Address of Alexandros Baltazis to the Parliament: “Some politicians live for ideologies and some others live from ideologies. We entered politics to offer and not to get rich.”
By Tassos K. Kontogiannidis
(email protected)
It has been 37 years since the rural leader passed away Alexandros Baltatzis (29-7-1987) and on August 30, the day of his name feast (Saint Alexander) will be held in the celebratory Church of Saint Alexander in Xanthi, (of which he was the founder), a divine liturgy officiated by Metropolitan Mr. Panteleimonos, in the presence of the local authorities. A memorial service will be held at his graveside in the Cemetery immediately afterward.
This great Pontian politician had visions and had the strength and will to transform them into action, for the benefit of the peasantry. White fruits were the works that had his stamp.
Alekos, as everyone called him, was born in 1904 in Kutaida, near Sokhum in the Caucasus. His parents, chased by the Turks, left Herriaina of Pontus and found refuge in the Caucasus, where little Alekos, with a particular inclination towards letters, finished his high school studies. They came to Greece and settled in Neochori, Xanthi.
Thirsty for knowledge, he enrolled in Law in 1925, he met a great political figure, Alexandros Papanastasiou, who advocated agricultural reforms and the protection of agricultural products and farmers. These were ideas that strongly moved Baltatzis.
At the age of 25, he founded the first agricultural cooperative in his village of Neohori, “Agennisi” and soon after he founded others in the surrounding villages, “Alithia” of Stavroupoleos, “Afilokerdia” of Karyofytos, “Sotiria” of Komnenos and “Omonoia”. Dafnon.
In 1930 he was elected president of the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of Xanthi and embraced all the farmers. He systematized the credit and supply operations of the Cooperatives by establishing a Cooperative Bank and agencies, disrupting trade and the market.
Baltatzis was loved, not only by the farmers of Xanthi but also of the neighboring prefectures, where he created cooperatives spreading his movement.
But those who loved him the most were the Pontians who drank water in his name. What Venizelos was to the Cretans, they said, Baltazis is to the Pontians. It was their Alekos!
After the liberation, Baltatzis founded PASEGES, and became its president. However, tobacco is then sold at humiliating prices. An inter-party committee is immediately created with Bakalpasis as president and Kon. Karamanlis as vice-president and Baltatzis takes the initiative and establishes SEKE (Cooperative Union of Tobacco Manufacturers of Greece). At the same time, he established the scholarships of SEKE, an unprecedented institution for the conditions of the time, and gave the opportunity to the excellent children of the peasantry to study for free in the cities. Over 400 such children studied and excelled in public life.
In 1950, he made the decision for an autonomous descent of the cooperators in the elections and he himself was elected a Member of Parliament for Xanthi and in 1956 he cooperated with G. Papandreou and other centrist officials. Kon. Mitsotakis said at the time that “the only one who had a party with MPs was Alekos, all the others had parties without stamps…”
The agricultural party was the nucleus of the Center Union which, when it won the elections in 1964, had Baltatzis as its leading figure who took over the Ministry of Agriculture.
After the post-colonization, he was again elected as a member of parliament and undertook the development and modernization project of the prefecture of Xanthi, establishing with a close partner Vassilis Ilantzis large cooperative factories and companies. Apart from SPE, SPECA, and SEKOVE and later with his leading and close associate Alexandros Kondo (former Member of Parliament of Xanthi and minister in the governments of Karamanli) he founded SEVATH, SEKAP, RODOPI, NESTO, ELVIZ, companies that they protected the labor of the farmers and at the same time granted the consumer a cheap and guaranteed product.
In the end he founded the “Cooperative Insurance”, for which he received a lot of pressure from the organized interests. The good administration and management of the company were what kept it consistent with customers and profitable until now.
Baltatzis was a visionary. Everything he envisioned for the good of the peasantry, he transformed into practice. The agricultural pensions legislated by Kon. Karamanlis. To him belongs the opening to the Eastern countries that was attempted in the late 50s, as can be seen in the photo with the trip to Moscow where he impressed the Russian officials with his excellent knowledge of the Russian language.
Alekos left, plunging Xanthi and the rural world into mourning. If the funeral of Dimosias Dapanis did not take place, we would, on the initiative of the present writer, as his acting private secretary when he was a member of parliament, raise funds between us to bury him. Because Alekos had no assets. And let today’s politicians see this.
Source: www.enikos.gr
