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4. Intellectuals: The Discrete Temptation of Submission If intellectuals were the principal disseminating agents of socialist ideology in the early Balkan socialist movement, the failure to translate socialism in political terms in Greece was not due to a shortage in the production of intellectual cadres. On the contrary, the public status of intellectuals and the consciousness associated with the engagement in intellectual activity was well established already in the nineteenth century and appears to have solidified by the turn of the century. Intellectual formations like the “demoticist movement”34 have received adequate attention by Greek historiography in the attempt to furnish a history of the sociology of Greek intellectuals. One strand of inquiry, represented notably by Panagiotēs Noutsos, tends to emphasize the innovative aspect in the social function of intellectuals . According to Noutsos, around the turn of the century there was a break with the previous tradition of the men of letters (logii) in a self-conscious and assertive act on the part of the “new” intellectuals, articulated in the form of a duty to intervene collectively in the social and political sphere.35 Noutsos appears to confound the self-fashioning of the demoticist intellectuals as a new avant-guard and their own construction of a dissident intellectual pedigree with an alleged break in their societal function and their sociological dimension. Contrary to Noutsos’ evaluation, however, Greek intellectuals had intervened in the political sphere since the nineteenth century. In other words, what is the qualitative difference in the societal function of Adamandios Koraēs in the nineteenth century and Georgios Sklēros in the twentieth century ? With respect to the role of socialist intellectuals—which is Noutsos’ métier de spécialisation par excellence—his evaluation is thoroughly positive . Socialist intellectuals functioned within different formations; they conceptualized, codified and employed socialist ideas with a “fertility” that demonstrated maturity and an indigenous processing capacity. Noutsos attributes the socialist intellectuals’ failure to intervene collectively in the political sphere to their “underestimation of parliamentary struggle and [their] scorn for ‘politicians.’” It is precisely this “under- 329 4. Intellectuals: The Discrete Temptation of Submission estimation of the political sphere” that inhibited them from resorting to collective solutions, along with the lack of organic connections to the traditions of the Second International.36 Noutsos mentions en passant the failure of early socialism to connect the economic and the political organization of the working class, but oddly enough, he properly undervalues the crucial role of intellectuals in performing precisely this elementary function. Finally, not only is it unclear why socialist intellectuals should scorn a representative parliamentary system, but it appears as an outright logical incongruence. In her biographical study of Sklēros and his residence in Egypt at the turn of the century, Rena Stavridē-Patrikiou, has advanced a second approach to the sociology of intellectuals. Taking Sklēros’ biography as a starting point, she has developed a holistic, exegetical model concerning the subsistence strategies of radical intellectuals in Greece. She comes to the conclusion that the fate of radical ideas and intellectuals in Greece was more or less sealed by the fact that Greek society failed to “[materially] sustain revolutionary intellectuals.” In contrast to European societies, which, despite of strong defensive mechanisms against revolutionaries, provided also for the space necessary for their socio-economic survival, Greek society failed to provide niches of economic counter-support for subversive intellectuals.37 Patrikiou’s exegesis seems to rest on two erroneous assumptions. The first is the classification of Sklēros as a subversive revolutionary. Despite the fact that his harmless writings managed to stir turmoil in the morass of Greek intellectual conservatism, Sklēros never showed any inclination for practical revolutionary activity whatsoever. The second erroneous assumption is her totalization of the European experience whereby societies allegedly and willingly “fed” their enfants terribles. The subsistence strategies of European radical intellectuals were very diverse and ranged from personal affluence (some were the offspring of the bourgeoisie or, as in the case of Russia, the aristocracy), to sponsorship (as in the case of Engels and Marx), to fundraising (Bakunin), or—as is often forgotten—to the support of energetic and committed wives who acted as breadwinners (in the Blagoev household, for example). The most common survival strategy, however, was the development of self-help networks and often engaging in an additional profession. With the institutionalization of parties, the creation of publications, translation work, etc., socialist intellectuals started earning a living from the infrastructure they had cre- [18.119.213...

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