CHAPTER FIVE - Unprecedented (self)-manipulation of the Macedonians

CHAPTER FIVE - Unprecedented (self)-manipulation of the Macedonians

The slogan: “Creating an independent Macedonian state within a Balkan demographic federation…” was printed in the DAG newspaper “Pros ti niki” (Towards victory) published on March 10, 1949.

In the four years of the civil war, the nature of the struggle changed several times. More precisely, the reason for these changes was to totally commit the Macedonian people to the war effort. The architects of the war used every means possible in order to mobilize the Macedonians en masse, including various slogans, political manipulations and making promises they could not possibly keep but which might motivate the people to join the war effort.

Suvogorski could no longer stand the silence. It felt like a fire was burning in the pit of his stomach. He adjusted his glasses on the top of his nose, sighed and said:

“We Macedonians were not a problem for our neighbours for centuries. There were no problems between them as well. There were no violent disturbances, no murders, nothing like the things that were mentioned in the NOF II Congress that took place on March 25 and 26, 1949. In fact things were going along smoothly in accordance with CPG Central Committee’s spirit of the 5th plenum when “self-determination” and the “creation of an independent Macedonian state” were acceptable to everyone.

Godfather Zahariadis’s main objective, during NOF’s II Congress, was to proclaim a general people’s uprising that would include the entire Macedonian population. He wanted total mobilization of the Macedonian people.

After NOF’s II Congress, the Macedonian people were placed in a position to revisit the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest.

At this point I want to say that there is still time and space for us to develop a long-term policy for our survival, for the survival of what is remaining of our small Macedonian existence. It is most

unfortunate that we lost our largest part to assimilation, destruction, eviction and genocide. We must no longer look to what the Macedonian state has done or can do, we must look to ourselves, what we as individuals have done and what more we can do to save our Macedonian existence.

KOEM was established on March 27, 1949. This took place after the NOF II Congress. Immediately after that the slogan for a free and independent Macedonia began to vanish and new slogans began to appear, the kind that would influence the “total mobilization of the Macedonian people”. With this came the depopulation of the Macedonian villages and their planned eviction towards the border zone,” concluded Suvogorski.