Talk:ELAS

Please can we have some detailed references regarding 'ELAS's numerous and systematic atrocities against non-communist citizens'.
Either in the main article or here, I am not fussy, in fact desperate. Over the the last few months I have read some forty books about the resistance, looking for facts to bolster my comfortable faith in the view of ELAS that is usually dished up in English fiction, but have failed completely. I have just read Kiriakos, the biography of a British soldier who found himself with an ELAS troop for about 15 months. He is not very interested in politics but knows that he is ant-communist, and gets very offended when people criticise the British. Despite this, he does not breathe a word about any atrocities.

Likewise Pampαloni, the Italian who escaped the massacre of the Italains by the Germans on Cephalonis (sometimes referred to has the 'real Captain Corelli') and after being saved by ELAS went on to fight with them for some months, stressed the kindness he received at the ELAS camp. Men, women and children washed his feet and gave him food and drink. '"What men! What women! What andartes! What andartissas! Even today in my eighties, I am moved when I think of the comradeship of these people. ... At mealtimes the food was the same from the general to the last child.  Another thing that impressed me was their discipline.  If it was found that someone had raped a woman - even if he had fighting experience and was brave and competent - he was put to death." As for the robbery that de Bernieres refers to, Pamploni is equally clear. "The locals gave us food, a lamb or a goat. ... They gave it to us gladly"'. (Translated from 'To Mantolino tou Gkestapo' - The Gestapo's Mandolin - http://www.iospress.gr/ios2000/ios20000604a.htm - which is copied from Schmuck-Gustavus, The Defeated of Cephalonia.) Pampaloni is given a hero's welcome when he visits Cephalonia, while de Bernieres, at one time complained that he felt he couldn't go there as he was so unpopular.

None of the original British reports of the time, that I have read, make a case for ELAS atrocities. See for example Baerentzen, British Reports on Greece.

One 'atrocity' that is milked for all it's worth is the execution of the leader of EKKA, Psarras, by an ELAS leader, after EKKA attacked ELAS and killed a number of its soldiers. EKKA was disbanded and half of its officers joined ELAS and the others went to join the Germans in Patra.

Anyone who actually has an open mind on this issue should consider Eden's proposal to the British Cabinet of November 1943, in which he recommends breaking with EAM and ELAS and making propaganda against them. (Widely available, e.g. Procopis Papastratis, British Policy towards Greece during the Second World War 1941-1944.)

There is a very convincing (Greek) report from EAM with extensive detail (names, address, date of death, address of cemetary, etc. etc, etc) of a concerted campaign during the December events of 1944 to discredit ELAS by digging up bodies (often of ELAS fighters), mutilating them, and parading them in the streets as victims of ELAS atrocities (http://parekklisi.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/elliniko-katyn/ ). Bougatsa42 (talk) 04:21, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Did this come out of a Soviet-era Pravda article?
"Amateur actors and musicians creating travelling theaters and bands"? Ha, ha, ha! Seems like ELAS was building a veritable socialist paradise in the areas it occupied ; not unlike the civilizing policies of Pol Pot, eh?

More mentions of ELAS's numerous and systematic atrocities against non-communist citizens, and less mentions of the official party fables, would go a long way in balancing this entry. Porfyrios 15:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The article could also use cleanup with special attention paid to the Wikipedia Manual of Style and English grammar and syntax. The additions are not only unsourced, but they are written in a conversational style which is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. --Jpbrenna 15:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I am working on a cleanup along the lines you have suggested, and I am looking for sources to help confirm (or otherwise) some of the unsourced additions. I have started with the section on the Gorgopotamos bridge. Nagebenfro 18:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Beyond the atrocities committed, it is true that EAM's cultural sector (Yannis Ritsos among others worked for it) was functioning in Athens and the countryside offering to peasants access to cultural goods they couldn't enjoy before. Asmodaios —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.63.235.139 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Frankly this article is a load of red flag waving c**p. Greece would have been unique in being the only country in the world to democratically elect a communist government were it not for ELAS's constant war crime committed against the Greek people. The article makes no mention of the fact that on several occassions ELAS actually fought alongside SS soldiers against the royalist greek resistance. Equally the claims that ELAS controlled areas had plenty of food flies in the face of 2 million Greeks who starved to death during the Greek Civil War. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petersym (talk • contribs) 14:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Could you please indicate the source of your information about co-operation between ELAS and SS (that weren't acting in Greece!) or any Nazi forces against other rezistance groups? Moreover there weren't 2 million dead in Greece during WWII (475.000 died) and i've heard nothing of dead people due to hunger in ELAS controlled areas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.63.235.139 (talk • contribs) 20:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The royalists didn't even have a resistance. The king, who was of GERMAN ORIGIN, had fled the country with the rest of the politicians to...Syria!! So much patriots they were. More than 85% of Greeks fought with ELAS and there is nothing these NAZI collaborators can do to change the real history. The rest of the resistance groups were small even though they were PAYING people to have them enter in their groups as they were funded by the British. But we Greeks rejected them as we are patriots not British mercenaries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.202.123.167 (talk • contribs) 14:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

And you get to speak on behalf of all Greeks... on what basis? The royalists you so villify fought against Nazis within the Greek army when the Axis troops were invading Greece. They continued fighting against the Germans while exiled in North Africa, embedded in the allied armed forces there in (ever heard of the Rimini brigade? El Alamein battle?) Which is more than can be said about the traitorous communists, asking at those crucial times of Greeks to throw down their weapons and stop fighting the "imperialist war"! Only when the Nazis subsequently attacked mother-Russia (violating the Stalin-Hitler pact) did those traitorous communists decide to participate in resistance against the Nazis! So much for the Stalinist Left's "patriotic" inclinations. And even then, they spent more time attacking democratic, non-communist resistance forces, such as EDES and EKKA, rather than fighting the German occupator. As for the imaginary "85" percentage, it's pulled out of your head like most everything else you wrote. Strange how the Communist Party of Greece will only get about 5,5 to 6% of the popular vote in elections, if we were to believe that almost all Greeks had been affiliated with it in that crucial era. But that's Stalinist flat-earther fantasy for you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.97.62.121 (talk • contribs) 15:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You are completely out of touch with the Greek reality. First of all it was not the ROYALISTS the one's who initially fought the Axis troops when they invaded but the GREEK ARMY. During the invasion, Greece was a fascist dictatorship run by Metaxas. As a result all Greek Communists & Democrats languished in prisons. Despite this fact, the chairman of the Communist Party, Zahariadis who was also imprisoned, asked for the release of all the political prisoners so that they can fight the invaders and that every Greek should meet his patriotic duty to defend our country. Of course the then Greek Fascist regime refused to release them and handed them to the NAZIs. And indeed, the GREEK troops, not the royalist troops as you claim, did fought in El Alamein and Rimini. Not in Greece though. So I don't understand what this has to do with the GREEK resistance. We both know that EDES and EKKA had nonsignificant support among the Greek population. Both ELAS and EDES had clashes with each other during the resistance, as both wanted to be in a leading position after the liberation of Greece. The royalists and the rest of the Greek politicians left our people for sun baths in the Middle East while the Greek people were suffering the hardships of war. ELAS did the main resistance against the fascists and neither you nor anyone else can do anything to change this fact. Live with it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.203.140.77 (talk • contribs) 02:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Dimitrios Psarros was murdered by a soldier of ELAS, who was shoot by Velouchiotis because of his unacceptable behaviour. There wasn't ELAS who collaborated with Germans, mister lier. EDES has been collaborated with Germans and British and they exist documents. The only thing for EDES was how the ELAS could be stopped. Sarafis agreed to join ELAS not by force, as he says in his book "ELAS". Today, KKE takes 6% for other reasons mister. In 1968 and 1991, as you know KKE has passed two splittings. A great number of people who sympathised ELAS and KKE were murdered, imprisoned and exiled, As a result they feeled fear to join again KKE. PASOK also, with lies such as: "Americans go home", "Socialism", "Change", took the votes of lot of partisans of ELAS and KKE. TELL THE TRUTH FOR A TIME! The atrocities of ELAS: he killed the fascists in Meligalas, he fought the Germans when Zervas drunk wine with British, he fought British when they came to impose their occupation in Greece. I am wrong; Zervas became minister during the Civil War. KKE had made efforts to create resistance groups months before the invasion of Axis to Soviet Union. As you know the "stalinist" Zachariadis wrote a letter the 28 October 1940 in which he said to greek people to fight with all his force agaionst the Axis. Stalin's atrocities is the only argument for you to tell lies about greek and world history. Read the book of Ludo Martens: "Another view in Stalin". ELAS WAS THE ONLY TRUTH AND HONEST RESISTANCE GROUP DURING THE OCCUPATION. ELAS HELPED THE GREEK PEOPLE DURING THE GRAND STARVATION OF 1941-1942. (ALL THE GREEK DEAD DURING THE WORLD WAR 2 WERE 1 MILLION, BUT THE LIERS SAY ALWAYS LIES). The anti-stalinists (trotskyists, archeio-marxists) when Civil War finished, they congratulated the grek government about the defeat of communists. Great communists! TELL THE TRUTH, THE TRUTH, THE TRUTH!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.73.55.155 (talk • contribs) 11:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

To everyone except maybe a couple of people in the beginning of this discussion: If you don't plan to actually discuss stay away of the discussion! Most of the facts that all of you describe weren't even used as propaganda from the party you support, so far they are from truth.Constantinos7 05:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * This is the truth Constantinos! The only thing that you have to do is to read some true books... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.20.215 (talk • contribs) 13:54, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Bullshit, communism = treachery, Greeks who support the KKE must face the firing squads sooner or later, the only way for Greece is Xrisi Augi, a patriotic organization with patriotic inclinations. Communism is treachery, Communist Greeks are Turk loving filth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.232.97 (talk • contribs) 17:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I would ask to delete the previous comment which is irrelevant, unsigned and makes propaganda for the nazist organisation of Greece. --Radiobuzzer 03:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * A Nazi questions Staliny Commies? Is that leeeeeegal? I thought these two street gangs got it out of their blood at Stalingrad (well, maybe their blood got out of them instead :( [a mil deaths?]). Socialism and third positionism must be each seriously considered before they are rejected, as they each arise from valid human emotions, that is, it is immature to treat them like the boogie man and with prejudice. That said, even I tire of these human parodies or exaggerations of what are only political positions: the Stalinists and the Fascists. If anyone remembers, the Red Scare was NOT beneficial to the protection of Democracy or intellectualism in the United States and did much more than then secret propaganda to construct the myth of "the satanically evil genius and sadistically determined relentlessness" of the lazy Soviet stooges whose own empire fell apart from their own relentless idiocy. On the other hand, treating Fascism like its some kind of evil, seductive evil thing, is very unproductive when looking at it and a shame because it is a very unique ideology. In this article, instead of drawing a big battle of the insidious pinkos and the undead German zombie hordes, we should have a reflection of the facts of occupation, common people picking up guns in a chaotic time with chaotic thoughts dominating their mind (unsurprisingly) and military soliders just  trying to survive with massive allied armies in front of them and a few hundred miles behind them. Relativism is sorely lacking in this debate...  - Mr. Samboring


 * And what about the slaughtering of greek communists resistants by churchill in the end of the WW2? Oh, maybe u prefer the word "little cleanup"? Or maybe "working hard for the multipartism"?

Remember, people, that the essential of the resistance during WW2 was made, in all the judeo-christian countries, by those "horrible demoniac children-eaters" communists. Its a fact. But happily, we know that the neoliberal propaganda can change facts, or more likely just forget them, and wait during they're slowly forgotten by people. This propaganda is not made by any conventional mean, there's no "BELIEVE THIS!" or "DO THIS!", but simply by just "forgetting" some elements of the history... We can feel the last fifty years of media control now, we can see the poors voting for right-wing partys, we can see people hating the people who helped to freed them by the past only because they were leftists, workers saying "no its impossible to reduce working time!The economy would be destabilized!" Economy? Does someone knows what is economy? Factories? We know that they were relocalized. The state? Liberals want it to be deprived from his economics powers, and "thanks" to privatization, now its done, and the peoples no longer control their own electricity Shareholders? Recent economics research showed that the balance between theirs injections of funds and theirs profits was negative. I repeat, negative. Yes, you understood it very well, they're just parasites. Due to their cupidity, the money is everyday concentrating more and more into fewer and fewer hands Those people, who talk about "economy", are just not understanding that they are just ressources, disposable ressources. The only way to get something nowadays is report of force. The democracy is a vast joke, because its known that medias, especially TV, are always in good terms with the same side of the political spectrum, and watching everyday the same channel, as talkin everyday with the same man, make you finally thinking exactly like him And see the results. But there's people, today, that are fierce of living in those dirty times, where everyone has lost their hopes, their dreams and their will to fight Their self-respect, their morale and their dignity. We forgot what were still free.....we forgot who were really the resistants. We forgot that those people, idealists, communists, leftists, all those "horrible stalinists", were just people like you and me, just dreaming of better tomorrows Just thinking that the world could be changed, and dont think that he can't, because the medieval and modern kings made it..... So when i hear those stupidities about people who were maybe led by the wrong persons, but driven by the right things, i become a little angry, me and my dramatic english Now if someone had enough courage to read the whole text, i suggest that he verifies the facts given, especially economic ones, and that he draw his own conclusions - Simply me —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.219.129.177 (talk) 23:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

There are plenty of resources that could provide material for this page, to make it more encyclopedic: Stefanos Sarafis, ELAS: Greek Resistance Army (trans.Sylvia Moody); J.M Stevens, C.M. Woodhouse and D.J Wallace, British Reports on Greece 1943-44; E.C.W Myers, Greek Entanglement; Heinz Richter, British Intervention in Greece: From Varkiza to Civil War.

None of these sources, not even the British ones, support the negative view of ELAS conveyed here. All these sources, even the British, make it clear that ELAS had enormous popular support, and that ELAS's long-term aim was a democratic Greece. All of theses sources, especially the British, make it very clear that Britain's own interests were paramount in its decisions, e.g. in its determination to encourage rightwing and monarchist resistance organisations, with a long-term aim of maintaining Greece as a monarchy.

Until someone comes along who is interested in presenting a factual and objective account of ELAS, its goals and its achievements,and its errors, this page should be reduced to a stub. Bougatsa42 (talk) 16:57, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Rename article
As per this discussion, based on WP:NAME and WP:UE, I suggest renaming the article to either "Greek National People's Liberation Army" or "National People's Liberation Army (Greece)", preferring the latter. The same procedure is suggested for the relevant articles on EAM, EDES and EKKA. If you have contributed to this or the above articles, please state your view. Regards, Cplakidas 18:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * As five days have passed without objections or comments, I am proceeding with renaming these articles. Regards, Cplakidas 13:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Opening line of section, Birth of ELAS
As currently written, the opening line reads:

"After Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union with the initiation of Operation Barbarossa (June 22, 1941 — with most of Greece having fallen under Axis occupation since April and the Battle of Crete having ended on June 1 — the Greek Communist Party (KKE) was the first communist party to call for national resistance (documented in two letters by Nikolaos Zachariadis and Central Committee decisions) in 1940."

What the hell? If it makes sense to you, fine. If not, and you understand what it is trying to say, please fix it. I can't make heads or tails of it, and am afraid of trying to fix it for that reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.205.8.114 (talk) 17:37, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The letters by Zachariadis need to be sourced. What I am wondering is if Greek communists started resisting the Nazi during the time when the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was still valid. We need some historical sources here to write a meaningful text. Andreas  (T) 17:57, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment
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Requested move 30 May 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 13:03, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

– The vast majority of sources written in English use the acronym "ELAS" rather than the term "Greek People's Liberation Army" to refer to this organization. (Google Scholar results:) Overwhelmingly, the capitalized ELAS refers to this organization. I'm usually against acronyms but in this case it's the recognizable way of referring to this group. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  10:26, 30 May 2021 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Greek People's Liberation Army → ELAS
 * ELAS → ELAS (disambiguation)
 * Support per nom, clearly the wp:primarytopic for ELAS as well—blindlynx (talk) 13:52, 31 May 2021 (UTC)