The Truman Doctrine

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  • TrueMacedonian
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2009
    • 3810

    #31
    It seems that an independent Macedonia with Macedonians in it would have showed the weakness of the Truman Doctrine and the West. And so the advocates of the Truman Doctrine made sure that this would not happen.


    page 67







    To emphasize what Howard Jones wrote a bit more

    "An independent Macedonia would come at the expense of Greek territorial integrity, which would raise doubts among other nations about the effectiveness of the Truman Doctrine. But if the White House took a firm stand against such a state and it emerged anyway, America's loss in prestige would be even greater. Policymakers in Washington chose to dodge the issue and avoid having the possible establishment of a Macedonian Republic take on the appearance of a diplomatic defeat for the West.
    Slayer Of The Modern "greek" Myth!!!

    Comment

    • Risto the Great
      Senior Member
      • Sep 2008
      • 15658

      #32
      I see little has changed with the USA's intentions towards Macedonia and Macedonian since then.
      Risto the Great
      MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
      "Holding my breath for the revolution."

      Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

      Comment

      • sf.
        Member
        • Jan 2010
        • 387

        #33
        Originally posted by Onur View Post
        because you still didn't tell me your counter-argument.



        Tell me then, what could be the other major factors???
        • Liberate the Arabs from Turkish regime?

        • Create bigger Armenia for the sake of Armenians?

        • Hitler attacked the British alliance at WW-2 only to prove superiority of Germanic race???

        • Save Kurds from Saddam regime and create Kurdistan for the prosperity of them???

        • Save the Bedouins and Wahabi Arabs in Kuwait from Saddam`s oppression, so they can continue to shit on golden toilets and drive limousines made by Ferrari???



        Which one???
        Don't like those. What else have you got?
        Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

        Comment

        • Onur
          Senior Member
          • Apr 2010
          • 2389

          #34
          Originally posted by Risto the Great View Post
          I see little has changed with the USA's intentions towards Macedonia and Macedonian since then.

          I always believed that Western powers was afraid of the possibility that Macedonians might form an alliance with Russia instead of them. So, thats why they preferred Greece to control your territory and they always wanted Greece to have upper hand on you.

          Probably thats why they created Greece out of nothing while ignoring 3000 years of Macedonia reality.


          There is a good article about this here. I read it few days ago;

          http://turkeymacedonia.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/the-problem-with-human-rights/

          Comment

          • Soldier of Macedon
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 13670

            #35

            Murder Inc. in Greece, written by Olive Sutton, April 1948

            X. 1948: YEAR FOR VICTORY

            If this policy is continued the price will be American lives. In the meantime, it is costing plenty of dollars. In terms of take- home pay after taxes, in terms of grocery bills, your weekly outlay for the necessities of everyday living. For with prices spiralling, the Marshall Plan is gravy for the American trusts.

            And there's another price. The current deportation drive is aimed first of all at men and women who expose this war policy, who fight the enslavement of the Taft-Hartley Law, who lead the struggle for price controls, and speak up for the masses of Negro people who demand their rights as citizens, for the masses of Jewish people who protest the State Department's betrayal of the Jews of Palestine.

            The vast majority of people in the world do not want another war any more than you do. They are organizing in every country to make themselves heard. The countries of eastern Europe are consolidating their new republics, ever watchful for plotters against their reconstruction and peace-building programs.

            But that is precisely the kind of thing that infuriates the she- wolf whose lair is Wall Street. Deprived of their old stamping grounds for exploitation and profit because the people have claimed their resources and industries for themselves, the bankers and trusts howl with anguish. If atom bomb threats and hunger. baiting do not work, the guns go off‘as in Greece. If the Greek people won't give in to guns in the hands of Royalist-fascist troops, then American troops must go.

            But Hitler with gas chambers and crematoriums could not exterminate the demand of people to be free.

            It is not necessary for American would-be Hitlers to learn this the hard way, or for us to learn what our government is up to the way the German and Italian people did. World War II could have been stopped in Spain. World War III can be stopped in Greece.

            That means that the Marshall-Truman program must be scuttled and a program of genuine reconstruction and peaceful trade adopted.

            You can vote for this kind of a peace program in November. The Republican-Democrat Marshall Plan parties are opposed by a man who speaks in the tradition of the President who wanted the Greek people to have a chance to solve their problems through "free democratic processes," who put bread before bullets.

            Henry Wallace has proposed a program of foreign aid in this tradition‘a program for reconstruction and trade, for dealing with the people through their chosen representatives, for dealing with governments pledged to preserve the peace of the world through the United Nations.

            Meanwhile, we must demand an end to the shipment of arms to Greece, to the training of troops for Greece, to appropriations for Greek quislings to squander.

            General Markos told the people of Greece in a New Year's Day message over the Democratic Army broadcasting station:


            During the year the Democratic Army has grown, matured, and become as strong as steel ... the Americans want to crush the Democratic Army in order to put into operation their plans against the people. They want to enslave the Soviet Union and the people's democracies. But we have frustrated all their plans and realized the chief aims we set for ourselves in 1947 this year, under the direction of the Democratic government, will be a year of victory.

            This year can be a year of victory for the American people, too, but we have got to fight for it all the way from now until November.

            When the Spanish Republic was attacked by Franco troops armed by Mussolini, we stood up and called it aggression aggression aimed at the whole world.

            Did Mussolini ever openly admit he had delivered even one hundred dollars' worth of military equipment to Franco? He did not.

            Did Mussolini and his henchmen shout that they were fighting "Communist aggression" which threatened Spain?

            They did.

            Today the United States government has proclaimed for the world to hear that over $250,000,000 worth of military equipment has been delivered to the Greek fascists…that American military men are operating at the battlefronts with the Greek fascist army.

            Today the U.S. government is shouting with the loudest of the Greek Francos: Communism…aggression…banditry.

            When the Spanish Republic was attacked, we knew where our front was. We let Congress and the State Department and the White House know we knew…with delegations, picket lines, petitions, demonstrations, marches to Washington.

            "Lift the embargo on arms to the Spanish Republic!" The banners were high in every street, in every city, every town.

            Today Harry S. Truman, George C. Marshall, Herbert Hoover, John Foster Dulles…have branded the United States an aggressor in Greece.

            Where are the delegations, the demonstrations, the petitions?

            Where are the arms to lift our banners?
            In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

            Comment

            • Soldier of Macedon
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2008
              • 13670

              #36

              The guerilla army of ELAS (National People’s Army of Liberation) under the leadership of the KKE (Communist Party of Greece), led the resistance to Nazi occupation during the War. Inspired by the success of Tito’s partisan army in Yugoslavia, ELAS held two-thirds of the country in February 1945, at which time a truce was negotiated with the Royalists.

              In October 1946, DSE (Democratic Army of Greece) launched a campaign to win control of the whole country, and received support from neighboring Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria. Despite the presence of British troops and aid from the US, the Royalists were not expected to last long against the guerillas.

              Citing the situation in Greece, the inability of the British to cope with the situation and alleged breaches of the Yalta Agreements in Romania, Poland and Bulgaria, US President Harry Truman launched the ‘Cold War’. Truman ultimately decided to break irrevocably from the alliance with Stalin formed during the Wold War II, terminating aid to the USSR and pledging significant monetary aid to the Royalists in Greece under the guise of the “Marshall plan.”

              The initial efforts of DSE and affiliated groups were successful, although financial and materiel support from the U.S. and Britain changed the course of the war. Further, the premature tactical changes on the part of DSE as well as internal political upheaval and the withdrawal of support by neighboring Yugoslavia hastened the demise of the campaign. The KKE leadership made numerous political errors which compounded the problems faced by DSE on the battlefield. In October 1949, following the withdrawal of remaining DSE forces into Albania, a treaty was negotiated with the Royalists which signaled the end of the war.

              The defeat of the communists during the civil war by no means resolved the class conflict in the country, and instead signalled the start of 25 years of repression: the KKE remained outlawed, communists continued to be persecuted and sent into labor camps, while their children were designated as “orphans” and sent to church schools for “re-education.” Although some who fled into Albania and neighboring areas were eventually allowed to return to Greece, the ethnic Macedonians (both guerillas and civilians) in Greece who were forced to flee their birthplaces to avoid the repression of the Greek government are still being denied re-entry into Greece to this day despite the fact that they are legally Greek citizens. These restrictions effectively culminate an extensive campaign of ethnic assimilation which has been implemented by the Greek ruling class. The ethnic Macedonians who fled Greece during the civil war period are the last ethnic-political refugees of the era, having withstood a period of exile spanning over half a century.

              The hard right-wing officers of the counter-revolution were given the right to intervene in the political arena, founding organisations for “protection of the country against the communist threat.” This culminated in the 1967 coup and an ensuing 7-year right-wing dictatorship which was fostered by U.S. support. U.S. intervention in the country’s affairs continues in the present.
              In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

              Comment

              • Daskalot
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2008
                • 4345

                #37
                Very good information SoM, but our Greek friends will classify this as communist propaganda and stick their head in the sand as they almost always do.
                Macedonian Truth Organisation

                Comment

                • Soldier of Macedon
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 13670

                  #38
                  Here is some more (this has been posted elsewhere before, but not sure if it was the full article):


                  The second congress of the National Liberation Front has been convened at a very difficult moment, at a decisive moment. Last night Glüchsburg spoke and said that the situation at the beginning of 1949 was more critical than ever before. This assessment is also an indication of the possibilities available to our people's democratic movement. Hence, the decisions which will be adopted by your congress should signify an even greater contribution of your people to the struggle so that together we can make a decisive turn towards victory as early as this year.

                  From this paint of view year congress is: 1. a military congress which should reflect the determination of year people is increase their military contribution. Hence, you should mobilize all the forces of the Macedonian people, all their available resources in a steady marsh to victory.

                  2. Your congress is a congress of unity among the Macedonian people. We know that year organization has in the past years experienced a crisis which had repercussions on the military efforts of the Macedonian people, as well.

                  Today, the National Liberation Frost has purged its organization ideologically and has laid foundations for firmer unity. Your people regard the future with confidence, knowing that as an outcome of victory they will achieve their emancipation end will independently decide the coarse of their future life. On each a basis the unity of the fraternal people will remain intact.

                  3. Furthermore, your congress is a congress of complete unity between the Greek end Macedonian people. Erroneous perceptions have been removed since this question was formulated an a proper basis end since the two peoples are striving for common goals. Thus, after the Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece, your congress will ideologically and politically clarify one of the fundamental problems end will strengthen unity. This unity is an indispensable precondition for victory, for if we were to fight separately we would not be able to defeat monarchofascism. This unity must be preserved because it is the basis for victory and because it is the object of our enemy's attack. This unity will secure our victory. However, we should be aware that the path to victory is difficult and that we face net only monarchofascism but also the united international imperialistic reaction, which, embodied in the Americans and the British, provides manifold support with the supply of arms, an air force and the stationing of British forces in our country. In addition, preparations are being made for the sending of American forces. However, in spite of all this, with our unity end our all-out combat we can thwart their plans.

                  We all knew how great the difficulties ore facing our movement And we should observe them with wide open eyes, because it is the only way to overcome them. These difficulties are great and common to our two peoples.

                  (Here the speaker made a remark about traitorous actions and then continued

                  The Macedonian people, especially in the Vič region, gave everything they had for the struggle and were truly defeated. They gave their children, their girls and everything they had. This superhuman sacrifice has resulted is hardships which should be overcome. These hardships spring from the war, from the intensity of force. These are the difficulties of war. However, there were other, subjective difficulties, which made the burden even heavier and which compounded ether difficulties. There people gave all they had for the struggle. However, when a tighter or a quartermaster behaves badly with these people, then he is undermining unity. We have witnessed each acts and many of the offenders were condemned, however we could not tied all the culprits. We meat onto these obstacles and consciously overcome them. Only in this way will we be able to strike the warm which the enemy infiltrates to undermine our unity.

                  People have ether difficulties as well. One at them is the mobilization at young women. All of us understand that we are not in favor of such a thing. It is not right that we should send our girls oft to be amputated. It is neither natural nor humane, however it is a natural measure imposed by the higher interests at our two peoples, it is imperative to our struggle. This measure has caused much misunderstanding which has been shooed by the enemy. However, we mast sacrifice everything in the light for freedom. This is the only way for the Macedonian people to regard the above-mentioned measure. It will give them new courage and hence their pate will be subordinate to the interests of the struggle.

                  The other difficulties are: hunger, bombardments, poverty, cold, etc. Fatigue has entered into same weak souls and the enemy is striving even more to weaken them farther in order to facilitate oppression.

                  From this rostrum the Macedonian people should discover some other truths which will assist them in their straggle. Comrade Vurnas spoke a while ago on behalf at the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the Greek Farmers Party about the suffering of the people an Peloponnesus. The entire Greek people suffers no the Macedonian people suffer. The Macedonian people have act yet experienced what the people of Rumelia have suffered. All of you remember the 40 children all children of officers and fighters of the Democratic Army of Greece, the children who were carried by their mothers from one mountain to another, from one gorge to another, and who were caught and slaughtered by the monarchofascists. Today, thousands of children in Rumelia, Thesalia and on the Peloponnesus live in the wilderness in unheard-of difficulties and deprived of everything. We shall not allow such a tragedy to occur here in Vič. Here the people have not experienced such difficulties. Thousands of children were caved and are provided for in the countries of the people's democracy. In this way the Slavic-Macedonian people can be at peace.

                  As far as the young women are concerned, you should know that thousands of young women from Rumelia and Thesalia are fighting just like your woman here. You could have heard at the conference of the Democratic Women of Greece that 40% of the Democratic Army of Greece in Rumelia are women who did not have the possibility, as they do here, of going home so rather than be killed and raped they have taken up guns and fight. Well, comrades, when we see all of this, we can conclude that just so the two peoples me equal, everyone in Greece is equally molting sacrifices. This is how we should view this question today and how we should explain it to others and thus restrain and isolate who panic and are traitors.

                  Now I shall say a few words concerning those who undermine unity. Those who flee and desert the struggle and who sop that they will be sold out by the Greeks, those who have, betrayed these people for they can defend their people only with gnus in hand. Those who say that this wash is s lie and for cowards, those who are hiding, like lizards and trying to save their own skins. Those who have abandoned their people say: let someone else go to the devil. These cowards and underminers of unity, who aid monarchofascism should be condemned as deserters and traitors by your congress.

                  Only a general mobilization of your people will create favorable conditions on that they can be transformed into a decisive factor of victory.

                  The position of monarchofascism is critical. Those who have not managed to destroy us despite their might daring the past three years cannot understand that today we ore an indestructible wall. Today they are passing through great difficulties. A member at the British parliament, Churchill's former minister far the Mediterranean, MacMillan said: unless we support monarchofascism it will be destroyed in the summer. Sophoulis stated that he would be grateful if the American army came to Greece. In such a situation the monarchofascism are seeking to sane their skins. On basis of such an assessment made by our enemies you must make a further contribution to the common victory. Comrades, we shall win. The past three years have shown that monarchofascism was never in a position to defeat us. These three years distinctly show that we can win, only if we wish to.

                  When we resumed our resistance, some of our friends, particularly in the West, taught that we were doomed. They saw no future in our struggle. We know the hardships we had to face an the path we have chosen. Nevertheless, we could chaos so other path. These hardships, which were great in the beginning, we can overcome even today. But we must be determined, persevering, and seize the victory from our enemy. Your congress should put a seal on the decisions which will be adopted in that you can be sure that 1949 will be a decisive year for victory.

                  Just one more decisive factor for the victory of the people's democracy lies in the following: other comrades have also stressed that the camp at the people's democracies is growing stronger while international reaction seeks to devise seen more difficulties for them and hopes to find an outlet in a new war. On our side we have all at progressive mankind. This is evidenced by the moral and material support which we see receiving from the democratic peoples.

                  The Americans are considering bringing their army to Greece. We are not afraid of this, since people fighting for their freedom are afraid of nothing. They know that all the world's democrats are on their side and hence they are certain at their victory.

                  Fighting at this prominent position of international democracy as fighters and free sharp-shooters, we have the great mission at destroying monarchofascism.

                  As the basis for our efforts we shall base our unity as a precondition for success, hence we cannot but win.

                  Long live the unity of the two peoples!
                  In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                  Comment

                  • Soldier of Macedon
                    Senior Member
                    • Sep 2008
                    • 13670

                    #39

                    During the First World War, the executioners who governed the people put specially trained police units and professional killers in charge of the massacre of the internationalists. During the Second World War, the Stalinists took this responsibility upon themselves.

                    At the time of the "liberation" and the "national" government, they were the true masters of the country. In their speeches and their communiqués they missed no opportunity of assuring the world that they had no intention of seizing political power through violence, and that they were for law and order. They wrote in their journals "In times like these, safeguarding order and normal political life are a national duty. Do not take the law into your own hands. Anybody who is arrested must surrender to the police against a receipt. District secretaries take personal responsibility for this order."

                    The same people unleashed a ferocious pogrom against the internationalist communists and all the elements inclined to be critical. Some hundreds of workers and intellectuals, connected by their whole soul to the cause of socialism, fell under the knives, the cudgels and the bullets of the riff-raff that the Stalinist clique had recruited in the underworld for this work. We will cite here only a few of their names.

                    They killed the journalist Spaneas before the "liberation". He was discussing with some young workers in Ilyssia, and there acquainted them with Lenin's positions on war and the tasks of the working class. At their second meeting somebody new had come. And when Spaneas left, the newcomer shot him in the back and killed him.

                    After the revolution they captured and killed Dimosthenis Voursoukis(1), one of the most devoted, active and competent militants, and one of the best trained, an escaper from Acronauplia. We denounced his arrest in thousands of leaflets and a committee went to protest to Tsirimokos. The latter told us, trembling, that he could do nothing.

                    They killed the student Thanassis Ikonomou(2), after putting out his eyes. He had joined our ranks from Ghyzi's EPON(3) along with a number of others.

                    They killed Thymios Adramytidis, the purest and most modest of militants, in the courtyard of the hospital of Evangelismos, where he worked, on the morning of the 3rd of December while he was calling for a demonstration for "liberty" and the "rights of the people".

                    They slashed the throat of Panyotis Tsingelis, in the way they slaughter lambs a worker who escaped from the islands, just after capturing him at Vathis.

                    They killed Nikos Aravantinos, an old internationalist communist well known throughout the island of Cephalonia for fighting in the movement of workers and peasants, for which he had paid the price of long years in prison and exile. The Germans had killed his father, a well known progressive teacher.

                    They killed Y. Doxas(4), a housepainter, N. Mouskas, a café waiter, the Themelis brothers who worked in the tobacco industry, K. Haritodinis, an artisan, P. Panayatodis, a tailor, brother of N. Panayatodis(5) who was killed in Acronauplia.

                    They killed the archeomarxist(6) workers Zouris and Tzilkas.

                    They killed Stavros Verouchis(7), blinded by gas during the war, secretary of the Federation of Disabled and Victims of War(8), and elected member of the PEEA. They killed him because, at Platanistos, in Eubea, after the discovery of a store of oil, he had insisted that the oil be shared among the peasants who were dying from lack of vitamins, and not to the partisans' military stores, as the official of the Communist Party of Greece had demanded.

                    They killed P. Tzinieris (P. Skytalis), a teacher, graduate of the KUTV(9), secretary of the Athens regional organisation, then of the cell covering East Macedonia and Thrace, author of a series of works on the labour movement. In September 1930, the archeomarxists had beaten him up in Kavala, and unable to get treatment there he came to Thessalonika and lived with me for a time. I had the same prejudice against him as against all the kutvists. But I knew him to be a most elevated, cultivated man, devoted with his whole soul to socialism. We became friends. During the internal struggle of the Communist Party of Greece in 1930-31 he sent me a letter practically imploring me not to push things to the point where I would find myself outside the party. It seems that he had diverged from the party some years later and in his turn found himself outside the party. But he never took part for a moment in antiparty activity and was resolutely against Trotskyism. During the occupation he went to his village, at Kounina near Aigion. He was known throughout the region and not just in his own village: everybody respected him and viewed him as a pure, honest and cultivated communist. One day, Velouchiotis(10) passed through Kounina and asked for him. It was he, Tzinieris, who had taken Th. Klaras, the future Velouchiotis, onto the Athens regional committee, when all the previous secretaries had accorded him no importance. They discussed for hours. Who knows what they said to each other? Who knows how this authentic revolutionary would have criticised the archikapetanios of a nationalist movement? Some days later they arrested him and took him under escort into "Free Greece". There they put him in a concentration camp. He went on hunger strike and his executioners let him die.

                    They killed Assimidis(11) (G. Konstantinidis, Gatkos), a graduate of the Lenin School, nominated by the Communist International in November 1931 to Zachariadis'(12)] central committee. He quickly found himself in disagreement, and, as was the rule in the party, was expelled. He abandoned all political activity then, and devoted himself to his profession as a lawyer. But he had been in disagreement with Zachariadis, and had accused him of being paranoid and a gangster, and that was enough for them to kill him.

                    They killed Stergiou in Thessalonika, an old communist tobacco worker and self-taught cartoonist. He produced all the cartoons for The Workers' Voice. This comrade was loved by all, regardless of their tendency.

                    They killed Al. Douvas. He was with Assimidis at one stage, but he had withdrawn from activity at the same time. He gave him a "position" in Acronauplia. Every morning he distributed the cigarettes which the Group allocated to each of the detained. They killed him because he had once been a partisan of Assimidis.

                    Stalin had executed his brother, G. Douvas, secretary of the Federation of Communist Youth, member of the Political Bureau of the CPG and of the Executive Committee of the Communist Youth International, in Russia during the great massacre of communists in 1936-38.

                    They killed Damaskopoulos, the most active cadre in the civil servants' union.

                    They killed Gakis and Kapenis(13), old cadres of the CPG, when the latter were fighting in the ranks of ELAS. They had sinned by disagreement with Ioannidis(14) and Bartzotas(15) in Acronauplia.

                    They killed Yannis Kalogeridis(16), one of those who had killed the policeman Gyphtodimopoulos on May Day in 1931. He had been condemned to many years imprisonment and eventually ended up in the prison of Egina. There he came into conflict with Tyrimos, a CPG Deputy, who later joined the security police and during the occupation the tsoliades of Rallis(17). After being released from prison, Kalogeridis took no part in any political movement. He worked in a small restaurant, where they found him and killed him because he had disobeyed Tyrimos some years previously.

                    They killed Kostas Speras(18), an anarchist cigarette maker, secretary of the trade union centre in Athens before the foundation of the trade union federation and principal leader of the rising of the iron miners in August 1916. He had taken part in the first two congresses of the CGT where he had defended anarcho-syndicalist ideas. But subsequently he had distanced himself from all political activity.

                    They killed Stelios Arvanitakis(19), the anarchist cigarette maker, who had been alone in Greece in protesting against the massacre at Kronstadt. During the general strike of August 1923, he was one of the leaders of the Communist Union, the combat organisation that led the workers of Pireus. Expelled from the CP on the decision of the International, he lived outside any organisation after that, like a worker supporter of anarcho-communism. When I was in Thessalonika I used to see him often and we discussed frequently. He remained faithful to his convictions to the end.

                    And these were only a few of the hundreds, if not thousands of militants, or of simple innocent people, of people above suspicion whom the OPLA(20) killed. At Kokkinia, at Agrinion and possibly other places, the women in black were the mothers or the wives of the old communists assassinated by the national communists of Siantos and of Ioannidis.

                    Most of these crimes occurred during December.

                    This "popular republic" which we knew and experienced in December 1944 in Athens was the worst possible discredit, ridicule and condemnation of socialism. The workers, when they were not being used for auxiliary tasks, went in peril of their lives in the town, looking for food to keep themselves alive, while the ELAS fighters were exchanging fire with government troops.. The OPLA groups, the civil guards and the judges were the incarnation of the "peoples republic", and presented its true face. These groups searched night and day for suspects to feed to the judges and the cemeteries. A suspect was anybody who did not appear in their card index. They requisitioned all the houses and searched the passers by. If you were found with Trotskyist newspapers it was the death penalty, carried out on the spot. It was equally suspect to be in possession of Rizopastis(21) or Marxist literature; why would anybody read them who did not appear in their card index? It was dangerous too to be found with any bourgeois newspaper whatsoever, or with a photograph of the king.

                    They had arrested Gl., a communist schoolmistress for many years, who had been a member of Pouliopoulos's(22) organisation for a long time. But they didn't know it, and that saved her. They arrested her because she was known as an old communist, but not as a member of the CPG. She came to find me after her interrogation, to tell me to be careful because they had questioned her about me. "How can I tell you, I knew the judges and the police her as well as I did in Poland when I was active in the movement, but I have never met such bestiality and such stupidity as in this EAM(23) judge. His questions were imbecilic, most degrading and coarse. I had to restrain myself from hitting him in the face with my handbag. Next to me, in two or three groups, a bunch of poor women and small children were trembling while waiting their turn to go up in front of this brute."

                    That happened in Pancrati. In other areas it was the same thing, sometimes worse.

                    I was living in Pyrgotelous Street in Pancrati with A.M. On the morning of Monday the 4th, Kleanthis arrived from Kaissariani, persecuted by people he had himself recruited to communism. Less than half an hour had passed when we heard the loud sound of boots on the stairs; four armed men appeared, demanding our papers and began a search. They found nothing, because we had made sure there was nothing to be found. I had false papers. They left after asking us several questions. We left immediately after them. As our neighbours recounted to us, hardly a quarter of an hour later a detachment of ten men entered the house. They seized whatever they found in our room, carried out close questioning about us and took five or six people in front of the judge to complete the enquiry.

                    I went to Thalis's place, two or three streets further down. Thalis was a doctor and ELAS had signed him up. Up above Vyronas, on the heights, he had improvised a hospital and run up the Red Cross flag. But they (ELAS) had camouflaged a cannon next to it. Thalis told them it was not right to put a canon under the Red Cross flag. He drew upon himself this furious response, admitting of no reply: "Doctor, mind your own business and not ours." At this juncture, we learnt that they asked the residents of the neighbourhood if they knew or had heard anything about the Trotskyists. On the evening that Thalis told us what kind of reply he had got from them, towards midnight we got ourselves on the way under cover of darkness, under fire from bullets and mortar shells, stumbling over corpses with every step, and eventually getting ourselves to Nea Smyrni.

                    I stopped first of all with Tam, and later with Kal. The national guard and the English arrested us. They too interrogated us, they sniffed our hands in case they smelled of gunpowder and then let us go.

                    They also arrested Castoriadis in December. But those who had caught him by luck did not know that he figured among the highest on the list of those they were hunting, and they let him go after questioning.


                    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    1. A leading member of the OKDE (Organisation of Internationalist Communists), later of the KDEE (Internationalist Communist Union) Ða rival organisation to which Stinas belonged. Imprisoned in the Acronauplia camp during WW2 where he participated in the famous debate among imprisoned revolutionaries. Dazy reports him explaining Aeschylus to workers in Piraeus.

                    2. According to Dazy he was 18 years old when murdered.

                    3. The Unified Pan-Hellenic Youth Organisation.

                    4. Yorgos Doxas, born in Karabourna (Asia Minor). Joined the archeomarxists in 1928 and the Leninist Opposition in the CPG in 1932. Thereafter co-founded the group "Nea Diethnis" and later the "Workers Press" when it split from the Bolshevik Tendency. Contributed to the attempts to unify the Trotskyist groups in Greece.

                    5. A supporter of the KDEE

                    6. The "Archeomarxists" were named after their journal "The Archives of Marxism". They split off from the Communist Party of Greece in 1923 to follow a course of building a "true communist party" on the basis of a serious theoretical education (which was the purpose of the journal). From 1929 to 1934 they were the section in Greece of the International Left Opposition. After a split in 1934, one section supported the London Bureau, while the other merged with the Spartacus group (which itself had split from the CPG in 1927, led by Pouliopoulos) to become the 4th International section in Greece.

                    7..Verouchis is known to have joined the KDEE with a group from the OKDE in 1933. During the occupation he was active in the resistance (EAM) and elected to its leading body (the PEAA Ð Political Committee of National Liberation) by the Platanistos district. At this time he argued that the resistance could be transformed into a movement for socialist revolution, and that consequently the revolutionaries should integrate themselves into it. As Stinas points out (p 80) Verouchis's tragic end demonstrated the falsity of his illusions in the nationalist resistance movement.

                    8. The Federation of Disabled and Victims of War was organised after WW1 and had branches in most cities and towns. Pouliopoulos was among the early leaders, with other CGP figures

                    9. Communist University of the Peoples of the East organised in Moscow

                    10. An important leader and commander of ELAS Ð the army of national liberation. Dazy (pp 268-9) reports that in the Agrignon district the Trotskyists, led by Anastasiou Panayotis, organised the local EAM. Velouchiotis invited them to a conference at his headquarters in Agraphlia and had them shot.

                    11. A founder of the Federation of Communist Youth. Went to the Lenin School in Moscow during 1928, and on his return to Greece became part of the new CPG leadership installed by the Comintern in 1931. Opposed the turn to social-patriotism of 1935 which was supported by the majority of the central committee. According to Stinas, the Assimidis tendency was the final appearance of revolutionary politics in the CPG.

                    12. Nikos Zachariadis arrived in Greece from Constantinople in 1922-3 among a wave of immigrants. Was active in the Federation of Communist Youth in the mid 1920s. Sentenced to imprisonment in 1925 under the Pangalos dictatorship and escaped from the fortress prison of Yedi Koule to return to political activity. Supported the Stalin line against the Left Opposition in the 1927 Congress of the CPG. In 1931 was part of the new leadership installed by the Comintern, a de facto purge of all elements remotely suspected of support for the Left Opposition. Zachariadis in effect became the "party boss" at this time. In October 1940 published, from prison, an open letter advocating support for the war against Italy. This was published in the press by the Government. At first the CPG activists still at liberty denounced it as a fake. Stinas cites Zachariadis convoluted attempts to blame Tito for the disastrous defeat by the "Democratic Army".

                    13. Stinas (p 214) quotes from "Acronauplia" by Yannis Mannousakas (which does not seem to exist in any language except Greek) as follows. "Finally to close this sad chapter, I feel it is my duty to say two words on their end. At the beginning of the occupation Gatkis received orders from the Volos organisation to join the maquis. A short time later, the partisans recognised his bravery and ability by appointing him as chief of ELAS in Pelion. But when Bartzotas and others were released from Sotirias, and Ioannidis from Petras, the sent an order to the Thessaly organisation to decapitate Gatkis. The also killed Kapenis whom they found in the region of Agrinion where he was the EAM leader for the village. They put the word around that they had been captured and killed by ELAS while serving with the Germans. So Bartotas and Ionnaidis did not allow them, even after the iniquitous death they put them to, to find a little rest in the soil of their own country, the history of which, I am sure, will show that they struggled for the people and progress, and that they died with honour."

                    14. Yannis Yoannidis established a reputation in the CPG in the early 1920s by refusing to issue party cards bearing the portrait of the former social democrat Benaroyas. Later became, in Stinas's words "a most sinister bureaucrat". According to Dazy it was Ioannidis who, when Germany invaded Greece, persuaded the guards at Acronauplia that the Stalinists should be released as they were covered by the Stalin-Hitler pact, while the Trotskyists should remain in prison to await the arrival of the Nazis. Many were then held as hostages and killed in reprisal for resistance activity against the occupying Nazi forces.

                    Not to be confused with the Y. Ioannidis who belonged to the KDEE.

                    15. Stalinist cadre in Acronauplia

                    16. Kalogeridis refused the demand of the Stalinists in Acronauplia to reject his archeomarxist past, and as a consequence was not permitted by them to take part in a mass escape.

                    17. Prime Minister during the occupation. He created the tsoliades (often known as the evzones), to hunt down the resistance.

                    18. In September 1920 Speras had opposed the CPG's proposal for "reciprocal representation", which would have meant a takeover by the CPG of the independent trade unions. Stinas had been present at his congress, and met Speras again in prison during 1938.

                    19. Described by Stinas as "for many years the voice of the most extreme tendencies in the Party". The Communist Union was made up of CPG members who found it necessary to break from the party in order to give adequate support to strikes and struggles. Following "bolshevisation", the rank and file were re-admitted but not the leadership.

                    20. Organisation for the Protection of the People's Struggle

                    21. "The Radical", the CPG's daily newspaper, from 1916

                    22. A central figure in the history of the left in Greece. Born 1900. Delegate to the 5th Congress of the Comintern. Member of the CC and eventually Secretary general. Improsined at age 18 for the CPG's support for Macedonian independence. Expelled from the CPG in 1927 for opposition to Stalinism and founded the Spartakos group. Shot by Italian troops with over a hundred other militants in June 1943. The CERMTRI publication (see introduction above) provides a longer biographical note.

                    23. National Liberation Front
                    In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                    Comment

                    • Soldier of Macedon
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2008
                      • 13670

                      #40
                      This one is pretty long so I will only cite some parts of it:


                      On December 13, 1946, the monarcho-fascist forces, shattered and defeated by the democratic army, burnt the village of Skra near Kilkis and killed many women and children. Of 110 houses in the Macedonian village of Kupa, the monarcho-fascist murderers set fire to 107. Thousands of people, hungry and barefoot, took to the forest.
                      Macedonia is a hell. In the region of Katerina, which contains 20,000 inhabitants, 2,000 democratic citizens were arrested. In western Macedonia concentration camps for the extermination of arrested democrats have again been set up in the towns. The monarcho-fascists had provisionally closed down these camps for the sake of appearances when the Enquiry Commission of the Security Council arrived in Greece.
                      In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                      Comment

                      • Soldier of Macedon
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2008
                        • 13670

                        #41
                        Here is something around the time that Tito turned against the Macedonians:


                        DURING THE last weeks, the Tito clique have increased their world campaign of slander against the Soviet Union and the Popular Democracies. New repressive measures have been taken against Yugoslav Communists who have a real internationalist outlook. New measures, too, have been carried out against Soviet citizens living in Yugoslavia. Moreover, the Tito Government has integrated still more closely with Western imperialism its aggressive policy and actions against the peoples of Greece and Albania.

                        At first, the Greek monarcho-fascist press treated the Tito descent into the imperialist camp with some reserve. They were jealous that the Titoites would replace them in the hearts, and on the pay roll of the imperialists. Lately, however, a close co-operation has developed between the Titoites and Greek fascists. Tito's decision with regard to Greece, writes the right-wing Greek paper Vema (13.7.49):

                        "irrespective of the pretexts he gives for this act, represents the fulfilment of an old and persistent aim of Britain and the other Western Powers…No one doubts the honesty of Tito's attitude and his real intention to carry out the announced decision."

                        In Washington, the Yugoslav Ambassador, Sava Kosanovic, was in conference with Dean Acheson, U.S. Secretary of State, on August 16. The next day the Yugoslav Chargé d'Affaires in Athens had an official meeting with the Permanent Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Greek Government. The Greek right- wing press referred to this meeting as an "official step towards establishment of friendly relations between the Athens and Belgrade Governments". On August 16, Free Greece Radio reported that Yugoslav troops had shelled the Greek Democratic Army in the rear and flank when re-grouping in the St. Stephanos area, south of the Yugoslav border.

                        The News Chronicle correspondent in Northern Greece reports (22.8.49) that:

                        "Although nothing can yet be cabled of the collaboration between Athens and Belgrade, there have been instances of co-operation on a local scale along the border."

                        One of the main roles that Western imperialism has assigned to the Titoites is pressure and aggression against Albania. Tito is reviving the old Serb chauvinist anti-Albanian policy and, jointly with the Greek fascists, plotting aggression against Albania. New Greek aggressions have taken place on Albanian territory during the last few weeks. Greek troops and planes (obtained from Britain) have violated Albanian territory. The Greek right-wing press calls for full- scale invasion. According to a United Press dispatch of August 17, the Greek press of that date was loudly calling for the "march on Tirana ". The right-wing Akropolis wrote:

                        "The glorious army only awaits the signal to take the situation in its own hands by marching on Tirana." The equally right-wing Ethnos proclaims that: "The Albanian cancer must no longer poison peace in the Balkans."

                        Well synchronised, the Yugoslav Titoites join in the campaign of threatening anti-Albanian slanders and provocations on the Albanian frontier. The Athens correspondent of the British Daily Dispatch wrote (11.8.49):

                        On-the-spot observers believe the time is ripe for action against Albania, cut off from the East by a hostile Yugoslavia."

                        And at the expense of the achievements and independence of the Yugoslav people, Tito reaps the fruit of treachery. President Truman himself announced that permission has been given, after full review by the U.S. National Security Council, to import from the U.S.A. materials for a 3 million-dollar steel mill, and the delegation of the International Bank is now scrutinising Yugoslav economy to make sure, before its loan is granted, that its use will fully accord with the interests of American "free enterprise ".
                        In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                        Comment

                        • Risto the Great
                          Senior Member
                          • Sep 2008
                          • 15658

                          #42
                          and the delegation of the International Bank is now scrutinising Yugoslav economy to make sure, before its loan is granted, that its use will fully accord with the interests of American "free enterprise ".
                          So much has changed yet some things never seem to change. The IMF is still the tool of USA interests.
                          Risto the Great
                          MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
                          "Holding my breath for the revolution."

                          Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

                          Comment

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