Avraam Benaroya - Benaroya Approaches The Democratic Union

Benaroya Approaches The Democratic Union

After a historic meeting with Venizelos, Benaroya's tactical abilities resulted in the birth of the Socialist Labour Party of Greece and the General Confederation of Greek Workers, which helped unite Greek workers.

Government persecution of the new movement led to a general strike in 1919. Subsequently social and political polarization, as well as the prestige of the newborn Soviet Union, strengthened the radicals and before long the party was affiliated to the Leninist Third International. The Labour Centre of Salonica, another creation of Benaroya's, which united more than twelve thousand workers of all nationalities, a good part of them Jews, became the focus of radical socialism. The fall of the Venizelos government and the war in Anatolia fuelled even more dissent, leading to anti-war riots. In the wake of these developments Benaroya, thrown in prison again, as well as most of the leading members of the party, were marginalized by the radicals. On the other hand moderate socialists under Alexandros Papanastasiou started preparing their own revolution: their primary aim was now to overthrow the Greek monarchy.

In 1922 the Greek army was defeated by the Kemalists and a military revolution ensued that deposed King Constantine. The new government undertook many reforms, notably the distribution of big estates to peasants, but after a general strike, workers were violently suppressed. A little later, in December 1923, Benaroya, who preferred social-democratic organizational models and opposed bolshevisation, was expelled from the Communist Party of Greece and was obliged to quit the editorship of Avanti. Afterwards he focused his action on Thessaloniki's Jewish community, and participated in a splinter group that—with help from Papanastasiou, then Prime Minister—tried unsuccessfully to split the Communist Party. At that time he and Papanastasiou agreed on the need for reforms and not revolution, and on the priority of abolishing the monarchy. An equally urgent imperative, though, was combating the racism and anti-Semitism.

Benaroya remained politically active after 1924 but as he stayed outside the principal political formations of the left, the communists and Papanastasiou's socialists, his capacity for action was increasingly restricted. In Thessaloniki he had a difficult life, especially after the Liberals' nationalist turn, by the end of the 1920s, and the repeated coups d' État of 1935 that destroyed the Republic as well as the hopes of the democratic left. In the 1940s he lost a son in the war against Mussolini, survived the German concentration camps, and led a small socialist party after his return to Greece. He went to live in Israel in 1953, to Holon where he ran a small newspaper kiosk. He died in 1979, aged ninety two, in utter poverty.