the Greek Civil War. At the same time, the efforts of the HQ of DSE to capture and hold a major town in the North such as Konitsa or Florina led to catastrophic defeat of the partisan army, which never recovered. On the other hand, the DSE did manage to achieve some military victories in 1948 and early 1949, in the battles of Karpenisi, Naousa, and Karditsa. At the same time, DSE had a huge problem regarding reserves. Most of the men and women capable and willing to join its ranks were imprisoned or unable to reach areas controlled by DSE. One of the biggest battles of the three-year Greek Civil War took place in the Grammos mountains in 1948. The operation took place after the Hellenic Army had secured the Peloponnese, where it managed to defeat the DSE's III Division, numbering 20,000 fighters. In the battle of Grammos, forces of the Hellenic Army, with the codename Operation Koronis, deployed 70,000 troops, while the DSE had 12,000 fighters. The battle lasted from 16 June until 21 August 1948. On that day, DSE forces, after hard fight, retreated into Albanian territory and reformed towards Vitsi. The maneuver from Grammos to Vitsi is considered one of the most important tactical actions of DSE during the war, from a military point of view. Towards the end of August 1949, the Hellenic Army, under the leadership of Alexander Papagos, deployed 180,000 troops, and achieved the defeat of the DSE army of about 7,000 fighters on the Grammos-Vitsi front. After this defeat, the DSE fighters crossed the border into Albania and scattered to camps all over the newly founded Socialist Republics, with the main body of the fighters camped in Taskent, the capital of Uzbekistan in the USSR. The post-Civil War era left a country in ruins. Many of the nation's youth were either killed on the battlefield, imprisoned or became political refugees. The political situation was quite unstable for most of the next two decades – the decisive factor leading to the Greek military junta of 1967–1974. The ghost of the Civil War haunted Greece for many years after. In 1981, when the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) party came to power in Greece following a long period of right-wing dominance, the political refugees of the DSE were finally given permission to return to their homeland (Slavic Macedonians excluded) by the new Interior Minister, George