INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

People are not judged by their declared good intentions or promises, they are judged by their deeds which are evaluated according to their consequences.

My writing is built on this principle.

This principle, of course, does not exclude the possibility that some of my assessments and conclusions about the people and events of my time may be incomplete or even wrong. No one is insured against failure.

However, events have their own logic. An isolated event on its own can sometimes be explained in more than one way. But it can be understood more correctly if it is placed in a series of connected events that took place before and after it, as a practical expression of a particular policy.

Events in a given situation are inevitably interconnected like the elements in a given mathematical task. Searching for and fixing the mutual connection and common significance is the only path leading to the proper illumination of events.

In their own right these are events which, at first glance, can cause astonishment and bring gratitude to every Macedonian person because they look like coherent and courageous revolutionary acts undertaken by the Zahariadis leadership in favour of the completely disadvantaged Macedonian people in the Greek state.

Sometime in March 1948, for example, the newspaper “Apelevterotis”, an organ of DAG Paiak-Kaimakchalan Region Headquarters, began to appear in the Macedonian language. Then, during the CPG Central Committee 4th Plenum, held on July 28-29, 1948, Zahariadis and the CPG Central Committee declared that: “...The participation of the Slavo-Macedonian people in the liberation struggle is universal and total. With their struggle the Slavo-Macedonian people are firmly building their free and equal life. With the blood of their sons and daughters they are insuring and securing their people’s democratic future…” (CPG 1931-1952, CPG

Central Committee 1952, p. 175.) A little later a Macedonian printing house was procured and the newspaper “NEPOKOREN” and the magazine “NOVA MAKEDONKA” were published in a new and incomparably larger format. These were followed by the Macedonian newspaper “BILTEN” published regularly and with a much larger circulation...

On their own these publications were noble deeds indeed! However, if we were to take these “revolutionary acts” and relate them to a longer series of events that took place during the same period, especially to the event that involved CPG practices towards the Macedonian people, then we would inevitably come to the conclusion that these “revolutionary acts” were far from being revolutionary.

I personally experienced the following and made a note of it for our archives. While serving at DAG Paiak-Kaimakchalan Region Headquarters in the spring of 1947, I personally witnessed DAG Main Staff personnel registering Macedonian fighters as Greeks by nationality. The staff at DAG Headquarters treated our Macedonian fighters as “glorious Greeks” and addressed them exclusively in Greek (orders, leaflets, press). I challenged our Greek comrades on this, which eventually turned into a very unpleasant dispute. The only thing I accomplished, in their eyes, was that I was characterized as... a nationalist. Now we have the newspaper “Apelevterotis” an organ of DAG Paiak-Kaimakchalan Region Headquarters, the same Headquarters that registered Macedonians as Greeks, begin to appear in the Macedonian language. Does that mean that there was a change in policy towards the Macedonians…? No. According to the documents from that time, now located in our archives, DAG Headquarters staff continued to register and treat Macedonian fighters as members of the Greek nationality and the Macedonian people in general as part of the “glorious Greek people”.

On top of that, in early January 1948, Zahariadis, through the 1st NOF Congress, infiltrated the NOF leadership. Zahariadis injected “Grkomani” (Macedonians loyal to the Greek cause) into the highest NOF governing bodies. Then, during the 1st NOF Central Council Plenum, held in August 1948, Zahariadis completely stripped NOF of its founders who were the true organizers and NOF top leaders.

All Macedonians were removed and neutralized and then replaced with “Grkomani”. After that the NOF leadership was fully taken over by Macedonians who were strictly loyal to the Greek cause.

In the meantime Zahariadis made sure all important people in the Macedonian movement were liquidated. He especially targeted everything that was Macedonian, especially the Macedonians patriots who were active bearers of the Macedonian national idea. This included:

- The Macedonian elite battalions which Zahariadis withdrew from Macedonia and sent south into Greece where the Macedonian commanders were replaced by Greeks who then skillfully “pitted” the Macedonian fighters in battle against superior enemy units.

- The countless prominent activists and loyal Macedonians who Zahariadis picked off one by one and liquidated in various ways.

- The NOF Central Agitation and Propaganda Department which Zaharadis shut down in April 1948 and, through the Provisional Democratic Government, ordered its 38 activists to join various DAG units in the frontline. (Timeline of the National Liberation War in the Aegean part of Macedonia in the Board of the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberation of Macedonia, Skopje, 1973, p. 213.)

- Zahariadis dissolved the NOF cultural and artistic group (the group’s dissolution was decided by Zahariadis and the CPG Central Committee, and approved by the Provisional Democratic Government). (Ibid.)

- The Macedonian brass band, organized by director and musician Kara-Timio, was also liquidated.

- The Macedonian school for teachers was closed down and its courses abolished and replaced by the “Macedonian department” of the school for Greek teachers for which a course was soon formed in the village Zhelevo, Lerin Region.

There was also the incident of the Macedonian women from the Republic of Macedonia not allowed to visit the Macedonian women in Greek occupied Macedonia. During their 1st AFZH Congress, which took place at the end of April 1948, the women of AFZH in Greek occupied Macedonia invited a delegation of Macedonian women from the People’s Republic of Macedonia. These women, however, were detained by the Greeks at the first checkpoint and forced to go back.

The CPG and its Greek patriots had declared and were waging a real war against the Macedonian patriots and active bearers of the Macedonian national ideal. In light of all these events, the “revolutionary acts”, or “noble deeds” mentioned earlier, tell a story of their own. They are no more than a tactical maneuver to blur and conceal Zahariadis’s utterly anti-Macedonian and reactionary character and his real policy against the Macedonian people. These “noble acts” were done in order to facilitate and ensure a successful realization of his anti-Macedonian policy.

I am not writing history or artistic literature here, I am just putting down my thoughts just as if I am writing letters and with a little adjustment they could be letters I wrote to a friend. But be as they may, I am hopeful the material will be useful to historians. And not only to them… My letters are sources of information for everyone who is interested in the fate of our people in the Greek state, in the Aegean (Greek occupied) part of Macedonia...

Pavle Rakovski