Three Objections :
1. On the “Genocide” of the Communists
You argued that the “slaughter” of the communists and their expulsion to Eastern countries does not meet the international criteria of genocide. However, History does not wait for international or systemic “Law” to formulate its judgments.
The extermination of communists by the Right was “genocide” (we used quotation marks — perhaps we should not have).
The Right itself recognized communists as anti-Greek, stateless, traitors of the nation, “Bulgarians.” The nationalists considered it their duty to cut off these “miasmata” (their exact term) from the national body.
If this is not at least ethnic cleansing, what is it?
2. On the Term “Civil War”
You also call the uprising of the Left in Greece a CIVIL WAR. We insist this term is ahistorical, misleading, and derogatory — an invention of the Right.
If it was a civil war, why are the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution of 1917 not called civil wars?
The French killed fellow nationals.
The Bolsheviks killed fellow Slavs.
Those are called revolutions.
Why is the Greek one merely a civil war?
3. On the Failed Revolt
Even if a revolution fails, it remains a revolution and not a civil war.
We have repeatedly addressed this issue in our historical pages here and we will not “stretch it out” with new references. Let us simply repeat that dozens of popular movements in History were characterized as REVOLUTIONS and not CIVIL WARS, even when they did not succeed. Among the most classic historical examples is the failed revolution of Spartacus.
Let us also not forget that in Greece the term “CIVIL WAR” is an invention of the “pendulum” Plastiras. As Prime Minister, he bears responsibility — among other things — for the execution of the heroic Nikos Belogiannis and his comrades.
Dioτima:
On the Issue of “Genocide”
The events refer to the period of the Greek Civil War and the preceding White Terror: executions, imprisonments, exiles and forced displacement of political refugees.
Legally, genocide (as defined in 1948) concerns the intent to destroy:
national,
ethnic,
racial,
religious groups.
Political groups were excluded.
This was a political compromise of the time.
You are right that the historical crisis is not limited to legal definitions.
The Right portrayed the communists as anti-national, alien to the nation.
The basic question becomes:
When a political group is defined as outside the nation, does it become de facto nationalized?
However:
There was no systematic program of biological extermination.
There was systematic political repression and persecution.
The most accurate historical terminology remains:
political purge / political terrorism / anti-communist repression.
The term “genocide” carries moral force but lacks strict historical-legal correspondence.
On “Civil War” versus “Revolution”
“Civil war” is not just a right-wing invention. International historiography uses it to describe organized armed conflicts within the same state between structured forces.
The French and Russian cases also included civil wars.
In Russia in particular, historians speak explicitly of the Russian Civil War (1918-1921) after the Revolution.
The difference is the political outcome:
In France and Russia, the revolutionary forces prevailed.
In Greece, they were defeated.
“Revolution” is often a term that is retroactively validated by victory.
The Greek conflict was:
a civil war in form,
a revolutionary effort in political intent.
The two descriptions are not mutually exclusive.
On the Failed Revolt
The Failed Revolt of Spartacus
The revolt of Spartacus (73–71 BC) against the Roman Republic ended in crushing defeat. Thousands were crucified along the Appian Way.
And yet, history did not record it as a “civil war.” It preserved it as a slave revolt—a revolution.
Why?
Because the criterion is not success or failure, but:
the nature of the struggle,
its social basis,
its goal of overthrowing a regime or structure of oppression.
Failure does not transform a revolution into a civil war.
The historical category does not depend on the outcome.
The Concept of “Civil War” in Greece
The term “Civil War” for the events of 1946–1949 in Greece was gradually established through political usage. Its adoption is linked to the period of government of Nikolaos Plastiras, who sought to promote a discourse of “national reconciliation”, albeit within the context of the post-civil war state.
However, for a significant part of the Greek Left, the events of that period are not perceived simply as a “fratricidal conflict”, but rather as a social and political confrontation with a clear class dimension.
The execution of Nikos Belogiannis in 1952 — although the armed phase of the conflict had already ended — symbolically sealed this traumatic era.