The most complete information guide about Athens, Greece
HISTORY
OF ATHENS
Greek
Civil War
From Agreement to Confrontation
1944
In May 1944, representatives from all political parties and resistance
groups came together at a conference in Lebanon, seeking an agreement
about a government of national unity. Despite EAM's accusations
of collaboration made against all the other Greek forces and blames
charging EAM-ELAS members for murders, banditry and thievery,
the conference ended with an agreement for a government of national
unity consisting of 24 ministers, 6 of whom were EAM's members,
because of Soviet directives to the KKE to avoid harming Allied
unity, but didn't resolve the resistance groups' disarmament problem.
By
the summer of 1944 it was obvious that the Germans would soon
withdraw from Greece, The government-in-exile, now led by a prominent
liberal, George Papandreou, moved to Casterta in Italy in preparation
for the return to Greece. Under the Caserta agreement of September
1944, all the resistance forces in Greece were placed under the
command of a British officer, General Ronald Scobie.
Troops
of the Western Allies landed in Greece in October. There was little
fighting since the Germans were in full retreat and most of Greek
territory was already liberated by either ELAS or EDES. In Athens,
only the central part of the city was under German occupation
on 13 October, while all other regions were under EAM-ELAS rule.
The German forces were greatly outnumbered by ELAS which, by this
time, had 50.000 men under arms and was re-equipping from supplies
left behind by the Germans. On 13 October British troops entered
Athens. Papandreou and his ministers followed 6 days later. The
King stayed in Cairo because Papandreou had promised that the
future of the monarchy would be decided by referendum.
At
this point there was little to prevent ELAS from taking full control
of the country. They did not do so because the KKE leadership
was under instructions from the Soviet Union not to precipitate
a crisis that could jeopardize Allied unity and put Stalin's larger
post-war objectives at risk. The KKK’s leadership knew this
but the ELAS fighters did not. This became a source of conflict
within EAM and ELAS.
Following
Stalin's instructions, the KKE’s leadership tried to avoid
a confrontation with the Papandreou government. The majority of
ELAS members saw the Western Allies as liberators although some
KKE leaders such as Andreas Tzimas and Aris Velouchiotis did not
trust the Western Allies. Tzimas was in touch with the Yugoslav
Communist leader Josip Broz Tito and he disagreed with ELAS' co-operation
with the Western Allied forces.
The
issue of disarming the resistance organizations was a cause of
friction between the Papandreou government and its EAM members.
Advised by the British ambassador Sir Reginald Leeper, Papandreou
demanded the disarmament of all armed forces apart from the Ieros
Lohos and the 3rd Greek Mountain Brigade, or Rimini Brigade, that
were formed after the suppression of the Greek armed forces’
mutiny in Egypt and the constitution of a National Guard under
government control.
EAM,
believing that this would leave ELAS defenseless against the right-wing
militias and the anti-communist Security Battalions, submitted
an alternative plan of total and simultaneous disarmament, which
Papandreou rejected as he had started viewing the Security Battalions
as a good reserve against a possible communist coup. EAM ministers
resigned from the government on 2 December. The day before, Scobie
had issued a proclamation requiring the dissolution of ELAS. Command
of ELAS was the KKE's greatest source of strength, and the KKE
leader Siantos decided that the demand for ELAS' dissolution should
not be met.
Tito's
influence may have played some role in ELAS' resistance to disarmament.
Tito was outwardly loyal to Stalin but had come to power through
his own forces and believed that the Communist Greeks should do
the same. His influence, however, had not prevented the EAM leadership
from putting its forces under Scobie's command a couple of months
earlier, according to the Caserta agreement.