TO THE MACEDONIAN COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE

TO: THE MACEDONIAN COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREECE

Dear comrades,

According to a directive issued by Comrade Tempo, delegate of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia’s Central Committee, we are directed to make contact with your Committee for Cooperation.

Our National Liberation Party units, together with yours, have acted against the German and Italian fascist occupiers. We want to strengthen this relationship and cooperation.

In that sense, our representative, Comrade Pitu, sent two letters on July 1, 1943, one to the CPG Central Committee, and the other to the Lerin CPG Regional Committee, suggesting that representatives of your and our party organize a meeting.

According to Comrade Tempo’s directive, we would also like to invite your representative to a meeting with a representative of our Central Committee for closer acquaintance and cooperation.

Upon receipt of this letter, let us know when and where we can hold the meeting. You can schedule the meeting by replying to our letter or through Comrade Tempo...

July 16, 1943.

Greetings from your communist comrades. Death to Fascism - Freedom to the People! CPM Central Committee (Sources of War and Revolution in Macedonia, pp. 161-162.)

The meeting took place in Solun. Representing the CPM Central Committee was Tsvetko Uzunovski-Abbas. The talks and agreement were summarized in a letter, dated September 26, 1943, sent to Dobrivoe Radosavlievich, CPY Central Committee instructor:

“Twenty days ago I was in Solun and met with one member of the CPG Central Committee with whom we came to the following agreement:

1. Regularly exchange information. 2. Maintain continuous contact and meet once a month. 3. Send a comrade to Solun Region to work among the Macedonians. (Ibid. p. 319-323.) 4. Similarly send a comrade to Lerin Region. 5. Send two typewriters to allow them to publish information in Macedonian.

6. Form separate Macedonian units with a Macedonian flag and a five-pointed star. 7. Allow our partisans to carry out joint actions together with the Macedonian Partisans from Greece, as they do with the Macedonian partisans from Bulgaria…

These were the main points we discussed and agreed to after a long discussion...”

Siantos’s CPG leadership however had no intention of implementing any of the agreed upon items, especially points 5, 6, 7. There was no newspaper issued in the Macedonian language at all. But in November 1943, the CPG decided to establish the Macedonian organization SNOF in Lerin and Kostur Regions. Then, at the initiative of the SNOF district boards, two Macedonian newspapers appeared. The newspaper “Sloboda” appeared in Lerin Regin in the Macedonian language written with Greek letters, and the newspaper “Slavianomakedonski glas” in the Macedonian language written with Cyrillic letters appeared in Kostur Region. But as soon as they appeared they were pulled out by the Greek leadership. Also, a few months after its founding the CPG declared SNOF a “reactionary” organization… a “crypto-fascist” organization… and dissolved it in April 1944. It then abolished its regional newspapers which had only limited circulation...

The situation became tense and electrified.

Only then, for understandable reasons, the Siantos leadership ordered:

The formation of one all-Macedonian unit as part of the ELAS Ninth Division (Lerin - Kostur Region) and one all-Macedonian unit as part of the ELAS Tenth Division (Voden).

The Lerin Kostur Macedonian ELAS Battalion was formed on June 20, 1944, during a meeting in the village Pozdivishta, Kostur Region. It was formed by combining existing Macedonian armed partisans from the “Trpovski”, “Karaorman” (N. Peiov) and fighters from SOV (M. Keramitchiev) groups. Aminadas (an Albanian from the village Lehovo, Lerin Region) was appointed commander of the

battalion, and Ilia Dimovski - Gotse, from Lerin (originally from Statitsa), was appointed battalion commissar.

News that a Macedonian army was being created in the ELAS composition, in a strange way, very much influenced the Macedonian youth to join. This is what reactionary Greek historian Polis Ioanidis wrote: “The Slavs joined the military en masse with three hundred of them being sent to Langa, ELAS Twenty-sixth Brigade headquarters, to be armed. Brigade commander, H. Lazaradis, however, armed only fifty and dispersed them into the units of the brigade, and the rest he sent home, back to their villages where they came from, giving them vacation with appropriate documents...” (Polis Ioanidis, To misterion gotse, newspaper “Elinikos voras”, July 4, 1955. H. Andonovski, The truth about Aegean Macedonia, p. 132.)

This is what Renos Mihaleas, at the time responsible for agitation and propaganda in the ELAS Ninth Division, wrote in connection with the formation of the Macedonian battalion, and the inconvenience it created for Leonidas Strigos, then CPG secretary of the Provincial Bureau for Macedonia and Thrace:

Stringos: “Why did you create an entire battalion, when the order given was to create only one unit in Voden and Kostur Region?”

Renos: “What would be the harm if divisions were created?”

Stringos: “You are so naive. If the Macedonians had divisions, we Greeks would not be in Macedonia...” (Handwritten letter in Greek from Renos Mihaleas to D. Radosavlievich. A copy of the original can be found in the INI archive in Skopje.)

In the meantime, the very appearance of the Macedonian battalion with its armed Macedonian units and military and political activities in the Macedonian villages, speaking Macedonian and singing Macedonian songs, brought joy to the oppressed Macedonian people who, for the first time in a long time, felt like Macedonians and not like “Slavophone Greeks”.

This was very upsetting to the CPG Greek leadership which resolutely called for the liquidation of the battalion. This kind of “nationalism” was inadmissible and could not be allowed to exist. But the fight was not over. Promises made to the Macedonian people were not fulfilled. Their rights and freedoms were not delivered so the Macedonians refused to disband the battalion. As a result the Greeks in ELAS began to force the issue under hostile acts and came close to having an armed conflict. To avoid bloodshed the Macedonian battalion moved to the other (Yugoslav) part of Macedonia. This is what, among other things, battalion command wrote:

“...We declare before the entire world that:

...2) Claims made against us as to why we left are lies and fabrications. We left as a measure taken to avoid ELAS intentions against us. You all know that one of our units was captured and disarmed by the Greeks of ELAS. You also know that ELAS military units from Kostur Region and Prespa were dispatched to pursue and disarm us. That is why we took measures to avoid a fratricidal collision... They ordered us to go south into Greece so that they could break up our Macedonian partisan movement...” (H. Andonovski, The truth about Aegean Macedonia, p. 141, the document can be found in Ilia Dimovski – Gotse’s personal archives.)

11. Voden Region

The formation of the Voden Macedonian battalion, about which I wrote in some detail in another document, was another matter altogether. Without a proper directive, we the CPG Macedonians activists in Tresino (Orma) and Meglen Regions were not even sure if we could do this. But as a CPG Voden regional committee we did it anyway; we created the Voden ELAS Macedonian battalion.

Here I will only mention a few details. We had a meeting on June 15, 1944 and, after my introductory speech, on my request, we agreed the next day that myself and local activist Georgi Atanasovski-Blaze would go out to the villages and mobilize Macedonian fighters for an all-Macedonian Voden battalion.

Regional Committee Secretary Barba Traiko (Niko Papasermidzhis) was obliged to notify the CPG District Committee and obtain its approval as well as find a secluded place for us to establish the headquarters of our secret committee.

What follows is a source document of that time, which explains why the formation of the Voden battalion was allowed:

“RADIOTELEGRAM number 94

To: The 10th Division (ELAS)

Information on the political organizations in the city Voden by Bulgarian Command: The purpose of arming the Macedonian villages is to create an Autonomous Macedonia under the auspices of the Bulgarian Government with Hitler’s consent. The head of the autonomist movement is Vancho Mihailov. The action is concealed to avoid disputes with the Greek reactionaries. Many Macedonians are drawn into this. Some Macedonian political cadres are also sympathetic with this autonomy. The political organization in Voden, with Panos in charge, has decided to form independent Macedonian groups, with red flags and with the sickle and hammer. (Panos was subsequently criticized for this and removed from all functions...) We expect your orders. Petros.

Sent on May 30, 1944 Received on May 30, 1944 (Aegean Macedonia in the National Liberation War, Volume 1, Doc 115, page 416.)

This is what it was all about: German affairs were definitely winding down and the Germans would soon be leaving Greece. The road and rail track Solun-Voden-Bitola was one of the most important arteries for their withdrawal. The passage “Muarem An” (Voden-Ostovo) was one of the most dangerous sections of this artery. The Germans and Bulgarians had to secure it so they called on the Macedonian people to rise up and fight for a “free autonomous Macedonia”. The Germans and Bulgarians created the “Ohrana” military formation in Voden with promises of a free Macedonia. They then armed it with modern German weapons. “Ohrana” in turn, through threats, put pressure on the Macedonian people of the surrounding villages that

dominated Voden, i.e. the “Muarem An” passage, and managed to arm them...

In other words, the German and Bulgarian occupiers, using their strong Macedonian aspiration for freedom, tried to manipulate the Macedonian people to work for their interests.

However, both the false autonomist movement, on the one hand, and the Macedonian anti-fascist liberation movement, on the other, had extremely disastrous consequences for the Greeks. Namely, almost nothing remained because of the systematic Hellenization which had been carried out by the Greek church and state for decades.

The Siantos CPG leadership did not hesitate, however, from the two “evils” (the Macedonian autonomist movement and the Macedonian partisan battalion) to hold on to one of them (the Macedonian partisan battalion) and dance with it. It then decided to keep the Macedonian battalion and use it against the other evil (the false autonomist movement)…

This is what happened and how it happened: With the emergence of the Macedonian battalion “Ohrana’s” strength dried up. Remnants of the “Ohrana” and Greek fascist gendarmerie then began to join and serve the Germans. What kind of “free Macedonia” was this? What kind of “free Macedonia” would ally itself with its worst enemy the Greeks fascists? There was no “free Macedonia”! Only empty promises of one! As the battalion grew rapidly, “Ohrana” began to melt away. And when “Ohrana” and the false autonomist movement was broken, the CPG leadership began to accuse the Voden Macedonian battalion of being “nationalist” and leading “nationalistic propaganda” among the Macedonian people. Following that, Greek ELAS units were secretly dispatched to attack, disarm and liquidate it (the same way they did with the Lerin - Kostur Region battalion)...

It was under these conditions that the Siantos CPG leadership, like the foreign occupiers, used the Macedonian people’s strong desire for freedom to serve the interests of others, i.e. to defend “Greek national” interests in Greek occupied Macedonia...

12. Epilog

Since the CPG Sixth Congress took place in December 1935, the CPG’s official line on the Macedonian national question has been: “full equality for minorities”. Regarding the Macedonian national question, the Congress underlined the following:

“The Party will not cease to declare that the Macedonian national question will ultimately and definitely be resolved “brotherly” after the Soviet government achieves victory in the Balkans, which will “break” all “dishonest agreements” on the exchange of populations and will take all practical measures to erase imperialistic injustices. Only then will the Macedonian people fully realize their national establishment...” (Το ΚΚΕ απο το 1931-1952, p. 75.)

This means that the CPG Sixth Congress recognizes the distinctiveness, that is, the national existence of the Macedonian people.

This was the CPG official line both during the time of the fascist occupation and during the national liberation war against it. But instead of that the CPG declared that “Macedonia was as Greek as Attica” and the Macedonians people were “Slavophone Greeks”. This is how it was: The CPG leadership decided what and how things would be conducted...

The Macedonian anti-fascist movement, during the occupation, when neighbouring nations were fighting for their own freedom, did not fail despite all Greek attempts to squash it.

Despite the fact that the Greeks did everything in their power to stop it, the Macedonian movement continued to grow without help from the Party. On the contrary, the Party did everything in its power to suffocate the Macedonian movement after it broke out. This is yet more evidence of the symptoms of “CPG affliction”.

13. To the previous text

Let us now examine what today’s (more than three decades later) CPG governing factors think about Siantos’s policy:

“The fact that the Greek people fought heroically during the war against the Italian-German invaders, and the historic victory of the Soviet army, made conditions very favourable for the creation of a free independent and democratic Greece. Unfortunately the Party leadership did not perceive the resulting internal and external conditions for a victorious end to the national liberation struggle. In fact, the Party was preoccupied with the belief that EAM, even though it attracted a large majority of the Greek people under its banner, could not win against the will of England that controlled the Mediterranean. And so the CPG leadership capitulated to the English reactionaries and signed the Varkiza agreement... with which the CPG handed over all weapons to the enemy and left the democratic fighters at its mercy...”

Here is what the CPG Central Committee said about this in a letter, dated April 1956, addressed to all members of the Communist Party of Greece (adopted by the CPG Central Committee Sixth Plenum in March 1956 See: Forty years of the CPG, p. 644.):

“The first serious error was made in July 1943, when the CPG subordinated ELAS to the English General Staff for the Middle East. By doing this it lost its autonomy... The CPG did this even though it had EAM and PEEA (Political Liberation Commission) on its side. Even though the CPG was supported by the majority of the Greek people and was the only power in the free territories with a significant armed force, while the Greek government in exile in Cairo controlled only a small minority with small arms, the CPG made great and unacceptable concessions, which did not match the ratio of forces... The Lebanon Agreement signed in May 1944, was another mistake which helped the English imperialists and the plutocratic oligarchy to restore the old fascist regime and prevent the people from deciding on their own destiny... The Caserta Agreement, signed in September 1944, was a continuation and expansion of the Lebanon Agreement error... Under it all Greek armed forces were placed under the command of English General Skobi, and it was forbidden for ELAS to enter the larger cities in Greece or to take control of important strategic positions such as Attica, Central Macedonia, Eastern Macedonia, Epirus, etc. At the same time it allowed EDES, PAO, and other fascist organizations to

take control of certain important areas... The armed encounter in December 1944 was organized and instigated by the English imperialists in cooperation with the Greek plutocracy with aims at breaking the democratic anti-fascist struggle and the national liberation forces. The aim was also to impose an anti-democratic regime, to restore capitalist rule and imperialist dependence. In this (December) collision ELAS suffered partial defeat. But its basic armed forces were still functioning. EAM could have relied on these forces and by utilizing them against the weaker English and reactionary forces, implemented a political solution that corresponded to the real ratio of forces. But instead the CPG signed the Varkiza Agreement and capitulated to the English imperialists and the domestic reactionaries...”

These are the most serious mistakes the CPG made during the national liberation struggle 1941-1945. The basis for these mistakes was: The CPG leadership being incapable of overcoming the strength of the English imperialists and the reactionaries as well as underestimating the power of the Greek people, and the absence of faith in the possibility of creating a free and democratic Greece, free from foreign imperialist dependence... The CPG Central Committee cultivated the opportunistic theory that “we are incapable of dealing with the English”...

All this was stated in the theses: “Forty years of CPG”, adopted during the CPG Central Committee Ninth Plenum in August 1958 (see: “Forty years of CPG”, pp. 715-716).

This kind of analysis, at least as far as I know, is still widespread and accepted by the Greek communist leadership movement of all colours. Of course all this was in the past so, naturally, the Greek leaders are now preoccupied with the problems of today. But when they do need to address the past, they always talk about their “mistakes” - the Lebanon, Caserta and Varkiza Agreements.

But, one cannot fail to notice one striking thing:

That nothing has been said about Siantos’s policies. The CPG has been persistently silent on the Siantos CPG leadership’s decisions:

As to why the military and political plan to ally with the neighbouring people’s revolutions was cancelled? As to why was the signed agreement for creating a common Balkan general staff was canceled? And as to why ELAS had to be placed under English command and control?

Why was the people’s anger against the occupiers used to perform harmless actions (strikes, demonstrations and uneven battles in the streets) that served English interests? Why was it not used to create a strong armed struggle? Why did EAM recruit only a small fraction, only a few tens of thousands, of fighters into ELAS from the millions of people available to it?

Why did the CPG Central Committee, during its Sixth Plenum held in June 1941, decide to violate its decision to “organize a people’s uprising” to achieve a socialist liberation? Why did the CPG Central Committee, during its Tenth Plenum held in January 1944, call for “strategically securing the borders”, which means occupying and annexing new territories?

Why did CPG representatives Roussos, Porfirogenis, and Zvolos violate the CPG Central Committee Politburo’s decision, and behind its back signed the Lebanon Agreement, an agreement they were not authorized to sign? Why was the CPG Central Committee Politburo’s decision violated again, behind the CPG’s back when Siantos and Partsalidis signed the Varkiza Agreement they were not authorized to sign? Etc...

There is plenty of time and opportunity and, of course, sooner or later the real reasons will come out and the answers to these questions will be revealed.

My task at hand is to look at these events from a different angle, different from those of most writers…

* * *

Here is some information derived from an interview with General Markos Vafiadis conducted by the Zagreb-based newspaper “Vus”:

Vus: “There are people in the world who believe the fate of your struggle and today’s political order in Greece... was determined elsewhere, outside of Greece, and that... (in any case) would be completed in the same way as it ended... (for) no one could do anything before this ‘higher force’...”

Markos: “What kind of ‘higher force’?”

Vus: “You are familiar with Churchill and Stalin’s Moscow agreement of ctober 1943, according to which Greece, as it is known today, belonged absolutely to the Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence and it ‘legalized’ the intervention of Great Britain and the United States in Greece…”

Markos: “Of course, it would be easiest for us to exclusively blame the external factor for our defeat and for everything that happened during the struggle. But the culprits for those problems are still among us... For us, my friend, the tragedy was in the disunity of our leadership, the betrayals and the attitudes of capitulation, dating back to before Yalta, which contributed to Greece’s crushing destiny in Yalta... I don’t just want you tell you this; I want to and will provide it to you... I don’t deny Stalin’s responsibility and engagement around Greece, but before we point our finger at him and at Churchill, we need to look for the guilty culprits for the catastrophe of our liberation movement at home. We should first, as the saying goes, sweep our own yard, because the way it was it set the course of events in Greece... When the question of forming a Greek government was raised in the spring of 1944, Papandreou, leader of the Greek Social Democratic Party, came up with a program to form such a government. On May 17, 1944, the various delegates met in a mountain resort in Lebanon where, after a stormy row that lasted three days, it was decided to establish a new administration in Cairo, which would include all the groups led by Papandreou as president. In the meantime a united group in the mountains in Greece, thinking of ELAS, would continue the fight against the German occupiers... However, the day before the start of the Conference, on May 16, 1944, a letter was sent to Churchill, signed by all the members of CPG Central Committee Politburo plenipotentiary delegates at this conference in Lebanon:

Petros Rasos, member of the Politburo, who later served under Zahariadis, was a foreign minister in my interim government,

Miltiadis Porfirogenis, also a member of the CPG Central Committee Politburo, was minister of the economy in the interim government,

Zvolos, was also a member of the CPG Central Committee Politburo...

Churchill received the letter the same day and immediately submitted it for publication in the British press. Here, let me show you the document. We may not have translated it literally, but the content is roughly this:

‘Your Excellency, in our capacity as representatives of Greece who are fighting against the occupier, we would like to express our deep respect and appreciation for your exceptional interest and engagement in relation to our country and its future. In fact this is a century-old British tradition towards the Greek people. This exceptional interest and care especially came to the fore and strengthened in the time of your government. Your Excellency, we are convinced that your concern is closely related to the successful resolution of the Middle East crisis in connection with the known events (the British intervention against members of the CPG-EAM in the Greek army serving in Egypt when they shot fifty Greek officers and soldiers, leaders of the resistance anti-fascist movement). What happened in the Egyptian sands provoked our resentment and condemnation. Therefore, let us, as representatives of the Greek resistance movement that is fighting bloody battles in the cities and mountains of Greece, once again and on this occasion, express our appreciation that you have so far been right when you decided to disarm our rebellious units. You have been right and, in a moral sense, this decision has been invaluable: It has given us confidence that we can always count on the help of our great allies, especially from Great Britain and its great and respected leader, Winston Churchill...

Lebanon, May 16, 1944 Members of the Delegation:

Petros Rousos, Zvolos...’…” concluded Markos.

Then, with a raised tone of voice, Markos continued:

“Not even with this document, did our most legitimate CPG leadership representatives untie Churchill’s hands, or later stop his interventionist troops from doing whatever they felt like in Greece, and turn it into a first Vietnam, and manipulate subsequent governments, with power of weapons, and crush our democratic movement. With this kind of argument in his hands, it was not hard for Churchill to convince Stalin... in whose field of influence Greece should be. Later events uncovered who is who and who serves who... the fifth column was so deeply rooted in the Party and in the movement, that, as ordered by Zahariadis, two of those leaders found themselves in my interim government. This treachery, our tragic defeat, and this persecution unleashed on us, crushed the hopes of tens of thousands of fighters... and scattered people everywhere in the world without a homeland...” (Vus, No. 1297, March 19, 1977, pp. 52-53.)