Talk:Dekemvriana

Reliability of sources

As you'll probably be able to tell from however this edit turns out, I am by no means an experienced contributor. Nor am I a historian, nor someone with prior knowledge or conceptions of the events the article describes. That said, I'm concerned about the reliability of some of this article. I can see that there's been an impassioned discussion on its neutrality in the past but leaving that aside, I'm concerned by the casualty figures given in the box near the head of the page.

Again, I've no prior conception of what these should actually be or whether the figures themselves are accurate, but I noticed while reading the article that no explanation is given. The box makes reference to a retreat but the article itself does not mention the casualties, their numbers, or how they were incurred. Other articles mentioning the events (e.g. Greek Civil War, ELAS, EAM) also do not seem to include these numbers.

The only source I can find for these figures (with admittedly amateur research) is the one cited in this article, which itself does not cite any sources, only making reference to unnamed and uncited reports. Whatever the truth of the matter, it seems to me that the cited source cannot be known to be reliable and does not meet the required standards to be included. As such, neither do the figures.

For this reason I will edit the page. If I can be corrected either in my research or my Wikipedia etiquette, I welcome it! Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.78.71.41 (talk) 14:25, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality
The article has been written with a heavy far-right bias, suffering from huge inaccuracies and distortions, no references and much unencyclopaedic speculation. The section on the aftermath is competely inadequate and notable for its distortion.

Some examples:

'By 1944, the two major resistance movements in occupied Greece, EDES and EAM-ELAS, each saw the other to be their great enemy.' [I don't really think I need comment on this blatantly inaccurant picture, except to say that the much smaller group EDES, which was totally funded by the British, having no popular support, was holed up in Corfu and no serious threat to anyone.]

'They both saw the Germans were going to be defeated and were a temporary threat' [the editor does not explain how this squares with the reality of ELAS fighting the Germans to the last, defending both Athens and Thessaloniki from the Germans' last minute attempts to destroy essential services]

'On October 13 British troops entered Athens, the only area still occupied by the Germans' [The Germans retreated up through Greece, leaving Athens on 12 October 1944, Kalambaka 20 October, Thessaloniki 30 October, but not evacuating Crete until July 1945. The British arrived in Athens on 18 October, when the Germans were well gone]

'Tito's influence may have played some role in ELAS' resistance to disarmament.' [Any basis for this speculation? And what resistance?] Organization X members had set up outposts in central Athens and resisted EAM for several days, until British troops arrived [what does 'resisted EAM' mean? Firing on unarmed demonstrators AFTER the British arrived?]

'Although there are no accounts hinting that the crowd indeed possessed guns, the British commander Woodhouse insisted that it was uncertain whether the first shots were fired by the police or the demonstrators.' [What is the point of including this, when newspaper correspondents stated at the time and historians have since confirmed that the demonstration was unarmed]

'The hunting of "collaborators" was extended to people who were supporting the Greek government.' [What does this mean? If the editor is so keen on British agents such as Woodhouse, perhaps he could read what Woodhouse has to say about the left-wing terror he was looking for in the Peloponnese, which turned out to be right-wing terror (as we all know). And he spoke to no left-wing sources!] Until this has been reedited by one or more neutral persons, including a native speaker of English, there has to be a neutrality warning. Bougatsa42 (talk) 02:06, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * At best, your accusations are not very credible. At worst, they are completely and blatantly false. The accusations of "Far-Right-Wing bias" also does nothing to help you.

'[I don't really think I need comment on this blatantly inaccurant picture, except to say that the much smaller group EDES, which was totally funded by the British, having no popular support, was holed up in Corfu and no serious threat to anyone.]' The only blatantly inaccurate picture is the one you paint here. It is true that the EDES was much smaller than ELAS, but in no way can it be called "totally funded by the British" or "having no popular support." In fact, it was still the second largest resistance group during the occupation and drew support from the loyalists of the traditional parties before and during the dictatorship. The fact that they were able to raise and conduct significant operations on the mainland against the Axis (and against and with the ELAS at different times) shows that they had their own base of support. One which would eventually win them the civil war. If the EDES was truly "no serious threat to anyone", we would not have seen Axis efforts to exterminate it (much like they did against the far larger ELAS) and we would not have seen the ELAS be defeated in the Civil War.

"'They both saw the Germans were going to be defeated and were a temporary threat' [the editor does not explain how this squares with the reality of ELAS fighting the Germans to the last, defending both Athens and Thessaloniki from the Germans' last minute attempts to destroy essential services]" The idea that this needs to be squared shows at best a difficulty understanding what happened. In addition to ignoring similar but smaller attempted opreations of a similar note by the EDES, it ignores that while they might have recognized the Germans as a temporary threat, *that in no way meant they did not have an interest in defending their territory or the country's infrastructure.* On a coldblooded pragmatic level, on the idealistic level of protecting the country and supporting their cause, and on others. It made sense to engage the Axis, especially to prevent major cities from being destroyed when they were already on the way out the door. This in no way means that the two sides did not recognizes the Germans would not stay and that each other were threats in the post war period.

"'On October 13 British troops entered Athens, the only area still occupied by the Germans' [The Germans retreated up through Greece, leaving Athens on 12 October 1944, Kalambaka 20 October, Thessaloniki 30 October, but not evacuating Crete until July 1945. The British arrived in Athens on 18 October, when the Germans were well gone]" They left some personnel in the aforementioned cities with the intention of receiving the Western Allied troops and making the official surrender, especially for those they could not actually move (like the wounded, consulate property, etc).

"'Tito's influence may have played some role in ELAS' resistance to disarmament.' [Any basis for this speculation? And what resistance?] Organization X members had set up outposts in central Athens and resisted EAM for several days, until British troops arrived [what does  'resisted EAM' mean? Firing on unarmed demonstrators AFTER the British arrived?]" Firstly, yes there is. It is not like we don't have access to Tito's records; just ask Belgrade, or the British. As for "resistance to disarmament", hiding weapons or refusing to turn them over generally constitutes "resistance to disarmament", not like they were the only ones though. As for the latter part of it, this is hilarious. The very actions of the Dekemvirana shows that all sides (Remaining Axis like X, Western Allied, Communist) had significant amounts of armed supporters in and around Athens at this time. In large part because they knew taking possession of the city after the German surrender/withdrawal was important to them. The idea that the ELAS supporters were all "unarmed demonstrators" (especially after the British arrived and put an end to the occupation officially) requires one to ignore the shifting of manpower and weapons to Athens during this entire period. I am not stupid enough to deny that X did indeed fire on unarmed demonstrators (and considering what they were like, it fit with them), but the idea that they were not engaged in battles with the ELAS/EAM is inaccurate.

"'Although there are no accounts hinting that the crowd indeed possessed guns, the British commander Woodhouse insisted that it was uncertain whether the first shots were fired by the police or the demonstrators.' [What is the point of including this, when newspaper correspondents stated at the time and historians have since confirmed that the demonstration was unarmed]" Because there is sufficient ambiguity to argue otherwise, especially since blending in to the population was something both ELAS and EDES factions had gotten very good at during the Civil War, and it is impossible to say with certainty that they were completely unarmed (though it appears a lot of them were, or at least appeared to be), regardless of what any "historians" or "newspaper correspondents" claim.

"'The hunting of "collaborators" was extended to people who were supporting the Greek government.' [What does this mean? If the editor is so keen on British agents such as Woodhouse, perhaps he could read what Woodhouse has to say about the left-wing terror he was looking for in the Peloponnese, which turned out to be right-wing terror (as we all know).  And he spoke to no left-wing sources!] " This is so patently insulting it isn't even worth arguing about. The fact that the ELAS and EAM tolerated and even ordered attacks on Western Allied representatives- even those who had absolutely nothing to do with collaboration- isn't even credibly denied by the likes of the Soviet archives. The elimination of their main rivals for power was of eminent benefit to them, and it was again not like they were alone (as the EDES began being interested in doing the same). However, the ELAS took advantage of their larger base and numbers to begin the attacks first and strike before their enemies were ready. This in no way means the other side was innocent, but it also puts the kibbosh to the idea that this is so inaccurate or a falsehood. The fact that it was not

"'Until this has been reedited by one or more neutral persons, including a native speaker of English, there has to be a neutrality warning." A neutrality warning would be useful, but the issues you are raising seem to owe more to Communist propaganda than to the actual events of the Dekemivriana, WWII, or the Civil War. In particular, the fact that you are comfortable tossing out absolutes like the EDES being "totally funded by the British" and having "no popular support" discredits you as a credible or objective source. 75.36.164.85 (talk) 00:14, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

3 December shootings
The Guardian has a couple of articles covering the shootings in Sintagma square, the first one attributing them to the British and the second one publishing a retraction. Diego (talk) 12:56, 5 August 2015 (UTC)