Nikos Zachariadis
Nikos Zachariadis Νίκος Ζαχαριάδης | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Nikos Zachariadis. | |
| Born |
Nikos Zachariadis 27 April 1903 Adrianople, Ottoman Empire |
| Died |
1 August 1973 Surgut, RSFSR, USSR |
| Nationality | Hellenic |
| Ideology |
Marxism–Leninism Anti-revisionism |
| Political party | Communist Party of Greece |
Nikos Zachariadis[a] (27 April 1903–1 August 1973) was a Greek Marxist–Leninist revolutionary who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece from 1931 to 1956. He led the communist and anti-fascist resistance in Greece during the Second World War as well as the communist Democratic Army of Greece during the Greek Civil War.
In 1949, he was forced into exile in the Soviet Union following the victory of counter-revolutionary forces in Greece. When the revisionist clique of Nikita Khrushchev rose to power in the 1950s, he was forcefully exiled to Siberia due to his opposition to Khrushchev.[1]
Biography
Zachariadis was born to Greek parents in the city of Edirne within the Ottoman Empire. At the age of 16, he moved to Constantinople where he worked various jobs, including as a sailor and dock worker. At this time, he began to develop tendencies in support of the working class movement.
From 1919–1922, he extensively traveled Soviet Russia. In 1923, he joined the Communist Party of Turkey and studied in the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, located within the Soviet Union. After concluding his studies in the Soviet Union in 1924, he traveled to Greece, where he joined the Young Communist League of Greece.
In 1926, he was arrested by the military dictatorship ruling Greece and imprisoned in Thessaloniki. He managed to escape and worked secretly in various party positions. In 1929, he was imprisoned again but escaped to the Soviet Union and joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). He returned to Greece in 1931 and, by a decision made by the Communist International, became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece.
Leading the party through a period of illegality and repression, Zachariadis was eventually arrested by the fascist Metaxas regime in August 1936. He remained in prison into 1941, at which point he was transferred to the Nazi Dachau concentration camp. He would be freed in May 1945.
He would return to his position as leader of the KKE and would head the struggle of the Democratic Army of Greece in the Greek Civil War against capitalist forces. After the revolutionaries' defeat in 1949, he and other Greek communists went into exile in the Soviet Union. On February 1957 he was expelled from the KKE following its opportunist turn, influenced by Khrushchevism. Nikos Zachariadis passed the rest of his life in exile in Siberia, particularly in Yahuta and Surgut. On August 1st, 1973, at the age of 70, he was found dead in his home in Surgut. According to the official account of his death, Zachariadis committed suicide.[2]
See also
Bibliography
The following are works by Nikos Zachariadis available on the Revolupedia library.
References
- ↑ "Event honoring Nikos Zachariadis in Surgut, Russia". Communist Party of Greece. Retrieved March 1, 2025.
- ↑ "Nikos Zachariadis: 47 years since the death of the Greek communist leader" (August 1, 2020). In Defense of Communism. Retrieved March 31, 2025.
Note
- ↑ Greek: Νίκος Ζαχαριάδης