CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

1. The NOF Central Committee agitation and propaganda department stops working

Following the agreement reached at the unification meeting on November 21, 1946, I was assigned the task to find the necessary people and technical means to organize the NOF Central Council Agitation and Propaganda department. Our main task in this department was to prepare and publish NOF and AFZH’s newspapers “NEPOKOREN” and “BILTEN” and the magazine “NOVA MAKEDONKA” as well as print flyers, leaflets, brochures and propaganda material.

This was the first time that a central Macedonian publication was realized since this part of Macedonia was occupied and came under Greek rule. It undoubtedly had immense historical and political significance.

However, as I mentioned earlier, this too was one of Zahariadis’s maneuvers. The newly established agitation and propaganda department was systematically prevented from starting work and working normally after it was formed and capable of doing such work.

Under the pretext that it was to be located near the CPG leadership headquarters for Macedonia, “in order to have invaluable CPG assistance”, the agitation and propaganda department was kept in isolation. It was first moved to the village Kotili located on Mount Voios, that is, far from the basic NOF organizations. After drifting for a while on the road, it was then moved to the village Likorahi in Epirus. It stayed here in anticipation, waiting to find out where the CPG leadership headquarters was to be finally located. This was done, we were told, so that we can create connections with the distant NOF organizations... If Kotili was far beyond the areas where NOF operated, Likorahi was not even in Macedonia at all. But here we were told we would have “immediate party assistance”, and we would receive materials for our work through Party channels.

2. Stringos in the role of an Olympic god

However, days, weeks and months passed by and no “party assistance” or materials arrived! But to be honest, I had no illusions about any of this...

Located in the woods not far above the village Likorahi was DAG’s General Headquarters. I went there to see Stringos who I met for the first time. He received me in his office, a spacious barracks made of planks. I assume he had invited me there to see what I looked like. He probably wanted to see what the “traitor” who “stole” the ELAS Macedonian battalion from Kaimakchalan looked like. I must have inconvenienced him when he was secretary of the Bureau for Macedonia. He was sitting in front of his massive table drinking coffee. He had a hardened face looking like it was made of grey clay. After a quick inquisitive glance at me his eyes drifted towards the window. I greeted him but he ignored my greeting. I looked right at his face but he continued to look through the window with “devastating” indifference, completely “ignoring” my presence. He gave me the impression that the branches in front of his window were more important than me. He held himself more superior than any of the gods of Olympus could, before an ordinary mortal. Obviously, by doing this he wanted to let me know that for him I was nothing and nobody. He continued to drink coffee, watching the branches in front of his window, without saying a single word. He did not even ask me to sit down...

Sometime later during a meeting with Zahariadis, we proposed to separate the Macedonian fighters from the common units and create unique Macedonian DAG units. The idea was to have Greek and Macedonian units compete against each other to see who would have greater success, which would contribute more to their fighting skills and so on. By doing so, we would strengthen and improve our combat activities in all of DAG.

He thought about it for a few seconds and said no! He then went on to say that all current battalions and brigades need to be disbanded because this is no good!

And that was the end of that point, which got me thinking. Why is this “no good”? Competition is always good and will achieve much more in DAG than what we currently have.

Then I found the answer:

It is “no good” because there were Greek fears that the Macedonian side of the struggle would be strongly promoted, with the addition of many new volunteers and, above all, would be widely promoted in the entire world. With such a struggle the Macedonian people would write their own Macedonian history, as it happened, fighting together with their Greek comrades in a common struggle, and the Macedonian struggle could no longer be hidden or presented as a Greek struggle. This, it seems to me, is why Zahariadis so quickly gave up on the competition idea in general and on reinforcing DAG in particular. Only later, especially after the conclusion of the CPG Central Committee VI Extended Plenum held in March 1956, I finally and slowly came to the realization that Zahariadis was generally responsible for “undermining DAG’s victory”...

Anyway, Zahariadis was right in this case. Namely, if we were to separate the Macedonian fighters from the common units and create unique Macedonian units it would have meant that there were no uniquely “GREEK” battalions and brigades in the main revolutionary hotspot in Greek occupied Macedonia. After “unity” was established, and according to the NOF directive, Macedonian fighters began to join DAG en masse. So, there is no other way to describe this than to say that these battalions and brigades were created with Macedonians... So here we were and this bloated man named Stringos, standing in front of me, in reality looked like a hilarious caricature. Why was he posturing like a god? Was he that ignorant? I don’t know. I briefly said, what he already knew, “I don’t have any work here… I am leaving!”

He did not even try to stop me. In his superior tone of voice he lazily mumbled:

“So, go then!”

With this unique blurt of three words, this man from the Party of Olympus started and ended his conversation with me… a mere mortal man...

The NOF central agitation and propaganda department returned to Macedonia and, on May 1, 1947, LONG AFTER “UNITY” WAS ESTABLISHED, we managed to publish the first issue of “Nepokoren” with barely one hundred copies and in a very small format the size of a math exercise book. We had no paper!

We were only allowed to obtain paper from the regional Party organs and from nowhere else. Why was this, I don’t know? I tried to convince Keramidzhiev to organize the purchase of the bulk of our paper independently from Lerin, Kostur, Voden or Solun, but he disagreed. He said this would violate the Party’s directive which stated that: “Paper supplies must be obtained only through the party…” This was ridiculous… It would have made more sense if he had said he simply did not want to spend the organization’s money on paper...

We did our best and utilized our resources to the maximum to continue to operate the Macedonian press. In the second issue of “Nepokoren” we included information on the 1st NOF Conference Resolution and managed to print 70 copies of which 20 were sent to Voden Region. Unfortunately, during their delivery the courier was arrested and the newspapers were destroyed. The newspapers were destroyed and the courier was arrested by Tasios Gusiopoulos-Makis, a Party committee secretary in Voden.

3. Tasios Gusiopoulos-Makis

Tasios Gusiopoulos-Makis was from village Dolno Gramatiko, Voden Region. He was a former Greek teacher who proved to be one of the bitterest enemies of the Macedonian national liberation movement. I have in my hands an article written by Andrea Chipov, a VMRO (United) leader, that says Tasios Gusiopoulos-Makis ruined many Macedonian fighters in 1945, accusing them of committing “high treason” against Greece, while the real traitors, the Greek collaborators working with the fascist occupiers arrested by ELAS, he managed to free.

The following are the most serious crimes directly or indirectly committed by Tasios Gusiopoulos-Makis:

He was responsible for ELAS liquidating the Macedonian patriot and activist Pando Dzhikata from the village Chegan, Voden Region.

He was also responsible for the liquidation of three other people from Chegan, Krste Mingov, Kosta Popstoikov and Lazo Duiev, sent from the village as a commission, as I mentioned earlier, to protest Pando’s arrest and seek his release. All four were killed during the second half of October 1943.

He was involved in the ELAS night terror attack against the Macedonian people in the villages Zhervi, Chagan, Rusilovo, Drushka, Gugovo, Nisia, Teovo, Mesimer and Vladovo. Gusiopoulos was familiar with these villages and their people because he grew up in this area. And, as I mentioned earlier, ELAS took “hostages” from these villages many of whom were then liquidated in July, 1944. Included among those murdered were Dimitar Leskata and Gele Popov.

According to Simovski, all these victims “felt more Macedonian than the CPG could have allowed”, that is, what local leaders like Gusiopoulos could have allowed. Gusiopoulos was a fanatic Grkoman (Macedonian loyal to the Greek cause), a true janissary, who did not hesitate to point a finger at any Macedonian who was an active bearer of the Macedonian national ideal. So, it was by no accident that Zahariadis appointed him Commissar of the 18th brigade, composed exclusively of Macedonian fighters. Here is something more about Gusiopoulos:

“According to a statement made by the CPG Central Committee, published in the newspaper ‘Avgi’, Tasios Gusiopoulos-Makis, who reportedly was a representative of the CPG Bureau for Macedonia and Thrace, has allegedly been in the services of the Greek Asphalia (secret police) since 1955... The organization headed by Gusiopoulos is located in Solun and is a provocative organization created to undermine the unity of the people...” This quote comes

from a telegram issued by the Soviet agency TASS from Istanbul, published in Moscow’s newspaper Pravda on October 27, 1956. We know that after DAG was defeated, Gusiopoulos, as DAG Commissar of the 18th brigade, fled to Albania and from there moved to one of the European socialist countries, most likely to Romania, where he supposedly is still an immigrant to this day. After his return to Solun his entire involvement was explained in detail… According to him Zahariadis sent him to Solun to do “Party work” which, of course, no one disputes, during which time he confessed that the Greek intelligence, counter-terror service and the Asphalia were “played”. And indeed they themselves admitted to being “played” because their people were in constant contact with Gusiopoulos who continuously informed them. They then helped him return to Greece.

However, who was who and who played who, among other things, became evident by the actions taken. Zahariadis did not “play” the Athens authorities, the facts clearly show that Zahariadis “played” the Macedonian people when he placed DAG, the small rebel army of about 40,000 (half of whom were Macedonian men and women), under the blows of an incomparably overpowering enemy, to destroy them. Zahariadis “played” the CPG itself from within, making sure it slowly but surely collapsed and became incapable of supporting the revolution. By doing this Zahariadis effectively “cleared the terrain” for the new planned Greek bourgeoisie major offensive ensuring its success, which finally led to the establishment of the military junta dictatorship on April 21, 1967. Gusiopoulos was the human connection. His job was to take information on the CPG’s position and adopt directives for provocateur activities in its ranks.

4. NEPOKOREN – NOF’s ideological and political organ

There were many problems, ideological, political, organizational and technical facing the Macedonian revolutionary press in general and, “Nepokoren” in particular, from becoming NOF’s central ideological and political organ.

Another problem was its circulation, which was successfully resolved by hand to hand deliveries. This way the publication was

read at meetings, conferences, in the villages, in the hospitals were the DAG wounded were recovering and by groups of DAG fighters.

In order to obtain as wide a circle of readers as possible, as well as to spread the Macedonian alphabet and Macedonian literacy more easily and faster, the most important material was printed in both Macedonian and Greek.

In other words “NEPOKOREN” served as a primer to teach Macedonians to read Macedonian, as well as a national ideological and political aid, a weapon for the Macedonian people. The Greek text was helpful in that respect.

As the leading Macedonian information service, the tasks placed before “NEPOKOREN” were both important and difficult.

The closeness of the Bulgarian language and Bulgarian propaganda promoting hatred, especially aimed at Greek genocides, was dividing the people and attracting some Macedonians to the Bulgarian fascist camp. There was also the great deadly famine, caused by the occupation, which attracted many Greeks in the Bulgarian clubs in Solun.

It was “NEPOKOREN’s” job to fix these problems and point to the fact that the Macedonian people’s national liberation movement here in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia was formed to oppose the Bulgarian presence and politics. This was contrary to the autonomist movement organized by the Germans and Bulgarians.

What was a lot more difficult, delicate and even dangerous was the resistance against the new CPG line regarding the Macedonian National Question which proclaimed that the Macedonian people were a nationally “unformed mass” of “Slavophones” who lived in the Greek part of Macedonia (CPG Central Committee 2nd Plenum, February 1946).

This, in general, was an open denial of the national existence of the Macedonian nation, a serious offense to the democratic rights of the Macedonian people living in Greek occupied Macedonia who were now, in fact, proclaimed as a Greek people, a group of

“Slavophone” Greeks, who existed until they were assimilated or otherwise disappeared.

Carefully avoiding to speak directly about this, “NEPOKOREN” initiated the struggle by following the publication of Blazhe Koneski’s book “Macedonian Literature and the Macedonian Literary Language”. Blazhe Koneski was a Macedonian academician and professor at the Skopje University.

At the same time “NEPOKOREN”, through appropriate articles, tried to show that the Macedonian national liberation movement is a natural fruit of a historic process, an inevitable consequence of the historical necessity for the Macedonian people to express the real needs… This was our answer to the CPG’s “claims”, mentioned earlier, that a real Macedonian national movement does not exist and that the “open hostilities” observed here are the acts of something “artificial”, part of someone else’s “agents” and “mercenaries”, etc.

“NEPOKOREN” also carried the message that those Macedonians who are familiar with Macedonian history know that, by following the path we have taken, under today’s conditions, our people’s liberation front (NOF) will become the successor of VMRO and of our most vibrant traditions, following our hero Gotse Delchev’s path, and that our struggles today are an extension of the battles our fathers and grandfathers fought in the 1903 Macedonian Uprising against the Ottoman empire...” (NEPOKOREN number 5, December 25, 1947)

5. The brochure “NOF”

In a separate brochure entitled “NOF” I tried, in the Greek language, to summarize the social, national and ideological foundation of the Macedonian national liberation movement. In the short preface, I wrote:

“The national liberation struggle led by the Slavo-Macedonian people, alongside the Greek people, has been slandered and systematically distorted by the reactionary propaganda here and abroad.

There is a lot of confusion and vagueness. Many of our Greek friends who do not live among us know nothing at all about us and about the birth and development of our Slavo-Macedonian people’s liberation movement inside the Greek state and practically know nothing about the existence and activities of the Slavo-Macedonian people’s liberation Front (NOF).

Like our many Greeks friends, there are also Hellenized Slavo-Macedonians who, even though they live in the NOF environment, still do not understand why NOF exists within the general framework of the democratic movement in Greece.

So, we find it necessary to explain and correctly interpret the Slavo-Macedonian liberation movement within the framework of the democratic movement in general in Greece and to reaffirm this necessity for the new NOF cadres who are constantly shaping themselves, as well as for the Slavo-Macedonian people in general.

This is our reason for publishing this brochure.

But please understand that this is our first attempt. The information in this brochure has been written in the mountains without the necessary aids, and - it does not exhaustively cover the entire topic. But whether and how much it serves the purpose for which it was written, will depend on those who read it and ponder over it.

Any and all criticism will be welcomed...”

The brochure was printed and ready at the end of 1947 at the planning stages of the Congress and we expected to have it distributed during the NOF 1st Congress scheduled for January 11, 1948, through the delegates, as well as through the regional and foreign NOF leaders.

But it did not come to that.

At the last moment before the brochure was about to be distributed “someone” put a stop to it because they felt the information in it was too “nationalistic”. All the copies were destroyed, except for the few our activists managed to hide in their pockets. Paskal Mitrevski was

the one who delivered the “verdict”. He was the only one from the NOF Secretariat to speak up and call the content in the brochure nationalistic and to ask for its destruction. CPG Politburo members Ioanidis and Stringos, who at the time were present in the meeting, agreed with Mitrevski and obliged Stavros Kochopoulos to collect and burn all the copies. Ioanidis then took me back to the altar of the church where the Congress was held, and gave me the NOF Executive Committee candidate list. According to this list the proposed NOF Executive Committee was to consist of Mitrevski, Keramidzhiev, Rakovski, Kochev (Kochopoulos turned into Kochev like a chameleon) and Nikolova. Ioannidis also told me that Mitrevski objected to my candidacy and I would have to temporarily step down while the Party reviewed my case.

I did not say anything. I kept quiet. It was a done deal! That was clear to me now… They (CPG) took the first step to take over NOF by infiltrating its top leadership with their own people and by removing the “nationalists”. They removed me at their first opportunity and replaced me with Kochopoulos, a Grkoman, loyal to the Greek cause. Soon the NOF Executive Council will be infiltrated by more anti-Macedonians the likes of Vainas, Gusiopoulos and other “opouloses” who, until yesterday, were NOF’s staunchest opponents and today... oh, well… they are NOF’s leaders. There is no doubt that the purpose for putting these people in charge of NOF and the Macedonian national liberation movement was to destroy them from within. The worst thing about all this is the fact that Mitrevski, one of NOF’s founders and its first presidents, appeared to be on board with this plan. In a short time NOF was turned from a Macedonian liberation organization into a political organization serving the Greek cause. When I got my chance I said this to Mitrevski:

“You are fooling yourself…! You are fooling yourself if you think that you will be accepted and you will prosper if you surround yourself with “opouloses”! You too will get what’s coming to you…!”

I will talk about what happened to Mitrevski somewhere else...

6. The readers who could not read

The staff that comprised NOF’s agitation and propaganda department was completely inexperienced and had never dealt with journalism before. Similarly, NOF’s governing staff was also inexperienced and had never dealt with politics. Both of these occupations seemed impossible to carry out for the Macedonians in these positions. On top of that, according to the Greek authorities, the Macedonian people did not exist as a separate, non-Greek nation.

But, like everything else concerning the Macedonians, these newly appointed and inexperienced journalists working for the NOF agitation and propaganda department were expected to overcome these enormous difficulties just like that. Also, it should be well-known to the reader that the Macedonian language here, in the Greek (occupied) part of Macedonia, was banned and illegal to be spoken anywhere and as a result of that the Macedonian people did not know how to read and write in Macedonian. While we were in Lerin, in the summer of 1938, my mother went out to purchase some peppers. The market was very close, just in front of our house, but she returned home very late, a few hours later. I thought she had gone to see a friend. When she came back I sarcastically asked her: “How much did it cost you to purchase these few peppers?”

“Three hundred and five drachmas!” she replied.

“What!? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“May he burn in hell; I did not see that cursed policeman there. I know he is always hovering around but this time he was in civilian clothing and I did not notice him. I looked to my left and to my right and then asked the vendor: “How much for the peppers?” The policeman was there… behind me. He took me to the police station and after a long wait he charged me three hundred drachmas. A young boy paid five hundred and was beaten badly...

It was very common for our (Macedonian) people to receive summonses for speaking Macedonian. Here is a sample: