Thread by @PRoufos

In December 1945, a small number of Greeks boarded the ship Mataroa. Many of them would become highly renowned in fields like philosophy, art, literature and radical politics. This is a long thread on a journey that changed history. 1/

The ship was returning from Palestine, where it had brought Jewish survivors of the holocaust. It was then chartered by the French Institute of Athens to bring the first batch of a couple hundred Greeks who had been granted scholarships for graduate studies in Paris. 2/

This difficult journey through the ruins of Europe was organised by Octave Merlier (left), director of the French Institute in Athens, and Roger Milliex (right), a professor at the Institute. Both had been in Greece for years and active in the resistance against the Nazis. 3/

The withdrawal of the Nazis from Greece in 1944 did not signal liberation. While the majority of the Greek population was on the side of the communist EAM party and its military wing ELAS, Stalin had agreed to hand Greece over to the British influence of influence. 4/

After fighting against the Nazis in North Africa and Italy, more than 100.00 British troops were sent to Greece to crush the communist forces. The first ever use of napalm bombs was in Greece in the mountains of Vitsi in 1948. 5/

The new reality of the postwar situation in Greece was sealed in December 1944. British troops and Greek police loyal to the pro-British government of George Papandreou opened fire on a peaceful communist demonstration in Athens. 6/

The order to shoot was given by Aggelos Evert, father of future New Democracy leader Miltiadis Evert, under orders from the British command. 7/

Though some fighting erupted between the British & ELAS, the leadership of the Communist Party (KKE) refrained from full engagement, hoping that negotiations could resolve the situation. Stalin never commented on the massacre. 8/

Instead, ELAS focused their attacks on Nazi collaborators and nationalist organisations that were getting integrated into the national army under the leadership of the British. 9/

All these attacks were neutralised by British troops using tanks and artillery stationed on the Acropolis hill. By January 5th, ELAS withdrew from Athens. 10/

Εmboldened by the support of the British and their troops (Britain send a total of 100.000 soldiers to Greece in that period), the Greek government rejected all suggestions for equal participation of the communists and began persecuting those on the left. 11/

As Nelli Andrikopoulou, also aboard the Mataora, would write, 1944-1945 was a time when “the police would arrest Tsarouhis (famous painter) for drawing the railings of a balcony as a “spy” and a young woman sitting on a bench looking at the sea for “wondering aimlessly”. 12/

While the period of “White Terror” was not unleashed *in full* until 1947, many on the left could already foresee that a period of harsh repression would follow. For some, boarding the Mataora meant salvation. Thousands of others would end up in prison, exile or executed. 13/

The choice of going to France was not coincidental. For Greeks who wanted to escape the “chaos of Greece” (Castoriadis), Germany and Italy were obviously out. But the same went for Britain the former ally, that was now seen as chiefly responsible for the civil war. 14/

France, on the other hand, had the history of the resistance (that had parallels to the Greek one), the prominence of the left/Communist parties and an official government position trying to retain distance between US hegemony and the USSR. 15/

This last point would prove crucial for another development: while many of those aboard the Mataroa were on the side of the communists in Greece, their stay in Paris gave them the chance to distance themselves from Stalinism while remaining revolutionaries (like Castoriadis). 16/

Back to the Mataroa: the French committee that handed the scholarships in 1945 was accused at the time, by both Greek and French right wing press, of giving refuge to “dangerous communists”. Research has shown that this was not the case. 17/

While many scholarships went to left-wing people in danger in Athens, the criteria for the selection were not political (or purely political). Right-wing people were also recipients of the scholarship, while many others were not involved in politics at all. 18/

Many of Mataora's passengers would became internationally famous scholars, architects and artists. Others disappeared into the passage of time. Some would return to Greece in the 1950s, but many of them would remain in (self) exile until the end of the dictatorship (1974). 19/

Some of the passengers were already recognised (such as the author Elli Alexiou). Others would become famous in the future, such as Castoriadis, Eleni Stathopoulou (painter), Kostas Axelos & Kostas Papaioannou (philosophers), Giorgos Kandylis (architect). 20/

For some of those aboard the Mataora, Paris was a melancholic place that marked their violent and unwanted escape from Greece. Their nostalgia would remain ever-present in their work, as described in this passage by Mimika Kranaki (hastily translated from Greek): 21/

Others, like Castoriadis or Costas Axelos, would gradually cut all organic ties to Greece and remain in France until their death. Many of them had, in the meantime, been deprived of their citizenship and/or political rights and some had even been sentenced in abstentia. 22/

A third category, like the sculptor Memos Makris or the author Elli Alexiou, loyal members of the communist party, would leave Paris shortly after and settle in the Eastern Block. They would not return to Greece until the late 60s or 1970s. 23/

In later years, Makris would create the bust of Nikos Svoronos, another passenger of Mataroa and a central figure in Paris for both the Mataroa and the post-1967 generation. The bust was placed in the entrance of the Polytechnic University of Athens after 1973 uprising. 24/

Another fascinating personality on the Mataora was George Kandylis (actually a relative of mine from my grandmothers’ side). Born in Bakou, Russia, Kandylis studied in Athens before boarding the Mataroa. Kandylis had fought in the street battles of Athens of December 1944. 25/

In Paris he ended up working with Le Corbusier, active in the design of Unite d’Habitation in Marseille. He was also the architect who designed the Freie Universität of Berlin. During May 1968 Kandylis gave his office to young radicals to design & produce posters. 26/

Cornelius Castoriadis had joined the left at 12 years old. Disillusioned by the stalinists, he would join a “trotskyist” group led by the legendary figure of Agis Stinas. Upon arrival in France and after getting familiarised with writings that had been inaccessible in Greece >27/

>> Stinas and Castoriadis would distance themselves from Trotsky and develop their own radical theory focused on a critique of the USSR's bureaucratic capitalism and a revolutionary rejection of Stalinism. 28/

Castoriadis would end up creating, alongside Claude Lefort, the group Socialisme ou Barbarie, a group that rejected stalinism but retained a radical revolutionary position. He died in Paris in 1995. 29/

Costas Axelos, also aboard the Mataroa, had been arrested and tortured in Athens in 1944. In Paris he would also distance himself from stalinism and would proceed to publish the ‘meta-marxist’ journal Arguments and the publishing house L’Editions de Minuit. 30/

Seeking a fusion of Marx and Heidegger, Axelos would supervise the translation & publication of Marcuse, Korsh and Lukacs. He would later distance himself from “all sectarianisms”, whether “stalinist, Leninist, trotskyist or anarchist”. He died in Paris in 2010. 28/

Costas Papaioannou, another passenger of Mataroa, had already distanced himself from stalinism before Paris, seeking a more “open” socialism. Active since the early 1930s, Papaioannou was influenced by the writings of Karl Korsch and Rosa Luxembourg. 32/

In Paris he started a close friendship with Raymond Aron which would last until the end of his life. Both would focus on a critique of totalitarianism, though Papaioannou did not share Aron’s Weberian influence, staying close to Marxism. He died in Paris in 1981. 33/

According to Kostas Kornetis (2023), Papaioannou was also close to the situationist Rene Vienet and had made a good impression on the rest of the Situationist International after the publication of his “L’Ideologie Froide” (1967) about the decadence of marxist ideology. 34/

In their 10th issue of the journal Internationale Situationniste they spoke favourably of his book “Les Marxistes”, without however forgetting their obligatory critical comments. 35/

The journey from Athens to Paris was extremely hard. The passengers of the Mataroa found themselves crammed in packed train wagons with no windows or heating. The hardships of the journey left their mark, with many of them remaining friends for years to come. 36/

Other common historical traumas, that qualify the concept of a "Mataroa generation", were the violence of the war and occupation, the continuation of that violence with the civil war, the difficulties of long exile for many of them and the inability to return to Greece. 37/

And for those who did return years later, things were not easy. As Mimika Kranaki would write, returning to Greece “after some years it is too late to go back … Going back is but another exile”. Not one person warned them to “beware of the irrevocable”. 38/

Reaching Paris in 1945 was an opportunity to “suck the oxygen” they had been deprived in blood-stained Greece. Many of the Mataroa generation did just that. Others were overwhelmed by nostalgia and returned soon after. None of them ever forgot that journey. 39/

A lot of information for this thread was gathered from this excellent collection of essays on the Mataroa. Have a nice summer. End/

PS. This thread has had a journey of its own, judging from responses and QTs. It’s a sign of the times to see relentless confusion in action, especially when different types of reactionaries pretend to see something positive in it. Dauvé has already explained why: