5. THE ELAS AND CPG POSITION

5. THE ELAS AND CPG POSITION

Orders signed on October 16, 1944, by ELAS commanders Evripidis, Bakirgis and Vafiadis, were sent to ELAS army units in Greek occupied Macedonia, which at the time were concentrating their attention on destroying German army units, instructing them to leave their positions and relocate south into Greece. Those orders also included instructions to destroy the so-called “Slavo-Macedonian” battalions that fled to Yugoslavia. This was the CPG’s position at the time which shows that Markos Vafiadis was not a “Titoist” during that period and did not sympathize with the idea of creating a United Macedonia within a Balkan Federation. (See: Elisabeth Barker).

Given the above facts we need to ask:

Why would ELAS want to liquidate the Macedonian battalions in the same way it wanted to liquidate the German army units? Also, knowing that General Markos Vafiadis personally signed an order to destroy Macedonian units then why did NOF and AFZH enter the joint struggle in the following years (1946-1949)?

On July 16, 1943, ELAS Commander Sarafis and English Army Chief of Staff Colonel Eddie Mayers signed a joint Agreement recognizing ELAS as an allied army and placing it under Middle East command. After that, on October 31, 1944, a larger group of English troops with armoured vehicles entered Solun before ELAS. Since ELAS was now an allied army why not allow ELAS to enter Solun first? Three days later, the London-based BBC radio reported to the world 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 Plastiras’s Greek government and English General Scobie on the other -. With that agreement, EAM and ELAS practically handed over power to the political right which resulted in the destruction of ELAS as an army of the people.

Those were the facts. Now let us have a look at what the CPG Central Committee said about that on November 15, 1948. In an assessment of events the CPG declared that: “As an ELAS

commissar of the group of ELAS divisions in Macedonia, Markos Vafiadis conducted a chauvinistic policy towards the Slavo-Macedonian fighters…” (See: “Neos Cosmos”, August 1950, “Ten Years of Struggling” p. 470.)

The question is why did the CPG confess to this so late in the game after Markos Vafiadis was already removed from his position? Was it because the CPG wanted to spill more Macedonian blood in this so-called Greek Civil War?

FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME

Questions that come to mind: Given the position the Great Powers had taken with regards to “spheres of influence” in the Balkans, why did the political leadership in Yugoslavia and the Republic of Macedonia not abandon the idea of a Macedonian unification? It was well-known that the iron curtain ran right through Macedonia, dividing Greek occupied Macedonia from the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgarian occupied Macedonia. Given this, then why were the Macedonian people told that the Republic of Macedonia would be joined to Bulgarian occupied Macedonia through a Yugoslav-Bulgarian federation and, more importantly, why were they convinced that Greek occupied Macedonia would join the federation if the so-called Greek Civil War was won? Why were the Macedonian people involved on such a massive scale when the CPY, CPM and CPG leaderships were well-aware that what the Macedonians were fighting for was impossible to achieve? Not without Great Power consent and by then the Great Powers had already decided on the division of spheres of influence! If the Macedonian people were not fighting to achieve their (false) objectives then what were they fighting for?

It would appear that the architects who created this scenario were in line with the 1913 objectives regarding Macedonia; invade, occupy, partition and annex it and eliminate the Macedonian people by any means possible! Unable to fulfill their objectives during World War II, these architects concocted the so-called Greek Civil War in order to lure the Macedonian people into bringing about their own destruction. And what better way than to offer them the impossible; a “United Macedonia” after World War II! What a triumph this must have been?!

But, at the same time, was there no one on the Macedonian side to figure this out? Did they truly believe that the CPY, CPB and CPG, especially the CPG, were committed to giving up the Macedonian territories they had annexed in 1913, for the good of the Macedonian people? Were they deaf and blind as to how the CPG was treating them all along?

Was there ever a solid national Macedonian strategy that called for a “United Macedonia” that all the communist parties agreed to? And what happened to the “One state One Party” principle?

In other words, we wanted to be with the CPG and the CPY and accepted their rules to the extent that we became submissive and fell under their control. And where did this lead us? To our national defeat and to genocide! Then, in 1945 to 1949, because of our slave-like obedience, we made our situation even more complicated; and later, even with our name in Europe itself.

After World War II when people believed that bloodshed would no longer be allowed we, the Macedonians, experienced genocide... We blindly risked everything and paid for it dearly… and what did we achieve? How could we achieve anything when we were under CPY and CPG control? We fought to defend a communist ideology and we lost everything including our identity which our ancestors had fought for centuries to preserve. We now have only our memories that remain ingrained in the consciousness of the Macedonian people as a permanent testimony and a reminder of our ethnic cleansing, which, soon after DAG’s liquidation, turned into another unprecedented tragedy which we, ourselves, witnessed.

More questions that come to mind: Why did the architects and political strategists of that time come up with the idea of creating a united Macedonia? Was it to destroy any Macedonian unity that was left and take the Macedonian people off the map? In other words was it done to achieve exactly the opposite? What led them to do this? Was it the absurd behaviour in the Balkans? The great historical fanaticism accumulated over the years? The various deadly ideologies that surfaced at that time? The fact that the Balkans was the most conflicted region in Europe? Surprisingly, at the time, some of the same strategists and politicians were engaged in building new “civilizations” in Siberia and Goli Otok. [Here the author is referring to the Macedonian fighters who were sent to the Soviet Union and used to create new settlements in order to meld them into the local ethnic composition.] But, did we Macedonians appreciate that? Did we view their actions as good or evil? Why have we not spoken about that in the last fifty years or so? Why did we all keep quiet like dummies? Did we find salvation in our silence

especially after the February 1953 Balkan Treaty, a military agreement between Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, signed to place a wall of silence? [The author here is referring to the 1953 Balkan Pact put in place in support of Yugoslavia because of threats directed against it by communist countries. The pact did not last long. In 1961 the three countries agreed that the Balkan pact was dead in the water.]

Given the situation the Macedonian people found themselves in at the time, should they have looked back at the outcome of the war, when they knew that there was barely one primordial desire in the common Macedonian and that was to remain Macedonian, no matter how much he or she suffered, in order to preserve his or her country, language and people… as well as his or her own children?

It was precisely this physical separation that these architects were counting on to bring total spiritual separation between the Macedonian people which, in the long term, would have devastating and disastrous consequences. This genocide against the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia was also a test for the world; a problem to which no one reacted… That was then and today, the same world, is questioning the name of the entire Macedonian ethnicity.

Sadly, this spiritual separation does not end with outsiders but is ingrained in some of the Macedonian people in power who, to this day, have made no effort to break the silence about the genocides committed against us.

At this point it is important to inform the reader that this book and the arguments presented here are not in line with the written, mainstream history of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia. This book takes a more critical approach to examining historical actions and events and tries to present them as they happened regardless of their political correctness.

Our destiny is ours alone and we need to take it into our own hands. It is sad to willingly allow others to rule over us and shape our destiny like we have allowed them to do for the past half century. Too many years have passed during which we have allowed

foreigners to drag us by our noses! Also, it is time that historical actions and events are allowed to speak for themselves and reveal what really happened to us Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia.