struggle against τhe dictatorship and for democracy!"[1] (Greek: Εδώ Πολυτεχνείο! Λαέ της Ελλάδας το Πολυτεχνείο είναι σημαιοφόρος του αγώνα μας, του αγώνα σας, του κοινού αγώνα μας ενάντια στη δικτατορία και για την Δημοκρατία transliterated as: Etho Polytechneio! Lae tis Elladas to Polytechneio einai simaioforos tou agona mas, tou agona sas, tou koinou agona mas enantia sti diktatoria kai gia tin Dimokratia). Leftist, later to be politician, Maria Damanaki was one of the major speakers. Soon thousands of workers and youngsters joined them protesting inside and outside of the "Athens Polytechnic".
In the early hours of November 17 1973, Papadopoulos sent the army to crush the demonstration. An AMX 30 Tank (currently kept in an armored unit museum in Avlonas) crashed through the rail gate of the Athens Polytechnic around 03:00am under the cover of almost complete darkness, as the city lights had been shutdown (by that time only the lights in the National Technical University yard were turned on, powered by the electricity generators of the laboratories of the electrical engineers). A hidden Dutch journalist managed to record film footage of the events. The film is quite dark but clear enough to show that the tank crashed down the main steel entrance of the "Athens Polytechnic" along with students still onboard. Also, in recordings of the free "Athens Polytechnic" radio transmissions from the occupied premises, a young man's voice is heard desperately asking the soldiers (who he calls 'brothers in arms') surrounding the building complex to refuse to obey the military orders and not to fight 'brothers protesting'. The voice carries on to an emotional outbreak, reciting the lyrics of the Greek National anthem called Hymn to Freedom written by Dionysios Solomos, until the time the tank enters the yard. At that time the radio ceased transmitting.
According to a contested official investigation undertaken after the fall of the Junta, no students of the Athens Polytechnic were killed during the incident. However, a few of them were left severely injured by the tank for the rest of their lives. Total recorded casualties amount to 24 civilians killed outside Athens Polytechnic campus. These include 19-year old Michael Mirogiannis, reportedly shot in cold blood by officer G. Dertilis, high-school student Diomedes Komnenos, and a five-year old boy caught in the crossfire in the suburb of Zografou. The records of the trials held following the collapse of the Junta document the circumstances of the deaths of many civilians during the uprising, but it is possible that the official numbers are too modest. The matter, however, remains highly political, and so, to this date, there is no real agreement on the number killed.
[edit] Aftermath of the uprising
On November 14 The uprising triggered a series of events that put an abrupt end to the regime's attempted "liberalisation" process under Spiros Markezinis. Papadopoulos, during his liberalization process and even during the dictatorship, attempted to re-engineer the Greek political landscape and failed repeatedly. Ironically, in his biographical notes published as a booklet by supporters in 1980 it is mentioned that he attended Polytechneion, the prime Engineering School in the country, but did not graduate.
Taxiarkhos Dimitrios Ioannides, a disgruntled Junta hardliner, used the uprising as a pretext to reestablish "law and order," and staged a counter-coup that overthrew George Papadopoulos and Spiros Markezinis on November 25 the same year. Military law was reinstated, and the new Junta appointed General Phaedon Gkizikis as President and economist Adamantios Androutsopoulos as Prime Minister, although Ioannides remained the behind-the-scenes strongman.
Ioannides' abortive coup attempt on June 14, 1974 against Archbishop Makarios III, then President of Cyprus, was met by an invasion of Cyprus by Turkey. These events caused the military regime to implode and ushered in the era of metapolitefsi. Constantine Karamanlis was invited from self-exile in France, and was appointed Prime Minister of Greece alongside President Phaedon Gkizikis. Parliamentary democracy was thus restored, and the Greek legislative elections of 1974 were the first free elections held in a decade.
[edit] Legacy
November 17th is currently a school holiday in Greece. Schools and universities stay closed during the day. The central location for the commemoration is the campus of the Polytechneio. The campus is closed on the 15th (the day the students first occupied the campus on 1973). Students and politicians lay wreaths on a monument within the Polytechneio that inscribes the names of Polytechneio students killed during the Greek Resistance in the 1940s. The commemoration day ends with a demonstration that begins from the campus of the Polytechneio and ends at the United States embassy. There have been several casualties during clashes with the police in such demonstrations in the 1980s and 1990s.
The student uprising is hailed by many as a valiant act of resistance against the military dictatorship, and therefore as a symbol of resistance to tyranny. Others believe that the uprising was used as a pretext by Taxiarkhos Dimitrios Ioannides to put an abrupt end to the process of ostensible liberalization of the regime undertaken by Spiros Markezinis.
[edit] Metapolitefsi
Metapolitefsi refers to the period in Greek history after the restoration of democracy, subsequently to the fall of the Junta in 1974.
