I SEE SOME COMMENTATORS have been surprised and hurt at
the big increase in the pro-Communist party's vote in the Greek elections. Surely the explanation is simple : the Greeks were told all about the kindly treatment of their fellow- countrymen in Russia, and contrasted it with our behaviour in Cyprus. It is perhaps too little known that a %tarter of a million Greeks used to live in the Crimea, the Ukraine and the Caucasus, on and off since pre-Christian times. In 1937 Stalin recognised their services to his country by finding thousands of them fresh homes in other parts of Russia (incidentally relieving the economic burden of those who were left behind; Greek schools, churches, etc., which they had had to support, could be closed as redundant). Those who re- mained, too, were encouraged to become Soviet citizens, and it is significant that most of them were very quick to do so. Such was Stalin's gratitude for their loyalty that when the German army threatened in 1942 he decided he would not leave the Crimean Greeks to its mercy; he sent them at considerable cost to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where, no doubt, they still flourish.
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