Single pan-Greek youth organization

From the very beginning of the triple, German-Italian-Bulgarian occupation of Greece, the Communist Party of Greece took the initiative to deploy a broad resistance movement . To this end, with the involvement of other parties, mainly the left and centrist political spectrum, in September 1941 the National Liberation Front of Greece (EAM) was created, which then proceeded to create the People's Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS). From the very beginning of its creation in 1918, the Communist Party of Greece had its own youth organization, OKNE (Greek Communist Youth Organization). As in the case of the EAM, the Greek Communists considered it necessary to attract large masses of youth in the liberation struggle, pushing the ideology and class struggle into the background, for which it was necessary to create a pan-Greek organization that could unite the disparate organizations of the Greek Youth Resistance. With some delay in relation to the creation of EAM, the pan-Greek youth organization was founded on February 23, 1943, at the initiative of the Communist Party of Greece . Representatives of the following youth resistance organizations of various political parties took part in the constituent underground meeting in the house of the teacher Panagis Dimitratos (who was shot by the Germans a year later) in Ambelokipi, Athens: “Peasant youth of Greece”, “Unified National Liberation Workers Youth”, “Unified Student Youth” , "Union of Young Fighters of Rumelia", "Thessaly Sacred Squad", "People's Revolutionary Youth", "Free Youth", "Federation of Communist Youth of Greece", "Socialist Greek Revolutionary Vanguard of Greece ”,“ Filiki of Eteria Youth ”,“ National Liberation Youth Front (ΕΑΜΝ) of Macedonia and Peloponnese ”and“ National Council of Friends of the New Generation ”. It was decided to disband all the above-mentioned organizations and merge them into the Unified Pan-Hellenic Youth Organization (EPON) and subordinate the organization to EAM ^[1] . EPON members were called "eponites." The objectives of the EPS are indicated in the constituent text ^[2] :

• National liberation based on the integrity of the territory of Greece.
• The destruction of fascism, the formation of popular sovereignty.
• The struggle against imperialist wars and the defense of peace, based on the principle of self-determination of peoples .
• Protection of the economic, political, cultural and educational rights and aspirations of the young generation.

In the constituent text, EPC defines itself as a national liberation organization, anti-fascist-progressive, anti-militaristic - peace-loving.

The very next day after its creation and until March 5, EPC mobilized the youth of the Greek capital to participate in a general strike in Athens , which forced the occupation authorities to refuse to send Greek workers to Germany. After 20 days, on March 25, 1943, up to 300 thousand Athenians took to the streets on the anniversary of the National Revolution of 1821 . EPC mobilized pupils, students and workers. In clashes with the invaders killed 32 demonstrators. On June 25, after the next mass execution of 106 prisoners in Kurnovo, 100 thousand demonstrators occupied the center of Athens. In clashes with the invaders, 40 demonstrators were killed ^[3] . Due to the urgent need to liberate the German divisions involved against the Greek partisans, to be sent to the Eastern Front, the occupation authorities decided to expand the Bulgarian occupation zone to Central Macedonia . The Bulgarian zone was distinguished by the fact that following the ideology of " Greater Bulgaria ", the Bulgarian government set as its goal to annex the region to Bulgaria, pursued a policy of repression against the Greek population at all levels, including the closure of Greek schools and the expulsion of the Greek clergy ^[4] . The bloody terror on the part of the Bulgarian occupation authorities ^{[5] [6]} was so massive that an unprecedented exodus of the Greek population from the Bulgarian occupation zone to the German followed, which the Greek writer Ilias Venesis reflected in his classic book “Exodus” ( Greek Έξοδος ) ^{[7] [8] [9]} . Until the end of 1941, more than 100 thousand Greeks fled the region and at the same time it was settled by the Bulgarians ^{[10] [11]} . At the call of the EAM, strikes took place throughout the country on July 22, 1943, and despite the ban, a demonstration was held in Athens against the expansion of the Bulgarian occupation zone . Up to 500 thousand people occupied the city center around the rallys quisling office and the Bulgarian embassy. Unable to disperse the demonstration with the help of the Italian cavalry, the invaders used German tanks against the demonstrators. Standing in front of the head tank, the 18-year-old Panayiot Statopoulou was slanted by machine gun fire. 19-year-old epithet Kula Lily , who climbed onto the tank, took off her shoes and hit the tanker's head protruding from the tower with a heel, was killed by a machine gun. In ongoing clashes, 53 demonstrators were killed, including the eponites Tomis Hadzitomas and Athanasios Theriakis ^[12] . More than 500 were arrested and imprisoned. However, the occupation authorities realized that the events lead to a nationwide explosion and the involvement of the anti-communist strata in the Resistance, who refused to cooperate with EAM-ELAS for this reason. The expansion of the Bulgarian occupation zone and the liberation of German forces were frustrated ^{[13] [14] [15] [16]} . After a series of similar actions carried out by the EAM, which had no precedent in other occupied capitals, coupled with the activities of the city's armed forces ELAS, the French writer Roger Millieks said that Athens was the "capital of European Resistance" ^[17] :

Underground and Propaganda Activities of EPON

The underground organizations of EPON printed leaflets and published newspapers. The central authority of the EPON was the Nea Genia (New Generation) newspaper, the first edition of which was headed by Electra Apostola , Rosa Imvrioti and Maria Svolu ^[18] . Electra the Apostle was later arrested by the occupation authorities and tortured to death in the Gestapo dungeons on July 25, 1944 ^[19] . In the first 6 months of EPC, 200,000 girls and boys joined the organization. In total, over the thousand years of the existence of EPC, 600 thousand people of Greek youth went through the organization. The “golden youth of Greece” passed through EPON, giving it in the future such names as Mikis Theodorakis , Manos Hadzidakis , Kostas Axelos, Eleni Arveler , Kostas Linardatos, Petros Anteos, Titos Patrikios, Eleni Vakalo , Vasilis Rotas and hundreds of other prominent representatives of Greek culture intelligentsia. Petros Anteos wrote later: “Our generation developed its activities in such a significant era, its communion was so direct, and the results of this communion were so material that we had the feeling or illusion that we were creating history. Because in fact, then we spoke with history to you. ” The suburbs of Athens were under the control of urban ELAS units. Occupants appeared there usually in the daytime. EPON organizations acted at night to publicize and inform the public, using slogans on the walls and warning shouts. Mark Mazower, a modern British historian of Jewish descent, referring to this aspect of EPC activity, notes the mass participation of young girls in the organization: “It was a struggle that removed the dividing line between the two sexes. In EPON, the youth movement of the EAM, girls wrote slogans on the walls, shouted messages at night through horns from the rooftops of Athens. They counted. that women's voices sounded better than men's voices ” ^[20] .

Up to 30 thousand members of the EPS have directly participated in the armed struggle. In the regular units of the People’s Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS), "model companies of EPON" were created. Pupils and students joined the “reserve ELAS” city detachments, where the line between underground life and combat activity was blurred.

City squads

By the beginning of 1944, ELAS city ​​squads practically controlled the suburbs of Athens, which at that time distinguished the Greek capital from other occupied European capitals. Occupation troops raided the suburbs, usually during the daytime ^[21] . During such raids and defending their underground headquarters and arsenals, the members of the EPRS showed many acts of heroism and self-sacrifice. In one of them, on April 28, 1944, in the Athens quarter of Imitthos, which was populated by refugees from the Asia Minor catastrophe , three young men of the EPON, platoon commander Dimitris Ageris and fighters Kostas Faltopoulos and Tanos Kyokmenidis, took the battle against 200 Wehrmacht soldiers and collaborators. The battle lasted 7 hours, until the three defenders fell ^[22] . The house, which was protected by three eponites, thanks to Greek poetry, received the name " Imitos Fortress ". In another episode, July 24, 1944, and under similar circumstances, 10 eponites took battle with 1,500 Germans and Quislings and also fought to the last. This episode received the name of the Holocaust on Bisani Street in Greek historiography of the Resistance (Greek: Το ολοκαύτωμα της οδού Μπιζανίου, αριθμός 10) ^[23] . In the center of Athens, the task of protecting the demonstrators was usually carried out by the “Student Youth Battalion” ^[12] .

Of the eponites sent to the regular units of the People’s Liberation Army of Greece (ELAS), the so-called “EPON Model Companies” and “EPON Model Platoons” were formed at all divisions ^{[12] [24]} . As part of the ELAS Cavalry Brigade, an e- squadron was formed ^[25] . The exemplary formations of the EPON were some of the best units of the People's Liberation Army.

The role of EPON was significant both in participating in the demonstrations of the police who had been shot since December 3, and in the ensuing battles against the British troops and their Greek allies, including former collaborators. Eponite Eleni Arveler , who later became a well-known Byzantine and the first female rector at the Sorbonne University, writes: “I stood in front of the Grand Bretagne Hotel, opposite the parliament building. I see on the roof of the parliament of policemen shooting at the demonstrators. I grab the hand of an English officer standing next to me and speak to him in my weak English: See those on the roof. These are the same people who shot at us under the Germans. The Englishman answered, Yes, I know. I will never forget his answer ” ^[18] . The ELAS city squads, which took the main blow of the British and their allies, consisted mainly of students and workers of the EPON. Of the members of EPON, students of the Athens Polytechnic University , the company " Lord Byron " was formed ^[12] . The company was taken over by eponit, the future world-famous composer Yannis Xenakis , who lost his left eye in these battles from a fragment of an English shell ^{[26] [27] [28]} . On December 27, while in Athens, Churchill ordered a general offensive with all available forces. They involved aviation, fleet artillery, heavy artillery and a large number of tanks. Heavy fighting, up to hand-to-hand fighting, continued until January 5, 1945. 20 fighters of the Lord Byron company were surrounded by large British forces and tanks. Holding on for a day, this group of students broke through on the night of January 2 and connected with their company ^[18] .

After the Varkizsky agreement and the alleged reconciliation of the country, the period of the so-called "White Terror" began. EPON members were persecuted and sent to prison and exile, along with members of the Communist Party and former ELAS fighters. After the outbreak of the Civil War (1946–1949), EPC was outlawed by Act No. 509 of 1947. As part of the Democratic Army of Greece , the EPC companies were again created.

Despite the defeat of the Democratic Army of Greece at the end of 1949, EPC continued its underground struggle. One of the founders of the EPON, Stavros Kasimatis (1918-2001, an underground pseudonym Orest ), who was the secretary of the EPON of Southern Greece in 1948, took over the leadership of the second underground center of the Communist Party in 1949 (the first was led by Nikos Plumbidis. ^[29] Despite the defeat of the left forces in the civilian the war, the influence of the EPON grew, especially in student circles. Under the cover of the underground, the newspaper Panspudastiki (Student) was published. The newspaper became the leading center of the student movement, with a looming trend of autonomy from the party ^[12] After the election 1 958, the Unified Democratic Left Party ( EDA ), which was the legal cover for the activities of the Communist Party of Greece , became the second party in the parliament ^[12] EPC was dissolved by the decision of the 8th plenum of the Communist Party of Greece in January 1958. This stopped the dualism of the legal organization of youth EDA and clandestine EPON ^[12] .