Many Greeks rallied to PEEA as a new alternative to the government-in-exile. For many people in the mountainous liberated areas of Greece, EAM/ELAS rule had established order, justice, and a tranquil communal life that prewar governments had failed to provide. The resistance movement offered women, in particular, new personal empowerment in their participation as warriors and workers. Peasants and working-class men also found unacceptable the prospect of going back to the old ways.

Another group also rallied to the call of the PEEA. The Greek military units that had escaped the Germans were assembled in the Middle East under the name Middle East Armed Forces (MEAF). Most soldiers and sailors, unlike their officers, were EAM sympathizers, and mutinies and strikes occurred in the MEAF between 1942 and 1944 as news of the communist resistance was received. In the spring of 1944, the formation of the PEEA stimulated a "grand revolt" by republican and communist enlisted personnel seeking recognition of a PEEA-sponsored government of national unity.