This text is part of his original scientific work under the title "The establishment of the Protection in Greece and the role of the English Party, taking into account the Geopolitics of Naval Powers in the Eastern Mediterranean Subsystem:Combined Neo-Marxist , Realist and Geopolitical Analysis", which was published four years ago in the scientific journal " Civitas Gentium " (volume 5, issue 4, 2017, pp. 73-82). His paper in question was a developed form of the speech of the same name by Dr. Ilias Iliopoulos, then Professor of the Naval War School (Navy Command-Staff School), at the SDEPN Scientific Conference on 9/6/2011 with the central theme:"1821:Historical Personalities – Critical Approach".
Written by Ilias Iliopoulos *
PART A:
The present analysis is based on a critical neo-Marxist approach, enriched with elements of the Theory of Classical Political Realism and Structural Realism/Neo-Realism as well as with the theories of the Classical Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical School about the power competition of Land/Continental Powers, since one, and Naval Forces, on the other. The term “Protection » has a double meaning, namely:
- from one side of the pairing of the maritime and coastal state of Southern Greece in the chariot of the so-called Protecting Forces – M. of Britain, France and Russia (especially the first , as Hegemonic Mediterranean and World Naval Power ),
- on the other hand, of structural, permanent dependence of the Greek ethnocratic social formation from the capitalist imperialist metropolis , as part of the Region of the latter.
The analysis starts from the logical starting point that the reason for the dependence of the Greek state is not arose as a direct, natural, consequence of the interaction of the incomplete endogenous accumulation of capital in Greece and the influence of metropolitan capitalism. On the contrary, the foundations of the Protection were already laid during the Great Greek Revolution. In this case, the role of that allied class formation was crucial , belonging to Kotzabasis , Compradoron and Phanariotes, which was to establish social hegemony of the state under formation.
Note that the Ottoman system is punishment, as opposed to feudal of the West – Karols Marx he talks about "Asian mode of production." (Marx, Karl, Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ö konomie , Rohentwurf, Berlin, DDR [Berlin, German Democratic Republic], 1974, pp. 375-413).
He is also dominant, qualitatively different from the Western absolutist system – hence the observation of Karol Marx and Frederick Engels about the Ottoman system as an «eastern despotism » (orientalische). Despotie ) but also the relevant opinion of the historian Nikos Psyroukis about Ottoman predatory military feudalism ( see in this regard Psyroukis, Nikos, Historical Site and Greece , Nicosia, 1993, reprint).
Regarding, specifically, the role of the Phanariots, "the Phanariot element was completely integrated into the structures of the (Ottoman) system » (Filia, Vassili I., Society and power in Greece:1. Illegal urbanization 1800-1864 , Gutenberg – Athens, 1991, p. 32). Within this system, the role of the Phanariot stratum is "parasitic, auxiliary and dependent" (above, p. 38) – this, it should be noted, does not change as a result of the Turkish occupation.
The widespread belief in the existence of an alleged authentic not but also thriving Greek bourgeoisie – whose main exponent in the institutional/political superstructure is actually the "English Party" » (and the great Alexander Mavrokordatus) – it comes down to a misreading of Ottoman history, sociology and political science and, subsequently, to an examination of the history of the Greek ethnicity, cut off from the contained social structure and the functional implications, which depend on this structure.
Undeniably, the gradual and partial subjugation of the Ottoman – and subsequently also the Greek – Space to the periphery of European capitalism led to the emergence of a class structure of prosperous Greek merchants and shipowners , who accumulated capital in the context of Euro-Ottoman transactions. However, due to a) the nature of the Ottoman tax system , b) of the suburban orientation of the Greek merchants and traders, typical for the East but also c) of geography of the Hellenic Metropolitan Historic Area (geography favoring fragmentation and suspending the creation of a single internal market) the objective conditions were absent conversion of primarily of accumulated capital in industrial capital , with the first remaining, therefore, commodity and transactional.
Considering, however, that Marx defines the appearance of an internal market (Binnemarkt). ) as an essential condition of a primary accumulation of capital and, as a consequence, industrialization (see Marx, Karl, „Das Kapital“, Bd. 1, in:Marx – Engels – Werke , Bd. 23, Berlin, DDR, 1972, pp. 773-777, as well as Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , p. 411), the absence of an extensive and continuous internal market in Greece was directly related to the prevailing conditions in the countryside, which were pre-capitalist , except not feudal , in the sense that the term has in the European Middle Ages. Consider, in general terms, the agricultural sector (where the vast majority of Greeks were employed) was, pre-revolutionary, an almost self-sufficient economic Space. Rightly, therefore, the sociological study decided, on the basis of the historical research, that "without sufficient foundation it was argued that in the markets of the Ottoman Empire a numerous class of Greeks has been born, who not only survive from trade, but also have acquired such decisive importance as a social group that their further development is impossible without the overthrow of existing structures [of Ottoman power]". (Filias, supra note, p. 45).
The socio-political body of the Great Greek Revolution was the alliance of the rural population, the broad mass of small-scale farmers, with the majority of the petty-bourgeois (small-scale artisans, artisans) and the – clearly fewer in number, but active – enlightened urban nationalist elements> (as expressed by the Friendship). ). Especially the peasant class , I was also the obviously vast majority of the Greek people – brought together by the small owners types of state/sultan lands , the farmers on lease and cultivators of waqf/ecclesiastical lands on lease – suffered badly due to overtaxation , in which the Ottomans advanced (central administration and local satraps) but also the Christian dignitaries and provosts cooperating with them , who had acquired de facto , although not de jure , large landed property (kotjabasides). ). Reasonably, therefore, the peasants expected the cultivation of the land and an end to the social impoverishment, to which they considered themselves condemned from generation to generation.
However, for reasons that have been sufficiently explained in the scientific literature, another hegemonic alliance emerged as the victorious social group from the revolution (in other words:social oligarchy ) co-opted by:
– the class of kotjabasis (a comparatively small class, but rich and possessing many privileges),
– the administrative bureaucracy (consisting mainly of Phanariote scholars high-ranking officials of the Divanion and acting regional governors in non-Greek provinces of the Empire) and
– a (small and not particularly developed as a class, but powerful) group of wealthy merchants and shipowners , some of which were installed within of the Metropolitan Greek Historic Site (primarily in Hydra ), but others had their interests on the fringes or outside of Ottoman territory.
The Greek "oligarchy" should be perceived less as a ruling "class", in the authentic sense of the term, and rather as a hegemonic class-social formation, a Hegemonic Alliance (Herrschaftsb). ü ndnis ) individual privileged classes or class formations. In this regard, only partially and abusively can we talk about civil order . On the contrary, in the Greek case we have rather a political coalition of interests , consisting of combradors , the kotzabasides and the traffic light , mainly, ruling bureaucratic elite (which will then expand with the "elected" political staff of the Greek state formation).
Intrasystemic prevalence of this hegemonic class formation was clearly favored, to the maximum, by the changed course of English policy on the Eastern Question – and, for that matter, on the Greek Question – after the military accomplishments of the first two years of the Revolution - and as a result of these. This is where the famous "legitimizing power of the deed came into play » (Die). normative Kraft des Faktischen ) in relation to major geostrategic necessities of the hegemonic Naval Power, of Great Britain (see in this regard Iliopoulos, Ilias, "The establishment of the Protection in Greece and the role of the English Party, taking into account the Geopolitics of Naval Forces in the Eastern Mediterranean subsystem:Combined Neo-Marxist, Realist and Geopolitical Analysis", in Civitas Gentium , volume 5, issue 4, 2017, pp. 73-82).
I explain:"Greece occupies a critical geostrategic position on the Rimland (to speak in terms of the classic Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical School) i.e. the Perimeter Zone , of the Ring of Earth around of the solid land Eurasian mass – especially in the geostrategically most important area of the Dardanelle Straits , of the Hellenic Archipelago and the Aemos Peninsula , whose area's major geostrategic function is and must always be, from the point of view of the Anglo-Saxon Naval Forces, the stable and permanent deterrent to the possible exit/decline of the Great Eurasian Land Power , of Russia, to the warm seas, to the North" (Iliopoulos, ibid.). «Rubicon of Russia » characterized the Straits by the British Minister of the Navy, during the Crimean War, Lord Graham .
It is recalled that, after the second and final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo (1815) and, subsequently, the dishonor of death for the very risk of the appearance of a geopolitically unified continental European Space under French hegemony , Great Britain she now devoted her attention, during most of the 19 th century, in dealing with the new emerging major geopolitical rival, the Continental/Eurasian Power Russia (ora Iliopoulos, Ilias, History, Geography and Strategy of Naval Power. An Introduction to the Fundamental Concepts , Athens:Livanis, 2010, pp. 47 et seq.), in order to prevent the possible descent of Russia into the Straits and her subsequent exit to the Aegean and in the Mediterranean , a fact which would lead to the emergence of Greater Hersaia By virtue of and in Navy Power, with critical consequences for England's position as Sovereign of the Seas and, therefore, Hegemonic Power of the international system (Iliopoulos, self).
Hence "the (admittedly impressive) persistence of London." in the doctrine of preserving the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, instead of any price for the Christian peoples of the Empire , according to Edgar Hoesch » (see Hösch, Edgar, Geschichte der Balkanländer; Von der Frühzeit bis zur Gegenwart, München, 1988, pp. 114 et seq., and Iliopoulos, 2010, p. 48), the consequent "politico-diplomatic (and, when necessary, military) support to the High Gate but also strong interest of London for carrying out institutional reforms and for the project of "Europeanization ” or “westernization » of the Ottoman State throughout the 19 th century" (Iliopoulos, int. op.). The formulation and enforcement of the "Reforms" (of the "Tanzimat ») in the Ottoman Empire, from 1839 to 1877, was perceived by the British rulers as the best means to ensure Ottoman state cohesion and stability and, by extension, the avoidance of ethno-political fragmentation of the hibernating Empire among the "awakening" nations - Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, Armenians, etc. (self).
Proseti, "Greece's geostrategic position acquires added value , product of the 19 th century, as far as it lies on the maritime communication routes of the Mediterranean and World Naval Forces, and in particular on the water freight channel to India – the legendary Diamond of the British Crown" (Iliopoulos, 2017, int. op.). In the light of the aforementioned major strategic imperatives – in conjunction with the emerging military facts on the ground in 1821 and 1822 of Southern Greece – it quickly became prohibitive for the maritime power to continue an absolutely hostile policy towards the Greek revolutionaries.
Old Albion was "obliged to hit the stern, order:
- prevent Russian influence and infiltration in the emerging state formation
- to give it the desired political sign
- and to determine the context and limits of power of the new ethnocratic strategic actor" (Iliopoulos, 2017, int. op.).
In this case, the role of the so-called English Party was decisive and – in measure we accept, along the reasoning of the leading Swiss historian Carl Christoph Jacob Burckhardt , that specific personalities exert an influence on the shaping of historical development – it can be argued that the role of Alexander Mavrokordatus was fatal , openly in favor of sticking to the English bandwagon, "under the polished surface of the need for Europeanization ", in the words of Tassos Lignadis (Lignadis, Tassos, Foreign dependence during the course of the new Greek state 1821-1945. Political Formation - National Land - Lending , Athens, 1975, p. 23).
Alexander Nikolaou Mavrokordatos , born in 1791 in Constantinople, received an education befitting a scion of a distinguished Phanariot family of the time. After his studies in Italy, he was appointed, in 1812, to the office of the Hegemony of Wallachia, ruler of his uncle (Karatzas). In 1818, Mavrokordatos leaves again for Italy, to Pisa. He forms the "Circle of Pisa" and joins the Philiki Etairia. After the outbreak of the Great Greek Revolution of 1821, he arrived in Messolonghi, and since then he has been engaged in a relentless and hard-working effort to organize the political organization of the Revolution and, at the same time, to attach the Greek case to British interests (Iliopoulos, 2017, int. op.).
Scholarly, highly intelligent, resourceful, experienced in matters of state bureaucracy and gifted with a proven diplomatic ability, Mavrokordatos quickly became a pole of attraction and at the same time a point of reference for the social forces, which would form the hegemonic class alliance of the newly formed Greek state. Μετ’ ου πολύ, εκλέγεται Πρόεδρος της 1 ης εν Επιδαύρω Εθνοσυνελεύσεως και συνακολούθως επικεφαλής του Εκτελεστικού, ήτοι Πρόεδρος της Κυβερνήσεως. Διαπρύσιος θιασώτης του αγγλικού προσανατολισμού, θα έλθει σε οξεία σύγκρουση προς τους Υψηλάντες , τον Θεόδωρο Κολοκοτρώνη και, βεβαίως, τον Ιωάννη Καποδίστρια , υπέρ της ανατροπής του οποίου θα εργασθεί συστηματικώς. Μετέπειτα, επί βασιλείας Όθωνος , θα διατελέσει πολλάκις Υπουργός, Πρέσβυς, Αντιπρόεδρος της Βουλής, μετά την ούτω καλουμένη «Επανάσταση της 3 ης Σεπτεμβρίου 1843», και Πρωθυπουργός, θα συγκρουσθεί δε επανειλημμένως με τον Άνακτα, οσάκις ο τελευταίος θα αποπειραθεί να αποστεί της αγγλικής πολιτικής, στρεφόμενος προς την Ρωσσία. Ο Μαυροκορδάτος απεβίωσε στην Αίγινα το 1865 (Ηλιόπουλος, 2017, ένθ. ανωτ.).
Συνεπεία της προαναφερθείσης αγγλικής μεταστροφής – και «μολονότι ήταν η Ρωσσία του Τσάρου Νικολάου Α΄ η Δύναμις η οποία τροχιοδρόμησε την σειρά εκείνη των διπλωματικών και στρατιωτικών ενεργειών, που τελικώς οδήγησαν στην θετική (μερικώς έστω) έκβαση της Ελληνικής Επαναστάσεως» (Ηλιόπουλος, 2017, ένθ. ανωτ.) – κατά μίαν αξιοπερίεργη ειρωνεία της Ιστορίας, η στρατιωτική ανάμειξη των Τριών Δυνάμεων (Ναυμαχία Ναυαρίνου , Οκτώβριος 1827) έμελλε τελικώς να οδηγήσει σε ένα καθεστώς διαρκούς παρεμβατισμού (και στρατιωτικού) εκ μέρους των Δυτικών Δυνάμεων (Ηλιόπουλος, αυτόθι) – και εδώ εννοείται κυρίως η Μ. Βρεταννία, ενίοτε συνεπικουρουμένη και υπό της Γαλλίας – δοθέντος μάλιστα ότι, «μετά την εξόντωση του Καποδιστρίου, η Ρωσσία βαθμηδόν εξοστρακίσθηκε ως στρατηγικός δρων από τα ελληνικά πράγματα , ολοσχερώς δε μετά την ανατροπή του Όθωνος, το 1862» (αυτόθι). ΑΚΟΛΟΥΘΕΙ ΤΟ “ΜΕΡΟΣ Β”