Greek Military Junta & 17th November

At the dawn of the 21st of April in 1967, a military coup occurred in Greece that overthrew the democratic regime and imposed a dictatorship that lasted for seven years. The leader of the movement was Stylianos Patakos and Colonels Georgios Papadopoulos and Nikolaos Makarezos.

The post-civil war dictatorship starting with the centrist ideology and the violent end in 1967 was deprived of the spirit of the basic consensus that makes the democratic system of government orderly. The isolation of those who lost in the Civil War (Communists), the phobic response to any deviation towards a leftist government, and the tolerance of the State towards various violations of laws, created the right prerequisites for the establishment of the dictatorship.

The Greek dictatorship was internationally considered as another episode of the Cold War in the battle between East and West. The effort of the Soviet Union to win over nations in the political sphere of influence, enhancing a pro-Soviet spirit in many different community groups, often led to a reaction from the West and mainly from the Americans who led the Western coalition.

Within the countries, in the most violent cases, the battles resulted in either the total victory of the communists or in a military dictatorship. In Greece, the military in order to eliminate what they perceived as a communist danger, they restricted political freedoms and established a military dictatorship, also known as Junta.

During the seven-year dictatorship, four dictatorial governments were formed.

The government of Konstantinos Kollias in 1967, the government of Georgios Papadopoulos also in 1967, the government of Spyros Markezinis in 1973 and the government of Adamantios Androutsopoulos in 1973.

The coup of 21 April 1967 was imposed within hours across the country without any particular reactions. King Constantine II cooperated initially with the military, and when a second attempt to regain control through a new coup in December 1967 failed, he was forced to flee to Italy. The result was the formation of an authoritarian emergency regime, which suspended all provisions that enshrined the parliamentary democracy and the freedom of expression.