2023-12-18 21:24:02
An event for the 50th anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising was organized by student associations of Athens at the historical site of NTUA on November 16, 2023.
At the event, which was attended by thousands of students, young people, workers of all ages, as well as activists from the generation of the Polytechnic, spoke fighters of the anti-dictatorship struggle who participated in the occupation of the Polytechnic, then included in different currents of the left (anti-EFEE, ECON Rigas Feraios, revolutionary left ), but also non-members.
The eight speakers, who still today contribute in different ways and from different places to the cause of the left and the social movement, are a representative part of the vast majority of the fighters of the Polytechnic who did not redeem the struggles of that period. They gave their testimony about the events, describing, among other things, the different directions that developed during the three days of occupation and echoed the different treatment of forces of the left in the attempt to “liberalize” the junta regime.
Watch excerpts from the event:
These differences resulted in disagreements between those who supported the promotion of only student demands and disagreed with the occupation on the one hand and, on the other, a direction put forward by the organizations of the revolutionary left, but also by the unaffiliated students, with anti-dictatorship and anti-imperialist demands and aimed at escalating the rebellion with the occupation. This second direction was finally supported by the large mass of fighters as a whole of the left. Some of the speakers pointed out that these differences in tactics were also reflected later, with well-known slanderous attacks and provocations against protagonists of the occupation, in the harshest conditions, during the Ioannidis dictatorship.
The takeover and escalation of the uprising between 14-17 November 1973, was a combination of the conscious intervention of forces of the left and the spontaneous participation and invasion of the popular classes in the foreground of history. It exacerbated the crisis of the dictatorial regime and led to the cancellation of the attempt to transition to a more permanent authoritarian regime, while it played a decisive role in the overall post-political change and the overthrow of the post-military state of the nationalists.
This role of the popular masses in the Polytechnic, which marked the post-colonial period to a great extent, also interprets the fact that the Polytechnic is re-branding and re-branding the modern social struggles, but also the constant effort of the ruling class to nullify its message in every way. A small side of this attempt is the attempt to museumize the historical space.
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