Aris Velouchiotis
Aris Velouchiotis (
Άρης 'ελουχιώτης), (
August 27 1905-
June 16 1945, real name Thanassis Klaras/Θανάσης Κλάρας) was a prominent leader of the communist segment of Greek
guerrilla resistance during
World War II which was followed by the
Greek Civil War.
Klaras was born in
Lamia (
Greece) in
1905. As a youth he participated in the leftist movement of his era and finally became a member of the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE). During the
Ioannis Metaxas dictatorship (
1936-
1941) he was arrested and jailed in the Aegina prison. During his trial he escaped and joined the illegal mechanism of the Communist Party. He was arrested again in 1939, he was sent to the
Corfu prison and stayed there until he signed a "statement of renouncement" of the Communist Party.
During the
World War II he served as an artillery corporal of the Greek army in the Albanian front (
1940-
1941) against
Mussolini's army until the
Nazi invasion and Greece's surrender (April 1941).
After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Klaras was sent to Central
Greece (
Roumeli) by the Communist Party in order to assess the capacity of the development of a guerrilla movement against the Nazis. His proposals were adopted by the party and consequently in January
1942 Klaras moved to the mountains in order to start setting up the guerrilla groups.
The first appearance of the
partisans organized by Klaras was on the 7th of June 1942 in the village of Domnista (
Evritania) in Central Greece. This was also the first time that he appeared under the alias
Aris Velouchiotis. From this time on, he rose to prominence in the ELAS ("Greek Popular Liberation Army") forces, which he headed along with Stephanos Sarafis.
One of the most important operations of the Greek resistance movement, in which Velouchiotis and his fighters participated, in cooperation with Napoleon Zervas's republican EDES resistance forces and British saboteurs, was the blasting of the Gorgopotamus bridge in Lamia (November 1942). Their success disrupted the replenishment of Rommel's German forces in Africa for several days, as the latter took place by means of the Thessaloniki-Athens railroad.
This was to be, however, the last operation to pit the communist-dominated ELAS organization on the same front with Greek Republican resistance forces, who favoured a return to constitutional parliamentary monarchy, as opposed to the communists' aspiration of imposing a communist regime in Greece.
In October
1944 the
Nazis evacuated Greece and legitimate government was reinstated under Georgios Papandreou, the leader of a "National Unity" government-in-exile during the period of German occupation in Greece. When the
Varkiza agreement was signed to end clashes between EAM-ELAS communist insurgents and governmental forces, Velouchiotis vehemently refused to comply and collided with the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE) leadership, which accused him of Trotskyism and treachery, referencing his 1939 statement of renouncement and removing him from the party's member list.
Velouchiotis moved again towards the mountains of Central Greece, in order to start an insurgency against the legitimate Greek Government and the British allies who supported them. Though most of his associates abandoned him, he continued to conduct guerilla war until, in June 1945, he fell into an ambush by paramilitary supporters of the Government and died, along with his deputy-commander Javellas, during battle. Whether he was killed during battle (as some claim), or committed suicide after being incapacitated in battle (as others support) is still a matter of some debate.
[For a complete presentation of the circumstances of Velouchiotis death see: Χαριτόπουλος, "ιονύσης (Charitopoulos, Dionysis) (2003). Άρης, ο Αρχηγός των Ατάκτων (Aris, the Leader of the Rebels). Athens: Ελληνικά "ράμματα (Ellinika Grammata),565-71. It should be noted that Charitopoulos takes for granted that Velouchiotis committed a "heroic"suicide, although he had the opportunity to escape. ]Aris Velouchiotis remains one of the most controversial figures of modern Greek history. He is considered by some to be one of the symbols of Greek resistance against Germans. Leftists lionized Aris as a hero of the communist cause and have made him the subject of a personality cult comparable only to those of
Ernesto Che Guevara,
Stalin and
Mao Ze Dong.
On the other hand, however, part of the Greek public see Aris as the perpetrator of brutal mass
atrocities against defenseless rural populations perceived as negative to their "socialist cause", attacks against non-communist Greek resistance forces, and insurgency against the installed government after Greece had been liberated from the Nazis.
* Extensive biography in Greek.
