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M o d e r n G r e e c eAuthor(s): Campbell, John Kennedy Sherrard, PhilipPublished By: New York: Praeger, 1968. 426 p.: ill.Document Type: MonographAccessed From: http://ehrafWorldCultures.yale.eduAccessed On: 2015-3-24 @ 0:15

Page: 138

An abbreviated account of political events in the years which immediately followed the defeat in Asia Minor cannot dojustice to the consequences of this catastrophe for every aspect of Greek existence. Of these the settlement of 1,300,000refugees who had come to Greece before and during the occupation of Anatolia, or as a result of the compulsoryexchange of minorities between Greece and Turkey after the war, was a moral and practical problem whose solution wasclearly beyond the unaided resources of the Greek state, bankrupt after ten years of intermittent war and political crisisand now called upon to accept a destitute population equal to about one-quarter of its own.

Subjects (OCMs)

Aftermath of combat (727)

The very gravity however of the situation both in humanitarian terms and its possible political consequences broughtassistance from the international community, initially through relief offered by voluntary organizations, particularly theAmerican Red Cross, and later in November 1923 through the establishment by the Greek government, with the supportof the League of Nations, of the Refugee Settlement Commission. The importance of this step [Page 139] was to removethe practical administration of refugee settlement from its dependence on the defective machinery of Greek government.The Commission was an independent corporation with full legal personality under Greek law. It had four members. Twowere appointed by the Greek government, one by the Council of the League. The fourth member, and chairman, was anational of the United States representing the relief organizations. The Greek government initially undertook to transferto the Commission 1,200,000 acres of cultivable land for the establishment of refugee families. Funds for theCommission's work were partly provided by loans raised on the international money market: 10 million in 1924 and afurther 6,500,000 in 1927. That these financial operations were possible, despite the instability of Greek political lifeduring these years, was due to the initiative of the League in sponsoring an independent organization with internationalaffiliations in which foreign lenders had confidence and refugees and Greek officials could work with energy andpurpose.

Subjects (OCMs)

Aftermath of combat (727)External relations (648)Private welfare agencies (747)

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Although no accurate figures existed for the previous occupations of refugees the Commission discovered thatconsiderable numbers were not farmers. Particularly in Anatolia many Greeks had been artisans, traders and labourers.Professional men, doctors, lawyers, and teachers also were numerous. Nevertheless it was inevitable that the Commissionshould place the emphasis of its programme on farming. Not only did a farm give means of subsistence for a family butthe abandoned estates of Muslims, particularly in Macedonia and western Thrace, provided land and some of thenecessary housing. The balance of the land required, about half the total area, was found from state lands and theexpropriation of private estates, which under the pressure of the settlement crisis was administered with such radical zealthat by 1930 arable farms or estates of even a modest size had ceased to exist. In 1928 90 per cent of the country's953,000 farms were of 12.5 acres or less. And by 1930 when the Commission was dissolved 145,758 families had beensettled on the land.

Subjects (OCMs)

Aftermath of combat (727)Private welfare agencies (747)Internal migration (166)External migration (167)Tillage (241)Real property (423)

Although the economic and social costs of the refugee problem were very considerable it is important to recognize thatthe settlement of Asia Minor Greeks in the countryside had a number of beneficial consequences. Intensively, andextensively, agricultural resources were more productively used. In the decade after the Asia Minor catastrophe the areaunder cultivation in Greece increased by 55 per cent. Due to the stimulus of the Commission's work in refugee

Subjects (OCMs)

Aftermath of combat (727)Private welfare agencies (747)Internal migration (166)External migration (167)Tillage (241)

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settlements crop rotation was adopted in many others. Tractors and steel ploughs were introduced to cultivate the pasturelands of northern Greece. Refugees developed the [Page 140] cultivation of tobacco. Two-thirds of the production of thisvaluable export crop in 1926 could be attributed to their enterprise. And a decade after 1922 the value of agriculturalproduction in the country had doubled. Against these advances we must weigh the effects of the fragmentation offarmland into smallholdings consisting generally of separated plots. Wereturn to this problem in Chapter 10.

Agricultural science (242)Special crops (249)Real property (423)

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The settlement of the urban refugees was a more complex problem. Mainly they were congregated on the outskirts ofAthens, Piraeus, and Salonika where the opportunities for employment were greatest. But their situation was difficult.Large-scale industry did not exist and even for the more humble forms of personal service they had to compete for workwith native Greeks. In cities overcrowded before they arrived their housing conditions were deplorable. Although by1930 the Commission had built 27,000 houses in 125 urban refugee settlements there were still 30,000 families living inbarracks or shanties. When the Second World war broke out the problemstill remained.

Subjects (OCMs)

Aftermath of combat (727)Housing (362)Labor supply and employment(464)

Nevertheless, as in agriculture, the arrival of the refugees added some impetus to industrial development. Their numberswidened the very limited domestic market. Even a family living at subsistence level had to make certain essentialpurchases. Moreover, the refugees who were officially exchanged after the war were able to bring with them money,jewellery, and moveable goods which in value, it is believed, amounted to 56 million gold pounds. With part of thiswealth refugees opened workshops and small factories, in some cases introducing skills and manufactures new to Greece,for instance silkworm breeding and carpet-making. It was chiefly due to refugees that between 1923 and 1930 thecapacity of the textile industry was doubled. And it is a remarkable fact that even today 20 per cent of Greece'sentrepreneurs were born in Asia Minor.

Subjects (OCMs)

Aftermath of combat (727)Production and supply (433)Saving and investment (454)Occupational specialization(463)Textile industries (288)Domesticated animals (231)Woven and other interworkedfabrics (286)Individual enterprise (472)

Page: 141

Economic growth in such an environment protected by a tariff wall created too many small, inefficient, and labourintensive enterprises using a minimum of capital equipment. This is a problem to which we shall return in Chapter 11. Inthe short run it was a partial solution to the employment problem and between 1921 and 1929 the value of industrialproduction, admittedly starting from a very low base, was multiplied seven times. From a situation after the First Worldwar where industry contributed only marginally to the economy, in 1940 it produced 18 per cent of the national incomeand employed 15 per cent of the working population. Although without the refugees industry and agriculture would nothave remained stagnant after the war, the stimulus of the settlement problem and the energy and numbers of the refugeesgreatly accelerated the rhythm of Greek economic life. This must be remembered when we consider the cost ofsupporting and settling refugees, which consumed half the country's ordinary budget for many years and the externalloans which have been mentioned. The total cost was claimed by Venizelos to be 83 million, an estimate probably closeto the truth.

Subjects (OCMs)

Production and supply (433)Ownership and control ofcapital (471)Labor supply and employment(464)Aftermath of combat (727)Public finance (652)

Politically the refugees had in their great majority supported republicanism. Not only did they believe that KingConstantine and the Populists were responsible for their exile, but monarchy, and the party which supported it,represented for them the established structure of privileged society from which as destitute newcomers they wereexcluded. Since their voting strength was geographically dispersed they could not form a separate political force, buttheir 300,000 voters altered the balance between the Venizelist and anti-Venizelist parties in favour of the former. In theelection of 1928 they had no hesitation in supporting Venizelos whom they revered as their irredentist champion.Nevertheless it was during Venizelos' period of office from 1928 to 1932 that many refugees became seriously

Subjects (OCMs)

Form and rules of government(642)Political parties (665)Elections (666)Aftermath of combat (727)External relations (648)

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discontented and although this was not immediately reflected in any dramatic change of political allegiance it was awarning which Venizelos did not fully appreciate. In 1930 the Refugee Settlement Commission was dissolved. With themajority of the refugees permanently if not contentedly established it was left to the government to complete the work. Itwas perhaps natural, after the more visible and acute aspects of the problem had been solved, that the sense of urgencywould be lost. At the same time the commercial and financial effects of the world trade depression became serious inGreece. Refugees were among the first to suffer through unemployment and a further depression of wage rates, forinstance in the tobacco industry at Salonika and Kavalla. These were additional misfortunes to add to the primitive [Page142] housing conditions which many urban refugees still had to face. It was therefore unfortunate that Venizelos, securebehind his formidable majority, should have signed in 1930 the Ankara Convention. Under the original terms of theagreement on the exchange of populations it had been arranged that the properties of both minorities would be valued andliquidated for the compensation of their former owners. Almost no headway had been made in this intractable task. Insearch of a realistic relationship between the two countries Venizelos agreed under the Ankara Convention to considerthe property of the two minorities as being equivalent in value. The Turks insisted on a small additional monetarypayment in settlement. To satisfy Turkish pride and establish friendly relations this seemed to Venizelos a reasonableprice to pay. To the refugees, whose property was certainly more valuable than that of the Muslim minority which hadleft Greece, the Convention was both a national humiliation and anabandonment of their rights.

Page: 142

Such disappointments were a factor in the steady recruitment of refugees into the Greek Communist Party (K.K.E.). Thishad grown out of the Socialist Party, which in 1918 had been formed from small groups of socialist intellectuals andMarxists who had little support in the country outside their own esoteric circles. By 1920 it had changed its name to theCommunist Party of Greece and was already using in its literature the familiar terminology. Not surprisingly the partymade particular efforts to win adherents among the discontented urban refugees. They had some success, particularlyamong tobacco workers in Macedonia where wages were low and workers were easily organized. In 1926 when electionswere held under a proportional system of representation the country was surprised to find ten communist deputies inparliament, eight of whom were from Macedonia. After the disillusionment of the Ankara Convention in 1930 leftisttendencies among refugees became more pronounced. They were assisted, naturally, by rising prices and the generaleconomic distress which became worse after Britain left the gold standard in September 1931. The majority of refugees,it must be said, remained faithful to the bourgeois parties. But for the less fortunate or more radical among them thepropaganda of communism had an appeal. Since their own world had been erased some refugees were prepared withoutcompunction to overturn the inadequate society of the Greek state to which they had no traditional attachment. As asubject category of Christian Greeks in Turkey they had been despised. In Greece, too, they soon discovered that theirpresence was resented and their social status inferior. In the circumstances it was not difficult for some [Page 143] tostand their Orthodox belief on its head and embrace communism.

Subjects (OCMs)

Aftermath of combat (727)Political parties (665)

Page: 143

Yet even among discontented urban refugees the number of Greeks who could accept the anti-Hellenic policy of anautonomous Macedonian republic, which the Comintern under the influence of the Bulgarian Party insistently demanded,were a small and uneasy minority. This policy which after the exchanges of population had no ethnic basis did much todiscredit the party in the eyes of many who might otherwise have supported it. For this reason the consolidation ofMacedonia and western Thrace through intense settlement by refugee farmers was a consequence of the agreement on theexchange of populations which was to prove critically important. In 1912 Greece had been a nationally homogeneousstate with the exception of 6,000 Muslims living on their properties in Thessaly. With the annexations in northern Greeceafter the Balkan wars minorities suddenly represented 13 per cent of the total population, including in 1913 370,000

Subjects (OCMs)

Political parties (665)Political movements (668)External relations (648)Composition of population(162)

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Turks and 104,000 Bulgars. The effect of the agreement with Turkey, and of an earlier arrangement under the Treaty ofNeuilly with Bulgaria which provided for a voluntary exchange of minorities, was that in Greek Macedonia the Greekelement which in 1912 was merely 42 per cent of the population had by 1926 mounted to 88.8 per cent; in westernThrace at the time of the Paris Peace Conference the proportion was as low as 17 per cent but by 1924 had become arespectable majority of 62.1 per cent. By the mid-twenties the possibility of the Communists successfully inciting apopular movement for an autonomous Macedonia had passed. Nor could the governments of Yugoslavia and Bulgariaadvance any serious territorial claims on the basis of the small Slav minority of 80,000 which still remained in Greece.Due mainly to refugee settlement the security of Greek Macedonia, at least in a cultural sense, was assured. And the only

effect of the continued insistence of the Greek Communists that Macedonia should form an autonomous state1 was to

divide and weaken their party during a period when many conditionsfavoured its advance.

The symptoms of malaise in Greek society between the two World wars, of which the appearance and growth of theCommunist Party was merely one, must not be attributed only to the physical disruption of war, refugees, and a worldslump. In the new state of modern Greece the notion of the Great Idea had offered a supra-local loyalty whichtranscended the opposed parochial interests of village communities, and the deracinated individualism of those who inincreasing numbers moved to the cities. In that [Page 144] particular respect the ideals of this national conception partlyreplaced, partly were confused with, those of the Orthodox Church which had united Christians under Ottoman rule.When after the military defeat in Asia Minor the ideal was destroyed Hellenism seemed to have been emptied of itsmeaning and purpose. As George Theotokas, one of Greece's most significant novelists and thinkers, has written: Themoral influence of defeat has been and continues to be profound in our country. The first post-war decade haseverywhere been a period of resurgence and great efforts. For us it has been a period of despair. Our elders lost in theharbour of Smyrna not only their power but also their ideals and self-conviction. In 1922 they ceased to have confidence

in Greece. The disaster choked every breath of idealism No one expects anything of value from Greece.1 It is partly

in the light of this reaction that we must attempt to understand the confused chronicle of prejudice and self-interest inGreek political life between the wars.

Subjects (OCMs)

Sociocultural trends (178)Cultural goals (185)Political movements (668)

1 In 1935, in the interests of the anti-fascist struggle, this principle was exchanged for the recognition of the equality of all minorities.1 George Theotokas, Free Spirit, Athens, 1929, pp. 1034.Footnotes: