Refugees of the Greek Civil War

During and after the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949, members or sympathisers of the defeated communist forces fled Greece as political refugees. The collapse of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and the evacuation of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to Tashkent in 1949 led thousands of people to leave the country. It has been estimated that by 1949 over 100,000 people had left Greece for Yugoslavia and the Eastern Block, particularly the USSR and Czechoslovakia. These included tens of thousands of child refugees who had been evacuated by the KKE in an organised campaign. The war wrought widespread devastation right across Greece and particularly in the regions of Greek Macedonia and Epirus, causing many people to continue to leave the country even after it had ended.

After the invading Axis powers were defeated fighting broke out between the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and the Greek Government which had returned from Exile. Many people chose to return their allegiances as to what they regarded as the rightful government of Greece. Soon the Greek Civil War had broken out between the two opposing sides. Many peasants, leftists, socialists, Pontic Greeks, Caucasus Greeks, ethnic minorities from Northern Greece like Macedonians, and ideological communists joined the struggle on the side of the KKE and the DSE. Backing from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Socialist People's Republic of Albania helped the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) to continue their struggle. The DSE recruited heavily amongst the community of Macedonia. It has been estimated that by 1949, from 40 to 60 per cent of the rank and file of the DSE was composed of Macedonians, or from 11,000–14,000 of the KKE's fighting force. Given their important role in the battle, KKE changed its policy towards them. At the fifth Plenum of KKE on January 31, 1949, a resolution was passed declaring that after KKE's victory, the Macedonians would find their "national restoration" within a united Greek state. Although they had made a critical contribution to the KKE war effort, their contribution was not enough to turn the tide.

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