Domestic and External Factors in Greece’s Relations with the Soviet Union: Early Cold War to Détente

Greece’s relationship with the Soviet Union was burdened by the Greek civil war, which was closely related to the outbreak of the Cold War in the Near East in 1946–47. The collapse of Greece’s parliamentary regime in 1967 arrested a process toward détente undergone by practically every member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the 1960s. The new impetus in Greek- Soviet relations in the late 1970s, after the restoration of democracy in 1974, did not signify the loosening of Greek loyalty to the West but was a pragmatic pursuit of interests between two asymmetrical powers.