Andreas Tsipas

Andreas Tsipas (1904–1956) (Андреја Чипов, Andreja Chipov in his native Macedonian) was a communist rebel that fought in the Greek Civil War.

He was from Agios Panteleimon near Florina, Greece.

In 1933, he became a leader of the IMRO (United) in Greek Macedonia and member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE).

He was a KKE candidate in the last pre-war Greek general election (31 January 1936)

Between 1936 and 1941, he was imprisoned in the Akronafplia prison. On 30 June 1941, Tzipas was one of 27 communist prisoners released from Akronafplia at the request of the Bulgarian embassy in Athens, which had made representations to the German occupation authorities. All members of the group belonged to the Greek Slavo-Macedonian minority, which the Bulgarians viewed as ethnic Bulgarian.

After his release, Tsipas and others set about reorganising the decimated KKE. Along with A. Tzimas and K. Lazaridis, who were also released from prison, and Rousos, Karankitzis and Chatzivasileiou constituted themselves as a new central committee, with Tsipas as secretary, at a meeting in July 1941, subsequently named as the VI Plenum by the KKE. This new central committee succeeded in winning the recognition of the "old central committee" and the "provisional leadership" wings of the party.

At the VII Plenum of the central committee, held the following September, Tsipas was relieved of his post owing to "political unreliability". On the one hand, Tsipas was careless in security terms. On account claims that after running up a bill in a bar, he sent the barman to the secret meeting place of the politbureau, where someone was expected to pay his bill. In addition, he was never able to justify an eight month trip to Sofia to the satisfaction of the party.

He was active in the National Liberation Front during the Greek Civil War.

In official KKE accounts of the party history, Tsipas and his fate have been ignored.

Sources

* Matthias Esche, Die Kommunistische Partei Griechenlands 1941-1949, Munich: Oldenbourg, 1982. ISBN 3486509616
* Hagen Fleischer, Im Kreuzschatten der Mächte Griechenland 1941-1944 (Okkupation-Resistance-Kollaboration), Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1986, p. 591. ISBN 3820485813