| Yannis Tamtakos | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1908 Foça, Ottoman Empire |
| Died | January 4, 2008 (aged 99) Thessaloniki, Greece |
| Occupation | Social and political activist |
Yannis Tamtakos (Greek: Γιάννης Ταμτάκος) (1908 – January 4, 2008) was a political activist, of trotskyism at first, and of anarchism, later on. He lived and remained politically active in Greece. Due to his political activity, he was chased by the state and stalinists. For quite a few years before his death, he was the oldest survivor among the active participants of the great strike of 1936, in Thessaloniki.
He was born in 1908, in Foça. After traveling to Greece as a refugee, originating from Anatolia during 1914, he returned to his hometown in 1914; he finally left it for good in 1922, when he moved to Thessaloniki. He got his first job when he was 6 years old, as a street vendor of simits and later as a shoeshiner. In 1918 - 1919, aged 11, he participated in a workers manifestation for the 1st of May, in the district of Evangelistria, Thessaloniki, for the first time. He had his first contact with supporters of Archeio-Marxism in 1924.
He took part in every workers' struggle in Thessaloniki, as a shoemaker, having been elected committee member (1926–1927) and a secretary (1928–1929) of the Union of the Shoe-makers of Thessaloniki. Later, he got active through the union of the unemployed. In 1931, while on the frontline of a demonstration of the unemployed, in Syntrivani Square in Thessaloniki, he was attacked by a group of policemen, led by the nephew of the Head of the Police; the former shot him in the cheek and the bullet cut his tongue. He didn't lose his ability to speak, thanks to sub-consequent surgeries.[1].
In 1936, after the violent suppression of the workers' revolt, he was found guilty by the Felony Court of Edessa, along with another 52 workers, as organiser of the Thessaloniki strike, on May 1936. He remained exiled and imprisoned, based on the idionymon, from 1937 to 1942. The Tsouderos government, before fleeing the country, let them exiled in Gavdos and forwarded them to the German occupiers. A lot of his fellow detainees who had been exiled in Gavdos, were prosecuted in Kessariani and Nezero of Lamia, including Pandelis Pouliopoulos, the onetime secretary of the Communist Party of Greece and leader of the trotskyist branch. Tamtakos skipped the prosecution by escaping from the police transfer detainment center and lived as an outlaw, after that.
Identifying himself as a revolutionary, he didn't fight in the Second World War, because he believed that the National Liberation Front was working in favour of the self-exiled Greek government, in order to liberate the Greek middle class. In 1942, he met Cornelius Castoriadis and adopted his opinion on the bureaucratisation of the Communist Parties. Based on these positions, he quit troskyism in 1947. Along with his comrades, Agis Stinas, Dimosthenis Voursoukis, Makris, Krokos, Castoriadis et al., he believed in the principles of defeatism and of revolutionary internationalism, by promoting an autonomous, self-organised society and asking for the alliance among all of the fighting soldiers. Due to this position, Tamtakos and his comrades were chased by the German occupiers, the Chites (Greek right-wing collaborators of the occupiers) and the stalinists. He managed to escape assassination efforts by OPLA (militant organisation supported by the communist party) quite a few times [2] while he used several identities and nicknames during the period of the ideological cleansing [3].
He left Greece in 1951, having been invited to work as an immigrant in Australia, where he was employed in the factory of General Motors. He returned to Greece in 1966, where he stayed for the rest of his life.
During the 80s, he was ideologically and politically connected with the antiauthoritarian scene of Thessaloniki. Despite his age, he took part in every workers manifestation in the city.
He died on the January 4, 2008, a few days before his 100th birthday and his political funeral was held the next day, in the cemetery of Malakopi.
His book "Memories of a life in the revolutionary movement"[2], which was published on March 2003, contains transcripts of recorded self-biographic tellings, including references to historical and political events of the last century. Part of his personal diary has been published in 1995, in the "Alfa" newspaper [4].
Yannis Tamtakos was one of the main characters in the movie "Coursal", directed by Nikos Theodossiou [5].