Conclusions

Abstract

Castoriadis’ early years in Greece were of particular importance for his intellectual itinerary and later theoretical development. His evolution reflects a series of social and politicohistorical transformations that occurred in Greece from 1936 to 1945. He came from a bourgeois class background and obtained a considerable and multilingual education based on both ancient Greek and Marxist philosophy. His first philosophical concerns, his involvement in the theory and practice of Marxism and his interest in the thought of Max Weber could be traced to these early years in Greece. Castoriadis experienced the Greek fascist regime of Metaxas (1936–1941) and the Nazi occupation of Greece (1941–1944), the bloody events of the armed conflict of December 1944 which were the prelude to the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), as well as the British armed intervention. During this period, as a young Trotskyist, he participated in the theoretical debates promoted by the minor Trotskyist groups and got a very strong flavour of the codified and mechanistic Marxism of the Greek communist movement. His encounter with the dogmatism of the orthodox Marxist tradition was coupled with his traumatic experience of being persecuted and at risk of being assassinated by the Stalinists of the Greek Communist Party. In the end, he migrated to France to keep himself alive and continue his personal and intellectual journey.