• 1 S. G. Ploumidis, “Corporatist ideas in interwar Greece: From theory to practice (1922-1940)”, Euro (...)

1Arguably, the history of corporatism in inter-war Europe and the Americas is complex and multi-faceted. As I have already highlighted in my article in the European History Quarterly (2014), in Greece corporatism played a marginal and limited role in politics and the economy. The systematic propagation of “authoritarian-licensed” ideas by and large coincided with the establishment of the Metaxas dictatorship on 4 August 1936. Intensive theoretical discussion on corporatism came into the picture as a means of opportunist aligning with and courting the quasi-fascist regime of the ex-General. For all its solemn proclamations that Greece would be turned into a corporatist state, the Fourth of August regime did not constitute a major rupture with past economic thought and policies1.

• 2 C. Philaretos, Μελέτη επί της εθνικής οικονομικής πολιτικής [A Study on the National Economic Poli (...)

2This does not by any means mean that corporatism was totally unknown in Greece before 1936. The global circulation of corporatism had reached Greece long before its departure from liberal democracy. For instance, in 1922 Cleisthenes Philaretos, an economist and industrial inspector at the Ministry of National Economy, called for the organisation of the economy along genuine “national” lines. By this he meant “the cooperation between capital and labour” under the guidance and with the support of the state. The reason for his suggestion was that industrial actions, strikes and the clashes between capitalists and workers were damaging to “the production of wealth” and to “the whole of the society, i.e. the nation”2.

• 3 See R. Overy, The Interwar Crisis, London-New York, Routledge, 2017, pp. 74-75.
• 4 See S. Reichardt, “The Global Circulation of Corporatism: Concluding Remarks”, in Authoritarianism (...)

3Greece’s gradual induction into corporatist theories largely coincided with the new paradigm that was set by Mussolini’s Italy and were largely engineered by the transnational influence of fascist corporatism. However, in the post-1922 years Greek monographs on organic theories were a small handful. Initially, they emphasised on the rural economy and society, and drew on the traditionalist stream of thought of communitarianism. Like in old tsarist Russia and Eastern Europe, many intellectuals, faced with the collapse of royal power, social unrest and revolutionary threat, fell back on the age-long village community as a source of collective identity and social cohesion3. The concepts of fascist corporatism crossed Greece’s border in the mid-1930s. At the time intellectuals and politicians of the conservative and the far right acknowledged the significance of Italian (and secondly German) authoritarian corporatism for the creation of social harmony through co-operation, solidarity, discipline, as well as repression4. My article here delves into these theoretical works, and explores the background, the agenda and the exact role that they were supposed to play in Greece’s economic and social politics at the time.

• 5 See G. Adinolfi, “Corporatism and Italian Fascism”, in Authoritarianism and Corporatism, op. cit., (...)
• 6 J. A. Mazis, A Man for All Seasons: The Uncompromising Life of Ion Dragoumis, Istanbul, The Isis P (...)

4Corporatist ideas in interbellum Greece appeared against a strong backdrop of communitarianism (κοινοτισμός). In Greece, the departure away from the liberal order and the orientation toward “organic” political and societal theories was rather painstaking and slow. This new path of reformation and integral reshaping of the relationship between state, society and economy, which first appeared in the fin-de-siècle and gained momentum in the early 1930s, followed the nationalist way of thinking and fell within a body that ostensibly pre-existed the individual, the “community”, and was more familiar to Greece’s rural society5. The first personality who espoused a new administrative and socio-economic system modelled on the traditional Greek communes (namely, those of Samothrace and Ambelakia), farmers’ co-operatives and artisan guilds was Ion Dragoumis (1878-1920), a renowned royalist cum staunch anti-Venizelist and anti-liberal diplomat, politician and intellectual6.

• 7 K. D. Karavidas, Αγροτικά: Έρευνα επί της οικονομικής και κοινωνικής μορφολογίας εν Ελλάδι και εν (...)

5In the inter-war period, the main exponent of communitarianism was Konstantinos Karavidas (1890-1973), an officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Agricultural Bank of Greece (est. 1929) engaged in the rural settlement of Asia Minor refugees and the ethnic homogenisation of Greece’s northern border. Loathsome of “capitalism” and “individualism”, in 1931 Karavidas sought “an organic solution” to “the social issue” as well as to “the moral and psychological problem” of humanity in relation to “labour” and “nature”. His solution was stated to be “the opposite to unbridled capitalism”. The core of his theory was the “autonomous cooperative community” of farmers, which “could restore to the individualistic family the vitality and the organic cohesion that it had lost because of its dependency from the over-centralistic state and the capital”. In his mind, “communitarianism” and “co-operativism” were “purely Greek traditional institutions”, geared towards the creation of “an autonomous and dynamic rural economy” and “hierarchical” society and the eradication of “anarchy” from modern Greek culture7.

• 8 D. Danielidis, Η νεοελληνική κοινωνία και οικονομία [Modern Greek society and economy], Athens, G. (...)
• 9 Loc. cit., pp. 65, pp. 254-255.

6Seizing upon Karavidas’ conceptions, in 1934 Demosthenes Danielidis (1892-1972), a journalist and self-trained sociologist, stressed in a work, which allegedly sold more than a thousand copies, that “the true hub” of Greek society, “at least since Byzantine times”, were the local “communities”. Modern Hellenism was rooted in “communitarianism” and “the institution of communal autonomy” and “self-government”. In these “unicellular organisms”, meaning the “communities”, Danielidis mostly admired the combination of individual with common interests; the solidarity between its members; “the team spirit”; as well as the “heroic” view of human “destiny”8. However, despite their allusions to the economy, both writers did not expand on economic matters. They placed emphasis on social issues, particularly urbanisation, which tented to become a major problem at the time and have a disastrous effect on agriculture9.

• 10 I. A. Meletopoulos, “Φασισμός” [Fascism], in Megali Helliniki Engyklopaideia, vol. ΧΧΙΙΙ, Athens, (...)
• 11 N. K. Verros, “Μουσσολίνι” [Mussolini], in Engyklopaidikon Lexikon Eleftheroudaki, vol. ΙΧ, Athens (...)

7For all the publishing success of Danielidis, year 1934 saw off communitarianism as the leader of collectivist theories in Greece. Corporatism, in its Italian formula, took the lead. That year the mainstream Great Greek Encyclopedia, a monumental multi-volumed work, briefly presented the tenets of stato corporativo, such as Alfredo Rocco’s Carta del Lavoro and the fascist syndicates, “the cells of the economic as well as the political organization” of Italy, along with the political doctrine of fascism. Therein, the corporatist system was praised as the epitome of social “justice”, and fascism for its “virtuous administration”10. Almost identically, another voluminous encyclopedical dictionary characterised the results of Mussolini’s “modifications” in administration, commerce, agriculture, industry, and more generally in every single part and form of the state and society as “quite satisfactory”11.

• 12 G. Bottai, “Το φασιστικόν κορπορατιβιστικόν κράτος” [The Italian corporatist state], Ergasia, no.  (...)
• 13 C. Grillenzoni, Το συντεχνιακόν κράτος [The Corporatist State], N. Papamichalis trans., Athens, He (...)
• 14 B. Biagi, “Η παγκοσμιότης των συντεχνιακών θεσμών” [The World-Wideness of the Corporatist Institut (...)
• 15 Metaxas’ collection of books has been donated to the Library of the Hellenic Parliament. For insta (...)

8In the same year, the Italian corporatist model was further publicised in Greece via a brief article of Giuseppe Bottai12. About a year later, a book on the corporatist state by an Italian researcher (a certain Carlalberto Grillenzoni), based on a series of lectures that he had offered at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Athens, appeared in Greek. Therein, the author elaborated on the tenets of the Italian corporatist system, such as the Carta del Lavoro, the corporazioni and the Consiglio Nationale delle Corporazioni. His explicit aim was “to enable the reader to form a clear idea of the new political and social perceptions that reshaped and profoundly reformed the Italian State and regulated its existence”13. In 1937-38, three more short-paged studies, by Bruno Biagi (former Vice Minister of Corporations) and a naturalised bank officer (Aristides Vecchiarellis), on the fascist corporatist principles were published in Greek, of which the first one was clearly sponsored by the Istituto Nazionale Fascista di Cultura14. Needless to say that the works of Biagi, Grillenzoni, Vecchiarellis, etc. found their way into the personal library of General Ioannis Metaxas15.

• 16 See, for instance: G. Asprakis, “Αι θεωρητικαί βάσεις της φασιστικής σωματειακής οικονομίας” [The (...)
• 17 M. Psalidopoulos, Πολιτική Οικονομία και Έλληνες διανοούμενοι: Μελέτες για την ιστορία της οικονομ (...)

9A stronger and more systematic call for a complete rupture with the liberal economic tradition and for a radical turn toward and full adoption of the Italian corporatist and autarkic policies was made by Ioannis Tournakis (1892-1941), a professor of Applied Political Economy at the Advanced School of Economics and Business Studies (now the Athens University of Economics) through his periodical Nea Politiki [New Politics] from 1937 to 194016. Random articles in support of Italian corporatism also appeared in Neon Kratos [New State], a periodical issued from September 1937 to March 1941 that more formally echoed the Metaxist ideology (see below)17.

• 18 G. Merkouris, “Ο εθνικοσοσιαλισμός εν Ελλάδι” [National Socialism in Greece], Politismos, no. 5, 1 (...)
• 19 Id., “Το συντεχνιακόν Κράτος” [The Corporatist State], Athens, s.n., 1936, p. 5.
• 20 Loc. cit., p. 6.

10However, the most detailed and coherent presentation of the theory and practices of corporatism was done in 1936 by Georgios Merkouris, a former Minister of National Economy, a staunch anti-Venizelist politician and leader of the minuscule extra-parliamentary National Social Party of Greece (est. 1933). Upon the establishment of his political party Merkouris had made, in an article, an appeal against “the inimical class competition”, and for the application of the principles of “National Unity”, “tranquility” and “social discipline”18. Three years later, his multi-quoted monograph on the corporatist state was admittedly opportune and “timely”: it followed the establishment of the Fourth of August regime and aimed at ‘the dissemination and popularization of corporativism’ as an “economic” and “administrative’ system”19. Merkouris defined the “corporatist state” as the opposite to “individualism, capitalism and communism”; and hailed it as “the most perfect form of social resistance against the abuses of liberalism, and the remedy to the economic and political exigencies of the post-war [i.e. inter-war] reality”20.

• 21 Loc. cit., p. 7, p. 11, p. 14, p. 16.
• 22 Loc. cit., pp. 8-9.

11Merkouris’ “corporativism” (κορπορατιβισμός) was modelled on Italian fascism and was an “integral part” of “the new order of things” that came out of “the walls of Rome” and spread around “the world” (namely, in Portugal, Austria, Germany, etc.) and took on an “international form”21. In his mind, corporatism was undoubtedly “invaluable” for the “Nation” as “an indestructible connecting link” between its diverse parts, especially between the conflicting interests of “Capital” and “Labour”. For that matter, he contrasted it with “the communist utopias” as well as “the utter failures of parliamentarism”, which had led to “class struggle”, “violence” and more generally to “an unbearable disruptive situation”22.

• 23 Loc. cit., pp. 12-16, pp. 20-26. G. Merkouris’ works has no quotes or list of references.

12Expanding on the judicial and political order of Stato etico (ηθικόν Κράτος), Merkouris defined labour as “a social duty”, and explained in more detail the meaning of corporazioni (συντεχνίαι), categorie (κατηγορίαι) and sindacati (συνδικάτα), as well as other pertinent institutions of Mussolini’s “Fascist State”. Thereupon, obviously following the example set by Grillenzoni (1935), he coined syntechnia (guild) as the Greek counterpart to corporazione. In his mind, “corporativism” was, mutatis mutandis, the corporations’ state (Συντεχνιακόν Κράτος). He also made plain that “the Italian corporativist system” (ιταλικόν κορπορατιβιστικόν σύστημα) applied to all the sectors and branches of the economy, industrial, rural and commercial alike. And placed particular emphasis on the regulatory role of the “State” in the form of a pertinent Ministry of Corporations and Labour (Υπουργείον Συντεχνιών και Εργασίας) and a Council of Corporations (Συμβούλιον των Συντεχνιών), as well as on the importance of “discipline” in the management of the “national” economy. The corporations essentially were state “organs”. Theoretically, recognition by the authorities was not compulsory, yet practically it was obligatory for a syndicate to be able to take part in collective agreements that regulated salaries and employment conditions. Therefore, the corporatist was structured round the state administration, and no more than one syndicate could exist in a single region. All in all, whereas the (liberal) syndicalist organisations were vertical, the corporatist associations were horizontal23.

• 24 Loc. cit., p. 8, pp. 17-18, p. 31.

13According to the author, the point of all this strictly hierarchical structure was that “the individual interest cannot be placed above the interest of the Nation or the general interest of production”. The leader of the National Socialists of Greece made clear that these “ethical” laws aimed at the creation of a “harmonised”, “disciplined” and “controlled” economy. More precisely, “under the present circumstances” his ideal was the économie dirigée (Διευθυνομένη Οικονομία). A “corporativist” economy, which squared with “economic nationalism”, “undoubtedly” meant “a broader intervention by the State in the economy”, he clarified. However, this “intervention” by the state does not alter the foundations of the private economy: The “State” assumes the limited role of the “organiser” and “regulator”, yet not that of the “producer”24.

• 25 M. M. Psalidopoulos, Η κρίση του 1929 και οι Έλληνες οικονομολόγοι: Συμβολή στην ιστορία της οικον (...)
• 26 D. Stefanidis, “Εισαγωγή εις την εφηρμοσμένην κοινωνικήν οικονομικήν” [Introduction to the Applied (...)
• 27 R. Michels, Les partis politiques : essai sur les tendances oligarchiques des démocraties, Paris, (...)
• 28 E. von Beckerath, “Die Idee der korporativen Wirtschaft”, in Die faschistische Wirtschaft: Problem (...)
• 29 D. Stefanidis, “Εισαγωγή εις την εφηρμοσμένην κοινωνικήν οικονομικήν” [Introduction to the Applied (...)

14The Italian example was the primal, yet not the sole one among Greece’s thinkers. A year after Merkouris the model of the German “fascist economy” was also advertised in Greece. The rapporteur was Demosthenes Stefanidis (1896-1975), a German-trained professor of Political Economy at the University of Thessaloniki and the most vehement supporter of corporatism in the Greek academia25. Stefanidis advertised the precepts and institutions of the “economic policy” of both Italy and Germany (namely, the Stato corporativo of Ugo Spirito, the Carta del Lavoro, the sindacati, corporazioni, unioni, confederazioni, etc., as well as the teachings of Mein Kampf about the political “aristocracy”), yet he was inclined toward the latter26. Stefanidis drew his inspiration also from Robert Michels27, who had propagated the rule of the elites, and Erwin von Beckerath28, who had opined that the liberal state was “a thing of the past”29.

• 30 Loc. cit., pp. 81-82, p. 91, p. 138.

15Stefanidis’ approach to corporatism was overtly nationalist, and diametrically opposed to “the individualism and cosmopolitanism” of the liberal and the Marxist school of economics. In his mind, corporatism was a “middle way” between socialism and capitalism, and “a golden solution” to the woes of the modern society. He stressed that “the supreme aim of the corporatist organization is the nation”. This sort of “socio-economic policy” served the interests of “the national community above anything else”, and followed the steps and the surge of the “national sentiment”. The intervention of the state guarantees that the “economic interests that are sacrificed” are “the least important for the community” to the benefit of “the common good”. He defined this form of nationalist economy as völkisch (λαϊκή οικονομία), for it protected “the weaker classes of the society against the stronger ones”; guaranteed “economic prosperity”; and safeguarded “the whole völkisch economy against the egoistic trends of the alien völkisch economies”30.

• 31 Loc. cit., pp. 138-140.

16At the same time, his perspective was profoundly elitist. State intervention secured “the coming to power of ‘the best’ of the people, of those who stand above the classes and the parties”. This form of government was clearly “aristocratic”. The rule of the elites, “of the most educated, the fittest and, most importantly, the most moral”, was a precondition for the “the delivery of the highest possible social and economic justice”; and a condition sine qua non for the efficiency of the corporatist state31.

• 32 Loc. cit., p. 133.
• 33 D. Stefanidis, Η θέσις της βιομηχανίας εν τη κοινωνική μας οικονομία [The Place of Industry in our (...)

17These teachings had more of a social than an economic meaning. First and foremost, Stefanidis envisaged corporatism as a solution to the malaise of class conflict. He argued that “the clashes between economic interests, mild or extreme alike, cut deep into the body of the society”, while “the intervention of the state facilitates the invention of compromising solutions, which can soften the controversies or even transform them into co-operation32. In 1938, Stefanidis hailed the implementation of collective agreements and the regulation of labour relations by Metaxas’ New State as a major step forward “in the interest of the entire society”. These arrangements appeared to have put a final end to “the endless row of strikes and lock-outs” and “the tension between employers and employees”, which had previously tossed “the peace of society”33.

• 34 D. Th. Panou, Η αγροτική πολιτική του εθνικοσοσιαλισμού και η σωματειακή οργάνωσις της γερμανικής (...)

18Stefanidis was certainly not the only enthusiast of Hitlerite Germany in the circle of academics and technocrats. In 1939, National Socialism’s policies in agriculture were thoroughly presented by Demetrius Panou, an agronomist by trade and an official of the Agricultural Bank of Greece (est. 1929). His study had initially appeared in a series of articles published between December 1938 and August 1939 in Agrotiko Mellon [Agrarian Future], the official organ of Metaxas’ Ministry of Agriculture. Therein, he interpreted and explained in plain Greek and in detail the meaning of the staple concepts of German “agrarianism” (Bauernshaft) and “sustenance” services, such as Reichsnährstand (Σωματειακή Οργάνωσις του Γερμανικού Επισιστισμού), Erbhof (κληρονομικόν οικογενειακόν κτήμα), Blut und Boden (έδαφος και φυλετικόν αίμα), and other concepts. He placed the Third Reich’s agricultural policy within the framework of the envisioned Volksgemeinschaft (λαϊκή κοινωνία), the “planned economy” (Planwirtschaft) and the quest for full “autarky”. Thereupon, he praised the “collectivist spirit” of the German farmers, who considered the tilling of their ancestral “home land” as a “moral obligation” of the highest importance for “God, race, family and people”. In such manner the German farmer became “the foundation of the national, racial, social and economic independence” of his country, and in the eyes of “the regime” he stood much higher above the “bourgeois” as “the exemplary citizen”. Drawing on all this, the author finally called for “a more thorough scrutiny” of Germany’s “agrarianism” and the “selective adoption of certain measures” of the corporatist organisation of German agriculture that were well suited and could possibly benefit Greece. More precisely, his main concerns were the country’s self-sufficiency in agricultural products and the constant flow of peasants into the large industrial cities (the so-called Landflucht), which tended to assume the dimensions of a rural exodus and result into the depopulation of the countryside34.

• 35 B. B. Alivisatos, La réforme agraire en Grèce au point de vue économique et sociale, prefaced by F (...)

19In any case, the agricultural policy of Metaxas’ New State did not disapprove of Eleftherios K. Venizelos’ agrarian reforms but rather concurred with and drew on them. In fact, the regime’s theorist on this matter, a certain Babis Basile Alivisatos (vice director of the Agricultural Bank, general secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, and Vice Minister of Cooperatives), had repeatedly hailed the economic and social advantages of the reform of 1917 on the grounds that by creating a class of smallholders it had endowed Greece with “a most broad conservative social basis” and thus had saved it from “sudden social lurches”; and he applauded the moratorium on farmers’ debts that had been passed by Venizelos’ government back in 193135.

• 36 The Pan-Workers’ Centre of Piraeus to all its affiliated organisations, “encyclical order B”, Pira (...)

20For all these profound discussions, corporatist theory and practice in Greece were at a distance. The first attempt at implementing corporatist measures, namely a law for compulsory arbitration by the state in labour differences, issued by the dictatorial government of General Kondylis in November 1935, met fierce resistance. Several months before the establishment of the Metaxas dictatorship the (Piraeus-based) General Workers’ Confederation and its affiliates identified the bill as “fascist” and “medieval”, “suitable only for the Cafres of Africa”, arguing that its enforcement would outlaw strike, “strangle syndicalist freedom” and “essentially decertify trade unions”. At the same time, it warned that political “Fascism” was “ante portas”36.

• 37 See P. J. Williamson, Varieties of Corporatism: A Conceptual Discussion, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ (...)
• 38 G. Trimis, “Η έννοια και η σημασία της εργασίας εις το εθνικόν κυρίαρχον κράτος” [The notion and m (...)
• 39 Το Νέον Κράτος και η κοινωνική πολιτική [The New State and its Social Policy], Athens, 4th August (...)
• 40 Loc. cit., pp. 17-18, pp. 47-48.
• 41 Foreign Office (FO), 371/22371: “Annual Report on Greece for 1937”, p. 2.
• 42 Loc. cit., p. 6.
• 43 FO, 371/22370: Waterlow to Halifax, Athens, 11 April 1938, no. 151, p. 2; A. C. Pinto, “Fascism, C (...)

21In fact, in general terms Metaxist Greece followed the fascist-nationalist corporatist direction37. In 1937, a labour inspector revealed that “the notion and meaning of labour” in Metaxas’ “national sovereign state” copied “the fundamental principles” and “the dogma” of the “fascist” states, mainly Germany, wherein “labour” was not considered a “right”, but a “social duty”38. Corporatism and “the harmonic co-operation of Labour and Capital” was indeed one of the “principal” aims of the “social program” of the Fourth of August regime39. Compulsory arbitration and “national” collective agreements between employers and employees were supposed to put an end to the malaise of “strikes” and bring about “social harmony” and a great service to the “Nation”40. At the same time, according to British intelligence, “state planning” and a “managed economy” were “the keynote” of all Metaxas’ economic and social policies, which were directed at “the creation of a strong and orderly national life”41. In British eyes, a year after the seizure of power, “General Metaxas was advancing rapidly on a totalitarian journey in imitation of Hitler and Mussolini”42. On a more political level, Metaxas was reported “to be evolving a new constitution on the Portuguese model”; yet this was never made public while he was alive43.

• 44 See S. Kolossos, “Η θέσις των εργατών και των υπαλλήλων προ και μετά την 4ην Αυγούστου” [The posit (...)
• 45 Ephimeris tis Kyverniseos [Government Gazette], A Series, 135, 9 April 1937, p. 895.
• 46 The Metal Workers’ Union to the Workers’ Centre of Piraeus, Piraeus, 16 August 1937, AWCP, f. 3/I/ (...)
• 47 The Workers’ Centre of Piraeus to all the workers’, technicians’ and employees’ associations of Pi (...)
• 48 A. Kazakos, “Το Γενικόν Συμβούλιον της Γ.Σ.Ε.Ε. σταθμός εις την συνδικαλιστικήν ανάπλασιν” [The Ge (...)

22Practically, the agenda of the Greek New State was not so radical, as it purported to be, but it rather aimed at the moulding of the workers and employees into “a conservative working class”44. In April 1937, a law that decreed May Day as the “Day of Celebration of Labour”, specified that labour was understood by the government in its “real National ideological sense”45. Within the same framework, three months later Metaxas was declared “First Worker of Greece” and became the “honorary president” of the Pan-Hellenic General Workers’ Confederation46. On the following May Days, aka “National Days of Labour”, Metaxas was accordingly hailed as the “Great Social Reformer”47. For the same purpose, on 10 August 1938 the council of the General Workers’ Confederation decided to add to the Confederation’s title the term “National”; and to similarly rename all the Workers’ Centres across the country into “National Workers’ and Employees’ Centres”. The purpose of this renaming was to instill “national unity” and consolidate “the harmonization of the interests of all the agents of production”; in this way, the Centres would eventually be “elevated into organs that connect the world of labour with the life of the Nation”48.

• 49 N. D. Koumaros and G. A. Mantzoufas, “Αι θεμελιώδεις συνταγματικαί αρχαί του Νέου Κράτους” [The fu (...)
• 50 “Pronouncements about a new system, in which the government would co-operate with the people, not (...)
• 51 I. T. Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire (...)
• 52 K. Kostis, Ο Πλούτος της Ελλάδος [The Wealth of Greece], op. cit., pp. 150-152, p. 198.

23However, these ambitious pronouncements were never fully materialised. In mid-1938, the theorists of Metaxas’ New State, namely his two sons-in-law, who followed a career in law, reassured their readers that political representation of “associations of organized groups and the professions” would definitely be institutionalised, yet admitted that “whether or not the Fourth of August State would develop into a ‘Corporatist State’ was still ‘obscure’”49. An institution similar to the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni (est. 1939) was never founded in Greece50. The plans for an économie dirigée (a distinctive type of economy pared with extreme economic nationalism that was adopted by several inter-war right-wing, authoritarian and fascist regimes) equally remained on paper51. Metaxas’ corporatist policies did not bring forth structural changes in industry, trade or more generally the economy, aside from a more rigorous intervention of state services in agriculture52.

• 53 See A. Kampanis, “Εσωτερική πολιτική” [Internal policy], To Neon Kratos, 1 September 1937, pp. 15- (...)

24In fact, the agenda of Metaxas’ corporatist policies placed emphasis not on economics but on politics, social peace and solidarity. This can be inferred from the regime’s theoretical organ, the monthly To Neon Kratos [The New State], “a special tribune for theoretical discussions” on “politics, social philosophy, history and arts” that first appeared in September 1937. In the first issue of this periodical, the title of which obviously resounded Salazar’s Estado Novo (est. 1933), Vice Minister of Press and Tourism (a sham name for propaganda) Theologos Nicholoudis (a journalist by trade) juxtaposed “the power” of the “totalitarian” (sic) “New State” to the “barbarity” and “disorder” of both “British parliamentarism” and “communism”. The editor of To Neon Kratos (a distinguished professional penman) exalted in the most eloquent manner New State’s “internal policies” (namely, the collective labour agreements that had been signed about a year earlier) for the reason that they had finally obliterated “class struggle” and forced all classes into “co-operation”, while at the same time they allegedly improved working conditions and pays “as much as possible”: “All classes have reluctantly accepted arbitration by the State, and laid down the arms. There are no more lock-outs; no more strikes; no more destruction of the means of production; no more street fighting; no more stopping of national life”53.

• 54 T. Nicholoudis, “Το Νέον Κράτος” [The New State], To Neon Kratos, 1 September 1937, pp. 1-5; A. Ka (...)

25The agency of this “miracle” was “violence by the State”, which made real the “social ideal” of “hierarchy” and “joining together” of all the “productive elements” of society54.

• 55 G. de Reynold, “Ο Σαλαζάρ και το έργο του” [Salazar and his work], To Neon Kratos, 3 November 1937 (...)
• 56 A. Dimitratos, “Η μείωσις της ανεργίας” [The decrease of unemployment], To Neon Kratos, 24 August (...)
• 57 I. Tsapis. “Η κατάστασις της εργατικής τάξεως εβελτιώθη σημαντικά μετά την 4ην Αυγούστου” [The sit (...)
• 58 K. Kostis, Ο Πλούτος της Ελλάδος [The Wealth of Greece], op. cit., p. 207, pp. 215-216.

26In 1937 and 1938, a series of extensive (mostly copied and few original) multi-paged articles on Hitlerite economics and social policies, as well as on Oliveira Salazar’s “New Portugal”, appeared in To Neon Kratos. These publications highlighted “the high value” of the “national socialist” Volksgemeinschaft, “a people’s community” (λαϊκή κοινότης) wherein the individual is fused into “an integral organic whole” that is identified with the “nation”. The authors underlined that in “national socialist” Germany there were “no more unemployed”, and hailed Hitler’s “economic miracle” (Wirtschaftswunder)55. Three years after the imposition of Metaxas’ dictatorship the Vice Minister of Labour (Aristides Dimitratos, a former trade union leader) boasted that the job market had reached an almost zero unemployment rate56. At the same time, the regime claimed that thanks to “the system of state intervention” the economic situation and “the consuming power” of “the working class” had improved “significantly” after the Fourth of August57. These claims cannot be corroborated or refuted by the existing empirical data, which are censored and scarce; according to present-day scholarly research, the only substantial gain for workers was a minimal real increase of 4% in their wages58.

• 59 Loc. cit., pp. 213-214.
• 60 The Association of Chair-Makers of Piraeus to the Directorate of the Metropolitan Police, Piraeus, (...)
• 61 See The Workers’ Centre of Piraeus to the Directorate of the Metropolitan Police – Department of G (...)
• 62 The Workers’ Centre of Piraeus to the Directorate of the Metropolitan Police, Piraeus, 14 July and (...)

27While the financial situation of the working class after the Fourth of August can be substantiated, Metaxas’ corporatism seems to have definitely stroke a very favourable cord within the financial elite: His government was staffed with industrialists, bankers and other business tycoons more than any democratic government before him59. On the other hand, any dissension was met with repression. In the course of 1937, all “anarchical elements” (i.e. Communists and other leftists) were, by order of the police, expelled from the administration of workers’ associations and replaced by “conservative men”, who were loyal to the “National Ideals”60. Correspondingly, the unions that were suspicious of communist leanings came to be taken off the list of state-recognised associations61. At the same time, the administration of workers’ and employees’ associations and trade unions had to “always” obtain the prior license of the Metropolitan Police before convening the councilors and their members for an assembly or any other kind of meeting62.

• 63 https://opac.parliament.gr/cgi-bin/koha/opac-MARCdetail.pl?biblionumber=246803 (Accessed on 11 May (...)
• 64 Ergatiki Hellas to the president of the Pan-Hellenic General Workers’ Confederation, 3 September 1 (...)
• 65 The General Workers’ Confederation of Greece to all the Workers’ Centres, federations, federal sec (...)

28Repression was matched by indoctrination. In March 1937, Metaxas’ regime issued the weekly Efimeris ton Ergaton [Worker’s Journal] and the fortnightly “social review” Ergatiki Hellas [Workers’ Greece]63. A few months later, Ergatiki Hellas enunciated “the bankruptcy of the utopian principle of class struggle”64. A year later, the regime appeared dissatisfied with the results. In March 1938, the state-run General Workers’ Confederation “once more after several time” admonished its inferior “organizations” for not carrying out “the necessary propagandist work for the dissemination and the consolidation of their press organs within the masses of workers and employees”. According to its report, solely fifteen out of these 800 in all “organizations”, i.e. a mere 2%, had established “press committees” to this end. The matter was highly important for Greece’s “national and social existence”. The loyal “organizations” were thus ordered to report to the authorities those who did not show interest and remained idle in this “serious” matter, which affected “the entire existence of Hellenism”65.

• 66 The General Workers’ Confederation of Greece to the Workers’ Centre of Piraeus, Piraeus, 10 March (...)
• 67 Manifesto of the General Workers’ Confederation of Greece to “all the working people of the countr (...)

29This warning apparently bore fruits. About two months later the administration of the General Workers’ Confederation declared its “deep satisfaction” for “the enlightening work” that had been hitherto carried out within “the class of workers and employees” for the development of “the conscience of national unity and devotion to the ideal of social cum national regeneration of the country”66. A year and a half later it rejoiced again at the fact that “all dissension, divisions and partitions” had “finally ended”; “the hatred and discord within the family of professions” had disappeared “forever” and been replaced everywhere by “love and mutual respect between all the workers”67. This claim of the General Workers’ Confederation was not necessarily the truth. In the absence of independent sources and more solid evidence, it is not clear whether the regime genuinely brought social peace, if only by means of repression and propaganda.

• 68 Quoted in S. Reichardt, “The Global Circulation of Corporatism: Concluding Remarks”, op. cit., p.  (...)

30Greece’s acculturation and induction into authoritarian corporatist ideas and practices by the agency of lesser-known brokers and propagandists corroborates the entangled transnational history of authoritarian corporatism that has been thoroughly analysed by António Costa Pinto, Matteo Pasetti, and Aristotle Kallis. It shows that the transfer of fascist corporatism into the periphery of Europe (and the Latin Americas) was not a mere process of imitation, but a multidirectional form of appropriation and hybridisation of various “travelling” models coined in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany and Salazar’s Portugal68.

• 69 FO, 371/22371: “Annual Report on Greece for 1937”, p. 17.
• 70 S. G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-1945, Madison (Wisconsin), The University of Wisconsin Pre (...)
• 71 FO, 371/19518: Sir Sydney Waterlow to Sir John Simon, “Greece: Annual Report”, 1934, Athens, 6 Feb (...)
• 72 The main corporatist formations that were instituted by Metaxas were the so-called “Houses of the (...)
• 73 FO, 371/22370: Waterlow to Anthony Eden, Athens, 24 January 1938, no. 23, p. 8.
• 74 Loc. cit., p. 9.

31Hybridisation should not though disparage dissimilarities. Metaxas’ Greece “apart from some imitation of the external trappings of Nazism”69 was not on a par with generic fascism70. In the words of the British ambassador at Athens, Greece, “a poor and small agricultural country” of which “the vast majority of the inhabitants” were “primitive Balkan peasants”71, was certainly not geared at a corporatist management of the society, let alone politics and the economy except for the agricultural sector72. Despite the initial advancements toward Nazi Germany, in 1938 the British ambassador eventually saw “little likelihood” that “arbitrary government” in Greece would actually develop into “fully blown totalitarianism”73. In his mind, “ideologically” Greeks were not a “mystical and cynical race”, and therefore “not good material to run into any Nazi mould”74.

• 75 Yphipourgeion Typou kai Tourismou [Vice Ministry of Press and Tourism], Τέσσαρα χρόνια διακυβερνήσ (...)
• 76 A. Vecchiarellis, Το συντεχνιακόν κράτος, op. cit., p. 62.
• 77 See C. Grillenzoni, Το συντεχνιακόν κράτος, op. cit., pp. 142-147.
• 78 Yphipourgeion Typou kai Tourismou [Vice Ministry of Press and Tourism], Τέσσαρα χρόνια διακυβερνήσ (...)
• 79 S. G. Ploumidis, “Corporatist ideas in interwar Greece”, art. cit., p. 70.

32In fact, before its entry into the Second World War Greece was still very far from being a complete corporatist state, and the new legislation did not proceed further than the first stage of the corporatist system. By August 1940 the authorities had recognised 1,257 associations of workers and employees as representative of their trades in the industrial and services’ sector. Yet, these state-licensed associations had not been turned into syndicates, i.e. they did not represent employers and managers along with workers and employees75. Their categorisation (i.e. to something similar to the, all in all, 22 Italian corporations) seemed even more far-away, while their chaotic number, which hardly fell short of the total amount of the pre-existing workers’ and private employees’ associations (1,607 in all)76, far-exceeded the 823 state-licensed syndicates of fascist Italy77. At the same time, the application of Metaxas’ corporatist policies in agriculture had not gone much beyond the boundaries of the Peloponnese (a stronghold of anti-Venizelism and monarchism) to other (Venizelist and republican) regions of Greece78. Therefore, in as much as the Metaxas regime never reached the mature stage of fascism, corporatism did not ever become the structural and overwhelming ideological foundation of Greek economy and society, let alone politics79.

• 80 J. Campbell and P. Sherrard, Modern Greece, London, Ernest Benn, 1968, pp. 379-381, pp. 399-400; G (...)

33Economic and societal reasons account equally for the absence of a right-wing radicalism and corporatism (not to mention totalitarianism) in interwar Greece. Low levels of industrialisation and literacy; the fragmentation of a by and large agrarian society, wherein personal arrangements and kinship played a far greater role than class or corporate interests in the management of labour; the extensive clientelist networks of the established bourgeois parties; and the ineffectiveness of public administration and civil services (marred by inertia, confusion, controversy and delay) also inhibited the emergence of a deified corporatist state with multifaceted functions80. In the case of corporatism, Greece was rather an exception that proves the rule.