The First Career of the Communist Party of Cyprus - Daphnos Economou (2019)

Conference paper presented by Daphnos Economou at the 1st Historical Materialism Athens Conference at Panteion University, in May 2019.

 

The First Career of the Communist Party of Cyprus

Daphnos Economou

Historical Materialism Conference (Athens, May 2019)

 

Introduction

Few materials on the history of the Communist Party of Cyprus were accessible till the mid-1990s.

The Hoover Institution had published a Cold War diatribe in 1971 as part of its “Comparative Communist Party Politics” series. Its author, T.W. Adams, had earlier penned a monograph titled “U.S. Army Area Handbook for Cyprus”, issued by the Government Printing Office in Washington.

The other available source was a celebratory volume published by AKEL – the successor of the KKK – for the 50th anniversary of its founding, in 1976. Here anecdotal story telling substituted for historical and political fact. Through it, the “pioneering communists” were first praised for their selflessness, then excused for “inexperience” and “excessive zeal”, to be ultimately bypassed.

By the mid-1970s, AKEL was a firmly established workers’ party, regularly obtaining 30-35% of the popular vote. However, unlike its influential counterparts in the West, which moved in the direction of “soul-searching” en route to their historic compromise, the ramifications of the Cold War in the north-eastern Mediterranean dictated that AKEL maintained an unflinching pro-Moscow outlook. This goes some way in explaining AKEL’s protracted historiographic inertia.

From the little that trickled down, we knew that the KKK stood for the “complete independence of Cyprus from British imperialism and for the establishment of a workers and peasants government, as part of the nearest democratic soviet federation”. More specifically, “for a free and independent Cyprus incorporated to the Soviet Socialist Federation of the Balkans”.

These statements, detached from their historical context, sounded very much like a mouthful. We did not fully appreciate at the time that prior to WWII, the question of Cyprus was part of the Eastern Question, with its epicentre not in the Middle East, but in Europe itself – in the Balkans.

*   *   *

Here I will address three episodes in the first career of the KKK:

First, I will try to sketch the social, economic and political conditions prevailing in Cyprus at the time of the emergence of KKK. Second, I will very briefly introduce one of the major influences in the development of the organisation, specifically that emanating from the communist movement in Egypt; and third, I will try to establish the role of the KKK in the island-wide revolt of October 1931.

*   *   *

Facets of Uneven and Combined Development

Capitalism in Cyprus arrived late and abruptly, on the eve of the 20th century.

In the transference of the island from Ottoman to British rule, changes were introduced to the islands legal framework. While the Ottoman system penalised indebted landholders, it explicitly disallowed the confiscation of land in compensation. Under the British, the legal instrument for the mass expropriation of small landholders was provided. With the outbreak of WWI and the sharp fall in foreign demand for agricultural goods, the merchant moneylenders decimated the peasant population. In the space of a mere decade, the dispossessed peasantry would join the ranks of the working class, now to account for the considerable 10%of the population.

Waged labour was absorbed in tobacco factories, in silk manufacturing, in wineries, in the building industry, in public works, as dockworkers and – in the case of child labour – as apprentices in craft industries. The two largest employers were, by far, the asbestos mine in Amiantos and the copper mine in Skouriotissa, which between them employed some 8,000 workers.

This rapid process of uneven and combined development meant that within a matter of years the labour movement in Cyprus achieved a position that took decades – even centuries – to arrive at in the capitalist heartlands. What is more, the formation of the Cypriot working class as a class “in itself” coincided with the moment of its drive as a class “for itself”. The reverberations of the Russian revolution, revolutionary turmoil in Europe and in the Balkans, and revolutions in the colonial and semi-colonial world – especially in Egypt – meant that the political expression of the aspirations of Cypriot working class sidesteped the long-standing traditions of European Social Democracy, which had hit the rocks on August 4, 1914. In Cyprus Bolshevism would dominate ideologically from the outset. The organisation of the class in labour unions went hand in hand with the establishment of communist cells. To be precise, the communists were the driving force in setting up the first trade unions on the island.

At the centre of this bustling activity was the port city of Limassol, where the first Labour Club (Εργατικό Κέντρο) was set up in 1922. Here also the KKK established its first offices and, soon after, its own print shop – managed by Costas Skeleas. Pyrsos (the Torch) was first published in late 1922 as the party’s regular paper. From January 1925, Neos Anthropos (the New Man) was launched under the editorship of Nicos Yiavopoulos, on his return from Greece, where he was active in SEKE-KKE. In this publishing effort, a team of people, who effectively formed the leadership of the party, supported Yiavopoulos. A few more names are here in order:  Charalambos Solomonides, the person legally responsible for the paper, and, as a consequence, for years in and out of prison; Demetros Chrysostomides, the first secretary of the party; Charalambos Skapaneas, industrial organiser; Yiannis Lefkis, Christos Savvides and Leonidas Striggos; as well as Ploutis Servas and Fofo Yiavopoulou-Vassiliou, then high-school students; Charalambos Vatiliotis was a regular correspondent from Egypt (for whom more will be said further down); and Christodoulos Christodoulides and Emilios Hourmouzios.

The latter two – Christodoulides and Hourmouzios – published further a monthly literary review – Avgi (Dawn) – that drew around it the young ,demoticist intelligentsia (δημοτικιστές) of the mid-1920s. People likes Leonidas Pavlides, who had made the acquaintance of Lenin in his Zurich years; Glafcos Alithersis, based in Alexandria, Egypt; Antonis Indianos, Takis Fragoudes, Pavlos Krineos; and Nicos Nicolaides, who was moving to and fro Alexandria and Limassol. Along with their own literary efforts, Avgi published extensive tracts from of works by Henri Barbusse – then leading the Clarté movement – Anatole France and many others, including most notably Victor Serge.

Such was the impact of the KKK, that within five years of the publication of its fortnightly newspaper, it fielded candidates for the Legislative Assembly, to obtain some 12 to 15% of the vote. This figure, big in itself, becomes all the more astonishing when one takes into account that eligible to vote at the time were only men, with property in their name, and, what is more, who had all their tax obligations settled.

Favourable to the efforts of the early communists was one further fact: both wings of the Greek Cypriot political establishment had invested heavily in the joint effort of Greece and Britain to expel Turkey from its European territories; from the Dardanelles to Turkey’s entire costal area on the Aegean, Istanbul included. The ultimate defeat of the Greek expeditionary forces in 1922 by the national revolutionary army of Mustafa Kemal, put paid to Greek expansionist visions for a “Greece on two continents and five seas”.

This bloody affair – which resulted in the mass exchange of populations, involving some 2 million people – signified a major reversal in the enosis aspirations of the Greek Cypriot elite; which anticipated an early and smooth handover of the island from one ally to another, from Britain to Greece.

The Asia Minor disaster informed and gave further impetus to the internationalist proposition advanced by the KKK for an independent – that is to say, a multinational – Cyprus as part of a socialist federation of the Balkans. Given the revolutionary potential of the epoch, this was not mere propaganda, immaculately conceived at some office of the Comintern.

I hasten to add that it was the same revolutionary rationale that gave rise to the proposition for an independent, multinational state of Macedonia and Thrace. After all, the case of Crete – with a Turkish population of 36% at the turn of the century, reduced to 0% by 1930 – constituted a stark warning. Either it would be a socialist multinational federation of the Balkans, or the waves of reaction and ethnic cleansing witnessed in the decades that have since elapsed.

Let me just mention that between 1928 and 1934, the exhausted and crisis-ridden ruling classes of the Balkans would themselves attempt to establish a Balkan Federation of sorts.  This was the time when Eleftherios Venizelos and Kemal Attaturk were nominated for a joint Nobel peace prize, if that rings a bell…

 

Bolsheviks on the Nile

In 1919, three individuals made separately their way to Egypt. Maria Kriezi, on her return from revolutionary Russia to Istanbul, discovered her home city dominated by an ominous atmosphere, and a number of foreign armies. She found work with a Russian company and took off for Alexandria. Iordanis Iordanides, also from Istanbul, moved first to Greece and then Cyprus where he found employment as a high school teacher. He was soon sacked for his espousal of the Greek demotic language and his “Maximalist” views. He would then find work at Victoria College, Alexandria, where he moved. Charalambos Vatiliotis, a graduate of the Agricultural School in Nicosia was already a radicalised young man. He also departed for Alexandria in mid-1919.

All three arrived in a country that was in revolutionary ferment. The three – Kriezi, Iordanides and Vatiliotis – would start working along others to set up the Groupe La Clarte, the Groupe d’Edudes Sociales, the trade union Confederation General du Travail and the Egyptian Communist Party. Vatis worked as a full-timer for the ECP.

After a botched attempt to occupy the factories in Alexandria, many ECP members were arrested and jailed: Kriezi and Iordanedes fled to Athens where they joined the KKE. Vatis left for Moscow to seek help for the ECP and to attend for a year the International Lenin School. Soon after he would move to Greece to join KKE.  He would be part of the trials and tribulations of the Stalinist takeover of KKE between 1927 and 1929, especially in relation to the issue of Macedonia. He departed again for Moscow where he stayed for a little more than a year.

Kriezi is none other than Maria Iodrdanidou, the celebrated author of Loxandra, etc., etc.

 

October 1931

Between October and December 1930 Vatis and the poet Tefkros Anthias returned to Cyprus to plunge themselves in the activity of the KKK. The first arrived from the Soviet Union “for personal reasons” (a reason open to political interpretation); and the second from Athens, in order to escape the anti-communist witch-hunt launched by the government of Eleftherios Venizelos.

Within months of their arrival, Vatis was charged by the colonial government for “incitement to mutiny”, while Anthias was excommunicated by the Holy Synod for his work “The Second Coming”. A few month earlier, in August 1930, the introduction of new press laws forced Neos Anthropos to suspend publication.

Yet, 1931 – the year of Britain’s departure from the Gold Standard, of the Invergordon mutiny and the hunger marches – was a good year for the KKK. Between January and October 1931 fifteen mass meetings were held throughout Cyprus with an average attendance of 500, (some reaching the 800 figure). The topics of these meetings ranged from unemployment, Lenin’s Russia, the latest “tax reform”, and the role of the Greek Orthodox Church. Furthermore, until the outbreak of the October revolt, Anthias was on tour throughout the island – from one village to the next – lecturing with the support of an amateur theatre company.

A few words on the events that led up to the outbreak of the October rising are in order:

In April 1931, the nationalist members of the Legislative Council voted in support of the introduction of new taxation at the detriment of the mass of the poorer layers. When, however, the Governor – Sir Ronald Storrs – promulgated further a taxation on imports from third countries – that is, non-commonwealth countries – to satisfy the all too familiar economic policy fixation for a “balanced budget” – the nationalist leadership, composed largely of merchants, Church prelates and Greek Legislative Council members, attempted to dissent. The National Organisation, was summoned in mid-October to address the issue.

It failed utterly to arrive at any concrete proposal in response. They discussed for hours the possibility of launching an island-wide campaigning to refuse tax payment, only to discover that they themselves had already settled their dues with the tax office. As the virulently anti-communist Greek consul on the island – Alexis Kyrou – reported,

“Constitutionalists and Intransigents accuse and curse each other publicly in the press, with the first being charged by the Intransigents for treachery and of being on London’s payroll  – the National Organisation is completely neutralised.”

There was, of course, one further actor to take account of. Pressure from below was mounting.

In an attempt to outwit his “radical nationalist” opponents and save face with his electors, the moderate bishop of Kition, Nicodemos Mylonas, resigned his post on the Legislative Council. Before an audience of 2,000, he urged the island’s population – a mere 350,000 – to strike at the Empire by boycotting British products. Supposedly, in a rhetorical burst he also proclaimed the union of Cyprus with Greece. The Intransigents became terribly upset by Mylonas’ attempt to beat them at their own game. Makarios Myriantheas, Andreas Hadjipavlou and Savvas Loizides called a counter-meeting for the following day to denounce Mylonas for duplicity. Venue, the Business Club of Nicosia.

The uprising of October 1931 begins here. When the bigwig organisers of the meeting announced at its closing that they were to proceed – alone – to petition the Governor, the crowed began mocking them that their true intention was to “have their tea on Government hill”. Chanting “down with the tax endorsers” (κάτω οι φορομπήχτες), the call was raised from the crowd for ALL to march to Government House. As the procession crossed the city, it grew rabidly in numbers, reaching 5,000 on arrival at Government house. Amongst them, members and supporters of the KKK. The members of the Legislative Council attempted to flee the scene but were browbeaten to stay put by the crowed.

One can hardly accuse the KKK for not having joined the initial meeting, called by the ravingly anti-communist “radical” nationalists at the Business Club of Nicosia. However, they were in place when and where it mattered, partaking in the actual blazing of Government House.

In the following days, the revolt spread like wildfire throughout the island. The nationalist leaders abandoned ship one after the other, imploring the populace for a return to order. The KKK met with the Archbishop and proposed a joint united anti-imperialist front, living the issue of Enosis or Independence to be decided by the course of events. Contact had earlier also been established with the Kemalist leaders of the Turkish Cypriot community to join in the revolt. The Archbishop politely declined joint action, to denounce the following day the unfolding revolt in the company of Sir Ronald Storrs. The KKK would now appeal to peasants and workers from a position of vantage to continue on the road of revolution.

The KKK effectively assumed leadership of the uprising – or, to be more precise, it was the only force on the ground attempting to lead and channel the energy released by the uprising. Police Stations were raided throughout the island, and their weapons removed. In the following days, mass militant assemblies were called twice by the Labour Centre of Limassol and once in Nicosia. In Famagusta, the authorities were forced to officially surrender the city. The construction workers union marched from Kaimakli to the centre of Nicosia. In the villages, key organisers were the members of the local Co-operatives (mostly sympathetic towards the KKK) along with the informal network of subscribers to Neos Anthropos.

To cut long story short, British troops flew in from Egypt, which succeeded in suppressing the uprising three weeks later, by mid-November. Three thousand people were thrown into jail – over 1.5% of the total adult population – including some 200 members of the KKK. Sentences ranging from a couple of months to 10 years were inflicted on the “ringleaders”. It is inside jail that the KKK turned to mass recruitment, with its members soon after forming clubs throughout the island, and an influence that has been sustained to date.

The reason of this descriptive – if brief – account is the following:

Since 1948 and the defeat of the Left in the Greek civil war, in Cyprus a myth has been promulgated to the status of dominant narrative: The KKK is portrayed as having failed to take part in the 1931uprising, because of its absence from the “Business Club” on 21 October and because of its opposition to enosis. This is complete nonsense.

However, for this insult to gain credence, injury had to be inflicted from sources closer at home.

The embracing of the stages theory and of the popular front politics of the Stalinised Comintern in the mid-1930s meant that the KKK-AKEL itself would depart from its previous outlook on the Cyprus Question, adopting enosis as the necessary corollary in its pursuance of an alliance with the “national bourgeoisie”. It would tail-end the politics of the “patriotic Right”, which in all essentials, coincided with those of the unforgiving and revanchist Right: of Makarios and his confirmed anti-communist henchman, George Grivas.

In November 1932, Vatis and Skeleas were exiled by the British authorities to London. From there they made their way to Moscow, where they were tried by the Balkan Bureau of the by then completely Stalinised – Communist International. Heading the inquiry was Bela Kun, the one-time comrade of György Lukács, and leader of the failed  Hungarian revolution of 1919. They two were found guilty for having attempted to implement the Bolshevik tactic of the united front. In “the third and final period of Capitalism” only the immediate raising of the slogan of “socialist revolution” would do. Vatis was sent to the famished areas of the Soviet Union where he died from typhus in December 1933. Skeleas was executed while WWII was raging in 1942. Christodoulos Cristodoulides – the editor of Rizospastis in the early 1930s and the brother of Costas Skeleas – was also called to Moscow. He was executed in the 1940s. So was Iordanis Iordanides. Bela Kun, the inquisitor, would himself be executed in 1938 for “leading a counter-revolutionary terrorist organisation”. And here we are, nearly a century later, unearthing still our revolutionary traditions.