Greek Civil War

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Greek Civil War
Part of the Cold War

Map of Greece.
Date December 1944 - October 16, 1949
Location Southern Balkan Peninsula,Greece
Result Royalist victory
Belligerents
Hellenic Army
 Democratic Army of Greece
Commanders
Alexander Papagos,
Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos
Flag of the United States James Van Fleet		 Markos Vafiadis,
Nikolaos Zachariadis
Strength
150,000 men 50,000 men and women
Casualties and losses
14,000 killed
30,000 injured or missing [1]		 25,000 officially killed
many more missing or injured (can't be estimated precisely)[2]
1,000,000 people were relocated temporally during the war[3]

The Greek Civil War (Greek: Eμφύλιος πόλεμος Emfilios polemos), was fought between 1944 and 1949 in Greece between the Governmental forces of Greece supported by the United Kingdom at first, and later by the USA, and the Democratic Army of Greece; the military branch of the Greek communist party. According to some analysts it represents the first example of a post-war West interference in the political situation of a foreign country [4] but nevertheless it also embarked the first serious shakedown of the percentages agreement. The victory of the British - and later US-supported government forces led to Greece's membership in NATO and helped to define the ideological balance of power in the Aegean for the entire Cold War.

The civil war consisted on one side of the armed forces of the postwar non-marxist Greek administrations, and on the other, communist-led forces, and key members of the former resistance organization (ELAS), the leadership of which was controlled by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

The first phase of the civil war occurred in 1942-1944. Marxist and non-marxist resistance groups fought each other in a fratricidal conflict to establish the leadership of the Greek resistance movement. In the second phase (1944) the ascendant communists, in military control of most of Greece, confronted the returning Greek government in exile, which had been formed under Western Allied auspices in Cairo and originally included six KKE-affiliated ministers. In the third phase (commonly called the "Third Round" by the Communists) (1946-1949), guerrilla forces controlled by KKE fought against the internationally recognized Greek Government which was formed after elections boycotted by KKE. Although the involvement of KKE in the uprisings was universally known, the party remained legal until 1948, continuing to coordinate attacks from its Athens offices until proscription.

The civil war left Greece with a legacy of political polarization; as a result, Greece also entered into alliance with the United States and joined NATO, while relationships with its Communist northern neighbours, both pro-Soviet and neutral, became strained.

Contents

[edit] Background: 1941-44

[edit] Origins

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History of Greece
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Helladic Civilization
Cycladic Civilization
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Mycenaean Civilization
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Medieval Greece
Byzantine Empire
Ottoman Greece
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Greek War of Independence
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An ELAS guerrilla
An ELAS guerrilla
See also: Axis Occupation of Greece during WWII and Greek Resistance

The origins of the civil war lie in the occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany and Bulgaria from 1941 to 1944 and Italy from 1941 to 1943.It is known that largely communist-inspired armed resistance movement in the Balkans, mainly in Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece caused Germany and Italy serious military problems. [5]King George II and his government escaped to Egypt, where they proclaimed a government-in-exile, recognised by the Western Allies, but not by the Soviet Union. The Western Allies actively encouraged, even coerced, the King to appoint moderate ministers; only two of his ministers were members of the dictatorial government that had governed Greece before the German invasion. Some in the left-wing resistance claimed the government to be illegitimate, on account of its roots in the dictatorship of General Ioannis Metaxas from 1936 to 1941. Regardless of its pretensions, or of the dissenters, the government's inability to influence the governance of Greece rendered it irrelevant in the minds of most Greek people.[citation needed]

The Germans set up a collaborationist government in Athens as soon as they entered the city; but this government, too, lacked legitimacy and support. The puppet regime was further undermined when economic mismanagement in wartime conditions created runaway inflation, acute food shortages, and even famine, amongst the Greek civilian population. Some high-profile officers of the pre-war Greek regime served the Germans in various posts. In 1943, this government’s PM, Ioannis Rallis, started creating paramilitary forces, composed mostly of local fascists, convicts, and sympathetic prisoners of war, in order to fight the communist partisans and reduce the strain on the German army. These forces, known as the Security Battalions, numbered 20,000 men at their peak in 1944. They were never used against the Western Allies, but only against the pro-communist guerrillas.

The lack of legitimate government created a power vacuum, which was filled by several resistance movements that began operations shortly after the start of German occupation. The largest of those was the National Liberation Front (EAM), founded in 27 September 1941, established by representatives of four left-wing parties. Following the Soviet policy of creating a broad united front against fascism, EAM won the support of many non-Communists. It became a large popular organisation which, although completely controlled by KKE, tried to appear solely as a democratic republican movement. EAM's military wing, the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) was later founded in February 1942. Another organization, controlled by the Greek Communist Party, was the mainly terrorist Organization for the Protection of the People's Fighters (OPLA). In the area of Florina there also was the Slavic Macedonian organization SNOF, which changed its name to NOF. The Slavic Macedonians mobilized in NOF, would make a critical contribution to the communist side during the Greek Civil War[6].

EAM and ELAS opposed all other resistance movements, including the National Republican Greek League (EDES), led by a former army officer, Colonel Napoleon Zervas, and the National and Social Liberation (EKKA), led by Colonel Dimitrios Psarros. EKKA was a classical liberal movement, with strong opposition to the monarchy. EDES initially bore a republican ideology, but from 1943, through its increasing conflict with ELAS, it turned to a more pro-royalist stance.

Resistance first struck in Eastern Macedonia, where the Germans had allowed Bulgarian troops to occupy Greek territories. Large demonstrations were organized by the YBE (Defenders of Northern Greece), a right wing organization, in Greek Macedonian cities, in response.

The Greek landscape is very favourable to guerrilla operations, and by 1943 the Axis forces and their collaborators controlled only the main towns and connecting roads, leaving the mountainous interior to the resistance. By 1943 ELAS had about 30,000 men under arms and effectively controlled large areas of the mountainous Peloponnese, Crete, Thessaly, and Macedonia (a territory of 30,000 km². and 750,000 inhabitants). EDES had about 10,000 men, nearly all of them in Epirus. EKKA had only about 1,000 men.

[edit] The first conflicts: 1942-1944

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The Western Allies provided all resistance organizations with funds and equipment, since they themselves needed any help they could find against the Axis. However, the British Foreign Office, foreseeing a communist upsurge, observed with displeasure the transformation of ELAS into a large-scale conventional army, as opposed to a group of autonomous small local troops without any guidance and administration. A British officer’s telegraph reveals that for the British Foreign Office: “The best level of sabotage would be to”[citation needed]. However, ELAS took control of the weapons of the Italian garrisons in Greece after September 8th 1943 and the Armistice with Italy. So, from October 1943 onwards, the Western Allies tried to promote the anti-communist resistance organizations and minimize ELAS’s increasing influence by stopping the flow of weapons and funds to ELAS. In 1944 ELAS was able to equip its units with weapons looted from the enemy, while EDES enjoyed Western Allied support.

EAM-ELAS often charged members of non-communist resistance organizations, including EDES and EKKA, with being traitors and collaborators, and such charges were the background for the launching of sustained attacks against them. The extent of the validity of this perspective, in the chaos of wartime, remains a source of age-old, perennial controversy in Greece. While some such organizations did accept assistance from the Nazis in their efforts to resist EAM-ELAS persecution, some stress, the great majority of the nationalist resistance organizations refused any form of co-operation with the occupation authorities. However, others highlight that a number of the members of the nationalist resistance organizations which were attacked and destroyed by ELAS, did later 'seek refuge', as they might have seen it, in the Security Battalions set up by the collaborationist regime to fight against the communist guerillas. As the EAM-ELAS action grew fiercer so the Security Battalions numbers swelled, others again contend.[citation needed]

EAM was the strongest of all resistance organizations, and from a common conservative point of view it attacked all non-communist resistance fighters. From an equally common leftwing point of view, it also carried along with it a number of non-communist leftwing elements. In order to establish a monopoly over the resistance, EAM accused EDES of collaboration with the Germans, since it was obvious that the Allies would soon invade southern Europe through Greece, and ELAS wanted to be in a dominant position when the Germans left Greece. This situation led to triangular battles among ELAS, EDES and the Germans. Given the support of the British and the Greek Cairo Government for EDES, these conflicts precipitated a civil war. In October 1943 ELAS attacked its rivals, particularly EDES, triggering a civil war across many parts of Greece which continued until February 1944, when British agents in Greece negotiated a ceasefire (the Plaka agreement).

Elas partisans.
Elas partisans.

In Greece under Nazi occupation, the struggle was bitter and there was no room for delicate differentiations, with both ELAS and rightwing resistance movements responsible for atrocities. In the case of the ELAS activity more commonly highlighted by the right, this included the Meligalas massacre where many civilians were killed when ELAS attacked the village, and the former officers of the Greek army forced at gun-point to join ELAS, though preferring to join the anti-communist partisan groups or the forces of the government-in-exile in Middle East. The case of Stefanos Sarafis, the military leader of ELAS, is another held up as characteristic by those on the right, but not the left, who instead draw equally reasonable attention to the extent of non-communist leftwing membership within broader EAM and its implications. Sarafis, others stress, sought to join the non-communist resistance group commanded by Kostopoulos in Thessaly with a group of other officers. On their way they were caught by an ELAS group commanded by Velouhiotis, and Sarafis agreed to join ELAS at gun point when Velouhiotis killed all the other officers who refused.[7]

[edit] The Egypt mutiny and Lebanon conference

See also: National People's Liberation Army (Greece)#The "Mountain Government"
Main article: Lebanon conference

In March 1944 the EAM established the Political Committee of National Liberation (Politiki Epitropi Ethnikis Apeleftherosis, or PEEA), in effect a third Greek government to rival those in Athens and Cairo. Its aims were, "to intensify the struggle against the conquerors... for full national liberation, for the consolidation of the independence and integrity of our country... and for the annihilation of domestic Fascism and armed traitor formations." PEEA consisted not only of communists but also of progressives, who had nothing to do with communist ideas.

The moderate aims of the PEEA (known as κυβέρνηση του βουνού, "the Mountain Government") aroused support even among Greeks in exile. In April 1944 the Greek armed forces in Egypt, many among whom were well-disposed towards EAM, mutinied against the Western Allies, demanding that a Government of National Unity be established based on the PEEA principles. The mutiny was suppressed by Western Allied armed units and Greek officers loyal to the exiled government. Approximately 8,000 Greek soldiers were sent into prison camps in Libya, Sudan, Egypt and elsewhere. Later on, through political screening of the officers, the Cairo government created staunchly anti-Communist armed forces.

In May 1944, representatives from all political parties and resistance groups came together at a conference in Lebanon, seeking an agreement about a government of national unity. Despite EAM's accusations of collaboration, made against all the other Greek forces, and charges against EAM-ELAS members of murders, banditry and thievery, the conference ended with an agreement for a government of national unity consisting of 24 ministers (6 of whom were EAM's members). The agreement was made possible by Soviet directives to KKE to avoid harming Allied unity, but it didn't resolve the problem of disaramanent of resistance groups.

[edit] Confrontation: 1944

[edit] From Lebanon conference to the outburst

By the summer of 1944 it was obvious that the Germans would soon withdraw from Greece, because the armed forces of the Soviet Union were advancing into Romania and towards Yugoslavia and the Germans risked being cut off. The government-in-exile, now led by a prominent liberal, George Papandreou, moved to Caserta in Italy in preparation for the return to Greece. Under the Caserta agreement of September 1944, all the resistance forces in Greece were placed under the command of a British officer, General Ronald Scobie.

Troops of the Western Allies landed in Greece in October. There was little fighting since the Germans were in full retreat and most of Greek territory had already been liberated by either ELAS or EDES. For example, only the central part of Athens was under German occupation on October 13, while all other regions were under EAM-ELAS rule. The German forces were greatly outnumbered by ELAS, which by this time had 50,000 men under arms and was re-equipping from supplies left behind by the Germans. On October 13 British troops entered Athens, and Papandreou and his ministers followed 6 days later. The King stayed in Cairo, because Papandreou had promised that the future of the monarchy would be decided by referendum.

Disarming of ELAS after the Varkiza agreement.
Disarming of ELAS after the Varkiza agreement.

At this point there was little to prevent ELAS from taking full control of the country. They did not do so because the KKE leadership was under instructions from the Soviet Union not to precipitate a crisis that could jeopardise Allied unity and put at risk Stalin's larger post-war objectives. KKE’s leadership knew this, but the ELAS fighters and rank-and-file Communists didn't. This became a source of conflict within EAM and ELAS.

Following Stalin's instructions, KKE’s leadership tried to avoid a confrontation with the Papandreou government. The majority of ELAS members saw the Western Allies as liberators, although some KKE leaders such as Andreas Tzimas and Aris Velouchiotis did not trust the Western Allies. Tzimas was in touch with the Yugoslav Communist leader Josip Broz Tito, and he disagreed with ELAS's co-operation with the Western Allied forces.

The issue of disarming the resistance organizations was a cause of friction between the Papandreou government and its EAM members. Advised by the British ambassador Sir Reginald Leeper, Papandreou demanded the disarmament of all armed forces apart from the Ieros Lochos and the III Greek 'Rimini' Mountain Brigade, which were formed after the suppression of the April 1944 Egypt mutiny, and the constitution of a National Guard under government control. EAM, believing that this would leave ELAS defenceless against the right-wing militias and the anti-communist Security Battalions, submitted an alternative plan of total and simultaneous disarmament, which Papandreou rejected, as he had started viewing the Security Battalions as a good reserve against a possible communist coup, and EAM ministers resigned from the government on December 2. On December 1, Scobie had issued a proclamation requiring the dissolution of ELAS. Command of ELAS was KKE's greatest source of strength, and the KKE leader Siantos decided that the demand for ELAS's dissolution must be resisted.

Tito's influence may have played some role in ELAS's resistance to disarmament. Tito was outwardly loyal to Stalin but had come to power through his own forces and believed that the Communist Greeks should do the same. His influence, however, had not prevented the EAM leadership from putting its forces under Scobie's command a couple of months earlier, according to the Caserta agreement.

In the meanwhile, following Grivas' instructions, Organisation X members had set up many outposts in central Athens and resisted EAM for several days, until the British troops arrived, as their leader had been promised.

[edit] The Dekemvriana

Main article: Dekembriana

In November 1944, six ministers of the EAM, most of whom were KKE members, resigned from their positions in the "National Unity" Government. Fighting broke out in Athens on 3 December 1944 during a demonstration, organised by EAM, involving more than 100,000 people. According to some accounts, the police, covered by British troops opened fire on the crowd.[8][9][10] According to other accounts, it is uncertain if the first shots were fired by the police or the demonstrators.[11] More than 28 people were killed and 148 injured. The "Dekembriana", "the December events"), as this incident is known, was the beginning of a 37-day full-scale fighting in Athens between ELAS and the Government forces.

The British tried to stay neutral but when the battle escalated they intervened, with artillery and aircraft being freely used. At the beginning the government had only a few policemen and a brigade without heavy weapons. On December 4 Papandreou attempted to resign but the British Ambassador convinced him to stay. By December 12 ELAS was in control of most of Athens and Piraeus. The British, outnumbered, flew in the 4th Infantry Division from Italy as reinforcements. During the battle with the ELAS, local militias fought alongside the British, triggering a massacre by ELAS fighters. It must be noted that although the British were fighting openly against ELAS in Athens there were no fights in the rest of Greece. In certain cases like Volos some RAF units even gave equipment to ELAS fighters.

Conflicts continued throughout December with the British slowly gaining the upper hand. Curiously, ELAS forces in the rest of Greece did not attack the British. It seems that ELAS preferred a legitimate rise to power, but was drawn into the fighting by the indignation and, at the same time, the awe of its fighters after the slaughter on December 3, aiming at establishing its predominance. Only this version of the events can explain the simultaneous struggle against the British, the large-scale ELAS operations against trotskyists and other political dissidents in Athens and many contradictory decisions of EAM leaders. Videlicet, KKE's leadership was supporting a doctrine of 'national unity' while eminent members, e.g. Stringos or Makridis and even Georgios Siantos, were elaborating revolutionary plans.

This outbreak of fighting between Allied forces and an anti-German European resistance movement, while the war in Europe was still being fought, was a serious political problem for Churchill's coalition government of left and right, and caused much protest in the British press and in the House of Commons. To prove his peace-making intention, Churchill himself arrived in Athens on December 25 and presided over a conference, in which Soviet representatives also participated, to bring about a settlement. It failed because the EAM/ELAS demands were considered excessive and, thus, rejected.

The aftermath of street fighting in Athens, December 1944.
The aftermath of street fighting in Athens, December 1944.

In the meanwhile, the Soviet Union remained surprisingly passive about the developments in Greece. True to their "percentages agreement" with Britain, the Soviet delegation in Greece wasn’t encouraging or discouraging EAM’s ambitions, as Greece belonged to the British sphere of influence. Pravda didn’t mention the clashes at all. If this position of the Soviet leadership had been brought home to KKE’s leadership, the Dekemvriana might have been averted. It seems that Stalin didn’t have the intention to avert the Dekemvriana, as he would profit no matter the outcome. If EAM rose to power, he would gain a country of major strategic value. If not, he could use the British actions in Greece to justify to the Allies any intervention in his own sphere of influence.

By early January ELAS had been driven from Athens. As a result of Churchill's intervention, Papandreou resigned and was replaced by a firm anti-Communist, General Nikolaos Plastiras. On January 15, 1945 Scobie agreed to a ceasefire, in exchange for ELAS' withdrawal from its positions at Patras and Thessaloniki and its demobilisation in the Peloponnese. This was a severe defeat, but ELAS remained in existence and the KKE had an opportunity to reconsider its strategy.

KKE's defeat in 1945 was mainly political. The exaltation of terrorism on the communist side made a political settlement even more difficult. The hunting of "collaborators" was extended to people who had not been involved in collaboration. Several Trotskyists had to leave the country to save their lives (e.g. Cornelius Castoriadis fled to France). After the Athens fighting, KKE support declined sharply, and as a result most of the prominent non-Communists in EAM left the organisation. But terrorism among the right-wing extremist gangs was strengthened.

[edit] Interlude: 1945-1946

In February 1945 the various Greek parties signed the Treaty of Varkiza, with the support of all the Allies. This provided for the complete demobilisation of ELAS and all other paramilitary groups, an amnesty for only political offences, a referendum on the monarchy, and a general election as soon as possible. The KKE remained legal, and its leader Nikolaos Zachariadis, who returned from Germany in April 1945, said that the KKE's objective was now a "people's democracy" to be achieved by peaceful means. There were dissenters, of course, like former ELAS leader Aris Velouchiotis. The KKE renounced Velouchiotis when he called on the veteran guerrillas to start a second struggle: shortly afterwards, he committed suicide, surrounded by the security forces.

The Treaty of Varkiza transformed the KKE's political defeat into a military one. ELAS's existence was terminated. At the same time the National Army and the right-wing extremists were free to continue their war against the ex-members of EAM. The amnesty was not comprehensive, because many actions during the German occupation were classified as criminal and so excepted from the amnesty. Thus, the authorities captured approximately 40,000 communists or ex-ELAS members. As a result, a number of veteran partisans hid their weapons in the mountains and 5,000 of them escaped to Yugoslavia, although the KKE leadership did not encourage this.

Anti-communist militamen display their victims.
Anti-communist militamen display their victims.

During 1945-1946, right-wing gangs killed about 1,190 pro-communist civilians, and tortured many others. Entire villages that helped the partisans were attacked by those right-wing gangs. According to the right-wing citizens, these gangs were retaliating for what they had suffered during the reign of ELAS. The reign of "White Terror" wave led many of persecuted ex-ELAS members to form self-defense troops, without any KKE approval.

KKE soon reversed its former political position, as relations between the Soviet Union and the Western Allies deteriorated. With the onset of the Cold War, Communist parties everywhere moved to more militant positions. This change of political attitude, the choice to escalate the crisis was primarily deriving from the persuasion that the regime subversion, that hadn’t succeeded in December 1944, could now be achieved.

George Papandreou in July, 1945, informed the government that the dissolution of the Comintern was a fraud. Although Stalin still did not support a resumed armed struggle in Greece, showing his respect for percentages agreement of Moscow, that placed Greece in the british sphere of influence and Romania as a counterweight in the Soviet one, the KKE leadership in February 1946 decided, "after weighing the domestic factors, and the Balkan and international situation," to go ahead with the, "organisation of a new armed struggle against the Monarcho-Fascist regime." The KKE boycotted the March 1946 elections, which were won by the monarchist United Patriotic Party (Inomeni Parataxis Ethnikofronon), the main member of which was the People's Party of Konstantinos Tsaldaris. In September a referendum decided to retain the monarchy, although KKE disputed the results, and King George returned to Athens.

The King's return in Greece reinforced the British influence in Greece. Nigel Clive was then a liaison officer to the Greek Government and later the head of the Athens station of MI6. In his view, 'Greece was a kind of British protectorate, but the British ambassador was not a colonial governor'. Whether this is true or not, it is a fact that six Prime Ministers changed within just two years, an indication of the instability that would characterize the country's political life for the next years.

[edit] Civil War: 1946-1949

[edit] The crest: 1946-1948

Fighting resumed in March 1946, as a gang of 30 ex-ELAS members, most of whom were persecuted, attacked a police station in village Litohoro. Next day, the official KKE paper’s coversheet stated that “The authorities and the gangs fabricate alleged communist attacks”. Contemporaneously, armed bands of ELAS veterans infiltrated into Greece through the mountainous regions near the Yugoslav and Albanian borders. They now were organized as the Democratic Army of Greece (Dimokratikos Stratos Elladas, DSE), under the command of the ELAS veteran Markos Vafiadis (known as "General Markos"), who operated from a base in Yugoslavia, sent from KKE to organize already existing troops.

Both the Yugoslav and Albanian Communist regimes, which had come to power through their own efforts and were not Soviet puppets, supported the KKE fighters, but the Soviet Union remained ambivalent. It was not part of Stalin's strategy to conduct a war against the Western Allies in Greece, and the Soviets gave little direct support to the KKE campaign. Certain historians believe that Stalin's only object in Greece was to test the determination of the western allies.

By late 1946 DSE could deploy about 10,000 partisans in various areas of Greece, mainly in the northern mountains. According to the DSE, its fighters, "resisted the reign of terror that the right-wing gangs conducted all over Greece".

The average and mainly peasant citizen was caught in the crossfire. When the DSE partizans were entering a village asking for supplies, the citizens could not resist. And when the national army was coming to the village the same citizens who had given supplies to the partizans, at gun point, were characterized as communist sympathizers and suffered the consequences (usually imprisonment or exile).

The Greek Army now numbered about 90,000 men, and gradually was being put on a more professional basis. The task of re-equipping and training the Army had been carried out by its fellow Western Allies. But by early 1947 Britain, which had spent 85 million pounds in Greece since 1944, no longer could afford this burden. President Harry S. Truman announced that the United States would step in to support the government of Greece against Communist pressure. This began a long and troubled relationship between Greece and the United States. For several decades the American Ambassador advised the King about important issues such as the appointment of the Prime Minister.

Markos Vafiadis.
Markos Vafiadis.

Through 1947 the scale of fighting increased. DSE launched large-scale attacks on towns across northern Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia, provoking the Army into massive counter-offensives, which then encountered no opposition as the DSE melted back into the mountains and into its safe havens over the northern borders. Army morale remained low, and it would be some time before the support of the United States became apparent.

In September 1947, however, KKE’s leadership decided to move from these guerilla tactics to full-scale conventional war, despite the opposition of Vafiadis. In December the KKE announced the formation of a Provisional Democratic Government, with Vafiadis as Prime Minister. This led the Athens government to finally ban KKE. No foreign government recognised this government. The new strategy led the DSE into costly attempts to seize a major town to be the seat of its government. In December 1947 1,200 DSE men were killed at a set-piece battle around Konitsa. However, this strategy forced the government to increase the size of the Army. Controlling the main cities, the government cracked down on KKE members and sympathizers, many of whom were imprisoned on the island of Makronisos.

Despite setbacks such as the fighting at Konitsa, during 1948 the DSE reached the height of its power, extending its operations to the Peloponnese and even to Attica, within 20 km of Athens. It had at least 20,000 fighters, and a network of sympathizers and informants in every village and every suburb. It has been estimated that out of DSE's 20,000 fighters, 14,000 were Slavic Macedonians from Greek Macedonia.[12] Given their important role in the battle[13], KKE changed its policy towards them. At the fifth Plenum of KKE on January 31 1949, a resolution was passed declaring that after KKE's victory, the Slavic Macedonians would find their national restoration as they wish[14].

Western Allied funds, advisers and equipment now were flooding into the country, and under Western Allied guidance a series of major offensives were launched in the mountains of central Greece. Although these offensives did not achieve all their objectives, they inflicted some serious defeats on the DSE. Army morale rose, and the morale of the DSE fighters, many of whom had been "conscripted" at gunpoint, fell correspondingly.

[edit] The evacuation of children (paidomazoma)

In 1948, the DSE reportedly evacuated about 30,000 children from Greek villages across the northern frontiers, to be brought up under communist regimes.[15] According to official KKE historiography, no such abductions occurred, and any evacuations were undertaken for the children's own protection from the Hellenic Army; according to non-KKE accounts, the children were abducted to be indoctrinated as communist janissaries.[16] Several United Nations General Assembly resolutions appealed for the repatriation of children to their homes.[17]

[edit] The end of the war: 1949

The fatal blow to KKE and the DSE, however, was political, not military. In June of that year, the Soviet Union and its satellites broke off relations with President Tito of Yugoslavia, who had been the KKE's strongest supporter since 1944. The KKE thus had to choose between their loyalty to Stalin and their relations with their closest and most important ally. Inevitably, after some internal conflict the great majority of them, led by Zachariadis, chose Stalin. In January 1949 Vafiadis was accused of "Titoism" and removed from his political and military positions, being replaced by Zachariadis.

After a year of increasing acrimony, Tito closed down the Yugoslavian border to the guerrillas of DSE in July of 1949 and disbanded their camps inside Yugoslavia. The DSE still could operate from Albania, but to the DSE that was a poor alternative. The split with Tito also set off a witch-hunt for "Tito-ites" inside the Greek Communist Party, leading to disorganisation and demoralisation within the ranks of the DSE and decline of support of the KKE in urban areas.

At the same time, the National Army found a talented commander in General Alexander Papagos. In August of 1949, Papagos launched a major counter-offensive against DSE forces in northern Greece, code-named "Operation Torch". The campaign was a major victory for the National Army and resulted in heavy losses for the DSE. The DSE army was no longer able to sustain resistance in set-piece battles. By September of 1949, most of its fighters had surrendered or escaped over the border into Albania. By the end of the month, the Albanian government, presumably with Soviet approval, announced to KKE that it would no longer allow the DSE to perform military operations from within Albanian territory. On October 16, Zachariadis announced a "temporary cease-fire to prevent the complete annihilation of Greece." This ceasefire marked the end of the Greek Civil War.

The Western Allies saw the end of the Greek Civil War, as a victory in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The irony was that the Soviets never actively supported the Communist Party's efforts to seize power in Greece. The KKE's major supporter and supplier had always been Tito, and it was the rift between Tito and the KKE which marked the real demise of the party's efforts to assert power.

[edit] Post-war division and reconciliation

The Civil War left Greece in ruins, and in even greater economic distress than it had been after the end of the German occupation. Additionally, it divided the Greek people for the following decades, with both sides vilifying their opponents. Thousands of Greeks languished in prison for many years or were sent in exile in the islands of Yaros or Makronisos. Many thousands more took refuge in communist countries, or emigrated to Australia, Germany, the USA, and other countries. About thirty thousand underaged children were abducted by communist fighters across the border, and forcibly relocated to Eastern Bloc countries.[18] [1][2][3][4][5][6] (see: Political refugees of the Greek Civil War). The polarisation and instability in the 1960s of Greek politics was a direct result of feelings and ideologies lingering from the Civil War.

There were several incidents of tension resulting from conflicts between Rightist and leftist organisations. A major such crisis was the murder of the left-wing politician Gregoris Lambrakis in 1963 (the inspiration for the Costa Gavras political thriller, Z).

Before the Junta seized power, officers belonging to ASPIDA, a left-wing paramilitary organization of anti-royalist officers, were accused of planning an attempt to take power through a coup. The coup never meterialized, and the officers were court martialed for "treason against the Greek state", and "following a known communist". They allegedly were followers of socialist leader Andreas Papandreou, the son of former prime minister of Greece, George Papandreou, who had led the Center Union political party.

On April 21, 1967, a group of rightist Army officers (later referred to as the Regime of the Colonels) carried out a coup d'état and seized power from the government, using as a pretext the political instability and tension of the time. The leader of the coup, George Papadopoulos, was a member of the paramilitary organization IDEA (Ιερός Δεσμός Ελλήνων Αξιωματικών, or "Sacred Bond of Greek Officers").

After the collapse of the military junta in 1974, a conservative government under Constantine Karamanlis legalised the KKE and quickly established a constitution which guaranteed political freedoms, individual rights, and free elections. In 1981 the center-left-wing government of PASOK, which was elected with a substantial majority, allowed DSE veterans who had taken refuge in Communist countries to return to Greece and reestablish to their former estates. PASOK claimed that this helped diminish the consequences of the civil war in Greek society. Moreover, PASOK government offered state pension to former guerrillas; Markos Vafiadis was honorarily elected as member of the Greek parliament under PASOK's flag.

Leonidas Kyrkos, a Greek left's historical leader, was recently interviewed by Kathimerini and expressed his regrets for not criticizing the leadership of KKE during the Greek Civil War adding "I 'm appalled at the thought of having Markos, a ridiculous person, for PM (...), if our revolution had won. (KKE's leaders were) ridiculous persons, not at all educated so as to play an important role, as they were seeking to." [19]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Γιώργος Μαργαρίτης, Η ιστορία του Ελληνικού εμφυλίου πολέμου ISBN : 960-8087-12-0
  2. ^ Γιώργος Μαργαρίτης, Η ιστορία του Ελληνικού εμφυλίου πολέμου ISBN : 960-8087-12-0
  3. ^ Γιώργος Μαργαρίτης, Η ιστορία του Ελληνικού εμφυλίου πολέμου ISBN : 960-8087-12-0
  4. ^ Chomsky, Noam (1994)). World Orders, Old And New. 
  5. ^ Hobsbawm, Eric (1995). Age of extremes. 
  6. ^ Incompatible Allies: Greek Communism and Macedonian Nationalism in the Civil War in Greece, 1943-1949. Andrew Rossos", The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Mar., 1997) (p. 42)
  7. ^ Werth, Nicolas; Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. , noted at ?. Retrieved on 2007-04-02.
  8. ^ Kessel Album, Athens 1944.
  9. ^ Spyros Kotsakis, Captain in ELAS First Army (1986). December 1944 in Athens, Athens, Sygxroni Epochi.
  10. ^ Daniele Ganser (2005). NATO's Secret Armies. Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, London, Franck Cass, pp. 213-214 (his quote).
  11. ^ C.M. Woodhouse, Modern Greece, Faber and Faber, 1991, p. 253.
  12. ^ Ζαούσης Αλέξανδρος. Η Τραγική αναμέτρηση, 1945-1949 – Ο μύθος και η αλήθεια (ISBN 9607213432).
  13. ^ Speech presented by Nikos Zachariadis at the Second Congress of the NOF (National Liberation Front of the ethnic Macedonians from Greek Macedonia), published in Σαράντα Χρόνια του ΚΚΕ 1918-1958, Athens, 1958, p. 575.
  14. ^ An excerpt from the Resolution of the Fifth Plenary Session of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE)
  15. ^ C. M. Woodhouse, Modern Greece, Faber and Faber, 1991, 1992, pp. 259.
  16. ^ Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 141.
  17. ^ Ods Home Page
  18. ^ C. M. Woodhouse, Modern Greece, Faber and Faber, 1991, 1992, pp. 259.
  19. ^ (Greek) Kathimerini. Thankfully our revolution was defeated!. Retrieved on 2006-12-03.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] English Sources

  • W. Byford-Jones, The Greek Trilogy: Resistance-Liberation-Revolution, London, 1945
  • R. Capell, Simiomata: A Greek Note Book 1944-45, London, 1946
  • W. S. Churchill, The Second World War
  • Nigel Clive, A Greek experience 1943-1948, ed. Michael Russell, Wilton Wilts.: Russell, 1985 (ISBN 0-85955-119-9)
  • D. Close (ed.), The Greek civil war 1943-1950: Studies of Polarization, Routledge, 1993
  • Dominique Eude, Les Kapetanios (in French and Greek), Artheme Fayard, 1970
  • N.G.L. Hammond Venture into Greece: With the Guerillas, 1943-44, London, 1983 (Like Woodhouse, he was a member of the British Military Mission)
  • Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, New York 1948
  • S.N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War, Cambridge, 2006
  • Georgios Karras, ``The Revolution that Failed. The story of the Greek Communist Party in the period 1941-49`` M.A. Thesis, 1985 Dept. of Political Studies University of Manitoba Canada.
  • D. G. Kousoulas, Revolution and Defeat: The Story of the Greek Communist Party, London, 1965
  • Reginald Leeper, When Greek Meets Greek: On the War in Greece, 1943-1945, London, 1950
  • M. Mazower (ed.) "After the War was Over. Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943-1960" Princeton University Press, 2000 (ISBN 0691058423)[7]
  • E. C. W. Myers, Greek Entanglement, London, 1955
  • Elias Petropoulos, Corpses, corpses, corpses (ISBN 960-211-081-3)
  • C. M. Woodhouse, Apple of Discord: A Survey of Recent Greek Politics in their International Setting, London, 1948 (Woodhouse was a member of the British Military Mission to Greece during the war)

[edit] Greek Sources

The following are available only in Greek:

  • Ευάγγελος Αβέρωφ, Φωτιά και τσεκούρι. Written by ex-New Democracy leader Evangelos Averoff — initially in French. (ISBN 960-05-0208-0)
  • Γιώργος Δ. Γκαγκούλιας, H αθέατη πλευρά του εμφυλίου. Written by an ex-ELAS fighter. (ISBN 960-426-187-8)
  • Αλέξανδος Ζαούσης, Οι δύο όχθες, Athens, 1992
  • Αλέξανδος Ζαούσης, Η τραγική αναμέτρηση Athens, 1992
  • Νίκος Μαραντζίδης, Γιασασίν Μιλλέτ (ISBN 960-524-131-5)
  • Γιώργος Μαργαρίτης, Ιστορία του Ελληνικού εμφύλιου πολέμου 1946-1949, "Βιβλιόραμα", Athens, 2001
  • Σπύρος Μαρκεζίνης, Σύγχρονη πολιτική ιστορία της Ελλάδος, Athens, 1994
  • Γεώργιος Μόδης, Αναμνήσεις, Thessaloniki, 2004 (ISBN 960-8396-05-0)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War"
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