Nikos Zachariadis and the Communist Party of Greece during the Metaxas dictatorship

This essay describes the situation of the communist movement in Greek society in the interwar period and mainly during the Metaxas dictatorship (1936-1941) when it had to adopt to many important changes. The Greek communists who were ruthlessly persecuted by the regime had gained greater public support as well as further experience in illegal activity. When they later got engaged in the fights of the World War II and the Greek civil war they suceeded to make use of it. Despite the ideology of Metaxas being in plain contradiction to the ideology of the Communist party of Greece, they both cooperated after the Italian agression against Greece in October 1940. This attitude helped Metaxas, as well as KKE, to gain public support that had been so far unusual. It is a paradox that the year 1941 became for both of them historically the first moment of explicit political success