The prohibition and period of illegality of AKEL 1955-1959

 

12th December 2015 “HARAVGI” newspaper

Article by Yiannakis Colocasides – Member of the C.C. of AKEL

In the first midnight hours towards dawn of 14th December 1955 the colonial police burst into the homes of leading members of AKEL and arrested around 135 people. Those arrested were taken to the concentration camp in the village of Pyla and afterwards many of them were transported to the Central Prison in Nicosia. On the same day the British Governor Harding issued a decree banning and outlawing AKEL, the Union of Farmers of Cyprus (EAK), the Pancyprian Organisation of Democratic Women (PODG) and the Progressive Youth Organisation (AON). Also banned and prohibited were the publication and circulation of the Greek Cypriot newspapers “New Democrat”, “Independent”, “Forward” and the Turkish Cypriot progressive newspaper “Inkilapsi”-“Revolutionist”, as well as the monthly theoretical journal of AKEL, “Theoretical Democrat”.

 

In this way, the colonial government was implementing plans, which were already discussed and drawn up between London and Nicosia since the period of the Second World War in order to strike at and deliver blows to the powerful People’s Movement of the Left of Cyprus. The Colonial Governor in a lengthy statement attempted to justify the banning of AKEL.

 

Although the statement is written from the perspective of the colonial government, nevertheless it contains some important admissions which acknowledge that AKEL was in the vanguard of the anti-colonial struggle and that the British colonialist’s goal was to hurt and weaken the most consistent anti-imperialist and anti-colonial force of the people of Cyprus; a force which the British colonialists considered a threat to their presence and plans in Cyprus and more widely in the region.

 

We read the following, amongst other things, in Harding’s statement: “The communists are those who since the end of the war had the lead in the recourse to stirring up trouble, committing sabotage and intimidation in the pursuit of their political objectives. They are the ones who developed a whole mechanism of “struggle” against the established order – mass demonstrations, political strikes, the writing of slogans, subversive propaganda and long memos … In this extremely strategic island communist activity is of particular hostile significance for the free world. In recent years the main theme characterizing the whole of AKEL’s demagogy and propaganda was the Party’s refusal of using Cyprus as a military base against the “peace-loving democracies.”

 

From the morning of 14th December 1955 up to 2nd December 1959, AKEL develops its activity and struggles in conditions of illegality. The first period, that is to say, until mid-1957 was especially difficult.

 

The blow AKEL received was very big. In the Action Report to the 9th Congress of AKEL, which convened in conditions of illegality in September 1959, the leadership of the party in a spirit of self-criticism admits that although it expected an attack against it by the colonialists, nevertheless the Party appeared unprepared to deal with the scope of the blow delivered on 14th December.

 

Of course, illegality did not dissolve AKEL as those who thought and implemented it had hoped. On the contrary, AKEL very quickly reorganized its forces and went on the counterattack by continuing its mass-political struggle, aiming at the conquest of self-determination of the people of Cyprus.

 

The operation for the escape of leading party members was organised, such as the one of Kyriakos Christou, Pavlakis Georgios and that of the General Secretary of the Party Ezekias Papaioannou. These cadres, together with Andreas Fantis and Yiannis Katsourides, who had escaped arrest, were the Party’s main guiding force in the years of illegality and underground work. Continuous contact and coordination with leading AKEL members imprisoned in the concentration camps was restored. In the middle of February 1956, just three months after the closure of the “New Democrat” newspaper, “Haravgi” was published and circulated, which was the voice of the Party, although this was not written anywhere in its editions.

 

An entire illegal and underground mechanism consisting of ordinary members and local Party cadres was set up. In addition, a mechanism to protect and guard the party leadership and meetings of the sessions of Party bodies was organized. Secret hideouts for leading party leaders were constructed. A mechanism of contact and coordination with trade union leading members of the class-orientated movement of PEO, who had not been arrested, was established. A mechanism of correspondence between the party centre and districts was also established through which decisions and orders were channelled for initiating mobilizations and the organizational restructuring of the Party. A mechanism for the reproduction of and dissemination of leaflets with the positions of the Party was set up, as well as a mechanism for the organization and leadership of mass events, strikes, general strikes, demonstrations and of the mass political struggle. Furthermore, a mechanism was established to offer support to the families of the political prisoners of the Left.

 

As a result in the years of illegality the Left organized or actively participated in a series of mass political actions, such as the strike held about the enforced exile of Makarios, the demonstrations on the occasion of the visit of Lord Radcliff and the Deputy Minister of Colonial Affairs O’Hare, the mobilisations on the anniversaries of the adoption of the law on custody and the imposition of a state of emergency regime, the mobilizations whenever the Cyprus problem was being discussed at the United Nations, the mobilizations organized by the wives of prisoners, the protests demanding the end of the hangings and for the abolition of the regime of state emergency and others. In addition, at this point we should also add the mass mobilizations and all-Cyprus strikes organized to protest about the murder of the cadres and members of the Left committed by the masked hooded men of Grivas.

 

In the anti-colonial protests, the militants of AKEL, Andreas Georgiou in Limassol and Argiros Nicholas in Famagusta, sacrificed their lives from the bullets fired by the security forces.

 

A prerequisite for all of this activity to be successfully implemented was the existence of a good organizational situation of the Party. In those times it was demonstrated, as never before, how the good organizational situation of the Party was an indispensable precondition for its political activity. The goal was set for the organizational reconstruction of AKEL after the blow the Party suffered in December 1955 with the following main guidelines and directions set out: a) the reactivation of Party Base Organisations and formation of new Party cells, mainly in the workplaces, b) the recruitment of hundreds of new party members, and c) the strengthening of the economic situation of the Party, especially as there was the added element of the need to provide support to the families of those party members who were held in the concentration camps and the Central Prison in Nicosia.

 

The reconstruction of the Party was completed in an organized manner on the basis of five month and subsequently nine-month work plans and these were a great success; a success that reflected the influence and prestige of AKEL among the Cypriot people, despite the attacks waged on it by colonialism and the terror unleashed by the extreme right section of EOKA led by Grivas. The successful fulfilment of the party organizational plans was illustrated by the fact that at the end of the period of the Party’s underground activity, AKEL had twice as many members as it had in 1955.

 

The Action Report to the 9th Congress of AKEL made the following assessment of the activity of the party rank and file grassroots membership: “The rank and file grassroots membership of the Party with the masses of party members waged all through those years a determined battle to uphold the line and tactics of the Party, fighting against various enemies and the good results of our work is evident today. Moreover, it must be said that it is thanks to the Party Base Organizations that our Party has been able to mobilize the broad masses of the people and in the midst of the most difficult years of illegality; that it could repel the onslaught and attacks waged by the fanatical section of the Right, play its role in stopping the intercommunal clashes, bringing the brilliant results as witnessed in the mass growth and development of the Party and strengthening of party finances.”

 

In February 1957 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the peaceful resolution of the Cyprus problem in accordance with the principles and purposes of the UN Charter. Under the pressure of the struggle of the Cypriot people and the above mentioned resolution, the British colonialists eased in the middle of 1957, some of their repressive measures. Makarios was allowed to leave the island of Seychelles where he was exiled and go to Athens. The house arrest of Nikos Kranidiotis, the Secretary of Ethnarchy and the Bishop of Kition was lifted, who was even allowed to go to Athens to meet Makarios. In the same context custody orders were lifted for some political prisoners, including members of AKEL, who gradually began to be released from prison.

 

The lifting of custody decrees meant the end of the first period, the most difficult in the period of AKEL’s illegality. The lifting of the custody decrees did not of course signal the end of the Party’s very prohibition and outlawing. The British colonialists kept AKEL banned and in illegality, even after the signing of the Zurich-London Agreements for the independence of Cyprus; even after the amnesty granted to the leading members of EOKA and the return of Makarios himself.

 

New mass struggles and mobilizations were organized, culminating in the huge rally of June 1959 held in order to gain the legalization of AKEL. The decree for the Party’s legalization was issued on 2nd December 1959, just a few days before the first presidential elections took place.

 

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary since the prohibition and banning of AKEL, we have dealt in this article only with some aspects of this important chapter of the Party’s history. We have not touched on other also very important aspects, such as the campaign of terror unleashed by Grivas against the Left.

 

Let this article be a small humble tribute to the leadership of AKEL at that time, but even more so to the hundreds of unsung fighters of the People’s Movement of the Left, who withstood and did not yield during the most difficult and at the same time most heroic page in the history of the Party of the working people.