Highlighted in Chapter III of NOF’s Program is the need for unity in the Greek

Highlighted in Chapter III of NOF’s Program is the need for unity in the Greek and Macedonian people’s struggle for the success of the people’s revolution.

Highlighted in Chapter IV are the Organization’s relations in regards to the armed struggle, Democratic Army and the People’s Government.

Highlighted in Chapter V is the attitude towards the revolution’s national and democratic tasks and how the social and economic problems in Greece are going to be addressed.

As we can see, NOF’s action program is fully responding to the requirements of the democratic movement in Greece and is specific in what it sets out to be the basic democratic rights of the Macedonian people as a distinct nationality. After all, this is an expression of the Macedonian people’s effort, actions and aims placed in the actual conditions of the time.

NOF’s Statute for Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia adopted during NOF’s 1st Congress contained all the organizational general

principles for an armed struggle with emphasis on democratic centralism. Of particular importance was the fact that the Macedonian people’s struggle was emancipated through these documents.

NOF’s 1st Congress naturally influenced many Macedonian people to join the armed struggle. The decisions made during the Congress, the tasks that needed completing and its central objective, attracted many Macedonians in the mobilization of forces in the Democratic Army and in the services of the armed struggle. NOF truly applied its forces to the fullest in adequately fulfilling their tasks. Shortly after the Congress new fighters were mobilized, both men and women, members of NOF but serving in the ranks of DAG. The number of mobilized fighters reaches as high as 20,000. They were sent to fight at the front not only on Macedonian territory but also deep in the south of Greece.

But in spite of all its achievements and commitments during its 1st Congress, NOF was dealt a serious blow by the CPG which paved the way for Zahariadis and his leadership to subjugate NOF and the Macedonian people and turn them into an obedient instrument of war. This not only crippled the Macedonian people by delivering them heavy casualties but also liquidated any chance they had of becoming independent and later the vast majority were exiled and driven out of their homes and ancestral lands.

NOF’s place in the revolution, its problems and its relationship with the CPG were well highlighted in the CPG-NOF Agreement. As we stated earlier, the CPG made every effort to stifle NOF and turn it into a completely dependent body without any political and organizational independence. To ensure that, the CPG leadership did not only rely on its political and organizational relations, it wanted, above all, to win the organization from within. To win the organization from within, the CPG leadership resorted to infiltrating the Organization with controversial people, people who hated NOF and wanted it dismantled. For this purpose the CPG leadership also systematically demoted NOF staff. We can freely say that the criterion for this set-up in the military and political organization was not due to loyalty to the revolution. This was something that was closely associated with the CPG alone. These CPG leadership

tendencies could not be easily hidden from the NOF membership and staff, however, and as was often publicly manifested, small and large incidents came into play. Resistance to these incidents and to the CPG’s policies, in this regard, was spontaneous among NOF members. This naturally was a result of having bad historic experiences with the Greeks.

The CPG leadership’s negative tendencies towards NOF came into full expression during NOF’s 1st Congress, when the CPG leadership decided that NOF should include people like Malios Gosopoulos and others like him in the NOF leadership. These were people who had nothing in common with NOF or the Macedonian people’s aspirations. On top of that, these people were known to be anti NOF and very controversial. The fact that the CPG was attempting to impose these people on NOF and the fact that the CPG was attempting to undermine NOF from the inside did not go unnoticed by the delegates.

(The top NOF leadership up until NOF’s 1st Congress in January 1948 rose out of the Political Commission for Aegean Macedonia, but it did not include all its members. Only the following four were included: Mihail Kiramitchiev (president), Paskal Mitrevski (secretary), Pavle Rakovski and Dzhodzho Urdov.

The weakness of this leadership is that it lacked unity and did not see to it to accommodate all the revolutionary cadres.

They developed directly opposite to the attitude of the CPG leadership in regards to the Macedonian National Question. NOF, as a young revolutionary movement, was in need of mobilizing all the cadres who firmly stood on the platform of this movement, from all regions of Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia.

Although there was effort made by some members of this leadership to correct these deficiencies, the organization in general followed sect like personal politics which severely damaged NOF. Its leaders could not grasp the simple truth that no one was able to impose their authority over the others for the simple reason that the movement was created by separate and distinct resistance groups in certain regions in Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia and that they had to

comply with all these “authorities” in a joint leadership. Such a situation in leadership – absent of so many devoted cadres and lacking unity – weakened NOF’s position in relations to the CPG leadership, which itself was internationalist.

(Pavle Rakovski was concerned about NOF’s condition and in June 1946, during a leadership meeting, strongly stressed this to the Secretary and, among other things, noted the following: “I have no experience and I do not know anything about the Kostur movement, I, however, have experience and know the Voden movement well. But now I understand that no one is present in our movement representing the seventy people from the previous Karaorman group.”

Rakovski wondered whether this was an “infantile disorder” and noted that personal politics needed to change because “this childish disease will soon turn us all gray”. Taken from Rakovski’s original personal notes located at the Institute of National History – Skopje.)

There was no unity in NOF, not before NOF acted inconsistently with the CPG and not after. There was no unity even between the NOF secretary and president. After NOF’s Agreement with the CPG, the CPG leadership nurtured this disunity to the extent that, in the summer of 1948, it expelled the NOF leadership under the accusation that it was “factionary”.)

This disunity became apparent during the NOF 1st Congress when the CPG handed NOF a list of its own candidates to be included in NOF’s leadership. Because there was no guarantee that the proposed list would be adopted, pressure was put on NOF to “rush it”. It was most unfortunate for NOF that no one objected. Not only that, there were some people from NOF who welcomed the list without understanding or caring that the proposed candidates were anti-NOF people and very controversial. By adopting this list a serious blow was dealt against NOF; in its own Congress no less.

Zahariadis’s intentions regarding this matter were well-known: by infiltrating the NOF leadership with his own people he would be able to fully subordinate NOF and its national policies and

objectives. This obviously was done to prevent NOF from becoming stronger and from winning new positions.

- Zahariadis believed that the political line taken for the form of struggle was right.

- Over 10,000 Macedonian men and women fought in the ranks of DAG.

- NOF being tightly organized was a political move necessary to motivate the Democratic Army to fight.

- Being placed under the leadership of NOF, the regions behind the scenes and particularly the free zones run by NOF were converted into workshops for DAG.

The vast majority of the delegates in the Congress were true representatives of the Macedonian people and were ready to support any initiative that followed the line to ensure true equality of the Macedonian people in this struggle. But those expected initiatives never materialized.

The NOF 1st Congress was the right place to firmly say “no” to Zahariadis and his cronies. It was the right place and time to not only reject the “loyal” CPG supporters from being appointed into the NOF leadership, but to appoint Macedonian military and political leaders from the ranks of the Macedonian people who expressed Macedonian aspirations in this struggle. NOF should have fiercely fought against allowing anyone other than loyal Macedonian military and political leaders to lead the Macedonian masses who were willing to sacrifice ten thousand and later twenty thousand partisans to fight in this struggle. Unfortunately, the hesitation and unprincipled compromise carried out during this Congress was unprecedented and proved to be fateful to events that followed.

A conflict between the Kominform and Yugoslavia broke out in June 1948, which greatly impacted the democratic movement in Greece and relations between the CPG and NOF. When relations between the CPY (Communist Party of Yugoslavia) and the CPG

were in good order, the CPG looked at NOF with some confidence due to NOF’s good relations with the People’s Republic of Macedonia. After the conflict the CPG stepped up its efforts to fully subdue the NOF leadership and place all its assets under its control. Using its acquired position in NOF during the 1st Congress, i.e. placing its own people in the NOF leadership, the CPG leadership, in August 1948, called the main NOF Board to a Plenum during which it suspended the entire NOF leadership and replaced it with its own supporters. This act, together with the CPG’s overall policy towards NOF, evolving from its relations with Yugoslavia, proved to be negative for the Macedonian fighters in the ranks of DAG. From that moment on until DAG withdrew from the conflict, NOF was under the CPG yoke with an ongoing campaign to completely discredit it. The CPG eventually held the NOF leadership “responsible” for its defeat in the armed struggle.

Some spectacular moves were made during that period against the Macedonian people and against the NOF leadership. The NOF 2nd Congress was held under these circumstances in late March 1949 as well as other events that followed to the end of the Greek Civil War.

The following was written in the Democratic Army of Greece daily newspaper “Pros ti niki”, edition 12, published on February 27, 1949 under the title “NOF Central Committee Plenum”: “Portions of the solutions that will be offered during the 2nd NOF Central Committee Congress discussed on February 3, 1949, at free Vicho, will be available further down.

The Plenum was also attended by CPG Secretary General Nikos Zahariadis…”

Further down, among other things, we read:

“5. It was decided to convene a 2nd NOF Congress during March 1949. The 2nd NOF Congress will be the congress which will proclaim the national participation of the Slavo-Macedonian people together with the Greek people in this democratic struggle. The Macedonian people with all their human, economic and spiritual power will be mobilized to participate in DAG’s struggle. This Congress will proclaim a plan that will be of tremendous benefit to

the Macedonian people on a national, political, social, cultural and economic level. The 2nd NOF Congress will be the congress which will proclaim the new NOF program principles. These are age-old principles that will fulfill an old Macedonian people’s desire; to proclaim a United Macedonia, a single independent Macedonian state that will exist in the democratic federation of the Balkan people, which is the realization of a long-term bloody struggle...”

The above statement was even more spectacular when it was announced on the radio program “Free Greece”. And given how things were in the Balkans then, it attracted great public interest as well as drew sharp reactions from the Athens government. NOF’s 2nd Congress was held on March 9, 1949. After that NOF was forced to make a special announcement, part of which was published in the newspaper “Pros ti niki”, edition 23, on March 10, 1949, in which, among other things, it was said: “There are rumours that the 2nd NOF Congress was expected to declare the creation of a single Macedonian state that would join Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece together in a Balkan Communist or Democratic Federation. Our enemies always choose to say what they think will serve them best. The truth however, is different…

The 2nd NOF Congress was a war congress, a congress to draw assistance and not to break our unity. This was a congress to organize our victory.

Tens of thousands of Macedonian people, young and old, men and women, even children, have participated in this struggle, many with rifle in hand, fighting for unbridled freedom, for a people’s democracy and for establishing full national rights for the Macedonian people. Thousands of our sons and daughters gave their lives in this struggle to expel the foreigners, to destroy the Monarcho-Fascist murderers and to provide us with a free and independent life and a people’s democracy.

This was the aim of our Congress and no hostile defamation can undermine our aims or divert us from our goals.

Our people have given their all for this struggle with many great sacrifices for a common victory, which will yield freedom, public

and social order and the kind of good life that we all want - united with our brothers in friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between all democratic nations…”

Seven hundred delegates participated in the 2nd NOF Congress. The Congress was also attended by the then CPG General Secretary Nikos Zahariadis and by General Karagioris, representing DAG’s General Headquarters. Both men gave speeches and paid tribute to the Macedonian people for their participation in the armed struggle. The Congress also adopted a proclamation which called on the Macedonian people to further their efforts in the struggle. Regarding the purpose of the struggle, the proclamation said: “The Macedonian people with their struggle and sacrifices made to date proclaim to continue to struggle for their national liberation, for their realization of a free national and social life which they desire…” This same view, but somewhat watered down, was put forward in Zahariadis’s speech but his declaration of an “independent Macedonian state,” as was published in the newspapers before the congress took place, was abandoned because it was only a calculated political move in his strategic attacks against Yugoslavia. The 2nd NOF Congress did not produce the expected results

The 2nd NOF Congress was held in a tense political and military atmosphere. Mobilization of new forces in the Democratic Army was performed recruiting even minors and old men and women. The required limit in this regard was surpassed. But even the most general mobilization could not resolve the issue of required reserves for the Democratic Army.

On top of that, after the Congress was over, the unfounded attacks against Yugoslavia and against the Macedonian fighters and NOF leaders not only continued but were stepped up. Attacks were waged even against the Macedonian people who abstained from criticizing the People’s Republic of Macedonia and Yugoslavia in general. The CPG leadership went so far in this regard as to pressure the NOF leadership to join in these attacks against the leaders of the People’s Republic of Macedonia and Yugoslavia. This was especially prevalent after DAG withdrew to Albania. At this point the NOF leadership was accused of being responsible for DAG’s defeat and exposed to humiliation!

KOEM, the Communist Party for Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia was also established during this period but its leadership, in the hands of the CPG, was used as a weapon against NOF and the Macedonian people in general. Under pressure from the CPG leadership, KOEM leaders were hastened to pass a resolution against the entire NOF leadership, against the People’s Republic of Macedonia and against Yugoslavia. KOEM was also pressured to grossly twist the truth exactly the way Zahariadis wanted it. (By doing this, Zahariadis managed to break NOF’s already ailing unity, which had major negative consequences against the Macedonian fighters.)

These dishonest moves made by Zahariadis in 1949 become apparent in his attitude and practices towards the Macedonian emigrants in the Eastern European countries.

First when DAG withdrew from the battle grounds during which time NOF and KOEM were liquidated.

Later, the Organization “Ilinden” was established but quickly disbanded.

So the question is, “Why were the Macedonian people in emigration deprived of their organizations?” Can a people fight for its national rights without its own national organizations?!