One of the most interesting and much-discussed periods of modern Greek history is undoubtedly the years of the Second World War and what followed after its end. Of particular interest is the attitude of the KKE in the period from 1943 to the end of the 1940s and its cooperation with the Albanian Communist Party. Most of the facts that we will present today, were unknown for years and came to light after Dr. Stavros Dayou's research in the Albanian archives in recent years.
BY MICHALIS STOUKA
SOURCE: FIRST SUBJECT
These facts are presented in detail in the book by "NIKOS ZACHARIADIS-ENVER HOTZA. Cooperation and secret agreements of the KKE with Albania 1943-1974" LITERATUS PUBLICATIONS, 2019. We will look at some of these elements today with a big thank you to Mr. Dayo for giving us permission to use material from his book.
The meeting of Memorach – The Konispolis pact
Of pivotal importance for the position of the KKE after 1943 were what happened in August of that year in Albania between representatives of the EAM and the KK of Albania. In August 1943, three prominent members of the KKE, Alexis Giannaris (Miltos Kyrgiannis) as a political coordinator, Panagiotis Papadimitriou as a military factor and Costas Vatavalis settled in Northern Epirus. By moving to the neighboring country after consultations with members of the Albanian resistance movement, they began direct relations of cooperation between the communist organizations and the guerrilla groups operating in the border areas.
The KKE officials met with the members of the Albanian resistance movement Bedri Spahiu and Shemsi Totozhani in the presence of the Greek North Epirus communist Lefteris Talios, who was a leading figure in the region. On August 8, 1943, Talios, Kyrgiannis and Papadimitriou participated in the Memorach meeting to which representatives of all the tendencies of the North Epirus Hellenism were invited. After objections and disagreements, it was decided that the resistance movement of the Greek minority in Albania should join the wider anti-fascist Albanian struggle.
However, most Northern Epirotians reacted to these decisions and openly expressed their desire for autonomy and self-determination of the region after the war, characterizing these decisions as a sale of their homeland to the Albanians. Initially, the Greek envoys of the KKE also agreed with the position of the Northern Continents, on the condition that the issue would be resolved unaffected by the two peoples after the war.
The issue of self-determination was from the beginning a point of friction between the KKE and the KK of Albania, although the KKE generally agreed with the ethnic policy of the KK of Albania for the Greek ethnic minority of Northern Epirus and almost kept silent about the circumvention of their national rights at its altar proletarian internationalism, communist solidarity and ideological identification. The separatist tendencies of the Northern Continents provoked the anger of the Albanians who called on their like-minded Greeks for tolerance in the spirit of bigotry and identification with the Greek chauvinistic pursuits.
The Konispoli Agreement (August 10, 1943)
In order to resolve the issues that had arisen two days after the Memorach meeting, groups of Greek and Albanian communists met in Konispoli. There it was agreed with a joint resolution ("Decision") that independent national liberation organizations would be created for the Greek ethnic minority in Albania and the Muslim Chams in Thesprotia whose political and military action would be determined by a single committee. The composition of the committee would include an Albanian, a Greek from the collaborating Greek-Albanian organizations, a representative from each Greek and Albanian minority and a British envoy who would attend only when requested by the minorities. The Konispoli meeting was attended by Alexis Giannaris, Haki Rushiti, representative of the Liberation Front of Albania, Rexhep Plaku and Qemal Karagjiozi, delegates of the Committee of the Communist Party of Albania for the region of Argyrokastro.
In the "Decision" it was mentioned that:
"This solution (no. of the formation of anti-fascist organizations) on both sides within the lines of the current war for the freedom and self-determination of the peoples will help the union in the war by fraternizing the neighboring peoples. This is the only suitable path for direct and efficient work".
Of particular importance is provision 6 of the "Decision":"A general amnesty (grace) is granted to all those who until now have worked badly in deciding the political issues of those in private life, results of the corruption of fascism and informal chauvinism".
This provision concerned both the Chamites who, as a group and effortlessly, had sided with the conquerors, as well as the Northern Epirotians who collaborated with Napoleon Zervas. Although initially the two sides considered the Konispoli agreement very important, the "Decision" was soon deemed wrong and canceled first by the Regional Committee of Argyrokastro and then by the All-Pieronian Committee of EAM. It was clear, however, that these agreements could not be adopted by the wider population strata.
In the short period in which it was in force, the Konispoli Agreement gave courage to the Northern Epirotians who began to hope for some form of autonomy. Three armed bodies were formed, led by persons of known prestige, who propagated the autonomy of Northern Epirus and its union with Greece. The action of the committee, (also known as headquarters) lasted a month and a half. Afterwards, the Albanian communists unleashed relentless persecution against Northern Epirotians who were members of these groups. There were bloody skirmishes and brutal violence by armed elite units deployed in the area. The armed nationalist groups under Christos Pylos retreated to Droviani, while in Theologos they formed with the "Cameria" Order and disbanded. The leaders Giorgos Zotos and Lefteris Gouvelis were disarmed and marched to a large gathering in Droviani.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Albania hastily sent the hard-line Haki Toska to the region who, with bloody measures of violence and repression, restored order... The intentions of the Albanian communist leadership were now clear. The Greek communists "retreated", as Stavros Dagios writes, after the strict recommendations of the Albanian communists and until April 1944, when they left Albania for good, they "faithfully implemented the ideological platform of the KKA", on the grounds that now the minority had their own cadres.
Of course, there was also a relationship of dependence-obligation of the EAM by the Albanians, as according to Order 268/1943 of the Albanian General Staff of the Army, printing paper, medical and pharmaceutical material, clothing and footwear, which were provided to the Albanians by the British, were sent to the EAM...
The Chamides – The fate of the dosilogos in the rest of Europe
For Chamides, we have written several articles. We have other sources at our disposal and will come back at some point with new information, although things are clear. The Greeks of Albania joined the anti-fascist struggle, cooperating with the resistance organizations of the country, the Muslim Chams did the exact opposite. Let us quote here an unknown fact. Galeazzo Ciano, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mussolini's son-in-law, was determined to conquer a piece of Greece and offer it to Albania, which he considered a kind of personal principality, as Emanuele Grazzi, the Italian ambassador who delivered Mussolini's ultimatum to I. Metaxas.
Ciano was arrogant and violent and valued Albanian culture equal to "a few wads of paper money" (!). In a meeting between Ciano and Grazzi on April 30, 1939, Mussolini's son-in-law asked his ambassador to suggest ways and identify Muslim Chamides who would undertake the assassination of the Greek King George II, who he believed favored British plans. Of course, such a thing did not happen. There is no information that this plan even went ahead. It probably began and ended in Ciano's mind...
As is known, after the Germans were pushed back from Epirus, in October 1944, 15,000-17,000 Chamid Muslims (according to the UNRRA record), left Thesprotia and fled persecution with the retreating Germans to Albania, bearing the stigma of the occupier dosilogus and the collaborator of the Italians and the Germans. The totality of public opinion in Greece and Europe condemned the dosilogism of the Tsamis. In May 1945, the Special Tribunal of Dosilogans of Ioannina, documented hundreds of murders of Greeks, kidnappings, disappearances, rapes of women, thousands of burning houses and looting of villages by Tsamides. With its decision No. 344/23-5-1945, the Court sentenced in absentia 1,930 Chamides, many of them with the death penalty, as war criminals and collaborators of the conquerors.
With decision No. 50862/38254 of 16/1/1947, of the Ministry of Military Affairs, the Greek citizenship was also removed from the Tsamides and their property was expropriated on charges of national treason. Even today, 75 years after the end of the Second World War, Albanians often raise the issue of Tsamidon and Tsamouria, asking for their return to Thesprotia, the return of their property, etc. But what happened in the rest of Europe, with the collaborators of the Nazis and of the fascists in 1944-1945? Let's look at some cases.
In Yugoslavia, 100,000 thousand Croats who had collaborated with the Nazis were hunted down by the partisans of (Croatian) Tito. 40,000 were executed on the spot, without even being handed over as prisoners of war as stipulated by the Allied treaties. The Yugoslavs also executed or deported thousands of ethnic Hungarians, labeling them all as slaughterers for the atrocities of January 1942. 1,000,000 Poles fled their homes in western Ukraine. 500,000 Ukrainians left Poland for the USSR, from October 1944 to 1946.
Bulgaria forced 140,000 Turks and Roma to flee to Turkey, Romanians expelled Hungarians, mainly from Transylvania, and Hungarians in turn expelled Romanians. German-speaking Czechs, they were expelled from Czechoslovakia and stripped of their Czechoslovak citizenship a year later. Italians, expelled from Yugoslavia, etc. As Dr. Stavros Dagios aptly writes:"Throughout Europe, the customary law of collective punishment functioned improperly and violently, with the result that throughout 1945 an unprecedented (=unprecedented) mobilization of ethnic cleansing, genocide took place and relocation of populations, which had begun shortly before the end of the war".
KKE and Chamides
As we have mentioned, both political parties and public opinion condemned the Chams and their crimes. The attitude of the K.K.E, however, was different... Let's look at some characteristic incidents. The Chamides, until 1947, demanded their immediate return "to their homeland and guarantees for their lives and properties". The Albanian communists initially believed that the issue of the Chamids could be resolved by secret bilateral agreements of the EAM with the KK of Albania, bypassing the official Greek state.
On December 27-28, 1944, at the secret meeting of the Argyrokastro Party Committee of the EAM's Pan-Elite Committee, Aris Velouchiotis and Stefanos Sarafis, discussed the lawless situation that had been created in Greece with the Decembriana. Velouchiotis replied that for the moment "their return was not advisable", but in the immediate future, when the EAM would have under its control the whole of Epirus, their matter would be "solved" once and for all, since the position of the EAM, as it was also formulated by the Panepirotiki Committee in a circular to its organizations on February 8, 1945, it was the unimpeded return of the Chamids. Encouraged by this decision, in March 1945, many Tsamides, having in their favor the apathy of the EAM of the region, attempted to return to Thesprotia, as a result of which bloody clashes took place with the locals and there were a few dozen victims among the Filiates.
It was obvious that the Albanian side would use the so-called "tsamiko" as a counterweight to the northern continental which would be one of the subjects of the Paris Peace Conference. A few days after the bloody events of Filiat, on March 19, 1945, the Albanian government invited the allied representatives to Tirana and expressed to them its strong protest against the heinous crimes of the Greek authorities against the Chamids, requesting their intervention for the overall settlement of the issue. On March 27, 1945, Tsamides held a massive protest march against the "heinous crimes of General Zervas", in Konispoli, near the Greek-Albanian border.
In November 1945, when British Under Secretary of State Hector McNeil visited Greece, the Chamides appealed to him, asking the Allies to intervene to put an end to the "unfolding disgrace upon them". Commission of Inquiry, which was established by the U.N. in 1947, he failed to address the ethnic issues along the Greek-Albanian border, as he admitted in June 1948.
The KKE, once again separated its position from the rest of the political parties in Greece. He considered the Tsamis victims of the heinous acts of general Zervas and the Greek reaction, he condemned the brutalities against them, while he almost kept silent about the guilty past of the Tsamis and their collaboration with the conquerors. In his repeated publications, the "Radicalist" reproduced the statements of Enver Hoxha or other Albanian officials about the Chamides, essentially adopting the inaccuracies they said. On July 28, 1946, "Rizospastis" published an article entitled "The massacres and looting of Zervas in Thesprotia:a historical document". With this, the K.K.E. he publicly condemned the brutalities and crimes of Zervas in Epirus, through a letter from an Infantry Colonel, whose name was Nikolaos Katiforis and who had made an on-site investigation in Thesprotia.
On February 11, 1947, "Rizospastis" hosted an article with the speech of the Albanian Colonel Nesti Kerendzi about the Chamides, before the UN Commission of Inquiry "The most silent tragedy for the Albanian minority took place in June 1944 by the 10th Division of the EDES, commanded by Lt. Col. Aristides Kamaras, which set fire to towns and villages," claimed Kerenzi.
Albania's direct involvement in the Greek civil war downgraded the case of the Chamids. As we saw in our previous article, the effort to join them in the DSE had meager results. However, the attitude of the KKE to the so-called "tsamiko" was at least strange and incomprehensible. The attitude of the KKE was similar to the issue of the "Slavonic" people of Macedonia, as we will see in our future article.
We sincerely thank Dr. Stavros Dagios for giving us permission to use elements from his book "NIKOS ZACHARIADIS-ENVER HOTZA. Cooperation and secret agreements of the KKE with Albania", LITERATUS publications 2019 and for the additional information he gave us in a telephone conversation we had with him.