ORDERS FROM THE FOREIGN GODS - Part 01

ORDERS FROM THE FOREIGN GODS

(Looking through military archives. See: “Aegean Macedonia in NOB September 1944 - February 1945. Volume 4 Book 3, 1996, p. 173 and 174)

Summary of Events:

October 4, 1944

A Radiograph from Svetozar Vukmanovich Tempo (also called “the most beloved brother” by the Macedonians) to Supreme Headquarters of NOB and POJ regarding the Greek resistance leadership’s inappropriate attitude towards the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia.

Radiograph no. 35.

The Greeks are again seeking to crush the Macedonians in Greece. They are prohibiting them, by use of arms, from mobilizing new fighters into the Macedonian units. They are removing Macedonians from leadership positions and replacing them with Greeks. They are arresting officers, killing innocent people, prohibiting Macedonians from singing Macedonian songs and even songs about Tito.

We are advising the Macedonians to leave Greece and come to us (Yugoslavia) to avoid being intimidated, harassed and arrested. We should also receive some of the leadership comrades, authoritative Macedonians and we will form a delegation with evidence for the General Headquarters of Macedonia.

Tempo.

* * *

October 5, 1944.

A Radiograph from Alexander Rankovich to Svetozar - Tempo with which he orders not to send NOV and POJ Yugoslav units to Greek occupied Macedonia.

Radiograph no. 3.

For now, do not send units to Greece. Send us concrete evidence so that we can launch a protest to the Greek representative (ELAS, General Headquarters, and PEEA. Andreas Dzhimas was at the Supreme Headquarters of NOV in Yugoslavia.)

* * *

October 6, 1944.

A Radiograph from Svetozar Vukmanovich - Tempo to Supreme Headquarters of NOV and POJ, with which he reports on ELAS’s oppression of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia.

Radiograph no. 43.

Due to the re-launching of a Greek Partisan massive terror attack against the Macedonian units in Greece, we have considered sending our units to Greece in order to fight against the Germans and in order to protect our population.

Tempo.

* * *

One morning, radio London broadcast a report given by Captain Evans Hutchison Patrick. The program was devoted to the Macedonian liberation movement in Lerin and Kostur Regions, and the following was said:

“As captain and commander of the Second ELAS Battalion or Regiment 28, Goche (Ilia Dimovski), in October 1944 was ordered by ELAS command to depart for Mount Vermion (Durla). His response to that order was a flat ‘no’. He said ‘we are Macedonians and our place is in Macedonia’. I believe that Vermion was less Slavic than Vitsi, the area where Goche’s battalion was then stationed and where Goche was born. He then stood up and left for

Prespa and after that he went to Monastir (Bitola) and took his battalion with him.

This battalion was joined by Chakalaro (Nahum Peiov), commander of the “Lazo Trpovski” Unit which had armed itself with captured German weapons and was fighting against the Greek bands (Andartes). He declared that his aim was to fight for a free and independent Macedonia and that he was not fighting for a Greater Bulgaria. Being Macedonian, speaking Macedonian and fighting for a free Macedonia gained him a lot of respect with the villages around Gabresh, his village of origin. His unit was attacked by ELAS and dispersed during the middle of the summer.

Even though Peiov was a communist before the war, he was disappointed with the CPG and with ELAS’s attitude towards the Macedonian Question. In May he left for Prespa with a group of his comrades and went to NOV General Headquarters located in Shulin to ask if all the Macedonians from ELAS could come and join Tito’s Army. Deian received him there and gave him shelter, but soon Peiov was reprimanded by Tito. Some say Peiov was personally removed from Tito’s army by orders from Tito himself. Peiov was sent back to ELAS under the amnesty of Goche’s battalion. When Goche got upset and left in October, Peiov kept him company all the way to Monastir (Bitola) and supported him in all his actions.

October 17, 1944.”

When Captain Markos, with his old hatred for Macedonians, found out about the fleeing battalion, he frowned and summoned all the Headquarters to immediately dispatch elite units to chase after them and destroy them.

He said: “Now... I would pursue them as I would pursue the Germans. This is a very serious issue. They might revolt in our ranks and we will suffer huge losses...”

In the book “History of the Macedonian people”, Volume 5, page 483, it says: “The Fourth ELAS Division decided to use military force to liquidate the battalion, in which it engaged ELAS Regiments 27, 28 and 53 as well as local reserves. To circumvent a

collision with ELAS and to avoid bloodshed, on October 12, 1944 the Macedonian battalion left the territory of Aegean Macedonia and moved to Vardar Macedonia. The same day and for the same reasons the Voden Macedonian battalion did the same. The total number of Macedonian fighters who severed themselves from ELAS and crossed over the Yugoslav border, numbered about 2,250”.

On October 10, 1944, when news surfaced of what was happening in Kostur and Lerin, Tempo’s emissary Rochko, from Vatasha, arrived in Sarakinovo. He asked that the battalion be placed under the command of NOV and POJ Headquarters in Yugoslavia. See: Pavle Rakovski’s Autobiography – “My Suffering”, published by AEA, Skopje, 1995.

According to CPG sources, more that 25,000 Macedonian fighters took an active role in the ranks of ELAS and ELAS reserves. See: Risto Kiriazovski “CPG and the Macedonian National Question”, p. 347.

The split and all the Macedonian paradoxes

During that period of time there was a terrible split between the Macedonian communists in Greek occupied Macedonia, a split reflected even during the Greek Civil War. The communists who remained in the ranks of the CPG continued to support the Party Line which guaranteed: “equal rights for the Macedonians within Greece”. According to our “history”, these people were considered “scum” and Greekophiles (as Evdokia Foteva – Vera calls them in her book: “To Hell and Back”, Skopje, 2005), while those who fled with the battalions to Tito’s army were labeled “deserters” and in the latter part of the Greek Civil War were called “Tito’s agents” and condemned by the CPG. This is how it was for the Macedonians of that time, a split that caused paradoxes; a split that affected the Macedonian consciousness down to the core.

After that split, during war and peace, we were a spiritually divided people and we had different visions and different desires.

* * *

Rakovski in his book “CP OF GREECE AND THE MACEDONIANS” p. 108, affirms that:

“The Macedonian ELAS units were welcomed by the CPM/CPY. In fact, the Macedonian National Liberation Movement (NOD) in the Republic of Macedonia came under CPM/CPY control. The POLITICAL COMMISSION FOR AEGEAN MACEDONIA was constituted and the “FIRST AEGEAN SHOCK BRIGADE” 11 was created.

So, the question is: Did we believe that the Macedonians will finally feel dignified, will start realizing their dreams for the final victory in Aegean Macedonia? Unfortunately, to this day, no one has provided an assessment as to “what national and historical role did creating the Aegean Brigade in Bitola play?”

However it is necessary to emphasize that, with the formation of the political committee whose working meetings were chaired by Pekar and Minchev, as representatives of the CPM Central Committee and the First Aegean Macedonian Shock Brigade of the Aegean Macedonian National Liberation Movement, the fighters from Greek occupied Macedonia were organized into a brigade and placed in the NOV and PO composition of Macedonia in the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), which in turn was placed under the leadership of the CPY.

In other words, “The Macedonian units from ELAS were accepted by the CPM/CPY. In fact NOD, the national liberation movement in this part of Macedonia, was passed on to the CPM/CPY leadership.”

So there was no Macedonian factor there and everything was in line with CPY policy, which had a huge impact on the Macedonian communists in Vardar Macedonia... In other words, in this historical

11 On November 18, 1944, the “First Aegean Brigade” was created in free Bitola consisting of the fighters from the two ELAS battalions that left Greek occupied Macedonia. The Brigade was deployed in Western Macedonia (Kichevo, Gostivar and Tetovo) on December 28, 1944, with the task of fighting against Dzhemo and Mefail’s Balist (Albanian) gangs which were created during the Italian-German occupation. Then, on April 2, 1945, by a special (strictly confidential) order number 236, issued by Marshal Tito, the “First Aegean Brigade” was disbanded. evolutionary process, the Macedonian movement was born with Yugoslav orientation: No to a United and Independent Macedonia and yes to a unified Macedonia to include the Aegean and Pirin parts, but as part of Yugoslavia.

In other words Vardar Macedonia was declared the ‘Piedmont’ in Macedonia’s unification under the Yugoslav composition. This idea then became a slogan for NOF (organized and established in 1945 by the CPM/CPY): “We are organizing the Macedonian people into a struggle to bridge the artificial chasm between Macedonians from all parts of Macedonia, especially with the people from the People’s Republic of Macedonia who are the “Piedmont” for the complete liberation and unification of all the Macedonian people.”

The basic essence of those goals was to closely connect the national liberation movement in the Vardar part of Macedonia with the liberation struggle of the other nations in the Yugoslav space. But one should also take into account the CPY policy which had a huge influence on the Macedonian communists in the Vardar part of Macedonia. So, the CPY Central Committee position was to seek to channel the national liberation struggle focus into a common struggle with all the Yugoslav people.

The official Yugoslav position

At the meeting with the Greek party delegation in Belgrade, led by Anastasiadis, member of the CPG Central Committee Politburo, held on November 12, 1944, Josip Broz - Tito said that the question of uniting the Aegean part of Macedonia with other parts of Macedonia should not be raised and that Yugoslavia has nothing to do with it. The main task at the moment was for the National Liberation Movement in Greece to win. See: “History of the Macedonian people”, volume five, p. 482.

He went on to say: With the elimination of ELAS and after the February 12, 1945, Varkiza Agreement, a new situation was created in Greece and in the Aegean part of Macedonia. Anastasiadis requested the disbandment of the First Aegean Strike Brigade. This was done by a Macedonian NOV General Headquarters’ order

issued on April 2, 1945. See: “History of the Macedonian people”, volume five, p. 483.

I don’t know why Evdokia Foteva - Vera did not talk about the question of why the First Aegean Strike Brigade was created and why it was disbanded? Did she not appreciate its historical and political importance?

Wasn’t this part of the collective and massive fraud perpetrated against the Macedonian people in Greece and in general?!

I am reminded of an old folk tale that goes something like this: “The earth does not belong to anyone, but we belong to it.”

Does it take much to understand the deep philosophy of this story? I know, from half a century of experience, that if a man leaves his country, he no longer belongs to it.

The position of ELAS and the CPG 12

12 When the Party newspaper “Laiki Foni” published Bakerdzis’s infamous interview it told the world that the work done was done for the “Bulgarophone Helenes”, referring to the Macedonians. Then, when ELAS Commander General Stefanos Sarafis wrote his famous book “O ELAS” (1946, 331), he referred to the Macedonians as “Slavophone Helenes”. There is one more thing to know: Greece, after the Balkan Wars, with its Neuilly Agreement of November 27, 1919, concluded with Bulgaria, and with its 1923 Lausanne Agreement concluded with Turkey, through the so-called mandatory population exchanges, deposited many Turkish Christian colonists and settlers on Macedonian soil. As a result the Macedonian people began to lose their ethnic-territorial status in Greek occupied Macedonia. The issue of the settlers and colonists deposited in Greek occupied Macedonia however was never discussed during World War II, when the leaders of ELAS, EAM and the CPG signed an Agreement in Lebanon on July 16, 1943, the Kaserta Agreement on September 26, 1944, and the Varkiza Agreement on February 12, 1945 with English Colonel Eddie Meyers to secure and protect Greece’s territorial integrity with its pre-war borders. So, if the CPG and the CPY knew about this then why involve the Macedonian people in the impossible attempt to re-unite Macedonia? In other words the CPY and CPG knew ahead of time that they were committing yet another fraud against the Macedonian people. They knowingly threw us into chaos so that we could be driven out of our homeland. All these demagogues who coined the slogan “United Macedonia” were well aware that they were lying to us and using us. At the same time they told the world the Macedonian question had to be dealt with because it was a threat to peace in the Balkans. But to us Macedonians, they were saying that we Instead of attacking the remaining German units leaving the south of Greece, ELAS Commanders Evripidis Bakirdzhis and Markos Vafiadis, on October 16, 1944, issued orders to ELAS units to attack and destroy the “Slavo-Macedonian” Battalions crossing over the Yugoslav border. That was the attitude of the CPG, which shows that during that period Markos was not a “Titoist” and did not sympathize with the idea of a “United Macedonia” as part of a United Balkan Federation. (See “Studies in the history of the Greek Civil War, 1945–1949”, edited by L. Baerentzen, J.O. Smith, “Museum of Tusculanum Press”, Copenhagen 1987)

Every person who has been persecuted should ask themselves this question:

Why did ELAS want to destroy the Macedonian battalions as if they were German battalions? And now in 1946 when NOF and AFZH had entered the “joint struggle” with the Greeks, why did they expect that General Markos, the same General who personally signed the orders to destroy our Macedonian battalions in 1944, would guarantee their support and safety this time?

On July 16, 1943 ELAS Commander Sarafis and head of the English Military Mission, Colonel Eddie Myers, signed a joint declaration recognizing ELAS as an allied army and placed it under Middle East Command.

Now let us examine events that followed:

October 31, 1944 a larger group of English soldiers with armoured vehicles entered Solun before ELAS. Why? Why did the English have to enter Solun first when our own forces were right there?

had undisputed historic rights to our fatherland and that life made no sense without an identity, which is all true, but they lied to us to get involved so that we would sacrifice ourselves for foreign interests. According to the CPG bi-weekly newspaper “KOMER” No. 16, published in August 1943: “…there is no national interference in Greek Macedonia... The Slavic and Turkish speaking populations are displaced by convention, and the Greek population gathered from all the countries in the Balkans and Asia Minor were placed in Greek Macedonia... which has become as Greek as any area of Greece proper!” (p. 331)

Three days later the BBC broke the news that British troops had liberated Solun.

In Varkiza, a resort near Athens, on February 12, 1945 an agreement was signed between the heads of the CPG and EAM, on the one hand, and the Plastiras government and the British General Scobey on the other. By signing this agreement EAM and ELAS practically handed power to the powerless right. This was the beginning of the end for mighty ELAS which until then had control of almost all of Greece.

Now let us see the assessment given on November 11, 1948 by the CPG Central Committee. Here is what it said: “Markos Vafiadis, as Commissar of a group of ELAS divisions in Macedonia, followed a chauvinistic policy towards the Slavo-Macedonian fighters.” (See “Neos Cosmos” August 1950, “Ten years of struggle”, p. 470)

But why did they say this so late in the game when Markos had already been removed from command and when they needed Macedonian soldiers to fight in the Greek Civil War? Obviously they wanted to put all the blame on Markos. They lied to the Macedonian people in order to draw them into the Greek Civil War!

People were lied to and led astray by strangers. They were made to believe that they would receive their national freedom while the Macedonian leadership was bogged down with many fruitless debates on the “Macedonian Question” with the local Greek leaders in Kostur, Lerin and Voden Regions, appointed by the CPG and EAM.

To this day no one from the NOF or from the AFZH leadership (except for Rakovski) has given an explanation as to who “interfered” the most with the destiny of the Macedonian people in Greek occupied Macedonia.

To this day no one has explained what Tempo’s purpose was when he invited the Kostur-Lerin and Voden Region battalions to Yugoslavia.

Did that fulfill Papandreou’s the request? Papandreous’s government in Cairo did demand from the CPG and ELAS, specifically from CPG Secretary Siantos that he get rid of everything that was Macedonian:

“…Liquidate all non-Greek (Slavophone) political organizations and military formations in northern Greece. It will be a historical mistake for the Greeks and the Greek state, if the Slavophone formations also participated in the liberation of the cities: Kostur, Lerin, Voden and other territories that are now occupied by the Germans and Italians…”

* * *

How did Macedonian history interpret the defection of the Macedonian battalions from Greece and the creation of the shock brigade in Bitola?

Let us have a look at the speech given during the 61st strike brigade’s anniversary celebration and try and determine the real ultimate reason and today’s justifications for what happened. See the monthly newspaper “Voice of the Aegean”, year 2, number 4, December 2005.

“...Although the Macedonian fighters in the Second World War (1939-1945) fought in the ranks of the progressive Greek forces against the foreign occupiers, the CPG leadership did not allow the Macedonian movement to develop in the Aegean region. By not allowing special detachments to be formed together with the Greek liberation units in the districts where a compact Macedonian population lived, actually showed that the CPG did not want the Macedonians to be fully mobilized in the fight against the occupiers. Leading a cunning policy, the CPG eliminated the flare-up of the Macedonian combat units in the beginning. Despite the great successes the detachment led by Ilia DIMOV – Goche had, the Greeks ordered both political and military structures to move south deep inside Greece. For those reasons, the detachment moved to the territory of Vardar Macedonia. Here, more precisely, in Bitola, under order number 1, the First People’s Liberation Strike Brigade was formed on November 18, 1944, by grouping the Kostur, Lerin

and Voden battalions and arming them with heavy weapons. This brigade was engaged in combat activities that liberated the western part of Vardar Macedonia, mostly the Tetovo, Gostivar, Debar and Kichevo areas...”

However, the question remains: Shouldn’t these Macedonians been cautious and worked for the progress of their people, precisely in their original hearths, inside Greece? By leaving their home these battalions abandoned their homeland in Aegean Macedonia as well as the centuries-old aspiration for their own piece of land. We Macedonians living in Greece should have been well aware that we were living in Greek occupied Macedonia and our roots were there.

In conclusion: Permanent revolutionary values are always current, but did we Macedonians, by leaving our country, leave such historical values? By “escaping” from Greece, did we expect or wish to solve the Macedonian Question inside Greece? Did the shock brigade have a vision of where it was going and why it left its people behind unprotected?

So, why, even 60 years later, are issues that make no sense and did not add value to the Macedonian cause, are still emphasized?

In retrospect, if you look at the Macedonian situation in Greece and the Greek intention to get rid of us from our native hearth wouldn’t you think that the battalions leaving our native soil was the first step to our political organized exodus? And who did this exodus benefit the most? The Greeks of course! It is clear as day, even though it has never been recorded in our history that our mass exodus from Greece during this period began with the battalions leaving. Because, from then on, the wheel of the Macedonian people’s fate started turning faster and faster, especially during the Greek Civil War, until almost no one was left behind. When the battalions left Greece what did they do? Did they regroup and organize an offensive to liberate our people? No! They joined Tito’s army in another country and fought for Yugoslav interests.

The Macedonians, who fled Greece illegally, especially during the Greek Civil War years, were identified by both the Greek state and the CPG as people manipulated by the Yugoslavs and charged with

committing “treason” and for working for another Party and for foreign interests. These particular charges have opened many historical questions...

So, we Macedonians living in Greece, now had a new historical division not only between the Macedonian communist actions, but also between pro-Greek and anti-Greek factions.

It seems to me that this was no accident. It is undeniable that the news about our battalions joining Tito’s army created a large impression on all the Macedonians who remained in Greece. But at the same time, it is quite natural for us Macedonians, along with the feeling of joy, to grow the feeling of sadness: we left our families, our homes and everything that our ancestors mourned and kept safe for centuries. We rejoiced because we thought we were “brotherly” welcomed... He who is not afraid to tell the truth, no matter how bitter it may be, is strong. In moments like these however the weak tend to lie. Maybe the CPY and the CPG did this to us on purpose, to keep Macedonians in fear, in submission, and our submission was killing us as a nation. Through their ideologies towards the Macedonians, the CPY and CPG were able (with well-thought-out joint efforts) to kill the Macedonian national feeling without a bullet, with only one goal: to maintain the status of the borders, according to the 1913 agreement with which they partitioned Macedonia.

We may disagree, but I really don’t understand what we were thinking in those days. From analyzing events, it seems to me like we were (and still are) in conflict with ourselves. I don’t understand how those who left and joined Tito’s army could love their hearths in Greek occupied Macedonia more than those who remained behind and fought to preserve their native culture? I don’t understand how those who left Greece can claim that they fought more for the affirmation of the Macedonians in Kostur, Lerin and Voden Regions than those who remained where they were born and fought for their survival. They fought where they were born, where it was their primordial right to defend their homeland and ancestral hearth. Another thing we should all understand is that the freedom fighters from Kostur (The Macedonian committee) and from other areas who fought for the preservation of our Macedonian homeland were the same people as us who fought with the progressive forces. We

invited them to join us and they did because they believed we were committed to the Macedonian cause. And let us not forget the progressive forces had committed many sins against them. We must not forget our fraternity.

I personally think that we Macedonians either had no idea what it meant to leave our homes and go to another, a foreign country, or we had high hopes that someone else, an outsider, was going to save us and completely relied on Tito for that. Or perhaps we believed that the communists will help us… or not help us…Or we thought the Yugoslav communists were all-powerful and that we should leave our fate completely in their hands. One thing I do know is that we should never have put ourselves in such an unreserved position.

Some of the Macedonian communists who remained in the CPG ranks reacted and addressed those Macedonians who went over to Tito’s army as follows: “You have forever turned your back on your homeland and your people. Our struggle should be here, and only in this way we will be able to show our struggle and care for our people here. You will turn into people who are other people’s servants and you will not be able to return?” I wonder: can someone else’s servant be the master of his people, that is, the leader of his own people? (A question for both sides…). Those who left unfortunately were used by the CPY and put to work for Yugoslav interests. And those who remained in the CPG ranks were no better because they failed to protect the Macedonian people including our patriotic freedom fighters in Kostur and other areas who did not become servants of anyone. They did not raise a hand against the Macedonian people, but we raised a hand against them, fulfilling the orders and advice of ELAS and Tempo.

Each one of us should wonder: why and from what did we suffer? We suffered from ourselves. That’s how we Macedonians, by developing a system to spread fear among our people, pushed them into submission making them act disastrously!

We could not be both worldly (cosmopolitan) and have order and justice for ourselves because justice has always been served by the yardstick of the stronger. And we were not the stronger.

Now with our people gone to Tito’s army to fight for Yugoslav interests we were again divided. As the days went by, influenced by different ideologies and other factors, we began to question our common origin and separate our lives. Our common struggle and concern for our people became different and so did our recollection of events. Ignoring our true enemies (CPG and CPY) we began to view each other as the enemy. And precisely for those reasons we were manipulated by the foreigners and we alienated ourselves from our own people. We have become hostages to an objectively difficult problem and therefore we should not have been surprised by the ferocity of Greek nationalism and extremism.

All these criticisms of each other were a result of unclear thinking on our part. These manipulations and setups by the foreigners were killing us as a nation. Through their ideologies towards us they were able to kill our people without firing a bullet, humiliate them, devalue them as a people, and intimidate them...

After it became clear to the CPY and CPG as well as to the international factor that they had succeeded into manipulating us Macedonians into question one another’s motives they moved to the next step of their plan to have the Macedonians in Greece exterminated by all means possible and make it look like it was own fault. This is why NOF and AFZH were created. They were created to go back to Greece and start a war, but against whom, the Greek state, the CPG, DAG, the Macedonians with who they disagreed… or all of the above? The bait used to convince the Macedonians to go back to Greece and fight was the Macedonian National Question. NOF and AFZH were convinced that an even greater maximum could be obtained on that issue? But 55 years later, not even Evdokia Foteva – Vera could provide an answer as to why thеy were really sent back. Instead she talks about personal issued and dismisses the basic political and strategic national issues like she was not part of them. Well, let me say that if we don’t find out what really happened than “it can happen again...”

The question is: Who lured the Macedonians living in Greece into the ideological WASTE in which they disappeared and lost their voice, their humanity and their hope of ever returning home again.

What did the Greek Civil War bring us and why the CPY and CPG did organized that war. Why did we Macedonians bought into their ideologies and deceptions and why did we (self) sacrifice ourselves?

We need to get to the core of these issues not just for knowing the truth but for the sake of avoiding the same problems in the future!

THE THIRD PHASE: Vera’s career and like she said: NOF and AFZH’s development and activities.

The first phase was when “secret” illegal political activities took place from April 23, 1945 to October 10, 1946 which were led by the CPY. According to Vera this phase took place in the Federal Republic of Macedonia in Skopje, from May 1945 to the end of July of the same year, they ended with a three-month course at the CPM Central Committee facilities.” See: Pg. 87 in her book “To Hell and Back”.

In order to make things clear we need an answer from the NOF and AFZH leadership in which Vera was a member. We need an answer to: “What was the national strategy that can be proven, why NOF and AFZH (the People’s Liberation Front for the Aegean part of Macedonia) were created on April 23, 1945, outside and independently of the CPG and of any other political entity in Greece that has been operating and managed by the CPM/CPM for more than a year.

What guarantees or protection did NOF and AFZH have from the CPM/CPY that they could count on in the future. Did they even ask or just assumed that such guarantees came automatically? Were there any misunderstandings about what the Macedonian national question meant to the Macedonians from Greece verses what it meant to the CPM/CPY? Without answers from the leaders who sent the Macedonian people to war and brought them to their destruction what are we to assume? Are we to assume the NOF and AFZH leaderships, on one side blindly followed CPM/CPY orders and led us into the abyss, or were they party to the CPM/CPY plans all along? How can we know for sure when they refuse to tells us (the truth).

The second and third phase started with the CPG “recognizing” NOF and AFZH and taking them under its control and ended when DAG was liquidated at the end of August 1949, when the entire NOF and AFZH leadership was “subjugated” and punished by the CPG. Now let us follow Vera’s most turbulent activities as AFZH leader.

THE HIGH PRICE OF THE MASS POLICY APPLIED TO THE MACEDONIANS IN THE GREEK CIVIL WAR (1945 - 1949) WAS A TRIAL MODEL FOR ORGANIZING THE MIGRATION MOVEMENTS AND IT REALLY SUCCEEDED FOR THEM.

In early 1945 it was clear that Germany’s capitulation was imminent. The end of the bloodiest clash of civilizations was nearing. World War II was coming to an end and humanity with its many sacrifices and great heroism wished to close the book on this conflict. The world impatiently stared out of the darkness that was imposed on it by the dark forces of Berlin, Tokyo and Rome. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Yalta 13 and agreed on who was going to influence whom in the new world. The Allied troops from the West and the Red Army from the East were on their way to Berlin, the heart of the Third Reich. Hitler could not take the humiliation and committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Berlin fell on May 2, 1945 and Germany finally surrendered on May 9, 1945.

13 In December 1944, the British provoked an armed clash with ELAS units in Athens. On February 12, 1945, the Varkiza Agreement was signed. By virtue of this agreement, all ELAS units throughout Greece capitulated and were liquidated, although only some remained active in Athens but were attacked and defeated by the combined forces of the British and the domestic reactionaries. Cold War: Many historians dealing with the recent history of Europe and the world have concluded that the meeting of the “Big Three” that took place from July 17 to August 5, 1945 in the town Potsdam near Berlin, in the Selienkopf Palace, was basically useless except for one historically relevant consequence -the opening of the so-called Cold War. Since then, the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition, Great Britain (Winston Churchill), the United States (Harry Truman) and the Soviet Union (Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin), who managed to defeat German fascism with extreme efforts, stopped respecting each other, opening the stage in recent history that would only later get the name Cold War. Iron curtain: It was at the conference in Potsdam that Winston Churchill formulated the phrase “iron curtain” that marked the division of Europe into spheres of influence.

Unfortunately, as it has always been in human history, the great powers remained the main actors in international life. They continued to increase their power and spread their influence beyond their borders in an attempt to model the world in accordance with their own interests. Thus, when the political and military alliance that defeated fascism fell apart in 1945, a “security dilemma” developed and began to erode relations between America and the Soviet Union.

* * *

In her book, Vera has shown practically no interest in Macedonia and the Macedonian people being divided by four states, but also about that period of time when the states found themselves under the influence of various political spheres (globalization - secular ideology) and this is where the following questions arise:

Questions that so far many authors have not touched in their books written about the Aegean Macedonians.

DURING THE NOF AND ZFZH ILLEGAL PHASE (Secret, illegal political activities) DID THE MACEDONIANS UNDER GREECE OFFER A NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL SURVIVAL OF THEIR HEARTS?

Here are some undeniable facts and key moments in NOF’s history. NOF, it appears, disregarded or did not know what was going on in the world before it entered into a conflict (to self-sacrifice its people) for other people’s interests. This means that it followed a pure ideology that had no real human context with the Macedonian peasant living in Greece. What NOF did is knowingly or unknowingly deceived its own people.

How was that possible?

Who wanted the peaceful Macedonian population living in Greece, to enter the global process of Sovietizing the Balkans? The communists (CPY/CPG) of course!

And why did these Macedonians enter the socialist model in the Balkans, especially after the Second World War was over when that model was already outdated and meaningless? Because the communists offered them what they wanted the most: human rights and the possibility to re-unite Macedonia. This however, turned out to be a lie because after WW II ended, re-uniting Macedonia was no longer possible because, as Churchill put it, the “Iron Curtain” dividing east from West was drown in the center of Macedonia. So why did the communists lie given that it was nearly impossible to re-unite Macedonia? Because, as we will show, the so called Greek Civil War was motivated for nefarious reasons which included the expulsion of the Macedonian people from Greece.

It is well known that Greece and the other Balkan countries that occupied Macedonia had long term plans to either assimilate the Macedonian population or get rid of it. This is what the various “legal migration movements” carried out since Macedonia’s occupation and division in 1912 - 1913 were all about. So, this was the next step in the evolution of getting rid of the Macedonians from Greece, this time through ideological activism! The same foreigners who created catastrophic consequences for the Macedonian nation since pre-1912 were now doing it through ideological activism. In other words, they, through lies and manipulation convinced the Macedonian villagers in Greece to pick up guns and fight for their rights. But instead of giving them their rights they massacred them and permanently exiled the survivours and their families. Worst than that was the foreigners who started and lead this war put the blame on those poor villages and forced them to accept responsibility for what happened.

Being blamed for something that was not under their control, the poor villagers kept silent for the next fifty years while those same foreigners and their lackeys decided their fate and wrote their history.

Over fifty years later there are people who still insist that for the Macedonian people in Greece, the Greek Civil War was some kind of a grass roots autochthonous revolution - a continuation of the Ilinden Uprising - and are refusing to accept it for what it was. This

thesis however is problematic! Even though no one wants to admit that mistakes were made, the truth will eventually come out.

No one wants to admit that lives were sacrificed and people lost everything because mistakes were made, especially those Macedonians, such the NOF leaders, who initially encouraged and later forced the Macedonian villagers to fight in an ideological war designed not to help them, but harm them. They were expected to give it their all believing everything the NOF activists told them. After all they were Macedonians, and who to trust more than the Macedonian leadership. It is true that the NOF leadership was responsible for dragging the Macedonian people in this war but did they know what they were doing?

Let us look at the situation on the ground:

1. During the war period the Macedonian people were living divided in four sovereign countries each with a different political system and separated by the iron curtain

Worst than that was the application of the famous “Comintern thesis” which called for “One state - one party”, which had severe consequences for the Macedonian resistance movement operating in those countries.

Speaking of the “iron curtain”, after the Second World War ended and the famous great powers agreement on the division of spheres of influence was signed, the Macedonian people found themselves in the following situation:

The Macedonians living in the Vardar part of Macedonia (the Republic of Macedonia) found themselves 50% under eastern and 50% under western influence.

The Macedonians living in the Pirin part of Macedonia, in Bulgarian occupied Macedonia found themselves 90% under eastern and 10% under western influence.

The Macedonians living in Greek occupied Macedonia found themselves 100% under western influence.

The Macedonians living in the Albanian part of Macedonian found themselves 10% under western and 90% under eastern influence.

Over time, after Macedonia was divided, especially after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles was put into effect and the Macedonian people’s liberation struggle became illegal, and after Stalin dissolved the Comintern on May 15, 1943, under pressure from the USA and Great Britain to allow each communist party to decide on national matters on its own, it became increasingly more difficult for the Macedonian people to pursue their common struggle.

This also meant that if a Macedonian organization were to exist in any of those four states which called for a common struggle under one united Macedonian front, it would be treated and condemned in advance as secessionist, treasonous, destructive and factional. The state-legal realities of the state-occupiers who occupied and established power in the occupied Macedonian territories were strictly opposed to Macedonian national aspirations. The Macedonian national movement under these conditions acquired a separatist character (like it happened with NOF in 1945). This was true not only with the CPG but also with all four communist parties (Yugoslav, Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian). Here the essence of the problem can be defined by asking several questions. To be clearer and to avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to explain these problems accordingly.

The situation in Greece and the attitude of Great Britain and the United States.

Since Britain, under the Yalta agreement was given full influence over Greece which had 51% possession of the Macedonia’s territory, then Britain also had something to say. According to a document entitled “Macedonia – Memorandum”, dated August 16, 1944, written by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: “Britain was ready to give consent for the establishment of a Macedonian state within the framework of a federal Yugoslav state. At the same time, the British insisted that this country must not annex or claim other territories, regardless of whether those territories belong to Bulgaria or Greece.”

Further down the same document the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs made sure to remind everyone about: “The Agreement on the division of spheres of influence, and that Greece was 100% under British influence, with the right, if necessary, to be able to intervene at any time by any means possible;

That, in the summer of 1944, Tito had asked the Macedonian NOV units to secure Greece’s southern border, meaning they had to protect the sovereign borders of these countries;

That, at that time, the USA demanded STATUS - QUO in preserving the pre-war borders of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece…And that the USA was categorically against any kind of revision, even though it recognizes the Macedonian territory in Greece. (See: Vlado Ivanovski: “Why not to Solun”, “Nova Makedonija”, October 11-12, 1997, issue 3.)

Reactions and other events during that period in Greece

1. On April 17, 1946, the Solun right-wing newspaper “Nea Alithia” published an article entitled “Sudetenland of Greece, in which they talk about the Macedonians and qualify themselves as Sudetenlanders and as such, the newspaper wrote: “... in the interest of peace and security in Greece, they should be liquidated”.

The nationalist newspaper “Ethnikos Kirikas” wrote: “80,000 Slavo-Macedonians should be expelled from Greece as soon as possible”. The same was said in the weekly Republican newspaper “Eleftheros Tipos” on January 28, 1946 in an article entitled: “...Let the Slavo-Macedonians leave our Macedonia – let them go wherever they want to go…”

3. What was the attitude of the English ambassador in Athens?

“English Ambassador to Athens, Mr. R.A. Leeper, back in November 1944 toyed with the idea of displacing 120,000 Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia and moving them north of the Greek border. Mr. Leeper suggested this to Mr. Eden, then UK Foreign Minister, in a letter dated November 24, 1944 in

which, among other things, he wrote “… and since the amputation of the Slav areas in Western Macedonia and their annexation to a Slav Federation is a practical impossibility and would also be economically disastrous for Greece. It would follow that, difficult as it may be, a home must be found for perhaps 120,000 Slav Macedonians north of the Greek frontiers of 1941.” (5a) (See: FO 371/43649 XP 00201 R 20431/1009/67.)

However, Leeper himself concluded that at that moment it was impossible. That idea was nevertheless realized during the Greek Civil War (1946-1949).