Red Acropolis, Black Terror: The Greek Civil War And The Origins Of The Soviet-American Rivalry, 1943-1949

by André Gerolymatos

From 1943 to 1949, tens of thousands of Greek soldiers and guerrillas fought and slaughtered each other and thousands of innocents in a civil war of unrelenting and shocking savagery. In the wake of the Allied liberation of Greece, the fighting transformed into a civil war, pitting Soviet-backed Communists against U.S. - and British-backed government forces. As the first proxy war between the superpowers, the Greek Civil War became the first hot zone of the Cold War.

In Red Acropolis, Black Terror, historian Andre Gerolymatos recounts the full history of this divisive conflict, exposing old wounds that still fester beneath the surface of contemporary Greek society. He tells the stories of ordinary Greek men, women, and children caught up in turbulent times and by powerful foreign forces.

In many ways, the Greek Civil War heralded America's future involvement in Vietnam: Not only did it mark the first time the U.S. used napalm, but it convinced U.S. policymakers that counterinsurgency operations were winnable.Red Acropolis, Black Terror unflinchingly presents the personal horrors of this brutal war, while exploring the global issues that make this "little" conflict so significant.

Genres: History, Greece, Nonfiction, European History, War

300 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2004

About the author

André Gerolymatos was a Greek-Canadian Professor of History.

Reviews

[Redwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The structure of the writing is rather confusing with the opening chapter warping any sense of a timeline. Subsequent chapters are more confined in their scope and thus easier to parse. The content is presented as unbiased, red flag alert, and I will say it's not sophisticated in its propaganda. Maybe it's not even conscious of it. I'm not an academic on the topic, but when Gerolymatos nonchalantly describes the security forces as "searching out" and the communists as "hunting down", you quickly understand his perspective.

There are tropes of the rank and file Stalinists, ones who rarely if even come into contact with the Soviet Union, and a persuasive and bookish academic coaxing the masses. Even on the bigger issues regarding the extent to which ELAS-EAM was actually committed to the communist ideology of the KKE, Gerolymatos alternates between their numbers being the result of subterfuge, their general strikes and protests being the result of coercion, and any atrocity being firmly grounded in their politics.

The chapter "The Pogrom of the Left" plumbs a month long conflict confined to a single city for any victims of witch hunts while brushing over the majority of the victims being police and military targeted for their collaboration under German occupation. Targets who had been reincorporated into the fabric of society post-haste, the British and government-in-exile prioritizing stabilization above all. These grizzly scenes, several only alleged or inferred after the fact, are some of the most extensive accounts of anything in the entire book. Gerolymatos doesn't even seem to be red scaring when he blames some of them on the want of material possessions like clothing- apparently forgetting he had just told me about the state of Greece at the time and the severe shortage of such resources.

One of the most bewildering problems with this book is the premise. It's actually hard to take seriously the notion these are Civil Wars when they are fought while Greece is occupied by foreign armies. The framing completely obscures the nature of the conflicts in which the masses resist these occupations. Gerolymatos refers to Rallis' provisional body as a "puppet government" but never uses the term to describe the monarchy or various entities that only persisted at the behest of Churchill. We get excepts of journal entries from British officers and Rhodesian mercenaries and victims of the "pogroms" more than we get any firsthand accounting of the people fighting for their sovereignty.

The pre-war disputes which Gerolymatos stresses as the gasoline ready to be ignited by the stress of the times seem relatively flimsy when the monarchy are entirely removed from the equation, their fate merely a plot by the British and a bargaining chip in negotiations among officials. Meanwhile the actual bloodshed is carried out first as an insurgency instigated by the Allies against the Axis then as counterinsurgency against that popular resistance. This book reads like the product of cold war scholarship more than as an honest accounting of the forces involved.

That said, I did walk away with a grasp on the subject in its broad view as well as a list of other sources to take a look at. This is a concise read, and the issues I take with it don't come off as underhanded. It's a solid place to start.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Red Acropolis, Black Terror looks at The Greek Civil War following World War II and how that fit into the overall context of the Cold War. From the British collaborators to the German sympathizers and the eventual rise of the communist this book carefully assesses the major players and how they fit into the larger picture. The various forces and the political terror they achieved (through violence much of the time) is still felt today in Greece and there are many parallels that can be seen. Two complaints are that it is written in a dry manner and can be a struggle to get through at times. Secondly it is missing a list of primary people which makes learning names that very few people would be familiar with difficult. Overall though it is still a valuable addition to the scholarship on both Greece and the Cold War.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Amazon review on March 11, 2018: Greek tragedy

This is a useful, interesting and fairly brief work although with several weaknesses. For one there is not a single map, despite many geographical references. Yes, I can find maps online but that is just a plain omission from a book of this nature. Not knowing enough about the history, it is difficult to assess the overall bias, but it appears relatively well balanced. Although the kidnapping and abduction of 28,000 children by the Communists (KKE) is a new twist on their general level of depravity. My suspicion (and noted by another reviewer) is that the role of the leftists is under emphasized and that of the right wing government overdone as is so often the case among works by the 'intelligentsia'. Think about the comparison between the Okhrana secret police and the Cheka/KGB. By many sources you might think they were in the same league. They were not, by a long shot. The communists are rarely surpassed in the realm of atrocities! Numerous odd repetitions pop up throughout the book, almost as if the author was restarting the project at times, which is slightly disconcerting. Still for anyone wanting to better understand Greece and certainly the development of the post-war order in Europe this fills an important niche. The parallels to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam are perhaps overdrawn but they are probably there to some degree. Not sure how many books exist on this subject exist in English, but for a single short volume this one does pretty well.

[Anna Coopey · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this was interesting. I read this on the advice of Vassilios Paipais, my secondary supervisor, who told me how the best way to understand the Occupation is to understand the period after it. I'm not sure Gerolymatos' narration of the civil war is the best - his timelining is all over the place at points, and some of the ways in which he words things (particularly about EAM) feel slightly biased, despite a general maintenance of impartiality between the two sides. I think, also, more should have been focused on the role of people like Chris Woodhouse, who were... Well, frankly, meddling on Churchill's orders.
It's a brilliant title, though, and I think has opened me up / given me enough background knowledge to truly dig into it through some other, perhaps more reputable, versions of events.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reviewing this book was quite a complicated undertaking. Gerolymatos' account in very thorough, not leaving anything to the imagination. However, with that being said, it is very dry. Furthermore, he jumps from one point to another, to then return to his original point 20 pages down the line. While Gerolymatos delivers an erudite and thorough account, it at times was a struggle to get through it. Additionally, if you have only the faintest knowledge of the war prior to reading this book, you will (at times) find yourself struggling to formulate a proper timeline. Irregardless, the research that went into formulating this history in impressive, suited for an academic audience.

[Ann Tonks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I found some of the timeline telling confusing as stories were repeated or only half told at one point and then another, this book does seem to provide an even handed look at a terrible time in Greek contemporary history.