Yes, there are still communists in Greece, and many support the possible Greek exit (or “Grexit”) from the eurozone.
CNBC’s chief international correspondent Michelle Caruso-Cabrera said on June 30 she found it “hard to believe” there were still communists in Greece, then played an interview with one of “many” communist protesters at an anti-euro rally. She challenged the protester to explain why he thought communism would “work now,” given its failure in countries like the USSR and Cuba. He responded by blaming the communist “bureaucratic elite” for taking power “back from the people.”
“It’s not that communism is inherently flawed. It’s that the bureaucrats ruined it,” Caruso-Cabrera jokingly summarized for Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen.
Apparently the communist protesters failed to see any irony in the big government and heavy entitlement spending that had largely precipitated the Greek debt crisis. The nation’s “ever-growing government and ever-increasing dependency” and its “spending spree” over the last decade led to the country’s current fiscal problems, according to Cato Senior Fellow Daniel Mitchell.
During the 1940s, the Greek Communist Party attempted to take over the country, but lost the civil war in 1949. 80,000 people died and 700,000 were displaced, according to the Cold War Museum.
