50 years since the massive rebellion of the Greek communists in Tashkent against the Khrushchevite revisionism

The open intervention of the Khrushchevite revisionists in KKE and the rebellion of the Greek communists against Khrushchevite revisionism

The “Tashkent events” and the pogrom against the communists

September of this year marked the 50th year since the open, barbarous intervention by the treacherous Khrushchevite clique in the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the massive rebellion of the Greek communists, political refuges in Tashkent against Khrushchevite revisionism. These events - the so called “Tashkent events” - are virtually unknown to the communists, the working class and the people of our country and mark the beginning of the liquidation of the revolutionary KKE 1918-1955, the heroic party of the proletariat.

At the end of August 1949, after a three-and-a-half-year armed struggle against the indigenous monarchist-fascist reaction and the Anglo-American imperialism, when there were no any prospects of victory because of the titoist treason (Tito’s joining the imperialist camp) that disrupted the balance of power at the expense of our struggle, following a decision by the Central Committee of the KKE headed by Nikos Zachariades, the partisans of the Democratic Army of Greece (DA) left behind the glorified and legendary heights of Grammos, Vitsi and the other mountains of our country to pass to Albania and from there, in their majority, to the faraway Tashkent, the capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan, then part of Stalin’s socialist Soviet Union.

The Greek communists spent their first years in exile trying to adjust to the new life conditions with all the expected problems, but they were living in peace and were also, with great enthusiasm, actively participating in the socialist construction and party life supporting the revolutionary line of KKE, headed by Nikos Zacahriades, and the line of the international communist movement, guided by the great communist leader and Marxist [classic], Joseph Stalin.

In October (10-14.10) 1950, the 3rd Conference of KKE took place. This body almost completely purged the opportunists from the party. For the first time in the decade of 1940-1950, a heavy blow was dealt to the right opportunism, to all opportunists who had betrayed the popular movement during the time of the Nazi occupation by signining the agreements in Lebanon (20.5.1944), Gazerta (26.9.1944) and Varkiza (12.2.1945) and who, moreover, had sabotaged the development and enlargement of the DA during the Civil War.

The DA partisans had, on one hand, the luck to witness for a few years the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union in Stalin’s time but, on the other hand, for many decades following his murder in March 1953, they had also the great misfortune to experience the abolition of socialism and the gradual restoration of capitalism. The latter process started in the Hruchev-Brezhnev period in the mid 1950’s after the prevalence of the Khrushchevite revisionist counter-revolution, and finished with the collapse of the restored capitalism, and finally, with the break-up of the capitalist Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s, in Gorbachev’s time.
The socialist society in the Soviet Union was a class society – consisting of workers, farmers and intellectuals – but without exploitation. Nevertheless, the construction of socialism was advancing in the midst of fierce class struggle since the counter-revolutionary forces never ceased to exist and act against the Soviet power. Despite the establishment of proletarian dictatorship these forces attempted from early on, through various means to undermine the unity of the Greek communist political refugees. However, after the death/murder of Stalin and the prevalence of the revisionist group of Hruchev-Mikoyan-Brezhnev et al. when the latter found out that the KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades is not going to abandon the revolutionary marxist-leninist-stalinist course and to follow the anti-stalinist revisionist course, it sought to form a right opportunist faction in the largest KKE Party Organisation abroad, the Tashkent Party Organisation (KOT), and to push this faction right up to the Organisation’s leadership. However, the revolutionary KKE leadership headed by Nikos Zachariades immediately took measures removing fraction’s cadres from the leadership of KOT.
After the removal of the faction from the KOT leadership, high-ranking members of the Khrushchevite group in the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, following Hruchev’s orders, organised and guided an assault on the Organisation’s offices. They assembled around 200 opportunists headed by Ypsilantis, Himaros, Barbalias and others who, under the guidance of Saakof, attacked the offices with the intention to capture them: “at 4 pm, on the 9th of September, around 200 people gathered in the courtyard of 7th Politeia together with the faction leaders who were bracing their followers with vodka, beer and wine” (K.D. Karanikola: “Mia lefki selida tou KKE”, p. 53).
The assault on the KOT offices was preceded by faction’s provocations in various Politeies: “In those Politeies where the factionists had some support, like in the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 9th and 11th, they started looting the local libraries and burning books, especially those written by Zachariades, Bartziotas and those about the struggle of the DA” (ibid, p. 46). Now the social-democratic leadership of Aleka Papariga pretends to support the struggle of the DA.
The assault on the KOT offices did not have the expected result - the opportunists did not manage to capture them. Vagelis Zoulis, former DA partisan, made the following ironic comment on their failure: “Now I realised why we didn’t seize Konitsa with at least a thousand houses since our leaders with 200 men didn’t manage to seize a single house!!” (Ibid, p. 54).
When the assault on the KOT offices was made known, thousands of enraged communists rushed into their defence. Clashes and beatings followed with the factionists until police and cadet detachments came to their rescue. Many of the injured had to be transported to the hospital while hundreds of Greek communists were arrested, mainly high-ranking DA officers, thrown in jail and tried for “hooliganism”(!).
Despite this open provocation by the Khrushchevite clique against KKE, Saakof and Safayef, the principal perpetrators of the pogrom, circulated the rumour that “the KKE leadership and Nikos Zachariades unleashed a bloody terror without a precedent”!!! (Ibid, p. 55).
All the political refuges in Tashkent knew that the instigators of the provocative “Tashkent events” were the Khrushchevite revisionists who aimed at the liquidation of KKE. Everybody knew that the handful of Greek opportunists were in permanent contact with and under the direct guidance of the treacherous Khrushchevite revisionist group. One of the noted opportunists, Kostas Gritzonas, confesses: “One evening, during the time when the Tashkent events reached their climax, as I was on my way from the 7th to the 9th Politeia together with the secretary of KOT, Aristotelis Hatouras, he confided to me that the anti-zachariadist movemement enjoyed the support from the Soviets. He left me with the understanding that they were having private talks with the Khrushchevites from the CC of the CP of Uzbekistan” (K.Gritzonas: “Meta to Grammo”, p.18-19).
The overwhelming majority of the Greek communists, 95% of the KOT members, condemned the Khrushchevite revisionists’ intervention in KKE and they rallied around their Party headed by Nikos Zachariades. This attitude was most clearly expressed in the historic 5th Plenum of the CC of KKE convened at the end of December 1955. In the Plenum’s decision, among other things, it is mentioned that: “the faction would have achieved nothing at all had it not received the support by certain soviet comrades, who were convinced that the faction is the strongest and the most pro-soviet part of KOT which they must support and help”.
The “Tashkent events”, the open and anti-communist intervention of Khrushchevites in KKE, has been concealed by every right opportunist leadership of the social-democratic “K”KE since 1956 and they are still concealed by the A. Papariga leadership. The decision of the 5th Plenum (December 1955) concerning the situation in KOT was published for the first time in 1995, after 40 years.
In February of 1956, during the counter-revolutionary 20th Congress of CPSU, the show trials of the Greek communists, political refugees, started. In these trials they were sentenced under “hooligan” laws and exiled to prison camps (Giorgos Kalianesis, general of DA, Dimitris Vyssios, lieutenant-kernel, commissar of the 103rd Brigade, Nikos Fragos, major of DAG, Giorgos Makris captain of DA and others).
In the 20th Congress of CPSU, the Khrushchevites formed the infamous “International Committee” consisting of cadres from the Soviet, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish, Czechoslovak and Bulgarian parties. The president of the International Committee was, formally, Georgiu Dez – Khrushchev’s puppet – but essentially Otto Kuusinen, well-known social democrat, and member of the Politburo of CPSU. The International Committee openly and without pretexts intervened in KKE by arbitrarily summoning the infamous 6th Plenum (March 1956). In this illicit meeting the report was read not by a Greek, but by the Romanian opportunist Dez. Former cadres and expelled members participated, but not the lawfully elected General Secretary of the Party Nikos Zachariades.
The 6th Plenum illegally and forcibly removed the elected revolutionary leadership of KKE, including the Party’s General Secretary Nikos Zachariades, who was arrested and isolated, and appointed a right opportunistic puppet leadership. The 6th Plenum adopted the counter-revolutionary social-democratic line promulgated in the 20th Congress of CPSU (peaceful transition to socialism, etc).
The great majority of the Greek communists (85-95%) rejected and vehemently opposed the treacherous social-democratic anti-Stalinist line of the 20th Congress/6th Plenum and defended marxism-leninism-stalinism as well as Stalin-Zachariades.
In the following years, thousands of communists were expelled by the appointed right opportunist Kolligianis-Partsalidis-Vafiades leadership, while others broke away from the new opportunist bourgeois party that shamelessly usurped the title-name “K”KE – a title that bears until nowadays - while it is guided by the counter-revolutionary trend of Khrushchevite revisionism.
The decades after 1956 was a time of fascist persecutions of all the Greek communists, who remained faithful to Stalin and Zachariades by the Soviet and Greek Khrushchevite revisionists. These persecutions took various forms: surveillance, spying, arrests, imprisonments, exiles to Siberia, etc. Many party cadres were exiled to Siberia and among them the Party’s General Secretary, Nikos Zachariades, who, after 17 years of exile, was murdered in Sorgut by the treacherous Brezhnev-Florakis clique so that he wouldn’t return alive to Greece and upset their plans.
Every single right opportunist leadership of the social democratic “K”KE, including the Florakis-Tsolakis and the contemporary Papariga leadership, have passed over the fascist persecutions against the Greek communists in silence. Moreover, they have made no reference to the intervention in the KKE internal affairs carried out by the infamous “International Committee” for 40 years. They published the relevant documents just in 1997.