From: nick@rti.org ()
Subject: The Macedonian Question During WW II
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Distribution: net
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 19:59:01 GMT

  I had stated in a previous posting that in my opinion the WW II
period is crucially important for understanding the today's
developments and national positions on the Macedonian question.
I will attempt here to present a synopsis of a view that, in my
opinion, covers the events of the time fairly accurately and can be
supported by diplomatic and political evidence that recently became
available(at the end of the cold war).    

THIS WILL BE A RATHER LONG POSTING(Sorry in advance).


The outbreak of the 2nd World War activated all the minority
problems of Europe.In the Balkans, the Macedonian Question came to
the foreground again. The dipiomacy of the 3rd Reich began to hold up
before Belgrade and Sofia the bait of ceding to them Macedonian
territories in exchange for their joining the Axis.
    It was  known that during the interbellum period, Bulgaria had
always aspired to annex territories of Greek and Yugoslavian Macedonia.
On the other hand, the intentions toward a corridor across Macedonia to
the Aegean Sea had always laid dormant in the minds of the leaders of
Yugoslavia.
    At the same time, the Germans were holding conferences with the
Bulgarian government of Bodgan Filof. Cleverly utilizing its trump card-
the offer of Macedonian and Thracian territories -the German diplomacy
had no difficulty in winning Bulgaria over to their side. In contrast to
Yugoslavia, the government of Sofia had the support of the public opinion
and the political world, because <<irredentism>> was very popular.
Therefore, the German=Bulgarian agreement was concluded under the
most favorable auspices- at the time when the Greek army, unsuspecting,
was resisting the big spring offensive of the Italians on the Albanian
mountains.

    The execution of the secret agreements began even before the
Germans had fully occupied continental Greece. On the 18th of April,1941
Bulgarian forces crossed the Greco-Bulgarian borders and took over from
the Germans the regions of East Macedonia (between the Strymon and
Nestos rivers) and West Thrace, with the exception of the zone of Evros,
which the Germans kept under their control.
    In the first phase, the Bulgarians began an effort to consolidate their
 dominion over the occupied territories of East Macedonia and Thrace.
 Bulgarian settlers, among them former refugees, came and settled in
 urban centers and rural districts,moved by  special economic motives. At
 the same time the Bulgarian ocuppation forces applied oppresive
 measures to force the Greeks, particularly the refugees who had been
 uprooted from their ancestral homes in Asia Minor, East Thrace and
Bulgaria (East Romelia) to leave the area. The flight turned into a mass
exodus after the wholesale carnage and burning of entire residential areas
(Drama,Doxato, and others), which was the Bulgarian retaliation in
September of 1941 for an untimely local insurgency. The extent of the
devastation and the destruction of the Greek element in the Bulgarian
occupied zone was such that there has ever been a general belief that the
insurgency had been incited by Bulgarian agents provocateurs, so that the
Bulgarian authorities could find a pretext for the pogrom they had
planned.

    The situation in East Macedonia had immediate effects on the rest of
Northern Greece. The possibility of the extension of the Bulgarian zone of
occupation to cover Central or even West Macedonia could not be
ignored. And in any case, this impression was cultivated by agents of the
Bulgarian officials attached to the German garrisons stationed in
Thessaloniki and West Macedonia. Furthermore, unbridled rumors that
the entire Macedonia would be annexed to Bulgaria or that an
autonomous Bulgarian-Macedonian state would be declared intersified
the uncertainty about the future.
    In the meantime the Bulgarians' effort to proselyte among the Greeks
was systematized when the <<Bulgarian Club>, was established in
Thessaloniki. In a period when famine decimated the population of the
urban centers and made survival in the rural areas problematic, the <<Club>>
exploited human weaknesses by offering free food coupons to those who
joined it as <<Bulgarians>>.At the same time, the Bulgarian officers attached
to the German garrisons in Central Macedonia began to arm some
Bulgarophiles of the slavic minority, in a way reorganizing the
Bulgaromacedonian <<comitat>>	 of the period of the Macedonian struggle.
These modern <<comitatji>> immediately started to oppress the inhabitants
of the rural areas, especially the Greek-conscious slavic-speaking people
who refused to accept Bulgarian economic aid or to submit to threats.

    Although it is difficult to make an accurate estimate, it is a fact that
pro-Bulgarian sentiments among the inhabitants of some villages in West
Macedonia, either because the villagers were forced to accept them or
because they were reduced to the most abject necessity, rose considerably.
A report of the EAM(Greek Liberation Front)in 1943 estimated the
armed <<comitatji>> in the area of Castoria to be 3000 , while sources of
SNOF (Slavomacedonian Popular Liberation Front) reported that, until
the beginning of 1944, a large number of slavic-speaking inhabitants of
rural areas believed that only Bulgaria could realize their dream of an
independent Macedonia.
    Strangely, the number of the armed pro-Bulgarian Slavs increased in
1944, particularly in the nomes of Florina, Pella and Kilkis. This
organization of armed irregulars became known as <<Ochrana>> and took
an active part at the side of the German and Bulgarian forces in the
mop-up following the battles against Greek guerillas or in the destruction
of undefended villages.

    The revival of the Bulgaromacedonian movement in the German-
occupied area of Greek Macedonia during the last year of the occupation
was not unrelated to the more general readjustments of the Macedonian
Question in 1943. Really, that year, the Bulgarian government, having
succeeded in thinning the Greek population of the Bulgarian-occupied
regions of East Macedonia and West Thrace, tried to legalize the
complete incorporation of the occupied territories into the Bulgarian
state. At the same time it renewed its pressure on the Germans to
authorize an extension of the zone of occupation west of Strymon. At this
crucial moment, facing the deadly peril of the dismemberment of the
nation, the Greek population displayed its feelings by massive
demonstrations and rallies incited by Resistance, in which all the political
parties participated and which were supported even by the machinery of
the government of collaborators. It was evident that the Macedonian
Question deeply moved the Greek people who were able to vent, in this
way, their grievance against the Bulgarians since activities against the nazi
German occupation could not yet take such a direction. Facing this furious
outburst of rage of the whole population combined with the problems
they were facing in other fronts, the Germans were forced to interfere
to contain the problem.
  They prevented the Bulgarians from <<legalizing>> the annexation   
             of the Greek territories.
                 Even before the Germans had completed the occupation of Greece,
            the frontier towns, Greek patriots, uncoordinated and inorganized,
      tried to booost the weakened morale of the population. During these first
          months, the reappearance of agents of the Greek administration, in the
            confusion and uncertainty that reigned everywhere, was regarded as a
 favorable omen. Before any actual resistance was organized, these agents, 
             -nomarchs, public servants, police-, the church and the cultural
   professional societies were the bastions of resistance against the Bulgarian
         propaganda. The appointed <<government>> of Athens utilized the subject
        to find some justification for its existence. At the same time, on the
     initiative of eminent Macedonian residents of Athens -led by the
          professors Keramopoulos and Svolos- a panhellenic comittee was formed
             to oppose any Bulgarian initiative in Macedonia.                              :
    The appearance and strengthening of EAM/ELAS (Greek Liberation              
             Front/Greek Popular Liberation Army) in Macedonia under the actual-
             although secret  initially,leadership of K.K.E. (Greek
             Communist Party) which had different political aims from P.A.0.
         (Nationalist movement) led to a conflict between the two organizations.
          Independently of the ideological differences of the members of the two
     organizations, the actual cause of dissagreement was the pre-war  position
        of K.K.E. regarding the Macedonian Question. And some slavic  speaking
             members of KKE, who had been openly propagandizing the cause of an
             autonomous Macedonia before the war, reappeared in the ranks of
 EAM/ELAS. In certain cases there has been a violent reaction in the ranks     
             of ELAS because many members, among them former officers of the
     army, disagreed with the activities of the slavic-speaking communists of
             ELAS.

       In spite of the efforts of the British military mission and the initial
             recognition of PAO, EAM/ELAS, EDES and EKKA as the main national
   resistance organizations, the clash was not avoided. As it became apparent
    later (forced disbandment of EKKA in 1944), the leadership of the KKE
aimed to neutralize, one way or the other, the various resistance groups
so that all resistance fighters   would join the EAM/ELAS.
    During the crucial period of the summer of 1943, when the agreement
between the resistance groups and the British military mission about the
joint General Staff was to be signed, forces of the ELAS, in successive
attacks, scattered the few armed bands of P.A.O, which ceased to exist as
a military force. Many of its members joined the ELAS, other units broke
up and were deactivated or fled to the Middle East while others, in the
climate of the civil war, prefered to hit their ideological rivals by joining
the units organized by the collaborators and the conquerors. However,
the P.A.O., having ceased to be military unit, continued its activities as a
political organization, developed an organized network of informers,
cooperating with the allied headquarters of the Middle East by 
sending valuable information.
    In about the end of 1943, the Yugoslavian dimension was added to the
traditional form of the Macedonian Question. This development had its
origin in the internal Macedonian question of Yugoslavia. With the
Bulgarian occupation of Yugoslavian territories, the pre-war pro-
Bulgarian element of the Yugoslavian Macedonia came out into the open.
However, apart from the pro-Bulgarian demonstrations in certain areas,
the important event was the defection of the local commitee of the
Communist Party of Yugoslavia to the sister Party of Bulgaria. This act
confirmed the widely diffused impression thay all the local political and
social forces, even the officials of the local communist organization,
favored the annexation of territories of Yugoslavian Macedonia to
Bulgaria.
   The leader of the Communist Party, Broz-Tito reacted with lightning
rapidity. He demanded and received Stalin's sanction and
authority that the internal Yugoslavian Macedonian Question should be
handled by the Yugoslavians on the basis of the new platform adopted by
the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. According to it, the solution of the
Macedonian question forcibly imposed on them by the nazi Germans was
declared invalid. On the contrary, the new policy provided for the
recognition of a common <<Macedonian>> identity of the slavic-speaking
 inhabitants of the three parts of Macedonia and the establishment of a
 Macedonian state within the borders of the past-war Yugoslavian realm.
    It became apparent that the decision of the Soviet Union shifted the
 solution of the Macedonian Question from the hands of the Bulgarians,
 to whom it had entrusted it with the decisions of the Comintern during
 the interbellum period, to the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The war
 needs of the Soviet Union during the first months of the nazi invasion had
absolute priority. Hitler's ally, Bulgaria, and her weak Communist Party
did not even have the tolerance of the Soviet.

    It was a unique opportunity for the C P of Yugoslavia. It would be
able, now, unhindered by Bulgarian reactions, to arrange its, <<home
affairs>> and try, not only to win the masses over to the partizan movement,
which had stagnated in the south, but also to infuse into them the ideal of
<<macedonism>>. In this way, the party would secure control over a
disputable province of the realm and also  take the first steps towards a
breach of the ties of the population with Bulgaria.
    As the leadership of the C P of Yugoslavia was becoming conscious of
its ever increasing power through an ever-growing partizan movement, it
began to have broader visions. By the middle of 1943, these visions had
taken the definite form of a Yugoslavian hegemony in the Balkans.
    The Macedonian Question, from a liability could be turned into an
asset and become a springboard for the new policy, provided that the C P
of Bulgaria and, later the C P of Greece would accept the new line of the
Comintern and orient themselves to the Yugoslavian position on the issue
and accept the final solution, that is the annexation of the three parts of
Macedonia to the post-war federal state of Yugoslavia.

    Till 1943, thanks to the activities of two energetic officials of the C P
of Yugoslavia, Lazar Kolisevski and, chiefly, Vukmanovic Tempo, Tito
managed to put the situation in the Yugoslavian Macedonia under his
control. However, he had to obtain the consent of the communist parties
of Bulgaria and Greece. This delicate task was asigned to Tempo by Tito
himself. It should be noted that Tempo had also undertaken to settle the
Kossova Question with the leader of the Albanian Communist Party
Enver Hoxha. As a frame of the solution of these two complicated
problems, Tempo propounded the idea of forming a Joint Balkan
Headquarters of the resistance groups which were already controlled by
the respective communist parties of the four Balkan countries involved in
the affair.
    After his first contacts with the leaders of the C P of Albania and the
representative of the C P of Bulgaria in Yugoslavian Macedonia, Tempo
entered the guerrilla occupied territories of Greece. Between June and
August of 1943 he held several meetings with the most important leaders
of the C P of Greece at Tsotyli and Karydia. Without reserve he expressed
the Yugoslavian position about the coordination of the resistance
movements of the four countries and the solution to the Macedonian
Question.
    In a general outline, Tempo's proposals provided for the formation of
a Joint Balkan Headquarters which would coordinate the activities of the
four patizan organizations, not only against the conqueror but also against
the respective <<nationalistic>> reactionary organizations with the aim to
establish, after the war, a new social and political status within the frame
of a Balkan federation. In Macedonia, the cooperating resistance
organizations would try to neutralize the influence of the Bulgarian
nationalists on the Macedonian slavs. The armed forces of the respective
communist parties would have freedom of movement across the borders,
while the Yugoslav- Macedonians political instructors would be free to
promulgate the Yugoslavian model for the solution of the Macedonian
Question to the slavic-speaking minority of Greece. That meant that they
would be free to propagandize the idea of a <<macedonian>> nation, the
<<macedonian>> language and promise that, after the end of the war, the
right of self-determination would also include the right of the Macedonian
slavs to break away from their own political organizations and separate
armed groups. Documents brought to light evidence that Tempo had been
very vague about the Macedonian problems which would be settled after
the end of the war. However, judging by the numerous statements of the
then important Yugoslav-Macedonians, the aim of the Yugoslavians was
to create a big macedonian state, approximately of the size of Bulgaria of
the St.Stephan treaty. The only difference was that the borders of the state
were rechristened <<historico-ethnological borders of the Macedonian
nation>>. The minimum of the Yugoslavian demands held against Greece
 was the annexatlon of the contiguous nomes of Greek Macedonia
 including the part of Thessaloniki which was regarded as strategically
 important, by the Yugoslavs. These plans, recorded in many documents
of that time and in memoirs of Yugoslavian writers, were not disclosed
 during the meetings with the leadership of the Greek Communist party.
Tempo's aim was to obtain the consent of the Greek communists so as to
create the conditions which, after the liberation, would allow a solution
of the problem of the Yugoslavian territorial claims. Their chief argument
for the formation of separate slavomacedonian political and military units
was the need to offer attractive alternatives to the Bulgarian-conscious
slavic-speaking inhabitants of the three parts of Macedonia that would
make them break away from the influence of the Bulgarian nationalists
and join the common resistance movement as Slavomacedonians.

    Tempo's proposals created a completely new state of affairs affecting
not only the Greek resistance movement but also the future of Greece.
The leaders of the Greek Communist Party for the first time realized that
they had been conferring with the British on the subject of the Joint
Headquarters of the Guerrillas, so they rejected Tempo's proposal; how-
ever, they approved of a cooperation of the two nations' guerrilla forces
and the formation, inside the regions controlled by ELAS, of mixed
Greco-Yugoslavian detachments which would act on both sides of the
borders with the aim to win over to their side the slavomacedonians of
Greece and the Greeks of Yugoslavia. Naturally, the second part of the
agreement was added just for effect. At the same time they gave
permission to the Yugoslav patizans to cross the borders and to the
Yugoslav-Macedonian political instructors to move unimpeded and
propagandize the idea of a <<macedonian nation>>. But the most important
decision was to permit the slavomacedonians to form a separate political
organization, the S.N.0.F (Slavomacedonian National Liberation Front)
and separate slavomacedonian armed bands. However, the leaders of the
Greek Communist Party rejected the Yugoslavian proposal for a renewal
of the talks about the Macedonian Question. Emphasizing the grave
immensity of the problem, they stood firm in the position they had
adopted in 1935. The only concession they made was to agree that, after
the end of the war, the problems between the Balkan countries could be
solved in a spirit of brotherly cooperation, according to the principles of
the self-determination of the people.

    In practice, some of these decisions, such as the formation of mixed
Grecoyugoslavian  armed detachments, or independent Slavomace-
donian armed bands, were never realized, probably because of reactions
in the ranks of EAM/ELAS, chiefly in the Macedonian echelons. On the
other hand, some of the agreements with Tempo took another local
dimension, as in the case of various agents and instructors -who came to
Greece from the Yugoslavian part of Macedonia supposedly to induce the
slavic-speaking people to join the resistance. In fact, they openly
propagandized the idea of a united Macedonia. The outcome of this was
that the area of the Greek west Macedonia was turned into a battlefield
of ideological and ethnic conflicts creating a chasm between the
population groups. The confusion that was created had no precedent in
any other region of Greece.
    The main reason was the formation of a separate political organization
of the Slavomacedonians. With the permission of the Macedonian Bureau
of the Communist Party (headed by Leonidas Strigos), the
Slavomacedonian Liberation  Front (SNOF) was founded in the nomes of
Castoria and Florina, and whose activity would be limited among the slavs.
Naum Peyos (Peyof) was elected leader of the Front. The chief aim of the
leaders of the Front was to win over to their side all the slavic-speaking
inhabitants of the region and, at the same time, to neutralize both the
Bulgarian  influence and the adherence of the inhabitants to the Greek
ideals. To achieve the first, they adopted the policy of proselytization, and
if this failed, the use of force. On the second, they declared war against
all the national organizations and particularly against those they called
"Grecoman Followers of P.A.0.>> and <<Grecoman families of the Great
Ideal>>. Their effort to wipe out all dynamic Greek elements, especially in
the hinterland, is revealed in the correspondence between officials of the
SNOF.
    Finally, the line adopted by the SNOF showed it as the successor to
the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organiziltion (EMEO) and its
members made vociferous proclamations that the year 1944 will mark a
<<second Iliden>>, and at the same time, they popularized the demand for
a formation of a united Macedonian Republic. The latter, particularly,
comprised the refrain which ended all oral catechisms. Gradually, the
SNOF developed another activity. Without the permission of the
superintending echelons of EAM/ELAS, agents of the SNOF crossed the
borders and were supplied with propaganda material by the Yugoslav
Macedonian instructors, while at the same time, they incited defections
from the units of ELAS to the Popular Liberation Army of the
Yugoslavian part of Macedonia .
   This barefaced separatist propaganda of the members of the SNOF
could not remain unnoticed by the officials of the EAM/ELAS of
Macedonia. Very soon, it began to cause reactions involving the highest
echelons of the organization and of the Macedonian bureau of the
Communist Party in the region of Thessaloniki. However, in the interest
of maintaining good relations with the Yugoslav partizans, the leaders of
the Communist Party of Greece hesitated to take measures against the
separatist activities of the SNOF. Only when, in May, 1944, the reaction
of the local EAM organizations and the ELAS officers grew stronger, did
the leadership order the disbandment of the SNOF and the arrest of its
most fanatical followers. As a result, some of its basic members and many
armed guerrillas fled to the Yugoslavian region of Macedonia and began
forming bands of <<Aegean Macedonian>> aiming to turn eventually against
Greek Macedonia.

   The events in the greater Balkan area, however, began to influence the
developments. The withdrawal of the Germans from the area was a matter
of days; and the primary aim of the leadership of the Greek Communist
Party was to become the government of free Greece, and in this case, it
was more than necessary to maintain good relations with Tito's partzans.
So after long negotiations  the Secretary General of the Communist Party,
Siantos, sent Andreas Tzimas to Tito's General Staff as a liaison officer
-and they agreed that SNOF defectors should come back to Greece to join
the Greek guerrilla fighters. One of the terms of the agreement was that
the Slavomacedonians could form separate units within the big units of
the ELAS of Macedonia. John Ioannides, one of the leaders of the
Political Bureau of the Communist Party admits that he gave the order
for the formation of the slavomacedonian units.
    In spite of the suspicion and reservations of many members of the
ELAS of Macedonia, during July and August of 1944, two slavoma-
cedonian battalions were formed: one as a unit of the 28th regiment of
ELAS in the region of Florina under Elias Demakis (Gotze) and another
as a unit of the 3Oth regiment in the region of Aridea-Edessa, under Urdof.
Shortly, these battalions, and especially Gotze's battalion, swelled to
regimental force and systematically ignored the ELAS' superior officers
and the instructors of the Communist party. As all the documents that
have come to light evidence, Gotze's batallion had become a center of
separatist activity attracting volunteers even from the Bulgarian and
Yugoslavian regions of Macedonia, while, at the same time, it accepted
members of the Bulgarian fascist organization <<Ochrana>>.

   The liberation of Athens and, consequently, of the rest of the country
was a matter of days when the forces of the ELAS clashed with Cotze's
battalion and drove it out of Greece. The slavomacedonian battalion of
the region of Aridea followed suit. The clash between the ELAS and the
SNOF came after the violent reaction of the officers of the forces of the
ELAS of West Macedonia and the action was sanctioned by the General
Staff of the ELAS which ignored the objections of some members of the
party Bureau of Thessaloniki.
   The armed slavomacedonians who took refuge in the Yugoslavian
region of Macedonia joined the units of the Yugoslav-macedonian
partizans and formed the <<1st task force of Macedonia and the Aegean
Sea>>. This was the nucleus of the force they intended to use in the second
round of the struggle for the Greek Macedonia.
   The plentitude of related documents of the period that came to light
evidence that only a part of the slavic-speaking population followed the
separatists of the SNOF. A large part of the Slavic-speaking 
Greeks refused to join the separatist movements of the Bulgarian and the
pro-Yugoslavian organizations. They joined the greek resistence
 instead and fought for the liberation of the country from the triple occupation(Germany, Italy, Bulgaria).

   Thessaloniki was liberated on the 3Oth of October. In a few days the
entire German-occupied part of Greek Macedonia was under the control
 of  the ELAS. On the 3rd of November the commander-in-chief of the
 Division Group of Macedonia, Euripides Bakirtzis gave the order
 for the formation of special border sectors <<to protect, secure and police
 the borders>> manned with adequate forces to check all the passes. The
 order added that <<the composition of the force should be such that no
 separatist propaganda could influence it>>.
     The order shows the point that the relations between
 the Greek resistance and the Yugoslav partizans had reached due to the
 Macedonian Question, while the leadership of the Communist Party had
 always expected their support in whatever followed the withdrawal of the
 occupation forces from Greece.

     Finally, the settlement of the Macedonian Question was achieved <<in
 absentia>> of Greece, in the well-known meeting between Churchill and
 Stalin in Moscow on the 19th of October, where they reached the peculiar
 agreement on proportions of influence : Greece  9O/10 for Britain, Bulgaria 75/25 for the Soviet Union , Yugoslavia 50/50. 
  This explains why Tolbukhin's armies
 did not cross the Greco-Bulgarian border in spite of Erythriades'  appeals,
why the <<allied>> Bulgarian forces withdrew from the Aegean seaside- for
 the third time in 32 years- and, finally, why, on the other side of
 Macedonia, brigades of Tito's partizans in positions along the Greek
 borders, were suddenly ordered to move, not towards Thessaloniki, but
 northwards, in pursuit of the retreating German forces.
 

Recognition of these events is very important in understanding the
creation of the "macedonian nation" that is the basis of the request
for recognition of the former SR of Macedonia as an independent state
with this name. But most importantly, recognition of these events
provides an explanation of the basis for the greek objections and
fears for the future stability in the Balkans.  This issue is probably
one of the very few issues in greek politics where all legal parties
agree with the official greek position.

         nick