Tragedies of the abducted Greek children of 1948: the reality of the FYROM claims

In 1948, Cominform, the first official forum of the international communist movement since the dissolution of the Comintern, put into action a plan to take hostage to communist countries children from Greece during the Greek civil war. The aim was to re-educate the children as well as blackmail the populace and the Greek government towards reaching a settlement leading to a partition of Greece and the subsequent creation of an internationalist "Macedonian" Republic. This move has favoured by the Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito and had been a Comitern policy aimed at destroying the national states of the Balkans through the creation of internationalist republics. Today several FYROM sources claim or at least believe the abducted children were FYROMacedonian. Indeed that they were not abducted, rather they were refugees fleeing the Greek army.

It was in the month of November 61 years ago when the United Nations issued a resolution condemning the abduction of the Greek children. The text of the resolution and its context have been presented in my last article. The tragic stories of the abducted children that follow defy belief.

Last week a conference took place at the University of Utah, sponsored by the United Pseudo-Macedonia Diaspora (UMD), a lobby group campaigning against "Greek atrocities" in Cyprus and other out of touch with reality issues. There was....

Macedonia: it's not just the name

by Aristede Caratzas

via e-mail

Photos are mine

The dispute regarding the official name by which the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is known appears to many policy makers to be anything from arcane to trivial. Yet its mishandling during the last 15 years, and especially in the last few months, has had political consequences for some of the world’s major players and has increased tensions and the potential for instability in the Balkans - referred to by historians and diplomats as Europe’s “soft underbelly”.

The case in point is the unprecedented defeat of a United States president at a NATO meeting - the much touted Bucharest summit in April of last year. President George W. Bush proclaimed the US’ “strong support” for the Republic of Macedonia’s bid for NATO membership, only to have it denied under the threat of a veto by the Greek government. Nor did the NATO Secretary-General’s visit to Athens and Skopje - the capital of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - following the NATO summit, increase the likelihood of a positive result, while the mediation process currently under way under the direction of US diplomat Matthew Nimetz finds progress elusive.

Given the complexity of the situation it is useful to consider some of the elements of this case that make it much harder to resolve than the cursory (and sloppy) assessments that some foreign policy “professionals” have suggested. Until now some of these professionals, especially those based in Washington, have approached this process mechanistically, hoping somehow that the implicit threat of American displeasure would sway the Greek government. Although Greece has caved in many times in the past, there is little flexibility on this issue; After repeated polling over many years, it has become clear that more than 85 per cent of the Greek public consistently demands a hard line on the issue.

This writer remembers a meeting in mid 1992 between Nicholas Burns, then State Department Spokesman and later Ambassador, and a group of Greek-American leaders. In answer to a question about the precedent affecting the European border system that would result from the recognition of the Skopje regime under the name of “Macedonia” (it then had explicit claims on Greek territory not to mention the history that is outlined below), Burns slammed his notebook shut and refused to discuss the implications. Some of the Greek-American leaders appeared more annoyed with the questioner than with Burns’ evasive little tiff. Yet this question has, as does the entire dispute regarding the name of the tenuous state, its foundation in the settlements following World War II: in short, in recent history.

In trying to understand the issues that are thrust upon the stage of international affairs, it is ironic that diplomats, other foreign policy professionals and political scientists often opt to ignore history. But it is treacherous to wade into the Balkans - where human experience has been recorded for millennia and folk memories are long - and not to be sensitive to recent historical traumas.

To be fair, much of the discourse of those most immediately involved has related to realities of the 5th-4th century BC, or cites mythological ethnogenetic constructions, which may be obscure to diplomats and policy makers. Many Greeks argue their case by making reference to 4,000 years of the Hellenicity of Macedonia; while the Skopje regime’s mythology increasingly expands its symbolic pantheon to include Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great, even though the Slavic culture and language, which are the axes of its purported identity, appeared a little more than a millennium later.

Yet the history that matters most, even if it largely has been ignored so far, refers to recent events, those taking place before, during and after World War II. In the Balkans these fall into three major categories:

1. the unresolved issues regarding ethnic and linguistic minorities before World War II;
2. the Axis occupation and policy of collaboration with minority groups; and
3. the successful shift from collaboration with the Nazis to alliances with Communists by some of these minority groups.

In order to set a broader historical context, one only needs to recall the use of ethnic minorities by the German National Socialist regime to destabilise Eastern Europe in the 1930s. In practice that meant that the Nazis encouraged the Sudeten German minority in Czechoslovakia and the German minority in Poland in order to put pressure on those states. These minorities were encouraged to make allegations of, what we would today call, human rights violations against the Czechs and the Poles: this provided the justification for the interventions that led, first to the collapse of the Czech state, and then to world war, when the Germans attacked Poland.

In Greece, after the Germans invaded in 1941, they established occupation zones for their forces and those of their Italian and Bulgarian allies. In Macedonia (the Greek province only used that name at the time), the German High Command under Field Marshal Siegmund List approved of the presence of Slavophone “liaison officers” to be attached to the occupying forces. These were mostly Bulgarian officers, linked to the nationalist VMRO group (Slavic for “Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization”), whose agenda was to mobilise and co-ordinate the activities of the Slavophone inhabitants in Macedonia for the benefit of the Axis occupiers.

The leader of VMRO was Ivan “Vancho” Mihailoff (also known as “Mihailov” in some the literature): he was a major figure in the history of southeast European extremist nationalist movements, though little studied even by experts. By 1930 Mihailoff had prevailed in the bloody power struggles (which included dozens of assassinations and other terrorist acts) for the leadership of VMRO.

VMRO's main goal had always been the creation of an independent “Macedonian” state; it had built an extensive network in Bulgaria, which was used to provide financing for the organisation and an operational base from which the offensives into Yugoslavia and Greece were conducted.

Mihailoff had close links to Ante Pavelic, whom he assisted in the formation of the Ustashe (the Croatian Nazis, whose ardour and cruelty embarrassed even their German allies) and, with Heinrich Himmler, to whom he introduced the Croat leader.

Mihailoff co-operated with Pavelic in the spectacular assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles in 1934. The triggerman, Vlado Chernozemski, a close associate of Mihailoff, had been attached to the Ustashe on his order for the preceding two years. Between 1941-1944 Mihailoff settled in Zagreb, using it as his base of operations.

Meanwhile, the region of western Macedonia in Greece was occupied by the Italians, who were still smarting from their defeat by the Greek forces. They developed a policy of exploiting the grievances of linguistic minorities, of which some members of the Slavophone group proved most responsive.

This was the result of a visit to Rome by Pavelic, who personally persuaded Mussolini and Ciano of the wisdom of such a policy and of the intention of Mihailoff to implement it. Thus the Italians were assisted by VMRO, which sent out agents of its irredentist “Kostour [Kastoria] Brotherhood” headed by a Spiro Vasilieff to Kastoria in order to set up the foundations. Detachments of Slavophone volunteers were first formed in 1943 and they accompanied Italian units searching for arms from the stores of the retreating Greek forces, which the country people often were hiding.

These volunteers joined the Italian sponsored the “Axis Macedonian-Bulgarian Committee,” which became better known as the “Komitato” (or “Komitet”). It was first founded in the Kastoria by Anton Kaltchev, a Bulgarian officer of Slavo Macedonian antecedents connected to Mihailoff’s VMRO, who enjoyed the respect of the Germans. Soon, a military arm of this organisation was formed and came to be known as the “Macedonian Bulgarian Command,” or less formally the “Ohrana”.

Led by Kaltchev, the Ohrana was able was able to mobilise significant forces, recruited from Kastoria, Florina and Edessa and the surrounding villages, i.e. central and west Macedonia. This probably fielded about 5,000 men by mid 1943. These forces assisted the Italians in operations against the Greek resistance organisations, and in intimidating and terrorising the local population opposed to the Axis occupation.

Mihailoff travelled to Berlin in early August 1943, where he was received by Reichsführer-SS Himmler at the Sichercheitsdienst (Security Service) headquarters: he also appears to have met with Hitler. Mihailoff apparently received consent to create two to three battalions of volunteers which would be armed and supported by the Germans and be under the command and disposal of Himmler’s organisation (i.e. the SS). There is extensive evidence that Himmler’s office followed up in order to implement the terms of this agreement, appointing SS Major (Hauptbahführer) Heider to co-ordinate the arming and equipping the VMRO volunteers.

In March 1944 the village companies of Kastoria, were reorganised into militias, and were armed and prepared for service by the Germans; and Kaltchev’s loyalists based in around Edessa and Florina also were included in this project. After some initial skirmishes with the Greek ELAS resistance forces, beginning on May 4 several VMRO volunteer companies from Kastoria and Edessa participated in the anti-guerrilla “Operation May Thunderstorm”, as part of the “Battle Group Lange,” spearheaded by elements the Nazi 4th SS Mechanised Infantry Division.

The German forces assisted by their Slavophone collaborators launched the last co-ordinated attack against organised Greek resistance from July 3 to July 17. The “Operation Stone Eagle” took place in the northern Pindus area with the objective of containing elements the Greek Resistance forces’ ELAS 8th and 9th Divisions. According to testimonies of the time the objective was partly achieved.

When the Germans withdrew from Greece, and Bulgaria declared war on Germany, the Ohrana and the Slavophone collaborationist effort collapsed. Anton Kaltchev fled Greece, but was apprehended by Yugoslav communist partisans and delivered to ELAS. He ended up in Thessalonica, where he was tried by the Greek government for war crimes and was executed.

It is ironic, but not altogether surprising, that FYROM, the present successor state to the People’s Republic invented by Tito, is ruled by one of VMRO’s factions. While the Skopje regime formally rejects Mihailoff, it has resumed a not-so-couched irredentist, nationalist, extremist, rhetoric reminiscent of the discourse of its collaborationist predecessor namesake. It draws much of its support from the Slavomacedonian diaspora in the US, Canada and Australia. The regime is the ideological inheritor of Ivan Mihailoff, close friend and ally of Anton Pavelic and Heinrich Himmler.

In this reality, borne of a bitter historical experience, is to be sought the reason for the nearly instinctive reaction of Greek popular feeling (cutting across party lines) against FYROM’s claims, whether as to its name or its revived irredentist claims about minorities and properties. The Slavomacedonian collaborators and their children, who fought twice against the Greek state, should no more expect recompense by that state than the children of the Germans of the Sudetenland expect from the Czech Republic or those of Danzig from Poland. When they accept that truth, it will be the first step for a genuine rapprochement with the Greek people.

Realism however dictates that we should not be optimistic in the short term. Hijacking the name of Macedonia, arbitrarily seizing cultural symbols (i.e. Philip II, Alexander the Great, Saints Cyril and Methodius, among others) and now claiming “minorities” and properties in Greece, demonstrates that Prime Minister Nikola Gruevsky, heading the present day VMRO and the Skopjan leadership, have inherited Mihailoff’s nationalist extremist vision.

Meanwhile, Bush and those of his supporters in Washington and elsewhere who have been studiously ignorant until now, should come to understand that the Greek people (supported not only by most Greek-Americans, but many other people who experienced the wrath of totalitarian extremists) are not likely to agree to terms proposed by a regime which revives the discourse of its dark past.

Autonomist Movements of the Slavophones in 1944, The Attitude of the CP of Greece and the Protection of the Greek-Yugoslav Border, part II

by Spyridon Sfetas
Balkan Studies, 36/2 (1995), 297-317.
http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/VirtualLibrary/downloads/Sfetas01.pdf

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 [12].

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 [13] . 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.

The Yugoslavs' impressions of Greece and the information they are propagating are far from objective…… Failing to understand our position on the Macedonian Question, they are causing us many problems at the frontier. Many of their cadres at the frontier are putting it about that our army is Fascist, that the Intelligence Service has influence in the Central Comittee of the KKE. They prevented the Macedonians from taking part in the elections for the Political Committee of National Liberation. 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" [14] .

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 [15] . The Central Committee of the KKE was prompted to this decision by the necessity for closer collaboration with Tito, both at the military levelowing to the Germans' massive mopping-up operations against ELAS in the summer of 1944 and the reestablishment of the autonomist Bulgarian organisation Ohrana, chiefly in the Edessa areaand at the political levelon 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 [16] . 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 [17] . 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 [18] . Siandos obviously thought Tito was in a position to control future disruptive moves by the Slavonic-speakers.

However, the emergence of the "People's Republic of Macedonia" at the first meeting of the Antifascist Assembly for the National Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM) on 2 August 1944 produced a new parameter in the Macedonian Question. The presiding committee of ASNOM was dominated by elements that were not known for their pro-Yugoslav sentiments [19]. They wanted Tito to secure as much independence as possible for Yugoslav Macedonia and gave priority to the unification of the three segments of Macedonia. To Tempo's great displeasure, Metodija Andonov-tento was elected president and Panko Brasnarov (a member of IMRO (United) between the Wars) vice-president.

On 2 August 1944, the anniversary of the llinden Uprising, the Florina and Kastoria Slavo-Macedonian battalion (known as the "Goce Battalion") was established in the village of Halara (Pozdivista) in the presence of representatives of the KKE, the Communist Party of Yugoslav Macedonia, and the political delegate of the 9th ELAS Division, Renos Mihaleas. The commander was Ilias "Goce" Dimakis and the political delegate Hristos Kokkinos.

Goce began systematically recruiting Slavophones in order to swell the battalion's numbers from the original 400. At the same time, liaison officers from Yugoslav Macedonia, notably Petre "Kocko" Bogdanov, were once again spreading propaganda about the right of the "Macedonian people" to self-determination and unification and demanding a GHQ [20] . Having a somewhat hazy Leninist notion of the right to self­determination, Mihaleas tolerated these activities and had frequent clashes with the KKE's Macedonia Bureau, which later stripped him of his title. In a letter to Leonidas Stringos in August 1944, he wrote:

We have not spread the watchword of ethnic equality in the broadest, freest sense. We have not spread and analysed the message of the Atlantic Charter, the hard-won trophy of the people's struggle. Rather than being his homeland, striking terror and confusion into the heart of capitalism and Fascism, Tito's Macedonia has been a thorn in our side. The Cypriot hails Free Greece and the Atlantic Charter and the Macedonian hails Tito and the Atlantic Charter. So, more broadly, or rather more profoundly, than the 6th Plenary [SiCl we shall have to show him the close embrace of '21 and Ilinden, and only then will our watchword of "Ethnic equality today!" gleam in his eye [21] .

As a result of this dangerous development, the 28th Regiment decided to incorporate the Goce Battalion into the Vitsi Detachment on 10 September 1944. Kosmas Spanos-Amyndas, an Albanian from Lehovo, was appointed commander and Goce was demoted to captain [22] , but in fact the latter still controlled the battalion. At the same time, the KKE's Macedonia Bureau decided to stop recruiting Slavophones. On 12 September, Stringos wrote to Siandos:

We cannot conceal from you our grave disquiet regarding the attitude of the Serbo-Macedonians. Naturally the attitude of the Slavo-Macedonians here in Greece has been very good of lateco-operation with the Greek element and a common struggle that grows ever stronger. In the Pelo area, i.e. Korestia, we have done good work and people are following our policy. But the Serbo-Macedonians are still the storm petrel. First there was the ultimatum from the Macedonian HQ [i.e. the circular of 17 lune 1944] that we sent you; then their efforts to arm the Slavo-Macedonians without giving us arms. Our second delegation went to Prespa to get arms (the other is on Kaimaktchalan) and brought back any number of accu­sations. Among all the Slavo-Macedonian formations, Peyios has become a hero; it is being widely said that Florina, Kastoria, and Thessaloniki belong to Macedonia.... For our part, we think that, without making it obvious, we should stop recruiting Slavo-Macedonians altogether and continue our policy of bringing about a closer rapprochement between Slavo-Macedonians and Greeks. But we also feel that you must prevail upon Tito, because the attitude of some cadres is verging on provocation [23] .

Goce refused to obey the Macedonia Bureau's order to stop recruiting and, without checking their identity, accepted into his battalion men from both Yugoslav Macedonia and Bulgaria, the latter chiefly Bulgaro-Macedonians who had emigrated to Bulgaria from Greek Macedonia between the Wars [24]. He saw fit to send Peyios and Thanassis Korovessis (Atanas Korovesov) to GHQ in Yugoslav Macedonia to receive instructions so that he could co-ordinate his subsequent actions. In late September 1944, Peyios and Korovessis brought back the "directives", as GHQ termed them: the Goce Battalion was to continue recruiting and should demand that the KKE set up a special Macedonian army and staff. If the KKE refused, Goce was to go ahead and recruit as many Slavo-Macedonians as possible and then bring his battalion to Yugoslav Macedonia, where the new recruits would be armed and the Goce Battalion, reinforced with men from Yugoslav Macedonia, would return to Greek Macedonia to liberate Florina, Kastoria, Edessa, and other areas still in German hands [25]. Above all, the Allies' attention had to be drawn to the Macedonian Question.

NOTES
[12] - See RCHIDNt, F. 495, Op. 74, D. 177, L. 4. Fitin to Dimitrov, 13 July 1944.

[13] - During talks with the Bulgarian Communists in Sofia in December 1944 (an account of which, together with his report on the political situation in Greece (8 Dec. 1944), was conveyed to the Soviets), Petros Roussos observed that the KKE never underestimated the Macedonian people's struggle for liberation, but had to bear in mind the change in the ethnic make-up of Greek Macedonia, where the party's data indicated that there were only 120,000 Macedonians in the area of Florina and Kastoria. The KKE could not push the slogan of an Independent Macedonia, because that would disrupt the unity of the Greek people in the struggle against Fascism. "Our party", Roussos continued, "reckoned that that slogan was inappropnate in Greece, because the reactionaries would have exploited it to cultivate chauvinist sentiments in the Greek people. Naturally, we always helped the Macedonians to join forces in a united front against Fascism so that, after the War, they would be able to fimd a common solution to the issues that concerned them on a democratic basis,,. See RCHIDNI, F. 459, Op. 74, D. 175, L. 34-5.

[14] - See RcHlOnl, F. 495, Op. 74, D. 176, L. 59, Polititeski Doklad o polozenii v Grecii, Dzimas to Komeev, 29 June 1944.

[15] - The need to establish separate Slavo-Macedonian battalions was chiefly underlined by loannidis. See G. Ioannidis, Anamneseis: Problimata tes politikes toy KKE sten Ethnike Antistase 1944-1945 (edited by A. Papapanagiotou), Athens 1979, p. 247.

[16] - See Stringos, post-war report, AM, K. 20/242A.

[17] - On 14 June 1944 some fifty IMRO veterans, led by Georgi Dimcev, an officer in the Bulgarian air force, established themselves in Edessa, where they made up the officers, corps of the Third Macedonian Brigade. The members of the brigade had been conscripted from the three Macedonian prefectures (Florina, Kastoria, and Edessa). Two battalions, each 250 strong, comprised the main body of the brigade, and the civil guard supported its operations against the Communists. Three SS officers, Heyde, Hellman, and Degler, planned the operations and they were carried out by Brigadier DimPev. In July 1944, one of the two battalions led by KalLev left Edessa and headed for the mountain villages of Vermio and Pindos. Dirntev and the other battalion undertook to confront ELAS at its strongholds near Edessa Ohrana's main political slogan was "Independent Macedonia".

[18] - See Siandos to Dzima, 24 lune 1944, in KPG i Makedonskoto Nacionalno PraSank 1918-1974 (edited by R. Kirjazovski), Arhiv na Makedonija, Skopje 1982, p. 214.

[19] - While preparations were being made for ASNOM,s first council at Prohor PLinski Monastery, there were sharp exchanges between Tempo and tento, the latter challenging Tempo,s right (and consequently his clique,s right) to meddle in Slavo-Macedonian affairs and to give party posts to individuals who had done their political training in Belgrade. See F. Tanaskova, Metodija Andonov-tento, published by Nova Makedonia, Skopje 1990, pp. 34-5.

[20] - Kotsopoulos, report is revealing: "In the summer of 1944, following an 'agreement, between Tempo and the 9th ELAS division, they all came back and, together with some of Tito's supporters, embarked upon 'self-criticism'. G. Touroundzas was travelling around the Florina villages accompanied by Kotskos. Peyios and Dejan were going round the Kastoria villages. And Makris was going round Prespa with an Albanian. Ilias Touroundzas was going around with Renos [Mihaleas]. During the self-criticism they were saying that we should fight with the Greeks, but start demanding guarantees of our rights immediately. At the same time, they were secretly arranging for ELAS members to desert, creating the cells of their organisations in the villages. and making preparations for the general break up. At this point, Goce had not laid his cards on the table. But he was working secretly, combing the Korestia and Prespa villages and telling the Slavo-Macedonian cadres that the KKE was ignoring them and taking the wrong line over the Macedonian Question, etc. He spoke like this to me too,,. See Report by Kotsopoulos to the Central Committee of the KKE (I Oct. 1952), AM, F-l9/191.

[21] - Mihaleas to Stringos (August 1944), AM, K-20/96.

[22] - See Egejska Makedonija, p. 467.

[23] - Stringos to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the KKE, 12 Sept. 1944, AM, K-62/52. In a speech delivered in Kastoria in mid-September 1944, Mitropoulos made specific reference to the right of the "Macedonian people" to self-deterrnination, which provoked objections from the local KKE secretary Andonis Andonopoulos Periklis. See T. Marnurovski, PaskalMitrevski i negovoto vreme (1912-1978), Skopje 1992, p. 41.

[24] - See the report by Andonopoulos (secretary of the Kastoria branch of the KKE) and G. Fourkiotis (secretary of the Florina branch of the KKE) to the KKE's Macedonia Bureau, 27 Sept. 1944, KPG i Makedonskoto Nacionalno Prasanje, p. 239.

[25] - See Soupourkas, interesting report to the Central Committee of the KKE, 15 Nov. 1947, AM, F-20QI9. Soupourkas was a member of the Goce Battalion.

Autonomist Movements of the Slavophones in 1944, The Attitude of the Communist Party of Greece and the Protection of the Greek-Yugoslav Border, part I

by Spyridon Sfetas
Balkan Studies, 36/2 (1995), 297-317.
http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/VirtualLibrary/downloads/Sfetas01.pdf

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 Greek 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 [1], 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 [2].

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 [3].

The KKE had recognized 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 [4].

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 [5].

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 (now 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 ? [6]

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' instigation [7] , 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 [8] .

Georgijevski informed Tempo [9] , 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 [10] . 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 liberationand equality, achieve the right to determine their own destiny, a right which the Atlantic Charter guarantees to all enslaved peoples struggling against Fascism [11].

NOTES
[1]-See T.-A. Papapanagiotou, L'Effortpourla creation duglandquartiergendralbalcanique et la cooperation balcanique, Juin-Septembre 1943 (unpublished postgraduate dissertation, Sorbonne, 1991); there is a copy in the library of the Institute for Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki.

[2]-See S. Vukmanovic-Tempo, Revolucija Koja teee, vol. 3, Zagreb 1982, p. 114. In a postwar report to the Central Committee of the KKE on SNOF's activities, Stringos had this to say about the meeting: "Abas requested that our sections work together against the Germans and that we make things a little easier for their sections that were obliged, because of the operations, to cross over into Greek territory frequently; and they also offered to help with the work among the Slavo-Macedonians, who were still being influenced by the komitadyis". See AM (Arhiv na Makedonija-Skopje), K.20/242.A.

[3]-Tempo brought up the question of uniting Greek and Yugoslav Macedonia in a future Yugoslav federation when he met Andreas Dzimas, the KKE's representative, in the summer of 1943. He asked Dzima to sign a statement to that effect. Dzimas refused to discuss the subject. See RCHIDNI (Rossijskij Centr Hranenija i Izutenija Dokumentov NovejPej Istorii), F. 495, Op. 74, D. 177, L. 60, Fitin (Director of Soviet espionage) to Dimitrov, 18 August 1944. This was another fundamental reason why Siandos rejected Tempo's proposals for setting up a Balkan HQ. It was agreed, however, to set up Slavo-Macedonian anned sections within the framework of ELAS, to foster the Slavo-Macedonian dialect, and to publish Slavo-Macedonian newspapers.

[4]-According to confidential statistics collected by the Macedonian GHQ early in 1925 (i.e. after the deadline for emigration applications), there were 76,098 Slavophones former Patriarchists in Greek Macedonia and 97,636 Slavophones former Exarchists, of whom 11,228 were due to emigrate to Bulgaria, thus reducing the number of former Exarchists to 86,408. The Slavophones, including those who were bilingual, therefore numbered 162,506 (see 1. Mihailidis, ,'H Mclxeoovia TOU 1930 1lfaa cso It5 axawtattxE;: H REQiZT(2)an T(l)V okXoXvxv,,, XVlth GreekHistoncal Conference, Thessaloniki 1994). The Slavophones may be divided into those who regarded themselves as Bulgarians, those who regarded themselves as Greeks, and those with a more fluid consciousness. They were incolporated into the Greek state, to which they remained loyal. It is significant that neither the Bulgarian IMRO nor the Communist IMRO (United) exerted much iniluence on the Slavophones. Their displeasure was chiefly aroused by the policy of "forced Hellenisation" implemented under the Metaxas dictatorship, when they were forbidden to speak the Slavo-Macedonian dialect even in the privacy of their own homes. Although Metaxas' policy was dictated by the necessity of preventing the Communists from infiltrating the Slavophonesafter 1934 the KKE regarded them as a "(Slavo-)Macedonian nation" and members of IMRO (United) wrote to Rizospastis pointing out the "distinct ethnic status of the (Slavo-)Macedonians"_ it may in general tenns be desctibed as ill-considered, and ultimately facilitated Bulgarian and Yugoslav propaganda duting the occupation.

[5]-The Bulgarian occupation forces in the Serbian part of Macedonia were received as liberators and pro-Bulgarian feeling ran high in the early stages of the occupation. Neither the Communists, position regarding a separate Macedonian nation nor the idea of a Yugoslav federation met with much response from the Slav population, which nurtured pro-Bulgarian sentiments. The local Communists, led by M. Satorov, splintered off from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and joined the Bulgarian Labour Party (which was Communist), with the slogan "One state, one party. The subsequent dissatisfaction with the occupation authorities was due to social factors (high-handedness, heavy taxation, contempt for local sensitivities) rather than national ones. This was also why Tito,s resistance movement in Yugoslav Macedonia failed to develop. See Tempo's speech on 30 January 1945 in Belgrade, PRO FO 371/48181, R2448/11/67, Maclean to Foreign Office, No 121, Belgrade, 31 lan. 1945.

[6]- Arhivna Makedonija, Egejska Makedonija na NOB, 1944-1945, vol. I (Risto Kirjazovski, Vasil Pejov, Todor Simovski, eds), Skopje 1971, p. 341.

[7] - Mitropoulos' role in Peyios' disruptive movement was disclosed after investigations conducted by the Macedonia Bureau. See Stringos' report, AM, K.20/242 A.

[8] - See Egejska Makedonija, p. 423.

[9] - See Kiro Georgijevski,s letter dated 25 April 1944 to Tempo; VukmanovicTempo, Revoijucia koja tece, vol. 3, Zagreb 1982, pp. 269-71.

[10] - S. Neshovich, "The Correspondence between Tito and Dimitrov on the B.W.P. (c) and Macedonia,,, Macedonian Review, 3 (1975), 272-3.

[11] - See Vukmanovic-Tempo, op.cir., pp. 271-3. It is worth noting that, though Tito regarded the unification of the "Macedonian people,, as something to be considered after the War, he acknowledged the right of the "Macedonian people,, beyond the Yugoslav borders to demand national self-determination and democratic rights during the anti-Fascist struggle. The decision was taken by the national committee for Yugoslav liberation when it convened on Vis on 24 June 1944. The session was attended by, amongst others, 1. B. Tito. E. Kardeljs A. Rankovic, M. Djilas, M. A. tento, S. V. Tempo. See losip Brow Tito. Sabrana Djela. vol. 20, Belgrade 1984, pp. 252-3. The fact that the term "self-determination,' is open to such a variety of interpretations satisfied not only Tito and Tempo but also Yenta and his colleagues and throughout the War helped to blunt their disagreements over the specific political future of both Yugoslav Macedonia and Macedonia as a whole.