CHAPTER SIX - Part 02

Those of us Macedonians who served with the Greeks had the opportunity to hear this comment from many of our Greek comrades and from DAG’s command structure. This tenacious kind of Macedonian style fighting was what worried the opponent the most and something had to be done. The Macedonian morale had to be broken and, according to the logic of things, the battle for Lerin was the way to do it. The result: a huge number of Macedonian young people, girls and boys, were massacred to prove how “dreaded” the power of the opponent was. It was necessary to do this in order to sow fear and hopelessness in the ranks of the Macedonian people and to break their will to fight. Because, as was well-known, the Macedonian people were DAG’s basis here in the north. They not only composed the bulk of its fighters but also supported DAG in every respect...

11. Breaking the CPG

As the British were materially exhausted and weak from fighting in the liberation war (WW II) they decided to pass their responsibility to the Americans in Greece. In the course of 1948 the Americans replaced the British and began to prepare the Greek imperialist and Monarcho-fascist armed forces to include an army, national guard, gendarmerie, MAI, and so on, consisting of over 300,000 armed personnel. These forces were trained by the best means and armed and equipped with the best and most modern weapons and military equipment the US military could provide. At the same time, to reduce DAG’s ability to recruit new fighters, over 700,000 villagers were evacuated from their villages and moved to fortified cities where they were then used as reserves for the Monarcho-fascists.

(See CPG Central Committee 5th Plenum Resolution, from January 30-31, 1949, also see CPG 1931-1952, page 181.)

This was the reality DAG was about to face with only about 40,000 lightly armed personnel, armed with enough infantry weapons but without any heavy artillery, tanks or aircraft. The only advantage DAG had was that its forces were mobile and located in the mountains where they were difficult to reach.

But even with this ratio of forces, the opponent could still not uproot DAG because of its mobility and surprise hit and run tactics. Even if the opponent captured a position it could not completely defend it and DAG would eventually re-capture it. But, thanks to the bourgeoisie “good god”, DAG was ordered to stay still and fight at a front. With DAG’s mobile ability removed it was no longer hit-and-miss fighting for the opponent. Knowing where DAG’s forces were at all times the opponent was now given the advantage of attacking stationary targets and bombing the partisans exactly where they stood. The result was devastating for DAG...

By mid-1949, the opponent had crushed the DAG units stationed in the Peloponnesus, Rumeli and Thessaly and had concentrated its forces in preparation for attacking Macedonia, Epirus and Thrace. Then, with just a few days of heavy fighting, DAG’s units were crushed and thrown out from their defensive positions in Paiak and Kaimakchalan. After this the opponent concentrated all its forces in preparation for attacking DAG’s two main strongholds, Vicho and Gramos.

While all this was going on, Zahariadis was throwing dust in the air attempting to blur and conceal the true situation taking place on the ground. In an article entitled “In a decisive super-strain”, among other things, he wrote:

“Big battles are coming close to Vicho. If the Monarcho-fascists do not openly recognize their bankruptcy, then they will be forced to make their big offensive stand on Vicho. Otherwise they will lose. They will lose the war – they will lose the peace. The moment they want to show themselves as omnipotent and as winners, they will have to admit that they are incapable of dealing with DAG at Vicho.

They are forced to come to Vicho because they are pressured by their political, military, and moral inevitable need. Therefore, whether they want to or not they will have to drink from the bitter cup called Vicho…!” (“Pros ti niki”, organ of DAG, June 10, 1949. Naum Peiov, Macedonians and the Civil War in Greece, p. 90.)

Later on in another article entitled “The enemy will not set foot on Vicho!” Zahariadis exclaimed demagogically:

“Our slogan is: ‘The enemy will not set foot on Vicho! We will break his wings at Vicho. We will bring a decisive victory at Vicho in 1949!’…” (“Pros ti niki”, July 6, 1949. Naum Peiov, Macedonians and the Civil War in Greece, p. 91.)

Unfortunately, during August 1949, only after several days of heavy fighting at Vicho then at Gramos, all DAG units were crushed and thrown out of their positions. Their main forces were ordered to flee across the Greek border ending the armed struggle.

But it was not until 1956, during the CPG Central Committee 6th Plenum held in March of that year, that finally Zahariadis’s policy was condemned as a policy that undermined DAG’s victory. Unfortunately only Zahariadis was blamed for this. His associates who were also Siantos’s former associates and who also accepted ELAS’s liquidation, now accepted DAG’s liquidation but refused to accept responsibility for it. Zahariadis’s associates who dominated this Plenum and made all the decisions were now claiming that they were working under a conductive wand and Zahariadis was the only one waving it. The same excuse was used earlier when ELAS was eliminated and only Siantos was blamed for it. However, they themselves remained on the governing edge of the Party, and now were crying foul about DAG’s devastation. They refused to accept responsibility for delivering DAG to the Anglo-American military machine to destroy it as they refused to accept responsibility for ELAS being liquidated.

But, as it turned out, even though DAG was eliminated the democratic movement among the broad masses was not broken. Party organizations that acted (albeit illegally) were not crushed. The reactionaries and its foreign patrons soon realized that their

“bourgeois democracy” would not be able to survive for too long. So they had to take more extreme measures. In other words they had to abolish the bourgeois democracy and resolutely attack and break the popular democratic movement.

This was done once before, in 1936, when the August 4, 1936 bourgeois dictatorship was introduced in order for the fascists to consolidate their power and break the CPG, the avant-garde of the People’s democratic and revolutionary movement.

It worked then and it should work now - the CPG must be inevitably broken. And, however unlikely and unacceptable this may seem, here we have witnessed history repeating itself:

The Party leadership soon began to fall apart and the CPG broke up into rival camps. Intolerance and hatred prevailed with frequent quarrels and physical fights. There was chaos in the Communist movement and most revolutionary activities were neglected or omitted completely.

By mid-1960 the ground was cleared and a reactionary offensive was ensured with the creation of the military dictatorship of the colonels, established on April 21, 1967.

To this day the work that was done to achieve this is still a secret. The reactionary camp generally does not keep such secrets and publicly points out its military victory over DAG calling is a great success, but it was an even greater success that they managed to break the Communist Party of Greece...