John Poulos (1911-1980), student and documenter of Greek and Greek-American radicalism, and a son of Greek immigrants, was born in 1911 in Lynn, Massachusetts. While in his twenties, and a food worker, he organized Food Workers Local 701 of the AFL and led the fledgling union into the emerging CIO, and was a delegate to the CIO founding convention in 1938. A Marxist, Poulos belonged to, and served on the national committee of the Socialist Workers Party, a Trotskyist organization. Later, in the 1940s he joined the Workers Party, also a Trotskyist organization. He served on its central committee, and wrote extensively for its newspaper, Labor Action . He was also active in the United Auto Workers, but by the late 1950s was blacklisted for his radical views. Remaining polticially active, he was involved in the fight against the Greek military dictatorship (1967-74). In the 1970s Poulos became an activist scholar of Greek studies, setting up a collection on Greek radicalism at the Tamiment Library. He died on December 20, 1980.
Constantine ("Connie") Poulos (1916-1986), John's younger brother, was born in 1916. Although familiar with Marxism through his older brother, Constantine was a liberal. In 1940 he was founder and editor of The Hellenic Spectator, a monthly of politics and the arts. With the outbreak of World War II, Constantine took a job as a journalist for the Overseas News Agency. He was eventually assigned to report on the Greek resistance and in 1943 became the first correspondent to enter occupied Greece, where he made his way to the mountains and came into contact with the communist-led united from resistance, the National Liberation Front (EAM-ELAS). Poulos's reports were picked up by hundreds of American newspapers, including the Greek press, and he also wrote interpretive essays which appeared in The Nation . After WWII, Poulos also reported from Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Palestine. At the war's end, Constatine Poulos served as a liaison and translator between American officials and resistance notables. He urged that EAM-ELAS be given at least an equal voice in the government being shaped for postwar Greece. While freely ackowledging the communist leadership of EAM-ELAS, Poulos felt that the resistance fighters were Greece's best democrats and that they would function honorably in a regime which guaranteed their political rights. This view ran counter to what became American policy, and Poulos was expelled from Greece under vague charges that he was "pro-communist". Poulos returned to the U.S. and eventually bought a weekly newspaper in Jamestown, NY, where he was to win a Pulitzer Prize for community journalism. He was able to get an editorial position at Holiday magazine (1965-70), and wrote about the Greek Junta for The Nation . Constantine Poulos died June 3, 1986.
From the guide to the John and Constantine Poulos Papers, Bulk, 1940-1950, circa 1921-1978, (Bulk 1940-1950), (Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives)
