20The winter of 1943 was even more bitter than the previous ones. In the countryside, Germans were terrorizing the villages and stripping them of food and tools. In the cities, carts were still picking up dead bodies on the streets every morning. Yiannis continued to reach out to his parents in Athens but every communication was remained unanswered.
Events in the wider war, however, were improving for the Allies, so the Congress of the Greek Communist party met in Athens and decided to try and monopolize the resistance so they would be in control of Greece when liberation occurred, which now seemed imminent. The Party had no intention of allowing its military wing to concentrate on the liberation of Greece to the detriment of its ultimate political aims. Thus, the Congress declared that a
