UN Commision Established the Existence of the Macedonian Minority in Greece, 1947

1947 UN Commision Established the Existence
of the Macedonian Minority in Greece

July, 2008

Dushan Sinadinoski

The modern Greek folly has always been its persistent but reckless denial of the existence of a Macedonian nationality. The hysteric intolerance against ethnic Macedonians has distorted the Greek collective consciousness so much that Greeks are no longer capable of differentiating between their wish that Macedonians were truly nonexistent and the actual Macedonian reality, which so defiantly confronts them.
As their Macedonian phobia continues to feed their schizophrenic psyches, rather than dealing with the Macedonian reality like rational people, they instead cry out for sympathy and comfort while hoping to be freed from their Macedonian nightmare, just like a small child who has awakened from a bad dream and cries out to his parents for comfort.
Such was the case in 1947 when the Greek government protested to the United Nations’ Security Council regarding border violations by its northern neighbors. Greece demanded that Yugoslavia cease and desist overt military and logistical aid to the guerrillas fighting in the Greek Civil War, many of whom were ethnic Macedonians.
On December 19 1946, a Commission of Investigating was established by the United Nations pursuant to the resolution of the Security Council to examine alleged Greek frontier incidents. To the surprise and dismay of the Greek government, the Commission of Inquiry broadened its scope of investigation to include the treatment of minorities, tendentious misstatements of facts in press and radio, activities of foreign military and police missions in the four countries concerned and arraignments of free port or free zone facilities in Salonika.
Outraged by the Commission’s expanded mission, Greece threatened the immediate execution of political prisoners and captured “bandits” unless the Commission narrowed its scope of investigating to the original request. However, after heavy arm-twisting by the United States the Greek government halted the executions and allowed the Commission to proceed without further impediment.
The United States was concerned that if Greece carried out the execution of the Macedonians world opinion would turn against Greece, which would give Yugoslavia, supported by the Soviets, a pretext to invade and detach Aegean Macedonia from Greece. In order to save face, and perhaps their country, Greek Ambassador, Dendramis, was instructed by the United States to inform the Security Council that Greece’s protest was filed merely so there could be no grounds for misunderstanding regarding the interpretation of the terms of reference” (Telegram from Secretary of State to the US Embassy in Greece, February 8, 1947).
The United States understood that if Greece continued on its reckless political course it was only a matter of weeks before it fell to the Soviet block. Therefore, such a communist scenario for the future of Greece had to be prevented from becoming a reality.
Once the Commission began its work, the investigation of the Greek border incidents was downgraded as a minor issue. Such incidents, as the Commission contended, were regular occurrences in the Balkans for centuries and this issue in itself did not warrant an investigation at the United Nations level.
But the United States and Britain used this issue as a pretext to counterbalance Soviet expansion to the Balkans by preserving Greek territorial integrity. Britain and the Unites States were convinced that Yugoslavia wanted to detach the Aegean and Pirin parts of Macedonia from Greece and Bulgaria respectively and create an autonomous Macedonian state within the Yugoslav Federation.
Thus in the midst of this global political drama, the Macedonian issue again took center stage. But the ensuing colossal political battle between East and West instantly relegated Greece and Macedonia to the sidelines as spectators of their own destiny. The political drama was moved from the bloody foothills in Greece to the stately halls in Geneva. There, the ideological demarcation line between East and West was drawn alongside the Greek-Macedonian border, and as a result Greece and Macedonia continued their bitter rivalry on opposite sides of each other.
Nonetheless, the Commission’s investigation was not interrupted and it was able to gather first hand information on the issues in question. However, before the findings were officially published, Commission representatives regularly communicated their findings to their respective governments for further evaluation and for instructions by their foreign affairs departments.
In one instance, the US Commission representative, Mark Ethridge, on May 8, 1947, sent a secret telegram to US Secretary of State, Marshall, informing him that “Greece itself by its own short sighted attitude and by its discriminatory and gangster-like methods was providing grist for the mill of political indoctrination and training in northern countries. It is noteworthy that a very large proportion of the refugees from Greece are Slavo-Macedonians who bore the brunt of discrimination. It seems clear to me that unless the discriminatory treatment stops flight to the mountains or across the borders will not stop. Thus this is the interrelation between nature and the causes and conclusion that Greece’s discrimination has caused thousands to flee.”
This short but revealing passage summarizes the entire political landscape in Aegean Macedonia and accurately depicts the state of the Macedonian minority in Greece. It is also evident that the American diplomat clearly acknowledges the existence of the Macedonian minority in Greece and he leaves no room for questioning which minority he is referring to. Additionally, he doesn’t hide the fact that Greece’s domestic policy is the root cause of the plight of refugees and the discrimination against the Macedonian minority.
Ever conspiring and manipulating, Greece could not admit to the world it could be guilty of the most notorious crimes against the Macedonian minority. Greece wanted the free and democratic world to believe that the existence of the Macedonian minority, the plight of the Macedonian refugees and the execution of the Macedonian political prisoners were fallacious charges because Greece denied them. To further cover up their mess, Greece shifted the blame on Yugoslavia for stirring up trouble in Greece.
In their support, Greece offered to the Commission as evidence quotes from speeches of Yugoslav and Bulgarian statesmen from articles in the press, which to the Greeks meant unequivocal proof that Yugoslavia agitated a separate Macedonian state within the Yugoslav Federation and thus exploited the aspiration of Macedonians in Greece for an autonomous Macedonia. Thus it seems Greeks wanted to simultaneously claim both the non-existence of the Macedonian minority and blame Yugoslavia for fermenting dissatisfaction and disturbances among the Macedonians in Greece. This can’t be true in any world, not even in a Venizelos’ Greek-a-polis.
Based on its findings, the Commission’s conclusions clearly and unequivocally put the blame on Greece for a policy of systematic discrimination and persecution of the Macedonian minority in that country. Even though Macedonians in Greece were not the primary goal of the Commission, some of its conclusions undeniably confirmed the existence of a Macedonian minority:
1) It was pointed out to the Commission and not disputed that after the Varkiza agreement over 20,000 Greek citizens had fled into Yugoslavia either directly or through Albania or Bulgaria and approximately 5,000 into Bulgaria, a substantial proportion in each case being of Slavo-Macedonian origin. Evidence was also presented in support of the charge that Greece has sanctioned persecution of its Slavo-Macedonian minorities. Furthermore, the Commission heard testimony that the Slavic dialect spoken by Slavo-Macedonians who were believed to comprise about 85,000 people was not taught in schools and that in certain areas, use of this dialect was prohibited.” These findings by the Commission were so compelling in their condemnation of the Greek state that they left no room for doubt.
2) The Commission is of the opinion that as long as such discriminatory treatment continues, there will be unrest and discontent on the part of the Slavic minority in Greek Macedonia, which will provide fertile breeding ground for a separatist movement.
3) In connection with the present situation, the Greek Commission was presented with a body of evidence in support of the charges that responsibility for the situation lay with Greek domestic policy… This evidence was in effect that opposition political groups in Greece were persecuted by Greek gendarmerie and right-wing bandits, and that the civil rights of the Macedonian and Chamuriot minorities have been restricted
4) The Commission also received sufficient evidence to warrant a conclusion that immediately after the liberation of Greece, the small Slav speaking and Chamuriot minority in Greco-Macedonia and Epirus had been victims of retaliatory excesses, and Chamuriot minority had actually fled en masse from the country. As regards treatment of minorities, the Greek government asserted the acts in question were committed before it established control in the areas concerned, and that many members of these minority groups had collaborated with Axis occupying forces during war
Considering that these conclusions were unintended consequences, the findings of the Commission reveal disturbing and undeniable evidence of an official Greek policy of persecution and discrimination against the Macedonian minority. These accusations against the Greek state in 1947 were not “dreamed” up. They were findings by the United Nations Commission of Investigating and were consistent with the facts on the ground. These findings speak loudly and plainly to the world that the Greek denial of the Macedonian minority transcends all rationality. Indeed, this denial has become a Greek national blasphemy.
The Greek national obsession with the Macedonian issue continues to regenerate itself as a persistent and bloody hatred that is no longer capable of self-control. Greece has gone wrong on the Macedonian issue and Greek society cannot be expected to find a cure for its anti-Macedonian paranoia. It’s time for the international community to call upon Greece and help this nation transcend the bounds of its delusional fascination with the Megale Idea.
The report of Commission of Investigation was signed at Geneva on May 23, 1947. The conclusions were subscribed by Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, Columbia, Syria, United Kingdom and the United States. The delegations of Soviet Union and Poland did not approve the conclusions and the French delegation abstained. The United Nations has published the Commission’s report in Official Records of the Security Council, Second Year, Special Supplement No. 2.
The information used to write this article was taken from the University of Wisconsin Digital Collection Library, United States Department of State Foreign relations of the United States, 1947. The Near East and Africa: Volume V (1947). The United States economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey: the Truman Doctrine, pp. 1 – 484.

Sister Augustine Bewicke on the Macedonian autonomy, 1919

January 4, 1919

Sister Augustine Bewicke on the Macedonian autonomy

St. Paul’s Hospital, Salonika Dear Sir, Please excuse the liberty I take in writing you, it is because the final settlement in the Balkans is of vital interest to the Catholics in these countries. – I have been 33 years in this Mission, the Uniate Catholic Mission, which at the beginning of the Second Balkan War counted about 10,000 Catholics. The Treaty of Bucharest, which divided Macedonia without any regard to justice, was the cause of these poor people being dispersed on account of their Slav language, which was forbidden in Churches and schools. – The Bishop had his residence in Salonika, he has now been in exile more then 3 years, his priests are dispersed, his flock is indeed without pastors, nor do we have any hope of his return to any place under Greek or Serbian rule. – The Greeks will not admit the Slav language in Churches or schools; the inhabitants of Macedonia are in the great majority Slavs; they call themselves Macedonians, and what they desire and what we ardently desire for them is an autonomy under European control. – I whatever way Macedonia might be divided, the people would be always discontented, and would fight again as soon as possible. The only hope I can foresee is in strong autonomy, which neither Greeks nor Bulgars nor Serbs would dare attack; then the Macedonians, who are really intelligent and docile when they are well treated. would peacefully develop this beautiful fertile country… Surely Europe will not leave Macedonia under people whom the Macedonians hate, and whom they will continually fight…

Taken from Public Record Office (London) – FO 608/44. Peace Conference (British delegation), 1919.

Protest from the Macedonians of the IMRO to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919

April 10, 1919

Protest from the Provisional representative of the IMRO to the Paris Peace Conference

To His Excellency, Monsieur Clemanceau, President of the Council: It is duty of my honor, as a delegate of the Macedonian Committees to the High Peace Conference, to protest against the maneuvers of certain suspicious persons who claim to speak in the name of Macedonia and represent some so-called “Executive Committee of the Macedonian Societies”. Let me be allowed to indicate that the Macedonian emigrants to Bulgaria have over the past 30 years created quite a small class of Macedonians Bulgarized to such a point that they sacrifice completely the interests of their native land to those of Bulgaria. People who have two homelands are generally suspicious; what to say, on the other hand, about those who do not hesitate to propose as delegates to the Conference two persons such as Aleksandrov and Protogerov, adherents to the Kaiser and Ferdinand, and organizers of the massacres in Nish? Indeed, there is noone else who could more compromise the cause of “Autonomous Macedonia” before the Aeropagus of the victors! Hence I have the honor to point out that the only Macedonian Societies free from any Bulgarian political influence, or any other, and representing loyally the whole of Macedonia, without distinction of language or religion, are the Macedonian Committees, which starting from the 1893 constituted the IMRO… It is in their name, and by no means in the name of Bulgaria or the Bulgarians, that I have already had the honor to request and now I am requesting again from Your Excellency to grant me an audience so that I may present to You the desires of the Macedonian people…

Archimandrite Paul Christoff, General Vicar of Thrace, delegate of the Macedonian Committees.

Macedonian Nationalism by Misirkov, 1925

Macedonian Nationalism

We, the Macedonian intelligentsia, undoubtedly bear the greatest responsibility for the situation facing our country today. There are, however, certain extenuating circumstances which might justify us in the eyes of our unfortunate fellow-countrymen, especially those who have been driven from their homes and are now forced to wander, unwelcome and unwanted, in various part’s of Bulgaria.
For a full thirty years the Macedonians have been waging a heroic battle to release themselves from the yoke of Turkey. But at the same time the foreign propagandists have been infecting our country and demoralizing part of the population. The Macedonian intel-ligentsia have largely devoted themselves to revolutionary activity; but there have been some who have found other ways possibly no less important than that of the revolutionary struggle to ensure the success of Macedonia’s endeavors.
My book On the Macedonian Matters, published in 1903 in Sofia, and my article On the Importance of the Moravian or Resavian Dialects for the Historical Ethnography of the Balkan Peninsula, have shown that some of the Macedonian intellectuals are seeking and have found, another way of fighting, i.e. an independent Macedonian scientific way of thinking and a Macedonian national Consciousness.
I do not regret having declared myself in favor of Macedonian separatism twenty-eight years ago. Separatism was for me, and remains, the only way out, the best means by which the Macedonian intelligentsia could pay back and continue to repay their debt towards their people.
In 1912, when I was asked by my fellow villagers what should be done if our village remained under Greek control, I answered: no matter under whose control this village may remain, you will stay where you are, you shall not move anywhere.
Maybe from the great-Bulgarian point of view my advice was not sufficiently patriotic, but from the Macedonian point of view this was the only proper advice.
But when the Greeks forced many Macedonians to flee to Bulgaria I should, as a Bulgarian, have been glad that the Bulgarian people had lost their land just as long as they had been spared from Hellenization.
But I am not glad that they were forced to move. Nor can I look at this question through the eyes of Mr. Mih. Madzharov (one of the editors of Mir B.K.) who says that the underground and the city industry of Bulgaria benefited from the arrival of the refugees.
Here my Macedonian patriotism overcomes my Bulgarian patriotism. The Macedonians are necessary to Macedonia; it is only with the Macedonians that Macedonia can belong to the Macedonians, never without them.
The Macedonians should either remain where they are and let the devil take care of them if he likes or, if it is their fate to be forced to move, they should move from one part of Macedonia to another, but this should still be Macedonia and not Bulgaria, Serbia, or Greece. If they are driven out of the Greek part of Macedonia, the Macedonians should move into the Serbian part of Macedonia and form military settlements to await the day when they might return to their homes.
You may say that a Bulgarian cannot reason like this. Yes, but a Macedonian can and should reason like this.
I hope it will not be held against me that I, as a Macedonian, place the interests of my country before all… I am a Macedonian, I have a Macedonian’s consciousness, and so I have my own Macedonian view of the past, present, and future of my country and of all the South Slavs; and so I should like them to consult us, the Macedonians, about all the questions concerning us and our neighbors, and not have everything end merely with agreements between Bulgaria and Serbia about us – but without us …
Note: This article was written after an agreement signed between Greece and Bulgaria in 1923, according to which a great number of Aegean Macedonians would be turned out of their homes and driven into Bulgaria during winter, under the worst possible conditions, when the Bulgarians had not made even the most rudimentary preparations for receiving, housing, and feeding tens and even hundreds of thousands of Macedonian refugees.

K. Misirkov: Macedonian Nationalism, “Mir”, 7427, 12. III 1925, 1.

The self-determination of the Macedonians by Misirkov, 1925

The self-determination of the Macedonians

My article Macedonian Nationalism, which appeared in Mir on 12 March this year, aroused the ire of the paper “Svobodna rech”, which described me as “a man who still does not even know his own nationality”, a “simple-minded thinker who is capable of writing nonsense, of sinking even lower”, and who is “well-known for having once served in the Serbian propaganda service” and for lending his support to the theories of the Belgrade professor Cvjic concerning the existence of a separate Macedonian nationality”. As a result of these slanders against me in “Svobodna rech” many of my own townsfolk turned in fury upon me, and there were even some people who thoughtlessly claimed that they knew that in my student days I had attended assemblies of both the Bulgarian and the Serbian students and that this was why I had been driven out of the Bulgarian assemblies.
Similar senseless accusations were made in “Svobodna rech” and, as was only to be expected, these false rumors spread around Karlovo. This, however, did not greatly disturb me, as would have been clear to anyone who had read my article in “Mir” and who knew anything about my past… I knew full well that I would be attacked for my Macedonian Nationalism and that my article could certainly not be published in “Ilinden”. Nevertheless, although I was far from sure that it would be printed in “Mir”, I wrote out the article and sent it to this journal. And two days after it had appeared, “Svobodna rech” made me out to be a man who does not know his own nationality.
I was fully aware that I will be attacked for my “Macedonian nationalism”, that this article has no chance to be published in “Ilinden”, and I was not even sure that they will print it in “Mir”. I still wrote the article and sent it to the newspaper “Mir”. On the second day after its printing “Svobodna rech” named me a man that does not know his ethnicity.
Unfortunately “Svobodna rech” cannot make me give up my “lowly reasoning”. I still find that Macedonia today is butchered, that Greeks took their best parts, and have chased away the Macedonian population and replaced them with Asiatic new-comers that today are piled up next to the Serbian and Bulgarian border, the same as once the Byzantine Emperors were establishing next to the Bulgarian border military settlements of the Asiatic colonists: Armenians and Paulikians. I also find that if Serbs and Bulgarians do not find peace, and Macedonians are not included in voluntary cooperation with both Bulgarians and Serbs for safeguarding against the Greek wave that slowly, but surely moves from south toward north, all of us: Serbs, Bulgarians and Macedonians will drown in the non-Slavic see that surrounds us from all sides. I think that only in agreement and cooperation between Serbs, Macedonians and Bulgarians is the salvation for all of us. Serbs and Bulgarians were fighting, Greeks and Romanians were profiting: they lost Macedonia, Trace and Dobrudza.
The most important condition for a cooperation between Serbs, Bulgarians and Macedonians, however, is the freedom of self-determination of Macedonians. And that is why, regarding this last issue, I emphasized the principle of the Macedonian patriotism and nationalism, as a fully neutral and satisfying for all: Serbs, Bulgarians and Macedonians alike; but for now it is more correct to say that it is equally unsatisfying for all: Serbs, Bulgarians and Macedonians.
Since it is primarily us Macedonians that are suffering from the Serb-Bulgarian conflict, it is our duty to search for means and ways of resolving that conflict. That is forcing us “to know” up to the current day our nationality and to tell both Serbs and Bulgarians: forget about your big-Serb and big-Bulgarian ideas, give up enforcing your nationalism and patriotism on us, since it basically is putting your interests up front instead of ours. Let us have our own understanding for our relations toward you and your conflict about us and our fatherland, as well as for the means that will bring us to a general South Slav benefit. Let us have our own Macedonian national feelings and to create Macedonian culture, as we did that during the ages when our fatherland was not part of the same state with yours.
As Macedonians we will be more useful for all: for Macedonia, for Bulgaria and for Serbia and in general for the whole South Slav community, than as Bulgarians and Serbs.
As a Bulgarian I would have said long time ago: What Macedonia! It is good for me here too. I don’t need to think for what is already lost. But as Macedonian, in Bulgaria I feel as in a foreign land, although between brothers, I’m not at home, in my fatherland. My fatherland is there, where I have been born and where I should leave my bones, where my son should go at least, if I am not allowed to go myself.
The awareness and the feeling that I am Macedonian should stand higher than everything else in the world. Macedonians should not let themselves been assimilated and to lose their individuality living among Bulgarians and Serbs. We can acknowledge the closeness of the Serb, Bulgarians and Macedonian interests, but we need to evaluate them from the Macedonian stand point of view.
Uncompromising and unlimited love toward Macedonia, the constant thinking and working for the interests of Macedonia and the full conservativism in the manifestations of the Macedonian national spirit: the language, the national poetry, mentality and customs – those are the main characteristics of the Macedonian nationalism, demonstrated through “lowly reasonings of a man that still does not know his nationality”.
But we are not egoists. We don’t think only about ourselves. We are ready to make a good service to both Serbs and Bulgarians, but only if that service is voluntary and not forced.
How we can serve Serbs: we will all die, and we will not let the Greek foot to cross the current border of the Serb and Bulgarian Macedonia. But we will do that as Macedonians, and not as Serbs. We will fight with Greeks because they are our only historic and age old enemies. Our complete Macedonian national history is full with fights against Greeks. There is no fight with Bulgarians and Serbs recorded in the Macedonian history. Bulgarians and Serbs have respected the national rights of the Macedonians in the middle ages, and it was only Greeks that were destroying our national spirit and were de-nationalizing us. They even to the current day are chasing us away from our native fireplaces, and are reminding us that we have an age old obligation to chase the un-invited guests from our grand father’s and great grand-father’s lands.
That is the Macedonian national feeling, which is the historic call of every Macedonian that can be fulfilled only as a free and equal citizen of Yugoslavia, allowed to think and feel and talk and act as Macedonian.

K. Misirkov: The self-determination of Macedonians, “Mir”, 7427, 25. III 1925, 1.

Macedonian Culture by Krste Misirkov, 1924

Macedonian Culture

Our confidence, not only in the preservation of our nation but also in the ultimate triumph of the ideal of all Macedonians to achieve independence, is founded as we mentioned earlier not so much on the weakness of our enemy, or on aid from abroad, as on the knowledge of our people and of their past.

Some, however, may ask whether there really exists a Macedonian national culture and a Macedonian history which could be compared to that of the Serbs (read in here “and Bulgarians” – B.K.) and which would serve as foundation for the Macedonian an ideal of an independent Macedonia? Fortunately, we are able to give a positive answer to this: Macedonian national culture and history, being different from those of Serbia and Bulgaria, exist primarily because they have not been submitted to systematic and unbiased study. Both the Serbs and the Bulgarians, with great partiality and self-interest, chose to take from Macedonian culture and history only those aspects which attested to glory of the Serbian or Bulgarian national name, and simply ignored the questions of crucial importance either because they did not concern them or because they ran counter to the national ideals of the Serbian or Bulgarian historical researchers and their fellows.
I said that this was fortunate for Macedonian national culture and history because the Macedonian people were thus armed with an invincible weapon in their battle for human rights land a free national life on an equal footing with the other cultured nations.
Unfortunately, the independent study of Macedonian culture and history was begun only a short while ago by the Macedonians themselves, who, at the end of the last century began to lose faith in the scholars of Belgrade and Sofia with their more or less unanimous contention that the Slavs, during the Middle Ages, were a disorganized and unenlightened people who were spared from Hellenization thanks only to the state which had been first founded by the Turanian Bulgarians and later included in the Serbian state of Nemanjich.
But such assertions were equally erroneous in Belgrade and in Sofia, being backed as they were by the authority of Jagich and Marin Drinov.
We Macedonians have found this to be an error which resulted in a misconception on the part of both the Bulgarians and the Serbs, not only of the history of Macedonia and the Macedonians during the Middle Ages, but also of the history of the Serbs and Bulgarians.
We are able to show that the case was quite the contrary, that it was in fact the Macedonians who were the most active of all the South Slavs, more so even than the Turanian Bulgarians, throughout the entire Middle Ages right up to the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula by the Turks; we can also show that it was the Macedonians who waged the longest and hardest battle for their spiritual and political emancipation during the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century.
Our failures, both in the Middle Ages and in more recent times, were the result of circumstances, which had nothing in common with the national awareness, and alleged lack of organization of the Macedonians.
The age long struggle of the Macedonians for cultural advance and national preservation, beginning 400-500 years before the emergence of the Serbian state of Nemanjich and continuing through the rise and decline of this state, taken together with the epic struggles for religious and political freedom, has gone to the making of Macedonia’s national culture and of our national history.

K. Misirkov- Macedonian, Macedonian culture, “Mir”, XXX, 7155, 19.IV.1924, 1.

Мисли на големиот македонски син Јане Сандански

„Да живееш значи да се бориш: робот за слобода, а слободниот - за совршенство"

 „Не бугарска Македонија сакаме ние, туку Македонија на Македонците, Македонија ослободена од тиранијата."

„Јас не го чекам брзото ослободување на Македонија. Тоа може да не дојде дури и во моите денови, но јас сакам да го запазам народот и да го организирам, и ако тоа се случи тој ќе ја добие својата слобода."

“Ние треба да работиме за будење на сознанието кај македонските маси дека се тие самостоен народ, дека имаат право на слободен живот и дека треба да се борат за извојување на својата слобода, без да се потпираат на туѓа помош, зашто оние што би дошле да не ослободат, ќе дојдат всушност, да не поробат".

,,Вие (врховистите) ја сакате слободата на Македонија и Одринско како етапа на идните Ваши завојувања и анексии, додека кај нас слободата е легната во основата како цел. Ете каде лежи големата разлика меѓу нас - Внатрешните и Вас - Врховистите"!

“Да, Македонија не треба да бара помош надвор од себе, туку во самата себе. Нејзината слобода не ќе биде подарок, туку крвав откуп, платен со илјадници жртви, какви што ние дадовме и продолжуваме да даваме".

“Првпат агитирав во смисла да се постави Организацијата самостојно, да се почувствува населението слободно, на тој начин што ќе се отстранува од турските власти и што ќе се концентрира власта во рацете на Организацијата, така што населението на дело да види малку слобода, да ја осети таа слобода и да ја засака".

,,Ние не сакаме да ја замениме турската тиранија, турските султани со други тирани, па ни со бугарска тиранија и бугарскиот кнез. Ние се бориме Македонија да стане автономна, независна, слободна држава, Македонија на Македонците!".

“Ние не ја мразиме Бугарија и нејзиниот народ, туку се спротиставуваме на нејзината политика, која е спротивна на нашите идеали и интереси".

"Да пиеме за слободна и автономна Македонија за која се бореа и дадоа скапи жртви сојузените балкански народи"

"Ние водиме борба против вас, врховистите, затоа што сакате да ја потчините Организацијата и да ја направите орудие на бугарскиот дворец. Со вашата оружена интервенција во Џумајско, вие на ослободителната борба и придадовте карактер на вештачко движење кое се инспирира од вас од официјална Бугарија, а не од внатрешността и од самиот поробен народ. Со тоа вие и го убивате престижот и оставате впечаток дека ние сме орудие на бугарската држава, и со сето тоа мy пречите на ослободителното дело. Ние решително им се спротивставивме на вашите офицери зашто го знаеме нивното воспитување, нивните интимни замисли. Тие се луѓе што дале клетва за верност на бугарскиот кнез и на бугарската држава, и тие не можат да бидат ништо друго освен нивни слепи и послушни орудија. А пак ние не сакаме да ја замениме турската тиранија, турските султани со други такви, па ни со бугарската тиранија и бугарскиот кнез. Ние сакаме Македонија да биде автономна, независна, слободна, Македонија на Македонците. Вие ја барате слободата на Македонија како средство, како етапа на идни освојувања и присоединувања, додека кај нас слободата, автономијата на Македонија се положени во основата, како цел. Ете каде лежи големата разлика меѓу нас, внатрешните и вас-врховистите. Ако ги пуштевме вашите другари-офицери во ТМОРО, тие ќе ја водеа оружената борба, тие ќе ги имаа во своите раце четите, бојните јатки, Организацијата, и по таков начин, при слободна Македонија тие ќе му се наложеа на македонското население, тие ќе му диктираа да го бара приклучувањето на Македонија кон Бугарија, како што стана со Источна Румелија во 1885 година. Ние ја месевме погачата, вие ќе ја јадевте."
  
"Ние сакаме Македонија да биде автономна, независна, слободна, Македонија на Македонците. Вие ја барате слободата на Македонија како средство, како етапа на идни освојувања и присоединувања, додека кај нас слободата, автономијата на Македонија се положени во основата, како цел. Ете каде лежи големата разлика меѓу нас, внатрешните и вас-врховистите. Ако ги пуштевме вашите другари-офицери во ТМОРО, тие ќе ја водеа оружената борба, тие ќе ги имаа во своите раце четите, бојните јатки, Организацијата, и по таков начин, при слободна Македонија тие ќе му се наложеа на македонското население."

"Ние имаме своја аграрна програма тесно поврзана со нашата општа политичка програма: првата се изразува низ барањето за доделување на земја на селаните, а втората, политичката, се содржи во барањео од Македонија да се создаде автономна област во рамките на отоманското царство. А најмногу од се друго се плашиме од тоа нашите "мили пријатели" Бугарите, Србите и Грците, да не дојдат да не "ослободуваат", зошто тие, всушност, ќе дојдат да не поробат."

“Од несреќата од Версајскиот договор нашиот народ ќе ја има, наспроти сите неволји, барем таа добра страна, што ќе се ослободи еднаш засекогаш од опекунството на една политика, која е секогаш готова да го жртвува секое парче од неговата земја и ќе раскине дефинитвно со одродени македонски синови, кои наоѓајќи се далеку од неговата несреќа, одамна заборавиле дека дошле од македонската земја, упорно ја потпомагаат таа политика на тргување со нашата татковина, меѓу другото, и во знак на благодарност за добриот живот и поминот на кој предавнички се радуваат поради нејзиното богато покровителство. Да извлечеме реална поука од сето тоа и да се подготвуваме уште од сега за блиското остварување на чистиот македонски народен идеал".