History of the SNOF/NOF

[akritas]

Mr Stefov in his articles mentioned many times as sources the Greek Communists in order to prove the accrossities that happened from the Metaxa Dictatorships ruler. He forgot as usual a part of History that the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) during the German/Bulagarian/Italian occupation of the Greece and the role of the International Communist Liberate Movements. One of the was the SNOF

The History of SNOF had two periods. The first one that start from the birth date in October 1943 until 2 Aug 1944.

The second one start from the 2 Aug 1944 with the emergence of the “People's Republic of Macedonia” at the first meeting of the Antifascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) until 6 May 1945 when the called “Aegean Macedonian Brigade” was disbanded and its members incorporated into the Yugoslav army, while Tito gradually assumed control over Yugoslav Macedonia.

[akritas]

1st Period (October 1943-2 Aug 1944)

The founding of the Slavo-Macedonian Popular Liberation Front (SNOF) in Kastoria in October 1943 and in Florina the following November was a result of two factors: the general negotiations between Tito's envoy in Yugoslav and Greek Macedonia, Svetozar Vukmanovic-Tempo, the military leaders of the Hellenic Popular Liberation Army (ELAS), and the political leaders of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in July and August 1943 to co-ordinate the resistance movements; and the more specific discussions between Leonidas Stringos and the political delegate of the GHQ of Yugoslav Macedonia, Cvetko Uzunovski in late August or early September 1943 near Yannitsa. The Yugoslavs’ immediate purpose in founding SNOF was to inculcate a Slavo-Macedonian national consciousness in the Slavophones of Greek Macedonia and to enlist the Slavophones of Greek Macedonia into the resistance movement in Yugoslav Macedonia; while their indirect aim was to promote Yugoslavia's views on the Macedonian Question.

The KKE had recognised the Slavophones as a “SlavoMacedonian nation” since 1934, in accordance with the relevant decision by the Comintern, and since 1935 had been demanding full equality for the minorities within the Greek state; and it now acquiesced to the founding of SNOF in the belief that this would draw into the resistance those Slavophones who had been led astray by Bulgarian Fascist propaganda. However, the Central Committee of the Greek National Liberation Front (EAM) had not approved the founding of SNOF, believing that the new organisation would conduce more to the fragmentation than to the unity of the resistance forces.

This made the KKE all the more cautious with regard to the new organisation's activities. SNOF's progress must be examined in relation to the political developments in Yugoslav Macedonia. Although Tempo managed early in 1943 to establish a Communist party in Yugoslav Macedonia and a GHQ, with Mihailo Apostolski in command and Uzunovski as political delegate, the organisation of the resistance began as soon as the Italians had surrendered and the defeat of Germany was imminent. The resistance movement in Yugoslav Macedonia had two political programmes. The one represented by Tempo and the newly-established Communist Party gave priority to battling against any form of manifest or latent pro-Bulgarian sentiment in Yugoslav Macedonia and to bringing the region into the Yugoslav federation. During the War, the question of uniting the three parts of Macedonia and incorporating them into federal Yugoslavia was considered to be of secondary importance. Attention was chiefly given to spreading propaganda about the right to self-determination of the “Slavo-Macedonian people” in Greece and Bulgaria.

Tito shared this view. During the War, veterans of the interwar Bulgarian IMRO and political cadres of IMRO (United) who had accepted Slavo-Macedonism as an ethnic preference now regarded the main objective as being the unification of the three parts of Macedonia into a single state, whose postwar future was to involve not necessarily inclusion in a Yugoslav federation (in which they foresaw a new form of Serbian dominance over Macedonia), but rather membership of a Balkan federation or else independence under the protection of the Great Powers. This policy was chiefly supported by Metodija Andonov-Cento, Mane Cuckov, and Kiril Petrusevski. In 1943, Kiro Gligorov (former President of the FYROM) also favoured this solution. All the same, regardless of their priorities, both sides acknowledged the right of the “Slavo-Macedonian people” to unification.

The founding of SNOF coincided with the second meeting of the Antifascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in late November 1943 at Jaice. The Council decided to federalise Yugoslavia and incorporate Macedonia. However, the borders of Tito's “Macedonia” did not appear to include the Yugoslav section alone. The Council elected Dimitar Vlahov as the representative for Greek Macedonia and Vladimir Poptomov as the representative for the Bulgarian section. Directly after the Jaice meeting, military liaison officers from Yugoslav Macedonia (Kiro “Dejan” Georgievski, Petre “Pero” Novacesvski, Kole “Kolja” Todorovski-Kaninski, and Dobrivoje “Orce” Radosavljevic) infiltrated Greek Macedonia to spread propaganda to the effect that the “Macedonian people” in Greece should fight not for equality, as the KKE urged, but for self-determination, unification, and a People's Republic of “Macedonia” on the Yugoslav model, and that they should strive for a separate GHQ and separate armed units.

Although the Yugoslav propaganda met with little response from the district committee of the Florina SNOF (whose members included Petros Pilals and Stavros Kotsopoulos), it was eagerly embraced by the district committee of the Kastoria SNOF (whose members included Paskhalis Mitropoulos (Paskal Mitrevski), Naoum Peyios (Naum Pejov), Lazaros Papa1azarou (Lazo Poplazarov), and Lazaros Ossenskis (Lazo Damovski-Osenski)). The immediate aims of the Kastoria SNOF were to disarm the slavophone villagers who had been armed by the Bulgarians, to persuade them to join SNOF, and to inculcate a Slavo-Macedonian national consciousness.
To this end they were publishing a newspaper titled Slavjanomakedonski Glas. Given the Communist position on the existence of a “Slavo-Macedonian nation”, members of SNOF demanded that the KKE recognise the Slavophones' right to self-determination. In a letter to the party organisation in Kastoria dated 24 lanuary 1944, Lazaros Ossenskis wrote:

The KKE promises the Slavo-Macedonians full equality in the framework of a People's Republic. However, the prime objective of its struggle is the liberation of the Dodecanese and Cyprus, whose people will be free to take their place in people-governed Greece. The Slavo-Macedonians justifiably ask, Why do they not leave us free to build our own culture and our national ideals, for we too are something separate, we are not Greeks, we are a Slavo-Macedonian race with different ideals, but they want us to remain within the Greek framework, giving us only equality. How does this square with the declared principles of the self-determination of peoples?

[akritas]

Paskhalis Mitropoulos, a graduate of the Law School of Thessaloniki University, was particularly active. Thanks to him, in March 1944 the slavophone sections of the 9th ELAS Division were omcially named the ('SIavo-Macedonian Popular Liberation Army” (SNOV) and wore their own badge on their forage-caps. In April 1944, the Yugoslav agents prevented the Slavophones from taking part in the elections for members of the Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA). The blatant nationalist and autonomist propaganda of some of SNOF's leading cadres and the organisation's close dependence on the GHQ of Yugoslav Macedonia provoked such alarm in the KKE's Macedonia Bureau and in the Macedonian Divisions Group that in May 1944 it was decided to disband the organisation and amalgamate it with EAM. On 16 May 1944, at Mitropoulos' instigation7, some sixty Slavophones, led by Naoum Peyios and Yorgos Touroundzas defected at Karaorman, seat of the GHQ of Yugoslav Macedonia, vilifying ELAS and EAM for their erroneous policy towards the Slavo-Macedonians.

In an attempt to resolve the crisis that had broken out between the 9th ELAS Division and the GHQ of Yugoslav Macedonia, a committee from the 28th Regiment led by Adjutant Haralambos “Athanatos” Haralambidis went to Karaorman and met Kiro “Dejan” Georgijevski on 23 May. Haralambidis protested against the smear campaign being waged against EAM and the KKE by the military liaison officers from Yugoslav Macedonia, demanded that Tito look into the matter, and presented the following demands:
1. that recruiting cease on Greek territory,
2. that all anti-EAM propaganda cease,
3. that Yugoslav partisans seek refuge on Greek territory only when under strong enemy pressure and only for a few days at a time, pending the resolution of all the contentious issues,
4. that Peyios and the other deserters be handed over with their weapons,
5. that Touroundas be handed over (with protests about the delay),
6. that terrorist tactics for collecting food on Greek territory cease,
7. that ELAS be consulted before any action on Greek territory,
8. that in the absence of ELAS from certain areas, SNOF liaise with the political organizations in its contacts with the people Georgijevski informed Tempo, who in turn told Tito.

Although Tito felt that the Greek Communists' attitude to the issue of the “Macedonians” in Greece was not correct, in order not to impair the Greek resistance movement he recommended that there be no discussion of the unification of Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia for time being. Following Tito's advice, on 17 June 1944 the GHQ of Yugoslav Macedonia sent out a circular to the political agents travelling around Greek Macedonia in which emphasis was laid on the need for a joint struggle between the Greek and the “Macedonian” people.

The Macedonian people in Yugoslavia, in a fraternal common struggle with the Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Montenegrin people, are today achieving their dream: a free Macedonia in a democratic federal Yugoslavia. To achieve this national liberation and equality is the goal of the whole Macedonian people today, of all the Macedonians, including those in Greece and Bulgaria....Only through fraternal concord and the common struggle with the Greek and Bulgarian people can the Macedonians in Greece and Bulgaria achieve their full national liberation and equality, achieve the right to determine their own destiny, a right which the Atlantic Charter guarantees to all enslaved peoples struggling against Fascism.

All the same, the Yugoslav side criticised the KKE before the Soviet military mission at Tito's HQ on the island of Vis for its incorrect policy vis-a-vis the Macedonian Question. On the basis of the information from Yugoslavia, Fitin, the head of Soviet espionage, wrote to Dimitrov:

I write to inform you of the intelligence we have received from Yugoslavia regarding the attitude of EAM to the Macedonian Question. In the course of their task of organising the partisan movement in Macedonia, the representatives of the Yugoslav Popular Liberation Army have encountered strong opposition from the EAM partisans. EAM advocates the old Greek border and denies Macedonia self-deterrnination. The Communists also support this stance. In a discussion with a representative of Marshal Tito, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the KKE said that there can be no question of self-determination for Macedonia, since there is no “Macedonian people” as such. The Greek Communists in Macedonia are firmly opposed to the Macedonians' bid for self-determination. They will not allow the Macedonians to conduct their religious ceremonies except according to Greek custom and they persecute those who worship using the Slavonic sacred books in out-of-the-way churches. The Macedonians are forbidden to offer any kind of assistance to Marshal Tito's representatives.... Owing to the exacerbation of the Macedonian Question, EAM partisans have virtually ceased fighting the Gerrnan conquerors in “their” Macedonia.

These accusations were essentially groundless. After 1934, in accordance with the policy laid down by the Communist International, the KKE recognised the existence of a “Slavo-Macedonian nation”, even though the Slavophones in Greek Macedonia were in fact a small linguistic group, rather than a minority in the sense in which the term is used in international law. To recognise their right to self-determination during the War would essentially have meant acknowledging their right to secede, which would have severely prejudiced the EAM/ELAS resistance movement. The KKE felt that the Slavo-Macedonian issues would be resolved only after the War on the basis of democratic principles. After Andreas Dzimas had visited Tito's HQ on 20 June 1944 as the KKE's representative and made contact with the Soviet delegation, in his first report (to General Korneev, head of the Soviet delegation) on the situation in Greece, dated 29 June t944, he mentioned the Yugoslavs' accusations.

[akritas]

All this despite the warm welcome and support we give them. I appeal to you to intervene and set this unpleasant situation to rights. For the sake of 120,000 Macedonians, the Yugoslavs want us to lose the Greek people, who have naturally become extremely sensitive to the national question of late. All the Greek governments in exile would like to exploit this sensitivity to imbue the Greek people with the Great Idea and with chauvinistic sentiments. I beg you to mediate”.

General Korneev’s mediation was not considered necessary in the end, because Tito had already intervened to settle the matter. In June 1944, the Central Committee of the KKE decided to allow the Slavophones who had fled to Yugoslavia to return, provided they submit to a process of self-criticism. Although SNOF was not re-established as a political body, the KKE's leaders decided to set up separate SlavoMacedonian battalions. The Central Committee of the KKE was prompted to this decision by the necessity for closer collaboration with Tito, both at the military level_owing to the Gerrnans' massive mopping-up operations against ELAS in the summer of 1944 and the reestablishment of the autonomist Bulgarian organisation Ohrana, chiefly in the Edessa area_and at the political level_on account of the KKE's embarrassment after the signing of the Lebanon Charter. On 16 June 1944, a separate Slavo-Macedonian battalion was set up in the Aridaia-Edessa area as part of the 30th ELAS regiment.

This was done on the initiative of Markos Vafiadis, at whose instigation the ELAS GHQ issued the order, despite the opposition of the Macedonia Bureau. Lefteris Foundoulakis of Crete was appointed commander and GeorgiD2odLo Urdov political delegate. The haste with which the Slavo-Macedonian battalion was established on Kaimaktchalan was due to the pressing need to undermine Ohrana's bases. On 24 June 1944, Siandos sent Andreas Dzimas a telegram asking him to draw Tito's attention to the German and Bulgarian Fascists' efforts to start up a autonomist movement in Macedonia, as also to the necessity for ELAS and the SerboMacedonians (the Slavo-Macedonians of Yugoslav Macedonia) to make concerted efforts to win the Slavo-Macedonians over and recruit them into separate Slavo-Macedonian armed divisions. Siandos obviously thought Tito was in a position to control future disruptive moves by the Slavonic-speakers.

[Ptolemy]

Nice topic Akritas. I remember having somewhere infos about SNOF and as soon i will find them, i will post them here.

[akritas]

www.macedonian-heritage.gr/downloads/library/Sfetas01.pdf

It's from Mr Sfetas article. I am just broke up the article in order to understand the SNOF easyli.

[Spartan]

Here are some independant numbers on the total deaths during the Greek Civil War. The numbers include Communist deaths, Government deaths and Civilian deaths by the Communist(Democratic Army).

Site:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat3.htm#Balkan

Greek Civil War (1943-49): 158 000
Our Times: 50,000
Hartman, citing Jan.1951 Stratiokita, the Greek general staff weekly:
Greek Army: 12,777 killed, 4527 missing
Civilians executed by Communists: 4,289
Communists: 38,000
[TOTAL: 55,066, maybe 59,593]
WPA3: 12,777 Greek soldiers; 38,000 Communists
Howard Jones, "A New Kind of War" (1989) estimates 13,000 govt. dead or missing + 38,000 guerrillas, and cites ...
Kousalas: 16,753 gov't dead
Averoff-Tossizze: 36,839 guerillas counted, but probably 50,000 killed.
O'Ballance: 158,000 total
P. Johnson: 80,000
C. M. Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece
70,000 dead on the gov't side, incl. 15,000 soldiers
38,000 rebels killed.
5,000 executions, both sides.
TOTAL: 128,000
Urlanis: 148,000
Edgar O'Ballance, The Greek Civil War : 1944-1949 (1966): 158,000 dead, half Communist forces, half Govt and civilians. He also cites Greek govt figures for 6/1945-3/1949:
Democratic Army (Comm.): 28,992 k.
Greek Natl Army: 10,927 k + 3,756 missing
Civilians: 3156 executed by DA and EPON + 731 k. by mines, etc.
[TOTAL: 43,806 to 47,562]
Clodfelter
Greek National Army: 15,969 k.
Greek Democratic Army: >50,000 k.
TOTAL: 158,000
B&J: 158,000
T. Lomperis, From People's War to People's Rule (1996): 158,000
Singer: 160,000
Eckhardt: 160,000



Pay attention to the "CIVILIANS excecuted by the D.A(COMM) and EPON.


The majority of atrocities against civilians were commited by the Democratic Army(communist) and the FYROMs. Of course I am quite certain that there were some commited by the government forces as well, but probably not enough to register on the list.

I love how the FYOMs always talk about how they were treated by the Greeks during the war but always leave out the treeatment of the Greeks by their forces and the Communist.

[akritas]

A fotograph from the Civil war.Is from the book
Airforce in the Civil War by Elias Kartalamakes. Volume B, page 460 and edition 1998


Greek General Dimitrios Yantzis, US General Van Flet ahead in the Communist HQ at the Prespes Region in 1949. You can see clearly in the Slavic Dialect a text that said:
"Hail General Marko and the Democratic Army."


According the estomations the 50% of the Communist Army in the Macedonia region composed of Slavmacedonians (SNOF and x-Ohranites) tha had as aim the occupation of the Macedonia.

http://img473.imageshack.us/img473/2303/civilslavelas8ol.jpg

a great thanks to my friend Giannis M.

[akritas]

The Slavophones in Macedonia, Bone of Contention, WW II


The mopping-up operations of the occupation forces came as the nemesis in the drama of the Greek civil strife. In summer 1943 the Germans launched their first major operation against ELAS in Western Macedonia. which resulted in the fall and destruction of Siatista and a large number of villages in the regions of Kozani and Grevena. Meanwhile, Bulgarian penetration had assumed dangerous proportions.

Taking advantage of Italian incompetence and the German need for releasing more troops for service on other fronts, since early 1943 Sofia had been seeking to extend its control over the rest of Macedonia. As the activities of Bulgarian agents intensified, Bulgarian units from occupied Yugoslavia often entered Greek soil and terrorized thepopulation. In spite of their initial reservations, the Germans, under the pressing requirements of the Eastern Front, conceded on 8 July 1943 to the extension of the Bulgarian zone of occupation over the area between the Strymon and Axios rivers. At once, popular reaction broke out in mass demonstrations and strikes throughout the German zone, while the desperate representations of the Athens regime to the occupation authorities had only a temporary effect. Eventually, the capitulation of Italy in September 1943 forced the Germans to take control of Western Macedonia themselves with the occasional `assistance' of Bulgarian forces.

Bulgarian penetration had grave implications for the Resistance, EAM in particular. In Western Macedonia, the Italians had allowed Kalchev, Mladenov and their associates, among them many former IMRO members, to arm pro-Bulgarian elements and to set up the notorious Ohrana (Defence) bands in order to combat the increasing guerrilla activity. These bands, a resurgence of the komitaji legacy, became the nightmare of the local population. At the same time, arms were distributed to a number of `reliable' Slavophone villages for use against the guerrillas.23 The situation seemed to dictate an effort on the part of the Greek resistance to try to win over at least part of the Slavophone element, all the more so as a new challenge had emerged: increasing
Yugoslav interference. Tito's partisan movement was already engaged in an effort to gain a foothold in southern Yugoslavia, where the Slav population had initially greeted the Bulgarian occupying forces as liberators. Soon, the partisans' attention turned to Greek Macedonia too.

During June and July 1943, Svetozar Vukmanovic-Tempo, Tito's lieutenant in in southern Yugoslavia,at successive meetings with representatives of EAM and the Albanian resistance put forward the idea of a joint Balkan Headquarters to exercise supreme control over the partisan movements of Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria and Greece. Moreover, with the professed aim of combating Bulgarian propaganda, Tempo asked for the recognition to the `Macedonian people' of the right to self-determination as well as permission for the partisans to extend their activity among the Slavophone element in Greek Macedonia.

On the question of the setting up of a joint Balkan Headquarters, Andreas Tzimas, the EAM representative in the talks with Tempo, signed an accord on 25 June and the command of ELAS issued orders to this effect. The leadership of EAM, for its part, although perceiving certain advantages in cooperation with Tito's powerful movement, in the event rejected the apparent Yugoslav bid for leadership. Only a few days after Tzimas signed the accord, Georgios Siantos,
secretary-general of the KKE and the EAM Central Committee, in a meeting with Tempo in Thessaly, repudiated the signature of his representative and the whole scheme was abandoned. EAM also rejected any reference to the `national question' in Macedonia, since, according to Siantos, this "could blow (EAM's) whole work to pieces".

To the Yugoslav slogan of self-determination, EAM and the KKE countered the recognition of equal rights to all minorities. There was an agreement, however, for political and military cooperation between Greek, Yugoslav and Albanian resistance units in adjacent areas. This meant in practice the unimpeded movement of Yugoslav partisans and instructors in the sensitive borderlands of Western Macedonia. Although it did not accept Yugoslav involvement in the organization of guerrilla bands in Slavophone areas, EAM consented in late 1943 to the establishment of a distinct organization, the Slav-Macedonian National Liberation Front (SNOF), which it
attempted to keep under its control. Moreover, some ELAS officers, particularly those formerly serving in the Greek Army, undertook to check the activities of SNOF in the military field

However, it soon became clear that EAM's decision had opened Pandora's box.

quote from
Modern and Contemporary Macedonia, vol. II, 64-103.,Giannis Stefanidis

[akritas]

British and SNOF

It is an indisputable fact that the British tried to prevent ELAS from entering Thessaloniki in October 1944. But to allege that, in their efforts to weaken ELAS, British soldiers went so far as to encourage the Slavophones' irredentist aspirations against the territorial integrity of Greece is a baseless hypothesis that directly contradicts British policy. There can be no doubt that Stringos' and Vafiadis' views were a result of their political prejudices about the role of the British. In his confidential final report on his activities (1 December 1944), Captain P. H. Evans, liaison officer in Western Macedonia from March to December 1944, mentions no private transactions with Goce, merely that they met once53. By his own admission, Evans knew nothing about the Macedonian Question. He never doubted the existence of a SlavoMacedonian patriotic sentiment, which, however, he regarded as more in the nature of a localistic feeling. What particularly struck the young officer was the fluidity of the Slavophones’ national consciousness,which was determined chiefly by motives of self-interest. Evans' final conclusion was that the Slavophones could easily remain in the Greek state, since it ensured them better living conditions and permitted them to speak their local dialect, as also that no objective preconditions existed for a “free Macedonia”.

There can be no doubt that, during the occupation and in order to keep EAM together, the KKE handled the Macedonian Question sensitively. However, the recognition of the existence of a “Macedonian nation” (which was the KKE's fundamental mistake and the source of its inconsistent policy vis-a-vis the Macedonian Question), the confusion of the national and the ideological sphere, and above all the influence of external factors, all had the effect of making the Slavophones in Greek Macedonia opt for different political choices than the official party line. But the situation was not out of control, and the majority of the Slavophones preferred to fight in the ranks of ELAS, rather than SNOF and the Goce Battalion. The unstable political situtation in Greece following the Varkiza agreement, coupled with the Civil War, presented the KKE leadership with some difficult decisions and made the Macedonian Question its Achilles’ heel.

Sources:

M. Vafiadis ,Apomnêmoneymata, vol. II (1940-4), Athens 1985. p. 201.
A. Rossos, “The Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia: A British Officer's Report, 1944”, The Slavonic and East European Review, 69 (1991), No. 2, 304.
“It is this perfect duplicity of the Macedonians which makes them difficult to know. It is hard to rind out what they are thinking.... I have often been struck by this ambivalence or more-thanambivalence of the Slavs in Greece, their willingness to go in this direction or that according to the vagaries of propaganda and the altering pressure of circumstances. They are a set of muddleheaded peasants who perhaps hardly know from one month to the next what they really want”, op.cit., pp. 297-8
“If Greece can give the Macedonians what they want_freedom of language and a somewhat better life_they want to remain Greek citizens... There can be no independent Macedonia. Even if one regards it,as I do, as right, in the abstract, that there should be, one has to concede that practically it is undesirable”, op.cit., pp. 298, 308.

[Tsontos]

http://www.macedoniaontheweb.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Grcommunists.JPG

[Flipper]

I usually ask them "Do you think we (The Hellenes) woke up one day and decided to kick you out? Don't you think there was something behind that action?". When I tell them the story they don't believe me ofcourse since I had only one written source from answers.com but no book. Enjoy...

From The Logic of Violence in Civil War - Cambridge University press, page 312


After the end of the occupation and the demobilization of the communist partisans (1945-6), the reconstructed Greek state persecuted leftists and Slav Macedonians alike. Trials of collaborators were used as an opportunity for ethnically motivated persecution as well as the pursuit of all kinds of local feuds. As a result many slav Macedonians, both those who had participated in EAM but also many who saw action in the various collaborationist militias, fled across the border into the Republic of Macedonia, newly formed as part of the Socialist Yugoslavia. Whereas during the occupation many Slav Macedonians had claimed a Bulgarian identity and collaborated with the Bulgarian troops, many now claimed a Macedonian identity and looked up to Tito's Yugoslavia; many amongst them joined an independence movement (NOF) and the unit known as the First Aegian Brigade. Both organizations were closely allied with Yugoslav Macedonia's Communist authorities, who themselves maintained complex ties with the Greek Communists. At the mass level there was a growing overlap between Slavophonic linguistic identity the Slav Macedonian (or Macedonian) ethnic identity, and the propensity to side with the Communist Left in 1946-1949. Although the overlap was no complete, with a significant minority of Slav Macedonians siding with the Greek goverment, it is clear notheless that most Slav Macedonians either collaborated with or openly fought with the Greek Communist rebels between 1946 and 1949 - 85 percent according to one estimate (Rossos 1997:63). Conversely many Greek settlers especially in mixed villages, supported the Greek Right, even though they had been ardent supporters of the Liberal Party during the interwar period (Marantzidis 2001).

In short, although the Greek Civil War in Macedonia was by no means an ethnic war, it took on pronounced ethnic character. The Slav Macedonians "made a significant, indeed critical contribution to the communist side during the civil war in Greece"; they bore the brunt of the war, since they inhabited regions of Macedonia where the heviest fighting took place. Their participation in the ranks of the rebel army was very high, "far out of propotion to their relatively low number in the total population of Greece at the time...Their estimated representation in the DSE (The Democratic Army of Greece, as the communist rebel army was known) ranged from more than a quarter in April 1947 to more than two-thirds in mid-1949". By 1948 the communist party "had become almost totally depended on the relatively small, mainly Slav Macedonian populated areas it held in central and western Macedonia. Importantly, however, the nature of the Slav Macedonians participation in the Greek civil war (at least at the elite level) was nationalist rather than communist. The communists were convenient allies in a strugle that was supposed to lead to secession from Greece and a merger with the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.




In a civil war the side who wins prosecutes those who they consider war criminals. In this case another ethnic, non-Greek group entered a civil war not of compassion but for their own sake of nationalism.

Before I close, I want to state that I do not take sides [Left or Right] in the matter of civil war BUT i condemn both sides for killing each other in the name of the cold war.

[Flipper]

From answers.com (http://www.answers.com/topic/macedonians)

Second World War

During Second World War (1941-1945), the inhabitants of Vardar Macedonia took part in the anti-fascist coalition. The uprising began in 1941 in the cities of Prilep and Kumanovo. In Greece, it has been estimated that the military wing of KKE – DSE (Democratic Army of Greece) had 14 000 soldiers of Slavic Macedonian origin out of total 20 000 soldiers. Given their important role, the KKE’s General Secretary Nikos Zachariades proceeded to change his party’s policy on Greek Macedonia. At the fifth Plenum on 31 January 1949, a resolution was passed claiming that the Macedonian people are distinguishing themselves, and that after the liberation they will find their national restoration as they wish it. In August 1949 the DSE was defeated in Grammos and Vitsi. [7]

[akritas]

The Tito Heresy

This saying, which was going the rounds at the end of 1949, may or may not prove to be justified. But its mere circulation testifies to the impact of the Tito heresy. Time will tell whether Tito will become the Luther of the Communist world. But his heresy already has caused as much controversy and soul-searching as the nailing of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses on the church door. And his effect on the Greek civil war was not confined to metaphysical disputations. The Tito-Moscow rift smashed the common front of the northern Balkan states against Athens, and contributed significantly to the disintegration of the Greek guerrillas in the summer of 1949.

The roots of the schism go back to the middle of World War II. The Communist "line" throughout the world at that time was unity--unity within the Allied countries and unity among the Allied countries. The Communist leaders of the Greek resistance forces obediently toed this line. Hence their entry into the royal exile cabinet to form a national unity government in spite of the fact that they already were virtual masters of the country. Hence also their willingness to permit British troops, obviously sent for purely political reasons, to land in Greece. In December 1944 the Greek Communists paid the price for their orthodoxy when Churchill smashed their resistance army while Stalin looked on without lifting a finger. A few months earlier Stalin had divided the Balkans with Churchill, leaving Greece to Britain's sphere. One wonders what the faithful Greek Communists would have thought had they known that at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 Stalin blandly assured Churchill that he had complete confidence in British policy in Greece, and that Churchill in turn thanked Stalin for his kind words.

Meanwhile Tito, unlike his Greek comrades, was deviating from the party line. In 1943 he decided that he had a large enough army and had won enough territory to warrant the establishment of a provisional government. Moscow urged instead that the government question be postponed until after the war. Tito nevertheless went his own way and convened the first meeting of the "AntiFascist Council of National Liberation" in November 1943 at Jajce. This probably explains why the Soviet government trailed the British and American governments in announcing open support for Tito's partisans.

After the end of the war Tito continued to show his independence. The dispute over Trieste is a good example. Tito was then demanding Trieste for Yugoslavia. He felt that the Soviets were not supporting his claim strongly enough, and attributed this to their desire to strengthen Togliatti in Italy. "It is said," declared Tito, "that this is a just war, and we have considered it such. However, we also seek a just end. We demand that everyone shall be master in his own house. We do not want to pay for others. We do not want to be used as a bribe in international bargaining."

This, coming from a Communist leader, was heresy--a dangerous heresy with a natural and universal appeal. "The mortal sin was the notion of equality and independence-the equality of Communist parties, the independence of Communist states."

Moscow reacted quickly against the heresy. "Tell Comrade Tito," the Soviet ambassador warned, "that if he should once again permit such an attack on the Soviet Union we shall be forced to reply with open criticism in the press and disavow him."

The heretic refused to recant. Instead, he committed more sins. He criticized the behavior of Soviet officers and officials in Yugoslavia. He presumed to lecture the Communist parties of other countries for their lack of militant programs and leadership. He tried to form a Yugoslav-Bulgarian federation, which Moscow forestalled by ordering Dimitrov to withdraw. And when Tito found that he was being spied upon, he put some of his secret-service men to work shadowing the Russian diplomats and industrial experts in Yugoslavia.

Thus there was no alternative to carrying out the earlier threat of excommunication. In June 1948 the Cominform,
expelled the Yugoslav party in an angry proclamation. The expectation apparently was that this would bring down the Tito regime and put the Yugoslav government in orthodox hands. It did not. Instead, "Titoism," a new word in the Marxist lexicon, spread to minor epidemic proportions throughout the eastern bloc.

"Karl Marx is God, Lenin is Jesus, Stalin is St. Paul, and Tito the first Protestant."

source:
1-Greece: American Dilemma and Opportunity ,by L. S. Staurianos

[akritas]

The critical five years: 1945-50
[ Greece and The Macedonian Question,Etairia Makedonikon Spoudon]

Nonetheless the Slavo-Macedonians, with the backing of the newly- formed Tito regime in Yugoslavia, kept up their efforts. Just a few days after the Varkiza agreement, Slavo-Macedonian èmigrès from Greece formed an organisation named NOF (National Liberation Front) in Skopje, and sent armed guerrilla bands back to the border areas of Greek Macedonia. The activities of these bands attracted the criticism of the KKE, since they were in conflict with the terms of the Varkiza agreement and gave the government forces an excuse for applying severe measures to suppress them.

However, when the Civil War began in 1946, the Slavo-Macedonians, returned to Greek Macedonia in great numbers and joined the Greek Communist movement, while still retaining their own organisation, the NOF. To judge from the various collections of documents and memoirs which have been published in Skopje, the Slavo-Macedonians — that is, the part of the Slavic-speaking population whose national consciousness was Slavic — were fighting what they saw at this time as a "national liberation struggle for the Macedonians of the Aegean" in order to win their national rights. These rights were none other than the policy which Yugoslavia was officially pursuing at this time and which was intended to incorporate the Macedonian territories of both Greek and Bulgarian Macedonia into the Socialist Republic of Macedonia.

In the meantime, and while the outcome of the civil war in Greece still hung in the balance, the Yugoslavs exerted unbearable pressure on their Bulgarian comrades in order to blackmail them into ceding Bulgarian Macedonia to Yugoslavia. In the end, by the Bled accords of 1947, Dimitrov agreed, in return for minor concessions, to acknowledge the inhabitants of Bulgarian Macedonia (Pirin) as "Macedonians" and to pave the way for the incorporation of the province of Pirin into the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. The incorporation of Greek Macedonia would await the outcome of the civil war.

The split between Stalin and Tito, which occurred suddenly in the summer of 1948, upset all the Yugoslav calculations about playing a leading role in the Balkans using the Macedonian question as the central lever. Bulgaria seized the opportunity to release itself from the concessions it had made over the Macedonian question. It repudiated the theory of the "Macedonian nation" and drove the commissars from Skopje off its territory. It then attempted to exploit the difficulties which the Yugoslavs were facing in order to advance once more the pre-war slogan of an "independent and united Macedonia ". This slogan also served to increase the more general political pressure which the Soviet Union was at that time exerting on Tito.

The Moscow-Belgrade split, however, also had dramatic repercussions for Greek Macedonia. The leadership of the KKE judged it to be expedient to fall into line with the Soviet Union in attacking Tito and at the same time adopt its new policy towards Macedonia. Thus, by decision of the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee, in January 1949, the KKE revived the old pro-Bulgarian slogan of the "independent and united Macedonia" in the framework of a future Balkan Communist Federation.

This shift of policy had grave consequences for the course of military operations, since the Yugoslavs, in order to protect their own rear, closed the border with Greece, which until that time had been the main channel through which supplies had flowed to the Communist forces in Greece. Some of the NOF supporters fled to Yugoslav Macedonia, where they settled. Later, when the armed conflict ended in August 1949, the remaining masses of NOF supporters followed the other Greek political refugees into exile in the countries of Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union.

The final outcome of those five tragic years was that those Slavic- speakers who had originally joined forces with the Bulgarians during the occupation and later identified with Skopje's Slavo-Macedonians left Greece. This was the last exodus from Greek Macedonia of people who felt themselves to be Slavs or had pro-Slav sentiments. Certainly, in the maelstrom of the fighting and the events of the time injustices must have been done, and consequently there later occurred a kind of selective repatriation of Slavic-speakers with Greek national consciousness. Those Slavic-speak­ ers with Greek national consciousness who had been fighting to keep Greece free and Macedonia Greek ever since the Macedonian Straggle remained in Greece . It was these frontier fighters who, even in the most difficult times, refused to become instruments of the Bulgarians' occupation forces or of Tito's SNOF and NOF.
Yugoslavia , faced with the nightmarish prospect of a Soviet invasion, sought support in the West, which opened up the way for the normalisation of relations with Greece and the signing, in 1954, of a tripartite Balkan pact of defensive alliance, of which Turkey also was a member.

The new circumstances led Yugoslavia to drop the territorial demands it had been putting forward and to restrict itself to formal claims for the recognition of "Macedonian" minorities. These claims were, however, to­ tally insubstantiated, since the objective conditions to justify them no longer existed. The KKE, on its part, soon realised the enormous political cost of the decision taken by the 5th Plenum and reversed it with a theoretical position involving "the equality of the Slavo-Macedonians". However, since the Slavo-Macedonians concerned were no longer in Greece , this position gradually lost force and was officially abandoned with the categorical statement by General Secretary Harilaos Florakis in Thessaloniki in September 1988 that "for the KKE, there is no Macedonian minority in Greece".

Lastly, Bulgaria too dropped the slogan of a united Macedonia after the death of Stalin in 1953. After a considerable amount of vacillation — directly connected to the state of Soviet-Yugoslav relations at any given time — Bulgaria also adopted the position that there is no "Macedonian nation" and that consequently there can be no "Macedonian" minority in Bulgaria.

As a conclusion, after the upheavals of the period 1940-50, the three sections of Macedonia went over to licking their wounds and have since followed, peacefully, the political, economic and social development of the countries to which they belong.

[akritas]

SNOF at the beggining


Most of the Slavophone inhabitants in all parts of divided Macedonia perhaps a million and a half in all - felt themselves to be Bulgarians at the beginning of the Occupation; and most Bulgarians, whether they supported the Communists, IMRO, or the collaborating government, assumed that all Macedonia would fall to Bulgaria after the war. Tito was determined that this should not happen. The first Congress of AVNOJ in November 1942 had paranteed equal rights to all the 'peoples of Yugoslavia', and specified the Macedonians among them. By inplication, the guarantee could be extended to Pirin (Bulgarian) Macedonia and Aegean (Greek) Macedonia. The Communist Party of Macedonia, which had passed through a troubled time, first under a pro-Bulgarian leadership and then under pro-Yugoslav Macedonians, was taken in hand early in 1943 by Tempo, who formed a new Central Committee and informed it that it was now an integral part of the Yugoslav CP.

After suitable re-indoctrination, the Macedonian CP issued a pro-Yugoslav 'Ilinden Manifesto' on 2 August, the anniversary of a national rising in 1903. Tempo told them that they could look forward to unification and autonomy within a Yugoslav Federation. This prospect was confirmed by resolutions passed at the second Congress of AVNOJ, held at Jajce at the end of November. It was said to have the approval of Moscow, but this was untrue. Stalin expressed indignation, and so did the Fatherland Front of Bulgaria (including, but not yet dominated by, the Communists), which urged a rival policy of 'an integral, free and independent Macedonia'. Tito in turn repudiated this policy in a message to Dimitrov on 24 January 1944.

....................

[Chris Woodhouse, The Struggle for Greece, 1941-1949, page 67]

[akritas]

One from the building that used Communist querillas in NE Macedonia.Picture came from the book of Alexandros Zaouses and has title Tragiki Anamaetrisi(1945-1949)

http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/8113/civilslavdse2nu3.jpg

[akritas]

One from the known leader of the NOF a was Keramijiev or Stamko. His opinion regarding the education in the “minorities” was:


If we give Greek school to the Ellinozontes Slav Macedonians as you said, and if there are Bulgarizontes Slav Macedonians then must give also and Bulgarian schools.

In this case I am afraid that we would be a tail of a small part of people that have distorted national conscience


Source:
[AM-Skopje, Fond 996 –Egeska Makedonija vo Graganskata 1946/49/25/44, Stamko Report 31-10-1947].

[Teukros]

I've read an article in a magazine about SNOF and Gotse and I'd like to ask because I couldn't find the answer there, if those *****left Greece or managed to remain here.I suppose if they did stay here now they are the supporters of Ouranio Toxo eh??But have they been removed??

[akritas]

I've read an article in a magazine about SNOF and Gotse and I'd like to ask because I couldn't find the answer there, if those *****left Greece or managed to remain here.I suppose if they did stay here now they are the supporters of Ouranio Toxo eh??But have they been removed??
These raiders left to the Vardaska. Gotse was one from the NOF leader and left in 1944.

[Teukros]

Thanks a lot

[akritas]

Gotse (Elias Demakis )

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) exercised a vacillating and often seditious "Macedonian" policy for Macedonia, aligning itself with Comintern's anti-Greek position, undermining its own unity and its leaders credibility. The KKE was compelled to cooperate with Bulgarian autonomists, such as Gotse or Elias Demakis.

Except Gotse Paschal Mitrofsky, Naum Pejov, and others were among the first to transform themselves from Ochrana-Nazis to SNOF communists. Some of Ochrana's methods, besides terrorization, were similar to those of SNOF:

demand that the Slavomacedonians openly declare their ethnic identity
proselytize the KKE leaders sympathizing with the Bulgarian dreams and plans
cooperate, when feasible, with proBulgarian ELAS leaders John Koliopoulos (Plunderes Loyalities, 1999, page 153) mention as about his life:

Last but not least in this galaxy of Slav Macedonian leaders and communist cadres involved in the process of turning 'Bulgars' into 'Macedonians' was Elias Dimakis or Gotse (named after Gotse Deltcev, a hero of the struggle for Macedonia killed in 1903 and claimed first by the Bulgars as Bulgar and afterwards by the founders of the People's Republic of Macedonia as Macedonian). Dimakis was a native of Melas, the Korestia village named after another hero of the same struggle, Pavlos Melas, killed there in October 1904. When he was still a child his family moved to Florina, where he attended the town's Greek elementary school. His father emigrated to the United States but returned after some seven years to Florina and set up as a baker with his son as assistant. Ilias soon became known locally as a thief and served terms of imprisonment, his last being shortly before the war. He is said to have become a communist during the Metaxas dictatorship, when he was imprisoned for his political views but released shortly afterwards after publicly renouncing communism. He was tall, strongly-built and brave. He flirted with local Komitadjis before being co-opted into ELAS and joining SNOF.

After a decision of the Macedonian Bureau of the Communist Party of Greece, and the necessary order from the commander of ELAS 28 Regiment, the 'Vitsi Detachment' was divided in September 1944 into 25 battalions, of which the 2nd became the 'Slav Macedonian Battalion'. As commander of the new unit Kosmas Spanos or Amyntas of Lechovon, a seasoned ELAS commander, was appointed with Gotse as the political commissar. The division was decided on after a sudden increase in the number of men of the initial unit, the result of 'the enlistment lately of a considerable number of men', according to the relevant regimental order.

In November 1944 Gotse made Monastiri his headquarters and worked hard at reorganizing his band, recruiting widely from refugees in Greece. Before very long he had a body of about a thousand men, which he named the "First Aegean Strike Brigade". Gotse himself became the Brigade commander. As his second-in-command he chose Naum Pejov, a veteran of the SNOF and Ochrana ,a native of the village of Gavros, near Kastoria.Pejov had fled to the PRM in June 1944. Dimakis Political Commissar was Mihail Keramiziev, from the same village as Pejov, with Vangel Ajanovski-Oche from the Edessa region as Keramiciev deputy.

The influx of men which made the creation of a new unit necessary was due to the accelerated pace of recruiting 'disarmed' Komitadjis and Okhranite which increased even faster now that the Slav Macedonians of Greece had their own unit to accommodate all the 'misguided' brethren.

Many Bulgarian komitadjides, afraid they might be punished after the war, suddenly became "Macedonians" and joined the Yugoslav partisans, their motivation surely being the desire to dissociate themselves from the crimes they had committed and the treasonous acts perpetrated against their country. Many escaped to Yugoslavia and joined the armed bands of the Bulgarian fascist Vancho Mihailov of IMRO. Some joined the Yugoslav partisans, whose leadership did not care whether they were komitadjides or Ochranists. ELAS make huge mistake as George Papavisas (Claiming Macedonia,2004, page 142) remarks :

It allowed formation of the "Slavomacedonian Battalion," with Gotse as its political commissar, to absorb the komitadjides defecting from the Germans. In less than a month, the battalion doubled its strength, incorporating many German or Bulgarian collaborators. The battalion became the salvation for many desperate individuals attempting to avoid reprisals at war's end: komitadjides, Ochranists, Siavomacedonian adventurers, Bulgarian and Yugoslav agents, and autonomists guided by communists freed from Akronafplia by the Germans, struggling to bury their Bulgarian past.

The journey from Bulgaria to SNOF, to western Macedonia, and then to Yugoslavia was completed. Gotse had assumed four nationalities: Greek, Bulgarian, Slavomacedonian, and finally communist Yugoslavian; were he alive today, he would certainly have been "Macedonian" in FYROM, a direct blood connection to Alexander the Great!

This is the story of a "Bulgarian" that transformed in "Macedonian"

Sources (and recommended for reading):

John Koliopoulos, Plundered Loyalties, 1999
George Papavizas, Claiming Macedonia,2004
Macedonism, FYROM'S Expansionist Designs against Greece after the Interim Accord (1995), 2007
Spyridon Sfetas, Autonomist Movements of the Slavophones in 1944, 2002

[Truth Bearer]

So what eventually happened to Demakis??

[akritas]

So what eventually happened to Demakis??
What did you mean ?:dry:

[Demetrius Doukas]

http://truth.macedonia.htm

[akritas]

Gia thn Makedonia mas kai mono.
Kalo einai auto to eggrafo na to deixoun se kapoious.....
VLEPETE DEN EIMAI AMERIKANOS


http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/6750/reporttothesecuritycounrr5.jpg

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/7021/reporttothesecuritycountx5.jpg



http://modern-macedonian-history.blogspot.com/search/label/Documents%20and%20Macedonia

[KarrieTamsin]

I initiate a uncut knot of soups that inquire terrific, and can be made in big batches and frozen.
Is there any interest?