Hellenic Republic

Hellenic Republic Ελληνική Δημοκρατία
Flag Coat of arms
Capital and largest city	Athens
Official languages	Greek
Dominant mode of production	Capitalism
Area
• Total	131,957 km²
Population
• 2021 census	10,432,481
Currency	Euro

The Hellenic Republic, also known as Greece, is a country located in southeastern Europe. Its ancient civilization saw a huge revival during the Renaissance, where ancient Greek society began to be considered the origin of Western civilization. Greece is home to many philosophers that inspired both Hegel and Marx. Greece is a member of the EU, the Council of Europe, NATO, the OECD, the WTO, the OSCE, and the OIF.

Communist parties in Greece include the Communist Party of Greece, the Communist Organization of Greece, and the Movement for the Reorganization of the Communist Party of Greece 1918–55.

History

Bronze Age

The Minoan civilization rose to power from 1950 to 1450 BCE on the island of Crete. It became a major power in the Mediterranean by using powerful sailboats, and its rulers lived in large stone palaces.

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece was divided into at least thousand city-states that frequently fought each other for land and resources.

In the 6th century BCE, the Athens overthrew a 30-year-old dictatorship and installed an aristocratic government, which was then overthrown by a popular democratic revolution. Sparta attempted a counterrevolutionary invasion but was defeated, and Athenian democracy spread to many other Greek city-states, lasting almost 200 years. Philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle opposed democratic rule. In the early 5th century BCE, Greece defeated invasions from the Persian Empire, but a conservative alliance led by Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE.

The city-states remained divided, with Thebes conquering Sparta in 371 BCE before Macedon conquered all of Greece starting in 338 BCE.

Between 200 and 150 BCE, Rome conquered Greece and crushed any leaders who tried to forgive debts.

Athens

Athens did not allow slaves, women, or foreigners to vote but did enfranchise poor farmers and artisans. Out of a total population of 200,000 people, only 30,000 could vote. The government consisted of ten leading officials (strategoi) who were elected every year, an elected council of 400 people (boule), and a popular assembly (ekklesia) of all free citizens. Courts of up to 2,500 people administered justice, and people who received 6,000 negative votes could be exiled from the city for ten years.

Solon cancelled debts in the early fifth century BCE, and Pisistratus and his descendants democratized the economy.

Sparta

Sparta banned money in an attempt to avoid the existence of debt. Later, Rome attacked Sparta when kings Agis and Cleomenes tried to cancel their citizens' debt and create their own army instead of using mercenaries.

Second World War

Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Greece during the Second World War. In 1941, the Communist Party of Greece formed the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) and the National Liberation Front (EAM) to fight against the fascist occupiers. The EAM grew to over a million members and ranged from communists to the center-left. In November 1944, the British army entered Greece and began fighting against ELAS with the help of former Nazi collaborators. In January 1945, ELAS surrendered and the British took over Greece.

Civil War

See main article: Greek Civil War

Greek leftists began a rebellion in the fall of 1946 and the British left Greece in February 1947 to be replaced by the USA. Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia assisted the Greek communists. By the end of 1947, the Greek government received all of its military supplies from the United States. The Greek revolutionary forces surrendered in October 1949.

By the 1950s, Greece was an anti-communist puppet state of the USA and a member of NATO. Greece sent troops to fight against the Korean People's Army during the Fatherland Liberation War.

Military junta

Liberal Georgios Papandreou won the February 1964 election, but King Constantine removed him from power in July 1965.

In April 1967, the CIA overthrew the Greek government and installed the Nazi-aligned CIA agent Georgios Papadopoulos as the military dictator of Greece. Papadopoulos banned all political parties and killed 8,000 people in the first month of his rule. He sent over 6,000 suspected communists to prisons or remote islands. The CIA gave the junta 74,000 tons of military equipment to defend U.S. interests.

2023

In July, Greece was struck by a 15-day heatwave which was the longest in their recorded history, with some areas reaching highs of 46C. The country was, in the summer, the victim of severe wildfires, particularly in the Dadia national park, in which over 70,000 hectares were incinerated, one of the worst in Europe up to this point. Rhodes was particularly badly affected, with wildfires on Rhodes destroying towns and villages, resulting in the evacuation of nearly 20,000 people. Throughout Europe, the wildfires burned nearly 470,000 hectares of European land. In early September, Thessaly was then flooded after 18 months of rainfall fell in 24 hours due to Storm Daniel, and in late September, central Greece was once again struck by flooding due to Storm Elias. A quarter of Greece's agricultural yields were wiped out and will be degraded for several years due to silt and mud.

Politics

Syriza

In September 2023, the party elected Stefanos Kasselakis as the leader of the party, to replace Aléxis Tsípras. Kasselakis is a former shipping executive and Goldman Sachs trader, has worked for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and volunteered for Joe Biden's 2008 presidential primary campaign.