The National Liberation Front or the People's Liberation Front (, Narodnoosloboditelen front [NOF]), also known by its acronym NOF, was a left-wing political and military organization created by the Slavic Macedonian minority in Greece in 1945. In 1946, during the Greek Civil War, NOF was merged into the Democratic Army of Greece, which was founded by the Communist Party of Greece.

Background

Late Ottoman era

The Macedonian Question surfaced in 1878, after the Treaty of Berlin had revised the short-lived Greater Bulgaria established by the Treaty of San Stefano and turned back Macedonia under Ottoman control. During rise of nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, the Slavic speakers in Ottoman Macedonia were under the influence of the Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian religious, educational and military propaganda. Even the Macedonian nationalist movement hardly started its activity in the late 19th century. However at that time and beyond, the majority of the Macedonian Slavs who had clear ethnic consciousness, believed they were Bulgarians."Until the late 19th century both outside observers and those Bulgaro-Macedonians who had an ethnic consciousness believed that their group, which is now two separate nationalities, comprised a single people, the Bulgarians. Thus the reader should ignore references to ethnic Macedonians in the Middle ages which appear in some modern works. In the Middle ages and into the 19th century, the term "Macedonian" was used entirely in reference to a geographical region. Anyone who lived within its confines, regardless of nationality could be called a Macedonian...Nevertheless, the absence of a national consciousness in the past is no grounds to reject the Macedonians as a nationality today." "The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century," John Van Antwerp Fine, University of Michigan Press, 1991, , pp. 36–37."At the end of the World War I there were very few historians or ethnographers, who claimed that a separate Macedonian nation existed... Of those Macedonian Slavs who had developed then some sense of national identity, the majority probably considered themselves to be Bulgarians, although they were aware of differences between themselves and the inhabitants of Bulgaria... The question as of whether a Macedonian nation actually existed in the 1940s when a Communist Yugoslavia decided to recognize one is difficult to answer. Some observers argue that even at this time it was doubtful whether the Slavs from Macedonia considered themselves to be a nationality separate from the Bulgarians." The Macedonian conflict: ethnic nationalism in a transnational world, Loring M. Danforth, Princeton University Press, 1997, , pp. 65–66.

Interwar Greece The Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and World War I (1914–1918) left the area divided mainly between Greece and Serbia (later Yugoslavia), which resulted in significant changes in its ethnic composition. The formerly leading Bulgarian community was reduced either by population exchanges or by change of communities' ethnic identity.Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics, Cornell University Press, 1988, , p. 33. Part of the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1919 was a population exchange Convention, signed between Bulgaria and Greece. In 1924 upon the League of Nations' demand, a Bulgarian-Greek agreement was signed, known as the Politis–Kalfov Protocol, which recognized the Greek Slavophones as Bulgarians and guaranteed their protection.Iakovos D. Michailidis, Minority Rights and Educational Problems in Greek Interwar Macedonia: The Case of the Primer "Abecedar", Journal of Modern Greek Studies Vol. 1, (1996), p. 329. Belgrade was suspicious of Greece's recognition of a Bulgarian minority and was annoyed this would hinder its policy of Serbianisation in Vardar Macedonia.Jakovos D. Michaüidls Traditional Friends and Occasional Claimants: Serbian Claims in Macedonia between the Wars; Balkan Studies 36, p. 112. On February 2, 1925, the Greek parliament, claiming pressure from the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which threatened to renounce the Greek–Serbian Alliance of 1913, refused to ratify the agreement, that lasted until June 10, 1925. In 1927, Mollov–Kafantaris Agreement was signed that dealt with the financial issues related to the liquidation of the Bulgarians' properties in Greece and the Greeks' in Bulgaria.

During the Metaxas regime the Greek government began promulgating a policy of persecution of the use of Slavic dialects both in public and in private, as well of expressions of any cultural or ethnic distinctiveness. At that time a new consciousness arrived among the Slavic-speaking population – an ethnic Macedonian one. The first organization that promoted in 1932 the existence of a separate ethnic Macedonian nation was IMRO (United), composed of former left-wing Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) members. This idea was backed by the Comintern, which issued a resolution in 1934, supporting the development of Macedonia as a separate entity and recognizing a Macedonian nationality. This action was attacked by the IMRO, but was supported by the Balkan communists, including the Greek Communist Party. It created a Macedonian section within the party, headed by Andreas Tsipas and maintained the national consolidation of the Slav Macedonian minority within Greece.

World War II

Occupation of Greece in World War II

Nevertheless, most of the Macedonian Slavs in all parts of divided Macedonia, still had strong pro-Bulgarian sentiments at the beginning of the Occupation."Most of the Slavophone inhabitants in all parts of divided Macedonia, perhaps a million and a half in all – had a Bulgarian national consciousness at the beginning of the Occupation; and most Bulgarians, whether they supported the Communists, VMRO, or the collaborating government, assumed that all Macedonia would fall to Bulgaria after the WWII. Tito was determined that this should not happen. The first Congress of AVNOJ in November 1942 had parented equal rights to all the "peoples of Yugoslavia", and specified the Macedonians among them."The struggle for Greece, 1941–1949, Christopher Montague Woodhouse, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002, , p. 67."Yugoslav Communists recognized the existence of a Macedonian nationality during WWII to quiet fears of the Macedonian population that a communist Yugoslavia would continue to follow the former Yugoslav policy of forced Serbianization. Hence, for them to recognize the inhabitants of Macedonia as Bulgarians would be tantamount to admitting that they should be part of the Bulgarian state. For that the Yugoslav Communists were most anxious to mold Macedonian history to fit their conception of Macedonian consciousness. The treatment of Macedonian history in Communist Yugoslavia had the same primary goal as the creation of the Macedonian language: to de-Bulgarize the Macedonian Slavs and to create a separate national consciousness that would inspire identification with Yugoslavia." For more see: Stephen E. Palmer, Robert R. King, Yugoslav communism and the Macedonian question, Archon Books, 1971, , Chapter 9: The encouragement of Macedonian culture. Tsipas himself declared Bulgarian ethnicity during the Second World War,Giannēs S Koliopoulos.Plundered loyalties: Axis occupation and civil strife in Greek West Macedonia, 1941–1949, London, Hurst & Co., 1999, , p. 53. sought refuge in Sofia,Bŭlgarsko istorichesko druzhestvo, Institut za istoria (Bŭlgarska akademia na naukite) Издател, 2000, str. 156. and became an agent of the Bulgarian secret service.André Gerolymatos. Guerrilla warfare and espionage in Greece, 1940–1944, Pella Pub. Co, 1992; , pp. 181–82. More, until the end of the Second World War, the Macedonian peasants, being neither communists nor members of IMRO (United), were not affected by the Macedonian national identity."Nodoubt, the vast majority of the Macedonian peasants, being neither communists nor members of IMRO (United), had not been previously affected by Macedonian national ideology. The British officials who attempted to tackle this issue in the (late) 1940s noted the pro-Bulgarian sentiment of many peasants and pointed out that Macedonian nationhood rested 'on rather shaky historical and philological foundations' and, therefore, had to be constructed by the Macedonian leadership." Livanios, D. (2008), The Macedonian Question: Britain and the Southern Balkans 1939–1949. Oxford University Press, , p. 206. Bulgarian withdrawal from Northern Greece after the pro-Communist coup in the country on 9 September 1944 led to that, ca. 90,000 Bulgarians left the area, nearly the half of them locals.

While most of Greece was occupied by Axis powers in World War II, resistance movements were created by Greeks while the collaborationist Ohrana battalions were constituted from among the Slavophone population. After Greece was occupied by Italy, Germany and Bulgaria, different guerrilla bands and movements were formed across all of northern Greece,. Some of them fought against the occupation, like Napoleon Zervas and his National Republican Greek League (EDES), while others were collaborationists, like the Ohrana, some of whom later joined the SNOF. Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), EAM's partisan army headed by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), was the largest resistance organisation. Ethnic Macedonians sympathized with ELAS and the KKE because of their friendly position towards the ethnic minorities of Greece.

Ohrana

The Ohrana (, "Protection" or "Guards") were armed collaborationist detachments organized by the Bulgarian army, composed of Slavophone pro-Bulgarian people in occupied Greek Macedonia during World War II and led by Bulgarian officers. Bulgaria was interested in acquiring Thessalonica and Western Macedonia under Axis occupation and hoped to sway the allegiance of the 80,000 Slavs who lived there at the time. The appearance of Greek partisans in those areas persuaded the Italians to allow the formation of these collaborationist detachments, which Veremis and Koliopoulos describe as "Bulgarian fascist Ohrana paramilitary forces" that, together with the occupying army, intimidated the local population.

Following the defeat of the Axis powers, many members of the Ohrana joined the SNOF, where they could still pursue their goal of Macedonian autonomy. Cowan and Voigt both describe this as a rapprochement, with collaboration between the Bulgarian-controlled Ohrana and the EAM-controlled SNOF following an agreement on Macedonian autonomy, and Kophos states that entire Ohrana units transferred to the SNOF, which then pressed the ELAS leadership to allow it autonomous action in Greek Macedonia. Mazower similarly notes that wartime Ohrana members were quick to join the Slavic-speaking units under EAM's jurisdiction to avoid post-occupation prosecution for collaboration.

SNOF

The Slav-Macedonian People's Liberation Front (, Slavjanomakedonski narodnoosloboditelen front [SNOF]), also known by its acronym SNOF, was the first paramilitary organization established by ethnic Macedonian members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in 1943. Before the creation of SNOF, ethnic Macedonian military detachments in Greek Macedonia participated in the Greek People's Liberation Army.

Slav-Macedonian People's Liberation Front