At the beginning, the Western Allies were helping all resistance
organizations with funds and equipment since they themselves needed
any help they could find in the Second World War. However, the
British Foreign Office, foreseeing a communist upsurge, didn’t
like ELAS being transformed into a large-scale conventional army
and not a bunch of autonomous small local troops without any head
guidance and administration as it would be surely preferable.
From
October 1943 and following, Western Allies tried to promote the
anti-communist resistance organizations and minimize ELAS’
increasing influence by stopping ELAS supply with weapon and funds.
However, ELAS took control of the weapons of the Italian garrisons
in Greece when Italy joined the Western Allies in the summer of
1943. In 1944 ELAS was able to equip its units with weapons looted
from the enemy while EDES enjoyed Western Allied support.
There
also were right-wing, paramilitary organizations such as X ("Khi")
in Athens, PAO in Macedonia and others, accused by EAM-ELAS of
having been armed by the Germans. All resistance organizations
in Greece accused each other of secret agreements, and possible
collaboration which made the situation and the alliances very
unstable.
EAM
was the strongest of all resistance organizations and it attacked
all non-communist resistance fighters as well as the paramilitary
forces of the collaborationist government. In order to establish
a monopoly over the resistance, EAM accused EDES of collaboration
with the Germans since it was obvious that the Allies would soon
invade southern Europe through Greece and ELAS wanted to be in
a dominant position the day the Germans would leave Greece.
This
situation led to triangular battles among ELAS, EDES and the Germans.
Given the support of the British and the Greek Cairo Government
for EDES, these conflicts precipitated a civil war. In October
1943 ELAS attacked its rivals, particularly EDES, precipitating
a civil war across many parts of Greece which continued until
February 1944 when British agents in Greece negotiated a ceasefire
(the Plaka agreement).
The
struggle was bitter and there was no room for delicate differentiations.
All sides burned villages, executed civilians and suspected collaborators.
According to the KKE, "the collaborationist groups such as
X used terrorism as a deliberate strategy, while with ELAS fighters
it was the result of over-zealous local commanders rather than
official policy". ELAS was also responsible for numerous
atrocities, the worst being the Meligala massacre where 1.500
people were killed when ELAS attacked the village.
The
execution of the EKKA leader Dimitrios Psaros was another
ELAS crime. According to the KKE some of their officers later
were proven to be collaborators with the Germans. According
to the officers themselves they were forced to act, after
the ELAS attacks against all other resistance organizations.
In several cases former officers of the Greek army were forced
at gun-point to join ELAS although they preferred to join
the anti-communist partisan groups or the forces of the government
in the Middle East.