Greece faced a Civil War in the late 40s between the initially UK and later US-backed Royalists and the Communists, (I intentionally ommit the USSR-backed because the USSR avoided it). The country that emerged was a deeply flawed democracy, with the Communist party banned and many thousands leftists in internal exile.

In 1967 a military coup was staged at the initiative of intermediate cadres of the army, (at the surprise of the US and the King who expected and perhaps welcome a coup from the upper cadres). A failed counter-coup by the King led to his forced exile and eventual removal. While initially met with approval begrudgingly by the population, the Junta eventually significant internal resistance culminated with the bloody occupation of the Polytechnic by students in 1973. An effort to liberalisation failed and a Junta 2.0 attempted to force a union between Cyprous and Greece. This gave a pretext to Turkey to invade and occupy Cyprous, drawing Turkey and Greece to war to which it was inadequately prepared.

This led to an internal collapse of the Junta, in front of a national catastrophe, to which they responded in 1974 by inviting politicians to re-assume goverment. Former Premier Karamanlis arrived to massive popular support and immediately restored all democratic freedoms including the legalisation of the Communist Party, purged the State and military from Junta supporters and conducted free and democratic elections who were admitted as fair by his opponents.

Greece within half a year conducted a referendum which confirmed the ousting of the King and its transformation to a Republic. Democracy did not falter when socialists were elected in 1981 and Greece was admitted into the EEC, that we know today as European Union. Since then Greece is considered a mature democracy, sometimes with problems regarding the strength of its institutions, but never creating doubts about being a democracy.

So Greece is an example of a country going from a military dictatorship fully engaged in the repression of democratic freedoms, immediatwly with a few months into a fully functioning democracy which could integrate almost immediately with the hard core of European democracies.

Even now when I am writing this, I get impressed at how swiftly and without opposition the transition between Junta and a full democracy were made.