The gendarmerie violently disperses a tobacco workers' gathering in Thessaloniki

On one side of the demonstration stood the destitute tobacco workers. On the other side, the law enforcement forces of the Metaxas regime which would become a dictatorship in a few months. The "Bloody May of '36" left 12 dead and 280 wounded. A shocking document of the riots and the massacre is a photo of a mother lamenting over the body of her dead son. It inspired the poet Yiannis Ritsos to write his poem "Epitaph." In the end, the government accepted the demands of the tobacco workers, but the culprits of the massacre were never punished even though this was promised.