Stella Delifoti (1926-2011)

Comrade Stella Delifoti passed away

On July 6 the EAM-ELAS fighter and the glorious Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) guerilla Comrade Stella Delifoti died and buried in her village. She left her last breath in Athens, where she lived after the return from Poland.

Comrade Stella was born in 1926 in the village of Dress Pella, where she grew up.

During the triple fascist occupation (1941-44) of the country by the German-Italian-Bulgarian troops she fought against the invaders in the ranks of EAM-ELAS. She organized in her village in National Liberation Front (EAM) in October 1942 and took active part in the struggle of our people.

After the liberation of our country and the treacherous Varkiza agreement, with peak the delivery of arms, she was expelled, along with tens of thousands of fighters "from the state of the intolerant right”, as she reported in a self-biographical note: "I crawled to prison, was beaten and reviled."

Later, following the new blare invitational (1946) of the Revolutionary Communist Party, by its great leader communist leader Nikos Zachariadis, she came to the mountains and fought from the ranks of the glorious and heroic Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) the local monarch-fascists and the American imperialists.

After the decline of DSE she went as a political refugee in the great country of socialism, the Soviet Union of the great Stalin, in the city of Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, where she worked in production. She took yet active part in party life and she always faithfully and consistently defending the revolutionary line of the Communist Party.

During the open, raw and brutal intervention of the traitorous clique of Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Mikogian etc. to our heroic Party in September of '55, comrade Stella Delifoti actively defended the line of the Communist Party and its Central Committee against a handful of right-wing opportunists traitors of the clique Demetriou-Chatouras-Rossis-Tsolakis etc.

In the bloody conflict in Tashkent (9-10 September 1955), which was directed by the  Khrushchevit revisionists and was instrumented by minimum opportunists, she was arrested for defending the revolutionary line  by the Soviet Security, along with many hundreds of communist ELAS-DSE guerillas and incarcerated for  months in the fascist Khrushchev-Brezhnev dungeons of Tashkent.

After her release, she continued her revolutionary activities like always and kept actively following the revolutionary line and obstinately defending the revolutionary path of Stalin-Zachariadis.

She was expelled, like thousands of communists, but actively continuing the struggle against Khrushchevit revisionism both in Tashkent and later in Poland.

Returning to Greece from exile she continued the struggle against Khrushchevit revisionism, associated with the "Movement for Reorganization of the Communist Party 1918-55”, disseminate and always defended the revolutionary line of Stalin-Zachariadis.

Despite her health problems which she had last year, she never lost her optimism and enviable fighting spirit/

The communist Delifoti Stella was one of those fighters who her companions and comrades appreciated the militancy in the struggle for the interests of the working class and her consistency to the revolutionary communist principles. She was an uncompromising defender of the revolutionary work of Stalin-Zachariadis and all Communist guerillas with courage and frank behavior.

The Political Committee of the Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55

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Vasilis Papasotiriou - A year after his death

In late January completed one year from the day (January 31, 2009), which the revolutionary communist comrade Basil Papasotiriou, chairman of the "Movement for Gathering of the Communist Party 1918-55 and editor of "ANASYNTAXI" passsed away.  
With his death, the "Movement for the Reoganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55" lost a very valuable partner and strain because of its rich revolutionary action which had great racing reputation not only in the ranks of the revolutionary Communists Marxist, Stalinist-Zachariadis, but also in the adversary ideological-political space of Khrushchev revisionist social democrats.

His death was a great and irreplaceable loss not only for the "Movement" and the entire revolutionary communist and labor movement in the country.

See also: Cde Vasilis Papasotiriou, the president of the “Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55” and publisher of the newspaper “Anasintaxi”, passed away

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Cde Vasilis Papasotiriou, the president of the “Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55” and publisher of the newspaper “Anasintaxi”, passed away

Athens, 2^nd February 2009

On Saturday, on the 31^st of January 2009, comrade Vasilis Papasotiriou died in his home in Athens.

Comrade Vasilis Papasotiriou was member of the revolutionary Communist Party of Greece since 1941, guerrilla of the National Liberation People’s Army (ELAS) and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), revolutionary communist. He remained an adversary of Krushchevite revisionism and adherent of the revolutionary line of Stalin and Zachariades until the end of his life.

He was president of the “Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55” and publisher of the newspaper “Anasintaxi”.

His funeral took place at the village Marathias in Nafpaktos on Monday.

The Political Committee of the “Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55”

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Antonis Vratsanos (1919-2008)

Comrade Antonis Vratsanos (Aggeloulis) was born in 1919 in Larisa.

Vratsanos joined the Greek Resistance against the Italo-German occupation and became a saboteur in the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), the military branch of the National Liberation Front. In ELAS he had rank of second lieutenant. Antonis Vratsanos and his sabotage squad (Olympus), with their operations made against the enemy's trains and other means of transport, railway lines and bridges, caused great damage to the conquerors.

A very comprehensive review of his resistance action includes:
1. Approximately 48,900 meters of blasted bridges.
2. Blasting of 36 railway bridges.
3. Blasting of 47 railway facilities.
4. Destruction of 20 trains.
5. Destruction of 12 locomotives.
6. 3,066 enemy casualties.
7. Stop traffic for 1,324 hours.

His most important achievement as a revolutionary and member of the National Resistance was the blasting, on February of 1944, of a German train, full of soldiers and officers, on their way to the Eastern front. This single heroic act cost Wehrmacht 450 dead, including 150 officers and a general with all his staff. This action is considered as one of the biggest sabotages in Europe, against the German occupation.

After the end of World War II, he followed the Communist party’s directions and joined the Democratic Army of Greece, where he continued his action as saboteur against the Anglo-American imperialists and the Greek monarch-fascists.

Following the retreat of the Democratic Army, he went to Tashkent and later to Romania, where he lived for 33 years. He remained an adversary of Khrushchevian revisionism and adherent of the revolutionary line of Stalin and Zachariades until the end of his life. He defended Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism against the treacherous counterrevolutionary current of Khrushchev-Brezhnev-Gorbatschev and their Greek collaborators Kologiannis-Florakis-etc. In Romania the revisionists asked him to hand them important documents he was holding since the end of the World War II and he denied. He spent two years in jail in Bucharest for this attitude. He was set free because the revisionists were afraid of the reactions of the Greek communists, since his name was a legend among the communists and the Greek people.

In December 1991 he participated in the committee of communists, members of the heroic KKE 1918-55, with Dimitris Vissios, Vassilis Aspridis and Petros Touloudis, which organised the funeral of Nikos Zachariadis in Athens, whom the revisionist clique of Brezhnev-Florakis murdered in Surgut, Siberia after 17 years of exile in 1973 and his body was send to Greece after 18 more years. This ruined the fiesta the local revisionists Papariga-Florakis tried to organise by presenting Zachariadis as their comrade.

In 1997 he led an action with more than a hundred former partisans of the Democratic Army and members of KKE 1918-55 in establishing the “Pan-Hellenic Union of Partisans and Friends of the Democratic Army”, which defended the revolutionary line of the KKE in 1946-1949 and Nikos Zachariadis. After the fall of the military Junta in 1974 none of the revisionist parties took similar actions for the Democratic Army, although unions of of Greek Resistance fighters, political refugees and exiles to remote Greek islands were established since the early ’80s.

On February 28 2007, he was awarded by the President of the HellenicRepublic, Karolos Papoulias "Senior Commander of the Order of Honor" for his action of resistance against foreign occupation troops in the years 1941-44.

He died on Tuesday, on 25th of November, at 9:30 pm in Athens, never treating his beliefs and values. He stood till his death a great revolutionary communist.

November 2008

The Political Committee of the Movement for the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-55

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Farewell of Vasilis Papasotiriou to the legendary saboteur of Olympus Antonis Vratsanos

26 November 2008

My dear comrade and beloved friend Antonis,

Forced to stay in bed these days, I bid you the last farewell from afar.

At this moment of silence, the mountain peaks of Kissavos and Olympus, Siniatsikos and Pieria, Grammos and Vitsi, your favorite straights of the Tempi valley, bid you, the legendary saboteur of Olympus of ELAS and DSE, farewell.

The thousands of partisans of ELAS and DSE, the two hundred communists of Kessariani, the tens of exiles in Siberia and the many thousands of Greek communists from Tashkent and other People’s Republics who rose against Krushchevian revisionism, bid you farewell.

Fellow-fighter Antonis Vratsanos.

- We found ourselves together in the trenches of the Greek-Italian war against the Italian fascist invaders following the call to arms made in the historic letter of Nikos Zachariadis, the country’s chief partisan and architect of the epic National Resistance.

- We were together in the trenches of EAM-ELAS fighting, under the guidance of KKE, against the Italian, German and Bulgarian occupiers and, then, against the English imperialists.

- We found ourselves together in the ranks of the glorious Democratic Army of Greece fighting, under the guidance of KKE headed by Nikos Zachariadis, against the monarchists-fascists and the Anglo-American imperialists.

- We found ourselves together, after the retreat of DSE, in the Soviet Union of the great Stalin and in other socialist countries carrying on the revolutionary struggle in new conditions and forms in the ranks of our heroic party, the revolutionary KKE liquidated by the barbarous Krushchevian interference in 1955-56.

- We found ourselves together, since the mid1950’s, in the front line of struggle against the counter-revolutionary Krushchevian revisionism – that destroyed socialism in the Soviet Union and other countries and ruined the international communist movement – adhering to the revolutionary line of Joseph Stalin and Nikos Zachariadis whom the revisionist clique of Brezhnev-Florakis murdered in Surgut, Siberia after 17 years of exile.

My dear comrade and beloved friend Antonis,

Despite the persecutions by the Krushchevian revisionists’, you remained always a courageous, untiring and unyielding revolutionary communist until the last moments of your life; a firm and recalcitrant opponent of the Greek and international Krushchevian revisionism, who set a shining example for the new generations.

You will live forever in the history of our country and the revolutionary struggles of our workers and peasants, of our people.

Vasilis Papasotiriou

President of the Movement for the Reorganization of KKE (1918-1955) and publisher of the newspaper “Anasintaxi”.

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Antonis Vratsanos the legendary saboteur of ELAS-DSE, revolutionary communist and an opponent of Krushchevian revisionism, passed away.

On Tuesday, on 25^th of November, at 9:30 pm, Antonis Vratsanos the legendary saboteur of the National Liberation People’s Army (ELAS) and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), revolutionary communist and an opponent of Krushchevian revisionism, died in an Athens clinic.

Comrade Antonis Vratsanos was born in Larisa in 1919 and he took part in the war against the Italian invaders in 1940 as a second lieutenant. His most important achievement as a revolutionary and member of the National Resistance was the blasting, on February of 1944, of a German train, full of soldiers and officers, on their way to the Eastern front. This single heroic act cost Vermacht 450 dead including 150 officers and a general with all his staff.

He remained an adversary of Krushchevian revisionism and adherent of the revolutionary line of Stalin and Zachariades until the end of his life.

His funeral took place at the Kessariani cemetery on Thursday.

The Political Committee of Movement for the Reorganisation of KKE (1918-1955)

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On the opportunist platform of Markos Vafiadis

Decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece

On the opportunist platform of Markos Vafiadis

I. For eight years now the people of Greece have waged a difficult armed struggle for their very existence. The Hitlerite conqueror was succeeded by Anglo-American imperialism which, with Monarcho-Fascism as its domestic instrument, wishes to turn Greece into a colony and a military base against socialism and People's Democracy in Europe.

With [the] Varkiza [agreement] and its aftermath, the leadership of the KKE, almost without exception, saw clearly that Anglo-Monarcho-Fascist policy was leading the country to a new armed confrontation, although it could not assure a broad and deep mass basis. The problem for the KKE was (a) to persuade the masses, from their own experience, that English and Monarcho-Fascist policy aimed exclusively and solely at their subjugation through civil war and (b) coolly to confront a situation that existed in the leadership of the KKE so as to avoid serious damage from the activity of the class enemy within the Party, and to negate every attempt to split the Party. Here it must be emphasised that the Party underwent a serious crisis and ordeal with the failure of December 1944, a failure that was the result of basic mistakes in the policy of the KKE in the tirue of the Hitlerite-Fascist occupation. The Party even confronted serious difficulties within EAM and had to handle matters carefully so as to be able, without making concessions in matters of principle, to assure the approval and support of its policy on the part of EAM. All this, under the conditions of the English occupation and of the civil war, which English policy and Monarcho-Fascism had organ­ised and put into effect, showed that a struggle leading to a new armed con­frontation would be very hard, difficult and long, and that it would put the KKE to its greatest test to date. On this matter there was basically no other opinion in the leadership of the KKE. it was clear to all that this new test would demand from everyone the highest degree of party discipline, firm­ness and decisiveness.

* Italicised matter within square brackets represents paraphrased text.

11. The fundamental political difficulty at the new stage of the struggle was the fact that the unlimited help that Monarcho-Fascism received from the Anglo-Americans and the regime of the English military occupation nourished many waverings and doubts, particularly among petty bourgeois elements, as to whether we could succeed. This situation was reinforced by the climate of barbarous terror that covered the country. These hesitations and doubts were reflected within the Party and within the membership of the Politburo of the Central Committee in Athens and in the leadership of the Communist Organisation of Athens. This opportunism at which the Party struck repeat­edly and openly, took the form of a passive waiting upon, and subservience to, Monarcho-Fascism which expressed itself: (a) in the view that the Demo­cratic Army of Greece would succeed itself without the active struggle of those who thought in this way, (b) in the view that only with decisive and energetic help from without could our people succeed. To the extent that this opportunism demonstrated a lack of faith in the strength and the just cause of the People it led to capitulation to the forces of reaction.

Ill. When the battle of Grammos began, the People and the Democratic Army of Greece had already been fighting for two years. During this time, the Democratic Army of Greece had nullified all attempts by the enemy to crush it. Monarcho-Fascism had experienced repeated failures and its manifest crisis progressively deepened. English policy in Greece was bankrupt and this obliged American imperialism to intervene openly in our country. During these two years the Democratic Army of Greece, overcoming unimaginable deprivations and difficulties, came to manhood, acquired experience, matured politically, militarily, and from an organisational point of view, took the form of a regular army. The leadership of the KKE thus readied the Democratic Army of Greece, because it saw that after the open American intervention the struggle in 1948 would be harsher and more difficult. For this confrontation the Democratic Army of Greece readied itself in Northern Pindos, an area which it chose itself, to engage in the greatest battle of 1948 against the monarcho-fascist army and its leadership.

IV. When the battle on Grammos began the balance of power was as follows: in men, 1 to 10, and in material, 1 to SO, in favour of monarcho-fascism. Moreover, monarcho-fascism prevailed absolutely in the air and had mechanical and armoured vehicles, of which the Democratic Army of Greece had none. The balance was very much against us, because, on account of our inadequacies and weaknesses, we did not implement the plan of conscription and we did not make sure of the strategic reserves of the General Staff that we had called for. [ ... ]

V. [ ... ] Exactly at this time of trial and crisis Markos Vafiadis, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece and of the Secretariat of the Politburo, commander of the Democratic Army of Greece and Prime minister of the Provisional Democratic Government, did not hold steady, broke down and underwent a nervous crisis that rendered

him incapable of being worthy of his position and of rising to the serious­ness of the occasion. The question of Markos Vafiadis then arose for the Party. [He was relieved o( his dl/ties and sent (or treatment.]

VI. Today Vafiadis puts forwards his own political platform, which shows that his crisis at Grammos was not merely a temporary confusion and loss of balance, but a political crisis with deeper roots. This obliges the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece, as well as unearthing his political platform, to examine the entire previous party life and development of M. Vafiadis to uncover the roots of his present anti­party stance. In the Communist Youth and in his Party life M. Vafiadis man­ifested a series of crises of which the most important were those which he underwent in prison, in Aigina and in Akronafplia. At their heart there always lay a clear anti-Party disposition and an unsatisfied egotistical ambition which led him always to complain about persons and things and brought him into conflict with the Party. In a sick fashion, M. Vafiadis harboured the feeling that the Party always failed to appreciate him and persecuted him. [Despite this the Party helped him to develop his abilities and to matl/re politically.]

Vll. Now M. Vafiadis emerges with his own platform which politically constitutes denial, a revision of the line of the KKE. The overriding element in his platform is a fractionist, anti-communist distortion of reality [It is characteristic that between the time that the Party sent Markos to the mOl/ntains as head of the Democratic Anny of Greece and his breakdown on Grammos he never indicated disagreement with the Party line, although he now seeks to indicate that he was opposed to Party policy since 1947.J In the thirty years of its existence the KKE has waged a fierce struggle against Archeiomarxism and liquid­ationist Trotskyism. (Trotsky once said that the strongest bastion of Trotskyism in the capitalist countries was in Greece.) This struggle lasted for over ten years before the KKE was able comprehensively to neutralise this rabid enemy of the working class. The KKE matured in the struggle against mur­derous Trotskyism. The stance and behaviour of M. Vafiadis at the meeting of the Politburo showed that it is a question of an anti-Party, fractionist, Trotskyist onslaught on the KKE and its political line.

Vlll. M. Vafiadis opens his platform with the assertion that within the KKE there is not 'by tradition, internal party democracy. Every alternative effort that takes place is drowned in an anti-Party fashion. The directives of the Party, instead of opening up before you the road for bold thought, kills off your thought'. [ ... ] The bankrupt Trotskyist spews out these slanders against our Party. [Vafiadis fails to understand that in present circumstances the inner party democracy o(the 'legal' parties cannot prevail. There is a need to preserve the ideological pl/rity and theory o( KKE. Responsibility (or ideological (ailings belongs 'to a series of higher and lower party cadres who do not share the life of the base of the Party'. What is needed is 'granite-like party discipline and modest party ethos, revolutionary discipline and multi-faceted theoretical­political education'.]

IX [ ... ] M. Vafiadis, he who at absolutely no time recognised any mistake on his part, speaks of the absence of self-criticism and inner-party democracy. As kapetanios of the group of Divisions of ELAS in Macedonia he followed a chauvinist policy towards Slav-Macedonian fighters. He never spoke of his stance in December 1944, when as kapetanios of the group of Divisions of ELAS in Macedonia, when a war was going on in Athens, he in effect made peace with the English and let them go to Athens to crush the popular uprising The Party made a serious mistake when at that time it did not pay attention to certain responsible accusations that were made against M. Vafiadis for contacts with English officers, agents of the [British] Intelligence Service, and that two days after Markos' flight for the mountains (end of August 1946), at the house of his relative Karamaouna, an agent of the Intelligence Service, it was mentioned that he (Markos) had gone to the mountains to organise guerrilla warfare [ ... ] In the Democratic Army of Greece, M. Vafiadis downplayed and struck at higher Party cadres and gathered round himself mainly his personal friends and officers from the bourgeois army. He trans­planted to the army, and from the army to the Party, the bourgeois and partisan-militaristic methods of warfare, organisation and leadership against which the Party had continually and repeatedly struck [ ... J M. Vafiadis is characterised by a pathological and anti-Party tendency to distance and alienate himself from the masses and from the cadres of the Party. M. Vafiadis is an irreconcilable enemy of the collective work of the leadership [ ... ]

M. Vafiadis did not believe and does not believe in the victory of the people [ ... ]

XI. A further Indication that Vafiadis did not believe in the power of the People, is that he saw the liberation of Greece as coming principally in the form of aid from outside, going as far as armed military aid [ ... ]

XIII. From the moment Vafiadis went to the mountains he believed that vic­tory would be easy and the result of unco-ordinated partisan activity [ ... ] Vafiadis does not understand that there is a basic difference between the armed struggle that we waged during the first occupation against the Hitler­ite conqueror and that which we are now waging against Anglo-American imperialism and monarcho-fascism. Then our struggle was only a small con­tribution to the colossal effort made by the Soviet Union to crush fascism. For a struggle of the kind we made then a partisan army and war was enough. Now the liberation of Greece will basically be brought to fruition by the Democratic Army of Greece. For this today a mature regular army is required, capable of overcoming the tremendous effort being made by monarcho-fascism with the help of Anglo-American imperialism [ ... ]

XV. In its totality the platform of Vafiadis is an opportunistic ragbag, full of inaccuracies, lies and slanders [ ... ]

XVIII. So much for the question of M. Vafiadis. His Trotskyist, opportunist, fractionist statement together with his unprincipled attack on the leadership

of our Party comes to strike the KKE at one of the most critical moments for the people's liberation movement, at a time when the KKE is celebrating, with self-control and critically, but also with honour and pride, the thirtieth anniversary of its founding. [ ... ] Vafiadis confused the sword which the Party gave him to wield on behalf of the People with the sword which he himself raised up against the Party. The Party helped him to develop his abilities and to correct his great faults and failings. However, petty bourgeois egotism and his sick ambition overcame him and when he broke down at Grammos he did not have the Bolshevik courage to appear sincerely before the Party. The Politburo of the Central Committee of the KKE denounces him as an arriviste, an adventurer, a panic-stricken and capitulationist fractionist and Trotskyist. It has decided to bring his case to the first meeting of the Central Committee of the KKE. The KKE has experienced many trials and jolts in the thirty years of its life, which it has reached at precisely this time. It has always remained monolithic and indestructible, faithful to Marxism-Leninism. With the same monolithic quality it will overcome the present crisis which the panic-stricken, opportunist and unprincipled frac­tionist Vafiadis has created. Of this there can be no doubt.

5.11 The Communist Party of Greece and the Macedonian Question: a denial issued by the Central Committee of the KKE, March 1949

To Kommounistiko Komma tis Elladas, Episima Keimena, VI 1945-1947 (Athens 1987) 356

In recent days from different quarters, but particularly from monarcho­fascist Athens and from London, the false and slanderous news that the KKE has made different agreements, etc. for the creation of a Balkan Communist Federation and a Macedonian state that would unite all parts of Macedonia under Yugoslav, Bulgarian and Greek sovereignty is being repeated in different tones and in different ways. This infonnation is entirely false and slanderous. It is aimed at helping the monarch a-fascist and imperialist undermining of our struggle, at breaking the unity of struggle between the Greek and Macedonian peoples and at spreading dissension among the Balkan peoples.

The Fifth Plenum of the Central Committee (30-31 January 1949) declared that 'as a result of the victory of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and of the people's revolution, the Macedonian people will find its full national restoration as they themselves wish, now offering up their blood so as to achieve it'. This is the position of the KKE on the Macedonian question. The two peoples, Greek and Macedonian, struggle together for their freedom.

As a result of victory each people will freely and in a sovereign manner decide its future course. As a consequence of victory the Macedonian people will itself decide how it wants to live and be governed.

No slanderous campaign and polemics on the part the enemies of our struggle can distort or falsify this popular and democratic position of the KKE.

Free Greece

15 November 1948

The Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece

Announcement of the Central Committee of the KKE

[ ... ] The Fifth Plenum of the Central Committee of the KKE, taking into account the fact that for many months Comrade Khrysa Khatzivasileiou and Markos Vafiadis have been gravely ill and unable to fulfil the important duties entrusted to them, the Central Committee of the KKE decided unani­mously to release them from all Party work.

Free Greece-Grammos 31 January 1949.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece Free Greece, 7 March 1949

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On the Occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Greek Democratic Army

Article published in Revolutionary Democracy Vol. XIII, No. 2, September 2007.

In the end of spring of 1945, coming back to Greece from the German concentration camp in which he was imprisoned, Nikos Zachariades, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Greece, came across and faced a specific reality.

a) A large political, progressive popular movement, predominating in every part of the Greek territory, inspired by the political and ideological principles and the epic of the fighting resistance of the Communist Party of Greece and the National Liberation Front. At the same time, he faced a movement ‘tired’ and ‘disappointed’ by the contradictory and compromising policies of its leadership, blocked by the political accords with local reaction – the instruments of English imperialism – political accords of defeat and laying down the victorious arms of the Popular Army and the popular democratic movement in general (Lebanon, Plaka, Gazerta, Varkiza etc.). Moreover, the leader of the CPG faced the negative situation created by the military defeat of the Left in the battle against the English in Athens in December 1944. This was a battle fought under unacceptable political and military conditions, with strange and spur-of-the-moment methods – as proven by the evidence – and fought also under the leadership of Georges Siantos, the party’s Secretary General at the time of the German occupation, who was later accused by the party of being an agent of the Intelligence Service.

b) A CPG highly regarded by the Greek people, which however during the occupation had been transformed by its leadership from a politically innovative party (around 450,000 members) into an enormous, loose political body lacking a role, objectives, spirit and orientation; not a leading party but a party that allowed in any supporter. The party also included leading members who became known and were recognised by the people through the fight of the NLF, and at the same time leading members who were unable to complete their revolutionary mission, dominated and bound by the spirit of political compromise that they themselves had cultivated within the movement through their choices; dominated also by petit bourgeois self-satisfaction and pride deriving from the greatness of the movement, of which they were leading. After all, these cadres distorted the line of N. Zachariades as it was expressed in his historic letter of October 1940 when Greece was attacked by Italian fascism, a guiding letter of the leader of the CPG and at the same time the last public statement only shortly before he was handed over by the Italians and their Greek collaborators to the Germans and was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp until the liberation of Germany by the Red Army. In the last paragraph of this historic letter, N. Zachariades related in a categorical way the anti-fascist fight to the fight for social liberation, stressing: ‘The prize for the working people and for the current fight must be and will be a new Greece, a Greece of labour, of liberty, purged of any dependence on imperialism, with a truly popular culture’. The leadership of the CPG during the occupation, with its political choices, disconnected the anti-fascist war from the general political perspective of the working people who should be fighting for national independence and social liberation.

c) Because of this political and leadership team of the CPG, strong conditions began to emerge which were favourable for the rapid reconstruction of the reactionary right-wing pro-English state. Bands of fascists committed murders in the villages and towns, thousands of fighters were arrested, terrorism dominated all over the country, the Treaty of Varkiza led to the disarmament and destruction of the glorious People’s Army of the National Liberation Front and the fighters of the countryside went up to the mountains once again to escape from the killing spree of the fascist bands.

This in brief was the situation that Nikos Zachariades, the leader of the CPG, had to deal with from the summer of 1945 onward, and on the basis of these very conditions he was called to take political and organisational initiatives, while the cycle of World War 2 had not yet been completed and the game of diplomacy concerning the global post-war situation was in a critical phase.

In the debates that have taken place – and still are going on – in Greece, in the scientific papers of historians and researchers, in the personal testimonies of leading Left members of that period, as well as on the other side too, in the long-term political and ideological controversy within the context of the Greek Left, many and often contrasting or consciously distorted evidence about the conditions under which the Civil War began and about the CPG’s leadership’s actions when Nikos Zachariades was at the head, have always been discussed. The slanderous and distorting efforts were developed and are still maintained with the same intensity, reinforced by the participation and behaviour of a large circle, of a front of ‘dark’ forces consisting of people united around the above objective. For half a century now, with the same mania, the ‘dark’ front keeps on with the same false arguments and consciously distorting tactics. In this front the most varied sectors of Greek society participated. Monarchist-fascists (of old and new types), revisionists of all kinds, social-democrats and Trotskyists play, directly and indirectly, the main role in slandering Nikos Zachariades’ personality and leading figure, with an obvious political-ideological goal: to deprive the Greek left and democratic movement of its own revolutionary and fighting traditions, as well as of its scientific and theoretical leading role that Nikos Zachariades played within the Greek movement and the CPG. The destructive force of the ‘dark’ propaganda was strongly reinforced after the absolute predominance of the forces of N. Khrushchev and L. Brezhnev in the international movement and particularly, after Nikos Zachariades’ assassination in Siberia in August 1973 after he had completed 17 years of exile there. This act had been pre-programmed by the KGB in collaboration with the leading team of the CPG (H. Florakis, K. Loules, K. Tsolakis etc.) to which the Soviet revisionists had assigned the leadership of the Greek party. The reason for the assassination of the head of the Greek Left was obviously to prevent his return to Greece after the forthcoming fall of the dictatorship, a fact that would disclose to the Greek people the political treason and would change – in favour of revolutionary opinion – the interrelations within the Greek movement. At the same time, however, Zachariades’ return to Greece as a political refugee would constitute a world-wide base for denouncing the revisionist Soviet party as well as the international state of affairs. At this point, we should refer to and emphasise the fact that under these bad conditions, the absolute predominance of the alliance of the ‘dark’ front, for decades and still until today, in the Greek left and popular movement there have been and still are forces resisting the reactionary anti-revolutionary front. The historic initiative of the anti-revisionist fight had been the tens of thousands of partisans, all refugees in the Eastern countries, the vast majority of whom (from 85% to 95%) stood by Nikos Zachariades’ side until the end, fighting against the violent anti-revolutionary intervention in the Greek Communist Party, facing unbelievable persecution, suffering, even imprisonment and exile.

The arguments against Nikos Zachariades that relate to his actions at the beginning of the Civil War, to the policy and strategy followed by the party during the second partisan fight, present not only an absolute lack of essential documentation, but also a range of varied and contradictory elements. Paradoxically the arguments are more or less the same in the reactionary and progressive circles. The overlapping opinions, which have different points of departure, reveal their real objectives; they aim to withhold the truth and to degrade Nikos Zachariades’ fighting stance and leadership abilities. In this document, we will not deal with the propaganda of the reactionary circles but rather with the reactionary and anti-historic arguments of those who talk in a ‘left’-wing manner and in the name of the Left:

1) The argument that Nikos Zachariades delayed the preparation and beginning of the armed rebellion.

This is a conscious distortion of the truth. The leader of the CPG, returning to Greece from Dachau, was faced with both a specific international and a domestic reality. He was informed, as soon as possible, of the international and domestic situation and he undertook very specific initiatives which were oriented towards:

a) The reconstruction of the CPG through the re-organisation of the party forces, the reinforcement of the political-educational work and its rapid transformation from a loose to a fighting, revolutionary workers’ party. He moved in this direction through the meetings of both the Plenary Sessions of the Central Committee and the 7th Conference, in which the issue of the international policy in these conditions and the complete scientifically documented programme for People’s Democracy were discussed. Furthermore, the strategy of connecting the party to the large workers’ and agricultural unions through many massive democratic processes put them quickly under the control of the party’s forces. He implemented the policy of reinforcing collaboration with the Agricultural Party and other co-operating parties of the democratic alliance. He implemented constant contact with the cadres of middle and lower rank and boosted their fighting conviction, which had fallen due to the compromising policies of the party’s leadership during the German occupation. During this period, Nikos Zachariades accrued information about the forces and possibilities of the movement, but also about the probable influence that enemy forces exerted within the CPG and the democratic front. It was also evident, that any decision in that period could not be made without taking into account the particular conditions in the greater Balkans area, since there were three new people’s democracies (Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria) which bordered Greece and were facing specific problems: their existence was intertwined with the unstable post-war transitional regime and was reflected both in Greece and in the Greek left movement. In addition, the CPG’s leadership, under those circumstances, could not ignore either the opinions of the regional left-wing parties or the opinions of Communist Party of Soviet Union, since the preparation of the armed rebellion – in order not to be considered an adventurous act – demanded in that very phase, many necessary political, technical and military preconditions.

b) The revolutionary, popular rebellion and conflict with British imperialism that was dominant in Greece during that period. The leadership of the CPG and Nikos Zachariades moved in this direction with a clear plan. Within a few months after his return to Greece, the line of mass popular self-defence against the reactionary groups was put into action and the formal battle cry of the Left, ‘English out of Greece’, which raised the fighting spirit of the Greek people, was heard for the first time. In this way, the perspective of struggle was cultivated in the people’s mind, since the Greek people knew by their experience during all those months, that the English and the Greek reaction had decided to exterminate the Greek popular left movement, preventing any perspective of reconciliation and resolution of the political problem through fair elections. At the same time, N. Zachariades and the leadership of the CPG and the international relationships ensured the political and military conditions for the popular rebellion that was coming. The political and organisational reconstruction of the movement that N. Zachariades undertook, took 8 months, beginning with his return to the country and the CPG’s leadership and ending with the milestone decision of the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the CPG on November 12, 1946, the anniversary of the Treaty of Varkiza. This decision made clear that the armed fight was unavoidable and led to the first military plans. We can rebut the false arguments that Nikos Zachariades did not have a clear line for the armed fight and that he delayed going into the mountains – arguments absolutely irrelevant to the particular conditions of this specific period – with much evidence. We will refer however only to two characteristics:

1) Nikos Zachariades’ refusal to leave Athens and the leadership of the party’s apparatus before the departure abroad of G. Siantos (Secretary General of the party during the period of the German occupation who was responsible for the compromising political defeat of the Left), something that Siantos avoided doing despite the orders he was given. The opening of the CPG’s files from that period, which has been almost completed today and published in historic papers, although they are available to any researcher, highlights that situation and reveals to any honest fighter, researcher and historian the real facts. It was clear that Nikos Zachariades thought that within the political team of the movement there was a problem of vigilance and unity, a problem that he could not ignore. A series of telegrams from N. Zachariades to other cadres of the party who were on missions abroad proves this fact.

2) The testimony of Kostas Koligiannis (a leading cadre of the CPG), which he gave at the 3rd Conference of the CPG in October 1950, is testimony among tens of others with the same content. Kostas Koligiannis’ testimony is very interesting because he became the Soviet revisionists’ favourite; they named him Secretary General in N. Zachariades’ place, after the anti-democratic overthrow of the legal leader of the CPG. Kostas Koligiannis said: ‘In order for Markos Vaphiades to free himself from responsibilities, he claimed that the party did not start the fight in order to win with strength and determination, that the fight was waged under illusions and inconstancies and for this reason we did not win. Apart from the fact that everybody knew how the party’s decision was initially made, I want to say something that refutes M. Vaphiades’ claim. In July 1946, N. Zachariades himself told me, when I was departing to Epirus, that we should create a massive armed movement. He also said specifically that we should start from the region of Konitsa and Zagori with North Epirus and Tzoumerka as bases of operation and Western Macedonia and Thessaly behind us and to proceed further maintaining these two bases of operation. If we formed small groups in order to use them as a means of restraint in the handling of the situation, as M. Vaphiades says, then what would the mass partisan group – that the party asked us to form since June 1946 – serve for? I went there with the decision-making responsibility of the political office, because I went as the secretary of the party’s organisation. And why would the party give this order to us and another order to other organisations? I think that what M. Vaphiades says constitutes an attempt to free himself from some extremely serious responsibilities, the principal ones, because we lost the chance to resolve, in the end of 1946 and in 1947, the problem of reserves that decisively and determinatively affected the evolution of the armed fight.¹The above testimony concerning the responsibilities and inefficiencies of the General of the Democratic Army of Greece, Markos Vaphiades, a man who has been in the circle of protagonists in the slander against N. Zachariades and who later co-operated with K. Koligiannis, solves the puzzle and leads to objective conclusions.

2) The abstention from the general elections in March 1946.

The second mistake, a ‘determinative’ one as the cadres of the anti-Zachariades chorus characterised it, was the abstention of the CPG and the other parties of the democratic alliance from the general elections that the English and their vassal reactionary government of Athens organised on March 20, 1946. The ‘chorus’ claims that the Left should have taken part in the elections, although they knew that these elections had been held under the awful conditions of unbelievable terrorism, of thousands of arrests of left citizens, of hundreds of murders just within that month, and with no guarantees for a normal, legal and transparent holding of the elections. The supporters of this ‘view, even in this case, artificially separated the elections not only from these specific conditions but also from the movement’s perspective. They criticised the question of elections from a static view. They pretended that they do not know or they hid the fact that:

(a) all the non-CPG parties and organizations of the democratic alliance were intensively and insistently in favour of abstention;

(b) one month before, in February 1946, the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the CPG had realised that the march toward an armed fight was unavoidable, since Greek reaction and the English had decided to proceed towards it.

Participation in the rigged elections would have legalised the reactionary front and would have reinforced the electoral illusions of the Greek people, whereas the election result under no circumstances would have expressed honestly and clearly the people’s political conviction and the real political influence of the Left.

Participation in the election would have led the people, the popular movement and the CPG, into a vicious circle of contradictions and inequality, similar to that of 1944-1945 which was the cause of the political ‘capture’ and defeat of the movement. Nikos Zachariades in his last authorised text titled ‘Problems of the CPG’s crisis – contribution to the political discussion’, written in 1962 in exile in Siberia, referred to a great extent to the question of abstention and among other things he stressed: ‘In the decision taken during the 8th Conference [after Nikos Zachariades’ overthrow], it was said that abstention is a terrible mistake with serious consequences for the party and the democratic movement. The decision does not explain the content of this ‘terrible mistake’, but the meaning is clear. If we participated in the elections we would secure a peaceful evolution for Greece! Where to? It was similar to the essentially opportunist plan of Partsalides [revisionist leader] that was part of the policy of appeasing reaction and submitting to it. So Partsalides was trying, after what happened, to justify also the treason of Varkiza [the treaty of disarmament of the People’s Army that he signed]. In 1946, elections could under no circumstances play an important role other than to reinforce reaction. Only an opportunist to the bone could declare that if we had participated in the elections the whole evolution of Greece would have been different. This was not the truth. The English, with the support of the Committee of the United Nations which supervised the elections [the Soviet Union refused to participate in this committee, perhaps because she knew what was in the air], wanted to mislead us as to the rigged elections which they were preparing, in order to legalise through the parliament, with the people’s vote, the intervention of December 1944 and the issue of Varkiza and thus to impose the monarchist-fascist regime. This is the truth. The following is noteworthy too: The Committee of the UN allocated us 9.3% abstention votes. If we had participated in the elections it would have given us generously three times more. Thus, it would have secured the people’s stamp of approval in favour of monarchist-fascism and the occupation forces. Partsalides was pushing the movement in this direction, towards the ratification of the Treaty of Varkiza. Our weakness [Zachariades goes on] during that period was a different and decisive one. The masses hesitated because we laid down our arms; no other European movement did something so shameful. We betrayed them in December in Athens and in Varkiza; we betrayed Greece and the National Resistance. For this reason, today the Xians [fascist band named X] beat us up on the streets and keep us hidden in our holes. The whole attempt to recreate the party from the 12th Plenary Session [on 25th-27th of June 1945]² was leading exactly to this: to arouse the movement and the CPG again in order for them to fall in line with the historical demands of that critical period and the party did it until the 2nd Plenary Session in February [1946].³ Let us not forget that the party’s leadership at that time, even after December, still did not have any policy for the English which was worthy of the people and the CPG and as a result, regarding the English, the policy of submission of Plaka, Gazerta, Varkiza was continued. The battle cry ‘English Out Of Greece’ was heard only when the party was reconstructed in order to extricate itself from the shame that the Treaty of Varkiza attributed to us’.

N. Zachariades expressed, clearly and revealing the truth, his opinion on the issue of abstention from the elections of 1946. This position helps anyone who wants to draw more general conclusions on the situation, on the role and orientation of each individual. We think that through these two cases to which we referred – the most important ones of that period and the most important ones regarding the political controversy within the movement – clear and useful conclusions can be drawn; conclusions concerning the lines within the CPG, the revolutionary and the opportunist line. This conflict between lines has determined the facts for the next two decades and until now, in the contemporary epoch, and is related to the need and duty of reconstructing the movement on the basis of the principles of scientific socialism of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin.

Endnotes:

1. 3rd conference of the CPG from October 10-14, 1950, Introductions, Speeches, Decisions.

2. The Plenary Sessions were meetings of the Central Committee of the CPG between the Congresses. The numbering of the Plenary Sessions restarts in the event of a congress. The 12th Plenary Session of June 1945 took place between the 6th and the 7th Congress of the CPG. The 7th Congress took place in the autumn of 1945.

3. The 2nd Plenary Session took place exactly a year after the treacherous Treaty of Varkiza.

The Political Committee of the Movement of the Reorganisation of the Communist Party of Greece 1918-1955

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