[LEFT OPPOSITION – GREEK MILITARY JUNTA 1970s] Group of original ephemera and related publications on Greek Left Opposition to Military Dictatorship and the Athens Polytechnic Uprising in 1973–1974.

1. Εθνική Φοιτητική Ένωση Ελλάδος [National Student Union of Greece]. Broadside, printed to recto and verso, reacting to police violence of February 1–2, 1973. [Athens]: 1973. Broadside measuring 25.5 × 20 cm, printed to recto and verso. In Greek. Paper discoloration due to stock. Lightly chipped along edges, else very good.

2. Panellinio Apeleftherotiko Kinima [Panhellenic Liberation Movement (P.A.K.)]. PAK newsletter, in Greek. April 21, 1974. 1974. [Athens]: 1974. Mimeographed side-stapled wrappers; 26, [1] pp. of mimeographed typescript to rectos and versos.

3. Panellinio Apeleftherotiko Kinima [Panhellenic Liberation Movement (P.A.K.)]. PAK Newsletter. "The Police Robots -- Tools of Opression" 1974. [Toronto]: 1974. Four leaves of mimeographed text and illustration to rectos and versos measuring 25.5 × 20.5 cm, stapled at top left corner. Rust to staple; toned due to stock; else very good.

4. "Stop the Slaughter. Defend Greek students and workers”. [London: 1974]. Broadside, measuring 25.3 × 20.3 cm, printed to recto and verso, with text in Greek and information about a demonstration on November 22, 1974, in London, in English. Old horizontal fold; else very good.

5. "Tanks Kill Greek Students." Broadside in support of the student uprising of February 1974 against the Greek military dictatorship. [1974]. [London: 1974]. Broadside measuring 29.5 × 21 cm, with mimeographed text and decorative header to recto, with text in English and information about a demonstration on November 21, 1974, in London to verso. Light foxing, else very good.

6. ARIS. Political review of the Greek New Left. No. 2. May 74. Berkeley: 1974. Octavo (22 × 18 cm). Photo-illustrated staple-stitched card wrappers; 25, [1] pp. Printed to rectos and versos. Illustrations. Very good. Item #P5901

A collection of broadsides and news bulletins from a variety of leftist groups opposed to the Greek Military Dictatorship which was in power 1967–1974. The collection includes publications by domestic and international organisations such as the EFEE (National Student Union of Greece) based in Athens, PAK (the Panhellenic Liberation Movement) founded in Sweden, with cells in Athens and London, SGL (Socialist Greek Liberation) established in the US by the North-American Greek Liberation Movement, and EDE (Greek Democratic Union Abroad), based in London. Broadly left-leaning, anti-imperialist, and anti-fascist, with some anarchist leanings, the publications by these groups express solidarity with protesting students during the Athens University protests and the Athens Polytechnic uprising, dismay at the torture of political prisoners, and anger about the American support of the Military Junta, with some groups calling for an armed resistance.

The EFEE (Greek Student Union) pamphlet, printed in Athens in early 1973, directly after the “barbaric attack against students in Athens on 1 February and in Thessaloniki on 2 February” calls for continued protest against the Greek police authorities. The text also condemns the arbitrary judicial persecution and detention of members of the EFEE, and urges the continuation of student struggle for the defence of academic freedoms, and for Democratic higher education. The February 1973 events would come to a head in November of the same year, during the Athens Polytechnic Uprising which would claim the lives of dozens of students and civilians. The two publications of PAK (Panhellenic Liberation Movement), an organisation founded in 1972 by the exiled leftist politician Andreas Papandreou, were printed after the Athens Polytechnic Uprising in spring of 1974. The opening quote of the PAK monthly bulletin calls for armed struggle as a response to the November 1973 violence. Other articles in the issue include information about merchandise deficits in Greece, and the rising unemployment in the country, information not covered transparently by the Greek media. Characterising PAK, Kostis Kometis writes: “Andreas Papandreou, its charismatic leader abroad, also asserted that armed struggle was the only way forward […] PAK professed revolutionary action, hinting at a struggle not only against the Junta but for general social change, including liberation of the Greek nation from US imperialism” (See: Kometis, Children of the Dictatorship: Student Resistance, Cultural Politics, and the Long 1960s in Greece, p. 193). Andreas Papandreou would come to serve as the Prime Minister of Greece in 1981–1989. The remaining publications, printed in London, Toronto, and Berkeley in Greek and English, are testament to the international support of the struggle in Greece in the Greek diaspora and the local leftist organisations. The popular unrest, exacerbated by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, would lead to the downfall of the military dictatorship in the summer of 1974.

As of July 2025, not in KVK, OCLC. We can only trace one similar publication by the PAK organization, dated 1970, at Fisher Library in Toronto.

Price: €750.00

other currencies