economic problems: american intervention

For the greek people the years after World War II were a repetition of a previous experience. In 1918 the war ended for most of Europe, but the Greek army fought almost continuously until 1922. Again, although continental Europe was at peace in May 1945, the Greeks were engaged in a bitter civil war until 1949. Both periods resulted in a massive resettlement and a disturbance of Greek population patterns. In the 1920s, as a result of the Anatolian disaster and the exchange of populations, approximately 1.3 million Greeks found new homes. The civil war after 1946 created a group of around 700,000 refugees, who had to be either returned to their villages or given other employment. Those who owned their own farms or workshops had the least trouble in resuming a normal existence. Many never returned to their poverty-stricken mountain homes: some emigrated; others moved into the cities.

World War II and the civil war had, of course, caused enormous economic destruction. Moreover, wartime conditions had intensified the basic economic problems, which have been discussed previously. The limited amount of arable land and the lack of many of the basic requirements for an industrial economy remained the great impediments to Greek economic progress. In 1950 agriculture was still the major employment of half of the Greek population. As previously, the fragmentation of individual holdings, caused primarily by inheritance customs, made the introduction of modern methods difficult.