Takis Lazaridis, son of Left and Resistance fighter Kostas Lazaridis who was executed by the Germans in 1943, is not a random person. Both he and his sister were implicated in the case of the radios – Belogiannis and Takis was sentenced to death, but ultimately not executed. But he remained in prison for 14 years. In 1988 he wrote the book "Fortunately we were defeated comrades", in which he judges from the inside the important events of our recent history, dispelling many myths...
Takis Lazaridis mentions about the Civil War:"We will probably never know how and when exactly the Civil War was decided. Who was the "initiator"... That is, if it was a brilliant idea of Zachariadis that was gladly accepted and encouraged by the Soviets because it fully served their plans at the time. Or if the Soviets presented this idea with a grimace or a hint to Zachariadis and he immediately adopted it because he saw that the "stage of glorious glory" was opening up before him. The great opportunity to wash away the stigma from his forced absence from the Resistance and December.
"To prove that he was not only a political but also a military genius. The fact, however, is that the Civil War was part of the plans and perspectives of the KKE and Stalin. That is why the Siandos-Ioannidis, in violation of the Varkiza Agreement, hid the most and best weapons of ELAS and sent 5,000 fighting and dedicated members of the ELAS to Bulkes.
"Both acts of great importance, which the leaders of the KKE certainly would not have dared without the approval or suggestion of the Soviets. Be that as it may, one thing is certain:The civil war with its international ramifications in the conditions of the cold war raging at the time, was too serious a matter to be left to the initiative and jurisdiction of Zachariadis and Ioannidis.
"This, after all, clearly emerges, both from the confessions of the leading protagonists Gousia, Vladas, Barzotas, and from the official archives of the KKE, a part of which was published by "Avgi" in December 1979 - January 1980 . For several years, the official version of the KKE was that our civil war was imposed by the British and the Right with the one-sided civil war they had unleashed immediately after Varkiza.
"Of course, the argument was not that convincing, but it was the only one that had some plausibility... The fact is that after Varkiza, a vengeful terrorism was unleashed, especially in the countryside, but not to the point of making civil war inevitable. After all, this truth was recognized by the 6th Plenary Session of the KKE, in 1956, accepting that the civil war was not inevitable , that the masses were not convinced of its necessity and that the decisive mistake that led to the civil war was the abstention from the 1946 elections.
"V. Barzotas, also the executive and historian of the KKE, in his book "The Struggle of the Democratic Army of Greece", p. 25, writes:"...However, there is also a question, which precisely because it remains unanswered, definitively sweeps away the "one-sided" theory. Why this fury of the English to push us into civil war? What would they gain? With the agreements of Moscow in October 1944 and Yalta in February 1945, Greece was definitively ceded to the West. The KKE had suffered a military defeat in December, the weapons had been surrendered.
"The state of the Right, with the undivided help of the British, was sterilizing and strengthening and rapidly building its dynamic support, the "National Army". It is clear that time was working for the English and the Right. So why would they push for civil war? The civil war cost not only the Greek people dearly in blood and tears and disasters. It cost the English and later the Americans dearly, both in dollars and in prestige, since the Soviets could accuse them all over the world of brutally intervening in Greece and trying to subjugate the heroic and liberal Greek People.
"Why, then, would Englishmen and Americans enter into this adventure?" The argument that the British and Americans aimed to crush the powerful KKE is not correct for the simple reason that in both Italy and France, at that time there were much stronger communist parties, but no civil war took place.
"Then why did the Civil War break out in Greece? What was Stalin looking at? A first answer to this question is given by Vlantas, who writes:"It (the civil war) was imposed on us by the then Russian leadership, because they did not want us to win but to use a sporadic guerrilla war in Greece to serve selfish Russian state interests".
"What were those interests? Bartzotas writes:"The importance of the DSE struggle for the Balkans is very great. The DSE, fighting for three and a half years with a gun in hand for independence and democracy in Greece against the government of Athens and the American intervention, objectively helped the neighboring People's Republics of Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Romania.
"This was clearly stated to the KKE delegation at the 6th congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party by the giant of Leipzig, G. Dimitroff, Secretary General of the K.D. (Communist International – Comminator) until its self-dissolution in 1943 with the words:"Don't you Greek communists know that by fighting the government of Athens and Anglo-American imperialism with arms in hand, what valuable services you offer objectively to your neighboring People's Democracies , what is the international significance of your struggle... Perhaps out of modesty that should characterize communists you do not understand or speak about this issue".
"The Greek Civil War was also a wonderful propaganda weapon of Stalin against the "capitalist-imperialists". After all, we are in the era of the blockade of Berlin, but also of the anti-Soviet guerrilla in Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic countries and Romania.
"In April 1949, Zachariadis was summoned to Moscow. Gousias (successor of Markos in the chief strategy of the DSE) reports:"On April 19, Zachariadis returned. I was in the divisions and returned to the General Headquarters Station at dawn. As soon as I was lying down in the morning on April 20, M. Partsalidis came and woke me up and said to me:"George - George, we have suffered a great loss, Stalin asked us to retreat, to stop the armed struggle. Because they have information that this summer under the pretext of operations against the D.S.E., the Americans will attack and take Albania.
"The Soviet Union, due to the severance of its relations with Yugoslavia, cannot help Albania, so we must avoid giving them this pretext... On April 22, V. Barzotas came from Grammos and we hold a meeting of P. G. of K.E. of the KKE. N. Zachariadis, Yiannis Ioannidis, M. Partsalidis, V. Bartzotas and Goussias took part.
"Zachariadis spoke about the discussions he had in Moscow and the issue of retreat that was put to him. He said that as the international situation was cleared, we should retreat. We have no other way. He proposed the ways in which we will carry out the retreat technically and politically, just as he proposed it in the previous meeting that the 3 of us had".
"Suddenly, however, everything changed and on May 4, 1949, a new order came over the radio from Moscow, speaking of continuing the fight! Gousias writes:"Two days after Zachariadis fled from Grammos, he sends us a telegram informing us that a new situation has been created for the time being. Our retreat measures are suspended. Everything comes back as before. It recommends intense action. This telegram at first glance made me happy, because we are not backing down.
"But at the same time, it also caused me deep sadness and concern. I couldn't rest. I kept wondering where are we going? What are they telling us, how do they think of this stepping up action? Our divisions in the Peloponnese were brought to their knees by the enemy with the continuous operations that he has been operating against them since December 19, 1948 and this due to a complete lack of ammunition, because the enemy replaced the English armament with American and the munitions that fell into the hands of our divisions were useless .
"In Roumeli and Thessaly, our divisions are constantly fighting and facing enemy attacks. How will they be able to hold a front and secure food over such a large section? In Vitsi and Grammos with the crumbs we get, how will we hold, wear down and give blows for overthrow?". This is what Gousias was wondering.
But was there really a chance for the DSE to win the Civil War? Written by T. Lazaridis :"When the KKE started the Civil War and throughout its duration, did it ever have any chance of victory? The answer is clear and unequivocal:NO. At no stage and at no time did the KKE have the slightest chance of winning. The truth is that the civil war was lost before it even started. And not only because Greece had, with official agreements and serious exchanges, been ceded to the West, who of course would not let it perish, just as they did not let it, proclaiming the Truman Doctrine.
"Nor because the correlation of forces was terribly unequal:Cannons, tanks, navy, airplanes on the one hand, small arms on the other. Inexhaustible reserves of animate and inanimate material on the one hand, terrifying lack of reserves on the other. But for the simple and decisive reason that the civil war was not a civil war but, simply and purely, a foreign rebellion. An insurgency that was instigated, organized and maintained by the Soviets for their own agendas, for their own state interests.
"A rebellion foreign and hostile to the people and their real interests. That is why the people turned their backs on her. With his ostentatious abstinence, he deprived her of popular oxygen, condemning her to certain death by suffocation...And since the People did not want to take part in the fratricidal conflict, they had him killed by force. All who have written about the civil war, on both sides of the river, accept that conscription was widely used.
"Fighting, then, for the higher ideals of Freedom, Democracy and Socialism with forcibly conscripted 17- and 18-year-old peasants and peasant girls who are forced to fight, to kill and be killed... And only for the therefore, all these captains and commissars, generals and brigadier generals, instead of publishing writings and boasting of their action and exploits, should hide their faces in shame and weep bitterly for the unjustly shed blood and the calamities of the Civil War.
"But also for another reason the Civil War was lost before it began. As it turns out, those who inspired it, designed it and directed it, did not have as their goal the victory, the overthrow of the Moscow and Yalta agreements. They knew that the Westerners had paid a heavy price for Greece and were not willing to abandon it. They knew that the correlation of forces at that time was not in their favor.
"The Americans had the monopoly of the atomic bomb and with the Truman Doctrine they showed that they were determined to keep Greece absolutely. Stalin had no illusions. In the book of Tzilas "Conversations with Stalin" the following poem is mentioned dated 10-2-1948:"Stalin:Do you think that the revolution in Greece can succeed?
Cardelli:Yes, if foreign forces do not interfere and if political and military mistakes are not made.
Stalin:Always the "ifs" and the "buts". No. There is no chance of success. What do you think, then, that Great Britain and the United States, the most powerful power in the world, will allow us to cut off their communications in the Mediterranean? Kutamaras. And besides, we don't have a fleet. The revolution must be stopped as soon as this is possible...
“The Soviets were fully aware of the reality. And they were in no mood to pull the rope. And they didn't pull it off. Just as they did not pull it off in the blockade of Berlin. They knew that without massive financial and military aid the Greek guerrilla was doomed . And they did not give this help. Instead of sending cannons, tanks, and planes, they sent paltry amounts of clothing and medical supplies.
They knew that without comprehensive diplomatic support, the cause was lost. And they did not give this support. When the Mountain Government was formed in December 1947, instead of rushing to recognize it, they limited themselves to philological declarations. And these not from official governments, but from various committees and associations".
Takis Lazaridis even identifies the responsibilities of the then leadership of the KKE in the following points:
“Some striking examples:
- They are pulling for a civil war and yet they abandon and essentially hand over to the enemy all the officers of ELAS!
-They form the "Provisional Democratic Government" at the end of 1947, but nobody recognizes it...
-They reject (as Markos and Vlantas also testify) peace proposals of Tsaldaris, setting as a preliminary condition that they be classified as war criminals and that the king and the government of Athens be tried! (Here he raises not one but fifteen exclamation marks. To discuss peace proposals of the opponent, they ask him to kill himself first...).
-They build grand designs (e.g. "Lakes" design ) for the creation of large reserves, the capture of large cities and the liberation of vast areas that were impossible to realize and of course never happened. And the funniest thing about the case is that Zachariadis presents the "Lakes" plan as a product of staff processing while, as it turns out, the military leaders of the DSE had no idea...
–Desperately trying to thicken, even with Slavo-Macedonians, the ranks of the Democratic Army that had been hopelessly thinned by the constant bleeding, they are heating up the "Macedonian" again. Ruthless and indifferent to the consequences, at the 5th Plenum in January 1949 they declared:"There should be no doubt that as a result of the victory of the DSE and the popular revolution, the Macedonian people will find their complete national restoration as the himself, today offering his blood to acquire her".
-They resort to desperate measures such as forced conscription and "babysitting" or more simply, child molestation, if we want to call things by their real name. As well as political assassinations, which, as it turned out, had the opposite of the intended results. An example is the assassination of the Minister of Justice Chr. Lada which only resulted in the execution, in retaliation, of two hundred political prisoners.
- To maintain the myth of "infallibility", they are constantly looking for scapegoats, they strive to put their own responsibilities on others. They do not hesitate in the face of the blood of innocents and execute worthy and tested members of the Dem. Stratou (Giannoulis, Georgiadis, Tsoukopoulos). And when defeated and hunted they leave the Greek territory, unable to speak the language of truth and admit defeat, they throw the stupid slogan "arms instead of legs". Thus giving the possibility to the opponent to continue the persecutions and executions... With the civil war, the cycle of the bloody trilogy closes. So many struggles and so much Greek blood for foreign interests..."...