5. - HOW DID WORLD WAR II END FOR US MACEDONIANS FROM GREEK OCCUPIED MACEDONIA

5. - HOW DID WORLD WAR II END FOR US MACEDONIANS FROM GREEK OCCUPIED MACEDONIA

After the German occupying forces withdrew from all of Greece, including from Greek occupied Macedonia, and after the Varkiza Agreement was signed on February 12, 1945, the CPG, ELAS, and EAM were disarmed and found themselves in an inferior position. Almost the very next day after ELAS surrendered, organized terror began in Greece.

Chronology of events that left a historical mark on the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia

5/1 - March 5, 1943 - A 48-member Assembly was convened in Kostur, with representatives from the various Kostur Region villages. The Assembly decided to form a self-defense organization called the “MACEDONIAN COMMITTEE” for Kostur Region which was to protect about 60 villages. The “Macedonian Committee”, with permission from the Italian occupiers, was

allowed to arm itself in order to protect itself and the Macedonian people from Greek terrorists.

5/2 March 28, 1943 – A partisan detachment was formed in the village Lagen, Lerin Region, which consisted of Macedonian and Greek fighters, known as the ELAS “Vicho” detachment.

5/3 - August 1943 - After lengthy negotiations between ELAS and EDES and English General Staff for the Middle East, a CPG and EAM delegation arrived in Cairo to negotiate “political unity” and the formation of a “joint headquarters” with the Greek government in exile and with a number of civil parties. The joint headquarters, headed by Andy Meyers, was created on June 18, 1943, which recognized the ELAS resistance forces as an allied army. With this Agreement the People’s Liberation Movement in Greece was subordinate to the English General Staff for the Middle East. And for the same purpose, on June 5, 1943, a military cooperation agreement was signed in Lebanon.

5/4 - September 1, 1943 - The ELAS Macedonian partisan detachment “Lazo Trpovski” was formed in Beriki, Kostur Region.

5/5 - October 20, 1943 – The Macedonian organization SNOF (Slavo-Macedonian People’s Liberation Front) was created, but only for Kostur Region. SNOF for Lerin and Voden Regions was created later.

The CPG, EAM and ELAS leaderships, concerned with the situation created in Greek occupied Macedonia with the formation of the “Macedonian Committee” in Kostur Region and other Macedonian organizations in Lerin and Voden Regions, found themselves in need of forming SNOF, a Macedonian organization. SNOF was created by Greeks from the CPG Regional Committee in Western Macedonia, including Hristos Kalfas (Andreas), CPG District Committee Secretary for Kostur Region, Andonis Andonopoulos (Pericles) and Thanasis Kartsounis, CPG District Committee Secretary for Kozheni Region.

5/6 - In the six months of its existence SNOF in Kostur Region managed to win over the “Macedonian Committee” and recruit

4,770 new members. This meant that the Macedonian people believed that “SNOF was the only national liberation organization capable of meeting the Macedonian people’s national and social demands in Greek occupied Macedonia”. (See: “Slavo-Macedonian Voice” number. 3, April 1944.)

Some people even claimed that: “SNOF was the new Macedonian VMRO which would bring Ilinden to its conclusion...”

After SNOF pacified the “Macedonian Committee”, the CPG decided to dismantle it which, once again, proves that the CPG was manipulating the Macedonian people. But it was more than that: the CPG wanted the Macedonians to fight one another, to physically liquidate and eliminate each other from this world and from the political scene in Greece. With this, the CPG practically achieved what the Greek government could not for many years. Once SNOF achieved its objectives the Greek resistance leaders decided SNOF was no longer needed and had to go. The CPG wanted to achieve “national unity” with the Greek reactionaries, the Greek bourgeois parties and the Greek government in exile at all costs and could not do it with SNOF in its way. So with SNOF out of the picture, on May 20, 1944, the CPG signed the famous capitulation agreement that sealed the fate of the national liberation struggle.

September 26, 1944 – The Caserta Agreement was signed between the CPG, EAM, and ELAS on one hand, and the Greek government in exile headed by Georgios Papandreou and the British Headquarters for the Middle East, on the other. With this Agreement ELAS and all resistance forces were put under the command of the Greek government in exile. However, the Greek government in exile transferred control of its forces to English General Scobie. Of course, this agreement was yet another concession the Greek resistance leadership made in favour of the Greek government in exile.

February 12, 1945 – The Varkiza Agreement was signed between representatives of the Greek government and representatives of the CPG and EAM to end the clashes in Athens between ELAS units on the one hand and Greek government forces, Greek police and English interventionist forces, on the other, which began on

December 4, 1944. (See: “Aegean Macedonia in NOB 1944-1945”, doc. 200, p. 298-301.)

The consequences of this Agreement were felt worst by the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia, against whom the Greek political right and reactionaries carried out unprecedented terror in order to oust them completely from the Greek state, and this was also true for both the people of SNOF (former ELAS) and for the people of the “Macedonian Committees”.

5/7 WHO WERE OUR ALLIES?

A) - EAM (National Liberation Front) was established on September 27, 1941 and consisted of the Communist Party of Greece (CPG), the Agricultural party, the Socialist and People’s Democratic Party, the General Workers Federation, the General Federation of State Bureaucrats, the Organization of National Solidarity, and Representatives of the Political, Scientific and Cultural Life in Greece, The EAM was later joined by the front end of the Liberal Party. From all this, once again, we can see that we Macedonians were not allies of the EAM, because until then we had not been a political entity in Greece, we were simply voluntarily members, citizens of Greece with no symbols of Macedonian affiliation. The following goals and objectives were part of the EAM program:

1. Expel the German, Italian and Bulgarian occupiers from Greece;

2. Maintain Greece’s integrity;

3. Strive to gain self-determination for Cyprus, the Dodecanese, and Northern Epirus as well as any other places where EAM is present, and

4. Strategically regulate the northern Greek borders (meaning acquire more Macedonian territory from the allies). (See: “Mahitis”, organ of ELAS, February 10, 1944.) The commentary reads: EAM on the national question. Do we still not know that there is absolutely nothing for us Macedonians in the EAM program?

B) ELAS (the Greek People’s Liberation Army) was formed on May 15, 1942, in Rumeli as a partisan detachment with the same goals and objectives as EAM. This was decided during a joint CPG-EAM Central Committee meeting. The proclamation was addressed to the citizens of Greece and to the former officers of the Greek army who served the bourgeois. There was nothing in the proclamation about us Macedonians… we were not allies but simply “Slavophone” soldiers to be used as cannon fodder just like our fathers were in previous wars. We may have sung “Embros ELAS Gia Tin Ellada” (forward ELAS for Greece) but nobody seemed to notice or care... There is another undeniable fact for us Macedonians: everyone who was inducted into ELAS, including us Macedonians, had to take the following oath:

“I swear I will fight to the last drop of my blood for the complete liberation, stability and independence of Greece. I will fight to preserve the integrity of Greece and to restore order and basic human rights to the Greek people. I will respect PEEAS’s actions and decisions and follow its orders which I will execute conscientiously and with discipline. I will obey all orders and instructions from my superiors, and will avoid any act that would make me untrustworthy as a person and as a fighter for the Greek people...

On July 16, 1943, Sarafis, Commander of ELAS, and Colonel Eddie Mayers, Chief of the English Military Mission in Greece, signed a joint agreement recognizing ELAS as an allied army and placed it under Middle East command. But let us see how things developed after that. On October 31, 1944, a larger group of English soldiers with armored vehicles entered Solun ahead of ELAS. WHY? Three days later, London-based BBC radio reported that British troops had liberated Solun. On February 12, 1945, the Varkiza Agreement was signed between the leaders of the CPG and EAM on the one hand, and the Plaistiras Greek government and British General Scobie on the other. With this Agreement EAM and ELAS practically handed over power to the political right. And that was the end of ELAS.

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