Today Tuesday (7pm) at the Spiritual Center of Athens the presentation – event for the book “Good country comrade

Today Tuesday, April 23 and time 19:00 at the Spiritual Center of the Municipality of Athens, Academy 50 (entrance from Solonos) her book will be presented Elenis Nikolaidou “Good country, comrade!”

They will talk about the book:

Prokopis PapastratisProfessor Emeritus of Pantei

Lee Sarafi, Dr. of history

Eleni Nikolaidouthe author

Will greet Katerina Porphyrogeni.

The event

The book

Eleni Nikolaidou’s book “Good country, comrade!” (published by the Contemporary History Society with a foreword-introduction by Prokopis Papastratis) based on archives and testimonies presents a relatively unknown side of the adventures of Greek political refugees in the Soviet Union.

After the retreat of the Greek Democratic Army, with the official end of the civil war on August 29, 1949, more than 54,000 fighters and civilians crossed over to the People’s Democracies (LD) and the Soviet Union.

The research examines the consequences of the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, the famous “secret report” of N. Khrushchev which was not one but two and the decisive Conferences of the CPSU (20th, 21st and 22nd) always in relation to the Greek political refugees.

The serious incidents of Tashkent (9-11/9/1955), the involvement of the Soviets in the internal affairs of the KKE, the process and the deletion of Nikos Zachariadis and after the 6th Plenary Assembly of the KKE in March 1956, the disagreements, the persecutions and exiles in socialist countries.

Book review by Kostas Therianos

Happy Homeland, Comrade!

Eleni Nikolaidou
Athena
Society of Modern History
2023

The civil war marked the history of modern Greek society. The next three decades were marked by the post-conflict state’s attempt to crush the followers of the defeated left through clearances in the universities, the public administration and the social welfare certificates that were a necessary condition for someone to work in the private sector or practice a free profession.

Eleni Nikolaidou’s book tells a part of the Greek history of this period, which unfolded abroad. It’s about them political refugees of the defeated Democratic Army of Greece, who formed political and social networks in distant Tashkent.

The historical context of telling the story of these networks is the critical turning point in the course of the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin and the assumption of the General Secretariat of the CPSU by Nikita Khrushchev. This turning point marked splits and reconstructions within the refugees’ political and social networks:

– the Greek communist movement split, as well Nikos Zachariadis and his followers fell out of favor after the leadership change in the CPSU

– the political refugees of Tashkent they clashed violently and the followers of Zachariadis were persecuted

– in Greece, the echo of these developments was the emergence of the Marxist-Leninist movement outside the KKE.

The book follows in detail and in clear chronological order the events that brought about the above developments.

As a starting point marks the 20th congress of the CPSU (1956), which also marks the beginning of de-Stalinization. Here, through the study of the sources, an answer is also given to the question, which, although it is not the subject of the study or the chapter, is essentially behind the developments: “was the ussr a society of state capitalism?”. Essentially, the existence of any form of capitalism would presuppose a developed market, capitalism, wage labor and commoditized production. None of these features were in development in the USSR, except a group of government officials who enjoyed privileges compared to the rest of the population. Nevertheless, the existence of such a bureaucratic group it is not enough to call the system capitalist, since such groups with distinct privileges due to their special relationship to power have existed since the ancient empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt (priests, scribes, etc.). This was the central “internal problem” of the USSR that it would try to solve through de-Stalinization and the abolition of the cult of personality. The second issue it was about the way the USSR moved on the international horizon. The opinion was expressed that it canthat the transition from capitalism to socialism be done by peaceful means (utilization of parliamentary democracy, elections, struggle to expand the electoral body, more proportional electoral systems, etc.).

It’s about root section in the until then communism’s understanding of parliamentary democracy, which, however, at this particular juncture allowed the USSR to develop diplomatic and commercial relations with the developed capitalist countries. At the same time, however, as the history of the Western world has shown, the expansion of parliamentarism combined with the expansion of political and social rights, which resulted from struggles of the left and movements, they were the elements that helped liberalism to dominate against the rival ideologies that challenged him.

The book unfolds unknown aspects of the reactions to Khrushchev’s “exposition”. both to the people of the USSR and to foreign leaders of the Communist Party (demonstrations, disputes). Also important are the quotes from Lenin’s letter – which has been recalled “Testament of Lenin” – but also other elements of the history of the KKSE of that period, which are material for further research and discussion as studies on these issues are still being published. They are also important the reports of the war preparation of the USSR in the face of the onslaught of Nazi Germany, offering additional evidence from the relevant literature that the USSR was finally able to repel the onslaught of a power that had put the factories of Belgium, the Netherlands and France into tank production as well as the free long-hour labor of hundreds of thousands of prisoners.

A first effect of Khrushchev’s report was the announcement by the Central Committee of the KKE, in May 1956, of the restoration of relations between the KKE and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, as it considered the cause of the rupture to be “slanderous fabrications” by Nikos Zachariadis “for backstabbing.” A second was the very fast alignment of the newspaper The Dawn, impressive for the technological data of the time, with her articles Pravda about de-Stalinization.

The book traces the political developments of de-Stalinization – mainly on a political level, but without overlooking decentralizing actions in the production process such as sovnarkhoz – up to the 22nd Congress of the CPSU in 1961, in which Khrushchev proclaimed the construction of communist society in the next twenty years, while offering useful material on with the review in this post. Then, without ignoring the international factor, turns to the political and social networks of Greek political refugees, their distribution in the geographical space, the problems of their daily life, their livelihood, their integration into the local societies of the People’s Democracies and the close connection with the party.

The thread that, according to the author, binds the networks of refugees to Greece and determines their changing transformations is their struggle for the line of the KKEwhich culminated in September 1955 with the violent incidents in Tashkent.

The author uses material from the testimonies of DSE fighters as well as from other works related to the subject and follows the course of the political refugees from their flight to Greece, their settlement in Tashkent until the 1962 episodes.

In the relevant sections there are very interesting facts about how people who came from the rural population of Greece, politically activated and radicalized by the armed struggle, have a negative view of their integration into industrial production and the eight-hour work with industrial discipline. Even when the initial adaptation problems are overcome, there were issues of decent housing, political organization, lack of information about their relatives in Greece, etc.

The book collects wealth of scattered elements and utilizes many sources (party documents, press releases, oral testimonies) regarding the conflicts of political refugees, the overthrow of Nikos Zachariadis, the persecutions and exiles of dissidents. Alongside, gives important material for the creation of the ml movement in Europe and Greece.

In 1957 it was the year Sputnik 1 was launched in space, which caused the “Sputnik shock” in the USA. However, it was also the year Nikos Zachariadis was expelled from the KKE. This deletion triggered developments in the course of the communist movement in Greece and the book offers important and now rare material for its understanding.

The book launch will take place on Tuesday 23/4/2024, register here

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