CHAPTER TWELVE – Iron men needed in Yugoslavia

CHAPTER TWELVE – Iron men needed in Yugoslavia

Like the “iron men”, not only for those “iron times”, but also for today… they are needed here in Yugoslavia, Comrade Suvogorski. We need them here but not to be loyal to Joseph (Stalin), but to Josip (Tito)...

It was a beautiful sunny day. The humming of bees could be heard everywhere. The domino players were sitting on their three-legged chairs and, with undisguised pleasure, were stacking their dominos in arrays. Mitse Dinevichin, a teacher from Dolna Prespa, was not interested in such games because he was worried about the consequences of the revolutionary process and, with great interest, followed Master Alekso Shlipokovski’s presentation, who at the time was explaining the mistakes made in the experiment to create a “new person”, when it was still in the design stages. Of course, everyone thought this was their problem because everyone was part of the building process when communism was built. But most of the builders did not want to torture their brains with such sensitive theories and imaginary anatomy.

“We, that is to say, worked fiercely on the construction of the ‘new person’…” said Alekso Shlipkovski and continued. “We were laying the foundation for the entire socialist camp. The whole nut of the past political laboratory, however, has disappeared... evaporated and gone from the collective with all its experimental content and its bizarre engineering… It has disappeared from almost the entire socialist world. It has failed as an experiment... If you look around you today… if you ask an ordinary person, even something simple, there before your eyes you will meet a creature, an ideologically aggressive creature, a separated person, a fearful and uncertain humanoid, all melted away in a strange faceless crowd. Look around you Comrade Mitse, what is the difference between us who came here from Poland and with you who came here from Russia? You were involved convincingly in a technology that was building the heroes of labour. Perhaps this was because you were closer to the general laboratory for building ‘real socialism’.

You all came back here like paupers with nothing. You looked like the figures you see in the icons in churches. You enjoyed being

paraded around with labour lapels around you necks... You were satisfied to have achieved the norm and during your free time you read novels on ‘How to temper steel’ or ‘Mother’ and you became melted in the alloy… and you became the ‘new people’. You became the ‘iron men’ and not only for those ‘iron times’… And, as Comrade Suvogorski often says, the communists were men of special paste, and from them came the ‘Soviet man’.” concluded Alekso Shlipkovski.

“God! You are the scourge… God! You truly are the scourge… Mr. Shlipkovski…” yelled Mitse Dinevichin angrily.

“What were we fighting for then …? Or did we all want to be revisionists. You with all that knowledge… Why are you telling us that now!? You know that thousands, if not millions of people, sacrificed their lives for the ideals of communism... Are you not aware of that Mr. Shlipkovski? Why are you now vilifying socialism?” yelled Mitse Dinevichin and continued.

“What kind of delusions are you using to undermine the ranks of the communist movement? Are you well? You speak against the socialism that made you a man and find flaws in everything. Mr. Shlipkovski, my grandfather used to say: ‘Feed a dog to bark at you…’ I now see that you are crazy. Nevertheless, I did not expect such poison to spill out of your disgusting mouth. When did you, Mr. Shlipkovski, become as humane as to explain these theoretical questions? Because these questions are purely bourgeois views!” said Dinevichin and looked around at everyone.

“I believe that Mr. Shlipkovski is not a communist! Or if he was he should have been thrown out from our ranks like a rag…” yelled Ilo Kalinchevski angrily, slapped the last domino tile in the tray, lifted himself from the three-legged stool and, with droopy eyebrows looking huge like an angry bear, threatened to physically harm young Shlipkovski. Angrier than Ilo Kalinchevski was Mitse Dinevichin who said:

“You, Mr. Shlipkovski, you don’t know how to defend socialism. And you should know that it is people like you who encourage others to say ugly things about something for which we gave our

lives. It’s people like you who keep silent in front of the enemy… who defect and abandon their companions. For me these people are deserters… My dear Mr. Shlipkovski, please allow me to ask you. Did you allow them, down there (in Greek occupied Macedonia), to agitate in front of your nose... or not? Dear Mr. Shlipkovski you can wear a starched shirt but you don’t seem to be able to make them shut their rambling mouths. Maybe in a while you will allow them to ask you what we fought for, who we fought against, and if we needed to fight... Great! Awesome! Could you not tell them that every revolution is paid for with spilled blood and death? What do the Russians say? They say that there is no revolution without sacrifice… You should know that and instill it in your mind, my dear Mr. Shlipkovski,” said Ilo Mechkarot, adjusted himself on the three-legged stool and continued. “We should be proud of being revolutionaries. Many of us died in the name of the revolution or on behalf of our leaders, for our ideals. No one should die for the wind. I have been listening to you for days now arguing about things that happened a long time ago, for which we already have answers… answered by bigger heads. History has changed, my brothers, and it will continue to run its course but only if it is not undermined. We are and will remain internationalists, and you dear Mr. Shlipkovski, you should know what it means to have a human soul...” said Ilo Mechkarot, licked his finger and adjusted the domino.

German Mongushev or Uchenoto Kuskule (Educated Shorty), that’s what the shelter residents called him, stood up like a clumsy dog and with his high-pitched voice addressed the gathering. He said:

“The young man is telling us things that would raise a man’s hair. The well-educated Mr. Shlipkovski with a master’s degree, it seems, has developed his own theories of socialism and the ‘new man’ but you Mr. Shlipkovski have not finished learning everything. If you had you would have know that socialism has attained eternal ideals for humanity. People already recognize that in themselves and no longer find themselves in the narrow national framework. They burn with love for mankind, and not infrequently… They are always ready to lay down their lives, heroically to defend socialism. They equally admit that they will fight and die, and when they die they die for a sacred purpose. These people can be described as traditional

and historical with only a few words… they are the sons and daughters of the world.”

German Mongushev then turned to Mitse Dinevichin and scolded him like he was some kind of old dog. He said: “Oh, my dear Teacher… Why do we need to allow ‘theorists’ like him who, like worms, want to eat the core of socialism? Instead of thanking the great Stalin for accepting us we resort to this kind of behaviour… and you Mr. Master’s degree, Stalin gave you the opportunity to be called a scholar, to be developing theories, but if you are not a communist what is there for you to discuss?”

“Do you even know what communism is?” yelled Mongushev, while intensely staring at Shlipkovski.

“I know what communism is…” replied Shlipkovski calmly.

“Well, if you know, then take a good look at Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie’s last government. Selassie hired a peasant to look after his dogs…And every time one of those dogs came and sat near the feet of one of his ministers, the dog keeper put a pillow on the ground for the dog to sit on. The pillows were especially made for the dogs…” said Mongushev.

Everyone laughed.

“What is so funny?” asked Shlipkovski and continued.

“I don’t understand… what does that have to do with Socialism? Such things also exist in socialism. Was it not Ceausescu who made an announcement that he had appointed one of his dogs a colonel and assigned it a full time driver to drive it around?!”

“Hold on there Mr.! This is pure provocation!!! yelled Ilo Kalinchevski angrily and continued. “This is defamation of socialism and nothing else... People! The man is beginning to play with open cards…”

“The young man is talking nonsense…” replied Mitse Dinevichin and handed Shlipkovski a well-used, dusty and yellowed five edition publication.

“Here! Learn about Marxism!” he said.

“I have read all of them…” replied Shlipkovski.

The books had a dedication signed by some guy named Saposhnikov, president of immigrants, with the message “Sincere wishes to Mitse Dinevinchin for his success in constructing socialism in his country”.

“You seem to be indifferent to all this…” said Ilia Kalinchevski to Pandil Mianchev who sat beside him.

“If I get too excited I will be covered in a rash,” replied Pandil in a low tone of voice.

“What…?” asked Ilia.

“You heard me!” replied Pandil.

“Are you trying to tell me not to waste my words on this fool? You are probably right, people like him are filthy lice…” said Ilia Kalinchevski.

“Most young people are inherently unstable. But by the time they become adults, if you guide them properly, they will find their way… it is a continuous and sickly process…” said Dobrin Suvogorski who had just returned with a full bag of books. “But the construction of the ‘new person’ is an inevitable process…” added Suvogorski.

“You are absolutely correct, Comrade Dobrin!” responded Mitse Dinevichin.

A fat messy woman, madly in love with her husband Henry Maruzelski, popped her head out of a window and called out “lunch”. Henry was a handsome man who had slept with every

woman he had met in Zgorzelets. He was also rude, unsympathetic and a self-centered Pole! But at that moment he too expressed his opinion about socialism. He said:

“There are two things of importance in life: eating and having friends, so why care about building a society...?”

“Why are you telling me these stupidities, Henry? You talk as if we are living in Christ’s time…” said Mitse Dinevichin.

“I hear you Mitse… In fact I hear you every day talk about the same thing… over and over again. Right…! You fifteen ‘Aegeans’ will rescue internationalism…” said Henry with a little grin on his face and left for home to eat lunch.

All those remaining behind were surprised by Henry’s comments. And as they watched him climb the stairs, Henry looked at them and said: “I have only one life, my brothers, and I take every opportunity to live it as I see fit and not as somebody else has suggested. But you, what have you learned? All you learned in Uzbekistan, Mitse, is how to comb cotton and nothing else, and where are you going to apply this craft you learned in Macedonia?” Henry asked Mitse Dinevichin with a mocking tone of voice and continued.

“And now you are eager to get into the establishment and to be supported by state money. All you do is take, take, take!! You dirty bastard. You are all dirty bastards. Every one of you is waiting to be blessed as a fighter under the name internationalist. Why are you not in the government, in all streams of life, but only a few of you are in the militia? You bastards you! Do you not see that the dwellings they built for you look like ghettos? Perhaps this way it is easier to brainwash you, especially when your minds are full of distorted ideas. You are ‘everything’ except that which you are supposed to be… that you are not...

Internationalists?! That’s so funny. Do you ever wonder how much the internationalists care about you? Do you not see how they have misled you…? You followed their lead and you lost everything… You even lost your father’s hearth… Have ever asked yourselves why? You dirty bastards you! You even joined the revolution under

a foreign flag. Oh, my dear fighters, a Pole did not do this to you. Poles are born to remain Poles and not Slavo-Macedonians, or whatever else they call you. Where do you get the idea that you have no connection with the ancient Macedonians when you share the same home with them? And who told you that when the Slavs arrived in Macedonia they destroyed everything that was there in your country for centuries?” asked Henry and stopped at the top of the stairs looking down on them.

“Oh my God, what a disgusting louse… living among us…!” said Ilia Mechkarot with an astonished tone of voice, only to be interrupted by a hoarse voice coming from the other end of the shelter. It was the same woman calling her husband for the third time. He, on the other hand, all he wanted to do was swear and curse at her. And like he used to say, the Party did not want him, not even as a low ranking official. But how was Ristana Kalincheva to know that an important discussion was taking place about issues that concerned the communist society?

“That handsome man must be drunk…” said Pandil Mianchev – Iskrata in a loud voice.

“No! I am not drunk. I am just sick and tired of living in these stinking shelters and ghettoes…” replied Henry and continued. “I have only one life and I want to live in a palace, maybe in a castle. Sitting under large chandeliers and eating Russian caviar, drinking only wine, pressed by the feet of nuns. Like all the great men who live a socialist life,” concluded Henry with a courageous sounding tone of voice.

“Wow! This man must be completely mixed up!” said German Mongushev.

“Why don’t you spit on your brother-in-laws face, you idiot?” yelled German Mongushev at Icho Zhunglovski who sat huddled on his tripod stool like he had been hit by an apoplectic stroke.

“It’s very easy to hit a blind man, isn’t it?” replied Ilo Mechkarot who was already thinking of punching Henry in the face for making such statements.

But at that very moment Alekso Shlipkovski addressed Mitse Dinevichin by saying:

“There is some truth in what Henry is saying. These are not just empty words but perhaps it is too early for us to talk about it. Poles are brave people. They have individuality, not like us who follow the old ways… whatever an old Party instructor tells us. I have thoughts like him too. What, do you think we were mature when we willingly entered into a pre-tailored revolution? I say no!

Poles would never have fought under a foreign flag and been led by foreign generals. And look at the kind of commanders we had: Gusias the shoemaker, Markos the tobacco picker… who eventually devastated Macedonia.

This, Comrade Mitse, what we are doing here is stupid. Poles are not like us,” concluded Shlipkovski.

“What are you babbling about you idiot? Are you talking about the same revolution for which the great Stalin himself gave us recognition and in which we fought heroically?” yelled Ilo Mechkarot and then turned towards Henry Maruzelski and, while waving his arms angrily, said:

“And you, you good for nothing! You have been eating socialist bread from the day you opened your mouth.”

After the kind of comments Henry made he became an enemy and his wife became the woman of the enemy, to be stared at with ugly stares each time she passed through the public corridor. She became the wife of Henry the Pole. But she was not alone, she had her mother Fania Zhunglovska and with her she shared her troubles and suffering.

Icho Zhunglovski was boycotted and expelled from the domino games. He was punished for allowing Henry to marry his sister ten years ago and for being Henry Maruzelski’s brother-in-law. Icho should have known better even then and should have been vigilant against the enemy. The party cell appreciated that Icho had had

enough life experience to know better. With further research the Party cell linked Alekso Shlipkovski with Icho Zhunglovski. They found them to be third generation relatives. So they figured that it was no coincidence that they requested to have rooms close together in the shelter, so that they could work together spreading their anti-socialist propaganda. It was assumed that this right here was a flashpoint of anti-socialist agitation.

Fear and anxiety were rampant among the people in the shelters, in meetings in the toilets, everywhere. People were afraid to share their views. They were even afraid to come face to face with Henry. Henry, the most handsome man in the shelters, once considered to be the most important resident there, was now wandering around all alone, often talking to himself, saying:

“Bastards! Real bastards! What kind of people have you become? Judges, jury and executioners in the name of blind faith... Your minds have become moldy and you are acting like zombies...”

It was afternoon and as usual all the domino players had again gathered together at their usual meeting place under the big tree, on top of which a number of crows on the run had gathered. All the players, except for those who had been kicked out, were preparing their domino trays and arranging their dominos on the table to play a new game. Ilo Kalinchev Mechkarot, naked from the waist up, was clutching an old pad with a cardboard cover under his left underarm. The pad looked like it was damaged and pages were missing. The pages in the pad looked moist and moldy. The hand-written pages looked like they had been put there many years ago, perhaps back in 1949 and a small part in 1950. These were lecture notes for mastering Marxism, remnants from a different political time, taken during the lectures held in “Krasni ugolok” attended after work in the evenings.

Ilo Kalinchev sat on his stool and began to leaf through the pad, turning each page with his thick rheumatic fingers, wanted to show Alesko Shlipkovski that he was up to date with all aspects of life including the theoretical aspects of Marxism. He wanted to say:

“Let us talk about Marxist theory… Let us talk about the Macedonian national question, the revolution, the international communist movement, the emancipation of women, the tactics of the Social Democrats… or let us even talk about the character of the ‘new person’.” But instead of saying all those things Kalinchev, with an overdose of irony, said:

“What more can you possibly know than what is written here in this pad, Mr. master’s degree?”

“What you wrote in your pad while you were half-asleep during those evenings may be enough for you but that’s not everything. Besides, you probably don’t even know, or you will never know anything about the subject on which you wrote. So why are you still keeping the pad? Throw it away; it will make life easier for you. Here now you will have to learn something else,” replied Alesko Shlipkovski to Kalinchev and then turned to Ilo Mechkarot and said:

“Do you know what ‘self-governance’ is?”

“It is revisionism of the socialist system,” replied German Mangushev – Uchenoto Kuskule.

“So I take it you are against ‘self-governance’ then? I take it you are against a means of providing opportunities for direct governance of the working people, and not in the way they are governed in the places where you come from where people are told what to do and they do what they are told. Or keep silent no matter what they are told to do, blindly following their chief’s orders! said Alekso Shlipkovski, turned, faced the others and said:

“Was it not like that, huh?”

“Did you ever believe in your life that someone could speak so boldly in front of us about something for which we were ready to give our lives, eh?” asked Ilo while facing German.

“Never!” replied German shaking his head.

“So it would appear that you were fighting with an unclear purpose? Right? It would appear that your ‘national interests’ were all jumbled up with the interests of internationalism and you eventually ended up fighting for class change. And here you are knocking on your chests claiming you fought for our ‘national interests’... You only believe what you are told, right? Ask yourselves this: Under what Macedonian symbols did you fight? What were your strategic goals? Where are the documents proving that someone declared war on Macedonia that forced you to grab guns to defend your homeland? In other words, you fought for none of the above. So it would appear that you followed the old and stale “brotherly slogan” to save the communist ass..., right?” concluded Alekso Shlipkovski.

“Hey, comrade! Sit over here! You openly trample on and criticize our brightest ideals for a brotherhood of nations. It is best that you leave right now or we will throw you out… friend!” said Ilo Mechkarot with a serious and angry tone of voice.

During the games Pandil Mianchev - Iskrata always sat opposite Ilo. Pandil had a low forehead, a short thick neck and big ears, a little bigger than normal compared to the size of his head.

Pandil – Iskrata also had a notebook similar to Ilo’s but his wife, Pandoitsa, had probably misplaced it somewhere in one of her luggage chests. In the early years he was a bit worried about the Party authorities accepting him because he was not authorized to be educated in the People’s Militia school. Maybe even today he had similar worries. He had carried this pain for years. He had devoted his life wanting to belong in a socialist society but he was not sure if he had been fully accepted.

While pointing with his index finger to a yellowed page, Ilo Mechkarot, with some difficulty, began to read: “On October 6, 1949 all fighters were outfitted with suits, coats and 500 rubles, a gift from the great Stalin.”

A broad smile appeared on Pandil – Iskrata’s face and, while pulling on his big nose, he said: “A suit and also a pair of Asian style shoes for everyone…”

“And don’t forget the Chinese shirts…” said Ilia Mechkarot in a complementary tone of voice as if wanting to warn those who were blabbing criticisms against socialism, as in the case of his own son who once told everyone here that not all people were honest in the construction of socialism.

Pandil often openly and indignantly discussed Riste, his son, a graduate of sociology, and his employment.

“You Uncle Pandil, you always tell the truth, right?” asked Alekso.

“Yes, that’s what I fought for!” Pandil replied sharply.

“I can see that you can’t stand injustice, right?” asked Alekso.

“Yes, young people need to work. We are old and done working. But as you know not all of us are retired, but we need to move aside to get out of the way. When I went to the Central Committee, I did not go there to ask for love, I went there to ask for justice. And honestly, Comrade Bito took me in like I was some kind of functionary. I thought to myself, ‘this is justice’. I thought these old fighters were truly for the people. It all felt good. He asked me all sorts of questions. I talked and he wrote. He filled half his notebook with notes. When I stopped talking he stopped writing. I looked at him and said ‘these are my troubles’. I did not know anyone here but I was principled and we both knew that he was following the Party line. I believed in the party and in the Central Committee. When we were done he said: ‘Good, Comrade Pandil.’ I thought to myself, ‘This will show my ungrateful son Riste why we fought.’ We will continue with the truth to the end. I stood up to thank him, to say that it was nice to meet him and for giving me his time. Then I asked him: ‘Comrade Bito, when should I come back to get an answer?’ He looked at me and said: ‘You don’t need to come back...’

To this day I remember and know why he said I did not need to come back… but he wrote down everything about me, including my shoe size...” concluded Pandil.

Everyone, except for Ilo, laughed out loud. Ilo gave Pandil a funny look while Pandil was stacking his domino plate with number six and said to Ilo, “You are blocked…”

At that moment Stavre Kafedzhiev, a guest from the shelter “Avtokomanda”, appeared from behind the water tap monument. He was welcomed by all with great kindness. Everyone present knew Stavre and considered him to be one of the most educated and prominent activists from the group of immigrants who had arrived from Poland. Kafedzhiev was one of the last ones to go to “Idrizovo” prison. Of course he had no idea that returnees were sent to prison before they were screened for entry into the country. He knew nothing of the outstanding order, given a long time ago, to put returning Macedonians in prison so that they could be interrogated by the Yugoslav authorities. He also did not know that the order had being recanted only a few days ago. One hot July Friday afternoon, Kafedzhiev and his family decided to voluntarily appear before the duty officer in front of the prison to let him know that they were coming from Zgorzelets and that they wanted permanent residency here in their homeland. But as soon as the duty officer heard the first few words, he asked: “And who told you to come here? You know that for a few days now we have stopped taking returnees to Idrizovo. Besides, today is Friday and you will have to wait until Monday, when the authorized officers return and take care of all formalities.”

Stavre Kafedzhiev shrugged his shoulders, looked at his wife and children and walked behind the man who expressed interest in finding a place for them to stay until Monday. He took them to a room and told them to sleep there. He also gave them clean sheets for the beds and left. They were so tired they immediately fell asleep. The next day, when it was light, they noticed they had slept in a jail cell on squeaky iron beds. Even though they saw where they were, they were not very worried because they had come to this place voluntarily. They were sure there would be inns that would take them later and that this was only temporary. After all they were in Skopje, Macedonia, in their own homeland. Thinking about that filled their hearts with joy. Their plight was finally over and they felt like they were at home. It was a warm Monday, eight o’clock in the morning, when they received their wake-up call from the duty

officer, prompting them to go and see the authorized officials who in fact were two UDBA officers in civilian clothes. One of them introduced himself while the other was busy reading the newspaper and making comments on the sports results from Sunday’s match. At this point the Kafedzhiev family was asked to tell their entire biography, activities and motives for wanting to move here. As head of the family Stavre saw nothing wrong with that, especially since they were coming from another country. He thought to himself, ‘We are new here and they want to know everything about us…’ But during this so-called “information” session something began to upset Stavre. All of a sudden he angrily asked:

“Are we being interrogated or are we just having a conversation? If we are being interrogated then we will stop answering any more of your questions because we are not guilty of anything. I understand the need to be legitimized and to be integrated into this socialist society but this needs to be done through a proper framework…”said Stavre to the UDBA officers.

There were three questions in particular that drew Kafedzhiev’s attention. The first was what he thought of Yugoslavia, the second was why he wanted to come here and the third was what he thought of the USSR and Bulgaria.

Stavre had known about these “standard” questions from before, from his friends when he was in Poland, so he immediately said:

“I love the USSR as the first country of socialism, home of the Great October Revolution and a supporter of all socialist countries and movements, but I am aware of some things that are not very good there, that is why I am an anti-Stalinist.”

Stavre paused for a moment, looking as if he was thinking what to say next, and then continued. “I regard Bulgaria as a socialist country and the Bulgarian people as being close to our people, but I also disagree with the Bulgarian leadership’s politics, especially towards the ‘Macedonian Question’…” Stavre paused, seeming like he had not said everything he needed to say.

At this point the two officers looked at each other and one of them said: “How strange...”

Stavre became confused by the officer’s comment.

The officer continued: “From all the Aegean returnees we have interrogated, who went through ‘Idrizovo’, you are the only one who has openly and with all honesty confessed that you are sympathetic to the Soviet Union and that you recognize the closeness to Bulgaria. All the people we have interrogated so far wanted either to avoid answering the question or to say something against these countries.”

For a moment Stavre felt some satisfaction but then he remembered that all these questions were being discussed in Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Soviet Union as preparation for the returnees. He then felt like a student who had stolen the questions and had cheated on an examination.

The officer then unexpectedly asked: “Do you think that the Russians and Bulgarians have similar sympathies towards us the Macedonians, Comrade Stavre?”

“I believe they do, why wouldn’t they… they are internationalists after all. They are educated in the spirit of the ideals of a future communist society. The new Soviet person is before us, there is nothing left of capitalism there…” replied Stavre with a great deal of confidence.

Calmly sipping his coffee the officer then asked: “What would you like to be called here in Macedonia?”

“Stavre Kafedzhiev!” he replied with a calm voice and eyes wide open. He then said:

“Of course, just like they used to call me back in my village… by my original name. Once again, I want to be called Stavre Kafedzhiev.”

“You can’t have your name ending in ‘ev’ and ‘ov’ because those are Bulgarian names. You will have to be called Kafedzhievski and only that!” replied the officer. Stavre however disagreed. He said: “Even the Macedonian giants had names ending in ‘ev’ and ‘ov’, including Gotse Delchev, Petrov, Karev, Uzunov, Chakalarov, Hadzhidimov, Poptrajkov and many others. Besides that, the Greeks have already changed my surname to Kafedzhis.” After that Stavre rhymed off a number of Polish surnames such as “Iaruzelski, Psezhinski, Drzhinski, Vasilevsky and so on… And can we Macedonians say that these are Macedonian family names…?” he asked and then went on to rhyme off a list of Russian surnames such as “Saposhnikov, Maslov, Kirov, Voreshnikov, Petrov and so on… And can we say that these are Bulgarian names…? No! Only Greeks do this to our people… they put an ‘s’ at the end of our names and then say ‘you are Greeks’…” added Stavre.

With his explanation Kafedzhiev thought that he had made some gains towards winning his argument for keeping his name the way it was. Unfortunately the officers were not in agreement and, by making such arguments, things became even more difficult for Stavre. At one point Stavre became so frustrated that he demanded that the officers return his documents because he said he was prepared to go back to Poland. Surprised by his demands the officers went silent. Then, after looking at one another, one of them said: “We don’t need to involve Poland in this over you; Yugoslavia and Poland have good relations.”

Seeing that he could not make any gains over having his name the way he wanted it, Stavre moved on to the next part of the interrogation. At this point he felt a little more confident about the kind of answers he was going to provide because he was being asked to speak about life in socialist Poland; something with which he was familiar. He began by telling them about the development period, the five-year national plan and the development of scientific methods. He did this by using strictly scientific terms. At one point he noticed the officers listening to him with their mouths open. Regarding his needs to come to Yugoslavia; he said he had two main reasons. The first was his Macedonian patriotism and his Macedonia in general. The second was the Yugoslav system. As an internationalist, he loved Yugoslavia’s attractive self-governing

management system, which was rated very high in the socialist construction of the Yugoslav multinational community. After hearing that, the officers became confused and stopped questioning him. Then, some moment later, one of them asked: “I am sure, Comrade Kafedzhiev, that you must certainly know someone from our leadership?”

The question further strengthened Kafedzhiev’s confidence and he answered in a socialist manner: “Of course not...”

The same day the Kafedzhiev family was moved to the “Avtokomanda” shelter, proving to him that he was fully capable of showing off his socialist self-governing pedigree. He could not believe that finally he was a free citizen.

Now he was no longer under the control of the Party. He was in his fifties and had a job busying himself with analyzing the past… the revolution and its defeat, the dirty history, the exodus, the plight of going through Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Russia...

Stavre remembered the constant adjustments, having to learn new languages, the meetings, the parting, violations of dignity… But most of all he did not want to remember the thoughts he had had in Poland, when he was in favour of the Greek Communist Party and when he had been forced to sort things out in his own mind because he had been dropped from the Party and sent from Bulgaria to Poland as punishment. He was being punished by the Party and it hurt… it still hurt… his wounds had not healed… wounds that to this day he hid from his own fighters… from a future communist society in which humanity was expected to march. This tormented him, bothered him every day and made him restless with unexplained mental disorders.

In Vrotslav he was employed in a factory called “PA-FA-VAG”. He remembered well Radomski, a Social Democrat who treated him like his own son and helped him enroll in the School of Social Sciences at the PORP Central Committee in Warsaw. How could he forget Buzhdinski, the good Jewish lady, who insisted that he enter the school party-less? She did that because she wanted Kafedzhiev

to discover more and prove to him that he would be treated fairly even if he did not belong to the Party.

When Kafedzhief found out that she was a Jew he experienced something inexplicable (that the communists treated the Jews with respect). He felt as if he had gotten wings and a new faith in the ideals of communism. He then bought a pin with Lenin’s image and had worn it on his lapel ever since.

The Jewish woman at the time was director of the school. She was the widow of Comrade Stanislav Buzhdinski, a well-respected Polish communist and associate of Lenin’s. In 1938 Stalin, after accusing him of being a “traitor”, monstrously liquidated him along with the entire Central Committee of the Polish Communist Party. Stavre Kafedzhief was most touched when, during his acceptance reception, Mrs. Buzhdinski said: “Comrades, here is another tragedy of a revolutionary... We need to accept him as a student. Future communist society will need people like him...”

After that Kafedzhiev’s faith in Communism was restored and from then on he devoted his time to the sacred task of building socialism. As if following Buzdinski’s recipe, after Kafedzhiev took residency at the shelter in Macedonia, he met with many people, fellow fighters from Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Russia and learned many nasty as well as nice things. Above all he was concerned about the Aegean (Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia) division. The Macedonians from Greek occupied Macedonia, living in the Republic of Macedonia, were divided into two opposing groups. Their differences stemmed from the revolution’s ideology. The people had lost patience… things that took place had been warped and distorted in favour of one group or the other. Kafedzhiev’s task was to study this phenomenon and determine whether it was present in all revolutions and choose a Leninist course to correct it. His biggest fear, however, was that people were already biased because their leaders and the leaders of their rivals strove to win more of them to their side by using their positions in state functions.

Kafedzhiev alleged the Party was meddling in unprincipled politics, which he believed were contrary to Leninist principles.

Kafedzhiev also discovered other abnormalities. These phenomena, he thought, were contrary to human and rational norms. Some institutions created obstacles in the smooth “Aegean” population’s integration into the local environments. He observed that even though the “Aegeans” were politically and professionally better prepared to assist with social developments, they were being bypassed in their quest for employment because it was believed that they were allegedly infected with Eastern ideologies. As a person who respected the rights of equality in people, after some research which he conducted on his own, Kafedzhiev found that the “Aegeans” were discriminated against. He did his research using Eastern methods that few people were familiar with, and from the individual cases he studied he created systemic tables and graphs about the places where the “Aegeans” were settled, the countries where they came from and the shelters in Skopje and across Macedonia where they lived. After Kafedzhiev identified the points of all the “hot spots”, it became clear to him what he needed to do. According to his own ideas, it was about time that he alerted the Marxist scientific minds about these complex conceptual issues brewing between the Ephesians. Unfortunately he had no idea how to do it and spent a long time pondering, relying mostly on his compatriots, returnees from Poland, for answers. He thought that only they had been brought up in a free environment and were capable of liberal thinking, thanks to the Polish system. Here he found the appropriate support he was looking for and appreciated the interesting phenomenon that required special sociological and psychological attention.

Unfortunately no sociologists or psychologists were aware or had spoken about this problem. The only ones aware were the politicians who were sniffing at their feet. History too had not matured enough and was far from recording the epic battles that took place in Vicho and Gramos and the impressive heroes of that War. Kafedzhiev believed that his statements and Marxist views one day would mature and grow and he would be able to organize a campaign for identifying the “Aegean” ideological stratification. This problem however plagued him for days on end and gave him sleepless nights. Ever since he discovered it he experienced many moments of almost unbearable enthusiasm - with and without reason.