The Democratic Army of Greece (DAG; ) was the army founded by the Communist Party of Greece during the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). At its height, it had a strength of around 50,000 men and women. The DSE was backed up by the Popular Civil Guard (), the Communist Party's security police force. History After the liberation of Greece from the Axis occupation, the Dekemvriana and the Varkiza Agreement (in which ELAS, the main Partisan Army in Greece, agreed to a disarmament), the persecution of left wing citizens, communists and officials of EAM, started. There were 166 different anti-communist groups, such as those of Sourlas and Kalabalikis in Thessaly, and Papadopoulos in Macedonia. Archives of D.S. National Solidarity indicate that by 31 March 1946, nationwide, 1,289 suspected communists had been killed, 6,671 had been wounded, 84,931 had been arrested, 165 been raped, and the property of 18,767 was looted. Imprisoned suspected communists numbered in excess of 30,000. Those responsible for the murders, according to the DSE, were collaborationist groups, national guards, rural police, and members of the British armed forces. After the second party congress of KKE in February 1946, approximately 250 leftist self-defence militias, known as Groups of Democratic Armed Persecuted Fighters (ODEKA), were formed across Greece, totaling some 3,000 men. Most of the militiamen were former ELAS fighters. By April, ODEKA membership had grown to 4,400 fighters, reaching 5,400 fighters by August. Between April and June 1946, ODEKA fighters took part in 72 clashes, mainly targeting the Greek Gendarmerie and right wing paramilitary squads. The first coordinated attack by ODEKA took place on the night of 30/31 March 1946 when a band of 33 guerillas struck the Gendarmerie station at Litochoro, killing 13 gendarmes. The Battle of Litochoro marked the beginning of the third phase of the Greek Civil War. The Communist Party of Greece led the armed struggle, through the General Partisan Command, which was created on 28 October 1946, and headed by Markos Vafiadis. Order number 19 of the General Command, issued on 27 December 1946, renamed the guerilla groups to the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE). The relevant order included the following comment regarding the DSE: "It is the national people’s revolutionary army of the new Democratic Greece and fights with gun in hand for our National independence and for People's Democracy." In 1947, KKE and the Democratic Army formed the "Provisional Democratic Government" ("Mountain