The Panhellenic Socialist Movement

Abstract

Three families of parties structured the Greek party system of the post-civilwar period (1949–67): the right, an ideologically ultra-conservative force; the centre, the 'soft structure' of the system with a rather centre-right ideological orientation; and the third pole, the communist left, which emerged in a weakened state due to its defeat in the civil war. The distinctive trait of the politics of this period was the absence of a socialist or social-democratic pole.The left was identified to such a degree with the communist tradition that in the everyday political vocabulary the term 'left' clearly designated the communist left. The founding, therefore, of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in 1974 and its dynamic presence on the Greek political scene constituted a significant change in the continuity of the Greek political arena. Modern centre for some (continuation of the old Centre Union), a prototype of a populist party for others, an idiosyncratic social democracy in Greek colours for yet others, PASOK was all of these in turn and simultaneously. Atthe same time it was more than their sum total: PASOK is in fact a party of many faces.