The master of the ‘kolotoumba’
September 3 will mark 50 years since the founding of socialist PASOK. Much will be written and said about this party – or movement – which dominated Greek politics during the Metapolitefsi period, as well as its founder. I suspect that historical evaluations will contradict recent survey findings, which indicate that the public regards Andreas Papandreou as having been a more significant leader than Constantine Karamanlis. History demands a balanced and rigorous approach; it must not be written with nostalgia or bias.
Of course, there are also the major “what ifs.”For instance, what if Andreas and PASOK had not emerged to channel the wave of Metapolitefsi radicalization? The Left sought retribution for the suffering it endured after the civil war and was trying to make a political comeback. The dictatorship had thoroughly delegitimized the Right and, combined with the Cyprus issue, shifted public opinion towards an anti-Western, anti-American stance. At the same time, it had undermined the concepts of law and order, including the Armed Forces, security bodies, senior university positions and any other symbols of state authority. Moreover, a significant chunk of Greek society, feeling “left out,” either politically or socially, demanded inclusion in the “system.”
There was no easy solution to such a maelstrom. It is highly likely that if Andreas had not managed to rein it in, the situation might have produced something far more radical, tumultuous and dangerous. The outcome might have resembled the SYRIZA of 2010-15, prepared to take substantial risks, or even something more akin to a Gaddafi-like status quo. After all, it was a time when public opinion did not view terrorism as inherently negative and extreme populism was pervasive.
In other words, the biggest danger for the Third Hellenic Republic would have been someone taking enormous risks and either being unable or taking too long to reverse course – what in the case of former SYRIZA prime minister Alexis Tsipras was termed a “kolotoumba” (somersault).
Andreas was undoubtedly a master of this particular art; he took it to new heights. He promised the end of US military bases in Greece, which, of course, never happened, among other things. The only person who had anticipated this was the late US secretary of state Henry Kissinger. When asked by his officials in the spring of 1974 to distance himself from the junta in Athens to avoid the extreme anti-Americanism that would follow, Kissinger responded, “Papandreou’s case is a possibility. If we can work with him again, it would be very good to have a government that would protect our interests.” Kissinger, ever the cynical realist, saw the “kolotoumba” long before it occurred.
It remains inexplicable to me that many still admire Andreas for this. They think that mobilizing the masses and then bringing them back down was a sign of grit and bravado. But where Greece saw true grit is with Eleftherios Venizelos and Karamanlis: when faced with the typical populist tide, whether anti-royalist or anti-Western, they spoke the truth, stood firm and did not succumb to populism.
