Honoring Aris Velouchiotis, 80 years since his death

By Nikos Mottas

The 16th of June 2025 marks the 80th anniversary since the death of the iconic Greek communist guerrilla Aris Velouchiotis. 

A member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and First Captain of the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS) during World War Two, Velouchiotis has been a legendary personality of the Greek Resistance against the Axis occupation. 

Aris Velouchiotis, whose real name was Athanasios Klaras, was born in Lamia to a wealthy family on August 27, 1905. He studied at Larisa’s Averoff Agricultural School and worked briefly as an agronomist. Moving to Athens, he became a member of the Communist Youth (OKNE) in 1922 and a member of the KKE in 1925. Due to his radical, communist views he was sent to Kalpaki Disciplinary Platoon, an army camp where communist soldiers were imprisoned and tortured.

In 1927 he moved again to Athens where he undertook various organizational tasks within the KKE, including the position of editor in “Rizospastis” newspaper. During the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas, he was sent into exile in Gavdos and in 1939 he was transfered to Corfu prison. Tricked by dictatorship’s authorities and Michalis Tyrimos, a KKE cadre turned government’s informer, Velouchiotis was forced to sign a “statement of repentance” (in fact denouncing communism) in order to be released.

During the Italian-Greek War (28 October 1940 – 23 April 1941), Aris participated in the Albanian Front fighting against Mussolini’s invaders. In November 1941, following the foundation of EAM (National Liberation Movement), he was sent by the Party to Lamia where he began his activity as a guerrilla fighter.

From the very beginning of the war, Velouchiotis showed his exceptional abilities, both in organizational issues as well as in the battle. Alongside Major General Stefanos Sarafis, a former Greek Army officer, he played a crucial role in the creation of the first ELAS resistance groups. Furthermore, he had significant contribution to the establishment of military and moral rules within the guerrilla movement, thus strengthening the relations between the People’s Liberation Army and the poor masses.

As ELAS’ Captain, Velouchiotis participated in numerous fights against Nazi-fascist conquerors and their local collaborators (e.g. Security Battalions). A major success was the demolition of the heavily guarded Gorgopotamos viaduct in Central Greece on 25 November 1942.

A few days after the liberation of Athens, on 23 October 1944, Aris gave a public speech in his hometown, Lamia. In this speech, which was the last public address by Aris, the communist guerrilla makes some very interesting statements, also responding to the then fierce anti-communist propaganda of Greek bourgeois powers.

Giving a speech in Lamia, October 1944

Among other things, Aris was pointing out:

“We are being attacked now by a new argument. We are being condemned as being all communists and they are stating that EAM and ELAS are Communist Front organizations. But does this accusation constitute shame or award? At the moment, the Communist Party isn’t fighting for communism. Of course, in its programme the KKE has communism as its ultimate aim. But not for now.  Communism will be imposed by you the people and not by the KKE. And I am sure that many educated ones who don’t want it today, will vote for its domination in the future. But today the KKE does not aim anything but a democratic solution to the Greek problem.”

He also referred to the slanders by bourgeois forces which were questioning the patriotism of EAM and KKE. On this issue, Velouchiotis said:

“They accusing us that we want to abolish borders and dissolve the state. But we are building the state today, because it didn’t exist because they had dissolved it. Who therefore is a patriot? They or us? Capital has no homeland and runs to find profits wherever they exist. That is why it doesn’t care about the existence of borders and the state. But all we own are our hats and small terraces. Unlike capital that goes wherever profits exists, these cannot be moved and remain in our country. Who therefore can be interested more for his country? Those who export their capitals out of the country, or us who remain here with our terraces?”

Aris opposed the 1945 Treaty of Varkiza which led to the disarmament of ELAS and returned to the mountains to continue the guerrilla war, thus disobeying the then Party decision. In June 1945, his small guerrilla group was surrounded by forces of the bourgeois army in the village of Mesounda, near Arta. Facing the possibility of arrest and execution by his enemies, Aris decided to end his own life.

The remains of Velouchiotis and his comrades became subject to horrible desecration by right-wingers. Their heads were cut off and hanged in the central square of the city of Trikala. His corpse was never found.

Despite the fact that the then Party leadership had renounced Velouchiotis for his decision to disobey the Varkiza Treaty, in the following decades the KKE gradually rehabilitated him. The political rehabilitation of Aris was the subject of a discussion for the 2nd Volume of the Party History Essay during the Nationwide Conference of the KKE in 2011.

On 9 October 2011, the CC of the KKE organized an event in Lamia presenting the decision of the Nationwide Conference on the official political rehabilitation of ELAS’ First Captain Aris Velouchiotis. Addressing the event, Telemachos Dimoulas, member of the Political Bureau of the CC of the KKE, made extensive reference to the Essay on the history of the KKE and the special decision concerning Aris: “In the consciousness of the people, Aris Velouchiotis is identified with the heroic history of the KKE, the struggle for the overthrow of imperialist barbarity”.

The 2011 Nationwide Conference of the KKE decided that Velouchiotis was correct in his evaluation of the Varkiza Treaty. Nonetheless, the Conference added that it was a mistake from his side to violate the Party discipline by disobeying the collective decision.

On June 2018, after extensive historical research and dialogue, the KKE proceeded to the full rehabilitation – both politically as well as a Party member – of Velouchiotis. At the same time, the KKE denounced the attempt of bourgeois and opportunist forces to distort the historical events and manipulate the political legacy of Aris against the Party.

The truth is that Velouchiotis’ life and activity are inextricably connected with the Communist Party of Greece. Despite his disobedience towards the – erroneous- Party’s decision in 1945, he remained faithful to the KKE until the end of his life, never renouncing the Party to which he belonged.

His words, in a letter published in “Rizospastis” in 1931, are characteristic of how much he valued his Party membership:

“If there is a moment in my life which I see with pride is when I entered the Communist Party. I became class-conscious, I learned my interest, throwing away the capitalist culture and threw myself in the struggle for the working masses, with faith, desire and heroism. Since then, I have nothing in my record but imprisonments and revolutionary struggle. Facts and reality speak themselves. Not a single stain. Is that against me? Is that against the Communist Party? It is an honor for me and a bigger honor for the KKE that I survived from the corruption of my consciousness and I adorned Klaras (himself), who was a lost case, only with pure revolutionary characteristics. The Communist Party purifies and creates fighters dedicated to the big case of the proletariat. It is the only Party that leads the exploited ones to the historical way: The final liberation of the proletariat. In this Party I gave my whole life and I will continue giving with all my powers, to its struggle, for the bread of the working people, for the revolution”.  

Aris Velouchiotis was a Communist, a Marxist-Leninist with a highly developed class consciousness. He had a solid, unwavering dedication to the rights of the people and their ability to struggle and free themselves from the shackles of every exploitation. The example of Aris, as well as the Great Antifascist Victory of the Peoples which also marks its 80th anniversary this year, bear the same message: The peoples of the world, the working class, shall never submit to the negative correlation of forces; capitalist barbarism and imperialism aren't invincible!

* Nikos Mottas is the Editor-in-Chief of In Defense of Communism.