Nikolaos Zachariadis
Nikolaos "Nikos" Zachariadis ( Greek Νίκολαος "Νίκος" Ζαχαριάδης , born April 27, 1903 in Adrianopolis ; † August 8, 1973 in Surgut ) was a Greek politician , long-time General Secretary of the Communist Party (KKE) and briefly chief during the Greek Civil War in 1949 a communist counter-government.
Political career
youth
The son of an employee of the tobacco monopoly administration of the Ottoman Empire became a seaman on ships in the Black Sea , where he soon fell under the influence of the ideas of the Russian October Revolution . Shortly afterwards he graduated from the Communist University for the Workers of the East in Moscow .
Promotion to general secretary of the KKE
In 1923 he was sent back to Greece to build the Communist Youth of Greece (KNE). After his arrest, he fled to the Soviet Union again . In 1931 he was sent back to Greece from there and tasked with rebuilding the heavily fragmented Communist Party (KKE) (Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας). In the same year he became general secretary of the KKE by order of Josef Stalin and the Communist International (Comintern) .
Metaxas dictatorship and World War II
After the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas began , he was arrested by the secret police in August 1936. Out of custody he wrote a letter in October 1940 in which he called on all Greeks to unite behind Metaxas and to resist the invasion by Italy . This letter reached a wide public, although in two further letters it was true to the ideology of the Comintern and described the war between Great Britain and the German Reich as imperialist and called for a rebellion against Metaxas.
After the occupation of Greece during the Second World War by the German Wehrmacht in April 1941, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp , from which he was liberated in May 1945.
Postwar Period and Greek Civil War
After returning to Greece, he took over the office of General Secretary of the KKE from General Secretary Georgios Siantos, who had been in office since January 1942 .
In the course of the Greek Civil War from June 1946 to October 9, 1949 (Ελληνικός εμφύλιος πόλεμος) he increasingly succeeded in overthrowing his arch-rival Markos Vafiadis and in November 1948 took control of the communist-influenced Democratic Army of Greece (ΔΕημοότρατατατλλς κικτκτάτατατατκτκικτάτατατατατατκτκτκτάτάτατατατατκτκτκτάτστατατατατάτκτκτάτατάτατατάτκτκτάτης emerged from ELAS .
From February 7, 1949 to April 3, 1949 he was the successor of Vafiadis head of the Provisional Democratic Government and thus "Prime Minister" of a government against Themistoklis Sofoulis . He then handed over the office of "Prime Minister" to Dimitrios Partsalidis .
Defeat and disempowerment
After the looming defeat of the communist movement in the civil war, he denounced Siantos, who had already died in May 1947, as a British agent. In October 1949 he fled into exile with the leadership of the KKE and the Democratic Army in the states of the then Eastern Bloc .
His tough leadership of the KKE, his harsh treatment of dissenters and his adherence to units of the Democratic Army in a state of war led to a rebellion of the Greek communists in Tashkent in 1955 .
Due to the de-Stalinization pursued by the new general secretary of the CPSU, Nikita Sergejewitsch Khrushchev , and the intervention of another communist party, Zachariadis was relieved from his office as general secretary at the 6th party congress of the KKE in May 1956 and finally expelled from the KKE in February 1957.
He spent the rest of his life in exile in Siberia , first in Yakutia and later in Surgut , where he committed suicide in 1973.
Biographical sources and background information
- biography
- Evi Koukouraki: From the Greek Wars of Liberation to the Present: History of Young Greece. 2003.
- The Second World War 1940-1945. War, Occupation, Resistance, Liberation . Foundation of the Hellenic World
- Greece History: The Second World War and the Civil War ( Memento of February 8, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Web link
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Zachariadis, Nikolaos |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Zachariadis, Nikos (nickname); Ζαχαριάδης, Νίκολαος (Greek); Ζαχαριάδης, Νίκος (nickname, Greek) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Greek politician and prime minister |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 27, 1903 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Adrianopolis |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 8, 1973 |
| Place of death | Surgut |