Nikolaos Zachariadis
Encyclopedia
General Secretary
The office of general secretary is staffed by the chief officer of:*The General Secretariat for Macedonia and Thrace, a government agency for the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thrace...
of the Communist Party of Greece
Communist Party of Greece
Founded in 1918, the Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party on the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...
(KKE) from 1931 to 1956.
Early life
Born in Adrianopole in 1903, the son of an employee of the OttomanOttoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...
tobacco monopoly. He worked as a seaman on the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, where he came under the influence of the Bolshevik Revolution. He studied at the International Lenin School
International Lenin School
Situated in Moscow and shrouded in secrecy, the International Lenin School was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevisation" of the Communist International and its national sections, following the resolutions of the fifth Congress of the Comintern. Between 1926 and 1938 the school...
and the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
Communist University of the Toilers of the East
The Communist University of the Toilers of the East or KUTV was established April 21, 1921, in Moscow by the Communist International as a training college for communist cadres in the colonial world. The school officially opened on October 21, 1921...
(KUTV) in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
Political activity in Greece
In 1923, he was sent back to Greece to organise the Young Communist League of GreeceYoung Communist League of Greece
Young Communist League of Greece was the youth wing of the Communist Party of Greece. OKNE was founded on November 28, 1922. The journal I Neolaia became the official organ of OKNE. OKNE was a section of the Communist Youth International. Nikolaos Zachariadis became the leader of OKNE in 1924...
(OKNE). Imprisoned, he subsequently fled to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In 1931, he was sent back to Greece to restore order in the highly factionalised KKE and in the same year (other accounts claim 1935), he was appointed, by order of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
, General Secretary of KKE.
In August 1936, he was arrested by the State Security of the Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas
Ioannis Metaxas was a Greek general, politician, and dictator, serving as Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941...
regime and imprisoned. From prison, he issued a letter urging all Greeks to resist the Italian invasion
Greco-Italian War
The Greco-Italian War was a conflict between Italy and Greece which lasted from 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941. It marked the beginning of the Balkans Campaign of World War II...
of October 1940 and transform the war into an anti-fascist war. According to KKE, which considered the war to be a feud between imperialist opponents, this letter was fabricated by the Metaxas regime. Zachariadis was even accused of releasing it to win the favor of Maniadakis and be released from prison.
On November 16, 1940, a second letter was released by Zachariadis which accused the Greek army of waging a "fascist" and "imperialistic war" and appealed to the USSR to act against the Metaxas regime. In a third letter (January, 1941), Zachariadis reiterated this position, and reasserted KKE’s position for the secession of Greek Macedonia from Greece.
KKE's anti-war position was definitively reversed when Germany surprise-attacked the USSR on June 22, 1941. KKE then called upon the Greek people to resist the fascist and Nazi invaders, and the resistance group National Liberation Front-Greek People's Liberation Army (EAM-ELAS) were formed.
After the German invasion of Greece, in 1941 the Nazi Germans
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
transferred him to the Dachau concentration camp, from where he was released in May 1945. Returning to Greece, he re-assumed the leadership of the KKE from Georgios Siantos, acting general secretary of the KKE since January 1942.
Civil War
Zachariadis conducted the military operations of the communist Democratic Army of GreeceDemocratic Army of Greece
This article is based on a translation of an article from the Greek Wikipedia.The Democratic Army of Greece , often simply abbreviated to its initials DSE , was the army founded by the Communist Party of Greece during the Greek Civil War, 1946–1949...
, which was formed to install a socialist People's Republic
People's Republic
People's Republic is a title that has often been used by Marxist-Leninist governments to describe their state. The motivation for using this term lies in the claim that Marxist-Leninists govern in accordance with the interests of the vast majority of the people, and, as such, a Marxist-Leninist...
in Greece, part of a supposed Union of Soviet Democracies in the Balkans. According to the official KKE party-line, Greece at the time was in the British sphere of influence. During the civil war
Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...
, the communist uprising was defeated in 1949, and the KKE leadership and the remnants of the Democratic Army fled into exile in the communist states.
Post-war
The leadership of the Communist Party found refuge in TashkentTashkent
Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...
. From abroad, Zachariadis still enjoyed a mandate by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to act as leader of KKE. However, following the death of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
in 1953, Zachariadis fell out of favour with new Soviet leadership, despite his support by the large number of party members.
In May 1956, during the 6th General Assembly of the Central Committee of KKE, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union intervened to expel Zachariadis from the post of General Secretary. In February 1957 Zachariadis was also expelled from KKE, as were a large number of his supporters.
Zachariadis spent the rest of his life in exile in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
, initially in Yakutia and later in Surgut
Surgut
Surgut is a city in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia, located on the Ob River near its junction with the Irtysh River, the largest in the autonomous okrug and the second largest in Tyumen Oblast. Population:...
. In 1962 desperate from the devastating conditions of his exile, he somehow managed to reach Moscow. There he visited the Hellenic (Greek) Embassy and he asked that he be transported to Greece where he wanted to stand trial for his crimes. Whether or not his request was taken into consideration is not known. Immediately after he exited the Hellenic embassy he was arrested by the Soviets and was taken to Surgut. There, according to KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
claims, he committed suicide in 1973. According to other versions he was assassinated. As of today, the Russian state archive records relating to the circumstances of his death remain secret.
In December 1991, just a few days after the fall of the Soviet Union, Zachariadis' corpse was returned in his homeland, Greece, and he was given a funeral, which gave his supporters the opportunity to honour him.