Noose – Chapter 18

Noose – Chapter 18

Roots of evil and dark secrets of genocide hovered over the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia during the Greek Civil War (1945-1949).

1.

The train headed for Belgrade had just arrived at platform number two in Moscow. There were many people on the platform. Beside me there was a middle-aged man holding a beautiful blond woman by the shoulder. He gazed far into the distance and looked like he was daydreaming. He was sad at times, seeming as if he was saying goodbye to Moscow for the last time. I was with a group of “wanderers” (Greek Civil War refugees) returning from Tashkent to Macedonia. We stood in front of a train car and waited for the conductor to open the doors so that we could board the train. When we were seated in our compartment I noticed that the man that I had been watching outside was sitting with us. The woman he was with kept staring at me (the man, whose hand she held under her arm, probably said something to her). She was dressed in old style Russian clothing from head to toe. I suddenly felt awkward and strong feelings began to rise in me as the man kept staring at me. I was sitting opposite to him and at one point I smiled. There is much charm in a smile I thought to myself. We all spoke Russian in the compartment but at one point the man remarked: “How did the Lerin dialect find itself in the Russian language?” he asked. I looked at the man and thought to myself: strange…, this man looks like he belongs to the Bogdanov family… I looked at his handsome, serene wrinkle-free forehead and at his hand placed on his knee. I smiled a little but I was simply stunned by his likeness to the Bogdanovs. “I am Pavle Bogdanov. Do I know you?” he asked me. I smiled and said, “Know me? I am Yane Ognianov.” Bogdanov thought for a moment, bowed his head and then, with a serene look in his eyes, examined my entire face. By then the train had departed. Bogdanov began to speak but was addressing no one in particular. “I don’t believe this is real,” he said to himself in a quiet voice and continued, “I can not believe that I have just met my late sister Lena’s lovely boyfriend here in Moscow.” He turned to the beautiful blond woman who happened to be his wife, as I later found out, and said: “If my sister Lena was still alive maybe Yane would have been our brother-in-law. Bogdanov’s blue eyes were directed at me when, with immense sadness, he said: “But unfortunately the war did its thing. So much misfortune and so many countless fates in the world and nothing, as if nothing mattered about us Macedonians. We were so helpless when we were faced with such great malice. I know everything about my mother Lina and about my sister Lena, but I know

nothing about my brothers Vasil and Mito and absolutely nothing about my father Lambro.” He paused for a moment and continued: “So very little is known about the Macedonian tragedy, but from historical documents it is safe to say that I now know who was responsible for hanging and stretching the ideological chain of communism around our necks. Forged by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and tied around our necks by Kolishevski, this chain was the cruelest, bloodiest and most ungodly part of the Greek Civil War. It was a slave chain – still unclear to this day. It created a new way of identifying Macedonians: ‘Who do you belong to and who are you?’ The struggle for the ‘new reformation’ required servitude from us Macedonians,” said Pavle Bogdanov - a senior officer and graduate of the USSR “Frunze” military academy. After the end of the Second World War Bogdanov, along with many other young officers from Tito’s army belonging to the “Aegean Brigade”, as well as other officers from all over Yugoslavia, were among the first to be sent to the “Frunze” military academy. But during the time of the Imformburo (when Stalin was squabbling with Tito) he opted for Stalin and remained in Moscow where he worked for the Institute of Military and Political Sciences.

2.

“At the end of the war everything began to come out; all the fateful secrets about the Macedonians: wars, terrorism, civil unrest and all the things that had caused temporary disorders. But eventually, as it turned out, it was discovered that all these activities were waves of planned globalization (a division of spheres of influence) after the Second World War. In fact communism was attractive for many reasons, including the idea of universal justice and humanitarian social relations. It was the answer to the great World War crisis and to the spiritual crisis after the First World War, and later to the genocide of the Nazis and to the conviction that the end of Western dominance over the world was approaching. At the end, we found ourselves in a world divided by the Yalta Agreement, communism was for some the only realistic choice for central Europe,” concluded Bogdanov. I remember his eyes staring at me with a sincere and kind look as he spoke. I was convinced that he knew the truth about our dire fate so I decided to ask him a few questions: “What do you know about the Macedonian organization NOF (National Liberation Front) and AFZH (Women’s Anti-Fascist Front)?” I asked. “What expectations and what limits to those expectations did these Organizations actually have for the Macedonian people from the outcome of the Greek Civil War? Did these Macedonian organizations have a vision of where they wanted to go? Why were these Organizations not called ‘Macedonian’, i.e. MNOF and MAFZH, since they were calling exclusively upon the Macedonian people to go to war en masse? Can we Macedonians, even now after the Greek Civil War has ended, find out who started this ‘Macedonian syndrome’ calling for our self-sacrifice that took place from 1945 to 1949? Did our bloody story, the story of the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia begin with the illegal decisions of NOF and AFZH? What exactly was the plan for NOF and AFZH when they were formed in Skopje under the leadership of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) and the Communist Party of Macedonia (CPM)? Did the leadership of NOF and AFZH, perhaps unconsciously, by order of strangers, import the “revolution” to Greek occupied Macedonia!? And through NOF and AFZH the good old principle ‘if you are not with us you are against us’ was applied? Was ideological activism an alibi for further destruction of the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia? What exactly happened to us? Why and for what reason was this need for ‘massive retaliation’? Tell me, are we Macedonians responsible for this disastrous venture!?” Pavle Bogdanov gently adjusted himself and with a serious expression on his face, said: “The Civil War in Greece actually showed itself to be a dirty war, a part of many unclear reasons which turned out to be deadly for the Macedonians at the red gallows. There was no dual leadership in spite of NOF and AFZH’s propaganda that they were a military and a political factor. The NOF and AFZH leadership followed foreign directives and did not know where they were going. Тhey had no idea why they pushed the Macedonian people into the war. When the war ended they had no idea where their people ended up and they themselves did not know where they were. They were following foreign directives and all the time they were traveling without a compass. The reason they were not called MNOF and MAFZH, it would appear, is because they were not indigenous organizations created by the Macedonian people. We, regarding the Greek Civil War had two stories: One story is that the CPY and the CPM formed NOF and AFZH and pushed us into the war! But these organizations were not indigenous and not born of the real Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia. They were created by the CPY when the CPM was under the influence of the CPY and was unable to do anything to prevent it, but at the same time the CPM did not have enough knowledge of what was going to happen. It did not know of the planned genocidal catastrophe that awaited the Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia.”

Bogdanov paused for a moment, thought, and continued: “The other story is that the Communist Party of Greece (CPG), which the entire time led us as Slavo-Macedonians, demanded of NOF and AFZH that we Macedonians give them our total loyalty and sacrifice ourselves for them. Then at the end of the war, they accused the NOF and AFZH leaders of being Tito’s agents. In other words they ideologically and slyly used us and then dumped us all over the world. In fact there is only one truth: the ones that began the genocide and the others that carried it out, through combat and ruthless manipulation. It was an artful lure to sacrifice the Macedonian people.” Puzzled, I asked: “Are you saying that NOF and AFZH were just a mobilizing service rather than a political or military factor? And the people were lied to?” “Yes!” he said. “Those organizations never represented any factor; they just served the Greek leaders who fought the war. NOF and AFZH accepted their naïveté and carelessness about their own destiny and made decisions that helped strangers organize and carry out ‘soft’ ethnic cleansing. They unwittingly de-populated the Macedonian people from the Greek occupied part of Macedonia. They were not aware of the limits as to what was possible and what the Macedonian people actually could gain from this war. NOF and AFZH, through the instructions of strangers, violently thrust the ‘red stake’ into the hearts of the Macedonian villagers in Greek occupied Macedonia. Zahariadis personally manipulated the Macedonian people with the Macedonian question, especially during the Greek Civil War and that was because the Macedonian politicians, since the beginning of the war, by directive, worked as subjects of the CPY.” Bogdanov paused for a moment, looked directly at me and then continued: “Then came the internal schism and they began to attack one another. At the end they fought among themselves to save their own heads. At the end of the war their patriotic loyalty compelled them to revert back to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia or become victims of the CPG. And that also happened. This shows us not to expect anything from a person who does not fight for the interests of his or her own people, especially if that person has entered into some sort of outside communist collective. We Macedonians failed even before we become aware of our national faults. Our people got stuck in the gap between the roles of victims and winners. The Greek Communists and Democratic Army of Greece (DAG) leaders viewed all our Macedonian NOF and AFZH leaders (who in 1945 were sent to Greek occupied Macedonia from Yugoslavia at the discretion of the CPY and CPM) like ticking time bombs that no one knew when they would go off and how much damage they would cause.” After a short pause he continued: “After the war all NOF and AFZH leaders were sent to Siberia. The Greeks did this very slyly; leading the Soviets to condemn the Macedonians by the higher law of the USSR.” “It was truly like that,” I agreed and asked him to tell me more. “Most of us fighters,” he said, “especially those who have become wanderers of the world are being trampled by history and time. When it came to issues of scope regarding our tragedy, our fighters were very disappointed by NOF and AFZH. It’s terrible what happened to us Macedonians in that tragic war...” he said quietly and continued: “Yes, I will say it openly. It became obvious that these organizations were spreading alien propaganda, disastrous for the Macedonians. The Macedonian people were never informed and are still not informed about all the things that the CPY and the CPG did to us. It is a fact that the CPG behaved like a bully towards most of the NOF and AFZH activists. They had absolutely no political power and were unable to perform properly under dreadful pressure.” I was boiling mad by now so I interrupted and asked: “I am interested to know why, if our national identity was so strong, we were not afraid of being expelled from our homes?

What will happen to us now?” Bogdanov calmly continued: “What more can we expect will happen to us, more than being left homeless and wanderers…” His voice became deep and gentle as he continued: “Thinkers say that ‘people who do not learn from their past experiences will find it difficult to plan their future.’ If we follow our own history we will learn that strangers had led us in the past without us Macedonians even realizing it. This is not the first time that we have been manipulated by outsiders and by ideological associates. So, one would need to ask: ‘What have we learned from our history?’ Obviously we have not learned about the authentic Macedonian existence of our ancestors. Yes, this is true, especially for us Macedonians in Greek occupied Macedonia. We will need to open the book of problems and publicly apologize for our past mistakes so that they will be a lesson for our youth in the future. Do not forget the most elementary thing, that above all, our people here in Greek occupied Macedonia have centuries old roots and have lived with dignity! If we continue on this path of being irresponsible, unable, incompetent and unethically celebrate all these twisted events and call them “coincidences” or if we justify to ourselves that “there is no escape from this fate” then we will never be free from those persons who, again and again, brought the Macedonian people to the verge extinction.” Bogdanov paused for a moment, looked at me and continued: “It is a fact that those who wanted to destroy us knew (know) more than us, but we on the other hand know almost nothing about them!! Even today we hide their dirty activities. Even some of our historians are advising us to keep quiet, “not to cut the branch...” Really, does that not explain the phenomenon of our awareness? Really, are we not vassals? Really, is it not true that in 1946 the Macedonian organizations became servants to a new master under the slogan ‘brotherhood and unity’? Yes, the spine of these Macedonian organizations was broken and they became vassals; subordinates, dependents and servants to the new master (CPG) and made unprecedented concessions! If one of our main national identity attributes is our national language, then how could NOF and AFZH, under the slogan ‘brotherhood and unity’ (1946), ‘recant’ our national identity? Were those Macedonians in the DAG units who were recruited and sent to the depths of Greece, allowed to speak Macedonian? Of course not! So what kind of ‘brotherhood and unity’ is that? In fact they were obliged to speak ‘Greek only’ and not Macedonian and on top of that they were obliged to use their ‘imposed’ Greek names and not their Macedonian names. This means that eventually, like a beaten donkey, we accepted and got used to the political violence against our own national identity. Over the course of the war, while we blindly suffered persistent attempts from them to negate all of our Macedonian features, on a psychological level, we looked at the CPY and at the CPG as our saviours.” Bogdanov paused, shrugged his shoulders, and continued: “What kind of rare happiness did we experience?! And to think that all the time we sang songs about our ‘father’, our leader (of the CPY or the CPG) and making him the most unique person of all people in our lives... Yes, we definitely thought of strangers as our saviours. We created an array of complexes and symptoms of separate neurotic characters: some belonging to the CPY and the others belonging to the CPG. These mass widespread complexes, created in early 1945, represented the most serious obstacles in our attempts to redefine ourselves and to put in place a viable national strategy in order to survive on our ancestral lands without having to join someone else’s hellish war. In the end someone had to be guilty for the CPY / CPM and the CPG to have thrown us into the ideological waste! How do we heal our pain, our constant, persistent and permanent pain: for our home, for our dear ones who left their bones on the battlefields in the Greek Civil War?

How do we heal?”

Historic chronicles (Review of developments in 1945)