The Crisis of the Dictatorships. Nicos Poulantzas
balance, however, taking the points so far made into consideration, it is clear that there is no question at the present time of Europe actually ‘freeing’ itself from an international strategy and a military alliance under the hegemony of the United States, particularly as there is not even a unified European position on these questions, but that what is involved is rather the acquisition of a certain margin of manoeuvre under this hegemony. The result of this is that Europe did not intervene actively for the overthrow of these military dictatorships allegedly ‘exclusively tied’ in this respect to the United States; the declarations of sympathy expressed by the French government after Greece left the NATO military organization (and in a manner that was more formal than anything else, at that) should not give rise to any illusions on this score. This is firstly because the present European governments, while systematically rejecting a policy of disarmament, are far from being able to effectively relieve American power in these countries. It is also because of the fear of the European bourgeoisies that an uncontrollable process might be set under way, leading to an eventual ‘neutrality’ of the countries affected, and thus considerably weakening NATO as a whole. Finally, and this particularly concerns the military regimes in these countries, if these regimes and their armies formed or still form major components of the American military deployment in Europe (Spain included), and are closely dependent on the United States, they were never mere pawns or stooges of American diplomatic and military strategy. A patent example of this is the overtly pro-Arab diplomacy of the Greek junta and the Franco regime, which bears on the specific interests of the bourgeoisies of these countries on the African continent.
The contradictions between the United States and Europe in this field, and those within NATO in particular, did play a certain role in the overthrow or modification of these regimes, but this too is a role expressed in a particular fashion. These contradictions were reflected in the internal contradictions within the state apparatuses, and particularly within the army, which was always the principal apparatus for these regimes. This gave rise to internal divisions in the military apparatus between various groups and factions, certain of these upholding an indefatigable Atlanticism, others, on the other hand, standing for a diplomatic and military strategy more independent from the strict economic and political interests of the United States. These internal contradictions are manifest today in the armies of all European countries (we need only recall the debates on military strategy within the French army), and in the cases we are dealing with here they have had a considerable effect. Since the army functions as the bourgeoisie’s de facto political party, in those countries where formalized political parties are banned by the military dictatorship, the contradictions within the bourgeoisie between capital with a European strategy and capital completely subordinated to the United States have been expressed in the army with particular intensity. The internal struggles of these fractions, especially those bearing on the role and function of NATO, have been particularly intense in the Greek, Portuguese and Spanish military apparatuses, and this contributed to the characteristic instability of the Greek and Portuguese regimes in their final phase.
After these remarks, which were intended both to demonstrate the primacy of ‘internal factors’ over ‘external factors’ and to demarcate the role of internal contradictions within the dictatorships’ apparatuses as regards their overthrow or decay, we must now examine the specific strategy followed by the United States vis-à-vis these regimes.
Here, too, it is necessary to guard against simplistic explanations. It is too clear to require any emphasis here that the United States has systematically and constantly supported these military regimes. In the Greek case, it even played a major role in its installation. But it would be equally false to draw the conclusion that the overthrow or decay of these regimes has proceeded despite or against the ‘will’ of the United States, as to believe the opposite conclusion that this has taken place at the United States’ direct instigation. Because of the circumstances in which the change of regime took place, this second error has been particularly committed in the case of Greece. Several sectors of European public opinion saw Kissinger as sending Karamanlis back to Greece in order to democratize a regime that had become inconvenient, while the Communist Party of the Exterior and Andreas Papandreou also saw here at first the hand of the Americans, in their view however seeking to perpetuate ‘monarchofascism’ under a new facade.
Both these explanations neglect the specific weight of the internal factors, and in over-estimating the role of the United States, they also fail to recognize the specific orientation of American policy.
1. The United States certainly does have a global strategy in the present phase of imperialism, but it does not have just one single tactic; it rather has several tactics. The United States has a long experience in repressing the peoples of different countries, and in its role as gendarme of the Western bourgeoisies: it does not put all its eggs into one basket, and as far as strategy is concerned, does not stake everything on one single card.
The United States in fact always keeps several different cards in hand. Certainly, these cards are not all of equal value, and it prefers some of them to others; but it can often play different cards simultaneously. American strategy can therefore adapt itself to several possible solutions in the countries in its zone of dependence.
This is particularly clear in the scenario that took place in Greece, but it is equally so up to now in Portugal, or in the process now taking place in Spain. In Greece we have the following alternatives, in order of their preference by the United States:
(i) support almost to the end of the military dictatorship, though as this decayed it became less and less secure a war-horse in its specific form;
(ii) solution of an evolution of the dictatorship towards a ‘legal’ facade, which failed under Markezinis/Papadopoulos in 1973, but which could have been tried again;
(iii) solution of a more major political change, but one in which the military apparatus continued to maintain certain ‘reserved domains’;
(iv) Karamanlis solution;
(v) Kanellopoulos, a figure of the liberal right, far more open to the resistance organizations than Karamanlis;
(vi) solution of a transitional government under the aegis of the centre, with a vaguely right social-democratic character of the present German type; etc.
Analogous scenarios could be drawn up as far as Portugal is concerned, from support for the hard core of the dictatorship, through Caetano-ism with a liberal facade, through to and including a certain form of Spinola-ism or centrist government (viz. the ambiguity of American policy even after the fall of Spinola). In Spain, too, the different options could be listed.
It is true, certainly, that not all these solutions are supported by the United States with the same intensity, neither with the same constancy or by the same means; the United States attitude, confronted by a number of possible solutions that are ‘acceptable’, ranges from various degrees of support to the more or less passive acceptance of solutions that it considers the lesser evil – up to the point of a certain break. But this in itself shows how simplistic it is to view every change in the dependent countries that does not pass this breaking-point as due or at least corresponding to a conscious and unambiguous act of will on the part of the United States. To say that in Greece, for example, the Karamanlis solution corresponds to American ‘intentions’ is at the same time both true and false, in so far as this solution is for the United States simply one card among others, both ahead and behind certain others in its order of preference.
This polyvalent tactic of the United States is analogous to the similar tactic of the bourgeoisie in general as regards the forms of its political domination over the popular masses (the extreme case of a social-democratic government, for example, being pursued or at least tolerated by the bourgeoisies according to circumstances), and has both its advantages and its disadvantages. On the one hand, it enables the United States to perpetuate its domination under various forms that are adaptable to the concrete circumstances. On the other hand, forced as it is to multiply its tactics, and given the major weight of the internal factors in each country and above all that of the struggles of the popular masses, the risks of a skid, or total loss of control of a solution originally judged acceptable or even desirable, are many times greater. It frequently happens, then, in the present phase of