The Last Letter...

"Εσύ απόδειξες, Νίκο,

πόσο μικρά είναι αυτή την ώρα τα όνειρα,

η ψάθινη πολυθρόνα του περιβολιού,

το πράσινο τραπεζάκι, 

η σιγουριά από τα κάγκελα του κρεβατιού τις νύχτες 

πόσο μικρά μπροστά στο μπόι της χαράς 

να πεθαίνεις για τη χαρά του κόσμου"...

Γ. Ριτσος. 30.3.1952

Nikos Beloyannis.
"The man with the Carnation"
Athens, February 1952

Nikos Beloyannis, born in 1915 in Amaliada Peloponnese, was one of the most iconic figures of the Greek communist, resistance and revolutionary movement during the 20th century. Beloyannis became a global symbol after his execution, as an example of militant attitude and communist integrity.

Beloyannis was send back to Greece in June 1950 with the mission to reorganize the illegal underground organisations of the Greek Communist Party (KKE). Few months later, in December 1950, secret police managed to arrest Beloyannis. Two trials will follow. The first in October 1951 and the second in February 1952. Their outcome was the conviction of Beloyannis and 28 of his comrades. Six of them, with him among them they will be sentenced to death (only four will be executed) by the permanent Athens court-marshal, when tens of others will be sentenced to life imprisonment. The main accusation of the first trial, this of the violation of the law N.509/1947 according to which KKE consider as a criminal organisation and is declared illegal, was replaced by the charge of spying in favor of Soviet Union. Earlier in November 1951 wireless apparatuses were discovered in the Athens neighborhoods of Faliro and Kallithea, providing the military judges with an opportunity to use the espionage law against the accused. 

Nikos Beloyannis during his first trial.
October 1951

During the trials but as well as after convictions were published, a huge international solidarity movement was developed and tried to prevent the execution and save Beloyannis and his comrades. Hundreds of thousands anonymous and famous people (hundreds MPs from France and UK, Charles de Gaulle, Paul Éluard, Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nâzım Hikmet, Pablo Picasso, Charlie Chaplin among others) from all over the world set pressure on the Greek government in order to cancel the execution. Despite the efforts, it was Sunday, 04:12 am, on the 30th of March 1952, Nikos Beloyannis, Nikos Kaloumenos, Dimitris Mpatsis and Elias Argiriadis were finally executed by the Greek state.

Nikos Beloyannis became a hero because he did his duty 'til his very end. He knew what fate was waiting him, he knew that he could save his life if he wanted to, but he didn't take that risk, because the only thing concerned him was to keep his consciousness and dignity until the end, in front of the firing squad...

Nikos Beloyannis' party booklet as it is saved today

Nikos Beloyannis as political commissar
during the Greek Civil War. 

The last letter of Nikos Beloyannis.

Ancient mythology narrates us that Olympian gods were set on trial in front of ancient Athens' tribunals when they had to. This was told in order to dictate the high value and meaning the ancient tribunals should have had. If these gods existed nowadays and mend to be political opponents of the postwar Greek governments then for sure they would have to run far away in order to get saved from the expediency courts which act like factories by issuing standardized convictions against the democratic citizens.

Within five years, 1945 – 1950, about 50000 convictions were issued and more than 5000 people sentenced to death! From them almost 2000 were executed with many of them being women, old women or even 17 years old girls! Courts of this kind could show tolerance to some common crook, thief or murderer but for their ideological opponents they show no mercy. Here is an example. Two teachers, Sotirs S and Nikolaos K were sentenced to death. They managed though to achieve revision of their trial by a common criminal court and they were found innocent! There are many other cases like this!

A question is born: What cause such brutality? Greece is a poor country, because the ruling classes up to our day depended mainly to the parasitic external loans and not to the development of our natural resources. This fact had as result the living standard of the working people to not been improved at all. And as far as the economical backwardness was back to back with political backwardness, it was quite easy for the oligarchy to govern and exploit the people without facing any kind of social turbulence. More or less the same thing happened in England just before the appearance of Chartists movement. (…)

(…) when i and Ioannidou were under strict detention since 1950! Even this fact didn’t prevent them to sentence us to death because we were not denied our ideology when only one word would be enough, as Galileo did, in order to avoid trial!

Because the real reason of our conviction is our ideology. The charge of spying is (invalid?) and slanderous and is not based on any real evidence. My life itself contradicts them. Since the age of 17, still a student, i believed in the socialist ideals and since then, for more than 20 years, my life is dedicated to the struggle of democratization, independence and prosperity of my country. For my ideology they expelled me from the University of Athens, exiled me and sent me to jail during the Metaxas dictatorship. I could easily follow a career path and a comfort life; I chose instead a life full of hardships, prosecutions, pain and tears. Italian and German occupiers sent me to concentration camps. I manage to escape and i fought them with all my strength, often cooperating with the English delegations. After liberation i continued the political struggle. At the same period i was editor in the political economical magazine “Eleutheros Morias”. The break of 1945 gave me the opportunity to continue my studies and finish two books “The economic development of Greece” and “The history of contemporary Greek Literature” which still remain unpublished, as new prosecutions didn’t allow it.

Since the end of 1940s i am once again under persecution. My whole family perished. And now the same fate awaits me. My case is not unique. There are countless more. This one side civil war against the left wing citizens will bring Greece in front of new calamities. If the right wing side had good will, the salvation of our misfortune land and its people it could be really simple, because it’s included to the following words: Democracy, general amnesty, peace and measures for the improvement of peoples living conditions. But which government has the will to apply such a program? That’s the question as the great English writer says.

Nikos Beloyannis

12.3.1952

PS. These lines are written in rough from the death row cell which i am isolated, waiting my death. Maybe when you are reading these lines i will not be alive. I wish our blood to contribute to pacification of our suffering land. Unfortunately the result will be the opposite. And this because the right-wing side never wanted the pacification and reconciliation of our people.  Anyway whatever happens i will remember until my last moments with infinite gratitude the gentle efforts of all the people who tried and still try to save us from the executioner.

The last letter. Written on 12.3.1952

Το τελευταίο γράμμα του Νίκου Μπελογιάννη

Η αρχαία μυθολογία μας διήγείται ότι οι θεοί του Ολύμπου κατέβαινουν να δικαστούν στα δικαστήρια της αρχαίας Αθήνας. Αυτό λεγόταν για να εξαρθεί το ύψος στο οποίο έπρεπε να βρίσκονται τα αρχαία δικαστήρια. Αν όμως αυτοί οι θεοί συνέβαινε να υπάρχουν σήμερα και να είναι πολιτικοί αντίπαλοι των μετά την απελευθέρωση Ελληνικών κυβερνήσεων, τότε ασφαλώς θα έφευγαν πολύ μακριά από την Ελλάδα για να σωθούν από τα δικαστήρια σκοπιμότητας τα οποία λειτουργούν σαν εργοστάσια και βγάζουν τυποποιημένες αποφάσεις εναντιών των δημοκρατικών πολιτών.

Μέσα σε 5 χρόνια, 1945 – 1950, εκδόθηκαν περίπου 50000 καταδικαστικές αποφάσεις και γυρώ στους 5000 ανθρώπους καταδικάστηκαν σε θάνατο! Από αυτούς περίπου 2000 εκτελέστηκαν μεταξύ των οποίων πολλές γυναίκες, γρηές, ακόμα και κοπέλλες 17 χρονών!΄Αυτού του είδους τα δικαστήρια θα μπορούσαν ίσως να δείξουν κατανόηση σ’ εναν κοινόν απατεώνα, δολοφόνο, κλέφτη κλπ. Αλλά για τους ιδεολογικούς τους αντιπάλους δεν υπάρχει έλεος. Ιδού ενα πρόχειρο παράδειγμα. Δύο άριστοι εκπαιδευτικοί της χώρας μας, οι Σωτήρης Σ. και Νικος Κ. καταδικάστηκαν σε θάνατο. Κατάφεραν όμως να γίνει αναθεώρηση της δίκης των από τα ταχτικά ποινικά δικαστήρια και αθωώθηκαν! Τέτοιες περιπτώσεις είναι πάρα πολλές!

Γεννιέται όμως τώρα το ερώτημα: Ποιά είναι τα αίτια της πρωτοφανούς αυτής αγριότητας; Η Ελλάδα είναι φτωχή, γιατί οι ηγετικές τάξεις που κυβέρνησαν ως τα σήμερα τη χώρα βασίσθηκαν κυρίως στα παρασιτικά δεκανίκια των εξωτερικών δανείων και όχι στην ανάπτυξη  των πλουτοπαραγωγικών πηγών μας. Το γεγονός αυτό είχε σαν συνέπεια να μην βελτιωθεί καθόλου το βιωτικό επίπεδο του εργαζόμενου λαού. Και όσον καιρό η οικονομική καθυστέρηση εσυμβάδιζε με την πολιτική καθυστέρηση των λαϊκών μαζών, η ολιγαρχία του πλούτου μπορούσε να κυβερνά και να εκμεταλλεύεται το λαό με μια σχετική άνεση, χωρίς σοβαρούς κοινωνικούς τρανταγμούς. Περίπου όπως συνεβαινε στην Αγγλία πριν αρχίσει το κίνημα των Χαρτιστών. Στην περίοδο όμως της Χιτλερικής σκλαβιάς (...)

(..) ενώ εγώ και η Ιωαννίδου βρισκόμαστε σε αυστηρή φυλάκιση από το 1950! Και  όμως αυτό δεν τους εμπόδισε να μας καταδικάσουν σε θάνατο επειδή δεν αποκηρύξαμε την ιδεολογία μας ενώ θα αρκούσε μια μόνο λέξη μας, όπως έκανε ο Γαλιλαίος, για να μη μας δικάσουν!

Γιατί η ιδεολογία μας είναι η πραγματική αιτία της καταδίκης μας. Η κατηγορία για κατασκοπία είναι (ακυρή?) και συκοφαντική και δε στηρίζεται σε κανέναν πραγματικό στοιχείο. Και η ίδια η ζωή μου τους διαψεύδει. Από ηλικία 17 χρονών, σπουδαστής ακόμα, πίστεψα στα ιδανικά του σοσιαλισμού και από τότε, 20 ολόκληρα χρόνια, η ζωή μου είναι αφιερωμένη στον αγώνα για τον εκδημοκρατισμό, την ανεξαρτησία και την ευημερία της πατρίδος μου. Για την ιδεολογία μου οι αντιδραστικοί μ’ έδιωξαν από το πανεπιστήμιο των Αθηνών, με εξόρισαν, με εφυλάκισαν τον καιρό της μεταξικής δικτατορίας. Αντί να διαλέξω τη ζωή της καριέρας, και μπορούσαν εύκολα να δημιουργήσω τέτοια, προτίμησα μια ζωή γεμάτη διωγμούς, στερήσεις, πόνους και δάκρυα. Οι Ιταλοί και οι Γερμανοί καταχτητές με έκλεισαν σε στρατόπεδα συγκέντρωσεως. Κατάφερα να φύγω και τους πολέμησα μ’ όλη μου τη δύναμη, συνεργαζόμενος συχνά με τις αγγλικές αποστολές. Μετά την απελευθέρωση συνέχισα τους πολιτικούς αγώνες μου. Συγχρόνως εχρηματισά διευθυντής στο πολιτικό οικονομικό περιοδικό «Ελευθερός Μωριάς». Η ανάπαυλα του 1945 μου δώσε την δυνατότητα να συνεχίσω διάφορες μελέτες μου και να τελειώσω και δύο βιβλία μου. «Η οικονομική ανάπτυξη της Ελλάδος» και «Η ιστορία της Νεοελληνικής Λογοτεχνίας» που όμως είναι ακόμη και τα δύο ανέκδοτα, γιατί οι νέοι διωγμοί εμποδίσαν την έκδοσή τους.

Από τα τέλη του 1940 με καταδιώκουν πάλι. Η οικογένεια μου όλη εξοντώνεται. Και τώρα η ίδια τύχη περιμένη και μένα. Η περίπτωση μου δεν είναι μοναδική. Είναι και άπειρες άλλες. Αυτός ο μονόπλευρός εμφύλιος πόλεμος κατά των οπαδών της αριστεράς θα φέρει νέες μεγάλες συμφορές στην Ελλάδα, ενώ αν υπήρχε καλή θέληση από την πλευρά της δεξιάς, το πρόβλημα της σωτηρίας της άτυχης χωρας μας και του λαού μας θα ήταν αρκετά απλό, γιατί περικλείεται στις λέξεις: Δημοκρατία, Γενική αμνηστία, ειρήνευση και μέτρα για την βελτίωση του βιώτικου επιπέδου του λαού.  Αλλά ποιά κυβέρνηση θα εφαρμόσει ένα τέτοιο πρόγραμμα? That is the question, όπως λέει και ο μεγάλος άγγλός συγγραφέας.

Νίκος Μπελογιάννης

 12.3.1952

Υστερόγραφό: Οι γραμμές αυτές γράφονταί πρόχειρα και βιαστικά, από το κελί των μελλοθανάτων όπου βρίσκομαι απομονωμένος, περιμένωντας το θάνατο. Ίσως όταν τις διαβάζετε να μη ζω πιά. Θα ευχόμουνα το αίμα μας να συντελέσει στην ειρήνευση της πολύπαθης αυτής χώρας. Δυστυχώς όμως θα συμβεί το αντίθετο. Κι αυτό γιατί η δεξιά ποτέ δεν θέλησε την ειρήνευση κ την συμφιλιωση του λαού μας. Εν πάσει περιπτώσει ότι και να γίνει θα θυμάμαι μέχρι τις τελευταίες μου στιγμές με απέραντη ευγνωμοσυνη τις ευγενικές προσπάθειες των ανθρώπων που προσπάθησαν και προσπαθούν να μας σώσουν από τον δήμιο.

Ο ίδιος

σ.σ: Στο Ελληνικό γράμμα έχει τηρηθεί η πρωτότυπη ορθογραφία. Από το γράμμα λείπει ένα μικρό κομμάτι.

Statue dedicated to Nikos Beloyannis
Karlshorst, East Berlin, Germany

Αγωνιστήκαμε δίχως να γνωρίσουμε ύπνο,
 για να προφτάσουμε την αυγή και το αύριο
και να δημιουργήσουμε νέους χρόνους και εποχές
στο μπόι των ονείρων μας, στο μπόι των ανθρώπων. 

Lob der Dialektik

Today, injustice goes with a certain stride,

The oppressors move in for ten thousand years.

Force sounds certain: it will stay the way it is.

No voice resounds except the voice of the rulers

And on the markets, exploitation says it out loud: 

I am only just beginning.

But of the oppressed, many now say:

What we want will never happen

Whoever is still alive must never say ‘never’!

Certainty is never certain.

It will not stay the way it is.

When the rulers have already spoken

Then the ruled will start to speak.

Who dares say never?

Who s to blame if oppression remains? We are.

Who can break its thrall? We can.

Whoever has been beaten down must rise to his feet!

Whoever is lost must fight back!

Whoever has recognized their condition - how can anyone stop them?

Because the vanquished of today will be tomorrow’s victors

And never will become: already today!

Bertold Brecht, In Praise of  Dialectics, 1931

Το άδικο βαδίζει σήμερα με σταθερό βήμα.

Οι καταπιεστές προετοιμάζουν τα επόμενα δέκα χιλιάδες χρόνια.

Η βία διαβεβαιώνει: έτσι όπως είναι η κατάσταση, έτσι θα μείνει.

Καμιά φωνή δεν ακούγεται, πέρα από τη φωνή του εξουσιαστή.

Και στις αγορές φωνάζει η εκμετάλλευση: τώρα μόλις αρχίζω.

Αλλά πολλοί από τους καταπιεζόμενους λένε τώρα:

Αυτό που εμείς θέλουμε δεν θα γίνει ποτέ.

Εσύ που ακόμα ζεις, μην πεις: ποτέ!

Το σίγουρο δεν είναι σίγουρο.

Έτσι όπως είναι η κατάσταση δεν θα μείνει.

Αν μιλήσουν οι εξουσιαστές θα μιλήσουν οι εξουσιαζόμενοι.

Ποιος τολμά να πει: ποτέ;

Από ποιόν εξαρτάται αν η καταπίεση μένει; Από εμάς.

Από ποιόν εξαρτάται αν θα τσακιστεί; Επίσης από εμάς.

Εκείνος που έπεσε, στέκεται πάλι όρθιος.

Εκείνος που έχασε, παλεύει!

Εκείνος που συνειδητοποίησε τη θέση του, πως τον κρατάς τώρα;

Επειδή οι σημερινοί νικημένοι είναι οι αυριανοί νικητές

Και από το ποτέ θα γίνει: Σήμερα κιόλας!

Εγκώμιο στη Διαλεκτική, 1931

In honour of the poet, playwright, theatrical director, thinker.  

In honour of the Communist Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht. 

He was born in Ausburg, Bavaria, Germany on a day like this in 1898

The Funeral...

Victory!
Workers and Soldiers outside the winter Palace, the day after the battle.
Petrograd, 8.11.1917

...Mountains of dirt and rock were piled high near the base of the wall. Climbing these we looked down into two massive pits, ten or fifteen feet deep and fifty yards long, where hundreds of soldiers and workers were digging in the light of huge fires.

A young student spoke to us in German. “The Brotherhood Grave,” he explained. “Tomorrow we shall bury here five hundred proletarians who died for the Revolution.”

He took us down into the pit. In frantic haste swung the picks and shovels, and the earth-mountains grew. No one spoke. Overhead the night was thick with stars, and the ancient Imperial Kremlin wall towered up immeasurably.

“Here in this holy place,” said the student, “holiest of all Russia, we shall bury our most holy. Here where are the tombs of the Tsars, our Tsar -the People- shall sleep….” His arm was in a sling, from a bullet-wound gained in the fighting. He looked at it. “You foreigners look down on us Russians because so long we tolerated a medieval monarchy,” said he. “But we saw that the Tsar was not the only tyrant in the world; capitalism was worse, and in all the countries of the world capitalism was Emperor…. Russian revolutionary tactics are best….”

"Fighting by a Police Station" Drawing by Ν. Samokish
 From series "Events of the February Revolution" ,1917

 "July in Petrograd. Machine Gunners Call on the Workers of the Pulitov Plant
to Support Their Protest Against th Provisional Government"
P. Shillingovsky, 1935

...Already through the Iberian Gate a human river was flowing, and the vast Red Square was spotted with people, thousands of them. I remarked that as the throng passed the Iberian Chapel, where always before the passerby had crossed himself, they did not seem to notice it….

We forced our way through the dense mass packed near the Kremlin wall, and stood upon one of the dirt-mountains. Already several men were there, among them Muranov, the soldier who had been elected Commandant of Moscow, a tall, simple-looking, bearded man with a gentle face.

Through all the streets to the Red Square the torrents of people poured, thousands upon thousands of them, all with the look of the poor and the toiling. A military band came marching up, playing the Internationale, and spontaneously the song caught and spread like wind-ripples on a sea, slow and solemn. From the top of the Kremlin wall gigantic banners unrolled to the ground; red, with great letters in gold and in white, saying, “Martyrs of the Beginning of World Social Revolution,” and “Long Live the Brotherhood of Workers of the World.”

Revolutionary forces occupy the Kremlin, November 1917.
Painting of I. Mashkov. 

A bitter wind swept the Square, lifting the banners. Now from the far quarters of the city the workers of the different factories were arriving, with their dead. They could be seen coming through the Gate, the blare of their banners, and the dull red -like blood- of the coffins they carried. These were rude boxes, made of unplanned wood and daubed with crimson, borne high on the shoulders of rough men who marched with tears streaming down their faces, and followed by women who sobbed and screamed, or walked stiffly, with white, dead faces. Some of the coffins were open, the lid carried behind them; others were covered with gilded or silvered cloth, or had a soldier’s hat nailed on the top. There were many wreaths of hideous artificial flowers….

Through an irregular lane that opened and closed again the procession slowly moved toward us. Now through the Gate was flowing an endless stream of banners, all shades of red, with silver and gold lettering, knots of crepe hanging from the top and some Anarchist flags, black with white letters. The band was playing the Revolutionary Funeral March, and against the immense singing of the mass of people, standing uncovered, the paraders sang hoarsely, choked with sobs….

Between the factory-workers came companies of soldiers with their coffins, too, and squadrons of cavalry, riding at salute, and artillery batteries, the cannon wound with red and black forever, it seemed. Their banners said, “Long live the Third International!” or “We Want an Honest, General, Democratic Peace!”

The issue of the Izvestia of October 27, 1917 (9.11.1917)
carrying the text of the Decree on Peace

Slowly the marchers came with their coffins to the entrance of the grave, and the bearers clambered up with their burdens and went down into the pit. Many of them were women -squat, strong proletarian women. Behind the dead came other women- women young and broken, or old, wrinkled women making noises like hurt animals, who tried to follow their sons and husbands into the Brotherhood Grave, and shrieked when compassionate hands restrained them. The poor love each other so!

All the long day the funeral procession passed, coming in by the Iberian Gate and leaving the Square by way of the Nikolskaya, a river of red banners, bearing words of hope and brotherhood and stupendous prophecies, against a back-ground of fifty thousand people, under the eyes of the world’s workers and their descendants forever….

One by one the five hundred coffins were laid in the pits. Dusk fell, and still the banners came drooping and fluttering, the band played the Funeral March, and the huge assemblage chanted. In the leafless branches of the trees above the grave the wreaths were hung, like strange, multi-coloured blossoms. Two hundred men began to shovel in the dirt. It rained dully down upon the coffins with a thudding sound, audible beneath the singing….

The lights came out. The last banners passed, and the last moaning women, looking back with awful intensity as they went. Slowly from the great Square ebbed the proletarian tide….

I suddenly realized that the devout Russian people no longer needed priests to pray them into heaven. On earth they were building a kingdom more bright than any heaven had to offer, and for which it was a glory to die….

John Reed, 

Moscow 16.11.1917

K.Yuon, "A New Planet"

To the 98 years of the Great October...