Editing Nikos Zachariadis (section)

==Political activity in Greece==
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 [[Ioannis Metaxas]]'s regime and was imprisoned. From prison, he issued a letter urging all Greeks to resist the [[Greco-Italian War|Italian invasion of October 1940]] and to transform the war into an antifascist war. Some KKE cadre members, who did not believe that the ongoing war between the big imperialist powers differed from the [[First World War]] because of the existence of the [[Soviet Union]] on the world scene, considered that the letter had been fabricated by the Metaxas regime. Zachariadis was even accused of releasing it to win the favour of [[Konstantinos Maniadakis]] and to be released from prison.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Zapantis|first1=Andrew L.|title=Greek-Soviet relations, 1917-1941.|date=1982|publisher=Columbia Univ. Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8803-3004-6}}</ref> Zachariadis's letter remains a cornerstone of the KKE's vital contribution to the National Resistance movement against the Fascist occupiers (1941–1944). {{According to whom|date=August 2019}}

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.