Nikos Ploumbidis

Nikos Ploumbidis or Ploumpidis (Greek: Νίκος Πλουμπίδης) (born December 31, 1902 in Langadia , † August 14, 1954 in Daphní ) was a Greek communist and resistance fighter.

Life

Ploumbidis was born into a poor family. As a young man he was already politically active and in 1926 became a member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). At that time he was teaching as a teacher. In 1930 he became a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Association of Public Officials. In 1931 he retired from school and devoted himself entirely to work in the party. In 1937 he headed the office of the Thessaly region and a year later was elected to the Politburo, the highest body within the Communist Party.

His political career was interrupted when the secret service of the monarcho-fascist regime under General Ioannis Metaxas tracked him down in 1939 and held him in custody until he fled in 1942. As a leading member of the newly founded National Liberation Front EAM (Ethnikó Apelevtherotikó Métopo) and the communist youth organization OKNE, he resumed his activities.

Ploumbidis came into conflict with Nikolaos Zachariadis , the KKE General Secretary, after his return from Dachau concentration camp in 1945 at the latest .

Due to a serious illness, Ploumbidis was forced to resign from the Politburo in 1945 and from then on managed the party's finances. Unlike most of the other Communist Party leaders, Ploumbidis remained in Greece after the civil war that lasted from 1946 to 1949 . In 1952 he was arrested by the Greek secret police. On August 3, 1953, his trial ended, as expected, in a death sentence . At the same time, the Central Committee under Zachariadis in exile had decided to expel Ploumbidis as an alleged spy of the secret police and agent of the British and to expel him from the party. On August 14, 1954, the sentence was executed by shooting in Daphní.

After the de-Stalinization of the party, the exclusion of Ploumbidis was viewed as a serious mistake and he was rehabilitated in 1958 with the following declaration:

“The General Assembly of the Central Committee resolves to restore the memory of Comrades Giorgos Siantos , Nikos Ploumbidis (Barbas) and Kostas Gyftodimos (Karajorgis). There are no documents whatsoever that would support the prosecution as provocateur or informant, which the former leadership under N. Zachariadis pronounced against the above-mentioned comrades.

Today, like Nikos Belogiannis , Nikos Ploumbidis is regarded by most of the Greek left as a martyr and hero of the anti-fascist resistance .