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

280 APOSTOLOS PATELAKIS
lasted for 33 days. the liberation Army fought openly against the right’s
forces which were supported by the english. In these circumstances one
could hear for the first time the slogan “Greece to the Greeks”. By mid-
December, the english brought new, well equipped troops from Italy and,
finally, managed to impose themselves. Churchill’s presence on the 25nd
of December, in Athens and the contacts with all the Greek political forces,
proved the importance of Greece in england’s strategic plans to maintain
control of Suez and the Mediterranean. 3 the Soviet Commissary Viaceslav
Molotov confessed to a Bulgarian communist leader, on December 31 st ,
that: “Although we keep silent, we support and sympathize the fight of the
national liberation Front.” 4 For tito, this brutal intervention of the english
in Greece represented, according to Vladimir Dedijer, foreign minister at
the time, a threat to yugoslavia. 5 the two opposite sides, are generally
well defined in this period, on the one hand the forces of the left, led by
the Communist party, on the other hand, the anti-communist camp, the promonarchist
and republican forces supported by the english. everyone wants
to win the power and to exterminate the opposing camp. the lack of trust
and the political antagonism between the national liberation Front (eAM)
and the Anglo-Greek leadership will, in the end, lead, to the outbreak of
the Civil War. the Armistice of January and the Agreement of February
1945 at Varkiza were trying to give a political solution to the crisis which
the country had to face.
the General Secretary of the Communist party, Georgios Siantos,
without moral support from communist states, but in radio contact with the
Bulgarian leader, Ghiorghi Dimitrov, who was, at that time, in Moscow,
wishing to maintain the party in legality, signs the Varkiza Agreement,
committing himself to the demobilization of the national liberation
Army, in exchange for amnesty for political crimes, free elections and a
referendum concerning the form of government.
national Army fighters were disappointed and sad. they relinquished
with sorrow their weapons with which they fought for many years against
the invaders, and some of them even hid their weapons in the mountains,
refusing to hang them over. the Soviets could not do anything. the yalta
Conference was approaching and they did not want to give to the British
the opportunity of criticizing them about the spheres of influence. Dimitrov
3 pAVloWItCh, Stevan K., Istoria Balcanilor/The History of the Balkans, 1804–
1945 (Bucharest: polirom publishing house, 2002), p. 309.
4 Φοίβος Οικονομίδης, Ο Δεκέμβρης του 44 και η διεθνής σημασία του, Εκδόσεις
Ορφέας, Αθήνα, 2005, σ. 20 / oiKoNoMidis, Fivos, December 44 and its Significance
on International Level (Athens: orfeas public house, 2005), p. 20.
5 AntonIou, G., MArAntzIDIS, n., op. cit., p. 67.