Instead of a new article on the causes that led to the Decembriana I quote the opinions of 15 historians, politicians, journalists, researchers and scholars of the time in this first part of the historical tribute.
I have tried to strike a balance with respect to their political sensibilities, although most are on the left for the simple reason that the majority of the literature comes from the left. The Decembriana is one of the darkest moments in modern Greek history, and dozens of books have been written about it.
In Part 1The the following books are mentioned: Angelos Angelopoulos "From occupation to civil war", Vassilis Raphaelidis "History of the modern Greek state 1830-1974", Leonidas Kyrkos "Subversives", Takis Lazaridis "Fortunately we were defeated comrades...", Apostolos Vakalopoulos "New Greek History 1204- 1985", V. Skoulakou - N. Dimakopoulou - S. Kondi "Newer and modern", issue 3, 3 of Eniai Lyceum,
What concerns the present article is not the civil conflict that began on December 3, but what led to it.
It is a big historical mistake to think that the Decembers started because of the victims of the December 3 rally at the Syntagma.
Everything had been set in motion much earlier; the period of approximately 40 days, from the moment of the liberation of Athens (October 18) until Sunday, December 3, played a decisive role.
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ANGELOS ANGELOPOULOS
(One of the six EAM ministers in the Papandreou government at that time)
From his book "From Occupation to Civil War"
The Tragic Events (p. 126)
Much has been written on this subject from all sides. I, without going into too many details, will try to describe all our anxiety and effort to avoid the rupture. As early as November 1, 1944, as appears from the short Diary I kept of the events of that time, after a meeting led by George Papandreou, in which Siandos (General Secretary of the KKE) also participated, it was decided to demobilize by December 10 and ELAS and EDES with the prospect that the relevant details will be regulated in the interim period.
On November 18, it was decided to establish a national guard, into which, in the first phase, the draftees of 1936 would be classified. The classification would begin within a week. Of course, things were not easy, but the smooth development was also made difficult by the English general Scobie, who issued an order specifying that every armed person who entered Athens should be disarmed on the spot by the English forces. This was not of much practical importance, since it was impossible to effectively guard all the entrances to the capital, but it exerted intense psychological pressure, especially on the ELAS rebels and those who sympathized with it, and therefore provoked the reaction of the KKE. Thus, in an electrified atmosphere, daily contacts began, which lasted over ten days, between G. Papandreou and the KKE, with us as the main mediators, who on behalf of the PEEA (Provisional Committee for National Liberation) participated in the government, in case we could also reach a mutually acceptable solution.
In meetings held in mid-November under G. Papandreou and in which G. Siandos also participated, the agreement of November 1 was confirmed and there was a broad discussion on the staffing of the army. On November 24, again in a meeting chaired by G. Papandreou, in which Svolos, Kanellopoulos, Zevgos, Tsirimokos, Askoutsis and I participated (apart from Papandreou and Kanellopoulos, the rest were EAM ministers) we dealt with the crisis of proposed by each line of officers. Naturally, there were some disagreements, and we could not reach an agreement.
However, in a new meeting on the afternoon of November 27, 1944, Papandreou, Svolos, Zevgos and Tsirimokos signed an agreement, which provided for the demobilization by December 10 of ELAS, EDES and the gendarmerie of the Middle East, for the creation of a National Army, which it would consist on the one hand of the 3rd Mountain Brigade, the Holy Company and a section from the EDES, and on the other hand an ELAS brigade of equal strength and armament to the sum of the two other formations, this agreement would be ratified by the cabinet, which would convene on next afternoon.
Unfortunately, in the interim, the KKE strangely broke the agreement and requested a renegotiation of the agreement.
There followed two days of efforts on behalf of Svolos, Tsirimokos and myself in both directions and mainly towards the KKE, lest he be convinced. Unfortunately, all these efforts failed. And here is the fault which rests upon us all, because we all ignored the alleged from various sources - more or less confirmed by the facts - the agreement of the allies to define "zones of influence" and bring us under the English sphere.
Not even G. Papandreou, who in general should have known what the Minister K. Rentis had announced to me in Cairo, (my note: Minister K. Rentis had heard in personal discussions from international diplomatic circles of the Weather about the agreement Churchill-Stalin and had informed the government about these unofficial – but true as it turned out – leaks) but neither we of the broader democratic left gave the information it deserved to Rentis, nor did we present it during our contacts, nor did we use it properly . If all sides at that time had realized the importance of what the allies were deciding for our country and the wider region - and here lies their great responsibility, for not informing us officially and positively, as we will see - both the In December, as long as the civil war.
This attitude, which led to the wreck of our talks, can only be explained by the mutual suspicion of the two sides, the inability of all of us to realize the prevailing international climate and above all the inexplicable and contradictory policy of the then leadership of the KKE, which, as will see next, he was unable or unwilling to understand international developments and the real interest of the country. Thus we were dragged into a series of bloody civil conflicts with the Decembrians first. In Athens we witnessed a terrible conflict between the EAM and the forces loyal to the government of G. Papandreou, who were assisted by strong English forces under General Scobie. This bloody conflict, along with the unprecedented brutalities that accompanied it, lasted a whole month and cost 17,000 dead, a number higher than that of the 1940-1941 war, which did not exceed 15,000.
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VASILIS RAFAELIDIS
"History of the modern Greek state 1830-1974"
Chapter 20. THE DECEMBERIANS
1. December is coming
On November 28, 1944, Papandreou, with the approval of the British ambassador Lieber, submitted to the cabinet a bill according to which all armed forces of the resistance organizations, left and right, must be disbanded before December 10, in order to create a national guard, which will be the embryo for the future Greek national army.
So far, nothing to complain about. But there is also continuity. The bill says that both the 3rd Mountain Brigade (of Rimini) and the Holy Company, i.e. an elite unit composed exclusively of royalist officers, based in Corfu, will automatically join, as a ready and already existing army, the national guard under establishment, which will also include some units of the EDES of Zervas. The sum of men from all the above units will also give the number of ELAS men who must join the prison itself. Things look very clean and very innocent. The number of right-wing and left-wing soldiers under the establishment of the National Guard will be exactly the same.
Yes, but ELAS is already a ready and tested army. However, its armament in relation to the other, right-wing units, is for festivals. Therefore, the right-wing will automatically have the upper hand. Let alone the recruitment that will be done to increase the initial army, Papandreou and the English will control it. So, in a few months, the people from Elas who will join the National Guard from the beginning, will have completely disappeared in the crowd of the army, and the army will automatically become an instrument of the Right. Papandreou is cunning, but so are the communists. Siandos on behalf of the KKE and Partsalidis on behalf of the EAM visit Papandreou on November 30th and tell him, we disband ELAS if you disband the 3rd Mountain Brigade (of Rimini). Let's build an army from scratch with conscription. Nothing more honest and more reasonable. But Papandreou rejects this apparently sensible plan. He does not want to disband the Praetorian brigade. And as if that wasn't enough, Scobi voluntarily and without asking anyone in the government, circulates a proclamation to the ELAS rebels and orders them to surrender their weapons before December 10th. Who, then, is this colonialist who acts like a governor in an African country and issues orders, which the Greek government does not know about?
EAMites become beasts, and rightly so. All left-wing members of the government immediately resign, protesting Scobie's overt intervention. But the day after the release of the proclamation and the resignation of the leftists, Papandreou covers Scobie's action in retrospect. Cover date, December 2, 1944. That is, two days before Bloody Sunday. And let Papandreou tell you that with his actions he prevented the worst. As if there are worse things to come.
2. A mini civil war
The plan of the KKE and the EAM for the dissolution of all armed resistance formations and the creation of a conscription army shows that the leftists had no intention of clashing with the rightists, and they had no intention of an exclusively leftist government, as they would repeatedly say later right-wing demagogues. The EAM is not KKE, it is something much broader and includes social democrats, like Svolos and Tsirimokos, who do not want a communist regime, they want a social democratic regime, which is exactly what the English and their minion, G Papandreou, do not want. Of course, the communists would very much like a communist regime, but they know that such a thing is impossible. At present the Communist plans envisage active participation in a coalition government, and if the situation later favors the Communists, it is good from the Communist point of view, if not, at least they will not lose what little they have won. Let us not forget that the war in Europe continues, and everything is still being played out.
Therefore, the plan is very reasonable, despite the cries of the loud super-revolutionaries who are calling for People's Democracy here and now. But something like this will result in a conflict in principle between the KKE and the EAM, which is completely and obviously absurd. But what the English fear is the truly popular and proven EAM that worked wonders during the Occupation.
If the Front was kept as a front, the right would find it hard from the start. Therefore, the EAM and its main army, ELAS, had to be disbanded at all costs. That, after all, was why Scobie was in Athens.
The EAM newspaper "Eleftheri Greece" correctly wrote:
An unconditional dissolution of ELAS would mean abandoning the people to the hands of their executioners. The Asphalites are lurking, protected by the English. And it is precisely on them that the English count more than on their own army or the Holy Company and the Mountain Brigade of Rimini. Infantrymen know how to act as commandos and assassins, and are therefore better suited to street fighting than troops trained for regular combat on regular fields. Of course, English tanks will play a key role in the Decembriana, as we will see, but they will function more as mobile barricades than as offensive weapons. Behind these moving barricades will move frightened partisans who know that nothing will save them if the EAMites win, and that's why they play everything for everything. The English could not have found a better army. Every general, including General Scobie, knows that there is no better soldier than the desperate soldier who knows that only victory can save him.
The above means that the Decembriana is a pure civil war, which will act as a prelude to the one that will follow, and not simply a military intervention by the English. The English, like later the Americans in the main civil war, guide, organize and equip their local collaborators, mainly the infantrymen. That is, they have others slaughtered on their behalf.
3. Bloody Sunday
On December 1, 1944, Scobi, in the absence of the Greek government, calls on ELAS to surrender its weapons. And the next day, again in the absence of everything, he fills Athens with announcements that fall from airplanes, as well as with posters that his henchmen stick on the walls. He is not asking for anything this time, he simply, like a good father, wants to let his children, the Greeks, know that they should not worry about anything, that he will protect the legitimate government and that any coup attempt will be defeated by unconstitutional violence.
It's obvious for whom the bell tolls. And the EAM attempts to give a paid answer to the protector, calling the people to a general strike for Monday, the 4th of the month, and to a popular rally of protest against the British on Sunday, December 3, 1944. (…_
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LEONIDAS KYRKOS
From his book "Subversive", p. 127
On the way to liberation, the great EAM movement already had deep roots in the people, it had strong organizations everywhere in the cities and villages. Its armed wing, ELAS, had control over almost the entire country and a large number of regular army officers served in its ranks. The EAM constituted the strongest pole of attraction, it had an incomparable prestige vis-à-vis the old political world and exercised indisputable ideological hegemony in Greek society. All of these constituted solid conditions on which the perspective of a decisive role of the EAM in the political and social developments after the liberation could be built. At this crucial point of orientation, the leadership of the KKE failed to provide the right solution: to remain without any hesitation, at all costs to ensure the appeal of the cards for the election of the first after Greek parliament and the holding of an indisputable referendum for the definitive abolition of the monarchy.
TWO CRITICAL ORIENTATION MISTAKES
I think that the KKE leadership committed contradictory errors at the same time. And these finally trapped her in the armed conflict of December, which paved the way for the defeat and the collapse of the amazing massiveness and depth of the EAM movement:
1. He considered that a central point, even for a break with the other powers and with the British, was the solution of the military problem after liberation. And although in Caserta he had accepted the assignment of the command of the armed units - regular army and ELAS - to the British general Scobie, in the negotiations that led to the crisis of December 1944 he did not show the required flexibility, so that the solution of the seriousness of the problem would do not hinder the progress towards the smooth conduct of the elections which should have been the clearest and immovable goal.
The English - and especially Churchill - sought to drag ELAS into a confrontation, in order to dissolve the armed shield of the popular movement. And it must be considered certain that even if they failed to drag the EAM into the well-prepared trap, they would still do everything to prevent the smooth progress towards the elections. What scared them was the great gathering around EAM, its political and mass power. But she had to be guarded like the apple of an eye by the leadership of the EAM-KKE. Without it, weapons alone could give no guarantee of the outcome of an encounter. After decades, the experiences of the states of existing socialism confirmed this crucial truth. There, regimes collapsed despite being guarded by powerful military apparatuses. Because they too had been corroded and neutralized by popular opposition.
The leadership of the KKE, although theoretically declared its trust in the popular factor and mass struggle, underestimated them. And conversely, he overestimated the ability of the English to engineer and set up, with the political world they controlled, military mechanisms capable of subduing the popular movement, which was overflowing from everywhere. He underestimated that the working class in the vast majority of them was immovably oriented towards the EAM goals of social liberation. That the peasantry, who bore the terrible burden of the armed struggle, would never turn back. That the Civil Servant Movement would not support a reactionary administration and that any conscription would be aimed at new generations nurtured by EPON. And to officers who cultivated in the army the proud new culture of an army that would truly belong to the nation and to the republic.
In these truly difficult times, I believe that the lack of historical vision played a role, but also the education of the communist leadership in the Stalinist concept of the revolutionary process that despised the peaceful path and saw democracy as bourgeois hypocrisy.
The idea of an armed confrontation with the British, which troubled many in those years, at all levels, since no one doubted the hatred they harbored against the EAM, deserved one decisive condition: the active help of the USSR, or at least its moral policy support. Without these being secured – and they weren't – the match would have resulted in a crash, so it had to be ruled out in any case.
2. The leadership of the EAM-KKE underestimated the power of the People's Movement in all the critical manipulations that led to Lebanon and Caserta. Re-reading the minutes of the Lebanon conference, one feels ashamed for the attitude of the EAM delegation, which received incredible flattery from political ghosts of the past, first of all the fatal George Papandreou....
(...) Finally, the leadership of the KKE was led to December. And when at the end - Christmas '44 - the great opportunity for a less painful compromise arose with the advent of Winston Churchill, the leadership of the KKE with incredible lightness let the opportunity slip, formulating almost victorious terms, only to withdraw after few days ELAS from Athens and we will be driven to Varkiza and the handing over of weapons.
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TAKIS LAZARIDIS
(A member of the KKE, he was in the same cell as Nikos Belogiannis and Batsis. He survived thanks to his young age, but also thanks to the fact that his father (a member of the KKE) was executed by the Germans and his mother for the resistance his action was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Bulgarian Military Court)
From his book "Fortunately we were defeated comrades..."
DECEMBER
Why did December happen? Why after Lebanon and Caserta, everything showed that we were moving towards smooth and peaceful developments, this fierce conflict, at a critical moment of the Second World War? Why this terrible bloodshed, which could at the same time shake the very cohesion of the anti-Hitler alliance, with unpredictable and unspecified consequences?
There are two official versions. Or one of the right, which argues that December was another bloody round. A failed attempt by the KKE to seize power by force of arms, in violation of the Lebanon and Caserta agreements. And the other of the left, which claims that December was the crown, the jewel of the resistance. Proud response of the people to the brutal British intervention, to the attempt of British imperialism to chain our country. Both versions are "a far cry" from reality. At least this is what the existing historical evidence and common sense say.
The crucial point, the cross point where the explosive oppositions of the moment converged and converged, was the disarmament of the rebel forces. The disarmament of ELAS and the creation of a regular national army as stipulated in the Lebanon agreement.
The left was reacting. And it was natural for him to react. He knew very well how much more effective the "weapon criticism" is than the "weapon of criticism"...
He understood that by handing over the weapons, he lost any possibility of putting his stamp on future developments. Power was becoming a distant and unapproachable vision, or rather, it was permanently lost in the depths of the horizon. However, there was no more scope. The big decisions had to be made. G. Papandreou insisted on the disarmament of ELAS and EDES, but he did not accept the simultaneous dissolution of the Holy Company and the Mountain Brigade, which the left persistently demanded.
After arduous negotiations, the EAM ministers proposed a compromise plan with Zevgos: To maintain the Mountain Brigade, the Holy Company and a section of the EDES, and an ELAS unit equal in number and firepower to the sum of all three of these corps . In the "EPISIMA TEXTS of the KKE" volume V page 476, it is written specifically: In one phase of the always ongoing negotiations, the EAM faction with ministers Zevgos, Svolos and Porphyrogenis, submitted a plan as in paragraph 2 it says:
"A section of the National Army will be established to symbolically continue participation in the joint allied struggle and also take part, if required, in the regions of Crete and the Dodecanese. In this part of the National Army, which will also symbolize national unity, the existing Mountain Brigade, the Holy Company and part of the EDES will participate as well as an ELAS brigade having a strength equal to the sum of the above forces and with equal equipment ».
Papandreou immediately agreed and even called the cabinet for the next meeting in order to sign the agreement. Everything showed that the crisis was easing, there is a dramatic relapse. Zevgos, after first begging for the convening of the cabinet to be cancelled, presented himself to G. Papandreou and, revoking the proposal he had made, set new conditions, demanding in particular the simultaneous disarmament of all, without exception, the armed forces.
Complete retreat, that is. And that it was a complete retreat is not my arbitrary finding. This is attested by various testimonies from different sides. Let's see what the big names of the Republic have to say about it.
Referring to the visit of Yannis Zevgos to his house on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 28, 1944, G. Papandreou writes:
"Zevgos is completely in a state of great nervousness. He declared to me that the Communist Party no longer accepts the agreement which he himself had negotiated the previous one, and that he is setting new conditions for acceptance, among which the simultaneous disbandment of the Mountain Brigade and the Holy Company, the immediate establishment of a summary procedure for the payees, the mandatory issuance of court decisions before December 10, etc. I was surprised and told him that it was a complete withdrawal and that the government could not accept the new conditions but was sticking to the agreement made. Zevgos then, in a state of exasperation, hastened to leave, without even saying goodbye to me. I got the impression, as I then announced to the cabinet, that Zevgos had been sent with the order to absolutely bring about the rupture" (From the book "The life of G. Papandreou", p. 257)
P. Kanellopoulos, answering a related question, says among others:
"On November 27, the ministers of the KKE and EAM proposed that instead of ELAS and Zervas demobilizing and surrendering their weapons on December 10, a large ELAS unit equivalent to the sum of the 3rd Mountain Brigade, the Holy Company and of a part of Zerva. G. Papandreou accepted it immediately and then we accepted it unreservedly and all the other ministers. Less than 24 hours passed and the KKE backed down. On November 28, at 6:00 p.m., Zevgos, after he had requested by phone to postpone the cabinet that had been appointed for the signing of this important agreement, arrived at the house of G. Papandreou and demanded, I was present at this meeting, that they be dissolved, in addition to ELAS and Zerva's forces, the 3rd Mountain Brigade and the Holy Company. G. Papandreou immediately rejected this new claim. I also agreed with him before Zevgus. We had accepted that ELAS be honored to a degree equivalent to the degree of honor that would be awarded to all the other armed forces of the nation together. What more could we do?'
And adds P. Kanellopoulos
"He may have wanted Churchill, especially after the Moscow conference, October 10-20, 1944, to clarify the situation in Greece with a dynamic confrontation with the KKE and ELAS. But I can confirm that this is not what G. Papandreou and his then close collaborators wanted, and that we wanted reconciliation and not civil war. I don't know if the hard core of the KKE wanted the same. If he wanted to, he would not have brought us before the dilemmas that his various retreats created in the last ten days of November" (V. Mathiopoulou, "The Greek Resistance and the Allies". Pp. 40-41)
But the "other side of the hill" accepts that it was a complete retreat. Both Al. Svolos in his article in the newspaper "MACHI" on 5.12.45 as well as the journalist and former member of parliament of the left P. Paraskevopoulos in a thorough analysis of the matter (ELEFTHEROTYPIA, 9, 16, and 23 January 1985), while they lay part of the responsibility and to G. Papandreou because he rejected the proposal that the new group under formation be unified and with a unified administration, they finally accept that the responsibility for the retreat rests with the leadership of the KKE.
P. Paraskevopoulos writes
"Regardless of the retreats of one or the other side, what is certain is that on the afternoon of November 28, when he visited George Papandreou at his home, Giannis Zevgos told him that the only solution is to simultaneously dissolve ELAS, EDES, Mountain Brigade and the Holy Company. Zevgos left no room for new discussions and finding another solution to Papandreou that afternoon..."
and below:
"The leadership of the KKE now knows that the conditions set by Yiannis Zevgos to Georgios Papandreou also meant an inevitable armed conflict. Essentially, the communist leadership on November 28 no longer avoids the conflict with the government and the British armed forces…”
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APOSTOLOS VAKALOPOULOS
From his book "New Greek History 1204-1985", 2nd edition, p. 435
The national program is the purification of the past: the restoration of the state, its economic recovery, the moral sanitization of public services, justice, administration and education. On October 23, the new government with Papandreou again as president is sworn in and orders the demobilization of the men of the rebel groups for December 1-10. At the same time, the class of 1936 is called to form the "temporary national guard".
Soon, however, the ministers of the left who belong to the KKE and EAM retreat, because the intransigent prevail, who aim for the dynamic, revolutionary, imposition of their party. They put forward the terms that the mountain brigade and the holy reason should be disbanded at the same time as the rebel groups and that all the gendarmes should be sent to their homes as citizens. The conditions are not accepted and the six ministers of the left resign, as a result of which the government splits (December 1). This is followed by the rally on December 3 of the followers of the above organizations, which has been banned, and the first clashes occur.
The tendency of the KKE – in contrast to the other communist parties of Western Europe – for dynamic enforcement was a serious political fault, attributed mainly to its Stalinist leader Nikos Zachariadis. The intransigents who follow the revolutionary line and not the free political struggle prevail within the party. This error is going to have not only continuous shocks with short-term and long-term disintegrating effects within the KKE itself, but – worst of all – terrible consequences for the whole country and for all Greeks: it opens the curtain on the greatest Greek tragedy since the Asia Minor catastrophe.
This is how the civil war begins and rages throughout December in Athens and in Greece in general. Thousands of victims from both factions. Hundreds are arrested by rebel bodies and taken as hostages to concentration camps or those who are accused or considered to have collaborated with the conqueror or to have betrayed those who reacted are executed.
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V. SKOULAKOU – N. DIMAKOPOULOU – S. KONDI
From the book "Newer and modern", issue 3, 3 of Eniai Lykeiou, page 292
2. The period of national crisis. (October 1944-August 1949)
a. The December ones
While the people were asking for peace to heal their wounds, the national government was torn apart by internal contradictions, which paralyzed it. At the same time, the English openly intervene in the internal affairs of the country and contribute to the increase of acidity. George Papandreou could not control the situation.
The main problem facing the government is how to disarm the various rebel groups and create a unified national army. George Papandreou proposes a general disarmament from which, however, the third Greek mountain brigade and the Holy Company would be excluded, units that had been retained by the British after the suppression of the Middle East rebellion and had taken part in the war operations in Italy (battle of Rimini ).
The EAM ministers oppose the simultaneous disarmament of all rebel bodies and military formations in the Middle East. EAM's counter-plan is rejected. In response, December 2, 1944, the EAM ministers resign. On December 3, the EAM organizes a protest demonstration in Syntagma Square which ends in bloodshed; toll: 28 dead and 100 injured among the demonstrators falling to the asphalt. The next day, December 4, a general strike called by EAM breaks out. At the same time ELAS units occupy the police stations and disarm the policemen. In December, the first phase of the civil war began.
*Cover photo: British chariot in the streets of Athens (joint of Petmeza and Dimitrakopoulos streets, Agios Ioannis Gargarettas), during the Decembrians / wikipedia