Constantinos Speras
Encyclopedia
Constantinos Speras was a Greek anarcho-syndicalist
, and one of the pioneers of the working class trade-union movement in Greece. He spent the biggest part of his life in prison and in exile, totalling 109 times. Born on the island of Serifos
, he led the island's 1916 miner's strike, took part in the founding of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), and was elected onto its Supervising Committee. He also founded the newspaper Nea Zoi, and the Independent Workers Party. He was eventually expelled from the GSEE through the actions of the Communist Party of Greece
(KKE), for having denounced the Comintern
.
He was murdered in 1943 by Communist-led Greek partisans
during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II.
. Constantinos' father was Georgios, a seafarer by profession. His mother was Polyxeni, née Peloponnesios. He was referred to as "Kostas" or "Konstantis" among relatives and friends. One of his great grand parents was named Knomos, but due to poor records it is unknown if this was his grandfather’s or great grandfather’s name. He was adopted by Theofilos Speras, a descendant of the Phanariotes
Sperantzas family, which had moved to the Cyclades islands
from Romania
. In the Cyclades, the "Sperantzas" name eventually became associated with church builders.
Speras married Eleni Vardoulakis and had two daughters, Moscha, Paraskevi. He would eventually remarry to Marina Stamataki, and have a third daughter, Artemisia-Nefeli.
, Speras moved to Alexandria, Egypt, in 1907 at the age of 14. In Cairo
, he studied in the French Collège-des-Frères (The Brothers' College). Speras’ third daughter, Artemisia-Nefeli, recalled two stories from this period in her father's life. The first was that he won a teenage swimming contest, but the headmaster presented the award to the son of a prominent family from the Greek community of Alexandria. The second was that Speras was accused of cheating during school exams, and he reacted by throwing an inkwell
straight at the headmaster, splitting his head open.
In Egypt he became a tobacco worker and came in contact with anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists. These were mainly Greek and Italian
immigrants, who during that period were very active among the tobacco workers of Alexandria and Cairo. He traveled to many European countries and was fluent in French
and Arabic
. When he returned to Serifos, financial hardship forced him to sell his mother’s allotment, and he was soon immersed in intense syndicalist
and political activity. He was among the founding members of the Worker's Center of Athens (Ergatiko Kentro Athinas - EKA) in March 1910, and became a member of the Socialist Center of Athens (Sosialistiko Kentro Athinas) at a time when socialists of various orientations rallied behind this organization founded by Nikolaos Giannios.
In March 1914 he found himself in Kavala
, where he participated in the large tobacco workers’ strike, during which he was arrested and sent to a prison in Tripoli
.
.
When the workers realized that their continuous posts to the Syros
and the Athens newspapers bore no results, the historic miner's strike of 1916 broke out. The strike was brutally suppressed by royalist gendarmes, who came to the aid of the mine owners. The clashes between the miners (assisted by their families) and the troops left four workers and four gendarmes dead and dozens injured. The dead workers were Michael Zoilis, Themistoklis Kouzoupis, Michael Mitrofanis and Ioannis Protopapas.
In the wake of the strike Speras was arrested and imprisoned along with other strikers in the Syros jail. It was there that he wrote a chronicle of the events of the strike, which was published in 1919 under the title The Strike of Serifos, that is a narration of the bloody scenes of 21 August 1916 in the mines of Megalo Livadi of Serifos. In 1917 he was transferred to the jail at the Firka Fortress in Chania
, Crete
. While there, he addressed an appeal to the Labour Center of Chania (Ergatiko Kentro Chanion), seeking their support.
In August 1918, Speras in collaboration with Kostas Bastounopoulos, a moderate socialist, and others founded in the town of Ermoupoli
of the Syros island, the Educative Labour Society (Morfotikos Ergatikos Omilos). The Society assisted in the publishing of the newspaper Ergatis (Worker), the organ of the Labour Center of Cyclades (Ergatiko Kentro Kykladon)
, Greece
and Turkey
He wrote pamphlets and articles and had personally met Errico Malatesta
.
The first congress of the GSEE was convened between October 21, and October 28 of 1918. Speras was first to address the delegates in his speech that upheld the principle of class struggle
. He argued that the Confederation should remain free from the influence of all political parties, and backed the anti-parliament
action of the Confederation members. These positions were in full agreement with those that the European anarcho-syndicalists would adopt five years later during the Congress of Berlin
, which convened from 22 December 1922 until 2 January 1923.
The representatives of the various socialist tendencies of the era put forward views opposed to those of Speras and the other anarcho-syndicalists. They argued in favor of the close interrelation between the GSEE and the Greek Socialist Party (Sosialistiko Komma) - which was founded a few weeks later. In this frame they presented a draft resolution, whereby the Confederation had to remain independent solely from any bourgeoisie
influence. The issue was debated long and hard during the Congress and the representatives from both tendencies stood their ground doggedly. E. Delazanos– one of the delegates from the Proodos (Progress) Federation and a close ideological ally of socialist N. Giannios– addressing the Congress shortly before the voting said: "Workers beware! Do not fall for the beautiful words of the anarchists. The first instance of anarchy must be crushed. 'Outside of all politics' is an anarchist slogan, which in effect serves the interests of the bourgeoisie."
In the voting that was carried out, the authoritarian socialists’ resolution was voted 158 to 21. Speras had signed a statement issued by the Association of the Athens-Piraeus Tobacco Workers, as its secretary. However, Speras was elected member of the Supervising Committee of GSEE and his election confirmed the dynamism of the anarcho-syndicalist tendency during that period.
(Kommounistiko Komma Elladas; KKE).
Judging by the positions they upheld in the period from the founding Congress of the organization to the second congress, it is obvious that the anarcho-syndicalists did not oppose the creation of an independent and multifarious socialist body. It did not take long before things between the two hostile tendencies came to a head.
In March 1920, Kostas Speras participated as special secretary in the conference of miners and coal miners held in Athens, aiming at the foundation of the Miners’ Federation.
In April, 1920, the SEKE held its second congress. There Constantinos Speras and Giannis Fanourakis were expelled from the party as anti-party elements. The newspaper O Rizospastis
(The Radical) - the official organ of the Greek Communist Party - also reported an attempt to expel Speras from GSEE. However this turned out to be impossible, due to the considerable influence that Speras exerted on the Athens working class and on a large number of its delegates.
On 17 May 1920 Speras was arrested and the newspaper Kokkini Simaia (Red Flag), the organ of the Communist Organization of Athens (Kommounistiki Organosi Athinas) reported: ...to us this is an honor because our comrade is jailed for his working class ideology...
As soon as the Congress opened, Speras proposed the withdrawal of GSEE from the Trade-Union International of Amsterdam
, a social democratic
organization. The opposition to this proposal came from the part of the SEKE. It must be noted though, that during that period, all the major working class anarcho-syndicalist federations were actively participating in the process of the foundation of the Comintern.
The central issue of the Congress was GSEE’s collaboration and interrelation with SEKE. Speras and the other members of the anarcho-syndicalist tendency advocated the independence of the Confederation, while the SEKE members insisted on the collaboration between the two bodies. The latter view was voted 157 to 54.
The second issue of the Congress was the question of the parity between SEKE and GSEE. The anarcho-syndicalists, through Giannis Fanourakis, argued that the two bodies (SEKE and Confederation) should be represented by an equal number of delegates, who would stand on an equal footing in all political issues. The SEKE supporters insisted that the party should assume the guiding role and in the subsequent voting they confirmed their domination with 107 delegates voting for their motion against 40. As a matter of fact, when during his address, N. Dimitratos (one of the SEKE supporters) attributed the political guiding role to SEKE and the responsibility for the trade union movement to the GSEE, Speras reacted furiously. Reading a relevant circular of the Comintern, he upheld the unified and mass character of the Confederation and denounced “those who sought to divide” the working class.
In his addresses, Speras supported the direct democratic operation of the unions. He contended that the workers should directly participate in the decision-making process through rank and file assemblies. Thus he came in direct opposition with the SEKE leadership group, who upheld that this right belonged exclusively to the industrial workers.
The contribution of the anarcho-syndicalist group in the amendment of certain statutes of the GSEE was equally important. They proposed the decentralization
of the decision-making process from the Federations to the local Labour Centers. Speras also advocated that workers should be organized not in craft union federations but in unified workplace federations, a principle upheld until the present day by the anarcho-syndicalist organizations.
The group exerted an important influence over the working class of Athens, and Speras and Fanourakis participated in the administration of the Labour Centre of Athens (EKA) for a considerable period of time. They collaborated with other groups and organisations which had been formed in the wake of the far left’s expulsion from SEKE, such as the group Kommounismos (Communism) and the Anexartiti Kommounistiki Neolaia (Independent Communist Youth), both followers of the tenets of Bolshevism
.
In November 1921, following the strike called by the Federation of Tramway Workers, Speras was once again arrested and jailed in the Sygrou Prison.
In the winter of 1922 the organization Nea Zoi (New Life) founded the Independent Labour Party (Anexartito Ergatiko Komma; AEK). Similar moves by syndicalists were to take place a few years later in Europe, including the 1930 founding of the Syndicalist Party
of Spain, by Angel Pestaña
, one of the leaders of the Spanish CNT.
The majority of the new party’s members were workers. The newspaper Ergatiki (Labour Gazette) reported that workers were joining the new party en masse throughout Greece. Its labour oriented character, as well as its distance from the tenets of the Comintern, were reflected in AEK’s "Declaration of Aims and Principles": The workers, through their unified confederation, over and beyond their political differences, can promote their interests.
The of AEK was dissolved in 1925, as a result of repression under the dictatorship of Theodoros Pangalos
.
, Speras’ principal opponent ever since the GSEE’s first Congress, gave testimony which characterized Speras as "an enemy of the working class," and the expulsion as "fair".
In his defense, Speras argued that the attack against himself was orchestrated by the leadership of the KKE (formerly the SEKE), and had been initiated on the second day of the Congress by the KKE delegates Giakoumatos, Marnieros and Evangelou. Speras also denounced the Communist Party for unleashing a war against him, as a result of which he could not even get a job. The reason, Speras’ claimed, was his opposition to the adhesion of the GSEE to the Comintern. Speras defended himself as an antimilitarist
and countered the accusation that he was a "state agent." He denounced Evangelou (one of the leaders of KKE) for attempting to bribe his way to the post of General Secretary of the GSEE over the sum of fifty thousand drachmas promised to the Alliance of the Working Classes (a socialist grouping) via Vouros, a journalist.
This event mirrored a rift between anarchists and socialists who supported the organization. In the Moscow Congress, held in the summer of 1920, the libertarian socialist organizations withdrew and denounced the organization as a Bolshevik autocracy. In 1922 these organizations founded the IWA (AIT) in Berlin.
. For a brief period he resided in the area of Kolokynthou
, and subsequently moved to Metaxourgeio
, at 68 Kolonos Street, in the ground floor of an old two-storied house. His home consisted of a bedroom, a hall and a kitchen. In 1931 he married again to Marina Stamataki and had a third daughter, Artemisia-Nefeli.
It is unknown but possible that he participated in the railway workers movement and in the big strikes that broke out during that period. It is equally possible that he clashed with the leadership group of this trade-union (under the leadership of D. Stratis).
Speras wrote a History of the Working Class Movement, which unfortunately was stolen in 1957 by D. Stratis and has been missing ever since.
During his life Speras had been arrested, jailed or sent in exile 109 times. His last stint inside a jail was during the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas
, during which he spent time in the prison of the island of Skopelos
. He was released, half dead, shortly after the Greco-Italian War
was declared. His life had been saved by a doctor from Serifos
who treated him totally for free. During the Axis occupation of Greece, he was living with his family at Metaxourgeio
.
, which was a remote place outside of Athens.. "Orestis" was a pseudonym of Christos Moudrihas, a prominent KKE rank and file and one of the leaders of the communist led resistance forces
. Sensing the danger to himself, he bode farewell to his family and left off for the meeting. Shortly afterwards Moudrihas and his followers decapitated him and scattered his remains somewhere in West Attica
. The precise location remains unknown.
In his recollections, Agis Stinas wrote that the name of Speras figured in the lists of proscriptions, drawn up by OPLA, alongside those of other working class militants, members of the communist Left Opposition or anarchists who opposed the KKE. On 28 October 1943, the newspaper O Rizospastis (The Radical) - official organ of KKE to the present day - printed the following line: "...we arrested that creep Speras..."
Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
, and one of the pioneers of the working class trade-union movement in Greece. He spent the biggest part of his life in prison and in exile, totalling 109 times. Born on the island of Serifos
Serifos
Serifos is a Greek island municipality in the Aegean Sea, located in the western Cyclades, south of Kythnos and northwest of Sifnos. It is part of the Milos peripheral unit. The area is 75.207 km² and the population was 1,414 at the 2001 census. It is located about ESE of Piraeus...
, he led the island's 1916 miner's strike, took part in the founding of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), and was elected onto its Supervising Committee. He also founded the newspaper Nea Zoi, and the Independent Workers Party. He was eventually expelled from the GSEE through the actions of the Communist Party of Greece
Communist Party of Greece
Founded in 1918, the Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party on the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
(KKE), for having denounced the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
.
He was murdered in 1943 by Communist-led Greek partisans
Greek Resistance
The Greek Resistance is the blanket term for a number of armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis Occupation of Greece in the period 1941–1944, during World War II.-Origins:...
during the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II.
Family
Constantinos Speras was born in Western Lotzia on the island of SerifosSerifos
Serifos is a Greek island municipality in the Aegean Sea, located in the western Cyclades, south of Kythnos and northwest of Sifnos. It is part of the Milos peripheral unit. The area is 75.207 km² and the population was 1,414 at the 2001 census. It is located about ESE of Piraeus...
. Constantinos' father was Georgios, a seafarer by profession. His mother was Polyxeni, née Peloponnesios. He was referred to as "Kostas" or "Konstantis" among relatives and friends. One of his great grand parents was named Knomos, but due to poor records it is unknown if this was his grandfather’s or great grandfather’s name. He was adopted by Theofilos Speras, a descendant of the Phanariotes
Phanariotes
Phanariots, Phanariotes, or Phanariote Greeks were members of those prominent Greek families residing in Phanar , the chief Greek quarter of Constantinople, where the Ecumenical Patriarchate is situated.For all their cosmopolitanism and often Western education, the Phanariots were...
Sperantzas family, which had moved to the Cyclades islands
Cyclades
The Cyclades is a Greek island group in the Aegean Sea, south-east of the mainland of Greece; and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the islands around the sacred island of Delos...
from Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. In the Cyclades, the "Sperantzas" name eventually became associated with church builders.
Speras married Eleni Vardoulakis and had two daughters, Moscha, Paraskevi. He would eventually remarry to Marina Stamataki, and have a third daughter, Artemisia-Nefeli.
Early years
Raised on the island of SerifosSerifos
Serifos is a Greek island municipality in the Aegean Sea, located in the western Cyclades, south of Kythnos and northwest of Sifnos. It is part of the Milos peripheral unit. The area is 75.207 km² and the population was 1,414 at the 2001 census. It is located about ESE of Piraeus...
, Speras moved to Alexandria, Egypt, in 1907 at the age of 14. In Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, he studied in the French Collège-des-Frères (The Brothers' College). Speras’ third daughter, Artemisia-Nefeli, recalled two stories from this period in her father's life. The first was that he won a teenage swimming contest, but the headmaster presented the award to the son of a prominent family from the Greek community of Alexandria. The second was that Speras was accused of cheating during school exams, and he reacted by throwing an inkwell
Inkwell
An inkwell is a small jar or container, often made of glass, porcelain, silver, brass, or pewter, used for holding ink in a place convenient for the person who is writing...
straight at the headmaster, splitting his head open.
In Egypt he became a tobacco worker and came in contact with anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists. These were mainly Greek and Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
immigrants, who during that period were very active among the tobacco workers of Alexandria and Cairo. He traveled to many European countries and was fluent in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
. When he returned to Serifos, financial hardship forced him to sell his mother’s allotment, and he was soon immersed in intense syndicalist
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
and political activity. He was among the founding members of the Worker's Center of Athens (Ergatiko Kentro Athinas - EKA) in March 1910, and became a member of the Socialist Center of Athens (Sosialistiko Kentro Athinas) at a time when socialists of various orientations rallied behind this organization founded by Nikolaos Giannios.
In March 1914 he found himself in Kavala
Kavala
Kavala , is the second largest city in northern Greece, the principal seaport of eastern Macedonia and the capital of Kavala peripheral unit. It is situated on the Bay of Kavala, across from the island of Thasos...
, where he participated in the large tobacco workers’ strike, during which he was arrested and sent to a prison in Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
.
The 1916 Serifos miner's strike
In 1916, at the request of the local miners, he returned to Serifos, where he set up the local union, the Union of Workingmen and Miners of Serifos (Somateio Ergaton Metallefton Serifou) and became its first president. He also drafted the union’s "Constitutional Resolution", which is considered as one of the most radical and revolutionary of that period. As the union’s president, he undertook the defence of the rights of the workers against the absolutism of the mining company, which maintained very close links with the government in AthensAthens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
.
When the workers realized that their continuous posts to the Syros
Syros
Syros , or Siros or Syra is a Greek island in the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. It is located south-east of Athens. The area of the island is . The largest towns are Ermoupoli, Ano Syros, and Vari. Ermoupoli is the capital of the island and the Cyclades...
and the Athens newspapers bore no results, the historic miner's strike of 1916 broke out. The strike was brutally suppressed by royalist gendarmes, who came to the aid of the mine owners. The clashes between the miners (assisted by their families) and the troops left four workers and four gendarmes dead and dozens injured. The dead workers were Michael Zoilis, Themistoklis Kouzoupis, Michael Mitrofanis and Ioannis Protopapas.
In the wake of the strike Speras was arrested and imprisoned along with other strikers in the Syros jail. It was there that he wrote a chronicle of the events of the strike, which was published in 1919 under the title The Strike of Serifos, that is a narration of the bloody scenes of 21 August 1916 in the mines of Megalo Livadi of Serifos. In 1917 he was transferred to the jail at the Firka Fortress in Chania
Chania
Chaniá , , also transliterated Chania, Hania, and Xania, older form Chanea and Venetian Canea, Ottoman Turkish خانيه Hanya) is the second largest city of Crete and the capital of the Chania peripheral unit...
, Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
. While there, he addressed an appeal to the Labour Center of Chania (Ergatiko Kentro Chanion), seeking their support.
In August 1918, Speras in collaboration with Kostas Bastounopoulos, a moderate socialist, and others founded in the town of Ermoupoli
Ermoupoli
Ermoupoli , also known by the formal older name Ermoupolis or Hermoupolis , is a town and former municipality on the island of Syros, in the Cyclades, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Syros-Ermoupoli, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
of the Syros island, the Educative Labour Society (Morfotikos Ergatikos Omilos). The Society assisted in the publishing of the newspaper Ergatis (Worker), the organ of the Labour Center of Cyclades (Ergatiko Kentro Kykladon)
First congress of the GSEE
Speras actively participated in the fermentation that led to the foundation of the General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), representing the anarcho-syndicalist tendency. This tendency comprised a large number of delegates and its main representatives were Speras, Giannis Fanourakis, and Stavros Kouchtsoglou. Stavros Kouchtsoglou was one of the most prominent Greek anarchists of that period. He was self-taught and was very active in EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
He wrote pamphlets and articles and had personally met Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarcho-communist. He was an insurrectionary anarchist early in his life. He spent much of his life exiled from his homeland of Italy and in total spent more than ten years in prison. He wrote and edited a number of radical newspapers and was also a friend of...
.
The first congress of the GSEE was convened between October 21, and October 28 of 1918. Speras was first to address the delegates in his speech that upheld the principle of class struggle
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
. He argued that the Confederation should remain free from the influence of all political parties, and backed the anti-parliament
Hellenic Parliament
The Hellenic Parliament , also the Parliament of the Hellenes, is the Parliament of Greece, located in the Parliament House , overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece....
action of the Confederation members. These positions were in full agreement with those that the European anarcho-syndicalists would adopt five years later during the Congress of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, which convened from 22 December 1922 until 2 January 1923.
The representatives of the various socialist tendencies of the era put forward views opposed to those of Speras and the other anarcho-syndicalists. They argued in favor of the close interrelation between the GSEE and the Greek Socialist Party (Sosialistiko Komma) - which was founded a few weeks later. In this frame they presented a draft resolution, whereby the Confederation had to remain independent solely from any bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
influence. The issue was debated long and hard during the Congress and the representatives from both tendencies stood their ground doggedly. E. Delazanos– one of the delegates from the Proodos (Progress) Federation and a close ideological ally of socialist N. Giannios– addressing the Congress shortly before the voting said: "Workers beware! Do not fall for the beautiful words of the anarchists. The first instance of anarchy must be crushed. 'Outside of all politics' is an anarchist slogan, which in effect serves the interests of the bourgeoisie."
In the voting that was carried out, the authoritarian socialists’ resolution was voted 158 to 21. Speras had signed a statement issued by the Association of the Athens-Piraeus Tobacco Workers, as its secretary. However, Speras was elected member of the Supervising Committee of GSEE and his election confirmed the dynamism of the anarcho-syndicalist tendency during that period.
The foundation of SEKE
A few weeks later, on 4 November 1918, the most prominent representatives of the anarcho-syndicalist tendency participated in the founding Congress of the Socialist Worker Party of Greece (Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma Elladas; SEKE), which subsequently evolved into the Communist Party of GreeceCommunist Party of Greece
Founded in 1918, the Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party on the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
(Kommounistiko Komma Elladas; KKE).
Judging by the positions they upheld in the period from the founding Congress of the organization to the second congress, it is obvious that the anarcho-syndicalists did not oppose the creation of an independent and multifarious socialist body. It did not take long before things between the two hostile tendencies came to a head.
In March 1920, Kostas Speras participated as special secretary in the conference of miners and coal miners held in Athens, aiming at the foundation of the Miners’ Federation.
In April, 1920, the SEKE held its second congress. There Constantinos Speras and Giannis Fanourakis were expelled from the party as anti-party elements. The newspaper O Rizospastis
Rizospastis
Rizospastis is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Greece. It is published daily. It was first published in 1916. Some of the more prominent editors in it are Nikos Boyiopoulos and Liana Kanelli.-Motto:...
(The Radical) - the official organ of the Greek Communist Party - also reported an attempt to expel Speras from GSEE. However this turned out to be impossible, due to the considerable influence that Speras exerted on the Athens working class and on a large number of its delegates.
On 17 May 1920 Speras was arrested and the newspaper Kokkini Simaia (Red Flag), the organ of the Communist Organization of Athens (Kommounistiki Organosi Athinas) reported: ...to us this is an honor because our comrade is jailed for his working class ideology...
The second Congress of GSEE
In 1920, the second congress of the GSEE was convened between 30 September and 3 October. Speras participated as the secretary of the Association of Tobacco Workers of Athens (13), the anarcho-syndicalist tendency turned out particularly strong, consisting of one-third of the delegates.As soon as the Congress opened, Speras proposed the withdrawal of GSEE from the Trade-Union International of Amsterdam
International Federation of Trade Unions
The International Federation of Trade Unions was an international organization of trade unions, existing between 1919 and 1945. IFTU had its roots in the pre-war IFTU....
, a social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
organization. The opposition to this proposal came from the part of the SEKE. It must be noted though, that during that period, all the major working class anarcho-syndicalist federations were actively participating in the process of the foundation of the Comintern.
The central issue of the Congress was GSEE’s collaboration and interrelation with SEKE. Speras and the other members of the anarcho-syndicalist tendency advocated the independence of the Confederation, while the SEKE members insisted on the collaboration between the two bodies. The latter view was voted 157 to 54.
The second issue of the Congress was the question of the parity between SEKE and GSEE. The anarcho-syndicalists, through Giannis Fanourakis, argued that the two bodies (SEKE and Confederation) should be represented by an equal number of delegates, who would stand on an equal footing in all political issues. The SEKE supporters insisted that the party should assume the guiding role and in the subsequent voting they confirmed their domination with 107 delegates voting for their motion against 40. As a matter of fact, when during his address, N. Dimitratos (one of the SEKE supporters) attributed the political guiding role to SEKE and the responsibility for the trade union movement to the GSEE, Speras reacted furiously. Reading a relevant circular of the Comintern, he upheld the unified and mass character of the Confederation and denounced “those who sought to divide” the working class.
In his addresses, Speras supported the direct democratic operation of the unions. He contended that the workers should directly participate in the decision-making process through rank and file assemblies. Thus he came in direct opposition with the SEKE leadership group, who upheld that this right belonged exclusively to the industrial workers.
The contribution of the anarcho-syndicalist group in the amendment of certain statutes of the GSEE was equally important. They proposed the decentralization
Decentralization
__FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...
of the decision-making process from the Federations to the local Labour Centers. Speras also advocated that workers should be organized not in craft union federations but in unified workplace federations, a principle upheld until the present day by the anarcho-syndicalist organizations.
Nea Zoi and The Independent Workers Party
Despite his ejection from SEKE, Speras maintained his influence on the working class masses. He was elected secretary of the dynamic Federation of Tobacco Workers and induced many to abandon SEKE. Along with them, he formed a cohesive group, Nea Zoi (New Life), which in March 1921 published a bi-weekly communist newspaper under the same title.The group exerted an important influence over the working class of Athens, and Speras and Fanourakis participated in the administration of the Labour Centre of Athens (EKA) for a considerable period of time. They collaborated with other groups and organisations which had been formed in the wake of the far left’s expulsion from SEKE, such as the group Kommounismos (Communism) and the Anexartiti Kommounistiki Neolaia (Independent Communist Youth), both followers of the tenets of Bolshevism
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
.
In November 1921, following the strike called by the Federation of Tramway Workers, Speras was once again arrested and jailed in the Sygrou Prison.
In the winter of 1922 the organization Nea Zoi (New Life) founded the Independent Labour Party (Anexartito Ergatiko Komma; AEK). Similar moves by syndicalists were to take place a few years later in Europe, including the 1930 founding of the Syndicalist Party
Syndicalist Party
Syndicalist Party was a left-wing political party in Spain, formed by Ángel Pestaña in 1932. Pestaña, a leading member of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trade union, formed the party in response to the growing influence of the Iberian Anarchist Federation over the CNT...
of Spain, by Angel Pestaña
Ángel Pestaña
Ángel Pestaña Nuñez was a Spanish Anarcho-syndicalist and later Syndicalist leader.-Early life:...
, one of the leaders of the Spanish CNT.
The majority of the new party’s members were workers. The newspaper Ergatiki (Labour Gazette) reported that workers were joining the new party en masse throughout Greece. Its labour oriented character, as well as its distance from the tenets of the Comintern, were reflected in AEK’s "Declaration of Aims and Principles": The workers, through their unified confederation, over and beyond their political differences, can promote their interests.
The of AEK was dissolved in 1925, as a result of repression under the dictatorship of Theodoros Pangalos
Theodoros Pangalos (general)
Major General Theodoros Pangalos was a Greek soldier and politician. A distinguished staff officer and an ardent Venizelist and anti-royalist, Pangalos played a leading role in the September 1922 revolt that deposed King Constantine I and in the establishment of the Second Hellenic Republic...
.
Expulsion from the GSEE
On the afternoon of the fourth day of the third GSEE congress, Tuesday 30 March 1926, Speras was ejected from the GSEE despite the protests of various delegates. This had followed a relevant proposition by Tzimas, a delegate of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Avraam BenaroyaAvraam Benaroya
Avraam Eliezer Benaroya was a Bulgarian Narrow socialist, leader of the workers' movement in the Ottoman Empire and founder of the Communist Party of Greece....
, Speras’ principal opponent ever since the GSEE’s first Congress, gave testimony which characterized Speras as "an enemy of the working class," and the expulsion as "fair".
In his defense, Speras argued that the attack against himself was orchestrated by the leadership of the KKE (formerly the SEKE), and had been initiated on the second day of the Congress by the KKE delegates Giakoumatos, Marnieros and Evangelou. Speras also denounced the Communist Party for unleashing a war against him, as a result of which he could not even get a job. The reason, Speras’ claimed, was his opposition to the adhesion of the GSEE to the Comintern. Speras defended himself as an antimilitarist
Antimilitarism
Antimilitarism is a doctrine commonly found in the anarchist and, more globally, in the socialist movement, which may both be characterized as internationalist movements. It relies heavily on a critical theory of nationalism and imperialism, and was an explicit goal of the First and Second...
and countered the accusation that he was a "state agent." He denounced Evangelou (one of the leaders of KKE) for attempting to bribe his way to the post of General Secretary of the GSEE over the sum of fifty thousand drachmas promised to the Alliance of the Working Classes (a socialist grouping) via Vouros, a journalist.
This event mirrored a rift between anarchists and socialists who supported the organization. In the Moscow Congress, held in the summer of 1920, the libertarian socialist organizations withdrew and denounced the organization as a Bolshevik autocracy. In 1922 these organizations founded the IWA (AIT) in Berlin.
Final years
Little is known about Speras’ life following his ejection from the GSEE. From 1930 onwards he worked as a ticket booking clerk in the Athens-Piraeus Electric RailwaysISAP
I.S.A.P. is the acronym for the Athens-Piraeus Electric Railways , the oldest urban rapid transit system of Athens metropolitan area in Greece. It is the second-oldest underground metro system in the world, after the Metropolitan Railway, of 1863, now a part of the London Underground...
. For a brief period he resided in the area of Kolokynthou
Kolokynthou
Kolokynthou is a neighborhood of Athens, Greece....
, and subsequently moved to Metaxourgeio
Metaxourgeio
Metaxourgeio or Metaxourgio is a neighborhood of Athens, Greece. The neighborhood is located north of the historical center of Athens, between Kolonos to the east and Kerameikos to the west, and north of Gazi. Metaxourgeio is frequently described as a transition neighborhood...
, at 68 Kolonos Street, in the ground floor of an old two-storied house. His home consisted of a bedroom, a hall and a kitchen. In 1931 he married again to Marina Stamataki and had a third daughter, Artemisia-Nefeli.
It is unknown but possible that he participated in the railway workers movement and in the big strikes that broke out during that period. It is equally possible that he clashed with the leadership group of this trade-union (under the leadership of D. Stratis).
Speras wrote a History of the Working Class Movement, which unfortunately was stolen in 1957 by D. Stratis and has been missing ever since.
During his life Speras had been arrested, jailed or sent in exile 109 times. His last stint inside a jail was during the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...
, during which he spent time in the prison of the island of Skopelos
Skopelos
Skopelos , ancient Peparethos or Peparethus , is a Greek island in the western Aegean Sea. Skopelos is one of several islands which comprise the Northern Sporades island group. The island is located east of mainland Greece, northeast of the island of Euboea and is part of the Thessaly Periphery....
. He was released, half dead, shortly after the Greco-Italian War
Greco-Italian War
The Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...
was declared. His life had been saved by a doctor from Serifos
Serifos
Serifos is a Greek island municipality in the Aegean Sea, located in the western Cyclades, south of Kythnos and northwest of Sifnos. It is part of the Milos peripheral unit. The area is 75.207 km² and the population was 1,414 at the 2001 census. It is located about ESE of Piraeus...
who treated him totally for free. During the Axis occupation of Greece, he was living with his family at Metaxourgeio
Metaxourgeio
Metaxourgeio or Metaxourgio is a neighborhood of Athens, Greece. The neighborhood is located north of the historical center of Athens, between Kolonos to the east and Kerameikos to the west, and north of Gazi. Metaxourgeio is frequently described as a transition neighborhood...
.
Death
On 14 September 1943, captain Orestis summoned Speras to a meeting in the village of MandraMandra
Mandra , is a town and municipality in the central part of West Attica, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Mandra-Eidyllia, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit.Mandra is part of the Athens metropolitan area...
, which was a remote place outside of Athens.. "Orestis" was a pseudonym of Christos Moudrihas, a prominent KKE rank and file and one of the leaders of the communist led resistance forces
Greek Resistance
The Greek Resistance is the blanket term for a number of armed and unarmed groups from across the political spectrum that resisted the Axis Occupation of Greece in the period 1941–1944, during World War II.-Origins:...
. Sensing the danger to himself, he bode farewell to his family and left off for the meeting. Shortly afterwards Moudrihas and his followers decapitated him and scattered his remains somewhere in West Attica
West Attica
West Attica is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Attica. The capital of the regional unit is the town of Elefsina. The regional unit covers the western part of the agglomeration of Athens, and the area to its west....
. The precise location remains unknown.
In his recollections, Agis Stinas wrote that the name of Speras figured in the lists of proscriptions, drawn up by OPLA, alongside those of other working class militants, members of the communist Left Opposition or anarchists who opposed the KKE. On 28 October 1943, the newspaper O Rizospastis (The Radical) - official organ of KKE to the present day - printed the following line: "...we arrested that creep Speras..."
See also
- Anarchism in GreeceAnarchism in GreeceAnarchists in Greece have emerged from occasionally overlapping but mostly diverse inclinations. It is often difficult to trace the connections of the various anarchist leagues and affinity groups, as they remained mostly underground.-History:-1860-1875:...
External links
- The Serifos mines strike at E-Serifos.com.
- GSEE.gr, official website of the General Confederation of Greek Workers.