LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

278 APOSTOLOS PATELAKIS
the Communists, by means of discipline and propaganda, succeeded
in offering the image of a better future, many young people being ready to
sacrifice themselves for freedom, independence and justice. In his memoirs
(which were published recently), elli pappa, a prominent member of the
Greek Communist party during the period of German occupation, wrote
(among other ideas and observations), the following remark: “young
people in our age can not understand the relationship with a communist
party in the fifth decade. It was a purely metaphysical relationship. to leave
the party or to be expelled from the party, it was as you would have been
denied by your family; it was a greater punishment than being sentenced
to death.”
non-communist resistance groups were also created. they were
supported by conservative nationalist forces and by the British Army.
the most important of these resistance groups was the Greek Democratic
national union (eDeS), which operated mainly in nW Greece. these
armed partisan groups opposed, especially in mountain areas, an obstinate
resistance to the aggressors, caused them heavy losses.
the King and the government in exile had little contact with the
occupied country and in their opinion the sabotage and the resistance
against the enemy were not justified because the terrible repressions to
which the civilian population was subjected.
the surrender of Italy (3 rd of Sept. 1943) allowed to the liberation
Army to take the Italians’ military units and weapons. Getting much
stronger and more reinforced in this way began a series of vigorous actions
meant to chase away the enemy and to strengthen its own positions.
Since october 1943, conflicts between the armed groups of the elAS
and those of the eDeS begin to take place one after another, because the
groups belonging to the latter organization cooperated with the occupying
authorities. Some historians assert that in fact the Civil War started now,
in 1943 and not in 1946, and others speak about a first Civil War. In the
internal fights of 1943–1944, the British supported the eDeS and stopped
helping the elAS in order to avoid the setting up of the communism,
which was gaining ground in Greece, without the direct involvement of the
Soviets. It was obvious that the national liberation Front (eAM) sought and
wanted to accomplish its proposed political objectives, forming a political
Committee of national liberation, a sort of temporary government in the
free Greece in the mountains.
the forming of this political Committee was a direct challenge to the
powerless government, stuck in exile and out of touch with the realities of
the country.