COMRADES, FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

COMRADES, FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

Finally, Evdokia Foteva - Vera talks about the high-ranking enemies and friends from whom, as leader of the AFZH, she received directives.

It is very difficult to define them “ideologically”. They were communists, nationalists, Great Greeks, peacemakers, democrats, and they would have changed every other ideology as well, if only to strengthen the Asia Minor settlers and colonists in Greek occupied Macedonia.

In the chapter “DAG’s defeat” on page 21 of her book, Evdokia Foteva – Vera said: “... Zahariadis, CPG Central Committee General Secretary, after Vicho fell to the enemy said: ‘Gramos will be the tomb of the Monarcho-Fascists’. But that did not turn out to be the case. DAG suffered numerous casualties but had it not backed down and fled to Albania, the opposite would have been true. Gramos would have been the tomb for DAG. For the longest part, after removing General Markos Vafiadis from his command and abandoning the proven military strategies of the so-called ‘Supreme War Council Law’, Zahariadis worked personally with his Politburo installing new ‘military strategists’ who had absolutely no relevant experience.”

So, was Markos a general or a criminal? A story was written in an issue of the Greek newspapers, “Ta Nea” and “Epikera” printed in Athens, about a meeting that took place in Athens between General Markos with General Tsakalotos, his opponent. Tsakalotos at that time was in command of the Greek government forces and this meeting took place during a time when the Greek Civil War was still ongoing. Most convincing about this, the article said, is how General Markos hugged, with a heartfelt embrace, his enemy General Tsakalotos from the Greek government forces during the Greek Civil War when the two men met. At their meeting Tsakalotos said to Markos: “If we had done this before the Civil War started we could have saved many lives.” To this General Markos replied: “It is true that many people died because of me but you must never forget that I did this for the future of Greece. The true meaning of this war was to drive the Slavo-Macedonian out of northern Greece so that Macedonia could remain Greek. (See: “Nova Makedonija”, February 25, 1992.)

In other words, according to General Markos, the Macedonians fought in the Greek Civil War to lose their homeland permanently!!?? So, as a representative of the Communist Party of Greece, Markos openly lied to the Macedonian people about their involvement in the Greek Civil War!? Ironically as it turned out, General Tsakalotos, the Macedonian people’s supposed enemy, was more humane towards the Macedonians than was Markos, whom Macedonians saw as their saviour. In other words, when Macedonians were sacrificing their lives to honour General Markos, he intentionally led them to their extinction. So you tell me, was he a saviour or a criminal?!

So here we have the two top leaders on the resistance side of the Greek Civil War. One of them was called Nikos Zahariadis, born in Andrianoupolis in 1903. He graduated from higher education. He committed suicide as a prisoner in the city of Sorgun in Siberia in 1973. The other was called Markos Vafiadis, born in the village Tosiye in 1906 in Asia Minor. He finished fourth grade. In the Civil War (1945 - 1950) Zahariadis chose Vafiadis and made him a general and president of the provisional government for a day. Vafiadis took his day in 1948, but declared him sick, suspended him and sent him into exile, in the city of Penza, USSR. Nikos Zahariadis and Markos Vafiadis, both colonists and settlers from Asia Minor and both leading the Macedonian people in an alien war, lured by CPM/CPY lies and coaxed by the activism of NOF and AFZH, with big promises of freedom and a new and much better way of life!

In the name of building a “New World” they brutally trampled on the dignity of the Macedonian people, besmirched their national sentiments and persistently denied them their Macedonian national identity. And in the end they said good bye to us as we were driven out of our ancestral homes...

Then when they thought that it was all over and behind them, the Macedonians were again confronted with years of dirty slogans; swept by the red storm; filled with dark thoughts and robbed of their destiny. And not that there was any truth to it, but they were also called “intruders”.

In September 1988, almost one year after the May 1987 Congress, CPG Secretary General Harilaos Florakis, held a press conference in Solun with Greek and foreign journalists to openly explain the position he took at the Congress. In his answer to a journalist working for “Mesimvrini”, among other things, Florakis said: “On this occasion I would like to say that for us, for our Party, the Macedonian minority does not exist!” (Vecher, November 5, 1988, page 9)

Who was Nikos Zahariadis:

Nikos Zahariadis was born on April 27, 1903 in Edirne, Eastern Thrace. His father was employed as a clerk at “Razim”, a French commercial tobacco company based in Constantinople. From 1911 to 1912 Nikos Zahariadis lived and attended school in the “Ibin Paiko” settlement in Skopje, where his father worked as a representative of the “Razim” Company. In 1913 he moved to Solun. In 1922 and 1923 he worked as a sailor, a job which took him to the Soviet Union where he became a member of the Communist Party. In 1924, with the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece, Zahariadis’s family was moved to Greece. In 1924 he visited the famous Communist University of Eastern European nations KUTVE in Moscow. Nikos Zahariadis was leader of the Greek communist movement and secretary general of the CPG from 1936 to 1956. Zahariadis treated the CPG like a cult and had absolute confidence in Stalin and his Communist Party, which he believed to be infallible. He himself admitted to this. Zahariadis committed suicide in 1973 while serving a prison sentence in Sorgun, Siberia.

The CPG Central Committee 2nd Plenum was held in February 1946, during which Zahariadis was convinced that conditions were right to “start an armed struggle”.

This resulted in the start of the tragic Greek Civil War, which, after several successes, fell into a hopeless situation and gradually sank and passed into the most destructive phase, with the catastrophic destruction of the left forces.

In August 1948, Zahariadis relieved General Markos Vafiadis as DAG’s Commander and Chief. Vafiadis was known for his Partisan style strategy and tactics with a small but effective force. Vafiadis did not believe in frontal warfare. Unfamiliar with the conduct of warfare, Zahariadis wanted DAG to be seen as a real army capable of defending its territory, even on large fronts.

After dismissing Vafiadis, Zahariadis himself took command of DAG and forced it to fight frontal combat against the Greek National Army which was 10 times larger, better equipped and supported by the United States of America.

Because of this, in August 1949, DAG fought on two fronts, one in Vicho and another in Gramos and was almost destroyed. It would have been completely destroyed had its fighters not fled to Albania. By changing strategy, Zahariadis made a big mistake and placed the entire movement in jeopardy. But what does Zahariadis say about it? “It was not a defeat, it was a small setback; the fighters needed a little rest and to catch their breath before returning to their guns on the front line: To oplo parapoda.”

Voice of the insurgent radio: ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE INFORBIRO

On November 4, 1949 the Greek rebel radio transmitted the CPG Central Committee’s official statement regarding the causes of DAG’s defeat. Among other things, the broadcast announced that: “From the day the communist and worker party informburo exposed Tito’s treason, slave imperialist gangs began to openly undermine the heavy and uneven struggle of the Greek people. The gang of traitors and deserters were established in Skopje and Belgrade and this clique organized and led defections from the Democratic Army. Tito then deprived it of the necessary supplies. Finally, he not only allowed the Monarcho-Fascist Army to use Yugoslav territory to attack the Democratic Army at Kajmakchalan, but also allowed his forces to attack our back during the battle in Vicho…”

Vukmanovich – Tempo in his book “How and why the national liberation struggle in Greece was defeated”, on page 77 wrote: “Yugoslavia’s involvement in the Greek Civil War was so great that

the CPY felt obliged to present its own analysis of the rebellion’s failure. The general conclusion was that the CPG failed because it did not explicitly recognize the Macedonian nation and that it was not cautious in its military actions, especially after General Markos was deposed ‘under false pretenses’.”

Nikos Zahariadis, in the capacity as CPG Central Committee General Secretary and Chairman of the DAG Military Council, while speaking at the 13th Conference in 1950, which dealt with why DAG had lost the war, said: “If I had known much earlier what Tito was going to do, I would have reconsidered whether to take up arms and fight in the Civil War.”

“NOF was created by Tito and Kolishevski. Its founding membership and core leadership was composed of Tito’s agents, the likes of Mitrevski, Keramidzhiev, Gotse, Rakovski and others who worked for the sole purpose of advancing Belgrade’s interests in Aegean Macedonia... They used the Slavo-Macedonian National issue to achieve their nationalistic plans – the merger of Aegean Macedonia to Yugoslavia...” Zahariadis wrote this and it was adopted by the CPG Macedonian Special Council membership (72) then reviewed and accepted by the CPG Central Committee Political Bureau. So the Greeks were well aware of what was happening. See “To KKE 1918-1952”, p. 271, which is also quoted in Pavle Rakovski’s book 2000/347.

From the small production of historiographic works available to us, we have the book entitled “Nepokoren dokraj” by Argiti KOVACHI, a DAG major, published by MI - AN, Skopje, in 2005, in which written on page 75 is the following: “...In Rumeli (Greece) we lost all our squads not to liberate territories, but to secure our daily bread. No other liberation movement in the world happened to have such unbalanced leadership and such incompetent command. Tricksters made sure to become leaders, hold prominent positions, hide and enjoy themselves well. Many of them also danced in a high-ranking way, talking about struggles and sacrifices. A shame! That’s why suffered. The truth will shine when ordinary fighters, who burned in the hellfire of the (Greek) Civil War, speak and write. Adventurers, braggarts, scoundrels like Markos, Gusjas, Vlandas, military illiterates – who brought DAG’s failure. Of course, the

biggest blame lies with Zahariadis, Bargiotas and others from the political leadership. The end of the (Greek) Civil War was crowned with the devastation of Koreshta (Kostur Region), Prespa, and Vicho Region. There are no longer large villages left in Koreshta. Everything was devastated…! Tens of thousands dead on the battlefields, hundreds of victims at the military court in Lerin. Why don’t you go dig up the bones of the eight hundred and fifty (850) victims in the mass grave outside Lerin? Greece has lost and will lose a lot more if it does not stop persecuting the population of Western Macedonia in Greece and if it does not allow thousands of Macedonian refugees to freely return to their homeland. The end of the (Greek) Civil War had tragic consequences, especially for the population of Vicho Region. Apart from the huge casualties on the battlefields, in the last battles on August 13 and 14, 1949, by force and at gunpoint, the people’s militia (members of the Provisional Government and DAG under the command of the CPG) forced the population from Prespa, Kostur, Lerin and other Regions to flee to Albania. If, during our retreat from Vicho, on the 13th and 14th of August, that population had not been forced to flee to Albania, those regions would not have been devastated.

(Aren’t these CPG leadership moves through the people’s militia forcefully evicting the Macedonian people from their homeland acts of genocide?)

“... Even Averov (a Greek government representative) was unable to bring his like-minded people from Metsovo - Epirus to those places and possess the properties of the native Macedonians. How many dirty games were played on the backs of these simple people! It is time to think about who divide the people into external and internal refugees...” Such is the judgment of this brave and worthy Macedonian warrior - Major Argiri from Kostur Region.

* * *

Zahariadis continued to manipulate the Macedonian people until the last political power he had as CPG General Secretary.

At the June 4, 1956 meeting of the Presidency of the “Ilinden” organization belonging to the Macedonians from Greek occupied

Macedonia, created on Zahariadis’s initiative, Colonel Pando Vaina, head of the organization, in delivering his paper about the persecution of Macedonians by the CPG, among other things, said: “… During the period when DAG was fighting and after its defeat, Zahariadis implemented a policy of vilifying and persecuting a good part of the Slavo-Macedonian cadres and popular fighters. Although the charges were completely unfounded, it was very easy for Zahariadis to label the Slavo-Macedonian cadres and popular fighters “enemy agents”, “Tito’s agents”, etc. Based on these false accusations in 1948-1949 and later, more so called “Slavo-Macedonians” were arrested and some were liquidated...” (Am F-21/1600).

The reaction responded sharply against his statement and at, Soviet intervention, Zahariadis was removed from his position as CPG General Secretary at the 6th Plenum held in Tashkent in March 1956, and the following year he was expelled from the Communist Party of Greece.

Nikos Zahariadis, General Secretary of the CPG Central Committee said: “If I had been informed as I am today, this would not have happened to me”.

After this, he was sent to a jail in Siberia where in 1973, he committed in the city Sorgut in SIBERIA.