A Fateful Meeting in Moscow
On the evening of October 9, 1944, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in Moscow during what would become one of the most consequential – yet least discussed – diplomatic encounters of World War II. Unlike the famous “Big Three” conferences at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam, this meeting occurred without American participation. President Roosevelt, though absent, sent urgent telegrams insisting any agreements must be made jointly by all three leaders. Undeterred, Churchill drafted what he later called a “naughty document” – a single sheet of paper dividing postwar influence in Eastern Europe into percentages.
The handwritten note proposed Soviet dominance in Romania (90%), Bulgaria (75%), and equal shares in Hungary and Yugoslavia (50% each). Only Greece fell clearly under Western influence, with Britain (and America) allotted 90% control. Stalin famously marked his approval with a large blue checkmark. This seemingly casual exchange would shape the fate of millions for decades to come.
Britain’s Strategic Obsession With Greece
British interest in Greece stemmed from its crucial position overlooking the Eastern Mediterranean and proximity to the Suez Canal. Churchill had risked disastrous military intervention in 1941 when Germany invaded Greece. By October 1944, British forces were again landing in the Peloponnese, just days before the Moscow meeting. Stalin’s blue checkmark merely acknowledged reality: British troops were already marching toward Athens.
However, Britain faced significant challenges establishing control. The communist-led National Liberation Front (EAM) and its military wing, the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS), had liberated most of Greece from German occupation before British arrival. These resistance groups, loyal to Stalin, enjoyed far greater popular support than British-backed alternatives. Had Stalin ordered a communist takeover, ELAS could likely have succeeded, especially with Soviet forces approaching Greece’s northern border.
The Communist Resistance Dilemma
Greek communists found themselves in a paradoxical position similar to their French and Italian counterparts. Despite leading the most effective resistance movement, they faced exclusion from postwar power. At a heated 1944 Central Committee meeting, EAM Secretary Thanasis Hadzis protested: “We cannot follow two lines, we must make our own choice.” Many resistance fighters believed Britain aimed to install a puppet regime, continuing Germany’s colonial-style domination.
Tensions escalated rapidly after liberation. British commanders distrusted the guerrillas, while ELAS members grew suspicious as Britain protected former Nazi collaborators and appointed anti-communist officials to key positions. The American ambassador noted Britain treated Greece “like natives under British rule in India.”
December 1944: The Spark Ignites
On December 3, 1944, police fired on protesters in Athens’ Syntagma Square, killing at least 10. This triggered urban warfare between ELAS and British forces – the only instance in Western Europe where Allied troops fought resistance fighters. Churchill authorized treating Athens “as a conquered city.” British artillery shelled working-class neighborhoods, and RAF planes strafed ELAS positions, causing civilian casualties that turned public opinion against Britain. One wounded Athenian remarked: “We used to like the British, but now we know the Germans were gentlemen.”
The conflict escalated into class warfare. British forces detained 15,000 leftists while guerrillas took bourgeois hostages, executing hundreds in reprisal killings. By February 1945, both sides exhausted, they signed the Varkiza Agreement. ELAS disbanded, but right-wing militias soon launched a “White Terror” against former resistance members, making civil war inevitable.
The Greek Civil War’s Brutal Legacy
When communists boycotted 1946 elections, royalists secured victory, leading to King George II’s return. Persecution of leftists intensified, with official statistics recording 1,192 murders and 159 rapes by right-wing groups in 1945 alone. By 1946, former ELAS fighters regrouped as the Democratic Army, beginning a three-year civil war that killed over 50,000.
The conflict’s conclusion saw shocking judicial double standards. While few Nazi collaborators faced punishment, Greece executed over 2,500 leftists between 1946-1949. By 1945’s end, nearly 49,000 former resistance members were imprisoned – some remaining jailed into the 1960s. Astonishingly, postwar laws declared ELAS “enemies of the state” while granting pensions to men who had fought alongside the Nazis.
Launching the Cold War
Greece’s civil war fundamentally shaped the emerging Cold War. When Britain could no longer fund Greece’s anti-communist government, America intervened, announcing the Truman Doctrine in March 1947. This policy of “containment” led directly to the Marshall Plan, dividing Europe economically and politically. Stalin responded by creating the Cominform, tightening Soviet control over European communist parties.
The percentages agreement’s legacy proved enduring. Churchill and Stalin’s handwritten deal not only determined Greece’s tragic postwar path but helped define the ideological battle lines that would split Europe for nearly half a century. What began as a “naughty document” in Moscow became the blueprint for the Cold War’s southern frontier.