Greek Politics at a Crossroads: What Kind of Socialism? (review)

110 Reviews pursue a "policy of reconciliation" since the fall of the Colonels (185): The military had handed back power to Karamanlis on the tacit understanding that punishment would be limited to those who had committed crimes such as treason, torture and corruption and that there would be no purge of collaborators. Karamanlis concurred because he believed such leniency would alienate the least number of people and limit the breeding ground for future revolt. The quid pro quo was the legalization of the Communist Party and free access to public life for left-wing citizens. The extent of reconciliation is reflected in the fact that Mr. Papandreou could, as a Socialist prime minister, endorse Mr. Karamanlis 's reelection to the Greek presidency in 1985. It is useful, then, to have Mr. McDonald's account both of what the Colonels were like and what censorship (whether in Greece or elsewhere) can look like. What is not properly appreciated in such accounts—and this does suggest the general limitations of modern intellectuals—is the legitimate power of the community (through its governments and otherwise) to shape the citizen body. That the Colonels misconceived and misused that power does not mean that the community as preceptor should never be taken seriously. (See 36-37). Thus, just as Marxists can respond to, and often exploit, any chronic sense of social injustice among a people, so can militarists exploit any apparent disregard by politicians and intellectuals of oldfashioned moral and patriotic concerns. Or, to put all this another way, readers should be reminded that Mr. McDonald himself was as competent and as trustworthy as he was as a journalist in large part because he himself had been shaped by the Canadian community from which he came and by the British community for which he prepared his reliable reports from Athens. George Anastaplo Loyola University, Chicago and University of Chicago Roy C. Macridis. Greek Politics at a Crossroads: What Kind of Socialism? Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1984. Pp. 72. $9.95. Roy C. Macridis' account of Greek socialism is slim indeed not only in size but also in substance. The study attempts to evaluate whether the 1981 elections, which brought Andreas Papandreou and Reviews 111 the Greek socialist party, PASOK, to power reflected a protest vote or a realignment of political forces. In addition, the author asks whether the socialist government is moving in the direction of what he labels "Western socialism" or in the direction of Third World authoritarian socialism. In his discussion, the author includes a brief general chapter in which he distinguishes the characteristics of democratic (Western) socialism from those of authoritarian socialism (Third World) and a theoretical section distinguishing between protest and critical elections based on Dean Burnham's work. After setting up his criteria, Macridis evaluates the Greek elections of 1981 and the subsequent policies and actions of the socialist government by contrasting them with his "models." The two questions he poses, however, remain discrete; nowhere does he either theoretically or in his discussion of the Greek socialists connect or interrelate the issue of the nature of the vote with the direction the socialist government has taken and may take in the future. On neither of the two questions which the author poses does he arrive at a conclusion. Rather he presents the evidence as he see it—a compilation of facts and inference—for both sides ofthe argument. The tenor of Macridis' writing, however, is such that the reader comes away with the sense that the future looks bleak and that authoritarianism is in the wings. Macridis is a master at creating a negative ambience which he accomplishes through innuendo, half truths, critical omissions, assertions without substantiation, and occasionally inaccuracies—all under the guise of impartiality and balance. One fundamental flaw is his failure to discuss PASOK's ideological underpinnings. Repeatedly and off-handedly Macridis asserts that PASOK is a self-proclaimed Marxist party, but he does not explain what this means. Clearly PASOK is not an orthodox communist party nor even a Eurocommunist one. As the author should know, beginning in 1970 and more forcefully in 1972 with the publication of Paternalistic Capitalism , Andreas Papandreou described himself as a...