Η Μεταπολίτευση που δεν έγινε: μια προσπάθεια κριτικής επανεξέτασης του "πειράματος Μαρκεζίνη"

Abstract

In order to re-examine the failed attempt of self-transformation of the dictatorship of the colonels in 1973 into some form of democracy, an attempt which is better remembered since then as ‘the Markezinis experiment’, the article uses the notion of regime dispensability as a theoretical framework and tries to apply it to the historical experience of Greece in 1973. After looking concisely at the nature of the dictatorial regime, the interregime conflicts, and its relation with the anti- elites and the civil society, it then proceeds to the analysis of the reasons for which, in its view, the regime had indeed become in 1973, contrary to what is believed since then, “dispensable” for Papadopoulos. It also tries to explain the reasons why not only did such an arrangement not come true, but the country fell back to authoritarianism, a development that no one among the participants was ironically wishing for in the beginning. It pinpoints some errors and shortcomings of the protagonists Papadopoulos-Markezinis in the planning of the transition, but also a lack of realism and an inexplicable intransigence on behalf of the pre-dictatorial political elites that rejected the opening of the regime without offering, in the particular conjunction of 1973, any alternative solutions.