An International Civil War by André Gerolymatos

Author:André Gerolymatos
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300182309
Publisher: Yale University Press

FIG. 9. Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslay Molotov at the Yalta Conference, 1945, during which Stalin assured Churchill that he would uphold the Percentages Agreement. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Despite the conditions in Greece in the summer of 1945, Zachariadis’ optimism was undaunted. The odds, however, were against him. The White Terror was running its course; the economy near-collapse, mass unemployment, poverty, and a revolving door of successive Greek governments offered little prospect for improvement. More significantly, the Greek government had to rely almost exclusively on the British army for internal security. By excising the British, Zachariadis and the communists would improve their chances of a successful government takeover.

The anti-British theme of the KKE’s propaganda as a cause for an armed struggle against a foreign enemy is reflected both in the new name of the communist forces—the Democratic Army of Greece (DAG)—and in the oath of allegiance taken by recruits and conscripts. On 27 December 1946, the KKE adopted the name Democratic Army of Greece instead of continuing with ELAS (Greek Popular Liberation Army). Zachariadis believed that the word “popular” in ELAS was a code word for class struggle, while “democratic” was sufficiently bourgeois to appeal to all Greeks.74 The DAG’s oath of allegiance also aimed to steer away from allusions to civil war and to remind the recruit that the struggle was against a foreign occupation and fascism.75

The KKE and the supporters of the EAM found common cause in the British presence, which could easily be construed as a foreign occupation. The Greek government was reorganizing and expanding its own military, but the chaotic situation within Greece was making this a painfully slow process. In February 1945, at the end of the December Uprising, the Greek army numbered 30,000 men and by December 1945 it only reached the strength of 75,000. Under these circumstances, Zachariadis was optimistic about defeating a small army using mostly inexperienced conscripts. The conflict, Zachariadis believed, would last only a short while and would sidestep Stalin’s policy of gradualism. A quick communist victory would leave little time for Soviet recriminations. It would even give him a military reputation (denied earlier owing to his incarceration in Dachau).76

A delegation of Greek communists led by Mitsos Partsalidis visited Moscow in the middle of January 1946 to sound out the Soviet leadership for their immediate assistance, but failed to secure an audience with Stalin. The only tangible response Partsalidis could bring back to Greece was a message from the central committee of the Soviet Communist Party that the KKE was to “take part in the elections now. Later, review the situation. In accordance with the way it develops the center of gravity may move as necessary, either to legal methods or to armed struggle.”77 Further indication of Soviet disinterest in providing military support for the KKE came in November 1946, when Andrei Zhdanov, the head of the Information Bureau of the Communist Parties, the Cominform, did not mention Greece in his address on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.78

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