Nikos Zachariadis (; 27 April 1903 – 1 August 1973) was

General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, Power (social and political), power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the org ...

of the

Communist Party of Greece The Communist Party of Greece (, ΚΚΕ; ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a Marxist–Leninist political party in Greece. It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece (SEKE) and adopted its current name in Novem ...

(KKE) from 1931 to 1956. He was appointed, by order of

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

, General Secretary of KKE in 1935. He was arrested by the right-wing Metaxas dictatorship the following year. From prison, he lent his political influence to a united antifascist front following 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 invaded and occupied Greece in 1941, Zachariadis was transferred to

Dachau concentration camp Dachau (, ; , ; ) was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, s ...

, 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 The Democratic Army of Greece (DAG; , ΔΣΕ; ''Dimokratikós Stratós Elládas'', DSE) was the army founded by the Communist Party of Greece during the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). At its height, it had a strength of around 50,000 men and w ...

(DSE) during the

Greek Civil War The Greek Civil War () took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communism, Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels decl ...

of 1946–1949. Following the collapse of the military effort in 1949, Zachariadis and other leaders of the DSE retreated to

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

, capital city of 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.
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 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

— by May 1956. Zachariadis was expelled from KKE the following year. Zachariadis spent the rest of his life in exile in

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, initially in

Yakutia Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, and the largest federal subject of Russia by area. It is located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million ...

and later in

Surgut Surgut ( rus, Сургу́т, p=sʊrˈgut; Khanty: Сәрханӆ, ''Sərhanł, Сө̆ркут, sörkut'') is a city in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia, located on the Ob River near its junction with the Irtysh River. It is one of the fe ...

, where — according to official

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

records — he committed suicide in 1973. His body was returned to Greece in 1991 following the

fall of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of Nationalities, Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. :s: ...

Early life

Nikos Zachariadis was born in

Edirne Edirne (; ), historically known as Orestias, Adrianople, is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the Edirne Province, province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, Edirne was the second c ...

, Adrianople Vilayet,

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, 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 French firm possessing the tobacco monopoly in Turkey. In 1919, Nikos Zachariadis moved to

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

, 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 and the 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 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, where he became a member of the Komsomol. He studied at various political and military institutions of the

Soviet government The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was the executive and administrative organ of the highest body of state authority, the All-Union Supreme Soviet. It was formed on 30 December 1922 and abolished on 26 December 199 ...

and of the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

, 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

. 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 Ioannis Metaxas (; 12 April 187129 January 1941) was a Greek military officer and politician who was dictator of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941. He governed constitutionally for the first four months of his tenure, and thereafter as th ...

's regime and was imprisoned. From prison, he issued a letter urging all Greeks to resist the 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 World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

because of the existence of the

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. Zachariadis's letter remains a cornerstone of the KKE's vital contribution to the National Resistance movement against the Fascist occupiers (1941–1944). After the German invasion of Greece in 1941,

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

transferred him to the

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 The ''Dekemvriana'' (, "December events") refers to a series of clashes fought during World War II in Athens from 3 December 1944 to 11 January 1945. The conflict was the culmination of months of tension between the left-wing National Liberatio ...

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

, which was formed to install a socialist people's democracy in Greece. 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. Vafiadis was expelled from the KKE for challenging Zachariadis and kept under house arrest in Albania, accused of being a British agent. However,

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

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 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.

Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito ( ; , ), was a Yugoslavia, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and politician who served in various positions of national leadership from 1943 unti ...

'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 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, 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

. 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 The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

under

. 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

, initially in

and later in

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

. 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. There he committed suicide, aged 70, in 1973. According to a few of his followers, he was executed. On the base of documents, declassified from the archives of the

Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD; , ''Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del'') is the interior ministry of Russia. The MVD is responsible for law enforcement in Russia through its agencies the Police of Russia, Migratio ...

, it has been confirmed that Zachariadis committed suicide. 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. He is buried in the

First Cemetery of Athens The First Cemetery of Athens (, ''Próto Nekrotafeío Athinón'') is the official cemetery of the City of Athens and the first to be built. It opened in 1837 and soon became a prestigious cemetery for Greeks and foreigners. The cemetery is lo ...

. 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 revisionist line after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's takeover.

References

External links

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