Dictatorship and the idiom of the "New State"

During its four-year lifetime, the authoritarian Regime of Ioannis Metaxas did not enjoy the mass approval that similar regimes had enjoyed in other European countries (Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, etc.). Nevertheless, in the 1930s a relatively large number of Greek politicians and intellectuals turned to 'Fascist' ideological pursuits. Examples of this idiom have left their mark on the areas of (for instance) political analysis and economic management.

The peculiar demagogy of the 'First Governor' - as he called himself - in the field of domestic policy included a series of totalitarian elements, motalizing and moderate socialist views. At the same time, and to the extent that the idiom of the Regime presupposed the silence of 'others', propaganda and censorship exchanged roles in an attempt to consolidate the 'New State'. Naturally, the violent suppression of every opposing voice complemented the range of his political practices. The most consistent features governing the state idiom of the period 1936-40, which was pompoius in all other respects, were anti-Parliamentarism and anti-Communism.