Greece at the Crossroads: The Civil War and its Legacy

A collection of essays by European and American specialists offering new and authoritative analyses of the Greek civil war and its international dimensions. The papers were originally presented at a conference organized by the Lehrman Institute and held in the Vilvorde Conference Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 3-5, 1987.

The Greek civil war that broke out at the end of World War II was one of the formative events in the early days of the Cold War. In the fall of 1944, at the moment of liberation from the German occupiers, Greece stood at the "crossroads," in need of a new constitutional and social order. However, the factions that vied for influence over the state promoted their particular agendas with a vehemence, exclusiveness, and mistrust that destroyed any chance for genuine compromise and reconciliation.

The essays collected here represent a systematic attempt to examine the domestic and external forces that were actively involved in the Greek civil war of the late 1940s and that contributed to its resolution. Specifically, they consider the political options available to postwar Greece by identifying the principal actors promoting such options and analyzing their programs, tactics, strengths, and weaknesses. They also highlight the close interaction among domestic, regional, and global levels of conflict and measure the impact of that conflict on the political development of Greece.