Nikos Zachariadis

Nikos Zachariadis
Νίκος Ζαχαριάδης
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece
In office 1931–1956
Preceded by	Andronikos Haitas
Succeeded by	Apostolos Grozos (temporary)
Personal details
Born	(1903-04-27)27 April 1903 Russian Federation)
Resting place	Athens
Spouse(s)	Mania Novakova Roula Koukoulou (1948 - )
Children	Kiros, Olga, Sifis
Parent	Panagiotis Zachariadis (Father)
Signature

Nikos Zachariadis (

Zachariadis spent the rest of his life in exile in

In 1923, he was sent back to Greece to organize the Young Communist League of Greece (OKNE). Imprisoned, he subsequently fled to the Soviet Union. In 1931, he was sent back to Greece to restore order in the highly factionalised KKE. The same year, he was elected general secretary of KKE. In 1935, during the 7th Congress of the Communist International, he was elected to its executive committee. In the years until 1936, Zachariadis was a successful leader of the KKE by tripling the number of its members, gaining seats in the Greek Parliament and even acquiring control of some labour unions.

In August 1936, he was arrested by the State Security of

After the German invasion of Greece in 1941, Nazi Germany transferred him to the Dachau concentration camp from where he was released in May 1945. Returning to Greece, he reassumed the leadership of the KKE from Georgios Siantos, the acting general secretary of the KKE since January 1942. The bloody Dekemvriana had just ended with the communists' defeat. Zachariadis now declared his political intention for the KKE to fight for people's democracy by elections.

Civil War

Zachariadis conducted the military operations of the communist

He ordered the ELAS commander

However, Joseph Stalin had made a deal with the Western Allies that Greece would be considered part of the western sphere of influence after the war and was opposed officially to any communist seizure of power. He ordered the KKE leadership to co-operate with the British military when it landed in Greece in 1944 and refused to supply any assistance to the KKE when they took up arms against the royalist government imposed by the British.^[5]

Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia initially supported the KKE but withdrew the support after the break between Tito and Stalin in 1948. The military intervention of the United Kingdom and the United States, combined with the lack of external support from Stalin or Tito, led to the defeat of the Democratic Army of Greece in 1949. The KKE leadership and the remnants of the Democratic Army fled into exile to the Soviet Union and other communist countries.

Post war

The leadership of the Communist Party found refuge in Tashkent. However, after Stalin's death in 1953, Zachariadis clashed with the new Soviet leadership, as he opposed the new direction taken by the Soviet Communist Party under Nikita Khrushchev.

In May 1956, during the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee of the KKE, the Soviet Communist Party intervened to expel Zachariadis from his post of General Secretary. In February 1957, Zachariadis was also expelled from the KKE, as were many of his supporters.

Zachariadis spent the rest of his life in exile in Siberia, initially in Yakutia and later in Surgut, Russian SFSR. In 1962, desperate from the devastating conditions of his exile, he somehow managed to reach Moscow. There, he visited the Greek Embassy and asked to be transported to Greece, where he wanted to stand trial for his actions. Whether or not his request was taken into consideration is not known. Immediately after he left the Greek embassy, he was arrested by the Soviets and was taken back to Surgut.^[6] There he committed suicide, aged 70, in 1973. According to a few of his followers, he was executed.^[7] On the base of documents, declassified from the archives of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, it has been confirmed that Zachariadis committed suicide.^[8]

In December 1991, just a few days after the fall of the Soviet Union, Zachariadis' remains were returned to his homeland of Greece, and he was given a funeral, which gave his supporters the opportunity to honour him.^[9] He is buried in the First Cemetery of Athens.

In 2011, a National Conference of the Communist Party of Greece fully rehabilitated Zachariadis as General Secretary of the KKE. That was in line with the KKE's general political reorientation since the collapse of the Soviet Union; the party has adopted the view that the Soviet Communist Party of the Soviet Union embarked on a revisionist line after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's takeover.^[10]

References