Editing Nikos Zachariadis

{{Short description|General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece from 1931 to 1956}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Nikos Zachariadis
| native_name         = {{nobold|{{Lang|el|Νίκος Ζαχαριάδης}}}}
| image               = Zachariadis.jpg
| caption             = A photo of Zachariadis, from the 30 May 1945 edition of ''[[Rizospastis]]''.
| office              = [[General Secretary]] of the [[Communist Party of Greece]]
| term_start          = 1931
| term_end            = 1956
| predecessor         = [[Andronikos Haitas]]
| successor           = [[Apostolos Grozos]] (temporary)
| birth_date          = {{Birth date|1903|04|27|df=yes}}
| birth_place         = [[Adrianople]], [[Ottoman Empire]]<br />(<small>modern-day [[Edirne]], [[Turkey]]</small>)
| death_date          = {{Death date and age|1973|08|01|1903|04|27|df=yes}}
| death_place         = [[Surgut]], [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|RSFSR]], [[Soviet Union|USSR]]<br />(<small>modern-day [[Russian Federation]]</small>)
| resting_place       = [[Athens]]
| spouse              = Mania Novakova <br> Roula Koukoulou (1948 - )
| partner             = <!-- (unmarried long-term partner) -->
| children            = Kiros, Olga, Sifis
| signature           = Nikos Zachariadis signature.svg
| parents             = Panagiotis Zachariadis (Father)
}}
[[File:Nikos Zachariadis.jpg|thumb|Nikos Zachariadis, president of the Supreme Military Council of Democratic Army of Greece]]
'''Nikos Zachariadis''' ({{langx|el|Νίκος Ζαχαριάδης}}; 27 April 1903 – 1 August 1973) was [[General Secretary]] of the [[Communist Party of Greece]] (KKE) from 1931 to 1956.

He was appointed, by order of [[Stalin]] and the [[Comintern]], General Secretary of KKE in 1935. He was arrested by the right-wing [[4th of August Regime|Metaxas dictatorship]] the following year. From prison, he lent his political influence to a united antifascist front following [[Greco–Italian War|Italy's invasion of Greece]] on October 28, 1940. Despite his efforts to encourage unity and resistance in the face of fascist aggression, Zachariadis remained imprisoned and when the Nazis ultimately [[Axis occupation of Greece|invaded and occupied Greece in 1941]], Zachariadis was transferred to [[Dachau concentration camp]], where he remained until the camp was liberated by the US Army in May 1945.

Along with [[Markos Vafiadis]], Zachariadis was an integral figure in the formation and operations of the KKE-led [[Democratic Army of Greece]] (DSE) during the [[Greek Civil War]] of 1946–1949. Following the collapse of the military effort in 1949, Zachariadis and other leaders of the DSE retreated to [[Tashkent]], capital city of [[Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic|Uzbekestan SSR]]. He continued to receive support as the General Secretary of the "exterior" branch of KKE until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.<br>
Zachariadis fell out of favor with the Tashkent branch of KKE in 1955 and, following some infighting, he was removed from his post — ostensibly with the support and approval of [[Nikita Khrushchev]] — by May 1956. Zachariadis was expelled from KKE the following year.

Zachariadis spent the rest of his life in exile in [[Siberia]], initially in [[Yakutia]] and later in [[Surgut]], where — according to official [[KGB]] records — he committed suicide in 1973. His body was returned to Greece in 1991 following the [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|fall of the Soviet Union]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/zachariadis/biography.htm | title=Biographical Sketch: Nikos Zachariadis }}</ref>

==Early life==
Nikos Zachariadis was born in [[Edirne]], [[Adrianople Vilayet]], [[Ottoman Empire]], in 1903, to an [[ethnic Greek]] family. His father, Panagiotis Zachariadis, was of [[petty-bourgeois]] origin and worked as an expert in the [[Regie Company]], a [[France|French]] firm possessing the tobacco monopoly in Turkey.

In 1919, Nikos Zachariadis moved to [[Constantinople]], where he worked in various jobs, including as a soldier. It was there that he carried out his first organized work in the working-class movement. After the defeat of Greece during the [[Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922|Greco-Turkish War]] and the [[population exchange between Greece and Turkey|population exchange between the two countries]], the Zachariadis family was forcibly relocated to Greece and fell into poverty. In 1922 to 1923, he traveled to the [[Soviet Union]], where he became a member of the Komsomol. He studied at various political and military institutions of the [[Soviet government]] and of the [[Communist International]], including the [[International Lenin School]].

==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.

==Civil War==
Zachariadis conducted the military operations of the communist [[Democratic Army of Greece]], which was formed to install a socialist [[people's democracy (Marxism–Leninism)|people's democracy]] in Greece.<ref>{{cite book|last=Shrader|first=Charles R.|title=The withered vine: logistics and the communist insurgency in Greece, 1945-1949|year=1999|publisher=Praeger|location=Westport, Conn.|isbn=978-0-275-96544-0|pages=67|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vu2i13Yq60QC&pg=PA67 |edition=[Online-Ausg.]}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=August 2019}}

He ordered the ELAS commander [[Markos Vafiadis]] to abandon guerrilla warfare tactics and adopt a strategy of conventional warfare. According to Vafiadis, that had a strongly negative effect on ELAS.<ref name="Blunden">{{cite web |last=Blunden |first=Andy |author-link=Andy Blunden |title=Interview with General Markos Vafiades, former Leader of ELAS |url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/stalinism/origins-future/1983mv.htm |website=www.marxists.org}}</ref> Vafiadis was expelled from the KKE for challenging Zachariadis and kept under house arrest in Albania, accused of being a British agent.<ref name="Blunden" />

However, [[Joseph Stalin]] had made a [[Percentages agreement|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 when it landed in Greece in 1944 and refused to supply any assistance to the KKE when they took up arms against the Greek government and their British allies.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Mazower|first1=Mark|title=Inside Hitler's Greece : the experience of occupation, 1941 - 44|date=2001|publisher=Yale Nota Bene|location=New Haven|isbn=978-0-3000-8923-3|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/insidehitlersgre00mark}}</ref>

[[Josip Broz Tito]]'s Yugoslavia initially supported the KKE but withdrew the support after the [[Tito–Stalin split|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 life and legacy==
The leadership of the Communist Party found refuge in [[Tashkent]]. However, after [[Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin|Stalin's death]] in 1953, Zachariadis clashed with the new Soviet leadership, as he opposed the new direction taken by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|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 [[Sakha Republic|Yakutia]] and later in [[Surgut]], [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]]. In 1962, desperate from the devastating conditions of his exile, he somehow managed to reach Moscow. There, he visited the [[Embassy of Greece, Moscow|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.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.tovima.gr/society/article/?aid=341332|title=Γιατί έκλεισαν το στόμα του Ζαχαριάδη|publisher=To Vima|author=Fotini Tomai|date=2010-07-04|access-date=2013-02-16}}</ref> There he committed suicide, aged 70, in 1973. According to a few of his followers, he was executed.<ref>{{cite book|first=Nikandros|last=Kepesis|script-title=el:ΠΡΟΒΛΗΜΑΤΙΣΜΟΙ γύρω από γεγονότα και πρόσωπα|language=el|year=2006|pages=45–46}}</ref> On the base of documents, declassified from the archives of the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia)|Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs]], it has been confirmed that Zachariadis committed suicide.<ref>Л. Величанская, Никос Захариадис. Жизнь и политическая деятельность (1923–1973). Документы. Litres, 2019, {{ISBN|5041663203}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Hg-UDwAAQBAJ&q=%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%81+%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%81 стр. 13.]</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www1.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=1898874 |title=Μια ιστορική προσωπικότητα του κομμουνιστικού κινήματος |website=Rizospastis |date=3 August 2003 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724130817/http://www1.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=1898874 |archive-date=24 July 2011 }}</ref> 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 embarked on a [[revisionism (Marxism)|revisionist]] line after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's takeover.<ref>{{cite web|title=Greece: SYRIZA, the Communist Party and the desperate need for a united front {{!}} Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal|url=http://links.org.au/node/2863|website=links.org.au|language=en}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/zachariadis/index.htm Nikos Zachariadis Archive at marxists.org]
*[http://zaxariadis.blogspot.com Collected works of Nikos Zachariadis]

{{KKE General Secretaries}}
{{Greece during World War II}}
{{Socialism in Greece}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zachariadis, Nikolaos}}
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:1973 suicides]]
[[Category:1973 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Edirne]]
[[Category:People from Adrianople vilayet]]
[[Category:Greek atheists]]
[[Category:General secretaries of the Communist Party of Greece]]
[[Category:20th-century Greek politicians]]
[[Category:20th-century people from the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:Stalinism]]
[[Category:Anti-revisionists]]
[[Category:International Lenin School alumni]]
[[Category:Dachau concentration camp survivors]]
[[Category:Democratic Army of Greece personnel]]
[[Category:Exiles of the Greek Civil War in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Suicides in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Burials in Athens]]