Stalin was incensed at Tito’s intemperance and willingness to risk war with the West so soon after the conclusion of the major hostilities. The Kremlin Boss wanted to calm things down, so he instructed his man on the spot in Belgrade to tell Tito in no uncertain terms that, if he were to mount another such verbal assault against the Soviet Union, “we would be compelled to respond openly in the press and disavow him.”51
In May 1946, Albania and Yugoslavia signed a close economic treaty that might have led to “socialist integration,” were it not for the political conflict that soon arose between them. The Albanians began complaining to Moscow that Tito’s embrace was smothering them. Hoxha had wanted for some time to visit the home of Communism and to put his case to the Kremlin Leader, but only in July 1947 was permission granted. Stalin was briefed in detail well in advance on the problems facing Communism in Albania.52 The Party there had grown to 12,361 members by that March, and Hoxha and his second in command, Koçi Xoxe, sought Stalin’s approval and blessing.53 Hoxha was a convert, a true believer, and completely committed to Stalinism.54 While he was in Moscow, he met with Zhdanov to finalize the party’s structure and organization. He also solicited advisers to help bring members back home up to scratch on ideological questions.55
The Albanians fell over themselves to become perfect students of all that the Soviet Union had to teach. They believed that by embracing Stalin, they had found not only the font of wisdom and truth but a patron and father-figure who would protect them from Tito.
GREECE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
Tito’s enthusiasm for Sovietization, which went beyond what Moscow deemed prudent, included giving assistance to the Greek Communist Party (KKE), whose roots went back to 1918. The Bolshevik faith had flourished in the 1920s and 1930s among the Greek refugees forcibly “transferred” from Turkey. Thousands had been dropped onto the quays in harbors and ended up crammed into public buildings and churches or stuck in camps and prone to disease. This was the “population transfer” that Churchill, and to a lesser extent Roosevelt, pointed to as the example worth following after 1945. It had been a disaster that bred resentment, and many on the Central Committee of the KKE had been among those refugees.
Nikos Zachariadis, general secretary of the KKE between 1934 and 1952, was born in Asia Minor, became attracted to Bolshevism, went to Russia, and fought in the Civil War. After training in the Soviet Union, he returned to Greece, where in 1936, on orders from Moscow, he was made head of the party. He promptly Stalinized and unified it to run in elections that year, but it collected a meager 5 percent of the vote. That was enough for the government to stick Zachariadis in prison, where the Nazis found him upon their arrival in 1941. They shipped him to the Dachau concentration camp, where he spent years and somehow miraculously survived.
In the meantime, George Siantos took over the KKE. In October 1941 the party announced the creation of the National Liberation Front (EAM), through which it reached out to the people suffering under Italian or German occupation. EAM also established the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS), which grew slowly. The resistance movement was politically fragmented, with EAM as the most important component, and ELAS was the largest armed group. Together they gained a substantial following among the population, radicalized by the war. However, the people were divided about what was to be done, and the insurgents reflected these sentiments. The Communists were uncertain about whether they should seek power directly or follow orders from Stalin in the summer of 1944 to form a “national front” with other parties. The Kremlin insisted on “moderation” and sent advisers to ensure that the KKE kept to the script.56
The German invasion in 1941 had shocked the fragile food market and brought famine. Warned of the dire situation, the Axis powers sent in some aid but not nearly enough. The death toll would have been worse had it not been for the efforts of the American Greek War Relief Association and others. As it was, an estimated 250,000 to 450,000 deaths resulted in the period May 1941 to April 1943, significant losses in the small population of 7.3 million as of 1940.57
When the occupation ended in 1944, it left behind desolation, bitterness, and political turmoil. On October 18, a pronounced anti-Communist regime of the prewar establishment, led by George Papandreou and backed by British troops, took over in Athens. Although his cabinet included members of the EAM, that front was soon troubled by his determination to disband ELAS, its military wing, which would have left EAM vulnerable to attacks from the radical Right. To pressure the government, EAM members resigned from it on December 2, then promptly called a general strike. There followed on the first Sunday of the month a large protest march in Athens, with people carrying international flags and occasionally chanting “Long live Roosevelt!” or “Long live Stalin!” Emotions ran high, and the crowd became threatening. The police panicked, opened fire, and soon lost control of the streets. Over the next several days, the police who were caught were tortured to death or literally torn limb from limb.
Thus began the Dekemvriana, the December Uprising. In the middle of the month, ELAS went all out against British troops in a dirty war, which at times was so horrific as to defy the imagination. Suffice it to say that the instrument of choice among the executioners was the ax. Brutality grew to a level that can only be called hysterical madness.58
Churchill was determined that Greece was not going to fall to the Communists and, along with Foreign Secretary Eden, flew to Athens on Christmas Day 1944. They wanted a settlement and soon sent in an estimated 75,000 troops. This was precisely when the KKE began asking Stalin for help.59 He turned them down and on January 10, 1945, muttered to Dimitrov that they should have stayed in the government and not started fighting.60 For Stalin, this uprising was most inopportune, coming as it did on the eve of the Yalta Conference, where he wanted to calm concerns about Communist revolution. If the KKE had succeeded, Britain would certainly have considered it a breach of the “percentages deal” that Churchill was obviously taking seriously.61 U.S. ambassador Lincoln MacVeagh kept President Roosevelt informed and was pleased to say that at least there were no signs that the Soviet Union was behind the Communists.62
On February 12 the Greek government and KKE negotiated an agreement to stop the fighting and to hold a referendum within a year to resolve constitutional issues. Instead of social peace, a right-wing backlash followed. Some of it was carried out by the 12,000 or so members of the Security Battalions, who were newly released from prison, where they had been serving time for collaborating with the Germans. Now anyone suspected of having links with Communism became the object of their semiofficial violence. Tens of thousands were sent to prison.63
In January 1946, when a Greek delegation in Moscow told of the continuing attacks and the likelihood of armed conflict, they were still cautioned to go slow. The Greek Communists had all along been of two minds about whether to adopt violence and seek power or to participate in government, as Moscow wanted. The KKE decided to boycott the elections held in March. They perhaps sensed that they were in for a drubbing, since they had been blamed for the earlier atrocities. The conservative-royalist victory at the polls led to still more state-sponsored repression. Stalin showed his displeasure with the KKE by not answering its pleas for help. However, when Nikos Zachariadis visited Belgrade in March–April, Tito received him warmly and promised assistance. Zachariadis then went to Bulgaria, where he hoped for the same, but as might have been expected, Dimitrov followed the Kremlin line and tried to dampen his enthusiasm for insurrection.64 Throughout 1946 violence was rampant in Greece, and that October Tito began sending Zachariadis army units and war matériel. Although Greek Communist forces were not large and support for their efforts limited, the insurgency was disruptive and assistance to the government was becoming costly for Britain to sustain.