2.0 TRUTHS AND CONTROVERSIES ABOUT THE GREEK CIVIL WAR (1945-1949) - Part 02

As I said before, by now we have enough facts to give us a glimpse of our true past. If facts are a sacred thing then, right from the start, let us confess that there were no Macedonian National coats of arms, crests, flags or any other kind of symbol used in the five year war period (Greek Civil War). So what exactly makes this war a “Macedonian Revolution” as we are led to believe by historian Kiriazovski in his many books? And now in the epilogue of his latest book he wrote:

“… an attempt has been made to give tribute to the magnificent struggle of the Macedonian peoples from the Aegean part of Macedonia, a struggle which had a deep national and progressive character…!” Further down he wrote: “…The armed struggle of the Macedonian people from Aegean Macedonia in the period from 1945 to 1949 represents a continuation of earlier struggles for survival and for political and national equality and freedom.” (215, 216).

Again, as I said before, it was by no “accident” that the history of the “Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia” was written in this manner and as such we should not believe the illusions presented to us without hard, objective and analytical historical facts to back them. The people from Greek occupied Macedonia experienced a traumatic tragedy and deserve to know why they were lied to and who brought the evil that destroyed their lives and uprooted them from their native home forever.

The Greek Civil War turned us into a mass of faceless people, and in fact this was the goal of those who designed the war.

I say again; I don’t know why we are so timid and don’t have the courage to come out and tell the whole truth about our Macedonian tragedy and admit that it was a conspiracy; since all facts point to that.

The first “external” reason for the alleged “Macedonian Revolution”, we are told, was to “Unite Macedonia”.

Here’s why this was not possible: Let us first examine how the Balkans were divided after WW II!

A historic meeting took place from October 10 to 20, 1944, (14) in Moscow where Stalin and Churchill discussed the fate of the Balkan peoples and how the Balkans were going to be divided between Russia and England.

It was during this October 10th, 1944 famous meeting that an agreement was reached where Greece was to go under the British sphere of influence while the rest of the Balkan countries were to remain under the influence of the Soviet Union.” By extension: <ΞΕΝΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ>, ΠΑΠΥΡΟΣ, ΑΘΗΝΑΙ, 1975.

So, was this decision and agreement not clear enough for us Macedonians? Were the decisions of two super powers not enough of a deterrent for us Macedonians?

This of course, logically leads us to the next question: Do you really think that after the Balkans were divided into spheres of influence, we Macedonians had a chance of “Uniting” Macedonia? Or was the Greek Civil War a Balkan sized conspiracy to destroy us?! Which is more believable?

After the world was split into two irreconcilable camps, East and West, one side aimed to exterminate its class of enemies by filling the Siberian camps with political prisoners. The other side, meanwhile, persecuted the communists at an unprecedented level, us Macedonians along with them; by ethnic cleansing us from our own homeland and by perpetrating genocide against us with the ultimate goal of driving us all out of our ancestral hearths forever.

These acts perpetrated against us are neither offered nor explained in Kiriazovski’s book, which leads us to wonder:

“Did the evil that befell the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia fall from the sky?! Or did someone intentionally bring it there? Perhaps not willingly but, nonetheless, the Macedonian people did suffer and need to know:

“Who activated the “Macedonian syndrome” of (self) sacrifice in the years 1945 to 1949 and why?!”

“Why did the CPY/CPM do this (1945-1946) before the Greek Civil War started? Why did they organize the Macedonian people and push them to fight against the Greek Monarcho-Fascist human flesh grinding machine, when they very well knew that the borders between Yugoslavia and Greece would not change and would remain “status quo”? Was it not Tito himself who spoke so many times in speeches and in diplomatic circles against a “United Macedonia”? So why push the people to fight for a “United Macedonia”?

After living with them for nearly 40 years, from 1900 to 1940, did we Macedonians not know what the Greeks were capable of? And now that 100 years have passed let us ask ourselves: “How have the Greeks changed?” They have not changed at all! After annexing Macedonian territories, the Greeks have been persistent; have never stopped, in their pursuit of the Macedonian heritage. They have never subsided in their quest to wage a fascist ideological war against us with aims of exterminating us and everything that we stand for. It has been a historic mission for them to trample on us, on our culture, our history, our traditions, our language and to deny us our identity since they first laid hand on our Macedonian territories.

There was massive fraud committed against us in the years 1940 to 1950. The communist Greeks, because they were communists, seemed to show some more understanding for us Macedonians but when it came to our National interest (human rights) they were no different than their Fascist counterparts. When it came to recognizing the rights of the Macedonian

people, both the Left and the Right proved to be the same. This is an irrefutable confirmed fact which holds true to this day!

Historian Kiriazovski, who had been silent on this subject for years, now claims that both Yugoslavia and Greece interfered in the Greek Civil War.

Who actually were our allies in the Greek Civil War? The answer is: No one! Not even the CPM because it was completely subordinated to the CPY.

First axiom: The Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia, from October 1944 to October 14, 1946 were led by the CPY/CPM during which time the Macedonian Organizations NOF and AFZH were formed with their own programs, goals and objectives. And as such, NOF took its instructions from the CPM Central Committee.

The first instructor to instruct NOF was a Slovenian named Miha Marinko. After him came Nikola Minchev and Dimitar Dimitrievski - Pekar. Who could have even imagined that at that time those people were preparing the Macedonian nation for war? Imagine, this little group of instructors playing “god” with the lives of the Macedonian people.

The hidden evil had a face and a name but eluded Macedonian history for the last 60 years.

Second axiom: How and why did the “Macedonian story” remain in the shadows from October 1946, when “Tito surrendered the Macedonian people from Greek occupied Macedonia, like slaves, to Zahariadis (15)”, until August 27, 1949 when the Greek Civil War, under the leadership of the CPG, ended.

Also let us not forget another, a second “internal strategic obstacle” that stood in the way of a “United Macedonia” and that was the “new ethnic composition” of the population in Greek occupied Macedonia which had recently changed with the colonization of the Macedonian territory with 660,000 newcomer colonists delivered to Macedonia after its 1913 division. (16) This particular group of colonists came from Asia Minor and although they were Christian by religion, they were a multi-ethnic group consisting mainly of Turks, Armenians etc., who in Greece were considered to be Greeks. These people, combined, made up a large chunk of the total population in Greek occupied Macedonia and would have opposed and resisted the Macedonian territory being separated from Greece. General Markos Vafiadis, who led DAG during the early part of the Greek Civil War, belonged to this group of colonists brought to Greece from Asia Minor. Do we seriously believe that he would have led a “Macedonian Revolution” and would have acted against his own personal and his people’s interests?

And how can we forget the circumstances that brought those Asia Minor colonists to Macedonia in the first place? How could we forget the 1913 genocide perpetrated against the Macedonian people to make colonization possible in Macedonia? The Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia have experienced continuous waves of ethnic cleansing and genocide from 1913 to 1940 (17). It is well known that Greece, through a number of diplomatic maneuvers and population exchanges has managed to exile countless Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia. Legal, by signed conventions, or by any other means they are judged by history as evicting people from their own native homes, and that in my book makes them illegal and immoral. Just because they were done by “signed conventions” does not make them less painful for those involved!

Even though Greece was charged with the responsibility of “caring” for the people living on Macedonian soil when it was awarded its share of Macedonian territory by the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, Greece it seems, was more interested in “grabbing” the territory than caring for the people or respecting their rights as Macedonians. In fact, by repeatedly ethnically cleansing Macedonian territory of its Macedonian population, Greece has demonstrated continuous and uninterrupted genocide! It did this under the conventions:

a) The Neuilly Convention signed on November 27, 1919 between Greece and Bulgaria. By virtue of this convention alone, Greek authorities forced 86,517 Macedonians out of their native homes and expelled them to Bulgaria.

b) Then came the Treaty of Lausanne signed in July, 1923 after the Greko-Turkish war ended. This Treaty called for the compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. The Greko-Turkish War (1919-1922) was Greece’s last historic, small but ambitious, attempt to expand the Greek kingdom, to realize the “Megali Idea” of a Greater Hellas. Through the Treaty of Lausanne, Greece forcibly exiled 354,000 ethnic Macedonians because they were Muslim by religion.

The consequences of these so-called “legal” acts are indescribable and have caused unprecedented genocide against the Macedonian population not only because 354,000 ethic Macedonians were evicted from Macedonian territory but also because 660,000 Asia Minor colonists were deposited in Macedonia, who in fact changed the Macedonian demographic for the first time in Macedonia’s history. The colonists or “Prosfigi” or “Madzhiri” as the Macedonians called them, or “Ponti” as they called themselves, spoke their own languages which were not Greek, and during the wars of 1940 to 1949 the Macedonian people wholeheartedly accepted them for who they were. Now it seems, official Greek policy is to call them “autochthonous Macedonians” while they deny the real Macedonians their rights and identity. Greek propaganda now claims that a population of 2.5 million pure Macedonians lives in “Greek Macedonia”; this includes their Prime Minister Karamanlis who is an Asia Minor colonist.

If identity is inherited from our ancestors then how can these Asia Minor colonists call themselves “indigenous Macedonians” and legal heirs to the indigenous, centuries old Macedonian heritage?! Since the idea of annexing Macedonian territories got inside the Greek heads, Greeks on both sides of the ideological fence (left and right) have been busy creating various identities for us and for those replacing us. While the Greeks were busy finding new names for us and calling us “Bulgars”, “Bulgarophone Greeks”, “Slavophone Greeks”, “Slavs”, Skopjans, Gypsies etc., they never hesitated for an instant to call the newcomer Asia Minor colonists and settlers “Macedonians”. Even the colonists and settlers themselves are shamelessly encouraged to tell the world that they are Macedonians, descendents of the ancient Macedonians (and therefore Greeks)!

Yesterday’s colonists and settlers from Asia Minor today are today’s modern Greeks, descendents of the ancient Greeks, Spartans, Athenians, Thracians, Byzantines, Epirotes, Macedonians and what not! The real Macedonians, on the other hand, have no right to their own identity. But, from old demographic maps and census statistics, we very well know what kind of people used to live in that part of Macedonia. According to these old stats, Macedonians, Turks, Armenians, Albanians, Vlachs and others used to live in that part of Macedonia. With the exception of the colonists and settlers, a Christian Turkish population, brought there in the 1920’s, the same people (Macedonians, Turks, Armenians, Albanians, Vlachs and others) still live there. So we don’t need Greek lies and Greek myths to tell us who we are and who else lives amongst us!

With the stroke of a pen, in 1919 at the Treaty of Versailles (Paris), England and France sealed Macedonia’s fate by ratifying the principles of the Bucharest Treaty and officially endorsing the partitioning of Macedonia. This gave Greece the go ahead it needed to pursue forced expulsion and denationalization of Macedonians and to begin a mass colonization by transplanting “potential Greeks” into its annexed territories of Macedonia. By the past acts that they had committed against the Macedonian people, it became clear that the Greeks had already introduced “means” to exclude the Macedonian people from the Macedonian territory and introduced new definitions and created a new “science” as to who “lives” in this territory. The Treaty of Versailles was the last step that Greece needed in order to pursue its long-established views towards Macedonia and towards the Macedonian people. Backed by the Treaty of Versailles, the Greeks went ahead with their plans not only to ethnically cleanse the Macedonian population from Greek occupied Macedonia but also to deposit new people, colonists and settlers, loyal to Greece who eventually would “dilute” the remaining Macedonians and who would then begin to lose their healthy patriotic feelings towards Macedonia.

From the lessons learned about the Macedonian people before Macedonia’s 1913 partition, the Greeks knew and were deeply convinced that the Macedonian core, as a separate ethnic group, would never be loyal to the Greek state and would always see itself as occupied. Thus the Greek state employed the harshest measures possible to solve its problems -genocide. This included:

a) Importing and transplanting settlers and colonists onto the Macedonian territories who were dependent on the Greek state for their survival and therefore has no choice but to be loyal to Greece.

b) Erasing everything that pointed to a Macedonian existence. This was done by enacting laws and renaming the first and last names of people; renaming toponyms and place names, etc. (“Efimeris tis Kiverniseos” no. 332 of 21 November 1926). It is well known in the civilized world that no one has the right to forcibly impose names on other people and nations. This includes the name of a territory, a people, objects, language and every other term used by the native people for centuries. And this unfortunately was done in Europe by Greece and without objections from anyone!

Here we are talking about changes made to on ancient topography which has been the soul of the Macedonian people for centuries. Even still, did the Greeks truly think that by changing the topography of the land the Macedonian people would forget their own identity? Or was this a ploy to show the world that Macedonia was Greek because it (now) had Greek topography? No matter what the true motive, the occupier’s goal, from the outset, was to change the gravitational core of the century old Macedonian character and replace it with a Greek one. In retrospect, it has become clear that the Greek aim was to erase the entire Macedonian civilization, that took centuries to shape, and replace it with an instant fake Greek one. We the Macedonian people have always used topography to identify ourselves no matter what part of the world we lived in. By erasing our topography, our occupiers had high hopes that they would erase our identity!

c) Prohibiting the use of the Macedonian language. The harshest measures taken against the Macedonian language were during the Metaxas dictatorship years. The Metaxas dictatorship came to power in Greece on August 4, 1936. During that time the Greek regime strongly opposed the use of the Macedonian language and cracked down on those speaking it. During this time many Macedonians, including those who spoke no other language, were fined, harshly punished and jailed for speaking their own language in public or in private. The Greek regime showed its true cruelty towards the Macedonian people when it sent many Macedonians to prison in the Greek island prison camps for simply speaking their native mother tongue; the only language they knew.

Things were no better when Left forces took control of certain segments of Greek occupied Macedonia. They too objected to the use of the Macedonian language. Most surprising were the objections coming from the Leftists belonging to the newly deposited Asia Minor colonists and settlers who lived amongst the Macedonians.

So, when the region was faced with one of its greatest internal conflicts in its experience in the years 1944 and 1945, the largest resistance came from the colonists. They filled the highest positions in the CPG, in the CPG Central Committee, in the Politburo and in everything else that carried authority. The colonists were literally leading both the political and military pillars of the rebellion, with Nikos Zahariadis as head of the political pillar and General Markos Vafiadis as head of the military pillar. Both Zahariadis and Vafiadis were Asia Minor colonists deposited in Greek occupied Macedonia in the 1920’s. Now, do you still believe the Greek Civil War was a “Macedonian Revolution”?

Then, by irony of fate, NOF and AFZH entered the scene and instead of leading the Macedonian people to freedom they made them servile to colonist desires to organize a Macedonian movement and involve it in a devastating alien war with false promises! In the early part of this fiasco many Macedonians truly believed that NOF and AFZH’s destiny was to resume and continue the Ilinden Uprising and free the Macedonians from Greek occupation, but unfortunately they were wrong and that error cost them 20,000 casualties, permanent eviction for tens of thousands from their native hearth and the implementation of the largest ethnic cleansing campaign ever known to that region. Knowing that the colonists in Greek occupied Macedonia were in control of the highest political and military positions in the communist camp and knowing who they were and what they stood for, why did Tito create and dispatch NOF and AFZH to Greek occupied Macedonia with instructions to “liberate Macedonia” (which is precisely what this action was called in 1945)? Did Tito not know that it was not in the colonist interest to “liberate” Macedonia from Greece and join it to Yugoslavia? Did Tito not know that if that were to happen, the Macedonian people would become a target, not only of the Right because by then Greece was under the British sphere of influence, but also of the Left because the colonists would not allow it; it would make their own future uncertain? There is no other way to explain this other than to say that Tito committed an immoral act when he ordered the creation of NOF, AFZH and NOMS on October 14, 1946 and organized these Organizations under the CPM Central Committee leadership to mobilize more than 80% of the population and set it on a course to sacrifice itself for a cause that only served the interests of its enemies.

When it became very clear to many Macedonians that, under the current circumstances it was not possible to “liberate” Macedonia, the so-called “struggle”, with much propaganda, did an about face and slowly became an “ideological struggle” for socialism in Greece and the struggle for liberation became a struggle for minority rights inside Greece. The struggle for self-determination became only a dream. And as such the programs, goals and objectives laid out for NOF by Tsvetko Uzunov-Abas no longer applied.

After Tito surrendered the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia to Zahariadis, he instructed Kolishevski to give them their new mission.

Right after the CPY and CPG agreed on what to do regarding the continuation of the war in Greek Occupied Macedonia, Lazar Kolishevski, Secretary of the CPM Central Committee, invited the NOF Board, headed by Paskal Mitrevski, for a briefing during which Kolishevski said the following: “Now you go down there (in Greek occupied Macedonia). The CPG is now responsible for you. You must have faith in the CPG. Its policy on the Macedonian question is clear. Any questions that may surface will now be decided by the leadership of the CPG Party. Be careful not to splinter or stray from the Party. You are to work under its directives. You are to struggle and fight to strengthen your unity with the Greek people and fight hard with all your strength against chauvinism, separatism and localized tendencies.”

Sobered by Kolishevski’s briefing, with eyes looking down before the CPG and before Zahariadis, their new master, NOF and AFZH went in a different direction and followed the lost road to democratic centralism and totalitarianism, typical of the time. It is amazing that, in spite of what had just happened, the Macedonian leadership, without question, continued to lead the Macedonian people into oblivion. Despite the strategic direction reversal, the Macedonian leadership was still committed to follow the direction of those who made promises and, before their eyes, failed to deliver them!

What does this tell you about the Macedonian leadership, members of NOF, AFZH and NOMS who, while leading the people in an alien war, claimed to be “Defenders of the Macedonian Nation”? What nation were they defending, transforming ordinary Macedonians into a military machine for DAG to fight for “socialism” in Greece?

And, in retrospect, what happened? Why did they not deliver on their promises? Why did they not defend the Macedonian nation? Why did they leave more than 20 thousand Macedonians dead? Who is to blame for that? Who is to blame for the people’s hopes being falsely raised? What was our interest as Macedonians fighting in the Greek Civil War?! Who is responsible for putting this dark page in our history?

After the Macedonian organizations were surrendered to Zahariadis, General Markos began to mass mobilize fighters from the “liberated territory”, most of which was on Macedonian soil with some in Epirus. All the mobilized fighters came from these territories. Units of 10 even up to 20 fighters were mobilized from the same village, with sometimes several people belonging to the same family. Many of these fighters perished in battle and their loss brought devastation to their families and villages. Did General Markos, their master, ever concern himself about that?

A new illusion, delivered through ideological activism, draws my generation into new battles.

After Tito surrendered the Macedonian organizations to Zahariadis, the NOF and AFZH leadership was installed in the various DAG Regional Headquarters responsible for recruiting Macedonian fighters into DAG. Having Macedonians doing the recruiting (planting big illusions) had doubled the effect. It not only insured that a large number of Macedonians would be drawn to join DAG but it also acted as a deterrent to colonists because they were already brainwashed by the Greeks not to trust the Macedonians.

As a result, NOF and AFZH became the biggest recruiters for DAG and General Markos’s personal servants. There were no such successful organizations anywhere in all of Greece. The consequences of these mobilizations led to a deplorable situation which led many people to wonder: “How was it possible that so many people from the same village were being killed? Why were so many family members dying in this war?” Ironically, Macedonians were not only dying but were now dying for “democratic values” offered to them by their “new masters” (Zahariadis and the CPG), Greeks who themselves had never experienced democratic values: Greeks who for generations despised the Macedonian peasant and the entire Macedonian civilian population and who in the past had behaved brutally against them. Macedonians were recruited en masse (older men and women, children taken away from their families) and many died for democratic values which their descendents would never see and for socialist Greece which, at the time was well known, would never happen (Greece was under the British sphere of influence)!

What is the truth? What happened to the Macedonians who were lured by NOF and AFZH to fight for a “United Macedonia”? Was there any agreement, verbal, signed or otherwise where the CPG committed itself to recognizing the Macedonian identity, the Macedonian nation, the Macedonian people as Macedonians with democratic rights and privileges? Was there any agreement at all made for the rights of the Macedonians with those who we allowed, until yesterday, to manipulate us and turn us into their servants? So, beyond their successful ability to recruit Macedonians to fight in the Greek Civil War (God knows for what), what have NOF and AFZH done for the “brotherhood and for the unity” of the people when clearly, in the hands of the CPG, these organizations lacked political identity? What have they done?

These organizations, being pulled first by the CPY and then by the CPG in contradictory directions, seriously and chronically suffered from lack of credibility! Because of the change in direction and being guided by conflicting interests, they lacked authority. Credibility and being truthful are necessary principles, fundamental to establishing a foundation for building a system. Lack of credibility and their behaviour towards their own people made them seriously unreliable. Could they not sense what was happening? If they, as a political party (which raised the people in a rebellion), deviated from their basic principles (basic values) on which their political ideology was based and, as a result, sacrificed so many people for say, their daily needs and personal interests, shouldn’t they have to answer to at least those whose lives they ruined? Should they not be accountable to the Macedonian people who lost their lives or became homeless? When Tito decided to surrender these organizations and the Macedonian people to Zahariadis, the first thing the Macedonian leadership should have insisted on was an agreement that no harm would come to the Macedonian people. The first item on the joint program should have read: “NOF and AFZH will fight in alliance with the Greek people to protect the Macedonian people from physical harm.” But there is no mention of such an agreement anywhere!

The ideological offensive with its cosmopolitanism (working against the Macedonian national consciousness) cut the native Macedonian national stem down to its roots.

The situation was even worse than it seemed, because the leadership leading the rebellion belonged to the highest levels in the CPG, NOF and AFZH political ladder. Politicians, even during the Greek Civil War, harboured dangerous anachronisms about our national existence as Macedonians, attacking political opponents – even the fighters and other Macedonians who did not see any benefit from such a war. Was the leadership of NOF and AFZH not aware of how it pushed and hurt its own people, especially the younger Macedonian generations (the children of fighters and the children of partisans and communists)? Were they not aware of how much influence they had on their young souls and on their national consciousness?

The oath (Ο ΟΡΚΟΣ του Μαχητου ∆ΣΕ) to which fighters in the DAG ranks swore to, reads: “I, son of the Greek people and fighter of the Democratic Army of Greece, will fight to defend the integrity and security of the state borders of our fatherland - Greece ... etc.)”. Where are Macedonia and the Macedonians mentioned in this oath? What does it say about the “brotherhood and unity” between Macedonians and Greeks who were supposedly fighting together for their “common” interests?

This was a new (one way) road to freedom to be achieved through a great ideological system called “Brotherhood and Unity”. If this is not “false hope”, what is?

Paradoxically, many Macedonians found themselves on DAG’s list because of this “Brotherhood and Unity” benign slogan introduced in October 1946. Because of this simple little slogan many Macedonians became Tito and Zahariadis’s pawns and fought on their behalf as ordered. But it was not long after that that “human rights” for the Macedonians, once again, no longer mattered and “the slogan” along with human rights for the Macedonians disappeared forever. Instead of granting them human rights, they destroyed Macedonian families and the Macedonian people were dragged through a hellish war which eventually pushed them into permanent exile and the loss of their native hearth. This was the price we Macedonians had to pay for being foolish, trusting and loyal to Greeks and to the others who brutally invaded, occupied and partitioned our country and since then have been bent on destroying us and making us extinct!

It was only human for Macedonians to desire freedom and want to live in peace on their ancestral lands as they had for centuries. Unfortunately what we desired and what those who led us desired were two different things. We must now admit that we made many mistakes in our judgment of others who had no other desire other than to turn us into their slaves and who nearly destroyed us. Now I hope we can understand why it is important to learn from our past mistakes so that our future generations don’t repeat them!

In retrospect we know that neither Tito nor Zahariadis wanted us to win, particularly Zahariadis, and they both very well knew that the war they started would never be won. So why start a war in the first place?

The NOF and AFZH leadership must have realized at some point that nothing was going to materialize from what Tsvetko Uzunovski – Abas, CPM Central Committee Organizing Secretary and Minister of Internal Affairs of the People’s Republic of Macedonia, had told them in Skopje when he said: “Yugoslavia has become the Centre of the revolution in the Balkans and that the Macedonian question has become a Yugoslav question, and that is why the CPY ordered the formations of NOF, AFZH and NOMS which are now headed by you...” This “change of plans” when Tito surrendered the Macedonian organizations to Zahariadis, must have also frightened the NOF and AFZH leadership because they now had to tell the people that they would no longer be fighting for a “united Macedonia” and that now they would be fighting for a different cause and bowing to a different master. Surely the NOF and AFZH leadership, at this point, must have felt that things were not quite right and that someone might be doing something “not right”, behind their backs?

Surely they must have asked themselves: “In spite of what happened, should we continue on the same path? Or should we explain to our people that we may have been lied to…?”

As ordinary fighters, a vast majority of us being ordinary Macedonian peasants, did not know about any of this. We trusted and relied on our leadership to look after our personal and national interests. It is only fair to admit that we worked well together and followed their orders without question. We never saw ourselves as victims or questioned the politics led by our leadership.

After the introduction of “brotherhood and unity”, i.e. Macedonians and Greeks fighting together for a common cause, the NOF and AFZH leadership must have realized (it must have been more than clear to them) that the battle for a “United Macedonia” was lost, so why did these organizations still call on the Macedonian people to follow them? Switching from fighting for a “United Macedonia” to fighting for a common cause under Greek rule was a total defeat for NOF and AFZH right from the start; yet no one saw it that way and no one put the brakes on this war!

This is how historical facts highlight the situation: Based on the October 14, 1946 agreement made between Tito (CPY) and Zahariadis (CPG), Karaivanov, representing the CPY and Ioannidis, representing the CPG, later made the following announcement: “The Macedonian organizations NOF, AFZH and NOMS and their leadership will now fall entirely under the responsibility of the CPG. All armed Macedonian units now operating in the DAG divisions will now fall under the leadership of General Markos.”

In addition to that, all these agreements between Tito and Zahariadis were made at state level, i.e. between Yugoslavia and Greece (CPY and CPG). If these agreements were made at “state level” then they had to adhere to all International Treaties and Agreements. This means that they had to strictly adhere to the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest responsible for the division of Macedonia. So these agreements were not only another blow to the Macedonian people but they put a question on the formation of the organization VMRO (United). (18)

All this reminds me of the time during the short period between 1919 and 1923 when the CPY and CPG, under the Communist International, were deciding on a policy to solve the Macedonian question. Their policy was based on the thesis that various nationalities belonging to Macedonia’s neighbours were living in Macedonia but none of these nationalities constituted an absolute majority and therefore the Macedonian question was treated as a geographic issue and not as a national or ethnic one.

The Communist International however, did recognize the Macedonian people as an ethnic nation when it had extensive discussions with VMRO in Vienna in 1923. As a result an Agreement was reached and signed in December 1923 between IMRO and the Soviet Russian Republic.

It is also important to note that VMRO, in its Central Committee Declaration, dated November 29, 1924, obliged itself to fight for the liberation and unification of Macedonia as an independent state in its natural, ethnic and geographic boundaries.

The following was stated in the Communist International (Moscow, 1924) Fifth Congress Resolution: “The Macedonian question is a national question” and Macedonians will struggle for a “United and Independent Macedonia.”

The CPG Central Committee manifesto was adopted during its Third Extraordinary Congress in 1924, immediately after the declaration for a “United and Independent Macedonia” was announced.

And what can we Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia say about the lies we were fed during the Greek Civil War, which were especially designed by the CPY and the CPG to exterminate us and uproot us from our many centuries-old homes!?

Was this the last insolent great lie perpetrated by the Left?

I am becoming more and more convinced that the post Greek Civil War top Macedonian leadership was without a sense of national consciousness about the fate of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia and did not want to know exactly what had happened to the Macedonians during the Greek Civil War. It is unclear what the CPY/CPM objectives were during the war, so each person, more or less, had his or her own perception as to what had happened.

Even though research on the subject has been conducted for more than half a century now (and there are reasons for that), it is done in order to learn from our historical experience, i.e. not to forget what happened and not to repeat it.

During that period of time (Greek Civil War) the following was demanded of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia: That they be “soft”, “cotton soft”. That they “obey” everything the CPG asked of them. And everything the CPG asked of them had to be accepted with “desire”, a kind of desire that caressed their ears, touched their souls, and brought tears to their eyes. And if they did all this, they were told, it would lead them to a brighter future.

Our research has shown exactly who hung the communist ideological chain around our neck as well as who tightened it. It is precisely this chain (created by the CPY and placed around our necks by Kolishevski) that made the Greek Civil War cruel, bloody and Godless. This “chain of slavery” has not, to this day, been explained. As a result we Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia have been reduced to numbers, even among ourselves. Our common denominator became: “To whom do you belong and who are you?” [Translator’s note: When Macedonian fighters from the Greek Civil War were returning to the People’s Republic of Macedonia, the Yugoslav authorities, most of them Macedonians themselves, sent these fighters directly to jail to be debriefed instead of welcoming them back with open arms as they had expected. There they were asked political and impersonal questions because, according to those who experienced this, the Yugoslav authorities cared more about the fighters’ allegiance; whether it was to Tito or to Stalin, than they cared for the well-being of the individuals themselves.] So those who fought with Kolishevki’s chain around their necks had to now fight for a new life and for a new place to live. On top of that, “servitude” was demanded of them.

But in order to understand Tito’s reasons and motives for his involvement in Greek affairs, after World War II when all conflicts were over, we are required to do some thorough research.

The explanation given to us by the Yugoslav leaders that “they did what they had to do because of internationalist impulses” is not very convincing. Why? Because these problems started to crop up around the fall of 1948 when Yugoslavia was starting to warm up to the Western powers.

After being sold out by Tito, NOF and AFZH were now burdened with the task of having to struggle together with their enemy. Up to now they were directed by the CPY to fight to “liberate themselves” from the Greek yoke by creating a “United Macedonia” separate from Greece. Now they were condemned to fight for “Unity and Brotherhood” with the Greeks, the same Greeks they were preparing to overthrow! This so-called “Unity and Brotherhood” was now the new foundation on which their future would be built. And as such, the time for de-Macedonia-nizing Macedonia was coming closer. After attempting to “break away” from the Greeks, this new “Macedonian allegiance” to the Greeks not only created confusion, particularly with those Macedonians who had already fled to Yugoslavia, such as the Aegean Brigade, but it also created confrontation and mistrust between the Macedonians themselves. In the eyes of some Macedonians, yesterday’s NOF and AFZ “liberators” of Macedonia, overnight became “Greek-o-phil traitors”.

Before we continue, we need to explain something here: Given the “Greek doctrine” and long term Greek strategy (since 1913) in establishing and defining the Macedonian question, realistically the Macedonians had no chance of making any progress in their pursuit of their rights. The Macedonian people had no chance of changing the Greek attitude towards them, even with threats of war. It has been proven, over and over again, that regardless of its relationship with Tito’s Yugoslavia and its relationship with the Republic of Macedonia today, Greece has been unwilling to open the Greek Civil War Pandora’s box and respond objectively, responsibly and analytically to the many outstanding issues related to this subject. Greece is not ready or willing to admit to its part in the genocide, ethnic cleansing and depopulation of Macedonia; of its native Macedonian people. To this day Greece is unwilling to even admit that Macedonians exist! But the Greeks are not the only ones guilty here; we too must take some of the blame for keeping quiet, for being silent for the last 60 years and allowing Tito as well as the Greeks to hide the truth about us from the world and from our younger generations!

Did we keep silent because we were afraid or because we were socially and nationally irresponsible?

The aim of my investigation here is to seek clarification as to why this fraud was perpetrated against us, which eventually led us to more persecution and to permanently losing our homes? I want to know the truth as to why the CPY/CPM put the noose around our necks (in the first two vital years) and then handed us over to the CPG to hang us by our necks. It was well-known that the top CPG leadership was made up of the very same colonists and settlers from Asia Minor who were brought to our native lands from Asia Minor in 1924 to tame and dilute us and eventually replace us. Why did we agree to be handed back to them? More importantly why did we agree to follow their lead to commit suicide? Had we forgotten why the colonists were brought to our Macedonia in the first place? Did we forget that they were brought there to; a) to put a barrier between the so-called “Slav” world and the Greeks and b) to dominate Greek occupied Macedonia?

Here is what CPG Secretary Nikos Zahariadis said about the options open to the Greek leadership as quoted in ΠΕΤΡΟΣ ΑΝΤΑΙΟΣ’s book “ΝΙΚΟΣ ΖΑΗΑΡΙΑ∆ΗΣ”, ΘΥΤΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΘΥΜΑ, page 414.):

“After Zahariadis and a group of cadres had completed their studies in the KOUTV Party School in Moscow, they left the Soviet Union and returned to Greece where they held, in 1924, the 3rd Extraordinary Congress of the Socialist Party of Greece during which time they renamed their Party to the ‘Communist Party of Greece’ (CPG). In addition to clearing some internal issues during the Congress they also accepted some external recommendations made by various communist Groups, including some from the Congress of the 3rd Communist International, as well as those recommended by the Balkan Communist Conferences, particularly the 7th Conference of the Balkan Communist Federation concerning the so-called ‘Macedonians’. And this is how it all began and how the CPG placed the first loop of the noose around its own neck; all this on behalf of the international proletariat.” This basically sums up how Nikos Zahariadis, leader of the Political Pillar of the CPG, felt about the “Macedonian Question”.

And what did Zahariadis think of Markos Vafiadis? Markos Vafiadis was born in 1906 in the village Tosie, Asia Minor. Even though he only had a grade four education, at the peak of his career Markos was made supreme leader of the military and president of the state. How is that even possible? Well it was all done by Zahariadis, not because Vafiadis was “that” capable but because Zahariadis needed a patsy! During the Greek Civil War (1945-1950) Zahariadis chose Markos and made him General and supreme commander of the army and then appointed him President of the interim government (in the mountains). And why did he do that? He did that so he could blame him for all his own problems! Even though there was very little wrong with Vafiadis, in 1948 Zahariadis declared him sick, suspended him from his duties and sent him to exile to the city Penza in the USSR. Vafiadis’s duties were then taken over by the CPG Central Committee and by the Politburo.