AKEL’s “plans” for armed struggle

Article by Yiannakis Colocasides, member of the Central Committee of AKEL

1st April 2016

The path of the armed form of struggle which the Right had chosen during the EOKA period was a fatal mistake, the consequences of which the Cypriot people is still suffering from. AKEL had warned about the dead-end to which the anti-colonial struggle would be driven from the beginning of EOKA, but even before that since rumours about the waging of a “dynamic” struggle were circulating. AKEL was vilified and slandered. It was accused of committing treason. Terror was launched against it. Murders and assassinations of militants and ordinary supporters of the Left were even committed by the masked men of Grivas. Regretfully, AKEL has been vindicated in its assessments and warnings. The Zurich-London agreement, despite the heroism shown by EOKA members, anything but was the successful outcome of a supposedly victorious struggle.

With the passage of time some circles and forces on the Right found the strength indirectly or explicitly to admit the mistake of waging an armed struggle. Among them, the late Glafcos Clerides (Note: former President of the Republic, historical figure of the conservative Right and founder and former President of the governing DISY party). Most representatives of the Right, to this day, insist on the correctness of that decision for the armed struggle of EOKA. They can’t find the strength and courage to make a critical assessment of history, because they fear a whole structure and order on which the Cypriot Right and extreme-right has ideologically and politically built on after independence will crumble and collapse. And they continue, even today, to argue in support of the correctness of the struggle of EOKA.

The article by Professor Peter Papapoliviou in the daily “Fileleftheros” newspaper of 1st April has been written according to this outlook as well. The Professor reveals an AKEL document which, according to his assessment, shows that AKEL studied the waging of armed struggle in the beginning of the 1950’s. He concludes the following: “That is to say, the Church leadership and AKEL, from completely different ideological and political orientations, had turned, in precisely the same period in the early 1950s, after the Enosis Referendum, towards the organization of an armed struggle”. So, according to this logic, since AKEL was also turning towards waging an armed struggle, it was a correct decision and instead the criticism that is exercised of the armed struggle is incorrect.

“Fileleftheros” newspaper believing that they have secured an exclusive came out on April fool’s Day with the following headline and flashy title: “AKEL had a plan ready for armed struggle, before the establishment of EOKA.”

However, is that the case?

Mr. Papapoliviou refers to a letter of E. Papaioannou (Note: former General Secretary and historical leader of AKEL) addressed to the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) dated 16th July 1951. In that letter Papaioannou does indeed refer to the possibility of forming guerrilla groups and sabotage. However, what has “escaped” Mr. Papapoliviou’s attention is that AKEL would proceed to similar actions not generally within the framework of the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggle, but in the event of a wider war in which Cyprus would also be involved as a big air and military base of British imperialism.

This is also the reason why a relevant reference is made under the title “Our internationalist duties in the event of war.” A detailed reference to the developments surrounding the transformation of Cyprus into a large air and military base of imperialism is made in this chapter. It concludes noting that “it is evident from all the above information that the plan is for Cyprus to play a serious role in the war plans of the Anglo-Americans and in general even in a third world war.”

If that were to happen, Papaioannou poses the question: “What are our internationalist duties (referring to AKEL) in the event of war and how must we fulfil them?”

And he replies: “We could organize wide-scale sabotage; we could even move a few hundred guerrillas up to the mountains of Cyprus who will operate in the night and in the day return to their homes and work.” And he adds: “We could not wage a large-scale guerrilla war because our mountains are not so suitable for this task and because we are an island and have no interior.” This latter realistic conclusion is a long-standing position which AKEL had and is one of the reasons why it considered that in the specific conditions of Cyprus the appropriate form of struggle is not armed struggle, but rather the waging of mass political struggle.

The reference made in the article to AKEL’s arms and which seems to have surprised the editorial board of “Fileleftheros” to an extent that it writes that the Party “had arms” can only be in the realm of exaggeration. Papaioannou did mention 24 revolvers, 2-3 guns and 1 heavy machine gun. No one can really think that AKEL will begin an armed struggle with this … arsenal!

Returning to Mr. Papapoliviou, it is obvious that his conclusions that “The Ethnarchy and AKEL had turned to armed struggle”, in our view, is completely arbitrary.

Even more so when the letter to KKE is accompanied by numerous reflections on a series of issues related to the tactics of the anti-colonial struggle and NOWHERE is there even any hint about an armed struggle.

One would have expected that a professor of Mr. Papapoliviou’s standing would have been more careful in the use of historical sources…