A KKE leader who bore both the Resistance's victory and its defeat at the negotiating table
Regarding Siantos as 'an agent of the British', Zachariadis in 1946 delayed his own departure abroad, 'in no case wanting to leave Siantos behind'.
A tobacco worker turned labor organizer, Georgios Siantos became a leading figure of the Greek Communist Party (KKE). When Nikolaos Zachariadis was transferred to Dachau, Siantos served as the party's acting general secretary and led the KKE, National Liberation Front (EAM), and Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) through the German occupation. He directed EAM forces during the December 1944 fighting, opposed disarmament, yet ultimately pursued negotiation. In February 1945 he led the EAM delegation that signed the Varkiza Agreement, whose disarmament terms became, amid the subsequent White Terror and renewed civil conflict, the political defeat of the EAM.
Also known as: Giorgos Siantos · Geros · Theios · The Old Man · Uncle
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1920President of the Karditsa tobacco workers' union
- 1922Secretary General of the Greek Confederation of Tobacco Workers; joined SEKE
- 1927Member of the KKE Central Committee and Politburo
- 1936Member of Parliament for Trikala with the Popular Front
- 1941Acting General Secretary of the KKE; led the party during the occupation
- 1944Secretary for Interior and Food in PEEA; directed EAM forces in the December fighting
- 1945Head of the KKE-EAM delegation negotiating and signing the Varkiza Agreement
Related historical events
Responsibility for Defeat and the Posthumous Reckoning
The signing of the Varkiza Agreement cannot be reduced to a personal failing of Siantos. The Greek original relates that he and the KKE leadership failed to manage the burden of the December 1944 armed conflict, or deliberately kept it under conditions of armed resistance without allowing the generalisation of the fighting that the ELAS general staff wanted. At the same time he was conciliatory toward the Treaty of Varkiza and was one of the three members of the EAM delegation who signed it. When the White Terror erupted violently after the agreement, responsibility for the failed political handling on the EAM-KKE side was charged to Siantos.
As Zachariadis returned from Dachau in May 1945, the now-ailing Siantos gradually fell into disfavour. He typically remained a member of the politburo, but had no leverage on the party, and the defeat of 1944 had cast a slur on his reputation within it. He died of a heart attack in Athens on 20 May 1947. The Greek original places the death at the clinic of Petros Kokkalis; the English original, at Kokkalis's private residence.
His funeral nonetheless became the occasion for a last mass demonstration of the EAM-aligned population, which declared its opposition to the new regime of persecutions. In 1957, after Zachariadis was ousted, a special department of the KKE Central Committee rehabilitated his memory.