The Metaxas dictatorship, which assumed power on 4 August 1936, meant the gaoling and subsequent internal exile, not only of the KKE (Greek Communist Party) but also of the Trotskyists. The outbreak of the Second World War therefore found the Fourth Internationalists in concentration camps in which they alone upheld the principles of revolutionary internationalism, the transformation of the imperialist slaughter into a civil war, and the defence of the USSR. In this struggle they not only fought the German occupation, but also the Metaxas dictatorship and its Stalinist supporters.

The 1930s saw the development of several Trotskyist organisations in Greece, which gradually began to unite before the Second World War. The Spartacus group continued, changing its name whilst picking up splits from either the KKE or the Archeiomarxists. They amounted to about 75 members in 1932 (LD Trotsky, 'A Discussion on Greece', Spring 1932, in Writings of Leon Trotsky: Supplement 1929-33, New York, 1979, p126) and were led by Pouliopoulos. In 1930 a new group, the 'Fractionists' broke with the Archeiomarxists, consisting of the most active student members led by Michel Raptis (Pablo) and Christos Soulas, which took the name of the United Communist Group (KEO). In 1932 Agis Stinas was expelled from the Communist Party and united with the KEO to set up the Leninist Opposition of the Greek Communist Party, publishing the weekly paper Banner of Socialism and the theoretical organ Permanent Revolution. When the Bolshevik group led by George Vitsoris (1889-1954) broke with the Archeiomarxists in 1934 and remained loyal to the international Trotskyist movement, the Leninist Opposition broke up, and the group led by Pablo joined up with Pouliopoulos to set up the International Communist Organisation of Greece (OKDE), whereas Stinas and his comrades united with Vitsoris' group to set up the International Communist Union (KDEE), publishing Ergatiko Metopo (Workers Front). This latter organisation maintained contact with the International Secretariat and was recognised as the official section, whereas Pouliopoulos and Pablo maintained relations with Landau and Molinier. A third organisation also emerging from Archefomarxism, the Bolshevikos Neos Dromos (Bolshevik New Course) was led by Loukas Karliaftis. 'M Mastroyioannis' and Sakkos Papadopoulos.

In 1937 the Bolshevik New Course united with the OKDE of Pouliopoulos and Pablo, as recounted below, to form the United Organisation of the Communist Internationalists of Greece (EOKDE) which published Diethnistis (Internationalist) and Proletarios (Proletarian) up to and including the Second World War. This group and the KDEE of Vitsoris and Stinas were represented at the founding conference of the Fourth International, the KDEE by Vitsoris and the EOKDE by Pablo. The Congress unanimously supported the unification of the two Greek groups (Documents of the Fourth International: The Formative Years, 1933-40, New York, 1973, pp 271, 302, which was accepted as an accomplished fact by LID Trotsky, 'Letter to Rose Karsner', 13 September 1938, in Writings of Leon Trotsky 1937-38, New York, 1976, p448), but the fact that Vitsoris proposed a seat for each group upon the IEC in view of the previous hostility between them shows that this never in fact took place (Documents of the Fourth International, p299). Nor did the proposed international discussion about the differences that was supposed to be organised by the IEC. The repression prevented the unification of the two groups until 1946, and by then the differences had widened so that only a paper unity was achieved. The political differences between the groups to a large extent reflected the differences that emerged in the American SWP on the eve of the Second World War. The discussions and polemics were carried out mainly in the concentration camps and in total isolation from the rest of the world. Trotsky's articles on the dispute with Burnham and Shachtman were unknown until well after the war.

It should be stated that one of the most ferocious battles to break out inside the Greek concentration camps was against all who had made 'declarations' against Communism. Capitulations occurred within the ranks of the KKE as well as of the Trotskyists. Anyone who capitulated to Metaxas or to the Germans was considered as a traitor by the movement as a whole. Among the Trotskyists who were considered to have capitulated were several who were later to become important in the history of Greece and of the Fourth International. Andreas Papandreou, later to become leader of PASOK, belonged to the 'Group of the Thirteen' and was associated with the Proletarios (EOKDE) group. He made an open declaration against Communism on 7 July 1939, as described below, and betrayed all his comrades to the police. His family connections enabled him to obtain a passport, which he used to flee to America. Cornelios Castoriadis, also in the 'Group of Thirteen', also made a declaration against Communism. At the end of the war he went to France, where he became a leader of a faction inside the French Trotskyist organisation, the PCI. In 1949 this faction split and began to publish the magazine Socialisme ou Barbarie, which went on to develop a new revolutionary philosophy, from which the British group Solidarity in part draws its inspiration (for examples of his ideas, cf Socialism or Barbarism, Solidarity pamphlet no 11, and C Castoriadis, History as Creation, Solidarity pamphlet no 54). Stinas' group, which broke from the Greek Trotskyist movement in 1947, became the main supporter of these theories in Greece. Due to the fact that he was a famous theatrical actor, George Vitsoris was allowed to go abroad when Kotopoulea, a famous actress, put pressure on Maniadakis. On his way to internal exile, Vitsoris was forcibly taken out of the car against his will. In the end he gave all his revolutionary literature to another comrade and departed for France. There he took part as a Greek delegate at the clandestine European Conference of the Trotskyists in February 1944 (Rodolphe Prager, 'The Fourth International During the Second World War', in Revolutionary History, volume I , no 3, Autumn 1988, p36, n42) whilst playing an enthusiastic part as an explosives expert in the French Resistance to the extent of being decorated by De Gaulle at the end of the war. Pablo was also considered to have compromised himself, as the following text makes clear.

The Trotskyists who remained in prison condemned the capitulations in a different manner. The KDEE-Stinas group justified Vitsoris, but not Pablo. The EOKDE group condemned Vitsoris, but by a majority decision justified Pablo. Pablo's subsequent history was one where he was recognised as the official representative of the Greek Trotskyists in France during the Second World War - although no such role was assigned to him by any Trotskyist group in Greece.

The entry of the USSR into the war on the side of the Allied imperialists meant that the Greek Stalinists now supported the Metaxas dictatorship in its war against Germany. All the Greek Trotskyists considered this stance to be a betrayal of Lenin's principles, and despite the fact that they were threatened with immediate execution, refused to support the Metaxas dictatorship, But differences emerged whereby the group around Stinas held a defeatist position in relation to the USSR in the Second World War. Differences also started to develop with the outbreak of the resistance movement and over the methods of guerrilla warfare. Revolutionary History will be publishing part of this polemic concerning the Soviet Union in its next issue. Whereas the views of the Stinas group can be easily consulted in his Mémoires (pp 219-220, 273-6 and the documents, appendices on pp313-354), those of the Karliaftis tendency have so far not appeared in any Western European language.

In 1942 many Trotskyists escaped from prison and started discussions and practical activity, publishing revolutionary material against the war. Three tendencies emerged:

The emergence of a resistance movement led by guerrillas in the mountains under the leadership of the Stalinist KKE posed severe problems for Trotskyism, not only theoretical but practical ones. Pablo at first wrote a resolution for the International Secretariat while in France whereby the resistance movement was characterised as being reactionary and in the service of Allied imperialism. This position was then changed in February 1944, whereby the resistance movement was considered progressive. Karliaftis and Stinas both refused to participate in the resistance movement, considering it reactionary. Anastasiades, although taking no active part, allied himself with Pablo's ideas.

It must be noted that a serious practical obstacle remained for all those who declared themselves as Trotskyists and participated (many did on an individual basis) in the resistance mvernent - the Stalinist secret police, the OPLA. According to the Bartzotas Report more than 800 Trotskyists were shot, mainly because they opposed the Stalinist policy of simply getting rid of German imperialism in order to put in its place British imperialism. Only the Greek Trotskyists warned that the British would not come as liberators (as the Stalinists asserted, filling the towns of Greece with slogans like 'Welcome our friends'). When General Scobie opened fire on unarmed civilians killing thousands in December 1944, the Trotskyists were proved tragically right.

Previously the Stalinist policy of class collaboration in the name of 'national reconstruction', whereby all the military arms of the EAM-ELAS guerrillas were handed over to the government of Papandreou (the Varkiza Accords), was condemned only by the Trotskyists. Under pressure from its membership the KKE was forced to enter into open public discussions with the Trotskyists in 1946 to justify its policies.

Under orders from the IS the Greek Trotskyists held a unification congress in 1946. At the Congress the Karliaftis tendency had 16 delegates, Stinas had 10 delegates and Anastasiades had eight. The organisation now called itself the KDKE (Communist Internationalist Party of Greece). After the Congress Stinas and Anastasiades voted together and became the majority of the organisation. Stinas, however, was soon expelled for his state capitalist views, and the Karliaftis tendency became the majority once more. From now on the IS of Pablo and Mandel associated itself with the side of the minority (Anastasiades). The Karliaftis group subsequently went with Healy, and Anastasiades with Pablo, and then with Mandel.

The account we present has been compiled from pamphlets by Comrade Karliaftis dealing with the war period that have already appeared in English and French, but due to translational problems and limited circulation certainly merit reproduction here, even though this is a departure from our normal practice. We have largely drawn upon Trotskyists and Archeiomarxists in the Concentration Camps of the Metaxas Dictatorship, parts i and ii, Internationalist Publications, and In Devotion to P Pouliopoulo and the Militant Trotskyists: Archeiomarxists Killed by the Fascists and the Stalinists (French and English), Ergotiki Protoporeia, Athens, 1984. The full text of Papandreou's capitulation, which is too long to reproduce here, can be consulted in Internationalist: Documents de L’Avant-Garde Ouvrière, Grèce.

All parallel versions in our compilation have been eliminated, and a strictly chronological sequence has been imposed upon the material. We need hardly add that the writer is not responsible for this editorial practice, any more than for any mistakes that may have inadvertently crept in, the blame for which rests upon ourselves alone. All the renderings from Greek have been made and checked against the original by Comrade VN Gelis, and those from the French by Ted Crawford. The reader can well estimate the extent of our thanks to them, and even more so to the author.

1. The Founding Conference of the EOKDE and the Group’s Activities

In spite of intense repression, arrests and unprecedented terror, and in addition to the fact that the finest members of the Trotskyist movement were already imprisoned in the concentration camps of the Metaxas dictatorship, the Trotskyists organised the founding conference of the United Organisation of the Communist Internationalists of Greece (EOKDE) in February 1937. The OKDE and the New Course groups, both having roots in the period of the Russian Revolution and the birth of Bolshevism and Trotskyism in Greece, united at this conference.

The establishment of the EOKDE was the result of the close cooperation and ideological discussion between the two tendencies throughout 1936. We played a genuinely revolutionary rôle during this period and through the magnificent revolt in Thessalonika. An unbreakable unity was forged, and in February 1937 a Trotskyist organisation was founded which would work within Trotsky’s orientation for the building of the Fourth International. The circumstances in which this necessary and hopeful unification took place were harsh in the extreme. We could thus go so far as to call it an historical event.

The unity conference took place in February 1937 in a canyon in the Pentelic mountains in Attica. It lasted one day and was attended by around 15 comrades, all of whom were well-known and had played a significant rôle in the history of the workers’ movement. The prisoners in Acronauplia and the other concentration camps were not, of course, represented. In his closing speech, L Vourzoukis noted that there were more participants from the New Course. The new Central Committee comprised Pantelis Pouliopoulos, who became the leader of the united organisation, Michel Raptis and G Vryhoropoulos from the OKDE, and L Vourzoukis, K Anastasiadis and G Tamtakos from the New Course. Other participants included Nontas Giannakos, Lilis, M Kondilidis, Katsaprokos and four or five others whose names I never learned. Comrades who were still in jail under 12-month sentences that were renewed indefinitely were not eligible for the new Central Committee.

The conference resolution emphasised that the dictatorship in Greece showed that the bourgeoisie was obliged to construct a strong state apparatus that could deal with national divisions which had exploded in the rebellion in Thessalonica in May 1936, the workers’ movement, and with any problems posed by the huge requirements of resources for the forthcoming world war:

‘The dictatorship became inevitable as a result of the mounting anger of the masses, which was manifested in several long and revolutionary struggles all over the country, which, in the face of the worsening world economic crisis, combined with the revolutionary uprising of the Spanish Civil War, and the imminent threat of a new imperialist war, could be transformed into a generalised revolutionary storm.’

The conference stated that the main obstacle to the advance of the workers’ movement was the Communist Party (KKE), which had led the workers’ struggles to disaster, and, therefore, had helped Metaxas to impose his dictatorship. This party and its Popular Front policy bore the main responsibility for the ease with which the bourgeoisie imposed its dictatorship. It had covered up the aims of the bourgeois parties instead of exposing them, and it had helped them to concede full control of the army to the king, thus helping Metaxas to take power. Even then it still did not place a revolutionary perspective before the masses, but merely called for the replacement of the dictatorship by a bourgeois parliamentary government. It was necessary to wage a relentless, all-out struggle against this party, with the perspective of uniting all revolutionary forces in a new internationalist party, under the banner of the Fourth International.

Unity between the OKDE and the New Course took place, even though pre-conference discussions had not been fully concluded, and some points of difference had not been satisfactorily clarified. Nonetheless, unity was as necessary as it was constructive. Yes, historical, we might say. Because the Trotskyists were united and armed both politically and theoretically, and strove for the formation of the Fourth International, we were therefore the only tendency prepared to face the coming approaching war in a Leninist manner, and able to build the new Bolshevik Leninist party in our country.

The political orientation of the conference was confirmed in a resolution of June 1937, which called:

‘For an independent revolutionary struggle for the establishment of a workers’ and peasants’ government. That is the direction of the struggles of this period. Only thus will the workers be saved from the destruction and horror of the war.’

And continued by demanding:

‘A United Front for the overthrow of the royal dictatorship in Greece, for support for the immediate political and economic demands of the workers, and for the rapid preparation for the rule of the workers and peasants.’

For us the approaching war was imperialist as far as the major powers were concerned, with the exception of the Soviet Union:

‘The war does not cease to be imperialist because frauds and middle class philistines bandy around sugared slogans. War is an extension of the policies of finance capital. It is important to recognise which class makes the war. As Lenin said, the war is imperialist so long as it is carried out by the bourgeoisie with the aim of robbery. There is no greater fraud than the Stalinist and Social Democratic propaganda about it being an anti-Fascist war.’

We continued to affirm that the participation of the Soviet Union on the side of either the Axis or Allies would not change the character of the war as far as its imperialist allies are concerned, and that the duty of all revolutionaries was to defend the Soviet Union by every method of the class struggle and by the social revolution, notwithstanding our opposition to the bureaucracy, which must be overthrown by a political revolution.

We must also admit that the unification and the emergence of the EOKDE was a result of the necessity of having to resist the dictatorship, as well as the need for unity in the drive to build the Fourth International. The unification conference took place under conditions of extreme state terror.

In Greece, our Archeiomarxist origins had had a positive influence in that, ever since 1930, under the leadership of the International Left Opposition, we had sought unification on a Trotskyist basis. We were obliged to overcome the resistance to this unity of Pouliopoulos, who had aligned himself with the Landau-Nín tendency in the POUM. Pouliopoulos was by now a firm supporter of unity. In vain had Giotopoulos met with him in order to drive a wedge between the two tendencies. We might add at this point that Giannakos’ support for unity was very helpful throughout the whole period of discussions between the two tendencies.

Despite the dictatorship’s repression, the first issue of The Proletarian was published in February 1937. About 80 per cent of it was written by Pouliopoulos, who was hiding all the while in the house of comrade Menelaos Megariotis’ father. We in the Acronauplia concentration camp, where most of the rank and file of the New Course and the Spartacists (Pouliopoulos’ group) were imprisoned, were overjoyed when we heard of its publication, but we were unable to obtain copies.

The Proletarian was the only oppositional publication of a Trotskyist nature that was able to circulate during the first two years of the dictatorship. It was duplicated and circulated by hand. The responsibility for publication rested with comrade Megariotis, one of the newer comrades, and the equipment was secretly guarded in a separate house. Demosthenes Vourzoukis, although an intellectual, was not among its usual contributors, as he was constantly on the move during the dictatorship in order to evade capture by the police. Neither were comrades Costas Anastasiadis and Vryhoropoulos, even though they also had the ability to write.

The Proletarian was published continuously until 23 June 1938, with 21 issues appearing. It only stopped when the entire Central Committee was arrested. The EOKDE continued for almost another year, supported by a handful of members who were still at liberty, most notably comrades Megariotis and Kondilidis. Here is a list of articles published in the paper:

February 1937: ‘International developments and the political situation in Greece’; a resolution of the founding conference

March 1937: ‘Revolution and counter-revolution in Spain’; ‘A programme for immediate action by the organisation: To topple the dictatorship, for a new Communist Party, to organise a guerrilla movement’

Issues 5, 6 and 7 are missing.

June 1937: ‘The death agony of the Soviet bureaucracy’

Issue 9 is missing.

30 July 1937: ‘Down with the hated Metaxas dictatorship’

26 August 1936: ‘The Metaxas dictatorship masquerade’; ‘Spain: July 1936-July 1937’

20 September 1937: ‘The international campaign for the counter-trial and defence of Leon Trotsky’

28 October 1937: ‘On the threshold of a new imperialist war’; ‘The war and the tasks of Communists’

25 November 1937: ‘The current situation and its significance for the dictatorship’

25 December 1937: ‘And now, dangerous traitors’

5 March 1938: ‘To topple the dictatorship’; ‘To organise the workers’ United Front’; ‘The Bukharin, Rakovsky and Rykov trial’

20 April 1938: A leaflet.

25 May 1938: ‘The king is having a good time - for how long?’; ‘And the Black Knight’; ‘Luxemburg’s nightmare’; ‘The First of May’

28 June 1938: ‘Down with the imperialist organisers of the war’; ‘Down with the dictatorship’

Our organisation continued its activities throughout the period of illegality. Our core groups carried out illegal work in a Bolshevik spirit. Our sections in Athens, the Piraeus and Thessalonica worked in the usual manner. The Proletarian was published regularly, and was passed on from hand to hand, as were the duplicated declarations. The workers did not hesitate for a moment to provide the prisoners and exiles with material and food parcels. Illegal articles were also sent frequently in double-bottomed travelling bags. Documents were hidden in the soles of shoes and ingenious hiding places in clothes.

Our activities were easier in the suburbs and the factories. The recruitment of those drawn towards us was checked momentarily during this period, but it did not stop altogether. The trade unions were viciously attacked. All the left wing unions were dissolved. Some of them were placed under appointed administrators, and became mere paper organisations, only able to show banners on demonstrations. The first blow was aimed at the bakers’ union, a stronghold in the trade union movement. The Metaxas government and its Security Police had not forgotten their humiliation in the great strike of April 1936, which was led by M Soulas (OKDE) and A Sakkos (New Course), and in which the workers were victorious.

Some comrades, working in clandestinity, held positions in Athens, especially in the employment organisations. Either as parties or individuals, we were all united in the fight against the right wing unions. Much the same occurred in Thessalonica. Later on, when the apparatus of the dictatorship and their quislings had been badly shaken, there were the strikes of the mill workers of the Piraeus under the leadership of comrade Smirlis, and in the German ships, led by Kleanthis.

In the Piraeus comrade Haritonidis led the construction workers’ organisation and the workers’ centre in Kokkinia, which he had established during 1928, despite the fact that he was taken every day to the Security Headquarters to be intimidated and forced to make a declaration. The same things happened to unskilled workers like V Nikolinakos, and to building workers like K Raptis.

The students’ circle led by Demosthenes Vourzoukis was engaged in a similar struggle. In the circle were, amongst others, Andreas Papandreou, Kornelios Kastoriades, T Kirkos, Christos Karabelas and E Hierotheos.

Papandreou had been influenced by Trotskyism since 1933. This was the time when Trotsky developed his analysis of Hitler’s Fascism and his critique of Stalinism, and his books could be found in the library of Papandreou’s father. Papandreou published two articles in a magazine called New Beginning, the same title as a pamphlet by Pouliopoulos, who had been the Secretary of the KKE, and who had resigned from the party in 1927. Papandreou was involved in the duplication of The Proletarian during the dictatorship, and his room was used as headquarters until his arrest with 12 other comrades, who were forced to sign a declaration of repentance. Kastoriades, who was good for nothing, signed an agreement as soon as he was arrested, and became anti-Soviet and later overtly anti-Communist as well.

Two further student circles were comprised of C Prikades, Nikolopoulos, the Oikonomou brothers, a student girl whose name I do not know, S Christopoulos, G Christopoulos, A Charalampopoulos, T Vourzoukis, T Lampropoulos and the famed Stratos Spanias, who was later murdered by the Stalinists. They were all arrested during a gathering which was held to raise money for our prisoners.

In April 1937, during an official visit of Zan Ne, the French Minister of Education, the EOKDE encouraged the students not to welcome a minister of imperialist France, as the Stalinists did, but to show their disapproval of the Popular Front, and to take the opportunity to oppose the hated dictatorship. It was the centenary of the founding of the university, and Zan Ne placed a garland on the grave of the unknown soldier. Our manifesto was circulated along with that of the Stalinists on that day, and posters supporting the dictatorship were torn down by the students. Further demonstrations against the dictatorship also occurred afterwards at Parnassos. K Kotzias, the dictatorship’s minister, was booed at the stadium. These demonstrations ended with wild violence and mass arrests.

2. Arrest and Interrogation

I was one of the first to be caught. I fell into the hands of Kompoholi, a police captain who later became the commander of the Security Police. He was a dyed in the wool anti-Communist and a passionate persecutor of the working class and revolutionary movement. He was the right hand man of Maniadakis, the Minister of Public Security.

He recognised me, and then arrested me. I’d had trouble with him before. I had the honour to attract his anti-Communist hatred whilst he was a commander of the Security Police at Drama in 1929-30, six years previously. He had not forgotten me, and neither had I forgotten him!

I had been sent by the Archeiomarxist organisation to head the Political Committee of East Macedonia and West Thrace. I was picked up as a foreigner at Kavala in a search conducted by Alexakis, who had the reputation of being one of the worst torturers and persecutors of Communists. His police and courts, which regularly sentenced people to from five to 10 years in jail, had gained control over the hitherto powerful tobacco workers’ union, and he placed his committee men in every tobacconist shop.

I could not avoid arrest. I was tortured for two nights and a day by various modern methods. Despite sleepless exhaustion and intensive questioning, they got no information, neither a name nor a village! ‘Where and with whom do you live?’, they demanded. I told them, ‘In a shed in the castle.’ They searched it only to find it empty. I was then beaten mercilessly. How could I say that I lived with comrades? The only thing I didn’t keep secret was my commitment to Communism. They searched for a false identity - nothing! They asked Drama for more information - absolutely nothing! But Kompoholis was the commander there, and he was another monster like Alexakis.

Kompoholis rushed to see me, to take over my interrogation. What a great honour for me! Finally Alexakis sent me to court. A move from hell to paradise! I was sentenced for one month - for vagrancy! I enjoyed that. The lawyer, sent from the Stalinist-controlled Workers’ Aid, ‘defended’ me like a bourgeois anti-Communist, treating me as he treated Stalinist defendants. He begged the court to be indulgent because I was ‘foolish’. I stood up and repudiated this lawyer: ‘I am neither foolish nor a tramp. I am a Communist and you can punish me for that!’ The judges burst out laughing, much to the lawyer’s embarrassment.

I continued to circulate our propaganda once I was released. I was captured at Xanthi in Alexandroupolis, beaten up and thrown out. They were satisfied with expelling me and removing me from their affairs.

I was arrested again at Drama, and brought before the court. Despite a lack of evidence, Kompoholis proposed a three-month sentence and then exile. The accusations concerning ‘an independent Macedonia and Thrace’ did not apply to us Archeiomarxists, as we considered that this had nothing to do with the slogan of the self-determination of the oppressed minorities.

When my sentence had finished, the commander of the jail handed me over to the Security Police for my exile. The Security Police headquarters, the court and the jail were in one compound, which at that time was full of people. The office of the commander of the jail was upstairs, and he was the first to go through the door. I suddenly had a bright idea. I turned around, rushed downstairs and mixed in with the crowd in the yard. I went straight out and walked to Kavala, an eight-hour walk. That’s how I escaped from Kompoholis’ clutches. But this encounter with Kompoholis resulted in my arrest during the Metaxas dictatorship, and a seven-year sentence in the concentration camps of Acronauplia and Pylos.

How Pouliopoulos, Giannakos, G Xipolitos and Giannis Makris, the heroes who fell under the Fascists’ bullets at Nezero, were caught is a whole story in itself. This was the time when everyone was being caught. The arrests far exceeded the number of 50,000 militants reckoned in official statistics as having made declarations of repentance, apart from those, around 580, who remained a tower of strength in Acronauplia, facing torture and death, and another 1000 who were exiled on the islands. In Greece nobody could escape Maniadakis’ numerous policemen, and all those who took fright made declarations of repentance, deserted and gave up the fight.

There was little working class resistance to the establishment of the dictatorship. The revolutionary movement, after the betrayal and defeat of the events of 1936 in Thessalonica, was in a disorganised retreat, compounded by the effects of Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, which spread confusion over the working class internationally, especially in the Communist movement. The 4 August coup was not, of course, Fascism, as the Stalinists stated with their theory of ‘Fascism everywhere’ which characterised all governments as such, and as did the defeatists such as Agis Stinas, who talked of ‘red Fascism’ in the Soviet Union.1 It was a Bonapartist dictatorship, which is not to say that its methods were any different.

As I mentioned, I was one of the first to be captured by the dictatorship. Kompoholis had discovered where I was working. He had already met me in Kavala in 1930 in the prisons of the dreaded Alexakis. After the trials, the sentences, the discharges and the new arrests, this time in Drama, he came to provide the necessary information on my revolutionary credentials. Kompoholis and Alexakis had acted brutally in 1927, and since then had become the worst persecutors of the revolutionaries in Greece.

Kompoholis had sent a beast called Ioannides, who dragged me to the general Security Police. I conducted myself as befitting a leader of the Trotskyists of the New Course, as a Bolshevik. We were tortured, but not forced to drink castor oil. This was administered only by the special Security Police. We were exiled to St Stratis. After the hell of the Security Prison, this exile was paradise. This was the second time I had been banished to St Stratis since 1935, when Kondilis had sent between 40 and 50 party leaders in one ship - among them Varnalis and Glinos. He exiled us so that he could bring back the king without resistance - which he then did.

Whilst the arrests continued and the dictatorship succeeded in disorganising all working class organisations, the Trotskyists managed to organise their unification conference. This was no mean achievement. We were the only party to hold a national conference under these unprecedented conditions.

The blows of Maniadakis soon fell heavily upon the EOKDE. Under intense surveillance, we began to tire. How could we avoid this? Day and night we attended meetings, distributed propaganda and engaged in all kinds of action. The Executive of the Bakers’ Union instructed us to see their members, and at Tsakos, for example, we were betrayed by reactionaries, as in Christos Soulas’ case. There was the vital necessity to bring our new members into activities, and to keep in touch with each other.

Giannakos was captured in Thebes, where he had gone to escape the repression in Athens. He was hiding in a house of some relatives, and was betrayed by one of them. Fortunately, he was able to save his books and papers. He refused to bend under torture, and was sent to Acronauplia. We cannot recall how Xipolitos and Makris were caught, theirs was just one in that mass of stories of life and death that circulated in Acronauplia. Raptis was caught immediately after the conference, as was Vitsoris, who had, together with Stinas, been in a minority in supporting incorrect political tactics and had left the New Course. Raptis and Vitsoris were freed, but Vitsoris had been ill-treated.

Tamtakos was caught whilst he was working at Sotiria in September 1937. He was detained for three months in a Security Prison, and then exiled to Giaros, where there was a whole group consisting of Tournopoulos, Pontikis, Diplas, Staphilatos, Giannakopoulos, Tasakis, Smilis and Lambropoulos.

Anastasiadis was captured at the end of September whilst he was on his way to a Central Committee meeting, and was sent to Acronauplia, where he remained for six months. L Vourzoukis was caught along with 10 other comrades, among them Nikos Aravantinos and Katina Megarioti. Thus with the arrest of Pouliopoulos that followed, the Central Committee of the EOKDE ceased to exist, as its members were sent to the concentration camps and into exile, and other comrades took on the responsibility for the continued existence and activities of the illegal organisation.

Pouliopoulos was captured at the beginning of 1938. He had been widely sought. The Security Police had set a prize of 20,000 drachmas for his arrest. Previously condemned to death during the war in Asia Minor, narrowly escaping a death sentence at a military tribunal of the ‘democracy’ when he was a Secretary of the KKE in 1925, a supporter of Bukharin in the staff of the Comintern only to be crushed in 1927, now he was the leader of the EOKDE with a big price on his head. This was only published in the Police News so that they would get the 20,000 drachmas, no mean amount. Ironically, this only appeared 10 days after he was caught.

To begin with, Pouliopoulos was hiding in the house of Megariotis, and had adopted the name of ‘Petros’. This was in June 1937. Old Megariotis looked after him as if he was his own son, and he even held a birthday party for him on the Day of St Peter and Paul. He stayed there for a long time, but eventually his hideaway was discovered. The house was raided, but he escaped. Known to be wanted, Pouliopoulos was welcomed into the house of an intellectual, Karagiannis, an old follower, to whom I always gave copies of Bolshevik and the New Course. A good-humoured man, he was not in the party and so was not known to the Security Police. Pouliopoulos stayed at his house for a month, but then left. The sensitive Pantelis did not wish to task Karagiannis’ pregnant wife any further. He thanked them warmly, and left. He went to comrade M, but he was also wanted, and he pointed Pouliopoulos to Sidiropoulos’ house in Marousi. He was a tobacco worker with years of activity in the workers’ movement, a supporter of Pouliopoulos. There were other tobacco workers in the area whom I knew from my Archeiomarxist activities in the Piraeus from 1927 to 1929, but only the splendid Kotsias knew of Pouliopoulos’ hideaway. Pouliopoulos settled in that house, but was obliged to go out on party business.

In the meantime Lilis arrived at the house, breathless and under pursuit. Pouliopoulos considered him too excited, and that his condition would betray us. With nowhere else to run, he was allowed to stay. Kondilidis arrived a few days later. They could not stay at Sidiropoulos’ house any longer. Kondilidis left, but Lilis and Pouliopoulos remained. Pouliopoulos used the name ‘Pericles’. They accepted Sidiropoulos’ proposal to move to one his comrades, the vegetable seller Sarifoglou. Megariotis arrived at this new hideaway. He had just had an operation in hospital when the Security Police entered his house looking for Pouliopoulos. They found him in the hospital, but they did not take him to the Security, and he immediately escaped to Thessalonica. He hid in the house of D Papadopoulos, an old trade union leader and follower of Pouliopoulos.

Before long the newspapers reported the arrest of some of the EOKDE Central Committee, with Demosthenes Vourzoukis as one of the first detained. Megariotis wasted no time, duty called in Athens. He discovered Pouliopoulos’ telephone number from Stavros and called him up. They arranged to meet. Stavros was an old Archeiomarxist, and now a supporter of the New Course, enjoying the absolute confidence of Pouliopoulos. Stavros was also sought after and on the run. And so now there were Pouliopoulos, Megariotis and Lilis hiding in Sarifoglou’s house.

However, Sidiropoulos had turned traitor. The hideaway was now a trap. The net around Pouliopoulos was tightening. The police were keen to catch him, not merely for ‘patriotic’ reasons, but also for the money. One day in early August a black car parked outside the house, and in it a gang of policemen. They knocked on the door and asked for Pericles. Pouliopoulos came out calmly. ‘Which Pericles do you want? I am Pericles - Pouliopoulos’, he told them in the proud style of Roumeli. Thus was Pouliopoulos caught, and Lilis along with him. Megariotis had gone to Koptis, saw the black car on his return, and avoided arrest.

At the Security Police Headquarters Pouliopoulos asked the policemen who had arrested him whether they’d received the reward. ‘It is complicated’, they said. Who had betrayed him?

Karagiannis, Megariotis and M visited him separately at the Headquarters. He told them that the traitors were Sidiropoulos and Sarifoglou. He gave Megariotis a note with the name of the traitors to be given to the organisation. M, an old assistant of mine in the Piraeus, was above suspicion, as was, as far as I was concerned, Kondilidis. Vourzoukis thought that Lilis’ telephone calls to the organisation from the Palataki tavern in the Piraeus could have led to the arrests, but I did not agree.

Megariotis and Kondilidis were two young men with an unshakable confidence in Trotskyism. Upon them fell the entire burden of the running of the leadership of the EOKDE after Pouliopoulos’ arrest. They kept the organisation functioning and produced The Proletarian, the illegal paper of the Fourth International in Greece.

The bitter campaign of the Security Police against the Trotskyists was intensified when a strike occurred at the Papastratos cigarette factory, which was organised and led by C Antoniou, who was a former Archeiomarxist and now a Trotskyist. This was too much for the Metaxas regime to tolerate. Antoniou was caught and tortured. Blows to the head left him deaf, and he was sent into prison and exile.

The Security Police wanted to report a complete success in every case. The Megariotis team, Kondilis and the EOKDE university students, were caught. Originally the creation of the redoubtable Vourzoukis, this group was loved by all. Megariotis rebuilt the group, among whom was Andreas Papandreou. There was a duplicator in his room on which The Proletarian was produced, and Papandreou cut the stencils. Only Kondilidis knew of his room, and only Papandreou knew where he was working. Megariotis was caught at his work. Who betrayed him? A Security Police announcement read:

‘After an extensive search, the Special Security Police arrested the following students who had formed an organisation of Fourth Internationalists, followers of the exiled Trotsky, led by the Communist Menelaos Megariotis, a chemistry student, who appears to be the Secretary of the Central Committee of the organisation. From the house of Andreas Papandreou was taken a typewriter and a duplicator, with which the illegal Communist paper The Proletarian was printed, along with various Communist papers and leaflets. Those arrested confessed their activities and, with the exception of Megariotis, submitted declarations of regret and a renunciation of their Communist views:

1.Andreas Papandreou

2.Cornelius Castoriadis

3.Kirkos Kirkou

4.Eleutherios -----

5.Christos Karabelas

6.Helias Kolovos

7.Ioannis Kontogiannis

8.Stefanos Gastratos - all law students

9.Christos Valias - a sixth-form student in the High School

10.Nikos Kondilis - a student and electrician

11.Menelaos Megariotis - a law student

Plus two or three others.’

3. Acronauplia Concentration Camp

Acronauplia was not, of course, as bad as Auschwitz or Dachau, but it was modelled upon the Fascist concentration camps. It was a Venetian castle, a medieval fort. An extension adjacent to it was first used as a barracks, and then as a conference centre. A prison for those serving hard labour sentences was built on a hill opposite the main prison, and being sent there was a virtual death sentence. Kolokotronis, the leader of the Greek revolution of 1821, had been imprisoned there. Acronauplia was first given the title of a prison for Communists, but it was not a prison. The prisoners were not there by order of a court, but by virtue of the decisions of Public Security Committees, or on the order of the Minister of Public Security, Maniadakis. There were many exiles amongst the detainees.

Eventually it was decided that the most apt term for the prison was that of a concentration camp, as in the Fascist countries. The authorities in Acronauplia attempted to enforce strict military discipline. We were isolated from the outside world. Correspondence, except two letters per month to one’s family, was forbidden. Only family visitors were permitted, and they were persuaded and sometimes even threatened to try and make us sign declarations renouncing our principles and beliefs.

After great efforts on our part, we were permitted to have a very few books, but no newspapers at first. Much later we were allowed to read a newspaper, but that contained nothing but Fascist poison. We had very little water at first, the time permitted for a walk in the prison yard was barely enough for us to stretch our legs, and we went hungry very often. A strict military discipline was imposed, we could not rise before reveille had sounded, and revolutionary songs were strictly forbidden.

At the beginning an internal guard was maintained. Every morning we were counted and reported on, with the prisoners standing to attention right through the proceedings. Bed-time and lights out regulations had to be obeyed without question. We protested and fought tooth and nail to break this unpopular Fascist barracks regime.

We acted very carefully to secure what freedom we could within those walls. The situation became critical. In September 1937 the prison guards attacked the prisoners, after having encouraged them to break the prison rules - in other words, a provocation.

One night ‘Göring’ entered cell 2 and ordered us to stop what we were doing and go to bed, as lights out had been signalled. Nobody moved. He left and we heard a pistol shot. That was the signal for the guards to shoot. A hail of bullets hit the cells. They were shooting to kill. We were not frightened. On the contrary, we shouted back, ‘Shame on you, murderers!’ We crept under our beds, shielding ourselves with mattresses or stood in the corners or behind bullet-proof walls. This continued until Vrettos, the Prison Director, returned from Nauplia and ordered a cease fire.

This murderous assault cost the school teacher P Stavridis his life. His head was shattered as if it was a vase, and his brains spilled out onto the floor. The prison authorities said he was shot dead whilst trying to escape...

Raptis was exiled to Folegandros. He had not at that point signed any declaration of repentance. He did not take part in any of our meetings there. He was neither warm nor fraternal towards us. Was it his temperament? Was he pretending to be somebody else? Or did he have psychological problems? However, he did not give us the impression of being somebody likely to sign a declaration of repentance. Suddenly he left and was taken to the Ministry. After a while we heard that Maniadakis had freed him on condition that he went abroad. We were certain that he signed a declaration of repentance. It was well known that nobody had ever been released without signing one.

Meanwhile Vitsoris had been arrested, but through the mediation of the great actress Kotopouli, he had been freed to go abroad by Maniadakis, just as in the previous case of a highly esteemed member of the Glinos group, Likogiannis. The group’s leadership had said nothing, but we knew that Maniadakis would not free anyone without obtaining a declaration of repentance.

We discussed the cases of Raptis and Vitsoris, but could not form a uniform opinion. The majority approved of the behaviour of Raptis, but not that of Vitsoris. Only Xipolitos, Tournopoulos and I condemned Raptis. These were times when those who signed a declaration were rejecting all their beliefs and convictions, and would lose the respect held towards those who remained in prison, facing death with courage.

Theodorou, the former Secretary of the OKNE (the KKE’s youth group), who belonged to the Sklavos group, approached the prison authorities and asked for the records of the Raptis case. There he read:

‘Maniadakis asked Raptis "Your parents have assured me that you were involved in the movement because you were young and immature, and that if I let you go abroad, you will never become involved again. What do you say?" He did not answer.’

And as is very well known, he who remains silent, consents.

Raptis was not an ordinary member. He was a co-leader of the Pouliopoulos group, and a member of its Central Committee. Was it correct for the leaders to get a passport from Maniadakis and go abroad? And what about the ordinary members? Should they sign repentance declarations in order to leave? If the leaders deserted, should not the entire working class leave for abroad? If not, who would lead the working class to break its bonds? In this case Pouliopoulos showed all his greatness. To begin with, he had not heard of the affair. But prior to his capture he had met Raptis, who was by then freed. We never learned what Raptis told him or held back. Anyway Pouliopoulos brought the case before a Central Committee meeting, and Raptis’ behaviour was condemned by Vourzoukis, Tamtakos and Anastasiadis. When Pouliopoulos was arrested, he was first taken to the Averof jail, and then to the jail on Aegina. From there he managed to send a letter to us at Acronauplia saying that ‘Raptis is advising me to go abroad in the same way as he did. What is the opinion of the Acronauplia group?’ We decided unanimously - ‘No’. Pouliopoulos had signed a contract of honour with the movement. He was not going to kneel before the ridiculous dictator. He had already started a struggle against the declarations of repentance, saying ‘they can only take me abroad in chains, and even then I will find a way to return’. Our comrades abroad were not aware of how we were fighting against the declarations of repentance.

Raptis and Vitsoris were accepted abroad as representatives. But of whom, the Workers Front or The Proletarian? Nobody had nominated them as their representatives. Their behaviour abroad was irritating. Even during the dictatorship of Papadopoulos (1967) those abroad showed the same rotten liberal attitude, and today we know how much this costs. We have been heavily criticised over the matter of declarations of repentance. We know better than anyone else what we have lost, as the leadership of the international Trotskyist movement [in Greece] was wiped out. But we refused to reverse our decision. We believe that they had the same feelings on this as us. They are not dead, they live because their ideas live on.

4. The Founding Conference of the Fourth International

On 3 September 1938 the Trotskyist organisations assembled at a conference in France, and the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution, together with the Youth International, was founded. Thirty representatives participated at the conference, from 11 countries: France, Britain, the Soviet Union, Germany, Belgium, Poland, the USA, Greece and various Latin American countries. It proved impossible to send representatives from Czechoslovakia, Spain, Austria, Indochina, China, French Morocco, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Palestine, Lithuania, Romania and some of the other Latin American countries, as well as from the POUM and the PSOP of France, who had requested to attend as observers.

Never before had an international conference of such great significance taken place in a period of such immense difficulties provoked by the accumulation of the problems which foreshadowed the approaching world war.

The majority of the conference declared that the establishment of the Fourth International was an absolute necessity if there was to be any further progress of the revolutionary movement during this critical period. After a wide-ranging discussion the conference approved the programme of the Fourth International, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, written by Trotsky. The Transitional Programme, as it was popularly known, was based upon the first four congresses of the Third International. It is the Communist Manifesto of today, covering our entire epoch, and maintaining its relevance against the self-styled attempts by Pablo and Mandel to revise it. The conference also voted to adopt the Statutes of the Fourth International, which were based upon democratic centralism.

Acutely aware of the approach of an imperialist war, the Programme declared:

‘The bourgeoisie and its agents use the war question more than any other to deceive the people by means of abstractions, general formulae, lame phraseology, "neutrality", "collective defence", "arming for the defence of peace", "struggle against Fascism" and so on. All such formulae reduce themselves in the end to the fact that the war question, that is the fate of the people, is left in the hands of the imperialists, their governing staffs, their diplomacy, their generals, with all their intrigues and plots against the people.’2

It castigated the social patriots who were attempting to drag the exploited behind the war chariot in the name of ‘democracy’ and the Popular Front. It called on the working class to defend the Soviet Union, and called on workers to build a United Front against Fascism, to fight for the liberation of the colonial countries from imperialism, and to fight against the imperialist war and for the Socialist revolution.

The conference discussed the question of the unity of the Trotskyist movement in Greece, and decided that the unification of the EOKDE with the KDEE was necessary because the differences between the two organisations (the present situation in Greece and the question of the Archeiomarxists) did not justify the continuation of two separate organisations.

Without any authority Raptis dealt with the question of the entry of the POUM into the Fourth International, which had been proposed by the OKDE (Pouliopoulos and Raptis), in opposition to Trotsky, as well as presenting the question of Archeiomarxism, which had been solved in 1930.

The conference declared that unification must take place on the basis of the Transitional Programme, and that the organisation would be known as the Revolutionary Socialist Organisation (Greek Section of the Fourth International). It added that a newspaper under a new name would be published, that a new temporary leadership would be formed on the basis of equality of representation, with the sanction of the International Secretariat, which would take decisions should disagreements arise between the two tendencies, that the members abroad would form a committee whose main duty would be to assist financially the Greek section and, in conjunction with the leadership inside Greece, prepare a conference of the new organisation, and that this committee would publish a magazine containing the documents of the two tendencies.

That this resolution, which was proposed by those two self-nominated ‘representatives’ Raptis and Vitsoris, was accepted by the conference was scandalous, because they had adopted the rôle of a political leadership, and yet, with the exception of the matter of unification, ignored the wishes of their comrades who were engaged in a life and death struggle under the dictatorship.

After the founding conference Raptis was kept in the sanatorium of the Yser, and had no - absolutely no - contact with any Trotskyist organisation, faithfully keeping the promise he had made to Maniadakis that he would not take part in any political activity. He was, therefore, unaware of and unable to participate in the conference which took place in January 1942 in Brussels, at which the European Secretariat was formed, and in which Marcel Hic, Yvan Craipeau and Zwan (France), Henry Opta and Abram Leon (Wajnsztock) (Belgium), and perhaps Martin Widelin (France) participated.

When Raptis realised that he could be accepted without any problems by the Greek section, he sent the worthless T Doris (Capnisi), who was given names and addresses, and who, as soon as he was arrested, betrayed to the Security Police comrades Prodromos Savas, Perkentes, T Giannopoulos, Prigouris and others. He also told them that Vitsoris had entrusted to Giannopoulos a case containing the organisation’s archives, which were then seized by the spies.

5. Stalinism and the Second World War

The cohabitation group met once a month. The group’s leadership did not want any political discussions at the meetings, least of all between us and the Stalinists. The camp was established whilst the civil war was raging in Spain, which, thanks to Stalin’s sabotage, led to the defeat and destruction of the Spanish Republic and to Franco’s victory. The consequences were grave in Greece, and in France where the way was opened for Pétain, and of course Hitler profited by this. What were the lessons of the Popular Front? Why did the Stalinists try to strangle any discussion on this subject?

Everybody would talk during these discussions, but only for a minute or two. Political proposals were never adopted. The Stalinists tried to present both the domestic and international situations as favourable when in reality it was nothing of the sort. They believed that these lies would encourage their members and deter them from signing declarations of repentance. We told them that without a correct political orientation, and without any political guidance, Acronauplia, far from becoming a symbol of resistance, would merely represent the defeat of the working class. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened.

There was no democracy in the cohabitation group, it was bureaucratic. Members had no democratic rights, they were turned into automatons. The Communist Party was the Central Committee, or to be more precise, the party was its leader Ioannidis. The group’s leadership terrorised the members, and nobody dared to express his anxieties. Manousakas wrote:

‘You needed great courage, as much as you would need in order to face your executioner, if you wished to defend the basic principle of Communism, that is democracy, within the party.’

Anyone who disagreed with the leadership was first of all expelled. Then he was branded a traitor, an agent of the Security Police, a spy, and was isolated from his comrades. You can imagine what it meant to be held in isolation, and unable to answer the charges and prove that you are innocent. They would also beat up anyone who disagreed with the leaders. There was no difference between the tortures of the Stalinists and of Maniadakis. Trivelas told me that the Stalinists had planned to kill Papagiannis in the Acronauplia bathroom, and only called it off when some of them objected.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 shocked the Stalinists, although it wasn’t so surprising for us. Trotsky had foreseen as early as 1933 that Stalin was seeking a way to come to an agreement with Hitler, so we were prepared for it. We later heard that in 1937 he had stated this to the Dewey Commission, and again in a speech to a group of US visitors to Mexico on 23 July 1939 - precisely one month before the Pact was signed.3 The Stalinists described the Pact as ‘humanistic’ and able to preserve peace, but this was shown to be false. No sooner had Molotov and Ribbentrop shaken hands than Hitler and Stalin invaded and partitioned Poland. The Pact was aggressive and expansionist. Hitler required the neutrality of the Soviet Union so that he could strike in the west. We already knew that Stalin had provided Mussolini with fuel when he invaded Ethiopia, and that he was only selling arms to the Spanish Republican government - at double the normal price. Stalin was convinced that the Pact would prevent war with Germany. Despite warnings from his intelligence agents that Hitler was not intending to honour the Pact, he refused to prepare for war, and even started to praise the ‘anti-imperialists’ of Berlin and Rome.

As soon as the Pact was signed, the commander of Acronauplia camp deliberately announced the news to the prisoners. The Stalinists would not believe him, and asked to see the newspaper. He gave it to them and departed. Their confusion was indescribable. Most considered it to be a provocation, and some were getting ready to disavow Communism. We noticed their confusion and desperation, and started to discuss Trotsky’s predictions with them.

Manousakas wrote:

‘At that time in Acronauplia, it was funny to see the anti-Fascists at loggerheads. Some were hoping for the victory of France and Britain. Others were wishing for the victory of the Fascists.’

Manousakas was among those loyal to the policy of anti-Fascism and democracy, and hoped for the victory of Britain and France. But Ioannides followed the Kremlin line, and the Greek Communists started supporting the ‘hungry nations’ and came out against the ‘imperialists’. Neither presented a Socialist orientation towards the war.

The Trotskyists were the only organisation to hold a revolutionary policy towards the war. Lenin called for the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war. We declared that both blocs were conducting a purely imperialist war, however they described it. We considered that war was a product of capitalism, and that Lenin, Liebknecht and Trotsky were correct in saying that the enemy was within our own country. Pouliopoulos had warned in June 1937 that there was no greater deceit than the insistence of the Stalinists and Social Democrats that the imperialists could fight an anti-Fascist war. He continued:

‘And there is no greater deceit than the declaration that claims that the so-called Popular Front will save Europe from another war. The parties of the Popular Front, especially the Stalinists, are issuing increasingly chauvinist and nationalist propaganda under the banner of "defending democracy" in order to prepare ideologically the masses for the new slaughter. The imperialists -democratic and Fascist - are preparing for war, and intend to drag the workers behind them. The biggest betrayal of the workers is being prepared today by the Stalinists and Social Democrats.’

Pouliopoulos wrote on 20 October 1937 that:

‘We Communist Internationalists are the only people in Greece and all other countries who are fighting against capitalism and war. Let us consider the struggle against war as our paramount duty, and transform this war into a class struggle that will ensure the victory of Socialism and the establishment of lasting peace between all the peoples.’

We agreed with Lenin’s policy of refusing to side with either imperialist bloc, and called for the defence of the Soviet workers’ state. The Stalinists were unable to formulate a correct political orientation, and were therefore endangering the gains of the October Revolution. The Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union had to be overthrown, and Soviet democracy restored.

6. Neokastro Concentration Camp in Pylos

In the summer of 1939, on the orders of the Ministry of Security, 200 prisoners were taken from Acronauplia to an unknown destination. We said goodbye to our comrades with whom we had been incarcerated for nearly three years, full of anxiety and fear for what was awaiting us. You can imagine with what warmth we shook hands with our comrades whom we left behind.

We departed by night and reached Kalamata by dawn. The dictatorship had managed to turn the poor and the workers of Kalamata so much against Communism that they did not offer even a smile of sympathy when they saw us standing handcuffed in a long row. We were then taken on to Neokastro. The dispersal of prisoners from Acronauplia to Neokastro and other prisons on the islands was intended to divide them from those the authorities believed were their leaders, and so weaken the organisations.

Neokastro was a typical ruined Venetian castle, surrounded by very high walls topped with battlements. The cells were very small and damp. The strongest human would rot in these cells. This medieval grave was considered unfit for common criminals, but Metaxas’ dictatorship had no qualms of using it for us. After all, he did not have the convenience of Dachau’s crematorium.

There were four Trotskyists among the 200 prisoners:

Giannis Makris: a fighter for 20 years. He originated in the general strike of 1923 in Pasalimano.

Christos Soulas: a young heroic baker who had participated in every struggle from 1926 until the day the dictatorship was established. He was executed in Kaisariani.

G Xipolitos: an heroic worker from the Piraeus who was executed along with Pantelis Pouliopoulos and N Giannakos in Nezero by the Italians.

Loukas Karliaftis: I was jailed alongside the leader of the Stalinists, Koligiannis, the successor to Zachariades. I had met him in 1935 on the island of Al-Stratis, where we shared the same room. We discussed privately there, as the Stalinists were not permitted to discuss with us.

We engaged in unarmed resistance in Neokastro. The men of Metaxas and Maniadakis tried to terrorise us by shooting at us from the top of the prison walls. We were unharmed because we were able to hide behind the walls of the cells.

A unique event took place in Neokastro camp. When the Second World War broke out, the prison commander called in the committees of the Stalinists and the Trotskyists, and asked them to express their positions on the war. Were we for or against it? Behind the question lay a deadly threat. Maniadakis wanted to destabilise the Communist Party, which was already divided. What would he do with those who would not submit? How would he treat the Trotskyists?

The Stalinist committee replied: ‘Yes, we are on the government’s side in the war against the Italian Fascists, and we ask to be sent to the front in order to fight them.’ The prison commander then called on our committee. We had decided that Makris, Soulas and I should go. I answered in the name of the Trotskyists: ‘No, we are against this war. This war is imperialist on both sides. Greece is nothing more than a pawn on the Anglo-Saxon chessboard.’

He sent us away, rudely. We were sure that, at that moment, he was playing with our lives. But the men of Metaxas did not execute us. This criminal work was carried out by the Stalinists, much in the same way as Noske and Ebert had the Spartakists murdered in Germany at the end of the First World War. The Stalinists murdered hundreds of Trotskyists because we fought to transform the imperialist war into a Socialist revolution.

Trotsky’s Manifesto of the Fourth International on the Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution of May 1940 declared:

‘... we do not forget for a moment that this war is not our war. In contradistinction to the Second and Third Internationals, the Fourth International builds its policy not on the military fortunes of the capitalist states, but on the transformation of the imperialist war into a war of the workers against the capitalists, on the overthrow of the ruling classes of all countries, on the world Socialist revolution. The shifts in the battle lines at the front, the destruction of national capitals, the occupation of territories, the downfall of individual states, represent from this standpoint only tragic episodes on the road to the reconstruction of modern society.’4

Thirty-five years elapsed before we managed to get hold of this manifesto. The Pabloites had concealed it because it stood in opposition to their social-patriotism. We published it as soon as we got hold of it, but the Pabloites just ignored it. This text, along with all the documents of Lenin and Trotsky from the First World War, will surely play an important part in the struggle against any future war, and be an inspiration in the fight for Socialism.

The social-patriotic sentiments which the Stalinists had spread around the world was not absent from the ranks of the Trotskyists, not least within James Cannon’s Socialist Workers Party. Its Statement on the US Entry into World War II declared:

‘Our programme against Hitlerism and for a workers’ and farmers’ government is today the programme of only a small minority. The great majority actively or passively supports the war programme of the Roosevelt administration. As a minority we must submit to that majority in action. We do not sabotage the war or obstruct the military forces in any way. The Trotskyists go with their generation into the armed forces. We abide by the decisions of the majority. But we retain our opinions and insist on our right to express them.’5

The anti-militarist struggle that was carried out in Neokastro and Acronauplia and on the islands was one of the brightest moments in the history of the revolutionary movement. The Greek Trotskyists honoured the flag of the Fourth International in a manner that few others did. Our bravery at Nezero and Kaisariani, and of those who died at the hands of the Stalinist social-traitors, together with those who survived, stood alongside Trotsky in a way nobody else did.

7. Stalinist Social-Patriotism in the Greek-Italian War

The Greek-Italian War was declared on 28 October 1940. At that time the KKE’s Secretary, Zachariades, was imprisoned in Aegina. He showed his real character at this critical moment. He had no principles. He instructed his comrade Michailides to sign a declaration of repentance in order to get out of the prison and rebuild the Communist Party. Michailides left prison and became an agent of Maniadakis. He set up a temporary party committee with two or three others, and published the supposedly-illegal Rizospastis. Behind all this stood Tyrimos and Manoleas, former members of parliament who had become agents of the Security Police. Now Zachariades knew all about this, but he preferred to have a party led by police agents than nothing at all. He produced a declaration on 31 October 1940 which read:

‘The Greek people are fighting a war of national liberation, led by the Metaxas government. We must all do our utmost, without hesitation, to support it. The outcome will be a new, free Greece, free from any foreign imperialist dependence.’

Meanwhile, after Siantos had been arrested, an illegal Central Committee had been established at the end of 1939. Its leader was Papagiannis and its members were Ktistakis, Karvounis and Kenakis. They published an illegal Rizospastis, of which very few copies appeared. Zachariades’ declaration, however, was widely broadcast, unlike any other party material, because it was very useful to the government. By now we had two Communist Parties, each of which were accusing one another of being police agents.

There were 185 Stalinists in Neokastro. Half of them supported the temporary committee of Michailides and Zachariades, whilst the others remained loyal to the committee of Ktistakis and Papagiannis. They faced a real dilemma: was it an anti-Fascist war of national liberation or was it an imperialist war? If it was an anti-Fascist war, then how could they surrender to one dictator in order to fight another, Mussolini?

The Stalinists in Acronauplia prepared a memorandum for Maniadakis, asking him to release them for military service. All the Stalinists were asked to sign it, which they did. At the end of January 1941 General Ageletos was sent to Acronauplia by Metaxas to discuss with the group’s leadership. After hearing them, the general assured them that he would ask for their release and despatch to the front. ‘I wish Russia would help us’, he added. But nobody was released, not even Zachariades, who after this changed his position, saying that the war was no longer defensive because the Greek army had crossed the border, and that it could no longer be called an anti-Fascist war.

Everybody in Neokastro was celebrating the victory of the Greek army, except we four Trotskyists, who kept our minds on the revolutionary Socialist way out of the war. We were not pinning our hopes on the victory of Greek capitalism or of the imperialist western Allies, but only of the Soviet Union, the only workers’ state. We believed that a genuine victory could only emerge from a revolutionary struggle against the war, which would bring lasting peace and real social liberation.

We were in Neokastro when we heard the news of Trotsky’s death. We all gathered on 22 August 1940 in a room to read the newspaper. It was the most dramatic day of our lives. Trotsky was murdered by Ramon Mercader, alias Jacques Mornard or Frank Jacson. He had gained admission to Trotsky’s house by posing as one of us, and had given him the deadly blow to the head. We were astonished and shocked. I do not know if our eyes were full of tears, but Bolsheviks have learned not to cry. We heard some people laughing, and we saw others smiling. Others had a look of triumph about them, like a wild beast that has just torn its prey to pieces. We felt that the eyes of all the Stalinists were upon us.

After reading the newspaper, we walked up and down the yard in silence. We had many thoughts in our minds. How was it possible? How did the murderer get in? How could the victor of October and the Civil War lose the battle? What effect would it have on our movement? At that moment we did not think that Trotsky’s murder would mark the beginning of another great slaughter of the Trotskyists in Siberia, Greece, Indochina and China.

On 29 January 1941 we left our cells and saw the Greek flag flying above the administration offices. What could it mean? We were told that Metaxas was dead. That at least was one dictator less. The Metaxas dictatorship was over, but the covert royal dictatorship remained. This could only be overthrown by a workers’ revolution.

8. The Germans Arrive - Stalinist Treachery

The situation changed dramatically when the Germans invaded. Gone were the triumphal descriptions of successes in Albania. The front line in Albania collapsed, and the victors were vanquished. The army was demoralised, and hungry and bare-footed soldiers took the road of retreat. The government could not provide protection or help because it no longer existed. The country was in a state of chaos. The fear of death infected the entire population. Hitler had destroyed the pride and courage of those who had until lately been the victors. Even the bravest of them were confused and did not know how to face the enemy. The German tanks and Stukas terrified everybody.

At that time we were in Neokastro. About 200 Stalinists and Trotskyists were crammed into tomb-like cells. We were told to prepare ourselves - but for what? And where were we to go? The Germans were approaching, and they would conquer everything. Then, as there were not now enough guards to mind us, the authorities decided to close Neokastro camp. We were brought back to Acronauplia, even those of us condemned to death, travelling in two groups as there were not sufficient guards to mind us in one group.

I swear that none of the 200 prisoners were afraid. We were all accustomed to the threats of the reactionaries, and we had not been broken. We had faced the Italian bombs without fear. We were all very moved when we left Neokastro. We did not speak at all. We had until then considered it as our home, terrible as it was. We had spent bitter times in it, and yet there had been dramatic and beautiful times as well. We had survived the war there and witnessed its horrors. We had learnt there that the dictator Metaxas had at last died. We had fun when the Stalinists pleaded with the government to release them so that they could fight the Germans and defend their country. We had put our lives in great danger when we proclaimed ourselves against the war. And it was there where we heard the terrible news that Trotsky had been assassinated. That made Neokastro unforgettable, the worst news that we heard during those hard times.

Maniadakis had ordered the dispersal of Neokastro camp, and that all the prisoners at Neokastro and Acronauplia be handed over to the Germans. He then made his own escape. We were ordered to move. We Trotskyists, who were in the first group, were to go to Kalamata by bus, and then by train to Acronauplia. Our journey went smoothly, but the other group stayed until night in Kalamata as the trains could only move under the cover of darkness, due to the bombing. But Argos was bombed, and all the prisoners, guards and other people sought shelter in the fields. Antonatos wrote:

‘On our way we removed our handcuffs. The gendarmes and their officer watched us, but they were so confused that they didn’t know what to do. Once the raid was over we surrendered to the gendarmes, who handcuffed us again and took us to Acronauplia.’

Mamalakis, who was also in Neokastro, was asked by Manousakas: ‘Why have you come to this hell?’ He replied: ‘We have come here to continue the struggle against you!’ Koligiannis and Zisis Zisimatos, who were the leaders, had refused a request by their comrades to sanction an escape attempt. ‘No’, they said, ‘we shall go to Acronauplia first, and then decide what to do.’ They were like sheep to the slaughter. Ioannides approved this treason.

In the meantime, we were discussing how we could attempt to escape. Such thoughts were on everyone’s minds. But the wise leaders recommended that we, the mere rank and file, should not discuss it, such things should be left to the leaders. But they did not raise the matter. ‘Why didn’t you escape?’, asked Papadakis of his comrade Manousaka, ‘Who told you not to escape?’

The gates were half open, there weren’t many guards, just the commanding officer and 10 gendarmes, and the gendarmes were indifferent. They just wanted to go home. There was a threat that if anyone left he would be killed at once. But all the Stalinists knew that was an idle threat, they all knew that an escape would be dead easy. Yianigonas wrote: ‘We could have escaped without facing any resistance, and we would have saved so many lives.’

We Trotskyists were more isolated than ever from the Stalinists, and we were unaware of their confusion. We did not know that some of them were of the opinion that they should escape. Manousakas refers to 10 Cretans who wanted to escape. Certain Stalinist leaders, Siganos, Soukatzidis, Chitilos, Karadonis and Mariakakis, to name some of them, also held this opinion. But Koligiannis instructed his men to stay put. And they did! What a shameful obedience to party discipline and the laws of the government.

The respect shown by Ioannides and Koligiannis for the law and the camp commander drove to the point of madness those Stalinists who wanted to escape. But, because of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Stalinist leaders were under the illusion that the Germans would not be hostile to them. They justified that wicked alliance in the same way that they had previously justified equally wicked alliances with imperialists against Hitler. They thought that the Germans would play fair with Stalin and, therefore, themselves, and at the worst would not execute them even if they did not let them free. They believed the ‘poor countries’ such as Germany and Italy to be in the right against the other imperialist countries of Western Europe. They even believed at that time that Hitler’s nationalism was some kind of Socialism!

And so they waited for the Germans to come, explaining that ‘if we got out of here, the British who are still in Nauplia would arrest us’. Manousakas wrote in his Acronauplia: Tales and Reality:

‘There were others who took seriously the rumours which the committee of the party deliberately spread that the Germans were a highly civilised people and would treat us in a civilised manner. We were left to suspect that the agreement of Hitler with Stalin would become an alliance. I think the party leadership was responsible for this incorrect and immoral view. Unfortunately, we paid for that with the massacre of hundreds of prisoners, and we also lost the possibility of gaining the control of the government.’

The frontier collapsed and the German tanks drove forward. The Stukas maintained an ever-increasing attack on Acronauplia. Many of the soldiers with their officers and the politicians were embarking at Anapli during the night to set sail for Crete or Cairo. A large number of British troops were killed as they embarked. A ship containing 400 tons of nitro-glycerine as well as soldiers was attacked by Stukas, and it exploded after the troops had escaped. The explosion rocked Acronauplia like an earthquake, and iron debris rained down on our building. Two troopships were sunk, and the beautiful harbour that we had enjoyed looking at became a sea of floating corpses. The Stukas kept up their attack, striking at a large beached ship until they realised that they could not sink it. We lived amongst all the horrors of war until the Germans finally took Nauplia.

We sheltered during the raids in a ditch which we had dug. By now there were over 560 prisoners, perhaps 600 in all. We and about a further 600 were all that remained of the Communists, both young and old, who had not submitted to dictator Metaxas. Amongst them were the tested militants who had fought for Communism for 20, 30 or more years, and who had been in prison or exile for many years. They had suffered persecution and torture. They had made many sacrifices for Communism, they had experienced the first awakening of the proletariat and its first struggles and revolts. And they were fearless.

Acronauplia had become a legend, a bastion of Communism, and a symbol for the struggles in the future. But the prisoners of Acronauplia, who had inspired people and who had suffered so much under the dictatorship, were betrayed by their unworthy leadership. The truth is that Stalinism destroyed them because its supporters submitted to a corrupt leadership.

The prison guards were in a complete state of panic during the bombing. They hid in their shelters, more interested in their families than in us. Nobody knew what would happen to us under the Fascists. During one raid, and while the Nazis passed through the Isthmus and took the Peloponnesus, we were in our shelter when we heard a voice in a sudden silence. It was Pouliopoulos. He spoke calmly and steadily:

‘We must decide here and now how we are going to escape. The guards are in a terrible panic and so disorganised that we can surely escape. Otherwise they will deliver us up to the Nazis.’

His authority was impressive. So spoke the former Secretary of the Communist Party. His proposition went to the depths of our souls. Not a whisper could be heard. We were all waiting for the Stalinist leaders to speak.

I took the opportunity to speak. It was dark but they recognised my voice. I had always spoken as the representative of the Trotskyists. I had always lashed the Stalinists during the discussions, although they had only ever given me four minutes in which to speak. But they respected me. I was in my fifth year of imprisonment in the concentration camps of Acronauplia and Neokastro, and during those five years they had learned to respect me as a leading revolutionary. I said loudly:

‘We must decide to escape without hesitation. That is our revolutionary duty. Great struggles lie ahead of us. Our success will be certain, and it will cost us no blood at all. Don’t forget that the gendarmes just want to go home. We must be daring.’

There was complete silence for a while. The Stalinist leader Theos not only refused to consider our proposal, but attacked us. ‘Your proposition is a provocation. It is intended to put the collective in danger.’ He told us that the commanding officer had given his word that he would not deliver us to the Germans, and that as soon as the British departed, he would set us free. The proposal to escape was a provocation! That was an ugly accusation, a slander against the efforts we had made for the safety of the lives of hundreds of class fighters, the finest members of the workers’ movement.

If we had decided to escape, there is no doubt that we would have succeeded. The gates leading to the camp commander’s office and the outside were almost always ajar as the trusties like Arabatzis and Archibasilis regularly went shopping with small or large groups. We could have quickly disarmed the guards, and if they had resisted, we could have seized the two machine-guns which stood in the corner of the office. There were 600 of us, and there were several guards who told us to escape because they wanted to come with us. Our escape would have been successful.

Had the followers of Theos and Ioannides not capitulated to them and not believed the words of that Greek officer, who was one of Maniadakis’ narks, we all could have escaped without any blood being spilt at all. Some of them had been won over to our idea. Giannogonas wrote much later that they had planned an escape based on what we had said, but that Ioannides had cancelled it at the last moment. Moreover, Manousakas had said that there were some gendarmes from Crete in Nauplia who would help us to escape. But instead of sending Manousakas to Nauplia to arrange this with them, Ioannides sent Archibasilis, whom the gendarmes did not know and therefore would not trust.

In the meantime the Stalinists had posted their own guards over the gates in order to prevent both ourselves and their own members from escaping. Escaping was ‘provocative’ because this would put our ‘freedom’ in jeopardy and reverse our ‘gains’. Our ‘freedom’ and ‘gains’ in the concentration camp!

Now was the opportunity for all of us to escape. But as soon as the old guards were paralysed we had new guards, and they were Stalinists, exactly like Zachariades. The Stalinist leaders Ioannides and Theos had thwarted our plan to escape. But how could this have happened? The reason is that they had fatal illusions in Stalin’s allies, the Nazis, that they would treat us as if we were their allies as well. Their worship of Stalin created their illusions in Hitler. I remember trying to explain in vain to a Stalinist worker, who shared my cell, that Hitler would become a super-Wrangel against the Soviet Union, as Trotsky had foretold. The crimes of the Stalinists in Acronauplia had their roots in the general policy of the Kremlin.

9. The Assassination of Pouliopoulos

On 6 June the Italian Fascists executed on the hills of Kournovo 118 militants, and among them were the Trotskyists Pouliopoulos, Xipolitos, Giannakos and Makris, as well as the Trotskyist Archeiomarxist Lambropoulos.

We were all deeply shocked. We had felt the same blow when, in the camp at Neokastro, we heard of Trotsky’s assassination. A cloud of death covered Kournos, and we cursed long and loudly.

By this time we were imprisoned in the camp at Larissa, which had been transformed into a fortress, with six lines of barbed wire, a watch tower every 15 or 20 yards and a light machine gun in each watch tower. There were more than 3000 inmates. When the Trikkala concentration camp was closed out of fear of local resistance, the prisoners were moved to Larissa. The camp was guarded by Italian soldiers.

The Stalinists who, under the leadership of Ioannides, had refused to escape from Acronauplia, were brought to Larissa. Their secretary was Koulambas. Among them were Siantos, Partsalides, Apostolou, Grigoratos, Ikonomides and some others. They were in the central block, but not, of course, with the common prisoners.

In isolation in the lower part of the hut were our people, together with a dozen Stalinists who had been isolated by the others and had joined the Trotskyist and Archeiomarxist collective.

Pouliopoulos had a great influence on the whole camp. He had contacts with all the politically aware prisoners, anti-Fascists, left wing activists, intellectuals and workers. Everyone liked and admired him for his revolutionary spirit, his philosophy and his talents. He inspired confidence in the workers’ revolution and revolutionary future to come. He strengthened the morale of the weak and tired. His greatness impressed everybody. How many times did we hear them say: ‘What a man that Pouliopoulos is!’

More than ever the Stalinists found themselves isolated from the other prisoners. They tried in vain to isolate our people. Their uncontrolled hatred and malice came to the surface whenever they were criticised by revolutionaries. Their hostility to all our people was a thousand times worse than at Acronauplia. The more Pouliopoulos attacked them for their social patriotism, their collaboration with the western imperialists, their submission to Greek capitalism and all their other betrayals, the more their hate for him grew. Their savagery knew no bounds.

When Thanos Georgiades, the son of G Georgiades, the old leader of the Socialist Party, arrived in the camp, Siantos gave him his top bunk while he took the bottom one, but he said to him: ‘Above all don’t go near that Pouliopoulos.’ Partsalides too said to him: ‘Follow your father’s heart but not his head.’

When Georgiades had gone to defend Pouliopoulos, who was facing the death penalty for treason at the trial of the autonomists, he had been a ‘Social-Fascist’ as far as the KKE was concerned. When Georgiades’ daughter, sent by her father, visited Pouliopoulos in hospital, he said to her:

‘"Your father saved my life when he defended me at the court-martial during the dictatorship of Pangalos. Tell him that I thank him!" And now in the concentration camp, Thanos Georgiades, whom I knew as a convinced Socialist close to Trotskyism, is not allowed to go near Pouliopoulos.’

Nikos Simos, a long-standing Archeiomarxist and Trotskyist, had been arrested on 6 January 1943. He had been denounced as a Trotskyist to the Piatsa commando. He was questioned and tortured but they had no proof. They continued because he refused to sign a declaration denouncing Communism. They took him to prison at Calithea. There he met Thanos Georgiades. Three months later he was taken to the camp at Larissa. Nikos was known and loved by all. The Stalinists knew him very well. They feared him. The Trotskyists knew him under the name ‘The Cook’. He was honoured for his fidelity to our ideas and his bravery.

The Stalinists refused to admit him into their area when the police had taken him there. Koulambas, the Secretary of the Stalinist group, said to him: ‘You cannot join us until you state that you will not speak to Pouliopoulos.’ Simos refused, and he was eventually taken from the common criminal section, where he had originally been put, to the Trotskyist and Archeiomarxist collective. Pouliopoulos welcomed Simos there. He knew him from the famous trial of Communists after the prison mutiny of Assos. Simos slept next to Pouliopoulos. There were 34 Stalinist and Trotskyist prisoners, among whom were Pouliopoulos, Giannakos, Xipolitos, Simos, L Chimaras, E Petsis, Belosimbassis and others.

The Assos prisoners had mutinied and refused to work in the fields. The prison commandant had accepted this at first, but later cut off all their communication with the outside world, letters, visits, etc, and had built a wall to isolate them from the criminal prisoners. He summoned and arrested the secretary of the collective. The prisoners rushed the commandant’s offices. They were fired on. Bratsos was arrested and tied to a tree. In reply the Communists seized a policeman and demanded the release of Bratsos. Reinforcements were sent from all over Cephalonia, and they attacked. They fired on the prisoners, who fought back with their bare hands. Simos was wounded in the hand. The Stalinists Papavasiliou, Petros, Bavos and Armenis were also wounded. Eventually the rioters were dispersed, and the wounded taken to the hospital at Argostoli.

At the trial following the Assos affair, Pouliopoulos, the lawyer of the detained mutineers, together with the Stalinist barristers Porphyrogenis and Miliaresis, put forward a formidable defence. Pouliopoulos shocked the whole public and even the judges with a submission which lasted for two hours.

When the prison at Trikkala was closed, all the prisoners were taken to Larissa. Among them were G Makris, C Soulas, G Krokas, Spaneas, C Hadgichristos, E Petsis and Socrates, and all those who had not escaped from Evia with Pouliopoulos such as Giannakos and Xipolitos.

Our people were very effective in carrying out agitation and propaganda work among the 3000 prisoners. Every evening long talks and discussions took place, and Pouliopoulos impressed everyone with his knowledge. Every day the police brought between 200 and 300 prisoners back and forth to work on the aerodrome, Pouliopoulos and Giannakos as intellectuals were not so strong, but worked hard. They dug and piled up the earth next to me. As much as I was able, I helped them to rest. It was the same with Hadjichristos, Soulas, Makris, Petsis and even Krokas, as they were strong working men. They managed well despite all they had suffered in prison and exile. The guards kept us under constant surveillance, so nobody could avoid working by slacking.

During our work we argued softly with the Stalinists, unlike inside the camp where we could not speak. Their bosses were bothered if we even greeted each other. Every evening when they spoke with each other they came to blows. They wished to weaken those who rebelled against their reign of terror.

The Italians often amused themselves with songs and music at a nearby tavern, and brought prostitutes there. If there were no Germans with them they would have been helpless. Among the prisoners were five or six Englishmen. They escaped by bribing the Italians to get their German colleagues drunk.

A riot of all the prisoners, Stalinists and ourselves, took place. We beat up the Vlachs, who were the camp informers and who did a lot of harm to everyone. The guards called us to a general parade. They put us in line and the Italian commandant walked along it with a Vlach to identify which one of us had beaten him up. He pointed out a Piraeus cobbler and two others. They were violently beaten and taken away as if dead, the cobbler to the hospital. Afterwards they were put in solitary.

One night at half past one in the morning we heard screams and sobbing outside the camp, waking us all. Pouliopoulos managed to discover what was happening. Two trucks of Italians had brought in 200 children of between eight and 12 years old. Some had fainted, others were dumb with fear, and others wept and cried. In revenge for the killing of three of their soldiers by the resistance, the Italians had attacked the three neighbouring villages, and had killed everyone they found and then burnt the bodies. They had seized the children, terrified at the massacre of their parents, and had brought them to the camp by truck.

Pantelis was overcome when heard this, and exploded: ‘The brutes! The murderers!’ He then turned on the Stalinists: ‘The filthy maquis!’ It was a really bad method of struggle. The maquis killed three soldiers and the Fascists massacred and burnt three villages, and hundreds of children were orphaned. There was not a single act of fraternisation between the soldiers of the two sides against their officers, such as Leninist principles demanded. This was clearly as much a crime by the leadership of the social patriotic maquis as that of the Fascists.

The Trotskyists condemned the policy of unjustified sabotage and assassination of German and Italian soldiers to assist the war effort and the victory of the imperialist Allies, even when this was done on the pretext of helping the USSR, because this tactic led to a confrontation between the local workers and the German and Italian soldiers, deepened the gulf between them, destroyed internationalist perceptions, pushed the German and Italian soldiers towards the Fascists, and laid the basis for the destruction of the Greek, German, Italian and world revolutions. The tactic of sabotage is acceptable when it is included in a strategy of working class revolution by the masses, but sabotage in the service of the capitalist war has nothing to do with revolution.

The Stalinists did not worry about this sort of problem. But what about the 3000 prisoners who were in danger of being condemned to death if a train was sabotaged or another incident took place?

In June another event took place which aroused the anger of Pouliopoulos, and led to the catastrophe of Nezero. The local maquis learned that on the afternoon of 3 June 1943, a train loaded with Italian war material would be travelling by. They mined the line at St Stephen’s cutting to cause a landslip and block the line.

On the train there were 1500 soldiers who did not know that the wagons were full of munitions. They were facing certain death, not just because of the saboteurs’ charge, but because of the explosion which it would set off.

On 3 June at 5pm, the train entered the cutting. Shortly after a tremendous explosion occurred. It was hellfire. The wagons were blown to pieces, human bodies were broken into flesh and blood, and there were cries of pain for help. There were 600 dead and a great many wounded.

We were intensely depressed when we learnt of the sabotage. The Fascists had already compiled and publicised in the press a list of prisoners who would be executed if there was sabotage on the railway.

The news of the sabotage was a death sentence for the prisoners in the camp. The comrades on this list prepared for their execution, wrote their last letters to their dear ones and embraced their friends. Their last salute to life was without fear or tears.

Next day, 4 June, nothing happened, but the mood in the camp was sombre. The shadow of death hung over every head. On 5 June the police arrived with a dozen lorries. The atmosphere was tense. The condemned thought this was the end.

They called the morning parade very early. The commandant ordered the prisoners to stand in line outside their huts. There was a deathly silence and he started to read out the list. But the names were different. Not one of the names on the original list was called.

An article, ‘A great and tragic anniversary’ appeared in the local paper Larissa on 26 June 1979. It stated:

‘The prisoners were ordered to their places outside their huts in the camp and there the commandant started to read out, not the names of those on the list, but other ones. What had taken place? How and who had changed the list? Was the change the result of some evil influence?’

Hopes rose. Perhaps they were not going to be executed. They collected their belongings. They shook the hands of their comrades, climbed into the lorries and left. For where?

They returned to the camp that evening, feeling relieved. What had happened? Read the explanation in Larissa on 25 June 1979...

How were the names on the first list changed, the Trotskyist leaders entered and the KKE leaders omitted? The leaders of the EAM have forgotten this question in the same way as they forget the great massacre of Trotskyists on the eve of the revolution, when we found ourselves in the front line of the barricades with the rebellious masses against the murderous attack of Papandreou and Scobie, when the activists of ELAS took to us to the OPLA and Peoples’ Militia firing squads.6

For a long time nothing was learned as to why the names on the execution list were changed. Then Felicia Pouliopoulos, the widow of Pantelis, brought the crime carried out against our comrades at Larissa concentration camp by the Stalinists out of the shadows.

Among the Stalinist leaders there was Zographos, a would-be intellectual cadre, a veteran ‘Trot-basher’ from Acronauplia. After the betrayal of Pouliopoulos he bribed the Italians responsible with party gold in order to include Pouliopoulos and any others of our comrades on the lists for future executions. It is quite possible that this horrible act was carried out by the interpreter who, according to Simos, was one of the most disgusting people he had ever encountered.

Felicia Pouliopoulos subsequently split from the Athanassiadis tendency and defected to the Stalinists with Dimitrakareas. What had she learnt, before or after she had joined the Stalinists? We heard this from a relative of Pouliopoulos. Felicia will not tell me any more details. She may not, of course, agree with what happened then, or perhaps she has been threatened with expulsion if she told us what happened.

But returning to the prisoners at Larissa, not all shared the optimism of their comrades even though a guard said to one of them as they climbed down from the lorries: ‘You are in luck! Do you know where we were taking you?’ ‘No’, replied Pouliopoulos who spoke Italian.

‘To Kournovo - for execution!’ ‘Why then, what has happened?’

‘It seems that the execution has been cancelled.’

But it was not. The execution had only been delayed because of information that the maquis were intending to free them. From Athens came the order to execute them the next day. On the night of 5-6 June nobody was able to sleep. Simos tells us movingly:

‘Lying by Pouliopoulos’ side I felt the need to say a few comforting words to him, even though he did not seem upset. "Perhaps you are going to be transferred to another prison." "Stop it Nikos", interrupted Pantelis, "I have heard it with my own ears that they are going to execute me."’

Simos stopped and burst into tears. That is what the interviewer and the wife of Simos Vassiladiotis heard. When he stopped Nikos continued:

‘Yes it was true. Pantelis knew it. He had heard two policemen discussing among themselves saying, "Ah, if this execution didn’t go ahead, we would have a party with a roast lamb." Perhaps they were not anti-Fascist but simply human. Another time Pantelis said to me: "Bad luck Nikos, I won’t be able to go on arguing about Archeiomarxism, as I hoped."’

We did not know how Archeiomarxism had evolved of late as a consequence of events. Since Acronauplia they had had a new experience by collaborating of our tendency, the New Course in the EOKDE, while the tendency of Pouliopoulos had evolved in two different and opposite directions.

This conversation shows that Pouliopoulos was concerned with the problems of our struggle right to the end.

At dawn on 6 June the klaxon sounded. They called out those on the list. It was the last ‘Present’ in their life, and the first in eternity.

The lorries returned, but there was a delay in the order to depart. They waited until midday. This was the worst sort of torture experienced by all those who had been held in the police jails. The agony was felt not just by the 150, but by all 3000 prisoners.

At last the time came. The order to go was finally given. In the dormitories the heroes of Nezero embraced all their friends one after the other: ‘My love to the children’, ‘Have a good Liberation.’

The scenes of the departure were dramatic. They did not have the cheerful character of normal transfers between prisons and exile. It was extraordinarily sad. But there was one peculiar thing. The expressions of all showed something of revolutionary purity and greatness. Stalinists and Trotskyists marched as one, proudly and without fear.

‘When those about to die came to Kournovo’, wrote Olympios in Larissa, ‘they were lined up by the side of a little hill facing the machine guns. Before the execution started Pouliopoulos shouted out in Italian: "You have learnt to scorn death while we scorn life!"’

An Italian anti-Fascist from the Pinerolo Cavalry Brigade who after the fall of Italy went over to ELAS with his men and 8000 horses, described the execution to the leading ELAS people at the their officers’ school:

‘Pouliopoulos had a hero’s attitude. He said in Italian: "In killing us you kill yourselves - you are fighting against the idea of the Socialist revolution."’

The scene of the execution was not a drama but a Golgotha, different from the hundreds of executions of the National Resistance.

Pouliopoulos gave a message to the Italian soldiers, a message of brotherhood to all the soldiers of the earth, whether white, black or yellow, above frontiers and parties. A message of revolution against the hell of capitalist war. His appeal was the correct appeal of a war against war. He wanted to bring down the high and mighty, to raise the oppressed peoples against imperialism, and to raise Siberia against the Kremlin.

It was a clarion call in the spirit of the Russian October - peace to the peoples, world revolution, down with all the despots of the globe - and all in a few firm words before the order to fire.

At Nezero Pouliopoulos wrote an eternal message with his blood, like that of the Chicago martyrs or the Communards of Paris, shot by the ‘democracy’ of Thiers.

He has taken his place at the tribune of the world revolution. His appeal was a call to struggle. He saw the soldiers not as assassins but as his brothers. The real executioners and assassins were in the general staffs, and not just in those of Hitler but in those of Churchill and Roosevelt.

I remember when the Germans came to Acronauplia and calmly looked at us behind the bars, without any dislike, Pouliopoulos said: ‘What pleasant blond faces.’ They were all young. Hitler had called up deskrows of schoolkids to send to the front.

It took at least five minutes to execute them all. Pantelis did not go down until the last second. He had heard that there were Italians who would celebrate with a roast lamb if the execution did not take place, and he aimed his words at their hearts and consciences. He was hopeful, and in no unrealistic way, for from June to September, when Mussolini was overthrown, the Italians fraternised, and anti-Fascism conquered the whole of Italy.

‘Brothers...’, Pantelis spoke slowly. The emotion of the speaker was palpable. He spoke to his friends on the other side. Our Socialism has taught us to extend our hand to our comrades against all class enemies.

We can imagine the dramatic scene. Rumours about it immediately reached the camp. The soldiers and the condemned turned to Pouliopoulos. His eyes burned. The lives of 106 hung by a thread. Pouliopoulos’ words were their only chance.

There was dead silence after his speech. If one soldier threw down his gun all would do so. The order to fire was given, but nobody raised his gun. They were too overcome. The Fascist at their head took out his pistol and shot Pouliopoulos dead. So a huge tree was felled.

The other comrades of ours, Xipolitos, Makris, Giannakos and Lambropoulos fell dead by his side, and all passed away to eternity.

The Fascist animal in charge ordered the firing squad to leave immediately as if the victims were chasing them. The bodies lay where they had fallen. After 36 hours the peasants of St Stephanos came and buried them in a common grave.

On 6 June, between two and three in the afternoon, the mother of Pouliopoulos was awakened by a nightmare in which a king said to her: ‘Do you know what they have done? Do you know where to find your baby?’ The mother of Giannakos at the same moment saw an evzone pull a knife out of his belt and thrust it into his chest. In this way the tragedy of Nezero was told to the mothers.

The tragedy of Nezero hung over the camp at Larissa lived until it was closed. On 7 September 1943 Italy signed an armistice, Badoglio took power, and finito Mussolini, the ex-Socialist, while in Italy the workers prepared for power and seized their factories. The Italians at Larissa camp were just happy to go home.

The Germans had no confidence in them, and took over the camp. They started interrogations to discover the Communists who had survived Nezero. They released all those whom they could not prove were Communists. Thus Petsis and Spaneas were released. Simos was kept as a possible Jew. Petsis had to go to Athens and get his papers.

All those from Acronauplia, Stalinists and Trotskyists alike, and including Hadjichristos, H Soulas and G Krokas, were transferred to Haidari. There they suffered another agony which finished with the historic executions of 1 May 1944 at Kaisariani.

Simos stayed with about 60 others. He was kept for work in the interior after the others had been released, until his papers arrived. He was captured on 7 January 1943 and released 11 or 12 months later.

Finishing his story, Simos added in tears that among the clothes from the Red Cross given to the prisoners, he had been given a blanket marked PP. It was indeed the blanket of Pouliopoulos.

Loukas Karliaftis

Notes

1. Comrade Stinas had spoken of ‘Fascism’ both before and after the imposition of the Metaxas dictatorship. Within the ranks of the EOKDE, however, there was a general consensus that the KDEE’s analysis of Fascism was derived from their incorrect evaluation of the situation and from other theoretical errors. Our conference described the 4 August dictatorship as a ‘military-police regime’.

A relentless ideological struggle against Stinas’ tendency occurred in the Acronauplia concentration camp. We exposed their pessimistic evaluation of the correlation of political forces prior to the Metaxas dictatorship and after the Thessalonica events, and also the mechanistic mentality that Stinas brought with him when he split from Stalinism. There was nothing new about Stinas’ view of the ‘Fascism of 4 August’. He did not accept the analysis of Fascism which Trotsky formulated, he could not throw off his Stalinist past, and, whatever his claims, he never became a Trotskyist. He used the same criteria as the Stalinists to describe the Metaxas dictatorship as Fascist.

Stinas was, nonetheless, careful not to go so far as the Stalinists, and avoided such theories as ‘all-out Fascism’ and ‘Social Fascism’, and those of the Archeiomarxists, through which he himself had lived, first as a supporter of Pouliopoulos in the spring of 1927, and then as a Stalinist that autumn, when he started to persecute the Spartakists and Archeiomarxists. He also avoided being identified with the later Stalinist ideas, that the choice of the day was between democracy and Fascism, and that one should call for the democratisation of the bourgeois regime.

2. LD Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International, London, 1976, p21.

3. LD Trotsky, ‘On the Eve of World War II’, Writings of Leon Trotsky 1939-40, New York, 1977, p20.

4. LD Trotsky, ‘Manifesto of the Fourth International on the Imperialist War and the World Proletarian Revolution’, Writings of Leon Trotsky 1939-40, New York, 1977, p222.

5. JP Cannon, ‘A Statement on the US Entry into World War II’, The Socialist Workers Party in World War II, New York, 1987, p209.

6. We have learned that Barjotas, a GPU agent, gave orders at a meeting in his headquarters to kill any oppositionist on the spot. During the events of December he was heard to say that he went round like a mad dog, pistol in hand, ready to ‘bite’ any revolutionaries who came out into the street following Lenin’s strategy of turning the imperialist war into a civil war. In the end he gave a record to the GPU of the hundreds of Trotskyists and oppositionists that he had liquidated.

For our part, we faced their jails or interrogations, those inquisitions of frightful tortures, and the executions at the hands of these savages, in order to try to save our people from their hands, or to learn whether they were dead or alive.

We looked for months to discover the fate of our comrades. Sometimes we only found their graves. The brother of Mimis Belias, for example, opened a mass grave by the Vyon stream. There, thanks to things he knew and clothes which had not rotted away, he recognised the decomposed body of his brother Mimis. He lifted it up and held it in his arms so that the rotten flesh and earth stuck to him. He burst into tears and had a breakdown, and afterwards he became chronically depressed. Mimis Belias was arrested by the OPLA on 12 December 1944. His corpse had a broken arm and three gold teeth missing. There were hundreds of such murders, and hundreds of such stories.

Thus these most dishonourable and the most counter-revolutionary atrocities against us came to light. These crimes were a blow against the proletarian revolution