Front Matter

Macedonians and the Civil War in Greece

Volume 2

Untruths and Truths

By Pavle Rakovski

(Translated from Macedonian to English and edited by Risto Stefov)

Macedonians and the Civil War in Greece Volume 2 Untruths and Truths

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February 22, 2019

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I. FROM ANOTHER FRIEND

(Note to the publisher: The first seven parts of this book are contained in the author’s manuscript entitled “Records (Memories -Reflections - Findings)” - book 2, prepared for publishing in 1977, but have not yet been published. The author has noted that even though every part of these notes represents a complete whole, they are complementary notes and need to be placed in one book).

A. ABOUT THE ROOTS OF EVIL

1. Errors, omissions, weaknesses...

The people’s revolution in Greece, as well as the Macedonian people’s liberation movement, as its reserve or component, was defeated by the combined forces of the domestic and international reactionaries.

One time it was defeated when the “Greek People’s Liberation Army” - ELAS (1941-1945) was liquidated by agreement (Varkiza, February 12, 1945), and the second time was when the “Democratic Army of Greece” - DAG (1946-1949) was disastrously crushed in its own “fortified defensive positions”.

The Macedonian people were the backbone of DAG’s main strike force and the revolution in the northern part of the Greek state. The Macedonian people suffered the most especially in the main hotspot of the revolution. According to official Greek census statistics taken before and after the people’s revolution, in 1940 and in 1951, 46 Macedonian villages in the border zone ceased to exist. The villages were completely destroyed with no one left alive and as a result were erased from postwar geographical maps. The population was halved or significantly reduced in another 179 villages (Naum Peiov, “Macedonians and the Greek Civil War”, INI, 1968, p. 172.) Over 15,000 elite Macedonian fighters were physically liquidated in suspicious battles, while another 60-70 thousand were driven out of their ancestral homes and scattered around the world, outside the Greek state. Percentage wise Macedonian losses in the joint struggle were about twenty times higher than the Greek ones, meaning, Macedonians spilled about twenty times more blood, lost more human lives and suffered more material destruction than the Greeks.

Because of this it is understandable why the Macedonian people would be interested to learn the truth and the real reasons why the democratic forces in Greece were defeated.

To celebrate ASNOM’s 30th anniversary, the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences organized a symposium on the topic: “ASNOM

- realization of the ideas for creating a Macedonian state and its international echo and reflection”.

Paskal Mitrevski, former NOF president and leader of the Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, as well as a most notable person from that era, was invited to give a talk at this symposium on the subject: “The first organs of the people’s government and the establishment of the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece during the Greek Civil War of 1945-1949”.

This is what Mitrevski said about the more important events of that time:

1) “The Greek people along with the Macedonian people were among the first to rise in the struggle against fascism... Significant successes and results were achieved, but due to foreign military intervention, both peoples fell under new slavery...”

2) “The resistance offered by the people... inevitably lead to the establishment of DAG, which spurred a painstaking struggle for the liberation of the country. One of the results of that struggle was the formation of the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece and the recognition of the national rights and freedoms of the Macedonian people in the Aegean (Greek occupied) part of Macedonia...”

3) “This recognition was in fact a significant benefit for the Macedonian people and, at the same time, a sort of echo of the ASNOM decisions...”

4) “In a comparative sense, among the decisions and acts of ASNOM and the corresponding acts of the Provisional Democratic Government of Greece, indeed, there are certain nuances of diversity, both in terms of the approach and manner of passing such acts, also on the motives and forms of their adoption. However, in the integral whole of the goals and interests of the Macedonian people’s national liberation struggle, they are implicitly convergent...” (with their similar content they equally serve the liberation struggle of the Macedonian people, that is, lead to the same final goal).

5) “The first ASNOM session had a positive and strong echo among the fighters and the broad Macedonian masses throughout Aegean (Greek occupied) Macedonia...”

6) “The final defeat of the democratic forces was due to mistakes... omissions... and weaknesses in the CPG and DAG leadership...” (See handout given to the symposium participants).

Generally, according to Mitrevski, this was “the true picture of events…”

2. Imported dogmatism

This is what Pavlos Nefeludis, an old Communist and CPG official, wrote in his book “Sources of evil - the deep causes of cleavage in the CPG, 1918-1968” (from the moment of its formation onwards):

“Since February 1968, the Communist Party of Greece has been experiencing a deep crisis. There was no other similar crisis in its history of abnormal situations as there is in the present one. The depth and breadth of the split came about with the CPG’s decisions made in February 1968 during its ‘Central Committee Twelfth Extended Plenum’. The fact that this split occurred during the rule of the fascist military dictatorship (of the Colonels, April 21, 1967, headed by Papadopoulos), when great moral and political unity in the party was necessary, shows how deep the roots of this anomaly go and how great the responsibility of those who caused it is, especially during this most critical time for the Greek people.

Those who created and carried out the cleavage, in all consciousness, are condemned by the Greek people. Every official and member of the party, every fighter from the left, is obliged to contribute to the establishment of unity, but at the same time to also recognize what caused the cleavage. Find all reasons for it, most recent and past, so that the cleavage can be uprooted from its deepest roots for the sake of unity and not for the sake of removing the consequences of some temporary compromise to cover up something without healing the evil. The CPG needs thorough

cleansing and mending in order to get rid of the cause of its suffering...”

Pavlos Nefeludis wrote this in the preface of the second edition of his book (I quoted it from the 1974 fourth edition). When he wrote this Pavlos Nefeludis used CPG official sources and when he wrote about the “Central Committee Twelfth Extended Plenum”, he used quotation marks. It was a characteristic moment when he projected the attitude of the CPG in his book like he was some sort of spy. According to Nefeludis, the CPG Central Committee Twelfth Extended Plenum, its convening and its decisions, were the work of factors that were outside of the CPG. Nefeludis contemplated that, in general, the profound causes in the CPG split, in its various forms or phases, began when the CPG was first created in November 1918. The problems experienced were nothing more than imported dogmatism brought to Greece in the form of dead quotations. These quotations were imported to Greece by CPG officials who were educated abroad. These officials and bearers of foreign influences and interventions unavoidably collided with the internal bearers who expressed the Greek reality and revolution. This resulted in crisis situations in the CPG, which led, among other things, to a tragic end of the resistance movement and the Greek Civil War.

However, on this subject, the CPG Central Committee welcomed Nefeludis’s paper with the following unfavourable comment published on December 3, 1974 by “Rizospastis”:

“One need ask themselves: Who is writing these things…? Is it Mr. Savas Constantopoulos? Or Mr. Georgios Georgalas? Or maybe Mr. Theophilaktos Papakonstantinou…? (These people were former CPG officials, exponents or official enemy agents who had infiltrated the CPG camp, worked for the enemy and later returned to the enemy). Because these things said about the CPG are said by a “pawn” in someone’s hands abroad, or for “rubles” from Moscow, these things are fiction used for decades, by all those champions of anti-Soviet-ism and anti-communism in our country and abroad. These are fabrications that, because they went bankrupt, are used today only by the organs of the Asfalia (security services). Yet, Mr. Nefeludis claims to be a communist...”

3. What do the protagonists of the guerrillas think?

Dominique Euge, French communist and author of the popular book “Les kapitanios” (partisan commanders) wrote: “For understandable reasons, I cannot thank all those people by name and publicly, who helped me with their testimonies in writing this history of the Greek tragedy. Most of them did not talk about themselves but about others... I beg the reader to forgive me for not always pointing out the sources from which I drew my information. I want to warmly thank all the captains, political commissars and all the old partisans, who - in Athens, in Paris, in Bucharest, in Prague, in Belgrade -helped me write this book, their book...” (p. 9, fourth edition, 1974.)

In this book, as well as in Nefeludis’s book mentioned earlier, the tragic end of the resistance movement and the Greek Civil War (the first and second partisan war) is explained mainly by the fact that the leaders of the CPG, bearers of imported dogmatism, did not accept the strategy and tactics of the Partisan commanders who emerged and responded to the living Greek reality and revolution, but imposed or applied their own strategy and tactics, which stemmed from and responded to imported dogmatism, and even direct interferences from abroad.

Dominique Euge, author of the book “Les kapitanios” conducted a wide range of surveys of the “old partisans”, as the critics have correctly observed, and “often behind his voice we hear the voices of the guerrilla protagonists themselves”. What is said through him, we really learn what the “old partisans- protagonists of the guerrillas” think of “the Greek national and personal tragedy...”

Despite resistance, both books have been issued many times in Greece, which shows how popular they are, i.e. accepted by the left and the Greek people. As it turned out this view is also widely accepted: - “The strain that has always bothered the CPG and which has led to catastrophes, is imported dogmatism and foreign interference in the leadership of the people’s revolution in Greece...”

On the cover of the book “Les kapitanios” (fourth Greek edition, 1974) written is: - “The Partisan commanders were caught in a vice between Stalin’s dogma and western tanks. In 1944, they celebrated

a victory that was already stolen right from their hands. They fought in Athens against the English army before the war against the Axis ended. They lay down their arms in the name of “normalization” so that they could be prosecuted as ordinary criminals. They confronted the American penetration into the British sphere of influence anew... In their ranks the guerrillas and the dogmatist politicians, opposing one another, allowed the living revolution and the dogma to clash...”

4. Thorough cleansing

The diagnosis of the “CPG disease” seems to be correct.

However, the more important worker and communist movement events in Greece can not be categorized between... symptoms of this disease, that is, they can not be explained by... imported dogmatism and foreign interference alone.

At the CPG founding Congress in November 1918 (more on this later) the CPG leaders, for example, were advocating, i.e. seeking to recognize the democratic rights and freedoms of the Greek population living outside of Greece (Northern Epirus, Cyprus, Rhodes, etc.) but did not do the same for the Macedonians who, since about five years ago, as a result of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), were involved and lived in the Greek state, in the Greek (occupied) part of Macedonia. They did not even say a word about them, that is, about their democratic rights and freedoms in the Greek state...

Another example: In 1924, certain officials and members of the CPG broke away from the CPG and formed a rival party that was hostile to the CPG organizations and parties - “Communist Alliance” and “Socialist Union of Greece” with aims to: break up, dismantle and destroy the CPG. The CPG barely managed to save itself from this.

One more example: In order to strengthen the 1936 Fourth of August Fascist regime, it was necessary to break up and, if possible, destroy the organized revolutionary forces, i.e. the CPG. It was no surprise that, after some time, the CPG leadership began to disintegrate. A CPG rival central leadership was formed from its

ruins: “Central Committee”, “Temporary Directorate”, i.e. several camps. A sharp mutual struggle ensued and slowly and surely it pushed the real revolutionary struggle aside. That was the first stage. Then, there were wide and frequent arrests and the real communists ended up in prisons and concentration camps all throughout the Greek state...

These are events of fundamental importance which are unequivocally unearthing the nature of the disease or “the plague that the CPG has always been struggling with”. How can these and all other “crises and abnormal situations” be missing and explained as... a collision between dead quotations (dogma) and foreign interference with the “living Greek reality and the revolution?” This, most conveniently has been simplified… It is true what Nefeludis said: “The CPG needs a thorough cleansing in order to finally get rid of the ordeal that torments it.” But, apparently, not only from the dead quotes...

5. Moments from the CPG’s history

The information that follows is mostly first-hand. It has been obtained from official party texts, i.e. party-based editions. It refers to people who have climbed to the top party leadership and were creators and holders of party politics.

- Aristos Arvanitis was the first Central Committee secretary who emerged from the party founding congress in November 1918. Nine months after being elected he abandoned his position as first secretary. Looking at this from a different angle, it was a blow and bad propaganda for the party...

- “February 6, 1922 - The first Party conference was convened. Opportunist attitudes prevailed... the Party found itself in a period of organization and agitation and had the need for a long legal existence...” (“Χρονικον του αγωνα “, p. 19. Also see CPG, Vol. 1, p. 213.)

Given the circumstances at the time, this actually meant that the Party was rejecting its revolutionary activities and turning itself into an ordinary minority reformist party, within the framework of

bourgeois laws. Viewed from this angle, it is an attempt to liquidate the party as a revolutionary “avant-garde” of the working class...

- In September 1923, the Party’s elected extraordinary congress said: “the deep devastating crisis in the party was due to the strife between the liquidating ‘reformist’ and ‘extremist’ tendencies...” (Ibid. p. 20. Also see CPG, Volume 1, p. 504.)

This kind of activity, carried out by the leadership, was stifling the worker and communist movement and was responsible for slowing down and even stopping the advancement of the revolutionary struggle. In fact it was derailing the party itself. All of its energy was misplaced and directed in the wrong direction: Not to the people’s revolutionary struggle, but to the internal party struggle and the destruction of the party...

It was soon revealed that this was the plan all along. Namely:

- As I mentioned earlier, in 1924 the “Leftists” founded another Communist Party in Piraeus under the name “Communist League”, with its central newspaper called the “Communist Vima” (communist tribune). Above all, this was a rival party hostile to the CPG. In fact, it was an attempt to break and liquidate the CPG. The situation was so dire that the Balkan Communist Federation (BKF) had to intervene:

“All sincere and honest revolutionaries in Greece - in the ranks of the Communist Party, must unify…!” said a BKF relevant document. The existence of the so-called “Communist League” is in fact a betrayal to the worker’s movement...” (“ Χρονικον του αγωνα “, p. 23. To KKE, vol. 1, pp. 429 and 501-503. T. KKE, vol. 2, p. 9.)

Then, also from the activists that fell out of the CPG, the so-called “Socialist Union of Greece” was formed which, fortunately, like the “Communist League”, had a short life span...

We then have Gianis Kordatos, Nikolaos Sargologos and Tomas Apostolidis who took over leadership of the party as Central Committee secretaries. Each persistently stood behind and defended the Greek-bourgeois position: No recognition and no rights for the

subjugated Macedonian people who were denied their existence as a non-Greek nation.

During the CPG’s Third Extraordinary Congress, in 1924, when the CPG was aligning its party line with that of the Comintern, the CPG recognized the right of the Macedonian people: Self-determination to secession from the Greek state. Kordatos and Apostolidis openly stood in opposition to the Congress.

At this point Kordatos was left out of the Party but not inactive. In the meantime Kordatos wrote an anti-Party text which was then published by the anti-communist newspaper “Revolution proletarian”, organ of the French right-wing opposition party, condemning the CPG. Then, during its third regular convention (March 1927), the CPG condemned Kordatos and declared him a man who has lost all connections with the party and is no longer a CPG member. (See: KKE, vol. 2, p. 250).

The same Congress also condemned Tomas Apostolidis’s views and actions over the national question, but did not kick him out of the ranks of the party. He was kept under the condition that: He behaved in a disciplined manner. (Ibid. p. 249.) He left the CPG on his own...

Sargologos left the party earlier. In the fifth volume of his book “History of Contemporary Greece”, Gianis Kordatos wrote: “Sargologos... returned from Moscow with his lover... And some time later we obtained evidence that he was an official agent of the Second Bureau of the First Army Corps, and of the police. He escaped the moment he found out that the Central Committee knew about this...” (Ibid. p. 617.)

Sargologos took refuge in the United States of America...

- Kordatos also told us the following: Two people were responsible for the extremist political line (starting a rebellion as soon as possible), Evangelos Papanastasiou in Athens and Piraeus, and Sargolagos in Macedonia… When Evangelos Papanastasiou attended a Party conference in February 6, 1922, as a Party delegate from Athens and Piraeus, he was also a police agent (working for

the enemy) and had been a police agent since 1918, when he joined the Party...” (Ibid. p. 614.)

One more thing: “At the CPG Extraordinary Congress, held on October 20, 1922, G. Georgiadis, member of the CPG Central Committee, accused Giani Petsopoulos, the Central Committee’s treasurer, of material abuse and having links with the royal court... A special commission was formed and, after an investigation, Petsopoulos was expelled from the Party...” (Ibid. p. 619.)

Serafim Maximos was appointed member of the CPG Central Committee by the Party’s National Council (February 1924), along with Kordatos and Apostolidis. At the CPG Third Extraordinary Congress, held at the end of 1924, Maximos was appointed to the new CPG Central Committee Executive elected by the Congress. But later he led the anti-party liquidation “movement” of the “centrists” (autumn 1926) which, after the joint declaration of Maximos-Puliopoulos (see below), fused with the liquidator “movement”, i.e. with the liquidators in the so-called “opposition”. Their platforms: The normalization achieved by the bourgeoisie is not temporary, but stable. A new organic capitalism was started, i.e. a new way to allow the productive forces to flourish which would lead to prosperity and improve the living standard of the working people, blurring class contradictions and bringing truce between the opposing classes. Because of this, adventurism would be cut down and so would the struggle of the masses, i.e. strikes and demonstrations in the streets would be eliminated. Therefore the party the way it is now should be dissolved... in order to create a new “serious” Party, composed of citizen intellectuals…” (See: To KKE, Vol 2, p. 632. Or: “Theses for the CPG’s 40th anniversary”, adopted by the CPG Central Committee’s Ninth Plenum, August 1953, as is cited in the book “Forty years of CPG”, p. 709.) The activities of the “United Opposition” and its organ the “Spartakos” newspaper were condemned first during a CPG Central Committee meeting held from February 15 to 18, 1928, and again during the CPG’s Fourth Congress held from December 10 to 15, 1928. They also unanimously condemned Serafim Maximos as a liquidator and, together with his comrades K. Sklavos, T. Hainoglu, L. Hadzhistavros, V. Nikolinikos, G. Papanikolaou, N. Nikolaidis,

V. Polihronakis, all former members of the CPG Central Committee, erased him from the Party... (To KKE, p. 638.)

- Pantelis Puliopoulos stood at the CPG helm as the first Central Committee secretary elected during the Third Extraordinary Congress in 1924. On April 15, 1925, he was arrested by the Mihalakopoulos government. He remained in jail for about 16 months. He was released after Pangalos’s dictatorship fell in August 1926 and - quit. He left the party. This is what was said about him in the Party edition “Χρονικον του αγωνα”, on page 24:

“Party Secretary Puliopoulos quit his post in August 1926. He justified his own desertion with the “theory” that the party was put together with “the latest dregs of the working class” and that it needed a “serious” injection of bourgeois elements, whose role would be to “bring” Marxist light into the party...” The liquidators were condemned in March 1927, during the third regular party convention...

Puliopoulos left the CPG, but did not limit only himself to that. He also called on other party officials to do the same. He withdrew his candidacy as a CPG parliamentary candidate in the November 7, 1926 parliamentary elections in Greece. And since then he intensified his demoralizing activities against the Party. And this is why he was referred to as the “liquidator”. On December 17, 1926, by a decision taken by the CPG Central Committee, as published by “Rizospastis” on January 26, 1927, Puliopoulos was kicked out of the party, and later by a Politburo decision, made on September 25, 1927, he was finally erased from their books...

Elevterios Stavridis proved himself to be one of the most outstanding figures in the constellation of Party leaders from the period prior to the Comintern intervention in November 1931. First CPG Central Committee secretary Puliopoulos, as I mentioned earlier, was sent to jail. While serving his sentence the CPG Central Committee replaced him with Stavridis. Then, as mentioned earlier, after Puliopoulos was released from jail he left the CPG leaving Stavridis in charge until early 1927. Then, following a CPG Central Committee decision, Stavridis was removed and replaced by Giatsopoulos. Later on, in April 1928, while Stavridis was still a

CPG Member of Parliament candidate (he was elected in the 1926 parliamentary elections) he left the Party and joined the bourgeois camp. He joined the bourgeois “Progressive” party headed by Kafantaris.

As an ideologue of the domestic bourgeoisie, through the bourgeois press and through a special thick book of his, the famous “Behind the CPG scenes” book, Stavridis trumpeted to the whole world, waving the bourgeois fictional scarecrow about the so-called “Slavic danger” for Greece:

This is what he wrote: “The CPG program is a program designed to destroy the Greek nation. Greece will not only become Soviet, as some believe, but it will also become completely Slavic. The Greek communists, men and women capable of military service, will join the Slavic armies en masse so that they can perish at some distant front. All Greek children will find their fate like those twenty-eight thousand children abducted during the bandit war (Stavridis referred to the Greek Civil War from 1945 to 1949 as the “bandit” war. DAG for him was a “bandit” army and the evacuated Macedonian children for him were “kidnapped” children). All the rest, the non-Communists, regardless of social rank and sex, one beautiful morning will find themselves on the long road leading to Siberia where they are going to leave their skeletons…” (“Behind the CPG scenes”, p. 5.)

Stavridis got to where he was by writing nonsense. This shows that he was full of anti-communist fury which he managed to control and suppress until one day it erupted.

- Things in the CPG continued to be bad. “The party at that time was surviving the third phase of its internal crisis... It fought a puzzling factional struggle that lasted two years (mid-1929 to mid-1931) during which its class enemy played a big role...” (“Χρονικον του αγωνα”, p. 22.)

The Comintern intervened. On November 1, 2, 3, 1931, “Rizospastis” published the Comintern Executive Council’s famous document entitled “Appeal to all members of the CPG”.

New people were appointed to the Party leadership with Nikos Zahariadis as their leader...

- The first half of 1930 was characterized by a strong rise in the worker and communist movements all across Europe, including Greece. The bourgeoisie was forced to give up its favourite bourgeois democracy because things were becoming dangerous especially in Germany, Greece and Spain. As a result open fascist dictatorships were introduced. The need to strengthen the fascist regimes imperatively required the break-up of the organized revolutionary forces, which meant the break-up of the communist parties. That was achieved in Germany and Spain but with less success in Greece. The communists in Greece were cracked but not taken out. This was done mainly by “transplanting exponents of the domestic bourgeoisie in the CPG leadership” (CPG from 1931 to 1952, p. 104.) At first, as I mentioned earlier, the CPG collapsed into several rival camps, headed by a special central leadership. After that there were unheard of frequent and widespread attacks and the real Communists, members and cadres of the Party, found themselves in concentration camps and prisons en masse...

- The Greek Civil War (1945-1949) followed the fascist occupation of Greece (1941-1944) and was the most decisive revolutionary and critical time in the history of the newly expanded Greek state. The first people who found themselves leading the CPG and the People’s Revolution at this critical time were Georgios Siantos and Nikos Zahariadis. Siantos led the war against the occupiers (ELAS) and Zahariadis led the Greek Civil War (DAG). The people’s revolution was broken both times and its armed forces ELAS and DAG were destroyed.

Analyzing the war against the occupiers, the Third CPG Conference in 1950 concluded that: “…Georgios Siantos was responsible for betraying the revolution...” (Νεος Κοσµος, No. 10/1950. The CPG from 1931 to 1952, p. 219.) By then Siantos was already dead but was posthumously tried anyway, found to be a traitor and convicted.

Analyzing the Greek Civil War, the CPG Central Committee Sixth Extended Plenum (March 1956), during a general party conference, concluded that:

Zahariadis, with his so-called “Greek Axis” policy, justified the English presence in Greece, considering it necessary in order to “safeguard the Greek position and the Greek borders in the north…” (Forty years of CPG, p. 645. Resolution of the CPG Central Committee Twelfth Plenum introductory speech and closing speech given by Nikos Zahariadis, “Riga” (“Ρηγα”), 1945, p. 21.) By doing this Zahariadis weakened the resistance movement and undermined DAG’s victory, which led to its defeat and, in general, caused the revolution to fail.

Zahariadis was publicly condemned and removed from the CPG leadership. Later, during the CPG Central Committee held in February 1953, he was removed from the books.

Of course, when we take all this into account, and all these people who in some way or another climbed to the top Party leadership, it is easier to understand the true essence of their policies, conducted through the CPG and in the name of the CPG...

6. The CPG founding congress

During its founding congress, held in Piraeus (November 4-10, 1918), the Socialist Labour Party, later named the Communist Party of Greece, was declared a Marxist revolutionary avant-garde Party of the working class. It stood for:

- “The national establishment of all peoples, large and small, with full rights to decide on a governing system... Solve all unresolved national and territorial issues through the will of the people, without any foreign interference or influence...”

The first step, start with the unsettled “Balkan issues”, which were to be resolved on the basis of the principle of self-determination. Regarding this the founding congress stressed that:

- “Full freedom be given to the population in the islands Cyprus, Imbros, Limnos, Tenedos, Samotraki, Kastelorizos, and Northern Epirus (Southern Albania) to decide their own destiny...” (CPG, Volume 1, p. 11- 12.)

However, there was nothing said during the founding congress about the democratic rights and freedoms of the Macedonian people. The “Macedonian Question” was not mention or considered as a “Balkan issue” for solving.

There was never and, of course, there never would be a future government in Belgrade, Athens, or Sofia, which would willingly sign an agreement to give up “national territory” for the sake of its neighbours. But, as we know, and this is a historical fact, the governments in Belgrade, Athens, and Sofia did agree and did sign agreements to divide Macedonia among themselves. As history has attested these contenders not only fought over Macedonia but signed documents and left their signatures and state seals that attest to Macedonia’s division. Here they cannot help but show their hypocrisy claiming on the one hand that Macedonians don’t exist and on the other emphasizing the historical truth that:

- “Macedonia is not Serbian, Greek, or Bulgarian, and that the Macedonian people are primarily a Slavic, special self-governing nation.

This explains the unruly behaviour of our conquering neighbours who ruthlessly crushed Macedonia and its people, cut off their Aegean ports from its backdrop, smashed and hampered their economic, cultural and political life and condemned Macedonia’s development to end.

The Greek army also engaged in genocide against the Macedonian people during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). According to the Carnegie Commission investigating the Balkan Wars, tens of thousands of people were killed. (L. Mojsov, Around the Question of the Macedonian National Minority in Greece, p. 244.) The villages around Solun, Gotse Delchev’s hometown (Kukush), as well as the villages in the wider district, were burned down and destroyed. To save their lives, tens of thousands of Macedonians fled and scattered around the world (mostly to “brotherly” Bulgaria), beyond the new Greek borders. And those Macedonians who decided to stay home were completely oppressed and subjected to unusually fierce denationalization and assimilation...

The CPG founding congress, it would appear, knew nothing about these atrocities...

The following was characteristic of the attitude taken by the founding congress:

- “Because of the population’s mixed composition, it was not possible to determine ethnological boundaries…” Therefore the congress proclaimed that: “Unification of all Balkan nations in a single Balkan democratic federation, based on completely democratic principles, would guarantee all nationalities full and genuine political, national and linguistic freedom...” (CPG, Volume 1, p. 13.)

The idea behind this was to exclusively prevent “others” from seeking their ethnological borders in the newly conquered Greek territories. The proposed solution, i.e. “Unification of all the Balkan states under a Balkan Democratic Federation” practically meant avoiding every solution.

This, in essence, was how the CPG leadership, through its Founding Congress, defended the newly conquered Greek territories from the reach of their neighbours.

Considering that there was not a single word about the democratic rights and freedom of the Macedonian people adopted in the texts of the Congress, one would inevitably reach the following conclusion:

- By its silence the Congress ignored and therefore did not recognize the existence of the Macedonian people as an independent non-Greek nation...

This was how the Macedonian people were treated and are still being treated. It is clear and undeniable, however, that the CPG leadership, through its Founding Congress, took exactly the same position as the domestic bourgeoisie when it came to the Macedonian Question...

Of course, this was not a coincidence; in fact, anti-Macedonian politics appeared as a basic accompanying phenomenon, as the main characteristic of a “CPG-affliction” symptom which also affected the CPG’s revolutionary activities. The way the top CPG leadership operated in practice in the territory of Greece, affected the fate of the Greek people and their revolutionary activities which were no better than the fate of the Macedonian people, i.e. their democratic rights. I have already spoken about the many “crises and abnormal situations” the CPG experienced, but for the sake of clarity, let us review some events:

1919: The first secretary of the first Central Committee quit.

1922: During the First CPG Conference it was decided to destroy all revolutionary activities. Reportedly, “the Party was in need of a long period of legal existence,” under bourgeois laws… no less...

1923: There was a strong struggle between the various “liquidation” groups, led by known and unknown potential enemy class agents who destroyed the revolutionary activities of the CPG...

1924: “Leftists” broke away and formed hostile parties which attacked CPG organizations. The CPG itself was barely saved from decay and destruction...

This is how the devastation was started which has “plagued the CPG” since the moment it was formed...

As I have already mentioned, the fascist occupation (1941-1944) and the Greek Civil War (1945-1949) were important revolutionary moments and critical times in the history of newly expanded Greece. Naturally it was important to know how, at those critical times, the CPG came to be plagued with so many problems...