On 30th of March the anti-fascist resistance fighter Manolis Glezos died in Athens at the high age of 97 years. He stands for hundreds of thousands of former resistance fighters, whose death is a loss, but whose deeds against the rule of fascism are still an example for us today.
Already in 1939 Manolis Glezos was involved in the foundation of an anti-fascist youth group, which fought against the Italian fascists. Later he worked for the Hellenic Red Cross and was an active resistance fighter. He became famous when he and Apostolos Sandas took down the swastika flag on the Acropolis in Athens on 30th of May in 1941. In this action they risk their lives, setting an important example and a signal that many other Greeks joined and too resisted. Between 1942 and 1944 he was arrested once by German fascists, once by Italian fascists and once by Greek collaborators. In September 1944 he managed to escape again.
With the end of the Second World War, his political persecution did not stop. After 1945 Glezos took over the management of the communist newspaper Rizospastis, for which he was accused three years later for "press crimes" and sentenced to death. Because of great international protest, the death sentence could not be carried out. While he was in prison, Glezos was elected to the Greek parliament. In July 1954 he was released from prison - only to be arrested again in 1958, this time on charges of espionage. He was released again in 1962 in response to public outrage and protest. The military dictatorship followed and Glezos was arrested again on 21st of April in 1967. He remained in detention and exile until 1971.
Manolis Glezos experienced almost a century of struggle and resistance, fascism and foreign rule, imperialist occupation and plunder. A plundering campaign which is still going on today and is even more intensified under the flags of the EU in the times of the "Corona crisis". The victims are, as in the centennial story of Manolis Glezos, the workers and the popular masses! They must resist and fight, must continue their rebellion and struggle against fascism and imperialism!
Death to fascism! Freedom for the people!