KKE commemorates late leader Zachariadis

Greece's Communist Party, or KKE, has commemorated its wartime leader Nikos Zachariadis, whom it expelled in 1957.

During a ceremony in Surgut, Russia's Siberia region where Zachariadis spent the last years of his life, a KKE delegation led by former general secretary Aleka Papariga unveiled a commemorative plaque at the the Department of Waters and Forests where he held a post as a clerk.

Zachariadis, who led the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) during the Greek civil war, clashed with the new Soviet leadership after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. KKE removed Zachariadis from the post of general secretary following orders from the USSR in 1956, one year before his ouster from the party and subsequent exile. He committed suicide, aged 70, in 1973.

In 2011 a National Conference of the Communist Party of Greece fully rehabilitated Nikos Zachariadis as General Secretary of KKE.

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