[2][page needed] Regardless of the tensions between the left and the right, in May 1944 it had been roughly agreed in the Lebanon Conference that all non-collaborationist factions would participate in a Government of National Unity; eventually 6 out of 24 ministers were appointed by EAM.

The clashes were limited to Athens, while elsewhere in Greece the situation remained tense but peaceful, with the exception of Epirus where Aris Velouchiotis attacked the forces of Napoleon Zervas.

In September, Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin's armies advanced into Bulgaria, forcing the resignation of the country's pro-Nazi government and the establishment of a pro-Communist regime, and the withdrawal of Bulgarian troops from Greek Macedonia.

Under the Caserta Agreement of September 1944, all resistance forces in Greece were to be placed under the command of a British officer, Lieutenant General Ronald Scobie.

According to historian Donny Gluckstein, Scobie sought to delay the German withdrawal in order to prevent ELAS from establishing control of the country.

However, they did not take full control because the KKE leadership was instructed by the Soviet Union not to precipitate a crisis that could jeopardize Allied unity and put Stalin's larger postwar objectives at risk.

Advised by British ambassador Reginald Leeper, Papandreou demanded the disarmament of all armed forces apart from the Sacred Band and the III Mountain Brigade, which were formed following the suppression of the April 1944 Egypt mutiny, and two equal numbered corps of ELAS and EDES that would take part in operations against the Germans (still occupying Crete), such as the constitution of a National Guard under government control.

EAM, believing that it would leave the guerrillas of ELAS defenseless against anticommunist militias, submitted an alternative plan of total and simultaneous disarmament.

Meanwhile, following Georgios Grivas's instructions, Organization X members had set up outposts in central Athens and resisted EAM for several days until British troops arrived, as their leader had been promised.

Among many testimonies, N. Farmakis, then a fifteen-year-old member of the anti-EAM Organization X participating in the shootings, described that he saw the head of the police Angelos Evert giving the order to open fire on the crowd, by means of a handkerchief waved from the window.

"[5] Although there are no accounts hinting that the crowd indeed possessed guns, the British commander Woodhouse insisted that it was uncertain whether the first shots were fired by the police or the demonstrators.

This signalled the beginning of the Dekemvriana (Greek: Δεκεμβριανά, "December events"), a 37-day period of full-scale fighting in Athens between EAM fighters and smaller parts of ELAS, and the forces of the British army and the government.

At the beginning the government had only a few policemen and gendarmes, some militia units, the 3rd Greek Mountain Brigade—distinguished at the Gothic Line offensive in Italy, which, however, lacked heavy weapons — and the royalist group Organization X, also known as "Chítes", which was accused by EAM of collaborating with the Nazis.

[citation needed] In the early morning hours of 4 December, ELAS reservists began operations in the Athens–Piraeus area, attacking Grivas' Organization X forces[7] and many police stations with success.

[8] It seems that ELAS preferred to avoid an armed confrontation with the British forces initially and later tried to reduce the conflict as much as possible, although poor communication between its many independent units around the country might also have played a role.

[citation needed] This might explain the simultaneous skirmishes with the British, the large-scale ELAS operations against Trotskyists, anarchists and other political dissidents in Athens, and the many contradictory decisions of EAM leaders.

Videlicet, the KKE leadership, was supporting a doctrine of "national unity" while eminent members, such as Leonidas Stringos, Theodoros Makridis, and even Georgios Siantos, were creating revolutionary plans.

This outbreak of fighting between Allied forces and an anti-German European resistance movement while the war in Europe was still being fought was a serious political problem for Churchill's coalition government in Britain and caused much protest in the British press and the House of Commons.

From the Greek side Siantos, Partsalidis, Mantakas and Sofianopoulos took part for EAM and Regent Damaskinos, Papandreou, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Sofoulis, Kafantaris, Dimitris Maximos, Stefanos Stefanopoulos, Gonatas, Tsaldaris and as a special personality Nikolaos Plastiras for the government.

[11] Participants with the EAM-ELAS side included among others Kostas Axelos, Iannis Xenakis, Manolis Glezos, Apostolos Santas, Mikis Theodorakis, Memos Makris Aimilios Veakis, Dimitris Partsalidis, Helene Ahrweiler[12] and Nikos Koundouros.