Rare, 1949, Poster, Document, Anti-Communism, Greek Civil War, Piraeus, Nikolaos Avraam

Description

Rare Greek Document 

from 1949

Anticommunist Appeal

by the

Nationalist Citizens of Piraeus

echoing the speech of MP Nikolaos Avraam on November 27, 1949, 

stressing the need to curb communist influence 

and safeguard national stability,

just months before the pivotal parliamentary elections of March 1950

50 cm x 70 cm

 

The “Nationalist Citizens of Piraeus” was a political or social group expressing nationalist and patriotic positions. Such associations or groups often appeared in the Greek political arena, especially in periods of political instability or nationalist claims, promoting conservative or nationalist views. 

After the end of the Greek Civil War in 1949, Greece went through a difficult period of reconstruction, political tensions and social divisions. The country emerged from the war economically devastated and divided. The victors of the civil war, the government forces, imposed strict control over the defeated communists, with persecutions, executions and exiles to islands such as Makronissos and Ai Stratis. Thousands of leftists were forced to leave Greece and took refuge in Eastern Bloc countries. In the 1950s, the country experienced the first steps of economic development, partly thanks to the assistance of the Marshall Plan, but remained politically unstable. The 1960s were characterized by intense political confrontations, culminating in the 1965 apostasy and the imposition of the Dictatorship of the Colonels in 1967. The period after the Civil War left deep wounds in Greek society, with the division between right and left remaining strong for many decades.Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 5 March 1950. The People’s Party emerged as the largest party in Parliament, winning 62 of the 250 seats. The People’s Party or Populist Party ( Laïkòn Kómma) was a conservative and pro-monarchist Greek political party founded by Dimitrios Gounaris, the main political rival of Eleftherios Venizelos and his Liberal Party. The party existed from 1920 until 1958.

 

Nikolaos Avraam (1888 – 1954) was a Greek lawyer and minister. In 1923 he was a politician with the Liberal Party in the District of Lokris and took part in the elections of the Fourth Constituent National Assembly where he was elected as a member of parliament for Lokris. In the elections of 1928 he was elected as a member of parliament for Piraeus with the Liberal Party. During this period he assumed ministerial duties for the first time. He served as Deputy Minister of Transport from 16 December 1929 to 22 December 1930 in the Government of Eleftherios Venizelos of December 1929 and Minister of Justice from 22 December 1930 to 16 January 1931. He was re-elected as a member of parliament for Piraeus in 1932 and 1933 and for Piraeus and the Islands in 1936 with the Liberal Party and in 1946 with the Venizelian Liberal Party. In 1944 he took part in the government of G. Papandreou as Minister of Justice from October 23, 1944 to January 3, 1945. In 1947, as Minister of Merchant Shipping, he achieved great success in the reconstruction of the Greek Merchant Shipping during the government of Dimitrios Maximos.