ZAHARIADIS’S TEST FOR THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY POTENTIAL OF THE MACEDONIANS

ZAHARIADIS’S TEST FOR THE POLITICAL AND MILITARY POTENTIAL OF THE MACEDONIANS FROM THE ORGANIZATIONS NOF, AFZH AND NOMS

March 1948 – DAG General Headquarters issued an immediate order to mobilize almost the entire NOF and AFZH membership and the memberships of all other Macedonian associations. The CPG

leadership then asked the Macedonian leadership to submit a proposal on how the Macedonian activists could be engaged in the mobilization.

Among other things, here is what Mitrevski said in his report to the Greek leadership: “The issue of mobilization of personnel, according to your directive, after extensive discussions we eventually agreed as follows:

As per Keramitchiev’s suggestions, Pavle Rakovski and Lazo Poplazarov were to be appointed Brigade political commissars. Vangel Aianovski (Oche) and Mihailo Malio were to be appointed Battalion political commissars. Lambro Cholakov was to be appointed Battalion quartermaster.

As per Vera’s suggestions: Rakovski and Poplazarov - political commissars of the Brigade, Malio and Cholakov - political commissars of Battalions, and Oche - Brigade officer.

As per Stavros Kochopulos’s suggestions: – Rakovski, Poplazarov and Malio to be moved to the command of the Battalion. Cholakov and Oche to the company.”

... Pascal Mitrevski informed the Greek party leadership that at the top of NOF and among the Macedonians there were separatist tendencies, chauvinism, nationalism, fractionizm and antiparty tendencies. (Report submitted to the CPG Central Committee Political Bureau on April 12, 1948)

See: p. 233 “... Mihailo Keramitchiev, Vera Nikolovna, Pavle Rakovski, Ilia Dimovski – Gotse, with their letters addressed to the CPY Central Committee, begged the Yugoslav leadership to intervene and convince the CPG leadership to change its attitude and policy towards the Macedonian people”.

DEVELOPMENT OF EVENTS IN 1949

Mobilizing Macedonians outside the Greek borders: February 9, 1949

(Is this not an act contrary to international human rights?)

At the request of Porfirogenis, member of the CPG Politburo, a CPG delegation was admitted to Skopje and a meeting was held with NOF representatives during which the CPG delegation demanding that NOF recruit some 300 new DAG fighters from the refugees who had fled Greek occupied Macedonia and were now living in Yugoslavia. Their demands were rejected.

Zahariadis’s first optimistic scenario: “The Macedonian people will be granted self-determination.” So, did Zahariadis offer the Macedonian people a vision for an independent Macedonia?

ZAHARIADIS’S CONFESSIONS AND DISCLAIMERS

HOW EMPTY PROMISES BECAME PART OF THE WAR:

On January 30-31, 1949, the CPG Central Committee held its 5th Plenum during which it dropped the slogan “Independent and united Macedonia within a Balkan Federation”. On February 3, 1949, the NOF Central Council plenary was convened and new NOF principles were proclaimed for the future of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia.

The following was stated in the NOF Second Plenum resolution: “The Second Congress will be the Congress during which the new programming principles of NOF will be proclaimed in which the age-old aspiration of our (Macedonian) people, i.e. the unification of Macedonia into a single independent state, will be realized. The Macedonian state will be equal to all other states within a Federation of People’s Republics encompassing all Balkan people. This will be the Macedonian people’s grand achievement after many years of struggling and bloody fighting. The Macedonian people’s uprising will be proclaimed during the NOF Second Congress where all forces will be tested and the Macedonian people will be united around NOF. Then, together in a joint struggle with the Greek heroic people, they will bring victory against the Monarcho-Fascists and the American imperialists. The Second Congress will especially focus on the enslaved Macedonian population in cities such as Lerin, Kostur, Voden, Enidzhe Vardar, Gumendzhe, Seres and Drama

where they will rise to an irreconcilable struggle against Monarcho-Fascism and the Anglo-American occupiers and quickly gain their freedom and fulfill their deeply rooted aspirations in their struggle to create a People’s Republic of Macedonia”.

So, did this mean that new horizons for canceling the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest and Macedonia’s division were opening?!

DISCLAIMER OF BALKAN FEDERATION AND TRAMPLED PROMISES

On March 7, 1949 the CPG Central Committee released a statement denying that there ever were any CPG decisions made regarding the Macedonian question during the CPG’s Fifth Plenum or during NOF’s Second Congress held on February 7th, 1949. So, once again history should have taught us that promises made during war are not always what they seem.

The CPG Central Committee denying the slogan for Macedonian’s unification.

(The document in Greek can be found in the Macedonian archives.)

This mans that the CPG had returned to the Treaty of Bucharest (1913) positions.

What was Zahariadis’s goal? Did he want to evaluate our maturity regarding the Macedonian national question three years into struggle, to find out what we wanted? Because it would appear that it was unclear to the CPG what NOF and AFZH’s role was from April 23, 1945 to October 1946, while these organizations were under CPY control.

Zahariadis, responding to criticism, confirmed that NOF and AFZH had a dual purpose:

First to massively involve the Macedonian people in the struggle and second, to neutralize the separatist activities of the group of former NOF and AFZH leaders who had defected to Yugoslavia and who were now advising DAG fighters to desert, because, according

to the defectors, there was no purpose for the Macedonians to bleed in that war.

CPM/CPY reactions regarding NOF and their recommendations to the CPG on what to do with them

The CPM’s Central Committee 2nd Plenum was held in Skopje on April 19 and 20, 1949. See “Borba” published March 6, 1949. The CPM leadership strongly condemned the Greek communist call for a “United Macedonia” within a Balkan Federation because such a call, according to them, was “imperialistic”, initiated by their “critics” who campaigned against Yugoslavia. They said that such a call “was initiated by the notorious Informburo in order to break up the unity of the Macedonian and other Yugoslav peoples, to separate the Republic of Macedonia from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and to compromise socialist Yugoslavia”.

Lazar Moisov, in his book “Bugarska Radnichka Partia (komunisti) i Makedosko pitanie”, Belgrade, Borba, 1948, p. 288-290 wrote: “To raise the Macedonian unification question outside of Yugoslavia’s borders was a provocation against the Macedonian people’s independence and interests.”

In fact, the fiercest opposition came from those who organized NOF and sent it to Aegean Macedonia a year before the Greek Civil War started. Now they were the ones complaining that such an issue would cause “ethnic cleansing, secession and other genocidal activities in all neighbouring Balkan countries”. Lastly, the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia were the only ones who experienced genocide.

Meaning, Yugoslavia (CPM/CPY) like Greece (CPG) was against any revision of borders and strictly fought for the preservation of its own position in accordance with the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest.

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A CPG delegation led by Miltiadis Porfirogenis, CPG Central Committee Member and Minister of Justice in the Provisional Democratic government of Greece, was received in Belgrade by A.

Rankovich. Regarding the formation of a Macedonian state within a Balkan federation, Rankovich said: “...such an act was directed against the integrity of Yugoslavia.” See: “Borba” published April 27, 1949.

But the question is: What did the CPM/CPY intend to do with NOF and AFZH after they formed these organizations in Skopje on April 23, 1945 and dispatched them to Greek occupied Macedonia to organize the Macedonian people for an uprising!? Is there any information that would point to a deal made between Stalin and Tito? I.e. to do everything possible in order to maintain socialist systems in the Eastern European countries after World War II! After the Yalta agreement even Yugoslavia became unsure with 50% Western influence and 50 % Eastern.

There are analysts who speculated that there was a plan to Soviet-ize the Balkans and that is why Yugoslavia was encouraging the Macedonians to participate. But these speculations were denied by Stalin himself and later by Tito. But there was the possibility of having lit a fire in someone else’s backyard. After all was it not Stalin who said “fight partisan style, not very violently, slowly but do interfere in capitalist affairs…” Tito initially supported the same position and that is why he wanted to lure the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia and maximized their involvement in a new conflict. And when this new conflict did start, “Tito handed over the Macedonians to the Greeks with absolutely no guarantees as to what was going to eventually happen to them under Greek control…”

But one thing remains unclear to us even 55 years later: WHOSE VICTIMS ARE WE!?

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In the clash between the CPY and CPG i.e. during the anti-Yugoslav campaign waged by the Informburo, the CPG leadership did attempt to include the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia into their conflict.