Nikos Ploumpidis

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Nikos Ploumpidis (also Ploumbidis) (

Nazi resistance.[1]

The son of a poor farming family, he was born in

Milea, near Elassona, he joined the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). At the time he was a teacher and in 1930 became a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Union of Civil Servants. However, in 1931 he had to leave the position after he was sacked from his teaching position due to his political activism. He began to work full-time for the KKE. In 1937 he was responsible for the party in the Thessaly
region, and in 1938, he was elected to the Politburo of the KKE.

In 1939 he was arrested by the secret police of the regime of General

Dachau Concentration Camp, tensions developed between him and Ploumpidis. Owing to poor health (he suffered from tuberculosis), in 1945 Ploumpidis resigned from the Politburo and took over the administration of the party's finances. Unlike many other KKE leaders, Ploumpidis remained in Greece after the Greek Civil War (1946–49) and was reportedly instrumental in establishing the United Democratic Left
(EDA) party, essentially a proxy party of the now illegal KKE.

In 1952, he was arrested by the secret police. After a three-week trial, he was found guilty on 3 August 1953 and sentenced to death. At the same time, the exiled KKE Central Committee under Zachariadis expelled Ploumpidis from the party on the grounds that he was, supposedly, a secret police spy and British agent. These allegations were repeatedly broadcast on the party's Moscow-based radio station, Free Greece. On 14 August 1954, Ploumpidis was executed by firing squad in Agia Marina, near Dafni. The Greek government released a photo of his execution in the Greek press. Rizospastis and I Avgi, the two leading left-wing newspapers, refused to publish the photos following KKE's allegations that the execution was faked and Ploumpidis was actually now free and spending the money he took for his treason.

In 1958, after the

Giorgos Siantos
, Nikos Ploumbidis (Barbas) and Kostas Gyftodimos (Karajorgis). There exists no documents to support the claim that the accused were provocateurs or spies, as the former leadership under N. Zachariadis claimed in relation to the above-mentioned comrades."

References

  1. ISBN 9780300180602
    . Retrieved 26 July 2018 – via Google Books.
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