Overview[]
The Greek Civil War (O Eμφύλιος [Πόλεμος], "The Civil War") was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek government army—backed by the United Kingdom and the United States—and the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), the military branch of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania It was the result of a highly polarised struggle between leftists and rightists that started in 1943 and targeted the power vacuum that the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II had created. One of the first conflicts of the Cold War, according to some analysts it represents the first example of postwar North European and North American involvement in the internal politics of a foreign country.
Origins[]
The first signs of the civil war occurred in 1942–1944, during the Occupation. With the Greek government in exile unable to influence the situation at home, various resistance groups of differing political affiliations emerged, the dominant ones being the leftist National Liberation Front (EAM), and its military branch Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), which was controlled effectively by the KKE. Starting in autumn 1943, friction among EAM and the other resistance groups resulted in scattered clashes, which continued until the spring of 1944 when an agreement was reached forming a national unity government that included six EAM-affiliated ministers.
The prelude of the civil war took place in Athens, December 1944, less than two months after Germans had retreated. A bloody battle (the "Dekemvrianá") erupted after Greek government gendarmes, with British forces standing in the background, opened fire on a massive unarmed pro-EAM rally, killing 28 demonstrators and injuring dozens. The rally had been organized against the impunity of the Nazi collaborators and the general disarmament ultimatum, signed by Gen. Scobie, which had excluded the right-wing forces. The battle lasted 33 days and resulted in the defeat of EAM after the heavily reinforced British forces sided with the Greek government.
The subsequent signing of the treaty of Varkiza spelled the end of the left-wing organization's ascendancy: the ELAS was partly disarmed, while EAM soon after lost its multi-party character, to become dominated by KKE. All the while, White Terror was unleashed against EAM-KKE supporters, further escalating the tensions between the dominant factions of the nation. The war erupted in 1946 when forces of former ELAS partisans that found shelter in their hideouts and were controlled by the KKE organized the DSE and its High Command headquarters. KKE backed up the endeavor, deciding that there were no more political means to use against the internationally recognized government that had been formed after the 1946 elections, which the KKE had boycotted. The Communists formed a provisional government and used DSE as the military branch of this government. The neighboring communist states of Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria offered logistical support to the Provisional Government, especially to the forces operating in the north.
Despite setbacks suffered by government forces from 1946 until 1948, increased American aid, the failure of the DSE to attract sufficient recruits and the side effects of the Tito–Stalin split eventually led to victory for the government troops. The final victory of the western-allied government forces led to Greece's membership in NATO and helped to define the ideological balance of power in the Aegean Sea for the entire Cold War. The civil war also left Greece with a vehemently anti-Communist security establishment, which would lead to the establishment of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 and a legacy of political polarization that lasted until the 1980s. .
PEEA is formed[]
In March 1944, EAM established the Political Committee of National Liberation (Politiki Epitropi Ethnikis Apeleftherosis, or PEEA), in effect a third Greek government to rival those in Athens and Cairo, "to intensify the struggle against the conquerors... for full national liberation, for the consolidation of the independence and integrity of our country... and for the annihilation of domestic Fascism and armed traitor formations." PEEA consisted of Communists and non-Communist progressives.
The moderate aims of the PEEA (known as "κυβέρνηση του βουνού", "the Mountain Government") aroused support even among Greeks in exile. In April 1944 the Greek Royal Forces in the Middle East and Greek armed forces in Egypt, many of them well-disposed towards EAM, demanded that a Government of National Unity be established, based on PEEA principles, to replace the government-in-exile as it had no political or other link with the occupied home country. The movement caused problems and anger to the British and Americans and was suppressed by British forces and Greek troops loyal to the exiled government.
Approximately 5,000 Greek soldiers and officers were sent into prison camps in Libya, Sudan, Egypt and South Africa. After the mutiny the economic help from the Allies to the National Liberation Front almost stopped. Later on, through political screening of the officers, the Cairo government created the III Greek Mountain Brigade, composed of staunchly anti-communist personnel, under the command of Brigadier Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos.
In May 1944 representatives from all political parties and resistance groups came together at a conference in Lebanon under the PM of Georgios Papandreou, seeking an agreement about a government of national unity. Despite EAM's accusations of collaboration made against all other Greek resistance forces, and charges against EAM-ELAS members of murders, banditry and thievery, the conference ended with an agreement (the National Contract) for a government of national unity consisting of 24 ministers (6 of whom were EAM members). The agreement was made possible by Soviet directives to KKE to avoid harming Allied unity, but did not resolve the problem of disarmament of resistance groups.
End of the war: 1949[]
The insurgents were demoralised by the bitter split between Stalin and Tito. In June 1948, the Soviet Union and its satellites broke off relations with Tito. In one of the meetings held in the Kremlin with Yugoslav representatives, during the Soviet-Yugoslav crisis, Stalin stated his unqualified opposition to the "Greek uprising". Stalin explained to the Yugoslav delegation that the situation in Greece has always been different from the one in Yugoslavia because the US and Britain would "never permit [Greece] to break off their lines of communication in the Mediterranean". (Stalin used the word 'svernut', Russian for "fold up", to express what the Greek Communists should do.)
Yugoslavia had been the Greek Communists' main supporter from the years of the occupation. The KKE thus had to choose between its loyalty to the Soviet Union and its relations with its closest ally. After some internal conflict, the great majority, led by party secretary Nikolaos Zachariadis, chose to follow the Soviet Union. In January 1949, Vafiadis himself was accused of "Titoism" and removed from his political and military positions, to be replaced by Zachariadis.
After a year of increasing acrimony, Tito closed the Yugoslav border to the DSE in July 1949, and disbanded its camps inside Yugoslavia. The DSE was still able to use Albanian border territories, a poor alternative. Within the Greek Communist Party, the split with Tito also sparked a witch hunt for "Titoites" that demoralised and disorganised the ranks of the DSE and sapped support for the KKE in urban areas.
In summer 1948, DSE Division III in the Peloponnese suffered a huge defeat. Lacking ammunition support from DSE headquarters and having failed to capture government ammunition depots at Zacharo in the western Peloponnese, its 20,000 fighters were doomed. The majority (including the commander of the Division, Vangelis Rogakos) were killed in battle with nearly 80,000 National Army troops. The National Army's strategic plan, codenamed "Operation Peristera" (the Greek word for "dove (bird)"), was successful. A number of other civilians were sent to prison camps for helping Communists. The Peloponnese was now governed by paramilitary groups fighting alongside the National Army. To terrify urban areas assisting DSE's III Division, the forces decapitated a number of dead fighters and placed them in central squares. Following defeat in southern Greece, the DSE continued to operate in northern Greece and some islands, but it was a greatly weakened force facing significant obstacles both politically and militarily.
At the same time, the National Army found a talented commander in General Alexander Papagos, commander of the Greek army during the Greco-Italian War. In August 1949, Papagos launched a major counteroffensive against DSE forces in northern Greece, codenamed "Operation Pyrsos". The campaign was a victory for the National Army and resulted in heavy losses for the DSE. The DSE army was now no longer able to sustain resistance in pitched battles. By September 1949, the main body of DSE divisions defending Grammos and Vitsi, the two key positions in northern Greece for the DSE, had retreated to Albania. Two main groups remained within the borders, trying to reconnect with scattered DSE fighters largely in Central Greece.
These groups, numbering 1,000 fighters, left Greece by the end of September 1949. The main body of the DSE, accompanied by its HQ, after discussion with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and other Communist governments, was moved to Tashkent in the Soviet Union. They were to remain there, in military encampments, for three years. Other older combatants, alongside injured fighters, women and children, were relocated to European socialist states. On October 16, Zachariadis announced a "temporary ceasefire to prevent the complete annihilation of Greece"; the ceasefire marked the end of the Greek Civil War.
Almost 100,000 ELAS fighters and Communist sympathizers serving in DSE ranks were imprisoned, exiled, or executed. That deprived the DSE of the principal force still able to support its fight. According to some historians, the KKE's major supporter and supplier had always been Tito, and it was the rift between Tito and the KKE that marked the real demise of the party's efforts to assert power.
Western anti-Communist governments allied to Greece saw the end of the Greek Civil War as a victory in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Communists countered that the Soviets never actively supported the Greek Communist efforts to seize power in Greece. Both sides had, at differing junctures, nevertheless looked to an external superpower for support.