WELCOME TO THE KOLHOZ NEW LIFE - Part 04

Greek partisans. By being forced to hate Tito the Macedonian partisans became enemies of those Macedonians who worshipped Tito. You hate them when they are alive and you hate them when they are dead. You hate them as if they were alive because nothing dies... We humans are weird, right? As for the Macedonian language and alphabet, Tito was the only finger behind which they could hide their true intention to destroy them. They were going to create a Slavo-Macedonian language and alphabet, modeled after the Russian and Bulgarian alphabets, and thus open a front against Tito. And why not? We all followed Zahariadis like sheep without question. He and his cronies opened up a front against us Macedonians. And after they eradicate our language, they will uproot us too... People, they have attacked our language and our alphabet here in Poland just as they attacked our language and alphabet back home. What’s the difference? There they did it by law and coercion, here by party decisions. And those who led us, our own people, were the first to accept the label Slavo-Macedonians. And they did so because the party asked them to. When they were worshiping Zahriadis they were Slavo-Macedonians, when they were with Kolishevski they were Macedonians. They had no problem sitting in two different chairs... We created the blackest kind of history. Yet, no has been held responsible.”

“Do I really believe in that?”

“Yes I do! I want to believe in it very much, I even have hope.”

“With people born and raised in three different countries you can’t build a village, let alone a state. Add on top of that a variety of newcomer refugees, brought there by the state, who tap you on the shoulder and suckle off your land, not as businessmen but as spies and agents. Am I saying anything incorrect? All kinds of people exist there both beautiful and ugly, and no one thinks well of you. Everyone makes great promises and expects you to respond in kind by spilling your blood. Most of all, they ask you to do that because they say they are your best friends. And how do they confirm this friendship? By dropping napalm bombs on you or even something more sophisticated. But worst of all are their lies…”

“They collected all those who believed in him (Zahariadis) in Bureli and he sat them on a chair.

“He should have sat them under a noose!”

“He found them guilty of spying, saying they were to blame for the (DAG’s) defeat.”

“How should they have responded to his accusations?”

“They should have spat on his face and then told him ‘Don’t blame us, you should be blaming yourself and your comrades for the defeat. We gave you everything. We gave you our people who fought and died for you, we gave you everything we had and you are blaming us and our people for the defeat? We are victims of this defeat and you are to blame!’ That’s what they should have said…”

“Well, had they said that they would have been hung! One by one he would have shot or hung them.”

“They knew how to act and by their silence they saved their skins. They would have saved face and preserved dignity had they spoken up. And we would have celebrated them later and in some future time we would have erected monuments to them.”

“But, as it turned out… No monuments for them. Are you kidding me? Monuments for people who sat on two chairs at the same time (Greek and Yugoslav communists)? Obedient in Prespa and, at the same time, obedient in Skopje? Monuments? And what did they do when they were released from the USSR camps? They stayed in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan instead of running back to be with the refugees in the eastern European countries. And all the time they were there they argued and made plans on how to return to Skopje as soon as possible. It is rumoured that when Khrushchev was visiting Alma-Ata, they agreed to send him a letter asking him to allow them to return to Yugoslavia. They wrote a letter and sent Urania, the youngest among them, to run and yell from the crowd: ‘Comrade Khrushchev, please accept this letter and let the Yugoslav communists go to Yugoslavia.’ Khrushchev granted their request. I will say it again, instead of going to join our people who were

dispersed in the eastern European countries and taking charge of them, like they did during the war years, they all returned to Yugoslavia and became even bigger Yugoslavs than the Yugoslavs.

Poor Pavle, he said to the Yugoslavs: “Comrades, we have led these people here in accordance with the promises made by the CPG and its leader who is now falling apart and going to hell. Therefore, I think it is best for us to go to the various countries where our people are now and from there return to Skopje.” That’s all Pavle said and because of that he was labeled a dissident… An enemy…

They continued to argue with their dissidents who sat comfortably in Skopje. The division among them became paramount. The only good thing was that blood wasn’t flowing. Mutual accusations and slander were on their daily agenda. So, with them we were left leaderless… beheaded.

“Hey, hey, you idiots, who is going to believe you now, eh? Our people who fled to the Eastern European countries have awakened and have discovered your deceit. They have opened their eyes and realized that they were dealing with illiterate and semi-illiterate people who didn’t know what they were doing and were led by other illiterates whose interest didn’t rest with our people. They have realized that idiots came to power and that’s why our struggle became a disaster. As for Zahariadis who led us in this mess, they say he never spent a day behind a school bench and that’s why he was a good student for Stalin and an even better one for Lavrentia Beria. You know who Beria was, right? They all became strong and untouchable. While the westerners worked with their minds, adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing, tying and untying and making great gains, we the fools accepted anyone who gave us their dirty hand. Hey, why are you surprised?”

The situation was also boiling in Kroshchenko and Liskovate and in all the other places where there were Macedonians. The Macedonians wanted to have their own Macedonian organization in Poland, something they couldn’t have before. The Greeks wouldn’t allow it. The Greeks already had an organization called “Association of Greek Refugees in Poland” and wanted to change it to “Union of Political Refugees from Greece in Poland” to be more inclusive but

at the same time still wanted to hide the fact that all the refugees weren’t Greek. The Macedonians demanded that they be given the right to have education in schools where the Macedonian children would be taught in the Macedonian language using the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet. At the same time, Markos Vafiadis was staying in Poland. This was the same General Markos Vafiadis who opposed Zahariadis and who was removed and sent to the USSR to be rehabilitated. He was rehabilitated now and had returned to the CPG Central Committee Politburo. At a gathering of educators at the Skorliska Poremba picnic site, Markos, without saying the name of the language, said that the party and politburo had decided to allow the children to return to the language studied at Kiril and Metodi University in Skopje. After that decision, the printing of the already party-prepared textbooks was stopped and the textbooks with the artificial party-created Macedonian language printed by the publisher NEA ELADA in Bucharest were removed. Then, with financial assistance from the Polish Ministry of Education, Macedonian books in the Macedonian literary language with the Cyrillic alphabet were printed in Poland. These were a complete set of first to seventh grade textbooks and a few aids for the Macedonian schools in Poland and other eastern European countries where there were Macedonian schools. While Gomulka was popular the Macedonian people were allowed use the Macedonian Cyrillic alphabet in the Macedonian schools in Shchechin, Politse, Pienisk, Zgozhelets, Legnitsa, Vrotslav, Kroshchenko and Liskovate. Textbooks for primary education were prepared and released by the tireless Macedonian defenders Kole Simichiev and Pando Shapkarev. This was assisted by the expert knowledge, commitment and great self-sacrifice of Pan Vatslav Kopciński.

A few months later, the roads were opened for a freer influx of Macedonian newspapers, books and gramophone records with Macedonian folk songs from the People’s Republic of Macedonia. Macedonian songs echoed through the windows and balconies. Passers-by looked and listened wondering what kind of music this was that employed the flute, the zurla, the drum? The loudest and most rebellious in this regard were the students of the Macedonian high schools in Vrotslav and Shchechin.

“And you are looking for justice from them? You are looking for justice? Please don’t get carried away. Justice rests in the hands of the stronger. They determine what is just and what isn’t. The powerful invent justice when they need it and erase it when they don’t... They make the agreements and break them and if you happen to get in the way they will trample you. They are they and we are we. They are somebody and we are nobody. And if we are somebody then we are their obedient minion, to use us as they wish. And now, that our dear and intelligent leader is no longer here, we play around a dead lion like little rabbits. He left and we think the time has come for us to find our voice. My dear people, just because you can’t see the strong around you doesn’t mean they are gone. I can tell you a lot more but I fear another bully will come along and wilt my voice and freeze my thoughts in my brain. Do you think that can happen? Yes it can. The old used to say man is the most feared creature on the planet, even the great beasts are afraid of him. And do you know why? Because man can think and kill with his thoughts, which means that he can do whatever he wants by putting his mind to it. The old people used to say that the Lord is never wrong. I think he is wrong, not always of course, but once he was wrong. And his sin cannot be forgiven. Here is why. The Lord sinned when he created man in his own image and imprisoned him in a camp, which he called Paradise.

Oh, Adam, Adam, why did you have to eat that forbidden apple? You found yourself expelled from paradise for eating one apple. Did you find yourself threatened by someone powerful who said if you don’t eat the apple they will eat you alive? Well, for some reason, this nonsense comes to my mind...

And so that he wouldn’t be bored and lonely, alone in that camp, the Lord created a beautiful landscape with lots of plants and animals. The only thing the Lord asked of man was not to eat the fruit from one tree. But to the Lord man seemed unhappy and whether because of pity or for any other reason, the Lord cut one of man’s ribs and made something he called a woman. He told the woman to be faithful to him and not persuade him to do bad things. And all was well until the woman began to listen to the serpent which deceived her to get the man to take a bite from the forbidden apples. When the Lord found out he became angry and angrily asked the man, didn’t I

tell you not to eat apples, be they from Tetovo or Prespa? And what have you done? You didn’t listen to me so get out of paradise. And so the Lord banished the man from paradise for his disobedience. With the passing of time which grew to ages, centuries and years, many people were born from that first disobedient man. They sought to have many obedient creatures to help them create their own paradises, in which they lived well. There they didn’t listen to their wives and their wives hated them for sleeping with other women. There the disobedient were imprisoned in other paradises where the cheapest apples were from Prespa. Thousands, even millions of disobedient people were imprisoned in those paradises. I don’t know what happened to them, but it is said that some time ago an old woman had a dream about which she told the villagers the next morning. She foretold that in a small country, today divided into three paradises, a person would be born in a village and this person would come to power and create a paradise in which he wouldn’t send his small number of disobedient compatriots to another paradise but would eat them alive. That’s what the old woman foretold... God protect us all from something like that... I don’t think I said anything bad but be warned my naïve friends, stay away from agreements, laws, regulations. The strong write and the strong un-write these things… and today we aren’t the strong. There isn’t a drop of vodka in the bottle. Go and look around and see what you can find. Hey, if you want me to continue talking I will need my shot glass filled. Am I now the smartest of you all? I am telling you the vodka is like the party. It will lift you up and then knock you down. If you are obedient the party will raise you and if you become disobedient, then you will be trampled down and you will find yourself in a different kind of paradise... I even dream when I’m not asleep. I dream of fires, fires, fires, fire to fire, flame to flame and light thrown from high above in which whole hills and brooks are sinking. In my dream I watch Aliavitsa, Krastavets, Charno, Golio Kamenik burn. The fires are fires of victory, not ours of course but theirs. The big fires were great for their victory, fires of joy for our defeat. Lying on Albanian soil, a step away from the border, we watched the mountain peaks burn. The peaks were burning and our souls were burning with them. Our hopes burned and burned in those fires. We were burning. Our faith was burning... our hopes were burning... The fires were fires of victory, of course not of our victory, theirs. The great fires were for their victory. They were fires

of joy for our defeat. Lying on Albanian soil, one step away from the border, we watched the mountain peaks burn. As the peaks burned, so did our souls. Our faith burned and burned in those fires. We were burning… Our hope was burning... And there, in Bureli, where they rallied us for days, they convinced us that we weren’t defeated, that we had just put our rifles to the side... What rifles, huh? Didn’t the Albanians take our rifles at the border? Which rifles did we put to the side, the rifles that those who led us never picked up, those non-existent rifles? Which rifles, huh? Did they forget that the Albanian officers ordered us to throw the rifles into a pile at the border? As soon as we stepped onto Albanian soil the rifles and all the other weapons we carried with us were thrown into separate piles; pistols, rifles, machine guns, bullets, mine throwers, mortars... Along with them we threw our tears, curses and pain for the people we had lost and for the shame of our defeat… They told us not to lose hope, as soon as it calmed down the party would need us again... The party knows what to do, how to do it and when... Faith, they said, must not be lost. For three years they washed us in that faith and none of us seemed to have had the brains to figure out what they were doing to us. They kept muddying and muddying the waters and did whatever they felt like. We did as they asked and when they were done with what they were doing they had a ready made answer of who to blame for their misdeeds. I understand. They put the blame on us, specifically on NOF and AFZH. And while we sat around in those big gatherings in Bureli, every day and every hour of every day they slandered NOF and AFZH and accused its leaders of treason. In fact all of us, every Macedonian was slandered. And in all this they never once mentioned KOEM (Communist Organization of Aegean Macedonia - established by the CPG in March 1949 in the village Nivitsi in Prespa Region) the crazy child which they had created and left quietly to be destroyed. And in all this they managed to hide the great fraud they had committed. During their Fifth Plenum they unanimously passed a resolution, the CPG Central Committee decided that: ‘The Macedonian people are granted the right to self-determination’. Then during the 2nd NOF Congress held in the village Nivitsi, a resolution was adopted to invite the Macedonian people to join the struggle (Greek Civil War) en masse. The Greek communists told and retold the Macedonian people that they would allow them to create their own Macedonian state but they needed to fight and win

the war. For that to happen, however, every able bodied man and woman had to join the struggle. In other words, like Zahariadis said: ‘All to arms and everything for victory.’ Zahariadis also said: ‘You Macedonians have a right to secession, within a Balkan federation…’ There were many slogans written especially in honour of Zahariadis, the so-called ‘greatest’, wisest and most respected son of Macedonia and then, a little later, no one wanted to believe that he was a traitor. Unfortunately the NOF leaders and all those who served under him believed and trusted him. But despite their trust, the NOF leadership refused to accept Zahariadis’s claims that Yugoslavia was their enemy. Only a month or so later Zahariadis canceled the offer but we continued to believe in him. Now, when I think of that lie, when I try to get rid of those thoughts from my mind, it seems to me like someone is still kidding me and spitting on my face... And do you know why they silenced KOEM? Because they created it for themselves and then forgot about it. Zahariadis himself looked us in the eyes and without shame said that the Democratic Army wasn’t defeated, that we hadn’t suffered defeat and that we had just put our rifles to the side. That lie sickened me and opened a living wound full of pus in me. That wound is a cry of our defeat. It’s a wound of the heart and now we carry it in our souls... The defeat, and us being stuck in this mud, is a wound of life... Pure and simple! They asked us to have faith. In what?! When I wake up at night, I seem to hear the screams and cries of mutilated boys and girls, the thunder of cannon shells and the voices of despair ringing in my ears... They shout, beg and I can’t help them. I hear their voices and I’m afraid to open my eyes. If I open them then I see crippled girls, faces without eyes, bodies without arms and legs, blood on the rocks, shattered beech trees and flames and fire. These things have taken root in me. The lie that we will win hurts badly... How are we going to win? Who are we going to defeat? Are we going to fight against America and win?! But they did tell us, they constantly told us that we were fighting against Anglo-American imperialism. And did they know what Anglo-American imperialism was? Of course they knew! They must have also known that no one could defeat America! Were we, dressed in these tattered clothes, barefoot and half-starving, fighting with these old Italian rifles, German machineguns and Czech cannons built before World War I, expected to defeat the Americans? Were we, who were dying of starvation and cold, going to defeat America? Were we, the villagers

who were fed more lies than crumbs of bread, going to defeat America…? And now they’re not only sowing lies that they didn’t beat us, but are sowing lies about having our rifles by our sides, when they clearly know the rifles are somewhere in some Albanian weapons depot. They defeated us alright, they drove us into the ground and they ground us up like minced meat. The only thing that remains now is to put us underground. They just haven’t killed us all... When will we ever learn to think for ourselves?! And now what?! Now we lay on top of the sharp axe of mistrust, hatred, scorn and division, long forged by the slogans of brotherhood and unity, knitted with our blood, our wounds, our sacrifices and our obedience and silence...”

“How will you awaken this nation? With education! We need to replenish our minds and souls. Our slave mentality must be uprooted from us. New blood must be poured into our veins, which will give our minds the power to think independently. I mean - we need a revival. We need it badly. From the root up… We should socialize, have friends, cooperate with everyone but without conditions. We need to be ourselves… We need to be on our own. We must not allow them to touch us with dirty fingers. We are Macedonians, not Slavo-Macedonians. Our language is real, it wasn’t invented. Our nation is real, it wasn’t artificially created by Tito who became a lodged bone in their throat... They wanted our blood and that by resolution. Blood, blood, lots of blood. The more blood, the greater the deception... Blood, the leader wanted a lot of blood. In that hell we bled and burned...” concluded Traiche.

They spent their long nights, far away from home, in those wooden Ukrainian hatas desperately searching for the truth.

Among them were those who, at every moment, by order, directive, or decision, ruthlessly cut the thread of hope, faith, aspiration and longing. They were the party’s most faithful lost angels...

A broken voice, Traiche’s voice, was heard in the room submerged in mold and moisture that was rotting the floor. It seemed like he had two voices quietly whining in the dark, his voice and the voices of the souls of those left behind on the hills of Vicho and Gramos...

The same debate resumed every night, night after night, and they became hostages of anger, contempt and hatred.

“Now,” the voice said, “now we are far away from home, from the flames and fires... we aren’t divided by countries, by borders, or by our unyielding desire to return. Let’s go back with an olive branch in our hands...”

There was a long silence.

“Whether I want to admit it or not, I have died many times. I have died of fear when we were ordered to go on the attack; I have died of exhaustion from the long night marches; I have died of hunger; I have died freezing cold; I have died of thirst; I have died in hospitals when my wounds were healing; I have died of pain when I watched my friends die in the trenches and bunkers; and now I am dying of disappointment... I am dying. But I am still alive...” said Traiche, sighed in exhaustion, and continued to crackle like a broken, dry branch:

“Oh! I don’t remember if the fire in the fireplace at our house ever went out. The burning embers were covered with ash. My grandfather used to say that fire, even the smallest spark, is a sign of life... Are there any sparks left in our houses now? During the long winter evenings when my mother wove, knit and mended our clothes, she always sat in front of the burning fire. She was a small woman but her shadow on the wall was big, huge for us children. We sat in her lap by the fire and watched the flames dance and our shadows merge. But then the grown ups came and separated us from her shadow, from her warm lap in which she caressed us. They gathered us, some of us in the mountains, others in foreign countries and left our mothers alone... She was left alone. In that solitude she kept the fire persistently and attentively burning, reinforcing her faith and hope that we would return. Time unfortunately was against us all. I would be very happy if I could close my eyes and, just for a moment, see my mother in whose lap I sat so contently and was never hungry or thirsty... Unfortunately when I close my eyes all I see now is misery. I see the wet trenches and bunkers of the 103rd Brigade in which every day our political commissar breathed down on me, yelling many words most of which I didn’t understand. He

filled our heads with words of faith in which he repeatedly said we were fighting against Anglo-American imperialism. I was so tired of it I wanted to sleep but I had to stay alert. He overwhelmed me, swallowed me and drowned me. And being half asleep I often dreamed of sitting on my mother’s lap. This was my faith which kept me sane to which I prayed deeply. I never forgot my mother’s warmth. And now when I fall asleep all I see are fires burning on Iarno, Golio, Kamenik... and these lice, mooching off me… calling me Tito’s agent... Our mothers were left without their children. They were left waiting, arms stretched and eyes looking into the distance… Waiting... Waiting has become their hope... When I am alone and close my eyes, even for a moment, I see my comrades-in-arms, boys and girls, mutilated, some with no arms or legs, some with broken arms and some with crushed skulls... I hear the voices of the wounded, sick and dying calling for help... I hear that we lost the war because Tito closed the border. It’s true that Tito closed the border... And then we attacked him and now we slander him... You know how it was during the battles for Voden, Sobotsko and Lerin, right? They took me to Iasenovo with a lot of other wounded... From there to Katlanovo. The hospital was packed. They were putting two wounded in every bed and still there was no place for the new wounded. They took us by train from Skopje, put us in freight cars and sent us to Berkovitsa in Bulgaria. There was no place for us there either. Back on the train and to Sinaia, Romania. There they used the royal palaces as hospitals for our wounded. But before our wounds had a chance to close, back on the train to Bulgaria. From there by train to Nish, Skopje and Bitola. Trucks were waiting for us there, Yugoslav military trucks. We traveled during the night and arrived in the village Rabi in Prespa. There were about seven hundred of us. Our people crossed the Yugoslav border many times in this way? So, how did we get from Bitola to Prespa if the border was closed? On top of that who was feeding us along the way? Whose doctors and nurses cared for us? We were seven hundred people... The next day we were told the border was closed. Who was lying then? Who is lying today? Our leaders in those days and in the days during the entire civil war were persistently imposing mass blindness on us... Was that right or not? The war ended and they insisted that it hadn’t! My mother was killed by a bomb dropped from an airplane while she was carrying wounded. My father is still imprisoned in the concentration camp on Makronisos... and I, I am

here, in this paradise called Nea Zoi (New Life)... The war is over and I am convinced that the Greeks, like they haven’t done before, won’t kill, torture and mutilate thousands of Greeks, their own people, in their camps and prisons. But I’m not certain about the fate of those who aren’t of their kind… They say the war is over, but for whom? All I have to do is close my eyes and, only for a moment, I see nothing but war and hear shouts and pleas. I can’t help it ... War ... war ... war ... And when I drive the tractor, the noise it makes reminds me of a machine gun firing endlessly. When I give it more gas the noise escalates and I catch myself yelling FORWARD! And he, that slippery and unreliable no good, the head of the Kolhoz, the useless Greek from Rumeli once heard me yell forward. He came over, patted me on the shoulder and praised me. With joy he said: ‘Traiche... Bravo! Bravo! Shout! Shout louder... This is how we will build Socialism...’ Now, I ask you, how could he build Socialism in this wasteland with our stupid shouting... That stupid useless Greek from Rumeli... What a fool. What a world we live in today. A world full of fools. Sowers of insanity... It is rare to find a level-headed smart person... Only self-absorbed, empty-headed idiots with shovels in their hands. No matter how much you clean, you will never clean the amount of mess they make... Such is the world today. And who is leading it?

And don’t think for a moment that they send us here because we are some great tractor operators... The other day they called me in to tell me how much of the norm I had completed. There was no one in the office. While waiting for my friends to come, by chance, out of curiosity I opened the desk drawer and found a thick envelope inside. I opened it and what do you think I saw? All our names were there and written beside them were the words ‘Τιτικος πρακτορας’ (Tito’s agent)...” said Traiche and was surprised by the reaction of those listening to him. He looked at them and said:

“What’s your problem? Why are you all suddenly surprised, huh?! Get hold of yourselves. Let me make you happy. It wasn’t just our names that were in the envelope. There were some others, members of the central committee. According to the document they were sent here to study the agrarian question... This is because those poor fools weren’t of the same mindset as Zahariadis and his obedient ones, so Zahariadis sent them here to the Kolhoz NEW LIFE to be

re-educated... Like us fools... The Polish man told us to go work in the factories, learn a craft, pick up a skill, go, go to high school and then to college... The state will pay for everything... But we never listened, we wanted to be villagers and from there progress to workers, I mean proletarians, and so we ended up operating tractors... And I think that’s good for the uneducated… like us... I heard that Kiro and Micho are studying at the University... They are studying metallurgy... they will make steel in steel mills and will run these huge factories. But we, we will remain, well, tractor operators... Those damn tractors… my ears are swollen from the noise they make. We will toil in the mud which we will never be able to shake off of our boots. We will walk around with black hands soiled with black oil which we can barely wipe off. We will wait in line to have a bath with two handfuls of hot water from the rusty boiler. We will wait for spring to come, for Easter and for a chance to wash in the river... Yes we are fools... We didn’t listen to the Polish man when we were taking the course to learn how to operate the damn tractors... He told us ‘boys you should be going to university’ but who was listening... He told us ‘the state will pay for your tuition’, and we, the fools, told him ‘my friend what you say is well and good but our party sent us here to turn us into factory workers so that from villagers we can become proletariats... They, the children who were collected, brought here and placed in the boarding houses, are now attending high school and technical school and some are nearing the end of their studies. Everything for them is paid by the state, by the Polish people, most of whom are workers and some, like us, tractor operators. I’ve heard that most of the children are in schools here. Only a small number aren’t. These are the children of parents who came here from other countries or were planning to go to other countries and are still waiting. These people kept their children with them and left them without an education. Now they work in the factories and have become proletariats... Today or tomorrow I will write Kiro and Micho and ask how they are doing with their studies in metallurgy...” concluded Traiche.

The night was long and the nights that followed were even longer. The nights were loud. The nights were full of outbursts, like a whirlwind of storms, mudslides, scams and infuriation. The nights were full of bitterness, lies and slander...

“They were silent so that their thoughts didn’t flow from their mouths. They were deaf so that they couldn’t hear the voices of reason. But they weren’t blind and they could see that the others were leading them into blindness...

This is how our leaders were. They sat on two chairs. They were well-fed, warmly dressed, talkative and always victorious in the battles they never fought... On Sunday, like every other Sunday, there was a dance in the tavern. The composition of instruments included a mandolin, a violin and a drum. It was always good to listen to the music. The least it could do was remind them of the thundering drums and shrills of the zurla they used to listen to in their villages in Kostur Region...” concluded Traiche.

Traiche’s health began to decline day by day. They took his tractor. They gave him a notebook, a pencil with the task of writing down who plowed and how much, who sowed and how much, who cut and how much, and how close they came to or exceeded the specified norm. Traiche did his job wholeheartedly but he kept losing his strength with every passing day until one day he couldn’t get up.

They called a doctor who, after examining him, wrote something down and said:

“Take him to the hospital.”

The other tractor operators went to visit him, to cheer him up but Traiche was all on fire. Fire in his eyes, fire on his forehead and cheeks… Fire was burning Traiche. Two weeks later he was placed on a tractor pulled trailer covered with a blanket. They brought him back to Kroshchenko.

The president of the Kolhoz ordered a band from the city to play Lenin’s march while Traiche’s dead body was escorted to the new cemetery...

Times in Poland were bleak and difficult. Krushchenko and Liskovate weren’t left out of what was happening all over the country. And there, during those blurry times, the law wasn’t the law. The law was what the party wanted it to be. The liars and slanderers had the upper hand. Krushchenko, in the political scene, had become a place of slandering, deceit, humiliation, fear, submission and obedience. And there were also rare attempts of drowning in some of the abandoned wells filled up with murky and stinking water. In that atmosphere the biggest offence was to think differently. This was especially dangerous for those of different national origin who carried the label “Tito’s agent”. Thinking differently was enough to shut down all possibilities of getting a job, of being praised for achieving a higher standard, of being promoted, or of being allowed to study in school. That’s how it was. The Association of Political Refugees kept sending its assessments of the situation to the competent Polish services in Warsaw, where they were often rejected.

Those who found it difficult to accept and follow party directives, often secretly, under the guise of darkness, left the NEW LIFE kolhoz and searched for a new life in the cities. There they weren’t only freed from the eyes and fingers of the slanderers, but also from the mold and dampness that had taken root in the long-abandoned Ukrainian hatas. They were free from the mud, from the stench of their clothes that hadn’t been washed for months, from the long nights of being brainwashed, and from the low pay they were receiving for their hard labour. With some effort they began to fit into the local Polish environment.

There were also cases of people who found themselves in Krushchenko and then disappeared. The most common were those who had a different opinion than those above them and dared to express them. Having opinions that were different from those of

your boss was enough of a reason for you to be sent to do party work in the field for practical improvement in order to be cleansed of your sins. This supposedly was a place where you were given the opportunity to become more familiar with the problems of agricultural policy, and the most appropriate place for that was Krushchenko. Some ended up hanging from a ceiling beam or in a mud well. At that time there were more lies, slander and destruction of the human spirit in Krushchenko than there were potatoes and vodka.

After one of the closed party meetings, Karanikos, head of the kolhoz, took Zahariadis aside and whispered in his ear. He said:

“Comrade Zahariadis the problem with the Slavo-Macedonians appears to be growing more and more here in the Kolhoz. It’s not good when most of the people in the Kolhoz are Slavo-Macedonians. They are gathering together more often, singing songs in their own language, celebrating together in family celebrations and, according to some information we have, they have bought radios and are secretly listening to Radio Skopje. One such radio was purchased by Argiris Kovatsis, whom I suspect supports Tito’s agents...”

Zahariadis laughed quietly and even more quietly said:

“I know Kovatsis well. He was a good and brave fighter. He was a major in DAG. He and I persuaded the Polish authorities to form this kolhoz. He is a hard-line communist, rightly seeking justice, but keep an eye on him... People change... And as for Tito’s agents in the kolhoz, keep your eyes wide open. The Slavo-Macedonians are now without their own organization. We at the Politburo are already thinking of forming a new organization for them, unlike Tito’s organization NOF and AFZH. We’ll gather all the healthy elements who oppose those in Skopje and slowly let them loose on the others and fuel their quarrels... The Slavo-Macedonians are good, peaceful and meek people... they are at their best when they are quarreling and divided and when someone else is instigating them. It’s as if God created them for eternal slaves, like the Jews, until they created their own state and with it, now and in the future, will make a mess in the Middle East. I’ve never respected them because they don’t

respect themselves. Keep Argiris in mind and don’t let him out of your sight. I said he is faithful but sometimes even the most faithful become the greatest unbelievers. Keep that in mind...”

Pressured by the notion that the co-operative NEW LIFE, popularly called the kolhoz, was led by people who were exclusively guided by the power of party directives and personal greed, who exercised excessive party discipline and in many cases physical force, who constantly insulted and denigrated the Macedonians with the generally accepted suspicion that they were Tito’s, and due to lack of personal interest in becoming rich, Argir decided to do something to reverse the openly visible injustice. He decided to write a letter to the party secretary general.

There he saw a solution to all the abuse.

Blinded by his unlimited confidence and belief in him, Argir figured that if Zahariadis was informed of the things that were going on in the kolhoz, he was certain that he would personally take the lead in changing the situation and punish the culprits accordingly. After he left the Kolhoz in Krushchenko and went back to his school in Romania, Argir began to write his notes in secret, away from the eyes of his comrades with whom he boarded in the common bedroom in the party boarding school. He wrote down his thoughts on pieces of paper and about a month later turned them into a letter.

It was clear to him that each word bore great responsibility and was convinced that if the facts were well-presented they would convince the secretary general to punish the guilty ones in the kolhoz in Krushchenko. He typed up two copies and gave one to Zahariadis’s secretary in person in a sealed envelope addressed to the secretary general, and asked her to make sure the letter was given to him as soon as possible.

Whether out of carelessness or forgetfulness, Argir later realized that all letters coming out of the school were censored. He wanted to go back and retrieve his envelope but it was too late. The secretary

probably had handed it over to the person who was in charge of checking everything that came in and went out of the party school...

On his way back to the boarding school, not far from the CPG Central Committee headquarters in Bucharest, he thought of what he had written in the letter. He wrote:

On the way, returning to the boarding school not far from the CPG Central Committee headquarters in Bucharest, he repeated the contents of the letter:

“Comrade Zahariadis,

I wrote a lengthy letter to the CPG Central Committee about the state of affairs in the kolhoz in Krushchenko. Since you are the most empowered and responsible person for the kolhoz more than anyone else in the party, I’m writing to you personally because you know me very well from DAG. You know about my participation and my character and, even more so, you personally sent me to this college. At DAG you personally invited me several times, during critical combat situations, and obliged me to act in Siniachko behind enemy lines to prevent an attack in Mali-Madi in September 1948. You ordered me to command a death squad in Bela Voda. And finally you appointed me commander of the Bigla-Lundzer Sector in the Vicho area in 1949, or as you personally called it ‘the most strategic point on the front’. In August 1949, during the battle for Vicho, the units in the Bigla-Lundzer sector not only endured in saving the last front line, but also repelled the enemy and retained its fortified positions. You personally sent many greetings, praises and gifts to the front to commemorate our sacrifices. You’ve known me since Vicho where we first met, and later you found me and came to see me here, abroad, Comrade Zahariadis, and together with your companion Timios Bratsos, you came to the city Legnitsa in Poland and took me in your car for a ride, you said: ‘Argir, another difficult task awaits you, more difficult than that at the beginning of 1946 in Gramos...’ those were your words, Comrade Zahariadis.

I thought you were going send me to Greece on a special assignment. I accepted with pride and joy and was happy that the party again would choose me for new sacrifices and struggles. When

we arrived in Zgozhelets you told me that a kolhoz was going to be created in a desolate area near the Polish-Soviet border.

Even though I was 90% disabled, wearing iron braces and orthopedic shoes, and I’d have to do a lot of running and hiking as I did as a partisan, I didn’t tell you that I was unable to do the job. I didn’t tell you that I was unable to do the job because I was enrolled to study at the Warsaw Technical School. I didn’t tell you that I was unable to do the job because my wife was pregnant and had to lie in bed at all times because she had a problem with her pregnancy, and I didn’t tell you that I was unable to do the job because we had three children who needed looking after…

I accepted the task you gave me and went to that wasteland to organize the kolhoz. I put my disability, studies, wife and children aside and followed your directive. I faced more difficulties in the kolhoz than I had in early 1946.

But, despite the sacrifice and hardship, I was proud to carry out the tasks assigned to me by you, Comrade Zahariadis, and by the CPG. But when the kolhoz began to operate others were sent to manage it, even though they had no experience with farming, animal husbandry and similar activities performed at the kolhoz. You appointed Timios Bratsos president of the kolhoz after Alekos Eksarhos, the first president, committed suicide. Theoharis Aristidis, a close friend of Bratsos from Rumeli, was given responsibility for sowing the large acreage but the man didn’t know the difference between wheat and oats.

After almost all the political refugees from all the other kolhozes (state agricultural holdings) arrived at the kolhoz in Krushchenko, almost two thousand people, mostly Macedonians from Vicho, Prespa and Gramos, were managed exclusively by non-Macedonians, people from Rumeli. These were Timios Bratsos’s people, Theoharis Aristidis, president, and Panos Karanikas, secretary, who by profession proved to be beehive thieves in Rumeli. Their first concern was to organize a security group, exclusively under their command, which they then secretly armed. They have lied to the Poles, telling them that there is a clique of Tito’s agents in the kolhoz. Anyone who complained about