Introduction - Part 11

More devastating for the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) than the Greek government’s spring offensive, was the evacuation of the villages which meant the loss of recruits, food, supplies and communication networks. But in spite of the government’s strong effort to eradicate DAG, it survived and thrived, at least in the short term. The spring offensive should not have been a surprise to the top Democratic leadership since it squandered its opportunities to renew the struggle when defeat of the enemy was possible. The Democrats missed their window of opportunity to attack their enemy while it was week. With America’s involvement and the spring offensive underway the chances of victory for DAG were quickly diminishing. In Greek occupied Macedonia meanwhile, government forces continued to terrorize the population, particularly targeting those Macedonians evacuated from the villages. Forced away from their homes and lands these Macedonians did not only become refugees, but were left homeless and hungry. Unable to work their lands their local economy was paralyzed and hunger and misery became rampant everywhere. On top of that the Greek government through its propaganda machine, continued to blame the Partisans for their misery. Faced with an uncertain future and left on their own and defenseless the Macedonian people once again called on the Macedonian National Liberation Front (MNLF) to take matters into its own hands. An MNLF Congress was held on January 13th, 1948 to assess the situation. Here is a small example to illustrate how bad the situation for the Macedonians was in Kostur Region between the months of May and December 1947. It was reported that 59 villagers were killed, 107 interned, 365 jailed, 1,650 tortured, 5 had gone mad from beatings, 63 women raped, 3 villages completely emptied of everything, 110 houses burned, 406 barns burned, 28 villages bombed, 412 houses plundered, 1,840 heads of small livestock robbed and 462 heads of large livestock robbed. (“Edinstvo” January 1948). In other words, Royalist and Republican bands supported by the Greek government and its patrons were operating in Greek occupied Macedonia reeking havoc on the civilian population particularly on those who were blockaded and had nowhere to hide. Their actions unrestricted, these bands were uncontrollably blockading Macedonian villages, killing unarmed civilians and looting and burning homes and barns. Following is a small number of specific examples of what was done to the Macedonian people during that period; On January 17, 1948 a government sponsored band from the village Dragomantsi blockaded the village Lukovits and jailed 13 people. Afterwards it executed Petar Dzhopov and Andon Karabatakov, no explanation was given for the jailing or for the executions. Dimo Srebrenov from the village Tsakoni was tortured in the police station in Sobotsko and went mad after his release. He later died in agony. Ito Tashavcherov and Bozhin Samardzhiev were brutally beaten by government sponsored goons and later died. In the spring on 1948 six people from the village Tsakoni were imprisoned and brutally beaten. Among them was Grigoriadis-Floros, Regional Council of the Agricultural Party (AKE) who was later sentenced to death by the military court in Ber and executed. Any Macedonian captured in battle was sentenced to death and immediately executed. Among those who were sentenced to death and executed included were Lazo Tsakonchev, Gjorgij (Gushi) Tsakonchev, Gjorgij Petsov, Gjorgij Itov Baltakov, Gjorgij Vasilev Baltakov, Mladen Popdimitrov, Gjorgij Dimitriev Hadzhiev and Dimitar Satchiev. Ironically, relatives of these very same people were brutally massacred by a mixed Turkish-Greek band in March 1907 for their involvement in similar activities in the Macedonian people’s struggle for liberation. On February 25, 1947 armed Greek civilians and soldiers attacked and looted the village Lagen, Lerin Region, burned 16 barns, raped a girl and set fire to Evdokija Ivanova’s house.

The armed band of the notorious Skordas lead by the villains Garapis from Kalinitsa and Argir the Vlach from Plasnichevo was responsible for terrorizing the Macedonia population in Enidzhe-Vardar and Gumendzhisko Regions. Armed civilians and gendarmes with whips in their hands roamed the streets calling the Macedonians “Bulgars” and threatening to kill them. These where acts of torment and humiliation never before experienced by the Macedonian population. And if that was not enough the rampant unemployment and economic crisis created by the evacuation of the villages added another dimension of hardship to the people, a burden which forced them to look to the MNLF for relief. Since the spring of 1947 hundreds of villages were emptied of their residents by force. In Negush Region alone 17 villages were evacuated among them were Gorno Seli, Dolno Seli, Kutsu Fljani, Trasilovo, Golema Reka, Janakovo, Nea Strandzha, Ropan, Arkudohor, Chernevo, Javornitsa, and Tursko Selo. These treacherous measures undertaken by the enemy could not have been done without having negative effects on the moral of the Macedonian population which naturally turned to the MNLF, the only protector at its disposal it could count on. In retrospect we can come to one logical conclusion why the MNLF held a Congress and that was to organize a strong defensive movement by mobilizing the people behind it. A problem needed to be solved and the only organization the Macedonians could count on to solve that problem was the MNLF.

The best time for mobilizing all the people for a massive fight would have been in the 1st half of 1947 but the illustrious top Democratic leadership was at the time procrastinating and missed that window of opportunity. The Greek proletariat in the cities became apathetic, particularly to the Macedonian situation, because somewhere down the line it lost interest in continuing the struggle. Unfortunately those who were interested in renewing the struggle were now rotting in Greek internment camps. Irrespective of what the Greek winning side thinks of the Greek Civil War, the truth of the matter is the majority of the Macedonian people were not separatists as some would have us believe nor did they have any “irredentist tendencies” but at the same time they were not willing to stand idle to be slaughtered like lambs. Obviously they could not depend on the DAG top leadership to protect them since DAG at the most critical time removed the Macedonian leaders from its ranks and while it was procrastinating, it allowed its enemy to take the lead and overpower it. It was now up to the MNLF to call on the entire Macedonian population, men and women to join the renewed struggle and invest every ounce of strength to save itself. But needless to say, the MNLF 1st Congress did not achieve what it intended to. No sooner than the Congress was over the so called “Democratic Greek” leadership began to infiltrate the Macedonian organization and again began to impose its will on the Macedonian people. During 1948, in addition to mobilizing all the former MNLF cadres and Macedonian fighters into DAG the Democratic leadership also began to mobilize women particularly the wives and relatives of the fighters, many by force. Then after every able body was mobilized and used on the frontlines, the Greeks turned their attention to 14 and 15 year old children, the same children they took out of the country to save from the Greek government bombs. All able bodied children, regardless of age, capable of carrying a rifle, were recruited straight from the child refugee camps in Romania and other places. Through well placed slick propaganda, recruiters appealed to the vanity of these children, convincingly suggesting to them that it was their duty to go back and fight to save their parents. Knowing that they were pitting young and untrained children against a battle hardened professional army, the Democratic leadership knew very well what the outcome would be. So, if they were willing to literally “kill” the next generation of youth, for whom then were they fighting this war? There is no logic to the madness in the Greek Democratic leadership’s thinking except if one considers that perhaps the plan wasn’t to win any war but to actually destroy the people. The British and Americans were looking for a way to “stamp out” communism in Greece and the Greeks found a way to “destroy” the Macedonians. That is the only conclusion one can reach which actually makes sense. Why send both husband and wife to the front to be killed and evacuate their children out of the country? There is no doubt that since Varkiza, it was the top Democratic leadership’s plan to destroy the very same force it created. The question that remains unanswered however, is why? As for the top Democratic leadership’s view of the Macedonians, by now there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was never the Democratic leadership’s plan to do anything for the Macedonians except to destroy them. It paid lip service when it needed them and then sacrificed them probably to save its own neck. As it turned out, the 1st MNLF Congress, intended to save the Macedonians from the Greek government’s treachery did the opposite. With the loss of its leadership through infiltrations, the MNLF did not only loose its independence but allowed the Greek Democrats to use it as a vehicle to do the Communist Party of Greece’s (CPG) and DAG’s dirty work, recruiting Macedonian fighters and sending them to their slaughter.

The top Democratic leadership’s mistrust of the MNLF and the Macedonians openly surfaced on August 8th, 1948 during the MNLF’s 1st Plenum when President Mohailo Keramidchiev and Secretary Paskal Mitrevski were removed and replaced by Vangel Kojchev as President and Stavre Kochevski as Secretary, two sell outs and well known opponents of the MNLF who were working against giving the Macedonians rights. By the middle on 1948 the Greek government with American help began to widen its net on DAG and was making preparations to push the war north into Greek occupied Macedonia. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the major and final battles between the Democratic forces and the Greek government would be on Macedonian soil in the Mount Gramos and Pind vicinity. There was also no doubt in anyone’s mind, except of course in the minds of the fools that blindly followed the top Democratic leadership’s wishes, that the Democratic forces were loosing the war. Surely they must have been aware of America’s involvement in Greece and of America’s attitude towards communism? The Greek government on the other hand not only had access to funds to arm its growing military machine with the latest weapons, but it also had a full proof plan to successfully cut off DAG from its recruits, food supplies and communication lines which it continued to implement as it drove DAG north. To free its regular army from the burden of having to shackle the cities and towns now over populated with refugees from the evacuated villages, the Greek government began to form local militias. Besides keeping the population under curfew these local defenders were also charged with keeping the Partisans out and creating the necessary terror to keep the population in check and from forming new resistance organizations.

While the Greek government was bolstering its local forces, the Americans were busy building large airports in Solun, Kozheni and Kavala in Greek occupied Macedonia to accommodate heavy bombers. As the war for control over Greece continued or perhaps it was a war to uproot communism and destroy the Macedonian population (I will leave that for future historians to decide), the Greek government’s aim was to attack DAG’s main force at the outskirts of Northern Pind and squeeze it against Greece’s neighbours to the north. Being aware of the situation it was headed in, DAG was prepared to undertake counter measures to pin down the government’s main force while allowing various DAG units to make preparations for wider hit and run campaigns. By doing so the DAG leadership was hoping to stifle the enemy’s main operational force and at a critical time open a counter offensive, liquidate the enemy and liberate the country. Unfortunately, at the eave of the greatest battle of 1948, there were differences of opinion between General Markos Vafiadis, commander of the forces and Nikos Zahariadis General Secretary of the CPG on how to implement such a plan. Differences which could not be easily bridged resulting in General Vafiadis’s dismissal. Vafiadis believed that DAG did not have the capacity to fight defensively on a front. According to Vafiadis, DAG was best suited to fight Partisan style warfare. Zahariadis however did not agree calling Vafidis’s fighting style outdated. Zahariadis and his supporters believed that DAG should not only behave like a regular army it should be doing the job of a regular army. Perhaps Vafiadis was correct but we will never know for certain but what we do know is that Zaharidis’s interference created a dangerous situation for the Democratic fighters and for the resistance as a whole. (“Neos Kosmos”, April-May 1957, page 60). With Vafiadis out of the way, Zahariadis lead 10,000 lightly armed Partisans in a frontal attack against a heavily armed and mechanized force of 100,000 soldiers consisting of 23 brigades, 100 artillery pieces, many tanks and an entire air-force. In spite of the odds and the Democratic leadership’s poor strategy, the DAG Partisans truly fought gallantly in what can only be described as an epic battle that lasted almost three months and inflicted tremendous casualties on the enemy. Among the enemy losses included were 5,125 soldiers dead, 16,000 wounded and 439 taken prisoners. Other losses included 98 surrendering voluntarily, 1,200 deserting, 35 planes downed and 8 tanks and 5 canons destroyed. But in spite of the gallant effort on the Partisan side, the government army, in a short span of only two months still became master of northern Pind. DAG on the other hand was down but not out. Considering the kind of battles it fought it not only surprised everyone, including the Americans, but without too many losses. In fact the battle for Gramos, considering the odds, was a success for DAG but not the expected outcome for its leadership. In other words DAG did not destroy the Greek army as expected and did not free Greece from the Royalists and Republicans but did inflict a devastating blow on the government. The real success for DAG however was in its ability on August 21st, 1948, to outmaneuver its enemy and escape to Vicho and Malimadi Mountains. Relentless in its pursuit, despite its losses, the Greek government on September 2nd, 1948, deployed 4 foot brigades supported by tanks and air bombers and began the offensive on Malimadi. Again DAG delivered another severe blow on its enemy decimating an entire division and sending its remnants in a flight of panic down the Bistritsa River and Kostur. According to later accounts, the governments defeat in Malimadi was attributed to low moral of its soldiers. Given that both battles took place on Macedonian soil where the majority of DAG fighters were Macedonian and given that the government forces were better trained, better equipped, better armed with tank and air support and not to mention there were 10 soldiers for every 1 Partisan, there could be one explanation for DAG’s victories and that was because the Macedonians were superior fighters, following in the long Macedonian tradition and style of fighting.

The reason the Democrats lost the war in Greece was not because of “Macedonian treachery” as they put it but because of the treachery and incompetence of its Greek leadership which sold out the Macedonians and nearly destroyed them. The Macedonians in their effort to survive were totally committed to winning the war because they truly believed they could find freedom and equability among the Greeks, a mistake made one too many times. Had they fought for independence from the Greeks, as the Greeks claim, the Macedonians would have probably succeeded because every man woman and child mobilized was focused and ready to serve the cause be it fighting, collecting food, transporting munitions, carrying for the wounded, etc. In fact thousands of women put their lives in peril in the war fronts stretching from Bela Voda in the north to the Mountains Vicho and Malimadi in the south-east, under barrages of artillery fire and aerial bombardments digging trenches, carrying wounded and delivering food and ammunition all in the name of the cause. For them this was a noble cause which had nothing to do with “politics” and “ideals” and everything to do with freedom, liberty and equality. Above that stood a unique contribution rarely seen in a people where every man, woman and child showed a willingness to sacrifice everything for freedom. Even those who took the Macedonians to their slaughter recognized their bravery and sacrifices in this war. During the CPG’s 4th Plenum of the Central Committee held on June 28th and 29th, 1948, a mention was made which among other things stressed that “The Macedonian peoples’ contribution in the struggle for freedom and liberation involved everyone, all people in total. With this personal struggle the Macedonian people have built a firm liberated and free life as equals, with the blood of their sons and daughters they have won and secured their peoples’ democratic future…” (“Nepokoren”, #12, August 23, 1948). Ironically, during the same Plenum the Central Committee of the CPG issued orders to mobilize women and girls as fighters in order to bolster DAG’s reserves. These women and girls were to be mobilized from the free territories in the Lerin and Kostur Regions where the vast majority of the population was Macedonian. By now it must have become obvious to everyone that DAG was not going to win the war and that it was not worth to sacrifice everyone. What would be the purpose in that? This war sucked the lives of the men then their wives and then their sons and now it was about to suck the lives out of their daughters. This, and the fact that the CPG lost its authority with the masses which no longer believed in its revolutionary “Avon Guard” approach, literally killed the moral of the Macedonian people along with the spirit of its fighters. And as Petros Rusos put it during the 7th CPG Plenum, “Zahariadis has thrown the party into a second armed struggle without the support of the masses which indicates that playing politics without the masses is adventures politics indeed.” (“Neos Kosmos”, April – May 1957, page 91). After it was discovered that Zahariadis wanted to spill even more Macedonian blood, particularly during the fall of 1948, the Macedonians lost their will to fight and began to desert at every opportunity. Loosing his ability to maintain his reserves at a constant level Zahariadis, during the winter of 1948 ordered the execution of a string of attacks against a number of Macedonian cities and town in order to mobilize new fighters and to prove that he still had a fighting force to be reckoned with. Among the cities and towns he attacked included were Karpenisi, Sobotsko, Voden, Lerin and Negush. But in doing so he only managed to kill more fighters and caused more misery for the people. Still being unsatisfied with the carnage he caused he then ordered his fighters to return to their former basis by now destroyed, regroup and wait for instructions to renew the fighting. But by then there was no longer a reason to fight and more than half of the fighters deserted.

During the CPG Central Committee’s 5th Plenum, held on January 9th, 1949, Zahariadis, refusing to face reality and continued to speak of DAG as an invincible force that would defeat the Greek government’s regular army, destroy the Republicans and Royalist, take over the government and bring victory to the Democratic people. He threw around slogans like “1949 will be the year of victory” and “Death to Monarcho-Fascism and American-no-cratism”. He then called on the Macedonian people from the “free territories” to continue their struggle and sacrifice and in place of promising them “equal rights with the Greeks as a minority” as has been done before, he now promised them “National self-division as Macedonians” but only when the CPG came to power. He said all this when even the most lay of people knew that DAG was facing an unavoidable defeat. Was this an act of an incompetent commander or an act of a treacherous and deceitful traitor? Let the historians of the future decide. As was done during the 4th Plenum, the Macedonian contribution to the struggle was again complimented at the 5th CPG Central Committee Plenum. Among other things it was stressed that the Macedonians in Northern Greece have given their all in the struggle with outstanding heroism and self sacrifice which calls much admiration. There should be absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that as a result of their effort and spilling of blood the Macedonian people have earned their full national restitution in the way they themselves would want it. Coming from Greeks who by now knew the Macedonians would get nothing for the sacrifices, these were noble words indeed but why not make such noble gestures in 1941 when this whole mess began? Such noble words would have been welcomed by the Macedonians in 1941 which would have brought them closer to their centuries old aspiration, to have their own state. This kind of commitment would have certainly attracted the entire Macedonian population and today we would have had a multi-ethnic, multicultural democratic Greece instead of this racist country which abuses its ethnic groups and pretends they don’t exist. But no Greek utters such noble words without a self serving purpose, a purpose which was revealed by the Bulgarian newspaper “Trud” which accepted and hailed this 5th Plenum resolution of Zahariadis to be in line with the Communist Party of Bulgaria’s plan for a united and independent Macedonian state. In other words, Zahariadis did not only go against what the Macedonian people fought for – freedom, rights and equality same as the Greeks- but tried to push the Macedonian people into Bulgaria’s hands. Bulgaria has always supported the theory that “Macedonia was Bulgarian”, and now with such an endorsement there was a greater chance for creating a “united Macedonian State” under a peoples’ Balkan Federation which Bulgaria could later claim as its own. If that was not enough damage done, Zahariadis then blamed his failures on Yugoslavia by declaring he was all for the creation of a separate Macedonia but then the Yugoslavs sabotaged his plans. A little later Zahariadis and his well lubricated propaganda machine would blame DAG’s entire defeat on the renegade Tito who “attacked DAG from behind its back”. During the MNLF’s 2nd Congress held in March 1949, now infested with traitors and CPG agents, Zaharidis’s followers wasted no time to again blame their own failures on Yugoslavia which according to their propaganda “conducted unfriendly activities against DAG” implying that

Yugoslavia and Yugoslavia alone was the sole cause for the defeat of the armed movement in Greece. Naturally Yugoslavia was not only blamed for the Greek failure but also for more sinister reasons. Zahariadis’s aims for starting such rumors were to put a wedge between the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia and those in Greek occupied Macedonia. After detecting that it was loosing control of the Macedonians in Greece, Zahariadis and his cronies invented reasons to discredit Yugoslavia in hopes of downplaying the fact that the Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia now had their own country. The biggest Greek fear was that the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, loosing faith in Zahariadis would now turn to Yugoslavia for help. Yugoslavia after all did solve the Macedonian problem by allowing the creation of a Macedonian state. To keep the Macedonians from reaching out to Yugoslavia, a separate Macedonian Party was formed during the summer of 1949. The Macedonian Party was named “Communist Organization of Aegean Macedonia” or KOEM using a Greek acronym. This organization was not at all Macedonian but useful enough to divide the Macedonians and bring conflict among them. No sooner than this organization was formed, it began a vitriolic propaganda campaign against Yugoslavia calling it “a haven for traitors of the Macedonian people from Aegean Macedonia naming a few such as Ilija Dimovski – Gotse, Mohailo Keramidchiev and others”. (Resolution of KOEM). While this was going on inside Greece, the United Nations was asked to get involved in order to stop the carnage but the government in Athens, sensing a close victory at hand refused, requesting DAG’s complete and unconditional surrender before any talks could take place. More devastating for the Macedonian people than the government’s August 1949 Vicho and Gramos offensive, which inflicted great losses on DAG was the fact that many Macedonians fled Greece believing the Greek propaganda that Tito really stole their victory from them. Beaten at Vicho and Gramos the Partisans were told to head for Albania to regroup but after crossing the border they were then told they could never return. The vast Majority, Macedonians, fighters who fought courageously in the battle fields, did not really understand the state of affairs and emigrated with a bitter feeling that “victory was before them, but Tito’s treachery robbed them of it”. It took 8 years before the truth was revealed (7th Plenum of the Central Committee of CPG, 1957). The “famous attack on DAG from the back” was only a hoax, a fabricated lie, perpetrated by Zahariadis and his cronies to place blame elsewhere for DAG’s defeat. (“Neos Kosmos” #s 4-5, April 1957, pages 37-118).

The Plight of the Macedonian Refugee Children