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stymied progress, and to warn about external interference. These texts framed the
political reality at the time in terms of a moral debate inspired by libertarian discourse:
why should the citizen be confused by and suffer for the government which was more
interested in internal wrangling than in the suffering populace - a sentiment that
continues into anarchist writing today. Of course, these messages were broadly ignored
by the majority and the situation continued to worsen, again, because citizens were
entrenched within their political ideologies and dissenting voices rang as dangerous.
Ultimately, King Constantine, seeking to maintain the monarchy and eager to stay in the
military’s favor, attempted to resolve the infighting and political maneuvering that had
rendered the government ineffective by dismissing Papandreou75. This proved disastrous.
On April 21st 1967 the military junta of Georgios Papadopoulos and his Colonels
came into power. The dictatorship was brutal, imprisoning opposing politicians,
communists, and certainly anyone identified as an anarchist (see Athenian 1972:115).
Papadopoulos came to power at a time when the population was frustrated by political
incompetence, infighting, and corruption (Clogg & Yannopoulos 1972). It met little if
any resistance from left or right wing politicians or, predictably, from King Constantine
who supported Papadopoulos and his Colonels76; however, public tolerance waned
quickly as the initial shock of the take-over faded and the reality of military rule settled in.
In fact one could argue that over the seven year period of Papadopoulos’s rule the
conditions for the resurgence of anarchism in Greece were cultivated. The dictatorship
75 There was a power struggle at the time between the King and Papandreou over who was in command of
the military. Fearing Papandreou was secretly trying to abolish the monarchy the King sought to replace
him.
76 The role of the King is actually quite ambiguous as some evidence shows him in support of the junta
while other evidence indicates the opposite. Some have suggested that he was supportive of the Colonels at
first, but then eventually came to resist them (Gregoriades 1975; Schwab & Frangos 1970)