Cretan-homes, Crete property estate agents

The Athens Polytechnic Uprising,1973

by Yiannis Samatas from Explore Crete.

November 17, the day of the anti-dictatorship uprising of the students of Greece

The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to nearly an open anti-junta revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November 17 after a series of events starting with a tank crashing through the gates of the Polytechnic.

The students uprising on 17 November 1973 was the turning-point of Papadopoulos' dictatorship in Greece from 1967 to 1973. Although the students did not actually overthrow the regime, the intense and persistent reaction, the new voice heard from the Polytechnic and the earlier Law School sit-in, shook the Junta to its rotten core.

Greece had been, since April 21, 1967, under the dictatorial rule of the military, a regime which abolished civil rights, dissolved political parties and exiled, imprisoned and tortured politicians and citizens based on their political beliefs.

Despite the harsh repressive measures of the military Junta during the seven-year dictatorship of 1967-1973 in Greece - the imprisonments, displacements, mass trials in emergency courts-martial, torture, mock executions and murders - popular demonstrations against the regime continued throughout the dictatorship, with young people always playing a leading part.

On February 21, 1973 law students went on strike and barricaded themselves inside the buildings of the Law School of the university of Athens in the centre of Athens, demanding repeal of the law that imposed forceful drafting of "subversive youths", as 88 of their colleagues had been forcefully drafted. The police were ordered to intervene and many students were reportedly subjected to police brutality. The events at the Law School are often cited as the prelude to the Polytechnic uprising.

On 14 November 1973, students at the National Technical University of Athens (also known as the Athens Polytechnic or Polytechneion) went on strike and started protesting against the military regime. There was no response so the students barricaded themselves in and built a radio station (using materials from the laboratories) that repeatedly broadcasted across Athens: "Here is Polytechneion! People of Greece, the Polytechneion is the flag bearer of our struggle and your struggle, our common struggle against the dictatorship and for democracy!"

This demonstration which is coordinated with occupations of campuses in Patras and Thessaloniki, turns into a student rebellion that gathers strength every day as more and more people join, some students but many working class and the well-educated.

By late Friday, 16 November, thousands of people were filling the area stretching from Panepistimiou Street all the way to the Alexandras Avenue intersection. Witness accounts disagree as to which end of Patission Street the teargas canisters came from but the asphyxiating fumes had already started to terrify the crowd into headlong flight even before the first tanks appeared on Patission Street from the direction of Alexandras Avenue.

On Saturday November 17 the first tanks appear shortly after midnight, while more and more dead and injured are taken to the makeshift hospital in the Polytechnic. By 1 a.m. the Polytechnic has been surrounded by tanks. The radio station and loudspeakers call, “Don’t be afraid of the tanks”, “Down with fascism”, “Soldiers, we are your brothers. Don’t become murderers”. At 1:30 the tanks set off with their headlamps on. The students cling to the gates, singing the national anthem and calling to the solders, “We are brothers”.

The army gives the people inside 20 minutes’ notice to get out, while a tank takes up position near the main gate. The Coordinating Committee tries to negotiate the students’ safe exit.

At 2:50 a.m. the commanding officer waves the tank forward. The gates fall and the tank continues up to the steps of the “Averoff” building. It is followed by men of the security forces and the army Special Forces. Shots are fired. Some soldiers help the students escape, but plain-clothes policemen are waiting at the exits. By 3:20 there is no-one left in the Polytechnic.

The people of Greece every November 17 honor the 1973 student uprising and protest against the US imposed dictatorship by marching from the Polytechnic to the US embassy. November 17th is currently a school holiday in Greece. Schools and universities stay closed during the day. The central location for the commemoration is the campus of the Polytechnic School of Athens. The campus is closed on the 15th, and students and politicians lay wreaths on a monument within the Polytechneio on which the names of Polytechnic students killed during the Greek Resistance in the 1940s are inscribed. The commemoration day ends with a demonstration that begins from the campus of the Polytechnic and ends at the United States embassy.

Read more about the Athens Polytechinc uprising on November 17, 1973 against the Greek Junta.