PART ONE – The Greek Civil War 1945 – 1949 - Introduction

PART ONE – The Greek Civil War 1945 – 1949 - Introduction

During World War II, conditions were created in Greece to destroy the inhuman Greek bourgeoisie regime and to establish a popular people’s government. However, because of subjective weaknesses and errors made by the resistance movement leadership in its dealings against the fascist occupiers, the national traitors and against the strong armed interference by the British imperialists, the resistance movement, led by the National Liberation Front (EAM) and its armed units in the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS), failed.

Even before the German occupiers had left Greece, ELAS resistance movement units came into collision with Greek government forces belonging to the exiled Greek government supported by the British army. Although this collision ended with the signing of the famous Treaty of Varkiza on February 12, 1945, it was a prelude to the Greek Civil War.

This is why it is important to look at the socio-political development in Greece during the period when the national liberation struggle was developing, resulting in the national liberation movement during the Second World War, 1941-1945, and the collision itself which took place in Athens in December 1944. In other words, it is important to understand the events that took place in Greece which led up to the Greek Civil War.

After living for four centuries of slavery under Ottoman occupation and under a long revolutionary struggle, the Greek people were finally liberated and given a state of their own by the Great Powers Britain, France and Russia, which were more interested in the destruction of the “sick man of the east” (Ottoman empire) than resolving Greek national issues.

And, as such, when Greece was first created there were still territories whose ownership was not resolved and which remained outside the newly created Greek state. This created opportunities for the big imperialist powers to play games, mixing and matching games which became dire for the social, national and political

development of Greece; games whose effects are felt by that country to this day.

When Greece first gained its national independence its territory covered Attica and the Peloponnesus. The islands in the Aegean Sea, Thessaly, Epirus and the coastal territories in Asia Minor, to which the Greeks aspired, were left outside of the Greek state. Its national revival and unity, however, would take place over a longer period of time and through extremely nationalistic and megalomaniac ideas such as the one called “Megali Elada” (Greater Greece), with aims at recovering Byzantium (recreating the Byzantine Empire). This was to be done in the interest of the imperialist power behind which stood the Greek ruling class.

Britain was the dominant influence in Greece until the mid to late 1940’s, after which time and during the Greek Civil War that influence was passed on to the United States of America with the famous Truman doctrine which allowed the Americans to intervene in Greece’s internal affairs in 1947.

Since it gained its national independence Greece became involved in many wars, not only for its national unification but also for the conquest of foreign lands and as an instrument serving imperial Great Power interests. In 1864 Greece acquired the Ionian Islands and, after the Berlin Congress, it acquired Thessaly. During the Balkan Wars Greece acquired Epirus and Crete.

But the young Greek bourgeoisie and the Greek palace not only worked for the liberation of Greek territories, but aspired to dominate over Macedonia and Thrace. With the help of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Tsari Grad (Istanbul) they became engaged among the Christian population in Macedonia in order to create their own positions. Later, like the other countries neighbouring Macedonia, they started sending armed bands to enforce their position. This went on until Macedonia was militarily invaded, occupied and partitioned, with Greece taking half of its territory.

The winners of World War I then validated the Greek imperialist gains, which the Greek ruling class had made during the Balkan

wars, but did not fulfill their aspirations regarding the Asia Minor coastline and Cyprus, which led to the Greek-Turkish war of 1920/1922.

Shortly after World War I, Greece declared war on Turkey. After some initial victories by the Greek army in Asia Minor, Kemal Ataturk quickly consolidated his Turkish Republican Army and hit back hard sending the Greek army into panic, resulting in a disastrous defeat for Greece. Victorious, Turkey not only kept the territories along the Asia Minor coast that it occupied after the Versailles Peace Treaty, but it also took advantage of the situation to evict a large Turkish Christian population (deemed Greek because it was Christian) out of its territory. This was done by an approved exchange of population during which Greece accepted four to five times more Turkish Christians from Asia Minor than Muslims that it evicted from Greece. About 650,000 of these Asia Minor colonists and settlers were settled in Greek occupied Macedonia. With that the demography in Greek occupied Macedonia was completely upset, creating severe social and national problems in the region.

Greece found itself in great poverty after the Asia Minor defeat. It began to look for an outlet in the most nationalistic and megalomaniac masses for ideas in order to realize the unrealized dream of a “Greater Greece”, which it thought was desperately needed to solve all the difficulties and miseries that Greece was experiencing. Greece latched on to those ideas systematically and with passion and has held on to them to this day. The ruling class of this tiny and vassal country has big ambitions and is blind to the idea that these “nationalistic and megalomaniac” notions are causing its difficulties and its inability to overcome its socio-political development problems in Greek society, in its political parties and in its relations with its neighbours. Feeling unable to achieve these ambitions alone, the Greek ruling class has become more and more dependent on the imperialist powers to help it.

Thanks to these megalomaniac ideas, foreign interference and foreign influence in the development of Greece, its day of liberation did not come peacefully and, as stated earlier, Greece became engaged in several wars which produced controversial results. To the north Greece not only “freed” its own national territories but also

spread into parts of Macedonia and Thrace. It is no small credit to the megalomaniac ideas of a “Greater Greece” that relations between the Balkan countries in past decades have created tension, imperialist aspirations and wars, including the occupation and division of Macedonia.

Economically, Greece trailed behind the other countries and became dependent on foreign capital. It did not stand firmly on the path of capitalist development but rather retained many elements of feudal social relations. Greece did not create a strong industrial capital of its own but tied its trade to foreign capital. The bourgeoisie made a compromise with the landowners and Greece remained agrarian and economically underdeveloped. The country remained a monarchy with short intervals of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Clashes between the rag-tag liberal bourgeoisie and the dynasty were more a result of foreign influence and interests, rather than the substance of relations between the bourgeoisie and the feudal remnants. The feudalists had learned to disassociate themselves whenever a regime was endangered. The collisions for political power had no place in the socio-political life of this country. But the fact is that the dynasty in Greece, established twice in recent times, (almost without exception) was put in place with the help of all wings of the bourgeoisie. This is how it was until the most recent crisis and military junta coup of April 21, 1967.

Allow me to remind you

In 1935 the monarchy was restored and later the Monarcho-Fascist Metaxas dictatorship was established. This happened because the Liberal Party, led by Themistoklis Sofoulis, refused to cooperate with the Popular Front to block the road to Monarcho-Fascism.

In 1946, after World War II ended, the monarchy was again restored in Greece with support from all the then civil parties.

As mentioned earlier, the wars in which Greece was involved led not only to controversial territorial results but also to numerous militaristic castes which played a major role in the public and political life in this country.

Consequently, in terms of growth throughout the period between the two world wars, Greece fell into major economic difficulties. The great depression in the thirties tightened the social discord in Greece. The working class political movement, forerunner to the socialist and then to the Communist Party, grew into a strong political force in the country. That fact frightened the Greek palace and the bourgeoisie and they in turn introduced the Metaxas Monarcho-Fascist dictatorship in 1936.

Metaxas who had only a few representatives in parliament, having won the trust of the Liberal Party, formed a government; a while later he dissolved Parliament and by court order imposed a fascist dictatorship. In the process he dissolved all political parties and filled the Aegean Sea islands with prisoners, including prominent personalities from the civil parties. But his biggest gripe was against the labour movement, against the working class and most of all against the Communist Party. There was yet another factor that he was against; the Macedonian people against whom he used slogans labeling them “communists”, “a Slav menace” that was supposedly a “danger to Greece”. Slogans designed to poison the Greek people with nationalistic ideas and chauvinism. While Metaxas was fighting internal battles he left the country unprepared and defenseless against Italian and German fascism and imperialism.

There were wide gaps in the country’s foreign policy because King George II had a pro-British orientation while Metaxas had a pro-German one. (Metaxas was still alive when Italy invaded Greece in 1940, but had died before the Germans invaded Greece.)

Greece faced World War II under these circumstances. But thanks to the anti-fascist mood of the masses and the weaknesses of the Italian fascist army, Italy was kept at bay for six months, from October 1940 to April 1941. The Greek people managed to hold Italy back at the Albanian front until the German invasion and Greece’s capitulation. While the Greek King and the Greek government left Greece and emigrated abroad, Greek army officers surrendered Greece to the Germans. And as such, like in other occupied countries, the people living in Greece were left at the mercy of the occupation authorities and their collaborators.

After the Greek government fled the country and the Greek army capitulated to Germany, the Greek state machinery broke down completely. The generals who signed the capitulation orders formed a quisling government and made every effort to restore the old state apparatus, primarily the police and the gendarmerie, but without much success because they lacked an army. The occupation brought economic chaos and famine to the country, conditions which the quislings could not overcome. This created the right conditions for an armed uprising to take place, favourable conditions for the Communist Party. The first Party to organize a resistance movement against the occupiers and against the domestic traitors was the Communist Party of Greece (CPG). But it was done under very difficult conditions. With the introduction of the Metaxas fascist dictatorship in 1936, members of the CPG were subjected to persecution and much of the Party’s leadership and membership was in jail. The part that was still free after Greece’s capitulation took great measures to organize and strengthen its position with the people.

EAM, the Greek National Liberation Front, was formed in Athens in the fall of 1941. Many groups and individual Greek personalities took part in its formation. As such this illegally formed Party apparatus began to build a vast network of anti-Fascist organizations which, between 1941 and 1942, through armed guerillas, were responsible for carrying out diversionary actions and in 1943 constituted the regular units of ELAS.

The resistance movement had many weaknesses during the formation of the national liberation movement and even during the armed struggle against the occupiers.

Even through the resistance organization in Greece there was a mass political EAM organization with its ELAS armed force behind it. And behind that stood the Communist Party of Greece, which had the most determined fighters. The CPG leadership, unfortunately, made some crucial ideologically and conceptual errors in the way it ran things which led to a few unprincipled compromises on main revolutionary issues. This of course in due time contributed to the Party’s defeat.

The CPG leadership had no clear views on the nature of the people’s liberation struggle, namely that the national liberation, in the specific conditions then in Greece and Greek society, could not be separated from the people’s democratic character of the uprising and the establishment of a people’s democratic power, and from the CPG leadership itself. The people’s liberation tasks were formulated by the CPG provisional leadership during the CPG Central Committee’s 6th Plenum in 1941 and were:

1. Liquidate the German-Italian occupation in Greece;

2. Liquidate the (Greek) government - the occupation authority;

3. Provide daily support and defend the Soviet Union;

4. Consistently support all anti-fascist forces by any means;

5. Establish an interim government consisting of all parties that agree to establish democratic freedom for the people, that agree to provide bread and work, that would convene a national constituent assembly and would protect the integrity and independence of Greece from any foreign imperialist power. (Forty years of CPG -1918-1958 - selected documents p. 468 – CPG Central Committee edition.)

Characteristic among the objectives proclaimed by the Central Committee decision made during the CPG Central Committee’s 10th Plenum, held in January 1944, were the following:

“We strive to establish full integrity in Greece and implement strategic border security to defend us from external encroachments. We strive for a peaceful settlement and coexistence with the people who believe in the same principles, primarily with our neighbours.”

The same proclamation included the following:

“That is why the Communist Party of Greece (CPG) has adopted and supports the EAM Central Committee proposal to install an interim government of national unity and liberation, from all the parties, organizations, individuals, which will take over the national

struggle and, after the war, will provide free expression to the people’s will.” (Forty years of CPG - 1918-1958 - selected documents p. 504-506 – CPG Central Committee edition.)

It seemed that there was no need for hegemony of the proletariat or for CPG leadership after the struggle. At the same time, it seemed that there was also no need for the old and the occupying state apparatus… But there was a need to build a people’s government and base of power.

There was no mention of rights for the oppressed people in Greece, particularly for the Macedonians and nothing about how the “Macedonian National Question” was to be addressed. On the contrary, the first objective in the Proclamation was about “strategic border security”, an idea behind which was hidden the pretense and the Greek megalomaniac aspirations for acquiring more foreign territories.

The CPG leadership also decided to partner with a collection of former political leaders and military figures belonging to the old guard who, under the newly created conditions, were not able to influence the masses in the towns and villages.

The CPG at that time was supported by the majority of the people and yet it committed itself to partnering and dealing with criminals and the most hated people in the country. This created ideological and political confusion in the masses. The CPG violated its own principles and practice.

These so-called “concessions” which the CPG made came to the fore when the EAM highest authorities, the Political Committee of National Liberation of Greece, and the ELAS cadre composition and tactics for the armed struggle were first created. The development of the armed struggle, including its armed wing ELAS, relied on assistance for weapons and war material from Greece’s Western allies, rather than developing its own hardened revolutionary army. More of the CPG’s “concessions” were revealed when it agreed with Allied Command for the Middle East to allow nationalist movements to operate in Greece and to allow a “Provisional government of national unity” to be formed.

On July 18, 1943 ELAS General Headquarters Commander General Sarafis and British Mission Military Chief Colonel Edie Mayers signed a joint declaration by which ELAS was recognized as an army and was subordinated to Middle East Command. (p. 120, “ELAS” by Stefanos Sarafis.)

As a result of this “declaration”, British Command took over all developments in ELAS. The British decided what operations ELAS was going to perform and with whom it was going to partner. The British decided how ELAS was going to relate to EDES and EKKA, the Greek nationalist formations which, even though they were an insignificant force, imposed themselves as full partners. The entire army was directed by British officials. The two agreements signed were the Plaka and the Kazerta Agreements, which completely prohibited ELAS from taking any independent action of its own, even in the most decisive moments. (See “Plaka Treaty Advisory Protocol” and “Kazerta Agreement” in the attachments.)

These military agreements were the result of the struggle’s political orientation and platform. The political leadership did not orient itself towards a mass armed uprising supported by a grass roots national liberation movement, but instead it took narrow aims at achieving its national liberation. It also did not want to enter into a close relationship with the National Liberation Movements in the Balkans, especially with that of Yugoslavia. Instead, it relied on assistance from the British, while underestimating the strength of the nationally oppressed Macedonians and the other oppressed nationalities living in Greece.

PEEA, the Political Committee for National Liberation, was formed in the spring of 1944. Social Democrat Alexandros Zvolos was elected president. Headed by Zvolos, a delegation was then created and entered into negotiations with the Greek government in exile. A Protocol known as the “Lebanon Agreement” was signed on May 20, 1944. But despite explicit instructions given to the delegation to insist that 50% of the departments in the government should be allocated to EAM, the delegation agreed that EAM should occupy only five departments (see “Lebanon Agreement” in the attachments). [There is no data on the composition of the

“government of national unity” in the actual Lebanon agreement because there were contentious issues: i.e. the number of ministries designated to EAM (i.e. PEEA); which Government ministries, etc.

According to the instructions given, the PEEA delegation made requests to be given a large number of key positions as well as replacing President George Papandreou with someone else. Then on August 15, 1944, during an EAM Central Committee session, it was decided that EAM was to participate in the George Papandreou government with only five departments: finance, transport, agriculture, national economics and labour. These were the obligations undertaken by EAM and PEEA representatives just before the signing of the “National Convention” dubbed the “Lebanon Agreement”.]

Thus, after the expulsion of the occupiers in Greece in the fall of 1944, although EAM was a hugely massive organization and ELAS was a many times larger armed force than the others, numbering about 70,000 fighters, it was unable to convince the others that it should lead the “government of national unity”. Therefore the resistance movement, in December 1944, heading for an armed conflict in Athens agreed to capitulate and disarm.

Irrefutable evidence existed that Zervas cooperated with the occupiers, unfortunately the British would not only not allow his eviction out of ELAS, but they helped him in the same way they helped members of PAO. [PAO (Paneladiki Apelevterotiki Organosis - Pan-Hellenic Liberation Organization) was a nationalist organization which initially posed as a liberator. But unlike EDES and EKKA, it did not have guerrilla units whereas the other two did. Its members, however, had been covertly assigned to ELAS units with aims at undermining it from within. But when they failed, PAO openly spoke out against the guerrilla movement and organized armed bands in the services of the occupier. PAO’s armed formations were of great help to the German occupiers, especially in the fall of 1944, in the final phase of the German occupation when ELAS fought its most bitter battles.]

The Greek government in exile, based in Cairo, took draconian measures to eliminate EAM supporters from the Greek units that

fought in the allied army composition, and as such it proved that it had no confidence in them. Instead of doing that, the Greek government should have taken all necessary measures to strengthen its own armed forces and provide its support proportionally in accordance with the ratio of contribution made during the struggle. The Plaka Agreement, as well as those signed in Lebanon and Kaserta, took no consideration of the ratio of forces. Even so, the opponents refused to support those agreements in order to expand their own positions.

Relying on the rights derived from the above mentioned agreements, British Command issued an order not only to not attack the Germans in Athens, but after their departure to not even attack the quisling security battalions (quisling formations). True to its commitments ELAS did not perform any operations inside Athens and after the Germans left, on October 12, 1944, ELAS remained near but outside of Athens. British units occupied Athens right after the Germans left. A little later the Greek government arrived. No sooner had they consolidated their hold in Athens than British command and Prime Minister George Papandreou began to systematically violate the already unfavourable agreements with EAM – ELAS, apparently insisting that ELAS disarm before the other armed formations disarm. In parallel with this pressure put on ELAS, there were rapidly conducted preparations for forming and arming new units consisting of right-wing elements, vilifying and criminalizing EAM, and even shooting at demonstrators who protested against the injustices.

In order to avoid a conflict, on November 29, 1944 EAM government coalition Ministers made every effort to submit a proposal for the full implementation of the Lebanon Agreement, but unfortunately Papandreou refused to accept it.

On December 1, 1944 British Commander Scobey issued an order demanding that members of ELAS surrender their weapons. At the same time Papandreou declared that: “He could not accept the proposal put forth by EAM Ministers for the simultaneous disarmament of all volunteer units and for the formation of a unique grouping.” That same evening on December 1, 1944, late at night,

all EAM ministers resigned which then opened the doors for further conflict.

ELAS Central Committee in General Headquarters was reorganized after which a proclamation was made to the people of Athens and Piraeus to take action. In parallel with that, on December 3, 1944, a countrywide rally was organized during which the police shot at demonstrators, killing several people and wounding many others.

What followed after that was thirty-three days of bloodshed in Athens dubbed as the “1944 December events”.

The fighting spilled over into January and on February 12, 1945 the Varkiza Agreement was signed. (See “Varkiza Agreement” in the attachments.) The outcome of the fighting in Athens and the signing of the Varkiza Agreement not only failed to resolve the conflict but failed to resolve the fundamental question that had created the conflict in the first place, which meant that there would be further conflict which would lead to the Greek Civil War. The situation boiled over into a conflict because Papandreou’s interim government rushed to immediately disarm the ELAS units and bring new, fully armed formations from the Middle East. The December clash did resolve this issue but at the expense of ELAS.

Article six of the Varkiza agreement stated:

“Demobilization: The military resistance forces are to be demobilized immediately after the publication of this Agreement, especially all regular and reserve ELAS forces, as well as ELAN forces and the national militia. Demobilization and decommissioning of weapons should be carried out in accordance with the protocol details provided by a commission of experts…”

The Agreement also contained provisions that promised democratic development, but those promises proved to be empty.

There is no doubt that the political right and the British wanted to lead the national liberation movement, specifically the ELAS armed units, immediately after the expulsion of the occupier so that they could immediately disarm them when they were no longer needed.

There was no need for political wisdom, on the part of the British, to fulfill this final act. But much political wisdom was needed in developing the strategy and tactics in order to create the right conditions for it. The British feared there would be clashes all throughout Greece, and because of these fears they helped and guided the resistance movement leadership to come to the “right” conclusion. Even though the conflict was limited to Athens, the resistance moment leadership agreed to sign the Varkiza Agreement with conditions that were unacceptable to the entire democratic movement. And because this agreement was the only legal position available to the government in Athens, in which there no longer were EAM representatives, it allowed it to wage war against the democratic forces.