Andreas Tsipas

Portrait of Andreas Tsipas.

Andreas Tsipas (Greek: Ανδρέας Τσίπας; Macedonian: Андреjа Чипов, Andreja Čipov;[1] Bulgarian: Андрей Чипов, Andrey Chipov;[2][3] born 1904, Patele, Ottoman Empire (today Agios Panteleimonas, near Florina, Greece) – died 1956, Bitola, SFRY (present-day Republic of Macedonia) was a Greek Communist leader during the Second World War and the Greek Civil War.

In 1933, he became a leader of the IMRO (United) in Greek Macedonia and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). He was a KKE candidate in the last pre-war Greek legislative elections in 1936. Between 1936 and 1941, he was imprisoned in the Acronauplia prison by political reasons. On 30 June 1941, Tzipas was one of 27 communist prisoners released from the Acronauplia at the request of the Bulgarian embassy in Athens with the intercession of Bulgarian Club in Thessaloniki, which had made representations to the German occupation authorities. Most members of the group belonged to the Slavic Macedonian community of northern Greece, which was regarded as Bulgarian by the Bulgarian authorities.[4] With the permission from the leader of KKE Giannis Ioannides[5] to reconstruct the Greek Communist Party, they all declared Bulgarian ethnicity.[6][7][8]

Some merely pretended to be a Bulgarian in order to be set free, such as Kostas Lazaridis who was a Pontic Greek, Andreas Tzimas a Greek Vlach,[9] Petros Kentros of Arvanite and Vlach descent, etc.[10][11]

After his release, Tsipas and others set about reorganising the decimated KKE. Along with Andreas Tzimas and Kostas Lazaridis, also released from prison, and Petros Rousos, Pandelis Karankitzis and Chrysa Chatzivasileiou constituted themselves as a new central committee, with Tsipas as secretary, at a meeting in July 1941, subsequently named as the VI Plenum by the KKE. This new central committee succeeded in winning the recognition of the "old central committee" and the "provisional leadership" wings of the party.

At the VII Plenum of the central committee, held the following September, Tsipas was relieved of his post owing to "political unreliability". Tsipas was careless in security terms and abused alcohol. On account claims that after running up a bill in a bar, he sent the barman to the secret meeting place of the politburo, where someone was expected to pay his bill. After the removal from his post, he was isolated, and in January 1942, he sought refuge in Sofia, where he remained for eight months.[12] According to some sources then he was an agent of the Bulgarian secret service.[13][14]

During the Greek Civil War, he was active in the National Liberation Front (NOF) working as a nurse. After the defeat of the Democratic Army of Greece, he fled to SFRY in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, in the city of Bitola, where he died in 1956,[15] suffering from alcoholism.[16]

Notes

  1. ↑ Communist Party of Greece, List of General Secretaries
  2. ↑ Яковос Д. Михайлидис, Славяномакедонски политемигранти в Народна Република Македония (1949-1954), сп. Македонски преглед, кн.1, 2003 г., стр. 57-71.
  3. ↑ Prof. Giza, Antony. The Balkan Countries and the Macedonian Question, 4-8 (translation from Polish by Dimitar Dimitrov), Macedonian Scientific Institute, Sofia, 2001)
  4. ↑ Giannēs S Koliopoulos.Plundered loyalties: Axis occupation and civil strife in Greek West Macedonia, 1941-1949, London, Hurst & Co.,1999, ISBN 978-1-85065-381-3, p. 53.
  5. ↑ Γιάννης Ιωαννίδης, Αναμνήσεις. Προβλήματα της πολιτικής του ΚΚΕ στην Εθνική Αντίσταση (1940-1945), επιμ. Αλέκου Παπαναγιώτου, σσ. 86, 87, Αθήνα 1979
  6. ↑ Uranros, 103-4.
  7. ↑ Makedonia (newspaper), 11 May 1948.
  8. ↑ According to British sources, declarations of Bulgarian nationality throughout Northern Greece reached 23,000 (F0371/58615, Thessaloniki consular report of 24 September 1946).
  9. ↑ Άρης Βελουχιώτης: Το χαμένο αρχείο, άγνωστα κείμενα Η στάση της ηγεσίας του ΚΚΕ απέναντι στον Άρη Βελουχιώτη, 1941-1945 Γρηγόρη Φαράκου σελ 137 Tzimas said: Η υπόθεση είχε και την κωμική της πλευρά. Έξω από μένα, Έλληνα 100%, που μπορούσε όμως, εν ανάγκη, να περάσει και για Σλαβομακεδόνας γιατί ήξερα καλά τα Σλαβομακεδόνικα και είχα μεγάλη επαφή και σχέσεις με Σλαβομακεδόνες, βγήκαν και <<Σλαβομακεδόνες>>από τη Μικρά Ασία ...και μάλιστα τέτοιοι, που δε ξέρανε ούτε λέξη σλαβομακεδόνικα
  10. ↑ Γιάννης Ιωαννίδης, Αναμνήσεις. Προβλήματα της πολιτικής του ΚΚΕ στην Εθνική Αντίσταση (1940-45), επιμ. Αλέκου Παπαναγιώτου, σσ. 86, 87, Αθήνα 1979
  11. ↑ Καλλιανιώτης,Αθανάσιος (2007, Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης (ΑΠΘ)), Οι πρόσφυγες στη Δυτική Μακεδονία (1941-46)
  12. ↑ Bŭlgarsko istorichesko druzhestvo, Institut za istoria (Bŭlgarska akademia na naukite) Издател, 2000, str. 156.
  13. ↑ André Gerolymatos. Guerrilla warfare and espionage in Greece, 1940-1944, Pella Pub. Co, 1992; ISBN 0-918618-50-9, pp. 181-82.
  14. ↑ Petŭr Iapov. Nikola Geshev, koĭto ne beshe samo politsaĭ!, Zad zavesata, Makon-S, 1999, p. 98.
  15. ↑ Киселиновски, Стојан. Македонски дејци (ХХ век). Скопје, 2002, 236—237
  16. ↑ Καλλιανιώτης,Αθανάσιος (2007, Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης (ΑΠΘ)), Οι πρόσφυγες στη Δυτική Μακεδονία (1941 - 1946) εκεί πέθανε ίσως από το πολύ ποτό

References

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