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61 Years since the End of the civil War in Greece (1946–1949) 281
mentions in his diary Stalin’s position regarding these events: “I advised
him not to start the armed struggle in Greece... perhaps they thought that
the red Army would reach the Aegean Sea... We can not do that… Greeks
acted unwisely.” 6
the Varkiza Agreement ended, for the moment, infighting, but did not
resolve the serious political problems that had generated these conflicts. If
there had been a more powerful government and it could have implemented
the decisions taken, perhaps one would have avoided many of the subsequent
misfortunes.
For the Communist party, the Varkiza Agreement was merely a
provisional intermezzo. At the beginning of May 1945, the leader of
Communist party, nikos zahariadis, returns to Athens. During four years,
zahariadis, had been disappeared in nazi concentration camps, rescued
alive from the camp in Dachau, he is received with great enthusiasm by
the Communists, and his activity would give a new impetus to the party
after its defeat in February. 7 In this period, the Communist party was a
legal political party with thousands of supporters, had two media organs,
the newspaper rizospastis (radical) and the elefteria hellas (Free Greece),
but the party was under strict monitoring, deploying its activity in a climate
of terror, hatred and revenge, set up by the monarchist-fascist elements.
Strong social tensions have endangered British efforts to stabilize the
political situation under the leadership of a center-right administration.
According to a report of the national liberation Front (nlF) presented
to the un, between the 12 th of February 1945 and 31 st of March 1946,
there were arrested around 85,000 people, tortured about 20,000, wounded
6,500, died 1,289. 8 Far-right Forces and paramilitary organizations hated
communism and were creating serious problems to the leftist forces. the
camps were full of communists, thus preventing them from joining the
Democratic Army. this grim period was called by the historians “the White
terror period”. 9
6 BAerentyen, lars, Μελέτες για τον εμφύλιο πόλεμο, 1945-1949, Εκδόσεις
Ολκός, Αθήνα, 1992, σ. 323/BAErENTYEN, lars, Studies about the Civil War (Athens:
olkos public house, 1992), p. 323.
7 Ελευθεροτυπία‚ “Ιστορικά , Νίκος Ζαχαριάδης – Άρης Βελουχιώτης – Νίκος
Μπελογιάννης”, Αθήνα, σ. 36/“historics, Nikos Zahariadis – Aris Veluhiotis – Nikos
Mpeloghiannis”, Newspaper Eleftherotipia, Athens, p. 36.
8 Κατερίνα Τσέκου, Προσωρινώς διαμένοντες…, Έλληνες πολιτικοί πρόσφυγες στη
Λαική Δημοκρατία της Βουλγαρίας, (1848–1982), Εκδόσεις Επίκεντρο, Αθήνα, 2010, σ.
25. (tSeKou, Katerina, Temporary residents..., Greek Political Emigrants in the Popular
Republic of Bulgaria, 1948–1949 (Athens: epikentro public house, 2010), p. 25.
9 Ηλίας Νικολακόπουλος, Ο εμφύλιος πόλεμος, Από τη Βάρκιζα στο Γράμμο,